A Catastrophic Theft

by P. D. Workman

  “She doesn’t know about the emerald. I could change her back.”

  “You don’t have the emerald anymore. And you’re not getting it back from Sarah.”

  “If you call her, she will come here. I can use the power of the emerald.”

  Reg wasn’t sure how the pixie thought she was going to manage that, but she didn’t challenge the statement. She took her cup of tea and sat down.

  “Tell me about Alicorn and why you think I can call her for you. I’ve never… I don’t know how to call.”

  Karol sipped the tea, wrapping her hands around the cup to absorb the warmth from the beverage. “She is in place after me and before the other children.”

  “She’s your little sister.”

  Karol frowned uncertainly. “She is in size larger but in place smaller…”

  “Bigger than you, but younger,” Reg interpreted.

  Karol nodded. “Yes. She was taken long ago.”

  “Taken by who? Kidnapped?” Reg didn’t think that the pixies had any kind of social services that would take a child away from unfit parents. Karol had to mean Alicorn was taken by an outsider.

  “Infant-napped.”

  “By who? Do you know?”

  “By fairies.”

  “Like Calliopia.”

  Karol’s eyes widened. “Calliopia,” she repeated. “Beautiful voice. Yes. My Alicorn.”

  Reg was having trouble following Karol’s train of thought. When she had been interviewed for the TV spot, Karol had been clear and concise, but she had probably been prepped and rehearsed a script for that to make sure the producers would have something they could use.

  “What was that?”

  “Alicorn is Calliopia.”

  “Alicorn…” Reg repeated faintly.

  Karol held the teacup in both hands at chin level. She stared back at Reg without blinking, reminding Reg of Starlight.

  “You are connected,” Karol said.

  “Well… maybe.” Reg’s connection with Calliopia had been strong since the first time she had reached out to her for Detective Jessup. Reg had believed that the connection would fade once the job was done and Calliopia was returned to her family. She hadn’t expected to see Calliopia in her crystal after that, as she had when the girl had run away to be with Ruan, a pixie who might have been her brother or who might have been closer than a brother. They were a little unclear on the actual relationship.

  “You are connected,” Karol insisted. “So you can call her.”

  “If Calliopia is your sister, then you don’t want her back,” Reg said. “She’s been turned into a fairy. She can’t return to the pixie realm.”

  Karol shook her head impatiently, as if trying to explain something to a stubborn child. “I can return her.”

  “It can’t be reversed. Once she is a fairy, there’s nothing we can do. She has come into her powers.” She wondered if Karol didn’t understand just how changed Calliopia was.

  “The emerald,” Karol insisted.

  “Which you don’t have.”

  “Call her!”

  “I don’t even know how. How would I do that?”

  Karol put down her teacup. “You must use your powers and connection to reach out to her. Tell her to come here.”

  “Calliopia is long gone. She and Ruan left by car. They could be all the way across the country.”

  “It matters not.”

  “This is too weird. If you want… I could look into the crystal ball and see if I can see her. Maybe you can use your magic to see her too.”

  Karol surprised Reg by accepting this with a nod. “Look in your crystal.”

  Reg wasn’t confident that she would be able to see Calliopia. Even though they were connected, Reg hadn’t been able to find anything since Calliopia had healed her. And that was probably exactly why. Because Calliopia didn’t want her to be able to.

  She blew out her breath and touched her crystal ball, trying to get into the right place mentally. She was connected with Calliopia. It wouldn’t be hard.

  Starlight walked over and sat down out of Reg’s reach. Karol’s eyes darted over to the cat and her lip curled in an involuntary snarl. Cats and pixies did not get along. Reg patted her lap for Starlight to jump up on her, but Starlight didn’t move. He just sat there and stared at her.

  “Fine,” Reg murmured. “I don’t need your help.”

  She touched the crystal again briefly, then focused her gaze and her powers into it. Unlike when she had tried to find the knife or the emerald, Reg felt like she fell right into the crystal and she was there with Calliopia, as the girl laughed and spoke with Ruan. They were sitting on a blanket under some trees, maybe having a picnic. The breeze was pleasant and it was a clear, sunny day. Ruan was protected from the sun, hidden beneath a dark hoodie, sunglasses, and a ball cap. He too was smiling, his apple cheeks pink.

  Calliopia stopped laughing, startled by Reg’s presence. She turned and looked at Reg. She couldn’t have seen Reg there, because Reg wasn’t there, yet Calliopia was aware of Reg’s presence and looked right at her.

  “What is it, sweet?” Ruan’s boyish voice inquired.

  “Call her,” Karol’s voice insisted.

  Reg tried to stay focused on Calliopia, not on the competing voices. Could she call Calliopia as Karol suggested?

  “Are you Alicorn?” Reg asked Calliopia, communicating directly with her mind, as Reg had when she was in the shadow world and no one could see or hear her with their physical eyes and ears.

  “Alicorn?” Calliopia echoed, frowning.

  “Your sister is looking for you. Your pixie sister.”

  Calliopia reached out and grabbed Ruan’s hand.

  The healing cut on Reg’s hand pulsed with warmth. It didn’t hurt and split open like it had before Calliopia had healed her, but it clearly indicated that her connection to Calliopia was still strong. Calliopia’s blood had mingled with hers.

  “Call her!”

  Reg stilled the competing voices in her head, trying to focus only on one message.

  “Come to me.”

  ⋆ Chapter Twenty-Six ⋆

  T

  here was a dizzying whirl of images. Reg tried to keep her balance. She didn’t want to faint and hit her head. The vertigo only strengthened. The voices in her head roared. She felt like she was sliding through time and space, but she wasn’t the one moving, it was Calliopia.

  There was a sensation like hitting a wall, and time and space were again constant and solid.

  “Alicorn.”

  Reg tried to push herself back into being present. She blinked and tried to take in the sights and sounds around her.

  She was no longer alone with Karol. Calliopia stood in her living room, with Ruan’s hand in her own. Both she and Ruan looked uncertain at the sudden change in their situation. Karol looked both delighted and smug.

  “You could call,” she told Reg. “I knew you could call her.”

  Calliopia turned to look at Reg. “Why did you bring me here? You should not have this power!”

  Reg shook her head. “Things have been… a little out of control lately. Maybe because you brought me back from the shadow world. I don’t know. But I can do things I couldn’t do before, and can’t do things I should be able to do.”

  Calliopia kept looking at Karol, seeming puzzled, and then back at Ruan for reassurance.

  “Who are you?”

  “Karol. Your sister.”

  It was obvious Calliopia couldn’t remember her, but Karol didn’t seem perturbed by this. Calliopia had been a baby when she was stolen from the pixies.

  “My sister?” Calliopia asked Ruan.

  Ruan nodded. “First in place. Before you, before me.”

  Calliopia stepped closer to Karol, but still held on to Ruan. She nodded shyly. “A sister. Okay. My new sister.”

  Karol got to her feet. She was significantly shorter than Calliopia. But then, so was Ruan. Calliopia had grown up on fairy food and had been changed
by their spells into a fairy herself, tall and slim, growing in beauty daily. The pixies were like children next to her, but she didn’t seem to care.

  “My pixie family,” Calliopia said with a little laugh, bending down to give Karol a friendly hug.

  “I will make you a piskie again,” Karol said.

  Calliopia looked at her, then at Ruan. “No.”

  Karol’s eyes widened. She had obviously never anticipated this response to her mission. “I can,” she insisted. “That human being,” she motioned to the main house, “she has a powerful gem. I will turn back your time. Make you piskie again.”

  Calliopia shook her head. “No.”

  Karol appealed to Ruan. “You want her to be piskie. Tell her I can do it.”

  Ruan’s normally cheerful face was serious. “She is changed. She does not want to be piskie.”

  Karol’s face took on a thunderous appearance. “I will change you! I searched many years for you and for this gem! Now I can restore you. You will be whole. The family will be whole again.”

  Calliopia’s mouth was a hard, straight line. Her beautiful, haughty face held as much stubbornness as Karol’s. She was equally determined to stand her ground. “I am a fairy. Full fairy with full powers and I will not go underground again. I will live in sunlight and not crawl in the earth.”

  Reg was ready to dive behind the furniture if the two of them started a physical or magical fight. Why did the confrontation have to take place in the middle of her living room?

  Karol held her palm out, directed toward the main house, and Reg could feel the electrical charge that gathered around the pixie. She looked at Calliopia, her blue eyes glowing.

  “No,” Calliopia repeated.

  A buzzing noise filled the room. Reg stepped away from Karol, trying to distance herself from the power the pixie was channeling. No one had ever told her that pixie magic could be so strong. She had assumed that they were limited to protecting their colony, breaking into houses, or committing acts of mischief. Domestic magic, nothing like the power Karol was gathering. She’d had no idea that the emerald could be used over a distance, knowing Sarah needed it to be close by for it to have any efficacy. It seemed from Karol’s vibration and glow that it was more like a power source that could be accessed from some distance away. Reg again thought of how valuable such an object would be for Corvin. Maybe if he had it, he would never have to feed on the powers of other humans again.

  Calliopia fought back against what Karol was doing. She raised her hands only slightly, but her aura changed color from the silvery glow that normally surrounded her to red like a brilliant sunset. Reg put her hands up to her eyes to shield them from the brilliance of the light.

  Ruan did not jump to the aid of either of his sisters, but stood watching them, eyes alert with interest and intelligence, waiting to see how it would all work out.

  After a minute or two, Reg could see Karol weakening. She had clearly not expected to meet any resistance. The buzzing started to recede. Calliopia took a step forward and brought both hands up to push the energy from the emerald back.

  “I will turn back your days,” Karol insisted, her voice trembling with the exertion or her emotion. “You will be piskie. You will come back to the family, back in thy place.”

  “No.”

  One had to admire Calliopia’s brevity. No needless explanations or excuses. No pleading or whining or discussion of her unhappy childhood caught between the pixie and fairy worlds. Just one word, repeated as necessary, an answer that was full and complete in itself.

  Karol growled deep her in chest. Trying to push the energy of the emerald onto Calliopia was clearly a huge effort. Her face and body were rigid. The tone of the vibration went up another note and Reg again took a step back, hoping to avoid any backlash. Karol started to shake. She still hung on gamely, funneling the energy into the room, but Calliopia kept pushing it back without apparent effort.

  Karol gave a cry and fell to her knees. The buzzing and the glow were cut off. Calliopia let her hands fall back to her sides. Ruan looked at Calliopia, and then went to Karol.

  “She does not want,” he told her.

  Silent tears dripped down Karol’s cheeks. Ruan held his hand out to her, and with her head bowed, Karol allowed him to raise her back to her feet. He walked her a couple of steps back and sat her down on the couch. Karol sniffled and wiped at the tears on her face.

  “She is our sister,” she told Ruan. “She was piskie.”

  He nodded. “No longer.”

  “She does not want.”

  Ruan nodded again. Karol didn’t speak directly to Calliopia. Callie let out a sigh and looked around the room.

  “Your house?” she asked Reg, who was still doing her best to be invisible.

  “Yes. My house. Or Sarah’s. I rent it from her.” Reg had no idea whether renting was something a fairy would understand.

  “You are her subject,” Calliopia suggested.

  Reg laughed. If Sarah was the lady of the manor and Reg was living in the little cottage at her will, then Reg imagined she was, in fact, Sarah’s subject. “Yes, something like that.”

  Calliopia noticed Starlight sitting nearby watching them. He had retreated to the kitchen during the battle of wills and was peeking out at them from behind the island where he was protected.

  “Cat!” Calliopia made a hissing sound at Starlight. Starlight responded by raising his hackles and hissing back.

  “Oh, leave him alone,” Reg said crossly. “He has more right to be here than you do. He’s not hurting anyone.”

  “I have the right to be here.”

  Reg hesitated. She didn’t actually want the pixies and the fairy in her house, and the sooner she could send them on their way, the better.

  “You called me,” Calliopia reminded her.

  “Well, yes, I guess I did. I didn’t know it would work, though. Karol kept asking me to call you… so I tried it. But I didn’t think you would actually come.”

  “You are a powerful wizard.”

  “No!” Reg laughed. “Just a psychic. No magical powers, just a few mind tricks…”

  Calliopia raised her brows and shook her head. “A powerful wizard can do a call. You called me here.”

  “You are connected,” Ruan said, looking back and forth between them. His eyes lingered on Calliopia for longer. “You did not tell me you were joined.”

  Calliopia made a face. “Unintended. She was tainted with my blood.”

  It wasn’t until then that Reg noticed the belt with a sheath around Calliopia’s waist. There was a knife in the sheath.

  “You have your dagger,” she said in surprise. “How did you get it? I thought Corvin had it!”

  “It is my knife,” Calliopia said simply.

  “I know. But I thought it was in the car when we left your house that day. I thought Corvin had taken it from the car later, or one of those people from his club.”

  Calliopia shrugged. Obviously, she had taken it from the car without their realizing it. It was evidence and was supposed to go back to the police department for use in the case against Hawthorne-Rose, but had mysteriously disappeared before it could be returned, a fact that still rankled Detective Jessup, whose custody it had been in at the time. Reg suspected that Jessup blamed her for the disappearance of the weapon, since she was the one who had wanted to see it and compare it to the one in her vision of Calliopia.

  “If it is an unintended joining, you should sever it,” Ruan suggested.

  Calliopia nodded. Reg’s stomach clenched. She had no idea what severing the link between them would involve, but she suspected she wasn’t going to like it. Calliopia made a regal gesture for Reg to approach her. Reg wasn’t in the habit of being ordered around by fairies, but she thought it might be a good idea to listen to what Calliopia had to say. If the two of them were magically joined or linked, Reg might continue to be harassed by magical folk who wanted to use that connection for one thing or another. Some, like Karol, w
ould mean no harm, but Reg could imagine up several scenarios where people’s intentions might not be so pure. She took a tentative step toward Calliopia.

  “You two are… done…?” she asked tentatively, making a motion to include Calliopia and Karol.

  “Here,” Calliopia ordered, indicating the floor immediately in front of her. “Bring thyself here.”

  Reg rolled her eyes. She didn’t have anyone to speak to about how ridiculous Calliopia’s order was, but it deserved some kind of sarcastic comment that could be appreciated by a third party.

  “You’re not queen here,” she muttered. “Before I do anything, I want to know that the two of you are done.”

  Calliopia said nothing. Reg looked at Karol, looking for some kind of response.

  “She is fairy,” Karol said dully. “She does not want.”

  “Okay. So you’re done with your fight. Do you know anything about this joining…? Or unjoining?”

  Karol shrugged, not answering. With Calliopia’s refusal to be turned back into a pixie, she seemed uninterested in anything else. Maybe she was just exhausted after the effort to use the emerald to change Calliopia.

  “Come,” Calliopia ordered, pointing again to the floor in front of her.

  “I called you here,” Reg reminded her. “This is my home not yours. You can’t give me orders here.”

  “We will sever the connection.”

  “Are you sure you want to do that? Do we need to do that?”

  “Fairy and human should not be joined.”

  “Or what?”

  “It is not natural. We shall sever the connection.”

  “What all is involved in severing the connection? Can I ask that?”

  Calliopia sighed. She shook her head as if Reg were a stubborn child, refusing to do what she was told and asking too many questions. Reg didn’t know how many years old Calliopia actually was; the fairies didn’t age as quickly as humans, so there was no telling whether her apparent sixteen years of age might actually be sixty or six hundred. So to her, Reg might have been considered to be a child, just as Lord Bernier had referred to her.

  “I will show you,” Calliopia said.

  Reg took another couple of steps forward until she was in front of Calliopia. But not exactly where she had pointed. Reg knew she had a stubborn streak a mile long. The fact had been pointed out to her many times. One of the things she could not stand was being ordered around and treated as a child. Even when she had been a child. It wasn’t fair that adults should know what was going on, while keeping children in the dark. If there was one thing she had hated when she was a child, it was to be told, “you’re too young to understand.”