Love Croakies

by Sam Cheever

  Wretched Creatures, Slug Monsters

  The disembodied head floated above the pages of the book, a hostile glower firmly fixed on the ruddy face. Doctor Mortimus Osvald was listed on the biography page of the book as a Professor of Devilry at the New York Institute of Magic. But I didn’t know him as a professor. I basically just knew him as a head ─ a hostile head ─ whose essence had been infused into every one of his magical reference books like a fleshy whack-a-mole.

  Osvald pursed full, dry, slightly cruel lips.

  I squinted. “Are you wearing a bike helmet?”

  He sniffed, the thick dark brows over his black eyes lowering like sad caterpillars. “It’s a necessary precaution around you.”

  I just barely caught myself before I rolled my eyes. I’d definitely been hanging around Sebille too long. “Just because we slammed the book on your head that one time.” Or was it two…?

  The dry lips twisted. “And threatened to set me on fire. More than once.”

  I grimaced. Technically, it had been Sebille who’d threatened him with a book burning. But I hadn’t done anything to make him think I’d save him if she tried. “Is that helmet fire proof?” I asked. A chuckle fled my chest before I could stop it.

  His glower deepened. “What can I help you with, Naida keeper?” he asked in a clipped and snotty English accent.

  I settled back in the chair. “So eager to be helpful,” I observed, narrowing my gaze. “What are you up to?”

  The head swiveled on a negative shake. “I’m simply trying to cut this as short as possible. Perhaps I might even escape with my life.”

  I sighed. You squash and threaten a guy one…or a few…times and you get a rep. So unfair. “I need to know everything you can tell me about the love serum and Cupid.”

  “Which one?” he asked unhelpfully.

  “Which one what?” I responded.

  It was his turn to sigh. “As would be expected for a family whose focus is on love, there have been thousands of members of the Cupid clan throughout history. To my knowledge, only two are still active. Though ‘active’ is a stretch for one of them. Lovelace Cupid is a dour, unhappy traditionalist whose every thought pertains to keeping up appearances. History hasn’t represented him well. He seems to be kind of a feckless creature, not good at anything he tries. While his brother, a Cupid who reportedly gave himself over to his darker, more demonic side with breathless abandon, is all about shaking up the status quo. The two brothers…”

  “Half or full,” I interrupted.

  Doctor Osvald’s full lips tightened with irritation. “Full of course.”

  I frowned. “But I thought demigods rarely shared both parents.”

  The head shifted slightly under what was presumably a shrug, though all I could see was the helmeted, disembodied head. The Cupids came from a rare pairing. Mythology is stingy on the details of Ares’ pairing with Amore Cupid. I, of course, am one of the few historians who took the time to dig into the mountains of inconsequential information about the Cupids to get to the meat of it. From all accounts, Amore was a demon princess of great beauty and grace. Ares was quite smitten with the creature and stayed with her for several centuries. They were reputed to have had a dozen children together. Of that dozen, seven were daughters.

  “Of the five sons, only three were interested in pursuing the Cupid family business.”

  “Family business?” I asked, pretty sure I knew but wanting to make sure.

  “Love. You see, the Cupids have been love demons for millennia.” He frowned. “Their idea of love and current day’s accepted notions of it were vastly different, of course. For the demonic Cupids, love was all about control and power. Their type of love was destructive to the victim and caused great strife in the form of wars.”

  I nodded. “The serum was theirs?”

  “Yes.” He shook his head, lips tight. “Nasty stuff. It should have been destroyed Millennia ago.”

  “Why wasn’t it?”

  “Historians. Singularly short-sighted people. They refuse to see the potential for great damage inherent in some historical objects. Particularly magical ones.”

  “So what happened? How did Cupid begin to signify real love over the tyrannical kind.”

  He gave me an assessing look. “That’s actually a very astute question, Naida keeper. Imagine my surprise.”

  I glared at him. “Ha.”

  Looking pleased with himself, Osvald continued with his story. “As I mentioned, Ares loved Amore to distraction. It was an all-encompassing, unselfish love which, as you can well imagine, was just as rare for Ares as it was for a demonic love princess. Fortunately for the smitten god, Amore shared his passion. The magic their shared love created sparked a new path for the Cupid dynasty.”

  I held up a hand. “Wait, you’re telling me that, just because Amore and Ares loved each other, the entire Cupid clan gave up their cynical war for power and control?”

  Osvald’s laugh was bitter. “Of course not. Amore and Ares had to kill them all.”

  I winced. “Even their children?”

  “Don’t be daft,” he told me. “They convinced all the daughters their destinies lay elsewhere. Most of the girls, who took after their father anyway, hadn’t been huge proponents of joining the family business. They were happy to take their riches and royal titles and go out into the world in search of their own love and happiness. Two of the boys, Lovelace and Denzel, were initially on board with the change.”

  “And the other three sons?” I asked.

  “Eaten by a giant slug monster on a hunting trip in the fifth circle. Wretched creatures slug monsters.”

  I swallowed hard. Alrighty then. “Fifth circle, huh?” I half thought he was pulling my leg.

  Seemingly oblivious to the doubt in my voice, Osvald nodded. “It was a huge scandal at the time. Ares and Amore went on a killing spree on the fifth, killing all the slug monsters they could find. They emerged from the deadly forests in the core of the fifth after twenty days, pale, starving, and covered in slug gore. Hideous.” Osvald’s disembodied head shook from side to side. “But, there you have it. The Cupid history that mythology doesn’t reveal.”

  I nodded absently. “So tell me about the serum.”

  “Horrific stuff. Amore’s great uncle Seymore Bastion Cupid developed it as entertainment. He enjoyed spreading it through hapless human villages and watching them tear each other part in the name of love.” He shuddered.

  “How did it end up in the vault at Croakies?”

  “You might ask Keeper Bandy Joe Barrows about that. I believe he was the first keeper to be tasked with guardianship of the serum.”

  Bandy Joe had been the Keeper who gave Croakies its strange name. Along with the tatty sign depicting an ugly, spotted frog that hung outside the store, he’d created a magical entity that could not be changed by any means. Legal or magical. When I’d taken over the store, I’d tried to legally change its name and put up a new sign. My efforts had failed in the end. The legal name-change paperwork reverted the moniker to Croakies within hours every time I tried, and the new sign quickly morphed back into the ugly frog sign.

  Joe loved frogs. He still had a giant aquarium of them in another dimension, where he continued to serve as KoA in that plane’s own version of Croakies.

  “I do know how it was taken out of circulation,” Osvald continued, seemingly oblivious to my distracted thoughts. “Interestingly enough, it was one of Ares and Amore’s daughters who removed it from her uncle’s evil clutches. Mythology says she was Bastion’s favorite niece. She’s reputed to have used her wiles to convince him she wanted the serum to make a human male love her. Bastion didn’t see through her lies because there was too much truth in her story. Young Desiree had a soft spot for earthly creatures and, apparently, had fallen in love with a human male. However, she had no intention of using the foul serum on him. She did it to show him the strength of her love. They eventually married, and Desiree greatly mourned him when he died.�
�� Osvald tsked. “Humans have such short lifespans. Even with the princess’s magical interference, the poor sod only lived a mere four hundred years.”

  “One last question,” I said, my mind spinning with all the information he’d given me. “How is the serum spread? And what’s with the mean cherub things?”

  He arched a dark brow at me. “I see you’re no better at math than you are as Keeper. That was two questions.”

  I narrowed my eyes on him. “And here I thought we were getting along.”

  “Surprisingly, the serum is not generally spread via an arrow shot from a magical bow, although it certainly could be. However, the action would be redundant. The magic that is spread from the arrows those chubby little flying demons shoot is spelled there. No serum is involved. The spelled arrows were the inspiration for Bastion’s creation of the serum.”

  “And the serum?” I asked, hiding my astonishment at his answer.

  Osvald shrugged. “It is as you would expect. Ingested or absorbed through the skin. Unfortunately, It is very easy to infect someone with the serum. However, both methods, the spelled arrow and the serum provide the same result. Toxic, overbearing love.”

  “Then the person sending those cherubs out doesn’t necessarily have the serum?” I asked.

  “No.” He frowned. “As to your second question, I’m afraid your guess is as good as mine on the cherubs. Both Lovelace and Denzel have cherub armies.” His eyes widened. “There is something you need to know, and you’re not going to like it. Whatever you’ve heard from human history, know this. Those cherubs are demonic. They are neither all good nor all evil. Their intent is driven solely by the objective of their master’s desire. Either brother could have taken the serum. Both men are extremely cunning and both are capable of great artifice to get what they want. Take nothing at face value and believe nothing they tell you. Either one could be your culprit.” He frowned thoughtfully. “Though I have to tell you, Denzel hasn’t been seen in centuries. Speculation is that he fled to the human realm to remove himself from Loveland’s corruption and his own weakness in the face of it. I’ve heard rumors he married a human girl, but there’s no proof of that.”

  Well, wasn’t that just the bat’s boogers?

  I thought about his warning for a long moment. He was right. I didn’t like it. Not one bit. Finally, I asked, “What about the others?”

  “Others?”

  “The sisters. Desiree.”

  “Unclear. Amore moved back to the demonic dimension a thousand years ago, declaring herself done with men and love. I fear Ares wasn’t able to stay as true to her as she might have hoped. The last known accounting of Desiree was that she’d walled herself up in the family castle in Loveland. The place is called Broken Heart Castle, renamed by the princess when she was mourning the loss of her human. But that was centuries ago, and there’s been nothing said about her since. I doubt she’s still residing in the castle. The girls…” He shook his head, the helmet bobbling from the force of the movement and dislodging a lank string of dark brown hair to hang limply down his ruddy cheek. “The other girls fell from the pages of mythology long ago. Their exploits weren’t interesting enough to earn them a spot on the pages of history.”

  “So, technically, any one of them could be behind the missing serum,” I said in a voice that clearly reflected my despair.

  Osvald agreed with a sharp nod. “Yes. Though, if you’re interested in my opinion on the matter…”

  “I am,” I responded, showing how truly desperate I was.

  “Aside from Desiree, the girls were a fluffy bunch. All of their brains and gumption added together amounted to nothing. Amore doesn’t care enough about humans to even enjoy toying with them. If any of the group has even the most remote chance of being your culprit, it would be Desiree. The girl’s sharp as a tack and bitter about the loss of her human love.”

  “Do you know where she is now?”

  “I’m sorry. I do not.” Osvald gave a sharp nod. “Well then. Good luck, Keeper. You’re certainly going to need it.” He dipped his nose toward the pages of the book and dove into them, sending the aged yellow paper fluttering as the leather cover snapped shut behind him.

  I sighed. I was tons of information richer and still had more questions than answers.

  Story of my life.

  I shoved to my feet and headed toward the vault. I had an inventory to complete, and then I’d need to contact Bandy Joe. Maybe he could give me better information about the serum. It was the only thing I could think of to try.

  8

  Your Eyes are Pools of Liquid…Urp!

  I sat in the middle of the vault, several piles of broken debris around me. I’d managed to identify the remains of the Grimm Brothers’ monster clock I’d confiscated from my friend Theo, a giant who owned the local pawn shop in Enchanted. I’d carefully bagged the melted remains of a light-sucking candle. The malformed wax had still given off a stinging energy as I’d shoved it into the magic-quelling containment bag, but it didn’t plunge me into darkness from the permanent removal of the light behind my eyes, so I called it good. Next went the killer shoes Grym and I had captured the first time we’d worked together. They still had enough juice in them to morph into patent leather tap shoes before I got them contained. I had no idea what they’d been trying to do with that particular form. They generally tried to entice the wearer into slipping them on by selecting a form with specific appeal to the target. I really had no hidden desire to tap dance. Though, I had enjoyed watching old Shirley Temple movies with Grandma Neely. Thinking of her wiped the smile caused by the memory right off my face. I’d recently learned that Grandma Neely hadn’t really been my grandma. She’d been a nanny, hired by my mother to keep me safe while Narina ran all over the universe doing goddess knew what.

  Narina’s activities might have been important. I didn’t have any way of knowing because she’d shoved me out of her life, leaving me with a troll for a nanny and effectively depriving me of my magic in the process.

  Bitter? Not me.

  I shoved the thoughts away for another time when the world wasn’t in danger of ending at the hands of a bunch of cranky cherubs armed with killer serum.

  It seemed a reasonable excuse for putting off thinking about my dysfunctional family.

  The magic mirror had partially rebuilt itself, which told me the attack hadn’t completely neutered it either. The myriad pieces of glass, like a fragile, glistening jigsaw puzzle, were mostly reassembled. A few pieces still lay at its base, glowing softly as if being reenergized for the trip to the mirror’s face. And the cracks between the pieces still showed.

  I figured that, given time, the mirror would completely rebuild itself. As would all the artifacts locked in the vault.

  The coin purse that created golden coins and spurred killer greed in its owners was unchanged from the attack. One of the cleaners had already shoved it into a magic quelling pouch and put it on the shelf.

  By the time I finished, it was clear to me that everything on my list was accounted for—except for the serum.

  I climbed wearily to my feet an hour later. All of the items had been contained and returned to their assigned spots. I sent an extra wave of my Keeper magics over the shelves, giving them an additional layer of resistance from outside interference.

  Then I closed and locked the vault, adding a ward to the one Sebille had created that would require both of us together to open it.

  It was all I could do until I spoke to Madeline Quilleran about adding further protections. I couldn’t allow the vault to be breached again. It was bad enough that the love serum had been taken. But if any of the other deadly artifacts had been taken with it, we’d be looking at an array of possible disasters that could have risen to biblical proportions.

  Stretching my back and legs, I headed wearily toward the communicating mirror at the front of the library. If I was lucky, I could catch Bandy Joe in his other-dimensional Croakies before he left for the day.


  I wasn’t lucky. He didn’t answer my call.

  As I disconnected and threw the cloaking shroud back over the mirror, the connecting door opened, and Sebille stuck her head through. Her fire-engine-red braids snapped around her narrow face with the abrupt movement. “We have a problem.”

  I bit back a sigh. “Just one?”

  “Come on. Grym’s already on the way.”

  “On the way where?” I asked, grabbing a sweater off the back of the desk chair as I hurried toward the door.

  “I’ll explain it while you drive.”

  The sprite did a poor job of explaining anything during the short drive to the local mall. Her cell and mine kept ringing with frantic calls that were short on real information and long on shrieks and calls for the goddess.

  By the time we screeched into the parking lot and squealed to a messy stop in the nearest spot we could find, people were running shrieking from the glass doors along the front of the building. Some of the runners appeared terrified, and some had decidedly predatory expressions on their faces.

  “What in the name of the goddesses favorite bowl cleaner is going on?” I asked, my eyes widening as a terrified elderly woman threw herself into my arms, sobbing.

  “Please, help me!”

  Distinctly uncomfortable with the unexpected full-body contact with a complete stranger, I lamely patted her back, meeting Sebille’s startled gaze over the woman’s shoulder.

  Sebille shook her head, as flummoxed as I was.

  “Help!” screamed a twenty-something woman with wild eyes and spittle dotting her chin. She threw herself toward Sebille, only to meet empty air as Sebille neatly sidestepped her. The woman barely blinked before turning and flinging herself at the sprite again.

  She got a face full of magic dust and blinding pale green light as Sebille popped into sprite form and shot skyward.

  Blinking in confusion…and probably from the sprite dust in her eyes…the young woman turned to me. “What just happened?”

  I was still ineffectually patting the elderly woman. I shrugged, my teeth grinding together. “Some people are just really bad with human interaction.” My tone clearly stated my disgust for the cowardly sprite hovering somewhere high over our heads.