by P. R. Frost
“What are you doing here?” she shouts. “I thought for sure somewhat would have killed you by now.”
“Wishful thinking, Mum?” I bow, just like Tess taught me. Always good to be respectful of one’s elders. Especially if you want something from them.
“Get out, ungrateful, thieving, murdering runt!” She swipes with her broom.
I flit out of reach, ever so grateful my wings have grown enough to do that. “Mum, wait, please, before you kick me out on my own again; I need to know how to track the magical trail of an artifact of power.”
“If you don’t know how to do that by now, you are even more useless than when you left the first time.” Another swat with the broom.
Ow! That hurt. And it, sniff, cost me the wart on the tip of my tail!
I hope it was the broom that took it off and not the flea. Too, too humiliating to lose it to a flea.
Chapter 24
The Desert Inn opened in 1950 with a color scheme of Bermuda pink and emerald green that carried onto the golf course with green grass and pink flags.
MICKEY LED THE WAY out of Lady Lucia’s apartment, hastening down the green marble steps with reckless speed.
Some of his need to be away from this place, and our hostess, infected me.
Before I could comment on the ring, or the portrait for that matter, Gollum grabbed my arm and ushered me down the sweeping stairway. “Watch your step,” he said quietly. “The marble may be slick.”
I braced myself between him and the banister. Not until I tried to take the first step down on my right leg, did I realize how tired and aching that strained muscle had become.
Lady Lucia remained at the top, watching us through narrowed and speculative eyes.
I used my limping pace to give me time to survey as much of the area as possible, wondering why a formal entrance to the suite above opened into the bedrooms, and the back way gave access to the salon.
“The place is bass-ackwards,” I muttered when we finally reached a fenced-in covered patio at the side of the building. Pale flagstones floored the area. Terra cotta tubs overflowed with flowering vines. A single circular table and lounge chair were placed at the center with an umbrella for additional shade. A four-foot-high split log fence and a hedge of some spiky desert plant offered scant separation from the rest of the resort. From the chair, one could watch the waterfall cascade down the artificial volcano at the center of the oddly shaped pool. Ah, Lady Lucia’s private garden, protected from the desert sun.
Mickey held open a rough plank gate reminiscent of a rustic ranch. His feet twitched, and his hands clenched spasmodically.
Without saying a word, we followed a meandering path through the oasis-styled gardens, along back corridors of the hotel, with more than a few hints of Morocco in the décor—including some flamingo pink and desert green decorative tiles, to the front porte cochére. No telling who was listening.
A black, full-sized Hummer awaited us, the driver already secreted behind the wheel. Thank the Goddess it wasn’t the hearse. I wasn’t in the mood for mind games.
I crammed myself in the middle of the back seat, with Gollum on the right, stretching his long legs, and Mickey on my left, huddled in on himself, still fidgeting nervously. No discreet panel separating us from the front seat this time. None of us seemed inclined to talk anyway.
My leg wanted to curl up, but it cramped when I pulled my feet onto the seat and wrapped my arms about my legs. So I stretched them out again and lolled my head back against the seat. Eyes closed, I blanked the drive through the desert night, thinking furiously.
The rings. Donovan. Gregbaum. Lady Lucia. All connected. Maybe Sancroix and his nephew, too. All wanting different and conflicting things from me.
Danger lurked in following any course of action. How could I decide until I had more information?
I trusted Gollum to research Lady Lucia, now that we had a vital clue. As the new owner of the Dragon and St. George, she had to have a corporate registry somewhere, funding, investors, something.
Only I could approach Donovan and find out about that ring.
Could I trust Mickey to investigate the faery dancers and the curse upon them?
At last we stopped next to Mickey’s taxi in the underground parking lot.
“What time is it?” I asked, coming out of my meditation with nothing resolved. “There aren’t any clocks anywhere in this town.”
“Past midnight,” Gollum said, checking his illuminated watch with more dials and functions than I could count.
Eighteen minutes past, Scrap corrected him. He’d popped out for a few moments on the long ride home. Now he was back.
“Tonight’s show is over. I need to talk to those dancers,” I mumbled.
“Not tonight.” Gollum forcefully steered me into the taxi. “You are in no shape to defend yourself.”
Enough said. I knew he was right.
Mickey still hadn’t said a word. He expertly pulled into the nighttime traffic on the Strip, no less dense than at noon. The Strip didn’t need noon sunshine. Enough neon flashed, blinked, and scrolled to keep it bright twenty-four/seven.
“Mickey, what do you know about magic?”
“Not enough,” he muttered. “I know faery magic. I do not know Gregbaum’s. I sensed the spell around the building. I can go in and out. It must contain only the lost dancers. I came on the scene later and so it does not stretch to me, or any other faery. Only the dancers.”
“Can you find out what kind of spell he’s used?” I leaned forward and squeezed his shoulder, hoping to offer comfort and support.
He flinched away from my touch, as if it burned his skin through his light shirt.
“I have to. You may go home now, Lady Tess. I know what I must do. You cannot help me.” His words came out tight and strained.
“Mickey, you bound me to the mission. My vows to my Sisterhood bind me to the mission. I’m not leaving.”
“We’ll talk about this tomorrow, when we’ve all had a chance to rest and do some research. Do you understand, Mickey?” Gollum asked in his sternest schoolteacher voice. “You will do nothing without consulting us. We have skills and knowledge you don’t.”
Mickey seemed to collapse in on himself, as if only his anger, or his fear, had kept him upright. “I understand. I will wait to rescue my people until I talk to you.”
He paused then looked at me through the mirror, engaging my gaze. “Lady Tess, I am not sorry I wove magic around your mother to help her sing. I needed you to feel safe leaving her alone to help me. I saw you at the airport. I recognized your scar and your imp. I watched you take the shuttle to The Crown Jewels and followed.”
“You may have done Mom a tremendous favor, Mickey. Don’t apologize for that. I need to see the show again,” I said decisively. “We’ll use Lady Lucia’s letter to get us in to the special performance tomorrow afternoon. There are clues there. I know it.”
You bet there are! The whole show is a road map, Scrap added solemnly. I wish it led somewhere else.
“If I may, I would like to accompany you, Lady Tess. I may recognize something you do not.”
“We’ll all go. But for now, we rest. Mickey, pick us up tomorrow at two thirty.” Gollum put an end to any arguments at the same moment Mickey drew his cab to a stop outside The Crown Jewels.
“Scrap, keep an eye on Mickey. Make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid,” Tess whispered as soon as she was out of the taxi.
Babe, you’re hurt, I can’t ...
“I’m going to bed. You can scout around until I fall out of bed ten minutes before my first conference session in the morning.”
Gotcha, babe. Rest, secure in theknowledge ...
“Yadda, yadda, yadda. Get going. Mickey’s already three blocks away and burning rubber.”
I mark Mickey with an anchor that leads back to the chat room. He won’t get far without me knowing.
I can get from where I’m going back to Mickey or over to Tess and they won’t
know how long I’ve really been gone.
Time, after all, is just another dimension. If you know how to use it. And, thanks to my babe and her adventures, I’m getting better and better at manipulating that dimension.
There are nuances to the chat room not everyone knows. Imps learn some of them at their mum’s knee.
Me, I had to listen to other imps whispering in corners when they thought I wasn’t around.
Being only a scrap of an imp, I wasn’t supposed to survive my first fifty years. I did. My siblings attacked me for my audacity.
I survived that, too. Though some of them didn’t. Mum has never forgiven me. I don’t care. I have never forgiven them.
Survival of the fittest. I may not be the biggest imp ever, or the most dignified. But I’m clever, and because of my small size, I can get in and out of places unseen and unheard that my bigger comrades overlook.
Like the side corridor off the chat room. It’s hard to see. Harder to fit through. Only those flea demons can follow me. Well maybe a j’appel dragon can. They are only palm-sized until you call their true name. Then they grow and grow and grow to fill the chat room with smelly scales and sulfur-ridden breath.
Easy to avoid using a j’appel dragon’s real name, you think? Not if they change it every hour. Not if they choose names like “Because” or “Help” as their true name.
Anyway, they avoid this tiny little corridor because if they suddenly grow to full size in there, they’ll suffocate or get squeezed to death.
I skip along the dimensionless white that stretches into infinity. Good idea to trail my fingers along one wall, just to keep my bearings. Easy to get lost in here without landmarks. Even for an imp.
Ah, there, that’s what I need. That magic ring Gregbaum wears so proudly bulges through the walls like the inside of a pimple. I told you it isn’t firmly set in any one dimension. Therefore, part of it is always in the chat room.
Mum said I should know how to track it. I guess this is the right place. I stand on tiptoe and peer at the gold filigree and that beautiful, perfect diamond with just a hint of yellow in the coloration, or maybe a reflection of the gold setting. I could get lost in that stone, staring into its depths, seeing the tiny black spot in the middle that is an echo of the blackness in my own soul.
Back out. Back out. Can’t afford to do that. If I look too closely, I might regret some of the things I’ve done in order to stay alive and grow big enough to companion my dahling Tess.
I memorize every twist and scroll and how the metal cradles the stone. Now I know I can pick this ring out anywhere. So all I have to do is track it back in time.
Where is the energy signature? An object this powerful always wants to go back to its origins. Just like me. I always want to go back to Mum even when she hates me.
A wisp of smoke, almost clear, hard to see except for that very faint yellow tinge. Now I’ve got it. Follow the trail. Don’t take any side turns. Just follow it back, back, back, nearly back to the beginning of time.
At least to the beginning of Faery.
Chapter 25
Casino floor layouts deliberately route customers past slot machines on the way to showrooms, restaurants, and other attractions.
REST WAS NOT in the cards, or the dice, or the slots, for me that night. At least not yet.
Mom finished another torch song on a lingering, wistful note, just as we walked into the casino. (We had to go through the casino to get anywhere in the hotel.)
“Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to my daughter, a better nightingale than me!” she crooned into her mike.
The packed audience erupted in applause.
“Come up here, Tess, and join me in a song,” Mom invited. She wore emerald green that sparkled and draped her full figure admirably. I don’t think it was all faery glamour. My mom showed through, a bright, vibrant woman who’d finally found fulfillment of a youthful dream.
If I wasn’t mistaken, she’d lost more than a few pounds since the fiasco of her brief marriage to Donovan’s foster father. Either that or she wore a tightly laced corset that would make Lady Lucia’s look baggy.
I went limp inside, too tired to sing, too tired to fight my mom. In her current enthusiasm, I’d not best her with arguments. Faster to give in, sing one song, and retreat.
But when I stood beside my mother, she handed me the mike and withdrew.
What to sing?
I looked to the lanky man with ebony skin and long black hair slicked into a tight ponytail who sat at an electric keyboard with an impressive array of controls.
Then it came to me. I knew precisely the song that fit my mood and the situation. I’d first heard Gwen Knighten perform her whimsical song solo with a harp at a Science Fiction convention. She kept us laughing and crying at the same time.
“Vamp along with something light and harpish,” I told the musician quietly, giving him the rhythm and key. “This piece is called ‘My Fairytale.’ It sort of says it all.”
“Oh, the day is warm, and sunlight is streaming
Through slotted windows on the battlements today
And the stone walls are holding so fast
But they always seem sturdy when you are away.
The spring flags are flying, the merry maidens dance,
The portents in magicland point to romance,
And it was a day like today, not so very long ago,
I lived in this castle, and you were my beau.
Or was that the time when I lived in the forest,
And you met me halfway to grandmother’s place?
I forget, I forget; it all runs together,
But open the storybook, put on that face.”
As I started in on the chorus, I spotted Donovan off to the side of the room. He was trying to blend in with a pillar, but my heart could find him anywhere. This song was as much for him as it was for me, or my mom, or all of us together.
“Take me in, yes, I’ll be your victim,
I’ll be the matchgirl, and you be the wind.
Take me in, yes, I’ll be your victim,
I’ll be Red Riding Hood, you be the wolf.
I’ll be the girl who gets burned in the oven,
and you’ll be the baker who serves me for pie.
I won’t expect any boring old woodcutters
coming to save me at the end of the day—
In the end, yes, I’ll be your victim
You’ll be my frog and I won’t be a princess.
In the end, no curtain, no laughter,
no pumpkin, no coachman, no happily ever after.”
That got a round of laughter from the audience, including Gollum. It only earned a deep frown from Donovan. He wasn’t about to forgive me. I didn’t know how I was going to approach him with questions about the ring. But I had to. If not tonight, then tomorrow.
“Oh, the woods are deep, and yet it’s still sunny,
The birds are all singing along with me now
As I walk on my way—don’t know where I’m going,
But wherever it is, I’ll end up villain-chow.
Oh, what’s that behind me, that scurry, that scamper,
That rustle of movement just under the trees?
It’s a bird, it’s a pigeon, it’s eating my breadcrumbs
Don’t know my way home; now I feel ill at ease.
Is this the one where you’re the fox in the suitcoat
Who spellbinds me, then carves me up for a snack?
I don’t know, I don’t know; but these plots never vary,
So I’ll skip on along while you plan your attack.”
This time the audience joined me in the chorus—at Gollum’s prompting—just like a filk session at an SF con. My mood brightened, and I added a little gusto to the music.
“Oh, the night is dark, and my neck is aching:
The prince climbing up my hair is pulling too hard,
And I can’t move an inch! This position is painful,
But I d
on’t want my head to be down in the yard.
When you reach the window, your boots on the stonework,
You lean up to kiss me, I’m gasping for air,
And you shake your head sharply, say, “Sorry, wrong tower,”
Then slide down while pulling out half of my hair.
I think you’re supposed to be charming and handsome,
I think I’m supposed to be winsome and sweet,
But it all gets confusing, and right now I’m cursing—
I can’t get these glass slippers onto my feet.”
This time I ventured out among the audience, belting the chorus, and getting them to clap along with me in rhythm. Using the song as a cover, I wound my way to where Donovan still clung to his pillar. His forlorn expression almost tugged at my heartstrings.
Almost.
I knew some of the blackness deep inside him. He wouldn’t hurt for long. I was sure he’d already lined up a bedmate for tonight.
“I need to talk to you,” I whispered while catching my breath for the next line.”
“We have nothing to talk about.” He tried turning his back on me.
Oh, how I longed to reach out and smooth the strain away from his well muscled shoulders.
“What about Lady Lucia’s heirloom ring?”
I ambled back to the center of the room, still singing.
“Now it’s just before dawn, and you know I’m not sleeping,
For you stuck that pea way down under my bed.
I would never have said that I’d go through with this one
If that damned poisoned apple weren’t clouding my head.
Oh, you’ll be the spindle that pricks the girl’s finger,
And I’ll be asleep for the next hundred years,
And while you’re out riding your horse on the wold,
I’m stuck here spinning this flax into gold.
And when you struck me dumb and then made me knit sweaters
Of nettles for seven boys turned into swans,
