Grave Visions

by Kalayna Price

  Her mother had created a gorgeous maze of corn rows along her scalp, leading to a high ponytail, her hair spilling out in dark ringlets from around a thick wall of pearls. She wore a matching necklace of pearls, and even more accented her dress, hanging like opaque teardrops from the gauzy material over a white satin sheath. In a word, she was stunning.

  “You look awesome,” I said, walking up to squeeze her hand. Her smile brightened a shade more, her eyes sparkling.

  “Knock, knock; everyone decent?” a male voice asked from outside the tent flap. “I’m finished with the groomsmen and groom photos. Are the bridesmaids and bride ready?”

  “The photographer,” Mrs. Greene said, a hint of panic in her voice. She tossed the curling iron onto the vanity top and grabbed Tamara’s veil, looking frantic.

  Tamara took it calmly from her trembling hands and attached it to her hair. Her mother and sister fussed over the veil and the hang of her dress as she stood, even Holly moved forward to help. Me? I stayed out of the way. I thought she looked great, but they tugged at what seemed to me to be imagined misalignments. Finally everyone stood back. Even Mrs. Greene smiled.

  We were ready.

  • • •

  By the time I took my place at the end of the line of bridesmaids at the steps of the gazebo, my feet ached from standing in the new heels, my head hurt from all the pins taming my blond curls, and I was tired of carrying the bouquet of faintly glowing orange mums. But, at least I hadn’t tripped and fallen as I walked up the aisle.

  The music changed to the obligatory rendition of “Here Comes the Bride,” and everyone turned. Tamara appeared between the arch at the end of the carpeted aisle, her arm hooked around her father’s. He was a tall man, age just beginning to bend him. He carried a cane, but today, for this walk, he seemed determined to use it as little as possible. The sun was steadily sinking, casting a warm glow over everything. Tamara’s white dress practically blazed as she all but floated down the aisle. Under her veil, I could see her smile trembling.

  Did she still have second thoughts? I hadn’t seen any indication of the panic she’d called me in a few days ago when we had all been in the tent. No, likely her lips trembled from her attempt not to cry from joy—I’ve heard brides do that sometimes. I tried to imagine how I’d feel, but I couldn’t picture myself a bride. Though Death would look good in a tux. . . and so would Falin.

  I frowned, and then forced the expression off my face. This was Tamara’s wedding. I focused once again on her slow glide up the aisle.

  By the time she reached the front, her father’s eyes twinkled with unshed tears. He lifted her veil and kissed both of her cheeks before formally handing her off to her soon-to-be husband. For his part, Ethan beamed, his smile wide as he watched Tamara. His hands were steady as he engulfed her smaller, trembling ones and they both took the squat two steps up into the gazebo.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  We were all focused on the bride and groom, so no one noticed the two wedding crashers slink into the back. At least, not until the child screamed.

  I think, at first, everyone tried to politely ignore the child. But the louder she screamed, the more eyes slid in her direction and discreet glances were tossed over shoulders. Finally even the bride and groom turned.

  The mother, a young woman on Ethan’s side, looked more than a little embarrassed as she tried to calm her young daughter, who was maybe three years old. Someone muttered that she should take the girl to the car, and the woman ducked her head, uttering both agreement and apologies. The woman scooped up the small child, but the girl twisted in her arms, crying and pointing at a couple who seemed to be trying their best to ignore the girl’s attention. But now she wasn’t the only one.

  Tamara’s nephew, who was just shy of two, lifted his voice to join the young girl’s. At first I thought he was crying because she was, but though he buried his face against his father’s leg, he kept peeking at the back row. At that same couple.

  I frowned. The couple looked inconspicuous enough, she in an ankle-length navy dress and him in dark slacks and a polo shirt. I didn’t recognize them, but they were sitting on the groom’s side, and I didn’t know most of Ethan’s friends or family. Still, more than one young child being terrified was odd.

  Before the magical awakening, some normal-looking—at least to adults—people scared children for reasons no one understood. Now we knew that there were certain fae whose glamour worked only on older adolescents and adults. Young children saw right through it. In particular, Bogies couldn’t hide what they were. That is, the traditional bogeymen who hid in closets and under beds but were never there when mom or dad looked, and of course, all the folk that mothers once warned naughty children would gobble them up if they played by lakes or under bridges.

  I lowered my shields, just a crack. Around me, all the glowing flowers appeared to decay despite the swirls of purple and blue magic fixed inside them. Clothes on the party guests lost their splendor, instead appearing to fray and deteriorate.

  And the otherwise inconspicuous couple in the back? Their rather normal appearance morphed into a nightmare as my innate ability to pierce glamour through the veils of reality revealed what hid beneath.

  The man, who’d appeared to be a robust but normally sized and proportioned human male, was truly a good two feet shorter, so that he stood at four two tops. While not fat, he was wide, thick. His arms had to be larger around than my thighs, his meaty hands the size of bowling balls with red-tipped talons on each large finger. His features were spread across a leathery face, thick lips chapped and callused below a bulbous nose. Above oversized ears he wore a sagging red cap, which dripped viscous red liquid down the edges of his head, like a slow stream of blood. It was a horrific visage, the very thing to inspire night terrors in children and I had no doubt the fae was indeed of the bogeyman variety.

  The woman was perhaps less physically frightening, at least compared to her companion, but she had an air of maliciousness about her. Where the man was squat and wide, she looked almost overstretched, with long, thin limbs that reminded me of naked tree limbs reaching for unsuspecting travelers in dark woods. Her skin had a green tinge to it—not unusual in many of the nature spirit fae, but while the green men, like Caleb, had a coloration that reminded one of spring and new growing things, her skin was more reminiscent of murky slime growing in stagnant water. Her dank green hair hung tangled about her shoulders, rotting plants and the bones of fish caught in the muck-covered strands. When she smiled, her teeth were small and pointed, like the grin of a piranha.

  It wasn’t a huge mystery why the children had screamed. The real question was, had the couple been invited as guests or not? Being the subject of childhood tales didn’t automatically disqualify one from having friends. Many independent fae lived alongside their human neighbors without revealing their true nature. Others, like Caleb, my friend and landlord, didn’t exactly hide they were fae but didn’t advertise it either.

  Thinking of Caleb, my eyes slid to where he sat on Tamara’s side of the aisle. With my shields down, I could see through the boy-next-door glamour he wore in public to his green man coloration and vaguely other features. He didn’t look scary, but then I knew him well and he was descended from rather harmless nature spirits, not bogeymen. The couple, Caleb, and well, me, were the only fae currently in attendance, at least that I could spot from a quick glance around the crowd. Caleb and I were obviously invited guests, but was there any reason to believe the couple weren’t guests? Ethan taught a course on the ethics of magic at the university. The couple could be colleagues or family friends.

  I glanced at the couple again. The red liquid trickling from the man’s cap really did look like blood. I had a book at home detailing different fae from folklore, which, as most were oral stories written down in the Victorian era, wasn’t always a reliable source of information on the fae, but it was the best I could
do. I’d been studying the book since I’d learned my own heritage, and I vaguely remembered a couple of stories about a classification of fae called Red Caps. If I remembered correctly, they were a type of goblin . . . Maybe even hobgoblin?

  The two kids were being carried out now, the crowd murmuring softly. The couple exchanged a glance and then both looked directly at me. The way their gazes bore into me, I got the distinct impression they could tell I was looking across the planes. My charm hid my own otherness only if what you expected to see was human. If they could see through my illusion, they knew exactly who and what I was. I knocked a couple of points off the probability of them being just another pair of guests.

  They stood as a unit and began making their way out of their row. Tamara and Ethan had turned back around, the wedding proceeding, but as the two fae slipped onto the red carpet, the crowd began to shift nervously again.

  Holly noticed the couple and shot a glance back at me, her face a question. I had no answers, but a bad feeling slid along my spine. I clenched my fists around my bouquet. My dagger was in my purse, which was in the bridesmaid tent. My instincts urged me to move, to stop standing like an attending statue, but I really, really didn’t want to be the one to ruin Tamara’s wedding just because a creepy pair of fae were moving to a better seat. Unless their plan is more sinister. Trying to maintain my already feeble smile, I watched the couple’s slow progress.

  Mrs. Greene finally noticed the shifting and backward stares around her and tore her gaze from her daughter. I could see only the edge of the dirty glare she shot at them, but I was glad I wasn’t the one on the receiving end. She stood without a word, the picture of poise as she silently but purposefully moved to the aisle and intercepted the fae. I could catch only the hiss of her voice, not her words, but while her gestures were contained to a tight box in front of her body, they were sharp, betraying not so hidden anger.

  The fae ignored her. The hobgoblin pulled something from inside his jacket pocket. I still had my shields cracked, so I had to squint to figure out that the crumbling object was some manner of reed pipe. He lifted it to his thick lips like it was some sort of instrument. I seriously doubted music would be what emerged.

  “Get down,” I yelled, grabbing Holly’s arm and dragging her to the ground with me as I took my own advice.

  A moment later a small dart flew silently through the spot I’d been standing seconds before.

  Someone in the crowd screamed and wooden chairs creaked and toppled, as people rushed out of their seats. Tamara moved as though she would run to Holly and me, but Ethan grabbed her arm and rushed up into the relative safety of the gazebo. I was thankful for that. Goodness knew there was no cover where Holly and I crouched in the grass.

  “We’ve got to move,” I said, but other than the gazebo, there was no cover anywhere near us.

  Holly seemed to realize the same thing, because without a word, she turned and crawled toward the wooden structure. I followed, the grass damp through the thin material covering my knees. With Holly in the lead, I needed only to pay marginal attention to where I was going, leaving most of my attention free to watch the two fae.

  The hobgoblin reloaded his blowgun, his large fingers fumbling with the small dart. The woman was otherwise engaged, primarily with Mrs. Greene. Now that her daughter’s wedding was well and truly interrupted, she’d lost any pretense of civility toward the two fae and was now cursing, loudly. Not bad words mind you, but a true curse. The kind that made the Aetheric swirl around her, giving her curse power.

  I was still a foot away from the gazebo when the hobgoblin lifted the blowgun to his lips. I cringed, an instinct that did nothing to help me get to cover sooner. Thankfully, while I may not have thought it necessary to wear my dagger under my bridesmaid dress, many of Tamara’s guests were on the police force, and they’d had no such compunction against carrying their service weapons.

  The hobgoblin’s small red eyes flickered to the crowd of off-duty cops as a half dozen officers drew on him. It wasn’t much of a distraction, but it was enough for me to dive behind the gazebo.

  “You okay?” Holly asked, leaning down to help me to my feet.

  I nodded, turning to peer back around the edge of the gazebo while staying as covered by the structure and glowing flowers as possible. I’d missed only a moment, but in that time the scene had changed. The two fae were running from the wedding now. I could see them clearly, but then I was still peering across planes of existence. Judging by the fact the cops had lowered their weapons and were looking around in all directions, I guessed the fae had glamoured themselves invisible.

  Once the two fae vanished through the arch and across the park, I stepped out from behind the gazebo. Chairs had been knocked over on both sides of the aisle, and nearly half the wedding guests had fled. Holly and I both had grass stains on our knees, and Tamara’s bouquet looked the worse for wear where it lay forgotten at the steps of the gazebo. Mrs. Greene fluttered around, trying to put things back in order, but even if most of the guests returned, I seriously doubted this wedding would continue.

  I surveyed the chaos and guilt clawed at me like daggers sinking into my guts. Was this my fault? Had the bogeymen been targeting me? It seemed likely. They had appeared to be able to see me. And whatever the man had shot from his blowgun had been aimed at the bridal party, of which I was a part. But I wasn’t the only bridesmaid. Still, who else here had recently taken a trip to Faerie, questioned shades who’d died from drugs distributed by fae, or left her card at the Bloom after asking questions? I wasn’t sure which action had gotten me noticed, but it certainly seemed I’d gotten someone’s attention.

  Chapter 16

  Two hours later I sat in the reception tent with a huge slice of wedding cake in front of me. The dance floor was empty, as were most of the tables. Tamara sat beside me, what looked to be an entire half a tier of wedding cake crammed onto her plate. Since the wedding had never resumed, there really weren’t any guests to eat the cake, so Tamara had stated that she’d be damned if we didn’t eat and enjoy it. It wasn’t like she could return it. Despite her words, she was only poking at her ginormous slice with her fork. Holly just watched.

  Several cops still milled around—some guests but others on duty finishing up their reports on the “interruption.” Crime scene techs combed the area around the gazebo, searching for the dart the hobgoblin had shot from his blowgun. It had yet to be found. One FIB officer had responded to the scene. Aside from the children, I was the only person who’d seen the true faces of the two bogeymen, but everyone had seen them vanish without a trace and there were more than a few sensitives who hadn’t felt an invisibility charm trigger. Despite all that, since no one had been hurt and there was no proof fae had been involved, the FIB agent who’d responded seemed less than interested in what he labeled “a disturbance of the peace.” When I’d ask about Falin, the agent had only scowled at me and refrained from answering.

  So, cake.

  But I wasn’t eating much more of it than Tamara was. I shoved it around my plate, staring at the fluffy white frosting. It was good cake. I knew that. I’d been part of the sample group who’d tasted all the options and helped Tamara decide which to order for tonight. But the sugary concoction no longer tasted good.

  It tasted a lot like guilt.

  “This is not what I imagined,” Tamara said, stabbing her cake. She’d said that exact phrase a dozen times over the last hour, and I still didn’t know how to respond. I wasn’t even sure she was aware she’d spoken. At least she wasn’t crying anymore.

  Holly put her arm around Tamara’s shoulder, but she seemed just as lost for an appropriate response. I mean, this was not a “sometimes these things happen” kind of situation. People did not prepare for the possibility of bogeymen crashing their big day. There were no Hallmark condolence cards with sympathetic phrases for when your wedding turned into a crime scene.

  “I
t could have been worse,” Tamara’s sister, Donella, replied. She’d floated between Tamara and their mother, so it was quite possible she hadn’t heard the earlier reiteration of the statement.

  Tamara set down her fork. “Oh yeah? How, exactly, could it have gone any worse?”

  Donella paused, her bite of cake hovering in front her mouth, and then she smiled. “Ethan could have been turned into a toad.”

  Tamara’s lips parted, and for one lingering moment, I thought she’d laugh at that. Then her bottom lip stretched as the edges of her mouth turned down and she gave out a loud, stuttering sob. Her arms curved around her stomach, and she collapsed into herself.

  Donella looked mortified, and far too stunned to move. I slid my seat closer to Tamara’s. I’m not what one would call a hugger, but I put my hand on her shoulder and squeezed lightly, offering what silent support I could. She shook, her entire body trembling with her tears.

  “Maybe it’s a sign,” Tamara said, between gasps for air. “Maybe we should wait until the tests next month.” This she directed toward her still-flat stomach, her palm rubbing the space under her belly button.

  I was about to tell her my theory on the two bogeymen. To apologize for my part in them coming here, to her wedding, and take any amount of debt that apology might require, when a deep masculine voice spoke from directly behind me, making everyone at the table jump.

  “Are you saying there is anything those tests could tell us that would make you not want to marry me?”