by J. L. Ray
Naamah laughed even louder, going so far as to slap a knee.
“Seriously? I’m that funny?” Cal was not happy.
Phil helped him. “By recycling plants, she means vegetation, plants that recycle, so any paper that we use can be reused, not wasted.”
Cal nodded. “O-kay. I guess that makes a lot more sense.” He aimed his f-light at Naamah’s hand. As it began to transfer, her demeanor changed; the joy bubbling along the surface died out, and her face went still.
Phil sat, looking at her serious expression, wondering if she would reveal any of the message. “Is everything all right?” he asked her.
She looked straight at him, but he thought her mind must be somewhere else. “Oh, yes, yes. Everything is fine, dear.” She looked off to one side again, her face still, but her hands quite agitated.
Cal looked over at Phil and caught his eye. Then he angled his head down at Naamah’s hands.
Phil nodded.
The message had not contained good news, but whatever it had contained, Naamah was not ready to share it with them.
Phil cleared his throat, and she came back to them from whatever dark place she had gone in her head.
“I believe that you two have questions for me,” she said in forced cheerfulness. “How may I be of service? And where is the delightful Detective Tony? Have you and she...uhm...” She smiled and raised an eyebrow.
Phil narrowed his eyes at her. “Tell me you do not have a bet placed on that as well.”
“Now how could I do that over here?” she said, so outraged that he didn’t need Cal’s years of experience in law enforcement to hear the lie.
“I am afraid that I cannot tell how one would place such a bet from across the Realms,” Phil remarked drily, “but clearly, you found a way.”
“I would love to know how you managed that one, Lady Naamah,” Cal said. “That must have taken some serious strategy, am I right?”
“No, no! I wouldn’t...I would never...” Before she could defend herself, Naamah’s head dropped a bit. Then she sat up, her eyes milky, indicating that she was having a Vision. “Ask me what you need to know, and I will See what I can,” she intoned.
Cal looked aghast. He whispered to Phil, “Is it always like this? That’s really creepy! Like, horror movie creepy!”
Phil nodded. Then he looked at Cal. “Your questions?”
“Yeah, yeah!” Cal pulled up the list on his f-light. “Lady Naamah, we seek…” He paused and muttered to Phil, “Seriously? Do I have to say seek?”
“Yes,” Phil whispered back vehemently. “Continue! These paths to information do not last long!”
“Sorry!” Cal tried again. “Lady Naamah, we seek information about smuggling.”
She sat, saying nothing.
“That is too vague,” Phil commented after she did not answer. “Be more specific.”
Cal tried to clarify his answer. “We seek a pair of smugglers in Fairie. Can you help us identify those smugglers working between Fairie and Mundania?”
The answer came in the form of a four line stanza of poetry recited by Naamah in monotone, and all the while, her eyes flicked back and forth under the veil of white.
Where the vine and grain cross hands,
Where the fool and the wise man stand,
Where the Angel and Tree live in,
Where the Child of Light will be riven.
“Uhmmmm. O-kay,” Cal said and looked over at Phil. “I hope you know what she’s trying to tell us. That was freaky.” Then he jumped and screamed in a high-pitched rising yowl any slasher-film heroine would have been proud to produce. Naamah, still in the throes of her Vision, had reached over and grabbed his hand.
Despite his scream, she stayed in the trance and began to speak to him again, another rhyme spilling from her lips while her eyes flicked back and forth, the milky-whiteness making Cal shiver.
Find the witch who leads the pack.
Find the son who wants her back.
Find the giant who lives without shame.
There find the girl who needs her name.
Cal sat through her recitation, staring at her face as if the answers to the riddles were there.
“Seven Hells, Phil,” he whispered. “Can you get her hand off my arm? She’s got me in a death grip. I’m about to freak out here!”
“Calm down, Calvin. She may be done, but I do not think so. She has given us two riddles, but we are in Fairie.”
“Rule of Three,” Calvin intoned miserably.
Naamah let Cal’s arm go and turned to Phil, grabbing his arm with her other hand.
“Ah.” Phil looked at Cal, smiling grimly. “I believe it is my turn.”
Naamah recited the last riddle to Phil directly, her unseeing eyes causing a little shiver in even that elder fae’s frame as he listened.
A life of shame, a life of grief,
A soul on fire, underneath.
The one to heal, the one to save,
The both to keep out of a grave.
If proof she needs, and proof she gets,
Your love will shine with no regrets,
But magic steals and magic rules,
And proof is hard and makes us fools.
Cal shook his head. “Now that’s just mean. She’s talking about you and Tony, isn’t she?”
Phil’s nostrils were flaring and his lips pressed together in a thin, angry line. He spoke to Cal without looking, “I believe so, but apparently, another ‘she’ as well. I wonder...” He stopped talking for a moment, giving Cal a look. Cal would tell Tony anything that Phil said about her twin. Phil had no illusions that his budding friendship with Cal might rival Cal’s partnership with Tony. He continued, covering his pause, “She cannot control what comes to her in a Vision. If it actually applies to the situation, those who ask her to See are doubly blessed. She had not one but three Visions.”
At that moment, Naamah’s head dropped down again for a moment, and then she sat up.
“Oh my.” She fanned herself. “I’m having a hot flash. That went on a while. Well, did you get anything from my Gift?”
Cal shook his head. “Sister, what we got is a lot of questions.”
“Oh, bother.” She put her hands to her face. “A riddle?”
“Three, actually,” Phil told her blandly.
“How very annoying of me. I suppose there’s nothing for it but to try to interpret them.” She frowned. “If we can.”
Tooley had both of his gifts in his hands when he went upstairs, the Ounce of Prevention and the Cover of Darkness. When Crystal gave them to him, he realized that she was putting the tools in his hands that would help him get away from her. With the Ounce of Prevention around his neck, she wouldn’t be able to harm him. With The Cover of Darkness, he should be able to create a way to slip out. Unfortunately, he thought it likely that the only way he could finally make his way out would be while she slept. And that meant another marathon session in her bed. He might gag this time. He wanted to gag, but her spell was too strong. He would engage in whatever acts she demanded and probably enjoy them and hate them at the same time. There was a good reason that Lust Spells were highly illegal in Mundania. Whatever grand scheme this woman had going, she didn’t seem to be worried that in six days, the Geas would most certainly kill her, her minion Theo, and the girl in the box, who might be completely innocent, but seemed to be part of her plan. He wondered if her spell somehow masked her use of him as a sex slave. If so, then the Geas might not react. He shuddered. That kind of power in the Mundane lands was unheard of. He began to realize that just escaping her might not be enough to save him.
He had to prepare his escape before she came back, so he put the Ounce around his neck and dropped the Cover over his shoulders. Hoping the two would be enough to mask his own magic, he carefully wove a very light, very delicate sleep spell onto Crystal’s pillow. He was careful to keep the strands of the spell close to the pillow, and he kept the spell simple and fast. He had just finished an
d removed his “gifts” when he heard steps arriving just outside the bedroom.
The door opened and Crystal came into the room, so Tooley let her spell do its work on him without any attempt to push it aside. If he could get through the next few hours, he could use what she had given him to get out the door. He could only assume that she had underestimated his own power. He could fight the spell enough to keep hold of his own personality. Otherwise, he’d be like Theo, who seemed to worship Crystal as the mother he didn’t have. Well, not exactly like Theo. The feelings she had forced on him were anything but motherly. But he could fight, enough to retain himself, even when that made what he had to do...difficult. But he thought he could get away. He just had to be patient. Patient and pliable. He smiled at her as a line of Shakespeare ran through his head. “Oh most pernicious woman! Villain, villain, smiling, damned villain.”
“Who killed them? Do you know? Was it you?” Sammeal whined to the Willow.
The Willow looked over at Sammeal as he polished a glass and put it back on its shelf, then picked up another. “Do ye wanna say that a bit louder, then? Ye might want some of the regulars to hear, now.”
Sammeal ducked his head down between his shoulder blades, so extreme a picture of guilt that if Fairie had had police, they would have picked him up, just because. “Sorry, Willow, sorry! I didn’t mean to talk so loud!”
Willow sighed and put away the glass he was polishing, then leaned across the counter to get closer to Sammeal. “Look, m’darlin’. I know ye have problems remembering sometimes, I do know. But ye need to keep ye’r focus on what’s about. The t’ing is, we’re running close to the edge, aren’t we? I don’t want for ye to fall over’t. I’d miss ye somet’ing terrible.”
Sammeal grinned at him, but the shit-eating grin that used to charm the pants off the Beings he wanted to lie with now only made the Willow sad. Still, if the two of them came through this smuggling enterprise alive, She claimed She could make Sammeal right again, fix the changes in him that had left an angelically beautiful fae an alcohol-sodden wreck. Willow had only agreed to work with Her in order to help Sammeal. When all his fine friends had turned their backs on Sammeal, the Willow had taken him in and taken care of him. He would make Sammeal whole again, and then they would find real happiness, and he would never, ever have a pub inside his tree again.
Sammeal surprised Willow by asking again, his voice lower. “So do you know who killed them? Those Natties?”
“Why d’ye ask, luv?”
Sammeal shook his head in an attempt at nonchalance. “I liked them. They were funny.”
Willow looked at him closely. “Feck it. Ye slept wit ‘em, did ye?”
“No, no!” Sammeal protested, rolling his eyes in a way that told Willow that he’d done exactly that.
He managed not to hurt Sammeal, but it was a close thing. “Has it occurred to ye, ye drunken sot, that everyt’ing I do is t’help ye? And all ye do is feck about and mess t’ings up. Blood ‘n Bones, Sammeal! What do I do wit’ye? What do I do?”
Sammeal put a pleading hand on his lover’s arm. “No, Willow, no. I don’t mean to do it. You know I don’t.” He shook his head. “I was stuck in their van that time, when they drove across from Mundania, remember?”
“I do,” Willow grimly replied.
“I had the concealment spell, but some scibbies showed up at the Mundane site, and they had an eye out to watch the place. Then a coven flew in on our end, on the lookout for Herself. We weren’t supposed to be using the portal that time, so I couldn’t leave the van because of the hag guard out on Her walls, and I couldn’t let those Natties leave through Herself’s portal because of the scibbies’ eye. We were stuck in the barn with the portal. So there we were, hanging out in the van, waiting them all out, and one thing kind of led to another.” As Sammeal got into his story, his tone got more self-righteous. “I needed to blend in, cover my signature from the hags. I figured being covered in Mundane stench would do it.”
Willow’s body went stiff. “So a little three-way out in the van was just yer way of t’rowing off the authorities?”
Too oblivious to hear the anger in Willow’s voice, Sammeal warmed to his own story. “It was absolutely inspired, wasn’t it? I totally distracted the Sutherlands and they never even noticed the hag guards. They just thought they were waiting out the SCIB.” He giggled madly. “I mean, we couldn’t let those Natties get caught on this side, or we’d lose our best mules. The hags would have blasted them. And I didn’t want them caught on the Mundane side, or we’d be shut down. And either way, I didn’t want those two to find out m’real name!” He shook his head in admiration of his own quick thinking. “The Sutherlands would have used that as leverage and bled us dry.” He sounded almost admiring as he added, “I have rarely met a couple so focused on becoming FV stars. Since sex has been my go-to in a situation, distracting them seemed like the best plan.” By this time, Sammeal had convinced himself so thoroughly of his own cleverness, that he was stunned to silence when the Willow slapped him as hard as he could. The pub’s regulars, drinking in the middle of the day, looked over and decided that if the bartender wanted to slap a customer, they could easily overlook it. Besides, anyone who had spoken to Sammeal more than once assumed he had earned it.
“Why did you do that?” Sammeal asked, back to a whine.
“Why do ye t’ink?” The Willow shook his head. “Maybelle and Mickey were country, but not stupid, ye git.” He leaned in closer to Sammeal. “I didn’t kill ‘em, but t’was a close t’ing. I was planning on it because they were gonna turn ye in. They asked me for...well...never ye mind their price for keepin’ mum about yerself.”
“You would have killed them to protect me?”
“Why d’ye act so surprised? Why do I do anyt’ing, ye fool?” The Willow turned back to the bar, trying not to cry. Maybe it was time to let go. Suddenly arms slid around him and pulled him tight.
“I am sorry, Willow. I’ll be better. I will for Willow,” Sammeal whispered in his ear as he hugged him tight. “No one has ever loved me like you, Willow. No one.”
Willow nodded, but he wasn’t quite ready to forgive, and he tried to keep the relationship between them a secret from the clientele, such as they were, just in case someone from the PTB came snooping about the bar. When they finished this job, he hoped to be free and clear, even if his greatest reason to keep trying was also his biggest impediment to success. He sniffed. “Go back t’yer seat, boyo.”
Sammeal went back to his chair, but once perched at the counter again he said in a whisper, “Wait a minute. If you didn’t kill the Sutherlands, then who did?”
The Willow pursed his mouth. “I don’t t’ink I care, all t’ings considered. But whoever did it, I’d give that Being a drink, on the house.” He noticed that Sammeal was giving him a pleading look and he shook his head. “All right. I’ll bring ye a cold drink yerself.”
“On the house?” Sammeal wheedled.
“Like always. Why would it be different?” He turned and looked at Sammeal, surprised to see him looking more present and aware than normal.
“Just teasing, Willow, love, just teasing.” And this time, Sammeal’s grin did its job on his lover.
The Willow popped a towel at him and went over to draw a beer. Every time he thought he was ready to leave, the charm came back. One day, Sammeal’s charm wouldn’t be enough, but today wasn’t that day.
Chapter Eighteen
Tooley eased out from the sheets and off of the bed. He had done his very best to avoid touching the pillow he had bespelled during the sexual gymnastics that followed Crystal’s arrival. He had used the edge of the sheet to push her pillow back under her head when they finally stopped to rest, and he had to work hard to control the urge to cheer when she rolled over and buried her head in it, breathing in hard.
“I shall miss you, my pet, when you are gone from me,” she purred as she rolled back over. “Ah well. Even I must follow my orders.”
He wonder
ed, just for a moment, what she meant, but within a few seconds he heard the sweet sound of success—her snores, which he was appalled to find attractive. He could only hope that the spell she had put on him had a time limit, or he might never bed another Being. His mother, who hoped to be a grandmother one day, would be very disappointed. As he slowly bent over, picked up his clothes, and once again dressed himself, he also hoped he would live to have the chance to see his mother again.
He slipped the Ounce of Prevention over his neck and the Cover of Darkness over his arm, and that part of his arm where the cloak lay disconcertingly vanishing. Then he turned to the door and eased through it, shutting it as softly as he could. The simple sleeping spell was only that. It put her to sleep, but it wouldn’t keep her asleep if a noise or movement caused her to wake. Starting down the hall, he turned left, toward the back storage space, rather than right, toward the office and the third crate with its mysterious occupant. She was supposed to have finished whatever spell she had placed on the creature in the box to keep her contained, but he didn’t want to take any extra risks. He didn’t think he could bear to try this again. He opened the door to the back storage room slowly, looking around the other side to see if anyone was in there working. He didn’t see anyone there, but he started to don the Cover of Darkness, just in case. He was so focused on casing the scene in front of him that he was shocked when a hand grabbed him from behind.
“Who are you?”
He turned, and his face blanched.
“I think the first one is talking about a farm,” Cal said, as he looked at the rhyme he had copied onto his f-light.
“The vine and the grain?” Phil lifted an eyebrow.
“Well, yeah. Look.” Cal pointed to his screen, which glowed more brightly under the influence of Fairie’s magic, but otherwise seemed to work as it should. “She said, ‘Where the vine and grain cross hands, where the fool and the wise man stand, where the angel and tree live in, where the child of light will be riven.’ Vine and grain are on farms, and farmers have to be wise about the weather and planting, but sometimes it’s foolish to go into farming because it’s so hard. My parents are farmers. Organic, too. Oh,” he added, “and you need trees on a farm if it’s a fruit farm and angels to watch over the crops.” He folded his massive arms and nodded, quite pleased with himself.
