Americana Fairy Tale

by Lex Chase

  Taylor lifted his head from Corentin’s chest and watched his contented face. “You want to take my picture every day?”

  Corentin nodded. “I need proof you didn’t just wander into my life at random.”

  Ringo snorted a laugh from the nightstand. “He kinda did.”

  Taylor shifted closer to be able to kiss Corentin’s jaw. “But I’m not going anywhere,” he said, then planted a kiss, followed by another. “You are taking this a lot better than I thought you would.”

  Corentin encircled Taylor’s waist and squeezed him close. “Admittedly, I’m a little foggy on all the details. But you seem nice,” Corentin said with a cheeky grin.

  “Nice?” Taylor asked in contempt. “Just nice? I’ll have you know, huntsman, you savaged a virginal princess last night.” Taylor licked his bottom lip and whispered in Corentin’s ear, “And your cum was so hot and salty going down my throat.”

  Instead of embarrassment, a slow ear-to-ear jackal grin cracked across Corentin’s face. “I think you’re going to have to remind me of that later,” Corentin muttered.

  Taylor blushed as the excitement prickled at his skin. He leaned into Corentin’s ear again. “I like it when you cum on my face and I have to lick it all back up,” he said in a breathy whisper.

  Corentin groaned, and his grip on Taylor tightened. “Oh yeah, you’re going to have to show me that too.”

  Ringo fluttered over the two of them with his hands on his hips. “If you are talking about sex stuff, can you at least wait until I’m out of the room this time?” Ringo said and grumbled.

  Corentin arched a brow at Taylor and Taylor nodded. “He apparently was in the bathroom the whole time.”

  “The whole time,” Ringo said and tossed his arms out in a wide arc.

  “Really?” Corentin sat up and smiled at Ringo. “What was it like?”

  “OhmyStoryteller,” Ringo said and drifted back in horror. “Dude. I’d just prefer to erase the night my princess lost his virginity from my memory—wait.” Ringo clapped his hands over his mouth. “Sorry. Just came out.”

  Taylor sat up and then playfully bumped Corentin with his shoulder. “We kinda scarred him for life.”

  There was a knock at the door, and Taylor shifted from the bed. He stared cautiously at the door.

  “I ordered room service,” Ringo said over Taylor’s shoulder. “Go on. It’s cool.”

  Taylor trusted Ringo, even though after everything, they still had to be on guard. Ringo may have been confident, but after seeing Atticus in the forest last night, anything was possible.

  “Do me a favor and conjure up some new clothes for us too,” Taylor said over his shoulder as he headed to the door. “There is no way I’m going to wear that Boymom shirt again.”

  “Gotcha, boss,” Ringo said, snapping his fingers.

  As Taylor moved across the room, trails of light crawled over him, dissolving his bathrobe and leaving behind new fabric and newly made garments. In one step, Taylor’s bare foot hit the floor again while protected in a combat boot. Frayed jeans shimmered into being over his legs, and then a black cotton T-shirt wove together, blooming with the grungy graphic of a gold princess tiara on his chest. A beaded hematite bracelet wrapped around one wrist, and then Taylor’s hair blew back and plaited itself into a French braid.

  The knock came again, and Taylor turned to look back at Corentin. He stood next to the bed, and Ringo had returned Corentin’s Redwing work boots and then a new pair of fashionably broken-in Levi’s. Taylor swallowed when Corentin rolled up the sleeves of his red plaid flannel over his white tee and the trunk of Corentin’s oak tree tattoo was prominently displayed on the bare skin of his left arm.

  Ringo gestured to Corentin like Vanna White revealing a Wheel of Fortune puzzle. “Good, yes?” he asked Taylor.

  He nodded slowly, but it was Corentin who spoke up between them. “You’re an artist?”

  Taylor understood he was referring to his clothes. “Stage actor,” he said in a low mumble, rubbing the back of his neck.

  “I can hear you guys chittering in there.” A young woman’s voice carried from beyond the door.

  The trio snapped their attention to the door and nodded in unison. “Phillipa,” they said to each other. Corentin pressed his lips together in a pensive line.

  Taylor pulled the door open, and Phillipa wasted no time sweeping into the room. She held a large leather satchel tight under one arm.

  “Took you guys long enough, Mother Storyteller Almighty,” she said and stood between them. She arched a brow and looked from one to the other. She raised a finger. “What’s different?” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “Fuck, guys. Do you not know I can smell pheromones?” She coughed and swatted Corentin aside, then shoved open the window and took a gagging breath. “Smells like a whorehouse in here.”

  “You remember her, right?” Taylor asked Corentin.

  Corentin nodded. “She’s one I don’t forget.”

  When Corentin didn’t say anything else, Taylor let it go. He turned his attention to Phillipa. “Corentin’s curse kicked in again. So he’s… fresh out of the box?” He shrugged. “I guess that’s the term for it.”

  Phillipa shook her head. “You didn’t break his curse?”

  “Apparently not,” Taylor said with a frown. “I think I saved him from dying.” He scratched at his cheek and then turned to Corentin. “You’re not dying anymore, right?”

  Phillipa blinked. “You were dying?”

  “That’s a story for another time. And to answer Taylor’s question… I don’t feel like I’m dying.” Corentin held up his hands.

  “You could feel yourself dying?” She butted in again.

  Corentin patted his chest, appearing to check himself over. “Well, I definitely feel different. I guess that’s a good sign.”

  She crossed her arms and rested her rear on the windowsill. “That is not a credible diagnosis, just so you know.”

  Ringo smacked his forehead. “Kids.” All eyes settled on him. “The power of Taylor’s love for Corentin may have saved his life—pending Phillipa’s notarized medical proof—but only princes and princesses can break each other’s curses,” Ringo said to Taylor.

  Taylor frowned and pointed an accusing finger. “You are so making this up as you go, aren’t you?”

  Ringo didn’t answer Taylor but then pointed at Phillipa. “You owe us something,” he said in a firm tone.

  “And I have her.” Phillipa brightened and presented her travel satchel. She lifted the flap of the leather bag, and Honeysuckle burst forth into the room.

  Honeysuckle zipped in maddening circles and spit babbling curses as she flew. Corentin dodged her as she repeatedly tried to dive-bomb him. “I am never, ever, traveling in such shoddy accommodations again,” Honeysuckle said with puffed-up indignation.

  Taylor arched a brow and gave Corentin a smirk. Corentin shrugged.

  Ringo darted to catch Honeysuckle by her shoulders and stop her frantic flitter. “Honeybee. Honeybee!” he said and shook her shoulders.

  Honeysuckle blinked her wintergreen eyes and came back to the present. “Ringo?” she asked, and then recognition came a moment later. She crushed Ringo to her. “Oh, oh, Ringo! I’m so glad you’re alive.” She pushed Ringo away from her but kept a grip on his shoulders. “You wouldn’t believe it. Atticus has forsaken me and is in cahoots with Idi now. It’s awful, Ringo. Simply awful.” She pulled Ringo to her again. “Oh, my precious Ringo….” She stroked his fluffy gray-blond hair. She blinked and pushed him away again. “You have had a shower, correct?”

  Ringo snorted. “Only you,” he said and then leaned in to nuzzle noses with her. Honeysuckle squealed in delight.

  Corentin stepped between the two cuddling pixies. “Which is why we’re taking Atticus and Idi out.” Taylor watched Corentin, and there was a distinct hardness to Corentin’s gaze. “That’s still the plan, right?”

  “I think that’s the best we have right now,” Taylor said a
nd averted his gaze.

  Honeysuckle zipped to Taylor and hovered inches from his face. “What do you mean? Kill Atticus?” Her tone wasn’t upset or accusing.

  Uncertainty and sadness shifted into a quiet anger. Taylor narrowed his eyes at Honeysuckle. “Well, you knew, right? Snow White and Idi are true loves through the centuries?”

  Her wings drooped, and she sank like a deflating balloon.

  Taylor held up a hand and addressed the entire room. “They just move their kin around a chessboard to suit their whims. Snow White let the princesses believe they were fighting for the greater good while they died willingly in her name. Idi exploited the witches to do the same. You knew the whole time, right?” He turned his attention to Honeysuckle again. He had the good sense to scoop her up in his palms before she sank to the floor.

  Honeysuckle sat on Taylor’s hands and wrung her own. “I didn’t think it would come to this….”

  Corentin stooped over the bed and then scooped up his journal. He took Taylor’s first love letter breadcrumb and slipped it into a more prominent place between the pages. He wrestled the book shut and then secured it with the bungee cord that Ringo had hung on the headboard. “You knew, didn’t you?” he asked Honeysuckle.

  Taylor turned to Corentin, watching him, surprised he’d defend Taylor willingly.

  Honeysuckle nodded, her expression riddled with remorse. “I couldn’t protect him. I could never protect him. I watched him grow up, knowing there was nothing I could do,” she said in a croak. She smiled at Ringo. “You did such a good job with Taylor.”

  “I did?” Ringo asked with disbelief.

  Taylor’s shoulders slumped with Honeysuckle’s confession. “I thought you hated me.”

  Honeysuckle folded her hands in her lap. “I admit I was under a lot of stress with Atticus. I get jealous when I have too much on my mind.”

  Ringo fluttered to her side and hugged Honeysuckle to him. He stroked her silver hair. “Oh, honeybee.”

  “So, where do we go from here?” Corentin asked. “Ringo can’t snap his fingers and take us directly to Idi and Atticus.”

  “Can you?” Taylor asked Ringo.

  Ringo shrugged. “Taylor may have lifted the limits on my magic, but even that is beyond me.”

  Phillipa took another breath of the fresh Michigan air. She smiled. “We make them come to us. With Honeysuckle and I with you, you guys will be driving with tempting neon targets all over the truck.”

  Taylor steadied his resolve. It was a lot to take in all at once. He still wasn’t sure how he’d react when he came back into contact with his brother. He had to make a decision, and he had to make it now. Even if he had been the one to propose killing his own brother, the idea made him sick to his stomach. He hoped he’d think of something when the time came.

  “You okay to drive?” Taylor asked Corentin, determination filling his voice.

  Corentin nodded. “I guess we’re on the road again.”

  CHAPTER 30:

  SPEED ME TOWARD DEATH

  Somewhere on the Open Road….

  June 13

  PHILLIPA SQUIRMED in the backseat of the truck. “Are these bloody Wet Wipes on the floor?”

  Honeysuckle maintained her flight in the central cabin. “These conditions are atrocious,” she said, then pointed a shaking finger at Ringo, who lounged on the dash. “I wouldn’t dare touch anything in here.”

  Corentin and Taylor glanced at each other and smirked.

  Taylor tilted his head back onto the front passenger headrest. “The truck right now is the least of your worries.”

  “Why didn’t you clean the truck with your magic?” Corentin arched a brow at Ringo.

  Ringo sat up with a huff. “Do I look like your maid? You clean this shit out.”

  Grunting his disapproval, Corentin leaned forward and flicked Ringo in the back of the head with a finger. Ringo jolted with a start and rubbed his head. He scowled at Corentin in return.

  Taylor seemed relaxed, content to watch the ever-shifting scenery. It was likely Corentin had gone around the bend with him, but it didn’t bother him anymore either. He caught Phillipa in the rearview mirror as she pressed her fingers to the passenger side window. Her lips pursed into an expression of childlike wonder as the landscape changed. First the painted mesas of the Southwest rolled by, and those gave way into driving up the mountain roads of the Appalachians, followed by cruising over a long coastal bridge overlooking the blue-green water of the Gulf of Mexico.

  “Is it always like this?” Phillipa asked in awe.

  “It used to be really unnerving,” Corentin said. He smiled at Taylor, and Taylor wrinkled his nose in response. “But it depends on who you’re traveling with.”

  Ringo pointed a finger high over his head. “Let me state for the record, before these two kids got lobotomized with love, they used to be major league assholes to each other,” Ringo said in a booming voice, as if he were addressing a court. His shoulders slumped. “And it was constant arguing. Constant. Coooonnnnstaaaant,” Ringo said in an exasperated groan.

  “We argued?” Corentin asked Taylor.

  Taylor swatted at Ringo. “You weren’t supposed to tell him.”

  “Gotcha,” Corentin said with a grin. He caught Taylor squirming out of the corner of his eye. “It’s in my notes.”

  Ringo chuckled. “None of your secrets are safe, kiddo,” he said to Taylor.

  Honeysuckle crossed her arms, and her wings continued to buzz in a constant hum. “Is this what you’ve done all this time? Chat your hours away?”

  “And drive off bridges,” Ringo said.

  “And cliffs,” Taylor said.

  “And get into fistfights,” Corentin said.

  “Don’t forget the elephant,” Phillipa said, and the three men fell silent.

  Taylor put his cheek into his palm. “I wish there was something we could do for Margate City…,” he said with a longing sigh.

  Corentin frowned. The dread rolled through him in a prickling chill.

  Instead, Phillipa took the lead. She slumped against the seat. “Now that Idi involved mundanes, I think we’ll have much more to fear in the coming years than just the Witchking himself.”

  Corentin flexed his fingers over the steering wheel. Unfurling them, then curling them again. “With him gone, something worse will slip in to take his place.”

  Taylor took a shuddering breath, and Corentin sensed his unease. He reached out and patted Taylor’s thigh. Taylor clutched Corentin’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “This is going to work, right?” Taylor asked. “We’ll stop them?”

  Something darted over the landscape across Corentin’s line of sight. He jerked his hand away from Taylor and then slapped it back to the steering wheel. Corentin tensed in his seat. “Check your belts, everyone.” Corentin scanned the shifting scenery. “Because I think we’re about to find out.” A dark shape skipped across Corentin’s peripheral vision.

  Taylor jerked in his seat, as did Phillipa, and they all scanned the landscape.

  “Do you guys see that?” Phillipa asked. “It’s moving too fast for me to see….”

  Taylor nodded. “I’m trying to make it out.”

  Corentin kept his eyes on the road but kept seeing the dark shape slip along like a glitch on a TV screen. “Can you pixies help us out?” Corentin asked in a calm tone. He already had an idea he wasn’t going to like what they were going to see.

  Ringo nodded and fluttered to Honeysuckle’s side. They linked hands and took a breath in unison. Ringo kept an even expression. He met his wife’s gaze. “Just be cool. I’m with you.”

  Honeysuckle’s chest rose and fell with another breath. “Okay,” she whispered.

  Taylor, Corentin, and Phillipa kept their attention focused on the road ahead. Taylor curled his fingers over his seat belt. Phillipa clung to both Taylor and Corentin’s headrests.

  “Of course, night would fall….” Corentin narrowed his eyes into the dark.

  He
clicked on his headlights.

  Nothing happened.

  Corentin frowned. “Junk heap,” he muttered.

  In unison, the pixies snapped their fingers as Corentin clicked on the brights.

  And there was Idi himself in his vessel of the all-American Charles, sitting cross-legged on the hood of the truck, facing them.

  Idi’s face broke into a demented grin, his cheeks cracking like plaster as he did so. The wind tousled his blond spikes, and wisps of his hair loosened and fluttered away on the breeze. “Hi,” he said. His voice rattled in a demonic growl.

  “Smile,” Corentin said in a chipper tone. “You’re roadkill.”

  Corentin slammed his foot on the brake, and the truck jerked to a sudden stop. The tires screeched as they laid long trails of rubber.

  Idi flew from the truck, going airborne, and crashed to the street fifty feet ahead. He didn’t move.

  Taylor and Phillipa looked at each other as Corentin threw the truck into reverse.

  “Gotta make sure,” Corentin said with such grimness there was no mistake what he meant.

  Taylor and Phillipa sat in silence as Corentin backed up at least a hundred fifty feet. He threw the truck into drive and hit the gas. The engine roared to life as the truck bolted down the interstate, headed for a fleshy speed bump. The needle tipped to ninety in the last twenty-five feet to Idi.

  Corentin gritted his teeth as the truck smacked into Idi’s body. There was a sickly but far too satisfying crunch under the tires.

  Honeysuckle squealed, and Ringo hugged her to him.

  Taylor fixed Corentin with an angry glare. “Do it again.”

  Corentin nodded and threw the truck into reverse. “As you command, my Princess,” he hissed. Corentin hit the gas again, and the truck jerked back, then finally collided with Idi’s lifeless body in a wet crackle.

  Phillipa patted Corentin’s shoulder. “For me.”

  Corentin threw the truck into drive once more. “As you wish, your highness,” he said in a low growl and put the pedal to the floor.

  One more pleasing, crunchy thump followed, and they sped onward down the interstate, leaving Idi’s body behind.