by L. A. Banks
"Jenny Greenteeth," I said. "She's one of the sidhe. Faerie nobility, sidekick to the Winter Lady."
"Are her teeth green?"
"Like steamed spinach. I saw her leading a big old bunch of shellycobbs just like those guys, back at the Faerie war. IF Maeve wanted to lay out some payback For Billy and company, Jenny's the one she'd send."
"She's dangerous?"
"You know the stories about things that tempt you down to the water's edge and then drown you? Sirens that lure sailors to their deaths? Mermaids who carry men off to their homes under the sea?"
"Yeah?"
"That's Jenny. Only she's not so cuddly."
I dug Bob out of my backpack. The skull took one look at the sleeping, naked Georgia and leered. "First you get demolition-level sex with the cop chick, and now a threesome, all in the same day!" he cried. "Harry, you have to write Penthouse about this!"
"Not now, Bob. I need you to identify the spell that's been laid on Georgia."
The skull made a disgusted sound but focused on the girl. "Oh," he said after a second. "Wow. That's a good one. Definitely sidhe work."
"I figure it's Jenny Greenteeth. Give me details."
"Jenny got game. It's a sleep spell," he said. "A seriously good one, too. Malicious as hell."
"How do I lift it?"
"You can't," Bob said.
"Fine. How do I break it?"
"You don't understand. It's been tied into the victim. It's being fueled by the victim's life force. If you shatter the spell . . ."
I nodded, getting it. "I'll do the same to her. Is it impossible to get rid of it?"
"No, not at all. I'm saying that you couldn't lift it. Whoever threw it could do that, of course. But there's another key."
I grew wroth and scowled. "What key, Bob?"
"Uh," he said, somehow giving the impression that he'd shrugged. "A kiss ought to do it. You know. True love, Prince Charming, that kind of thing."
"That won't be hard," I said, relaxing a little. "We'll definitely get to the wedding before he goes off alone with Jenny and gets drowned."
"Oh, good," Bob said. "OF course, the girl still kicks off, but you can't save all the people, all the time."
"What?" I demanded. "Why does Georgia die?"
"Oh, if the Werewolf kid goes through the ceremony with Jenny and plights his troth and so on, it's going to contaminate him. I mean, if he's married to another, it can't really be pure love. Jenny's claim on him would prevent the kiss From lifting the spell."
"Which means Georgia won't wake up," I said, chewing on my lip. "At what point in the wedding does it happen, exactly?"
"You mean, when will it be too late?" Bob asked.
"Yeah. I mean, when they say, 'I do,' when they swap rings, or what?"
"Rings and vows," Bob said, mild scorn in his voice. "Way overrated."
Murphy glanced up at me in the rearview mirror and said, "It's the kiss, Harry. It's the kiss."
"Buffy's right!" Bob agreed cheerily.
I met Murphy's eyes in the mirror For just a second and then said, "Yeah. I guess I should have Figured."
Murphy smiled a little.
"The kiss seals the deal," Bob prattled. "IF Billy kisses Jenny Greenteeth, the girl with the long legs ain't waking up, and he ain't long For the world, either."
"Murph," I said, tense.
She rolled down the car's window, slapped a magnetic cop light on the roof, and started up the siren. Then she stomped on the gas and all but gave me whiplash.
Under normal circumstances, the trip to the resort would have taken half an hour. I'm not saying that Murphy's driving was suicidal. Not quite. But after the third near collision, I closed my eyes and Fought off the urge to chant "there's no place like home."
Murphy got us there in twenty minutes.
Tires screeched as she swung into the resort's parking lot. "Drop me there," I said, pointing. "Park behind the reception tent so Folks won't see Georgia. I'll go get Billy."
I bailed out of the car, which never actually came to a Full stop, clutching my blasting rod, and ran into the hotel. The concierge blinked at me From behind her desk.
"Wedding!" I barked at her. "Where?"
She blinked and pointed a Finger down the hall. "Um. The ballroom."
"Right!" I said, and sprinted that way. I could see the open double doors and heard a man's voice over a loudspeaker: "... until death do you part?"
Eve McAlister stood at the doorway in her lavender silk outfit, and when she saw me her eyes narrowed into sharp little chips of ice. "There, that's him. That's the man."
Two big, beefy guys in matching badly fitted maroon dress coats appeared—hotel security goons. They stepped directly into my path, and the larger one said, "Sir, I'm sorry, but this is a private function. I'll have to ask you to leave."
I ground my teeth. "You have got to be kidding me! Private? I'm the best fucking man!"
The loudspeaker voice in the ballroom said, "Then by the power vested in me . . ."
"I will not allow you to further disrupt this wedding, or tarnish my good name," Eve said in a triumphant tone. "Gentlemen, please escort him from the premises before he causes a scene."
"Yes, ma'am," the bigger goon said. He stepped toward me, glancing down at the blasting rod. "Sir, let's walk to the doors now."
Instead, I darted forward, toward the doors, taking the goons by surprise with the abrupt action. "Billy!" I shouted.
The goons recovered in an eyeblink and tackled me. They were professional goons. I went down under them, and it drove the breath out of me.
The loudspeaker voice said,"... man and wife. You may now kiss the bride."
I lay there on my back under maybe five hundred pounds of security goon, struggling to breathe, staring at nothing but ceiling.
A ceiling lined with a whole bunch of automated fire extinguishers.
I slammed my head into the Boss Goon's nose and bit Backup Goon on the arm until he screamed and jerked it away, freeing my right arm.
I pointed the blasting rod up, reached for my power, and wheezed, ". . . fuego . . ."
Flame billowed up to the ceiling.
A fire alarm howled. The sprinklers flicked on and turned the inside of the hotel into a miniature monsoon.
Chaos erupted. The ballroom was filled with screams. The floor shook a little as hundreds of guests leaped to their feet and started looking for an exit. The security goons were smart enough to realize that they suddenly had an enormous problem on their hands, and then scrambled away from the doorway before they could be trampled.
I got to my feet in time to see a minister fleeing a raised platform, where a figure in Georgia's wedding dress had hunched over, while Billy, spiffy in his tux, stared at her in pure shock. That much running water grounded out whatever glamour the bride might have been using, and her features melted back into those I'd seen before— she lost an inch or two of height and her proportions changed. Georgia's rather sharp features flowed into a visage of haunting, unearthly beauty. Georgia's brown hair became the same green as emeralds and seaweed.
Jenny Greenteeth turned toward Billy, her trademark choppers bared in a viridian snarl, and her hand swept at his throat, inhuman nails gleaming.
Billy may have been shocked, but not so much that he didn't recognize the threat. His arm intercepted Jenny's and he drove into her, pushing both hands forward with the power of his arms, shoulders, and legs. Billy's got a low center of gravity, and he's no skinny weakling. The push sent Jenny back several steps and off the edge of the platform. She fell in a tangle of white fabric and lace.
"Billy!" I shouted again, almost managing to make it loud. My voice was lost in the sounds of panic and the wailing fire alarms, so I gritted my teeth, brought my shield bracelet up to its flashiest, spark-liest, shiniest charge, and thrust into the press of the crowd. To them, it must have looked like someone waving a road flare around, and there was a steady stream of interjections that averaged out to, "Eek!" I
forged ahead through them.
By the time I was past the crowd, Jenny Greenteeth had risen to her feet, tearing the bridal gown off like it was made of tissue paper. She stretched one hand into a grasping claw and clenched at the air. Ripples of angry power fluttered between her fingers, and an ugly green sphere of light appeared in her hand.
She leaped nimbly back up to the platform, unencumbered by the dress, and flung the green sphere at Billy. He ducked. It flew over his head, leaving a hole with blackened, crumbling edges in the wall behind him.
Jenny howled and summoned another sphere, but by that time I was within reach. Standing on the floor by the platform gave me a perfect shot at her knees, and I swing my blasting rod with both hands. The blow elicited a shriek of pain from the sidhe woman, and she flung the second sphere at me. I caught it on my shield bracelet and it rebounded upon her, searing a black line across the outside of one thigh.
The sidhe screamed and threw herself back, her weight mostly on one leg, and snarled to me, "Thou wouldst have saved this one, wizard. But I will yet exact my Lady's vengeance twofold."
And with a graceful leap, she flew over our heads, forty feet to the door, and vanished from sight as swiftly and nimbly as a deer.
"Harry!" Billy said, staring in shock at the soaking-wet room. "What the hell is happening here? What the hell was that thing?"
I grabbed his tux. "No time. Come with me."
He did but asked, "Why?"
"I need you to kiss Georgia."
"Uh," he said. "What?"
"I found Georgia. She's outside. The watery tart knows it. She's going to kill her. You gotta kiss her, now."
"Oh," he said.
We both ran, and suddenly the bottom fell out of my stomach.
Vengeance twofold.
Oh God.
Jenny Greenteeth would kill Murphy, too.
Outside the hotel was a mess. People were wandering around in herds. Emergency sirens were already on the way. A couple of cars had smashed into one another in the parking lot, probably as they both gunned it for the road. Everyone out there seemed to be determined to get in our way, slowing our pursuit.
We ran to where Murphy had parked her car.
It was lying on its side. Windows were broken. One of the doors had been torn off. I didn't see anyone around. But Billy suddenly cocked his head to one side and then pointed at the reception tent. We ran for it as quietly as we could, and Billy threw himself inside. I heard him let out a short cry.
I followed.
Georgia lay on the ground, hardly covered by the blanket at all, limbs sprawled bonelessly. Billy rushed over to her.
Just past them I saw Murphy.
Jenny Greenteeth stood over her at the refreshments table, hands locked in Murphy's hair, pushing her face down into a full punch bowl. The wicked faerie's eyes were alight with rage and madness and an almost sexual arousal. Murphy's arms twitched a little, and Jenny gasped, lips parting, and pushed down harder.
Murphy's hand fluttered one more time and went still.
The next thing I knew, I was smashing my blasting rod down onto Jenny Greenteeth, screaming incoherently, pounding as hard as I possibly could. I drove the faerie back from Murphy, who slid limply to the ground. Then Jenny recovered her balance, struck out at me with one arm, and I found out a fact I hadn't known before.
Jenny Greenteeth was something strong.
I landed several feet away, not far from Billy and Georgia, watching birdies and little lights fly around. On another table, next to me, was another punch bowl.
Jenny Greenteeth flew at me, lust in her inhumanly lovely features, her feline eyes smoldering.
"Billy!" I slurred. "Dammit, kiss her! Now!"
Billy blinked at me.
Then he turned to Georgia, lifting the upper half of her body in his arms, and kissed her with a desperation and passion that no one can fake.
I didn't get to see what happened, because faster than you could say "oxygen deprivation," Jenny Greenteeth had ahold of my hair and my face smashed against the bottom of the punch bowl.
I fought her, but she was stronger than anything human and she had all kinds of leverage. I could feel her pressed against me, body tensing and shifting, rubbing against me. Getting off as she murdered me. The lights started to go out. This was what she did. She knew what she was doing.
Lucky for me, she wasn't the only one.
I suddenly fell, getting the whole huge punch bowl to turn over on me as I did, drenching me in bright red punch. I gasped and wiped stinging liquid from my eyes and looked up in time to see a pair of wolves, one tall and lean, one smaller and heavier, leap at Jenny Greenteeth and bring her to the ground. Screams and snarls blended, and none of them sounded human.
Jenny tried to run, but the lean wolf ripped across the back of her unwounded leg with its fangs, severing the hamstring. The faerie went down. The wolves were on her before she could scream again. The wheel turns, and Jenny Greenteeth never had a chance. The wolves knew what they were doing.
This was what they did.
I crawled over to Murphy. Her eyes were open and staring, her body and features slack. Some part of my brain remembered the steps for CPR. I started doing it. I adjusted her position, sealed my lips to Murphy's, and breathed for her. Then compressions. Breathe. Compressions.
"Come on, Murph," I whispered. "Come on."
I covered her mouth with mine and breathed again.
For one second, for one teeny, tiny instant, I felt her mouth move. I felt her head tilt, her lips soften, and my oh-so-professional CPR— just for a second, mind you—felt almost, almost like a kiss.
Then she started coughing and sputtering, and I sank back from her in relief. She turned on her side, breathing hard for a moment, and then looked up at me with dazed blue eyes. "Harry?"
I leaned down, causing runnels of punch to slide into one of my eyes, and asked quietly, "Yeah?"
"You have fruit punch mouth," she whispered.
Her hand found mine, weak but warm. I held it. We sat together.
Billy and Georgia got married that night in Father Forthill's study, at Saint Mary of the Angels, an enormous old church. No one was there but them, the padre, Murphy, and me. After all, as far as most anyone else knew, they'd been married at that disastrous travesty of a farce in Lincolnshire.
The ceremony was simple and heartfelt. I stood with Billy. Murphy stood with Georgia. They both looked radiantly happy. They held hands the whole time, except when they were exchanging rings.
Murphy and I stepped back when they got to the vows.
"Not exactly a fairy-tale wedding," she whispered.
"Sure it was," I said. "Had a kiss and an evil stepmother and everything."
Murphy smiled at me.
"Then by the power vested in me," the padre said, beaming at the pair of them from behind his spectacles, "I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss th—"
They beat him to it.
* * *
JIM BUTCHER's bestselling Dresden Files from ROC chronicles the life of modern-day Chicago's only professional wizard, Harry Dresden. (Lost Items Found. Paranormal Investigations. Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates. No Love Potions, Endless Purses, Parties or Other Entertainment.) You may learn more at www.jim-butcher.com.
Jim Butcher is a martial arts enthusiast with fifteen years of experience in various styles including Ryukyu Kempo, Tae Kwan Do, Gojo Shorei Ryu, and a sprinkling of Kung Fu. He is a skilled rider and has worked as a summer camp horse wrangler and performed in front of large audiences in both drill riding and stunt riding exhibitions.
Jim enjoys fencing, singing, bad science fiction movies, and live-action gaming. He lives in Missouri with his wife, son, and a vicious guard dog.
Dead Man's Chest
Rachel Caine
“Now this," Ian Taylor said with satisfaction, surveying the ship bobbing just outside of the harbor, "is what I call an adventure?' He turned a blinding grin on his wif
e-to-be as he patted her hand. He had to hunt for it; it only wrapped partly around his well-muscled forearm. "It's going to be amazing. Better than any church wedding, eh?"
She looked up at him, speechless. He stood six feet, five inches to her dumpy five-foot-four and had the kind of rippling, tanned body usually only seen onstage in gay strip clubs. Silky blond hair. Impossibly white, even teeth. Big blue eyes.
And he was—unbelievably—a romance-novel cover model.
For a woman whose self-image most often involved the words "mousy" and "short," meeting Ian had been like being run down by the speeding Love Train. Ian had knocked her off her feet (literally, with a shopping cart to her midsection), and upon reviving her in the parking lot of the local Wal-Mart, he'd set about seducing her by wearing ruffled poet shirts and declaiming flowery compliments.
Their romance—two months along, yesterday—had been one big, rose-colored dream, and she kept waiting to wake up. But the dream was starting to take on a surreal edge of panic, and all Cecilia could finally sum up in response to Ian's enthusiasm was a wan smile and a quiet, "It looks great."
She supposed it did, if you were a romance-cover heroine. When Ian had mentioned the surprise, she'd been thinking with desperate optimism of a cruise ship. Something like a floating city, with beauty shops and bowling alleys and seven ballroom-sized dining rooms. (She'd done considerable last-minute research.)
The huge ship bobbing like a cork was, in true Ian fashion, not a boring old honeymoon cruise ship. No, this was straight out of some sweeping pirate tale, with towering masts and yo-ho-ho on a dead man's chest. It was even flying a pirate flag. Cute.
"When—" She tried to banish the squeak from her voice. "When do we—" Drown. Yes, sink and drown, arrrrrr, matey. "Sail?"
"Sail?" Ian echoed, and picked her up to whirl her around in a nauseating spiral. "Within the hour, Cess! Isn't that wonderful?"
It was a measure of how overwhelmed she was that she hadn't complained about that damn nickname. Cess. Ugh. Cecilia, if you please, she imagined herself saying coolly, like those heroines in the novels, as she pulled her shoulders straight and cowed him with an imperious gaze.
