Sixpence & Whiskey

by Heather R. Blair

My face burns and I sit down with a flop. “We. Are. Not. Having. This. Conversation. Why are you here, Merry?”

  His grin fades. “Werewolves.”

  I sigh. Gotta love the universe. It never rains, but it pours. “No shit?”

  “No shit.” He leans forward. “They’re getting ready for a run.”

  Gnomes hear everything that goes on in the fairy-tale side of the world. ’Cause they—literally—have their ears to the ground.

  Werewolves hunt in packs, of course, just like real wolves, but thankfully they only do it a couple times a year. And fucking Taylor Lautner to the contrary, werewolves are not sexy high-school boys with washboard abs. Wolves are some of the most vicious creatures of the FTCs—far, far worse than vampires, who are actually not so bad. Wolves, however…

  Bloodthirsty, primal, cruel. And creepy. Never underestimate the creepy.

  Of the people that go missing in Minnesota, ninety percent or better are because of the wolf runs. Some of them get turned, of course. But that’s super rare. Wolves prefer to increase their numbers vis-à-vis the natural born; they usually only turn people to fuck with them.

  Then they kill them anyway.

  Now most fairy-tale creatures try and stay out of each other’s shit. Maybe not all the time, but the idea is there. In the wolves’ case, though, it’s occasionally necessary for us to step in to mitigate the impact of their hunts. A choice backed by the Council, an organization that implements what passes for FTC law. Our family has history with this pack, after all. None of it good.

  “Any idea where they’re aiming this go-round?”

  “Rumor is…Duluth.”

  I straighten in my seat. “No fucking way, Merry.” The wolves never attack Duluth directly, never ever ever.

  Because of my mom, first and foremost. This has been her home for the past century—or was until she went AWOL three years ago—and they’ve avoided shitting in her backyard. Mostly because the last time they did, she took their alpha’s head.

  Plus, Duluth is a good-sized city, relatively speaking. Which means while it’s easier to make a handful of people go missing, it’s also harder to avoid bystanders, the local press and all that jazz. Even wolves make some effort to stay under human radar, though nowadays I think we could broadcast Georg and his bruin bros shifting live on CNN and people would pass it off as some cool CGI trick.

  I ponder all this, staring at Merry. Gnomes are among the oldest creatures living here. Like I said, they kinda founded the town, so it’s more theirs than anyone’s. But…

  Never trust a gnome has been pounded into my head, just like the heads of every other creature in our world. Gnomes are unique elementals. Their essence—and therefore their magic—is tied directly to the earth. Rock, stone, the fire of molten lava…these are not things moved by lust or envy or anger… Or love. The elemental magic they wield is emotionless and eternal, like the spinning of the planet. It just is.

  I use a form of magic, too, but witch magic is based on emotional energy—the connection between all living things. The Force, if you like. (I prefer Star Trek, but whatever fandom works.)

  There is a rumor going round that one day witches will command elemental magic. In fact, I’ve heard some rather heated discussions around that topic at T&T a time or two. Honestly, I think it’s bullshit. We’re the newest addition to the FTCs, still not much more than human in most eyes. How could any mere witch understand elemental magic enough to wield it?

  I find it hard enough to figure out one damn gnome’s motivations.

  This one doesn’t look like he’s up to no good, at least at the moment. Merry’s a handsome devil; gnomes generally are.

  Curly brown hair under the distinctive hat (I’ve never gotten the damn gnome hats. Maybe it’s a height compensation thing?) Brown eyes with thick lashes. He looks a bit scruffy in jeans and a work shirt. Big, strong-looking hands, especially for his height, which is about four and a half feet in his boots. He’s a sexy little mo-fo, I muse. Not for the first time.

  I like Merry, we’re pals. But I don’t trust him. When it comes to the wolves though, I can’t think of a reason for him to lie. The only thing gnomes seem to care about, other than their damn rocks, is their race. Merry would do anything to keep his people safe. Werewolves don’t discriminate, they’ll eat anyone. The wolves running in Duluth threaten the gnomes, too.

  “Thanks for the heads up,” I finally say.

  He nods and gets to his feet. I offer him my bottle and he takes a swig before passing it back. He’s turning away when I finally make myself ask, hating the hint of a whine in my voice.

  “Merry….you won’t tell anyone about earlier, yeah?”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it, doll.” He tips his hat and walks out the door with a smirk.

  I am so fucked. That story is gonna spread like wildfire. Gnomes will be chuckling every time I pass by for the next hundred years. I can hear them now.

  “Sleep well, Persephone?”

  “Catch some zzz’s last night? How about any ooo’s?”

  Fu-uuuck.

  I lean my head on the desk, resisting the urge to pound it there when I hear Jett greet Merry. Seconds later, she’s strolling in and planting herself in the seat the gnome just vacated.

  “Hey there, sunshine.” She raises an eyebrow when I only grunt in greeting. “Why did Merry look so, you know, merry?”

  I hand her my bottle without lifting my head. “Shut up, sis.”

  She shrugs and takes a long drink. Jett is the only one of my sisters I can’t drink under the table. Of course, Carly and Ana are fucking lightweights, but that’s beside the point. Jett’s a badass, but I’m kind of a badass, too. I mean, I do own a goddamn bar.

  “Merry wasn’t my only visitor today. Seems the bears are looking for their king.”

  “Damn bears, always misplacing their shit.”

  I narrow my eyes, finally unsticking my face from the desk. “Jett, you didn’t go back to mess with Georg, did you?”

  She gives a delicate shudder. “Not even a little bit.”

  “He left a message for you, by the way.”

  “Georg? Thought he was lost.” She takes another swig of whiskey.

  “No, his second. The blue-eyed bear. Stephen.” I think I see her eyes flicker at his name, and isn’t that interesting? Leaning back in her chair, she waits for it, so I let her have it. “Next time, he says he won’t be the one taken from behind. And yes, I do believe he meant it exactly as it sounds.”

  Her eyes go wide. Jett’s eyes are just as big and blue as mine, but more lapis than cornflower. Right now they’re hard as diamonds. Very carefully, she sets the bottle down on my desk and walks out without a word.

  I share a smile with the whiskey, ’cause we both know someone’s gonna get it.

  Fifteen minutes later, I’m walking the couple blocks to the casino through lightly swirling snow. Jett’s got the bar, which doesn’t open for drinks until two anyway. I gotta see a man about those wolves. Blue and white neon lights guide me to my destination.

  Fond du Lac, both the Chippewa band and the casino operated by it, have a long and not always friendly history with the city of Duluth. My favorite Native American, though, is friendly. In his way. Thomas Animkii.

  He’s not a shaman or anything like that, he’s a scientist. Well, ex-scientist. Can you be an ex-scientist? Hmmm, that is a question. But the man knows his wolves.

  Werewolves, that is.

  When I was in high school, Thomas was my favorite student teacher, probably the closest thing I ever had to a hero. My life wasn’t exactly overflowing with positive male role models. He always knew the coolest shit about wildlife, and he had this aura to him that made everyone shut up and pay attention when he spoke. Thomas could hold a class of forty teenagers rapt in the palm of his hand for an hour, which is a magic even I can’t top.

  Awhile back, as part of his graduate work with UMD, he took a winter to study wolves up north of Ely. Unfortunately for him, the we
rewolf pack was hitting the area hard that winter. They stumbled on his one-man camp, played with him a bit, then left him for dead. I don’t know how he survived without turning, and neither does Thomas. Alls we know is someone left him on the doorstep of our house about five years ago, half his face torn off and his mind in tatters. He got better, over time, but it wasn’t easy. Nothing to do with the wolves ever is.

  Now he’s got a lot of scars and a strong distaste for walks alone in the woods. He works as a security guard at the casino. The lights and noise comfort him, I think.

  He also can feel the pack when they roam, like a werewolf dousing rod. If they head for Duluth, Thomas will be the first to know.

  “Hey, Thomas.”

  “Seph.” He barely glances at me as I pull a stool from an unoccupied one-armed bandit and perch next to him. He has a surprisingly soft and high voice for his size, which is somewhere just south of Georg, far north of Merry and thicker around than both of them put together.

  His long black hair is brushed straight back from a high forehead, and streaked heavily with white, even though I know he’s not that much older than me. He’s got cheekbones to die for and a face that is more interesting that handsome. But I like interesting. The scars aren’t visible from this side. I’m glad. As far as I can tell, Thomas doesn’t give a damn about his scars, but they hurt my heart.

  “So, I hear we may’ve an incoming wolf problem.”

  “That so.” His expression doesn’t change, but I see his fingers tighten on his thigh. I fight the urge to take his hand, because I know Thomas wouldn’t welcome it. Despite the fact he spent months recuperating in my home, Thomas is the king of keeping himself to himself. I know he loves me and my sisters for what we helped him through, but showing it physically isn’t his style.

  “I wanted to give you a heads up.”

  “So I can give you a heads up.” There’s no bitterness in his tone, only a resigned awareness.

  “That okay by you?”

  “Yup.” His eyes never leave the casino floor, never flicker my way.

  I get to my feet at his words, knowing this conversation is over. “Alrighty then, Thomas. You all take—”

  “You don’t have to be scared of him, you know. Not really.”

  “Huh? Him who?” The leader of the wolves is not a man, so who—

  “Frost. He doesn’t want to hurt you.”

  I stop in the doorway and look back over my shoulder at my friend, open-mouthed. I’ve no idea how much Thomas knows of my world, but obviously more than I would’ve have guessed. How the hell does he even know who Jack is? The only answer I can think of is that he overheard some things he shouldn’t have when he was living with us.

  But that doesn’t quite explain how he knows that Jack’s back in town. Or that I’m scared about it.

  I stare at my friend, then take a deep breath. “Thomas, I love ya, but you don’t know Jack.”

  For the first time since I walked in, Thomas turns to face me fully. His scars are a knotted maze of pits and valleys on his left side, a bright, angry red that will never fade. There are no distinguishable claw marks. It just looks like they tried to gnaw half his face off—which is probably exactly what they did. My hands tighten at my sides.

  He smiles and the effect is not pretty, but a crowd of blue-haired ladies sweeps me out the door and onto the sidewalk before I can question him and that smile.

  I stand in the snow, staring back at the strobing lights on the building. “What in the hell was that?”

  I’ve half a mind to go back in and question Thomas when a fairy collides with my face.

  8

  “Ouch!” Spitting out a mouthful of snow, I glare at the glittering ball of light now sitting on my shoulder, her hand on her hip. She’s about five inches high, almost as curvy as me, proportionally speaking, and wearing a petulant expression.

  “Why don’t you watch where you’re going, Persephone? Fuck! I think you tore something.” Throwing a long golden braid out of the way, she pulls a wing over one tiny shoulder, examining every centimeter of the gossamer surface which shimmers between violet and blue.

  “Me? You’re the one who collided with my face.”

  She sticks her tongue out at me, before petting her wing carefully back into place. A second later, she’s airborne, hovering in front of my nose, making my eyes cross.

  “Quit that,” I hiss, starting back to the bar. Humans don’t notice much, it’s true, but seeing me chatting with what, to them, no doubt appears to be a bit of swirling snow is bound to draw attention.

  I’m not fond of fairies. Oh, I was when I was little, I thought them darling. But then I realized they’re just mean girls concentrated into extreme miniature. Especially this one. Snegurochka. Jack’s right-hand fairy.

  “What do you want, Rochie?” I wave a hand forcefully in front of my face, taking vicious pleasure when she curses and is thrown sideways by the blast of air.

  “Don’t call me that! It makes me sound like a damn bug.”

  “Well, you kind of are, aren’t you?” She scowls and an icy burst of snow slides down the back of my neck.

  “Argh! You little bitch.” I’m tempted to do something back, but using magic against fairies is a tricky thing. It tends to be either Oh yay, it worked or Oh shit, I’m a llama.

  Their own magic throws everything off kilter, like a capricious breeze. Personally, I have no desire to chew my own cud and spit it at people. Well, most of the time anyway.

  So I leave Rochie alone, no matter how much she pisses me off. Unfortunately, she’s really, really good at pissing me off. She zips around behind me, and I hear a tiny whistle.

  “Good lord, Seph. And I thought your ass couldn’t get any bigger.”

  Something like a growl comes out of my throat. Fuck this. I start hauling that ass. She flies faster to keep up with me. The light sound of bells from her wings tinkles merrily down the street.

  I freeze. Bells. A memory plays in front of my eyes, a bag tossed from one hand to the other in the night. That tinkling sound as Jack caught the bag…

  He didn’t do it for money, he did it for her.

  “Been visiting any bears lately, Goldilocks?” I turn slowly, eyes narrowed.

  Immediately, her itty-bitty face turns bright red with rage. “Your bruin boyfriend caught me. Caught. Me.”

  I don’t bother to correct her about Georg being my boyfriend, but I am curious. What the hell would Georg want with a fairy? I doubt he went after her just to bribe Jack, so what gives?

  “What did you do to piss Georg off, Rochie?”

  Her eyes dart away as her body zooms right, then left, then right again, wings blurring into blue streaks. I resist the urge to swat at her, but it’s a close thing. “Maybe he caught me in their sauna. Just once.”

  Oh my god. I start to snigger. “Once, huh?”

  She shrugs. “Or twice. And maybe they found the webpage.”

  “What webpage?”

  “HotHairyBeasts.com.”

  I get out my phone immediately and look it up. Yup. There’s Georg alright. Been there, done that. Sorta, anyway. Though, I have to say…it still looks damn yum. Oh, look, Stephen. I know I shouldn’t, but just one peek…

  Rochie, you dirty, dirty fairy.

  “But you can’t hold a phone. How the hell did you take these?”

  She rolls her eyes and wriggles her nose. My phone shoots out of my fingers like it’s greased with butter and hovers in the air next to the fairy, who folds her arms and glares at me.

  “Oh, yeah. Magic.”

  “Yes, magic. Jeez. Some witch you are.”

  I snatch my phone back and stuff it in my pocket as I continue walking back to the bar. “At least I don’t use my powers for evil.”

  “That wasn’t evil,” she protests. “It was a public service!”

  I can’t argue with that. “So, why did you run into my face, Rochie?”

  “Your face ran into me,” she counters.

&nbs
p; I recognize avoidance when I hear it, and that is curious. What the hell makes a fairy nervous? “Out with it.”

  “I need you to help Jack.”

  I stumble, then slide on the slick sidewalk, barely catching myself. “Come again?”

  “He’s in trouble, Persephone.” There it is again, that touch of nerves. If gnomes are hard for humans to understand, fairies are easy-peasy. They’re elementals, too, but of the air. Their emotions as insubstantial as a breath of wind, their hearts light and cold. Fairies can’t hold onto worry or fear for very long, as such they’re rarely nervous. But then again, Jack and Rochie’s bond is undeniable. He’d do damn near anything for her, and strangely enough, I believe that sentiment goes both ways. She’s scared.

  And that scares me, but damn if I’ll show it.

  She’s biting her lip. I take a deep breath and force myself to shrug. “Whatever, Rochie. It’s not like I care anyway.”

  “Once upon a time, you did.”

  I give a snort, turning to face her. “That twisted fairytale is long over.”

  “I know lots of things, Seph.” Her teeny eyes flash indigo at me. “Including the fact that you and Jack are so far from over it’s not funny.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She seems to catch herself, looking over her shoulder as a cold wind skitters down Superior Street. Her wings flutter madly, keeping her steady in the gusting air as she turns back to me, her little face pinched as if she’s scared to say another word, but she does anyway. And it knocks me for a loop.

  “Jack’s the one that called Jett, you know. That night.” Rochie folds her arms and glares at me. “He didn’t even take me out of the bag first.”

  I try to hide the way her words rattle me, but it’s hard. “That doesn’t mean anything.” It does, though. It really, really does. I’m just not sure what.

  Shit.

  We’re nearly at the front doors of T&T, in front of the side entrance for Jett’s tattoo shop, Bad Reputation. My sister may be a bitch, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t got a sense of humor. I step into the alcove and watch Rochie eye the sign above me.

  A devilish look comes over her features. “Wanna make a bet, Seph?”