And I got it as I read the envelope addressed only to “Reynolds.” Not uncommon, but something about the fancy scrawled handwriting bothered me. The return address was the clincher, though—101 Police Plaza, New Never City Jail.
The implanted tooth that replaced the one viciously torn from my mouth last year by a violent psychopath started to ache. I tossed the envelope and whatever evil it contained into the trash. Then, merely as a safety precaution, I staggered to my feet and to the kitchen sink to wash my hands again and again until my doorbell rang thirty minutes later. I quickly dried my chapped palms with the nearest dish towel, which turned out to be an undershirt I’d worn two weeks ago, and went to answer the door, my stomach now much less excited by the heavenly scent rising from the hallway.
I opened the door to pay the delivery guy, who wore a red bindi in the center of his forehead and a shapely pair of wings on his back. Considering the red dot was traditionally worn only by women and symbolized love and honor, neither of which were my strong points, I decided to keep our interaction as short as possible. I just wanted my steak and spicy creamed spinach.
Once our transaction was complete and my hands were full of take-out containers, I kicked the door closed and dropped the food on the coffee table in front of my couch. I sat down, kicked off my loafers, and flipped on the TV with a slightly melted remote. Picking up the closest lukewarm box, I inhaled the scent of curry and spice, sighing happily before stabbing it with my index finger. Thirty seconds later the saag was piping hot. Who needed a microwave when one could conduct electricity? I grinned, and for the first time in two days, I started to relax.
CHAPTER 11
The next morning I shot awake with a silent scream. Acid rolled in my gut thanks to vivid images of James’s charred corpse and the three-fourths of a fifth of whiskey I had consumed before bed. I took a shallow breath, suppressing the urge to jump out of bed and run to the toilet to puke. My longing to toss my steak-laden cookies increased when I caught sight of the two winged dudes on either side of my bed, silently standing guard while I slept.
The very thought creeped me out to no end.
“What the fuck?” I said, throwing my pillow at Right, who stood on the left of my bed, next to my nightstand. “Don’t you guys sleep?”
Left, apparently the spokesman for the two, answered in a surprisingly deep voice for a guy barely thirty-six inches tall. “Not while we’re on the job.”
“Easy enough to remedy,” I said. “You’re fired. Now, get the hell out of my apartment.”
He shook his chubby head. “You cannot fire us. Only the Tooth Fairy holds that power.” His eyes narrowed on my face as his lip lifted into a smirk. “And she wants you alive; therefore, we will keep you that way, by whatever means necessary.”
I laughed and then instantly regretted it. My head, already pounding to a different beat, now felt like a marching band tapping double time to an eighties heavy-metal song. “Is that a threat?” I asked, once the hammering inside my skull subsided a bit. Before he could respond, the full weight of his words slammed into me and anger rocketed through me. “Izzy is not the Tooth Fairy. Those days are over. The sooner you guys get that through your heads, the better.” To them, once a Tooth Fairy, always a Tooth Fairy.
Until death did her wings part.
And I wasn’t about to let that happen.
Left smiled at me like I was a clueless child asking how babies were made. “If you say so.”
A flash of electrical anger zapped through my body, exiting my left foot. It shot into the ceiling, leaving a small scorch mark in its wake. I took a calming breath. It was too early and I was much too hungover for this shit.
Besides, I had work to do.
Foremost on my mind was finding out what my former Tooth Fairy of a partner had been looking for in my office the other night. Asking her would have to wait, though.
I would have to bide my time, waiting for the perfect moment to confront Izzy.
Clayton’s fund-raiser tonight seemed just right.
Since I had ten or so hours until the gala, I decided to scrounge up some possible leads on James’s murder. The best place to start was James himself. According to our employment records, he had resided on the edge of Fairyland with a gaggle of college-aged roommates, so as much as it pained me, and it truly did hurt, I got dressed, stopped off for an extra-large coffee and a bottle of aspirin from the local bodega, and flagged down a taxi to take me into the pit of hell also known as Fairyland.
Right and Left stayed glued to me, and yet, instead of being annoyed by their now somewhat ripe presence, I figured having the two winged guys by my side might actually work in my favor. For once. Under normal circumstances I was Blue non grata to the fairies. Since I’d nearly destroyed their entire population.
Bunch of winged, tiny, grudge-holding babies.
To top it off they believed I had somehow brainwashed their Tooth Fairy, forcing her from her rightful toothy obligation and into my world of deadbeats and lawyers. Like anyone could force Izzy into doing anything. I’d seen her with a gun to her head and she hadn’t batted an eyelash. My partner was no pushover.
Until it came to those she loved.
Then she would die to protect each and every winged one of them.
I hoped like hell it never came to that.
For both our sakes.
CHAPTER 12
The cab pulled to the curb in front of a small row house on the outskirts of Fairyland known as Fraternity Row, Row, Row. The frat house was surprisingly easy to find. You just had to follow the yellow brick road and the stench of rotten cabbage. Luckily no one dropped a house on us, but we did run into a prince wearing skinny jeans, which was much worse.
James’s former home looked unloved, with the shutters loosely hanging on rusted hinges, slamming against the house in the breeze. Peeling, weather-worn paint graced the structure, as did beer cans. They lay everywhere, as if a part of a science experiment that had gone wrong. A lounge chair sat on the rickety porch, along with an old-fashioned claw-foot bathtub. Of course both were full of empty beer cans. Above the door was a small engraved sign with the Greek lettering of some fraternity name.
“Something tells me we’re not in Kansas anymore,” I said with a halfhearted smile to the two winged dwarfs flanking my sides. While they didn’t outright laugh at my joke, Right’s eye did give a tiny twitch, a sure sign he was laughing on the inside.
I knocked on the wooden doorframe, fearing what would happen if I touched the rotted door. When only the faint sound of coughing reached my ears, I knocked again. Harder this time. Still no one answered. For a brief moment I wondered if James’s death wasn’t an attempt on my life as I first suspected. What if, as I stood on the porch, the killer was inside destroying the evidence of his crimes and/or murdering James’s roommates?
Hell with that, I thought as I slammed the heel of my boot into the rotted wood of the door. It splintered inward, and a smell so foul I backed up a step oozed from the opening. My eyes began to water as I waved a hand in front of my face to dispel the putrid air. At least James’s roommates weren’t dead as I’d first thought. Even decaying flesh didn’t stink that bad.
Aw, the joys of college life.
“Dude,” a drunken guy with a Fairyland U T-shirt on said as he stumbled toward me. “The door was unlocked.”
Oops. “My bad,” I said with a wince. Blue’s PI rule number one—always check to make sure a door is locked first. Rule two had something to do with getting payment up front from any client with wings.
Drunk guy didn’t seem to notice my heartfelt apology. Or he just didn’t care. Either way, he took an unsteady swing at me, missing by a good six inches. The momentum of the punch carried him by me, and he ended up facefirst in the beer-can-filled bathtub. I might’ve felt sorry for the guy had his punch been aimed at someone else. But it wasn’t, so I did what any PI would do. I offered him a hand up.
As soon as his skin made contact with mine, he
froze in electrified shock. Fifty thousand volts rushed through my body and into his. He jerked back, muscles constricting. I let go of his hand and he dropped back into the bathtub. Seeing as he wouldn’t be of much help for at least the next ten minutes, I took matters into my own hands. Slowly I stepped through the broken doorway and into the hallway of the house. The smell inside was even worse than outside. Urine, beer, unwashed bodies, with a hint of rotten food and fairy dust, filled the air, making talking nearly impossible, let alone breathing.
Right seemed to share my opinion, for his face turned green two feet through the door. Left didn’t last much longer. “Go,” I said to both fairyguards. “Wait for me outside.”
For once neither argued, nearly trampling each other in a race for the door. I watched them leave, a small rush of macho victory as well as bile rising in me. I wanted to throw up but decided it would only prolong my stay inside. “Hello,” I called into the dimly lit interior.
A hacking wet cough answered.
I winced, swallowing hard as I stepped in something that squished much like decaying cat. I glanced down. Nope, not a cat. A rat. One the size of a small dog. I vowed to burn my boots as soon as I left this place, as well as the rest of my clothes, and possibly shave my head. I scraped the bits of dead rat from the bottom of my boot on the steps leading to the second floor.
The smoker’s cough sounded again.
With a deep breath I charged forward through piles of debris, beer cans, and discarded undergarments. I reminded myself of why I was there in the first place. I owed James. If wading through garbage was penance for his death, then I would damn well do it with a smile on my face. Okay, not a smile, but I would do it nonetheless.
“Hello,” I called again when I reached the top floor. “Is anyone here?”
The blessed scent of burning tobacco tickled my nostrils, lessening the other terrible aromas. I pushed open the door closest to me, not too surprised to see a bunch of young guys in various stages of undress and levels of drunken comas. All but one of the men were asleep. The only one awake waved a hand in front of his face to dispel the smoke between us. “Who are you?” he asked with yet another hacking cough.
“Blue Reynolds,” I offered. “I’m here to ask you some questions about one of your roommates.”
He scratched the side of his face, seemingly unconcerned that a blue-haired guy had busted into his house and wanted information about his roommates. “Which one?”
“James.”
His forehead wrinkled. “What about him? He owe you money? You won’t be getting it. Not from him.”
I shook my head. “No, nothing like that. James interned for me. I came by to offer my condolences, and maybe check out his room?” And then get a tetanus shot, I added silently. A big one. The kind they used on the dragons they kept at the New Never City Zoo.
He eyed me up and down. “First and last months’ rent.”
“What?”
“You heard me,” he said. “You want inside James’s room, it’s gonna cost you.”
Having a guy, a kid really, shake me down wasn’t on my list of favorite things. But I did want a peek into James’s life. I wanted to know more about the kid who’d died in my place. I wanted to know if he had family, if they loved him, or if he, like me, had been alone in the world. Not that it mattered. Nothing I learned or did would bring the poor kid back. “Fine,” I said, pulling out my wallet. “How much?”
He glanced at me, then at my wallet, and finally at my boots. Most likely assessing how much he could get me to pay. My thuggish good looks paid off for once as he said, “Two hundred.”
“Deal.” I passed over a one-hundred-dollar bill along with five twenties. Some days it was nice to have an expense account to afford such luxuries as bribes to stoned college kids. “Which room was his?”
“Third door on your left.”
I nodded, closing the door behind me after I left. I vowed right there and then that if I ever had kids, they sure as hell wouldn’t go to college. The thought of bringing a child into the world scared me nearly as much as the image of the baby that flashed through my mind.
A blue-haired baby.
With pink wings.
CHAPTER 13
My luck had changed, I thought as I pushed open the door to James’s room—a clean and tidy albeit small room with a thin layer of dust on the dresser and bookcase. No beer cans here. Or if there had been, they weren’t here anymore. In fact the room seemed a little too clean. A little too sparse. It felt unlived-in, as if James had never existed at all. My eyes narrowed. Had someone cleaned up after learning of James’s murder?
Maybe James was just a tidy housekeeper? Not that I’d ever seen any signs of latent cleanliness. Hell, the kid’s desk was littered with files, paperwork, and discarded fast-food bags. I shook my head to dispel the hint of paranoia.
Taking a deep, clean-smelling breath, I began my search. For what, I didn’t know, but everyone, even a college student, had secrets. A black-and-white photograph of a young woman with light-colored hair, her face obscured slightly by the glare of afternoon sun, sat on the nightstand by the bed. I picked it up, examining it closely. Was this James’s first love? Had they planned a future together? A future he would now never have? Guilt filled me once again, reminding me just how responsible I was for his death.
It should’ve been me.
James should be in my room staring at a picture of my sweetheart.
Except I was still very much alive, and I never had nor would have a future with any woman. Not until I found a way to cure my electrical curse. After all, what woman in her right mind would marry a lightning rod? For a brief second Izzy’s face flashed through my mind. I set the picture down a little harder than necessary. The frame shattered under the pressure, sending shards of glass raining down. I winced as a fragment sliced into my palm.
Just desserts, I supposed.
Blood from the wound dripped onto the photograph. I pulled it free from the broken frame and stuffed it into my pocket for safekeeping. One day I would find this young woman, for James’s sake. I would act as if I knew him, tell her what a good guy he’d been. Maybe even make up a story or two about how he’d solved an impossible case. And maybe he would’ve.
If some bastard hadn’t staged an “accident” for me.
Pressing the sleeve of my shirt against the bleeding cut on my hand, I finished my search of the room. Nothing else caught my eye. James was a normal college kid with big dreams. He wore jeans and T-shirts. Spent his days working for college credit. And died doing the same. With a heavy sadness in my chest, I left the room, quietly closing the door behind me. Almost but not quite the closure I needed.
Closure I wouldn’t have until justice was served.
An eye for an eye.
Or in this case, a fry for a fry.
Since I was already on the outskirts of Fairyland, I decided to do a quick search for the missing fairies. When in Rome, after all. Except Fairyland smelled much more like stale Chinese food and day-old fairy dust. Right and Left’s attitude seemed to instantly change as soon as we hit the streets of Fairyland. They went from watchful and sullen to cracking the occasional smile. On top of that, they even pointed out a few historical landmarks, like oddly weaponized tour guides.
But the deeper we moved into Fairyland and the happier they became, the unhappier I was. I stood out like a blue-haired thumb. Not only was I about three feet taller than everyone on the street, but every fairy in the district knew of my role in Izzy’s leaving her toothier duties. And blamed me for the same.
I tensed when a group of heavily tattooed fairies stepped from a fairy bar on the corner. They were loud, and quite drunk, even at eleven in the morning. Considering my sober state, I felt compelled to judge them for their debauchery. I damn well wanted to be half in the bag, but no, I was stuck in Fairyland searching for missing fairies, who’d probably bite my kneecaps if I ever found them. Some days it paid to stay in bed.
“It�
�s him.” Two of the bigger, drunker fairies pointed at me, their wings in full flutter. Dust flew in all directions. A bad sign. I wasn’t looking for a fight. Hell, the last thing I needed right now was to electrocute a bunch of winged devils.
But I would if it came down to it.
I smiled at the thought as electrical current arced through me.
Right must’ve noticed my sudden glee, for he grabbed my arm, shocking us both, him literally as well as in a more figurative sense. “Ow,” he complained, releasing my arm.
I winced. “Sorry about that.”
“You’ll be sorrier if we don’t leave right now,” he said, motioning to a growing and equally angry mob of fairies. There must’ve been fifty of them, wings aflutter. A toxic cloud of fairy dust rose from the group, indicating my peril. As much as I wanted to stay and electrocute the boisterous lot of them, Right was right. I hadn’t come to Fairyland to cause a riot. I was here to actually help the winged degenerates now throwing rocks my way.
When a rock nicked the side of my face, I allowed Right and Left to hustle me away from danger. Which was easier said than done, as the crowd now reached into the hundreds. Didn’t fairies work? Then it hit me. Today was Fairy Independence Day, the same day, more than a hundred years ago, that the first Isabella Davis, Izzy’s great-grandmother, had freed the fairies from their Shadows.
I shook my head. No wonder these guys were so fired up, not to mention three wings to the wind. I should’ve guessed. Clayton was one smart fairy. He couldn’t have picked a better day to hold his fund-raiser; add in Izzy, the great-granddaughter of Isabella the first, and the former Tooth Fairy to boot, and he’d rake in the campaign contributions tonight.
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