She wondered if she dared knock again.
What in the world had His Majesty gotten her into?
Chapter
6
She stood, shifting her considerable weight from foot to foot, for almost five minutes. It got colder, which she should have expected for the climate and the time of the year, and she needed to find shelter soon.
Finally, she hurried back down the sidewalk and called, “Excuse me? Madame Vehicle?”
“Oh, I like that,” the SUV replied at once, the lights flicking on and spearing her like a bug on a card. She heard gravel crunch as the SUV rolled toward her. “I like that a lot. Madame Vehicle, haw!”
“I am relieved,” she said, speaking nothing but the truth, “I have not offended you.”
“Except the name’s Judith, okay? And why the hell are you lurking out here like a moth that doesn’t know which light to kiss? You realize you’ve been banging on that door for over half an hour?”
“I—I can’t seem to get in.” She gestured helplessly toward the house. “I’ve been trying, and . . . and I was wondering if you might . . . if you might tell me—”
“Spit it out, O winged freak, lest I squasheth thee ’neath my tires like a bug.”
“Well, I have some concerns, but I also have a task, a task I must complete, and—and—”
“You’re a fairy, right?”
“Yes, Madame Ve—yes, Judith.”
The engine made an interesting grinding noise, and after a moment she realized . . . it was laughing.
“So talking to me must make you want to pretty much pee your pants. ’Cuz if memory serves, your kind isn’t too fond of machinery, iron, that sort of thing. Right?”
“Yes.”
“Well!” The car sounded as if it—she—suddenly cheered up. “Good for you. Face your fears and run ’em over, that’s what I always say. What do you want to know?”
“Are the people in the house—”
“Those nitwits? Don’t get me started.”
“Are they dangerous?”
“No more than I am.” Another grinding sound as the car laughed again. It was a much less pleasant sound this time. “Of course, I’m pretty damned dangerous.”
She backed up a step, thinking, I am far too rattled to even attempt flight. If she wants to kill me, I imagine there is little to be done.
Oddly, that thought made her calm down. If there was nothing to be done, she might as well try to get work done, at least until one or more of these strange creatures killed her. She had her orders, and they came straight from His Majesty.
She itched to count.
“Thank you for answering my question. May I ask you something else?”
“Shoot.”
“Are you a car who has been bewitched to think it is a woman? Or are you a woman who has been bewitched into a car?”
“The latter, honey, and take my advice: Don’t cheat on an archmage unless you make damn sure you won’t get caught. Or unless he’s dead. But they get madder when you cheat on them after they’re dead,” she added thoughtfully. “Nothing worse than having a dead archmage on your ass.”
She made a note on her clipboard, then underlined ensorceled man-made vehicle: Judith. Then she marked it: one.
“Counting,” she said, calming down further, as counting always calmed her kind. “Counting one Judith.” And then, “Good night.”
“Yeah, g’night, freak!” the car called after her as she once again trudged toward the door she could simply not get past.
Chapter
7
She was raising her fist to knock when the door was yanked open and her countryman Lent, who had pleased himself by selecting the name the Violent Fairy, stood in the doorway.
Well. Filled the doorway, of course, as she would have expected. He was a splendid, typical specimen of Hominus spritus: wide shoulders, enormous wings, wheat-colored hair, and violet eyes. He was so large he made her feel small.
He blinked at her. “You.”
“Yes, Lent, it’s me.”
He blinked again. “Sent by the king.”
She noticed it wasn’t a question, and wasn’t surprised: even for their kind, Lent could be blunt. “Yes, Lent.”
His generous mouth quirked into a smile. “To count.”
Relieved, she again said, “Yes, Lent.”
“To count my infant.”
“To count all of you. May I come in?”
His wings fluttered as he thought. She wanted to fidget and wouldn’t let herself. The Violent Fairy had gone rogue over five decades ago. He didn’t—this was so astonishing she could never say it; she could barely think it—he didn’t count.
He did as he pleased. No one could order him, and certainly no one could make him do anything, even if he hadn’t been so large. His willful streak was well known to the kingdom, and she had the impression he could have been smaller than her and no one could make him do anything.
Also, he was brother to the king.
Older brother.
So no one ever knew what odd thought he might take into his head, and because of that, she knew there was a good chance he would refuse her entry into the house. She had come here anticipating that . . . even if she couldn’t have anticipated his odd roommates. Yes, the Violent Fairy might indeed send her away . . . refuse (gasp!) to be counted. What she would do if that happened, she did not know.
But she had to try. She had been told to try.
After a long moment, which she knew really had been less than two seconds, he stepped aside, his diaphanous wings fluttering in the spring breeze. He shrugged his massive shoulders at her. “Come in and count, then.”
“Thank you, Lent.”
Relieved, she followed him in.
Chapter
8
Coffee Ray parked the tow truck next to the ditch, shut the truck off, opened the door, and stepped down onto the gravel.
“Having trouble?” he asked, and the twentysomething woman in the red business suit wobbled toward him on high heels, her car half in and half out of the ditch.
“Oh, thank God! It feels like I’ve been out here in the middle of nowhere for hours!” He heard a click as she snapped her cell phone shut. “Fucking deer, they all ought to be in a damned zoo somewhere so people don’t go off the damned road trying to—Christ!”
Coffee sighed inwardly. She’d gotten close enough to see how big he was. And she hadn’t liked it.
Nobody really liked it
(not even Dad, especially Dad, because you remind him you remind him you remind him of her),
but he couldn’t blame her. A woman, driving alone, her car off the road in the middle of nowhere (but really just on County Road 8, only six miles from the high school), when a strange man in a tow truck shows up. . . .
A certain type of customer, he knew, was always uneasy around mechanics, tow truck drivers . . . like that. Not only did he work with his hands and speak the secret language of engine blocks and oil changes, but he was a strange man on a dark country road who was over seven feet tall.
She was backing up, and he bet she didn’t even know it. “We’ll get you back on the road in just a sec, ma’am,” he sighed. “Then you can head on back to . . .”
“Say—Say—Saint Paul,” she managed.
“Right.” He could see in the dark the way she could see in the daytime—not that he was going to tell her—and realized at once that the car didn’t need a tow at all.
Just a yank.
He moved quickly—faster than most would believe a man his size could move—and seized the front bumper. Then he dragged the car up and out of the ditch.
“There y’are,” he said, smiling and trying not to pant. She was cowering away from him and he doubted she realized it. He had hoped she would relax when she saw how quickly he solved her problem, but it was having the opposite effect. “You can head on home now.”
“Yes, I—I will. Th-thank you. Here, I—” She was groping for her purse,
frantically digging into it, and turned her ankle because she was backing away from him in the gravel. She went down with a muffled cry in an ungainly business-suited heap, embarrassed as well as frightened.
He bent over her, picked her up out of the dust, and brushed her off much like a mother brushed off a wayward toddler. She was staring up at him, amazed. “There y’are,” he said again. “That’s all right. On the house. You run on home.”
“I—I—thank you. Thank you.” She hurried to her car, got in, and he heard the dull thud as she engaged all the locks.
It started up on the first try, and she roared past him, kicking up a spume of dust.
And then Coffee Ray was alone. Again.
Chapter
9
“So you’re like a paranormal census taker?” the redhead—Ireland—asked. “With wings?”
“Yes, indeed,” she replied.
“And you’re here to count us?”
“Yes.”
“But why? Who cares that we’re here? And who in God’s name wants us to be counted?”
The Violent Fairy scowled. “My stupid brother.”
She gasped at the heresy, then fixed him with a look. “Do not speak so of the king, Lent. Not even you.”
“Who else, if not me? He was an idiot when he was still pissing his shirts, and he’s an idiot now.”
“Then perhaps you should have kept the crown for yourself!” she snapped, then clapped her hand over her mouth and blushed for shame. To speak of such things among those not of her kind! But then, Lent had always had that effect on her. Blunt (even for a fairy), abrupt, rude, with a bubbling contempt for the royal family that went back more decades than she could imagine.
“I said he was stupid. I didn’t say he couldn’t run the government. He was born a bureaucrat.”
She shook her head, alarmed. . . . They must not speak of these things among others! And the king was more than a—a—what was the phrase? Paper pusher?
Although technically, her entire race was a race of paper pushers. . . . Perhaps that was why Lent had left. He never could abide the real purpose of the Fey.
“Hey, relax,” the werewolf told her, smiling easily. “We won’t tell. This house has more secrets than dust bunnies.”
“Perish the thought,” the vampire muttered. “That reminds me, we’re out of Clorox wipes.”
“Excuse me,” the human male said—the pregnant one’s mate, she had already guessed. “But who are you, exactly? We haven’t really been introduced. I’m Micah, and this is my wife, Ireland.”
The redhead nodded, then went back to gobbling crackers.
“This is Ezra . . .”
The vampire nodded.
“. . . and Owen . . .”
The werewolf tipped her a casual salute.
“. . . and this is Willow; she’s Lent’s mate. . . .”
“Greet,” the dryad said. The baby was nowhere to be seen; she assumed it was sleeping.
“We heard you’d taken a mate. Of course,” she added sweetly, “it was only a rumor, since you haven’t been interested in keeping us posted. Any of us.”
Lent yawned and she bit off a retort, namely: How dare you choose a mate without the king’s permission? Infuriating, irritating male!
“And I’m betting you met Judith.”
“Oh, yes.”
“And of course you know the Violent Fairy. He—”
“No no no.” Lent shook his head. “I told you, gotta change it.”
“Change it?” She was startled. Fairies had two names, always: the one they were given at birth and the one they chose for themselves after twenty summers. With his purple eyes, Lent had chosen a riff on “Violet Fairy,” and it had certainly suited him.
It was as unheard of to change a name as it was to—to—well, to go live in a strange house with an assortment of creatures and never, never see your homeland again. And never—ahhh, even the thought burned like the fire of a thousand suns—count again. “You can’t change it; why would you change it?” Unspoken: What in the worlds is wrong with youuuuuuu?
The vampire—Ezra—sighed. “We were at a comic-book store in Burnsville, looking at some graphic novels, and it turned out that there’s a comic-book character with the same name.”
“So?” she asked, trying to keep the scorn out of her tone. “The doings among these people have nothing to do with us, or the name you chose.”
“Perhaps more relevant,” Ezra continued dryly, “are the copyright laws in this country, and in fact, names cannot be copyrighted.”
“Really?” Ireland asked, lightly spraying the vampire with cracker crumbs. “I didn’t know that.”
Ezra sighed and wiped his cheek. “Neither can titles,” the vampire added. “I used to be a lawyer. A long, long time ago.”
“So I could write a book and call it Gone with the Wind, and nobody could sue?”
“Correct. Although your publisher would likely try to talk you out of it because really, is the planet large enough for two Gone with the Winds? I think not. Just as there is only room for one Vivien Leigh. Or Tobey Maguire.”
“And I could write a story about—I dunno—bugs? And name one of the bugs Rhett Butler?”
“Correct. But whyever would you?”
“I’m not having the same name as some stupid human comic-book character,” Lent grumped. “So quit calling me the Violent Fairy.”
“But Lent! You gave yourself that name over sixty years ago! It was perfect because of your real name, and your eyes.”
“That’s true,” the Violent Fairy admitted. “It was perfect.”
“Barf, barf, barf,” Owen said cheerfully.
She ignored the taunt. “You had it first. He should change his.”
“No. It’s tainted; it’s ruined. I don’t want it anymore.”
“You’re insufferably stubborn,” she snapped. “As always.”
“So?”
“You named yourself the Violent Fairy?” Owen asked, then let loose with a cheery, soul-lightening laugh.
“We give ourselves our second name,” Lent replied testily.
“Lent! That is the private business of the fairy kingdom and you know it well.”
He shrugged and she ground her teeth. She had managed to forget, over the years, just how annoying the man could be. “Besides, it’s ridiculous to change your name just because someone else in the world has it.”
Lent sighed. “Tell the stupid humans your name, little sister.”
“Little sister?” Micah, Owen, and Ireland gasped together.
“Oh. You didn’t tell them? Odd. You seemed to have blurted out everything else. I am a princess of the fairy realm, third in line to the throne after my dear younger brothers.” She paused, and hoped she had a pleasant expression on her face, though she felt as though she were chomping on limes. “Lent is my oldest brother.”
Now the group was staring at her brother. “Prince Lent?” Owen finally said, sounding as if he were laughing and choking at the same time.
Her brother shrugged sullenly. “You didn’t tell them your name, little sister.”
“Oh. Well.” She glanced at the floor, then at the others. “It’s, ah, Scarlett.” She had been born the year the book had been published and, for the scribblings of a human, it was not a bad tale of love, loss, and revenge.
“Just a minute,” Ezra said, and cleared his throat. “You’re telling us that Lent is a prince, you’re a princess here to—what was it?—count us? A fairy princess who’s a Margaret Mitchell fan and accountant wannabe?”
“Yes, yes, and yes.”
“But he’s your older brother. . . . Why isn’t he the king?”
“Because he abdicated to, apparently, come here.”
“Weird,” was Ireland’s comment, and Scarlett couldn’t have agreed more.
Chapter
10
Judith prowled the driveway—well, as much as a small SUV could prowl. In reality, she drove up and down, then across eig
ht or nine feet, then up and down again. Across. Down. Over. Across. Down. Argh.
After what seemed a very very very long time, her most special friend
(after Ireland but you don’t think about Ireland the way the way the way you think about him isn’t that right?)
came bopping down the sidewalk to talk to her.
Finally.
“Hiya, Judith,” he called cheerfully, and she perked up right away because he was always happy, always cheerful, always cute and funny, and
(oh stop it haven’t you bought yourself enough trouble for one lifetime you stupid silly bitch?)
she was glad to see him. It was true. She was. She always was.
“About time,” she grumped, because he must never, ever know how she felt. The last time she told someone how she felt, she’d ended up in a goddamned Ford SUV hybrid.
“Sorry, sweetie, I came down as soon as I woke up.” He yawned and stretched, arching up on his toes like a ballet dancer, and she watched the biceps and thigh muscles bulge, and tried not to pant. Which she managed to cover by stalling, then furiously starting herself again.
“Ack, ack!” she coughed, revving her engine. She made herself simmer down. “Come quicker next time. I’ve been waiting forever.”
He yawned again. “Why didn’t you beep for me?”
She had no answer for that—at least, none she was willing to share. Judith knew Morse code and had taught it to her fr—, her bu—, her ch—, her lackeys—yes, that’s what they were, and she had taught it to them. So when she needed to talk to a specific denizen of Hell House, she just had to beep their name in code over, and over, and over.
Ireland, I need an oil change.
Ezra, Beyoncé is getting married again.
Owen, I’m bored; come cheer me up.
Only the Violent Fairy dared ignore her summons.
If she were in one of those silly romantic stories, her character would think something sappy like, I couldn’t have said when my feelings had changed from mere friendship into something deeper . . . more meaningful . . . more crappy and insipid and oh, this is such bullshit! Because she knew exactly when her feelings had changed.
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