Charming Blue

by Kristine Grayson

  She hung up and stared at her house. She hated all those countless Hollywood movies where the heroine (or the dumb half-naked chick in the nightgown) went into the place where the Big Evil was, completely undefended. At least Jodi wasn’t wearing high heels and a miniskirt.

  But she couldn’t quite convince herself to go back inside. She didn’t see herself as a dumb half-naked chick. Or the heroine, for that matter.

  “You rang?”

  Jodi eeped, tossed her phone into the air in surprise, and nearly fell backward into the pool. She didn’t see where the voice came from, until the phone stopped its descent about two feet above her head.

  She looked up, saw motion, and realized that she was looking at gossamer wings in the pale light, wings fluttering really, really, really hard to deal with the weight of the phone.

  “Tank,” Jodi said. “Thank God.”

  “I don’t believe in God,” Tank said. “I believe in gods, and mostly I avoid them. They have a different kind of magic, it annoys me, and they listen to those god-awful Fates all the time, which really pisses me off.”

  Jodi wasn’t going to talk politics with Tank. Jodi especially was not going to talk politics mixed with religion with Tank. Jodi didn’t know what Tank believed in, and she didn’t want to know.

  Jodi held out her hand. “I’ll take the phone. It looks like it’s weighing you down.”

  Tank lowered herself slowly, her wings still working overtime. As she got closer to Jodi, Jodi realized that Tank’s face was red with effort.

  “I may have killed it,” Tank said. “It made a zapping noise.”

  Jodi tried not to sigh. That would be the third phone in three days. But she didn’t have the luxury of being annoyed. She was still scared, and her heart was beating so hard that it made Tank’s wings look like they weren’t beating at all.

  She took the phone away from Tank and set it on a glass poolside table. Then she took a deep breath, trying to calm herself.

  “Something was in my house,” she said.

  Tank lowered until she landed on the table. Then she gave the phone the evil eye, as if it had disabled her. She stomped to the edge of the table and peered up at Jodi.

  “What kinda something?” she asked.

  “I thought it was Bluebeard,” Jodi said.

  “He doesn’t do that,” Tank said so fast that Jodi got annoyed.

  “I didn’t say that it was Bluebeard, I said I thought it was Bluebeard.”

  “And that’s why you’re out here wearing that?” Tank raised an eyebrow. As if she had the right to comment. Tank was wearing a black dress made of some kind of gauze. Its hem was uneven, like a disco dress from the 1970s modified for a funeral garment.

  “I wasn’t going to stay inside with… whatever it was,” Jodi said. She glanced at her bedroom and didn’t like the feeling of fear that rose inside her. In fact, she hated that. No one should be afraid of her own house.

  “You think it was the stalker guy?”

  “I don’t know what it was,” Jodi said, realizing she was raising her voice. “And I don’t even know if it’s still in there.”

  Tank frowned at her, then glanced at the house. Clearly Tank wasn’t ready to go in either.

  Jodi made herself take another deep breath. “Okay, look, I don’t think it was the stalker guy, but I don’t know. I do know that it looked just like Bluebeard, and you’d think if those women saw him, they wouldn’t have called him average. They would have said—”

  “Tall, dark, and handsome?”

  Jodi looked down at Tank, who was still staring at the house. Had she even realized she had spoken out loud? Probably. Jodi had the sense that Tank never did anything involuntarily.

  “No. But yes. But no. You never think of your stalker as handsome,” Jodi said. “But taller, and those blue eyes, they would’ve noticed those. I did.”

  Tank nodded. “So it looked like Blue. Did he say anything?”

  “No,” Jodi said. “He just smiled at me.”

  “Smiled,” Tank said. “So he didn’t threaten you.”

  “He was in my bedroom uninvited, after I talked to him about a stalker who did the same thing. Wouldn’t you call that threatening?” Her voice was going up again.

  “No,” Tank said. “I wouldn’t.”

  She floated upward as if a draft caught her. Then she headed to the sliding glass doors and peered upward. “You warded the house.”

  “Yes,” Jodi said. “And I just called the rehab center. They said that he hasn’t left. He’s been on their security feed the whole time. And he’s not asleep either.”

  “You warded the house against Blue?” Tank asked, as if she hadn’t heard Jodi at all.

  “Yes,” Jodi said, using her how-dumb-are-you tone. “He killed fifteen women.”

  “Allegedly,” Tank said, sounding distracted.

  “He says so,” Jodi said. “That’s not so alleged. I know people who’ve seen the heads.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Tank said.

  “You saw the heads or you know people who have?” Jodi asked.

  “Yes,” Tank said, flying even farther upward. God, she was annoying. How did anyone have a conversation with her? “These wards look perfect. In fact, they look better than perfect. They should’ve worked.”

  “Unless he’s figured out some other kind of magic,” Jodi said.

  Tank floated down and stopped right in front of Jodi’s face. Jodi backed up, felt her heel hang over the edge of the pool, and damn near fell in a second time.

  She ducked and stepped onto the patio. “Stop that. It’s rude.”

  “You warded against Blue and his magic, right?” Tank asked, again as if Jodi hadn’t spoken.

  Jodi moved away from the pool edge. “Yes.”

  “Not against Charmings or against anyone else, right?” Tank asked.

  “If I did that, I wouldn’t be able to have clients in here,” Jodi said. “Sometimes I do work from home, you know.”

  Tank flew back to the doors. “Can you let me in?”

  “Why?” Jodi asked.

  “Because I want to attack the bad guy in your defense,” Tank said.

  Jodi looked at her. Tank wasn’t serious, was she?

  “Oh, by the Powers,” Tank said. “If the bad guy was still in there, he would have come out to the pool and drowned you with his bare hands, which I might just do myself. You asked for my help. Now take it.”

  “Technically, I didn’t ask you for your help,” Jodi said. “I asked Selda to contact you.”

  “So you could have my help,” Tank said, floating in front of the door.

  “Did you ever think it might be because you hired me to look into something for you?”

  “You wouldn’t call about work in the middle of the night,” Tank said. “You’ve lived around mortals too long to do that.”

  Damn, that little fairy was pissing her off. Jodi stomped across the patio and pulled the slider open. But she wasn’t going to go in first.

  Tank threw in a handful of fairy dust. It flew brightly across the air, like the edges of a Fourth of July sparkler, and then it wrapped itself around an image.

  If Jodi hadn’t been watching the fairy dust, she would have retreated all over again.

  The dust formed around the image of Bluebeard as he had appeared at the edge of her bed, smiling at her. Only it didn’t look real. It looked like a faded snapshot.

  Tank had used magic to reveal someone else’s magic.

  “Tell me what’s wrong with that,” Tank said from just inside the door.

  “It’s in my bedroom,” Jodi snapped.

  “Besides that,” Tank said. “Look at him.”

  So Jodi did. She wasn’t facing him any longer. She couldn’t see his eyes. Instead, she saw his entire form.

  And he was wearing some kind of costume. It was blue, with big sleeves belled above the elbow—Tudor period, if she missed her guess—and tights.

  No self-respecting heterosexual man in the
Greater World of the twenty-first century wore tights when he snuck into a woman’s bedroom.

  “What the hell is that?” Jodi asked.

  “I don’t know,” Tank said as she flew deeper into the room. “But I mean to find out.”

  Chapter 13

  Jodi followed Tank inside the darkened bedroom. The fairy dust–illuminated image didn’t give off a lot of light, not like that amber light Jodi had seen before. And this Bluebeard didn’t move. He really did look like a fading, three-dimensional Polaroid.

  She walked around the image, her heart pounding. As she did, she realized that fairy dust smelled faintly like baby powder. She didn’t mention it to Tank, because that would make Tank defensive. But the thought was just enough to calm Jodi down.

  In fact, it almost made her smile.

  At least it took her mind off her pounding heart.

  The image was the right height, but in addition to the weird clothes, it was about twenty pounds heavier than the Bluebeard she had met. Not fat. Muscular. Broad shoulders, narrow hips, great legs, if those tights were any indication. And the face was more filled out, rounder and—dare she think it?—younger, or at least not as beat up by time and drink and general unhappy living.

  This Bluebeard looked almost cheerful. Then she decided to drop the “almost.” He did look cheerful.

  “This can’t be the stalker,” Jodi said, more to herself than to Tank.

  “It’s not,” Tank said. “Jeez, don’t you recognize Blue?”

  Jodi gave her a withering look but doubted Tank could see it. Tank was flying in front of the image, just six inches from its face. Just like she had done to Jodi near the pool. Only the image wasn’t backing away from her.

  “It’s not quite your friend Bluebeard, though,” Jodi said. “The clothes are off, his face is too round, and he’s too young.”

  “No,” Tank said. “This is Blue. This is the Blue I met hundreds of years ago.”

  Jodi peered around him at Tank. Tank was hovering and staring at him. Was she looking besotted? Really?

  “You do have a thing for him,” Jodi said.

  “I keep telling you,” Tank said. “I like him. I’ve always liked him.”

  “Boyfriend-girlfriend liking?” Jodi asked. “Or friend-friend?”

  Tank flew straight up, like a missile, and then she came down in front of Jodi. Tank’s eyes flashed.

  “You are unrelenting,” Tank said. “And it is not possible for me and Blue to have a relationship. Think about it.”

  Jodi didn’t want to imagine that relationship. “Nothing’s impossible with magic.”

  Tank threw her arms into the air. “Friend-friend!” she shouted. “Is that good enough for you? Or do I look that much like Tinker Bell to you?”

  Tinker Bell’s obsession with Peter Pan had become so extreme that some mortal actually wrote a book about it—getting it wrong, of course. Mortals always got the details wrong.

  Then Tank put her hands on her hips, still hovering in front of Jodi.

  “Why do you care so much anyway?” Tank asked. “You think the guy is a serial killer.”

  Jodi frowned. She had never thought Peter Pan was a serial killer. She had thought him a lot of things, but never anything so bad as all that.

  “I do not,” Jodi said.

  “You do!” Tank said. “You just said so outside.”

  “About Bluebeard,” Jodi said.

  “Yes, about Bluebeard,” Tank said. “Who did you think I was talking about?”

  “Tinker Bell,” Jodi said. “And Peter Pan.”

  “Tinker Bell is a lot of things, but she would never kill anyone voluntarily,” Tank said. “She leaves that kind of crap to me.”

  “You’ve killed someone?” Jodi asked.

  Tank flew around the image and hovered over Jodi’s right shoulder. “You know, this partnership is not going to work if you keep accusing me of weird things.”

  Jodi opened her mouth and then closed it. The conversation had already taken so many tangents that she wasn’t sure she could properly follow it.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I’m still a little shaken up.”

  “Clearly,” Tank said angrily.

  Jodi took a deep breath and wished Tank would too. Then Jodi nodded at the image—which still hadn’t moved.

  “So, what do you think this is?” Jodi asked. She wanted to change the subject quickly or, to be more accurate, bring the subject back to where it belonged. “The stalker?”

  “That Fairy Tale Stalker?” Tank asked. “I told you. That’s not Blue.”

  It was Jodi’s turn to sigh in irritation. “I know that. I just—I was hoping I didn’t screw up my wards. I thought I protected myself against him.”

  “The Fairy Tale Stalker?” Tank asked. Was she being deliberately obtuse?

  “Bluebeard.”

  “You did,” Tank said. “This isn’t him.”

  “It looks like him,” Jodi said. “And if it isn’t him, then what is it?”

  Tank landed on her shoulder, startling her. Tank’s wings brushed against her ear as they stopped fluttering.

  Jodi wanted to brush her off. But she didn’t dare.

  “It’s what I’ve always suspected,” Tank said softly, so softly that if someone else had been in the room, they wouldn’t have been able to hear her. “It’s a curse.”

  Jodi leaned forward. A curse. Of course. The amber light should have been a tip-off. Curses brought their own illumination. And unlike evil spells, curses lasted forever. Or, at least as long as the cursed thing (or person) still existed.

  Jodi poked at the fairy dust image with her forefinger, and the image crumbled, falling to the floor.

  “Great,” Tank said. “Thanks for that. I was studying that.”

  “Do it again,” Jodi said. “You can bring the image back.”

  “Do it again,” Tank said in a mocking tone. “Like I answer your every command. Just do it again. Like it’s easy. Do it again…”

  But she did. She lifted a handful of fairy dust into the air. It fell around them, illuminating not just the original image, but one a few feet away. This was the image of Bluebeard leaving. Still smiling. Looking a little seductive.

  “Keep going,” Jodi said.

  “You keep going,” Tank said, and at first Jodi thought it was another verbal put-down. Instead, it was a command. Tank clearly didn’t want to fly. Maybe she couldn’t. She had put out a great deal of effort this evening.

  Jodi complied, taking a few more steps toward the door. Tank tossed more fairy dust and got two more images of Bluebeard walking away. Theoretically.

  “Again,” Tank said.

  Jodi walked around the images into the hallway. Tank tossed more fairy dust. This time it caught the edge of the previous image, but nothing else.

  “Should I keep going?” Jodi asked.

  “One more,” Tank said.

  Jodi took a few more steps. Tank tossed one more handful of fairy dust, but it, too, failed to catch anything. It just fell to the floor like sparks from a Fourth of July sparkler.

  “So he did vanish,” Jodi said, feeling a little ridiculous. The entire time she had stood on the patio, shivering and lying to herself that it was because of the cold, she had been hiding from no one.

  “Appeared and disappeared,” Tank said thoughtfully. “You didn’t see him arrive, did you?”

  “I was asleep.”

  “And what did he say to wake you up?” Tank asked.

  “He didn’t say anything. It was the amber light.”

  “You didn’t tell me about the amber light,” Tank said.

  “I know,” Jodi said. “I forgot until we were inside, and then you were talking about the image, and I couldn’t get a word in edgewise—”

  “Don’t make this my fault,” Tank said.

  “I’m not,” Jodi said. “So you think it’s a curse.”

  “An elaborate one,” Tank said. “And you activated it.”

  “I did?” J
odi said. “How could I have activated it?”

  “Something happened between you and Blue, something that started the whole damn process up again.” Tank stood up, her little feet pressing hard on a nerve on the top of Jodi’s shoulder. “Boy, are we in trouble.”

  “You will be if you don’t move your feet,” Jodi said.

  “My feet? What’s wrong with my feet?”

  “You have sharp little pointy feet, and they dig into the wrong places,” Jodi said. “So let’s move away from nerve endings, shall we?”

  “Like that’s possible,” Tank said. “Where to, Your Highness?”

  Jodi extended her hand palm side up. “Stand here.”

  “I’m sure there’s nerve endings on that big fat palm of yours.” It felt like Tank was digging her feet in harder.

  “But they’re not on the surface, because, as you pointed out, my palm is fat.”

  “Touché,” Tank said as she flew down to Jodi’s palm. She landed hard, almost like she was trying to find the nerve endings. “Sharp little pointy feet. That’s the first time I’ve heard that accusation.”

  “How often do you stand on people?” Jodi asked.

  “Not often enough it seems,” Tank said. She sounded distracted. Indeed, she had her hands on her hips with her wings folded against her back. She was staring at all of those fairy dust images. Echoes of Bluebeard in different poses, like fading statues in a holographic museum.

  “I’m still confused,” Jodi said. “The wards should have protected me against Bluebeard.”

  “They did,” Tank said, still staring at the images.

  “They did not,” Jodi said. “His curse got in here.”

  “No,” Tank said. “The curse has nothing to do with him.”

  “Really?” Jodi said. “Because there he is in my bedroom, smiling at me.”

  “He’s not here, and no part of him is here,” Tank said.

  “His curse is here.”

  “That’s right,” Tank said. “The curse is here. It’s not Blue’s spell, it’s not a spell Blue created. Blue had nothing to do with the curse. Someone else created the curse and placed it on Blue.”

  “I’m not sure I entirely understand the difference,” Jodi said.