Holiday Magic

by Tl Reeve

  “Well, I’ve never knowingly met a dragon, but I’m not going to say they don’t exist. I exist. Davis is Fae. My boss, Thomas Gaius, is a vampire. Ian is half shapeshifter. So to think that dragons aren’t real when I’ve seen all these other things, it just seems a bit close-minded.”

  “Ryan Davis is a fairy?”

  “Can I please be there when you ask him that?” Nate asked when he was done laughing. “He’s a Fae, Blondie. They’re not even remotely fairies. Not the tiny kind with wings. How have you not heard of Fae? Fae and dragons were the heart and soul of every horrible story my grandmother would tell me to keep me in line as a child.”

  “They steal power,” Aubrey whispered, remember some of the stories she’d heard.

  “That’s right. Three magical beings with very different power sources. Each think their own kind of magic is superior.” He shrugged.

  “And they’re real?”

  “Maybe. Davis is certainly real. And he’s very much Fae. You think he means to be so overtly sexual all the time?” Nate looked like he was considering his own question. “I mean, maybe he hams it up a bit, but Fae are seducers by nature. Their power draws people in.”

  “Hmpft, not me,” she muttered.

  “No, the Fae don’t attract dragons. The two warrior races have never been compelled to fight together.” When she raised an eyebrow at him, he added, “In myth, at least.”

  “You can’t honestly think I’m a dragon.” She pushed up onto her knees, kneeling on the bed, holding out her arms as she said, “Look at me. I’m human.”

  Nate reached out and ran one finger down her arm. They both watched her skin flush under the tingle of his touch, and when he changed direction, dragging his thumb up her arm, the pigment of her flesh melted away. Scales beneath shimmered.

  “You might not be a dragon, Aubrey. But you’re not human.”

  “It’s like I’m some reptilian half-breed,” she whispered, watching the shine fade as her skin went opaque. She shuddered when he repeated the process of stroking her arm, bringing the scales back to life.

  “You have your own power. You must. And I think it’s what you used to heal me.”

  “No.” She shook her head and pulled away from him.

  “This is good news, Blondie. Stealing power, even just borrowing it to save someone’s life, is a big no-no. I think that’s why Dalton wanted me to lie to Gaius. He was scared that Gaius would bring you to justice for that crime. Or, he feared that you are what they’re saying you are. A healer. And that would have been torture for you.

  “You’d have spent the rest of your days under surveillance of some kind. People kill to get their hands on a healer. Dalton feared you’d either be arrested for stealing my power, or watched, potentially studied, for being a healer. Having your own power means you aren’t either. Healers have to channel energy from the world around them.”

  Aubrey was rubbing her arm as Nate talked, desperate to make the scales fade away. Instead they seemed to glow brighter. Furiously she rubbed the skin. “No.”

  “Hey, stop.” He grabbed her hands and held them in front of her. “Don’t get worked up again. Not so soon. Not until we know what triggered the last episode. I don’t want you to pass out again on me, okay?”

  She nodded.

  “Will you let me take you to see Finch again? Let me take you to our doctors?”

  “We still haven’t seen the last report, Nate. What makes you think he’ll tell me anything? He’ll probably just go to Walt. I want to know what’s going on. And I want to know before Walt does. This is my body.”

  “Okay, then I have another idea. I have a friend with extensive medical knowledge. He’s not really a doctor, not like Finch. But he knows about these things, about our kind of people. He is our kind of people, technically.”

  “What’s that mean?” She gave a little tug and he let go of her hands.

  “He’s a witch, but he was born without power.”

  “That’s. . .sad.”

  Nate nodded in agreement and went on. “He’s a medical examiner, so I don’t think his place of work would be the most fun for this. Let me call him and see if we can go to his house, okay? He won’t tell Dalton. He won’t tell anyone. He’s a good guy.”

  Aubrey reluctantly agreed. When Nate left the room to make the call, she leaned back in bed and stared at the ceiling. What is happening to me?

  9

  Prufrock’s wasn’t exactly what Nate had in mind when he called Quincy. But the coffeehouse bookstore was where Quincy had hunkered down for the day with his girlfriend. And as Nate and Aubrey wound their way through the used book section to the private reading room at the back, he remembered that Aubrey likely knew Quincy’s girlfriend.

  “Summer?” Aubrey’s voice held an ounce of the happiness that had been lacking since she’d woken up that morning.

  “Holy shit, Aubrey? When did you get into town?” Summer, a vivacious redhead with the occasional volume control problem sprung out of her seat and nearly bowled over the top of Aubrey.

  “Not too long ago. I was supposed to start work today, but I called in sick.” Aubrey hadn’t liked that idea, but Nate had insisted.

  Summer looked over to Nate, smirked, and then wiggled her eyebrows at Aubrey. “Yeah? Stay up too late last night?”

  “Summer.” Aubrey swatted at her friend’s arm, but that only made the redhead laugh harder.

  “Hi, Nate,” Summer said with a flirty wink.

  “Summer, leave Detective Evans alone, would you?” Quincy said from behind her.

  “Sorry, Detective Evans.” She drew out his title and name as if he were suddenly very important.

  “Summer,” Quincy growled. The redhead’s grin grew, but she fell back, slinking over to her chair and beckoning Aubrey to sit down beside her.

  “Have you been to Festival yet?” Summer asked.

  “You know I don’t go. It’s not for me,” Aubrey replied.

  “Doesn’t mean you couldn’t go. If you had a date.” Summer looked over to Nate and smiled.

  “Honestly,” Quincy grumbled before looking up toward the ceiling as if that action would grant him patience. “She heard from Jaina that you had found your match,” Quincy said to Nate.

  “Fabulous. Glad to know Jaina is spreading that rumor,” Nate rolled his eyes and sat next to Quincy.

  “She just hadn’t said who, but I think I know,” Summer said with a big grin.

  “It’s ten in the morning, you haven’t been drinking, have you?” Aubrey asked.

  Quincy choked back a laugh and Summer raised an eyebrow. “No. But it’s Festival, Aubrey. ’Tis the season for love and matchmaking.”

  Aubrey looked to Nate, and with a straight face said, “Summer once tried to match me up with a trucker from Philly who had a tattoo of a rubber ducky on his bicep.”

  Nate could do better than that. He kept his face as serious as Aubrey’s and said, “Last year, Summer tried to match me up with my own sister.”

  “That was a big misunderstanding,” Summer said defensively.

  “Don’t ever quit your day job, Summer,” he replied.

  “And stop moonlighting as a matchmaker. You suck at it,” Aubrey added.

  Summer looked ready to say something, but Quincy piped up. “So, I hear you have a case for me.”

  “Kind of,” Nate said. He hadn’t really explained on the phone. Now, he was regretting that. He looked around to make sure there wasn’t anyone hovering nearby, and then recounted the whole story, from night one of Festival to this morning, leaving out key pieces, like the fact he’d fingered his boss’s niece.

  “Wait, you’re just sitting there unpacking, and then you, like, overheated?” Summer asked.

  Aubrey looked at Nate and he sighed. She looked fucking smug. Like she’d seen this question coming and thought he was an idiot for attempting to avoid it.

  “Not exactly,” Aubrey replied.

  “But that’s basically what Nate just told us,
” Quincy said with a frown.

  “He left out a few things.”

  “Like?” Quincy asked, looking to Nate.

  “You want me to tell them about that?” Nate asked Aubrey. She shrugged as if to say, this was your idea. “Okay, I think I made her mad. I think she overheated because she was angry. Does that sound right, Aubrey?”

  “Hmm.” She tilted her head to the side in the most preposterous display of thinking. “Angry. Yeah, I guess I was a little angry.”

  “Why?” Summer asked. “Did Captain America here say something less than perfect?”

  Both Aubrey and Nate stared at her.

  “What?” Summer looked between them like she saw no problem with the nickname.

  Aubrey groaned and then said, “Yes, I was mad, but it’s not really important why. I don’t think that’s what triggered it. Nate, you said my eyes had gone dark before that. So why would the fact that I was angry make me overheat?”

  “A rush of emotion could trigger a response like that. Were you feeling particularly emotional? Before getting angry, I mean,” Quincy asked.

  “Um, I suppose, yes.” Aubrey blushed.

  This girl blushes at anything. I’ve never seen anything like it.

  Summer didn’t miss the blush either, and a smile spread across her face. “Girl, what is that look about?”

  “Nothing. It’s been an emotional few days. So yes, I was emotional.”

  “No, it would need to be a spike of emotions. Something that changes the chemical balance in your brain so your body would tick on, if you know what I mean. Something that would cause the switch to flip,” Quincy said as he tapped a pen on the arm of his chair.

  Her cheeks were even redder. She almost looked feverish again, except the flush was isolated to her face and chest. Her arms were still milky white.

  “Quincy, assuming that had happened, what switch did it flip, and what does it mean?” Nate said quickly. All he needed was Summer adding onto Jaina’s story that he’d found his perfect woman.

  “Scales?” Quincy asked. Nate nodded. “Smoke coming from her nose?” Nate nodded again. “Quick temper?”

  “Not always,” Aubrey said quickly.

  “She’s pretty even-keeled normally.” Summer added, coming to her friend’s defense.

  “This time it came on quickly, yes,” Nate said with an apologetic look to Aubrey.

  “I can’t say definitively just based on story time in Prufrock’s, but yeah, I’d go with dragon.” Quincy dropped his pen onto the table in front of him as if he was dropping a gavel. Decision made. “You should see if you can find out about your parents, your biological parents. That’s the only way I really know to confirm. There aren’t blood tests or any medical indicators that I’m aware of. Isolation of advanced genetic deviations hasn’t been done yet.”

  Nate nodded in agreement. He knew there had been discussions of isolating the genes that separated humans from the more evolved, but so far, such suggestions had been met with extreme resistance. The medical benefits didn’t seem to outweigh the significant risks to the community at large.

  “I don’t even know where to begin on tracking down my biological parents. They gave me up at birth, and. . .” Aubrey trailed off. When Nate looked at her, he saw tears in her eyes.

  “Blondie,” he whispered, taking her hand. She met his gaze and attempted a small smile.

  “Uh, you’re dating a super bad-ass detective. Clearly, he’ll help you find your parents,” Summer said.

  Aubrey pulled her hand back from Nate’s grasp and said, “We’re not dating.”

  “Right,” Summer nodded, adding a conspiratorial wink.

  “We’re not. Did you not hear the man’s story? He’s been assigned to essentially babysit me until Walt figures out what to do. He’s only helping me because he has to.”

  Nate winced at the annoyance in Aubrey’s voice.

  “Yeah, I heard that part, and then I watched you turn into a damn lobster when you said that he left out the good bits of the story.”

  “What I don’t get is the buzzing sensation you mentioned,” Quincy said suddenly. Both women looked at him like he was nuts. Nate was thankful for the interruption.

  “What about it?” he asked.

  “Okay, so let’s go with she’s a dragon,” Quincy began.

  “Oh my God, can we not?” Aubrey mumbled.

  “And let’s say that means she has her own power, and that’s how she healed you.”

  “Okay, we’re with you,” Nate said.

  “Then why this weird electric thing? It’s not happening with anyone else, right?” Quincy looked to Aubrey for confirmation.

  “No,” she said.

  “And it’s never happened before?” Quincy asked.

  “No,” she said again.

  “Then what’s the deal with that? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Love, Gavin,” Summer said. She was the only one who ever called him by his first name. Every time was jarring to Nate. Quincy did not look like a Gavin.

  “Oh, no,” Aubrey groaned, sinking back into her chair.

  “I’m serious. It’s the Festival mark of true love. Sparks fly.” Summer had that giddy look about her again.

  “Between witches, Summer. The mark of love between two witches,” Quincy replied.

  “No. No, we just say between witches, because Fae and Dragons are rare. But why could it not be between any magical creature?”

  Summer had that look on her face his sister Lauren used to get when watching romantic comedies. She’d look over to him whenever the guy in the movie did something stupid and romantic, and she’d half-smile as if to say, “See? This is how guys should be.” And then in the end, when the two main characters got together, she’d be smiling so wide that Nate thought she’d break her face. In between, she’d have this look Summer had on her face, the look of hope.

  “I just can’t. This is nuts,” Aubrey grumbled. She was pretty much nailing the look Nate was pretty sure he’d shot his sister during those moments in their parents’ den. It was a look of “please stop and don’t make me do this.”

  “Magical Namaste, baby. The power in me recognizes and respects the power in you,” Summer said with a little bounce in her chair.

  “We can’t be friends anymore,” Aubrey mumbled. Nate wanted to kiss her again for that statement alone. He found he liked sassy Aubrey too. In fact, other than passed out Aubrey, he wasn’t sure there was a version of this woman he didn’t like.

  He looked to Quincy, pondering the question the good medical examiner had raised. What was going on with the buzzing? He caught Summer looking at him expectantly, like he was about to fuck something up. When he held her gaze, she raised one eyebrow.

  Right. Play the hero.

  “I don’t know about the tingling thing, but Summer is right. I can look for Aubrey’s parents.”

  Aubrey straightened up in her chair. “Really?”

  “Yeah, why not?” Nate tried to act like it was no big deal. This was part of his job, to find people, to solve mysteries. But she was looking at him like he’d just saved a drowning puppy. Fuck, I better come through on this.

  Nate was back at work for the first time in what felt like weeks. In reality, it had been two days since he and Aubrey had met with Quincy and Summer at Prufrock’s. Having him loiter around her work all day seemed to make Aubrey really uncomfortable, and so Nate had agreed he’d walk her to her office, check the area, and then head into work.

  School wasn’t in session yet, which meant campus was pretty dead. Plus, he’d installed additional security measures, including a few non-standard ones like a ward over her office door to protect against evil, and a protection spell or two.

  “Hobbs, what have we got on Mr. B & E?” Nate asked, referring to the guy who had broken into Aubrey’s apartment.

  “Does Dalton know you’re here? Where’s Aubrey?” Hobbs asked as she looked around the room.

  “She’s at work. We’ve worked o
ut an arrangement, and Dalton will find out when he gets in.” He looked at Dalton’s office. Usually Dalton came in early and stayed a little late. It was working out in Nate’s favor that Dalton hadn’t shown up yet, but it was also concerning.

  “You, Evans, are dancing with fire, my man,” Davis said as he joined them at their cluster of desks, a cup of coffee in one hand and a donut in the other.

  Nate shot Davis a look and then turned his attention back to Hobbs. She gave Dalton’s office one more glance and then picked up a file in front of her and handed it to Nate. “We held him until yesterday. We might not be operating under the normal holding procedures, but we need a good reason to keep someone locked up for a prolonged period of time. Plus, releasing him led us directly to the head stooge of Idiotsville.”

  Nate was skimming the file contents as Hobbs talked and nodded when he saw said head stooge’s name. Tanner Ulster. “Ulster,” he muttered.

  “That’s the one. And he’s currently sitting in our holding cell.” Hobbs was smiling at him when Nate looked up in surprise. “You want a few minutes with him?”

  “You know I do.”

  Hobbs nodded and stood up from her desk chair. “Then let’s do this before Dalton gets in.”

  “Any idea where he is?” Nate asked.

  “Conducting super secret off-site meetings,” Davis replied from where he leaned against the edge of his desk finishing his breakfast.

  Nate frowned at the Fae, but followed Hobbs instead of asking Davis to elaborate. He finished reading the file Hobbs had handed him on the way through the security doors to the holding cell.

  Tanner Ulster was a wiry, scraggly looking man in his late thirties. He had a record of petty thefts, but wasn’t a hard criminal from what Nate saw in the file. Hobbs made brief introductions and then leaned against the wall waiting for Nate to take over.

  “I think we’ve met before,” Nate said with a faint smile as he pulled up a chair in front of the cell.

  “I don’t think we have,” Tanner replied without looking at Nate.

  “Sure we have. A few nights back. It was dark; I’ll give you that. Unless you think that bump on your head came from a simple slip and fall.” He pointed to the bruised skin on Tanner’s forehead.