A Risky Proposition

by Dawn Addonizio

  “Unaligned soul?” I asked, shuddering at the reminder of how close I’d come to becoming Balthus’ eternal sex slave.

  “A living soul that’s lost its ties to a mortal body—kind of like a lost soul, I guess you’d say. There are strict guidelines for the soul trade. A soul can only be legally taken if a mortal has willingly given it up. It’s possible to take an unwilling soul, of course, but only a dark mage would attempt such a thing. Possession of an unaligned soul is a serious crime.”

  “Sydney wouldn’t willingly give up her soul!” Sunny cried. “And you just said that if it’s not willingly given, no death djinn can legally take it. They can’t hold her hostage forever to a wish she doesn’t even want, can they? Can’t we talk to the king of the tribe, or whoever, and get the contract cancelled?”

  Lorien grunted, earning frowns from both of us. “You want to appeal to the king of the death djinns in order to overturn a contract for which he himself created the terms? His people have been profiting from the soul trade for millennia. You can bet your sweet wand that he’s not going to do anything to jeopardize the legal status of their standard contract.”

  My shoulders drooped at her words. I had begun to believe that we were on to something.

  “Can’t you at least put a spell on her to keep her from saying the word ‘wish’?” asked Sunny.

  I brightened. “That’s a great idea! Why didn’t I think of that?” I beamed at her.

  “It would violate the terms of the contract,” Lorien said with a sigh, dashing my hopes yet again. “And before you start racking your brains for more clever little loopholes, she can’t wish for anything that will interfere with the contract, either.”

  I was suddenly ashamed that I hadn’t spent the last week thinking up witty third wishes that would outsmart the death djinns and leave my soul, and preferably also my new penthouse, intact and in my possession.

  “Well, how are we going to get Sydney’s contract cancelled, then?” Sunny demanded in frustration.

  “I’m still working on it. I’ve been researching death djinns and their involvement in the soul trade. I haven’t found anything that I think will help us to void the contract yet, but I’ll figure something out. Just because it’s never been done, doesn’t mean it’s impossible!” Lorien enthused.

  But her wings seemed to lack some of their zip as she headed toward my glass for another refill, hiccup-bubbles trailing behind her.

  Sunny and I exchanged glances. She took a deep breath and gave me a smile that I knew was intended to bolster my confidence.

  Jasper leant his support by choosing that moment to leap into my lap. I grunted at the sudden impact of his weight and helped him to curl into a position that was comfortable for both of us.

  “So, what’s with the hiccupping bubbles, anyway?” Sunny asked Lorien. I was grateful for the change of subject, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the danger I was in.

  “It only happens when I drink champagne,” Lorien explained, looking embarrassed.

  “What about absinthe? They call it the ‘Green Fairy’—any connection to real faeries?” Sunny asked.

  “Actually, humans gave it that nickname because it allowed them to suspend their disbelief long enough to get a peek into the faerie realm,” Lorien answered. “But even when they do glimpse one of us, most humans just chalk it up to hallucinating when they come down from the stuff.”

  “Really?” Sunny queried, her gaze sharpening on Lorien with genuine interest. “That’s fascinating! I smoked some laced pot once in college and I could have sworn I saw a leprechaun eating a sandwich under the oak tree in our back yard…”

  I sat quietly sipping the golden liquid remaining in my glass and absently stroking Jasper’s silky fur, as Sunny quizzed Lorien on the effectiveness of various mind-altering substances at heightening human sensitivity to the faerie realm. It was a discussion that would have normally intrigued me, but I was beginning to feel distinctly discouraged about the likelihood of figuring out how to hold onto my soul.

  I couldn’t rely on Lorien alone to get me out of this mess, I realized. I needed to have my own plan. The problem was, I knew nothing about death djinns and somehow I didn’t think a few hours at the library or surfing the web was going to help.

  The one thing I did know was that if I ever saw Balthus again I was going to keep my mouth shut and let my feet do the talking—right from my shoe to his crotch. Maybe if I kicked him hard enough he’d wish he never met me and it would solve both our problems.

  Chapter 6 – Infatuations

  “Mmm…peppermint mocha,” I sighed, inhaling the minty, chocolaty, caffeine-packed wonder. I wasn’t usually one to jump on the corporate bandwagon, but Starbucks made a damn good coffee drink.

  Sunny grinned at me from the passenger seat of my station wagon. She was on her third dose of the black jet fuel she drank, the first two cups at my penthouse having barely brought her out of her morning coma. Now we were both riding the high from the caffeine, and the sugar rush from cinnamon rolls drenched in gooey cream-cheese icing.

  “I’m not sure how long this visit’s going to last—Rachel sounded exhausted on the phone,” Sunny commented between sips.

  “Well, she did just pass a ten pound human being through her body. I’d be exhausted too.”

  “I’m never having kids,” Sunny stated with an adamant head shake.

  I chuckled, ignoring the twinge of sadness I felt. Jeremy and I hadn’t been sure if we were ready for kids either, but we’d been thinking about it.

  Best to put that out of my mind—along with the message from him I’d retrieved earlier that morning, quietly asking for me to come home, or at least meet with him to talk.

  I’d been returning his calls so he wouldn’t worry, but only when I knew he was at work. The cheerful “Hi! You’ve reached Sydney and Jeremy!” on the voicemail was a real kick in the ass, but it was better than the inevitable sob-fest that I knew talking to him would bring.

  Maybe it was juvenile, but as far as I was concerned, there was no excuse for what he’d done, and nothing left to say.

  I turned into the parking lot for the hospital, commencing a slow drive through one of the parking rows near the entrance.

  “Looks pretty full,” Sunny observed.

  “Yeah, but if I can find a space here we won’t have to hoof it from B.F.E. in this ninety degree heat. One more pass-through—maybe someone will be leaving.”

  “You realize no one says ‘B.F.E.’ anymore,” Sunny informed me in a dry tone. “Oh wait—there’s a guy!” She pointed to a man getting into a white pick-up truck.

  I sped up and made the U-Turn into his row, putting on my blinker to signal my intention to park there. A split second later, a surly looking woman in a dark blue sedan pulled up facing me and put her blinker on for the same spot.

  “Beeyatch,” Sunny exhaled in annoyance.

  The man in the truck began pulling out with his rear bumper angled toward me, giving surly-blue-car-woman the first shot at my space. I resigned myself to giving up gracefully, but just as she moved forward, her engine sputtered and her car shuddered to a halt.

  Sunny let out a burst of surprised laughter as I whipped my wagon into the parking space. I spared a ‘you win some, you lose some’ sort of shrug for blue-car-woman as we got out and walked toward the hospital entrance. She glared at me over the painful noise of her starter grinding.

  “Poor thing,” Sunny said with mock sympathy.

  The faint tinkle of faerie laughter rang in my ears.

  “I guess they just don’t make enough good parking spaces for everyone to have a faerie guardian,” I smirked.

  We stopped at the front desk to sign the log and get our ‘Visitor’ stickers, and then headed up in the elevator to the maternity wing. I wrinkled my nose at the antiseptic odor in the hallways as we followed the room number signs that mapped our way to Rachel.

  When we found the right number, we peeked our heads through the doorway of a s
mall, private room with a hospital bed for Mom and a corner fold-away cot for Dad. An infant’s Plexiglas crib on wheels rested in a pool of sunshine beneath the window, but the baby was in Rachel’s arms.

  “Rachel!” Sunny whispered excitedly as she moved forward and made room for her greeting card and gift on the bedside table. Rachel didn’t seem to notice any of it as she gazed down at her daughter.

  “Meet Molly,” she said with a radiant smile, tucking down a soft white blanket to give us an unobstructed view.

  Rachel’s husband, Brian, greeted us with a, “Hi guys, thanks for coming.” He looked dazed but happy.

  Lorien appeared just above my shoulder and I jerked my head in surprise. “Ooh, she’s so cute…I love babies! How could anyone resist that pinched, purple wittle face?” she cooed in a sugary falsetto.

  I did an admirable job of schooling my expression, but Sunny made a choking sound that almost ruined my efforts. Rachel and her husband beamed at Sunny, and she recovered quickly with a heartfelt, “She’s precious!”

  “She’s beautiful,” I agreed.

  We fussed over Molly for a while, Sunny and I doing our best to ignore Lorien as she flitted around making fawning noises. I could have sworn that the baby was cooing back at her. But when Sunny and Rachel started in on the family gossip, I decided to give them some time alone to catch up.

  “I think I’ll go for a walk and maybe browse around the gift shop. Can I get anybody anything?” I offered as I stood.

  They all declined and I stepped out into the hall with Lorien alighting on my shoulder to accompany me. “I don’t suppose you know where the gift shop is?” I whispered as we reached the elevator.

  “Try the second floor,” she suggested.

  I smiled at a cute male nurse in black scrubs as I stepped on and we rode down in silence. I stepped off and waited for the doors to close before muttering “Now where?”

  “Go to the end of this hallway, then take a right,” Lorien answered promptly.

  I made my way down the corridor and glanced around before speaking again. “So, you really have a thing for babies, huh?” I whispered.

  “What are you whispering for?” Lorien asked with a smirk.

  “Because people who roam hospitals talking to themselves usually end up in the psych ward,” I griped, snapping my mouth shut to smile at an elderly woman as she tottered out of the doorway in front of me wearing a paper-thin hospital gown. The nurse at her elbow gave me an odd look.

  I glared at Lorien and she smothered a laugh.

  “Hilarious,” I whispered. “I’m glad you get such a kick out of making me look like a lunatic. And do you have any idea how hard it was to pretend you weren’t darting around making goo goo eyes at Molly up there? If Rachel and Brian hadn’t been so preoccupied with the baby, they would have thought Sunny and I were both nuts.”

  “You need to relax and worry a little less about what other people are thinking, Sydney,” Lorien pronounced. “Besides, who can resist making ‘goo goo eyes’ at babies? They’re so sweet and guileless with their little newly aligned souls. They’re beings of pure love, and that’s a rare and special thing. It only lasts so long before the world teaches them differently.”

  I pondered that depressing thought as I trudged to the end of the hallway and hit a dead end. I frowned. “There’s no right at the end of this hall. It’s a patient’s room. Lorien?” I looked around for her, but she had disappeared.

  I sighed, wondering if I’d done something to drive her away.

  My eyes settled on the occupant of the room to my right. A woman lay pale and unconscious in the bed, lifeless but for the machine that was forcing breath into her body. She had long, light brown hair, much like mine, and similar features as well. I took an involuntary step forward, but froze when the light clicked off in the bathroom and a man crossed the scratched tile floor to stand at her side.

  He bent over her, his black t-shirt stretching across well-defined shoulder and back muscles. He wore faded jeans and his tanned arms were covered in tattoos of runes and Celtic symbols. His startlingly blue eyes expressed surprise as he glanced up to find me staring at him.

  “Sydney?” he asked as he straightened, his voice rough beneath his thick Irish brogue.

  “Agent Sparrow?” I croaked, shock, and something warmer, traveling across my nerve endings at the sight of him. He’d starred in a few of my more explicit fantasies over the past week, but seeing him here was the last thing I’d expected.

  “Do you know her?” he asked softly, indicating the girl in the bed.

  “No. I…I’m visiting someone else,” I sputtered.

  “What are you doing here then?” he asked, his cobalt eyes narrowing in a mixture of confusion and suspicion.

  “Lorien said…I mean my friend said…I was looking for the gift shop,” I finally managed, cringing at how awkward I sounded.

  A slow smile dawned across his face and my stomach quivered in response. “Lorien?” he queried, one dark eyebrow cocked in a knowing expression.

  “You know Lorien?” I asked uncertainly.

  “I’ve had the pleasure,” he said dryly.

  “Oh. I wasn’t sure if you could see her,” I replied, and then winced at my stupidity. Of course he could see her. He was a half-faerie policeman who arrested death djinns.

  He chuckled at my obvious discomfort. “How would you like to have a cup of coffee with me, Sydney?”

  My pulse quickened. “Sure,” I answered, suppressing the urge to grin like an idiot. It was hospital coffee, for Goddess’ sake, it wasn’t like he’d asked me out on a date.

  “Good. I have a feeling it was Lorien’s intention that you and I have a chat. Just let me finish up here.”

  He reached out to gently place his hand on the unconscious woman’s head. He whispered a few words that had the sound of ritual, and then slowly removed his hand, his strong fingers brushing her brow in a regretful caress. The dim light reflected faintly off of something silver in his palm before it disappeared into his jeans pocket.

  Then he left her side and exited the room, towering over me as he motioned me to join him. I fell into step beside him, inhaling his spicy, woodsy scent.

  “Who is she,” I asked in a subdued tone, hoping she wasn’t his wife, or sister, or some other close relation.

  Sparrow sighed. “I’m not sure. She was found unconscious by the side of the road about a week ago. She’s been in a coma ever since.”

  A tension that I hadn’t known I held left my body at the discovery that he didn’t know her.

  “What happened to her?” I asked as we stepped onto the elevator and began to descend.

  “I think it’s quite probable that someone stole her soul.” Sparrow’s anger hung in the air as we stopped on the first floor and waited for the doors to open.

  “But I thought that when a death djinn claimed a soul the person became an immortal slave,” I said in a low voice, hurrying to keep up with his long strides as we turned a corner to find the brightly lit cafeteria. “Why would she be in a coma?”

  “I didn’t say it was a death djinn, nor did I suggest someone claimed her soul legally; I said it was probably stolen. There’s a difference.” I digested that as we moved down the empty buffet line, past some dry mashed potatoes, questionable looking meatloaf, and myriad small bowls filled with green Jell-o squares. He stopped at the drink station and filled a white ceramic mug with steaming hot coffee, which he then offered to me.

  “No, thanks. I’ll just grab some iced tea.”

  Sparrow paid the tired-looking cashier and we moved through the sterile, fluorescent space toward a quiet corner alcove. He pulled an ugly plastic chair away from a table adorned with a cheap vase of fake flowers, and held it out for me to sit. The chivalry of the gesture felt odd in the midst of the inelegant surroundings.

  As soon as we were settled, I heard someone call my name. I looked up to find Mickey, of all people, heading straight for me in his gangly teenage stride. He�
��d abandoned the Goth thing completely and dyed his hair brown. “I knew we were destined to have coffee together…” he dropped into silence as he rounded the corner and saw that I wasn’t alone.

  “Hi, Mickey. What are you doing here—is everyone okay?” I asked, ignoring the disappointed look that flashed across his face at the discovery of Sparrow’s presence.

  “Um yeah, no, I’m just visiting a friend,” he fumbled, his eyes darting from Sparrow and back to me.

  “Well, I hope your friend’s alright. Tell your Mom I said ‘hi’ and I’ll talk to her Monday, okay?”

  “Alright, I guess I’ll catch you later.”

  “Bye, Mickey.” I gave him a smile and a wave as he hurried away.

  Mickey looked back once before he darted out a side exit into the hallway and Sparrow’s eyes followed him until he was gone.

  “Who was that?”

  “Oh, just my boss’ son,” I smirked. “I think he might have developed a crush on me. He’s seventeen. I’m sure he’ll get over it in a day or two.”

  Sparrow raised a dark eyebrow and gave a noncommittal nod.

  I tore open a pink packet of sweetener and carefully sprinkled half into my iced tea, stirring it with my straw as the questions I wanted to ask percolated in my mind.

  “So, when you arrested Balthus, you’re saying it wasn’t for stealing that woman’s soul?”

  Sparrow combed his fingers through his dark hair with a sigh of frustration, leaving it charmingly disheveled. “I shouldn’t be discussing the details of the case with you, Sydney. She is very much his type, though. I don’t know if you noticed, but she bears quite a bit of resemblance to you.”

  I had noticed, and the idea that it could have been me lying in that hospital bed made my stomach lurch. “Lorien said he was arrested for having an illegal soul…unaligned, or whatever,” I replied in discomfort. “I just assumed it was hers.”

  “Bloomin’ faeries,” he mumbled. “Incapable of discretion, every last one of them.”