Under normal circumstances, he would never invade someone’s privacy this way, but the calamitous circumstances had left him no choice when he’d found no one home at Nova’s.
At that point, he was so concerned for Nova, Sten hadn’t even considered changing back to his human form.
Unfortunately for Murphy, he’d been whittling—a favorite hobby he indulged in to reduce stress—and in a rush, he zapped himself from Nova’s to Nina’s without thinking about the fact that his knife was dipped in troll magic.
Because when Bellamy was involved, worlds could crumble. And it was his responsibility, ever since his father’s passing, to keep everything in order.
But the hell if she didn’t make things so much harder than they had to be, and it was time she owned up to her monkeyshines because this time—this time he didn’t know if he could fix it and make it go away.
But he was going to try like hell anyway. Not only because that’s what he had to do as king, but because his moral compass wouldn’t allow for anything less.
Wanda brought in his coffee and a cloth for Murphy’s head. As she handed him the mug, she smiled and wedged her way onto the couch, putting Murphy’s head in her lap and placing the cloth against her brow.
“Sten, is it?”
He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Sten Peerson. Good to meet you. I’m sorry we’re meeting this way, but I’ve heard a lot about you and your…your organization.”
Wanda snorted with a wry smile. “Organization is a very kind word. We’re probably more like a band of middle-aged women who like to shop and swap recipes and engage in the occasional tussle with a paranormal entity—any paranormal entity will do. But I’ll take organization,” she said on an amused wink.
He smiled in spite of the situation. “Where I come from, everyone knows who you are.”
And that was true. They did know who these women were—so when Bellamy confessed her sins, and he’d located this woman named Nova, he’d known what he was heading into.
Wanda reached over and patted his hand. “I have to be honest, I had no idea trolls were real, Sten. You’d think by now I’d stop questioning the validity of anything paranormal, but you’re nothing like the image I had in my mind when I thought of trolls.”
“I’ll say…” Marty murmured on a shuddering sigh.
He took a sip of his coffee before he said, “We keep to ourselves for a variety of reasons, but mostly because it’s easier. Trolls—some, not all—are known for their mischief, riddles in particular, and they get a real laugh out of toying with people. You know, offering them great riches if they can solve a riddle. That sort of thing. But the riddle is almost always impossible to solve, and no troll I know is parting with his money. We’re mostly a happy lot, but some trolls can be real little jerks.”
A smile suddenly spread across Nina’s face. “Aw, fuck yeah. I remember a fable about three billy goats gruff and a troll who lived under a bridge. My Nana Lou used to read it to me when I was a kid.”
Sten winced. “Well, truth be told, it’s not totally a made-up story. It’s sort of an exaggeration of a true story, but it wasn’t goats, it was brothers, and they didn’t exactly survive crossing the bridge.” He paused then and remembered when his father had told him that story, and he had to fight a smile because he damn well missed his father, even if he hadn’t always been around. Then he repeated his father’s words. “Like I said, trolls can be real jerks.”
Damn, thinking about that incident made him wonder how the hell Barnard was these days. Probably still scaring people—even with the new rules in place. Rules he’d personally set forth regarding humans, and a troll’s interactions with them.
If one wished to live their life fully troll, and didn’t wish to integrate into society, they were to avoid interaction with humans precisely because of that story about the troll under the bridge.
If integration was your goal, and you wanted to ride the line of human/troll living, you had to live in the world the humans had created, abide by their rules, and there were no hijinks allowed.
Marty finally came over and sat down on the opposite couch next to Nina. She looked at Sten across the coffee table with her soft blue eyes and said, “So, Sten, what the hell’s going on, and what do we have to do to fix it? How did you even know anything was going on to begin with?”
He sighed, setting his cup on the coffee table, and ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “I knew because this Internet fight has been going on for a while.”
“Internet fight?” Wanda repeated.
“That’s what began this entire debacle,” he confirmed.
Nina rolled her tongue along the inside of her cheek and narrowed her eyes in his direction. With a defiant lift of her chin, she asked, “Forget how it started for a second; how did you know where the fuck to find them tonight? How did you know they’d specifically be here?”
He wasn’t sure if he should tell them about his ability to zap from place to place. Even he still couldn’t believe he now had the power to go wherever he wanted.
* * *
“Sten? Wanda prompted, tucking a soft throw blanket across Murphy’s legs.
“I’m afforded some privileges in my rank as a troll, and one of them helped me locate them. I don’t use the privilege often, but this time it came in useful. Much like a vampire’s scent, this particular ability helps me track people.”
Nina appeared satisfied with that answer. For now, anyway. He knew about this aggressive vampire who swore worse than any sailor, loved animals and underdogs, and he knew enough to tread carefully.
She sat back on the couch and threw her long legs up to rest her feet on the coffee table. “Okay, so what’s the deal with this fucking Internet fight? We don’t know much more other than Nova was screwing around on her Instagram page and poof—troll. So what the fuck happened?”
“It would seem my sister Bellamy and Nova have some sort of Instagram rivalry, and have for the last two years now.”
“Hold the fuck up, I remember Murphy saying some shit about her sister being an Instagram model, whatever the fuck that means. So, what the hell does that mean?”
He wanted to laugh, but then he was afraid he’d disturb Murphy, and he needed to be prepared for the moment when she awakened.
“It means they both earn a pretty hefty income taking pictures of themselves in all manner of settings and clothing. The more followers they have, the more big companies with name brands take note of them and offer them lucrative deals to endorse their products.”
Wanda stroked Murphy’s hair with lean fingertips, pressing the cloth against her forehead. “I know what Instagram is. Marty has an Instagram page for her cosmetics company, but she sells a product. I guess I never gave much thought to making money posting pictures of yourself. I thought that was just how kids were communicating with each other these days. I’m not a huge fan of social media.”
He nodded, bracing his elbows on his knees. “Who would have ever thunk, right? But it’s true. Bellamy and Nova both earn a great deal of money doing nothing more than changing their clothes and their hairstyles, or showing people what they had for dinner in Milan or Miami—or wherever.”
He could almost hear Bellamy’s voice in his head, telling him it was so much more than that, but what it boiled down to, essentially, was one long fashion show.
“So you said they’re rivals on Instagram,” Marty prompted. “Define rivals.”
“Well, they vie for number of followers or subs to their YouTube channels, they often compete over how much merchandise they sell, the deals they get from clothing lines, hair products and so on. Their fans—mostly at the root of this, if you ask me—really love a good flame war between them since they had an epic falling out two years ago.”
“Do you know what that falling out entailed?” Wanda asked, her bright eyes alert.
He knew this was going to sound ridiculous when it came out of his mouth, but it was the truth. “Bellamy accused Nova, quite loudly, I
might add, of sleeping with her assistant’s boyfriend.”
There was no point in hiding it. The story was going to rear its ugly head whether he revealed it now or later. If they were half the investigators the stories that proceeded them claimed, they’d find out anyway.
“Did she make the accusation on social media?” Marty asked.
“Yep. Nova lost a lot of followers and got a lot of hate mail because of it—or at least that’s what Bellamy tells me. I try not to get too involved in her social media life, but Bellamy isn’t known for her filter, and she was really upset when she found out. And her assistant was so upset, she left her job with Bellamy and went back to Nebraska. I’d like to say Bellamy was distraught because her friend was hurt, but I think it was more because her friend was a pretty great assistant.”
Marty rubbed her temples and sighed. “The woes of the new era are so different than they were back in the day. The Internet can be an evil place, huh? Anyway, what happened after that?”
“As I said, Nova lost followers; Bellamy watches Nova’s numbers like a hawk, and she quite proudly shared Nova’s declining fanbase. So Nova, according to Bellamy, began trolling her page, for lack of a better word, after my sister did an Insta-story about what happened and told the world—or the Instagram world, anyway—that Nova was a dirty…forgive the term…whore.”
Nina cracked her knuckles, her nostrils flaring. “Christ and a basket of Peeps. Okay, so chick-shit, right?”
Sten nodded, turning his head from side to side to ease the tension of an oncoming headache. “I guess that’s as apt a description as any.”
Marty exhaled, clapping her hands on her thighs. “So what does that have to do with what happened to Nova? I know I’m going to regret asking, but ask I will.”
“Bellamy’s convinced that Nova’s been posting under the username LiarLiar1995, among other fake user names. That seems to be the one she allegedly uses most often. I guess tonight’s post was the last straw as far as my sister was concerned.”
“Meaning?” Wanda asked as she bit her lower lip.
Goddammit all, he hated cleaning up after Bellamy. She was in for a ration of shit when he got his hands on her. He had half a mind to throw her in isolation for a hundred years for being such a vengeful, spiteful child.
“Meaning, Bellamy got fed up and cursed her—and that’s why Nova looks the way she does. For reference, let me show you what they both look like in human form.”
Sten pulled up a picture of his sister’s account and showed the women what he meant.
“Oooo, that’s Bellamy?” Marty asked as she blinked. “She’s stunning. Simply stunning.”
Yep, that was his sister—dark-haired, green-eyed, tall, naturally slender with a cute button nose and full lips—lips that wreaked havoc with their uncensored words more often than he cared to admit.
In essence, Bellamy was a whole lot prettier on the outside than the inside, and he hated to say it, but she’d been indulged far too long by his mother and stepfather.
“And she has over twenty-eight million followers,” Wanda murmured.
“And this,” he typed in Nova’s page, “is what Nova used to look like before Bellamy did what she did.”
Wanda’s and Marty’s mouths fell open and their eyes went wide.
Nina whistled and slapped her thighs. “Hole-ee fuck.”
Uh-huh. “Equally beautiful, wouldn’t you agree?”
Marty nodded her head as she tugged at her scarf. “She sure is.”
“And now she looks like something you’d find in a fucking hole carved out in a tree in a haunted GD forest,” Nina mused.
“Nina!” Wanda reprimanded with a roll of her eyes. “Hush! Stop being so rude. Do you see what she looked like before…before this happened? Dear God in Heaven, give the child a break.”
Well, it was true. Of all the curses his sister could have come up with, this was a pretty shitty one. Probably the shittiest of all, and he wanted to know how she’d learned of this particular curse. It wasn’t an easy curse to come by; in fact, according to one of his advisors, it was quite ancient.
“Nova has thirty-point-nine million followers,” Marty pointed out, pulling his thoughts from how Bellamy had gotten her hands on this curse.
“But she had almost forty and a half before this war between them began,” Sten said. “And as you can see in the comments, there are still people who continue to stir the pot between them, even though their argument was two years ago. Someone always manages to finagle it into the most innocuous of posts.”
He cringed at some of the things people said to one another online, but he had to laugh at the word everyone used for the people who made those comments. Yes. Some trolls could be jerks, but they weren’t anywhere near as vicious as some of the commenters. How it had been dubbed trolling was almost laughable, compared to the reality.
“So now what?” Marty asked as she stared at Nova’s picture and blew out a breath. “And what happens to poor Murphy? I get the impression, just by the interaction between her and her sister, she’s caught in the middle of this.”
Yeah. That. He looked down at her and squeezed his temples with two fingers. Her skin was already turning a pale shade of pink, and her horns had just crested her almost fuchsia hair.
“Murphy’s transitioning now much the way a vampire does, which I know you have plenty of experience with. The transition will determine what type of troll she is.”
Marty cocked her head. “Type of troll?”
“Yes. We have all sorts of varieties. Magic trolls, gardening trolls, woodland trolls and so on. But Nova’s variety, while still a troll, is completely different in appearance.”
Among other things.
“Got it,” Marty said.
“Anyway, you probably won’t hear much from Murphy for another couple of hours. She’s Nova’s assistant, by the way, and the elder of the two siblings.”
“Have you seen a turning like this before, Sten?” Wanda inquired, resituating Murphy on her lap.
“It’s almost unheard of these days because I’ve banned the use of curses, but there are instances when a troll has turned a human. It’s incredibly rare, but it has happened, and no, I haven’t witnessed it. So I’m flying by the seat of my pants.”
“You fucking banned the use of curses?” Nina asked. “Who made you King of all the Shit?”
“My father’s death,” he said quietly.
Marty knocked Nina in the shoulder. “Why can’t you ever think before you speak? Jesus, your mouth is like a black hole. He already told us when he introduced himself he’s the king of trolls.”
But Sten held up his hand. “No, it’s all right, Marty. He’s been gone about a year now and I’m adjusting. Nina couldn’t have known.”
“Sorry for your loss,” Nina mumbled, looking directly into his eyes.
He missed his father daily. His passing had left an open hole in Sten’s heart that refused to fill up, but he’d left an even bigger pair of shoes to fill. As absentee as he’d been, he’d still been great when he’d been around—if not a total lothario.
“Let’s get back to Nova and Murphy and this situation.”
Wanda clucked her tongue and removed the cloth from Murphy’s head. “So I’m guessing Murphy can’t be turned back? Because that seems to be the MO with all our cases.”
Fuuuck. “No. She can’t be turned back because this wasn’t a curse, this was my negligence,” he said with deep, deep regret. “And I’m gravely sorry.”
Marty looked at the phone and the picture of Nova, then back at Sten with a wince. “So that means Nova can’t, either?”
Now in the case of Nova, there was some hope. “Not necessarily. The circumstances are quite different. Again, Nova was cursed, and when my sister gets here—which should be at any moment—I’ll insist she reverse the curse. Murphy, on the other hand… Well, Murphy was turned by my knife when I accidentally pricked her arm. My knife is dipped in troll magic. They’re two separate
issues entirely. But I assure you, I’m going to do everything in my power to take care of Murphy for the long haul. I’ll be with her every step of the way. Nova, too—until she’s turned back, that is.”
Nina clapped her hands and hopped up off the couch, her dark hair swinging about her waist. “Good deal then, bro. It’s obvi you’ve got this shit on lockdown. So everybody get the fuck out, yeah?”
Marty frowned and pointed a pink-tipped nail at the couch cushion. “Nina, sit your skinny ass back on that damn couch. You know as well as I do that isn’t how this works.”
Sten couldn’t help himself, he laughed out loud. “The rumors are true. You really are as salty as everyone says.”
But then Wanda held up a hand and effortlessly silenced everyone. “Hold the phone. There’s a catch. I know there’s a catch. There’s always a catch. So, Sten, what’s the catch you’re not telling us about?”
That was true. There was a catch, one he hoped to avoid, but in the interest of total honesty, he looked Wanda directly in the eye.
“Nova is a very special breed of troll. While Murphy will certainly have some paranormal powers, yet to be determined, they won’t be nearly as enormous or powerful as what Nova will have if we don’t change her back.”
Marty visibly swallowed, twisting a strand of hair around her index finger. “And what exactly does that mean?”
Sitting forward, Sten clenched his teeth before he spoke. “I don’t know what kind of troll she is, per se. Not yet. Her powers haven’t been fully developed.”
But he was hoping it was just the average Scandinavian troll who liked to live quietly and go about their business without hassle. Those were the majority.
Because the alternative…? That was highly undesirable.
Wanda pursed her lips. “Well, can you name some of the different kinds of trolls and maybe we can narrow it down?”
If only it were that easy. “I can’t just from looking at her. I can tell you all trolls that look like Nova are highly valuable in one way or another. Valuable and rare. Some have special powers. That means Nova is now a troll who could be highly desired by others in the troll world, and if the wrong person finds her before she knows the way of the troll or what she’s capable of—because like any world, we have villains, too—she’ll be a dead woman.”
The Accidental Troll Page 4
