Ghosted, p.19
Ghosted, page 19
part #4 of Girl's Guide to Voodoo Bounty Hunting Series
“And you didn’t know about Oliver being in Faerie too?” Pim asked.
“Not until recently. He does not serve the Queen directly, only her sister. It saw him at the last Summer Solstice Ball. A chance encounter.”
Pim tapped rapidly at the keys. “Must have been a shock.”
“I was so happy.”
The way he said it was full of nuance. Nessa was good at nuance. “Let me guess. You were super excited and he was like, ‘who are you again?’”
Roland hung his head. “An excellent summary of our encounter.”
“He didn’t want to be pals anymore?” she asked.
“Again, you are correct. He was cold. Hardened. We’d shared so much in the past. Do you want to know how we met?”
“Not really,” said Nessa.
“Yes,” typed Pim.
“We fought. Each seeking to prove they were better than the other. For hours we battled. In the end, we were too evenly matched. Neither of us could best the other. Instead, we became comrades. He joined our band of Paladin in service to the king.”
“People change,” Nessa said, thinking of her father and how he’d seemed to forget all about her.
“How did you get back here from Faerie?” Pim asked. “Wasn’t the Queen angry?”
He shifted his eyes over the table and the Speak and Spell. “I do not know where to look. Speaking to an invisible ghost is disconcerting.”
“Invisible cat. Not an invisible ghost. I already told you. Geez, dude. You live in Faerie. A world made of magic. I think you can figure it out.”
Roland gave Nessa a sour look. “Abandoning me to the Queen was a most unchivalrous act.”
Nessa returned the look two-fold. “Sorry not sorry. You made me lose the murdering Soul Eater.”
“Getting back to my question…” typed Pim.
“Yes. Your question. My Queen and the Queen of Fire are not precisely allies. They do, however, try to stay out of each other’s way. After explaining the Princess’s plans to take over the court, she directed me to keep the assassination from happening.”
“Status quo.” Nessa quoted Madam Valencia.
“Precisely,” agreed Roland.
Piling the trash on the tray, Nessa started getting ready to go. She wanted to get on with her probably extraordinarily stupid plan to get her fairies back. From what she’d observed, the High Fae didn’t think much of fairies. She’d heard them referred to as ‘vermin’ several times. The Fire Queen could have them executed at any time.
“I’m leaving,” she told Roland, packing away the Speak and Spell. “You are on your own from now on. Good luck and goodbye.”
She slung the backpack over her shoulder, picked up the tray of trash, and headed for the door without a backward look.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Together she and Pim walked around to the back of the Taco Bell by the dumpster. There were no CCTV cameras here and she was out of sight of the street.
“We’re going to the Queen of Air’s Court. I don’t feel like we have any other choice. Agreed?”
Pim nodded.
She placed the delicate silver crown on her head, picturing the massive ornate white ballroom. The dazzling floor-to-ceiling windows and ceiling open to Faerie’s azure blue sky.
She took a step forward. Asking the Queen for help would come with consequences. Consequences or not, the fairies had become her responsibility from the day she fed them tacos. They wouldn’t be in trouble if not for their connection to Nessa. Period.
A circle of warm air whooshed over her. Squaring her shoulders, she stepped inside. Or started to. Something grabbed her ankle as she stood balanced half-in, half-out of the Portal. Before she understood what was happening, she was jerked back. She had a split second to see Roland before he yanked the crown off her head. A different Portal appeared. Cold air enveloped her as the world spun in dizzying circles. She had the presence of mind to grab Pim by the scruff of the neck before everything went dark.
Nausea is the worst feeling in the world, Nessa thought as she was thoroughly sick. She’d take anything: fever, sore throat, broken bones, anything but nausea and vertigo.
She kept throwing up until she’d lost every bought and paid for calorie from the entire day and perhaps several before. ‘Please let it stop,’ she silently begged.
Pim was near, she could always feel his presence. He was trying to send healing energy into her. She was so exhausted from throwing magic every which way for the past few days it took a while for his help to penetrate. He placed his paws on her back, kneading her gently until her stomach calmed down.
She opened her eyes a slit to see if the world was behaving again. Thankfully it stopped spinning.
With the nausea gone, a whole new list of pains made themselves felt. Something sharp was digging into her back, elbows, and hips. Her tailbone throbbed like she’d broken her butt all over again. She ran her hands over a rough stone floor. Hard, hard, stones. Ah, stones explained it.
“Ow,” she moaned.
Pim came around to rub his head against her chest.
Wiping her mouth on her sleeve, she scooted as far away from the mess as she could get before her back bumped into another hard surface. A…barrel.
Big wooden barrels stood stacked floor to ceiling in a semicircle around her. They were in a small stone chamber dimly lit by light reflected through an open door. It was cold. So cold Nessa could see her breath.
Swiveling carefully around, she saw Roland crouched near the door, his back to them.
“God damn it, Roland…” she started to say.
He whipped around whispering, “Shh, guards.”
Guards? Where were there guards?
Pim bristled, shimmering halfway to transformation.
Nessa put a hand on Pim’s head telling him to stand down. For now.
“What the hell?” she said in the barest whisper.
He moved to close the space between them. A little too close for Pim’s liking. Her Familiar whipped out a paw. His claws were not sheathed.
A trio of scratches appeared on the Paladin’s cheek.
Roland hissed out a breath, his hand going to his face and coming away red with blood.
“Pim would like to know why you kidnapped us,” she said softly.
He glared at her as he put a little distance between them.
She knew why he drew back. Her eyes were black from side to side since she’d burned her contacts out in the fight with the Soul Eater. The sunglasses had disappeared somewhere in the chaos of the Portal journey. From looking in the mirror she knew how scary those eyes could be.
His face was still bright red from the firefight. His skin flushed a deeper scarlet when he realized she’d noticed his hesitation.
Sher batted her eyelashes dramatically because screw him. She had nothing to be ashamed of. “You were saying?”
He shifted slightly, looking her in the eyes again. “I recognized the chamber. The one holding your Faeries.”
Nessa gave him a side-eye stare. “Really? You recognized the Queen of Fire’s dungeon?” She loaded every quiet word with sarcasm. “From a video on my phone?”
His expression hardened. “I have been in the same cell. In fact, it was I who scratched the inscription into the wall behind your bondmaidens. Omnia pereun. All is lost.”
“You were a prisoner of the Queen of Fire?”
He gave a rueful smile. “No. Not the Queen of Fire.”
“I don’t understand.” Nessa adjusted her position wincing as the stones dug into her sore tailbone. “Do you mean Madame Valencia?”
Nessa did not think there were many stone dungeons in L.A. but what did she know? The woman was rich. Rich people did weird things.
“The Queen of Air. Your Queen. Our Queen has your fairies.”
Pim hissed.
Nessa’s stomach clenched and she felt like she was going to throw up again. There was no reason to doubt him. What could he gain from lying?
“Why?”
“The connection between the Queen of Fire and our Queen is less tenuous than the woman…”
“Madam Valencia.”
“Yes, this Madame Valencia would have you believe. Your angelic assets are known to both the Court of Air and Fire. Our Queen was complicit in this venture. She was the one who offered to restrain your fairies.”
She and Pim exchanged understanding looks. Nessa had paid attention in history class and Pim had lived through several centuries of intrigue. The Chevaliers had been forced to flee the guillotine during the French Revolution, Pim included.
“For a political favor in return?”
“Precisely,” Roland agreed. “The Fae thrive on conflict. Plotting and counterplotting endlessly. Fire could not guarantee your help without a personal bargaining chip. Air supplied it.”
He was right. If the fairies hadn’t been in trouble, she would have let Jun Hee or the Infernal Court handle the Soul Eater.
“We lost him in the end to the Kasha,” Nessa couldn’t help pointing out.
He held up a hand, gesturing to the door.
They stopped talking.
Nessa heard the shuffle of heavy footsteps pass. Pim arched his back, waiting for the word to transform.
The footsteps paused and Nessa held her breath. After what felt like forever, they walked on leaving only silence once again.
She gave the knight an assessing look. “We are not friends. You don’t owe me anything. Which means you’re not helping me out of the goodness of your heart. What do you want in return?”
“A favor.”
“A favor,” she repeated.
“Of equal measure.”
Boom, there it was. Another trap. Fae loved their bargains.
Pim put a paw on her leg.
She met his eyes. They both knew people much older and wiser had been taken in by Fae bargains.
The trio was her Bondmaidens according to Fae law. Ridiculous as it sounded in the real world. She’d taken on the role unknowingly at the time. Too late for regrets over their dinner at Del Taco. They were bound together. Now they were frightened. They were alone with no way out. Nessa understood such terror so well.
“Do we have a choice?” she asked her Familiar. “If the Queen has them, we’ve got zero bargaining power.”
Pim sat back on his haunches, shaking his head. Not in disagreement. Rather the inevitability of her answer.
She narrowed her eyes at the Paladin. “Okay. Help me free my bondmaidens. Return all of us safely to my world and I will owe you a favor. On the condition this favor does not endanger any of my family or friends.”
He stared at her silently. After a time, he shook his head. “I cannot guarantee those conditions.”
Nessa started to protest.
He raised a hand to stop her. “On my part, I will give my word not to knowingly endanger your family or friends with this favor. In addition, I will do my utmost, at the risk of my own life, to protect them should they or any innocents be in danger as a result.”
She looked at Pim.
He gave the feline equivalent of a shrug. The decision was hers.
“Rock and a hard place, kitty,” she muttered to him. “All right. I will owe you a favor in return for your help in freeing my three fairies. In return, you must allow all of us to return safely with all our limbs and memories to the place we were going to enter my Portal. It must also be at the time or near the time you took us.”
Those restrictions should protect them from being dumped in the middle of the African Savannah or at a time months later. He’d have to adhere to her conditions. Unfortunately, she’d have to follow his commands when he asked for a favor in return.
“I agree,” said Roland.
He held out his hand.
As they shook, Nessa felt the tingling frisson of magic pass between them. The bargain was sealed.
Nessa shifted her position, wincing at the pain in pretty much every part of her body.
“What’s the plan?”
The plan was surprisingly simple if not totally bloodless.
Roland did indeed know exactly where her fairies were being held. He’d lived in this castle for more than a thousand mortal years. He’d opened a Portal down the hallway from their cell.
Motioning for Nessa to stay put, he crept silently out the door.
“I feel like we’re in the Hobbit, about to send the dwarves out of Rivendale in the barrels,” she whispered to Pim.
He smiled at her.
A voice cried out, followed by the dull thud of body meeting body. The sounds of a physical fight were unmistakable once you’ve heard them. Nessa pulled out her police baton as she ran into the passage, werecat Pim snarling ahead of her.
Three uniformed men were piled on top of Roland. Guards. A fourth lay sprawled on the flagstones.
Pim leaped on one clawing and spitting. He cried out in surprise flailing at the attacking beast with both arms.
Nessa laid into another with her baton hitting him hard on the side of the head. He let go of Roland, turning to confront her. She hit him in the temple before he could grab her. He fell onto his side, stunned from the blow. Real fights are not like movie fights. People go down quickly when bashed in the head.
“Don’t kill them,” Roland said, twisting out from the last man.
Pim turned his eyes to Nessa. He had the guard pinned on his stomach; jaws unhinged in the uncanny way of werecats. All it would take was a moment to snap the bone.
“Wait,” she said to Pim, scooting out of Roland’s way as he struggled with the last man.
The two men rolled back and forth, punching each other furiously. Roland twisted all the way around in a wrestling move slipping his forearm around the other’s throat. He locked his legs across the man’s chest. With his other hand, he pulled out a dagger.
The guard went still.
“The keys are tucked into his belt,” Roland said breathlessly. “Take them.”
She grabbed the iron ring. Jangling the keys as big as her hand, she pointed at a heavy wooden and iron door with no window. “Here?”
“Yes.”
Pim kept his hold on the other man’s neck. The one she’d smacked in the head was sitting looking dazed, his back against the wall.
Nessa had to try two keys before finding the right one to turn the lock. Even unlocked, opening the door was like trying to move a boulder. It took all her strength to pull it wide enough for her to slip through. There was just enough light from a pair of tiny windows to see inside.
The fairies screamed in delight at the sight of Nessa. They ran at her only to be jerked back by the chains around their ankles.
They jabbered and trilled and talked non-stop in their own language as Nessa hugged the ragged little things. Their dresses were in tatters, their faces bruised. They were dirty, their beautiful long hair a tangled mess.
“How can I free them?” she shouted.
“The same key as the door will fit their chains,” Roland shouted back. She also heard Pim’s yowl of anger and figured they were tying up the guards.
Kneeling first by the Red Fairy, she jammed the key into the iron lock. It clicked open. The fairy fell to the ground, bowing to Nessa, whimpering, “Haiii. Haiii. Taco, taco, taco.” Some of the only words her fairies knew in English.
Nessa hugged her, moving next to the Blue Fairy, and then the Green.
All of them bowed over and over, sobbing, chattering nonstop in their language. Fairies were a very vocal sort of being. Too bad Nessa couldn’t understand them.
The door opened wider making the trio shriek in fear.
Roland and Pim entered. Werecat Pim ran to the fairies. They fell on him with kisses and squeals of joy. They liked werecat Pim as much as feline Pim. Maybe more given their similar chaotic natures.
Roland stood, watching the scene. Nessa couldn’t read his expression. With a glance over his shoulder, he suddenly straightened, arms rigidly at his sides.
The Queen of Air strolled in on a blast of freezing cold wind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Ailm Gan Eagla, Ailm the Fearless, ruler of the Kingdom of Air, was dressed in a white gown held together by a wish and a prayer and a thousand pearls. Maybe two thousand. The dress sensuously accented her bountiful breasts, tiny waist, and curvaceous hips. Her hair hung loose, unlike the first time Nessa had seen her. Silver waves fell to her waist with more pearls laced through the curls. She was barefoot and hovering a few inches above the cold stone floor. Who needs shoes when you can fly?
“Well, well, what do we have here?” she said in her velvety voice.
Her dramatic entrance was spoiled when a pair of creatures came tumbling into the room to throw themselves ecstatically at Nessa and Pim. They had twisty horns, whiskers, a skinny ridge of spines, and iridescent scales of yellow, silver, and green covered partially with downy white fur. These were the Queen’s twin baby luck dragons, Long Bao Bao, in Chinese. A gift from Zhong Kui, the King of Ghosts. The scaly little things had met Pim at the Queen’s Ball. It was love at first sight for the dragons.
They jumped and gamboled around Nessa’s feet, rubbing their scaly faces against Pim’s fur. Apparently, they recognized him even in his werecat form.
The Queen made a sound of impatience.
Two uniformed guards who had been waiting outside the door leaped in to snatch a dragon each. The creatures squealed, alternately wriggling to be free and trying to lick the guard’s faces.
They took the baby dragons, still squealing, away. The room returned to its icy chill.
Roland faced her, dropping to one knee. He lowered his head, murmuring, “Your Majesty.”
Nessa and Pim placed themselves in front of the fairies. To her surprise, the girls sidestepped Nessa to stand in front of her. They spread their wings protectively. Filthy, bloody, hurt, and hungry, they each took up a fighting stance, fists sparkling weakly with magic.
“Taco, taco, taco,” they trilled showing their sharp teeth. So many teeth.
Pim moved to stand with them.
