A Risky Proposition (8 page)

Lorien pursed her lips and gave us an apologetic look.  “I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way.  Balthus’ contract for Sydney’s soul was legal.  And the Seelie Court isn’t like one of your human courts of law—they don’t deal with such mundane matters.”

“Mundane?” I sputtered. 

“As much as I don’t want to see you lose your soul, Sydney, I guarantee you the Seelie Court isn’t going get involved in the details of a standard death djinn contract,” she replied ruefully.

“But Balthus was arrested—he’s a criminal!” I insisted.

“And for that, he’ll go before the king of his tribe and a tribunal assigned by the Court to answer for any laws he’s broken.  I have it on good authority that he was arrested for being in possession of an unaligned soul.  It was just lucky for you that Agent Sparrow stopped him when he did.”  She shot me a meaningful glance.

“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 small, 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.