Fairest 02 - The Frog Prince (9 page)

“Rachel-?” he began, but she turned over on her side and refused to acknowledge him. “I didn’t mean it,” he said. But he knew it was too little, too late. “I’m sorry,” he whispered low, feeling helpless but not sure how to fix it. How to make things right again.

“It’s fine,” she said coldly. “It doesn’t matter.”

They were both quiet and then she said, “I don’t blame you, you know. It’s not your fault.” But there was sadness in her that made it clear to him that it wasn’t alright. It wasn’t alright at all.

She didn’t expect to find herself floating above her own body again. She would have panicked, but she could see her own eyelids flickering. She’d never seen her body do that before when the sleeping spell was still in effect. Maybe the fairy dust was wearing off. Either way, she was floating free again. It was almost comforting because it was normal. More so than anything else that had been happening so far.

She flipped in the air, an astronaut in zero gravity and looked over towards Chris. He was splayed out on his back, mouth open and one hand down his pants. Rachel sat down next to his head. Watching him closely as he slept. He was such a handsome bugger. It sort of made her angry. She wanted to hit him, but her hand brushed across his skin with more gentleness than she’d intended. She couldn’t feel him physically, but he radiated heat like a furnace. It seeped with her, touched her deep, and her mouth twisted in regret. What a waste.

“We would have been so great together,” she told him.

Her hand jerked back as his forehead lit up. A shining beacon beneath his skin. A drop of water landed on his cheek and she brushed it aside with her thumb. Her head fell back and she looked up at the dark night sky.

It was raining.

They had water.

“Well, hot damn.” She smiled. “You did it.”

***

They circled back the way they’d come.

Van Winkle had fallen back to sleep and Rachel kept her mouth shut and her fairy dust to herself as they passed by the old man and chose another path. The next few days passed without incident. They were polite enough with one another, but an intimacy had just begun to sprout between them and now their relationship lacked that ease. It was depressing, but there was no helping it. You couldn’t change the way a person felt, no matter how much you wish you could.

A week passed before she began hearing the
chittering again. There was no way she could forget the first time she’d heard it, and her hands started to shake as she looked about and tried to catch a glimpse of the creature. Or creatures, if the amount of noise was any hint. Sometimes she would see them running from the corner of her eye. Darting behind her back, making the bushes rustle. She could never get a full on glimpse of them and it drove her crazy wondering where they were and what they wanted. Though at least being terrified on a nearly constant basis took her mind off of the new stiffness between her and Chris.

Things took a turn for the worst when she least expected it.

She and Chris were doing that thing where they tried very hard not to make physical contact with one another without making it obvious that that’s what they were doing. The ground was the first thing to heat up. She could feel it through the soles of her feet and she looked down in first confusion and then alarm. Chris must have felt it too because he stopped walking abruptly and turned to grab her. Growling filled the air and Rachel gasped as the sky darkened. Diedric dropped from the air, his wings crushing the walls beneath their size and weight. Chris pulled her aside and shoved her behind him. She stumbled and went down, crying out as her head struck the edge of a rock. Vision wavering, Rachel pressed a hand against the wound, her fingers growing wet as blood welled. Even with the dizziness, she could fully appreciate the size of the giant maw opening before her.

Then Chris was there, standing directly before her, arms outspread as if he could protect her from the world.
Diedric took a huge breath, his eyes shining and the inner core hidden beneath his pale armor dimming momentarily as the flames built up in his throat.

“Chris!” she screamed.

“It’s ok,” he said calmly, “I know exactly what to do.”

His body began to shake, his skin darkening. From where she lay, Rachel could see the way the area around his face began to lighten. Since she was behind him, she couldn’t be sure if it was his eyes or the thing in his forehead that had lit up like performers at a gay pride parade. His head fell back, the muscles in his
throat straining, body lifting up on his toes as he gathered power. His mouth opened and he roared. A crack like lightening split the air and Rachel flinched.

When she turned back, her eyes narrowed in irritation.

Chris the tree frog turned and croaked apologetically at her and she lunged for him. She scooped him up in her hands and rolled out of the way as dragon fire ripped into the ground where they’d been a moment before. She fell back, slamming into the maze wall and whimpering when thorns bit down the length of her spine. Her vision wavered, and her limbs felt weak, but she managed to climb to her feet once again, with Chris cradled gently against her chest. Diedric roared, and then turned on them again. Diedric had them cornered, and Rachel’s mind sort of split with itself. She dimly realized that her physical body had collapsed. She didn’t think when the flames came for them again. She simply moved, her arm sweeping forth.

The wall of air hit the dragon fire and sent it
spiraling to one side, setting off a fire along a nearby section of wall. The dragon fire came again, and now she was pressing the air together, swooping it up and forward. A tornado of fire that spun back against Diedric in a wall of heat. The world shifted as her energy left her in a rush, adrenaline dying a quick death. She fell back into her body, sinking like a stone. She had one last moment to try and struggle to stay awake, but lost the fight almost immediately. Rachel collapsed back, dead to the world.

Meanwhile, Chris had been struggling to pull the pouch from her pocket with his mouth. The momentum as she fell to one side managed to shake the pouch loose. As the pouch fell, the mouth opened and upended completely, so that he was bathed in the
stuff. If he’d been thinking happy thoughts, Peter Pan would have taken him to Neverland. As it was, he didn’t so much as fly, as he burst with power. His body twisted and changed so quickly, that it was agony to breathe. He came to his human self on all fours, just as Diedric lunged for them, jeweled canines glinting in the sun. Chris felt his mind go blank and hot and then the world exploded.

***

Diedric
collapsed screaming. His armored scales were melding together from the rebound of heat. Dragon fire, especially his own, wasn’t supposed to affect his kind, but when the flames had enwrapped the man/frog standing in front of him, something had changed. The flames had gone white and rebounded on to him. He hadn’t moved because he hadn’t seen the fire as a threat. But as soon as it had touched him, he felt his insides recoil. His inner flame wrapped around his heart as it worked to protect him. Then his scales began to melt, dripping onto the ground and hardening again on contact. He dropped to the ground as he tried to extinguish the fire, but he bucked in agony as the white flames grew. They filled every crack, every crevice, crawling within his body and swallowing him down. He screamed, tail lashing viciously as pain deadened his mind.

Diedric
shifted by instinct. His hands scrambled at his face as the skin about his eyes and mouth melted together, skin sloughing off as the white heat trapped inside of his body burned him from the inside out. He dropped to his knees, and then face forward, body bucking uncontrollably. It was a relief when the flames finally died down. But the damage had already been done and Diedric gave in to unconsciousness.

***

Chris had never envisioned himself running through a maze butt-ass naked. He hadn’t had time to grab the clothes he’d been wearing and they’d lost their pack somewhere along the way. Diedric had no longer been a threat, but as soon as the dragon had fallen, a sea of creatures began to crawl from out of the woodwork. They were strange, monstrous. Fire ran down their spines and tails. It filled the air with every breath they took. Their gazes had been trained on him and Chris had scooped Rachel into his arms as they swarmed towards them. He’d managed to dodge out of the way of the first one. But that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. It sailed past him, moving too fast to stop. It struck the wall with full force, skewering itself on the thorns. It wiggled and screamed, more enraged than pained. As soon as its blood began to flow, Chris heard a sizzle. Then a pop. The blood of the creature lit like the fuse on a firework and set off a bomb blast that sent him off his feet.

Hurting them was out, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could outrun them. He’d shifted twice in as many minutes and the strain was beginning to wear on him. His arms were straining, the muscles in his legs felt like Jell-O, but he picked up speed. He hoped desperately to find something, anything, to help them. He nearly missed it.
The hole in the hedge. He slid to a stop, slipping into the hole and reaching back to drag Rachel along with him by the arms. He could hear the creatures snapping their teeth after her so he increased the speed of his backwards crawl. His hands tightened around Rachel’s wrists. His head was feeling hot again. Heavy. There was a pounding in his brain, just like before, and he could barely focus.

Resistance met him as his back end met the end of the tunnel. Looking back, he saw the glowing eyes of the beasts swarming in the tunnel. Coming closer, their flaming breath drove up the temperature until he felt as if his skin would melt off. He kept moving back
until his spine came up against the curved closed edge of the tunnel. He pulled Rachel up against him, wrapping his arm around her waist. Her head lolled against his shoulder and he gritted his teeth and slammed himself back again and again, his feet kicking out at the fiery little beasts that snapped their jaws at him. He needed to push through the vines. He had to get them to the other side. To safety. So he shoved and pushed, driving himself back until the vines screamed and cracked, snapping beneath his weight and power. He and Rachel tumbled through the other side in a tangle of limbs.

When they finally stopped rolling, Chris lay on his back, stunned but alive. The noise of those creatures had cut off and he looked back up the hill they’d tumbled down to see their gazes disappearing back into the shadows as they retreated. Something tapped softly against his temple and he looked to the side,
confused when he realized that he was staring at a small white ball.

“What the-?”

“Hey mommy? Why is that man naked?”

“Come away from there, baby.”

“Oh my god!”

“What the hell are they doing?”

“Wow. Having sex on the green. Real classy.”

Chris sat up, his eyes widening a little bit more with every person whose eye he caught. His gaze fell on the sign over the field and he felt his face flush red with embarrassment.

Pirate’s Cove

He was unsurprised to see the cop stepping through the crowd, though he wished the guy would have cuffed his hands in front so he could have at least covered up his dangly bits as he was led to the squad car.

“You have no identification.”

“No.”

“No name.”

“I like to keep that sort of thing to myself.”

“No clothes.”

“They’re severely overrated.”

The cop sitting across the interrogation table from him scowled.

“And now you’re trying to tell me that I have to release you and give you back your unconscious girlfriend before midnight or you’ll turn into a frog?” He cocked his head to one side and began tapping his pen on the table in growing agitation. “Did I get all of that right?”

“For the most part,” he said, “you forgot that you’ll also need to quarantine the windmill on the sixteenth hole or the fire gremlins will get loose and eat us all.”

Officer Nelson blinked. Then he very deliberately set his pen down and smiled.

“You know what?” he said apologetically. “I don’t think I’m the right person to talk to about all this. I’ll be right back.” Officer Nelson stood abruptly and left the interrogation room. The door had barely shut all the way before the other cops in the halls burst out laughing. Chris sighed. That was the third time that had happened. At least they had finally given him some clothes. He’d hate to feel even more humiliated than he already did.

A few minutes later the door opened again and Chris turned, expecting another police officer. Instead a woman dressed in a pantsuit slipped inside of the room, smiling kindly at him before pulling up a seat.

“Hello,” she said. “My name is Samantha Jacobs. It’s nice to meet you.”

“You a psychiatrist?” he asked blandly, leaning back in his seat, knees spreading as he planted his feet more solidly on the ground. She smiled, her eyes tracking his movements and mentally filing them away.

“What makes you think that?”

He inclined his head to indicate her clothing and
demeanor.

“The odds are pretty good aren’t they? You’re wearing pinstripes and heels in an interrogation room and I haven’t asked for a lawyer,” he pointed out. “Since everyone thinks I’m a nut-job and a pervert, it only makes sense for them to call in a shrink.”

“Is that how you see yourself?” she asked, leaning forward to fold her fingers together on the table. “As a nut-job and pervert?”

Christopher felt his eyes narrow.

He could respond in a number of ways, but she’d probably just twist things around or ask a question in the form of a question. He wasn’t especially in the mood for mind games.

“How is Rachel?” he asked instead. “Is she alright?”

“Is there any reason she wouldn’t be?”

That was code for: Did you do anything to her?

He scowled.

“Did she wake up?” he asked through gritted teeth and was relieved when Samantha nodded her head.

“She woke up a few minutes ago,” she said. “She seemed…relieved.”

There was an accusation in Samantha’s voice that made him want to groan. Sure, that made sense. Blame the guy with no clothes.

“The last few days have been stressful,” he told Samantha and she smiled slightly.

“I can imagine.”

“No,” he told her. “You can’t.”

“Then why don’t you explain it to me? Help me understand what happened.”

His lips tightened stubbornly and he turned away.

“We can start with something simple,” she tried hopefully. “How about you tell me your name?”

His silence turned frigid and Samantha drew back in obvious consternation. Before he could say anything else they both turned towards the door as voices lifted in obvious argument.

“…out of my way!”

“Ma’am. You can’t-”

“That’s Ms. Ma’am to you,” the voice said snootily and Chris closed his eyes. Hoping feverishly that if he just concentrated hard enough the floor would open up and swallow him whole before the woman outside stepped into the room. No such luck though, because Maleficent burst inside of the room almost immediately. While she was dressed like a naughty schoolteacher, at least she’d refrained from
magicking herself inside. If you ignored the sparkling skin and ethereal beauty, she’d almost look human.

She wore a pair of fake nerd glasses. Her fishnet thigh highs were held in place by a simple lace garter and she wore no shirt beneath the pinstriped button up vest that strained around her breasts. Her skirt was too short, her hair was too messy, and there was a red
boobie tassel sticking out of the top of the briefcase she carried. Despite all of the reasons that should have discredited her however, the policemen in the hallway didn’t try to stop her as she marched into the room to stand beside Chris’s chair.

Samantha raised a brow.

“I’m sorry, but you are-?”

“Mal the Magnificent,” she said haughtily, as if it should have been obvious. She slammed her briefcase on the desk and with one fist on her hip and one on the table, leaned forward to glare at Samantha over the tops of her glasses. “And I’m afraid that my client won’t be answering anymore of your questions.” She glared at him from the corner of her eye. “Why he thought it alright to speak to you at all without legal representation is beyond me.”

Chris remembered throwing a baseball through a neighbor’s window once when he was nine. It was right after Danielle had married his father, and he’d remembered the embarrassment that had washed over him as Danielle Greyson had dragged him by the ear to said neighbors front door to apologize. It wouldn’t have been nearly awful, except that the family had been black and the wait staff had been white. A little fact that Danielle had stoutly ignored as she apologized profusely to the “man of the house” for her son’s negligence. Assuring him that coloreds were good workers as long as you kept an eye on them, so there was no reason why his broken window couldn’t be as good as new in no time at all.

That level of mortification was pretty much on par to what he felt right then as his Fairy Godmother pranced around the interrogation room in six inch heels and her stripper clothes, prattling on about habeas corpus and the third amendment as if she had a clue what any of it meant. When she started ranting about the constitution, he put his head on the table and wondered if he’d be able to get them to drop the charge about him exposing himself to a child. He
didn’t want to be labeled as a child molester. With his good looks it was going to be hard enough for him to make nice friends in prison as it was.

***

Rachel felt clumsy as she paced the holding cell. Her limbs were still shaky and weak, her body craving sleep. But despite how awful and unfocused she felt, she was grateful to be awake again. She had no idea how long the police had held them, but it must have been through the night because now it was morning. She remembered enough of the previous day’s events that she was actually grateful for this moment of peace and quiet.

Unfortunately, it couldn’t last. 

There were several other women in there with her. A few of them were passed out and the sour scent of vomit and liquor surrounded them. Rachel had several options. She could sit in a jail cell until the police finally kicked Seraphim off the premises, or she could take preventative measures. She was dumb enough to give her name to the officer when she was being booked, too woozy still to think about the consequences of such a thing. Giving her name meant that the cops now had lead on where to go to and who to talk to. They’d realize soon that she was a missing person, and then they would try and contact her family. Not that she wasn’t ecstatic to see her mom and dad again, but her parents would call Danielle to tell her the good news. Confident that as Alex’s mother, she would do what came naturally and tell her daughter that her best friend had been found safe and sound. After their last meeting, Danielle was the last person Rachel wanted knowing about her return. So she’d just have to cut this disaster off at the pass.

“Officer, sir?” she called, trying to sound as sober and sweet as possible. The man sitting at a desk down the hall looked over at her.

“What?” he asked sourly. He had an open hardback in his hands, but Rachel could just make out the edges of a comic hanging down past the bottom of the book.

“Can I make my one phone call now?”

He stared at the hidden comic a bit longer before he got to his feet grumbling and came to let her out. She followed him to the mounted phone at the end of the hallway and as he watched, she put in her change and dialed a familiar number. She was wondering why police departments hadn’t upgraded to cordless phones yet when it came to this sort of thing, when a man answered the phone.

“Hello?” he said pleasantly, deep voice carefree.

Rachel starred down at the mouthpiece before pressing the phone back against her ear.

“Um, is Alex there?” she asked.

Silence for a moment before the man spoke again, only this time there was threat underlying his voice.

“Who is this?”

“My name is Rachel,” she explained quickly, worried that he might hang up on her before she got a chance to speak to her friend. “I just need to-”

He didn’t bother listening to anything else she had to say. As soon as he heard her name, the man on the other end of the line whooped and dropped the phone with a clatter. Rachel winced at the noise.

“Alex!” he boomed, and she heard his footsteps race off.

Five seconds later, Rachel heard Alex squeal in joy and she rolled her eyes as that sound was immediately followed by helpless sobbing.

“You alright?” It was the cop, and Rachel realized with a start that she was crying too. She turned her back on him and wiped the tear tracks from her cheeks.

“I’m fine,” she said, and for the first time in a long time she knew it was true.

***

It took some time, and several threats, before Alex calmed down enough to listen to what Rachel had to say.

“You’re in jail?” she exclaimed. “What’s wrong with you? Don’t you know better than to get caught?” she gasped suddenly. “Hey, hey, hey,” she chortled. “Look who’s on the news…what’d you do with the naked guy?”

Rachel’s jaw clenched and some of her inner glow faded.
Funny. She’d forgotten that Alex could be so annoying.

“Can we talk about this when I’m not surrounded by pickpockets and prostitutes?”

“Have you talked to any of those people?” Alex asked.

“What?”

“Well maybe they’re nice folk and you’re just being a judgy mcjudgy pants.”

“Are we still in elementary school?” Rachel snapped, growing exasperated. “Because I wasn’t aware that phrases like that existed outside of the minds of prepubescent snot monsters.”

“And I wasn’t aware that Miss McJudgy pants had hopped on the assumption train bound towards Bully-ville.”

Rachel paused, took a deep breath, and tried again.

“I’m not doing this,” she stated calmly. “Put that guy back on.”

“Sam?”

“I don’t care what his name is, just put him on.”

“Fine.”

There was a muffled exchange of words and then the man, Sam, was on the line again.

“Hello?” he said uncertainly and Rachel’s voice lowered to a hiss.

“If you don’t want me to strangle her in her sleep, you will listen very, very carefully,” she began. “I don’t know what sort of relationship you two have, but it’s
obviously good enough that you’re answering her cell phone. You tell that loud-mouthed trollop to go get some of her trust fund money to bail me out of jail or so help me god-”

She was shocked when he started laughing. A rolling sound from deep within his chest that was endearing enough that she actually felt her lips quirk in unconscious amusement. She could hear him take a breath to say something, but the line went dead as the officer depressed the flap that cradled the ear piece, ending the call.

“Time’s up,” he said calmly.

Rachel stared him down, her jaw working as she tried to calm herself. Knowing it was a losing
battle, she dropped the phone and marched back to her cell.

“Asshole,” she said, hoping to god that the acoustics in that area of the jail were good enough for him to
hear her. If the way he slammed the cell door closed after her was any clue, the acoustics worked just fine. For the first time since she woke up, Rachel smiled.