Mixed Feelings (Empathy in the PPNW Book 1) (28 page)

“What are you doing?” Mel asked. “I thought we
couldn't touch—”

“I need that,” I told her, a thread of panic coming
loose in my belly. When she didn’t turn around and give the fork back, I felt
myself start to unravel. I shot my hand out, gripping her jacket as tightly as
I could. “Excuse me!”

“Let go,” Chloe said, trying to get free. I switched
my grip to her wrist, reaching for the fork with my other hand. She stumbled
slightly before turning to glare my way. “I said let go!” She started trying to
pry my fingers off her arm.

“Are you
both
enchanted?” Mel demanded. “What
the hell are you doing?”

“I need the fork!”

“It’s
mine
,” Chloe spat. She stopped trying to
pry my fingers up and instead pressed against my wrist just right, shooting a
line of pain up my arm. I let go without meaning to and she spun toward the
outlet. “I’ve got this.”

“Give it back!” The panic had spread to my limbs,
lighting me up inside, making me desperate and shaky. Mel simply stepped
between Chloe and the outlet, holding out his hand to stop her.

“What are you—Gwen!”

I threw myself bodily at Chloe. If I had to wrestle
the fork out of her grip and stab her with it to keep her away, I would. She
took my weight surprisingly well, barely stumbling before hunching and dumping
me forward over her shoulder and onto the ground. I groaned at the impact,
opened my eyes to find Mel staring down at me in shock.

“Chloe, what—”

“Get out of the way,” she ordered. When she tried to
get around him, he sidestepped, matching her. They danced around like that a
few times, to the left, right, left again before she stopped, lifting her gaze
to his. “Move.”

“I won’t. You’re being—”

I got to my feet in time to see Chloe punch Mel in
the stomach. When he doubled over, she pressed her hand into the back of his
neck and shoved him to the floor. Without waiting to see if he was down for the
count, she turned, held her arm out toward the outlet, and closed in.

Despite being slowed by whatever the demon had done
to him, Mel got to his feet in a flash. Teeth bared in exasperation, he grabbed
a bath towel from the bar mounted just inside the bathroom and tossed it over
Chloe’s head. I felt confusion scramble her brain as she went still, like a
bird in a newly covered cage. I saw my chance to grab the fork, but before I
could get to it, Mel repeated the maneuver with me. As the world went dark with
terrycloth, I lost track of what I’d been doing.

There was… there was something I needed to get,
right?

I felt Mel’s hands on my waist, directing me to walk
somewhere. It didn’t take much maneuvering on his part, and the next thing I
knew, the towel was gone from my head and a door was being closed in my face.

I took a step back to let my brain catch up to my
situation. Phantom forks danced in front of my eyes and I rapped my knuckles on
the door trying to grab one of them. When I tried to look down at my hands, I
wondered why I was blind before figuring out Mel hadn’t bothered to turn a
light on when shuffling me into the bathroom. Realization dawned in an instant,
though.

Chloe had my fork!

“Excuse me, please!” Fumbling, I searched for the
doorknob. It took forever, but I found it, twisted it, pulled it. The door
moved just enough to knock against my chest and I was briefly too ignorant to
understand why I couldn't get out.

Pausing with the doorknob pressed against my belly, I
wondered why Mel was so intent on keeping me from putting perfectly harmless
utensils into perfectly harmless electrical sockets where they so clearly
belonged.

It took me another eternity but I eventually
understood that the door and my body could not occupy the same space. I stepped
back, deliberately grabbed the knob once again, and tugged. Light followed the
door into the tiny bathroom and I felt my eyes tear up as they adjusted. Once I
could see, I turned to the left and my jaw dropped. Silver flashed in the light
as Chloe tried to stab
my
fork into Mel’s chest.

“That's not where it goes!” I insisted, offended that
she had stolen my fork but didn't even know how to treat it properly. My feet
carried me closer, seemingly independent of my mind as I took in the scene.

My cutlery nemesis was dangling off Mel’s back, her
forearm pressed against his throat. He was grunting, blocking her attacks as
best he could. To my surprise, she jabbed him twice in the arm and didn’t draw
blood. When she got him in the neck, he let out a low, long growl and grabbed
her wrist, fighting her as she used every bit of her strength to push the fork
toward his face.

“I didn’t want to do this,” he warned, abruptly
tipping forward. Chloe cried out as she flipped over his head, dropping onto
her back on the floor. I watched the fork as she descended, seeing the perfect
opportunity to get it back.

I scrabbled for the fork, leaning over her to grab
for it, even as she let out a very human growl of her own and tried to hold it
out of my reach. I pushed my hand against the side of her face but she let out
a battle cry and knocked her thigh into the back of my knee to throw me off
balance. A struggle ensued, Chloe dragging me down with her. We rolled along
the carpet, kicking, biting, and slapping. Despite the fact that both of us
were trying to get the fork and get away, all our shoving, clawing, and
complaining couldn’t separate us. She had the fork and wasn’t willing to give
it up, but I weigh more than she does and figured out pretty quickly how to use
it to keep her down.

Luckily for me, she didn’t try to stab me in the eye
like she had Mel.

I’m not sure how long our tussle lasted, but it
officially ended when Mel dumped an ice bucket full of water over us. My cry
of, “I need it, please!” devolved into a sputtering coughing fit as Chloe
paused with her free hand on my cheek, the fork held out at arm’s length. Her
wail of rage trailed off into a moan of confusion.

“Dammit,” she said after a moment.

I did my best to wipe the water away from my face,
flipped over to cough as much of it as I could manage out of my lungs. Chloe
slapped my back and I looked over in time to see Mel gently lean down, slide
the apparently disarmed fork carefully from her grip, and then stand up.

“You okay?” Chloe asked. I coughed again, silently
cursed the water that had managed to make its way down into the cups of my bra,
and nodded.

“I think so. What the hell happened?”

“That was almost fantasy material right there,” Mel
mused. “Too many clothes, of course.”

Chloe got to her feet and reached down to pull me to
my feet. Sure I was stable, Chloe turned to Mel and lifted her fist.

“I hit you once, I’ll do it again.”

Mel just laughed and tossed us each a towel.

Chapter Twenty-One

“If I never see another fork, it’ll be too soon,” I
said once we were in the car and on our way back to Merrin’s. I had Devon in my
lap while Ashley and Felicity were strapped in the back seat next to me.

“How will you eat cake?” Chloe asked.

I scoffed. “With my hands.
Duh.
”

“Of course. I shouldn’t have asked.”

I was exhausted. The week had been the worst of my
life. It even trumped the one that followed my cowardly decision to leave my
ex-husband. I’d thought at the time that leaving the sweetest man on the planet
would be the worst thing I ever experienced. Even considering that running away
from my marriage had left me with ten years of bitterness and guilt, this was
worse.

The kids were all asleep, still under whatever
enchantment the demon had laid down. I could feel inconsistent emotions coming
from them, so I knew their sleep wasn’t genuine. Brushing my hand over Devon’s
hair, I looked up to Chloe.

“If Laurel and Hardy can’t deal with the demon, what
are we going to do with these little guys?”

“A specialist has been called in.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“It is,” she said, though she shot me a small,
encouraging smile. “I was promised he’s the best, though—that once he’s
done with the demon, she won’t cause trouble for anyone ever again.”

“I was wrong;
that
sounds ominous.”

Chloe chuckled. I fought off a yawn and spoke as she
gave in to one as well. “Mel, how are you doing? You look distracted.”

“I’m just thinking.”

“About how Chloe stabbed you with a fork?”

Chloe threw me a look I didn’t like. “Don’t say that
like you haven’t wanted to stab Mel yourself.”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” I said, holding up a hand
in defense. “I’ve never lacked for fantasies of jabbing Mel with something
pointy, but it’s one thing to fantasize and another entirely to actually try
it.”

Chloe hummed in agreement and looked to Mel. When he
didn’t speak, she poked his temple.

“What’s going on in there?”

“Oh, nothing. I’m just fantasizing about jabbing Gwen
with my—”

“Hey,” I interrupted. “There are children present!”

Mel caught my eye in the rearview and smiled.
Refusing to give in to the laugh in the back of my throat, I rubbed my hand
over Devon’s hair again and got back to PG topics. “So what’s the verdict? Are
you still weak as a kitten?”

“I’m a little sore where Chloe punched me and in all
the places she stabbed me with a fork,” he said after a moment. Chloe laughed. “And
where she kicked me, but otherwise I’m fine.”

“Fine like all better?” I asked.

“No, the specialist will need to work on him, too,”
Chloe said.

“Does the specialist have a name?”

Chloe was quiet for a moment. “That, you’ll have to
ask him.”

She sure made it sound like a bad idea.

***

The atmosphere in Merrin’s tiny apartment was
uncomfortable, to say the least. Merrin was locked in her pantry with her cards
again, evidently disinterested in meeting this specialist or seeing how
everything ended. Laurel and Hardy were on demon duty, standing watch over the
girl that had wreaked havoc on several lives during the last few weeks. She was
bound and gagged on her back, motionless save for her head, which she kept
lifted so she could watch the room.

Evadne was sitting on the couch, eying Laurel and
Hardy with distaste, as if they were maggots she wished to squish under her
stylish boots. Mel was keeping quiet, unwilling to risk Evadne’s wrath in his
state. I was tired, parked on the floor next to the children, wondering when
the so-called expert would be arriving. The kids were still asleep, stretched
out on the fluffy rug, a pillow tucked under each of their heads.

Chloe, however, looked completely relaxed, sitting in
Merrin’s desk chair, using her toe to spin it slightly left and right.

“Did he say he’d be so late?” Chloe asked Evadne. The
fairy rolled her icy gaze to Chloe, watched her for a moment, and shook her
head.

“He has not told me anything.”

I jumped when someone knocked at the door.

“Better not be Girl Scouts,” Chloe quipped, going to
answer it. I turned to watch her, wondering why I felt nothing on the other
side. In twenty-nine years, Hardy had been the only emotional void I’d ever
come across. It didn’t seem likely I’d come across a second so soon.

The man who stepped in looked human but most
certainly wasn’t. He looked tall, slim, and was dressed in a well-tailored
charcoal suit. His skin was a soft brown, his hair black, his eyes the color of
smooth, melted dark chocolate. Well-groomed and clean-shaven, he was casual as
he entered the apartment, looking at everyone individually. He managed to make
each quick look a heady connection, like we’d all made friends with him in an
instant. Despite the fact that it had been raining outside, he was dry and
carried no umbrella. His shoes looked as if they’d just been pulled from their
box moments before.

“Evadne.” He inclined his head slightly toward her,
stopped just out of arm’s reach of me. I suddenly felt very small sitting on
the floor. Our visitor’s eyes dropped to the children and the faintest trace of
disappointment flickered over his face. “I see. And our problem child?”

Evadne simply looked to where the demon lay. When he
turned to look at the girl, anger burst out of her, smacking against me like
wet bread dough. I flinched, swiping at the slimy, thick feeling of it before
my nerves caught up to the fact that nothing was really there. The man walked
over slowly, lifted his hand lazily in the air, and flicked his fingers toward
Laurel and Hardy twice.

“Off you go,” he ordered calmly. Without waiting for
them to obey, he dropped down into a crouch, meeting the demon’s eyes. They
scurried; Hardy even managed to make his retreat look small and terrified,
despite his bulk. “I let you off your leash for one moment and this how you
betray me.”

The demon did her best to thrash but, like me just
hours before—had it really only been hours?—she was paralyzed from
the neck down. She did manage to smack her head on the wooden floor, but I’d
bet that wasn’t her intention. I wasn’t entirely sure, since our visitor’s
emotions were so faint as to make me think I might be imagining them, but it
seemed to me he found her rage funny. He watched her until she stopped
struggling, saying nothing when she tried to speak through her gag.

When she stopped, however, he reached a hand out,
grabbed her neck, and pushed to his feet in one smooth motion. It caused him no
strain to lift her by her throat until she was on her feet.

“You’ve lost all the privileges I was so kind as to
bestow upon you, Nysgrogh.” He gave her name a very specific inflection and her
eyes went wide.

I can’t exactly say how I knew he was sucking the
life out of her, but there was something there, under the obvious. Maybe it was
the connection she’d created between us, or maybe it was just my lizard brain
puzzling together what all my other faculties couldn’t make sense of
individually. Whatever it was, I
knew
what it meant
.

Thanks to whatever the fairies had done to her, she
couldn’t really fight it. Because of the bruising grip the man had on her neck,
she couldn’t scream. When it was finished, when the last of the demon was gone
and the girl’s eyes closed, the man dropped her limp body to the floor.

I gasped at the heavy sound. I’d never been in the
same room as a corpse before, let alone one that had been dropped like a bag of
rotting oranges. I thought of Chloe’s words earlier about the girl the demon
had possessed. Supposedly she’d been lost long before, but that only made it
worse. I stared at the ex-demon and wondered what would become of her. Did she
have a family? People who missed her?

The man spun to face the rest of the room and flicked
his gaze to Chloe. The question of what would happen to the dead girl died on
my lips when he spoke.

“Who’s next?”

“The kids,” I said without thinking. My nerves
couldn’t outweigh the connection I still had to them. If their enchanted sleep
was anything like the snotty nightmare I’d had over a tub of ice cream, I
wanted it stopped as soon as possible. “They should get home soon.”

The man was still, a faint smile on his full lips.

Chloe got to her feet. “The kids,” she repeated.

“Very well.” He moved forward, dropping to one knee
in front of them. He was quick, merely placing a hand on each of their little
foreheads for a beat before moving to the next. He stayed crouching as he
finished, looking to me. I fought the urge to scoot away. “And you’re the last.”

“Am I that obvious?” I asked, trying for a casual
laugh. It came out a squeak. He only smiled as he reached toward my jacket.

“Is this for me?” he asked. Puzzled, I looked down,
flinching when he dipped his hand into my pocket to pull out a little pink
square of paper. The candy thief had struck again.

“Just call me Pony Express,” I sighed, gesturing for
him to get on with it. The man smiled, read the paper over, and then lifted his
gaze to mine.

“I take it you didn’t know this was in there?”

“I’ve been a little busy lately.”

“Would you like to read it?”

“Is it dirty?” I asked. He chuckled and twisted his
elegant fingers in such a way that the note flipped in one move to face me.

It said simply,
You need shorter leashes, B.

“Are you B?” I asked. He just watched me, his smile a
wall between me and the answer. I tried for another. “Do you know who keeps
leaving me these notes?”

Ignoring that question, too, he said, “I look forward
to seeing you again.” Then he pressed his fingertips to my forehead and I
passed out.

***

I woke up on the couch in my office this time. It
took me a bit to realize what was happening and my first instinct was to assume
I’d just fallen asleep between appointments. When I heard Mel’s voice in the
waiting room, though, the week came flooding back to me and I propped myself up
on my elbows. A second later, as the outer door opened and shut, Mel leaned
tentatively through the doorway.

“Oh, you’re awake.”

“Where’s Chloe? How’d we get here?”

Mel came in, dropped down in the chair across from
me, and propped his ankle up on his knee. “She said she had some things to take
care of and left me to make sure you got home safely. As to why we’re here,
Evadne kicked everyone out pretty fast after the suit finished up.”

“The kids? They’re safe?”

“As houses. Evadne took care of it.”

“Can we trust her?”

“Normally I would say no, but this got out of hand.
Generally speaking, upper fae don’t care much about helping humans. As long as
you’re not a threat to them, they’re not interested in you. This, however, went
too far, got too close to their operation. They’ll get the kids back to their
families and set up some poor schmuck to take the fall.”

“Just a random—” I realized I was still lying
down and swung my legs around so I could sit up. The motion made me slightly
dizzy but I pressed on. “They’re going to just blame some random person?”

“They won’t pick a priest out of a lineup and dump it
on him, sweetheart. They’ll probably pick someone who’s pissed them off or made
trouble for them. It won’t be an innocent, don’t worry.”

I didn’t feel any better about a frame job, but at
least I could be sure the kids were getting home safe. That was the important
part. I scrubbed my hands over my face. I wasn’t sure of the last time I’d
taken a shower, couldn’t even remember what I’d eaten last. I gazed out the
windows behind my desk before looking at Mel again.

“You look better.”

“Than?”

“You did before.” I grinned. “Chloe hit you pretty
hard, and after getting kicked in the head by the demon, you looked a little
green.”

“I got my full power back.” Mel grinned, waggling his
brows as he leaned forward. “Who do you think carried you up here?”

I winced, not thrilled with the idea of Mel’s hands
on my unconscious body. To my surprise, though, I found I actually trusted him
not to have gone too far. He hadn’t taken advantage of me when I’d been drunk
and that had been the least of the good-guy things he’d shown me he was capable
of. If I could’ve super-glued the necklace to his chest for eternity, we
might’ve been able to be friends.

“Chloe say how long her thing will take?” I asked
after an awkward silence.

“She didn’t. But I’m sure there’s time for a quickie
on the couch.”

I wrinkled my nose in disgust. “You’ve been halfway
decent this week but the answer will always be no. And, at this point, not only
capital-N No, but also Ugh and Gross.”

Mel only laughed, shaking his head in mock disbelief.
I took a deep breath, got to my feet, and dragged my sore body toward the
records room. I wasn’t sure I felt well enough to eat solid food—for once
in my life, I wasn’t craving straight sugar—but tea sounded like a pretty
good idea.