The Fairyland Murders (13 page)

T
he next morning, as the sun rose higher in the sky, Izzy emerged from
my
bedroom, her body covered in
my
favorite T-shirt. It hit her mid creamy thigh. I tried to tear my gaze away from her pale, lush flesh, but my eyeballs seemed to have a will of their own. I really needed to get a life, one far enough away from the temptation of pink wings. “Morning,” I said once I found my voice.

She grunted in response. Guess the pink-winged fairy wasn't a morning person. I frowned, watching as she staggered toward the kitchen with slow, measured steps, as if she couldn't bear her weight.

“You okay?” I asked, tapping my gloved fingers against the tabletop.

Rather than answer, she lurched from the coffeepot to the refrigerator, knocking a stack of dishes to the floor. They hit the ground and shattered, sending bits of ceramic flying in all directions.

“Whoa . . .” I jumped up, catching her thin frame as she slumped toward the glass-coated ground. “Izzy,” I demanded, shaking her gently, “open your eyes.”

When she failed to respond I scooped her up, holding her body against mine. Heat flared between us, but not of the lustful or even electrical kind. Her body was burning up. So hot the very touch of her skin felt like a lightning strike. I carried her to the couch, laying her down with as much gentleness as I could muster.

Once she was on the sofa her eyes fluttered open. They looked glassy and unfocused. A sheen of sweat beaded her upper lip. Something was very wrong. “What's going on?” I asked, running my gloved hand over her brow. “Are you sick?”

“I'm fine,” she snapped, trying to push off the couch. I held her down. She fought for a few seconds and then fell back against the cushions, exhausted. “Damn you, Blue,” she cursed and then closed her eyes, slipping into unconsciousness.

For the next few hours, while her body burned with fever and shook with chills, I sat by her side, my fear increasing with every soft moan from her lips.

“Fight it, Izzy,” I said, brushing my hand down her cheek. I pulled a blanket over her, doing my best to keep her warm. When that didn't work I rubbed my hands together until they burned with electricity and wrapped my body against her until the chills ravaging her stilled.

After five hours her fever broke and she fell into a fitful sleep. I staggered to my feet, feeling exhausted and terrified. I glanced around my apartment, my eyes falling on the open doorway to my bedroom. Izzy's suitcase sat on the floor.

I took a deep breath, running a hand over my face. I knew what had to be done. Her life was at stake. I had no choice, I told myself. Not that that lessened the creep factor as I stomped to my bedroom and ripped open Izzy's suitcase.

At first glance everything looked on the up-and-up. A couple of pairs of jeans and tank tops sat folded neatly on top. Under those were two sweaters, complete with wing holes, and then a week's worth of panties, socks, and C-cup bras in an array of bright colors. I felt like a perv as I lifted each tiny, lacy pair of panties up for inspection. No one ever claimed being a PI was all glitz and glamour. A blue-haired boy did what he had to do.

Three panties in, a flash of white plastic gained my notice. I pulled the panties back, not surprised to find several rolls of mint-flavored dental floss. I pictured Barry's lifeless corpse swinging from the same flavored floss. A shiver ran up my spine, but I shook it off. She was a fairy; it made sense that she would carry an abundance of dental floss.

Or so I told myself.

I set the floss aside and dug deeper. Inside the left cup of a white satin bra, I found what I was looking for. What I'd hoped I wouldn't find. A clear plastic vial sat at the bottom of the suitcase. A very empty vial.

I closed my eyes and swore softly.

Izzy needed more help than I'd once thought.

W
hile Izzy slept under a mountain of blankets on my couch, I prepared for what was to come. I stuffed my really big gun in my waistband, shoved a wicked-looking knife in my boot, and pulled on a pair of my thickest gloves.

Izzy moaned in her sleep as I slipped past the couch. I paused, staring down at the sleeping fairy. Fear rose in me. Would I be able to save her or was she already too far gone? “Hang in there, Izzy. I will make things right,” I said, brushing my thumb down her cheek. Her face bunched and then relaxed. I swallowed hard, taking one last look at her asleep on the couch before heading out my front door.

Less than ten seconds later I was across the hall, knocking on my neighbor's door. Gizelle answered immediately, her head stuffed inside an overly large turban. “Blue.” She threw her arms wide, showing off jiggling arm fat and gauzy fabric. “I knew it was you.”

I hid a smile. Of course she'd known it was me. She'd peeked through the peephole before she answered. “Gizelle.” I nodded. “Would you mind doing me a favor?”

She playfully moved to slap my arm, but I stepped back in time. The landlord frowned on me frying his tenants. Gizelle didn't seem to notice my sidestepping, though. “Of course I will. Your wish is my command.”

Rather than sounding generous, her offer set the hair on the back of my neck on edge. I liked Gizelle just fine, but in an absolutely hands-off way. But I did need her help.

Someone had to check in on Izzy. I didn't want to leave her alone—not now—not when she was too weak to protect herself. Not that I'd been much of a protector so far. Hell, under my watchful eyes she'd been shot, kidnapped, and singed in an apartment fire. Now this. I vowed to make it up to her, to keep her safe and healthy, no matter what it took.

From this moment forward.

I hoped.

Taking a shuddering breath, I shot Gizelle my best smile before asking her to watch over Izzy for the next couple of hours. Lucky for me, Gizelle agreed without question, but I still had a problem.

Izzy.

From past experience I knew she would not be pleased, not only with my absence but also being left alone with my kooky neighbor. I'd be lucky if she didn't string me up with one of those rolls of dental floss when I returned. Or worse, I'd find Gizelle hanging in my linen closet. Not that I had a closet for linens, mind you. But the point was the same.

I'd just have to deal with the fallout.

With Izzy in Gizelle's overly ringed but safe hands, I headed from my apartment to the street below with one goal in mind. A goal that grated on my every nerve, but I wasn't in the PI business to have fun. Or make much money. Which made me wonder just why the hell was I in the business at all?

The answer to my question wasn't an easy one. Neither was what I was about to do, which was locate a dealer in the heart of Fairyland willing to sell me what Izzy desperately needed to survive.

 

Everything was for sale at the right price.

Unless, of course, you were a blue-haired PI with electricity issues in a neighborhood run by fairies, who, from the dirty looks I received, weren't fans of the aforementioned. My lack of funds didn't help matters either. Dealers rarely afforded credit to strangers, let alone strangers without wings in a community full of their own feathery kind.

After nearly getting my ass kicked by the seventh dealer I approached, I settled on a different tactic. I pulled my cell phone from the pocket of my jeans, wincing as the dealer smoldering on the ground moaned. “Quiet,” I said, kicking him in the side as I dialed Little Bo Peep.

“Not a good time, Blue,” she said in greeting.

Didn't I know it. I cleared my throat. “Hey, Bo, it's good to hear your voice.”

“What do you want this time?”

“I need a little help.”

“Dream on,” she said, her soft chuckle turning to full-on laughter. “The burn marks on my thighs haven't healed from the last favor I did for you.”

I grinned at the memory. “I apologized, right?”

Her sigh burst through the line. “Just tell me what you want.” She listened intently while I explained what I needed, interrupting a few times for clarification. When I finished she was quiet for a long moment. For a few seconds I thought she'd hung up, but then she spoke. “It's gonna cost you.”

Great. After paying rent on my apartment with Penelopee's retainer check, I had less than a hundred bucks in my bank account, and much less than that in my pocket. “How about a discount for old times' sake?”

“How about I hang up right now?”

“Fine,” I said, crossing my fingers behind my back. “I'll get the money. Do we have a deal?”

Silence filled the phone line, and then she finally spoke. “A friend of mine will meet you in the park by the Three Little Pigs memorial in an hour. Don't be late, and Blue . . .” She paused, and the bluish hairs on the back of my neck rose with electricity. “Leave the hardware at home. If my friend so much as thinks you have a weapon, the deal is off.”

“Thanks, Bo,” I said. “I owe you one.”

“I'll make sure to collect.” With that she hung up, leaving me to wonder when she planned to do just that. Bo wasn't known for her generosity, and I suspected I'd find out soon enough what her help would cost.

I was pretty sure I wouldn't like the price.

Not that I could afford it anyway.

I
had no sooner hung up with Bo Peep when my cell phone rang. I checked the caller ID expecting to see Gizelle's number pop up. But instead, an unfamiliar number with a New Never City area code flashed on the small screen.

“Reynolds,” I answered.

“Blue? Oh thank God,” Penelopee's voice crackled through the line, cutting in and out, as if she were in a tunnel.

“Princess,” I cupped my other ear, straining to hear her, “can you speak up? Sounds like we have a bad connection.”

Static filled the line. “I need your help. . . .”

“Penelopee? Help for what? Hello?”

“. . . Dust Ave and Seventh Street . . . coffee shop.... Hurry,” she said, and then the call dropped, leaving me listening to dead air.

“Shit.” I ended the call and checked my watch. I had fifty minutes until the meet with Bo Peep's friend. Barely enough time to make it to Dust and Seventh and back, let alone discourage—i.e, fry—Penelopee's ex and recover a sex tape. If that was why she had called at all. A part of me suspected a much deeper reason, namely a growing obsession with yours bluely.

I bit my lip. But she had sounded terrified. And she was a paying client. On the other hand, if I screwed up this deal with Bo's friend, Izzy would suffer.

I glanced down at my watch one more time.

 

A little over an hour later I stood in the middle of Slightly Off Central Park, blowing the steam from the cup of hot coffee in my hands as I checked the time for the tenth time. Waiting for Bo's “friend,” who was now twenty minutes late, was driving me crazy. Every minute that passed was another minute of suffering for a certain pink-winged fairy. The thought of her in pain for even a second longer than necessary increased my agitation tenfold.

To top it off, I felt naked without my really big gun, which I'd dumped in the bushes a few yards away after I returned from Penelopee's wild–Mother Goose chase. The whole thing turned out to be a complete waste of time. By the time I arrived at Dust and Seventh, Penelopee was nowhere to be seen. I'd asked around, but no one in the coffee shop had seen a princess matching her description.

I called the missing princess, but she failed to answer. I left a message for her to call me back and then grabbed a cab to the Park. Once there I had ditched my really big gun in the bushes and settled in to wait.

Since I'd managed to come up with only fifty-seven dollars, not nearly enough for what Izzy needed—not at current market value—I was fairly sure I'd need the hidden gun. But maybe Bo's “friend” might be willing to help me out.

I laughed at the thought.

This was a Blue-eat-dealer world. Only the strongest (electrically charged) man would survive. I drained my coffee cup and then tossed it in the trash. I began rubbing my hands together, producing an electrical storm bouncing through my nerves as my adrenaline spiked. My fingers tingled as sparks shot from the tips, nearly cooking a pigeon sitting on the ground a few feet away.

“You Reynolds?” asked a short, very fat man in a velvet jogging suit as he lumbered up. With the exception of his thick middle and thighs, he looked like a typical dealer, his eyes darting back and forth, scanning the landscape for cops or new clients.

My head bobbed with a small nod.

He smiled, showing off rows of decaying teeth, enough to give the toughest of Tooth Fairies nightmares. The irony of buying what Izzy desperately needed from this guy wasn't lost on me. “You got the money?” he hissed.

Again I nodded ever so slightly.

“Good.” He pulled a vial of white powder from his pocket. From my vantage point it looked good, so I pulled out a wad of bills, wrapped around an inch of cardboard to fortify it. I just needed a few seconds head start. Just enough time to grab the vial and take off. No one needed to get hurt.

He held out his hand.

I sent a quick prayer to the heavens as I shoved the wad his way. As his fingers curled around the money and cardboard, he stiffened.

Electricity crackled in the air.

He dropped to his knees, his mouth forming a circle, but no sound escaped. I yanked on my gloves and reached for the vial in his clenched fist, but he wouldn't let go. His muscles had constricted, gripping the bottle even tighter.

Guess I hadn't thought this all the way through.

Using the heel of my boot, I pried his fist open, freeing the vial. “Sorry, mate,” I said, patting his head.

I let him go and then headed for my really big gun, hidden in the bushes. I picked it up, dusted a thicket of briars off it, and then shoved it in my waistband. With one last look at the downed dealer, I tucked the vial in my pocket. Slowly, as if nothing had just occurred, I headed for the Park's exit. From there I would disappear into the afternoon commuter traffic, no one the wiser.

However, my grand plan didn't factor in one thing.

An army of Shadows.

Pissed-off Shadows, by the look of them.