The Lady in Pink - Deadly Ever After 2 (2 page)

W
ith Detective Locks’s stern warning not to leave the city ringing in my ears, I gave Izzy the slip, ducking out of my apartment while she was down the hall talking to my supposedly psychic neighbor, Gizelle. I headed to the street, lighting a cigarette as dusk slowly shifted to night. A few blocks up I stopped, my gaze scanning the turrets and stained glass covering New Never City’s only Catholic church, Our Lady of the Tramp. It had been a very long time since my last confession. I doubted the priest had enough time to hear all of my sins. Hell, I’d committed four of the deadly ones by breakfast. And probably would commit a few more before bed.

That was life in the big city for a PI.

On his day off.

Crushing my cigarette under the heel of my boot, I headed farther up the street. A princess in a tight leather dress called to me, offering more than true love’s kiss. Had I not just left the scene of a violent murder, I might’ve considered taking her up on her offer. That was until I noticed the excess bulge in her tights. “Thanks anyway,” I said with a wave.

“Your loss,” she said in a deep voice.

Be that as it may, I didn’t feel even an ounce of regret as I arrived at my final destination a few blocks up—the Mother Goose. My usual watering hole. What it lacked in atmosphere, cleanliness, and customer service—and it did lack a lot in each—it more than made up for in degenerate clientele and cheap albeit watered-down whiskey. I opened the door, letting the stench of years of smoke, stale beer, and body odor wash over me. For a minute, I felt completely at home.

I was careful to keep my back to the wall as I moved inside. No point being an easy target. If someone wanted me dead he’d damn well have to work for it. I wouldn’t succumb to an “accident” like James had, not anytime soon, I hoped. My mind flashed to my intern’s burned flesh and I shivered.

My mind drifted to the look in Izzy’s eyes when she saw that I was alive earlier this afternoon. I wasn’t sure whether it was pleasure, fear, or something much, much worse in her gaze. I shook off that thought. Izzy wasn’t the stage-an-accident kind of killer. If she wanted me dead, two things were clear. One, she’d use her hands and/or wings to do it. And two, I’d be dead. No question about it. Izzy wasn’t a fairy to be messed with.

So just who wanted me dead?

Another group of winged assholes came to mind. The fairies blamed me for everything, from restarting the bloody hundred-year war with the Shadows to losing their Tooth Fairy. Of course, I held quite a few grudges against the winged devils too. After all, they had tried, desperately at times, to murder me. Not to mention their constant lying, cheating, and shooting off my pinkie toe.

My foot still ached when it rained.

Which it often did in the city.

“Well, well,” a gravelly voice called from a ripped barstool a few feet away. “Little Boy Blue. Where you been, sugar?”

Rather than answer, I walked passed the speaker without pausing and flagged the bartender down with a wave. Not one to be ignored, the willowy woman on the stool, her skin yellowed from years of bar smoke and liver disease, slammed her drink on the bar top to gain my attention. “Don’t be rude, Blue. Buy a lady a drink.”

I licked my lips, slowly turning to face Fern with a raised eyebrow.

She let out a loud snort. “One drink, luv. And I’ll make it worth your while.”

A shiver of disgust rolled over my flesh. Thankfully I’d yet to get drunk enough to find out if what Fern promised would in fact be worth more than the shots of penicillin I’d need afterward. “I’m good. But thanks anyway.”

Her snort was louder this time, echoed by her twin sister, Fern, planted on the barstool next to her. “Not what we heard.”

I winced. Had one of my electrified one-night stands been talking out of turn? “And just what have you heard?”

The first Fern sat straighter on her stool, downed the brown liquor in her glass, and smiled with satisfaction. “Many things,” she whispered as she waved the bartender over. “A bottle of your finest mead and I’ll tell you a story.” She paused, licking her thin lips. “About a certain boy with a price on his blue-haired head.”

Fern finally had my complete attention. I strode to her stool and leaned down so she could hear my every word. “You better not be playing me.” I emphasized my warning by rubbing my hands together, generating glowing blue sparks of electrical current.

Neither Fern seemed overly worried at my threat. Instead both women cackled with humor. “Relax your pretty little head,” the closer Fern replied. “We wouldn’t want you to strain yourself.”

I studied the Ferns, debating. One on hand, the Ferns were known for pulling any scam they could for free booze. Then again, someone had just tried to electrocute me in my own apartment. I pictured James’s charred corpse and called to the bartender, “Give them a bottle each. And a whiskey for me. The good stuff.” I tossed forty bucks on the bar.

The bartender snatched the money and then slid our drinks across the bar. The Ferns gobbled theirs up as if the liquor might disappear as their youth had. I lifted my own whiskey, swirling it around as I considered what the Ferns might know. Bars were excellent for gleaning information. Get someone a little liquored up and you’d be amazed at what they would admit. Which was why I limited my bar drinking to half a bottle and under.

Once the Ferns finished their drinks, I focused on the one closest to me. “All right. Let’s hear it.”

She straightened on her stool, her cheeks flushed pink with alcohol-infused delight. “Fern and I, well, we sometimes hear things.”

“Uh-huh.” I’d used their intel a time or two to solve a case; after all, the Ferns knew every drunk in the city. Men and women willing to sell whatever bit of information they had for another drink. “What did you hear about me?”

Fern frowned, her thin lips all but disappearing in her face. “I’m getting to it, Blue Boy. You’re so impatient, always wanting what you shouldn’t have. One day someone is going to show you your place.”

My eyes narrowed at her commentary, but I stayed quiet. She would get to the point. Eventually. I just hoped I lived long enough to hear it. I let out an annoyed sigh.

She shook her head at the sound. “This is exactly what I’m talking about.”

“Can you please get to the point?” I snapped.

Face tight, she finally did what I asked. “Fine. Fern and I were at Pixies the other night when we . . . umm . . . overheard a conversation about you. About a contract on your life.”

Considering Pixies Bar & Grill was a Fairyland institution, my question of exactly who wanted me dead was easy enough to figure out. Fucking fairies. Those little demons sure could hold a grudge. “Who was talking?” I think I knew the answer to that question too—Izzy’s uncles, Clayton and Peyton. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d tried to off me. Then again, I’d thought we’d moved past outright murder after Izzy and I became partners. So much for affected loyalty.

“Two people.” She paused, her eyes growing squinty. “Both were hidden in the shadows. So neither of us got a good look.”

“Was there anything about the men you can remember? Their voices? Or what they ordered? Anything that can help me?” I growled, thinking about the hundreds of thousands of fairies who lived in Fairyland, not to mention the other seven million nonwinged suspects living in New Never City. “Got anything else to go on?”

Fern shrugged her willowy shoulders. “I think one of them might’ve been a woman.”

“A woman?” Damn, that let Clayton and Peyton off the hook. And I sure had looked forward to exacting a bit of revenge on those two.

“A woman, her hair as blond as spun gold.”

My eyes narrowed. “Are you sure it was a blond chick?” Sure I’d had a few bad dates in my time, but not one of them had tried to kill me. Yet. My mind flashed to Bo Peep. Scratch that. Only one had tried to kill me. I was fairly sure it wasn’t her, though. Staging an accident wasn’t her style. She was much more likely to hire some douche to shank me in an alleyway.

Fern wasn’t finished; her brow wrinkled, giving her face an even more scrunched look. “Maybe it wasn’t a woman at all. Who can say for sure?”

“You’ve been a great help.” I pulled away from the bar, feeling as if I’d been played. I had my doubts about the Ferns’ tale. After all, I was still in the game. I would know if someone had a contract out on me, especially if that someone, man, woman, or fairy, was dumb enough to hold a murderous negotiation in a dive bar.

“You can’t have everything,” she replied with a snort.

I waved the bartender over again and ordered three more drinks. The Ferns grinned with delight at the prospect of more free booze. I smiled too, but for a far different reason.

The bartender brought my drinks over, and I proceeded to drink each and every one while the Ferns looked on. While it wasn’t the most mature payback, it sure as hell made me feel better than I had a few short hours ago when I’d first walked into my apartment and saw my smoldering intern on the floor. I downed the rest of my drink to wash away the image.

A
few hours and eight whiskies later, night blanketed the city as I stepped from Pixies Bar & Grill, in the heart of Fairyland, the very place the Ferns claimed to have overheard a blonde talking about my murder. I’d questioned every fairy in sight without luck. Either they weren’t aware of the contract on my life or they weren’t talking. I suspected the latter. Yet without any leverage, other than threatening to fry a few of them, I couldn’t make them talk.

The only saving grace was that the bar served some fairly good whiskey. While the booze had warmed the coldness in my soul, it hadn’t quite freed me from the events of the day. James was still very much dead. And it was still very much my own fault.

I swallowed over the lump in my chest as my gaze swiveled up and down the seemingly deserted street. My sixth sense, developed after years of being mugged by ogres and beaten for being blue haired by local members of the Big Bad Wolves gang, screamed danger. Something bad—very bad, in fact—was lurking nearby. I could feel its evil stare, practically smell the stench of its breath.

I reached into the pocket of my jacket, making a show of pulling out a pack of smokes. I lit one, inhaling until my lungs burned with pleasure. If I was about to die, I sure as hell was going to enjoy my last moments. I blew out a steady stream of smoke, using it as a screen to search the shadows with greater focus. There. Up the street just in the mouth of an alley, a flash of something caught my eye.

Was it the same assassin who’d murdered my intern, lying in wait to take me out?

I sure as hell hoped so. It would make the investigation into the murder so much quicker.

Acting for the entire world like a blue-haired guy without a care to his name, I strode slowly up the street, enjoying my cigarette after a long day. With genuine regret I snuffed out my smoke on the oil-and urine-stained sidewalk. Then I reached back into the holster under my armpit. This time I withdrew something, if not much deadlier, at least quicker to kill. Thanks to Izzy’s insistence on my not looking like a thug and scaring off our richer clientele, I carried a .38, which fit nicely in the holster, though it did chafe a bit—one of the perils of responsible gun ownership.

Edging closer to the alleyway, my focus intent on whatever lay ahead, I was shocked to hear a ringing in my ears. I shook my head, trying to stop the noise. When that didn’t work I glanced down at my Levi’s. Sure enough, my pocket began to vibrate.

I swore softly, lifting the cell phone from my pocket as if it was plague riddled. I hated carrying a cell phone, ever since those damn fairies had bugged my last one. They’d used it to track my every move. If those idiots could do it, anyone could. But Izzy insisted on my carrying the latest smartphone technology, so like a good boy I did as she asked/ordered. “What?” I snapped into the phone after answering.

“Is that any way to answer?” Izzy’s voice pierced the static. “What if I was a client?”

I grinned at her bossy tone. “I’d wonder what the hell you were doing calling me on my cell phone rather than the office number.”

“Blue,” she said in warning.

“What do you want, Izzy?” I glanced toward the alleyway. “I’m a little busy, so make it quick.”

“What are you up to?” she asked, her every word laced with suspicion.

My smile widened. “Not a thing. I’m practically a choirboy.” Which wasn’t far from the truth, but what Izzy didn’t know wouldn’t hurt me. I straightened to my full six-foot height, my eyes on the mouth of the alley a few short feet away. My focus returned to Izzy. “Are you all right? Did something happen?” I pictured James’s charred body and my voice rose an octave. If anything happened to Izzy . . .

“I’m fine,” she said. “It’s you I’m worried about.”

I laughed. “I can take care of myself. You know that.”

She snorted, and I rolled my eyes. Damn her. I’d saved her life last year and this is the crap I get? I could damn well take care of myself and anyone else who came along. “Someone tried to kill you today, Blue,” she was saying. “If James hadn’t walked in instead, who knows what would’ve happened to you.”

As much as I hated to admit it, she was right.

Then again, you only live once.

“Izzy,” I lied in my most calming tone, “I’m fine. Really. I’m sure whoever fried James isn’t about to try again so soon.”

“I’m not going to let you risk your life because you think you’re bulletproof.” She hesitated for the barest of seconds. “Because you’re not.”

I made tsking sounds. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think that was a threat.”

“I’m serious,” she said in her sternest voice, which oddly enough turned me on more than I would ever admit. It was like being scolded by a naughty winged librarian. I pictured Izzy’s long fiery-red hair wrapped tightly in a bun and thick black-framed glasses slipping down her nose. Not a bad image. “Please don’t do anything stupid. Go home, lock the door, and I’ll see you at the office in the morning. Together we will figure out who’s behind this.”

“Izzy, everything’s under—”

“Please, Blue,” she whispered. “I need you to stay safe.”

“Okay,” I lied.

“Good,” she said, sounding pleased with herself. “I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

I agreed again, my gaze still fixed on the alleyway. We hung up, and I shoved the cell phone back in my pocket before I bolted toward whatever danger lurked in the darkness ahead.

At the mouth of the alley, I scanned the shadows with my gun. A small squeak echoed off the bricks, and I jumped, nearly blowing a nice round hole in a tiny sunglass-wearing mouse with a cane pinballing its way through the garbage strewn on the ground.

I frowned, disappointed, as I shoved my gun in its holster. Patience, I reminded myself. Not that it was one of my virtues, if I had any virtues, that is. I had no doubts that whoever had killed James would try to murder me again. I would just have to wait until they made their move. And then I would have them.

I grinned at the thought.