The Wild Side: Urban Fantasy with an Erotic Edge (20 page)

My skin crawled when he smiled.

“Yes, but it didn’t work the way I planned. The zombies stopped the ceremony but failed to kill Michael. . . .”

“As you planned,” I echoed. The world shifted under my feet. I felt dizzy. My ears roared.

“You were in the forest, too,” Lucy said. “You must have glamoured me, but I remember now. You put the zombie in Michael’s path.”

Grig smiled. “I saw an opportunity and acted upon it. Humans are so easy to manipulate.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the front door.

I dug in my heels and tried to break free. “What are you doing?”

“Taking you back to Faery with me.”

“No! I can’t leave Michael.”

“He’ll be dead soon—if he’s not already.”

“Because of you!”

“Yes.” He yanked my arm again.

I pulled my knife from my back pocket and stabbed Grig with it.

“You think this puny thing is going to stop me?” He ripped it from my hand and threw it across the room.

I grabbed the hallway doorjamb with my free hand, then screamed as he pried my fingers away.

The front door exploded in a shower of wood.

Alex lunged through and barreled into Grig and me. Grig fell to the floor with his sword trapped beneath him. He defended himself from the massive werewolf jaws, first with an umbrella and then with a flowerpot, the only weapons within his reach, as Alex growled and snapped at every move. I heard bones crunch in Grig’s arm.

I scooted out of the way as fast as I could.

Grig landed a blow on the side of Alex’s head with a doorstop. The werewolf rocked back on his haunches.

Alex locked his teeth around Grig’s shoulder and threw him across the room.

Grig bounced against a bookshelf and collapsed to the floor. The bookcase and its contents crashed on top of him.

Alex licked my face with his werewolf tongue, then nudged me toward the basement.

I crawled backwards toward where Michael lay dead or dying. He wasn’t there. I followed the trail of blood through the now open door to the basement. As soon as I was on the stairs, I closed the door on the furious fighting that had resumed in the living room.

Michael was strapped, naked, to an examination table in the middle of the lab. IV tubes snaked out of his neck, his arms, his thighs. Runes decorated his forehead and wrists. Colorful stones marked his chakra points. A gaping wound in his side dripped blood into a bucket under the table. Lucy leaned over him, pushing on his chest.

“Don’t touch him,” she said. “He’s in stasis. As long as I keep up the chest compressions, he won’t die.”

Victor looked up from his work. “I have a theory,” he said. “Fairies are immune to zombie contamination; correct?”

“Why do you think that?” I hedged. This was a forbidden topic.

“Grig never showed any ill effects from his encounter with the zombie parts in Lucy’s office.”

“Yes,” I said, “but what does that have to do with Michael?”

“I want to drain his contaminated blood and replace it with fairy blood,” Victor said.

“Faery law forbids this kind of transfusion,” I said.

“So does human law,” Victor said.

I sat down and rolled up my sleeve.

Michael started convulsing as soon as my blood hit his bloodstream.

“It’s not working!” I cried. I sat as the strength left my legs.

“Give it a minute,” Victor said, pushing me back down. “The infection is fighting the fairy blood.”

“Michael, I need you,” I said, leaning as close as I could, knowing that I couldn’t touch him. “Fight this. Don’t give up. I love you.”

“His heart is beating on its own!” Lucy said.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Yes!” Victor said. “I was right. Your blood is winning! It’s working.”

“Sylvie, we’re going to need more blood than you can give,” Lucy said.

“Alex,” I said, knowing that his werewolf hearing would bring him to my side in an instant. “Bring Grig down here, please. He needs to make a donation.”

Even though Grig was barely conscious from his battle with Alex, it took three of us to restrain him for the procedure.

“He looks like the Tin Woodsman, Sylvie. Do you think we used too much duct tape?” Lucy asked.

“Did you have any trouble putting the IVs in?” I asked.

“No,” she said.

“Then we used just the right amount.”

“You’ll never be allowed back into Faery, Sylvie!” Grig screamed. “I did this for you. If it wasn’t me, it would have been some other fairy. I love you!”

“Oh look,” I said, “we missed a spot.” I slapped a piece of duct tape over Grig’s mouth.

I turned to Alex. “How did you find us?” I asked.

“I followed the scent.”

I threw my arms around his neck. “Thank you,” I said.

* * *

After two hours, I couldn’t keep to myself any more. “Are you sure Michael’s going to be okay?” I asked.

“Look at his wounds, Sylvie,” Victor said. “He’s healing like a fairy.”

“Why isn’t he waking up?”

“I don’t know,” Victor said.

“What will happen to Grig?” Lucy asked.

“He’ll go before the Fairy Council,” I said, grateful for the distraction. “He may not even get in trouble. There are so many that will see his actions as justified.”

“The human authorities may have something to say about that,” Lucy said. “What do you think they’ll do with you?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But even if I never go back to Faery, Michael is worth it.”

Michael reached up and grabbed my wrist.

“Am I dead?” Michael asked.

“No,” Victor said. “We had to put so much fairy blood into you that I’m not quite sure what you are. You’re not dead or undead, you’re not fairy, but you’re also not completely human. How do you feel?”

“Strange,” Michael said.

“Good strange or bad strange?” I asked.

“Good,” he said. “In fact, I feel better than I felt before the attack.”

“Anything else?” Victor asked.

“You mean am I craving brains?” Michael said. He scanned all our faces slowly. “Now that you mention it, a little, yes.”

You could have heard a pin drop in the room.

“What?” he said. “Too soon for zombie humor?”

TICIA DRAKE ISOM
lives in Northern California with her family where, although temperatures are in the balmy 90s, it is not unusual to see her wearing Uggs in the middle of summer. Ticia loves to engage everyone she meets in thought-provoking conversation. Many people are convinced that she never actually sleeps. She believes that there is magic not only in words and the use of them, but in just about any situation. This is her first published work. You can follow her exploits on twitter @ticia42.

She responded to my request for an afterword with the following:

I love where questions take me. This story started with a simple one: What if a fairy fell in love with a zombie? That question originally led me to a dead-end outline, because my plot device, not my characters, was driving the story. The original outline involved the kidnapping of Victor Frankenstein (yes, Swan’s name is a nod to the great doctor) and forcing him to cure Michael. The climax was angry townspeople chasing and killing the cured zombie. Yes, in my rough draft, Frankenstein’s monster was a zombie. But, it never jelled for me—until I changed the focus to the characters and their plight. The idea of love overcoming overwhelming odds is not a new one. Nor is the idea of love with an inappropriate partner. Start throwing in unrequited love and some subterfuge and misdirection, however, and you have what I hope is an entertaining and more unusual tale. I love these characters and am now working on additional stories with them, because that’s where the new questions are taking me.

LOVE KNOT

DANA CAMERON

Justine sat at the table and stared at the small parcel wrapped in plain brown paper. The only light came from a single bulb in the cheap motel lamp, but it was enough. She hated the sight of the package.

She pushed it farther from her, wincing as she did so. She was pretty sure something had been torn in her arm. The long-sleeved shirt meant to hide scratches on her shoulder and arms only stuck and made them itch worse.

She shifted her weight, gingerly, regretting it as she did so. Her back . . . her legs . . . simply everything ached. But she had to decide what to do with the hateful thing on the table. Now on her eightieth hour without sleep, the eightieth hour since the parcel had come into her possession, she could barely keep her eyes open. But she didn’t dare fall asleep, not without deciding what to do.

She couldn’t just throw the thing away. She’d already tried destroying it, with dire results. She was fearful of bringing it to the Family: despite the oaths she’d sworn and the loyalties she owed them, she couldn’t trust them with it. Especially not them. If power corrupted even the best of people, then this thing . . .

No. She couldn’t go to the Family, but if they found she’d had the box and hadn’t brought it to them . . .

She shuddered, and
that
hurt all over.

Well, that was just one more item in a long list she couldn’t let happen.

She had to do something. Whatever it was, it would be a chance.

She had an idea, rejected it, then reconsidered.

She was going to call Claudia.

Shit.

As Justine punched the number with a shaking hand, she tried not to think of what she would be doing to Claudia.

But if you couldn’t bring this kind of trouble to your friends, well, you were just out of luck.

* * *

Four hours later, Claudia Steuben checked the security monitor in her kitchen before she answered the door. Her friend Justine looked every bit as bad as she’d sounded on the phone: her auburn hair was a tangled mess, her eyes were bloodshot, and her athletic figure drooped with fatigue. Her skirt and jacket were rumpled. She had no luggage besides a briefcase and a small, sturdy, plastic cooler.

She shoved her way past Claudia and went straight into the kitchen. She pulled out the carefully stacked and color-coded plastic containers from the refrigerator and threw them on the floor. She shoved the cooler into their place, then slammed the door shut. She walked, unseeing, past Claudia, collapsed on the couch, and began to cry.

Claudia watched for a moment, frowned briefly at the disrupted order of her kitchen, then nuked hot water for tea. She cleaned up the kitchen floor and threw out whatever wouldn’t last in the freezer or on the counter so she would not have to reopen the refrigerator. When the tea water was ready, she set it to steep. She poured the tea into two mugs, laced them both with honey and lemon, then poured a stiff shot of whiskey into each one.

By the time she returned to the living room, Justine had calmed down. Her face was streaked with tears, and she stared straight ahead, only seeming to recognize Claudia when she was handed the mug.

“It’s hot. Also spiked.”

“Thanks.”

They drank. Claudia curled up in the leather chair and waited for Justine to start talking.

After a long shuddering breath, Justine looked up. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“Look, that . . . thing . . . in the refrigerator . . . ?”

“What is it?”

“It’s dangerous. Worse than that. There are men after it. I don’t know who they are, but they mean no good.”

Claudia could be patient. “Why not bring it to the Family? Why not destroy it?”

“I can’t. Neither of them. I’ve tried destroying it, and . . . I can’t.”

“You can’t.”

Justine shook her head. “You’ll . . . you’ll see what I mean. I don’t dare hide it. And frankly, I think you’ll understand why I can’t bring it to the Family.”

Claudia watched Justine carefully. Clinically. “And?”

The question was obvious. Why didn’t Justine take care of the situation? It should have been well within her capabilities. Their Family—the Fangborn—was made up of vampires, werewolves, and others, all dedicated to tracking and destroying evil. The humans they protected never knew about them, though myths of monsters and murders swirled up around them. Justine’s strength, speed, and intuition should have been more than enough to deal with whatever the problem was.

Justine’s hands shook as they held the empty cup. “Claudia, I promise you. It was all I could do to evade them, and make it up here.”

“So why bring it to me?”

“I trust you.” Justine’s eyes flicked away. “You’ll find a way to deal with it.”

Claudia nodded. Her friend was lying. “Deal with what?”

“You’ll see.” Justine set her cup down. Her color was better now, but she still looked desperately tired. “Take the cooler out of the refrigerator. Open it up. I want to reassure myself that the damn thing isn’t witching me. I want to make sure it’s real, that I’m not going crazy.”

Which I’m not ruling out, Claudia thought. Justine looked like seven kinds of Hell.

Willing to humor her a little longer, Claudia retrieved the cooler from the fridge. It had a few sparkly stickers on the outside. Unicorns and stars. Claudia looked up.

“The kids got them out of the cereal,” Justine explained.

Claudia nodded, feeling slightly ridiculous. “They’re safe?”

“With their dad. I told them I had an out-of-town appraisal. Didn’t want to worry them.” Parenting was tough on Fangborn, even after their children understood their special role in the world.

Claudia nodded again. She put the cooler on the kitchen table. She swung the handle back and removed the lid carefully, noticing as she did so that Justine was unconsciously turning her head away, pressing herself back into the cushions of the couch.

What the Hell is in here?

She set the lid aside, and peeked in.

A small box wrapped in brown paper, taped up and addressed, as if it was ready to be mailed. The address was faded and illegible, and the tape had been replaced several times, leaving dark ghosts of the adhesive on the furred brown paper.

Claudia relaxed. It looked like nothing at all.

She fanged up, briefly, just enough to allow her nails to grow and strengthen, her skin to turn pale violet. She slashed the tape on the package, removed the paper, opened the cardboard box beneath. That done, she returned to her human form.