The Fairyland Murders (18 page)

T
wo hours later I made bail. I wasn't quite sure how, since I had no money and even fewer friends, but Detective Locks unlocked my jail cell and motioned me forward. “Mr. Reynolds, you are free to go.”

“Excuse me?” I asked, slowly rising from the creaky metal cot, a cot that smelled like urine and fairy dust.

“You made bail,” she said.

“I did?” I frowned. “How?”

“I have no idea.” She shrugged. “If the how concerns you so much, I'm sure we can make arrangements for you to stay. . . .”

“No, no.” I rushed forward, stopping just outside the cell door. “What about Izzy?”

The Tooth Fairy in question stood at her own cell door, her hands wrapped around the steel bars. She looked tired, as if the last twenty-four hours had taken a large toll. Was she in need of another dentin fix? I prayed that wasn't the case since I'd fried the only dealer willing to sell molars to a blue-haired guy.

“Ms. Davis will remain as our guest,” Locks said.

The news didn't bother me all that much. Izzy was safer locked inside the New Never City Jail than she was out on the streets, pilfering teeth for the corrupt Council. Plus her incarceration would give me a chance, for the first time since we'd met, to go on the investigational offensive without worrying about her tagging along.

Izzy, though, didn't seem to share my thinking. “You have to let me go,” she yelled at the detective. “You don't understand . . .”

I held up my hand. “Relax, Izzy. You'll be out soon enough.” As soon as I found the real killer. “Until then, keep your mouth shut.”

The detective's eyebrow arched.

I gave her an innocent smile. “Wouldn't want her to strain her vocal cords, not with her singing voice.” With one last glare of warning to Izzy, I followed the detective down the cold concrete hallway.

“Blue, please,” Izzy yelled. “You have to listen to me! You're—”

The steel door clanged closed behind me, shutting out Izzy's pleas.

 

I stood at the counter of the New Never City Jail, waiting while a dour-faced female guard who looked even less happy than I was to be there cataloged each of my belongings, one by one, in a never-ending process. I wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of there, smoke a half-pack of cigarettes, and maybe—just maybe—figure out who the hell was behind the Fairyland Murders.

Again Damien topped my list of suspects.

He obviously wanted to destroy the fairies, so why not kill every Tooth Fairy elected until he achieved his goal? The sooner I proved he was the one responsible for the murders the sooner Izzy would be safe.

The guard behind the glass at the counter shoved my wallet through the small opening. “One worn leather wallet with a PI license and three dollars.”

I'd had four when I was first arrested, but I didn't feel like arguing. Not right now. I only had a few hours until Izzy figured out a way to make bail and went back to pilfering teeth for the Council. Thereby risking her neck again.

“Can we hurry this up?” I asked the guard.

She snorted. “Got a hot date, do ya? Well, you'll need this, then.” She pushed a foil-packaged condom that had been in my pocket through the glass partition.

I snatched up the packet and started to stomp off when she called me back. “Mr. Reynolds, you can't leave without all your belongings.”

I frowned, patting my pockets. I had everything I'd had when we were arrested. My gloves. My cell phone. My wallet. A condom past its prime. “But I—” I stopped speaking as she shoved a heart-shaped locket hanging from a gold chain through the hole.

Izzy's necklace.

“This isn't mi—” I stopped, picking up the locket and chain. “Never mind,” I said, feeling a rush of heat in the palm of my hand where the locket touched electrified flesh. I would keep Izzy's locket safe, I vowed, tucking it in the pocket of my jeans. Just like I would keep her safe.

A
s I wandered my way back to my apartment, the stench of jail permeating my clothes, my cell phone rang. I pulled it from my pocket and checked the caller ID.

“Reynolds,” I answered.

“Hey, Blue,” the caller said.

I recognized the voice of one of my less than noble informants. North was willing to sell any and all information for the right price. “North, what's up?” I asked, shifting the phone against my shoulder. “You have something for me?”

“I think I found it, man.”

My adrenaline spiked. “Where?”

“You're never going to believe it,” he said. “I tracked it down to a storage locker in Queen of Hearts. Some guy rented it a year ago and it's up for auction this afternoon. At five.”

Shit. I didn't have the cash to bid on a storage locker, any more than I had the dough to bail Izzy out. Not that I would. She truly was safer locked in a cage.

Who did I know with money? Penelopee came to mind instantly, but seeing as I'd recently burned up her apartment, not to mention failing to locate her ex and the pilfered sex tape, I doubted she'd willingly risk another couple grand on Blue truly.

Considering the rest of my degenerate acquaintances, I was left with one choice. I smiled at the thought.

Two hours later I was picking the lock of a storage unit at the U-Store-It facility in the heart of the Queen of Hearts. The lock took me about thirty seconds to pick, while opening the door of the unit without waking the dead in the cemetery across the street took a little longer. After a year of neglect, the door's hinges sounded like a bag of dwarfs being tossed into a bath as it creaked open.

I winced at a particularly loud screech but quickly forgot all about being caught breaking and entering when the door opened enough to reveal the contents of the unit.

This was it. The pea was inside. I could almost taste it, and it tasted just like split pea soup.

I snapped my fingers, generating enough electricity to peer into the darkened interior of the locker. A few framed paintings lay against one wall, as did a sleeping bag. Behind the paintings was a plastic cooler big enough to fit a fairy in. The rest of the unit was empty. Had someone already cleaned it out? I shook my head, disappointment so acute it took my breath away.

I pulled the chain on the overhead light, and a dim 40-watt bulb flickered to life. I stepped into the unit as a chill swept up my spine. I shook off the feeling of foreboding. I peeled the first framed painting from the wall, sparing it a glance. It was an oil painting, and not a very good one, but the subject still caught my eye. It was a young dark-haired woman, her eyes the color of blue flames, reclining undressed against a pink settee.

While the painting sparked my sexual interest, it was what she held in her hand that sent my heart slamming in my chest. A pea. A magic pea, to be precise.

Carefully, I moved that painting away from the wall, and then the next, which featured the same beautiful woman, this time rocking a small baby in her arms. The painter must have loved the woman very much, for she appeared in every one of the works. Each time she was holding a different object, but her smile stayed the same—sparkling with humor and mischief. In a way she reminded me of Izzy.

As soon as the thought crossed my mind I shook it off. Izzy wasn't anything like the woman in the paintings. She was alive and three-dimensional, not to mention probably very pissed off at me at the moment. Maybe keeping her in jail wasn't the nicest move. But she was safe, I reminded myself. For the moment.

When I finally moved the last of the paintings from the cooler, I carefully lifted the lid. The overly sweet stench of rotting fruit filled my nostrils. I dropped the lid back in place, taking shallow breaths until my stomach lining climbed back down my throat.

Covering my nose and mouth with one hand, I eased the lid off the cooler once again. This time the smell didn't seem nearly as bad, though my eyes did start to water. The cooler held one object: a six-inch wooden jewelry box that looked old, maybe a century or more. Black lettering in a long-dead exotic language was etched into its top. I ran a finger over the letters and then carefully lifted the lid as I held my breath.

Inside sat a small blackened pea.

A small blackened magic pea.

With a sense of satisfaction, I shut the lid and pulled the jewelry box from the cooler. Today hadn't been a total loss after all. I'd solved the missing magic pea case without the loss of life or limb.

Now I just had to find a killer.

 

A few hours later, caked in grime and storage-locker dust, I shifted the jewelry box in my hands as I unlocked my front door. I froze as the scent of perfume filled my nostrils. My eyes scanned the room, noting the blond princess on my couch. “Penelopee,” I called, setting the wooden box on the table next to Felix's fish tank. “What are you doing here?”

She blinked a few times and then shot up. “Oh, I must've fallen asleep. I'm so sorry, Blue. I didn't mean to scare you.”

“It's okay. Take it easy,” I added when she burst into tears. Her go-to emotion, apparently. I tried not to let her tears affect me, but I soon found myself willing to do about anything to stop her weeping. I picked up a magazine from the mess on my floor, tapping it against her back in a comforting pat.

Oddly, it seemed to work. Her crying went from typhoon to an occasional hiccup after a few minutes. When she calmed enough to speak in an acceptable decibel range, I motioned for her to sit back down. “What happened?” I asked. “Are you all right?”

I realized my mistake soon enough when her waterworks turned on full force. She let out a harsh cry and threw herself in my arms. Thankfully, my cotton shirt kept her from a nasty burn. “Oh, Blue, I didn't know where else to go. I'm so scared.”

“It's okay. Just tell me what happened and I'll make it all better.” I drew back, my gaze locked on hers.

She sobbed even harder while she tried to explain, but I only caught the words “help” and “terrified.” I patted her back with the magazine again. “It's okay. Whatever it is we'll figure it out together.”

Even as I said those words the irony wasn't lost on me. I'd said much the same thing to Izzy, and she was now locked away in a jail cell after having been shot at and kidnapped under my protection. I was bad at this bodyguard thing. Really bad.

But no more.

I would find Izzy's wannabe assassin. And soon.

Just as soon as I got rid of the princess currently soaking my T-shirt in salty tears. I sighed, letting her continue to cry while I worked up a plan to catch Jack the Tooth Ripper.

Penelopee finally wound down, and yet she looked as beautiful as she had the day we'd met. No red-rimmed eyes or snot bubbles for her kind. “I'm sorry,” she said, a tinge of pink heating her cheeks. “I didn't mean to get so worked up.”

“No worries.” I gestured to the couch for her to sit. “Can I get you a drink?” Because I sure as hell needed one. A big one. Maybe even the whole bottle after the last twenty-four hours.

“Please,” she answered, her eyes filled with appreciation, a look I rarely saw on any woman, let alone one whose apartment I'd burned to cinders.

I moved off to the kitchen, pulling down my best glassware, which equaled one nonrusted soup can and a chipped coffee mug. I figured her more for a chipped-mug kind of girl, so I poured a healthy nip of whiskey into her glass and then filled the soup can to the brim.

I sucked down the whiskey and then poured another canful. With a rush of alcohol-infused heat burning nicely along my nerves, I headed back to the living room with the now half-empty whiskey bottle. I handed Penelopee the mug, put the bottle on the coffee table, and then took a seat on the chair next to the couch.

“Thank you,” she said, taking a small, ladylike sip. Her cheeks heated and her eyes bulged as she swallowed the cheap sour mash. She let out a choked cough before speaking. “Again, I'm sorry for—”

“Forget it.” I waved her off. “Are you ready to tell me what happened?”

“I don't want to burden you.”

I laughed. Her problem, whatever it was, was minor in comparison to Izzy's. “Burden away. It's what I'm here for.”

She rose from the couch and started pacing back and forth until my eyes hurt from watching her. “I was shopping for a new loft this afternoon.”

Crap. I figured it had something to do with my burning her place down. Did she want money for the damage? If so, she was in for a big disappointment. At least until I collected my magic pea windfall from Mervin. I would finally be in the black, or at least a nice murky gray.

Her next words dragged me from my financially solvent fantasies. “I had just left a brownstone on the Upper Witch Side when two . . . men approached,” she said.

I tilted my head. “You're not sure if they were men?”

She shook her head. “At first I thought a storm was coming. Everything all around me started to turn black, and then before I knew it, the blackness turned into two men in long dark overcoats.”

Shit. Shadows. How did they even know she was my client? Not that it mattered. The very idea of two filthy Shadows anywhere near the pure princess filled me with intense, burning rage. So much rage that my body began to hum. “Did they hurt you?” I asked, gripping my hands together to keep from accidentally throwing bolts of rage- induced electricity.

“Oh no,” she said, biting her bottom lip. “At least not yet.”

I relaxed a little, the current dimming as I took a shaky breath. “What happened after they approached?”

“They . . .” She swallowed. “They wanted to know where you were.” Tears filled her eyes. Again. “I told them I didn't know,” she said. “But they didn't believe me. . . .”

“It's going to be okay,” I lied. Guilt filled me, making my head swim. Or it might've been the whiskey. Either way, I felt like shit. I reached out to comfort her, dropping my hand before I caused her any harm. Or more harm. After all, I'd already knocked her unconscious and burned down her apartment. “I won't let them hurt you,” I vowed.

“But it's not me they want to hurt. . . .”

I thought of Izzy, safely locked away in her jail cell and smiled. Damien and his Shadows couldn't hurt her now.

“. . . it's you, Blue. They plan to kill you.”