Outcast (Book Two of the Forever Faire Series): A Fae Fantasy Romance Novel (4 page)

“
I
’M TIRED
,” TARA complained as she finally came out of the bathroom. “Do I have to do this?”

“Why, no,” Kayla said in her nicest voice. “You can go back to your bed and sleep for another ten hours. Or you could go ask Jannon if he minds babysitting you for another night in a shared bed. Or you can walk out the gates and go look for that Blackstone jackass, and see if he’ll let you crash at his place. You know, after he rapes you.”

“Fine, I’ll let the witch read my palm. God.” Tara stalked past her.

“She’s not a witch, and she reads tarot cards.” Kayla slammed the door to their room shut, and followed her sister down the hall. “She’s also a friend of Christine’s, so you’re going to be polite to her.”

Tara heaved a theatrical sigh. “Yessah, boss.”

“Wait a minute.” Kayla caught her sister’s arm and pulled her around to face her. “Have I yelled at you? Demanded an explanation for your little disappearing act last night? I haven’t even mentioned how I felt when I found you
kissing our stalker
.” As Tara opened her mouth Kayla gave her a shake. “Don’t lie to me, kiddo. He didn’t make you do it.”

“He said some stuff. No guy ever talked to me like that.” Tara’s face reddened, and she ducked her head. “I thought that was why he was chasing us. For me. I thought he cared about me.”

Kayla felt her exasperation drop a notch. “All right. We’ll forget about the kissing. We need a plan, and Christine thinks this lady can help us see what’s coming. Let’s give it a shot, okay? That’s all I’m asking.”

Her sister nodded quickly, and meekly accompanied her the rest of the way to Christine’s room, where they were greeted by the dancer and introduced to Louisa Hayes.

“Nice to meet you,” Kayla said, taking in the stout woman’s bright eyes, apple-cheeked face, and frizzy ginger perm. Instead of dressing like a gypsy she wore a pale green wool twin set, complete with a pearl necklace. Although she had to be at least fifty, she had skin as tight and smooth as a teen. Something about her made Kayla take a harder, longer look. “Thanks for coming out here today.”

“My pleasure, my dear.” Louisa gestured at two folding chairs on the other side of the card table. “Please, sit down. Before I read your cards I will need you to shuffle the deck, so they can know your energy.”

“Sure.” Kayla watched her remove a stack of big cards from a burgundy velvet bag embroidered with golden symbols, and felt a sudden, strong urge to call off the whole thing. Maybe it was the possibility that Louisa really could see the future. “How long have you been at this?”

“Reading the tarot? Since I was a girl. My Gran taught me.” The older woman placed the overlarge deck in the center of the table. “Who would like to be first?”

Tara, who had barely mumbled a word to Louisa, scooped up the deck and awkwardly shuffled the cards before handing them to the older woman. “If I get a full house, do I win?”

Kayla gave her sister a glare, but Louisa ignored the jibe and calmly laid out a spread of three cards, faces down, before setting aside the deck.

“We will begin with your past,” Louisa said, and turned over a card. It had one long blade crossed by four others. “Here we have the five of swords. You waited to hear, and be heard, but a powerful force imprisoned you in silence. That is why there were so many dark days for you, my dear.”

Tara swallowed hard. “What does that mean?”

“Your past has been difficult for you,” Louisa advised gently, and turned over a second card. “Now, the present.” On the card eight more blades formed a cage around a blindfolded woman. “The eight of swords.”

Christine leaned close to Kayla to murmur, “That’s an awful lot of blades.”

“You feel trapped,” the older woman said, and paused, staring at the card before she added, “Someone close to you wishes to keep you from your destiny. You are blind to this, not by choice, but by the will of the other. This is why you struggle now, Tara. You have traded one prison for another.”

“Maybe she should reshuffle the deck,” Kayla suggested and reached for the deck. “Or you could do my reading now.”

“No,” Tara said, grabbing her hand. To Louisa she said, “Finish it.”

The older woman’s bright eyes shifted to Kayla before she reluctantly flipped the third card. She paled as she stared at the tall building being struck by lightning, and then looked into Tara’s eyes.

“The future is The Tower. You are in great danger, and that which surrounds you will come to…” She stopped and shook her head. “I can’t see, exactly, because it is hidden, like much in your life. I think you should be very careful in whom you place your trust. Like those who seem good and kind. They wear masks made only to deceive you.” She quickly collected the cards and put them in Kayla’s hands. “Now for your sister.”

The cards felt oddly cold as Kayla shuffled them and handed them back.

Louisa silently dealt another three card spread, and turned over the first, on which a radiant-looking woman wearing a crown sat before an enormous forest.

“Your past is The Empress. A great and benevolent presence in your life protected you, my dear. I’m sensing that it was your mother. She meant for you to arrive at this day to do the same for another.”

“My mother abandoned us when we were little,” Kayla said flatly. “We haven’t heard a word from her in eighteen years.”

“Perhaps by leaving, she protected you from some evil in her life.” Louisa’s hair bobbed around her red cheeks as she turned over the second card, which showed a man with the number eight floating sideways over his head. “The Magician occupies your present. He represents a powerful, clever force that means to undo the Empress’s work. This could be a man you’ve met, who you believe has feelings for you. He makes you believe this so that you won’t resist his will, but I think he underestimates your love for your sister.”

“That seems a little confusing,” Kayla said, frowning as she thought of Dirk Blackstone. He didn’t fit Louisa’s description, but Ryan certainly did. Was this all some kind of game he was playing, so he could use her for his own purposes? “Are you sure about this guy?”

“I can only read the cards that are dealt,” Louisa admitted. “The Magician is often a favorable card, but not in this position. For you, he means upheaval and pain.” She turned over the third card.

They all stared silently at the skeleton riding a horse.

“The future,” Louisa said, her voice shaking. She swallowed several times. “I’m sorry, but I’m not feeling well.” Quickly she picked up the cards and put them back into her velvet bag before she stood. “Christine, there’s no charge for the readings.”

Kayla quickly got up and blocked her path to the door. “What does it mean? Do you think I’m going to die? Tell me.”

The older woman looked as if she might shove her out of the way. “The Death card is about what is coming for you, brought about by the Magician. I feel it is very close now, and will come by night when shadows are at their darkest. This omen also reflects back on the past and the Empress. I think your mother was destroyed by hatred disguised as love, my dear. Now the same may happen to you and your sister. I sense a great threat, but not only for you. You see, I must pair the readings, as you are sisters. It means…” She leaned close to whisper the rest. “If you don’t leave here before the full moon, Tara will die.”

T
he man driving
the black taxicab stopped a few yards outside the gates of Forever Faire, and watched as a slender, black-haired beauty embraced his older, plumper fare.

“I have to go out of town for a few weeks,” the old lady told the younger. “I’ll call you when I get back to see how your friends make out.”

The driver hid a smirk, but then, he knew that the Rowe sisters’ luck had almost run out.

Once the old lady climbed into the back of the cab, the driver adjusted his rearview mirror and performed a somewhat clumsy three-point turn. He watched his passenger look out the back window and wave at the girl. As she disappeared around the curve behind them, the old woman turned around to scowl at him.

Beck Blackstone shifted from the illusion of the mortal cabbie to his true form. “How did your readings go? Make any money?”

“I planted the seeds,” she said. Her lips stretched until tiny splits appeared. “They will water them with their fears. By the full moon they’ll grow so large that nothing will keep them under Sheridan’s wing.”

Beck watched as murky light enveloped his passenger. “And the new cloaking spell? She did not see through it?”

“This time she saw nothing of me.” Bright eyes turned the color of mud as they met Beck’s gaze. “Christine Marszalek has befriended the sisters. Perhaps when they leave, they will bring her with them. I should like that very much.”

Beck nodded. “When the time comes, I will have her set aside for you.”

“She’s half-Fae. That is how she was able to escape the club.” Plump fingers probed the halo of crimped ginger hair. They reemerged stained a wet, dark red. “Fucking cunt. Drive to the cottage, and hurry. I am already coming undone.”

Beck nodded, and turned off on a side road and followed it to a rustic little cottage surrounded by firs and pines. Clothing ripped in the back seat as Beck parked the cab in front of Louisa Hayes’s home. He rolled down his window to breathe in the smoke drifting from the brick chimney, which even now still smelled of burnt mortal bone. The scent that reminded him of the old days, when his clan could slay as many humans as they wished, and no one dared challenge them. This modern world had too many eyes and ears.

The cab’s back door flung open, and Beck watched with amusement as his fare staggered out naked. Pendulous breasts swayed as bloated hands began to tear at the placid features. Eyes, nose, and mouth sagged, then slid down from Dirk Blackstone’s blood-covered face.

As Beck watched his cousin wrestle with his hideous garment, he nodded to himself. It had been his idea to question each of the dancers at the club about the one who had escaped. One of the girls had mentioned how often the little bitch went to have her cards read, which led them to the old woman. Even under the kind of duress that drove mortals insane, Louisa Hayes had repeatedly denied knowing where Christine had gone. Then the girl herself had called the old witch, and left a message on her telephone machine, asking her to come to the faire and do a reading for the Rowe sisters.

Beck’s eyelids drooped as he remembered snapping the bones in Louisa’s fingers. It had taken seven before she told Dirk which cards to use.

“Do I amuse you?” Dirk demanded, as he worked one arm out of the lifeless mortal flesh. “Perhaps for my next foray I will don your hide.”

“Ah, but you cannot filet a faithful cousin, or any other immortal you would make your masque.” Beck climbed out of the cab and walked over to him. “Sard my ass, but even with the fat and the wrinkles that mewling witch must have been a tight fit.”

Dirk said nothing as he peeled away Louisa’s skin until he could step out of it naked. He kicked the boneless flesh at Beck before he strode into the cottage.

“Time to go to your reward, my lady,” Beck said.

He dragged the flaccid remains over the threshold, inside, and across the living room. With a heave, he cast the flesh into the enormous fireplace, then wiped his hands clean on the old witch’s lace curtains.

“I would offer some manner of mortal prayer,” he said. “But you were a pagan. Perhaps you will be reborn as a cow in some land where fools worship them. Not that there would be much difference.” Air shifted around Beck, and for a moment he smelled the thick, warm perfume of blooming flowers. “You think to haunt me?” The light from the window dimmed as his anger swelled. “Begone, old woman. You have served your purpose.”

The flames in the fireplace roared up, while outside snow began to pelt the windows. The smoke from the burning flesh wafted in his eyes, forcing him back, and then the fire vanished. Beck went still as he saw a burst of warm pink light. But when it faded, all that remained of the old witch had crumbled to gray ash

“So you possessed a few drops of Fae blood,” he murmured, nodding in agreement with himself. “They are burnt away now, along with the rest of you.”

The storm outside cleared as Beck sat in the old woman’s overstuffed chair and waited. The little house smelled of blood and death, but so did everyplace they went, eventually. Having a cousin who could wear human flesh like clothing could be a messy business, but this time it had allowed Dirk to pass through Forever Faire’s bespelled boundaries.

“It would be useful if we could all masque ourselves with mortal hides,” Beck called out, and heard Dirk snarl something in response from the bath. He went into the kitchen where they had first questioned and then butchered the witch, which now resembled a small slaughtering pen. He picked up the mound of clothing Dirk had shed before slipping into the old woman’s skin. “Then the rest of the clan could cross the faire’s boundaries, and get our changeling.”

His cousin emerged a short time later, now dripping wet from the shower as he snatched his clothing from Beck.

“She is mine, Cousin. Mine alone. Forget that, and I’ll have your head as my footstool.”

Beck offered him a mocking bow, and found himself slammed against the nearest wall.

“You know all I want is a quiet corner, Jarek in chains, and a sharp blade,” Beck managed to croak. Despite the massive fist around his neck he grinned at Dirk. “’Tis a shame you cannot wear him. Not that there will be much left when I am done.”

“So you say.”

His cousin released him. Beck staggered back and massaged his throat, as Dirk roughly pulled on his clothes and boots.

“Set fire to this hovel,” he said. “I want no trace of our work left for that mad cock Sheridan to find.”

Without waiting for an acknowledgement, his cousin stalked out, leaving Beck to start the blaze.

A deck of the old woman’s tarot cards still lay on the kitchen table. He grinned as he picked them up and took them to the fireplace. One by one, he lit them and dropped them around the cottage. By the time he’d lit the final card the place was burning merrily around him. Beck placed the last flaming card on the old woman’s chair, and frowned as he saw the picture of a grinning skeleton on a horse staring up at him. Suddenly he remembered that Louisa had done something strange when she’d showed Dirk the Death card. She had stopped weeping, and closed her eyes a moment before his cousin had snapped her neck.