A Fairy Tale (22 page)

Athena nodded. “Yes, Emily told us that about you.”

“Before last night, I’d never consciously tried to get through any door I knew was locked, but I’ve also never been locked out of the house or my car—or have I?”

“And I would bet that things generally go your way. You get what you want.”

Sophie sighed dejectedly. “I just thought I was clever and good and people liked me—or feared me.”

With a wry smirk, Athena asked, “Is it any worse that you were doing magic all that time?”

“It makes me reevaluate everything I thought I knew about myself.”

Athena patted her reassuringly on the shoulder. “All of us should do that from time to time, magic or not.”

The bell on the door rang, and they looked up to see Amelia entering. “I hear you’ve agreed to join us,” she said to Sophie.

“For the time being. I don’t know yet if this will have to be a permanent arrangement.”

“I suppose that will depend on what else Tallulah demands of you,” Amelia said, taking a seat at the table.

“I briefed her,” Athena said, joining Sophie and Amelia at the table. “Now, why don’t you tell us what happened last night to change your mind about your magical abilities?”

Sophie was about to deny that anything other than Tallulah’s demand had happened, but she recalled letting it slip that she hadn’t tried opening a locked door until last night.
Drat
. She must have really been rattled. “As I mentioned, I had a meeting with Tallulah. While we were talking, two fae men who’d been part of Tallulah’s group tried to capture me.” She went on to describe the fight in detail. In spite of her earlier reluctance, it felt good to get it off her chest, to verify that it hadn’t been a nightmare. “It seemed like I was able to undo any spell they tried on me, and I could also affect them,” she concluded.

Amelia nodded. “Our magic usually trumps fairy magic. Their magic is actually rather ephemeral. It’s mostly about illusion.”

Sophie rubbed the burn on her wrist, which was starting to itch. “It felt real enough.”

“Oh, it can be real. It’s just that they’re more accustomed to glamour than to doing anything real, which means they’re not as good at it. We could do glamour if we wished, but we focus on practical matters.”

“Would that include opening locked doors?”

“Yes,” Athena said. “Magic allows you to manipulate things as well as people.”

 “How do you resist the temptation to use magic all the time?” Sophie asked.

“Who says we do?” Amelia asked with graceful shrug. “We don’t make a show of it, but we may simplify our lives somewhat.”

“Isn’t that cheating?”

“What do you call what you’ve been doing all along?”

“I didn’t know I was using magic. I was just being me.”

“Using magic
is
just being me. It’s a shame to waste a gift.”

“Yes, it is,” Sophie said with a sigh, though she wasn’t talking about magic. One of the many things she was trying not to think about was the fact that she’d given up her dance career for what turned out to be a misconception. Her heart would break if she let herself consider what she’d lost. A thought occurred to her, and she asked, “Does Emily have this power?”

“A little,” Athena said. “If our priority hadn’t been protecting her from the fairies, we might have tried teaching her, but she wasn’t our ideal candidate, for a number of reasons. The magic is much stronger in you, just as her hair is redder.”

“And she’s so much taller.”

Athena looked at her for a moment before saying, “Yes, I suppose she is. I hadn’t thought about that, but then I’ve never seen you two next to each other.” Sophie stared at her, waiting for a laugh or some other sign that she was joking, but she seemed to be deadly serious. The height difference was usually the first thing anyone noticed about the Drake sisters.

The tinkling of the bell on the door interrupted the conversation, and the sisters got up to greet the customer. The customer was a ditherer, unable to choose between a blue or a pink flowered teapot but not willing to listen to the shopkeepers’ suggestions about which piece was more valuable. At this rate, she’d never leave, and Sophie had more important things to deal with. She thought it was as good an opportunity as any to test her magical persuasive ability. In the past, she’d always spoken with people when convincing them to do what she wanted, but this time, she sent out a silent suggestion that the customer pick the blue teapot and get out of there. A moment later, the woman held up the blue teapot and said, “I’ll take this one.”

When the customer was gone, Amelia turned to Sophie and said, “If you hadn’t done that, I would have, though I would have played fair and suggested the less expensive item.”

“I didn’t see the price tags. I was going by the colors she wore. I thought she’d like that one better,” Sophie said.

The sisters exchanged a look, and Athena said with a grin, “I told you she’d be good.”

They returned to the table, and Amelia said, “Now that we’ve discussed Sophie, I have news. There’s a market tonight at Belvedere Castle. That’s our best chance to gather intelligence and see what Maeve’s up to. You’ll join us, of course, Sophie.”

“What do we have to trade?” Athena mused, knitting her brow in concentration. “If I’d had more warning, I could have made something.”

“We won’t bring anything,” Amelia said. “We’ve got all the currency we should need.”

“Do we?” Athena asked, then she followed her sister’s gaze to Sophie. “Ah, yes.”

“Are you going to trade me to the fairies?” Sophie asked.

“No, but you are a fairy-taught dancer. The fairies love nothing more than a good dance. Ballet should enthrall them, especially danced by one with fairy skills.”

“I might as well get some use out of it,” Sophie said, swallowing a lump in her throat. She rose and snapped her fingers to summon Beau. “I suppose I’ll see you tonight at midnight at Belvedere Castle.”

Athena walked her to the door. “I’m looking forward to seeing you dance. Emily said you’re wonderful.”

Sophie gave her a smile, then hurried out the door and up the stairs before any of the tears welling in her eyes could fall. She let them spill silently as she walked back, wiping them away when she reached Emily’s block. She was letting herself into Emily’s apartment when Michael appeared on the upper landing. “Sophie,” he said, his voice grave. “I’ve just heard from Tanaka.” Instead of finishing the thought, he came downstairs, moving slowly. He was dressed to go out, she noticed.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Let’s go inside.”

“No, tell me now.”

She knew it was bad when he took her hand in his good one. Then he said, “They may have found Emily.”

The Morgue

Friday, 4:00 p.m.

As a detective, Michael had seen a number of people go through the experience of identifying a loved one’s body. He’d even gone through it a few times himself, when they found a body that someone thought might have been Jen’s. Sophie was as eerily composed in this situation as he’d expected her to be.

She did go terribly pale when she saw the sheet-covered body, so pale that he saw for the first time that she had a slight dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose. He put his arm around her shoulders and was surprised when she didn’t step away or shrug it off. She nodded to the attendant, who pulled back the sheet covering the corpse’s face.

As soon as he saw the face, Michael’s breath caught in his throat. He wished he’d learned to swear so he’d have the vocabulary for dealing with a situation like this.
No, no, no, no, no,
he repeated inside his head instead of swearing. The tangle of red curls lying on that slab, the waxy pale face that not too long ago had been grinning at him while forcing him to eat soup, it was all wrong, so horribly wrong. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

Then the initial shock ebbed enough for him to remember that this wasn’t about him, that he was standing with his arm around Emily’s sister. He squeezed Sophie’s shoulder, pulling her tight to his side. “I’m sorry, Sophie,” he whispered hoarsely. “We’ll get whoever did this.”

Tanaka caught Michael’s eye, and Michael nodded grimly. Sophie still hadn’t said anything. “Sophie?” Tanaka said gently, “We need you to make an ID for us. Is this your sister?”

Sophie looked up at Michael with dry eyes and an expression that said quite clearly that she thought he was crazy. She gave the body a sidelong glance, looked back at him, and then she gave a tiny gasp followed by a long exhalation, as though she’d just realized something. She turned back to face the body, shook her head and said, “That’s not Emily.”

Michael closed his eyes and stifled a groan. Victims’ loved ones sometimes clung desperately to denial. He could have fingerprint, dental record, and even DNA matches, and they’d swear they’d never before seen that body in the morgue. Sophie hadn’t struck him as the type to go into denial, but everyone had a breaking point. “Sophie, I know this is tough,” he began, but then he did a double take at the corpse. It
wasn’t
Emily. There were superficial similarities, but when he really looked at the body, it wasn’t much at all like her. “No, it’s not Emily,” he agreed.

It was Tanaka’s turn to do a double take. “Are you sure? She looks just like the photo you gave me.” He frowned as he looked at the body. “Then again, yeah, I can see the differences now that you mention it. I’m sorry to drag you in here and put you through this, Sophie.”

“I understand,” she said softly. “You needed a definite answer. Thank you for trying.”

“She might be one of the other missing girls,” Michael suggested.

“She does fit physically,” Tanaka said. “We’ll contact the families of the other missing women and see if any of them can identify her. Thank you for coming down here, Sophie. I’ll talk to you later, Rev.” He gave Michael a look and a head gesture that said very clearly, “Take care of her,” and Michael nodded.

“Are you okay?” Michael asked as they waited for a cab. “I know it’s rough going into that place, and looking at dead bodies is never fun, even if it’s not someone you know.”

“I’m just tired,” she said with a weak smile. “This hasn’t been the best week ever.” A cab arrived a moment later, cutting off his chance to follow up on that.

She went quiet again once they were in the cab. As they rode uptown in silence, he couldn’t help but notice the red mark on her wrist. It didn’t look as bad as it had the night before, but he had to wonder what had happened. It wasn’t a rope burn from the dog’s leash, that much he was sure of. It was too neat a wound, not ragged at all. The mark on her face wasn’t quite as visible, but it looked like she’d covered a bruise with makeup.

“Detective Tanaka called you ‘Rev.’ What does that mean?” she asked abruptly.

“Cops love nicknames. My dad’s a minister, and I guess he rubbed off on me, even if I didn’t go into the family business. I’m more of a straight arrow than your typical cop, so they started calling me ‘The Reverend.’ Over time, that became ‘Rev.’ To make matters worse, Saint Michael the archangel is the patron saint of cops, and they manage to fit that in, too.”

“That would explain the very interesting collection of refrigerator magnets you have.”

“You should see my desk. I have to rotate them to the fridge at home to leave room for the new ones. If anyone finds anything with an angel on it, it’ll end up on my desk.”

The tiny ghost of a smile that touched her lips made him feel that spilling that story was worthwhile, even if it was a little embarrassing. Then again, he could barely stay on his feet for five minutes without leaning on her, so it wasn’t like she’d ever seen him as particularly macho.

When they got back to his building, she paused at Emily’s door and said, “Thank you for going with me.”

“No one should have to go through that alone.”

“I appreciate it. Do you have any sisters, Detective?”

“Michael,” he corrected. “And no, no sisters. But I have two brothers.”

“Older or younger?”

“Both older.”

She nodded and gave him a wry smile. “You’re the third brother. If you were in a fairy tale, you’d be the lucky one, the one who marries the princess and inherits the kingdom. Though, really, it’s not so much luck as it is good karma. The youngest is the nice one who helps the people and creatures the older ones ignore, and they then help him succeed in his quest.”

“So the moral of the story is that I should be nice to people?”

“It doesn’t seem to me that you have to work very hard to do that.” It was hard to tell in the stairwell’s dim light, but he thought she might have turned a little pinker. She ducked her head and turned toward the door, saying, “I’d better see to Beau. He’ll be hungry.”

She opened the door, and Michael called to her, “Sophie!” She looked back, and he hurried to say, “If you need help, please tell me. Don’t get yourself in trouble.”

“I’m not in trouble,” she insisted. “I can take care of myself, believe me.” She chuckled softly, as if at some secret joke. “Oh yes, I can take care of myself. Good evening, Michael.”

He wasn’t sure why, but he felt like he really ought to get upstairs. And then he should probably take one of his pain pills and get some rest. Yes, that was what he should do. His chest hurt again, and he was very tired. He trudged up the stairs, got to his apartment, and was just about to open the pill bottle when he stopped and shook his head. He didn’t hurt all that badly, actually. He was feeling much better. The compulsion went away entirely and he put the bottle down. Instead, he fumbled with the coffeemaker to make a pot of coffee. If Sophie was up to her usual nighttime activities, he wasn’t going to lose her this time.

Maeve’s Apartment

Meanwhile

Emily woke gradually with the feeling that there was something important she needed to tell her sister. She knew she was supposed to call Sophie and tell her what the reviews said, but that wasn’t it. What was it?

Her eyes flew open and she sat up with a gasp as it all came rushing back to her. She wasn’t at home. She was in an empty, dimly lit room. It looked like a basement utility room, only without the utilities, just a bare concrete floor and cinder-block walls, all painted a stained and faded industrial gray. Given that most of the room’s appearance was likely a glamour, Emily was impressed that they’d bothered to make the place look dank and depressing.