Authors: Shirin Dubbin
He pulled up to the curb in front of Willow the Wisps, dropped the kickstand and waited. Colleen, her mother’s friend, owned the pub and Ari had a delivery to make. She hopped off the bike and marched to the door. A second before entering she tossed a challenge over her shoulder—her answer to his refusal to marry her. “You keep your bear away from me.”
He let her get inside before he muttered his response. “As if I’d let him loose. How do you think your clothes have remained on so long?” Then he followed.
Ari grinned. She’d heard. The bear’s awakening certainly made Maks chatty, and she liked it.
A flash later they exited the pub. Colleen had gone out for an hour or more. They’d have to wait for her return and Ari despised the hookah smoke-heavy environment inside. She and Maks needed a spot to hang.
“Let us go there,” he said, pointing to a business down the block and across the street. “Do you know karaoke?”
“I’m half Japanese.”
He raised both brows. “Is this meant to be an answer?”
She tried again, putting extra stress on the last word and holding her arms out to her sides. “I’m Japanese.”
In mock frustration Maks looked away and back. “So you would like me to stereotype you?”
Smart boy. How would he react if she jumped into his arms and licked him? Probably not well. “You’re right. Yes, I know karaoke.”
“Then let us go.”
“Give me a sec.”
It actually took two minutes to instruct her new minions to stay at Willow the Wisps and look out for Colleen. She also asked Corbel to come get her and Maks when the pub’s owner arrived. Trajan balked but his neck still flopped without the scarf, so he lost the debate.
The karaoke parlor utilized a classic Asian set-up—various-sized private rooms with wait staff to bring drinks and snacks. The only available space, however, was meant for a party of roughly thirty. Maks rented it anyway.
Once they’d entered the room, he situated himself on the black leather sectional and tossed her the control panel. She punched in a song code and croaked a tuneless rendition of Chaka Khan’s “Ain’t Nobody.” Ari had no shame, but wounded wildebeest summed up her singing—a wounded, broken-hearted wildebeest with a chronic sinus infection. She knew how she sounded but it didn’t stop her. Afterward, Maks stared at her agape, his blinking nearly audible.
“Awful.” He blinked a bit more and looked around, apparently searching for someone with whom to discuss his horror. “Or should I say offal because I want to rip out my own guts.”
“Maks!” Ari covered her mouth to keep from going into her monkey laugh.
Not sexy.
Her middleman remained shell-shocked. “I am not able to close my mouth. Your singing is…jaw dropping.”
Ari couldn’t contain it. She laughed in sharp barks better suited to a baboon. In response, the dawning of a grin tugged at one corner of Maks’s mouth.
C’mon. C’mon, sweetie.
She could endure the embarrassment of the monkey laugh if he smiled for once.
Almost there. Almost.
He licked his lower lip and it curved a bit more.
Closer.
His lips firmed into a line.
Aw man, chagrin but no grin.
“You saying you sing better?” she asked, allowing an edge of teasing into her voice.
Propelling himself off the couch he approached her, hand held aloft to tag her out wrestling style. She high-fived him harder than necessary and moved past to the couch.
Maks faced her, looking entirely too good. “I could scream after being impaled on the Space Needle and sound better.”
“Fine. Sing.” She sat. “But I’ll pick the song.”
“You may choose. There is no song I do not know.”
“Shenanigans.”
“Choose something.”
“You really sing that well?”
“I am part Gypsy, part boyar and Faebled.”
“Gotcha. I’ll stereotype you now.”
A slight inclination of his head. “I would say touché but touchy applies better.”
More of her monkey laugh ensued. Ari blushed, flipping through the book of songs until a sly smirk spread across her face. She took up the control panel and punched a set of four numbers in.
A funky guitar lick kicked things off. Followed by a shimmy-inducing groove—sultry and bright. The performer in Maks transformed his posture. He sneered, pinning Ari with a rock star glare.
Gulp.
He’d always been graceful but this was…he swiveled his hips and…and…she didn’t have enough synapses to process such pulchritude.
Her middleman strummed an air guitar, launching into the opening verse of “She’s Always In My Hair” by Prince. As a result, Ari lost her fragile little mind.
He gave her no quarter as he strutted through and wailed on two more verses. Hand to the heavens, if they’d been in a stadium she’d have thrown her panties at his feet while still wearing them.
The music and the man culminated in a living fantasy. One she’d crafted in every solitary moment of her adulthood—wishes on stars for someone who’d understand her tricky family and odd personality. Maks embodied it all, all the desires shaping her since her once-upon-a night at the opera when she’d hidden in a water closet because she couldn’t take the pressure. Back then their connection had been an inkling, a preview of a deeper bond. Now the time for hiding had ended. Ari recognized she drove Maks nuts, she only hoped he’d gone crazy enough to love her back.
When the instrumental section came in he approached her, his intent indeterminate, thrilling. Before she took the next breath, Maks pulled her to her feet and into a ballroom stance—Ari had watched enough TV dance shows to recognize it.
One beat.
Two.
And they tangoed.
Although Ari affected the proper haughty movements to match his intensity, his body and scent conspired against her. Underneath her aplomb the threat of blacking out encroached.
Flecks of chaos switched on around them, mimicking twinkling faerie lights, and Maks and Ari danced. Her body molded to his as they spun around the private room. She lost her breath several times over but there was no stopping until the last refrains of the song faded. Maks’s ballroom hold lost all propriety. He yanked her against him with fervor, his breath warm against her cheek.
“How do you confuse me this way?”
She didn’t have an answer so held on to him.
“You are a thief.”
“No.”
“A liar.”
“Technically.”
He growled low in his belly. “Born of tricksters and chaos.”
“Yes.”
He spun her away. The violence of it caused her to lose her balance. Ari reacted sluggishly; her body hadn’t caught on to the danger of falling and her mind was mist. His hand clasped her forearm and she found herself pressed back into his body.
And then…he kissed her. She collapsed against him, tasting his passion in a rush of need. His kiss was hot and feral and sweet. Incongruous. Him. Maks sucked at her tongue and nipped her bottom lip as though consumed by the same need driving her to fully experience every sensation offered. Her fantasy didn’t hold up to his truth. This was beyond beyond.
He broke the kiss far too soon but folded her against him. The tension in his body told her he’d gone on alert, his heartbeat wild. He listened out. She heard it too, strange sounds just outside their room. They both stilled and only the flickering faerie lights of their combined chaos moved.
After disentangling their limbs he walked over to the door. When it stood open a multitude of moans and panting wafted into the room. Maks gripped the doorjamb, disappointment acute in his posture. “Chaos,” he said. “We must go.”
Out in front of the karaoke parlor, Ari watched Maks pace up and down the sidewalk. The chaos between them disturbed him and she had no idea why. Her parents lived happily together. Surely these bursts of craziness came more from the newness of his and her, um, thing than any real danger. Plus, not a soul had gotten hurt. Double plus, why had the crazy man gotten upset about an orgy? She thought men enjoyed the freaky stuff. She’d wanted to stay in the karaoke parlor and watch the rapturous writhing a while longer.
“We cannot happen.” He pointed from her to him, then back into the karaoke parlor. “Did you not see them? They were taken by a frenzy.” He cursed. “I am hoping those paired off at least like one another.”
Ari threw her hands into the air. “They looked happy to me, Maks, and not everyone took part. Some folks walked out. Others seemed to be dreaming.”
“We have no idea what they feel. Our energies are too strong together. This will not happen again.”
“But—”
Corbel jogged up. “Look alert, ganglies,” the goblin said, tipping his sliced hat as though he’d opened with a pleasantry. “The one you want is back.”
***
THREE MINUTES PRIOR
Rose-colored lights danced throughout the karaoke parlor and the storied folks made love. Couples on the verge finally came together in crashing passion; unspoken devotion poured from throats. Long-time lovers sparked anew while relationships hanging by the barest clinch of a fingernail lost their holds as new ones, true loves, cemented. The entire building blossomed into an anarchy of lovemaking.
The Russian bear led the female with golden locks out by the hand. As they tiptoed past, those who were not with their lovers and those who were not in love dreamed of the one who was not there or the one who had yet to appear. Not one of the patrons of the karaoke parlor spared a thought for orderly behavior, and no one would regret their actions after.
KABOOM! Bada-bada-bada-BOOM!
Maks stared at Ari as though she’d birthed the devil and promptly spanked the child for being evil.
“After you kill us all I hope to be reborn on another planet. Mars or perhaps Venus,” he intoned dryly. “You are not in possession of a wormhole jumper, interstellar space cruiser, police box or Millennium Falcon, are you? I would dislike wasting a reincarnation only to have to start over again.”
She said nothing. They had finally caused enough destruction to quiet even her gift for chatter. He batted away the burning debris falling around them and wondered why he didn’t allow a plank to bonk Ari on the head and end his suffering.
Faebles with soot-smudged faces, a few of them nursing singed wings or tails, fled in all directions as the original Big Bad blew out the fire.
Colleen walked to the edge of the flaming chasm where her business had once stood and dropped to her knees. She held the doll Ari had retrieved for her against her body. An exact replica of the woman, from the hair—gas flame blue at the roots, gradating to orange and finally to yellow at the ends—to the tapered ears, the doll even mimicked the manic expression on Colleen’s face.
Ari left Maks and made her way over to kneel beside her mother’s friend. The two women held on to one another as tears rolled down Colleen’s face and disappeared into a grimace so wide and curled it might have been mistaken for a smile.
Chaos.
Everywhere they went. Chaos.
Maks and Ari had entered Willow the Wisps, asked for the owner and given her the doll. All fine. Colleen offered Maks a drink and he’d pictured her a saint. He’d needed something to soften the turmoil the returner caused to churn within him.
Vodka improved all situations.
There’d been an empty spot at the bar beside a fire sprite with a hefty head start on the path drunken. The fellow had the look of a red leprechaun and partied with as much joviality. Maks liked the fire sprite despite his frequent burps and the gaseous bubbles he emitted. Every species had its drawbacks—fire sprites happened to burp when intoxicated. They’d had a companionable talk, exchanging salacious limericks, until Ari came up behind and touched Maks on his shoulder blade.
“We should probably get out of here, Maks. I’m late for the drop-off to the Grand High Oni and I’ve got some explaining to do,” she’d said.
Without doubts Wendell’s temper would not be easily allayed. But who cared? Wendell did not possess such lovely eyes—tempting as a sip of cognac. Nor was the Grand High Oni’s touch electric. Ariana Golde’s touch, however, brought Bear to the surface, the hunt in him hungry to have her.
A match. Good. Need her.
Bear had whined and Bear was not given to whining. Maks had fought the compulsion to draw Ari between his legs and press her against his…
ahem
, so he hadn’t turned to face her.
“Are you ready?” she’d asked, peering around him. “Tonight is flying past like
that.
” She’d snapped her fingers to punctuate the last word. In that same moment the fire sprite burped.
Maks wouldn’t have countenanced such a perfect storm if the grapevines had told him. The domino chain of events was too screwed up to call serendipity. He’d had to create a new word: fubar-dipity. The term would evoke the utter madness of the night when he related the tale to his brothers—if Ari’s antics allowed him to live beyond the rising sun.
At any rate, Ari’s hand on Maks’s back had channeled their magick. It surged through them and erupted from her thumb and index finger in a single spark of chaos.
Snap. Burp.
Maks had downed his vodka to ease the oncoming assault of Murphy’s Law. The shimmering bubble of gas floated toward the returner. The spark struck the bubble. Nothing happened for less than a millisecond, perhaps two, but fire sprite burps were flammable. All storied folk knew this.
He’d yelled “Get out!” in Russian. Any creature with an inkling of self-preservation took his meaning and hauled ass whether they spoke the language or not. Over his shoulder, Maks saw the bubble implode, the spark of chaos encased inside it. The memory of how their magick coalesced in his home quickened his getaway pace, and he slung Ari over the opposite shoulder.
KABOOM! Bada-bada-bada-BOOM!
Maks rubbed his eyes to chase away the memory. He could now warm his hands by the pit—a dead ringer for the entrance to Hades—they’d created. Damn her and him along with her.
“I could use a hand here.”
Maks followed the voice to the brink of the pit. A broken pipe jutted out of the side of the chasm, and from the pipe dangled the fire sprite.
“Hello.” The fire sprite waved before he realized the folly of the action and hugged the pipe to his neck. “Mind snatching me outta the jaws o’hell?” he said.
Maks dropped down onto his belly and reached into the pit. The sprite reached back but neither could grasp the other. Soft footfalls terminated at Maks’s side. “Corbel, Trajan, help Maks out,” Ari said. “And stop ignoring him, by the way.”
Both goblins scrambled to the edge and leaned over the pit at a forty-five degree angle. Trajan tsked, throwing the hanging end of his scarf over a shoulder. Corbel said, “We’d rather you order us to commit
seppuku
. Wouldn’t we, Trajan?” Trajan answered with a stiff nod, arms folded in defiance.
Maks pushed up onto his knees and prepared to unleash Bear. Ari spoke first. “Ritual suicide, huh?” She crouched down in front of the goblins, seemingly relaxed. “I’ve got no problems with that. How about a running leap into that hole?” Ari jerked her head toward the pit. “Hades seems like just the place for you two.”
The needle on Maks’s Arian-o-meter swung sharply to “like.”
The goblins tucked, tumbled and climbed down to help the sprite.
“She might need anger management, Corbel,” Trajan shouted loud enough for all to hear. “We was hopping to it. What is we, heathens that don’t know our place?”
“Right again, Trajan,” Corbel said, huffing. “You’ve got a knack for verisimilitude.”
Adept as squirrels, the henchmen didn’t slip once as they scampered down. Maks assumed the skill helped with acquisitions. Gods, he’d surrounded himself with thieves and he was beginning to like them. All three of them. He proved himself his mother’s son to greater and greater degrees.
Reaching the pipe, Corbel straddled it and scooted out toward the dangling fire sprite. The poor fellow had begun to sweat. Fire sprites did not burn or become overheated. Fear of death alone caused the moisture to break out across the ruddy complexion.
Trajan slid along the pipe behind Corbel. When they were both in place the later took the sprite by the wrists and flipped him overhead.
“Easy,” Maks growled.
Trajan caught the sprite by the ankles and hoisted him with perfect balance. Maks gripped sweaty fingers, Trajan kept hold of the sprite’s ankles, and Corbel grasped Trajan’s feet. As Maks lifted, the trio of three-footers rose from the hole in a chain, the ugliest set of head-over-end paper dolls ever constructed.
Maks set the chain down. Trajan and Corbel pimp walked—there was no better description of their we-rule-the-night strut—over to Ari. The sprite sprung to his feet and wrapped himself around Maks’s leg. Clutching and whimpering ensued. Uncomfortable in a magnificent way, Maks looked to Ari for help.
“Um, Mister Fire Sprite, sir. You’re making him uncomfortable with your head that close to his bits.”
The sprite leapt away and straightened the scarlet vest he wore beneath an orange jacket with glittering red pinstripes. He sputtered an apology for his decidedly unmanly behavior and stroked his baldpate. “Fark-o-flaming.” The fire sprite turned a ruddier shade. “I’ve lost me bowler.”
Ari patted the fellow on the back and cooed consolingly. “There’s an all-night haberdashery on the corner of Peters Creek and Sirens Mill Road. You could have a new hat in an hour or so.”
The fire sprite lit up. He kissed Ari’s hand, shook Maks’s and hightailed it out of there.
Ari watched the sprite go. Maks watched only her. Ariana Golde was lovely, kind and funny, also a horrible singer but crafty. His Arian-o-meter went off, blinking and dinging as though he’d struck the jackpot, the needle swinging well past “like.” Maks gave the device a mental kick and it shut down with a dissatisfied whir.
“How do you like that one, Trajan? We do all manner of acrobatics to save him and we don’t get no kisses.”
“Was you wantin’ kisses, Corbel?” Trajan’s sharp features lent him the look of a grinning cheese wedge. “Your proclivities is always been questionable.”
“Well, he wore his hat nicely.” Corbel grumbled, pushing his own bear-ravaged cap back off his face. “I could’ve used a trip to the haberdasher’s and wedda had nice tête-à-tête.”
Trajan chortled and danced his jig. “Which head was you wanting to touch, Corbel? The big one or the little one?”
Maks snorted. Nicely done. Ari burst out laughing at Trajan’s risqué translation of head-to-head. “Back in the bag, you silly buzzards,” she told her henchmen. They went without complaint. Trajan threw an arm around Corbel and happily poked his buddy’s ribs along the way.
“You know what, Corbel? You’ve gotta get rid of the stinging itchies if you want to keep a man.”
“How would you know?” Corbel looked genuinely puzzled.
Maks thought the answer would be common sense. One could not give a lover the stinging itchies, AKA nasty goblin’s disease, and expect them to stick around past breakfast, let alone to form a lasting bond. Apparently the obvious did not come to Corbel so easily. As Maks understood it one would rather have the fleas of a thousand wolves take residence in one’s pubic hair than deal with the stinging itchies. Maks did not know for sure but would ask Mitya when he returned home.
“I’ve got a girlfriend. That’s how I know,” Trajan said, continuing his discussion with Corbel.
“I haven’t set eyes on her.” Corbel stepped into Ari’s bag and disappeared.
“You ain’t never seen lady parts neither.” Trajan followed. “Don’t mean they don’t exist.”
Zzzup.
The zipper sealed.
Ari turned a disbelieving gaze on Maks, her eyes wide, her lips twitching. He wanted to kiss her so badly he made fists of his fingers enough times to realize the calming exercise had lost effectiveness. His inability to restrain himself precipitated a flood of annoyance.
“You could have killed us all.”
“No one died or was even injured. It’d take a lot more than singeing to take a Faeble down.”
“And what will Colleen do now?”
The returner paused and Maks could see she felt badly about their blowing up the pub. “I don’t know,” Ari said, exhaling slowly. “But she kissed my cheek and she doesn’t seem to be that upset. Look.” She pointed to where Colleen stood in conference with a pair of Faebles in navy suits and red ties. “Those insurance incubi look more worked up than she does.”
Colleen wore a heavy pink blanket and the same maniac expression she’d had just after the explosion, while the pair of incubi huffed, indignant as victims of a double cross. Maks smelled a large payoff via accidental fire insurance.
Ari was right. He knew this yet could not agree with her. He had to find the means to drive a wedge between them.
Smells good. Tastes better. A match.
Maks shook himself mentally. He did not have the self-control to stay away from her much longer and who knew what they’d catapult into deep space the next time they touched. He turned his back on her. “We got lucky. Still, do not touch me again.”
Far too concerned with mastering the howl and desire of the hunt within him, Maks didn’t sense her approach. He only felt her arms slide under his, her hands clasping his shoulders, her cheek against his spine.
Good.
“I can’t promise you that, Maksim.” Her smooth as honey tone soothed him. So sweet. Maks snarled and closed his eyes, relaxing into her embrace. “But I can promise you other things,” she said.
Mating by moonlight. Cubs. Dancing.
“What do you promise me,
vorovka
?”
Another feminine scent filled the air and a voice as crisp as summers in the Hamptons broke into his thoughts. “I can promise you’re not going to like this.”
Maks opened his eyes in time to see the punch coming but not to deflect it. He staggered back from the blow and shook his head but managed to push Ari further behind him. The Grand High Oni’s younger sister stood before him. She held up her red-skinned dukes in a boxer stance. Maks keyed in on her oval cut sapphire ring to regain his senses, as a contingent of ogres bounded in from the shadows beyond.
“Bitsy, did you believe I would go down so easily?” Maks assumed his own stance. This was an opportunity to work off his frustration.
Bitsy grinned. “Magick ring, Maks.”
“You—” He felt woozy. Everything went wrong side twisted. The cobblestone greeted his rear as he slumped down into Ari’s arms.
“Maks,” his vixen-
vorovka
cried out to him.
“Do not worry.” He barely understood his own slurred words. “I am—”
“Sleepy,” Bitsy said. “Rock-a-bye, Maksy.”
Maks did not open his eyes when he awoke. Nor did he move. Instead he allowed his sense of smell to speak to him of the oni compound: sand and edamame—ogres ate soybeans until the scent leached from their pores—and mountain air. There were several ogres in the vicinity and—wait—yes, most importantly, he and Ari had been brought there together. Her honeysuckle scent calmed him.
Touch told him he rested on a stone bench with his feet in the sand he’d smelled, likely Wendell’s rock garden. Pain made it evident two sides of his jaw would be sore for the rest of the night, the underside from Ari’s kick and the left from Bitsy’s sucker punch. Odd how he chose to stay away from women and yet they would surely be his death.
The smoky perfume of incense drifted to Maks. Water trickled over stone a few yards away while Wendell spoke to Bitsy.
“Where is this reek of goblin coming from?” Wendell asked in his John Wayne burr.
“I think it must have come in with the returner.” Bitsy said, overblown disgust underscoring her words. Neither sounded particularly angry, so Maks decided he could open his eyes without the threat of attack and further assess the situation.