Charming Blue (26 page)

His room was next to that of a troll named Gunther, a big glowery creature that smelled faintly of molten iron and stagnant water. Jodi asked Gunther to keep an eye on Blue—whom she remembered to call John—and Gunther had accepted the assignment as if Jodi had told him that he was guarding the president of the United States.

Gunther had looked at Jodi with that melty look Blue recognized. The troll was smitten. And Blue didn’t like that.

Jodi deserved better. Not that Blue was going to get a say in anything. He wouldn’t. Jodi was her own woman, and besides, he was damaged goods.

(And “damaged goods” was such an understatement.)

Besides, while she was friendly with Gunther, she didn’t give Gunther a melty look. Still, she touched him casually too.

Apparently she touched everyone.

Blue tried not to feel disappointed about that.

She left him and his leather bag outside number forty-two, a pale blue bungalow with white lattice work covered in fragrant peach-colored blossoms. It was pretty, and it made him nervous.

So nervous that when she told him she wouldn’t see him until the following day, he asked her where she was going.

He had sounded like a needy kid.

Maybe he was needy. And maybe Jodi had heard that, because she looked at him oddly.

“I have a job, you know,” she had said. “I haven’t done any work all day. I doubt Tank will pay me for this one with you, even though she said she was hiring me. Tank has weird ideas about what constitutes payment.”

He had smiled and nodded, as if he understood, and to be fair, he did understand. He was just a job to Jodi. A job she was doing reluctantly for someone she didn’t quite trust.

Nothing more.

She hadn’t even waited until he went into the apartment. He had unlocked the door to his new home, and she had taken off for her car.

Apparently, she couldn’t wait to get rid of him.

Not that he blamed her. He was beyond damaged goods. He was a man who had spent centuries believing the worst of himself and destroying himself to make sure that he wouldn’t behave badly again.

Such euphemisms he had learned to use. “Behave badly.” “Damaged goods.” He had done his best to destroy himself so that he wouldn’t kill anyone, because he believed himself capable of it, and not just that, but doing horrible things to the bodies.

He had believed the worst of himself, and then when he had found out that he was under the influence of a curse, he fled from the place that had provided him a modicum of comfort, a bit of help.

Of course, it had been the wrong kind of help, the wrong kind of comfort, given who he thought he was. He was a man who had made terrible, terrible mistakes, even when looked at through the prism of the curse. He hadn’t defended himself. He had let himself sink into the morass that his life had become, and then he hadn’t even done the honorable thing and ended it all.

Because if he truly believed he could hurt people like that, he should have prevented it by ending himself.

He had known that for a long time, and even tried to act upon it a few times, but something had stopped him.

And he was never quite sure what that something was. Of course, he wouldn’t let himself reflect backward. He had tried to live in the moment and do some of the sobriety things that the rehab center had taught him, taking each day at a time, rewarding himself for getting through yet another difficult situation.

Only he hadn’t applied it to alcohol. He had applied those sobriety rules to murder. If he hadn’t harmed anyone that day, if he hadn’t put someone in harm’s way that day, then he had had a good day.

And technically, by his old rules, he had had two very bad days. Jodi was now in danger.

But the rules had changed.

He used the key she had handed him—an old-fashioned one, with an old-fashioned blue plastic fob and a number, just like old motel keys—and let himself into the apartment.

It was pleasant, which he hadn’t expected although he should have, given the exterior. The living room was small but furnished, with comfortable couches and chairs, and a flat screen television on the wall. Directly across from the door was the door to the kitchen, and through it he saw another big window which opened into the garden. Clearly someone had put two motel rooms together to create this one.

He set his bag down and stepped inside, closing the door behind him. Good light, comfortable. So different from any place he had stayed for decades. Even his favorite room at the rehab center didn’t have this kind of light.

Then he remembered: Jodi was a descendent of chatelaines. She specialized in comfort, especially in a home.

He smiled a little, and even though he knew she hadn’t designed this for him, it felt like she had. Part of the magic, of course, but a nice part.

He wandered through the living room to the bedroom—a third former hotel room, with another large window. But it didn’t look like an old hotel room, and the bathroom—with its double sinks, standalone rainwater shower, and large claw-foot tub—didn’t look like an old hotel bathroom.

He was lucky to be here, in more ways than one.

He went into the kitchen and to his surprise saw a computer on one of the counters. The computer was running, with a Post-it note on the screen saying it was all right to use it.

Such a risk, given the way that the Kingdom magical destroyed electronics. But computers were cheap now. The Post-it did not have his name on it, so he knew this was a feature of all of the apartments, probably to help the folks who lived here find work.

He moved the mouse, and the screen came up onto a series of rules for the magical and computer use.

He smiled, then turned away feeling his smile fade. He was disappointed that nothing here was personal, and he shouldn’t have been. But he was. Because of Jodi. He should have realized how he felt this morning when Jodi told him that the curse had started to have an effect on her. He should have thought it through.

It wasn’t just that he had noticed her or looked at her or talked with her.

He found her really attractive, but more than that, he liked her.

He wanted to be with her.

He put his hands on the edge of the sink and looked into the garden. Some pixie children were playing tag around a sapling, occasionally sparking when one of them rubbed against something clearly spelled as untouchable.

He was so needy. That was it. No real warmth, no real contact for centuries. The talks with Dr. Hargrove didn’t count, because Blue had paid the man to listen. Blue never thought of Dr. Hargrove or the others of his ilk as anything more than resources. And Blue could never let himself think that anyone cared for him.

He blamed any good reaction he got—sober or not—on his charm magic, not on anything to do with him.

So he had to remember that Jodi’s kindness came from the fact that Tank had hired her. Although Jodi could have left, probably would have left, if she hadn’t discovered the curse.

But even then, the hiring had less to do with him than the Fairy Tale Stalker. And Blue was supposed to help her find that guy, stop that guy from hurting others, and maybe that would lead to this damn cursecaster, whoever he was.

They hadn’t been able to finish the conversation at the restaurant. Too many distractions, what with Tank and the caviar and the waiters. By the time Blue realized he hadn’t finished telling Jodi what he had learned from the material she had given him, they had already moved to another topic, which was finding him some place to stay.

The job Blue had to do now was both simple and hard. He had to look backward, all the way back to those horrible days when he thought that he was killing people and not remembering it. He had to look at a part of his life he had shut off, and as he did, he had to reassess it, realize that everything he thought was true wasn’t.

Tall order for a man to do with the help of a counselor. Even taller for a man to do on his own.

But Jodi was taking a risk with him. Tank had taken an even bigger risk: she had believed from the beginning.

And if Blue could find some of the secrets in his own past, he would be able to help this so-called Fairy Tale Stalker.

One day at a time. One moment at a time.

Because he didn’t want to think about what would happen if finding the Fairy Tale Stalker led to the cursecaster.

Blue wasn’t sure what he would do to that cursecaster when he found him. For generations, Blue had believed himself capable of horrible, awful murders.

He didn’t want to think about how, if he found the cursecaster, he might learn that the image of himself as killer was true after all.

Chapter 33

Ten minutes. That was all Jodi promised herself. Just ten minutes.

She had come home for an hour only, which was stupid in LA because driving took so damn much time, but she needed to decompress, and she couldn’t, not with Ramon asking a ton of questions, the phone ringing like crazy, the reception area full, and all of the meetings she had pushed back from that morning crammed into the late afternoon.

She needed a shower, a glass of wine, a nice dinner, and some Jodi-time. But most of all, she needed to stretch out on the bed and close her eyes for ten minutes.

The lack of sleep from the night before had caught up to her, along with the stress, and just the general confusion.

The confusion concerning Blue.

She didn’t want to think about him. She had been a bit dismissive of him at the apartment, but she needed to get back to work. Besides, she didn’t want to see him in the place. She would have felt the need to add a few more spells to make him even more comfortable.

She didn’t dare do that, not when he had asked that they remain the magical equivalent of professional.

She went into her bedroom, ignoring the fairy dust from the night before—in fact, pretending the night before hadn’t happened at all—and kicked off her shoes, then stretched out, still in her business suit, feet tucked under the thin duvet she had on top of the bed. The bed (the room itself?) smelled faintly of baby powder.

She didn’t care. She just needed to close her eyes.

She didn’t even set an alarm, figuring the phone would wake her, or the sun itself as it lowered over the Wilshire golf course and came streaming into the sliding glass doors overlooking the pool.

Besides, in her entire life she’d never been able to nap longer than ten minutes, not even when she was sick (which was rarely).

She had barely closed her eyes when she heard something rustle. Her heart started to pound, and she wanted to leap out of the bed, but she didn’t. She had to get used to being in her own room again. Just because she had been frightened out of it by a vision the night before didn’t mean she needed to be frightened whenever the house creaked.

She opened her eyes, and there he was, again. Blue. Or Not-Blue. Bluebeard, with his young face and innocent eyes, oozing charm, wearing that light blue top with the big sleeves, and those tights.

The tights fit him well, showing muscular legs.

He smiled at her and she smiled back before she realized what she was doing.

She let out a small “eep,” and rolled off the bed on the opposite side. He walked around the bed toward her, hand extended, and damn if she didn’t want to take that hand. It took all of her strength to stay on her side of the bed.

Eye contact. She had to sever eye contact, and she did, going for the sliding glass doors again, running onto the patio, and this time, she hadn’t remembered to grab her phone.

Not that it mattered. He was reaching for the patio door—how the hell could he do that? Was he corporeal? Could he pull the doors open? Or was he about to step through the glass like a ghost? She couldn’t tell. She ran along the stone path she had built on the far side of the house, stopping when she reached the front, and she rummaged in her car (thank heavens she had left the top down) and grabbed one of her extra phones.

With her thumb, she dialed Selda’s direct line. Jodi backed toward the street so that she could see the entire house, but she kept looking over her shoulder to make sure he hadn’t come up from behind her somehow.

Her heart was still racing, but she was beginning to get her breathing under control.

Finally, Selda answered. “Jodi?”

“He’s back,” Jodi said. “
It’s
back. That vision-curse thing. It’s here.”

“Here is…?”

“My house,” she said.

“And Blue?”

“I put him in an apartment hours ago,” she said.

“Alone?”

“Yes, alone,” Jodi said. “But there are monitors. He doesn’t have a car. I don’t know how he could get here if he wanted to. I need Tank. Do you know where she is?”

“Right here,” Tank said from beside her.

Jodi eeped again and almost dropped the phone.

“Last I saw her,” Selda said, “she was mixing some potion to calm her upset stomach. I’ll send someone looking for her.”

“Never mind,” Jodi said. “She just showed up.”

Selda started to say something, but Jodi didn’t wait to hear what it was. She hung up and stuffed the phone in the pocket of her skirt.