Secret Worlds (125 page)

Now centered, she took in her surroundings. She doubted any fairies were still alive, but just in case any absinthe-addict pixies remained, she hurriedly dumped out the contents of all the open bottles and glasses. Even with the aid of the hematite, it was hard not to take a quick sip. Boxes of absinthe, unopened, were stacked floor-to-ceiling on two sides of the room. Tomorrow, she would confront Glenna and out her to Claribel and Mama D. They needed to know what was going on right under their noses.

Skye picked up the flashlight from the counter and pulled the light switch in the tiny room, ready to get home.

The entire basement plunged in sudden and total darkness, the black air thick with the smell of licorice, and something else – a scent vaguely familiar but too faint to identify.

The light on in the main storage room went out.

She stood alone in the darkness. Sensed the presence of pure evil. It was cold and absolute, a chilling menace that brooked no hope for mercy, an abyss that sucked out light and energy, pinning its victim on the sharp edge of vengeance. Her index finger tapped nervously on the flashlight switch, unsure of whether to expose the menace.

No, best to hide in the shadows and hope the evil presence passed over like a malignant cloud in the night wind, seeking out other prey.

A stair creaked.

Someone was coming down. Instinctively searching for cover, Skye raised a hand out to her side, shoulder-level, feeling for the solid surface of the wall. Her fingers wiggled at the empty air. Slowly, carefully she scooted a foot over, feeling the spilled absinthe soak the hem of her jeans. She kept one arm up, angling for the wall. The tinkling of broken crystal brushing along the concrete floor sounded like a crashing waterfall of glass.

Keep moving. She had to keep moving, not stand in the middle of the room like an easy target.

Another creak in the stairs, closer now.

Her hand made contact with the wall and she cautiously pressed her back against it. She had to get out of this windowless room, or at least move behind the door and hope the intruder wasn’t coming this way.

Skye flinched at the next creak.

Whoever it was – probably Glenna – had come for the absinthe. Skye gathered her courage. She wasn’t going to just stand there and wait for Glenna to trap her. The element of surprise was on her side. No one expected her to be down here at this time of night. Skye eased out of the storage room, stumbling in the dark.

She turned on her flashlight, ready to make a run for the stairs, knocking Glenna down if she had to. Skye directed its golden circle of light on the floor, a few yards ahead of her feet. Her body started toward the beam at the precise moment someone flipped a light switch. The sudden explosion of light made Skye stumble again and she raised her eyes to the staircase.

Profound, utter relief made her body sag as the accumulated adrenaline bottomed out. She had never been so glad to see a familiar face.

“Miss Claribel!” Skye laughed and quickly closed the distance between them. “Boy, I’m I ever glad to see
you
. You won’t believe what’s –”

Skye’s voice faltered. Claribel’s head was down. Why wouldn’t she look up? Skye had expected her boss to shriek in astonishment at finding someone else in the basement.

“Miss Claribel?” Skye took a few tentative steps forward until they stood only a couple of feet apart. Now the other scent she’d smelled earlier, the one that had been nibbling at the edge of her consciousness, burst forth. Violets. Claribel’s signature scent that had always seemed so old-fashioned and grandmotherly. Now it was cloyingly sweet and repulsive.

Skye dropped her voice in concern, something must have happened to Claribel. She glanced up the stairs, half expecting Glenna to stomp down and reveal herself. But, no. It was only the two of them. Skye touched Claribel’s arm, felt the chill of icy skin seeping through the woman’s blouse.

Skye stared at Claribel’s bent head, with its mass of gray curls haphazardly shaped into its customary bun that was pierced with hair wands. As if awaking from a trance, Claribel slowly raised her head and pinned Skye with alien eyes of fury.

“You are mine.” Claribel’s voice was deep and raspy. Nothing like her former singsong girlish voice.

“Wha —?” Skye backed up, never taking her eyes off the stranger before her. “Is that you, Claribel?”

A humorless laugh, like the sibilant hissing of a coiled snake, made Skye breakout in goose bumps. Dread caused her feet to keep backing up until she crashed into a box and fell on her ass. Heavy bronze objects scattered everywhere. She tried to scurry, crab-like, to get far away from the source of evil.

“Get up you stupid girl!” Claribel walked toward her, pulling out the wands from her hair. A mass of crisp, gray ringlets fell to her waist like an armor of steel.

“Who
are
you?”

“Caoimhe is my true name. It means ‘kind and tender’ in Gaelic. Deliciously ironic, wouldn’t you say?”

“What have you done to Miss Claribel?” Skye despised the trembling fear in her voice. Weak, she was so stupid and weak that she couldn’t wrap her mind around the evidence in front of her.

“There is no Claribel, never has been. What kind of half-witch, half-fairy are you? I expected more of Rowena Watters’ daughter.”

Skye stiffened at the insult and came out of the horrified stupor. She grabbed one of the bronze objects lying on the ground from the spilled box and flung it at Claribel’s face with all her strength.

Claribel raised one of the wands in her hand and a stream of blue light vaporized the object in mid-flight, as easy as if she were swatting at a fly. She smiled in a twisted grimace, shredding the mask of dreamy Claribel.

“I’ve heard the rumors of how special you are. Show me what you’ve got.” The wand lifted again, this time aimed dead center at Skye’s chest.

Skye reached in her coat pocket and found the charm bag of herbs Kyle gave her. This better work, it was all she had. She quickly scrambled to her feet and charged Claribel. She opened the bag and flung its contents in Claribel’s face.

Claribel was overcome with a fit of coughing and sneezing. Bless Kyle, he knew his herbs.

Skye ran for the stairs. She tried taking them two at a time and fell halfway to freedom. She heard Claribel’s labored breathing behind her, not coughing quite as much now. A quick glance showed Claribel at the foot of the stairs behind her. Skye scrambled up, reached the top of the steps, grabbed the handle to the closed door, and yanked.

It was locked. She pounded the door in frustration and screamed. “Help! Is anyone out there?” More pounding. Skye risked a look back.

The smile on Claribel’s face terrified her more than being chased by the pack of phoukas.

“Won’t you come down and join me, my dear? We can have us a nice long chat. I want to hear all about your so-called
legendary
abilities.”

Skye looked around wildly for a weapon or a way out. A glance over the stair’s railing revealed a long drop to the concrete floor below.

Trapped.

Fly you idiot. But her wings were bound. She flung off the coat, pulled the shirt over her head, and hastily started unraveling the miles of Ace bandaging she’d used to hide the wings.

A maniacal, high-pitched laughter erupted. “Oh, this is too precious, darling. I’ll just wait right here for your unveiling. I want to see you in all your
half
fairy glory.”

Skye hesitated, then went back to unpeeling the binding. She was out of options. If this didn’t work . . .

Free at last, she rippled her back muscles, praying her wings weren’t bent and damaged from their makeshift imprisonment. Wearing only a halter bra from the waist up, the air was frigid.

Loud clapping from Claribel. “Go ahead; give me a demonstration of your flying.”

Skye jumped.

She plummeted straight down, the floor now only a few feet below. She uselessly flailed her arms and legs before muscle memory returned to her back muscles and her wings flapped. She landed awkwardly and fell to her knees.

More laughter. “What fun.” Claribel ambled away from the stairs, smiling, taking her time. “We can do this all night. You run and try to hide, and then I’ll catch you.” She raised the wand again. “Like this.”

A bolt of blue lightning struck, this time at the ground by Skye’s feet. She jumped and spun to avoid it. Another bolt fired. Again, she twisted and jumped in a humiliating, pain-avoidance dance.

Cat and mouse.

Skye took off, half-running, half-flying around the storeroom with Claribel laughing and walking behind, not even out of breath. Boxes, books and knick-knacks fell everywhere as Skye bumped into the metal shelves housing The Green Fairy stock. Even with her mincing little steps, Claribel was always only a few paces behind.

Fly higher, that’s what she needed to do. Skye was so used to being grounded, dependent on two legs to move around, she forgot she had wings to soar.

Skye flew to the lone window, high in the southwest corner of the basement, and peered through the narrow iron burglar bars, hoping someone or something would be out there. “Help!” she screamed.

Hundreds of glowing green eyes mocked her cry. The Dark Fae creatures were lined up along the side of the next building, on top of trashcans, and covering the alley street, as if lined up in a theatre to watch a show.

They had come to watch her die.

Shock ripped through her brain and she hovered mid-flight. A blue bolt of energy singed her new-grown wings. She was on fire, the sharp pain knocked the breath out of her and she fell like dead weight to the ground.

Splat. Her body made a sickening noise as it met the concrete. The sound of her own shallow, panicked breath rang in her ears. But she felt the vibration beneath her body as Claribel drew closer. A pair of feet appeared, not a yard from her head. Claribel wore a pair of pink fuzzy house slippers. Skye couldn’t stop staring at them. Claribel stepped out of one slipper, then another, exposing misshapen, hairy toes on what appeared to be an impossible size two foot.

Fairy feet. Kheelan had tried to warn her. He’d been right all along. He said that when they shapeshifted to human form, the feet always gave them away. He’d even warned her that Claribel was the most logical suspect. And she’d insisted that Claribel only suffered from arthritis. What a blind fool she had been. Her eyes traveled up the pastel, printed skirt, the lacey peasant blouse, and into eyes that shone with grim malevolence.

“Fun and games are over, it’s time for a little chat.”

Skye sat up slowly. The pain ebbed to a manageable level. “Why are you killing the pixies?” she asked, her voice hoarse.

“As a war strategist for the Unseelie Fae, I find the pixies a constant, irksome enemy. The silly little creatures are always fluttering about, carrying our gossip and battle plans back to the Seelies. Most annoying.”

“They’re beautiful.” Skye defended them in a sorrowful voice. “You lure them to the absinthe and then you trap them in it.”

“My own special recipe,” Claribel said with a smug smile. “I take what the alcohol distillery sends and then I add extra wormwood and a secret blend of other herbs that the pixies find absolutely irresistible.”

“But – I thought it was Glenna. I saw a vision in the obsidian stone and her bracelet was in it.”

“Glenna?” Claribel waved a dismissive hand and then carefully sank down, sitting on the floor next to Skye. “That fake? No, she wouldn’t see a pixie if it landed on her nose and bit her. This made her useful to me. I run a profitable, very hush-hush, absinthe distribution on the side. You could say Glenna is my sales rep. Thanks to her word-of-mouth our absinthe is a very popular drink on campus.”

Skye tried to ignore the pain and concentrate on escape. At least keeping Claribel talking beat getting zapped with fairy fire. “Absinthe is legal now. Why all the secrecy?”

“Because most of my clientele are under age twenty-one. Don’t want the feds or local authorities breathing down my neck.”

Skye shook her head. “I saw Glenna put the metal tray over an open bottle of absinthe and trap the fairies. She’s more than your absinthe pimp.”

“That girl is more clueless than you. Glenna only mixes my special herbs. I tell her that they need be added to the liquor and ‘breathe’ in the alcohol overnight to make the drink more potent. She comes down the next morning and puts the tray over the bottle as the final step in a private recipe for my own consumption.”

“And she doesn’t see the dead fairies in it,” said Skye. “If this is how you trap them, they’re already dead when you get your hands on them. Khe – I mean – I thought they were tortured for information in the Fairy Wars.” Skye winced at the slip. She didn’t want to draw any attention to Kheelan and place him in danger.

Claribel nodded. “Oh, some of them are tortured all right. I peel the wings off of some, and on others I tie strings around their puny little bodies and whirl them around at dizzying speeds. They are all most happy to talk after a few hours.”

She didn’t want to ask, but had to know. “What about the ones who get trapped in the absinthe?”

Claribel obscenely smacked her lips. “I drink up their dead bodies. Pixie blood is powerful magic for the Unseelie. I had hoped you would drink some of the absinthe down here. I even provided you with the extra key when you came snooping. I would have enjoyed your reaction to my special concoction. Unfortunately, I had no idea you would find that obsidian stone. It almost gave me away.”

Nausea rumbled in Skye’s stomach. A combination of pain, flying and learning of Claribel’s carnivorous cravings. “Gross.” Did Claribel plan to kill her and then feast on her flesh?

“Don’t call
me
gross you disgusting half-fairy. You are only marginally above that changeling in the Fae social structure.” She laughed at Skye’s opened mouth. “Yes, I’ve seen the two of you together. It’s my business to watch all you do. But that’s not the reason I hate you.”

Skye’s mouth and lips went dry and numb. Disapproval or indifference she was used to, but hate was new territory. “Why?”

Claribel raised her left hand and positioned her thumb ring in the lone ray of light from the hanging bulb. Obsidian and moonstone flecks sparkled on its unique orb of titanium metal. “Lawren gave me this at our betrothal ceremony.”