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Authors: J. A. Kazimer

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BOOK: Curses!
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Chapter 7

P
lease tell me you were raised by wolves,” I said, shaking my head as we exited the library. After meeting Lady Maledetto, matricide made sense in a survival-of-the-fittest sort of way, because that woman wouldn't hesitate to eat her young.
Or someone else's.
Just in case, I checked my fingers and toes. Ten. Well, twenty if you're nitpicky. All still intact. Whew.
On the bright side, what Asia's mother lacked in parenting skills she more than made up for with her subtle, single-minded desire for Asia to marry the freshly unengaged Prince Charming.
No wonder Asia had left the kingdom.
Asia stopped outside the library door and grabbed the collar of my T-shirt, dragging me toward her lips. She kissed me, thoroughly and completely. No half-assed brotherly peck for her. Nope, she gave me a full-on I-want-to-suck-your-brains-through-your-lips kind of kiss. Our tongues met in the middle, playing a quick game of tag. She tasted like warm brandy and evil deeds. Her mouth taunted mine, teasing and tempting me until I nearly lost control and took her right there in the hallway. Her knee slid up the inside of my thigh. I groaned in response, pulling her closer in anticipation of her naughty parts melding with mine.
We came up for air a few seconds later, and she pushed me away. Unsteady, I stumbled, grabbing the wall for support. I stammered something like: “Ohgodwannaget-marriedandhavemybabies?”
Asia answered by smacking me in the back of the head. Once I regained my manly composure, she said, “Sorry about attacking you like that. But my mother makes me so crazy I lose all control.”
“No problem.” I wiped a string of drool from my lips, not sure if it was hers or mine. “Happy to help. Really. Feel free to lose control anytime you want. I'm here for you. Day or night ...”
I continued rambling for a few more minutes, but Asia had already disappeared down the hallway, the damp outline of my handprint visible on the leather of her skirt.
 
For the next two hours Asia guided me through the kingdom of Maledetto. We stopped at the Butcher's, the Baker's, and the Sex Toy Maker's, not staying long enough to interrogate anyone, let alone sample any of their wares. A shame, really, since I was both hungry and curious about a certain vibrating item no bigger than Thumbelina. Asia smiled at each shopkeeper, but the Sex Toy Maker seemed to be the only one happy to see her. The Butcher and the Baker both sighed with resignation when we entered their shops.
The rest of the kingdom looked like any other kingdom with shops, markets, and wind-tattered straw, stick, and brick houses circling Main Street. Asia guided me through the back alleys, diving deeper and deeper as we trekked through Cinderella's former home. Was her killer lurking somewhere? I smiled at the thought, remembering the joy of lurking. Ah, the good old villainous days.
Eventually our trip ended at the crown jewel of Maledetto. The Three Blind Mice Tavern. According to Asia, the tavern served the finest mead in all the land, as well as cheesy doodles. “Just don't order the Mice-a-roni,” she warned, her face wrinkling with disgust even as her tummy grumbled.
I prayed the food tasted better than the tavern looked. With a sigh, I decided it couldn't taste worse. Peeling pink paint covered the exterior walls, only interrupted by broken, greying shutters and streaks of vomit stains. The inside was slightly better, in that peanut shells covered the puke stains on the pink shag carpet.
Asia and I strode into the bar like something from an Old Western fairytale. All heads swiveled our way. I would've laughed if most of their lecherous looks weren't aimed at the lady standing next to me.
My hand shot to the small of Asia's back. Mine, I branded, my eyes staring down each of the degenerate characters inside the smoke-filled room. One guy with a hook on the end of his hand gazed at Asia much too long. I tilted my head in warning, and he quickly backed down.
Asia didn't appear to notice our exchange. Instead, she pushed her way through the crowd, pausing in front of a scarred booth. Four burly henchmen sat in the booth, their muscles bulging with evil intent. I recognized one of them as the dude with a foot fetish on the last season of
New Never City's Most Wanted Bachelors.
“This is my booth.” My slim-hipped companion stabbed her finger at the table. Much to my surprise, the four minions jumped from the booth as if it was on fire. They stumbled out of Asia's way, whispering apologies as they ran.
I should've realized right then that there was more here than met the eye. But in my defense, Asia looked so hot, standing there with her arms crossed and her foot tapping, that I probably wouldn't have noticed a midget drag queen in pink chiffon.
A midget drag queen in pink chiffon appeared at our newly acquired booth. He squinted at Asia and then asked for our order. Asia pointed at me. “He'll have the cheesy doodles and the finest mead. I'll have,” she sighed, “water.”
I raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment on her high-handedness or her order. I would have, but my mind was elsewhere, about four booths elsewhere.
Sitting as pretty as a picture in a booth much like ours was the reason for my current plague of niceness.
Natasha.
Hate rose within me, bitter and burning.
My ex-wife Natasha swirled her dirty vodka martini and laughed at the much-too-pretty man sitting across from her. She looked amazing, dressed all in black. The only burst of color was her blood-red lips. I shivered when she bit said bottom lip, drawing it through her teeth as if savoring every inch.
My, what sharp teeth you have....
The better to ruin your life with. Damn her.
I hadn't seen Natasha in a while. Not since the day she walked out on me and our villainous future. This wouldn't have been bad, except she took off with the Frog Prince, leaving me with a bad case of warts.
After her departure, a couple of painful applications of liquid nitrogen to my affected areas, and a brief nervous breakdown, the union had deemed me unfit for duty. I blamed Natasha for it all. We'd been the perfect villainous couple, then she left, and my life went to shit.
From that day on, I vowed I would never fall in love again. It wasn't worth the nice.
“Problem?” Asia glanced over her shoulder. Her eyes scanned the bar for whatever held my attention.
“Always. But nothing I wanna discuss. Not when I'm seated across from you.” I cleared my throat and reached for her hand. Her attention returned to me, saving me from an uncomfortable explanation about my soul-sucking ex-wife, not to mention a plausible excuse for my inspector impersonation.
The midget drag queen slammed a plate of cheesy curls in front of me and stalked away as fast as his tiny pink heels could carry him. The scent of cheddar and boiled oil circled us in a heavenly aroma. Gooey, melty strings of cheese dripped from the edge of the plate. Asia's stomach growled loud enough to attract the attention of every patron in the bar, even the three deaf mice, notorious cousins of the three blind ones.
Natasha glanced over.
I ducked my head, nearly landing face-first in the scalding cheese like some kind of villainous fondue. Asia's stomach grumbled again, even louder than the first time. A four on the villainous Richter scale at least. My mead bottle rattled, toppling off the table and onto the floor with a dull thud.
Once the tavern stopped shaking, Natasha rose from her booth, her long, lean legs as long and lean as I remembered.
The faithless bitch.
“What do you say we get out of here?” I asked Asia, not adding, before I killed the one woman I'd sworn to dishonor and disobey until her death did we part. I'd written my own vows.
Call me a hopeless romantic.
“But you didn't touch your food.” Asia's eyes locked on my cheesy plate with almost orgasmic intensity. A string of drool dribbled from her lips. Damn. I wanted her to look at me like that. Drool included.
“Um ... Asia?” I prompted.
Asia finally glanced up, her eyes burned with gluttony and mild confusion. “Am I missing something?”
“Yes,” my traitorous mouth answered. I slapped my hand over it before it could say more. Asia raised her eyebrow in a perfect villainous arch. Damn beginner's luck. I'd spent hours in the mirror trying to get my eyebrow to rise like that.
Natasha appeared over Asia's shoulder. “Is that you, Ru—”
I cut her off. “Do I know you?”
Her black eyes narrowed, but she caught on quick enough. The slashing motions I made across my throat probably helped.
“My mistake.” Her smile grew as she glanced from me to Asia. “I thought you were a man I used to know, but I guess not.”
Asia tilted her head at my former wife. “I haven't seen you in the kingdom before. Are you new to town?”
“Why, yes,” Natasha said. “I'm recently divorced and needed to get away from the city for a while. Some men just can't accept it when the relationship's over. They follow you around, from city to kingdom. It's quite pathetic really.”
Whore.
“Oh,” Asia said. “Well ...”
“Well, it was nice chatting with you.” I stood, smoothing an invisible wrinkle from my T-shirt. “The princess here,” I motioned to Asia, “promised to show me the rest of the kingdom, so we must be on our way.”
Asia's brow puckered, but she didn't question me. Instead, she rose from the booth and offered her hand to Natasha. “Nice meeting you ...”
“Natasha.” My ex smiled, showing off shark-white teeth and a penchant for fresh blood. “Natasha Stiltskin.”
“Stiltskin,” Asia said. “That name's familiar. Are you by any chance related to—”
“Stiltskin is a really common name. Kind of like Smith. I've met tons of them in the city. Ray Stiltskin. Boris. Bill. Robert. So many Stiltskins,” I babbled like a leprechaun intent on escaping with his pot of gold. “Just last week, I met a dude named Barack—”
“Anyway, it's been a pleasure,” Natasha said to Asia, and then she turned to me. “Perhaps we'll meet again. Soon.”
Chapter 8

T
hat was weird,” Asia said, crossing her arms over her ample chest. I tried valiantly to ignore the swell of her breasts, but failed. Suffice it to say, Asia had to repeat her statement twice before my mind caught up.
“Weird?” I stuttered. Damn Natasha. She could ruin everything for me. Again. I should've locked her in a tower years ago.
Asia grabbed my hand. “So you saw it too?”
Saw what? My bitch of an ex-wife? Oh yeah, I saw every damn deceitful inch of her. Good thing for Natasha the union had rendered me impotent, at least fiendishly so. Otherwise, my shoelaces would be a necktie for her right about now. I pictured her bulging eyeballs as my shoelace tightened around her throat and felt instantly better. Ah, the power of positive thought.
“I wasn't sure at first,” Asia was saying as my mental murder fantasy faded from my mind. “But then he snuck out the back door, and I knew it was him.”
I shook my head, clueless. “Who?”
“Cindi's childhood friend Hansel, of course.”
Who the fuck was Hansel? “Of course. So what do you think it means?” I gave her my best sincere smile. The one that often made old ladies cry.
“He's hiding something.” Asia bit her bottom lip. “Why else would he duck out the back door?”
I nodded sagely and hopefully detectively, and motioned for her to continue.
“I bet he knows why she was killed.”
“Could be.”
“What do we do now?” Her eyes stared at me with such faith I almost felt guilty for my deception. Almost.
I gestured into the dark forest. “Let's go find this Hansel and ask him some questions.” I stepped forward like a man on a mission, consequences be damned. Asia grabbed my arm, pulling me to a stop. I raised a questioning eyebrow.
“He lives that way.” She pointed in the opposite direction.
“Of course.” I spun on my heel and started forward once again. This time Asia fell into step beside me, the gentle sway of her hips a pleasant distraction after the run-in with my ex.
The forest closed in around us as we ventured down a rocky path to Hansel's place. In the trees above our heads birds chirped to the beat of a familiar ditty, but I couldn't place the song. A cold wind swept across my arms and I shivered. I was a city boy at heart. Enchanted or not, forests freaked me out. Too much nature, not enough graffiti. And what was with the smell? It stank like those pine-scented urinal cakes in the bathroom of Fairy Central Station.
My cell phone rang. “What?” I answered without glancing at the caller ID.
“Not your usual type. Too nice,” my ex-wife said, her voice muffled by static. “So how rich is she?”
“What do you want?”
“What makes you think I want anything?” She paused for a beat. “Maybe I just missed you.”
I snickered, and Natasha joined me. The bitch. Once my peals of bitter glee ended, I took two steps away from Asia and growled into the phone, “Don't mess with me. I'm not in the mood.”
“Oh, but I am.”
I closed my eyes and counted to ten. Then I counted to twenty. When I reached four hundred and thirty, I was calm enough to whisper, “Meet me tomorrow. In the alley between the Butcher and the Baker. I'll be the guy wishing you dead.”
Natasha laughed again, high and light, just like I remembered from our many nights of debauchery. “Till we meet again,” she said and hung up.
“Who was that?” Asia stood next to me, a soft smile on her lips. Sunlight danced in her coppery hair. I stared at her, unable to draw my eyes away. She grew more beautiful with each moment, rounder, softer somehow.
Yep, I was truly fucked.
Her head tilted to the side. “Are you going to tell me?”
I bit my tongue and shook my head no.
Her smile grew wider. “Fair enough.” She patted her tummy. “But please stop gnawing on your tongue. I'm hungry enough as it is.”
I saw an out and took it. “This morning you slaughtered an innocent egg, and now you're on a crash diet. What gives?”
“I'm thinking of auditioning for
Neverland's Top Model,
” she said. “What's it to you?”
I shrugged. If she didn't want to tell me the truth, I could respect that. I held a secret too. Many of them, in fact. If she wanted to keep one little one for herself, so be it.
Not that it would work.
I was a villain, for fuck sakes. How hard could it be to crack one little princess?
A girlish scream ripped me from my fiendish thoughts. Asia glanced at me, and we both took off running toward the terrified shouts. I broke through the Enchanted Forest first, pulling to a stop at the sight in front of me.
In the middle of the forest, a guy covered in caramel goo flapped like a marionette on a string. His puppet master was a seven-foot-tall chick dressed in a leather catsuit with a bulbous nose, warts, and a suspicious lump in her throat.
“Hansel,” she screamed, yanking at Hansel's sticky arms, “how many times have I told you no sweets before dinner!”
Hansel yelped, but the corners of his lips curved into a devious smile. “I'm sorry, mistress. Please, please don't eat me.”
“Oh, you are a dirty, naughty boy.” The witch smacked Hansel's bottom, much to his delight and my disgust. Sex games had a right time and place. Four o'clock in the afternoon, surrounded by malevolent maple trees, wasn't it.
“Sorry to interrupt,” I said.
The witch dropped Hansel, and he landed hard at her feet. A cloud of dust and caramel circled him, nearly obscuring the gingerbread house behind them.
But not enough.
Asia stood transfixed by the decadent sight of white icing and rainbow-colored gumdrops. Her stomach gurgled, and then growled, and drool dripped from her pink lips. It slipped down her chin and onto her sweatshirt, leaving a big, round wet spot on her chest.
I reached for her hand and squeezed. “Probably tastes like cardboard.”
“Uh-huh.” She nodded, her eyes still locked on the gooey goodness.
The dominatrix in spandex started to speak. “Your Highness, what a pleasure—”
“Are those gummy bears?” Asia pointed to a row of multicolored bears lining the walkway. “I love gummy bears... .” With a heartsick sigh, she waved at an outcropping of rocks piled high behind us. “I'll be over there.”
Asia slowly walked, shoulders slumped, to the rocks and sat down, her back to the delicious gingerbread house. I returned my attention to Hansel and his mistress. Both looked up at me expectantly. “She's dieting,” I said in way of an explanation. The couple nodded as if I'd unveiled the meaning of life. I decided to get to the point. “Hansel,” I said.
He nodded, his silver eyes seeming to peer into my very soul, but not in a girly way. I crossed my arms over my chest, flexing my biceps to intimidate the smaller man. “Her Highness,” I nodded to Asia, “thinks you might know something about Cinderella's death.”
“I—” he began.
A smack to the back of his head delivered by his loving leather-clad “lady” stopped him.
“Ouch,” Hansel squealed.
“He don't know nothing,” the witch said, flexing her own biceps. Biceps twice the width of mine. “Neither of us do,” she added with a sneer.
I winced at the grammatical slight and tried another approach. “Are you sure? There's a pretty big reward for any information leading to Cindi's killer.”
“We don't need money,” Hansel blurted. “We live off love.”
Ew.
“And the wonderful bounty the good forest provides,” added the witch. She lifted her hand and waved toward her gingerbread house. My eyes followed her wave, pausing briefly on the boiling cauldron on the porch and the ruby red slippers sticking from its depths.
“So you see,” the witch's eyes narrowed, “mister, we don't need your reward money.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Not even for a new roof?” I motioned to her gingerbread house with a six-foot hole where the frosted ceiling used to be.
“What?” The witch spun around. “No!”
But her cries were in vain. Asia sat atop the house, munching away like a gerbil. Her cheeks puffed out and a string of saliva coated the rooftop. She swallowed prettily and then glared down at us. “I skipped lunch!” she said.
While the witch staggered to her half-eaten house, Hansel stood next to me, shrugging as if to say, “Women. What can you do?” I nodded in silent understanding.
“We just had it reshingled,” he said. “Cost us a bloody fortune.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Where'd you get the money?”
Because, let's face it, love, even the dirty truck-stop kind, wouldn't raise nearly enough to shingle a gingerbread house, not in the current frosted economy.
For a second Hansel looked like a dwarf caught in headlights. His wide mouth formed a perfect circle, which, on a guy as pretty as Hansel, wasn't attractive.
“Come on,” I said. “Confession is good for the soul.” Or so I'd been told. My own soul consisted of black goop, so a bottle of bleach and lots of elbow grease seemed more appropriate. “Whatever you say stays between us.” I made the sign of the cross over my chest, watching the sky for any sign of lightning. When I didn't burst into a fireball of villain parts, I added, “Nobody has to know.”
“Gretel did it!” he said, and then quickly slapped his hand over his mouth. Overhead a bird squawked, causing Hansel to jump around like a marionette.
Damn, this was easier than I first thought. Maybe I had a knack for the detective biz after all. “Gretel, huh? Where can I find her?”
“I don't know.” He burst into tears. Thick, drippy, wet, man tears. The kind made from puppy-dog tails and snails. Snot slipped from his pointy nose, sprinkling the ground around us. A glob landed on the toe of my boot and slid to the ground with a wet splat.
Feeling uncomfortable, disgusted, and not particularly villainous—damn it—I unwillingly patted Hansel on the back. “There there.” I needed to get back into the union, and soon. Either that or beat myself to death with a gummy bear. “When did you see Gretel last?”
Hansel wiped his eyes and glanced at the witch, who was busy trying to stop Asia from eating the snickerdoodle chimney.
She wasn't having much luck.
“Two weeks ago,” Hansel said. “We took her to the market. Missy,” he nodded to the witch in leather, “told me not to sell her, but ...”
Any sympathy I'd felt for Hansel dried up instantly. Selling his sister? What the hell was that about? Not even a villain would stoop that low. Okay, one might stoop that low for the right price. “But what?” My fingers dug into his shoulder until he winced.
“He gave me beans!” Hansel started to cry once again. I rolled my eyes. At this rate, the gingerbread house would have a six-foot-deep moat before he finished his damn story.
Enough was enough.
I grabbed his shoulders and tried to shake him. Of course, with my evil impotency, the shake turned into a hug. Stupid union.
Pulling away, I sighed loud enough to stop Asia mid-bite. From the rooftop, she gave me a thumbs-up and continued to shovel sugarcoated shingles into her mouth. I smiled and waved back, watching her until Hansel got a grip.
This took about ten minutes.
Hansel blew his nose, and like a little kid, he used his sleeve as a tissue. I'd known trolls suffering from a cold with better hygiene.
“Beans,” I said, reminding him of where our conversation had left off. “Who gave you beans?”
Hansel shrugged. “An old man. Or at least I think he was old. He had white hair and smelled like feet. Oh, he also had a tail and a hump.”
Great. My one and only suspect was an old man with a tail. Put out an APB.
Hansel paused to scratch his whiskerless chin. “Of course, Missy has a hump too, and she's only twenty-seven. You wouldn't believe what she can do with that hump. I remember this one time—”
“Forget Missy,” I said, ready to strangle Hansel, which was frustrating since I'd probably botch his murder and end up in some kind of man-on-man hugfest. “Why would this old man with a tail and a hump want to buy your sister?” My voice grew louder with each word.
Hansel frowned. “My sister? What does Greta have to do with any of this?”
“What? Who's Greta?”
“My sister.”
“Then who the hell is Gretel?”
BOOK: Curses!
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