Fairy Tale: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 3) (2 page)

“Maybe it’s like Greenland and Iceland?” Kishi’s voice startled me so much that I nearly jumped out of my skin. Evidently, she didn’t notice because she just kept talking, her eyes gazing from horizon to horizon. “Maybe the Summer Court is trying to keep people out by appearing to be sucky, and the Winter Court wants us to come in.”

“Like Hansel and Gretel? The Winter Court is using lollypops and gingerbread to lure us into a cage for a witch?” I asked, and tried to ignore the feeling that I thought she might be right. Anyone who knew me knew I did not exactly get along with studying boring facts. I was sure someone, somewhere probably taught me this exact thing. Clearly, their lesson had a substantial impact on me.

“Exactly. This should not be a difficult decision.” Kishi scowled and stamped her foot next to me. “It should be easy to pick between ignoring candy canes and venturing into lifeless desert or ignoring hostile vultures for Christmas trees.”

“Well, if I knew which fairies were contracted to clean my apartment I guess that would make our decision for us. Unfortunately…” I trailed off. One glance from Kishi made my cheeks burst into flames. I mean, it was sort of reasonable that I knew whether winter or summer fairies were cleaning my home. I signed a contract after all.

“I’m guessing you don’t really do paperwork, do you?” Kishi asked with a sigh that I didn’t have the nerve to respond to. I was fairly sure she didn’t really want a response anyway.

She shook her head, sending her black hair fluttering about her shoulders in a way that made me momentarily fill with jealousy, and rubbed her face with her hands. She raised one of her stupidly delicate fingers and pointed at the winter kingdom.

“Eenie meenie miney moe…” she muttered with a growl that made me think she was beginning to seriously doubt whether or not following me on one of my wild crusades was a good idea. It wasn’t. I could have told her that. Hell, I could have laid out a dozen reasons why it was a bad idea.

“Summer it is,” she proclaimed in a voice that left very little room for negotiation. Still, part of me had to swallow my sudden urge to disagree with her. I mean, this was my adventure after all. Then again, I had no real idea which one of them to go into anyway.

So I bit back my compulsive need to ignore authority and advice from other people and pulled my overcoat firmly around my body. I ran my hands over the hilts of the two blades that made up Shirajirashii and their familiar weight helped ease some of the trepidation I suddenly felt.

I wasn’t quite sure why this seemed like such a good idea an hour ago when I tried to flee without pants. Now, even with my overcoat, swords, and Kishi at my side, this felt like a bad idea.

Still, little miss perfect was staring at me, waiting to be led into the Summer Court of Fairy by the badass Dragonslayer Lillim Callina. I wasn’t going to back down now, even though the idea of lodging a personal complaint against fairies for not doing my laundry was patently ridiculous.

“I hope you brought some sunscreen,” I declared with a smirk. “Because it’s about to get hot in here.”

“That’s okay,” Kishi said with a grin. “If it gets too hot, I’ll just take off all my clothes.”

I stepped across the border, trying to dismiss the idea from my mind. All I needed was someone retelling our adventure with Kishi in all of her naked glory. Color filled my cheeks, and I turned toward her to say something when the heat of the place hit me like a punch in the stomach. My breath whooshed out of me, and I was pretty sure someone wrapped me in one of those warm towels you find in steam rooms.

“Maybe… that wouldn’t be such a bad idea,” I squawked through the choking dryness of my lips. I wasn’t quite sure how, but it felt like someone stuffed my mouth with cotton. “I’m pretty sure I read something about that somewhere…”

Beside me Kishi was on her knees. Horror flashed through her eyes as she glanced from me to the hem of her sweatshirt. Then, in one quick movement, she tore it off. There was a dull throbbing in the air, like the buzz of an insect that died away as her clothing his the sand.

“Well,” she hissed, kicking off her shoes, “I certainly feel much better.”

“I don’t think it would be unreasonable to suggest that we maybe leave this part out of our report at the end,” I muttered a few minutes later.

“Why? The whole purpose of those reports is to better prepare future Dioscuri for the perils they might face. We aren’t supposed to leave anything out.” She wore a look of resolution on her face that threw me for a loop. Especially since it was coming from a girl who, for all practical purposes, was walking through a desert in her bra and panties.

“Because I don’t really want to write about how we stripped down to our underwear so that the sweltering heat of the Summer Court didn’t kill us.” I was already embarrassed at the thought of how this might look. Or, even worse, how some pervy clerk might imagine it.

“Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone about your granny panties.” She raised an eyebrow, and I barely resisted the urge to throttle her. I mean not all of us could be clad in black lace undergarments that really brought out the whiteness of our skin.

No, it was absolutely perfect that Kishi was wearing the prettiest things I’ve ever seen, and they made her look absolutely radiant, while I was walking along in granny panties and a bra so old that it was actually fraying at the edges. This was exactly what I hoped for deep down.

“Besides,” Kishi continued, “the moment I took off my clothes I felt worlds better. I bet it has to do with some magical enchantment.” She winked at me, and I turned away uncomfortably.

The ease with which Kishi sauntered through the blazing desert in her near-nakedness shocked me. I, on the other hand, was not thrilled and could barely keep my mind on what we were doing. Every sound made me reach to cover myself so that someone wouldn’t see.

Which was ridiculous. Anyone looking at us would instantly tune me out and focus on Kishi. Vibrant tattoos ran up the length of her body depicting fantastic battles with dragons and monsters so masterfully that they could have been displayed on the walls of a museum. It accented her skin in such a way that she damn near bristled with beauty.

I, however, felt sticky and grimy, and was pretty sure I already had sand in places I’d rather sand not be. Still, I did feel better not wearing clothes in that I could breathe without gasping.

We had shoved all of our belongings into my spirit pouch. Well, almost everything. I was still wearing the twin blades of Shirajirashii slung low on my hips. Part of me was embarrassed because I felt like some kind of anime girl dressed up for fan service, while the rest of me was glad for Kishi. I would never have confidence like that, so it was almost awe-inspiring to see how she carried herself.

“The only thing that really bugs me is that there are vultures overhead, and we’ve been walking for at least an hour. I can’t see anything but sand and bleached bones,” Kishi said, anxiety etched on her face.

“Yeah, well every journey begins with a single step,” I said with a shake of my head. “Besides, all adventures can’t be gumdrops and candy canes.”

“It could have been in the other Court. Maybe I chose wrong?” she asked with a glance overhead at the vultures. Their numbers were clearly increasing, but I tried not to focus on it.

“Maybe we’d be stripped nude in a blizzard?” I smiled at her and put on my best confident face. “That’s not my idea of a good time.”

Kishi turned bright red at my comment and looked away from me. “Being naked in a snowstorm isn’t really that bad. You use body heat to keep warm.”

I tried my best to keep my thoughts away from what she said and not respond. Really, I did, but the silence between us was becoming so thick that I could have cut it with a knife.

“If that happens,” I said after a moment that felt so long that it must have been two eternities, “we leave that out of the report.”

“Agreed.”

The scenery changed so abruptly that I wouldn’t have noticed it if the change wasn’t so drastic. One moment we were trudging through the desert with the sun beating down on us. The next we found ourselves in the midst of a musky swamp.

Why we were suddenly in a swamp, I wasn’t quite sure, but I was quite ready for a change. The air was so heavy with moisture that it was like being swathed in a thick blanket. Beside me, Kishi coughed and swatted at some sort of thing that buzzed in the air next to her. I was suddenly thankful that, even though the air throbbed with the sounds of insects and birds, the majority of the indigenous insect life made a beeline for Kishi.

I know it wasn’t exactly right of me to be glad for her discomfort, but I was glad that she didn’t have those Cinderella powers that would make mosquitos attack me instead. Small victories.

“God damn it!” she squealed and slapped her hand against the back of her neck. When she pulled it away a thin line of sticky green goop clung to her hands. I turned away so I wouldn’t be physically sick and was greeted with the flitting wings of effervescent bugs as they buzzed back and forth between the pink-purple petals of flowers that dotted the jungle floor.

It was a welcome change from the endless sands of the desert since that scenery was mostly dotted with buzzards and the pale bones of creatures less fortunate than us. The jungle by contrast was beautiful.

“It’s certainly pretty,” I mumbled as I bent down to examine some kind of fruit. Thick yellow sap oozed from its flesh, and it gave off a sickly-sweet scent that was a cross between honey and rotting meat.

“Don’t touch that!” Kishi screamed and lunged toward me. I yanked my hand back as I spun toward her. She took another step and slipped in the mud. Her feet flew out from under her in a spray that covered me in reddish-brown slime.

I wiped the goop from my eyes and tried to glare at Kishi, only I couldn’t find her. There was nothing but a large bubble where she had been standing. My heart hammered in my chest as I raced toward the spot.

“Kishi!” I called frantically. I was nearly there when one of her hands burst from the surface of the mud. I leapt for her hand and gripped it by the wrist.

I yanked backward. It was like trying to pull a particularly stubborn fish from the depths of the ocean. I closed my eyes and braced my feet against the ground and pulled. My muscles bulged and strained as, very slowly, Kishi’s arm came out of the muck.

The air around me was suddenly dense and syrupy. I swallowed, and it didn’t help. That’s when I remembered something I should never have forgotten. I knew magic. I tried to focus on my power, but even as I did Kishi started to slip back down into the mud.

“No!” I shouted and for a brief second my power flared. It flowed out of me like a wave crashing down on a beach, and just like that, I was falling backward with Kishi’s muddy body on top of me.

She started to flail, covering my flesh in mud. “You saved me,” she gasped between great gulps of air.

“Don’t mention it,” I said, trying to push her muddy body off of mine, but my hands just slipped away from her skin. “No… seriously. Don’t mention that we basically mud wrestled in a sticky jungle in our underwear.”

Kishi glanced down at our intertwined bodies and a tremor ran through her form. She started squirming around like an eel on top of me. I’m assuming she was trying to get off of me, but all she managed to do was entangle our bodies further. Mud squelched between our flesh as I finally managed to roll us over so that I was on top.

“Stop squirming,” Kishi snapped, glaring at me. “You’re just making this more difficult. If you just stop struggling—”

“Is that what she said?” The voice that cut off Kishi mid-sentence cut through me like a dull knife. I froze. Someone had seen us, no,
was
watching us, roll around in the mud like some teenage fantasy? My heart began to thud in my chest, and my cheeks turned bright red.

Very slowly, I glanced over my shoulder, and I’m fairly certain my eyes got as big as saucers. Standing there was a blue man no bigger than a marmot, which is to say not very big. He was blue from head to toe, with blue pants and a blue hat.

Something shoved against my abdomen hard, and I tumbled head over heels. Kishi stood and brushed herself off, which did little more than smear mud around on her otherwise flawless skin. Maybe I had really needed to stop squirming in order for her to get free? Or maybe she was just more proficient when someone else pinned her down?

She glanced back at me with a mischievous glint in her eye before turning back to the blue elf. “We come in peace,” she said extending her muddy palm toward it.

He glanced curiously at her hand, his large blue nose sniffing at the air like a rodent. Very carefully, he shook his head once and scampered back over the log he had been sitting on. Kishi dashed after him without a care that she was virtually naked and mud-covered. Also, there was that whole chasing a strange indigenous creature through an enchanted forest thing too.

That was exactly how grim fairy tales began.

Chapter 3

“I can’t believe we lost him,” Kishi said for perhaps the fifteenth time.

“I can’t believe you think you’d be able to catch him. I’ve tried to catch rabbits before and those don’t live in enchanted forests. Let me tell you, rabbits are damned hard to catch,” I responded.

“Why would you chase rabbits?” Kishi asked, glancing at me and raising an eyebrow.

“Mom made me do it.”

I sighed and shook my head. We had been walking for what I think was an hour, but for all I knew it was much longer. Now, we were coming to some kind of village. Huts made almost entirely out of branches latticed together with fungus filled my view. It was as though someone made a frame out of sticks, and actually grew some kind of bright purple moss to fill in the gaps.

“Well, if those creatures do live here, at least we know his house isn’t blue with a blue little window.” I smirked at Kishi who looked at me as though I was the dumbest person on the planet.

“Doesn’t seem like anyone’s here,” she said, evidently choosing to ignore my reference. “Though since we’re on the edge of a lake, this is the perfect place for a village. Maybe it got all fished out or something, and it was abandoned.”