The Last Adventure of Constance Verity (3 page)

“Wait. Is that good or bad?” asked Tia.

“Why are you asking me? You're the one who came up with the code phrases.”

“It's a lot to keep track of. Moose is code for vampires, right? Is there a vampire there right now?”

“Moose is code for aliens,” said Connie.

“There are aliens there?”

Connie glanced at the unassuming man sitting at a booth
across the room. Not many people would've noticed the secondary gills on his neck or the slit where his third eye was shut tight. Even fewer would've known to look.

“There's one,” she said. “But he's just here with friends. Shouldn't be a problem.”

“This isn't going to be like the mummy incident, is it? As I recall, you said he wasn't going to be a problem, either.”

“No, I said I didn't
think
he would be problem. Mummies are unpredictable. You're the one who still wanted to go to the Egyptian artifacts exhibit with me, even knowing my history with the cursed undead. So, that wasn't my fault. But this is just an alien, a native of the Ragkurian Spiral, from the looks of it. They're perfectly harmless.”

“Then why did you mention him?”

“Will you stop giving me a hard time and just come on? The coast is clear, I swear. The most dangerous thing here is a woman at the bar contemplating killing her husband for the insurance money.”

“You know I love you, Connie, but it's creepy when you do that detective thing.”

“Sorry. We can do this at the Safe Zone.”

The Safe Zone was the break room at the insurance company where Tia worked. Nothing exciting ever happened there.

“No, it's cool. I'm sick of microwaved burritos, anyway.” Tia slid around from behind Connie and stepped up to the table. Tia hung up her phone and arched her eyebrows. “Did I surprise you?”

“Sure. Totally. I had no idea you slipped the busboy ten bucks to hide in the kitchen to try and get the drop on me. Just like I have no idea that you got here forty minutes early to do it, and that you ate a BLT when you got too hungry to wait.”

Tia took a seat at the table. “Somebody is feeling snarky today. I take it the job interview didn't go very well.”

“I did keep the world from killing us all, but other than that, it was a bust.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“It's cool. I'm just cranky because I'm hungry.”

Connie ordered a soup, sandwich, and beer. The soup was bland. The sandwich was chewy. The beer was warm. None of which was surprising. The restaurant's unexceptional nature was why they came here.

“I still don't know why you want a job, anyway,” said Tia. “Jobs are boring. And you don't have to work, right? You're rich.”

“Not as rich as you might think. Most of the treasure I've collected over the years was cursed. You can't really spend that stuff. But, yes, I'm not hurting for money. This isn't about money. Money doesn't mean much when you don't have time to enjoy it, and if I could go on a vacation now and then, I wouldn't have much to complain about.

“Every day is an adventure for me. Every single day. Sometimes, if they're short, I can manage to fit in two in a day. I just want to go home, curl up on the couch, and not worry about being kidnapped by rock monsters or getting mixed up with handsome, devil-may-care rogues.”

“I keep telling you to feel free to send any unwanted rogues my way.”

“They lose their charm,” said Connie. “And that's if they don't end up betraying you in an elaborate scheme to steal the crown jewels of England.”

“I bet betrayal sex is pretty hot, though,” replied Tia with a wry smile.

Connie nodded. “True. It's almost worth it. Just as long as you don't mind dangling over a crocodile pit afterward.”

“I still have a hard time believing they have a crocodile pit in the Tower of London.”

“They have crocodile pits everywhere.”

Tia asked, “What's your plan, then?”

“Who says I have a plan?”

“You do. I can see it your eyes. You've got that look. Determined. Focused. Don't deny it. I've seen it a thousand times before. Which leads me to believe that you're about to do something foolhardy and incredible, and since it's been a while since I've seen it, I can only assume that this is all about your desire to be normal.”

“That detective thing is kind of creepy,” agreed Connie.

“For an ordinary person, I have my moments.”

“You're right. I do have a plan, and the beauty of it is its simplicity.”

Connie leaned forward. The cheap restaurant lighting cast dark shadows across her face.

“I'm going to kill my fairy godmother.”

C
onstance Verity wasn't born special, but she did become special a little over three hours later.

The very short woman fluttered into the hospital room. Her tiny gossamer wings were far too small and delicate to bear her aloft, but since they barely flapped at all, it was safe to say they were mostly for show. She wore a garish purple-and-blue pants suit. Glittering gowns had fallen out of favor among her profession several decades before. She still had a fondness for sequins, and they sparkled on her lapel.

“Ah, there you are.” Her round, cherubic face wrinkled into a soft smile. Her rosy cheeks glowed, and she removed a wand from her inside jacket pocket. “I had a devil of a time finding you, my dear.”

Mr. Verity, an unassuming man of indeterminate ethnicity and aged somewhere between twenty and fifty years (as best any casual observer could guess), was a technical sort and was intrigued how she managed to stay airborne. His first guess
was some manner of wire harness, but that seemed impractical.

“May we help you?” he asked.

She chuckled. “Oh, no, it is I who shall help you. Not you, specifically. It's far too late to help you. You're both perfectly fine, perfectly dull people, though I don't mean that as a slight to either of you. The world can always use more perfectly fine, perfectly dull people. But your daughter need not be one.”

Constance's mother, who was every bit as indeterminate as her husband, said, “Did Sharon send you?”

“Fate itself sent me, my good woman. To offer a blessing on this beautiful child.” She landed beside the bed and offered a business card to Mr. Verity. It read
GRANDMOTHER WILLOW, FAIRY GODMOTHER
.

Grandmother Willow winked at Constance, who studied her godmother with the blank, confused stare reserved for newborns and potheads contemplating if their cats knew the secrets of the universe and just weren't sharing them.

“How much does this cost?” asked Mr. Verity as he waved his hands over Grandmother Willow in search of wires.

“For you? Not a thing. I've been contracted by an outside agency for this one.” She put her stubby finger to her lip. “Don't ask me. I'm not allowed to tell. But one blessing shall be yours, and it shall shape the course of this beautiful child's life in the most fantastic ways.”

She tapped her wand against the end table to shake loose the fairy dust. A small pile of colorful sand glittered like a rainbow.

“The question is, what form shall that blessing be? Great fortune? Too uninteresting. Great fame? Too shallow. Flawless beauty? So last-century. Superhuman strength? Too traditional. Speaking with animals?” She shook her head and chuckled. “Heavens, no. The chattering gossip of birds alone is enough to drive one to endless distraction.”

“Don't we get a say?” asked Mrs. Verity, who didn't believe this for a moment but was enjoying the game.

“No, no, no. Parents can't be trusted with this decision. It's far too important. Perhaps I should ask the child herself.” Grandmother Willow floated over the bed, and Mr. Verity decided it must have something to do with magnets.

“Tell me, dear child, what is your fondest wish?”

She hovered close to Constance, who gurgled.

“I see. But could you be more specific?”

Constance sneezed in Grandmother Willow's face. Frowning, the fairy godmother landed at the foot of the bed. She wiped her face with a handkerchief as a dark little cloud rumbled over her head.

“A dangerous choice, little one, but it is yours to make.”

She waved her wand in circles in the air, spewing sparkling dust throughout the room.

“Though all other mortals tread in either the ordinary or the fantastic, you shall journey through both. On the dawn of your seventh birthday, yours shall become a life of adventure and wonder, and it shall be so until the day of your glorious death.”

A blinding light bathed the room.

“So it shall be!” shouted Grandmother Willow. Her words echoed throughout the hospital for several minutes, running back and forth playfully through its halls.

The light vanished in a pop.

Grandmother Willow brushed the fairy dust off her shoulder. There was a layer of the stuff on everything.

“Sorry about the mess.” She nodded to Mr. and Mrs. Verity as she tucked her wand back into her pocket. “Good day. And congratulations.”

She hovered out the door via a carefully concealed personal hovercraft built into her slacks, Mr. Verity decided.

“I
sn't it bad luck to kill a fairy godmother?” she asked.

“Probably,” said Connie. “But it's what I need to do.”

“That's pretty cold-blooded.”

“I've killed before.”

“That's not what I'm talking about. Those other times, they were self-defense, right? You've never tracked someone down to kill them before, have you?”

“The way I see it, this is self-defense.”

“You're sidestepping the question.”

“I've studied under the second-greatest assassin in the universe. And when he was killed by the greatest assassin, I studied under her. I've seen enough and done enough to know that life is cheap, and that the line between hero and killer can be a thin one.”

“Oh, brother.” Tia rolled her eyes. “How long have you had that speech in your pocket?”

“Since this afternoon when I came up with this plan and knew you'd try to talk me out of it.”

“I'm not trying to talk you out of it,” said Tia. “I'm just trying to get you to think about it some more. It's what friends do when friends are on the verge of possibly making a mistake.”

“You do think this is a mistake.”

“I said
possibly
. I don't know, Connie. I haven't led your life, but I have been sitting on the sidelines for most of it, been mixed up with it now and then. I can say this isn't you. You're not a killer. Not like that.”

“Maybe you're right. The only way to find out is to track down my godmother and see what happens.”

“Fine, but I'm coming with you, then.”

“No way. It's too dangerous.”

“We are talking about a fairy godmother here,” said Tia. “What's she going to do? Run me over with a pumpkin carriage? Smother me in an avalanche of ball gowns?”

“You're thinking of fairies from Disney movies. Real fae are dangerous and unpredictable.”

“That's exactly why you should have backup.”

“You'd be a liability,” said Connie.

“Even better. Didn't you once tell me that the mark of a good sidekick is being undertrained and overenthusiastic?”

“You're telling me you want to be a sidekick?”

“No, I want to be
your
sidekick. You're
the
Constance Verity. You do all kinds of awesome stuff every day. I want in on some of that. I've lived a perfectly ordinary life up to this point, aside from those moments when I've been dragged into your exploits. What's it gotten me? A dull job, a divorce, and a house I've
spent too many years decorating and redecorating. I was just talking to my mom about experimenting with a neo-Asian/postmodernist Russian fusion motif.” Tia shuddered. “Dear God, what has my life become? You've saved me from space aliens and gangsters. You can at least save me from shopping for tapestries.

“And before you tell me no, I'll just come along anyway, following stubbornly behind until you have no choice but to bring me with you.”

“You would, wouldn't you?” Connie laughed. “Okay, you're in, but I take no responsibility for whatever happens.”

“What's going to happen? I'll be beside Constance Verity, probably the safest place in the whole goddamn universe to be.”

“Oh, why did you have to say that? You just jinxed it.”

“I didn't think you believed in jinxes,” said Tia.

Connie didn't.

But she wasn't so sure that jinxes didn't believe in her, and they'd had a long, long time to build a grudge.

C
onnie had learned to enjoy her quiet moments when she could. After the incident with the Hungry Earth, she was due for some downtime. The cosmos usually portioned out some relaxation after she saved the day.

Tia had evening plans with her normal friends. She invited Connie along. It was always a risk hanging out with Tia's friends. Connie wasn't great with normal people and normal stuff. She could fake it, but it was all so much chatter. Try as she might, she couldn't give a shit about most ordinary stuff. She didn't watch much TV. When she found time to read, it was usually obscure instructional texts about skills she figured she might need at some point. Her musical knowledge was mostly limited to pop songs originating in the Large Magellanic Cloud, which were surprisingly catchy once you got past the screeching vocals.

She turned down the invitation and made plans to meet Tia the next day for Connie's final adventure.

“It might do you some good to get out with normal people,” said Tia.

“You know me and people,” replied Connie.

“Yes, I know you. And people. But if you're really trying to be normal, you might as well get used to it.”