Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

I immediately got to work on the knot of the plastic bag.

Nudging a push-up bra out of the way, I hit pay dirt. The Louvre of shoes, right there, resting on thin white plastic. It was like putting the world's largest star sapphire on display on an old, battered T-shirt.

I just stared, not taking the shoes out of the bag or touching them at all. Because at some point between the previous night and right now, those shoes had become ultra, turbo, mega cursed. The truth was—it was making me vaguely nauseous just holding the bag they were sitting in. It was lucky that they were contained, though something better than a glorified trash bag would have been safer.

"Sheesh, who did you piss off?" I muttered the question under my breath, but Taliyah must have heard me, because she stepped in close.

I showed her what was in the bottom of the bag, and with the magic innate to her, she immediately jerked back like the bag was a striking snake.

"You didn't notice that before?" She asked, one brow cocked as she took another step from it and shook her head.

I glared at her. "They weren't like that yesterday." She raised a single brow at me, and I cocked my hips to one side, throwing my hands on them as I did my best impersonation of offended. "I could hardly have missed this."

"Then?" Taliyah started.

"Jenny must have gotten cursed after she left my store. Or…" I whispered in more of a hiss.

"Or," Taliyah prompted.

It was rare, but possible. But someone would have had to have been really, really good with dark magic. I was quiet as I contemplated it—and I could just about feel Taliyah's impatience radiating off her. For most people, it was a hot emotion. On Taliyah, it was icy cold. As all things seemed to be to the would-be Queen of Winter.

"Or, the curse was dormant," I admitted reluctantly, with a shrug.

"Dormant?"

I nodded. "I wasn't paying that much attention when Jenny came into my store. All I noticed was how pretty the shoes were. But I didn't feel anything emanating from them—which would have been exactly the case if the curse was dormant at that point. I was more focused on finding a dress to match them, not whether or not someone had hexed a random human's footwear."

Taliyah's head tilted to the side, her eyes narrowing. "Curses can be dormant?"

We were still stuck on that? "It takes some work, but yes."

"How does a dormant curse work?"

I shrugged like she should have already known the answer to her own question. "You can lay a curse on an object or a person, and when you lay that curse, you tell it not to kick in until they do or say something to trigger it."

"I see," she said and started chewing on her lower lip.

I turned my focus back to the shoes, which were really fugging up the air with their magical stench. "Really, this is impressive work. I'd tip my hat if I knew who did it." I smiled. "Well, and if I were wearing a hat."

Taliyah gave me a supremely unimpressed look, and I backtracked half-heartedly.

"I mean, no, I wouldn't tip my hat. Because that would be bad, because this is bad. Naughty. Tsk tsk." She didn't seem to be buying it, so I shrugged. "It's a cruddy thing to do to a human, sure. But I wonder if I could get it to work on one of my sisters?"

"Wanda."

"Right."

"Focus please."

"Focusing."

"Tell me what you can about the shoes and the curse." Jeez. Taliyah was really no fun. How did Maverick put up with her? Oh, right—he was no fun either.

"Well, as I said: either the curse on the shoes was dormant, or the shoes were cursed after Jenny left my store."

Taliyah glanced back at Jenny, who was watching us with growing concern—probably because she couldn't hear us and people talking about you in hushed tones is always concerning.

"Do you think her date could have…?" Taliyah asked.

I thought it over. "Possibly, but unlikely."

"Why?"

I shrugged. "Males, in general, aren't usually strong in magic. Magic always prefers women."

"In witches, not in Fae," Taliyah pointed out.

I cocked my head to the side. "In general. Yes, there are those Fae males who do have incredible power, like the guy you were supposed to marry."

"Fox Aspen," Taliyah corrected me, looking even more perturbed than she had. "Call him by his name."

"Right. Him."

"Okay, make your point."

I smiled—there was something to getting under her skin that made it sort of fun. Maybe because it was so easy. "Think about it, Taliyah, if a warlock or faerie swanned into the Hollow, we'd all know about it through the gossip channels, if not through the Council. Maverick would have been puffed up like an irritated cat."

"True," Taliyah said, and nodded. "I'll still look into it." Then she made herself a note in her notebook.

I nodded. "Honestly, the part that makes me think it's unlikely that Jenny got cursed after she left my store is mostly because I doubt any Fae would pretend to be a human, let alone one named ‘Bradley'."

Taliyah, her sense of humor well and truly shelved behind her mask of the Chief of Police, didn't even crack a smile. She just made another note in her book (probably to find out if she could arrest someone for failed humor) and turned back to Jenny.

I carefully tied the bag again, not wanting the shoes anywhere near me. But I was also hopeful that maybe Maverick might have some ideas on how to unpick the curse. Or at least douse it. I wasn't an expert in Fae magic by any stretch, and these shoes had the distinctive smell of Faerie to them. Because Maverick was part Fae, I figured between the two of us, we'd be able to figure the mystery out.

Hopefully without bringing anything to life in the process.

"Jenny," I said, turning to face her with what I hoped was a comforting smile. Comfort wasn't really my style, but I could still give it a shot. "What can you tell me about your shoes?"

"My shoes?" She looked between Taliyah and me, her eyes droopy with exhaustion and confusion. "Well, I… I bought them yesterday."

"At a pawnshop, you said?" I asked.

She nodded. "I just saw them in the window of the shop and it seemed like fate, you know?"

"And what store did you purchase them from?" Taliyah asked, her pen poised, ready to take down the answer.

"At the pawnshop, over on Kitrey Street?" A flush crawled up Jenny's neck, leaving her bruises looking all the more gruesome.

"Pawnshop on Kitrey," Taliyah said, as she apparently wrote it down.

"I know it's weird to get shoes at a pawnshop, of all places," Jenny added with a nervous laugh, like buying shoes second-hand was illegal. "But they were just so pretty, and I'd been looking for something special, and…" she trailed off in a tired sigh.

I nodded, growing more bored by the second while Taliyah asked Jenny about every other second of her day, until the young woman was obviously struggling to stay awake, and we finally let ourselves out of the hospital room.

The hospital was quiet at this time of night. The lights were dimmed; the nurses speaking in hushed tones in an attempt to let the patients rest, as much as anyone could in a place like this. With the stench of antiseptic and sickness thick on the air, something told me no one was sleeping peacefully tonight.

We caught the elevator down to the lobby and when we walked out, I turned to face a young man perched nervously on the edge of one of the visitor chairs—as I looked at him, it hit me that he stuck out like a gangrenous thumb. And so did the bouquet of red roses he was holding. I wasn't sure why he stuck out to me—why I'd even noticed him. I mean, he was aggressively normal. Brown hair, brown eyes. Clean shaven, in a rumpled suit that had probably been very nice, once. I gave him another quick once over, since that level of sheer blandness was suspicious all on its own. The roses were the only part of him that seemed to have any color to them.

From what I could tell, he was completely human. And a nervous wreck, if the way he was bouncing his leg up and down was any indication. The death grip he had on those flowers was impressive, but if he twisted them any harder, there was going to be a petal explosion.

The nurses were all rather pointedly ignoring the guy, far too busy to bother with him, or even insist he leave. So, he just sat there, leg bouncing, trying to strangle some flowers. Every now and again, he looked around himself like a duckling that had lost its mother.

Something sparked in my head, and I reached over to grip Taliyah's sleeve, much to her annoyance. Then I faced the kid again and stopped walking until I was standing in front of him.

"Hey," I whispered to him, because not even a witch wants to invoke the ire of a bunch of night duty nurses. "Are you Bradley?"

The guy jumped and then seemed shocked to find I was addressing him. He stuttered for a moment, then just stared at me with enormous eyes.

"Bradley?" I repeated.

Then his brain seemed to kick into gear. "Um, yes? Sorry…"

"You're here for Jenny, right?" I continued, trying to sound as nice as I could. Taliyah, meanwhile, wore her interest on her face. Hopefully, I'd get brownie points for this one.

Bradley's face went through a complicated array of emotions before finally settling on something like desperation. "Yeah, but… Do you know where she is? I followed the ambulance here, but they wouldn't let me see her because I'm not family, but I just wanted to make sure she was okay..." Now the other leg was busily bobbing up and down. "The nurses won't talk to me and won't tell me how she is. And… well, I don't know what to do, but I don't want to just leave–"

I held up my hand, cutting him off because I was worried his blathering was going to turn into crying fairly soon. And while I was interested, I wasn't exactly invested that deeply. It was a little like watching a soap opera you aren't that into—it keeps your interest until it doesn't.

It was cute, though—that Bradley had come to check on Jenny and he'd brought her flowers. And hey, I could play fairy godmother this one time. Taliyah wouldn't rat me out, she was good that way.

Leaning forward, and hopefully evading the ever-present watch of the nurses at the desk, I pointed as subtly as I could. "Room six hundred and twelve. I'm sure she'd love a visit."

Bradley's whole face lit up, transforming it from something plain into something almost appealing. For a human, I mean.

"Thank you," he whispered and started to stand up as Taliyah made a motion to stop him, but I grabbed her arm and gave her a shake of my head.

"What?" she demanded. "He could have answers for us."

"Answers you can get from him later," I said, mostly because I was sick and tired of this hospital and didn't want to get stuck here another minute later. "Call in backup and get someone to sit outside her room if you want—to make sure he doesn't leave, but as for me? I'm leaving."

"Might I remind you that I drove you here?"

I smiled at her. "And hopefully you'll give me a lift home?"

Taliyah called in backup like I'd suggested and then gave me a look that said she wasn't impressed. I just shrugged at her with another smile because it was fairly obvious that I'd just won this would-be argument.

Once the nurses were suitably distracted, I watched Bradley slink towards the elevator that would take him up to Jenny's room. He was pretty crap at stealth, but he managed to get to the elevator doors without being spotted, so I figured he'd be okay. And if I gave him a little flick of my wrist with a muttered charm to help him evade detection, well then that was my gift to him.

When he disappeared inside the elevator, Taliyah gave me a look. "I saw what you just did."

I just shrugged. She didn't say anything more, just raised her eyebrow at me.

"What?" I refused to turn my head to look at her, but I smirked full force.

Taliyah shook her head, her hands clasped in front of her. "Nothing. That just seemed out of character for you."

"What can I say, I was feeling sorry for him." And that was when the embarrassment hit, and a flush climbed up into my cheeks. I refused to turn my head, just kept my eyes fixed on the view of the parking lot outside.

"He could be guilty," she said.

I looked at her then. "You and I both know he isn't. You saw the look on his face. Plus, he looks like a teenager."

"He's easily twenty-something," she argued.

"Keep love alive, Taliyah," I said with another smile that was met with a frown.

"Where is Wanda and what have you done with her?"

It was my turn to frown. "I'm… turning a new leaf, you could say."

"Are you?" she asked and somehow, the tiny smirk twitching the corner of her lip up was worse than if she'd actually just made a snotty comment.

Before we'd left Jenny's room, Taliyah had told her we were taking the shoes with us as ‘evidence'. Jenny had just nodded, no doubt figuring she wasn't going to be wearing three-inch heels any time soon, not with that monster of a cast on her leg.

As soon as we were out the door, I offered the bag of shoes to Taliyah. She just raised an eyebrow at me, her hands at her sides, and I scowled.

"Ugh, fine." I held the bag hooked on a single finger, my arm stretched to its full length, like I was carrying a dirty diaper. "You know, something just occurred to me."

"That we should have questioned that boy?"

I waved her away with an unconcerned hand. "You'll have plenty of time to question him and plenty of time to realize he won't be able to offer you anything."

"Then what occurred to you?"

"If Jenny got these shoes at a pawnshop, the curse might have been intended for their original owner, and not for Jenny at all."

Taliyah tucked her notebook back into her pocket as we headed through the lot. "I'll look into both angles. Either the curse was meant for someone else, and that person needs to be warned, or someone is thinking it's funny to use magic against mundanes, and I'll need to have a few unpleasant words with them."

I couldn't help but notice how Taliyah stumbled over the word ‘mundane'. She'd come a long way since she'd first stepped foot in the Hollow, but I was pretty sure she still struggled a lot with finding out that, in spite of the first fifty years of her life, she wasn't actually human. And neither were most the people in this town.

But that wasn't any of my business, and I also didn't want her to be angry with me, so I kept quiet for the short ride home. And even though the trip to Lorcan's from the hospital wasn't a long ride, it felt exceedingly long, considering neither one of us made so much as a sound. I figured we both were too lost to our own thoughts.

When Taliyah finally pulled up in front of Lorcan's, I quickly opened the passenger door and, just as I was about to tell her to have a good night, she beat me to it.

"Thanks for your help today, Wanda." She leaned forward far enough to meet my eyes. I didn't know how to respond. Saying ‘you're welcome' seemed like something that would get me dragged into a lot more of this boring case, and that was the last thing I wanted. But I also didn't want to appear like I was put out or anything.

The truth was that I didn't mind helping Taliyah, so I nodded.

And then I stood there in the driveway while she backed out, and the red gleam of her taillights vanished around the corner.