10

Violet Miller and a Gift of Surprise Pebbles

The house was in organized shambles. Violet’s mouth parted as she came in the front door. Zorah was standing perfectly still in the kitchen, but she turned and cast Violet a horrified, what-in-the-world-happened-here? kind of look.

Violet had noticed the gardens outside first. All the rosebush stems were tied into tiny little knots. The petals had been plucked off every flower and neatly organized over the lawn in ten-inch intervals.

It was the same inside. The kitchen table was upside down in exactly the same place it had always been, with its legs sticking up. All the teacups were upside down on the counter, their matching saucers balanced carefully on top. The paintings and pictures on the walls were all turned backwards. But the worst was the pebbles…

Tiny pebbles were everywhere; covering the floor, across the counters, up the stairs… All evenly spaced apart like the flower petals outside. Violet didn’t think she could take a step off the welcome mat without kicking them.

“He’s messing with me,” Violet realized. The pictures. The teacups. The garden…

This was all a joke to the Master of Doom. Some twisted revenge for how easily she’d escaped his clutches. How she’d denied his job offer.

“Who is?” Zorah finally spoke. But she wasn’t looking at Violet; Zorah’s gaze followed the pebbles leading up the stairs.

Violet wondered if there were rocks left in their beds, and her skin heated. She yanked off her jacket and threw it into the closet without hanging it up. “I’ll be back.” She left before Zorah could ask any more questions. She clicked down the street on her heels, ready to bash in the door—and possibly the handsome face—of this Master of Doom jerk.

It took her an infuriating three minutes longer than it should have by bus to reach the cathedral. Violet marched her way up to the doors and knocked as loud as her knuckles would allow. She knocked again when no one answered, even bashing the door once with her foot. “Hello?!” she shouted. “Hell—”

A body appeared beside her, and she stifled a scream.

She whirled on him with her finger up to scold him, but he grabbed her arms before she could speak and the world turned to liquid around her.

The guy dropped her so fast, she tumbled to the floor like her legs were missing. He released a strained grunt. Dust was beneath Violet’s fingers, and her surroundings were dim. She was back inside the cathedral. When she rolled onto her butt to glare up at the Master of Doom, he was rubbing his hands and wrists where fresh pink marks were beginning to form.

He was the one already glaring. “What did you do between yesterday and today that made it painful to touch you again?” he bit out.

She stared at him as it sank in once and for all that he had teleported. It wasn’t the first time he’d done it, but it was the first time Violet was sure it was real and not a delusion of her dizzied state. He’d moved at a speed unheard of. She’d always believed in the weird and unusual, the things others would claim were conspiracy or fiction. She’d just never met one of them in person until this week. And now there were two.

“Why did you destroy my house?!” she shouted at him. “I’m going to have you arrested for breaking and entering! I’ll go to a cop you’re not secretly aligned with like that bubble-gum-chewing, law-breaking, heartless, OfficerBaker—”

“Watch it.” His words were filled with warning.

Violet’s mouth twisted to the side at his defensive tone.

So, insulting the pretty cop girl was off limits, then.

“Fix my house,” Violet said without yelling this time. “Fix it now, before my aunt has a heart attack.”

Doom exhaled, and his shoulders relaxed. “That wasn’t me, Human.”

“As if,” Violet said doubtfully as she climbed to her feet. “Who was it then? A sneaky leprechaun?”

He actually rolled his eyes. Like she was the one being ridiculous.

Violet swallowed when she thought of the redhead guy at the bus shelter. That eerie image of how he’d studied her, the feeling of his coldness, the terrifying smile. She didn’t want to admit to herself it could have been him who’d been in her house.

Like he could read her mind, the Master of Doom marched over and pulled Violet to him by the skirt of her dress, keeping his hands far away from her skin. He leaned in and inhaled by her neck. Something flipped in her abdomen when he tilted his face toward her jaw.

His grunt sounded more like a growl as he drew back. “He’s found you then. Excellent.”

Violet couldn’t tell if it was sarcasm. The Master of Doom’s voice was always so even. He looked her over and went dead still when he glanced at her mouth. The intensity of his lingering stare sent a new wave of flutters through her chest. He seemed like he wanted to ask her a question.

Violet raised her fingers to her lips, afraid she had food on her face. Without thinking, she nudged him back a little at his covered chest. He dropped his fistful of her skirt, questions unasked.

“I think it’s clear we both know who messed with my house then,” she said. “Who is that redheaded weirdo, and why did he come after me?” Her cheeks felt warm, but she didn’t dare reach up to cool them with the backs of her hands. “You’re obviously the only one who can give me answers.” It wasn’t like she had any other reason to come back here.

“He and I have a history,” was all Doom said.

Violet shook her head. “Okay, well good for you. But why did he come after me?”

“He smelled me on you. You slept in my bed, Human.” He said it like smelling people on other people was the most normal thing in the world. “My faeborn scent will take at least a month to wear off, and even then, it may never wear off completely. That fool has mistaken you for my lover because of it.”

Violet blinked. “You seem pretty relaxed about that, considering this is all clearly your fault. What am I supposed to do if that creep comes back? He tried to kiss me—Actually, he did kiss me. It was the worst.”

The guy stole a quick glance at her lips again and Violet got the feeling he’d already figured that out. “Did it burn him?” he asked like he couldn’t stop himself.

“Yeah.”

It was the first time Violet saw the Master of Doom try to suppress a smile.

She looked down at her hands for a second, considering that she’d somehow managed to harm both Doom and the redhead guy with a simple touch. Scientifically, it made no sense. But maybe she was done trying to understand things with science.

“You never answered my question.” She dropped her hands to her sides. “Who is he? What is he? And while I’m at it, what are you?” Violet didn’t mean to take a step back when she asked the last one, but for a moment she’d forgotten he’d teleported. She scanned him up and down.

“He is called many things, but mainly, he’s a deadly creature with nine lives. And I’ve been hunting him. He’s a master of hiding because the shadows are his, and he lives in the air, slipping from place to place on the breath of the wind,” he said.

“That’s poetic,” Violet mumbled.

“And he knows my weaknesses, which is why he’s been beating me thus far. Unfortunately, he has no weaknesses to speak of. Only a wildly powerful advantage.” Doom folded his arms and glanced toward the big wooden cathedral doors that didn’t look nearly strong enough to stop a mythical creature like the redhead she’d met. “Which is why I had to get creative,” he added.

Violet’s brows came together as a thought leaked in. Her scowl returned. “Wait—did you use me as bait?”

The guy lifted his shoulder into a shrug. “A little. Not on purpose. At least, not on purpose at first.” He didn’t look surprised. Or sorry.

Violet’s jaw dropped. “You wanted me to escape from here?”

“No, you performed that circus act all on your own, Human. I just decided not to bring you back because I knew you were wearing my scent. Therefore, I knew he would follow you. It’s an easy trick I wagered would give me an advantage, and so far, it’s working.”

Violet wanted to smack him. No, she wanted to grab his bare arm and burn him all over his pretty tattoos. She was a dangling worm waiting to be swallowed by a red-haired fish, and this Master of Doom was going to bait the hook himself.

The nerve.

What exactly would happen to her if the redhead came back to finish the job? He’d been to her house. He’d knotted her garden and spread pebbles all over her…

Pebbles.

“Wait.” Violet shook her head, a thought piecing together, slamming into place. “It is him,” she realized. “He’s the real serial-attacker I’ve been writing articles about.” She said it through a dry voice.

Several of the women with missing memories of the previous day had woken up with their coat pockets full of pebbles. Violet lifted a hand to cover her mouth as it dawned on her like a mallet plunging through her brain. She’d found him—the real culprit. He’d been in her house; the serial attacker she’d been obsessing over for half a year. “Oh my gosh,” she rasped. “He knows what I look like! I’ve written terrible things about him… I challenged him to come find me on the news!” she shouted. “He’s going to kill me!”

Doom tilted his head back and forth like he was weighing that. “Probably not.”

“Didn’t you see what he did to the other victims? You were following that story, too! I saw your article in the last Fairy Post. You know how he left the people he attacked!” Violet’s voice had grown uncharacteristically high.

“Yes. And most of them he left alive,” Doom said.

Violet’s jaw dropped. “Most of them?!” She slapped a hand to her forehead, feeling a sudden lack of necessary iron supplements. Her knees were weak.

He shrugged. “I mean, the odds are in your favour, if you want to be picky about it.”

“Picky? You’re talking about my life!” Violet snapped. Then she whispered, “What have you gotten me into?”

The Master of Doom uncrossed his arms and sauntered over. “I got you into nothing, Human. You came here all on your own and broke into my house and rang my bell.”

“Is that all that happened?” Her glower fired up to him. “Because for a while I was missing part of the memory of when we first met.”

His jaw slid to the side. “Fine. Yes, I tried to steal your memory of coming here on that first day.” Violet slid away from him, nearly stumbling over a broken chair. Her eyes were wide, she was sure she’d heard wrong. “But your faeborn-cursed flesh burned my fingers and I only got fragments,” he added. “And besides, I gave the memories back to you once I thought better of it. You should have realized by now they’ve returned.”

Violet wasn’t breathing anymore. If she was, she didn’t feel it.

It should have been obvious the moment he’d teleported her in here that he was magical enough to do other things too, like wipe memories. But she hadn’t known the cold, definite truth until this moment. Even if the serial-attacker and Doom were two different beings, they both stole memories from people. She thought of the crushing pain she would go through again if she lost her precious memories with Zorah, and everything else she’d experienced the last ten years. The only memories she had left. She shook her head in denial. She didn’t want to lose a single one of them ever again. Not even a minute.

“Who are you?” she asked for the hundredth time, only this time, it came out cracked, and worn, and a necessary amount of afraid.

He seemed to notice. Seemed to consider the waver in her words. “My unhidden name is Mor,” he finally said.

Mor.

Just, Mor.

She wouldn’t call him that. That was a clean name meant for someone harmless and normal. He was not normal. He was an animal. A bringer of destruction; a stealer of life. He was…

He was Doom.

Doom right before her eyes.