Americana Fairy Tale (32 page)

They and Lucy’s internal museum exhibits were weightless as they fell into empty air. Taylor curled into Corentin, shoving his face into the nook of his neck. He wailed openly against Corentin. He would die and never know love. Corentin kept silent and never released Taylor’s hand.

They floated in their grief in the zero G of Lucy’s stomach. They were alone in the world and were going to die together as insignificant stains on the ground.

Charles had won.

Taylor shivered against Corentin, wrapping his free arm around him. He held Corentin in the only measure of tenderness he’d ever get.

The impact was as easy as falling back into bed. They opened their eyes, and Lucy cracked apart around them like a piggy bank. Together, Taylor and Corentin were encased in a shimmering iridescent bubble, and the bubble was delicately placed on a veritable mountain of fluffy pink pillows. Lucy’s beams and plates slid over the bubble and splashed into the ocean at the base of the mountain.

“Hey…,” Corentin whispered. “Hey…. We made it.”

Taylor sniffed and wiped his eyes. With Corentin, Taylor surveyed the land from their personal island. The Jersey Shore was just a faint ribbon of land in the distance. Taylor laughed brokenly. “We’re alive…,” he croaked and smiled.

“I see Captain Obvious is on duty,” Corentin murmured, then grimaced with a pang in his broken shoulder. “I deserved that,” he choked and cradled his shoulder.

Taylor nodded. “Serves you right for trying to get the last word in.” He smiled and wiped away his tears.

In a lazy looping spiral, Ringo descended from the clouds, panting heavily. “You kids… fall faster… than I can fly,” he said and after a moment cracked a silly grin.

“Hail, hail, the gang’s all here,” Corentin said.

Ringo puffed out his chest. “Did I not say I had it covered?”

“Yeah…,” Taylor said. “You just gotta work on your timing.”

Ringo shrugged. “Picky, picky,” he said and then snapped his fingers. The island of pillows vanished, and the bubble
kerplunked
into the water. Ringo settled behind the bubble and produced a human-sized personal minifan from his pocket. He casually reclined backward in midair and clicked on the little fan. The bubble happily bobbed along to shore at an efficient clip.

Taylor may have savored his momentary reprieve as they sailed back to shore, but the devastation that waited was crippling. The bubble popped the moment they hit land, and the mundanes howled in various states of delirium. Some sat on the beach and rocked themselves while crying. Others ran, screaming nothings into the air. Others slammed their heads into anything solid and appeared to want to banish the magical effects poisoning their minds.

Taylor looped an arm around Corentin’s waist and helped him stand.

Corentin winced at the attention and slipped away from him. “I got it,” Corentin said, then grunted. His left arm hung at an awkward angle in his jacket.

They stood still and surveyed the boardwalk of catatonic humans. Taylor leaned into Corentin for protection. “Do you think they can see us now?”

No sooner did the words leave his mouth than a bloody-faced, wild-eyed man ran up to him and gripped Taylor by his upper arms. Taylor froze at the contact. “Did you see?” the man asked in a hoarse crackle. “
Did you see
? They’re around us. The magic is all around us! I can’t make it go away. It has to go away!”

“I’m s-sorry…,” Taylor said because he didn’t know what to say.

The man tightened his grip, and he shook Taylor while keeping his deranged gaze locked upon him. “Oh… oh God,” the man whispered, and Taylor realized he’d noticed his pink eyes. “You’re one of them….” He shook Taylor violently. “
You’re one of them
!”

Corentin shoved the man away with his good arm. The man toppled back to the sand. “Get off him,” Corentin commanded, and the man scooted back in the sand, seeming to listen to him.

Ringo flew between Taylor and Corentin and fluttered in the direction of the truck. “We gotta go before we can’t get out of here,” he called over his shoulder.

Taylor turned back and took in the expanse of the ruined beach. The sounds of shrieking humans filled the space all around them. Car alarms blared. Distantly, buildings exploded into balls of flame.

Margate City had fallen to the Witchking.

He returned his attention to Corentin and offered his arm.

Corentin again waved him off and then pointed to his left jeans pocket. “Keys. You’re going to have to drive.”

“M-me?” Taylor said and failed at not sounding flustered by the prospect. They hustled along, and Taylor kept an eye out for more panicked humans in their vicinity.

Corentin winced through the pain. “You think I can drive like this?” he asked. “If they can see us now, maybe we can get to a hospital.”

Taylor snorted as they crossed into the parking lot. “You honestly think Charles is going to let us get to a hospital?”

“Momma always called me the king of wishful thinking,” Corentin said and stopped at the passenger side of the truck. “Maybe there’s a pharmacy not too far before the road changes. We can loot the medications.”

Ringo perked up from the driver’s side door of the truck. “What?” He gaped at the two of them. “That really isn’t—” Ringo went silent as Corentin pivoted on his heel, his chest mere inches from Taylor’s.

Taylor took a sharp breath from the heat rising from them both. His hidden desire drifted over him in a light tease. It was Corentin’s words though that punched him in the face. He narrowed his eyes and glared up at Corentin. “You want us to loot a
pharmacy
?” Taylor asked in an acidic tone.

“We need to survive. That’s what this is now,” Corentin said.

“Guys…,” Ringo muttered.

“Looting for food is one thing,” Taylor said with a frown. “Looting for
drugs
is another.”

“I can help,” Ringo said, peeking over the roof of the truck at the two of them.

Corentin gritted his teeth and ran his hand through his hair. “We really shouldn’t argue right now. And we need the drugs, or I’m going to be useless.”

Taylor stamped his foot and clenched his fists. “But it’s wrong! That’s where I draw the line.”

“By Titania’s tatas, guys,
shut up
!” Ringo hollered.

Taylor startled, and both he and Corentin glared at him.

Ringo’s irritated expression settled into one of kindness. “I can help. I can heal him.”

Taylor and Corentin glanced between each other and back to Ringo. Taylor narrowed his eyes. “You never told me you had healing powers.”

“You never asked,” Ringo said firmly. “Get in and let’s go. I’ll have to prepare myself to pull it off.”

Taylor and Corentin turned to each other again.

Corentin tilted his head and shrugged one shoulder. “Keys,” Corentin said, and pointed at his pocket.

Taylor didn’t think twice about the warmth tickling him from the closeness of Corentin’s body. He yanked the keys from Corentin’s pocket and hurried around to the driver’s side. They slipped inside, and then Taylor jammed the keys into the ignition. He hesitated a moment as he took note of the dash setup. He then reached down for the lever to shift the seat forward as far as it would go.

“I didn’t realize you were such a pygmy,” Corentin said with a laugh.

Taylor didn’t laugh and threw the truck into reverse. He hit the gas and spun out of the parking space.

Corentin braced himself on the door with his right hand and yelped an embarrassing note. “What the fuck, man?”

Taylor scanned the ruined landscape of Margate City. “I’ve had to put up with your driving, right? Now you get to see how an Atlantan drives,” he said with a stoic expression and then hit the gas again.

Corentin barked something that sounded like a curse as the truck bolted into traffic. Taylor guided the truck, skidding, around a multicar pileup and then jerked the wheel in the other direction to avoid a mob of catatonic citizens. But something caught his attention at the Starbucks as a blond man, a smaller dark-haired man, and a curvy woman with wheat-colored hair stood casually sipping their drinks.

They weren’t scared.

Taylor’s attention settled on the lilac eyes of the dark-haired man. The eyes of a princess. And Taylor knew which one.

“
Atticus
,” Taylor gasped.

Corentin seemed to catch the sight. “And that’s Charles and Phillipa….”

Atticus raised his fingers, pointed like a gun, and pantomimed pulling the trigger at the truck.

Frazzled nerves burned through Taylor.

Corentin slapped at the dash, getting his attention. “Drive, Taylor.
Drive
!”

A
LLIANCE
AND
A
LLIANCES

Margate City, New Jersey

June 10

P
HILLIPA
LED
Charles and Atticus to the rooftop of the Margate City Public Library. Charles seemed to watch the devastation with awe and wonder. Atticus merely smiled and leaned in lovingly to Charles. Phillipa hung back, and her heart raced with the anxiety. She crossed her arms as, below them, two cars collided head-on. The sharp crash of glass scattering over the street and the thump of bodies made her skittish. In the distance, everyone screamed. So much screaming. Constant screaming. She fought to tune it out to just a droning sound, but she couldn’t ignore the stench of death.

Charles drew Atticus close. He sighed. “I honestly thought Lucy the beast would take care of them once and for all,” he said to Atticus. Phillipa narrowed her eyes as the two men smiled warmly to each other. “It was my gift of vengeance for all the wrongs Taylor has done to you, my dear one.” Charles cupped Atticus’s cheek.

Atticus nuzzled into Charles’s hand and kissed at his fingers. “Of many gifts to come,” Atticus said with a smirk.

“You will have Taylor’s head.” Charles kissed the top of Atticus’s head. “It will be my honor to witness the moment you rip his eyes from their sockets.”

Phillipa had had enough. “Taylor’s head? He’s just a
Curseless
princess. What would that prove?”

“Prove?” Atticus said, as stubborn as a prissy cat.

Phillipa didn’t think much of him. He might be Snow White, but he was no match for her Beast. She nodded and took her stand. “I didn’t stutter. What would killing Taylor prove?”

Atticus stepped toward Phillipa, his lilac eyes churning with a hatred Phillipa had never known such a princess could have. “He took everything from me,” Atticus said, and Phillipa noted the slow, rolling rage. “Now I will take everything from him. He will be grateful for his death. So he would not suffer the agony of knowing he was a failure as a brother, as a princess, and as a Hatfield.”

Phillipa loomed over Atticus. “So, you’re showing mercy by killing him? He’s meaningless! You might as well kill a fly. You’d get the same unsatisfying feeling.”

“Are you making a case for Atticus to spare Taylor?” Charles tilted his head.

“We’ve gone too far. This is wrong,” she said in a low growl. Phillipa clenched her fist and held back her snarl. “Exposing the mundanes to magic like this?” She tossed up a hand. “We know how this goes. The mundane government will swoop in and contain this place. Maybe the president will call it another act of terror.”

Charles laughed under his breath. “Well, what do you think it was?” he asked as he turned to Phillipa. “They should know us by now. They should know we’ve been here all along.”

Phillipa shook her head. “We should have kept it quiet. You had planned to conquer the Enchants and the witches. Not
them
.” Phillipa stepped to the edge of the roof and drew her arms in a wide arc over the city. “Do you hear that? Screams. Psychotic breaks. Torment. Anguish. The sudden sharp knowledge that their world will never be the same and no one can help them.”

“And no one can help them,” Atticus said with a smirk, and Phillipa frowned.

“But Taylor? It’s an act of jealousy,” Phillipa said, growing more and more offended by the idea.

Charles laughed. “And you and your ancestors know quite a bit about jealousy.”

Phillipa glared and chose not to voice her opinions or even dignify Charles’s with a response. Her heart ached as the city fell apart.

Taking Atticus’s hand, Charles scowled at Phillipa. “I have Snow back with me again,” he said. “I will unmake the world if I must to keep him with me.” He pulled Atticus to his body. “And I will make this hell into a heaven for him and me.” He kissed the top of Atticus’s head. “He’s mine. I’m not letting him go again.”

Atticus sighed and seemed content in Charles’s arms. Phillipa knew the truth, though. And it was now she needed to make her stand at the cost of her ironclad pride. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a huntsman to hunt,” Phillipa said and pulled the Ziploc bag containing the magical cake from her pocket. She watched Charles as he smirked when she opened the bag.

“I need insurance that you won’t fail me yet again,” he said.

Phillipa arched her brow. “I won’t,” she said, but her simple statement didn’t seem convincing enough.

Charles snapped his fingers, and the Ziploc bag disbursed into spiders in her palms. Phillipa kept her terror inside as she flailed and flung the spiders off her hands and arms. She took a breath and looked down at her palm. Only one crumb of the cake remained. She searched Charles’s face for answers.

“Insurance,” Charles said firmly. “Succeed and I’ll bring you back from the road. Fail….” Charles shrugged, and his words implied enough.

“I
won’t
fail,” Phillipa said. The monster within her soul bared its fangs, and Phillipa felt the rising sense of frenzy. She glanced at Atticus one last time, and he smiled, content with Charles’s horrific gift of devotion. She considered the crumb and then Atticus. He was so different now. But she knew within the blood of her ancestors he was the princess he was meant to be.

The grand betrayer.

Phillipa pinched off a tinier crumb of the remnant of cake. She swallowed her pride and the miniscule crumb.