Americana Fairy Tale (33 page)

She had to find Corentin Devereaux.

Carhenge, Alliance, Nebraska

June 10

W
ITH
T
AYLOR
’
S
assistance, Corentin eased into the bed of the truck. He scooted back against the tool chest to sit up. The sun was blaring, and Corentin squinted toward Taylor’s hovering silhouette.

“Come on, off with the jacket….” Taylor gently coaxed the garment off Corentin’s frame.

Corentin hissed with pain as together they pulled his injured arm through the sleeve.

Taylor frowned as he straddled Corentin’s lap and then felt his forehead. “You’re feverish.”

Corentin tried to make himself comfortable against the tool chest but failed. “Well, it is a million degrees out here. How’s your hand?”

“I don’t think I broke my fingers,” Taylor said, carefully flexing them. “I think I just hyperextended them is all. They’re tender but okay.” Taylor’s mouth drew into an obnoxiously adorable frown as he cupped Corentin’s cheeks. At least Taylor’s cute pout took his mind momentarily off the pain. He went limp in Taylor’s hands, allowing him to turn his head this way and that. “Ringo?” Taylor called out. “Can you bring me a water from the Starbucks stash?”

“Got it,” Ringo said, his voice trailing out the cracked back window. Ringo fluttered over the roof of the truck carrying the bottle of water between his hands. “Bomb’s away,” he said and let the bottle drop into Taylor’s hands.

Taylor uncapped the water and took a long gulp. He glanced at Ringo. “How are we doing on the healing prep?”

“I… uh… just have to get a few things together…,” Ringo said, but Corentin noticed he didn’t sound so certain. Ringo looked out over the empty Midwestern plains and then smirked.

Corentin nodded at Ringo and clued in to their new set of scenery. “Of course we’d end up at something like this.”

Taylor took another sip of water before offering the bottle to Corentin. He accepted it with his good hand, and together they took in the sprawling land before them.

A circle of dilapidated classic cars stood with their trunks buried in the ground to support the cars balanced horizontally across the jutting hoods. Weather-beaten, bearing shattered windows and spray-painted all the same matte gray, they stood in an empty field only neighbored by a few sparse trees and a meager gift shop. Around them, flat farmland spread out ever onward into the horizon.

Corentin smirked at the rustic sign of the tourist trap. “Carhenge, huh?” he said, then slurped the water from the bottle. He made a grunt of embarrassment with how rude it sounded.

Taylor smiled; he seemed to get the apology. “If these cars come to life and chase us or something, I’m tripping you.” His attitude changed to dread in an instant. “We should probably shut up about it. Now.” He gave Corentin a wide-eyed glare and tilted his chin at the circle of cars.

Corentin watched as Taylor made his quirky, nervous gesture.

Suddenly, the idea of a herd of Chevys coming to life and running them down seemed all too realistic after what they had gone through.

Corentin sipped the water and then shifted against the tool chest. He hissed through clenched teeth at the pain. He felt the blood rush to his face. “Ringo needs to get his act together… I’m going to pass out eventually.”

Taylor snapped his fingers in front of Corentin’s nose. “Hey, hey, hey,” Taylor said in a firm tone. “Stay with me. No passing out. I thought you were some badass killing machine. All you’ve managed to do on this whole adventure is get perpetually fucked up.”

Corentin laughed and snatched Taylor’s hand from his face. “I was protecting you, y’know.” He cracked a grin.

Taylor jerked his hand away, and Corentin could see the anxiousness in Taylor’s expression. Taylor called out to Ringo again, “Are you ready yet or what?”

Corentin picked up the anxiety in his tone, but instead of saying something, he sipped the water again.

“Just… uh… need to get out and pick some… um… herbs and stuff,” Ringo said as he fluttered away.

Corentin narrowed his eyes. Ringo was hiding something, but he wasn’t sure what.

“Well, hurry it up,” Taylor said as Ringo fluttered off out of their line of sight.

Silence hung between them as the cicadas chittered in the open fields. Taylor shifted and took a seat next to Corentin, mindful of his broken shoulder. “I know what I saw…,” Taylor said and picked at a fleck of peeling paint.

Corentin nodded. “Charles with Atticus and Phillipa….”

Taylor tilted his head back and closed his eyes. “And Atticus had that look in his eyes. The look like he actually hated me.”

Corentin looked out over the desolate landscape. “It wasn’t hate,” Corentin said. Taylor looked at him and appeared curious. At least he had left the stage of being hysterical about anything involving his brother. Corentin offered what he was thinking. “He saw you as an obstacle. It only means one thing.” Taylor swallowed but said nothing. Corentin pressed his lips together and braced for Taylor’s imminent meltdown. He said the one thing he knew Taylor didn’t want to hear. “Charles has Atticus now. It’s over.”

The silence returned. Taylor stayed still, appearing frozen in his thoughts. Corentin considered reaching out to touch him as a gesture of reassurance but decided against it.

“This is bullshit,” Taylor snapped. “Tell me why…. Why would we go through all of this, just to have no way of getting out of it?” He dug his hands into his hair and cupped his skull. “There
has
to be a way. We can do something. There is something. We just haven’t thought of it yet.”

Dread rolled in Corentin’s gut. “And it’s too late to think of it,” he said and took a sip of the water.

Taylor pointed a finger, and Corentin blinked with the determined gesture. “It’s not over until I say it is. We will figure something out,” Taylor ordered him.

“Y’know…,” Corentin said and scratched his chin. “If we somehow break the spell Charles has on Atticus, we can rescue him from Charles’s influence. But that poses two large problems.” Corentin took his time in considering what to say. He took a long drink of the water and then examined how much was left. He offered the remainder to Taylor. “Here,” he said and held out the bottle. “You need this.”

Taylor took the bottle but held it between his hands, as if he didn’t know what to do with it.

Corentin tried to get into some semblance of comfort again. Pain shot from his toes to the crown of his head. He gasped as his vision went hazy at the edges. “We can kill Charles. But we can’t kill Idi.” He watched Taylor and gauged for understanding. Taylor seemed to grasp it a little but not completely comprehend. “Idi is a spirit. A
force
. Charles is currently just a vessel. Charles was probably just a guy once upon a time. Maybe he really was a prince. But Idi is like a disease. The guy you and Atticus called Charles isn’t
that
guy anymore. He probably hasn’t been for years…. Decades even.”

Taylor thumbed his chin. “So, we destroy the vessel—” He nodded once. “—Charles. And Idi will just seek out another vessel. And so on and so forth. Because he can only be contained. And I’m pretty sure we don’t have anything powerful enough to actually hold him captive.”

“You’re right,” Corentin said as he picked at his shirt hem. “Idi is eternal. Since it was written by Mother Storyteller’s hand, Idi will always seek Snow White. They love each other. They’re destined to be since any of us were created. Their story is the ultimate in love stories.”

Taylor waved a hand at Corentin. “Let’s gloss over that. It’s still taking a bit of an adjustment,” he said. “What’s the second problem?”

Corentin pointed an upraised finger. “Say we contain Idi,” he said and then half shrugged with his nonbroken shoulder. “By some insane, improbable miracle, we pull it off. But the problem remains with Atticus.” Corentin watched Taylor stare at him with his mouth in a pensive line. Corentin took a breath. It seemed this conversation was creeping into Taylor’s threshold of upsetting things about his brother. “He’ll rise to his full power,” Corentin said and tapped the water bottle in Taylor’s grasp. “Drink.”

Taylor mutely obeyed and sipped.

Corentin looked out over the flat plains, smirking again at the silly cars. But the cars and nostalgia denied him comfort. “He’ll be Snow White,” Corentin said with no love for the name. “He’ll become the Witch Butcher. He’ll hunt down all witches. He’ll kill Darlene. He’ll kill me and others like me.”

Taylor stayed quiet for a long moment. He picked at the same fleck of paint. The cicadas chittered in the distance. “So,” Taylor said so quietly Corentin first thought he imagined it. “We kill Charles, contain Idi, and… kill Atticus too.”

“What the ever-loving
fuck
?” Corentin asked as he watched Taylor’s completely stoic expression.

“It’s all we have,” Taylor said, seeming to maintain his calmness. “Atticus should likely be the bigger target. Because if Idi can’t have him, he doesn’t have a purpose. Right?” Taylor’s lip trembled. “So. Yeah.” He sniffed and quickly wiped his face. “But… he’s my
brother
.” The sob came then, and Corentin’s heart dropped. “I have to kill my
brother
.”

“Taylor…,” Corentin said softly. “Stay with me here.” He reached out for Taylor’s hand again, and Taylor flinched away.

“But, here we are… on this road…,” Taylor said in a wet gurgle from his tears. “And we have no way of getting to them. And I don’t have any sort of magic that will protect us. But… yeah.” He tossed up his hands. “Yeah. I have to kill my brother.” Taylor pulled his knees to his chest and barked cries openly into his hands.

“I’ll help you.” A woman’s voice carried from the front of the truck and out of view.

Corentin stiffened and held up his good hand to Taylor, indicating he should be still. Slow, confident footsteps came around the side of the truck.

“I’m not here to fight. I’m not here to hunt. I’m here to help,” she said again and came into view.

Phillipa Montclair offered a carefully measured smile, and Corentin didn’t know what to make of it. But he wasn’t quick to give over his trust. With his injured shoulder and Taylor’s limited ability in self-defense, Phillipa was capable of anything at the moment.

“I’m calling a truce,” Phillipa said and held up her empty hands. “I don’t mean to cause either of you harm.”

Corentin narrowed his eyes. “We took your keys. How did you find
us?”

Phillipa remained at the side of the truck nearest Corentin and didn’t join them, which was a welcome reprieve. “I never needed my keys or bike to get to you. Charles gave me a talisman.”

“Of course, there was a trick to it,” Taylor said and grunted. “No way he’d trap you out here with us.”

Phillipa bent at the waist and smiled directly at Taylor. “I’m sorry for trying to kill you.”

Taylor snorted. “Apology
so
not fucking accepted.”

Phillipa’s gentle expression vanished into one of regret. “I’m really here to help. I swear.”

Corentin noted her closeness to his side of the truck. He flicked his fingers in a shooing gesture. “Can you… back up about five feet? Maybe ten? Keep your hands in plain sight?”

Oddly, Phillipa did so without protest. She kept her hands at shoulder level. Corentin wasn’t ready to give his trust so easily.

“Get on your knees,” Corentin said firmly. “Hands behind your head.”

“I may be a disgraced prince,” Phillipa said as she crouched down, settling her knees in the dirt and grass. She laced her fingers behind her head. “But I’m still a prince, and I still have honor.”

Corentin snorted. “But you were so quick to throw it away to be on the winning side of an incoming war. Just business, right?”

Phillipa’s eyes widened, and Corentin knew he had her. He refused to back down with his dominating glare, and she turned her gaze to the grass. “That was before what Charles did with that elephant and those mundanes,” Phillipa said with remorse in her tone. “I didn’t expect him to involve mundanes.” Her chest rose and fell with a long sigh. The cicadas filled the silence around them. “You should see them,” she said after a moment. “Margate City is a war zone from the mundanes losing their grip on reality all at once.”

“You didn’t expect that?” Taylor finally spoke up. He voice held an undeniable anger. “You didn’t
expect that
? You fucking sided with him, had every intention of killing me the first chance you got, tried to kill me at that rest stop, and you didn’t expect
that
?” Taylor practically yelled the word. “Are you for fucking real? Well. Guess what. I didn’t expect having to kill my brother. That’s pretty cool, y’know?”

“And I think you’re right,” Phillipa said, and Taylor sat straighter. “If we take out Atticus first, it’ll be easier to conquer Charles.”

“Take. Out?” Taylor asked, his voice dripping venom. “You are aware we’re talking about killing my brother?”

Corentin sighed. “It was your idea, by the way,” he said and hissed with another bolt of pain. “Now that you have people on board with it, you’re backing out.” He tossed his head back and groaned a long note. “Where the fuck is Ringo?”

Phillipa lowered her hands from her head and slowly stood. Corentin was too blind from the pain to stop her and too far gone to think of what she could do to them in their vulnerable position. “What happened to you?” she asked as she crept toward the truck.

“Get back,” Taylor yelled, and Phillipa froze.

Corentin appreciated Taylor’s attempt at protecting him. “Broke my shoulder while trying not to die.” He took a big breath and slapped the bed in a heavy slam. “I need Ringo. I need Ringo
now
.”

Taylor sat up on his knees and scanned the fields. “But he’s still getting stuff to heal y—”

“I’m here,” Ringo said from inside the truck. “I never went anywhere.” He fluttered out the back window and then sat at Corentin’s feet. He appeared on the verge of tears. “Sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” Taylor asked in a nervous squeak.