Americana Fairy Tale (47 page)

Corentin had driven his sword into Idi’s esophagus just before he could drop into his stomach acid. With the threat over, he lay in the mucus, exhausted from hanging on.

Corentin lifted his slime-coated head and smiled sleepily. “You found me.”

W
ITH
C
ORENTIN
pulled from Idi’s gullet, Idi’s body immediately dissolved into the flecks of dark magic and vanished into nothing. Taylor and Corentin limped back into Cawker City proper. Only there wasn’t much left to call a city. The devastation stretched as far as the eye could see. Buildings in rubble, cars mangled, and the World’s Largest Ball of Twine lay scattered in the world’s largest mess of rotten sisal yarn. Corentin slipped and slid in Taylor’s grip. Ringo and Honeysuckle drifted along.

“So. You’re not
Curseless
…,” Corentin said.

“S’pose not.” Taylor helped Corentin sit on a patch of grass.

“And you’re Sleeping Beauty.” Corentin looked up at Taylor.

Taylor pointed a finger. “Hey,” he said and held out his hand. The lance materialized once again. “Sleeping
Dragon
.”

Corentin arched a brow. “So… you’re a descendant of Princess Zellandine. The dragon slayer with the draconic soul.”

Taylor nodded with a sharp bounce. “Cool, right? Well….” He held out his hands and gestured around them. “Save for leveling a city and putting a town to sleep.”

Ringo and Honeysuckle shot to attention. Taylor jerked back with sudden movement.

“You put the town to sleep?” Ringo asked.

Taylor shrugged. “Pretty lame, right? Atticus can freeze people to death, and I just make people nap.”

“
No!
” Honeysuckle snapped.

Taylor startled and stumbled back. “Fuck, what did I say?”

Ringo turned to Honeysuckle, and they nodded to each other. They smiled eagerly at Taylor.

“Guys?” Taylor asked. “What?”

“As Sleeping Dragon, you are the keeper of the Blooming Lullaby,” Ringo said. He had a grin that was all too happy.

“I make people take naps?” Taylor still wasn’t following where this train of thought was going.

Honeysuckle took Taylor’s hands. “Where Snow White brings the Tranquil Frost, the winter of death… you bring the life of spring.”

Corentin snapped his fingers. “That explains the primroses when we kissed.”

Taylor shook his head. “I make flowers and put people to sleep?”

Ringo clapped his hands. “Taylor. Follow me. You
heal
people by putting them to sleep. You can heal any wound with the power of rest. The body. The mind.”

Taylor stared at Corentin with lips pursed.

Corentin was the first to say it. “You can save people from dying.”

Taylor gestured outward to the sleeping citizens of Cawker City. “They’ll be okay? They won’t be insane?”

Ringo nodded. “We can make a few calls out to the Enchants. When they wake up, they’ll just think it was a natural disaster. Easy.”

Taylor met Corentin’s and beamed with excitement.

“I’m covered in slime,” Corentin said with a smirk.

Taylor swatted him. “We can do it.”

Corentin sputtered. “Dude, that is just….
No
. I’m covered in
slime
.”

Taylor stamped his armored foot. “We can do it. We can save Margate City.”

S
HAKING
THE
D
REAMLAND
T
REE

The Quarantined Margate City, New Jersey

June 20

T
AYLOR
AND
Corentin sat in silence in the space of their tiny rental car. The floorboards were clean. They even had paper liners. Taylor didn’t care for the paper liners. Ringo and Honeysuckle sat in the backseat like dolls, with no room to lounge on the dashes.

The rain spattered on the windshield, and Corentin flicked on the wipers. Taylor clenched his hands in his lap. Corentin pulled his Community Coffee cup from the cup holder. He took a sip and smiled. Taylor knew it was from Corentin’s reverence for chicory coffee.

“Nervous?” he asked.

Taylor nodded shakily. He didn’t speak.

“Are you scared about what we’ll find?” Corentin asked.

Taylor looked down at his lap.

Corentin managed the coffee cup and the wheel with one hand. He gripped Taylor’s hand with his free one. “Hey,” Corentin said gently and gave Taylor’s hand a squeeze. “I’m with you.” Corentin took another sip of his coffee and replaced it in the cup holder. They sat in silence for another agonizing minute.

Taylor snatched Corentin’s cup in one hand and rolled down the window with the other. He tossed out the last two sips of coffee and then rolled the window back up. Taylor held the empty cup in his hands like a beloved relic.

Corentin arched a brow. “What are you doing?”

Taylor threw the coffee cup onto the floorboard like a victorious spiking of a football. He smiled and nodded his approval.

“Feel better?” Corentin asked, then chuckled. “We’re not going to get the deposit back, you know.”

“Then I am going to get my money’s worth out of coffee cups on the floor.”

Sighing, Corentin shook his head. He turned his attention to the road and frowned when they came upon a blockade announcing the road was closed. Corentin threw the car into park.

Taylor unclasped his seat belt. “Looks like this is the place,” he said, popping open his door.

“I suppose we walk from here.” Corentin joined him outside the car.

Ringo and Honeysuckle joined him as they observed the barricade. Honeysuckle twirled and conjured a rainslicker for herself.

Taylor and Corentin took a breath in unison.

“Let’s do it,” Taylor said in a determined tone and held out his right hand. His lance winked into existence, and his black-and-gold armor shimmered into being.

Corentin likewise gestured with his right hand, and his enchanted compound bow materialized in his waiting hand. In a soft swirl of sparks, his green-and-black huntsman attire protected him. Corentin drew back on the magical string, and a glowing silver arrow appeared. Holding the bow down, he took point, ready to let the arrow fly at a moment’s notice.

Honeysuckle and Ringo parted the barriers with a sweep of magic, and Corentin slipped through. Taylor followed. The heavy clank of his boots rang out in the rainy weather.

They walked in silence. All remained on high alert for anything but were only greeted with the sounds of their breaths and raindrops.

The waves of the Jersey Shore crashed on the horizon. Taylor smiled, letting the waves soothe him. He had a lot to learn as Sleeping Dragon. Keeping a better grip on his anger was the worst of the trials until he could get a handle on the real sleeping dragon—
his soul
—slumbering inside of him. If he lost control, it would be disastrous for everyone.

Princess Zellandine had been a master on the battlefield while remaining in a perpetually soothed state. Taylor hoped one day that would happen for him. And when it did, he’d be ready for Idi again. He would just have to make sure to keep Atticus constantly out of Idi’s reach.

Bringing Atticus home from Cawker City wasn’t met with open arms extended to Taylor. His father had given him a once-over glance, and Taylor’s inner dragon stirred, as if recognizing the dragon within Sir Hatfield himself. It would be something that remained between Taylor and his father. His father outright despised him, but they were in fact written upon the same page of Mother Storyteller’s legends. Taylor would always have so many questions and had to make peace with never knowing the answers.

Before they had flown out, Taylor’s father had called him and, in an awkward discussion, informed Taylor they had moved Atticus to a more “comfortable facility,” one that understood how to care for Enchants and maintain discretion. If anyone knew the madness of Snow White, of course the Hatfields would find themselves in yet another scandal of catastrophic proportions. By some miracle, Taylor held his tongue over more politicking bullshit. He didn’t bother to question it at the time. There was follow-up that they were hoping to bring Atticus home by the holidays and that he’d be much happier with family. His father had made a point to mention that no doubt Taylor would always be too busy with his huntsman lover and then butchered saying Corentin’s name. It was at least a step that his father had made the move to include him in the dialogue. But it was Taylor who would have to make sure to stay abreast of Atticus’s status if he’d ever recover.

Taylor sucked in a breath. It was almost too much for Taylor to expect a thank you from his own family for saving all of Enchantkind.

“You okay?” Corentin asked.

Taylor shook his head. “Yeah. Just daydreaming.”

“Here we are,” Corentin said and stood tall. “Margate City.”

Taylor came to Corentin’s side and took in the devastation they had left behind.

Condos stood like scorched husks on the shoreline. Cars remained piled in charred remains on the streets. Trash littered the roads, along with glass from smashed shop windows. The waves crashed onto the beach. The ocean was the only sane thing in a city gone mad.

An olive drab army jeep darted out from an intersection and swerved to a stop. A beefy man leaned out the window and shouted at them. “This is a quarantined area. You’re in a restricted zone!”

Taylor smiled and gave a wave of the hand. “You work too hard,” he said softly.

The man’s eyelids fluttered, and he drifted off into a peaceful slumber.

Corentin pulled the door open and caught the guy before he could fall to the ground. He laid him down onto the concrete, and the man rolled as if he were in a soft, downy bed. Corentin shook his head.

Taylor stepped forward, beyond Corentin, and continued down the centerline of the street. His armored boots clanked in a meditative rhythm. Taylor concentrated, feeling the stirs of the slumbering dragon inside him. He clenched a fist to his chest, summoning the magic within to manifest into the outside world.

He unfurled his fingers and found the twinkling pink ball of energy dancing in his hand. “Bloom, little lullaby, bloom…,” he said to the spark of magic. He puffed his cheeks, and it blew away as effortlessly as a dandelion puff.

The ball drifted lazily, dancing, twinkling, and then burst in a silent pink wave that flooded over the town.

Taylor walked on, and Corentin followed behind. They had to check the work. Make sure everything would go off without a hitch. He followed the centerline of the street like a harbinger from another world. Taylor’s boots echoed through the buildings in metallic footfalls.

It was Corentin who had to look to make sure. Taylor knew.

As Taylor passed, the sounds of yawns and bodies shifting into sleep echoed inside his mind. The sounds of rest soothed the dragon within him, lulling it to sleep. Taylor led the way, and in his passing, more waves of people yawned, stretched, and dropped to the ground.

All needed rest. All needed healing. The sick, the injured, and those who fought them back or fought to save them. The victims received the peace of mind they had lost. The relief workers at their wit’s end received the peace they could finally recover.

The ocean crashed onto the shore. And the entire town of Margate City slept.

A little girl in a dirty swimsuit toddled barefoot down the street, rubbing her face. She yawned and stretched, fighting Taylor’s magic.

Taylor stopped her and pulled her into a careful hug. “Hey…,” Taylor said in a whisper. “What’s your name?”

“Rosie,” she said and yawned again.

Taylor smoothed a thumb over her forehead. “Why don’t you take a nap?” he whispered.

Rosie yawned wider and rubbed her eyes. “But I’m not sleepy…,” she said, and her head bobbed with drowsiness.

Taylor smoothed her golden curls and cooed a nonsense lullaby to her. She drifted off in his arms. “Go to sleep, little one…,” he whispered. “Tomorrow will bring grand new adventures.”

L
EX
C
HASE
once heard Stephen King say in a commercial, “We’re all going to die, I’m just trying to make it a little more interesting.” She knew then she wanted to make the world a little more interesting too.

Weaving tales of cinematic, sweeping adventure and epic love—and depending on how she feels that day—Lex sprinkles in high-speed chases, shower scenes, and more explosions than a Hollywood blockbuster. She loves tales of men who kiss as much as they kick ass. She believes if you’re going to march into the depths of hell, it better be beside the one you love.

Lex is a pop culture diva, and her DVR is constantly backlogged. She wouldn’t last five minutes without technology in the event of the apocalypse and has nightmares about refusing to leave her cats behind. She is incredibly sentimental, to the point that she gets choked up at holiday commercials. But like the lovers driven to extreme measures to get home for the holidays, Lex believes everyone deserves a happy ending.

Lex also has a knack for sarcasm, never takes herself seriously, and has been nicknamed “The Next Alan Moore” by her friends for all the pain and suffering she inflicts on her characters. She is a Damned Yankee hailing from the frozen backwoods of Maine now residing in the burbs of Northwest Florida, where it could be 80F and she’d still be a popsicle.

She is grateful for and humbled by all the readers. She knows very well she wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them and welcomes feedback.

You can find her on those Facebook and Twitter things at:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LXChase

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Lex_Chase

Find her blog at http://lexchase.com or drop her an e-mail at [email protected].