If Wishes Were Curses Page 3

  Sure enough, at the end of the alley was Josie Framer, looking equal parts horrified and curious. “Just what do you three think you’re doing with that man?”

  Great. Just what we needed.

  “And why do you have fox ears?” she asked, pointing accusingly at Jack. “And are her ears pointed?” So Josie was Sensitive enough to see through glamour.

  I groaned.

  It always got messier with humans involved.

  Chapter 3

  Jack and Theiya stared at me, their expressions making it clear that Josie was my problem to deal with. I was the one with human blood. I was the youngest. And really, I was the one with the least to lose. Jack and Theiya both had positions to protect and children. All I had was a shifter half-brother. Gideon and I were tight, but he did have other people in his life.

  As usual, I was the most expendable.

  I watched them load Doug’s body into the back of the police car. Certainty settled in my gut like rocks. This was part of my role in the private investigation gig, and there was no point in fighting when I knew I’d lose anyway. Besides, I had stolen Josie’s guy, in a manner of speaking.

  “Fine,” I said. “But I better get a good cut of this haul.”

  “You’ll get the same as usual,” Jack shot back. “Gotta keep things fair.”

  “Aw, come on!” I pouted. I’m not proud, and I have bills to pay. “That was masterful dumb blonde acting. It deserves a bonus.”

  “Was that acting?”

  I glared at Jack, not daring to say more. A three-tailed kitsune was out of my fighting league. Just like every other Fae. Four years as a freelance investigator, and I couldn’t even assert myself for a little extra pay. Another reason I had my side hustles with Gideon. One day, someday, we would launch our own business, but until then I was dependent on Momoru Investigations for a good part of my income.

  The vixen shrugged. “Okay. Free coffee or hot drinks of any kind at Uncommon Grounds for the next week.”

  “Offering freebies on your boyfriend’s tab?” I rolled my eyes. “I’m sure Matthias will love that.”

  Although I’d take the deal. I spent too much money on coffee as it was. A Fae’s word was good, and since this was a trade, there would be no magical ‘gift debt’ to deal with.

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” she hissed, her eyes lightening to fox-blue.

  “Right, he’s just at your apartment every other night of the week. And who’s watching the twins tonight?”

  “Oh, I knew I forgot something. I need to pay my babysitter tonight.” She gave me a mock glare. I wasn’t in the danger zone yet, though I was getting close. You had to be careful teasing a shifter about their kids. Or kits, in this case.

  Jack glanced over at Theiya, who was standing by the other side of the car, tapping away at her cell phone. Magic-fused, like all Fae tech. “Thei, I do need to get back to them. Zack and Riley are getting growing pains late at night. I’ll stop by the station tomorrow for any paperwork.”

  “I understand.” Theiya’s lips quirked, and she tapped the side of her head where an earvine was permanently embedded, a gleam of silver-green behind her ear. “Even at seventeen, mine still require attention. At least, Jeremi does. But maybe that’s just his unique attributes.”

  “Who does? What attributes?” Josie stepped closer. “I should call the cops on all of you.”

  Theiya flashed her badge. “That isn’t necessary.”

  “Is that even real?”

  Theiya ignored her and got into the car. After slamming the door a little harder than necessary, she looked at me and raised her chin toward Josie. “Have fun.”

  “No thanks to you.”

  “You’re far better at such matters. I trust you.”

  “Sure you do.” I rolled my eyes as she drove off. Then Jack caught my attention with a tap on my arm. “Help a boss out?”

  “This is why you keep me around.” I couldn’t stifle a smile.

  She returned it. “Sure is. I can’t be expected to truck this fine ass around on my own. I’m high class, you know. Got the marks to prove it.”

  She rolled up a sleeve, revealing crisscrossed scars, some of them deep, from surviving things I didn’t even want to think about. Jack’s past was something she kept quiet. All I knew is that she’d been through brutal training, something a full kitsune should never have been subjected to. The kitsune were the royals of the foxshifters, and of the shifter community in general. But part of my contract specifically stated that I was never to ask Jack why she was slumming as a private investigator, even though by rights she should be serving in the Fae court.

  No questions, Allis. Keep to your place. As usual. I was fine with getting her back to her kits and to the male siren who was at the very least a cordial roommate that had been adopted into Jack’s shifter family unit. He made one hell of a great coffee.

  I chuckled. “Hold still, boss. I’ll get you right inside the living room.”

  “Extra points if I shock Matthias awake.”

  “No promises. Safety first.”

  Next to me, Josie started. “Wait, what are you—”

  “Shut up, Josie, or Fox Ears will end up splattered all over the bridges.”

  “Fine.” I saw a flash in her eyes that might’ve been a trace of her firebird side peeking out. “You don’t have to be rude.”

  No, I didn’t, but it worked. I squelched the flash of guilt at her words and closed my eyes, picturing Jack’s living room clearly in my mind. The TV, the big L-shaped couch, the dirty windows that never got cleaned because for all Matthias’s neat-freak tendencies, he simply didn’t care as much about them.

  Full genies could teleport people instantly. A split second of concentration was all it took. But for me, it took focus.

  One snap of my fingers, and Jack vanished. No glow or magic, just gone like flipping a light switch. I felt her disperse into the magisphere, then felt her rematerialize the next second, safe at home.

  “Whoa…”

  I opened my eyes to a slack-jawed Josie and couldn’t hide a smirk. “Yeah, I can do that.”

  The woman nodded. “Mom and Dad told me I’d meet more Fae in the city, but I didn’t think…”

  “Yeah, well, I can agree with you not thinking.”

  Too sharp, maybe. But it had been a long night.

  She paused and fiddled with the clasp on her purse, teetering on her stiletto heels. “What are you going to do with me? Teleport me off somewhere?”

  I paused. On the one hand, I could do just that. I could summon a memory-wiping potion from the kitchen at my place to use on Josie, then send her on her way back home, wherever that was. On the other hand—I glanced at Josie’s round face and earnest green eyes and allowed her desires and fears to trickle through my shields.

  They were easy to read. Josie wanted her own life, and a mate who wouldn’t die on her. Even a trace of Fae blood could double or triple the lifespan of a Sensitive. If Josie mated with a shifter, she could share their immortality, and if she ended up with a Sensitive, at least they’d have an equal share of time. She wanted something to last, and she was willing to wait and grow and fight for it. I felt a pang of sympathy. Nothing was hindering Josie, unlike the walking parole I had stamped on both of my arms. I wasn’t about to take away her freedom by wiping her memory. And I wasn’t gonna rob her of valuable experience about the real nature of life among the Fae.

  I shook my head. “Nah, I’m gonna help you.”

  She blinked. “Help me what? Get home? My car’s just a few blocks south of here.”

  “Then I’ll walk you back to your car and give you a few tips about city life for Fae so

  you don’t get chewed up and spit out.”

  She raised her eyebrows, crossing her arms over her knee-length blouse. “Why would you do that?”

  “Because some people did it for me. And others didn’t. I’d rather be someone who did.” I stepped back from her again, eying her super-high heels. “What siz
e are you?”

  “Shoes? Seven and a half.”

  “Close enough.” I snapped my fingers again, and a pair of my sneakers appeared in front of her. “Put those on. It hurts to watch you walk in those spikes.”

  Josie blinked, then pulled off her shoes and stood on one leg, shoving her feet into the sneakers. “How are you doing that? Teleporting all these things?”

  “Questions later. Now, I need to change too.”

  Another finger snap, and I was out of my clubbing clothes and into a pair of jeans, my other pair of black sneakers, a tank top, and a button-down. Good, easy clothing to live in. Nothing impressive. Just the thing to blend in after that night. A final snap, and I had a wipe to clean the make-up off my face. Thank God teleporting objects took a lot less focus than people.

  “All right, let’s go.” I left the alleyway with Josie fighting to keep up, carrying her heels in one hand. “Ask away.”

  She chewed her lip. “Ask you anything?”

  “Sure! Or I’ll just talk, if you’d rather.”

  “That man, Doug—was he really a dragon?”

  I shook my head as she finally fell into step beside me. We weaved in and out of sidewalk traffic on Smallman Street. “Not even close. He’s more human than you are.”

  “Doggone it. I thought it was odd that I couldn’t sense anything about him.” She veered around a group of people talking loudly in front of another club. “And you’re not human?”

  “Only half. More like one fourth. Ish. Magic blood tends to take over. The other half is genie, and no, I’m not granting any wishes.” I rubbed my left shoulder where my gray mark was. “A grayling. That’s what the Fae call us half-breeds. My brother Gideon and I are both graylings. You know what an Unspoken is, right?”

  She frowned. “Something we don’t speak of?”

  I paused and stared at her. Who had let her into the city? “Five seconds.”

  “Until what?”

  “Until you get yanked off the street by a vampire or a succubus or a gogmagog.”

  Josie raised her hands defensively, shoes dangling in her left hand. “Hey, I know those are bad things. Except for the gogger-guy—what is that?”

  “Something not usually found in Pittsburgh. Don’t worry about them. Basically, Fae call themselves the good guys and call vampires and all the obviously evil-looking things the bad guys.”

  She nodded. “So Unspoken are always evil?”

  “If only it were that easy. For every Unspoken who is actually evil or demonic, there’s a hapless idiot who just caught the wrong virus. There’s a really nice siren who runs Uncommon Grounds and turned his back on all the evil crap his sisters do. And if you know any legends or history, you know that things that come as angels of light can easily be devils in disguise.”

  “Right. So why even use Unspoken as a label?”

  “Because people need rough categories to put others in, even immortal people, and a lot of Unspoken really are cold-blooded killers. Plus, the Fae courts generate the narrative.”

  “Got it.” Josie’s eyes were starting to glaze over. We needed keep moving. Always best to walk off the overload inevitably caused by immortal politics.

  I continued walking down the street. “You’re what we call a Sensitive. Either you had an ancestor who was a magical, or one of your parents was a grayling who opted for their human side. You don’t have enough magic to be dangerous. Just enough to make you a snack for the Unspoken. So be careful.”

  Josie nodded as we continued through the streets. “Mom always said our family was a bit different. Sometimes I’d see things, and they would sort of shimmer and change, just a little. Then they’d go back to being the same as before.”

  “You were getting a peek into the magisphere.”

  She frowned. “I thought the magisphere was the accords, the secret truce between humans and Fae that governs both sides. Next left, 25th Street.”

  “Got it.” Good, she wasn’t completely ignorant about Fae life. Time to dive in deeper. “The magisphere is a lot of things. It’s the accords, which have a lot of wonky bits and addendums that almost no one knows about. It’s the magical energy field that all Fae can pull from—and so can some humans, if they have magical tech. And the magisphere is also… sort of another place entirely.” I made a vague motion with my hand. “Sort of here, but sort of not. But always here.”

  Josie’s forehead wrinkled, and she came to a stop in front of an upscale restaurant. “What does that mean? Either something’s here, or it isn’t.”

  “Oh, it’s here all right. But…” I paused. “It’s like gas.” Someone nearby snickered. They could mind their own business. I didn’t expect to have to give an existential lesson at 11 pm at night. “Oxygen. You need it. You breathe it. Clearly it’s there, or you’d be dead. But you can’t see it. You can walk right through it and not feel it. But if it went away, things would get real bad, real quick. The magisphere is like that.”

  “Like another dimension?”

  “No, it’s part of this one. The magisphere was created to be part of the earth, and if it went away, that means something bad happened to the whole earth. Magic, Fae, all are tied to everything here, the created order. While the planet’s here, magical beings are here. Whatever you believe about who made it, it was all made together, and it’s tied together. They’re just in a different sort of place some of the time.”

  “What’s it look like?”

  “I have no idea. I’ve never been there.” Gideon had. He tried to explain it to me once, but words weren’t his strong point.

  “Why not? You seem to be working with some kind of Fae official.”

  Her words stung my heart. As usual. Another reminder of my cursed status. “A long story. Short version: a lot of Fae don’t like me.”

  She tilted her head. “Is something wrong with you? You seem nice.”

  “Thanks. I try. It’s complicated, too much to explain right now.” I rubbed my forehead, trying to force coherent thoughts together. “Back to the magisphere. The Magisphere Accords govern what happens when Fae drop out of the magisphere space and into this dimension, and also what happens to humans when they hop over to the magisphere. But things get slanted, so a human in the magisphere … well, they probably won’t get the best treatment.”

  Josie nodded. “Like moving to another country. A Fae here wouldn’t get the best treatment either.”

  “You’d think that, but a lot of Fae are cheats. Some of them want to treat humans like crap no matter which side they’re on, y’know, work the system whenever they can.” I winced. A bit harsh. Theiya and Jack were decent. And Gideon was awesome. “Other Fae are trying to end that. Not nearly enough of them. But it’s a start.”

  Had to leave her on a positive note of some kind. And it wasn’t like the human world was any better, in a lot of places. Fae just had magic and way too much time to get into mischief.

  She crossed her arms. “Why aren’t there different words for the magical energy and the

  accords and the … gas place?”

  “The same reason the word ‘you’ can mean one person or more than one: words are dumb.”

  At that moment, I heard slow clapping behind me. I knew that clap. All condescending asshole. Maybe I was mistaken. I could have been projecting.

  Then a smooth, cocky male voice came from over my shoulder. “Nice job, Sandy. I didn’t expect to get a lecture on the physics of the universe outside Venito’s.”

  “Don’t call me Sandy.” My fingers clenched into fists. If there was a God up there, he couldn’t be letting this happen.

  I spun around. Nope. It was definitely happening.

  There was my ex. The genie in the flesh.

  My defensive sarcasm engaged, layered with my usual just-sweet-enough-to-avoid-getting-fried tone. “Kiran Singh. Something wrong with your hands? I definitely deserved more applause than that.”

  He shrugged. “I disagree. I think you’ve lost your touch.”

&
nbsp; I scowled up into saucy dark eyes set in a warm-washed sepia face with a square jaw and unruly curls all over his head. Curls my fingers had known all too well eight months ago.

  Six months ago, if I’m being honest, but that had been an isolated make-out session in the back room of one of Kiran’s art galleries. Nothing more. There was no point in seeing someone I could never be with, never mind that we’d floated in and out of each other’s lives for almost a decade. Never mind that we hadn’t been looking for a relationship, but it had sort of happened. And then, I’d had enough.

  Anger flared within me. Kiran could have gotten my magical tattoo removed, or gotten the curse lessened. He was powerful and influential enough. But he wasn’t serious about us. He just wanted to run around with the low-level half-genie to pretend he was a rebel without a cause, when really the pampered brat had everything handed to him.

  Bottom line: I’d wanted him to be more. I’d been looking for something permanent. It hadn’t happened. So I’d left.

  Fury filled me, but I turned it into a brilliant smile aimed at the woman on his arm, her deep violet dress slinking over her warm, coppery skin. Another type of genie. Her outfit matched his suit perfectly. A suit that was tailored to every aspect of Kiran’s well-built figure.

  “Enjoyed Venito’s?” I asked her. “They have good gelato.”

  “Yes!” She fairly glowed with pleasure. “Are you his friend, Allisandra? I’m Terezal Inuyo. Kir said you’d recommended Venito’s to him. Thanks so much! You’re such a good friend.”

  “Absolutely.” I matched her sincere tone. Terezal was either the best actress I’d ever seen, or Kiran had straight-up lied to her about his relationship with me.

  He had always tried to keep our relationship a secret. Why wouldn’t he? The prize son of the Grant Foundation going out with a grayling wish granter so messed up, so potentially dangerous, that she bore a curse-mark. Sometimes I wondered why I’d even bothered dating Kiran. Any relationship I had only ended with a break-up. If I was a suspicious sort, I’d think it was another curse.

  But curses aren’t the root of every problem in the world. Sometimes destiny hands out cards that say “every guy you like romantically will end up being an ass.” I sighed. And yet, somehow I kept looking.