Charming Blue Read online

  That was how she got into the management/fixer business in the first place.

  She splashed some cool water over her face, touched up her makeup, and made sure her white sheath had no stains from the lunch she’d had in the studio commissary. Then she squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and headed to her office.

  Tanker Belle made her nervous, and not just because the little fairy was well named. It was also because she looked like Tinker Bell, with that lovely blond hair, those big blue eyes, and that perfect female form (with gossamer wings, of course). When Tanker Belle wanted, she could even add a little twinkle to her smile, complete with a soft ting of a tiny bell.

  Jodi was surrounded by beautiful women all day, and usually they didn’t make her feel insecure. But Tanker Belle did, and Jodi had no idea why.

  The door to her office was big and sturdy, carved mahogany, and original to the house. She had no idea what this room was originally used for, although she had suspicions that it was something illicit. The room was big with great views of the back garden—which she had walled off when it became clear that her clients would be standing outside, texting, and ignoring her request to leave the cell phones at home.

  Normally just stepping inside the coolness of her office calmed her, but she could sense Tanker Belle’s presence. Even though Tank wasn’t immediately visible, something about her or her magic screwed up the office’s carefully designed comfortable energy.

  “Josephine Diana,” Tank said from somewhere near the arched windows. Tank had a voice on her that made her sound huge and tough, like a chain-smoking middle-aged mortal woman. A friend once described the voice as Bette Davis crossed with James Earl Jones. The description was so accurate that Jodi thought of it every time Tank spoke.

  “Not fair,” Jodi said as she quickly shut the door. “You know my real name, and you won’t tell me yours.”

  Real names had magical power that nicknames and self-chosen monikers did not. Sometimes knowing a person’s real name conferred that person’s power on the person who knew the name. It often gave the speaker a control that she wouldn’t otherwise have.

  Jodi hadn’t used the name Josephine Diana since she left the Kingdom. She had gone through several names in her Los Angeles life because mortals didn’t believe that other people could live for centuries and still look like they were in their thirties, but she had found that names which sounded like hers were the best. “Jodi” was her favorite, even better than the Jo she had used in the twenties. It felt like her name without being her real name.

  “I won’t misuse it,” Tank said. “I promise.”

  She floated down from the ceiling, wings out like a parasail. She wore a glittery black top tucked into a ripped black skirt, making her look like Tinker Bell in mourning. Tank landed on the back of the antique leather upholstered chair that Jodi had set in front of her desk for clients.

  Jodi sighed, set her briefcase beside the door, and walked to the desk. It was an old partner’s desk she had bought when Keystone Studio closed. Big, solid, made from redwood back before the days when the trees were protected. She kept the desk polished so that the wood’s rings showed rich and fine. She also had a protective magical cover over it so that nothing would mar its surface.

  Her phone vibrated in her hand; she had forgotten she’d been carrying it. Need me to get you out of there? the message read. Ramon, being efficient.

  She didn’t answer him—she didn’t have to, unless she really did need rescuing—and set the phone beside the small pot of violets on the side of her desk. She put her purse on the floor and sat down, wishing she had just a few more minutes to settle in.

  “You called me from an important meeting, Tank,” Jodi lied. “This better be good.”

  Tank sat on top of the chair, lovely legs crossed. On her feet, she wore tiny black shoes that looked like they were made of gossamer, like her wings.

  “You’ve been following the Fairy Tale Stalker, right?” Tank asked.

  That question could mean many things in Jodi’s line of work, from watching the case unfold to actually stalking the stalker. Rather than risk a misunderstanding, she gave a simple one-word answer. “No.”

  “Good gods,” Tank said, “I would think it would be right up your alley. Fairy tales being slandered in the media, quashing the reference, all that.”

  So that was what she meant by “following” the Fairy Tale Stalker.

  “I tried to quash it,” Jodi said. “By the time I realized what was going on, it was too late. The moniker had stuck. When these things don’t involve our people, I don’t care as much as I would have.”

  Tank snorted. “You’re not following this then.”

  Jodi sighed. She hated it when folks played the I-know-more-than-you game.

  “Enlighten me,” she said, because if she didn’t, she might be here all day. And judging by the crowd outside, she didn’t have all day.

  “This stalker who just appears in women’s rooms?” Tank said. “They’re calling him Bluebeard.”

  Jodi’s stomach clenched. She’d met Bluebeard at several parties, most of them held at the Archetype Place. The Archetype Place was a kind of home away from home for folks from the Kingdoms and had been around for more than sixty years. Jodi had gotten a lot of work through that organization and more than a little comfort.

  She never understood why the Archetype Place tolerated Bluebeard. From what she had heard, all the fairy tales about him were true—he had killed his wives and stored their heads in a room in his castle. How he came to the Greater World was beyond her, and why he stayed made no sense either.

  Unless he was starting all over here, in a place where serial killers were more common.

  She couldn’t quite make sense of what Tank was telling her. “What do you want me to do, correct the press because it’s not him? Or is it Bluebeard just doing his creepy shtick?”

  “It’s not him,” Tank said.

  Jodi gave her an odd look. Tank almost sounded defensive. “How do you know that?”

  “C’mon, Jo-Dee.” Tank put the emphasis on Jodi’s name so that they would both know she was avoiding the real name. “You’ve met Bluebeard. The descriptions of this stalker sound nothing like him.”

  Jodi frowned. Bluebeard was distinctive. His hair was Smurf-blue, including his signature blue beard. He had a ragged, hollow appearance. Usually she couldn’t get close enough to talk to him (even if she had wanted to, which she never had) because he smelled so bad. Not only did he never wash his clothes or himself, but he tried to cover the stench with Aqua Velva.

  Plus she had never seen him sober. He was a fall-down drunk who stumbled into the Archetype Place parties, grabbed the free booze from the bar, and volunteered for work as if someone would consider him for it.

  “Are you sure it’s not him cleaned up?” Jodi asked.

  Tank raised her perfectly formed eyebrows. “Have you ever seen him clean?”

  “No,” Jodi said. “Not in all the years he’s been here.”

  “That’s point one,” Tank said. “Point two is this.”

  She waved her tiny hand, making a circle of sparkling fairy dust in front of her. The fairy dust coalesced into a news report from KTLA. The ticker underneath had this day’s date. The female midday announcer was saying, “…drawing based on victims’ description. He’s an average-size man, maybe five-eight, thin, with black hair and brown eyes. He introduces himself as Bluebeard, then tells his victims to beware, because the next time he will ‘marry’ them, and the next time after that he will cut off their heads.”

  Jodi winced. She should have been paying attention to this. It wasn’t quite fairy tale slander—Bluebeard did do a lot of horrible things, no denying it—but it wasn’t the kind of publicity she wanted for her community.

  Then she looked at the artist’s rendering of the stalker. Angular face, young, dark eyes, clean-shaven, conservative above-the-ears haircut. It looked nothing like Bluebeard. Even if he had shaved off his scr
aggly beard, cut his hair, bathed, and dressed in a nice suit (instead of that bright blue velvet thing he usually wore), he still wouldn’t have looked like this. For one thing, his face was too square. For another, he was too tall.

  There was no way a half-dozen women would think that Bluebeard was of average height. One of the problems he had (one of the many problems) was that he was tall and muscular, six-two, with broad shoulders. He looked strong and menacing, even when his eyes didn’t focus. All of that was missing from the KTLA description.

  “Okay, fine, it’s not him,” Jodi said. “Why should I care?”

  Tank glared, opened her tiny, perfectly formed mouth, and then closed it, as if she just couldn’t bring herself to respond. Her mouth formed words three more times before she finally got some out.

  “This stalker?” she said. “This ‘not’ Bluebeard stalker?”

  Jodi waited. She had never seen Tank like this.

  “He appears and disappears ‘like magic,’ they say.”

  Jodi shrugged. “So?”

  “Into locked rooms, with locked windows, into rooms with only one door and no window. There is no way in or out. And the women always say he glowed, as if he was backlit or something. One of them even said it was like he was covered in fairy dust.”

  “So that’s what’s bothering you?” Jodi asked. “The fairy dust?”

  “No!” Tank slammed her hand on the top of the chair. It looked like a forceful action, although it was rather hard for something that tiny to make a real impression. “Don’t you understand? This fake Bluebeard is one of us.”

  Chapter 2

  Jodi sat perfectly still as she tried to process that information. The Fairy Tale Stalker was really one of the magical? She looked at the stalker’s image, still floating above her desk just a few feet from Tank.

  He wasn’t anyone Jodi knew, and she knew most of the magical in Los Angeles. At least most of the magical tied to fairy tales. There was another grouping of magical whose stories got retold as myths and legends, including all of the Greek and Norse gods. Some of them lived in LA as well, but most of them chose to remain in their own worlds (which they didn’t call Kingdoms, although her people did). She didn’t know them, nor did she know more than one or two people in the Celtic fairy circles, although she had met the King of the Fairies in Las Vegas once upon a time.

  “What do you think I can do about this?” Jodi asked.

  Tank crossed her arms over that sparkly black top. “You can fix it. You are a fixer, right?”

  “I’m a fixer,” Jodi said, “but not a detective. All of the detectives I know are either humans who don’t believe in magic or they’re magical and working in their own realms. This is one area where no one crosses between the Kingdoms and the Greater World.”

  Tank tilted her head sideways, her perfect blue eyes glittering with anger. “Gosh, gee. I didn’t know that, Boss. Thanks for enlightening me. Now maybe you can get me a job in a Disney movie or something.”

  Tank thought Disney and Disney movies the lowest of the low. If any of her little tribe worked for the Big D, as she usually called that corporation, she disowned them.

  “No need to be vicious,” Jodi said, “and I still don’t understand why this is my problem.”

  Tank uncrossed her arms and put her hands on the top of the chair. “So it’s not your problem even if he starts fulfilling his threats?”

  “You think I can stop some violent killer?” Jodi asked. “Since you know my name, you also know that I have organizational magic and nothing else. That little trick you’re doing with the image there? Way beyond my capacity.”

  “Actually, it’s outside your capacity,” Tank said. “Not beyond your capacity. You’re quite capable within the boundaries of your magic. How do you think you’ve managed in this tough environment all this time?”

  Jodi’s eyes widened. Tank had just given her a compliment. Tank never gave anyone compliments.

  “Why don’t you find him?” Jodi asked. “You have a powerful magic. You can figure out who he is and report him to the police.”

  “The Los Angeles Police Department?” Tank asked. “Seriously? If I could appear to them, which I can’t—”

  “Use your magic,” Jodi said. “You can come up with a plausible disguise.”

  “I don’t debase myself like that,” Tank said. “And even if I did, how do I make them catch a guy who can appear and disappear in various rooms? He’ll be as slippery as fog, and you know it.”

  “I can’t do anything,” Jodi said. “I can’t catch him.”

  Tank sighed and rolled her eyes. Then she leaned forward and almost fell off the chair. She caught herself deftly. If Jodi hadn’t been watching her so closely, she wouldn’t have seen the move at all.

  Tank was rarely clumsy. She really had to be upset.

  “You can figure out the basis of someone’s magic,” Tank said. “That’s how you get them into the right job or the right house or make them comfortable or whatever the hell it is you do. So figure out what his magic is. Because it doesn’t sound like any I’m familiar with.”

  Jodi picked up a pen and tapped it on the desk calendar she had scribbled all her appointments on. The thing was covered with circles and lines and crossed-out meetings.

  Tank didn’t look down at the calendar. She just kept staring at Jodi. Jodi had never seen Tank passionate about anything. Tank was an impish little fairy, a gadfly (almost literally), a troublemaker. But she didn’t seem to be making trouble here.

  “You’re lying to me, Tank. You don’t care about this stalker guy.”

  Tank straightened. She snapped her fingers and the artist’s sketch disappeared. The fairy dust holding it up fell to the floor like a cluster of tiny stars.

  “That’s right,” Tank said softly. “I care about Blue.”

  “Blue?” Jodi frowned.

  “Bluebeard.” Tank actually looked vulnerable. “He’s being unjustly accused.”

  “Bluebeard?” Jodi asked. “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “No,” Tank said. “I’m not. He didn’t do this. He’s not going after these women.”

  “So?” Jodi said. “Why should I care? He murdered his wives.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure,” Jodi said. “Everyone knows it. It’s not one of those Grimm Brother lies.”

  “Centuries ago,” Tank said.

  Jodi’s mouth opened. She couldn’t believe Tank had just said that. “So?” Jodi said. “He killed people. I don’t care if it was yesterday or a million yesterdays ago. He’s not someone I want to help.”

  “So do it for me,” Tank said.

  Jodi dropped the pen. It rolled across the desktop and fell onto the floor. She didn’t bother to catch it. “For you?”

  Tank nodded, looking vulnerable. Tank never looked vulnerable.

  “Because you want to help Bluebeard?”

  Tank nodded again.

  “So you care about him? Really? You like him?”

  Tank bowed her head for a minute. Her body lost all of its tension, and her wings fell against her back.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I care about him.”

  “God,” Jodi said. “They said he could make anyone fall in love with him, but I didn’t believe it.”

  Tank straightened. “I am not in love with him.”

  “But,” Jodi said, undeterred, “he was a Charming once. One of those Prince Charmings, which means he has the power to charm.”

  “I am not in love with him,” Tank said.

  “And,” Jodi said, more to herself than to Tank, “he would’ve needed the power to charm to get the second through fifteenth wife to fall in love with him, especially after the beheading rumors started.”

  “I am not in love with him!” Tank said. “I just like him. He’s… broken.”

  That caught Jodi’s attention, more than Tank’s denials. “Broken?”

  “He doesn’t go near people, and he makes sure they stay aw
ay from him. I’ve taken him to rehab I don’t know how many times, and the day he gets out he starts drinking again. It’s really sad.”

  Jodi had never seen Tank like this. She seemed sincere. No anger, no sarcasm, no need to control.

  “I’m not helping Bluebeard,” Jodi said. “I don’t care what you say about him. I don’t care if he feels bad that he killed his wives and it’s driving him to drink. I don’t care that he can’t get sober. I really don’t. I don’t even care that his reputation is being—well, I was going to say ruined, but how do you ruin a serial killer’s reputation anyway? I guess by only stalking the women and not touching them. So far, I don’t see any reason to get involved, Tank. It is what it is.”

  “And if this stalker guy starts killing?” Tank asked. “Will you care then?”

  Jodi threaded her fingers together and rested her hands on the calendar. She didn’t want Tank to see that the question got her attention.

  But Tank noticed. Tank noticed everything.

  “He’s threatened them. The police say it’s only a matter of time before he carries through, and I believe them. I talked to one of the victims. She said it was like he was holding himself back, rubbing his hands together, pushing them against his own chest like he was afraid he would lose control of them. What if he is one of us, Jodi? What if he’s lost it somehow, if his magic is starting to go awry? What if he can’t stop this much longer?”

  Tank was leaning forward again, balancing precariously on the top of the chair. Jodi blinked twice and focused her vision. She looked briefly at Tank’s aura. Tank’s aura was bright white, so bright that it hurt Jodi’s magical eye, so Jodi looked away quickly, trying to see if there were magical lines between Tank and Jodi.

  If there were lines, it would mean that Tank was casting a spell on Jodi. Tank would be furious that Jodi looked at her aura, but Jodi had never seen Tank act like this. Not ever.

  Tank wasn’t trying to fool her or charm her or make fun of her.