Wickedly Charming Read online

  “And the credit card,” one of the other fairies said. “Last time, he didn’t fork it over, and I paid.”

  She shook a tiny fist at Rumpelstiltskin.

  “You still owe me,” she said.

  “I’ll pay up,” he said. “You just say when and how.”

  Then he grinned, and to Mellie’s surprise, the fairy grinned back. Mellie shook her head, not fully comprehending the interaction—or, to be more accurate—not wanting to.

  She made her way through the crowd of archetypes, heading for the signs. She needed to get the group organized. And she wanted to avoid Blue.

  But that wasn’t in the cards.

  Tanker Belle was right—he smelled like he’d been bathing in whiskey. Whiskey and Aqua Velva. And vomit.

  Not the best combination on a good day. And this was not—by any stretch of the imagination—a good day.

  “I wanna help out,” Blue said.

  He had a lovely voice. Musical, deep, with enough of an accent to make him seem exotic. Or at least, he would seem exotic, if she hadn’t heard it all before.

  “You’ll help out by going with Tanker Belle and the girls,” Mellie said.

  “Ah, Mel.” Blue put his meaty fist on her shoulder. “I’m terribly misunderstood. I can talk to the press. I took classes in media relations at UCLA.”

  Somehow that didn’t surprise her. She slipped out of his grasp and resisted the urge to wipe off her shoulder.

  “Blue, you’re not sober,” she said. “Being sober is one of my rules, remember?”

  He rolled those pretty blue eyes. “Hon, I don’t do rules, except my own.”

  “Which is another reason I don’t want you here,” she said.

  He leaned closer to her. A few of the woodland creatures gasped in disgust. It took all of Mellie’s strength not to do the same.

  “Everybody’s got a story,” he said. “You’ve never asked mine.”

  “I saw the heads,” Mellie snapped. “I knew some of those girls.”

  He frowned and backed away, just like she knew he would. She’d said that to him five years ago, ten years ago, fifteen years ago. Each time, it made him walk away.

  Only this time, he said, “You listen to everybody else. How come not me?”

  “Sober up, Blue, and maybe I will,” she said.

  “I’ve talked to you sober before,” he said.

  “Sober up for more than a year,” she said. “Then we can talk.”

  She snapped her fingers, and Tanker Belle flew over.

  “C’mon, monster,” Tanker Belle said. “We got a rehab facility to fly to.”

  “I told you before, Tank,” Blue said. “I hate to fly.”

  “And I told you before, Blue,” Candy said. “It’s Tanker Belle to you.”

  She wrapped him in fairy dust and beckoned her companions. They attached little gossamer strings to the cocoon of fairy dust and raised him up, as if he were made of air.

  Mellie looked around the parking lot. There were a few booksellers mingling about, a couple of authors arriving too late to get parking, and one or two of the union men who’d been carrying all that equipment. None of them looked over this way.

  Even if they did, they wouldn’t see anything. Just a bit of a heat shimmer or a glimmering caused—they’d think—by the sun. The more sensitive of them would see tiny birds, maybe even hummingbirds, flying in a circle, and they’d wonder why there were hummingbirds in the middle of a parking lot.

  But they wouldn’t wonder long. They’d return to whatever else they’d been doing and forget this entire incident had happened.

  That was one of the neat things about fairy dust. It made people forget.

  She’d had Tanker Belle and the fairies intervene more than once when a protest had gone bad.

  But Mellie didn’t have that option this time. Not with Tanker Belle and her gang funneling (literally) Blue off to rehab.

  This protest had to go well.

  She had to do everything right.

  Chapter 6

  Charming looked like a book bag tree. He had two stuffed book backpacks on his back, two equally stuffed book bags hanging off each shoulder, and four brimming book bags in each hand. Probably 150 pounds of books.

  Not that 150 pounds hobbled him. After all he was one of the strongest booksellers here. (Okay, okay, truth be told, he was the strongest bookseller here.)

  But 150 pounds draped off him in an awkward and badly packed manner made the weight seem at least double. He staggered as he walked, afraid he was going to leave a trail of books, the way that Hansel and Gretel supposedly left a trail of bread crumbs.

  Only no birds would eat books.

  Although booksellers would probably snap up some of the more exclusive advance reading copies.

  He grinned to himself at the thought. He needed a grin, because he was already breathing hard by the time he reached the front door. The parking lot spread before him, a sea of glistening cars. His Mercedes was parked in the only remaining bit of shade—about two thousand miles away, as the crow flies. And he wouldn’t be able to walk as the crow flies. He would have to stagger between the cars.

  Which he did. He would have felt ridiculous if he were the only one doing this. But as he walked, he passed four other booksellers, stumbling under the weight of their treasures. Most of them had only four book bags full of material, but most of the booksellers were older than he was (Greater World years versus Kingdom years) and not as svelte.

  Of course, they didn’t have to maintain a kingly regimen either, just in case their Kingdom was invaded. Two days per week of jousting practice, three days of sword fighting practice, one day of archery practice, and one day of hand-to-hand combat practice (which he would replace with martial arts, if he ever became king), not to mention all the horseback riding.

  When he came to the Greater World, he kept up his skills by running marathons (the most surreal being the ones sponsored by Disney. Sometimes he felt surrounded by the Greater World’s inaccurate representations of his friends and family) and working on his black belt. He had a brown belt now. One day he’d use those skills in his hand-to-hand combat practice, just to let everyone in the Kingdoms know he wasn’t some pushover bookish prince whose wife had walked all over him.

  (Even if he was, to be truthful, a bookish prince whose wife had walked all over him.)

  Sweat trickled down his brow as he passed yet another bookseller—this one smart enough to have brought one of those collapsible grocery carts that he had filled with his books.

  “Good move,” Charming said as he passed the bookseller.

  “Saves my back,” the bookseller said.

  And his feet and his knees and his thumbs. Charming’s thumbs had started to ache from the awkward angle he held them at.

  He thought he’d never reach his car. But he finally did.

  His hands were too tied up to activate the keyless entry, so he set all the book bags down, and fished for his keys. As his Mercedes chirruped at him, he let out a small sigh of relief.

  He opened the passenger door, forced down the seat and filled the back seat with bags. Either he had to pack well or he had only two more trips ahead of him—which simply was not satisfactory.

  He took the books out of their bags, arranged them in even stacks—biggest on the bottom, smallest on top. When he was done, he figured he had three more trips before he ran out of room.

  By then, he’d probably be exhausted.

  He locked the car and headed back. As he did, his gaze went to Snow White’s stepmother’s van. (What was that woman’s name? Had he ever learned it? Or was she cursed with a stupid label, like he was?)

  The back of the van was open and someone was rummaging inside.

  Charming felt an unexpected urge to apologize, even though he hadn’t done anything wrong. The woman had anger issues, but he understood those anger issues.

  He also understood the bitterness. Bitterness and the feeling that no one else knew exactly what h
e was going through.

  Especially when people expected him to be perfect. Prince Charming—as if he were an ideal. Apparently, he was an ideal. The beautiful stepmother was right; everyone wanted their own personal Prince Charming—especially if he looked like the Disney version that had once passed him in the Disney Marathon—thin, black-haired, stunningly handsome, flawless.

  Charming wasn’t flawless. He certainly wasn’t thin anymore. Even with all the required exercise, he still had a paunch that wouldn’t go away. For a while, Ella had called that paunch love handles. Then she’d pat that little roll of fat and tell him he wasn’t working out hard enough. And finally she started pinching it, as if she could pull it off him with the force of her fingers.

  Her sharp, little, pointy fingers.

  He shook his head, tired of obsessing about that woman. But he couldn’t help himself. Except for a few really unsatisfactory dates here in the Greater World, he hadn’t been with anyone else since. And Ella had custody of the girls.

  He really missed his daughters. Especially here, at the book fair. There had been a number of books he picked up just for them. When they’d lived at the palace, he would read to them every night.

  Now he got to read to them for seven nights a month, when he had his one-week visitation.

  He looked up in surprise. He had veered toward the PETA van, even though he hadn’t wanted to. And, as he got close, he realized the person messing in the back of the van wasn’t a person at all.

  It was one of the flying monkeys.

  He felt a surge of disappointment. He really wanted to see the beautiful stepmother again. He wanted to talk to her about something other than archetypes and being charming. He wanted to see if he could touch that soft skin of hers again, if maybe they could find common ground besides their uncommon background.

  He’d never quite understood the flying monkeys. They weren’t from his Kingdom. His Kingdom had a lot of inexplicable things—talking mice, magical birds—but they had counterparts in the Greater World. The Greater World had mice, they just didn’t speak English. The Greater World had birds, they just didn’t seem to care about the affairs of humans.

  The flying monkeys were from one of the fringe Kingdoms, a Kingdom he’d never visited. Charming had met some flying monkeys and some tin men and some animated scarecrows. He’d also seen unicorns and dragons and all sorts of so-called mythical beasts. But only here in the Greater World. Never in the Kingdoms. As he got close to the van, he watched the monkey grab a loud, red 1960s Sergeant Pepper-y coat and pull it on, stuffing his wings into the back of it. The monkey put on a hat, a fake ZZ-Top beard, and sunglasses.

  The disguise made him look human enough, until you peered and realized that greenish brown fur covered not only the skin around his eyes and his forehead, but also his hands and forearms.

  With those hands, he grabbed two signs out of the van. He waved them a little, not because he was trying to get attention with them, but because he seemed to be having trouble controlling his wings.

  It took him a moment to get the signs under control. As he did, he turned them toward Charming.

  Book Unfair! Destroy the Lies!

  Charming felt an odd flutter in his chest as he read those words. Book unfair? What book? What were they protesting exactly?

  Had someone done an exposé?

  The flying monkey closed the back of the van, sending a wave of fresh Magic Marker scent toward Charming. Then the monkey grabbed the signs, slung them over his shoulder, and marched toward the building.

  Charming hurried to catch up.

  “Excuse me,” Charming said as he reached the monkey’s side. “Are you with PETA?”

  He said it the way the animal rights group did—pee-tah—and the monkey’s mouth tightened into a little frown.

  “I’m with PETA,” he snapped, articulating each letter. “People for the Ethical Treatment—”

  “Of Archetypes, I know,” Charming said. “What’s this about unfair books?”

  The monkey stopped. Charming had to stop too. Up close, the monkey smelled vaguely rank. Something wild animally and sharp and somewhat unpleasant.

  “You read these things?” the monkey asked as if there was something wrong with Charming.

  Things. Charming frowned. “You mean books? Do I read books?”

  The monkey nodded.

  “Of course I do,” Charming said. “Why else would I be here?”

  The monkey’s eyes widened and he took a step back, as if he had met an enemy worse than the Wicked Witch he had once supposedly worked for.

  “You’re being brainwashed, pal,” the monkey said.

  “By books?” Charming asked.

  Books opened minds. Books expanded horizons. Books didn’t brainwash. Books couldn’t—at least in the Greater World.

  In a few of the Kingdoms, books actually came to life and had powers that did make them dangerous. Charming had learned to avoid those Kingdoms, and so far, no one had traveled out of them bearing books.

  Or if they had, the books lost their power once they reached the Greater World, which happened to a number of magical things. (Although it rarely happened to magical people.)

  “Yes, brainwashed by books,” the monkey said as if Charming were particularly dense. “You read those things, they warp you. You probably have no idea about the evil being perpetrated by those horrible fairy tales.”

  “Fairy tales,” Charming repeated.

  “That’s right,” the monkey said. “They’re lies. Damn lies. And they’ve got to be stopped.”

  “The fairy tales have to be stopped,” Charming repeated because he didn’t entirely understand this. “Fairy tales have been around for hundreds of years.”

  “That’s hundreds of years too long,” the monkey said. “We’ve got to put an end to this madness.”

  “By protesting a book fair?” Charming couldn’t keep the incredulousness out of his voice.

  “We have to start somewhere,” the monkey said. “Which reminds me. I have a meeting.”

  He tipped his hat to Charming, then loped away, his wings fluttering against the back of that red coat. The signs bobbed, mocking Charming.

  Book Unfair.

  Destroy the Lies.

  Destroy…?

  Oh good heavens. Did PETA want to destroy books? Was that why the organization was here? He was confused. They thought they could—what? Stop the spread of fairy tales? Make fantastic literature go away?

  To what end?

  He needed to go back to the exhibition hall, but he found himself following the monkey instead.

  Chapter 7

  Mellie was fighting off a headache. She was hungry, tired, and more discouraged than she wanted to admit. If she tallied up all the results of all the protests she had ever done, she could count fifteen newspaper articles (only three of them in “newspapers of record”), two rather snarky blog posts, some unflattering photographs, and one light piece at the end of a local newscast.

  No one took her seriously. No one even tried.

  Her effort to get the message out was failing, and she wasn’t sure why.

  Although she knew what her problem was here.

  She couldn’t find a foothold.

  Five of her protestors were already marching through the hall, shouting Death to Fairy Tales! Another five were handing out flyers explaining PETA’s position on fairy tales and why they were evil, along with the URL of the website she had started back when she first conceived of the protest idea.

  No one really wanted to listen. Those who did stop did so reluctantly, looking longingly at the doors down the hallway, as if hoping for rescue. A few took the flyers and tossed them when they thought they were out of sight.

  She really did need a new strategy. She just didn’t know what it was.

  She tried to think about it as she carried her sign—Not All Stepmothers Are Wicked!—and marched in her circle, keeping her eyes out for those pasty rent-a-cops. This time, she wouldn’t let t
hem move her out of the way. This time, she would hold her ground.

  She was halfway around when she saw a familiar, elegant figure come through the door leading to the service entrance. That Charming got around. He still looked marvelous, even if he was frowning.

  She wasn’t sure she had ever seen a Charming in a full-on snit before, but he clearly was. Had someone stolen his precious name badge? Or had they refused to give him books?

  As she rounded the circle, she had to turn her back on him, which was disappointing. At least he was wonderful to look at. And she was curious to see where he was going.

  Suddenly a hand clamped tightly on her shoulder, pulling her backwards, away from her chanting line.

  She normally took a swing at anyone who touched her unnecessarily—she’d learned that because of all the gropey people in the palace (particularly the knights)—but this time, she thought about it before she beaned the grabber with her sign. It could be one of the security people—and such an action was guaranteed to get her thrown out—or worse (better?) it could be a reporter.

  She glanced down at the hand warming her skin, and saw it was beautifully shaped, with long elegant fingers. Only two kinds of people had hands like that—famous people and beautiful people.

  She turned her head even farther, and saw Charming’s face dangerously close to hers. His eyes, behind those glasses, were sky blue fringed by long dark lashes, his skin even more flawless up close (except for the flush building in his cheeks), and his beautifully shaped lips were pulled back in a thin line.

  He wasn’t in a full-on snit. He was angry.

  She had no idea that Charmings even got angry. Was it allowed?

  He grabbed her sign and tossed it to the floor. Then he pulled her to the bend in the hallway, away from the marchers. She signaled them with her hand to continue walking, not that any of them had come to her defense.

  “Tell me you’re kidding,” he said, as if they’d been having a conversation.

  His grip on her shoulder was firm, but not painful. Still, she slipped her hand under his wrist and lifted his fingers off her skin. She felt an ache where they had been.