Page 5 of The Fairy Hunter
“Trap?” I ask.
She gives a sharp nod. “I guess it’s time for Cat and Mouse, Scratch Style.”
Darn it. “Think it’ll be that bad?”
“Worse.”
She’s probably right. We’re about to walk into a trap. I suspect our friends are in trouble, and I don’t know if we have anyone else we can call, that we trust. Any of the younger members could have been secretly killed and turned into fairies.
Or worse.
“I have an idea,” I say.
“Not Cat and Mouse, Scratch Style?” she asks, repeating one of our familiar plans with a frown.
I shake my head. “No. I think we should retire some of our old tricks and create some new ones. What do you think about Bear Bros?”
She lifts a brow. “I’m listening.”
FOUR
Luna
We pull into the little parking lot behind Tamara’s gallery. It has three floors. The bottom is the gallery, the middle is sort of a painting space for Tamara, and the top floor is a place she hangs out and sometimes sleeps at.
Well, that’s what she used to use them for, anyway.
I swallow around the lump in the back of my throat. No, not now. We need to put this fairy in its place, then we get to mourn Tamara. Then, we get to give her a real headstone and a real resting place with the other hunters. For now, we avenge her.
“Come on in, ladies!” Tamara says, suddenly at the side of our car.
We both jump a little. Damn it! There’s a look in the fairy’s eyes, there and gone in a flash, but I get the sense the creature wanted to scare us. To keep us on our toes. But maybe I’m imagining it. The fairy can’t be stupid. It’s luring us here for a reason and likely doesn’t want us to suspect a thing until it’s too late.
I cut the engine, and we both climb out of the car. Olivia doesn’t look at the fairy, but she puts her hands in her pockets, likely holding her potion bottles, ready to throw them if the need arises. I have her potions in my pockets too, but I’m better with verbal spells, so I go through a list of the best spells for this situation, repeating them until I feel confident that they’ll come out with ease when the time comes.
At the door to the gallery, Tamara uses a key to unlock the big metal gate in front of it. Then, she hoists it up and goes to the door. There, she types a code in beside the door, and then uses another key to open the front door. Tamara had always been a bit overly cautious with security here, so it bothered me more than a little that the creepy fairy had managed to get past it all with such ease.
When we walk through the doorway, I try to ignore the fact that I don’t feel any spells wrapped around the place any longer. Those were the security measures I was most worried about triggering. Tamara had us all help with them, so it would have taken a team of us to remove them.
Or just one powerful fairy.
Usually, there’s also a small line of black salt lining the doors and windows, but when I look down, I realize the salt is gone too. That’s another thing about fairies: most of our tricks and spells don’t work on them. Probably because witches and fairies don’t typically fight or have issues. We just avoid each other. Most of our spells of protection are meant to work against vampires and demons.
“What do you think of my changes?”
I glance up and skim the walls. For a brief moment, my mouth drops open, and then I recover and shut it. How long has this fairy been pretending to be Tamara? None of this art feels like anything Tamara would create. Tamara openly admitted to being inspired by Monet. Her work has always been impressionistic. I’m no art expert, but it had mostly been landscapes, water, flowers, with swirls making up the scenes.
These paintings are… modern, abstract. Bright colors. Harsh lines. Metallic and neon weaved together to create fractal patterns, almost like the inside of seashells.
“Uh, they’re lovely,” I tell her, but my mouth feels dry.
We suck. We suck so hard. If any of us had actually been good friends, we would have come here sooner and realized something was off. This fairy might have been able to gossip with us and keep up a conversation, but its art doesn’t lie.
“I knew you’d like them!” the fairy says with a grin, folding her arms over her chest and looking at them with pride. “But I’m only beginning. By the end of the year, I plan to be famous. I plan to have my paintings in every household in the world.”
I bet it does. I bet this fairy plans to use its powers to convince people to buy its paintings, become famous, and wear Tamara’s face to get everything it wants. Asshole.
Olivia has been circling the open gallery, looking at one painting after another until she reaches the stairs. She casts me a look I understand. If the fairy has something here, it isn’t on this floor. The trap must be upstairs. As much as it feels stupid to just let ourselves fall into the fairy’s trap, we need to see this thing through. We need to know why the fairy took The Book of Death and The Crystal of Life, before it’s too late.
