Page 1 of Demon Queen
one
. . .
In my shop, ‘Candy Kingdom,’the central display was in honor of the duchess. Rather, itwasthe duchess. All the different varieties of edible cake were behind glass up at the counter, but before you got there, you were met with a fifteen foot sculpture of cake and icing that looked absolutely delicious, even if it was mostly inedible. Children wouldn’t be able to help licking the drizzled frosting frozen in a glorious cascade down the side of the marzipan and ruffled chocolate skirt. I’d spent weeks on it in the kitchen. This wasn’t a cake shop. No, this was a candy store,thecandy store in the Midwest, sure to carry absolutely everything your heart desired. I was collaborating with a bakery in town for this month’s special.
“Let them eat cake?” Roberta asked, cocking her hip and nodding at the display. “How did you make her dress so sparkly?” The giant likeness of the duchess clothed in cake was fifteen feet of deliciousness and took up the central open area of the shop. I’d outdone myself, if I didn’t say so myself. Which I did, which was fine. Talking to myself was the best way to find approval in a world full of critics.
“I used spun sugar on the top. It should last as long as the collab.”
My manager gave me a sharp glance with her brown eyes. She was far more beautiful than me, but she’d refused to play the part of Marie Antoinette, citing philosophical differences. I’d be thoroughly hating corsets at the end of this run. “And the reason the great baker Maurice is working with you wouldn’t have anything to do with his personal interest in your sweet talents?”
I frowned at a sugar spun ruffled flounce instead of answering right away. The last few times I’d met with the excellent baker had been slightly awkward. I was the Candy Queen, popular with locals, but he’d had his own baking show on national television a few years back before he quit to focus on his real work, creating art in pastry. When he’d approached me about working together on a project, I’d been flattered. I mean, he was a real chef. I was just a college drop-out with a serious case of the home-bodies. My shop was my home, the only place where I was safe, and he’d started asking me to leave my world and live a little. Out there. Would dinner in a nice restaurant kill me? Statistically speaking, no, but odds had never favored me.
So while it had been incredible to work with someone so talented, kind, and frankly gorgeous, I was ready for the next season. Halloween was always my favorite. After a month and a half the duchess would come down from beneath her spinning glass globes with their sparkling flames, but in the meantime I’d be channeling graveyards and skeletons in the kitchen.
“Maurice is awfully handsome,” she said, like my silence was a request for her to keep talking about it.
“Awfully.”
“And he’s a brilliant businessman. He could definitely help the Candy Kingdom get to the next level.”
She was a brilliant businesswoman. I didn’t need anyone else to push me into taking that next step, not when it was soimpossible. I didn’t want a chain of Candy Kingdoms. I’d started the shop twelve years ago and had enough success that I’d been able to expand into the two neighboring stores, expanding my magical kingdom with even more outrageous displays along with the storage to keep the off season stuff in. That was enough for me, particularly when too much fame and publicity might get the attention of the man I’d stolen three-quarter of a million dollars from, the father of my baby.
I patted Roberta’s arm, covered in edible bracelets. “That does sound exciting. I’ve got to get dressed for the big opening. I’ll plug in once everything is ready. Can you check in the technical staff?”
She gave me a stiff smile. “Of course. That is what you pay me for. I’ll get the wait staff set up in the tea room too while you don the duchess.”
“You’re the best!” I beamed at her and then hurried past the counters that circled the room, through the enormous kitchen that was perfectly tidy for the first time in months. Crafting the duchess statue had been a serious stretch to my talents and the confines of my kitchen.
I slipped through the door to the hall with the small circular staircase that went up to the attic, the room that stretched across the entire shop where I lived amidst the racks and shelves filled with costumes from the last twelve years of my life as Candy Queen. I’d started with the costumes to help my precious bundle of winged adorableness blend in. If we were fairies, no one called my sweet baby a freak, or a demon, or… Anyway, we’d gone through a great many natural and mythical creatures his first three years until he’d been stolen.
My heart lurched and I shook my head and refocused on my face paint. I’d gotten much, much better over the years at makeup, drama, crafts, and business in general. I couldn’t startthinking about the past when I had to put on a show tonight. My phone buzzed as I glued a black beauty mark on my cheek.
I checked it and then hurriedly answered it with shaking hands when I saw who it was from. My foster sister, Catharine, who worked for a detective agency. I’d been one of her first clients, back when she’d been a police officer. I still paid her to search for my missing child. I’d had other detectives over the years, but no one else had been willing to keep searching for something so impossible.
“Hello? Any news?” I asked, clicking on speaker so I could continue with my false eyelashes while we chatted. She could just be calling about general news, politics, the weather.
“Actually, yeah,” she said in a quiet voice. She always had a quiet voice, like she was trying to go unnoticed.
I stopped breathing. She had something about my precious Wilkie? There’d been two false leads in the past twelve years, but now she actually had something?
“Breathe. I know you have a big opening tonight, but I thought you’d want to know right away that I might have found something about Wilkie.”
I gasped a breath and gripped my phone, staring at my reflection, the big eyes filling with tears holding all kinds of emotions, joy, agony, hope, and fear that all my hopes would be dashed. “Yes. Can you meet me tonight after the opening? I can cut it short.”
She warned, “It’s probably not him. You have to realize that. I think I found someone who fits his description here, in the city at a fight club, but it’s not the kind of place you can just walk into. You’re going to need someone to back you up, and you know that the odds of him being the same person are incredibly small.”
A fight club at age twelve? That didn’t sound likely. My heart sank. She was right. I shouldn’t get my hopes up when they werebound to be dashed. I nodded my head like she could see me. “I know. The odds get worse every day, but we’ll go and see. You’re a detective. You can come with me.”
“Not this place. You know, I’ve run into some seriously weird stuff in the last decade, but this club is next level.”
“What are you saying? Is it like slavery, or some kind of…” Panic started rising in my chest. There was nothing worse than helplessly searching for your child, always wondering about the different ways he was suffering with no way to do anything about it. He’d been taken when he was three, so for nine long years, I’d been waiting, searching, drying up one avenue after the other.
“Have you been in touch with Honey?” she asked.
Honey had been one of our foster sisters, the one who had to teach everyone how to spar so she had someone to practice with. I’d made her dance with me, to pretend to be the guy so I could actually get the chance to do couple dancing, and in exchange, I’d learned how to be an adequate sparring partner. The self-defense she’d taught me was a long time ago.
“No, I haven’t seen Honey for years. I heard that she got married.”
