Page 1 of Goblin Candy

PROLOGUE

Nothing in the world is sweeter than candy. The fae world doesn’t have it. A bunch of boring stiffs who rarely bother to bring in anything fun into their world, if you ask me. Unless a human barges their way in. Some species are more blessed than others, the orcs doubly so, and so I find myself spending as much time there as possible, eating pastries and drinking myself into insanity with coffee. The caffeine highs are splendid indeed.

But then I thought to myself,Why not just get it from the source?I’ve been to the human world before. Granted, I’ve followed my unicorn friend around quite often recently, but I believe I have earned myself a vacation. Why not make a trip of it? I can stuff myself full of all the sweet things that catch my eye.

Who knows? I might even decide to stay.

CHAPTER1

CANDY

Halloween is my favorite holiday. The winter holidays are nice with all their warm merriment, but nothing can beat the sheer ridiculousness and fun of Halloween. Of course, when it comes to ridiculousness, I may go a little over the top. But what can one expect from someone who lives and breathes spooky mayhem? If my impressive collection of horror movies that I watch all year round doesn’t say it, then the gothic-occult décor should give anyone who knows me a clue.

My boyfriend, Kyle, wasn’t too impressed with my enthusiasm, that’s for sure. He didn’t mind a party where he could expect me to stuff myself into a sexy monster costume, but apparently having a schedule of events for the week was too much. As were all my other interests, aside from the witchy-goth aesthetic that invaded everything from my sense of music and movies to the ASMR Victorian rainstorms that put me to sleep at night.

Kid stuff, he said. After dealing with my tastes for a few months, it was too much for him. He needed a break. Just until after I got the Halloween stuff out of my system for the year. As if that’s even possible. Has he been asleep all this time and not noticed that this is just a part of who I am? Or maybe he was able to ignore it when we got together a few months ago, when dating a girl in a black mini vamp dress and fishnets and boots made to stomp assholes into the ground stirred some kink of his to life. I guess he assumed that because I’m thirty-five that it was just a phase.

Well, good riddance.

Sure, being dumped stung a couple of weeks ago, but at least I don’t have some Halloween Scrooge rolling his eyes at everything I do. That is a thing, right? If it’s not, then it should be. I want to see what three ghosts of Halloween would come after his ass. I hope one of them is a zombie that would take a chunk out of him.

Just like this year’s costume.

I grin to myself as I apply the last bit of makeup to my face. I have become a work of art. A decaying dark fairy zombie work of art for the first day of my Halloween fun schedule—the Zombie Walk. I look forward to it every year, and every year I go all out to make myself look as sexy and gruesome as possible. Because being sexy is great but being horrifying at the same time is even better.

Unless you just happen to have that kink.

“Fuck, Candy, that’s perfect!” Lottie breathes as she leans forward to get a better look at me in the mirror. She clasps my shoulders and squeezes as she squeals. “This is going to be fucking awesome!”

My smile widens at our reflection. Compared to my sinister fairy appearance, she’s all pink lace and frills except that they are trimmed in black, and she has loops of necklaces around her neck strung with teeth. Those damn foam teeth took us days to make for her to be a demented zombie tooth fairy costume, but I’m thrilled that we decided to do matching costumes. We both look awesome with our skin peeling away to reveal tissue and bone underneath it.

No one would guess that beneath all that paint is a quiet librarian who had the dubious luck of befriending me and finding a kindred spirit when I moved into the area. She has zero interest in the goth subculture, and I ended up practically prying her out of the library and her little apartment above mine, but our mutual interest in the occult and folklore has become the crazy glue of our friendship.

In retrospect, I suppose the fact that I had absolutely nothing in common with Kyle, other than an appreciation for how cute he was, had been the writing on the wall. It’s not like I’m incapable of bonding with someone who is not part of the same aesthetic and lifestyle.

As my dear Nonna used to say, it takes both salt and sugar to make a cookie.

“You look deliciously horrifying too. In fact, I’m pretty sure that whole look is enough to turn this zombie walk into a zombie run once you have to start beating back the boys.” I turn away from the mirror and wink playfully as I stand, tugging the ragged ends of my barely-there black costume into place.

She shakes her head at me, but I catch the way her lips curve in delight as she follows me out of my room. What’s visible of her lips anyway, since we painted her face to resemble more skull and less artfully torn flesh—a look suitable for a being who belongs to a subdivision of bone fairies. At least in my opinion. Though we have many interactions with the fae beings who have crossed into our world, the various types of fairies have mercifully kept to their world as far as anyone knows, so I have no idea what a bone fairy would even look like.

Not that I’m complaining. I might enjoy the chill I get thinking about them but I’m also not an idiot who is eager to play with dangerous fairies. My fascination with the occult, witchcraft and unseen worlds ends exactly where it threatens my life. And fairies are at the top of that particular list.

Of course, given the curious looks we receive when we arrive at the Zombie Walk twenty minutes later, I’m guessing that our scare factor is going over many heads. It’s a pity, but I don’t let it bother as I grin at the spectacle of zombies in front of me. Lottie gives the gathering crowd an anxious look, but she smiles with the same eagerness I feel as I come up beside her. I tease her by bumping her with my hip as I give the crowd an approving look.

“Hell yeah, look at this turnout,” I enthuse, my smile broadening with excitement. “Everywhere you look are the walking dead. Aww, even a mom and baby duo!”

I wave to a familiar face—when not peeling and bloody all over the place—pushing a stroller with an impish one-year-old painted gray with dabs of blood around the drawn-on stitched wounds.

“Hey, Cass, how’s it going?” I shout.

She grins and strolls over, parking the baby right beside me as her hands go to her back to stretch. “Better this year now that I’m not trying to lug this one around in a baby carrier.”

I wiggled my fingers at baby Wendy, who starts gnawing on a ragdoll. I give her an approving thumbs up. That’s the spirit. “Where’s the hubby?”

Cass laughs. “Where do you think?” She jerks her thumb in the direction of the vendor stalls. “He’s getting T-shirts for us to commemorate the event.”

Lottie’s eyebrows raise. “Don’t you do this every year?”

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