Back at the safe house, I took note that no one else was awake. Corb, Sarge, and Feish were still in their rooms.
“Thank you, Kink,” I said to the now incredibly grumpy fairy. I made a small hot chocolate with extra sugar and pushed it toward her. “Drink up, you deserve it.”
“Oh, you are my favorite,” she breathed out, and then all but inhaled the entire mug. Impressive since it stood half as tall as her. She stumbled to one knee and I held out my hand.
“Maybe you should sleep it off?”
“Shgood ideash.” She mumbled and slumped in my hand. I took her up to the bedroom I’d claimed and laid her on the pillow. Obviously, I’d planned it like that. Not that I didn’t want her to know what we were talking about, but I was taking Penny’s words to heart. Maybe . . .just maybe my friends might be pulled in other directions. And given that another fairy was looking for the wings of the fallen angel . . .
Down on the main floor, I found Penny waiting for me, a large leather bound book in her lap. “What was a fairy doing looking for the wings of a fallen angel?” she mumbled to herself as she slowly flipped through it.
My question exactly.
“You said some spells have a lot of the same ingredients, right?”
She nodded. “But the two we know of, the blood of a bigfoot and wings of a fallen angel, help narrow it down. Still, I don’t think the one Celia knew about was written down in any of these.” She tapped the book in her lap. “I’d bet she spread out what she knew in several places, only places that made sense to her. To keep it as safe as possible.”
That made sense. “And they’d be numbered.” I thought of the 3 etched onto that one slip of paper. Third stanza maybe? I shook my head and focused on the moment again.
“You think the fairy queen might want the same spell as . . . whoever took Gran?” My brain hurt from trying to put those pieces together.
“No, no I don’t,” she said. “Karissa is not evil, but she is controlling. It’s why she doesn’t like cats.” I snorted and Penny went on. “I’m not sure what Karissa’s trying to do, but from what I’ve seen, the options range from a healing spell, to a spell of protection, to a spell to give a fairy back their wings.”
That last one seemed to make the most sense. Scarlet’s words about Crash rang in my head, reverberating. “Any sort of controlling spells attached to angel wings?”
Penny shook her head, but she took my question differently than intended. “Nothing like the tonton macoutes.”
I was quiet as I mulled over what we’d learned. Where Gran, my parents, and Alan had been killed. What they’d been killed by. I rubbed my face. “I guess it doesn’t really matter why the fae are looking for the wings, unless they are working for the person who has the tonton macoutes?”
“That is unlikely,” Penny said. “The tonton macoutes will be controlled by a very dark person. I doubt such a person would even think to reach out to Karissa.”
That was good, I guess.
She looked me over. “You haven’t slept. You should try to get at least some rest.”
Penny was not wrong. I was exhausted. But I didn’t want to go up to my bedroom. It wasn’t really mine and I couldn’t bear to look at Gran’s stuff right then. “I’m good here.” I stretched out on the couch and pulled a loose throw over me. Good enough. My eyes closed, and I heard her leave, listening to her steps as she slowly made her way up the stairs.
I lay there a long time, thinking I would just drift off. I felt Alan drift away, felt him go upstairs. Weird. I didn’t like that I was even more tied to him.
I might have dozed, but I found myself jerking awake every few minutes, the sting in my shoulder irritating me. That leather whip score was nasty.
Sleep was avoiding me, so I thought I might as well do something productive. I got up, retrieved my hip bag from the room upstairs, putting the files on the three murders away, then returned to the sofa to study Gran’s big spell book as well as the smaller book of curses.
The book of curses flipped itself open again, showing the same