The Princess and the Bootlegger

Celine stood glaring at Kade while he rubbed his hand.

“I have a show to do,” she said irritably. “People are going to notice if I’m not there.”

“Look, there are werewolves waiting for you. From MacIntosh’s pack.”

“What for, and how do you know that?”

“Can we please just go somewhere else to talk about this? Before they see us, or smell us, or whatever.”

Celine heaved a sigh. “Fine. Hang on a second. Jinxie, can you do me a favor?”

“Who are you talking to-what the hell is that?”

Kade stepped back from her as Jinxie’s tiny form fluttered up out of her purse. She glared at Kade, then addressed the bat.

“Jinxie, can you sneak inside and let Emile know that something has come up and I can’t make the show? Have him find Christophe and tell him I’m…sick.”

“Can you even get sick?” Kade asked.

“I’m sick of you,” Celine retorted. “Then come find me again, at the diner across town.”

“Sure thing, Celine.” The little bat nuzzled her cheek, making her giggle. Then he fluttered away, seeming to instantly vanish in the darkness.

“You carry around a talking bat?”

“Shut up and walk, Kade. I want an explanation.”

When they were seated somewhere quiet, tucked into a shadowy corner booth, Celine gave him a hard stare. “What’s going on?”

“The wolves, they uh…they think you were in on Brutus’s murder.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I guess someone saw you coming to see me. And since they’re dumb enough to think I did it, now they think you had something to do with it.”

“No good deed,” Celine complained. “I go out of my way to save one obnoxious human-“

“Hey, sitting right here.”

“-and now those stupid dogs think they can just kill me?” Celine scoffed. She drummed her fingers on the tabletop. She paused and looked at Kade, narrowing her eyes slightly. “Why did you come tell me this? Shouldn’t you be packed up and have split town by now?”

“You warned me, I figured fair was fair.”

Celine spotted Jinxie at the window and went to let him inside. He nestled on her hand as she sat back down and offered him a tiny packet of sugar.

“You really should leave town,” Celine said. “If they catch you, they will turn you into kibble.”

“I don’t see you in any rush to leave town,” he pointed out.

“I’m not a human. Besides, Christophe would lose his mind if he knew about this. I’m good for business, he’s not going to want my head torn off by a pack of wild hyenas.”

“Well, I didn’t kill anybody and I’m not going to run away like I did.”

“Bold words.” Celine huffed daintily. “Well, I don’t know if I want to tell Christophe just yet. He will send an army down on them and have the entire pack strung up their tails. They’re a bunch of morons, but I’m not sure stupidity warrants a death sentence. But I still need to get to the bottom of this, and I can’t do that if I’m dead.”

“You don’t trust our elves in uniform?” Kade asked.

“What, those glowing peacocks who probably spend more time neatly pressing their uniforms than solving crimes?” Celine scoffed and Kade looked almost amused.

“We’ll have to just…lay low someplace until we can figure something out,” she went on. “Something really weird is going on. Brutus had no defensive wounds on his body. He had scraped knuckles, like he’d lashed out and hit the brick wall, or maybe scraped it on the ground when he fell. I mean Brutus MacIntosh, not fighting back?” She shook her head. “This didn’t look like some run of the mill wolf fight. This was more like…an execution. It was brutal. Some of his teeth were missing from the sheer force of the wire.”

Kade was grimacing. “Okay, I think I get the point.”

“When the sun comes up, I need to go back to my apartment and get some things.”

“What for?”

Celine gave him an annoyed look. “What am I going to do, walk around everywhere in this? That’d be really inconspicuous.” She gestured to the dress under her coat, which was emerald green, glittery, and very low cut. Kade shrugged.

“I don’t mind it,” he said and Celine stepped on his foot under the table, making him wince slightly. She sent Jinxie to keep a lookout, and he returned to report that there were currently no wolves sniffing around her place. Celine zipped up the stairs, leaving a startled Kade standing alone at the bottom.

“I forgot you could move that fast,” he muttered when he finally caught up to her. She tossed some essentials in a small travel bag; lipstick, her favorite perfume, a hairbrush. Then she picked some outfits at random and stuck them in a big suitcase. She brought Jinxie’s little bed, and grabbed a silver locket off her nightstand. It was a small oval with a sapphire mounted in the middle.

“You came back here for a necklace?” Kade asked, watching her put it on.

“It was my mother’s, and I’m not going anywhere without it.”

“Okay, okay. Let’s just go, already.”

“We’ll go to Golden Laurels,” Celine said, her mind ticking as they walked. “That’s a hotel over in the fairy district and wolves prefer to avoid that area. They’re not so likely to have informants there and it should be a little easier to fly under the radar for a little while. At some point when it’s safe, we can take Jinxie to your place so you can get whatever you need.”

She strode swiftly up the street, having to slow down eventually when she realized she was so lost in thought she’d been walking too fast. Golden Laurels was true to its name, with plants and the color gold all over the place. Kade looked around.

“I think if I stare directly at that wall for too long I’ll go blind,” he remarked. Celine rolled her eyes and slipped a pair of sunglasses on to better hide her face. The fairies tended to party in their own area for the most part, but someone still might recognize her. She dragged a still gawking Kade to the front desk.

“And your names?” the sprite attendant asked cheerfully. Kade replied before Celine could open her mouth.

“This is Sugar Del Rey, and I’m Maximillian van Wyler.”

“We have a suite available.” The sprite said in her tinkly voice.

Fuming, Celine waited until they’d reached the stairs and were out of sight of the attendant. Then she shoved him, making him stumble and have to grab the rail to keep from falling.

“What? Come on, Sugar, it’s a great name,” he laughed.

“You are such an idiot,” Celine griped. “Why did I save your life?”

To make matters worse, the “suite” in question, while quite large and full of fancy furniture and silk sheets, only had one giant four posted bed.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Celine groaned. Kade went over and flopped across the bed most ungracefully.

“Wow. This bed is comfortable. I’ve never slept on silk sheets before.”

“You won’t now, either. You can take that little loveseat over there.”

“Oh come on, I’m way too tall for that thing. Besides, what do you need a bed for? Don’t you sleep hanging upside down from the ceiling?”

He let out a startled “oomph” as Celine grabbed the pillow he was lying on and smacked him with it.

“Okay, that one actually mildly hurt. Got it, you don’t like bat jokes.”

Celine threw the pillow back on the bed and stalked away across the room. “I should’ve just taken my chances with the werewolves.”