Shock ripped through her brain and she hovered mid-flight. A blue bolt of energy singed her new-grown wings. She was on fire, the sharp pain knocked the breath out of her and she fell like dead weight to the ground.
Splat. Her body made a sickening noise as it met the concrete. The sound of her own shallow, panicked breath rang in her ears. But she felt the vibration beneath her body as Claribel drew closer. A pair of feet appeared, not a yard from her head. Claribel wore a pair of pink fuzzy house slippers. Skye couldn’t stop staring at them. Claribel stepped out of one slipper, then another, exposing misshapen, hairy toes on what appeared to be an impossible size two foot.
Fairy feet. Kheelan had tried to warn her. He’d been right all along. He said that when they shapeshifted to human form, the feet always gave them away. He’d even warned her that Claribel was the most logical suspect. And she’d insisted that Claribel only suffered from arthritis. What a blind fool she had been. Her eyes traveled up the pastel, printed skirt, the lacey peasant blouse, and into eyes that shone with grim malevolence.
“Fun and games are over, it’s time for a little chat.”
Skye sat up slowly. The pain ebbed to a manageable level. “Why are you killing the pixies?” she asked, her voice hoarse.
“As a war strategist for the Unseelie Fae, I find the pixies a constant, irksome enemy. The silly little creatures are always fluttering about, carrying our gossip and battle plans back to the Seelies. Most annoying.”
“They’re beautiful.” Skye defended them in a sorrowful voice. “You lure them to the absinthe and then you trap them in it.”
“My own special recipe,” Claribel said with a smug smile. “I take what the alcohol distillery sends and then I add extra wormwood and a secret blend of other herbs that the pixies find absolutely irresistible.”
“But – I thought it was Glenna. I saw a vision in the obsidian stone and her bracelet was in it.”
“Glenna?” Claribel waved a dismissive hand and then carefully sank down, sitting on the floor next to Skye. “That fake? No, she wouldn’t see a pixie if it landed on her nose and bit her. This made her useful to me. I run a profitable, very hush-hush, absinthe distribution on the side. You could say Glenna is my sales rep. Thanks to her word-of-mouth our absinthe is a very popular drink on campus.”
Skye tried to ignore the pain and concentrate on escape. At least keeping Claribel talking beat getting zapped with fairy fire. “Absinthe is legal now. Why all the secrecy?”
“Because most of my clientele are under age twenty-one. Don’t want the feds or local authorities breathing down my neck.”
Skye shook her head. “I saw Glenna put the metal tray over an open bottle of absinthe and trap the fairies. She’s more than your absinthe pimp.”
“That girl is more clueless than you. Glenna only mixes my special herbs. I tell her that they need be added to the liquor and ‘breathe’ in the alcohol overnight to make the drink more potent. She comes down the next morning and puts the tray over the bottle as the final step in a private recipe for my own consumption.”
“And she doesn’t see the dead fairies in it,” said Skye. “If this is how you trap them, they’re already dead when you get your hands on them. Khe – I mean – I thought they were tortured for information in the Fairy Wars.” Skye winced at the slip. She didn’t want to draw any attention to Kheelan and place him in danger.
Claribel nodded. “Oh, some of them are tortured all right. I peel the wings off of some, and on others I tie strings around their puny little bodies and whirl them around at dizzying speeds. They are all most happy to talk after a few hours.”
She didn’t want to ask, but had to know. “What about the ones who get trapped in the absinthe?”
Claribel obscenely smacked her lips. “I drink up their dead bodies. Pixie blood is powerful magic for the Unseelie. I had hoped you would drink some of the absinthe down here. I even provided you with the extra key when you came snooping. I would have enjoyed your reaction to my special concoction. Unfortunately, I had no idea you would find that obsidian stone. It almost gave me away.”
Nausea rumbled in Skye’s stomach. A combination of pain, flying and learning of Claribel’s carnivorous cravings. “Gross.” Did Claribel plan to kill her and then feast on her flesh?
“Don’t call me gross you disgusting half-fairy. You are only marginally above that changeling in the Fae social structure.” She laughed at Skye’s opened mouth. “Yes, I’ve seen the two of you together. It’s my business to watch all you do. But that’s not the reason I hate you.”
Skye’s mouth and lips went dry and numb. Disapproval or indifference she was used to, but hate was new territory. “Why?”