Fairy Tales (Queer Magick Book 2) Read online

  Queer Magick:

  Fairy Tales

  L.C. Davis

  Copyright © 2017 L.C. Davis

  Acknowledgments

  Licensed material is being used for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted in the licensed material is a model.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  L.C. Davis acknowledges the trademark status of all brands and copyrighted works mentioned in this work of fiction.

  Warnings: This book contains explicit male/male sexual content and action violence, intended for mature audiences only. This is the second book in a continuing serial with inclusive themes ranging from polyamory to lgbt+ sexualities & identities.

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  One

  DANIEL

  Dying sucked. Being dead sucked more.

  Before I was even old enough to give a shit about labels, I was branded a militant atheist in a town full of apathetic agnostics, so I had never given much thought to what came after death. It wasn’t like I’d ever imagined I’d be there to experience it, whatever it was. Rotting in a cold box in the ground, decaying to sludge, getting paved over so they could build a new highway through town, haunting the construction crew -- none of it mattered because I wasn’t supposed to have to deal with any of it. I had no close relatives to survive me, just a few distant aunts, uncles and cousins who occasionally hit “like” on my sporadic social media updates, so I didn’t have to worry about how they would move on.

  I’d always figured I could at least count on my best friend Nick to show up at my funeral, but even if there had been cause for such a formal occasion, I was no longer certain he would attend. Mrs. Marrin would’ve been there too. She was my former-babysitter-turned-landlady and the only other person in town who was half as cranky as I was at more than twice my age. I had never been the introspective type, but from the moment I woke up from the dead, I found myself giving way too much thought to the theoretical turnout of a funeral that was never even going to happen.

  Dead people got funerals. Zombies didn’t.

  Holden was still using euphemisms like “undead” and “life challenged,” but Nick knew what I really was. He wouldn’t say the word to my face--he rarely said anything to me those days other than a noncommittal grunt or a half-hearted acknowledgement when Holden dragged us all out in an attempt to make me feel normal--but at least I could count on him to be honest. It was one of the things I loved most about him.

  Or maybe he just didn’t care enough about me anymore to sugarcoat the truth.

  As I sat on an empty stool in an empty bar, I occupied myself by sipping flat beer and trying to come up with reasons why Nick had asked to see me that night. Alone. Namely, without Holden.

  It was a rare occasion that Nick went anywhere without the witch if he didn’t have to. Locke said it was because he’d imprinted, and he was probably right. As far as I could tell, the process wasn’t entirely unlike a baby duck seeing its parent for the first time, only instead of an adorable devoted hatchling, Holden had gained himself a massive hellbeast that followed him around like a horrible puppy, ready to chomp and slash anything that looked twice at him. Anything including me, if I ever had the misfortune of ending up on the witch’s bad side.

  That was what Locke had told me, at any rate. I didn’t doubt it. That was the problem with demons -- they were masters of deception, but they never really lied. Twisting the truth was just a hell of a lot more dangerous than a blatant falsehood. In this case, as much as I didn’t want to believe it would be that easy for sixteen years of friendship to go down the drain because of someone Nick had known for less than a year, I believed him. After all, Nick’s brother was dead because of Nick’s loyalty to Holden. I still suspected that Locke had orchestrated the events of my death and Brent’s to force Nick’s hand, and I couldn’t judge him for the choice he’d made, given Brent’s actions, but that was his brother. His flesh and blood. Knowing how Nick and the rest of his family felt about things like me, knowing how little discretion Nick used when it came to taking out anything he saw as a threat to Holden, I counted myself lucky that Nick hadn’t sliced me up on the spot the moment he’d realized I was back from the dead.

  Yeah. Lucky.

  I glanced at the clock on my phone and did a halfway decent job of telling myself I wasn’t hoping I’d missed a call or text from Nick. Depending on what it was that he wanted to talk about, getting stood up might be yet another lucky break. Delusion was a hell of a drug, but the logic sectors of my brain hadn’t eroded enough in the week I’d been without Locke’s Magic Elixir--which was almost certainly human brain matter blended and distilled into a somewhat palatable form--to think that Nick had invited me out just so we could catch up. He wanted something, and those days, everything he wanted had to do with Holden, whom I most definitely wasn’t absurdly, blindingly jealous of.

  Sure, Holden was dating the guy I’d been in unrequited love with for years, the guy I’d never even bothered to try to get with because one, he had been Brent’s kid brother long before he became my best friend and that was just weird, and two, he was unflinchingly, unquestionably straight. The guy ate pussy like there was a two-for-one sale and it was about to go out of production the very next day. I knew this because I had done everything I could over the years to avoid giving him the slightest clue about my feelings in fear of making things weird, and because I was bi, I was a magnet for boasts about sexual conquests.

  And then there was Holden. The kid wasn’t exactly the patriarchal standard of masculinity, but he was still a guy and their relationship was anything but heteronormative. Hell, it wasn’t even exclusive. As far as I knew, Holden was still unofficially dating Dennis Mills, my frenemy turned lover turned worst nightmare a la Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, which also bothered me. Not as much as it bothered me that he was with Nick, but still.

  I couldn’t even indulge in the all-American pastime of silent resentment when it came to Holden because I liked him. Not in the same way he seemed to like every guy in Stillwater I’d so much as ever had a wet dream about, but I liked him enough that I couldn’t even hate him for being the reason I was back in the land of the living, leading an afterlife I’d never even contemplated the existence of to any notable degree.

  “Well, this is pathetic.”

  My spine went stiff at the sound of that smooth, polished voice that used the same intonations of its original owner to an entirely different effect. There was just a hint of an accent that hadn’t been there before, too. It wasn’t enough of a change that anyone else had noticed, and I knew if I called it to anyone’s attention the way I had in the days after they had given up the search for Jessica’s body, they would just look at me That Way. The way that said, “Oh, poor Daniel. First he wasn’t straight, then his mom and dad died i
n a tragic car crash, and now he’s finally cracked under the pressure of being all alone in the world.”

  I turned halfway around on my stool and came so fucking close to blocking him from taking the stool next to me, but I didn’t. He was a member of the oh-so-dignified Town Council now and he could probably slap me with a citation of some kind if he wanted to. People had gone from barely even bothering to save their gossip until his back was turned to kissing his ass in record time, even for a town like Stillwater, where our mayor was directly related to everyone with a badge or a formal title.

  “I’m expecting someone,” I said gruffly.

  “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I think you’ve been stood up.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  Dennis shrugged out of his blazer and looked pointedly at the empty mugs in front of me. “It’s around nine o’clock on a Sunday night and you’re on your seventh beer. It’s a safe bet.”

  “Thanks for the assessment, Matlock.”

  Dennis propped his head on his elbow and watched me, amusement glinting in the blue eyes I only ever looked into when I had to. They had changed too much to belong to the real Dennis, who I’d known my entire life. His emotional range had never extended beyond malice at the one end and casual contentment at the other. He was different now, but tonight of all nights, I didn’t need the reminder that some pod person was wearing the guy I’d lost my virginity to like a flesh suit.

  “Do you actually know how a court works or do you just think it’s like the legal equivalent of a one-stop convenience shop?” he asked curiously.

  “Honestly, Mills, I don’t really give a shit what you do inside or out of the courtroom.” I couldn’t bring myself to call him by his name.

  “Is that why you spent most of last Fall contesting my run for Council?”

  He had me there. ”What do you want?”

  “I came in for a drink, but now I’m concerned.”

  I laughed into the seventh beer he’d so kindly pointed out before gulping it down. Unless I chugged it or drank immediately after having one of Locke’s signature blend shakes, alcohol in small doses did little to ease the sting of my self-pity. “That’s funny. You know, your act’s pretty good, but if you wanted it to be perfect, you should’ve left off the sense of humor. The original didn’t have one.”

  His expression fell. Ever since that day I’d confronted him in his office, the moment I had come so close to getting the truth out of him and sacrificed it for the sake of lust, Dennis had been as opaque as ever about his mysterious past. I’d given up on trying to corner him. I’d given up on a lot of things I just didn’t have the energy to care about anymore, and the longer I avoided Locke and thus went without eating, the more my own emotional range seemed to shrink.

  “I’m serious, Daniel. You haven’t been yourself since you forfeited the election and it’s not like you to give up on something. God knows you’re like a dog with a bone,” he muttered, sipping the scotch the bartender placed in front of him.

  “And you supposedly hate scotch,” I shot back.

  “I’m sorry, was that supposed to be a witty retort?”

  “Just forget it. And forget me, while you’re at it.”

  “You’re drunk.” Dennis paused, sniffing the air near me and wrinkling his nose. “You smell like you were born in a pub. A dirty pub.”

  “Fuck off, Mills,” I growled, rummaging through my wallet for a handful of cash so I could get the hell out of there. I didn’t bother counting it out. I wasn’t especially well-off after shutting down my clinic for a full month, but I didn’t trust myself to stay calm. Especially not around him.

  “For once, I wasn’t trying to insult you,” said Dennis, hastily paying his tab before catching up with me at the door. “As much as I enjoy our lively banter, I’m not interested in kicking a man while he’s down.”

  “No, you prefer doing that to women,” I said bitterly, pulling up my collar. It was spring, but there was a chill in the air. Or maybe it was just me.

  Dennis fell silent and I hoped I’d lost him, but all of a sudden, he was right in front of me, an unreadable look in his eyes.

  No, not unreadable. It was just a look that told a story I didn’t have the stomach for. I didn’t want to believe he was capable of being hurt, if only because that would all but prove that he wasn’t my Dennis. That the man I had loved -- despite all my common sense and all the people who had warned me not to -- was really and truly gone and I hadn’t even gotten the chance to bury him. That his death, just like mine, was one that no one would ever mourn.

  “You know I didn’t kill Jessica. Not… me.” His voice was steady but thin with anger. Anger I could handle, it was the indignation lacing his tone that I took issue with. “You might be the only one who knows it, but deep down, you know I’d never do something like that. Not to her, not to someone innocent.”

  “Does it matter?” I asked, trying to shake the sincerity in his words. Maybe I really was drunk. “Why do you give a shit what I think when everyone else in town is more than willing to move on whether you’re a killer or not?” I brushed past him and he grabbed my hand. It took all I had to quiet the growl rumbling in my chest. It helped that a storm was approaching and the sky was alive with its own snarls. I intended to be at home by the time the rain hit, passed out on the couch with a bottle of whiskey that had my name on it now that I had a decent buzz going.

  “Because you’re not everyone else in town,” he said sharply. Desperately. “You’re...you’re different. You know me better than anyone.”

  “Do I?” I challenged, shirking out of his grasp. “Do I, Mills?”

  “Why don’t you ever say my name?” he asked, watching me carefully. Closely. Why did he have to be wearing gray? It was a different make, a different fabric, but when he wore that suit, he looked so similar to the way the real Dennis had the night of our senior prom. Second-worst night of my life, and one I couldn’t forget. One I’d never really tried to.

  “Because it’s not yours. It’s not your fucking name and you’ve taken everything else from him. I won’t let you have that, too.”

  I waited for him to deny it like he had every time I’d confronted him, but he didn’t. For what felt like minutes, he just stared at me and the lightning flashed, silhouetting him perfectly.

  “Why did you love him?”

  It was a simple question, one I’d asked myself a thousand times. But it wasn’t one I’d ever expected to hear from him. On the imposter’s lips, it was as good as a confession, even if it wasn’t one that would ever hold up in court.

  “That’s none of your fucking business, is it?”

  “Please.” His brows knitted as he watched me. “I know it’s a strange question, but I’m not screwing with you. I just want to know.”

  “Why?” I asked, mildly disgusted by this rare moment of genuineness. Fascinated by it. I’d never seen him like this.

  He shook his head slowly. “I couldn’t say why I want to know, if we’re being honest. I just do.”

  “If we’re being honest,” I said, taking a step closer, “I couldn’t say, either. Maybe it’s because I hated him for so long that I reached my limit and all the excess hatred turned into something else. Maybe I was just a pathetic, horny idiot who blurred the lines between sex and love, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Either way, I loved him, and you…” My voice broke and my fist clenched at my side. I was so close to fucking up, so close to setting off the hair trigger my life or whatever there was left of it was resting on. Love and hate, rage and lust, they were all hopelessly blurred when it came to Dennis and I was too drunk to distinguish between the imitation and the real thing. “You took him from me.”

  I swung out before I could even think of hitting him and I missed. Of course I missed. I lost my balance, my limbs stiff and cold and dead from my self-inflicted starvation and I pitched forward, nearly hitting the pavement. He caught me, stronger than he should’ve been. Faster. I looked into
his eyes and he looked back at me, pitying.

  God, I hated him.

  He held me, his hands gripping my shoulders, keeping me upright. He draped my left arm around his shoulders and started leading me across the street toward my building. “Let’s get you inside. Storm’s coming.”

  I said nothing. What could I say, anyway? I’d hit an all-time low if the fake Dennis Mills was taking pity on me, having to drag my sorry ass home. I wasn’t drunk enough to excuse this shit, just enough to give in to the exhaustion and the hunger and the wallowing self-pity that had plagued me for months, and even the buzz was fading.

  He reached into my pocket and pulled out my keys to unlock the door despite my grumbling protests that I was fine and I didn’t need him and he could fuck off back to whatever hole in hell he’d crawled out from.

  “Down you go,” he said, easing me onto the sofa.

  “Wait,” I growled, my voice so guttural it barely sounded human as I grabbed him by the perfectly pressed collar.

  He looked down at me, his usual patient, unflappable self once again. “What is it, Daniel?”

  It was a lot of things. It was adoration that had been rotting at the bottom of my heart for so long that it had become hatred. It was indignation that he’d had the balls to ask me a question like that, and it was the desperate need to come up with something, anything, just to get him to stay. Just another second, another minute, another lifetime to indulge in the same delusion the rest of the town had bought so easily.

  In the end, I came up with nothing, so I kissed him clumsily and immediately regretted it. Not because it was a bad kiss or because he didn’t return it at first, but because I knew the moment my lips met his that I had been lying to myself when I swore I had stopped loving this man when he became someone else.

  God, I was sick. He returned it, hesitantly at first, then aggressively, like he had no fear of catching whatever malady of the soul had turned me into this pathetic, desperate monster. I had kissed him twice now--the new him--and if not for any other reason, I would have known the difference from the way they kissed. My Dennis had always been coolly responsive at best, as if he was just making out with me to pass the time. Knowing him, I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that had been the case every damn time. The man on top of me, the one digging his fingers into my hair and forcing his tongue into my mouth, was almost aggressive in his lust, and while I knew that aggression was born of the antipathy we felt for each other rather than any form of love, it was something and it made me feel something.