A pair of high-pitched shrieks stalled his question about what she needed bravery for. The squeals of terror—if that's what they were—seemed to come from the direction of Zoe's purse. Alex couldn't turn very far with his c**k still lodged soft and cozy inside her pu**y. Reluctant to lose his mooring, if not to admit that he was, he craned around as well as he could. Corky's pointy white-tipped tail was sticking out between the handbag's handles. Thought it was twitching unhappily, Alex didn't think that squeal was a sound a kitten could have produced.
"What the hell was that?" he asked.
Zoe covered her mouth. "I think it must have been my fairies."
"Your fairies are here? While I am, too?"
This had never happened in all the time he'd known her. In truth, her fairies avoided him so well that Alex wasn't completely sure they were real. His heart pounded harder at the possibility that they were.
"They like Corky," Zoe said, her fingers still to her lips.
"They must like him a lot."
To his amazement, two fat tears rolled from Zoe's eyes.
"Hey," he said, cupping her face again. "I don't think you have to cry about that."
"I'm not," she said in a wobbly voice.
Alex's heart began to break for reasons he couldn't name. "Zoe, it's all right," he said, gently stroking her cheeks. "We had sex. Okay, we had a lot of sex, but it doesn't have to mean any more than that. Not if you don't want it to."
Zoe swiped her forearm across her eyes. "Right. It means whatever we say it does."
"Exactly." His attention narrowed on a spot behind her na**d shoulder. "Well. That's different."
"What is?" she asked, having the same trouble turning that he'd had.
"The falls appear to be blowing bubbles."
He saw at least a dozen bobbing in the turbulent air above the fall's green pool—big rainbow-slicked spheres with what looked like oily black smoke curling inside them. He'd seen street performers blow this kind of thing at fairs, but he'd never felt like he wanted to get away from them.
"Hm," he said, unable to push his instinctive aversion off. "Maybe you ought to put your shirt back on."
He helped her rise, wanting to be gentle but wanting to hurry, too. He winced as his penis lost her body's warmth, then pulled off the rubber with a muffled curse.
It was probably his imagination, but three bubbles looked like they were breaking off from the others to drift toward Alex and Zoe—which was impossible when he thought about it, because wasn't the breeze blowing in the opposite direction?
"Here," he said, struggling to free the blanket from under their feet. "If someone's coming, you should wear this."
He was too late. The damn bubbles sped up as if they knew he was trying to shield her. Two burst on her shoulder before he could pull her behind him.
"Ugh," said Zoe as a third actually followed her around him and burst in her face. The smoke clung to her skin for a second, like a ghostly squid had latched onto her. Then—hard as it was to credit—the smoke seemed to disappear into her pores. Zoe scrubbed at her face with the shirt he'd finally handed her.
"Doesn't that figure," she said in a disgusted tone. "Someone blows a bubble full of nastiness, and it breaks on me. My life is just too crappy for words!"
"Of course it's not," Alex said, amazed to hear her speak this way.
Zoe's mouth twisted. "It's true. The world is a dark, dark place. Full of liars and disappointment. Full of more crap than any person should have to take. I don't know why I didn't see it before. I must have been too stupid, too weak and stupid to face the truth. Nobody can help us. Not angels. Not fairies. Assuming they weren't some delusion I made up. Anyway, they don't care. They're hiding in my freaking purse. We're stuck out here in the crap pile all by ourselves."
"Zoe!" Alex said in shock, gripping her shoulders in the hope of shaking her out of whatever strange fit this was. "You know you don't believe that. You always look on the bright side!"
"Puke the bright side," she said.
Alex was trying to get beyond a wordless stammer when every hair on his nape stood up.
It's time to come home, son, said a voice that ran into his ears like acid.
Alex spun in a circle to see where the speaker was, but everywhere and nowhere was the best he could guess. Even Zoe's purse, which was now wriggling in a truly disturbing fashion, didn't seem to be the source of the sound.
"Did you hear that?" he asked Zoe, goose bumps chasing across his skin. "It sounded like someone was talking right in my ear."
Zoe wrinkled her nose and shook her head doubtfully.
You can't keep her, the voice continued. I'm not going to let this human be the ball and chain that traps you here.
With no one visible to speak to, Alex turned to the pack of beachball-size bubbles bobbing by the falls. "What the f**k are you talking about?"
Don't bother pretending. I saw the way you touched her. I know you think you care.
"I do care. But I have no idea why you do."
Zoe clutched his arm, her eyes round with a fear that belonged to her no more than her earlier self-disgust. This, after all, was the woman who'd faced a room full of falling rocks without turning a hair. "Alex, who are you talking to?"
"You don't hear that?"
She can't hear what's meant for the ears of our kind alone. Let her go, Magnus, or I'll make sure there's nothing left of her to care about. Take a good look in her eyes. You can see the woman you love is already slipping away. What do you think will happen if I loose the rest of my spells on her? Who will she be when all her confidence is gone?
"No!" yelled a voice so shrill it made his teeth ache. Alex's heart nearly had a spasm. A tiny winged man, no bigger than his finger, had popped into the air in front of him. Alex blinked hard, but he was still there. He was wearing a little green outfit and waving a sword.
"You can't harm our Zoe!" he cried. "Florrie, go call the queen!"
Omigod, Alex thought, staggering back a step from this vision. They are real.
He had no chance to catch his breath, because an instant later the air was filled with hundreds of fairies, their wings buzzing like a horde of bees as they flew in perfect formation. They all carried tiny swords, as if they'd raided a cocktail party of froufrou drinks—except that these swords weren't colored plastic. These swords were shining stingers of steel.
"To me!" cried a lovely soprano from the vanguard of the attacking force. "We must break the spell bubbles with our swords."