Day and Knight Read online

  There was enough bug repellent and other chemicals pumped into the daycare to take care of the day's needs. She ate a bag of Hershey's Miniatures and boosted all her spells to last the day.

  Six children didn't come to school. Their mothers called to report an assortment of maladies: chicken pox, flu, diarrhea.

  That had never happened in Glori's daycare. She had to get things back to the way it had always been. Or was it better to just pack it in, close the place, and get out of there?

  Just before lunchtime, two of her most angelic boys decided they wanted to be kings of the playground. While one ran around swatting the little girls on their bare legs with a sword made of Hot Wheels track, the other one climbed to the top of the jungle gym and kicked anyone who tried to climb up anywhere near him. The growls and snarls and generally nasty words spilling out of the two boys' mouths made Glori shudder.

  Smack!

  "Miss Glori, make him stop!"

  "It's mine! Go away! I'll kick you in the face if you climb up here!"

  Smack! Shriek!

  "Miss Glori!"

  Smack! Shriek!

  "Go away or I'll stick my sword in your eyeballs!"

  "Get out of there! Miss Glori! Make him share the castle with us!"

  "Miss Glori, he pushed me down!"

  "Miss Glori, Bradley was mean!"

  "Miss Glori--"

  It was enough to make her wish for the quiet of an Enclave garden. Or maybe Matilda's suggestion of hiding in a convent made more sense?

  Glori was tempted to let the one suffer the wrath of his victims when they suddenly, and uncharacteristically, banded together and descended on him with screams, kicking feet and flying fists. Straining her pitiful reserves of magic, she separated the combatants and dragged them inside for early naps.

  The other boy stood up one time too many on top of the jungle gym, and fell. She let him bump and thump against the bars, but worked herself into a migraine to keep him from breaking his arm when he landed. He and the rest of the playground soldiers came inside for naps as well.

  This had to stop. She couldn't let her beloved children suffer because she was undergoing hormonal and emotional imbalances.

  A wise Fae knew when to retreat and give up living life on the Human edge.

  "Do you want a story?" she asked, when the children woke up from their extended naps.

  Happy cries escaped mouths full of cookies. She laughed when Megan hurried to pick up the story hat from its peg behind her desk, and nearly tripped over her sandaled feet to bring it to her. Glori thanked the child and put on the tall, pointy hat, letting the glittery veil float down over her face. She had made the hat on a whim, reacting to the children's insistence that all Faeries wore such hats when they worked magic. Even the men.

  Theodosius, maybe. Most Fae men, fortunately, no.

  Glori had refused to wear such a gaudy thing when it had been in fashion for a decade or two back in the sixteenth century. But for the children, she would do anything.

  "Once upon a time," she began, speaking slowly so the children could say the magical opening words in chorus with her, "there was a handsome knight who lived under a curse. He hadn't done anything wrong. In fact, he was a very good man who spent his life helping people."

  "Did he take out the trash and kill bugs?" little Madeline asked through a mouthful of cookies.

  For a moment, Glori froze. Had some roaches made it past Lance's pesticides and her magic? Then she remembered Madeline's mother, who was divorced three times and loudly maintained there were only two uses for men: to take out the trash and kill bugs. It occurred to Glori that if Madeline's mother had been married three times, that disqualified her as an expert on the subject of men.

  "Oh, he took out all the trash he could find, and he went hunting bugs to kill, so little girls and big girls wouldn't be scared by them." Glori blinked quickly to fight tears. She would sorely miss Lance, her bug-killing knight in denim armor.

  "The knight spent his whole life making up for the mean, nasty things his grandfather and his grandfather's grandfather had done. And he was very good at it. But he still had the curse sitting on his shoulders, and it made him very sad. There was only one thing that could break the curse. Do you know what that is?"

  "A kiss from a handsome prince?" Gretchen lisped. She didn't look too certain of her answer. Several boys on the other side of the room giggled and snorted and one threw a cookie at her.

  "Be careful, Robbie. Throwing things isn't nice. Someone might throw things at you." Glori flicked her fingers and the cookie hit the thrower between the eyes, rendering him silent for the rest of the story. "How would you like it if that happened to you?"

  Robbie blinked and shook his head, scattering cookie crumbs. He settled back onto his carpet square and kept his mouth shut.

  "Well, when it comes to handsome knights, it's a kiss from a beautiful Faerie Princess that will break the curse. But this knight was very, very sad, because in his country, there were no Faeries and that meant no Faerie princesses. All the Faeries lived very, very far away."

  The Enclaves and their time warping shields were about as far away as Glori could get from Lance without leaving the planet. Just the thought of going into one made her feel like a prisoner with a death sentence. But she had to do it for him.

  "Did he go looking for one?" Michael asked.

  "You could kiss him," Bonita said a half second later. Several of her little girlfriends squealed and yelped agreement. "You can break the curse, can't you, Miss Glori?"

  "The curse needs a Faerie Princess." Glori swallowed hard and forced her lips into a smile, when she wanted to drop down to the floor, put her head between her knees and wail until the ceiling caved in. "I'm not one."

  "You can be!" Leila bounced up from her chair and grabbed the hands of two other girls at their table.

  Before Glori quite knew it, she was surrounded by most of the girls, almost drowning in a sea of laughing, jabbering, squealing voices. Little hands patted her and other little hands waved. Three girls ran to the dress-up closet and brought out the faerie wands they had made months ago, crusted with glitter and sequins and dripping long strands of blue and gold and silver tinsel.

  "What are you doing?" she asked, laughing almost too hard to speak clearly.

  "We're making you a Faerie Princess," Tracy said, and started stomping in a circle around Glori. In a moment, the other girls fell in line behind her. "Then you can kiss the knight and break his curse."

  Glori fought tears as the children walked around her in their serious little circle. Soon, all the girls, and nearly one-third of the boys had joined in. From time to time, one would step into the clear space where she stood and hug her. It was a ritual her first children had created years ago, handed down from one crop of darlings to the next. Glori felt her head clear and her balance and energy return under the heady, exhilarating power of the children's unwavering belief.

  If only the answer could be that simple.

  They had magic enough just in their love for her to replenish her strength and push away the faint sourness in the air from Lance's bug-juice, so the remainder of the day was a delight. Glori didn't tell them that their attempts at such reality-altering magic were futile. She loved them too much to dash their hopes. Yes, the power of belief did sometimes overrule destiny and strength and even cruelty and death. But not this time. This curse that surrounded Lance, and the demands of Need, were too strong. Even for her beloved children.

  They were why she had to leave. She had to protect them. She loved them so very much.

  So she didn't tell them she was closing the daycare. She couldn't do it so abruptly, when their loving, natural magic made the remainder of the day such a joy. Glori sent her children home at the end of the day and sat down at her desk to write up the flyer she would send home to their parents on Friday.

  She put her head down on the papers on her desk and burst into tears.

  Chapter Eleven

 
Lance found her that way when he walked into the daycare less than two minutes after the last minivan pulled away. He had parked his truck across the street and a few driveways down, and watched, wanting to go in just to look at Glori, and afraid that she would send him away. As soon as the last child climbed into her mother's car to leave, he pulled out into the street and squealed to a stop in front of the gate.

  When he opened the door and saw Glori crying, he let out a choked cry and nearly flew across the room to gather her up in his arms. She whimpered and struggled for a few seconds, then let out a wail that threatened his eardrums and flung her arms around his neck.

  "Please, honey, don't cry. It'll work out," he said, trying to make his tone soothing. He sat down on one of the children's tables, nearly killing his back with the angle because it was so low to the ground. The plywood creaked alarmingly under him and he scooted over to one end where the legs would support him. "It'll be okay. I promise. Whatever it takes, I'll fix it. Hey, I kept the grumpy ghosts away all night--I can do anything."

  Lance had glimpsed a few flickers of ectoplasmic movement in the shadowy corners of the house while he shaved and got ready for the day, but he could ignore that. As long as his ancestors stayed quiet and didn't throw things at him or interfere with more dates and kissing Glori, he would peacefully co-exist with them.

  Whatever it took to keep Glori in his life, he'd do.

  "You can't do this," she said, her words sounding positively soggy through her sobs. "I'm closing the daycare. I can't do this to my children any longer. I'm no use to you--"

  "You're the best thing that ever happened to me."

  "Then your life really sucks." She startled herself with such a word escaping her lips.

  So startled, her sobs stopped for a moment. She leaned back and blinked away the tears. To her surprise, Lance just grinned crookedly at her.

  "Don't leave me, Glori. Yeah, it was rough last night, but I found out I have more power over the grumpy old men than I thought I did. If you can put up with a little spying and yelling once in a while, I think we can make a go of it."

  As she started to calm down, Glori felt the heat of his body seeping through her, soothing the ache that had been hiding inside her soul all day. Unfortunately, that soothing threatened to turn into a raging bonfire, thanks to the time bomb of Need.

  "I can't help you the way I am," she whispered. If she talked any louder, she knew she'd break into tears again. "I have to go to an Enclave and find a mate and...and get things settled down. Then, when my magic is working again, I'll be able to find a solution for you."

  "Live without you and be a normal guy, or live with you and put up with being Squeaker the Mouse two nights a month? Gee, what a choice."

  "Is that the curse?"

  "Yeah. I get to be a mouse that's so sugary cute, I can kill a diabetic without even being in the same room with him." He grinned when that startled a squeak of laughter out of her.

  "Sounds horrid. Humiliating. I have to do something--"

  Lance stopped her with two fingers pressed against her lips. Then he shifted her higher on his lap. "I have a better idea." He bent his head so his forehead rested against hers. Glori shuddered with hungry wanting, even as something melted inside at the gentle, intimate, yet protective touch. "How about we work on the things we can handle? I keep working on your bug problem, and you get Matilda to help you take care of the ghosts? I'd rather be stuck in fur and nibbling cheese for the rest of my life--well, two nights every month--than live without you."

  "Oh, Lance--" Glori blinked away more tears. She took a deep breath, fighting not to burst out into more wails that would probably bring the roof down. "I love you, too."

  She slid her fingers through the thick mane of his hair. Sitting up straighter in his arms, she tipped her head to the side, for just the right angle. Lance was ready for her as she pressed her lips against his. He moaned, his lips parting.

  Lightning shot through her from her toes to the ends of her hair. Glori whimpered as their tongues tangled and Lance clutched her close enough, tight enough, she could hardly breathe.

  Fireworks exploded behind her eyelids and the ground shuddered under them. Waves of lava and glacial ice washed over her. She clung to Lance, even as she acknowledged the Need that had just blasted off the scale. If she didn't get out of there soon, they would both be in big trouble.

  Lance shouted and leaped to his feet, and dropped her. Glori yelped as she landed on the floor. Then she opened her eyes and shrieked and scrambled away from him, crab-style.

  His nose elongated, warping his face as his eyes got small and beady black and lavender-silver fur sprouted all over his body. There was a loud crack and he vanished. His clothes hung in the air for half a second, then they collapsed to the ground.

  "Lance?" Glori shrieked when a mouse with a corkscrew tail erupted through the neck of Lance's shirt, squeaking in fury. She had never learned mouse language, but she could guess he was cursing up a storm.

  Curse?

  That was Lance?

  Before she could catch her breath, the mouse leaped three feet in the air, writhing and shooting off silver sparks. As he fell back to the floor, he grew. And grew. Until suddenly there was six feet of mouse standing on his hind legs in the puddle of Lance's abandoned clothes.

  His voice got lower as he grew bigger, and that was weirder and more frightening than anything she had seen so far.

  Until the mouse started morphing, looking like something that was half-Human, still covered in lavender velvet fur, still with that corkscrew tail. Glori felt the magic pressure begin to build. Something was about to explode. Terror got her limbs moving again and she scrambled to get to her feet and run.

  There was a loud pop--if a soap bubble twenty feet in diameter with an inch-thick rind could pop rather than explode. Lavender and silver sparks blinded her for a moment, and the force of the blast threw her backwards a dozen more feet. Waves of magic spread through the room. The floor wobbled like gelatin under her. She cautiously opened one eye. The walls were doing the same, everything wavering like an underwater effect in the movies. When she stopped rubbing her eyes, she saw silver-lavender fur everywhere around the room. As if a dozen feather pillows had exploded.

  "Lance?" she shrieked. She turned to where she had seen him last, in whatever shape he had been.

  Lance crouched on his hands and knees just a few feet away from her, gasping and choking, dripping in sweat and cursing like a sailor.

  And buck naked.

  Glori fought the urge to just sit there and stare, feasting her eyes on what she wanted more than triple-fudge brownie sundaes, diet cherry cola and satellite feed. She knew if she didn't move, didn't turn her head away, didn't think of something, anything else, Need would overrule every bit of what remained of her good sense.

  "Lance?" She got up onto her knees and crept forward. With one hand she reached out to touch his glistening shoulder. She snatched it back. And slapped the foolish hand with the other hand for good measure. "I'll get you something to wear."

  Glori congratulated herself for good sense as she dashed into the storage closet where the children's dress-up clothes were stored. She had lots of men's clothes, bought from the Salvation Army store. Whether anything would fit Lance or not, she didn't really care. She just had to get away before she attacked him. It was a relief to close the door between them and nearly dive into the barrels and boxes of clothes. In too short a time, she found a faded denim shirt and a baggy pair of workout shorts that might be too big even for him.

  "Nice place," Lance said.

  Glori shrieked and turned around so quickly she fell, right into the pile of mats and blankets used for the children's naps. In an instant, Lance was down on his knees next to her, trapping her with an arm on either side of her.

  "Let me get this straight." His voice sounded strong and steady, and that frightening pallor and sweat had vanished. He grinned and mischief burned in his eyes.

  Or was th
at something else burning in his eyes? Glori felt an answering heat churn in her belly.

  "If we make love while you're in the middle of this change of life thing--"

  "It's called the Need," she whispered.

  "Sounds good to me." Lance's grin widened, turned wolfish. "If we make love, then you're stuck with me, just as much as I'm stuck with you, right?"

  "With Humans, it might be--"

  He stopped her words with a kiss that sucked all the thoughts out of her head. Glori didn't even try to struggle for a sense of sanity until she felt the tiny shiver of magic along her skin and her clothes vanished.

  "Did you do that, or did I?" Lance gasped, finally releasing her mouth.

  "Who cares?" She reached for him, pulling him back down into the tangle of blankets and mats.

  "I do." He caught her wrists in his big, hot hands and pinned them. "Matilda said I had Fae blood, and there was magic in me. If I have enough magic to do that, then I'm good enough for you, right?"

  "You're too good for me, Lance. Please--" Glori gasped as that moment of reprieve let a little common sense sneak into her head. And other parts of her anatomy. "Lance, we shouldn't. This isn't right. It isn't fair to you."

  "What isn't fair is if you don't marry me. I'm not letting you out of my sight for a minute," he growled, and stretched out on top of her.

  Glori was a very commonsense Fae and knew when to stop fighting and start enjoying the ride.

  It was a wild ride. Sometimes they rolled across the ceiling. Glori had no idea, and didn't care, which one of them did the magic to make that possible. Sometimes they floated amid real fireworks. The sparks ignited nothing in the storage closet, nothing outside their bodies. Inside them... That was another matter altogether.

  "Did you ask me to marry you?" she whispered, in the drowsy quiet a long, long time later.

  "I demanded you marry me." Lance sighed, the sound rough with a hint of laughter. "You broke my curse, you know. I swore I'd never fall in love, never try to keep a woman in my life, until it was broken. You did that. I'm no idiot. You're stuck with me, woman. Just in case Feathedora decides to come back for part two."