Free Days Gone Bad by Eric Asher

you clear something up for me?”
    The fairy leapt off the shelf and landed beside the register on top of my latest eBay purchase. The seller titled it “Long Pretty Magnetite Rock with Crystals!!!!,” but the crystalized gray rock was actually a sizable chunk of Magrasnetto, a potent magic amplifier in ley line arts. I had enough to make some talismans and, if I could get my ass motivated, enough to make a wand.
    Foster nodded at me from his rocky perch.
    “The vamp we fought last night was screaming about Sidhe this and Sidhe that. I guess he figured out I had some help, or at least some friends.”
    Foster’s chest puffed out a little and his teeth were shining. “He could see us, no doubt.”
    My left hand waved aimlessly at the front door. “But when I’m talking with my sister’s group …”
    “Pit,” Foster said.
    I went on like I hadn’t heard him, “… they always say Fae.”
    He crossed his legs beneath him. “We are all Fae and all Sidhe. Like you, like humans, some are good by some measure and some are less so. The best of us are blessed with the distinction of the Seelie Court. Those who fall, and those who are made to it, are of the Unseelie Court.” Foster looked ready to spit and his wings beat faster as he spoke of the Unseelie Court. “They are powerful. To underestimate them is death.”
    “Sounds like they can dish out some serious power.”
    Foster nodded.
    “Must make you Unseelie, right?” I cocked an eyebrow to emphasize my sarcasm. Sometimes sarcasm is not the best option.
    Foster screamed, unsheathed his sword, and lunged at my eyeball as fast as I could blink. He veered away at the last second shouting, “Stupid moron, born from a goat’s loins!”
    “Foster, wait, I was just kidding!” I knocked the stool over and cursed as I jumped up to follow him toward the back room.
    He flared back into the front and hovered a few feet from me. “Next time I’ll cut out your eyeball. Don’t worry; I’ll be sure to let you know I was just kidding.” He leveled his sword at my face. “There are some things you do not say, even in jest. Leave, necromancer.” Foster slammed his sword back in its sheath and disappeared into the back room.
    Necromancer. He never called me that. Never used in such a derogatory way. It stung more than I thought it ever could. I stared at the doorway for almost a full minute before I lost interest in the whorls of cheap veneer on our saloon-style doors. I walked out the front and locked the door again. I headed straight for what was about to become my last source of encyclopedic fairy knowledge that was still talking to me. In about ten seconds, I was pretty sure Cara and Aideen wouldn’t be talking to me either.
    Crap.
     

CHAPTER NINE
     
    I ran my hand through my hair and clenched my teeth as I met the abyss of my sister’s gaze. “Sam, all I said, jokingly of course, was he must be Unseelie.”
    My sister stepped backwards, put her hand over her mouth, and looked at me in horror as she flopped onto her bed.
    “What did I do now?”
    “He saved you and you … you just … insulted everything he stands for Damian. Everything he works for. Everything his family has done for generations to earn the respect of the Seelie court.” She held her hands out to me like she was begging and shook her head. “How could you do that?”
    “Oh. Well, that helps put things in perspective.” I echoed my sister’s flop onto the chair in the corner and cracked my head against the wall. “Ow.” I glanced around her cheery jonquil colored lounge. A smile started to creep over my lips as I considered all of the sunshine and cheer in the middle of a vampire lair.
    My eyes widened as Sam was suddenly in front of me and grabbing my collar. It felt like she was about to throw me across the room as she jerked me to her with super vampy strength. “You have to apologize to him,” she hissed.
    “I did apologize!”
    She let go of my collar and patted my shoulder