Free Bedeviled by Maureen Child

that extra?”
    She sighed. Father Christmas in person. “No.”
    “Then, yeah. Put ’em up. Something really big and splashy. Red ribbons and all that crap.”
    “Morning, Sam,” someone called out, and the older man spun around to see a customer darting into his store.
    “Gotta go keep an eye on her,” he muttered. “She walked out with a pair of pliers last week. Can’t prove it was her, but I know. You keep going. Lots of snow, now, remember.”
    “Right.” Once he was gone Maggie relaxed her grip on the top rung of the ladder. No way had she wanted to risk floating again in front of Sam. Bad enough she’d done some floating in front of Eileen that morning at breakfast. Good times. Naturally, Eileen had jumped all over it.
    “You’re still floating,” her niece pointed out.
    “Apparently.” And she had the headache to prove it. Why’d she have to be so tall, anyway? No, she was the Amazon in the family, and Nora was the petite one.
    “So, are you a Faery now?” Eileen was watching her with interest, and Maggie had skillfully dodged that question.
    She only wished she could ignore it entirely.
    “Becoming a Faery?” Now she glanced down at her long legs, her paint-spattered jeans and her blue tank top with the words MAGGIE’S MURALS emblazoned across her less-than-petite boobs. “Yeah. That’s me. A delicate little fairy.”
    Then she snorted and went back to work.
     
    “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
    Culhane glanced at the pixie beside him, then shifted his gaze back to the woman across the street from them. “No, I’m not. That’s her.”
    Bezel shook his head, sending his long, silvery hair flying. Here in the shadows of the alley lying between two stores on the main street of Castle Bay, the small, wrinkled-up creature looked even more horrifying than usual. Which was saying something, Culhane told himself. Even for a pixie, Bezel was ugly. His face had more furrows than a farmer’s field, and his eyes were so pale a blue they looked like chips of ice glittering in the dim light.
    As the pixie stroked the few straggly hairs on his pointed chin and considered Maggie Donovan with a less-than-approving gaze, Culhane found himself wanting to defend her. He frowned to himself at that notion and kept his silence. He didn’t have to wait long to hear Bezel’s opinion.
    “This is trollshit and you know it, Culhane.” The pixie turned his face up, spearing the other male with those cold eyes. “No way is that female able to go up against Mab and win.”
    “She will,” he said firmly, and wondered whether he was trying to convince Bezel or himself. Didn’t matter, really. The die was cast. Maggie Donovan would become who she was meant to be. Even if it killed Bezel. “You’re going to train her.”
    Bezel’s face wrinkled even further in distaste. “What am I? A miracle worker?”
    “And you’re going to do a damned good job of it.”
    The pixie snorted and waved one long-fingered hand. “Oh, don’t get your leathers in a bunch. I said I’d do it, didn’t I? Save the mighty-warrior-of-the-Fae attitude, too. Not impressed. I’ve known you too long to be scared by you.”
    True. The Fae and pixies were more or less natural enemies, with the roots of that enmity going back to before Otherworld had come about. Each race had wanted to rule, and when the Fae had won that contest, hard feelings were born that carried on to this day. But somehow this small, annoying creature had become a friend. Of sorts. They’d known each other for centuries, and over those years a fragile, unexpected bond had grown between them.
    Culhane turned his face into the cold ocean wind that sailed down the alleyway, sending papers skittering across the dirty pavement. The stench of the mortal world was all around him, and as his breath shortened, he thought that even his lungs were loath to take in great gulps of this air.
    Yet here he was. He couldn’t be in Otherworld until his plan was completely in