Free With a Kiss (Twisted Tales) by Stephanie Fowers Page A

of the gods. I glanced over at Hobs. Doubtful. Babs dropped her swirly toy and tugged a stuffed yellow chick from a shelf, trying to gnaw on it. She must be teething. Hobs tugged it teasingly from her and played keep-away with it. She didn’t participate, just watched. He threw the stuffed animal then rolled it down his arm and bounced it off the faint stripes of his jeans like it was a Hacky Sack. Yeah. I checked the deity theory right off the list and read through some others.
    After the defeat of the sons of Mil, the faeries escaped underground or to a different dimension or across the ocean to the west. America? Well, I sure hoped so. That would make things a lot more convenient since I wouldn’t have to travel across the ocean to get these two back home. I only had three days to do it—talk about incentive. My gaze darted across the screen. The faeries called their land the Sidhe, pronounced she . Or it was called Tuatha or land of the young or . . . I leaned my head back. “I’ll never figure this out!”
    Hobs grinned and I uneasily ignored it. The more I learned, the more I realized how impossible it was to pinpoint where to find the faeries’ domain. Everyone had a theory. Scandinavians, Celts, Germans. I had no doubt my newfound friends caused a ruckus everywhere they went. But I had nothing to go on, except rumors passed down from the ancients. It seemed the Celts had a pretty good superstitious handle on these things, which meant they probably had direct contact with faeries, but where were all their records? The stuffed chick hit me square in the face and I swiveled on Hobs. “So what about you? Did someone curse you to be annoying?”
    He shrugged. “Sorry. I’m not used to sitting and doing nothing.”
    Yeah? I stole the stuffed animal from him. The guy couldn’t keep still. He was more a baby than Babs was. I turned back to the screen. What was the connection? Faeries seemed to have a need for babies and women and young lovers and midwives . . . and why? What was the appeal of humans? Namely happy ones? Did faeries suck blood or something? Or people’s happy juice? Were they envious of our souls? I didn’t buy any of it. They took humans as slaves? Maybe.
    I glanced back at Hobs and with a start, caught him reading the site over my shoulder. His chin grazed against mine. “They got it wrong,” he murmured at length. “Faeries could care less about humans.” He turned a devilish look on me. “Unless they get in the way, of course.”
    “Then what am I doing here?”
    He laughed. “Good question.” He wasn’t about to answer it either. I went back to the computer for a clue. Faeries needed nature and music and dancing and moonlight. How dumb. They needed to be appeased with offerings. Hobs snorted at that and I pushed his face away from my shoulder, trying to concentrate. “They make us look really stupid, don’t they?” he said. “Maybe it stops mortals from being afraid.”
    If that was the plan, it wasn’t working. I was very afraid, especially when I read about the dangers of a faery touch. It disfigured. It maimed. My heart lurched at the gory Celtic paintings on my screen. A faery hand over a human head caused madness, the hand over the heart caused sickness . . . and a kiss? Death. The faery queen had really done a number on me. I rubbed at my eyes, resolved to never touch Hobs again. “The queen did everything to me that she shouldn’t have done,” I said.
    Hobs didn’t look concerned. “How else could she give you faery vision?”
    “Well, for starters, she didn’t have to kill me!” Your days are numbered here. The queen had even given me a time limit and then I was dead. One, two, three the sun circles. Another world you’ll see. Three days and I was out of this world. My first day was almost gone. I had to figure this out before my time was up. “I have to break the curse,” I whispered.
    Hobs scooted even closer to me, warmth emanating from him. I tried to pull