“This is insane,” I told her. “We have to go back.”
“This is exciting and fun,” she countered, doing that lip-sucking thing again.
It occurred to me for the first time that she was still wearing the dress she’d been trying on at the shop. Add shoplifting to the list of crimes we were committing.
I wasn’t convinced, but once again I found myself following her as she headed out of the restroom and got in line at the taxi stand. I looked longingly over my shoulder at Avalon, wondering what was wrong with me, why I was letting Al manipulate, bully, and cajole me into doing something I knew was both wrong and downright stupid. Sure, I’d taken some pretty reckless chances in the past, but it was always for a good reason, always because I was convinced it was the right thing to do. This time, I was convinced I was doing the wrong thing, and yet I couldn’t seem to stop myself.
We reached the head of the line and climbed into a cab. Al rattled off an address, and the driver took off. I still couldn’t believe what I was doing. I tried to rally my mental troops in hopes I could craft an argument that Al would actually listen to, but she turned to me with a frown.
“You look sleepy,” she said, then sucked her lower lip. “Why don’t you take a nap until we get there?”
Suddenly, my eyelids felt really, really heavy. A chill of alarm crept down my spine as it finally occurred to me there might be a very good reason I was doing this against my better judgment. Every time I came close to putting my foot down, Al sucked her lower lip and somehow talked me out of it. The most powerful of Fae magic-users can trigger spells with subtle gestures, and I’d guess that as Mab’s daughter, Al was definitely a powerful magic-user.
She smiled at me, and I might almost have called the look on her face apologetic.
“Sleep, Dana,” she said.
The compulsion slapped me upside the head with the force of a
sledgehammer, and my eyes slid closed.
Chapter Three
I woke up, groggy and disoriented, when Al grabbed my arm. I blinked in confusion as she pulled me out of the cab, and I almost fell flat on my face before my wits returned enough for me to straighten my knees. I tried to shake off the cobwebs as Al slammed the car door behind me and the cab sped off.
“You used magic on me!” I said, suddenly feeling much more awake as
indignation flooded my system.
She had the grace to look guilty about it. “My specialty is illusion magic, but I’m pretty good at compulsion, too. I’m really sorry about that, but you were my only hope.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at her. “This expedition is over,”
I said. “And if you try sucking your damn lip again, I’m going to make you regret it.”
I waved my fist at her. I probably looked pretty ridiculous making threats like that, but I’d had enough self-defense training that I figured I could break her magical concentration if it came to that.
“I don’t need the compulsion anymore,” she said with a shrug. “We’re here.”
I finally took a moment to look around and saw that we were in a kind of run-down-looking residential neighborhood. Narrow two- or three-story townhouses lined the street, their facades grimy and weathered. Most of the townhouses had bars over the first-floor windows, which didn’t give me much in the way of warm fuzzies. Nor did the fact that I could see no less than three buildings with boarded up windows and doors that made me think “condemned.”
Al didn’t seem to care about the shabby neighborhood. Ignoring me and my indignation, she skipped up the stairs of the nearest townhouse and starting ringing the buzzer, pressing it over and over again without waiting for an answer.
She was practically vibrating with excitement.
I stayed on the sidewalk, glaring at her back, wondering if there was any way I could salvage the situation. The cab we’d ridden in was already long gone, and there wasn’t another one in sight. Frankly, I didn’t think this was the kind of neighborhood that would see a lot of cab activity anyway. Not that I had any idea where we were, or how we were going to get back to Avalon from here. I didn’t even know how long I’d been asleep in the back of that cab.
My heart gave a little wrench as I realized my mom and dad must have heard about my disappearance by now. They’d be frantic with worry—assuming my mom wasn’t passed out drunk. I would owe them both a massive apology when this was all over.
As Al continued to lean on the door buzzer, I searched my purse for my phone. It wasn’t like my dad or Finn could come into London to get me, but at least I could let them know what was going on. Only my phone didn’t seem to be in my purse. Al must have taken it while I was asleep.
No one seemed to be coming to the door, but that didn’t discourage Al. She kept ringing the buzzer, over and over, occasionally pounding on the door with the flat of her hand.
“Let’s go, Al,” I said, raising my voice to be heard over her pounding. “He’s not home. Give me my phone so I can call us a cab.”
“I’m not leaving,” Al insisted, banging on the door again. “Gary! I know you’re in there. Answer the door!”
I wondered if she meant it literally when she said she knew he was in there.
Could her magic tell her that? I tilted my head up, looking for any signs of life in the windows, but the blinds were all shut tight.
“Al, come on,” I begged. “If he’s not answering, it’s because he’s not home or because he doesn’t want to. Either way, making a fool of yourself on the doorstep isn’t going to help. We have to get back.”
Al ignored me, kicking the door, because she wasn’t making enough noise already. One of the neighbors slid his second-floor window open and leaned out, giving us a nice view of his yellowed undershirt and his disgustingly hairy chest.
“Oy!” he shouted. “Shut the fook up!” His accent was so heavy I was
lucky—or, actually, unlucky—to have understood him at all.
Instead of being chastened, Al flipped the guy the bird without even looking at him. Things might have gotten ugly—I didn’t think Mr. Yellow Undershirt was the kind of guy to take well to a girl flipping him off—except at that moment, Gary’s door opened. Al gave a happy little cry and flung herself forward.
Scowling, Mr. Yellow Undershirt slammed his window shut and retreated while I got my first look at Gary, the love of Al’s life. I was not impressed.
Apparently, he’d been slow to open the door because he’d been in bed, though a quick glance at my watch told me it was almost four in the afternoon. His baby-fine, mouse brown hair was sticking up at odd angles, and he was wearing a ratty brown and white striped bathrobe. Stubble peppered his face and neck, and his eyes were bloodshot and dopey-looking.
“Althea?” he asked in the low, hoarse voice of a dedicated smoker. “What . . .
? How . . . ?” He hugged her back, but he didn’t look particularly happy to see her.
“I was so afraid my mother had done something to you,” Al said, her face buried against his shoulder. She had to bend her neck at an awkward angle to manage that position, because Gary was shorter than she was.
Gary patted her back, then finally seemed to notice me. He looked even more puzzled. I wondered if he even knew Faeriewalkers existed. I’d never heard of one before I’d moved to Avalon, and I suspected that was true of just about everyone who lived in the mortal world. It was probably a real strain on his brain to figure out how a Fae girl had managed to come to his home in the mortal world.
“Er, I’m fine, luv,” he said, patting her back again.
Al pushed back from him finally, but she didn’t let go. “She threatened you, didn’t she?” Al asked. “That’s why you dropped out. And why you wouldn’t answer the phone.”