Tithe (Modern Faerie Tales 1)

"Says you throw 'em in the fire to get your own kid back… that or stick a hot poker down their throats."

"Great. Next."

"Here we go. Pixie. Can detect good and evil, hate orcs, and are about one to two feet tall…" He started to laugh. "Makes pixie dust."

"Orcs?" Kaye inquired. She shifted her position, suddenly aware that it was hard to separate which muscles caused her wings to twitch. They seemed to move independently of her will and of each other, like two soft insects alighting on her back.

Corny couldn't stop laughing. "Pixie dust. Like angels make angel dust. International drug cartels grab seraphim and shake 'em. Priests who sweep up churches put that stuff in Ziploc baggies."

She snorted. "You're an idiot, you know that?"

"I try," he said, still laughing.

"Well, try 'Unseelie Court.'"

A few clicks of his mouse and he said, "Looks like that's where all the bad guys hang out in Faeryland. What does this have to do with you?"

"There's this knight there who may or may not be wanting to kill me. My friends want me to pretend to be human because there's this thing called the Tithe… it's complicated."

Corny sat up again. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I just told you the part that made sense."

"Okay." Corny nodded. "Now tell me the part that doesn't make sense."

"I don't understand it all exactly, but basically there are solitary faeries and court faeries. Roiben is one of the court faeries, and I met him in the woods after he got shot. He's from the Unseelie Court."

"Okay. I'm still with you, if barely."

"Spike and Lutie-loo sent me an acorn message to tell me that he was dangerous. He killed my other friend, Gristle."

"An acorn message?"

"The top came off. It was hollow."

"Right. Of course."

"Ha-ha. Look for 'Tithe' next, okay? As far as I know, it's this sacrifice that makes the faeries that aren't part of any court still do what the court people say. I have to pretend to be human so they can pretend to sacrifice me."

He typed in the keyword. "I'm just getting Jesus Crispy shit. Give-me-ten-percent-of-your-cash-to-me-so-I-can-buy-an-air-conditioned-doghouse kind of thing. This sacrifice—how safe is that? I mean, how well do you know these people?"

"I trust them absolutely…"

"But," Corny prompted.

She smiled ruefully. "But they never told me. They knew all this time, and nothing—not one hint." Kaye looked pensively at the joints of her fingers. Why should one extra joint make them horrifying? It did, though—flexing them bothered her.

Corny steepled his palms, cracking his knuckles like a villain. "Tell me the whole story again, slowly, and from the beginning."

Kaye woke up muzzily, not sure where she was. She shifted until she felt a solid shape that groaned and pushed at her. Corny. She squinted at him and rubbed at her eyes. It was dark in the room, the only streaks of light sneaking around the edges of the heavy brown curtains. She heard voices from somewhere in the trailer over the distant sound of canned television laughter.

She turned over again, trying to go back to sleep. The bedside table was in front of her line of vision. A book, Vintage, a bottle of ibuprofen, an alarm clock with flames on the clock face, and a black plastic chess knight.

"Corny," she said, shaking what she thought was the shoulder of the lump. "Wake up. I know what to do. I know what we can do."

He pushed the covers back from over his head. His eyes were slits of wet in the piles of comforter. "This better be good," he groaned.

"The kelpie. I know how to call the kelpie."