Beautiful, Deadly. - 6. Chapter 6

Alex’s phone was still missing in the morning. He had half hoped he would find it in some obvious place by then, but no luck. Now he understood why his mother always complained about losing things. It wasn’t as funny anymore.

“Mom, have you seen my phone?” Alex asked.

His mother looked away from the TV, narrowing her eyes. “When did you last have it?”

“Yesterday,” Alex answered sheepishly.

“So you lost it?” She paused playfully. “Are you sure you didn’t misplace it?” It was the same line he gave her every time something went missing.

Alex rolled his eyes, feeling a bit more human after the past five days. It still hurt to think about it, but he wasn’t so overwhelmed anymore. He felt like he could joke just a little. “I’m sure,” he retorted bitterly. He went to the house phone and tried calling himself while walking around the house.

Nothing gave away the location of his phone. His mother helped look in a few places, but they couldn’t find it.

“We’ll have to get you a new one,” she sighed. “Maybe tomorrow we can go into town.”

Alex nodded faintly and went up to his room. He changed out of the clothes he had slept in and put on jeans and a shirt. He put on his down winter coat, as it was getting cold outside. What he really wanted now after all of this hell was alone time outside.

“I’m going for a walk,” he told his mother and kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll be back later.”

“Careful without your cell phone,” she warned. “I don’t want you getting lost and stranded out there.”

Alex gave her a ‘come on’ look. He had hiked in the woods countless times as a kid—it was doubtful he would get lost.

He went out the back door and bounced down the steps, the chill of outside biting at his skin. He stuffed his hands into the pocket of his jacket, and all was warm aside from his face and ears. But he was used to it.

Alex wandered off between trees. Light filtered in through pine and aspen trees, and the scent of pine was strong. Dead needles and leaves crunched under foot, and the occasional squirrel rustled the leaves over head. He followed a familiar route, much deeper in than his mother would ever be comfortable with.

After almost twenty minutes of walking, he came to a small stream that ran through the area. A downed tree went over it, leaving a ragged stump behind. Years ago, Alex kicked away the loose bark from the stump and beat down the center to mostly-flat with rocks. He sat on the stump and tilted his head up to the sky, admiring the steel grey color.

Deep breath in, deep breath out. Look down.

His cell phone.

Alex stared at it in confusion, as it was perfectly placed between his feet. How the hell did that work? The last he had seen it was back at the house—

“Alex.”

Sharp pain shot through his head. Another headache, this time without any warning or him doing anything to bring it on. Alex cradled his head in his hands, eyes tightly shut. His head was throbbing, and the cold air did nothing to sooth it.

He didn’t know how long it was before the pain passed, but when it did something shifted. Things looked different. Everything seemed a little bit brighter, almost glowing. He could hear something breathing behind him.

“Sh*t!” Alex bolted away from his seat and spun around at the same time, tripped over his feet and fell to his ass.

But the face was familiar.

“Mells,” Alex gasped out. “You scared the hell out of me.”

Alien eyes stared back at him—a strange color of green, almost mint. Mells crept forward, her slight form a jade green. Grass green hair fell over her shoulders and down her back in long folds, some places curled into ringlets and strands of beads woven in.

“Alex,” she repeated and sat down in front of him. “Who have you been around?”

It took Alex a minute to process and understand the question. It had been so long since he had seen Mells… he had to have been ten or eleven. Then it all hit.

“F*ck,” Alex realized. “Izzy is a faerie!”

Mells narrowed her eyes. “Who’s Izzy?”

“He’s this guy… faerie. I knew he wasn’t human, but I couldn’t remember—“ Alex stopped to stare at his old childhood friend, Mells, who had always looked about thirty. “Did you do something to me?” He accused.

Mells shrugged and looked away guiltily. “You were trying to talk to your parents about me. I had to block out your memories… but since you did know about faeries, just not consciously, I put some protection on you.”

Alex surged at her, grabbing her by the bare shoulders. “Why did you do that to me?” He hissed. “Why did you block my memories? My friend is dead because of a faerie! I knew something was wrong but I couldn’t remember… I could have done something for him!”

Mells pried his fingers away. “Alex, calm down. What’s going on?”

Alex let out a shaky breath and sat back on his haunches. He told her about going off to college—until Mells interjected to let him know that she had in fact taken his mother’s saltshaker.

“It was a token to represent your leaving.” She shrugged, smiling playfully.

Alex mock frowned. As a child, Mells had always been taking things from their house. Small, easy to replace things. Still it drove his mother nuts and he always got blamed… but Mells collected things.

“Anyways, continue.” Mells waved him on.

Alex explained about Casey, about the party. About the times Izzy had been glowing, everything about his eyes.

“Glowing…” Mells echoed thoughtfully. “He looks human. He’s using a glamour to give himself a human effect. The glow you saw was probably his glamour shifting, and then you recognized his eyes as strange. He was probably trying to scare you off.”

Mells let the rest of the story go without interrupting. Alex told her how Casey got addicted to the food and drink Izzy provided. That had been one of his first and most frequent warnings from Mells as a small child.

“Never, ever, accept food or drink from a faerie. It’s very addictive. Not all of them are nice like me,” she had told him.

“Why didn’t you unblock my memories?” Alex asked at the end.

“You were doing fine. First you were in middle school, and then in high school. You were around kids your own age… it would have made you weird to talk about faeries and the like,” she said. “I didn’t think it mattered, either. Izzy probably saw that if he harmed you, he would have had me to answer to for it. So he left you alone. Anyone would have left you alone.”

And that explained the ‘protection’ Izzy had mentioned. Izzy wanted to hurt Alex—but he didn’t want to get involved with another faerie like Mells.

“But you’re not protected anymore,” Mells warned. “You were only protected as long as you were oblivious, as long as you remembered nothing. Stay away from him, Alex.”

“I don’t get it,” Alex scowled. “Why is he so… intent on harming people?”

Mells fell silent for a few minutes. “There are two different kinds of faeries, Alex. Unseelie and Seelie. You can cut it down to the bad ones and the good ones. Unseelie are cruel and out to hurt anyone. Sometimes they’ll hurt other faeries just for fun. He might be part of the Unseelie Court.”

There was a whole court? That didn’t sound very good if they were all cruel. Everything about Seelie and Unseelie were new to him—at eleven, he probably wouldn’t have understood them if she had talked about it then.

“And I’m sorry he killed your friend,” Mells spoke timidly. “If I had known anything of it, I would have taken out that block before you left for college. You would have seen through his glamour instantly.”

“What do I do, Mells?” Alex pleaded.

“There’s nothing more to do. It’s already too late for your friend,” Mells said.

“I know that. But I can’t just let him go around and do it, can I?” Alex stressed. “I could make a contract with him.”

“No,” Mells snapped. “One single play of a word, one minor loophole, and he could destroy you, Alex. He’ll look for the chance. Even if you stop him, I can assure you that he is not the only one doing it.”

“How do I tell if he’s Seelie or Unseelie?” Alex asked.

“By appearance. Seelie believe in pure blood breeding. He’ll be remarkably beautiful. An Unseelie will probably have some sort of deformation. Most of them can’t see properly, or have strange wings, like bat wings. They’ll mix with anything.”

“And his glamour would be no reflection of it?” Izzy already looked extremely perfect with his glamour on. What did that make him?

“No, that’s exactly what glamour is for. To change how he looks. He could be scared or deformed in reality,” Mells sighed. “But it won’t matter anyways. His glamour won’t work on you anymore.”

Alex had always been able to see through glamour. The fact couldn’t with Izzy meant that had been affected by the block or protection Mells had put on him.

“That wasn’t fair, Mells,” Alex complained. “I remember so many things now that could have helped.”

“I’m sorry,” Mells huffed. “I was only thinking about you. I wasn’t thinking about other people. Bad things can happen to humans that see through glamour.”

Alex could only imagine. Humans would think he was crazy if he talked about faeries and other creatures—he would be targeted by anything that realized he could see what they really were.

“…I still want to make a contract with him,” Alex spoke up.

“Alex—” Mells began, but he cut her off.

“Help me write it. I’ll write down conditions, you read over it, you tell me what loopholes you find and how to fix them.”

Mells sighed. She tried to avoid it, but eventually she gave in. “I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“It’s going to happen,” Alex told her frankly. “If he hurts me instead of others… if he takes it all out on me, he’ll leave other people alone.”

“And what are you really going to do?” Mells asked. “Try and kill him to avenge your friend?”

It was a nice idea. Alex would love to. But he knew if it came down to a fight, he would lose. “I wouldn’t be able to.

“Alex, I don’t want you to. He’ll do horrible things to you,” Mells pleaded.

Alex wondered if she felt as helpless as he had with Casey.

“I’m sorry, Mells,” Alex met her mint eyes. “I need to do this.”

And so Mells gave in. She said that she would come to his house later in the night, after Alex had written some sort of contract up. With that, Alex grabbed his cell phone—which Mells had taken to lure him outside—and headed back towards the house. On the way back, he could see countless things hidden in the trees, all hidden by Mells magic.

All things that had ‘disappeared’ on his mother and driven her insane for days.

Alex chuckled and got back to the house. His mother complained about him being gone to long, but he just brushed it off. He set his phone down and went, “You have got to be f*cking kidding me, it’s right here!”

“Alex, language!” His mother shrieked. “But I’m glad you found your phone.”

Alex ate lunch with his parents and talked with them. With some sort of plan in place, he felt better. Maybe it wouldn’t avenge Casey, but it would be in his memory. It would prevent another Casey from happening.

After lunch Alex locked himself in his room. On his computer, he started to type up a contract. In it he stated that he would not eat any faerie food or drink to avoid addiction. While he would allow himself to be wounded, it could be nothing life threatening. It was to be a monogamous thing—Izzy couldn’t touch another human during the time of the contract. No more parties either.

The list of rules continued on, and Alex was quite satisfied with himself. His knowledge on faeries was more limited than he had always thought, but he felt he covered it all. Mells had been the only faerie he’d ever known, and along with her few rules and some facts about glamour… that was about all Alex had known.

Seelie and Unseelie fey was something he would have to learn about.

When night fell, and Alex’s parents were long gone in sleep, Mells showed up at his bedroom window. He let her in and immediately had her read the contract. She was distracted more by the computer itself and had to be reminded to read the screen and not press the buttons.

She had him fix a few things—specify mostly, and said that was all she could see. “He might notice more than me, Alex. He’ll want to hurt you.”

Alex shrugged and saved the contract. “Tell me more about the courts,” he asked. “You talked some about Unseelie. What about Seelie?”

Mells sighed. “There’s two parts to Seelie. Regular Seelie like me, and Seelie Sidhe. They’re kind of the aristocrats, the rich. They think they’re better than the other Seelie, but they’re very rare at this point.”

“What about the Unseelie then?”

“They like to torture. They’ll use iron on other faeries, or on themselves to show strength. They’re very dangerous. Torture is entertainment. I don’t know much else,” Mells admitted. “Please, if he’s Unseelie, stay away from him.”

“I can’t just do that,” Alex seethed.

“He’ll get tired of you. It will last a few months before he wants to end the contract. Maybe a few years. As soon as you’re too scarred, too compliant… or even just getting old, he’ll move on. It won’t make any difference. Alex, please, don’t do this,” Mells pleaded.

“I have to,” Alex snarled. “For Casey. Even if I can prevent it for just a little while… it’s better than nothing.”

Mells sighed and hung her head. “Then… I don’t want to hear about it. But at least come visit me okay? Just to know you’re alright.”

“I might decide to go back early,” Alex told her. “I want to get this done as soon as possible. It’s helping me stay calm. It’s helping me adjust to what happened. It makes me feel like I’m doing something for him, okay?”

Mells only shrugged. “No, I don’t understand, and I won’t try to. Just know I care about you.”

She pulled him into a long hug. She smelled like the forest she lived in, and her insect-like wings were compressed tightly to her back.

Finally she let go and was out the window. Alex sighed and looked around his room. There wasn’t much else to do here at home. He needed to get back to the city, and to Izzy.

It felt strange to have this contract ready for Izzy—Alex hated the faerie, and was sure the feeling was mutual.

But he owed it to Casey.