Be Careful What You Wish For Read online

  Cass stole a glance up at their court-appointed elf again, comparing his features with those of the fairies that passed them on either side. The fairies looked like a bunch of snobby supermodels with wings. In contrast, O’Shea’s blunt features looked almost rough.

  Once again she thought it looked like his nose had been broken at some point, but who would or could break this particular elf’s nose? She knew she certainly wouldn’t want to try, as much as she might enjoy the moment of satisfaction when her fist connected with his annoying face.

  Abruptly O’Shea looked down at her, his pale leaf green eyes seeming to pierce right through her.

  Cass’s cheeks grew hot with a blush but she refused to drop her gaze even though she felt like he could see right through her thin night shirt with that penetrating gaze. His expression was smooth and deliberately blank but his eyes had an intensity she wished she could capture on canvas.

  “Was there something you wanted, Miss Swann?” he asked at last. “Some reason you feel the need to study me?”

  “I don’t want anything from you except for you to let go of my arm,” Cass said defiantly. There was no way she was going to tell him she’d been wishing she could paint him—he was already insufferably full of himself.

  “I’m afraid that’s quite impossible.” He gave a quick shake of his head.

  “Why?” Cass demanded. “Because you don’t trust me? Do you really think I’d be stupid enough to risk running away when I don’t even know how to get back to my own world without help?”

  O’Shea’s lips twitched in what might have been the beginning of a smile.

  “Not at all, Miss Swann. It’s just that I don’t trust this crowd.” He faced forward again and she had to be content to study the passing faces and wonder what he meant as they continued walking.

  O’Shea’s hand on her arm remained firm but every once in a while, when he shifted his grip, his warm knuckles brushed against the side of her right breast, sending a strange shiver down her spine.

  Cass didn’t think it was on purpose or she would have stopped right there on the sidewalk and slapped him no matter how scary he was, but it was still an uncomfortable, confusing feeling.

  Wish I’d had time to put on a bra! she thought uneasily.

  There was one good thing about being led by their court-appointed elf instead of walking by herself, though. Glancing over her shoulder, Cass could see that Phil and Rory and her Nana were getting jostled by some of the other pedestrians on the sidewalk. But no one so much as touched either her or O’Shea. He walked confidently forward as though he owned the sidewalk and the crowd parted before him in invisible waves.

  Arrogant prick, she thought, glaring up at him. He just expects everyone to get out of his way. But her attention was soon drawn away from the irritating elf to the other pedestrians around them.

  The full-blooded fairies weren’t the only people worth looking at—if the rest of the citizens crowding the streets could be called people. Cass saw a couple that looked like giants holding hands as they crossed the busy street in three large strides. She estimated the woman was as much as eight feet tall and the man who was holding her frying-pan sized hand was more like ten feet. He ducked absentmindedly as a flying couch-car, which looked like it was on a collision course with his watermelon-sized head, narrowly missed him.

  Not far behind the giant couple was a group of what looked like construction workers. They were wearing pale orange safety vests and hard-hats. But their hard-hats were the size of thimbles and the workers that wore them were about as tall as the length of her palm.

  They were riding in what looked like a chariot harnessed to a large crow that cawed raucously around the reins attached to its beak as it flew. There were other people of all different sizes, some even stranger than the giants or the tiny workers, all hurrying about their business with distracted looks on what passed for their faces, but Cass couldn’t take them all in. After a while it was a massive brain overload.

  Man, this is some weird shit, she thought, trying to see everything and everyone without looking like a gawking tourist.

  Despite being an artist, she’d never been much into experimental drugs. But seeing all the strange and colorful people around her reminded her of the one time she’d allowed a friend to talk her into dropping acid. The colors in the Realm looked more vibrant somehow, more alive than those of the world she was used to.

  With all the strange people and creatures surrounding her, she felt like she’d somehow gotten dumped into an urban version of The Chronicles of Narnia. All she needed to make the scene complete was one of those sentient, talking animals C.S. Lewis had written about.

  As if in answer to her thought, she saw a huge black horse without a rider suddenly step into the road across from them and start to cross the street. It seemed like a bad idea with the crazy traffic but the horse had made it most of the way across before disaster struck.

  A multi-passenger vehicle Cass would have called a bus, except for the stumpy rhinoceros legs where its tires should have been and the wicked looking horn attached to its grille, was suddenly in the horse’s way.

  The horse snorted and tried to go around the rhino-bus, but the bus seemed to take offense. Grunting fiercely, it charged forward and before the huge horse could dodge out of the way, the evil looking horn had gored deep into its shiny black flank.

  Cass watched in horrified fascination as the horse threw up its head and screamed—not a shrill whinny but an actual human-sounding scream—staggered a few steps to the curb not three yards from their feet and collapsed.

  Behind her, she heard Nana and Phil exclaim in surprise and then a red blur was rushing past her to get to the fallen horse. It was Rory, her deep red hair flying like a flag in the wind as she ran.

  “Rory, no!” she heard Nana shout as her little sister fell to her knees beside the huge black animal and cradled its long bullet shaped head on her lap.

  O’Shea cursed under his breath again and suddenly dropped Cass’s arm, racing to get to Rory who was completely absorbed in the wounded horse.

  Cass ran forward too, jostling through the crowd that was beginning to gather.

  “Don’t touch it!” she heard Nana, who had somehow gotten ahead of her, shrieking. Phil was jammed beside their grandmother, also shouting at Rory to come away and Cass watched over their shoulders as O’Shea dropped to his knees beside her younger sister and said something in a low voice she didn’t quite catch.

  “But why?” she heard Rory ask. She was sobbing by now, her pale skin blotched and her green eyes red-rimmed with tears. “Why shouldn’t I touch it? It’s hurt. He’s hurt. Don’t you have vets in your world? We need to get him to the animal hospital now!”

  Peering over the shoulders of her sister and grandmother, Cass could see that the immense black horse had stopped struggling and was lying quietly now, its dark liquid eye rolled up to regard Rory with what she could have sworn was complete confidence.

  “It’s a phooka,” she heard O’Shea saying in a remarkably patient voice. “You need to step away from it now, Aurora. It’s not safe.”

  “I don’t care what he is—he’s hurt! And I don’t care about your damn court date either. I’m staying right here until he gets medical attention,” Rory yelled, tears dripping down her cheeks. “He’s probably dying right now!” She stroked the horse’s long, velvety nose and the large apple-bright eye looking up at her began to glaze, as though confirming her fears.

  Cass watched the scene, wishing she could get in through the crowd to put an arm around her sister and offer support. She considered herself something of a cynical bitch but Rory saw the world through rose colored glasses which made it hard on her littler sister whenever her optimistic view of life was shattered.

  “Excuse me, do you mind?” she said, trying to push through the crowd of people and creatures that had gathered. “I need to get in there. She’s my sister! Nana? Phil? Hey!” But her sister and grandmother were far ahead of