Grave Visions (Alex Craft, #4)(50)

I lowered my shields, just a crack. Around me, all the glowing flowers appeared to decay despite the swirls of purple and blue magic fixed inside them. Clothes on the party guests lost their splendor, instead appearing to fray and deteriorate.

And the otherwise inconspicuous couple in the back? Their rather normal appearance morphed into a nightmare as my innate ability to pierce glamour through the veils of reality revealed what hid beneath.

The man, who’d appeared to be a robust but normally sized and proportioned human male, was truly a good two feet shorter, so that he stood at four two tops. While not fat, he was wide, thick. His arms had to be larger around than my thighs, his meaty hands the size of bowling balls with red-tipped talons on each large finger. His features were spread across a leathery face, thick lips chapped and callused below a bulbous nose. Above oversized ears he wore a sagging red cap, which dripped viscous red liquid down the edges of his head, like a slow stream of blood. It was a horrific visage, the very thing to inspire night terrors in children and I had no doubt the fae was indeed of the bogeyman variety.

The woman was perhaps less physically frightening, at least compared to her companion, but she had an air of maliciousness about her. Where the man was squat and wide, she looked almost overstretched, with long, thin limbs that reminded me of naked tree limbs reaching for unsuspecting travelers in dark woods. Her skin had a green tinge to it—not unusual in many of the nature spirit fae, but while the green men, like Caleb, had a coloration that reminded one of spring and new growing things, her skin was more reminiscent of murky slime growing in stagnant water. Her dank green hair hung tangled about her shoulders, rotting plants and the bones of fish caught in the muck-covered strands. When she smiled, her teeth were small and pointed, like the grin of a piranha.

It wasn’t a huge mystery why the children had screamed. The real question was, had the couple been invited as guests or not? Being the subject of childhood tales didn’t automatically disqualify one from having friends. Many independent fae lived alongside their human neighbors without revealing their true nature. Others, like Caleb, my friend and landlord, didn’t exactly hide they were fae but didn’t advertise it either.

Thinking of Caleb, my eyes slid to where he sat on Tamara’s side of the aisle. With my shields down, I could see through the boy-next-door glamour he wore in public to his green man coloration and vaguely other features. He didn’t look scary, but then I knew him well and he was descended from rather harmless nature spirits, not bogeymen. The couple, Caleb, and well, me, were the only fae currently in attendance, at least that I could spot from a quick glance around the crowd. Caleb and I were obviously invited guests, but was there any reason to believe the couple weren’t guests? Ethan taught a course on the ethics of magic at the university. The couple could be colleagues or family friends.

I glanced at the couple again. The red liquid trickling from the man’s cap really did look like blood. I had a book at home detailing different fae from folklore, which, as most were oral stories written down in the Victorian era, wasn’t always a reliable source of information on the fae, but it was the best I could do. I’d been studying the book since I’d learned my own heritage, and I vaguely remembered a couple of stories about a classification of fae called Red Caps. If I remembered correctly, they were a type of goblin . . . Maybe even hobgoblin?

The two kids were being carried out now, the crowd murmuring softly. The couple exchanged a glance and then both looked directly at me. The way their gazes bore into me, I got the distinct impression they could tell I was looking across the planes. My charm hid my own otherness only if what you expected to see was human. If they could see through my illusion, they knew exactly who and what I was. I knocked a couple of points off the probability of them being just another pair of guests.

They stood as a unit and began making their way out of their row. Tamara and Ethan had turned back around, the wedding proceeding, but as the two fae slipped onto the red carpet, the crowd began to shift nervously again.

Holly noticed the couple and shot a glance back at me, her face a question. I had no answers, but a bad feeling slid along my spine. I clenched my fists around my bouquet. My dagger was in my purse, which was in the bridesmaid tent. My instincts urged me to move, to stop standing like an attending statue, but I really, really didn’t want to be the one to ruin Tamara’s wedding just because a creepy pair of fae were moving to a better seat. Unless their plan is more sinister. Trying to maintain my already feeble smile, I watched the couple’s slow progress.

Mrs. Greene finally noticed the shifting and backward stares around her and tore her gaze from her daughter. I could see only the edge of the dirty glare she shot at them, but I was glad I wasn’t the one on the receiving end. She stood without a word, the picture of poise as she silently but purposefully moved to the aisle and intercepted the fae. I could catch only the hiss of her voice, not her words, but while her gestures were contained to a tight box in front of her body, they were sharp, betraying not so hidden anger.

The fae ignored her. The hobgoblin pulled something from inside his jacket pocket. I still had my shields cracked, so I had to squint to figure out that the crumbling object was some manner of reed pipe. He lifted it to his thick lips like it was some sort of instrument. I seriously doubted music would be what emerged.

“Get down,” I yelled, grabbing Holly’s arm and dragging her to the ground with me as I took my own advice.