The Fox’s Tale

She gasped and clawed at my hand, but I only tightened my grip. “I asked you a question, bitch.”

“Xander,” she whimpered. “It’s me, Ellery.”

“Liar.” I squeezed harder, and her eyes bulged. Then a deep voice spoke from behind me.

“Oops, sorry. Damn, I didn’t realize you liked being choked, Elly. Wait until I tell Lucas.”

I didn’t take my eyes off of the woman in front of me. “This isn’t Ellery.”

Whoever was standing behind me sniffed and gasped, “fucking hell.”

The next thing I knew a massive hand was grabbing the fake Ellery by the arm and then she was flying through the air. She hit the fountain in the center of the courtyard with a sickening thud and then plummeted into it with a splash. My new friend strode over to the fountain and fished around for her. Soon enough he was dragging the waterlogged body out.

“Is she dead?” I asked as I approached them.

“Yeah.” He moved the corpse with his foot. “But she was dead before I did anything.”

“Did I kill her?” I asked in shock.

“Nah. She died last week from a cocaine overdose at an underground rave in Paris.”

“So she’s a zombie who decided to impersonate my wife?” My heart sank. “Where is Ellery?” I yelled in panic.

“Here!” Ellery and Darcie were running towards me and then the wall of my protector moved between us.

“Stop. Prove you are who you say you are.”

“Quinn, don’t be stupid. It’s us.” Darcie scowled at him.

“Prove you are who you say you are,” he repeated.

Darcie crossed her arms. “We live in the same house, you sleep in the nude, and until last year you had a cock piercing.”

Quinn grunted in response. Despite the seriousness of the situation Ellery turned to him in amazement. “Did you really?”

Quinn trained his eyes on Ellery, ignoring her question. “And what about you? What’s your proof?”

“Relax, it’s her,” I said, putting my hand on his back.

He looked over his shoulder at me. “You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” I replied as I stepped around him to pull her into my arms. I inhaled her scent and checked her over for any signs she’d been harmed or marked.

“It’s okay, Alexander. I’m okay,” she reassured me. “Darcie was with me the whole time. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I am now. I was getting overheated or faint or something, but I’m fine now.”

Ellery kissed my cheek and then moved to examine the body.

“Wow,” she said. “It’s uncanny.”

“Hell of a glamour to make her face look like yours. Pretty impressive necromancy too. I want to know how whoever did this got a hold of her.” Quinn put his hands on his hips and I finally took a good look at him. The dude was huge!

He was easily as big as Lee, if not bigger, and ripped. Just absolutely jacked. He was wearing a pair of black pants, and black boots and nothing else. He pushed his brown hair out of his face and shook his head, making the three hoop earrings in his left ear rattle against each other.

“This is bad shit, guys.” He eyed Ellery with suspicion and asked, “what did you say to me when we first met?”

Ellery rolled her eyes. “I said, you fool, the floor is lava!”

Quinn chuckled. “Cool, cool. Just making sure.” His expression turned serious again. “Ivy was a Changeling. She spent three days on a slab before I could get to her. This,” he gestured to her body, “this shouldn’t have been possible.”

He reached down and moved her head from side to side. “Fuck. I can’t even ask her who did this.”

“What do you mean ‘ask her’? She’s dead.”

Quinn turned to look at me. “Yeah, well, that doesn’t typically stop me from talking to folks. It’s sort of my thing.”

“It’s why he’s the Meridian,” Ellery said as she came over to take me into her arms.

So this was the person Jones had told me to find if there was trouble. I could understand why. I thought back to what happened. “Ask the fake Darcie then.”

“What?” Quinn’s head snapped in Darcie’s direction and she squeaked in outrage.

“Not her, the one who helped the zombie girl bring me outside.” The three of them looked at me. “What? You just said she was with you the whole time, so if I was with the fake Ellery the Darcie with us couldn’t have been our Darcie.”

Ellery squatted down to get a better look at her doppelganger. “This is disturbing. How did you realize it wasn’t me? The costume is an exact replica.”

“Well, for starters, she didn’t smell like you. Then, if you look at her hands you’ll see she’s wearing her claw on her left hand like you normally do, but didn’t tonight because of the ring I gave you. And finally, she called me Xander. You only ever call me Alexander or Foxy.”

“Um, don’t look now, but we’ve got company.” Quinn muttered, causing us to look back at the palace. Sir Aconite, Alastair, and Esmeralda were all headed towards us. Quinn made a tsking sound. “I said not to look, you guys.”

“What is the meaning of this?” demanded Esmeralda, who then let out a strangled scream at the sight of the body on the ground.

“Mathair Mhor, it’s alright, it’s not me,” Ellery rushed into her grandmother’s arms. All the color drained from Alastair’s face at the sight of the body and even Sir Aconite recoiled.

“Explain,” ordered Esmeralda.

“It’s Ivy Hawkins, your majesty,” said Quinn. “Reanimated and glamoured to look like the Crown Princess in order to lure her Other away and cause harm.”

“How can you tell?” asked Sir Aconite from behind his hand.

“Give it a moment. You can already smell the changes.” We stood in silence staring at her corpse and then there was a squelching sound and Ivy’s body shook like a gelatin salad.

She stopped looking like Ellery and turned back into the obvious week old corpse of a drug addict. The smell hit us all at the same time and everyone but Quinn took a step back.

Alastair shook his head in disbelief. “Why wasn’t she laid to rest in the appropriate manner, Meridian?”

“Search me. Maybe her mother balked at the idea of cremation. That part isn’t my job. I just ask questions and deliver the bodies to where they need to go.”

Sir Aconite narrowed his eyes. “Why are you even here?”

“Cause I was invited?” Quinn snorted.

“Really?” Aconite asked, his voice dripping with disdain. “I find that hard to believe. You’re supposed to be attending a masquerade and yet you’ve no mask?”

Quinn scowled at Aconite before trotting over to where we’d been standing when he’d first intervened and picked up something. He turned around wearing a black half mask with horns that were about five inches long.

“Ta da!” he cried, throwing his hands out like a magician. He stalked back over to the group and shoved his mask up. “I put it down when I grabbed Ivy away from,” he paused. “What should I call you?”

“You may call me Xander.”

“Right.” He turned back to Sir Aconite. “I put it down when I grabbed Ivy away from Xander. Satisfied?”

“I’d still like to see the invitation,” he sneered.