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T ess

Wednesday: Wedding minus 10 days

E leanor and I looked at the dog collar, then at Mr. Volkov, then at Anastasia, and then back at the dog collar.

“It makes them talk? The dogs? It makes the dogs talk?”

“Well,” he said, pulling at his beard. “So far, it only works on Anastasia. It makes her talk. I don’t know from other dogs.”

I shouldn’t ask, I shouldn’t ask, I shouldn’t ask.

I had to ask.

“What did she say?”

He rolled his eyes. “Not much! A philosopher, this dog is not. She says to me, ‘Where is the bacon, Sergei?’ and ‘rub my belly, Sergei,’ and ‘it’s nap time, Sergei,’ and ‘you can do better, Sergei.’”

“Well, I … you can do better?”

He avoided my gaze. “I, ah, was dating a lady from Miami. She said she doesn’t like dogs! Who doesn’t like dogs?”

Anastasia barked.

I agreed with Anastasia. I wouldn’t have dated anybody who didn’t like cats. Heh. Not a problem, now that I was engaged to one.

“What do you want for it, if, hypothetically, I’m interested?”

He named a figure that made me flinch.

“I don’t think so, Mr. Volkov. I know people who buy magical items, but that’s kind of high.”

He nodded, took the collar off the counter, and fastened it around Anastasia’s neck just above the collar she already wore.

We all looked at Anastasia.

The dog looked back at us.

Silence.

“Well, maybe another?—”

“COOKIES,” Anastasia said, looking from me to the counter and back to me.

When they first came in, I’d given her a cookie from a box I kept behind the counter before, and Borzois were exceptionally smart dogs, but …

“COOKIES PLEASE NOW,” the dog said, in a surprisingly gentle voice coming from a dog that was half my height and weighed almost as much as I did.

“Anastasia? Is that you?” I had to ask. Maybe the collar just spit out random phrases. “If it’s really you, who is your owner?”

Silence.

I sighed. It had been exciting for a minute.

“No, no, no,” Mr. Volkov rumbled. “I don’t call myself that word. Ask her who her P A P A is.”

“I need to spell it?”

“No, but I didn’t want you to think I’m telling her how to answer.”

This made sense to me, which was frightening. “Okay. Anastasia, who is your papa?”

The gorgeous dog immediately walked back to Mr. Volkov and sat down next to him.

“PAPA. NICE LADY CAT SMELLS GIVE COOKIES NOW.”

I probably did smell like my cat to a dog.

I gave her a cookie.

Eleanor clapped her hands together. “This is amazing! It’s like making first contact with aliens. We could actually discover what dogs think of the world. What they think of us. What?—”

Mr. Volkov cut her off with an upraised hand. “Not so much. Anastasia, what do you think of people?”

“COOKIE. BACON.”

“What do you think of the world?”

“BACON. COOKIE. BACON.”

“Alexei is her littermate,” he told us, before turning back to the dog. “Anastasia, do you like Alexei?”

“ALEXEI BAD DOG. STINKY FARTS. GIVE COOKIE.”

I was starting to see what he meant. I wasn’t sure I needed to hear my cat talk about stinky farts.

“Does it work on cats?” I asked.

“How would I know? Do you think a cat could get anywhere near my place?”

I mean, it wouldn’t hurt to try. Maybe Lou had preferences about salmon versus chicken I needed to hear about.

“Okay. If you’re sure you want to sell it, I’ll take it. I can only give you this much, though.” I named a figure lower than the one he’d hoped for, and we started haggling. Haggling is one of the fun things about owning a pawnshop if your customers are nice people.

A quick primer on pawnshops, for the uninitiated:

We take items as collateral that banks would never touch, for loans so small banks would never lend them. For example, your house is collateral for your mortgage, but your antique sewing machine can be collateral for a hundred bucks (or more, or less, depending on its value) at a pawnshop.

We write up the pawn. The person pawning has ninety days to come back and pay up to get their item back, at which point we make a small profit in interest for overhead, storage, etc. If they don’t come back, we can sell the item to recoup our lost money from the loan.

Another facet of my business is that we buy things that people never want back. My old boss had built up a reputation for collecting the wild, wacky, weird, and wonderful, especially magical items. When I inherited the shop, I continued the tradition, except I refuse to buy vampire fangs.

Ever.

I even posted a sign.

The magical items buying is part of why my life had been so … interesting … for the past year and a half.

I gave Anastasia another cookie, Mr. Volkov gave me the collar, and the two of them headed out. My Aunt Ruby came in just as they were leaving, and she and Mr. Volkov exchanged a few pleasantries while Anastasia politely sniffed Aunt Ruby’s shoes, no doubt picking up the scent of my sister Shelley’s new pug.

When the Volkovs, Sergei and Anastasia, left, Aunt Ruby bustled over to the counter.

“Hello, Mayor Callahan,” I said, grinning. “How can I help you?”

She sniffed. “If this town had nearly as much interest in actual town business as they do in your wedding, we’d solve all of Dead End’s problems in a day.”

“Dead End has problems?” I frowned. “What now?”

She shook her head, her “Only my hairdresser knows,” blonde hair flying. “A bit of an issue. We need to talk about your wedding later, though.”

I groaned.

Aunt Ruby was everything a TV casting director would want in a “grandmotherly lady next door” role. She was pleasingly plump, pink-cheeked, blue-eyed, and about four inches shorter than my five eight.

She was also the woman who’d raised me after my mom died, and she loved me more than the universe. Since I felt the same way about her, it worked out well.

That didn’t mean I wanted to talk about the wedding with her.

Again.

The woman had definite ideas, and she was busily trying to steamroll me to go along with every single one of them.

“We’re not releasing doves. Or butterflies. Or any other living thing. And yes, the king and queen of Atlantis are coming, and no, they don’t eat any special Atlantean delicacies. Queen Riley is an American. They eat normal food, not … squid pudding or whatever,” I said, counting off on my fingers the answers to some of the many, many questions she’d texted me that morning.

“No, forget that. This is an emergency,” she said, her brow furrowed. “Mike is at his engineering alumni meeting in Orlando, Susan is out of town on business, Andy is taking his mom to the doctor, and Jack didn’t answer his phone, so I came straight out here.”

Mike was my uncle and her husband, Susan Gonzalez was our sheriff, Deputy Andy Kelly worked with Susan, and Jack was my former soldier, shapeshifting tiger fiancé. So, I was only fifth on the list of “people to consult in emergencies.”

That stung a little, but okay.

“Hello, Ruby,” Eleanor said. “Coffee?”

“No, that’s the last thing I need.” Aunt Ruby put her giant purse down on my counter and rummaged around. “This morning, when I got to the office, this was in the center of my desk. Nobody knows how it got there, but you know those Fae.”

I did, sometimes to my chagrin, know the Fae. At least the ones who lived near us. They were beautiful and capricious; twisty and deadly. They were known not to be able to tell a lie, but I’d found they seldom told the truth.

They should come with warning labels: Engage at your own risk.

“Here it is!” She brandished a large envelope. “What do you think of this?”

I tentatively took the envelope, hoping it didn’t explode. It was just an envelope, though. Heavy, cream-colored linen paper, embossed with a giant V in the corner.

“Well, open it,” Aunt Ruby said, all but dancing with impatience.

I opened it and drew out the single sheet of heavy paper. The embossed V was at the bottom of the page. Above it, it read:

To Ruby of the Callahans, Mayor of Dead End, and all its Citizens therein, please Be Advised that the town charter Bargain with the Fae expires on June 16 th of this year.

You may, at the decision of the Bearer of this Declaration, be permitted to renew the charter for another five hundred years.

Be Warned: Succeed or you will be Expelled from this Territory

Viviette, Autumn Queen, Seelie Court

“June sixteenth? As in June sixteenth, my wedding day ?”

“I’m not sure that’s the critical point here, but yes,” Aunt Ruby said, looking flustered.

“What do you know about this town charter? Was it in the super-secret mayor files you inherited, like the magic words to open a portal to the Fae lands?”

Aunt Ruby shook her head. “No. And I called Jed, but he has no idea. Said it was before his time, since he was only born three hundred and sixty-odd years ago.”

Viviette was the Fae queen who’d imprisoned Jack’s grandad in a statue for three centuries, so when she used words like “Be Warned,” we knew not to take it—or her—lightly.

“But who’s the bearer of the paper? I mean, if you don’t know who delivered it, how do we know who the bearer is?” Eleanor asked. “I can’t believe this is happening now. I just got done moving Bill’s things into my house.”

The chimes over the door rang, and Jack walked into my shop, looking confused and a little angry. “Tess? Why is a Fae prince with his full complement of guards in your parking lot?”

“I’m guessing he’s the bearer,” I told him, trudging over to the door to look out.

There was a time when I would have rushed to see such an extraordinary sight. Now, I only wondered how much trouble was coming.

Sure enough, twenty-one Fae sat on their horses—because, of course, they did—in my parking lot.

“Here we go again,” I said, and then I handed Jack the envelope, opened my door, and stepped outside.