Dead in the Family

Colman, who had been looking down at his accidental murder victim with shocked eyes, stiffened, and his shoulders went back. He began to topple, and I saw that there was a dagger between them. Eric shoved the quivering Colman away.
    “Ocella!” Eric screamed, terror in his voice. Suddenly, Appius Livius went still.
    “Well, all right,” I said wearily, and turned my heavy head to see who had thrown the knife. Claude was looking down at the two blades still in his hands as if he expected to see one of them vanish.
    Color us puzzled.
    Eric seized the wounded Colman and latched on to his neck. Fairies are incredibly attractive to vampires—their blood, that is—and Eric had a great reason to kill this fairy. He wasn’t holding back at all, and it was pretty gross. The gulping, the blood running down Colman’s neck, his glazed eyes . . . Both of them had glazed eyes, I realized. Eric’s were full of bloodlust, and Colman’s were becoming full of death. Colman had been too weakened by his many wounds to fight Eric off. Eric was looking rosier by the second.
    Claude limped over to sit on the grass beside me. He put my knives carefully on the ground by me, as if I’d been badgering him for their return. “I was trying to persuade him to go home,” my cousin said. “I saw him only once or twice. He had an elaborate scheme to put you in a human jail. He planned to kill you until he saw you with the child Hunter in the park. He thought of taking the child, but even in a rage he couldn’t do it.”
    “You moved in to protect me,” I said. That was amazing, from someone as selfish as Claude.
    “My sister loved you,” Claude said. “Colman was fond of Claudine, and very proud she chose him to father her child.”
    “I guess he was one of Niall’s followers.” He’d said he was one of the sky fairies.
    “Yes, ‘Colman’ means ‘dove.’ ”
    It didn’t make any difference now. I was sorry for him. “He had to know nothing I said would have stopped Claudine from doing what she thought was right,” I said.
    “He knew,” Claude admitted. “That was why he couldn’t bring himself to kill you, even before he saw the child. That’s why he talked to the werewolf, concocted such an indirect scheme.” He sighed. “If Colman had really been convinced you caused Claudine’s death, nothing would have stopped him.”
    “I would have stopped him,” said a new voice, and Jason stepped out of the woods. No, it was Dermot.
    “Okay, you threw the knife,” I said. “Thanks, Dermot. Are you okay?”
    “I hope. . . .” Dermot looked at us pleadingly.
    “Colman had a spell on him,” Claude observed. “At least, I think so.”
    “He said you didn’t have a lot of magic,” I said to Claude. “He told me about the spell, as close as he could say it. I thought it must be the other fairy, Colman, who put it on him. But since Colman is dead, I would have thought that would break the spell.”
    Claude frowned. “Dermot, so it wasn’t Colman who laid the spell?”
    Dermot sank to the ground in front of us. “So much longer,” he said elliptically. I puzzled over that for a moment.
    “He was spelled much longer ago,” I said, finally feeling a little throb of excitement. “Are you saying that you were spelled months ago?”
    Dermot seized my hand in his left and took Claude’s hand in his right.
    Claude said, “I think he means that he’s been spelled for much longer. For years.” Tears rolled down Dermot’s cheeks.
    “I bet you money that Niall did it,” I said. “He probably had it all worked out in his head. Dermot deserved it for, I don’t know, having qualms about his fairy legacy or something.”
    “My grandfather is very loving but not very . . . tolerant,” Claude said.
    “You know how they undo spells in fairy tales?” I said.
    “Yes, I have heard that humans tell fairy tales,” Claude said. “So, tell me how they say to break spells.”
    “In the fairy tales, a kiss does it.”
    “Easily done,” Claude said, and as if we had practiced synchronized kissing, we leaned forward and kissed Dermot.
    And it worked. He shuddered all over, then looked at us both, intelligence flooding his eyes. He began to weep in earnest, and after a moment Claude got to his knees and helped Dermot up. “I’ll see you in a while,” he said. Then he guided Dermot into the house.
    Eric and I were alone. Eric had sunk onto his haunches a little distance from the three bodies in my front