Charming Blue by Kristine Grayson

said. “I like him. I’ve always liked him.”
    “Boyfriend-girlfriend liking?” Jodi asked. “Or friend-friend?”
    Tank flew straight up, like a missile, and then she came down in front of Jodi. Tank’s eyes flashed.
    “You are unrelenting,” Tank said. “And it is not possible for me and Blue to have a relationship. Think about it.”
    Jodi didn’t want to imagine that relationship. “Nothing’s impossible with magic.”
    Tank threw her arms into the air. “Friend-friend!” she shouted. “Is that good enough for you? Or do I look that much like Tinker Bell to you?”
    Tinker Bell’s obsession with Peter Pan had become so extreme that some mortal actually wrote a book about it—getting it wrong, of course. Mortals always got the details wrong.
    Then Tank put her hands on her hips, still hovering in front of Jodi.
    “Why do you care so much anyway?” Tank asked. “You think the guy is a serial killer.”
    Jodi frowned. She had never thought Peter Pan was a serial killer. She had thought him a lot of things, but never anything so bad as all that.
    “I do not,” Jodi said.
    “You do!” Tank said. “You just said so outside.”
    “About Bluebeard,” Jodi said.
    “Yes, about Bluebeard,” Tank said. “Who did you think I was talking about?”
    “Tinker Bell,” Jodi said. “And Peter Pan.”
    “Tinker Bell is a lot of things, but she would never kill anyone voluntarily,” Tank said. “She leaves that kind of crap to me.”
    “You’ve killed someone?” Jodi asked.
    Tank flew around the image and hovered over Jodi’s right shoulder. “You know, this partnership is not going to work if you keep accusing me of weird things.”
    Jodi opened her mouth and then closed it. The conversation had already taken so many tangents that she wasn’t sure she could properly follow it.
    “Sorry,” she said. “I’m still a little shaken up.”
    “Clearly,” Tank said angrily.
    Jodi took a deep breath and wished Tank would too. Then Jodi nodded at the image—which still hadn’t moved.
    “So, what do you think this is?” Jodi asked. She wanted to change the subject quickly or, to be more accurate, bring the subject back to where it belonged. “The stalker?”
    “That Fairy Tale Stalker?” Tank asked. “I told you. That’s not Blue.”
    It was Jodi’s turn to sigh in irritation. “I know that. I just—I was hoping I didn’t screw up my wards. I thought I protected myself against him.”
    “The Fairy Tale Stalker?” Tank asked. Was she being deliberately obtuse?
    “Bluebeard.”
    “You did,” Tank said. “This isn’t him.”
    “It looks like him,” Jodi said. “And if it isn’t him, then what is it?”
    Tank landed on her shoulder, startling her. Tank’s wings brushed against her ear as they stopped fluttering.
    Jodi wanted to brush her off. But she didn’t dare.
    “It’s what I’ve always suspected,” Tank said softly, so softly that if someone else had been in the room, they wouldn’t have been able to hear her. “It’s a curse.”
    Jodi leaned forward. A curse. Of course. The amber light should have been a tip-off. Curses brought their own illumination. And unlike evil spells, curses lasted forever. Or, at least as long as the cursed thing (or person) still existed.
    Jodi poked at the fairy dust image with her forefinger, and the image crumbled, falling to the floor.
    “Great,” Tank said. “Thanks for that. I was studying that.”
    “Do it again,” Jodi said. “You can bring the image back.”
    “ Do it again ,” Tank said in a mocking tone. “Like I answer your every command. Just do it again . Like it’s easy. Do it again …”
    But she did. She lifted a handful of fairy dust into the air. It fell around them, illuminating not just the original image, but one a few feet away. This was the image of Bluebeard leaving. Still smiling. Looking a little seductive.
    “Keep going,” Jodi said.
    “You keep going,” Tank said, and at first Jodi thought it was