Devils Don’t Deal (Singsong City #12)

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

The sky overhead was bright blue with soft, fluffy clouds around the edges. It was a gorgeous afternoon, perfect for picnics and frolicking. That made it the worst day for my mother’s funeral. I felt like nature was mocking my pain.

I stood there next to her coffin in my deep-blue, silk dress with pale-blue velvet trim that matched my wings. The sunshine made them sparkle like I was at a magical picnic, not close to tears.

Of course, I wasn’t going to break down in front of all my mother’s distant relatives, all snobby fairies who stood around, staring at me, judging me.

I’d had months and months of watching my mother get sicker and sicker.

I’d known this was coming, just like my dad.

We’d both shed our tears already. He should’ve been there with me, holding my hand and whispering to me what a pack of wolves they were.

That would’ve made me laugh—or at least made me feel less like the world was caving in under my feet.

He was a goblin. She was a fairy. I was a miracle. But the longer her relatives stared at me, the more I felt like an abomination as I stood next to her casket, the sun shining on her waxy face through the glass, surrounded by the flowers she’d loved so much.

Dad had been missing since she died, said he’d take care of the funeral and disappeared.

Everything showed up for it, flowers, coffin, undertaker, but not him.

He hadn’t left her side in months, so how had he come up with the money to pay for everything?

And why wasn’t he here to plant her in the earth in the most expensive cemetery around Singsong City?

“Kesty Charles? You’re the daughter of Rose Palethorn?”

I stiffened and sucked in my stomach automatically as I turned to see my boss, Roald Fern looking stern, with purple wings to match his eyes, white hair, and a sharp nose.

It was a nose he said could smell lies and cheats.

What was he doing here? He wasn’t one of the elite fae who’d raised my mother.

She was one of them but an orphan with no parents.

All family, but no one who loved her best. My life was the opposite.

No distant relatives, but parents who loved me best.

Roald had enough fairy blood to give him wings, but he couldn’t fly.

He could humiliate everyone under him in House Beur, the fanciest department store in Singsong City, and he did.

They paid their workers the best, but that didn’t make it any easier to put up with their horrible policies, like the one that required a certain weight per height, and if you looked like you were too fat, they’d bring out the scale in front of everyone at the weekly turn-out meeting, and you’d be humiliated or dismissed if you didn’t come under the necessary weight.

Thanks to my dad, I ran toward stocky instead of ethereal.

It didn’t help that I liked to bake delicious things and, heaven forbid, eat them.

I’d had to step on the scale four times over the six years I’d worked there, and each one had been more humiliating than the last.

And now my boss, the man who terrorized my work life, was at my mother’s funeral.

“Good morning, sir,” I said with the polite smile specially reserved for rich, rude patrons.

It was terrible to put on such a smile when my heart was broken and my dad wasn’t there.

Good thing he wasn’t. One thing Mr. Fern was was prejudiced against goblins ‘and all their ilk.’ My dad didn’t need to deal with that, and I didn’t need to deal with Roald knowing I wasn’t just a stocky fairy but a true abomination. He might fire me over it.

“You’re the one who’s half-goblin? You can hardly tell.” He tilted his head and looked me up and down in the rudest way.

He knew? My stomach twisted, but I held onto my smile, almost wishing I didn’t have the caps over my sharp teeth so I could make him flinch. What could I possibly say to answer that? You can hardly tell because I worked so hard to cover it up? Because he would’ve thrown me out if he’d known.

I took a deep breath and forced out the polite words, “Thank you. How did you know my mother?”

He waved a graceful hand and looked around at the others gathered. “I never knew her personally, not after she threw her lot in with a filthy goblin. But I’ve heard of her. Who hasn’t?”

I clenched my teeth together in my smile so I didn’t tell him that my father wasn’t filthy.

Although if he was climbing through tunnels searching for gold to pay for the funeral, he’d certainly be dirty.

It was a very elaborate funeral, flower garlands all around, and my mother’s glass coffin showing her face, less haggard and thin than she’d been for a year. The glamourist had done very good work.

“You’re here to support me? How kind of you.”

He wasn’t here to support me. Not in a million years.

He glanced around at the elite fae on the edges who he was clearly dying to meet.

“Not at all. You missed so much work in the last month, so when I heard you were out for the day for your mother’s funeral, I knew I had to come and see for myself whether you were lying.

You’re so private about your personal life.

Which I approve of, generally, but to keep secrets of this magnitude?

” He gestured at me, because of course my existence was a shameful lie.

“My personal life is none of your concern,” I said softly, wanting to bite him somewhere tender. Nose? Yes. Definitely that sharp, pointed, judgmental nose needed to be snapped off.

His eyes narrowed. “But you are living in an apartment whose rent is offset by the department store. You won your position through the merit of your blood, but if it isn’t truly fairy blood, then you’ve been stealing opportunities that should go to someone more worthy.”

I blinked at him. He was seriously saying this to me while my mother’s freshly dead body was directly behind me?

He was going to fire me. He was going to kick me out of my apartment when I had nowhere to go, and he was going to do it in front of all my judgmental relatives. They’d probably applaud him for it.

“Mr. Fern, I understand. Thank you for coming. Please sit down.”

He raised a brow. “Please sit down?”

“This is a time to reflect on my mother’s life, not talk about work.”

He looked around again, sneering all the way to his curly toed boots. “What is this opulence for one who should be tucked quietly into the earth without any fanfare? Such waste. Such—”

I punched him.

He fell to the ground, a look of shock and absolute horror on his face while his smooshed nose started bleeding. It was almost satisfying until I remembered that I was now homeless and without a job to pay off the elaborate funeral. Maybe legal fees once he was done with me.

He scrambled away from me like I was a monster, getting grass stains on his tight beige pants.

I should’ve apologized, made excuses, but the anger in his eyes showed there would be no coming back from this.

I’d just have to find another job. Six years of humiliation down the drain.

At least I didn’t need a nice apartment close to the hospital anymore.

He pulled out his phone and dialed with trembling fingers while a distant relative, my great-uncle or something, came over, snapping his fingers so the pair of ogres who followed him grabbed me, one on each side. I stared up at one blue face then the other, too shocked to struggle.

Are you kidding me?

Their meaty fingers dug into my shoulders as if one of them couldn’t take me easily.

Well, I did have goblin blood. Who knew what I’d do?

Maybe I’d eat their fingers, snap them off with my teeth.

Could I do that? No. I needed to make this situation better, not worse, and spitting out my caps and trying to bite off their fingers would definitely not make anything better.

My great-uncle stepped forward, tall, with long, silver wings that made him look like he had a streak of angel.

Angel blood didn’t make him a nice guy, as illustrated by his use of his own bodyguards.

His voice was deep bells and beauty, but the eyes were judgmental arrogance.

“Bringing violence to your mother’s memorial? How like a goblin.”

I stood up straight and glared at the person who’d brought ogres to my mother’s funeral.

Ogres were just as bad, if not worse, than goblins.

“Let go of me! What’s wrong with you, bringing ogres here?

Fern was insulting my father. This is my mother’s funeral!

How dare you come here with bodyguards and have them…

” I sputtered because the anger was fading, and helpless panic was taking its place.

No job? No home? No mother, and who knew where my dad had run off to?

“They’ll hold you until the police arrive,” my evil great-uncle said, giving Fern a look of contempt, but that was his normal face. It was probably his version of approval.

I slumped between the two ogres, letting them hold me up. Tears of defeat were crowding under my eyelids, hot and heavy.

Seriously? This ridiculously expensive funeral, and neither my father nor I would be here to enjoy it? Not like I was enjoying it, but it was the spirit of the thing.

Ten minutes later, I was tucked into the back of a police car then driven downtown, handcuffed like a criminal. Perfect. Just perfect. At least if I were in jail, I wouldn’t have to worry about food and housing.

I leaned my forehead against the hard glass and stared out at the depressingly beautiful day as we drove through the high rises.

The officer was a burly guy with curly brown hair and green eyes. The kind of guy I’d usually be flustered around and wish I could flirt with, but not today.

“Are you okay?” he asked as he pulled into a parking lot behind the new station downtown.

What was the answer to such a stupid question? Was anyone okay if they ended up in his backseat, handcuffed?