Not Your Ordinary Faerie Tale Read Online Free PDF

it?”
    “They said the air around the wall seemed to shimmer, but after he went through, it looked totally normal, as if nothing had ever happened. The same sort of story has been reported by individuals uptown, downtown, and midtown, and that’s why I want you checking out if it’s true.”
    “I can answer that for you right now,” she said, lifting her head and grabbing the assignment sheet to wad it up into a little, crumpled ball. “It’s not true. Now can we talk about that proposal I sent you on the Columbia students arrested during the animal rights protest?”
    “Looks good. I’ll look forward to reading it. Right after you turn in the elf article.”
    “Someday you’ll pay for this, Hank. I hope you realize that.”
    He shrugged and looked remarkably unconcerned. “I’ll live in fear.” His weathered face wrinkled into a grin, and he clamped the toothpick between his molars, chuckling. “Look at it this way. I didn’t make you check out the lead this spring when that cabdriver said he picked up two werewolves outside Central Park. I know when a story’s complete crap.” Then he turned and ambled back to his office, chortling to himself all the way.
    Corinne soothed her temper by making an obscene gesture at Hank’s back with one hand, while she used the other to rub the elbow she’d smashed on the desk when he’d made the werewolf comment. For God’s sake, those werewolves had been her friends. Well, her friend and her friend’s furry husband-to-be.
    Throwing caution and the potential for irreversible liver damage to the wind, Corinne popped another two aspirin and slugged back the last of her cold coffee. Staring at the dregs left behind in her cup, she realized her need for caffeine superseded any attempt to appear to be starting work on her new assignment. Without a new dose of her drug of choice, she wouldn’t be able to so much as lift a pencil, let alone figure out what she was going to do about the impending collapse of reality as she knew it.
    Hell, as everyone knew it.
    Grabbing a handful of change from the bottom of her purse, she shoved herself to her feet and headed for the door. Weaving her way among the desks of her colleagues, she ignored their absent greetings as easily as she ignored the ringing of telephones and the clacking of computer keyboards. All her attention remained focused on the front doors to the Chronicle ’s office suite and the elevators just beyond. Those elevators were her ticket to the basement of the building and the vending machines that stood there, patiently waiting to dispense the sweet, dark nectar of the gods.
    She tapped her foot impatiently while she waited for the car, punched the button marked b a dozen times in rapid succession as soon as she stepped inside, and stared at the digital floor indicator as it counted down. Just as the thick metal doors slid open, her pocket started to trill the opening bars to Bach’s Toccata and Fugue. She cursed and debated whether or not to answer the call. On the one hand, the person on the other end was usually at least as much trouble as she was worth and was distressingly good at detecting when something was bothering Corinne and then metaphorically beating out the truth. On the other, Corinne couldn’t think of a time in her life when she’d more needed a distraction.
    Sighing, she dug out her cell phone and flipped it open. “Yeah?”
    “I give up. I surrender. This is the official white flag I’m waving in your ear right now.”
    Corinne fed six quarters into the vending machine and scowled. “Ava, what the hell are you babbling about?”
    “I am not babbling,” the other woman snapped, her voice crackling over the line even though the cell signal came in clear as glass. “I am informing you in perfectly rational and reasonable terms that I am throwing in the towel and washing my hands of the whole mess. I may decide to take religious orders.”
    The machine button protested the amount of force