One

Zoe Clare saw dead people.

This wouldn't have been bad if dead people were all she saw. In this day and age, a person could make a decent living talking to ghosts. But Zoe's gift had come with an eccentric extra—a tiny, annoying extra that was, even now, tugging at the covers she'd pulled determinedly over her head.

"I need my sleep," she said, her eyes screwed shut against the bright Arizona morning. "It's important for a medium to recharge her batteries."

The tugging changed to a weighted prickle on her scalp, between the corkscrew curls of her long black hair. One of the fairies who'd been her constant companions since childhood (much to her parents' dismay) was standing on Zoe's head.

"Wakey-wakey," it said, like a DJ on helium. "It's a beautiful day in Fairyville, and your batteries are as charged as they're going to get."

"Your mother was a toadstool," Zoe retorted, her eyes still closed.

The avoidance was ineffective. Her tormentor shone clearly in her mind's eye, complete with diaphanous gown and dragonfly wings. Like many mediums, Zoe saw the other world better without her physical sight. Although the different fairies' voices sounded the same to her, this one's iridescent purple wings and gaudy yellow tiara proclaimed that she was Rajel, queen of Zoe's personal flock. She flashed her tiny white teeth in a twinkling grin, Zoe's insult having slid right off her.

Serious fairies, apparently, had little hope of rising through the ranks. Only the most persistently positive could be queen.

"It's time to rise and shine," Rajel cooed. "You know you hate to be late to work."

This was usually true, but today was the day after the full moon. Spiritually, this affected her not at all. Personally, it made her stomach sink to her toes.

The full moon was when her landlord-slash-manager, the painfully scrumptious Magnus Monroe, indulged in his monthly sexual debauch. The day after the full moon was when Zoe had to watch him stroll into her office, all loose-hipped and jovial, and know that—yet again—she wasn't the woman who'd put that smile on his face.

She wondered who his partner had been this time. Every month was different, and he didn't seem to have a type beyond female and breathing. She suspected the lucky lady was Sheri Yost.

Sheri was the waitress at Zoe's favorite steak house, where she and Magnus often ate lunch. Magnus flirted the way some men inhaled oxygen, but over the last week, Zoe thought she'd noticed an extra bit of zing in his and Sheri's repartee. If Sheri had been his "chosen one," Zoe's lunch was destined to be as hard to stomach as going in to work. The women who slept with her manager always had a glow afterward, an I've-been-screwed-six-ways-to-Sunday-and-I-loved-it glow.

Remembering how many times she'd seen that sensual female smirk made Zoe sit up growling in disgust. She shoved her tangle of long black curls away from her face. Now that her physical eyes were open, Rajel was a sparkly purple sphere, no bigger than a penny, hanging in the air in front of her. Most people wouldn't have seen her, but Zoe could see her and more. Rajel's fairy court bobbed behind her, a cloud of at least a dozen snickering rainbow glows.

It was a larger gathering than usual.

"Well, well," Zoe said. "The gang's all here. Must have been a slow night for parties."

The fairies giggled in agreement and whizzed off in different directions.

"Dibs on helping Zoe with her hair!" cried one.

"I'm picking her jewelry!" said another.

"I'll talk to the toaster!" announced a third.

Copyright © 2007 by Emma Holly.