Love Dealer

by Jack Dowd

Ashur peered up at the three gargoyles, perched on the rooftop of a Santander bank. The middle gargoyle eyed the last of the partygoers as they approached the nightclub. Ashur was glad to see that its partners were less observant. They were far too busy shooing away inquisitive pigeons to watch the civilians below.

When he was certain they were distracted, Ashur slipped into the alley beside the club. His elfin eyes adapted to the dark in an instant. A pixie with electric blue hair leaned against an open fire door, a cigarette between her lips. As she exhaled a breath of smoke, music started from within the club, the sound of the bass muffled by the stone wall. The pixie dropped the stub of the cigarette and ground it under her boot.

Ashur jumped as the three gargoyles sprung from their perches and swooped towards Regent Street, answering a distant cry.

A mugging, Ashur guessed and stepped further into the darkness.

‘Looking for me, hun?’

Ashur thought he had prepared himself for the pixie’s mind altering pheromones, they were in her biology as much as the ability to see in the dark was in his yet he was still taken aback. Their effect was immediate. He felt light headed, as though he had been drinking. The Pixie’s voice had a sing-song-like quality. He felt his cheeks suddenly grow warm.

He tried to mask his anxiety with swagger. ‘I heard… you were selling?’

He watched the pixie’s amber eyes as they darted from him, to the alley entrance and back again. Then she smiled, the sweetest smile Ashur could remember seeing.

‘What can I do you for?’

He took a step towards her and noticed twin shadows watching him from the doorway. Two orcs stared at him, an axe hanging from one of their belts and a sword from the other.

‘I’m looking for… love,’ he muttered.

‘What? That ain’t what she’s offering, you hear?’ The first orc barked.

Ashur saw the orc’s hand reaching for the pommel of his sword. To his surprise, and relief, the pixie laughed. It sounded like notes being played on a flute.

‘Don’t worry,’ she giggled, holding up her hand to the orcs. ‘I know what he really means. Wait here.’

Placing her hand on Ashur’s shoulder, she steered him deeper into the shadows.

‘I don’t have any love potions left,’ the pixie confessed, ‘but I can make you one, easy. All I need is-’

‘I don’t want a love potion,’ Ashur blurted.

‘What do you want then? Because if my boys back there don’t like-’

‘Love dust.’

Ashur couldn’t gauge the pixie’s reaction. He thought he detected something resembling pity in her eyes.

‘Who?’ she asked at last.

It took Ashur a moment to register the question. ‘Her name is Tamara. She’s an elf. I asked her to the Summer Solstice. Only, she’s going with someone else.’

The pixie rolled her eyes. ‘And you want my love dust to make you feel better, is that it? Which academy does this other elf go to? Tamara’s date, I mean.’

‘He isn’t an elf.’

‘Human?’

‘No. He’s… a dwarf.’

‘He’s a what?’

Ashur heard the orcs sniggering from the doorway and suppressed the desire to flee.

‘Hold on, stop. Wait. Now I think about it, it’s not that uncommon. I dunno. Maybe she has a fetish or something?’ The pixie shrugged. ‘Anyway, love dust is one hundred, if you’re sure?’

Ashur dug in his pockets for the coins he had poached from Father’s safe.

‘Because some people can get addicted to this stuff,’ the pixie continued, pocketing the coins. She began to sketch complex shapes with the fingertips of her right hand. A purple substance, like granules of sand, came into existence and settled on her open left palm.

‘Some people die looking for a hand to hold. I don’t want you to become one of them.’

‘I won’t,’ Ashur muttered, staring at the dust. He tried to remember if he had ever seen something so sparkly before.

‘You sure?’

‘Yeah…’ Now Ashur thought about it, he was quite certain that he had never seen an object as pretty as the glitter that now rested in the pixie’s hand. Purple was such a deep colour.

‘I’m going to blow this in your face. When I do, I want you to breathe in deeply. Okay?’

‘R-right.’

‘Close your eyes.’

Ashur obeyed. A breeze, smelling faintly of nicotine, brushed over his face and something that felt like snowflakes landed on his skin. The breeze reminded him of the wind he’d felt running through the meadow behind Father’s barn before they moved to the city. A smile snuck across his lips.

‘Okay?’ he heard the pixie ask.

Ashur opened his eyes and laughed. He was surprised to find that he wasn’t standing in the meadow but in the alley beside the nightclub. The alley seemed brighter somehow, or perhaps the darkness had lost its intensity.

‘There. You won’t be thinking about your Tamara now, will you?’ The pixie said with a wink.

‘Who?’ His own voice sounded distant as though someone else was using it to speak.

‘Goyles,’ a shadow hissed.

Ashur realised that he had been shoved to the ground and that the two orcs were sprinting past him but couldn’t remember falling. He watched the pixie curse, uncoil her wings from her shoulder blades and casting him a look that Ashur once again thought he saw pity in, shoot off into the night sky.

A stone claw clamped onto his wrist and pulled him to his feet. He heard one of the gargoyles read him his rights, watched the distant speck in the sky that was the pixie disappear and knew that he would be spending the night in a cell until Father collected him in the morning.

But none of that mattered.

With a chuckle, Ashur thought about the meadow.