Broken Heart 05 Over My Dead Body by Michele Bardsley Page B

humans and other creatures. Pixies, however, aren’t born. They’re magic incarnate. A gift from the gods to the Earth. Until they disappeared.”
    “Maybe it’s like the honeybees,” I said. “They’re disappearing, too. It’s called colony collapse disorder. The adult worker bees just . . . fly away. And you know the weird thing? Predators like the wax moth don’t go into the CCD hives and take the honey. I think it should bother us. The bees disappearing like that.”
    Zerina’s pink eyebrows nearly touched her hairline. “You must watch the Discovery Channel a lot.” She smiled to show she was joking. I smiled back, but truth was, I watched the Discovery Channel all the time. “But yes,” she said, nodding, “maybe it is like that. Maybe the pixies removed themselves from the world.”
    I pointed to my new friend. “Except him.” Spriggan had zipped to the far end of the garage, presumably to stay as far from Zerina as possible. “He said he was bound to a giant.”
    Zerina’s expression was pure shock. “There aren’t any giants. Not anymore.”
    Wasn’t that what happened to species over the course of time? They either died out or evolved to fit the changing world. Then again, paranormal creatures didn’t really fall into the same categories as the rest of Earth’s creatures.
    “As I was sayin’,” continued Zerina, “pixies were made by the gods. It’s one of the reasons the little bastards are so arrogant. Blessed with noble purpose by their makers, and all that rot.” She snorted. “But me? I was made by humans.”
    My mouth dropped open. I snapped it shut, but I couldn’t stop staring at Zerina. She wasn’t a real fairy? She sure acted like one. “How is that even possible?”
    “Alchemy.” She stretched her arms over her head and yawned. I knew better than to believe she was bored. I had never heard this story. I bet no one in Broken Heart knew it, except maybe Gabriel. Zerina had been part of the group who’d arrived with him last November. They’d all been outcasts, for one reason or another. Now they weren’t.
    At least, I’d thought that was the case. It never occurred to me that Zerina might still feel out of place. Not that she tried very hard to fit in or make friends.
    She didn’t seem interested in saying more. Or maybe she just needed to be prompted. “So you mean like the sorcerer ’s stone kind of stuff?”
    “Yeah, but not in a Harry Potter sort of way.” Zerina’s expression bled amusement. “Alchemy was more a medieval thing, but most men interested in the mystic mumbo jumbo followed Hermes Trismegistus. You know, the Emerald Tablet?”
    I shook my head.
    “I don’t want to bore you with the history,” she said. “The sect that created me built their beliefs around the elementals, creatures of fire, water, earth, and air. They called air elementals sylph.
    “As far as I know, I’m the only one. And I’m certainly the only one ever created by a hermitic order of humans who got the formula right. I think they were just as shocked to see me as I was to see them.”
    I stared at her. Here was a woman, an otherworldly creature, fashioned by mystics—or rather, plain ol’ human beings using mystical knowledge. I was in awe. “Is that why Spriggan calls you an outcast?”
    “I’ve been called worse,” she said. “No, he’s upset for a good reason, I suppose.” She blew out a breath. “The humans . . . well, they used pixies to make me.”
    It took me a minute to process Zerina’s words. “You said pixies were immortal,” I pointed out. “They can’t be killed. Right?”
    “The law of conservation of energy.”
    I looked at her blankly. Hey, I may understand mechanics, but that didn’t mean I was a physics genius.
    “Energy cannot be created or destroyed,” recited Zerina. “It can only change form.”
    Realization dawned and I felt my stomach squeeze in horror. “Oh, my God. They transmuted the pixies into . . . you?”
    “Got it in