Diamonds and Toads (A Modern Fairy Tale) PART ONE: DIAMONDS

Prologue and Ch. 1

Copyright © K.E. Saxon 2010

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PROLOGUE

Delilah Perrault fanned the perspiration from her cheeks with the folded Houston Press she’d snagged out of the dispenser and took a bite from her chocolate bar. She was supposed to meet Chas Regan here in front of the main branch of the Houston Public Library for lunch, but she was so nervous about it, she’d run down to its basement and bought the candy from the machine.

No, she wasn’t really hungry, and yes, she knew she shouldn’t be eating sugar and fat if she wanted to get that last six pounds off before the gala at the Crystal Ballroom eight days from now, but her compulsive need to fill her mouth with food wouldn’t let her be.

An old beggar woman in a faded-to-purple pea coat with a stained and frayed scarf around her neck pushed her shopping cart filled with—Delilah was sure—the woman’s life possessions across the cobbled pavement a few feet from where Delilah sat.

The poor thing looked as shop-worn as Delilah felt.

She glanced toward Delilah then dropped a hungry gaze to the candy bar.

Delilah lifted the cold Coke from the short marble wall she was sitting on and walked over to the woman.

“Here. You’re welcome to both of these, if you would like? I haven’t eaten much of the candy yet—Or—would you like me to buy you something else?” She scanned the area. “I’ll bet there’s a deli or something in that building over there. I could get you a sandwich?”

“What a kind girl you are. But no, these will do just fine.” The old woman captured the fare, captured Delilah’s gaze. Her eyes, silver blue and bright, were more youthful than Delilah expected. Odd. Shivery goose bumps formed on Delilah’s arms. “I have a sweet tooth, don’t you know,” the woman continued.

“Oh—” Delilah jerked a nod. “Okay.” She turned away from her and walked back toward the two-foot-high granite wall she’d been seated on earlier.

“Bless you, Lila, dear,” the woman said.

Delilah stopped short.

A loud crack! split the air and Delilah whirled around. A sudden scent of patchouli filled her nostrils. All around her, a rosy watercolor haze washed over the landscape. A giddy bubble of fear tripped up Delilah’s spine as a spray of glitter dust drifted in the space where the woman had been. And in her place, a yellow parrot perched on the handle of the cart, staring at her from one beady black eye.

Delilah hawked a reflexive cough and something small, hard, and cold fell from her mouth into her palm. “Sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” A diamond.

* * *

CHAPTER ONE

Chas Regan slammed the phone down. Fuck! What the hell was he supposed to do now? He leaned back in his executive chair, allowing the front rollers to lift off the floor, and dug the base of his palms into his eyelids. His heart still raced so fast that it caused a shot of stomach bile to blast into his throat.

The company was lost. Gone. No more. His entire family’s empire, a glimmering speck of its former glory lost in the vast abyss of others that had gone before it.