I moved to stand as well, but Penelope waved her hand at me.
“Stay and finish your coffee,” she said. It was one part invitation, one part order. She left us with a final wave, disappearing behind a door near the coffee counter marked PRIVATE.
Kit threw herself into the chair across from me with a huff, reached over, and stole my coffee. She sipped it and scowled. “Of course it’s amazing.”
The young barista, as though on cue, hustled over to our table with a fresh mug. I reached for it, but Kit slapped my hand and slid my original cup back across the table.
“You ruined it with too much cream,” she said.
“I thought it was ‘amazing.’”
“Yeah, so I expect it to be mind-blowing when you treat it right.”
“So. Want to explain why you’re so pissed off at Penelope?”
“What, did your ears fall off? She invited that prick—”
“Come on, Kit,” I said. “You told me yourself, your dad loves this guy. He was asking ScreamTV to sponsor a joint episode, right? Is this big special the thing he was asking them to do?”
“No.” Her eyes flashed. “He wanted our teams to do something together. Here’s the bottom line: Penelope put the idea into Dad’s head. She’s a manipulative, controlling psycho.”
I blinked, taken aback. Her voice was much harsher than it’d been in the van, and her words were razor sharp. “You don’t mean that.”
“Oh, I mean it.” She pushed back from the table and stood up. “Everyone looks at Penelope like she’s the queen of this town, but the truth is, she’ll be the death of it.”
With that ominous proclamation, Kit stormed out of the inn, coffee cup and all.
Chapter Three
Bright spots of late-morning sunlight crept across the floor of my apartment as two slices of bread popped out of my toaster. I spread some strawberry jam on them and pulled my laptop toward me.
Raziel Santos glared at me from the photo on my screen. His dour expression made me laugh; in all the photos I’d found online, he sported the same frown from behind a pair of sunglasses with light, honey-colored lenses. No smiles. No candid shots of him laughing with a friend. It all felt very forced.
I scrolled down to a section that featured recent episodes of his show. Despite only recently joining ScreamTV, the view counts on his videos numbered in the millions.
“Holy crap,” I told Striker, who lounged in a puddle of sun on the rug. “This guy has a serious following.”
“Brrrllll.” She punctuated her statement with a yawn then rested her chin back on the floor. She didn’t seem to share my interest in Kit’s nemesis.
I clicked a video at random. Raziel stood on the sidewalk in front of a Las Vegas casino, trying to talk a passing tourist into being his “assistant.” The tourist was a gray-haired older woman who shrieked in delight when Raziel made fire come out of her ears and somehow got her driver’s license photo to appear on an electronic billboard down the street. The wailing guitar solos of the heavy metal soundtrack made me turn down the volume on my laptop’s speakers.
Judging from the thumbnails, most of the videos were in the same vein. Raziel usually performed outside, impressing small gaggles of passersby with one magic trick or another. But a few rows down, the video image showed Raziel sitting in a maroon wing-back chair in front of a wall made from rough wooden planks. He intertwined his fingers in front of his face. Two stretched upward like a steeple, touching his lips. I clicked on the video.
“Hello, friends.” Raziel laid his hands on the armrests beside him, which made him look like a monarch in a throne room. “Welcome to this week’s episode. As promised, I’ll be giving you a sneak peek at my newest illusion, The Mage’s Hand. But first, I’d like to update you with some good news from the battlefront.”
Battlefront? There’d been nothing in Raziel’s bio or my research that mentioned military service or working as a war correspondent.
“The Midnight Lantern has officially ceased operations.” Raziel closed his eyes and raised a fist into the air, silent for a moment. Then he looked back into the camera and spoke again. “Victory. Let this stand as a warning to all other ghouls and charlatans—your scams will not be tolerated. We’re coming for you. And now: The Mage’s Hand.”
The video switched to footage of him in his usual habitat, a street corner in Las Vegas, where he appeared to be shuffling cards in midair. I clicked away into a search window, where I typed in “midnight lantern.” The top result had Raziel’s name right in the headline: Santos Named in Midnight Lantern Defamation Suit.
I scanned the article while munching on my toast. The Midnight Lantern reminded me of the shops in The Enclave, where psychics sold incense and tarot cards and offered readings. The owners were suing Raziel, claiming his internet videos about them had been a deliberate attempt to shut down their business. Raziel’s legal team countered that he was protected under the First Amendment, and that he was simply a journalist reporting on the unscrupulous practices of a local business. In all the photos, the shop’s owners looked devastated. Raziel looked giddy.
“Seems like a real peach,” I told Striker.
My apartment door opened, and Graham Thomas strolled across the room like he owned the place. Which he did. Or rather, his father did. Besides cooking me romantic dinners and being my binge-watching buddy, Graham also collected my rent checks every month. He bent his lean frame against my kitchenette and promptly stole my second slice of toast.
“Have you been playing in a giant snow globe again?” I asked him. Flecks of white paint peppered his short brown hair, and larger splotches stained his green coveralls.
He grinned down at me. He was a full head taller than I was, and his thick-rimmed glasses seemed to give him the power to see the world in a much more relaxed way than I did. My heart skipped a beat every time my eyes met his and skipped again whenever he smiled, which was a lot.
“I wish,” he said. “That’d be a lot more fun than painting the trim.”
My heart skipped a third time, but this was a heavy thud followed by a long stretch of me worrying it wouldn’t start up again. When it finally did, I had a request. “Don’t tell me you get all the way up on the roof.”
Primrose House, as the converted mansion was known, was a three-story tall yellow Victorian, complete with a many-peaked roof and intricate gables. The thought of Graham up that high, balanced on a ladder with a paint bucket and brush, was prime fodder for the anxiety generator in my brain. I’d had far too much death and loss in my life to even fathom losing him.
His smile faded, and he walked around the counter to pull me into a hug. “Hey, don’t worry. I’m only working on the ground-level porches. I’ve hired professionals for the rest.”
I pulled away from him, frowning. “Why not just have them do the whole thing?”
“Because I love the smell of paint.” He ducked and pushed his hair into my face, shaking his head to tickle my nose. “Smell it. You’ll see.”
We dissolved into laughter, and he settled onto the stool beside me. Striker immediately jumped up into his lap, correctly guessing that he had a small bag of cat treats in his pocket.
“What are you up to?” he asked as he hand-fed Striker a snack.
I filled him in on Kit’s tantrum at the inn, and the corners of his eyes crinkled in a smile.
“Man, she’s really not on board with her dad and Penny hanging out together.”
“How did you know about that?” Neither Kit nor Yuri had told me about Yuri and Penelope’s budding romance; I’d had to put the pieces together from Yuri’s frequent mentions of the deputy mayor at Soul Searchers jobs and the way Kit’s eyes took on a murderous gleam every time the older woman’s name came out of her father’s mouth.
“I heard about it from my mom,” Graham explained.
I should have guessed. Penelope was his mother’s younger sister, and his mom frequently filled Graham in on the happenings in his aunt’s life. The o
nly thing weirder than my calm, coverall-loving boyfriend being related to the most uptight and well-dressed person in town was hearing him constantly call her “Penny.”
“How do you feel about it?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Indifferent, I guess? I love Yuri. He’s like family. And Penelope’s been warming up to me. If they make each other happy, I’m fine with it.”
Graham smiled and gave me a gentle punch on the shoulder. “Why, Mackenzie Clair, you big softie. That’s a very sweet sentiment.”
He spoiled Striker while I returned to my research. On my laptop screen, Raziel Santos was grinning devilishly at the CLOSED sign that hung on the door of the Midnight Lantern. I understood why Kit wasn’t excited to see him again.
“So, this is the famous ‘jerk,’ huh?” Graham nodded at the screen.
“Yep. Check out the size of his fanbase. This video has 1.4 million views, and it’s not even a month old.”
Graham whistled. “No wonder Penny wants him to come here.”
“She’s having a cocktail party reception for him tomorrow. Want to come with me?”
His eyes widened in mock surprise. “You don’t mean… like, a date?”
“Oh, no. You’ve completely misread the situation. You’d be the chaperone.”
“Right, right.” He nodded, pushing out his lower lip in an exaggerated frown. “For you and Striker.”
“For me and the food. You know Striker’s been officially banned from any event featuring a buffet.” It was partially true. After my cat had pulled a tablecloth—and food for twenty people—off a table at last spring’s Afterlife Festival wrap party by attempting to climb it, Penelope had politely requested I leave my furry friend at home for catered events. It hadn’t been an outright ban, but I read between the lines. If I insisted on bringing my cat to everything, certain tasty invitations would stop coming.
“Where’s the party?” he asked.
“The Enclave.”
“Oh, good.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “Were you worried it’d be somewhere else?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
“I wasn’t worried,” he insisted. “I just thought… you know… she might want to show off the renovations at the inn or something.”
“What would be wrong with that?”
He didn’t answer.
“I mean, I’ll admit, it’s super weird being in there now that it’s not Gabrielle’s store anymore. It’s like…” The only similarity that came to mind was when I’d gone back into my father’s house after he’d died. The building was the same; even the books on the shelves and the photos on the walls were exactly as he’d left them. But the entire house felt different. Hollow. Just knowing he’d never sit at the table with me again or pull down a volume on North American spiritual traditions and pore over it at his desk—I still couldn’t think about it. I swallowed back the hard lump of sorrow that welled up in my throat and shook my head.
Graham wrapped one arm around me in another hug. “That must be hard. Have you heard from her at all?”
I almost admitted that I hadn’t heard from Gabrielle since her trial date had been set, then I realized what he was doing. “No changing the subject. Why wouldn’t you want to go to the inn? Penelope did a beautiful job, and the lobby is full of your sculptures—oh.”
His face had tightened at the mention of his artwork.
“Does that bother you?” I asked.
He shook his head. Then he bobbed it in an awkward, semi-diagonal nod.
“Why?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
We sat in silence for a few moments while I tried to puzzle out what would make Graham uncomfortable with his sculptures getting some well-deserved attention. He was no stranger to people inspecting and—hopefully—purchasing his work; he had a tent at the Afterlife Festival every spring where tourists from all over the country bought up most of the statues he’d spent the past year creating. His hard work was finally paying off; he’d gotten into a competitive arts exhibition in Chicago, where he’d be selling his creations the following week.
“It just looks nepotistic,” he said at last. “I don’t want to stand there at the inn with all my sculptures everywhere, and everyone looking at my work and wondering if it’s… I don’t know….”
“Worthy?”
“Yeah.”
“All anyone ever wonders when they look at your sculptures is how they can get their hands on one. And maybe if you’re single. We should probably put up a sign.”
He didn’t laugh. He just stared down at his hands and pursed his lips.
“Will you go with me?” I asked. “Since it’s at The Enclave?”
“Of course.” He squeezed my hand. “I’d love to.”
“Good, because here’s what we’re going to do.” I stood up to rinse my plate. “Go to the cocktail party, make friends with Raziel Santos, and ride his coattails to true fame and glory. You know, trade nepotism for cronyism.”
“Not funny,” he said.
“The entire world shall know the great Graham Thomas!” I declared.
I was right about fame following Raziel. But as per usual, I was wrong about everything else.
Chapter Four
Graham whistled, long and low. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
We stood at the edge of an unimproved asphalt road in the manufacturing district at the edge of Donn’s Hill, admiring the tiny, glowing wonderland that stretched before us. Two streets over, renovations were underway on the E-Z Sleep Motel. But here, another piece of the city had already been transformed.
Originally a pocket of two-story row houses built for miners, the neighborhood had been surrounded by larger industrial buildings in recent decades but never torn down. Dilapidated and forgotten, the houses rotted on the outskirts of town, waiting to be torn down and replaced.
Then, Penelope Bishop had one of her famous big ideas. She convinced the city council to fund a restoration of the little half-acre lot and converted the run-down buildings into the occult equivalent of an art space called The Enclave.
The Enclave had opened over the summer to instant success with locals and tourists alike. The two rows of clapboard-clad townhomes faced each other across a cobblestoned footpath leading from the road to the pub. Old-fashioned gas lamps lined the path on both sides, and rustic wooden signs hung above every stoop, advertising the psychic readings or mystical products visitors could find inside.
Tonight, hundreds of strings of white twinkle lights crisscrossed between the buildings, reflecting off the cobblestones below and lending an ethereal, almost magical quality to the festivities. Cheerful, upbeat music drifted over the crowd from a jazz quartet stationed by the bar. At least a hundred people milled around the party, peeking in shop windows and snagging canapés and champagne flutes from the college-aged waiters who circulated through the crowd. Every few feet, tall circular tables gave the attendees a place to rest their plates while they stood and chatted.
“What are those centerpieces?” I wondered aloud.
My feet carried me closer to the table nearest the edge of the party, and I recognized one of Graham’s statues: the headless body of Laverna, the trickster goddess, who held an elaborate, feathered mask in one hand. On the next table, the stooped figure of The Crone clutched a knobby walking stick. From what I could see, each table held a different piece from the collection of Graham’s sculptures that’d been on display at the inn.
Still eying the statues, I asked, “Did you know these would be here?”
He didn’t answer. I turned to look at him and realized he hadn’t followed me up to the table. He stood at the edge of the asphalt, visibly pale in the twinkling lights. I walked back to his side.
“Hey, are you okay?” I asked.
He stared at the party, where guests were pointing excitedly at his creations. “Yeah. I just… uh… need a minute.”
“I’m guessing she didn’t clear this with you
.”
Penelope wasn’t the type to ask permission. She wasn’t even the type to ask forgiveness later. She was the type to say, “you’re welcome,” even if you hadn’t thanked her for going over your head.
“Nope,” he sighed.
“Do you want to go home?”
He thought about it and sighed. “No. We should stay. People have probably already seen us, and it’ll get back to her that we bailed. It’ll be weird.”
“Okay.” I stood beside him, waiting until he was ready to step over the invisible line that separated his position of safety on the road and actually entering the party.
He made a good show of staying back for a reason, straightening his tie and pulling out a small cloth to clean his glasses. After watching him complete a few cycles of huffing on the lenses, rubbing them, then holding them up to the lights to squint at them for any signs of smudging, I elbowed him in the ribs.
“I don’t mean to rush you, but this sweater isn’t really cutting it out here.” Through the loose-knit black fabric, the cold pricked my skin. Just a few yards ahead, a group of similarly underdressed partygoers clustered around a tall propane heater. “Can we put off the inevitable somewhere a little warmer?”
“Sorry.” Cheeks flushing, he pocketed his lens cloth and pushed his glasses back onto his face.
“Still nervous?”
He nodded, looking glum.
“Okay, I know she sprung this on you. But that doesn’t change the fact that your sculptures are amazing. How many custom orders did you get at the Afterlife Festival?”
“Sixteen,” he murmured.
“And how many of your existing sculptures did you sell?”
His face grew redder. “Eighty-four.”
“Yeah. Eighty-freaking-four.” I squeezed his arm. “Like I said, amazing. You should be proud. I’m proud of you, even though I have no right to be.”
Donn's Shadow Page 3
