Magic and Loss g-3

by Nancy A. Collins

  Stifling a yawn, I shuffled into the kitchen, to find Beanie standing on his hind legs in front of Adrian, eyes focused on his strawberry toaster pastry as if it were the Holy Grail. “Good morning, li’l guy!” Adrian laughed. “Do you want a Pop-Tart?”

  “Damn it, dog!” I exclaimed, with a clap of my hands. “Get out from underfoot.”

  “Sorry,” Vanessa said as she poured a dollop of soymilk into her morning coffee. “We didn’t mean to wake you up.”

  “That’s okay,” I replied. “Normally I’m up and out of the house even earlier than this. I guess I was more exhausted than I realized. I almost feel hungover.”

  “Once Adrian and I leave for work, you’re welcome to crash in the bedroom,” Vanessa said. “Feel free to make yourself at home while we’re gone.”

  “Thanks, Nessie, Adrian—you two are really great for putting me up at such short notice.”

  “Are you kidding?” she grinned. “It’s going to be awesome! I’ll buy some ice cream and microwave a bag of popcorn, and we’ll stream a cheesy horror movie on Netflix—it’ll be just like college!”

  “Sounds wonderful,” I agreed.

  “See you after work!” Vanessa promised as she and Adrian hustled out the door and into the world beyond.

  The moment the door closed behind them, I sprinted to the bathroom, barely making it in time before vomiting what was left of the previous evening’s meal. I wasn’t sure if my nausea was just another bout of morning sickness or a delayed reaction to everything I’d gone through over the last ten hours. Once I felt better, I walked back into the living room and stared at the rumpled sofa. Vanessa and Adrian lived in a newish tower block, and by New York standards their seven-hundred-square-foot apartment was fairly spacious, but after living in the boardinghouse I couldn’t help but feel claustrophobic.

  I unplugged my phone from its charger and called Canterbury to tell him I was taking a couple of sick days.

  “Morning sickness, eh?” the centaur chuckled. “Well, that’s to be expected. Just tell that man of yours to look after you. It’s the least he can do for getting you pregnant.”

  I laughed and assured him I would do just that. I didn’t like lying to Canterbury, but I wasn’t comfortable airing my dirty laundry just yet. Nessie was one thing—she was the closest thing I had to a sister, and we had seen one another through more than one Bad Breakup in the past—but unburdening myself on my boss and business partner was something else entirely. As it was, the logistics of commuting to work while trying to find a new place to live, on my salary, whether in or out of Golgotham, was enough to make me lie down on the floor and stare at the ceiling in surrender.

  I started as my phone began to play the opening guitar lick to Heart’s “Magic Man.” That was Hexe’s ringtone. I stared at the caller ID for a long moment before finally hitting the accept button. He sounded hungover. “Tate—? I can’t find Beanie. I’ve called and called, but he won’t answer . . . and I found this weird note from Octavia, saying she’s moving out, like, immediately.”

  “Beanie’s with me, Hexe,” I replied, trying to sound calmer than I actually felt.

  “What’s he doing at Canterbury’s?” he asked, genuinely baffled.

  “I’m not at work.”

  “Then where are you?”

  “I’d rather not say.”

  “Tate, what’s going? Does this have something to do with the door to your studio?”

  Now it was my turn to sound confused. “You don’t remember?”

  “Remember what?”

  “You came home munted on Dragon’s Balm last night. You were mad at me because I confronted you at the Highlander about stealing money from the baby stash to get smoked up. Then you went mental when I said you needed to get rid of the gauntlet. If Octavia hadn’t stopped you, I don’t know what would have happened after that.”

  “Wait—what are you talking about?” he asked in a perplexed voice. “I’ve never set foot in the Highlander.”

  “Heavens and hells, Hexe!” I shot back angrily, no longer able to hide my frustration. “I was there! I saw you smoking Dragon Balm! Lying about it is not going to make me change my mind.”

  “But I’m not lying!” he said with a plaintive wail. “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  “Oh? And I guess you don’t know anything about Lafo cutting you off at the Calf because you were picking fights with his customers, either?”

  “Lafo said that?”

  “Stop it, Hexe!” I snapped. “Whatever game you think you’re playing—just stop it! I’ve tried to be understanding about everything. I know you’re going through hell, but I just can’t stay under the same roof with you after last night. If it was just me, maybe things could be different . . . but it’s not just me anymore. . . .”

  “What are you trying to say—?”

  “I’m telling you that you’re what happened to the door, Hexe. That’s why I left and took Beanie with me.”

  “I . . . I . . . did that?” He gasped.

  “Hexe, I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but I do know it has something to do with that damned thing Moot put on your hand. You need help, baby—you need to get rid of the gauntlet before the curse on it turns you inside out.”

  “Please, Tate—whatever I did, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again—I promise. Just come back home. Please, don’t do this to me. I love you, Tate.”

  At that moment he sounded so much like the Hexe I used to know, the one I fell in love with and came to trust, I was afraid my heart was going to split in two from the pain it was enduring. “And I love you, Hexe; more than I’ve loved anyone in my life.” As I spoke those words, my throat grew tight and tears fell with every bat of my eyelashes. “You once made me promise you I wouldn’t run into any more burning buildings while I was pregnant—well, that’s exactly what you’re asking me to do right now. I want to come home, but I can’t, not as long as you’re still wearing the gauntlet.”

  “Please, Tate. Don’t do this to me,” he begged, his voice wavering. “I don’t want to lose you and the baby!”

  “I don’t want to lose you, either—believe me, walking out of that house was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But I can’t live with you while you’ve still got that thing fused to your right hand. I just can’t take the risk.”

  “Please, Tate. You don’t know what you’re asking of me. . . .”

  “I’m hanging up now, Hexe.”

  I hit the END button and set the phone aside so I could wipe my eyes and collect myself. Within seconds “Magic Man” started playing. I stabbed at the REJECT CALL, only to have it start to play again. I snatched up the phone and powered it down. I needed time to think, to decide what to do. As I stared at the cramped confines of Vanessa and Adrian’s apartment—barely big enough for a newlywed couple, much less an indefinite houseguest, a bothersome dog, and eventual newborn—I realized I should not impose any further on their lives. Although I might eventually be able to find a place in Golgotham, that meant placing me in dangerously close proximity to Hexe. I wasn’t afraid of him stalking or intimidating me as much as I was worried that my resolve might weaken and I would move back in. Like it or not, I found myself with only one viable choice. But it would mean swallowing my pride and putting on my big girl panties and doing the one thing I had promised myself I would not do.

  * * *

  Beanie all but dragged me out of the elevator, his paws scrabbling frantically on the polished marble floor of the penthouse’s foyer. It had been months since the last time I had been there, but nothing much had changed. Save for the life-sized portrait of an old robber baron hanging on the wall, it still looked more like the antechamber of a four-star hotel’s presidential suite than the entrance to a private residence.

  I took a deep breath to steady my nerves and then pressed the doorbell. Although it seemed to make no sound, I knew that somewhere deep within the penthouse, where the servants spent most of their time, a buzzer was goi
ng off. A few seconds later the door opened, revealing a very proper-looking older man in his early sixties, neatly dressed in the formal wear of a butler. The moment he saw me, his reserve disappeared and he grinned from ear to ear.

  “Miss Timmy! Welcome home!”

  Chapter 21

  The water from the multiple-head shower felt good on my body. I could have stood there for another hour, without worrying about the hot water running out, but I knew I was just postponing the inevitable. And, besides, I was starting to prune. As I toweled myself dry in my old bedroom, Beanie patrolled the perimeter, diligently sniffing the baseboards, his eyes bugging even farther out of his skull than usual. There was a polite knock on the door just as I finished slipping into some fresh clothes. It was Clarence, of course.

  “Your parents are awaiting you in the Grand Salon, Miss Timmy,” he announced.

  “Can’t they just sit around the kitchen table like normal people?” I sighed.

  “Then they wouldn’t be Eresbies, would they?” Clarence replied, with the same small, conspiratorial smile we used to share when I was in junior high and chafing under my parents’ rules.

  “No, they wouldn’t,” I agreed. “Well, no point in putting it off any longer, I suppose. Come along, Beanie.”

  Beanie stopped his sniffing and obediently trotted at my heels as I led him down the pristine marble staircase that was the only access to the Grand Salon, a cavernous room with ceilings, paneling, and mantelpieces looted from only the finest Venetian palaces by the family’s founder.

  My parents were there, seated before the massive fireplace in antique club chairs. My father looked like he had just come back from yachting, his face still ruddy from the wind, while my mother was dressed in her after-luncheon ensemble and working on what I hoped was her first highball of the day. I was surprised to find myself actually glad to see them.

  My father’s weathered face split into a wide grin as I descended the stairs. “There’s my girl!” he exclaimed, as he rose to hug me. “I’ve missed you, Princess!”

  “I missed you, too, Dad,” I said around the lump in my throat.

  “I told you she’d come back once she got tired of playing haunted house,” my mother said as she rattled the ice in her glass. “What on earth has that Kymie been feeding you? Look at that pot belly—oh my God, you’re pregnant.” As my mother realized what she was looking at, her usual sense of decorum disappeared and her jaw dropped in disbelief.

  “Thanks for noticing,” I said proudly.

  “You hear that, Millie?” my father asked with an excited laugh. “We’re going to be grandparents!”

  “Yes. I heard,” my mother replied curtly, reaching for her decanter of bourbon. “How far along are you?”

  “Eighteen weeks.”

  She glanced at my stomach again. “Are you sure about that?”

  Before I could ask her what she meant by that, my dog walked over to one of the statues that decorated the salon—in this case, a Bernini—and pissed all over its base.

  “Beanie—! No—!” I yelped. Instead of stopping, he merely turned to look at me as he continued to urinate.

  My father seemed more amused than irritated as he gestured to the butler. “Clarence, it would appear my daughter’s dog needs to be walked.”

  “I’ll see to it personally, sir,” Clarence said. Once Beanie finished emptying his bladder, Clarence picked him up and, tucking him under his arm like a football, carried him out of the room.

  “So—I take it that is the reason you’ve come back,” my mother said, gesturing vaguely toward my midsection with her glass. “Slumming it isn’t nearly as much fun when you actually have to live in the slums, is it?”

  “I’ll admit, living without a trust fund to fall back on is hard,” I replied. “But working at a steady job has taught me a lot about life, especially what is and isn’t necessary for me to be happy.”

  “So what is it that you do?” my father asked.

  “I’m employed at Canterbury Customs as a fabricator and apprentice blacksmith.”

  “You’re working as a common laborer?” This information seemed to shock my mother even more than the news I was pregnant.

  “It’s a skilled trade, Mother,” I pointed out sharply. “And my Master has recently taken me on as his partner.”

  “It sounds positively pornographic,” she replied with a grimace. “So, what does your magic man—what’s his name? Vex?—think about becoming a father?”

  “His name is Hexe and he’s very excited about the whole thing and is looking forward to being a dad. . . .”

  “There has to be a ‘but’ after that sentence,” my mother said, fixing me with one of her patented glares. “You wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t.”

  “Things have been a little . . . tense . . . between us lately,” I admitted grudgingly. “Hexe and I are both going through some changes right now, and I decided it would be better if we gave each other some . . . space.”

  To my surprise, my mother abruptly set aside her drink, a concerned look on her face. “Has he laid hands on you, Timmy?”

  “No!” I replied, although not as quickly or as forcefully as I would have liked.

  Her eyes narrowed, and I could tell she was trying to figure out if I was telling the truth or not by parsing out my response in her head. If ever there was a human lie detector, it was my mother. However, her calculations were interrupted by the downstairs maid who arrived armed with a bucket and mop. For some reason, my mother had an aversion—if not an actual phobia—when it came to watching others engage in manual labor of any sort, and would invariably leave the room.

  “We’ll discuss this later, at dinner,” she said, hastily rising from her club chair. “Seven o’clock, sharp.”

  * * *

  After the reunion with my parents—which did not go nearly as horribly as I had dreaded—I returned upstairs to see Clarence closing the door to my room behind him. He smiled upon espying me. “I just finished taking your Beanie for a brief stroll in the park. I must say, he is a very friendly little chap—although he appears to have a decided dislike of squirrels.”

  “Yes, he does seem to take their existence as a personal affront,” I agreed with a chuckle.

  “It’s good to have you back, Miss Timmy. You have been missed.”

  “I’ve missed you, too, Clarence,” I said, giving him a warm hug.

  “Oh—and Madam requests that you dress for dinner.”

  “Of course she does,” I sighed.

  Upon entering the bedroom, I saw that Beanie had made himself at home by hopping up onto the king-sized bed and falling asleep at its very center, his legs stretched out as far as they would go, as if it was the world’s biggest dog bed. As I set about searching my suitcase for something my mother would consider “dressing” for dinner, I heard a scrabbling sound outside the window, which I assumed was just pigeons from the nearby park perching on the ledge. Suddenly Beanie snapped out of his snooze and leapt off the bed and began frantically jumping up and down like a kangaroo, all while yapping excitedly. I drew back the curtain to see what could possibly trigger such a reaction from him, only to find Scratch squatting outside the window.

  “Nice digs,” the familiar purred as I slid open the window, allowing him to drop down onto the carpet. “Really swank.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Since you’re refusing to answer your phone, I’ve been turned into a message delivery service. Yes, yes, I’ve missed you, too,” Scratch said, bumping his head against Beanie as he continued to hop about excitedly.

  “How did you find me?” I asked cautiously.

  “I sniffed out Beanie,” he replied. “I knew you wouldn’t be far away.”

  “So what does Hexe have to say?”

  In reply, the familiar leapt up onto the dresser and opened his mouth. To my surprise Hexe’s voice issued forth, sounding eerily like the playback on an answering machine. “Tate, whatever it is I’ve done, I’m sorry,
and I swear it won’t happen again. I’ll get help, I’ll go to couples counseling—whatever it is you need me to do, I’ll do it. Just please come back home. It’s not the same without you—the house is so empty without you here. I love you, Tate. And I love our baby. Just say you’ll come back.”

  “Stop it!” I said with a shudder. “You’re giving me the creeps.”

  “So—what do I tell him?” Scratch asked. “Are you coming back or what?”

  “I won’t come home until he agrees to get rid of the gauntlet,” I said firmly. “Once he’s willing to do that, I’ll come back, but not before.”

  “He’s not going to want to hear that. But I’ll deliver the message just the same.” Scratch then sighed and I saw true concern in his bloodred eyes and the furrow of his hairless brow. “I am a familiar, and I am bound to my master. I must obey him, regardless of the order, and I am powerless to thwart his will. That is the nature of the bargain we have made, he and I. But, for what it’s worth—you were right to leave. I have never seen him like this before. And it scares me. Oh—and for what it’s worth—the house really isn’t the same without you.”

  And with that, the familiar jumped from the dresser and dove through the open window, leaving a heartbroken Beanie standing propped against the sill, whining inconsolably as he watched his best friend wing his way back downtown.

  Chapter 22

  When most people sit down for dinner with their folks, it’s a time for casual banter about school, friends, and weekend plans. In my family it’s far more . . . complicated than that. I have never once seen my mother take a meal without diamonds in her ears and haute couture on her back. And instead of reaching for the bowl of mashed potatoes or passing around a basket of rolls on our own, either Clarence or Langston, his deputy, always does it for us.