Magic & Mini Skirts

by Beverly Sanders

  “Give up the store,” he said.

  “No. I’m not going to do that. Not that it would matter to you. Buckhead Luxe is looking for a trendier customer than you design for. They wouldn’t have given you that store even if I’d have turned it down.”

  “Trendy . . .” He scoffed. “The word makes my skin crawl.”

  “I bet that’s attractive!” Babbs grinned. “Put that on a poster and watch ‘em line up. Right, girls?”

  “How drool.”

  “Hmm,” Babbs replied. “I don’t think you used that word right, but I’m gonna let you have it.”

  “Listen, Edward,” I said. “I don’t have time for you right now. I’m keeping the store. Now get out of my way.”

  “You may be making a big mistake.” He extended his hand, his finger rocking back and forth like a pendulum

  “I may very well be,” I clapped back. “But it won’t be the first, and I’d bet it won’t be my last either. Now please, get the hell out of my way.”

  I know it isn’t right to speak to your elders in such a way, but Edward Tide was no ordinary man. Just the sight of him set my skin burning and my blood boiling. Besides, I couldn’t help but feel he’d had something to do with what happened to Hannah.

  “Bye, now.” Babbs gave a big wave, grabbed my hand, and headed for the door.

  9

  Not that I’d spent much time exploring the Atlanta outside of Second Buckhead or anything, but I couldn’t help but feel we were getting a little far from home as we exited the large bypass highway surrounding downtown.

  “Where are we headed?” I asked.

  “It’s not too much farther,” Finn replied. “Just outside of Dunwoody.”

  “Dunwoody?”

  The name sounded familiar, but for the life of me, I couldn’t place it. Normally, I’d have felt a little hesitant, but things were getting increasingly serious and I really didn’t have time for such things as fear or trepidation. I also didn’t know much about the lycanthrope community, though the further we got out of town, the more obvious it became that we were headed for a larger community than I’d thought.

  “How many lycanthropes are out here?” I asked.

  “Too many to count.” Finn looked at me through the rearview mirror. “A war broke out a long time ago back where we come from. A lot of people escaped and settled here. It was mostly woods and small hollows back then. But the city creeps closer with each passing year. Before long, it’ll get swallowed up.”

  “What then?” Babbs turned to him, a level of concern in her voice.

  “Then . . . I guess we’ll find a new home,” he replied. “Wolves don’t do so well without a little nature. Most of the time, anyway.”

  “But not you?” Babbs asked, almost as if she could feel something I couldn’t.

  “It’s complicated.” He kept his eyes focused ahead. “I’m not saying I don’t enjoy that part of myself. And I’m not ashamed of it. Not all at. It’s just that, well . . . I can’t help but be curious about the other side of things. I wasn’t raised in the Lycan realm. I was raised here, in Dunwoody. I’ve watched those skyscrapers rise up from nothing. I’ve watched them build roads and bridges and start businesses. I just wanted to be part of it. I don’t know, maybe you don’t get it.”

  “I totally get it,” I replied. “I felt the same way back in Enchanted Lake. I wanted to make it on my own, to do something other than what everyone else did. Something other than what everyone else had planned.”

  “I guess I just never understood why it had to be one or the other, why I couldn’t be one guy with many different sides to himself.”

  “You can be,” Babbs replied. “The thing they don’t want you to know . . . the thing that no one bothers to tell you is that there is no one side. There can’t be. Then it would all just be the front, no back, no sides. Everyone has opinions and everyone has emotions. And if you have those things, then you’re more than one thing.”

  She was right. I’d never met anyone, witch or otherwise, who didn’t have at least some conflicting opinions. Even my father, a member of the witch council, the people responsible for governing all witches and warlocks, had more than one side. I felt Finn’s pain, and I was about to feel it more.

  “We’re here.” He pulled the car to a stop just ahead of a small unassuming house. White siding, blue shutters, and a high roof made up the outside. It looked like a perfectly ordinary house, one that wouldn’t really catch your eye if you were driving past.

  “This place is cute,” Babbs said, brushing off the front of her dress.

  It was only then that it occurred to me just how out of place we looked. We were about to head into a stranger’s home to meet and question his very-likely old-school grandmother, all the while looking like a modern-day Cher.

  “We need to change,” I said. “At least, we need to look like we usually do.”

  “No,” Finn replied. “Actually, you don’t. My grandmother is blind.”

  “Blind?” I asked. “Then how is she going to see the symbol?”

  “I said she was blind. I didn’t say she couldn’t see.” He began walking up the front steps. “Come with me.”

  Finn opened the door of the small house, letting in a small sliver of light, the only one in the house.

  “Why is it so dark in here?” I asked, basically unable to see where we were going.

  “She lost her sight. Her human sight, I mean. She can only see through her Lycan eyes. They work much better in the dark.”

  It had never occurred to me that Nicco could see better in the dark than he could during the day, though the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. He disliked early mornings, choosing to mostly head out after twilight. I’d even once gotten home to find him showering in the dark, with nothing more than the light of my bedroom television illuminating the room.

  “Nana . . .” Finn said, taking a seat beside her.

  By that point, he’d lit a small series of candles, each one along the far wall. It wasn’t much in the way of light, but it was better than nothing. The living room was small, with a large stained-glass window facing the east side of the home, though at this late hour, not much light bothered bleeding through.

  Finn’s grandmother sat on the couch, a large red and orange quilt thrown over her legs. Her hair looked to be exceptionally long, though at the moment, it was tied up in a bun near the top of her head. Her skin was pale and wrinkled and her hands shook every few seconds with a light tremor. No doubt, a sign of oncoming problems.

  I hated to think about growing old. Or at least, that old. There seemed to be something lonely about it. Something much more real and devastating than the kind of loneliness faced in one’s youth. If you were young enough and lonely enough, you simply had to head out your front door, find a bar or coffee house, and spark up a conversation.

  But what about when you were older? Too old to leap to your feet and head out the door just because you want to? What about when your lungs get tired and your hands start shaking? How do you hide from the loneliness then?

  Nicco’s face flashed through my mind again. Many things in this life are uncertain, but one thing I knew for sure was that as long as he was near, I wouldn’t be alone. It was a comfort, sure, but until I found him, until I cleared his name, I wouldn’t be able to be with him.

  “Here,” I said, handing Finn the phone.

  He placed it in his grandmother’s hands. They shook again slightly, only for a moment. She looked down at the screen, running her fingertips across the glass, tracing the edges of the ancient symbol. Her head fell back as she began whispering something. I thought for a moment that she was going into a trance, but then in an instant, she popped her head back up.

  “The Crest of Libyae,” She whispered, her voice carrying across the dimly lit air. “The Lost Alpha.”

  “What is she talking about?” I asked, the feeling of my cellphone vibrating against my leg.

  “I don’t know,” Finn replie
d. “Like I said, I don’t know much about this ancient stuff.” Finn took the phone from his grandmother’s hand as she looked at him, her eyes shimmering in the darkness.

  “Destroy the symbol,” the old woman said. “It has been forbidden.”

  “Nana.” Finn leaned in. “Tell me what it means.”

  “Forbidden by the hieroglyphs. The caves. The Alpha,” she replied, her words broken and confused.

  “What caves?” I asked. “What Alpha? What is she talking about?”

  “She’s talking about the caves back home. Back in Mistros . . . the land of the Lycans.”

  “I know what Mistros is, Finn. But I need to know what the hell this thing means. You said she could tell us.”

  “I thought she would,” he insisted. “She must be trying to protect me. I . . . don’t think she’s going to give any more information. When she gets like this . . . when she’s nervous . . . I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Kianna replied from the corner. “I knew she wouldn’t tell us.”

  “What?” I asked Kianna, almost having forgotten she was even there.

  “The text. From the books back in the library . . . I knew where this would lead.”

  “Then why didn’t you say anything?” I asked, standing to my feet.

  “What good would it have done?” Kianna sighed. “This is a Lycan symbol. It’s obviously as old as crap. We don’t have anything on it in the library. How else could this go? Really, just think about it.”

  This thing was getting more and more complicated by the day. Every time I thought we were near an end, it just led somewhere else, to further and even more ridiculous complications. But you know what? If going off on some cockamamie adventure into the lycanthrope world was what it was going to take to find a resolution, then so be it. I just wanted this to be over, once and for all.

  “Fine!” I snapped, feeling my phone buzzing over and over again. “We’ll go. And who the hell keeps calling me?” I pulled the thing from my pocket. “Hello?”

  As it turns out, the police don’t care if you’re busy . . .

  “Yes?” I asked, sitting across from the detective. I hadn’t seen him in a couple of days. Not since he’d shown me Nicco’s picture from the surveillance camera and I’d run home to find him.

  “Fashion designers, huh?” he asked. “What does that entail, exactly?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Do you just sketch clothes and then send those drawings somewhere, or do you actually sit down and sew? Tell me a little about what goes on there.”

  It didn’t take too long for the detective to become a little tired of hearing Babbs drone on and on about threads, fabrics, notions, models, and every other aspect of fashion design. It was obvious Detective Shannon had no idea what she was referring to most of the time, nor did he seem to have an interest in fashion. Which made me wonder, why was he asking these questions?

  “Okay.” He held out his hand just as Babbs launched into her description of haute couture. “The other day, in the store. There was a skirt.”

  “Yes?” I asked. “I’m sure there were a few. What does it have to do with anything?”

  “It was a sort of unique skirt. Silver leather with—”

  “It was mine,” Babbs replied. “I gave it to Hannah. Why do you ask?”

  “It caught my eye. Where did you purchase it?”

  “Nowhere.” Babbs smiled. “You can’t buy that skirt. No one can. It’s a Babbs McGhee original. One a kind.”

  “You made it?” he asked, a puzzled look befalling his face even though she’d just spent fifteen minutes telling him exactly that.

  “Yes!” She beamed proudly.

  Detective Shannon leaned back in his chair, his pen going around in small and continuous circles on his notepad. I couldn’t tell if he was actually thinking about anything or if it was just some stupid attempt to make Babbs and me uncomfortable. Either way, it was a waste of time I really didn’t have the patience for right now.

  “Is that all?” I asked.

  “Is that all?” He looked puzzled. “Don’t you want to know why I brought you here?”

  “Was it not just to talk about fashion?”

  “Here.” He opened a large yellow folder. “These are surveillance photos taken from inside the local morgue. As you can clearly see, the person who broke in was wearing your so-called one of a kind skirt.”

  “It is one of a kind,” Babbs said.

  I focused on the picture, trying my best to place the woman, to recognize anything about her. But there was nothing. Aside from a bright purple streak near the crown of her head, she had no defining characteristics. She could have been anyone.

  “Why would someone break into the morgue?” I asked.

  “Good question, Ms. Black. It seems the thief was looking for one particular thing. The body of Hannah Alden.”

  “What?”

  “That’s right.” He narrowed his eyes. “Only hours after arriving at the morgue, someone broke in, wearing your skirt, and took the body. Now . . . I will ask you one last time. Did you make a second one? And if not, do you know where we can find this one?”

  “No.” Babbs was beginning to get frustrated. “There is only one that looks like that. I made it for myself. Hannah Alden said she liked it so I gave it to her. That was the last time I . . .”

  “Yes?” He leaned in.

  “The crime scene . . .” Babbs said. “Check with the crime scene department. The skirt was there, just lying on the floor. I remember, but I didn’t take it. Check the photos. You’ll see it in the pictures after we left. Whoever this is must have seen it on the floor of the store and stolen it.”

  “But why take a body?”

  “I have no idea,” Babbs replied. “That seems like something you’ll have to answer. But I can assure you, I have no idea where that skirt is.”

  I wasn’t sure he believed us. In fact, I was sure he thought we were lying through our teeth. That didn’t matter, though. Not to me. We were innocent, which meant there was nothing he could do that would derail me from my current goal. As it turns out, though, there was something he could say to make me even more nervous than I already was.

  “Do you remember the man from the other pictures?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry?” I lied. Of course I knew who he was talking about, but the less I spoke about Nicco’s involvement, the less likely anyone was to link him to the crime. At least, that’s what I kept telling myself.

  “The man who left Hannah’s store just before you arrived?”

  “Of course.”

  “We managed to find another camera. One that captured his face in more vivid detail. Here, have a look.” He handed me a black and white picture of Nicco’s face as he exited the large shopping complex. It was him all right. Those same dimples, the same bright eyes and olive skin. And now, the Atlanta Police had his picture. Things just got worse.

  “His name is Nicco Turner.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Not only did they have a clear photo of his face, but they also had his name. I felt my stomach churning inside me. My body froze with nervousness. I couldn’t breathe. Did he know? Was Riley Shannon on to me? Had he found out about mine and Nicco’s relationship, about the fact that we shared an apartment?

  “We’re working on finding an address for him.”

  I guess not. Though it was only a matter of time.

  “Oh . . .” I muttered.

  “Do you recognize him?”

  And there it was, the question I’d been dreading. I could lie. I could tell Riley that I had never seen him, that I didn’t know where he was. Then, a day from now, when they figured it all out, I’d look like the guiltiest person in the world. Or I could tell the truth. That I went home and he wasn’t there. That I had no idea where he was or what had really happened in that store after Babbs and I left.

  “No.” The words spilled from my mouth, a mix of deception and dread. “I don’
t recognize him.”

  10

  I lifted the glass to my nose, swishing the dark red liquid around in small circles. A cloud of scent gathered at the top of the glass and wafted up. I breathed in and the smell, dark and sweetly intoxicating, filled my head. My mouth watered as I placed the glass against my lips and took a slow sip.

  “I love merlot,” I said, trying my best not to sound too upset or nervous. Not that Babbs would have judged me for it. Hell, she’d probably have been the first one to say it was a perfectly reasonable response, which, by the way, it totally was.

  “Me too!” she said, taking a much faster and far smaller gulp.

  It was something I’d learned a while back while attending a swanky party in one of Buckhead’s fanciest hotels. I’d managed to score an invitation after gaining my small bit of notoriety with my first fashion line. Apparently, wine glasses are shaped like that for a reason, to create an scent pocket at the top of the glass. I forget exactly how the rest of it went, but there was something about letting in as much air as possible. It made it tastier somehow, activating something in the grapes.

  “I can tell,” I said, watching as she finished off the glass.

  “I think I’m just nervous.”

  “What is there to be nervous about?” I deadpanned. “The fact that Nicco is missing? That maybe we’ve been living with a killer? That the police are now looking for him, or that they’ll soon know we lied to them? Or . . . the real winner here . . . the fact that we have to go to some Lycan realm to look for something that may or may not be carved on a cave wall?”

  “It all sounds equally amazing.” Babbs topped off my glass, completely forgoing the whole ‘make room for a scent cloud’ thing.

  I was trying hard to stay positive, to not think about it all. But seriously, damn . . .

  “What time are we supposed to meet Finn?” I asked, the last bit of our conversation completely skipping my mind.

  “In a few hours.”

  “Right. What about—” My phone started buzzing again.