He pressed his thumbs against her spine, then ran them upward to the base of her skull. The pressure made her shiver. If Dex had touched her like that, the shiver would have been with delight. But she found Vari’s touch impersonal, almost cold.
Then the air sizzled, and Vari cursed. A smell, like burned electrical wires, floated around them.
Vivian turned. Vari had both thumbs in his mouth. Vivian touched the back of her neck. The pain was gone, but some of her neck hairs felt coarse and dirty.
“Are you okay?” she asked Vari.
He shook his head. “Efslakafaaut.”
“What?”
He took the thumbs out of his mouth and shook them. They were both blackened on the tips.
Vivian stared at them. She got no sense of pain from him, but he wasn’t that easy to read. Her heart was pounding now. Something had been wrong and she hadn’t even known it.
“You want me to get some ointment for that, or can you take care of it?” Ariel asked Vari. She didn’t seem concerned at all.
“I got it,” he said, and the blackness disappeared. Still, he rubbed them together as if they hurt.
“What did you say a minute ago?” Vivian asked, sensing that it was important.
Vari grinned. “What I said was ‘It’s like I thought,’ only it came out not like anything I thought at all.”
“I should hope not,” Ariel said drily, “since what you said was unintelligible.”
“What’s like you thought?” Vivian asked. She didn’t want to participate in banter. She wanted the scary part of this day to end. And, if she were honest with herself, she wanted the nice part—the part with Dex—to go on for a long, long time.
“Whoever this is has latched onto you. They’re not focused on the building. They’re focused on you.” Vari stared at his thumbs, as if they could tell him who had done the magic. He seemed both bewildered and puzzled.
Vivian wasn’t bewildered or puzzled. She was scared. She didn’t remember seeing anyone in the past few days who’d seemed remotely evil. She knew that no one had touched the back of her neck.
“What do you mean focused on me?” she asked.
“I mean that it was a good thing Dexter didn’t take you with him,” Vari said. “Or whoever it is who’s doing this might have a shot at knowing where the Fates are.”
“I’m the reason they almost got killed?” Vivian asked, sinking back into her chair.
“No,” Vari said. “At least not at first.”
“Dar, stop that,” Ariel said. “You’re scaring her.”
“I’m being honest.” Vari sat down. “I’m pretty sure that you weren’t targeted until you did that glass shield spell. Then it would be pretty easy for anyone to figure out who you are. But most mages would have attacked you. That was a real subtle spell I found, and one not often used.”
Vivian touched the skin on her neck. It felt unfamiliar, as if it had been sunburned or dried somehow. “Then how did you find it?”
“I’ve been around a long time, kiddo,” Vari said. “I may be slow, but I get there eventually.”
“Meaning what?” Vivian asked.
“Meaning I remembered someone else, a long time ago, doing the same thing to her neck that you were doing. That’s why I thought I’d see what I could find.”
“Do you think the same person cast the same spell?” Ariel asked.
“Not likely, Ari,” Vari said, “since that mage is long dead.”
“You’re sure.”
Vari nodded. He looked both serious and dangerous. “I’m sure.”
“How could they magic me without me knowing it?” Vivian asked.
“It’s a very subtle spell,” Vari said, “but one that a person who can use puppets would be capable of.”
“What is?” Blackstone came out of the kitchen. He was wiping his hands on a towel.
“Vivian’s been targeted. That’s why she knew when the attack was going to come. I touched the back of her neck and shorted out something.” Vari sniffed. “See? You can still smell the singed hair.”
“Okay.” Vivian took a deep breath, trying to stay calm. “Tell me how I could have gotten targeted.”
“Someone used the signature of the imaginary glass you put over your apartment building to figure out who you are. Since you haven’t come into your powers yet, and if the Interim Fates are as incompetent as Dexter says they are, then whoever did this has some powerful magic of his own.” Blackstone moved the bus cart away from Nora and pushed it toward the kitchen. He was clearly thinking about what he had just said. “An incompetent mage couldn’t have done this, nor could someone who has just come into his powers.”
“Didn’t I just say that?” Vari asked.
Blackstone shrugged. “I wasn’t here.”
“It’s not even as simple as Alex makes it sound,” Vari said. “I’m not sure I could do it.”
He grabbed one of the tables and pulled it away from the other table. Ariel got a cloth and wiped both tables down.
Vivian understood that they wanted to open the restaurant, but their focus on business bothered her more than she was willing to admit. She still felt like there was a crisis going on, and these people were cleaning tables as if it were a regular day.
“Yes,” Blackstone said to Vari with obvious affection, “but that’s more a reflection on your level of practice than your abilities.”
“That’s my point.” Vari grabbed a runner from a stack on a nearby shelf and put it on one of the clean tables. “I spent most of my life doing parlor tricks for reluctant lovers. It takes someone with a serious dedication to magic to target a woman who hasn’t come into her powers yet.”
This entire discussion was making Vivian nervous. “So what do I do now? How do I get untargeted?”
“We have to catch this person first,” Blackstone said.
“But I have a life. I have some stuff I need to deal with, and my apartment, and my family—”
“Your family’s not here, are they?” Blackstone asked.
“No,” Vivian said. “They left yesterday.”
“And the Fates arrived this morning?”
Vivian nodded, wondering how she was going to explain this to Travers on the phone. Kyle might get it, but Travers seemed very reluctant to believe in something that he couldn’t see.
“Then I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Do you agree, Sancho?”
Vari shook his head. He was watching Ariel set the tables. She was moving with the swiftness of someone who did that job often.
“I think Vivian’s going to need a guardian just like the Fates do,” Vari said.
At that, Nora gave him a suspicious look. “You’re not reverting to form, are you, Sancho?”
“Of course not,” he said, but his eyes twinkled.
“What form?” Vivian asked.
“Early garden gnome,” Nora said, and got a growl from Vari. Then the twinkle left his eyes.
Vivian didn’t understand the reference—or at least all of the reference. She remembered that someone had said the Fates had made Vari change his appearance for a few thousand years. Had they turned him into a garden gnome? A real gnome, or one of the ceramic kinds? And if he had been ceramic, he couldn’t have been a garden gnome for several thousand years. She knew that they didn’t have garden gnomes long ago, and she wasn’t even sure when ceramic was invented.
“I’m serious, though,” Vari was saying. “I think Vivian is the one who needs protection, as much or more than the Fates.”
“You don’t think I can protect myself?” Vivian asked, not sure she wanted to do it and yet also not sure she wanted to remain with these people.
Blackstone sighed. “I don’t mean to offend you, but asking if you can protect yourself is like a toddler asking if she’ll survive a boxing match with Alexander Holyfield. This mage might go easy on you because you’re without training, skills, or strength, but he might also decide to use you to teach the Fates a lesson.”
> Vivian sank into her chair. “I can’t believe this happened to me because I opened my door this morning and let some strangers into my apartment.”
Vari gave her a sad smile. “It’s not that simple.”
“Sure it is,” Vivian said. “If I hadn’t let them in, I wouldn’t be here right now.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Vari said. “Remember who those women are. Fate. Destiny. An uncontrollable force with total control over your life. You’re here now because they meant you to be here now.”
“But they have no power,” Vivian said.
“I’m still not sure of that.” Vari’s gaze met Blackstone’s. “I’m not sure of that at all.”
FOURTEEN
A ZZZZT! WENT THROUGH ERIS. Her entire body felt as if she had received a strong electric shock.
She had been sitting on the stairs, watching Quixotic while she was pretending to watch Sturgis wrap up his voice-over on the winking building. The voice-over would air during the afternoon newscasts, with promises of more to come.
Sturgis was watching his replay on the video monitor, Kronski peering over his shoulder. Suzanne was off somewhere, trying to find out the scientific cause of the winking. The camera operators were anxious to go to the local affiliate—probably so they could escape Sturgis’s presence.
The crowds had thinned, now that the building was solid again, and many of the other news teams had left. The story was, for all intents and purposes, over.
Until the zzzzt!, Eris had been contemplating the next few days, planning to let the team return to New York while she remained here, ostensibly to meet with stockholders. She figured it would only take a few days to wrap up her business, so to speak, with the Fates.
The rope trick’s failure hadn’t angered her. With that many mages in the room, she had been surprised to get as far as she had. Although if Dexter Grant hadn’t been there, she would have had the Fates.
Grant was the one to watch; Eris knew that now. And he seemed a lot more interested in pretty little Miss Kinneally than in the Fates themselves.
Amazing what kind of information a connection gave her. It wasn’t as if she watched everyone, and it wasn’t quite a psychic link either. It was more like a radio in a neighbor’s apartment, tuned to a staticky talk station. If she wasn’t paying attention, she wouldn’t have gotten any information at all.
Then the connection ruptured. She’d never felt anything like that zzzzt! before. It was painful and left her tingling all at the same time.
And more than a little angry. Grant hadn’t severed the connection. Eris had been paying too much attention to Sturgis and hadn’t been listening in as closely as she should have. Someone else had severed it, and it had hurt.
“Erika?” Sturgis was peering at her over the video replay. His own tiny image—looking much better than his large one—was nattering on about mass hallucinations and tricks of the light. “You all right?”
“Of course,” she said, sounding as calm as she could under the circumstances.
“It’s just…” he waved a hand over his head. “Your hair…”
She touched her hair. It was sticking out straight, and it felt coarse, just like the fur on those cartoon parodies of cats with their claws stuck in light sockets.
“The wind,” she said, a bit of a panic in her voice. “Hadn’t you noticed how strong it is?”
Sturgis touched his own hair, as if he were afraid the light-socket effect was contagious.
“Wrap it up,” Eris said, nodding toward the video replay. “I want to get to the hotel and clean up before lunch.”
“Okay,” Sturgis said. “Why don’t you go and we’ll meet you somewhere?”
She raised her gaze toward the restaurant across the street. The neon lights turned on as she watched, and the vertical QUIXOTIC sign came to life in all its art deco glory.
“Meet me there,” she said.
“Across the street?” Sturgis turned toward the restaurant. “Why?”
“Because it’s famous, stupid.” Kronski handed Sturgis the handheld mike. “You have to do your outro again. Truck noise.”
Sturgis kept staring at the restaurant. “If it’s so famous, how come I’ve never heard of it?”
Kronski’s gaze met Eris’s, and for a moment, she knew they had shared a thought. She wasn’t sure she appreciated it, or the fact that Kronski thought himself her equal. Then, as she watched, his eyes moved upward, his gaze traveling to her hair.
“What happened to you?” he asked.
“My crème rinse gave out,” she snapped. “It’s only an eight-hour treatment.”
“Oh,” he said, and turned away. She stood up and brushed herself off. People nearby were looking at her hair. It had to be pretty spectacular. She would wait until she rounded the corner before spelling her hair back to normal.
Then she would check into her hotel, change, and prepare herself for meeting the sources of those far away radio voices. They wouldn’t know who she was, of course. She would use her blocking magic and no one would be the wiser.
But she would see what she was up against.
She had a hunch that, without Dexter Grant, she wasn’t up against much.
***
Dex appeared in the center of the cave, snapped his fingers to light candles, and clapped his hands. The Fates landed on the floor beside him, still standing side by side like they had been in Quixotic.
They looked just as angry as they had before.
He didn’t say anything to them. Instead, he lit the fire in the hearth he had built by hand. The great room was his favorite. It had a natural arched ceiling, a flat floor (again the result of his own painstaking work), and thick fake fur rugs that covered everything. The couch was deep and comfortable, the easy chairs reclined, and the walls were covered with books.
A fully equipped modern kitchen stood off the entrance, and five bedrooms were down the hall. All of the bedrooms had tiny windows that overlooked the cliff face. The view from those windows was spectacular—waves breaking against the rocks below—and isolating at the same time. Nothing was visible except rocks and the sea itself, extending all the way to the horizon.
Dex went into the kitchen and flicked on the electricity. He’d wired that in during the last ten years, and it had been the worst job of his life. The electric company thought he was getting service to the acre of grass on the other side of the cliff face, not wiring inside natural caves.
So far, no inspectors had shown up, and he hoped none ever would. At one point, he’d had to use his magic to connect circuits through fifty feet of solid rock. There was no way he could explain to a mortal how that had been done.
When Dex got back into the great room, Atropos was reading the titles on the books in the bookcase. Lachesis was sprawled on the couch, her arm over her eyes, and Clotho tended the fire.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m the only person alive who knows that these caves are here. The guy who sold this property to me died in 1941, and I’ve kept the caves hidden since then. You can get out if you need to by following a passage off the kitchen, but it will take you days, and at times you’ll have to crawl on your bellies. I don’t recommend it.”
“We’re stuck here?” Clotho asked.
“You said you’d stay a month,” Dex said.
“No windows,” Lachesis said.
“No television,” Atropos said, somehow making that sound worse.
“There are windows in the bedrooms—you can open them for fresh air. There is no beach below us, so no one will see you from the ground, although you have to watch out for the occasional ship. From the sea, those windows look like natural openings in the rocks, so you have nothing to worry about there either. There’s also a small built-in balcony off the master bedroom, if you feel the need to go outside.”
Dex felt awkward. He had never brought anyone here, no matter what the Fates believed. This was his private place, so private that he had built everything by himself, most of it by han
d. He’d had to spell the furniture in here, but that had been easy.
“Who will bring us our meals?” Clotho asked, peering into the dining area. His table was made from the stump of an old growth tree, but the chairs were ladderbacks with upholstered seats.
Meals. He hadn’t even thought about it. “No one. We can’t continually pop in and out of here.”
“Then we have a problem,” Lachesis said. “There’s no way to eat.”
“Can’t you cook?” Dex blurted before he thought the better of it.
“I believe Clotho has tried,” Atropos said, “decades before she came into her powers, which would put that—how many centuries ago, Clotho, dear?”
“Too many.” Clotho sat on one of the dining room chairs. “We’re going to need food.”
“I’ll make sure the kitchen’s fully stocked before I leave. I’ll put fresh foods in there as well as frozen and microwavable. There are instruction manuals and cookbooks. You have a month. You’ll have to learn how to cook—modern style.”
“Cook?” Lachesis said, as if he had proposed she strip naked and jump into the ocean.
Dex nodded.
“Can’t you send us a chef?” Atropos asked.
“Aethelstan will do,” Clotho said.
“I don’t have control over Blackstone,” Dex said, thanking any god he could think of that he didn’t. He didn’t want to be part of that controversy.
“We have not learned anything nonmagical in centuries,” Lachesis said. “We will starve.”
Dex smiled. “I’m not too worried. Anyone can microwave a pizza.”
“I’m not even sure what a microwave is,” Atropos said.
Clotho twisted her torso so that she was draped over the back of her chair. “I had thought we would come to this place, have adventures, and then return to our job. I did not expect to come here, have a half day of panic, and be stuck in a cave for a month.”
Dex clenched his fists, struggling not to lose his temper. He hated their lack of gratitude, their sense of entitlement, their—he forced the thoughts back, took a deep breath, and said, “It’s not my problem, ladies. I had a solution to your predicament. As I said at Quixotic, acceping that solution is entirely your choice.”
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