Enchantment Emporium

by Tanya Huff

  By the dragons? No. Giant flying lizards were… well, giant flying lizards, actually, and not up to this kind of working.

  Given the number of Fey in the city, it was most likely that one of their doorways had been hijacked. Someone had broken the security bindings, and the dragons had found their way through. Or been sent through. Or called through.

  And now other things were following the dragons.

  At best, someone in the UnderRealm had been irresponsible. At worst, the dragons were a deliberate act of aggression. Not against the family, not yet anyway, but with Gran’s store so close and Gran missing…

  Teeth clenched, Allie wrote a charm on back of a grubby gas receipt she found half buried by the path, then tossed it through the gate. The paper disappeared. The charm, drawn not exactly neatly with the punctured tip of her finger, hung in the air for a moment.

  The flash hung in the air a moment longer.

  The Courts were going to be pissed.

  Tough.

  “It like wasn’t a bear, okay! It was all furry, but it was too big!” Made shrill by terror, the girl’s voice sliced an advance path through the darkness.

  “It had to be a fucking bear, didn’t it?” The boy was less shrill but more panicked.

  “Bears’ eyes don’t glow!”

  “Sometimes! In the right light!”

  “All six of them?”

  “If it wasn’t a bear, then what the fuck was it? Huh? What the fuck was it?”

  The quiet answering rumble had to be Graham. Allie couldn’t make out the words, but the tone sounded more calming than interrogative. It also sounded as though they were about to pass right in front of her, heading for the path to the parking lot. She thought about waiting for them but decided Graham would be happier if he thought she’d stayed in the truck. When it took so little to make someone happy, why not go for it?

  “A bear? That wandered down from the mountains? That got shot in the head and then disappeared?”

  “Not disappeared,” Graham corrected. “Turned to dust.”

  “A vampire bear?”

  “Don’t even joke about it.” He waved at one of the police officers as he pulled out of the parking lot. Allie had no idea how he’d explained away their presence, but the teens were in the back of one of the two patrol cars probably still arguing about what had happened and they’d been told they could go. “Besides,” he added, changing lanes, “wouldn’t a vampire bear require a stake through the heart rather than a shot to the head?”

  “Depends on the mythology.” She grinned as he turned to stare. “What?”

  “You’re just messing with me, aren’t you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Allie.”

  “Yes, I’m just messing with you.” She didn’t know why she was laughing except that she really liked the way he said her name. “So that’s what the hysterical teenagers saw; what did you see?”

  “Hysterical teenagers.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Well, I didn’t see a vampire bear, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  He wasn’t lying. “Did you see the shooter?”

  “Nope.”

  Also not a lie.

  “Neither did the hysterical teenagers,” he added. “Given there’s nothing to the story but hysterical teenagers, I doubt I’ll even follow up on it.”

  “What about tracks?”

  Eyes wide, he pivoted toward her; the truck swerved to the right. “Tracks of a vampire bear?” he asked, jerking them away from impact with a parked sedan.

  “Tracks of whatever the kids saw,” Allie expanded, releasing her grip on the dashboard.

  “If they saw anything at all.”

  “If they saw anything at all,” she agreed as he pulled up in front of the store. “Do you think they saw something?”

  For a moment, she thought he wasn’t going to answer.

  “I think they saw something,” he admittedly slowly. “But mostly, I think I want to see you again.”

  Allie smiled across the cab of the truck. He sounded as if he was a little surprised by the revelation. She wasn’t. “That’s going to be one really well researched article.”

  “Not for the article.” When her brows rose in exaggerated surprise, he visibly relaxed. “Okay, fine.You knew that. Tomorrow…”

  “Store’s open. Monday?”

  “I’ll be working.”

  She could see schedules getting in the way until the moment was lost. This was not a moment she planned to lose. “Joe can handle the store.”

  His eyes narrowed as he tried to work out what she meant. “So we’re on for tomorrow?”

  “Yes.”

  “We could go to… uh…”

  Allie realized she was in deep when she thought it was cute he hadn’t actually thought of anything in advance.

  “… Banff!”

  “Okay.”

  “For the day.”

  “Great.”

  “I’ll pick you up at…”

  “Ten.” Allie twisted sideways on the seat, and laid one hand on his arm. “So Joe knows he’s in charge. Actually, we haven’t really settled Joe’s hours, so Charlie may have to tell him that when he arrives.”

  Even through jacket and shirt, she felt muscle flex. “Charlie’s here.”

  “Yeah. She is.” Maybe he just needed reminding that Charlie wasn’t a guy.

  “So tomorrow…”

  Leaning forward, Allie kissed him. He was startled at first, then he started to respond, his left hand coming across to cup the back of her neck. “Tomorrow,” she murmured against his mouth as she pulled away. Before he could answer, she slid out of the truck, closed the door, and waved good-bye through the window.

  Gale girls knew how to make an exit.

  Now that the police were gone and the area was quiet, he retrieved his weapon from where he’d hidden it under the dog willow and placed it carefully back into the case. Having Alysha Gale actually at the site hadn’t turned into the disaster it could have been, but that, he was certain, was all luck because it sure as shit hadn’t been planning.

  The tracks the creature had left had been mostly obliterated by traffic-cops who thought they were wasting their time weren’t too careful about where they walked. He carefully erased everything that remained, keeping half an eye on the sky.

  “Yes, your involvement could very well attract the kind of attention we don’t want! Unfortunately, the presence of a greater danger does not change the fact that your job involves protecting me from lesser dangers as well. In this case, two lesser dangers. I have no idea what the Courts are thinking allowing these things through their gate! We’ll just have to risk it.”

  “It turned to dust when it was shot?” Charlie frowned down at the picture on Allie’s phone. “I’m thinking the guy who pointed Blessed rounds at Joe is our prime suspect, then.”

  “That makes sense.” She paused, David’s old football jersey half over her head. “We should go find Joe.”

  “And?”

  Yanking the jersey the rest of the way down, Allie took her phone back. “Offer him a safe place to sleep.”

  “I thought you did that when you closed the store.”

  “I did.” And as he had the night before, Joe’d refused the offer. Refused to hide. “But now we have more information.”

  “He knows there’s a shooter out there with Blessed rounds,” Michael reminded her from the edge of the bed. “You want him to hang around, you’re going to have to come up with something more.”

  “Than potential death?”

  He shrugged. “Apparently.”

  “You know what I think,” Charlie said, frowning thoughtfully. “I think this shooter has access to artifacts, so he could have acquired something that’s attracting all sorts of party people through the gate.”

  Allie matched her frown. “What does that have to do with Joe?”

  “Nothing. He’s not interested in having a sleepover, eating s’mores, and braidi
ng your hair. We’ve moved on. Keep up.”

  She chewed her lower lip. Artifacts stored power. Power attracted more power. “It’s possible,” she admitted.

  “You have a better idea? We need to find this shooter. Track him down.”

  “Not tonight.” Jeans unzipped, she shimmied them off her hips.

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Can’t. Have a date with Graham.”

  “Allie likes Graham!”

  She smacked Michael in the shoulder with her jeans. “What are you, twelve?”

  “Fine,” Charlie sighed, as Allie danced back out of Michael’s reach, “not tonight and not tomorrow. Why should a guy with a gun come between you and your love life?”

  “Exactly.”

  “But we have to remember, he could’ve gotten his artifacts from the store, and that connects him to Auntie Catherine and possibly her disappearance.”

  “She thinks she’s Nancy Drew,” Allie explained to Michael, sliding under the covers. Charlie had grabbed the middle position by the simple process of already being in it when the other two came to bed.

  “You’re Nancy Drew,” she reminded Allie. “I’m the best friend with the gender inappropriate name.”

  “Who am I, then?” Michael demanded.

  “A Hardy Boy.”

  “Which one?”

  “Both of them based on how much room you’re taking up in the bed!” Allie dragged Charlie’s pillow out from under her head, leaned across her, and whacked him with it.

  Later, after he fell asleep, Charlie sketched a new charm between his brows so he wouldn’t wake and pulled Allie into her arms. “You really like this Graham guy?” she asked, fingers ghosting along the curve of Allie’s shoulder.

  “I really do.”

  “I suppose I can learn to like him for your sake, then.”

  Mouthing along the warm line of Charlie’s collarbone, Allie murmured, “Things will work out.”

  Gale girls made sure of it.

  Joe still hadn’t arrived when Graham pulled up.

  “Haven’t quite got the hang of the whole having an employee thing, have you?” Charlie asked when Allie pointed out Joe didn’t have regular hours. “You obviously have plans, but I could go look for him.”

  “It’s a big city.” She waved a “be there in three minutes” through the door and grinned when Graham smiled and nodded. Eyes still blue. Smile still causing her pulse to throb erratically. “How would you find him?”

  “I can track your charm just as easily as you could.”

  That was true. Allie chewed her lip. She knew Joe wasn’t dead or the charm would have died with him-and that, she’d have felt. “He knows he’s supposed to come in today. If we go chasing after him because he’s not here the moment the store opens, I’m afraid he’ll bolt.”

  “Maybe he needs a little more commitment from you.”

  “From me?” Allie paused half into her jacket. “What are you talking about? I offered him a job.”

  “In a half-assed kind of way.”

  “So he wouldn’t bolt. You didn’t see him that first day, all prickly and defensive. Just watch the store until he gets here, then call me.”

  “Right.” Charlie leaned back against the counter then jerked straight again. “Wait… I’m watching the store? What about Michael?”

  “He’s working on the loft,” Allie reminded her. She took her phone out of her messenger bag, stared at it for a moment, then put it back in the bag again.

  “Yeah, but I fucking hate retail.”

  “Suck it up.”

  Allie paused in the doorway as Graham got out of the truck. Finally seen through the clear-sight charm, he looked no different than he did without it. Broad shoulders stretched the denim confines of a jean jacket and under faded jeans that clung to his thighs in all the best ways, he wore a pair of black cowboy boots. The halo of light and the angelic choirs were purely a product of her imagination.

  On a brilliantly sunny but surprisingly cool Sunday in May, Banff was crowded, and a little tacky, and surrounded by some of the most beautiful scenery Allie’d ever seen.

  “So is it in the rules that every visitor to Alberta has to be brought here?” she wondered, linking her arm with his and sidestepping a group of tourists taking pictures at the totem pole.

  He tucked her in close to his side, the boots boosting his height by a good two inches. “That’s what they tell me.”

  It was entirely possible that Gran had disappeared in Banff. And that was the story she stuck to when Auntie Meredith called.

  “Where’s Allie?”

  Charlie turned from searching a lower shelf as Joe came into the store. “Oh, good, you’re alive.”

  Joe’s eyes narrowed. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Shooter with Blessed rounds.”

  He held up the hand marked with Allie’s charm.

  “Right. Allie’s on a date with the short newspaper dude.You know anything about a gate to the UnderRealm out by Fort Calgary?” Eyes locked on his face, Charlie stood and sighed. “FYI, your poker face is crap.”

  Joe sighed. “I know the gate’s there.”

  “Your people open it?”

  “They’re not my fucking people. And yeah, it’s one of theirs.”

  “Allie closed it last night.”

  He scratched up under his sweater and Charlie wondered just how rough he was living. She had a kickass charm to get rid of fleas. “Why?”

  “A couple of creepies got through. Probably because the security had already been buggered by the…” Charlie cocked her head. “Do you hear music?”

  “No.”

  Squatting, she pulled out a stack of old puzzles and peered behind it at another stack of old puzzles. “I’ve been hearing an autoharp off and on since Allie left.”

  “I don’t know what an autoharp sounds like.”

  “Today it sounds like music no one’s making.”

  “Oh.” She heard him shuffle closer, then he said, “Your grandmother had a bunch of music boxes in here somewhere.”

  Charlie straightened again, wiping the dust off her fingers onto her jeans as Joe danced back again. Allie was right. Come on too strong, and he’d run. With strength she didn’t know she had, she resisted the urge to say, Calm down, I’m not after your Lucky Charms, and said instead, “Place to start, anyway. And she’s not my gran. She’s my Auntie Catherine.”

  “Isn’t that worse?”

  Snapping open her phone, Charlie grinned. “Usually.”

  Stepping out of the truck, Allie came to a full stop as she stared at the Banff Springs Hotel. “Does everyone feel like they’ve been here before?”

  “It has been photographed a lot,” Graham allowed, closing her door and pulling her forward.

  After a long lunch that Allie fully enjoyed now she knew Joe was safe, they walked around the hotel grounds then drove back to the main street and the more touristy attractions.

  Sometimes they talked.

  “No, no one in my family is ever called Dorothy.”

  “And I’m guessing there’s a distinct lack of ruby slippers?”

  “Good guess.”

  Sometimes they just walked. Hand in hand. Arm in arm. Connected somehow.

  As the shadows began to lengthen, they decided to go back to Calgary for supper.

  Although they never got around to it.

  Graham’s condo was modern; white walls, dark hardwood floors, large photographs in black frames. His furniture was minimal. And his couch, for all its modern design, was surprisingly comfortable.

  Removing her mouth from his long enough to unbutton his shirt and push it back off his shoulders, Allie’s eyes widened.

  Intricate hex marks ran in two lines down the center of his chest.

  Sorcery.

  So not good.

  As the calluses on his hand rubbed against the bare skin of her waist, she threw a leg over his lap and straddled him. “When this is over,” she murmured, nipping along his jawline,
stubble rasping against her tongue like a cat’s kiss in reverse, “we’re going to have to talk.”

  He blinked. Pulled back a little. “If you need… I mean, we could talk now.”

  “After.”

  When it seemed like he might be going to argue, she dropped a hand between them and began to unbutton his fly.

  His hips rocked up. “After’s good, too.”

  SIX

  The clock on the bedside table read 5:14 when Allie, lying with her head on Graham’s shoulder so she could watch the minutes pass, felt his breathing change. One moment he was asleep, the next, awake and, if she hadn’t been waiting for it, she’d have missed the way muscles tensed as he processed the situation.

  Not hard to figure out how that processing began.

  Not alone.

  Who?

  He didn’t exactly relax after memory kicked in, but given the hex marks on his chest, Allie wasn’t surprised.

  “So…” He stroked her shoulder. “… is this when we talk?”

  He’d known she was awake even though she’d been careful to keep her body limp and her breathing deep and regular.

  Good instincts. Again, not surprising.

  She combed her fingernails through the patch of hair on his chest, lightly scratching at the skin. “Unless you have a better idea.”

  A deep breath escaped before he said, “Maybe we should wait until after we talk.”

  “All right.” She could tell he was thinking that after they talked, it’d be too late.

  Pretty much proving her theory, he released her, turned on the bedside lamp, and started to get out of bed. Allie allowed him to roll her off his shoulder but that was it. “You’re working for a sorcerer,” she stated calmly. He froze in place. “Given the hexes he’s marked you with,” she continued, “what you do is dangerous.You know who I am and as much about my family as anyone does and may have had something to do with my grandmother’s disappearance although I doubt it-you knew she was gone, but you didn’t know why or you wouldn’t have been trying to find out what I knew about it. You’d have been angling me away from the truth. Your sorcerer didn’t want her around, but he knew better than to overtly remove her. He called you last night when he realized creatures other than dragons were coming through the gate-probably because the dragons have messed up the security-and that those creatures could be a threat to him. You took a weapon out of the back of your truck. Since the west isn’t wild enough for you to be waving a high-caliber sniper rifle around, there’s a misdirection hex carved into it. You-and your sorcerer-assumed the hexes on the doors would keep me in the truck. You were both wrong about that. After shooting the creatures, you hid the weapon and went back for it later.” The faint smell she hadn’t been able to place-gunpowder. She smiled at him, rolling up onto her side. “And you snore.”