by Jory Strong
Sophie glanced down at the polished round stone in her hand, noticing then that all of them were the same color, black, and seemingly identical in appearance though she could feel a small glyph carved into it. Looking closer, she recognized it as Elvish and grinned. “Let me guess, the symbol means, ‘Crazy about dragons.’”
“Or could be crazy about at least one of them, if introduced to the right mate.”
“So the stones are a safeguard, a clue.”
“Yes.”
Sophie put the affinity stone back in the bowl, burying it deep before retrieving the invitations Tielo had given her and setting them down on the counter. “So if the mirror reacts, when they come to the cash register—because who can enter Inner Magick and leave without buying something—you see if they pick out the dragon stone. And if they do, you then present the cards, and afterward, the invitation.”
“That’s one possible sequence. Different matches will probably come about different ways.”
“You’re trying to cover all the bases.”
Aislinn nodded. “And hopefully prepare the women invited to Drake’s Lair the best I can without violating the covenants governing those supernaturals living or visiting this realm.”
Sophie laughed, doing a small hop up and down as she clapped her hands. “I am loving this! I’ll love it even more when Tielo or Hakon meet their mates. Are you leaving it totally up to chance and just waiting for someone to walk in and have the mirror react to them?”
“No.”
Sophie rubbed her hands together. “Who have you got in mind?”
“Her name is Lyra Cotterill. She’s a teacher who collects tarot cards. I’ve got some unique ones coming in. They should be here any time now. When they arrive, I’m going to call and tell her they’re here.”
“Any guesses as to who she’s going to end up with?”
Aislinn’s smile was full of mystery while her eyes sparkled with teasing. “You’re an author, Sophie, it’ll ruin the story if you know the entire plot in advance.”
“Cruel,” Sophie muttered, but she was smiling as she reached over and tapped the top invitation. “Do you think she’ll use this today?”
“All I can say with any certainty is that it’ll be in her possession and there will be a selection of men at Drake’s Lair for her to choose from.”
Sophie snickered. “And to bring out dragon competitiveness.”
“That too.”
Chapter Two
Lyra put the last bite of enchilada in her mouth, savoring the taste and spiciness of it as much as she had the first bite. If she kept this up, she was going to need new clothes in a larger size.
The prospect of it wasn’t exactly something to make her excited about hitting the mall and spending money. And then there was the whole seeing-herself-in-a-full-view-mirror thing.
Keep eating the way she’d been for the last several months, it’d be like looking into a fun-house mirror, only she wouldn’t be laughing. And the truth was that eating as many meals as she could at the Ochoas’ restaurant wasn’t going to be enough to keep them in business or make a big enough difference when it came to helping the family.
She pushed the empty plate to the side. It was the signal her two companions were waiting for. Nine-year-old Sebastian pounced. “What about a tres leches cake with strawberries, Ms. Cotterill? If you order it, I’ll go get it right away.”
Dark eyes pleaded for her to say, yes, yes, yes. He was going to be a heartbreaker when he grew up, same as the brother sitting next to him. They’d both been her students, but she couldn’t love them any more if they were her own nephews.
“Blackberries, not strawberries,” ten-year-old Nicolas chimed in. “I bet Mama would even give it to you for less money if we tell her you’re going to share some of it with us.”
Lyra laughed, heart lifting as it did every time she stopped by for a meal. Six months ago, she’d braced herself to attend their funerals.
There were still times when she felt the well of tears, at how close she’d come to losing them after first Sebastian then Nicolas had become sick. It’d started as flu-like symptoms, nothing to rush a kid to the doctor for, not with flu going around and money tight.
She hadn’t faulted Romina and Emmanuel. She would have done the same, delayed, and she’d known they were already struggling to keep their restaurant alive in an economy that had been hard for a long, long time. They’d heavily mortgaged their house, cut their own wages and, like a lot of people, had only the bare minimum of coverage when it came to health insurance.
Even if they’d taken the boys to the doctor immediately, she wasn’t convinced Sebastian and Nicolas would have been correctly diagnosed, not based on the events that followed. They’d already been hospitalized and were in critical condition by the time three other students developed fevers followed by small red bumps and medical professionals knew what they were dealing with. MRSA—methicillin resistant staphylococcus.
MRSA was a seminar topic, something she’d heard about and received handouts on, but it wasn’t at the forefront of her brain in the same way meningitis was. It wasn’t exactly an everyday health concern in a school environment.
In layman’s terms, MRSA was bacterium that caused a wide range of difficult-to treat-infections. Most often it was localized to the skin, quickly diagnosed, and not as hard to get on top of. But there were also more virulent forms that affected vital organs and led to widespread infection.
The doctors didn’t know why it hit Sebastian and Nicolas so hard and so aggressively, bypassing the skin so they never developed the small red bumps. But with the diagnosis of MRSA, health officials swarmed, closing the school temporarily. There’d been panic and fear for the parents of the other students, rampant concern that may or may not have been helped by news programs showing workers in hazmat suits sanitizing the environment.
“What about half strawberry and half blackberry, Ms. Cotterill?” Nicolas asked, drawing her back to the present.
“I think I’ll burst if I eat any tres leches cake.”
Sebastian’s smile was heart-melting. “You don’t have to eat much. Just a taste so you can tell Mama it was delicious when she asks. We’ll help you finish the rest of it.”
Lyra looked at the menu board. Nicolas chimed in. “How about this, Ms. Cotterill? What about playing rock-scissors-paper to see who gets to choose the topping?”
She needed to get back to her apartment, but she couldn’t say no. “One slice. I flip a coin. Heads for blackberries. Tails for strawberries.”
Digging in her purse, she came up with a quarter and tossed it. It landed on the table strawberry-side up.
“Yes,” Sebastian said, pumping his fist. “I’ll go get it.”
He slid from the booth and left. Their older sister, Andrea, came over to collect the dishes.
“Add a slice of tres leches cake to the ticket,” Nicolas told her.
Andrea gave a small smile, but worry hung on her in a way it shouldn’t for a fourteen-year-old girl. Lyra knew the cause and felt her own stomach knot.
The restaurant was only a few blocks away from her apartment. She’d gotten to know this family well, even before she’d had Nicolas, then Sebastian in her class.
Between the economy and the horrendous medical costs, they were now living in a motel room, two adults and six children trying to stay together as a family. Lyra’s mother had their cat, lost when the bank foreclosed on the house and evicted them. And Lyra had the hamster, at least for the summer. He’d go back to the classroom when school started.
The Ochoas weren’t the only family to live at the motel. So many students called it home that it was an official stop on the school bus route.
Sebastian returned with a generous serving of cake. Lyra’s mouth watered as she lifted her fork, trying not to think of fun-house mirrors where she’d be twice her current size when she looked into them. She wasn’t a big woman, though she always felt like one when she was in the same room as her fine
-boned, willowy sister.
Much more of this and my ass is going to serve as a tabletop some guy could set his beer bottle on. It was there in her genes, at least on her mother’s side of the family. But her eyes closed in momentary bliss with the first bite of tres leches cake and she probably managed an equal share against the boys’ quick eating.
“Excellent meal, as always,” she told Andrea after paying the bill and leaving a good tip. “Tell your mom, okay?”
“Sí.”
Lyra stood and the boys scrambled out from their side of the booth. They each gave her a hug at the door. “See you tomorrow, Ms. Cotterill?”
“Maybe.”
A patrol unit pulled alongside Lyra at the edge of the parking lot. She smiled at Donovan. Damn, he was a fine-looking black man. Rich caramel to her dark chocolate but more importantly, he had just about every quality a woman could want in a man. Caring. Courteous. Honorable. A hard worker. And according to his new wife and Lyra’s friend, Mia, knew how to make a woman scream with pleasure.
He could have been mine. But all she could feel was happiness that, instead of saying yes when they’d been neighbors and he’d asked her out, she’d done the next best thing and introduced him to a fellow teacher.
Donovan opened the door and got out of the car, reminding her again how gorgeous he was with his quarterback build. Trouble was, she had a thing for white men, probably because her mother had married one and because her stepfather, since she was four, had been everything a kid could want in a father-figure.
“You grabbing a bite here?” she asked, knowing that like her, Donovan and Mia tried to give the Ochoas what business they could.
His expression went from smiling to grim. “No. Swinging by to talk to Emmanuel and Romina. They both working tonight?”
“Yes.” She glanced back toward the restaurant. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”
“Trying to head off trouble.”
“Carlos?” she guessed, though she didn’t know the sixteen-year-old as well as she did the younger kids.
“Yeah, Carlos. I saw him with a couple of gang members over on J Street.”
The food took on weight in her stomach. “They’re involved in moving drugs?”
“Definitely. They wear a lot of bling and drive fancy cars. Temptation for a kid looking to help out his family with some fast cash. Hell, temptation for a lot of different kinds of kids.”
“Will he listen to Romina and Emmanuel?” She knew without doubt they’d tell Carlos to stay away from gang members.
“Don’t know. Mia taught him. Says he’s a smart kid. But he’s got to be scared about losing everything and he’s probably full of enough machismo to think he can pull something like this off.”
“Not a good combination.”
“No.” Donovan headed toward the front door.
Lyra walked home, the sense of time running out for the Ochoa family growing with each step. It felt nearly overwhelming as she entered her apartment.
Her gaze went immediately to the old wooden desk she’d found in a secondhand shop and lovingly restored. The screen was blank on her computer, but not for long.
Next to it was a stack of books, all on a single subject, poker. Specifically, Texas Hold’em.
She had a head for odds and an innate ability to spot tells, probably compliments of her biological father, though she’d never met the man. Just as well, her mother would have been quick to point out, followed by something along the lines of, The only good thing to come out of that man’s life was you and It’s no surprise he was killed young and probably while trying to hustle money to gamble with.
Lyra crossed to the desk, dropping her purse onto a chair as she passed it. With a touch to the keyboard, the screen woke to a login page for a poker site. This was what she did in her spare time, and had since the day Sebastian had sobbed in her arms before school and told her about how they were moving and couldn’t take either the cat or the hamster.
So far she’d played online only for practice, never for real money. Part of her thought it was a crazy idea. Even if she could win enough money to help the Ochoa family, would they accept the help?
Every time she expressed her doubts, Mia said, “Win first. Worry about handing the proceeds off afterward.” And Mia had been willing to pledge some money as a vote of confidence, though like Lyra, she wasn’t rolling in cash either, not on a teacher’s salary, and not when she was still paying off college loans as well as setting up house with a new husband.
You care too much about your students. You’re too invested in them. You’re going to burn yourself out if you don’t toughen up and accept that there’s only so much you can do for any given one of them. Lyra knew that’s what teachers who’d been at it longer than she had would say.
Maybe they were right. Maybe she was just young and idealistic, but…
She didn’t think that was necessarily a bad thing. Believing something was possible was the first step to making it a reality.
History proved it repeatedly. Once upon a time, no one had thought a four-minute mile was possible. Then one day, a twenty-five-year-old British medical student did it. And as soon as Roger Bannister broke the barrier, then suddenly it became something a lot of athletes accomplished—not because the human body had changed radically but because human thinking had.
But… Gambling was why her mother had kicked her biological father out of their lives before Lyra was a year old. Her mother had been tired of food and rent money never making it home because he’d handed it off to his bookie.
I’m not like him. It was a refrain she’d repeated so often it had become a mantra. Only it never completely silenced the little voice that said, Maybe I’ll find out that I am.
Her mother couldn’t answer the all-important question of why he’d gambled. Whether it was an addiction, or whether he was a dreamer who wanted a load of cash by just getting lucky, a man who didn’t understand that often hard work preceded luck, and luck was created when effort and opportunity crossed paths.
Lyra sat, logging in but not immediately looking for a table to join. Playing poker this way didn’t lend itself to reading tells. She thought that would make a real difference when it came to her chances of success.
Live card games with friends, and being able to read a kid’s face and body language, had all reinforced a lifelong belief she was good at telling what people were thinking and feeling. But until she went to a real casino, and played for money that mattered, she wouldn’t know if her scheme would be a dream made true or the beginning of a long nightmare.
“I just need a sign I’m ready,” she whispered, immediately chiding herself.
What sign did she want? Carlos dead or in jail after joining a gang? The family broken apart, kids divided up among relatives and parents living in their car or at shelters?
She knew it happened. Race didn’t matter. Educational background or work ethic weren’t always predictors either.
Her thoughts went to the tarot cards she kept in her bedroom. She was a little too embarrassed by the collection, and the fact she regularly consulted the cards, to have them out in the living room where a visitor would see them.
Maybe it was time to do a reading, if for no other reason than to bolster her confidence about going to a casino. She stood and took a step toward her bedroom, only to be halted by her cell phone ringing.
She retrieved it from her purse and couldn’t help but smile when she saw who was calling. Aislinn, at Inner Magick. “Hi,” she answered.
“Guess what just came in?”
Her smile widened. “Some new cards.”
“Hand painted, unique. Some of the decks are new, but a few of them were picked up at estate sales. Right now they’re in the back room. I haven’t put them out yet. You’re my first call.”
Lyra didn’t even glance at the screen and the pointer poised to join a poker game. “I’m on my way.”
Aislinn’s laugh had one bubbling out of Lyra, making her wish s
he had more time to hang out with the shop owner. She loved visiting Inner Magick, loved interacting with the customers it drew. Before Sebastian then Nicolas had become so deathly ill, she’d frequented it more often. But lately she was like a student cramming for final exams. All she did was study books about poker and play, play, play, because ultimately, experiencing the odds was the way to understand what to do in a given situation once human behavior was brought into the mix.
She practically skipped down the stairs to her car and only barely managed to stay within the speed limit. Inner Magick was close to the beach, in a quaint area that drew tourists for shopping as well as locals who came to eat at any number of the restaurants within walking distance.
Most were mom and pop places. She’d thought more than once that if the Ochoas’ restaurant were here, it’d be packed every night. There was just something magical about the area. Even in a bad economy people came and spent money.
Of course, the rents were probably exorbitant. There’d been more than one rumor about uber-millionaire and total recluse Severn Damek owning most of the real estate along this section of beach.
Lyra stepped into the shop and was immediately drawn to a mirror on the wall above a display case. The delicate, complex engraving on the frame and the stones caught the light, creating flashes of silver and gold.
She touched her fingertips to the gems, moving from one to the next. They warmed up, intensifying in color and making her think of the mood rings so popular in the mid-’70s.
Movement in the center of the mirror made her look away from the frame. She startled at seeing the swirling there, like summer storm clouds that thinned for an instant to reveal a silver-and-gold dragon. She jerked in reaction to it, just enough so her fingertips lost contact with the frame.
It was like pulling the plug on the magic. Everyday reality returned.
