Utterly Charming

by Kristine Grayson

  “—sit up,” Bill finished weakly.

  The body looked right at Max. It—she—it—had stunning gray eyes that he could have sworn were filled with laughter. Then she threw the blanket off her legs and got off the gurney.

  “Sit up?” Max asked. “You mean like that?”

  “N-N-No,” Lane said.

  The woman grinned. She had dark red lips and a silver streak that ran along one side of her dark black hair. She got off the gurney. She was six feet tall and at least forty, maybe older, and stunningly gorgeous in a buxom but expensive Cruella de Vil sort of way. Then she tilted her head, held her hands out as if in apology, and started for the bank of elevators near the double glass doors.

  Max watched her go, thinking she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the attendants staring after her as if they felt the same way. She pushed the elevator call button with one long red fingernail and then Max remembered that he hated women with long red fingernails—it meant, to him at least, that they were incredibly self-absorbed—and the spell—if that’s what it was—was broken.

  He had just seen a dead body up and walk. His mouth went dry, and he stepped on the curb, not sure what he was going to do. His movement seemed to stun the attendants out of their stupor. Lane gasped as if the sound had been bottled up inside him, and Bill ran for the bank of elevators but wasn’t even halfway there when the woman got on her elevator, turned around, and smiled as the doors closed.

  It wasn’t a nice smile. In fact, the smile made Max shudder.

  He took a deep breath and tried to pull himself together, using all the tricks he had learned in law school and his brief career as an attorney—which then reminded him that he was an attorney, which then made him think about his potential client, under arrest for a murder that he couldn’t possibly have committed.

  At least, not if the body was up and walking around. Dead bodies didn’t grin. Murdered people didn’t get on elevators.

  Max hurried to the elevator banks. An elevator opened in front of him, and he was grateful that it wasn’t the one the woman had just used. As the doors closed around him, he saw Lane and Bill bounding up the stairs.

  Max used the few minutes in the elevator to calm himself. Obviously, Lane and Bill or the cops who had called them hadn’t checked the woman’s pulse. She may have had the whitest skin Max had ever seen, and those red lips made it seem even whiter, and that black hair gave her an undead look, but that still didn’t excuse their mistake. They should have checked her vitals before assuming she was a murder victim.

  Oh, he’d have a field day with this one.

  By the time the elevator door opened, he had worked himself into a proper defense attorney lather. He was almost rubbing his hands with glee. Which disappeared as the elevator beside his opened and the not-dead woman got off. He had a creepy feeling that somehow she had held the elevator to wait for his.

  He ignored her and headed for the desk sergeant. The sergeant spent most of his day behind a large counter with an open window. He was a muscular balding man who looked like he could take on all comers. Max had gone there a dozen times before and had a casual relationship with the sarge. When Max reached the counter, he leaned on it, thinking it was built to make short attorneys feel even shorter.

  Max introduced himself and asked where he could find his client.

  Before the sarge could answer, though, the ambulance attendants reached the top of the staircase.

  They were screaming something about death and gas and dead women and dead bodies walking, and the entire squad grew silent. Police officers turned in unison to see the two attendants, still in uniform, shouting and screaming and pointing at the not-dead woman as if she had committed a horrible crime.

  She, on the other hand, had come up beside Max. Only she seemed unperturbed by the screaming behind her. She was wearing a strong musky perfume—the kind that always overwhelmed him when he walked through the cosmetic section of a department store on his way to the menswear—and she had elaborate jeweled rings on every finger. She was taller than Max by a good four inches. She leaned on the sarge’s desk, her thin gold watch clinking against the wood, and asked in a very cultured, very reasonable voice, “Is there someone I can talk to?”

  The sarge looked at Max, then glanced over Max’s shoulder at the shouting ambulance attendants who, for some reason, weren’t getting much closer. Apparently the police academy hadn’t prepared people for moments like this, because the sarge decided to use the same tack Max had.

  The sarge ignored her.

  “Let me take you back,” he said to Max, then came around the desk, grabbed Max’s arm, and pulled him through the door that led to holding.

  Blackstone was in one of the interview rooms, the first one just off the corridor. Max braced himself as the sarge opened the door. Most clients Max saw in places like this were upset or angry or in tears, and Max always had to deal with the rush of emotion first and the problem later.

  But Blackstone wasn’t upset at all. He was leaning against the peeling green wall paint, his arms crossed, looking as if he were waiting for a cab. He was one of the most striking men Max had ever seen—and Max never usually noticed whether other guys were good-looking—a man who looked like he should be on television, not standing in a grungy interview room near a fake Formica table with a tape recorder built into it.

  “You must be the attorney Nora Barr sent.” Blackstone’s voice was deep and had a faint English accent that somehow seemed just right. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”

  Max suppressed a sigh as he stepped into the room. Any time clients said they were wasting Max’s time, they were clients who really needed to go to jail. But Blackstone was attempting to dismiss Max as if Max were a bellboy waiting for a tip.

  “You aren’t wasting my time,” Max said, and then he turned to the sarge. “May I have a moment with my client?”

  The sarge shrugged, and that was when Max noticed that no one seemed to care that Blackstone’s arms were crossed. Blackstone’s hands should have been handcuffed, but no one seemed to have thought of that.

  Max frowned. He had never encountered anything like this before. What kind of situation had Nora gotten him into?

  “Are they letting you go?” he asked Blackstone.

  Blackstone smiled, and Max had to take a step backward. It was as if someone had lit up the room. For the first time ever, Max felt jealous of another man. Blackstone probably had to beat women off with a stick.

  “You’ll see,” Blackstone said.

  And then, as if on cue, the not-dead woman shoved her way into the interview room, trailed by five cops and the two ambulance attendants. She pushed Max aside, and he fell against the table, his feet tangling in the connections to the tape recorder. But she didn’t seem to notice. She headed toward Blackstone. She was as tall as he was, and she seemed to sizzle with energy.

  They looked matched somehow, not like they were related, but like they had been painted with the same brush, a brush filled with glitter that only Max could see.

  He untangled himself as she raised her arms in a classic sorcerer pose. It looked as if she were grabbing air and holding it. Then she said in that elegant voice, “Where is she?”

  The voice made Max shudder. If she had been asking him, he probably would have told her everything, including his underwear size. But Blackstone didn’t seem upset at all. He got a self-satisfied cat-that-just-ate-the-canary grin and shrugged.

  Max’s heart stopped. Somehow he knew that little smile would piss the not-dead woman off. Max headed for the nearest wall and saw that the sarge, the cops, and the attendants were doing the same thing.

  “I know you know,” the woman said as she got closer to Blackstone.

  “Actually, I don’t.” Blackstone let his arms fall to his sides. Max glanced at the cops, thinking they should have been doing something—anything—about this, but they were mesmerized. It seemed like they had forgotten
where they were and that they were supposed to be in charge.

  “Tell me where she is,” she said.

  Blackstone rolled his eyes and said, “You know, Ealhswith, you’d think this would grow old after a thousand years.”

  She took a step closer to him. Max pressed himself against the wall and pretended to be invisible. He’d represented arsonists and murderers and generally scary people, and never in his life had he felt like this.

  He felt like a child in the presence of giants.

  “I will not let you have her,” the woman said as if Blackstone hadn’t spoken a word.

  “That’s been clear from the beginning,” he said.

  She took another step toward him. Max was starting to think she was moving slowly for dramatic effect. He wanted her to launch herself at Blackstone, do what she was going to do, and then leave. Immediately.

  “This has gone on too long,” she said, “and we’re getting sloppy.”

  Max glanced at the cops. This was criminal talk. The cops should have noticed. And they did. But they looked as scared as Max felt.

  Which didn’t reassure him.

  “You’re getting sloppy,” Blackstone said. “Who would have thought to have a battle in the middle of a suburb?”

  “Fields are getting harder to find.”

  “Not really,” he said and tilted his head against the wall. He seemed to be watching her and, despite his relaxed posture, he seemed ready to fight. “I knocked you out.”

  “You should have killed me,” the woman said.

  “And then what would have happened to all that we hold near and dear?” He said this last with so much sarcasm that Max got a sense the reference was important.

  She took a final step and was within touching distance of Blackstone. She bent her arm slightly, as if she were restraining herself. “Tell me where she is,” she said.

  Blackstone grinned again, and everyone in the room—except the not-dead woman—cringed. “She’s somewhere even I can’t find her,” he said, and then he closed his eyes like someone expected to be slapped.

  The not-dead woman extended her hand, and Max slipped farther down the wall. She grabbed Blackstone’s head and held it, her fingers bent like claws. Sparks flew everywhere. It was as if Blackstone’s head had become a Fourth of July sparkler. His head even made the same hissing noise, complete with sulfur smell. Max had a sense that the woman was trying to pull every thought from Blackstone’s brain.

  Around Max, the cops and the attendants and the sarge ducked and covered their heads with their arms. Max did the same, but he kept his eyes open, watching the not-dead woman, determined if she came toward him he would run, hide, do anything except let her touch his skull.

  Slowly the sparks faded. She cursed and shoved Blackstone away. He was still grinning, even though there were shadows under his eyes that hadn’t been there before.

  “You think this will work, but it won’t,” the not-dead woman said, her voice ringing with threat. “I’ll find her.”

  “You have ten years, Ealhswith, and then she’s on her own.”

  “She’s too young.”

  “She’s too beautiful. Women leave home well before they turn one thousand. You’re just jealous.”

  A thousand? Max slowly rose to his feet. Surely he had misheard that.

  “She’s too young, Aethelstan,” the not-dead woman said. “She hasn’t lived those thousand years like we have.”

  “And whose fault is that?” It sounded like an accusation. How could it be an accusation? Was it normal for these people to live a thousand years?

  “You have to tell me where she is.” The not-dead woman’s threats seemed to lack the teeth they’d had a moment before. Max had to give Blackstone points for attitude. His unflappability made it clear that the not-dead woman had no power over him, even if she could turn his head into a sparkler.

  “You want me to tell you where she is?” Blackstone said, uncrossing his arms and rising to his full height. Max had been wrong. Blackstone was the taller one. “So that you can keep her on ice until your body gives out? I don’t think so.”

  The woman drew in a sharp breath. Then her eyes narrowed and her red, red mouth became a thin line. She whipped her arm in a circle like a pitcher warming up on the mound—and she disappeared.

  Max blinked three times and saw the outlines of sparklers against his eyelids. But no matter how many times he blinked, he couldn’t make the woman return. He swallowed, wondering when he was going to wake up.

  Blackstone crossed the room and grabbed Max’s arm. Max tried to yank away, but it didn’t work. He’d had enough of arm-grabbing for one day.

  “There’s going to be chaos in a moment,” Blackstone said. “Just follow my lead.”

  But there didn’t seem to be any chaos. No one seemed upset. The cops, the attendants, and the sarge all stood, unwrapped their arms from their heads, and filed out of the interview room like actors who’d just been told “Cut!” The cops went back to the main area, the attendants walked toward the stairs, and the sarge headed for his desk.

  Max glanced at Blackstone, who still had a grip on his arm. They walked out of holding. The sarge looked up from his desk and said, “Max! What’re you doing here?”

  Max flapped his mouth like an afternoon talk show host, but no sound came out. Blackstone smiled that smile of his—the warm one, the one that made everyone notice—and said, “He’s been showing me around. I hope you don’t mind.”

  If Max had been able to get a word out, he would have contradicted Blackstone just to maintain his own credibility. No one got a tour of the police station, and no one but no one, not even the reporters who did ride-alongs, got a tour of the interview rooms. But the sarge smiled and said, “No problem,” as if Max gave tours of the station every day.

  Max’s mouth was really fluttering then. Blackstone led him to the elevator. They got on, and as the door closed, Max found his voice.

  “What just happened here?” he asked.

  Blackstone’s smile was gone. He looked tired, drained, as if he had been up for three days straight. All the glitter seemed to have faded from him. He almost looked like a normal person. “Let’s get out of here before I answer that,” he said.

  So Max leaned against the elevator wall and waited for the slow car to bump its way to the parking garage. Finally the elevator stopped, and the doors opened. Max stepped out only to see Bill and Lane, the ambulance attendants, leaning against the side of their vehicle.

  “You didn’t call for an ambulance, did you?” Bill asked.

  Max frowned at him. Bill knew better. Lane knew better. They’d just gone through a traumatic experience together, the three of them. What was this? Some sort of elaborate butt-saving?

  “No,” Max said, sounding as affronted as he could while Blackstone spoke over him, saying, “Have you checked upstairs?”

  “Yeah, at least, I think so,” Lane said. He looked at Bill and shrugged. “I just don’t get it. How did we end up here?”

  Bill looked even more confused.

  Blackstone still had a grip on Max’s arm. That, and the fact that Blackstone was taller, made Max feel like a child with an upset parent who was leading him somewhere he didn’t want to go. Blackstone tugged and Max moved, even though he wanted to continue the conversation with the attendants.

  Blackstone led Max to his car—and it was only later that Max wondered how Blackstone knew which car that was—and handed Max a check for his “time and services.”

  “Please,” Blackstone said. “Split the money with Nora.”

  He spoke Nora’s name with a softness he hadn’t used at any other point, and Max looked sharply at him. What was between the two of them? Nora always picked losers. And while this guy was certainly dramatic, he didn’t seem like a loser.

  He actually seemed like a threat. Maybe Max should be paying more attention to Nora instead of letting this guy close to her. After all, Max didn’t want to lose his chance with her. He’d b
een waiting until she got out of her loser phase.

  Then Blackstone said, “I’m sorry you had to see this. You can’t forget because you were of service to me at the time. And Nora needs to know, because if she doesn’t, I’ll be, as your generation so aptly puts it, screwed. But do tell her for me that we did as she asked and put everything back the way it was.”

  That speech was the topper. Max didn’t get a word of it. He felt as if Blackstone were suddenly speaking Greek. Only warmly. And as if Nora had a part in all of it. Which, for some inexplicable reason, irked Max more than anything else had.

  “What is going on here?” he asked.

  “You don’t want to know,” Blackstone said.

  Hmm. Hidden information. Max crossed his arms. “But I do,” he said.

  Blackstone sighed.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll tell you what I can. But it’s not my fault if you fail to believe me.”

  ***

  Max paused long enough to make Nora wonder if he’d lost his ability to hold his liquor since law school. She’d lost count of the number of beers he’d had—she still had barely touched her first—but he was beginning to look bleary-eyed. He flagged down the waitress and asked for another beer. The waitress looked at Nora as if Nora were the one who had to approve the order, and when Nora nodded, left.

  “Max,” Nora said. “What did Blackstone tell you?”

  Max rolled the empty beer stein between his hands. He didn’t look at Nora. “You know, when I drove here, there wasn’t any smoke. And no one said a word about it on the radio.”

  “Max,” Nora said, feeling more impatient than she probably had a right to. “You were going to tell me about Blackstone.”

  “So I drove by the neighborhood, just to see all this destruction for myself. And you know what? It looks fine. No burned houses. No ashes. Just flowers and porches and electric lights.”

  “Max,” she said, worrying that he might lose complete control before he got to the point. “What did he tell you?”

  The waitress set down Max’s beer, and Nora paid for it, just to get her out of the way before Max forgot the question. He looked at Nora, waved a hand in thanks, and said, “What did Blackstone say?”