Absolutely Captivated

by Grayson, Kristine

  “Has anyone given him a chance?” Zoe asked.

  The girls were watching Zoe with frowns on their faces.

  “What kind of chance?” the redhead asked.

  “To tell you what happened,” Zoe said.

  “Well, we asked him, but all he did was bark,” the cornrow girl said.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Zoe said, hating that expression because it showed she had been among the mortals too long. She wished she could take it back. “Did one of you give him the power of speech? Or did you forget that little magic lesson?”

  “What power of speech?” the blond asked.

  Zoe shook her head. “Morton?”

  He shrugged. “It was your idea to send us here. I wasn’t going to falicitate it.”

  “Facilitate,” Zoe said. “and I didn’t sent you here, at least not on purpose. I sent you to the Fates.”

  “We are the Fates,” the girls said in unison.

  “You are not,” Zoe said. “Unless someone cast a really nasty spell on Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos.”

  “I told you,” said the redhead. “We’re not the them you were expecting.”

  “Actually, you didn’t tell me,” Zoe said. “She did.”

  And even as she nodded to the blond, Zoe felt the rest of her argument die in her throat. These girls were speaking in a certain order. Just like the other Fates. And they spoke in unison. Just like the other Fates.

  And they were in the right place, only it was a mess. In a way that the other Fates would never, ever have allowed.

  “We’re Brittany, Tiffany, and Crystal,” said the cornrow girl, “and we’re the new Fates.”

  “Kinda,” the blond added.

  Zoe blinked and looked at Morton. He shrugged.

  “Listen, I already been through this. What I get is that these little chickies are the Interim Fates because their Daddy don’t want the old Fates to be interfering with his lifestyle no more. If these kids can do the job, they get it for good. But they gotta apply, just like everybody else.”

  The women in Zoe’s office had said they were the Fates. They had said they were laid off from their jobs because Zeus was making a power play, and they would have to reapply for those jobs, after they learned a few new skills.

  Zoe felt cold.

  “Is Zeus your daddy?” Zoe asked the girls.

  “Well, duh!” they said in unison.

  Morton grinned. “They are kinda cute.”

  “Cute my butt,” Zoe said, putting her hands on her hips. “How old are you girls?”

  “A hundred, maybe,” said the redhead, obviously lying.

  “Which one are you?” Zoe asked.

  “She’s Crystal,” the cornrowed girl said, and Zoe felt that dizziness she always got with the original Fates. The rotating conversation was maddening.

  “And you are?” Zoe asked.

  “She’s Tiffany,” said the blond.

  “And the pretty one who just talked to you is Brittany,” said Morton, earning a glare from the other two.

  “Figures,” Zoe said.

  She took a step closer to the table, and realized as she did so that her left foot was wet. The pee must have soaked through her shoe. She suppressed a sigh.

  “You girls aren’t a hundred,” she said. “You haven’t gone through puberty yet, let alone menopause. How many rules did your Dad break here?”

  “Daddy never breaks rules,” Crystal said.

  “He’s grandfathered in,” said Tiffany.

  “Actually, he made most of the rules so he knows what he can and can’t do,” Brittany said.

  “In other words, he broke the cardinal rule,” Zoe said. “He gave you girls magic before your hormones settled down.”

  Morton shot Zoe a frightened look. She tried to ignore him. Zeus had already caused enough trouble for mages. It was his arguments that allowed men to gain their magic at twenty-one and women to wait until after menopause. And he was the one who exempted all the Powers That Be from all of the rules, although Zoe had never heard that the children of the Powers That Be were exempt.

  “Hormones aren’t an issue for us,” said Crystal.

  “Like we ever get out of here to hormone over anyone anyway,” said Tiffany.

  “Then who is Dudley?” Zoe asked.

  Crystal’s face turned as red as her hair.

  “He’s such a dweeb,” said Brittany.

  “Is not,” said Crystal.

  “Is too,” said Tiffany.

  “Look,” said Morton, “I already lived through this argument once which, I gotta tell you, was one time too many. Can we move on to important things like you sending me back to the Sands?”

  “The Sands was torn down,” Zoe said.

  “That’s the name of the new nightclub I’m headlining, baby,” Morton said with a wink.

  “Have you told these girls—Fates—Interim Fates—what you’re doing?” Zoe asked. As if the girls would care.

  “He already told us enough stuff,” said Brittany.

  “Yeah, we got at least two new rules to look up,” said Crystal.

  “And they never do the looking up. I do.” Tiffany pulled on a single cornrow and chewed the end. “I’m beginning to think they can’t read.”

  “We can read,” Brittany said.

  “We just don’t like to,” said Crystal.

  “Hey!” Morton said, “Can we stop the bickering and get back to sending me home?”

  Zoe glared at him. Then she glared at the girls. How selfish were these people? “Would one of you get the dog some water?” she asked.

  “He’ll just pee again,” Tiffany said.

  “Yeah, that’s just plain gross,” said Brittany.

  “Well,” said Zoe, trying to keep her temper in check. It wouldn’t do to get mad at these girls if they had Zeus’s power behind them, “you could have let him outside or cleaned up after him.”

  “Ew,” said Crystal. “We don’t clean.”

  “That’s obvious,” said Zoe and Morton in unison. They looked at each other. Morton looked as appalled as Zoe felt.

  “Maybe it’s time you start,” Zoe said.

  “Um, like, no,” said Brittany.

  “A simple snap of the fingers would do,” Zoe said.

  “We don’t waste our magic that way,” said Crystal.

  “Besides, the non-magical need some kind of purpose,” said Tiffany.

  “You have non-magical people clean up after you?” Zoe asked, unable to hide her shock. It was against the rules to enslave or employ the non-magical in roles that made them clean up after the magical.

  All three girls blushed.

  “Not here,” said Brittany. “At home.”

  “In your father’s house,” Zoe said.

  Crystal nodded. “It’s much cleaner there.”

  “Figures,” Zoe said.

  “We keep waiting for someone to show up here, but no one has,” Tiffany said.

  “But you’re the acting Fates,” Zoe said.

  “Interim,” Brittany said.

  “Couldn’t you just get someone to clean up?” Zoe asked.

  “What a great idea!” Crystal looked at the other two girls. “Isn’t that a great idea?”

  “Maybe the next person who comes in wanting rules should just clean the place,” Tiffany said.

  “Or look up the rule.” Brittany clapped her hands together.

  “Excuse me,” Zoe said. “But the dog?”

  “Oh, ick,” Crystal said.

  “Like anyone cares about the damn dog,” Tiffany said.

  The dachshund whined.

  “What did you want us to do about him?” Brittany asked.

  Zoe snapped her fingers and a water bowl appeared in front of the dachshund. His tail thumped once in appreciation, then he stood and drank.

  “If he pees, you’re cleaning up this place,” Crystal said.

  “I don’t think so,” Zoe said.

  “We’ll call our dad,” Tiffany said.r />
  That was a real threat, but Zoe didn’t let the girls see that it intimidated her.

  “I think your dad is probably real tired of you girls asking him for help.” Zoe was guessing, but from the way the girls flinched, she knew her guess was right. “So you all should leave me alone, and concentrate on what you’re supposed to do.

  “What’re we supposed to do again?” Brittany asked.

  “You’re supposed to make all sorts of rules and decisions and legal judgments,” Zoe said. “In this case, you’re making a decision about a dissatisfied familiar.”

  And as she said that, she finally understood why she hadn’t been able to find a new familiar. Her lovely Seraphina, a cat, had died three weeks ago. Zoe had a substitute familiar, on loan from a friend, but she hadn’t found her regular familiar yet.

  “You do know that you’re all in charge of familiars, don’t you?” Zoe asked.

  “No.” Crystal pulled at the gum out of her mouth in a long, pink string which she proceeded to wrap around her little finger.

  “Does that mean all cats and dogs or is it other stuff, too?” Tiffany asked.

  “I thought only people with no talent had familiars,” Brittany said.

  “Oh, jeez.” Morton put his hands in his thinning hair. “I’m getting queasy.”

  So was Zoe. And her foot was beginning to stick to her shoe. The dachshund kept drinking, as if he had been about to die of dehydration.

  “Everyone has a familiar,” Zoe said. “Or should. Our magic doesn’t work right if we don’t have one.”

  “We don’t have one,” Crystal said.

  “We don’t need one,” Tiffany said.

  “Yeah,” Morton said, “like I don’t need a new head of hair.”

  “Shut up, Vegas Boy,” Brittany said, pointing her finger at him. “We have the power to make you completely hairless.”

  “Give me a real threat, baby,” Morton said.

  The girls raised their hands, and Zoe stepped between them and Morton, although she wasn’t sure why.

  “The problem here,” Zoe said, “isn’t Morton’s baldness or the fact that you girls lack familiars.”

  Although that probably was a major part of the problem. Zoe silently cursed Zeus, and wished she had never come here.

  “The problem is,” Zoe continued, “that Bartholomew here—”

  “There ain’t no Bartholomew here,” Crystal said.

  “It’s the dumb dog,” Tiffany whispered.

  “Oh,” Brittany said.

  “—Bartholomew and Morton aren’t really a good match,” Zoe said, pretending she hadn’t heard the interchange. “Bartholomew’s not happy and he’s acting out, as you can tell from the um—urine—in the other room. He ran away how many times in the past month, Morton?”

  Morton bowed his head. “Five.”

  “And that’s the sign of an unhappy dog,” Zoe said. “Which makes for bad magic.”

  “My magic is fine,” Morton said.

  “Maybe at the moment,” Zoe said. “But I think you should give Morton a familiar that he deserves, and let Bartholomew come with me. I’ll find him a new home. How’s that for solving your problem?”

  The girls brightened.

  “You’ll take the smelly dog?” Crystal asked, shoving her gum back in her mouth.

  Bartholomew whined and lay down again. Zoe could almost feel his thoughts. He didn’t think he was smelly.

  Although she had had the same thought about him not two hours ago.

  “I’ll take the dog,” Zoe said.

  “And what should we do with this guy here?” Tiffany asked.

  Take his magic away, assign him to a hundred years of making change for folks sitting at slot machines, and make sure he never, ever gets a full head of hair, Zoe thought but didn’t say. Instead, she said, “That’s your decision.”

  “You said a familiar he deserves, though,” Brittany said. All three girls were leaning forward as if Zoe had the answers to a particularly hard test on the day before the test was scheduled.

  “Yeah,” Crystal said. “What’d you mean by that?”

  Caught. Zoe gave Morton a sideways look.

  He raised his hands. “Hey,” he said. “I paid you. I sent you out looking for the dog, and you brought him back.”

  “Three times,” Zoe said. “Four was too many. I had to ask him why he wanted to leave.”

  “He just don’t like Vegas,” Morton said. “He’ll get over it.”

  “He doesn’t like the way you treat mortals,” Zoe said. “And he thinks you’re misusing your magic, which he’s afraid he’ll have to pay for.”

  The dog whined again, almost as if he were telling her to shut up.

  “Although I doubt in this climate that that’s an issue,” Zoe added.

  “What does that mean?” Tiffany asked.

  “You’re a bright girl,” Zoe said. “You figure it out.”

  “Do you know how many cases we’re behind?” Brittany asked.

  “How many rules there are to learn?” Crystal said.

  “How many people want answers now, now, now?” Tiffany asked.

  “It’d be better if you just tell us what to do with the familiars,” Brittany said.

  “Well—” Morton started, but Zoe interrupted him.

  “You should give Morton a new familiar. Let me take Bartholomew, and then you should start researching familiar laws, because you are way behind on your duties in that area,” Zoe said.

  “How do you know?” Crystal asked.

  “Because I lost my familiar a month ago,” Zoe said, feeling a pang, “and I haven’t been able to find one. Now I know why.”

  “Why?” Tiffany asked.

  “Because, you little brainless moron,” Morton snapped, “you’re supposed to provide new familiars to people who lose theirs.”

  The room was quiet. Zoe had to work to keep a smile off her face. All three girls stared at Morton, and for the first time, they looked menacing. Bartholomew slunk as far under the table as he could go.

  “What can be a familiar?” Brittany asked Zoe.

  “Anything so long as it’s alive,” Zoe said. “A snake, a bumblebee, a rat.”

  “A dog,” Morton said.

  “That dog don’t like you,” Crystal said.

  “So it can’t be a dog,” Tiffany said.

  Zoe wasn’t sure she wanted to see how this worked out. “Would you mind if I took Bartholomew?”

  “For you?” Brittany asked.

  “Um, no,” Zoe said, not sure she could stand the dog either. “I’m sure I’ll find someone.”

  “Okay,” Crystal said.

  “You know,” Tiffany said, still looking at Morton. “Maybe a gerbil’d be nice.”

  “Gerbils don’t have a lot of power,” Morton said.

  “So?” Brittany asked.

  Zoe crouched, opened her arms, and beckoned Bartholomew toward her.

  “I’d like to keep my dog,” said Morton.

  “Well, you big brainless moron,” Crystal said, “that ain’t gonna happen.”

  You go girl, Zoe thought.

  Bartholomew crawled toward her on his stomach. When he reached her, he whined again. He really was smelly. Sausages and urine and a bit of garbage, plus doggy sweat. Poor thing. He just needed someone to love him.

  “Maybe a spider,” said Tiffany.

  “Yeah,” said Brittany, “one of those little ugly ones.”

  “I’m an arachnophobe,” Morton said. “Can we think of something else?”

  Zoe silently recited a spell to take her and Bartholomew back to the office.

  “An arachnophobe?” Crystal asked. “What’s that?’

  “He’s afraid of spiders,” Tiffany said.

  All three girls laughed. It was a terrifying sound.

  The dog shivered, and Zoe finished the spell. They both disappeared.

  Only to materialize in her office—in the middle of a mountain of money.

  Ten
r />   Travers hadn’t meant to do it, and he still wasn’t sure how he had. Atropos had asked him to think of a five-dollar bill, and the next thing he knew, he was holding one. He assumed the Fates had shoved one in his hand, but he hadn’t seen them do it.

  Then Clotho asked him to think of a thousand five-dollar bills, and the desk got covered with them. Then the Fates wanted him to think of a million five-dollar bills, and a mountain of money appeared on the floor.

  Kyle squealed and dove in it as if it were a pile of leaves. The Fates were watching Travers with glittering eyes, and then Zoe reappeared right in the middle of the money mountain.

  Holding an obese dachshund that smelled of grease, urine, and overripe bananas.

  She looked frazzled and angry—Travers wasn’t sure how he knew she was angry, but he sensed it—and then she blinked. Her expression changed, as if she had done so on purpose, and then she surveyed the room.

  Including the mountain of money that hid her legs all the way to the middle of her thighs.

  “Is this my fee?” she asked. “If so, the answer’s yes.”

  Travers flushed. Kyle rolled out of the money pile and sat on the floor, his arms wrapped around his legs. He was staring at the dog with a look of longing that Travers immediately wanted to squelch.

  The Fates glanced at each other as if considering Zoe’s question.

  “No,” Travers said. “This is all fake money.”

  “It doesn’t look fake.” Zoe shifted the dog slightly so that she could pick up one of the five-dollar bills. She held it up to her face, then crumpled it. “Feels right. Looks right. Smells right, if Bartholomew here hasn’t ruined my sense of smell. It’s real money. Where did it come from?”

  She looked at Kyle first, as if he could do this. Kyle gave his dad a frightened glance. Perhaps he was wondering if he could.

  Then she looked at the Fates. “I thought your powers were lost.”

  “We gave them up,” Clotho said.

  “Voluntarily,” Lachesis added.

  “Even though it was a mistake,” Atropos said.