For one entire minute, the world went black: no sight, no sound, no texture.
But a lot of smells. Incense and pot and something fetid, mixing with that ancient sweet-plastic smell that drugstores used to have. Then the fetid smell faded, the pot smell became expensive pipe tobacco, and the incense became expensive soap, making the place seem even more enticing.
The first few smells—and the darkness—often discouraged the casual customer. (And if they couldn’t be discouraged, well, that was their problem.) The other smells were real—or as real as anything was in this particular store.
Travers stayed close to Zoe, not complaining, but she could still sense his unease. She hadn’t warned him about this place, deciding that he had to get used to surprises; they would be part of his life from now on.
Gradually, the darkness faded or her eyes adjusted or the entrance spell wore off—she was never sure which it was—and the room revealed itself, one small area at a time. The store never looked the same: sometimes it resembled a down-on-its luck antique store; sometimes it reminded her of a 1960s head shop; and sometimes it seemed like a casino gift shop gone bad.
This time, the décor was a mixture of 1960s kitsch and designer dinnerware outlet store. Mixed in among the orange bubble lamps and the once state-of-the-art hi-fis were very expensive crystal glassware. Near the purple-and-blue plastic cups were stoneware dishes that would cost most people a small fortune to buy new, and beside the square color TV with its very own rabbit ears were Erte sculptures that Zoe suspected were original.
The smells had settled down now, too—the pipe smell faded, replaced by the dusty odor of a desert antique store; the sweet-plastic drugstore odor remained, but instead of the expensive soap smell, the dominant scent in the room became the sharp, bubbly, gummy smell of Dippity Do.
“What is this place?” Travers whispered.
Zoe shushed him, but it was too late.
Elmer the Shaman appeared in a cascade of tiny, multicolored lights. His rumpled face looked even older than it had the last time Zoe saw him, not three weeks ago. His eyes were sunken into his skull, and his skin, pockmarked from a smallpox epidemic at least three centuries before, seemed even darker than usual.
He wore a bright orange-and-green polyester shirt, its collar open 1970s disco style, and a pair of matching green polyester bell-bottom slacks. White platform boots peeked out from the bell-bottoms. He wore too much jewelry—several gold chains around his neck, an oversized ruby ring, and a watch three times larger than his wrist. The only thing that really didn’t go with his 1970s outfit, however, was the battered bowler hat that he had stuck on his head.
He chewed on a toothpick, obviously trying to break his smoking habit once again, and peered at Zoe.
“You don’t change, do you, girl?” His voice was deep, laconic, and tired.
“Once every fifty years I redo my style whether I need to or not,” Zoe said, even though not a word was true. She did update her wardrobe all the time. She just didn’t go from clothing period to clothing period in the space of a week like Elmer did.
Zoe put her hand on Travers’ arm and pulled him forward. She could see his reflection in one of the glass-fronted curio cabinets. He looked like a man who had swallowed something awful.
“Elmer,” Zoe said, “this is my friend Travers. He’s new.”
Elmer tucked his hat back slightly, and leaned forward on his platform boots. He looked like he was going to tip over.
“I’ll say he’s new.” Elmer spoke with the toothpick in his mouth. It bobbed every time his lower lip moved. “New and worn at the same time, with a lot of out-of-control power.”
Elmer pushed a finger in Travers’ chest.
“This is the last town you should be in, boy,” Elmer said.
Travers gave Zoe a help-me look.
She ignored it. “He’s here for a reason.”
“He should leave before that reason comes back to bite him,” Elmer said. “He’s bait, Zoe-babes. Let him go, and find someone more suitable.”
“I’m not here to discuss my friends,” Zoe said. It was unusual for Elmer to discuss them as well.
“Friends?” Elmer stuck his hand through her arm. His fingers gripped her skin a bit too hard, just like they always did, as if he could draw strength from her just by touching her. “Now Zoe, you know you’re more than friends.”
She narrowed her gaze at him, first looking at his hand on her arm, and then at his face. “He’s my friend, Elmer.”
“Well, I certainly hope not, because you’re wasting a lot of spark,” Elmer said. His grip on her arm grew even tighter. Zoe wondered if he had shut off the circulation.
“Spark?” Travers asked.
“Auras,” Elmer said. “You two—you just spark off each other, like a fireworks show. Damn beautiful it is, but dangerous if you don’t do something about it.”
“Like what?” Travers asked.
“Like not believing everything you hear.” Zoe slipped her arm out of Elmer’s grasp. Her skin ached where his fingers had been. “I’m here because I need a few things, Elm, not because I need a reading.”
Elmer shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “Looks more like you need a reading.”
“A reading?” Travers asked.
Poor Travers. He really was out of his depth. Zoe decided to throw him a tidbit.
“Elmer here is a shaman,” Zoe said. “Or he thinks he’s one, at any rate.”
“Zoe,” Elmer said. “Just because you’ve never taken advantage—“
“I don’t need your prophecies,” Zoe said. “We get enough from our Fates.”
“Only one,” Elmer said. “How can you guide your life with one prophecy? It’s why you run scared, why you and this man are simply ‘friends,’ why you—”
“Elmer,” Zoe snapped. “That’s enough.”
“Actually, I’m interested,” Travers said.
“I’ll bet you are,” Zoe mumbled under her breath.
“I see things,” Elmer said. “I explain them.”
“You’re psychic,” Travers said as if he had figured out the answer to the hardest test ever written.
Elmer pushed the bowler back, away from his brow. “No.”
His tone was so cold that Zoe shivered.
“Has the mage education system become that poor?” Elmer asked. “Who is his mentor? He shouldn’t be asking questions like this.”
“That’s a long story,” Zoe said.
Travers frowned. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I just thought—”
“Thinking,” Elmer said. “That’s your first mistake.”
Zoe stepped between Travers and Elmer. She kept her back to Travers, and stared down at Elmer. “I came here to shop, not to have a reading. If you don’t want my business, then we can just leave.”
“Didn’t say that.” Elmer squashed the bowler farther down his skull. “Just thought Tall Blond and Confused here was interesting, that’s all.”
Travers stiffened beside her. She could feel his irritation growing.
“Is there a reason we’re putting up with this?” he asked her in not-quite-a-whisper. His lack of subtlety made Elmer smile.
Zoe put a calming hand on Travers’ arm. “Yes. Elmer, for all his flamboyance, has some talents that I lack.”
Elmer grinned. “I have a lot of talents you lack, honey, and some we’d have to test.”
Zoe felt the muscles in Travers’ arm move as he clenched his fists. She patted his arm, then nodded at Elmer. “Let’s go in the main part of the store, shall we?”
“I suppose,” Elmer said, “but your boyfriend can’t come. His magic is still too wild.”
Zoe glanced at Travers. “Will you be all right out here?”
He shrugged. “This is all new to me. It’s your decision.”
His voice had a strained anger to it. He obviously didn’t like being out of control.
“Just don’t touch anything,” Zoe said. “I’ll be back as so
on as I can.”
“Fine.” Travers nodded toward a small, red, upholstered chair. “Can I at least sit while I wait?”
“I wouldn’t,” Elmer said, “unless you want to visit 1755. It’s an antique, and it really doesn’t like this century.”
“Is there any place he can be comfortable?” Zoe asked.
“Not in here,” Elmer said with a grin. He pulled back the curtain behind some of the curios. “Coming, doll?”
Zoe sighed. She knew that Elmer wouldn’t help her with Travers present.
“Sorry,” she said to Travers. “I’ll hurry.”
“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I’ll just stay out here and try not to speculate about what all this stuff does.”
Zoe gave Travers an apologetic smile, then followed Elmer through the curtain. She went through another wave of darkness, and had a moment of doubt.
Maybe she didn’t know what she was doing. Maybe she should simply tell the Fates they were on their own, pull up her stakes and leave Vegas, get as far from the nearest Faerie Circle as possible, and live out her life in quiet.
But she knew she couldn’t do that, any more than she could leave that man standing in the front of Elmer’s store. She felt for Travers.
She only hoped that, while he was waiting, he kept his thoughts and his fingers under control.
Twenty-four
By the time they’d finished lunch, Kyle’s stomach felt as solid as a basketball. He had put a hamburger and fries on top of all three milkshakes, and he was already paying for it.
Except for Star Trek: The Experience, the day was pretty much a bust. Kyle was sunburned and nauseous, jittery and frightened, and worried about those three guys, who still appeared at the oddest times.
Since he got in the neighborhood of his hotel, though, he hadn’t seen them. The Fates flanked him, talking happily about their rides, the water park, and the Rainforest Café where they’d coaxed him into that last bit of food.
He had known better than to eat when he was already stuffed. Now he felt like that guy in the Monty Python movie his dad had yelled at him for watching—the really fat guy who ate one last thing: a wafer-thin mint.
The very thought of a wafer-thin mint made Kyle’s stomach turn over, and the act of it turning over made it turn over again. He put a hand on the small basketball he was growing there, and hurried along the block.
The Fates had to struggle to keep up.
Kyle glanced over his shoulder. No three guys. They had shown up in the Rainforest Café just as he and the Fates were leaving. They were sitting underneath a giant tree branch, studying the bright green fake frog on the table beside them.
As far as Kyle could tell, the men didn’t see them leave.
Still, he glanced around before slipping into his hotel’s lobby. No Vulcan men, no strangers. Only tourists on the street who looked like normal people.
Of course, he and his dad looked like normal people, and they were about as strange as it got.
“I do think we should change clothes and go to one of the casinos,” Clotho said. She slipped her hand on Kyle’s back, making his sunburn sting.
He pretended it didn’t hurt.
“I would love to crap,” Lachesis said.
“Play craps,” Atropos said.
“Is that the proper way to say it?” Clotho asked Kyle.
“I don’t even know what it is.” He sounded as grumpy as he felt. Maybe just a little less. If he sounded as grumpy as he felt, he would be yelling at them.
“It’s a game of cards,” Lachesis said.
“Dice,” Atropos said.
“It’s gambling though, right?” Kyle asked.
All three Fates nodded.
“I can’t go with you if you do that, and my dad’ll be really mad at me for letting you go alone.” Especially if he gave them any of the money he carried in his wallet. The Fates didn’t understand money, and they didn’t understand games, and they certainly didn’t understand gambling.
Kyle hurried them along the lobby, filled with mirrors and video poker machines, and onto the elevators. He wanted nothing more than a cool shower, and a long nap.
The elevators were large and mirrored as well. Kyle saw himself in the reflecting glass as he stepped on board. He had gone past lobster an hour ago. Now he was fire engine red. His dad would be so furious with him. Sunburn avoidance was like topic number one between the two of them in the summer—the fate of natural blonds in California, his dad liked to say.
Only they weren’t in California. They were in Nevada, and even though Kyle was happy to miss school, he really wanted to go home.
“Who’re those guys?” he blurted as the elevator doors closed, narrowly missing Atropos’s foot.
“What guys?” Clotho asked, but she didn’t sound innocent. She was clearly pretending not to know exactly what he was talking about.
“Those three Vulcans who were following us everywhere,” Kyle said.
“Vulcan is here?” Lachesis asked.
“Aphrodite let him off the mountain?” Atropos glanced at the other two Fates in surprise.
“He doesn’t like to leave his forge,” Clotho said. “And no one has called him Vulcan in years.”
“Well, they’re not calling him Hephaestus, either,” Lachesis snapped.
Atropos let out a long breath. “Real name,” she breathed, and in it, Kyle heard a warning.
He wasn’t entirely sure he understood it, but he guessed that Lachesis had just used someone’s real name, and that was bad.
“No,” Kyle said. “Not a single Vulcan. But people from the planet Vulcan, like in Star Trek.”
“Like Spock,” Clotho said with a smile. “I must admit, he’s my favorite.”
“I prefer Kirk,” Lachesis said. “A man of action is always more interesting.”
“Picard combines both logic and action,” Atropos said. “And his head is delightfully bald—”
“Stop!” Kyle held up his hands. His queasy stomach put him in no mood for their conversations. “I just asked about the three guys who’ve been following us all day. You know, the ones with pointed ears?”
“Oh, them,” Clotho said, crossing her arms and leaning against the brass railing that circled the elevator. “I didn’t see them, did you?”
“No,” Lachesis said, looking up at the floor numbers ticking away. “I didn’t see them anywhere. Certainly not at the café or the water park.”
“Or Quark’s,” Atropos said, studying her fingernails. “I didn’t see them at Quark’s either.”
Kyle couldn’t read the Fates’ minds (for which he said a grateful prayer every night), but he didn’t have to in this instance. And he was just queasy enough to forget that they were adults and he wasn’t. Confronting the Fates didn’t bother him.
“You know these guys, don’t you?” he asked.
“Of course not,” all three Fates said in unison, but not one looked at him, not even through their reflections in the mirrors.
“What’s all this about?” Kyle asked, but as he did, the elevator bobbed to a stop, and the doors slid open, revealing their floor.
“Nothing,” Clotho said.
“Don’t you worry about it,” Lachesis added.
“Really, it’s nothing,” Atropos said, and then all three Fates giggled as they headed to their room.
Kyle was going to ask if he should come with them, and then he decided he didn’t care. They didn’t have any money, so they couldn’t go out, and they knew where his room was, so if they wanted to leave, they could just come and get him.
Besides, he’d made his desire for a nap known, and they had said they wanted one, too.
If they were lying to him, and bringing in those three weird guys, well then, that was their problem, wasn’t it?
The thought made Kyle shiver. His dad wouldn’t like it.
“Hey!” he shouted. “Either you gotta come to my room or I gotta come to yours!”
“We’ll shower, nap,
and then come find you,” Clotho said.
“We promise we’ll be good,” Lachesis said.
“The only strange men we’ll see will be on television,” Atropos said.
Kyle rolled his eyes. He still wasn’t sure he believed the Fates, but at least he could say that he tried. He shuffled down the hall to his room, used the key to open the door, and was nearly assaulted by a very lonely dachshund who needed to go out.
Kyle looked down the hallway and sighed. His stomach still ached. His skin felt like crispy chicken. And the nap was coming whether he could hold it off or not.
But Fang had his back legs crossed, almost literally. So Kyle dropped his towel inside the door, and headed back to the elevator, this time leading a dachshund who was so glad to see him, Kyle nearly forgot how awful he felt.
He got in the elevator and closed his eyes, but not before checking to make sure the hallway outside the Fates’ room was empty.
He had given those three guys the slip.
Now he hoped they wouldn’t find him—or the Fates—again.
Twenty-five
Travers stood in the center of the strange little shop, feeling even more out of place than he had when he first came into Las Vegas. He had no idea how this store would help him or Zoe find the Fates’ spinning wheel. He didn’t know what the strange man had that Zoe could need. And he wasn’t exactly sure what a shaman was, at least not in the context of Zoe’s many magical worlds.
The shop was dark and cluttered. The lamps, lit on various tables around the room, were all from the 1960s, and looked like they’d been rejected by Hugh Hefner for his bachelor pad. They were bubble-shaped and garishly colored.
They also didn’t give off much light.
Travers was almost afraid to move across the matted shag carpet to peer at the various items. He recognized a Big Chief notebook in pristine condition and a fat pencil beside it, the kind kids used to have when his dad was in school.
There were ashtrays everywhere—collections of ashtrays, from the Grand Canyon and all of the old Vegas strip hotels and various bars. He could have sworn, when he came into the shop, that the ashtrays were full, but now when he looked at them, he realized they weren’t.
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