She sighed, and set her tea down. “Very well. I can see that three years on the front line has done nothing for your manners.”
He shot her an irritated look. “We didn’t have many tea parties there. Forgive me if I’m out of practice.”
“I’ll have you know, I didn’t summon you here under false pretenses. This is an emergency; the Crystal Ball is in three weeks.”
“And there is some security threat to the Crystal Ball?”
She shook her head, shocked. “No, of course not. Why would you think that?”
“Then there is no emergency, and I am returning to work.”
“I have been talking with Maegera’s mother. She is most eager to make a suitable match for her daughter. And as you know, her family name is one of the oldest and most respected – Erik, sit down!”
Erik was on his feet, and he ignored his mother’s command. “Don’t call me away from work like this again, mother. The boy who cried wolf, and all that. Next time it might be a real emergency and I might not come, because I’ll think you’re summoning me on a ruse.”
She glared at him. “The future of the Bloodstone name is nothing to be trifled with! As a warlock, you can’t think only of yourself and your needs. You have a responsibility to marry a suitable mate, a woman of acceptable lineage and sufficient power that the two of you will have –“
“Mother, I know all this. I’ve known this since childhood.”
“So why won’t you consider Maegera?”
“I’m sure that she’ll make a perfectly fine match –“ His mother’s eyes lit up, gleaming with hope. “For someone.”
Her face fell. “Will you promise me that you at least consider it?”
Impatience made his voice harsh. “I will consider it,” he said coldly. “And now I’m returning to work.”
As he left, his mother was already crossing the room to grab her cell phone and report back to Maegera’s mother. Time was short. Maegera was 25 this year; she needed to make an acceptable match soon. To have Maegera bear her son’s children – that would be the pinnacle of Theodora’s ambitions. They would be extremely powerful, and quite beautiful, too.
Not like the children he might produce if he married - no. She pushed the thought from her mind. That couldn’t happen.
But she knew that Maegera could be a bit – well, a bit of a bitch, if she was honest with herself. A shrill, spoiled, self-centered, annoying bitch, if she was brutally honest with herself.
But Erik had been away for three years. With luck, he might have forgotten that, and only remember Maegera’s ethereal beauty and reed-like figure.
It was urgent that she tell Maegera’s mother to convince her daughter to tone it down until after the Crystal Ball. If she could get Maegera to be on her sweetest behavior, and get the two of them together, and make absolutely sure that Erik understood how much his family stood behind this match…
Well, it wasn’t as if he had to spend a lot of time with Maegera after they got married, was it? He could travel. He could sign up for another stint in the troll wars. He could have mistresses on the side. As long as he came back often enough to produce several good-looking, magically powerful heirs, that was all that was really needed.
Of course, many warlocks these days were selfish, insisting on marrying for love rather than for duty and the betterment of the race. She could only pray that Erik hadn’t turned out to be one of them.
* * *
“So did you make any progress on the warehouse break-ins yesterday? Ouch.”
Fiona sat at her kitchen table next to Maizie, applying a poultice of healing herbs to a cut on Maizie’s cheek. Maizie had come by the apartment early that morning, after having had an apparently rough night out on the town.
“I discovered more than I expected. I found some plant matter at the warehouse that Erik and his friends are investigating. Hold still! I’m almost done.”
She stepped back to check her work.
Maizie checked her reflection in a hand-held mirror. “You are a miracle worker,” she said, as her cut began sealing itself closed. “I’d be a mass of scars by now if it weren’t for you.”
“You know, a good way to avoid getting scarred up is to avoid getting in fights in the first place. What were you doing last night?”
“Just blowing off some steam.”
“Who did you challenge?”
“A human. Bodyguard for a vampire gang. But I agreed not to use any magic.”
Fiona shook her head in exasperation. And to think, Maizie had the nerve to get angry at her for rushing off into the Graveyard unprotected.
“Why would you do that?”
Maizie shrugged sullenly. “I was in a bad mood. Anyway, I kicked his ass, so what’s the big deal? I never take on more than I can handle. Usually.”
“That’s why you’re the number one customer for my quick-heal herbs.”
“They work, don’t they?”
“To an extent. Let’s not push our luck, shall we? Anyway, Erik’s busy for the next couple of days investigating some murder, and also following up on investigating some leads that he’s developed, because of two of the three plant species that I identified for him. I didn’t identify the third one yet.”
“Shut the front door. There is a plant species that you can’t identify?”
“I said that I didn’t identify it for him yet. I didn’t say that I couldn’t.” Fiona screwed the lid back on her jar of salve. “I’m going to wash up and then we’ll get some coffee before we open up. Try not to pick any more fights with people twice your size for a little while, all right? These herbs can only do so much.”
Maizie didn’t answer, which was answer enough for Fiona. She’d keep the quick-heal salve handy.
Around mid-morning, the reason for her bad mood became apparent when a limousine pulled up in front of Fiona’s shop, and a tall man draped in black climbed out. Vampire, wearing light-blocking fabric. He swept through the door and headed straight for Maizie.
He and Maizie argued in low, heated tones. Fiona was surrounded by a knot of customers, giving a demonstration on how to properly use lip-plumping salve, so she couldn’t hear what the argument was about. Minutes later, the vampire slammed out of the shop and climbed into the limo, which shot off in a squeal of tires.
Fiona considered asking Maizie what was going on, but decided against it. Maizie normally told Fiona everything about her love life in squirm-inducing detail. If she wasn’t sharing, than it meant what Fiona had suspected all along; she was actually really falling for the vampire.
“Excuse me, Fiona?” a voice piped up behind her.
She turned to see Lillith, a friend of her younger sister’s. Lillith was a pretty, pale redhead with freckles and a gap between her front teeth.
“Buying charms for the ball, Lillith?”
“No, your sister asked me to send for you. She isn’t feeling well. She’s had a headache for several days now. She sent me to find out if you have any potions that might help.”
“Certainly. I can take a break for a bit.”
Her stomach turned to water at the thought of an encounter with her mother, but if her sister needed her help, she couldn’t say no. Besides, it had been too long since she’d visited Delphine, she thought with a twinge of guilt. Delphine needed to hear the voice of sanity as often as possible…the voice that told her that she was beautiful just the way she was, despite everything their mother said.
She told Renoir and Maizie where she was going, then started up her car and headed uptown to her parents house.
Her parents lived in a pseudo-Colonial monstrosity plopped down on a massive, immaculately trimmed lawn. The houses in the neighborhood were a mish-mash of styles: Italianate, Tudor, Georgian, Colonial, Queen Anne, Mediterranean revival, clumped together like mismatched party guests at a costume gala.
The only thing they had in common was ostentatious and unnecessary size; they could each have housed dozens of people.
When F
iona had grown up there it had seemed normal to her to have a house so large that you could get lost in it. Now she thought of the denizens of The Graveyard who slept curled up in doorways, or squeezed half a dozen into a studio apartment, or squatting in darkened warehouse buildings without electricity or running water, and her chest tightened with resentment as she climbed the broad marble steps.
Manfred, the tuxedoed butler who’d worked for her family for ages and who never cracked a smile, ushered her in.
As she headed to the dining room, she could hear her sister’s voice raised in protest. “I can’t eat another bite, mother. I really can’t.”
Her mother was urging Delphine to eat? That couldn’t be right.
She walked into the dining room. Her father sat at the end of the massive dining table, in his usual pose; reading a newspaper, sipping his brandy, and completely ignoring his family.
A white embroidered table runner ran down the center of the mahogany table, which was set with plates of porcelain hand painted in gold.
Delphine sat miserably stirring a bowl of stew. She did indeed look poorly; her normally rosy complexion was pale and sallow, she had circles under her eyes and Fiona thought it appeared as if she’d lost considerable weight; her clothes were draping loosely on her.
“One more bite,” her mother urged.
“Mother. Delphine. How are you?”
Her mother started when Fiona walked in; Delphine managed a tired smile. “You came, Fiona! Thank you! I feel awful.”
Desdemona’s gaze swiveled between the two of them, and Fiona’s hackles rose instinctively. Her mother was up to something.
Her father glanced up at her. “Fiona. Hello,” he said absentmindedly, and went back to his reading.
“Fiona, whatever are you doing here? You can’t simply drop by unannounced.” Her mother’s tone was querulous.
“Since when?” Fiona raised an eyebrow.
“Since…since you moved out and refuse to consider any decent marriage proposals, that’s when.” Desdemona pushed back her chair and stood up.
“I haven’t received any decent marriage proposals.” Fiona folded her arms and fixed her mother with a steady glare. Her mother never tried to chase her off; quite the opposite, she was famous for following Fiona around, haranguing her continually about all of her poor lifestyle choices, until Fiona fled, and she didn’t stop haranguing until long after Fiona was gone.
“Well, that’s simply not true, but you’ll need to run along. Your sister isn’t well.”
“Delphine asked me to come.”
“It’s not a good time.”
“Because you’re so busy eating lunch?” Fiona quirked an eyebrow skeptically. Her mother was definitely up to something.
“By the way, I heard from Maegera’s mother,” Desdemona scowled, changing the subject. “She said that you’ve been making a fool of yourself pursuing Erik Bloodstone, and you really need to stay away from him before you become an utter laughingstock. She said Erik’s been complaining that you make him quite uncomfortable.”
Fiona gasped, and her mouth opened and shut several times before she could formulate words. This was why she never came to visit; her mother’s verbal jabs were like physical blows.
Could Erik have really complained about her? Was that possible? It couldn’t be. Ever since he’d shown up, he’d been all over her. It made no sense that he’d say that she was chasing after him, making him uncomfortable.
The only thing Fiona knew for sure was that Maegera’s mother seemed to be very eager to keep her and Erik apart.
“I am absolutely not chasing after him,” she said, her voice shaking with anger. “Erik is the one who’s been looking for me – which you know, because he said that he came by here and you told him you had no idea where I was. Which was a lie, of course. And Erik has hired me to be a consultant on a case.”
“Ridiculous,” Desdemona snapped. “If he did that at all, it was out of pity.”
Fiona felt the familiar tightening in her throat. Her mother’s arguments made no sense but they always circled back to one central theme: Fiona was an embarrassment to the Rosewood name.
“Anyway, I’ll have Manfred show you the door. Do call in advance next time before you come; it’s what people with manners do.”
Fiona gritted her teeth and bit back a sharp retort. Queasiness swelled up inside her and she clenched her fists. She’d feel ill for hours after she left today.
“Wait,” Delphine protested. “I want to see if she can help with these headaches I’ve been having.”
“Nonsense! She can’t help you. She’s not a doctor.”
“You said you didn’t want me to go to the doctor! But my head is killing me. And I’ve been throwing up so much my stomach hurts.”
“Mother!” Fiona gasped. “What have you done?”
“Fiona, you will leave at once.” Desdomona’s voice rose even higher.
Fiona turned to the soup that Delphine was rejecting, pointed her wand at it, and concentrated. Within seconds, the little bits of leaves floating on the top had grown into a large curling vine with big glossy leaves.
“Purgeweed!” Fiona yelled, furious. “That’s why you came to my store the other day! That’s why you were rummaging around in the bins! You stole purgeweed, and gave it to Delphine without her knowledge or consent!”
“What?” Delphine leaped to her feet, staring at the soup in a mixture of horror and fury. “I thought I was dying! How could you?”
Fiona’s father set down his newspaper, looking alarmed.
“That is not just disgusting and appalling, it’s illegal!” Fiona was shouting at the top of her lungs.
“She’s under my legal control until she’s 21! I have two more years to make her into something that some half way decent wizard will condescend to marry!” Now Desdemona was shouting too.
Delphine burst into tears.
“Don’t try to quote law at me, mother! Especially not when it comes to herbs and their legal uses! Those herbs are expressly illegal for consumption by anyone under the age of 21, and it is also a violation of law to give non-medicinal herbs to anyone, of any age, without their consent.”
“Desdemona, what were you thinking? That could cause a terrible scandal.” Their father threw down his newspaper and stood up. “What would the men at the club say if word of this got out?”
“That’s all that you care about?” Fiona swung towards him, eyes blazing with fury. “Your wife is trying to poison your daughter, and your only concern is the scandal it might cause?”
“I hate both of you! I HATE you!” Delphine, an air elemental of no small power, sent the bowl of soup whirling across the room, spraying soup across the hand-flocked wallpaper and then crashed it into the wall, where it shattered to pieces. She leaped up and ran from the room, rushing from the house.
“Now see what you’ve done? She was finally starting to look halfway decent! By the Crystal Ball, she would have actually been attractive!” Desdemona’s voice quivered with self-righteous fury.
“I’m through with both of you,” Fiona said, in tones of ice, casting a look of contempt at her parents. She walked outside; Delphine was already sitting in the passenger seat of her car, crying.
“I can’t believe she did that to me!” Delphine wailed, wiping at her nose with her sleeve. “Am I really that hideous?”
Fiona felt a red tide of fury swelling inside her. She thought of the damage that her mother had done to her self-esteem from years and years of vicious insults and subtle jabs, and now that Fiona had escaped from her grasp, she was sinking her poisonous claws into Delphine. Well, not if Fiona could help it.
“No, you’re not hideous; she’s just a crazy bitch who’s trying to make us feel responsible for her social failure. You know what? Nobody wants to be around her because she’s unbearable, but she blames us for the fact that she’s a social reject. You’re beautiful. Now we’ll go to my shop, I’ll get you some herbs for that headache, and you’l
l feel well again in no time.”
“I’m never going home again. I hate them.”
“I’ll take you to Lillith’s house. If she tries to make you come home, we can threaten to sic the law on her, with her illegal use of herbs. The threat of scandal might make her back off.”
Hands shaking, Fiona peeled away from the curb.
Chapter Eight
“Pour me another one.” Fiona slammed down her second tequila shot, leaning against the bar of the Three Broomsticks.
“You’re letting your mother drive you to drink.”
“No, I’d drink on my own. This just gives me added incentive.”
It was a typical crowd at the Three Broomsticks, a bar owned by three witches. Humans, vampires, blood whores, elves, fairies, witches, warlocks, werewolves…all from the seedier side of life. The lighting was dim, the air was smoky, the din was high. From time to time someone flew across the room, hitting a wall, or landing on a table. It was such a common occurrence at the Three Broomsticks that the customers barely glanced up from their drinks.
The room was a giant rectangle, with pool tables and dart boards towards the back. Fiona, Rosalind and Renoir were leaning on the bar. It was the night before the full moon, and Rosalind’s ears were pointy and tufted with hair, giving her an almost elfin look. She was drinking a beer and surveying the room for a potential partner to romp with during the full moon the next day.
“Maybe that one?” she wondered, pointing at a broad-backed werewolf standing with a group of friends.
“Rosalind, you haven’t even seen his face.” Warmth from the shot of tequila flowed through Fiona’s body. She struggled to put the events of the day, and her disturbing reaction to Erik, from her mind, but the harder she tried not to think about him, the more firmly he was ensconced in her brain.
Rosalind looked puzzled. “His face? I won’t be having sex with his face.” The werewolf turned and she frowned. “Oh, never mind. Been there, done him. I want a new one.”
“See? That’s a good reason to look at their face.”
Big Beautiful Witches: I Married A Warlock Page 6
