She held me at arm’s length. “You okay, babe?”
I nodded and reminded myself this was only one facet of the woman’s character. She could flash from loving to conniving to murderous bitch faster than it took a heart to pump one flush of blood through its aortas. Her supportive sister act was nothing more than a lucky natural twenty among any number of critical fails waiting for me on the next turn.
“Brody’s dead,” I said.
“Awww, not Brody,” she said as though I’d told her the gardener had quit. “I liked him. I liked his car. Did you grab the keys?”
“No, Lorelai, I did not grab his car keys. I was a little busy getting away from my house before the insanely powerful mage who laid the trap that killed him came to do something worse to me.”
Lorelai stared at me with glazed over eyes. The most potent strain of High Times Cannabis Cup winning kush wouldn’t have this kind of affect on someone like her. If she was this out of it, it meant she had company.
“Can I come in?” I finally asked.
She snapped out of her trance and seemed to remember why she was standing in her hallway with the door open.
“Yeah, babe. Come on in.”
Mellow trip-hop trickled in from somewhere beyond the living room. I heard high pitched laughter. There were almost always other people in the house when Lorelai was around, but the partying didn’t normally pick up until later in the day. If her guests were already at it this early in the morning, Lorelai was rolling in full effect.
“You need a room?”
“Maybe for a night,” I said. I didn’t want to stay any longer than I had to, but it didn’t seem wise to go out looking for a supernatural killer after sunset. Besides, I needed the time to heal and regenerate my stores of magical energy. I’d dipped too deep into that well, and the brief snatches of sleep I’d gotten hadn’t been nearly enough to make a difference.
Lorelai led me up the stairs and down a long hallway with several doors that lead into various bedrooms. Most them were open and empty, but from behind one of the closed doors I heard the kind of sounds that usually accompanied naked bodies at play. Lorelai accidentally pushed open the wrong door, and I caught sight of a girl about my age in the middle of an unmistakably earth-shattering orgasm.
“Oops. I guess this one’s taken.”
Instead of backing out and closing the door behind her, Lorelai stood watching the couple thrash about mid-climax. Knowing my host’s true nature, I could see this moment of voyeurism for what it really was. Eyes narrowed, back arched against the doorframe, Lorelai bit her lip and let out a long soft ‘mmmm’ sound. Even without my mage sight, I could sense the energy crackling in the air around her. It prickled the hair on my arms and sent a cold shiver down my spine.
I squirmed and stared down the hallway, trying not to pay attention to the girl screaming out her unbridled passion. Lorelai lingered for a long moment before stepping back out of the room again.
“Mmm, don’t you feel so happy to be alive?” asked Lorelai as she strolled down the hall and ran her hands through her hair.
At one time I’d found her act alluring and intoxicating, but now she came off like a junkie auditioning for a shampoo commercial. I wasn’t sure how I’d never seen it before. Lorelai was as much an addict as the most pathetic soul out begging on a street corner in order to scrounge enough change to buy their next fix. Of course, what she fed on couldn’t be bought from any pharmacy or shooting gallery, but she seemed to do just fine when it came to contriving situations that would feed her needs.
She pushed another door open, and this one was both empty and blissfully quiet. The house was abnormally soundproofed, making me wonder about the developer who’d had its design specially commissioned for himself. I shoved aside images of kinky acts involving leather and clamps, focusing instead on how soft and inviting the bed looked. The stunning view of the oceans and the mountains out the large window dominating the outer wall rivaled anything I’d find in a four star hotel. If I locked myself in the room and didn’t leave, I might find the rest I craved so badly.
“You need anything else?” asked Lorelai, her voice dripping with saccharine innuendo.
“Do you know anything about what’s going on?” I asked her. “Brody and Jenkins are dead. Someone killed them because they were after me, and I don’t have the first fucking clue how to figure out who it is. I know you’re more than some rich woman who loves to party. You must know something about what’s going on around here.”
Lorelai grinned as she walked up to me, looking like a jungle cat about to sink its teeth into my jugular. She ran the tip of her left index finger down my cheek and along my chin before lifting my face up to meet her gaze. That old familiar scent of sandalwood and vanilla flooded into my nostrils, and I considered that maybe I was being too hard on her. Lorelai couldn’t help who she was any more than a lion could fight its innate desire to stalk and kill a zebra. Tearing its prey’s throat out and feasting on flesh before the blood had cooled was what just lions did. Lorelai was hardly any different.
“I’m sorry about Brody.” She frowned a little to make it evident how upset she was. “But he had a good life while he lived it, and the best thing we can do to honor him is to keep living our own lives as best we can. Don’t you think?”
I nodded without really knowing why I was doing it. It was a bullshit platitude, and it didn’t do anything to answer my questions. I refused to believe someone as powerful as Lorelai didn’t know anything about what was going on in the city around her, but I couldn’t bring myself to challenge her.
Lorelai let her hand drop, and when she smiled it was intoxicating.
“I have to go see to my guests now,” she said. “Why don’t you get cleaned up and then come join us?”
Again, I nodded like an idiot, standing mute and compliant as she turned and walked away. It was impossible not to stare at those hips swaying beneath her robe, the too-high hemline hinting at what I might see if she bent forward even a little.
It wasn’t until the door closed that I snapped out of it. I’d been so fixated on Lorelai’s curves that I hadn’t pushed for answers to the dozen or so questions burning within me. On some level I knew that should have been cause for concern, but Lorelai was an incredibly beautiful woman. It was hard not to stare when she was in the room.
I slipped my backpack off my shoulders and dropped it on the bed. The full stench of my filth-stained jacket and sweaty clothes hit me then, and I went straight into the en-suite bathroom to crank on the shower before undressing and leaving my things in a pile on the floor.
A rack in the shower contained a number of body washes, shampoos, and conditioners, and I opened a few bottles and sniffed them before scrubbing my skin clean. It felt so good to let the hot water rush over me that I completely forgot about the wound on my scalp, yelping with pain when I leaned back to soak my hair. Knowing I needed to at least try to rinse the blood away, I grit my teeth and tried to strip the caked on blood from as much of my hair as possible. The pain triggered a run of tears that trickled down my face along with water from the shower head. By the time I’d turned the tap off and stepped out of of the tub, I was crying from more than just the sting of water on an open wound.
I snatched a towel and dried myself off, then sat on the edge of the tub with my hands over my face. I don’t know how long I stayed like that, but my body was stiff and sore when I was finally able to swallow the last lump in my throat and blink away the blurriness clouding my vision. As horrible as it had been that Brody and Jenkins had died because of me, there was nothing I could do to change it. It would have taken a demigod or necromancer to bring either of them back to life, and I wasn’t either of those. All I could do now was find out who’d killed them. Someone had to stop that foul creature from taking any more innocent lives, and whether I wanted it or not, it seemed the job had fallen to me.
Wrapping the towel around myself, I got up and spread my clothes across the tile floor so they
were in a slightly less jumbled pile. Deciding I could afford the minor drain on my reserves, I cast a small cleaning spell that instantly separated all the non-fabric residue from the clothing fibers, essentially restoring my clothing to a factory clean state. I never used magic for tasks that could be easily handled by modern science or technology, but I hadn’t stashed enough clean clothes in my go-bag to allow myself a full change. I also didn’t want to be walking around this particular house in nothing but a towel. It was bad enough I had to hide out here while I came up with a game plan, and being that close to naked around Lorelai and company was asking for trouble.
I gathered up my clothes, and I tossed them onto the bed next to my pack. I then took the spare underwear and t-shirt from my bag. Just because I’d cleaned the clothes I’d been wearing for the last thirty-odd hours, didn’t mean I felt like wearing them again.
I had no choice but to put my skirt back on, but I skipped the tights that would only feel itchy and annoying after a hot shower. Lorelai always kept the thermostat cranked up, so I didn’t bother with my sweater either.
The bed called out to me, inviting me to crawl deep under its covers so I could sleep for a day or two. I almost gave in, but the emptiness in my stomach and the dry, cracked state of my lips was a powerful reminder that my body needed fuel. Burning down my store of magical power was like running a hundred mile ultra-marathon or riding the toughest stages of the Tour de France back to back. It burned calories like the world’s best diet pill, and although I couldn’t complain about the net effect on my figure, it meant I had to snarf a hell of a lot of calories to make up for what my body had endured over the last twenty-four hours.
Although I’d stayed in a different room the last time I’d been Lorelai’s guest, it was easy to find my way back to the kitchen and its fully stocked fridge. From within the stainless steel monster, I pulled out a container of leftover fried chicken, some kind of potato or pasta salad, a bottle of beer called Screaming Banshee, and a brick-sized slab of decadent-looking chocolate cake.
Not bothering with a plate, I spread the containers out on the kitchen island’s wooden surface, found a fork, and set about destroying as much of the leftovers as was humanly possible. After my third piece of fried chicken, and somewhere between alternating bites of potato salad and chocolate cake, I probably ascended to an un-human level of gluttony only a magic user could fully appreciate. The more I ate, the better I felt, but it never seemed to fill me up. My body burned through the calories faster than I could shovel them into my mouth, and it was only the threat of bathroom related consequences that made me stop eating when I eventually did.
As sated as I was going to get in a single sitting; I packed up what little remained of the chicken and salad, shoved it back into the fridge, and grabbed my beer. I’d been lucky no one had come into the kitchen so far, and if I was going to make any progress on figuring out what my next move should be, I needed to get back to my room. Music from the ongoing party had grown steadily louder while I’d been sitting there, and it was only a matter of time before someone spotted me and tried to get me to join in their fun.
I should have known better. The only safe option would have been for me to lock myself in my room until I was ready to leave the house altogether. Now that I was so close to the sounds of laughter and music coming from a back room, it seemed completely reasonable to follow them for just a little look at what was happening. I was pretty sure there was something important I’d been about to do, but the closer I got to the center of the party, the more I understood that it was the only place to be.
I’d almost forgotten about the lagoon. Buried half underground, it was an absurdly tacky swimming pool that was heated to almost hot tub temperatures. Fake stone walls and huge leafy green plants gave the place a tropical grotto vibe. It was still the middle of the afternoon outside, but since the majority of the lighting came from what had been installed inside the pool, the whole room shimmered with a magical light, aided by what I was pretty sure was a machine that sprayed clouds of steamy mist from the walls.
A Tricky song practically oozed out of carefully hidden speakers, and a dozen or so guys and girls lounged around the pool in various states of undress. No one looked older than twenty-four, every one of them with the kind of body that could get them on the cover of Men’s Health or Maxim. The scene made the famed Playboy Mansion grotto look low rent.
“Alex,” said Lorelai from where she sat at the edge of the pool, long and lithe legs dangling in the water. She blew a stream of smoke into the air, an enormous joint pinched between index finger and thumb.
She’d lost the robe and wore only a retro bikini that made her look like a sexy Bond girl. It was a funky retro style not many women could pull off, but she wore it like she’d been the inspiration that all the movie girls had been modeled from.
From what I’d learned of Lorelai after my last encounter with her, it occurred to me that it might just have been true.
“Hey,” I said as I walked over to her. “There was something I wanted to ask you, but now I can’t remember what it was.”
“Don’t worry,” said Kumiko from the water. She pushed off the edge of the pool and floated on her back, making it quite clear she was completely naked. “If it’s important, it’ll come back to you eventually.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” I said.
Sweat beaded on my brow, and I wiped it away with the back of my hand. This room was as hot and humid as a biosphere rain forest in the middle of summer. Even the small amount of clothing I wore was already damp and clinging to my body in the most uncomfortable way. With each passing second, I wanted more desperately to be free of it.
“It felt really important,” I continued. “I wish I could remember what it was. It’s so hot in here I can hardly think.”
Lorelai patted the edge of the pool beside her. “Sit and relax a second.”
Unable to think of a good reason not too, I sat and put my feet in the pool. The water was so hot it made the rest of the room feel cooler by comparison.
“Here,” said Lorelai.
I looked up and saw the meticulously wrapped blunt she held out for me. The thin wisp of smoke drifting up from it smelled sweet with a spicy undertone. Lorelai always had the best of everything, and when I took the joint and inhaled a lungful of it, I spluttered and coughed so hard that Lorelai had to rub my back until it passed. It had been a long time since I’d smoked anything so potent.
Kumiko swam up to me with laughter in her eyes, but she didn’t say anything nasty. Instead she reached for the joint, and I took another small puff before handing it down to her. This time I managed to hold and exhale a little more gracefully.
“Alex, have you met Manoj?” asked Lorelai as he swam up to accept the joint on its journey round the pool.
I shook my head. Because the pool was lit from the inside, I could see quite clearly Manoj was also naked, and I was either baked or tired enough that it seemed completely normal. In fact, it was starting to feel weird that I was wearing so many layers.
“Feel like a swim?” asked Manoj.
“Oh my god, yes,” I said. “I am so ready for a swim.”
I grabbed my shirt at the hem and pulled it up over my head before tossing it somewhere behind me. I then slipped down from the edge of the pool so I could more easily pull off my skirt while floating in the water. Where it wound up, I honestly couldn’t tell you.
“Doesn’t that feel good, Alex?” asked Lorelai. “It’s nice to have you back with us again.”
I let my arms and legs float freely, lying on my back and staring at the patterns of light rippling across the ceiling. Bass from the music thumped through the pool like a heavy heartbeat, bringing to mind memories of Brody and his beautiful car.
Thinking about Brody made me sad for a second, but then I felt small waves wash up against the parts of my skin floating above the water line, and I tilted my head to see Manoj floating next to me.
“Hey,” he sa
id.
“Hey,” I replied.
I moved my arms behind my head then pulled them downwards, propelling myself through the water. Repeating the motion, I felt the strap of my bra pull against my shoulder muscles. Without hesitation, I let my feet drop down into the water and stood up to reach back so I could free myself from the uncomfortable restraint. Once topless, it didn’t seem right to be swimming around in now saggy cotton underwear. Seconds later these too disappeared, not to be seen again.
“I missed being here,” I said as I swam up to Lorelai. “I forgot how peaceful it is. It feels so… so right, you know?”
Lorelai smiled down on me like a vision of the holy spirit, and my heart expanded to take in all the warmth and love radiating down upon me. I had the vague impression of being unhappy with her for some reason, but that seemed so ridiculous now. It was obvious that Lorelai cared deeply about me. She only wanted me to feel good. What could possibly be bad about that?
Manoj appeared at my side, water dripping from his short spiky black hair.
I traced a finger along his collarbone. “Your skin is like toffee.”
“And yours is the color of warm kheer,” he said as he caressed my cheek.
“I don’t know what that is.”
“Indian rice pudding,” he explained.
A snort of laughter escaped me before I could hold it back. “I could so eat some rice pudding right now.”
Manoj’s eyes were so blue they seemed to glow. I was so lost in them, I hardly noticed them getting larger as he moved towards me. His lips found mine, and I didn’t pull away. Instead, I let him put his hands on my hips, and I leaned into him, feeling the heat of his body even through the warmth of the water splashing around us.
Black Magic (Black Records Book 1) Page 10
