Tempt the Stars

Page 44

“Oh, that.” He shrugged. “I heard a couple say it made sense. That no human woman could possibly get in as much trouble as . . . uh, that is, they didn’t seem too bothered about it. If you know what I mean.”
“I know what you mean.” And I was suddenly, profoundly grateful to be living with creatures hundreds of years old, who took things in stride. Vampires were hard to impress, but they were also hard to rattle. I felt my spine relax a little as one fear evaporated, at least.
“Of course, they’re a little worried that this makes you more high-profile, so people are gonna start trying to kill you more. But I told them, hey, remember last time? I mean, if a bunch of other demigods couldn’t take you out, who are they gonna send? It’d have to be something really weird, something really unusual, something really dangerous—”
“Like a trio of coven witches?”
Fred blinked. “Naw,” he finally said. “There’s only three of them. If they were gonna off you, they’d probably have sent more than that.”
“Thanks,” I said sourly. “That makes me feel a lot better.”
“I’m here to help. Now, what are you gonna wear?”
“I don’t know.” I started looking through the dresses again, but they were hopeless, more ball-gown-y than goddess-y. And while I wanted to dress to impress, I didn’t think looking like I was waiting on Prince Charming was the way to go.
“Those aren’t gonna work,” Fred agreed, slurping coffee. “But I bet Augustine has something.”
“Augustine sent these,” I pointed out, talking about the best—according to him, anyway—magical designer around. His boutique occupied the largest of the overpriced shops in the drag downstairs.
“Well, yeah. But he was just sending regular party stuff. I bet he has something that would work.”
Augustine closed at six. And no way was I up to shifting back a couple of hours to try to catch the great man before he left.
“No problem,” Fred said, suddenly businesslike. “What size do you wear?”
“Anywhere from a two to a six, depending on the outfit. But it doesn’t matter. Augustine closes at—”
“Yeah, I know. What color you want?”
“White. But you can’t get in, and he doesn’t live around here. And by the time he could get back and open up, assuming he’d even do that for me—”
“Oh, he’d do it,” Fred said cynically. “He might not like it, but he’d do it. Have you seen his sign lately?”
“What sign?”
“The one outside his shop. The one that says ‘Couturier to the Pythia.’ He left off the official part, but it’s implied.”
Well, that explained the gowns I kept getting. I should have known Augustine wasn’t being generous. He wasn’t known for the softer emotions.
Or, you know, any.
“He’s been making a mint off all the wealthy women who want to dress like you,” Fred added.
I blinked at him. “Have they seen me?”
He laughed. “Point is, he’s in no position to complain. We’ll just take what we need, and let him know tomorrow. If he puts up a fuss, you can tell him to take his damned sign down.”
“Yeah, but you aren’t listening to me. We can’t get in.”
“Wanna bet?”
It took me a moment to realize what he was getting at. “No,” I said sternly. “We can’t.”
“Fifty bucks? Or do you want to make it interesting?”
“It’s interesting enough. Didn’t you hear about those guys last week?”
“What guys?”
“Two teens with sticky fingers tried to rip off some T-shirts or something. So Augustine spelled them to actually get stuck.”
Fred’s forehead wrinkled. “To what?”
“To everything. He did some spell that made it like they were human Velcro. Only once something stuck, it didn’t come off. One of the guys turned up at the end of the day, sobbing and freaked out, dragging a massive train of street trash, a folding chair, some kid’s baby stroller . . . and a homeless person’s grocery cart full of stuff.”
“Well, that don’t sound so—”
“And the homeless person, who was beating him over the head with a rolled-up newspaper.” They’d been stuck together all day, since the guy had grabbed the kid’s arm, begging for change.
“Oh. Well, yeah, that would kind of—”
“And he was the lucky one. They had to pry another guy off a taxi—after it went ten blocks!”
Fred’s lips pursed. “Ten’s not so bad if you’re just riding along on the trunk or something.”
“He was jogging along behind! He’s just lucky it was a bad traffic day, and they weren’t going too fast. . . ”
I trailed off, because Fred was no longer listening. He was staring at the wall instead, with unfocused eyes. “What’s your shoe size?” he suddenly asked.
“An eight. Why?”
“No reason.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Tell me you’re not breaking in right now.”
“Me? I’m just sitting here.”
“And what about the others?” Fred was part of an unholy trio Mircea had gifted me a little over a week ago. At first, I’d thought he was just beefing up security after a couple of recent incidents. But lately, I’d begun to suspect that he might have had other reasons.
Selfish, selfish reasons.
“What others?” Fred asked, trying to look innocent, just as my door was flung open.
“Those others!” I said, pointing at the two guys who appeared in the doorway. Well, one guy, since I couldn’t see the other under a mountain of clothes, although I knew he’d be there. “Damn it, Fred!”
But Fred wasn’t listening to me. “Well?” he asked, turning around.
“I hate you,” the mountain snarled.
And then started to stagger in the direction of my food-strewn bed, before everybody yelled, “No!”
The mountain cursed, and the handsome brunet vamp who sauntered in after it grinned, a quick flash of teeth in an olive face. “We got out clear,” he told me. “Well, more or less.”
“How much less?”
“We ran into a little ward. Or one of us did.”
“Here. Put everything down on the chair,” Fred said, coming over with an armchair from the window.
“You put it down!” the mountain snapped.
“What’s the problem? Just drop them.”
“I can’t just drop them!”
“Why not?”
“You aren’t stuck to them, are you?” I asked apprehensively.
A blue eye managed to glare at me through a gap in a layer of chiffon. “No! I’m stuck to me!” he said. And then raised both arms, causing a terribly expensive landslide onto my carpet.
My mouth fell open, but not because of the indignity to Augustine’s work.
“Oooooh,” Fred said, looking impressed.
“Do something!” The mountain had resolved into a stressed-looking blond named Jules, who held out his hands. Or, I should say, his hand, since there was no longer any separation between the two. The fingers of one ran straight into those of the other, with no break in the smooth, pale skin. Leaving the thief stuck in handcuffs.
Made out of his own hands.
Chapter Twenty-two
“Where’d your fingernails go?” Fred asked, showing his bald spot as he bent to take a look. He seemed more curious than grossed out.
“How the hell should I know?” Jules screeched. “Just fix it!” And he thrust the creepy-looking finger cages out again—at me.
I managed not to shy back, but it was a close thing. Because Fred had been right; there were no little buffed ovals in sight. Just what looked like an extra joint where the fusion had taken place. And from the expression on Jules’ face, he found that every bit as disturbing as I did.
But not as disturbing as suddenly having three sets of eyes on me, all at once. And all expectant, because the guys were new and hadn’t picked up on a few things yet. Like the fact that I might be a clairvoyant, but I wasn’t a witch.
Well, okay, yeah. Technically, I fell into that category, but only because every female magic user did. It was a catch-all term, like “wizard” was for guys, which said nothing about a person’s level of ability, training, or specialty. Or in my case, whether I could even manage a basic spell.
Of course, I had the Pythian stuff, but that was only useful for its own special brand of crazy. It could send me hurtling across time but it couldn’t do a simple ward, or a glamourie to cover my freckles or help me cheat at cards. Which was why Billy always won.
According to Pritkin, I had a decent amount of the normal kind of magic, but it was all potential since I’d never learned how to use it. That was down to Tony the bastard, who had been afraid I might use anything I learned against him one day. And to my usual luck.
After running away from Tony, I’d ended up living with a null witch, one with the rare talent of being able to cancel out any magic done around her. That had been great for hiding from the bad guys, whose trace charms had slid over Tammy’s house like water over glass. But it also meant that she couldn’t do any magic herself, or teach it to me.
Then I went back to Tony’s for three years, to try to set him up for what he’d done to my parents, so that was a wash. And then the second time I ran away, after my attempt at revenge went spectacularly wrong, I’d spent most of my time in the human world. Because it’s a lot bigger than the sup community, giving me a bigger crowd to hide in.
It had worked—it had taken him another three years to find me, despite being really motivated. And in the meantime, I bet his boys had spent hundreds of hours checking all the places a young, untrained witch might go to rectify that little problem, and had found nothing. Because I hadn’t gone to any of them.