Chapter 10
“It’s not a date.” I growled and shook my head, vetoing the whore red tube of lipstick Holly pulled out of her makeup case.
“He’s picking you up, right?”
“Yeah, but—”
She waved a hand through the air and then pulled a slightly less whorish red out of the bag. “And you’re going to a fancy dinner?”
“It’s business.” I took the makeup case away from her and dug through her lipstick selection.
Holly smiled at me, the kind of smile that said she’d stopped arguing to amuse me. A knock sounded on the door, and Holly jumped to answer it.
Tamara bustled in, two dresses slung over her arm.
“Sorry; I got here as fast as I could. I wasn’t sure what you needed, so I brought a cocktail dress and an evening gown.”
She held up my options, and I pointed to the slinky black evening gown. Accepting it, I hurried to the bathroom.
“I’m so excited. I’ve never heard of Alex having an official date before,” Tamara said.
“It’s not a date,” I called over my shoulder. “Besides, I’ve been on dates before.”
“Taking guys home from bars does not count as dating,” Tamara yelled back.
“Neither does this.” I closed the door on the sound of her and Holly giggling.
I slid out of the robe I’d worn while Holly fixed my hair and makeup. I still had the cotton patch on my shoulder. The dress had a halter top, so my shoulder would show. I pulled the patch off and examined the scratches underneath. They hadn’t even had the decency to scab over. With a sigh, I tossed the patch in the trash, then stepped into the dress.
Tamara and I were the same height, but she was a full-figured woman with curves I envied—and clearly couldn’t fill. What should have been a clingy dress fell shapelessly around me. I glanced at the clock: five thirtyseven.
I didn’t have time to beg another dress; besides, Holly and Tamara were my only girlfriends, and Holly was a good head shorter than me.
I stepped out of the bathroom. “Help?”
“Don’t worry; we’re on top of this,” Holly said, hurrying forward.
“I have safety pins,” Tamara added, and then they both escorted me back into the bathroom.
I posed like a mannequin as they filled the dress with black safety pins. “So, any news on how the tape was leaked?”
Tamara grimaced around the pins in her mouth and said, “Nothing official, but Tommy disappeared.”
“Your intern?” Holly asked.
I nodded, only to get yelled at to stay still.“It couldn’t have been Tommy.” Though he was rather terse the last time I saw him.
“I don’t think so either, but his disappearance doesn’t look good for him.” Tamara motioned me to turn.
Stay still. Turn. Still. I sighed. “So, since the chief says I’m officially hired, when can I take another look at Coleman’s body?”
Tamara gave me a sharp look through the mirror but didn’t answer. I didn’t really expect her to. We all knew my “hire” was a cover-our-asses move. I wasn’t getting another look at that body unless Falin escorted me to the cold room himself.
Tamara stepped back. “I think you’re done.”
“We are awesome,” Holly said, her reflection beaming at me from the mirror.
I made a full turn in front of the mirror. She was right.
I could barely tell the dress was being held in shape with pins.
“My saviors.” I pressed my hands over my heart. My fingers brushed the skin around the scratches, and pain shot through my shoulder. I winced. “Tamara, can I ask one more favor?”
A loud knock sounded on the door. Damn. Falin couldn’t be fashionably late, could he?
“I’ll get it,” Holly said, scuttling out of my overcrowded bathroom.
“I’ll do you a favor without you asking,” Tamara said.
“Wear this and lose the boots.”
She held out a thin silver necklace with a delicate charm shaped like a ghost. The charm gave off a faint magical buzz.
I could feel the complexion spell, but it felt more specialized, as if it was designed for … “Bruises and cuts? Did you make this yourself?”
“Yes, and you’ll need to personally activate it.” She handed me a finger stick.
Ewww. I hated charms that had to be personalized with blood, but I wasn’t about to turn down a gift like this.
Once the charm was activated, Tamara helped me fasten the silver chain, and I blinked at the mirror. The bruises, which had faded to green today, were completely gone. All traces of the stitches were absent, too.
“Impressive. I don’t know how to thank you.”
She smiled. “Just have fun.” She pretended to flick away a tear. “I feel like I’m sending my little girl to the prom.”
“Shhh. He’ll hear you,” I whispered. “It’s not a date.”
I tugged at the skirt of the dress, then remembered it was held in place with pins and forced my hands off it.
“There was something else I wanted to ask you. Can you look at the spell on my shoulder?”
Tamara frowned. “There’s no spell on your shoulder.”
I froze, my breath turning solid in my lungs. Then, as if trying to catch up for the lost moment, words flew from my lips. “There is. I saw it in the Aetheric. It had these weird dark tendrils and—” I trailed off at the increasingly confused—and alarmed—look on Tamara’s face.
“Besides your jewelry, the only spell on you is the healing spell on the brace on your wrist. You’ve been using your hand, by the way. I don’t know if you noticed.”
I glanced down at the brace. Tamara had missed the dagger and the spell. I knew I’d seen something in the Aetheric. Death had seen the spell, too. How could she miss it?
“Alex?” Holly called from outside the bathroom.
“You better get out there,” Tamara said, shooing me from the bathroom. “And lose the boots!”
“It’s these or my sneakers,” I muttered.
I wasn’t sure whether she heard, because I’d just caught sight of Falin. He was studying the pictures stuck around the mirror on my dresser and hadn’t noticed me yet, so I had a second to look him over. A second wasn’t enough. His tux was black satin, fitted in all the right places so it showed off wide shoulders that tapered down into lean hips. If he was armed, he was hiding it well, because a shoulder rig wouldn’t have fit under the tux jacket. His hair glimmered in the evening sun that streamed through the blinds, making it look as soft as a wisp of magic in the Aetheric. I had the ridiculous urge to walk over and run my fingers through the long strands.
Holly leaned close to me. “I’m so jealous,” she whispered, then slipped her arm through Tamara’s. They waved good-bye silently and nearly skipped across my small kitchenette to the door leading down to the main house. They’d be gushing about my yummy “date” before they reached the bottom step.
Falin didn’t look up as the door closed, but lifted a white-gloved hand and pulled one of the photos off my mirror.
“Hey, what do think you’re doing?”
He whirled around, the photo still between his fingers.
He spared me a momentary smile. Then his attention returned to the photo.
Wow, I didn’t even garner a second glance. I paused.
Oh, I hate how that irritates me.
Falin flipped the photo over. “She looks familiar.”
I marched over and snatched the photo from him. I’d clipped it out of the paper, and it was already yellowing with age. “Well, she should. She was all over the news for weeks.”
He smiled, looking over the collage of photos around my mirror again. He pulled down another, this one a real snapshot.“This is her again? Rianna McBride, right? She disappeared about four years ago. Directly after raising shades on the site of a bombing to help locate and identify victims, if I recall the press coverage correctly.”
I grabbed the photo from him and stuffed both it and the newspaper clipping into the top drawer of my dresser. “Can you not touch my stuff?”
Falin shrugged, finally moving away from the mirror.
His gaze moved over me again, and his lips twitched, as if undecided whether they would smile or frown. I could feel heat crawling to my cheeks. Holly had managed to tame my hair into tight ringlets piled on my head, the charm fixed the bruises, and the dress wasn’t that bad.
I’d been mostly impressed, but he did look better than me.
I looked away and tugged at the sides of my dress.
“How late do you think we’ll be out?”
Now he did smile. “You have a curfew?” When I scowled at him, he laughed and shook his head. “Whose dress are you borrowing?”
“That obvious, huh?”
He nodded, and walked a full circle around me. Then he reached out and grabbed the side of the dress.
I jerked away. “Hey, what are you—”
“Stay still.” His gloved fingers worked at the carefully concealed safety pins.
After a couple of seconds of destroying all of Tamara and Holly’s hard work, Falin stood back. He nodded once and then motioned me to turn.
With a sense of dread, I stepped up to the mirror. My jaw nearly hit the ground as I stared at my reflection and the dress that now clung to me as though it had been designed specifically for me.
“Okay, you win. You have magic hands.”
“Did you feel any magic?”
I shook my head and ran my hands over my waist and down my hips. I couldn’t even feel the seams or bunched material. Tamara had done a good job, but this …
“Impressive,” I said. I now looked the part for the party—as in I looked nothing like myself. Maybe it would be enough to help me get inside unnoticed. Just maybe. It was worth a shot, at least. I turned back to Falin. “We’re going to be late.”
———
“Stop fidgeting,” Falin whispered as we walked into the Caine mansion ballroom.
I dropped the necklace and let my hand fall to my side. I’d taken off the wrist brace in the car. Tamara was right: I was using the hand. It was still tender, but at least I didn’t stand out from the crowd any more than I had to. Not that I’d ever fit in here. Men in tuxes stood together making deals and decisions over Scotch. Women smiled at each other without any warmth as they chose their alliances based on the worth of each other’s jewels.
Okay, maybe I was being a little cynical, but these were the movers and shakers of Nekros City: the politicians, the CEOs of major conglomerates, and the slothishly unemployed.
I hadn’t expected to get this far. I’d fully anticipated to be turned away by the guard at the gate, tickets or no. But he’d let us pass. As had the man at the door—who, I noticed, wasn’t Rodger. Now here we were, in the ballroom.
“I thought this was supposed to be a dinner?” I whispered, leaning close to Falin’s shoulder.
“We mingle first. Then dinner.”
Great. Mingling.
Falin took my arm and led me farther into the room. I pasted on my smile. Who exactly am I supposed to mingle with? Anyone I know at this party, I’m related to, and they may just kick me out. Not that I thought anyone outside my family would realize who I was. Even with my face in the papers recently, only someone who knew me well would recognize me under all the makeup, with my hair up, and somewhat out of context at a Humans First dinner party. Hell, even my father probably wouldn’t recognize me dressed like this. I certainly didn’t feel like myself.
It turned out I didn’t need to worry about finding someone to mingle with. Falin moved us around the room, stopping occasionally to speak to one person or another, taking me with him like arm candy.
“Detective Andrews,” someone called out, and Falin steered me toward the voice.
“Chief Reynolds, how are you?” he asked, dropping my arm so he could clasp hands with the police chief.
The chief introduced him around the small cluster of men, mostly other big movers in the city. My face had been all over the papers, and the chief had mentioned me in a press conference earlier in the day, but after he finished his introductions, he looked at Falin expectantly.
Yup, makeup and a dress is a foolproof disguise.
Falin didn’t disappoint him.“This is Alexis Caine,” he said, taking my arm again.
I blinked but managed to keep my smile from falling off my face. What is he trying to pull?
A woman with something dead wrapped around her throat leaned forward. “Any relation to our illustrious host?”
I turned my smile on full force. “Yes, on my father’s side.”
That caused a low murmur around the group, and I tugged Falin closer so I could whisper, “I need to talk to you.”
He only smiled but didn’t move. After a moment, the sensation of my last name was forgotten and conversation moved on.
Chief Reynolds clapped Falin on the back.“Falin here just transferred into the department, and we’re glad to have him. I’ve put him on the Coleman case. He has a very promising career in …”
I zoned out the conversation, smiling and mimicking body language without listening to what was being said.
Instead, I focused on my other senses, scanning the crowd for magic. For a group consisting largely of Humans First Party supporters, there were a lot of vanity charms.
Complexion spells, antibalding charms, even a couple of breast enhancements were active in the crowd.
“Sense anything?” Falin asked as he moved us on to mingle with another group.
I shook my head, gritting my teeth behind my smile.
I wasn’t a divining rod. I didn’t even know what I was looking for.
A prickling sensation crawled between my shoulder blades, the kind of feeling that lets you know someone is staring. Then a wave of malevolent energy washed over my mind. I shuddered, my knees buckling. Pain cut into my shoulder as the soul-sucking spell reacted with an icy pulse. I gripped Falin’s arm tighter. I did not want to fall out in the middle of this party. I swayed, and Falin’s arm moved to my waist, kept me standing.
“Who is it?” he whispered.
As quickly as the feeling hit, it retreated, like a tide pulling back into the ocean. I braced for another assault, but it didn’t come. I turned. Directly behind me was a large group of people, and in the center, surrounded by his aides, was my father.
His eyes met mine, then moved back to the person he was talking to, his expression never changing. He clasped the hand of the woman shaking his, the handshake lasting long enough to become personal and leave her with the impression she’d connected with him. Then he turned away. He touched the arm of one of the men beside him, leading him outside the group. My father said something, and the tall man’s eyes moved to me.
Great. Security would no doubt find me soon. Looks like I’ll be missing dinner.
My father smiled as he stepped back into the crowd, and already there were people vying for his attention. A rotund man who had the look of a businessman stepped in front of him, blocking him from my view. The man was middle-aged with brownish hair, though it was fading to gray. Guess that makes him a suspect—Roy couldn’t have paid at least a smidge more attention, could he? I sighed.
“Who is it?” Falin asked again.
I shook my head. I couldn’t be certain. I had fears, but until I confirmed it was my father, I wasn’t saying a word. I scanned the crowd. I hadn’t felt the darkness again when my father’s eyes met mine, but I wasn’t sensing it from anyone else, either. So Coleman can hide.
That would make things harder.
“Who’s that?” I asked, nodding at a man in his early fifties with light brown hair who had just broken off from the group around my father. He stormed across the ballroom and out the side door. Conversation paused as the door slammed, then buzzed around us once more.
Falin considered the door, then said, “Pratt Bartholomew, the new lieutenant governor. He’s a good ole boy and a real hothead. Is he the one?”
“Back off. I don’t know yet. I’m just looking for guys fitting the description.”
“Description?”
Right—I hadn’t told Falin about Roy yet.“I’ll explain later.”
Several stunned faces were still looking at the door.
The businessman was slack jawed, but he’d moved enough that I could once again see my father. One of the governor’s aides, a squirrelly faced man with thick glasses, leaned in, speaking quickly. Whatever was said, my father nodded, and the aide hurried away. No doubt after Bartholomew.
A man standing just beyond the group caught my eye, mostly because he was watching me. He was in his late forties with a full head of dark brown hair. When he noticed me looking, he lifted his brandy glass in a silent toast.
I gave him a tight-lipped smile and leaned closer to Falin. “Who is that?”
“Jefferson Wilks, III. A senator for the opposition party.”
An Equal Rights Party member here? Of course, I was here, and I was currently the most famous—or infamous—witch in Nekros City.
Falin took my hand. “Should we go introduce ourselves?”
I shook my head and gestured to the table of hors d’oeuvres. I had a serious need to get my legs firmly under me again, and I wasn’t up for fake smiles and small talk until I did.
Falin escorted me to the table, but as soon as we reached it, someone called his name.
“Just leave me here,” I told him, waving him away.
His eyes studied me a moment; then he nodded. I almost sighed with relief. I was as alone as I could be in a room full of strangers. And there was food.
I grabbed several chocolate-covered strawberries from an arrangement in the center of the table, then moved on to the table crackers. Too bad I didn’t bring my purse.
As I loaded a cracker with caviar, a familiar chiming laughter caught my attention. I followed it to a small group of debutantes, in the center of which was Casey.
Gone were the black clothes and puffy eyes. Tonight she wore a brilliant red gown, bound to draw every male eye in attendance with its swooping neckline and gold cording. She laughed at something one of her companions had said, and it sounded real, full of life, and not the least forced.
I pretended to be fascinated with the ice sculpture so I could get closer. As I stared at the life-sized couple made of ice, I let my consciousness sink a little lower so I could reach out with my other senses. The first bit of magic I touched was a charm to prevent the sculpture from melting. I pushed forward. Each girl in the group carried at least one charm, but Casey wore the most. All were weak, rather feeble spells. Where did she buy such shoddily crafted charms? I scanned them again and hesitated.
The large diamond that dipped into her cleavage held an attraction spell designed to make her noticed and adored. It was gray magic—illegal to buy or sell.
Where the hell had she gotten it?
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw several men descend on the group where Falin was “mingling.” One of the men in the invading group was my father. He zeroed in on Falin. Ah crap.
I glanced around. Security was easy to spot—thugs in tuxes still looked dangerous—and I spotted several conveniently mingling close by.
I moved away from the buffet table. It was too visible a spot. People looked up as I passed, and I smiled, forcing myself to slow down. If I ran out of the room, I’d draw even more attention.
I worked my way to the back of the room, where a curtain concealed entry into a back hallway the caterers used to use. I assumed they still did. Without a backward glance, I swept into the hall, surprising a cocktail waitress.
She yelped when she saw me, and tried to conceal a half-empty glass of wine behind her back. The tray, with the rest of the full wineglasses she had been hired to give out, was balancing on the chair beside her.
I gave her my best airheaded smile.“I’m lost. Where’s the restroom?”
She slipped the half-empty glass of wine on her tray as she gave me directions—bad directions at that—to the bathroom. I dutifully ignored the fact that she’d been sampling her employer’s wares and hoped she would similarly forget to mention me.
Once she picked up her tray and disappeared around the curtain, I made my way down the hall. A couple of turns took me into the living areas of the house.
Sneaking out to avoid being kicked out. Brilliant,Alex.
I shrugged the thought off. After all, if Coleman could ward himself from my senses, there wasn’t much point left in mingling. I might as well snoop.
I took the stairs to the second floor. My father’s office was my main target, but I stopped at Casey’s suite first. I didn’t like the fact that she had a gray charm. The doorknob turned silently under my hand. I scurried in, shutting the door behind me.
I hurried across the sitting room. Nothing interesting was hidden in the austere decorations. As I reached the door to her bedroom I hesitated. A faint hint of magic tickled my senses. Residual magic? What is residual magic doing in the heart of Casey’s suite?
I pushed open the door and flicked on the light.
Her bedroom was bigger than my entire apartment. A canopy bed draped in gauzy cream curtains stood in the center of the room, the red satin pillowcases on the bed a shocking contrast to all the cream. A small plasma TV hung on the wall across from the foot of the bed, and to one side of the bed was a small corner table with a lamp.
Aside from an oak chest at the foot of the bed, a dresser, and a small bookshelf, the only other furnishings in the room were candles on tall standing candelabra.
I frowned at the candles. The four candelabra were spaced evenly around the room, one for each cardinal direction. What is Casey up to? I crept closer. The tingle of residual magic turned thick, a low thrum I felt through my being. I’d stepped over the edge of the latent circle before I even realized it was there.
Okay, someone had definitely been doing magic here.
I walked to her dresser. The silver-framed photos on the dresser were the only personal touches in the austere room. One photograph had captured her with a group of friends wearing poufy dresses, one was of her standing between our father and Coleman, and one showed her standing in a group of senators. The last frame held a photo with a much younger Casey in it standing beside our older brother, Brad. I picked up the large silver frame, and the tingle of magic crawled over my fingers.
A charm?
A concealment charm. I frowned. What is she hiding?
For a sensitive, concealment charms were basically a flashing light crying, “Something interesting here!” And once you knew they were there, they were terribly easy to circumvent.
Closing my eyes, I traced my fingers over the back of the frame. A pocket had been sewn into the back. I reached inside and pulled out a thin book about the size of my hand. The leather cover was unmarked and soft with age. It buzzed slightly, as though it had absorbed magic cast around it, but this magic felt sticky. I flipped the book open.
Handwritten lines filled the pages, the tight script small and too angular to be my sister’s. I flipped the page and saw a diagram for an ornate circle with cardinal and guardian points marked. A spellbook? I flipped further on. The spell I landed on was designed to inspire fear in an enemy. Not just any spellbook, but gray spells.
The door behind me banged open. “What are you doing in here?”
I flipped around, hiding the book behind my back.
Casey stood in the doorway, her cheeks flaring angry red and competing with her scarlet dress. She balled her small fists against her waist, her elbows out to her sides as if she were trying to take up as much space as possible.
“I’ll ask again. What are you doing here?”
“Here as in the party or—”
“Here as in my room, Alexis.” She swept into the room but stopped at the edge of the bed.
I still had the book in my hand. What the hell am I going to do with it? I cleared my throat, not meeting her eyes. “How did you find me?”
“I knew you’d crashed the party because I saw you. I knew you were in my room because you crossed my circle.”
I glanced at the invisible circle with its candelabra cardinal points. “Then you’re a—”
“Witch?” She lifted a perfectly sculpted eyebrow, crossing her lithe arms over her chest. “Yes. And if you tell Daddy, I swear I’ll make your life miserable while I deny it.”
“But …” But I’d been disowned for being a witch. I’d been labeled a bastard. And now Casey, his favorite, the baby, was a witch in hiding. “How can he possibly not have noticed?”
She plopped herself down on her bed, the crimson dress even more garish against the cream comforter than the scarlet pillowcases. “Please. Daddy is the least sensitive norm in the world. Mom must have been practicing under his nose for years.”
“What about Brad?” I asked, and she looked away.
Had he been the one to give her the spellbook? It had been hidden behind his picture. Casey still wasn’t looking at me. I knelt and shoved the thin book into my boot. It was not a comfortable fit. I tried to shove it down farther, but the bed shifted as Casey moved. I stood, straightening my skirt and trying to keep my face blank.
“I haven’t heard from Brad. No one has. Don’t you think Daddy would have called you if we’d heard from him? So, wherever he is, he doesn’t know, and I don’t know whether he is a witch. After you, well, you know …”
Yeah, I knew. After my wyrd ability had made itself known, and I had proven unable to hide it, our father had sent me off to a wyrd boarding school as soon as he’d been able to enroll me. I’d been eight the first time I packed my bags and boarded a plane alone to head to the academy; Casey had been only four. It was an impressionable age.
“When did you realize?”
She shrugged, a small lift of her thin shoulders. “I guess I always kind of knew I was sensitive, but I didn’t find a teacher until a couple months ago.”
“Did you charm that diamond around your neck?”
Her hand moved to the necklace, but she didn’t look at it. “Yes.”
“Casey, that’s gray magic. Whoever your teacher is should have warned you about the damage gray magic does to your—”
“Nobody asked you, Alexis. Stay out of my business.”
She gave me a petulant look, just like the way she had when we were kids. In the same tone she would have used then, she said, “And get out of my room.”
“Casey, I—”
“I’m going to call security if you don’t leave.”
I considered not leaving. Just for the hell of it. But if she screamed “Daddy” now, I’d get escorted off the premises by guards. I turned, seeing myself out.
I didn’t get far.
As I slipped back into the hall a beefy hand landed on my shoulder. I froze. Busted.
I didn’t recognize the square-jawed man, but he clearly knew me. He shoved me forward, and I begrudgingly allowed him to march me into my father’s office.
Well, the office was where I wanted to go anyway—just not in this circumstance.
My father sat behind his huge mahogany desk, his fingers steepled before his lips. His dark gaze fixed on me as soon as I entered, but he said nothing. The beefy guard—or assistant or whatever my father called him—pushed me into the leather armchair in front of the desk.
I leaned back, trying to look comfortable.
Still my father remained silent.
A game of nerves? I tried for an eyebrow lift, but even if my face didn’t show the sutures, they were definitely still there. I ended up scowling instead. My father just watched me, his face impassive.
I shifted my weight, my dress rustling around my boots. Fine; if we aren’t talking, I’ll do something else. I focused on opening my senses and found—nothing. Not even a charm to make sure his suit continued to look perfect if he spilled food on it during dinner. I scanned his two goons, since they’d likely been in the group earlier.
One carried a charm I couldn’t identify on a casual pass, but it felt benign enough. The other had no magic on him.
Still no one spoke.
I shifted my weight again, wiping my palms on the skirt of my dress.
“Well?” I finally asked.
My father shook his head. “Always the impatient one.” He dropped his hands and reached for a pen. He studied the document in front of him as though I’d been dismissed.
I wasn’t fooled.
Without looking up he said, “This is the second time in as many days you’ve invaded my home. What is it you want, Alexis?”
I stared at the top of his head, not saying anything.
The silence was sharp, cutting the air between us. Finally, he put the pen down and looked up. Impatient or not, I figured I was about as stubborn as he was, so I held my tongue.
Minutes ticked by, and his lips pressed into a thin line.
“Alexis, I have a reason for my actions. A plan. Can you say the same?” He glanced over his shoulder and said, “See her out. And make sure the guards know not to let her back in.”
That was my dismissal. The goon behind me squeezed my shoulder, and I stood without further prompting. As I stepped though the office door I turned back to face my father.
“By the way, George, great party, but one thing amazes me. Why is it Humans First Party supporters hate witches, but sneak in illusion charms for an instant face-lift or boob job?” Turning on my heel, I stormed out of the room, leaving the goon to catch up.
I shook my head as I took the stairs two at a time.
That was my great retort? A boob job? After all these years, he still got under my skin. At least one thing was certain: that man was definitely my father.