Absolutely Captivated (10 page)

“I didn’t use a mechanism,” Zoe said.
“I spelled the door. It’s blocked until I open it.”

Travers let go of the knob, turned,
and put his hands on his hips. He looked exasperated. His cheeks
were red, and perspiration dotted his forehead.

“Spelled,” he said.

Zoe nodded.

“That’s impossible.”

Zoe sighed. She didn’t like games. She
was about to say so when Kyle touched her arm.

“Really,” the boy said. “He doesn’t
get this.”

“He was abominably trained,” the
brunette said.

“If we were still in charge,” said the
blonde, “we would take his mentor—”

“—
and punish him for
dereliction of duties,” finished the redhead, just like the Fates
used to do. They always finished each other’s thoughts.

Travers glared at the women, but for
once, Zoe ignored him.

“What do you mean, still
in charge?” Zoe asked, wishing that she hadn’t. She didn’t want to
get involved, she didn’t want to be sucked deeper into this scam,
and yet something compelled her. The honesty of the kid and, if she
were truthful, the beauty of the man before her.

And the strangeness of the three
women.

“That’s why we asked you if you were
aware of the politics of Mount Olympus,” the brunette
asked.

“Things have gotten worse in the
last—decade? Century? I’m never sure how mortals tell time.” The
blonde looked to her friends.

“Suffice to say, we’ve been—what is
that term? Laid off?” the redhead looked at the
brunette.

“The Powers That Be imposed term
limits on our position,” the brunette said without answering any of
her friends’ questions.

“We had to resign,” said the
blonde.

“While the Powers reexamine our job,”
said the redhead.

“The qualifications have changed,” the
brunette said.

“And if we want the job back,” said
the blonde.

“We have to reapply,” said the
redhead.

“But only if we meet some new
qualifications,” said the brunette.

“Which is why we’re here,” said the
blonde.

“To reapply?” Zoe asked, feeling
confused. It was that confused sensation, more than anything, that
was beginning to convince her that the women in front of her were
the Fates.

“No,” the redhead said. “We’re here in
this office to get your help finding something of ours. We’re here
on this mortal plane to meet the new qualifications.”

“Or we were originally,” said the
brunette, “before we realized it was all a big power play by
Zeus.”

“Zeus?” Zoe asked.

“Zeus?” Travers asked at
the same time, only his tone was a lot more skeptical than Zoe’s.
Zoe had met Zeus. He was a short, bullish man with a strange
charisma and a self-confidence that bordered on the
ridiculous.

“This is getting completely out of
hand,” Travers said. “Unblock this door so that Kyle and I can
leave.”

“I want to hear about Zeus,” Kyle said
from behind Zoe. “I didn’t know he was still alive.”

Zoe started at that, until she
remembered that mortals learned about many mages through myth and
legend. Some of the younger mages, like Dexter Grant, had found
their way into popular culture. But the older ones had a lot of
myths written about them.

“Zeus is not still alive,” Travers
snapped. “He never existed. He’s a made-up god for a culture that’s
long dead, and these women are living in a fantasy world that Miss
Sinclair is somehow buying into. I don’t think this is a healthy
place, Kyle, and I don’t think we should stay.”

Zoe’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”
she asked Travers.

“I told you,” he said. “My name
is—”

“I caught your name,” she said. “But I
was wondering who you are—what you do—that makes you so very
judgmental. Zeus is still alive—”

She caught herself before she could
add the word “unfortunately.” No sense in having someone report
that slip back to the randy old man.

“—
and still wields a great
deal of power. If he’s somehow messed up in this, I want to know
about it.”

Travers was staring at her with his
mouth open.

Zoe ignored him, and focused on the
women.

“Did Zeus remove your magical powers?”
she asked.

“Of course not, child,” the blonde
said. And the use of all those endearments should have been a
tip-off. How many women Zoe’s age—or apparent age—called her
“child” and “darling” and “dear”? Those were patronizing terms, old
lady terms, and if anyone qualified as the old lady in the room, it
was Zoe.

Unless these three women really were
the Fates. Then Zoe was just a babe in arms.

“Zeus didn’t take our powers away,”
the redhead said.

“We gave them up voluntarily,” said
the brunette.

“What?” Zoe asked.

“In order to reapply,” the blonde
said, “we had to expand our knowledge in three areas.”

“We had to learn about other
cultures,” said the redhead.

“We had to improve our diplomatic
skills,” said the brunette.

“And we had to understand
powerlessness,” said the blonde.

“So we gave up our magic to come here
to learn about powerlessness, and another culture,” said the
redhead.

“We’re still struggling with
diplomacy,” said the brunette.

“Obviously,” Travers said dryly. Then
he raised his eyebrows at Zoe. “You believe all this?”

“Parts of it sound plausible,” she
said. “But parts of it seem quite unlikely. I mean, if there are no
Fates, who’s in charge of judicial review and law
enforcement?”

“Well,” the blonde said looking at her
friends, “that’s the problem.”

“They’re not very competent,” said the
redhead.

“Who isn’t?” Zoe asked.

“The children Zeus installed in our
place,” the brunette said.

“In fact,” the blonde said, “that’s
why we’re here. This entire thing is a mess.”

Zoe felt a shiver run through her. It
was indeed a mess, and there was only one real way she could get to
the truth.

She waved a hand in a relocation
spell, and commanded, “To the Fates!”

And then she disappeared. Right in
front of him. As if she had never been there at all.

Travers took one step forward and
almost collided with Lachesis’ chair. Zoe Sinclair was really and
truly gone.

Kyle leaned on the chair and waved his
hands in the space where Zoe had been. He looked pleased and
confused, and Travers didn’t have to be psychic to know what his
son was thinking: Kyle thought Zoe’s disappearance meant that magic
really happened, but he was confused as to how she did
it.

The Fates—or whomever they were—seemed
calm. They weren’t upset or talking among themselves. In fact,
Clotho and Lachesis had leaned back in their chairs as if they were
expecting a long wait.

Travers had had enough. He stomped
around to the back of the desk and wished, for the very first time
in his life, that he knew something about illusionists. Because
someone—maybe this Zoe Sinclair—was playing him for a
fool.

He crouched and looked for
a trap-door. When he found none, he reached for the desk, wondering
what he would find around it.

Kyle grabbed his hand. “Hey, Dad. You
always said desks were private.”

“I don’t like what’s going on here.”
Travers stood up and shook his son’s hand off his arm. He placed
his own hands on Zoe Sinclair’s paper-covered desk and leaned
forward. “Would you ladies kindly tell me the point of this
adventure?”

He used polite words, but
his tone wasn’t polite. If his mother had heard him, she would have
rapped his knuckles. Travers tried not to use that tone in front of
his son, either, not wanting Kyle to pick up bad habits, but now
was not the time for that kind of caution.

Something strange was going on here,
and Travers had to know exactly what it was.

“Unfortunately,” Lachesis said, “the
magical streams no longer consider us the Fates.”

Travers glanced at Clotho. She was
twirling a strand of blonde hair around one finger.

Was all of this some great
big, practical joke designed by Vivian and Kyle to get Travers to
knock off his criticism of comic books? Was Vivian doing this
because she could afford to, now that she had inherited their
Great-Aunt Eugenia’s money?

“I don’t care about ‘magic
streams,’ ” Travers said. “I care about whatever it is you four are
trying to do to me and Kyle.”

“Four?” Atropos asked.

“You and the woman who just
‘vanished.’ Zoe, or whatever your name is, you can come out now.”
Travers directed that last toward the open bathroom door, knowing
that Zoe had to be somewhere nearby where she could hear
him.

“She will not come out,” Clotho said,
probably giving Zoe a signal. Somewhere along the way, around the
time Zoe had accepted the magic ideals as easily as she had,
Travers realized all of these women were working
together.

It didn’t matter how attractive he
found Zoe. He didn’t like being played for a fool.

“She won’t return until she has a few
answers,” Lachesis said.

“As if she can get answers from those
children,” Atropos said. Then, oddly, all three women giggled in
unison.

“Dad—”

“And you,” Travers turned halfway,
raising one hand and pointing a finger at the sky. He wanted badly
to shake that finger in Kyle’s face, but that would be wrong. His
son was trying something, and he clearly had help. The worst thing
Travers could do was overreact.

But he was getting a little freaked
out, locked in this office with three strange women, a disappearing
detective, and a child who didn’t belong here at all. If Zoe didn’t
return soon—if things didn’t return to normal soon—Travers was
going out the window and taking Kyle with him.

“Me?” Kyle asked.

“What is this all about?”

Kyle shoved his glasses up the bridge
of his nose with the knuckle of his forefinger. “How come you think
I know something?”

“Because we’re here at the
behest of your Aunt Vivian, who always conspires with you, and her
three friends, whom you championed once we got to L.A. I figure you
all did this as a ruse to get me to Las Vegas. Did you think that I
needed to meet someone now that Vivian’s married? Or is this about
your so-called magical abilities?”

To his surprise,
Kyle’s eyes filled with tears. “I didn’t do anything, Dad. Honest.
Aunt Viv and I didn’t plan anything. I don’t know anything about
anything, and I just like Clotho and Lachesis and Atropos, and I
worry about them because they clearly don’t know anything about our
world, which you would notice if you just paid attention. You never
really pay attention, Dad. Haven’t you ever wondered how come I
know so much stuff about other people? Haven’t you wondered why
Aunt Vivian once owned the only accurate psychic hotline in the
nation? Haven’t you wondered why you can win the lottery
every single time
?”

Travers flushed. Kyle wasn’t supposed
to know about the lottery. Travers thought no one did.

“You don’t know what’s going on,”
Travers said.

“No!” The tears were gone without a
single one falling. Kyle looked defiant now.

“But you wanted to come here,” Travers
said.

“Of course. I wanted someone else to
take care of the Fates. Dad, they don’t know anything. They barely
understand how money works. Haven’t you wondered why?”

He hadn’t wondered why. He
hadn’t thought about it in quite that way. He had simply assumed
the women were eccentric, and perhaps had once been pampered by
their husbands. Women like that often didn’t know how money worked.
He had a lot of elderly, rich widows on his client list who had to
learn how to write a check when their husbands died.

“But the Fates aren’t elderly, Dad,”
Kyle said.

Travers started. He hadn’t spoken
aloud, had he?

“No, you haven’t said a single word,”
Kyle said. “You always think that when I respond to your thoughts,
and I never correct you. You’re not mumbling, you’re not talking
aloud. You’re having thoughts that broadcast. I can hear
them.”

Travers clamped his lips together.
Hearing thoughts wasn’t possible, and he would prove it. He would
think of—Liberace. Kyle was so young he probably never heard of
Liberace, but Vegas was Liberace’s town. There was even a Liberace
Museum, according to the signs on the way into the city. What would
it have, a white feather—

“—
boa and a million
candelabras?” Kyle asked. “And I do too know who Liberace
is.”

Travers sank into Zoe’s chair. She
clearly wasn’t there. The chair wasn’t even warm any longer. His
heart was pounding. Maybe he was dreaming.