Absolutely Captivated (25 page)

“Bart want cracker,” Black Bart
said.

“No, you don’t.” Zoe let her hands
drop. “You hate crackers.”

“Okay. Lunch.” The bird
was hungry. She would have to check his food dish. It was probably
empty. He always stuffed himself when she left him home
alone.

“Lunch, then,” Zoe said and stood up.
She had a lot of work to do. Tracing the wheel would not be easy.
She hoped that it had found its way out of Faerie and into some
museum collection, but she doubted that had happened.

Still, she had to start
somewhere. The Internet would be her initial guide—there had to be
art or artifacts that pictured the wheel. They might not be
accurate (some of the early drawings of the Fates pictured them as
wizened old women, a guise they had never worn), but the pictures
would at least give her a place to start.

She might also try to hack
into some of the Faerie sites, and see what was listed in their
version of eBay. Faeries didn’t care about money; they collected
items with totemic and magical value. That was one of the many
reasons Faeries ran casinos; people came in with their lucky
rabbits feet or their good-luck hats and often left without them.
Superstition imbued those items with a slight radiance, and Faeries
valued that radiance.

Zoe had no idea how much
power the wheel gave off, but she suspected it was a lot. And
maybe, just maybe, she’d be lucky enough to find traces of it on
the Web.

Otherwise, an actual search might take
her into Faerie, where she didn’t want to go.

And she certainly didn’t want to go
alone, with no one to back her up. The Fates had no power, and
Travers didn’t know how to use his—he’d just be a victim in
there.

Zoe had no one else to ask.

If she were even strong enough to get
past her fears, which she most decidedly was not.

“Lunch,” Bart said, and it was not a
question. It was a demand.

“Sorry,” Zoe said. She had gotten lost
in thought. Just like she would get lost in Faerie.

This case was going to be dangerous.
She would have to do everything to remain alert, cautious—and
safe.

Even if it meant going back on her
promise to the Fates.

The next morning, Travers
had definitive proof that he had not been dreaming: he woke up in a
king-sized bed in a hotel suite in Las Vegas.

He had hoped that the last week had
been some elaborate nightmare, dreamed in installments, rather like
a mini-series sent by Mr. Sandman.

Of course, Travers couldn’t get that
lucky.

He ordered breakfast
from room service, and managed to be showered and dressed long
before it arrived. He set the complimentary
USA Today
next to his chair, since a
newspaper was always part of his morning routine, and he waited
until the waiter had left and the food was spread on the table
before waking Kyle.

Kyle was not—by any stretch—a morning
person.

Travers was. Each new day was a new
opportunity, and he liked looking at the day as if he were starting
over with a clean slate. Only this morning, he felt like the slate
was rather smudged, and he didn’t know what to do about
it.

He had called his office, sent the
clients with emergencies to another CPA whose work he respected,
and told his secretary to let the rest of his clients know that
Travers wouldn’t be back for another week due to family
problems.

Kyle staggered out of his own room,
and shuffled to the table, looking more like an old man than an
eleven-year-old boy. He had splashed water on his face, but forgot
to dry it off. His skin was dotted with droplets, his hair slicked
back against his scalp. The front of his pajama top was soaking,
but Travers didn’t say anything.

Kyle would notice eventually, when he
became awake enough.

Right now, he wasn’t even awake enough
to notice that his father had ordered him waffles with strawberries
and whip cream, a meal that Travers usually called desert and not
breakfast. Travers had also ordered a plate of sausages which, he
figured, if they didn’t eat them, Bartholomew Fang would. Travers
got pancakes for himself, and a fruit bowl, which he would save for
later.

The thing that smelled the
best, though, was the coffee. Travers didn’t realize how very
exhausted he was—the stresses of the last week, and the revelation
about himself, had put a strain on him that he wasn’t used
to.

Kyle was halfway through his waffle
and strawberries before he paused to rub his eyes. Then he
stretched, sighed, and returned to his breakfast.

Travers smiled. At least this part of
the morning was normal. Kyle would finish eating and soon the
conversation would start, as his son slowly realized the day had
begun.

Only this time, Travers
wasn’t quite as willing as usual to have a conversation. He still
had a lot of thinking to do. He no longer doubted that he had
magical ability. In fact, his point of view on that had changed so
much in the last twenty-four hours that he now wondered how he
could have doubted it.

His own capacity for self-delusion
startled him. Last night, he had made the mistake of trying to fall
asleep by counting the magical incidents that he could
remember—anything odd, anything out of the ordinary. He paused with
each one, recalling the events, and started to wonder how anyone
could have missed the cause.

He was sure the Fates had a theory as
to how he could have missed it, and he knew that Zoe would have an
opinion.

She seemed to have an opinion about
everything else.

He liked that about her. Her
self-assurance, her strength, her obvious intelligence. During his
long bout of self-analysis the night before, he realized he would
have been attracted to her, magic or not.

And that presented a
problem.

It presented several problems,
actually. The first was how to deal with his attraction to a woman
who was going to act as his teacher. The second problem was how to
convince her that he was interested—truly interested, not just
magically obligated. And the third concerned Kyle.

Travers had vowed not to get involved
with anyone while his son was at home. Travers had seen too many of
his friends bounce from “serious” relationship to “serious”
relationship, leaving their children confused, scared, and
hurt.

Cheryl had already done a lot of
damage to Kyle, by leaving and not returning, not writing, not
caring about anyone but herself. Travers was determined to cause as
few injuries to his son as possible, and one way to guarantee that
was to make sure Kyle didn’t bond with anyone who wouldn’t be in
his life for the rest of his life.

You couldn’t guarantee
that with girlfriends, and you couldn’t explain casual
relationships to a child—maybe not even to an eleven-year-old boy.
And explaining attraction was even more out of the question:
Travers couldn’t ask his son for permission to explore an interest
in a woman who might simply turn out to be a passing
fad.

Kyle pushed his plate away as
Bartholomew Fang padded out of the bedroom. The dog, apparently,
was even less of a morning person than Kyle was.

“Does the dog have to go out?” Travers
asked.

“I took him out a few hours ago,” Kyle
said.

Travers felt the pancakes he had eaten
turn to lead in his stomach. “Without waking me?”

“Don’t sweat it, Dad,” Kyle said. “We
went onto the patio. There’s some plants tucked against the
rail.”

Travers wasn’t sure if he was more
appalled at Kyle’s willingness to let the dog use a patio plant as
a bathroom or the fact that Kyle thought it was
appropriate.

Then Kyle giggled. “You’re too tense,
Dad. We went just outside the front door. Of the hotel.”

The pancakes felt even heavier. Kyle
had no idea how dangerous other cities were. He and Travers lived a
pretty secluded life in their little portion of Los Angeles, and
Kyle knew the risks there. He just couldn’t assume every place was
as safe as the ones he knew at home.

“Kyle, you have to let me know when
you’re leaving the room,” Travers said.

“You’d’ve figured it out,” Kyle
said.

“Next time you tell me.” Travers heard
his own father in his voice, and he didn’t care. “It’s dangerous
out there.”

“The bellman was watching the entire
time,” Kyle said.

“I don’t care,” Travers said. “You
don’t know this place.”

“Neither do you.” Kyle grabbed a
sausage, and broke it into little pieces with his fingers. He set
the pieces on the floor, and Bartholomew Fang vacuumed them up so
quickly that Travers wondered if the dog got some of the rug as
well.

“Just promise me,” Travers said.
“Promise me you’ll let me know where you are at all
times.”

Kyle sighed. “I didn’t think you’d be
so mad.”

“I’m not mad,” Travers said. “I’m
just….”

How to explain to his son
how unnerved he was? How off balance? He hoped he wasn’t
broadcasting, as they called it, because he didn’t want Kyle to
sense the anxiety as well. Travers had worked really hard to be
solid for Kyle, and now Travers wasn’t even sure who he was, let
alone what would happen next.

“Scared?” Kyle whispered. He didn’t
look up.

Travers wondered if Kyle could sense
anything, and he toyed with lying.

“Am I scared?” Travers repeated while
he thought about how to field that question.

Kyle nodded, still watching Fang
snuffle at the carpet, searching for more sausage.

“I guess maybe I am,” Travers said,
deciding on truth as the best strategy. “I don’t know what’s
ahead.”

“Lots of lights,” Kyle
said.

“Hmm?” Travers didn’t
understand. It sounded like a non sequitur, but sometimes Kyle made
predictions that came true.

“You didn’t know what was ahead,” Kyle
said. “But I can see it. Lots of lights. Neon lights.”

Travers gave him an indulgent smile.
“We are in Las Vegas.”

Kyle shook his head. “No, Dad. The
lights are swirling, and they come in very close, and I’m not sure
you escape them.”

“Escape them?” Travers asked, feeling
as if his son had had too many conversations with the
Fates.

“And Miss Sinclair, she’s
there too, along with these guys who seem really mad.” Kyle pushed
his plate away, something astonishing, considering he still had
some strawberries and whipped cream on it. Even Bartholomew Fang
gave him a sideways look, although that might have been a request
for more sausage.

Travers tried to comprehend what Kyle
was telling him. In the past, Travers would have dismissed it as
dream fragments, left over from Kyle’s sound sleep, and it was hard
to fight those tendencies now.

Kyle must have seen the struggle on
Travers’ face. Kyle put his hand on Travers’ arm and leaned toward
him, looking both scared and sincere.

“Dad,” Kyle said, “if I promise to be
good and do icky basketball without complaining and stuff, can we
just go home? I won’t write any more comics or talk about magic any
more or anything.”

Travers stared at his son. Kyle had
just offered to give up two things he loved for something Travers
had to force him into every year. Had the vision frightened Kyle?
Or was something else going on?

“This vision thing,”
Travers said—he couldn’t call it a prophecy without giving it too
much weight, and he didn’t want to call it a dream without
detracting from his son’s fear— “it scared you, didn’t
it?”

Kyle bit his lower lip. Bartholomew
Fang whined and pressed his nose against Kyle’s knee. Kyle petted
him absently, but didn’t look at him.

“You like things normal,
Dad.” Kyle’s soft words echoed Travers’ earlier thoughts. Travers
felt uneasy about that, too. “Because of me, everything’s all
screwed up.”

Travers grabbed his coffee cup as if
it were a lifeline, even though he knew that the confusion he felt
didn’t come from sleepiness, so caffeine wouldn’t help.
“Everything?”

“We’re here because of
me,” Kyle said. “I begged you to drive the Fates here. And I helped
Aunt Vivian convince you to take them to L.A. in the first
place.”

Bartholomew Fang whined again and
shoved his nose against Kyle’s hand. Kyle ignored him.

Travers snapped his
fingers, and Bartholomew Fang ran to him. Travers took a piece of
sausage and gave it to the dog, who—to his surprise—ignored
it.

So the dog did have some powers of his
own. He sensed, in canine fashion, the tension in the room and was
trying to ameliorate it.

“What are you most afraid of, Kyle?”
Travers asked.

To his surprise, Kyle’s lower lip
trembled, even though his teeth were trying to hold it in place. A
tear ran down his cheek, and Kyle wiped at it with the back of his
hand.