Absolutely Captivated (42 page)

When he saw Zoe, he grinned, and
crossed the room.

“You got beer already,” he said as he
slid into the booth.

“I didn’t get straws, though,” she
said, making herself smile at Gaylord. “We’ve got some serious
discussion ahead of us. Where’s Herschel?”

“He’s parking,” Gaylord said, picking
up one of the steins.

“Parking?” Zoe hadn’t expected them to
drive. She figured the last time these two drove was about the last
time they bought beer.

“Yeah,” Gaylord said. “We
got a motorcycle—repossessed from a couple of guys who thought they
could sell it on the Internet.”

Zoe frowned. “Sell
motorcycles on the Internet?”

“To us, you know, our kind,” Gaylord
said.

“What interest would
Faeries have in motorcycles?” she asked.

Gaylord made a motion with his hand,
meaning that she had spoken too loudly. “You know, we’re not all
magic and games.”

“I know,” she said. “I also know that
you rarely drive. What’s this about?”

“Word was the motorcycle belonged to
Evel Knievel,” Gaylord said, “so everybody thought it would have
lots of superstitious value.”

“After all,” Zoe said. “it couldn’t
have been skill that let him jump so far on a simple
motorbike.”

“Exactly!” Gaylord said, not catching
her sarcasm. “Which was what caught everyone by
surprise.”

“What caught everyone?” Zoe asked,
realizing, maybe for the first time, that Gaylord and Herschel had
the same circular way of making conversation as the
Fates.

“That the bike had no magical power
whatsoever. It wasn’t totemic. Yet there was proof positive that
it’d belonged to Knieval.”

“Weird,” Zoe said, not thinking it was
weird at all.

“Yeah, that was the word,” Gaylord
said. “Although me and Herschel, we thought it was kinda lucky. We
got it for cheap.”

“How much?” Zoe asked.
Then it was her turn to wave her hand. “Never mind. You probably
used Faerie money.”

Gaylord grinned. “We’d never do that
to a pal.”

“So you bought from someone who wasn’t
a pal,” she said.

He sipped his beer and raised his
already soaring eyebrows. “You are good.”

“How long does it take to park a
bike?” Zoe asked.

“I dunno,” Gaylord said. “I decided to
walk. It’s a nice night.”

Zoe was saved from asking what Gaylord
meant by “walk”—it certainly couldn’t have been going for a
stroll—when Herschel pushed open the door. He was wearing the same
ripped-sleeve t-shirt as Gaylord, but he carried a leather bomber
jacket over his shoulder.

His face was marked by red lines
around his eyes, probably left by goggles, and he carried a helmet
that looked like it belonged in a museum of 1940s football
collectibles.

Herschel walked over to the table, and
slid in beside Zoe. He smelled of exhaust and grease and sweat—all
unusual smells for him. Maybe he really had ridden over.

“When did you get your motorcycle
license?” Zoe asked.

“You need a license?” Herschel said.
“For what? I’m not going to doctor it up.”

“To drive it,” Zoe said.

“I’ve never heard of anything so
ridiculous.” Herschel tossed his coat and helmet on the floor, then
grabbed his beer and took a long, long sip. When he set the stein
down, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “What’s so
important that I couldn’t drive up to Idaho tonight?”

Zoe looked at Gaylord. “He’s not going
to the Snake River Canyon, is he?”

“How did you know?” Gaylord
asked.

Zoe closed her eyes. “Promise me
you’ll use magic if you attempt that.”

“What, do you think we’re stupid?”
Herschel sounded offended. Zoe opened her eyes. “Of course, we’ll
use magic. Just like that trickster Knieval did.”

“He’s not magic,” Zoe said. She knew
that for a fact. She’d met him a few times, mostly when he came to
Vegas between stunts.

“He’s got to be,” Herschel said. “It’s
the only explanation.”

“For the lack of magic in the bike?”
Zoe asked.

Both Faeries nodded. She
decided not to explain the mortal concept of skill to
them.

“So what’s going on?” Herschel asked
again.

Zoe glanced around the bar. No one was
listening to them.

“I need your help,” she
said.

“That’s news!” Herschel said brightly,
and she realized she had never asked for their help before. They
had asked for hers countless times but she had never
reciprocated.

“I figured you’d need help,” Gaylord
said, putting a hand under his chin. The muscles rippled in his arm
with each movement, and Zoe found herself wondering if those
muscles were real or magically added to improve the t-shirt’s
effect.

“The magic has gathered around you,”
Herschel said, using the condensation on the side of his beer stein
to wipe some oil off his finger. “It was obvious from your phone
call.”

“How can magic be obvious from a phone
call?” Zoe asked.

“Sparks,” Herschel and Gaylord said in
unison. Then Gaylord added, “You have to pay attention to auras and
light, Zo.”

“You can’t see auras over the phone,”
she said.

“Maybe
you
can’t,” Gaylord
said.

“It’s an electronic device,” she said.
“You’re probably seeing some technological change.”

“Maybe
you
are,” said
Herschel.

Zoe sighed. She wouldn’t convince
them.

Herschel elbowed her. “So, is he
cute?”

Zoe immediately thought of
Travers. “Cute” wasn’t the word. “Amazingly good-looking” might
cover it. “Really gorgeous” was better. But she said,
“Who?”

“The reason you want to see us,”
Herschel said. “It’s a guy, right? The blond guy? The one we warned
you about? You’re worried that he’s not faithful and you want us to
track him down.”

She shook her head. She had forgotten
about their warning. But it really didn’t matter. Travers and Kyle
would never hurt her, and it was clear, from Herschel’s last
comment, that he and Gaylord weren’t psychic.

“No,” she said, “this isn’t about a
guy.”

She reached under the table and pulled
out the tube that Elmer had given her.

“Wipe off the table,” she said, “and
move your steins.”

Gaylord used napkins to
wipe off the tabletop. Herschel stood and pulled over another
table, setting the steins on top of it. Then he tucked his long
black hair behind his pointed ears.

“A map?” Gaylord asked. “Where’d you
get a map?”

“It’s got some real
power.” Herschel had greed in his voice. His canines were showing,
looking like little, tiny fangs.

Zoe pulled the map out of the tube and
placed the tube beside her. Then she spread the map out on the
table.

The map glowed neon blue, red, and
green in the bar’s dim light. A few of the regular customers looked
over at the sudden brightness.

“You want me to zap them?” Gaylord
whispered.

“No,” Zoe whispered back. “They’ll
just think it’s some new technology they’re not familiar
with.”

Herschel was ignoring the entire
conversation. He was staring at the map, his expression
cold.

“Where’d you get this?” he asked, and
she’d never heard the tone before.

“I have sources,” she said.

“Your sources could get in a lot of
trouble.” Herschel’s face reflected green in the light of the map.
“You know that it’s against the law to have a map of
Faerie.”

“This is a map of Faerie?” Gaylord
looked down, then covered his eyes. “We gotta get out of
here.”

“Too late,” Herschel said. “We’ve seen
it. If we’re going to get in trouble, we’re going to get in
trouble.”

“It’s not against any mage
laws,” Zoe said. “Just Faerie laws.”

“Gee,” Herschel said with some force,
“guess which laws we follow.”

“You don’t have the map.” Zoe worked
at keeping her voice calm. “I own the map. It’s my map, and you’re
just looking at it. I will not give it to you. You don’t need
it.”

Unless they agree to her conditions.
Then they might need the map. But she didn’t say that.

The map was beautiful. Lots of swirls
of light, all variously colored, with drawings that looked like
Maxfield Parrish figures painted by Claude Monet.

“Wow,” Gaylord said. “It keeps
changing.”

The figures did move. So did the
shapes and the arrows and the writings—all in medieval Faerie, a
language that Zoe wasn’t fluent in. She could read modern Faerie,
and medieval wasn’t that different. But it was different enough to
make her worry.

“Of course they change,” Herschel
hissed. “Faerie’s always changing. That’s why we’re not supposed to
have a map.”

“So that you get lost?”
Zoe never did understand Faerie rules.

“So that magic is your guide,”
Herschel said.

Zoe nodded, even though she wondered
if her magic would ever be enough of a guide.

“Look,” she said, “you know my
prophecy. This is as close to Faerie as I want to go. But I was
wondering if you would locate something for me.”

“Something in Faerie?” Gaylord asked,
his tone hushed.

Zoe nodded.

“Everything moves, just like Herschel
said.” Gaylord had leaned back in the booth, his arms crossed. The
muscles seemed to have faded away, so they were magical after
all.

“Yes, I know everything moves,” Zoe
said. “But I have to know if something’s even in there.”

“Why?” Herschel asked. She had never
seen this side of him. He wasn’t drinking his beer. His expression
was serious, and his tone of voice almost frightening.

“For a client,” Zoe said.

“We don’t let strangers in Faerie,”
Herschel said.

“My client’s not going to go into
Faerie,” Zoe said.

“You can’t, either.”
Gaylord’s eyebrows met in the middle, forming a straight line
across his brow—his version of a frown.

“I’m not planning to. Just listen to
me for a minute. No questions, okay?”

“Okay.” Herschel leaned
back and frowned, too, almost as if just looking at the map was bad
for him.

“The item I’m looking for was stolen,”
Zoe said. “Before I venture into Faerie, I want to know that it’s
even there.”

“So you can steal it back?” Gaylord
shook his head. “C’mon, Zo. That’s so dangerous as to be
suicidal.”

“I don’t steal,” Zoe said. “I’m just
supposed to locate it. And you weren’t supposed to interrupt
me.”

“Sorry.” Gaylord didn’t sound sorry.
“That doesn’t count as an interruption, does it? The
sorry?”

“Let her finish,” Herschel
growled.

Zoe gave him a sideways
glance. “The item is a spinning wheel. The Faerie Kings stole it
from the Fates—”

“Thousands of years ago,” Herschel
said. “You don’t want to get near it, Zo.”

“So it’s there?” she asked. “You’ve
seen it?”

“Of course we haven’t seen it,”
Herschel said. “But it’s part of legend. It’s why Faerie is so
great, because we take magic from everyone, even other magical
peoples.”

Gaylord had a hand over his mouth.
“That’s not all,” he whispered through his fingers.

“What do you mean?” Zoe
asked.

“The Faerie Kings guard the wheel.
They think it’s important, somehow. People say they used it to
overthrow the Great Rulers.” Gaylord looked at Herschel. “We
shouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“I’d already heard the rumor,” Zoe
said. “I just need to know if the wheel is in Faerie, and if so,
where. I already did a location spell.”

She pointed at a red dot that was
constantly moving across the three-dimensional surface of the
map.

“I just want visual confirmation,” Zoe
said. “I don’t trust magic on magical items.”

“Location spells don’t work in
Faerie.” Herschel’s tone was so flat that Zoe was convinced he was
lying to her.

“They focus on the first magical
item,” Gaylord said. He had let his hand fall to his lap, his
fingers clenched. “And you know, we have a lot of magical
items.”

She had been afraid of that. Which was
why she called them.

“Look,” she said, “all I’m
asking you to do—and it would be for real money, not Faerie
money—is go into Faerie, and look for the wheel—”

“I thought you couldn’t be bought,
Zo,” Herschel said. “I thought there were ethics. Didn’t you
lecture us about ethics all those times?”

“Only about Faerie money,”
she said, trying to remember if she ever said that some things were
more valuable than money. Maybe. She might have had too much beer,
though.