Capitol Magic (5 page)

And what had it gotten me? Nothing but a dozen mini-cupcakes for my pain. Swallowing a rueful sigh, I turned to retrace my steps along the garden pathway.

And I nearly walked into a man.

He was just about my height, dressed from head to toe in black. His tight T-shirt emphasized a chest and abs that probably took forever to maintain in a gym. I was surprised that his trousers were leather; the creases were just one breath short of obscene. This guy was whip thin, with close-shorn black hair and almond eyes that seemed to take in everything about me in a heartbeat. He lingered slightly over my tote bag, but I quickly reassured myself that no one could know what was hidden inside.

“Girlfriend,” he said. “Boxes from Cake Walk do
not
head away from this house.” He reached around me and worked the latch on the front door, nodding for me to precede him into the cottage. Somewhat befuddled, I started to introduce myself, but my host was already crossing to a door that led to a flight of steps, to a basement. “Jane, dear,” he called in a sing-song voice. “You're failing at your hostess duties again.”

“What, Neko?” came a muffled response that still managed to convey annoyance. There were footsteps on the stairs, and then a rather rumpled Jane Madison stepped into the living room.

“And at your fashion duties,” the man said, sniffing in distaste as he eyed Jane's dusty sweatpants and dirt-streaked T-shirt. “Really, Jane. Do I have to come over here every morning to lay out your clothes?”

Jane's annoyance seemed more rote than real. She nodded toward me and said, “I take it you've met my familiar? Neko, Sarah. Sarah, Neko.”

He whirled around on his leather-clad heel. “The sphinx!” He fluttered a hand above his heart, as if he were about to swoon. “Why, charmed, I'm sure!”

“Pleased to meet you,” I said, a bit uncertainly. And then I said to Jane, “I'm so sorry. I should have realized you'd be busy.”

She grimaced. “I'm packing. I need to be out of this place by the end of the week.”

“Where are you moving to?”

Jane sighed and looked aggrieved. “For now, to Melissa's apartment, above Cake Walk. I don't know what I'm going to do, long-term.”

Neko cast her a curious look. “Why, I think —”

“No, you don't,” she interrupted tartly. “I do not need to hear about anything you think.”

“Is that any way to treat someone who has come by to help you pack?” Neko sounded wounded.

“You're only here because you think there might be ice cream in the freezer.”

“Is there?”

The hopeful look on his face made me laugh. I gestured with the pastry box. “These aren't ice cream, but I brought cupcakes as a treat. Maybe I can help you pack boxes for a little while, and then we can all take a break?”

Jane studied me for a moment. I was pretty sure she didn't buy my innocent act for a second, but she made a show of looking at her watch before she said, “Sarah, why don't you and I work in the basement? Neko, you can get started in the kitchen. We can take a cupcake break in an hour or so.”

That was fine with me. She and I would have time to talk privately, to discuss Maurice Richardson and the missing books. “Deal,” I said.

Neko reached out for the paperboard box. “I'll take that.”

“Neko,” Jane warned. “You may
not
lick off the frosting.”

“Not even the buttercream?” he pouted.

“Especially not the buttercream.” Despite the dire tone in her voice, she obviously trusted him. He took the box and pranced into the kitchen.

Soon enough, Jane had led me down the stairs to a veritable secret clubhouse of witchy paraphernalia. My jaw dropped at the display of mysterious leather sacks, the wands, the small iron cauldrons. But most of all, I was astonished by the books—shelf after shelf after shelf. A dozen boxes were stacked in the corner, apparently already filled and sealed, but there were enough volumes to fill another forty, at least.

“This is incredible,” I breathed.

“This is a mess,” Jane corrected. “Even after I get these packed up, I don't know where I'm going to keep them. Melissa certainly doesn't have the room.”

“I do,” I said. The words were out of my mouth before I'd really thought about them. The books would easily fit inside the Old Library.

Of course, that would mean dragging in dozens of boxes past the courthouse security guards. Raising awareness of the plain metal door at the end of the courthouse hallway. Lugging each container down five flights of stairs. Stacking them somewhere out of the way, somewhere where James could not complain. I winced.

“Don't worry about it,” Jane said when she saw my expression. “I'll figure something out.” She hefted an empty box onto the leather couch and started packing the contents of the nearest shelf. “I take it you had something you wanted to talk about in private? Something worth coming over here when you should be sound asleep?”

I nodded, grateful that she understood the importance of my presence at this time of day.

“I pulled the records on Richardson's house,” I said, lowering my voice to nearly a whisper. “The files are all sealed, and they'll stay that way until his trial begins, several months from now. But I got in.”

She didn't ask how I'd managed that. She wisely didn't want to know. Instead, she prompted, “And you found…”

“Richardson's house is sealed with —”

“Ja-ane!” The sing-song voice cascaded down the stairs, ten times louder than my stealthy whisper had been. Jane and I jumped apart like children caught playing with toy guns in a schoolyard. I ran my thumb over my coral ring as Neko slipped into view on the steps. “Did you want me to pack each dish separately?”

“Yes, Neko,” she said, and I saw her pulse beat in her throat.

“Perfect!” he said. And he leaped back upstairs.

“Sorry about that,” Jane muttered.

“No problem.” I lowered my voice and started again. “The house is protected with a special force field, one generated by —”

“Ja-ane!” This time, we didn't jump, but Jane sighed in exasperation as Neko hopped down the stairs. “Did you want me to use newspaper to protect the dishes?”

“Yes, Neko,” Jane said again. This time, she bit off the words.

“Wonderful!” he said, and he flashed back toward the kitchen.

I rushed to complete my news before the familiar could return. “We sphinxes have special seals, called Sekhmet's Chains. They can only be broken with —”

“Ja-ane!”

“By Hecate's —” the witch started to swear, but she caught herself. “I am so sorry,” she said to me. “He's like a child. He's just going to keep this up until he gets to eat a cupcake.”

Despite everything—my tension about Richardson in general, my guilt about the item stashed in my tote bag, my worry about what James and Chris would do when they learned of my plan—despite all of that, I laughed. “Well, then, let him eat cake.” I followed Jane up the stairs and into the kitchen.

“What, Neko?” Jane asked her familiar. “What did you want this time? What was so important that it couldn't possibly wait one single, solitary hour?”

He tilted his head at an angle that might have indicated shame in another creature, one with a conscience. “I just wondered if the two of you wanted some tea. Something to keep you going while you work so hard down there.” He waved toward the stove, and a kettle that was clearly about to boil. I glanced at the table, and he had already laid out plates, mugs, and a huge pitcher of cream.

“You're impossible,” Jane said.

“Thank you,” he answered, very seriously.

Jane waved me to a seat at the table. I stashed my tote bag under my chair, wondering if the witch and her familiar could sense its contents, if they understood what I had brought into their midst. I hoped not. It would be simpler if I could spare them the details.

The kettle shrieked, and Neko made short work out of filling the waiting teapot. Before the tea had seeped for even a minute, he poured a dollop into his mug, flashing me a winning smile. “I don't like it to brew too strong.” I didn't get a chance to comment before he topped off the single swallow of weak tea with the better part of the cream pitcher's contents. “Ah,” he said, taking a tiny sip. “Perfect.”

Jane shook her head, and then she opened the box of cupcakes. They were nestled in their tiny cups, each decorated by an expert at Cake Walk.

Neko's fingers started to snake toward the treats, but Jane slapped the back of his wrist. She pushed the box toward me. “Please,” she said. “Ignore him. Guests should always get the first choice.” She delivered that last pointed sentence directly to her familiar. Neko made a face at Jane—an expression I suspected was not strictly approved by the witchcraft powers that be.

This was all going too quickly. We were going to eat the cupcakes, and then I'd be out of excuses. I'd need to leave, without having had a chance to tell Jane my plan. Without the moon rising. Without the cover of the meeting I had contrived between James and Chris.

I needed to slow things down.

Even as Neko started bouncing in his chair, I asked, “Have you ever played Cupcake Tarot?”

Jane shook her head. Neko looked like he thought I was trying to cut him out of dessert entirely. I laughed at his crestfallen expression and said, “It's silly, really. But Cake Walk's cupcakes are perfect for the game.”

I gestured for Neko to pass me the pad of paper and pen that were stashed beside the telephone. I wrote the numbers one through twelve on the cardboard dividers between the cupcakes, and then I created a dozen slips of paper, labeling each with a corresponding number. “Okay,” I said, jumbling the folded papers in my cupped hands. “Usually, we choose one number to represent the past, another for the present, and a third for the future. Somehow, though,”—I cast a look at the increasingly anxious Neko—”I don't think anyone wants to wait that long. So let's each choose one number, and the corresponding cupcake will represent our futures.”

Jane made a great show of selecting her paper, digging past the ones that were on the surface. “Seven!” she exclaimed, when she finally unfolded the slip.

I pointed to the box. “A banana split.” Whipped cream frosting shimmered on top of rich banana cake. I knew from past experience that the center was a confusion of chocolate, strawberry, and pineapple sauces, swirled into one sweet, sticky mess.

Jane dipped her index finger into the whipped cream, ignoring Neko's slight whine. “And what meaning am I supposed to give to this?”

“That's the mystery of the Cupcake Tarot,” I said, making my voice spooky. “Maybe things are going to get a little mixed up in your life.”

“I hardly need a cupcake to tell me that,” Jane said, ruefully looking at the packing boxes in the corner of the kitchen.

“Or maybe you're going to split from your past,” I said. I meant the words to be light, a diversion. They cast a shadow over the witch's face, though, and I realized that she feared being split from something. Or someone.

Cursing myself for bringing down the mood, I said, “I'll draw next!”

I plunged my hand into the pile of numbers, plucking out the first one I touched. “Two! A Lemon Lie.” I stared at the vanilla buttercream spread over a hidden layer of lemon curd, all on top of citrus-infused cake.

I knew that Cake Walk called the sweets “Lies” because of the unexpected contrast between the sweet frosting and the tart curd. Nevertheless, the name made me distinctly uneasy. My very presence in Jane's cottage was a sort of lie. I had created a diversion to keep my true plans from James. Chris was entangled in this too, of course—I only had to glance at my tote bag, with its incriminating contents, to remember that. In fact, the lemon of my cupcake just emphasized my confusing bond to my sphinx mentor. The scent of lemon blossoms had accompanied my earliest dreams about my powers, my first awareness of my unique heritage.

“Well, you two certainly look disappointed,” Neko said. “Allow me to show you how these things are done.” With great flair, he selected a number. “Twelve,” he proclaimed, displaying my handwriting as if it were something precious. “And that means my future is a … Hot … Spiced … Plum.” His voice fell on each word as he named his prize. The cupcake was filled with rich fruit, dark as chocolate because of its spicy molasses base. Instead of frosting, it was finished with a caramel glaze. Neko looked at both of us, his eyes wide with disappointment. “What am I supposed to do with
that
?”

Jane laughed. “You drew the number. Perhaps it's time to forget about traditional frosting. Broaden your horizons.”

“Oh, my horizons are plenty
broad
, girlfriend.” He managed to convey an entire library's worth of insinuation in one solitary adjective. Even as Jane and I took healthy bites out of our cupcakes, Neko darted a finger toward the vanilla frosting on a nearby White Hot Chili Pepper. He sucked away the illicit bounty with a noisy sigh of satisfaction.

“Neko!” Jane shouted.

The familiar clearly dreaded a lecture on appropriate cupcake manners. I saw the glint of desperation in his eyes, the need to divert Jane's attention from his failing. And I saw the precise instant he identified his escape.

His mouth curled into a smile, and he leaned back in his chair. “Why, what do you have in that bag, Sarah?” He nodded toward my tote. Just in case Jane was inclined to ignore the diversion, he then pointed directly at the canvas, raising his eyebrows and cocking his head at the perfect angle to suggest utter, undying interest.

I was going to throttle the guy. I was going to leap across the table and close my fingers around his throat. I was going to harness the skills of my ancestors, the ancient art of strangulation that they had perfected to protect the vampires they were sworn to guard. I would make Neko regret ever calling attention to my bag, to my entire secret ploy.