Strange Fates (Nyx Fortuna) (16 page)

There wasn’t a trace of magic anywhere in the house, but I had bigger problems.

Our knees bumped under the table and I sucked in my breath. I could barely think when she was around, and I wasn’t sure if it was entirely the residual effects of the spell or something else. The thought didn’t thrill me.

“I’m going for a walk,” I said. “Can you manage to stay out of trouble while I’m gone?”

Elizabeth looked as though she might cry. I reached over and kissed her forehead. “I won’t be gone long.” I couldn’t resist and kissed the dusting of freckles on her nose, too.

She finally smiled, which was the only thing that mattered.

I tore myself away from her before the dregs of the libido spell made me do something I’d regret. As my gaze fell on her full bottom lip, I knew it would have been worth it. Instead, I grabbed my jacket and left.

I walked around the lake several times, trying to get the spell out of my system. I finally stopped at the bench and stared at the water. It had become my favorite thinking spot.

Someone else had been there recently. I caught the gleam of a bottle cap and bent down to pick it up. Parsi Enterprises Bottling Company. I ran a fingertip over the smooth surface while I thought.

Could I forgive Elizabeth for deceiving me? I tossed the bottle cap into the air and caught it, over and over, while I thought.

I heard footsteps on the path. Elizabeth sat next to me on the bench. The potion was still in my system and I had to force myself not to reach for her. A tiny part of my brain said,
Why not? It’s what you want
. But there were bigger things at stake than my love life, and I kept my hands clenched on my knees.

“There you are,” she said. ”I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“We need to talk,” I said finally. It was difficult for my brain to function through a fog of lust.

I turned my attention back to the lake again and pretended not to notice how great she smelled, like gardenias and freesias.

“I’m going back to the house,” Elizabeth said. “It’s not the smartest idea for us to be alone together until…”

“The spell wears off,” I finished for her. “I’ll see you back there in a few minutes.”

After she left, the naiad appeared, floating on the surface of the water a few feet from where I sat. Her smooth blue skin was barely covered by her long dark hair and the thick necklaces of sailor’s rope, pebbles, and old coins.

“Eavesdropping, Willow?” I asked. “I wondered when I would see you again.”

“She doesn’t love you, you know.”

I tried to ignore the twinge her words caused.

“What do you know about love?” I asked.

“As much as anyone,” she replied.

“A relationship with a naiad tends to be dangerous,” I pointed out. “Not to mention short and painful.”

She moved closer, until she was barely covered by the water. I felt the attraction and she wasn’t even trying very hard. I was under a libido spell and it was a dangerous time to talk to the naiad. More dangerous than usual. She could suck the marrow from my bones and I’d ask for more, as worked up as I was.

“And a relationship with this Elizabeth, you do not think of it as dangerous to you?”

“Of course not,” I said, but we both knew I was lying.

“Then you are a fool,” she said. She flipped her hair and disappeared back into the water. I stared at the spot where she’d disappeared. She was probably right.

Chapter Twenty

Eternity Road was beginning to feel like a home, which was something I’d never had. Working there had the added benefit of helping me look for my mother’s charms.

Talbot waved in the general direction of the front of the store. “The non-magical items are strictly for the civilians. Your job is to keep the civilians out of my hair.”

“Civilians?”

He grimaced. “Those tourists who wander in looking for a cheap present or something to replace Aunt Edna’s china, which they trashed last Christmas.”

“Oh, those civilians.”

“Keep them away from the good stuff,” he said. “If anyone wants to sell anything interesting, you find me or Dad. No exceptions.”

I nodded. “I have no interest in haggling with pixies and hags over their trinkets.”

The bell above the front door jangled and we both looked up.

“Your little shadow is here again,” Talbot said dismissively, but his eyes followed Naomi through the store as she tried on a cowboy hat, a flapper dress, and a motorcycle helmet.

Naomi and I had been spending a lot of time together. We’d had lunch together during the week when I was working at Parsi Enterprises. And on the weekends, she’d been dropping by Eternity Road on a regular basis. I knew I should discourage her, but I liked spending time with her.

“What does your girlfriend think of your stalker?” he asked sarcastically, but I detected a note of jealousy in his voice.

“She’s not my stalker,” I replied in a low voice. “She’s my bosses’ daughter, remember? And the girl you are obviously lusting after.”

That shut him up. I left him at the cash register and walked over to where my cousin was making faces at the stuffed bear.

“What’s up, Naomi?”

“You haven’t been at the Y lately,” she said.

I made a vague gesture. “I’ve been busy lately.”

She looked around at the store, which was devoid of customers. “I see,” she said drily.

I shrugged. “Unusually slow day.” Actually, almost every weekend was like that. I wondered how Ambrose could afford to keep me on his payroll, but then I remembered how much he’d wanted for my mother’s lapis lazuli ring.

“Can I help?” she asked. I couldn’t shoo her away, not when Talbot was giving her that melting look when he thought no one was looking. He would make an ass of himself if I tried a blatant setup, so I’d have to be a little subtler.

I handed her a stack of vintage fabric, lace doilies, and purses. “Here, sort this.”

“Have you seen much of Minneapolis since you moved here?” she asked.

I froze. “How did you know I just moved here?”

She shrugged. “Didn’t you tell me that?”

I hadn’t said anything to her, but I had told Sawyer I was new in town. Had they been talking about me? “What about you?”

“We moved here a few years ago, when my aunt Deci got sick.”

I froze. “Deci?” I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like the next words out of her mouth.

“It’s short for Decima.”

“That is unusual,” I said. “What’s the matter with her?”

“We don’t know, but it’s possible someone tried to poison her.” Her attention was on the vintage fabrics she was folding, but her hands were shaking.

“Poison? Who would try to do that?” And who could get close enough to a Fate to try to kill her? Gaston popped into my mind, but I wasn’t sure even he was that psycho.

“We’re not the most popular family in Minneapolis,” Naomi said. “What about you?” she continued. “What’s your family like?”

“Dead,” I replied. “My family is dead.”

My tone convinced her not to pursue the subject.

“I still think you should have dinner at my house one night. Now go put these on the shelf.” She handed me a pile of expertly folded material.

I turned around to do as she asked and almost ran into Talbot. “For god’s sake,” I whispered, “ask her out already.”

“You think she would go out with me?”

“I’ll close up tonight,” I told him. “Ask her out. Right now.”

I made myself look busy while they had a whispered conversation. Naomi nodded and Talbot beamed. They were perfect together, if they didn’t kill each other first.

Could I really trust my cousin not to run home to Mommy Dearest and tell her where I was? Maybe I was being foolish, but I did trust her. It wouldn’t be because of her that the Fates found me.

I had a cousin I truly liked, a friend I was starting to count on, and a girlfriend I might possibly even love. But if I didn’t figure out where my thread of fate was before my aunts did, it would all get taken away.

Talbot and Naomi left hand in hand at around five and not one person stepped into the store after that.

I amused myself by having a one-way conversation with the stuffed bear.

It was about five minutes to closing when the bell above the door jangled loudly. I jumped and I swear the bear snickered.

He wore a tattered black trench coat, a mangy fedora pulled down low on his head, and a hand-knit scarf wound tightly around his neck. Actually, I wasn’t absolutely positive that the figure was male after all. It was hard to tell by the way he or she was dressed, but something about the figure’s posture suggested male to me.

The skittish way he walked around the store set my already frayed nerves on edge. I assumed that he was homeless and had come in to get warm.

“We close in five minutes,” I said shortly. “Is there something I can help you with?”

He reached a hand into the voluminous pocket of his coat and placed a small object on the counter. “How much will you give me for this?”

An emerald frog gazed up at me with ruby eyes. From my mother’s necklace, I was sure of it.

I resisted the urge to snatch it up immediately, but my hands shook with the effort it took to restrain myself.

“Where did you get this? Did you steal it?”

“If you’re not interested…” A hand reached out to take back the item.

I gripped his forearm tightly to stop him from pocketing the frog, and to keep my mother’s favorite enchantment from disappearing. “I’m interested. How much?”

He cringed and I realized he was frightened so I let him go. He tripped over an old steamer trunk in his haste to get away. His hat fell off and revealed an older man with salt-and-pepper hair. He turned his head quickly, but not before I saw what he’d been hiding.

It looked as though someone had taken a hot iron to his face, puckering the flesh on the left side but leaving the right intact. He had been a handsome man once. He smelled of cheap whiskey and long-held regret. He could have been one of any number of the ubiquitous homeless inhabiting any urban area. There was something familiar about him.

“Do I know you?”

He shook his head. “I very much doubt it.”

A stranger who only looked familiar, then.

I helped him up. His hands were soft, without any calluses or rough spots that would mark him as a laborer. His clothes, although foul smelling and ragged, had the look of custom tailoring. A wealthy man fallen on hard times or simply someone who was allergic to physical work?

“I was a doctor once,” he said, as if reading my mind.

I arched an eyebrow. “What happened? And how did you get this frog?”

He put his hat back on and tied the scarf more securely around the lower part of his face. “She asked me to give it to you,” he muttered. “You must keep it from them.”

“Who asked you to give it to me? From whom? Who should I keep it from?”

He stared at me like I was stupid. “The Fates, of course.”

“What did you say?” Who was this person and how did he get my mother’s favorite knickknack? Maybe it wasn’t just a knickknack. Maybe it was what I’d been looking for my whole life.

I advanced toward him and he stumbled and fell again.

I held out my hand, but he ignored it and got up slowly and painfully. “This was a mistake.”

I gave him all the cash I had in my wallet. “Take this. Please.”

The bell above the door rang again and I turned instinctively, but there was no one there. When I turned back around, the man was gone. The emerald frog, however, was on the counter. I picked it up and turned the emerald figure onto its back. There it was, etched into the gem. My mother’s curlicue
F
. For Fortuna.

Had I found my thread of fate? I’d searched all over the world for it and then a stranger walks in the pawnshop and hands it to me? It seemed too coincidental to be believed. But he said he’d known my mother.

I added the frog to the chain around my neck. My hands shook as I returned it to its place. I waited, but I didn’t feel any different. I touched the empty links where the remaining charms should be.

“Four more,” I said aloud. “I’ll find them.”

I locked up for the night and went to my little apartment above the pawnshop. I lay in bed and tried to read, but my mind kept going back to the man and his strange behavior. I punched the pillow half the night. When I did finally fall asleep, the stranger’s face followed me into my dreams.

Chapter Twenty-One

I reported back for work at Parsi on Monday. None of the Wyrd Sisters or Sawyer made an appearance, though. It seemed as though the HR manager had tattled on me or something, because the whole place was on lockdown. I was beginning to think my fake job was a waste of time, and being friendly around people I hated was wearying.

I was exhausted by the time I made it home. I’d just cracked a beer when there was a knock at the door and Ambrose’s face appeared in my doorway.

“How are you settling in?” he asked.

“Not much to settle.” I gestured around the room.

“I think we have a dining room table and chairs in the storage room. You can have them if you can find them,” he said.

“Great,” I said.

“I’ll show you where we keep the furniture,” he said. We headed down to the basement and he unlocked a double door. We stepped inside a room that was crammed with stuff. His storage room was a treasure trove. I scooped up a threadbare velvet Victorian fainting couch, a rickety table and chairs, and even an old record player.

“You’re sure it’s okay if I take all this stuff?” I asked Ambrose.

He gave me an amused look. “It’s just been sitting there, gathering dust. Of course I’m sure.”

“It’s amazing,” I said. I picked up a windup merry-go-round and turned the knob gently. Tinny music came on as the tiny horse went up and down.

“I never throw anything out,” he said. “You never know when you might need it.”

“How do you find anything in here?” I asked.

“Believe it or not, it’s organized. This area, for instance, is where I keep the good stuff.”

“Antiques?” I spotted a Victorian wheel of fortune and an old pinball machine.