Diamonds and Daggers

by Nancy Warren

  “Mistress?” I didn’t realize I’d said it aloud until my cousin Violet elbowed me and said, “Shh.”

  Suddenly, the plastic cauldron and tourist stuff didn’t seem so cute and harmless. Margaret Twigg said, “Alphonse Young, may I present Lucy Swift.”

  He looked at me and took my hand in his dry, leathery ones. I felt the shock of connection, like an electric car being plugged in, and when I glanced up, his eyes were boring into mine. They were peculiar eyes. Muddy brown but with streaks of red in them. I’d never seen a human with that color eyes before. I’d never seen a vampire with that color eyes before either. His eyes seemed to hold mine for an uncomfortably long time before he said, “I have heard of this one.”

  This one? What was I, a heifer coming to market?

  Margaret Twigg, instead of sounding impressed that he knew me, sounded irritated. “No matter what I do, she keeps far too high a profile.”

  He still held onto my hand. It was like being caressed by a lizard. “She’s young yet. But there’s great power in this one. If you train her well, she will take your place one day.” I yanked my hand out of his. Me, become the head of a coven? Oh, that was never happening.

  I glanced up at Margaret Twigg, and she looked irritable but resigned, as though this was bad news she’d already accepted. Well, thanks very much. I felt like saying, “Newsflash, not going to happen.”

  The old man nodded at a stripy-haired girl with a nose ring who wandered by. He said, “These are old friends, Matilda. I’m going to take them in the back room. See that we’re not disturbed.”

  Matilda looked as though she lived on a diet of magic mushrooms. Her eyes were glazed and vacant, but she nodded. “I’ll watch the front of the shop.”

  “Thank you, my dear.”

  And then, putting his hand on my lower back, he urged me forward. No doubt he was worried I was about to bolt, which was definitely on my mind.

  We passed through a door that, like everything else in the front of the shop, looked like it was a stage prop from the Harry Potter movies. It was gothic and arched and made of cheap pressboard painted to look like ancient timber. But when he shut the door behind us and I looked around, I didn’t feel like I was on a movie set anymore. I felt like I was in the real house of magic.

  A skeleton grinned at me, looking uncomfortably real. Cabinets contained pots and jars of ingredients. Shelves contained cauldrons, pentacles and goblets. Candles of every imaginable color filled a shelf, and below that were the books: spell books, books of shadows, and volumes about the history of the craft.

  Margaret Twigg said, “Lucy’s here for her first athame.”

  He smiled as though this was the best news he’d heard in a long time. I thought it was also the kind of smile that would-be frat boys got right before they were led into some hideous initiation ritual they might not survive.

  “Come,” he said to me, and with a snap of his fingers, a glass case I hadn’t seen before lit up. Inside it was a long, black, velvet-lined tray, and there must have been thirty or forty ceremonial daggers laid out. Some were beautiful, intricate and carved with magical symbols or had jewel-encrusted handles. Others were very plain. Some of the blades were long and thin; others were short and wide. It didn’t seem like there was a classic style.

  Mr. Young stood back and urged the others back too. He said, “Please. Step forward and choose your athame. Take your time. Let the magic come to you.”

  I liked that idea. I always felt that I was trying to pull out of me the magic everyone told me I had. But to relax and let it come to me was a joyous idea. For the first time since we’d set off on this field trip, I began to breathe properly.

  Softly, he said, “When you’re ready, point to the two or three that speak to you.”

  I walked forward and stared into the case. And I was immediately drawn to a beautiful and intricately carved dagger that had a winking purple jewel in its hilt. An amethyst, I thought. But I suspected that it had only drawn me because it was the sparkliest and the prettiest. I let my eyes move on. There were no prices listed, of course. I assumed when choosing one’s ceremonial dagger, price was no object. Still, I didn’t want to end up with a debt that would take me months to pay off.

  I looked at the more humble daggers. But none of them were speaking to me. And then I closed my eyes. I didn’t make a fancy spell. I said to myself, “Let the right one come to me.”

  I opened my eyes, and there it was. One athame looked as though it was sending out some kind of weird glow, but I don’t think it was. It was letting me know it was the one. The athame that chose me wasn’t the most elaborate or the least. It wasn’t the longest or the sharpest, the shortest or the bluntest. It was in the middle. But I could feel my palm tingling and my fingers almost curling of their own accord. It would fit in my hand, I knew it instantly. I didn’t think I’d moved a muscle, but the old man came forward.

  “You’ve made your choice.” He said it as a statement, not a question.

  I looked at him. Why was I always surprised when witches acted like witches? I really needed to get over that. I nodded. Almost as though he was making a joke, he said, “Will you need to see a selection?”

  We both knew I wouldn’t. I pointed and said, “That one.”

  He looked at the dagger and at me, and then took a sharp, sidelong glance at Margaret Twigg before he said, “Of course.”

  He didn’t open the top of the cabinet as I’d imagined, but a drawer that slid easily out. And then he didn’t pick up the dagger and hand it to me. He said, “Take what is yours.”

  The words gave me a thrilling sensation that went down my arm and into my dominant hand. I reached for the dagger, and I felt how right this was. I hadn’t even finished reaching when the dagger closed the distance between us, jumping out of the case and into my hand.

  He nodded, looking pleased. “They have bonded.”

  From another drawer, he brought out a silk bag and a larger leather bag. He instructed me always to keep the dagger inside the silk bag tucked into the leather one, and on no account was anyone else ever to touch it. I nodded. I already felt protective and a bit princessy about this dagger.

  It was mine. I hadn’t even wanted one when we’d walked into this shop. Now I felt like it was part of me.

  Margaret Twigg looked quite satisfied. She said to the old man, “You’ll come to her ceremony?”

  He smiled. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  Ceremony? Nobody told me anything about a ceremony. But I knew better than to argue. Not here, not in front of the nice man.

  Lavinia was peering at the pots and glass jars. “I’ll have the small bottle of chakra oil, please.”

  And then we all looked around and stocked up. I bought candles and a guide to using your athame that Margaret pushed on me. “Read up,” she said.

  Violet bought some crystals that I suspect were part of a spell to attract love, and Margaret Twigg bought a small bottle of black powder and a piece of obsidian.

  We went out to the front where the cash business was conducted, and the amount he charged me was less than I’d expected.

  When we got out of the shop, Margaret Twigg said, “Well, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  I thought that very much depended on what this ceremony involved. A dagger had a sharp point for a reason, and I was a little bit nervous about what that reason might turn out to be.

  When I got home, I put my new dagger carefully away in the closet where I kept all my magic props. Two powerful women in the last two days had forced important possessions on me that I didn’t want. I wondered what it meant.

  Chapter 4

  We set off in the Bentley for London bright and early on Monday. Theodore was driving, Gran was riding shotgun, and Sylvia and I were in the back seat. Sylvia had the set of jewels in a bag on her lap and both hands protectively crossed on top of them. I wondered if she’d be able to let them go when the time came for me to wear them to the gala.

  I wouldn’t be
a bit surprised if at the last moment she put them around her own neck and tried to spin some story about being her own heir. Frankly, I’d be really happy if she did that. I didn’t like being the patsy who got to wear priceless, uninsured jewels to a public event.

  Normally, I’d have expected to be sitting up front with Theodore while the two vampires gossiped in the back, but Sylvia had wanted to rehearse with me yet again on my role. And let there be no misunderstanding, it was a role I was playing.

  She even made all of us watch The Professor’s Wife. It was movie night at the vampire’s lair. Okay, maybe I hadn’t gone to NYU film school, but I did love movies. And, even taking into account that it was a silent movie in black and white, The Professor’s Wife turned out to be really corny and hackneyed. And I didn’t even get popcorn.

  Probably the reason the film was so famous and iconic was Sylvia’s performance and, of course, the Cartier jewels. Kind of in the same way that Salvador Dalí’s sets helped make Spellbound so famous. Well, that and Hitchcock directing.

  Whoever directed The Professor’s Wife was no Hitchcock. When the movie was finished, there was silence, and then Gran said, “That was lovely, dear.” As though Sylvia had baked her a cake.

  “Lucy?” she asked me, her gaze drilling into me as though she might hit oil.

  Lovely was already taken, so I went with, “Your performance made the film. And the jewels were fabulous.”

  She turned off the projector. “If anyone asks your opinion, you’ll remark on my subtle, layered performance. They used to say I could break a heart with one glance from my brilliant eyes. Do you need me to write that down for you?”

  “No, I’ll remember it. Layered, subtle performance. Heartbreaking eyes.”

  And now those eyes were looking at me as though they’d break a lot more than my heart if I screwed this up. She’d allowed me to choose my own clothing for the meeting, for which I was grateful.

  At least for now I felt like myself. I was wearing my best jeans, flat shoes, a comfortable, white cotton shirt and a gorgeous slouchy sweater in blue that Gran had knitted me. I also wore the diamond necklace that Sylvia had given me. Perhaps it was a reminder that I was a woman accustomed to more modest jewels. I’d put my hair up into a simple, messy updo, mostly to keep it off my neck.

  Theodore took the M40, which was the fastest, most direct route, though not the prettiest. With no traffic, we’d be in London in an hour and a half. On the way, Sylvia explained a bit more about the project. “Rune Films is remaking the film,” she informed me. “They’re a young company, but they’ve had some hits. Alexandra was a sleeper hit about Queen Alexandra. She married Edward VII, of course, but the movie was mainly about how she began the Red Cross.”

  “Really?” I made a mental note to see the film.

  “Her jewels were quite lovely but nothing, of course, like mine,” Sylvia said, clasping her jewels more tightly. I didn’t know why she’d brought them along. Maybe for good luck.

  “There’s a second producer involved. Man Drake films. I don’t know so much about them. The head producer there is a man named Simon Dent. He’s famously reclusive. Models himself on Howard Hughes, I should think. He’s never seen but has deep pockets, both of which make him very popular.”

  Traffic wasn’t too bad, and as we drove into Central London, I got as excited as I always did coming into this beautiful city. The producer’s offices were in a high-rise sandwiched between an insurance company and an investment firm in Soho.

  I’d imagined driving to a backlot somewhere as though this were Hollywood, but nobody made movies here. This was where the planning went on. Theodore drew up in front of a Victorian red brick building with white arched windows on the main floor that housed a busy coffee shop.

  They wished me luck, and I found the main door and the nameplate for Rune Films. I pushed the buzzer to be let in and took the elevator to the eighth floor, where Rune Films was located. When the elevators opened, I was greeted by a slim man with thinning, fair hair who looked to be in his early forties.

  His gaze immediately went to my neck. Perhaps he’d hoped I’d be wearing the jewels to the meeting. I’d have had to drive a wooden stake through Sylvia’s heart and pluck that bag out of her cold, dead hands before that would have happened.

  The flicker of disappointment in his pale, blue eyes came and went so quickly I almost could have imagined it. He said, with a boyish smile, “Lucy Swift, I presume?”

  I nodded.

  “I’m Edgar Smith. I’m Simon Dent’s business manager. Mr. Dent runs Man Drake films, you know. We’re thrilled to be part of the team. I’ll take you in now to meet Annabel Holroy and the rest of the team. Annabel is the creative director, and she’s marvelous. You’re going to love her. Come this way.”

  He led me down a hallway, and I glimpsed open cubicles with people working on computers, a few offices where small groups were meeting or a person was on the phone. There were movie posters up on the walls, but other than that, I could have been in an insurance or an investment office.

  There were no movie stars rubbing shoulders, no films being made. As we walked along, he said, “It’s a little quiet at the moment. We’ve got a movie in editing in the back suite of rooms over there.” He gestured to a hallway that led off from the right-hand side. Then he waved his arm in the left direction. “Accounting is down there, and straight ahead of us are the producers’ offices.”

  “It’s very exciting,” I said. “I’ve never been in a movie production office before.”

  This was true and one of the allowable remarks that Sylvia had cleared for me. He turned to smile at me. “This isn’t the exciting part. Wait until the movie premiere. You’ll love it. Naturally, you’ll have a VIP seat.” He dropped his voice to a low murmur so I had to lean closer to hear him. “The producers are putting a lot behind this one. They’re very excited. Especially that you were generous enough to lend us the Cartier set.”

  I smiled, but the primary message I was here to deliver was that while Sylvia was perfectly happy for me to wear the jewels for this gala and to have them photographed for advertising purposes, she would not be letting them out of her hands for some actress to wear during filming. They’d have to make a copy. I doubted very much there would be an issue over that. I couldn’t imagine the insurance liability the production company would have to take on to use the real jewels in filming.

  He ushered me into a glass-walled conference room, where there were six people already sitting around a table. All of them rose, and Edgar Smith made the introductions. “Lucy Swift,” he said, “come and meet Annabel.”

  Annabel stood up where she’d been sitting at the head of the table and came around to shake my hand. She was in her mid-thirties, I’d guess, and looked both smoothly professional and also as though she wasn’t getting enough sleep. There were dark circles under her eyes. Still, she beamed with excitement. “We’re so excited about this production. We’re doing everything we can to honor the original. Your”—here she paused as though trying to remember something and then said—“great-aunt? Was Sylvia Strand your great-aunt?”

  I smiled back, pleased that we’d done so much rehearsing. “Not an aunt by blood,” I said, following the script. “Sylvia was a cousin, but my grandmother was her favorite cousin, and so her estate passed through my grandmother to my mother to me.”

  I didn’t know how he’d done it, but Theodore had managed, with the help of Hester and Sylvia’s undead lawyer, to create a nonexistent ancestry line from Sylvia to me, and there was paperwork filed where paperwork ought to be in case anyone bothered to check. The truth was, Sylvia had never left her goods to anyone. She still had them.

  She nodded and tapped herself lightly on the side of the head. “I have a newborn at home. My brain is mush.”

  Edgar Smith chuckled softly. “Annabel’s mush brain would be anyone else’s steel-trap mind.”

  She shook her head at his flattery and made the rest of the introductions. />
  Beside her was Bryce Teddington, who was introduced as the accountant for the project. He was lean and nervous. His wispy, black hair was in a bad comb-over that he’d glued to his scalp with Brylcreem. He wore glasses, which enlarged his eyes to almost cartoon-character proportions. He seemed to be muttering to himself, and even sitting, he stooped.

  A young woman about my age was a production assistant named Emma. She was tall and slim, with long brown hair, big brown eyes. One of those people who look effortlessly gorgeous. Finally, I met an executive producer, Peter. They all had last names, but I soon gave up trying to remember them. If I tried to remember everyone’s first names, I had a chance. Name cards would have been even better. I saw the quick glance they all gave to my neck the same way Edgar Smith had. But no one mentioned my lack of bling. I was invited to sit at the opposite end of the table and offered coffee, tea, water, juices, and even champagne, had I wanted it. I chose a coffee. Anything to keep me sharp.

  I supposed I’d fallen into the trap of thinking that movie people would be as glamorous as movie stars. What I’d discovered, if this company was typical of most, was that the glamour was on one side of the screen and the people who made it happen on the other side of the screen. The dull side.

  We made small talk, but it all centered around the movie. Mostly it was a bit of a sales pitch. Annabel outlined first how excited they were to be remaking this amazing film. “It was one of the movies they taught us in film school.” She glanced at the ceiling and then down to the tabletop. And then, almost as an afterthought, she said, “When I got my master’s in Film Studies at NYU.”

  “That’s cool,” I said. No doubt she expected me to jump in with some anecdote about my Ivy League education, but I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t think my two years of business college was going to impress this bunch.