Simply Irresistible

by Grayson, Kristine

  “Ariel.” Blackstone’s voice was sharp. “Don’t ever threaten the Fates.”

  “It’s all right,” Dex said, his tone laconic. “They don’t have any power any more. Or have they forgotten to tell you that part?”

  Nora, Blackstone, Vari, and Ariel turned toward him, their shock so overpowering that Vivian would have taken another step backward if Dex hadn’t still been holding her in place.

  Vivian had no idea why Dex had told the group that the Fates had no power. She could sense it was important—at least as far as he was concerned. He was thinking that no one would help the Fates if they still had their magic.

  Given the anger radiating from the men across from Vivian, she realized that Dex might be right.

  “We were going to get to that,” Clotho said.

  “It’s not something you announce the moment you come into a room,” Lachesis said.

  “Besides,” Atropos said, “it’s not permanent.”

  “You hope,” Dex said.

  Vivian felt a prickling run up her spine. She glanced at the front door. They were being watched; she was certain of it.

  But she couldn’t see anyone standing at the door. She could barely see through the darkened windows. Only shadowy forms existed out there, and none of them seemed to be close to the restaurant.

  Yet she knew that someone was watching. Someone from outside. Someone who shouldn’t have been watching at all.

  “Excuse me,” she said.

  Dex glanced at her, but no one else seemed to notice. The rest of the group was looking at the Fates.

  “No power?” Vari said, a gleam in his beautiful blue eyes as he looked at the Fates. “You mean I can turn them into garden gnomes?”

  Vivian felt Dex stiffen beside her. He was worried about the Fates. He’d been worried about how they would treat him, and now his innate kindness made him concerned for them.

  Vivian wanted to slip her arm around his back and reassure him that everything would be all right. But something in his body language told her that he didn’t want to be touched like that. He wanted to focus on the conversation around them.

  “You know,” Blackstone said as Vari came to his side, “they’ve always opted for beauty whenever they’ve changed forms. Maybe we should let them know what it’s like to be at a disadvantage.”

  “Like you’ve known,” Vari said.

  Blackstone shrugged. “They had me deal with other issues. Prolonged fights, failed spells.”

  The prickly feeling grew, and exacerbated the pain in Vivian’s neck. Her sense of another presence, a powerful presence, grew.

  “Excuse me,” she said again, but no one looked at her, not even Dex.

  He was watching the Fates, who were cringing against the kitchen door.

  “You know, I’ve never been one for vengeance,” Vari said, “except, well, when I was young, but—”

  “I have, even now.” Blackstone wasn’t smiling. In fact, his expression terrified Vivian. They weren’t going to help the Fates. They were going to harm the Fates.

  “Gentlemen,” Nora said. “You deserved the punishments you got and you know it. Let’s move on.”

  “I don’t know, Nora,” Ariel said. “I’m not real fond of these ladies either.”

  “They did their jobs. They rehabilitated Sancho and they—”

  “Stop sounding like a lawyer,” Blackstone said.

  “I am a lawyer,” Nora snapped. “And what you’re proposing will get you in trouble with the Fates.”

  “Who are standing right here,” said Blackstone, narrowing his gaze.

  “But their replacements aren’t,” Nora said. “Believe me, your Powers That Be—”

  As she said this, the Fates did half of their genuflection. They spread their arms, but they didn’t lower their heads. They kept their gazes on the men they’d come to for help.

  “—won’t allow your magical system to go without its judiciary-slash-law enforcement wing.”

  “Actually…” Dex started, but Vivian poked him in the side. She was developing a fondness for the Fates, and she didn’t want this crew to know that they’d been replaced by some helpless teenage girls.

  Dex gave her a look, then said nothing more.

  “Punishment in this case,” Nora was saying, “might be a lot more severe because you should know better.”

  “And it would be your second offense,” said Ariel, tapping a finger against her teeth as she thought about this.

  “No, Blackstone’s second. I’m well past three-strikes-and-you’re-out country.” Vari sighed and pulled out a chair with one foot. Then he sat down rather heavily, keeping his arms crossed and glaring at the Fates. “I’m not really willing to help you.”

  “I don’t think it matters,” Vivian said. The tingling on the back of her neck had grown worse. “Because—”

  “Neither am I,” Blackstone said to the Fates. “I won’t get in your way, but I’m not real fond of you ladies.”

  “You asked us for help,” Clotho said.

  “At the end, with Ealhswith. And we helped,” Lachesis said.

  “We didn’t have to,” Atropos said. “We bent some rules for you.”

  The tingling was almost unbearable. “Please,” Vivian said. “Will someone listen—?”

  A thick skein of rope dropped from the ceiling and lassoed all three Fates. Ariel reached for them, then backed off as if she had been burned. Dexter dove forward, reaching for the rope as he did, but he seemed to be moving in slow motion.

  The lasso tightened around the Fates and yanked them upward, just as Dex reached them. He grabbed for them, but his fingers missed their kicking feet.

  The Fates were pulled into the air. They screamed, snapping their fingers, probably trying to do a spell.

  Blackstone watched, his mouth open. Vari tilted his head back in surprise.

  “Stop sitting there!” Nora shouted as she ran forward. “Do something!”

  The Fates disappeared through the ceiling. Dexter slid against the floor, and slammed into the wall, the thud echoing throughout the building. He lay there, hunched, eyes closed.

  Vivian hurried to his side. She had no sense of him, and no sense of the Fates either.

  They were gone, as if they had never been. The rest of the group was staring at the ceiling, but Vivian looked at Dex.

  She couldn’t tell if he was breathing.

  She wasn’t even sure if he was still alive.

  TEN

  ERIS SAT ON the warm concrete steps and leaned against the metal railing. Anyone watching her would have thought she was observing her anchor describe the changing scene for the camera trained on him.

  In truth, she could have cared less how Noah Sturgis described the changes occurring in Portland. She was concentrating instead on manipulating her puppet.

  The woman she had chosen had been an elderly schoolteacher (now retired) who had emerged from her apartment to watch the chaos in the streets. She had attracted Eris’s attention because the woman, with her formidable chin, silver-gray hair, and regal manner, looked like a stereotypical witch.

  So Eris had made her one just for the day. Witch for a Day—probably not a concept show that would work on her cable network, but one that she aired privately every now and then.

  Eris smiled. The magic she used to control her puppet, once mastered, was simple and required little energy. What required energy was keeping a mental eye on her puppet’s progress while Eris pretended she was doing nothing at all.

  She had sent Strife into the building across the street to see if he could find the Fates. Eris had already known they were gone, but she wanted to keep Strife busy and out of her way. The last thing she needed was her son to distract her at the wrong moment.

  The crowd still milled in the street, occasionally glancing at the building that had been winking all morning. The winking had stopped, of course, once whoever had done the protect had figured out what was going on, but that didn’t stop the crowd from hoping
that the magic would continue.

  No one noticed when Eris made her elderly puppet disappear, and no one noticed when the old woman popped up again on the roof of Quixotic’s building, carrying a length of rope that Eris spelled to this location from a nearby hardware store.

  Eris dumped most of her magical abilities into the puppet, and then controlled the woman from a distance. With the flick of a thought, she got the woman to spell the rope, and then complete a series of complex maneuvers that eventually allowed her to lasso the Fates.

  Once those creatures reached the roof, then Eris would have the puppet spell them to Eris’s own secret hideaway—her lair, as her son always called it.

  The Fates were sliding up through the building, floor by floor, terrifying tenants and screaming for help. Eris particularly liked hearing the Fates scream, and she wished she could prolong the sensation.

  The terror in their voices gave her great pleasure.

  Eris rested her elbows on the step behind her and enjoyed these last few moments. She was nearly there. And once she had the Fates far from here, her revenge would really begin.

  ***

  Dex huddled against the wall. His head ached, and he had floor burns on his elbows and knees, but he had succeeded. In his hands, he clutched the end of the magic rope.

  Whoever was wielding it didn’t seem to know quite what she was doing. She had lassoed the center of the rope, and left an end dangling. He had seen it as he jumped, and when he hadn’t been able to grab the Fates, he caught the rope instead, holding the end in place with his body weight and praying that would be enough.

  Around him, he could hear discussion and feel Vivian’s concern. He wanted to reassure her, but he needed to concentrate on holding the rope.

  The moment it went taut, he yanked with all his strength. The rope vibrated and then went completely slack. Dex grinned. He could hear the screams of three women grow closer and closer until—

  ***

  The Fates fell through the ceiling. Vivian stumbled backward to get out of their way. They zoomed past her, the breeze from their fall blowing her hair away and nearly knocking her glasses off her face.

  Then the Fates landed on the floor with a decided splat. The rope was wrapped around them, but not as tightly. They lay on it, their arms and legs entwined, moaning.

  Vivian looked for Dex, but didn’t see him. For a moment, she was afraid he’d been buried beneath the three women. Squashed by Fate, as it were.

  That last thought didn’t feel like hers. It had too much puckish humor. She scanned the room and finally saw Dex, wrapped in a rope, even farther from the wall than he had been.

  I’m okay, he sent to her, and she felt a relief deeper than any she had ever known.

  Nora and Ariel were at the Fates’ sides. The two mortal women bent over the three immortal ones, smoothing hair, untangling limbs, making sure nothing was broken.

  Blackstone was looking up at the ceiling as if it had been ruined. Vari stood slowly. He was also looking up.

  Vivian hurried to Dex’s side. He was wrapped in the rope and grinning as if he had just been on the ride of his life. Vivian reached down to help him unravel, but he shook his head. He wanted to do this himself.

  The Fates didn’t seem hurt either. They were already talking—only they weren’t taking turns. Their voices overlapped: Clotho worrying about being bruised; Lachesis wondering if she had a cut on her face; Atropos convinced she’d have a lump on the back of her head the size of Athens.

  Over the din, Vari said, “What happened? How’d they come back?”

  Blackstone crossed his arms and loomed over the Fates. Vivian could feel his menace from across the room. “You really haven’t lost your magic, have you?”

  “If we had any magic, we wouldn’t have fallen like that,” Clotho said.

  “It’s not dignified,” Lachesis said.

  “And we always try to be dignified,” Atropos said.

  Dex had finally unwrapped himself. No one but Vivian was looking at him. She helped him wind the rope around his hand and elbow, like cowboys did. She was shaking. She had been so worried about him. She had a sense—just for a moment—that she had found the man of her dreams just to lose him again.

  “I really don’t care about your dignity,” Vari said. “I want to know how you got back into this restaurant if you don’t have any magic. I wasn’t done with my spell.”

  Dex stood. “I think this had something to do with it.”

  He nodded toward his right arm, wrapped in rope. The rope trailed to the Fates, who were still lassoed in it. The other end of the rope had pooled on the floor like a giant snake.

  “How’d you get that?” Blackstone asked, sounding suspicious.

  “I caught it,” Dex said, “and tugged. No magic involved. Just good old-fashioned effort.”

  “Tugged?” Vari asked.

  “Tugged,” Dex said. “You know the old saying. ‘What goes up…’”

  “Yes.” Clotho pulled herself off the pile of Fates. “But I never expected clichés to be so painful.”

  She was rubbing her backside. Nora untied the lasso, freeing the Fates from each other.

  “Did you see who did this?” Nora asked.

  Lachesis shook her head. “I was trying to free us, but I was doing it wrong. I was trying to use magic I no longer have.”

  “It really was a dumb idea to come here without powers.” Atropos had a hand on the back of her head. The rope was still wrapped around her waist.

  “Grabbed it, huh?” Vari asked, as if he couldn’t quite understand that. He crouched near the Fates and touched the rope, as if he were testing it for magic. “A quick jump and a grab.”

  “A quick jump, a grab, and a tug,” Dex said.

  “You must be very strong,” Ariel said, looking at him with admiration.

  Vivian didn’t like the admiration. She wanted Ariel to move away from Dex. Vivian also didn’t like the way Dex smiled at Ariel. It was a roguish grin, filled with a bit of joy and pride.

  “Not that strong,” he said. “The rope was going up by magic. Anything can interfere with that sort of spell. Which reminds me. We’d better put a good protect spell on this place or we’ll be in for more of this.”

  Blackstone glared at him, as if Dex were calling Blackstone’s magic into question. But Vari clapped his hands, and Vivian saw just a bit of light leave his fingers. The light seeped into the walls, ceiling, and floor, sparkling before it faded into nothing.

  “There,” Vari said. “Nothing bad can get in here.”

  “That’s subjective, isn’t it?” Dex asked.

  Vari shrugged one shoulder as if he didn’t care. Vivian continued gathering rope. There was a lot more of it than she had originally thought. She had no idea how Dex had managed this. A regular man couldn’t have.

  No wonder he got mistaken for someone with super powers. Traditional comic book super powers. Even when he wasn’t using magic, he was impressive.

  “How’re we going to open for lunch?” Nora asked.

  “We’ll worry about that when the time comes.” Blackstone smiled at her. Then he bent over and, to Vivian’s surprise, helped Lachesis up.

  “Let’s go sit down,” he said. “I have some vegetable soup I’ve been experimenting with and some French bread. That should make us all feel better.”

  “Experimenting?” Clotho asked as Nora helped her up.

  “Don’t worry,” Nora said. “He tries to re-create meals he’s eaten over the past thousand years. So when he’s experimenting, we get a hundred really good versions of the same meal.”

  “Re-create?” Lachesis asked. “Why doesn’t he just conjure the recipe?”

  “And take all the fun out of it?” Blackstone pulled back the chairs at the table he had originally been leading everyone to. The Fates limped over there and Vari returned to his seat, patting the chair beside him for Ariel.

  Vivian and Dex finished coiling the rope. When they were done, Dex slid it up his
arm to his shoulder, the way a cowboy would. He started for the table too, not looking injured at all.

  He seemed so confident. Vivian watched the way he walked, the tension in his body. His muscles rippled as he moved.

  She made herself look away from him. She hadn’t followed him because something had changed. It took her a moment to realize the change had been in Blackstone.

  His attitude toward the Fates seemed to have shifted. It was almost as if he wore a layer of charm over his real personality. She could see it, like a mask, making his handsome features even more attractive, his eyes brighter, his smile wider.

  Everyone else seemed fooled by it, but she still sensed confusion beneath the charm. Blackstone wasn’t certain whether he was going to help these women or not.

  “I’ll help you serve the food,” Vivian said, not trusting him.

  Blackstone glanced at her in surprise, as if he had forgotten she was there. “No need.”

  He clapped his hands together, and before the sound faded the table had changed. White stoneware soup tureens and matching bread plates appeared before each chair. Three loves of French bread sat on cutting boards in the middle of the table, along with a huge pot of steaming soup.

  It smelled wonderful, rich and garlicky. Vivian’s stomach growled, but she still hadn’t moved. She didn’t trust any of this. Blackstone bothered her.

  Dex put the rope over the back of his chair and sat down as if nothing were wrong. But he was watching with the same wariness Vivian felt. Only his wariness wasn’t as obvious. He masked it with feigned indifference.

  “Food is a good idea,” Vari said, leaning forward and grabbing the ladle. “I’ll serve.”

  “Wait a minute,” Vivian said, and this time she spoke with enough force that everyone turned toward her. “This isn’t about food or conviviality. These three women could have died.”