Dee hopped closer. Balancing on one claw, she reached over to try and flip pages. She needed the X page. Maybe the O. She needed to know if Xan had sent him. D … E … damn, this was hard. If she’d been human, she’d be sweating. Hop, pull, hop, flap …
She was concentrating so hard that she missed the sound of approaching footsteps. Suddenly the top stair creaked. Dee spun so fast, she almost fell over.
“Remember,” Velma’s voice trumpeted up from the front hallway, “the window’s a little loose and can close sometimes. If it does, just prop it with that big old dictionary on the desk.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Washington,” Danny James answered from right outside the door. “I’ll be fine.”
Dee had to hide. The minute Danny James turned from calling down to Verna, he’d see her. She didn’t even think about it, just swooped straight up to the top of the chifforobe, her tiny heart stumbling. She tucked herself in among the garden of silk flowers Verna had crammed onto the cherrywood top. Maybe if she sat very still she’d look like décor—if the dust up there didn’t make her sneeze. Besides, she needed to see what Danny James was going to do. He was already closing the door before it occurred to her that if she changed back, she might have a better time of it under the bed.
At first the situation looked promising. Once he was in the room Danny James walked straight to the window and yanked the sash open. A fresh breeze wafted in along with the sound of desultory traffic. Verna could be heard chattering with Mrs. Phipps from next door. Grabbing the huge dictionary from the desk, Danny James wedged it in the window to keep it propped open.
She could get out now, Dee thought, shifting from foot to foot. If he’d just turn his back, close his eyes, and ignore the sound of wings. Instead, he stood right in front of the window. Stretching his arms overhead, he slowly arched his back until Dee could hear little popping noises. “Oh, yeah,” he muttered, stretching sideways. “I’ve been wanting to do that for about five hundred miles.”
Dee knew she should scrunch down so he wouldn’t notice her up there, especially with his eyes facing the ceiling. But she was terrified into immobility, an owl statue surrounded by silk flower bouquets.
Facing out the window again, Danny pulled out a cell phone and punched buttons. “Hi,” he said. “It’s Danny. No luck so far, but I guess I expected that. I’ll call when I get something.”
And?
And he’d evidently finished with phone calls. Tossing the phone onto the bed, he shucked his jacket. Not just a leather jacket. An old, battered bomber jacket with the 390th Fighter Wing insignia. The Fighting Boars. The plain white T-shirt underneath betrayed every muscle in his chest and torso, and highlighted rock-solid shoulders.
Now, leave, she thought desperately. Give me a little space to get out the window. She sat as still as stone, terrified he’d see her. Holding her breath so she didn’t sneeze. Praying he’d take his shower.
She’d obviously prayed for the wrong thing. He was going to take his shower, all right. It was just that he was going to strip right here in the room. Sinking onto the iron bed, he pulled off his old battered cowboy boots, and Dee realized he had great biceps.
No. No time for biceps. Don’t look.
She looked. She loved biceps.
She really should go. Please turn around. Let me out.
He pulled off his shirt.
Dee gaped, frozen to the spot. It was like watching a theater curtain rise, only this one exposed the most incredible torso she’d ever seen: taut pecs and cut abs and a dusting of mahogany hair that curled at his throat and trailed right down to his waistband and beyond, and oh, God, he even wore a silver medal, the chain glinting against his tan skin.
Hadn’t she seen that this morning? When he smiled at her in that brief, tantalizing flash of fantasy in the dust? Dreaming about painting was one thing. But dreaming about painting him …
She had to close her eyes. She had to turn around. He had no idea what disaster he was courting just by shucking his shirt. He reached up to pull the silver chain over his head and dropped it on the nightstand, and Dee almost groaned out loud.
Was he humming or was she? She couldn’t tell. She just knew she should move. She should fly away, right now, no matter the cost. The danger certainly couldn’t be greater than what would happen if she shifted right on top of his chifforobe. Because the way her body was reacting to him, even her owl body, she just wasn’t sure it wouldn’t happen.
Concentrate on something else. He was out to get her parents. Not enough. Something else. Xan. He could be from Xan. She had to …
She forgot what she had to. He was unsnapping his jeans. She held her breath, terrified that if she so much as gasped, she’d start chirping like a car alarm. Her tiny heart was thundering. Her feathers had suddenly grown too heavy and hot for her skin. Warnings shrilled in her head.
Any other time, she’d already be seeing green fog. But she’d never become this aroused when she was already shifted. She had no idea what would happen. Would she change again? Would she change back into herself? Maybe she’d simply explode. She could just imagine owl feathers showering down from that chifforobe like fireworks.
Well, it couldn’t be any worse than what usually happened. She could just imagine what Danny James’s reaction would be when his mother appeared crouched on the top of his chifforobe wearing nothing more than a blush.
As for her, she might as well just kill herself and be done with it.
It didn’t seem to matter. Even at the real risk to life, limb, and both their psyches, she simply couldn’t look away. She couldn’t think of anything but how breathtaking he was, how he made her want things she’d never allowed herself to want. Her very cells were glowing hot, a core meltdown that presaged disaster of monumental proportions. Her energy was coagulating, gathering to change, and she was trapped in a room with the man who’d come to investigate her.
Please …
She was terrified she was already sparkling. The green fog clogged up inside of her, stealing her breath. And still he didn’t leave. Instead he pulled a file from his briefcase. She saw him bend over it and just closed her eyes.
“I wonder what you look like now,” he said suddenly. “And what you’re going to end up telling me about those bloodsucking charlatans you call parents.”
Dee’s eyes snapped open to see him looking at an old magazine article of her in her Darling Dee-Dee dress. It saved her. His words sent a chill straight through to her talons.
Danny James tapped the picture. “Ready or not, Deirdre Dolores Fortune, here I come.”
Then he sauntered on into the bathroom, never once noticing that he had an owl on his furniture. Dee shot him a scathing look. Then she wasted a moment yearning for that file. It was too late, though. She had to leave. Dee barely made it out the window and next door to Pete Semple’s toolshed before the green fog enveloped her.
Lizzie stood in the open doorway, staring out in the bright morning sun as her sister disappeared into the sky in search of her prey. Dee made a lovely owl, she thought absently, all brown feathers and piercing eyes.
“Should I follow her?” Mare said, sounding exasperated. “You know, in case she ends up naked in a tree someplace, and I have to kick that Danny guy’s ass? After which she’ll bitch at me because I’m not going to college?”
Lizzie shook her head. “I’m not taking sides on that. You know she works hard at that bank for us and—”
“Right.” Mare went down the porch steps. “Gotta run before I go to work. If I see our sister naked, I’ll beat up anybody who’s looking at her, no matter what she says.”
The wind blew like a whisper, and Lizzie looked up. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Mare frowned at the breeze. “I didn’t hear anything. Back in an hour. Thanks for the muffins.”
She pushed off, hitting a full run before she was through the front gate, and Lizzie breathed a silent sigh of relief as her youngest sister disappeared down the road. Tim
e to herself, a quiet house, and no more fights. She could even finish her cup of tea before she retreated to her workshop. She was about to close the door when she felt a shiver run down her spine.
It wasn’t a particularly unpleasant shiver. Not a sense of danger, or impending doom. But something was definitely off, and she turned back to the kitchen slowly, and then had to stifle her instinctive scream.
He was leaning against the kitchen counter, and for a moment she couldn’t see him clearly. He was a mass of changing colors—swirls of vivid brightness dancing, and then everything settled down, like a camera coming into focus, and it was only a man standing there, a tall man in a dark suit and blond hair, watching her.
The back door to the house was still closed and locked with a chair full of unread newspapers in front of it, and Lizzie had been standing in the only other door, watching her sisters take off. That door was still open behind her back, and she ought to run for it, fast. She was a chicken and she knew it, but the one thing stronger than her fear of confrontation was her curiosity.
“How did you get in here?” Dumb. She should have asked him who he was.
“Doesn’t your sister know better than to turn into an owl in the middle of the day? Owls are nocturnal—if someone notices, there are bound to be questions, even in this town. Especially in this town.” His voice was deep, mesmerizing, and just slightly annoyed.
She stared at him. He hadn’t been there when Dee shifted, and even if he’d seen it he wouldn’t have believed it. “What do you mean, especially in this town?”
One of the bunnies hopped across his foot, and he leaned down and picked it up, a soft, tiny creature in his elegant hands. She watched, mesmerized, as he stroked it, the long fingers caressing the fur lightly before he set it down on the table, where it lay in silver splendor, a fork once more.
“Who the hell are you?” she said, finally asking the right question.
He moved into the light, and she could see him quite clearly. Elegant, with long golden hair, dark eyes, impeccably dressed, with a silver stud in one ear. A little on the thin side—he was too well dressed for Mare, and Dee didn’t like blonds. He was probably in his early thirties, though there was something almost ageless about him.
“Either your worst nightmare or your salvation,” he said. “It’s up to you.”
She didn’t like men in suits, she didn’t like men who just showed up in her kitchen, no matter how gorgeous they were, and she definitely didn’t like his lack of answers. “I’m getting out of here,” she said, turning to make a run for it.
The door in the hall slammed shut, followed by the very audible click of the lock.
“I don’t think so,” the stranger said. “You’ve been causing too much trouble, and I intend to put a stop to it. There’s nothing worse than amateurs messing with the laws of mutability. The repercussions can screw things up on a global level, and it can’t be ignored any longer.”
“Amateurs?” Lizzie echoed, seizing on the one tangible insult.
“Well, you could hardly consider yourselves in any way adept. Your sister Deirdre transforms herself without any control; sooner or later she’s going to do it with a full audience and then where will you be? And your younger sister’s attempts at psychokinesis are pathetic, though so far not intrinsically dangerous. You, on the other hand, are likely to blow up this house and the entire neighborhood if you don’t cease your brainless experiments.”
“Who the hell are you?” she said again, trying for a tone as cold and deadly as his. It wobbled a bit, but it was a fair approximation.
“Elric.”
“Elric? That’s a ridiculous name.”
He closed his eyes in exasperation, and for a moment she could look at him without him seeing her. He really was quite astonishing, even if he still seemed to shimmer a bit about the edges. She didn’t like men in suits, but it was still the best-looking suit she’d ever seen. Or maybe the best-looking man …
He opened his eyes. “You’ve never heard of me.”
She shook her head. She could dive out the window, she supposed. If she’d only had Dee’s ability she’d be something entirely different at this point—with luck she’d have turned herself into a man-eating tiger and disposed of him.
There had to be something she could do. Like turn the floor into Jell-O, but then she’d be trapped, as well. And she’d be just as likely to turn the worn wooden flooring into a sea of rats.
“Sit down.” Elric picked up another bunny as it hopped across the floor.
She didn’t move, staring at his hands as he stroked the furry creature. Elegant, dangerous hands.
“I want you to go away,” she said.
“I’m sure you do.” He set another fork on the table, then began to scoop up the other three that lay scattered on the floor. “But you’ll sit anyway. We need to talk.”
“If you don’t leave I’ll call the police.”
“You’re not calling anyone. You don’t want people knowing your secrets any more than I do.”
He had a point.
“Then I’ll turn you into a rabbit.”
Oh, my God, it was the wrong thing to say. He laughed, and it was like a rainbow of color flashing through the room. A woman could be fool enough to fall in love with a laugh like that.
And then he put his hands on her, and she was lost. It was nothing more than the touch of his strong fingers on her shoulders, pushing her down into the kitchen chair, the same long fingers that had been so gentle with the baby rabbits, but it felt as if those shimmering colors shot through her body, and she sat down, hard, staring up at him.
He looked startled himself, as if he’d felt those strange colors, too. But then, of course he would—they emanated from him. He reached for a chair, then changed his mind, choosing one farther away from her, and sat. “Don’t look so nervous, Elizabeth Alicia,” he said, his voice gentle on the Spanish pronunciation of her middle name. “I’m simply here to stop you. You’re messing with things you don’t understand, and those things could explode in your face. Literally. Apart from the fact that you’re drawing unwanted attention, you could wind up dead. Alchemy is a tricky business, and you don’t seem to have the first clue on how to go about it.”
“Lizzie,” she corrected him. “And how do you know my name? Know so much about us?”
“Everyone knows about the three of you, everyone with our kind of power. I’ve come to stop you before you do something irreversible.”
She was halfway to the door before she remembered it was locked, and any man who could turn her bunnies back into forks had to be capable of stopping her escape with little more than a blink. She felt completely foolish in turning around, but she didn’t have much choice. He was waiting for her.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Lizzie. But you’re too dangerous to be left on your own. You need to make peace with your family. Someone your age should be in much greater control of her gift. You need guidance, teaching, things you gave up when your sister took you and disappeared. It’s a wonder you haven’t been caught—your half-assed attempts at alchemy upset the tenor of the cosmos.”
“The tenor of the cosmos can take care of itself,” Lizzie said. “We’re not going anywhere near our family or anyone else. We do fine by ourselves, thank you very much, and we don’t need anyone interfering.”
“You screw up by yourselves. Haven’t you practiced your craft, learned its possibilities?”
“No. We don’t want to do anything that could bring us unwanted attention, either from the people in town or People Like You.”
“You can’t just ignore your powers. They misfire if you don’t work at them.”
“We don’t want them.”
He raised an eyebrow. “All right. Then give them up. I can make arrangements.”
“Not yet.”
She was really beginning to annoy him. “Whatever the problem is, I can fix it.”
“You can’t fix everything,” Lizzie said gloomily. “God know
s I’ve tried.”
“Maybe you can’t fix everything, Elizabeth Alicia,” he said, “but you don’t even know me. Your sisters’ mistakes are only minor inconveniences—they might draw unfortunate attention but they don’t disturb the flow. You, on the other hand, are messing up big time, and I have no intention of leaving until you agree to stop what you’re doing.”
“Then prepare to be here for a while,” she said. “I’m on a mission, and I don’t give up easily. Once it’s accomplished I don’t intend to do magic ever again. Until that point there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
“You’d be surprised. Why are you planning to give up your powers?”
“They’ve never brought me anything but trouble. I want to be normal.”
He let his eyes drift over her a brief, pregnant moment. This was a good thing—it was what he wanted. So why was he reluctant? “And just what is that noble mission?” he said. “I can’t for the life of me figure it out. Every time you get upset, things change shape, and your workshop is a nuclear meltdown waiting to happen.”
“My workshop is locked!”
“Locks don’t have any effect on me,” he said in a mild voice. “Tell me what you’re trying to do, and maybe I can help.”
She looked straight into those dark, mesmerizing eyes.
“I’m trying to turn straw into gold.”
“Change straw into gold? You’re kidding,” Elric said to Lizzie in a flat voice, though he knew she wasn’t. Oh, Christ, he thought, staring at her. He couldn’t quite believe how someone so angelic looking could be causing this much trouble. Her guileless blue eyes didn’t begin to hint at the intelligence behind them, and with her tousled blond curls and slender body she looked like an impish teenager, not the woman he knew her to be. And what was it with her shoes? She was wearing Road Runner high-tops—how could he be attracted to a woman wearing Road Runner high-tops? Because he was.
“We need money,” Lizzie said. “That’s all Dee can think about, and if she didn’t have to worry about it, she’d stop trying to force Mare to go to college, and Mare would stop arguing, and if we needed to pick up and leave we could …” Her voice trailed off, as if she’d realized she’d said too much.
Unfortunate Miss Fortunes, The Page 3