"Of course. How's it going? I'm sorry I've been MIA for the past few days. Family emergency." Blanket statement used exclusively by people who aren't original enough to come up with a better lie.
Mona didn't seem to notice, and instead of prying into my personal life like I expected her to do, simply leaned over and gave my hand a friendly squeeze, offering condolences I couldn't even hear because I was too fascinated with watching the stream of glowing hearts that popped up over her head. The same type I'd seen in the coffee shop the day I'd almost passed out, only purple this time. Not the one-time occurrence I'd been hoping for. I needed more complications in my life. Not.
"...so sorry." I pulled my gaze back down to Mona's earnest face in time to see her puzzled expression and realized I'd been frowning at her. "What? Do I have something in my teeth?"
"No. You're fine. I was..." Trying to see if I could slow down the light show coming out of your head seemed like the wrong thing to say. Trying to figure out if I needed to refund your money wasn't much better. "... just caught up in thought." Mona patted my hand again.
The familiar feeling of just knowing returned all at once for the brief second her skin touched mine; some of the noise from inside my head quieted, and I could feel Dream Boy's signal ramp up in intensity. As Mona pulled her hand away, the connection faded completely to be replaced by the sneaking sensation someone was watching me.
Trying not to look like I was looking, I let my eyes track over the area around me but didn't see anyone who looked overly interested in my activities. Still, the feeling remained.
This new development was going to put a crimp in my day.
"Do you want to come with me? I'm just going to run some errands, but I wouldn't mind some company. Unless you're busy..." The words spilled out of my mouth before I really had time to think, but somehow I knew the only way I was going to find Mona's guy was to stick close to her. Poor thing, it was taking a lot longer than normal to get her settled and I really liked the woman. She was the kind of person I could be friends with if not for all the necessary secrets I would have to keep.
Her eyes lit up. "Sure, it's my day off, so I'm free as a bird."
"Perfect. Let me pay for my lunch, and then I was thinking about heading uptown to check out a new bookstore I haven't had a chance to visit yet." Conveniently, right toward your destiny, Mona.
***
By the time we made it to The Novel Hovel, I had found two more excuses to make physical contact with Mona, and was starting to worry that she might think I was interested in her--worse, the signal I felt so strongly before had moved to an entirely different part of town. A few more books I probably didn't need provided a tiny silver lining, and I was imagining an evening in my PJs, curled up next to a roaring Balefire with my purchases as we exited onto the street.
With each touch, the tremulous hold on the connection to Mona's sweetie strengthened. Not to anything like a normal level, but a workable one, and I didn't waste any time pulling her into a merry chase that lasted several blocks at a breakneck pace.
I was beginning to wonder if her guy was a cab driver or a bicycle messenger considering how he seemed to keep just ahead of us but managed to pop up everywhere. I had a short but satisfying fantasy of nailing some faceless guy's foot to the floor.
"Wow, you really do get around," Mona's breath came out a little puffy from cheeks pinked with exertion. Somehow, telling her we were on a city-wide manhunt to track down her perfect match while trying to identify the source of the creepy stalker vibe that wouldn't quit didn't seem like a great idea. So I lied. Again. Not my finest moment, but it was for a good cause. I hoped that was enough to stave off any negative karmic effects.
"Keeps me out of the gym, right?" I nudged her with my elbow as though punctuating the joke when what I really wanted was to give my intuitive process another boost.
"So what happened to you the other night? Did you ride home with that guitar player? He seemed totally into you. Was he a decent guy? Did he ask you out?"
My face grew hot at the mention of Kin, and the memory of the kisses that I still hadn't stopped dreaming about. "Kin? Yes, he did give me a lift..." Before I could tell her about our time spent alone in the office closet, she cut me off.
"I hope the night didn't end badly because he's right over there." Sure enough, there he was, leaning up against the side of a brick building, his guitar case resting on the sidewalk. He stopped, his back to me, and lifted his head as if he were a dog who had just caught a whiff of a porterhouse steak, and turned around slowly to look me right in the face.
It was only then that I noticed the group of coffeehouse patrons crowded around him like adoring groupies. Without a doubt, far more women than a simple afternoon street-side, one-man performance really warranted, and all of them practically writhing in ecstasy with every move he made. We must have stepped into the middle of his act because Kin winked at me and introduced his next song.
"This one I wrote for the girl on the pink scooter." Jealousy over the women hanging on his every word fought a quick war with an onslaught of romantic feelings strong enough to speed my heart rate.
He began to pluck at his guitar, and the soft acoustic notes wafted toward us in a visible--at least, visible to me--haze. The same type of sparkling symbols I had been seeing around Mona all day now danced around Kin. Not hearts this time. Moons. Bright yellow moons. Flipping appropriate given the way all the women were mooning over him.
Turning back to my companion, I saw that Mona's eyes were trained on Kin, her face set in an expression identical to those worn by every female in the vicinity. Not a single symbol appeared around her now. Why hadn't my powers come with some kind of training manual?
"Oh wow, he's so...wow." Mona breathed. "If you're not going to go for it with him, I'm definitely going to take a shot." Well, that was certainly a quick change of tune. Seconds ago, she had asked me about Kin without any trace of desire; in fact, I had gotten the distinct impression that she had been acting as a friend, looking out for me.
"Uh, well I..." Finishing the sentence was pointless. Mona had stopped listening. To me, at least. Kin commanded her full attention.
Seriously, what was it about this guy that turned women to mush whenever he played guitar? Granted, he regularly turned me to mush, but it took more than a song and I didn't think he'd spent time making out in his car with all these women. I work with people every day; rarely would a man fool me like that, and Kin was not that that kind of man.
He was the kind of man who kissed you like you were the only woman in the world. It's hard to fake that level of interest and I consider myself a good judge of kisses. No, not because I indulge in that many of them myself, but I sure do engineer plenty of them. Never underestimate the importance of a good first kiss.
A hard nudge brought me back to the present and to a scorching look from Mona. A look I saw repeated on a number of faces.
"Lexi. Come over here." I would rather have gotten a root canal without anesthesia. I shook my head. How could he be so clueless? Maybe he planned to plaster a target on my back. No, wait, he already had.
I'm not proud of it, but I shook my head and literally dragged Mona behind me as I ran away. She struggled a bit at first, but as the proximity to Kin decreased, her resistance drained away. I needed to think about that in detail at some point, but not right now.
At this moment, Mona's man was finally close. If we hurried, I might have a chance to put together a meet for her. Not one up to my normal standards, but at this point, I'd settle for what I could get.
"Lexi, slow down. I'm...wait, are we going in circles?" Mona yanked on my arm. "And you forgot to finish your story about your ride home with that singer guy."
Surprise slowed my steps. "You mean the man you just spent ten minutes drooling over? That singer guy?" Jealousy barbed my tongue.
"I did not," Mona retorted. "Did I? My memory is a little hazy." Mona frowned.
Before I could formulate an answer I
heard my name being called. Harry Tart. Just what I needed right now. A testimonial to impending failure. Lexi Balefire the un-matchmaker.
Or maybe not. Lemon hung off Harry like...well, she was a lemon and he was a tree. She let go of him long enough to give me an overly enthusiastic hug.
Surreptitiously rubbing the sore spot where her handbag had jabbed me in the ribs, I said, "You two look happy today." I gave Harry a searching look which he answered with a little nod. Matching symbols sprouted from the pair of them. I wish I could say they were hearts or flowers, but they weren't. A backward C shape with a hashtag in the center bobbled along just about a foot over the couple's heads. Hearts I could understand, even a moon made sense to some degree.
I grunted my way through two minutes of conversation while trying to work out the hidden meaning and finally gave up when nothing came to mind. At least they both had the same symbols; that had to be a good thing, right?
"Say you'll do it." Lemon gushed.
"Er...okay," I replied.
"I'll call you," was her parting comment.
After Harry and Lemon had gone I said to Mona, "What did I just agree to do?"
She gave me a raised eyebrow and answered, "You're doing a toast at the wedding. Is everything okay? You're very distracted today."
If she only knew. I tuned back in to find her intended was out of range again.
"To tell you the truth, I'm not feeling all that well today. I think the rest of my errands are going to have to wait. Can I call you a cab?"
Mona gave me another perplexed look. "Lexi, we're almost back to the cafe. My car is parked right over there. Maybe I should be the one calling a cab for you. Better yet, let me give you a ride."
"I'm fine. Really. You go on. I'm staying with a friend tonight. It's just around the corner." I hurried away against her protests and didn't even go back to the office.
Chapter Seventeen
My first response when I saw a face peering in through parlor window was to shriek like a girl. Okay, I am a girl, but you know what I mean. My second response, when I recognized the face, was similar, but a bit more extreme.
"Serena," I stalked the front door like a rampant lion leaping to confront an encroaching enemy. "Why are you peeking in my windows? That's trespassing. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't call the cops." I took a wide stance, folded my arms, and gave her my best stank face. Stupid cow.
"I was just trying to get an idea of how big the place is. You know, for when I move in to take care of the Balefire. I wanted to see if my couch would work in the space."
If you look up the term batcrap crazy in the dictionary, you'll find a photo and a full description of Serena. It came down to either laughing at her or beating her to death with her own arm. I chose the former and dissolved into giggles.
"Haven't you ever heard of a deed?" Blank stupidity wrote itself all over her face. "You know, a legal document that proves ownership of a piece of property. A deed." I exaggerated the word with every bit of condescension I could summon. "Say it with me, Serena. A deed."
"I'm familiar with the concept." She ceded dryly.
"Then you'll know that this is my house and your sofa or the ass that owns it will never have the slightest chance of finding out whether or not they fit in my living room."
"Don't try to fool me with fancy talk," she retorted while I ran my mind over the conversation to figure out where I had gone all fancy on her.
"It's no secret that you're woefully inadequate for the job. When you can no longer keep the Balefire going, I'll need to live here to take over and bring it back to life." Poor deluded moron, she actually believed this pile of steaming stupidity.
"You know that the Balefire doesn't actually own the house, don't you? This place has been in my family since the land was bought and paid for by my great, great, great grandmother. Even if you had a cotton candy's shot in a bucket of water of taking over the Balefire duties, it would not be from within these walls, because the house does not go with the job. Honestly, Serena, your mother must be so proud of your deductive reasoning skills."
"Leave my mother out of this," at least an octave higher than normal, Serena's squawk sounded like it could cut glass.
"Don't start measuring for curtains just yet. I'm going to give you a one time offer to come inside and look at what you'll never have."
Serena's nose shot up far enough for her to try out her best intimidating stare, which had about as much effect on me as a soap bubble breaking against my skin. She sailed triumphantly into the foyer, then stopped when she caught a glimpse of the merry flames whooshing up the chimney in the room beyond.
"But that's...how did you do that? What happened?"
I moved forward the two steps it took to bring us nose to nose. "If I see you on my property again, I'll turn you into a perpetual boil on a frog's butt. That's right," I continued when her eyes widened, "I can do that because I've been Awakened. So stick that in your cauldron and boil it you half-witted twit." Actually, I probably couldn't do that yet. I mean, I haven't had a lot of time to memorize spells, and my power is still raw and untamed.
Then there's the whole reciprocity thing. I'm not entirely clear on how it works, but I do respect the law of threes enough not to send out too many bad vibes.
Mouth working like a fish off the hook, Serena's gaze tracked from me to the fireplace and back several times. "You can't have done that. Everybody knows your mother..." She broke off there and I wondered what, indeed, it was that everybody knew, because I had no idea what she was talking about.
"What, Serena? What does everybody know?"
"That Clara Balefire was a stone killer and unlike her, you don't have enough power to stop me doing this." Serena's face took on an air of concentration. My first instinct was to giggle because her casting face looked a lot like a bathroom face. The air around me turned dry and crackled with energy.
"Hah, you wish." hoping it would work, I made up a quick rhyme in my head, infused it with the intention of creating a protective barrier against her spell. No one was more shocked than I to see a huge pink bubble form around me just as whatever she had conjured would have made contact.
For a split second, the bubble's wall bowed inward, then the whole thing rebounded and shot back toward Serena. The sweet scent of bubblegum filled the air and the ball of chewy, gooey stickiness plastered itself all over Serena along with the spell she had tossed at me. Green warts sprouted on her hands and arms. At least they looked green through the haze of pink.
Is it petty to admit I pulled out my phone and recorded Serena's shocked fury for posterity? Sorry. Sometimes I am just that big a jerk. Plus, payback really was a witch.
"Curse you, Lexi Balefire. I'm going to..."
"Watch your tone, Miss Snodgrass. You're a guest in this house." Vaeta appeared out of thin air between us. "I suggest you conduct yourself accordingly."
"Look what she did to me." A bony finger pointing at me accompanied the accusation. "Aren't you one of her keepers? You need to do something about this right now. I can't go out in public this way."
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but this was entirely your own doing. Lexi merely cast a defensive shield that rebounded your own spell back at you. In the future, I'd suggest you stick to trying to intimidate witches at your own level of power and leave alone those who are your better in every way." Vaeta's tone was mild, but the rebuke was clear. I didn't even try to hold back a triumphant smile. "Get out, Serena."
"I can't leave looking like this. I'm human flypaper."
"It's not my fault bugs are attracted to you. Flies do seem to be attracted to piles of..."
Vaeta murmured my name as a warning before I could finish the satisfying comparison then said to Serena, "It would serve you right if I let you leave like that. It's no more than you deserve." Still, with little more than a flickering of her eyes, the faerie lifted the shroud of goo, leaving my nemesis clean and dry.
"What about these?" Serena brandished a wart cover
ed arm and glared at me as though the blemishes had been my idea.
"You're the hag who sent them out, they're your problem now."
"Get out," Vaeta repeated and clapped her hands. A little puff of wind nudged old wart-face toward the door. Serena took the hint and stalked across the foyer.
"Nice job, Fate Weaver." A glint in her eye and a grin on her face, Vaeta congratulated me. "First time I've seen chewing gum used as a defensive mechanism."
"I'd like to take credit for all the brilliance, but I can't. I had no idea what was going to happen or if anything would. My spell casting skills are spotty. Half the time nothing happens and the other half it's like I tried to move a feather using a hurricane. I can't seem to find a happy medium."
Something fell in the foyer causing Vaeta and me to exchange a look.
"Serena," we said in unison and rushed to make sure the vile witch had left the premises. I'd rather she not know how vulnerable I still was.
An umbrella lay on the floor near the open door.
Chapter Eighteen
I pushed a purple satin sleep mask off my face and blinked a few times at the light shining through my window. It was well past noon and, blessedly, I couldn't hear a peep coming from downstairs. Salem was curled up at the foot of my bed, in his cat form for once, and he hopped up guiltily as I poked at him playfully with my toe, then pounced on my foot and began to kick at it with his hind legs. Five seconds later, when my wiggling toes were no longer enticing, he exploded in a ball of fur and smoke. When it cleared he was sitting, fully clothed, on the edge of my bed.
"It's your birthday, it's your birthday. It's Beltane, it's Beltane." Salem sang, bouncing up and down and tickling my ribs until my face hurt from laughing too hard.
A Match Made in Spell (Fate Weaver Book 1) Page 12