“And you just happen to have a spell or two that will make them even more irresistible.”
“If only I had space for the ladies to try on clothes. I could carry some awesome negligees or sexy bras to go with the spells. They buffed up the outside, might as well drape themselves in silk...tsk.” She joined me in the front. “There’s just no room for it in the shop.”
I laughed. “How about shoes? Women like to buy shoes.”
“Too much inventory and no place to sit.”
“What about spell sachets? Cute little ones with something on them to match the nail designs. All three of the ladies had flowers painted on their fingernails and toes. You could coordinate with the nail artist and put out little purses to match their nails.”
Mat put a hand to her mouth, but didn’t quite trap a squeal. “That is brilliant! I’ve gotten to know Tam, the owner, and you should see her nail work. The designs are exquisite! I’ve seen stars, cats and some florals. If I find someone to embroider matching designs on the outside of spell packets, they’ll sell like hotcakes!” She clapped her hands. “I’ll make the pouches big enough so that after they’ve used the spell, the pouches can double as cell phone cases.”
“Works for me.” I blew her a kiss on my way out.
She was busy scribbling notes about her plans, but at the last second she paused and called after me. “Be careful, Adriel. Patrick’s a good guy, but be careful.”
“No one is more careful than me where vamps are concerned.” I’d moved out of my house. There wasn’t much else I could do.
Since it wasn’t time to meet Lynx, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to check out Sweet Puffs. I didn’t deserve it; breakfast had been plenty filling even though we split it three ways.
I passed Tam’s Spa and Nails without looking in. The windows were artfully decorated to showcase the intricate nail designs available inside. Unlike some places, the clients weren’t on display. The painted windows were tinted for privacy, which was a nice touch if you were the type to have time to get your nails done. To say it wasn’t my cup of tea would be an understatement.
I glanced at my hands, happy to see my nails weren’t chipped or broken. Keeping them short when you’re an earth witch is almost mandatory.
Once inside Sweet Puffs, I wasted approximately a nanosecond before zeroing in on the chocolate eclairs. Sure, there were probably other goodies worth considering, but what if they ran out while I dithered? The eclair was large enough for two people, maybe three. Hmm. Well, I was meeting with Lynx later, so leftovers weren’t an issue.
Normally I’d sit by the door or windows, but a young Asian guy was painting fabulous-looking desserts on the glass. Luckily, there were plastic tables and chairs outside on the sidewalk, so I helped myself to complimentary hot tea and nabbed a seat. It was hard not to drool on my eclair.
I people-watched, noting that most of the ladies went from either the bakery to the nail salon or vice-versa. The kid painting the windows handed out a business card or two, but it wasn’t until he came outside to check the finished design that I realized the cards were actually for the nail salon, not his own work.
“Nice job,” I said.
“Thanks. I did my mom’s too.” He pointed to the nail salon and offered me one of the cards.
I had a thing about business cards lately, so made sure my hands were full of tea and fork. “Oh, thanks. You’d better set it down on the table. My hands are a bit messy.” I made a big show of reaching for my napkin. “I do a lot of gardening so getting my nails done is—” His paint spattered hands inspired me. “Makes about as much sense as you getting a manicure before painting window designs.”
He grinned. “Do you think I need more whipped cream on the mocha?”
He was hard to peg age-wise, but he was probably still in high school. His jeans were dotted with fashion designed holes. He showed his good taste in music with a gray tee depicting a guitar with the words Dire Straits underneath.
I studied the painting in question. “Nope. Just a few sprinkles of chocolate.”
His scant eyebrows lifted in consternation. “You’re right!”
“Never forget the chocolate. It will serve you well in life with food—and women,” I told him with a wink.
“Here.” He retrieved the card from the table and turned it over. Using a charcoal pencil from his stash, he drew two Chinese characters on the back. “Give this to my mom, Tam, at the shop.” He spared a covert glance at the other patrons. “This is for the good stuff in the back. She doesn’t advertise the massages and hair styling because she doesn’t want to hire more people for the front. It’s only for her special clients.”
“Oh, well. You don’t owe me anything, and really I can’t accept anything.” Implied in there was the spoken spell to ensure any spell on the card didn’t attach itself to me. Reminding the kid about chocolate sprinkles wasn’t worth special treatment. Of course, I was overly paranoid. I flipped the card and saw nothing but the address embedded in a trail of delicate flowers.
“Trust me, no one is better with hair than my mom. She’s as good as Dad is with the desserts.” The kid gave me another shy smile and hurried back inside to add sprinkles to his mocha.
What a combo. The two shops were the ultimate in Mom and Pop retailers. I studied the card, but the Chinese symbols meant nothing to me. The only way to find out if it was an innocent instruction was to research it or visit Tam’s nail salon and see what happened. Admittedly, I was curious about Mat’s new neighbor.
Hmm. Maybe the card was already insinuating its magic. Or maybe I was badly in need of a decent haircut, especially since I was meeting White Feather’s family tonight.
I muttered another spell and tested the card with my silver, but if there was magical residue, it was dormant. I had refused the card and protected myself, but I didn’t pick it up anyway.
I folded the cover on the eclair take-out box and scooted inside Sweet Puffs for a paper sack. At the counter, there were more cards for the nail salon, along with cards for the bakery.
Still curious, I wandered over to the nail salon for a peek inside.
Like most salons it contained a few neatly organized stations. Two women clients were buried under hot face towels while their feet soaked in bubbly baths. There was one male employee, but the rest were women. A check-out counter ran halfway across the front. The customer area stopped near the back with silk curtains protecting a doorway into an even more private area. The store was much like Mat’s; very clean and not overly heated for a winter Santa Fe day. Surprisingly it smelled more of herbal tea than nail polish.
“Can I help you?” A short Asian woman appeared from behind the curtains. She had no discernible accent and no wrinkles either.
My half smile was hesitant. “I met your son next door. He said you do hair. He left me his card, well, your card—”
“That Kevin.” She bustled forward. At five-six and a half when I stretched, I still beat her by six inches, easily. My hair was encased in its standard ponytail, halfway down my back.
“You need something special? I don’t like highlights, not on Asians or Hispanics. Oh, they can be done well, but you have the dark hair. You want highlights, they should be silver.”
I shook my head. “I was thinking more of a trim. Well, really, I’m a friend of Mat’s from up the street and she told me—”
“Matilda! The red-haired mystic? Yes, yes, sweet girl. Beautiful. You come back here with me. You have the mystic eyes yourself, yes.” She swarmed ahead, moving aside the curtain.
I didn’t appreciate it when people noticed the green streak of color in my left eye. It wasn’t usually noticeable in inside lighting against the whiskey brown, but it wasn’t ever entirely hidden either.
I hesitated, but she said, “You like her new French twist, yes? Very elegant. She has the big hair, but those green eyes, they don’t need all that hair teased. She can do many styles.”
Mat’s new hairdo was awesome. I had at
tributed her quieter, more elegant styles to Jim’s positive influence, not a new stylist. The fact that she used Tam’s salon put me at ease. Mat would have carefully checked Tam out before letting her touch her hair.
My silver certainly wasn’t complaining about Tam either. “Mat’s French twist is fabulous,” I said, trailing behind Tam to the back. “But uhm. I’m not the French bun type, I don’t think.”
“Of course not. Come in, come in. You need some softness around your face. This hair needs a bit of shape, some feathers of light.”
The back room was subdued. A massage table filled one corner, leaving room for a sink and a black leather beauty chair on the other side.
In no time, I was shampooed and smelling of grapefruit and tangerine.
Installed in the beauty chair, it didn’t seem possible that she would be able to reach the top of my head, but she began combing and snipping and fluffing.
“Kevin is doing a good job next door? That boy, he loves to talk.” She pattered on, not giving me time to answer. “With his skill he could do nails, but you know he won’t have anything to do with woman’s work. Okay, okay, but what will he do with his life? He loves to draw, like me.”
In less than fifteen minutes, I went from plain ponytail to a completely unrecognizable woman. The layers even curled on their own at the ends, a bit like White Feather’s adorable waves at the base of his neck. “Uhm. Is this easy to take care of? If I want it to look like this again?”
She handed me the mirror and spun me to inspect the back. The layers made my hair...bouncy. I wasn’t sure about bouncy, but she said, “Long enough for ponytail. You wash and let dry, it will look like this. Those bangs will need trimming every four weeks. You come here, I do it for you.”
I paid her, tipped her generously and left, almost forgetting my eclair. I don’t know what magic she used to make me put a haircut above an eclair, but her son was right. She had some kind of talent.
On the way out, I waved at Kevin. He was outside studying his design from across the street.
He raised his hand in a thumbs up. Feeling ridiculous, I blushed and hurried to White Feather’s car.
Chapter 7
The jewelry store showed more evidence of wear during daylight hours than had been obvious at night, but it was a well-cared-for building with clean windows and new signs, including the closed sign that now hung in the door. Someone, probably the owner, had taped a note underneath that said, “Closed Until Further Notice.”
Lynx was waiting and, much to my surprise, hadn’t driven his car. I knew better than to ask questions. If he noticed my new hairstyle, he didn’t comment, but he did tilt his head sideways and stare for an extra second or two before saying, “Got a bead on a new client. Wants a matched set of packets so that someone with one of the packets can find the other one.”
“Doable. Depending on how personalized the client wants it, I’ll need some specific personal items.”
“You take the job, I already have the items.”
I rolled my eyes at his sly grin and named my price. He handed me a silk bag. “I haven’t touched anything inside. No contamination.”
Lynx didn’t miss a trick.
I stowed the bag in the car before turning to the business at hand.
After unlocking the jewelry store, I provided Lynx with the same rundown White Feather had provided me. I didn’t tell Lynx how to do his job because he didn’t like to be reminded that he was a shifter. There had always been a large part of him pretending he was a normal. Knowledge misused was dangerous for him, but it was more than that. He was self-conscious because his mother had abandoned him, and he carried a completely misplaced sense of shame and guilt. Today that attitude was a badge, a sudden scowl across his features as he followed me inside.
“There’s a lot of aura in this spot where they found the body,” I said. “But the other thing that triggered the fork is only near the floor. Barely discernible, whatever it is.” I found the pattern with the fork and showed him the trail. He could have put his nose down and followed it without me, but this way, he was crouched next to me and watching the fork, not using his animal talents that, accept it or not, were a part of him.
“We could have done this at night,” he complained. Without witnesses, he would have broken in, done his thing and earned his paycheck without my interference.
I strolled into the office without glancing back. “We found the trails, but that one in particular is very faint. Had to use a special spell to trace it.” The last was to remind him that I wasn’t exactly normal myself. My back was also to him, and I kept it that way. “Goes in here, touches the alarm, the computer, and then back out.”
“Not a shifter,” he said, but his words were slow, thoughtful, as though he hadn’t quite made up his mind about the smell.
I faced him cautiously. “But?”
“There’s a funny smell where she died. It matches the trail that is away from the body. The scent isn’t all human, but it’s bloody.”
My guts clenched.
“She stinks human. But the other smell is on her, whatever it is, and it doesn’t smell human, but it still has her scent.”
“Animal? Something small?” I pointed to the doorway where the bottom of the door gaped. “Mouse? Bat? Roach?”
He glanced at the opening. “Bats don’t need to crawl.”
“But?”
“Kinda has a smell, like earth. Dry earth, not the smell of oil or fur.” He frowned. “Reminds me of something. There’s human all over it though. And some other smell. Not an herb. It’s a chemical. Stinks almost like that dye White Feather was using this morning. But it’s not paint. Don’t know what it is.”
“Magic,” I declared.
He shook his head. “Some of that too, but not like yours.”
I frowned. “I don’t crawl around jewelry stores stealing.”
“Don’t get your sage on fire,” he said. “Not a shifter. But maybe if I see the body I can tell what that other smell is.”
“We are not visiting a morgue at night,” I said.
He shrugged. “I’m not showing up there in the day. People be there.” He headed for the door.
He had a point. Standing around smelling a dead body with strangers watching would not be smart. “Okay, okay. You do the job your way. Since you didn’t drive, can you come back to my place with me so I can get my car? You can drive White—I’ll drive White Feather’s Prius, and you can drive my car back to White Feather’s house.” White Feather’s car was new, while my Civic had forgotten what better days looked like. I didn’t want anything bad to happen to White Feather’s car. Then again, Lynx’s car was an almost new Mustang, a spiffy vehicle he kept in showroom condition.
For twenty-seven years old, how had I gone through two houses and never owned a brand new car? And Lynx worked for me. Shouldn’t I have a nicer car than he did? Or at least a house without vampires???
I refused to think about it, but I was still older and supposedly more responsible, so I would drive White Feather’s car.
On the way to my place I spilled the full details of Patrick’s home invasion. “So if you find yourself on the run from him, my house isn’t safe.” Patrick and Lynx did business when necessary, but it was more a truce of mutual respect than a friendship.
“Whoa. How you gonna keep him out?”
My fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “My lab is safe, I think. It’s very nearly a different structure and only shares a roof. I don’t know if his spawn can get in too, or just him.”
Lynx gazed at me in his non-blinking cat way. He didn’t do it often, but now and then, his brain chewed on something so hard, he’d stare with such intensity, I’d swear he was trying to pull information directly from my brain. He was half cat; maybe he could do that. Who knew the real limitations of cats, especially half human ones?
“I’d chop the roof between the lab and the house just to be certain.” He made two fangs with his fingers. “‘Trick’s cool,
but how you gonna sleep on a chance like that? You movin’ in with White Feather? Permanently?”
If I clutched the steering wheel any harder it would break off under my hands. “It looks that way, doesn’t it?”
Lynx was no dummy. He noticed the tension. His stare wasn’t as intense this time, but the wheels turned in his brain. Without saying anything more, he faced the window.
My grip relaxed in relief. I didn’t want to talk about it. Thank God cats weren’t big on wasting time on conversation.
It was still a beautiful sunny day with at least five hours before sunset. I conned Lynx into helping me load stuff into both cars. I didn’t need the furniture. White Feather owned nicer stuff anyway. I wanted the lab burners, tables, jars, and the things that were in my safe places throughout the house.
Lynx didn’t need to know about the secret stashes, so I had him load heavy things like my research books, the rocks with important spell qualities and the rest of the wood pile.
After sorting and boxing supplies and clothing, I opted to take only a few clothes and half of the lab supplies.
It was good that Lynx was helping. If he hadn’t been with me, I might have wasted time wandering from room to room getting maudlin.
Once the vehicles were packed full, I handed over the keys to the Honda.
He knew the way.
We would have headed out except the phone rang.
It was White Feather. “Is Lynx still with you?” he asked without so much as a polite greeting.
“Yes, why?”
“Another hit and another loss from their team. Body is cold, but if he can pick anything up, now would be the best time. The crew is done. Gordon has the place secured and can give us fifteen or twenty minutes undisturbed. You think he’ll be game?”
Under Witch Curse (Moon Shadow Series) Page 4