“Are you denying me service, Miss Cartwright? Isn’t that against your American laws?”
I moved in even closer until we were mere feet apart. I hated the look in his eyes. Hated that he had this devilish gleam, this idea that he could somehow lord his existence over me.
“No, actually, it isn’t. But I’m denying you, period. Get out of my store, Imposter!”
Fakebottom clucked his tongue, driving his hands into his cool beige trousers and cocking his head. “You don’t want to see my future with your crystal ball? The one where I own all of this?” he asked sarcastically, spreading his arms wide to encompass more of the things I loved.
“Dove, he’s just trying to ruffle your feathers with his cockamamie allegations. Don’t let him slag you off like that. Do not give him a reason to have you charged with assault and battery. Call the police if you must and have him removed, but you don’t need another legal battle on your hands,” Win reminded me, calm as always.
Hissing a breath, I fought the impulse to latch onto Fakebottom like a deranged octopus and suck that deep black void of his right out of him.
“If you don’t leave, I’m going to call the police and have you charged with harassment, do you understand me?”
“You’re very familiar with the police, aren’t you, Miss Cartwright? They frequently visit my house. Why is that? Could it be that your criminal activity isn’t solely related to stealing homes and bank accounts?”
Oooo, if he didn’t leave this second, I was going to remind him his head belonged in his backside by putting it there myself! “I’ll say this one more time and then I’m calling the police. You are not welcome in my store. Ever. You’re a lying, cheating moocher who wants to steal something that isn’t yours, and I’m not going to let you! Now get out!” I shrieked, pointing my finger toward the door once more.
My sizzling-hot finger, I might add. A shot of electricity blazed from the tip of my index finger, whipping its way toward Fakebottom with lightning speed, and I had no recourse, no way to stop it.
The crackling bolt nailed him right in the chest of his pale blue tailored shirt, sending him flying in the air and directly into the wall where what was left of my snow glob collection lined the shelves.
Fakebottom hit them with a resounding crack, knocking them over like bowling pins in a wet splash before he slammed to the floor and went limp.
“Oh, sweet Pete on a broomstick! How did that happen?” I didn’t know what to do first—jump up and down because I’d used a long-defunct power, or see if Fakebottom was alive.
I decided to curb my enthusiasm and pick my way across my snow globes, noting my knockoff Heat Miser globe, featuring the Grinch, was a thing of the past. Son of a biscuit!
Just as I was stepping over a puddle of water and glass, Fakebottom stirred. Goddess, how was I going to explain this to him? I couldn’t even explain it to myself. How was this happening? Why did it happen so erratically?
“Dove?” a groggy voice said.
I looked around the room. Win didn’t sound as close to my ear as he normally did. He sounded like he was across the room, but my excitement took hold and I had to share it with him.
“Did you see, Win? I nailed him with a protection zap. Just with my index finger and without even thinking about it!”
Suddenly Fakebottom sat up, brushing the stray glass from his shirt and looking around as if he were just seeing the place for the first time.
I decided to take the offensive with him and feigned a superior, admonishing attitude. “Look what you did! You knocked all my snow globes over and ruined them! You’re not just going to pay for being a jerk, you’re replacing every single one of them—do you hear me?”
And that’s when he looked right at me and his lips moved. Fakebottom’s lips moved and they said, “Dove?”
Chapter 15
Like a cat on a hot tin roof, I jumped back so far I almost tipped backward, my eyes widening in a mixture of horror, confusion and wonder.
“Win?” I croaked.
He smiled at me, just like he had that one time in the car when he’d first found a way to make himself appear to me. “It’s me, Dove. It’s really me.” Holding out his hand, he smiled wider.
No. No, this was a trick. It was some cruel joke. Win didn’t have the ability to possess a rock, let alone a human body. He could close doors sometimes, make a light flicker, but possess a body? No.
But then how would Fakebottom know Win called me Dove? My mind whirled with a hundred questions. Wait. Oh, goddess. Maybe Adam Westfield was messing with my head?
I began to back away in fear, but then he said, “It’s really me, Dove. The man who insisted we have that silly wood-fire oven in the kitchen that you use to dry your thrift-store Pradas beside, and toast those disgusting marshmallow-and-chocolate sandwiches.”
“S’mores,” I muttered faintly, my head spinning. “They’re s’mores.”
“Yes,” he confirmed on a nod and a smile. “Those.”
Win? Was this really Win? Fakebottom didn’t know any of those things.
My knees wobbled, shook like an earthquake was right beneath my feet, but I managed to stumble toward him anyway, my heart thrumming in my chest. I couldn’t help myself. I had to touch him to be sure this was real. I knelt beside him, right on top of the broken glass and water, and cupped his face, running my hands over the hard planes of his cheeks, astounded by this turn of events.
“How?” I whispered in squeaky wonder.
He smiled again and leaned in, pressing his nose to mine as water dripped down his face and he chuckled. “I did say I’ve been practicing, didn’t I? I’m rather pleased to find it’s not as hard as it sounds.”
He’d done it. He’d talked about it since I’d met him, but I never believed he’d actually do it. “You took over Fakebottom’s body? That’s…that’s incredible, Win! It’s almost impossible. You know that, right?”
My heart crashed against my ribs when Win reached up and cupped my chin. “Forget that for now, Dove. I feel like I’ve waited a lifetime to do this.”
“Do what?” I asked as happy tears began to stream down my face while Win caught them with his thumb.
Angling his head, he pressed his mouth to mine.
Soft and hard, sweet and firm, his mouth covered my lips. My heart raced, my stomach danced with butterflies, and everything around me fell away but Win and this moment of pure magic.
He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close, stroking my cheek with his knuckles until I was dizzy and clinging to him. And then the kiss was over and he was pulling away from me, looking me in the eye and saying, “I have to go now, Dove. You know this is wrong of me.”
My shoulders shuddered as I fought the rush of more hot tears, the utter desolation of having him so close, only to lose him. “But—”
Pressing his fingertip to my lips, he thwarted my words and shook his head. “No, Dove. This is wrong, but there’ll be a time, a body that’s right for me, and I’ll come back. To you. I promise I’ll come back,” he said with an urgent tone, his words growing further away, becoming a hollowed echo of his promise.
Then he slumped against me, all the warmth and rigid dips and planes to his body going lifeless.
And I was left alone with an unconscious Fakebottom and the emptiest black hole of a feeling I’d ever felt.
* * * *
I don’t know how I managed to drag Fakebottom out of my store and prop him up against the alley Dumpster, but I’m going to give the credit to Win and his workouts, because Fakebottom is no lightweight.
However, Fakebottom did have a steady pulse and his pupils weren’t dilated—he’d be fine other than a little sore from hitting the shelf of snow globes so hard. I’d just knocked him out, I guess. I hadn’t meant to, of course, but I admit, I wasn’t exactly sorry about it either, and that wasn’t just because my powers had shown up again.
When Fakebottom didn’t wake up by the time I’d cleaned the mess, I had to decide
what to do. A zap like I’d given him surely wouldn’t kill him, but he could be out for a while.
Just after I changed and left Madam Z’s, I decided to call the police and mention there was a strange man behind my store, possibly passed out from drinking. Maybe that wasn’t so nice of me, but I wasn’t feeling too nice.
I was feeling spiteful and cranky that a man like Fakebottom could walk around proclaiming to be someone he wasn’t, while a perfectly kind, decent ex-International Man of Mystery was stuck on Plane Limbo. I know that’s not how life and the world worked, we don’t get to play master of the universe and make those choices, but right now, I wasn’t feeling terribly altruistic.
I was overwhelmed by all that had happened and unsure how to process everything.
I called Belfry to check on Whiskey and told him I needed some time to think. Considering some comfort food at the diner might cheer me up, I drove the stretch across our small town to the edge of our equally small peninsula where the diner sat, not even feeling the stiflingly muggy breeze of the open windows of my rental on the ride there.
Win…
I’d physically seen Win—or someone who looked remarkably like him. Touched him, talked to him, kissed him. A kiss like no other, and I don’t say that lightly. I’ve been kissed plenty, thank you. I’ve had a couple of boyfriends and one fiancé.
But this was a kiss that had stolen my breath and likely my heart—maybe forever—and I couldn’t stop reliving it in my mind. I wasn’t sure how I was going to talk to Win again without thinking about it. Without it sitting like a floppy-eared elephant in the vast space between us, with the thought that it might never happen again.
Yet, I couldn’t bear the idea we’d be awkward, especially when our kiss—that brief moment forever suspended in my mind’s eye—had been about as right as right gets. I knew it. Felt it burrowed in the deepest part of my heart.
I felt a calming, warm presence that wasn’t quite Win’s envelop me just before my newest friend turned up. “Ah, my malutka, you are sad? Tell Arkady and I fix, da?”
After pulling into the parking lot and turning the car off, I let my forehead rest against the steering wheel in the darkening lot and sighed. “I’m not sad, Big A. Not really.”
I wasn’t. I was more melancholy over something I just didn’t ever see happening. I longed for what Win and I shared before he’d kissed me, before he’d shown me he’d mastered possession, yet I yearned for him to kiss me again.
“This, my tender filet of beef, is what you Americans call the catch-22, yes? You want for this to be real, but it will make with the mess if it becomes reality because Zero must take from another to give to you. Yet, you cannot bear the idea it won’t become your reality, so you just want everything to go back as it once was.”
“Yes,” I murmured, my chest heavy and tight. If Win took over a host’s body, even Fakebottom’s, it meant that someone’s soul had to go, and even though Fakebottom’s soul was black, no one had the right to take it. Win had slipped into his body with ease because Fakebottom had been out cold, making it an easier transition.
And then there was the issue of no going back from his kiss. How could I possibly forget that and pretend we’d never engaged in something so important?
“That’s exactly it. And how do you know what happened?”
“Zero tell me when he ask me to look out for you before he goes off to rest. I think when you take over another’s body, it is enormous strain. He looks like he spend a night in Siberia in the barn with the goat herder’s lonely daughter. She is very lonely, very strong girl.”
I giggled, sitting up just in time to see the sunset. “So he’s okay then?” I guess I’d been more worried about how he was recuperating in the afterlife than I realized, because I felt like life trickled back into me after hearing he was resting.
“Da. He is strong like Russian vodka. I have no doubt he will be good as new.”
I managed a smile and my stomach even rumbled. “Thanks, Big A. You’re better than a bowl of borscht at the Russian ballet.”
We shared a moment of silence, me wondering how strong Russian vodka really was. But then Arkady said, “Might I make suggestion to you, krasavitsa?”
“Suggest away. I’m open to anything at this point.”
“Win is your friend. He was your friend before this. He will be your friend after. Should he find a way to come back to you, he would be your friend then, too, yes? This I know. Do not let this stop you. What are all good relationships made like glue with? They are made with friendship, sweet malutka. Friendship.”
I inhaled a ragged breath. Yes. Win was my friend. In the deepest part of my heart, he’d always, always been one of my truest friends, long before our kiss. I vowed he’d remain so long after. No matter what happened in the interim.
“Have you been married, Arkady?”
“Hah! Arkady does not like the rope, is how you say?”
“Strings. You don’t like strings attached.”
“Da, strings,” he repeated. “I was not made to love just one woman. I am meant to love many, and many are meant to love me. This is how it is.”
His definitive answer made me laugh. “Then so be it. I’m gonna go grab some dinner and mull over this mess with Officer Nelson, okay? Be here when I get back?”
“I am wherever you need me to be, my gentle lamb chop with mint jelly.”
Closing my eyes, I smiled into the darkness. “Thank you, Arkady,” I whispered.
“You are welcome, malutka. Always,” he whispered back.
* * * *
“Back so soon?” Tippy asked, handing me a menu with a grin. She looked much more relaxed and rested than she had earlier this afternoon.
I took the menu from her and shook my head in amazement. “You’re still here, Tippy? Don’t you ever sleep?”
“I just popped back in. Bob had some trouble with the freezer latch. But I’m back out again in a minute. What can I get you to drink? Coffee?”
“Yes, please. I could use the boost of caffeine about now.”
Tippy shuffled off while I perused the menu and dug more aspirin out of my purse for my nose, whose dull throb had returned in full force.
Buried in the wide plastic menu, I jumped when someone dropped something on my table.
“Eleanor,” I heard Tippy gently scold. “How about we try this again?”
I caught sight of the pictures and put aside the menu, looking up at Eleanor scowling down at me, her soft cheeks red. “Hi, Eleanor. How are you tonight?”
She blew a strand of stray hair from her face and glowered harder. “Aunt Tippy says I have to apologize. So I’m sorry.”
Tippy put an arm around Eleanor’s shoulders and shook her head with an admonishing smile. “That’s not how it’s done, Eleanor, and you know it. At least say it like you mean it. And it’s not Stevie’s fault she caught you off guard. She was as surprised as you.”
I didn’t want to put any pressure on Eleanor, but I also didn’t want to interfere with the lesson Tippy was trying to get across either. “You know what, Eleanor, why don’t I order my food and maybe you could show me some of your pictures? I’d love to see them.”
Everything changed from that moment on. Her face brightened, her shoulders squared and she pulled out her pad to take my order. “What would you like? Officer Nelson likes his bacon crispy. Do you like yours that way, too?”
I couldn’t help but grin even though we were still on the subject of Officer Nelson. “I sure do. Who doesn’t like crispy bacon? But I think tonight I’d really like the meatloaf and mac and cheese, if that’s okay.”
“You got it!” she said, her tone excited as she raced to the back to put my order in.
Smiling after her, I glanced down at the pictures of Dana and sighed. How was I going to get him out of jail with the preponderance of evidence so wholly against him?
Running my hands through my hair, I clenched my fists. Maybe with some food in me, I’d be able to think clearer.
As the scent of burgers and pot roast permeated my nose, I gazed at the pictures Eleanor had taken—an entire stack of them.
Gosh, Eleanor really was talented. I fanned them out, shuffling and pushing them, trying to decide which I liked best and I just couldn’t choose. Every picture of Dana said something, spoke volumes about his strength, his character, the warmth he exuded that I’d somehow missed because I was always so busy razzing him about what a stickler for the rules he was.
Eleanor returned with my plate, that smile still on her face. She set my meatloaf down, the steaming platter rich with brown gravy, making my stomach grumble and reminding me I’d only had a cup of coffee all day long.
“Thank you, Eleanor. I didn’t realize how hungry I was until you put that under my nose. It smells delicious.” I motioned to the seat in the booth opposite me and smiled. “Sit with me, okay? Let’s talk about these pictures. You’re so talented!”
She slid into the booth, brushing her brown hair from her face, and nodded. “I love to take pictures. They make me happy. Dana makes me happy. Sophia, too.”
My heart turned over in my chest. “You liked Sophia, didn’t you?”
Eleanor bobbed her head, her fingertips tracing one of the photos of Dana and Sophia on the street where her apartment building was located. “Yep. She was really nice and pretty. You’re pretty, too, Stevie. I’m sorry I called you a snoop.”
As I shoveled meatloaf into my mouth, I reached across the table and brushed my free hand against hers. “Apology accepted, Eleanor. Let’s be friends, okay?”
Her satisfied smile beamed back at me. “I’d like that.”
Tippy appeared with a refill on my water and nudged Eleanor over, taking a place beside her. “Remembered something today a little while after you left, and after I talked to Eleanor.”
Covering my full mouth with my hand, I muttered, “Hmm?”
“Actually, Eleanor remembered it, right, El?” She wrapped her arm around Eleanor’s shoulders and squeezed.
“Yep. Aunt Tippy said she told you about Sophia talking on the phone in a foreign language. I don’t know what she was saying, but I remember her saying Mama Ortolini. It sorta rhymes with tortellini and that’s my favorite pasta.”
The Old Witcheroo Page 16