“Hello, darling,” Scarlett said, her voice strong and musical at the same time. “Going to introduce me to your friends?”
“Sure,” I responded. “Just as soon as you tell me who the hell my father is.”
Scarlett’s grin widened. She threw her head back and laughed as if I was utterly delightful and charming. She laughed as if she loved me, as if I could never do or say anything wrong. Charm and charisma were the focal points for my mother’s magic and the everyday outlet of that energy, but there wasn’t a contrived bone in her body. Charming and truthful was a devastating combination. I’d never seen anyone stand against her when she cared to exert her will. Not even Gran. I had no chance. Plus … I thought of Sienna, whose touch I could still feel on my fingers, who had no mother rushing to her rescue, no mother willing to step into a room full of monsters in human skin and extend her hand …
I stepped away from the portal. I stepped away from the soul-filling magic and it closed behind me as if it had never existed. Though I could still feel the buzz of it underneath my skin when I was near.
It was the polite thing to do after all.
I was still going to get some bloody answers, though.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Everyone was okay. Or, at the minimum, they were all functional enough to be bullied out of the basement on their own two feet by Gran. She was going to “raze the remains of the blood magic” — Sienna’s ‘unliving’ magic — “from the face of the earth.” I’d never heard her voice laced with so much power or anger before. I didn’t stick around to watch.
I thought about going for a walk even though it was still the middle of the night, but then wound up curled up on my couch. Scarlett would come to me — she neither made nor broke promises lightly. I would get my answers and then I would sleep. I just didn’t want to wait, or demand answers in front of the wounded shapeshifters. Or the far-too-sharp ears of the vampire.
My questions were my own. The answers belonged to me and no one else.
∞
So it turned out there weren’t that many answers to be had — at least not from my Gran or Scarlett. Supposedly, the identity of my father was actually unknown, other than the fact that he’d been gorgeous, blond, crazy strong, and Australian. I’d never noticed the faraway look my mother got when talking about him. I wondered, for the first time, if she’d loved him. How could you possibly love someone you only knew for one night, during a fertility rite ceremony? Yeah, that was a new tidbit. A circumstance that they — in their collective wisdom — thought it best to keep from me. Mom, while “backpacking around the world,” had participated in an aboriginal fertility ceremony somewhere in the middle of bloody Queensland. She was sketchy about whether this took place during a full or new moon, and I was pretty sure she’d ‘run away’ at sixteen rather than ‘backpacked.’ And, now that I thought about it, she’d been running away ever since. But never back to Australia, not that I knew. I wondered if dear old dad scared her as much as he obviously exhilarated her.
And what the hell did that say about one half of my DNA?
Gran and Scarlett couldn’t exactly deny my sudden ability to heal very quickly or imbue things with magic. They’d already figured out that part, and kept it from me for my own protection. For my own protection … that wasn’t going to be the last time I heard those words, and they already pissed me off. Magic users who could create magical objects were rare among the Adept — so rare that my freedom could be in jeopardy, according to my Gran.
I had a list of questions rattling around in my pretty little head — questions that might be too big for such a small container. Was there a portal in the basement? Yes. Where did it lead? Gran had no idea, nor had she ever seen it open. The responsibility of hiding it was passed down generation to generation, not that Vancouver was that old in terms of settlement. Was Sienna dead? Again, Gran didn’t know, though it seemed likely that only a person in tune with such magic would be able to travel through it. So why the hell was I attuned with it when it seemed no one else was? Again, Gran didn’t have an answer for me, though it was pretty obvious it all came around to the question of the other half of my DNA.
When I broached the subject of the life debt with Desmond, which I was pretty sure hadn’t been dissolved along with Sienna, my Gran’s lips had thinned and I saw the blue of her magic rimming her eyes. Even my mother seemed put out at this information. At this point, it was not-so-subtly suggested that I needed sleep, and I was promptly sent to bed. Seeing as I was utterly exhausted and probably not absorbing the answers to my barrage of questions anyway, I complied.
Desmond was about to be in the line of fire, which pleased me more than it should have. Yes, I should fight my own battles, but it was awfully nice to have a pair of powerful witches at my back. In my mind, the shifter and the vampire had everything coming to them that my Gran and Scarlett could dole out. They’d ripped me from my protective cocoon and showed me a world of magic that scared the shit out of me. The fact that I was still standing had little to do with either of them. The fact that I was walking away was pure choice. The first choice in days that I felt was uninfluenced by forces greater than me.
∞
I felt like I needed to sleep for three days, but settled for the three hours that was all my body seemed to need.
I got up. I baked, though it wasn’t my shift — I’d traded with Bryn for Sunday, but at least I knew what day it was — and took a 9:00 a.m. yoga class. Halfway through the class, I realized I wasn’t struggling as much as usual, and I tried to just enjoy that feeling. The other option was to acknowledge the weight that the sight of the empty mat beside me seemed to exert on my chest. Obviously, Hudson had affected me on a level that was at odds with the briefness of our friendship. I wondered if Scarlett felt that way about my father, and I was glad that I hadn’t had the chance to be intimate with Hudson.
The ache caused by Sienna’s betrayal and apparent death was distinctly different. That felt like a shard of a knife tip broken off and lodged in my heart; the top right section of my heart, to be specific. I’d left my foster sister’s mess for my Gran and Scarlett to sort and clean up. That was probably cowardly of me, but I had no idea what else to do. I wished it all felt like a dream, or even a nightmare, but it didn’t. The last few days felt very real to me. Terribly real.
I wandered back to the bakery and jogged up the stairs to my apartment, though I usually never entered through the front door. I thought it might be symbolic … a reclaiming of my life and all that … But then I decided I was freaking out and reading too much into everything.
A shower soothed me further, and I was feeling somewhat rebooted. Then I took the garbage out. Who knew that such a mundane task would result in the frustratingly unresolved stirring of the beehive of my mind? Not me. Otherwise, I would have let it stink up the place.
A delivery truck was blocking the dumpster behind the bakery. Kandy, of all people, was chatting up the driver.
The green-haired werewolf stepped back when she saw me, offering me a grin. The truck pulled away.
I lifted the lid of the dumpster and chucked the garbage in. It hit the empty bin with a satisfying, ringing thump. It must be garbage day. I was very pleased with this confirmation that I was once again on track with my satisfying, regular routine. I chose to ignore the delivery truck, to ignore the werewolf who was currently closing the gap between us with long strides. I was happy to see her on her feet — just not in my alley.
Kandy sauntered over to me, her grin still firmly in place. She was covered in various-sized bandages on her arms, neck, and chest. She hadn’t bothered to cover them with more than a V-neck short-sleeved T-shirt, which bore an obscene cartoon involving an apple and a banana. I didn’t try to figure the joke out. Sienna had bled the werewolf so badly that her wounds were taking time to heal. Guilt pooled in my stomach, and I tried to push it away as not my responsibility.
“Morning, neighbor,” Kandy said. It was act
ually just after noon, but I didn’t correct her.
“Neighbor?” My voice came out in an unbecoming squeak. Kandy didn’t seem to mind. In fact, her grin only widened.
“Sorry, can’t talk. Getting an actual fridge delivered, instead of that dinky one you have in the apartment. You know I like my meat cut large and readily available.” I didn’t know that, actually … and didn’t really want to know that. “Catch you in yoga tomorrow? Sorry I missed today’s class.”
“Okay …” Yes, I was a little thrown. Kandy turned back into the bakery via the alley door and I dumbly followed at her heels. She had no issue passing through the wards. But then, I’d given her access only a few hours before.
“Delivery guy wanted to drop it in the alley,” Kandy said, chatting over her shoulder as she crossed through the kitchen and into the bakery. “But he can cart it up the front stairs himself.”
She walked around the display counter and pushed her way through the line of customers as if she owned the place. The delivery truck had pulled up out front and was now blocking one of the lanes on West Fourth.
Kandy dashed out the front doors. The trinkets hanging there tinkled in her wake. I realized I was just standing and staring after her. A few of my customers greeted me and I tried to be polite, but I wasn’t sure I’d actually formed words to answer them.
The sun streaming in the French-paned windows glinted off Scarlett’s hair, alerting me to my mother’s presence in the seating area. I hustled over to her. She was prettily perched on one of the high stools by the farthest round table, awarding me with a blinding smile as I approached. I managed to not falter under its wattage.
“Kandy just told me ‘Hi, Neighbor’.” I completely skipped any pleasantries.
“Oh, yes. The werewolves have rented the second upstairs apartment from your Gran.”
“What?” I was having a hard time keeping the dismay out of my voice. Actually, I sounded a bit petulant, even to my own ears. Not attractive.
“It was some arrangement that the alpha — lord, is he a fine specimen — came to with your Gran. Something about protecting his investment. You’ll have to ask Pearl about it, but it’s never a bad thing to have a werewolf at your back.”
“All the better to eat you,” I muttered.
“Oh, darling. Werewolves aren’t man eaters, at least not those of the pack. And it seems you need all the powerful allies you can get now … if you’re going to fully exercise your magic.” There was some sort of chiding in my mother’s wording somewhere, some backhanded chastisement, but I didn’t absorb it. Scarlett didn’t typically play the role of disappointed disciplinarian, so that part was easy to ignore.
I started to turn away from her extreme sunniness and her way of never really answering questions with any substantial information. I also hadn’t missed her calling Desmond ‘a fine specimen’. I wondered if McGrowly, or ‘all muscle and lots of trouble,’ as Sienna had referred to him, knew he was now on my mother’s radar. She’d chew and swallow him whole, and he wouldn’t know what had hit him until she was walking away. The thought pissed me off a bit. Not enough to forgive him for the heavy-handedness, or the botched life bond, or anything at all, really. But still.
“Jade,” Kett said as he crossed from the counter through my peripheral vision to place an espresso in front of my mother. “I was thinking we could go treasure hunting next weekend. I believe the coast is known for its native artifacts.” He sat on the stool opposite Scarlett.
My mother was having coffee and cupcakes with a vampire. Not that Kett seemed to be eating or drinking any of his portion. Ironically, he’d chosen Sunshine in a Cup, a lemon cake topped with lemon butter icing. So he did have some sort of deeply hidden sense of humor. My mother brought out the best in every man she cast her gaze on, even vampires it seemed.
“Treasure hunting?” I lamely echoed.
“Oh,” Scarlett said. “Like a training session. What fun!” She ran her fingers down my bare forearm in a light caress. I could feel her magic, the charisma of it. It made my skin tingle in the wake of her fingers, which was new.
I turned away, completely ignoring mother and vampire. I walked back toward the counter, shutting everything out amid the gentle buzz of the customers’ quiet chatter. Though I didn’t miss Scarlett whispering, “Give her a few hours, her curiosity will win out.”
So … Scarlett and Kett … sitting in a tree … I wondered what Gran thought of that. Not that she’d ever had much control over her daughter. Not like me. Not like I okayed every step, every choice I’d made my entire life with my Gran, who had controlled me — lovingly, of course — with secrets and half-truths.
The trinkets chimed over the door to announce another customer. I looked up from my daze to see the cute lawyer guy enter. I flashed him a smile the moment he found me off to the side of the counter. He’d scanned the entire room. He smiled back immediately, that one dimple firmly and sweetly in place.
I crossed behind the counter and began folding a box for a dozen cupcakes.
“What can I get you, lawyer guy from just down the street?” I called to him over my shoulder, blatantly ignoring everyone in line ahead of him. But then, I wasn’t actually working a scheduled shift.
His smile widened. “It’s Joe,” he answered. Ah, Joe. What a perfectly normal, simple name. “How about baker’s choice?”
I laughed and walked over to begin placing my favorites in the box. My first choice was always Lust in a Cup, a dark chocolate cake with dark chocolate cream cheese icing. Partway through, I handed Joe a chocolate chip cookie, something I’d baked this morning. I enjoyed his appreciative noises as he ate it. I also very much enjoyed the fact he never took his eyes off me.
Joe didn’t want me for my magic. He didn’t care if I had rare hidden talents. He simply wanted my cupcakes, my body, and maybe a bit of my time.
And that sounded just perfect to me.
For Michael
without whom there would be no reason to bake
With thanks to:
My story & line editor
Scott Fitzgerald Gray
My Beta & Proof Readers
Clare Hodge, Dana (Bitchie), ETA:soon, Heather, Ita Margalit, Joanne Schwartz
For their continual encouragement, feedback, & general advice
Gertie from Goodreads, Headshot Heather, & Shana from A Book Vacation
To My Friends & Family
Thanks for all the years of taste testing.
For her Art
Irene Langholm
Meghan Ciana Doidge is an award-winning writer based out of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She has a penchant for bloody love stories, superheroes, and the supernatural. She also has a thing for chocolate, potatoes, and sock yarn.
Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic is Meghan’s fourth novel.
Novels
After The Virus
Spirit Binder
Time Walker
Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic
Novellas
Love Lies Bleeding
Short Stories
Cheri, an After The Virus prequel (July 2013)
For giveaways, news, and glimpses of upcoming stories, please connect with Meghan on:
Her personal blog, www.madebymeghan.ca
Twitter, @mcdoidge
Facebook, Meghan Ciana Doidge
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Ebooks available through all major retailers. Paperbacks available through Amazon & B&N.
http://www.madebymeghan.ca
CUPCAKES, TRINKETS, AND OTHER DEADLY MAGIC
Copyright © 2013 Meghan Ciana Doidge
Published by Old Man in the CrossWalk Productions 2013
Vancouver, BC, Canada
www.oldmaninthecrosswalk.com
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be produced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including i
nformation storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author, except by reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, objects, and incidents herein are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual things, events, locales, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Library and Archives Canada
Doidge, Meghan Ciana, 1973 —
Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic/Meghan Ciana Doidge — Kindle
Cover image & design by Irene Langholm
ISBN 978-0-9916977-6-2
Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic Page 21