Page 13
I took a deep breath. “It would have been good if you’d had a talk with me, too,” I said. “I’m here. In this city. To make sure you live to plan a great future. With someone who can keep you safe and make you happy.” And I’m hating every minute of it.
It was Felicia’s turn to take a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Lizbeth.”
Alert. “Look to your left. Know this person?” A brown-skinned girl was approaching, her arms outspread, a smile on her face, closing in at top speed. My knife was in my hand and I dropped my purse to the sidewalk.
“No! I don’t know her!” Felicia’s hands flew up in defense.
I stepped in front of my sister, knife in my right hand, just as I heard Eli throw open the car door. I couldn’t spare a moment to look at him.
The girl said very rapidly, “Felicia, don’t you know me? It’s Maria! We grew up together.” The smile did not falter.
“I don’t know you,” Felicia called from behind me.
The girl pretended to be hurt and angry. At least she stopped advancing. “I just wanted to give you a hug,” she said, in Mexican-accented English. “I’m wounded.”
She would be, in about five seconds.
The scattering of departing guests around us were moving away in a great hurry. Smart.
The girl looked desperate when we didn’t soften our stance.
She lunged forward. There was something in her hand.
Eli attacked. I was glad because I did not want to stab anyone else, especially with so many people watching. Not this girl, whose eyes were widening in panic as she realized she had lost: the moment, the opportunity, her life. Eli’s spell knocked her down. She sprawled on the grass.
With all the agitation running through the women around me, not to mention me and my sister, it took me a moment to realize “Maria” was still alive. She was pinned to the ground, not moving her arms and legs… but her eyes were blinking.
“Thanks, brother-in-law,” Felicia called. “Maybe we can find out who sent her.”
“Maybe,” Eli said, with a little smile. He got within a foot of me. His eyes met mine. “I know you don’t like to use the knife. I’m sorry about last night.”
It was done. I shrugged.
“Last night?” Felicia said, even angrier. “What happened? I knew something happened.”
“Later,” I said. “Let’s get this gal loaded into the car and take her to Felix.”
Harriet stepped forward to help Eli raise “Maria” and drag her to the car, the toes of her new shoes scuffing against the pavement. Harriet’s charge, Soo-Yung, watched with a calm face.
I looked at all the faces in the crowd around us, the knife still in my hand. I could throw it if I had to. No one approached us or said a word.
“Maybe I did know her?” Felicia muttered. She was second-guessing.
“You probably know twenty girls named Maria from Mexico,” I said. “But she’s not one of them.”
This girl, whoever she was, was smart enough to be terrified. Thanks to a quick gesture by my husband, she was also mute.
After she’d helped deposit our “Maria” in the car, Harriet and Soo-Yung went directly to a car that was double-parked beside Eli’s, a man sitting in the driver’s seat. The car left immediately. Harriet was getting her charge out of the range of the consequences, if there were any.
The grigori “police” got to the scene very quickly. This was a new organization, and one the San Diego police were glad to welcome. The last thing a regular police officer wanted to be called on was a grigori-on-grigori crime.
The younger enforcer was named Casimir, a lanky young man who had sandy hair, freckles, and a great eagerness to meet Felicia. My sister actually managed to shed some tears so Casimir could console her. Casimir did not suspect the tears were from rage.
The other grigori, Sandrina, had known Eli since he was a boy on the boats. She was gray-haired, walked with a limp, and was about as tough as an old boot.
While Casimir made doubly sure that my sister was completely and totally unharmed, Sandrina asked us all the pertinent questions. I gave honest answers: lucky for me.
As we were driving to Felix’s house to leave Maria there, Eli told me that Sandrina was a truth-teller. “I thought all grigoris had a talent for earth, air, fire, or water,” I said. “Where does the truth-telling fit?”
“Same place being a death-dealer fits. Somewhere in between. You can be an air grigori like me and Peter, and also be a truth-teller.”
“You could have let me know that.” And so could have my sister.
“I knew you weren’t going to lie. No point, when the truth was in our favor.”
Though “Maria” deserved whatever was coming to her, I felt at least a little bad leaving anyone in Felix’s hands.
I’d helped Eli march a struggling (but silent) Maria up Felix’s back steps and held her while Eli knocked on the door.
Felix himself had looked oddly grim and silent when he’d opened it. He’d also been surprised. “Back again so soon?” he said.
“This girl tried to get close to Felicia outside the Medvedev house. Though this Maria claimed she knew Felicia, she doesn’t. This is what she had in her hand. Since she’s not a grigori or a witch, that I can tell, this must be some spell designed to do harm.”
Eli handed Felix a small cloth bundle the size of a lemon. That was what Maria had been holding when she’d rushed toward us.
“What is it?” Felix said, turning it over in his hands.
“I haven’t got a clue, and I doubt this Maria will, either.”
“Don’t you think the grigori police should take charge of this?”
I was very, very surprised. I could see Eli look at Felix, with some doubt in his face. He said, “Sandrina came from the grigori police, but I thought you would rather I brought her here.”
“Sandrina” was all Felix said, but I knew we had him, then. Felix had always excelled at what he called “interrogation.” He looked past Eli to see me holding Maria’s arm, saw the girl struggling to speak. It was like someone had turned on a light switch inside Felix.
“And here I was, bored and worried and with no outlet for that,” he said. “Perfect timing. Lucy is out.”
I didn’t like to think about Felix interrogating “Maria.” I’d been present when Eli had gotten information out of someone in Dixie, and I hadn’t liked it any better then. At least Eli hadn’t relished the process. It was a necessity, not a pleasure.
Felix really enjoyed it.
After we returned to the house, all of us silent, Felicia pelted straight up to her room, probably to begin getting ready for the next event. Or to write a few dozen notes.
Eli and I went up to our bedroom. I shed the tea-party dress. I hung it up carefully. No stains of any kind. It was five o’clock, and I could have gone to bed already, I was that tired. But there was another party at the Del Coronado that night.
I hoped Eli wasn’t getting any husband-and-wife ideas because I was not in the mood.
“This is one of the things I don’t understand,” Eli said. He sat on the bed. His elbows were on his knees, his hair falling in light brown waves around his face. “Why pick such a public place for this attack?”
“The girl’s a throwaway,” I said. “Whoever gave her the spell didn’t care if she died along with Felicia.”
“But why kill Felicia?” Eli looked up at me.
“Why? She hasn’t done anything to anyone.
She’s in the market like all these other kids are in the market.
Granted, she’s the… princess of the season.
But there are other girls who have great talent, too.
Those two friends of Felicia’s, for example. They’re worthy of respect.”
“Felicia is prettier.” I hated that, even as I said it.
“True, but when you’re talking value… the other girls come from families with more money.
Fenolla’s father would be a great wizard if he didn’t live in England where it’s forbidden, and her mother is from Sudan, which has an interesting magical tradition.
They seem to be very well-to-do. He uses his magic in investing.
The Swindolls have money, and Katerina’s father works in Hollywood.
Though several people have told me the brother is something of a problem. ”
I pulled on my jeans and a plaid shirt I’d had forever. My mother-in-law most likely would use it as a rag, but what the hell. I sat on the floor and began to stretch. I was not getting the movement I was used to. I would try to go for a walk before dinner, if I had the time.
Eli went to the sink to wash his face I tried not to glare at his back. It wasn’t his fault that I was here in San Diego, missing home, missing my mother and stepfather and baby brother.
“Felicia says she had a talk with you and Felix when we first got here, without me. I want to know what she said.”
I could see Eli’s back heave as he sighed. “I can’t tell you now. But I hope I can tell you soon.”
“So I’m charged with keeping her safe, but I can’t know about this mysterious conversation?”
“Not just yet. In fact, the meeting today bore directly on it. And I’m sworn on that one. But as soon as I can, I will tell you.” He turned around to face me, a towel in his hands. “And you will be sorry to know.”
Of course, that didn’t worry me at all. Of course not.
I wasn’t used to being the person who was groping around in the dark.
But that was what I was in San Diego.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13 (Reading here)
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41