Black Briar (14 page)

Elsa shoved another handful of the moist yellow cake into her mouth as she scanned the latest notice from the bank. A lip-smacking benediction of caramelized sugar and white rum tingled on the tip of her tongue. The porous, butter sponge stuck to the roof of her mouth. Smooth. Comforting. And…nowhere near enough to quell her rising dread and indignation as she untangled the legal jargon.

More money, they say.

Two weeks, they say.

Of all the times for the bank to decide to increase their interest rates. Why was she surprised? It was that time of year. That magical time of year when the concrete jungle was quelled, overtaken by the lullaby of a snowy landscape. A time for candy canes and sparkling tinsel, popcorn and twinkling lights embroidered on thick fir trees. Children with ruddy cheeks from cold, laughing bundles of anticipation and wonder. But more than anything, 'twas the time for money.

Yes, well, the last time she'd checked, she was a witch—not a miracle worker. There wasn't a way in
Hel’s
scream-bitten realm she would be able to come up with that kind of money. Bits and Pieces wasn't making any profits. In the months since her father's death, she'd managed to jump start the business enough to
almost
cover the cost of overhead and chocolate rice crispy treats.

Elsa shuffled to the second page, her fingers crawling across the stained eggshell table cloth in search of her dessert plate.
Merry-fucking-Christmas to me.

“Are you listening to me?” Fenris leapt from his perch on a precarious stack of dusty
grimoires
onto the table and landed gently on nimble paws. “Of course, you're not listening to me.”

Elsa shoveled another chunk of cake into her mouth, heedless of the crumbs tumbling down her chin, “What do you want, cat?”

Fenris, her feline familiar, stole a regal seat on top of a stack of bills and, despite a noted lack of eyebrows, slanted an arched look at the scarlet invitation looming at the corner of the table like a terrible idea waiting to come to fruition.

“No.” Elsa dropped the notices on the table, making a mental note of their general location amidst the cyclone of inventory forms and bills smattered across the antique oak table she used for business. It wasn't like anyone was ever going to buy it. It, like many of the other antiques in her father's self-proclaimed “emporium of arcane treasures,” had become as much a part of the shop as the faded, water-stained wallpaper and crooked floor planks.

“Elsa,” Fenris turned up his pink button nose and smoothed a paw over the downy white fur on his chest, “you're going to end up an old crone.”

“More than likely.” Elsa reached for the lid of the glass cake platter where the rest of her mother's Bridge Butter Cake was waiting, beckoning her to eat it so it could lend its sugar and soothe the rest of this evening’s money spending nightmare.

A small, orange paw landed on the glass, halting her pursuit, and her jaw clenched. Cake was not to be denied.

Fenris didn’t appear the least perturbed. His expression—if it can be said a cat had one—was blank. Challenge and cunning shone amongst the gold flecks in his almond-shaped green eyes. “Surely, you can excuse yourself from this self-imposed isolation for one night. Ingrid will be there.”

Mentioning Ingrid, her only other friend, wasn’t the route he should've taken if he meant to convince her to go to the ridiculous holiday party at Club Brimstone. The last thing she needed was another night spent languishing in the
huldra's
shadow, eclipsed and forgotten next to the fey's stunning beauty and innate sexual allure. On the contrary if she wanted to feel invisible, misery was waiting…with cake.

“I can't,” Elsa shooed his paw away, “I have too much to do. Busy, busy, busy.”

He protested, swatting at her fingers. “A few hours.”

Her mouth thinned and she instinctively palmed the ornate ruby amulet resting against her chest. “You're starting to annoy me, cat.”

He didn't budge. She supposed blatant disregard to the very real threat her magic posed was his prerogative as her familiar. The imp’s keen understanding of enchantments and curses, especially glamours, and its willingness to share its knowledge was a key reason she'd managed to come as far as she had. Tentative friendship aside, she needed him, and he knew it.

Elsa plucked out the invitation from beneath a stack of papers. A sultry gauntlet. The glossy varnish on the red and black cardstock snared the light. Suggestive ink drawings of a gargoyle's silhouette decorated one side. On the other, an address, time, date and a few “house rules” were inscribed in bold Century Gothic lettering.

Ingrid had dropped off the invitation on her way to the evening's festivities. One final attempt to shake the hermit from its shell. Elsa had never been to one of Club Brimstone’s so-called holiday parties, but she knew enough about them from Ingrid's lurid tales. A local hot spot for monsters, it wasn’t the kind of venue she'd normally frequent.

She twirled the invitation in the soft glow of the candle light. Fenris was right. It had been a long time since she’d ventured into the city. Socialized with other monsters. What good was a glamour if she didn't use it? Just for tonight she should…

Cruel faces and the echoes of even crueler laughter rose strong in Elsa's memory. Her stomach twisted. No, it would never happen again. Never. Not ever.

Abandoning the card on the table, she snatched up her half-drunk glass of wine and shoved another wedge of cake into her gob. “The answer is no,” she managed in between munches.

Crumbs tumbled from her mouth and scattered in between the stout legs of her leaning oak stool. Wrinkling the slope of his white nose in distaste, Fenris opened his mouth as if to speak.

Elsa pinned him with a withering glare. “Press me no further, familiar.”

It was a thinly veiled threat. Though she did value his knowledge and his company most of the time, he was still just an imp. Useful, but weak little creatures. Punitive demons incapable of a corporeal presence in this realm without a host—the orange tabby cat she'd found milling in the trashcans behind the dumpster—and a witch's patronage and help to anchor them to this plane. Whether she would ever banish him remained to be seen, but she hoped, for his sake, he still valued his cushy-catnip existence enough to let the matter lie.

“Very well.” Fenris turned tail and leapt off the table. “Die alone.”

The pitter-patter of his paws across the floor trailed into silence as he faded away, strutting into some invisible plane she couldn't see. She trained her ears and cast her senses net, trying to make sure he'd left. Gone wherever he spent his time when he wasn't underfoot.

Silence rushed to fill the void of Fenris’ constant stream of chatter. The walls stretched higher to the ceiling. Dwarfing her until stark solitude blew a chilly breath on the nape of her neck. A row of grandfather clocks lining the wall to her right marked the time like a row of ever-vigilant
Heimdallrs
. Each one correct. None of them in sync. The eerie soundtrack akin to the tick-tock of raindrops splattering inside an empty metal pail.

The clock struck half-past eleven. It was almost midnight. Time to close.

Close? As if it mattered when she flipped the little carving hanging on the weathered red door. She zigzagged through the chests, armoires, and shelves, full to bursting with books, pagan idols, and other useless junk. Soon, she wouldn't be able to afford a sign on her door.
Frigga’s
bleeding slit, soon she wouldn't be able to afford the bloody door. And to think her relationship status—or lack thereof—was her simple-minded familiar’s most pressing worry. Stupid cat.

Snorting with harsh amusement, Elsa stepped over an assortment of skulls and knocked back the rest of her wine. The bittersweet taste worked to quell her growing apathy, warmed her even as she looked through the frosted panes of the shop door into the frozen tundra the city she lived in had become overnight.

The frosted bridge across the street was an ancient arm across the narrow river. Its stones were cobbled and crooked, set into place like they had become part of the landscape themselves. And she didn’t doubt it—it was a good bridge. It would stand for more time to come. Across the channel, the cityscape rose, beacons and monuments to civilization aiming toward the sky, stretching back into the horizon as far as the eye could see. Smatterings of yellow and white, blue and red city lights annihilated the stars and sparkled across the black water’s wrinkled surface.

Die alone, he'd said. As if she had a choice.

A set of headlights appeared in the thick smog swaddling the crooked bridge like a pair of fleeing wispmothers. Black rubber ground salt against snow as the yellow cab pulled up to the curbside. Elsa watched with aberrant interest as the passenger side door swung open and a bone-white stiletto struck the icy pavement. Elsa folded her arms across her chest.
Praise Odin, the cover girl returns.

Famous for milky, death-white skin and about a dozen covers of
Story Witch
magazine, Gwyneth Cage unfolded her lissome limbs from the cab, swaddled in an expensive white pea-coat. Lithe and graceful, the coven was the kind of gaudy beauty who existed simply to make Elsa and the other angry balls of cake like her green with envy.

Small snowflakes dusted the top of her silver-blonde hair, clinging to her long lashes. Tear tracks marred her otherwise perfect makeup and her ruby red lips were downcast in a frown. She stepped out of view and a shiny black patent Prada slip-on—a suitable shoe for an advertising executive—struck the icy sidewalk. Elsa leaned a little closer and her breath fogged the glass.
He's home early…

Marshall Ansley straightened out of the cab, cast in the mold she imagined Michelangelo had used to hew his idea of male perfection. Elsa wiped the condensation away in order to glean a full view of the most beautiful man…to recently ignore her. Tall, broad shoulders, but hardly the stocky brute strength she normally preferred. He was lean and fit. Snowy blue eyes pierced rather than looked through the darkness as he ran a hand through his disheveled chestnut hair. It was the only part of the image that mimicked human imperfection, and her fingers itched against the icy glass with the urge to touch the closest thing her wicked soul would ever see to one of Christianity’s ethereal angels.

In the few months she'd known the tenant renting the apartment above her shop, she'd managed to glean he was some sort of vampire. Elsa murmured an incantation. The words of power sizzled across her lips like raw ginger, and the mahogany aura of the innate glamour bled into existence and netted over his pale skin. It hummed and glowed with energy.

 
Indeed, a vampire.

What kind, she didn't know. There was a skew in the print etched across his skin. Pixilated temporal black spots—demonic. Beneath it, there was another layer altogether. Cracked silver veins of humanity swirled. It was most unusual, suggesting he was a completely different creature altogether. Perhaps a twisted half-breed of some sort.

Fangs or spade tongue—he would've been gorgeous. Out of her league. Out of most women's league. Looking at him was like taking a decadent bite out of the center of fudge. Fudge was almost too thick. Too sturdy of a word. His movements were airy and there was something almost temporary about him, like the faint brush of a stranger’s shadow. And despite having long ago come to terms with spinsterhood, Elsa’s stomach folded with a hunger pang.

What she wouldn't give…

Just once, she wanted…

Just once…

A breeze tousled his chestnut-brown hair as he pulled a bill out of his pocket and slipped it through the cracked passenger side window. “Keep the change, mate.”