Authors: Debora Geary
Red-hot alarm screamed through Lizard’s brain, even as she
swiped to open Elsie’s phone.
Heedless of her roommate’s privacy, she ran for the bright lights of the
bathroom, trying to get a better look at the tiny face.
Too blurry.
Maybe it wasn’t him.
Brain firing on adrenaline now, she stormed through the apps on
Elsie’s phone.
Photos.
There had to be a picture of this Anton
somewhere.
One bigger than her
thumb.
“What’s wrong?”
Caro’s voice from the doorway nearly sent Lizard into the ceiling.
“Dunno yet.
Why are
you here?”
Lizard was still
digging for the evidence she needed on her roommate’s phone.
“You sent up a clamor even someone mind-deaf could hear.”
Caro’s hand landed on her
shoulder.
“What’s going
on—is Elsie in trouble?”
It suddenly occurred to Lizard that the picture she needed might
be more places than Elsie’s phone.
“Anton.
Have you ever
picked up his face from Elsie’s mind?”
“Sure.”
Caro looked
confused.
“Haven’t you?”
No.
When you didn’t
grow up in nice, cushy Witch Central, you didn’t want to pick up everyone’s
random mental images.
She’d
learned to block that channel a long time ago.
Dread careened through Lizard’s soul.
“Can you mindsend me what he looks
like?”
Caro nodded slowly, clearly digging though her memory banks.
When the image hit Lizard’s mind, dread bloomed into full-blown
terror.
“We have to find
Elsie.
Right now.”
~ ~ ~
“You smell like summer flowers.”
Elsie smiled as Anton buried his face in the top of her
hair.
Ginia’s newest conditioner
creation was obviously doing its job.
Elsie had helped bloom the flowers for it herself.
He pulled her in tighter and turned to avoid a
table—dancing in a jazz bar meant navigating a fair number of
obstacles.
She could get totally
used to being held like this, a pair of strong arms keeping her safe in the
world.
Swinging with Elliot had
been fun, but this was different.
Not passive, just—open.
They moved slowly to the music, a long, liquid jazz beat that
seemed written to match the languid passions stirring in her belly.
Maybe her chakras were opening.
She’d have to ask Nat.
Elsie tilted back her head—and caught a spark of something
in Anton’s eyes she hadn’t seen before.
It made those pulls in her belly multiply.
Maybe he was done being quite so patient with her.
The sax player ran up a high, floaty scale, the cry of his
instrument almost human.
Elsie’s
first love would always be vocals, but a well-played sax was moving into solid
second place.
She turned to listen, enraptured by the crusty old man’s fingers
on the keys.
Anton’s chuckle rumbled in her ear.
“Sometimes I wonder if you come back for me or to listen to
Jim up there.”
“Both.”
The truth
was out before Elsie’s brain caught up with her mouth.
She flushed, certain that wasn’t what
he wanted to hear.
Odd flinty bits
in his eyes seemed to agree.
“I’m
sorry, that didn’t come out right.
I can hear jazz in half the bars in the city if I want.
There are no Antons anywhere else.”
His stare was almost frightening.
“I hope not.”
She reached her fingers into his dark curls, reveling in her
power as the flinty bits in his eyes fled, replaced by something… hotter.
Old Jim shifted to something spicy, flowing with their mood.
Anton smiled, tracing the strap of her sundress.
“Come home with me tonight, pretty
Elsie.”
She froze, leaping desire landing in a football-tackled mess
with a lifetime of caution.
His
eyes held the same message she’d seen when Elliot looked at Colleen, or Jamie
looked at Nat.
Desire, barely
contained.
This was how big people played.
She tried to say yes.
Moth to flame, she fought to get the words out.
And simply couldn’t.
His eyes shadowed over—and then shifted back to their
usual patient depths.
He smiled,
running a thumb over her cheek in the way that made her insides quiver.
“Maybe a bit more of that liquid
courage of yours.
Stay
here—I’ll get you a drink.”
Even a stiff dose of Ginia’s green goo hadn’t broken her
attraction to the deep pink shimmer of a raspberry Cosmopolitan.
This night, however, something inside
her was saying no, with an insistence that demanded she listen.
And maybe the voice was right.
For all that he danced like a dream and spoke to the passion
flowing in her veins, Anton was still her dark and handsome stranger.
Maybe just a glass of wine tonight.
Elsie made her way over to the bar, where Anton stood behind the
counter mixing her drink.
She
admired his dark curls as he turned for a bottle behind him—and then
froze as she caught sight of his other hand, emptying a small vial.
Into her drink.
Raspberry Cosmopolitans didn’t have any ingredients that came in
small vials.
Her brain swam forward in slow-motion nightmare.
And then he looked up at her, flashing his sexy grin, a bottle
of something amber in one hand, lime wedge in the other.
“Hey, beautiful.
Almost done here—I’ll be right
with you.”
The vial was gone.
Maybe it had never been.
Elsie studied his face.
Anton would never look innocent, but he looked no different than he had
every night she’d walked into the club.
It was her insides that had changed.
This didn’t feel like Paris garrets anymore.
It felt dangerous.
She met his gaze, willed her voice to lie well.
“I got a text—issues at
home.
I need to go, I’m sorry.”
His eyes narrowed.
“What kind of issues?”
Evidently she wasn’t lying well enough.
“A fussy baby.
Sounds like teething.”
Bless Sammy’s contribution to her
education.
His face bloomed in sheer shock.
“You got kids?”
Yes.
They were strangers.
And right now, she wanted to keep it
that way.
Summoning Vero’s stage
presence, she turned to make her exit.
“Good night, Anton.”
He knew she wasn’t coming back.
She could see it in his eyes.
~ ~ ~
Jennie held still through the weird sucking sensation of being
pulled through Realm.
For the
second time in a week, a witch SWAT team was headed to Elsie’s house.
This time, the pendants had been utterly silent—it was
Lizard who had sent out the SOS.
She landed in a flicker of lights and watched as Vero, Melvin,
Jamie, Nat, and Lauren materialized beside her.
The gang was all here.
Jennie could sense Caro’s hovering worry, but it was Lizard’s blazing,
furious panic that yanked her attention.
Something was very, very wrong.
Come back to the kitchen,
sent Caro.
I have cookies.
Cookies after midnight weren’t a good sign either.
Caro clearly thought they would need
fuel.
Jennie joined the back of
the line flowing down the hall to the kitchen, worry stampeding through one
mind after the next.
Even Vero was
deeply concerned this time.
The second she set foot in the kitchen, Lizard hammered them all
with a mind image.
“That’s
Anton.
The guy Elsie’s been
dancing with.”
Several heads nodded—this wasn’t news to most of them.
“I didn’t look.
I
didn’t know.”
A very white Lizard
continued, arms wrapped around her ribs.
“When I knew him, his name wasn’t Anton, and he didn’t own a jazz dive
in downtown Berkeley, and he wasn’t French.”
The room was dead silent as Lizard’s dread pounded through them
all.
“He was a New Jersey,
mob-connected slimeball who made porn videos for the Net—and the girls
weren’t always willing.
He uses
drugs.
Roofies.”
The date-rape drug.
Oh, God.
Jennie stepped
forward—and had to get in line behind the raging fury and whisper-gentle
words of Lauren McCready.
“Did he
hurt you?”
Lizard blinked.
“No.
Not me.
Word was out on the street about him by
the time I was around.”
Her chin
went up.
“But I know girls he did
hurt.”
“Of course you do.”
Vero’s voice enveloped Lizard along with her arms—fear, fury, and
all.
“You wouldn’t be wrong about
something like this.”
It was the right thing to say.
Lizard’s spine straightened, her eyes piercing.
“We have to find Elsie.
Now.”
She machine-gunned around the room, a general marshalling
her troops.
“Jamie, take Caro and
Lauren and port to the skunk hole where he keeps his club.
You two are the strongest mind witches.
Find Anton and rip whatever the hell
you have to out of his head.
Fuck
the ethics.”
Not a soul disagreed.
They wouldn’t have dared.
“I’m going to check out some back alleys, talk to some people.”
Her eyes drilled into Jennie.
“You coming?”
Jennie nodded, in awe of the menace steaming off of Lizard.
“We’ll wait,” said Melvin quietly, taking Nat and Vero’s hands.
“To hell with waiting.”
Lizard’s eyes momentarily swam with tears.
“You wish her home.”
~ ~ ~
Elsie turned down the street to her townhouse, feet tracing the
familiar route in double time, eyes looking for danger in the shadows.
She was scared.
Anton had scared her down to her
bones.
And the more she walked,
the deeper the fear sank.
She looked up at the moon, still hanging low in the sky.
Now it just cast creepy shadows.
God.
She was a
child, afraid of monsters under the bed.
Elsie stopped, breathing deeply.
This was her street, her neighborhood.
No one got to scare her here.
With careful intent, she arched her arms up to the sky, inviting
the cool moonlight into her fingers.
Breath in, fear out.
She
kicked off her shoes, stepping onto a patch of grass.
Feel the earth.
Feel the strength, the endurance, the power that comes from knowing
where you live.
This was her home,
and she had already fought enough battles against her fear.
No more got to come in the door stuck
to her shoe.
And then fear hurled into her mind, along with Lizard’s
razor-sharp words.
If you’re
going to do fracking yoga in the middle of the night, at least tell people
where you are.
Elsie opened her eyes, confused.
And found herself nose-to-nose with her roommate.
Her steaming-mad roommate, with
something mean flashing in her eyes.
It almost reminded her of Anton.
And that roused fury deep in her belly.
“I was on my way home. What business is
it of yours where I am?
I’m a
grown woman.”
Easy,
came Jennie’s mental mind voice.
She
has good reason to be worried about you.