19
“I’m coming back here after sunset to question the vampires,” Kovac says. “Can you be home to let me in the building?”
“I’ll be home.”
“Good, thanks.” He takes a pen and a business card out of his shirt pocket. “Is ten-thirty tomorrow morning a good time to come down to my office and give your statement?”
“Nope. I’ve got a hot date with Mayflower Movers at nine in the A.M.”
“How about one-thirty?”
“Done.”
He writes the time on the back, gives me the business card, and holds out his hand for a farewell handshake.
Which I do not take. “My hands are filthy.”
“I’m not Brand, my lady magician.”
“Really, really filthy. And sweaty. And bloody.” Am I playing hard to get? No, I wouldn’t want to shake hands with me at the moment.
“I’ll see you later, then.”
“Later.” I climb out and watch him drive down Mirage Way till he turns the corner at Derby, and I can’t see the black BMW anymore. My lady magician? I wipe a silly smile off my face. Kovac is way, way off-limits. Kovac is the Law and this is a supernatural murder investigation. And wow has he got issues. With Maria Valdez. With the angry red aura from his knee to his toe. Why do I keep seeing his ocean-blues gazing at me? My lady magician. Why should I feel so ridiculously pleased?
Because you’re a fool for love, I tell myself as I hike up the cobblestones and let myself in the building, misgivings brooding. I need to shower and bandage my wounds and dress for campus. I need to hike to Magical Arts and Crafts, register for the term, write a tuition check, and dash off to my first class. I need lunch.
The prospect of facing the pigsty Stanley bequeathed to me is not a happy one. Do I have time to run a broom over the floor? Not now, I’m running late. I hadn’t planned on stumbling on a supernatural multiple murder.
But how I hate a filthy house! Mama had always insisted on spick-and-span. I trudge through the lobby, through the archway, turn left, and trudge down the hall to Number One. No twists, no unexpected turns, no tricks. Thank you, Garden of Abracadabra. I unlock the locks from floor to lintel, brace myself for the mess, and let myself in.
Where I confront a little man and a swarm of green things swooping and darting all over my living room.
I scream and stagger back and reach for the door, but I can’t find the doorknob.
The little man turns toward me from where he’s standing in front of the aquarium, the palm of his hand heaped with bloody raw meat.
“Goodness dear me, lass, yours truly didn’t mean to startle you.” He scrapes the meat off his palm onto a white paper plate, sets the plate next to the aquarium, and fastidiously wipes his hand on a paper napkin. He formally bows. “Yours truly is terribly sorry.”
He’s a runty little thing–shorter than me by three or four hand spans–but quite dapper in a gray pinstriped cutaway, trousers, and vest, a white wing-collar and gray cravat, and a white dress shirt. The pale sliver of his face boasts the largest snout and the largest ears I’ve ever seen on any person. Above the snout sparkle tiny blue eyes, below a thin-lipped mouth set in an obliging smile.
“Who are you?”
“Yours truly is Twitch, lass.”
“How did you get in here, Twitch?”
“Yours truly is the custodial man. Yours truly can get in anywhere at the Garden of Abracadabra. With proper authorization, don’t you know,” he adds hastily.
“I gave you no authorization to enter my apartment.”
“Ah, but the Owner did, lass. The Owner is most pleased you’ve signed on with us. The Owner is most distressed that the person who previously dwelt here left you with this disgraceful rubbish heap. The Owner says to me, ‘Twitch’”–he points to his skinny chest–”’you must lend the dear young lady a helping hand.’ Which yours truly is pleased to do. Yours truly hopes it pleases you.”
Now I see that the flying green things are gloves. Green latex kitchen gloves, each plumped out as if filled inside by an invisible hand.
Green gloves push brooms across the floor, while green gloves hold dustbins. Green gloves wrap a twistie around the mouth of a garbage bag and carry the bulging bag through an open window, heading for the Dumpsters out back. A team of green gloves hoists the ravaged sofa out the window and down to the curb where the trash haulers—or the next twentysomething single guy with a trashed-out apartment—can pick it up.
Yellow gloves push sponges soaked with lemon wax across the swept floors, polishing the hardwood planks to a high gleam. Yellow gloves rearrange the most attractive of the lamps and the Welsh miners’ lanterns, while other yellow gloves carry ugly lamps and wax-spattered candelabras in disdainful yellow fingertips out the window. Yellow gloves fling overflowing ashtrays and rats’-nests of Post-its in a garbage bag. Yellow gloves rearrange the iMac, the printer/copier/fax, the landline phone, and the answering machine for the convenience of a southpaw like me. A yellow glove tickles the office equipment with a feather duster.
Now I stride to the bedroom where pink gloves rub jewelry cloths over the bed frame built for two till the oxidized brass gleams like gold. Yes! That’s the way brass should look. Pink gloves roll up my sleeping bag and tuck in crisp white sheets around the mattress. Pink gloves fold the top sheet over a blue wool blanket and plump pillows in crisp white cases.
“Yours truly assumed you will wish to choose your own coverlet,” Twitch says, trailing after me. “Most young ladies do.”
“Yes, my quilts should arrive tomorrow with the rest of my things.”
“Very good, lass.”
In the kitchen, blue gloves pluck thumbtacks from flowery Indian bedspreads, unfasten safety pins, and remove garlands of garlic bulbs from the tall, arched windows surrounding a breakfast nook. A glass door lined with locks from floor to lintel leads out to a wrought-iron café table and chairs promising alfresco breakfasts. The little slate patio is shielded from the parking lot by syringa hedges heavy with golden blossoms. Door and windows are well mullioned with runic designs.
I can’t stop saying, “Wow,” as I step back into the kitchen proper. Blue gloves pull open the fridge, proudly displaying housewarming gifts–a carton of milk, bottles of fruit juice and spring water, a wedge of white cheddar cheese, an enticing box of chocolates, and a very acceptable sauvignon blanc. A package of raw ground beef has been opened, some of the meat removed, and the plastic rewrapped.
“Yours truly has stocked other victuals to start you out.” Twitch opens a cherry-wood cupboard. “Tins of tuna, that horse feed you call granola, and crisps. What you people call chips. Though yours truly must tell you, lass, if you ever et a proper chip, thick sliced, fried in lard, and doused in vinegar and salt, you would never call those flakes in a bag chips.”
“Twitch, this is fab.”
“Very good, lass. Yours truly is in Number Thirteen at the back of our floor, the west wing. On your desk you shall find a schedule of my hours, my phone, and my email address. You’ll also find a map of the building and grounds, the location of all the apartments and their floor plans, the library, the utility room, the staircases front and back, the service elevator, the mudroom, the mad room, and the dungeon. And, oh! Yours truly almost forgot. Please proceed to the aquarium.”
I follow him out to the living room where the aquarium bubbles on its shelf. I have to blink. The dazzling yellows, incandescent blues, and particularly startling scarlets have dulled to a dirty silver. The charming dorsal fins, lateral lines, and ornamental caudal fins have shrunk into squat piscine shapes. And teeth. I’m quite sure I see the needles of tiny teeth.
“Twitch! What happened to the angelfish?”
“Ah, the wee ones have a habit of changin’ about. At the moment, they’re piranhas. This is when you must feed them a bit of raw meat.” He picks up the paper plate, pinches off and drops in gobbets of ground beef.
The piranhas swarm around the raw meat, needle teeth biting furiously.
“Mind, don’t even dip your fingertip in the water when they’ve gone piranha.” Twitch slides on the glass lid and adjusts the air filter. “Yours truly shall be pleased to clean the tank for you once a month, but you must feed the little devils their meat and the little angels their fish food every day.”
“I will.”
“Splendid. Yours truly is off, then. Enjoy your day, lass. Do lock your windows and doors when the sun sets. City life. Can’t be too careful.” He claps his hands and calls out, “Come along, girls.”
From all over the apartment, the gloves fly to him and crash-land on the floor, poking and punching at each other.
Twitch claps his hands again. “Girls! Steady on. And forward march.”
The gloves obediently rearrange themselves into ranks of green, yellow, pink, and blue, marching smartly on their latex fingertips.
Twitch turns on his heel, his regiment of helping hands following, and lets himself out my door.
I close the open window and pull the latches tight. I lock the door locks from floor to lintel, including the serious chain lock. The sun is straying off the zenith, just after high noon, but you can’t be too careful. City life.
********
Enjoy the book here for free!
Or buy it at the links below. Or donate if and when you wish, whatever you wish, at https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/lisamasonthewriter/
The choice is yours!
The Garden of Abracadabra is on BarnesandNoble, US Kindle, Canada Kindle, UK Kindle, Apple, Kobo, and Smashwords.
The Garden of Abracadabra is also on Amazon.com in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Spain, Brazil, Japan, and India.
Copyright © 2012–2016 by Lisa Mason.
Visit me at Lisa Mason’s Official Website (newly updated for 2016) for books, ebooks, stories, and screenplays, reviews, interviews, and blogs, adorable pet pictures, forthcoming projects, fine art and bespoke jewelry, and more!
And on my Facebook Author Page, on my Facebook Profile Page, on Amazon, on Goodreads, on LinkedIn, on Twitter at @lisaSmason, at Smashwords, at Apple, at Kobo, and at Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
If you enjoy a title, please “Like” it, add five stars, write a review on the site where you bought it, Tweet it, blog it, post it,, and share the word with your family and friends.
Your participation really matters.
Thank you for your readership!
