31
I’m right about a doorman.
At my knock on the door to Number Sixty, a little old gnome greets me, resplendent in a powdered wig, indigo livery trimmed in silver, white stockings, and black patent leather pumps with silver buckles.
The doorman formally bows. “Your name, miss?”
“Teller. Abby Teller.”
He inspects a guest list and eyes, but does not search, my Dooney & Bourke handbag. Still, I’m glad I didn’t bring the Beretta. What if the doorman can see through solid leather? I no longer presume to know what the inhabitants of the Garden of Abracadabra can and cannot do. I’m glad I didn’t ruin my one night out in the middle of a school week by packing a pistol to a party.
Take your pleasures when you can.
The doorman waves me past a chest the size of a sarcophagus parked in a corner of the foyer. The chest–of joined weathered wood carved and painted with fantastical creatures and arcane writing resembling hieroglyphs–has the look of such extreme antiquity, the piece really ought to be in a museum. A massive hasp and padlock of some dark gold metal ensure that no one and nothing can get in. Or get out?
Fumes overwhelm me, the scent of vanilla and some sort of sweet spice. Dizzying and congestive, like the smoke of incense I so dislike. Lastor’s fragrance times ten. After a choking moment, the smokiness disperses, leaving only a candied scent like the odor of ether.
I can breathe again, and breathe I do, so deeply my head spins. I have to wait for the vertigo to stop before I can focus my eyes and look around. And when I focus–wow.
A domed ceiling soars higher than the gambrel roof could have possibly allowed, a deep sumptuous blue punctuated with gleaming stars. Thousands of tapers in thousands of candelabra light the living room with an exquisite glimmer.
A silver curtain drawn across an entire wall would have looked right at home in a nineteen-twenties movie palace. The lustrous folds are so luminous, so reflective, the fabric seems to double the sights in the room.
Where is Lastor? Lastor, the cipher, the enigma, the riddle.
Where is Lastor?
As I stride across polished parquetry, my nose leads me irresistibly in another direction. I’m led–almost against my will–to a tremendous formal dining room. A buffet to confound the most ravenous gourmand beckons with tempting scents and sights. Great wheels of cheese, overflowing platters of meat and fish, heaps and heaps of assorted caviars, exotic fruits, fanciful candies. Sculpted cakes and ice creams so beautiful to look at, who could bear to eat them?
Sleek pony-tailed servers in white jackets and black slacks rush forward to assemble a plate for me.
With fork, heaped plate, and napkin, I sally forth to the fabulous bar. Bottles of every wine and champagne I’ve ever heard of–and thousands I haven’t–cluster on backlit shelves, gleaming scarlet and amber. Absinthes, gins, vodkas, whiskeys, and exotic liquors of cerulean or chartreuse beckon like intoxicating jewels.
I ask the bartender for a champagne I know to be outrageously expensive–why not?–and take the brimming goblet of bubbly.
But where is Lastor?
Richly provisioned, I make my way to the living room. High-backed chairs roam about on carved-wood feet shaped like horses’ hooves or lions’ paws. A chair trots up and politely presents me with a seat of scarlet velvet.
I sit and quaff champagne and devour every cube of cheese, egg of caviar, slice of smoked salmon, exotic grape, and chocolate bonbon on my plate.
And am hungrier and thirstier than before.
Seconds, anyone? How about thirds?
Hundreds of people gather in living room deep in conversation, chatting in the shrill, over-animated way people do at an Event. Everyone is coifed, bejeweled, dressed, and shod oh so beautifully, I’m glad I took special care with my own attire. I spy mobs of famous faces. Actors from the movies and television, willowy gals and devastating guys who must be fashion models, a mayor of a great city, a senator lately in the news over a tax evasion scandal, a billionaire author of fantasy novels, a world-renowned artist of rare jewel-like paintings.
Who is Lastor to attract such a crowd?
The candlelight flickers, and then I glimpse other people, too, faces I recognize from my first day around Berkeley. Ordinary faces of the quotidian world. Street merchants from the Av and street people in rags. Weary aging professors with their cell phones and shoulder bags and fresh-faced students with their backpacks and UGG boots.
Such an odd mix of guests, I have to blink again, unsure of my own eyes. Who is who? Who is really here, and who is not?
A string quartet launches into a waltz, sawing away at their instruments. Yet the music sounds so modern, pulsing with a lively beat, that my feet want to dance, dance, dance.
Who could miss the princesses, Lastor’s cousins? What are their odd names? Hoshanna, Bridolette, and Elvaun. The ladies tower over their guests, their resemblance to Lastor unmistakable. Silky platinum hair spills down those statuesque heights from their scalps to their satin high heels. Their bloodred lips are too full and too wide for their angular feminine faces. Then there’s that perfect white skin and brown eyes so dark, the irises nearly match the black of the pupils.
Great genes or great grooming? Both, apparently, must run in the family.
I set plate and goblet on the armrests of the chair and push through the crowd toward the princesses. Any tenant of mine who is royalty, I want to meet.
“They shall be amusing,” the first princess says.
“A fine sport,” the second princess says.
“To the High Harvest,” says the third and raises her goblet of champagne. She notices me approaching and slyly presses her forefinger to her lips.
“Good evening, Your Highnesses. I’m Abby Teller, your new superintendent of the Garden of Abracadabra.”
“Good evening,” the princesses say in unison and curtsy prettily.
Up close, the princesses look polished and airbrushed and eternally youthful in a freakishly fake kind of way. I sense, beneath their glossy surface, something secretive. Something heavily warded.
I can’t put my finger on it. What are they? I stand puzzling when I feel his power brushing up against my personal space. Probing, trying to penetrate the protectiveness of my power. Not such a subtle probing, either.
Lastor stands behind me too physically close, invading my personal space like a frat-boy trick in a bar. Do I let him have it? Give him the Abby Teller treatment for boorish behavior? And magical boorish behavior, at that?
No, instead I gush, “Lastor, I’m thrilled to see you again.”
“Have I kept you waiting, Mistress? I do apologize with all my heart.” He graciously holds out his hands, welcoming me.
Lastor radiates so much power, I’m wary of touching him, let alone taking his hands. Still he smiles at me, warm, inviting, impossibly beautiful. And apparently disinclined to step back and give me my space.
I shouldn’t but I do it, anyway. Story of my life.
I hold out my hand. One hand, that’s it, that’s all. My right hand, not my hand of power. Maybe we can do a high-five, trade skin, play patty-cake, and be done with it.
But no, he seizes both my hands and raises them to his mouth, pressing his lush royal lips to my humble bony knuckles. Never taking the glittering darkness of his eyes from mine.
Before I can brace myself, a wave of pure pleasure crashes over me, vibrating me head to toe, more powerful than a potent drug. A force field of pleasure, relentless and overwhelming, strokes my skin. I bite back a moan and wait for the wave to pull away, the way an ocean wave, crashing on a beach, recedes in swirling foam. Surely this wave will recede, too, and release me. Soon. Soon.
He fills my senses, fills my eyes.
Lastor’s platinum mane flows around silver epaulettes of an indigo-blue cutaway jacket. The jacket hugs his barrel chest, held by frogs of silver velvet, and narrows to his slender waist, snug over his gymnast’s hips in the style of a Prince Albert, offering another stunning view of his anatomy. He’s tucked his skin-tight indigo leggings into silver leather riding boots, the heels lethal with the wheels of silver spurs.
“Spurs,” I say. “My fave fashion statement.”
He throws back his head and guffaws. Then he bows, almost kneeling before me. “Abby Teller, I am thrilled to see you again. Truly, you are a delight.”
The wave of pleasure recedes, and I push back with my power. I will not allow him and his power to take me by surprise like that again. Not tonight. Not anytime soon. Is it just me–a daughter of Buckeye Heights where people still say “Please” and “Thank you”–but aren’t there rules of common courtesy when it comes to shoving your magic at a stranger? Protocol among sorcerers, like honor among thieves?
Oh, well. Maybe not.
He lifts his eyebrows. “Another delight. You’ve got power.”
“A little. That’s why I took my first class at the Berkeley College of Magical Arts and Crafts yesterday afternoon.”
“You are a student at that place?” His tone drips with disapproval.
“You bet. Anyone can go back to school and brush up on those good ol’ survival skills.”
“Even more delightful. Cousins,” he says to the princesses, “our new super is a lady of magic.”
“A prize, Cousin,” says the first princess.
“Fine sport,” says the second.
“Worth your every effort,” says the third.
“She is a prize. Will you be my prize tonight, Mistress?”
“What kind of prize have you got in mind, Lastor? Excuse me. I mean, Prince Lastor. What a surprise. You didn’t tell me at the mailboxes.”
“You need only look me up in your ledger of leases to know I am Prince Lastor. Or talk to your police authorities who paid us a visit yesterday evening.”
“Oh, I’ve talked to the police. They told me you threw a party on the night of the murders.”
“Of course we did. And the night before, and the night before. ‘Tis the High Harvest. We rejoice in our Revels for nights on end during the Ceremonies of the Seasons.”
“On High Frost,” says the first princess.
“On High Thaw,” says the second.
“On High Blossoming, my Prince,” says the third, and the princesses titter in unison.
If they’re trying to distract me, it won’t work. “Lastor, the day we met, you told me about the Tilden Park murders before the news broke to the public. How did you know about that?”
He shrugs. “I enjoy summoning the Yonder now and then. Some power killed those persons with magic and left a record.”
“I see.” I pull the printout of Brand’s mug shots out of my handbag. “Did this man attend your Revel that night? He was with two young women.”
Lastor glances at the printout, then waves his hand at mob of the partygoers. Now thousands of people gather in conversation, eating, drinking, and screaming with laughter.
“If he had, how would I know? We see so many people every night.”
“Gosh, that’s exactly what Scorpio Rising in Twenty-seven told me and the police.”
Lastor’s face twists at my mention of the vampires. “I trust, Mistress, that you do not place me in the same class as those loathsome undead humans.”
Actually, I feel the same way about Scorpio Rising. I feel foolish, now, and churlish. I’m not working undercover. It’s not my job to interrogate my gracious host who invited me to a fab party. That’s up to the Berkeley P.D. and Supernatural Crimes.
I jam Brand’s mug shots back in my handbag. “I sincerely apologize, Prince Lastor. I’ve had long, hard day but that’s no excuse for insulting you. Please forgive me.”
The waltz grows louder, livelier. I glance at the musicians. Four more violinists, a harpist, a harpsichordist, and a drummer have joined the band. They’re rockin’, hair disheveled, faces sweaty, cravats undone, shirt collars unbuttoned.
Lastor smiles at me again, radiating warmth and charm. “I will forgive you, Mistress, if you will allow me to have this dance.”
“I would be delighted.”
Lastor seizes my left hand–my hand of power–and circles my waist with his huge hand. His shoulder is almost too high to reach. I’ve got no place to rest my free hand except on the barrel of his chest. This turns out to be a good move, since the rise of my arm keeps my handbag, light as it is, securely flapping against my shoulder.
Lastor whirls me out in the midst of the crowd onto a dance floor I hadn’t noticed before. A dance floor in the living room? An illegal dance floor? But Lastor and Cousins aren’t charging admission, not that I can see. I want to be suspicious, but I can’t. I’m having too good a time.
“The music is wonderful. What is it?”
“’Tis a volta. ‘Tis from Elizabeth’s day.”
“Elizabeth? Who is she?”
“A lady I once knew. How she loved to dance.”
“So do I, but I’ve got to tell you, Lastor, I’ve never learned ballroom dancing. I’ve only rock ‘n’ rolled. I’m going to step on your feet and trip. I might even trip you.”
“Never fear, Mistress, you cannot trip me. Permit me to guide you. You need only follow me. Follow me. Let me look at you, and you must look at me. Look at me.”
Follow me, follow me. Look at me, look at me. It’s your classic hypnotic Rasputin command. I know when I’m being hypnotized. I learned to hypnotize myself as a kid so well, I can’t remember the nightmare of the day Papa died, let alone what really happened.
Do I cast my eyes down? Resist the spell? No, I gaze in the glittering darkness of Lastor’s eyes, mesmerized.
Lastor whirls me, whirls me, holding me powerfully in his arms. Totally in command. I should feel threatened, but I don’t. I should spin with vertigo, but I don’t.
The crowd, the over-animated chatter, the dance floor fade away till there’s only the music, the lively beat ancient and modern. Only Lastor and me whirling, whirling across the dome of deep sumptuous blue beneath the gleaming stars.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, waves of pure pleasure spill from his hand encircling my waist. Wave after wave, penetrating, intensifying, until I vibrate almost violently from head to toe. The force field of his enchantment is nearly unbearable, demanding more than a magical feeling.
More than a dance.
His eyes invite me in farther, deeper. His hand holding mine moves to my waist. Now both his hands encircle me in a band of pulsing heat. Hot tongues of his power flick all over me.
My left hand, newly freed, drifts up to his chest, joining the other, as if his power and mine are reassembling in a new order of ecstasy.
Now I hear the chiming of a great clock, BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG!
Midnight? Is it really midnight?
I glance at my wristwatch resting on his chest. Midnight, it is. Cinderella, you and I have a date with the scullery.
“I’ve got to go!”
I push away from him and Lastor releases me without protest or struggle. I’m expecting to plunge from the ceiling or at least stumble into other dancers, but I only stride across the dance floor, gathering my wits. I am standing on the dance floor, not dancing on the ceiling, and the other dancers part for me like a curtain opening. There are other dancers, though who they are and what they are, exactly, I can’t tell.
I find the foyer, sidestep the doorman, jog past the ancient chest. I reach for the doorknob to let myself out–when Lastor steps in front of me. I nearly punch him, reaching for the knob.
“Is anything amiss?” Lastor looks contrite. Contrite looks good on a soft-core fantasy superhero. “Have I offended you, Mistress?”
“No, no, not at all. But really, Lastor, I’ve got to go. I’ve got things to do tomorrow. An important appointment in the morning. A class in the afternoon. My job, all the time.”
“How unfortunate for you.”
“Oh, no! I’m proud to be a student at the Berkeley College of Magical Arts and Crafts. And I’m proud to serve as the super of the Garden of Abracadabra.”
Lastor smiles his thrilling smile. “And I am proud to have met you, Abby Teller. You must come and see me again tomorrow night. We’re having a Revel.”
“Another Revel?”
“Of course. ‘Tis the High Harvest.”
“After High Blossoming and before High Frost.”
“How quickly you understand our ways.”
“That must take stamina, holding Revels every night for nights on end.”
He smiles slyly. “It does take stamina.”
********
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