Simply Irresistible Part 22

"We need to stay occupied," Atropos said.

"Then work on who could be doing this to you." Dex did a long-lasting power spell on the cell phone Vari had given him, and added a boost so that the signal reached the closest tower. "When you figure it out, call Quixotic."

"I hope you have instructions for that thing too," Clotho said.

"Nice try." Dex handed the phone to Lachesis. "But I'm the wrong person to give that line to. I know you keep track of modern culture. You may not know how to use a stove, but you know what one is for. And you've watched enough movies to know how a phone works."

Lachesis didn't say anything as she took the phone from him. She set it on the table beside him.

"Movies would help," Atropos said.

"Anything to keep us busy," Clotho said.

"There's a DVD player in the master bedroom, along with the only TV," he said. "When I spell in the groceries, I'll spell in enough movies to keep you busy for a month."

"That's at least three per day," Lachesis said.

"And be careful," Atropos said. "We've seen a lot."

"I'll try to get the director's cut where I can." Dexter went into the kitchen. It was big and warm, with a flat-cooktop stove and a water-in-the-door refrigerator. He loved this room and spent a lot of time here, usually baking for himself.

The cave was special. Part of him couldn't believe he would let anyone else inside. This was the place he went when the world got to be too much for him. This was his haven, his favorite hideout, his most secret lair. Now the Fates would move things, scatter things, break things. He'd have to resign himself to the fact that nothing in here would be the same.

At least they weren't in his store. That, at least, remained his and his alone.

Then he froze. He'd left the mother cat and the kittens in there, unguarded, for hours. They could fend for themselves, but he couldn't continue running off and leaving them. He would have to find them homes sooner rather than later.

"Cooking, movies, books, and thinking," Clotho muttered. "As if those things will take up our time."

"We can't even do idle magic," Lachesis said. "I'm not sure I know how to run a remote."

"There' s a lot we can learn," Atropos said, clearly trying to remain upbeat. "I'm sure we'll do fine."

Dex snapped his fingers, and the box with the mother cat appeared. All the kittens except little Marco Polo were inside. Dex snapped his fingers again, and Marco Polo appeared halfway across the room.

"Troublemaker," Dex said, going to fetch him. He picked up the kitten, rubbed its fluffy fur against his nose, and handed it to Clotho.

She smiled. "What's this?"

"Something to keep you busy," Dex said, snapping his fingers a third time. "If I'm going to help you, I won't have time to take good care of them. I just spelled you a stocked kitchen and movies, along with cat food and litter. Don't let these guys out of your sight in the bedrooms--they might climb out the windows and fall to their deaths--and don't let them wander around the house until you're sure they're box-trained."

"Box-trained?" Lachesis asked, clearly not understanding the reference.

Dex went to the bookshelf and pulled down a book on cat care. "I suggest you all start with this book. Do the best you can. I'll be back as soon as possible:"

He got ready to spell himself out before they could complain about anything else. He was halfway through the arm arch when he heard Atropos say, "When you do come back, be a good man and bring us a chef."

"Preferably a famous one," Clotho said, her voice fading as she did.

Lachesis added something too, but Dex ignored it. He didn't want to know what she said. All he wanted now was to return to Vivian.

He hoped nothing had happened to her while he was gone.

*Chapter Fifteen*

Vivian stood behind the bar at Quixotic, her back to the three men in business suits who laughed as they discussed their latest business deal. No one else sat at the bar. All the other customers were inside the restaurant, seated or waiting for the maitre d'.

The bartender was working around Vivian as he tried to keep up with the larger than usual number of mixed drinks being ordered at lunch. He blamed it on the disappearing building ("Did you see that?" he asked Vivian, and she could honestly answer, "Only on TV."), but he hoped the trend would continue. He liked being busy.

She wished things would slow down so she could talk to someone. Dex hadn't come back, and everyone else was busy with the lunch crowd. Vivian had asked permission to use a phone, and Blackstone had told her to use the one behind the bar, since the kitchen was already overcrowded.

So Vivian had made her way past all the full tables, surprised at how many faces she recognized.

Most belonged to the news reporters she'd been watching on the local channels this past week, but she also recognized Noah Sturgis, who had been around since she was a little girl. He looked somewhat plastic in person, as if he'd glued his face back, a feature she'd recognized from L.A. Plastic surgery looked good on camera, but it certainly looked awful in person.

Sturgis was sitting right in the center of the restaurant with a scruffy man in jeans and a young woman who looked out of her depth. Sturgis seemed to enjoy the positioning, signing autographs and talking to people who pa.s.sed. Vivian made certain she avoided that table as she made her way to the front of the restaurant.

Which was where she stood now, trying to stay away from the floor-to-ceiling windows. She was still nervous about going outside. She had moved the phone as far away from the windows as she could, but she still felt oddly exposed.

The crowd din was less here, but the occasional laughter from the celebrating businessmen jarred her. She wrapped the phone's cord around her hand, wishing for a portable phone instead, and dialed Travers's cell phone.

He answered on the fifth ring--or rather, Kyle did, sounding breathless. "Got it," he said into the receiver, then apparently realizing what he had done, added, "h.e.l.lo?"

"Hey, Ky," Vivian said.

"Aunt Viv! How're you? We've been really worried. Hey, Dad, it's Aunt Viv!" Kyle said all of this so quickly that Vivian couldn't get a single word in.

"Gathered that." Travers's voice was faint but audible. Someone else was talking--yet another reporter, probably on the radio--and then that voice cut off. "Give it to me."

"Wait," Kyle said. "You okay, Aunt Viv?"

"That's what I was calling to tell you," she said. "I'm just fine."

"She's just fi--" There was a sudden crackling, a rap, and then the squishy sound of hands rubbing on plastic. A horn honked in the distance, Kyle cried, "Da-ad!" and then Travers said, "Vivian, what the h.e.l.l's going on?"

"What do you mean?" Vivian asked, unwrapping the phone cord from her hand. She knew exactly what he meant, but she wasn't sure how to talk with him about her day.

"That whole building thing." Another car honked, the sound moving past, as if Travers was driving away from the problem. "I thought you were going to call me right back."

"I said I'd call you as soon as I could. This is the first chance I got."

"It was your building, right?"

"'Hey, buddy! Watch it'!" a man yelled, the voice startlingly close.

"Dad, let me talk to her."

"Are you driving?" Vivian asked. "I thought you weren't supposed to drive and talk on the phone at the same time."

"I'm not in L.A.," Travers said. "No way is some state cop going to know about my previous citations. I paid the--well the same to you, jerk face!"

"Nice talk with your son in the car." Vivian turned around and leaned against the back bar. The bartender grinned at her--apparently he'd heard that last comment--and pulled a highball gla.s.s off the nearby display.

"Lay off," Travers said, and Vivian couldn't tell if he was talking to her, Kyle, or some faceless driver.

"Do me a favor and pull over," Vivian said.

"I'm not--"

"Do it, or I'll hang up. And I'm not at home, so you won't be able to find me."

The phone crackled again, and she heard Travers's voice, fainter now, say, "Here, you talk to her."

"Aunt Viv, we nearly hit a semi." Kyle sounded breathless. "And some guy in a Mazerati swore at us."

"Is your dad pulling over?"

A crowd of people had gathered outside the restaurant. Vivian had the sense they were looking at her. Then she realized they were studying a posted menu.

"There's no place to pull," Kyle said. "He'll find somewhere, though. He's been really worried, Aunt Viv. He said he shouldn't've left you up there all by yourself. You gonna be okay?"

"I'll be fine," Vivian said. "I've met my neighbors and they're ..."

She glanced at the swinging kitchen door. Ariel had just come through it, holding a tray of steaming plates like a pro.

"What, Aunt Viv? I missed that."

"They're okay," Vivian said, feeling like 'okay was' a completely inadequate description of the crew at Quixotic. The bartender, who had just put three rum and c.o.kes on a c.o.c.ktail waitress's tray, gave Vivian another grin, as if he too found the word 'okay' an understatement.

"We see an exit," Kyle said. "It's a mile and a quarter. Dad says to wait."

"I will."

A woman walked through the main gla.s.s doors. She was tall and slender, dressed in a tasteful red business suit that seemed too upscale for Portland. She was in her mid-fifties and had done nothing to hide it, unlike most women of her age in L.A.

She carried a clutch purse in one hand and a cell phone in the other. Her close-cropped hair was dark, and her features were familiar. But she wasn't an actress. Vivian had lived in the L.A. basin long enough to recognize one of those.

"... Aunt Viv?"

"What?" Vivian asked. She had missed everything Kyle had just said to her.

"Have you looked at my comic book yet?"

"I've looked at it," Vivian said, still watching the woman. She radiated power, and not the confident power that some businesswomen had. Power-- wattage--like Blackstone did. Or Andrew Vari. But unlike them, Vivian got no sense of magic from this woman.

Besides, the others would've noticed if someone magical had walked in, right?

"Aunt Viv!" Kyle shouted in her ear.

At that moment, the woman looked at her, and Vivian got the sense they had met before. In fact, the woman's features weren't familiar because Vivian had seen them on television or in a movie. They were familiar because Vivian had- "Are you Erika O'Connell?" the maitre d' asked the woman, breaking Vivian's train of thought The woman turned away from Vivian, and the feeling pa.s.sed. Vivian wasn't sure what she had been thinking or where she had known the woman from. Or, exactly, why it had suddenly seemed so important.

"Aunt Viv?" Kyle was still shouting.

"I'm here, Kyle," Vivian said, missing the woman's response to the maitre d'.

"What'd you think of my comic book?"

"You're burning up money here, kiddo." Travers's voice dominated the line as the phone crackled again.

Vivian was only half listening. She watched the maitre d' take the woman to Noah Sturgis's table.

* Of course. Erika O'Connell was supposed to be the twenty-first-century female version of Ted Turner. She owned several cable stations, and she was trying to create her own empire. But her focus was on news, on making it viable, profitable, and still honest.

Or so she had said in the interviews Vivian had seen.

"So what happened with your building and why aren't you there?" Travers asked.

"I'm having lunch," Vivian said. "And no one seems to know what happened. Personally, I didn't notice anything different. I think it was a trick of the light."

"Weird things always happened around Aunt Eugenia, Viv, and I'm wondering if she gave that legacy to you. You've never been the most stable--"

In the back of the restaurant, a woman screamed. Vivian set down the phone and hurried toward the sound.

Dex was sitting on an elderly woman's lap. The woman was sitting in the chair he had used before he disappeared with the Fates.

Everyone was staring at them. Apparently he had just materialized, or whatever these mages called their arrivals.

He stood, grinned, and doffed an imaginary hat. He looked wonderful. Gallant and handsome and oh so self-possessed.

"Took a wrong turn, didn't I?" he said with a veddy accurate, veddy British accent. "I thought this was Buckingham Palace. My mistake."

And then he vanished.

Vivian smiled in spite of herself. The restaurant burst into conversation, and several people hurried over to the elderly woman, who still looked frightened.

The phone was swinging on its cord, and she could hear Travers yelling.

Vivian picked it up and, without putting it to her ear, said into the receiver, "I'm fine, Trav. I have to go. Something's come up. I'll call you in a few days."

And then she hung up.

The restaurant was in chaos. Even Noah Sturgis looked fl.u.s.tered. But Erika O'Connell had a slight smile on her face, as if she had found everything as amusing as Vivian initially had.