Dragon Call (4 page)

Everything she knew about him came down to
his activities at the masquerade and his business, both of which
named him some sort of mystic. She didn’t know if he had any
genuine talent, but he seemed to do well at parties and on the
business front. Cora wasn’t sure whether she preferred that his
abilities be genuine or show. Miranda and Diane had genuine gifts,
Miranda for Finding and Diane for Prediction. Cora didn’t have
talents in that vein, nor did she want them, but even in not
wanting them, she didn’t want to see the talented or their
believers exploited by a charlatan. What if the mob fellow knew
about Greg’s talents and blackmailed him for protection?

“Vegetarian okay with you?” Greg called from
upstairs.

Cora smiled wryly. Everybody had to eat,
genuine talent or not. She moved over to the screen door and leaned
into the stairwell so she wouldn’t have to shout her affirmative
answer. She peered up into the dark and froze before she could get
the words out. A pair of eyes glowed at the top of the stairs, high
near the ceiling, and her stomach turned to ice. Those were the
eyes in the window out on the street.

Afraid to draw attention to herself, she
hugged the banister and held her breath. The eyes didn’t move. Cora
didn’t look into them. She squinted, trying to make out what was
behind the eyes, but in the dark she couldn’t define the shape of
the background edges. Up until this point, she had entirely
forgotten about being watched. The tingling didn’t return to her
skin, but she still couldn’t look away from those eyes. They seemed
to suck every available particle of light into their pupils,
setting the yellow-hazel irises afire.

She eventually worked up the courage to
breathe, and then to look into the eyes. Her heart thudded, but it
remained steady and didn’t diverge into the erratic pattern of
panic. She shifted her weight to allow some light to move from
behind her up into the stairwell, casting the eyes into a less
black shadow, and she was able to make sense out of dimensions. The
eyes weren’t real; they were part of a flat wall hanging. Nothing
was going to lunge down the stairs at her or hunt her down in the
streets.

Cora sighed and sat on the bottom step. She
called up to Greg, “Vegetarian’s fine. Can I ask you
something?”

“Go ahead.”

“Why’d you want to do a reading on me so bad
that you nearly made a scene over it last night?”

Greg didn’t answer immediately. Cora frowned
at the delay. Delayed responses meant the person was thinking,
preparing an answer, and that the answer therefore wouldn’t be
completely honest. A moment later, she heard his voice, muffled,
probably finalizing the pizza order, and silently chastised
herself. Automatic suspicion was uncharitable.

“Honestly?” Greg asked once he finished the
pizza order. He came back to the stairs, carrying a tin pail.

Cora tilted her head back to see him.
“Honestly.”

“I know who you are. I didn’t mean that to
come across that way,” he amended in a hurry when Cora frowned. “I
mean that I know of your sister and your mother, and as a result of
your background. I also know that you’re almost never seen in the
same circles as either of them. Everybody knows. Nobody knows why,
though. When you showed up last night, it was an opportunity for me
to find out.” He held up the pail. “I don’t have champagne to go on
ice. Will beer work?”

She nodded and decided to refrain from asking
about the strange business she’d walked into earlier. The less she
knew, the better, and the less curiosity she displayed, the less
likely Greg would be put in position of having to kill her or
something. Who knew how the mob dealt with people knowing their
faces in the real world?

“Good.” He came downstairs, and Cora stood,
returning to the sitting room.

Cora shuffled her coat and purse aside and
sat in the corner of the couch. “I don’t believe,” she said.

Greg raised his eyebrows. “In aspects of the
talent?”

“In my own capacity for it. Some of the women
in my family have it, some don’t. I’m one who doesn’t.”

“Ahhh,” he said, settling on the cushion
beside her and fishing out a pair of beers. A question lingered on
the edge of the sound but he didn’t ask it.

Cora called him on it. “That explanation
didn’t satisfy your curiosity.”

He smiled. “It opened up more questions.”

“Such as?”

“Why you were there at all if you don’t
believe. I could have understood if you claimed living out of the
city as an explanation.”

“But you can’t understand with a different
answer?” She accepted a bottle when he offered it. “Never mind. I’m
here because almost a year ago I technically died of smoke
inhalation in a house fire. Ever since, Diane and my mother have
been trying to convince me to revive my interest in faith.”

“Why are you here trying now?”

Cora laughed. “You’re like a two year old,
with the why why why.”

“You’re beautiful. I’d like to know you.
Anyone who’s ever dabbled in high school journalism knows to ask
the H and W questions.”

Cora flushed at the compliment. The last time
she had felt remotely pretty was New Year’s Eve the previous year.
The evening was wonderful, filled with good friends, great food,
and forgettable drinks, which were, of course, the best kind of
drinks. She’d taken a taxi home and promptly passed out. She woke
up on a stretcher, rain on her face, and a firefighter
administering CPR.

The months of nightmares, insomnia and
depression that had followed the fire left her feeling like a
troll. The depression had led to more close encounters with gourmet
ice cream than with men, and her new size 18s told the tale.

She didn’t say any of that to Greg. Instead,
she tried to encapsulate. “Ever since the fire, I’ve had insomnia
issues. Nightmares. Pretty common after a stressful event, if TV
can be believed. I don’t want to take depression meds, and I’m not
thrilled with my psychiatrist’s suggestion of hypnosis, so here I
am trying the natural remedy of faith.”

“Not much of a remedy if you don’t have
any.”

Cora shrugged and crossed her legs. “Doesn’t
hurt to try, does it?”

“Not at all. Can I ask why you’re opposed to
hypnosis?”

“I watch TV. Hypnosis always ends with the
patient committing murders and not knowing it, or the hypnotist
smuggling cocaine in his target’s underwear, or something. It seems
shady to me.”

Greg laughed. “But witchcraft and goddess
worship doesn’t?”

“No, that seems shady too.” Cora smiled,
glancing at him. “Since I grew up with those, though, they seem a
little less over the top. It’s a familiarity thing.”

“What if you were more familiar with
hypnosis?”

“What do you mean?”

“One of my services is hypnosis. My clients
are interested in it for relaxation purposes, for motivational
purposes, for memory recollection. I’ve helped several stop smoking
through hypnotism.”

Cora grimaced. “I don’t think so.”

“What if I promise not to put any heroin in
your underwear?”

“Will you make sure my murder weapon matches
my shoes?”

“Baby, I’ll give you the classiest lead pipe
in the city.” Greg winked.

Cora smiled, but she didn’t say yes or no.
Despite Greg’s charm, she still had misgivings about hypnosis, and
it didn’t all have roots in fictional drama. Part of her was afraid
of what would she would reveal. Her psychiatrist had referred her
to a handful of hypno-therapists, all of whom Cora rejected on
grounds of not wanting any delicate family secrets to make it into
the hands or notebooks of the ungifted. Even though the Phillips
women didn’t make a secret of their talents, Cora was unwilling to
dish to the entire medical community about her mother’s ability to
locate things and her sister’s ability to pick out impending
disasters.

She didn’t have a foundation for such fears
with Greg, however. He already knew, and had his own talents to
protect. Cora worried the inside of her lip, weighing the
consequences of experimenting with him. She desperately wanted to
sleep at night. If Greg could help her do that, where nobody else
had been able to thus far, she would love him forever. Well—perhaps
not literally. She would certainly appreciate it.

“How would you do it, if I agreed to become
one of your clients?” Cora asked, making a decision.

“The actual presentation?”

“Yeah. Gold watches? You’re getting sleepy?
What?”

“It depends on the person. Some people
respond well to eye fixation approaches. The gold watch,” he
explained when she started to ask.

“Other people?”

“Other people respond well to a soothing
voice talking them to sleep. If you’ve ever taken a yoga class,
it’s something like the end of the class where you’re stretched out
and breathing and concentrating on the relaxation of every limb
while the instructor tells you to breathe and direct oxygen into
your toes.”

“So if I decide to make an appointment with
you, I should come dressed in a leotard,” Cora quipped.

“However you can achieve maximum relaxation
is how you should come.”

Cora thought he emphasized the last word,
infusing it with sexual suggestion. She glanced at him sidelong,
looking for a sign that he was alluding to intimacy. Greg sat
relaxed against the back of the couch, one ankle on his knee and
his beer bottle resting against his thigh. She skimmed his torso,
trying not to think about the muscled lines of his abdomen, and met
his eyes. She suddenly recalled the intensity of connection when
she’d met his gaze at the party the night before.

“But how would you do it with me?” she asked,
holding his gaze and feeling for the return of electricity at the
edges of her awareness.

Greg’s lips quirked slightly. “Do you respond
better to gentleness or forcefulness?” he asked.

“Depends on the situation.” The electric jolt
finally came, sparking in her abdomen.

“I think you need soothing first in order to
open you up to the possibilities of aggression.”

“So…gold watch?”

Greg nodded. “Or anything that you can focus
on.”

He held up the bent, dull foil cap from his
beer bottle and rolled it from finger to finger. “Doesn’t have to
be shiny at all.”

Cora eyed the bottle cap, reminded of a
grandfatherly coin trick. She couldn’t imagine something so simple
as bouncing a bottle cap from knuckle to knuckle would put her to
sleep, let alone cure her insomnia.

“While you focused,” Greg said, “I’d talk to
you. Assure you that you’re perfectly safe, that my sole interest
is in helping you. Promise you there won’t be any embarrassing
scenes of clucking like a chicken.”

Cora imagined herself under his spell, and
warmth spread through her body. She wasn’t sure she wanted to
experience such ultimate vulnerability, more intimate than sex,
with Greg, but she allowed herself to entertain the prospect. It
would be a relief to tell somebody about her nightmares. She often
lay awake in the middle of the night wishing she had somebody she
could call, somebody who could tell her that the dreams of dragon
fire charring her hair and skin were simply that—dreams. She wished
somebody would assure her that he would be her knight, despite her
defensive allusion to the contrary the night before. She needed
somebody to slay the monster that kept her awake, that reminded her
the fire had taken her once and could take her again at any moment.
Maybe Greg really could do that for her.

“Not tonight, though.” Greg palmed the bottle
cap, and the daydream of safety dissipated. Cora frowned at its
absence. “We’ll make an appointment,” he said, “when you can come
in expecting it. Besides, dinner’s here.”

Cora glanced toward the front of the shop.
“How do you know? I didn’t hear anything.”

“You’re not used to the normal sounds.” Greg
smiled sheepishly, pushing off the couch. “And I order a lot of
pizza. I know my driver’s car.”

He headed into the front of the shop to head
the delivery driver off. Cora sipped beer from her bottle and tried
to convince herself that food was a good thing. She needed time to
get used to the idea of being Greg’s client, and to weigh the
consequences, before she decided. The delivery driver’s
interruption had saved her from impulsive decision-making. She
should be thankful, rather than annoyed, at the interruption.

“Diane’s trying to get me to a New Year’s Eve
party with her,” Cora said when Greg returned. “A costume thing. It
seems all her social events are in costume.”

“Dress up is fun.” Greg smiled. “I enjoy it
when I get a chance.”

“Do you know about the party?”

He nodded, sliding the pizza box on the table
in front of the couch. “I’m not sure I’ll be attending,
however.”

“Oh,” she said, disappointed. “I’m not
thrilled at the prospect, but Diane is pushing a social life on me
while I’m here.”

“You should go.” He sat beside her and popped
the box open. Fragrant steam, spicy with garlic, oregano and
tomato, wafted from the box. “That’s not about belief; it’s about
being with people. Might do you some good to be with people.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said. “And about
making an appointment with you.”

“Good. Enough business, though. I’m starving.
Tell me what you do for a living.”

Chapter Four

December sped by in a blur of activity.
Miranda’s presence was minimal, to Cora’s relief, and she didn’t
once get grabbed and dragged into an alley by a member of the mob.
Diane didn’t ask where Cora went after the spa incident, and Cora
in turn agreed to accompany her to an endless parade of parties.
This one was only a few floors down in Diane’s apartment building.
Cora didn’t object as much because she could escape any time. She
remembered Greg’s encouragement to socialize, and used that
encouragement, as well as the prospect of running into him again,
as motivation to squeeze into a too-small burgundy corset. For
modesty’s sake, she draped her shoulders with transparent black
lace.