Smoke and Mirrors (17 page)

Though fatigue set in before she even made it all the way down the stairs, she clung to the spell like a lifeline.

She’d barely made it a block before her muscles burned with strain. The headache pulsing behind her eyes gained in tempo and strength, her vision wavering a bit more with each stabbing pain. She blindly trudged forward, focusing on nothing but maintaining the spell to keep herself out of sight for as long as possible.

She wasn’t sure how far she’d gone when someone cried out and flailed when she brushed too close. A random blow connected with her temple, knocking her aside. Her invisibility spell fell.

And she was hit seconds later with the tracking spell, sending her stumbling to a knee and clutching for a nearby stairwell railing for balance.

“Holy shit! Did you see that?”

“Dude, that chick just bamfed like Nightcrawler!”

Kimberly didn’t wait around to see how many witnesses caught sight of her. Sure, Others may have made their presence known to mundanes, but she’d committed a tremendous faux pas by letting herself be seen actively casting in public without a permit.

On the bright side, without the overstrain of pulling too much magic again too soon blinding her, she could now see that she’d gone about six blocks, nearly seven, from her apartment before the spell fell. Far enough away that the caster was unlikely to have figured out where she lived. It was also a great deal easier to bat back the stunning aspect of the spell when she didn’t have to pour so much concentration into making herself match the environment, chameleon-like, constantly shifting her image.

It took three more pulses of energy before the source of the spell stopped hurling it at her. They either knew where she was, or were getting tired of being bitch-slapped with their own stun being thrown right back at them.

Pleased with herself, she kept on the alert and maintained her Sight, and never mind that it was making her dizzy. There were Others on the street. A few that glanced her way as she passed, but she didn’t see any sparking with recent signs of casting elemental magic. Her tormentor couldn’t be too close—or perhaps she was looking in the wrong places.

The notion that the thing she’d seen on the rooftop last night wouldn’t be found at street-level skittered through her thoughts, and she glanced up.

All she caught was a glimpse. A monster easily the size of a two-seater plane, but with an unmistakably serpentine form. Wide, sickle-like wings were limned with sunlight and lightning-like flickers of energy that traveled over the outline of the massive beast in the air above her.

Dragon, her mind gibbered.

It flew against the sun, and she had to look away, blinded.

With a sound very much like a sob, she made a mad dash for the café. Though she had no way of knowing for sure, she thought she felt its gaze on her, and that it might dive down and destroy her by flame or claw if she dared look at it directly again. It might have been her imagination, but she could swear the pressure of the wind whipped up by its passing brushed against her skin with every steady wingbeat.

The temerity—the sheer gall of her—to think she could tame a force of nature like that. She’d had no idea it would be so large. Such a perfect, primal predator. Panic beat in her breast and drove her to run, to be anywhere but caught in its shadow like a mouse being hunted by a hawk.

Don was putting out the first round of freshly baked loaves of bread and a tray of cinnamon rolls when she staggered against the door, thumping against it so hard she nearly cracked the glass. He straightened, putting the trays down and hurrying to unlock it and let her inside.

“What the hell’s wrong, kid? Somebody chasing you?” He was already pushing past her, trying to peer outside.

“N-n-no,” she stammered, grabbing his arm so tight he winced as she urged him to go back inside. It did stop him from stepping foot beyond the threshold of the store. “It’s gone. It’s—never mind. I’m okay.”

A thundercloud of rage started building behind his eyes. He tugged up his sleeve on the arm she wasn’t holding, baring a thick, tattoo-covered forearm. “It’s that fancy-pants guy, isn’t it? I need to go kick some wholesale ass for you?”

“No! Don, don’t. I… I thought a mugger was following me. They’re probably gone now.”

He frowned at her. She met his gaze unflinching, feeling about two inches tall for lying to him so blatantly.

Still, being chased by a mugger sounded a heck of a lot more believable than saying she thought she had a dragon tailing her to work.

Even now, with vampires owning night clubs in all the major cities in the U.S. and werewolves volunteering with rescue teams and magi putting on shows at Vegas to rival Siegfried and Roy, some types of magical creatures were just a little too extraordinary to believe. Aside from that, Don and the rest of the staff at the café didn’t know she was a mage or that she had any involvement in supernatural business, and she planned on keeping it that way. She had to if she wanted to keep her job, equal rights measures or no.

Swiping sweat off her brow with her forearm, she ducked past Don and headed behind the counter. He still peered out the door, checking both ways, probably looking for Cormac. If only she knew for sure he wouldn’t find him.

As he locked up behind her, she hid the shaking of her hands by pretending to busy herself with hunting for something in her purse before putting it down in the storage spot below the register. She held her breath until her lungs were on the verge of bursting, then let it out slow. Some of the involuntary trembles eased.

Don watched her closely, but didn’t ask her anything more about the supposed mugger who had been following her. He must have known she was full of it, because he didn’t bother asking for a description or suggest she call the cops. Awkward as it was, they still finished opening preparations in good time. Most of it went without a hitch, save for the first batch of morning buns coming out with burnt bottoms, filling the kitchen with the acrid scent of charred bread and sugar. She frantically worked the espresso machine to make a couple batches of their most pungent dark roast, and then mixed cloves and cinnamon into one of the coffee pots they always kept filled with hot water for tea to cover up the smell. Don propped open the back door and ran the industrial fans they usually only used in the summer to blow the worst of it outside and into the alley behind the shop. Once it smelled more like a bakery than leavings from Powdered Toast Man’s old underwear, he didn’t let her open for the first customers of the day who were lined up outside, insisting on doing it himself.

Cormac wasn’t among the people gathered out front waiting to get in—but Viper was.

He strolled inside like he owned the place, his broad shoulders back and chin up as he breathed in the scents of the café. His dark brown hair was slicked back from the sharp, angular planes of his face. Her Sight showed his black leather trench coat was still trailing elemental sparks in his wake, bright sparkles of color that shimmered like the scales she’d glimpsed outside, but otherwise he’d clamped down tight on his aura until it was difficult to tell him apart from the mundanes around him.

Kimberly’s back thumped against the counter behind her as he zeroed in on her. His eyes weren’t glowing this time, instead a pale whiskey brown, looking her up and down with obvious interest.

Don straightened and looked back and forth between them, then tilted his head at Viper in question. Silently asking Kimberly if he was the creep, and if he needed to put his past experience as a bouncer to good use. She gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head, trying to breathe around a throat constricted with fear.

If Don tried anything, Viper would kill him. She could see it in the set of the Other’s shoulders, the slight curl of his fingers, hooked like they were customarily clawed. It was in the glint in his eye, hopeful for a challenge, searching for something to toy with until it became too tiresome and was put out of its misery.

Breathing shallow, she moved in a dazed haze behind the register, taking orders. Viper had, in what might have appeared to be an act of politeness, stepped aside and gestured for the other people who had been waiting to go first. Biding his time for his chance to speak with her uninterrupted, she was sure. She got the coffees and pastries and breakfast sandwiches other people ordered, dreading the moment the Other would take his turn in line. On alert to her discomfort, Don stayed up front as much as he could, but a few of the orders required him to go back to the grill in the kitchen.

Viper must have noticed. When it was his turn to order, he put one arm on the glass display beside the register, leaning in to close the distance between them and giving her a whiff of a woodsy scent tainted with a hint of carrion. His thin, sly smile widened as she jerked back.

“Good morning, love. I’ll have a coffee and one of those breakfast sandwiches. Extra sausage, hmm?”

Don muttered something under his breath, but went into the back to cook the order. Kimberly punched the numbers into the register, keeping her voice low as she stared down at the key pad.

“I’m not looking—I don’t want—”

He set an empty paper cup from the Black Star down on the counter. Nudged it closer with one finger. “This says you do want. Very much.”

She gasped and made a grab for it. It must have been the cup Cormac had given her last night. Something she’d owned, however briefly. Something that left a trace of her behind. Viper didn’t bother trying to stop her as she crumpled it in her fist and hid it behind her back, like it would stop him from casting the tracking spell all over again.

His low voice was pleasant, calm, and completely at odds with the way his fingernail traced a shallow line in the countertop. “You should be more mindful where you discard things someone might use to track you.”

“What do you want from me?”

“A chance to talk. Not here,” he said, his gaze briefly alighting on the kitchen door before refocusing on Kimberly’s pale features. “I’m sure your friend has been telling you I’m the worst kind of monster and to avoid me at all costs.”

She didn’t bother to deny it.

“Give me a chance to tell you my side of things. Perhaps it will clear a few things up for you. Like what he is, which will go a long way toward explaining why he doesn’t care for me. That is, if he hasn’t already told you…”

Kimberly couldn’t help but make a small sound deep in her throat. A mix of confusion and fear.

He could tell her about Cormac? Finally clear up the mystery about what he was? If that were true, then Viper was being more open with her straight out of the gate than Cormac had ever been, and she couldn’t for the life of her fathom why. It smacked of manipulation, but that didn’t make his offer any less intriguing.

Had Cormac lied to her? Was Viper really as dangerous to her as he had said?

The addition of the stunning aspect to his tracking spell that had been intended to keep her from bolting said he was—but the thought of learning more about Cormac’s nature was too tempting a prospect to ignore.

She gave a quick look over her shoulder to make sure Don wasn’t listening in before meeting Viper’s bright, avid gaze. “Fine. This afternoon. Say around 3? You already know how to find me.”

“As long as you don’t pull the same trick you did last night. Bugger and blast, but I’d love to pick your brain about that.”

Swallowing hard, she nodded. “As long as you promise not to try to pin me like a bug again while you’re at it, I won’t.”

“Cross my heart,” he said, making an exaggerated “X” over his heart with the same finger he’d used to cut into the counter. “Ah, that smells delightful. Don, is it?”

Don leaned around her to pass the wax paper wrapped sandwich over the counter, giving the Other the hairy eyeball. Viper accepted the food without further comment, leaving a twenty on the counter. He also waited patiently as Kimberly got him the coffee she’d been too flustered to remember he’d ordered.

He then dipped his head in a slight nod to Don and gave her one last, wicked smile before he slipped out into the sun, hiding those strange eyes behind a pair of reflective shades.

Kimberly wished she had some way of knowing whether she’d just signed a deal with the devil or if she’d found the answer to all of her prayers.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Kimberly kept her head down for most of her shift. She was both concerned and relieved that Cormac didn’t come by to check on her. When she’d found the courage to ask Don if he’d swung by after she left the night before, he shrugged and said he hadn’t seen him.

She would probably end up having to go to his shop to apologize, but she wouldn’t do it until after meeting with Viper.

She also wasn’t sure what it said about her that she was more excited about the prospect of uncovering some of Cormac’s secrets than she was about meeting with an honest-to-goodness dragon.

Xander showed up promptly at noon, grabbing one of the tables when Kimberly gestured for him to get one before anyone else in the growing line could. She wasn’t able to join him until Annabelle showed up a few minutes later and took over manning the register so Kimberly could take her lunch break.

Annabelle managed to snag her for a moment before she took off.

“Are you playing the field?” she asked with a grin and a nod in Xander’s direction. “What happened to your guy in the fancy suit?”