Totally Spellbound (16 page)

This whirlwind travel was starting to
make her dizzy.

Megan clutched Rob’s hand. It seemed
like they existed in a void for a half a second, which was better
than the inside of Zoe’s closet, particularly with Zoe dressed like
a Victoria’s Secret model (and looking like one too, dammit!) and
Travers with his jeans unzipped.

Megan blushed just thinking about
that.

No one wanted to imagine their brother
doing what her brother was probably doing right now.

She shuddered, and then,
suddenly, she was in a library. A large, old library covered with
beautiful shelves that ran up several stories. The library didn’t
smell like musty books, though. It smelled like old dog pee mixed
with bad pizza and bubblegum.

She had never been to a
place like this. It was too big to be real. The rooms seemed to go
off this main area for ever and ever. They even disappeared into a
fog-shrouded distance.

Rob squeezed her hand, but
he was frowning. He sniffed loudly, obviously taking in that
hideous pee-and-pizza smell. He touched the dust-covered surface of
a nearby book and shook his head.

“Something’s very wrong here,” he
whispered.

“We can hear that!” A young woman’s
voice floated in from the next room.

“Why does everyone materialize in the
wrong place?” asked another young woman.

“Have you ever thought that we’re in
the wrong place?” asked a third.

Rob’s frown grew deeper.
He let go of Megan’s hand, put a finger to his lips, then stepped
over a pile of magazines toward the sound of the voices. Slowly he
peered around the corner, and his frown turned into a full-blown
grimace.

Then he reached out his hand, and
Megan took it.

She was beginning to trust this man,
although she wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was the confidence with
which he moved, or maybe it was just the mercurial nature of his
emotions. Anyone who went through that many moods in such a short
period of time couldn’t be hiding much.

He helped over the magazine pile,
around a mountain of dirty laundry, and through a stack of open
books, all resting on top of each other.

The books had
interesting titles:
The History of
Finger-Pointing in the Magical World: The Titans through The Powers
That Be;
Famous Familiars and Their
Times
; and, ominously,
The War Between The Kingdoms Volume 45:
Faerie
.

But Rob wouldn’t let her
linger. Instead, he led her into the next room. Three teenage girls
sprawled on lawn chairs. Someone had placed ugly green Astroturf
beneath the chairs and set up a wading pool next to one of the
floor-to-ceiling oak book stacks. Several books tottered along the
edge of the wading pool, dangerously close to the water.

Megan wanted to move all that
interesting paper away from danger, but Rob held her tightly at his
side.

He was staring at the
girls. They were worth staring at. The one closest to Megan was
another redhead—Megan hadn’t seen so many pretty redheads in one
day in years (which could have been an effect of living in Los
Angeles, where she saw too many beautiful blondes).

The redhead had cropped
her lovely hair so short that it looked like a crewcut. She wore a
green bikini that left nothing to the imagination, and she had half
a dozen tiny tattoos—most of them of miniature versions of herself
(along with one or two roses)—along her torso. A diamond-studded
ring stuck out of her belly button, and a matching one hung on the
side of her aquiline nose.

She had large breasts and wide hips,
and Megan knew that once she hit her twenties the redhead would
share Megan’s plus-size figure and not know how she got
there.

Next to her, a petite blonde (why were
they always petite?) leaned forward in a way that would desert her
long about twenty as well. She was painting her toenails fuchsia.
The girl wore three seashells, all covering the most strategic
locations, and tied in place with hot pink cord. If only she had
one quarter of the redhead’s figure, she might have been able to
pull off the look. But she didn’t. She looked like a little girl
experimenting with her sexy older sister’s clothing.

The last girl wore her hair in
cornrows. White beads dotted the ends, making her click with each
movement. She wasn’t wearing a bikini at all—or if she was, it
wasn’t visible beneath her long white t-shirt.

She was the only one with a book on
her lap, and in her right hand, she held a pencil. The eraser end
had been chewed off. Another pencil was shoved behind her left
ear.

Only the redhead looked up when Megan
and Rob entered the room.

“Hey, guys,” she said, “we have more
idiots.”

Rob flushed. Megan tightened her grip
on his hand. She wasn’t trying to control him, but she had a sense
that antagonizing these girls wouldn’t be a bright idea.

The blonde raised her head. She shoved
a piece of hot pink bubblegum in her mouth and started to chew with
her mouth open.

“Grrrr—aaaate,” she said. “More
blinking work.”

“For me,” said the girl with the
cornrows. She didn’t look up at all.

“You should look, Tiffany,” said the
redhead. “This guy’s a dish.”

“Yeah, babe,” said the blond. “Dump
the empath and join us. We need some entertainment, right,
Tiff?”

Tiffany tucked an errant cornrow
behind her right ear. She still didn’t look up. “Daddy’s gonna be
really mad at us if we don’t figure out this familiar thing. He
says it’s gonna be a crisis real soon now.”

Megan frowned at Rob. He shrugged ever
so slightly, but that grimace he’d had earlier had morphed into an
expression of controlled panic.

What was so frightening about three
teenage girls?

Except, of course, that they were
teenage girls.

“So that means it’s not a crisis right
now, right, Brittany?” the redhead glanced at the blonde. Blondes
named Brittany. Apparently they infected every plain of
existence.

“Right, Crystal,” Brittany said, and
blew a bright pink bubble.

“Find out what they want and make them
leave,” Tiffany said. She sounded angry.

“Tell us what you want and then
leave,” Crystal said.

“Who are you?” Rob sounded like he
already knew, like he was afraid of the answer.

Brittany rolled her
china blue eyes. “
Every
body asks that question.”

“Maybe because they can’t
believe what they see,” Tiffany mumbled as she turned the
pages.

“You’re in a really bad mood, y’know?”
Crystal said.

“Yeah,” Brittany
said. “Get your nose out of that book for once, and look up. This
guy’s
hot
.”

Tiffany looked up. Her flat gaze met
Rob’s. “Hi, hot guy. Do you know how to read?”

Rob opened his mouth, closed it, and
looked at Megan as if she had the answers. She wanted to lean back
and observe for a moment. These teenagers had issues, and not just
with each other. Something was going on here, something underlying
the entire scene, that made all three girls unusually
tense.

“Of course I can read.” Rob sounded
offended. “I’ve been able to read since the
Renaissance.”

Megan gave him a startled look. She
couldn’t remember when the Renaissance was, exactly (if she ever
knew—history had never been her strong suit), but she knew it
wasn’t during Robin Hood’s era. He went at least a hundred years or
two or three before he learned how to read.

No wonder the question made him
bristle.

“Daddy sent you, didn’t he?” Crystal
asked, her full lips turned downward. “This is another stupid test,
isn’t it?”

“Tell him we’re not going
to stand for it!” Brittany poked Tiffany. “Tell him after getting
this fake-o lame-o pool as a reward, we’re not doing anything he
wants ever again.”

“You guys are not getting this,”
Tiffany said. “We would’ve gotten a real pool if you both hadn’t
blown the final question.”

“Daddy says this is a real pool,”
Crystal said.

“It says ‘pool’ on the side,” Brittany
said.

“‘
Wading pool,’” Tiffany
said with barely masked anger. “And if you knew anything about
anything, you’d know that wading pools are for babies, not for
babes.”

“Oh.” Crystal’s entire body
wilted.

“She already told you that, dummy,”
Brittany whispered so loudly that it sounded like she was
shouting.

“Excuse me,” Rob said. “I asked a
question. Who are you?”

“You’re going to irritate Crystal if
you keep asking that question,” Tiffany said, turning another page
in her book.

“Then answer it,” Rob
snapped.

Megan dropped his hand, walked through
the lawn chairs over to the pool. She removed one book from the
side, then another.

“What do you think you’re doing?”
Crystal asked at her.

“Whatever it is, Meg,” Rob said, “it’s
probably not a good idea.”

“You might want to listen to the
hottie, empath,” Brittany said.

That was the second time they had
called her an empath. Megan had ignored it the first time. She took
a deep breath, but wouldn’t let herself be distracted.

“Thanks,” Tiffany said ever so softly
and just to Megan. “I’ve been asking them to clean up for the last
two days. We’re really gonna get it if we don’t fix
stuff.”

Megan removed the last three books
from the side of the pool, set them as far from the water as she
could without leaving anyone’s line of sight, and sat, cross-legged
on the Astroturf between all three lawn chairs.

“You girls want to tell me what’s
wrong?” she asked.

“Meg, you don’t know who they are,”
Rob said.

It was obvious he didn’t either, or he
wouldn’t have been asking them repeatedly who they were. But Megan
was determined not to be distracted.

These three girls were in some kind of
crisis, and if the only way to talk to them was to settle the
crisis first, then she would do that.

Besides, she felt something close to
relief. She had been out of her element all day.

But working with
teenagers, especially rich, spoiled, and emotionally neglected
teenagers, was something she knew more about than maybe anyone else
on the planet.

“Daddy did send you, didn’t he?”
Crystal asked.

“So what if he did?” Megan
said.

Rob made little warning motions with
his hands. Megan pretended she didn’t see them.

“Would it make that much difference if
he had?” she asked.

“Well, duh!” Brittany said. “E-yeah.
It would.”

“How come?” Megan asked.

“They think Daddy’s out to get us,”
Tiffany said. She continued to page through the book, pretending
disinterest.

“You don’t?” Megan asked.

“Of course, she doesn’t,” Crystal
said. “She thinks she’s so much better than we are.”

“She thinks she’s Daddy’s favorite,”
Brittany said.

A lot of issues here. Rob had let his
hands fall to his sides. He was watching her as if she surprised
him, but a concern line marred his forehead.

“I’d prefer it,” Megan said carefully,
“if the girl I asked the question to was the girl who answered
it.”

“We’d prefer it too.” Tiffany finally
looked up from her book. Her dark eyes flashed with
anger.

“But we haven’t talked like normal
people since we got this job,” Crystal said.

“Job?” Megan asked.

“Y’know,” Brittany said. “This stupid
Fate job.”

“You’re the Fates?” Rob put his hand
over his mouth after the words came out. He looked surprised, but
Megan couldn’t tell whether he had been surprised by the fact that
he had spoken aloud or surprised by the fact that these girls were
Fates.

Megan was certainly surprised that
these girls were Fates. She had thought the Fates were Fates. Not
that she believed the Fates of Greek mythology would be as ditzy as
those three women were. But they were more plausible Fates than
these young girls.

Although she had noticed that these
girls spoke like the three older women, one at a time, all in a
specific order.

“Interim,” Tiffany said.

“Interim what?” Rob asked, his fingers
muffling the words. He got the question out before Megan
could.

“Fates,” Crystal said. “We’re the
Interim Fates.”

“Why is everyone surprised by this?”
Brittany asked.

“Maybe it’s because we suck at it,”
Tiffany said.

“We don’t suck at it,” Crystal said.
“We don’t suck at it like those other three did. They made Daddy
really mad.”

“We’re making Daddy really mad,”
Brittany said.