Instead, something almost like amusement touched his eyes. He rummaged in his pocket, taking out a cigarette. He put it in his mouth and then, to my utter shock, leaned forward and lit the tip with the flickering flame on my palm. I gazed at him in confusion as he straightened, meeting my stare with intense, grass-green eyes.
Now, up close, I saw him clearly. His hair was jet black, and had a richness to it that made me want to run my fingers through it. He was unshaven, with sharp cheekbones, his lips quirked in a seemingly perpetual half-smile. An aura of smugness emanated from him, as if he was in on a million secrets I didn’t know.
He exhaled the smoke sideways, then took the cigarette from his mouth and offered it to me. “You look like you need it.”
“I don’t smoke.”
“Worried it’ll blacken your tongue?”
“What do you want?” I contemplated walking to my bicycle, but curiosity got the better of me.
“Just wanted to talk.” Despite his casual behavior, his tone had an iron edge. “You’re selling dreams to those people up there. You really need to stop.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
His smile widened. “I thought we’d be beyond the stage of denial by now, what with your whole horror-movie getup. What’s someone like you doing with guys like these, anyway? You seem like a…” He paused, hesitant.
“Nice girl?”
He let out an amused laugh. “Well, maybe not right now. But when you’re not wearing your nightmare costume.”
My claws were slowly morphing back into regular hands. My skin looked healthier. The effects of the powder were wearing off, though the flames still danced around my fingers. “You don’t know me. And what I’m doing is none of your business.” The tormented shriek was gone.
“You’re wrong.” His smile disappeared. “What you’re doing is my business. You’ll stop selling those dreams, girl. And trust me when I say those people are nothing but trouble. Stay away.”
His eyes flickered for a moment as he spoke, the green color shimmering, changing to jet black. Then he blinked, and the color shifted, becoming green again.
I wanted to come up with a retort. Lou Vitalis didn’t let strange men tell her what to do. I opened my mouth, but then shut it, the words momentarily gone.
He flashed me a final smile as he dropped the cigarette on the ground, stubbing it out with his shoe. “I personally prefer this look on you. It’s a mild improvement.”
Turning away, he went over to the door of the apartment building. He pushed the door, which opened easily. I clearly remembered shutting it behind me. It should have been locked.
Instinctively I knew he was going to Ronald’s apartment.
I decided not to stay around to see what happened when he got there. My anger gone, the flames on my hands had shimmered away to nothing. I whipped the chain off my bike, leaped onto it, and furiously pedaled away.
Chapter Three
My second client, and a childhood friend, billed herself as “Madame Isabella King, Psychic and Tarot Reader,” but I called her Isabel.
“You want some sugar in your tea, hon?” she called from the back room.
“No thanks,” I called back, glancing at the eerie human skull in the corner of the table. I wanted to believe it was a plastic model, meant to instill an atmosphere of mystery and of the occult.
It seemed kinda real, though. Creepy bugger.
Isabel’s shop was definitely selling the cryptic and mysterious fortune-teller vibe. The general decor was crimson velvet everywhere, accompanied by beads, bones, and candlelight. There were several runes etched into the thick wooden surface of the oval table where I sat. I knew many runes, and these were what we in the magical community called “squiggles” and “doodles.” I should know: I had helped to carve them.
Isabel returned from the back room, smiling warmly and carrying two mugs of tea. She was twenty-five, her skin reddish-brown. Her eyes were almond-shaped, and I knew them to narrow sweetly when she was amused. She wore a shocking bright pink lipstick, the color of a cheeky flamingo. As she approached me, the beads at the tips of her braids clicked together. She was dressed in a loose white blouse and a patchwork skirt that would have looked ridiculous on anyone else, but somehow suited her perfectly. She had a pink shawl draped over the blouse, matching her lipstick.
She set the teacup in front of me, and I took a careful sip from it. It was jasmine tea, and my entire body began relaxing after the Big Dumb Dan incident and the hectic bicycle ride that had followed.
“That tastes great.” I shut my eyes and leaned back. “And much needed, thanks.”
“How are you doing, Lou?” Isabel asked. She had a deep voice I privately envied. My own voice was too high, shrill when I was angry. A woman with Isabel’s voice could get people to take her seriously without resorting to turning themselves into a walking nightmare.
“I’m doing fine,” I said lazily and sipped again.
I was stretching the meaning of the word “fine” to its very limits.
In this case, “fine” meant I owed money to one of the worst people in Boston. His name was Anthony Cisternino, but after an interesting and bloody incident in his past, he had been nicknamed “Breadknife.” Then, as nicknames tend to do, it became a strange middle name, morphing him into Anthony “Breadknife” Cisternino. Sometimes people called him ABC, attaching the sing-song voice as if they were about to recite the entire alphabet. No one did it to his face, though, unless they wanted to be reminded what the B stood for.
The debt had been an idiotic mistake—money I’d thought I could easily return in a week. But a disastrous alchemical accident set fire to half my store shortly after I took the money, and the debt remained unpaid, growing each week like a malignant balloon.
I was barely scraping together enough to pay the debt’s interest, not to mention the original hefty sum. So Breadknife and his employees showed up every month to collect that interest. It was a visit I did not relish, and it was due tomorrow.
Also, because of this drain on my finances, I couldn’t afford to buy new supplies, which meant I was running out. Running out of ingredients, for an alchemist, is generally considered “not fine.”
“Totally fine,” I repeated. “How are you?”
“Meh.” Isabel sipped from her tea. “The internet is killing me.”
What she meant was that the online psychic market was slowly running her out of business. People couldn’t be bothered anymore to go to a fortune-teller’s shop, with all the accessories and knickknacks. They’d just get a psychic on a chat, and get a full reading in ten minutes for a tenth of the price.
Isabel had inherited her skills from her grandmother, and had learned the secrets of the trade from her. Now Isabel had a hard time reconciling what she’d learned from her grandma with the modern version that her clients needed. These days it was less “try to empty your mind and connect with your client’s soul” and more “it’s really important to get those five star reviews.” I’d heard her complain about this before, and I nodded in commiseration.