The Darkest Midnight. R. A. Finley

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СКАЧАТЬ closed on a sigh.

      A woman’s low, seductive voice intruded. “I believe we have something in common. Someone, rather.”

      Power, angry and dark. Malevolence wormed its way through defenses that he had worked long and hard to erect since his release from caethiwed. But his own powers were not what they were. He was fighting an uphill battle and he knew he hadn’t the strength for much of a climb.

      He tried. Would continue to try until he had nothing left. He shook as the ripples of a compulsion spell licked like the tongue of a slavering beast.

      Its fangs would not be far behind.

      “What do you want?” he managed, his seldom-used voice strange to his own ears. The cup of oatmeal had dropped from his hands. He would not have noticed but for the wet heat soaking through the leg of his pants where it had spilled. Steam rose like thin, sheer snakes. He looked at them instead of the woman.

      He had not heard her approach. Had not felt so much as a glimmer. One moment he had been alone, the next…not.

      Power and skill.

      He closed his eyes as the tremors increased. His breathing had become choppy, his panic like a living thing. Control slipped, as did his footing in his silent, impossible fight against her will.

      “Walk with me,” she said, her sickly sweet voice closer than before. She had slipped into the space between the bins.

      She bent down, level with the entrance to his shelter and looked straight at him. He felt the nip of the beast’s fangs then, the compulsion spell taking hold.

      “Follow.” She straightened, gone the way she had come. He heard her walking away.

      He stood, left the cherished gift of food smeared and scattered about. She was halfway down the alley. A tall woman with hair in a long, sinuous cascade down her back. Swaying hypnotically, it beckoned.

      He followed.

      

      Eclectica, Granite Springs

      Thia felt a twinge of guilt when she hurried through the café to Eclectica’s upper sales floor, its decorative interior gate already propped open. The mess in the garage had set her back almost a half hour.

      The café, accessed through the garden and rear door, opened early (as coffee shops did). The store would open later, hence the gate—the unlocking of which (along with the main door downstairs) was something Thia had recently taken upon herself. It helped her to understand that she did, in fact, own what she feared would always feel like Lettie’s pride and joy.

      Hugging the rail to make way for the people beelining up the stairs to the café, she reconsidered her word choice. Fear wasn’t right, since the alternative would be to lose even more of her great-aunt than she already had. She didn’t want that, yet she couldn’t feel like a stand-in forever, either. She’d inherited Eclectica along with most of Lettie’s investments and possessions, which included the Granite Springs house and one in London that she had no idea what to do with. Her memories of it, and of the city in general, were not what she had hoped they’d be when she’d set out.

      She knew what she wanted to do with Eclectica, at least. She wanted to make it a continued success. It was already popular both in Granite Springs and, increasingly, online. But it was also, in many ways, like a living thing and therefore not meant to remain unchanged. It couldn’t be a shrine to Lettie, with Lettie’s original decisions cast in stone. If it did, Thia had come to realize, then that stone would become Eclectica’s grave marker. The store needed to stay vibrant, to shift with the combined will of its customers and owner both, or it would atrophy and eventually die.

      That was where the fear came in. Or, considering the rest of what Thia had to deal with, maybe it only ranked as “relatively moderate apprehension.” Dealing with the power she carried, knowing it was only a matter of time before Cassie sought revenge for the deaths of her twin brother and sorcerer father were far scarier prospects than decisions such as which wholesaler to use for Tara Water or whether to stop stocking crystal orbs now that she knew what they could be used for.

      “Good morning, Lynette,” she said in passing at the bottom of the stairs and then waved at the customers the clerk was on her way to help. The Winslows. Mother and daughter, they co-owned the Bed and Breakfast across the alley. Both smiled, waved back.

      “More ornaments?” Thia was surprised—but pleasantly so. The week before, they had bought the entire stock of glass pickles.

      “We like to put one in each room for guests to take with them,” said Jeanine, the daughter. “Thanks for getting more in so quickly. We really appreciate it.”

      Thia felt another twinge of guilt. She’d had nothing to do with the quick reorder. “I’ll let Abby know.”

      Newly promoted to manager (by none other than Thia) and already used to handling such things for the frequently absent Lettie, Abby had been well within her job expectations. But shouldn’t Thia have had some part in it? Or would that be micromanaging?

      Dammit. Was she going to second-guess herself with everything? She pulled off her scarf, removed her coat on the way to Lettie’s—to her office, and nearly knocked a menorah from the special Hanukkah display. For as much floor space as the building allowed, the winter holidays took up a great deal more than usual. It was beautiful though, in all its cross-cultural, chaotic glory. Heavily decorated trees (artificial, but who could tell under it all), lights wrapped around or draped over every cabinet and shelf, colorful items that ranged from nutcrackers to wreaths to chocolate-filled advent calendars crowded every surface. And the scents. Thia inhaled deeply.

      Previously, the store had held a pleasant aroma of fresh-ground coffee from upstairs and herbs from the well-stocked shelves along the back wall. But winter had brought the wonderful, overriding scents of pine boughs, and pomanders of oranges and cloves.

      After setting her things in the office, she went to the counter—or more accurately, counters. Six of them, arranged to form a hexagon in the approximate center of the main floor. After a few close calls with last-minute rushes of customers who needed to get to their afternoon plays at the Shakespeare Festival, it was one of the changes Thia had felt necessary, and a logical expansion of the existing set-up—something Lettie would have undoubtedly approved of had she been able. Along with the increased efficiency brought by multiple cash registers, the glass fronts and interior shelves allowed for more easily-accessed yet easily-secured display space.

      Within the configuration, Abby was restocking an arrangement of delicately crafted fairies: Colorful, whimsical creations that Thia had come to understand had little-to-nothing to do with the reality they supposedly represented. Most fairies were not fragile, harmless-looking things. Quite the contrary. Most fairies—or rather, Sidhe—were the stuff of nightmares.

      In fact, Thia wasn’t sure that even these (should these porcelain and silk versions prove true to life) would turn out to be as harmless as they appeared.

      Appearances, she’d learned all too well, were deceiving.

      Thia handed Abby a fairy from the array. “I’m sorry you had to open without me.”

      Her СКАЧАТЬ