He pa.s.sed a finger across the center strand, then touched it with a finger of his left hand, muttering something in a language that sounded suspiciously like Quebecois.
An image rose off the rope and moved toward the center of the table. A woman sat on a cloud, the rope wrapped around her waist.
The woman looked like an English teacher Vivian had had in middle school--with the thin lips, arched eyebrows, and snotty att.i.tude Vivian often a.s.sociated with uptight British matrons. The woman--now even older than she had been when Vivian knew her (if, indeed, Vivian had known her)--took the end of the rope, held it up, and waved it, as the flesh on the back of her arms wobbled back and forth.
Then she swung the end of the rope over her head. It formed a la.s.so that snaked through her fingers and zoomed downward, unwrapping itself from her waist as it did.
She held her fingers out, controlling the un-la.s.soed end, as screams echoed from below.
Vivian recognized those screams--she"d heard them when they originally happened, when Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos were dragged from the restaurant Dex pushed his fingers together, and the image vanished into the rope. The screams continued to resound, until they faded into nothing.
"Well," Vari said. "We should trust our young friend here. One person."
Condescending idiot Vivian thought she had cured them of their bad att.i.tude toward her, but apparently not.
"That"s not the person I"ve been sensing," Vivian said. Her tone was sharper than she had intended it to be. Dex, whose head was still down, smiled. She hoped she was the only one who had seen his reaction.
"I thought you said there was only one person." Blackstone was frowning.
"There is, but apparently there are others working for him," Vivian said.
"You"re sure it"s a him?" Dex asked.
"No," Vivian said. "I"m just sure there"s one mind in charge of all this."
"Did you recognize that woman?" Nora asked the Fates.
"No," Clotho said, her brows furrowed.
"But she doesn"t have any magic," Lachesis said.
"You can tell?" Nora asked.
Atropos shook her head. "If someone that old had magic, we would recognize her."
"You"re sure?" Vari asked.
All three Fates glared at him.
He shrugged. "I guess you are sure, then."
"You can"t do that rope thing without magic," Blackstone said.
"There are ways," Clotho said.
"Now is not the time to be mysterious," Nora said to the Fates.
They studied her for a moment, then nodded in unison. "Someone could use a puppet," Lachesis said.
"A puppet?" Dex asked. His hand returned to Vivian"s knee as he spoke. She relaxed slightly at his touch.
"It"s dark magic," Atropos said. "Strictly forbidden."
"And not used for hundreds of years," Clotho said.
"That we know of, anyway," Lachesis said.
"In other words, no one has been caught doing it," Atropos said.
"I"ve never heard of it." Blackstone took a piece of bread and broke it apart with his long fingers. He was still nervous; Vivian could sense it.
"The mage funnels his magic through a nonmagical person," Clotho said.
Lachesis took some more bread for herself. "It can be done through one person or a string of people, so that the mage won"t get caught."
"So whoever"s doing this is making mortals perform magic?" Vari asked. "They"ll notice, right? I mean, the press is out there."
"They won"t remember," Atropos said.
"And," Clotho said, "if the magic is done right, then the mage won"t get caught."
"It"s a very sophisticated trick," Lachesis said.
"Only someone very old and very powerful can do it," Atropos said.
Vivian moved her shoulders. The tension from her neck was running down her back. "Define "old" for those of us who just this morning thought the human life span was a mere hundred years."
Vari looked interested in this part too.
"Over a thousand at least," Clotho said.
"Probably closer to three thousand," Lachesis said.
"I"m that old," Vari said.
Vivian looked at him, and felt something deeper than surprise. She was so shocked that she wanted to joke--something along the lines of he looked no older than a hundred--but she kept quiet.
He was saying, "... know that Ealhswith wanted to take over her body, but that wasn"t temporary. This is temporary?"
"And a brilliant way to keep us from knowing what the mage is doing," Atropos said. "If, of course, we could still know."
The Fates looked at each other sadly.
"Can we trace the spell backwards?" Blackstone asked.
Clotho shook her head. "If the mage is sophisticated enough to do the spell, then he"s sophisticated enough to wipe all trace of himself away when the spell is through."
"That"s true," Dex said. "The spell I used should have shown us who cast the spell. If the Fates are right, and this woman was just a puppet, then we should have seen the spellcaster, not this mortal."
His hand rubbed Vivian"s knee. She caught his fingers, holding them still.
At that moment, the kitchen door swung open. A middle-aged man in chef"s white stepped tentatively into the restaurant. "Mr. Blackstone, sir? I"m sorry to disturb you, but we"re supposed to open in fifteen minutes and we still haven"t finished prepping the lunch special."
Blackstone swore quietly. "Thanks, Marcel. I"ll be right in."
The chef went back into the kitchen, the door swinging closed behind him.
"Want me to put up the CLOSED sign?" Ariel asked.
Blackstone shook his head. "I don"t think the answers are going to be easy on this one, but the problem is that we can"t keep this place defended much longer. We"re going to have to find a way to protect you ladies."
The Fates nodded.
"It might be easier if you split up," Vari said. "We have three powerful mages here. If one of us watches one of you, we might actually have a chance at this."
"Along with some thinking, remembering, and research," Nora said. "We have to find out who is behind these attacks."
Vivian felt her stomach twist. She was nearly done here. But she wasn"t certain if she could return to her apartment or not. Would the attacker-- whoever it might be--leave her alone?
And beyond that, she still wasn"t sure she trusted Blackstone and Vari with the Fates. Dex could handle himself just fine, of course. She had complete faith in him.
"Dex," she said turning toward him, and then she stopped speaking. He wasn"t looking at her. He was looking at the Fates, an expression of concern on his face.
"What is it?" she asked.
"I don"t know," he said.
She followed his gaze and found herself completely stunned. The Fates had their arms around each other, silent tears streaking down their faces.
"What"s wrong?" she asked.
That got everyone else"s attention. "Did something happen?" Ariel asked.
"There isn"t another attack, is there?" Nora asked.
The Fates shook their heads.
"Then what"s going on?" Blackstone asked.
Atropos closed her eyes and leaned even closer to the other two women. "We can"t split up. We tried. If we"re separated for more than a day, we"ll die."
"That"s got to be a myth," Vari said.
"Like everything else around here," Nora snapped. "Give them the benefit of the doubt."
"I"m not sure we can, honey," Blackstone said. "Protecting all three of them for more than a few hours takes more magic firepower than any of us have."
"Dar and Ariel have a pretty big house," Nora said. "You guys can put a spell on it."
"We could," Vari said, "but it"s in the middle of a neighborhood, and some of these evil mages don"t care about destroying entire acres of property. I like my neighbors. I don"t want to lose them."
"Do you live in the country?" Nora asked Dex.
He shook his head, but didn"t volunteer any more. Vivian got the sense that he was embarra.s.sed, but she couldn"t tell why.
"You have an apartment," Nora said to Vivian, clearly not expecting a response, "And we have a loft. All of which are in the middle of the city."
"Your cabin might work," Ariel said to Vari.
He shook his head. "That place is impossible to spell properly."
Blackstone sighed. "I could try contacting the Powers That Be."
As the Fates tried to do obeisance, they nearly slapped both Blackstone and Vari.
"But," Blackstone continued, leaning back to get out of the way of the Fates" hands, "I don"t think they"ve talked to a real mage in centuries."
"You won"t be able to see them," Clotho said. "You must go through the Interim Fates."
"I"ve met them," Dex said. "I"m not sure they know who the Powers That Be even are."
This time, Vari and Blackstone ducked as the Fates did their obeisance.
"Then we"re out of options," Nora said.
The p.r.i.c.kling sensation Vivian had had earlier, just before the Fates were taken, returned. So did the feeling of being watched.
"We"re not only out of options," Vivian said, "but I think something"s going to happen."
"It can"t," Blackstone said. "We"ve protected the place."
"I"m only telling you what I sense," Vivian said.
"That"s odd," Vari said. "This shouldn"t be happening."
"It doesn"t matter," Dex said. "It is. If the three of us shield the Fates, that might protect them for the next few minutes. Then we can figure out what to do."
The men raised their hands, and power sparked off their fingertips. A shield, multicolored in the same way that an oil slick was, formed over the Fates.
The shield stayed visible for a few seconds and then faded into nothing.
"Okay," Blackstone said. "Let"s resolve this. We have five minutes."
Vivian looked at Dex. Even without reading his mind, she knew what he was thinking. They"d been discussing a solution for nearly an hour now and had gotten nowhere. There was no way they would figure out what to do in five minutes.
If things didn"t change, and change quickly, the Fates were doomed.