He shook his head at her, smugly with faux sympathy. ‘I’m afraid there’s nothing else I can do for you. My future awaits.’
‘Sit.’
‘Really, Xan,’ he began, straightening his white tie, and then he sat down, surprised.
‘I’ve been seeing you for exactly three weeks, Vincent,’ Xan said, not bothering to hide her contempt anymore, which was not only a great relief, but also a great pleasure. ‘During that time you were arrogant, boring, stupid, and only mildly interesting in bed.’
‘Well, I guess we’re not taking rejection very well, are we?’ Vincent said, still trying to get up.
‘Vincent, nobody takes rejection well except the bottoms in S and M pacts, and even they want it their way. Even so, I would be delighted to let you go on disappointing dim-witted, barely legal Jennifer in every way it is possible for a man to disappoint a woman except for one thing: you have just humiliated me in public.’ She leaned forward. ‘That was dumb, Vincent.’
‘Oh, and now you’re going to punish me.’ Vincent waggled his fingers at her. ‘Big scary witch. Well, I have powers, too. So take this!’
He flung out his arms and nothing happened.
‘You had powers, Vincent,’ Xan said. ‘Now I have them. It was the only reason I was seeing you at all. You didn’t think I was sleeping with you for your wit and charm, did you?’ He gaped at her and she went on. ‘I took your powers, Vincent. I earned them. Three weeks with you was like three years with anybody else.’
‘My powers?’ Vincent looked around. ‘What did you do with them?’
‘I put them under my pillow,’ Xan said, exasperated.
‘You can’t do this!’ Vincent said, not smug for the first time in his life. ‘Do you know who I am?’
There was a rattling behind the paneling, and Xan said, ‘Oh, hell,’ and looked at Vincent. ‘You’re a cockroach,’ she said to him.
‘Name-calling is so middle-class,’ Vincent said.
‘No, Vincent,’ Xan said. ‘You are a cockroach.’ She waved her hand and he turned into a cockroach on the table in front of her, and while he sat there stunned, she leisurely upended his empty wineglass over him. He scrabbled at the sides of it then, trapped there, the only thing human about him, his weak, pale gray eyes.
Xan sat back with her own wine as Maxine stumbled through the paneled doorway holding a frog.
‘It’s Jude,’ she screamed. ‘Turn him back.’
‘Jude,’ Xan said, looking at the frog. ‘Why am I not surprised.’
‘We were stealing the purple necklace just like you told us-’
‘A moment, please,’ Xan said. ‘That was not “us” I told to steal the necklace, that was you.’
‘I couldn’t get them to give it to me, so I went and got Jude,’ Maxine said, almost sobbing. And he was wonderful. But then that blond guy-’
‘Elric,’ Xan said, thinking, Elric wouldn’t have looked twice at that bubblehead Jennifer.
‘-threw him out into the yard and he was a frog-’
‘Well, it happens,’ Xan said, and waved her hand.
‘-and I caught him and brought him-’
Jude rose up from the silver rug, as naked and beautiful as the sunrise, and Maxine stopped talking and gaped.
‘Ciao,’ Jude said, looking panic-stricken.
‘What happened?’ Xan said, unmoved.
‘The middle sister,’ Jude said. ‘She hit me and I turned.’ He cast a nervous glance at Maxine.
‘She can do that,’ Xan said, trying to be kind. ‘She doesn’t have control of her powers.’ She waved her hand and he was dressed again. As long as you’re here, aside from failing completely at taking the necklace, what’s happening?’
‘Dee and Danny were very cozy at dinner,’ Maxine said, talking fast, still not taking her eyes off Jude. ‘Dee had two Martinis, so she was very receptive.’
‘Martinis?’
I did it for you, Xantippe,’ Maxine said, talking faster. ‘I knew Martinis would loosen Dee up so I served them for you. They were going up the mountain the last I saw of them. And Lizzie and Eric-
‘Elric’
‘-Elric were in her bedroom, so that’s good, right?’
Wonderful, Xan thought bitterly, ignoring the scrabbling inside the wineglass.
‘But I don’t know what happened to Mare after work.’ Maxine looked at Jude who shrugged.
‘She went home,’ he said. ‘I tried to get her to come out for a drink, but she said no.’
‘She must be nuts,’ Maxine said explosively.
Xan picked up the see glass and polished it with her sleeve.
‘Dee,’ she said, and saw Dee weeping in her bedroom, and sighed. Dee was always going to be the most difficult.
‘Lizzie,’ she said, and saw Lizzie sleeping with Elric beside her. Lizzie didn’t deserve what she was getting. It wasn’t fair. Just a slight miscalculation and it would no longer be a problem.
‘Mare,’ she said, and saw Mare rise up under a dark-haired man on the mountain, flushed with passion while blue flowers rained down on her-
‘Bloody hell!’ Xan said, and rose up to glare at Jude. ‘What the hell have you been doing?’
‘I don’t think she likes me,’ he said, licking his lips.
Maxine licked hers, too.
‘You listen to me,’ Xan said, grabbing Jude’s tie and pulling him close. ‘You’re her true love and you’re letting her get seduced and confused by some blast from her past. You get down there and you give her everything she’s ever wanted so she realizes that you’re what fate intended for her, do you understand? Everything she’s ever wanted. Whatever she wants, she gets.’
Xan gripped the tie tighter, trying not to panic. Everything was very finely balanced – if Mare went off with the wrong man, one Xan couldn’t influence, then everything might collapse, all her careful plans, the youth and energy she so desperately needed might be denied her. She couldn’t let that happen. It could not happen-
‘I think Mare wants him,’ Maxine said, craning her neck to see into the glass where Mare was thrashing in the arms of the dark-haired lout.
‘You do realize that if I have to come down there, I won’t need the two of you,’ Xan said quietly as she let go of Jude’s tie.
‘We’ll make it happen,’ Jude said, taking Maxine’s arm.
‘You bet,’ Maxine said, turning for the door and knocking over the wineglass on the table as she did.
Vincent made a break for it and hit the floor; Maxine saw him and screamed, ‘Cockroach!’ and stepped on him; and silence filled the room.
‘Ew,’ Maxine said, looking at the bottom of her shoe.
‘Scrape that off on the Dumpster, will you?’ Xan said.
‘You bet, Xantippe,’ Maxine said.
‘I’ll get right on Mare,’ Jude promised.
‘Lovely thought,’ Xan said and waved her hand.
A moment later she watched Maxine scrape Vincent off onto the Dumpster in Salem’s Fork.
‘Jennifer owes me,’ she told the see glass and went to bed.
Lizzie moaned. She was asleep, but she could hear the sound she made – a soft sound of pleasure and protest. She didn’t want to wake up – the dreams were too delicious. Sexual dreams, so powerful that she felt her body spasm in her sleep, this time so real she could have sworn she was actually being touched. And this time the phantom lover had a face, a body, the mouth of a fallen angel and the eyes of a sinner. It wasn’t real, but it was wonderful, and she didn’t want her sister dragging her away from such a deliciously sinful fantasy. Some distant part of her brain could hear Dee in the front room, and the noise filtering into her subconscious.
But she pushed the noise away, snuggling deeper into the bed, into the silky sheets, into the arms of the man who touched her…
Her eyes flew open. He was asleep beside her, and her head had been resting on his shoulder, his arm draped loosely around her. The covers were pulled up to his waist, but from what she could see he was naked.