Once Upon Stilettos (Enchanted Inc #2) (15 page)

“My parents are taking a cruise this year.”

“Then it’s good you don’t have to be alone. You’ll have to join us.”

Ethan pulled up in front of the hotel, which was in a brownstone building much like my apartment, and helped unload the bags. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Katie,” he said.

“Thanks again for your help.” I was relieved that he didn’t try to kiss me. Not that I didn’t want to kiss him; I just didn’t want to have to deal with my parents asking me about the state of our relationship. As it was, things were nice and ambiguous.

I was watching him drive away when Mom said, “What’s that?”

“What’s what?”

She pointed toward a nearby tree. “That.”

If I wasn’t mistaken, I caught the briefest glimpse of a gargoyle’s wing.

I
turned back to my mother, horror knotting my stomach. “What did you see?” She could not have seen a gargoyle. She just couldn’t. Hell, she was in New York City for the first time in her life. There were any number of things she could have seen that would have shocked her. A careening taxicab with an ad for a strip club on top would have been enough to give her the vapors.

My dad gave a long-suffering sigh. “Don’t mind her. She’ll be seeing a mugger behind every tree. I had to confiscate her pepper spray before we left for the airport.” He took Mom by the shoulders and turned her to face the hotel entrance. “Come on, Lois, let’s get checked in.” He caught my eye over the top of her head and gave me a smile as he shook his head in amusement.

With a great sense of relief, I stepped forward and picked up one of their bags. “In this part of town, we only have muggers behind every other tree, and that’s only on odd-numbered streets, so you’ll be okay here,” I said.

I got them checked into the hotel, then led them down the street to my apartment building. “I live less than a block away, so this is the next best thing to staying with me,” I said, trying to sound chipper, even as I dreaded them seeing the way I lived. My parents were nowhere near rich, but they lived in the lap of luxury, comparatively speaking. My whole apartment could easily fit into the living room of my parents’ house.

I reached the doorway to the side of the nail salon. “Here we are. See, this key unlocks the front door to get into the building.” I demonstrated. “Visitors ring the doorbell here, and we can then buzz them through. It’s like an extra layer of safety.”

Once we were all inside, I led them up the stairs. I was intensely conscious of the dingy paint on the stairwell walls, the worn dips in the stair treads, the stained linoleum on the landings. Seeing through my parents’ eyes, I couldn’t imagine how anyone would want to live in a place like this. I glanced over my shoulder at my mother and could see her eyes narrowing in judgment. Oh yeah, I was going to hear about this. I dreaded seeing her face when she got a look at our apartment.

“And here we are!” I said brightly when we reached the third floor. “See, another couple of locks here—just in case. It’s actually a very safe neighborhood and nobody has tried to break in since we’ve lived here.” I didn’t tell them that my apartment had yet another layer of protection. It had been warded against magical attack. No one could use magic to break into or damage the building. Somehow, I doubted they’d find that bit of information particularly reassuring.

I flung the door open with a game-show-hostess gesture. “Marcia, Gemma, we’re here!” I called out. My mother greeted my roommates with a big hug. My dad shook their hands and nodded silently.

“How was your flight?” Gemma asked.

“Long,” my dad replied.

“Ready for dinner?” Marcia asked. “Our treat, since you’re doing Thanksgiving for us.”

“We made reservations at one of our favorite New York places,” Gemma added. “It’s not too far away, and it’ll give you a look at the neighborhood.”

My mother made a show of protesting that they didn’t need to go to any effort, but she was helpless against the relentless force that was Marcia and Gemma. My dad and I looked at each other and smirked. Eventually, Mom gave in and we all headed out.

Mom walked with Marcia and Gemma, who gave her a running narrative on every place they passed. I followed behind with Dad. When we reached Union Square, Gemma said to Mom, “You’ll have to come over here Wednesday morning for the market. It’ll be the best place to stock up on food for Thanksgiving. Katie shops here all the time.”

“The farmers bring their produce in to sell, and they’re fun to talk to,” I added. Anything that reminded my parents of home was sure to make them feel better about me living in New York.

“There aren’t any muggers in the park?” Mom asked nervously, cradling her purse against her chest.

“It’s pretty safe,” Marcia assured her. “It’s busy, and you’re generally safe wherever you see a bunch of people.”

The restaurant was on the other side of the park. We crossed the street and reached the awning-covered entrance. “And here we are!” Gemma said, before stepping forward to check in with the hostess.

“This is a typical New York bistro,” Marcia explained.

It was a long, narrow room with mirrors on the walls to visually widen the space and a low ceiling made of old-fashioned pressed-tin tiles. The tables were close together, so we could overhear a hodgepodge of discussions about everything from politics to movies. I’d been fascinated by restaurants like these when I first moved to New York, for they were so different from the chain restaurants on the freeway that dominated dining out in my part of the world.

Mom looked nervously at the white tablecloth as we took our seats at the table. “You girls don’t have to take us out for dinner,” she said.

Gemma put her hand on Mom’s. “Mrs. Chandler, we insist. We simply demand at least one homemade pumpkin pie for each of us in return.”

She knew exactly how to work my mom, who instantly looked better. If she could pay off a debt, she was much happier. After we’d given our drink orders to the waiter, Mom beamed at Gemma and Marcia. “You girls look so glamorous! You really fit into the big city.” She then put an arm around my shoulders. “But I’m glad our Katie is still just the same. You haven’t changed a bit.”

“Mom!” I protested, but it didn’t do any good. She was on a roll.

“You know, it wouldn’t hurt you to wear a little more makeup so you don’t look so bland. Maybe you should wear more lipstick, or a darker shade. I brought a few samples with me that might look good on you.”

By that time of day, I was lucky if I had any lipstick on at all other than on my teeth. “Mom, New York women don’t wear that much makeup,” I said.

“It’s true,” Gemma agreed. “The natural look is the goal.”

My mom, who never left the house without doing her face in the full Mary Kay lineup, looked horrified. “Really? Well, then, Katie, who knew? You’ve always been in style.”

“Katie looks fine,” Dad said from behind his menu.

“Of course she does. But it wouldn’t hurt her to liven up her look. We don’t want our little country mouse to fade into the background in the big city.”

“Mom, I have a boyfriend. I think I’m doing okay,” I said, trying not to cringe visibly. I felt mousy enough most of the time without any help. Then I realized how easily I’d let the word “boyfriend” roll off my tongue and hoped I wasn’t overselling the relationship.

Gemma, bless her heart, came to my rescue. “So anyway, here’s the plan for the week,” she said. “I’m getting off work early tomorrow, so I’ll show you around in the afternoon. That might be a good day to go to the Empire State Building. I know someone who works there who can get us past the usual lines.”

“My boss gave me Wednesday off, so I’m all yours then,” I said. “Then Thursday and Friday are holidays, and we’ll have the weekend.” With any luck, I wouldn’t have killed anyone or died of embarrassment by Sunday night.

Then again, embarrassment was a pretty minor consequence compared with everything else that might happen, I realized as I looked up and noticed a man walking across the restaurant toward our table. It was none other than Phelan Idris. I’d never faced him without Owen by my side, and while I knew he couldn’t hurt me magically and I suspected I could hold my own against him physically—especially with my friends and parents close at hand—I didn’t want to have to deal with him at all. I glanced around the restaurant, for once hoping for a glimpse of gargoyle or fairy, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. All I could hope was that an incognito human wizard was nearby.

I held my breath and willed him not to recognize me, to keep walking right out of the restaurant, but no such luck. With a smile that could only be described as evil, he came straight to our table, put a hand on the back of my chair, and leaned over me. “Well, now, if it isn’t Katie Chandler,” he said. “I almost didn’t recognize you without your boyfriend nearby.”

I should have come up with a witty remark while I watched him approaching us, but I was drawing a complete blank. All my snappy comebacks to him involved referring to magic, which left me with nothing to say in front of my friends and family.

And he knew it, I could tell. He smirked and said, “Boy, does he know how to show a girl a good time, walking her to and from work every day. I always knew he was dull, but I had no idea it was that bad.” He patted me on top of my head. “Let me know if you ever want to try something a little more interesting. I did set you up with some friends of mine at that party on Friday.”

Every head at my table swiveled to look at me. “Sorry, they weren’t my type,” I said. “But you know what they say about birds of a feather.”

He laughed. “Good one. And speaking of birds, you know some of my feathered friends seem to have a thing for that boyfriend of yours.”

I shivered at the memory of the harpy tearing into Owen’s shoulder and at the thought of the other one that had attacked us on the street last week. I dared a glance at my family and friends and saw that they looked utterly baffled. So far, he hadn’t said anything that was outright about magic, but he’d said enough strange stuff that I was sure I was going to have to come up with an explanation.

“Well, considering the other options, I can hardly blame them,” I managed to quip. When he didn’t respond, I turned to look at him. He was staring at Gemma.

“Well, aren’t you pretty?” he said, his eyeballs practically popping out of their sockets. “Are you a model?” She got that a lot, considering she was tall, thin, elegant, and worked in fashion. Still, I wondered what it said about me that even my mortal enemy couldn’t stay focused on me for long. Maybe I did need brighter lipstick. Or a brighter personality.

Gemma rolled her eyes. “No,” she said with the slightest of sneers. That was a pretty good sign she saw him as I did. He wasn’t pulling a Rod and making himself look gorgeous.

“You could be, you know,” he said, now sounding more like an overeager geek than a crafty, evil wizard.

“Thanks,” she said flatly, picking up her menu and burying her face in it.

I was on the verge of reminding him that he was supposed to be threatening me, not hitting on my roommate, when I remembered that I didn’t want him threatening me. I didn’t want him hitting on my roommate, either, but Gemma was more than capable of dealing with guys like that.

“I know some people,” he said. “I could pull a few strings, open a few doors.”

“No thanks,” she said, not looking up from her menu.

He looked more like the president of the AV club who had just been turned down after asking the prom queen to dance than like an evil wizard out to take over the world. I worried that he’d do something evil to make Gemma notice him, but apparently he found someone else much more interesting, for he crossed the room abruptly and began bothering that person. I wasn’t sure what was more annoying, a nemesis who focused all his attention on me or a nemesis who couldn’t seem to be bothered with me for more than a minute at a stretch.

“Okay, that was weird,” Marcia said.

I chanced a glance around the table. Everyone was giving me funny looks. Mom looked like she was ready to go right back to the airport. “Friend of yours?” Gemma asked, looking up from her menu now that the coast was clear.

“Not really. He’s just someone who knows someone I know, and I seem to have been caught in the middle. He pops up every so often to be a pest,” I explained, trying to act like it was no big deal. But it was a big deal. If he was shadowing me, he had to be up to something, and I couldn’t help but suspect that some of his scarier friends might also be around. And worse, he now knew what my friends and my parents looked like.

The next morning when Owen and I got to work, I let him go ahead while I stayed at the building entrance to talk to Sam. “Can you do me a favor?” I asked him.

“Sure, doll. What’s up?”

“Well, Idris paid me a visit last night—when I was at dinner with my roommates and my parents.”

His stone face looked astonished. “That shouldn’t have happened. I wonder how he got past my people. What did he want?”

“It was just the usual bad movie-villain taunting. And hitting on my roommate. But I really don’t want it to happen again. I’m trying to convince my parents that I’m safe and happy here, and I can’t do that if I have evil geek wizards stalking me.”