The Final Catch: Book 2: See Jane Hex (The Tarot Sorceress Series) (9 page)

“The Wild Swan,” Maisie said.

Emilia and I exchanged a glance.

“That's a strip club,” I reminded her.

“Uh, huh. A man there cheated me out of money, a long time ago. Still he owes me,” she said and gave me a sisterly look.

“What’s new?” 

“He works the Swan,” she continued.

“You think?

“Pretty sure. Yeah, it was some kind of Ponzie scheme, long ago,” she said and then she paused a moment and got all starry eyed, something I didn’t think was possible for Maisie, the all-business-woman.

“You worked there, Maisie?” I asked her.  She surprised me. I never took her as the type who’d dance for men! Then she waved her arm at me as if to banish the past.

“Never mind. I need you to find out for sure,” she said, snapping out of it.

I wasn’t sure who she meant by ‘you’ both Emi and I were in her line of sight, so I took a step to the left and Maisie’s head turned in my direction.

Damn it.

“How bad do you want him?” I wanted to know how serious she was. After the bank robbery fiasco I wasn’t ready to put myself in the line of fire again.

“I don't want him so much as I want my money. So, I got you a job there.”

“She's got a job,” Emi said, in my defense.

“Yeah, I said.

“You mean teaching?” Maisie smiled at the two of us like we were school children.

“Uh-huh”

“You'll like this better.”

“No -- I won’t,” I said.

“Dancing.” Then Maisie did a couple of sexy go-go dance moves!.

At the same time Emilia and I said, “No way!”

But Emi, the show off, started to gyrate her hips and do another type of funny little dance and sidled right up next Maisie.

“I can't dance,” I said to the two women.

“You can now.” Maisie insisted.

Emilia smirked.

Then she held up the tiny bit of outfit still dangling from the end of her sword.

“Magic G-string?”  She announced, as if she knew all along.  And maybe she did.

“That little bit of nuthin' is gonna make me a dancer?”

“Well, that might be pushing it, but it will get you the job. You'll audition in that.” Maisie said as if the whole thing was settled.

“And lose my teaching job if anyone recognizes me!”

“No one will notice.”

“Whitman will. He hangs at the Swan,” I informed her.

“Whitman? Your principal? I doubt that,” Emi said sarcastically.

“Yeah, he likes to go to the Swan for lunch these days. I think he'll notice.

Emilia nodded hard, suddenly agreeing with me. “He'll notice,” she repeated.

“He won't care. You know - you keep his secret - he'll keep yours. Try it on,” Maisie said.

I hesitated, mostly because there wasn’t much of ‘it’ to try on.

“There's a kimono on the back of the washroom door if you’re shy.” I didn’t move.  I actually did want to try the outfit on. It glittered and I imagined it would look great on my curves, but I really didn’t want to put on a show for these ladies. Emi said it had magic, but if it did there couldn’t be much; the top was really only jewel pasties joined together by a silver thread and the bottom, well, it was a fancy cat’s cradle of string. I guess they mistook my hesitation for shyness. Maisie and Emilia gave each other a questioning look then Maisie said to Emi, “Suddenly she's a prude? Emilia shrugged out a ‘go-figure,’ then went back to her sword puppetry, using the costume as her prop.  I slipped the outfit off the end of the sword and left to try it on

*

In the back room I headed straight for the closet washroom and closed the door and the lock.  I didn’t want those two pulling any pranks. I heard them follow me back there.  Maisie’s high heels clipped along the floor and Emi who usually only wore her practice slippers anywhere was probably right behind.

Then through the door Maisie started giving me orders, as if my trying on the dance costume was an acceptance of her assignment. “When you find this guy, be careful. Getting him here, to the shop, is going to take some skill.”

“You’ve seen what I can do,” I called out to her. It won’t be a problem for me.”

She was dead silent.
Yeah, score one for Jane.

*

Inside the tiny washroom it was a real struggle to remove my clothes and even when I got them off and hung them on the hook on the back of the door, they seemed to fill the room.  So I put the lid down on the toilet and stood up on it to get my costume on. It didn’t take but a few minutes to get the pasties in place and the g-string positioned.  It was impossible to see what I looked like in the mirror over the sink which meant I was actually going to have to step outside and see how this all fired up.  There was a kimono back there as Maisie promised, so I quickly slipped it on.  While I did that I yelled out to Maisie, “You gonna add this guy at the Wild Swan to the deck then, if you think he’s so difficult?”

“Oh, definitely.”

“If he’s not a major –“

“Not yet, but he will be,” Maisie said, and she sounded very sure of herself.

“I'd like to see how that's done.” I said and I meant it.

“All in good time Jane.”

I finally got the nerve to open the washroom door, but not without the kimono wrapped tightly around my near nakedness. I really wasn’t comfortable with the idea of showing anyone what this nearly nothing outfit looked like on me. I peeked out from behind the door and blew Emilia and Maisie a raspberry of exasperation. “This isn't going to happen.”

The two women exchanged concerned looks.

“Let's see. Come on outta there, will ya?” Emilia said.  I stepped out but with the kimono pulled tight, which was very tight considering I was pretty much naked underneath.  The strangest feeling came over me when I stood before them.

“I feel like dancing, like I feel all snaky and monkey,” I said.  I liked the feeling.  I began to wiggle and jiggle and did a little turn, which made me, want to do more. I looked over at Maisie and she gave me one of her wisdom smiles, like I was doing everything the way she wanted me to.

“Of course you feel like dancing,” she said.

Then it clicked.  It had to be magic in the costume that made me want to dance, but there wasn’t enough costume to hold the volumes of magic needed to give me any ability to dance.  I’m pretty sure it was the power of suggestion, and the power of these two staring at me as if they expected me to turn into a butterfly, or something.

“Magic? Right. This costume is magical?” I needed reassurance.

“Didn't I say that already?” Emi said.

I still wore the kimono over the costume and I have to admit that I was pleased with the idea that Maisie made me a magic dance costume, even if it did look like two strings of Christmas lights wrapped around me. I suppose my pleasure showed because Maisie said, “Only the best for you, sweetie.” She snapped her fingers and something about the sound of that snap made me once again want to dance a little.

So I did.

I felt very sensual and attractive for some reason and deduced that it had to be something the G-string was doing to me. I played with the kimono and teased it into falling partially open.  I unbelted it and did naughty things with the belt.  Maisie and Emi nodded their heads as if to let me know I was making all the right moves. My dance became more intense and I toyed with the idea of letting the kimono drop to the floor. I heard strip tease dance music in my head and began to giggle like Marilyn Monroe. Emilia and Maisie exchanged looks of surprise. Maisie clapped her hands to urge me on. “Well done, Jane,” she said.

“Maisie, you're a-maisie-ing. I've got talent I've never possessed.”  I was really getting into the sultry swing of the dance and feeling like a movie star when I decided I’d waltz into the next room, my kimono barely hanging from my shoulders.

“You underestimate yourself.” Maisie said as she quickly followed me to the front of the shop.  Emilia hurried in too, not wanting to miss the show, or so I thought, until out of the blue Emilia began her taekwondo patterns around me. They looked a lot like dance moves and the next thing I know the two of us were doing a strange and weird dance number. At first I thought Emilia was trying to upstage me, but then I realized she was in the groove of the whole moment and so I went with it.

Imagine Madonna and a Jackie Chan doing a dance number together.

Maisie barely held it together. I felt a little hurt; after all I thought I was pretty good. She stood hands on hips, shaking her head at the two of us and laughing. Then she started to clap out a little beat for us. If anyone was awkward and funny it had to be Emilia. But she was really into her moves and tried to coordinate her steps around mine. The next thing I knew she pulled out her sword and made it part of the routine.  I scooted by her, and tried hard to stay out of the way of her sword tip, but Emilia was too swift and cut a string on my outfit! My top popped off! I scrambled to keep my kimono wrapped around me as the top slipped down around my ankles.

“Darkiness!” Maisie yelled. The sound of her sharp voice snapped us out of our dancing reverie.

When Emilia saw what she’d done, she said, “Oopsy.” She stared down at my ankles where my top rested.

“Darkiness, if you weren't death, I'd kill you,” Maisie said. Emilia shrugged like it was no big deal.

I stepped free of the top, and wrapped comfortably in the kimono, I picked up the piece  handed the ruined costume back to Maisie, who snatched it from me and threw it at Emilia. It clung to her like silver and jeweled egg yolk.

“You're going to fix this!”

“I can't sew.”

I saw that Maisie was working herself up into some kind of fury and I didn’t feel like being in the middle of it. I was making my way back to the washroom when I remembered something that I thought might help ease the situation.

“Wait. Don't sweat it. I've got something I think might work.” I remembered that I’d left my shopping on the front counter and went back there to search through one of the bags. Emilia and Maisie followed right behind me. I reached deeply into one of the most beautiful shopping bags I’d ever been given and pulled out a bathing suit with the tags still on. It wasn’t any bathing suit it was a glamkini by Galen Takeler. “They've fixed the pool at my condo. Look, only slightly more material here than that thingy.”

Emilia began to chuckle. “That's a swimsuit?” Maisie didn’t say a thing.  She snatched the ruined part of the magic costume away from Emi.

“Fine. But Darkiness is going to take this to the tailor and get it repaired,” she said to the two of us.

Maisie snapped her fingers at me to indicate that I should remove the bottom of the skimpy costume. I wriggled and wiggled in Marilyn Monroe-like fashion and the bottom of the dance costume dropped to my ankles.  I hooked it onto my big toe and flicked the costume up into Maisie's outstretched hand. Then Maisie slammed both pieces at Emi.

“Both pieces stay together. Take them here.” She gave Emilia a business card. While Emilia studied the card, Maisie turned back to me. I stood there like a mute mannequin holding the glamkini.

“Put that swim suit on the counter.”

I placed it there.

“I'm not so sure about this, so I'm going to give it a little help. Stand back.”

Emilia and I leaped backwards, bumping shelving and nearly tripping on one another.  Maisie gave us a look. I suppose we did over react a bit to her direction.

“You might want to see this, Jane.”  She indicted that I should move a little closer. I took one baby step toward her.

“Can I watch from here?” I took another baby step back toward Emi.

“We'll watch from here, Emi said, while Maisie adjusted and tweaked the position of the swim suit on the counter. She closed her eyes, and opened them suddenly. I jumped, Emi sniggered.

Maisie looked like she was in a trance. She turned her back to us and spoke as if she was in a distant land.

“The magic -- in the dance costume -- will run out soon.” Emi looked down at the pile of sparkling string in her hand.  The costume looked like it had hit its own pumpkin at mid-night moment and was turning back into the fishing line it was probably made from.

Maisie struggled with her words. With her back to us, it was difficult to tell what she said. She reached under the counter and quickly pulled out a brown paper bag. She shoved it toward me. I took the bag, but Emi slipped it from between my fingers and dropped the strings of ruined costume into it.

“It must -- be repaired -- quickly, or -- it will -- not -- work again.”

She paused and looked like she was concentrating as hard as she ever had.  She made gestures with her arms, as if she collected something from the air.  I guessed it was the power she needed to make my glamkini do what she wanted it to.

“I've -- paid a great -- price -- for the costume,” she said. Her eyes were still closed and I swear I heard her say Sia! I looked at Emilia with my eyes wide. 
Did she say Sia was the price she paid
?

But in the next moment it was all forgotten as Emilia and I were distracted when Maisie’s magic materialized in the air as old fashioned tinsel, the kind you’d find hanging off a Christmas tree. The tinsel magic came to life and moved like a school of fish into the swimsuit, when she snapped her fingers over the bathing suit, first the top then the bottom half. I swear I saw the magic tinsel worm its way into the suit which lifted slightly and swirled on the counter as if a wind lifted and shifted it. When she was done, Maisie looked exhausted. She had dark circles under eyes.  Her beautiful dark hair was streaked with white.  Dark spots appeared on her skin and her mouth trembled a little. She gave Emilia the darkest and most distant look ever, as Maisie’s power faltered, Emi’s death dealing power surged as it filled the void left by Maisie’s lack. Emilia looked stronger, even bigger, but it was a mirage, I’m certain because in the next minute Emilia looked like her regular martial arts nerd-self.

In that moment, the older woman’s eyes were one solid dark color with colorful pinpricks of light dancing inside them, her lips a dark, straight line.

“Darkiness, get that one repaired,” she said, her voice hoarse and croaky. And even though Emi was now the most powerful person in the room, probably on the whole block, she shrank from Maisie.  She put her sword away and stepped behind me.

“Why can't you magic this costume back together? Then I don't have to waste my time, trying to get it fixed,” Emi said, in a childlike tone. I was too late to put my hand over Emilia’s mouth. Someone had to teach that woman not to speak her mind and especially not to Maisie whose face began to bulge and distort as if something alive lived beneath her skin and wanted out. Her pretty looks had turned monstrous for a minute or two. I had to remember to breathe. Maisie pointed a very long, witchy looking finger at the costume in Emilia's hand. Maisie’s point frightened Emi so much that she tossed the paper bag with the ruined costume at me and I tossed it back to Emi as if we played a game of hot potato.

“I can't repair it! That's not my magic!” Maisie informed us. When I looked at Emilia she looked terrified, and I know I looked the same because I felt the terror.  If Maisie’s magic wasn’t in that costume then whose magic was in there?