The Dark Glamour (10 page)

Although Petru’s mother had never admitted to being
a witch outright, the myths and stories that she told Rosalie to ease her sorrow
over her lost son sounded an awful lot like the true origins of magic in the
world. Admittedly, most of Jane’s understanding had come from Rosalie’s own book
and source material, but enough of the details had been corroborated along the
way by Malcolm, Harris, Gran’s letter, and Lynne’s marble wall to convince Jane
that Rosalie had found her first major lead.

Sabina had taught Rosalie all about Ambika: the
only child of a powerful warlord, who faced ferocious challenges from her
father’s subjects when he died. But the gods had touched her, Sabina said
(Rosalie quailed at the plural), and the shamans had all agreed when she
appeared before them glowing with magic that she should be their queen. The
lesser warlords had taken a little more convincing, but they had fallen into
line quickly enough when Ambika had raised floods and earthquakes to decimate
their armies.

However, old age came sooner back in those days,
and although Ambika had had seven sons and seven daughters, she hadn’t been able
to choose any one of them as the next ruler. So she had divided her land among
her sons and her magic among her daughters, and then she had closed her eyes and
died. Her daughters, Sabina Thorssen had explained, were as different as the
days of the week. Jane wondered whether she was more likely the descendant of
the one who had used all her power to manage the weather around her tiny farm,
or the one who had constantly bewitched men into attacking, on her behalf, the
lands that her brothers had inherited. One of them was widely known as “Amunet
the Vengeful.” Several had adjectives tacked on to their names, in fact, but
Lynne’s ancestress’s reputation was a bit of a puzzle. Although she hadn’t lived
any longer than anyone would have expected back in prehistory, according to
Sabina Thorssen, she had been known as “Hasina the Undying.”

“But she
did
die,” Jane
argued with the yellowed page. “You said so yourself. Why would people keep
calling her that after they’d buried her? Or is it a figure of speech—like Lynne
still has to keep a shrine to her memory somewhere in a closet or
something?”

But Rosalie’s words couldn’t rearrange themselves
to answer her questions, of course. Feeling a little silly and a lot more poised
than she had that morning, Jane pushed away from the triangular table, replaced
the journals on their shelf, and headed out to the front room to thank Misty and
return to her mission.

Chapter Sixteen

T
wo nights later, Jane snuggled closer against André’s solid shoulder as the city flashed by in a neon blur. She inhaled his musky cologne, which made her feel almost light-headed.
Must keep watching the street signs,
her brain told her lazily, and she forced her eyes to flicker out the window occasionally. They definitely weren’t going to the Dorans’ mansion, she realized with a small pang of frustration; that was only a couple of blocks from the Lowell. But the trip was already long enough for her to really feel the effects of André’s nearness. She straightened her spine a little, trying to shut out her magical attraction and focus on her plan.

That morning, a note had been delivered to her suite practically begging her to give André something to look forward to by agreeing to accompany to him to a terribly dull work party. Jane had, of course, agreed immediately, although she had waited a cool ninety minutes to inform him of that fact. Playing hard to get for two days while enduring an unexpectedly physical craving for André’s company hadn’t been easy, but it had definitely been worth it.
And it’s worth keeping up now.

She forgot her strategy for a few blocks in the lower Thirties, when his hand found its way onto her knee and then began a purposeful slide upward, toward her spangly silver minidress. It suddenly felt both too short and too long at the same time.

“You blind, buddy?” their cabdriver shouted belligerently to the driver of a city bus in the next lane, and both Jane and André jumped a little. The bus driver responded by flipping the cabbie off with an exaggerated flourish. Their spat escalated quickly from there, ending in vague threats and the suggestion of a drag race that was so ludicrous André lost his focus long enough for Jane to regain her own.

She emerged from the taxi in the East Village feeling as though she had just surfaced after nearly drowning, and she pulled the humid city air deep into her lungs as the cab sped away. “This way,” André murmured, his lips brushing her hair, and for a moment she thought she might begin to sink again into the animal scent of him.

She turned her head away carefully as they made their way across the street: she felt sure she would need her wits about her. André steered her to a nondescript doorway, which opened as they drew close to it. A massive bouncer nodded politely, and then closed the door with a soft but firm click when they had passed. Jane continued forward into the glass-walled elevator that waited invitingly in front of them, and André joined her, sliding his thumb idly along the small of her back.

The elevator rose smoothly and swiftly, and when it came to a rest, Jane stifled a gasp. They were on the roof, covered only by a glass-and-wrought-iron canopy that would keep out rain. Tucked into many of the iron joints were a number of the cylindrical heat lamps that made Jane think of Parisian cafés. The April air was still damp and chilly, but under the canopy it felt like a sultry summer night. Ivy curled up trellises and around the wrought-iron frames of white-cushioned couches that dotted the flagstone roof. At the center of it all was the epitome of elegance and charm herself: Lynne Doran, in a high-collared garnet dress, her chestnut hair forming a perfect twist, a sparkling martini glass in one hand.

The air rushed out of Jane’s lungs, and for a brief moment it felt as though André’s hand on her back was all that kept her upright and moving forward.
She can’t recognize me,
she reminded herself sternly, trying to shake her muscles out of their rubbery inertia.
She isn’t even looking at me
.

It was true: although a black-shirted waiter had made a beeline for the party’s newest arrivals, no one else seemed to have noticed them at all.
It’s my job to notice them right now,
she reminded herself, turning slowly until she had taken in the entire roof. Although there were plenty of people whom she didn’t recognize, familiar faces dotted the party like fireflies, each one catching Jane’s attention in a quick flare.
Blake Helding, Andrew McCarroll, Rolly McCarroll, Cora McCarroll, Laura Helding
. . . it was like the mansion at 665 Park Avenue had turned itself inside-out on top of this downtown club.

Jane’s glance darted warily back to Lynne, but her nemesis was deeply involved in conversation with a tall, thin woman in a severe black pantsuit, who had her back to Jane. There was something familiar about her posture, but Jane couldn’t place her.

While André made small talk with a distant Helding cousin, and Jane smiled vapidly at his wife, she sent the tendrils of her mind out toward the woman talking to Lynne. Jane concentrated hard, pushing mentally past the people milling in between, and finally found the woman’s mind. Or, more accurately, found the blank wall where the woman’s mind should be.
I keep forgetting other people are witches,
she griped silently, and turned her probing attention to the trophy wife directly in front of her. The woman was making an extremely emphatic point about some congressman’s recent sex scandal, but the inside of her mind was as firmly barred as the first woman’s had been.

Officially weird,
Jane decided. Of course, it was possible for this woman to be a witch, too, but she wasn’t that much older than Jane, and probably a bit younger than Malcolm. If a practicing witch of his age had been available to marry into the family, Lynne never would have let her wind up with some third cousin. Breathing a little more shallowly now, Jane prodded André’s mind, and then bounced her attention to Andrew McCarroll’s, then to a stranger in a plum Armani shirt.
Walls, walls, and more walls
. Had she lost her power somehow? With a burst of inspiration, she shot her focus toward a waiter who was winding carefully through the crowd.

The man flinched almost physically under the force of Jane’s mind, and she saw everything: his worry over his dog’s illness that morning, his grocery list, his shirt size, the way he took his coffee, the phone number one of the guests had just slipped into his pocket. She could see the three friends he had gone to see Aerosmith with, and how much he had lost in an Atlantic City casino the next night, and the mountain of crab legs he had crammed into his mouth at the buffet to try to make up for it. By the time she pulled free, she knew him almost as intimately as she knew herself, and she gagged a little at the unintentional violation of his privacy. André turned toward her, curious and concerned, but she waved his attention away. “I inhaled some bubbles,” she explained awkwardly, waving her glass of champagne. André frowned, and she pasted on her old party smile. “Excuse me, please,” she added to the cousin and the trophy wife, backing out of their little circle and heading for the fresher air outside of the canopy.

She reached the wrought-iron railing, and leaned out slightly over the busy street below.
It’s a business event thrown by two magical families,
she mused, the thoughts snapping into place like interlocking blocks.
Anyone whose mind could be read is a weak link.
It would only make sense that the active witches present would protect their own family members’ minds from being read.
No wonder Lynne was annoyed that the Dalcascu only sent two people. Her side is stuck blocking the minds of half of Manhattan, while André is the only one his sister has to worry about.
Most of the attendees probably had at least a little magical heritage, Jane guessed, which would make them harder to read than most people to begin with. But it still must have taken a huge amount of power and concentration to render their minds completely unreadable.

It seemed like an awful lot of effort, actually, for people as rich and powerful as the Dorans. No matter how alluring the prospect of a good deal was, couldn’t they do as well, or nearly as well, without dealing with other witches? That way they would have a major advantage, which was how Lynne preferred to conduct all her business.

Unless,
Jane’s brain continued on briskly,
it’s not really about that kind of “business” at all
. It would undoubtedly be better to treat with nonmagical companies when the stakes were purely financial. And Lynne didn’t need more money; she needed more witches. Young, female witches who could be brought into her family so that she could continue her magical legacy the way she had once tried to do through Jane.
Except this time, instead of murder and seduction, she’s inviting their relatives to swank parties,
Jane thought bitterly, kicking at a scuff mark in the flagstone. But her feelings aside, she knew she had hit upon something.
“Cash-poor,” Laura called them, but they’ve got plenty of money. She meant magic.
Lynne had magic, so the Dalcascus must have witches. It wasn’t a merger at all: it was an alliance.

And I’m stuck right in the middle of it,
she realized suddenly, feeling more than one pair of eyes on her. She looked up and saw Laura look quickly away and move off into the crowd. From one dark corner, Belinda Helding was staring at her thoughtfully, but unlike her daughter-in-law, she didn’t bother to hide what she was doing when Jane met her cold, pewter gaze. Jane’s eyes located Laura’s asymmetrical taupe cocktail dress again, this time next to Lynne’s sleek garnet one. The two women were whispering, their shining coiffed heads so close they were nearly touching.

Laura is suspicious,
Jane decided in a panic.
She met me, and now I’m here, and she knows something’s up
. There were at least three witches between Jane and the elevator. She gripped the railing so hard that her knuckles went white, but the interested tilt of Lynne’s head was telling her something important, and she concentrated hard.
Dee got me and André onto Page Six,
she reminded herself, feeling a sudden space of calm in her mind.
They can’t read my mind, so they’ll think André’s posse is protecting me, too, which would mean I’m important. They’ll be curious, and I can use that
.

Lynne stepped back from her tête-à-tête with Laura and turned her dark eyes to rake Jane over from head to toe. Jane pushed away from the railing before she could talk herself out of it, and sauntered across the roof toward Lynne. She was amazed at how steady she felt; even her champagne stayed level in its flute as she closed the space between them.

“Lady Baroness,” Lynne greeted her with an arched eyebrow that briefly took Jane back three months.

“Mrs. Doran,” she replied politely, inclining her head a fraction of a degree.

“You’ve made quite the entrance in New York,” Lynne observed, her voice smooth as a polished diamond. “I’m told that André normally goes for women who are more . . . interchangeable.”

“Perhaps he’s trying to impress you,” Jane shot back coolly, enjoying the fleeting twitch of surprise on Lynne’s face. Being a mystery was much more fun than being the prey, she decided.

“That could be it,” Lynne agreed impassively, brushing back an imaginary stray lock of hair into her flawless twist. “Although at the moment I’m rather more interested in what
you’re
trying to do.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Jane watched the shifting pattern of people: Laura moving toward Belinda; Cora and André close together while the naggingly familiar woman in black, still facing away from Jane, drew nearer to the huddled pair. The woman in the black suit kissed André quickly on both cheeks, but Jane still couldn’t see her face. Cora and Belinda found each other in the crowd: identical gray twins in identically unflattering gray gowns.

“I’m sure my goals wouldn’t interest you,” Jane answered carefully, “unless I could help you with yours, that is.” The slight tension around Lynne’s peach-lipsticked mouth told her that her message had been received clearly.

“While I’m sure you have André wrapped around your lovely little finger,” Lynne drawled with the hint of a threat in her soft voice, “my business is with his sister, Katrin. I’m sorry to say that if you wanted to put your hand into our dealings, you’ve seduced the wrong sibling.”

God, what a world she lives in,
Jane thought with a shudder of disgust.
What a world she imposes on the rest of us,
she corrected herself, because technically it was true that she had seduced André to get to Lynne. The fact that her motives were far more personal than Lynne apparently suspected, and that André had been more than willing to cooperate, didn’t make it all that much better.

The fact that she murdered my grandmother does
. Jane’s jaw clenched; she refused to feel any kind of guilt in front of this woman. “Your ‘business’ with Katrin is your own,” she told Lynne firmly, searching her brain for anything that would pique her mother-in-law’s interest.
I certainly can’t risk mentioning Annette yet.
“I’m more interested in a mutual friend we have. In South America,” she added, remembering what Laura had said about Malcolm over dinner the other night. She bit her lip uncertainly; it felt unpleasantly like a betrayal.
But the information ultimately came from Lynne in the first place.
Whether it was true or not, it was nothing new to Lynne, but Jane guessed that it would still get her attention.

Lynne’s dark eyes snapped wide, and Jane recoiled instinctively.
Too much attention, maybe,
she quailed, but there was no undoing it now. All she could do was pretend to be holding a better hand than she really was, and that started with not showing weakness. She straightened her long spine and set her shoulders squarely. “First, of course, I have some questions for
you,
” she improvised, hearing an authentic note of boldness in Ella’s unfamiliar voice.

A large hand closed painfully around her arm and jerked her back, away from Lynne. For a moment, she saw Cora McCarroll whispering frantically in Lynne’s ear, but André spun her around and was half-shoving her toward the glass-walled elevator. “We have to go now,” he hissed in her ear, and pushed her inside.

He loomed in front of her, filling her field of vision, but as the elevator started to descend, Jane saw Belinda Helding glaring after it from off to the left. Beside her, Jane saw the tall woman in the black pantsuit, her face obscured by a heat lamp. Laura Helding stood alone to the right of the elevator, and she, too, stared intently at Jane.
I’ve been made,
Jane realized with absolute certainty, reading her friend’s face expertly. She had been naïve to assume that no one would notice that her mind wasn’t supposed to be unreadable; someone had.