She furrowed her brow, tapping her chin and pushing out her lips in an exaggerated gesture of contemplation. “Good to know. Thanks for the feedback on how to improve my stealth factor. Next time I’ll be less stinky. See you soon.”
The clone backed away, disintegrating into flimsy clouds of translucent mist. She faded, leaving a faint whiff of death and the lingering apparition of her Cheshire Cat smirk.
Fifteen
If Joe was to be believed, one or both of the clear crystals resided somewhere in the city. In a shrine. Helen shivered in the mild Los Angeles night. This temple could be anywhere, even beneath the ground of the LAX arrivals loading area where she stood.
Palm tree leaves fluttered in breezes that carried notes of cigarette smoke and ripe garbage. Under saturated orange security lamps bathing the evening in eerie tones, fellow passengers waiting for rides looked suspicious, the cars idling on the curb suited to transport dark secrets.
Looping overpasses domed an unforgiving concrete jungle teeming with wild vehicular rumbles. Motorcycles, helmeted drivers fused to seats like futurist robots, whizzed down blacktop pavement, gassing unnatural petroleum odors. An airport employee drove a beeping luggage cart in front of Helen, shooting her a crusty, lizard-like look, though she’d done nothing wrong and wasn’t in the way.
Everything and everyone in her vicinity morphed into monstrous strangeness.
Helen poked down jitters and anxiety and fought to snap out of the twitchy fugue. She was piqued from jet lag, and in the context of her agitation and relative nearness to the missing talisman and affiliated scheme, her agitated psyche overloaded the world with spooky meaning. The mind had a tendency to speculate, fill in blanks with menace.
She inhaled and exhaled with mindful purpose, adjusting her messenger bag and rubbing the achy shoulder under its wide strap. The grimoire had become her constant companion. A weight in her purse, a monkey on her back. Other people felt naked without their day planners or main credit card. These days, Helen didn’t leave home without a volume of witchcraft as fat as a phone book. Talk about added responsibility.
Yes, she had to follow strict orders to stay away from Left Hand craft, but she’d need the book for reference.
A sports car with California plates pulled into the loading zone, sleek as hell with paint like polished obsidian and tinted windows cloaking inhabitants in mystique.
The make and model escaped her, though she swore she’d seen the exact car in James Bond movies. Low to the ground, all curvy lines and rounded hood, the ride stood out as a love letter to international automotive sexiness amidst a sea of chunky SUVs and domestic sedans.
Her pulse quickened. She knew who owned the car. Woven in with anticipation of seeing Brian, though, was a vaguely icky trace of something related to jealousy or resentment. She didn’t belong in that cool Hollywood car. She made sense in one of the generic, sensible vehicles. Or in Minneapolis, driving her Mini Cooper to the body shop to, at long last, repair an expensive fender dent.
As predicted, Brian got out of the driver’s side, radiating fame and grandeur in tailored black jeans and an old Led Zeppelin shirt. He slammed the door and strode to her.
On cue, people swiveled, stared, broke out their phones and snapped pics. Though she moped in the glare of attention not meant for her, at least the peevish response triggered a good self-scolding. With a curse to lift, there was no spare energy to waste pouting that the cool factor of the famous guy she was visiting beat hers by a factor of infinity.
His hug, strong and confident, paused her sulky episode.
“You smell so good,” Brian murmured into her hair. “I remember this fragrance from when I held you in Denver. Lilac and jasmine and vanilla and you. Pure you.”
A disarming rawness shaped his admission. Romantic and intimate, sure, but tender with the distinct quiver of relief.
Helen closed her eyes and attempted to melt into his body, rubbing up and down his back in tender strokes. But their embrace failed to dissolve her tension, her aggravation. Something was wrong. Something always was. No rest for the wicked, no break from dancing on the tips of her toes.
“What happened?” she asked.
Passersby tittered, stealing candid photos with bursts of greedy clicks. A few of the gawkers had swapped phones for bulky cameras with neck straps and retractable lenses, upped stakes of intrusion that raised the scepter of paparazzi harassment.
Brian, who no doubt had a sixth sense for such things, flinched in Helen’s arms. He kissed the shell of her ear and pulled away. “I’ll explain in a minute. Let’s get in the car before the hyenas start circling in earnest.”
A flash went off with a squeal, a blast of light making her squint. A goateed man in plaid shorts advanced, panting as he snatched more shots. She got why people flipped out and punched these assholes, but at the moment they were mosquitos and she had a hydra to fight.
“Good call.” She grabbed her wheeled suitcase.
He popped the trunk, which slid open in a graceful, futuristic motion making a spectacle of the car’s fanciness. Hesitant to touch his criminally cool supercar, she handed over her luggage. With a friendly smile, Brian set her bag in the trunk and opened her door for her. “It won’t bite.”
Leather seats the color of whole milk welcomed her body with supreme comfort, and a cluster of black tree air fresheners hanging from the rear view mirror perfumed the interior with an edgy, masculine fragrance.
“How’s your daughter?”
“Pouting like a child who hasn’t got an ice cream, but otherwise fine. I couldn’t convince her to go on the tour, but her bodyguard is doing his job.”
She’d never met anyone with an on-call bodyguard. Money had a way of solving problems, and Brian was drowning in dough.
Taking advantage of plentiful legroom to stretch her sore calves, Helen settled her eyes on a dashboard panel of buttons and
