But there were major downsides. When I said I had to watch my back around my family, I meant that literally. I hated that big house with a raging passion. I spent most of my childhood living with my mother, but weekends and some holidays at Findlay were torture. Again, literally. Except when my grandmother was present, the hateful language and nasty bullying never stopped.
When I met Kirsten, she was a scholarship student at my boarding school in western Pennsylvania. I suspected her looks played as much a part of her getting that scholarship as her intelligence and magikal strength did. She was exactly the kind of woman the Magi would want to diversify their bloodlines. Her family was a middle-class witchy group of people, hard-working and kind, and that described her very well.
Madame Clairmont met us inside. No greeting, just looked us up and down with a severe expression. Her face relaxed somewhat when she surveyed Kirsten, evidently seeing an easier task.
“Miss James,” she finally said in her French-Canadian accent. “It has been a while.” Her tone plainly conveyed that it hadn’t been long enough. She walked around me, then let out a sigh. “Are you going to introduce your friend?”
“Madame Louise Clairmont, this is Kirsten Starr. And I believe this is her first fitting with your establishment. Kirsten, Madame Clairmont, the foremost fashion designer in all of North America.”
Clairmont’s cheek twitched, and the glance she gave me was slightly less scornful. “I am pleased to meet you, Miss Starr. Please, the dressing rooms are over there. Disrobe and Ingrid will guide you.”
Ingrid, a tall blonde as fair as Kirsten, stepped forward from the edge of the room.
“Fiona will work with you today,” Clairmont said, turning back to me. A dark-haired woman I knew from my previous visits bowed her head in my direction. I had always had the impression that Fiona was assigned to the most difficult customers because she combined the patience of a saint with the take-no-nonsense attitude of a military drill instructor.
She started, of course, with foundation garments. I let her measure me, and then she produced under-cup supports and skin-tight panties that were designed to show no lines. Then Fiona brought out two bolts of fabric for me to choose from—royal blue and forest green. I smiled to myself, looking at the rainbow of fabrics arrayed along the wall. Either Olivia or Louise had decided beforehand what colors looked good on me. I chose the blue.
And sure enough, the dress they planned for me was sleeveless, mostly backless, and guaranteed I would have to shave.
Hours later, my feet and legs aching from standing so long, I met Kirsten in the waiting room. She was still pretty bubbly and wide-eyed, but she didn’t object when I suggested going to Jenny’s for dinner.
“It was like being in a vid,” Kirsten said when we sat down at the restaurant.
“Yeah, it does remind me a little of torture porn.”
“Pooh. The fabrics,” she rolled her eyes and pretended to swoon, “and the under garments. Any man that undresses me is going to get his money’s worth just visually.”
I choked on my drink. “I doubt that’s what my grandmother has in mind. What color is your dress?”
“A pastel pink. Silk chiffon. I’ve never felt anything like it in my life. If it wasn’t for all the beading, the bodice would be see-through. It’s like wearing an illusion.”
I reassessed. Maybe Olivia was trying to help Kirsten catch a rich husband. She was devious, and she might think that if Kirsten had another protector, I would be more amenable to moving to Findlay House. Thinking back to the evening gown Madame Clairmont and Fiona had designed for me, I wondered if I might be part of the matchmaking menu as well. If I looked nearly as good as the model in the sketches did, all I’d have to do to catch a rich old man was keep my mouth shut.
Jenny’s restaurant didn’t have a screen in the dining room, but there was a small one over the bar. We could see it from where we sat, although I knew Kirsten couldn’t hear it. A news story did catch my attention through my elven-enhanced hearing, so I stood and walked into the next room.
The action on the screen appeared to be a military conflict. As I watched, I realized it was an assault on a warehouse complex on the west coast. The attackers were mostly human, but there was a sprinkling of vampires and a number of demons among them. A quick shot showed a sign. The warehouses were owned by a Findlay subsidiary. I watched until the newsfeed switched to a different story. My grandmother’s warnings echoed in the back of my head as I sat down to finish my dinner.
Chapter 40
The rest of the week passed with very little progress on the cases Novak and I were working. I spoke with Justus Benning and gave him an update on my search for his daughter, but I was sure he felt as frustrated as I did when we hung up.
I told Whittaker my suspicions that the massacre at the drug house up by Pimlico was Ashvial evening a score. According to neighbors, hundreds of people, vampires, and demons had been in and out of that house over the previous six months. We had found two witnesses who identified Ashvial’s picture as that of a demon they saw enter the house the evening of the killings. Neither one was willing to testify to that publicly. Unfortunately, demons didn’t have fingerprints, and while we could trace them through their equivalent of DNA, that wasn’t going to help us find the murderers.
The Rift had recently shifted from China to Georgia, and then into the Chesapeake Bay
