I took a deep breath to continue my tirade, but Mrs. P stopped me by gesturing to my feet. I’d worn the only slip-ons I owned through the airport, which were my sole pair of heels. “Your shoes, gel, your shoes. You can’t be lithe in those things. You’d likely wrench your ankle if you had to run more than a few blocks.”
“Oh.” I looked down at my shoes. “Oh, I thought you meant—never mind. Sorry I jumped to that conclusion. It’s just that body shaming is so prevalent these days.”
She took the towels that I had removed from her suitcase, and tucked them back into her luggage. “Why should you feel any shame about your body? You are round and fleshy where women are round and fleshy. Your man must enjoy that. My beau always took much pleasure in my breasts and hips. He often said that my hips could talk him into anything.”
I couldn’t help but note her wizened figure, with nonexistent breasts, and no sign of curved hips at all, and then was instantly ashamed of myself. I was doing the very same thing I objected to in others. “You go, girlfriend,” I told her, and as penance for my slipshod ways, allowed her to keep the two towels. “Well, then, I guess we could take a stroll around the block. You know, just to get a bit of fresh air and to see the neighborhood.”
“No.”
I sighed to myself. It was going to be a very long night if she continued to be so obstinate. “Would you like to see a movie? I’m not sure where we could find one in English, but—”
“I wish to attend a séance.”
“You what?” I sat down on the striped couch, and wondered if the jet lag had caused me to hear incorrectly. “A séance? For whom? Or rather, what?”
“Spirits, of course.” She toddled into the bathroom and returned with a roll of toilet paper.
“Of course. How silly of me. Whatever was I thinking?” I took a couple of seconds to stifle the urge to giggle somewhat hysterically, and said, “I wouldn’t know how to even begin to find someone who could conduct a séance for us—”
“Across the street,” she interrupted, moving to the mirror to examine herself. She patted her fluffy white hair and brushed off an imaginary speck of dirt from her sleeve. “The tearoom. They have séances every afternoon. Quickly, gel, or we won’t get my favorite table.”
I thought of pointing out that I hadn’t remembered seeing a tearoom across the street from the hotel—assuming they had tearooms in Munich (it sounded like an awfully British establishment)—and that even if one existed, just because they had them in the past, when Mrs. P was last in Munich, it didn’t follow that they continued to have such a thing in this day and age of relative enlightenment. All of that went through my head in a very short space of time, but I decided it was too convoluted to speak aloud, and instead duly rose.
“Change your shoes,” Mrs. P said helpfully as she opened the door to the hall.
“The only other pair I brought with me are my tennis shoes, in case I have the chance to walk through one of the Cairo museums before I fly home, and they aren’t at all fashionable,” I pointed out. “Certainly not something one would wear to a tea shop.”
“I just hope you don’t hurt yourself running,” she said in the manner of one imparting a dire warning, and sailed through the door.
“I’ll take that chance,” I said with a little roll of my eyes and followed her out of the room.
“You going out?” Hansel asked when the odd little elevator grumbled and lurched its way down to the ground floor with us in its steely clutches. I had to admit that I rather enjoyed the two wrought iron doors that you had to close before punching a button and pulling a crank to get the elevator to move, but the noises that emanated while it did so made me wonder when the last elevator safety examination had been held.
“Yes, we thought we’d take a look around outside,” I said, following Mrs. P when she headed toward the front door.
“You must leave your key here,” Hansel said, his hand outstretched. “It is the policy of the hotel.”
“But we’re just going—oh, whatever.” I trotted over to the desk and laid the big black key on his hand, pausing long enough to add, “You do know that those keys are pretty old, and not that secure, right?”
He pursed his lips. “What are you saying? You don’t like the key?”
“Not at all, they’re very art nouveau, but that’s probably because they’re at least a hundred years old, which means your door locks are the same age. I took a course in lock picking a year ago,” I said by way of explanation. “The instructor had a passion for old padlocks, and he said that a lot of locks shared keys. I was just pointing out that your keys might fall under that description.”
He lifted his eye patch to give me a long, pointed look, then lowered it again, and picked up his book. “The patrons at the Hotel Ocelot do not sleep in fear.”
Which was an odd sort of thing to say, when you think about it. And I did, for about as long as it took me to escort Mrs. P outside, and across the street, where we found a small ethnic grocery store, a brightly lit electronics store that blared Middle-Eastern music… and a tea shop.
“I’ll be damned,” I said, staring at the front of the small shop with faded curtains shading the lower half of the windows, no doubt to screen the customers sitting there.
“I hope not. Not in those shoes, anyway,” Mrs. P said with another derisive glance at my feet.
“Ponyhof?” I asked, reading the sign that said Das Leben ist kein Ponyhof. “That’s something to do with a pony, isn’t it?
“It means ‘life isn’t a place for riding ponies.’ You will take your shoes off to enter.”
“Really, what is your obsession with my choice of footwear—oh.” I read the small sign that lurked at knee level, and stated in three different languages that shoes were to be deposited at the entrance.
We entered, and immediately it felt as if I’d been swept back a hundred years. The room was lit by small shaded lamps perched in the center of tiny round tables, each of which was covered by a colorful paisley shawl. The lamps dripped with jet beads, while the room was dotted with large potted plants. The whole ambiance of the place reeked late Victorian/early Edwardian, and was oddly comforting.
That is, until I bent down to pluck off one of my shoes (and admittedly looked forward to it since even the most comfortable pair of heels has limits) when I caught sight of the two men sitting at the table half screened by a large potted palm.
One of them was a stranger, but the second was the man from the plane—the one who had tried to knife Mrs. P.
Except the handsome Rowan had said that it wasn’t a knife.
“My favorite table,” Mrs. P said, bustling forward barefoot and plopping herself down in a chair at a table that was already occupied by a man and woman, both of whom watched her in surprise.
I stopped frowning at the man from the plane, removed my shoes, and hurried after my charge.
“Er… hello,” the woman said to Mrs. P. She had a short black bob, the sort that flappers used to have in the 1920s, while her companion had dreadlocks pulled back into a ponytail, latte-colored skin, and the most brilliant gray eyes I’d ever seen.
“I’m so sorry for disturbing you,” I said hurriedly, tapping Mrs. P on the arm while simultaneously trying to pull back her chair.
She clung to the table with a ferocity that I hadn’t expected, but the presence of the man who had tried to attack her made me very nervous, and I decided that the best thing was for us to skedaddle. “My… companion… is a bit enthusiastic. We’ll take ourselves away.”
“No. This is my favorite table. It has the best view of the spirits,” Mrs. P insisted, and gave a loud squawk when I tried to pull her chair back from the table.
“These nice people were already here,” I said in a reasonable tone that faded away to nothing when I realized that everyone in the tearoom—which was about three-quarters full—was watching us with horrified expressions.
“I don’t want to go back to the hotel!” Mrs. P said indignantly.
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I slid a glance toward the plane man. He was tapping his fingers on the table and glaring at me.
“I really think we should be leaving,” I said, trying to gently heft Mrs. P from her chair without looking like an abusive caretaker who ran roughshod over her client’s wishes.
“The séance hasn’t started. We can’t leave until it is completed,” Mrs. P insisted, clutching the edge of the table. “Why aren’t you listening to me, gel?”
“I am listening to you, but I don’t think you’re safe here.”
“Nonsense. You there, tell Sophea that we can’t leave until the séance is over.”
The bobbed-hair woman smiled at Mrs. P. “Absolutely you must stay for the entertainment. We heard it wasn’t to be missed, so you really shouldn’t leave on our account… oh.” The last word was spoken when the woman had glanced at me. Her eyes rounded for a few seconds before she slid her companion an odd look.
He too was staring at me, his eyes at first narrowed and calculating, but then suddenly, the shadow that I hadn’t realized was there had cleared, and he smiled, revealing dimples on either cheek. He stood and pulled out a chair for me. “Of course you and your protector must remain, madam…?”
“This is Mrs. Papadopolous,” I answered.
“That’s not my name,” Mrs. P said, shaking her head and looking very pleased with herself.
“I’m Sophea Long, and that’s really sweet of you to offer to let us sit with you, but—”
“Sit down, gel. They can’t start the séance until you do.”
I cast a worried glance over to the man from the plane, but wearily gave in and allowed myself to sink into the chair.
“Gabriel Tauhou,” the man said, gesturing toward the woman. He had an Australian accent that was oddly lyrical. “This is my mate, May. I must admit, we are surprised to see you. We hadn’t heard that any of your kind survived untainted.”
“Survived?” I asked, my voice rising an octave. “Untainted? Untainted by what?”
“Shush,” Mrs. P said, whapping me lightly on the arm as one of the tea servers, who was dressed in what I thought of as Renaissance Faire gypsy, took the center of the room, and began speaking in German.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, leaning across the table toward the man named Gabriel. “But what did you mean that you were surprised that I survived?”
“The curse,” he said, nodding just as if that meant something. “I can think of only two red dragons who escaped the fate Abaddon held for them, and since then, both have been killed. But no mates survived. In fact, I was not aware that Jian had claimed a mate.”
I stared at him for a minute, the jet lag making my brain react more slowly than normal, but at last his words filtered through my mental fog, and I sat back, my stomach tight with worry and unnamed fear. Was everyone around me mad? First Mrs. P, and now this man? And just how did he know about Jian?
I was unsure of what to do—should I ignore Mrs. P’s objections, remove her from the tea shop, and hustle her back to the hotel? I couldn’t just walk away and leave her, not when she was so vulnerable, especially with the man from the plane watching our every move.
Time drifted past as I sat there waffling back and forth—to leave, or to just tough it out until the end of the séance, that was the question. Meanwhile, the woman hosting the séance continued in German, before switching to French, and then finally English.
“We will conduct a gathering of spirits, what is commonly called a séance, although here, you are the mediums. The spirits may speak through you, or speak to you—that is personal for each of you. Are we ready to begin?”
I slumped back, not paying the woman or her patter much attention, one eye on Mrs. P (clapping happily before telling the flapper named May that she was hoping the spirit of one of her lovers would present himself so they could catch up). The rest of my attention was split between the man from the plane and the silver-eyed man across from us who apparently had a few screws loose.
“Sophea.”
I hadn’t dozed off, but I must have slipped into a reverie, because I caught the echo of my name before it was repeated.
“Sophea!”
I looked up from where I’d been staring at the table, glancing first at Mrs. P, then at our tablemates. All three were looking at the table next to us, where a small, round woman with a mound of fat blond curls was staring at me, urgency written into her body language. “Sophea,” she repeated a third time.
“Yes?” I said, confused. Had I met her before? Was she someone who’d been on the plane?
“Let go of the guilt,” the woman said in a heavy German accent.
I frowned. “Um… okay. What guilt would that be?”
The woman frowned as well. “You were my mate, even if only for a few minutes. It was only right that I should give my life for yours.”
“Uh…” I stared at the woman in growing confusion. “Who…”
“It is me, Sophea. Jian. I take this opportunity to tell you to release the guilt you feel at my death.”
A little sob gathered in my throat. “I don’t…” I shook my head, blinking back unexpected tears. “I don’t… Jian?”
The woman’s voice softened and warmed. “It was only ever my desire for you to be happy. Know that, and carry it with you.”
Disbelief warred with a horrible suspicion that I was being taken for a fool, but how could this woman, this stranger know about Jian? How could she know about the guilt I carried so deep inside that I had survived when he hadn’t? How could anyone know these things? “Are you…” I was at a loss for words to ask what I wanted to know, blurting out, “Are you happy?”
“I am at peace. Now it is time for you to let go of the past and embrace what you have before you.”
I looked askance at the two people sitting in front of me. They wore identical speculative expressions. “Are you speaking metaphysically, or literally?” I asked.
The woman chuckled. “It was your humor that first attracted me, and your spirit that captured mine. But now it is time for me to release you from our bond. You have great things in store. Be brave, my heart. Be strong. Do not doubt.”
The tears rose again at the gentleness in the words. I blinked furiously, not wanting to bawl in front of everyone, but not entirely believing what was happening, either. “I’m glad you’re at peace. I do miss you.”
“And I you. But it is time for you to find your feet again. Look to the dragons. They will guide you.”
My gaze flickered to Mrs. P. Dragons again. Was this German woman working in cahoots with Mrs. P? Even as the thought crossed my mind, I rejected it. It had to be Jian speaking to me—no one else would know the things he said. “I don’t think I know—”
“You have great things in store,” the woman repeated before slumping dramatically onto the table.
I sank back into my chair, not aware I’d been tense and holding my breath until the woman had stopped speaking, and the séance hostess moved on to someone else.
“Did you know that woman?” I asked Mrs. P quietly, taking from her the salt shaker she was in the act of stealing.
“No.” She pouted a little, nodding at the silver object in my hand. “They have many others. I like it. It’s shiny.”
“She mentioned dragons,” I whispered.
“Of course. Your husband was one.” Her eyes focused on me with a clarity that I found startling. “He came a long way to release you from your bond to him. That bodes well for your man.”
“You think that’s what he was doing?” I bit my lip in thought, allowing her to take the salt shaker from my hand. “I haven’t really dated much since he died. I tried once or twice, going out for coffee or that sort of thing, but it always seemed… wrong. Like I was betraying him.”
She added the pepper shaker to its mate in the depths of her purse before shifting her attention to the person across the room who was arguing with a spirit about who was responsible for a broken lamp. “He had not released you th
en. He has done so now.”
I mused on that for a few minutes, wondering if the strange visitation was truly Jian, or if I’d been so desperate for it to be that I was willing to believe a handful of generic comments meant more than they did.
It was your humor that first attracted me, and your spirit that captured mine. I smiled a sad little smile. That was pure Jian—he had said the very first day we met that he loved my sense of humor and the bright shininess of my spirit. I hadn’t known then what he meant, but we were alone when he spoke those words, and I’d never mentioned his comment to anyone.
“Good-bye, Jian,” I whispered, and blinked back a few more tears that made my eyes sting.
Surreptitiously, I sniffed and brushed away an errant tear that escaped. Something caused me to turn my head, and I realized that the man from the plane was standing behind us, a long, pliable object dangling between his hands. Instantly, every movie I’d ever seen where someone was garroted from behind rose in my mind, causing me to knock my chair over backward as I leaped to my feet. “What the hell?” I shrieked, lunging between the man and Mrs. P, providing a barrier to her that would keep her safe. “Get away from her, you murderous freak!”
The man snarled something rude under his breath, but didn’t move… until a swirl of wind ruffled my hair, followed by a dark shadow falling across us.
“Is there a problem?” a familiar voice asked, and with a sigh of relief, I turned to smile at the newcomer.
“Hello again, Rowan.” I could have cried I was so happy to see him. “You seem to be making a habit of rescuing us from this bastard. Sorry, Mrs. P. I shouldn’t have said the word bastard in front of you.”
“It doesn’t bother me,” she said with a little shrug. “My favorite epithet has always been murderous whoreson, but if bastard rings your chimes, then you go with it.”
Rowan, whose curls were all over the place and whose face bore a pillow crease on one cheek, rubbed his jaw as he looked from the murderous whoreson to me. “I’m happy to be of help, naturally, although I’m unsure of what the issue is this time.”