A Kind Of Magic by Donna Grant Page B

Val shrugged.

    “Some creatures sleep during the day,” Val answered, “and some don’t. Not sure about the Harpies, but something is telling me they won’t.”

    “Great,” she mumbled as she pushed off the fridge. “You would think something like women with lower bodies of birds flying around the skies of Houston would have been reported.”

    “I would have thought so, too, so my only guess is they haven’t been seen,” Roderick said.

    “Wonderful. This just keeps getting better and better.”

    “Have you decided anything?” Val asked.

    Normally, Elle was a quiet, rarely riled type of person, but for some reason, she was finding a side of herself she had never seen, and she quite liked it. “I’ve been asleep.
    I didn’t get much thinking done.”

    Val growled something under his breath in another language.

    “Val,” Roderick warned before he turned to Elle. “This isn’t a jest we are playing on you. This is people’s lives on this realm and others. It’s very important that the necklace and creatures be destroyed.”

    Elle still couldn’t believe she actually believed him. Had she been asked a week ago if she believed in Harpies and immortals she would have laughed in their faces.

    “I don’t have a choice.”

    “Not if you want to do the right thing,” Val said.

    She looked first at Val and then at Roderick. “What do I need to do?” Roderick took a step toward her. “Get dressed, get the necklace, and we’ll go destroy it.”
    “Go?”

    “The stone shatters,” Val told her. “We need to do it some place away from everything.”

    “That only leaves the woods, which will be a good hour or more away from here, or the top of a building.”

    Val and Roderick looked at each other. “The house,” they said in unison.

    Elle assumed they meant the apartment. “I’ll get dressed.” She shuffled into her room and ignored the bed that she usually made faithfully every morning. Instead, she went to her closet and grabbed a pair of shorts and a shirt.

    A quick dusting of bronzing powder, eye liner, and mascara was all she chanced before tackling her hair. She ran a brush through the long length, grasped her hair in one hand, and twisted. Once she had it where she wanted, she reached for her large clippie and secured it.

    Her fingers ran through her bangs that fell over her right eye as she surveyed her image. She would never be a model, but she was passing fair. At least men didn’t turn away in disgust. They didn’t look twice at her, if they looked at all, but that was much better than them turning away.

    She grabbed her red sequined flip-flops to match her shirt and wiggled her feet in as she opened her jewelry armoire. No matter how hard she searched, she couldn’t find the necklace. Panic began to set in as she searched one drawer after another.

    “I forgot to tell you that your friend came by this morning,” Roderick said from the doorway.

    “Jennifer?” she asked, still digging in the armoire.

    “Aye. She said she was borrowing a shirt.” Elle stopped and closed her eyes. She knew which shirt Jennifer wanted to wear.
    Her blue silk shirt she had gotten from the Ralph Lauren store and that also explained the missing necklace.

    “Oh my goodness,” she murmured as she closed the drawer.

    “What is it?” Roderick asked.

    Elle slowly stood up and faced the man before her. “She took it.”

    “Your shirt? I know.”

    She shook her head. “No, Roderick. She also took the necklace. It matched perfect, and it’s just like her.”

    For the first time since she had met him, she saw the anger lighting his dark blue eyes. “Without asking?”

    “I’m afraid so.”

    “Where is she? We must get it back.”

    Elle ran to the phone and dialed Jennifer’s home number. “No answer,” she said as she hung up and dialed the store. “Jennifer, please,” she told the girl on the other line.

    As soon as she asked for Jennifer, she realized it was her day