Storm Front

"Steaks you wouldn’t believe," she assured me. "And the most romantic atmosphere. Jackets and ties required. Can you manage?"

"Um. Yes?" I said, carefully. "This is the answer to the question of whether or not I’ll go out with you, right?"

"No," Susan said, with a smile. "That was the answer I tricked out of you, so you’re stuck, there. I just want to make sure you own something besides jeans and button-down Western shirts."

"Oh. Yes," I said.

"Super," she repeated, and kissed me on the cheek once more as she stood up and gathered her purse. "Saturday, then." She drew back and quirked her smirky little smile at me. It was a killer look, sultry and appealing. "I’ll be there. With bells on."

She turned and walked out. I sort of turned to stare after her. My jaw slid off the bar as I did and landed on the floor.

Had I just agreed to a date? Or an interrogation session?

"Probably both," I muttered.

Mac slapped my steak sandwich and fries down in front of me. I put down some money, morosely, and he made change.

"She’s going to do nothing but try to trick information out of me that I shouldn’t be giving her, Mac," I said.

"Ungh," Mac agreed.

"Why did I say yes?"

Mac shrugged.

"She’s pretty," I said. "Smart. Sexy."

"Ungh."

"Any red-blooded man would have done the same thing."

"Hngh," Mac snorted.

"Well. Maybe not you."

Mac smiled a bit, mollified.

"Still. It’s going to make trouble for me. I must be crazy to go for someone like that." I picked up my sandwich, and sighed.

"Dumb," Mac said.

"I just said she was smart, Mac."

Mac’s face flickered into that smile, and it made him look years younger, almost boyish. "Not her," he said. "You."

I ate my dinner. And had to admit that he was right.

This threw a wrench into my plans. My best idea for poking around the Sells lake house and getting information had to be carried out at night. And I already had tomorrow night slated for a talk with Bianca, since I had a feeling Murphy and Carmichael would fail to turn up any cooperation from the vampiress. That meant I would have to drive out to Lake Providence tonight, since Saturday night was now occupied by the date with Susan – or at least the pre-midnight portion was.

My mouth went dry when I considered that maybe the rest of the night might be occupied, too. One never knew. She had dizzied me and made me look like an idiot, and she was probably going to try every trick she knew to drag more information out of me for the Monday morning release of the Arcane. On the other hand, she was sexy, intelligent, and at least a little attracted to me. That indicated that more might happen than just talk and dinner. Didn’t it?

The question was, did I really want that to happen?

I had been a miserable failure in relationships, ever since my first love went sour. I mean, a lot of teenage guys fail in their first relationships.

Not many of them murder the girl involved.

I shied away from that line of thought, lest it bring up too many old memories.

I left McAnally’s, after Mac had handed me a doggy bag with a grunt of "Mister," by way of explanation. The chess game in the corner was still in progress, both players puffing up a sweet-smelling smog cloud from their pipes. I tried to figure out how to deal with Susan, while I walked out to my car. Did I need to clean up my apartment? Did I have all the ingredients for the spell I would cast at the lake house later tonight? Would Murphy go through the roof when I talked to Bianca?

I could still feel Susan’s kiss lingering on my cheek as I got in the car.

I shook my head, bewildered. They say we wizards are subtle. But believe you me, we’ve got nothing, nothing at all, on women.

Chapter Six

Mister was nowhere to be seen when I got home, but I left the food in his dish anyway. He would eventually forgive me for getting home late. I collected the things I would need from my kitchen – fresh-baked bread with no preservatives, honey, milk, a fresh apple, a sharp silver penknife, and a tiny dinner set of a plate, bowl, and cup that I had carved myself from a block of teakwood.

I went back out to my car. The Beetle isn’t really blue anymore, since both doors have been replaced, one with a green clone, one with a white one, and the hood of the storage trunk in front had to be replaced with a red duplicate, but the name stuck anyway. Mike is a super mechanic. He never asked questions about the burns that slagged a hole in the front hatch or the claw marks that ruined both the doors. You can’t pay for service like that.

I revved up the Beetle and drove down I-94, around the shore of Lake Michigan, crossing through Indiana, briefly, and then crossing over the state line into Michigan itself. Lake Providence is an expensive, high-class community with big houses and sprawling estates. It isn’t cheap to own land there. Victor Sells must have been doing well in his former position at SilverCo to afford a place out that way.

The lakeshore drive wound in and out among thick, tall trees and rolling hills down to the shore. The properties were well spread out, several hundred yards between them. Most of them were fenced in and had gates on the right side of the road, away from the lake as I drove north. The Sells house was the only one I saw on the lake side of the drive.

A smooth gravel lane, lined by trees, led back from the lakeshore drive to the Sells house. A peninsula jutted out into the lake, leaving enough room for the house and a small dock, at which no boats were moored. The house was not a large one, by the standards of the rest of the Lake Providence community. Built on two levels, it was a very modern dwelling – a lot of glass and wood that was made to look like something more synthetic than wood by the way it had been smoothed and cut and polished. The drive curved around to the back of the house, where a driveway big enough to host a five-on-five game of basketball around a backboard erected to one side was overlooked by a wooden deck leading off the second level of the house.

I drove the Blue Beetle around to the back of the house and parked there. My ingredients were in a black-nylon backpack, and I picked that up and brought it with me as I got out of the car and stretched my legs. The breeze coming up from the lake was cool enough to make me shiver a little, and I drew my mantled duster closed across my belly.

First impressions are important, and I wanted to listen to what my instincts said about the house. I stopped for a long moment and just stared up at it.

My instincts must have been holding out for another bottle of Mac’s ale. They had little to say, other than that the place looked like a pricey little dwelling that had hosted a family through many a vacation weekend. Well, where instinct fails, intellect must venture. Almost everything was fairly new. The grass around the house had not grown long enough, this winter, to require a cutting. The basketball net was stretched out and loose enough to show that it had been used fairly often. The curtains were all drawn.