Fire Dancer (Spellbound in Sedona #2)

Chapter Five

PIPPA

I took a deep breath, then blew, keeping a close eye on the glowing mass at the end of the rod as it slowly expanded. When I ran out of breath, I capped the end of the blowpipe with my thumb and started swinging the rod. A little too forcefully maybe, because my mind was still on what had happened the previous day.

Damn that Bob Hardy! Damn property assessments and taxes!

I’d shared the news with my sisters, who were just as furious — and just as cash-strapped — as me. We’d stayed up late discussing the problem, but every idea we’d come up with would take time. The first step was checking if the property assessment really had increased, and if so, how to appeal it. I’d volunteered to stop by city hall to inquire, but my sisters had nixed the idea once they found out about my teensy-tiny, totally insignificant fire-setting mishap.

So the task of visiting city hall fell to Abby, and all I could do was glance at my phone every few minutes, hoping for news.

In the meantime, I did my best to turn my anger into determination. I had to win that contest!

My mind was brimming with ideas, but I had to finish other projects first. The owners of Sedona Glass were happy for me to use the shop for private projects, but only after I’d worked down their job list. So, there I was, working on yet another project for yet another client.

I switched to the bench and did my best to focus. An upscale resort on the outskirts of town had ordered multiple sets of matching glasses — water, wine, brandy, and so on — so I had to keep moving. The sooner I finished those, the sooner I could get to work on my contest entry. The $25,000 prize was a long shot, but it would come in awfully handy.

Make that, crucial.

By noon, two tidy rows of glasses filled the annealer — a damn good start. Then the bell jingled, and Stacy entered with a cheery wave.

“Hi, Pippa. How are you?”

I pulled off my work gloves and stepped toward the counter. “Great, and you?”

“Great!” Stacy chirped.

We were both lying. Well, I sure was, and Stacy didn’t look great herself. On the other hand, that could have been the light, her makeup, or just a bad night’s sleep.

Or a vampire sucking her blood, I couldn’t help thinking after what Ingo had said.

Still, I doubted Stacy was the type to get mixed up with any kind of criminal, let alone criminal vampires. And frankly, I wasn’t looking my best either, with my frazzled hair and messy work clothes. At least Stacy was nicely styled, with matching colors, makeup, the works.

I pointed to the colorful Monet-flower-print fabric around her neck. “Wow. You always have such beautiful scarves. You must have a whole collection.”

She froze. Oops. Had I said the wrong thing?

She recovered quickly, though, flipping one end of the scarf over her shoulder like a 1930s movie star. “Why, thank you, darling.”

We both laughed.

“I got your order, but it said Tuesday, so it’s not done yet,” I said, moving on to business. “Is that okay?”

Stacy nodded. “Totally. I’m just here for a gift for a friend.”

I put my hand on my heart, truly touched. “Aw, thanks for thinking of us. I hope you find something you like.”

She chuckled. “The only problem will be choosing between everything I love.”

My cheeks warmed. If only every customer were as sweet and easy as her.

The door opened on a young couple — Stacy’s polar opposites, at least in terms of style. Both were clad in head-to-toe black. Their skin was punctured by a dozen piercings and covered in a web of heavy tattoos. But, hey. Whatever made them happy.

“Hi.” The twentysomething woman stepped to the counter and shaped the air with her hands. “We’re looking for a couple of those love vials.”

The guy nodded, making the skeleton tattoo on his throat ripple. “Two of them.”

The girl chuckled and bumped his arm. “That’s what a couple is, dummy. Like us.”

He grinned, just as dopey with love. A slightly offbeat, ghoulish kind of love, but hey. I’d take a happy Goth couple over groomed but grouchy any day.

I opened a drawer and pulled out some samples. “We have a few different types…”

They leaned in, inspecting the vials.

“What do you think of these?” the guy asked.

“Nice,” his girlfriend decided.

I forced a polite smile, though I disagreed. There were so many ways of expressing love. Why carry around a vial of blood?

Stacy, on the other hand, touched her vial with a genuine smile. But worry gnawed at the corners of her lips, and she shot a furtive look at the SUV parked outside.

“Ha. They’re about half the size of a shot glass,” the guy joked, making a knock-it-back motion.

Ugh. The vials were for holding blood, not sipping it.

Then I froze, thinking of the vampire Ingo had mentioned. Victor Janano-something. I glanced toward the binder where we filed our invoices. What was the name of the company Stacy worked for? TTC Limited, I recalled. No mention of a Victor or vampires. Then again, a company called TTC could belong to anyone.

Or any thing . A shiver went down my spine.

But that was way, way circumstantial. Ridiculous, actually. I pushed the thought away and focused on business. The sooner I helped these customers, the sooner they’d move on, and the sooner I could create my contest entry.

The tattooed woman held the vials up to the light and turned them this way and that. “I guess you have to cut yourself and funnel the blood in there?”

Ugh. That probably appealed to some but was a bile-burner for others. Like me.

I opened my mouth, then closed it as imaginary headlines flashed through my mind. Glass artist under investigation for role in tragic bloodletting accident .

I kept my lips sealed. This was not one of those things I was qualified to dispense advice on.

Luckily, the young woman went on without waiting for an answer. “And how do you seal them? I mean, what if they leaked?”

The guy tapped one chewed-to-the-quick fingernail against the glass. “I’d say there’s more risk of the blood drying up in there.”

Another reason I found the whole concept gross. But it was my job to sell, so sell I did.

“They come with this kit.” I pointed to a shrink-wrapped bag containing a cap and a tube of anticoagulant. “I hear it’s pretty easy, and I’ve never heard of one leaking.”

Stacy looked up behind them, and I half expected her to chime in. But she sealed her lips and went back to browsing candlesticks.

The couple inspected the instructions.

“Crazy glue?” the woman murmured. “Isn’t there a better way to seal them — like those?” She pointed at a display of glass tubes sealed at both ends.

Those were our cheesiest souvenirs, some declaring Take home the clean Sedona air and others, Genuine Sedona Sand — collected from Sedona’s strongest vortexes! We didn’t sell many, but the profit margin was huge.

“I guess you could…” I mused. “But you’d need the right tools…”

The woman waved at the workbench behind me. “Like those?”

Stacy looked up, openly curious.

“Technically, yes. But we’re not certified to deal with biohazards.”

I was making that up, because I really, really didn’t want to handle someone else’s blood.

For the briefest of moments, I second-guessed myself. Maybe if they offered a hell of a lot of money…

But, yikes. I wasn’t that desperate. Yet.

“Too bad,” the woman sighed.

“I’m pretty good with a blowtorch,” the guy said. “Could you show me what to do?”

Wow. When his woman wanted something, he found a way. A keeper, for sure.

The woman beamed.

“Well…” I shot a look at the clock. I really had to finish my current project.

The guy rooted around in a deep pocket, produced a wallet secured to his low-hanging jeans by a heavy chain, and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill.

“Would that be enough?”

I stared. Oh. I hadn’t been hinting at a tip or bribe, but heck. Now that he was offering…

It wasn’t twenty grand but, heck. Twenty bucks for a two-minute demo wasn’t bad.

I nearly said yes, then caught myself. You didn’t mess with young love, and you certainly didn’t make a quick buck off it.

“Not necessary,” I said. “I’m happy to show you — but you didn’t see me show you, if you know what I mean.”

He grinned, putting his wallet away. “Show us what?”

Good. I was happy to keep this our little secret.

I got to work, setting the materials on the counter: a blowtorch and a couple of pieces of cast-off glass tubing.

“Basically, you hold the tip of the vial to another piece of glass in the heat of the blowtorch. Once they start to fuse, you rotate them like this…”

He watched closely as I demonstrated, as did his girlfriend and Stacy, who peered over their shoulders.

“When you pull them apart slowly, it seals both ends…” I stretched the glass until it was as thin as a thread. It separated on its own, leaving me with two pinched-off tubes. I tapped the molten ends on a steel plate, then rolled them gently. “Then you do this to give it a smooth finish. That’s it.” I held up the sealed tube. “Easy.”

The man lit up like a child at Christmas, and his girlfriend beamed. “That’s awesome! We’ll have to tell all our friends!”

God, I hoped not. We would end up inundated with requests for the real deal, which would be hard to explain to my boss. Or worse, my boss might embrace the idea and advertise it to pull in a whole new revenue stream. I’d be sealing blood vials for the rest of my life.

“That’s really cool.” Stacy fingered her own vial quietly.

It did beat the crazy glue solution, but cool was not how I would describe blood vials. More like creepy .

“It’s super cool. Thanks,” the couple gushed.

In the end, they bought three sets of vials — one for themselves, two for friends — and headed for the door. The guy had vertebrae tattooed on the back of his neck, and that was my last view of him. That and the arm slung tenderly around his girlfriend.

Ah, love. It came in all shapes and sizes.

Stacy watched as I cleared the impromptu workshop from the counter.

“Did you find something you liked?” I asked.

She jerked up with another insta-smile, then went back to the candlestick display. “They’re all so beautiful. It’s hard to decide.”

“Take your time.”

She did. A long, long time, punctuated by furtive glances outside.

She sure didn’t seem in a rush to get back in that fancy SUV today.

I came around the counter to join her. “Anything else I can help you with?” I spoke softly, tilting my head toward the car.

“Oh no, thank you. I’m fine.” Her laugh was a nervous whinny.

I kept my eyes on the items before us and whispered, “Seriously, Stacy. Is everything okay?”

She didn’t say anything, which set off alarms in my mind. Then she flashed a huge smile and chirped, “Everything’s great! Just trying to decide.”

My eyes wandered to the pinboard by the door. It was filled with flyers for local events, artists, yoga instructors…and a hotline for battered women.

“Maybe I can help you decide?” I aimed my gaze at that flyer.

Her eyes followed mine, and her hand went to her neck. “Thanks,” she whispered, “but I have to figure this out on my own.” Then she flashed that fake smile and waved at the candlesticks. “The hard part is deciding.”

Yes, it was. As in, deciding where the line between concerned citizen and minding my own business lay. Because something was one hundred percent, totally, definitely wrong here.

Stacy touched my arm, smiling more genuinely now. “I’m fine, thanks. Really. I just need a minute.”

I was sure she needed a lot more than that, but I couldn’t exactly call the hotline for her.

I wandered back behind the counter. “I’m right here when you need me. Anytime.” I emphasized the last word.

She nodded that sweet smile of hers, and I couldn’t help thinking of Ingo, vampires, and his hushed warnings.

I want to keep everyone safe from Jananovich .

If Jananovich was, in fact, in Sedona, and if he was who Stacy worked for. Two big ifs.

I mulled that over while keeping myself busy for a minute or two, then looked up. Stacy was holding two candlesticks, but her eyes were unfocused, her thoughts elsewhere.

I burned to ask her the name of her boss and what TTC Limited did, but that would be out of line in a client-customer relationship. Besides, if I pried, she might stop coming to me entirely, and what help would I be to her then?

“If you like, you can test the candlesticks with those sample candles,” I said gently. “That might help you decide.”

She sniffed one of the candles, but clearly, her mind was elsewhere.

“The vanilla one is really soothing,” I suggested.

Stacy found it and struck a match from the box we kept there. But her hands were shaking — not much, but just enough — and it went out. She tried another, then another—

I narrowed my eyes on the third match and wiggled my fingers, giving her a helping hand. And, oops. It flared so bright, she nearly dropped it.

“Whoa. Okay, here we go,” she murmured as the candle caught, filling the shop with its sweet aroma.

I stretched my fingers, then formed a fist silently.

“Oh, it does smell nice,” she said, closing her eyes.

Now, if only we had garlic-scented candles I could send her home with…

Stacy sniffed a moment longer, looking slightly more at peace. Then the driver honked outside, and she whipped her head around.

“Oh, I’d better go,” she yelped.

I thought fast. Normally, I jumped at the chance to make a sale. But candlesticks weren’t what mattered here.

“Why don’t you take time to think it over?” I suggested. “You can decide when you come back to pick up your order.” I gave the flyer another pointed look.

Her head bowed for a moment, and I nearly blurted, Or I can lock the door, draw the shades, and call that number for you right now. We can have the police here, lickety-split, too. Or better yet, my ex and his buddy. They’re BDSM agents, you know.

It occurred to me that BDSM didn’t sound right, but whatever.

Stacy took a deep breath, then mournfully blew out the candle she’d lit. But when she turned to me, she worked up another smile.

You don’t have to pretend, I wanted to tell her. I’m on your side. I can help.

Her eyes had a hollow, No one can help me look.

“I’ll think it over and let you know when I come back,” she finally said. Then her smile grew warmer, and a little sass came back into her voice. “So much to do, so little time,” she quipped, tossing the scarf over her shoulder.

We both laughed, and the bell over the door jingled as she left.

“See you soon,” I called, watching her go.

For a long time afterward, I thought of her. Her and her scarf and those vials.