Spells and Sandwiches, page 1
Spells and Sandwiches
Kate Moseman
Fortunella Press
Copyright © 2022 by Kate Moseman
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Previously published as Undercover Paranormal.
Cover by ArcaneCovers.com
ISBN 978-1-957320-02-1 (ebook)
ISBN 978-1-957320-22-9 (paperback)
Fortunella Press
For my little black poodle,
who can't read this,
but would very much enjoy chewing it
It was a good day to arrive in New York City.
No one expected me. Everything awaited me.
—Patti Smith, Just Kids
Contents
1. 1
2. 2
3. 3
4. 4
5. 5
6. 6
7. 7
8. 8
9. 9
10. 10
11. 11
12. 12
13. 13
14. 14
15. 15
16. 16
17. 17
18. 18
19. 19
20. 20
21. 21
22. 22
23. 23
24. 24
25. 25
26. 26
27. 27
Also By Kate Moseman
1
I was supposed to be finding a place to stay, not playing dress-up as Snow White at a children’s party. The hem of the sparkly dress only came to mid-calf—they hadn’t had time to lengthen it to match my height—but that just made it easier to hoist the layered skirts and run up the immaculate steps of the white limestone townhouse.
I pounded on the door.
Solid wood. Faceted glass windows. Fancy. You had to have serious money for a place like this on the Upper East Side. Only a few blocks but a world away from the tiny apartment where I used to visit my grandma for the summer. “Entertainment’s here,” I called.
The door opened a crack, revealing a face that went from neutral to disapproving in half a second.
“Zelda Hawkins, at your service.” I swept a bow, then straightened the crown, which was currently trying to rip a flesh wound in my scalp, and gave the beady eye in the doorway a rakish smile before trying again. “Snow White? For the party?”
One eyebrow rose.
“I’m with Lily.” My cousin Luella’s daughter. Nice kid. Fashion major at NYU. Made money on the side by dressing up herself and her friends as fairytale characters and showing up at rich people’s parties. When she asked me to fill in for a sick Snow White, I couldn’t say no. Lily was family, even if we’d hardly ever seen each other.
The door swung open like it might snap shut if I didn’t dive through, so I didn’t hesitate. Inside, I met the full gaze of a housekeeper who appeared to already have second thoughts about letting in the riff-raff. “Down the hall, on the right,” she said.
“Thanks.” I threw her a salute and meant it. I knew what it was like to work long hours for not enough money. She seemed to smile in spite of herself as I bolted past, my sturdy boots making a light squeak on the marble floor.
Wide doors were thrown open to reveal a parlor lit by the afternoon sun. Cream-colored furniture with tasteful touches of gold filled the room. The footrests had skirts, and a sparkling crystal chandelier hung above. Everything was pristine—and probably wildly expensive.
It was an excellent setting for royalty, even if the current crop was a bunch of college students in costumes. And there was Lily, in a purple satin Rapunzel dress. She looked like a younger version of her mother, Luella—only instead of having blonde hair mixed with gray, like my cousin, Lily was still as blonde as whipped honey.
Nearby, Cinderella and Prince Charming mingled with a horde of small children in new-looking clothing.
I shuddered. Small children. Not my forte. But you do what you have to do.
Lily caught sight of me and beamed. She clapped her hands in storybook delight. “Look, Snow White is here!”
I took a deep breath and stepped into the room. One boot slid behind the other in an improvised curtsy. I sank into it, happy that my joints were all managing to cooperate. I could do this.
The noise in the room hushed.
I looked up.
“Your shoes are all wrong,” observed one of the little monsters in pigtails.
Who did this kid think she was, the junior fashion police? I straightened and stuck my right foot out. “Didn’t you know? Snow White always wears Doc Martens.”
The kid’s skeptical look could have been sold by the pound.
“She’s too old to be Snow White, anyway,” added another little monster.
Seriously? Knocking my shoes was one thing—but my age? Snow White nearly let out a few choice un-children’s-party-appropriate words. But this was family on the line, so Snow White kept her mouth shut and instead glared several vanadium steel knives in the monsters’ direction.
Lily stepped delicately through the crowd and gave me a quick hug. Her hair was pulled back and somehow attached to an extra-long Rapunzel braid. “You look great, Zelda.” Her gaze slipped to my Doc Martens, briefly, before darting upward again.
“Thank you. Sorry I didn’t fit into any of the slippers. Size ten-and-a-half princess shoes are tough to find.”
“I like your boots. Snow White would have done better in boots.”
A bell-like tone rang through the room.
I snorted. “They have an actual gong?”
Turning toward the sound revealed a second set of doors opening to the next room. Through the doorway, a table held four triple-decker naked cakes, the kind where you can see the frosting layers. Two vanilla funfetti cakes, and two dark chocolate cakes piled with white vanilla icing.
Chocolate and vanilla: The bases were covered. My mouth watered involuntarily. It’d been a long time since the expired granola bar I’d dry-swallowed for breakfast.
A woman stepped into the doorway. She was dressed in that quiet style that manages to look both plain and incredibly wealthy at the same time. Too well-preserved to be called young. Too unlined to be called old. Same as any carefully pressed woman you might see alighting from a tinted-window SUV in the Upper East Side—except for one thing.
Her hair. White as restaurant china, a perfect frame around her ageless face.
My fists clenched.
Why?
It was like I had a word on the tip of my tongue. And whatever word it was, it wasn’t a pleasant one.
“Cake,” she said, warm and modulated, almost husky. Cultured. Her lips formed the word crisply, without the need for volume.
“Cake!” the kids howled as one, rushing past her through the open doors.
“Cake,” I echoed to myself. The word tasted wrong. It definitely wasn’t the one my instincts were trying to shove into the front of my head. I unclenched my fists, slowly.
Lily released my arm to move into position for pictures, and I stood there like an idiot, a scruffy statue to go with the rest of the marble ones in the house.
Get a grip and smile, Snow White.
One foot went in front of the other until I had reached the cake, and Lily, and her friends.
That woman was standing off to the side.
Don’t stare, for God’s sake.
Smile.
The cameras flashed.
Smile, damn it.
My teeth were so exposed they dried, making my upper lip cling to the enamel in an unintentional snarl. The camera flash made me think of that moment in a horror movie where a strobe of light suddenly illuminates a herky-jerky monster scuttling through the shadows.
What was wrong with me?
Grandma might have known. I wished—not for the first time—that I still had her guidance. That I hadn’t pushed away my magic after she died. That I’d been old enough to take over the family sandwich shop she’d proudly operated on the Upper West Side.
Wishful thoughts, all of them. But I was here, now. And once I took care of this little obligation, my new life would begin. The family restaurant would be restored if I had to work till I bled.
I licked my teeth and tried to rearrange my expression into something less deranged.
With picture time complete, the white-haired woman moved into position to cut the first cake. We storybook characters flanked her. She lifted a chef’s kiss of a knife, patterned finish with some kind of hardwood handle, but what else would you expect in a setting so rich.
Whatever was giving me the heebie-jeebies would soon be in my rearview mirror. Figuratively, since I’d sold my car for cash before I arrived.
Then a scuffle erupted behind her.
Two boys grabbed at each other’s Little Lord Fauntleroy jackets. They lost their balance and tripped, crashing into the woman from behind. Sunlight pinged off the Damascus steel as she flew forward with the knife extended. My heart had time for one big thud before screams flew up from all around.
With reflexes honed in restaurant kitchens and after-hours bars, I stepped inside her reach and seized her wrist, twisting upward to point the knife out of harm’s way. We stumbled together, my larger size counterbalancing her smaller frame until we both stood upright again.
Up close, she smelled like powdery violets and iron.
And right then, I knew: I shouldn’t have touched her.
I should have let her accidentally skewer someone, in that pristine white drawing room, and then I should have run all the way back to Florida, on foot if necessary.
But even as I let go, I knew it was too late.
My hand began to tingle.
“Damn it,” I said, softly, not for the benefit of the little ears—they could handle a few swears—but because all the air had left my lungs.
I looked at my hand helplessly as red vines with sharp thorns spread across my palm like glitter-covered henna. Invisible, electrified pins and needles sank into my veins, swept to my shoulder, spread across my chest, and through the rest of my body. I pressed my lips together. No way I was going to cry out in front of Lily. Or these little party gremlins.
My grandmother’s voice echoed: Let the magic in.
“Oh, Grandma,” I murmured to myself, watching the red vines writhe on my skin, “what if I wanted to keep it out?”
When I looked up, the woman was watching me. Her irises glowed red like a dying broiler element. Like blood.
Of course. One of them. Yet no one else flinched. They couldn’t see it. If they could, they would have been screaming, and not for ice cream.
I knew the Upper East Side was a hotspot for rich old vampires. I just didn’t expect to run into one of them at a children’s party.
Her red gaze was so mesmerizing it was hard to look away, but I managed to turn my head. The mirror across the room reflected my crown, which had slid sideways again, and the slightly smeared lipstick on my mouth—
Which now matched the red glow in my eyes. I winced, squeezed my eyes shut, then reopened them. Their red reflection still glowed in the mirror. “Double damn it.” I’d let the magic in, all right. Whether I wanted to or not.
The white-haired woman’s gaze followed mine to the mirror. “Are you quite well?” So mellow and elegant, but her eyes were nothing of the sort. And she still held the knife.
When had I seen those eyes before?
Now Lily was moving toward us. She hadn’t shown any signs of magic yet, and her side of the family hadn’t told her our family secret—ignorance, meet bliss—but just because she couldn’t see any of it didn’t mean she wasn’t smart enough to pick up on something weird going on.
I instinctively put my hands behind my back. “I’m going upstairs for a second,” I called to Lily, before she got any closer. “Wardrobe malfunction.”
The woman smiled like a cat with feathers hanging off its lips. “This way, please.” She took my arm. She was stronger than she looked. Powdery violets and iron, indeed.
I could have fought her off.
I think.
But I let her guide me to the stairs before shaking her hand loose.
“Go ahead,” she said, gesturing to the stairs for me to go first.
I nodded to the knife she was still carrying. "Won’t they need that to cut the cake?”
She placed it carefully on a marble-topped side table.
Better. “After you,” I said.
2
I followed her to the second floor. The pins and needles sensation had almost faded, leaving behind a giddiness that made the twisting stairs feel like a carnival ride. Only faint tracings of the thorny red vines remained.
We entered a bedroom with crimson walls, polished hardwood floors, and drawn curtains. It still had touches of gold and crystal, but where the genteel parlor had invited in the sun, this one closed it out entirely.
The perfectly-made bed piled with heaps of pillows made me forget about vampires for one brief, shining second. This room called out for a set of freshly-washed PJs and a well-deserved midday nap.
Instead, I scanned the furniture for something small and heavy. There was a gold candlestick on the vanity that would work in a pinch. I scooped it up and tossed it from hand to hand.
She closed the door. “You don’t remember me.”
“Should I?”
She waited.
We both glanced, simultaneously, in the mirror above the vanity. Two pairs of red eyes reflected back at us. Her white hair looked pure next to my unruly mix of dark strands and gray streaks that swept from my temples and my crown.
Something about her was familiar. The red vine tracings, or the strange tingling sensation as the magic took hold, could have come from any vampire. But the character of it—the soul of it—
This wasn’t the first time I’d felt it.
“I’ve mirrored your powers before, haven’t I?”
She met my gaze. “A long time ago.”
“The last time I did anything like that, I was a child.” I paused, unfurling the timeline in my mind. “In Central Park. With my grandmother.” This woman must have known Grandma from way back. “She used to—”
“Bring people to meet you.”
“Yes.”
“To teach you to copy their magic.”
I couldn’t help glancing at my hands. “Yes.”
“So many times—so many people—that you do not even remember me.”
Now there was a challenge if I ever heard one. I studied her face. No more clues there than I’d already seen. Then I gazed at her hands, and the memory glowed brighter. My grandmother’s introduction: Zelda, I want you to meet someone. This is Miss…
I snapped my fingers. “Laguerre.”
“Call me Victorine. Just because I am Blessed does not mean we must be formal with one another.”
Blessed. You could hear the capital letter when she said it. I hadn’t heard that term in a long time. They weren’t called vampires, not out loud, not if you had any sense. You called them by their nickname—a quirk they had, an exception to the traditional vampire lore: their ability to enter sacred ground. It probably didn’t make up for the fact that an old spell had trapped them in Manhattan, the better to keep them from causing havoc everywhere else.
Even if Victorine said she wanted to be on a first-name basis, I still needed to tread carefully. You couldn’t trust them—although Grandma must have been friendly with this one for some reason.
Her gaze turned curious, like I was a stuffed specimen in the Museum of Natural History. “Your magic. Is it like your grandmother’s? Does it also last a day or two?”
“You knew her well enough to know how her magic worked?"
“We were on the same side. I like to think we were friends.”
“I haven’t used my abilities in a long time.”
“You jest.”
“Magic was something I did with Grandma. When she died . . .” I looked away, cleared my throat. “Not that it’s any of your business.” I set the candlestick down with a thunk. “I’m beginning to think ending up here wasn’t exactly an accident. What did you do? Send one of your Initiates to incapacitate the other Snow White?”
“I have no Initiates.”
“You did the dirty work yourself, then.”
“Why didn’t your parents take over your grandmother’s sandwich shop when she died?”
I blinked at the sudden change of subject. “My parents didn’t want to run Grandma’s sandwich shop. We lived in Florida.” In fact, all of my grandmother’s descendants were in Florida at that point, but were either too young or too rooted to be interested in taking over.
“Were you surprised to find the landlord kept the property vacant?”
“Kept it vacant?” When Lily moved to New York and found the location boarded up, we all assumed it had only been that way a short while.
She shook her head slightly, like you would when a small child doesn’t understand something. “One last question: Have you ever wondered why the lease was offered to you at a price far below the going rate?”
Unease crawled through my belly and settled tightly around my lungs. “Um… rent control?”
She laughed. “Oh, no. The offer was extended to you to bring you home.” She picked up the candlestick I’d abandoned and placed it in its original position, as precisely as a chess move. “I was your grandmother’s landlord. And now I’m yours.”
My grandmother’s landlord?
