Absolutely Captivated (12 page)

The dachshund had disappeared and
somewhere else in Las Vegas, that horrible little magician had
disappeared as well.

Apparently they had come
here.

Zoe bit her lower lip so hard that she
could taste blood. What if something in her spell-making abilities
had gone awry? What if they were all trapped in this
place?

She walked in the direction of the
yip. She had to step over more books, and push aside a table. As
she did so, a stack of yellow legal pads fell over.

Each stack was
covered in writing—most of it Greek (literally), although some of
it was English. One of the pads had doodles on top of the
Greek—little smiley faces, a few flowers and one
Crystal

Dudley
. That was
followed by
Crystal and Dudley
4-Ever,
and
Dudley Rocks!
In a different
handwriting, someone had written
Dudley
The Dull Dude.
And in yet a third
handwriting, in a different ink, someone else had written:
Wait Till Daddy Finds Out And Guess Who’s Gonna
Tell Him? HA! HA!

Zoe straightened the legal pads as
best she could, trying not to read any more, worrying that she was
seeing something important that she didn’t understand.

She continued toward a wall of
bookshelves. The voices were growing closer.

“I don’t get it,” a young female voice
whined. “How come you can’t do this?”

“It’s not my turn,” said another young
female voice. “Besides, I always have to look things
up.”

“It’s better than calling Daddy,” said
a third female voice.

“No, it’s not,” a man said.

Zoe walked past yet
another stack of yellow legal pads (
Tiffany Eats Toads!
was written
across the top of one), and nearly tripped on a librarian’s stool
half buried on a pile of magazines. The bookshelves opened to the
right, and through them, she could see an even light flowing across
the dirt-covered hardwood floor.

“It’s stupid,” said the first female
voice.

“Yeah, like who cares about a dumb
dog?” asked the second female voice.

Zoe’s stomach clenched. Where had she
sent that poor dachshund?

“You guys, we’re supposed to care
about all this stuff,” said the third female voice.

Zoe stepped over a mound of dirty
laundry, then peered at it. Blue jeans, tank tops, and bras,
twisted together along with girl’s underwear with the days of the
week written across the butt in pink. The laundry gave off a stale
odor that mixed with the smell of bubblegum that somehow reminded
Zoe of a girl’s camp she investigated one summer.

“Look,” said the male voice. “You
ladies think about this and I’ll just take Bartholomew
home.”

Bartholomew was the name of the
dachshund. A name that poor dog hated.

Zoe hurried toward the voices now,
nearly slipping in something wet near the door.

“Did you hear something?” one of the
girls asked.

“I always hear something and you
always say it’s nothing,” said a second girl.

“No,” said the third girl.

Zoe checked her shoes,
sniffed, and sighed. Pee. Dog pee, to be more precise. How long had
that poor dachshund been here? And why hadn’t anyone paid attention
to his needs?

“Hey, you ladies didn’t answer me,”
the man said. “How’s about I just skedaddle, and you figure this
out and call me?”

Skedaddle? Only Morton the Magnificent
would use a word like “skedaddle.” Only Morton wasn’t Magnificent
at all. He wasn’t even Adequate. Morton had long ago sold out and
was performing his magic—real magic—as tricks in front of a live
audience every night at one of the marginal casinos just off the
strip.

Zoe hated that, and she figured once
the Fates found out, they’d punish him for violating a major rule:
Mortals Should Never See the Magic…or if they do, They Shouldn’t
Think It’s Real.

Since most mortals figured the shows
in Vegas were faked somehow, Morton thought he was getting by on a
technicality, which he probably was. But that didn’t stop his
behavior from being, at the very least, unethical.

Zoe peered around the door
frame as if she were on the job. Inside a big room with
floor-to-ceiling windows were couches, chairs, and a large table.
On top of the table sat three teenage girls. The one farthest from
Zoe was skinny and blond, in that shapeless way that teenagers who
didn’t eat enough had. She wore what looked like a decorated bra
and a pair of low-rider jeans. A pair of slides hung off her toes,
revealing very dirty feet.

Next to her sat a redhead with hair so
short it looked like a crewcut. There was no mistaking her
femininity, though. Her green eyelet blouse and Capri pants
accented her lush figure. She would have looked exotic if she were
older, but at her age, which Zoe guessed to be about fifteen, she
simply managed to look rebellious.

The third girl had cornrows decorated
with beads made out of real ivory. Even though she was wearing a
sleeveless dress, cut slim for someone without hips, she sat with
her legs crossed.

Morton the Magician looked as scummy
as always. He wore a gold lamé sports jacket worthy of Elvis, and
tight brown polyester pants. His shoes were shiny tux pumps that he
had forgotten to polish. His hair was thinning on the top, and he
had circle combed it—apparently magic didn’t work with bald
spots.

Zoe had to look around to find the
dachshund. He sat under the table, his tail wrapped around his
plump body, his head down as if he were embarrassed to be in such
company.

Or maybe he was hungry. Or sick from
all those sausages.

She felt a pang of guilt.

“How come every time someone comes
here, they have a new problem?” the blond girl asked.

“Just lucky,” said the redhead, and
blew a bright pink bubble. It grew until it was the size of her
face. The girl with cornrows looked like she was about to pop the
bubble when the redhead sucked it back into her mouth.

Zoe had no idea what she was looking
at. So she stepped into the room.

“Excuse me,” she said. “I’m looking
for the Fates.”

“There she is.” Morton the
Magnificent pointed at her. His finger was stubby and the nail was
black and yellow, not with polish, either. “She’s the one who
magicked me here. That has to be against the rules.”

The cornrow girl rolled her eyes. “I’m
not looking up another rule.”

“We can’t find the ones we’re supposed
to find already.” The blond really was a whiner.

“Can’t you all just leave and solve
stuff on your own?” asked the redhead.

“I’d be happy to,” Zoe said, “if you
point me in the direction of the Fates.”

“Gawd!” the cornrow girl
said.

“How come nobody
thinks
we’re
the
Fates?” the blond asked.

“Because we’re too
young,” said the redhead. “Even
I’m
beginning to think we’re too
young.”

“That’s because you don’t want to do
any of the work,” the cornrow girl snapped.

“Excuse me,” Zoe said again. “Um, I
know the Fates and believe me, you’re not them.”

“We are them,” said the blond with
more anger than self-pity. “We’re just not the them that you were
expecting.”

Morton was shaking his
head. The dachshund lay down, put his head on his paws, and whined.
Or moaned.

“Has anyone given Bartholomew water?”
Zoe asked.

“What do you care?” Morton
asked.

“He’s been outside for three days, he
ate too many sausages, and I sent him here at his request. I notice
that no one let him out when he needed to go—” Zoe wrinkled her
nose. The pee smell on her shoes had trailed into the room with
her. “—and frankly, he doesn’t look all that well.”

The dachshund raised his eyebrows at
her. His brown eyes were very intelligent, and if she wanted, she
could give him the power to speak English. She had done that
earlier, and had learned about all of his grievances. Then she had
sent him here. As far as she could tell, her spell had worn off,
but the Fates—wherever they were—would have known to spell him for
language.

Or maybe they could just understand
him without it.

“See, now, look.” Morton stood up and
hiked his pants up by the belt. The pants rose to the middle of his
bulky stomach, and were tight enough to reveal more of Morton than
anyone should actually be able to see. “She talks a good game, but
when push comes to shove, she don’t deliver. I mean, I paid her
good money to find the dog and what does she do? Sends me away from
my work to come here to meet you kids, and pretends like the dog
has a complaint. Has he said anything? I mean, really.”

“Has anyone given him a chance?” Zoe
asked.

The girls were watching Zoe with
frowns on their faces.

“What kind of chance?” the redhead
asked.

“To tell you what happened,” Zoe
said.

“Well, we asked him, but all he did
was bark,” the cornrow girl said.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Zoe said,
hating that expression because it showed she had been among the
mortals too long. She wished she could take it back. “Did one of
you give him the power of speech? Or did you forget that little
magic lesson?”

“What power of speech?” the blond
asked.

Zoe shook her head.
“Morton?”

He shrugged. “It was your idea to send
us here. I wasn’t going to falicitate it.”

“Facilitate,” Zoe said. “and I didn’t
sent you here, at least not on purpose. I sent you to the
Fates.”

“We are the
Fates
,” the girls said in
unison.

“You are not,” Zoe said.
“Unless someone cast a really nasty spell on Clotho, Lachesis, and
Atropos.”

“I told you,” said the redhead. “We’re
not the them you were expecting.”

“Actually, you didn’t tell me,” Zoe
said. “She did.”

And even as she nodded to
the blond, Zoe felt the rest of her argument die in her throat.
These girls were speaking in a certain order. Just like the other
Fates. And they spoke in unison. Just like the other
Fates.

And they were in the right
place, only it was a mess. In a way that the other Fates would
never, ever have allowed.

“We’re Brittany, Tiffany,
and Crystal,” said the cornrow girl, “and we’re the new
Fates.”

“Kinda,” the blond added.

Zoe blinked and looked at Morton. He
shrugged.

“Listen, I already been through this.
What I get is that these little chickies are the Interim Fates
because their Daddy don’t want the old Fates to be interfering with
his lifestyle no more. If these kids can do the job, they get it
for good. But they gotta apply, just like everybody
else.”

The women in Zoe’s office had said
they were the Fates. They had said they were laid off from their
jobs because Zeus was making a power play, and they would have to
reapply for those jobs, after they learned a few new
skills.

Zoe felt cold.

“Is Zeus your daddy?” Zoe asked the
girls.

“Well,
duh
!” they said in
unison.

Morton grinned.
“They
are
kinda
cute.”

“Cute my butt,” Zoe said, putting her
hands on her hips. “How old are you girls?”

“A hundred, maybe,” said the redhead,
obviously lying.

“Which one are you?” Zoe
asked.

“She’s Crystal,” the cornrowed girl
said, and Zoe felt that dizziness she always got with the original
Fates. The rotating conversation was maddening.

“And you are?” Zoe asked.

“She’s Tiffany,” said the
blond.

“And the pretty one who just talked to
you is Brittany,” said Morton, earning a glare from the other
two.

“Figures,” Zoe said.

She took a step closer to the table,
and realized as she did so that her left foot was wet. The pee must
have soaked through her shoe. She suppressed a sigh.

“You girls aren’t a
hundred,” she said. “You haven’t gone through puberty yet, let
alone menopause. How many rules did your Dad break
here?”

“Daddy never breaks rules,” Crystal
said.

“He’s grandfathered in,” said
Tiffany.

“Actually, he made most of the rules
so he knows what he can and can’t do,” Brittany said.

“In other words, he broke the cardinal
rule,” Zoe said. “He gave you girls magic before your hormones
settled down.”

Morton shot Zoe a
frightened look. She tried to ignore him. Zeus had already caused
enough trouble for mages. It was his arguments that allowed men to
gain their magic at twenty-one and women to wait until after
menopause. And he was the one who exempted all the Powers That Be
from all of the rules, although Zoe had never heard that the
children of the Powers That Be were exempt.