The Witch and the Huntsman (7 page)

“
Hey,” he said with no trace of any foreign accent. “You must be Allison. I’m Eric.”

“
Hi Eric.”

We just stared at each other for a few heartbeats. Which turned into a few more heartbeats. Long, lingering ones.

“
Whoa
!
” he said finally, grinning and mock-shaking his head, like he was trying to wake up. “I saw you last night, but I had no idea...”

“
No idea of what?” I felt like all the breath had just been squeezed out of me. It was a miracle I didn’t squeak.

“
That we’d, you know. Share a
moment
. That’s what just happened, right?”

Now it was my turn to shake my head. Not like,
no
. But more like in total confusion, right? I just couldn’t trust myself to say anything.

He ignored it and gave me that killer smile again. “Because I wouldn’t want you to think this happened with every new hire.”

Damn
, he was smooth. The only thing that was stopping me from falling head over heels on the spot was a flaw in his aura. Unlike his stepmother, Eric Jaeger actually had one—and on the surface, it was one of the most beautiful I’d ever read. Warm and genuine and filled with golden hues mixed with tendrils the same cornflower blue as his eyes. I could see his open trusting nature and his need for love, his honesty...and then I hit a wall. There was a darkness underneath, a cold iron-gray well of reserve and secrecy like a locked bank vault.

“
Okay, my bad. I came on way too strong, I guess. You just took my breath away, Allison. Can’t blame a dude for drowning in those dark eyes of yours a little, right? I guess we’d better get on with your orientation. What do you know about our Titanium Club service?”

Um, like totally nothing. So off we went to the William F. Cody Room, while Eric told me about corporate retreats. And how hunting big game in the forest with crossbows built team skills that came in handy for executives in the business world. And how all these high flyers had to be kept feeling toasty and well-lubricated with samovars of Irish coffee and flasks of single malt served up by a smiling hostess in a fetching fur-lined company parka. That would be me.

“
Was that Marisa’s job, too?” I asked.

He stopped suddenly and scowled like he didn’t understand the question. “Who?”

“
You know. The girl that worked here before me. Marisa?”

I was sort of hoping he’d fill in the blank for me—you know like “Oh, right, Marisa
Smith
” or “Oh, right, Marisa
Jones
” or whatever. But all he did was nod and stop scowling.

“
Oh, right,” was all he said. And for an instant his whole aura turned that dark slate-gray color.

“
This hostess business...” I said as we entered the Cody Room together. “It isn’t like being a cocktail waitress or anything, like in Vegas, right? Because I totally won’t do that.” As in, I won’t
be nice
to the customers. Basically, my years doing shit like that in Las Vegas felt like one long wrestling match when I looked back.

It took him a minute to get it, and when he did, his face turned bright red.

“
No way!” He sounded almost angry. “We would never ask any of our employees to do anything like that! In fact, it’s expressly forbidden here. That’s partly why we’ve got security cameras everywhere—for your protection.”

I just hoped they could protect me from getting my heart stolen.

Okay, that was corny, but that’s exactly how I felt.

Chapter Nine

“
Heard you got to play hostess out on the slopes today,” Brittany said to me as we started our supper shift at six. Her tone was envious.

“
Yeah, I guess they chose me because Marisa used to do it. Did you ever know her last name, by the way?”

“
I think it was maybe Rodriguez or Lopez..?”

“
My
name’s Lopez,” I said.

“
Oh, right. Well, it was something Hispanic, anyway.” Her tone made it sound like Eric only had a taste for tacos. Which, aside from being sort of insulting, also instantly made me wonder if Eric and Marisa had had a thing.
Jeez, girl
, I said to myself,
you’ve only known the guy five minutes, and you’re already jealous?
 

Maybe. Maybe not. There was something there, I think.

Besides, there was Marisa’s psychic hotline habit. The reason I couldn’t remember her as a client got explained during my break, when I got through to my friend Bernice. Marisa had been one of
her
regulars, not mine; Bernice said that the girl couldn’t buy a dress without calling her first—and that she’d given Marisa my direct number for emergencies.

“
She must have gotten confused and somehow thought you were me,” Bernice told me. “Believe me, if she’d been having a thing with anybody at that resort, she would have talked my ear off about it.”

“
Did she say anything at all that might help us figure out what happened? I mean, did she feel scared or threatened? Was anybody here harassing her?”

“
No...” Bernice sounded vague, like she was already focusing on more important stuff. You know, like giving birth. “She was bumming about the food there, I remember that. She kept going on about some kind of illegal game they were running.”

Illegal game? Did she mean illegal game-hunting, like out of season? Or that they were hunting for illegal game—you know, animals that were protected species? Or something else completely. Like gambling, for instance.

It wasn’t until I started my shift that I realized something else was bugging me about my conversation with Bernice. Marisa hadn’t thought she was talking to my friend—she had called me
Allison
! So she knew exactly who I was—and said that
I’d
helped her through her mother’s passing, not Bernice! Which totally wasn’t true. Now nothing made sense...

“
Everything makes sense once you put the pieces together, Allison
,” came Millicent’s voice in my ear.

“
Well, why don’t you tell me everything I need to know, then, for once
?” I shot back at her while I loaded one of my silver serving trays with what looked like fatty pork.

“
Because we can’t be certain of our facts yet, dear. This is a puzzle we’ll have to solve together. I just hope we’re given enough time.
..
”

Grrrrr...

“
And here, as promised, is your
Langschweinefleisch,
sir
,” I said to the rude red-faced fat guy in the Givenchy sweats from last night as I laid his dish in front of him. Tonight he was dressed more Hugh Hefner in purple silk pajamas and Chinese slippers. “I hope your guests will enjoy it.” It smelled more like chicken than pork, I decided. Everybody at the table beamed at me like I was Angelina Jolie.

The truth? I was still totally aglow from the afternoon I’d just spent on the slopes. Most of it was just hard work, as I putt-putted around from one hunting blind to the next on a snowmobile in the dazzling sunshine, pulling along a little trailer-truck of food and drinks. The only fly in the ointment—aside from the ever-present bluebottles—were the business executives in the hunting party, who came in every assorted flavor of annoying jackass under the sun. To make matters worse, they never managed to bag anything, not even the gray squirrels a couple of them took pot-shots at.

Most of them had been here before, according to Eric, but a few of the younger guys—and there were also two women executives with them this year—hadn’t ever shot a crossbow before. Eric took a few minutes to show them how to operate their bows.

“
You, too, Allison—part of your job will be to teach the newbies.” He was towing a rack of stacked cases; out of them, he handed each of us our own huge crossbow. Mine turned out to be about half as tall as I was. It must have weighed about ten pounds and was covered in camo paint. “We hunt with only the best here at La Chasse,” he went on to everybody. “This is the gold standard in crossbows, the Tenpoint Pro Elite. It requires only five pounds of weight to draw and cock, and uses a laser sighting scope. I want all of you to take your first shot at that tree. The one with all the gashes in the bark. Remember to wait to retrieve your broadheads until everyone’s finished shooting. And also remember: these babies are lethal.”

“
So how come you’re carrying a
rifle
in your case?” asked the younger and sassier of the women execs, a redhead.

“
Because the one thing a crossbow won’t stop is a full-grown bear. That’s why I carry a .357 at all times, too.”

He showed us how to load and draw the broadhead—that’s what the arrow thingy was called—to the cocked position, and then peer through the laser scope-sight, which was actually pretty cool. I aimed at the magnified birch tree and pulled the trigger. The recoil was really weird—down and forward, then back again, which was called ‘kickback.’

Oh yeah, and I completely missed the tree.

“
Not bad for a first try,” he said, after we all trooped through the snow to get our arrows back. “Now listen up! Today, you’ll all be shooting from blinds, everybody but you, Allison—you’ll be in charge of feeding us. Watch your fingers and thumbs with the drawstring, and do not try to shoot one-handed! Disable the sound on your cell phones; you can text, but no voice calls. Is that clear? And do not pull the trigger until your prey is less than thirty yards away—we have range-finders you can use. Most of the animals you’ll hopefully be seeing today are legal this time of year, pretty much, except feral pigs and wolves. And
do not
shoot at bears or cougars, okay? Seriously!”

Eric looked pretty scary when he was being serious.

“
What about squirrels?” someone yelled, obviously making a wisecrack.

“
No more than three,” he said with a smile.

The rest of the afternoon was long and boring. My job was to show up and serve refreshments whenever I was signaled that there was no game around. I wore a brilliant orange ‘La Chasse’ cap to make sure no one thought
I
was fair game. Along the way, I spotted a few wild turkeys and some deer, and I’m pretty sure a fox, but nobody managed to bag anything. Not even the gray squirrels that kept stealing the salt and mineral blocks that were supposed to attract deer. But there had been enough time spent with Eric to make the whole afternoon feel almost like a date. He’d never lost that smitten look in his eyes every time he looked at me, and just before I knocked off and drove back to the lodge, he said that his new ambition in life was to teach me how to ski.

“
It might be safer if I stick to the Ski-doo,” I said.

He laughed. “Hey, if you can dance, you can ski. You do know how to dance, don’t you?”

“
You have no idea,” I told him with a grin. I had moves he’d never seen even in his dreams. Especially if he had a pole in his room...

Which was pretty much all I thought about during my shift at dinner. I guess I must have been just gliding around on air all evening, because Brittany and Kev and even the dreaded Schreich noticed and kept staring at me like I was high on crack or something. And man, did I ever clean up on tips!

I guess they’d never had another waitperson around there who smiled so much.

Chapter Ten

“
Sam
!
How was your trip?”

I was back in my room—or should I say Marisa’s room, after cleanup later that night—when my vampire soulmate Samantha Moon called. She had been off on a camping trip in the San Gabriels with her on-again off-again gentleman friend Kingsley Fulcrum, who was a local lawyer. And a werewolf. I know, I know—
weird
.

“
Oh my God, it was so great, Allie! Things just feel so...
right
again between us now.” Only, because of the deep psychic link between us, I could sense the worm of doubt that lay behind her optimistic words. Or maybe it was just wishful thinking. Kingsley had cheated on her. Sure it happened only once and that was a while ago, but, due to her lousy marriage, my friend had been left scarred with deep trust issues.

But my “Oh wow, that’s so awesome!” was totally sincere. If there was any couple in the world I wanted to see make it, it was Sam and Kingie, as she recently started calling him.

“
Okay, cut the bullshit and tell me what’s going on, girl. You’re off somewhere in Oregon? When did that happen? And why?” But even as she asked, I could feel the answers flowing from my consciousness into hers. It’s weird how that works—sometimes we have no connection at all, and other times it’s hot and strong, no matter how much physical distance lies between us. I could tell she needed me, although she would never admit it. At least, not without a lot of prodding.

Samantha said, “And what’s this about a guy...Eric, is that his name? Whoa, he is
majorly
cute,” she said, as images of him danced from my mind into hers. “Just don’t...well, please just don’t get hurt, Allie. You know how it felt when you lost Victor.”

“
Yeah, yeah.” I was too happy to even be crabby at her at this reminder of my great lost love. I was just lying back in my bed with that dorky infatuated grin still on my face. I literally could not wipe it off.

“
And don’t go wandering around in the dark alone again, either.”

“
I won’t—Millicent’s already given me hell for that.”

Once upon a time, according to Millicent, instead of including others like Ivy, the triad of witches had been her, me, and Sam Moon. The three of us had been locked in a three-way bond closer and more intimate than any lovers, and our union had spanned many lifetimes and many centuries. We had practiced our craft in the marshes of ancient Rome and told fortunes on the heath during the Scottish wars—and we had even been in Salem together during the witch trials...