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  “You might be surprised,” Killian said. “You never know unless you ask.”

  “I guess you’re right.” I texted Rowan again, asking if she wanted to come over and help decorate. She still hadn’t answered the texts from the night before, which left me mildly concerned, but I also knew that she’d answer when she got around to it.

  “Oh, I forgot to tell you,” I said. “I saw Clyde Baker yesterday. He and his band are playing Celtic carols downtown in the square. Clyde gave me Xi and Klaus,” I explained to Tally. “The city’s gearing up for the tree lighting ceremony on Black Friday evening. Which, by the way, I plan to attend.”

  “We’ll go,” Tally said. “When is it?”

  “Eight p.m.” I turned to Killian. “I showed him pictures of Xi and Klaus and he was enchanted.”

  “They’re enchanting cats,” Killian said. “Okay, so we decorate your house today. I’m getting a tree next week, so you can help me with mine then.”

  I loved that my boyfriend was so into the holidays. My phone jingled and I glanced at my texts. Another one from Sheryl again, wishing me a happy morning and saying she hoped she heard from me soon.

  “She sure doesn’t give up,” I muttered.

  “Who are you talking about?” Killian asked.

  Swearing both of them to silence, I told them about Majikoil, and then told Killian what we had found out about the company so far.

  “They’re dangerous. I don’t think—” Killian started.

  “I know,” I said, interrupting. “You don’t want me involved, you’re worried about me, yada yada yada. But this is important. The Court needs someone to go in who couldn’t be pinned down as having too many connections with them. Otherwise, Majikoil would find a way to shut them out. Witchblood-owned companies are much trickier to tackle when they’re operating a shady or negligent business.”

  “I still don’t like it, but I guess that you’re doing something that needs done, and your grandmother wouldn’t ask you to do this if she thought it was dangerous. Oh, I got the gate finished last night. Now it’s—”

  “Twice as wide. It looks good. You’re so handy…you can do just about anything,” I murmured, flashing back to the morning’s sex haze. I was still glowing.

  “Not exactly everything,” Killian said with a laugh. “I’m not at all competent when it comes to wallpapering, as we found out to Tally’s detriment a couple years ago.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  Tally snorted. “When Killian came up to look over Moonshadow Bay and decide whether he wanted to move here, he stayed with me for a few days. I was in the process of wallpapering my apartment. The manager bought the paper and supplies and I promised to hang it. Well, turns out that Killian wasn’t—at the time—one of those ‘Measure twice, cut once’ guys. In fact, have you seen that old I Love Lucy episode where Lucy and Ethel try to wallpaper Lucy’s bedroom?”

  I snickered. “I love that show! Yeah, I remember that one.” Lucy and Ethel had basically swathed the room in striped wallpaper going the wrong way, and Lucy had managed to wallpaper Ethel to the wall.

  “It was like that, with flowers instead of stripes,” Tally said. “By the time we finally finished the first wall, I had to send him out to buy more wallpaper—on his dime—and I called in friends to help because there was no way I was going to live in that kind of flowered hell.”

  I gave Killian the side-eye. “Why did you tell her you could help when you couldn’t?”

  “I wanted to be a good brother. Apparently, sometimes being a good brother means letting someone else do the job. But I’m good with decorating trees, and I’m good in the kitchen.” He winked at me. “Give me a whisk and I’m happy.”

  “I intend to. Everybody’s helping come Thanksgiving. I was thinking of making the pie crusts early and freezing them so we can fill them and pop them in the oven Wednesday. I’m also making the cranberry sauce ahead of time, along with the gravy. Then we roast the turkey and make the mashed potatoes and green bean casserole on Thanksgiving. I’ll prepare the stuffing early too, and the flavors will have a chance to blend together.” I stretched and finished my breakfast. “So, you still want to come over and get started on the tree?”

  “We’ll be over around noon,” Killian said. “I promised to take Tally shopping first.”

  “Sounds good. That will give me time to plan out where I want to put all the decorations this year.” I gave Killian a long kiss. “But now, I need to go feed the cats. See you later!” I dashed out the door to the sound of their good-byes.

  On the way back to my house, I stopped at my mailbox and pulled out the stack of letters. There was an invitation from Alicia King, an older lady over on Castle Street I had met a couple months back and who was a member of the Guild. She had invited me to tea on Black Friday. I wasn’t sure I could make it, but I thought I’d call her, at the very least. I wondered if she was going anywhere for Thanksgiving and decided that, if she had nowhere to go, I’d invite her to my house.

  Xi and Klaus were sitting in front of their food dishes, waiting for me. They stared at me for a moment, their empty dishes an affront to their fuzzy little butts. “Yes, yes, I’ll feed you.” I pulled their food out of the pantry. I opened two cans and upended the goop into their dishes and they began to gobble it up like they were starving.

  “Oh, the drama! You aren’t that hungry. You have plenty of dry food and you know it—you weren’t in any danger of…” I stopped. You couldn’t convince cats of anything, so I decided not to bother trying. Instead, I wandered upstairs to the hallway, where I pressed the button that slid back the panel on the ceiling.

  I was up in the attic, sorting through my parents’ decorations, when Rowan returned my call.

  “Did I interrupt you?” she asked.

  “Nah, I’m just going through my folks’ holiday decorations. Hey, I need to talk to you about Majikoil.” I put down the box I was holding and sat at one of the craft tables I had set up. “I need to run down the issues we’re facing. If we go in, we’re going to be legally bound to give Sheryl license to steal some of our energy. I have no desire to do so. Can she be brought up on charges for that?”

  “Not technically, but if it’s part of a pyramid scheme, yes. The entire setup of the pyramid scheme is both against the mundane law and magical law. We have to catch her encouraging you to recruit to earn money to really shut the company down.”

  “So,” I said, “what do we do next?”

  Rowan thought for a moment. “When you go to sign up, you need to be wearing a listening device and get her to talk about the recruiting part—she has to tell you you’ll make a lot of money recruiting people. We—the Court—will have to be waiting to raid the place before she siphons you of life energy. Which means, you need to sign up and then, when it comes time for the energy exchange, as she puts it, the Court Magika needs to raid the place and catch her in the process. That way, they can bring her up on charges.”

  “But won’t it play out like the vampires? Bloodwhores sign a contract—”

  “That’s a contract with the government. They have to sign into a national register and the vampires are scrupulous about keeping track of them. Psychic vampires are far harder to pinpoint, and magical energy drain is also very difficult to prove. There’s no really good way to prove it’s happened. The Court Magika ran into that problem back when Rasputin was alive. Why do you think he was so invincible? He offered ‘favors’ for years of life, and he preyed on the desperate and the vulnerable. When you’re twenty-eight and your children are dying of hunger, it’s easy to hand over five years of your life in exchange for enough money to get ahead and keep your kids alive. Especially if you don’t really know if you’re losing life until you reach the end. And humans are far more vulnerable.”

  I leaned back against the wall. “Rasputin did that?”

  “Not just him. It’s happened off and on throughout history. Sheryl Brown is doing nothing less than gouging her reps’ actual live
s, as well as their wallets. We need to catch her explicitly saying that you’ll not only make money but also that you’ll add to your life span, in exchange for the nebulous promise of making a lot of money.”

  “What happened when they finally took Rasputin down?”

  “When Rasputin died, the energy he had siphoned off of those in need was drained from his spirit and fashioned into healing potions and then given to the hospital where they took care of indigent cases.”

  I let out a gasp. “They’d do that? Strip away her life energy?”

  “Not to the point of death, not unless she’s killed any of her reps. Rasputin should have been dead several times over, given how hard people worked to kill him. He used the lives of others to boost his own resistance to death, since he was well aware he was a target for assassination. He carried healing potions with him like some people carry their coffee.”

  “How does life energy work for healing?”

  Rowan cleared her throat. “Life energy, when it’s transferred, can shield a person from what should have been a natural death. For example, say you developed a tumor and the doctors say it’s malignant, end stage, nothing short of a miracle will keep you alive. Taking a healing potion made from life energy can heal those wounds and prevent you from dying.

  “Now, we have far more advanced health care than they did back when Rasputin was alive, but some things still will get you in the end. Cancer, a horrible car crash, being caught in a fire. I’m certain that Sheryl keeps several of those potions on hand for emergencies. And it takes a lot of life energy to make a potion that strong. The rest, I’ll bet she’s already absorbed to extend her lifespan.”

  I hadn’t understood how it worked. “I had no clue.”

  “We’ll talk more when I come over tonight for your magic lesson.”

  “That’s right, that’s tonight,” I murmured.

  “I’ll also bring you and Ari the checks you need to join Majikoil. We’ll discuss tactics when I get there. The Court Magika wants this handled discreetly. They don’t want the news broadcast because the more people know about it, the easier it is for someone else to start up their own scam.” With that, Rowan signed off.

  I stared at the pile of boxes on the floor. I was overjoyed to see all of them, but right now, my mind was miles away. What Sheryl was doing had hit home. She was stripping away the future from others, preying on their greed—or their desperation. The former, well, I wasn’t fond of, but most greedy people didn’t deserve to have their lives cut short. But those who were desperate? Who were trying to pay the rent and feed their kids? They didn’t need this crap.

  Shaking my head, I carried the boxes downstairs and went back to the documents that Sheryl had left. Finally, I found what we were looking for in the fine print. She offered financing to incentivize people to join her company, encouraging people that they could make their money back in a month, especially if we recruited others.

  It suddenly occurred to me that I should take pictures of the documents, in case they got destroyed or lost or Sheryl decided she wanted them back.

  “Does she think people won’t read the fine print?” I muttered.

  Do you always read the fine print? What about terms of service agreements, all those contracts you essentially sign to use a website, a service, or a product?

  Startled, I looked up to see Esmara standing there by the table. You’re right. How many times do I check the box and not bother reading the fine print?

  And on that disturbing note, I carried the ornaments into the living room.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Since Killian and Tally were coming over at noon to help, I decided to bake an apple pie. I also needed to clean house, but that could wait till we were done. Sitting at the table, I peeled the apples, then sliced them, sprinkled them with lemon juice, and set them aside, in a bowl. After unboxing the frozen crusts—I realized I didn’t have the time or desire to make a homemade one, despite my earlier plans—I mixed the sugar and cinnamon with the apples, along with some corn starch, then spread them evenly in the pan and crimped the edges to seal the top crust. After poking holes in the top, I popped it into the oven. After cleaning the dishes, I glanced at the clock. Eleven-fifteen.

  Ding!

  Sure enough, my phone blew up with a flutter of texts, all from Sheryl, all encouraging me not to forget about Majikoil, that she’d love to have me on board. I stared at her messages, feeling the desperate pull from them. There was more going on here than greed.

  i think ari and i are ready to join. we took out loans for the buy-in fee. we’re both swamped today but i’ll get back to you about when we’ll meet to sign the paperwork.

  tomorrow would be fine—any time this week. i never take a day off.

  we’re busy for thanksgiving but we’ll be in touch then next day or so.

  She sent a couple more texts, to which I simply replied with a smile emoji and she finally backed off. The woman was as bad as Ellison and annoyed the hell out of me.

  I shook off the feeling and turned on the TV, then slid in the DVD of Men in Black. It was a tradition of mine to watch the movie when I decorated my tree. For one thing, it was usually on TV during Thanksgiving week. Somehow, the timing had always coincided when I was trimming the tree. For another, I loved the movie and the combo of Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones was a dream pairing.

  Time to tackle the tree, which I had stored in the garage last year. Instead of taking it apart, I had left it together, stripped it of its ornaments, folded the branches up, and then used a tree bag to cover it up to keep dust, bugs, and spiders out of it. Keeping the tree assembled cut down on the wear and tear on the branches. I walked it over to the porch, bumped it up the steps, one step at a time, and then wrestled it over to the door. Since the tree was taller than the door, I lowered it to the ground and wiggled it through the door into the living room, then dropped to the floor beside it. It wasn’t super heavy and luckily, I wasn’t that short, but it wasn’t as simple as carrying a box. It still beat having to put it together every year.

  “I should have waited for Killian,” I muttered, and even though I was sweaty and damp from the rain, I was proud of myself for managing the job without help. I picked myself up, then levered the tree upright again and onto a square of cardboard, then slid it across the floor without scratching the hardwoods.

  “That’s perfect,” I said, standing back. It was against the wall where the living room transitioned into the dining room, so you could see it from all angles. I unzipped the bag and bunched it down near the base, creating a slope over which I tied the red velvet tree skirt. It gave the tree skirt a three-dimensional look. Before Xi and Klaus could burrow beneath it and cause havoc, I weighted down the skirt with several large crystals.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Will Smith staring out over the endless array of doors in the MIB headquarters as I began unfolding the branches, fluffing them out. I was most of the way through preparing the tree for the ornaments when I glanced out the bay window onto the porch and saw Killian and Tally crossing to the door.

  “Come in,” I called, and they burst through, arms filled with bags.

  Killian set all of his on the sofa and swept me into his arms, kissing me first on the lips, then on my nose. “Hey, love, how are you doing? I see you managed the tree by yourself. I wish you would have let me help you.”

  “It wasn’t that hard,” I said. “Besides, I wanted to get started.”

  “So, how goes the big investigation?” he asked, taking the box of ornaments from me and holding them so I could access them easier.

  “I talked to Rowan and she’s going to bring over checks for our buy-in. We have to catch Sheryl in the act of promising we’ll make money through recruiting others, or the Court Magika can’t do much about her.”

  “So you have to go through with it?” Killian looked appalled.

  “No,” I said. “But I want to.” Pausing, I added, “Killian, she’s stealing energy from people
with false promises. I don’t like that. Neither does Ari.” I frowned. “You know, I don’t want to talk about this right now. Let’s decorate the tree and focus on happier things, like the Winter Cotillion. Should I assume you are taking me?”

  Killian snorted. “Well, I have the feeling if I said no, I’d be in big trouble. Of course I’m taking you, goose.” He kissed me again as I finished hanging the ornaments from the box. “Now, where do you want Tally and me to start?”

  “Maybe you can start by hanging the garlands? Around the living room and dining room next to the ceiling—scallop them—and then hang a garland on the wall up the stairwell, again scalloping it. There’s also a bag marked ‘railing’—that garland wraps around the staircase railing.”

  Tally was wandering around the main floor. “I love how you renovated the place.”

  “Thanks!” I said. “I also enlarged my closet in my bedroom, upgraded the en suite, and once we found the secret basement—I’m sure Killian told you all about that—I had the contractor patch the drywall, paint it, re-do the floors, and make it into a magical studio for me. Next, I plan on asking him to replace the floor-to-ceiling window in this room with a set of French doors or a sliding glass door.”

  “Well, the main floor flows so much better now. So what should I start on?” She examined one of the ornaments I had already hung on the tree.

  “Why don’t you help me with the decorations.” I motioned to the stack of cardboard boxes that held shimmering balls, all in gold, silver, and blue. “Start with those, and don’t bother saving the boxes they’re in. I bought some storage tubs so when I take down the tree, I’ll store them in those instead of the original packaging.”

  We worked in unison, watching the rest of the movie as we decorated. Everything felt comfortable and Tally seemed to be enjoying herself. Finally, as Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones wrapped up the case, I turned the volume down and motioned to Tally and Killian.