At home, the first thing Opal did was open up that bottle of champagne she’d gotten for tonight’s date, which had never happened. No text from Ruiz, either. How long could it possibly take one man to unclog a toilet? She thought it was maybe better not to visualize that.
Instead, she downed the rest of the glass, refilled it, and climbed the stairs to do what she always did to calm down. She took a stroll through her fashion collection.
Over the years, she had painstakingly fulfilled her dream of converting each of her upstairs bedrooms into a giant walk-in closet. The long freestanding racks of clothes were organized by theme, designer, color, and decade. Or at least, that was the theory. In reality, it was a never-ending jumble of colors and patterns bursting with fashion possibilities. And to top it all off, she had two whole walls stacked floor to ceiling with shoes. It wasn’t exactly a substitute for a hot date, but it wasn’t a bad consolation prize.
No matter how many times she checked her phone, there was still no word from Ruiz. In disgust, she tossed her phone onto the seat of her favorite plush chair, shaped like a giant red high-heeled shoe. When her second glass of champagne was empty, she carefully picked her way down the stairs to get another glass. Or maybe, she decided, it was time to ditch the glass and go for the whole bottle.
She made a mental note to take off her stiletto heels before heading back upstairs again. Long ago, she had learned the hard way that stilettos and bottles of champagne didn’t mix well. At least when stairs were involved. Otherwise, stilettos and champagne worked together fabulously, depending on the activity involved.
At that moment, the front door rang out with a cheerful shave-and-a-haircut knock.
Ruiz, finally, she thought. And she even had some champagne left. Opal’s heart beat faster. This was all going to work out tonight. As long as that man had a good long shower first.
She spent a moment at the hall mirror fixing her hair and rearranging the plunging neckline of her blouse for maximum effect. Then she composed herself, took a deep breath, and swung the door open wide with a saucy smile.
Outside, Salem leaned one shoulder against the wall, returning her smile with a devilish smirk. “Hello there.”
Opal screamed and slammed the door shut.
She twisted the deadbolt knob and threaded the chain, certain she was in mortal danger. While she had been upstairs fondling her designer fabrics and dreaming of better days, Salem had doubtless murdered everyone she knew and had now come to her house to finish the job. She tossed the empty champagne glass aside. As it crashed in the kitchen somewhere, she looked around in a panic for her phone.
Through the door, Salem said, “I’m not going to hurt you.”
She ignored him. Where was her phone? Upstairs, she remembered, on the chair. Why would she leave her phone all the way upstairs? There was no way she could make it up there in this kind of a hurry.
Then on a side table, she spotted her dusty old landline phone, which she hadn’t used in years. Luckily, it was a cordless handset, so she could call for help and run to safety at the same time. Or at least hobble to safety.
She grabbed the phone, thankful when its keypad lit up with a dull yellowish-green light. Her finger hesitated over the digits. What was Dru’s number, anyway? She never dialed numbers anymore. They were always just names on her screen.
She shook her head. Considering the way this night was going, Dru had probably been murdered already. Better to call 911 instead.
As she started to tap the keys, an invisible force wrenched the phone up out of her hand. It sailed over her head, out of reach, as she swiped for it, and then zipped over to the brass mail slot in the door. With a squeak, the little brass flapper flipped up, and the phone slipped out like an escaping pet.
Opal watched in horror, her hands clasped to her cheeks, as the chain on her door slid back, undone by invisible fingers. With a metallic screech, the deadbolt lock turned.
Opal tried to run, but she couldn’t get more than two steps in her sky-high heels. Cursing under her breath, she leaned against the wobbly side table to unbuckle the little golden ankle straps.
She wasn’t fast enough. The deadbolt snapped back, and the door swung halfway open, letting in a gust of cool night air. Salem hadn’t moved. He still leaned one shoulder against her wall, his long black jacket swirling in the wind, his silk top hat shimmering in the glow from her porch light. Her cordless phone spun silently in the air a few inches above his pointing finger, like a basketball.
“Relax,” he said, his attention focused on the phone, not on her. “I just want to talk.”
With an effort, Opal reined in her panic and stood up straight, as if nothing at all was wrong. “You can talk to me down at the shop. Tomorrow. With witnesses present. And a SWAT team, too.”
“Hmm. See, that’s the thing. At the shop, there’s always the Dru factor.” A sour look crossed his face, like a moment of bad indigestion. “Not the conversation I’m interested in having.”
Opal gripped the smooth wooden edge of the table for support. So he hadn’t murdered Dru after all. That was something, at least.
Salem snatched the phone out of the air and rousted himself off the wall. With a weary sigh, he pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped inside.
Opal’s panic level had just barely decreased to a manageable level, but now it shot back up into the red zone again. “You can’t come in here! Step back! You’re not invited!”
He gave her a strange look. “You can’t stop me just by not inviting me. I’m not a vampire.”
“I can do whatever I want. This is my house. Matter of fact, give me my phone back.” She held out her hand. “That doesn’t belong to you.”
For an uncomfortable moment, Salem considered the phone handset. Then he slipped it into the pocket of his long black coat. His kohl-lined eyes stared hard at her. “Let’s talk about Dru for just one little moment.”
Opal folded her arms. “I’ve got nothing to say to you, Salem. Whatever your problem is with Dru, you need to take it up with her. Maybe you can talk some sense into her. Because I definitely can’t.”
“I know. It’s awful.” He broke off his intense stare with a shrug that looked carefully calculated. “It would be so nice if Dru would just listen to you for once, wouldn’t it? Maybe if she paid attention when you warned her about trouble that you just knew was coming, she would stop dragging you into it. Hmm. Now why does that sound familiar?”
Opal swallowed. She didn’t like where this was going.
“Oh, I know,” Salem said, fixing her with a crazed smile. “Welcome to my world.”
“If you want to talk about Dru behind her back, you’re wasting my time.”
Salem stepped closer, stopping just out of reach. “No, if I wanted to waste your time, I would tell you that I can see the future. And you want to know what I see in the future?”
Opal shook her head no. “Not particularly.”
“I see Dru accidentally causing the end of the world. Despite her best intentions,” he said conspiratorially, leaning closer as if they were best friends. “Now, I can’t actually see the future. But I have done some quick-and-dirty, back-of-the-envelope calculations. And I can tell you that ultimately, things are not looking good for Little Miss Monkey Pants.”
“Haven’t you been paying attention? Things never look good,” Opal said.
“Exactly!” He said it as if she were agreeing with him. “You want to keep her out of harm’s way, and so do I. We’re after the same thing. But if Dru keeps heading the same direction she’s going—and I’m sure this comes as a shocking surprise—she’s going to die. Oh, wait. Let me put on my shocked face.” His eyes grew theatrically round, his jaw dropped open, and he covered his gaping mouth with the long fingers of one hand.
As much as Opal despised Salem’s condescending attitude, she couldn’t entirely disagree with him. Dru was definitely headed toward major trouble, and she probably wouldn’t listen to reason until it was too late. By that point, there was no telling how much damage would have already been done. Or who might have already been killed.
But no matter whether Salem was right or wrong, he was still the last person she wanted to have this conversation with. And despite the fact that it didn’t seem like he was actually planning on murdering anybody, she still wanted to get rid of him as quickly as possible. Probably the best way to do that was by bringing up Rane.
“So where’s your girlfriend during all of this?” Opal said. When he pretended not to understand her question, she impatiently added, “Where’s Rane?”
He shrugged again. “After our little tiff—which I’m sure you heard about, since she demolished two tons of deconsecrated musical instrumentation—I don’t know. Honestly. And this will probably distress you to learn, but I really don’t care. She’ll be fine. She can take care of herself. She always does. Your friend Dru, on the other hand, is the one I’m truly worried about.”
“Uh-huh. Tell me another one.”
One of his eyebrows quirked up. “Fine. I’m madly in love with you and your nail color. What is that, orange sherbet?”
She honestly couldn’t tell if he was complimenting her or being a total brat. Before she could figure it out, Salem leaned close, his gray eyes widening until the pupils were tiny dots.
“I pay attention to details,” he whispered. “That’s how I see the danger that’s coming. Greyson. Notice anything different about Mr. Red Hots lately?”
It took all of her effort not to shrink away from Salem’s intensity.
“He’s nothing but a cog in the doomsday machinery,” Salem whispered. “Tick tock.”
His words didn’t entirely make sense, but they still hit home. Opal wanted to know what he was getting at, but she figured she was better off not knowing, so she kept her face neutral. She wasn’t about to buy into whatever sly double-talk Salem had in mind. So many times, Dru had warned her not to let Salem get inside her head. And this was definitely one of those times.
“I don’t need to hear this.” Opal pointed one finger past Salem, toward the door. “You need to leave. Right now.”
Salem drew in a breath as if to say more and then quite obviously had second thoughts. “Fine. Have it your way.” With a flourish, he turned and strode toward the door.
Against her will, Opal desperately wanted to hear what he had to say next. She didn’t trust him for a minute, but she needed to hear it. Only one person in the world had studied doomsday more intensely than Dru, and that was the guyliner-sporting madman about to leave her foyer.
If Salem had some kind of information, some kind of way to get through to Dru and warn her before everything went to pieces, then Opal had to know. These days, things felt different between her and Dru. With Dru now a sorceress, her power was growing faster than anyone knew how to deal with it. Deep down, Opal suspected that Greyson’s presence had something to do with that, but she didn’t know how it worked, exactly. Greyson seemed like a nice enough guy, but how much did any of them really know about him?
What did Salem know that he wasn’t telling?
As if sensing her hesitation, Salem paused with his foot on the threshold, and then he slowly turned to look back over his shoulder at her with an unspoken question written across his face. His eyebrows rose up.
Opal folded her arms. The frown on her face was so concentrated that she could feel it squeezing the blood out of her lips. She had absolutely no intention of buying whatever Salem was selling. But the truth was that his words had opened up a secret hurt, a secret fear that she had kept hidden all this time. What if Dru did get herself killed? What if she did trigger the apocalypse?
Salem slowly pivoted in the doorway until he was facing her again, then leaned his shoulder against it. His long black coat rippled as he folded his arms, mirroring her body language. Quietly, he said, “I know you don’t like me. And that’s fine, because truth be told, I’m pretty much a jerk. But together, you and I, we can end this whole thing before anyone gets hurt.” He held up one pale hand, thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “All I need from you is one teensy little favor.”
Opal’s throat had gone dry. Every instinct within her insisted that she needed to throw this Gothic sleaze right out the door and go wash out her ears with soap. But still, what could it hurt to just hear him out, just for a minute, if it meant saving Dru and everyone else? Not to mention saving the world? It was just one conversation. She could always say no.
Frowning, Opal toed the purple carpet at her feet. “What kind of favor, exactly?”