The Vegan and the Wolf, Julie Steimle [fantasy books to read .txt] 📗

was expensive.

Hesitantly, Silvia explained, “I actually wanted to become a stylist and learn from the best of New York. But if I had told my mother or the rest of the coven that, they would have laughed at me and said I could learn to be a stylist in town.”

Audry still could not believe it. She was more stunned than doubtful though. Silvia seemed in earnest.

“No way.”

“Yep,” Silvia said. “I go to NYU posing as a nutrition major—”

“Nutrition major?” Audry never did know what Silvia had been studying.

“Yep. And the coven is none the wiser.” Silvia then added shampoo, massaging in the soap with her fingers. Admittedly, the scalp massage was amazing. It made Audry scalp feel great and her body tingle, the sensation running up and down her neck and arms. It released so much tension in her body. She had no idea how tense she was until then.

“Anyway, after watching Sweeny Todd, I decided wanted to become a hairstylist,” Silvia said.

Audry stiffened.

“Just kidding.” Silvia chuckled wickedly, enjoying the effect. “I actually watched that Chris Rock documentary called Good Hair.”

Audry gazed up at her incredulously. Silvia was now rinsing out the shampoo with warm water. It was too soothing, almost. It most definitely put people in a vulnerable position. Sweeny Todd indeed….

Silvia’s voice resonated from above as she continued to talk, mostly venting. “I had no clue what a big deal African American hair was. Of course with the modern political climate, no one would let a ‘white girl’ like me handle someone’s ‘fro, even if I was good. I’d be accuse of cultural appropriation.”

She then started to apply conditioner. It smelled fresh, a bit like cucumbers.

“So, instead I am into this. One day I intend to own my own salon and sell my own products for all kinds of hair,” she said.

Audry was not sure Silvia was being serious or entirely pulling her leg.

“Your cousin is cute, by the way,” Silva added. “He’s got a cool name too. Vincent.”

“If you are thinking Vincent Price—” Audry protested.

But Silvia cut her off. “No. Of course not. More like Vincent Van Gogh. It’s cool.”

“My warning still stands,” Audry muttered ceiling-ward.

Silvia chuckled, thoroughly amused.

Of course Silvia was in a position to drown Audry if she wanted. Or perform a Sweeny Todd and slit her throat. But Silvia just kept on chuckling as if she thought Audry had moxie. She had Audry sit up so she could wrap her head in a towel. They went back to her haircutting station.

Silvia gently went through Audry’s hair with a comb, and started to trim her split ends. “So… do you think you’ll bump into Howie at this thing at the Plaza?”

Cringing, Audry knew that was going to come up. But she said, “I hear the Deacons don’t like to attend such things.”

Nodding Silvia sighed. “That’s true…”

She snipped some more in silence.

Then Silvia said, “Have you bumped into Harlin again?”

Groaning, Audry resisted the urged to nod. “He showed up at my work and later he tried to follow Vincent and me to the Shops at Columbus Circle.”

“Figures,” Silvia muttered peevishly.

A thought came to Audry as Silvia continued skillfully severing her split ends. “What did you go there for?”

Blinking, thinking on it, Silvia shrugged. “I went to H&M. They’ve got good clothes for sale there.”

Audry stared at her through the mirror. Silvia did not seem like an H&M kind of gal.

“I know,” Silvia chuckled. “I’m living a double life.”

Then another thought came to Audry. “Does Harlin know you work here?”

Laughing, Silvia shook her head. “No way. This place is my haven. Honestly, I was blown that you stumbled into here. But you’re not unwelcome.”

For some reason, that brought Audry immense comfort. She reached into her front shirt pocket and carefully felt for the hairs Rick had given her. When she thought she had them in her fingers, Audry held them out to Silvia.

“I bumped into Rick at work today. He gave me these,” she said.

Silvia stopped her cutting. “He gave them to you?”

Audry nodded. “Yeah.”

“Meaning… you told him about my request?” Silvia stared more, scissors almost trembling in her fingers.

Nodding again, Audry said, “Yes. I don’t think it is right to just take hair from someone’s head.”

Silvia was stunned. She didn’t touch the hair yet, but she stared more at it as if inspecting the color to see if it was real. “But how—?”

“He actually asked about you. He noticed you at the booth, and he wanted to warn me about you,” Audry explained.

Wrapping her fingers around the hair strands, Silvia nodded, tugging them from Audry’s fingers. “I see.”

“And he has a message for you,” Audry said, letting the hairs go.

Staring again, Silvia nodded. “Go on.”

Taking a breath, Audry delivered the message. “He said that if you really want to leave ‘the coven’, then you should just talk to your brother—because he doesn’t think that hair is going to help you any.”

“Huh.” Silvia leaned back, taking all that in. “He said that.”

Audry nodded.

“Wow.” Silvia then looked like she did not know what to do with the hair. She looked conflicted. “But how can Danny actually help?”

Audry shrugged, hardly knowing Silvia’s brother.

Setting the hair on the salon counter, Silvia dusted off her hands and went back to work. Audry stared at the hair there. It was weird. Being a courier in such a peculiar transaction, Audry wondered what was really going on between those two. Was Rick suggesting Silvia rely on her family for protection like Audry had to rely on hers? It made sense. But Audry had to agree with Silvia’s question. If her family was connected to murdering ‘witches’, how could her family rescue her from them? Why didn’t Rick offer bodyguards instead? He had the money.

“He could always hire you a bodyguard,” Audry murmured, thinking on that.

Silvia blinked at her. Then she laughed. Patting Audry on the arm, Silvia said, “Honey, if I needed brute protection, Danny could be a bodyguard.”

Audry lifted one eyebrow. Silvia’s half-brother was a tall, lean sort of man. Bodyguard would never have described him.

“But he’s busy with school, and I don’t think he trusts me,” Silvia murmured. She finished off with the trimming. She then started into combing. She gathered up large rollers and began to comb and roll Audry’s busy hair around them. They were huge and would possibly be used to tame her frizz.

“How’d you lose his trust?” Audry asked wryly.

With a snicker, Silva knew what she was hinting at. “Never you mind. The point is, if I did ask Danny for help, what would he say? What would he do?” She was thinking out loud, rather than asking Audry. Audry could tell.

Audry shrugged.

Once the rollers were on, Silvia wrapped Audry’s head again and took her to the hot air blowers. Setting Audry’s head in, Silvia then worked on waxing Audry’s legs and starting her pedicure. The most amazing thing was, Silvia was gentle going about her work. Her touch was like magic—even when ripping off the wax and treating the sting.

As Silvia went out exfoliating Audry’s feet and treating her cuticles, she murmured out loud, “You know… if he knew I was sincere, he would help me.”

Audry lifted her head, listening.

Gazing at her, Silvia said, “Can you bear a secret?”

Cringing, Audry groaned. She didn’t want to hear any more about witchcraft. “Do I have to?”

Silvia chuckled. “You don’t have to. But, you’ve got a sensible head, and I need someone to bounce my thoughts off of. Nobody else here will understand.”

Audry wasn’t sure she understood, but she nodded.

“My brother Danny is grown up,” Silvia said. “He’s mentally older than my dad because of a traumatizing experience he had.”

“Your town sounds like a traumatizing experience,” Audry muttered, thinking about what Rick had told her about what had happened to Michael Toms and his best friend’s girlfriend, Jessica.

Silvia laughed, nodding. “Yeah…” But then she shook her head wearily. “You know the story about Michael Toms’s kidnapping, right?”

Audry nodded. It had creeped her out. All of it.

“It happened in my town,” Silvia said, trimming Audry’s toe cuticles next.

Audry moaned. She knew that, of course.

“My brother Danny was kidnapped by the same people,” Silvia said. “He as missing for almost two years.”

Audry stared this time. She hadn’t know that. He was also Rick’s friend. Rick hadn’t mentioned it.

“In fact, Howie’s best friend, Andy was kidnapped by them also,” Silvia said.

Audry paled. “What?” She hadn’t heard that either.

“Andy was missing only three days, though,” Silvia explained, smiling as if fond of the memory. “Because Jessica Mason, this really cool girl (and if you ever meet her, don’t tell her I said this)—but this really cool girl who had moved into town went after him and brought them back. She’s Andy’s girlfriend now.”

“Rick mentioned her,” Audry murmured.

Silvia lifted her eyebrows. “Really? What’d he say?”

“That your coven took a knife and cut into her arm,” Audry whispered, peeking toward the other patrons and worker nearby who might be listening in.

Silvia stiffened. But she also nodded gravely. She looked a little stunned that Rick would talk about that. “That they did. But that was waaaay after her finding the missing boys and bringing them back.”

Audry stared at her more. This she did not know.

“You see, the coven tried to recruit her,” Silvia explained earnestly, keeping her voice low. All Audry’s cuticles were finished. She was now working in soothing lotion. “Because she is super cool. She’s, like, skilled at sleight-of-hand. She can break into buildings. And with her experience where she freed those guys and ended a huge curse on the town, she is super skilled. But Jessica rejected the coven and used her access to the Ladies Aid Society building to look for her friend, Michael Toms, whom she knew the coven had taken for a human sacrifice.”

Audry felt sick. It also matched what Rick had said. It wasn’t a lie, dag nab it. She had hoped it had been.

“Of course Jessica’s friends would never allow her to get hurt. She’s got a lot of guy friends out of those she rescued—and they charged in after her.” Silvia was grinning as she recalled it with a certain sense of admiration. “It was the coolest thing to watch. Danny was there with his sword. My mom looked like she wanted to spit nails when those punks interfered. And Semour Dawson, the biggest geek in Middleton High, stabbed Ms. Hill’s hand to stop her from doing worse.”

It painted such a brutal picture. So, utterly barbaric and not-this-era. It was like Silvia’s hometown was an alternate universe. Swords. Stabbing people? Sacrifices? It was sick.

“Maybe I should be asking Jessica for help,” Silvia murmured thoughtfully. “I heard she was here in New York. She is training to be a cop.”

Audry’s mind immediately went to that cadet-in-training whom she had seen talking to Matthew Calamori and that homicide cop in the courthouse the day before.

Topics soon changed. Silvia had put her private concerns out of her speech and talked more about Audry’s taste in makeup to get an idea how thorough they wanted to make her over. Silvia finished with Audry’s feet while another woman came over and did Audry’s finger nails. Nothing spectacular. Just buffing and shaping. Not even gloss. Silvia eventually took Audry back to her styling station and undid the rollers. She combed, weaved and styled Audry’s hair until it was gorgeous. A work of art, really. Audry had never seen her hair look so good in her life.

Silvia gently tugged up the curls she had made, allowing a makeup artist give Audry a simply, light makeup job matching the dress Audry had purchased at Bloomingdales. Then they let Audry use the back room to change so they could adjust anything that needed to be adjusted. They even offered her the double-sided clothing tape to keep sensitive parts of her bodice up and tucked. Silvia personally helped her so she looked flawless.

It was getting close to departure time.

“Do you watch old movies?” Silvia asked Audry as she made one final spray over of Audry’s hair.

The question