Arcane Society Story 01 - The Scargill Cove Case Files

go back up next week after the sale,” Isabella said.
    She watched the two men in women’s sportswear out of the corner of her eye while she rang up the panties. The hair on the back of her neck was standing on end. Goose bumps covered her upper arms. A cold sweat formed between her shoulder blades. Her senses were screaming. Her pulse was pounding. Get out of here. Now .
    Viewed in normal light there was nothing to mark the two hunters as anything other than what they appeared to be: bored shopping escorts waiting for their companions to come out of the dressing rooms. But Isabella noticed that customers in their vicinity edged away from them. The two were probably really cranked, preparing to close in on their prey. As a result they were giving off so much energy that even people without any measurable talent sensed the threat on a subliminal level.
    “Excuse me, I’m in a hurry here,” the woman on the other side of the counter snapped.
    “Sorry.” Isabella smiled apologetically. “Cash register is a little slow today.”
    She pushed the credit card receipt and a pen across the counter. The woman scrawled her name and grabbed the shopping bag containing the thongs. Isabella forced herself to smile at the next customer in line, a young mother with a baby in a stroller.
    “Can I help you?” Isabella asked. Run .
    “I want to buy this.” The customer put a pale blue nightgown on the counter and leaned down to pick up the small plush toy the baby had tossed out of the stroller.
    “This is such a pretty color,” Isabella remarked, falling back on the one day of training the department store had given her at the start of her employment. Always compliment the customer’s good taste . She folded the nightgown in the precise way she had been instructed and reached for a sheet of tissue. “Such a beautiful shade of blue.”
    The woman straightened, brightening immediately.
    “Yes,” she said. “It’s my favorite. Good price, too.”
    “You were smart to get here early for the sale.” Isabella started to wrap some tissue around the nightgown and paused, frowning. “Hmm.”
    “What’s wrong?”
    “There’s a small spot on this gown,” Isabella said.
    Alarmed, the woman leaned over the counter. “Where?”
    “Right here.” Isabella whisked up the nightgown, careful to hold it so that the customer could not see the mythical spot.
    “It’s the last one in blue in my size,” the woman wailed.
    “Don’t worry, I think I’ve got one more in the back room, same color and size. I’ll only be a moment.”
    Nightgown in hand, Isabella turned and went quickly toward the discreet door directly behind the counter.
    She knew the hunter-talents saw her go through the door into the stockroom, but with luck they would not realize that she had spotted them. Even if they were suspicious, they were unlikely to follow her. One of the clerks would be sure to call Security.
    She dropped the nightgown onto a table and started toward the door that opened onto the emergency stairwell. Darlene, one of her coworkers, emerged from between two rows of floor-to-ceiling shelving crammed with boxes of undergarments. She had a stack of lacy bras in her hand.
    “Annie, are you okay?” Darlene asked, frowning in concern. “You look like you’re not feeling well.”
    “I’m fine, thanks,” Isabella said.
    She had used the name and ID of a nonexistent woman named Ann Carstairs to get the job in the department store. There was only one individual on the face of the earth who knew her real name. In the past week she’d been forced to face the possibility that that person, her grandmother, might be dead. If no one knows your real name, do you even exist ? she wondered.
    That’s it, she thought. Stop right there . Negative thinking will get you nowhere . Until it was proven otherwise, she was going to go with the assumption that her grandmother was alive. Meanwhile, her job was to keep herself breathing. That meant avoiding the two hunter-talents.
    “You look a little shaky,” Darlene said.
    “Low on caffeine,” Isabella replied. “I’m going on break. Thought I’d use the stairs to the coffee room. I need the exercise.”
    “Huh.” Darlene hurried toward the door to the sales floor. “Seems to me we get plenty of exercise during a sale. My feet are killing me. I’m going to be exhausted by the time we get off work tonight.”
    “Me, too,” Isabella said. “Would you mind taking the blue nightgown out to