Simply Irresistible by Kristine Grayson

said. “You agreed to it.”
    “That was before we were attacked,” Clotho said.
    “Attacked?” Dex asked.
    “It’s a long story,” Lachesis said. “Let us tell it to you in order.”
    So they did.
     
    Chapter Eight
     
    Northwesterners were tough. No matter how many media badges Eris flashed at them, no matter how many autographs Noah Sturgis signed, the police would not let Eris’s rented van past the cordon. Other media trucks sat outside, their little satellite dishes revolving, and cameramen hurried into nearby buildings, hoping to get on the roof. Helicopters flew overhead, their whap-whap-whapping a constant distraction.
    Eris put Sturgis in charge of arguing with the authorities and then inched her way around the side of the van. The rest of her team stood behind Sturgis, listening to his argument—all except mousy little Suzanne, who was interviewing the handful of non-media personnel in the crowd.
    Doing their jobs, as if the jobs were important. Eris would leave them to it. She had a real life to consider.
    For the first time in months, she did actual magic. She slipped into the van and snapped her fingers, spelling herself to Stri’s side.
    Her son stood on a sidewalk in the middle of the cordoned-off area. His shaved head glistened in the sunlight. He had a skateboard under one booted foot, and the other foot rested on the ground. He wore tight jeans, a jacket covered with zippers and snaps, and no shirt. His tattoos appeared to be gone. In their place were more piercings than Eris wanted to think about.
    Around him, car alarms blared, their screeching bleats half of a step off from each other. The cacophony was irritating.
    People peered out of nearby buildings—all of which appeared to be apartments—but when they saw her looking at them, they eased back in, as if afraid to be seen.
    That was when she realized Strife was alone on the street. She snapped her fingers, changing her outfit and hair color immediately, so that no one would recognize her as Erika O’Connell.
    “Took you long enough,” Strife said. He wasn’t looking at her. He was staring at the building across the street.
    She followed his gaze. The building—an eight-story brick building that appeared to have apartments on each floor—was winking in and out, as if it were part of a malfunctioning computer program.
    The only thing that would cause a reaction like that was if a mage’s spell and a psychic’s vision collided. Someone had already put a glass jar shield on the building, so someone else—someone powerful—had to have countered with a protect.
    Eris cursed. “When did this start?”
    “About five minutes ago,” he said.
    “Who got in?”
    “Dunno,” he said.
    “How’d he get in?”
    “Dunno that either.”
    “Did you do a relocate? Centered on the Fates?”
    “The Fates,” Stri said calmly, “are those babies you talked Zeus into spoiling.”
    Eris smiled at the beauty of her own plan. Then her smile faded. “Did you try a relocate using their real names?”
    “Whose?”
    “The Fates?”
    “The Interim Fates?”
    She cuffed him on the side of the head. “The Fate Fates.”
    Strife cringed away from her. “What’d you do that for?”
    “Did you?”
    He kicked the edge of the skateboard, popping it upward and catching it with one hand.
    “Strife?” Her eyes narrowed. She could feel some real temper coming on. “You didn’t, did you?”
    He shrugged. “Didn’t think of it.”
    “You didn’t think of it? You tried fire, you tried smoke feelers, you tried—what? minor explosions to set off those car alarms?—and you didn’t think of the easiest spell of all? The relocate spell?” She grabbed one of the hoop earrings he had put into his right eyebrow and tugged just enough to hurt. “Are you really that stupid?”
    “Leggo,” he said, reaching for her hand.
    “Strife? Are you that stupid?”
    “No. Mom. Please, leggo.”
    “Then why didn’t you do the spell?”
    “Because,” he