by Karen Ranney
There had been an almost indiscernible strain between his mother and wife. He’d never been able to put his finger on what it was. The two of them had never fought. They’d never exchanged a harsh word. Still, there had always been something there.
“So, to recap, my father is a powerful wizard, but I have the capacity to be even more powerful since you’re also a witch. His wife wanted to kill me. Tell me, does she still want to kill me?”
“She died some time ago.”
“But good old dad is on the warpath, is that it?”
She frowned at him. “This is not a joke, Derek.”
“I don’t believe in magic,” he said, enunciating every word slowly so that she wouldn’t have any difficulty understanding him. “In fact, I don’t believe anything you’ve just told me.”
He decided to ignore the fact that he was still caught up in her web.
She didn’t look upset about his comment. Instead, she smiled slightly. “I expected nothing else. You’ve been carefully shielded from anything that had a hint of the divine.”
“The divine?”
“What else would you call it, Derek? To be so close to the pulse of earth that you can alter the wind, command rain, send birds as your messengers, and tap into the force of nature itself. Isn’t that the essence of divinity?”
He pulled at the web and to his surprise it released him. The strands disappeared, leaving no residue behind. He wondered if they’d been real at all or something he’d imagined. Had the coffee been laced with some kind of drug?
“You can deny your heritage all you want, but it will catch up with you. I don’t doubt that it’s already started.”
He glanced at her over his shoulder.
“People will come for you, Derek. People who believe that you have the capacity to be even more powerful than your father and that you pose a threat to them. Only a few of us know that you have no training and until today you didn’t know about your heritage.”
He wasn’t a damn wizard. He might be the son of another crazy person, someone who billed himself as a practitioner of magic, but he didn’t have to go along with the insanity.
“I don’t believe in magic.”
He approached the front door and would have opened it but for the arc of electricity that suddenly obscured the knob.
Cautiously, he took a step back, glancing at Grace. “I don’t know what you did, but I’m leaving and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
“I haven’t done this,” she said, her voice holding an odd tone.
Reaching out, he was about to grab the doorknob again when the arc flared once more.
He turned and faced her. “If that’s not you, then what is it?”
“You said you didn’t believe in magic. But magic believes in you.”
“You have to be doing it.”
She shook her head. “I’m not doing anything. I give you my word.”
When he didn’t say anything, she smiled.
“You have so much to learn, Derek. Just because you renounce a gift doesn’t mean that the gift goes away. There’s enough magic in the world that hasn’t been claimed and it will find its way to you one way or another.”
She looked at the doorknob and then back at him. “That’s what’s happening right now. I imagine that it has been happening to you for your entire life, but you’ve never noticed.”
“I hate to disappoint you, Grace, but I’ve had a very normal life until the past two weeks.”
Her smile didn’t dim. “No transformers that blew in your neighborhood? No light bulbs that only lasted days instead of months? No devices that failed but couldn’t be repaired? I think that technicians probably told you it was a one in a million glitch.”
He felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. The guy at the phone repair place had said almost those exact words. Plus, in the last year he’d had bad luck with two computers, one laptop for his personal use and the other his desktop Windows machine. Both had to be replaced because they’d unexpectedly failed.
“You don’t have to take your rightful place as Jeffrey’s son, but you do need to protect yourself against those who are coming. And, you need to control the magic around you.”
He frowned at her but couldn’t think of a thing to say.
She went to the table by the archway and picked up a green leather bound book with gold letters. He didn’t understand Latin so he couldn’t translate it.
“This is for beginners in the art of magic. Learn what you can, Derek, if for no other reason than to protect yourself.”
He hadn’t meant to take the book from her, but he found himself reaching out, their hands touching. Time seemed to oddly slow in that instant. He was tired. He was grieving. Whatever he was imagining would pass in time. All he had to do was to return to his normal life, at least as much of it as he could.
Once more he reached for the knob, determined to open the door. She put her hand on his arm.
“Wait.”
Something was happening. It felt like the charge was running through him. He was suddenly a conduit, a part of the electricity.
“Ad quos eieci te,” she said, holding out her right hand, fingers pointed at the knob.
The sensation immediately vanished.
This time when he touched the doorknob nothing happened.
“Cool trick.”
He didn’t look at her when he opened the door. Nor did he turn as he walked across the porch and down the steps.
He would never see Grace Colson again. He would never have to subject himself to her particular brand of insanity. A wizard. He was as far from a wizard as a frog was from a Boeing 737.
Okay, there might have been some electrical issues in his past, but that didn’t mean anything. Nor did he care about who his biological father was. The man had provided sperm and that was it. Derek might have some of his DNA, but what he did with it was his business. He had no intention of believing in magic or that he had any ability in it.
Harry Potter had a lot to answer for, not the least of which was everyone running around thinking they were wizards.
What a bunch of crap.
He tried to start the car, but nothing happened. He pushed the button again, but it didn’t respond. Finally, he dug his keys out of his pocket and tried to start the car the old-fashioned way.
Grace was standing in the doorway, one hand extended toward him. He could have sworn he saw lightning coming out of her fingertips.
He needed to get some sleep.
He wouldn’t put it past her to have somebody disable his car while he was inside her house. He knew how those things went. When you were trying to convince someone to your cause, a little chicanery often helped.
She surprised him, though, by coming down the steps, her hand still extended.
“Get out, Derek,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. He hadn’t paid any attention to her expression, but now he realized she was frightened.
“Please, Derek, if you never listen to me again, listen to me now. I beg you.”
It was ridiculous to put any credence in her fear, but he got out of the car anyway. He was halfway up the walk when she grabbed his arm, and pulled him with her. Instead of heading back toward the front door, she rounded the side of the house.
The explosion was loud enough to rock the neighborhood.
12
They both flattened themselves against the stucco.
The explosion felt like an earthquake as the house shuddered against Derek’s back. Plumes of black smoke colored the air and he could hear pieces of metal falling around them, striking the trees and the roof. The acrid stench of fuel, smoke, and burning electrical wiring coated the inside of his nose.
He was probably in shock, but he felt oddly calm, as if the explosion hadn’t been meant for him.
Grace still had her hand on his arm, just like Angie when he was a kid in the passenger seat of her car. Every time they stopped suddenly she would throw out her arm and brace it acro
ss his chest as if that would do anything to protect him. She’d still done it when he was in high school.
“It’s a mother’s reflex,” she told him one day. “You might as well get used to it.”
He glanced down at Grace.
“If Angie was such a good practitioner of magic, why did she die? It seems to me that if you do spells you could whip one up for yourself.”
Grace smiled at him, patted his arm, then led the way back around to the front of the house without answering him.
The neighbors flooded out of their houses, all of them staring at the hole in Grace’s driveway. SUV size, it was rimmed in black and boasted a forest of metal sticking up out of the ground.
“Does it really matter what you believe now, Derek? It’s obvious that someone believes you’re a danger.”
“I’ve been involved in some high profile exposés in the last year. Three of them. Any one of them could have sparked something like this.”
“Why now? Why target you here?”
That was one question he couldn’t answer.
The sound of the police sirens were joined by the distinctive tone of a fire engine. That was probably a good idea since the ruin of his SUV was still smoldering. Maybe there were pieces that were hot enough to start a blaze on any of the roofs of the small houses in the neighborhood.
Damn, he’d really liked that SUV.
He’d never seen a car bomb take out that much of a vehicle. Normally the interior was burned, but the structure of the car was left intact. Not so in this case. Whoever had wanted him dead hadn’t spared the explosives.
At least Grace wasn’t trying to tell him that it was an attack of magic. Small miracles.
Holy crap on a cracker. Derek’s car had gone up like a firecracker, only one about fifty thousand times as strong. Ellie had never seen anything like it. It was a vertical explosion with the SUV rising about ten feet in the air. Then it just came apart like a china piggy bank hit with a hammer.
She probably should have backed up a little bit, but she was so amazed at the sight that she stayed where she was, in front of the next door neighbor’s house.
The neighbors were all coming out in various stages of dress and mobility. Some of them had canes, walkers, and one spry old guy was on a Segway. The man across the street was in a wheelchair and he and a woman in scrubs came out on his porch to gape.
The sound of approaching sirens was enough for her to leave, but she didn’t just yet. Derek was her assignment. His safety and security were her primary concerns. She just wanted to make sure he hadn’t been injured.
When the phone rang she answered it without looking.
“Report,” the voice said.
“It was an explosion, sir. Derek’s SUV was destroyed.”
“Is he injured?”
“No, sir, I don’t think so.”
“Find out.”
“Yes, sir, I will.”
Ellie sat there watching as the police arrived. They stood on the grass, speaking to both Derek and his mother. She’d seen Grace Colson from time to time at NASACA meetings, but had never met her. Grace was way above her in ability and rank.
A few minutes later she called the Elder and reported that Derek was uninjured. The voice on the other end of the phone didn’t sound relieved. Instead, she could hear the irritation in his tone and wondered if he meant to divulge that.
She pushed that thought to the back of her mind to think about later.
Derek couldn’t leave Grace’s house for at least two hours. The police asked him some astute questions, things he would have asked anyone else in a similar situation. He didn’t have any answers for them, however. No, he didn’t have any enemies that he knew about. Some politicians weren’t very happy with him, but he doubted they’d resort to violence. Instead, they’d try to get him fired. Yes, he got hate mail, but he always had. No threats to blow him up, however.
After calling his insurance company, he tried to make arrangements for Grace’s driveway to be repaired.
“Thank you for your generosity, but it’s not necessary, Derek. I’m not without resources.”
Most people in a similar situation would’ve taken advantage of his offer.
“How did you know?” he asked, as they watched the firemen foam the driveway. “How did you know there was a bomb?”
“I felt it.”
She had to stop saying things like that. Or he had to start anticipating that she would startle him.
She looked up at him, her blue eyes so much like his filled with tears. “Thank you for listening to me.”
“I’m the one who’s grateful.”
They stood there together, mother and son looking at each other. He couldn’t help but wonder what she saw when she studied him so intently.
Something landed on his shoulder and he flinched in surprise.
“Oh, dear Bubbles. She likes you. Not that I’m surprised. She probably senses your abilities.”
The cat jumped off his shoulder and onto Grace’s with the precision of a born athlete.
He didn’t know much about cats, especially Siamese cats, but Bubbles was a beauty. Her bluish green eyes were oddly humanlike in her angular face. She sat curled in Grace’s arms examining him intently.
He almost wanted to apologize for being more of a dog person, but, then, Bubbles probably had already figured that out.
Grace handed him the green book he’d dropped earlier. “Read it. Practice.” Standing on tiptoe she pressed her lips against his cheek. Once more he got that feeling of electricity traveling between them.
“What did you just do?”
When she looked at him again she was smiling. “Only a few people would’ve felt that. I blessed you with the spell of protectiveness. It will make you cautious in dangerous situations.”
He wanted to tell her that he was a reporter and that the most danger he faced was someone having a tantrum or yelling at him. He was silenced by the sounds of the machinery loading the mangled pieces of his SUV onto the flatbed truck.
Maybe he should start being a little more cautious. Someone wanted him dead.
Grace watched as her son drove away, trying to still the rush of panic that was making her heart race.
Derek was the offspring of a wizard and destined to become one. Her own ancestral background was filled with strong individuals, people who were a whisper away from the pinnacles of power.
She’d known how much danger Derek was in from the moment she realized she was pregnant. She’d also understood that his birth needed to be kept secret.
Someone had discovered who he was and even worse what he had the potential to do.
She hoped he took her advice, but she had a feeling that Breanna was right. Derek was stubborn and fixed in a certain reality — that there was nothing more than what he saw, felt, or heard.
She would have to do what she could to protect him on her own.
“Come, Bubbles, we have work to do.”
She led the way, the decor changing as she walked, the house assuming its rightful age and shape. In actuality, her home had been built in England, hundreds of years earlier than the missions of San Antonio.
She hesitated in front of the the iron studded door. The ancient oak was four inches thick and had been transported to Texas from a castle in Scotland. Each time she opened the door she placed her hand flat against the wood, feeling the warmth of it. There was still life there and it pulsated against her palm.
She bowed her head slightly, murmuring the words she always said each time she crossed this threshold. "Thank you for your gift to me."
Once in the Great Room the cat jumped up on Grace’s scrying table and began to clean one paw.
Many individuals believed that magic could be a hobby, that it was nothing more then a few incantations, certain herbs or fragrances, and the proper bowls and instruments. They were doomed to failure in the practice because they hadn’t been born to magic. It was like having blue eyes over brown. However much y
ou wanted to have blue eyes you could not change your nature. You could wear contacts that might give your eyes a bluish hue, but you would never truly be a blue-eyed person.
Nor would posers ever truly be practitioners of magic.
Derek was coming into his own. She’d felt that when he’d driven up to her house.
There was always a possibility that this would happen. She had honestly thought that it might occur when he was a teenager. Adolescence had a way of powering a transformation yet nothing had happened during those years. Derek’s twenties had been as calm, without any overt demonstration of his abilities. However, he affected people around him. He convinced without cajoling. He charmed without being aware of it. In his thirties his abilities grew, but again not in a way that most people would notice.
No doubt the NASACA Elders thought that not using his power would dissipate it. The opposite was true. Grief — one of the strongest emotions — was causing him to grow even stronger. He was going to break through all the protective shields woven around him. When that happened she dreaded what would occur, especially as ignorant as he was of his own abilities.
Breanna had been right. He had needed to be told. Her only mistake was in confessing to the Elders that she was going to let Derek know about his heritage.
They’d killed her for it.
First, Grace cleared off the table of all extraneous items, placing them on the second shelf out of the way. Then she poured fresh water into her scrying bowl. Jeffrey had given it to her, back in the days of her innocence. She’d always thought that he had imbued it with some of his power because she always saw better in it than any other bowl.
In the first terrible days after she’d given Derek up, she’d spent hours watching the surface of the water, desperate for a glimpse of her child, her baby, her precious son. She’d wondered, at the time, if the scrying bowl had been sentient. She’d never been able to see Derek. Instead, regardless of how she tried, she’d only seen a white haze.
