The Trouble With Spells
Page 22
“I’m familiar with the stuff,” Vance said with a grimace, and he looked at me. “We’d better go light the torches in the dungeon and get things ready before they get back. Stacey, are the construction workers still here?”
“No,” she said. “I think they left to go work on another job for the rest of the day.”
“Perfect,” Vance said, grabbing me by the hand. “Come on, let’s go.”
He led me to the stairs that entered the dungeon, touching each oil-soaked torch when we passed, making them burst into flame. Soon the place was ablaze, and we were standing in front of the cleverly disguised cell.
We passed through the illusion which had been placed in the hallway, stepping up to the real cell.
“Let’s open it,” he said, placing his hands against the glass barrier.
I placed my hands next to his, and together we melted a hole big enough for Darcy to be carried into the cell.
“What now?” I asked him.
“Now we wait,” he said. He grabbed my hand and led me back through the tunnels, up the stairs and out into the hall. “We need to make sure that this door is always secured from here on out, too, so no one accidentally wanders down into the dungeon.”
He waved his hand over the lock, magically securing it.
“Let’s go find your mom,” he said, continuing on down the hall.
We made our way through the keep and back into the sitting room to find Mom sitting next to the monitor.
“Did you see something else?” Vance asked her when we came up beside her. He glanced quickly at the screen.
She shook her head, holding up the portable radio.
“I just heard from Sean. They have her pinned down. They’re just waiting for an opportunity to drug her where no one will notice,” she said, looking up at us. “I’m nervous for them.”
“It’ll be okay, Stacey,” Vance replied reaching out to place a hand on her shoulder. “Sean is an expert in this cloak-and-dagger kind of stuff. He knows what he’s doing.”
Mom just nodded her head, not answering.
I went and sat on the couch. Vance began his traditional pacing across the floor. Things were weighing heavily on his mind.
In the end we didn’t have to wait long at all.
“We have her,” Shelly’s voice crackled over the radio. “We’re on our way back now.”
“Everything is ready for you,” my mom answered her.
“This is it,” Vance said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. “Finally we can get some answers.”
“I wouldn’t get too excited,” I admonished him. “When you were given this injection you were out cold for hours.”
I saw a brief look of disappointment cross his face, before he nodded in understanding.
He was waiting at the front door when the car pulled back into the bailey, rushing down the steps to meet them to help as they pulled Darcy from the vehicle.
Vance lifted her from Sean and carried her petite form easily into the keep. I stepped aside so he could enter.
“Portia, come get the door for me,” he said as he passed.
I moved in front of him and hurried to the sealed door, waving my hand over the lock to release it. I pulled it open, and Vance brushed past me heading down the steep stone stairs.
I let the others pass through the door before I closed it behind me, sealing the lock once again.
We moved quickly down the passageway, trying to catch up with Vance. He was already placing Darcy on the cot inside the cell by the time I rounded the corner and stepped through the illusion barrier.
He came back out immediately. Grandma, Dad and I joined him, and we resealed the glass shield around the cell.
“That should hold her good,” my dad said, stepping back to survey everything. “I want someone with her around the clock until she wakes up,” he added. “Who wants to go first?”
“Me,” Vance said without hesitation.
“All right,” Dad said, placing a radio into his hand. “Let us know when you need someone to trade places with you.”
“Will do,” he said, turning to look at me. “Do you want to stay with me?”
“Yes, but I think I’ll run upstairs and get us some chairs to sit on first so we can be a little more comfortable,” I replied.
“Oh!” Grandma spoke up, turning to the neighboring cell. “I forgot we have an extra cot in here that you can use.”
She went inside and pulled it out, setting it against the wall for us.
“Thanks, Grandma,” I said.
Vance and I both sat down on it leaning back against the stones behind us.
“No problem,” she said, and she patted my shoulder. “Just let me know if you need anything else.”
“Okay,” I said, watching the group disappear from sight.
Vance put his feet up on the edge of the thin mattress then, resting his arms over his bent knees and leaning his head back against the wall, closing his eyes.
“Are you tired?” I asked him.
He opened his eyes to look over at me through hooded lids.
“Not really,” he answered. “Why, are you?”
“No,” I replied to him. “You just seemed tired.”
“I’m tired of waiting on everything,” he acknowledged. “I’m just ready for all this to be over. I want to get my mom and be done with place. I just want to move on and live our lives.”
“Hopefully that will happen someday soon,” I replied with a small smile.
He reached over and patted me on my knee.
“There she is. My ever-the-optimistic lover,” he smiled softly at me, before he closed his eyes again.
When he didn’t remove his hand from my leg, I slid my hand over the top of his, threading my fingers through his, before I leaned my head onto his shoulder to rest against him.
I didn’t close my eyes, though, instead looking at the blood pulsating through his veins, signifying that he was real, alive, and he wanted to be with me. I kept wondering when I would wake up and find that he had only been a figment of my imagination.
“You don’t need to worry,” he chuckled softly. “I’m real, with all of my flaws, and, yes, you’re the only one I want.” He squeezed my fingers with his.
“I just love you. You make me so very happy. I feel like I don’t deserve to be this blessed. I keep waiting for something to come and rip it all away from me,” I explained.
“I’m not planning on ever leaving you for any reason,” he assured me. “But can I point out one thing?”
“Go ahead.”
“Even if the worst were to happen and we were somehow parted, let’s say by death, you and I have experienced a love that most people wait their whole lives just to have a small taste of,” he said.
I thought about that for a few seconds. “Yes, but that’s what makes me so scared,” I replied. “It’s such a wonderful thing that I don’t ever want to lose it.”
“So would you have rather not have ever had the taste than to risk knowing what you’d be missing?” he asked me.
I didn’t have to think long about that one. “No. I’d take every second with you that I could get before you had to leave,” I replied and I wrapped my free arm tightly around his.
“Well, then my suggestion is we live each moment we have together as if it were our last, and then whenever the end does come, we won’t have any regrets. Besides, death will only be a short separation for us. I fully plan on being with you in the next life,” he said seriously.
“Do you really believe all that stuff?” I asked him.
“What? God, religion, and the afterlife?”
“Yeah.”
“Absolutely, don’t you?” he asked me.
“I always have,” I said. “It’s just scary to me now when I don’t have any proof. What if something happened to you, and that was it? Poof, the end?”
“Have faith, Portia,” he said, squeezing my hand. “What kind of cruel God would send us here to earth if he
didn’t have some sort of plan for us? I just don’t believe he’d do that. Plus I plan on you and me living together until we’re very old anyway.” He smiled.
“Great!” I said facetiously. “Then I’ll have to worry about all of my wrinkles and whether or not I’m able to keep you interested in boring old me.”
He laughed then. “Have you ever looked at your family?” he asked me. “They hardly share a wrinkle between them. I think you’ll age just fine, and you could never, ever be boring to me, even if you tried. The real question is whether you’ll still love me when I lose my six-pack and have a beer belly instead.” He laughed again.
“Yeah right. You’re Mr. Perfect Physique. That’ll never happen,” I replied with a smile. “Your family looks pretty fit too.”
He sobered up at that comment.
“I just wish they had the personalities to offset their looks,” he replied with a faraway look in his eyes.
“Your mom does,” I said, trying to cheer him up.
He nodded then.
“Yes, she does, doesn’t she?” he responded.
“She does, and I really like her,” I replied.
He gave a small laugh then. “Isn’t it ironic? You always hear about the horrible mother-in-law stories, and she’s the only person in my family that you even like.”
“I probably would have liked the others, too, in the beginning,” I said. “They just made some bad choices and ended up losing themselves as a consequence.”
“Yeah, all choices have consequences, whether they’re good or bad. They just happened to make all the wrong choices.”
“That’s what is different about you. You try to make good choices. Your mom tries to make good choices.”
“It hasn’t helped either of us much though, has it?” he answered. “We’re still wrapped up in everyone’s bad choices around us.”
“But still you fight for what you know is right. You’re a warrior for what’s good.” I smiled, and he laughed right out loud.
“I wouldn’t exactly call myself a warrior,” he stated humbly.
“What would you call yourself then?” I asked, truly wondering how he would describe himself.
He thought about it before he answered me.
“A dreamer,” he replied, and I was surprised because I never would have thought he would choose that word for himself. “I dream of a wonderful life in a wonderful future with the people I love surrounding me.”
I could feel the rawness in his soul as he spoke, and I knew he had revealed his most tender emotions to me.
“Well, then I’ll make that my dream, and we’ll dream it together,” I said back to him.
He let go of my hand and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me toward him so he could kiss the top of my head.
“I love you,” he said as he hugged me.
“I love you, too, more than you’ll ever know.” I smiled.
“Are you sure I didn’t just lose all of my appeal to you, though,” he said with a chuckle. “I know how you enjoy being married to a bad boy. Now I’m just a dreamer,” he teased.
“Regardless of whatever you think you are, I want every part of you there is to have, Vance. Bad boy, dreamer, lover, tease, I’ll take them all,” I said seriously. “I want you to know I love all of it.”
“Good, I’m glad,” he said with a smile. “Because I want to give it all to you. I enjoy giving it all to you.”
I laughed at him then, choosing to turn his words back on him playfully.
“And I’ve certainly been enjoying the ‘getting’ of it,” I flirted back with him, and I turned around then to face him, pulling his face to mine so I could kiss him.
He chuckled and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me up onto his lap, thoroughly kissing me back while he wound his fingers through my hair and held my face gently up next to his.
I let my arms twist around his neck when he deepened the kiss, sighing, and I leaned in closer to him.
“Ugh!” An unexpected voice broke into our moment. “I see the lovers are still going at it. Give me a break and get a room.”
We both stopped immediately and turned toward the cell.
Darcy was awake.
Chapter 22
Vance slowly slid me off his lap, stood and walked over to the cell. He looked Darcy up and down.
“Well, you’re awake much earlier than expected,” he said, sliding his hands into the pockets of his jeans.
“I assume you’re referring to the little drug I was given? You should know that demons are much more powerful than regular witches and warlocks. We recover from things much quicker,” she goaded him.
“Is that so?” he said, and he removed his hands from his pockets to fold one arm across his chest. He rested his other arm on it and raised a finger to tap on his lips. “Nope. I just don’t recall those demons that I killed being more powerful than I was.” He turned to look at me. “What do you think, Portia? Should we dig up Brian and ask him?” He turned back to Darcy then. “Oh, that’s right! We can’t because he lost his head. Unless he’s still recovering, that is.”
I could see that despite his proclamation otherwise, Vance’s inner bad boy was still running strong and flaming to the surface.
Darcy’s face twisted into her demon form. She let out a large hiss at him and jumped, slamming her body against the glass.
Instantly, the current running behind the magical pane shocked her, and she fell backward to the floor.
Vance looked at her, a long low wicked-sounding laugh coming from deep inside him while he watched her climb to her feet.
“Is that the best you’ve got, Darcy?” he baited her, his eyes flashing in enjoyment. “I’ve got to say, I’m still not impressed.”
“You killed Brian?” she asked him then, her disbelief evident in the tone of her voice.
“Yes, I did. Would you like to see?” Vance said in an accommodating voice, and he waved his hand slightly, gesturing toward the hallway behind him. “I could run out and get him for you real fast.”
“I believe you,” she said, hanging her head in a way that almost made me feel sorry for her.
“Are you sad, Darcy? Surely a demon isn’t capable of any real emotion,” he continued to push her.
She lifted her head to glare at him.
“He was my lover!” she spat at him. “The two of us shared something special together!”
“Did you now?” Vance asked, stepping up to the glass, and I could feel the anger course through him. “Then perhaps you could explain to me why I caught him here, trying to feel up my wife!”
“You’re lying!” she screamed at him, her voice making an earsplitting sound. “Brian would never leave me!”
“Well, Darcy, apparently you just weren’t meeting his needs well enough because he was definitely off looking for greener pastures than you have to offer,” Vance replied with irritation. He had to turn away from the glass for a moment then to cool down. The very thought of Brian in the kitchen with me was threatening to overwhelm him again.
“He was the one who came to comfort me,” she said, raising her chin a notch, “after you killed your father.”
He turned quickly back to the glass at that remark.
“What are you saying, Darcy?” he said seriously, a glowering look crossing his face. “Were you intimate with him, too?”
She paused for a moment as if she were weighing her answer.
“Yes, not that it’s any of your business,” she answered, returning his stare. “He was good to me. I think he even loved me,” she added almost as an afterthought.
Vance let out a quick choked laugh. “Boy, Darcy, you’re really off your mark when it comes to judgment, aren’t you?” he asked incredulously.
“What do you mean?” she asked, her eyes narrowing toward him.
“You are aware that he was still married and that he was flying here to Scotland to have regular relations with his wife?” he asked her, not sugar-coating it at all.
Vance laughed right out loud at this comment.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“I was just wondering if you knew why he was also putting the moves on Portia then while she was his prisoner. He made it very clear that he intended to take her as his lover.” He scratched behind one ear as if completely puzzled.
Darcy turned her glare to me then.
“You’re lying! She was just a pawn to him. I don’t know why anyone would ever want her.” She sent me a sizzling look of pure hatred.
“Well, I could personally give you a thousand reasons off the top of my head,” Vance returned. “But that isn’t why we brought you here.”
“Why did you bring me here?” she asked.
“We need some information,” Vance said with a smile.
“And why would I tell you anything?” She smiled, baring her rows of uneven teeth.
“Well, because if you don’t, I might be inclined to melt your head off your body just like I did to your sweet lover boy, Brian,” he replied in a voice that sounded way too chipper about the idea.
She looked at him hard for a moment as if gauging how serious he really was before a look of fear flashed through her face.
“What do you want to know?” she asked, swallowing hard.
“Where is the box?” Vance asked bluntly, jumping straight to the point.
Another moment of fear shot through her face before she shuttered it again behind her demon red eyes.
“What box?” she answered. She nervously flashed a look over in my direction before flitting back to him.
“Now, now, Darcy,” Vance said, stepping up within an inch of the glass. “Let’s not start playing games. We were getting along so well.”
“I really don’t know what you’re referring to,” she replied, trying to give him a nonchalant look.
“Is that so?” Vance said, looking at her with a hard stare. “That’s funny, considering my father is the one who had the box while he was importing witches and warlocks from all over the world to perform a demon kiss on so he could steal their powers. He was doing that specifically to give him more powers to be enhanced by the Awakening.”