This Magic Moment

by Susan Squires

  The stone floor was vast, stretching into shadows of the hall. Thomas had no frame of reference for a room like this. Bright lights shone on a huge machine like an insect with heavy blades sagging atop a spindle at its crown. Men walked around, looking busy. Many wore small hats with bills. Some were handing boxes up to a man who stood in the bowels of the machine. A man with huge growths on his ears, or perhaps a hat with bulbous flaps, sat in the front near the windows. This was the helicopter, very different than Morgan’s airplane, but he could see the similar purpose. There were seats in the front. That man must be the pilot. The pilot drove the plane like Phil drove the car.

  The empty space echoed with the shouts of the men. He hoped they didn’t know him. They would return him to Morgan. She would not be pleased. The elevator doors began to close. He darted out as the doors thunked shut. He was committed now. He strode over to a pile of wooden boxes that could conceal him from the helicopter. On the way, he passed a chair with one of the billed caps on it. He snatched it up and shoved it on his head, pulling the bill low. The place smelled of petrol, like cars. As he watched, the man in the back of the helicopter jumped out. There was a grinding, shrieking sound above. Thomas looked up to see the roof splitting. Through the growing split, stars shone. He had not seen the outside for days. He now realized how stifling that had felt. This was how the helicopter would escape this vast hall.

  “Where are the passengers?” the pilot yelled to the men.

  “I’ll check,” one of the men shouted back, and put a small box up to his ear. He turned away, putting his finger in his other ear. The other men were strolling away in the opposite direction to where Thomas hid. Several took out small white sticks and put them in their mouths before they set them burning with matches. No one watched the back opening of the helicopter.

  This was his chance. He grabbed a box. It was heavy. He tried to keep his breathing even, his stride loose and natural as he crossed to the helicopter. The pilot glanced to him as he got close. “One more,” he yelled. He shoved the box into the dark bowels of the insect and heaved himself up after it.

  In the dark, close area he had to stoop. Trunks and suitcases and boxes were stacked into the back, restrained by tarps and ropes. Thomas slid out of sight, as he saw three men enter the huge hall. He recognized Napoleon Bonaparte and William Wallace but not the other one. That one wore a cap with a laurel wreath embroidered on it, and had a prominent nose. They crossed the vast space, talking among themselves, and climbed into the compartment with the seats.

  He heard a voice that struck fear into his bowels.

  “You know your jobs,” Morgan said.

  She was standing just outside the passenger door. If she looked this way…

  “We shall be in touch,” one of them responded.

  The blades of the helicopter began to turn, picking up speed fast.

  A man slid a door closed over the passenger compartment. Thomas heard the pilot’s door thunk shut as well.

  Morgan glanced back to the open doorway of the rear portion helicopter where he crouched. A man in overalls moved to shut it.

  “Wait.” He could see her lips move but the roar of the helicopter drowned out the sound.

  Thomas’s heart leapt into his throat. He wanted to crouch down further, but movement would only draw her attention. Behind Morgan, flames thrust up out of the pile of boxes where he’d been hiding earlier. Morgan jerked around. The whirling blades overhead fanned the flames. The man slammed the door of Thomas’s compartment.

  “Get out of here,” Thomas heard the man yell faintly, then dash toward the flaming boxes.

  The helicopter rose steadily. Thomas staggered to the door that had a single small window in it. The stone floor of the hall receded. Morgan stood, pointing to the growing flames as men came running, holding metal cylinders with long flexible tubes protruding. As the helicopter rose into the sky above the compound, men sprayed a white foam on the fire. It didn’t seem to help.

  Suddenly, Thomas was surrounded by stars. The desert stretched out below him in the moonlight. The spiky plants made it look like Dante’s version of hell from the Divine Comedy.

  He heaved a sigh of relief. He had done it. He was on his way to rescue Tammy Tremaine from her prison on the Palos Verdes Peninsula and the tyranny of her family who were keeping her from her destiny with Morgan. And with Thomas. That felt so right. Thank whatever powers there were for the fire. The distraction had been just what was needed to set him on his journey.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‡

  Tammy sat in her bedroom with the windows open to the late September ocean breeze, her knees clutched to her chest. The moon lit the ocean in a channel of silver.

  Taking care of the animals had numbed her to her predicament for a while. She’d come upstairs and opened her tablet to research eyesight. Thirty percent of horses were myopic like Cally. Who knew? She’d have to try Gwen, just for comparison. And what about birds? Their eyesight was supposed to be phenomenal. What would it be like to see that precisely?

  No, no! She couldn’t be seduced by the rush of getting a power. Her stupid power wasn’t of any use to anyone anyway. Just another secret she was burdened with, at least until she got clinically depressed or, less clinically, batty as a loon.

  She felt tears fill her eyes, again. And then she felt something else.

  Oh. My. God.

  She could feel the Clan guy moving closer. It had been happening for a while, she realized. It had just been an itchy feeling, not specific. But suddenly, she was sure.

  Wait! she wanted to yell. You weren’t supposed to be able to feel where your destined mate was until you’d, you know, done it with him. That’s what Drew said happened to her and Michael. And Maggie said the same thing about Tris. This whole thing with her and the Clan guy wasn’t following any of the rules. She’d known he was her Destiny immediately. Well, that was like Drew and Michael. But now she was feeling where he was? Even though he was really far away? She could feel that too! Maggie and Drew both said it got less intense the farther away they were from their mates, until it pretty much went away with any real distance. Of course, they also said not having the connection left them feeling bereft and hopeless. Hell, she had them beat on that score. She felt bereft and hopeless because she could feel him.

  He was coming this way.

  Damn. Was he bringing Clan with him? Was there going to be another attack on The Breakers? She had to warn the family.

  But that way was dangerous too, because she’d have to explain how she knew.

  She pushed herself out of bed, drawn to the window. Her bedroom on the second floor looked out over the ocean. The stables loomed in the darkness off to the right.

  They’d know she was tied to a Clan member. Maybe they wouldn’t believe her. Or maybe they’d think she was luring them into combat with the Clan, that she’d already betrayed them for her chosen One. What to do?

  She’d go ask Michael to see whether any Clan members he could identify were coming closer to The Breakers. But if Michael couldn’t what did that prove? It only meant they were cloaked. But apparently even Jason couldn’t Cloak her sense of her Destiny.

  Panic started to overwhelm her. Okay. Okay. She didn’t have to tell them she knew the Clan was coming. But she had to get her family looking for an attack, just in case.

  She raced to the door and stumbled down the stairs. Was anybody still up? The lights were on in the office wing. Maybe Kemble…

  The conference room was empty. Kee had evidently called it a day. Scratch that—night. It was after midnight. She burst into Kemble’s office to find him hunched over his computer.

  He jerked around, surprised. “Tammy, what are you still doing up?”

  She stood, frozen. What to say? “Do…do you think the Clan will attack The Breakers again?” Her voice sounded squeaky and tremulous.

  Kemble’s eyes got big and he started to look around as though someone else was in the room. “Calm down, Tamsen.
Let me…let me get Jane.”

  “I just want to know we’re protected. I mean, what if they’re on their way here right now? They could have grenades or powers we don’t know about.” She didn’t have to pretend her breathlessness. “Are you on the look-out for an attack? Are we prepared?’

  Now Kemble looked a little panicky himself. But she saw him swallow. He got up and gathered her in a big hug. She was shaking in his arms. “They’re too busy for us right now.”

  “What?” He wasn’t even going to say they couldn’t get in to The Breakers?

  “Well, the Pentacle is coming into alignment,” Kemble said calmly, resting his chin on her head. “They’re busy preparing for whatever is going to happen then. That’s bad, of course.” He held her away and managed a rueful smile. “But I don’t think we’re top of mind.”

  Kemble didn’t know what she knew. “Has Michael Found them?”

  “Drew and I made him sleep, but so far, nothing.”

  “When did he last look?” But she knew the answer to that. They must be Cloaked. He never would have gone to bed if he had Found them so close. And Kemble would be frantic.

  Instead, he sat her down at the side chair next to his desk. “Want some tea?” He had a little brewer on a table at the opposite wall. “Chamomile won’t keep you up.”

  She nodded, feeling hopeless. Her oldest brother slipped one of the little pods into the machine and punched a button. The drink maker hummed.

  “I know we’re under pressure, Tammy.” Kemble looked guilty. Of course he would. He took responsibility for everything. Always had. And had always felt he wasn’t the man Daddy was. But with Daddy out of leadership commission, it was all up to Kemble. That would be a lot for anybody in the current situation. He gathered himself. “We’ll find out what’s supposed to happen at the confluence of the Pentacle. Drew is searching her visions. We’ll pull through.” He handed her the cup of steaming comfort.

  Tammy was the one feeling guilty. How could she add to his burden by being hysterical She sipped her tea. “Thanks.”

  “And if the Clan comes around…we’ve got a commitment for Navy SEALs to come running from the base in Seal Beach if the security guys and my systems can’t handle them.”

  “A hotline phone?” she asked, mustering a smile.

  “Something like that.” He shrugged. “Just don’t want to cry wolf.”

  “How…how long would it take them to get here?”

  “They have helicopters.” Kemble said. They both knew it might not be fast enough.

  Oh dear. The Clan guy’s movement had stopped.

  Slowly she turned toward the coffeemaker and the north wall of the office. He was there. Miles away. Maybe LAX? That would make sense. The movement earlier had been fast, like a plane. And now it had landed. If her guy were on an attack mission with loads of Clan baddies in tow, they’d be heading out for The Breakers, trying to take advantage of surprise.

  “You okay?” Kemble asked behind her.

  But she didn’t know that was what was happening. She didn’t want to cry wolf. If she felt the guy speeding closer in the next minutes—an hour max for them to get their stuff together from the airport—then it would be time to ante up what she knew and why. They’d have half an hour or so before they could get up here from the airport. That might me enough time for the SEAL backup to arrive.

  “I’m fine.” She cradled her cup and went to the door. “Thanks for the tea. And the hug.”

  She’d wait to see if Armageddon was at hand in her room.

  *

  When the helicopter set itself down on the big painted circle on top of the cement building, Thomas recognized an airport. He had experience with airports, though this one was much bigger than the ones in Athens or Las Vegas. Planes roared over the noise of the rotors. Lights split the darkness. Cars started and stopped on the street five or six stories below and on another one a level above it. People hurried everywhere. Buses puffed noxious fumes as they heaved away from the terminals. The place was alive, though it was late in the night.

  He had to get out of here without rousing the suspicions of the pilots or the generals. He’d had about an hour to think about it.

  So he just opened the door to the cargo area and began to hand luggage out to the men in overalls who scurried up as the blades to the craft slowed. One hopped up to help him.

  “Thank you,” Thomas shouted over the noise.

  “No problem. We’ll get these into the terminal for you.”

  Thomas saw the generals bending to get out of the passenger side. He jumped to the ground and started taking the luggage the other man handed down, all the while scanning the vast surface of the roof. When a man started piling luggage on a big rolling cart, he joined in.

  Some men went over to show the generals where to go to catch their next flights. Thomas put his head down and helped push the loaded cart over to a glass and metal box that thrust up over the flat landing pad. He recognized it: an elevator just like the one in the compound.

  The generals were thanking the pilots and putting on their coats as the elevator doors closed around him, two other men in overalls, and the cart. When they reached the bottom and the doors opened, the two other men pushed the cart out.

  “We can get it from here,” one said.

  “Thank you,” Thomas said, saluting. He’d seen Duncan do that at the compound to indicate that he heard and understood. Thomas too stepped out of the elevator, but as they pushed the loaded cart away, he slid back into the shadows of the bottom floor of the building, behind the large flowering plants that screened it. Open on all sides, it was filled with parked cars.

  He’d done it. He shivered in his denim shirt, but it wasn’t from cold.

  For the last minutes of the flight, he’d been able to feel her. He turned into the building, facing south. She was that way. Far away, but there. He’d wondered how he would find her.

  Now he knew.

  All he had to do was follow his sense of her to get there. He didn’t know how he knew where she was. He’d never known that about anybody else—not that he remembered anyway. He’d never heard of anyone else who knew exactly where another person was without seeing or hearing them. All he knew was he needed to get to her and that she had somehow wormed her way inside him.

  But getting to her was the problem. Morgan had used money for transportation and food on their trip from Mt. Athos. He didn’t have any money. He dared not advertise his presence by asking someone with a car to help. Any one of them might know Morgan and call her when they saw him. He couldn’t go back to Morgan without Tammy.

  Had Morgan missed him yet? He thought not. She would expect him to be sleeping. If she checked on him, she would see the lump in the bed in the dark of his room. He had the night to find Tammy. Would Morgan think he had escaped into the desert? He hoped so. That would give him even more time while she looked. But she might realize he had used the helicopter. She might come looking for him if he was important to her purpose.

  He started walking through the sterile concrete, filled with gleaming vehicles in every color and smelling of petrol. He’d better put some distance between himself and the landing spot. But he couldn’t just show up at Tammy’s house in the middle of the night. He couldn’t break her out of her prison, not alone against the Tremaine clan, not knowing the layout or the defenses. He needed Tammy to help him. She knew those things. So he had to see her alone and convince her to come with him then they would escape together. But how, if she was asleep in her house/prison? Perhaps she was allowed outside for exercise. He must wait for daylight, dangerous as that was, until she was separate from her family and tell her she was wrong to be Morgan’s enemy. Then she’d come back with him and Morgan would be pleased.

  *

  Tammy stood like a statue in her room. The tea was cold. She opened the north window so she could see the lace necklace of lights lining the bay up the coast. You could see all the way to Malibu from here. And there, in the middle o
f the great Santa Monica Bay, was the airport, seventeen miles away. Only one or two planes hung in the air waiting for approach this late.

  He was moving east. Very slowly. It couldn’t be a traffic jam this late. He must be…walking? Why would he be walking? If he were with the Clan, they’d have cars or SUVs.

  But he was walking.

  She blinked as it hit her. No car? That meant he was alone. She sucked in a big breath and let it out. She was relieved, of course. No Clan attack imminent. But a thousand other thoughts cascaded through her head. Why was he alone? And the answer to that was frightening. If she had fixed on him, if he was her Destiny, then…had he fixed on her? Was he coming for her?

  And what did that mean? Had he left the Clan? Could you leave the Clan? Did he need refuge? The Tremaines could take him in.

  But should they? What if he was a spy for Morgan?

  What if he wasn’t? What if he was her chance to have what her siblings had, the Parents?

  And where did all this leave her? What should she do?

  She should tell Kemble and they could go pick him up. Ugh. She might be putting her family in danger. Or if he was trying to escape Morgan, and they took him in, her family would…be her family. They’d grill him about the Clan, and what was going to happen when the Pentacle formed.

  Which could be good. They needed to know that. If Kemble and Michael didn’t go all CIA on him. They might be…over-zealous. Maybe Guantanamo over-zealous? Bad.