Breath of Magic

by Teresa Medeiros

  Tristan was already out the door before Sven's mumbled, "Yes, sir," could reach his ears.

  Arian crept out from beneath the wilting hydrangea bush at nightfall to discover her hair had frozen and the icy drizzle had changed to snow. Although the swirling flakes were a vast improvement over the rain, the bitter wind cut through her dress like a blade. She rubbed her eyes, disoriented from sleeping the day through. She would have preferred to have stolen a few hours of sleep the night before, but every time she found a comfortable bench and dozed off, some uniformed man would poke her in the back with a stick and order her to move on.

  After fleeing the Tower and wandering the city streets for what seemed like an eternity, Arian had discovered this pastoral haven. She had feared she might be terribly conspicuous in her tattered dress and tangled hair, but there were many others like her in this place. Lost souls wandering aimlessly down the darkened paths, some staggering and muttering to themselves, others pushing wheeled carts crammed with the meager extent of their worldly belongings. One old man huddled beneath a sodden blanket had fixed her with such a piteous look that she had knelt and pressed the wad of green bills Sven had given her into his palsied hand.

  Some instinct told her there was nothing to fear from these kindred spirits. They, like herself, had been betrayed and abandoned by those they believed in the most.

  The ones she feared were the ones who watched her from the darkness with sharp predator's eyes. The stealthy ones, who stalked her through the shadows, moving only when she did until the arrival of another surly officer would send them scurrying for cover, the predator becoming the prey. Those were the ones who had driven Arian under the hydrangea bush, forcing her to burrow beneath the fallen leaves like some small, frightened animal until sleep claimed her exhausted body.

  She stretched as she emerged from her nest, but the motion failed to thaw her rusty joints. The sound of cantering hoofbeats, so woefully out of place in this harried century, made her heart beat a trifle bit faster. She barely had time to jump out of the way before a mounted patrolman went galloping past.

  She stared after him, thinking he might be the same officer who had introduced her to his beloved Bathsheba.

  He drew hard on his reins, wheeling his mount in a prancing circle. Pointing a black-gloved finger right at her, he shouted, "Hey, you there! Freeze!"

  Beneath his helmet, he was just another stranger, no different from any of the others who had harassed her throughout the night. Since she was already freezing, Arian turned and fled, seeking the shelter of the towering trees. Hugging herself, she raced down the nearest path, weary of shadows and longing for the mundane comforts of lights and people.

  It didn't take her long to emerge on another bustling city street. People rushed past, bumping and jostling her as if she were invisible, the collars of their heavy woolen coats turned up against the biting sting of the snow. They weren't like the people in the park. They obviously had somewhere warm and dry to go.

  Their rudeness and apathy jarred Arian. When she had walked the streets on Tristan's arm, it was as if he had cast an invisible shield of protection around them both, forcing others to keep a polite distance or suffer the consequences.

  But that magical shield had been withdrawn, she reminded herself bitterly, and the sooner she reconciled herself to its loss, the better off she would be.

  The aroma of roasting meat drifted to Arian's nose, making her nostrils twitch and her mouth water with yearning. She hadn't realized how hungry she was until that very moment.

  She followed the delectable smell to its source only to have her spirits plunge when a man poked his head out the window of a big silver wagon and bellowed, "Hot dogs! Git yer fresh dogs here!"

  She watched steam waft off the fat sausages while her hollow stomach argued with her sensibilities, understanding for the first time why it was the poor who considered cat such a delicacy. Perhaps it was a good thing she had left Lucifer in the haven of the penthouse.

  Arian had to stand on tiptoe to peer into the window of the wagon. "Excuse me, sir. Might I have a" – she could not quite suppress a tiny shudder – "sausage?"

  Grease drizzled from the thing as he slapped it on a split roll. "That'll be three fifty."

  Arian stared up at him blankly.

  He leaned out the window, eyeing her ragged dress and the scuffed maid's shoes she had once worn to Bloomingdale's with a cynical eye. "Damn leeches," he muttered. "I'm sick of the whole lot of you. I'm already supporting your deadbeat generation with my hard-earned tax money and you still have the nerve to come begging for food. Hell, you probably make more bilking the government out of your welfare check than I do trying to make an honest living."

  Arian began to back away from the wagon. She wasn't sure what she'd done to incense the man, but his already florid face was turning an alarming shade of scarlet.

  "Go on!" he shouted. "Get the hell out of here! And while you're at it, get a job!" He punctuated his tirade by slamming down the wagon window, climbing into the front of the vehicle and racing off, gunning the motor so hard Arian was nearly smothered by billowing blue clouds of exhaust.

  "Well!" she exclaimed, when she could strangle out a breath. "He shouldn't go around offering hot dogs to strangers if he's going to be so stingy about giving them away."

  With a pathetic flounce of her wilted skirts, she turned in the opposite direction and marched down the sidewalk, her ire increasing with each step. Her hunger only worsened her mood, and before she realized it, she had worked herself into quite a fine temper. And made an intriguing discovery.

  Moping about feeling sorry for herself had only intensified her shivers, but being furious with the rest of the world invigorated her. Her face was aglow with heat, her fingers tingling with delicious warmth. She clomped along through the deepening snow, cursing hot dog vendors, the Reverend Linnet, Wite Lize, her anonymous papa, and every other faithless man born since the beginning of time. She hated them, she decided, but she hated her husband most of all. She hated him so much she nearly lost the rhythm of her stride and fell down.

  She quickly discovered another benefit of her mounting wrath. As long as she was stomping and muttering beneath her breath, her face screwed into a fierce scowl, people tended to give her a wide berth. A few of them even went so far as to cross the street to avoid her. Their cowardice gave her a particularly savage satisfaction.

  She traveled in that manner for several blocks, so lost in her vehement musings that she never noticed the decreasing crowds, the scattered gunfire, the perpetual wailing of the sirens, or the fact that most of the street lamps along the narrow avenue had been shot or broken out. But she could not ignore the bass throb of the music assaulting her ears. She paused, frowning. At least she thought it was music. There was no hint of melody, just an incessant beat, so deep and profound it shuddered the soles of her shoes.

  The music seemed to be emanating from a dimly lit storefront with blacked-out windows and a lighted sign that read Woodrow's. At least Arian assumed it was supposed to read Woodrow's. Both w's and an r had burned out, leaving a sputtering oodo's in its place. It wasn't the exotic beat that lured her in, nor the enticing promise of shelter and warmth. It was the unmistakable aroma of roasting pork. Not dog, not cat, but pork. Already envisioning a steaming boar's head with a juicy red apple propped in its mouth, she pushed open the splintery door.

  Arian could not have known what a sight she made. She stood framed by the swirling snow like an alabaster idol of a voodoo queen, her hair frozen into icy dreadlocks that would have been the envy of any Rastafarian.

  A tense finger stabbed the button on a rectangular black box. The music stopped dead and everyone in the smoke-hazed room swiveled around to gape at her.

  The lighting was so murky it took Arian nearly a minute of frenzied blinking to realize that every face regarding her with such an alarming mix of disbelief and hostility was a different shade of brown.

  28

  When Tristan b
urst through the ramshackle door of the Harlem club, gun in hand, the last thing he expected to find was his wife sitting next to a young black youth, picking out Motown tunes with one dainty finger on an old upright piano. Her other hand was occupied with what appeared to be the remnants of an entire rack of barbecued ribs.

  Their eyes met, hotly, briefly, before she plunked out an off-key chord, dismissing him as if he weren't risking limb and life by charging into this Harlem dive to rescue her from God-only-knew what gruesome fate.

  It was all Tristan could do to keep from groaning aloud when the lanky young man unfolded himself from the bench. His oversized khaki jacket sported the colors of one of New York's most dreaded street gangs. Two of his compatriots rose to flank him, folding their arms over their scrawny chests in deceptive repose while others watched from the smoky shadows, their eyes shining with wariness.

  Their commander's intelligent gaze flicked to the Walther, then back to Tristan's face. He sighed and rolled his eyes, as if it were nothing out of the ordinary for some wild-eyed, wealthy white man in Bruno Magli shoes and a Burberry coat to bust into his establishment, waving an antique automatic weapon. Expecting a bullet to tear through his flesh at any minute, Tristan kept the gun leveled at the kid's heart.

  "Hey, man, chill out," the youth drawled in a soothing baritone. "We don't want no trouble here."

  "I don't want any trouble, either. I just want my wife."

  The kid cast a puzzled glance over his shoulder. "He your pimp?"

  "No," Arian admitted sullenly, sucking one of the ribs clean. "He's my husband."

  Tristan's fierce relief at finding her was eclipsed by a flare of irritation. Although damp and bedraggled, she looked both well rested and well fed, two qualities that had eluded him for more than thirty-six hours. As the tantalizing aroma of barbecue wafted to his nose, his stomach rumbled a protest at the injustice of it all. Fighting to hold the gun steady, he ran a hand over his haggard face, feeling hungry enough to eat an entire pig. Raw.

  "Arian," he croaked. "I'd like to take you home now."

  The budding Sir Galahad stepped between them. "Don't hassle the lady, man. She don't have to go nowhere she don't want to," Another worried glance at his lady fair. "He ain't a cop, is he, honey?"

  Tristan held his breath, knowing that if Arian misunderstood the question and said yes, she was about to become a very wealthy widow. A lone cop in this particular section of Harlem was a dead cop.

  She finished off the last rib and tossed it over her shoulder. "No. He's a heartless wretch."

  Tristan could not argue that point. As her champion drew an Uzi out from beneath his jacket and leveled it at Tristan's head, he understood why the self-assured youth had looked less than intimidated by the Walther. "You want me to shoot him?"

  Arian licked the dripping sauce from her fingers. She actually seemed to be considering the offer. Her brow finally puckered in a crestfallen scowl. "I suppose not."

  Galahad shrugged and tucked the Uzi back into his jacket. Tristan took that as a cue to lower his own weapon. "Please, Arian. Come with me."

  She rose from the bench, her dark eyes reflecting a bewildering array of emotions – longing, resentment, wariness. "Where are you taking me? Jail?"

  This time the weapons emerged with a minimum of clatter, an Uzi or shiny Tec-9mm in the hand of every youth in the room.

  Galahad looked distinctly sulky. "I thought you said he wasn't a cop."

  Arian shoved the barrel of his Uzi aside with chilling disregard. "He's not. He doesn't want to take you to jail. Only me."

  Ignoring the impressive arsenal, Tristan stretched out a hand toward his wife. "What I want is to take you home."

  Arian took one reluctant step toward him, then another. Before she could change her mind, Tristan drew off his coat and swept it around her shoulders, realizing as he did so that her dress and hair weren't damp. They were soaked.

  "You take care of her," young Galahad warned. "She's a little…" He tapped his temple in the universal symbol for "daft" before breaking into a broad grin that made him look even younger than the seventeen years old he probably was. "A few more piano lessons and I'd have had her doing a mean Tears of a Clown."

  Grateful to the bighearted kid for far more than just not blowing his head off, Tristan reached for his back pocket only to realize he'd left his wallet back at the Tower. He eyed the youth's scuffed Army boots. "What size do you wear?"

  Caught off guard by the question, he blurted out, Ten."

  Tristan reached down, tugged off his loafers and tossed them across the room. "They cost me five hundred dollars. If you can't wear them, you can always sell them. And if you ever need a job, come to Lennox Enterprises on Fifth Avenue and ask for Mr. Lennox. I could use someone like you in Security." He smiled wryly. "Or Legal."

  Tucking Arian beneath his arm, Tristan guided her toward the door. She turned her earnest face up to him. "Did you know that all of these charming young Negro lads are freemen? Isn't that extraordinary?"

  Tristan winced, hastening their steps, but the gang members only laughed, plainly more bemused than offended by her politically incorrect assessment.

  As soon as they were out the door, Tristan grabbed her hand and began to run.

  They had to run nearly a dozen blocks, the wet snow crunching beneath Tristan's socks, before they encountered a gypsy cabbie bold or stupid enough to cruise the fringes of Harlem after dark.

  Tristan's possessive grip on Arian did not relent, not even when they were settled into a back seat that had spilled out more foam rubber than it had ever held. After peeling off his wet socks and stamping his frozen feet to restore feeling to them, he hauled her against his side, ignoring her wiggle of protest.

  Arian hated to admit it, but she was actually grateful for the arm that bound her to Tristan's seductive warmth. Although the cab's ancient heater was roaring full blast, Arian could still see her breath. Her chill was returning with a vengeance to wrack her with helpless shivers. Tristan drew her even closer and she accepted his unspoken invitation to rest her cheek against his sweater-clad chest and warm her icy hands between his own.

  "How did you f-f-find me?" she forced out between her chattering teeth.

  "A cop in the park spotted you and said he thought you were heading north. It wasn't too terribly hard to track you," he added dryly. "There aren't that many Puritans in Harlem."

  Arian cast his face a searching look, but his set features revealed less than nothing.

  Traffic wasn't heavy on a Sunday night and they arrived at the front door of the Tower within minutes. The doorman rushed from his post to throw open the cab door, his face shielded from the cold by a heavy muffler.

  "Pay the cabbie," Tristan ordered, whisking Arian past him and through the revolving doors to the lobby.

  "Yes, sir! Whatever you wish!" the doorman called after them, tossing off a mocking salute. No one but the apathetic cabbie saw the malicious twinkle in his rheumy blue eyes.

  By the time they reached the penthouse bedroom, Arian's shivers had deepened to shudders. She staggered beneath a flurry of sneezes. Fighting to maintain his usual brisk efficiency, Tristan whipped his coat from her shoulders only to discover her sodden dress was clinging to her skin like an icy shroud.

  A pang of dismay seized him. Never had he so regretted not being able to offer her any of the trite, homey comforts he had so stubbornly denied himself. What good were the frivolous luxuries of silk pajamas and satin sheets to a body chilled to the bone? He wanted to button Arian into a long flannel nightgown, wrap her in a cozy quilt, and rock her to sleep on his lap in front of a roaring fire.

  Brushing the snowflakes from his own damp hair, he prowled the bedroom, seeking solutions and compromises.

  Arian watched him, her apprehensive gaze reminding him that they had resolved nothing. A wall of mistrust still stood between them. But at that precise moment, Tristan didn't give a damn. He only wanted to make her stop shivering.

  Sud
denly inspired, he strode into the bathroom and wrenched on both faucets of the sunken whirlpool tub. Hot water poured out in steaming gouts. Fearing the harsh fluorescents might sting Arian's weary eyes, he dug several stubby candles out of the linen closet, lit them, and placed them around the tub's marble rim.

  When he returned to the bedroom, Arian was fumbling with the buttons of her bodice, her fingers too stiff with cold to be very effective. Tristan eased them aside and took over the task, peeling the wet fabric from her shoulders. It wasn't until her small hand closed fiercely over his that he realized she wore no bra.

  "It's all right," he said softly, gazing deep into her eyes. "I am your husband."

  The argument didn't sound convincing, even to him, since he'd certainly done nothing to earn the privilege. But she relented anyway, allowing him to proceed. By the time he'd breached the last of the copious buttons and drawn the wet garment over her head, his own hands were shaking with want.

  Gazing upon her unadorned flesh, it wasn't such a stretch of the imagination to believe she did not belong in his mundane realm of cellular phones and fax machines. With her damp curls tumbling about her face and her eyes burning with fierce pride, she possessed an ethereal, almost otherworldly beauty. She was part witch and part faerie, the sort of enchanted creature one expected to find perched on top of a mushroom or emerging from the heart of some exotic bloom, her milky skin glistening with nectar.

  Tristan swallowed hard, his earlier hunger eclipsed by a far more primal desire to make love to his bride.

  But Arian was still trembling. More with shyness now than cold.

  Tristan swept her up in his arms and carried her to the bathroom, allowing himself only the brief, guilty thrill of holding her naked body against his clothed one. He tested the temperature of the water before lowering her into the tub and turning off the faucets.

  Arian sank into the steaming water and just kept going, her groan of innocent pleasure intensifying the pulsing warmth centered in Tristan's groin. She disappeared inch by voluptuous inch, submerging her slender waist, the generous swell of her breasts, her creamy shoulders, and finally her dark, tousled head.