Spellbinder: A Love Story With Magical Interruptions

by Melanie Rawn

  “Umm—think nothing of it,” he answered, bemused.

  “I’ve got everything I could find,” Holly called from the doorway, and as she came toward the bed delicious scents came with her. “Cousin Clary said one bulb of garlic is enough. We don’t have any elder flowers or fresh chervil—”

  “Yes, we do. Elder’s in the pantry, upper shelf, same place as the cayenne. Get Alec to reach it for you—you’d only fall off the ladder. The chervil’s in the winter herb pots, right next to the comfrey. Bring me the whole pot, Holly. Let’s see,” she went on, inspecting the contents of the basket Holly placed on the bed. “Fennel, lavender, bay, caraway, sage—”

  She named each of the tins, boxes, vials, and muslin bags as she organized them on the quilt. Holly paused long enough to drag over her desk chair so her aunt could sit down, then vanished, calling for Alec to come help her.

  “—marjoram, thyme, coriander, eucalyptus, cayenne, angelica—”

  Sweat was drying on Nick’s skin in little shivers of cold. He was grateful for the warmth of the quilt—and Bandit curled soothingly at his feet. He watched Lulah take a pinch of this and a bit of that to rub gently onto the malachite and the turquoise around his neck, her long fingers swift and sure.

  “I remember some of these from my childhood,” he said, as much to distract himself from the shakes as to remind her there was a human being involved here.

  “Herbal lore is herbal lore, whether you’re an Irish Witch or a Gypsy. You’ll have to tell us about that one of these days, you know.” A finger touched his lower lip and he opened his mouth reflexively—and two aspirins he hadn’t seen her take from the bottle were shoved onto his tongue. “Although a little modern medicine can’t hurt,” she said as his whole face screwed up with the bitterness.

  “Hmm,” said Alec, coming in to stand on the other side of the bed. He was carrying a small terra cotta pot with something green growing in it. “Clove, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg—are you about to make him into a pumpkin pie?”

  “We have sayings around these parts, too,” Lulah retorted dryly. “One of them goes, ‘Dimple in chin, Devil within.’ Did you take care of that offal?”

  “Yes, ma’am. And we found the elderflower and the chervil, too.” He handed over the pot. Lulah began to pinch off stems and squeeze juice onto the malachite as Alec continued, “Water’s boiled, things are steeping, and Holly and I found a secret stash of Belgian chocolates. So what say we have a tea party at midnight?”

  Nick frowned. Alec was looking much more chipper—without much reason that Nick could tell. But it wasn’t a front for his benefit, that much was obvious when his partner smiled at him. The expression was effortless, unguarded. It made Nick deeply suspicious.

  “Aunt Lulah …” Holly spoke hesitantly, standing at Lulah’s shoulder with a small earthenware teapot cradled between her hands. “We have an idea, sort of. At least, Alec has an idea, but he won’t tell me why.”

  “And this idea might be …?”

  The girl gave her aunt the teapot. Taking a deep breath, glancing at Alec for reassurance, she scratched at the heel of her thumb to open the slight scabs of the early evening’s little accident. Nick stared with his good eye, blinking back reflexive tears as Holly took the malachite oval into her hand, her blood smearing the deep green striations.

  Lulah turned away, biting her lip, pretending to fuss with the teapot. Alec watched Holly with a look of bleak gratification. Nick didn’t understand any of it. When Holly wordlessly held out the stone to her aunt, Lulah shook her head.

  “You do it,” she said gruffly. “Nick, this will hurt.”

  Before he could ask, Holly cautiously but firmly placed the malachite atop his swollen right eye. It did hurt. The weight, the icy chill, the sudden sting of salt tears and blood and herbs and red cayenne pepper.

  Without warning his whole body quivered, rousing to awareness of something other than pain. He could smell the willow, the sage oil from the blue candle, each distinct herb and spice rubbed onto the stones. He could taste the acrid remnants of aspirin on his tongue, and the coffee with chicory he’d drunk after dinner. He could feel the warmth of his partner’s fingers enfolding his own, and hear Bandit’s purr and Lulah whispering something too low and soft for understanding. But more than anything else, he was aware of the rapid beat of Holly’s heart.

  No—her heartblood, thrumming through her veins, pulsing against his eyelid. His own heart began to keep the same time.

  And then the pain was gone. All of it. Everywhere.

  Someone removed the heaviness. He opened his eyes. Both of them. And took in a deep, easy breath.

  “Yes,” he heard himself say, looking up at Alec.

  HOLLY SMILED IN THE DARKNESS. “You do have such beautiful eyes, Nicky.”

  “My sight back wasn’t the half of what you gave me that night,” he replied.

  “Ah, yes—the malachite,” she teased. “Something about one’s heart’s desire, wasn’t it?”

  “Here I’m trying to thank you, and you’re making fun of me.”

  “Thank me for what? Besides Alec, I mean?”

  He took the cigarette from her fingers and smoked it awhile in silence. Then: “I believed in the power of the mind, the manifestation of will. Everything else was nonsense. At least I thought so until that night. Gems, herbs, scents, and so forth—they provide cues to which the subconscious mind cannot help but respond. They awaken parts of us, of our magic, that would otherwise lie dormant. It wasn’t the smell of the sage or the feel of the elderflower infusion washing my eye clean. It was what those things and all the others represented to my subconscious.”

  Holly laughed a little. “You’re the only Witch I know who intellectualizes magic.”

  “But the heart has to be considered, as well,” he said gently. “The heart also responds. It’s the instinct that tells us a new acquaintance will become a friend. It’s the feeling that swells inside you when you hear a glorious piece of music for the first time—you know it will become part of you, that you’ll never get tired of it, because of what it awakens inside your heart. It’s love at first sight.”

  “That’s chemical.”

  “Okay,” he agreed, “pheromones. Why is it different from how the smell of fresh-baked bread makes you respond? There’s magic in everyone and everything.”

  “That’s what you and Alec gave me, you know. My magic, and my freedom.”

  “YOU KNOW NOW, DON’T YOU?” Nick asked quietly.

  His pajamas sweaty and slightly bloodied, he had changed into a T-shirt and boxer shorts to sleep in. But he had never felt less like sleeping in his life. He sat cross-legged in the middle of the Wisteria Room’s big bed, watching as his partner, too, traded his snow-wet pajamas for something clean and dry.

  Alec came to his side, touched his brow with fingers that shook just a little. “Are you sure you’re all right? There’s not even a hint of a scar on your face—”

  “Alec,” he warned, drawing back from the touch. “What is she?”

  He sighed. “Spellbinder.”

  “You aren’t serious!”

  “Aren’t I? Do you honestly believe in the curative powers of herbs and spices and a lump of malachite? Do you truly think I could’ve brought down a stone wall—and stayed alive when it fell on me? It was her blood that quickened the magic. Andreiu wanted her because she’s a Spellbinder.”

  “To kill her.” Nick traced the outline of an oak leaf stitched into the quilt around a tiny sachet of cedar that embellished the meaning. For courage, his memory identified at once, the voice of a Rom wisewoman reciting names and attributes like a catechism. Courage, he thought again, too much courage demanded of a little girl who doesn’t even know what she is. “Andreiu knew that if her blood was used to work a banishing against him, or something worse, he—”

  “No, that’s not it at all.” Alec shook his head, dark hair falling into his eyes to be brushed irritably away. “He didn’t want her dead. He wanted
her undead.”

  “Fasz kivan!” Nick shuddered.

  “If she became a wampyr,” his partner continued ruthlessly, “if they took her, drank from her regularly, used her blood to bind whatever spells and hexes they wished—if she was theirs to do with as they pleased—”

  “Why didn’t you keep him alive enough to burn tomorrow?” Nick demanded.

  “Don’t you think I wish I had?” was the savage retort. “For her, for what he did to you—”

  “I’m all right,” Nick said automatically, taken aback by Alec’s vehemence.

  “Only because Holly is what she is.”

  “Does Lulah know?”

  “She might’ve suspected, but she wasn’t sure until tonight. The wards on Holly aren’t specific enough.” He walked to the window and pulled aside the heavy curtain, staring out at the snow-wrapped fields.

  After a time, Nick asked, “How did Andreiu find out?” then answered his own question. “Her blood must smell like nectar to a wampyr. And she said herself she’s clumsy—a skinned knee, a cut finger—Alec, what will it be like when she reaches menarche, unable to hide the scent of her blood every month?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.” The muscles of Alec’s long back clenched. “You’re the scholar—can we protect her using her own blood to seal the work?”

  “There’s not much literature on the subject, such people being vanishingly rare.”

  “She’s in for it, then, isn’t she? When Mr. Scot finds out about her.”

  “But we’re not going to tell him, are we.”

  Alec said nothing.

  Nick threw back the quilts and got to his feet. “We can’t. Think what her life would be—could you see her caged?”

  “Mr. Scot wouldn’t do that.” He didn’t sound very certain of it.

  “He’d have to, one way or another. Every practitioner in the world would be after her. And there’s only so much blood in the veins of one little girl. For her own protection, she’d have to be kept under glass.”

  “When she’s older, she’ll be able to make her own decisions about what she is and who she wants to be. But for now—”

  “No!”

  “She’s too isolated here,” Alec argued, turning to face him at last. “She needs to be someplace with thousands of people, preferably millions, where her scent will mingle with others and—”

  “No!” he repeated, feeling a chill that a dozen quilts, hexed and sacheted and spelled or not, wouldn’t help. “We’re talking about taking her from everything she knows and loves. We can’t do that to her, Alec. It was done to me. I won’t see her go through the same thing.”

  “She’d have Lulah, and us.”

  “She’d be miserable. If we can keep her safe here—”

  “How?” Alec asked hopelessly. “This house is spelled six ways to next Lammas Night. Andreiu still found her. So will others.”

  “We use those same spells and hexes—only we seal them with her blood. If we work on the house and not her specifically, on her clothes and the like, it’ll work.” He hoped it would work.

  “Oh? And how would we test these hexes? Find another vampire to attack her?” He pivoted on one bare heel. “Or maybe invite the exquisite Madame Liao from Hong Kong to try a few spells on Holly the way she did on you last year?”

  Nick ignored the sudden dark anguish in his partner’s eyes, ignored his own instinctive cringe of memory. “I won’t exile Holly from her home.”

  “Was it really that horrible for you?” Alec asked softly, unexpectedly.

  “What do you think?” Nick retorted, too angry to protect himself with any sort of façade. “I was about Holly’s age when it became clear what I was. And publicly, too—in front of half the town.” He remembered clearly only two things about that day: the absolute certainty that he could make the Russian policeman drop his gun, and the absolute horror on his mother’s face as the Kalashnikov hit the cobblestones. “After that, it was either the Soviet camps or the Rom camps for me.”

  “Miklóshka—”

  “Hungary was well and truly under the Soviet bootheel—gulyás Communism with its hodgepodge of capitalism and collective didn’t last long, you know. What do you think it would’ve been like for me, Alec? The bastard son of a Gestapo rapist and a Hungarian girl—”

  “Gestapo? …” Alec looked sick.

  “You wanted to know about the other three-quarters—well, half of it’s German. I didn’t get the blond hair and blue eyes from Sergei Orlov. He wasn’t my father. This—” He ran a hand through his hair, and finished bitterly, “—is pure Aryan. Polluted, of course, by Magyar and Rom, though you can’t tell by looking at me. You’re not the mongrel, Alec. I am.”

  “Miklóshka,” he said again, whispered this time as if in pain.

  “The Soviets would have experimented on me or executed me as a freak. My mother understood that, and gave me to her mother’s people. Two days after I left, the area commissar arrived to investigate the rumors. My mother vanished—perhaps to a labor camp, perhaps to an unmarked grave. Sergei Maximovitch couldn’t protect her. I learned years later that he tried, but—” Suddenly spent, he sat back down on the bed. “She made the right choice—for me. And she paid for it.”

  “So did you,” Alec murmured. “You lost everything.”

  “I’m alive, aren’t I?”

  “And you don’t want to hear Holly say that in twenty years—not in that tone of voice. Well, neither do I.” He sat on the bed beside Nick, hands clasped between his knees. “All right. We’ll say nothing. We can work with Lulah on protections for her, and come back to renew them every so often.”

  “You’d do that?”

  “I’d do more. I will do more.” He hesitated, then touched Nick’s arm lightly. “Holly, I can protect. You—” He shook his head. “I wish I could have, Miklóshka. In almost four years you’ve never told me half so much as you just did about your childhood.”

  “I—I don’t think of it much.”

  “But it shaped you—bludgeoned you into who you are now.”

  He shrugged, uncomfortable. “Whatever I am, I—”

  “No, I said who. You were born what you are. Like Holly, like the rest of us. But who you are is the sum of what’s happened to you, how you’ve reacted to it. What it did to you and what you refused to let it do.”

  “Is this by any chance your philosophical hour?”

  “Knock it off.” He shook Nick gently. “I’m trying to tell you that I hate what happened to you, but I happen to love who you are.” Smiling a little, he fingered the talisman still around his neck, and there was a warmth and a gentleness in his eyes that Nick had never seen there before. “I should mention another trait of carnelian.”

  “Which is?” Nicky asked a bit breathlessly.

  “Worn next to the heart, it has the power to fulfill one’s dearest wish. Has our Holly that much power as a Spellbinder, to make it real for us?”

  “YOU’RE NOT GOING TO STOP there!” Holly exclaimed.

  “The rest is none of your business,” he replied with a smile.

  “Nicky!” she cried, outraged. “You have to tell me what happened. I mean—did you? That night?”

  He drew back, genuinely shocked. “In your house? With a little girl right down the hall? Good grief, no!”

  “So when—?”

  “You’re relentless, you know that? It was about a week later, actually.” A faint, reminiscent smile played about his lips.

  As sure of indulgence now as she’d been all those years ago, she mused, “You were both amateurs, I know that much. I gather you both improved with practice.”

  “Watch your mouth, young lady.”

  “Hey, you’re talking to the person who spelled that quilt for you two.”

  She remembered sitting around the quilt-frame with Lulah and the other ladies, practically hugging herself with glee at what she knew and the innocents of the sewing circle did not. Careful to do the real stitching on it when alone, sh
e would sit up late, pricking a finger for the blood-drop on a silver dagdyne, a Witch’s sewing needle four generations old, to sew in miniature fragrant sachets of lavender for luck, rose for joy, and sweet basil for good wishes, knowing all would spell true.

  “Not that you needed any magic from me. You two were so perfect together that it practically screamed at me.”

  “What about you and your Evan?”

  “He’s not mine anymore. If he ever was. If he had been, he still would be.”

  “I’m sure that will make sense once you’ve had some sleep.”

  “I’ll try,” she said, and followed him inside the house.

  Nineteen

  THE NEXT MORNING AT ABOUT nine, Nick found his partner seated at the redwood picnic table in the backyard, a black cloth spread before him. Alec was weighing a black velvet pouch gently in his hand, as if trying to make a decision.

  Nick made it for him, in a way. “You haven’t done this in a while.”

  Alec glanced up with a little shrug, and opened the pouch’s drawstring. “Don’t think I didn’t see you eyeing the plain white porcelain cups.”

  Nick snorted. “So we’re both worried about her. She’s still asleep upstairs, by the way.”

  “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she sleeps all day. It’d be good for her, poor lamb.” He spilled the bag’s contents onto the cloth, staring down at colors glistening in the summer sun. “I can’t think what to ask,” he said plaintively.

  Standing behind him, Nick rubbed the sturdy shoulders soothingly. “Shall I play Gypsy before you play with pretty rocks?” He paused for effect. “On the other hand, don’t forget I’m the one who predicted that Al Gore would win the election.”

  Alec half-turned, pointing an admonitory finger. “Do not get me started!” Nick grinned. “Sorry. But one has to be careful and specific. If I’d asked ‘Who will be the next President—’”

  “I mean it, Nick!”

  “Okay, okay. Why don’t we try it simultaneously?”

  Gathering up the thirteen rocks, Alec let them flow back and forth from hand to hand. Click-click, click-click-click. At length he nodded. “Go boil water.”