by Cherry Adair
“I’m glad for you, Jack. I know how passionate you are about documenting the leys. The Wizard Council should find you an Aequitas geologist to work with instead of an interior designer. Unlike you, I have no interest in either the existence of the Omnivatics or natural disasters. I have enough problems with my wallpaper suppliers.”
Jack bit back a smile. “Funny.”
“But true. Look down there, that’s Inga and Ida in the Martin.” On the snaking road below, a little red car followed the curves before being lost under the tree canopy again.
“What do we do for transportation when we get there?”
“We keep vehicles at a small private airport just outside of town. I’m really very annoyed with you for shooting Alberto, Jack,” she said. Typical Sara. Out of left field, straight to the gut. “You’re a powerful wizard—you should have been able to use one of your powers to subdue him.”
“Want me to rewind that scenario for you? My powers didn’t work worth shit. Neither did yours. I did what I had to do.”
She was quiet for a minute; then her sigh came through the headset, rasping against the hardened edges he’d fortified around his heart. “I know. Damn it, I know. I hate, hate, hate that it happened. And I hate even more that a man I know and love was capable of doing what Alberto did today. It was as though he was … possessed.”
“Maybe he was.” Jack wanted to reach out and touch her, but resisted. The last time he’d done that, they’d ended up naked in a shower. Right then, he liked her hands on the cyclic and the collective and her feet on the pedals. She had the sexiest feet of any woman he’d ever known, soft and pretty and very sensitive. He dragged his eyes away from her toes with their screaming red polish and little diamond pinkie ring. “Look, we have an opportunity here to gather some facts and present them to the Council. Maybe we can make a difference.”
She made a rude noise. “Like saving the world? Come on, Jack, you didn’t believe all the theatrical BS, did you?”
“Let’s just say I don’t disbelieve it. They have compelling data—even you can’t deny that.”
“Maybe it was the way it was presented. The setting was pretty impressive, certainly intimidating. All of them in black cowled robes, the Head of Council playing with fire, the call to arms …” She waved a hand.
“Make no mistake—they’re the real deal. And don’t forget it. Just because you attended a regular boarding school instead of wizard school doesn’t mean that magic, and all that goes with it—the good, the bad, and the terrifying—isn’t true.”
She glanced at him, her eyes concealed by her sunglasses. “But a group of souped-up wizards out to take over the world?”
“Fifty Aequitas dead? The entire Archon dead? Yeah, I believe it.” Jack glanced down at the trees below without really seeing all the green. “Omnivatics and Aequitas are both very real. Just because Omnivatics have been quiet for centuries doesn’t mean they don’t exist. The Omnivatics saw—hell, see—humans as a natural resource, to use and discard. The Aequitas believe in human rights.
“The Omnivatics always wanted to rule. Historically, it’s been thought that their deadline, for want of a better term, is in 2012—the end of the world according to the Mayan calendar.”
“I’m trying to remember what my dad told me about Omnivatics and Aequitas in one of our rare bedtime stories on the subject. Wasn’t the deal that the Aequitas slowed down time until they could figure out how to stop them?”
“That was part of the myth, yeah.” He tried to stop thinking about her feet, but then he fixated on her lipstick-glossy mouth, with the full lower lip and the little dip in the upper—“A few minutes a day to literally buy time. But, yeah, our job in the beginning was to slow things down until the Omnivatics can be stopped.”
She tapped her finger on the controls as she listened. She always had been a good listener—but stubborn, extremely damn stubborn.
“I’m not sure how Ophidian’s comet plays into it, though,” Jack continued. “A precursor to the end of the world? A necessary component? I don’t know, and obviously, neither does the Council. But somehow, the Omnivatics found their way inside the Archon and killed everyone. …” Jack didn’t share how that thought scared the crap out of him. He liked to be the one in the know. Failing that, someone should have a fucking clue.
“Now, that is damn scary, Jack.”
“Yeah.” With any luck, all this had nothing to do with Ophidian’s comet, and he could get back to the leyline in Australia. If he could stop looking at Sara’s mouth and concentrate on the job at hand, not bring up anything inflammatory, and not think about sex at precisely the same second Sara did. He didn’t think he could handle not having sex with her if he found himself naked with her in the shower again.
It didn’t mean he was still in love with her. Shower sex could be as simple as scratching an itch. Right. Only if you planned to scratch an itch with a backhoe.
“We need to find out everything we can about the Omnivatics. How can we do that?” She glanced at him, the jungle blurring beneath them. Except for the mountain range nearby, it was hard to get a bearing. The damn jungle all looked the same to him.
“I have access to ancient texts.”
“Good. We need to study what we can. The more informed we are, the better chance we have of actually pulling this off.”
“I agree. I’ll teleport the stuff here once we get back to the hacienda. We can do some homework.” It was an excellent idea. Sara was smart and organized. Whereas he preferred going by the seat of his pants, she was inclined to be meticulous. There was a place for both in this clusterfuck.
For the next ten minutes, he let static and the occasional voice from the tower fill the silence and tried not to imagine what was slithering among those trees below. As a ten-year-old, he’d had a run-in with a disgusting ball of mating snakes while on an “adventure” in Africa with his father, an avid hunter. Tumbling into a ravine and being swarmed with writhing bodies had been terrifying. Not to mention painful.
It would have been curtains for him if his father hadn’t acted quickly and teleported him to a hospital for treatment. He still had vivid nightmares about that day.
After he recovered, he almost ended up back in the damn hospital. His father had beaten the shit out of him for being a pussy and stupid enough to fall among the snakes in the first place.
That experience, coupled with everything he’d learned about the Omnivatics over the years, had given Jack a healthy resolve to keep the hell away from snakes of any kind. As the jungle below receded, giving way to asphalt, concrete, and steel, Jack—the man who liked country better than city any day of the week—breathed easier.
“THAT’S THE AIRPORT DOWN there. Grant’s Cessna is the one next to the building. We have a pilot on call, but Grant likes to fly as much as I do,” Sara told Jack absently. In fact, Grant himself had taught her to fly a single-engine plane. “He comes into town and spends the night at least once a week. Oh, hell—I hope he doesn’t bump into the twins. I think he’s got another girlfriend in town, and he won’t be happy if he sees them when he thinks he’s being discreet.”
“Three girlfriends? The guy must eat Viagra like M&M’s,” Jack said dryly.
“Oh, I think he’s got more than three girlfriends. We have a don’t-ask policy, and believe me, I’m fine with that.”
“Why? You don’t want him nosing around after your lovers?”
“Exactly,” Sara told him breezily. She hadn’t had a lover since Jack. She was still working up to dating, let alone having another man touch her. She’d get there. Eventually. None of which was Jack’s business.
“Who should we say we are when we go to the police?” She brought the helicopter down lightly beside Grant’s plane, powered off, and removed her headset, lightly running her fingers over her hair. “The authorities aren’t going to just give two people off the street information when we ask if anyone in their jurisdiction has gone insane in the last few months.”
Jack put his headset with hers. “We’re cops with the San Francisco PD. Here’s your ID and badge.” He materialized two small leather cases in his open palm, then handed one to Sara and slipped his own into his shirt pocket.
Sara opened the leather case. The ID card with her photo and the police badge looked like the real deal. She glanced at him and couldn’t help the grin she felt tugging at her mouth. “Wow. Ever thought of a life of crime?”
“Sure. It’s the life behind bars part that deters me.” He looked serious, except for the twinkle in his eyes.
She didn’t want to be charmed by him. Thank God she was immune.
Broiling heat enveloped Sara the second she opened the chopper door and stepped onto the tarmac. By unspoken agreement, she and Jack picked up their pace and hurried to get into the marginally cooler shade of the Quonset hut.
“Unfortunately, this garage isn’t climate-controlled. Brace yourself.” She unlocked the side door, and Jack followed her into the dark, stifling heat of the enclosed space. Three late-model, black Land Rovers were parked side by side with Grant’s yellow Hummer. Sara frowned. “Grant must’ve gotten a ride with William.”
She caught herself before she made some comment to Jack about Grant’s increasingly odd behavior of late. It wasn’t a big deal, she told herself. Financing pressure could account for his frequent absences, but it didn’t explain some of the other slightly off behaviors she’d started noticing in the past several months.
What was he hiding? She hoped to hell it wasn’t a serious problem with any of the hotels—investors dropping out, strikes, union problems. Hell, in this part of the world, gang payoffs were a huge financial burden for business owners. Whatever it was, she hoped he trusted her enough to share the problem with her. She might not be able to fix whatever it was, but she had a right to know.
“What’s the matter?” Jack asked.
Maybe Grant had a new and demanding girlfriend, and Sara was overreacting. She shook her head. “Not a thing.”
She got into her Land Rover and opened the overhead door of the garage while cranking up the AC in the car. “Let’s do a circle,” she suggested, mentally mapping out a route that would take them to the police stations and hospitals with the least amount of doubling back. “The first precinct is on Compo de Carabo, which is only five minutes away.” She left her door open as the air kicked in, and took out a lime-green hankie with palm trees printed on it to blot her forehead. Jack didn’t seem the least bit affected by the heat. On the other hand, he’d started off the trip dusty and disheveled. Freshly showered and smelling altogether too good, but still in need of a Laundromat.
He adjusted his seat to give himself more legroom. “How many are there?”
“Four, and two hospitals.” Sara slammed her door shut, and Jack followed suit. It was like being enveloped in damp cotton batting. “I think we can hit them all before it gets dark. I’m not crazy about flying at night.” At one point in their past, he would have teased her about “hitting” them all. Now he didn’t even crack a smile.
“The crime rate is astronomical here,” he pointed out, fiddling with the air vent on his side. “I read that it’s bad enough during daylight hours, but nobody in their right mind drives around here at night.”
Jack was right. The crime rate—homicides, armed robbery, and kidnapping in and around the city—was legend, and the police presence made absolutely no difference. Sara rarely came into town on her own and was quite prepared to use magic if she was in any danger. She preferred living as normal a life as possible, but when magic served her, she used it. Jack was right about that, but she was damned if she’d tell him.
“All of our company vehicles are bulletproof.”
“That’s great—until you have to get out of the car,” he said dryly. “I’m surprised good old Grant doesn’t supply you with a platoon of bodyguards or at least a Kevlar suit.”
She smiled. “He offered, and I do use guards if I have to come to any of the job sites alone. But I figured I’d be safe with you. In the car,” she added. Because, of course, she knew she wasn’t safe with Jack. Not even close.
“This shouldn’t take long if we ask the right questions. How many hotels are you building?” He slouched back as she pulled out of the garage and crossed the private landing strip to head to the entrance to the autopista.
“Five to start, a total of seven by the time we’re done. We’re beginning with Cali, Guayaquil, Ica, and Punta Arenas, as well as here. William procured amazing properties, and we’re building luxury spa resorts, some with penthouse condos. We’re already in phase four here in San Cristóbal—design and construction.”
She ignored the way Jack rode the imaginary brake on his side as she drove defensively through the crowded streets. It was every man, woman, and flock of sheep for themselves. A year of driving here had given Sara a healthy appreciation of she-who-hesitates-gets-run-into.
“Must keep you busy.”
“It does, but I love it.” She adroitly avoided a collision with an aimlessly wandering cow crossing three lanes of cars. “Pia’s terrific, and I have a great staff here. Even though this project is considerably bigger than the eight hundred rooms we built in Turkey, it’s way more laid-back.”
Talking about the project in Turkey brought back a rush of memories. She and Jack had met when she’d taken a rare vacation after the completion of that job almost three years ago.
They’d both been visiting friends in Lake Tahoe. She’d enjoyed the party given by his friends; he’d been bored out of his mind. She should have known right then that what they thought was instant love was nothing more than infatuation compounded by incredible sex.
Maybe the fact that they were so different had been part of the attraction, like polar ends of a magnet. Total attraction—but incompatible in every other way. Jack was solitary to her gregarious. She was Ms. Fullcharge; Jack was laid-back. She was walks in the rain; he was naps when it rained. Naps had usually turned to making drowsy love under their down comforter, the first household item they’d bought together when she’d moved into his house in Tahoe.
Sara wondered if Jack still had the house, or if he’d sold it.
“You like it here.” He dragged his gaze away from the street—clearly believing he had to keep ever-vigilant—to shoot her a quick glance.
It wasn’t a question, but she answered anyway, because she didn’t want to remember making love while rain beat a tattoo on the roof that matched the syncopated beating of their hearts.
“I like the people here, and I love my work. I log a lot of flight time, which is a great bonus.” In this sweltering heat, she could smell remnants of starch in his shirt. Who’d bothered to put starch on his work shirt? Was he seeing someone? The pain accompanying the thought shocked her. She was over him.
No, she wasn’t, Sara thought with brutal honesty. And that was the problem with seeing him again. She’d loved Jackson Slater more than she thought she was capable of loving anyone. Half of her loved him still, and the other half remembered all the reasons why she hated him.
It was a razor-thin line, and she’d barely learned how to live life balanced on it. His unexpected reentrance into her life was throwing her off-kilter. “What about you, Jack?” she asked, keeping her tone casual. “After Australia, will you still be searching for the ever-elusive leys?” The search for the mysterious energy lines linking vortices of the earth had always been Jack’s personal quest.
“Not—” He jerked upright. “Watch that kid on a bike on your left—shit! Christ, Sara. What’s the penalty if you hit someone?”
“Not a whole hell of a lot,” she told him cheerfully as the kid flipped her the finger and pedaled to safety. “You were saying?”
He shook his head. “That just took ten years off my life.”
“Elusive leylines?”
“They’re not elusive if you know what to look for. And I do. The power emanating from the one in Western Australia is off the charts when you go de
ep enough.”
Jack was passionate about everything he was interested in. It was one of the things she’d loved about him. “Do you think that’s what was responsible for you knowing I was in danger?”
“I suspect Edge was right and Baltzer’s place is also on a ley—I’m going to look into it. And yeah, I think both of us being on powerful leylines at the same moment contributed to the unusually strong connection. What else could it be?”
“I don’t know, but I prefer communicating via my cell phone.” Although Sara doubted Jack would’ve picked up if he’d known she was the one calling. Oh, Lord. She wished he’d never come here. Looking at him made her stomach churn and her chest ache. She tightened her fingers around the leather-covered steering wheel because the urge to push his too-long hair off his face was driving her crazy. Old habits died hard.
“That’s the police station across the street.” She slowed to let several cars pass.
“You’re not going to do a U-turn right here, are y—hmm. Okay.”
She had to back up a couple of times to complete the turn, to the accompaniment of a few honking passersby, but she finally parked. The police precinct was housed in a crumbling old building that desperately needed a stonemason.
“You don’t look like a cop,” she pointed out as she pulled in at an angle under the shade of a giant African tulip tree. The dark leaves and vivid orangey-red blooms of the Spathodea campanulata were striking against the almost painfully bright blue sky. Sara loved the shockingly bright color of the flowers, and had had several of the graceful trees planted around the hacienda. Another reason she enjoyed living here—the wild profusion of brilliant flowers growing everywhere.
Jack magically switched the dusty pants and shirt for a clean white cotton shirt and jeans, and swapped out his hiking boots for his favorite cowboy boots. “Better?”
