by Ann Gimpel
Stepping forward, he pulled open the carved oak door, gesturing her through ahead of him. As she engaged the deadbolt, she chanted and waved a hand horizontally to the floor before heading for the elevator.
“You can’t cast spells,” he protested.
She shrugged. “Yeah, I know, but it’s the same one Mom always did when she left, so I just do the same thing. I don’t have any idea what those words mean.”
“I do.”
Here we go again.
“You going to tell me?”
“You just asked the spirits of The Tower to guard the gates. No enemy shall pass, nor escape from this portal.” He paused, narrowing his eyes in concentration. “I do believe it worked. Amazing.”
“How can you tell?” She’d always been fascinated by the unseen world, despite her dearth of magical acumen. “Hurry up, goddammit.” She stabbed repeatedly at the elevator button.
He moved a hand downward, and the elevator doors opened. “They require a special touch.” He winked knowingly. “About the other... I can tell because the air currents are different, thicker somehow. Maybe it works for you because you have Eleanora’s blood and, after all, it is her office. I feel her presence every time I’m in there. It trumps everything else.”
“Yeah, I’ve always felt it too,” she agreed, missing her mother’s smiles and herbal concoctions and soothing ways.
The elevator opened onto the deserted lobby. As soon as she set foot on the marble floor, the fine hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She looked about apprehensively. “Is there something here?” She glanced at Jeremy, trusting his paranormal sensitivities to warn her of danger.
“Can we get out through the basement?” At her nod, he jerked her back inside and punched the close door button. The car dropped into the bowels of The Tower.
The bum’s predictions about being cursed rose to prick Cassie. “What was in the lobby?”
“Don’t know. Those things are hard to explain, but something didn’t sit right. A lot of real estate stretched between us and the front doors. I don’t think we would’ve made it unscathed. Let’s see if it’s better down here.”
The doors slid open. Cassie stuck her neck out and craned her head first in one direction, then another. “I don’t feel it down here. Do you?”
“Nope.”
Relief uncoiled the knot in her guts. She moved beyond the electronic doors and came to a halt as she considered what to do next. Jeremy followed her out and, in a totally unexpected move, pulled her against him. His touch was gentle, but sure. She thought about how long it had been since anyone had touched her and then shook her head. It didn’t matter. The warmth of him so close was comforting.
He stood behind her, hands woven round her shoulders. He smelled like bayberry and the exotic scents her mother used to lure spirits. Cassie’s breath caught in her throat. She wondered why she’d never realized how attractive Jeremy was. He was warm and funny and sexy all rolled into one. Desire for him grew in her, sharp and urgent, and she wriggled in his embrace. An obvious erection jutted into her ass.
“Wow! What a lovely surprise.” She tried to turn around, but he held her in place.
He nuzzled her neck. “This is for later, once we manage to extricate you from Tyler.” He laughed low in the back of his throat and ran a string of kisses down her neck.
“Mostly,” he went on, as if they were having the most prosaic of conversations, “I wanted you to know this was here. That I’m here. I can’t go all my life waiting to catch you between lovers. Well, I suppose could—” He teased her neck with more kisses and flicked his tongue in her ear. “I don’t especially want to.”
She felt stupid—and hotter than hell. Jeremy had been by her side for years, and she’d never, ever considered the romantic possibilities. Cassie smiled softly to herself and murmured, “I’ll make sure you don’t have to catch me between lovers.”
“Those were the right words.”
He pulled away and swatted her playfully on the rump, just like the old Jeremy would have. When she turned so she could see him, she caught him rearranging himself. “Where’s your car?” he asked, shooting her a roguish look.
“Not down here. I let Mom’s space go months ago because it cost four hundred bucks a month. I’m a few blocks over in a monthly rental lot.”
“Cassie, you have plenty of money—”
“Because I don’t spend it on unnecessary things. Besides, I was trying to live on my engineer’s salary—before I quit my job.”
He held up a hand. “All right. Stand down. Thrift is a virtue. Back to our problem. It’d be best if we avoided the front of the building. Just in case—”
Cassie bit on a knuckle as she considered the possibilities. She wasn’t anxious to confront the unseen menace in her lobby again, either.
“Do you want to risk the catacombs?” she asked. A high note in her voice betrayed her apprehension, but she couldn’t get rid of it. “Only way out of here other than that takes us right past the main entrance.”
“Do you know the way?”
“Yeah. I’ve used that route before to get to my car, but there’re so many bums...” She shrugged. “Now, Mom, she actually liked it down there. I think there were artifacts or something she hunted for.”
Chapter Four
“Eleanora always was drawn to the obscure,” Jeremy muttered. He looked preoccupied, and Cassie assumed he was considering their choices. “The ’combs might be easier to deal with than whatever was in your lobby. I suspect Tyler did something once he knew you were here. Or maybe he’d planned it all along, and that was why he called. Mentioning Eleanora was only a convenient ruse. Remember, he specifically asked if you were by yourself.”
She laughed nervously. Other than residual dampness between her legs, her arousal had fled. “That bastard! You don’t really believe—?”
“I do.” He cut her off.
“Crap! Here I was thinking I was cursed with all the shit I’ve dealt with lately.”
“Only curse you’ve had to deal with is Tyler,” Jeremy grunted. “Lots of ways he could’ve laid a trap to snare you. Wouldn’t even have to be here to spring it. Hell, he could’ve set it up days ago and was just waiting for an opportunity.”
“What kind of trap?” Tyler’s threats from the night before replayed in her mind.
She felt more uncomfortable by the minute as she headed for the rickety, rusted stairs leading to the warren of byways carved into Seattle’s hills. Jeremy didn’t reply. Either the answer was so horrible, he didn’t want to give voice to it, or he didn’t know. Her mother always said words had tremendous power, and it was better to keep them inside unless you were prepared for the outcome of turning them loose in the universe. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t answered her. A shudder wracked her body, and she wished she had a coat that wasn’t wet clear through.
As she wound deeper into the stairwell, she moved more by touch than sight. Some of the steps were crumbling, forcing her to slow her pace. The dank odor of wet earth got stronger, mingled with sweat, urine, and shit. She clutched at the handrail, wishing for the bottom. There’d be light down there from the fires the vagabonds lit for cooking and heat. Sure enough, a wavery glow rose to meet her.
The bottom step appeared quickly after that.
“This way,” she mouthed, not wanting to make any more noise than she had to. Wails and eerie laughter came from everywhere and nowhere, magnified by the strange acoustics of the ’combs. Drawings, dating back to long before there’d been a city overhead, adorned the walls.
It was only a fifteen minute walk to stairs that would bring them within a few feet of her car. She imagined herself invisible, had almost deluded herself it was working, when a hoarse voice rose from the fetid near-darkness between the fires.
“Lady, you ain’t been here...”
They think I’m Mother. Maybe I can use that to get out of here unharmed.
“Nah, ain’t da witch—” someone else cut in, a phleg
my cough obscuring the rest of his words.
“Spare a buck?” another voice shouted. “Da witch, she always give us somethin’.”
“Fuckin’ A. This one could gi’ us all ten spots.” An ugly chuckle followed. Cassie trembled, her heart beating faster. She toyed with tossing the contents of her wallet into the darkness and making a run for it. Christ, how many of them were there, anyway? Reaching back, she felt for Jeremy’s hand, but he stepped in front of her.
A rose-tinted globe of light appeared, suspended above his clasped hands. He casually wrapped his long, slender fingers about the base of the light. “You shall let us go by,” he suggested, his voice dangerously smooth.
So formal and old-fashioned. Like Mother used to talk...
“Nah. We ain’t waitin’ for you to magic us up,” a man cried.
A hand shot out of the ether and grabbed Cassie’s wrist. Shocked, she came to an abrupt halt. “Let go of me,” she screeched, trying to pull away. The hand was filthy with grime crusted nails. God only knew what kind of crud he carried if those nails broke her skin. She fought harder, but he yanked her off her feet and into a tumble of reeking men, who all pawed at her.
Cassie shrieked. When that didn’t work, she raked her nails down someone’s bearded face. It didn’t even slow them down. The men just hooted and whistled as one tore her top open, exposing her breasts.
“Hoo, look at dem tits,” someone howled. A grimy hand twisted one of her nipples. She writhed, hissing and spitting, but the collection of bone and sinew gripping her may as well have been made of iron. Fear beat a tattoo down her spine. Was she was about to be gang-raped?
“You’re hurting me,” she screeched and batted ineffectually at her captors. Part of her hoped Jeremy had gotten away. Another part prayed he’d do something to help her.
“That’s ’cause you ain’t relaxed,” another bum shouted helpfully.
“Yeah,” someone else chimed in, and then a brand new disgusting hand groped her other breast. Pivoting, she shoved a foot hard into what she hoped were his balls.
A muffled grunt, followed by, “fuckin’ bitch,” told her she’d found her target. The latest hand fell away as the man dropped it to his crotch. She was getting ready to tell them she was “da witch’s” daughter, and there’d be hell to pay if they didn’t let her go, when light flared, illuminating the catacombs. Cassie blinked. She turned her head to shield her eyes against the unexpected glare.
“Take your hands off her!” Jeremy stood tall. Green eyes ablaze, he looked like an Old Testament prophet. His light hung suspended off to one side, the lumens cranked up tenfold. Raising his hands, he lobbed rounds of crackling heat at her tormentors. One screamed as his ratty jacket caught fire. The hands that had been holding her melted away. She heard curses against the evil eye and someone saying it must’ve been “da witch” after all, as she got her feet under her.
Jeremy made a grab for her. He picked up her purse and computer bag, slinging them over his shoulders. “Hurry, Cassie.” He pushed her ahead of him down the filth-laden walkway.
Breath whistled in her throat as she avoided stepping in puddles that stank of piss, all the while modulating terror that made her want to shrink into a howling ball of anguish. It took forever to get to the staircase that would lead them out.
Near the top of the second set of stairs she turned, murmuring, “Thanks. What did you do back there?”
“Nothing.” His normally gentle voice was terse. The eldritch light had long since disappeared.
“That means you won’t tell me.”
“That’s exactly what it means. Now move. I bought us time, that’s all. It’s entirely possible they’re deciding to come after us while we’re standing here talking. That won’t happen once we’re outside.”
Feeling as if she’d stumbled into a bad episode of The Twilight Zone, Cassie pushed leaden limbs up the last of the metal risers. Her mind skittered away from how close she’d come to being an appetizer for those ghastly men. She swallowed down bile sitting at the back of her throat, but it just made her feel sicker.
Out of the catacombs, she pulled the edges of her tattered top together under her inadequate coat. The rain had stopped, replaced by fog so thick you could practically eat it. “This way.” She motioned, so shaky she was surprised her legs didn’t give way. “You can dump my stuff in the back seat once I get the car open.”
Got to get hold of myself. I’m not really hurt. Just scared.
Cassie unlocked the car, pulled off her wet jacket and ruined top, and put on a sweater she kept in the trunk for emergencies. “Are you going to tell me what you did down there?” she asked again as she nosed the car into surprisingly heavy traffic.
“No. It’s not that I don’t want to.” His voice softened. “I can’t. There are strict prohibitions against discussing magic with mortals.” He snorted. “You wouldn’t want me to end up a frog would you?”
“Surely you’re joking.”
“No. I’m not.”
He paused before changing the subject. “How close are you with your Ouija simulation?”
“It’s odd.” She drove at a snail’s pace, grateful to have something to think about other than what just happened. “Some days, I’m only a couple of resistors away from victory, but something unexpected always intrudes. That’s when I fear I’ll never, ever figure it out.”
“You won’t finish it until you get away from Tyler. He likes Eleanora just where she is. Maybe he even needs her there. She’s looked worse every time I’ve seen her. It’s almost like he’s feeding off her. Draining her psychic energy to boost his own.”
“Tyler doesn’t know about e-Ouija—”
“Of course he does. He can read your mind.”
Uh-oh. There’s that thing Mom told me about words. Now that I hear them, I know they’re true.
She thought about the burglaries and when she’d been hacked. “So, uh, how exactly does that work? Can he see everything I’m thinking?”
“Of course not. It takes magic to insert yourself into another’s head. Besides, it would drive someone mad if everything in everyone else’s head bombarded them all the time.”
“So I have no idea what he knows—or doesn’t know.”
A long-drawn out sigh, heavy on the sibilants, had the same effect as chalk scraping down a blackboard. “Just assume he knows everything.”
Sorry I asked.
She shivered convulsively and turned up the car’s heater. Getting rid of Tyler wouldn’t be easy. The previous night’s conversation played all over again in her head. She’d asked him to leave several times before that too. At first he’d humored her. Judging from last night, he was done with that strategy.
“You have any ideas?” She glanced at Jeremy. He sat very straight, arms folded across his chest, staring out the windshield. It looked like he was in some sort of trance. She wondered if he’d even heard her.
They drove in silence. Cassie yearned for a magical solution that would simply whisk Tyler out of her life, so she wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore.
A sharp intake of breath battered her right before Jeremy screeched, “Brake!”
She stomped on the pedal as hard as she could, the squeal of her tires sliding on rain-slick pavement loud in her ears. Her body was thrown forward into her seatbelt before it lurched back and hit the seat, and she felt like a not-so-pliable doll.
“Oomph. Fuck!” She exhaled raggedly, her gaze raking the darkness for whatever Jeremy had seen.
“We missed them.” He blew out a tense-sounding breath of his own. “Thank the goddess.” Following the line of his pointing finger, she could just make out a woman carrying a baby. A toddler held tight to her other hand. The woman’s mouth was twisted in horror as she looked back over one shoulder at the Subaru, while dragging the toddler to the safety of the sidewalk.
“Jesus,” Cassie said shakily. She pulled into the first parking place she could find. “Do you want to drive?”
“B
etter if you do. That way I can watch over us. Come here for a few minutes first.” He held out his arms and she half-fell across the console into them. He twisted his hands into her hair and murmured soothing nonsensical sounds. She thought about turning her mouth up for the kiss that would be there, but she still felt dirty from what happened in the catacombs and shaken from her near-brush with vehicular manslaughter.
She needed answers more than passion. “You’ve never used your magic this much around me. Please, what’s going on?” The steady beat of his heart was soothing where her head lay against his chest. She let him stroke her hair and ease her jangled nerves until she remembered Tyler wanted her home by ten. It was already past that. Fears for her mother bombarded her.
She pulled away, settling back into her own seat. “Why are you using so much magic?” she repeated. “I don’t understand—”
“You’ve never needed it this much.” When he raised his gaze, his eyes looked ancient and otherworldly in the glare from a streetlight.
“Y-you’re n-not human.”
“Neither are you.” He chuckled dryly. “Not with Eleanora’s blood. Never mind your father’s, but that doesn’t matter.”
“What does?” she asked feebly, thinking of all the years she’d hung around with him. Of classes they’d shared. And meals and plays and movies.
Yes, and in all that time I’ve never gone to his home. He always came to mine. He never told me anything about any family. Or his lovers, if he has any. It’s like he only exists in my mind and when he’s with me...
Outside her window, fog rolled around the car, casting macabre shadows.
“Let it go, Cassie. I’m just your friend, Jeremy.” There was a pause. “Who’d like to be...more than that.”
“Why were you waiting in my office tonight?”
“Because you needed me to be there.”
Just like Mom.
A flash of insight slammed into her. “Mom found you for me, didn’t she?”
“No. But I’ve known Eleanora for a long time. Drive, Cassie,” he said wearily. Turning away from her, he took up his vigil staring through the Subaru’s cracked windshield.
