Sophie grounded her sword and raised her visor, looking bewildered. “What just happened?”
“Your friend just came at me with a fiery sword,” Caldwell said through clenched teeth.
Sophie cut her eyes to Michael who held out his hands, palms up.
“Do you see a sword?” he asked. He prayed she had not; he’d created the illusion for Caldwell, but he hadn’t had much time to fine-hone it. Sometimes the magic flowed over.
Her brow creased and she looked back at Caldwell. “What sword?”
“The damn, bloody sword he was swinging,” he replied and then straightened, giving Michael a calculating look, as though he were remembering something. Then he turned to Sophie and shook his head. “You probably didn’t see it. It wasn’t there. The damn thing was only an illusion.”
She frowned. “What are you talking about? Are you ill?”
Caldwell snorted. “I am fine. Your friend was messing with my head.”
Her frown deepened. “How? I didn’t see him do anything.”
“Of course you didn’t. He didn’t want you to see anything.”
“You’re not making any sense. Perhaps we should call a doctor—“
“I’m fine, I told you.” Caldwell pointed to Michael. “He’s the one who’s not normal.”
Sophie’s gaze flitted to Michael and then back to Caldwell. “I don’t—“
“Your friend,” Caldwell interrupted, “is a friggin’ warlock.” He smiled coldly at her surprised expression. “Or didn’t he tell you that?”
* * * *
Sophie sat in the passenger seat of Michael’s sport car, focusing on the traffic flow on Central Expressway as they made their way home from the fencing episode. As usual, it was bumper-to-bumper and speeding along a good fifteen miles over the posted limit, but the flowing mass of metal was somehow comforting today. Normal people doing their normal routines, probably going to very normal jobs downtown and then back to normal lives in the ‘burbs this evening.
Her life certainly wasn’t normal.
“Are you angry with me?” Michael asked as he gave her a quick glance.
Sophie felt a swell of hysteria rising in her throat. Maybe she should just ask Michael to drive over to Parkland Hospital and she’d check herself into the psycho ward. No dragons or warlocks there. Or, if there were, some nice nurse would give her a nice, little pill to make it all go away.
“Tell me you aren’t really a warlock,” she said without much hope.
He gave her another quick look. “Sorry, but I am.”
She drew a shaky breath. “What…what exactly does that mean?”
“Can we wait until I get you home to talk about this? It’s complicated.”
“I want to know now.”
Michael sighed. “I…inherited… special intuitive powers. Over the years, I’ve been trained to use them.”
Sophie looked at him. “Do you curse people?”
“No. That’s black magic. It comes back to haunt you.”
“Do you lure people away? Lock them in dungeons or trees or whatever like that witch did with Merlin?”
A corner of his mouth quirked up in a little smile. “Nope. And Nimue is—wasn’t—a witch. She’s a faerie.”
“A faerie. Of course.” Sophie turned her attention back to the cars speeding past. So normal. Not one of those people had issues with dragons landing on their lawns, or men wearing fire-capes, or faeries flying around. Not to mention a sexy-looking warlock… She snapped her head back suddenly to study him.
“Is this how you really look? Or is it an illusion covering up horns and a tail?”
He grinned and shook his head. “Demons have horns and tails, not warlocks.”
“And I suppose demons are running loose too?” She tried to laugh, but her voice cracked.
Michael sobered. “I can assure you they are. Adam Baylor is one. That’s why it is so important that we find Excalibur before he does. Can you imagine what a demon would do with the kind of power the sword has?”
Sophie felt the blood drain from her face. She turned back to stare at the cars, not seeing them. All this talk of supernatural beings was too much. She was a logical person. There were logical reasons for everything. Weren’t there? She didn’t want to think about fire-breathing dragons or demons from hell, or wherever they came from. Parkland was beginning to sound really cozy.
They rode in silence the rest of the way home while she tried to get a handle on the nonsensical information that Michael had given her. She hardly noticed when he stopped the car in front of her house. Thankfully, there were no reporters lingering about.
“I have one other question,” she said.
“Sure. What?”
“Can you get inside a person’s mind? Know what they’re thinking?”
“Sometimes. It’s easier when someone is angry or highly emotional. They let their psychic shields down.”
Highly emotional. Like in sexual climax. Sophie felt her face grow hot. Did he know about the dream? Dear Lord. Then another thought hit her and she narrowed her eyes. “Can you put thoughts into someone’s head?”
Michael hesitated.
“Can you?”
“I can create an illusion. One time, I created an illusion of being a panther to save a woman from being accosted in a park. This time, Caldwell thought he saw a flaming sword in my hand.”
“And you can make the person actually feel it? Alan thought it burnt his hand. That’s why he threw his rapier down.”
“Yes.”
“Oh, my God.” Sophie fumbled for the door handle and stumbled out of the car. “You were in my head the other night. You put the dream there! How dare you?”
“Wait. I can explain.” Michael opened his door. “I’ll walk you—“
“No. You stay right here. I don’t need any more of your illusions right now. And I thought Robert was a liar! You’re worse! You made me do—made me feel—things—I never… You controlled me.”
With a sob, she turned and ran for her front door.
Chapter Nine
“I told you Sophie called and said she was running late. Why do you keep pacing?” Morgan asked petulantly.
“We had a misunderstanding yesterday. I need to talk to her.” Michael didn’t add that he had gotten her voicemail several times last night.
Morgan gave an exasperated sigh. “That’s no surprise. The woman is as unemotional as Mr. Spock.”
If Michael hadn’t been so tense, he might have laughed. Sophie’s response in the dream they’d shared had been anything but unemotional. Gut level passion and desire burned in her and he’d wager anything he’d owned in his long existence that she’d truly be a wild thing in bed with him as well.
But the dream should never have been allowed to enter Sophie’s mind. He tightly controlled his fantasies. He knew Sophie had been hurt and didn’t trust men. The last thing he would want her to think was that he just wanted casual—albeit it blazingly hot—sex with her.
He hadn’t counted on Tanio hanging around after the full-moon ritual, but that was probably because Pendragon had awakened. They had worked closely forging Excalibur. Still, to invade his dreams—it was something the trickster, Loki, might have done.
“Are you listening to me?”
Michael focused his attention on Morgan. Her full lower lip was protruding in a pout so he must have missed something. “Sorry. What did you say?”
Another sigh came from her. “I said she’s not one of us.”
As if Morgan would know. Michael hadn’t sensed that Sophie was a witch, but she did have some sort of special powers. Protective powers, maybe, since she had instinctively used them to save the puppies from being stepped on.
The counterpoint to “demons from hell” were “angels from heaven” which is how the modern world thought of it. And Avalon, shrouded in the mists of Time, was probably closer to a concept of “heaven” these days than it had been when it was an island guarded by the Lady of the Lake. None
the less, its priestesses had been protectors of animal and human life and its male sector, the druids, protectors of earth as well. But, Michael supposed, it didn’t really matter much what names were put to the ancient battle of good versus evil.
“There are relatively few witches still alive,” Michael replied.
“I don’t mean that. Sophie isn’t like us.” Morgan slanted a look at him through her lashes.
He grew wary. “Like us?”
“We feel. We lust for life…to experience pleasure. We’re not afraid to take sex when and where we can.” Morgan got up from her desk and moved toward him, her usually sultry sway somewhat stiff, although her mouth was curved in a silky smile.
“From the way you’re walking, I think you may have been indulging in that activity fairly recently.”
Her smile faltered for a moment, but then she placed a hand on his arm. “Why don’t you let me work some of that tension out of you?”
“I’ll be fine once I’ve talked to Sophie.” He withdrew his arm.
“Well, that may be awhile.”
“How late is she running?”
Morgan shrugged. “I think maybe she might have said she had to talk to her husband—“
“Ex-husband,” Michael said and tried not to grit his teeth.
“Whatever. He sure calls here a lot though.”
Michael stared at her. He had felt confident that Sophie harbored no remnants of love for her former husband, but after last night—what had she said? That he, Michael, was worse than that man. Michael cringed inwardly. Sophie thought he had betrayed her. Worse, she thought he could control her emotions, which he couldn’t unless he used black magic and he was a sworn protector of the Light. Goddess, he had hurt Sophie!
Like a wounded animal, would she seek shelter in the arms of someone familiar? Would she give Robert another chance? From the conversations Michael had with the man, as well as the long list of rogues and rakes he’d dealt with over the centuries, Michael knew his type. Those men loved the hunt. They sweet-talked women into believing they cared. They lavished compliments and gifts and attention until they had their quarry cornered as deftly as the proverbial deer-in-the-headlights. Once the conquest had been achieved, they moved on to other prey. Michael had seen it, thousands of times. Unfortunately, it worked only too often since the women they targeted were innocent, if not naïve, of such motives.
Morgan’s fingers trailed up his arm again, her hand resting lightly on his chest, palm flattening against his nipple. “Why don’t you forget about her and let me make you feel good?”
Her touch, inadvertently, was close to his heart and a chakra pathway opened for him. Morgan had her psychic shields down, concentrating on trying to seduce him, and he probed her other thoughts. The image of the man who drifted on the periphery of her mind surprised him.
Michael looked down at her. “Tell me,” he said a low voice that was deadly calm, “how do you know Adam Caldwell?”
* * * *
Sophie stopped just short of the doorway to her office staring at Michael and Morgan. Morgan was running her hand seductively over his chest, and practically purring at the man. He said something to her, too low for Sophie to hear, but Morgan just gave him a coy look and a sultry smile.
Well, if Sophie needed any affirmation in not trusting a warlock, this was it. All that supposed sincerity of his—and Dear God, she had actually thought him to be sincere and maybe even honest—was just a scam.
“Am I interrupting something?” she asked as she entered the room.
Michael jerked away from Morgan as if burned by a flame. No doubt Morgan, with her long, blue-black hair and alabaster skin, was a hot number in his eyes. The tight, low-cut blouse she wore practically had her boobs popping out. Why had Sophie not noticed before how provocatively Morgan dressed?
“You aren’t interrupting anything,” Michael answered. “It seems that Morgan knows Alan Caldwell and I was wondering how they met.” He looked back at Morgan, waiting for an answer.
“Oh, for goodness sake.” She flounced over to Sophie’s desk, straightening some paperwork. “I went to Mr. Smith’s a few months ago looking for Sara and Alan was there. We met a couple of times for drinks. Why?”
“It seems that Caldwell knew I was a warlock. Did you tell him?”
Morgan cast her eyes at Sophie and then back to Michael. “I might have.”
“You know we don’t make that information public, Morgan. Too many people get the wrong idea or want magical help.”
“Alan didn’t seem to care that I was a witch,” Morgan replied and glanced at Sophie again. “Is that what your little misunderstanding was about?”
Sophie glared at Michael. “I didn’t realize I was the subject for public discussion. Perhaps you should leave.”
“Not until you’ve heard me out, Sophie.” He turned to Morgan. “Close the door on your way out.”
She pouted and then tossed her head. “Just remember what I said.”
“I’m not even going to ask,” Sophie said as she sat down stiffly behind her desk. “However, if you think I’m still going to go hunting some mythical sword with you, forget it. Use your magic to find it.”
“I would, if that was all that was necessary,” Michael said mildly and pulled a straight back chair close to the side of Sophie’s desk, “but Pendragon’s appearance tells me you are needed to come with me.”
Sophie studied him. “Dragons don’t exist. I came to the conclusion last night that he is an illusion. You somehow sent it so that I’d buy this whole story.”
“He’s real, Sophie. You’ve seen the scorch marks on your grass.”
“You could have put those there too,” she said stubbornly.
“But I didn’t.” Michael leaned closer and she caught that unique woodsy scent of him. “I don’t know what I can do to convince you, but I did not send you that dream.”
She raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Well, I certainly didn’t enter your mind.”
“No. Tanio did it.”
“Oh, yeah. The fire-god guy. I’ll admit, you are really good with illusions. You almost had me convinced all this stuff was real.”
“It’s all real. Why do you think the media has camped out all this time?”
Sophie stared into space. “Maybe it’s some kind of group-hallucination. Stage magicians do it all the time.”
A shadow crossed Michael’s face. “Sleight-of-hand and hypnotic suggestions are not magic.” He sighed. “My guess is that Tanio tapped into my head—without my permission, but gods never think they need it—and decided to show you an extra benefit that could be had.” He held up a hand before she could protest. “I’ll admit it was my fantasy and I suppose I should apologize for fantasizing about you, but I swear, I don’t make any moves unless they’re welcomed. I’ve told you that before.”
She turned back to look at him. “You admit you fantasize about me and yet you expect me to travel with you? Spend nights in hotel rooms next to each other?”
He smiled, showing his dimple. “I guess you mean in separate rooms next to each other?”
Sophie felt her face heat at the implication of what she said. God, how Freudian could she get? “Definitely separate rooms—that is, if I were going with you, which I’m not. Dragons and fire-gods? Not to mention horned-demons. You almost had me believing it, but then I remembered how fanatical Mr. Smith is when he’s onto something. He’s a real medieval aficionado and he’s wealthy enough to indulge himself. So my guess is, when his assistant came back from London with that manuscript, he decided to sponsor an expensive scavenger hunt. He’s told me over and over that I need a little adventure in my life. How much did he pay you to arrange all this? ”
Michael’s eyes darkened. “He didn’t. I give you my word that Excalibur exists and that a demon who wants to control, and maybe destroy the world, is hunting for the same sword. We have to find it before he does.” He stood and walked to the door and then turned. “I’m going to have a littl
e talk with Tanio. When I come back, you’ll have your proof.”
Sophie sat mutely at her desk after he was gone. It was all so confusing. Nothing made sense and she had always been ruled by logic. One possibility was that she truly was having a nervous breakdown, but everything else in her life seemed rational and real. The clinic functioned. Clients trusted her with their pets. Augustin still gave her his special nuzzle…
Or maybe Mr. Smith, who loved to meddle, really was playing a hoax. But what Michael had said about the media hovering for days niggled at her. They couldn’t all be fooled, could they?
She shut her eyes, not wanting to think of the other option.
Maybe demons, dragons, faeries and warlocks existed and she had been too oblivious to see. Maybe there was some grandiose scheme in the universe to have good battle evil. Certainly, the unrest in the Middle East had been raging for years now. Suicidal terrorists had created fear in the hearts of sane people. Drug cartels murdered people for no reason. World-wide economies were crashing… Maybe some evil force really was behind it all.
Maybe Michael was right about everything. How could she know for certain?
* * * *
The dragon lay dozing, his eyes fluttering as his tail clinked gently against the rocky floor of his cave. In his dream, he was back with Uther and the Roman legions. Although Rome had long left Britain to defend itself from the Byzantine empire, Romulus Augustulus still allowed soldiers of Roman descent to train in his armies.
And that is where the Pendragon left Uther, once he learned that Rome held other pleasures.
He had first seen her as a wild, white mare, her sleek, silvery neck arched gracefully, mane and tail flowing as she galloped over the steep slope of a hill, sure of her footing, hooves seeming to float above the ground. Being a young dragon back then, he thought to have a bit of sport with the free, feisty horse.
So it came as a surprise to him to find his fireballs ricocheting back and actually knocking him onto his haunches. When the smoke cleared, the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen stood in front of him. Dressed in a white tunic trimmed in gold thread, her long, moonlight-colored hair flowed around her, but her dark eyes flashed their own fire.
The Immortals II: Michael Page 10
