Spellbinders Collection

by Molly Cochran

  Maureen stood up, scooped up the gun, and tucked it back into her jacket pocket. Then she moved away.

  "Brian's sleeping in my bed tonight. I'll sleep out on the couch."

  She looked around, finally pulling her focus away from crisis. The kitchen was a fucking mess: bloody towels, Brian's bloody clothes, melted slush, tag ends of bandages. The place looked like a M*A*S*H scene. It was time to pick up, mop up, get rid of the evidence. Besides, some physical activity might serve to calm things down. Nothing like mopping the kitchen floor to bring you back to reality.

  She hauled clothes into the bathroom, running water in the tub to soak out blood before the stains set. She emptied his pockets first, and stared at a roll of bills about as big around as her fist. The outer one bore Ben Franklin's smiling face. Her hands shook at the thought of holding a whole year's wages in one lump.

  Maybe it was reaction, but she felt like shit. The tendons in her right arm had turned to red-hot wires. She must have strained something with that punch. A headache centered about two inches behind her right eye and an inch below the scalp.

  She moved back to the kitchen--mopping up bloodstains, David helping. Jo held that cold towel to her lip, gathering trash. Brian suggested using the black trash bags--opaque, he didn't want anybody seeing all that blood and asking questions. He didn't have enough answers.

  Just one big, happy family. Just two women with their boyfriends on Friday night.

  "Stay away from Brian, Jo. Not just cleaning up, I mean stay away from him permanently."

  Jo's eyes widened. Such a look of innocence, you'd think she was an actress. Maureen thought she'd better get some clothes on Brian. Then maybe Jo'd quit running her eyes up and down his legs, across his chest, measuring his biceps.

  Jo shook her head. "I don't need your new boyfriend, Mo. David's going to be staying here. He's gonna move his stuff in tomorrow. You don't like it, don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out."

  Maureen felt her skin prickle like she was charging up for a lightning bolt.

  * * *

  The lights flickered. Brian wondered if he was the only one who noticed. Both of them were doing it. Neither of them knew what she was doing.

  He hoped they got this settled before they burned the apartment down around their ears or blacked out half of Maine. It was the most dangerous thing in the world, power in the hands of the ignorant. Like giving that pistol to a child just strong enough to pull the trigger.

  Rage. Fear. Sexual attraction. Powerful emotions caused powerful responses. Whether they knew it or not, those were two powerful women. If they weren't balanced, one would have torn the other to shreds.

  He was too groggy to handle it now. He tried to remember that pain was optional. He could use his left arm now, just stunned nerves. If he could get this background noise calmed down, maybe he could get some serious healing meditation going.

  He was going to need to move again in the next day or so, fight again in the next day or so. Fiona never gave up on anything in her life.

  And he made a mental note to never even think about touching Maureen's emotions again. Charged up the way she was, it would be like bringing a ten-pound hammer down on TNT. She'd notice, oh yes. She'd fry his eyeballs.

  "Can't go back to my hotel. Following me."

  Maureen paused and ran a cold towel over his head again. Her touch spread energy and soothing--unsuspected power. That woman needed some training. He'd better take her to St. Theresa's Abbey before Dougal got his hands on her.

  "Stay here," she said. "If Jo can move her boyfriend in, so can I."

  The lights flickered, and Brian felt the hair rise on his arms. It was a feedback loop, Jo reacting to Maureen reacting to Jo reacting to Maureen. He'd better get those two separated before they reached critical mass.

  "Just tonight," he said. "Stay here tonight. Ask you to find me an apartment, tomorrow. Furnished. Buy some things. Find money in my jacket."

  "I saw it." Maureen glared at her sister, at David. "If you don't mind, I'll find a place big enough for both of us."

  Brian knew his brain was only functioning at half power, but some signs were printed large enough to read. One was, the look between Jo and David. Mixture of shock and relief. Said, "This is Maureen?" Said, "What the hell is going on here?" Said, "Good riddance!"

  Undercurrents.

  People with Power, people with the Blood, usually didn't fit in. They heard voices others couldn't, saw things no one else could see, touched and smelled and tasted and thought and acted outside the fences. Society pasted labels on them. Jo's face said Maureen wore a label. Jo's face said she was fed up with living with a label.

  Jo's face still held worry.

  "Maureen, I can't fucking believe you're moving in with a man."

  Jo wanted her sister gone. She did not want her sister hurt. Brian must look like a very dubious case, judging by her frown.

  "Take the money," he said, "find two apartments. There's enough."

  "One apartment, two bedrooms."

  The tone said, "Don't get any ideas. I'm your nurse, not your goddamned whore."

  Maureen disappeared into the bathroom and returned, dumping his cash and keys on the kitchen table. David stared at the bloodstained roll of bills.

  "You're a drug dealer." He edged towards the phone and Maureen's jacket--Maureen's jacket with the gun in the pocket.

  The static charge in the room jumped a coulomb or ten. That man was going to get crisped if he didn't watch out.

  "No. Swear it. I'm clean."

  "The scars you've got, you've been carved up like a Christmas turkey. Street fights. Nobody but a drug-runner carries his bank in his hip-pocket."

  Brian wished the debate club straight to hell. His fuddled thoughts weren't up to it.

  "Drug-runners and wetbacks. Can't use a bank. No plastic, no checks. That's my room and board for the next year, until I get home again. Think I'm going to leave it in a cheap hotel?"

  Jo waved David back from the phone. At least she had the power to sense dangerous territory.

  "Little Sister, what do you really know about this man? There's something screwy here. I've got some questions that need answering before I'd trust him behind my back."

  The Sergeant-Major was back, offering advice. Don't get into what you really are, me laddie. Some of Jo's questions don't have answers they'd want to hear. Some of them cross the line into Maureen's territory--label territory. Maureen's already over there; she understands. The other two won't. Not unless they have their noses rubbed in it.

  Brian groaned. If Jo or David poked at Maureen one more time, that bomb was going to explode. His head hurt too much to deal with it. "Maureen, let David take the gun. Lock me in your room tonight. You've got those old locks that use a key from either side."

  He tried getting vertical. The walls turned into sponges under his hands, and the floor tilted to a twenty-degree list. Moving wasn't a good idea. It did get them off the topic, though. Pain spoke across a lot of gaps.

  Hands and faces and shoulders and doorways and darkness and the blessed soft warmness of a bed. A bed that smelled of Maureen, the sweet musk of a woman with the Blood, overpowering and seductive. To sleep, perchance to dream--perchance to lust. Or heal. He set his body to concentrate on the bones first. They carried the rest.

  The lock rattled and clicked. Taking no chances. They didn't know he could step around into the half-worlds and be gone in two seconds. He'd have done that in the alley if he hadn't been sure Fiona was waiting for him to try, waiting under the Sidhe hill with her webs all woven. Traps within traps within traps. Now he didn't dare move until he had his strength back.

  Thought I saw Dougal out on the street: watching, waiting. Nobody else would be carrying a hawk around at midnight. He knows where Maureen lives. It'll be a hell of a problem if he comes here now.

  Darkness.

  Chapter Twelve

  Six-pack of Diet Coke, half-dozen donuts, two packs of Slims: Maureen
recited the Catechism of Commerce. Her fingers danced over the register keys--product codes and prices in the eyes and out the fingers without transiting the brain. Quick Shop. Mindless fucking job.

  She gave the kids back by the magazines the hairy eyeball; keep your under-eighteen hands off the Penthouse rack, you little twerps. The number three monitor showed a potential shoplifter. That was her real job, the only one a bar-code scanner with a price database couldn't handle.

  Just watch out for trouble. Never trust anybody. Never relax. It was a good job description for a paranoid.

  "Miss, I'm going to have to ask you for ID on the Slims."

  The girl looked older than what Maureen saw in the mirror every morning, but that was the law. A kid could go down to the corner of First and Division and buy crack or grass or heroin any hour of the day or night. However, a beer or a pack of cigarettes under-age brought down the full weight of the law.

  The world was schizoid.

  Just like Maureen.

  Jo's right, she thought. We had a little schizoid episode there the other night, didn't we? Maybe time to go in for a quick evaluation, get the medication adjusted? Somebody's not behaving normally here. Not even normal for Crazy Maureen.

  Odd thing a lot of people believe, that nut-cases don't think they're crazy. We know better, don't we? Knowing the definition of paranoid schizophrenia doesn't change its effect.

  The woman in monitor three started to slip a half-buck can of cat-food into her pocket and then stared straight into the video camera. She put the can back on the shelf. Maureen slid her hand away from the call button and counted out change.

  "Have a nice day."

  Maureen switched her attention from the monitor to the real shoplifter. The woman wore a dirty brown coat down to her ankles, grease-spots, tangled hair, worn army boots, a look to the eyes that said they saw into a different universe--probably "de-institutionalized," homeless, planned to eat the cat-food herself. Maureen looked at the woman and saw herself in another twenty years.

  Tough shit. The woman could eat and stay warm in jail.

  Quick Shop had security testers who came in looking to deliberately get caught, to check the cashiers. The same with underage buyers of alcohol and tobacco. Forget what's-his-name's question: who's gonna watch the watchers? Quick Shop had it covered.

  Question: who's the real paranoid here?

  Brian looked better today: bruises already yellowing, swelling going down around the stitches. He was moving more easily, walking again, breathing normally again. It made Maureen's skin crawl, just thinking about it. Uncanny.

  It brought up major questions, though. When the man got healthy, what was she going to do with him? She wasn't equipped for living with a man. Physically, maybe, she had the usual female equipment of tits and ass, but mentally?

  Move back to Jo's, her being shacked up with that lyin' cheatin' no-'count guitar player? Find a third apartment with Brian's money? Trust the lock on her bedroom door? Crazy little Maureen was sharing an apartment with a man she'd met three days ago. A man she'd called a rapist. A man she'd threatened to kill.

  Maureen's got a problem. Maureen's having flashbacks again.

  Girl, six-pack of pre-mixed formula and box of disposable diapers, pack of condoms. Looked to be maybe sixteen, maybe not. Condoms? Now? Better late than never. Maureen counted out change.

  "Have a nice day."

  At least that's one thing hanging around with Jo had taught her. You'd never catch Jo without a condom in her jeans pocket.

  Maureen's fingers danced their dance across the cash register, her eyes shifted from flickering gray monitors to prurient magazine rack in their paranoid patrol, her mind wandered the alleyways of sexual relationships. Maureen and men. Maureen and Brian.

  Brian was behaving himself. She didn't know whether he was a nice guy or just a louse too badly hurt to show his true colors. He wasn't Buddy, anyway. She'd felt no sign of that suspicious warmth of his "glamour." He acted the proper British gentleman, not a word or gesture or touch out of place.

  They played chess with an old wooden set she'd found when they moved out of Jo's. He was an unconventional player, brilliant but erratic. Sometimes the two of them combined for a grandmaster game, sometimes a total debacle. He tended to ambushes and sudden overwhelming power concentrated on a single point. She went in more for feints within feints within feints, with minor pieces or even pawns turning into devastating weapons when you least expected.

  A shrink would have a field day with their different playing styles.

  Sometimes, he'd overlook a simple mate in two because it was too obvious. Apparently his military life had been like that, flashes of brilliance mired in the retreat of a dying empire. The politicians called them victories, but most of his career sounded like one disaster after another. According to him, even the Falklands had been a total fuck-up. But you couldn't blame the bishop for being on the wrong diagonal when he was needed.

  They watched movies, by preference old movies on the cable channels. Maureen liked knowing the ending ahead of time. Just like with chess, it helped her little problems if she knew the rules. Brian seemed to want a bit of predictability in his life, as well. Maybe he hadn't had enough of it.

  They'd only spent a couple of days together, but time with Brian was strange. It went fast, and yet seemed far longer than it was. Seemed like they'd done too much to fit into the hours and there were too many hours to fit into the days. Maybe that's where the fast healing came from.

  Whatever it meant, she was getting used to having him around.

  He was a good patient, too. Never complained when his inept nurse fumbled re-bandaging or grabbed hold of the wrong piece of man when helping him out of a chair.

  Twelve ninety-five for gas. She wiped the license number she'd automatically memorized when the car pulled up to the pump. If a car pulled out without paying, she either had the fucking license number or she ended up buying the fucking gas herself. Incentive plan.

  She made change. "Have a nice day."

  Half-gallon of milk and the Record Eagle.

  "Good evening, Maureen."

  She jerked, almost knocking over the sign showing the Megabucks winning number. She'd been watching the gas pump, out the window. Quit jumping like a Vietnam vet hearing a car backfire, you silly bitch!

  But she didn't know anybody in the store. Maureen's eyes snapped into focus. Sleek dark hair, dark eyes, olive skin: Fiona.

  No.

  It was her shadow, the other elegant cobra from the strip club: Sean. If he let his hair grow long and wore his clothes cut for a slim woman, he could pass for Fiona's twin sister.

  He wore Fiona's face, molded into a kind of androgynous maleness. Fiona had said something about sterility. Brian had mentioned XXY chromosomes and the hybrid problem. Didn't that mean impotent? Maureen couldn't remember.

  Where the hell had he come from? He hadn't walked in the front door. And then she remembered Fiona in Carlysle Woods, appearing and vanishing without a trace. Frigging magic.

  Alarm bells jangled in the back of her brain. Sean and Fiona--Brian said they were behind his beating. Brian said they were dangerous. They had never hurt her, though. Besides, something whispered in her head, you're safe here. Magic only happens in the alleys and the shadows. This is Quick Shop, the least magical place on earth.

  What was so dangerous about magic? Fiona had laughed when told Brian said the Summer Country was dangerous. And the real world wasn't all that safe. Maureen had seen Brian kill a man about four blocks from here.

  Well, maybe not a man, according to what Brian said.

  Magic can't exist under fluorescent lights and monitor cameras. This tacky atmosphere would drive a stake through the heart of the strongest vampire. You're safe here. It didn't really sound like her critic, but the voice was as persuasive as the Snake in Eden. The alarm bells faded as if stifled in wads of cotton.

  Her deep-rooted fear of men, of everyone, started to look laughable. Thi
s Sean, sterile, he couldn't be a threat. He'd be sort of like the harem eunuch--you could trust him around women. No chance of a glamour there.

  Her automatic pilot counted out change for the milk and paper. "Have a nice day."

  Their hands touched. Smooth. Warm. Electric. Like the touch of Brian's hand when they'd walked away from the fire. That had been nice.

  "We need to talk," he said. "You shouldn't be afraid of us. When do you get off work?"

  His voice had Fiona's soft Irish lilt but in a slightly deeper register. Soft Irish whisky, it really was, golden and smoky and magic on the tongue, with a gentle liquid fire soaking straight into the throat and never even reaching the stomach. Brian's voice was gin, cheap gin. It would get you drunk enough, but you wouldn't enjoy the process half as much.

  "It's past time for my break. Wait while I get the night manager out here to cover the register. We can talk outside."

  She pushed the call button, one short dash that meant no trouble. One time she'd jammed the damn thing, gave the long buzz that said, "Call the cops." White cars and blue lights like you wouldn't believe. She'd smoothed it over with free cups of coffee and some outdated donuts that only would have fed the dumpster in the morning.

  Fred came out, glanced over the monitors, and punched his code into the register. He didn't even try to crowd her tits or brush his hand across her ass behind the counter. She felt calm and safe, as if Sean was guarding her against such threats. She grabbed her jacket, swinging it carefully so Fred wouldn't notice the lumpy weight of the Smith in the right pocket.

  Sean took her arm, like a gentleman leading his lady onto the ballroom floor. It was a soft touch, a warm touch, a friendly touch--not something threatening. Faint unease raised memories of how Brian's glamour had felt the other night, how that slow gentle warmth had grown into frightening passion.

  Why be afraid of passion? Most people seek it out.

  Besides, Sean's a sterile hybrid. He's no threat.

  The cold wind bit through that glow as soon as they stepped outside, an Alberta Clipper straight down from the Arctic Circle. She wiggled into her jacket and turned her back to the polar ice-cap. Maine faced another month of winter before she could even begin to think about sun and birds and green, growing things.