by Ann Macela
“It looks to me like your talent has to do with these hunches,” Fergus interjected. “Anybody disagree?”
“I concur,” her father said. “It might be related to probability-theory spells. I’ve known several people involved in theoretical activities—physicists, economists—and they have told me their best ideas often come to them after much study, but not much actual conscious examination of the details. They’ll be doing something totally unrelated when, suddenly, it all fits together. Does yours work the same way?”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much it.” With a thoroughly glum expression, Jim looked around the circle. “So, I’m a practitioner? Hooray. What does it mean? What happens next? I learn how to do hocus-pocus? How am I to use it to catch the bad guys?”
Irenee stifled a sigh. He didn’t totally believe his changed circumstances yet, and she had no idea what to do with him. Could he cast a spell if he didn’t really believe in his ability to do it?
Fergus seemed to have the same reservations because he said, “Why don’t you go home and get a good night’s sleep, Tylan? Let your hunches tell you if you are, in fact, a practitioner. Come back here tomorrow, and we’ll do some conclusive, determining exercises.”
“What’s wrong with right now?”
“I’m not putting you off for no reason,” Fergus replied. “It will be better for all of us if you let the ideas and reality settle in your mind and your body. Magic isn’t to be done without a great deal of care.”
“I’ve got a big meeting on the case tomorrow morning,” Jim said.
“Are you going to tell your agency about us? Or have you already?” Hugh asked.
“No, I didn’t tell them about Irenee at Finster’s or where I was coming today. ‘Something’ told me not to.” Jim rubbed his center and stopped when he glanced down and saw what he was doing. “I don’t like keeping quiet. But I won’t say anything about all this ‘magic stuff’ until I have to. Hell, nobody would believe me anyway.”
“Let us know when you can be here,” Fergus said. “Irenee, why don’t you give him your phone numbers, and you can be our liaison. Escort Tylan to his car, and come back. We have some other business to discuss.”
The walk to the elevator, the wait, and the ride down were quiet. Jim seemed lost in thought, and Irenee didn’t interrupt him except to hand him her card with her phone numbers.
Poor guy. What a lot to learn about yourself from strangers and totally unexpectedly. If she had been in his place, she would be stupefied and flat on the floor.
As they waited for his car, he turned to her. “I’ll give you a call when I find out what time I’ll be free to come out here.”
“Good. Listen, are you okay?” She stopped herself from putting a hand on his arm to offer support. From his previous attitude, he might not want it.
“Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck as if it was stiff and gave her a part-perplexed, part-uneasy smile. “I’m just—I don’t know what I am.”
“We threw a lot at you at one time. I remember being extremely confused when my levels shot up, and I knew what was happening.”
“Whipple was right—I need to sleep on all the ideas, come to terms with them. Do you really think he and your father are correct? What will these ‘exercises’ be?”
“Yes, I do think they’re right.” She wouldn’t tell him yet about the magic energy vibrating between them or the possibility of his being a Defender, however. That was an unnecessary complication right now. He needed to accept being a simple practitioner first. She smiled, she hoped, with encouragement. “You’re the first wild talent I’ve ever met. What he plans, I’d guess, has to do with learning and managing your skills.”
“Great.” The valet brought his car up. Before Jim got in, he nodded at her. “I’ll see you tomorrow, probably in the afternoon.”
On the way back upstairs, Irenee rubbed her temples. She’d get some aspirin from Bridget before they started talking. Jim Tylan wasn’t the only one who had to come to terms with a new situation, and it was giving her a headache. What was going on between them and causing her strange reactions? How could he see through her spells? What could Fergus want? Please, not anything major.
Her center quivered, and she patted it. She was looking forward to getting the discussion over with. She needed some rest.
CHAPTER TEN
“He’s my WHAT?” Irenee looked from her father to Fergus and back again. “My soul mate? Where did you get such a preposterous idea? Jim Tylan can’t be my soul mate! That’s impossible!”
“It’s the only explanation for his being able to see through your spells, honey,” Hugh said. “Since the spells of soul mates don’t work on each other except for healing and defense, your invisibility spell didn’t phase him. He saw right through it.”
“Through your panther illusion, also,” Fergus put in.
“Maybe it’s part of his quirky ability to see spell glows.”
“He didn’t see through Fergus’s dragon,” Hugh added.
“But ...
“The clincher is,” Fergus said with a grin, “the way you look at each other.”
“Oh, please.” Irenee waved her hand as though she could wipe away the comment—and the idea behind it.
“Think about it, Irenee,” Bridget said, her voice low and calm.
Irenee eyed her suspiciously. Bridget wasn’t going to suck her into their idiocy with her comforting pediatrician’s manner. She wasn’t an unruly child who didn’t want to get a shot.
Bridget, however, kept talking. “Remember when you poked him in the chest and he took your hand? How the two of you froze and forgot we were here? He was about to kiss you when Fergus said something. Again, especially again, when you were kneeling in front of him on the sofa? He raised your hands and put them on his magic center? I could almost see the energy flowing between you. You were definitely feeling a soul mate’s attraction.”
Irenee sat down with a plop and put her head in her hands. Yes, she remembered every single detail. And her reactions to him in Alton’s study and in her office.
She’d heard about practitioner soul mates all her life, of course. As a teenager, she’d even wondered about who hers would be, what he would look like, what kind of talents he’d have. When her levels had shot up and she became a Sword, all thoughts of soul mates had disappeared. She’d had more important problems to overcome.
Now, out of the blue, her father, her mentor, and his wife were telling her this man, this stranger, whom she’d known for only a few hours, was the soul mate with whom she would spend the rest of her life?
It was so damn hard to believe.
She looked up at her father, Fergus, and Bridget. She knew they were telling the truth as they saw it and had her best interests at heart, but she couldn’t help putting up some resistance. “Are you certain you’re not mistaken? I’m twenty-five. Maybe all my reactions are only my hormones telling me my biological clock is running.”
All three shook their heads like three bobble-head dolls.
“We’re sure,” Hugh said. “We discussed it while you were at dinner and again while you escorted him out. Are you feeling an itch in your magic center when you think about him? A warmth? That’s the soul-mate imperative at work.”
“What about him? When are you going to tell him?”
“We’re not. It’s up to you,” Bridget said. “We think it best, however, if you wait until he accepts what he is and learns to control it some. I also recommend the two of you get to know each other better.”
“Thanks so much.” Irenee sat back in her chair and crossed her arms in front of her.
“Telling him about soul mates really is your call,” her father said, “and I think you’ll figure out when the time is right.”
“What about Mom? What will she think of your idea?” Her mother had been twenty-seven when she married her father. Surely she would be on Irenee’s side for not rushing into telling Jim—to make absolutely, positively certain he was her mate
first. A hot shiver ran up her back when the word mate crossed her mind, but she held herself rigid.
“I spoke with her while you were at dinner, since she’s flying to New York tonight. She’s delighted. Even began talking about when you’d have children.”
“Children! Isn’t she rushing things a little?” Irenee had barely met the man, and her mother had given them children? Oh, this was entirely too much.
Hugh chuckled. “She’s been wondering for a while about both you and your brother. I think some of her friends are teasing her about the lack of grandchildren.”
“Has she told Dietrich?”
“Of course not. We both know you and your brother will find your true mates, and there’s absolutely nothing we can do about the timing. Since you have, however ...”
“Dad”—Irenee pointed at her father—“you stay out of whatever’s going on here. I don’t know for a fact there’s any soul-mate connection between me and Jim Tylan, and the poor man has enough to worry about without complicating his life even more. I had a devil of a time coming to terms, not simply with a level increase, but with becoming a Sword, too. He probably feels like he’s been transported to another planet.”
“Okay, honey, I’ll call your mother off—if I can.”
She gave her father a squinty-eyed, you’d-better-succeed look before continuing, “I’ll tell you another, greater possibility besides his being an ordinary practitioner. When my hands were on his chest, magical energy was oscillating between us.”
“The exchange was probably the soul-mate connection,” Bridget said. “You’ll see what I mean after you’ve mated.”
Although Irenee felt her face grow heated, she persevered. “I don’t think so. It felt exactly like what happened when we were destroying Alton’s piece of the Stone and Dad stepped up behind me for support. He fed me power directly, through his touch. It also felt exactly like what happened when you, Fergus, taught me to use my sword. In each case, you had your hands on my waist and fed it directly into my center, and I sent it out to my sword. There may have been the phenomenon in the mix with Jim, I’ll concede, but it wasn’t all soul mate.”
“Hmmmmm. If you’re right, Irenee, and you may well be,” Fergus admitted, “it makes the situation even more complicated. Tylan’s going to have to accept many new ideas in addition to his new abilities.”
“What are you going to do tomorrow? He thinks he won’t be here until afternoon, by the way.”
“You and I are going to teach him to cast a spell or two.”
When Irenee finally made it to bed about an hour and a half later, she couldn’t fall asleep without replaying the detailed discussion about soul mates to which her father, Fergus, and Bridget had subjected her. They hadn’t told her anything she didn’t know—well, not about the woman’s perspective. Her mother had covered that already.
From her father and Fergus, Irenee did have a better idea how a man approached the situation—lust!—and how a man understood the reality—more lust! with growing love. The knowledge did not, however, lessen the embarrassment of having to talk about it with “older men,” one of whom was her father and the other her mentor, for pity’s sake.
She took to heart Fergus’s warning about the soulmate imperative. The whole phenomenon—practitioners always found their soul mates and true love—was like a fairy tale, but the imperative, which Fergus called the phenomenon’s enforcer, had to be reckoned with. If she or Jim tried to reject one another, or if they simply didn’t accept each other fast enough, the imperative would “nudge” them together. The nudges could be painful.
Meanwhile the attraction between her and her soul mate would become increasingly intense. Or, worse, totally overwhelming and out of her control.
Oh, great.
She could only hope the imperative would leave her alone when she had her sword in hand. The last thing she wanted to do was become distracted and slice her supposed soul mate—or anybody else—in half.
The possibility, however, was probably the least of her problems. More important was when and how she was to explain soul mates and what he would think of them in general—and of her in particular. He was so new to the concept of practitioners. Maybe, if they could convince him he was one of them, the rest would follow naturally. She could only hope.
What would it be like to have a soul mate? It was supposed to be wonderful. What would it be like to have Jim in particular as hers? Even without the impressions encouraged by the phenomenon, he was an attractive man. Tall, broad-shouldered, with great eyes, and curly hair—and once-broken nose.
Besides the physical person, she liked his intensity, his attention to his work. She didn’t know if she could have kept in mind a main objective—learning what had been taken from Alton’s safe—when bombarded with all the information about practitioners for the first time.
From what Bridget said, the physical attraction would come first for him. If that weren’t enough, he would probably act on it, whether or not she told him about the phenomenon.
What would it be like to kiss him? Her center definitely warmed at the thought. As she gave it a rub, other parts of her body tingled and some ached. She had to laugh. Lust was not confined to the males, it appeared.
She’d kissed a few boys in her time, purely in the spirit of experimentation, and she was sure none was her soul mate. Her attraction to them had been too mild. Truth be told, she’d expected more of an inner explosion when she met her mate-to-be.
On the other hand, “getting lost in his eyes” had taken on new meaning. His touch alerted every cell in her body. Feeling magic energy move between them had been exhilarating. She had a lot to look forward to when they came together.
When would they? Or, first, would they at all? Fergus, her father, and Bridget could still be wrong, and Jim might not be her mate. He might still reject her—from confusion, refusal to accept his new reality, or sheer cussedness, for all she knew.
She absolutely had to protect herself in this situation. Keep an open mind, be open to the process, while being prepared for anything and everything else.
She would explain the soul-mate phenomenon soon—but not until he got used to the idea of being a practitioner. Take it slow. There was no rush. Her center itched like crazy at that thought.
Hey imperative! Give the guy and me a break. The Cataclysm Stone is our first priority.
Her center itched a few seconds more, then subsided.
Hoping the phenomenon got her message, she turned over and punched her pillow into a comfortable shape. With her soul mate on one side and an evil magic item on the other, both demanding her energy, she should get to sleep. She’d need it.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
In the study of the Finster mansion, Bruce Ubell worked on matching the gala’s guest list with the registry on the practitioner Web site. It had not been the fairly easy job he had envisioned. The registry was huge and worldwide; searching took time. The guest list wasn’t very long, but so many people had similar or ambiguous names. For example, J. B. Jones. Was this person John Bartholomew Jones or James Bolton Jones? He often had to look at the entire entry for picture or location to make sure the person listed was not the same as the guest.
Even though there was no one else he could trust with the job, he resented taking time from his company work, from bringing Finster Shipping and all its parts into more efficient alignment and profitability. Alton had delegated some very important duties, and his minions had not been up to their tasks.
Furthermore, there was the problem of his cousin’s little spells cast on the Iranian group. Bruce had reversed the enchantments and sent the Iranians to another dealer, “convinced” they would get a better deal there. By the time they figured out the new man was cheating them and removed him from competition—a nice side benefit—Bruce would have all his legal and illegal activities working perfectly. Best of all, he’d be able to charge them double the original price.
He’d also use the respite to protect himself
and his Stone and to take revenge on the Defenders who destroyed its severed section.
He did wonder why, as the notification had stated, the Defenders had not visited the mansion. He assumed it was because the notice had been for Alton, not him. Did they suspect the larger part of the Stone existed?
As the red book had instructed, he’d been extremely careful to keep everything in the old man’s specially shielded room. At first, Bruce had wondered who was keeping up the spells since Granddad was dead and he and Alton weren’t supplying magic energy. Then he’d figured out that the Stone was protecting itself—an added bonus. The deeply buried and enspelled space kept all emanations safely inside, undetectable by even the most sensitive enemies. Casting from there might actually be easier than in the open—the shields could be boosting the strength of his spells, if he had read the book correctly. Damn Alton for losing the text before he could study the last chapters more closely.
Bruce had been surprised to discover he didn’t miss having the extra power Alton’s smaller piece provided. In fact, he was beginning to think his Stone was giving him even more potency, as though its severed third had somehow leached energy from its larger brother. The same way dealing with Alton had drained his own regular enthusiasm. With his item concentrating solely on himself, he was certain all his capabilities were growing. Look at what he’d learned and accomplished already.
He wouldn’t, however, underestimate his enemies. He’d assume the Defenders were looking for his piece, and they’d show up sooner or later. He and his Stone had some surprises in mind for when they met—and he knew they would.
He’d need every ounce of his energy against the Defenders, but with his Stone on his side, how could he lose? He wouldn’t hesitate to bring about a true cataclysm, whereas they, poor weaklings, were bound by practitioner conventions no longer applying to him.
He heard the mantle clock strike two and groaned. Only two more pages to go. He’d made it to “S.” The first name on the page was Irenee Sabel. Ah, yes, the daughter of the renowned Sabel family. She’d been talking to Alton right before the auction began. He knew her family were high-level practitioners, but she’d always been a little guppy—some sort of event planner—in their group of corporate and Wall Street sharks.
