by Ann Macela
He was silent while the waiter returned with the wine and went through the opening ceremony.
When the waiter left, Irenee raised her glass and said, “Here’s to our newest practitioner.”
“Thank you,” Jim answered, looking both pleased and dubious at the same time. He clinked his glass with hers and took a sip. “How do you go up a level, and how long does it take to learn spells? I don’t think you explained that.”
She ate a piece of bread to gain time to think. His questions worked to her advantage. She could discuss the specifics of her own situation without treading into dangerous soul-mate territory. “I’m some kind of special case nobody completely understands. I was a level five until I turned eighteen, and all of a sudden, my potential, energy, and talents increased.”
Over the appetizer and dinner, Irenee told him what had happened to her, how long it had taken to learn all the new Sword and Defender spells, how difficult it had been getting through college and starting her business while dealing with the change. As she expected, he asked lots of questions.
They were eating the famed tiramisu of sponge cake, liqueur, and chocolate, when she said, “Nobody from Fergus on down, including master teachers and our scientists who study our abilities, has any idea what caused my change. I’m not the only practitioner such a transformation ever happened to, but I’m the first one in this country since 1850. Except for other wild talents, I’m probably the only person alive who can begin to understand what you’re going through.”
“Yeah, I can see that. I can also see I have a hell of a lot to learn.” He didn’t look overjoyed at the prospect. He finished his coffee and said, “Let’s go back to the HeatherRidge. I have some more questions about practitioner life.”
Was it her imagination, or did he emphasize those last two words? Was she going to have to tell him about soul mates tonight? Was she ready? Nooooo, not if she could put it off. Maybe some excuse would come to her on the way home.
When the check came, she offered to pay her half, and he gave her a part-insulted, part-incredulous look. The man was definitely “old school” at times. He paid the bill, and they walked out of the restaurant.
It was a lovely summer evening, and something of a shock to come out of a dimly lit restaurant to daylight. The sun was still up at seven thirty, of course, but it was rapidly setting.
Saying he always prepared for a fast getaway, Jim had parked his car—a nondescript dull brown-and-rust sedan where she had been expecting something sportier—by itself and facing outward three rows from the building in the strip shopping mall. Now, however, the lot had filled in, thanks to the two other restaurants there.
As she preceded him between cars, she saw his lights flash to show he’d unlocked it. He was reaching to open the door for her when two men appeared, one at each end of his car, blocking them in. Two large men—with guns.
“You’re coming with us,” the one behind Jim said. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”
Irenee turned to the man at the back of the car and glared at him when anger replaced the shock of their threat. Of all the nerve! Who did these guys think they were, fooling with a Sword? After half a day dealing with puny lightballs, she was itching to cast something of substance. Here was her chance. She shot a glance at Jim, who was facing the other thug, then brought her eyes back to her opponent.
“No,” she said.
“Irenee ...” Jim sounded like he was speaking through gritted teeth.
“No, we won’t go with you,” she continued, “however, I will keep my hands up.” She extended both hands, palms facing the thug, and cast “puff of wind” at hurricane force. She pushed her hands forward. “Flabra!”
“Aaaahhhhh!” the would-be kidnapper yelled as he flew through the air, landed with a thump, and slid into a car in the next row.
Irenee turned, ready to stun the other guy, but Jim had taken advantage of her diversion and slugged him. He dragged the groaning man to the side and ordered, “Get in the car. There are more of them.”
Only when she looked to her left did she notice two similar men running toward them from the edge of the lot. She quickly climbed in and buckled up.
Jim got in, started the car, and roared out of the parking lot.
“Head for home,” she told him.
“Right.” He had to wait precious seconds to get across Golf Road, and he made the turn across the east-bound lanes and the left-turn-lane median with a squeal of tires.
Irenee squirmed around to her left to see out the back. “There are two cars coming out of the parking lot—two black SUVs.”
Jim must have glanced in his rearview mirror because he said, “I see them. When we left the HeatherRidge, a vehicle like that was pulling out of the road across from the entrance. I waved for him to go ahead of us, and he waved back, so I went. He must have tailed us.”
Still sitting halfway backward, she dug in her purse for her cell phone with one hand while she braced herself with the other. He zigged and zagged through the traffic until there were several cars between them and the thugs.
“I’ll get us some help.” She opened her phone and hit the speed dial for Defender emergencies. When the dispatcher answered, she set the phone on speaker so Jim could hear. “This is Irenee Sabel. I’m with Jim Tylan in a car traveling west on Golf Road between Higgins and Barrington. A couple of men tried to kidnap us, and two black SUVs are following us. We’re heading for the HeatherRidge Center.”
“Understood,” came the answer. “Stay on Golf and turn north on Bartlett. We’re sending people to meet you.”
“Roger that,” Jim said when they had to stop for a light. He used the pause to click his seat belt together. “I bet Ubell sent these guys.”
“I don’t think they’re practitioners, though.” Irenee said, craning her neck to see around cars. “They were totally surprised when I hit the one with the puff-of-wind spell.”
“Defenders are coming to meet you on Bartlett Road,” the dispatcher announced. “Don’t stop for them. Come straight to the Center, no matter what happens. We have your phone on the GPS tracking program, so we know right where you are.”
“Roger,” Jim said. The light turned green, and the cars in front of them began to move.
“The passenger in the closest one opened the door and stood on the door frame to look at us for a couple of seconds,” Irenee said. “The nearest SUV is four cars back. I can’t see the other.”
“Let’s hear it for Chicagoland traffic. They won’t be able to gang up on us easily. If the truck behind me will just let me in ...” He maneuvered the car into the left lane. “There. We have some cover between us and them. What did you say you hit the goon with? A puff of wind?”
“Swords have an arsenal of offensive and defensive spells,” Irenee explained, rather proud of herself for being able to act in the face of such a threat. “I cast flabra ”
“You scared the hell out of me when you threw that thing.” He sounded angry.
“It didn’t stop you from decking the other man.” Why was he angry? She’d helped them both.
“Of course not. What’s the traffic like on Bartlett this time of night?”
So, he could hit someone but she couldn’t? She’d have to make some things about Swords clear to him. First, they had to deal with the jackasses in the SUVs. “There’s hardly any, and we’ll go from two lanes to four. They’ll have lots of room to maneuver in the middle of the forest reserve.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said with another glance at the mirror when they crossed Barrington and the road through the Poplar Creek Forest Reserve narrowed to one lane in each direction. “Damn. One of them is closer. Once we make the turn, I’m going to hit the gas, so hold on. I can outrun them. My car has more under the hood than meets the eye.”
“A team is on its way to you,” the dispatcher said.
“If they get too close,” Irenee told Jim, “I’m going to hit their car with a fulmen—alightning bolt.” She loosened her
seat belt and squirmed to face totally backward, kneeling on the seat with the shoulder belt across her back for support. Even if she couldn’t direct the spell from a point inside the car without risking a ricochet off the metal or glass, she could aim by sticking her left hand out the passenger-side window and directing the energy out through it.
“What? No! Sit straight. Here comes the turn.” He twisted the wheel and accelerated. The car fishtailed a little when it came around. He corrected and floored the gas pedal as the road rose slightly before them.
Irenee paid him no attention, only held on until they were straight again. They were in the right-hand lane. She hit the window button to roll it down, and the resulting rush of wind blew her hair around. She could still see, so she ignored it to hang on to the seat with her right hand and brace her body against the seat belts. The thugs’ cars made the turn, shifted to the left lane, and roared up after them, but didn’t gain much.
She held her fire. They weren’t quite close enough yet.
“Oh, shit!” Jim snarled and slowed the car as they came to the top of the rise.
“What?” she asked without turning to see.
“The light up ahead is red, and there are cars in each through lane on both sides. The left turn lanes are open, so I’m going to go through them and hope the others don’t start fast when the light changes.”
“Okay,” Irenee said when Jim moved their car to the left lane, “Stay straight in this lane for a second.”
She stuck her left hand out the window and pointed at the fast-gaining pursuer.
Dial down the power. You don’t want to blow them up. She waited a few seconds until the SUV came a little bit closer ... “Fulmen!”
CRACK!
BOOM!
Smoke began to pour out of the car behind them, and it swerved from side to side.
“Hot damn!” she yelled. Her bolt had hit the front tires as well as the engine.
Sparks flying from the tire rims, front bumper scraping the road surface, the damaged SUV slowed abruptly—too quickly for its partner immediately behind to dodge, and the second one hit the first on its left rear bumper. The impact stopped the second and threw the first to the right, over the short grass next to the road, and into a wetland full of water and cattails. After a huge splash, the vehicle came to a stop, smoke still pouring from under the hood while it settled into the mud. The second SUV sat in the middle of the road not moving.
Jim had pulled back into the right lane and slammed on the brakes after she cast the spell. He turned in his seat in time to see the SUV hit the water, and he stared at it through the passenger window. “Holy shit! What about the guys in there?”
The men in question climbed out of their sinking vehicle. One of them fell on his face into the muck, and the other one fished him out.
“It looks like they’re okay” Irenee knew she was grinning like a loon and wished she had room to dance. Her spell had worked perfectly! Being a Sword was so much fun! Take that, you scumbags!
The two staggered out of the water and across the road to the other vehicle. Just as they clambered into it, two white Hummers passed Jim’s car headed at the thugs. Its front fender somewhat bashed in, the remaining black SUV lurched into a U-turn and headed south.
“The Swords are in the Hummers,” she said and wriggled around to face Jim again. He gave her one of his trademark scowls. Still grinning, she leaned forward, touched the tip of his nose with her finger, and said, “Zap!”
He jerked backward far enough to grab her hand in his and shake it. “Are you crazy, woman? What if you had missed their car? What about innocent bystanders?”
“I knew what I was doing, and I wasn’t going to let them catch us. Nobody else was in my line of fire. My lightning bolt worked, didn’t it?” She glared back at him.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” he snarled, and then he kissed her.
She hardly had the chance to register the feel of his lips on hers, his tongue demanding entry and sweeping inside her mouth, before heat and his scent and a glorious sense of belonging flooded over her. She was reaching for him when a loud horn blast caused him to break the kiss, abruptly swing his head around, and stare out his driver’s side window.
One of the white Hummers was alongside, and John Baldwin leaned out the window and pointed toward the HeatherRidge.
Jim cursed, let go of her—when had he grasped her shoulders?—and put the car in gear. They headed for the Center at a sedate pace. Jim didn’t say a word.
Irenee worked on slowing her fast-beating heart and gaining some control over the sparks shooting through her nervous system. Those fireworks weren’t the result of her spell. They came directly from that kiss.
Take it easy. It’s only the imperative pushing you. His kiss meant nothing. Probably his way of working off the adrenaline rush from the chase. He didn’t feel a thing. The conclusions—or were they hopes?—didn’t help calm her nerves. All she seemed to know with a certainty was that she wanted another kiss. She did wonder, however, what would have happened next if they hadn’t been interrupted.
She sat straight and studied him. He had both hands on the wheel and wore a grim expression. Nothing indicated to her he had been affected at all by their oh-so-brief kiss. Until she noticed how flushed his skin was, how set his jaw, and how tight his grip. How he took a long, deep breath and let it out too slowly. He seemed to be simmering.
They pulled up to the HeatherRidge gate, and Gary, the guard, told them to go straight to the Defenders’ building. Jim asked how to get there, and Gary gave him the directions—turn left before going into the underground parking, follow the road, he couldn’t miss it. Jim nodded and stepped on the gas without giving her so much as a glance.
Yep, he was definitely on a slow boil. She’d wait until they got inside before saying a single word. Then she’d use more than a couple of words to tell him about Swords in general and herself in particular. Didn’t he have any confidence in her?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Jim followed the drive around and pulled into one of the parking slots on the back side of the Defenders’ building. Avoiding even a glance at the woman next to him, he carefully took his hands from the wheel and exited the car. He honestly didn’t know whether he wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled or kiss her senseless.
What a fool stunt! What if she had missed? What if the spell had backfired? Would they have been fried? She didn’t ask permission or even discuss it before she threw those spells—either time. She shouldn’t act like such a loose cannon. She could get hurt. He certainly had a couple of things to tell her about letting him, the one with experience against bad guys, take the lead. Didn’t she have any confidence in him?
Irenee had already climbed out when he went around to open her door, so he stalked to the building and held that door for her. Nose in the air and gaze straight ahead, she sailed through. She wouldn’t even look at him. He hoped she was sorry about her impulsiveness, although deep down he knew she wasn’t. What was he going to do with her?
The kiss had shaken him to his toes. What the hell was going on with him? He’d never had the reactions to a woman like he was having to her. He realized he was still standing there holding the door when the man and the woman from the Hummer came up the walk. He let them precede him inside the building and into a conference room. At least they smiled at him.
Whipple and Sable were seated at the table waiting for them.
“Nothing like a little unexpected excitement to get the blood flowing, is there?” Whipple said, grinning and rubbing his hands briskly together. “Tylan, these two are John Baldwin, Sword and member of the Defender Council from New York, and Johanna Mahler, Sword and teacher of our young Defenders here at the Center.”
Before taking a seat, Jim shook hands with both of them. Short, sturdy Baldwin had an air of command reminding him of one of his best captains in the San Diego PD. Mahler, a pretty dark-blonde in her early- to midthirties, projected both calm and confidence.
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br /> Irenee sat next to her father and directly across the table from him. Good. He could keep an eye on her. He could almost laugh at the way she was pretending he didn’t exist—except he was still strung so tight, his face would probably crack if he tried to.
“Okay, what exactly happened?” Whipple, asked.
Jim spoke before she could—he’d tell it his way, objectively. “We came out of the restaurant, and two men jumped us and trapped us between cars. They had guns. One told us to come with them, but he didn’t say where. I could see two similar men heading our way. Irenee hit the guy on her end with a puff of wind, and I slugged the one on mine. We jumped in the car and took off.”
He stopped to take a breath, shoot a glance her way. She said nothing, so he continued, “She called here, and we were given directions to take Bartlett Road. Thanks to the traffic, we were able to maintain some distance between us and the two SUVs—Suburbans by the look of them—coming after us. When we turned on Bartlett, they followed. We had a good lead before I had to slow down when I saw cars in the through lanes ahead at the light. I moved to the left to pull into the left-turn lane and run the red light.”
He looked straight at her and worked hard to keep the anger out of his voice. “That’s when Irenee threw a lightning bolt at the first SUV. It swerved and slowed, was hit by the second, and ended up in a swamp off to the right side the road. The two men in it got out and climbed into the second vehicle. The Swords showed up, and the other guys beat it. Have we heard from them?”
“Our people in the other Hummer called and said they lost them when they turned east on Golf and crossed Barrington,” Baldwin answered. “Once the lanes expanded from two to four, they sped off, and we didn’t try to keep up—too dangerous for other motorists. We’ve alerted the people we have watching the Finster mansion to see if they show up there.”
“I figure Ubell sent them,” Jim said. “When we left here, I noticed a black Suburban in the road to the subdivision across from the Center’s entrance, and I think it was the same people. Ubell wouldn’t have any reason to know who I am, so they must have been after Irenee. They were probably going to bring me along as a possible bargaining chip.”
