by Ann Macela
“Alton was in no shape to speak at all, certainly not about a safe or a magic item. May I remind you, this isn’t my house. I don’t know all its nooks and crannies or what Alton may have hidden here.” Bruce made sure to speak clearly and forcefully, without so much as a tiny quiver in his voice. It wasn’t difficult. After all, he wasn’t afraid of these people. They couldn’t hurt him.
Miriam Chandler, a six-foot-tall woman who looked like she could bench press three hundred pounds without the aid of a strength spell and lead an army to victory at the same time, spoke with a soft voice. “In that case, you have no reason to deny us permission to search the property”
Bruce had met CEOs before who used low voices to command; he knew how to handle them. He looked from one visitor to the next and replied in the same tone, calmly, deliberately. “It’s not my place to give you such permission. I’m holding onto the property and our family company for Alton and our stockholders. I can assure you I will conduct a thorough search of the premises for a confiscation notice and magical anomalies. I don’t dispute your statements that you confiscated an evil item from Alton, although I can’t conceive of my cousin with such an object. I don’t quarrel with your seizure of it. Your confiscation would be totally within practitioner law as I understand it.”
He spread his arms in a conciliatory gesture. “Whatever Alton had, you now possess. I had nothing to do with whatever he might have done. Unless you have an order from the High Council with indisputable evidence there is some other problem item in this house, however, I must deny your request and exert my rights to protect the family, the company, and our good name.”
There. Let them answer that. Did they think he didn’t know the laws? What fun to use practitioner rules against them.
High Council member Rachel Goldfarb turned her gray eyes on Bruce, and the impact of her gaze confirmed the immense power rumored to be residing in her tiny body. This visitor meant business.
Bruce steeled himself to keep still and betray no emotion. He was stronger than they were, and he didn’t want to call on his Stone for help—not yet.
“Mr. Ubell,” Goldfarb said, “we have cause to believe an item of ancient evil magic is on these premises. Not the one Alton Finster possessed. Another. Consider my statement here today your official notification. If you have knowledge of the item, you are in violation of practitioner oath and law, and all the power of both councils will be brought to bear against you when it comes to light. If you truly do not know of the item, but find it, you are bound by oath and law to turn it over to the Defenders immediately”
Her voice and her gaze turned as hard as granite. “If you attempt to use the item, we will know it. We will come after it. Rest assured, we will find it, and we will destroy it. Your cousin played a very dangerous game. He paid a horrendous price. Take care that you do not do the same.”
“I’ll start searching Alton’s things immediately.” Bruce kept his expression serene. What a bitch! Too bad he couldn’t show her his Stone right now. Wouldn’t he and it have some fun?
With raised eyebrows, Chandler looked at her three cohorts, who each nodded slightly. She faced Bruce. “I believe we’ve said everything necessary. Good day to you, sir.”
The foursome rose as one and left the room without another word.
Supercilious, overbearing idiots. Bruce sat in his chair and watched them go. Who did they think they were, ordering him around? They had no proof, or they would have brought the orders with them.
To expect him to give up his Stone like a good little boy. How ridiculous. Arrogant bastards and bitches, every single one of them. He hit the table with his fist at the last thought. It felt so good, he hit it three more times, once for each of his visitors.
What could he do to teach them a lesson, to show them his power, to force them to acknowledge the truth? He was inviolable, untouchable, above the world of mundane practitioners.
The familiar and wonderful and seductive oozing of his Stone’s power began to swirl in his mind and his center, bringing with it truly diabolical ideas. It seemed to be trying to tell him something else, but he couldn’t quite understand what. Something to do with power? No matter. He understood—and agreed with—all of its other schemes. He smiled, then chuckled, then broke out in laughter. Oh, thank you, Stone!
He went to his desk and pulled out of a drawer a cheap, limited-minute cell phone. He punched in a number. When the call was answered, he said, “Burt, get all the inventory out of the warehouse and start moving it. It’s time to make some money”
They discussed tactics for a couple of minutes. Before he hung up, he had one more order. “Send that man of yours over here for instructions. I have another job for him. This time he’d better do it right.”
He put the phone away, walked over to the decanters on a side table, and poured himself a celebratory bourbon. He held up the drink to his grandfather’s portrait. “Here’s to you, old man. Thanks for the Stone. Here’s to death for the thieving Sabel bitch and her DEA boyfriend. They’ll pay for what they did to us.”
He knocked back the drink and poured himself another. Laughing again, he headed downstairs. He loved spending time communing with his Stone and contemplating revenge.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“Irenee!” Jim came awake holding his gun, standing by the side of the bed, and looking around for the threat. When he saw none, he straightened slowly from his fighting crouch. Irenee was standing on the other side, her sword glowing violet and indigo in her hands.
He looked at his own weapon. Fat lot of good it would have done him. It was exactly as he had originally placed it on the bedside chest—unloaded. He put it down again before turning to her.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered, blinking at him, then at her shining blade. She separated her hands, and the sword disappeared.
They met at the foot of the bed and held each other until they stopped shaking.
“If we don’t put an end to Ubell and his tricks soon, I’m going to have to kill him to get some sleep,” Jim said, only half-joking. He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed back to see her face. “What was your dream like this time?”
“I was running, trying to get somewhere. Something awful was going to happen if I didn’t. Suddenly I was there, wherever ‘there’ was, and somebody was hurling fireballs and lightning bolts at me, like in my test, and I was fighting and fighting and fighting. And then I woke up.” She stopped to take a deep breath. “What was yours?”
“An horrible, big, black thing was coming after you. It was huge, it had glowing eyes, and it absorbed all the light around it. It was attacking you with laser beams. I was the only one who could save you. But I couldn’t move. Ropes or chains were wrapped around me. I struggled, and fought, and couldn’t lift so much as a finger. It was going to kill you, and I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it.”
He let go of her, sat on the end of the bed, put his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. There it was again, that awful feeling of complete helplessness.
She sat down beside him and rubbed his back. “It was just a dream, Jim. We’re both all right.”
“Ubell must be playing with his Stone again. It’s the only explanation making any sense. What time is it? Four in the afternoon? Whipple said they were meeting with him today. Could they have had problems? Been attacked?”
“No, alarms would be going off all over the place if Ubell tried to fight them. Besides, I’m sure they took backup.”
He scrubbed his face and stood up. Paced around the bed. Why was he still feeling helpless, incompetent, and inadequate? He thought he’d gotten rid of this particular demon when he’d exchanged energy with her. Evidently not—or had he made it worse? Why wasn’t his hunch ability working? Was the present going to be like the past had been?
Irenee leaned back on her arms and frowned at him. “Jim, you have a blue aura. Even though it’s very faint, I can still see it. What’s going on?”
He shook his head, put h
is hands on his hips. “My hunch antennae are wiggling and driving me crazy. Outside of a very strong feeling something bad is going to happen, I can’t seem to focus on real possibilities or conclusions. I only know absolutely that, whatever is coming, it’s aimed at you, and I won’t be able to help.”
“But we proved you are able to help me. You and I can exchange energy. Your energy will be an enormous help when we destroy the Stone.”
“It won’t be enough.” He shook his head again.
She stood, reached up to grab his shoulders, and gave him a shake. “Stop! Don’t degenerate into defeatist talk. You’ve about solving problems, not creating them, especially out of thin air. Where is your attitude coming from?”
Jim looked at her, so brave, so sure of herself and her talent. So certain she would prevail. He didn’t want to burst her bubble. She simply needed to understand where he was in his head and how he felt. She needed to be prepared for what was to come—his failure. “It’s happened before, with disastrous results. Sit down, and I’ll tell you.”
When she did, he rubbed his hand over his chest while he considered how to begin. His center gave an encouraging hum—a direct counter to the negative confusion in his head. “Okay, this isn’t going to be easy for me, but here goes. I told you my parents and sister are dead.”
“Yes, you said your parents were killed by a drug addict.” She pulled her feet under her.
God, she was so adorable, sitting there in her lacy underwear. He had to be strong and not join her like he wanted to. He had to get through his explanation, then see if she still wanted him.
“I had the same kind of nonspecific hunch that day—something awful was going to happen, and I needed to be there—but I had to take my last final before graduation. I knew my dad would be extremely upset if I didn’t take the exam simply because of some idiotic hunch, so I took it and rushed right over to the store af terward. The cops were already there, and my mom and dad were dead. I hadn’t been there to help them.”
She held her hands out to him. “Oh, Jim, their deaths were not your fault. For all you know, if you’d been there, the addict would have killed you, too.”
He took her hands, kissed them, and let them go. “Yeah, I know. I might have stopped it, though. Look, regardless of my feelings, I’ve come to terms with this event, believe me. It’s not the real problem.”
“Go on,” she said with an encouraging gesture.
“My sister, Charity, was fourteen when they died. She’d been a typical teenager, full of drama about every little thing and not happy with the limits my parents put on her, but she was basically a good kid. Afterward, she wanted to live with me until she could go to college. I was starting police training, and I knew there was no way I could provide the kind of home she needed. Hell, my own life wasn’t stable. How could I give her any supervision, or even my presence at home every night?
“We talked it over, and she accepted it would be better if she had someone who could be there. My Aunt Mary, my mom’s sister, lived in San Diego also, and she agreed with us. Charity moved in with my aunt. I was leery of the arrangement from the get-go-for no good reason other than one of my hunches again. I simply could see no other alternative.”
“That sounds like a good plan,” Irenee said. “It’s what I would have done if I’d lost my parents.”
“Yeah, well, it didn’t turn out to be. My aunt had her real estate business to run, and you know how realtors are always out at night. We knew this going in, and we thought it could still work because Charity could go to the realty office after school. Things went okay for a couple of years.”
He ran a hand through his hair. Here came the bad part. “When she was a junior in high school, old enough to date and everything, Charity began to run with a bad crowd. I tried to talk with her, get her to change her ways. Charity wouldn’t listen to me or our aunt, and she wouldn’t talk to a counselor. As a big, bad cop, I tried scaring her buddies, and they blew me off. My hunches about my sister—something was really, truly wrong—kept getting stronger. I hadn’t learned to trust them yet, and nothing I did or said got through to her at all.”
He paced for a minute while the memories of her and her problems returned in a tidal wave of regret, sorrow, and anger. He shoved them aside somehow and managed to say, “Long story short, Charity ran away, disappeared after her high school graduation with some of her scumbag friends. I looked for her, man, did I look for her. Found her once, even talked her into rehab since she was an addict herself by then. She took off the day she got out. I’d get reports from various cities around southern California, and she’d be gone by the time I could get there. She and her buddies pulled some convenience-store heists, so there were warrants out.”
He stopped, took a deep breath, struggled for control, and forced the final words out of a throat tight with grief. “One day, not long after Aunt Mary died from cancer, I got a phone call. Charity had been found in Bakersfield, dead from an overdose. She was twenty years old. I couldn’t do a thing for her except bury her.”
He lost it on the last word. He’d never told anyone the entire story. The wall he’d built to hold in his feelings broke, and the rushing memories—the anguish of his search, the devastation of her death, the loneliness of his life—overwhelmed him, and he broke down.
Irenee was up off the bed in an instant, holding him tight as he cried.
Finally cried for his sister, and his parents, and all he’d lost.
After a while, he regained control of himself and let her coax him to sit on the bed. She handed him a box of tissues, and he blew his nose. When she took one of the tissues, he realized she’d been crying, too. He hauled her into his lap, gave her a kiss, and whispered, “Thanks.”
“I’m so sorry you lost your family Those are terrible things to live through. I can only imagine how it felt. But, Jim, listen to me. None of what happened is your fault.”
He sighed. That’s what he expected her to say. “Yes, it was. I couldn’t help any of them when they needed it the most. I should have been there. I should have listened to my hunches. I should have protected Charity. I should—”
She put a finger on his lips. “You couldn’t. Your parents’ deaths are a terrible tragedy. Your sister’s is, too. She made a lot of bad choices and didn’t take your help, and it killed her. You and your aunt couldn’t have locked her up. This may sound harsh, but you are not to blame. You did everything you could. What happened afterward—to you? What did you do?”
“Afterward, I went out for revenge and started looking for the people who provided the drugs to my parents’ killer and to Charity’s suppliers. Ended up in the DEA as a result. Found out the ultimate supplier was Finster, and now Ubell.”
He smiled, a small one generated by one of his best memories. “Found you, burglarizing a safe.”
“And I found you, a wild talent. So, here we are, full circle,” she said after she gave him a kiss. “I don’t understand, though, how any of the past affects our situation today”
“Because I’ve learned how to trust my hunches. Even when they’re vague at times, they’re right. The ones I’m having now are all bad. You’re in terrible danger, and I won’t be able to help you. Like with my sister, I don’t know what to do. Unlike with her, I know I have to do something. I’ll try my best, but I could end up doing the worst possible thing, and my actions could get you killed.”
Her expression turned to one of sheer exasperation, and she poked him in the chest. “No, you won’t. These hunches are too vague to be meaningful. Besides, we’re in this together. We’re soul mates, and if whatever happens is too much for the two of us, we have a lot of people to help. I’ve just found you, and I’m not letting you go. So if you have some idiotic idea about taking on Ubell and the Stone by yourself, forget it. We’re a team.”
“Yes, ma’am.” What else could he say? Her declaration of their togetherness gladdened his heart. On the other hand, her words also meant she didn’t completely understand
. His hunches were never wrong.
What could he do? Hell, what would he do when he had to go back to work? Could he depend on Whipple and the rest to take care of her, restrain her recklessness? Was there another way to protect her—by keeping her away from the fight altogether? “Is there a single chance in the world you won’t be part of Ubell’s Stone’s destruction?”
She shook her head. “I don’t see how. I don’t have a choice. The evil in the item has targeted me. When the Defenders destroy it, it will come after me no matter where I am. I’m much safer with the team and fighting back. I’m sure Fergus will bring in all the Swords and Defenders around. Besides ...”
Her expression changed from the previous sympathy for him to anticipation—excited anticipation. He almost groaned. He didn’t need a hunch to tell him what she’d say next. Sure enough . . .
“Besides, I’m a Sword, and destroying evil items is my duty. I must do this, Jim. It’s my calling.”
Jim opened his mouth and shut it again. What could he say to change her mind when her reckless side was in control? Not a damn thing. The worst part of it was he understood deep in his bones what she meant. He had his own calling.
“Be careful, that’s all I ask,” he told her. He sighed and held her close. Now he only had to figure out how to protect her despite her nature and his hunches.
If determination counted for anything, he’d be successful. She was his soul mate, damn it! Of course he would protect her—or die trying.
His center began to heat when he kissed her. Time to change the subject.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
That evening for dinner, Irenee and Jim joined Fergus, John, the high-ranking visitors, and the others working on the problem of Ubell’s Stone. Irenee was so excited, she thought she’d burst. Wow, both the head of the Defender Council and a member of the High Council itself. She told herself to be on her best behavior, especially with her soul mate at her side.
