“Actually, she can get a message to you through Aidan, if necessary,” Ric reminded her. He pulled a business card for Underhill, Inc. out of his pocket and handed it to Elise.
“He’s my cousin, believe it or not,” Meagan added with a weird smile. “It’s such a long story, but apparently I’m a long-lost heiress. I have to fly out to California to sort out all the legal details.”
“Cell phones work in California,” Elise replied dryly.
She stuffed the card into a pocket and shot Ric a hard, knowing look. “Underhill…Inc., huh?”
“Exactly.”
“Meagan, could you do me a favor? A new sculpture came in this morning and I’d appreciate your input on the display.” She pointed through an open archway into the next room of the gallery.
Meagan snickered but shrugged when Ric nodded his approval. Meagan would be out of earshot, but not out of his line of vision. “I promise, Mom, he’ll have me home by curfew,” she called over her shoulder as she slipped off toward the niche.
“What have you done to her?” Sutton’s whisper was low and vicious.
“Removed the best damn blocking spell I’ve ever seen,” he whispered back, mindful that Meagan’s hearing was now enhanced like his own. His eyes never left her adorably swaying butt. “What you see now is all Meagan, believe me. And she is Aidan Greene’s cousin and a missing heiress.”
“But not in California, right?”
“Exactly.” Who the hell was she and how much did she know? Ric was going to have a serious talk with Aidan. “She’s got to make an appearance at court. She’ll be back in Detroit soon enough.”
“She’d better be.” The black eyes had narrowed to slits, but widened again in a smile when Meagan came back with a comment about light and placement. Apparently Elise really did trust Meagan’s judgment, because Elise nodded thoughtfully.
“You’re right, as usual. I knew there was something I needed to fix, but I couldn’t get a grasp of what. I’ll have Fred move it first thing in the morning.” She stuck her hand into the neckline of her ivory linen shirt and came up with a smooth green stone on a black silk cord, which she pulled off over her head and looped over Meagan’s.
“This is malachite. It’s for protection. Keep it on you, next to your skin at all times and don’t trust anyone you meet there. If you’re in trouble, hold it in your hand and concentrate. Help should be forthcoming.” She leaned over and kissed Meagan on the cheek. “Be careful.” With a withering glare at Ric, she turned and stalked off on her black stiletto boots.
“O-o-o-kay.” Meagan watched her friend’s retreating back with a look of stark confusion.
“She’s an interesting individual. I wonder why Aidan didn’t mention her.”
“Why would he?” Meagan turned on him. “And what the heck was that all about, anyway?”
Ric grinned. There were others within possible earshot, so he leaned down and whispered. “Well, sweetheart, for some reason, your witchy friend seems to have a thing against elves.”
“Ha ha. And she’s not a witch. She’s really nice.
Normally.”
Ric laid a hand at the small of her back and guided her toward a deserted corner. He stood, pretending to observe a starkly modern painting and whispered. “Not bitchy, witchy. As in practitioner of the magical arts. And unless I miss my guess, your friend isn’t just any witch, but a Wyndewin witch. That means she’s a member of a powerful clan of witches and wizards. She has the gift of recognizing the races and she knows about Underhill. She was surprised to see you without your blocking spell in place.” And she’d gone pale beneath her golden skin tone when Ric had mentioned Aidan Greene.
But she’d given Meagan a powerful gift. He toyed with the amulet, studied the Asian character etched into the polished stone, awed by the strength of the protective magic it radiated. Meagan’s witch friend meant business.
Meagan shifted restlessly, drawing Ric’s attention. “I didn’t even tell her that we were here to steal back a painting.” She tugged on his hand. “Come on. We need to go pick one out.”
She took his hand and tugged him to an alcove with a soft Aubusson carpet cushioning the white marble floor.
Vases of roses stood in the corners, while diffuse light and moss-green velvet drapery highlighted the soft, rich colors and dreamlike quality of six of Meagan’s landscapes.
Like the others he’d seen at Meagan’s home, they were all so strikingly lovely that the viewer longed to be pulled right inside the picture. As much as Ric preferred spending his time in the human realm, he had to fight a surge of homesickness while gazing at the scenes before him.
“Well?” Meagan elbowed him in the ribs.
He shook his head, searching for words. Finally he settled on the only one that seemed to fit. “Magnificent.”
“Are they all…you know?”
“Underhill? Yes. I’ve been there.” He pointed to the third painting, a wooded glen centered on a tilted sandstone obelisk. Delicate wildflowers dotted the foreground and a tiny stream meandered across a back corner. “It’s an ancient portal in Cornwall. The others are vaguely familiar, but not locations I recognize. I suppose you’d be upset if I bought all of them.”
“It would feel awfully weird,” she agreed. “Besides, we need one for the queen.”
“How about the other five? I don’t know why it would feel weird.” Though he did, sort of. But she was so much fun to tease. “You said you have all my CDs.”
Meagan giggled and clapped her hand over her mouth as the sound echoed off the marble walls. “It’s not the same. I only paid twelve bucks apiece for the CDs, you idiot.”
“And if I don’t buy them, Aidan probably will. I’m really surprised that he hasn’t already discovered this place. Part of his job as regional guardian is to keep track of magic users in the area.”
“Oooh, looks like Big Brother missed one.” Meagan smiled in the way that made something in the vicinity of his stomach twist into knots.
“Or something,” Ric agreed, still entranced by the artwork.
“I should give one to Aidan,” she murmured. “He’s spent so much time and money trying to find me, after all. Which one do you think he’d like best?”
“Any of them. But the oak tree would be the most symbolic. For the queen, I think that one.” The waterfall with a Romanesque folly in the background was the most regal and grand of the lot.
“Good call.” She nodded cheerfully and squeezed his hand before disengaging from him. “Wait here!” She bounded away. He followed at a distance and planted himself in the corridor outside Elise’s office. It allowed her a bit of privacy to talk to her friend, but no one would be able to get past to hurt her.
“You sure you know what you’re doing?” Elise looked less than pleased as she marked off the invoices on the three paintings Meagan had specified. A staff member had been directed out to the gallery to remove and wrap them and replace them from the supply Elise kept in storage.
She’d waved off Meagan’s offer to pay for the frames, saying they’d deal with it later. “You know what he is, don’t you?”
“Yeah, but one of these days, you’re gonna have to explain how you do,” Meagan returned. “It’s weird, having family again all of a sudden and even weirder knowing there are people out there who want me…out of the way, but, oh God, Elise, it’s also the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“If you’re sure you want to do this, you have to promise me you’ll be careful. Their politics, their values, they’re not what you’re used to. Human life doesn’t mean a lot to them.”
“What happened to you, Elise?” Meagan had never seen her friend this intense about anything other than a sale. Or her daughter. When it came to Adina, Elise could be downright draconic.
Elise shook her head, her dark hair swinging above her shoulders. “We’ll talk about it another time. Be careful and keep the amulet on at all times, okay? And, Meagan?”
“What?”
/>
“Aidan Greene isn’t always a nice man, but he is honorable. If it comes down to it, you can probably trust him to keep you safe.”
“You know my cousin?” This kept getting weirder.
Elise nodded, her lips still drawn in that grim, white line. “So it seems. Destiny can be an outright bitch sometimes, but she sure has a twisted sense of humor.”
“O-o-o-kayyyy.” Meagan sensed she wasn’t going to get any more information out of her friend and she knew that she and Ric really did need to be on their way. “Look in on Jase for me, will you? Make sure he eats now and again?”
“Don’t worry, mama bird, your chick will be fine.”
Elise leaned forward and kissed Meagan on the cheek, a rare gesture of emotion from the normally stoic businesswoman. “Get me a message if you need anything.”
“Thanks.” Meagan blinked back a tear. She was still puzzling over Elise’s odd behavior when she met Ric at the door with three large packages in his arms. He didn’t say a word until they were in the Jag with the paintings lodged carefully in the back seat and the top up to protect the cargo.
“Three?”
She shrugged. “You said you have an apartment in San Francisco and a place at the court. With the one you bought the other day, now you can keep one in each place.” And have something to remember her by when he moved on, she thought sadly. For herself, she could already envision long nights spent listening to Ric’s music and reminiscing about their time together.
“The obelisk?” he asked softly.
“Umm-hmm. If you want it, that is.” He could have been flattering her when he’d offered to buy the lot. “If not, Elise will take it back.”
He swung his right arm out and dragged her across the console between their seats, smacking a kiss on the top of her head. “Uh-uh. You gave it to me; it’s mine. She can’t have it back. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She was glad he couldn’t see the stupid grin she probably had plastered to her face.
“Want to stop for lunch on the way back?” he offered.
“One last meal in the mortal realm?”
Yikes! He didn’t have to make it sound so ominous.
“I’ll give Aidan a call, so he doesn’t send out the cavalry.” Ric snapped his fingers and his phone popped into his hands. He apparently also dialed it magically, since his fingers never touched the keypad. His eyes never even flickered from the road as he navigated the busy traffic with smooth precision.
Even with her enhanced hearing, she could still only make out every third or fourth word from the other end of the conversation, so she decided to try again to contact Jase and left yet another voice mail. It was unlike Jase to ignore his calls for so long, but if his hot new romance was going anything like Meagan’s, she could certainly understand. “Call me when you come up for air.” She hung up and turned back to Ric.
It only took a few seconds before Ric said, “See you later,” flipped his phone shut, and poofed it, she supposed, back into his pocket. She was really, really going to have to learn how to do that. She wondered if it worked for laundry, or cleaning bathrooms.
“Hey, wait a minute! I thought you said you couldn’t poof electronics. How come you can do it with your phone?”
“First of all, we call it blinking, or transporting, not ‘poofing.’ Secondly, look at the brand name.” He poofed—uh—blinked it back into his fingers and handed it to her.
“Underhill Electronics. So what? Underhill makes all kinds of stuff. That’s why Aidan gets the mansion, right?”
“That phone isn’t one you’ll find on the market, it was a ‘gift’…” She could practically hear quotation marks around the word. “From Queen Llyris, so she can keep tabs on me. It’s put together with a lot more magic than technology.”
“Okay.” Yet another totally weird, yet weirdly logical explanation. If it kept up, Meagan’s brain was going to explode. Since Ric was smiling, she assumed he’d won his argument with Aidan. She smiled back. “So what’s for lunch?”
They ended up at a busy chain restaurant along the freeway where, Ric explained, they should be safe, since the bustling crowd provided its own sort of anonymity.
Ric cheerfully plowed through a tower of onion rings while Meagan toyed with her salad. So much for thinking she was starving.
“Might as well enjoy it now. You can’t get stuff like this Underhill,” he noted, popping another crispy ring into his mouth, closing his eyes and humming with pleasure at the taste. “Want one? Self-defense.”
That made her grin. She accepted a small one and munched thoughtfully. “So even the food’s different, huh?”
Ric grinned around a mouthful of food and wiggled his hand in a gesture of ambiguity. She loved watching those hands with their long fingers and short, neat nails. With or without his glamour, the fingertips on his left hand bore thick calluses from his guitar strings and she found that small consistency comforting. After he swallowed, he replied, his voice pitched soft and low.
“Not so much different as less creative. Think traditional English cooking, but with a mostly vegetarian bent. Quite formal, carefully prepared, but rather bland. And it’s all good for you, or mostly. Of course, you can request anything you want, you’ll be in a position of power, after all, but some things…” He waved at the empty onion ring dish. “Some things they never get quite right.”
“Will I be able to paint?”
“Of course. You won’t be a prisoner. I mean, I expect Llyris will keep you pretty close till the meeting, but after that, your time will be your own. You’ll be able to stay, come home, or whatever. If you do decide to stay awhile, you can contact someone on this side, like Aidan and arrange to get anything you need, paint, canvas, Diet Coke. That’s one of the reasons that we maintain a presence in this realm.”
After lunch they walked slowly back to the car.
Meagan was having some serious cold feet and even Ric seemed to be stalling. As he started the engine, she pulled out her cell phone.
“Still trying to reach Jase?”
“Yeah.” She pushed the speed dial and waited, but didn’t bother leaving another voice mail before flipping the phone shut. “I don’t suppose we could stop by my house on the way back to Aidan’s?”
“You’re that worried about him?”
“I guess.” She shook her head, gnawed on a lock of hair. “Hell, I don’t know. I’m probably being silly, but it isn’t like him to ignore my messages all day like this. I wanted to ask him to take in the mail and whatnot.”
“He might be—occupied. You did say things sounded pretty hot and heavy between him and George.”
“Maybe. But Jase is such a worrier and I felt sure he’d want to know how our talk turned out last night. I really expected him to call me first thing this morning for a complete rundown.”
He squeezed her thigh. “We can check. Meanwhile, why don’t you try calling the New Moon? Greg or George should be there about now. Maybe Jase is there with them.”
He rattled off a number which she dialed as he spoke.
A cheerfully gruff Greg answered the call. “Nope, gorgeous, haven’t seen him today. But George is right here, want to talk to him?”
“Sure.”
But George hadn’t seen him either.
“No, he hasn’t called me back today and he never showed up for our lunch date. I figured he’d changed his mind.”
He sounded so dejected, Meagan had to reassure him.
“I’m sure that’s not it. Yesterday when I talked to him, he was really looking forward to seeing you again.”
“Well. I guess that’s good news and bad. I’ll make a couple calls, see what I can find out. If I do hear from him, I’ll tell him to give you a call, right away. I’m sure he’ll turn up with a perfectly rational explanation.”
“I hope so.” But nothing much had been rational in her life for the last few days, so she wasn’t counting on it.
She heard a minor scuffle on the other end
of the call and Greg’s lower voice came back on. “Hey, Meagan, let me talk to Ernie for a minute, would you?”
“One of these days you’ll explain that.” She laughed and handed over the phone. Ric um-hmmed a couple of times. “No problem, Spot. We’ll call you when we get there.”
It only took a few minutes to reach Meagan’s house, especially at the speed Ric was driving. She wondered if he had a spell that protected him from traffic cops, but she didn’t want to distract him by asking. She held on to the armrest with a white-knuckled grip. When they pulled into her driveway, safe and unticketed, she let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.
“I don’t suppose you’ll wait in the car while I check things out?” Ric sounded resigned. Ah, how well he was coming to know her and how quickly, too.
She patted his thigh and grinned. “Not a chance, ear boy.”
“At least stay behind me while I check the wards on your house, all right?”
“Fair enough.” It wasn’t like she’d recognize a ward if one smacked her in the face. She obediently waited in the driveway while he strode up to her back door and seemed to study it intently. He squeezed his eyes shut and straightened his shoulders before turning to face her. Uhoh, that couldn’t mean good news.
“Owain’s been here,” Ric told her flatly when he returned to the car and leaned close to her opened window. “Not in the last hour or so, but today. He didn’t get through my wards on the house, but who knows what that means?”
“How can you tell?”
“Magical activity leaves, well, we call them energy trails. They’re like fingerprints, no two alike. And they fade after time. These are still pretty fresh, but not brandspanking new. Now, can we skip the magic lesson and go check on your friend?”
She climbed out of the car and gestured for him to lead the way back to the two-story garage. An exterior staircase led up to the small balcony that opened on to Jase’s apartment. Ric’s footsteps slowed as they walked back toward the garage.
“The trails are getting stronger and for lack of a better word, slimier. Something nasty happened here, Meagan. Maybe you should go back to the car and call Aidan.”
Motor City Fae Page 13
