Blake waved me into his gym but muttered under his breath, “Sullivan is messing with me again.”
My face flushed, and I bit my tongue. This miracle fighter was short and stocky, and his dark brown hair was gray at the temples. He fidgeted constantly, like he was high on something. Even worse, he was wearing a frown.
After a minute, he led me over to a corner office with a couple of plastic chairs in front of a cheap metal desk. We sat down next to each other. The place smelled like stale sweat.
“Holly didn’t tell me you were a hayseed, probably because she knew I wouldn’t see you if she had. You may be used to throwing your weight around, but here, that counts against you. Good fighters don’t care how big you are. They can still bring you down.”
“Damn,” I groaned. “You don’t give a guy a chance, do you? Maybe this isn’t the best idea she ever had.”
“Probably not.” Blake nodded. “But here you are. We might as well go through the motions. That way, we can both tell her with a straight face that we tried. She says you have a talent for magic. Let’s see it.”
My nervousness grew as he reached for my right hand. I stayed relaxed, but a powerful shock tore through me, convulsed my arm, and filled my body.
He yelped and dropped my hand. “Damn, I’m a stupid son of a bitch,” he muttered as he shook his hand like he was trying to bring it back to life. “My mistake—too big a hurry—distracted by emotions.” He buried his hand in his armpit and rocked back and forth. “Oh, damn, damn—that really hurts.”
I knew exactly how he felt, but I tried not to show it. The sensation slowly returned to my arm, and it felt like he’d sliced me with a hundred razor blades.
He rocked back and forth in the flimsy chair.
After a minute, he gave me a sheepish grin. “I didn’t realize how much power you’re hauling around. I’m sorry—tried to connect to your magical core too casually. Let’s try that again, mindfully.”
I sat next to him, and he gingerly reached out to take my hand between both of his. After a second, I felt his kernel bond with mine. No shock this time.
Thank you, God.
“That’s better. Holly told me you’ve kicked a few asses, but I thought she was exaggerating.” He let go of my hand. After a couple of deep breaths, he said, “Okay, you’ve been busy. I was a tad hasty.”
This had been one of the strangest experiences of my life. I coughed and cleared my throat. Then I said in a hoarse voice, “Holy shit! What are you on?”
He sat still for a moment. “High on life. Give me another minute—need to focus—can’t talk.” He took several more deep breaths. “Wow. You pack one hell of a punch. I’m surprised.” He looked at me and grinned. “Sorry, I’m harmless—just a little intense—will take some getting used to.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to. “Oh, man, this is a mistake.”
He laughed. “You said it. Wow, you conceal the mojo really well. Just a happy country bumpkin.”
I’d thought I was, until I met this lunatic. “Sir, please, this is beyond weird. I have a real problem with strangers, and you’re pretty high-strung.”
He snickered. “I get that a lot. I’m still all a-tingle. I don’t mean to freak you out, but my next class is in fifteen minutes. We have to work quickly. You’re quite the paradox. Something weird is going on in there. Holly was right. If you’d like to learn how to fight without magic, I’ve got room for you.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I’m not sure I do.” I sighed. “You’re no doubt quite the fighter, but we might not make a good fit. What do you really do here?”
“I specialize in teaching self-defense, hand-to-hand combat against opponents who don’t follow the rules. In other words, I’m a no-holds-barred, kickass street fighter who’ll use any weapon handy to stop you. I show people how to beat similar opponents without actually killing the bastards.”
“Sorcerers can’t use most weapons,” I replied.
He nodded. “My techniques will work equally well for you and your staff. The basic idea for you is to put your opponent down as quickly as possible while doing him the least amount of permanent damage. That’s where the moral part of my calling begins.”
“You use karate to disarm and disable?”
“Right,” he said, “but I also teach kickboxing and Kung Fu. I work mostly with cops and other law enforcement who have to interact with hardened criminals. I teach the good guys how to defend themselves against bad guys.”
That was why Holly had sent me here, but could I get along with this nut?
He pointed at a wall twenty feet wide that was covered with shelves overloaded with plaques and trophies. “We do good work here. We save lives, build champions, using the least necessary force.”
“I’m sure you’re on the side of the angels. Let me talk about it more with Holly.”
Several people in karate uniforms walked into the gym.
“Great meeting you,” he said. “I have to go, hope you’ll consider training here. There’s a lot I can teach you that might come in handy the next time some badass jumps you.”
That was the bottom line. I need learn how to fight with my hands and feet in addition to using magic.
-o-o-o-
Brigid’s Community Ranch, Boulder County, Colorado
WHEN I ARRIVED BACK home, both Diana and Tess were laughing in Diana’s office. I asked, “Can I tell you about my meeting with Don Blake and get your advice?”
“Let’s talk over lunch,” Tess said. “They’re serving Chinese.”
Diana and I nodded, so after we each went through the cafeteria line, we found a table, and I told them how the meeting had gone.
After I’d finished, Diana snorted. “Well, Farm Boy, that sounds a bit odd, even in our world.”
Tess laughed and waved around a fork holding a chunk of sesame chicken. “He makes me seem normal.”
“You are normal,” I replied. Then I asked Diana, “Are you sure about Holly’s judgment on this guy?”
“Like I said before,” she said, “I’ve known her for many years. She’s as reliable an adviser as I’ve ever known. Give her the benefit of the doubt, but feel free to ask Blake more questions next time you see him.”
I looked at Tess to see if she had any comments.
“Does he really teach no-rules street fighting?” she asked. “That’s exactly what you need. I only know boxing.”
I took a few bites of kung pao chicken and washed them down with a sip of beer. “Yeah, he says he teaches the good guys to take down the bad guys. Who talks like that?”
Tess looked at me with dancing eyes. “I’d like to meet this man. I think I’m in love.”
-o-o-o-
Monday, December 2nd
Sullivan’s Animal Hospital, Boulder, Colorado
BY THE TIME I sat down with Holly in her office, I’d realized she could’ve saved me a lot of heartache by being more explicit, so I didn’t pull any punches.
“Have you lost your mind? Are you shooting meth with him? Don is insane, and he hates big guys!”
Holly laughed. “I told you, he’s an acquired taste. The last wannabe fighter I sent to Don never spoke to me again. Do you have any objections, other than his little personality quirks and his supposed dislike of big men?”
“He’s rude, arrogant, and full of himself.”
Holly tossed a pencil at me. “He reminds me of a teenager jacked up on a mixture of LSD, testosterone, and video games. Look, I admit that he’s hard to handle at first. Hell, after twenty years, he’s still hard to handle. But he has two amazing qualities. First, he’s a fantastic fighter, taught by the best martial arts experts in the world. He can take you to another dimension of hand-to-hand combat, assuming you stick with him.”
“That’s a big if.”
She ignored my snarkiness. “Second, he’s incredibly spiritual, after you break through that weird outer crust. He cares for people who are suffering mo
re than any man I’ve ever met. He’s a committed Zen Buddhist who lived as a monk in Japan for ten years. Now, he tries to minimize the carnage in violent clashes between cops and crooks. I think you’re lucky that he’ll help you.”
I squirmed in my chair, unable to get comfortable. “Maybe, but my life is already a horror show, thanks to bastards like Byrne and Hudson. I’m fully expecting the coming weeks to get worse. Don’t know how much more weirdness I can take.”
“Give him a few hours a week for a month and see how it goes. If you still dislike him after that, I’ll disinfect you and treat you to the best steak dinner in town.”
It was a better offer than I could have expected. She wouldn’t benefit much from me working with Don, and I could learn a lot from the nut.
“Deal.”
“Good. By the way,” Holly said with a chuckle, “you’re totally off-base about him not liking you.”
“Yeah, right. He called me a hayseed.”
“I talked to him yesterday. He said to me, ‘Holly, I started out by yelling at you under my breath as soon as I saw the big galumph.’ I squealed, could imagine the scene exactly. I wish I’d been there to get the full effect.”
“I wish you’d been, too,” I said. “I’d have liked to punch your lights out.”
She snickered. “Yeah, I’m quivering with fear. Anyway, I said to him, ‘You idiot, I hope you gave him a chance before you started one of your tirades.’ He claimed he did, after he touched your hand. Then he knew you were the real deal.”
I tossed her pencil back at her. “No normal person treats strangers like he does.”
Holly sighed. “What I think you’re missing is, he lives on a whole different spiritual level from the rest of us. He thinks we’d all be better off suffering. ‘It turns people into saints or lunatics,’ he says.”
She’d confused me again. “That’s exactly the kind of weirdness I’m talking about. Nobody should have to suffer.”
“He sees it as the path to holiness. He’s always telling me how much the Dalai Lama has suffered to get to his present state of enlightenment.”
The woman was a con artist, I decided. “You really ought to sell used cars or fake diamonds.” I fought a grin. “How well do you know him?”
“After we met in school, we were roommates for two years. By the way, that was a horror show, before he became a Buddhist. He’s incredibly fussy, a neat freak, and obsessive-compulsive. Now, he’s one of my best friends. We go on vacation together at least once every year.”
“If he’s so spiritual, why does he seem ready to go postal at any moment?”
“You should have seen him back in the day. Look, the outside is all bluster. His students love him. Me, on the other hand—I bring a can of bear spray whenever we get together.”
That was a ringing endorsement if I’d ever heard one.
Chapter 10
Friday, December 6th
Mayor Zack Byrne’s Home, Boulder, Colorado
DIANA DRAGGED ME KICKING and whining toward the mayor’s annual Christmas party.
“You’re not even a Christian,” I reminded her.
“Doesn’t matter. This is Boulder. We don’t have Christmas parties, we have holiday parties. I’ll bet you see a menorah and pagan yule logs. Zack read what happened to your family, and he specifically asked you to come today. He wants to visibly show support for you.”
That was encouraging. “So, the article did have some impact. That’s great. I’m happy to have his support, but I’m still not going to become Oran’s buddy. Are you?”
“Of course not,” Diana said. “But I did negotiate a blood oath with him that keeps any of us from fighting at this party. So, we’re safe around a sorcerer tonight.”
I’d never heard the words safe and sorcerer used together before.
“Bottom line,” Diana said. “Zack has gone out of his way several times since he first met you to protect you from witch-haters. The least we can do is to show up and thank him.”
I nodded as we approached the mayor’s charming old house near Chautauqua Park. The oak door was covered with a wreath made from pine boughs, cones, and bright red ribbons. It looked pretty damned Christmassy to me.
I opened the door, but we could hardly get in. The tantalizing aromas of spiced apple cider and baked ham wafted toward me. That encouraged me to try harder. “Want me to run interference?” I asked.
Diana elbowed her way in. “We can’t allow a crowd of drunks to stand in the way of our duty.”
She wiggled in, holding my hand, and I followed.
I knew Zack and his wife were popular, but this was ridiculous. They should’ve rented the grand ballroom at a local hotel.
Diana seemed to know everyone, and she pressed the flesh like a seasoned politico as we wound our way toward our hosts. I expected Gill’s medallion to give me the shock of my life whenever I got close enough to Oran Byrne, but then I saw him at the kitchen door. My warning device somehow knew there’d be no hostilities tonight.
Oran’s frown told me he wasn’t any happier to be here than I was. In his hand, thank the gods, he was carrying a magnum of champagne instead of a staff.
“Trouble ahead,” I said to Diana in a voice loud enough to be heard over the roar of the crowd.
Diana eased forward toward both Oran and Zack, and our Fearless Leader raised her hand to attract their attention. When Zack noticed, he waved her forward.
It still took us ten minutes to move as many feet. Luckily, he headed toward us at the same time, or I doubt we ever would’ve made contact. First, he hugged Diana warmly and then me. I wasn’t used to wrapping my arms around men, hadn’t even done that with Gill, but it seemed to be a Boulder thing.
“So, so glad you could come,” Zack said after a seemingly endless stream of trivial holiday wishes. “I need my favorite witches close. Happy winter solstice.”
I immediately thought of his granddaughter’s kitten. “How are Jenny and her friend?”
He laughed. “Not here. They’re fine, at my daughter’s house. Listen, I need you for something. I’ve—”
He was grabbed by a round, elderly woman and hugged. That led to another five minutes of holiday folderol. Then someone else popped up, and the whole greeting ritual started again.
It seemed I’d never find out what he wanted, but Oran hugged Zack and handed off his bottle. Oran’s eyes lit up, and I could see their strong affection for each other. Apparently, even crazy bastards had family who cared for them.
Oran’s long black hair was flowing to his shoulders in waves, and his deep green eyes seemed colder than the last time we’d met. If the Tourism Board of Ireland went looking for a man to symbolize the Emerald Isle, Oran Byrne would have made an excellent choice—as long as they didn’t care that he had a stone for a heart.
Zack flagged down a waiter and gave him the champagne bottle in exchange for four glasses of bubbly. “A toast, to new friends.”
We all clinked glasses and drank.
“My nephew is running into much more trouble than I expected in forging some new relationships in town,” Zack said. “I’m hoping, in the spirit of the holidays, that you two will help him connect with some of our compatriots.”
I was shocked by what our mayor expected from me, and, although I hadn’t been drinking yet, I couldn’t make my tongue work.
Then my amazement grew. Zack said, “I thought that it would be natural for the two most handsome men at this party, two men who are of a similar age, to become fast friends.”
I glanced at Diana, whose eyes seemed to be in danger of popping out of her head. I gulped more champagne.
Oran recovered fast. He apparently was accustomed to being dragged into awkward social settings by his extroverted uncle. “Of course, Zack. I’d be delighted to get to know Ian better. He certainly is great company.”
I finally managed to produce a real smile on my face because of the hidden sarcasm. Diana cringe
d, maybe thinking that Oran and I would weasel our way out of her truce and stun each other at her boss’s party.
She was drinking champagne, so I said, “It must be wonderful, Oran, to have such a caring uncle.”
He gave me a grin, which confused me, and then he nodded. “He’s a treasure.”
I’d expected his anger to flare instead. He was an amazing actor, seemingly amused by my and Diana’s discomfort.
After I tuned back into our little group, there was an awkward silence. Zack had been distracted by someone, and the other two had nothing to say to each other. No need to be polite, so I asked Oran, “Why don’t you head back to Ireland?”
He jerked back to life. “Indeed, but I’m having such a good time annoying you.”
I looked at Diana, mentally urging her to butt in and say anything. She’d insisted we come to this crowded fiasco, and she’d warned me about fighting, but she wasn’t being the least bit helpful.
Zack turned back to us and grabbed my arm. “I only have a minute of peace to speak to you. Oran loves horses, and I know you and Diana do, too. I was hoping you two young gentlemen, or, even better, all three of you, could enjoy a ride together. The snow is gone down on the plains, and it’s supposed to be lovely for a few days.”
I muffled a snort at the thought of a friendly outing, but Zack was clearly worried about his nephew. I glanced at Diana to see her reaction. She was speechless.
Oran said, “That would be wonderful, if you could spare the time.”
Diana had to deal with this new wrinkle. I was doing all I could to keep from laughing hysterically. So I stared at her until she said, “Sure, boss. No problem. At least one of us will be happy to get outdoors and show Oran the fall colors in Colorado. We’ll even provide a horse for him and all the tack he’ll need for a fabulous ride.”
Not the response I’d hoped for.
Zack beamed. “Terrific!”
Oran gave us a curious smile. “Excellent. I’ll check in with Diana on Monday to finalize our adventure.”
Sanctuary: The Sorcerers' Scourge: Book Two Page 12
