Love Uncharted

by Berinn Rae

  Pain piercing every joint and muscle finally roused Daniel to the present and full consciousness. He could feel every person in the Lennox as if they lived inside his head; Lonnie Ranchero on the first floor, angrily punching coarse, cliché sentences into his computer. The McCready sisters down the hall discussing Hercule Poirot’s clever deductions, and just below him, the teenage newlyweds tumbled together making love. Great, Daniel moaned, just the kind of heat he didn’t need in his head at the moment. He flexed aching fingers, then wrists and arms until he found, after a bit, he could push himself onto his knees. His body felt as if he’d been struck by lightning and stripped of skin.

  When at last he opened his eyes, he saw the pulsing color in Lily’s living room had dissipated. The geode sat quiescent and blank on the table near his head. Outside, night was falling with autumnal speed … Lily would be home soon. He absolutely could not be here when she arrived.

  His brain felt like splintered wood. Hundreds of synaptic explosions had left his senses as raw as open wounds. Bloody gouges from his clenched fingernails covered his palms. But he could think. And he could feel … feel his love for Lily drowning under a panicked need to gather protection against her. Though the geode no longer amplified her emotions, he still sensed them swimming the room like spectral fish, ravenous and needy. Crawling towards the door, his ankle brushed against one of the boxed paintings leaning against the couch. A burst of pain dropped him gasping to the floor again. One of the paintings radiated blistering, psychic fire. Daniel rolled away from it, senses blasted anew.

  • • •

  Once outside her rooms with the door closed behind him, he could rise on half dead legs and shuffle into his apartment where his phone was ringing.

  “Hey,” Gradyn shouted into his ear. “Where the hell are you? I thought you were bringing Lily’s paintings by an hour ago.”

  “Yeah, about that … ” Even his voice hurt. “I need help.”

  A silence echoed through the phone. “Okay, sure, be there momentarily. Are you all right? Did something happen to Lily?”

  “I’m not all right. And yes, something most definitely happened to Lily. She’s okay, just come. I’ll explain when you get here.”

  Gradyn arrived within ten minutes to find Daniel curled on his couch as if he’d been gut shot, lines of pain etching his clammy face.

  “Christ, Daniel!” Gradyn didn’t touch him, apparently remembering from the past that any touch would feel like burning coals in his condition. “Even I could feel her … Lily, everywhere, as soon as I entered the building!”

  “Yes.” Daniel drew a shuddering breath, forced himself to sit up.

  “A drink, I think.” Gradyn went to the cupboard, poured a tall glass of scotch, tipped half down his own throat before taking the rest to Daniel who automatically reached for it before snatching his hand away as if singed. Gradyn set the glass on the table.

  Gradyn’s mouth was grim. “So, she possesses more magic than just the simple enchanting of pigment.”

  “To put it mildly,” Daniel shivered. “She woke a damned geode, which should have been my first clue.”

  “She can’t have known how you would — ”

  “No. But I should have.”

  Gradyn lifted the glass Daniel hadn’t touched and, pressing it to his friend’s lips, forced him to swallow down a good portion of the liquor.

  Daniel choked, gasped but within moments his shaking eased and he sat up straighter. “Christ, Grady, I want her so much, and she burned me good! I can’t be near her, not until … ”

  “You’ll heal, Daniel. You have before. We’ll call your Gran, she can make you one of those talismans — ”

  “No! If I back away now, she’ll run. From herself, from loving me. Which I forced on her before she was ready. Gradyn, she’s opening up her heart! For the first time. How can I offer her less?”

  “How can you offer her more and survive, Daniel?” Gradyn pulled his sat-phone from his pocket. “You look like Dante’s Death crawling up from Hell. I’m calling your Gran.”

  Daniel pushed himself off the couch and staggered into the kitchen where, with trembling hands, he grabbed the bottle of scotch and tipped most of the contents down his throat. He then guzzled two glasses of water. Behind him, he could hear Gradyn talking.

  “Yeah, he’s on his feet, barely. Tell me he can come back from a stripping like this, Gran, please. He … ” Gradyn glanced over his shoulder and lowered his voice. “He’s afraid. I’ve never seen him afraid before.” A pause. “For her, yes. Really? She has to be there? Okay.” Gradyn shut the phone with a snap. “I’m packing you a bag, buddy. You’re staying with me tonight. And your Gran’s sending out a summons.”

  “Shit,” Daniel cursed. “A damn coven of witch women to heal me.”

  “Including Lily.”

  “No! She mustn’t know what she’s done. It’ll destroy her.”

  “Your Gran commanded, and I’m not one to argue with her.” Gradyn disappeared into Daniel’s room and came back moments later zipping a duffel closed. “Wait here. I’ll load the paintings; we’ll drop them at the studio. Unless being in the van with them is too painful for you.”

  Disgusted by his weakness, Daniel shrugged. “I’ll survive.”

  Gradyn quickly loaded the boxes in his van and returned to help Daniel make his slow way down the stairs. The pain in his body had steadied to a persistent throb. He thought perhaps soon he’d have the strength for a simple healing spell. Then he could begin constructing barriers again, at least enough to protect him while he talked to Lily, explain what had happened, and tell her that he loved her, that they could still be together …

  Except he didn’t know if they could be together. Sometimes a stripping left the senses so damaged that an object, or person, in close proximity acted like a toxic poison. He’d read about such happenings, though he’d never experienced them at their worst. And he wouldn’t, he promised himself. He wanted Lily more than he wanted to live. She deserved him healed and unafraid, committed to her heart and soul. That’s what she would get, by God. Stumbling on the steps outside the Lennox, Daniel froze.

  “She’s close, I feel her … ” He turned to look down the street where she would soon appear.

  Gradyn grabbed Daniel, ignoring his cry of pain, and shoved him into the van. In seconds, they were driving away. Frantic, Daniel spun to look behind them and saw Lily rounding the corner, head down, kicking at leaves as she walked. He couldn’t leave her, not this way … he snatched at the car door handle. Quickly, Gradyn punched the auto lock. Lily’s head snapped up. Daniel felt her sudden awareness of him slam into his chest and knew she felt his pain as vividly as if she lived inside his psyche. Gasping, he clutched his head when her panic hit him. He saw her books fall to the ground, saw her bolting towards the Lennox.

  “Call Gran, quick!” Daniel spat through gritted teeth, “Tell her to phone Lily right now and explain … explain something. Gradyn, she’s in my head! Merciful Gods, what have we done to each other?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  By the time Gradyn skidded the van into the alley behind Spencer Gallery and backed up to the loading dock, Daniel’s white knuckled grip on the armrest was all that kept him upright. Fumbling open the passenger door, he half fell out of the seat to stumble quickly away from the vehicle. He watched from a distance, defeat in every line of his body, as Gradyn carried the three paintings in through the back of the building.

  The evening air held the taste of winter and a murky sleet had begun to fall. Daniel lifted his face to it, relishing the cold relief on skin shivering with fever. His senses on high alert, he could smell the city’s dusty exhaust, taste the dank, moldering flavor of the lake nearly two miles away.

  For a long time he stood in the darkening alley, eyes closed, trying to block the sound and feel of people locking up their shops for the night. When a woman stepped out a back door on her way to her car and he felt her urgent need to beat traffic home like a torch agai
nst his skin, he walked to the gallery, climbed onto the loading dock, and went inside.

  The back room was in chaos, unusual for the meticulous Mr. Spencer except when he was putting up a new show. Framed and unframed watercolors and oils lay on work tables, sculptures stood in crates with the packing pulled loose. A holo-board stood on an easel near the door leading onto the gallery floor. It was covered with overlapping lists, sticky notes, and a roughed out floor plan of where artwork might best be displayed in the show room and upstairs galleria.

  Daniel stood with his back pressed to the wall and tried to find a place of calm inside himself. Forcing deep, even breaths, he focused on the wooden floor beneath his feet and made it his ground zero. He Read, through the pounding in his head, the lingering impressions of visitors to the gallery over the past few hours: a woman’s excitement at buying a special gift, a husband’s pressure over an anniversary, a girl’s longing for a coveted necklace.

  Time passing would take this razor’s edge off his sensitivities. All he needed was a little patience. And a way to avoid being in a room with someone other than Gradyn, who’d been taught as a child how to shield his emotions. The faint sheen of sweat on his friend’s upper lip — and Gradyn never sweated — told Daniel just how hard the man was working to block his concern. He’d placed Lily’s boxed paintings in another room behind a closed door. Daniel could still feel her magic, though the violent immediacy was fading.

  Or he’d finally managed to build something of a shield.

  Daniel came inside to find Gradyn talking to Megan in the door leading out to the gallery. “Close up now, will you, Megs?” Gradyn said when he saw Daniel. “Daniel and I will be back here getting privately intoxicated.”

  The girl laughed with a breezy toss of hair. She peered around Gradyn to flash a brilliant smile at Daniel, who cringed from her heated interest. Gradyn, noticing, closed the door between them before he moved to the mobile bar he kept stocked for art openings. The large work room was laid out with every efficiency. Against the wall behind the rolling bar ran a short counter with a sink, cupboards, microwave, a large restaurant-style coffee maker, and a mini fridge. In the far corner sat a round table surrounded by four comfortable chairs. The rest of the space held tool benches, racks, nicked shelves, and long, heavy-duty tables.

  “No more scotch, please,” Daniel groaned as he dropped into one of the chairs. Gradyn was twisting the cap off a bottle of Walker’s Blue Diamond. “I’ll be no use sloppy drunk.”

  “You’ll be senseless, which is the better point.” Gradyn poured a full glass and set it on the table, standing above his friend for a moment with a worried scowl. Ignoring Daniel’s sarcastic thanks, he moved back to the bar to pour a glass for himself.

  Daniel hated scotch; he’d be passed out in half an hour and Gradyn knew it.

  “Remember my last stripping?” Daniel asked after swallowing a mouthful. The grin he directed at Gradyn was loose and starting to show no pain.

  “Lords, yes.” Gradyn snorted a laugh as he dropped into a nearby chair. “In seventh grade, wasn’t it? A terrifying experience. You are referring, I assume, to the stripping that lusty slut Susan Lerner planned for you under the football bleachers? As a matter of fact, you collapsing comatose on the ground with blood streaming from your nose was your best and only defense against her.”

  “Coulda used a bottle of this stinking stuff that day. Susan Lerner was a she-tiger.”

  Gradyn laughed. “So I learned when she took my virginity instead of yours.”

  “Like you were sorry. You gloated for months, then tumbled Elsie Swanson, who’d been dying for you since fifth grade.”

  Gradyn placed an offended hand over his heart. “I’ll have you know Elsie was my first and truest love. And we waited until sophomore year … well, almost waited. I did show some restraint, though nothing compared to your cold-hearted control.”

  “Yeah, that’s me. Heartless and cold.” Daniel rolled eyes no longer focused. “You know I couldn’t — ”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Gradyn said, “you couldn’t afford to let anyone close. I’ve heard that song and dance a jillion times. But damn it, we’re talking about Lily. Lily, in all her glorious innocence busting you wide open with the wanting of you. So now what, Danny boy? Another Gran charm to protect you? From Lily, for God’s sake.”

  Daniel’s eyes flashed anger. He stabbed a finger at the closed door leading into the workshop. “Open that painting, the one labeled Paradigm. Then maybe you’ll get the picture.”

  “Ha, ha,” Gradyn said and crossed the floor to disappear inside the other room. He slid one of the boxes out through the door. “Is this the one she painted last night?”

  “Yep.” Daniel emptied his glass with a gulp.

  “She warned me it might not be dry yet.”

  Daniel barked a laugh. “I can guarantee it’s not dry yet. You know she asked me how I could love her and hide from her at the same time? Then she spent all night immersed in magic, and painted her frustration and loneliness and a love bright enough to light the universe onto that canvas there. She wanted me to know her heart like … like she knows paint! Intimately. And the geode came to life, absorbed all her amazing passion, and released it like a supernova.”

  Gradyn, ripping staples from the end of the box with a pair of pliers, straightened to stare at him, shocked. “How is that even possible?”

  Daniel shrugged elaborately.

  “She asked me not to sell this one, you know. Paradigm,” Gradyn said.

  Daniel, feeling the sloppy slide of alcohol thick in his blood, threw up a hasty barrier fragile as spider’s silk as Gradyn drew the canvas from the box and lifted it onto a nearby easel.

  “Christ Almighty!” Daniel whispered, shrinking deeper in his chair. Even from across the room, the painting throbbed with savage power. Dazzling light and rich, intense color shifted in a sensual entwining that struck him full force. Paradigm was breathtaking, a masterpiece, a radiant overture of friendship and longing, and hot, pulsing lust.

  Gradyn stepped back, mouth falling open. “There is a bit of almighty in it, isn’t there? It’s … it’s overwhelming! Eager, vehement, and … Jesus H., throbbing with passion!” He turned to see his friend dabbing absently at blood trickling from his nose.

  Daniel couldn’t take his eyes off the painting even though they burned as if he stared into the sun. The fertile greens and rich blues, the highlights of sizzling yellows all reached out to glide over his skin in sweet, unbearable pain. The resonating composition coalesced, ultimately, into a fantastical central figure draped in streams of color. Exquisite of face and delicate of limb, the creature reached out of a living darkness like some ethereal demon on wings spread to escape the canvas.

  “Gods on high … the girl is over the moon for you,” Gradyn murmured. “It’s obvious even to me, a magic illiterate. This painting screams of secret cravings, haunted vulnerability. And Danny boy, she doesn’t just want you in a biblical way.”

  Tissue pressed to his nose, Daniel stood and staggered to the bar to refill his glass, choking half of it down on the spot.

  Gradyn crossed the room. “You okay?”

  “I am, actually.” Daniel felt his fragile shield slither away and no longer cared. Liquor having numbed his senses, the vivid palette in the painting enchanted now instead of burned him, and he found the joyful hunger on the figure’s face more tender than provocative. “The pain’s going. D’you think that’s the scotch or the fact that I’m the damn luckiest man on the planet?”

  “It’s the scotch. Probably. Hell, Daniel, I had no idea Lily was this … this good! Did you?”

  “Oh, yes. But not until recently. See, Nila made her this love potion … oops, that’s supposed to be secret. An’ the potion, it awakened … well, all of her. She wanted me stripped naked of every defense an’ did it simply by baring her soul.” Daniel smiled woozily in his chair. “An’ I’m okay with that. I want her just as bad. And just as naked.”

 
“Hold on there, big guy. You can’t go near her. Gran’s sent for Lily. She’ll be part of creating the protective talisman, I imagine. Still, even a hocus pocus stone won’t keep her from burning your senses blind. Not until you’ve healed.”

  Daniel frowned, suddenly ferocious. “I will not wear a talisman against Lily. I’ll never place another barrier between us again, I swear it.”

  “You’re too drunk to think straight.” Gradyn took the glass away from him. “Being near her when you’re this stripped will … ”

  “Yes!” Daniel laughed jubilantly. “It will. I’ll feel everything, all unlocked and vulnerable and aching for her! You ever been in love, Grady?”

  “Not, well … perhaps. Somewhat.”

  “Now that’s a spot-on Gradyn Spencer answer if I ever heard one.” Daniel snatched his glass back and drained it. “You can tell Gran and Nila and the whole damn coven to kiss their fucking talisman! I want to be with Lily. Can you imagine? I want all of her, and when I touch her — ”

  “You’ll feel agonies you can’t imagine, you dolt! I know, I’ve seen it happen to you.”

  “Not this time.” Daniel pushed shakily to his feet, sweeping his arms wide like a prisoner shaking off chains. “Look inside your gut, Gradyn, then look at that painting. Paradigm … means a conjugation, a coupling. Can’t you see it in the textures, the perfect contrast between dark and light? A uniting of two into one. Only Lily can heal me. At this moment I feel her in my head. She’s miles away with Gran. She’s just met Madame Bagasha and the rest of the coven. And she’s really, really pissed off. Have you ever seen Lily mad? It’s so God damn intense! I’ve seen her laugh with wild abandon, cry as if all the color has bled from her universe, and I’ve felt her love like hot lava in my veins. But oh, how glorious her rage is! What I wouldn’t give to be one of Gran’s little sparrows in that house right now.” Daniel wobbled to the bar and grabbed the half empty bottle of Blue Diamond before collapsing back in his chair hugging it to his chest.