The Magic's in the Music (Magic Series Book 5)

by Susan Squires

  Kemble would be surprised to know that Lan knew all this. But Lan wasn’t oblivious. On those occasions when he was at The Breakers, he heard what the family was talking about. He pretended not to share their concerns, but that was only because he couldn’t do jack about them. Drinking was easier.

  The downtown traffic whirled around them in rivers of red and white lights. He got over to the right when he hit the main interchange so he could take the 101 up into Hollywood.

  Anyway, the Clan couldn’t watch the Tremaines all the time. Lan checked his rearview mirror, as though he could detect someone following him in the constant flow of L.A. traffic.

  He realized he’d been silent for a while. He chanced a glance to Greta, who hugged a navy, hooded sweatshirt around her body. Didn’t look like something a starlet would wear. Probably borrowed from Tammy or something. “So, why astronomy, do you think? I mean, how did you get so interested in that?”

  “I’ve always been interested in stars.” She suddenly turned around in the passenger’s seat. “I know it’s odd. Your family was all exchanging glances when I talked about wanting to do graduate work in astronomy. I should be used to that.”

  He screwed up his face in apology. “No, no. It wasn’t that. Astronomy’s fine with them. It’s just that, uh, since the power you get when you…I mean in our situation…usually has something to do with a talent you have, or an interest, they were thinking…”

  “That maybe I turn into Comet Woman, or something?” She snorted in derision and turned away.

  “I know it sounds ludicrous.” He sighed.

  He glanced over and saw her make an effort to re-engage. Touching, really. “So yours would have something to do with music?”

  “I guess. Talk about ludicrous. I suppose I could turn into the Pied Piper or something.”

  “Maybe. I noticed you don’t want to be without your flute, since—”

  “Yeah, well.” He cut her off before she could say ‘since they’d had sex.’ He wasn’t sure he could take talking about sex right now. “Just makes me feel more…settled.”

  “Nothing makes me feel settled right now.” She scrunched down into her seat.

  “Yeah. I get that. This must be quite a shock. And just when you had your life all planned out and everything.”

  *

  Did she? Have her life planned out? She rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Things could have been worse, I suppose.”

  He looked over at her, tentatively. “We both probably have enough money.”

  She nodded. “You don’t seem to be suffering.” She was immediately sorry she’d said it. His mouth looked like he was in pain before he got control and made his face a blank.

  “Nope.”

  “You have a family who loves you and worries over you. I know it bugs you, but it seems pretty good to me.”

  “You sound wistful. Don’t you have anybody who cares about you?”

  She chuffed a rueful laugh. “My mother and my agent see me more as a revenue source. No,” she corrected. “Bernie’s nice. He likes me. It’s not totally just his fifteen percent.”

  “Bet he’s not wild about you thinking about going back to school.”

  “I haven’t told him.”

  “Have you told anyone? I mean besides at dinner tonight?” He kept glancing over at her. His face was lost in shadow between the lighted freeway signs.

  “No.” And that was strange. “Actually I never told anybody about the real problem with my mother either, until I talked to Brian.”

  “You sound surprised.” Lan was frowning.

  “Well, I’m not exactly Miss Blabbermouth. You can’t be in my business. Look what happened in the parking lot of Diamondback.”

  “I get it. Your heartbreaks make headlines, like in that movie Tammy watches about once a month. The one with Julia Roberts.”

  She was surprised he knew about Nottinghill. But of course, he had sisters. “Yeah.”

  He seemed to be waiting. Oh. He wanted her to tell him what the real problem with her mother was. She was not going through that emotional wringer again. She let him wait. The distance between their bucket seats seemed to stretch across light years.

  Finally, he cleared his throat. “You’re not the first to fall under my family’s spell.” He looked over and saw her expression. “Not witchcraft or anything like that.” He snorted. “Hell, woman, lighten up. I meant that…” He cleared his throat again. Was he embarrassed? “I mean, I rag on having a family like that, but they mean well. They’re kind people. The Parents took in Devin when he was orphaned at nine. Raised him like he was one of us. I still think of him as my brother.”

  Wait…? “So Devin lived like your brother?”

  “I know. It’s…complicated.”

  Her mind was racing. “You mean…?”

  “Yeah. He and Kee were always close, practically twins. We called them the Kee/Devin Consortium because you never saw one without the other. But about two years ago it became something more.”

  “Your parents were…okay with that?”

  “Destiny.” He shrugged. “One day the genes activated each other and…well, they really didn’t have a choice. Couldn’t blame them. Was hell on them, though.” He rolled his eyes. “Kee was locked in the garret, painting portraits of him ’til she dropped, and Dev was out surfing storms buck-naked at night. Took awhile for them to come to grips with it. Actually…” His voice got thoughtful. “All my brothers and sisters took awhile to settle into it.”

  “They all seem so happy now.”

  “Sickeningly so.” He made a face. He paused and sucked in a breath. “But what I was trying to say, is that they’re… generous. Well, most of the time. Easy to talk to.”

  It occurred to Greta that the Tremaine family was exactly what she had never had growing up. Father dead when she was five. Mother who turned into Stage Mom overnight, willing to do anything to further her daughter’s career as a substitute for having no purpose of her own. Was that why Greta found it so hard to have relationships? Was it her fault that she was friends with someone like Jax? Or was there was something wrong with her?

  She glanced over to Lanyon, who seemed lost in thought. Was this stranger going to become the focus of her life?

  Not if she could help it. She was strong. She was independent. She was in control.

  Why did that suddenly feel so lonely?

  *

  They took the twisting road up into the Hollywood Hills. Lan saw their destination off to their right on a promontory that overlooked the city. As they hit the summit, the white building with the three copper domes looked pretty spectacular across some small parking lots and broad lawns. It was lit with spotlights from its base. Beyond lay the myriad lights of Los Angeles, from the towers of downtown all the way to the black of the ocean. Sunset must have been pretty spectacular up here.

  “Glad it’s a Tuesday,” Greta said, pointing to a parking space. “On the weekends, we’d end up parking half way down the road.”

  He pulled the Prius into one of several available spaces. “You come here a lot?”

  She looked a little embarrassed as they got out. “The telescope in the building itself is old technology. It’s been here since 1935. I guess it feels a little like a monument at this point.” She took his hand, almost shyly. Her touch had the usual electric effect on his unruly cock. How could that be? He’d been well and truly sated about an hour and a half ago. “But there are always people on the lawn to help visitors see whatever’s in the sky right now. They’re great to talk to.”

  He saw lines of people at four or five telescopes on the broad lawn. They were mostly silhouettes from this distance. “These are just guys who come up and hang out?”

  “Some are employees of the observatory. Others are members of the Los Angeles Astronomical Society who volunteer their time.” She was pulling him across the closest parking lot onto the lawns. Her eagerness was really endearing.

  “So, ‘Star Geeks’?”


  She looked sheepish. “You could say that.”

  Uh, oh. She identified with the geeks. Had he just insulted her? She dragged him over to something that didn’t even look like a telescope. It was a huge metal barrel about eight feet high in a cradle of struts. Two guys worked it, one at the back who sat in a seat like a tractor’s and looked down through a lens tube, and another guy who guided people up the stepladder to look in another viewer. Greta dragged Lan to the back of a line about ten or fifteen people deep.

  One of the guys waved at her. “Hey, Greta! What’s up?”

  “Jerry. Hey, Dave. Can I get you to point this bad boy at C-seven-four-three-five when we get to the front of the line?”

  She knew the Star Geeks by name. He watched them kind of melt under the wattage of her smile. Well, who wouldn’t? Gretchen Falk? They probably went home and jacked off just thinking about the fact that they’d seen her tonight.

  “Sure,” the one she’d called Jerry said. “No problem. We got a little breeze going, but the conditions are still pretty good.”

  They watched kids and Dads and pregnant women and young lovers all climb the stepladder and peer into the viewer at the moon. Their oohs and ahhs punctuated Greta’s earnest explanation of the technical specifications of the telescope, which apparently belonged to the Society and was stored here at the Observatory because it was too big to move around. She did know her stuff. A movie star who knew the technical specifications of telescopes…interesting.

  When they got to the front of the line, Jerry and Dave were all business. Dave punched some buttons on a dashboard, and the huge scope moved slowly to the south. There was much fiddling, while Greta talked to Jerry about the telescope in language Lan found incomprehensible.

  “C-seven-four-three-five it is,” Dave finally announced, as he raised his head from the viewer. “I’ve got it in sight. Let me lock on.”

  “So, uh, C is for comet, right?” Lan asked, trying not to feel way out of his league.

  “Actually, it indicates that the comet is non-periodic.” When Lan looked nonplussed, Greta continued hastily, “That means one that comes into the solar system less than every two hundred years, maybe even only once.”

  “Oh.” What else did you say?

  “Periodic comets come through more frequently than every two hundred years. They get a P prefix. There are some other kinds, too, X’s and D’s but they aren’t as common.”

  “So when did this one come through last?” There. That was an okay question.

  “It comes by every five hundred and eleven years.”

  “Shit. You mean this one hasn’t been here since Fifteen hundred?”

  “Fifteen oh four, actually,” Jerry corrected.

  Star Geeks could apparently be annoying. Except for Greta. Lan wasn’t sure he’d ever find her annoying. Too sexy. Way smart. Beautiful. But probably not annoying.

  Case in point, she grinned at him. That grin would fix anything. “The first time this one was sighted and documented was in four-eighty-two A.D. About the time of Camelot.” She wiggled her brows suggestively. “Right up your alley, correct?”

  “That’s why we call it Galahad,” Dave said as he pointed to Jerry. “You’re set.”

  Greta hopped up the stairs and closed one eye to look into the eyepiece. “Galahad, there you are, you beauty.” She raised her head. “Pretty good viewing tonight.” She clambered down. “Want to take a look?”

  Lan only needed one step on the stepstool. He closed one eye, as Greta had done. “I don’t see jack,” he muttered.

  “Move your head around a little,” Greta ordered.

  Suddenly an amorphous light with a fairly big corona was right there in the viewer. “Wow.”

  “Can you see the tail?” Greta asked.

  “Yeah. Part of it.”

  “It’s way longer than we can actually see,” she said.

  He stepped down. “Will we ever be able to see it with the naked eye?” he asked.

  “Oh, yeah. It’ll be a close drive-by. It’s going to cross most of the heavens.” She looked up and pointed in an arc. Her white throat made him want to kiss from her ear to her collarbone as a start. “In fact, he’s going to change several constellations on his way through.”

  “Perseus, for instance,” Dave said, “is going to get an extra shoulder.”

  “Ah,” Greta said, smiling a secret smile. “But what he’s going to do to Ursus Major is most interesting of all.” She pointed to the sky opposite the lens of the telescope.

  “What am I looking for?” Lan asked.

  “The Big Dipper. That’s Ursus Major, the Bear.”

  “Oh.” Of course he knew the Big Dipper. “What’s going to happen there?”

  “Galahad is going to streak in across the bowl of the dipper and seem to hang for a while just on that far side, because of the angle.”

  Lan craned his head back, trying to figure out where the comet would come from. “On the top, there?”

  “Yeah.” Greta agreed. “Right where there is no star at the top of the bowl. It will just seem to stay there for several days.”

  “Maybe a week,” Jerry added. “This is the first time we’ll be able to study it with modern equipment. We’re going to get some real good data as well as a pretty light show.”

  Everything slowed down for Lanyon. He hardly heard what Jerry was saying. He blinked up at the stars. The comet, whose name was Galahad—the knight who’d found the Holy Grail—was going to make a five-sided figure in the sky. And a five-sided figure was a pentagram, right? And a pentagram was a modern word for Pentacle.

  “Would it have made the same pattern even back in Merlin’s day?” he asked. His voice sounded distant in his own ears.

  “Yeah,” Dave said. “That’s why they wrote about it.”

  “Oh, God,” he muttered. Everything speeded up to really fast.

  Lan grabbed Greta’s hand. “Come on, we’ve got to get home.”

  “What?”

  He practically bumped into a big guy dressed in black who was closing in from behind.

  “I know what the fourth Talisman is.” He knew his face looked stricken, but that’s how he felt. “We’ve been looking for something like the Cup or the Sword. But it isn’t like that at all.” He pulled her toward the parking lot.

  “The park is closing,” came the announcement over the loudspeaker. Most people were already heading out.

  “What’s he talking about?” Dave asked Jerry, behind them.

  “Thank you,” Greta called over her shoulder. “Wait, Lan.”

  “Gotta tell the Parents, Kemble.”

  “Well, I’ve got to pee before we get back in the car.” She pointed toward the building with bathrooms off to the left. The lights glowed into the dark.

  Lan veered left. “Okay, but…”

  “I know. I’ll make it snappy.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ‡

  Jason was so excited his hand trembled as he reached for his phone. When had he ever trembled? He’d been hard as nails since he was fifteen. Once you’d killed your own father, nothing much fazed you. Course, he was self-aware enough to know that killing that bastard, and what had come before that, had been ‘fazing’ him all his life, even if it was just that he never trembled at anything anymore.

  But that had apparently changed. Jason wasn’t sure why. Maybe because he’d just heard the Tremaine kid tell his girl that he knew what the fourth Talisman was. Thank God he’d closed in on them just in time to hear the important part. This was the beginning. Morgan would change the world.

  They were heading to the bathrooms. Perfect.

  His fingers fumbled with his phone.

  Why did he care what she thought? Why did he follow Morgan? Sure, he didn’t have any choice really. She’d never let him go. But he didn’t even chafe at her controlling ways. Maybe it was because he held some flicker of hope that she could change him, too. Maybe, when she got enough power, she could put him back together; the w
ay he’d been, before he’d killed his father, before he’d killed Sela.

  As if Morgan would take a minute out of her day to fix Jason.

  He texted her.

  Tremaine kid knows 4th Talisman + location. Pick him up?

  He sent it with highest priority.

  His phone buzzed in his hand immediately.

  What is it?

  Wasn’t wild about disappointing her. He took a breath.

  Didn’t hear that part.

  Again the phone buzzed right back.

  Bring him to the casino. Now.

  No exclamation points. No kudos for figuring out the kid knew. In fact, she’d probably be all over his ass for not hearing exactly what it was. Of course it wouldn’t take them long to find out. Hardwick would take care of that.

  The kid watched the girl go into the bathroom, looking like he’d just seen the Second Coming or something. Good. He wasn’t on his guard. It had been a close call when the kid had nearly bumped into him. Jason glanced around. The lawn had cleared out. The assholes with the telescopes were dismantling them, preoccupied.

  Jason waited until the kid’s back was turned, his attention zeroed in on the bathroom door. Park security herded the few remaining visitors to the parking lot. Jason tried to act like one more tourist walking to the exit. He fell behind the few stragglers, almost alone.

  Fuck. He hadn’t asked Morgan what to do about the girl. Well, he wasn’t leaving witnesses. Maybe she could be useful.

  Jason brought the gun out of his pocket as he came up behind the kid and koshed him on the back of the head with the handle. Tremaine dropped like a stone. He lifted the kid and hugged him to his side. Jason noticed that he had a flute in a kind of a holster strapped to his hip. Figured. He was all about music, this one. Jason had heard him play. He threw up a Cloak. The world went red. He and his cargo were safe from prying eyes now. He dragged the kid over to the bathroom door, let him slump against the wall and waited.

  A fat Hispanic girl came out and made a bee-line for the parking lot. Now the blonde girl appeared, fumbling with her purse. Jason stepped into her, drawing his Cloak around her to hide her from whoever might still be on the lawn. The girl hardly had time to gasp. Jason knocked her head against the concrete of the building. She went limp in his arms.