Strange Magic (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 9)

by Christine Pope

  By then, full dark had fallen, with not even a faint glow to the west to show where the sun had gone down. She followed Evan out to his car and got in, and he drove them away from the city lights and back to Fountain Hills. Not that the suburb she called home didn’t have its own light pollution, but it wasn’t the same thing as the hundreds of square miles of artificial illumination that poured forth from the Phoenix basin at night.

  While they were driving, she got out her phone and switched it on, fearing that she’d be confronted by dozens of missed calls and text messages from her aunt, her parents, maybe even Uncle Jack. But there was nothing. Well, a series of plaintive texts from her friend Amber.

  Hey I’m home. Going to Max’s party 2nite?

  Oh, hell. The party had completely slipped Zoe’s mind. Her parents weren’t big on her going to parties, but they trusted Amber because she understood the situation and would always keep an eye on Zoe. Besides, the de la Paz clan was numerous enough that someone from her family always managed to get into these things as a friend of a friend or whatever. The chances of anything untoward happening were basically nil. However, Zoe still tried to go out as much as she could, just because at least that way she could pretend to be normal, even if she knew she really wasn’t.

  The next text was short, but not all that accusatory. Party’s starting. Where are U?

  It was followed by,

  Thought we were driving 2gether?

  And finally,

  Fine. I’m going. See U later.

  Well, that was going to be fun to smooth out. Amber had kind of a thing for Max, the guy throwing the party, who had recently broken up with his long-time girlfriend. No way was Amber going to miss an opportunity to swoop in now that he was single, even though Zoe had warned her about being a rebound girlfriend.

  Like she would even know. She’d never had a single boyfriend, on the rebound or not.

  She glanced over at Evan, admiring his sharp, clean profile, the strong lines of his throat, the way his heavy hair fell forward, partly obscuring his brow. He didn’t look like anyone she’d ever met before, which, if forced, she would have admitted was part of the attraction. Exotic in a way she really hadn’t expected.

  But he’d also shown himself to be dependable and strong, and not someone to easily lose his cool. Since Zoe knew she had a tendency to fly off the handle at times, she thought his temperament was a good complement to hers. They seemed to be suited to one another in a way no one else she’d met had ever been.

  Which meant basically nothing, because he just wasn’t consort material. Or so Luz and her parents, and probably even Uncle Jack would say. Too old. Married before…and to a woman who clearly had no problem with extorting money to keep her mouth shut about her ex-husband’s magical nature. From another clan. Her family might be willing to overlook one of those faults if necessary, and maybe even two of them, but all three taken together?

  No way.

  Evan pulled into the parking lot at the CopperWynd. The spots closest to Zoe’s car were full, but there was one available only a few spaces down and across the row. He turned off the engine and said, “Well, I guess we’d better take all your loot inside.”

  “It’s not all my loot,” she retorted. “Four bags of stuff. You’d think I’d loaded up like what’s-her-face from Titanic, you know, with all those steamer trunks. I saw it on Netflix once.”

  “Good thing you didn’t buy that much, because then we’d need to get one of the bellboys to help.”

  He got out of the car, and she followed him back to the trunk, where they pulled out the results of her shopping trip. It wasn’t all that much, not really. The mall wasn’t the kind of place to get some necessities such as toothpaste, but she always carried a fold-up travel toothbrush in her purse, and she figured she could get those personal items at the resort’s gift shop if they didn’t come supplied with the room.

  They rode up in an otherwise empty elevator. When they got to Zoe’s room, she dug the plastic key card out of her wallet and opened the door. It did feel weird to have Evan follow her inside, but she didn’t have much of a choice, since he was carrying half her shopping bags.

  He went ahead and deposited them on the bed. “Well, I guess that’s it.”

  “I guess so.”

  The tension in the air was so thick, Zoe thought he could have rested the bags on it instead of the bed. She didn’t dare make a move, though. He’d be sure to avoid any advances she might attempt, or worse, laugh them off. He knew she was off limits.

  “If you need anything, I’m just next door,” he added.

  “I know.”

  “Okay.” He moved past her, coming fairly close as he did so, but not close enough for her to reach out to him. Not that she would have had the guts to do that, anyway. Right then, after everything she’d gone through that day, she knew she couldn’t deal with the possibility that he might reject her. He paused at the door, then said, “Good night,” and let himself out.

  The moment was gone. Zoe wanted to swear, but she knew she had only herself to blame for not even trying to stop him. She glanced at the clock on the nightstand. Ten minutes until nine. If she wanted to get anything from the gift shop downstairs, she’d better do it now.

  So she went down and bought toothpaste and deodorant and a little pack of floss. She’d already gotten stuff for her hair and face at the mall, so she figured she’d be covered for a stay of some duration, should it come to that.

  It still felt early to be going to sleep, though, and she didn’t feel like watching TV. She added a paperback romance novel to the pile and tried to ignore the curious look the woman behind the counter gave her as she added up Zoe’s purchases.

  “Airline lost my carry-on,” she said blithely, which only increased the woman’s mystified expression.

  Then it was back up to the room. Zoe tried very hard not to think about Evan on the other side of the wall separating them, but it seemed the harder she made the attempt, the more she ended up obsessing over him. Was he watching TV? Playing a game on his phone? Maybe calling the McAllister elders to tell them what was going on? No, probably not. It wasn’t that late, but a little late to be making a call that wasn’t an emergency.

  Maybe he’d wandered out on the balcony to look at the stars. If she went out onto her own balcony, would she see him?

  No, she told herself. You are not going to do that. You are going to get ready for bed and try to act like a rational human being, not some lovesick seventh-grader.

  She went through the bags and got out the face-care products she’d bought, along with the stuff from the gift store downstairs, and took them all into the bathroom. The ritual of getting ready for bed helped calm her down a little. Changing out of her clothes brought on a pang, though, because she had to resolutely ignore the purple satin chemise with black lace trim she’d bought, and instead put on the much more sensible thigh-length sleep tank top she’d also purchased. That chemise had been too gorgeous to pass up, but she wasn’t going to wear it unless Evan could see her in it.

  Stupid, she knew. That wasn’t going to happen. She’d probably end up returning the thing, or shoving it into a far corner of her dresser back home so it couldn’t remind her of what an idiot she’d been.

  Evening toilette complete, she went back to the main part of the room and climbed into bed, taking the paperback with her. If she couldn’t have the man of her dreams, then at least she could read about someone else getting theirs.

  It was hard to concentrate, though. The room felt too quiet, so she reached over and turned on the clock radio, tuning it to her favorite local station, although turned down low enough that it was only soft background noise, none of the songs recognizable unless she really stopped and concentrated on what was playing.

  Eventually, although she tended to stay up later than this, her eyes began to slide shut with weariness. Long, crazy day. She should just go to sleep. Who cared if it was only ten o’clock?

  She slipped the r
eceipt from the gift shop into the book to hold her place, then set it on the nightstand. A flick of the switch, and the bedside lamp had been extinguished. Dark fell, but not utter dark, since she hadn’t pulled the heavy blackout curtains all the way closed. A faint orangey light from the parking lot still penetrated the room, and that was just fine by her. Right then she really didn’t want to be in utter blackness.

  But that was what she experienced when she shut her eyes. Sleep came quickly, stealing over her tired limbs, despite her unfamiliar surroundings, despite the fact that she’d never slept away from the security of her family home before.

  Something bumped into her bed. Although she’d been deep asleep, Zoe’s eyes shot open in panic, even as she pushed herself up against the pillows. She strained to see into the darkness, heart pounding.

  At first she couldn’t detect anything at all out of the ordinary, and she wanted to tell herself that the slight shaking of the bed had only been herself as she adjusted positions, trying to get comfortable. Didn’t that sort of thing happen all the time? She was just jumpy because she was in a place she didn’t know.

  But then she saw the dim light from the parking lot touch something pale. A glint of fair hair.

  Her blood went cold. The creature’s hair was blond because William Levy, the telenovela star she’d modeled it on, was blond.

  Somehow, her shaking fingers found the little knob at the base of the lamp next to her bed. She turned it, and bit her lip to keep from screaming.

  That was the creature, standing at the foot of the bed. It stared at her, head slightly tilted to one side, but did not speak.

  Oh, God.

  And it had changed again. If Zoe had passed it — him — on the street, she probably wouldn’t have given him a second glance…except maybe to think that he was pretty damn gorgeous.

  The transformation appeared to be complete. She couldn’t see any traces of the deformities that had previously distorted his features. No, he was perfect. If anything, he was almost too perfect, with none of the small asymmetries and quirks you usually saw in even the most beautiful of faces.

  She cleared her throat. “You can’t be here.”

  He watched her and didn’t answer for a moment. Then he said, his voice now as normal as his appearance, “Why not?”

  “Because — ” She floundered for an appropriate response. “Because I didn’t summon you.”

  “But you did. You summoned me yesterday. I was not complete then. I frightened you. But now I am ready.”

  Oh, dear God. Zoe really didn’t know if it was better to stay safely concealed by the covers, or to get out of bed. Doing so would reveal how short the tank top she wore actually was, but on the other hand, she felt curiously helpless being in bed like that, with the creature seeming to loom over her.

  She decided to get up. She pushed back the sheet and blanket and duvet, and slowly climbed out of the bed. The whole time, the creature continued to watch her. It was impossible to avoid noticing the way his gaze flicked down to her legs and back up to her face, and a chill went down her spine.

  I should scream, she thought then. If I scream, Evan will come running. But then, probably so will everyone else on this floor.

  That wouldn’t be good. She had to handle this herself.

  “I know you don’t — don’t understand how everything works here. But our rooms are private. Where we sleep is private. You can’t just show up in someone’s room like this.”

  “But you are not just ‘someone.’ You are Zoe. You are the reason I am here.”

  Confronted with logic like that, she wasn’t sure what to say. Because when you got right down to it, the creature was right. He wouldn’t be here, in this world, if it weren’t for her.

  “Okay,” she replied, after an extended pause, during which he continued to stare at her as if she was the most fascinating thing in the world. “I know I summoned you. And I know we — well, things got off to a sort of rocky start. But even so, it’s not right for you to appear like this. I was trying to sleep. You — you really scared me.”

  His eyes narrowed. The lighting in the room was too dim for her to see clearly, but she knew those eyes were probably clear, bright blue. “I do not wish to scare you. I wish to be with you.”

  Zoe gulped in a breath. Should she scream now? Probably not. He hadn’t made a move, was still standing there at the foot of the bed. She supposed she should be glad of that. And really, if she was going to be completely honest with herself, she had to admit that if he’d looked like this when he appeared yesterday morning, she would have happily fallen into his arms, thinking that the spell had worked perfectly.

  Now, though….

  Her heart and mind had undergone a transformation during the last thirty-six hours. Why conjure a man when the perfect one was there for you already?

  Somehow she doubted the creature would respond well if she told him sorry, she’d fallen for someone else during the time he was growing into his human face.

  Thinking quickly, she said, “Um…why don’t you sit down over there, and we can talk?” She pointed toward the table by the window and its two accompanying chairs.

  A faint frown marred the smooth skin of his forehead. “I do not wish to talk. I want to go there.” His gaze slid past her to the bed, his meaning clear.

  Great. So not only had she conjured a being from some other dimension, but apparently he was a horny bastard.

  “I’m not the kind of girl to jump into bed with someone I just met,” she said primly. Never mind that she would have happily fallen into bed with Evan within hours of meeting him, even if such a thing had been possible.

  The creature straightened slightly, as if he had taken offense at her words. “No, of course not. You are Zoe Sandoval, future prima of the de la Paz clan. But you brought me here to be your consort, and so the situation is different.”

  Wow, he’d certainly made leaps and bounds in his vocabulary and in his grasp of the situation, she’d give him that. Had his mind and speech developed along with his face and form? That sounded plausible enough, although she couldn’t think of a way to ask without sounding rude.

  “Maybe,” she allowed. “But I’d still like to sit down and have some water. Do you want some water?”

  His head tilted again. “If you are having some.”

  On shaky legs, she made her way over the mini-fridge and extracted two bottles of water, then took them over to the table and set them down. After that, she sat, praying he would follow her lead.

  Which he did, after a moment’s hesitation. He took the seat opposite hers and then recommenced what seemed to be a ceaseless inspection of her face and person.

  This was the closest they’d been so far, except for the time when he’d grabbed her arm back in the ATV staging area. As if in recollection of the injury, her wrist gave off a quick, sharp ache, one that Zoe tried to ignore.

  She unscrewed the cap on her bottle of water and drank, trying to pretend this was all very normal. How in the world was she going to convince the creature to go back where he’d come from? He seemed so very determined to be with her. And though she knew she could mount a physical attack if she had to, she didn’t like that idea very much. It was one thing to shoot fireballs at someone when they constituted an immediate threat. It was something else entirely to launch that kind of an offense at a person who sat calmly across a table from you.

  Well, maybe not a physical offense, but a verbal one?

  “Those other girls,” she said abruptly. “Why go after them?”

  The creature blinked at her, clearly confused. “Which girls?”

  “The one down in Superstition Springs, in that condo complex with the pond. The girl this afternoon in Scottsdale by the museum. What was up with that?”

  He wrapped his hands around the water bottle but made no move to open it. “I — ” Breaking off there, he frowned, as if digging around in his memory banks for the right words to use. “When I was new, it was…difficult to al
ways find you. Those girls had an energy similar to yours. It drew me. But then I saw they were not you, and I wasn’t sure what to do.”

  Better to be confused than to take action. At least he hadn’t hurt them. “So…you can sense me?”

  “Just as you can sense me.”

  “Not always,” she protested. “Here and there. A twinge. That’s all.”

  “It is because I was becoming. Now I am this.” He let go of the water bottle and touched a hand to his chest. “I am what you wanted me to be. So there is no need for us to be apart again.”

  Back to that. Zoe realized he’d always keep circling back to the issue of them being together, because in his mind, nothing else existed. She truly was the center of his universe.

  And that scared her more than anything else.

  “Where did you come from?” she asked then, desperately trying to come up with any way she could think of to keep him talking about something that didn’t involve the two of them being together.

  He made a vague gesture with one hand, pointing upward. “Somewhere out there.”

  “Out…you mean like in space?”

  “No.” A pause as he seemed to grapple with the question. “Someplace not here. Within, without. Both at the same time.”

  Another dimension? That seemed to be what he was saying, but she was having a hard time trying to comprehend his words. Quantum physics wasn’t exactly her strong suit.

  Definitely not here, though.

  “Are there others like you?”

  “No. I did not have being until you called me. Your words — the magic words — they made me happen.”

  Being from nothingness. A shiver crept down Zoe’s spine, and she wished she’d turned down the A/C before she went to bed. But she supposed what he had said made sense. Spells were just thought made tangible, or at least something that had tangible effects in the physical world. She didn’t see why conjuring a man would be any different.

  Did that make the situation better, or worse? When he was finally sent away from this plane, would he dissolve back into the nothing he’d come from? Something about that notion made a wave of sadness go through her. She didn’t know if she had the guts to do that to him.