“Ahh. That’s because I can look like anyone I want.” Evan melted into the air in front of me and I forced my eyes not to blink when David appeared in front of me. It wasn’t just that, the way my body registered him changed too, just subtly enough that I didn’t feel that I had a daemon in front of me, but when I concentrated really hard, it wasn’t quite David either.
“No way,” I grinned.
“Anyone, any time,” said David and when I blinked Evan was there again. “I have other handy tricks too.”
“Like what?”
“Look down.”
I glanced down. “Oh, very funny.” My clothes had gone and I was sat in my underwear. Thank goodness I’d picked a pretty set. At least I wasn’t completely naked. Perhaps Evan hadn’t been concentrating?
“I prefer you in dresses. What do you think?” He nodded at me and a blue dress, short on the leg and tight on the bodice skimmed over me. I felt a zip tug at the back.
“Very nice. But it is winter and my legs are cold.”
“How about leggings? And boots?” Black leggings skimmed over my legs and a pair of heeled leather boots melted on top.
“I like. Hey, can I do that?” That would be useful, not to mention, impossibly cool.
“Probably. I’ll show you how.”
“Can you turn into anyone?” I waited for Evan to nod before I asked, “How about a woman?”
Evan’s eyebrows rose and he smirked. “Don’t push it. Didn’t I mention I’m very, very dangerous?”
“Excellent taste though.” I pointed at the dress, then beckoned him to him. He was around the table in a flash, spinning my chair around and nudging my legs so he could kneel between them, hands on my hips, pulling me in to him.
“You’re not afraid of me?” he murmured, leaning towards me to catch my lips against his.
“Not at all,” I mumbled, wondering if he really thought there was a different answer.
“You probably should be.” He lifted me, physically this time and sat me on the table, gentle pressure from his hands laying me down across the cool wood. I felt the pressure of his laptop on my back then it disappeared and I saw his laptop bag on the floor bulge around its sudden arrival. I wrapped my legs around Evan and tugged him in to me, registering that our contact was now very much skin on skin as our clothes had suddenly disappeared. If it wasn’t for the banging at the door I would have been more than happy to let very good things happen on that table.
“Ignore it,” murmured Evan, his head bent to my neck, his fingers tracing circles on my inner thighs. “I know you want to.”
“I do want to,” I gasped. “But we’re expecting visitors and they know we’re here.” Both our cars were parked out front.
Evan pulled me up so I was sat on the edge, his hands caressing me until I was on the brink of forgetting all about the visitors until there was another sharp succession of knocks. I gave him a shove that was about as forceful as poking a T-Rex, so it wasn’t nearly enough to make him take the step back that he did.
“Could you, um...” I slid off the table, the floor cold under my feet, and gestured to my lack of clothing. In a blink the blue dress, leggings and boots reappeared as fast as Evan’s own black jeans and t-shirt.
“You are insatiable,” I muttered as I slid past him, the skirt swinging from my hips.
“Did I mention daemons have a very big sexual appetite?” I heard him say, behind my back.
I couldn’t resist glancing over my shoulder to wink at him. “Yes, I had noticed.” Then I went to answer the door, a smile plastered all over my face.
Instead of finding Étoile, Seren and David as I had expected, Gage was stood at the door.
“Got visitors?” he asked, which was a fairly poor greeting in my book.
“Good morning to you, and yes I do. Friends from out of town.”
“Annalise mentioned. She came by last night.” He leant against the doorframe, still filling it but made no move to step inside.
“Oh, right. I was on my way out. Did you go see the film?”
“We did, but it would have been better if you’d there too.”
“Well, thank you. I’ll come next time. Did you do anything after?” I’d seen him outside the Loup Garou bar on the way home, but he didn’t know that, besides I was being conversational. Neighbourly.
He shook his head. “Just came home with Annalise.”
I looked at him for a minute then shook my head. So he didn’t mention he’d been at the bar, so what? It was no business of mine. I stood back, the awkwardness that hadn’t been there a couple of days ago now filling the air between us. “So, what can I do for you? Did you want to come in?”
Gage nodded and stepped inside. I shut the door behind him. “Winter is definitely setting in,” he said, nodding at the grey sky that still threatened rain beyond the door.
“Then I’m glad you finished painting the front of my house. You didn’t tell me how much I owed you.”
Gage delved in his jacket pocket and came up with some crumpled receipts. “Just for paint,” he said, handing them over and I smoothed the pieces of paper out without looking at them. “The rest of the house looked okay. It can wait for spring before we paint the rest.”
‘You know you don’t have to do that,” I protested, since he’d already done so much for me. “I’ll get you the money tomorrow, if that’s okay? And I really appreciate it, you didn’t have to.”
“My pleasure and no hurry.” Gage was looking me over, skimming head to toe, approval in his eyes. “Nice dress.”
“Thanks.” I waited for a moment and he shook himself, seeming to remember what he’d come over for.
“So ... I came by to say there’s a garden store on the other side of Wilding that are having a sale. I drove past it yesterday. You said you wanted a swing for the porch? I figured if you got it now, I could build it for you, store it in our garage and you’d have it ready for next summer. You’ve already got the joints in the porch roof so it’s no problem to hang it when the weather’s better.”
I beamed. Something else to cross off my list. “I’d like that, thank you.”
“You want to go now?”
I could hear Evan rustling around in the kitchen and then steps came towards us. My face fell a bit. “I would but I’m expecting visitors again.”
“Twice in two days. Someone got popular all of a sudden.”
I stuck my tongue out at him and turned to greet Evan who was making his way through the living room. He stopped beside me and slid an arm around my waist, his hand perched on my hip which had been bare only a few minutes earlier. He held out his other hand to Gage. “Evan Hunter.”
Gage looked at his hand for a moment before taking it. “Gage Garoul. I live across the street.” When I looked down I could see some crushing fingers going on, though neither of them winced. This didn’t seem to be a bonding moment.
“I met your sister last night.” Crush.
“So I heard.” Crush, crush.
“Do you two need a room?” I asked to lighten the moment and Gage broke off first. He pushed his hand into his pocket and I looked from him to Evan thinking the displeasure on my face should be evident enough... if either of them were looking. I was starting to think this was less about porch swings and more about Gage finding out if he had competition. I swallowed back guilt.
“I hear you’ve been looking out for my girlfriend.” Oh. I got it. Territorial pissing.
“I hear nothing about you at all,” came Gage’s reply. Ouch.
“Well, thanks for coming by, Gage.” I took his elbow and steered him back to the front door. “I do want to come to the store with you, but maybe tomorrow? If that’s okay?”
“I’ll be at work. We can go next weekend?”
“Great. And if I don’t see you tomorrow, I’ll leave the money with Annalise.”
“Anytime. No hurry. See you, Stella.” And he surprised me by leaning down, kissing my cheek casually and then pulled the door closed
behind him.
“He’s got the hots for you,” said Evan when I turned back to him with my eyebrows raised.
“Yes, he does,” I admitted, though I wasn’t going to tell him we’d kissed. Or that he’d fallen asleep in my bed, or that there had been some temptation there. Okay, fine, a lot of temptation. That wouldn’t do much to improve the situation. “But that was no reason for you to be rude.”
“I wasn’t rude.”
“I’m surprised you let his fingers go intact.”
Evan looked affronted. “That was just a friendly handshake.”
“You don’t need to mark your territory. I’m here, with you, aren’t I?” I put my hands on his chest, sending a small burst of energy to wrap around us like a caress. It glittered briefly before fading and he smiled broadly at my silly little expression.
“So long as you are.” Evan pulled me into him, both arms around me. He was trying to look sincere at least. “I’m sorry. I won’t act like a jerk again.”
I moved my lips up to meet his. “You see to that,” I murmured against his mouth. “Gage and his sister are my friends and I want you to be nice to them.” Which was another reminder to me that I had never met Evan’s friends, or knew what they were like; it was another jog of how little I really knew about him and how much more there was to learn.
Evan shifted his hips so he was pressed a little closer. “Down boy,” I whispered. “We’re still expecting visitors, remember?”
He pushed me away like the physical space in between us might help and shook his head like he wasn’t quite agreeing with himself. “I’ll get my laptop. I was researching when you distracted me, remember?” he teased.
“I think you were quite pleased with that distraction,” I called to him and was rewarded with a laugh as he strode down the hallway. Minutes later he was back with his laptop bag and he set up the computer on the sofa.
“Hey, what you did before, when you turned into David... how will I ever know if someone is who they really are ever again?”
“I’ll show you but it’ll only help you recognise me. If someone else is shapeshifting or creating an illusion of someone else, you might not recognise what they are doing. Of course, sometimes they won’t even disguise what they really are when they create an illusion. Amateurs makes it easy.”
“So, show me.”
What Evan did first was to ask me to focus on him, the two of us just stood there facing each other. I took in the scent of him, slightly citrus and fresh, and he helped me practise shifting my focus slightly. He explained if he was a witch I might see the faint shimmer of magic echo around him, but with daemons it was all about the sixth sense. How I registered him was different to what I sensed in witches and focusing on it just compounded that the periphery of my consciousness picked up naturally what other beings were as I recognised the different notes to register. When I focused on him truly, my skin broke into goosebumps.
“Do you feel me?” he murmured.
I nodded. “You’re different from witches. I feel their magic in a different way.” It was like there was a vibration in the air when witches were around and it made my skin tingle. The feeling I got from Evan was much different. Not frightening, but slightly unsettling like the feeling you get when you’re trying to lie to someone who already knew the truth and you both knew that they knew. If the feel of Evan’s magic left me slightly on edge, I wondered what it would be like if I met another daemon. Evan had once said that I’d be glad to never meet any others.
“Magic is like a fingerprint and now that you can tune in to mine, you’ll know when it’s me. I’ll look different but you’ll get that essence.”
“So how come no one else does the same thing? Surely all the bad dudes will be taking a sniff of you.” I shifted my focus back. Evan was smiling in a very self-assured way. “You can register me because I’m letting you,” he said.
“You can disguise it?”
“Yes, just in the same way that you can hide your magic.” He didn’t say it with reproach though there was a hint in his voice that he was neither proud nor displeased that I had been able to disguise mine so well. I hadn’t made much of an effort over these past few months; I simply hadn’t been using any magic of a strength worth disguising and the traces left behind faded quickly as a result.
Evan inhaled deeply and his eyes took on a slightly glazed look.
“Are you registering me?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” he sighed. “But then I did that a long time ago, and again, more deeply when I first saw you again. I have no intention of never being able to find you again.” Coming from anyone else that might have been creepy, but to me that was a reassuring note. When I looked at him next his eyes were back to bitter chocolate and he was looking at me with his teacher face. “You need to take your magic seriously. You need to guard yourself. You don’t know what you’ll come across and when.”
“Even in Wilding?” I scoffed. “Where nothing happens?”
“Especially in Wilding,” Evan said softly. Before I could ask what he meant by that, he’d stepped past me and pulled the door open, raising an arm to wave. Past him I could see that another car had pulled up next to his and our visitors were here so my questions would have to wait.
Nine
I sat at the junction, letting the engine of my car idle while I decided which way to go. I should have been going straight home with the few bags of groceries on the seat next to me but I’d caught the telltale whiff of magic that was luring me in another direction and I wasn’t sure whether I should follow it. I could, of course, ignore it completely. I could take the handbrake off, step on the gas and motor home to wait for Étoile, Seren and David to bring their supplies of an entirely different nature, but this tug was strong and unrepentant.
Yesterday’s roundtable (minus roundtable) discussion hadn’t pulled any punches. Even though Evan had pitched in his research on Chyler – it was amazing what you could find out about a person on the web if you just punched in the right keywords, apparently – and Étoile and Seren had been in touch with their contacts, we were firmly stuck on square one. What the Winterstorm sisters had found out was hardly helpful. They reported that Chyler had been dabbling in a darker magic, something her mom had been deeply concerned about, and eventually it was reported that Chyler had simply said she was over the phase and she wouldn’t be messing about anymore. But evidence suggested Chyler had just gotten a little sneakier in what she was doing and had continued to dabble. On the day Chyler disappeared, Andrea had been found sprawled inside a chalk circle with strange symbols painted around its edge, in the Anderson’s attic room, a space that doubled up as a living room slash study for magic, where Chyler was being taught the basics of spell craft. With a knife through her heart there had never been any chance of Andrea surviving. Instead, her death had been fast as she bled out. It was surmised that as she had no signs of defensive wounds, she had been surprised by the attack and unable to protect herself.
Andrea’s coven sisters had suggested that if it was Chyler, and they claimed there was evidence to suggest that she had been the perpetrator rather than another victim, Andrea simply wouldn’t have thought to protect herself from her daughter. One thing working in Chyler’s favour was that even with the mounting evidence, the Andersons’ coven sisters weren’t completely convinced that Chyler was absolutely at fault. After a lot of arguing amongst themselves, the coven had agreed that Chyler could be in trouble too and that they weren’t even sure that she wasn’t hurt or captive somewhere. It wasn’t much help in Chyler’s favour but it was something. Using their connections to the council, Andrea’s family and the coven had requested help, but that still didn’t explain to me why the council seemed so keen to expend resources to help a kid, not when they apparently faced enormous problems of their own.
The surviving family hadn’t been able to shed any light on things as neither Étoile or Seren had managed to talk directly to them due to the coven was protecting them while they
were deeply troubled and grieving.
It didn’t escape my notice that I might have been able to offer answers to some of those questions. Chyler was alive and well, even if her erratic behaviour gave me concern. More to the point, she didn’t seem to be anyone’s captive, which suggested to me she was either innocent and afraid, or as guilty as hell.
A sharp honk behind me made me snap to attention. I flipped the blinker lights and, against my better judgement, turned the car away from the direction of home. Light rain had started to patter on the windscreen so I switched the wipers on to deal with it, and, after a moment, the lights too seeing as the air was turning as dull and grey as the sky. I wanted a romantic winter image, not a reminder of weather that echoed London.
After everything that had been said that I knew I had to go and talk to Chyler. I let myself drive without thinking, just following that vague wisp of magic I’d caught a hint of back on the main road – I might have disguised her to others but there was no mistaking what I felt. When she’d shown up out of nowhere yesterday morning, Chyler had gestured vaguely east of my house and my limited geographic knowledge of the area seemed to agree that I was heading in the right direction.
I wasn’t sure what I expected when I drew up in front of a modest bungalow with a neat yard on a spacious plot but it wasn’t this poster home for clean neighbourhood living. Chyler had admitted to staying in an abandoned house so I’d got it into my head that it was probably some ramshackle old building. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I parked by the white picket fence and got out, pulling my hood up over my head to keep my hair out of the drizzle. A foreclosure sign swung on a post off to the left of the path as I walked through the open gate and went up to the front door. I knocked hesitantly, thinking of aback-up story for why I was on this doorstep in case I’d gotten it all wrong, but after a moment Chyler opened the door.
Unruly Magic (#2 Stella Mayweather Paranormal Series) Page 13
