A Magical Match

by Juliet Blackwell

  I slipped it around Oscar’s neck, then patted the pendant against his chest while incanting a quick charm.

  Oscar’s huge eyes grew even wider, and he looked as though he was about to cry. “Mistress is very good to me.”

  “Well, I’d surely hate to lose you again.” With a pang, I remembered the time he had disappeared: how desperate I had been to find him, and just how far I was willing to go to get him back. “Just promise me you’ll be careful, and come back to me safe and sound, yes?”

  “I promise,” he said with a quick nod. Eyeing the shoe box suspiciously, he added: “You, too, mistress. You, too.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Thank goodness Graciela’s coven had been waylaid by the lure of sea otters, I thought as I wrapped the shoe box in red felt, then black silk, before adding beads of lapis lazuli and Apache tears and finishing with a braided cord of black, red, purple, and orange silk threads, which I knotted while chanting a binding spell.

  I sat back on my haunches on the bed, letting out a quick breath. I hoped that would be enough to hold whatever it was until I could ask for Aidan’s help.

  I sneezed again and remembered that, while chanting the spell earlier, I had sensed a resistance, a certain lack of my regular energy. Normally Oscar’s mere presence was more than enough to open the portals, to allow the energy to slip back and forth beyond the veil. Was it simply the remnants of the spell I had cast on the box as a teenager, or could I really be catching a cold? And if so, was it having an effect on my magic?

  No time to worry about that now. I loaded my woven Filipino backpack with mason jars full of a general protective brew, my special salts, and a variety of small stones and talismans. There was really no such thing as “all-purpose” magical supplies, since the individuality of each situation had to be respected or a spell wouldn’t work properly. But I prepared the best I could. After I’d carefully tucked the resealed shoe box under one arm and slipped down the stairs, I walked through the shop and out the front door. The bell tinkled merrily as I slipped out.

  I hurried around the corner to the driveway where I parked my vintage cherry red Mustang. As I drove toward the tourist mecca of Fisherman’s Wharf, and the newly rebuilt wax museum, I realized: Sailor had promised to call . . . but he hadn’t.

  * * *

  • • •

  The young woman in the wax museum ticket booth didn’t like me. I had once saved Clarinda’s life, but even that didn’t appear to have altered her opinion as to my general character. She wore a lot of white face powder, heavy eyeliner, and black lipstick, and always appeared bored to the point of falling asleep.

  A very jaded Queen of the Dead.

  “Howdy!” I greeted her cheerfully, because I knew it annoyed her. “Is Aidan in?”

  She looked up from the battered paperback she was reading and sneered. Her eyes flickered down to the shoe box under my arm.

  “Gotta buy a ticket,” she said.

  “Actually, I don’t,” I replied. We’d had this conversation before. Repeatedly. “I’ll just go on up and see him, then, all right?”

  She shrugged.

  Outside, the newly rebuilt tourist attraction had remounted its old-movie-poster-like placards featuring famous figures from the worlds of sports and popular music, as well as the ever-popular vampires and various torture devices in the Chamber of Horrors. But inside, the wax museum didn’t look much like the old one.

  I climbed a floating acrylic-and-steel staircase that swept gracefully up to the second floor, averted my eyes from the Chamber of Horrors, which always gave me the willies, and smiled at the figure of local legend Mary Ellen Pleasant, as I passed through the new display featuring Great Entertainers, such as Louis Armstrong and Barbra Streisand. Just beyond Carol Channing was the door to Aidan’s office.

  Few tourists would ever notice the door. Aidan had cast a glamour over it, so unless you were looking for it, the door appeared invisible.

  As I held my fist up to knock, a pure white long-haired cat appeared at my side and wound around my legs. I wasn’t fooled by the friendly display—Noctemus, Aidan’s familiar, didn’t like me and no doubt knew I was allergic to cats. Her greeting was designed to leave me with a special souvenir: a few white cat hairs on the hem of my dress. My nose twitched.

  Aidan opened the door and smiled.

  “Bless you,” he said, in response to my sneeze. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit from my favorite witch?”

  Even in a city full of attractive people, Aidan stood out. His eyes were an impossible periwinkle blue, and his golden hair gleamed under the museum’s subtle lights. I was one of the few who knew that Aidan’s good looks were due in no small part to another glamour; his true self showed dramatic burn scars. This was one reason he was such a homebody and a night owl; it was harder to maintain the glamour out in the open, in full daylight. Every once in a while—more frequently, recently—I noted a shimmer, a sign that the glamour was slipping.

  Still, the Aidan who greeted me was lovely—and his aura sparkled still more intensely than his physical shell. Even people who weren’t sensitive to auras could sense Aidan’s.

  “Nice to see you again, Aidan. I’m here for some advice.”

  He grinned, displaying dazzling white teeth. “It just so happens that advice is my middle name.”

  “I rather doubt that,” I said. “Speaking of which, what is your middle name?”

  “Whatever you’d like it to be, Lily,” Aidan said silkily. “You know my fondest wish is to please you.”

  Aidan’s blatantly flirtatious manner, combined with his incredible good looks, used to fluster me. Not anymore. At least . . . not as much.

  “Okay if we step into your office for a consultation?”

  “Please, come in,” he said, standing back and waving me through the doorway. “I’ll just add this to your growing list of indebtedness to me, shall I?”

  This was the deal when reaching out to Aidan: Everything had a price.

  Aidan’s rebuilt office was an exact replica of the one that had burned down, and was decorated in a lavish style I thought of privately as “Barbary Coast Bordello.” Red velvet drapes with gold fringe hid any trace of windows, while a plush Oriental rug in deep red, emerald, and ocher hues covered the floor. A heavy carved mahogany desk and leather office chair dominated the room. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases ran along two walls, their shelves crammed with musty leather-bound tomes. Aidan had lost his last library in the fire, but told me he had managed to replace many of the rare manuscripts by scouring the Internet. I had an inkling there was more to it than that—many of the books in Aidan’s collection were arcane depositories of highly specialized magic, with only one or two copies in existence—but since he allowed me to avail myself of his library whenever I wanted, I hadn’t pushed the point.

  I took a seat in one of the comfortable leather armchairs facing his desk, and he settled into the thronelike desk chair. Placing his hands flat on the blotter, Aidan leaned toward me.

  “What can I do for you today, Lily? Is this about Selena, or Renee?”

  “What? No.” Then I wondered. “Why? Have you seen something?”

  “Nothing new, not in particular. But we need to come up with a defensive plan soon. Have you been hunting down some of those names from the Satchel?”

  I nodded. Not long ago Aidan had asked me to babysit his special satchel while he was out of town. In it were names of people who owed him favors, and who had pledged their loyalty. As the threat I believed Renee posed heated up, Aidan and I had been shoring up support, preparing to circle the magical wagons.

  “We’ll need the Gypsies in on this,” Aidan continued. “Their support will be essential to our success.”

  “Sailor told me his aunt Renna is on board, and Patience Blix also agreed, though with reluctance because she’s not much of a team
player. Where those two go, apparently, so goes the rest of the extended family. Sailor can’t speak for any other clans, of course—”

  Aidan waved off my concern. “If we have Sailor’s people, we’re good. What matters is not just that they’re Rom, but that they have special abilities.”

  I nodded. “Also, Hervé Le Mansec is making contact with the voodoo practitioners.”

  “Excellent. And how is Selena’s training coming along?”

  “It’s . . . coming,” I hedged. Selena wasn’t the most patient student. Yet another way in which she reminded me of me. “Anyway, none of that is the reason I’m here tonight. I get that we need to deal with whatever Renee’s up to, but I have to address something a little more immediate. I’m under a forty-eight-hour deadline.”

  “What is it?”

  I placed the shoe box atop the desk blotter in front of him. Aidan stared at it for a long moment; then his blue eyes met mine. “Intriguing.”

  I nodded. “In a creepy sort of way, sure.”

  “Would you like me to sequester it? I know of a rather effective little Etruscan binding spell I picked up in my travels.”

  “No, I’d like you to open it and tell me what you see.”

  “Probably best not to open it.”

  “How so?”

  His elegant eyebrows rose. “Is this a joke?”

  “Not hardly.”

  “Why in the world would you want to open”—he inclined his head toward the box—“that?”

  “Do you know a fellow named Tristan Dupree?”

  “Of course.”

  “You do?” I had assumed Aidan knew of Tristan Dupree. I just hadn’t expected him to admit it.

  “How is Dupree doing these days?”

  “Seems like his old self.” In fact, Tristan looked exactly as he had when our paths crossed more than a decade ago. Exactly. “Anyway, he says I stole something from him.”

  “Did he?”

  “Do you know what it is? He said it was a bleeg, or something like that? I didn’t quite catch it. I wondered if he was trying to say ‘bag,’ and maybe referring to the Satchel you had me watch over?”

  Aidan sighed. “It’s not the Satchel.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “Lily, Lily, Lily. When will you listen to me? Have I not been nagging you to study your craft more intensively?”

  “Just tell me what it is, Aidan.”

  Aidan rose, pulled a fat volume off the bookshelf, flipped it open, and handed it to me, pointing to a passage on one page.

  “I would guess Tristan was referring to a bēag.”

  I read: Old English bēag, referring most often to circular jewelry such as rings, bracelets, necklaces; also garlands, collars, crowns; might include shackles and coils, or precious objects in general. From the Proto-Germanic baugaz (bow or ring); from the Proto-Indo-European bewg (to bend). Cognate baug in some German dialects (ring, collar), or Icelandic baugur (circle). Relative of bagel.

  “Tristan thinks I stole his bagel?”

  Aidan smiled. “More likely a ring.”

  “Or it says here it could be a collar, a garland, or a crown. Any precious object, really.” I blew out a frustrated breath. “Could I ask you something?”

  “That’s why you’re here.”

  “Why do magical folks have to be so gol-durned nonspecific? Why do they always have to talk in riddles? Why can’t they just say what it is they want, in modern English? I’d take Spanish, or Nahuatl, for that matter.”

  “That would take all the fun out of it.”

  “Not for me. I get plenty of fun with my vintage clothes. Going out to dinner, hanging out with my friends . . .”

  “If you’re asking seriously, I would say it’s because the flow of power we tap into is primordial, beyond language. We are interpreting symbols and sensations, which don’t lend themselves to specific meanings.”

  “Huh. I never thought of that. Good point. Anyway, so what does ‘bēag’ tell us?”

  “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “I can’t—I don’t remember stealing anything from anybody, much less Tristan Dupree. Do you think he might be working for somebody?”

  Aidan looked thoughtful. “I suppose it’s possible, but I haven’t heard Dupree associated with anyone in that way. He’s generally a loner, and while he might ally himself with folks from time to time, he’s more of a contract worker than a salaried employee, if you get my drift. Coming after you in San Francisco indicates something more serious is afoot. Did he frighten you?”

  A little, though I was loath to admit that to Aidan. I shrugged.

  “Anyway, if I stole anything from anybody when I was with my father in Germany, it’s probably in there,” I said, pointing to the shoe box.

  His gaze fell to his desktop. “The box you’re afraid to open.”

  “Looks like I’m not the only one.”

  “I wouldn’t say I’m afraid, exactly. More like prudent.”

  I held Aidan’s gaze, and after a moment he let out a sigh.

  “You don’t remember what happened in Germany . . . none of it?”

  “Not really. I get little details from time to time, flashes of memory, but nothing concrete, nothing more than a quick picture.”

  “And yet you remembered Tristan.”

  “I remember meeting him. But I don’t remember what went on.”

  He gave me a strange look.

  “What is it?” I demanded.

  He shook his head. “I think the first thing we should do, long before opening this box, is to meld our magic to help you remember.”

  I hesitated. The first time Aidan and I melded our magic, we ended up melting metal. The second time went slightly better; he was more prepared for my energy, and I was more in control. Still, it wasn’t exactly a good experience. It was . . . passionate and sensual, but also overwhelming. Threatening. I lost all sense of time, and it made me feel like I was drowning.

  Avoiding Aidan’s gaze, I glanced over at the bookshelf, then at Noctemus, and then at a huge brass urn etched with elaborate linear designs. The etchings reminded me of the map of the busload of witches crisscrossing the country, and that thought brought me strength. After all, I was descended from a long line of strong, wild, magical women. Even though I was mostly a solo act, I was but one in a community of witches.

  It was time to face what had happened when I went to find my father, so very long ago.

  “Are you sure this will work?” I asked.

  “Of course not. If you’ve repressed the memories this long, they won’t be easy to retrieve. But it’s worth a try. Ready?”

  I nodded.

  We stood, facing each other. When I interacted with other witches—in coven meetings, for example—we had always come together heart to heart, and hand to hand. Not so with Aidan. He placed his hands on either side of my head, then bent his head to touch mine, forehead to forehead.

  A shock of energy reached out, like a sustained spark between us. I could feel the sensation of electricity running from his head to mine.

  We breathed together, until it was hard to tell where his breath stopped and mine began.

  I reached up and placed my hands over his. A humming began, so low that at first I wasn’t sure if it was external or if it was manifesting within myself. The hum grew in intensity, filling the room. Dots swam in front of my eyes, and my vision went black. It was so dark I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. I felt like I was falling, headfirst, down an endless tunnel. It seemed to go on forever.

  And I started to remember. A rainy night, the taxi dropping me off at the address I had at long last tracked my father to. Standing at the door, afraid to knock. Without my making a sound, it swung open.

  I saw Aidan. “Am I seeing you?” I asked in my mind. Was this a memory, or
was this now?

  He held his hand out. “Come in,” he said. “Remember.”

  Everything was shadowy, confusing, like a bad dream. I stepped through the door and into the burned-out shell of a once-grand house. The stench of smoke and soot was overwhelming. A wrought iron circular staircase led up through a gaping hole in the ceiling. I began to climb it, and saw a bird’s nest lodged on a timber under the broken glass of an intricate skylight. The light blue speckled eggs were broken. Nestled among them was an old watch, the ticking sound growing louder and louder.

  “What is this place?” I asked, but Aidan was no longer there. Instead, I saw my father standing at the bottom of the stairs. Hatred burned in his eyes. He whispered: “Prophecy.”

  My cheeks felt wet with tears. But that was impossible. I didn’t cry. I couldn’t cry.

  I turned to go back down the spiral stairs, but they began to disintegrate beneath my feet. Rung by rung, the pinging of metal snapping fought with the ticking of the watch. I lost my foothold and began tumbling, falling headfirst, down and down, into the burned remains of the house, into the thick pile of ashes. . . .

  I had been underwater only once, and had nearly drowned. But I vividly remembered the sensation of fighting my way up and out of the watery depths, my eyes searching for the light of the moon dancing on the surface of the bay, streaming toward it, lungs screaming for air, gut spasming. That was what this felt like.

  With a violent jolt, I yanked myself out of the trance.

  Chapter 5

  “Hold on one gol-durned second. Prophecy? What prophecy?” My voice ended on a squeaky note.

  Aidan and I were standing just as we had been, in the center of the room, but according to the antique grandfather clock, several hours had passed. I felt cranky and mildly nauseated, and my muscles burned with fatigue. Combining energies with Aidan was disorienting, exhausting, and, of course, revelatory.