He stopped at the edge of the bar and looked back.
“You stay here. This is something I have to do.” Carla found Jerome in her small office, using the phone to call a taxi. She lifted her hand and magically cut the call.
Jerome turned, fury pouring out of him like alcohol fumes. His straggly hair was combed back, and she noticed he had shaved. But his face was still red. “Fine, I’ll walk.”
Carla stepped in front of her dad. “If you run out on Keri now, I’ll never forgive you.”
“You’re the one who threw her away, Carla. You chose a man over your sister. You always made the wrong choice. And Keri keeps paying for it.”
Her chakras closed up. But her heart took the hit. She’d always known he blamed her. “Why couldn’t you just love her as she was?”
Furiously he said, “I knew her, Carla. Better than you think. Keri was a rare mix of witch and psychic empath. She felt people’s pain vividly. It hurt her, and drove her to use magic to help people. I wanted to isolate her to keep her from feeling that pain, and keep her from being among too many people where she’d run into a rogue.” He rubbed his hand over the slack skin on his face. “I didn’t realize …”
“She needed people to keep her magic alive enough to filter the pain.”
“She wouldn’t let me help her! I tried to devise other ways, and keep her alive. She was too damned vulnerable! The last fight before she left to open the Holistic Healing Clinic, she yelled at me that she’d rather die doing magic than live trapped in science.”
His pain was coming off him in waves. “Dad, God, no, she loved you. She was just like you! Stubborn and passionate. She believed in what she was doing. And when she died … when those bastards were killing her … when I opened that door and heard her scream, she was screaming for you! Not me or mom with all our magic, she was screaming”—Carla’s throat seized up on the word—“Daddy.”
The blood drained from her dad’s face and his body crumpled so that he sort of folded into a sitting position on the desk. “Oh, God.”
She went to him and hugged him.
“She called for me?”
“She loved you, Dad.”
Jerome wrapped his arms around her and cried.
“Sit down, Sutton.”
He would rather be out hunting down rogues or getting blown up. But Carla’s mom told him to sit, so he sat. The chair was small, and he was pretty sure he looked like a giant bruiser, not the kind of man she’d wanted for her daughter.
Chandra waved her hand over the mess of broken pottery. The pieces shivered, then lifted off the ground and counter, and reassembled themselves into two mugs. “Coffee?”
“Uh, okay.” Sutton watched as she held up one cup and the coffee pot lifted off the table, floated to her, and filled the cup. Sutton felt the magic, much like the beat of far-off music, but it didn’t light up his insides like Carly’s did.
Carla. Everyone called her Carla.
“My magic doesn’t bother you?”
“No.” The bloodlust was gone. He watched the cup float over and gracefully land on the table between his hands.
Chandra sat down next to him.
He looked up. She had long hair, a darker blond than Carla’s, and the top layer was caught up in a clip. Her eyes were pure green and amused. “She lets you call her Carly.”
He felt like an idiot. “I didn’t ask her. She’s just… Carly. To me. I mean …” He rubbed his forehead.
“Maybe you mean she’s soft and vulnerable enough with you to be Carly. She trusts you like she’s never trusted anyone else.”
He dropped his hand in surprise.
Chandra smiled at him. “I know you wanted to go after her father and tell him off.”
He didn’t deny it.
“Yet you let her go.”
He raised an eyebrow at that. “Let? No, ma’am. He’s her father, she makes the call.”
“She made the call last night, didn’t she?”
“What?”
“About saving you. About bonding your souls. You didn’t send Axel here to get her.”
He sighed and leaned forward on his elbows. “No. I never wanted her to choose between me and her sister. I’m sorry as hell that she was forced to do it.” He thought of her crying last night, her body shaking with grief on top of his. The only thing worse than that had been her trying to bear her grief alone, that she thought he would let her. “The scar on her back is gone.”
Chandra closed her eyes, her witch-shimmer dulling. “So she did lose her.”
“The break was terrible for her. But Carla’s powers will be stronger now, and together, we’re going to find the knife Keri’s trapped in and I’m going to get it. Then you all can set her free to go to Summerland.”
She opened her eyes. “Thank you.”
He shook his head. “I don’t want or need thanks, ma’am. I’m going to get Keri for you and Carla. Then I’m going to kill Styx for hurting them. All the thanks I need will be turning that bastard into a shade for eternity.”
Chandra sat back in her chair.
He’d scared her. Damn it. But he wasn’t going to apologize, not for that. Not for making sure Carla and her family were safe. Instead, he sat back and stared at the coffee. His eagle tattoo started to fret and fuss at him.
Carla. She was upset. He could feel her churning emotions. His exceptional hearing easily picked up the conversation between her and Jerome, making him clench his jaw. This was something she needed to do, and Sutton understood that, but the eagle didn’t like it. He wanted to touch her, stroke her, and comfort her. To show his displeasure, the bird was pecking at the inside of his back. He shifted in the chair and tried to think of something to fill the silence with Carla’s mom, but nothing came to mind.
“Sutton, I think you’re bleeding.”
He shrugged.
“On your back.”
He hunched forward. “I won’t get blood on the chair.”
She put her hand on his arm. “I don’t care about the chair. Why are you bleeding?”
Stunned, he looked down at her hand. She was touching him. Like she, like … he didn’t know exactly. “The eagle. It’s pissed off, uh, mad, because I won’t go to Carla. It’ll stop soon.”
“It’s hurting you not to go to her?”
He shrugged again. “He’s just looking out for her. He’s not doing anything wrong. I don’t mind.”
“He’s slicing up your back!”
“It heals real quick once the bird is sure she’s okay.”
She shook her head. “You tell the eagle to stop it right now. I won’t have him hurting you when Carla is fine. I don’t think Carla will like it either. Does the eagle want her to be mad at him?”
The creature froze on his back like he’d been slapped. Sutton stared at her. “I think you scared him.” The eagle sure as hell wasn’t scared of Sutton. But then, he wouldn’t yell at him for taking care of Carla either. Her mother was kind of mean. “He just wants to take care of her.”
“That’s fine if Carla’s in real danger, Sutton. But he’s just being cranky because he can’t touch her, is that right?”
“Maybe.”
“He’s going to stop that. Are we clear?”
“Yes, ma’am.” The eagle was cowering in the tattoo, the big baby. While Sutton was sitting there getting scolded. Stupid bird.
She patted his arm. “Call me Chandra.” Then she reached out and picked up a plate in the middle of the table. “Have a cookie.”
His hand was nearly as big as the plate. Feeling clumsy, he picked up a golden cookie shaped like a heart. He wasn’t really big on sweets and didn’t get the hunters falling all over themselves over her cookies. But he took a bite, intending to love the damned thing. His mouth flooded with the flavors of butter and cinnamon. “It’s actually good. Really good.” He shoved the rest of the cookie into his mouth.
Chandra set the whole plate of cookies in front of him and smiled. “Of course they’re good
. I’m the Cookie Witch.”
The astral plane was a sea of endless blue. Carla had opened her chakras, even the fifth one at her throat, with little effort. “Pam?” she called softly.
The scene appeared in front of her. Not the club that Carla had seen her in before, but a couch in an apartment. She was just sitting there in her green dress, looking at nothing. She lifted her eyes. “Dr. Fisk?”
Her doppelgänger image looked faded and tired. “Yes, I’ve come to take you back to the physical plane and your body.”
“That light is gone.”
Carla felt a wave of grief. “I know.”
“I thought maybe the light was supposed to take me somewhere. You know, how everyone says to go into the light.”
Carla walked over and sat down next to Pam. “It’s time to go back to your body.”
She frowned. “Am I in jail? I think I should be in jail.”
Carla placed a hand on Pam’s forearm. The skin felt waxy and cool. Her spirit was losing its tether to her body. “No. You don’t deserve to be in jail, Pam. You were brainwashed into shooting Sutton. But he’s fine, and I’m going to help you.”
“I trust you,” Pam said, her words slow and thick.
Carla looked at the woman’s eyes, latched onto her spirit with her communication chakra, and slipped from the astral plane. She had to hold tight to Pam. While Carla’s spirit aimed for her body with unerring accuracy, Pam’s spirit was disoriented from five long days on the astral plane.
Carla felt the weight of the physical plane settle over them and she directed Pam to her body. Just as she did that, she felt a “bounce” like a ripple of energy, and then she was hurtling through a tunnel.
Pam was still in her grasp.
Everything stopped. The quiet was ominous.
“What is it? What’s happening?” Pam cried. “Oh, God, is that you on the floor? That’s you, Dr. Fisk!”
“No!” It wasn’t her, it was Keri. They were in the clinic. The other two witches and Carla’s patient were in the back rooms, but Keri was in the reception area. The pale green walls were stained with her blood. The bamboo floors … more blood. Even the bamboo reception desk, the one Keri had special-ordered, was splattered in her blood.
The chairs were overturned, magazines scattered. Keri had fought them … and now she lay dead in a heap. Her green eyes were vacant, her skin hanging from the endless cuts with no blood left … Then she saw Keri’s mouth move. “Why? Sutton was mine. Why?”
Horror slithered up her throat, and her heart cried out in agony. “I’m sorry! I …”
Sutton’s voice broke in, “Carla, take my hand.”
She turned, and saw him standing in front of the desk, dwarfing it. He wore black pants over hiking boots, and a dark T-shirt. His close-shaved head with the gold earring in the left ear, massive shoulders, and rippling arms looked out of place.
The Holistic Healing Clinic was a place of peace and healing.
Sutton looked like some kind of warrior.
And she was beyond relieved to see him. She reached out her arm and he closed his massive hand around hers, feeling warm and real.
Keri moved on the floor. “My eagle.”
Carla said, “I’m his soul mirror.” She knew she was arguing with a vision, with something that wasn’t real, but …
“Twin bond. You knew that, Carla. You’re the smart one.”
She wanted to believe Sutton when he said he recognized her as his soul mirror, but he could just as easily be feeling Keri. Oh, Ancestors, what had she done?
Next to her, Pam trembled. Sutton wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “It’s not real, Carla. It’s not Keri. It’s Styx screwing with you. There’s nothing here for us; let’s take Pam back now.”
She kept her hand on Pam’s arm and nodded. Taking a breath, she concentrated.
“Don’t leave me!” Keri screamed.
Sutton shifted, moving around the front of Carla so that all she could see was him, see the huge chest where he’d held her while she cried. He kept his hand on her shoulder, he reached out the other hand and took hold of Pam’s hand.
“I shot you,” Pam said, her voice thin and confused.
Carla turned to Pam’s fading image and blocked out the scene of her sister’s murder. “He’s fine, you can see that, Pam. And he’s not angry at you.” It was time to fight back against Styx. “I need you to look at me, focus on me.”
Sutton kept his hand on her, but now he was quiet.
Styx was in her head, and possibly in Pam’s. She concentrated hard on the room where Pam lay in the physical plane, built the path in her mind, then raised a mental wall around the path.
“I’ll get through, you bitch,” Styx screamed at her, but his energy bounced off the walls.
Her head screamed in pain. The prongs were red-hot, like two long skewers heated over a flame and driven into her skull.
The physical plane appeared. This time, Carla funneled her magic in a strong stream to place Pam in her body. Then she let go of the woman, and her spirit fell into her body, the pain of the prongs shutting down her chakras.
Carla sat on the side of the bed, her hand still on Pam. The horror of Keri’s accusation sloshed in her stomach.
But Keri had told her to go to him!
The headache had been a low throb this morning, but now it was a brutal, jackhammering assault. She closed her eyes and drew in a breath. She needed to get those damned prongs out of her head.
Both of Sutton’s hands settled on her shoulders. “It wasn’t Keri.”
His voice was tight with rage, but his hands were strong and warm on her shoulders. The pain began to ease. With him standing right behind her, touching her, it was easier to focus. She needed to take care of Pam.
Go ahead. I’m right here.
It dawned on her that they weren’t talking aloud. He was talking in her head! She turned to look at him.
Sutton smiled at her. Can’t get rid of me now, little witch.
His grin turned his stern and hard face wickedly sexy, while the words in her head were heavy with pride. It made her want to climb up his body and kiss him stupid while holding him tight. She could handle this, handle anything, while Sutton was with her. They’d beat Styx and free Keri. It was an effort to pull her gaze away, and turn back to Pam.
He used his thumbs to knead the knot between her shoulder blades. The headache had dimmed to a steady thump, and her horror had turned to fury at Styx.
Turning her gaze back to the woman in the bed, she said, “Pam?”
She opened her eyes slowly, squinting against the light.
Carla forced a smile, trying to ignore the headache. “Hello. How do you feel?”
“Dr. Fisk?”
“Yes.” Pam’s pupils contracted as her eyes adjusted to the light. A faint color was warming her skin tone. All good signs.
Pam blinked. “I know you, but … everything else is confusing. Why am I here?”
The brain damage Styx had inflicted on Pam with his memory-shifting was fairly extensive, and Carla wasn’t surprised that Pam was confused. With Sutton touching her, it was easy to open her chakras and funnel calming energy to the woman. “You’ve been in a coma, Pam. Before that, you suffered some brainwashing. But you’re safe now and we’re going to take care of you. Right now, I’m going to make arrangements to have you moved to where I work. It’s called the Transitional Clinic. There I will have a medical doctor take a look at you, and you can rest while we work together.”
Pam plucked at the top of the blanket. “But why can’t I remember anything? Did I have an accident, or …” Her gaze moved to Sutton. She paled and sank back into the covers in fear. “Do I know you?”
Carla summoned more calming energy and poured it into Pam. “He’s here to protect you, Pam.”
“He looks scary,” Pam said.
Carla squeezed her arm gently. “You are safe, Pam, and we’re going to help you get well. The confusion will go away, I promise. You jus
t need to rest and trust me.”
“Okay, I’ll try,” she answered, her face relaxing.
There was a knock on the bedroom door, then it opened, and her mom walked in carrying a tray. It smelled like soup and cookies.
“Pam, this is my mother, Chandra.”
“Is she a doctor, too?”
Carla smiled. “No. But she’s been helping me take care of you.”
Chandra set the tray down on the nightstand. She smiled down at Pam. “It’s good to see you awake, Pam. You were starting to worry us.”
Pam sat up a little. “I recognize your voice.”
Carla reassured her, “That’s because Mom spent a lot of time in here with you.”
“Oh.”
Pam was overwhelmed. Having three people staring at her didn’t help.
“Carla, go make your arrangements,” her mom said. “Pam and I will be fine.”
She smiled across the bed at her mom. “All right. Pam, I’ll be back in a little bit. If you need anything, just let Chandra know.” She took her hand from Pam’s arm and stood up. Sutton shifted with her, keeping one hand wrapped around her neck as they walked out into the hallway and closed the door.
Carla took a deep breath and said, “My head doesn’t hurt as much when you touch me.”
Sutton towered over her. “That right?”
She led him into her room next door. Once inside, she looked up at him. “You know it is. How are you doing it?”
He shrugged and reached back with his free hand to shut the door. “Don’t know. Probably your magic is sending the pain to me.”
She was hurting him. Again. She turned to move away from the hand curved around her neck. “Let go. Don’t—”
He took his hand off her.
Carla sucked in a gulp of air as the pain drove into her brain. Her knees trembled, and she began to sweat. It was too much, too fast. She forced her eyes to stay open, focusing on the window across the room.
“Come here,” Sutton said softly from behind her.
“No. It’s okay. Just sudden.”
“Don’t do this, Carla. Don’t make me watch you suffer.” His voice was low and furious.
She could do this. Get the pain under control, then find a way to get the prongs out. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’ll adjust in a second.”
Soul Magic Page 25
