Waiting for Magic

by Susan Squires

“Yeah. Probably a member of the Clan,” Devin agreed, nodding as though it was the first time he’d thought of that. Which made it sarcastic, but he didn’t care. “Not quite sure what kind of a power. But when he shoved with his palms out—like that—over and over, the SUV slammed into the chain-link fence.”

  Devin was sorry he’d been so blunt when he saw Brina’s eyes overflow. Brian looked ill. They were imagining what it had been like for their kids when the car went into the floodwaters. Of course, whatever they imagined, the reality had been worse. He felt for them, but he had to play this out. “Maybe the Clan knew we went to Pendragon’s house. Or maybe the Clan knows whenever somebody leaves the house without a security detail. But any way you figure it, you told Kemble to find Talismans. He had a good line on one. We checked it out. Not his fault that we got pushed into the river. So lighten up.”

  Brian stood there like a statue, his lips tight but moving slightly, his jaw clenching.

  Brina came striding forward and took both her sons’ hands, clasping them strongly. “I saw pictures of the river on the news last night. How … how did you get out?”

  Kemble started to speak. “Devin.…”

  Devin shot him a quelling look. “I caught Kee. Kemble got up on the bank and he pulled her out.”

  Kemble felt like he still had to cover. “Devin’s a strong swimmer, thank God.”

  Brina, still grasping Kemble’s hand, drew Devin into a sopping hug. “Thank you. Thank you both for coming home alive, and bringing Keelan with you.”

  “You’re … you’re getting all muddy,” Devin protested. It had been a long time since Brina hugged him. She’d realized right away hugging made him uncomfortable. Tonight was apparently an exception. That was okay. He’d embraced Kee all the way home. He could make it through this one. The hug was for Brina, not for him. He could do that for her.

  She pulled herself away, sniffing, and glanced to Brian. “Hot showers okay now?”

  He nodded. “Don’t ever do something stupid like that again.”

  Devin wondered how he’d thought Kemble looked older than Brian. Their father had just aged ten years.

  *****

  Drew was all business as she turned on the shower full blast and began to strip Kee. She didn’t say anything, which was pretty strange for Drew. Kee felt like a stranger in her own house and a child all at once. This was how Devin must have felt when he had first come out of the orphanage in New Zealand and landed in Tremaine Central. Drew tossed the ruined red silk dress on the bathroom tile floor without a word.

  “Sorry about the dress.” Kee hadn’t even asked to borrow it.

  Drew moved around to unhook Kee’s bra. “Like I care about that.”

  “Your black Manolos with burgundy leather bows are gone too.” Kee shrugged out of her wet bra. She’d begun to shiver again, now that the heater in the cab was no longer blasting on her. The tile in the bathroom seemed cold.

  “Couldn’t care less,” Drew said. “Out of those panties.”

  Kee shoved the wet nylon over her hips and stepped out of them.

  “Into the shower.”

  She could hardly see the handle on the glass shower door for the steam, but it didn’t matter because Drew opened it for her. It was good to have Drew take charge right now. The water felt great. She didn’t even care that it revealed scrapes she didn’t know she had by making them sting. She soaped everything, and used three hair products. Mud, be gone.

  When she stepped out, Drew was sitting on the toilet. She handed Kee a yellow, fluffy blanket-sized bath towel. “Better?” Drew asked.

  “You have no idea,” Kee sighed.

  Drew approached with a little tube. “Neosporin will take care of those scrapes. Got a little anesthetic thing going on too, so you’ll feel better.”

  Kee turned away from the mirror before it cleared. “Don’t let me see how I look until tomorrow. I might be up to it then.”

  “Okay.” Drew worked over her. How long had it been since she’d had skinned knees? Apparently her cheekbone was scraped and her elbows.

  Kee’s mind began to clear along with the steam. Images of tonight started flashing in her mind: the SUV tumbling over the fence, the water beginning to fill the car as she hung upside down from her seatbelt, the log crashing against the windshield, the moment she’d known for sure she was going to drown. All she’d been sorry for was that she couldn’t properly see Devin from that angle when she’d never see him again. Her lungs had felt on fire, right up until the moment of surrender. Then nothing.

  Wait. Another flash. Coughing up water as Devin knelt over her. She must have been hallucinating. Devin’s eyes had seemed blue instead of brown: a glowing blue filled with movement, like waves. Oh, yeah. Hallucination. Behind him was a moving brown wall. Then Devin holding her under the arms as they floated in a warm, calm pool. A voice that was many voices. Wow. Guess that’s what happened when you nearly died. Weren’t you just supposed to see a white light?

  She was pretty clear about Devin pushing her up toward Kemble’s waiting arms. And she hadn’t hallucinated sitting on the bank, trying to get her breath, because Devin’s eyes had definitely been brown then. The trudge into downtown L.A. had been only too real. The electric feel of collapsing on Devin’s chest had been dimmed by her exhaustion. Clear. Yet it all seemed distant.

  Drew took one look at Kee’s expression and gathered her into a hug. “It’s okay, honey. You’re okay now. Time to sleep.”

  Kee struggled to swallow. Drew patted her shoulder and grabbed her sleep shirt. As Drew pulled it over Kee’s head she looked up into Drew’s face, so like their mother’s, coal-black hair, clear gray eyes. You looked at Drew and you could believe she was magic. Drew was examining Kee carefully, but her face was pinched with stress.

  “Sorry you had to go through that,” Kee murmured.

  Drew shrugged. “Waiting was the worst.” She sighed and pulled back the comforter splashed with red and blue that looked like a Mondrian painting. “How did a history major get the power to be a Seer?” she muttered.

  “The past is a window to the future?” Kee heaved herself up on the bed.

  “Doesn’t seem to do me much good. Or anybody else,” Drew groused.

  “I’d give anything to have magic, no matter how stupid it is.”

  Drew pulled the coverlet over her. “I know, honey. And what you really want is the love that unleashes the magic. That’s worth any price.” Drew smiled and Kee knew she was thinking of Michael.

  “Yeah.” Kee kept her face as still and closed as she could. She dared not let her sister suspect that while she hadn’t found her one true love, she’d somehow become obsessed with her brother in a really awful way. God, she was a bad person.

  “What’s wrong, honey?” Drew asked, taking her hand.

  Guess her face was more transparent than she thought. “The Parents are angry.” It was just the first thing that came to mind. She stuffed her pain about her feelings for Devin down and mustered a smile. “At least after tonight, no one can call me Daddy’s girl. I’ve left being a good girl behind.”

  “Stupid sister.” Drew bent and kissed her forehead. “Of course you’re still the good girl. You didn’t really want to go tonight, did you? You did it to help Kemble, to help the family.”

  Kee sucked in a breath. She’d never thought of it like that.

  “And you’ll always be Daddy’s girl. He’s got a soft spot for you.”

  “I don’t understand why.”

  “I think it’s because you’re the opposite of him in a lot of ways,” Drew said. “He’s controlled, intellectual. You’re vibrant and emotional, impulsive, artistic.”

  Drew acted like those characteristics were good. “Tris is different than Father. That doesn’t mean they always got along.”

  “Tris is a son. That’s a whole other thing.”

  Kee frowned.

  “Don’t look like that,” Drew said, pushing her wet hair back from her cheek. “I’ve always admi
red your spontaneity, little sister. I think you suppress it too much sometimes.”

  Drew admired her? Impossible. And if she knew what Kee had been thinking about Devin, whatever she felt would turn to disgust in one second flat.

  “Now get some sleep.” Drew rose and turned out the light. “Father will have forgiven everyone by tomorrow morning. Except Kemble, of course.”

  Kee heard the door close. But the dark room wasn’t comforting. Because that meant she was left alone with her thoughts and she didn’t seem to be able to keep them away from Devin.

  *****

  Devin toweled off his hair and rubbed his body down. He could hear Drew and Kee’s voices murmuring from upstairs, though not the words. That was strange.

  But that meant Michael was still here, since he’d never leave without Drew. Just the guy Devin had to see. It had been a long day. He should be dead tired. But he was wired with a kind of electric energy that wouldn’t let him rest. Not until he knew.

  He threw on a terry robe and tied it around his hips. He trotted down the hall of the Bay of Pigs. Michael was still in the kitchen, alone now, seated at the breakfast bar. He had about two fingers of something the color of aged honey in his glass. The cut-crystal decanter half full of same, usually at home on the huge carved sideboard that served as a bar in the living room, sat at his elbow. Only the backsplash over the counters was lighted.

  “Scotch?” Devin asked.

  “Springbank 18, I think.” Michael said, in that deep voice that went with his six-five frame and his massive chest. “Grab a glass. You must need it.”

  Devin pulled out a squat glass from one of the cabinets. He walked back to Michael, trying to think how to approach his questions, and held out his glass. Michael poured a generous two glugs from the decanter.

  “Sorry about upsetting Drew.” He could start there.

  Michael shrugged. “I thought she was getting a hold on the vision thing. But it still upsets her to no end to see the future. She isn’t sure when things are happening, or if she can change them, or if she should try.”

  “She doesn’t have visions all the time anymore,” Devin offered.

  “Thank God for small favors.” Michael held up his glass in a toast to the deity.

  Michael said his alcoholism pretty much disappeared after he finally admitted he loved Drew, and realized it was time to move on from mourning his dead wife. Now he could have a drink and leave it at one or two. Drew had gotten more grounded, more involved in life too. They were good for each other. Michael was now part of the family. The Tremaines just seemed to take in strays. Maggie, Tris’s wife, was the same. Came from an awful home. But she just loved being part of the big, boisterous, loving, impossible Tremaine family. She’d contributed the first grandchild. Who knew what Jesse would be able to do when grew up and found his fated mate?

  Devin had never felt he’d be part of that.

  He still wouldn’t.

  Michael’s first wife, Alice, had raised his power. When she died, how did he get over his one true love and go on living? That was what he wanted to ask Michael most of all. Not likely.

  “What did Drew see?” That was easiest to ask, and something he sure needed to know.

  “She wouldn’t tell me. She just said you three were in terrible danger and she didn’t know when it would happen. She was pretty hysterical. So she had me Find you.”

  “And we weren’t here. Must have been bad.”

  “It was. I Found you when you were coming home, so we didn’t call out the troops. We came up here to the house. The wait was a tad harrowing.”

  “She … didn’t say anything else?”

  “Like what?”

  Devin had prepared for this. “Like, anything else in our future.”

  “Well, there was the burning castle that was about to be engulfed in a flood the other day. She felt that one might be personal. But you knew about that.”

  He hadn’t. And it might not have made sense to him anyway until he’d seen Pendragon’s house tonight. Pretty much looked like a castle. Flooded…. Lots of that going around these days. What did it mean? But at least Drew hadn’t seen how they’d escaped the river tonight. Or she hadn’t told Michael. Maybe he only had to worry about Kemble knowing about his power.

  On to a question perhaps even more important. “When you Found the Sword … did you feel when it was near you?”

  “What do you mean?” Michael took a sip of the whisky.

  “I don’t know … like it was kind of this overpowering presence, so overwhelming it made you feel lightheaded or nauseous or something?”

  Michael frowned, his mother’s dark, Italian brows drawing together over his prominent nose. Michael was short for Michelangelo. “No. Not really.” He thought. “But any sensation was all mixed up with the Finding sense for me. I could feel where the Sword was. It drew me. I almost couldn’t help myself. So, yeah, it was a little overwhelming. But that’s what Finding is like. It was the same when I tried to Find Drew at first. And then after we’d, uh, come together.…” Here he glanced over at Devin.

  “I’m twenty-three, as everyone seems to forget.” Devin grimaced. “So after you’d had sex with Drew.…”

  “Yeah.” Michael shrugged. “Or maybe it was after I accepted that I loved her. But either way, after that, even when she was far away I didn’t have to Find her. I just thought of her and I could feel where she was. Pretty overwhelming.”

  “So, did Drew feel the Sword in Chicago?”

  Michael considered. “I think she said something about that. Ask her.” Michael examined Devin’s face, frowning. “And you would be wanting to know this, why?”

  Devin wanted to confide in Michael. He liked the man, even apart from how good he was with Drew. Michael was a great guy to have around if there was trouble. But Devin couldn’t tell him. Not yet. “Just want to know what to expect if we really do find a Talisman.”

  Michael shook his head. “I think you only feel the Talismans if your power has been activated. So we’d better be sure someone with power is along for the search.”

  That was just the bitch, wasn’t it? They’d had two people along tonight who had power, though Michael didn’t know it. The stab of pain he felt in his gut had nothing to do with the bite of the Scotch.

  “But you know,” Michael continued, “the more we look for the Talismans, the more we’re going to find the Clan. Not a healthy situation.”

  Devin’s brain was whirling.

  “Here comes Drew.” Of course Michael would know where she was. Michael finished off his drink. “You’d better get some sleep. It’s nearly five in the morning.”

  “Yeah,” Devin agreed. Like he could sleep. Michael stoppered the decanter, put it back out on the sideboard, and went to meet Drew on the staircase. He could hear their murmured endearments change as they turned heated. Then there was only one set of steps going up the stairs. Michael must have swept Drew up in his arms. Their togetherness was like barbed wire around Devin’s neck. He knocked over one of the stools at the breakfast bar as he surged to his feet, wondering how to stop himself from spiraling out of control. The pain was almost physical.

  Then he just lost it. He punched a fist into the side of the arch over the bar and felt the plaster crack. He hit it again and again before he just collapsed against it, forehead on his forearm. He squeezed his eyes shut to stop the swirling thoughts.

  Kee had felt a Talisman tonight at Pendragon’s castle while they were in the collection/dungeon room. He knew, because he’d felt it too. At least there was a good chance that the overwhelmed feeling, coupled with faintness and nausea, had been a reaction to the proximity of a Talisman. And they could feel it because they both had found their power.

  Looked like Kee had been concealing a couple of important facts about her relationship with Museum Guy. She must have dated him more than twice. Hell, she was always up at the museum. Was she really just working on the exhibits or were they sneaking off to have sex? He felt sick
with jealousy that someone else was touching her collarbones and her breasts, feeling the fine, smooth skin of her cheek, the silk of her hair. He pushed away from the arch, shaking, and righted the barstool. The fact that Pendragon probably did, in fact, have a Tarot Talisman should have thrilled him. The family needed that.

  But Kee was lost to him forever. Not that he’d ever imagined they’d be together. She’d never think of him like that. Little orphan boy who wasn’t quite a Tremaine. Brother. That was who he was to her. But to see her every day with someone who loved her as much as Michael loved Drew, or Maggie loved Tris, or the Parents loved each other, knowing she could never be his, might just kill him.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Kee couldn’t sleep, no matter how exhausted her body was. She was doing a really bad job of suppressing her feelings for Devin. Maybe she was raw from having a near-death experience, but images of Devin kept flipping through her brain. How had she gotten this bad?

  An artist was allowed to notice everything about a person’s body. But it was supposed to be objective, an assessment of the light and shadow, the range of color needed to translate the three-dimensional being onto the two dimensions of the canvas and tell something about them, the light, and the moment in time. But her view of Devin wasn’t objective anymore. She’d painted his nipples brown and flat before. But now she had the urge to touch them. Of course she knew he had a full lower lip and a sharply cut upper one, but now they formed a mouth that could be kissed. His muscles moved in ways she’d seen a thousand times but never seen, and all she could think about was how it would be for him to hold her.

  Kee lay in bed, her breasts full and tender, her sex throbbing.

  This had to stop.

  He didn’t return her feelings. Of course he didn’t, for God’s sake. He’d hardly even been speaking to her, lately. A streak of lightning split the sky outside the window, throwing everything into a black-and-white snapshot for an instant. As her hand stole down between her legs, the thunder rolled over her. She gave a groan and ripped the covers off the bed. She was not going there. This was a sick obsession. If she wasn’t careful, she might go crazy, as in certifiable, seventy-two-hour lockdown kind of crazy.