His mother turned another card over and chewed her lip, studying it.
He poured too much cream in his coffee. What the hell? He loaded sugar into it too. “Okay,” he said, voice weary. “Why the gasp?”
His mother smiled at him, “I’d say ‘nothing’ but that would be vindictive.” Her face sobered. “It’s Devin.”
Right. Of course it was Devin. Or it might have been Keelan. He didn’t want to know. Or rather he didn’t want to know what she suspected, just in case it was close to the truth, and his face confirmed or denied her theory. It had to be a theory. She couldn’t know. Not by casting cards. He didn’t care if they came down from Merlin. They didn’t tell the future. “Okay, then. Gotta go. Gotta find Talismans.”
He strode out of the kitchen toward his office. He could feel her eyes on his retreating back, her judgment on him for not taking more of an interest in his siblings. He didn’t care what she thought. He couldn’t deal with what he’d heard in Devin’s room last night. He had to figure out how he was going to get the Talisman Devin said was at Pendragon’s away from the charlatan and into Tremaine hands. He’d think about that.
*****
Jason stood at the bottom of the tower, looking up into the late-morning drizzle. The fact that this elevator was the only way in and out except for those winding stairs was not comforting. He still had about thirty-five stitches in his arm from his last visit. He was glad it was daytime. Maybe whatever had torn him up couldn’t move around in daylight. Hardwick pushed the intercom button. The lock on the gated arch clicked open.
Jason glanced to the old woman. In her loosely hooded, billowy coat with those golden eyes and that strong nose, she looked like the witch from Hansel and Gretel in the storybook he’d had as a kid. Not far off, actually. “This place doesn’t have a back door,” he warned her.
“There’s always a back door.” She glanced pointedly to Talbot. The old woman had been excited to recruit him. His power was Levitation, but Jason wasn’t sure he was really reliable. Too new, too raw from what he’d been forced to do to qualify for membership in the Clan. Jason wasn’t wild about depending on a newbie’s power. But it wasn’t like they could turn back.
The elevator, when it came, was small so Jason and Hardwick went up with the old woman, leaving Rhiannon and Talbot to follow.
“Whatever happened to ladies first?” Rhiannon pouted as she emerged from the tower. She opened an umbrella painted with storm clouds.
“When I find a lady, I’ll let you know,” Jason muttered. The old woman was already striding over the small bridge. That bridge meant single file on the way out. Not good.
The place had an ominous feel, even though there was no sign of the things he’d felt on the grounds the night he’d come for Pendragon by himself. It started to rain harder as they moved up the long walk through the lawns and gardens. It had been raining off and on for weeks it seemed. The news on the car radio was full of mudslides and instructions on where to get sandbags if you lived in certain areas. Jason just found the constant rain depressing.
In the daylight, he could see how big the house reallly was. Chaparral-covered hills rose on three sides around it, which gave it a kind of privacy he’d bet was rare in the Hollywood Hills. Pendragon had probably chosen the house because it looked like a wizard should live there. Overly dramatic. But Pendragon was the real deal. Jason felt the hairs on his neck rise.
The guy who answered the door added to the atmosphere. Creepy.
“Mr. Pendragon is expecting you.”
As they stamped the water from their feet and moved into the huge foyer, Jason felt it.
A hum of power hung in the air. He glanced over to Hardwick, who nodded. Rhiannon was looking surprised, her pouty lips parted in an “oh.” Talbot blinked rapidly. And the old woman looked supremely self-satisfied.
There was a Talisman here, all right. Was the old woman ever wrong?
They shed their coats and a girl came out to take them. Just an ordinary-looking girl—not scary at all. She was dressed in some kind of uniform—gray, with a white apron. The buzzing along Jason’s veins got stronger as the butler, or whatever he was, led them into a study or a library or something, where Pendragon was standing with his back to them, staring into a huge fireplace where a cheerful fire crackled. The air was heavy with power. Jason saw Rhiannon give a little shudder of ecstasy. Jason turned his attention back to Pendragon. Guy was wearing a suit and tie in his own house. A very expensive suit, Jason noted. And the diamond in the stickpin would have bought a couple of houses in Las Vegas after the real estate crash. Maybe three. The whole place was over-decorated as far as Jason was concerned. Potted plants and Oriental carpets and dark paintings where he could hardly see the subject.
At their entrance, Pendragon turned from watching the flames and strode over to greet them, leaning on an ornate cane. He had pale hair and Jason couldn’t tell the color of his eyes. He might have been forty-five. Or sixty.
“Ah, Ms. Le Fay, how nice of you to come to my humble abode. May I offer you coffee, sherry? Something stronger for such a gray day?”
“Sherry,” she said, sitting down in a red leather chair with those wing-things on it that looked like blinders on a horse. It had brass nails making a line along the seams of the leather.
The rest of them opted for coffee. Jason was as fond of good whiskey as the next man, and there were several decanters on a long sideboard, but he had a feeling they would need their wits about them today. Pendragon was more than he seemed. Jason hoped the old woman didn’t underestimate him. The uniformed girl poured coffee from a silver tea set that sat on a huge desk at one side of the room.
Pendragon smiled, pouring the old woman a glass of sherry then taking one himself.
“Sherry is a holdover from a more civilized time,” the old woman observed. Her gold eyes had sharpened as she looked around surreptitiously. “I appreciate that.”
Pendragon smiled enigmatically. “I thought you might.” The maid slipped out of the room.
“ I think we have that appreciation for a former age in common for a reason.”
Pendragon lifted his glass in salute. “Perhaps we do. To interests in common, then.”
The old woman held up her glass. She sipped, nodded in approval. But her eyes never left Pendragon’s face.
Pendragon turned conversational. “I have a wide acquaintance in the world of those who seek connection with otherworldly forces, Ms. Le Fay. And yet you and your group,” he waved his glass to encompass the rest of them, “leave a very light footprint.”
“For now, it suits our purposes to be invisible,” the old woman said.
“But not forever.” Pendragon tapped his lips. “How very interesting. And when it suits you to ‘come out of the closet’ as it were, what are your aims?”
The old woman smiled. “Why should I tell you that, Mr. Pendragon?”
He didn’t blink at the slight. He turned and picked up a fancy foreign cigarette in a long holder. “Because, if you have power, I have the arcane knowledge that will help you to use it to better effect,” he said, waving his glass expansively.
“If I have power.” Her voice had grown hard. “What is this arcane knowledge?”
Pendragon smiled. “So direct,” he murmured. “So, you require proof, is that it?”
The old woman nodded. No smile now.
“Oh, very well,” Pendragon said, giving a big sigh. “How do you think I find your number, no matter how many times you change it? Eh? Because I have the ability to enter the astral plane at will.”
Jason snorted. All eyes turned toward him. “You just go up into the ether, or whatever, and check phone records?” What was this guy asking them to swallow?
Pendragon suppressed a chuckle and gave a sly kind of look. “Oh, ye of little faith. Souls find souls on another plane. My soul finds one of yours and follows you home, so to speak. My spirit can visit your earthly location. And then I just look around. That’s how I knew you want
ed revenge on Brian and Brina Tremaine enough to want to kill their children. Now I know why of course.”
“So do it.” The old woman’s voice was final.
“Astral projection?” Pendragon shook his head, now chuckling outright. “No, no. Not likely. It leaves my body vulnerable. Not to say I don’t trust your estimable companions, but.…”
“I’ll kill anyone who touches you or threatens you in any way.” When she said it like that, he had to believe her. He wouldn’t know the catch to her promise.
Still Pendragon hesitated.
“It’s the price for partnership,” the old woman whispered.
Pendragon chewed his lip, then nodded and went to sit at the big, old desk. He closed his eyes. A second later his body went slack. His jaw dropped and his head lolled. He looked like somebody had pulled the bones out of his body. Hardwick started to move toward him and the old woman held up her hand.
“I meant what I said. Let him alone.”
“This whole setup is just to get into your confidence,” Jason protested.
“For what purpose?” The old woman asked. “He doesn’t yet know what we can do, or what we plan.”
“You don’t know he doesn’t know,” Jason said.
“If he did, he’d be pissing in his pants.”
He had to give her that.
“Besides. If he can achieve astral travel, he might be able to perform alchemy. That could be useful in an acolyte.”
Turning metal into gold? But then she wouldn’t need Jason and his robberies. Jason felt like he’d swallowed ice cubes and they were sitting in a pile in his stomach.
The old woman laughed. God, but he hated her laugh. “Just so. You’d have to prove valuable in other ways, now wouldn’t you?”
The old woman returned to staring at Pendragon. Jason was wondering how long the old bag of wind could fake this astral travel stuff when he seemed to get bones again and his eyelids fluttered. He took a deep breath and looked up.
The old woman just raised her eyebrows in a challenge to him.
“I returned to your hotel suite. You left some of your group behind. Phillip? Poor Phil. Still not doing well. Seems he had a run-in with someone named Hardwick?”
Hardwick obligingly raised his hand.
“Impressive. A young woman named Raffia and another named Jackie are quite in awe of you, Mr. Hardwick, and very resentful for having to clean up Phil. Apparently he disgraced himself in a rather messy way. They’re trying to figure out how to dispose of his Dockers and his polo shirt. It’s green. I think.”
Jason was shocked. How could Pendragon know that? “He’s got the suite bugged.”
“Please.” Pendragon looked pained. “I know colors, and what the girls look like. Do I need to go into detail?”
“Then cameras.” There had to be some explanation.
“How could you possibly have allowed that?”
Trap. The old woman chuffed a laugh at Jason’s discomfort. Jason checked the suite regularly for security breaches.
“And alchemy?” the old woman breathed.
Pendragon nodded, knowing he’d captured her interest. “Much as you want. Just don’t attract attention when you sell it.”
“Do it,” she commanded.
“Sorry. That one takes smelting equipment, as well as some spell casting. Very industrial. I don’t do it on the premises.” Pendragon let the silence last for a minute. “Your turn?”
Jason thought the old woman was going to refuse. He, for one, had no desire to have her demonstrate her power. But instead she looked at Jason. “Show him.”
Well, that was better than the alternative. He went quiet in his mind and let the power surge up from his belly. It took no time at all. He was shocked at how fast the world turned that faded color that meant he’d Cloaked himself and disappeared. Something was amping up his power. He let his power fade, but it wouldn’t go. He had to tamp it back down. He grunted with effort until the room flashed back to color.
The Talisman was somewhere close.
“Well. That was certainly impressive. The invisible man.” Pendragon looked at the old woman expectantly.
“I don’t think you want a demonstration of Hardwick’s power.”
Pendragon shook his head, a little too hard. “I’ll pass.”
“And Rhiannon here draws energy to create weather. We have too much weather going on already. How about Talbot? You’re a magician. You’d like his power.” She nodded to Talbot, who blushed in pleasure. He had one of those white and pink complexions that blushed at the drop of a hat. That and his longer hair made him look younger than he was, the stand-out performer in a college chemistry lab perhaps, proud of his nerdiness.
Talbot looked around and fixed on the fern in the huge Chinese-looking blue and white pot. He pointed to it and it rose quietly into the air. He directed it down and pointed at the desk where Pendragon sat. It rose just as easily and floated up near the stamped tin ceiling. Talbot glanced over at the old woman, surprise and pleasure in his eyes. He felt the Talisman too. Pendragon was staring up at the heavy desk over his head.
“Let it down, Talbot. Gently. You’re frightening Mr. Pendragon.”
The desk floated toward the floor.
“Well.” Pendragon cleared his throat as he stood. “I suppose I’ll take the others on faith.” He stared at the old woman with curiosity glowing in his eyes. “I don’t suppose you’d like to reveal your own power?”
She shook her head.
“No. I didn’t think so. Still, I think it’s clear we could have a partnership which is truly productive for all concerned.”
“Perhaps.” The old woman was thinking. “But do we really need you?”
Pendragon was no dummy. “No one of you is indispensable, but together you are very formidable indeed,” he said. “Why not add brains to your little family as well as just individual talents?”
Uh-oh. Pendragon had just made a bad mistake.
“I like being the brains of the outfit.”
Jason knew what the old woman’s flat voice meant.
Pendragon made a recovery effort. “That’s the beauty of a partnership. Two heads are better than one.”
She downed the last of her sherry. “I think we’ve both seen enough, Mr. Pendragon. It’s been interesting at the very least.” She rose to go. Jason couldn't believe it. She was going to leave without what she came for?
“Wait,” Pendragon said, limping around the desk that had been hovering over him a minute ago, his cane thumping on the carpet. “You want the Tarot Talisman, don’t you?”
That’s what she wanted him to say. Jason could see it in her eyes. She wanted him to offer it, identify it. Then she could just take it. Oh, she was one smart cookie. By the time she turned slowly back to Pendragon, her expression was under control.
“Actually, I have two things you want.” Pendragon was falling all over himself now.
“I’m not interested in any crumbling books of magic lore, or some fake unicorn horn or any other of your chicanery, Mr. Pendragon, just the Talisman.”
Jason saw Pendragon swallow. “You must have one, too. When you escaped the hospital in Chicago, you were so ancient you were literally moldering” At the old woman’s look of surprised malice, he continued. “I said you leave a light footprint. But it isn’t no footprint. When I found you alive and looking not a day over sixty, I knew you had a Talisman. They can make you younger. Maybe immortal. I’m not sure about that, though certain texts discovered by the Golden Dawn seem to indicate.… But that’s neither here nor there. I have a Talisman. You knew that because you suspect that I, too, am older than I appear.” He drew himself up with that sly smile. “I’m one hundred and fifty-two.”
The old woman started to speak, but again he held up his hand.
“Hear me out. You want what I have. And perhaps two Talismans are the key to immortality. But the Talisman could be anything in the house. Or well protected in a vault where you can’t get it. I’m w
illing to produce it, in return for a full partnership with you. I’ll even throw in a Tremaine or two, since you couldn’t manage to get them the other night.”
The old woman’s yellow eyes betrayed her excitement only by a glitter.
“The blond boy is coming here tonight. I expect he will bring his sister. Give me three hours alone with them, and then you can have them. I’ll produce the Talisman and we’ll form a partnership that will be unstoppable.”
“The blond one is adopted. He doesn’t have the gene,” Hardwick said dismissively.
Pendragon pounced. “So the power is genetic. I knew it. That’s why you’re obsessed with Tremaines. It isn’t just revenge. They won’t join you, will they?” He smirked. “And you can’t have rival magic wandering around thwarting you. But you’re wrong. The blond boy does have a power. I saw him hold back the L.A. River, which poor Phil didn’t anticipate.”
So that’s how they survived.
The old woman drilled Hardwick with her eyes. She hadn’t wanted to give away that the powers were genetic. But she was intrigued. She could get Tremaines and the Talisman too. Pendragon was only partially right about the old woman’s motivation though. She wanted revenge on Brian and Brina Tremaine, not only for their refusal to join the Clan all those years ago, but because they had children. That’s what the old woman really couldn’t forgive.
The old woman considered. “I accept your offer, Mr. Pendragon. We will return at one a.m. We will dispose of the Tremaines, and discuss our future partnership. And the Talisman.”
He nodded, and his expression was almost as avaricious as the old woman’s.
They gathered their coats and Rhiannon’s umbrella and went back out into the rain.
“No discussion,” the old woman snapped when Hardwick started to speak. “Not of our plans, or what we thought of our dear friend who is not, as it happens, a charlatan, or of anything to do with Tremaines. He has a very effective means of eavesdropping.”
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