Up In Flames
Jenny Schwartz
Diane Lee is a newly qualified Mage for Hire with a To Do List that ought to include hiding under the blankets. Bad enough she still hasn’t bought her mom’s birthday present, but now that list item has been replaced with “fall in love”. As if she had time! And then there is Number One on the list, “Save the President’s life”. Uh, what? Diane’s organized day goes up in flames as she encounters a very sexy, presidential bodyguard and a salamander with a sensual desire to bliss out.
“Up In Flames”, a paranormal romance novella, was originally published in the Dare collection, which is no longer available.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
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Chapter One
Number 3. Fall in love.
Diane Lee choked on her Monday morning coffee. She put the mug down on the bench and approached the refrigerator cautiously. Last night, her magical To Do List had read, “Number 3. Buy Mom’s birthday present.”
Where the hell had “Fall in love” come from?
She tapped the red-tailed rooster magnet that pinned the scrap of paper to the refrigerator. The magnet cockadoodled. The list stayed unblurred. “Number 3. Fall in love.”
“I can’t.” Diane backed away from the refrigerator. She’d faced off and survived basilisks, but this was different. “I have Mage School loans to pay off, a business to establish, unicorns to call. I don’t have time to fall in love.”
Plus, love was scary.
She groped for her coffee mug, closed her eyes and sipped. When she opened them, the list would have returned to commonsense. After all, she was in control of her life, wasn’t she? “Aargh!”
“Fall in love” had just moved to number 2 on the list, replacing “Purify Dominion Court”.
“No. No, no, no. No.” She whirled to the sink, upended and abandoned the mug, grabbed her purse and ran out the door. Locks and wards thunked and chimed into place behind her. “Stay calm.” She teetered at the top of the stairs.
The list didn’t rule her life. She would continue with her morning plans. Her purse held the rare powder of shed unicorn horn. She would, as she’d intended, purify Dominion Court so its residents could establish their organic garden. The soil would smell fresh and sweet, maybe a natural spring would bubble up. Her Land Redeemed business would add another satisfied customer.
“It’s a matter of priorities,” she muttered. Something the list seemed to have forgotten. Love could wait till she was damn well ready—but would it?
“Kiss-kiss. Hahahaha.”
Diane jumped, grabbed the banister, swayed, and stepped back to safety. She stared into bright bird eyes. “Prez, you startled me.”
The great, grey Mexican parrot sat on his elderly owner’s bowed right shoulder and settled his feathers smugly. “Kiss-kiss,” he crooned.
Diane presented her cheek, and he touched it with his powerful beak.
“He does love the ladies,” Prez’s owner, Diane’s neighbor, said.
“And we love him.” Diane smiled. “Good morning, Mrs. Tanner.”
“Good morning, dear.” Mrs. Tanner stomped up another three steps on her way to the rooftop of the apartment building for The President’s morning flight.
“Mrs. Tanner.”
The elderly woman paused and turned around carefully, the parrot balancing on her shoulder.
“Perhaps I should come with you,” Diane said.
“Now, dear, don’t worry. You’ve told me saving Prez’s life is top of your To Do List, but you’re looking at things the wrong way. If you’re not around, then Prez’s life won’t be in danger. Just you hustle about your own business.”
“I’m not sure the magic works that way.” Diane rubbed her forehead. Her To Do List, although designed to be helpful, was giving her a headache.
For the last five days, item one on the list read, “Save The President’s life.”
If she messed up, smart, cheeky Prez was toast, and Prez was his seventy year old owner’s friend and familiar. The stakes were high. Maybe she should cancel cleansing the Dominion Court.
“Magic is a tool, not a master,” Mrs. Tanner said sternly. The tam-o’-shanter on her head slid sideways. Prez straightened it with his beak. “Honestly, what do they teach kids these days? Your list should help you, not rule you. Otherwise, tear it up. Have confidence in yourself.”
Diane grimaced. It had taken her the best part of a month to enchant the To Do List after graduation. The idea had been to keep herself organized, focused. But Mrs. Tanner’s advice appealed.
What use was a list that scared you with threats of falling in love? As it was, any man who crossed her path in the next few days, she’d be worrying if she should run. Despite what the list said, she couldn’t afford to fall in love now. She had land to cleanse, and a teddy bear to buy as a birthday present for her mom. She had her own dreams to nurture. There were unicorns to find and magic to heal the world.
“You’re right, Mrs. Tanner.” It was time to take a stand. “That list is bothersome. I’ll burn it, tonight.” Her determination faltered. “Still, take care of The President.”
“I always do, dear,” her neighbor said serenely. “And Prez takes care of me.”
Diane smiled as she watched them climb the stairs.
The parrot was an odd familiar, but Mrs. Tanner was an odd witch. For a start, she didn’t practice. Most witches made a living selling their small charms and protections. Mrs. Tanner worked, instead, at a pet shop.
Yet there was a tang about Mrs. Tanner that suggested greater magic than a witch normally commanded, almost mage level.
Magic was a strange thing, Diane mused as she ran down the stairs. Look at her.
Her family was about as magical as a cardboard box. Her mom taught elementary school and her dad was a plumber. Her older brother was an accountant, newly married to another accountant. They were wonderful, compassionate, organized, mundane people. Where had she sprung from, with her whirlwind interests and magic?
None of the family called her Diane. To them, she was “Dizzy”. They loved her, they applauded her magic, but they didn’t understand her and they didn’t trust her self-management skills.
Her To Do List had been meant to structure her life when she graduated Mage School and set out her shingle as a Mage for Hire, specialty Redemption.
“We’ll keep your bedroom for you, Dizzy,” her mom had said. “If it all goes wrong, you’ll always have a home with us.”
“I am not going to run home.” Diane jumped down the last three stairs and exploded out onto the street. Immediately the gentle buffering of magic that sound-proofed the building popped. The chaos and noise of the street closed around her.
She smiled, feeling her heartbeat pick up pace to match the frenetic city pulse.
No way would she waste time falling in love. And the city would help. In its busy streets and high-rise buildings, in its swarm of people and technologies, you could hide anything. You could even hide from love.
“Oh no.” The discordant yellow smudge stood out in Diane’s mind when she inhaled the scent of the street. It all seemed familiar, but in among the usual random magics and busy thoughts, a foreign and powerful menace loomed. The yellow had a distinct sulfur tinge.
She blinked and tried to see the street with mage sight. What and where was this magic? Who was it aimed at?
It wasn’t on her doorstep.
Her feet tingled, urging her to step to the left. She resisted the compulsion and turned her head right. There it was, a magical fog, blurring out from the steps of the elven tailors two doors down. Someone had enchanted the ominous magic at the tailors with a strong don’t-look spell.
Diane squinted and muttered a minor protection spell, just enough to give her clear sight.
Demon’s breath. The thing was pure malevolence. She couldn’t read its purpose, but she could read its binding of hate. It would destroy whoever triggered it.
She really wished she could take her eyes of it long enough to look around for help. But if she broke her spell vision, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to recapture it. The don’t-look spell was strong. An experienced mage would know how to unravel the binding, but that wasn’t her. She simply daren’t look away.
She started edging closer. “Stupid To Do List.” If it was as smart as it thought it was, it would have prompted her to bring along her serious mage supplies, like vervain and moon dust. As it was, she didn’t think she could tackle the unbinding. But she could stand guard.
If she stood near the thing, she could keep people away while she shouted to the elves. They’d be bound to have a mage on speed dial. The Ta’an brothers were tailors to the powerful. Sheikhs, celebrities and politicians wore their suits. Even the President of the United States of America wore—Hellfire!
The President walked out the door of Ta’an Brothers and turned for a final word.
“Come on, come on,” Diane urged. Surely he had his security detail with him.
But no one was shouting and pointing at the ominous magic. No one was hustling the President back into the safety of the shop.
“Damn that To Do List.” She was about to save the life of the President—or die trying.
Chapter Two
Twelve running steps, her long legs stretching against the fashionable constraint of tight jeans, muttering the verse of a major protection spell and hoping she remembered it correctly, Diane lowered her head and charged the President of the United States of America.
Peripherally, she was aware of guns being drawn and men in dark suits closing in on her. Explanations were going to be hell.
She hit the Presidential midriff. He grunted, air oofing out painfully, and collapsed backwards against a Ta’an elf. The elf fell back against the door. It opened, and the three of them toppled inside.
The tailor’s shop smelled of fine fabric, expensive cologne and money. Diane sucked in a breath. “There’s a spell bomb outside.”
The hard hands gripping her arms and pulling her up and off the President, tightened.
“It’s on the bottom step with a really, really strong don’t-see spell.”
“So how come you saw it?”
Her interrogator held her right arm. He was early thirties, massively built beneath the camouflage of his dark suit, with brown hair and eyes and a wide, stern mouth. At a nod from him, the older man holding her left arm dropped it and trotted out to investigate the step.
“I live here. Well, two doors down. I’m used to scenting the street. Today, it smelled funny.”
Two elves and a bodyguard helped up the President. The elf at the bottom of the pile stood without assistance and rubbed the back of his head.
Diane rubbed a bruised elbow. “It smelled bad, like hate.”
“We have a circle of protection.” The older Ta’an brother interrupted. He looked down his nose at Diane, which was quite a trick given that he stood a foot shorter than her. “It is impossible that a bomb could be planted without our knowledge. Our customers—”
The man sent to investigate the step burst in. “It’s a spell bomb, all right. Aernish manufacture. We need the bomb squad.” He tucked away his gun and pulled out a handkerchief. “I damn near trod on it. Looks like a banana skin.”
“Yellow.” Diane sagged, suddenly grateful for the stranger’s tight hold on her arm. The shop faded in and out of focus.
He pushed her into a chair and stood over her, frowning while he spoke into his phone, ordering up a police cordon and the special bomb squad. “Weres, too,” he added. “I want to track the bastard.”
His anger was protective, strong and true, like salamander flames. But he wasn’t a mage. There was no tang of magic, not like the web of spices that surrounded the man who’d investigated the step and who was currently polishing his bald spot with a polka dot handkerchief. He was a mage, portly and old-fashioned, but powerful.
“Ma’am, I guess I owe you thanks for saving my life.”
Diane’s vision snapped into focus. She looked around the large and bossy man looming over her to smile at the President. “You’re welcome.” She stood, vaguely unsure of discourtesy if she sat in the President’s presence. Her mouth opened, and words came out. “You were on my To Do List.”
“Pardon?” The bodyguard’s dark eyes narrowed in suspicion.
Diane shivered. He was so massive, so close, so—
No. She refused to think of item two on her list. Far safer to peer around all that masculine strength and appeal, and concentrate on the President. “I have a To Do List, sir. It helps me focus on what I really need to do. Saving the President’s life was its number one item this week. I thought it meant saving my neighbor’s parrot, but actually it meant you.”
“A parrot. I don’t believe it. Sit down.” The bodyguard pushed her shoulder, disrupting her balance enough that she sat.
She glared up at him. Rage was good. Rage wasn’t attraction. She intensified her glare.
“Stuart, she saved my life,” the President protested.
“We can’t be sure of that. It could be a plot. I want to know who she is and how she spotted a spell Cabot missed.”
“I told you. It’s my street and I smelled it.”
Cabot put away his polka dot handkerchief. “Some mages do link to their land.”
Stuart snorted. “You’ve got to be ten times more powerful than her.”
“How would you know?” Diane stood, elbowing into the bodyguard’s personal space. It was a warm, sandalwood-scented space, vibrating with energy and male pheromones. Pure alpha male. Good thing she preferred nerds.
His suspicious gaze took in her long black braid, the white cotton shirt and tight jeans, the scuffed boots. “You’re a student.”
“I am not.”
“She’s not.” A woman about thirty entered the shop and joined the conversation. Blonde, mid-height and athletic, she held Diane’s purse in her hand and investigated its contents. “She’s Diane Lee, twenty three, mage for hire. Her address checks out for two doors down. No criminal record. Not flagged on the database.”
“May I have my purse?”
The woman passed it to Cabot. He muttered a check spell over it.
“It’s not enchanted.” Diane held out her hand for the purse. Honestly, do some people a favor, and look what happens.
Cabot glanced at Stuart, who nodded permission.
“Thank you.” Diane snatched the purse and tucked it under her arm. “Now, I have land to cleanse and a teddy bear to buy. Mr. President, I’m glad you’re alive. The rest of you, good-bye.”
It very nearly worked. Except Stuart snagged her elbow. “Ms. Lee, we need to talk. Let me buy you a coffee.”
“No, thanks.”
His hold tightened. “I insist.”
“Shouldn’t you be guarding the President?”
“I’ll be fine.”
That was so not what Presidents are meant to say.
Diane’s mouth dropped open.
“There are plenty of people around me, and I can hear the police and bomb squad arriving. Take Ms. Lee for a coffee. You don’t get out enough, Stuart.”
“I think I bumped my head.” Diane shook it experimentally. Nothing rattled. “I could swear the President of the United States of America was encouraging you to date me. Well, take me for coffee.”
Stuart scowled, ferociously.
“I am,” the
President said. “You seem like a nice girl. Stuart’s shy.”
From Stuart came a sound suspiciously like a growl.
The blonde female agent coughed and turned away. Cabot spluttered into his handkerchief. The elven tailors stared.
“Stuart’s my godson,” the President continued. “Stuart, be sure to buy the girl cake to go with the coffee. I’m sure she needs the sugar after this excitement. And suggest lunch.”
It was too weird. She had saved the President’s life, and he didn’t seem much fussed by it. But just because his godson had shown a professional interest in her, the President had launched into match-maker mode.
It wasn’t as if Stuart couldn’t get dates by himself. He was tall and strongly built with the sort of rugged handsomeness that made a woman quivery. In fact, just looking at the stern line of his full mouth, she felt quivery. Oh frig.
“Oh no.” Diane wrenched her arm from Stuart’s hold. “I am not falling in love with you.”
Chapter Three
“No one asked you to fall in love with me.” Stuart sounded like he was chewing glass.
“You’re right about not being asked.” Diane snarled back at him. “My rotten To Do List simply told me: Item number two, fall in love.”
“So why pick on me?”
“Stuart.” The President cleared his throat.
“I do not have to be gentlemanly to a nutcase,” Stuart said.
“Nutcase?” Diane prodded his chest with her purse. “I just pulled your bacon out of the fire. You failed to guard the President.”
“I am aware of my failures,” he gritted. It was like talking to a granite cliff, one contemplating a lethal rockslide. “And if you poke me one more time.”
Diane promptly hit him again with her purse. It took more than a man mountain with a rotten attitude to intimidate her.
A second later, she found herself upside down over his shoulder, and her purse on the floor.
“Barbarian.”
“We’re going to have coffee.”
Up In Flames Page 1
