Magic in Her Touch

by Kate McLay

  "I'm afraid that there has been some sort of misunderstanding." Despite his size, he spoke in a tone meant to appease her.

  "Misunderstanding my ass. This is my bike." Darby wouldn't be appeased.

  "No," his voice was strained, but still he resisted showing the mean side that Darby knew he must have. "This is my friend's bike. I'm locking both of our bikes up together. See?" He gestured to show the lock around the frame of both bikes.

  Darby didn't care for logic at the moment. "I parked my bike right here." She said it in the most condescending tone she could muster, like she was speaking to a particularly dense child. "I know this is my bike because there's a rip in the grip on the handlebar."

  "This bike is brand new, I'm sure it is completely intact."

  Of course it was, but Darby wasn't a witch for nothing. She sent a small burst of power towards the handlebar, ripping it just enough to be noticeable.

  "See," she pointed at the new tear.

  The hulk's brows furrowed as he narrowed his eyes. "That's a strange coincidence, but this still isn't your bike."

  "Yes, it is!" She tried to elbow past him to get more than one hand on the bike. He moved back, letting her take the room. Darby thought it strange. Surely this man knew he could fight her off with ease. So why wasn't he trying to stop her by force?

  "Ma'am, please. This isn't your bike."

  Had it been five minutes yet? A crowd was starting to gather around them and Darby didn't think she could stall him for much longer. His eye was twitching and she was sure he was moments away from snapping. Lord knew she deserved it. She would have hit herself already if she were in his position.

  "It is my bike, and you can let me have it or I'm going to call the police."

  "Oh, I'll let you have it alright." Now, there was the menace that she knew he wanted to unleash.

  Darby spied a flash of blond in front of the cafe. Mina was walking out, paying no attention to the scene Darby caused.

  Perfect. They were done.

  "Wait, why is the Chinese place right there?" She widened her eyes so big it hurt. "Oh, gosh. You're right. My bike is in the other alley." She turned and left before the hulk could realize that she'd gone.

  She walked fast, turning down the first street she could. Her heart beat in her chest, pounding loud, sending the blood rushing through her ears.

  She couldn't remember the last time she'd had so much excitement.

  She wanted to do it again.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  If anyone ever asked her about the glamor and intrigue of her job, Mina would not tell them that she needed to sit in an empty stall in a coffee shop bathroom while waiting for her partner to spill pop all over an unsuspecting young woman. Unwelcome scenarios raced through her mind.

  What if Chloe came into the cafe with her guard? What if Darby couldn't distract her? What if Darby got hurt?

  She knew that the worrying was useless. Darby's job was easy, at least the first part of it. And Mina had made it beyond explicitly clear that Darby should get out rather than risk her safety to buy Mina a few more minutes alone with Chloe.

  The door banged open and a flurry of curses escaped the mouth of the woman who entered. Mina peered through the crack in the stall and saw the flash of red hair.

  Chloe.

  She focused on the door, using a bit of magic to silently slide the lock closed. She wouldn't hold Chloe against her will, but she didn't want to be interrupted.

  Mina stepped out of the stall.

  Chloe had the water running, steam rising up from the sink. The drain was plugged up and the water sparkled with suds. Chloe ripped off her top, leaving only a tank top covering herself. "Ugh," she groaned. "Someone spilled their damned drink on me."

  "I can see that." Mina walked a thin line. She didn't want to lie to Chloe about why she was in this bathroom, but she also didn't want to send her running away.

  Chloe looked over at Mina after dunking her shirt in the sudsy water. She narrowed her eyes and peered a little closer. "You look familiar. Do we have a class together or something?"

  Moment of truth. "We've never met," said Mina. "But you might have seen a picture of me. I know your sister."

  Chloe's face closed down, her expression blank. "Were you just waiting for me in here?" She looked between the door and the stall and then back at Mina.

  "Yeah," Mina shrugged. "Sort of."

  "What the fuck." It was more a statement than a question. Chloe snatched her shirt from the water and turned for the door.

  "Chloe, please," Mina wanted to grab her, but she held herself back. That would only make things much worse. "I'm not here to hurt you."

  "No, you just want to kidnap me, right? I'm twenty years old. I can make my own decisions."

  "No."

  "No?"

  "Sarah told me about your new boyfriend. She wanted to make sure that you were alright." And despite the bodyguard, Mina was beginning to think that Chloe was. There were no signs of injury on the girl, her face was bright and it appeared that she wasn't losing sleep. While she was slim, there were no signs of sudden weight loss. And her bright red hair was a glowing beacon of unfettered expression.

  "He's not my boyfriend." Chloe was quick to correct. She nervously tapped her hand against the porcelain of the sink.

  "Oh." Sarah would be happy about that, though Mina wasn't sure why a man with no claim on Chloe would protect her like he was.

  "He's my fiancé."

  "Oh." That was not good. At least, not as far as Sarah was concerned. And it made Mina reassess her judgment. A man like Lotharian wouldn't marry a woman like Chloe, not unless he wanted something that only she could give him.

  Chloe smiled, but her eyes were cast down and her head lolled back and forth, just a little bit. "It's all so sudden. But how could I be happier?" The loll kept up, growing more exaggerated. Even her tapping grew louder.

  Three quick taps, then three slow ones, and then another three quick ones. And then she started over. Almost like little dots and dashes.

  Exactly like dots and dashes.

  S.O.S.

  Mina reached forward and covered Chloe's tapping fingers with her own. "I'm happy for you," she said. She pulled a card out of her pocket and held it up for Chloe, her finger under her email address. It was easier to remember than a phone number.

  "Memorize," she mouthed. If Chloe wouldn't say her problems out loud, Mina wouldn't either. Clearly the younger girl had problems and it was not Mina's job to make them bigger.

  No, she would solve them.

  Chloe nodded and gave her a thumbs up after a moment.

  "Well, I'll tell Sarah that you're happy. And try cold water with the soda, I think hot just sets the stains in."

  Chloe left, not letting Mina offer her any promises. Before Chloe reached the door, Mina unlocked the door by magic once more. Chloe carried her soaked shirt in a bundle of paper towels.

  This was bad. When a woman got to the point that she wouldn't say a bad word about her man for fear of retaliation - and that was what Mina assumed that Chloe feared - the relationship was only steps away from turning deadly.

  Chloe was in trouble, and Darby was going to do everything in her power to help this girl. Even if it meant going up against the meanest asshole in Chicago.

  Again.

  What was worse was that he hadn't fought to keep Sarah. Sure, he'd put up a struggle to appease his pride, but by the end of it all, Mina had barely been bloodied. After all, she had only fought his guards. She already knew that Chloe would be different. He was the type of man who proposed to a woman for one reason and one reason alone: to own her completely.

  Chloe had something, or she could do something that Alexander Lotharian wanted. Now Mina just had to find out what that was and why. As soon as she knew that, she could formulate some sort of plan to get out of this mess.

  She walked out of the bathroom and out of the cafe. A small group had begun to gather outside and she could hear Darby be
rating the hulk, accusing him of trying to steal her bicycle.

  Mina smiled. It was perfect.

  She walked down the street without making any eye contact. It would be a shitty thing to be caught now. She made it all the way back to Darby's car and got in. Darby had given her the keys so that Mina could pick her up a few blocks away.

  Mina pulled out of her parking space and onto the street. She turned the wrong way, driving away from where she planned to meet Darby. Given the surveillance around Chloe and the girl's reticence to speak plainly, Mina didn't want to risk being followed.

  But after five minutes she was satisfied that she'd escaped free and clear. She circled back, heading to pick up Darby and head back to Indiana.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Given the danger that Chloe had to be living in, Mina wanted to spring into action and get her out of Lotharian's clutches as soon as possible. However, three days had passed and she was no closer to helping the young woman than she had been upon leaving the bathroom.

  She and Darby sat on the couch in Mina’s apartment. There was ample room for the two of them, but Darby leaned against her and Mina dropped an arm around the brunette's shoulders. They fit like this, and the only thing marring it was the young woman in danger.

  Mina played with a piece of Darby's hair while she thought. She took the cocoa ringlet and wound it around her finger before pinching the strands between two fingers and rubbing them together. Her hair was like silk and smelled of vanilla and honey.

  "Do you know if she's tried to walk away?" Darby asked. She traced the back of Mina's hand with one finger, running her fingers over the blunt edges of Mina's nails.

  "No. It's not always as easy as it sounds." Mina rarely worked with a partner, but when she did, they normally understood a lot more about these kind of situations than Darby. But Mina didn't mind teaching her. In some ways, it was helpful to have a new set of eyes on this problem.

  "I get that," Darby replied. "But it would be easier if we could just get her to hop on the South Shore and pick her up in South Bend."

  The commuter train ran from Millennium Park in the heart of Chicago all the way to South Bend, Indiana. "That would be a practical solution." Mina agreed.

  Darby tilted her head up and smiled. "I'm a practical lady."

  Mina leaned forward and kissed her. She made it quick, before the expression could deepen into something far more pleasant, far more distracting. "And if I could trust her phone I'd ask if she could do that."

  "You really think it's bugged?"

  Mina wasn't sure, but Chloe was scared. For that reason alone, they couldn't risk it. "If she thinks that he's watching her, then I have to believe it. And he's powerful, his magic can be subtle. Just because I didn't sense anything observing us when we spoke doesn't mean that there wasn't anything there."

  And that was a terrifying thought. Mina didn't need to brag. She'd been the most powerful witch to come out of her family in a hundred years. If she couldn't sense magical surveillance, either it wasn't there, or the surveyor possessed a scary amount of power and finesse.

  "How about we send an enchanted bird to give her the message?" Darby sat up from their embrace so that she could fully turn to face Mina.

  "This isn't a movie, and we're not spies."

  "I know. I'm just trying to think outside of the box." Darby reached down to shuffle through the pile of notes that she'd brought over the night before.

  "By doing something every thirteen year old does to their crush?" Mina could remember binding a one legged pigeon to herself to send a love note to Kristy Hartman. Seeing as Kristy was human, it hadn't gone well.

  "Thirteen?" Darby was indignant, her voice a mix of disbelief and jealousy. "I couldn't do anything on that scale until after I graduated from high school."

  Mina shrugged, eager to brush it off. "My training was intense." And something much better left forgotten. Her first successful animal binding had taken place when she was twelve, but her father hadn't let up, moving her from crickets, to mice, finally to birds in the space of months. She'd left every training session hollowed out and bleeding. They had only stopped those binding sessions when she had successfully gained control of him for three seconds.

  She was fourteen at the time and the scar on her back proved that the mistake had nearly been fatal.

  Darby caught Mina's tone. She kissed her on the cheek and teased, "Overachiever."

  "You're lucky that I wasn't. I'd be god-queen of the universe by now." They both laughed.

  "Then I hope that I'd be your loyal subject." It wasn't a confession of love, but whatever it was, it frightened Mina. Not enough to put the brakes on whatever wonderful thing that was growing between them, but enough to make her a little wary. She had never felt this deeply about someone so fast. But already Darby felt like a part of her life, the one good thing that she knew she could count on.

  They barely knew each other. Mina doubted she would stay in town for long, and even if she did, she wasn't a forever kind of girl. Her job was too dangerous and all-consuming.

  Darby distracted Mina from her sour thoughts by pulling out a printout of an invitation to some downtown gala and slapping it down on the table. "I think I've found our in."

  "Oh?" Mina picked up the printout. It looked like some property association in the city was throwing a dinner for the rich and the powerful.

  "It's a $500-a-plate charity dinner. I have a werewolf friend at the Chicago Tribune who knows that Lotharian will be there with a plus one."

  "And you think that will be Chloe?" Mina could swing the money, but snatching her from the middle of a dinner that had to be swarming with security would not be easy.

  "It's not on any of the published schedules, but there is going to be a special toast after the meal. Naomi thinks that Lotharian is announcing something big. That's exactly the kind of thing you bring your arm candy to." Darby was nearly bouncing in her seat with excitement.

  "So we buy tickets, cause a distraction, and get her out." The dinner wasn't until the next Wednesday. More than enough time to come up with a bad plan. Whether they had enough time to come up with a good one was another question entirely.

  Darby held up a hand. "Whoa there, Miss Moneybags! You've got a thousand bucks just burning a hole in your pocket?" Mina couldn't tell if she was teasing or being serious.

  "If needed, I can get my hands on enough." Though the means by which she did it were never pleasant. There were reasons that Mina could not cut herself off completely from her family. "Do you have a better idea?" Anything that prevented her from going into debt with them would be better.

  "Yeah. Naomi said she could get us press passes. I'll owe her a big favor, though." From Darby's tone, the prospect of owing a favor to her friend was not nearly as horrible as Mina's option.

  "This is some friend." There may have been doubt in her voice, and perhaps a little... apprehension. Mina wasn't sure she liked this Naomi person. "How do you know her?"

  Darby's face lit up, "Are you jealous? She's just a friend I went to high school with."

  "I'm not jealous." It came out quickly, defensively.

  "Not even a little?" The brightness dimmed a bit.

  Mina gave in, "Maybe a little."

  Darby opened her mouth, but a curse came out when her phone buzzed, interrupting her. "Ugh," she held up her phone, waving it in front of Mina. "This is what you need to be jealous of."

  Mina's eyebrows drew down in confusion. "You haven't seemed particularly married to your phone." She'd known women who couldn't do without checking their messages every five minutes. By contrast, Darby barely looked at hers.

  "No," she sighed. "It's my mom. She's got it in her head that I need to bind myself to some woman that I've never met for the good of the family or whatever." Her fingers made quotes and her tone was mocking when speaking of her mother's reason.

  Mina stiffened. How many lesbian witches could there be in Lewistown? What's more, how many lesbian witches could ther
e be whose families wanted to join in a binding? Was Darby the woman that her family wanted her with?

  Darby continued, paying no mind to Mina's sudden tension. "She wants to take me shopping now. I'm twenty-nine freaking years old. I think I can find suitable clothing for wherever she's dragging me."

  "You haven't met the woman?" Maybe this was all a coincidence.

  "She stood me up!" But Darby smiled and wrapped an arm around Mina. "On the bright side, if she hadn't I would never have come to the bar to hustle those guys. And then..."

  "Why do you do it?" Mina was desperate to change the subject. She didn't like that she had fallen into the path of Darby so easily, especially if it was something that her family wanted. As a witch, it was difficult to believe in coincidence. Magic too often looked like fate.

  "Do what?"

  "Hustle pool." It wasn't an idle query. She'd been curious since the first, so even though she wanted the distraction, she was still interested in the answer.

  Darby shrugged. "It's fun and it keeps the assholes from coming back to the bar."

  "But you cheat." If she hadn't, Mina would have never paid attention to her game in the first place.

  "Not all the time. I am a good player, but sometimes I like a little help. I never do it when – seriously!" Her phone began to ring, and from her reaction Mina assumed it was Darby's mother. "I've got to take this. If I don't she won't give up."

  "Go for it." Darby stood and walked away, speaking in harsh, hushed tones.

  It gave Mina time to think. Was it possible that her mother or, even worse, her father had done something to her to foster her attraction to Darby? Had Darby done something? Love spells were clumsy things, easily detected and deflected by anyone with magical training. But there were more subtle magics that could catch the eye and intrigue the mind.

  Mina wanted to scan herself for foreign magic, but she didn't want to raise Darby's guard. She couldn't do it while Darby was here.

  Darby solved that problem after a moment. She apologized, hanging up her phone and stuffing her papers into her bag. "I've got to go. I'll get Naomi to get us the passes. I'll call you, okay?" She kissed Mina casually, as if after only a few days they'd settled into a completely comfortable existence, flitting into and out of each other’s lives with ease.