Enchanted Again Read online

  Of course the first thing she did was hit her heavy-duty work computer with searches. Bilachoe for one. After she’d typed in “Billacho” the search engine asked: “Do you mean Bilachoe?”

  She did, and looked at that. There were only a half-dozen entries of scanty information.

  “Eastern European folk tales and mythology, a fiery demon who delights in the misery of others.”

  Amber considered that. No doubt those folk who saw and talked and wrote about Bilachoe didn’t know what else to call him except “demon.” An evil being. None of the definitions mentioned any weaknesses. Which meant she’d have to talk to Tiro.

  She shut her computer and went to the open door…just as Rafe stepped up to it. They stood there close, no more than five inches apart, and she caught his scent. A fragrance that included an undertone of magic, something she didn’t think that she’d have smelled last week. So she stood there, inhaling him. The magic was wispy, but what she caught of it smelled like a mountaintop in the autumn wind. Fresh with a hint of cold, summer gone.

  Her stomach pitched as she realized that this might be Rafe’s last spring and summer…he might only live until the next winter. His birthday was in late November.

  Then there was the earthy smell of virility, faint sweat. She looked up and was caught by his blue gaze and pupils dilating. He liked what he saw of her—how she smelled?—too.

  His left arm came around her waist, drew her against him and he had the hardest body, the most muscles, she’d ever felt and that was as dizzyingly attractive as his scent of magic.

  “Amber…” He rumbled her name huskily enough to cause a thrill to vibrate through her.

  The fingers of his other hand traced her jawline, then he bent to kiss her and everything inside her clenched at the touch of his lips. It had been so long since she’d had sex, had found any man attractive enough to want to go to bed with. But Rafe Davail stirred all her senses.

  He moved closer, one strong leg between her own and that felt exquisite. Then he opened his mouth and his tongue dueled with hers and he tasted of curse.

  Dark, deep curse…

  She shouldn’t have found that tempting, but she did, as if he opened the universe for her, showing the possibilities beyond this life.

  Now that thought was scary.

  One last nibble at his bottom lip, fuller than it looked, and she drew back. His arms cradling her fell away.

  Before she could say anything, the dogs were yipping and pushing around them, between them. Another pace back, taking her body thrumming with need from the man she knew could satisfy her in the most sensual and intimate ways.

  She bent and petted the dogs, letting her hair veil her flushed face. Murmuring nonsense to her pets because that was all she could think of.

  Rafe leaned on the doorjamb, crossed his arms, his gaze going to her desk and her computer. “What did you learn?”

  “The first mention of Bilachoe was later than what Pavan told us. I postulate that he gained stature after your curse.” She grimaced. “He’s nasty. Likes strife and war and pestilence.”

  “Huh.”

  “And is a fire demon.”

  “So we need intel on Bilachoe,” Rafe said. A side of his mouth quirked. “Maybe we can mine Tiro the brownieman for data.”

  “From what I understand of Tiro, he’ll charge for it.”

  Rafe shrugged. “I can handle the freight.”

  She figured he could.

  “Just a matter of finding out what he might like.” Rafe looked down at the dogs. “Wanna go for a walk?”

  Baxt and Zor erupted into excited barking.

  “They okay off leash here in the circle?” he asked.

  “Of course not.” Amber slipped past Rafe and went down the stairs to the entryway and the hooks on the wall, pulling down two leashes.

  The puppies skidded to a stop before her, jostling. Not jumping, so they were remembering their training.

  “What element is brownie?” Rafe asked.

  “Oh, that’s right, you don’t know. The four ancient elements—earth, air, fire, water—all have major and minor Lightfolk.”

  “Got it. Earth is brownie and dwarf.”

  “Right,” she said.

  His brows dipped. “The elf. Fire?” Then Rafe shook his head. “No. Air?”

  “Yes. The brownies say there are airsprites and firesprites. I haven’t seen any. Don’t know that any are here in Mystic Circle.”

  Rafe grunted. “What’s the major race for fire?”

  “Djinn. You know, genies.”

  He blinked. “Seriously?”

  “Yes. But I don’t know that they look like the cartoon characters. My neighbor, Jenni—” she waved toward Jenni’s house “—is supposedly, um, quarter djinn. She has auburn hair but otherwise doesn’t look like any fire being that I’d imagine.”

  “Uh-huh. A lot to consider.” Rafe took the leashes and clipped them on Baxt and Zor, looking with revulsion at the neon pink one attached to Zor’s collar. “Dude, this is just wrong.”

  “It glows in the dark,” Amber said.

  “It glows in the light, too.” He leaned down to rub the dogs. “I’ll go get you some new ones later.” His lips firmed and he cast her a glance. “I can’t stay cooped up in Mystic Circle all the time.”

  “There’s a pet store close, at the east end of the block with the Sensitive New Age Bean.”

  “Then we’ll head there.” He shook his head. “My next task is to manifest the dagger. If that don’t beat all.” He shook his head and winked at her, jingled the leashes. “We’ll walk around to number two, maybe explore.” Shrugging, he said, “Of all the houses in the cul-de-sac that’s the one that looks the most girly. Wouldn’t be my first choice.”

  Amber got irritated. “It’s a pretty house, a lot of interesting angles.”

  “Would look better if it weren’t pink.”

  “It’s peach.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” With a last wave he went out the door accompanied by joyful dog yips, controlling their lunges easily.

  Amber was afraid he was fitting into her life too quickly and far too nicely.

  Just as she knew Tiro would continue to be an irritant. Nerving herself, she crossed through the rooms on the first floor to the kitchen and the basement and hesitated. Tiro was down there. She strained to sense if he was alone, wondering whether she’d like to speak with Pred and Hartha, too.

  She hadn’t been down in the basement since the brownies had been working on it…maybe more than that, a week or so. The furnace was fine, she hadn’t needed to store anything or get anything from down there.

  The basement itself was three-quarters of the house, with a crawl space in the front, facing the park in the middle of Mystic Circle. The walls were brick and the floor concrete, except the crawl space was dirt.

  With a sigh, she trudged to the door. She wasn’t looking forward to talking with Tiro again. He’d say the same thing and she’d say her bit and their discussion would clash and there would be no consensus.

  She first noted that the twisty stairs were clean. She washed the stairs about once a year during the height of summer. They also seemed sturdier under her feet. Just exactly how much would she owe the brownies for upgrading her house?

  Better not look as if she were happy about whatever they were doing.

  And when she got down and turned toward the noise, it wasn’t hard to be completely shocked.

  There was no crawl space. The basement was one large room. Previously it had been bisected with a lathe and plaster wall. The new multicolored brick walls were tuck-pointed and in perfect condition. The floor was paved in flagstones that nearly matched the brick.

  Three gorgeous wooden doors were set in the walls, all larger than a human, each unique. One to the south and Jenni’s house, one to the north and Tamara’s, and a third in the east, the front, toward the center of the cul-de-sac and the park.

  “Huh,” she said, blinking. There were more than a co
uple of lights hanging by a string, too. Recessed lighting. Just how good were brownies with electricity?

  She cleared her throat. Pred glanced at her, a scared expression passing over his face, and ran. She thought she actually saw him run through the door to Jenni’s property.

  Tiro stood, arms on his hips, chin jutted, slit-eyed. “Under the house is much better now.”

  “It certainly is different,” Amber said.

  Flicking a hand in a gesture too fast for Amber to follow, Tiro said, “Humans have too many rules about building and such.”

  “Um. I suppose you know what you’re doing.”

  Tiro just sneered. He turned his back and marched over to the south door, framed in oak, pulled out a cloth and polished. “Jenni gave Pred permission to play under her house, and run a path to under the park and make a new common room there.”

  “A. Common. Room. Under. The. Park.”

  “For community events,” Tiro said.

  Amber squared her shoulders. “I doubt Jenni had any idea of exactly what Pred was doing.”

  “She wanted the sunroom, said Pred could play in the basement.”

  “Uh-huh. And she gave me some papers. Guess I should actually look at them.”

  “Humans.” Tiro spat on the door and rubbed it away with the cloth. Just what qualities did brownie spit have? No, she wouldn’t get distracted.

  “I’ve come to ask about Bilachoe.”

  “I knew it! You fell for a pretty face and a sad story, just like all the others of your type.” He didn’t look at her. “You will break the curse and die. The puppies will die.”

  “I won’t let that happen. I’ll cut all the emotional bonds between myself and them. And if I’m linked to you, you’ll age, too, won’t you?”

  He turned and hopped up and down in fury. “You think I care about that!”

  “I don’t know what you care about. Nothing, as far as I can see.”

  “What’s the use of caring about you, who will drain power from a death curse and grow old in minutes and die? Or caring about puppies who are short-lived? Or a cursed human mortal who has no chance against Bilachoe? Bilachoe, a thing who is close to becoming a great Dark one himself?” Tiro gave the door a huge swipe with his rag, top to bottom, levitating in the process. Amber kept her focus on his words.

  “He’s powerful.”

  “I said so, didn’t I? A few more hundred deaths of torture and pain to swell his power and he will be a great Dark one.”

  “Oh,” Amber said, looking around for a chair to sink into. Despite the clean tidiness of the basement, there was still no chair. She swallowed. “I’m sorry that you cared for my predecessors and they hurt you. I’m sorry that you think you will care for me and I will hurt you.” She found her hands twisting together, a bad habit she’d broken herself of when she was nine.

  “You just want to help,” he sneered.

  “Yes, what’s so wrong about that? I want to help others. I believe that I was given this gift to help others.”

  “Your line was given this gift by Cumulustre to learn a lesson, because his lover was too soft and her girl-children were too soft. And, still, after centuries you are too soft!”

  “I believe that helping others is the most important thing in the world.”

  “But you will drain yourself, hurt yourself to help others. Is that a good thing?”

  She couldn’t answer, her throat had tightened.

  Now he stared at her with flinty brown eyes. “How did you feel when your mother and her sister cut their emotional bonds to you and left you to break the curse of someone else? And never returned? You think that was noble?”

  She remembered her mother and aunt leaving. She’d been young, just six, but she remembered. She recalled that she’d felt completely alone. Grudgingly accepted by her relatives, no love from her mother or aunt. No tenderness had remained. She’d never had a bond as loving since. She swallowed again and realized tears were leaking from her eyes and flowing down her cheeks.

  Stopping halfway up the stairs, she made one last point. “Some people are cursed. If we don’t help them, who can? Who will?”

  Chapter 12

  SHE TRUDGED UP the stairs to the kitchen, looked in the fridge. There was no chocolate, of course. She was sure there would be no chocolate in the house that the brownies couldn’t sniff out. Plenty of chocolate a few blocks down in the business district—restaurants, a deli. The Sensitive New Age Bean was sure to have chocolate cake.

  Amber settled for cinnamon-sugar toast and Earl Grey tea, an old comfort food treat from when she’d been dating her first boyfriend.

  Love hadn’t stuck then, either.

  And this pity party had already gone on too long. She had work to do.

  Back upstairs she took a moment to soak in the fact that she loved her office, that it was just right, and that it was getting sunlight that Tiro’s room downstairs wasn’t. Warm, golden spring sunlight. Cheerful. She would be cheerful.

  After one last bite of the toast, she logged on to the Fairies and Dragons game forums, ready to do a search for Bilachoe there, too. Just in case Jenni had known about him and incorporated him into the game.

  The forum showed two blinking hot topics. One was on the fun and funny storyline of the leprechauns. Jenni had written another hit with a few unusual twists…apparently there was a slide down a rainbow…and that made Amber smile. She wouldn’t think of danger right now—not to Jenni and the guardians, Rafe, or herself.

  The second issue was a rampant rumor that the original game company that had created Fairies and Dragons was being acquired by a company called Melding Myths. Amber blinked at the name, something about it…she continued to read and found that the developers were staying on and storylines by Jenni Weavers would be highlighted. Which most people thought was excellent. Amber wondered if Jenni knew about this.

  Digging a little deeper, Amber discovered that Melding Myths was a new software company that was a subsidiary of Eight Corp, based in Denver, Colorado.

  Amber’s fingers froze on the keys.

  Eight Corp, the company that had an elfin troubleshooter and a dwarven troublehacker…and the discussion of Eight Corp with Pavan and the brownies had led to information that there were four elemental magical couples, royal couples. The eight most powerful Lightfolk. Just how much did this Eight Corp have to do with the royal couples and magic?

  Another place to go for information. She noted it on her pocket computer, then stood.

  Now that she’d been reminded of the elf and the dwarf, her hands itched for Rafe’s tablet computer and the very strange, very real game she’d experienced. Instead, she left her desk and hauled out the secondary laptop that she used for gaming. Since Jenni hadn’t been around for a month, Amber hadn’t played a lot. Still, she could build that character she’d been—though she didn’t think much of it. A Silver Fairy Webspinner was a weak toon—character—and more defensive than she cared for. Hard to do solo missions.

  She supposed she should be grateful that Pavan had included her in Rafe’s game at all. That he had made her character weak was evidence of how he viewed her.

  Building Rafe’s character would be fun. The standard faces didn’t give her much to work with, but she’d see what she could do to make one look close to Rafe. The body types were better…and his costume had been in line with what was available in the game.

  When Rafe and the dogs returned, she called to him from the room on the ground floor that she’d fitted as a consultation room for clients before she’d rented office space. The dogs trotted over to her, obviously having enough exercise for the day. They licked her hands and did the whine thing, telling her that they wanted their spoonfuls of wet food.

  “This is my computer with Fairies and Dragons on it,” she said. She turned her computer so Rafe could see his character standing in the stone circle where they’d been earlier. He looked at it, glanced away.

  “I think I got all your attributes right, and your
name is Rafe Barakiel.” She tried a quick smile. “Maybe you’d like to check the game out in an easier atmosphere than what Pavan put on your tablet.”

  He grunted.

  All right, he was not thrilled. “Any incidents?” she asked.

  He smirked. “The counter woman at the pet store hit on me.”

  “Of course.”

  He raised his brows, a sly smile curved his lips. “Of course?”

  “You’re eminently hittable.”

  “Glad you think so.” He made a point of leering at her butt as she turned and bent to pet the dogs some more and went to the kitchen to feed them.

  Tiro was there, sitting at a miniature café set that he’d stuck in a corner, drinking coffee. Scowling as usual, but he let his mug float as he murmured and petted the pups. He might not care for anything else, but he’d bonded with them.

  She spooned out the dogs’ food and poured more kibble in their dishes, along with emptying the old water and putting out new. They drank sloppily and she cleaned up, then they exited out the dog door to the backyard and she saw them flop in the sun on a patch of violets.

  “No threats on your walk?” Amber asked when Rafe came in.

  “No.” Rafe rolled his shoulders. “Mystic Circle felt great, so we went around a couple of times. Then we walked down to the store.” He smiled. “Plenty of other people and dogs out there. Maybe the curse is letting up a little. You know, try three times—” He mimicked punching. “Then wait, then try again. What do you think, Tiro?”

  Amber frowned. She hadn’t told Rafe about her discussion with Tiro.

  The brownie scrutinized Rafe. “You are going to fight Bilachoe?”

  All humor vanished from Rafe’s expression. “That’s the plan. Better to go down fighting than just hanging around waiting for death.”

  Tiro gave a slow nod. “And how are you going to fight the evil one?”

  To Amber’s surprise there was no scorn in Tiro’s voice. Progress? Or was it as Pavan said, the Davail line had heroically been altered to fight great Dark ones and Bilachoe had cursed them, and Tiro believed Rafe might have a chance?

  Rafe looked through the kitchen until he found cheese and crackers and made himself a snack, answering the brownie. “I’ll find a fencing teacher and learn how to handle a knife.” Rafe’s jaw hardened and his teeth snapped into the cracker. “I’ll…manifest…the dagger, somehow.”