Enchanted Again Read online

  “I have an idea about that,” Amber said. “You felt the magical energy in the cul-de-sac?”

  Rafe winced, set his shoulders and nodded. “Yeah.”

  “All right, that can help with manifestation.”

  Drilling Tiro with his gaze, Rafe said, “You have any ideas about Bilachoe?”

  Tiro glanced at Amber. “I told her that Bilachoe is close to becoming a great Dark one himself. A being of immense and evil power.” The brownie’s words thudded into the air like sharp-edged rocks. He stared back at Rafe.

  Again Rafe shrugged, finished another cracker. “Like I said, planning and going down fighting is better than just walking around with doom over my head about to strike.” A quick, vicious smile. “Who knows, maybe I can weaken Bilachoe so my distant cousin can beat him next year.”

  “Being rather fatalistic, aren’t you?” Amber murmured.

  Rafe gestured to himself. “Give me a race to run and win—snowboarding, sailing, skiing. Hell, cycling, car or plane. That I can do. Fighting? Not so much.” He made another batch of cheese and crackers. “Reminds me that I need to talk to my brother about this cousin, maybe Gabe can find him.”

  Amber clicked her tongue. “Genealogist here.”

  “You can find him for me,” Rafe said.

  “Sure.”

  “Done. Anyway, I can do the best job I can on Bilachoe, maybe help out this other guy with the Davail curse.” This time Rafe’s shoulders twitched and for a moment, even sagged. He shook his head. “I hate the idea of Gabe’s son going through this. And Gabe watching it.” Rafe’s mouth turned down. “Since I denied the curse, I could deny the hurt to others.”

  “I’m sure your brother is hurting,” Amber said.

  Rafe munched on a couple of crackers. “Not much, I pushed him away. He thinks—like many people think—that I’ve wasted my life with extreme sports.”

  “Those who think that haven’t walked in your shoes.”

  “Nope.” Rafe lifted his last cracker and held it like a salute to Tiro. “We who are about to die, salute you.”

  Admiration appeared in Tiro’s eyes. “The brick walls of the basement need another application of sealant.” For a small creature he sure could thump his footsteps. He walked to the door, angled his chin at Rafe. “Bilachoe fears a dagger, but he also fears a shield.” The stairs groaned behind Tiro.

  Rafe threw his last half-eaten cracker in the trash. “A shield! How am I supposed to tell a fencing master that I want to train with a knife and a shield!”

  Amber walked up to him and put her arms around him, held him. His arms went loosely around her. While scanning the Net, she’d seen him with a lot of supermodels on his arm, so he’d likely had a good amount of sex, but what about caring? And tenderness? Those things that she’d spoken of to Tiro?

  Rafe had pushed his family away, understandably. He’d had a good friend in Conrad Cymbler, but guys didn’t hold each other, and Conrad was desperate himself.

  Just how lonely was Rafe? She tightened her grip around him, made nonsensical, comforting sounds. Their bodies lined up well together. She liked his muscularity, his vitality, felt cushy and smaller against him. His heartbeat was even and solid. He deserved comforting and tenderness and…loving.

  He sighed, then rubbed his cheek on her hair. “I’m nothing but a spoiled rich guy.”

  “No. You’re strong. You’ve lived with your curse all your life, lived a full life and tried to spare your loved ones.”

  He snorted. “Yeah, that’s me, all right. Sounds more like you.”

  “My magic isn’t a curse.”

  “No? It costs to break curses, doesn’t it?”

  She slipped away, tidied up the cracker crumbs on the counter. She’d just held him, tried to give him comfort. She didn’t want to brutally tell him that breaking his curse could cost her life. Didn’t want to deny hope to him, or herself. Not right now. “I don’t want to talk about that now.”

  After a few seconds of hesitation, he shrugged once more and it appeared like he was shrugging on a manner, an attitude that was “Rafe Davail,” instead of the glimpse of the true self she thought she’d seen.

  Tilting her head, she studied him. “You meant what you said to Tiro. You’re going to fight Bilachoe.”

  Rafe nodded. “Going to do my best. Learn to fight. Manifest what I can manifest.” He waved a hand but still made the word sound dirty. “Make Bilachoe send minions, come himself.”

  “All right.”

  “And you’ll help me?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about Conrad’s stuff? How are you doing on that?”

  Heat flowed to her cheeks. “I’ve been distracted.” She grimaced. “I think his curse will be as far in the past as yours.”

  He said, “So you can see moments of the past.”

  Even after all he’d experienced in the last two days, he didn’t sound as if he believed her. Or maybe that faint uncertainty she’d noted was because he wanted to believe her. She hunched a shoulder. “Sure.” Then she breathed deeply, a long inhale, a sifting exhale. “Let’s try something, magic man.”

  “Magic man,” he repeated blankly.

  “You have magic. Trapped, but there.” Was having trapped magic better than life-draining magic? Yes. “And you have magic in all four elements.”

  “Is that good?”

  “Supposed to be. I’m learning just like you.” She held out her hand and when he took it, the feel of him surprised her. His hand was larger, warmer and more calloused than she’d expected. He was used to holding ropes for climbing and sailing, wasn’t he?

  “Learning?”

  “The brownies came into my life a few hours before we met.”

  He grunted and she knew why. Destiny?

  She led him to her office and to the worktable under the windows, and searched for a sense of his magic. An image came of a bright sunburst of white light, and heat. More than the heat of his body along with a tang along her tongue of tart apple. She didn’t know what it meant. She did know that she liked touching him, holding hands with him, far too much. Attraction shimmered through her with promising temptation that she must deny.

  When they reached the table he used his free index finger to trace back the Cymbler family tree. Pink-violet sparkles rose within her, swirled until they were thick mist around them both.

  “Huh,” he said, but it didn’t stop her from falling into the dark pit of the past. She squeezed his hand and wondered if she took him with her.

  The tones were gray and black and white, the costumes of the 1920s and she felt as if she’d fallen into an old movie.

  “What’s going on?” Rafe asked, voice echoing tinnily.

  “Watch.” Hard to form the word on her cold lips, to move her mouth and emit the sound.

  A small spotlight was on a trumpet player that she couldn’t hear. Her attention focused on two men at a round table away from the stage. She floated, pulling Rafe behind her like a balloon caught in the wind. The men leaned toward each other, heads slick, one blond, one dark, with features similar to Rafe and Conrad but looking thicker, not as refined. Conrad’s ancestor seemed a good decade older than Rafe’s, in his early forties.

  “Find your son?” asked Davail. He wasn’t looking at Cymbler, his gaze was restless.

  “Yeah.” The dark guy tossed down a short tumblerful of liquid.

  Now Rafe’s forebear met the man’s eyes. “Going to talk with him?”

  “Nope. These are dang’rous times. He deserves better’n me as a dad. Gotta good step-pop, so he’s set.” The man raised his hand, palm out. “I decided. Don’t try’n talk me outta it. Did you find the sticker you was lookin’ for?”

  “It’s close.” Davail lowered his eyelids but didn’t quite shut his eyes. “Here in Chi-town for sure. Think I pulled it with me when I came here, maybe. Now I’ll search.”

  Doors slammed open, machine guns chittered. Davail jerked and the new stain on his light suit jacket turned ter
ribly black. Cymbler lunged under a table and lived.

  Moaning yanked Amber from the scene and she realized she wasn’t holding on to Rafe’s hand anymore. Just as well. She found herself folded over the table, the edge digging into her stomach. Something was hard against her legs. Rafe, on the floor.

  “Holy crud,” he said groggily.

  Chapter 13

  SHE HAD ONLY enough energy to lever herself away from the table and onto her feet and stagger to her desk chair. “Oh, my God.” She wiped her face. It was damp with sweat. By the time she looked over at Rafe, he was sitting with knees upraised, head lowered.

  “Geez,” he said. “Did I just see one of my guys die?”

  “Probably.” Feeling shaky, Amber swiveled in her chair and hit a few keys on her keyboard, pulling up Rafe’s chart. A small sweep of the mouse showed the entry. She checked the information then logged on to the internet, searched the time. Found the place and the incident. Jase Davail was the only one killed, though there were injuries.

  She smelled Rafe before his shadow fell over her—he’d sweated, too.

  “Poor jerk,” Rafe said. “Wrong place, wrong time again.”

  Amber swung around to look up at him. He was haggard, shaken and trying to make light of his death curse.

  “How old was he?” Rafe asked.

  Amber flicked back to the family tree. “Just thirty. He already had two sons and a daughter.”

  Rafe winced. He pulled his collar away from the back of his neck, met her eyes. “That’s some trick you have there, lady.”

  “My minor magic,” she murmured.

  His eyes widened and his forehead creased. “Minor?”

  “The curse breaking is major.”

  “That wasn’t curse breaking?”

  “No.”

  “Damn, Conrad was right. About every fricking thing.” Rafe went back to the table, looked at the scroll and shook his head, then turned and leaned against it, crossing his arms. He met her eyes and she could see that his pupils were still expanded. Then he looked out the window to the backyard that was in the wall at a right angle to him. “Jase said he’d found the knife. In Chicago.”

  “That was nearly a century ago,” Amber pointed out.

  Rafe pushed away from the table. “Well, it ain’t eight hundred years.” His smile was crooked. “So that’s an upside. If you don’t mind, I want to take a shower.”

  She wanted to comfort him somehow, hold him again, but his body was closed off, so she only said, “Go ahead.”

  “Thanks.” Without another word he walked from the room. There was still a hint of a swagger in his step, so he wasn’t as shocked as she was.

  She’d made another mistake. The first was inviting him to stay, and she was getting too close to him, too fast. Too many mistakes could lead to disaster.

  And death that was all too present and all too real.

  The brownies provided the meal that evening and ate with her and Rafe, but talked mostly about Jenni and how they’d arrived to keep her house. They enthused about the house itself, including the new additions they’d made, like the sunroom. Amber reassured them that should anything happen to Jenni, she would file the papers that transferred the house to “Mr. and Mrs. Brownly” at the city and county building.

  At dusk Amber took the dogs for another walk around the neighborhood and they all sniffed the air. She’d lived in Denver long enough to know that March snowstorms could be the worst of the year, but it appeared that the unusually warm and early spring was going to hold. She’d feel better when March was done, though. Her heart gave a little jerk when she realized she was wishing time away.

  Time was precious. She’d already lost years.

  And she was wishing away the days of Rafe’s life, too.

  She and the dogs reached the opening of the cul-de-sac to the neighborhood beyond and she stopped and tried to feel the magic. Sensed there was a cloud of doom beyond. The puppies showed no inclination to run outside of the circle, which was unusual, but maybe they’d had enough earlier that day. And though Rafe had said there hadn’t been any incidents, perhaps the dogs had sensed something more threatening than he.

  When she returned to the house, it seemed that it was nearly as empty as it was a week ago. She, too, would retreat to her separate space. From what she could sense of Tiro, he was in and out of the tunnels that the brownies were making in the cul-de-sac. The way they were going, it would soon be a wheel underground. She wondered if they’d spoken with Rafe about number two Mystic Circle.

  Occasionally she could hear thumps overhead, and sounds that puzzled her until she realized that some of her exercise equipment must have been moved to the third floor. Rafe was working out with steady dedication. He had the body to prove that physical exercise was a priority to him.

  He might not be a fighter yet, but he was in prime condition. And it was all too easy for her to imagine him bare-chested and in shorts, sheened in perspiration—and with that dark and deadly curse clinging to him like a black mist.

  All she’d had to do was say “no.” Amber sat curled up in bed, her chin on her knees and watched the puppies tumble around, coming up for snuggles or doggy kisses, running her hands through their fur or brushing them. Feeling the warmth of them around her. More than pets, her reminders not to use her curse-breaking powers. They’d age and dogs’ lives were so much shorter than humans.

  But she hadn’t said no to Rafe.

  He’d told her baldly that he would die if she didn’t let him stay, and she’d believed him. Understood that he was now believing in his own curse. That whatever effect it had had in his life before then, it was definitely drawing fatal circumstances into his life now.

  He could die at anytime. She’d discreetly checked the dates of his forebears’ deaths and found that most died between their thirtieth and thirty-first year. Those who’d lived the longest had married late and had a child on the way. Her mouth curled wryly. She wondered if fate was stayed in this matter to have the first Davail son procreate. Only a few of the first sons had died without children, and the line had passed to their brothers or nephews.

  And Rafe had drawn more magic, a real elf, into her life! True, Pavan seemed deeply disapproving of her and she hadn’t had the nerve to confront that issue and ask why. But he was fascinating to observe.

  The elf hadn’t looked like movie elves. More glamorous, completely different from humans in the underlying bone structure of his face. A narrower, finer structure with higher cheeks, not to mention his ears.

  He’d added—and left—some of his magic in her home. Just by visiting he’d changed the atmosphere.

  As had the dwarf. She’d liked him a lot better since he’d been more sympathetic. Vikos had gone beyond Pavan in that he’d blessed the house. That spun more magic through it, and the brownies had hummed in pleasure since it was earth elemental magic. It seemed that had grounded Amber more.

  Though she still had asked Rafe to stay. Right now he’d be safe. Both dwarf and elf had assured them of that. The magic was strong in Mystic Circle and not good for evil beings.

  Great Dark ones, and the new, awful shadleeches that Pavan had described, could not enter the cul-de-sac.

  They were safe. Trapped, but safe. For now.

  He couldn’t breathe! Rafe jerked to sit, his lungs pumped heavily. Disoriented, he couldn’t think where he was—the hotel in Toronto? No, Conrad’s place in Denver…but his room there had big windows. Shouldn’t there be a streetlight? Nope, that was Juno’s Inn last night.

  He shook his head, his whole sweat-beaded torso, trying to pull some sense into his life, continuing to pant. Slow the breath. Smothering, yeah, he’d felt that. His death curse that he’d always denied. Should have expected strange sleep after he finally admitted it. Not to mention brownies and elves and dwarves, and a trip to the past and seeing the curse in action. He stretched, making sure he extended each muscle.

  Maybe a run around the cul-de-sac would be good. Ice spit at th
e windows. Hell. March in Denver had always been weird. There might be a dusting of snow on the ground when he woke up, to be gone by midmorning.

  A different kind of light caught his attention. His computer tablet was glowing again, this time the screen was dark red and the numbers on it a bright white. The figures said 7, 2, 3, 19:42 and were counting down. He stared at it a couple of minutes before understanding jolted through him sickly. Seven months, two weeks…et cetera until his thirty-third birthday.

  Since he couldn’t bear the light he got up and picked up the tablet. The screen went to a forest. “Loading REAL Fairies and Dragons by Pavan” scrolled across in gold. He turned the computer off.

  Damned if he’d play at night, when he’d had a full day, wasn’t at his best.

  Though he pummeled his feather pillows into a good shape and pulled the high thread-count sheets over his body, fifteen minutes later he was still awake.

  The few minutes he’d been in the game rolled through his mind again and again like film in an infinite loop. He also recalled the small warrior on Amber’s laptop who had moved jerkily.

  Manifest the knife, Pavan had said as he’d plopped the computer next to Rafe. How the hell was Rafe supposed to manifest the knife?

  He got out of bed and pulled on shorts and socks, threw on a long dress shirt. The house got cooler as he descended the stairs. Even as he thought he was doing something stupid, he continued to the room where Amber had left her laptop. He sat in the comfortable desk chair, powered up the computer and opened Fairies and Dragons.

  Amber had four characters. One was a level one Silver Fairy Webspinner, dressed as she had been when he’d triggered the game on his computer, though the character’s features weren’t nearly as pretty as Amber’s own, and the eyes were an eerie silver. Her highest character was a Green Wasp Ranger.