Angel Dares (16 page)

‘You really think that Marcus person is the one?’

‘I can’t shake the instinct, even though he treats me like a cross between a lunatic and a groupie.’

‘Second item on today’s agenda: rearrange facial features of Marcus Cohen.’

And he would too. I could just imagine Will Benedict squaring up to Marcus and teaching him a lesson about how to treat the ladies. He was old-fashioned like that—got it from his dad.

‘It’s OK, Will, I can handle him. I’m going to drag him kicking and screaming into acknowledging me if it kills me. You concentrate on getting your life sorted out. Mine was always going to be a multi-vehicle pile-up whatever I did.’

Margot had left Will’s name on security so Al let him through.

‘Heard you weren’t bad yesterday, AC,’ Al remarked, filling out a pass for my companion. ‘Caught a little of it on TV. Your band doesn’t suck.’

‘Thanks, Al.’

Will nudged me as we walked past the checkpoint. ‘What was that—an insult?’

‘With Al, that was high praise indeed.’

‘You Brits are one weird nation.’

I dropped by reception to check there was no note calling off my violin session. Henry was delighted to see me with another hot guy in tow—as good as the first cup of coffee to get the heart racing, she confessed as she looked through her messages. ‘No, nothing for you.’

Phew. ‘How was last night?’

She glanced at Will.

‘It’s OK. He won’t rat on you to the festival organizers.’

The pent-up gossip rushed from her. ‘Oh my gosh, Angel: I met Gifted. I love Matt—he totally broke me in to the most happening party on the site.’

Well done, Matt. ‘I’m so pleased you had a good time.’

‘He said you weren’t feeling well.’

‘Oh, it was nothing. I’m OK today.’ I was tempted to impress the hell out of her by saying where I was going with my violin later but decided that might jinx the whole thing.

Saying goodbye, we headed out for the trailer zone.

‘Where did Margot say to meet you?’ I asked.

‘Tour bus. She has an office set up in there.’ Will pulled at the neck of his T-shirt. ‘How do I look?’

‘Yummy. She won’t be able to resist. Now, how are you going to play this? Do you want me to hang around and smooth the way?’

He choked. ‘You? Smooth the way?’

OK, that did sound a bit unlikely. ‘So I should make the intros and just back off quickly?’

‘Yeah, that seems best.’

We had reached the silver tour bus and were stood by the back door.

‘Ready?’ I raised my hand to knock.

He nodded. ‘Don’t tell her too much, OK? Don’t mention savants or gifts right out. Or soulfinders.’ He looked down at my attentive expression. ‘Second thoughts, just don’t say anything at all.’

The door opened and Kurt stood in the entrance. This was the first time I really hadn’t been pleased to see my rock hero.

‘Oh, good morning, Kurt. This is my totally sane, not at all flaky friend I told you about: Will Benedict.’

Kurt raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that so?’

Will nudged me aside and held out his business card. ‘Pleased to meet you, sir.’

The rock god shuddered. ‘Not “sir”, not at nine in the morning. Call me Kurt. Come on in, you two.’

Bang went Will’s plan to get rid of me. With an apologetic shrug to Will, I stepped into the bus.

‘Oh wow: this is sweet! You’ve got everything in here!’ Kurt had led us into a mini lounge with sofas, TV screen, music centre, and guitars on racks. There was even a potted plant on the coffee table. I ran my fingers over the leaves—real, not plastic.

‘Yeah, home from home for the band. There are normal seats up front but this part is for us to chill.’ Kurt gestured to the sofa. ‘Make yourself at home, Will.’ Kurt sat down opposite us, ankle on opposing knee in his favourite relaxed pose. ‘So what’s the deal with Angel here? Is she on day-release? Marcus is convinced she’s as mad as a box of frogs.’

I went very still. He was teasing but I sensed there was a serious question mark in his mind as to my sanity.

‘No, sir … Kurt. There’s nothing wrong with Angel. My brothers and I asked her to request this meeting.’ Will glanced to the door leading further into the bus. ‘Is your manager joining us?’

‘When I’m sure it’s safe. Angel was my decision—my risk. I brought her into our inner circle and I’ll be the one to throw her out if she turns out to be bad news. I don’t want Margot mixed up in any ugly scenes. My instincts about people are usually gold, but I might be wrong.’ Kurt’s smile was not his usual one; he was showing his cynical edge, honed after years of learning to distinguish good guys from bad.

‘Oh, Kurt, you don’t need to protect me—I keep telling you!’ Margot appeared in the doorway, bearing a tray of coffee. Will jumped up and cleared a space for it on the table. ‘Thank you.’ Her eyes lingered on his face for a second—she liked what she saw, I could tell.

Use telepathy
, I urged him.

He shook his head slightly, telling me he had another game plan.

I bit my tongue to prevent me saying anything rash like
he’s your soulfinder, Margot! Snog him!

‘How are you, Angel? Marcus told us a journalist had cut up rough with you yesterday. He thinks you should report him.’ Margot offered me a coffee. ‘Milk?’

‘Please. I’m fine. I’m really grateful that you took time to see Will.’

She smiled and passed the mug to me, decorated with the Gifted logo. ‘I can’t ignore warnings even if they come from an unlikely source. And we were worried about you. Talking to one of your friends seemed the way to go.’

Great. I had earned Will an interview because they wanted to check I was getting appropriate care for my condition. I gave a philosophical sigh. Well, it worked, didn’t it?

‘Now, Will, hadn’t you better tell us what’s really going on here? I see from your card you claim to be an expert in personal security. Angel said as much. If you’re not mad, is this some drama student role-play thing? She also said your brother was with the FBI—that was kinda the straw that broke the camel’s back of credulity.’ Kurt sipped his coffee. He drank it black and strong.

Will placed another business card on the table. ‘Commander Downing, Special Ops, Scotland Yard. Ask him about Victor Benedict.’

Margot picked up the card, her French polished nails perfect. ‘It’s a London number. Is this for real? If I check this out and find it a fake, you are going to be in a lot of trouble, Mr Benedict.’

‘Will. Call me Will.’

Whoa—I could feel the sparks between them and I was sitting some distance from the eye-contact zone.

Perfectly composed Margot actually blushed. ‘OK, Will, I’ll give the guy a call.’

‘He’s expecting you to contact him. Victor gave him a heads-up.’

Margot took the card and disappeared into her office. That left the three of us in an awkward silence.

‘So, er, how long has Margot been working for you?’ asked Will.

I narrowed my eyes in warning. He wasn’t being very subtle about where his interest lay.

Kurt brushed the thigh of his jeans. ‘For four years since she left college. She’s my half-sister.’

‘I didn’t know that.’ Will’s gaze swivelled to the door through which she had gone.

‘Well, why would you? She doesn’t trade on the association but it works for us. I know I can trust her.’

I sensed there was probably a ‘fingers burned’ story behind that comment. In showbiz it must be almost impossible to know whom you could trust, hence the prickly hedgehog thing from him and Marcus.

‘We shared a father, but he left both our mothers after doing little more than getting them pregnant. I got to know her thanks to our grandparents. And why am I telling you all this?’

‘Because you know in your heart of hearts that Angel and I are no threat to you,’ said Will softly.

Kurt sipped his coffee.

Margot came back with a puzzled look on her face. ‘They check out, Kurt. They are who Angel said they are, unlikely though that sounds.’

Kurt sat forward, hands hanging between his spread knees. ‘Hey, darlin’, I might have to rethink the whole crazy girl thing. I owe you an apology.’

I gave him a relieved smile. ‘Accepted. But to be honest with you, my friends will tell you I probably do edge into way-over-the-top zone so you are forgiven for misjudging me.’

‘But I like that about you. So we’re good, yes?’ He held out a hand.

I shook it. ‘We’re good, Kurt.’

He turned to Will. ‘OK, now I know you’re serious, what’s this threat you’re on about and why are you using a teenager to carry your messages for you? Was that journalist thing last night connected?’ His fists were clenched on his thighs. Marcus must have told him. ‘Because if so I’ll gladly hand you your teeth for putting her in danger.’

Not another protective male! Before I could protest, Will stepped in. ‘Yes, it was connected—and yes, we were wrong to put Angel in danger. The thing was, when we sent her to you with the message, the threat level was reading as low on the scale.’

‘What scale?’

Will ran his hand over his brow, face set, reminding me of a guy steeling himself for an Olympic high dive. ‘I have a gift for detecting these things. I can read all the dangers around me if I stretch out my senses. I knew when she was in trouble—but I was too far away to locate her and to come to the rescue.’

Margot sat opposite Will, next to Kurt. ‘A gift? Can you prove it?’

‘What can I say? I know that you have in the main a good loyal team around the band from what I’ve seen so far but I’d look a little harder into the affairs of the tour bus driver. He’s showing up as suspect but it could just be a health condition. Still, get him checked out. You don’t want him driving into a wall because he’s having a heart attack.’

Margot laced her fingers together nervously. She could sense the atmosphere alive with savant power but she was not experienced enough to recognize it for what it was. ‘I can vouch for Jim but you might be right about the health issues. That’s hardly proof. I could make up a story like that.’

Kurt was having none of it. ‘I’m sure it makes good advertising for your security firm if clients buy into this stuff, but come on, we’re all grown-ups here; we don’t need fairy tales.’

‘I’m not quite grown up.’ I lined up the coffee mugs. ‘I still believe in fairy tales.’

Are you sure about this, Angel?
asked Will.

For you, dear, anything.
Holding out my hand, I grinned at Kurt. ‘Watch.’

His coffee rose up and started twisting in a rope. Next I summoned my own to swirl around his—brown wrapping around the black. ‘You want milk with that?’ The milk curled from the jug and joined the party. ‘No, you don’t take it, do you?’ I sent the milk back. ‘I think it’s cool enough now.’ Our two strands of coffee unwound and returned to their original cups—mine still white, his still perfectly black. That part took a lot of concentration and practice but, gee, I’m an only child: there’s not much else to do on family holidays with my folks.

‘What the fricking hell was that?’ (Between you and me, he didn’t say ‘fricking’.)

‘I have a gift too, just mine is easier to see. I can manipulate water. We’re both savants.’
Oops, was that too soon?

Angel
…

Sorry, Will.

‘Savants? What does that mean?’ Margot picked up the milk jug and sniffed the contents suspiciously.

‘Margot, have you noticed whether you have any unusual abilities?’ asked Will.

‘Well, no.’

‘Yeah, you do. You’re awesome with sound.’ Kurt reached out and squeezed her hand. ‘You have to admit it. And you say you can sense a lot about other people, like whether they have talent—that’s how you discovered Marcus.’

‘We think Marcus is a savant too,’ added Will, ‘but he didn’t take it well when Angel tried to tell him.’

‘Not from her, he wouldn’t,’ said Margot. ‘He thinks she’s—’

‘I know what he thinks,’ I said quickly, before we got into another round of Angel-should-be-locked-up-for-her-own-safety.

‘This talent-spotting thing of yours, how does it work?’ asked Will. Lord, he was so patient! I’d’ve been on the ‘you’re my soulfinder’ part already. Oh yeah, I’d tried that, hadn’t I? And look how well that had gone for me.

‘If I listen very carefully, I can hear people’s … people’s souls. Heavens, that sounds mad, doesn’t it?’ Margot bunched her toffee-coloured hair back at her nape.

‘Not in our world, it doesn’t. Listen to Angel’s. What does she sound like?’

Margot smiled at me. ‘I already have. She’s got a kind of bell-like tone to her—I associated that with strong musical talent, like Marcus, though his is pitched lower. She rings true for all the craziness.’

‘And me? What do you sense about me?’

Oh wow: that was said in such a sexy tone, I was surprised Margot didn’t leap over the coffee table and fall into his arms directly.

‘You?’ She closed her eyes. ‘You sound … beautiful.’

There was silence. I would bet the entire contents of my savings account that he was talking telepathically to her at last.

‘Soulfinder—what’s that?’ Margot asked.

Kurt opened his mouth to interrupt, probably to demand what was going on, but I shushed him. ‘Please, let them do this.’

Then Will got up and went round the table. Going down on his knees before her, he took her hands in his and raised them to his lips.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah!
My celebration was entirely internal. Matchmaking Angel was jiving, breaking out all her moves, high-fiving herself.

‘They’re going to need a moment,’ I told Kurt. ‘Shall we go do the violin thing you mentioned?’

‘But the threat?’ Kurt did not look at all pleased to see his little sister enthralled to some stranger.

‘Will is going to brief her about that when they get to that part.’ I tugged him to his feet. ‘Believe me, she really doesn’t need you here right now. She’d find it embarrassing later to know her big brother was watching.’

Glancing over his shoulder at Margot, Kurt let me lead him away. ‘Angel, no jokes now: what’s going on?’

‘Your sister has just met her soulfinder—that’s Will in case you didn’t get the big flashing love-heart signals going on between them.’ I flickered my fingers in the air. ‘Savants like Margot—and me—well, we have a special person who holds the other half of our gift. If you’re lucky, you meet up and find that you are so much more together than you can be apart—the perfect cosmic match.’