Daddy Warlock (8 page)

His scarred face contorting in pain, the count slumped
forward. His hand brushed a candelabra, knocking it onto the table. As the man slid to the floor, a piece of cloth flared.

The thud of his fall summoned a servant, who screamed for the guards. They reached the dining hall as the fire spread, and pulled their master to safety.

Retching up the poison as he was hauled away, the count recovered himself enough to see the figures in the shadow. “Death to the assassins!” he rasped. “Leave them in the flames!”

Thick smoke filled the air. Heat scorched Chance's face, but worst of all were Tara's cries. She was sobbing not for herself but for their little son, Halden, and what would become of him left orphaned and alone.

He tried to push her to safety, but guards thrust forward their long lances, forcing her back. Either way lay death. As the killing fumes choked him, Chance sank to his knees, gasping, refusing to believe the end had come, vowing to return and make things right…

With a groan, he tore himself back to the present. A cool breeze murmured through the tower window and eased the smarting of his skin.

He could still smell the acrid smoke and hear Tara's screams. The scene seemed more real than this house and this time.

Brushing back a hank of hair, he began to pace. Aunt Cynda's gifts were limited, but well-defined. She saw little of the future but much of the past, which was why she had assumed the role of family historian.

She had seen that Chance and Tara were Valdemar and Ardath in a previous lifetime, and she had been right to notify him. Their story echoed with unresolved longings, with anguish and with the need to put things right.

Pausing by the window, Chance stared down into the
courtyard. Small white Malibu lights pricked the darkness, outlining the curving spaces with fairy-tale fragility. As if the computer were amusing itself, the fountain sprang to life, flinging glittering droplets into the night in a soothing play of pink and blue lights, before falling silent again.

He had sensed since adolescence that it would be wrong to abuse his powers. His father, of course, had disagreed, calling him selfish and shortsighted for refusing to take advantage of others. Sometimes Chance had wondered how he came by such a fierce determination to stick to his principles.

Now he saw the temptation and the danger more clearly than ever. Valdemar and Ardath, blinded by their love for each other and their hatred of the count, had joined their minds to attempt murder.

It had backfired. The count had survived, and their son was left alone.

Now they were living again, in new bodies. There was no evil count here. But now, as then, they had created a son together.

Perhaps it was the emotional echoes of the story, but Chance got a strong sense, as Cynda had also, that his reunion with Tara had revived an unresolved conflict. Anything left unfinished, in any lifetime, would seek to close the circle.

Would they be tempted to misuse their psychic link again? That would be playing with fire, figuratively if not literally.

Chance could not and would not remove Tara from his life. But what had happened between them that night seven years ago must never be allowed to happen again.

It wasn't a formal softball game, but the kids were getting excited, including Harry. He jumped up and down after he hit the ball and ran two bases, sending one player home.

They were still behind, 3-2, but Sammi was on third base and he was on second. All the next batter needed to do was get to first base, and they'd at least tie the score before the recess bell sounded.

“Who's next?” yelled Sammi, shaking her dark-blond ponytail. As the best player in the first grade, she got to boss other people around.

“Me! Me! It's my turn!” Al loped forward, tried to snatch the bat from the ground and missed. He had to turn around and bend to pick it up.

Harry's heart sank. In the past few days, he'd enjoyed Al's friendship, and it was fun swapping secret codes for video games. But the boy couldn't hit a ball to save his life.

“Let somebody else play!” shouted Sammi, and the other kids chorused their agreement.

Behind his thick glasses, Al's face crumpled. “But I got skipped last time!” His voice quavered. “It's my turn. You're not being fair!”

Sammi made a quick check to be sure the playground monitor wasn't watching, then yelled, “We want to win, you wimp! Now get out of here!”

Harry wanted to win, too. But it wasn't fair to make Al miss two turns. Besides, he knew what his mom would say, that the point wasn't to win but for everyone to have a good time.

“Let him play!” he shouted. “Come on, Sammi. Fair's fair!”

Her mouth twisted as she glared at him, but then she shrugged. “If you say so.”

The first time Al swung at an impossibly high ball and missed, Harry winced. The second time, when Al tried to hit a ball so far from the bat it was nearly to Mongolia, the other kids groaned.

The pitcher was grinning. Staring into her cocky freckled face, Harry listened to her thoughts.
I could fling anything at the little sucker, and he'd go for it.

His hands got sweaty. It was the first time he'd heard anybody thinking. Was this more of the magic he and Chance had talked about?

Mostly he was sweating because this girl was going to strike Al out. Harry hadn't meant to let his team down.

Why did he have to pick between what was fair to his friend and what would make the others happy?. And why did Al have to be such a lousy player?

Again, Harry caught the drift of the pitcher's thoughts. She was going to throw the next ball low.
It's cinchy! We win!

It wouldn't take much to correct the girl's aim. Just a little concentrated attention on Harry's part, a slight tweak upward—why, he could make it smack right into Al's bat! Even a bunt would be enough to send Sammi to home plate.

The pitcher began rotating her arm, and then, after an impossibly long time, the ball launched itself forward. For Harry, everything slowed as he poured his energy into that small orb, easing it upward, getting it in line with the bat.

But he'd promised Chance not to use his powers where other people might see. He'd given his word!

With a wrench, Harry tore his thoughts from the ball. Still in slow motion, watching in horror, he saw the thing wobble in midair and drop downward, passing beneath the flailing bat.

From behind his glasses, Al stared in disbelief at the empty air. Everyone else was staring, too. The recess bell went off like an earthquake warning siren, so loud it made Harry jump.

The other team cheered. Sammi's face was a volcano about to explode. Other kids stalked by Al, not looking at him, and the boy began to cry.

In trying to help, Harry had made things worse. Nobody could have hit that weird ball, the way it had jerked in midair, and it was his fault.

Feeling miserable, he trudged over to put his arm around Al's shoulders, the way he'd seen athletes do on TV. No one spoke to them as they walked to class, and Al didn't stop crying until he'd used up all the tissues in his desk.

Harry stared at his New Math book, with its little blobby shapes that he was supposed to sort and count until his teeth hurt from sheer boredom. The blobs looked like baseballs, every one of them jeering at him.

He needed to have a serious talk with Chance.

S
ITTING BESIDE CHANCE
at his desk, trying to ignore the inviting dance of late-afternoon sunlight through the trees
outside, Tara watched her employer zap a message into the computer. Around them, the airy home office hummed with the energy emanating from its owner.

Every time she observed him at work, she became more impressed with Chance's abilities. He was knowledgeable and thorough, checking and rechecking his facts.

Right now, he was E-mailing a group of his more-risktaking clients to recommend purchase of stock in a genetic engineering firm. Such companies, he'd explained earlier, had been hot when they first came on the market, then sagged as they failed to produce major breakthroughs.

Chance kept tabs on a variety of firms whose stock he considered undervalued. In this case, he'd been reading medical journals and summaries of seminars and conferences.

He believed one particular company was on the verge of winning FDA approval to test an exciting new treatment for diabetes. It would be illegal to manipulate stocks on the basis of inside information, so everything Chance had learned was available to the general public. But hardly anyone had the expertise and determination—and perhaps the instincts—to do the right research.

No wonder people called him a wizard. Tara smiled to herself. She lacked his talent but was learning quickly, and there were moments when she could almost read Chance's mind. They worked well together.

“Incoming message!” A few keystrokes, and the first of the client responses popped into view: “Go for it!”

“All right!” Tara cheered.

“Let's hope I'm right about this one,” Chance cautioned, but he didn't appear worried as he began executing the buy order.

When he was finished, he leaned back in the chair and stretched, his polo shirt taut across his wide shoulders. Tara could feel his muscles beneath her hands as she held him last night….

Last night? Confused, she tried to make sense of the random thought. The only thing that had happened yesterday was that they'd returned home late from Cynda's apartment and Tara had fallen into bed, exhausted.

She must have dreamed about Chance. Some of her dreams were quite vivid. She even remembered how it had felt to hold him. He had been solid and powerful, and she could smell the muskiness that bespoke awakening passion.

Tara gave herself a mental slap. A person couldn't control her dreams, but she must not fantasize about her boss. For a lot of reasons, she needed to keep Chance at arm's length.

Certainly he'd been all business when he returned from his main office this morning after leaving Tara to sleep late. His plan had been to take the afternoon off, but then he'd skimmed some medical abstracts from a just-ended seminar and here he was, helping his clients earn money.

“Think you can keep tabs on the messages and place the orders?” he asked. Tara nodded eagerly, pleased when he let her handle the next one.

“You're a quick study,” he said. “I'll put in a call to Cousin Lois. I did promise Aunt Cynda to make sure she's all right.”

“Why wouldn't she be?”

“My dad has an old-fashioned sense of business ethics.” Chance's mischievous grin turned his gray eyes to silver. “‘Old-fashioned' as in pillaging and looting. We wouldn't want him corrupting my innocent young cousin.”

The screen flashed an alert of another incoming message, and for the next few minutes Tara was too busy to do more than register the fact that her boss was on the phone. Then Chance signaled her and put his call on hold.

“Lois wants us to come for dinner tonight” he said. “You and me. What do you think?”

“Why on earth would she invite me?” Tara was surprised that such a young woman would even think about giving a dinner party, let alone welcome a stranger.

“Apparently Aunt Cynda told her about our supposed past lives”, Chance said. “She thinks it's cute.”

He'd sketched the bizarre story for Tara at lunch, about illicit lovers in some bygone century who'd tried to murder a count and had died in a blaze instead. It was true that she'd always had a particular fear of fire, but that wasn't unusual. “I'd love to meet Lois, but I'm afraid we'd be imposing.”

“She insists,” he said, and, receiving a nod, conveyed her acceptance to his cousin.

After hanging up, he checked Tara's work and was complimenting her when the door from the courtyard banged open and Harry barreled through. Behind him, Rajeev, who had picked the boy up at school, shrugged apologetically.

“Honey, Mr. Powers is working,” Tara began, but Chase waved down the admonition.

“It's all right,” he said. “He looks upset. What's the matter?”

“Oh, it's—at school—these kids were playing softball,” the little boy blurted. “I tried to help my friend, but then I stopped, and it messed things up worse.”

The words didn't make sense to Tara, but Chase seemed to understand “I guess it's time we practiced.”

“Practiced what?” Tara asked.

Two faces turned toward her, wearing identical startled expressions. Sometimes it amazed her how much the two resembled each other, especially their eyes, although Harry's hair was much lighter than Chance's.

“Technique,” said her boss.

“You're teaching him to play softball?” she said in surprise.

“Not exactly.” He shifted uncomfortably. “Although it relates to softball. I guess you might call it hand-eye coordination.”

“Couldn't she watch us?” asked Harry.

Chance nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, of course she. could. Tara?”

Another message was incoming on the computer, she noticed. Besides, although from time to time she helped Harry practice his pitching and catching, it wasn't an activity she relished. “You go ahead.”

“Thanks, Mom.” Her son gave a happy hop. “When I get really good, you can watch me.”

“I'd love to,” she said as the two of them hurried out.

Harry was trying to match Chance's powerful stride. He couldn't imitate the older man's grace, but the two had the same easy swing from the hips. It was uncanny.

C
HANCE WONDERED
if he'd made a mistake by insisting his son abstain from magic in public. The kid looked as if his heart were breaking because he and his friend had muffed one softball game.

But he couldn't let Harry run around manipulating objects with no idea of what the implications might be. In addition to the fact that it would attract too much attention, it could tempt the boy into cheating his way through life.

As they tossed a softball in the driveway, it became clear that the boy already knew how to guide an object. He could make it go straight up, bob sideways or hook downward and then fly up again.

“I guess it wouldn't be fair to do that, huh?” Harry said. “But that pitcher made me mad. She kept thinking about what a sucker Al was.”

A chill ran up Chase's spine. He'd been in high school when the voices began. By then, he'd had enough sophistication to recognize how odd the phenomenon was and to worry, for a few scary weeks, that he might be suffering a mental breakdown.

Careful observation had shown that his “voices” accurately predicted other people's subsequent actions. It was a relief to realize he was reading other people's minds, not losing his.

For a while, he had mischievously tuned in to teachers and classmates. Soon, though, he realized he was invading their privacy. Besides, it would be too easy to abuse the knowledge he gained, especially about the girls who wanted to date him.

His error had been to ask his father for help. Chase had assumed Ray, too, could read thoughts, but he'd discovered not only that it wasn't true but that his father wanted him to snoop on a business rival.

Faced with pressure to harness his ability for personal gain, Chase did his best to stop reading minds. For a while, he persuaded his father that he'd been mistaken, but then came the night of the near-accident when Ray saw him manipulate the little girl out of the path of the truck.

That was the beginning of the conflict that finally drove him away from his father's business. By now, steeling his mind against other people's thoughts had become
second nature, even—most of the time—where Tara was concerned.

It had shocked him at first, when her thoughts penetrated his mental barrier. Then he'd realized that she was reading his mind as well, although she had no other magical abilities.

Their psychic link from a previous lifetime, interrupted in its full flower, must have been reborn. The frightening part was that their son had inherited such precocious talents.

Harry needed guidance. And Chance was here to give it to him.

“The problem,” he said, “isn't the ball. It's the way you got inside the pitcher's mind. It's not fair to do that, even though it was an accident”.

He gestured to his son to sit beside him on a low stone wall, and Harry hurried over. Now came the tricky part.

Before the boy could erect a barrier around his mind, he had to exercise his power until. he understood its nature. The easiest way would be to practice on strangers who would never know the difference.

Of course, that raised the possibility that Harry would become adept and then refuse to give it up. But it appeared that his mother had instilled a firm sense of values.

“Let's drive to the video store,” Chance said. “I know a game we can play. But you only play it with me, and never to trick or hurt people, okay?”

“Sure.” Harry grinned at him with complete trust. “This should be fun!”

“N
O, NO! YOU
move your shoulders too much!” Rajeev paused the CD, then clicked it to repeat the song.