Face the Fire (26 page)

“Slow down! You’ll break our necks!”

“I’ll catch you.” To prove it, he hauled her up, spun her in circles. “How about a swim?”

“No!”

“Okay, we’ll dance instead.” He set her on her feet,
pulling her close and tight against him. The slow, seductive strains of “Sea of Love” flowed into the air, over the beach.

“That’s an old one,” she remarked.

“Classic,” he corrected. “Change of pace.”

He buried his face in her hair as they circled in the sand. Her heart was a steady beat against his. Their legs brushed as she rose on her toes, sliding with him until they formed one shadow in the moonlight.

He remembered, so much, that the shapes and sounds of all the memories whispered and blurred in his brain. “Do they still have dances in the high school gym?”

“Yes.”

“Do kids still sneak outside to neck?”

“Probably.”

“Let’s pretend.” He turned his head, skimming his lips along her jaw before they met hers. “Come back with me.”

Before she understood, could think to resist, she found herself spinning. They were no longer dancing on the sand, but wrapped together in the shadows of the high school gym while a crisp fall breeze blew the scents of aging leaves and blooming mums around them.

Music pumped out of the building, a rebel crash of drums and guitars. Her hands rushed over the cool, worn leather of his jacket, into the silky warmth of his hair.

His body was slimmer, his mouth less skilled, but, oh, how hers responded.

The torch of love burned blinding bright inside her.

She whispered his name, mindlessly. And offered everything.

It was the ache swelling inside her, throbbing like a wound, that snapped her back.

Breath heaving, she shoved him away. “Damn you. Damn you! That wasn’t fair.”

“No. I’m sorry.” His head was spinning. For a moment he could still smell the crispness of autumn in the humid
press of summer air. “No, it wasn’t fair. I wasn’t thinking. Don’t walk away.” He pressed his fingers to his temples as she turned from him.

He hadn’t planned it, and would have found some way to stop the impulse that had taken them back into what they’d been. How could he have known what it would be like to have her love him like that again? To feel that absolute purity of emotion from her?

To know he’d tossed it away, and might never, never have it again.

When he steadied himself she was standing at the edge of the water, hugging herself and staring out at the night.

“Mia.” He went to her, but didn’t touch her. One of them, he was certain, would break if he did. “I have no excuse, no way to apologize for that kind of manipulation. I can only tell you I didn’t intend to do it.”

“You hurt me, Sam.”

“I know.” And myself, he thought. More than I could have realized.

“Time can’t be erased. And it shouldn’t be.” She turned to him now, her face pale against the night. “I don’t want to go back to that girl, or that boy. I don’t want to give up what I’ve made of myself.”

“I wouldn’t change a thing of what you’ve made of yourself. You’re the most astonishing woman I’ve ever known.”

“Words are easy.”

“No, they’re not. Some of them have never been easy for me. Mia—”

But when he reached out, she turned away again. Then froze as she saw the pale blue light spilling out of the cave. “Stop it. You go too far.”

He saw it too, and did touch her now so she would feel, and believe him. “I’m not doing it. Wait here.”

He set her behind him, then strode quickly toward the
cave, stopping only when he stood at the opening, washed in the light. He heard her step beside him, but said nothing as they both looked inside.

The light in the cave was soft and blue, the shadows deep and still as wells. In that light were two people. Images carved like statues out of the light itself.

Then they breathed.

The man was beautiful. The sleek muscles of his long, naked body gleamed with water. His hair was glossy black, spilling damp and straight over his shoulders as he stretched on his side in a deep sleep.

The woman was beautiful. Tall and slender in her dark cloak, she stood looking down at him. The hood was tossed back so the fiery curls of her hair tumbled free to her waist.

In her arms, she held a pelt, black as midnight and still wet from the sea.

When she turned, Mia saw what seemed to be her own face, with the skin glowing as if a thousand candles were alight beneath it.

“Love,” the one who had been Fire said, “is not always wise.” She walked toward them, cradling the pelt like a child. “It has no conditions, and no regrets.” She rubbed her cheek against the pelt as she stepped out of the cave. “Time is shorter than you think.”

Mia lifted a hand—a gesture of comfort and command. “Mother?” The one who was Fire stopped, and her beauty shimmered when she smiled.

“Daughter.”

“I will not fail you.”

“It is not for me.” She traced her fingers along Mia’s cheek, and Mia felt a line of warmth. “Take care not to fail yourself. You’re more than I was.”

She looked back into the cave. “You forget, too often,
that he is in you as well.” Hugging the pelt she turned back until her eyes met Sam’s. “And me in you.”

She walked away across the sand. “It watches, in the dark.” And vanished like smoke.

The light in the cave winked out.

“I can smell her.” Mia cupped her hands in the air as if it were water, and brought it to her face. “Lavender and rosemary. You saw her amulet?”

He lifted the disk of silver and sunstone that Mia wore on a linked chain. “This one. The same way I looked at her face, and saw this one,” he said, lifting Mia’s chin.

“I have a lot to think about.” She started to step away, but her gaze was drawn up. As she watched, an inky haze blurred the bright edges of the moon.

“Trouble’s coming,” she whispered, seconds before they heard the growl.

Fog spilled in from the sea, crawled up the sand. The wolf, the pentagram a white flash against its black body, waded into the mist and bared its teeth.

For the second time, Sam pushed Mia behind him. His body blocked hers like a shield. “Go. Now. Get to the house.”

“I won’t run from this.” She stepped to the side, into clear view, and watched the wolf track her. With no time to wait for her circle, she began the spell alone.

“Air that swirls and spins, arise, build to wind that screams and cries. Tremble earth beneath the sea, walls of water build for me!”

She speared her hands up, through the gale that spewed around her. Her hair blew out, wild ropes of red. And at the shout of her voice, the quiet waves of the cove boiled up, higher, higher with each crash.

The world roared.

“Rage and thrash and whirl for me, air and earth and rising sea. Flames within my blood that churns, I conjure
from you a circle that burns. Now you that crawled out of the mire, come if you dare, and face my fire!”

A ball of lightning hurled out of the sky, blazing like a comet on its violent arc. An instant before it crashed into the land, she saw the black wolf curl itself back into the fog.

“Coward,” she called out, riding wildly on the whip of her own power.

“Mia.” Sam’s voice was rock steady. “Can you turn it back?”

“I just did.”

“No, baby. The wave.”

“Ah.” She studied the wall of water, a full twenty feet high now and sweeping closer while the jaws of wind snapped vicious teeth. She held out her arms, targeted her energy down them like sighting down the barrel of a gun. Then flung it outward.

The wave collapsed into a shower of silver drops. The cool rain of them washed to shore, over her hair and skin as she twisted her fisted hand and gathered back the spinning wind.

The night was once more clear as glass, the breeze playful as a faerie.

She threw back her head, gulping in air while the heat of power streamed through her blood. “Well, yes, that gave him a taste, didn’t it?”

Sam was still gripping her shoulder, as he had been since she’d stepped out from behind him. “How long have you been doing that spell?”

“Actually, that was the first time I put it all together. I have to say”—she blew out a laughing breath—“it was better than sex.”

Hearing the shouts and running feet from above on the bluff, she turned to reassure her friends.

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

Mia grabbed one of Nell’s stroking hands. “I’m fine.”

“Well, I could use a drink.” Ripley popped open a beer, turned to Mia. “You?”

“No, thanks.” She already felt wonderfully, gloriously drunk.

“Some lemonade for the little mother.” Ripley poured a glass. “Sit down or something, Nell. You’re making me twitchy.”

“I think we should go down and see what they’re doing.”

“Oh, let them play with their toys.” Restless, Ripley paced the deck. Mac and the other men had hauled equipment down to the beach. Even now she could hear the beeps and mechanical squeals.

“That was a pretty big spell there, Glenda. How did it feel?”

Mia’s lips curved, slow and smug.

“Figured. Even linking last minute and adding a push, I got a nice rush. Always leaves me wanting more, though.”

“Zack’s going to get very lucky later.” Nell laughed, then immediately stopped herself. “How can we stand around here laughing about sex? That was terrifying. Mia, we couldn’t get down to you. Your wind came up like a tornado.”

“A nice summer breeze wouldn’t have done it. And you did get to me. I felt you.” With her hands braced on the rail, she leaned out, her face lifted to the sky. “It was like a thousand hearts beating inside me. A thousand voices in my head. And every cell, every muscle, every drop of blood was so alive. When it looked at me.” She whirled back. “When it looked at me, it was afraid.”

“Maybe it’s finished,” Nell said.

Mia shook her head. “No, not yet.”

“Whether’s it’s done or not, I’ve got to say one thing.” Ripley tipped back her beer. “I didn’t know you had that much, and I’ve known you all your life. And seeing what I saw tonight, I’ve got a better handle on why you’ve always been so picky and careful. That’s a lot of firepower to cart around.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“It’s an observation. With a warning tagged on. Wait for us next time. Okay.” She gathered up three more beers. “Playtime’s over. Let’s go see what Mac and his pals have come up with.”

On the beach, Mac had sensors and monitors
scattered, cables strewed everywhere. He sat on the ground hammering away at the keyboard of his laptop.

Hauling the equipment down, carting it to where Mac wanted it, had helped. But Sam needed to do something physical and sweaty to take the edge off.

“Look, this is all really cool stuff, but what the hell is it doing?”

“Measuring. Triangulating. Documenting.” Mac tapped more keys, squinted behind his glasses at a near monitor. “Wish I’d gotten to a damn camera. Best estimate on that wave’s twenty feet. But that’s just eyeballing it from up above.”

“Twenty’s conservative,” Sam said mildly. “And that’s eyeballing it from down below.”

“Um. Ah.” Mac peered at the readout on his thermometer. “Give me your best guess at ambient temperature at the center here during the climax of the event.”

Sam shot a look at Zack, who just shrugged. “Ambient temperature? Jesus. It got hot.”

“But was it a dry heat?” Zack asked and made Sam laugh.

“Makes a difference.” Mac shoved up his glasses and frowned. “The ambients around the negative energy flow dip. It gets cold. In trying to reconstruct and calculate the ion clash and the dominant direction of force, I need reasonable estimates of the ambients.”

“It got hot,” Sam said again. “Damn it, I’m a witch, not a meteorologist.”

“Very funny. Now take that sensor and get me a reading where her fireball hit. Hey. Wow!” As one of his machines began to hum like a beehive, he scrambled up, barely missed snagging his foot on a cable. He made a dash for it just as the women came down the beach steps.

“Oh. Should’ve known.” He nodded, crouched down to get a better look at the readings.

“I’m going to take a look at the cave,” Nell informed Mac. “I want to help if I can.”