Halfway Hexed (10 page)

“This stone has a custom spell on it—one I call a resolution spell.”

I tilted my head, giving him a questioning look, then I looked closely at what he’d given me. It wasn’t a pill. It was a pebble, stained with gritty reddish-brown paint.

“Swallow it,” he said.

I wanted to ask what was on it, but was afraid I might not want to know. So I poured some more milk into my glass, then placed the stone on the back of my tongue and washed it down.

“What was it?”

“It’s from a collection of porous rocks that can absorb power and potions. I put a drop of my blood on that one.”

I grimaced. “Yuck,” I said, taking another swallow of milk. “No offense, but whenever I’ve thought that you’re pretty darn appetizing, I never meant it literally.”

He smiled. “Not planning to become a vampire anytime soon, huh?”

“Ugh, no.” I ran my fingers over my lips. “So what was the blood rock for?”

“I don’t think they’ll resort to physical torture, but they’ll try other things. So long as I don’t break, you’ll be able to draw strength of will from me.”

“Will that weaken you?”

He shook his head.

“What about you? Where will you get help from if you need it?”

“Experience.”

“Not from me? I can be pretty tough, you know. I don’t mind you pricking my finger.” I held my hand out. “To make a Tammy Jo blood rock for you to eat.”

He brushed his lips over my knuckles, sending the kiss all the way up my arm. “I’m not sure yet what kind of help I’ll need, if any, but it won’t be that kind. I’m stubborn to a fault.”

He glanced again at the clock. Almost ten. “I’ll be back down after I take a shower.” He paused in the doorway. “If you want to help me with that, I wouldn’t say no.” His dark lashes framed blue-gray eyes that seduced the light and stole my breath.

I shook my head and pointed a finger at the door. He winked at me and was gone.

I exhaled slowly. When it came to willpower, defying the Conclave wasn’t really the worst of my troubles. I wondered if Bryn had a little stone that I could swallow to resist the temptation of him. I went to the sink and washed our dishes, thinking I really needed to find a safer place to stay.

The sound of music coming from behind me made me turn off the water. I recognized it. “Where the Streets Have No Name” by U2. I walked to the table and found Bryn’s pearly white iPhone. It was one of the things he’d taken out of his robe pocket.

There was a text message from an unknown caller.

Mirror in closet. One minute.

“What?” I asked, but, of course, the phone didn’t answer. “Whatever happened to using a phone to talk?” I exclaimed.

Carrying the cell, I jogged up the stairs and knocked on Bryn’s bedroom door. When he didn’t answer I went in. The door to the master bathroom was closed, and I could hear the water running. Summon him out of the shower? That would sure put us in an interesting position, and just when I’d been planning to stay out of trouble.

“Bryn?” a voice said.

I spun toward his walk-in closet and crept into it. At the back of the closet, the small door that led to the secret study was open. Sitting on the desk was an old mirror with a gilt frame. And inside the mirror, there was a man.

He had thinning sandy brown hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and a cheerful round face. When he saw me, he tilted his head slightly and smiled.

“Hi,” I said, leaning forward.

“And hello to you. Has he been kidnapped, incarcerated, or knocked unconscious?” The man’s accent made me feel like making strudel.

“No, not kidnapped or anything.” I glanced around to be sure we weren’t under siege. “He’s just in the shower. Should we expect that to happen?”

“These days are uncertain.” A soft breath, and then, “This is so good—to finally meet you. I am Andre Knobel. I will be the best man at your wedding.”

“My what?” I gasped.

“Unless you agree to marry me instead. Then I will be the groom, and he can be the best man. He will not like this, but he has suffered worse disappointments. I know this because I am his oldest friend.”

“He—he’s never mentioned you. Or suffering disappointments. Or marriage. Definitely not marriage.” I did know the name Andre. Someone named Andre worked at WAM headquarters and had gotten information for Bryn last week.

“No, he would not have done. Not yet. I have a message for him. You will tell him?”

My eyes darted around the room. I was still half distracted by the earlier part of the conversation.

“Tamara, you will convey a message, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Tell him someone tried to hack into the network, so I’ve shut it down. Backup in effect as of twelve-oh-one London. Repeat, please.” He looked over his shoulder, quick like someone might sneak up behind him.

I repeated the information, then asked, “Is everything okay?”

“Tell him, too, that someone broke into my flat. They took all the computers and electronics, my audio bootlegs—the bastards—and the Egypt journal.”

“A break-in. My gosh! I’m sure he’ll be out of the shower any minute. I’ll go—”

“No, I must go. I am actually on the run. Just a precaution.”

“On the run!”

“I will come again. And so nice to talk to you,” he said. Then he was gone.

I stared at my reflection in the mirror, wide-eyed and slack-jawed with shock. Plus, my hair was kind of messy. I smoothed it down absently as I padded out of the closet. Warm orange sunshine streamed in through the prism skylight, flooding the large room with light. I rapped on the bathroom door.

He didn’t respond, but he’d turned off the water. I tapped again.

When the door opened, steam billowed out. I looked up at the ceiling to avoid looking at Bryn.

“Hi, sorry to interrupt. Um, there was a—Andre in the mirror.”

“An Andre in the mirror,” he said, amused. From the edge of my vision, I saw the movement when he wrapped a towel around his hips. He ran a hand through his slick hair and walked to the closet.

“He’s gone,” I said.

“When will he be back? Ten minutes?”

“No, I don’t think so.” I relayed the messages, and Bryn frowned.

“How did he look?”

“Friendly. Cute.”

“I meant, did he look disheveled? Or hurt?”

“No, he looked fine. He said going on the run was just a precaution.”

Bryn nodded. “If he didn’t ask for help, then he’s okay.”

“He said he’s your oldest friend.” I waited for confirmation.

“He’s my best friend,” Bryn said, taking clothes from the hangers.

“I didn’t know you had a best friend. He knew about me though. Didn’t even have to tell him my name.”

When he walked out of the closet, I stayed behind, staring absently at the rows of designer suits.

“Bryn?”

“Yeah?”

“Well?”

“Well what? I didn’t hear you ask a question.”

“What have you been telling him? About me, I mean.”

There was a pause and then he appeared in the doorway. He was tying a cobalt blue silk tie around his neck. “Why? What did he say?”

“He seemed to think we were in a relationship. A serious relationship.”

“Hmm.”

“Why would he think that?” I asked.

“Why do you care what he thinks?” Bryn countered.

“I—I don’t know. That’s not the point.”

Bryn walked past me to the closet within the closet and opened the drawer of the desk. He took out something wrapped in dark purple velvet and walked out to the bedroom.

“Come here,” he said.

I moved to stand next to him as he unwrapped the velvet to reveal a stack of cards that were about twice the size of regular playing cards. The back of the cards had shimmering constellations.

He began flipping them over in pairs. The pictures were beautiful, inlaid with gold and silver. When he came to the picture of a red-haired witch, he paused a moment before flipping the second card. When he did there was a pair of hands, a man and woman’s, and they were laced together with a white ribbon.

“Since the night of your friend Georgia’s party, these two cards come up together. Every time.”

“What’s that picture supposed to mean?” I demanded, feeling like there wasn’t much air in my lungs. I knew, without knowing how, that those intertwined hands meant commitment.
For life or longer
, the words seemed to echo in my head.

“It means that your great-great-grandmother’s premonition is irrelevant.” He shuffled the cards, then flipped them again in pairs. The red-haired witch. The hands with the ribbons.

I felt such a mix of emotions. I wanted it to be true, but I also dreaded it being true. If I was with Bryn, for real, for good, it would change my life. Momma and Aunt Mel were dead-set against the Lyons family. Would I lose them? What about Zach? What about his family? What about my childhood friends? Even though Bryn lived in Duvall, he wasn’t a part of the world I’d grown up in. He hadn’t gone to school in town or rooted for the high school football team. He’d been all over the world. His best friend had never even visited Duvall, for pete’s sake. Probably Andre had never even been to Texas. I stiffened my spine.

“We’re in charge of our own destiny. Just’cause a deck of cards says something, doesn’t make it so,” I said.

“You’re right. It isn’t just the cards that make it so.”

I took a step back, feeling unsteady. I hated when he sounded so confident. It was almost impossible to believe he could be wrong.

“You know,” I said defiantly, “you could’ve told your friend to appear in the mirror and tell me something that would make me ask you questions. You could’ve put a spell on those cards, so the red witch and the commitment card came up together.”

His eyes went as blue-black as his hair, and his expression matched them. “I
could
do a lot of things, but I don’t want anything that badly. Not now. Not for a long time.”

There was something raw in the emotions just below the surface. Something painful that I instinctively wanted to soothe, which was ironic since my insulting him was what had made it rise up in the first place.

“What did you want so badly?” I whispered.

He rewrapped the cards in the velvet. “Don’t ask me personal questions, Tamara. I don’t trust you with the answers.”

I winced, my heart aching. I really had hurt him. “I’m sorry, but you do stuff—like blocking Edie—because you think it’s for the best or will work out in the end.”

“I apologized for that.”

“I know, but you can be tricky and secretive. How can I help but be suspicious? Plus, you’re so smart and so smooth. Sometimes I forget that you’re human, too.”

He nodded, but his face was a cool mask. “When it comes to cartomancy, I’m pretty skilled with this deck, but I’m not infallible. The pairing of those two cards may not be as significant as I’d first thought. Maybe it meant that we’d be bound together in dealing with the trouble of the past couple weeks. Maybe when the Conclave’s gone and every thing’s back to normal here, the cards will separate again.”

The words stung me. They shouldn’t have, since I was the one who always resisted Bryn and me getting closer.

He strode into the closet and put the cards back in the drawer, then closed it and closed the panel that hid the small room.

Bryn’s phone, which was still in my hand, rang. This time the ringtone was different. “Sunday Bloody Sunday.” And a dark picture appeared of a clock tower looming over a river.

He took the phone and answered it. He listened for a moment, and then said, “Okay.” When he hung up the phone, he said, “The president of the World Association of Magic and members of the Conclave will be here in ten minutes.”

“What?” I gasped, my gaze sliding back to the closet.

“Tamara, forget everything else. Remember the practice sessions. You have to be focused and on your guard. These people are dangerous.”

I nodded and rubbed my hands together nervously, my heart thudding a tattoo on the inside of my chest.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Since when does it matter if I’m ready?”

Chapter 11

John Barrett was not what I expected. He looked like a trimmer, more stylish version of Santa Claus. He had white hair and a well-kept white moustache and beard. He wore a maroon sweater under his dark blue sport coat and stood in Bryn’s foyer, looking around approvingly.

“Well, this was the right choice,” he said to me with a twinkle in his eye. “We’re staying at a place called the Duvall Motor Inn. Each room has a theme. Mine, I regret to say, is catfish. The bedside lamp, the border paper, and the bedspread are completely covered with them.” His smile was jovial.

“The Yellow Rose Bed and Breakfast would’ve provided better accommodations. It’s unfortunate that it burned down,” Bryn said in a voice that was cool and hard.

My eyebrows rose, but Mr. Barrett didn’t turn a hair. He stepped farther into the house. “Now, am I correct in assuming that you are Tamara Josephine Trask?” he asked, holding out his hand.

I nodded and let him take mine. He didn’t shake it. He held it in his right hand and patted it with his left.

“I want to talk with you first.” He moved me to his side and away from Bryn. “And here is the brilliant young attorney who steadfastly refuses to come and work for the Association. I dare-say you could better be our conscience from London than from across the Atlantic.”