Halfway Hexed (30 page)

He pulled me closer and sucked my tongue and plenty of magic into himself. When he exhaled, he shoved his hand out of the cocoon of the blanket and whispered a spell in Gaelic. Needles of bright light pierced his hand and bent off it to light up the shower curtain.

“Beautiful,” I whispered.

He rolled us closer and moved his hand slowly, watching the light dance over the surface. North America, Texas, and a place somewhere to the southeast of Dallas lit up brighter than the other parts of the map.

He whispered another spell and closed his eyes. “I recognize the spell that’s cloaking him. It’s one I wrote. He’s doing magic, so he must be all right.”

Bryn pulled his hand back inside the blanket and bent his head to kiss me again. His blue eyes glittered as if lit by the star-light, too. I stared into them, feeling caught up in the universe of Bryn as usual.

‟Are you sure we have time for this?”

“I’m absolutely sure we have time for this,” he murmured back, tugging on my lower lip with his teeth.

That was the last time we talked about anything for a while.

Chapter 29

“Andre’s miles outside Duvall, but he’s in Texas,” Bryn said. We were still wrapped in the blanket and lying on the hard ground, but somehow it didn’t bother us, our warm bodies pressed together under the night sky.

‟Who told you Andre was missing?”

“His dad. Maybe the spell Andre’s doing is shorting out his phone. After all, Gwen’s dead and you saw Barrett and the Winterhawk this morning. If they’d taken him to get to the rest of the underground or to me, he wouldn’t be using my spell to cloak his location. He’d want to be found.”

“So he’s okay?”

Bryn shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s trying to keep his location secret and he’s here, in the U.S., in Texas. He knows things are precarious. There are plenty of places in the world that would be safer for him. I wish he hadn’t felt compelled to come.”

“Do you think we should track him down?”

“And possibly lead Barrett and the Winterhawk to him? No. I hope he stays where he is.”

I dug through our clothes until I found the brooch in Bryn’s pocket. “If he doesn’t need us, then we can use the power we generated for something else.”

“Like what?”

I opened my hands. “To call the dead.”

Bryn sighed and shook his head. “I want to see her. I always have, but I’ve got to think long and hard about the spell I want to use to try to draw her out.”

“I’m connected to her. I can feel it. And so are you as her son. Who better to call to her?”

“I need to be sure that I can control what happens,” he said, taking the brooch and setting it away from me.

“It’s your mom,” I said, holding out my hands to show that I wouldn’t interfere. “So that just leaves one really important thing that I need to use magic for.”

‟What?”

“To look into the past.”

He laughed. “Time-walking. Even more dangerous than calling ghosts.”

“I have Lenore and Edie’s spellbooks. I have actual things that they touched, spells they wrote, possibly with remnants of their actual magic. There are spells in their book to enhance soothsaying. I could do a spell that’s the opposite of that. I’ll keep it simple.” I thought of John Barrett lecturing me about being blinded by love. I needed to hear that prophecy for myself. Or better yet, to see it firsthand.

“You can’t just change a few words and expect it to work the way you want it to,” Bryn said.

“Then help me. Tell me what to say.”

“No.”

“You’re afraid, aren’t you? That I’ll find out why we shouldn’t be together. That it’ll be something really horrible. But, look, how horrible can it be? It’s probably not even about us.”

“I’m sure it isn’t. What worries me is what will happen if you try to send your mind on a time-walk and it goes wrong. It could damage your brain.”

“I heal really well. You said so yourself.”

“We’re not talking about a cut. We’re talking about fracturing your mind. Sending a part of it out into the universe with an untested spell. I won’t risk it.”

“Ever?”

He didn’t answer.

“Ever!? So before, when you said that you’d help me later, you didn’t really mean it? You just wanted me to stop bugging you?”

“I wanted time to think about it. I’ve thought about it.”

“I have to know.”

“You don’t. You’ve lived your whole life without knowing.”

“But I wasn’t sleeping with you then!”

“Your grandmother’s premonition wasn’t about us.”

“Edie!” I called.

‟What are you doing?”

I closed my eyes. “Edie, come to me.” Edie’s not the type to come when she’s called, but I could feel Bryn’s power coursing through me below the surface and knew that getting a taste of our mixed magical energy would infuriate her.

“Tamara, don’t do that.”

A bright green light flared and then Edie appeared. “Well, well. Still sleeping with the enemy, biscuit?”

“We want to know the nature of the prophecy. Lenore told it to you. Will you let us do a spell to try to retrieve the memory from you?”

“Let
him
do a spell on me? Have you lost your lust-addled mind?”

“If you don’t help me, I’m going to try a time-travel spell.”

“Those never work right.”

“First time for every thing,” I said with a sweet smile.

“Witches who dabble in time travel usually end up in a mental institution afterward. But, of course, with your superior skills, there’s no risk of that. A dangerous and complicated spell is sure to work out because your spells never go wrong,” she said, her sarcasm martini-dry.

I glared at her. “At least I’d be doing something instead of following along like a good little sheep the way I did for years.”

“You were far better off when we did the thinking for you. Every important decision you’ve ever made has ended badly. Marrying your first boyfriend when you were barely out of high school? Ahem. Divorce. Going away to work in Dallas at that restaurant? Too homesick and lonely to concentrate, you came back to work in Cookie’s pathetic little bakery for a pittance. And now, left on your own, you’re letting a Lyons ride you like a magical whore.”

I gasped and felt Bryn’s magic thrashing to get out of him. He wanted to smash her, but he sucked the power deeper into himself.

“Harsh, yes,” Edie continued. “Welcome to the world of grown-up witches, where if you act like a fool, I’ll call you one. And don’t think your pretty boy is any different. His soul is as black as his father’s. He just hides it better.”

“Go away,” I said, hearing the hitch in my voice.

‟What did you expect—”

“I said go!”

Edie dissolved into a green orb and disappeared.

“I forgot how mean she can get whenever anyone challenges her. Momma says it’s because Edie’s father beat their mother and them. It made Grandma Lenore timid and Edie prone to rage. That’s what Momma said . . .” My voice trailed off and I stared out at the trees. The sway of their branches comforted me a little. A very little. “The thing is, even though she says hurtful things, a lot of times she’s right.”

“She’s not right. You’re extremely bright and intuitive. Untrained, yes, but that’s their fault. Not yours. As for you and me, we’re amazing together on every level. She’s not right about us being better off apart.”

“You can’t know that.” I ran a hand through my hair. “Neither of us can know that without knowing what the prophecy says.” I wiggled back into my clothes. “I think I’m going—”

Bryn caught my wrist. “Don’t. Don’t reward her for talking to you that way.”

“It’s not about her. It’s about me. I need a little time.”

He tightened his grip on my hand like I’d have to give him a way more convincing argument if I wanted him to let me go.

I leaned over and pressed a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you for not doing anything to her just then. I know how much you wanted to.” I tried to pull my hand back, but he kept it.

“Show me your great-great-grandmother’s book.”

I stilled. ‟Why?”

“So I can prove that the prophecy has nothing to do with us.”

“You’ll help me do the spell?”

“Yes, and if we survive it with our sanity intact, the next time I see your aunt Edie, I’ll take great pleasure in ramming the truth down her metaphysical throat.”

I smiled. “If we get the chance, I’ll be busy telling her off myself.” As we got dressed, I added softly, ‟Thanks, Bryn, for helping me with this.”

He paused, then finished tucking in his shirt. “Last night I told you that you hadn’t asked the right question. Because yes, there are plenty of things I wouldn’t do for sex. Rape and murder come to mind. The right question to ask me is what I wouldn’t risk to be with you.”

I stared at him. ‟What wouldn’t you risk to be with me?” I whispered.

He took my face in his hands and pressed his lips to mine. “I don’t know anymore. Apparently nothing.”

I smiled. “On the outside, you can be like your dad, the cynic. But on the inside, you’re a romantic. I wonder if you get that from your mom. Like your eyes.” I brushed a thumb over his cheek along his lower lid.

“Obviously, I wouldn’t know.” He turned and walked toward the house. “I need to write some instructions for Jenson.”

‟Why do you need to write them down?” I said, trailing after him.

“In case we both go insane. He’ll need something legal. I’m going to have you write something, too.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Do you really think we’ll end up insane?”

He shrugged. “If we do, I’m going to insist that they place us in the same sanitarium. We can eat Jell-O and play checkers together for the rest of our lives.”

I laughed. “Edie would really hate that.”

He smiled. “I know.”

Bryn and I drove back to his mansion, so he could get a spellbook out of his vault. There was a collection of gold pyramids on the book’s cover.

“The summer we were nineteen, Andre and I went to see the pyramids at Giza. They were aligned with the stars, you know.”

I stared at him.

He nodded. “We studied the sphinx and those pyramids day and night, Andre doing calculations and me writing spells. We were obsessed with the past and what it could mean for the future.”

He paged through the book until he found the spell he wanted. There were numbers and equations and geometric drawings on the left-hand page, musical notes on the top margin, and foreign verse on the other.

Bryn went to his desk and set his spellbook next to the one from Lenore and Edie. “I’ll need a little time.” He smiled. “No pun intended.”

I bundled myself into a quilt and went to sit on the sun porch. I was more than a little surprised when Edie appeared.

“I apolog ize,” she said stiffly. “We kept quite a few things from you. It’s natural that you wouldn’t fully trust what we say now. In our defense, I can only say that we did everything in the interest of protecting you.”

I stared at her.

“I know it’s difficult to understand. Melanie thinks it would be best for you to come to England where she can talk things over with you face-to-face. I think that’s a good idea as well. She has infinitely more patience than I do and won’t alienate you.”

“Did she send you here to make things up with me?”