Heartless (Blue Fire Saga) (25 page)

Rave and Dominic looked down at Leesa’s hand, seeing nothing unusual.

While they were both looking at her hand, Leesa mouthed her spell, concentrating hard. This was what she had been working on while Rave was gone. Slowly, each of her fingertips became encased in a pale blue glow. The light extended out almost an inch from each finger and flickered slightly. It wasn’t perfect, but it looked enough like Rave’s fire to suit her purpose.

“Look!” she said excitedly. “I think I have volkaane fire inside me! You must have passed it to me somehow in your kiss.”

Dominic smiled, recognizing the magic immediately, but Rave continued to look concerned and perplexed. Finally, Leesa could hold back her smile no longer. As soon as Rave saw her broad smile, he understood what Leesa had done.

“Pretty good, huh?” she said, letting the lights on her fingers go out. “I had you fooled there for a minute, didn’t I?”

Rave grinned. “Yes, you sure did. That was a pretty neat trick.”

“You don’t mind, I hope—me fooling you like that? I thought it would be fun—to be like you for a minute.”

“No, I don’t mind.” Rave’s expression turned serious. “But don’t blame me if I hesitate or pull back the next time you try to kiss me. I may subconsciously be afraid something could go wrong.”

Leesa’s jaw dropped. She had not considered any kind of reaction like that to her little trick. She remembered her psychology professor talking about something called “unintended consequences” in one of her classes last semester. This was certainly an unintended consequence—and very troubling one, too.

“Oh, no. Really? I never thought about that. I don’t want that to happen, for sure.”

Rave maintained a straight face for another few moments before breaking into a big grin. Leesa returned his grin immediately, glad to see he was only fooling with her.

“Okay, you got me that time,” she said. “Now we’re even.”

“Yes, we are. But I’d better make sure there’s no lasting damage, just the same.”

Rave gently grabbed Leesa’s shoulders and pulled her toward him for a quick kiss. When he let her go, she held her hand out in front of her, resisting the temptation to flash the blue glow one more time.

“See, no fire,” she said. “So there’s nothing to worry about. Feel free to kiss me whenever you want.”

“Well, in that case…” Rave bent forward and kissed her again. Leesa sighed.

“Ahem,” Dominic coughed into his hand, reminding the lovebirds that they had company.

Leesa turned to him and smiled. “Oops, sorry. I forgot you were here for a minute. Rave and I have been having so much fun since we got here.”

“I understand. And I’m glad to see you are getting such control over the illumination spell. I hope that’s not the only spell you’ve been working on, though.”

“Oh, no,” Leesa assured him. “I just started doing the blue thing when Rave left to go get you. I’ve been working on everything—and getting pretty good, too.”

Dominic smiled. “I’m glad to hear that. How about showing me some of what you can do?”

Leesa spent the next two hours running through all her spells. The sun set and darkness descended, but they kept on, moving inside the cavern so the magical light Dominic provided could not be seen from far away. The wizard alternately praised Leesa’s progress and gave her a number of tips and suggestions, all of which seemed to help immediately. By the time they were done, Leesa had even managed to create her first air shield—a very weak one to be sure, but a shield nonetheless. She beamed when Rave poked at her with a stick and needed a second poke before he could reach her shoulder.

“I think that’s enough for tonight,” Dominic said after Leesa created the shield. “You must be pretty tired by now.”

Leesa nodded. In truth, she was exhausted, but she had been so engrossed in her magic that she hadn’t noticed. The exhaustion was of the pleasant kind—she had done far more magic today than she had ever done before. Now, though, she wanted something to eat—she had not yet mastered the wizard or volkaane trick of going for long periods without food—and then to crawl into bed.

33. ULTIMATUM

T
he xenorians waited only one day before acting. When they had not heard from Leesa or her mother by sunset the day after their visit to the Nyland apartment, they decided it was time to change their approach. Once again, Smith drove them to the apartment, parking right out front. He and Jones had half smiles on their faces as Jones knocked on the door, while Rome looked stoic as usual.

Judy did not appear very happy to see them, but they did not care. Despite the wary look on her face, she politely invited them inside. After closing the door behind them, she remained standing. The three agents did likewise.

“We were in the area,” Smith said, “so we thought we’d stop by to see if you had heard from Leesa. Have you?”

Judy shook her head. “No, I haven’t. I’m sure she’s probably too busy having fun. She told me she doesn’t have phone reception where she is, so maybe she doesn’t check her messages every day.”

Rome edged forward and laid her hand lightly on Judy’s forearm.

“Don’t you worry about her?” she asked, pretending to be concerned. “With her being out of touch like that, I mean?” In reality, Rome was touching Judy to see if she could detect any new magic. She sensed none.

“A little,” Judy admitted. “A mother always worries. Do you have children?”

Rome had to fight to conceal the grimace that the thought of having children threatened to bring to her face.

“No, I don’t,” she said. “I haven’t been blessed.”

“I missed a lot of my kids’ childhoods,” Judy said, “because of my condition. So I guess it’s natural for me to worry a bit about them now.”

“Well, you’re in luck then,” Smith said. “We’re here to see what we can do to get Leesa to come home.”

A look of confusion clouded Judy’s face. “Huh, I don’t understand.”

“Don’t worry,” Smith said. “You’ll understand soon enough. Is Bradley home?”

Judy glanced toward the bedroom door. “He’s in his room, studying.”

Smith turned to Jones. “Go get him.”

Jones strode to the door and opened it without knocking. A moment later he emerged, leading Bradley out by the elbow. His grip on Bradley’s arm was firm.

“What’s going on?” Bradley asked, clearly annoyed to be dragged out of his room like this.

“Sit down and shut up,” Jones said, pushing Bradley roughly down onto the couch.

Bradley started to get up, but something in Jones’ eyes told him he had better stay put.

The xenorians saw no need to act nice any longer. They had tried being nice and it hadn’t worked, so now it was time to try a different approach, something a little more forceful.

“We really need to see your daughter,” Smith said to Judy. “So we’re going to give her a little incentive to come home.”

Rome handed Judy her purse. “Call your daughter,” she said.

Judy’s eyes flashed back and forth between Smith and Rome. “What are you going to do?”

“Don’t you worry about that,” Smith said. “Just make the call.”

Judy hesitated, not happy at all with the agents’ new attitude and tone. Jones pulled a small, scary-looking black device from his pocket and showed it to her. The narrow end bore two half-inch long chrome prongs, spaced an inch or so apart.

“Do you know what this is?”

Judy shook her head. She looked like she wanted to speak, but no words came out.

“Well,” Jones said, “it’s not important that you know exactly what it is or how it works. This is kind of like a taser gun. All you really need to know is that it’s capable of causing a great deal of pain.” He held the chrome prongs against Bradley’s bicep. “If you don’t make that call right now, your son will show you how much pain it can cause.”

Judy’s eyes grew wide as she stared down at the device being pressed against Bradley’s arm. Rome opened Judy’s purse for her.

“Your phone,” Rome prodded.

Judy reached woodenly into her bag and pulled out her cell. She held it in front of her face and stared at it blankly.

“Your daughter,” Rome reminded her. “Call your daughter.”

Judy didn’t know what else to do, so she punched Leesa’s programmed number. The phone rang a few times and then went to voice mail.

“It’s her voice mail again,” she said, her voice catching in her throat.

Smith reached down and snatched the phone. “Give me that.”

He held the phone up to his mouth. “Hello, Leesa. My name is Smith. I’m with your mother and brother and a couple of my friends. We very much want to talk to you, but you seem to be avoiding us for some reason. We’ve grown tired of waiting, so listen closely. We will give you two days to get home from wherever you are. Meet us at the east end of Brennan Field one hour before sunset on Saturday. If you choose not to come, it will not go well for your mother and brother.”

Jones looked at him expectantly, ready to use his weapon on Bradley, but Smith shook his head. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a device identical to the one Jones was holding against Bradley’s arm. He pressed the device against the skin of Judy’s neck.

“I think this will be much more effective.”

Smith pushed a button with his thumb, and Judy howled in pain as an electrical charge shot into her body. Bradley started to get up, but Jones held him down, looking meaningfully at his own device. Bradley remained seated, his face twisted with anger.

Rome caught Judy before she could collapse and lowered her onto the couch beside her son.

Smith continued speaking into the phone. “That’s just a mild sample of what will happen to your family if you don’t show up, Leesa. I’m sure you don’t want that, so I trust we’ll see you on Saturday afternoon. Until then, your mother and brother will be our guests. You have my word no further harm will come to them…unless you fail to show up.”

He punched off the phone and slipped it into his jacket pocket.

“We’ll give Ms. Nyland a few minutes to recover and then we’ll bring them with us.” Smith turned to Bradley. “I hope you’re not going to need a sample to insure your cooperation.”

Bradley shook his head. He could not believe this was happening, but he didn’t see anything he could do about it at the moment.

“I’ll cooperate,” he said. “For now.”

Smith smiled. “That’s all we ask.”

34. DOMINIC’S PLAN

D
ominic smiled proudly down at Leesa from his perch up on a rock ledge four feet above the ground, where she had deposited him with her telekinesis just a moment before. Although he had used his levitation spell to lighten his weight by half to increase her chances of succeeding, he was still pleased by Leesa’s performance. His objective had been for her to gain an image of herself lifting a person with her thoughts and then putting him down in a place of her choosing. Leesa’s smile was proof that she had done just that.

“Well done,” Dominic said.

Leesa’s smile widened. “Thanks. One of these days I’m going to lift you without you having to lighten yourself.” She turned and looked at Rave, who was sitting cross-legged on the ground, watching her practice. “You hear that, mister? Once I master that little trick, you’re going to have to behave yourself, or I’ll be moving you around with just a look.”

Rave laughed. “Yes, ma’am.”

He sprang to his feet. In little more than a blink of an eye, he raced fifty feet away.

“Of course, you’ll have to catch me first,” he called. In a flash, he stood behind Leesa and gave her a quick kiss on the back of her neck. He had moved so quickly, she didn’t even have time to turn around.

“Point taken,” she said, grinning.

“Let’s have you do one more thing,” Dominic said from up on the ledge, “and then we’ll call this session to an end.”

Leesa turned back to the wizard and saw him glance up at the sun, which had moved more than halfway across a cloudless blue sky. Noon had come and gone some time ago.

“You’ve been practicing almost three hours,” Dominic said. “I think that’s definitely enough for now.”

Leesa nodded. In truth, she was pretty tired, which made her even more proud of her success in lifting Dominic up onto his present position.

“Okay by me,” she said. “What would you like me to do for my grand finale?”

Dominic smiled. “Nothing too dramatic. How about bringing me down from here?”

Leesa grinned. “Okay. No problem.” She focused her gaze on Dominic and pictured him floating down to the ground, which is exactly what happened. He landed with a bit more of thud than she intended, but no harm was done.

“You are progressing remarkably well,” Dominic said. “Far better than I might have expected, especially since your magic was diminished for several weeks.”

Leesa basked under her mentor’s praise. “I have a good teacher,” she said modestly, “and an excellent textbook, too.”

Finally giving in to her fatigue, she slid her back down along the rock wall beside the cavern entrance until she was sitting on the ground. Closing her eyes, she stretched her legs out in front of her and let the warm sunlight caress her face.

A moment later, the sun’s rays seem to increase in warmth, and she knew Rave had just settled down beside her. Without opening her eyes, she turned her left hand palm up and felt Rave take it in his hand. She sighed at his touch.

Enjoying the peaceful relaxation, Leesa almost dozed off, until a feeling of apprehension suddenly stole over her. Her body shook in a quick shiver, like sometimes happened when something bad in a dream woke her up. Rave felt her shudder.

“What is it?” he asked concernedly.

Leesa opened her eyes, relieved to see she was still sitting with Rave by the cavern.

“I’m not sure. I think I dozed off, or was about to, when I suddenly felt really nervous, or scared, or something like that. I’m not sure what.”

Rave quickly stood up and scanned their surroundings, listening closely. Dominic also searched the area with his eyes for any sign of danger. Neither of them detected anything amiss.

“Everything seems fine,” Rave assured Leesa.