Hot Magic (6 page)

The man lifted a dark brow. “Johnny Depp?”

“She’s about to ignite, Bas.” Harry’s deep voice broke in. “Her abilities have triggered, and she’s absorbing power.”

The man stood quickly. “How did it happen?”

“I’ll explain later.” Harrison’s accent sounded more clipped than usual. “Can you siphon off any of the power?”

The man held out both hands toward her. Julie felt a moment of intense relief, a chill breeze that quickly got sucked up in the heat. She smiled at him. “I loved your pirate movies.”

He looked at Harry. “We need an angel. There’s too much energy.”

“The angels aren’t allowed to interfere,” Harry bit out. A muscle in his jaw twitched once. Julie resisted the urge to put her hand against his cheek. He probably wouldn’t appreciate having his facial hair burned off.

“Rules are like rubber bands. They can stretch more than you’d expect before they break. Something you, Harrison, have yet to learn.” The man called Bas held up both hands in a simple, fluid gesture. He murmured a word that Julie didn’t catch. A flash of light, gaining in intensity like an expanding star, filled the room.
 

Julie realized she’d finally exploded. Her soul floated free into blessed cool. So this was death.
 

Wait! She frowned and tried to put the brakes on her drifting consciousness. No fair. She refused to enter into the Great Beyond before her life passed before her eyes. She didn’t mind missing a replay of the Married Years, and strangely, she felt no tinge of sorrow at leaving Tash and her mother behind. She did, however, want one last memory of that kiss with Harrison. Death had obviously released her inner floozy.
 

Try as she might, she couldn’t hold her thoughts together. They slipped out of her head like wisps of morning fog meeting the sunrise. The last thing she remembered was a remarkable feeling of peace.

G
randma’s head jerked and she stood. Her whole body trembled. “Something’s happened.”

“Of course something’s happened. People are teleporting all over the place and Mom has disappeared.” It only took Tasha a moment to realize her grandmother meant something else. Dread filled her and a band tightened around her chest. “What? Is Mom okay?”

Grandma sat down again, a shaky hand running through her short curls. “I don’t know. I’m a bit of a Sensitive. I just felt a huge jolt of power. I don’t know what it means.” Her brown eyes, usually bright and laughing, were full of despair. “I don’t know what it means.”

Tasha sat down beside her and took both her hands. “I need you to tell me what is going on.” She still managed to speak slowly, even though her heart felt like a ping-pong ball bouncing against her ribs. “Tell me about Sun Dancers, the Penum-whatever and Sensitives. Tell me where Mom has gone and what is wrong with her.”

Grandma nodded, taking a deep breath. “I thought I could escape all this. Keep you and your mother free of it.”

“Escape what? Keep us free of what?”

“Your heritage. Your birthright and your birth curse.” Her grandmother spoke in a voice of doom.

“Stop with the mumbo-jumbo horror movie stuff, Gram. Talk in clear English.”

“All is not what it seems.”

“Grandma!”

The older woman shuddered and gave Tasha a defensive look. “Well, it’s not. There’s more to this world than meets the eye. Humans are only part of God’s grand equation. There are immortals, spirits and mortals with special powers. You, my dear, are a mortal with special powers.”

Tash didn’t say anything for a moment. Obviously her special power was her ability not to scream in frustration at the craziness coming out of her grandmother’s mouth. Instead she said, very slowly, “Tell me more.”

“Several types of these special mortals exist. The ones you need to be concerned with now are the Sun Dancers, the Shadow Walkers and the Penumbrae. These three together form the Triad and serve as a buffer against evil. ‘Wherever three or more are gathered, evil cannot prevail.’” Her grandmother spoke the last sentence as if it was a known truth.

“Is that a Bible verse?” Tash’s head felt like it was whirling. She had so many questions.

“No. I really have no idea where that came from or even when it was said, but it’s something all Triad learn in the cradle.”

Except, apparently, for Tasha and her mother. “I don’t have any powers.”
 

“Your mother didn’t either. Your grandpa was human, and I thought you’d both somehow missed out on the magic gene.”

Tasha closed her eyes. If she hadn’t beamed from Harrison’s front porch to this kitchen, if she hadn’t seen her mother blink out of the kitchen in Harrison’s arms, she’d think her grandmother had truly taken a dive over the edge. “Do you have powers?” She opened her eyes to see Grandma shrug.

“I’m a Sensitive, which means I can sense others with power. I’m very rusty at the whole energy wielding business.”

“Grandpa was a normal human?”

“As normal as they come. Not a whiff of power about him.”

Soft, cuddly Grandpa Abe had loved nothing better than to sit on the couch and tell Tasha endless stories. He always smelled like he smoked a pipe, and she often thought of him on cold winter nights when Mom had the fireplace going. “Did he know about you? About the power?”

“Yes. And he loved me anyway.” Grandma smiled sadly. “He made me feel safe.”

“Why did you need to feel safe?” Didn’t power give you…power?

“Many years ago, there was a huge civil war in the Triad. We call it the Great Rift.” Grandma stopped abruptly. Her eyes widened and she looked around the kitchen like a cornered rabbit. Before Tasha could reach her, she slid off her chair to the floor. Grandma placed a trembling hand over her heart.
 

Tasha knelt beside her, grabbing hands suddenly gone cold. Was she having a heart attack? “Grandma!” Tasha stared at the stricken, pale face, desperately wishing for help, for sanity, for Red Cross first aid training.
 

“Shadow Walkers.” Grandma said the words so softly Tasha had to lean forward to hear. “There are Shadow Walkers near.”

A husky laugh broke the silence that followed her statement. “How astute of you.”

Tasha’s head swung around at the softly accented voice, and she jumped to her feet. A crowd of people filled the kitchen. She blinked rapidly, but they didn’t disappear. Slightly in front of the rest, two people stood side by side—man and a woman, both beautiful beyond anything Tasha had seen outside of touched-up magazine photographs. Both were tall, the man topping the woman by four inches. Even standing still, they radiated an innate grace. Their faces were long and fine-boned, their hair a slide of silver moonlight that reached the shoulders of the woman and touched the collar of the man. Both had deep blue eyes and dark lashes, striking against their otherwise pale coloring.
 

The group wore modern clothes—cotton slacks, khakis, jeans, and a variety of shirts and tops all in subdued colors—but something about them felt ancient. Tasha stiffened her spine. “What are you doing here? Who are you?”

The woman took a step forward. “We are the shadows that frighten you at night. We have come for the Dancer.”

Chapter Four

“‘S
hadows don’t scare me
.
’” Tasha tried to squash the quaver in her voice as she stepped in front of her grandmother. “‘There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast
.
’”
 

The quote came tumbling out without thought. She threw back her shoulders, going with the theory that if she looked brave she might feel brave. Her heart rate slowed when the lips of the silver man quirked in amusement and his eyes lit with interest. A man with a sense of humor wouldn’t hurt her, right?

“Dickens,” he murmured. “
The Pickwick Papers
.”

Shadow Walkers read Dickens. And had French accents. They couldn’t be all bad.

Drama Queen—as Tash had mentally tagged the woman—crossed her arms and sighed heavily. “Let’s gather the chairs in a circle and form a book group, why don’t we?”
 

Silver Man’s grin widened, but the men behind him looked alarmed. One of them cleared his throat. “Uh, I haven’t read that one, Marguerite.”

She gave the man a blistering look. “I’m astounded, Adrian.” She turned back to Silver Man, her voice clipped. “Are these Dancers? Is this the one I’m looking for?”

Silver Man shrugged. “There’s Dancer energy here. Difficult to tell if the power is coming from these women or if it is a residue from the one who was here. The one who exploded.”

Tasha’s legs gave out, just like that. She sank to the floor beside her grandmother. Harrison and her mother were the only other people who’d been here. Harrison hadn’t looked anywhere close to exploding.

Marguerite frowned. “No matter. The bond has not wavered again. We’ll go to the Balance’s house and wait for him.” With a graceful swipe of her arm, the bizarre entourage disappeared.

Tasha barely noticed. She turned and buried her head against her grandmother’s shoulder, refusing to believe what she’d just heard. Her mother couldn’t be dead.

“I
s she dead?” Harrison asked. The pace of the blood thundering through his veins had nothing to do with the angel who had just left the room. It had everything to do with fear. The unfamiliar emotion made him want to roar in protest.
 

The angel had absorbed the excess energy, allowing Julie’s own system to begin processing the energy, but had left her slumped and unconscious. Angels were never chatty, and this one, after a long look at Bas, left without saying a word.

Bas contemplated the still body sprawled on the floor. “No, she’s alive. It’s night though. Since she’s triggered, she’ll be more attuned to the power rhythms of light. She may not wake until morning.”

Harrison knelt beside Julie and gently picked her up. She felt cool to the touch, her skin faintly pink. He pulled her close for a moment and caught the faint scent of cinnamon. Each angel had an individual scent. He’d heard it said that while humans usually have no conscious memory of their contact with the Seraphim, that scent could invoke feelings of comfort and safety afterward.
 

He moved to the bed and pulled off the covers with one hand. He laid her down, removed her black loafers and then pulled the sheet and blanket up to her shoulders.

“I never knew you were so nurturing.” Bas stood near the wood laminate cupboard that held the television and watched him.

“I’m not,” Harrison said shortly. He moved to sit where he could see the bed.

“How many times did you get tucked in at night?” Bas asked softly.

“You know the answer to that.” He glanced at Bas. “I couldn’t leave her on the cold floor.”

“Two minutes ago I’d have predicted that’s exactly what you’d do.”

Bas was right. Harrison didn’t spend much time worrying about how comfortable anyone was. His worries were confined to restoring the Triad and to seeing justice served.
 

He stared at Julie’s face. Her eyelashes fluttered as if she fought to regain consciousness. Most people who had their conception of reality torn apart would welcome the quiet respite of sleep. This one’s mind refused to close down. He could almost feel her neurons firing and her brain sifting information.

He admired her spirit. He admired the way she protected her daughter like a fierce lioness. Perhaps that’s why he didn’t want her scared or cold. He glanced at Bas. “She’s over forty, and her powers just triggered.”
 

“I told you she’d been raised human.”

“But she still should have come into her powers, whether she developed them or not. Why did you send me to her? How could a powerless Dancer help me?”

“She was never powerless.”

Harrison had no patience for Bascule’s riddles. “I’d like to keep her here until she regains consciousness. Her family will hover, and I need to talk with her. Is that all right with you?”

“Of course.” Bas looked at the woman on the bed. “I was planning on leaving this evening anyway. The room is paid for until tomorrow morning.”

“Thanks.” Harrison looked toward the balcony. “Where are we?” Judging from the angle of the sun, they were in the same time zone as Michigan.

“Just outside of Tampa.”

“Is there trouble here?” Prior to the Rift, the Farnsworth family had been one of leading Triad families in Florida. Jerry Farnsworth had recently agreed to assume the position of Lion of Florida and was beginning to rebuild trust here, along with a governing structure.

“No. Jerry was a good choice. The Farnsworth family has branches throughout the state and are well liked.” Bas picked up a piece paper from the small desk and crumpled it into a ball before throwing it in the empty metal wastebasket.

Harrison didn’t miss the fact that the paper hit the can with more force than necessary. “You’re here searching for your mystery person.” About five years ago, Harrison had deduced that Bas was looking for something or someone. Bas had never confirmed nor denied it. He simply ignored Harrison whenever he had asked about it.