Secret Of The Rose (Legacy Of Magick Series, Book 2) (2 page)

“He’s been busy. He started gutting a house today.” I smiled, thinking about him. A month and half ago Duncan Quinn and I had ran into each other, literally. Our attraction and magickal connection had been instant. At first, my family had been strongly against me having anything to do with a member of the Drake family. But they’d come around when it became clear that Duncan walked his own magickal path and was not a part of his family’s tradition of darker practices.

We’d started working together when he wanted someone with landscaping experience to fix up the yard of one of the homes he was rehabbing. Now Duncan and I were officially dating. And after everything we had been through, it seemed really strange to do ‘normal’ things like other couples. It was fun and beautifully
ordinary
to go to the movies, get coffee, and go jogging together these days. I was looking forward to us attending the town’s annual Halloween Ball, most of all.

I watched Ivy carefully as she sat there, pretending to read her books. She was withdrawn and much quieter since her ordeal. I didn’t have to read her using The Sight to know that she wasn’t okay. Call me psychic, but between the radical alteration to her appearance and the marked difference in her behavior, I was really worried about her.

I peered down at the books and ran my hands across the pages, searching for the topic of her study. I had made a promise to myself not to use my psychic or magickal abilities to riffle through anyone’s head ever again after it had been done to me a few weeks ago. But scanning the books for a clue as to what she was studying? Sure, I’d do that and not feel guilty at all. So, I focused my growing witchy abilities on the pages, and then I
knew
.

She was searching for spells that would stop nightmares.

“You’re having nightmares,” I said. It wasn’t a question.

Ivy flinched at that, but stubbornly kept her face turned down to the books. I slung an arm around her stiff shoulders and gave her a one-armed hug. Finally, she relented with a sigh and leaned her head on my shoulder. I waited a few seconds, tipped my head over on top of hers, and gave her shoulders a supportive squeeze.

“You’re not the only one who is having trouble dealing with everything that has happened,” I admitted. “I’m pretty jumpy myself, these days.” I left out the part about having a bloody vision, and wanting to make her smile, I told her instead how I’d gotten a good scare tripping over the cheerleaders in the kitchen.

Ivy let out a snort of laughter, covered her mouth and laughed even harder.

“Don’t laugh at me. I think I’m traumatized,” I said, deadpan.

“Well, those damn cheerleaders can be pretty scary.” Ivy shook back her hair, with a trace of her usual verve.

“I know, right?” I shuddered dramatically. “They were like
color coordinated
!” I whispered in mock-horror.

“Dear gods, no!” Ivy played along, knowing full well my aversion to anything that matched or coordinated.

“Even their big hair ribbons matched,” I whispered to her. “They
must
be stopped.”

Ivy shook her head at that and became very quiet again. The silence was so unusual for my fabulously dramatic, goth-girl cousin. Well, former goth-girl. I missed her crazy slogan t-shirts, dramatic hair color and makeup, and I really missed seeing her solid black, witchy outfits.

“Do you want to tell me what you’re having nightmares about?” I asked her as carefully as possible.

“I re-live when I was taken,” Ivy whispered. “And then I dream about the Blood Moon Grimoire.”

The Blood Moon Grimoire was an antique book of dark and powerful magick. Linked to the energy of the current cycle of four successive lunar eclipses, it was a dangerous and deadly item that my family, and half of the Drake family, were at odds over. Take one missing, potent book of spells and add in a couple hundred years of bad blood between the Bishops and the Drakes that first began in Colonial era America, and what you have is an explosion looking for a place to go off. The first salvo in the recent conflict had been an ultimatum from Thomas Drake, to me: find the book and return it, or else. The second had been Ivy’s abduction by his son, Julian.

“Do you dream about finding the rest of the grimoire?” I asked, and tucked her farther under my arm. Two other sections of the grimoire were still lost. And the segment we did have safely in our possession was not of much use to us. Bran, my older, annoying cousin, had concluded that the antique pages had been torn out of the
middle
of the old grimoire.

Ivy sighed. “No, I don’t see the other pages.”

“I understand that it’s hard, but if you tell me exactly what images are in your dreams, I might be able to help.”

“I dream about someone coming out of an arched red door. They are carrying a big red leather book tucked under their arm like a football,” Ivy said.

“You know...” I said to her, “that makes me wonder if you are seeing the past in the second part of your dream.”

Ivy shifted her gaze to mine. “I never thought about that. I suppose I could be.”

“The person carrying the book, do you recognize them?” I pressed her for an answer.

“I don’t know.” Ivy seemed to slump in defeat. “I can’t see the person’s face. I’m not even sure if it’s a woman or a man holding the grimoire.”

“When you think about the second half of the dream, are the images sharp and crisp?” I asked.

“Well, no.” Ivy sat up straighter, and her green eyes cleared. “When I relive getting abducted it’s crystal clear. It’s like I’m there all over again... but the rest of the dream seems misty, and like the colors are faded.”

“I bet you are dreaming about the distant past. When my dreams are out of focus and the colors seem washed-out, it generally means I’m
seeing
the past.”

“I get that the book was stolen and hidden to protect the future generations...” Ivy leaned against me again. “But I’m afraid of what will happen while we search for the rest of the grimoire. An awful lot of people suffered the last time that book was around.”

The price for stealing the Blood Moon Grimoire had been very high indeed. It was the reason my father and mother had packed up and relocated back east with a two-year-old me. So I had grown up in New Hampshire, completely unaware of my family’s legacy of magick or the shared history of the two families. That is, until a couple of months ago when I had reconnected with my dad’s side of the family.

“Do you think any of this would have happened if I hadn’t moved here to go to grad school?” I asked her as we continued to sit there with Ivy’s head on my shoulder.

“None of this was your fault. Besides, you can’t run away from your destiny,” Ivy said. I tried not to flinch at her statement, as she’d sounded eerily like her mother.

No you can’t.
I silently agreed.

I saw movement in the doorway and spotted Duncan standing in the entrance of the turret room with a big smile on his face.
But sometimes you could run literally smack right into it.
I smiled in return.

Duncan’s dark blond hair had grown out over the collar of his shirt. He wore dark jeans and a clean button down chambray shirt that made his eyes seem a brighter shade of blue. “It’s two of my favorite girls.”

I didn’t get up and go to him as I normally would have. He met my eyes, and I saw that he understood.

With a nod, he crossed the room and crouched down in front of Ivy and me. “How’re you doing, Shorty?”

“I’m not short,” Ivy sighed tiredly.

Duncan tipped her chin up with a finger and studied her healing bruises. “Yeah, you do look better. The hair color’s new, isn’t it?” he asked.

“I thought I’d try something different,” she said, still too quietly.

Duncan rubbed a hand over his chin. “You think you would be up to going through a kitchen catalog with me?” he asked Ivy.

I watched Ivy brighten up a bit. She had a real interest in home repair and rehab, and so far, she hadn’t had the chance to help out his crew on the weekends. “For the new project you started today?” she asked.

“The kitchen in the main house had to be gutted, and I thought you might have a thought or two on how I should rework the layout.” Duncan stood, and hooked his thumbs in his front pockets. “I wanted to do something different this time and thought I’d ask you what your opinions were on color.”

I stayed silent. I knew damn good and well he had an excellent eye for interiors, color schemes and layouts. I also had a hunch he was trying to find a way to distract and to cheer up Ivy. Since that night a few weeks ago, he’d become very protective of her.

“You have the catalogues with you?” Ivy asked and sat up straighter.

“And the dimensions and rough sketches of the kitchen,” Duncan told her. “They’re all downstairs on your dining room table.”

“I’d really like to see them,” Ivy said.

“Go ahead,” I invited gesturing to the scattered books. “I’ll put these away for you.”

“I’ll be right down,” Duncan said as Ivy scrambled out of the room and headed for the stairs.

Once she was gone, he scooped me up right off the window seat and into a big kiss. I kissed him back, and for a few moments there wasn’t anything else on my mind— not disturbing visions, or the search for the grimoire— nothing except the two of us and the energy we seemed to create every time we touched. When we finally came up for air, I threaded my hands through the hair that spilled over his collar. “That was really sweet, what you did for Ivy,” I told him.

“I’ve been worried about her too.”

“Well, I think you made her day. That kiss certainly made mine,” I said.

He linked his hands around my waist and rested his forehead against mine for a few moments. “The guest cottage is all cleaned up now,” he said carefully, as if testing his ground. “Maybe you could come over and see it, and we could actually spend some time alone.”

I smiled up at him. The house he was rehabbing boasted a little guest house in the backyard. Duncan had moved out of the Drake family’s mansion and into it a few weeks ago. “So, you got the painting all finished?”

“It’s nothing fancy— but it will do me, for now.”

Here it was. The next step in our relationship. I met his eyes. “Yes. I would like to come over and see your new place.”

Duncan’s eyes twinkled a bit and he pulled me close again. I let out a sigh and felt everything smooth out, simply by being in his arms. “Are you nervous?” he asked.

I grinned up at him. “Of being with you? No. It’s been a stressful couple of weeks. I feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop,” I admitted.

“Well, try and relax. The second lunar eclipse has passed and
nothing
happened,” Duncan pointed out.

“I half expected your uncle to come bursting into the house the other night shooting lightning bolts out of his fingers and demanding the grimoire back.”

“That’s never going to happen.” Duncan ran his hands down my arms, as if to soothe me.

I stepped back and crossed my arms. “Your uncle doing
nothing
on that night has made me jumpier than if he would have simply come after us. You gotta admit, it was weirdly anti-climatic.”

And what a nerve-wracking night that second eclipse had been. We had gathered with my family and my aunt’s coven in the backyard of the manor house to watch the lunar eclipse— what they called a
blood moon
, back in the day. All had been calm and quiet as we’d watched the moon fall under the earth’s rusty colored shadow.

The coven had held a discreet full moon ritual in the back yard, and afterwards they’d gathered around the fire pit. They’d even drank wine and cider, roasted marshmallows and made S’mores! I still wasn’t sure if celebrating like that had been brave, or foolish. Not with waiting to hear what Julian’s fate would be, and Thomas Drake lurking.

“Did you find out what happened with Julian’s preliminary hearing?’ I said. “What did the judge decide?”

“My uncle and his lawyers managed to convince the judge to drop the criminal charges against Julian,” Duncan said.

“Seriously, after what he did to Ivy?” I was shocked at that. “
No
criminal charges?”

“I found out today, that in lieu of criminal charges, the judge ordered a drug rehab program and three months worth of inpatient psychological counseling for my cousin.”

“So he’s locked up good and tight.” I turned away and went to look out the turret window.
Well, I suppose that was something.

“A room in a locked psych ward is as good as a jail cell in my opinion. Maybe even better,” Duncan said.

“What’s going to happen when Julian gets out? What about the other eclipses?” I asked.

Duncan came over, tipped my chin up, and made me look at him. “Autumn, the third lunar eclipse won’t be until April the fourth. So we have almost six months. The final lunar eclipse in the tetrad cycle won’t occur until September twenty-eighth.” Duncan managed to sound upbeat despite the seriousness of the situation we found ourselves in.

“I know, I memorized all the dates of the tetrad, too.” I tried to smile at him, but it still felt like an axe was hanging over all our heads.

“Maybe we should let the search for the Blood Moon Grimoire rest for a while,” he said.

“Ignoring the magickal threat won’t make it go away,” I argued.

“No, but we can recoup, prepare, and gather up our strength.” Duncan moved his hands up to the back of my head and tangled his fingers in my long hair. I was about to argue another point, but he kissed me, effectively shutting me up.

“No more talk of my cousin and uncle. Not today,” Duncan whispered. Gently tugging my hair back— a move that always made my knees go weak, Duncan lowered his lips to mine.

I tried to lose myself in the kiss. But part of my mind would not stop thinking about Thomas Drake and the grimoire.

We
had
to locate the remaining two thirds of that old spell book. Only then would we gain the knowledge needed to understand what Thomas Drake was really after. When we had the grimoire back and reassembled— we could stop him.