She Blinded Me With Science (11 page)

Sophie sighed and settled down in the living room to concentrate.

She never expected her protective magic to look like a chain link fence from a school
playground. It even had those protective plastic sleeves on the top where the metal ended in
points. Laughing quietly at herself, Sophie concentrated on the places where the seeming bars of
magic wove together. They were transparent, tinted in shifting rainbow colors, as if the energy
that powered the magic flowed through it in alternating strengths. Or maybe it was waves? She
needed to ask someone for explanations and the proper terminology if she was going to make
any sense out of magic.

Sophie had the feeling that Changelings who switched over from Human to Fae even
fifty or one hundred years ago had it much easier.

A knock on the door startled her. She half-leaped up from the couch, stumbled over thin
air and almost fell flat on her face. Laughing at herself, she fingercombed her wet hair out of her
face and went to answer the door.

"Gee, Sophie, we've just been so worried about you," Jennifer gushed when the door
opened.

"Liar," Sophie said with a smile and started to shut the door again before she noticed the
football player-sized men standing behind Jennifer, and Dr. Putney next to her.

The gorilla on the right leaned over Jennifer and stopped the door with one fist the size
of a canned Easter ham. After seeing that face in close quarters, Sophie decided the two bruisers
with Jennifer weren't football players, but the guys who stood in for the tackling dummies. And
beat up on the entire team.

"We need to talk. Where's the hunk?" Jennifer said as the two bruisers muscled their
way into the house. She looked around and her lip curled up at the book-lined walls and the
comfortably shabby furniture.

"What hunk?" Sophie said, to hold back an urge to shriek
He's mine! Lay one false
nail on Kevyn and you're a dead ex-cheerleader!

Jennifer didn't even dignify that with a look of disgust. She nodded to Godzilla One,
who grabbed hold of Sophie's arms and lifted her until her toes didn't touch the ground. The
other one found the door to the basement and reached to open it.

"No you don't!" Sophie snarled, and reached for the chain link fence with her mind. She
didn't know if she could wrap the fence around the four intruders and immobilize them, but it
wouldn't hurt to try. At the very least, she might hurt someone. Hopefully, someone besides
herself.

"Shut her up," Jennifer said without even glancing at Sophie. Godzilla shook her,
breaking her concentration.

* * * *

"All this is very nice, dear," Klarinda murmured, "but this sudden urge to grow up
would mean so much more if you had told us before you contacted the Physicians College and
gave away your location."

Kevyn sighed, but wisely kept his emotions off his face and out of his voice. He looked
at his father, Abernathy, waiting for his input. Dealing with egotistical, spoiled brat stars in
Hollywood had taught him more patience and insight into the nuances of communication than he
had thought possible. His parents were so ultra-civilized and reasonable, he actually felt
homesick for the first time in nearly thirty years.

He had stated his case from the beginning: He was going to be Sophie's Changeling
Sponsor, and he wanted his parents to leave the two of them alone for the next century while he
taught her what she needed to know. In return, he promised he would come back to the Enclaves
and give his heritage as an Advocate another chance.

He knew better than to promise he would actually
be
one, but he figured the
fact that he'd at least try it ought to please his parents.

However, their lack of enthusiasm, or much of a reaction at all, indicated he had been
wrong yet again.

"Okay, consider this." He took a deep breath and pulled out his trump card. "If you let us
figure out our own lives, and you let me make my choice, I won't stand in your way if you try to
recruit any of our kids for Advocates."

"That's assuming this Sophie agrees to stay with you, son, and have children with you,"
Abernathy said.

"Of course, from what we've seen and heard so far, we have very high hopes," Klarinda
added. And nearly gave her son a heart attack by smiling with a sparkle of mischief in her big,
dark eyes. "She's a lovely girl. Very steady, smart, lots of common sense. At least, that's what
Hypnomates told us. We've been researching her ancestors and so far--"

"Mother, please." Kevyn choked on something he was afraid to let out. It would either
be laughter or a scream of utter terror and a demand to know who they were and what they had
done with his parents. His mother was actually
babbling
with excitement.

"Surprised you, eh?" Abernathy said with a chuckle that Kevyn hadn't heard for nearly a
century. How long had it been since he had felt relaxed around his parents, and they felt relaxed
enough to show humor? Kevyn suddenly ached for something he had told himself he didn't miss.
"I'll tell you something, son. Any girl who can make you grow up and risk yourself for her sake
is a girl we already love. She's a find worth holding onto."

For once, Kevyn totally agreed with his father.

Then an explosive reverberation through the ether brought him an image of two bruisers,
Jennifer, and weasel-faced Dr. Putney, all crowded into the living room and threatening
Sophie.

"Trouble?" Klarinda asked. She reached out to brace herself against the side of the
communication globe.

"Sorry, Mom, Dad. Gotta go!" Kevyn barely remembered to close down the globe
before dashing upstairs.

* * * *

"I'm claiming your mutant friend in the name of science," Jennifer sneered, as Sophie
concentrated on finding all that energy she imagined gathered around her house. "Go get him. I
want him in his cage in my house by the end of the day."

"He's mine!" Sophie yanked hard, trying to free herself from the Godzilla holding onto
her. "I love him and you're not doing anything to him."

Jennifer laughed, the sound harsh and cruel, not the usual chiming bells she used in
public to trick people into thinking she was innocent and sweet. Dr. Putney blinked and gave her
a sidelong, questioning look.

"The Stockholm Syndrome is supposed to work the other way, moron. You make him
fall in love with
you
. But you can't even do that right, can you?" she sneered. "Is he any
good? I don't suppose you took videos of those little performances, too? No, probably not.
You're such a loser, Hunter, because that's all you'll have left of the freak."

"Kevyn is not a freak!" Sophie went perfectly still when she felt the house vibrate, and a
rumbling in the foundations.

"He's not even Human."

Sophie remembered what Kevyn had said about her, the chance to become a Changeling
and have magic in her life. The hints Hypnomates had given about her intertwined ancestry.

"Neither am I," Sophie said with a grin, quietly, as she summoned all her dreams,
everything Great-aunt Serena had told her, and everything Kevyn had re-taught her about magic.
She reached in her mind for the magic she had woven around the house and yanked, hard,
mentally pulling the proverbial rug out from under the intruders, wrapping them up in it, and
then shaking the trash out where it would no longer do her any harm.

The lights dimmed and dust filtered down through the ceiling as the very fabric of
reality shifted sideways, making interesting little holes where alternate dimensions tried to peek
through. Jennifer ignored it. The two bruisers looked around, mouths dropping open as they
visibly stretched their steroid-numbed intellects to understand. Dr. Putney went down on his
knees and covered his head. Sophie wriggled, trying to get free of those bruising hands. Maybe
Dr. Putney was the most sensible one of them all. Something had started, and she wasn't sure
how she did it or how to stop it.

"You're wasting your time, if you're depending on that magic you saw me work, to hold
Kevyn prisoner," she said, hoping if she distracted herself, maybe things would settle down.

"Yeah, right, and the hunk stuck around just because he likes you?" Jennifer sneered and
gestured for Godzilla One to open the basement door.

"No," Kevyn growled, coming through the basement door without opening it. Little
black and blue and gold flames flickered in a corona around him. "I stayed here because
I
love
her
."

Something inside Sophie shrieked for joy. The shriek shoved aside a hitherto unknown
blank wall in her head and soul. A sleeping part of her leaped out from behind the wall and
shook itself like a dog coming out of the water.

Magic spattered all around the house, enfolding Sophie and Kevyn in blue and silver
globes while poisonous green and yellow magic wrapped around the four intruders and flung
them hard against the walls behind them. Sophie stared, all sound muffled by the magic
enfolding her, but she felt the loud, hard splats that left marks on her walls and knocked pictures
off and in Dr. Putney's case, actually cracked the drywall underneath the paint.

Smoke wreathed through the room and all was silence as Kevyn and Sophie bobbed in
their protective bubbles.

Thanks
, she said to the now-silent creature she had released.

Any time,
the new ally purred, and sounded sleepy and satisfied like a satiated
wolf.

Uh, no, not really.
Sophie laughed, and even that sound was muffled inside her
bubble.

Across the way, Kevyn just grinned and shook his head, and she knew as if she could
read his mind that he was astounded and amused and even more important,
proud
of
her.

But it's fun,
the creature-friend grumbled.

We'll find other things for you to do. Even more fun.

Promise?

Promise. Now, could you turn things off so we can get out of here?

Before she quite finished the thought, the bubbles popped. She and Kevyn dropped
about two feet to the ground. Kevyn crowed laughter and swept her up, spinning her around her
devastated living room in a victory dance that ended with a long, deep, hot kiss.

* * * *

Gubur came over in person to go to the university and invade Jennifer and Dr. Putney's
offices and computer files. It was a snap of the fingers to disintegrate all the printouts, disks and
tapes Jennifer had made of everything she stole from Sophie's computer, and another snap to
erase all the computer files. The hard part was finding everything, and erasing only what had to
do with Sophie's work.

"The thing is, it'd be easy to erase everything in their computers and destroy everything
in their offices. Just wipe them clean," Kevyn explained. "But when they register a complaint
against you--and they will, I've run into creeps like this before--when they register their
complaint, the total wiping of everything would back up their claim. If you touch nothing but
what's yours, no matter how well they hid it, that might just scare them enough to shut up."

"And if they don't have the sense to shut up, it's my word against theirs." Sophie nodded,
and the creature inside purred in delight at the mental image of Jennifer frustrated and infuriated
because she couldn't punish Sophie.

Then she sighed and Kevyn turned her away from the computer where Guber did a last,
fine-tooth-comb search for anything they had missed.

"What's wrong, sweetheart?"

"My place is a mess and it just irks me that Jennifer and her goons and wimpy Dr.
Putney are still there. It's like my place has been violated."

"Yeah, it has." He grinned. "And you did a pretty good job of finishing the job."

"Don't remind me." Sophie groaned, but she mirrored his grin, thinking about the magic
she had performed. That little explosion had proven once and for all that he was right about her
magic potential. "Think magic will fix everything, put it back like new, once the trash wakes up
and leaves?"

"Definitely. But why do you want to go back there? Why waste your energy fixing it up
again?"

"Because it's my place, just like... Well, my academic career is a shambles now too,
isn't it?" Somehow, knowing months of research and effort had been wasted and she would have
to repay her research grant didn't really bother her.

"Sorry, sweetheart." He drew her close against him. They fit together perfectly, so her
head rested just right on his shoulder. "I wish I knew what to do to help with that one."

"You could help me start up a new course of study."

"Yeah?" He grinned. She felt the shift in his mouth where it pressed against the top of
her head. "Like what?"

"A long, in-depth study of life from the Changeling point of view. But you have to be
my teacher."

"Sweetheart, have I got a lot to teach you."

Kevyn twined his fingers through her hair, tilting her head back so their mouths met, hot
and melting and clinging. Fireworks spun around the room, starbursts and whistlers and
screamers and golden dragons and fizzing spinners. Gubur batted several away from the monitor
as he stood up and declared his job finished. He watched them for several seconds, blinking as
his eyes refocused. Then he grinned, summoned a globe portal and stepped through to
vanish.

Kevyn and Sophie didn't notice as their feet slowly left the floor and they floated up to
the ceiling. Then through it. Then through the next five floors of the university building. No one
noticed them because it was late and even the cleaning people were gone. But Sophie wouldn't
have cared if the
National Enquirer
saw them and snapped pictures. All she cared about
was Kevyn's mouth, hot and sweet and hard on hers and his hands stroking down her back and
caressing every curve, making her feel for the first time in her life that she wasn't a fat, clumsy
freak.

He made her feel beautiful and enticing. He made her feel like a hot fudge sundae with
chocolate ice cream and chocolate sprinkles and a jumbo-sized diet cherry cola, just waiting to
be devoured. She laughed and devoured Kevyn with kisses. Her hands learned the straight lines
and hard muscles of his body, until he groaned and laughed and gasped for breath as he finally
lifted his mouth off hers.