Simply Irresistible (29 page)

“The reason Eris killed your aunt.”

Vivian’s breath caught. She put her hand on the calico’s back, and the cat started to purr. It didn’t bring Vivian the advertised comfort. “What?”

“Eris thought that your aunt was the Fates’ defender.”

Defender of the Fates. Vivian frowned. Where had she heard that before? Then the hair on the back of her neck rose. That had been the title of Kyle’s comic book. And the superhero in it, the man, had looked just like Dex.

That had to be more than coincidence. Obviously, Kyle had the family curse. He had powers too. She had just thought he had a lot of good hunches. But that comic book had been eerily accurate.

Dex set the notebook down. “Eris thought that if anyone wanted to take out the Fates, they had to go through Eugenia first.”

“Why would she think Eugenia was the defender of the Fates?” Vivian asked. She couldn’t think about Kyle, not now. She would worry about him later. Right now she had to focus on herself, Dex, and the Fates.

“Because of the prophecies.” Dex folded his hands over the notebook. “Has anyone told you about the prophecies?”

Vivian shook her head. “Not really. They were mentioned, but no one really explained them.”

He brushed a strand of hair from his forehead. He really was a handsome man. She wished—

“Focus, Viv,” he said with a grin. “Prophecies.”

She had been broadcasting. She flushed. His grin widened. “Prophecies,” she repeated.

“One of the duties of the Fates—of our Fates— is to give each mage a prophecy. These prophecies are always about love.”

“What does love have to do with Eris?” Vivian couldn’t think of two more disparate concepts.

“Nothing,” Dex said. “It’s what your family has to do with the Fates.”

“My family?” Vivian reached for the notebook. Dex didn’t move his hands. He wasn’t allowing her to take it. Apparently, he wanted to give her the information.

“Your Aunt Eugenia shared your prophecy and hers with you. She knew others as well, but she didn’t write them down. She says the whole family is tied into the Fates.”

“But I’m the only one with powers,” Vivian said, and then bit her lower lip. That obviously wasn’t true. Kyle had them.

Dex shrugged. “You and your aunt, and maybe someone else. She didn’t say.”

He slid the notebook to Vivian. “Hers is first.”

Vivian studied her aunt’s flowing handwriting. The prophecies were the only things on the page. Her aunt’s was:

Your defense of the Fates will lead to a great love.

And Vivian’s was:

You shall have a great love should you survive Fate’s darkest day.

“She had it wrong,” Vivian said, then she looked up at Dex. “It’s not Fate’s darkest day. It’s Fates’— as in all three Fates—darkest day.”

Dex nodded. “I think Eris had the same understanding that she did. I think everyone thought Eugenia would be the Fates’ defender. I think your aunt thought she was your defender too. If your prophecy is misread, like you say, then your future would be bright if Eugenia managed to save the Fates.”

Vivian stared at the words, shaking her head and feeling very sad.

“That’s why the Fates were so shocked she was dead,” Dex said. “And Eris thought she had a victory when she killed Eugenia.”

“How did Eris know the prophecies?”

“They’re written down,” Dex said. “Anyone can find them if they look hard enough.”

Vivian sighed. “So the prophecies are wrong sometimes?”

“Never.” Dex sounded shocked.

“But Aunt Eugenia’s was.” Vivian frowned. “She never had a great love.”

Dex reached out and took Vivian’s hand. “Interpreting prophecies is very difficult. Even the Fates get the interpretations wrong sometimes.”

“I thought they came up with the prophecies.”

“They do,” Dex said, “but the prophecies come from some force outside themselves. Some people say the force is the Powers That Be, but others don’t agree.”

“Don’t the Fates know?”

“No one knows for sure,” Dex said.

“I guess it really doesn’t matter,” Vivian said. “Aunt Eugenia’s prophecy was still wrong.”

“Read it again, Viv,” Dex said softly.

“It says, ‘Your defense of the Fates will lead to a great love.’ ” Vivian shrugged. “So?”

“It didn’t say
her great
love.” Dex’s hand tightened on hers. “Now read yours.”

Vivian did.
You shall have a great love should you survive Fate’s darkest day
.

She felt cold. “You think Aunt Eugenia’s prophecy refers to us?”

“Yes,” Dex said.

Vivian tightened her hold on his hand. A great love. It felt like a great love. And he believed the prophecy pointed to it.

She looked at him, feeling warm and loved and upset all at the same time. His gaze met hers, and it was full of compassion.

“That’s so sad,” she said. “It means her whole life was pointing toward mine.”

“I doubt she looked at it that way,” Dex said. “Maybe she spent all that time waiting for her great love.”

Until the end
. Vivian got his thought as clearly as if he had spoken.
She knew in the end
.

“Because she sent me all the materials,” Vivian said.

Dex started. He must have thought she hadn’t heard that thought. “Yes.”

“That makes sense,” she said. “But if the Fates knew they were going to face trouble, why did they come here? Why did they let their magic go?”

“There’s no figuring those women,” Dex said.

“You don’t even have an idea?”

He gave her a wry grin. “They do believe in fate.”

Vivian rolled her eyes. “I still don’t get it. Even if the Fates are determined to believe in the prophecy, why would anyone else? I mean, if the Fates are the all-powerful judges, jury, and executioners, where would Eris get enough magic to fight them?”

“I don’t know,” Dex said. “And why wouldn’t Eris have taken Eugenia out when they first met?”

Vivian shivered. Her life would have been so different if she hadn’t had her Aunt Eugenia to rely on. So different that she really didn’t want to think about it.

The hair rose on the back of Vivian’s neck. “Is there a draft in here?”

Dex shook his head, obviously not expecting the question. “From where? We’re really deep underground.”

“Maybe the heating system?”

“I can get you another sweater, Viv,” he said.

She wrapped her arms around the one she was wearing. It was too big and smelled of Dex. “This one’s fine. It just felt like a goose had walked on my grave.”

Dex’s expression turned sharp. “Are you sensing something?”

Vivian wasn’t sure. She concentrated for a moment, tried to judge the sensation she had just had. Had it come from all her reading—which was disturbing her? Or the conversation? Or the fact that she had been cold since she arrived in this hideaway?

Or was it something more?

“Did it feel like that spell Vari took out of you?” Dex asked.

Vivian shook her head. “That was a lot more powerful. This was just—a draft.”

She didn’t want to tell him that sometimes she couldn’t tell a premonition from a sneeze, particularly if the response was mild. She had been concentrating on her reading, not on her various psychic abilities.

“I thought you said a spell can’t get us down here,” she said.

“I said we’re defended against all types of magic I know about.”

“There are types you don’t know?” Vivian asked.

“By our people’s standards, Viv, I’m a baby. I’m always astonished by how much I don’t know.”

That didn’t reassure her. Of course, it wasn’t meant to. But she had been feeling safe until that moment. She thought of the other part of the prophecy.

“The Fates’ darkest day,” she said to him. “Is this the Fates’ darkest day?”

He shrugged. “I’d like to hope so, because we saved them this morning. But I doubt it. I think their darkest day is ahead.”

“So we have this …” She paused, not sure she wanted to say it before he did.

“This great love,” he said.

“And we might lose it?”

“Might,” he said. “Only might. We might get to enjoy it as well.”

Vivian bit her lower lip. “But there are no guarantees.”

“No.”

Then she frowned. “What’s your prophecy?”

He blushed and blocked his thoughts.

“Dex, please.”

He shook his head, but the block lifted. Still, Vivian couldn’t read much more than embarrassment.

“My prophecy,” he said, “is ‘Only through foolish heroics will you find a great love.’ “

“Foolish heroics,” Vivian repeated.

He nodded.

“Like rescuing animals?”

“Or people, when it’s not approved.”

“Or the Fates when they might punish you for it.”

He nodded.

“Foolish heroics.” Vivian smiled. “I like that.”

“I never have,” Dex said.

“But you’ve lived up to it.”

“I guess.”

Vivian took a deep breath. “So there’s no comfort in your prophecy either. You’ve found the love.”

“Yes,” he said.

“And mine says we might lose it.”

“That’s one interpretation,” Dex said.

“It seemed to be Aunt Eugenia’s,” Vivian said. And then Dex opened to her as all of his blocks left him. He was worried, and beneath that worry was a subtle fear. “And yours.”

He took her hand. “Vivian, you’ll be all right.”

“It’s not me I’m worried about,” she said.

“My foolish heroics only lead me to love,” he said.

The implication was that she might not survive, and he would. He must have heard the thought.

“I’ll do everything in my power to keep any harm from coming to you,” he said.

She knew that. She trusted him beyond all measure, beyond all logic. But she also knew that his resources were limited, just like hers were.

And now that they’d found each other, they both had something precious to lose.

Chapter Twenty-two

Eris waited until the sun had set. Her magic was stronger in the dark. But this street wasn’t entirely dark. Street lamps cast large pools of light on the road and the surrounding yards.

Eris pointed her right hand at the first streetlight and pinched her thumb and forefinger together. The light went out. She continued the process until all the other lights were out as well.

The change was silent. No big explosions, no cascade of sparks. The neighbors—the handful who lived on the block—probably hadn’t even noticed.

Eris smiled and walked farther up Dexter Grant’s driveway. While she had been waiting for the twilight to end, she had been sending out thin feelers, searching for magic. She made sure the feelers didn’t touch the magic; if they did, they might alert Grant.

The feelers found a deep sense of magic all around the house. Grant had used standard protect spells and had updated them just that afternoon, probably when he arrived home with Kineally. Two bits of magic still floated in the air above the house—one a large relocation spell, bringing two people into the area (it took little work on her part to realize those people were Grant and Kineally) and the second a small relocation spell, which brought three boxes into one of the bedrooms.

The boxes carried the faint odor of Eugenia Kineally.

Eris had finally found where Eugenia’s spell recipes had gone. They had gone to her niece Vivian, who in return gave them to her new sweetheart, Dexter Grant.

The recipes were a bonus. Eris could hold the Fates without them. But the recipes would show her the protection spells that surrounded the Fates, the way Eugenia Kineally had shown them how to protect themselves even though they had given up their magic.

Eugenia’s spells had to have been very powerful, given the success the Fates had had so far. Eris was certain the spells had been designed to protect magical Fates. The fact that the spells protected nonmagical Fates showed just how powerful Eugenia Kineally had been.

The night had become pitch black. The moon wouldn’t rise for another two hours, and then it would be a pitiful sliver—certainly not enough for some inept souls to pull magic from. Eris never pulled her powers from anywhere else. She stole magic from rivals—although she hadn’t been able to get Eugenia Kineally’s, dammit—and she absorbed glimmers from the marginally magical, but she never used an object outside of herself as a source for her power.

It simply wasn’t practical. Other people, other
things
, couldn’t be relied upon. One had to learn to rely upon oneself.

Eris extended a hand and cast a shimmering red light forward. The light was almost invisible to the untrained eye. She loved this spell; it detected hidden magic.

She sent the light toward that fence in the backyard, where she was certain Grant had built a second house, this one shielded and magical. The light floated around his ugly ranch, caught on the weak shielding, and shimmered for a moment.

Then it disappeared.

Eris followed it, careful to avoid the edges of the shield. The light had not gathered in the backyard, as she had expected. Instead it was seeping into the earth.

She had never seen anything like it before, and she wasn’t certain what it meant. The light didn’t sit on top of the ground and shimmer; the ground had apparently absorbed it.

A spell she didn’t recognize? A protection she wasn’t certain of? She hadn’t encountered one of those in more than four generations. She had to give Grant credit for resourcefulness. For such a young man, he had a wide repertoire.

She tried to call the light back to her, but it wouldn’t come. It felt stuck, and now she recognized the spell. If she tugged on her own magic, urging it to return to her body, it would instead pull her into the trap, holding her there until someone—probably the mage who laid the trap—set her free.

Clever, clever Grant. Her respect for him grew even more. Too bad she had to rely on her careless son Strife when a talent like Grant was in the world. Too bad she couldn’t bring him over to her side.

She put her hands on her hips and studied the aluminum windows of the horrible little ranch house. She couldn’t sense any life in there at all—not even the animals Grant was famous for rescuing.