Sorcerer: A Loveswept Contemporary Classic Romance (12 page)

His thoughts were distracted by a steadily increasing electronic hum, an indication that the egg was powering up. He gripped the stabilizer handles, mentally preparing himself for the transition to the virtual environment. Watts, amps, diodes, microprocessors—these were the things he understood. He’d replaced his foolish dreams with sound scientific knowledge. He’d built a life for himself as complete and self-contained as the interior of the egg.

And there was no room in it for a certain en-chanting cybertech, even if her kisses did turn his blood to fire.

Jill opened her eyes slowly, battling the momentary disorientation she experienced while her physical senses shifted over to the simulator’s sensory input array. Gray un-fog surrounded her, the shadowy nothingness that marked her entrance into the
virtual world. Yet even as she watched, the nothingness began to change—to solidify into recognizable forms, like a fuzzy movie image coming patiently into focus.

She saw a chair take shape beside her right leg. She watched as a glass tumbler congealed next to her left elbow, followed immediately by the appearance of the table that supported it. Other images formed in the gloom—a clutter of chairs and tables, scarred plaster walls, tile-decorated archways, and several large, slowly revolving ceiling fans. People began to form as well. They crowded the tables, dressed in old-fashioned elegance. Dim lighting etched their sharp, distrusting features as they glanced furtively around them, and spoke in low, clandestine whispers.

Jill drew a deep breath—a virtual breath, she reminded herself—and watched the vaulted room take shape around her. Even before the transformation was complete, two thoughts struck her, both equally fantastic.

The first was that this virtual environment, though sharply defined and complete in every way, was entirely in black and white. The second, no less startling, was that she’d seen this place somewhere before.

A grotto room, made over into a decadently elegant nightclub … palms in brass pots, oriental screens, concealing shadows barely disturbed by the grotesquely ornate wall lamps … an oppressive heat that hung in the air
despite the obviously late hour, and the unspoken promise of love, death, or freedom, all available for the right price.

Even her outfit looked familiar, a cloud-soft white blouse with elegant long sleeves and a deep V neckline that somehow managed to be subtle and provocative at once. Below she wore a patterned, flowing skirt that suggested the womanly curves of her body without blatantly revealing them. Her clothes, like the sophisticatedly clandestine room she stood in, hinted at its secrets without giving too much away. Dammit, she knew this place.…

“Drink,
mademoiselle
?”

She turned and found herself looking into the angular features of a Russian bartender.
Sasha
, her mind supplied. But how did she know his name? “Uh, sure. How about a diet soda?”

“Diet?”

Right, Jill. This decor predates diet drinks by a couple of decades.
“Er, just make it a Coke,” she amended hastily. “With ice.”

“Coke, I got. Ice, I don’t got,” the bartender replied with a shrug. “You must be new in town, or you’d know that ice is scarcer than diamonds in Casablanca.”

“Casa
blanca
? She whirled back to stare at the room, realizing now why it seemed so familiar. Sadie’s topology had put them smack in the middle of the famous forties movie
Casablanca
, or, more precisely, in the middle of Rick’s Café Américain. The detail was incredible, and more authentic because of
its black and white coloring. “Good grief, I’m in
Casablanca.
Marsha is never going to believe this!”

Sasha the Russian glanced at the Coke bottle in his hand, then back at Jill. “I think maybe it’s good you’re not having anything to drink.”

Jill barely heard his comment. She glanced around the room, delighted at being transported into one of the greatest films of all time. She scanned the crowd, hoping to find a glimpse of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Instead, she saw something that replaced her pleasure with fear.

The nightclub was packed with German storm troopers.

Casablanca
was one of her favorite movies, but the time period, the beginning of the Second World War, was fraught with danger. Casablanca was still a free French province in Morocco, but it was about to be overtaken by the Germans. From the looks of things, they’d already overtaken Rick’s café. The place was full of nasty-looking B-movie Nazis carrying nastier-looking German Lugers. Last time there’d been only one orc with one club, and it had still almost killed Ian—

Ian!

Once again she scanned the crowd, but she couldn’t find a trace of him. What if something had happened during the transition … She took a deep breath, refusing to panic. “Control, where is Dr. Sinclair?”

Sadie’s voice answered. “I’m not exactly sure.
The readings we’re getting are cluttered by the other people. I’m sifting through them now—”

“You are looking for Dr. Sinclair?” a nearby voice said.

Jill whipped around, and found herself staring at a short, beady-eyed man with an unctuous smile. Lord, the guy looked like he’d sell out his mother for a dollar. “I might be,” she said cautiously. “Do you know where he is?”

The man’s face broadened into an obsequious smile. “He paid me to find you. Said I should look for the pretty lady with the lost look on her face. He told me to tell you you shouldn’t worry about him, but should complete your mission, whatever that may—”

“Where is he?” Jill demanded.

The little man shrugged. “Well, until a moment ago he was standing over by the potted palms. But that was before the gestapo officers took him upstairs for questioning.”

“I suggest that you attempt to cooperate with me, English,” the Nazi said with a menacing sneer. “Otherwise things could become … unpleasant.”

Ian fought the powerful urge to plant his fist squarely into the center of that sneer.
It’s only a projection
, he repeated inwardly. But, virtual image or not, the smug bully was damn hard to take. “I am trying to cooperate,” he stated through gritted teeth. “I’ve been trying to cooperate for ten minutes, ever since you brought me into this godforsaken closet.”

Once again Ian glanced around the small room. The brass light on the table he sat at was so dim that he could see the faint lamplight filtering in between the shutter slats of the tightly secured window. It was dark, depressing, stiflingly hot, and it reminded him of a prison cell. He suspected that the similarity was intentional. “Just tell me what you want to know and let me out of here. I can’t afford to waste time.”

The Nazi’s weasel eyes narrowed suspiciously. “And what is your hurry? Are you planning to meet someone? To purchase, perhaps, some letters?”

“
Letters?
What would I want with a bunch of bloody correspondence?”

The SS officer leaned closer, fixing him with his monocled stare. “Do not joke with me. Everyone in Casablanca wants those letters.”

“Well,
I
don’t,” Ian stated as he plowed his hands through his hair, his frustration growing. This simulation was fast becoming a nightmare. He couldn’t afford to waste precious minutes fending off the veiled threats of a virtual Nazi. Yet for the moment at least, he had no choice. Despite the officer’s unpleasantness, there was a chance he might know something about Einstein. And even if he didn’t, there was still the matter of the automatic pistol lying so innocently on the table between them, just within reach of the German’s blunt-fingered hands.

Ian knew that Sadie could transport him out in a hurry, but not quickly enough to dodge a bullet. He would have to wait until the officer grew tired of his questioning, or determined that Ian was telling the truth. But from the threatening expression on the officer’s face, Ian doubted that either of those things would take place soon.

He pulled at the collar of his elegant evening clothes, untying the constricting white bow tie and loosening the top buttons on his silk shirt. His frustration was becoming almost as oppressive as the heat. He glanced at his gold-banded wristwatch,
watching the precious minutes tick by.
The only good thing about this mess is that Jillian is well out of it. At least she’s safe—

A knock sounded on the room’s door.

The officer gripped his gun and signaled to the soldier by the door. The sentinel nodded in acknowledgment, then opened the door just a crack to see who it was. He cursed solidly as the door was unexpectedly thrust forward into his face.

“Out of my way, you big baboon!”

No, it couldn’t be
 …

But it was. Jill marched into the room as if she had a column of allied soldiers behind her. She ignored the assortment of guns and Nazis and walked straight up to Ian. “You wouldn’t believe the number of rooms this place has, or what’s going on in most of them. Sadie has a very vivid imagination.”

At the moment Ian didn’t give a farthing for Sadie’s imagination. He rose from his chair, torn between admiration of her courage and fear for the danger that courage had placed her in. He grasped her elbow, placing himself between her and the officer’s gun. “I told you not to follow me.”

“I know. But you also told me that we were supposed to stick together. That’s one of the main rules of the simulator, isn’t it?”

“Not when there are Nazis involved!” He pulled her close and lowered his voice to a stern whisper only she could hear. “Dammit, Jillie, couldn’t you obey a simple order? These men are crazy. They keep going on about these letters—”

“The letters of transit?” she asked.

The Nazi officer fixed Jill with the same malevolent stare he’d so recently bestowed on Ian. “You know of these letters,
Fraulein
?”

“Sure. Bogie’s got them. Rick, I mean.” She glanced back at Ian, apparently reading the concern in his eyes. “Don’t worry. I’ve seen this movie about a million times. I know who’s got the letters.”

The officer spoke a quick string of German to his subordinates. Then he turned back to Ian. “My men tell me that Herr Rick has gone to the airport. We will follow him, and check out the woman’s story. If she is telling the truth, I apologize for any inconvenience. But, if she is lying …” He let his words trail into ominous silence as he and his men headed for the door. “Incidentally, my men have been instructed to keep you both under surveillance—for your safety, of course. So many unpleasant things can happen to one in a rough town like Casablanca.”

“And I’ll bet he’s responsible for nine tenths of them,” Jill muttered as the storm troopers left the room. “Casablanca’s a lot more dangerous than it looks on the screen. Still, it’s exciting, don’t you think?”

“Exciting?” Ian gaped down at her, fighting a distinct urge to strangle the woman beside him. “You recklessly disobey my direct orders and jeopardize this mission, and you call it exciting?”

Jill’s smile crumbled into ruin. “I was worried about you.”

“Well, that isn’t your job, Ms. Polanski,” he said
curtly. He dropped her arm and headed over to the room’s mirror, and began to relace his bow tie. “You’ve wasted valuable minutes that you could have spent looking for Einstein.”

“Yes, and you spent those
valuable minutes
almost getting shot,” she cried. “You should be thanking me, not arguing with me. Why are you so angry?”

Why indeed
, he asked his reflection. He’d been furious ever since Jillie had entered the room and stepped into range of the storm troopers’ guns. But he knew in his heart that he was far angrier with himself than with her. He was in charge of the mission. He should have protected her. Instead, he’d exposed her to a danger that could have easily taken her life.

If anything happens to her, I’ll take this bloody machine apart bit by bit.

The violence of the emotion stunned him. He’d known he was powerfully attracted to her physically, but this … this strange, fierce protectiveness that hit him with an almost physical force was something he’d never experienced, not even for Samantha. To feel this way about a woman he barely knew—it made no sense.

Confused, he studied Jill’s reflection in the mirror, watching her without her knowledge. She stood with her arms clasped protectively around her, her usually defiant shoulders bent in defeat. Cast in tones of sepia and shadows, she looked lovely as a china doll, and just as breakable. Guiltily, he realized that he didn’t need Nazi bullets to harm her—he’d
done that job himself.
So much for protecting her.
“Ms. Polanski, I—harrumph—I think—”

“I
know
what you think,” she stated as she walked stiffly to the door. “And I won’t jeopardize the mission any further. From this moment on I’m looking for Einstein—period. And if the Nazis decide to question you again, Doctor … well, I’d be more than happy to stand aside and let them shoot you.”

God definitely has a sense of humor
, Jill thought as she threaded her way through the glittering, gaudy customers who packed the tile floor of Rick’s Café Américain.
Here I am, in one of the most romantic movie settings of all time, with a man who has the emotional sensibility of a crustacean! Someday I’ll probably look back on this and laugh.

But she didn’t feel like laughing then. Instead, she swallowed a bitter lump rising in her throat and blinked back stinging tears.
It’s all this stupid virtual cigarette smoke
, she told herself.
It has nothing at all to do with him. I don’t care what he thinks of me. I’d be a fool to care.
…

“Ms. Polanski, slow down.”

Jill halted. It was the lesser of two evils. If she continued walking, he might think—incorrectly—that she was running away. “Make it quick, Doctor. I’m trying to look for Einstein.”

“Well, I doubt you’ll find him barreling through this crowd like a water buffalo.”

“Charming comparison,” she said icily.

“I didn’t mean … oh, bloody hell!”

He plowed his hand through his hair, mussing the dark curls into rough-and-tumble disarray. Jill’s heart fell to her shoes. Ian was dressed in the same impeccably tailored white suit coat and bow tie that had made Bogart’s battle-weary, cynical antihero the heartthrob of millions of women. But the sophisticated Bogart had never been one tenth as attractive to her as Ian was with his messy hair and his slightly askew tie.
Dammit, why can’t I stay angry at this man—