Hidden Charm

by Kristine Grayson

Zel stood, then glanced at the sword herself. It wasn’t glowing any more. It looked like a normal sword. (As much as that sword could look like a normal sword.)

  “If someone were to come to Sonny’s rescue,” he said, “it would be the active magical in Los Angeles. Since he was taken here, anyway. Because even if someone in the Kingdoms wanted to rescue him, they would have to know he was kidnapped.”

  Or worse, she thought, but didn’t say. Because she couldn’t voice the worse out loud. Although she’d been fearing it all along.

  “And it would take the active magical to contact someone in the Kingdom,” Henry said.

  “But the house…?” she asked.

  His lips thinned. “It should have taken you out. If you had come home later, and discovered him gone, and actually used your magical powers to figure out—”

  “What?” she asked.

  He bit his lower lip. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that how it sounded.”

  “Actually used what?” she asked. “I was using my powers.”

  “To rescue people,” he said. “But what I’m imagining is that you cast a spell similar to the spells TankerBelle was using to figure out what happened to Sonny. If you had done that on your own—”

  “I can’t do that on my own,” she said.

  He held up a hand, the way people did when they were stopping an argument.

  “Let’s not get sidetracked,” he said, but his tone told her that this wasn’t a sidetrack, that it was something more important. Still, she let him continue. “If you had used your magic the way Tank had used hers, then the house would have exploded, and you would have…died, probably.”

  His breath caught, as if the thought of that surprised him or moved him or startled him.

  He shook his head just a little, as if shaking off a thought.

  She stood rigidly. The sword seemed to have moved closer to her, although she couldn’t be certain.

  Had Sonny left that sword deliberately? Had he refused to take it with him, because he wanted to protect her?

  “And then,” Henry said, his voice softer, “then the magical crime scene folks would have shown up, and maybe Selda, and they would have used their magic—and things would have gotten bad.”

  “Only without harm to the faeries,” she said.

  “We don’t know that,” he said. “Selda might have called them in anyway.”

  The words hung between them for a moment. Then Zel asked, “Wouldn’t they have tried to find us? I don’t see what would be different.”

  “They would have thought you were both dead,” Henry said. “And they would have been compromised. It would take time—and it will take time—to resolve whatever is going on there. But you and Sonny—who knows? They might have written you off entirely.”

  She frowned, trying to figure this out. In Henry’s scenario, she would have been dead—at least that would have been the plan—because whoever had done this wouldn’t have known about the protective measures of Sonny’s sword.

  But there was no evidence that Sonny was dead. And whoever took him, then, would have been able to keep him or neutralize him or do whatever they wanted.

  Maybe Henry was right. Maybe Sonny was the key. Why would someone take him and keep him alive? And why now?

  Zel wished she knew more about what Sonny had been working on. She wished she knew more about Sonny period. She had lived with him and claimed to be his best friend and she didn’t know most of the details of his life. Even though he knew most of the details of hers.

  He had been her best friend, but she hadn’t reciprocated, not in any meaningful way.

  “I see your point,” she said to Henry. “So we need to figure out who has Sonny and why they have him, and what we can do about it.”

  He nodded.

  “But,” she said, “here’s what I don’t get. It has taken a lot of magic to create that distraction. And that distraction itself is really destructive. What could Sonny know that would be worth some kind of distraction like that? Or what was he doing?”

  “I don’t know,” Henry said. “He had angered a lot of powerful people over the years.”

  She bit her lower lip. She understood that Sonny had angered the powerful. She even knew some of the ones he had angered. But this sort of subterfuge was something she didn’t get. Not right now.

  “It takes a lot of power to run that magical crater, right?” she asked. “Whoever did this is one powerful mage.”

  “Or several,” Henry said.

  She looked at him. “You think this is some kind of plan?”

  “I do,” he said, “and it’s bigger than we imagined. But it started with Sonny, so we should start there too.”

  She nodded, thinking about this. Henry was right. It had started with Sonny. And if Henry’s scenario was the correct one, then no one would have come to the conclusion Henry had just come to for days, maybe months. Maybe even years. They would have dealt with the destroyed house and the out-of-control magic, and maybe never realized that Sonny might still be alive somewhere.

  She picked up the sword, and it felt warm and comfortable under her fingers. The sword wanted to be held. She had the distinct impression that it wanted to go into battle, right now, while she held it.

  “We need to get to Sonny’s office,” she said. “And we can’t use magic to do it. Do you have a car?”

  Henry looked startled. “Do I have a car? No. Of course not.”

  Of course not? He lived in Los Angeles. Everyone had a car.

  “All right then,” she said, being as practical as she could. “We’re going to need an Uber. Where’s your phone?”

  “In the kitchen,” he said, as if he wasn’t certain. If he was like all the rest of the magical, he didn’t use modern conveniences much. They didn’t like being around magic.

  She would deal with that. She would deal with all of it.

  She was going after Sonny, and she was going to use everything at her disposal to do so.

  Chapter 25

  Uber had blocked off the neighborhood, probably because of the reports of gas leaks, but Lyft hadn’t yet. Or maybe Lyft in Los Angeles had a few of the magical working for it (in non-technical positions) so they knew that the gas leak story was bogus.

  Still, it took a few tries before Zel found a car that would pick them up. Henry stayed as far away from her and the phone as possible as she worked the app—which she downloaded. She seemed to understand technology.

  He didn’t.

  They remained inside as she called—contacted? Hell, he didn’t even know the right word—the Uber, then the Lyft. The car. His head hurt, thinking about the technology.

  He wanted to use magic, but the way the sky was turning dark outside the window, he didn’t think any kind of magic—even the small magic he had used to create her clothes—was a good idea.

  Zel made them go outside when the car was only a few blocks away. Henry asked her how she knew the car was close, and she turned the phone toward him so that he could see the screen. He almost crossed his fingers in a blocking position, the way that humans responded to vampires in the really old movies he used to go to.

  But he kinda felt that way about technology. It was evil. It had become a necessary evil, but not one he wanted to embrace ever.

  Zel gave him a half smile, almost as if she recognized his response (had she seen it from Sonny?) and then turned the phone toward herself, staring at the screen and then glancing down the road.

  The screen illuminated her face. She had a few cuts on her cheeks and a long cut above her eye, which she said she had treated using the material he had in his medicine cabinet. Since he didn’t remember buying any first aid supplies in the recent past, he had no idea how old the stuff she used had been.

  Her hair had grown back already, about an inch along the top, with it looking shorn along the sides. A small trail, almost like fringe, curled around the back of her skull. The overall effect was stylish and made her look like the pixies who had tried
to come to her rescue.

  Her magic was in her hair, something he had noted before, but not entirely understood. He would need to contemplate it before they went much further.

  But not as they stood here. Here, the sun was blacked out by the growing dark clouds coming from the open crater where her house had been. That familiar and icky smell of burnt sugar and sour grape soda had filtered all the way across the neighborhood and was dominating here.

  He wanted the car to get here as quickly as possible, because they needed to get away from this stench, before it seeped back inside them.

  Finally, the car turned onto their road. It was an ancient VW bug, with political stickers all over it, as well as rainbows everywhere. Some of the larger bumper stickers read 2QT2BSTR8 and I’m so gay I can’t even drive straight, which Henry didn’t think a person who made a living driving should even have on their car.

  Zel didn’t seem to notice. She pulled open the back passenger door with a gigantic poster slapped on the side that read Marriage: Rated E For Everyone, and leaned inside.

  “Do you want one of us up front?” she asked. She had already warned Henry she would ask this, as if it were out of bounds. She said she was never comfortable riding in back alone, and that some drivers actually wanted the company up front.

  “Oh, no, honey, that’s fine,” came the male voice from the front. “I’d have to move my mess if you two wanted to sit up here.”

  The voice was warm and soothing, and Henry wondered if some comfort magic was involved. But he had no idea how that could be, given the fact the driver made his living using technology.

  “Okay,” Zel said, cheerfully, as if it was completely normal to be sliding into a weird car with someone she didn’t know, while a black cloud of doom floated over them.

  Henry hesitated for just a moment before grabbing the door. Maybe he should use magic to get them to Sonny’s office. Maybe magic would be better—

  And then he realized that thought might not have come directly from him. He exhaled, hard, feeling his stomach cave in, and then braced himself with the car door as he tried to get in.

  He had never sat in a VW bug before. The roof of the car was high, but the doors were low, and he had to duck as he slid in. The interior smelled of coffee and fresh bread, and he had that hint of comfort magic again.

  He pulled the door closed, only to find himself surrounded by more bumper stickers. Directly in front of him, in pride rainbow colors, was one that read Come out, come out, wherever you are.

  He could have been distracted by the rainbows and the bumper stickers, but instead, he looked up front to see who was driving.

  The driver had turned toward them—a freckle-faced redheaded man whom Henry had never seen before.

  “Settled?” the driver asked. “Good!”

  Henry started to give him the address, but Zel put her hand on his leg ever so briefly, stopping him.

  “He already knows,” she said.

  Henry could still feel her fingers on his thigh, even though she had removed her hand. Her very touch was distracting, and he made himself think about what she had just said.

  She must have plugged that information into the app as well. Henry felt disconcerted, as if someone was performing a type of magic he didn’t understand at all.

  “Oh, my goodness,” the driver said. “We are going to get you out of this neighborhood as fast as my little car can move. So strap in, kids.”

  Zel put on her seatbelt, and Henry did the same.

  The driver made a U-turn in the middle of the street, then sped away, faster than Henry expected.

  Yet Henry didn’t feel upset. He almost did a spell to see if he could detect comfort magic, but decided against it.

  Comfort magic didn’t always come from an active spell. Sometimes the entire interior of a building or a room was coated with comfort magic, and that magic just hung around until it was needed the way that wards sometimes protected a space.

  If Henry did a spell to detect exactly what type of comfort magic he was dealing with (if any), then he might draw the attention of that black cloud—more so than he had already done.

  “Forgive me if I’m overstepping,” the driver said as he bounced his vehicle over the ruts in the road designed to slow down cars, “but I’m assuming all y’all know Alessandro?”

  Henry started shaking his head, but Zel put her hand on his leg again. This time, her hand lingered just a bit. The warmth from her fingers ran through him, as palpable as the comfort magic around him.

  “Yes, we do,” Zel said. “How do you know Sonny?”

  Henry suspected the “Sonny” was for his benefit, not the driver’s.

  “Oh, he’s quite the presence in my little community,” the driver said. “Everyone knows Sonny. Although, I have to say, he’s more of an Alessandro to me. I mean—those eyes! He’s gorgeous, and he looks, to me, like a modern day Valentino, all rough edges with so much beauty. You know?”

  Henry felt distinctly uncomfortable, but Zel was smiling. She didn’t seem distressed by the way this driver gushed about her husband at all.

  “I do know,” she said. “He’s an amazing man.”

  “He is,” the driver said. “He uses my car whenever he has to—what does he call it? Oh, yeah. Whenever he has to ‘travel the mortal way.’ I’ve asked him to explain, but he just laughs. Do either of y’all know what he means?”

  “Um.” There was amusement in Zel’s voice. “That’s just what he calls traveling by car.”

  “Because it’s so dangerous, right? I mean, he’s always grabbing onto the seat and complaining about the speed,” the driver said.

  Henry understood why. This guy was going much faster than Henry wanted him to, especially on the side streets, where the posted speed limits were about thirty miles an hour slower than the driver was going.

  Not that there were other cars on the streets at the moment. They were as quiet as Henry had ever seen them.

  “I take it he blessed your car?” Henry asked, using the word blessed on purpose.

  “Oh, heck, no,” the driver said. “He had a friend whom he said was some kind of wizard, magician, wiccan, something, you know, cast a spell over this thing. Whatever makes you feel safe, is what I think.”

  That explained the comfort magic then. Henry relaxed a bit in the seat.

  Zel was sitting on the edge of her seat, straining at her seatbelt, just a little.

  “So,” she said, “the address I put into the app made you respond to us?”

  “Yes, indeed-y, ma’am,” the driver said. “We’re not supposed to come to this neighborhood right now, because of that smoke or whatever is going on…or rather, that’s not really accurate. We’re to come at our own peril, not that we get much support from the company in the first place. I mean, we sign waivers and everything, but still. They do try to keep us out of dangerous neighborhoods, and right now, this is listed as one.”

  Henry gave Zel a sideways glance, hoping she would meet his eye. But she didn’t. She was still leaning forward, talking to the driver.

  “But you know, when I’m driving, I try to think about the passenger as if it’s me, you know?” The driver waved his right arm as he spoke, as if he couldn’t quite talk right without gesturing. That, combined with his speed and disregard for speed bumps, made Henry even more nervous. “I mean, if I were stranded in a suddenly bad area of town, I’d want a lift out of it, wouldn’t you?”

  Zel laughed quietly, surprising Henry. He didn’t feel like laughing, even though what the driver had said was pretty outrageous. After all, they had caught a ride because they needed a lift out of the suddenly bad area of town.

  “Oh, bollocks,” the driver said, even though he wasn’t British. He wasn’t really Southern either, if his accent was any indication, even though he spoke in “all y’alls.” “You did need a lift out of that part of town. Sometimes I just talk too much.”

  “It’s all right,” Zel said. “You thought maybe there was a cha
nce Sonny was with us, didn’t you?”

  The back of the driver’s neck pinked just a little, and his spine straightened. He clearly had a crush on Sonny, and Zel had zeroed in on it. Henry hadn’t realized it until just now.

  “Or y’all were friends of his and needed help.” The driver gripped the wheel with both hands, and then the car hit a massive bump, almost flying across the road.

  He didn’t seem bothered by that at all. He turned out of the neighborhood, taking a route that Henry had never seen anyone use before. But then, they were headed to West Hollywood, which wasn’t a place that Henry had ever asked to be driven to.

  If he’d gone there, he’d gone under his own power. His own magical power.

  “Alessandro’s people,” the driver said, “I’ve noticed they’re often scared, you know, like people who have taken too much abuse or have the wrong kind of trouble.”

  “The wrong kind of trouble?” Henry asked before Zel could say anything.

  “Like they have someone after them, someone whose hatred they didn’t ask for.” The driver’s voice lowered. “Alessandro and I have talked about this.”

  “I’m sure you have,” Zel said. “Stopping that kind of hatred is one of Sonny’s passions.”

  Her tone wasn’t just admiring; it was filled with pride. Henry glanced at her. The hair on the back of her head seemed even longer, the curls brushing the collar of the shirt he had conjured for her.

  “Is he all right?” the driver asked. “Alessandro, I mean?”

  This time, Henry touched the back of Zel’s arm, so that he could speak first.

  She acknowledged him with a small turn of the head.

  Henry said, in the most conversational tone he could muster, “Why do you ask?”

  “Because—oh, you’ll laugh at me,” the driver said.

  “No, we won’t.” This time it was Zel, speaking in that soothing tone she’d been using all along.

  “Well, I’ve been thinking about him since about nine this morning,” the driver said. “And not in that way, you know?”

  Henry suppressed a smile. Apparently the driver often thought of Sonny in that way.