by Livia Quinn
His tall broad-shouldered physique could have stopped a train.
* * *
Tempe
I was back in a good frame of mind by the time I drove up to the little green and white rambler with its meticulously manicured pansy beds, plush green grass, and brilliant white picket fence. One of my little talents is reading auras, and the glow around this house said, “I’m contented. My world is perfect.” Newlyweds with a penchant for gardening?
I was half right—I was contented when Mr. Newlywed answered the door. His tall broad-shouldered physique could have stopped a train. That is, if the engineer was a woman and she’d been transfixed like me.
He was all lean sculpted muscles and tanned skin above and below the white cutoff sweats. His ripped calves and abs spoke of hours of conditioning. The tendon in his thigh twitched and my eyes jumped to his face—to a broad smile, framed by a thick layer of fragrant white shaving cream.
“Mornin’.” His deep voice reverberated, and I expected the vibrations to send the cream on his face sloughing off like an avalanche.
I regrouped, reading the name off the package, “...um, Jordan Lang?”
His light silver eyes crinkled and the moist heated scent of his skin stormed through my blood like whitewater rushing through a narrow canyon. A glistening droplet escaped the snowy cream on his cheeks and glided gracefully down the tanned column of his throat. Zigging and zagging like an X-games snowboarder on the bronze diamond slope, it plunged off his chest gleefully, moguled over finely chiseled abs, and disappeared into the snowy white material at his waist.
Those little water elementals…they have all the fun.
“... sign something?”
Another dollop of white fluff landed on the package I was holding and brought me screeching back to the present.
“The package…” His lips quirked and the crinkled lines around his eyes deepened. He rubbed a white towel over his wet hair, and my eyes went to his biceps which bunched and enticed with each rub. My favorite part of a man’s body. “Do I need to sign for it?” he asked once again.
Zeus’ bolts! I’d felt a mysterious pull when I looked into his eyes, like nothing I’d felt before, and I’d probably been staring at him like some star struck fan-girl. My face heated, but since I couldn’t do like my brother—make a wish and disappear—I relied on routine, handing him the E-pad. “Print your name on the top line, please, and sign underneath.”
“Who is it?” a female voice called from the interior of the house. The Missus? A flush of embarrassment hit. I grit my teeth to keep from rolling my eyes. I’d been about to flirt with a man who was taken. Get me out of here.
“Just the mail, Sweetheart. I’ve got it.”
He angled in by me, accepted the stylus, and signed in bold, totally unreadable strokes. Must be a doctor—a surgeon with those hands. I could see them performing surgery, stroking a woman’s cheek, moving across my skin, easing upward… I reached for the stylus and zap, chain lightning crackled along my heated nerve endings.
He’d felt it, too; his eyes elongated and flashed silver, focusing on me like lasers. Reality receded and the present went from brilliant and alive to gray, muted. Spinning dizzily, I felt as if my body left the porch and spun off into the clouds…straight up, the dome of the sky sitting around me like a bubble.
* * *
I look back at the clouds and the circling earth. Ahead I see the white line of the horizon; higher I go until everything in front of me is the deep blue of the stratosphere. Beautiful. The weight on my chest is… unbearable. My eyes widen as I flip over into a swan dive, plummeting back to earth, the spinning horizon on my left as mountains come into view. Mountains… in Louisiana... huh!
I endure another dizzying rotation through a massive thunderhead. I hear... I hear—Metallica? rocking in the background and see rooster tails of dark water flying beneath me. I blast skyward like a geyser straight up into an azure sky.
Oohhh… Vapor flares behind me, curling away into the sun. I tilt my head awkwardly. The sky… is upside down. Squinting, I remember, “Don’t look at the Sun.” Suddenly, The heaviness on my chest is lifted and I stagger, dropping through a cottony carpet of clouds, descending toward black waves, blue flames, and silver green eyes…
* * *
“Hey.” A hand encircled my wrist.
The green trim of the small porch materialized in front of me. I gripped the rail avoiding his eyes. What was that?
“Are you okay?” Hunky Doctor asked.
I beat the scanner with my palm to cover my discombobulation. “Uh, sure,” I said, clearing my throat. “My… scanner quit,” I said, keeping my eyes down on the instrument as I restarted it. I tapped my foot staring at the screen…waiting, waiting…feeling his steamy heat next to me. Finally, it came back online. I scanned the barcode and pushed the package into his hands.
“Have a good day,” I called as I dashed down the steps to my truck.
What was with the hallucination? Another one of those symptoms Aurora kept warning me about? I gave myself a mental shake. No time to think about it right now. I had to get to the route, make up some time.
As I backed out of the driveway, I looked over my shoulder. Dr. Jordan made one arresting figure, but the female he had his arm around didn’t look much older than seventeen. I sighed. What a waste.
I floored the accelerator, my tires squealing sharply as they hit the curb and found purchase on the asphalt.
There are a lot of things I love about my job—the rhythms of it, driving the streets, interacting with my customers. Well, most of them. My customers are like family, and you know how that is—sometimes you wanna kill ‘em. If things didn’t turn around soon, today might be one of those days.
Jack
“Where did she come from?”
Something about my new mail carrier appealed to me, despite the feistiness I sensed below the surface. She was damned sexy, and normal. She had a government job. Hell, part of what I found sexy about her was her normal-ness. Normal was great.
It made my decision to put up a mailbox rather than continue to get our mail at work a win-win. Jordie had been responsible for that. She didn’t want everyone at the office knowing she was on acne meds, or speculating about her Victoria Secret packages. I was on board with that. So I bought the new mailbox and requested mail delivery, thinking we’d get one of those scruffy old mailmen like the one we had in Memphis.
I groaned as a few sprinkles hit the porch in front of me. Better get my act together and get dressed. Jordie’s appointment was in twenty minutes.
As lightning flashed toward town, I pictured the mail lady with the bizarre rainbow hair, the only indication of a possible adjustment in my opinion. What was up with that? We didn’t need another weirdo in our life for sure. I’d sworn off women after my first experience with Jordie’s mother. It would have been nice to have a date, or a woman, now and then, but it was safer to be cautious.
Even as the image of T. Pomeroy flashed across my mind again, I affirmed that it was better this way. Right now my job and Jordie were my top priorities.
I’d probably never see her again anyway.
Chapter 3
I sounded like a bad vamp movie.
* * *
Tempe
The mailbox at 5 Casino Drive was decorated in cheery green foil with a new red flag standing straight up. Odd, since this customer never put mail in their box. As soon as I slid to a stop the lid flew open.
“Happy St. Paddy’s Day!”
An eight inch Leprechaun unfolded himself out of the mailbox and leaned against the opening, one ankle crossed over the other.
I aimed a look heavenward as I held my hand out. He slapped a green painted coin into it with a flourish. It read Good for a Guinness at Bons Amis.
He winked, “Dunnae’ tell Liam.” Liam is the half Churichaun-half vamp bartender at a popular local bar.
Marty’s an Imp, not a Leprechaun, but he can shift into a variety o
f forms depending on his agenda. And he always has an agenda. Usually it’s to create havoc whenever, wherever and however…thus the term “imp.” Marty’s costume consisted only of a red wig, shiny black shoes and a quivering four-leaf clover positioned squarely over his frisky Imp-hood.
“I don’t get it,” I said. “I thought imps and four leaf clovers couldn’t—”
“It’s just polyester,” Marty grinned, stroking the clover and waggling his eyebrows, gauging my reaction. The show was about to begin.
“‘Ahh, Colleen, where is your green?’ ”
He placed his hand over his heart and gushed Thomas Daly’s poem in his best stage voice,
“‘The whole blue vault of heaven is wan grand triumphal arch…
...Fur the whole world is Irish, on the Seventeenth o’ March!’”
“Yeah, well, you’ve just exposed yourself as an IMPoster and certainly not Irish. Today is February seventeenth. You’re a month early.” I laughed.
“Wh⎯” The delight on his face vanished.
Uh-oh, he was miffed. Marty was a might unpredictable. Better smooth things over. “But, Marty, m’ lad. You cut a fine Leprechau’ish figure, if I do say so m’self.”
He sketched a solemn bow.
“Now, tell me what you’re doing here—” A prickle of disquiet sizzled down my neck. Marty was often found in River’s company. Did his appearance have something to do with River? I shouldn’t have ignored the feeling I’d had this morning that something was wrong. Sure, River had told me to back off, but he usually let me know when he had something planned.
“River.” The name slipped from my lips, and Marty flinched, nearly dropping his cover to expose more than I wanted to see. True to his Imp nature, he ignored me, looking around and straightening the edges of the poly clover.
Sniffing, he said, “I just stopped by to wish you a Happy St. Paddy’s Day, Tempest. But as ye pointed out me lack of proper timing, I’ll be leavin’.”
“Wait⎯” but the sulky little Imp had poofed.
“Damn. If only Marty were a cooperative sidekick—one that played by Paramortal rules. But then, maybe he did, and I didn’t know the secret. If I saw him again, I’d have to figure out a way to make him cooperate.
“…Nothing but a bunch of high paid idiots.”
Mr. Jackson’s hands shook as he beat the envelope against the hood of my mail truck. The eighty-year old grouch stood around five-three, his body withered from arthritis and bad habits, cigarette stench wafting around him. He’d dyed his comb-over hair black, what there was of it, and his beady eyes looked just about that color. It was pretty creepy.
I sighed and watched him stomp—well, in his case—gimp with attitude in my direction. He attempted to plant his feet firmly in the thick grass, but rocked back and forth on his heels. He lifted his cane, and aimed it at me. It did make more impact than his wrinkly index finger.
Glaring he said, “It’s not like it was when I worked for the Postal Service, the real one. We cared about our job. Now they put it all in order for you and all you do is ride around in an air-conditioned truck and poke it in the box.”
I resent that. The last time I had air-conditioning was just before the Chevy turned over her second hundred thousand.
“Yet, here I am again getting mail that’s not even addressed to me! Like this.” He gripped an envelope in his gnarled fingers, shaking it in my face. While I waited for his rant to end, I looked up at the fast moving clouds. Then the sharp corner of an envelope hit my cheek. The old fart had thrown his mail at me.
I scrubbed my face with my hands trying to keep a lid on my temper. I overlook a lot of what Mr. Jackson does out of respect for his age and because he was a carrier for over forty years. “Mr. Jackson, I realize you’re frustrated, but you need to calm down.”
“Then stop giving me mail that isn’t mine!” he screamed. If his purple complexion and the rigid veins in his neck were any indication, he was about to blow a gasket. He started trembling violently as if he were about to have a seizure, and drifted forward over his cane.
Uh-oh.
I slammed the lever into park, kicking packages and mail out of my way, and shoved the door open with my foot. I didn’t remember grabbing my cell from over the visor, but as I knelt next to Mr. Jackson, I heard, “911” in my headset and realized I’d pushed the emergency button.
I leaned over to check his airway and listened to his chest. He wasn’t breathing.
I tilted the old man’s head back and began fast, brief compressions, the way my friend Montana, an EMT, had instructed me.
“911. What is your emergency?” the voice requested in a monotone.
“One, two, three, four…Phineas T. Jackson, 26 Stony Drive. One, two, three, four… Blackwell subdivision...doing CPR.”
“I’m sending a unit. Stay on the line.”
I sped up the compressions on his frail chest praying I wouldn’t break anything.
The dispatcher said in her calm, almost bored voice, “ETA is eight minutes. Can you give me any information for the EMTs?”
Eight...friggin’… minutes. “Mid-eighties...he had some kind of seizure and he’s not breathing.” Seconds ticked off as I continued to pump his chest. I stopped, put my fingers to his mouth. Nothing.
“Oomph,” I sat back. He wasn’t going to make it. Unless… Maybe there was something I could do, but then I’d never actually attempted it. Usually it just happened when things got out of control. Well, not things—me.
Part of the problem was I’d be in clear sight of anyone looking this way from their front yard or driving down the street, but if I didn’t try something before the EMTs arrived, he was going to die. I looked around. It had to be now. I wondered if my little zapper would have enough zip.
Mr. Jackson’s tirade had miraculously not drawn any attention. The street was deserted. A squirrel bounded onto the road nearby, swished his tail madly and took off toward a large oak. At least he couldn’t tell.
Extending my hand out in front of me, palm up, I concentrated, willing the power inside me to obey. Again, nothing. I squeezed my eyes shut tight, grit my teeth, and whispered hopefully, “Come to me.”
Blast! I sounded like a bad vamp movie. Separating my index finger, the one with the tiny tattoo-like image on the tip, away from my other fingers, I turned it up toward the darkening sky.
The cells in my body began to vibrate. Like an energy solar panel, menori tapped the unstable air and focused it like a laser through the tattoo, accumulating until my head felt like it would explode.
The rumble beneath my feet was the only notice I had of the electric strike that rode straight up my legs, curling in my midsection and crawling swiftly along my right arm to produce my own version… of a 4th of July sparkler, emanating out of that fingertip. Then the sparks changed. Brilliant bolts of crackling white light spit and sizzled in my palm, sending jagged streamers of hot blue fire ten feet into the air. I just gawked.
A car entering a nearby street freed me from the mesmerizing light display. This was different from any of the charging I’d previously experienced. Bigger. Usually it just sort of replenished on its own. Panicked, I looked over my shoulder, and exhaled. So far so good.
Now what? I needed to command the fire in my hand to... what? Before I could say, “Be gone,” or “Go thither,” the light subsided to a small crackly glow. That was it then.
Instinct took over. I knelt beside Mr. Jackson, placing my glowing index finger against his chest. With a single szzwaattt, I zapped him, right in the heart. His chest arched up only the barest of seconds as it met my magical defibrillator, then his body relaxed.
Momentarily deafened and somewhat addled as my faculties came back online, I groped for the pulse in his neck. For a second I thought I’d failed. But then, his tired, smoke glutted organ started beating.
Thank the gods.
Only the slight whiff of burnt flesh remained on the wind. Drained of energy, I swiped the back of my hand across m
y forehead. That’s when I noticed the mark.
“Zeus’ rechargeable bolts! That better be temporary.”
Centered on the spot where I’d zapped him, a pale image was forming. It looked like a pale, mini version of… well… me.
Chapter 4
Don’t let the mere-mortals see you use your magic.
* * *
Tempe
I held Mr. Jackson’s wrist while we waited for the ambulance and spoke softly to him, telling him he was going to be okay, until a shadow moved over us, and a hand dropped onto my shoulder. I looked up. Silhouetted against the glare of the intermittent clouds was the broad form of a man, in a cowboy hat.
“Sheriff—I’ll take over.”
I rose and stepped aside, wondering what he’d seen. In the immediacy of the moment I’d almost blown Paramortal rule number one, Don’t let the mere-mortals see you use your magic.
His capable looking hands replaced mine on the old man’s wrist. He leaned over him and checked his responses. “He’s breathing. Go move your truck so the EMTs can pull in.”
“Right.”
I parked my truck in the driveway adjacent to Mr. Jackson’s and ran back to the scene on the right of way. Perspiration was causing the sheriff’s white shirt to adhere to his impressively broad shoulders. I heard the ambulance approaching. The driver cut the siren as they turned onto the gravel road, pulling up even with the driveway.
Montana, and her partner, Rafe, one of a few enlightened humans, started unloading equipment next to Mr. Jackson. “We’ve got it, Sheriff. Tempe,” Rafe said.
I caught Montana’s eye, tapped my chest with my index finger and pointed discreetly at the prone figure. “He started breathing just before the sheriff arrived.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Good thing you were here, Tempe.”
The sheriff stood and I saw now that what I’d mistaken for a cowboy hat was actually one of those flannel trooper style hats. He addressed me, pulling a small notebook from his jacket pocket. “Your name, ma’am?”