This Magic Moment

by Susan Squires

  “Hmmm.” She placed a finger to her lips and studied him. He had the urge to cover his genitals with his hands, but he knew from hard experience she didn’t like that. “I suppose you must have something to do in here. I’ll see what Hardwick can dig up.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Get some rest.” Her countenance darkened. “I must find Duncan.”

  And she was gone.

  There was a clicking sound at the door. He hardly needed to try turning the knob to know that he was locked in here.

  At least at the monastery he was allowed to leave the hut to work and to relieve himself at the outdoor privy. His hut had had two windows as well. In winter he had cursed that fact. Now windows seemed a luxury.

  He tried to breathe, to control the racing of his heart.

  He had a purpose. His purpose was important to her. She wanted him safe so he could complete it. He was so tired, he couldn’t think. That was the problem. His mentor was right. He needed sleep. He thought about pulling back the blanket, but the sheets were so white he was afraid he would dirty them or bleed on them. So he just lay down on top of the blanket. The bed was so soft he thought he might sink into it, very different than his pallet in the hut.

  Tired as he was, still sleep wouldn’t claim him. He began to concoct wild stories in his mind about what his mentor might want him to do. What had he been trained for? He could scrub floors and haul water and push a mill wheel to grind grain. He knew something about livestock. He had a fair grasp of Greek and Roman philosophers and those of the Enlightenment. He’d read Aeschelus and he loved Shakespeare. He’d read the Bible, the Vedas, the Tipitaka. But none of that seemed useful to Morgan.

  He tried to get more comfortable on the bed. It was just too soft. He crawled onto the floor, covered by a scratchy carpet. He lay down on his chest and pillowed his head on his arm. That was better.

  But his situation was not. Could his mentor really make the world better? Or would she succumb to the lure of power and descend into cruelty? He felt guilty for his doubt. His heartbeat started to thunder in his chest.

  He had to believe in her. She was the fulcrum of his life. She knew everything he did not. And she had always seen to his welfare. Where was the control Brother Theodosius had taught him? He had to think of something nice.

  What popped into his head was the image of the red-haired girl, her beautiful face, her creamy skin, her shocked expression as she’d stared at him. Did she feel the electric energy in the air as he did? And why exactly were she and her family the enemies of Morgan? Did they want to rule the world too? Were they evil?

  He realized he was slipping away from himself. To sleep, perchance to dream? Ah, there’s the rub. Would he dream of Morgan, or of the red-haired girl? Shakespeare understood everything. Unlike Thomas. He didn’t understand…anything….

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‡

  Tammy couldn’t avoid her family forever. She trudged up from feeding the horses, the goats, and the pig she called The Emperor down in the stables. Lance snuffled at her heels as the afternoon sun plunged toward the Pacific behind her. All the denizens of the barn except her older horse, Caliburn, were rescues of one kind or another. Piglets were very cute, but they did have a nasty tendency to grow into four-hundred-pound pigs. And goats ate anything they could get their teeth on if they were hungry, including wooden fencing. Stupid people shouldn’t be allowed animals. Her mare, Guinevere, had been horribly mistreated. Tammy asked her oldest brother, Kemble, to find out who had done that and ruin his life. Kemble was a great hacker even before he got his power.

  He didn’t. He only told her the guy who’d mistreated Guinevere was prosecuted for cruelty to animals and that would have to be enough. He said hatred would poison her soul. Tammy found that hard. Harder since her father had been injured by Morgan. No matter what Kemble said, she hated Morgan and her Clan for what they’d done to the family.

  Which was just the problem, wasn’t it?

  Her Destiny was a Clan member. Could you love someone and hate them at the same time? Probably. But it was not good for your future mental health.

  The sound of laughter echoed from the kitchen as she reached the terrace.

  Well, loving and hating her Chosen wouldn’t drive her crazy because she’d just refuse to give in to her Destiny. She’d live without this guy, though she knew the cost. Michael nearly drank himself to death just to kill the pain after his first Destined wife died.

  She made her way around to the front of the big old hacienda. She wanted time to get up her courage before she confronted all that laughter. Dr. Tanet was just coming out. She’d taken care of Daddy after he got out of the coma, but she’d become a friend of the family too. She was beautiful, elegant and a really smart woman who did a lot of good. In fact, she was everything Tammy admired, but no longer believed she herself could be.

  “Hey, Dr. Tanet.” Lance nosed the doc’s hand and waved his feathery black tail.

  “Whoa, what’s wrong?”

  Darn. Guess you got to be perceptive when you were a doctor. “Uh, nothing much.”

  “Look, your brother’s going to be okay. In fact he’s made a remarkable recovery already.” She gave a tiny frown. “I don’t think I’ve seen anything like it.” Dr. Tanet didn’t know about the family’s powers. Magic didn’t mesh with modern science for people like Dr. Tanet.

  “Thank you for helping him,” Tammy said.

  “What about you?”

  Tammy shrugged. “Well, the attacks…being cooped up here at The Breakers…” That was reason enough to be depressed. Dr. Tanet would never understand that what put Tammy over the edge was being instantly and irresistibly attracted to one of her family’s persecutors.

  “I know.” Dr. Tanet put her hand on Tammy’s forearm and gave it a squeeze. “I hope the police catch those dreadful people and put them in jail.”

  “Yeah.” But the system of justice was no match for the Clan.

  “You hang in there,” Dr. Tanet said, as one of the security guys brought her car around.

  “I will,” Tammy said, with what she hoped was more conviction in her voice than in her heart. “Come on, Lance,” she murmured and the dog followed her solemnly into the house.

  She paused in the doorway to the kitchen. They didn’t notice her, thank goodness. Very pregnant Jane, Kemble’s wife, directed the activity in the kitchen. They were making dinner. Her sister Kee and her adopted brother Devin, now married, were the “directees.” Dev put dishes in the dishwasher and Kee was chopping something or other. Her oldest sister, Drew, squeezed orange juice at the breakfast bar with all her usual insouciant sophistication while her husband, Michael, popped the cork on a bottle of champagne. Tammy’s middle brother, Tris, sat at the bar with his spitfire little wife, Maggie. Maggie held the baby, Elizabeth, who seemed to be asleep. Not so Jesse, their five-year-old, who sat in the hallway to the back offices with a tumble of Lego buildings that had apparently just been destroyed by a tyrannosaurus rex, or possibly a robot. Kemble sat with The Parents at the breakfast table. Her mother looked quietly excited. It must be great to feel she was getting her powers back.

  And the newest additions to the ranks of couples, Lan and Greta, sat next to her mother. Lan had on one of Daddy’s Chinese silk dressing gowns over a bandaged shoulder, but he seemed pretty alert. Better than the nearly dead Lan they’d brought in last night. Thank God Michael’s emergency medical training had kept Lan alive until they could get him home to Dr. Tanet and Mom. Greta looked tired but happy. Strange to think that an actress who’d starred in a billion-dollar young-adult franchise was the newest member of the Tremaine family. Once Tammy had idolized Gretchen Falk. Now she was just…Greta. Her blond hair stood out among the dark-haired Tremaines. Well, all except for Dev. He was the quintessential blond surfer-boy. Tammy stood out too, for her red hair. Little did they know how different she really was. Traitor? Pitiable? Maybe both.

  “Finished with your chores?” Her father wa
s trying to give her cover for her absence.

  “Yep. All animals fed. All stalls mucked out. All leather cleaned and oiled.”

  “You’d think you’d been away for a month,” Dev called from his position at the sink.

  It felt that way.

  “Which reminds me,” her mother said, brows drawing together. “I thought we told you to stay home. You could have been killed in Las Vegas! And you without magic.”

  Her mother was really winding up until Daddy intervened. “W-water under the b-bridge.”

  Her mother sighed. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again, Tamsen Tremaine.”

  “Sorry, Mom,” she whispered as she slid onto the padded bench that provided one side of seating at the breakfast table. She didn’t bother to tell her mother that Drew had defended her decision to stow away. Drew had seen her there in a vision.

  “Champagne or mimosa?” Michael asked. “We’re about to toast the happy couple.”

  “Mimosa, thanks.” She tried to make her voice sound enthusiastic with indifferent success. She’d better distract her mother, who was looking at Tammy closely. “So, uh, Greta, how are you going to make movies now that the Clan knows you and Lan are an item?” That was probably rude. She just said the first thing that came to mind.

  “Being a movie star was my mother’s dream. I wanted to study astronomy. I called my agent this afternoon and told him I wasn’t going to take the meeting with Kevin Anderson and Jerry Gold.” She took Lan’s hand surreptitiously under the table.

  “You’re giving up a chance to kiss Jimmy DeBrett for my brother? Hard to believe.” That was better. Tammy was pretty sure she sounded a little pink and purple.

  “What about me?” Lan asked plaintively. “I’m giving up a chance to crash club stages to play borrowed instruments and live in a rat-infested Hollywood motel, just for Greta.”

  “Sounds alluring, I admit,” Greta chuckled. “But you have your music, and enough instruments here to float a ship.”

  “Do instruments float ships?” Michael asked with feigned innocence. He was practically the opposite of Drew, a guy who’d made it through hell, not only in Afghanistan, but through his own demons after he’d lost Alice.

  “Well, you can study stars from here, too,” Lan said, nuzzling her neck.

  “I’d better,” Greta said. “We have less than a week until Galahad comes into alignment.”

  Worried looks sprouted around the room.

  “We’ll think about that later,” Michael growled and pushed glasses of champagne from the cadre he’d assembled to Tris, who began to distribute them. When everyone was provided with toasting equipment, Tris turned to Kemble.

  “Well?”

  Kemble made a self-deprecating expression. “Senior, why don’t you give the toast?”

  Tammy felt her eyes fill. They all realized Daddy was getting better.

  Daddy looked a little shocked then raised his glass. He didn’t try to stand, but that wasn’t necessary. He was still the leader of the family even if he didn’t have a power anymore. “To the newest addition to our family, Gretchen Falk. May my disreputable son grow to deserve her.”

  Greta looked acutely embarrassed as everyone said, “Here, here!” and took a gulp of their drink. Lan’s voice was loudest of all.

  Greta did stand. Tammy saw her swallow. Her eyes were bright with tears. “Thank you all for being so welcoming. I’m glad to be a part of a wonderful family like this.”

  “Even when we’re under siege?” Tammy couldn’t help asking. How were Lan and Greta able to bear the thought of what the future might bring?

  “I never had a family who loved each other they way you all do. So, yeah. Even if you’re under siege. Love is rare, and not just in Hollywood. When you have an opportunity to experience it, you have to leap at the chance.” She raised her glass. “To being a Tremaine.”

  They all said, “Here, here,” again but it was quieter this time. Tammy saw Michael and Maggie and Jane—all the ones who had married into this dreadful situation, say it with more heartfelt fervor.

  Tammy herself was shaken. She wasn’t leaping at the chance to experience love. How could she when her Destiny was a member of the Clan?

  *

  Dinner was awful. The family made the big, Spanish-style dining room ring with laughter and buzz with conversation though the whole world was crumbling around them. Tammy felt like a ghost, a witness to life but unable to participate in it. When the dishes were cleared, they sat around the dining table and Kemble gave a little cough. “Time to plan our next moves.”

  “How can we plan when we don’t know what will happen when Galahad makes the Pentacle?” Tris asked, his frustration obvious.

  “We c-can assume s-some things,” Daddy said slowly. They all turned toward him. He had started to contribute little bits to plans and conversations recently, but he hadn’t stepped to the fore like this since the attack two years ago. “The T-talismans are meant to increase the p-power of the m-magic in our g-genes. We’ve all felt th-that effect.”

  “True,” Kemble frowned. “If the fourth Talisman is a moment in time, then…”

  “One would s-suspect an event would occur at that time,” Daddy finished for him. “It might increase the Talisman’s power, or someone’s p-power exponentially.”

  “But what event?” Kee asked, her voice plaintive.

  “At l-least we know where it occurs.” What was her father was talking about?

  “Where the other three Talismans are?” Tris asked slowly.

  Drew blinked. “I guess I can look through source documents for reference to an event connected with the Talismans…” How odd that the Tremaine who could see the future was a history major.

  “That’s not what we need, Drew,” Mom said bluntly. “It’s time to use your power.”

  Drew blanched at Mom’s words. Tammy did too. Drew’s visions cost her a lot and she couldn’t control them very well.

  “We n-need you, honey.” The Parents were putting pressure on Drew to do something that hurt. Things were that desperate?

  Drew took a big breath. “I can do that.”

  Michael drew his wife’s hand across the bar and squeezed. Tammy always found it hard to imagine him as a hard-ass Special Forces guy. “We’ll go somewhere quiet in a minute.”

  Drew nodded, trying not to look daunted.

  “We still have the problem of where the Talismans are,” Kemble said chewing his lips. “Lan pretty much collapsed Morgan’s Las Vegas compound.”

  “Cue me,” Michael said. He was a Finder. “Let’s see where Morgan took them.” He sat up, though he never let go Drew’s hand. His eyes stopped seeing the room and focused inward. Everyone held their breaths. He had said he saw what he was looking for in a three dimensional grid that could zoom out like you were far above it so you could see distances, or in for minute details. If he knew what they looked like, he could Find lost kids and disaster victims, just like he’d Found Drew when the Clan kidnapped her.

  Michael sucked in a breath and came back from wherever it was he saw his grids. “Nothing. I can’t even see Clan members. I bet that guy who can Cloak things is hiding them.”

  Kemble looked thoughtful. “If the Talismans have increased his power….”

  That was not a happy thought. What other powers had they increased? As Tammy looked around, she saw faltering or fear in many faces.

  “L-looks like it’s all on you, D-drew.” Daddy’s face didn’t betray what it cost him to ask his oldest daughter to give herself over to her visions.

  “Okay,” Kemble said briskly. “So Drew, you go up where it’s quiet and see if you can get some clues to where they are.”

  Drew swallowed and set her jaw. “Will do.”

  “Dev and Kee,” he continued. “You’ve got some Latin. Head up to the library and read the transcript that monk made of the lost book on the Chalice. Fresh eyes won’t hurt. Look for references to a moment in time, or pentagram, or stars, something we migh
t have missed before we knew about the constellation forming. Michael, you help Drew. Then I want you to try Finding either Clan members or Talismans every hour or so. They might not be able to hold the Cloak twenty-four-seven. I’ll get in touch with the commanding officer of the Naval Base in Seal Beach. They have a SEAL training program too. Let’s see if I can get some on-call help in case the Clan attacks. I don’t think we’re top of mind for them if they’re preparing for the Pentacle to form, but you never know.” He stopped to take a breath then caught himself. “Greta, can you tell us exactly when the Pentacle will form and how long it will last?”

  Greta gave a tiny smile that said she was proud she could help. “On it.”

  Tammy looked around. There were doubts, but there was also relief that they were doing something concrete. Kemble was a pretty damn good leader.

  “What can I do?” Tris growled.

  “Let me just put Elizabeth in her playpen and we can clean up.”

  “You’re always so practical,” Tris murmured.

  “I want to help too,” Jesse exclaimed from the wreckage of his Lego towers.

  “You, big guy, can draw us a map.” Tris swooped down on his young son and lifted him to his shoulder, effortlessly.

  “Let me get you some crayons,” Mom said, digging in the chest of drawers at the far end of the breakfast nook.

  The Tremaines left the kitchen with purpose, each on their assigned duty.

  Tammy felt useless. Nobody wanted help from the baby of the family, who didn’t even have magic to help when the family most needed it.

  Right now all she wanted was to escape this display of love. She didn’t belong here anymore. Not that she wouldn’t share their Destiny. Once Morgan got the power of the Pentacle, destroying Tremaines would be at the top of her to-do list. That included Tammy.

  *

  Michael closed the heavy wood shutters over the windows facing west toward the sinking sun. This was Drew’s room from before they were married. Senior had built them a beautiful house on the estate, but Drew felt safer living in the big old hacienda with the family. It wasn’t a problem for Michael. He wanted to be close if there was an attack. He took off his shirt and tossed it in the general direction of the wicker hamper in the corner and sat to take off his boots.