This Magic Moment

by Susan Squires

  “The real question is if she can bear to keep such a secret,” Jane continued. “I won’t tell anyone. You won’t.”

  “Can I tell her I told you? I think she’s going to need moral support from both of us.”

  Jane nodded. “Send her to me.”

  *

  Tammy felt like a parrot dragged through a hedge backward, as P.G. Wodehouse liked to say. Daddy had read her P.G. Wodehouse when she was barely able to read herself.

  “You look awful,” Kee said, as Tammy stumbled down the stairs about eleven the next morning, Lance gamboling ahead of her.

  “Thanks, sister,” she muttered. She was a-jitter still. She was wet and throbbing between her legs. Cold showers hadn’t helped. “I didn’t sleep.” And worse, I got a useless power from finding my Destiny in a Grade-A villain who wants to kill me.

  “Hey,” Kee said, putting her arm around her and drawing her into the kitchen where, for once, no one was gathered. “Come sit down. I’m worried too. But we’ve got to stay strong.” Kee’s eyes were serious, but she managed a small smile.

  “I don’t feel strong.”

  Kee’s smile deepened. “But you are. You have one of the strongest spirits of any of us.”

  Tammy snorted. “I’m just the baby of the family. That’s how you all think of me.”

  “Well, I did once,” Kee acknowledged. “But then I realized you had the courage to be hopeful. You found joy in the world and went after it. You had the courage to love broken things and make them whole, like Guinevere and Lance and Bagheera. You’re very strong.”

  “Not since Daddy was hurt. The joy and hope went out after that.”

  Kee took her face in both hands. “They’re still in there. And you’ll find them again.”

  “Oh, Kee.” Tammy hugged her sister. “I don’t know what I would do without you all.”

  “Good thing you’ll never have to find out,” Kee said briskly. Tammy’s gut clenched. “Now, why don’t you see to some of those broken things you took in who love you so much?”

  She was late feeding. She’d been hiding up in her room, afraid she’d start seeing through their eyes. But Kee was right. She had to start facing up to her new reality. “Yeah.” She headed for the French doors.

  “Lunch at 12:30,” Kee called after her.

  Stumbling down to the stables, Tammy suddenly thought seeing through Lance’s eyes last night must have been some twisted dream.

  Well, there was one way to find out.

  She walked into the shadowy barn aisle, lighted only by the channels of light from the doors to the in-and-out paddocks. It smelled of hay and manure and leather and animals. She loved that smell. She stood, just inside the door, closed her eyes, and thought of Caliburn, her aging first horse, white now, all trace of his youthful dapple-gray long gone.

  Nothing. Her vision didn’t change. She chuckled. Wow, Tammy. You really went off the deep end there. So she didn’t have a power. Which meant she probably wasn’t in love with that guy from the Clan. She was probably sick. She’d take a few ibuprofen, get a nap in after she cleaned the stalls and fed the horses, and life would move on.

  The relief that shot through her unclenched the muscles in her shoulders. She couldn’t help the grin. Relax, doofus.

  The world lost color. Things were blue and greenish. She could see all round herself, except directly in front of her and behind her. Things close were very, very sharp, but things in the distance blurred. Her head swung around. There were Josephine and Napoleon, the goats in the paddock next door as she moved to the door. She raised her head and saw the paddock door come into view. From the paddock.

  Shit. She was seeing through Cally’s eyes. Her throat closed. She was so doomed. She squeezed her eyes shut against the disorientation of knowing she was standing just inside the barn door, but seeing from the paddock.

  Shutting her eyes didn’t stop her vision. Cally had his eyes open. She heard a soft whicker. Tears leaked down her cheeks. She opened her eyes. If she was Tammy, she’d find Caliburn hanging over the stall door, but she didn’t. She saw Tammy. Swallowing, she thought about wrenching herself away.

  Her vision seemed to pop back into place. Cally hung over his stall door, whickering at her. She ran to him. “Oh, Cally,” she sobbed, throwing her arms around his neck. He lipped her neck in return, the whiskers tickling her. Lance poked at her thigh anxiously. She looked up at the old horse who had taught her to ride. His great, brown eye turned down toward her. He had long, straight, black eyelashes that batted as he blinked. “Are you near-sighted, or is that just how horses see?” She nuzzled his soft nose. “I knew you couldn’t see right in front of you, but I had no idea you had such great peripheral vision. Or that you couldn’t see reds just like Lance.” She’d have to start a research campaign on animal eyesight. Only now she’d be able to tell exactly what animals could see. She wondered how The Emperor saw the world. Did pigs see in color? And what about goats? Napoleon and Josephine bleated at her.

  Was she beginning to accept this craziness?

  Yeah. What choice did she have? She’d believed in magic since she was little. It was all around her, after all. And now she had magic of her own, even if it was weird and useless.

  Magic or no, the stalls needed cleaning and the animals wanted food. Routine details rolled over whatever extraordinary things you thought were important.

  Then an image of blue eyes, waving brown hair, and an open expression flashed through her mind and sent sensation racing through her body.

  No rest for the wicked. And she felt very wicked right about now.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‡

  Jason sat next to Morgan as she lounged with a glass of wine in the chair behind the mirror that overlooked the gym showers. Her damned bird clutched the back of the chair behind her. Morgan’s golden eyes were slitted as they watched the boy wash himself. “It would be more entertaining if he had an erection,” she remarked.

  “I thought you kept him in a monastery to be sure he didn’t get ideas about what to do with nasty boners.” Jason found himself getting bolder with Morgan. Not that he wasn’t still afraid of her. She had the keys to his soul and she had used them to make him feel small and powerless and afraid. But what he didn’t think people like Morgan realized was that if a man was afraid long enough, pretty soon that seemed normal, and….

  And what? You grew out of it? Not exactly. But you grew numb to fear and careless of your life because it didn’t seem to be worth much.

  You didn’t lose hate, though. He hated Morgan. He didn’t care what she did to other people. He’d watched her make Hardwick torture Phil without blinking. It was who she was, torturing people, showing her power over them. But he could hate her for torturing him. Did she know he hated her, or care?

  Morgan cackled. “Double-edged sword. He has to be a virgin to make my dreams come true. But sometimes my dreams take a more prurient turn.” She sipped her wine. “Well, I’ll have my pleasure of him in the end.”

  “How did you choose him?” She’d like talking about her successes.

  “The way I found all of you. I did the research. Genealogy became a specialty over the years. Thomas comes direct from the Le Fay line. His parents had powers, though they were so frightened they never used them, not even when I came to kill them. I’ve been everything to him since he was nine. Because he has the gene, it would be natural for him to be drawn to me.”

  “You mean you could be his Destined One?” Jason pushed the image of Sela down.

  “Yes.” She sipped her wine again, her eyes never leaving the beautiful young man. “He may never get a power, though. He won’t have time after I’ve taken my pleasure of him.”

  “Would you not also feel the pull?” Morgan would never really love anyone but herself.

  She made a dismissive gesture. “I am above all that. I am unique. I take my pleasure where I will. Still, it would make it easier for him to consummate the ceremony, though not strictly necessary. He�
�s been repressed for so long, the only danger is that he ejaculates before the moment. I’ve been carefully choreographing that final, so-crucial scene.”

  The boy was finishing up. He rinsed himself.

  “I wish Duncan would let him turn around. I enjoy the view of his back and buttocks.”

  She would, not just because the boy was a looker. She’d enjoy the marks of the whip.

  Duncan took a towel and patted his backside dry, so as not to mess with the welts.

  “How touching,” Morgan sneered. “Looks like Duncan is going soft.”

  “None of your followers are soft,” Jason said, keeping his voice flat. She had seen to that. The process of hardening him had cost him Sela. It had cost each member of the Clan as well.

  She turned her yellow eyes on him. “And yet none of you have hardened yourself against your own weaknesses as I have.”

  He knew she had once had a mate. But like a black widow spider, she simply ate him after he had served his purpose.

  She rose. “Well, enough of this. I must see if Hardwick has found a suitable altar. Did the generals leave?”

  “Yes. The first three are on their way.”

  Morgan smiled at him—that smile that made your skin crawl. “And so are we.” She turned to leave. Her cursed bird flapped up to her shoulder.

  *

  Now the red-haired girl called Tammy was invading his time awake as well as his dreams. Thomas sat in his room on the bed, trying to read one of the books Duncan had brought him. It was what Duncan said was a “mystery” by a man called James Lee Burke. Thomas decided “mystery” meant not a religious belief based on divine intervention, but a story about looking for a murderer. The language was used in beautiful and surprising ways. But the people were very bad. Still, it would have held his attention for what he could learn about the modern world alone if it hadn’t been for the red-haired girl.

  Somehow Tammy Tremaine was all tangled up in his doubts about his mentor and his purpose. He had to resolve those doubts. If he didn’t, he might ruin his purpose forever.

  Then he had an idea. Maybe he’d been looking at this wrong! What if Tammy Tremaine wasn’t Morgan’s enemy? What if she was instrumental to Thomas fulfilling his purpose with Morgan? That was what was causing the doubts, because he couldn’t reconcile his need for Tammy with his need to fulfill his purpose.

  But they might be one and the same. Maybe the reason Tammy felt so right was that she was needed for Morgan to achieve her ends. And maybe, if Tammy were the missing link, then providing that link would quell all his doubts.

  He sat up in excitement. Tammy wasn’t evil like her family. He could feel that in his gut. So maybe she only needed to know that her purpose was to serve Morgan too. Maybe Morgan needed Tammy to make her the perfect ruler of the world, where all those who came before had failed. Then there would be no conflict between the two things Thomas wanted most. Duncan said the Tremaines had powers. Maybe Tammy’s power was one Morgan needed.

  His eyes widened in the darkness. What if he was being called to show Tammy the way? That was why he was so obsessed with her. Morgan might not even know she needed Tammy. Thomas could be the key that unlocked the door to Morgan’s desire, if he could bring Tammy to this place and show her that she was important to the future of the world. Together they would help Morgan be the ruler the world needed.

  But how to do it? He daren’t tell Morgan as long as she thought of Tammy as an enemy. To bring Tammy here, he’d have to go where the Tremaines lived. Duncan would know where that was. He needed a way out of here, since he assumed they wouldn’t live in the desert. He did not know how to guide the vehicles, as Phil did. He sorted through possibilities. Walking? That would take too long. Perhaps someone who had a vehicle would allow him to ride with them. He hadn’t seen other vehicles on the road to this place. How about this helicopter that came and went with supplies and generals? Would it go near where Tammy was? Maybe. He would have to ask Duncan, without Duncan knowing.

  He sucked in a breath. He would have to lie. Or at least dissemble. That was against all the moral codes he had read. Yet it was for a good purpose—to get Morgan what she needed.

  Well, if he was going to lie, he’d better not start with lying to himself. He wanted both his desires to come true. He wanted to fulfill his purpose and touch Tammy Tremaine. Talk to her, know her. That was the reason he had felt doubt in his soul. But there might be no conflict.

  His first task was to get out of his locked room. But Duncan couldn’t know. He’d tell Morgan and she would find a way to stop him.

  Thomas was going to be very bad. He was going to violate every principle he’d learned in all those books to achieve an end that he hoped would justify the means.

  *

  “I’m afraid, Duncan,” Thomas said. That was true. He sat on the blue leather bench that slanted down and hooked his feet under the padded bars, letting his head almost touch the floor. Duncan handed him a heavy ball. He began sitting up while holding the ball, as Duncan had instructed, then lying slowly back down.

  “For fuck’s sake why?” Duncan looked a little worried himself.

  “Where do the Tremaines live? Is it far from here?”

  Duncan laughed. “I wouldn’t worry about them. They’re holed up in that compound of theirs over on the Peninsula. They’re not coming here.”

  “What peninsula?” he asked, excitement churning in his belly as the muscles in his abdomen contracted.

  “The Palos Verdes Peninsula, idiot. It’s a big bluff over on the coast, just south of LAX. The Los Angeles airport,” he corrected himself. He’d finally realized Thomas didn’t understand what he meant sometimes. Thomas could see him try to accommodate that. It was very kind. “That’s probably three, four hours from here by car. But it takes the helicopter maybe forty-five minutes. It goes all the time, for supplies or to drop off the generals. Don’t worry, though. The Tremaines don’t come out. They’re too afraid of us. And they have no idea how close we are to…well, to fulfilling your purpose.” Duncan looked a little sad at that. Didn’t he want Thomas to fulfill his purpose and allow Morgan to achieve her goals?

  “So we are safe here from them?” Thomas asked, grunting as he continued sitting up on the incline with the heavy ball.

  “Yeah, you’re safe, sweet pea, except from any female who sees those abs. Damn, how’d you get so cut?” He must have seen Thomas’s look of confusion. “Mr. Literal. Not actual cuts. I mean, how did you get those muscles?”

  “Oh,” Thomas said. “From work at the monastery.”

  “You should write a book. With pictures. Guys would be signing up for monasteries by the thousands.”

  Thomas was not going to write a book. He had what he needed. The Tremaines lived near an airport. The helicopter went there. And he thought he knew how to keep Duncan from locking him in his room tonight.

  *

  It hurt to tear pages from a book. Books were precious. Even books like these, made of paper rather than vellum and leather. “I’m sorry, Mr. Burke,” he muttered as he stripped some pages from the end. He was sitting on the toilet in the small alcove off his room. He felt safer there than in the main room. He had asked Duncan for more books for this evening. He must be ready when Duncan came. He folded the torn pages into several tiny balls, just in case his first attempt failed. Duncan told him the helicopter came and went through a great door that opened in the roof. And it would be taking three more generals out this evening to LAX.

  The door opened. “I can’t believe I’m reduced to being a book-mobile.” He tossed a pile of books onto the bed. “But no reading tonight. Morgan wants you to get some shut-eye.”

  Good. “Let me give you the books I have already read.” He gathered up the violated mystery and several other books whether he had read them or not. Duncan’s hands needed to be full.

  “You’ve been busy,” Duncan said.

  “I read quickly.” Thomas cursed the fact that he flushed. It wasn’t actually a l
ie. He did read quickly. Just not these books. He was too preoccupied with thinking of Tammy Tremaine. He handed the stack to Duncan. “Here, let me open the door for you.”

  He opened the door. Duncan strode through. As Thomas leaned against the doorjamb, he stuffed one of the little balls of paper into the slot where the latch of the doorknob fit. “Thank you for the books.”

  “Get back in there,” Duncan snapped. He pulled the door shut as Thomas stepped back. Thomas held his breath. The door closed, but there was no telltale snick of the latch slipping home. The lights in the room went dark. He listened as Duncan’s footsteps retreated down the hall.

  Thomas exhaled. In the dark, he made his way to the chest and opened it quietly. After dressing, he went to the door and listened. The hallway was silent.

  It occurred to him that Morgan always seemed to know what he had said, what he was doing. He hoped she wasn’t omnipotent, or his journey to find Tammy would be short.

  But he had to try. He had never been so nervous in his life. That was probably because he’d never been devious. He’d never lied. He’d always tried to do what Brother Theodosius asked of him. Yet here he was, doing something his mentor would hate. But it was for the greater good. Tammy seemed more important than anything. So she must be a valuable part of his purpose for Morgan. If he could convince Tammy to come with him, Morgan would be pleased in the end.

  He made his way to the bed and stuffed the pillow and the blanket under the upper sheet so it would look like he was still in bed. It might give him more time.

  He took a huge breath and let it out. Then he opened the door a crack. The little ball of paper had done its work. He pried it out and stuffed it in his jeans pocket. There was no one in the corridor. The lights were dimmed. He slipped through the door and let it latch securely.

  He’d been rehearsing in his mind the way Morgan had first brought him to his room. The elevator was near the kitchen where he’d first eaten scrambled eggs. Right turn. Right turn. Left. The corridors were deserted. Were they all asleep? He had no sense of time without the sun. When he got to the shining elevator doors, he pushed the button as he had seen Duncan do the first day. The doors took a long time to open. He went inside hesitantly and peered at the panel with its lighted numbers. The number lighted currently said B3. Now, this was the part he was so proud of. If the helicopter flew then it came in at the roof. So the top button, no matter what number it displayed, must be his destination. He punched 10 and grabbed the rail. The doors closed. Thomas felt the floor press upward. His knees wanted to buckle, but he pushed them straight. He was breathing hard by the time the doors opened with a dinging sound. He quickly stood to the side and peered out.