This Magic Moment

by Susan Squires

  “I…I should have asked permission to touch you. I didn’t know it would be so…”

  Tammy tried to get her breath. “Yeah, it was pretty…”

  And then he reached his hand out, slowly this time, looking into her eyes all the while. She couldn’t look away. She should tell him to stop, but she couldn’t do that either. She seemed paralyzed. And yet her hand moved of its own accord to meet Thomas’s. She watched it. Their palms met, achieving the touch denied by the electric fence earlier today.

  Tammy felt her body change in that instant. More than it had when she first saw Thomas in that Las Vegas loading dock. It was as though her blood became denser, her ligaments stronger, her bones harder. Whatever she had been an instant ago was magnified and intensified until she was a newer, better version of herself.

  They both sucked in a breath, lost in the moment, palms touching, hers smaller than his. He had big hands, his fingers long: a scholar’s hands. Yet they were callused with work, rough. Just like him. A contradiction that somehow makes so much sense to me. Am I insane?

  Slowly, she raised her eyes from their hands to his face and felt his eyes do the same. The room fell away. The harbor outside the window was gone. There was only Thomas. Nothing else was important. Slowly, he bent his head, his gaze never leaving her face. Those lips, so full and soft looking, brushed her forehead almost reverently. He didn’t kiss her. Maybe he didn’t know how. He just touched his lips to her bare skin.

  Things would never be the same.

  His lips moved slowly over her forehead and down her nose, over her cheeks. It was like he was a blind person, seeing her through touch alone. Tammy felt as though he could see into her soul. His hair brushed her skin, feather-light. Her old world vanished. She had entered a world of touch.

  Except for that sound. Crackling. His lips caressed her other cheek, found her ear. The heat in the room increased exponentially.

  That was definitely crackling.

  Oh, my God! She jerked herself back into the present. Flames leapt up the draperies and bloomed over the bed. Smoke billowed upward. Where had that fire come from? She began to cough. So did Thomas. His eyes were wild as his gaze darted around the blazing room. He dashed to the window.

  “Don’t open the window,” she yelled. “It will make it worse.” She was really coughing now. The carpet near the door caught fire. They were trapped. Tammy tried to get enough breath to yell for help and inhaled only smoke. They were going to die here. “Thomas…” she whispered, clinging to him as the smoke whirled around her into a gray enveloping fog that consumed everything.

  *

  Thomas caught Tammy as she fainted, a sickening feeling in his stomach. These flames seemed to follow him like malevolent succubi. The doorway was nearly engulfed. He tossed Tammy up over his shoulder and lunged toward the door, coughing. It was their only hope. The room was five stories up. They wouldn’t survive trying to jump out the window. He reached through the flames and jerked open the door, then plunged through to the hallway beyond. He felt the burns only distantly. They were the price of saving Tammy. A wailing sound rent the air, moving up and down the scale over and over again. As he stumbled ahead, heart pounding, flames burst out on the carpet at his feet. The door to Marrec’s room burst open, along with several others. He stumbled faster.

  “What the hell?” One of the other men asked no one in particular.

  “Go!” Marrec shouted from behind over the wailing noise. He must be talking to the men coming out of the rooms because Thomas was already going as fast as he could. They came to the elevators. Thomas banged on the button to call it. How long would it take? People were converging on the elevators. Thomas shifted Tammy so he could cradle her against his chest.

  Marrec passed him at the run. “Stairs,” he yelled. “Follow me.” Thomas gladly followed, as did several men. Some women came out of another room, dressed only in short, slinky dresses, looking frightened.

  “Come with us,” Thomas yelled. The flames were moving down the corridor with them.

  Marrec hit the bar of the door under the green sign and headed down the stairs two at a time. Thomas had to be more careful since he carried a precious burden. But soon they were out into the night. Thomas sucked in the damp sea air as did Marrec and the others. He hugged Tammy to his chest. Was she all right? He laid her carefully down on the grassy area across the parking lot from the front door. The fire couldn’t follow them here, could it? Behind him, Marrec issued orders to someone. Thomas could think only of Tammy. New wailing came from farther away. People streamed out of the hotel. Tammy’s flaming hair echoed the fire that now appeared at the door of the hotel. Her skin was pale. He put his hand to her throat.

  Thank the heavens! Her pulse beat back at him strongly. His relief made him feel strangely limp. Even as he watched, Tammy’s eyes fluttered. He took her back in his arms to shelter and warm her. It was cold here by the ocean. “Tammy, Tammy,” he murmured. “You are safe now.” Her arms stole up around his neck. That made him feel proud and strong. He stood. She was not a burden. She seemed just the right size to carry like this. He wanted to hold her to his chest forever.

  Big red vehicles rolled up the driveway to the hotel and the milling guests. Some were sobbing, others just looked shocked. Men in heavy yellow coats and metal hats poured from the red trucks and began issuing orders. They were apparently here to deal with the fire. Some unwrapped huge hoses from the trucks and dragged them toward the hotel.

  Thomas looked back at the inferno that was the fifth floor. Flames flapped out of broken windows and painted black tongues of soot upward toward the roof. But even as he looked, the flames began to flicker and sputter, no longer raging against the night and the hotel.

  Marrec loped across the grass, making his way through the throng of displaced hotel guests. The fire flickered and died. “Come on,” he said roughly. “Let’s get out of here before whoever set that fire shows himself. Or herself.” He motioned brusquely to several men. Thomas realized that he recognized two from the parking lot at the Admiral Risty and several from the line of guests who had been getting keys to rooms when they first arrived. The men fell into a phalanx around Thomas and Tammy. Marrec was clearly in charge. Thomas was glad Marrec had friends who looked as tough as he was. Whoever set this fire wanted to harm either him or Tammy. Morgan would not harm him when he was important to her purpose. Would these Tremaines risk hurting their own daughter?

  Enemies were all around them. Tammy didn’t want to help Morgan. There must be a reason why Morgan had tried to kill her brother that Tammy didn’t know. Or Tammy was mistaken and Morgan hadn’t tried to kill him. Of course her family wouldn’t admit they were evil. How could he protect Tammy from them?

  The best way to do that right now was to let Marrec and his friends protect her.

  *

  Tammy still coughed occasionally as they pulled into a very empty parking lot. It was maybe an hour until dawn. The sky was lightening. She recognized the ferry terminal across the asphalt. They had parked in the very center rather than close to the entrance. Tammy realized it was so that Marrec and company could see anyone who approached the little fleet of SUVs.

  “We stay here until the ferry leaves,” Mr. Marrec said. He turned around to where Tammy was still cradled in Thomas’s arms. She should be crazy with fear or with lust, what with the way things had been trending lately when she was with Thomas. But she felt only warm, and…well, right. This was where she was meant to be. The need for Thomas was still there—a buzz in the background that excited and thrilled, but right now, she existed in a comforting little bubble of certainty, and she didn’t want anything to break it.

  “Now, why don’t you tell me how they knew where you were, kid?” Marrec’s hard eyes bored into Thomas.

  “Who are you talking about? Tammy’s parents?”

  “Nope. Redmond’s going to text me when they find out she’s gone. Which he hasn’t. So it wasn’t Tremaines. And why would they firebomb a hot
el with their daughter inside? Hell, whoever did it knew exactly which room you two were in.”

  Tammy blinked. “The fire started in our room?”

  “Yeah. And spread like I’ve never seen a fire spread before. Weird. They must have used accelerant, but I didn’t smell gasoline or kerosene. Did you?”

  Tammy and Thomas both shook their heads.

  “So it’s got to be your people, kid. Though I’m not sure how you’re doing it. You’re not wearing a wire or carrying a chip. You got a chemical tracker in your bloodstream?”

  Thomas looked appalled. “You think someone could track me through my blood?”

  “Sure.” He stared hard at Thomas then seemed to relent. “Look, anybody ever inject you with anything in the last three or four days?”

  Thomas shook his head.

  “You feel a skin prick maybe?”

  Again the shaking head. “Maybe the fire was a…coincidence?” Thomas asked.

  Marrec glared.

  Coincidence. Hmmmmm. That started Tammy thinking. The first time she’d seen Thomas he’d been silhouetted in fire at that casino in Las Vegas.

  Her heart dropped into her boots. There was a reason the fire had started in their room. She tried to still her thumping heart.

  Marrec narrowed his eyes. “You still feeling the effects of the smoke? You’re gasping like a beached fish.”

  Tammy summoned a cough. “A little.” She couldn’t let Marrec know. He didn’t know about the magic. He wasn’t the type to understand. She wasn’t sure herself. She had to get Thomas alone and ask him some questions.

  But she might just know what Thomas’s magic power was. He was a Firestarter. And he started fires whenever she happened to be around.

  Great.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‡

  Thomas was thoroughly shaken after the fire at the hotel. Morgan wouldn’t risk killing him. She needed him. And the more he thought about it, the less he thought that Tammy’s family would risk her death.

  They sat in padded leather seats on the top deck of a boat that was speeding toward the island ahead. Did everyone in this place do everything at top speed? The sky was full of racing clouds, their gray reflected in the pewter of the choppy ocean. Even though they were somewhat protected from the brisk wind blowing off the sea, his hair was lifted and tangled by it. This was not the warm Mediterranean but the Pacific Ocean, and the chill of the Humboldt Current seeped into his bones. But it cooled the blisters on his right arm. Marrec’s people had put salve on it and bandaged it to keep it clean. The cabin of the ferry was half-full, perhaps twenty people sitting in the seats or leaning over the railing. Five or six were men he recognized from the hotel, which meant they were friends of Mr. Marrec. There were many more people leaning on the rails of the deck below.

  Tammy had taken a seat on the opposite side of the aisle, as far away from him as the eight-seat span would allow. She looked frightened too. Why wouldn’t she let him comfort her? Even having her a few feet away made him itch with nervousness. He wanted her close.

  The boat slowed and a voice came from speakers at the front, directing them to look at dolphins to the right of the boat. Huge fish sleek and gray, crested out of the water. Suddenly the sea seethed with them. There must be half a hundred, maybe more. Their intelligent eyes fixed on the boat as if they were displaying their leaping prowess to the intruders in their world.

  Thomas felt like an intruder in this modern world full of strange things and new attitudes. It occurred to him that Tammy might be afraid of him. He was too different.

  And then there was the fire. There had been fire when he had first seen her too. And when he was escaping in the helicopter, just at the most anxious and critical moment, the flight bay had burst into flame…

  Thomas stopped breathing. Everything slowed down, even as the boat picked up speed. Then Thomas’s thoughts began to tumble over each other.

  People didn’t just experience three monumental fires within three days. What if the common denominator was…him? Things seemed to burst into flame around him.

  And if it was his fault somehow, then he was a danger to everyone around him. Including Tammy. Dear God in Heaven (as the monks used to say), she was right to be afraid of him. He looked around anxiously. Were all these people in danger because of him? Had anyone been injured at the hotel? Marrec had swept them away before he could know, and he’d been so concerned with Tammy that he hadn’t thought that others might have been hurt.

  It couldn’t be him. People couldn’t just start fires, and spontaneous combustion must have some internal source for the flame—a compost heap warmed by the sun could catch fire, but it was the decomposing leaves that burned. Anything else was too fantastic for belief.

  But it was also hard to believe three fires in three days were unrelated, too.

  Thomas leaned his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands. He knew the truth. It was he who had caused the fires. He wasn’t sure if people were hurt in the hotel, but he had seen people hurt in Las Vegas. Were they killed by the collapse of the building, or by the fire he had set? Guilt settled in his gut. He didn’t know. He hadn’t thought it might be his fault. His heart squeezed inside his chest. He was a terrible person.

  What should he do? He got from Marrec’s conversation with Tammy that they were going to another hotel, a smaller one, on the island growing closer and closer just ahead. He couldn’t put people in danger again.

  He’d have to leave Tammy. What choice did he have? He couldn’t threaten her life with his presence. She could have died last night.

  The very idea of leaving Tammy made his stomach roil like the waves in the wake of the boat. Could he bear to leave her?

  Leave, or she’d send him away if she ever knew what he had done. He surged to his feet and staggered to the rail, stomach heaving. He couldn’t leave now, not in the middle of the ocean. His stomach was empty but still angry at him. He must come up with something. He wanted to be with Tammy. But he was not who she thought he was. And he was a danger to everything and everyone around him.

  *

  It was early afternoon when they were finally settled in the hotel, high in the hills on the south side of the harbor. Tammy’s window looked out over the rotunda of the Casino far below, used now as a dance hall and theater, and the lines of boats with rocking masts like an organized forest of denuded trees. The town of Avalon nestled between the two cliffs that cradled the tiny blue bay. It was off-season for cruise ships, so there wouldn’t be very many. What tourists there were would mostly depart on the afternoon ferries. She’d always loved Catalina. Back before the whole fiasco of Destinies and Talismans of the Tarot and the Clan, her family came here often, even keeping a house here one summer. It had always seemed a refuge.

  That’s why she’d chosen to escape here with Thomas. Now she wasn’t sure. She might have just brought the biggest danger to herself and her family along with her.

  He was outside, sitting in the little garden. She knew that as certainly as she knew her own name. He had refused to come inside. That was suggestive. She’d have to get him away from the hotel though, just to be sure it didn’t go up in flames.

  Because nothing had changed. Firestarter or not, her life was bound to his. He’d been sick on the boat on the way over. Could be sea-sickness. Or it could be that he was thinking of leaving her after he betrayed her family to Morgan?

  Could one so isolated and innocent be capable of that kind of betrayal?

  The answer to that one was “yes,” if he thought her family was evil. Like her family could be evil. As hard as it was to be a Tremaine these days, and the baby of the family to boot, she knew she had the most loving, supportive, generous family in the world. And she was damned lucky to have grown up with The Parents and The Brood, as the boys called the kids.

  She’d almost lost that feeling in all the sadness and betrayal when Daddy was hurt. Wasn’t it self-centered to think her world collapsed just because the man she thought
was omnipotent turned out not to be? Like she was center of the universe and everything must be organized to support her. Besides, her father was coming back. Slowly. He didn’t have magic powers, but he was slowly coming out of the effects of being in a coma with the help of Dr. Tanet and his own indomitable will. She had no right to co-opt his pain and sadness, as though she were the only one who mattered.

  So, she had a great family. And that meant she had a responsibility to them. Which was why she was here in a way. It was time to stop being the baby and do something about their situation. And the thing she could do was to find out more about Thomas. He was important to Morgan. That meant he was important to the future of her family.

  She just had to think of a way to do it safely.

  Hmmmm. She needed a place without combustibles.

  And she had to shake his confidence in Morgan. If he did know anything about Morgan’s plans, he’d never tell Tammy if he thought Morgan was saving the world or something.

  It had been all of two days since she first saw him. She’d talked to him for a single afternoon at the fence and last night for only a few minutes in the hotel room. And yet strangely enough, she thought he might have a moral core. So maybe he just didn’t know Morgan.

  She’d better be right about that. She might be betting her life on it.

  *

  “Come on,” Tammy beckoned to Thomas on to the little sailboat moored at the Avalon harbor. She’d rented it for three days. She didn’t want the old salt/carnival barker who rented it to her to demand she have it back at a certain hour.

  Thomas looked with trepidation at the rocking craft. He’d been a bundle of nerves all afternoon as they did some shopping and got their pack together for tonight. He hadn’t tried to touch her once. Several times he’d said he needed somewhere where he could be alone, looking deeply unhappy. Only when she had told him she wanted to go to a remote beach had his mood lightened. Looked like he wasn’t much for boats though. Had he ever been in one?