This Magic Moment

by Susan Squires

  “Don’t even start,” Drew said. “He was bent on concealing it. Mother says he was worried you’d think he was bad because he’d been whipped so much. So now he’s healed and you’ll help him move on. You need breakfast.”

  Indeed, the family gathered in the kitchen had already finished eating.

  “Hey, Tammy.” Kee came in from the back hall. “Lan, did you put clothes in his room?”

  “Check.”

  Jane started to get up. “Nix, Jane. I can make her some eggs and bacon,” Tris said. “You’ve been doing too much lately.” Tris fancied himself an expert in pregnancy since Maggie had experienced two. Tammy saw Maggie out on the lawn with Jesse and little Elizabeth through the French doors. Tris knew he would be able to keep an eye on her from the kitchen windows. It was kind of cute that her big, bad-boy brother was such a softie for his family.

  Kee went for the coffee pot. Tammy focused on The Parents. “Well?”

  “Well, what?” Kemble replied in their stead.

  “Well, what’s the verdict? You all still think he’s a dangerous member of the Clan?”

  “Dangerous, yes,” Lan snorted. “I thought he was gonna set the place on fire. But I wouldn’t say he’s Clan. I’m not sure he even knows what that is.”

  “I c-concur,” Daddy said. “He’s innocent in a way I’m not sure I’ve ever encountered.”

  “So what’s next?” Dev asked. He was always very practical.

  Tammy realized her mother had been quiet. That boded ill. Tammy didn’t want to know what she was thinking and decided to change the subject. “I guess we better make progress really fast on what to do about the Pentacle.”

  “Maybe not,” Kemble said, unexpectedly.

  “What?” This came from several sources around the table.

  Kemble looked embarrassed. “Well…” he cleared his throat. “I’ve been thinking. The Clan seems to know just what to do when the Pentacle is formed. And the other Talismans are in their keeping. Maybe we ought to take a page out of their book. Instead of trying to recreate the wheel, let’s just take advantage of their work.”

  “You mean—steal them back, like they stole them from us?” Lan was incredulous, and his sentiment was reflected in other sources.

  “Look,” Kemble said, plunging ahead. “The convergence of the comet is only three days away from Greta’s calculation. We still have no idea what will happen when it forms the Pentacle. We don’t even know for sure what the Chalice does. But the Clan knows. At this point, we have no chance to match their preparations.”

  “We don’t even have to s-steal them in advance,” Daddy said, thoughtfully. “We could just disrupt the ceremony.”

  “We don’t even know where the Clan is or where the ceremony will take place,” Kee protested.

  “That’s why we sent Marrec to the San Bernardino and San Jacinto ranges. Thomas said the helicopter ride was about an hour. Canyons mean mountains.”

  “Better hope Marrec locates them,” Tris said, bringing a plate of scrambled eggs and toast for Tammy.

  They all looked grim. Everybody thought that was a long shot, Tammy included.

  “I think while we’re waiting for…him…to come back, Lanyon and Tristram should coach Thomas on how to control his power. He needs some practice.” Her mother still couldn’t bring herself to say Marrec’s name.

  “That’s my job,” Tammy protested.

  “Nix,” Tris growled. “You’re gasoline for the fire, so to speak.”

  “You can test our work when we think he’s got better control,” Lan promised.

  “And I’ve got plans for you this morning,” Kemble said. “You said you could see through the eyes of Morgan’s raven, right?”

  Tammy nodded, a swell of pride rising in her. Maybe her power wasn’t stupid after all.

  “Now eat,” her mother ordered. “You’ll need your strength.”

  *

  Michael had just been released from guard duty. Lan and Tris had taken Thomas out to the center of the circular drive for some practice controlling his power. Tammy and Kemble were spying on Morgan. He sure hoped they got some useful info. Maybe he’d look in on Drew to see if she’d seen any more clues in her visions.

  Michael was looking around for Drew when Brina beckoned to him from the terrace, where she was talking to Maggie. He knew a summons when he saw one so he strolled out through the French doors.

  “Michael, you’re just the person we need,” Brina said by way of greeting.

  “Uh-oh. That sounds ominous.” Jesse was playing with a couple of plastic dump trucks that he could ride on, down on the lawn. Elizabeth was asleep in the stroller beside the women.

  “Well,” Brina said, taking a breath, “we do have a problem.”

  “Only one?”

  Maggie grinned. “Only one that’s going to involve you tonight.”

  Double uh-oh. “Drew has call on my nights, ladies.”

  “Okay, late afternoon,” Maggie grinned again. His tiny sister-in-law was more dangerous than her stature would indicate.

  Brina patted the pad on the shaded swing beside her. “You’re the perfect man for the job,” she said briskly.

  Actually, it was good to see Brina looking resolute and purposeful. That was a change. He lowered his large frame to the edge of the swing seat gingerly so as not to knock the whole contraption over and dump his favorite mother-in-law on the flagstones. “I have a feeling I’m not going to like this. What’s our problem?”

  “Getting Thomas and Tamsen together isn’t going to be easy,” Brina said.

  “Well, you assigned Lan and Tris to make sure he wouldn’t set her on fire.”

  “But there’s another problem,” Brina continued. She cleared her throat, suddenly reticent. “Neither Tamsen nor the boy are…experienced.”

  Michael froze. “Uh…everybody’s got to have a first time.”

  “Michael,” Maggie intervened. “Tris told me Thomas wasn’t even sure whether he’d had sex or not. He hasn’t been part of the modern world. He knows nada. I mean really nothing.”

  “That just means Tammy’ll have to take the lead.” Michael began to have a pretty good idea what they wanted from him and it wasn’t happening.

  Maggie harrumphed. “Tammy’s never even had a date. She’s been locked up here with her family since she was fourteen.”

  “Hey, people figure it out all the time,” Michael practically pleaded.

  “Thomas said he was anxious because he didn’t know how to make Tamsen happy, Michael,” Brina said in her stern mother-voice. “We can’t have him anxious or all his practice controlling his ability won’t matter.”

  Michael looked to Maggie. “Well, that’s where you come in, don’t you?”

  “I’m going to Calm him to take the edge off. But if his anxiety ramps up and I have to drench the room in Calm they’ll just both fall asleep. You remember how that is.”

  Maggie mistakenly got Michael with her Calm instead of her target a couple of years ago. He’d been out for twelve hours.

  “So we want you to do a little man-to-man education,” Brina continued smoothly. “We can at least make him less anxious about how to ensure that Tamsen has a good time.”

  “Can you imagine what would happen if he sees a little blood and thinks he’s hurt her?” Maggie asked. “Besides,” she added darkly, “no one should have the kind of first time I had with Phil the Rat. You could make sure he knows how to be gentle and give Tammy pleasure. That could make such a difference in their relationship.”

  “Okay. Okay. He needs ‘the talk.’ Why can’t Tris or Kemble do it?”

  Brina let out an exasperated sigh. “Because she’s their little sister.”

  Maggie laughed. “They’d probably end up punching him out.”

  Michael gritted his teeth and looked away. Yeah. Her brothers were not going to tell some guy how to take their little sister’s virginity. The scenes of that little lecture going through his mind all seemed to end in one or b
oth of them throwing Thomas through a window.

  “I don’t ask for personal favors very often, Michael. Please do this for me.”

  Oh, not fair. Brina was maybe the kindest person he knew. She’d brought him back from near death at one point. She was Drew’s mother. And if Brina wasn’t happy, Drew wasn’t happy.

  “All right,” he sighed, defeated, and rose. “I’ll tell him about the birds and the bees.” He rolled his eyes as he turned away. “What I let women talk me into.”

  He stalked into the house, his mind whirring. Okay, gotta talk about the hymen part. And the kid is gonna need some detailed descriptions of how to get a woman to orgasm. This was just doing something for Tammy, he told himself. Should he go as far as oral sex?

  Oh, shit. What had he gotten himself into?

  Wait! The Tremaine guys all joked about the book that Brian gave Kemble. It was passed down to each one as they reached puberty. Where was that book?

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ‡

  “I can’t hold it long enough,” Tammy wailed as she popped back into her own vision in the conference room in the office wing of The Breakers, exhausted. “She was just going to get a report on some…some generals or something.”

  “I saw,” Kemble said, thoughtfully. “And heard. Edgar has remarkably sharp senses. The fact that he can sense ultraviolet light is a bit of a surprise. Reminds me of some dorm rooms at Harvard. Didn’t Thomas say the helicopter he stowed away on was carrying generals?” he asked. “What is she doing?” Kemble turned to Tammy. “Can you get back there?”

  She nodded. “I’ll try.”

  She closed her eyes and reached inside. In the last hours she’d gotten surer of her power. It seemed to be located right below her heart. Which was a funny place for vision. And hearing. There didn’t seem to be much power left after so many dips in the pool, but she imagined shoving her fist down deep and wrenching out what was left. She thought about Edgar. Who knew Morgan had a thing for Poe? Morgan was very old. Maybe she’d known the famous writer.

  The room she’d seen before popped into view as the raven eyed his surroundings. Edgar was still sitting on Morgan’s shoulder. Kemble clasped Tammy’s forearm to share her experience.

  “That’s good. I knew he’d gain position quickly.” Morgan was talking to the tall, gaunt man she’d called Hardwick during the attack on The Breakers. The papers in Hardwick’s hands were purple-white, his shirt a glowing blue. “Now how is Nero doing?”

  Nero?

  “The meds have calmed some of his…volatility, but I’m not sure he’ll be useful to us. He couldn’t pass as modern without a lot more training, and he’s not exactly a person whose ego wants to admit he needs to learn.”

  Morgan chuckled, bouncing Edgar a bit. That chuckle was the coldest, most frightening laugh Tammy had ever heard. “He’s a different kind of weapon.” Her expression hardened. “Now where is Jason? I want a full report on the search for Thomas.”

  Then Tammy lost it. The vision faded into the brightly lighted conference room again. “I’m sorry, Kemble,” she sighed, with barely the strength to hold her head up.

  “Come on,” he said. “Time for a lie down. You’ve been an incredible help, Tamsen.” He helped her up, concern on his face, probably both for her and for what they had heard in the last hours, incomplete as it was.

  “Who is this Nero?” she muttered. “Who’d take the name of an insane Roman Emperor in this day and age?”

  “I don’t think we’re talking about this day and age, Tammy.” Kemble’s face was grim.

  Oh, my, God. “You think she’s bringing people like Nero back to life? Can she do that?”

  Kemble was obviously thinking furiously. “She’d need a body.”

  “We’ve only seen her revive people who were just killed,” Tammy muttered. “Nero’s been dead for two thousand years. He’d be bone chips and dust, if there were anything left at all. Is she that powerful?”

  “I don’t think we know the limits of her power anymore.” Kemble’s face was ashen. Even Kemble thought they had no chance to stop her.

  *

  Tammy rubbed Thomas’s shoulder. He felt the sensation shoot down to his penis, but he tamped down the fire of the kiln in his gut and closed the door, breathing slowly and regularly.

  “Good job, guy,” Tris said.

  “All this practice is paying off.” Lan looked around at the black splotches on the driveway that marked Thomas’s failures. But he hadn’t had a failure in almost two hours now.

  Tammy smiled up at him. She’d taken a nap during the early afternoon and had just come out to help test his control. It wasn’t actually a sunny smile. It was maybe…needy? He’d never seen her look exactly like that. What did it mean? His penis seemed to know, because it strained at his jeans. Thomas grew worried. What if he wasn’t up to being with Tammy? Would he set her on fire?

  A small burst of flame bloomed on the cement to his left.

  “Breathe,” Tris yelled. “Ooops. Breathe,” he whispered.

  Thomas tried to get his panicked breathing to slow as Lan took the canister he called a fire extinguisher and put out the flame, leaving a new black smudge on the driveway. “Sorry,” he said to Tammy. “I…I was just worried.”

  She squeezed his biceps. “Don’t worry about Morgan,” she urged. “That’s far away right now. It’s just you and me.”

  “Correct,” he said. But that was just the problem. What he was worried about was Tammy. And what she might expect of him. Because he had no idea. He didn’t even know if he had kissed her right. Shakespeare talked about kissing and bussing, and all sorts of other things that probably meant kissing. But he didn’t say how to do it. Did you just brush your lips across her forehead, as he had? Or did you press your lips together?

  “I think he needs a rest,” Tammy said to her brothers.

  They headed into the house. It was late afternoon, about vespers, Thomas reckoned. He didn’t like the glances Tris and Lan were exchanging. They didn’t think he could control himself. He’d never be able to trust himself alone with Tammy. He wanted to be with her more than anything.

  “Hey.”

  Michael stood under the arch to the wing of the house the family called the Bay of Pigs, though Thomas had not seen any porcine creatures on the grounds at all, let alone in the house. Michael looked uncomfortable. He held a book in such a way that you couldn’t see the cover or the title. But Lan and Tris seemed to know it.

  “Good idea,” Tris said, his voice dripping relief. “Uh, Thomas, I think Michael wants to have a talk with you.”

  “What about?” Tammy asked suspiciously.

  “Never you mind,” Lan said. “We’re going to have a glass of wine. You should join us.”

  “I’m thinking maybe about twelve shots of tequila for me,” Tris muttered as they took Tammy forcibly over to a little cabinet with multi-colored bottles in it in the living room.

  “Don’t bully him, Michael,” Tammy shot over her shoulder.

  Thomas followed Michael down the hall. He hoped Michael wasn’t going to tell him to leave the estate after his failure in the driveway. The mere thought of leaving made his stomach roll. He’d have to find a way to stay near Tammy in spite of her family. To his surprise, Michael went out the door at the far end of the hallway. A little brick terrace to one side looked north over the big bay, all the way to the airport where he had landed and to the hills beyond.

  “Nobody will bother us out here,” Michael said. He pointed to one of two chairs with bright cushions next to a small table. The terrace was surrounded by bushes and flowers, which made it quite secluded. Thomas sat as Michael took a large breath and sat opposite him. Michael looked very ill at ease. Whatever he had to say, it would be bad.

  “Now,” Michael began after clearing his throat a couple of times, “I know you don’t know, uh, much about women.”

  True, but Thomas was puzzled. Was he or was he not getting kicked out of The Breakers?


  “And we, uh, got the impression you’d never had sex.” Michael rushed on. “I’m not talking about night emissions or kissing. Everybody does that. But that’s not sex.”

  “Oh.” Thomas said. Well, that cleared that up. He had an idea. “Is sex like “knowing” a woman in the Biblical sense?” Michael nodded, looking relived. If only Thomas knew what that actually meant.

  “You’re going to, uh, want to have sex with Tammy. That’s why you have erections.”

  They’d noticed. He could feel himself flush. He adjusted himself in the chair as though that could conceal his problem.

  “It’s okay,” Michael said hastily. Then he gave a little chuckle. “We can’t help it when we’re around the one who is our Destiny. And being around your Destiny, loving each other, can be really good.” His eyes softened. “It’s good for Drew and me.” He jerked himself back to their conversation. “But you have to know what you’re doing to make sure you don’t hurt Tammy, I mean besides starting fires. You’ll get control of your power sooner or later, and…and maybe Maggie can help. But, uh, well, anyway I thought I’d help out in the sex department.”

  Michael thought Thomas could hurt Tammy through his ignorance? Besides setting her on fire? That was awful. And if having sex was knowing a woman in the Biblical sense, it meant she’d lose her purity. She would be a social pariah, a fallen woman. He’d read enough to know that. Her parents would hate him. They would never let him be with her. He wanted to marry Tammy, so that everyone would know they must be together for the rest of their lives.

  “Calm down,” Michael ordered. “This is for Tammy.”

  Thomas tried to breathe. Very well. Michael must be talking about having sex after they were married. Maybe he had found a way to make her parents agree. Why else would he help Thomas? In any case, Thomas didn’t want to be ignorant. And if he ever did get to have sex with Tammy, he surely did not want to hurt her. “I am calm. You will tell me about sex?”

  Michael looked like he was girding his loins. “Yep. Me and this little book here. All the Tremaine boys read it. You can tell—it’s a little, uh, dog-eared.” He shrugged apologetically. “I figured you were used to studying, and you’d want to have something you could take back to your room and commit to memory.” He pushed the book forward. Its title was, “A Field Guide to Human Sexuality.” The cover had a picture of two fruits, one of which was half of a ripe oval with yellow-orange flesh and black seeds in the middle. Thomas didn’t recognize that one, but he knew the banana. He’d seen them in fruit bowls at the airport lounge. The paper cover over the hardbound book was tattered, and there were unidentifiable stains on it in several places. “This will give you the science and the anatomy and what goes where,” Michael continued, clearing his throat. “But you’re going to need some, uh, tips too.”