“Oh, thank you, Michael,” Thomas, said sitting forward in his chair. “Skip nothing.” This was more than generous.
Michael took a big breath and let it out. “Okay. We’re going to work on a way for you to stop worrying about starting things on fire.” Michael examined his face. “It worries you, right?”
“Very much,” Thomas admitted. “But I also worry that you and the rest of Tammy’s family will not allow me to be near her. I am not worthy of her, after all. I am ignorant and useless. I don’t have a purpose anymore. How will I be worthy of Tammy and earn their trust?” The pain of that made the kiln at his core begin to heat again.
Michael looked a little shocked. “You’ve got to calm down, kid,” he said hastily.
Thomas tried to breathe. Burning Michael to cinders was unlikely to help his cause with the family. He blinked, focusing inward, and managed to shut down the flare in the kiln.
“Look,” Michael said. “There are many ways to be worthy. You and Tammy…” He thought for a minute. “Well, you two are much alike. Tammy hasn’t had a normal teenage life with friends and parties and doing stupid things like drinking too much. She’s been locked up here at the estate with her family. Almost like you were locked away at the monastery. And Tammy’s been looking for a purpose too, though she may not have realized it.”
“So both of us are lost,” Thomas sighed. “And someone who is also lost can be of no value to her. Tammy’s parents can’t want that for her.”
“No,” Michael said slowly. “You aren’t both lost. Tammy’s grown up since you came into her life, Thomas. She’s done something courageous by leaving her home when she was in danger. She also took charge for the first time because she wanted to be with you. Just like you took charge of your life when you came to find her. You’re both becoming adults. You’re perfect for each other in ways that people might not recognize right away.”
Thomas examined Michael’s brown eyes for signs of deception, but he saw only concern, sympathy. This man really was on his side. “Will Tammy’s parents make me go away? I can see that her brothers do not like me. And her father…. They will not want me to marry her.”
“They don’t have much choice. You are her Destiny.”
That wasn’t an enthusiastic endorsement, but at least Michael might think it was possible. Then there was the question of his fire. “If I don’t burn us both to death.”
“Well, maybe there’s an answer to that and to your question about your purpose too.”
Thomas held his breath. Did Michael have the key to his future?
“Your answer is Tammy. Instead of worrying, during sex you focus on what Tammy wants. She comes first.” He looked apologetic. “In more ways than one, as we’ll discuss. That will keep you from releasing your power by mistake. She’s your purpose now, too. Treasure her. Keep her safe. Please her. That’s what you focus on. Don’t worry about anything else.”
“And you will show me how to please her? I am so ignorant….”
“No worries. That’s your new mantra. I’m gonna tell you the works.” Michael assured him. “We’ll start with kissing. I think you don’t get that part. I’m going to tell you exactly how to do it. And it’s not only for lips….”
*
Jason didn’t relish making this report. Shit. He was skating on thin ice here.
He opened the door to Morgan’s center of operations. She was sitting in front of a computer screen with a view of the hangar. It was a hive of activity as they prepared for the ceremony. Her yellow eyes jerked up to his face as he entered. Then they narrowed.
“Tell me you’ve got him,” she said softly. That was not a good tone.
Jason shook his head. “If he got to Anza, he could have hitched a ride. That’s all I can think.”
“All you can think?” She surged out of her chair, the raven on her shoulder cawing and flapping in surprise. “How about one of our supply trucks?”
Jason shook his head. “Only one. Driver said it was empty when he got back to his distribution center.”
Morgan began to pace. “The driver could be lying.”
“He wasn’t.”
“Well, ask him a little more persuasively,” Morgan snapped as she whirled to face him.
“He’s dead.”
That stopped her. “Oh. And you believe him.”
“Yeah. If the kid was on the truck, he didn’t know it.” Before she could attack again, he added, “Yes, he could have hopped off of a moving vehicle. We’re checking any gas station or habitation in Anza and all the way over to Palm Springs. So far no sightings.”
Morgan chewed her lip. “Damn,” she whispered. Then, fixing him with her stare, she said, “Keep looking.”
He knew what was good for him. But they both knew he didn’t have much time left to find the kid. He had one more idea. There’d been a fire in the hangar the night the kid disappeared. In the confusion, he might just have stowed away. Time to have a talk with the pilot.
*
Tammy realized she’d just set Kemble’s place at the table with three forks and no knife or spoon. She just couldn’t concentrate with the acute sense of Thomas down in the Bay of Pigs washing over her constantly. She was throbbing between her legs and practically trembling. What was he doing down there? He’d been locked in his room ever since he and Michael came inside. Michael was saying nothing. Wild thoughts careened through her head. She could open his door a crack and let Bagheera into his room then look through Bagheera’s eyes. She could march down there and demand that he come out and talk to her. She tossed the napkins into a pile in the center of the table and ran her hand through her bangs. She was really losing it.
The family began to appear. The dinner crew had set out the fixings for a taco bar in the kitchen and everyone began to collect plates. Jesse had already eaten his dinner since he had an early bedtime, and Maggie had finished cleaning pureed prunes off the floor. Elizabeth was now snoozing in her cradle.
Tammy felt Thomas come out of his room. She turned as though pulled by a magnet. There he was, crossing the tile path next to the sunken living room, looking like a tousled god. He was still buttoning a fresh shirt. She wished he wouldn’t.
The moment his eyes met hers, their gazes locked. His were burning with intent. Gone was the hesitancy that had hung around him. He knew what he wanted and she had a good idea what that was. Coincidentally, she wanted that too. But he hadn’t been too reliable this afternoon with flame. And neither of them knew what to do in the bedroom. Well, she’d read a lot of romance books. Some had sex scenes even, after she was able to download off the Internet without any questions from The Parents. But she had a feeling that romance novels weren’t enough of a preparation for sex with a guy who’d been in a monastery all his life.
She went to meet him. She had no choice.
“Tammy,” he whispered, leaning in toward her. She might just spontaneously combust, without any help from his gift. “Come with me.”
God, but that sounded good. She managed to wrench her head into a negative shake. “We can’t. Dinner is going to be a powwow.”
“What is ‘powwow?’”
“We’re going to discuss what we should do. I found some new information when I saw through Edgar’s eyes this morning.”
“Should I wait in my room?” The hesitancy was back.
“Of course not. Like it or not, this whole situation is your problem too, now.”
She expected a frown, of regret or rejection of that truth, but a ghost of a smile quirked his lips, hardly there. He nodded shyly. She reached out and took his calloused hand, reveling in the familiar shock of desire. “Come on,” she said, and led him into the crowd at the kitchen bar.
Lan and Greta were over near the stove patting and pressing homemade tortillas in a little assembly line, though Lan kept nuzzling Greta’s neck until she bumped him away with her hips in mock severity. Jane was flipping the yummy rounds on the griddle and off into stacks that Kemble brought to the ba
r. Kee arranged bowls of cilantro, avocado, lettuce, a cabbage slaw, lime quarters, salsa fresca and several different hot sauces in a line. Michael had made margaritas, and the hiss of ice in the shaker was a staccato background to the chatter. Everybody in the family was of drinking age now. Only Jane was abstaining, since she was pregnant. Drew sat quietly near Michael’s drinks station, reaching out to touch his thigh as though to steady herself from time to time. The family showed Thomas how to build tacos from the plates of carnitas and shredded beef and chicken and grilled fish. The place smelled like cooked meat, chilies, and lime juice.
Jane shooshed Bagheera away from the taco bar. The cat thudded to the ground with a complaining sound. Lance and Sophie, Jane and Kemble’s dogs, were circling as well. “You had your dinner,” Jane scolded. Outside with you, all of you.” The animals ignored her.
But underneath the feigned cheerfulness, a current of tension told a different story. The sun was setting into the Pacific outside the French doors. Soon the comet would appear in the sky. And then the dipper. They were nearly touching now. There was so little time until the worst happened. What could they do about it?
Kemble took a call on his cell as the others arranged themselves around the long table in the dining room. “You coming in?” Pause. “At least get back to Hemet and lay low.” Pause again. “Right.” He picked up his plate and joined the stream into the dining room.
“Luc didn’t f-find anything?” Daddy asked. He was sitting at the head of the table again. Kemble took his old place on Daddy’s right.
“No. He’s staying out there so he can start again before sunrise.”
That put an additional damper on their spirits. Tammy sat next to Thomas, opposite Lan and Greta. Mom was on Thomas’s right at the foot of the table. Already she could feel the tightening in her loins in response to Thomas’s nearness.
“I don’t know what we’d do if we knew where the compound was,” Kee said crossly, spreading her napkin on her lap. “We’re no match for Morgan and her crew.”
“And I doubt we’ll be going to the army and saying, ‘Oh, there are these real bad guys who are going to ruin the world, so why don’t you just wipe them out?’” Lan had a point there. “We’ve got no proof. Even if we did have proof, they’d want to investigate and then get permission, and mount an operation….” He trailed off, his frustration palpable. Greta leaned her shoulder in and he put his arm around her.
Kemble looked tired. Jane thought so, too, for she had her hand on Kemble’s knee under the table, just to show support. “Tamsen’s vision today showed us some clues,” Kemble said. “The compound is big, modern, vertical, to judge from the elevators, and made of steel. Looks like the inside of a very large submarine.”
“That sounds pretty invincible,” Dev observed doubtfully, reaching for one of the bottles of hot sauce and shaking it over his tacos.
“You can blow up anything if you’ve got enough explosives. But it does sound formidable.” Michael stared at the tacos on his plate. “And it’s going to be well-guarded.”
“Somebody built this,” Kemble said. “It had to be a huge project. There must be contractors and workman who could lead us to it.”
“Morgan isn’t that stupid,” Tris noted, before he shoveled in a bite of fat taco.
Kemble’s jaw worked. “Maybe they just think they haven’t left a trail. I’ll start checking right after dinner. Somebody knows where this place is.”
“Good deduction,” Daddy said. Kemble looked pleased at his father’s praise.
“I hate to be Negative Nelly,” Kee said, “but even if we find it, I still don’t see us storming the castle successfully. Not with Clan who have ramped up powers inside.”
They thought about that as they dug in to their tacos. Thomas watched the other men before he took up his stuffed tortilla with his hands. Drew pushed the contents of her tortilla around with her fork but she didn’t seem to have much interest in eating. Tammy had lost her appetite too. She wished she could also lose the feeling of need that resulted from being this close to Thomas. She sure hoped no one else at the table could tell she and Thomas were both aroused, because she could feel the tension in his body, and he squirmed to adjust himself. She pulled herself away from her fascination with him. She had a report to make.
“There’s something else, though.” Tammy hated to add to the bad news. “She was talking about generals, and Thomas said he came over with some generals to LAX.” She looked to Kemble. But she couldn’t leave the bad news to him. It was time she started owning her rightful place in the family. Even when it was a difficult place. “She inferred that they were being taught to seem modern. I know it sounds crazy, but Kemble and I think she’s bringing long-dead warriors back to life and sending them into the world.”
The faces around the huge dining table were shocked or appalled. Then they all started talking at once.
“I thought she needed a body to reanimate.”
“Could she do it from just dust and bones?”
“Which generals do you think she resurrected?”
“What does she want them to do?”
It was Daddy who held up a hand. The table quieted. “We know she means to forcibly control the world. We thought she’d accomplish it by blackmail. ‘Pay tribute or I’ll flood your coastal cities, or bring down your banks.’ But maybe she has something more direct in mind.”
Tammy was amazed that her father made that speech without a single stutter.
“Thomas, did you recognize the generals?” Kemble asked.
“She introduced Temujin the Genghis Khan and Alexander III of Macedonia. Also, Leonidas of Sparta, William Wallace, Scipio Africanus and Hannibal. I recognized Napoleon Bonaparte, but not someone called Wellington,” Thomas explained. “There were others.”
There was complete silence around the table as everyone had an oh-my-God moment.
“I heard they discovered the tomb of Genghis Khan recently.” Drew trailed off. “The remains of Wallace were said to be in four different Abbeys in Scotland…”
Had Morgan’s power ramped up so much as that?
“Where were they going?” Lan asked no one and everyone.
“If I were her,” Michael said, with a hard voice, “I’d be deploying them inside the world’s secondary military powers. It would take them no time to rise in the ranks to control, assuming they could pass for modern. It would be easier than infiltrating the bigger military bureaucracies. And from there they could create havoc. Steal nuclear weapons…or just generate the chaos of regional wars.”
“She’s been training them in ways of the modern world,” Tammy said. “All except Nero, who is, apparently, un-trainable.”
“Nero!” her mother exclaimed. “Oh, dear.”
“Worse, she said he was another kind of weapon.” Kemble chuffed a bitter laugh.
“None of that matters if we don’t stop her from gaining power at the time of the Pentacle,” Daddy said firmly. “Let’s focus on that.” He turned to Drew. “Any new visions?”
Everyone turned to Drew, who went ominously white. “Nothing new,” she whispered.
Everyone froze. That was not a good reaction. But Daddy turned back to Tammy, after eyeing Drew for a moment. “What else did you see through the raven’s eyes, honey?”
“Well, we saw a big room with the three Talismans arrayed in lighted boxes behind a big stone slab they were lowering into place on top of two stone supports. I’m not sure what that’s all about.” Tammy remembered the ominous feel of the whole setting. “Maybe an altar?”
“It had channels carved into it.” Kemble’s voice was flat and hard. He glanced to Thomas, then away. Thomas looked curious. The others frowned. Drew went one shade whiter still. Her fork clattered to her plate.
“Excuse me,” she muttered, and fumbled to pick it up.
“Do you think it’s for the ceremony?” Tammy asked slowly. Something on the edge of her brain tickled her with a realization that refused to come.
Tammy frowned. “Why would you…?”
“Kemble,” Daddy interrupted, “can you keep up with the chaos the Clan is causing?”
“It’s a tough slog,” Kemble admitted. “Their power is already increasing just with the influence of the three existing Talismans. Weather Girl is ramping up typhoon season in the Far East. It’s bad, especially in the Philippines right now. And somebody is draining money out of Eastern European countries. I stopped that little plot, but nobody can stop the weather. You just pick up after it. Oh, and the NRC found accelerated degradation in the drums storing nuclear waste in Nevada. That was today.”
“Morgan’s followers are doing this?” Everyone turned at Thomas’s horrified tone.
There were nods around the table.
“She’s probably working up demonstrations of how bad things can get for any country that wants to stand in her way,” Michael said. “Show them they don’t have much choice but to cede power to her. When her power is augmented by this ceremony at the moment of the Pentacle, nobody may be able to stop her.”
“This is her purpose?” Thomas whispered.
No one knew what to say to that. It was left to Daddy to say, “Yes, son.”
“But people are dying and losing their livelihoods.” His eyes were wild as his glance shot from face to face. “I might have been complicit in her plans if I had not escaped.”
This Magic Moment Page 23