“How do you know all this?” I asked in a small voice, afraid of the answer.
“I’m a warlock.”
I didn’t say anything for a moment while I replayed the response in my mind.
A warlock?
Frozen in my chair, I wasn’t able to form a complete thought and was grateful my body instinctively forced itself to breathe.
“You aren’t saying anything,” he observed.
I nodded dumbly, and then like a dysfunctional dam, thoughts poured through my head until I was so overcome, I still couldn’t form a thought.
“I don’t know what to say.” How simple. How true.
“A strange reaction in and of itself. Most people might laugh or tell me to leave.” He leaned back in his chair and regarded me with an incredibly sexy smile. He looked normal. Scratch that, he looked far better than normal…hot as hell might be a better description. No one would ever know he’d lost all control of his mental faculties.
Then it occurred to me that maybe it wasn’t a good idea to disagree with or mock him—maybe that might incite him? You never know where you stand with crazy people, so it’s best to indulge them—then I had a better chance of escaping. And damn it all, Christa was still at Starbucks, so if I happened to get murdered, she wouldn’t be around to alert the authorities.
Ergh—bad story getting worse. I glanced at the door, trying to figure out how many strides it would take to reach it. My legs weren’t long, so I figured maybe fie. Now, the real question—could I make it in five strides without Rand catching me?
I pulled my attention back to the person in question and swallowed the egg-sized lump in my throat. I fought to find my voice. “When you say a warlock, you mean as in a male witch?”
He nodded with authority. “Yes.”
I pondered it for a moment. A ghost, a warlock…then it dawned on me and my hollow laugh ricocheted through me like a stray bullet. “Okay, you got me.” He threw me a confused frown, and I thought he did a good job playing his part. “Was it Christa who hired you? Well done, I fell for it. Very funny.”
He leaned forward. “This isn’t…” he started.
Although I wasn’t convinced it was a joke, I decided to go with it. A joke allowed my psyche relief. “The joke is on me. And Christa smartly pretended to get coffee; she could never keep a straight face. She’d have blown the game a while ago.”
“You don’t believe me?” He wore a mask of injury, as if I’d seriously offended him.
“Give it up, Rand, if that’s even your name. Game’s up.” I stood, trying to figure out how they’d done the ghost. That had looked pretty damn real.
“This isn’t a bloody game,” he snapped. “No one hired me. I came here because I need your help.”
This was becoming tedious. I sidestepped the chair I’d been occupying and approached the door. Settling my hand on the doorknob, I wondered if I should say anything more. Reaching the conclusion that there wasn’t anything more to say, I opened the door and turned to him. “You can leave now.”
As soon as the words graced my lips, the doorknob yanked itself from my grasp, and the door slammed shut. I shrieked and jumped back. Okay, that was definitely not from the wind! My heart pounded as if I’d just ran up a flight of stairs. I slowly turned to face Rand. He stood. At the same time, the chair I’d been occupying pulled itself out from underneath the table. My gaze shifted from the phantom chair to Rand’s seriously irritated countenance.
“You of all people shouldn’t be so disbelieving. One who sees the future and spirits should have an open mind.”
“I read Tarot cards for God’s sake and I’ve only seen one ghost!”
I could taste my fear. I didn’t know what to do and stepped back, feeling the unwelcome edge of the door in my spine. Maybe this was real? He was super pissed off with me thinking it an act. Okay, now…how to save myself?
“Don’t fear me.” He said the words in a soft tone, as if realizing his display was a bit on the intimidating side.
Saying nothing, I sank into the open seat before me. I was relieved when it didn’t pull itself back up to the table. I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach and couldn’t catch my breath. Panting, I sat there for a moment and was grateful Rand didn’t say anything. I guess he realized it all needed to sink in. He stood near me, his arms crossed against a wide expanse of chest. His au had tinges of purple, something I figured happened when he was upset or angry.
“A warlock, you said?” My voice was strained and incredulous.
He chuckled and straddled the seat across from me. “I assume you’ve never come into contact with one before?”
I laughed but the sound was tight. “Yeah, that’s a safe assumption.”
He nodded. “Our breed’s a dying one. Witches and warlocks don’t abound as they used to.”
I willed myself to stop trembling. I didn’t know if I could handle this. He’d said he needed my help but what did that mean? I tried to remember what, if anything, I’d ever heard of warlocks. I didn’t think they ate humans or drank blood or turned into scary creatures. Okay, so far so good…
“Are you…evil?” I asked, wishing I hadn’t sounded so…lame.
He cocked his head with a laugh. “I don’t think of myself as evil, but no one can say they’ve led a perfect life. As warlocks go, I’m not half bad.”
A respectable answer, so why was I still shaking? “So, what do you want with me?”
He considered my question with a lengthy pause. “How about we discuss it over dinner tonight?”
“Tonight?” As a rule, I didn’t date, and I definitely didn’t go out with warlocks. The idea was extremely dissatisfying. Then it dawned on me that I hadn’t had a date in years. Maybe I should go just on principle.
I shook my head, hoping to force the ridiculous thoughts right out of my ears. What in the hell was wrong with me? There was no flipping way I was going out with a psychopath just so I could tell my mom I’d actually had a date.
“Yes, tonight.” He was serious.
“Well…” I tried to think of any excuse in the book as to why I couldn’t go to dinner with him. “Okay, dinner sounds great.” The words just sort of spilled from my lips of their own accord. Flabbergasted, I’d been thinking there was no way in hell I’d go with him, and yet I’d acquiesced as easy as you please.
“I was responsible for that,” he said, in response to what must’ve been a horrified expression on my face. I swallowed the bile in my throat. Now I knew how Pinocchio felt—I was the puppet to Rand’s puppeteer.
Once my heartbeat went from dangerous to as-normal-as-could-be-expected given the circumstance, I faced the ugly facts before me. It seemed there wasn’t anything I could do—I had a dinner date with a witch.
#
Thirty minutes later, we awaited a table at Marmion, one of the poshest restaurants in L.A. I’d never imagined I’d step foot in the place, yet here I was, on a date with the most handsome man I’d ever seen who just happened to be a warlock.
Well, it wasn’t so much a date—more a business meeting, I reasoned with myself. I was still wearing my work clothes—a pair of low-waisted denim jeans, a yellow sweater tied around my hips and a crisp white polo shirt. I’d also insisted we take separate cars which was decidedly undatelike.
“So, why do you need my help?” I asked, once an ample roll of rosemary bread, three cubes of herb butter, and a bottle of Perrier found their way to our table.
“I have a job that would require traveling to Chicago to the 1920s. I need you to learn who killed my client, the spirit you recently met.”
Okay, I believed in ghosts, and I’d accepted the fact that I’d seen one, and I was beginning to be okay with the existence of warlocks, but time travel? I leaned forward and lowered my voice. “You can time travel?”
He shook his head. “I used that word lightly. You wouldn’t be going back in time; your mind would.”
I nodded like I knew what he was talking about. “So, wh
at does that mean?”
I noticed he hadn’t touched the bread. Did warlocks eat?
“It entails a lot of focusing and projection, something I’ll have to teach you. It seems that although your powers are plentiful, they need guidance.”
Back the mule train up.
“I haven’t agreed to go with you,” I said.
“I’d make it worth your while.”
This appealed to the businesswoman in me. “How?”
“If you accompany me to Chicago for what should take no more than a fortnight, I’ll double whatever income you earn at your shop in a year.”
“A fortnight?” I could never remember how many days that was. I must’ve learned it five times in the course of undertaking my English degree, but somehow it never stuck.
“Two weeks.” Ah, that’s right.
Wow. That was a pretty good offer. I narrowed my eyes—things that sound too good to be true usually are. “For two weeks of work?” I wondered when the terms and conditions would reveal their ugly selves.
“Well, however long the job takes. I don’t think it’ll take longer than that, but I can’t predict it.”
I shook my head. When it comes to business arrangements, I’m black and white. Either it’s a good deal or it isn’t. “No deal. That could mean years.”
“Very well…how about we agree you assist me for no longer than two weeks?”
“And if I did decide to agree to this, of course you’d pay me some of the fees up front?”
He nodded. “Half up front and the remainder upon completion.”
Ias quiet as I considered it. From most angles, it didn’t look half-bad. If this guy actually believed I could help him, who was I to argue? Hell, even if it didn’t work out, I’d still get paid at least half. No harm done. Hmm, money certainly does talk. This would mean I could relax a bit as times had been tough.
“What if I want to bring Christa with me?” Now that we’d handled the monetary side of things, I should also consider my safety. I’d seen Rand perform some strange stunts, but that didn’t mean I believed his story one hundred percent.
“Bring whoever you want. I’ll cover her expenses, as well.”
The cynic in me raged against the ease of the arrangement. “Why me?”
He leaned back in his chair and toyed with the saltshaker, cupping the cover in his palm while he rotated the shaker up and down. “I’ve been searching for people with the innate abilities required to perform such a task. I’ve been looking for months. When I found you, I sent Jack, the spirit, to ensure me of your abilities. Once you passed that test, I came to see you for myself. I must say, I’ve been quite impressed, Jolie.”
“How did you find me?” I asked, noticing I’d been picking at the crust of the bread, and now it looked like a battlefield of littered crumbs.
“The Yellow Pages.”
Note to self—advertising in the yellow pages paid off. I nodded, thinking this conversation something out of the Twilight Zone. “You must be pretty powerful yourself?”
I disregarded the smile he sent my way and refused to notice the dimples that lit up his entire face. “I’m considered to be one of the strongest warlocks, yes.”
My eyes narrowed. I didn’t like arrogant men although Rand would appear to have more cause than most. “So, if you’re so strong, why can’t you do it yourself?”
That had the desired effect—his irritation.
“It requires two people. I’ll be focusing on you, and you’ll be focusing on Jack. I can’t very well send myself back as I’d have no way of returning.”
I’m sure my eyes popped out of my skull. “There’s a chance I might not come back?” Maybe this wasn’t quite as good as it had sounded. There’s always the fine print.
He shrugged off my concern. “No chance, I can ensure your safety, but that’s why there needs to be two of us.”
I scouted the restaurant, realizing the waiter hadn’t ventured near us. “Well the service in this place could use some improvement.”
Rand’s lips parted in a grin. “I was keeping him away. I wanted to finish our conversation. Do you know what you’d like?”
Yeah, to get the hell away from you. I couldn’t help the fear that bubbled up from my gut as I wondered just how powerful he was. Maybe I was stupid and taking my life into my hands. Scratch that, I was definitely stupid.
Iblinked, and the waiter was before us, his pen poised on a pad of paper and his eyes riveted on me as if I were a field mouse and he, a hungry eagle.
“The tofu salad please,” I said in a spineless voice, repeating the first thing I read on the menu. Once the sentence fell off my tongue, I remembered I didn’t like tofu.
Rand scrunched his lips in obvious disapproval. I guess he didn’t care for it either. “The prime rib please. I’d prefer that rare.” He picked up the wine list and scanned it, signaling he’d found one with a flick of his long fingers. “Chateau Petrus, vintage 1961.”
I didn’t know much about wine, but I had to imagine anything that old had to be expensive. Once the waiter departed, Rand’s attention returned to me.
“I imagine you have many questions.”
I nodded, about to deliver one. “So, if there are warlocks, are there other creatures we don’t know about?”
“Many. They keep themselves well disguised. I’ll introduce you to some in time.”
That sounded a little too ominous, and I convinced myself that day would never come. “The man I saw in my vision?”
Rand interrupted me. “Oh, yes, that. I sent that vision to you. I needed to ensure we could communicate telepathically and, it seems, we can,” he finished with grin.
“You thought of that and sent it to me?”
“Yes. The man you saw in your vision is Sinjin Sinclair, and you were correct in your observation that he’s a dangerous man, well, vampire, actually.”
I gasped. “Vampire! As in ‘I vant to suck your blood?’” I asked, holding my fingers up to imitate fangs.
Rand chuckled. It was a deep and hearty sound. A sound a girl could get used to. If she could wrap her mind around the warlock thing, that is. “Yes, quite so. He’s a very old vampire, and I’ve worked with him upon occasion. And, before you ask, no, he won’t be in Chicago.”
I sighed in relief. I couldn’t handle a vampire. I didn’t think I could even handle Rand. “How come no one knows about all these creatures?”
“Our goal is to live among people undetected, and we do quite a good job of it. We’ve had to live in such a way for thousands of years.”
The thought left me cold. “Are you that old?”
He laughed. “No, not exactly. I’m older than you’d assume, though. As a warlock, I can use magic to remain young. I was born in Kent, England, in 1843.”
I choked on my fizzy water. 1843! He didn’t look a day over thirty-four. “How’s that possible?”
“That, dear Jolie, you’ll learn to stop asking. Never wonder how, just accept it. ‘There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy,’” he finished with a sly smile.
Oh, yes, he was definitely English, but Shakespeare was no foreigner to me. “Touché Hamlet,” I said with a grin.
THREE
“Are you excited?” Christa asked as she looped one gold hoop earring through her ear. She turned from her reflection in the mirror and studied me, threading the matching earring through the other ear. “It’s kinda cool, being in Chicago, ya know?”
“Yeah,” I said and turned my attention to the pounding rain outside my hotel window. The drops pelted against the pane as if demanding entrance, the lightning issuing a warning of the coming thunder.
Chicago weather was the pits.
I checked my watch; Christa took eons to get ready. “How much longer?”
She shrugged and returned her attention to her reflection, picking up a tube of lipstick—the color somewhere between magenta and a week-old bruise. She made a pouting sort of expression and pa
inted her lips, taking care to dab them with a napkin.
“The lips, Jules, are the most important part of a woman’s face.” Her reflection met mine in the mirror. She pursed the most important part of her face and made a sort of kissing gesture at herself. I couldn’t keep my smile to myself. She looked ridiculous.
“I thought the eyes were.”
She shook her head emphatically. “Nope. The lips.”
Rather than get into the world’s dumbest argument, I shook my head and glanced at my watch again. “You almost ready?”
Rand had requested we meet him in the lobby for dinner, and I didn’t want to be late.
“Yep,” she answered, giving her hair one last fluff before turning to face me, epiphany suddenly plastered on her face. “Hey, you think Rand would pose for me?”
Hmm, I wasn’t sure what Rand would think about it, but his chiseled face and masculine beauty would definitely make any portfolio shine a little brighter. “I don’t know; you can always ask.”
My cell phone broke into a beepy rendition of Clare De Lune and halted our progress. I checked the caller ID and sighed. To answer or not to answer, that was the question. Finally, I decided it wasn’t right to ignore one’s mother and flipped open my phone.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Jolie, you forgot to call me when your flight landed.” Her voice shook, and I immediately regretted answering the phone.
“We sort of got caught up. But don’t worry, I had a great flight and I’m in Chicago.”
She paused, and I could hear her turning a washing machine dial in the background. How worried she be when the call to do laundry was still of prime concern?
“Well, I’m glad to hear it. You know how I worry about you traveling.”
She worried about everything, not just traveling. She was the type of person who would rather stay home than confront an unknown world outside her doorstep. To sum up her life: she’d been born in Spokane, and she’d die in Spokane.
I eyed Christa who pointed at her watch. “Sorry, Mom, but I’m sorta busy at the moment. Christa and I are just on our way out.”
Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble Page 3