by Terri Pray
Hailey groaned. “Yes, you did. I’m sorry. It’s just that ‑‑ well, I can’t imagine him being of any help to me. What could he do? Even an empath can only sense emotions. I already know Karol’s upset, afraid and in love, so he won’t be able to tell me anything new.”
That wasn’t entirely fair and she knew it. There were some empaths who became quite powerful over the years. They trained, perfected their skills, and even worked with witches on occasions to perform powerful spells, but Darrel hadn’t been spending years perfecting his control, he’d barely had the gift for four years…
Gem sighed and shook her head, taking a sip of her tea before she continued. “Unless you have the courage to ask him, to sit down with him and explain the situation, how will you ever know if he can help or not? So the choice is yours; either take the chance and talk to him, or spend the rest of your life wondering what might have been.”
Chapter Three
Hailey took a deep breath and smoothed her hands down over the simple blue dress, wondering why her palms were so sweaty. It wasn’t like she was meeting him for a date, or hoping to attract his interest. This was Darrel Indigo, for crying out loud, the same kid she’d tried her best to avoid for the last three grades at high school. If it hadn’t been for Karol she’d have happily avoided him for the rest of her life.
Yet here she stood, looking at the small, white painted gate, trying to gather the courage needed in order to walk through it. How on earth had she allowed Gem to persuade her to do this? Darrel had never shown any signs of the gift. This entire trip was a pointless waste of time. Even now, with whatever limited form of empathy he laid claim to, he’d be of no use to her without those contacts unless he was now a serving member of the police force.
Or better yet, a connection to some of the seedier members of society.
Even with Gem’s insistence, there seemed little point in wasting the evening with him, but she’d committed to it from the minute she had picked up the phone.
Tracking him down hadn’t been that easy to begin with.
Why had her aunt even suggested the man?
Gem and her damn secrets. Well, at least this had taken her mind off the new laws for a short while.
Two hours of phone calls, excuses, and finally getting the right number had led to this. A bumbling excuse that she was pretty sure he hadn’t bought, that smug little tone in his voice giving away far too much. When did he suddenly become one of the gifted? She must have blinked and missed that. Mind you, her mom had always said he was a late bloomer.
Unless his smug tone had been in regard to something else?
Of course, he thought she was after a date.
Arrogant bastard. Well, she’d put an end to that notion quickly. Just as soon as she…
“Are you going to stand there all night or try pushing the gate open?” Rich, dark and musical, his voice pulled her free of her mixed thoughts.
“Darrel?” It couldn’t be. Skinny as a rake, bones everywhere with arms that were too long for his body, Darrel had turned into a man she barely recognized. How this could be Darrel was beyond understanding. But there was no mistaking his voice. Hailey suppressed a dozen questions as her gaze drifted over the man that now stood in front of her.
Dark eyes, raven-wings hair, an amused smile turning the corners of full lips. He’d have passed for a model now, or a big name actor.
This had to be a practical joke, or a spell, or she’d contacted the wrong person. Any minute now he’d ask her who she was looking for then send her on her way.
“I know, I’ve changed. A lot. In more ways than one.” His smile grew, touching his eyes with a dark, come hither flame. “I get those types of comments all the time, so don’t worry about it.”
“Late bloomer,” she murmured. What had happened to him? Sure, he’d always had dark hair, but it had been a mess. They’d joked he’d gone weeks without so much as taking a brush to his hair. Dark eyes…yes, he’d had those as well, beady, narrow dark eyes, and he’d always been scowling. Now he smiled, his face had cleared up, and all the signs of stress and sullen youth had faded to be replaced by a warmth that welcomed her into his home.
“Something like that.” He leaned back against the doorframe, slowly letting his gaze wander over her body. A soft rush, a tingle she’d not been expecting, flushed through her with the passage of his gaze. “Well, did you want to come inside or stand here all night?”
“Sure, I mean yes. I wouldn’t have come if…”
“If you didn’t need my help.”
“Well…” Twin spots of heat burned in her cheeks. “There is that. Sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter what brought you here, Hailey. It’s good to see you again. So why don’t you come in and we can figure out what you need help with.” His smile never faltered, the warmth in his gaze beckoning her to push open the gate and take that short walk to his front door.
Hollyhocks, lavender, and roses grew next to thyme, garlic, and fennel. Multifaceted crystals lay half buried in the near-black earth, dotted about the garden between the plants ‑‑ wards soaking up the power of the earth herself. An herb and spell garden, dotted with rare plants that should have struggled to exist in the same soil. And there, in one corner of the garden, sat the small shrine to the Lady Fate, the fickle aspect of the Goddess. How many names had she had through the generations? Not that it mattered. Hailey didn’t believe in that aspect of her.
A smile twitched at the corners of her lips. So he had a green thumb? It would have fitted with his gift of sight, she knew that, and he had always been rooting around in someone’s garden, even if it had been to find a handful of slugs to shove down the back of whichever girl had turned him down that week.
“Looking for slugs?”
She’d barely stepped into his home when he spoke.
“No, just remembering a few things.”
“I can well imagine. Slugs, pellets, gravel, and that interesting concoction that left your locker smelling like last week’s socks. I kept all my best tricks just for you, but then again, I wasn’t the nicest of teenagers.” He shrugged, looking back over the garden. “I have better things to do with my time now. It took me a while to realize I was being cruel, lashing out. I tried to change before school was finished, but I don’t think it showed.”
“Not to the girls, at least,” she admitted. Right royal pain in the ass had been the first term that sprang to mind, but now she wouldn’t have minded if he had tried to be a pain in her ass in a completely different way. That low, delightful warning tingle darted across her stomach, tightening about her nipples as her thighs pressed together under the light skirt, trying to hide the way her body wanted to react to him.
This was ridiculous. She’d avoided him through school and now she was looking over him the way a starving panther might have done a fresh slab of raw steak. He’d tormented her, teased, done his best to make her life a misery at the most awkward of times. He’d even just admitted that he’d kept the best of his tricks just for her.
“Well, I outgrew that. Once I did, my gifts started to come in. Your mom told me I was letting my own anger block me. I never got the chance to thank her for that before she passed on.” He slipped in through a second door, leaving it open for Hailey to follow him, leaving behind the soft scent of cinnamon. “She was a very bright woman, your mom.”
“Yes, she was.”
“I was sorry to hear about her death. It couldn’t have been easy on you. I’ve never known such a giving soul, and to have her taken from you…”
“Gem took care of me.” Hailey’s throat tightened. “She didn’t have it easy with me.”
“I imagine not. You were going through a lot.”
Darrel nodded, his gaze narrowing on her face before he waved towards the inside of the house. “Please, come in. Sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up any painful memories for you.”
“It’s become easier over the years,” she mumbled, following him inside. A simple lie, but it w
as one she’d repeated to herself enough times that she almost believed it now.
The dimly lit, small hallway opened up into a wide living room. Glow lamps lined the walls, bathing the warm room with a pale, warm, orange light. At one end sat an old wooden table; a crystal ball resting on a silver claw swirled with multicolored mists, cards half laid out in a Celtic Cross, gave a hint to what he had been doing before she had arrived.
“Is this your folk’s old place? I never did visit when we were kids.” She brushed her fingers over the back of a rich throw that hung from the edge of an old, overstuffed couch. “It’s beautiful.”
“Thank you. You didn’t have a reason to visit me at home. In fact, as I recall, you did everything you could to avoid me most of the time. And no, it’s not my parent’s old place; I bought the house two years ago. I fell in love with it when I first saw it. I was just lucky that it came up on the market when it did.” He smiled, looking around the room. “It’s become home in more ways than I could ever explain.”
“Sorry, it just had a very old feel to it.”
“It should; the place is about three hundred years old, as I understand it, transported over from Cheshire. Previous owner said it had belonged to a well known witch there.” His smile lit up his face as he looked around the room. “Sometimes I think I can still feel her here. It’s almost as though she’s lingering on the stairs, or watching me in the kitchen, though I don’t think she approved of the house being moved away from England.”
For a moment she wondered what the low beamed house would have looked like originally, surrounded by English buildings. The magic still existed in far greater quantities there than it did here. What had it born witness to over the years? Three hundred years would have been enough to see firsthand some of the witch hunts that had taken place. A dark time for them all, a time some wanted to revive.
“So, to what do I owe the honor of this visit?” He perched on the edge of a chair. Jeans and T-shirt had never looked as good on a man as they did on him. No, she had to get her mind out of that train of thought. This was business, the way to help a friend, not scratch an itch that she had never known existed.
“Do you remember Karol Parker? She was in the same class with us.”
“Leggy blonde, nice smile, always had the time to stop and talk with me? Yes I remember her.” He nodded, folding his arms. “She was one of the few that didn’t judge me by the stupid pranks I pulled. That was a greater kindness than I deserved back then.”
“She’s in trouble; at least I think she is. I think there are problems between her and Brian.”
“Brian Henlow?” He all but growled the name. “I’d kinda hoped he’d meet with an accident one fine day, but then cockroaches tend to live through just about anything.”
“Yes, he’s still alive, more’s the pity.”
“They got married a few years ago, didn’t they?” He didn’t move from the chair, but a deep furrow now creased his brow. “I think I read something about that in the newspaper.”
“Yes, five, almost six years ago now.”
“What sort of trouble?” The sharp tone almost caught her off guard after the welcoming way he had spoken just a few moments before. They’d been friends, hadn’t they? It was hard to believe now with the hatred that shone in his eyes.
“He’s abusing her, emotionally at least, perhaps physically.”
“Once a bully, always a bully,” he snarled pushing up towards the table. “He liked to twist people around his little finger, even as a kid. Pulling puppet strings, he called it. That’s all he ever saw other people, as toys to amuse himself.”
Whatever she had been expecting him to do it hadn’t involved this.
“I know I did some bloody awful things as a kid, but he put any prank I pulled to shame. He had the looks ‑‑ that smile, the winning way with the girls. It didn’t seem to matter what he did, he always got away with it. Shit, some of the things he did I got blamed for.”
The crystal ball rattled in its claw, lights flickered along the walls, even the temperature seemed to drop within the room. She’d never heard such a cold anger from one of the gifted, and now she remembered why. Control it, control the magic, control the gifts, temper your emotions, don’t let them get out of hand or else you’ll pay the price. Sooner or later you always paid the price.
“Darrel.” She reached for his arm.
“Don’t…I’ll have it locked down in a few. Just give me a moment.” He pulled back before her fingers had the chance to connect. “I don’t want you drawn into this. It can be hard enough to control as it is. Sorry.”
Why didn’t he know how to shield? It was the first lesson any of them were taught, the most vital of lessons. If you couldn’t shield you couldn’t protect someone else from being drawn into the well of emotions that followed any attempt to use or draw on a gift.
“I can help you get it settled. If you let me.”
“No, it’s easing, just a few moments longer and it’ll be under control.” He leaned forward, grasping the edge of the table, knuckles white under the pressure. “I’m sorry. I’m still learning to control this. I’m told it will become easier over time. But so far I haven’t seen any signs of that.”
A novice. Her aunt sent her to a novice? With four years under his belt he should have been beyond the basics by now. Just what had the older woman been thinking in suggesting she come and talk to Darrel? She needed a fully trained mage to help her out with this, not some newcomer to the world of magic.
“It’s something we all have had to do. I’m just surprised you weren’t taught this years ago.” She struggled to keep the accusation from her tone. “It’s one of the first things we’re taught.”
“Why would they? No one but your mom thought I had any hidden talent. I was just a mundane, one of those bland, everyday people wandering through life looking at those with magic wishing I was one of them.” He smiled, standing back up as he looked towards her.
“I thought you hated people like me?”
“No, the complete opposite. Half of what I did was done out of jealousy; the rest ‑‑ well, I have no excuse for it beyond stupidity. I don’t know how many mornings I woke up hoping that I’d be like you and your Aunt Gem or Cali Star. You’ve no idea how it used to hurt when they’d tease me about not having any of the gifts.”
So many wanted nothing to do with magic, but someone like Darrel, who craved it and for so long went without its touch…
She’d never thought of the pain it must have caused him, or how that pain had turned to envy and that had fueled so many of his spiteful, childish acts. If she’d known then what she knew now, it could have been so very different for him ‑‑ for all of them.
“Cali…now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a good few years. She moved to Scotland, or so I understand.” Names, faces from a dozen years ago, people she had lost contact with and never thought to look up. Out of all the kids she’d been to school with she’d only kept in contact with Karol and Brian.
“Yes, she did…” He glanced towards a flickering image on the windowsill, the figure vanishing with a curt wave of his hand. “She sends me cards on occasions, when she isn’t too busy with her new life. She’s married now, with a child of her own, to a crystal healer. Though I hear she’s become involved in the Mages Rights Movement. The last message I had from her was about the changes in the laws. It seems that the news of that little minefield has traveled all over the world. I don’t know what she intends to do, but she won’t just sit back quietly.”
There it was, that brief feeling of darkness, a cold touch, this time pushed away before she had the chance to know for certain if it had been real or nothing more than a holdover from his slip into anger. “I hope she’s doing well.”
“She is. She has a cause to fight for, so she’ll be just fine.” Small lines tightened about his eyes, a tension appearing briefly across his shoulders, vanishing as quickly as it had appeared, sparking her curiosity. Cali Star might n
ot have been attracted to someone like Darrel back in high school but the Darrel of here and now might have been a different story. Half the boys in her year had had a crush on Cali; had Darrel been amongst their number?
“So what do you want me to help you do ‑‑ about Karol, I mean?”
“I need you to take a look and see just what he’s done to her. My aunt says you have the ability to do that. To look beyond, to follow links through into people and learn what is truly going on.”
For a moment he didn’t speak, and when he did the tension had been replaced by a bemused smile. “You want me to violate every law they’ve put into place about the privacy of the mundanes; reach in, and take a good look around just in case her husband is abusing her?”
“Yes.” She didn’t even hesitate.
“And if you’re wrong?”
“Then I’ll apologize to Karol and turn myself in to the authorities, claiming I did it without any help.”
“Regardless of if she is aware of what was done or not?”
“Yes.” Her voice shook slightly. “I have to. I can’t leave her like this. She’s being slowly killed by that man, that so-called husband of hers. What good is the power we have if we are forbidden to use it to protect other people? To protect those we love?”
For a moment Darrel didn’t speak.
What was he going to do?
Report her?
Turn her over to the council?
He’d have every right to, if for no other reason than to protect himself from the potential fallout.
And then what would happen to Karol? Sooner or later Brian would push things too far and kill her. She’d seen men like him lose control before. It was never a pretty sight. Goddess, the thought of Karol laid out on a slab because she’d been too afraid to help her best friend just wasn’t something she was ready to face.
Darrel nodded, waving towards the table as he spoke. “Then I suggest you take a seat; we have a long night ahead of us.”
Chapter Four