by Alexa Land
I thought about that before asking, “Is that how you tracked me down? Because you found out my parents were the real deal?”
“Actually, I found you in spite of their act. In many ways, pretending to be regular people performing magic tricks was a great cover. It was so blatant that it made me want to write them off at first. But I’d traced your father’s bloodline through several generations, beginning in eastern Mexico a few hundred years ago. Then I discovered his marriage certificate and saw his wife’s surname. I got excited because it was the same as that of another Mexican dynasty, and I was able to trace her bloodline, too. When I learned they’d had a child, I became determined to find you. That presented its own set of challenges. You have no living relatives, and I didn’t know where you’d been taken after the fire. It was dumb luck more than anything when I found out your grandmother’s best friend had adopted a child later in life.”
After a pause, I said, “I don’t know what to make of your theory that my mom and dad were murdered. They used a lot of pyrotechnics in their act, and the arson investigation determined a fault with that system was the cause of the fire. I read all the news reports I could find when I was in my teens, because I was curious about what had happened to my parents.”
“But that fire happened during a part of the rehearsal that didn’t actually involve any pyrotechnics, and it became a raging inferno almost immediately. It was a miracle the crew made it out alive.” August turned to look at me. “You were there when it happened, weren’t you?” When I nodded, he asked, “What can you recall about that night?”
“Just bits and pieces. I was really young, so I’m sure the only reason I remember anything at all is because it was so traumatic.” As images from that night flickered through my mind’s eye, I told him, “Fig and I were someplace familiar, so we must have stayed in that room whenever my parents were performing. People started screaming, and my nanny ran out of the room to see what was happening. She never came back.”
After taking a deep breath, I continued, “Alarms started blaring, and the room began filling with smoke. My eyes and lungs hurt, and I was crying and terrified.” That terror was still so vivid, as if it was just the other day. “I’m not sure how much of this next part actually happened, but I think someone broke in through the window and wrapped me in a blanket, and then they jumped out of the same window with my dog and me in their arms. We were on an upper floor, and I remember…well, I remember flying, but obviously that can’t be real.”
I thought about it for a while, and then I shook my head. “I don’t know. Maybe there was a fire escape, and I just forgot. I can’t recall anything about the person who saved me, either.”
“Did your Aunt Roz ever mention who brought you to her?”
“She just said he was a kind stranger. I guess I’ll never know if he was the same person who pulled me from the burning building.”
Nikolai returned a few minutes later, with two men who couldn’t have been more different. One was a six-foot-four mountain of muscle. His black hair hung almost to his waist, and even from a few yards away, I could tell his eyes were eerie and silver. Okay, now that guy looked like a proper vampire.
He picked up a suitcase and took his companion’s hand. The other man was a tiny, blue-eyed blond who looked like he was barely twenty. We stood up as they approached, and August gestured at the taller of the two and said, “Griffin, I’d like you to meet my brother Laurence. We all call him Laurie, and for some reason he tolerates that. And this is his husband Ty, who’s far too good for him.”
I shook hands with Laurie and tried not to flinch when his smile revealed a particularly disturbing set of long, sharp fangs. Then Ty threw his arms around me and squeezed me way too hard as he exclaimed, “I’m so glad you’re going to help Tinder! We’ve all been worried sick about him.”
“I’m going to try.”
“August’s mentorship seems to be going swimmingly,” Laurie muttered, as he glanced at the incinerated landscaping. His English accent was slightly less pronounced than his brother’s.
“Give the bloke a chance,” August told him. “We’ve only just begun.”
“Well, tick tock,” Laurie said. “Didn’t you say your wizard is set to explode in about two weeks?”
“Ignore him,” August told me. He then attempted to shove Laurie toward the front door as he said, “Why don’t you go check on Nate? He’s been watching Tyler for over three hours now and could probably use a break.”
“Griffin looks like he needs one, too.” Ty tugged the sleeve of my hoodie and said, “Come inside and I’ll make you some lunch.”
I glanced at August, who said, “That’s an excellent idea. You look like hell, and we won’t make any progress if you pass out on me.”
“You have truly outstanding people skills,” Laurie told his brother as we all went inside. “It’s a miracle Griffin hasn’t incinerated you just to shut you up.”
“He almost did, more than once. Good thing I have quick reflexes.”
“On accident,” I explained. “Not because I wanted to shut him up.”
We returned to the kitchen, and I glanced out the patio doors. Tinder was pacing around the gazebo while Nate sat just outside it, reading a book out loud to his friend. It didn’t seem like Tinder was paying any attention.
Nikolai and August both went to join their husbands, while Laurie took the suitcase upstairs and Ty looked in the fridge. When he pulled out a deli platter, I asked, “Is the food just for my benefit, or do vampires subsist on more than a liquid diet?”
“Nate and I like to eat occasionally,” Ty said. “It’s for the comfort and familiarity more than anything, since it doesn’t give us what we need to survive. I assume August had someone buy this for you though, because he wants you to feel welcome here.”
As he poured a can of soda into a glass for me, I said, “Can I ask you another random question?”
“Sure.”
“How did your husband make it through TSA with those fangs?”
The petite blond grinned at me. “They’re hidden by a concealment spell when we’re out in the world. But here at home, he likes to be himself.”
“So, you and he live here, too?”
“For now. We have our own house, and so do Nate and Nikolai. But this last year, we all moved in here to give Tinder and August the help they need.”
“That was nice of you.”
“Well, we’re family, and we take care of each other. They’d do the same for us if the situation was reversed.”
Laurie returned to the kitchen and gathered Ty into his arms as he asked him, “Aren’t you tired? You barely slept on the plane. I can make lunch for our guest if you’d like to lie down.”
There was pure adoration in Ty’s expression when he looked up at his husband. “I’m fine, but thank you for trying to take care of me.”
Laurie kissed Ty’s forehead, and then he turned to me and asked, “How far did August get with teaching you to use your powers?”
“I feel a bit more confident about being able to control my energy now. But before you arrived, he was trying to tell me about being able to see magic, and I have no idea how to make that happen.”
Laurie thought about that, and then he picked up a spoon and whispered something under his breath. When he let go, it hovered about three inches above the counter. “For me, I don’t see it so much as feel it, maybe because I’m only part warlock and my abilities aren’t as pronounced as my half-brother’s. Can you sense the fact that this object is humming at a slightly different frequency than everything around it?”
I touched the spoon lightly to try to feel the vibration. It immediately lit up with a blue glow and started to jerk around. Laurie ducked as the spoon flew across the kitchen and slammed into a wall, hard enough to embed itself by about three inches. He frowned as he straightened up and murmured, “That’s a new one.”
“Something else happened earlier.” I told them about taking down August’s barr
iers on contact, and then I admitted, “It’s all just so frustrating. I really want to help Tinder, but I have no idea what I’m doing. Maybe that shouldn’t come as a surprise, since up until a few days ago, I didn’t even have a word for what’s wrong with me.”
“Nothing’s wrong with you, Griffin,” Ty said. “You’re something special, and you should be proud of that.”
“I wish I could see it that way.”
“I used to think of my abilities as a curse,” Laurie said, “and maybe they were in the beginning. My brother and I were born in a small village in the English countryside over five centuries ago, and my parents were a witch and a werewolf, while August’s father was a warlock. We were both taught to hide the fact that we weren’t like everyone else, for good reason. When our friends and neighbors began to suspect our mother was a witch, they killed her, and then they came for my brother and me. We barely escaped with our lives. Later on, we were both turned into vampires, further separating us from the rest of society.
“August and I wasted decades consumed by anger, cursing fate for making us different and hating humans for killing our mother and ostracizing us. Eventually though, I learned to take pride in what I am. It took my brother much longer, but eventually he reached the same conclusion.
“I guess what I’m trying to say, in a very roundabout way, is that sometimes the things we perceive as curses are actually blessings. If I’d been the same as everyone else, I would have died centuries ago, without ever having the chance to meet the love of my life.” Ty leaned against him, and Laurie wrapped an arm around his husband.
“In your case that makes sense, because you fell in love with another vampire,” I said. “But I’m at the start of a relationship with a wonderful, gorgeous human who has no clue I’m different than him. I’m afraid he’s going to go running when he finally finds out the truth about me. Or maybe it won’t even get to that point, because I might die a truly spectacular and horrible death on my birthday. Then he’ll just be left wondering what the hell happened to me.”
Ty reached across the kitchen island and grabbed my hand. “You’re not going to die, Griffin. Countless witches and warlocks have survived coming into their power. You will, too.”
“But how many of them didn’t even know what they were or how to control their power just days before their twenty-fifth birthday? And how many had to go out into the middle of the desert once a week to discharge so much energy into the ground that it caused a localized earthquake and melted sand into glass?”
“You’re right that most of your kind are taught from childhood to harness their power,” Laurie said. “But that doesn’t mean it’s hopeless.”
Ty added, “You’re already making progress. Show us what you learned today.”
“We should probably go outside for that.”
He shook his head. “Show us right here. I have confidence in you.”
I fought back a sigh and conjured a little ball of energy at my fingertips, and then I transferred it from one hand to the other. “This is actually more than I could do this morning, but I still don’t know how to extinguish it.”
“Just will it to go out. If that doesn’t work, say the words out loud,” Laurie suggested. I couldn’t help but notice both he and his husband were inching back from the kitchen island.
I tried both of those things, but the orb still flickered at my fingertips. “See? I just don’t have control over it,” I said.
“Maybe you just need to believe in yourself,” Ty said, with a hopeful expression. He actually reminded me of Ari with his unfailing optimism.
“I don’t think that’s the problem. I could have all the confidence in the world, but I still wouldn’t know what I was doing, and—shit!” The ball of energy swelled without warning, and I leaned away from it and shook my hand reflexively. That sent it flying into a potted palm in the adjacent living room, which burst into flames.
Ty hurried over and picked up the huge pot, which should have been impossible given his size, and carried it outside. When he returned to the kitchen, he tried to look cheerful as he said, “Okay, so it’s still a work in progress.”
In the late afternoon, after a few more hours of practicing, I told August, “I’m exhausted, and I can’t do anymore today.”
“I agree, that’s enough for now,” he said, as he walked me to my car. “I’ll come see you tomorrow, and we’ll keep going.”
“Okay, but wait until I call you. Ari has the day off, and we’re planning to hang out.”
August turned to me and said, “Wouldn’t it make sense to tell this guy you’re going out of town for a couple of weeks and then pick things up again after your birthday? Not only do you need all the time you can get to practice controlling your power, but it might become more and more unstable as that day draws near. You were quite clear about the fact that you don’t want him to know you’re a warlock, so how are you going to explain it to him if you suddenly begin shooting sparks from your fingertips?”
“You’re right, that would be the smart thing to do,” I admitted, “but I might only have two weeks left, August. Every part of me wants to believe I’ll survive this, and that Ari and I will have all kinds of time together. But what if we don’t? I’ve barely lived up to this point. So, if there’s even a chance that my time is running out, then I’m going to try my damnedest to fit a lifetime’s worth of happiness into the handful of days I have left, and I’m going to do that with the most wonderful man I’ve ever met. If you were in my position and thought there was a possibility your life might be ending soon, wouldn’t you want to spend every moment you could with Tyler?”
“Yes, I would.”
I slid behind the wheel of the convertible and said, “Thanks for all you tried to teach me today. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Weariness settled heavily on me as I drove back across Los Angeles. It was similar to the exhaustion that resulted from purging my energy in the desert, so hopefully that meant I’d burned off enough of it to save myself a trip to Death Valley in the next few days.
While I wound through traffic, I thought about Ari. I had to ask myself whether I was being unfair to him by letting him get attached to me, when I might not live past my birthday. But I had to believe I was going to survive. I just couldn’t function any other way.
When I finally got home, I left a message for Ari and made dinner for Fig before collapsing onto the sofa. After my dog ate, he climbed up onto the couch with me, and I murmured, “I spent the day with several vampires. They seemed really nice. I can’t decide if I’m being naïve, or if they’re actually trustworthy.” I pulled the blanket off the back of the couch, covered both Fig and me, and fell asleep about two seconds later.
It was dark out when I awoke. I’d fallen asleep fully clothed, right down to my shoes, and I’d slept with my contacts in, which was always a mistake. For a few moments, I sat there feeling disoriented and tried to figure out what had woken me. Fig was standing beside me on the sofa, and he sighed and tried to give me a push with his head.
A few moments later, the buzzer for the front gate sounded, and I tossed the blanket aside and stumbled down the long hallway. When I reached the panel beside the front door, I pulled my cuff over my hand, pushed a button, and said, “Hello?”
Ari’s voice came over the speaker. “Hey, it’s me.”
“Oh, hey. I’m buzzing you in.” I poked another button on the panel. Even from a distance, I could hear the gate begin to squeal.
I stepped out onto the porch and rubbed my face with both hands as I wondered what time it was. Two minutes later, a white sedan pulled up. Ari thanked the driver, then climbed out of the backseat with a pair of canvas bags and the portrait of Fig that he’d painted and framed. As the car drove away, he climbed the front steps and smiled at me as he said, “Hi there. Did you get my message?”
“No. I was taking a nap and just woke up.”
“Sorry to wake you.”
“It’s totally fine. What did th
e message say?”
He stretched up to kiss my cheek, and then he told me, “Just that I’d take a Lyft to your house so you wouldn’t have to come and get me after work. I also mentioned I hadn’t eaten yet and was bringing us a late dinner. Are you hungry?”
“Yeah, I am.” That was putting it mildly. I was absolutely ravenous, probably from expending so much energy all day. He handed me the portrait, and I said, “Thank you so much for this,” before leading him down the hall to the family room. I swapped out a fairly generic landscape with Fig’s portrait, then excused myself and went into the downstairs bathroom.
When I saw my reflection, I muttered, “Holy shit.” My hair was completely flattened on one side of my head, then pushed up into some kind of off-center mohawk. I stuck my head under the tap and wet it down, then tried to comb it flat, which was only sort of successful.
Since I’d dripped all over my hoodie, I took it off and realized it smelled like smoke. That was probably because of all the stuff I’d incinerated at August’s house. I washed my hands and face, then decided that was the best I could do for now and went into the kitchen.
The ancient answering machine on the counter was flashing, and I hit the play button as I found some plates and poured the last of the iced tea. Predictably, the message was from Ari, telling me exactly what he’d said when he arrived. The fact that I’d slept through the ringing phone was a testament to just how tired I’d been.
My dog was wagging his whole body and accepting ear scratches from our guest when I joined them on the couch. Ari had brought enormous, foil-wrapped burritos, along with chips and guacamole. After I wolfed down my dinner and Ari caught up, I turned on Fig’s recorded telenovelas for him. Then I stood up and said, “I need a shower. I’ll just be a few minutes.”
Ari looked up at me and asked, “Want some company?” His expression was almost innocent, except for a little gleam in his eye.
It was all I could do not to scream, God yes! I tried to act casual as I said, “Sure. If you want to.” Fig glanced at me and frowned. Yes, I was fully aware that I had no game whatsoever.