Le lien de quatre. The bond of four, a connection that appeared only once in a great while, and only in families with very powerful magic descended from Angelique Blansett.
Someday it might literally save their asses.
A mountainous man lumbered toward Sydney, oblivious as he peered into the window of the chocolatier he passed, his head twisted as he stared over his shoulder. His wife—not quite as mountainous but equally as oblivious—hugged his arm as she propelled him down the sidewalk. Both were in Sydney’s way. She needed them off the sidewalk.
Push.
“Honey, no chocolate, but let’s get a bottle of wine,” the woman said, giving him a flirtatious smile. “For later.”
Push.
The man smiled and turned, the couple moved obediently onto the cobblestone path leading to Enchanted Libations, clearing the sidewalk in front of Sydney.
She quickly filled the gap left by the happy pair, and just as she wondered whether Nick and her father were still with her, Nick’s hand wrapped around her elbow.
A woman had stopped in the center of the sidewalk to check her phone. Push. She rocked on her heels for a moment then blindly moved toward the white picket fence in front of Seaside Deli.
“You’re probably going to think I overreacted,” Grey said sheepishly.
“You?” Sydney laughed. “Never.”
“Well, you might think so in a minute. I—”
The shrill sound of sirens echoed through the muggy air, wrapping around Sydney like the buzz of a thousand mosquitos, coming closer and closer…
“You didn’t,” Sydney said.
“Yep. I did. Beck said he better check it out.”
“Are you sure you just didn’t want to check him out?”
As one, every diner and shopper on the sidewalk and the boardwalk turned their heads toward the sound of the fire engine.
“I gotta go. We’re almost there.”
Click.
Sydney and her entourage had reached the corner when Halona came bursting out of Beachcombers, trying to button a shirt, Scamp on her heels.
“The line’s been busy.” She shoved her phone into her jeans pocket and scooped Scamp up. “It’s the shop, isn’t it? I was getting ready to take a shower when I got really queasy. Then I felt something…almost like an earthquake aftershock.”
“It had to be a powerful warlock,” Bryan said.
“Hopefully I’ll know more in a minute,” Nick said, “but I have to get in that shop.” He glared at the pedestrian light as though trying to change it with his thoughts alone.
The crosswalk light finally began its countdown, but that wasn’t fast enough for Sydney. She rubbed her fingers together and flicked her hand in the direction of the post across the street. As the spark of light enveloped the light box and cracked into a glittery spider web of white, the little white Walking Man appeared, indicating they could cross.
Sydney stepped off the curb, ignoring the little girl who pointed at the pole and said, “Ooooh, Mommy, I saw fairy lights. Did you see them?”
They all hustled across the street. Just as they arrived on the doorstep of Mystic Tides, the fire engine pulled to the curb, lights flashing and siren blasting, only to die on a drawn-out wail. Several firefighters dropped to the street and immediately ran through the garden to investigate the outside of the building, and several more rushed through the front door.
Beck slammed the door of the department van and stood with his hands on his hips. He cut a glance to Sydney and then peered through the display window. A smile hovered on his lips as he asked, “What did she do now?”
“I don’t think it was Grey this time,” Sydney said. “You can have your crew investigate, but I don’t think they’ll find anything. It’s my—” She glanced around the street. Dozens of eyes fell on them, and necks craned as people tried to get a better view. “Let’s get inside.”
Bryan pushed open the shop door, and the little bell tinkled merrily above them. Sydney scanned the room, trying to discern any damage, but saw nothing.
Bethany hefted Orca higher in her arms and whispered, “Do you really think it was the wards? I felt the shudder, and then I felt a bolt of panic and knew immediately something really bad had hit you completely out of the blue.”
“I felt it too,” Halona said. “I knew it wasn’t me. I knew it was you.”
“Ditto,” Grey said as she moved past them.
“Excuse me, folks,” Beck said as he took up a post by the door. The customers all stared, their hands hovering over or holding articles. “I’ll have to ask you to clear the building while we investigate a possible… electrical fire.”
Several patrons sniffed, and others murmured ineffectual protests, but after a few curious glances around and some mildly annoyed looks, everyone moved toward the door that Beck held open.
Grey stood next to him, shoving a card into the hand of each patron as they hustled through the door and saying, “Ten percent off your next purchase. Please come back soon.” She gave Sydney a triumphant smile that still managed to appear rather condescending.
When Beck had closed the door, he grabbed Grey by her shoulders and pulled her into his arms. He dropped a kiss on her forehead.
“I was sure this had something to do with you.”
“Not this time,” she said, her voice holding a genuine sweetness as she winked up at him. She shot a glare toward Sydney. “If she’d just let me have a key, this whole thing could have been handled with a phone call.”
“As if,” Sydney scoffed. She pulled a gold chain from around her neck and moved to the locked door. She slid the key into the doorknob. As Grey moved behind her, Sydney held up her hand.
Grey pushed out her lip and glanced at Beck. “She is seriously no fun.” She cocked a hip. “Fine. I’ll just go and do some research on lock picking spells. Is that what you want, Sydney? Do you really want me to—”
“Okay. You can come in. But don’t touch anything.”
Grey took two steps forward.
Sydney gave her a hard stare. “And keep your hands behind your back.”
“So bossy.” She sashayed into the room behind Beck.
The other two women waited outside the room with Bryan while Sydney and Nick entered the collections room. Nick pulled in a long breath and ran his hands over his face.
Sydney saw nothing amiss. All of the books were in their right places, and none of them had been touched that she could see. A cursory glance at each shelf showed all rows intact. The small accent pieces that dotted the tables and shelves, even the new glass witching ball on the reading table, looked undisturbed. Nick focused on entirely different things. He felt along each wall, running his hand in circles over the plaster and along each wooden shelf. At the far wall, Nick placed his hand above a console cabinet.
Crack! A jagged seam opened up in the center of the wall, and a brilliant light flashed through the room.
Nick recoiled, lurching back to collide with the reading table. Everyone jerked backward as the light dissipated and the witching ball rocked on its perch. A burn spread from where he’d touched, stretching across the wall like spilled ink.
Sydney watched, mesmerized, as the image of a hand slowly appeared inside the scorched area, scratching through it like a handprint found in a primeval cave. She squinted again as another blast of fiery light crackled in a starburst pattern around the handprint. The flickering starburst spread quickly to the four corners of the wall and then evaporated once again in a shower of sparks. A tendril of smoke spiraled out from the center of the hand’s palm.
“I didn’t do anything,” Grey cried. “I swear to God.”
Sydney whipped open the cabinet door and grabbed one of the three fire extinguishers inside. She sprayed the wall until there was nothing but a charred circle with a white handprint. She handed the extinguisher to Beck so he could take care of the smoldering corners.
She focused on the handprint. Nick’s fingerprints had been branded into her wal
l, and she could read them as easily as those on an arrest record.
“Holy crap…” she murmured. “Nick, did you see this?”
She whirled around. Nick was staring at his palm, and that’s when Sydney shook herself. She took his hand gently in hers. A singed blister had formed in the center of his palm. The flesh pulsed, as though instilled with its own heartbeat, and a red glow shimmered over his skin like a dark mist, trailing from the tips of his fingers and over his hand to disappear under his shirtsleeve.
“Bethany,” Sydney called over her shoulder. “We need some of your special magic over here.”
After Bethany took a quick glance, she disappeared back into the shop.
“What the hell happened?” Beck asked.
Nick’s gaze wandered over the wall. “That’s where the wards were tested. A very powerful spell slammed against the center…” He reached out, a bit more cautiously this time, and felt along the area where the smoke tendril still curled outward. “Right here.” He spun around and strode to a row of shelves. He pressed his hand against the air and drew in a long breath. “Whoever, whatever it was, wanted this.” He plucked a book from the shelf, and Sydney took it from his hand.
She ran her fingers over the leather binding. “Malleus Daemonum.”
Halona moved Scamp to her other arm and glanced over Sydney’s shoulder. “Isn’t that the book on exorcising demons?”
“That sounds interesting,” Grey said. “Let me see.”
“Step away from the dog,” Sydney said, putting the book behind her back.
Grey rolled her eyes but stepped away. “I said I didn’t do anything,” she muttered.
Bryan came up behind Sydney and glanced down at the book. “You’re right, Halona. This book contains four exorcisms, supposedly tried and true, gleaned from the Gospels.”
“Why would anyone want that?” Halona asked. “Demons haven’t existed for centuries.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Bryan murmured, “That’s not entirely true.”
“Dad, what are you talking about? The last of the demons was banished during the Renaissance. That’s what we’ve been taught, what the coven tells us.” Sydney tilted her head.
“Honey, I don’t want to create a panic. Let me do a bit of investigating and see what I can come up with first.”
Sydney glanced at Halona then Nick. “Okay, Dad, but I can tell you that Smythe-Warren came looking for this very book earlier this week. Said he had a client interested in it.”
“Would that client have gone to all this trouble?” Grey waved her arm toward the scorched wall.
“That would depend on his motive,” Bryan said.
Bethany pushed through the group, put a small ceramic mortar on the table, and took Nick’s hand in hers. She gently prodded the raw flesh with the tip of a gloved finger and then dipped that finger into her mortar. A pungent aroma flooded the space, and everyone drew back with grimaces.
“This should heal you up in no time,” she said as she gently swabbed the wound in a pasty goo. “My special recipe.”
“What’s in it?” Nick asked, wrinkling his nose.
“You probably don’t want to know,” Bethany said with a smile.
“It’s probably dog poop,” Grey said lightly. When all gazes snapped toward her, she raised her brows. “Just sayin’. I mean we sure have the means.” She gave Scamp a pointed look.
Nick blanched, and Bethany smiled and said, “It’s not dog poop,” as she wrapped a white bandage around his hand.
Sydney pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. She scrolled through her contacts and punched the button. She waited, tapping her foot against the rug, ready to speak when the phone clicked on.
“Randall, I need—”
“This is Randall Smythe-Warren. I’m unavailable to take your call at the present time. Please leave a number at the tone.”
“Damn it.” Sydney clicked off and shoved the phone back in her pocket. “He’s probably packing as we speak.”
“I’ll make a few calls,” Bryan said.
He strode from the collections room, and as Sydney heard her father speaking to someone on the other line, a firefighter poked his head through the door.
He pushed his helmet back, looking sheepish. “Beck, we’ve checked everything and everywhere, and we got nothin’.”
“No sweat, Collins,” Beck said, gesturing toward the scorched wall. “The incense and candles ran amok tonight. I got it covered. You can get the truck back. I’ll follow behind.”
Collins’ gaze touched on each of the four women as he pressed his lips together. “Witches…” He shook his head sadly and disappeared.
Nick grabbed Sydney and pulled her into his arms. “Witches…” He pressed his lips to hers and smiled. “What would we do without them?”
Bryan stepped back into the room. “I’ve got feelers out. If Smythe-Warren is still in town, we’ll find him. In the meantime…” He took Sydney’s arm and steered her toward the door.
“Dad…”
“Give me a minute, Syd.” He glanced at the others. “Everyone out please. I need to do a bit of detection.”
Sydney nodded, and when the others followed her from the room, Bryan closed the door.
“I thought they were strong enough,” Sydney murmured.
“They were,” Bethany said.
“They kept him out.” Halona hugged Scamp tighter.
They waited impatiently until Bryan came out and closed the door behind him. “Lock it up, honey.” As Sydney locked the door, Bryan ran a hand through his hair. “I’ve put my own spin on things. I think it should help, but I can’t be sure. I’d rather no one go in there right now. Nick?” He turned toward Nick, his gaze hoping for confirmation.
“Yeah, I gotta say that room is churning with untapped magic. It’s like a smoldering volcano.”
“I’ve got to get home,” Bryan said. “My own collection… well, let’s just say I’ve got books that make the Malleus Daemonum seem like a Dick and Jane story.”
“So you’ll be researching what this could have been?” Grey clasped her hands behind her back, as though afraid accusations would, once again, fly out of the woodwork.
Bryan nodded. “That and… protecting what’s mine. I can’t let any of it fall into the wrong hands.”
Sydney wasn’t sure she wanted to know what the wrong hands were.
Chapter 7
Five weeks passed, and nothing unusual happened in the shop. No broken wards, no strange visitors, no requests for dark and dangerous books. Her father was still researching his own tomes and volumes, but so far, he hadn’t found anything, at least nothing he cared to share with her.
Business was booming in Magicville as the summer tourists left and the autumn ones arrived. Crisper air and a hint of color in the leaves brought out the paranormal enthusiasts in droves, and every shop along Main Street had been decorated with fall highlights, capitalizing on the witchy vibe of the town as the harvest festival drew near.
Sydney snuck into the collections room, against her father’s advice, and tried desperately to clean the burn mark from the wall. She tried scrubbing, she tried sandpaper, and she tried painting. Nothing worked. She finally made arrangements with Nick to replace the entire wall before he installed the new bookshelves, which she’d decided to imbue with even stronger magic, her own as well as Grey’s, Halona’s, and Bethany’s. She’d determined that she could never have too much protection against things that might go bump in the night. She hoped it was overkill, but every time she looked into her father’s serious eyes, she thought that might be wasted hope.
In those five weeks, she spent time with her students and time with Nick, growing more enamored of him with each day that passed. An acute desire flashed through her body every time he touched her, kissed her, or even glanced in her direction. She began to think that Nick moving to Blansett was the best thing that had ever happened to her, and she reluctantly admitted to herself that she might be fallin
g in love. She might have scoffed at that idea had she not seen Grey capitulate so readily and easily for Beck Marshall. Love definitely had come to call in Blansett, flowing through the ley lines to capture her friend’s previously stony heart. Sydney was pretty sure love had captured her own as well. Not that she’d told anyone, except for Glimmer. Glimmer approved.
She’d been spending time with Janine and Tawny, strolling the boardwalk and shopping for girly things, having picnics and sunning in the last truly hot days of the season. She enjoyed each moment, adding the two girls to her stable of strong friendships with powerful females.
On a sunny Saturday afternoon, Janine dropped Tawny off so she could meet with a new client. Sydney had been looking forward to spending some one-on-one time with the little girl. Between customers, and a bit of dusting on yet another shipment of crystal balls, Sydney taught the girl how to control her push.
“We witches have a magical code,” she said, “and it’s very important that we stick to it.”
“Why?” Tawny asked.
“So that we can always trust one another.”
Tawny flicked the feather duster over a beautiful crystal ball that gleamed with midnight strands. “What sort of code is it?”
“We must never use our gifts against another witch.”
Tawny made a face. “What’s the point of having gifts then?”
“They come in handy at times,” Sydney said, “but you must never use them on another witch, particularly your friends or family.”
Tawny made a face at the word family.
“Something wrong?”
“What about stupid boys?”
“Are we talking about the twins?”
“Who else?” Tawny threw her hands up. “They just won’t listen to me.”
“They’re boys. That’s the way boys are sometimes.”
“It’s just…they’re just impossible!” Tawny’s lips firmed into a straight line, and she gripped the feather duster in a tight fist. “They’re always playing their stupid, boring video games, and I never get a chance.”
Mystic Tides Page 16