by A. J. Menden
Sexy black leather? I followed after him.
When we got outside, he stopped in front of his cars. “Which one do we normally take?”
He had to be kidding. “We don’t. You have a thing about not taking your precious babies anywhere that doesn’t have valet. You do a teleportation spell for us to travel anywhere to patrol. And then we walk or fly. Walking is a key factor.”
“A teleportation spell. Right.” He rubbed his hands together. “How do I do that?”
I stared. I knew my mouth had to be hanging open. “You’re not serious.”
“You’re right, I’m messing with you,” he said, lips twitching.
I made a face at him. “You grow a sense of humor, and it happens to be a bad one. Figures.”
His smile widened. “Now you’re starting to break out of your shell. I may not be able to remember everything, but this feels familiar.”
“You tormenting me and getting a sarcastic remark as your prize? Oh, yeah, this is a normal run-of-the-mill day for us,” I said, trying hard to be all business, and not smile back. I barely contained it, but not enough that he didn’t notice.
“Good. I like someone who will talk back to me and not be meek and mild.”
“You’ll like me, then.”
“I do,” he agreed, and something in his tone made me meet his gaze. I shivered, seeing a hint of Robert there in the blue depths.
“Thanks.” I jammed my hands in my coat pockets. “Shall we?”
“By all means,” he said, and stepped closer to me.
He recited the familiar words, created the circle, and I felt the spell take effect. One second we were in front of his house, the next we were in an alley in the middle of the city. The queasy feeling I used to get had disappeared, but Wesley doubled over, turned, and immediately threw up.
“What the hell?” I asked, turning away and fighting not to join him. Anyone yaks, I feel the urge, too.
“Sorry,” he said, holding on to the wall of the building, still looking down. “This body isn’t used to transport-travel yet. And my magic has been reduced since…” He broke off.
“Since you brought me back,” I finished.
“I’m not blaming you, Lainey, just stating a fact. Now let’s get out of here, this alley isn’t helping my stomach any.” He said something under his breath and rose up to fly above the buildings. I followed after.
We drifted down the road, landing on rooftops to rest. Wesley needed a lot of breaks.
“You should have just let me do this,” I said after the tenth time we stopped, annoyance creeping in.
“No, I need to be able to do it,” he snapped back, almost panting, sitting down on a ledge. He was pale and sweating.
I softened. “God, Wesley, you’re forcing too much. Like you said, your magic’s weaker now.”
“I can’t afford to be. Something’s going on.”
I looked around. “There’s nothing going on. This town is dead to night. Not so much as a mugging.”
“Nothing has felt right since I came back,” he said, putting his head in his hands.
“Tell me about it,” I mumbled.
“What?” He looked up, ruffling his hair in a cute way.
Whoa, why am I noticing he’s cute when a day ago I practically hated him? “It’s just all a bit hard to deal with,” I said, sitting down next to him. “Dying. Having a piece of your soul. Your acute memory loss of me.”
“It hasn’t been easy on you, either,” he admitted. “Not what you pictured when you joined up, eh?”
“You have no idea.”
“I’ve been thinking about what Jihad did to you all afternoon.”
“That’s not the least bit creepy.” I shivered, even though it really wasn’t that cold out.
“Did he say your blood specifically, or just the blood of an innocent? I read about you having an innocent soul.”
“He said the blood of the innocent, not me in specific. Would it make a difference?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” He was shaking his head and muttering to himself. “I’ve read it somewhere…chaos spell.”
“Wait, what’d you say?”
“Hmm? Oh, just that the blood of an innocent is part of an old chaos spell.” He gazed off into the city night.
“Talon mentioned chaos a lot in the interview with Pendergast. About it being difficult to work with.”
“Damn!”
“What? What is it?” I had a feeling things had just gone from bad to worse.
“Chaos spells using the blood of the innocent, part of something bigger, that all adds up to one thing.”
“What?”
His blue eyes darkened. “An apocalypse spell.”
“There’re spells that cause the end of the world?”
“Oh, yes. Very powerful and dangerous spells. We may have lucked out for now, though.”
“How’s that?”
“I think I may have gotten to Jihad before he could finish. But there’s nothing to stop this Dragon from trying it again.” Wesley frowned, lost in thought. “I wonder why he didn’t do it himself.”
“Maybe in case it backfired?”
“Could be.” He seemed to come back to reality and noticed the fear on my face. “Cheer up, Lainey, we get to save the world again. Just another day in the life of a hero,” he teased.
For some reason, his flippant remarks loosened the choke hold fear had on me. “Such pleasant things happen when I’m with you, Wes,” I said. “Soul-eating, death, possible apocalyptic spells…”
“I like it that you called me Wes,” he said.
His tone made me look over to see him watching me intently. He looked as if he wanted to kiss me. He leaned toward me, and I felt my body moving toward him.
Oh, my God, what was I doing?
“Well, we’re friends,” I stressed, sitting back again. It was true. I couldn’t harbor resentment against him anymore. I liked him. But I had to remind myself it wasn’t exactly Robert sitting next to me. Robert had been like me: reserved, and always keeping people at a distance. Wesley frankly scared me a bit. Maybe it was his youth, but I could already tell he was a bit more aggressive. He had hit the wall around my heart, and instead of walking away, it was quite likely he’d just start tearing it down.
He took my rebuff in stride. “Yes, we are. And since I made you miss dinner, how about we grab something to eat?”
“Is anything open this time of night?”
“There’s always something open. If I wasn’t so weak, I’d teleport us to Italy. We could get a good meal and you could get some practice speaking Italian.”
“Does that really fall into the ‘not using magic for frivolous reasons’ category?”
I couldn’t tell if he got the reference or not. “Not really an option anyway, since I think I’ve used up enough magic for the evening.”
“Do you want me to carry you, old man?” I teased.
“Ha-ha. You need to start working the teleportations.”
“How about we go to Pizza Pi on Market? It’s a college joint, so it’s got to be open. We can eat ourselves sick and you can teach me some more Italian.”
“Sounds good.” He handed me the vials needed for the spell. “Just teleport us down to ground level, and we’ll take a taxi to the restaurant.”
“You trust me not to kill us?” I asked as I tossed powder into the air.
“Of course.” He reached out to take my hand as I spoke the now familiar Italian words.
When we popped into existence on the sidewalk in front of the building, he was still holding my hand. He looked down at it, smiled, and rubbed a thumb across the back like Robert used to. And he didn’t let go. My heart fluttered.
Oh, my God. Surely I wasn’t starting to fall for Wesley?
“Lainey! Lainey!” He burst into my room later that night, looking frazzled.
“What?” I sat up, in an instant awake and ready for action. “What is it? Was there an attack somewhere?”
> “I remembered something!”
My adrenaline cooled off. “What?”
“I remembered something about you that I didn’t read in the journals!” Wesley looked as excited as a lottery winner.
Now my adrenaline was back on again. “What do you remember?”
“You went out with a guy I hate from the EHJ—Simon.”
And now it was cooling off again. “That’s it? That’s what you remember?”
He deflated. “Well, I know it’s not anything exciting, but it’s something I remembered.”
He was right, it was something. I glanced over at the clock. “Wes, it’s four in the morning! This news couldn’t wait a couple of hours?”
Now he looked like I kicked his puppy. “I thought you’d be thrilled, since you were so devastated I forgot you.”
“I’m glad you remembered, just shocked. I barely remember the date, and I was the one who went on it.” But what happened after was burned into my memory forever. “It’s hard for me to get too excited about it in the middle of the night.”
Now he looked sheepish. “Sorry. Go back to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.” He shut the door behind him.
I fluffed my pillow and tried to settle back down. Just as I started to drift off, a thought occurred to me. If he remembers that, what else is he going to remember? And do I want him to remember what happened after that date?
Those thoughts were enough to keep me awake for the rest of the night.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Now, a few things about Fantazia,” Wesley said a few days later, as we stood in an alleyway in one of the seedier parts of town. Music from the nearby bar could be heard, along with raucous laughter and the sound of glass breaking. Someone was having a good time. “She does not involve herself in our fights—she is a neutral party.”
“So she’s like Switzerland.”
“If Switzerland were a double agent, yes. She cozies up to both sides and listens. She will give us information about the villains for a price, but she will also do the same for them. So it’s important to be very cautious about what you say around her. And do not antagonize her; she is very powerful and old. And she has a legendary temper. She was close to being as powerful as me—well, me before the Jihad incident, so I guess she’s the most powerful now.” He seemed a little sad about that.
I patted his arm. “It’s okay, Wes. You’re still big and bad.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“You’re welcome.” I don’t know why it felt so easy to flirt with Wesley now; maybe because he did it so often with me that it became automatic, but it scared me.
“Now, it’s likely we’ll see some magic-user villains. We may well see some of our Dragon cult members, too.”
“Doubtful, since so far the ones we’ve fought have ended up dead.”
“True. But we may see more villains with the marking. We may be in the room with the Dragon himself. The point is, we can’t make a move against them while we are at Fan-tazia’s, but neither can they.”
“Spell?”
“No, Fantazia will kill anyone who fights in her place. We were invited, so we’re under her protection. That’s how she works. But if you see anyone with a dragon marking, try to memorize their faces and names.”
“Got it.” I looked back toward the alley. “So we go inside?”
He looked at me as if I was crazy. “No, that’s a biker bar. We’re going to somewhere a bit off the beaten path—a pocket universe.”
“Fantazia created her own universe?”
“No, but she was the first one to travel there, so she claimed it. She’s such a spoiled brat; what she wants, she gets. She’s lived there for centuries, and brought it closer to this world so other magic-users can access it—I think to have company, mostly.” He moved to the end of the alley and I saw a door appear out of nowhere. It was almost transparent; through it I could see the graffiti on the brick wall behind. A faint glow surrounded it.
“Stay close to me,” Wesley said, and stepped inside.
I don’t know what I expected a pocket universe to look like, but the expensive cathouse décor that greeted me—BDSM leather in particular—wasn’t it.
The walls and floors were layered with thick red velvet. The furniture was all black leather, uncomfortable artsy-looking pieces surrounding small tables. In the muted candlelight, the people sitting around were hard to identify, which was probably the point. Emaciated-looking wait-staff floated between the tables, bringing refreshments and what looked like spell ingredients.
The patrons all stopped talking and looked up when we walked in. I tried to adopt a cool look of indifference like Wesley had, and scanned the bar for any familiar faces.
There were none. One by one, they all went back to conversation, though I thought I heard “Reincarnist,” here and there.
“What are we supposed to do?” I whispered to Wesley.
“Remain calm. Get a drink and sit down. She’ll send for us when she’s ready.”
I perched in one of the sadistic chairs and tried to act natural. A man with pointed facial hair sat with a bored-looking woman at the next table over, transforming something into a frog, a book, a kitten, an ice cube, and a baby dragon all in the blink of an eye. At the opposite table, a rumpled-looking man in a trench coat smoked a cigarette and argued with something that looked like it had walked off a sea monster horror movie set.
Wesley reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “Try not to stare.” And once again, he didn’t let go.
The man in the trench coat looked over at me and winked. I turned my attention back to my own table, where one of the wraithlike waitresses was setting goblets of red wine in front of us.
“ ’Lo, Old One,” my friend from the next table over said, giving Wesley a nod. “Almost didn’t recognize you. Haven’t seen you round here lately.”
“I’ve been concerned with other matters.”
My friend blew out smoke. “I heard. Figured you’re here to pick the old lady’s brain for info.” He smiled at me. “This your bird?”
“She’s new to the magic-side.” Wesley sidestepped the question. “Thought I’d show her the scenery.”
“It’s definitely improved.” He eyed me like a hungry man eyes a steak. “You get tired of him, you’re welcome to be my guest anytime.”
A woman with milky white, almost translucent, skin glided up to our table. “Fantazia will see you now.”
Wesley nodded and stood. “We’re off.” He took my arm in his, almost in a possessive manner.
“Cheers, mate.” The man in the trench coat took another drag of his cigarette and started arguing with the squid creature again.
“Who was that?” I asked as soon as we were out of range.
“I’ve absolutely no idea. Someone I knew once.”
“Good guy or bad guy?”
“In-between, I think.” Wesley paused and looked back. “I think I lost one of my cars to him!”
“But he’s not who we’re looking for?”
“I don’t think he’s the type to do an apocalypse spell. Trick people out of cars, yes. Destroy the world, no.”
As we followed the woman toward the back of the room, passing all the tables, I got a tingly feeling, as if someone was watching me. I stopped and gave a quick glance over my shoulder, but no one was looking in my direction.
“Something wrong?” Wesley asked.
I shivered. “No. Just got a feeling, that’s all. Like someone was watching me.”
Wesley gave the room a quick critical glance. “It’s probably just the costume. But keep on guard, just in case.” The corners of his mouth quirked up in the barest of smiles.
“You know, you keep mentioning the outfit, but I’m still covered up more than most of our kind.”
“It’s still eye-catching.”
“I’ll take that as compliment.”
“It was meant to be one.”
I didn’t have to come up
with a reply as our guide threw back a heavy velvet curtain and we were ushered into a smaller VIP-type room, this time in opposite-colored decor—black velvet wall and floor coverings and two bright red leather couches. Instead of candles, a bright spotlight shone down, illuminating the area surrounding the seating and casting the rest of the room into darkness.
Fantazia might have been old, but she didn’t look it. In fact, she seemed about my age, with the kind of body men fantasize about, shown off to its full advantage in a barely-there black dress. Adding to the sex-kitten look were long, wavy brown hair and dramatic red lips. Her bare arms were covered in henna tattoos that looked like an ancient language I had seen in some of Wesley’s texts. She was draped across one of the couches, with two scary looking henchmen hovering just behind.
She smiled and held a hand out to Wesley. “Good evening, Old One.” I noticed her nail polish was red, too. She took the color-coordinating thing seriously.
Wesley bent to kiss her hand. “Fantazia. You’re looking as lovely as ever.”
“You wouldn’t know, considering your spotty memory, but I’ll take any compliment I get.” She motioned for us to sit down. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to the memorial, but after a few centuries, they tend to lose their meaning. But I like the new look. Boyishly handsome suits you.”
“Thank you.”
“You get the good looks no matter which life you’re in.” She gave a soft laugh. “Got to love those genetics.”
“We can keep complimenting each other, or we can get down to business,” I said.
I felt Wesley’s smirk but ignored it. Fantazia just seemed amused.
“Oh, this one’s good. I like her. She’s got spunk.” Her eyes narrowed in critical concentration, and she turned her head as if hearing something I couldn’t. “Wait. Is that…?” She slid off the couch and hovered nearby, running her hands over me without touching, like he had done before. “Oh, my. What have you done?” She shook a finger at him and made a tsk-tsk noise. I’m sure the color drained from my face.
“This little girl has a part of your soul! I can’t believe you did that. Oh, but she’s special, isn’t she?” She patted my head as if I were a child. “A rarity. A pure soul. Didn’t want to chance it getting tainted by leaving the wound open?” She went over to her couch again. “Always sacrificing yourself for the greater good, never mind the consequences. Did you find the last remaining bit of pureness inside you to give to her?”