Black Magic Woman

by Christine Warren

  And somehow he managed to speak like that without sounding like a total prat.

  Daphanie shook her head in bemusement.

  “Leave my wife alone, you overgrown alley cat,” the other man growled, draping a possessive arm around his mate’s shoulders. “Go get your own woman.”

  “Only if one of these two lovely ladies is available. I beg you to introduce me.”

  Missy laughed out loud while Corinne rolled her eyes. Daphanie merely tried not to let herself be hypnotized by the intensely golden, flirtatious gaze now trained her way.

  “Since you’ve already met both of them, I’d say you can stuff your charm and try it on someone who might not find it insulting,” Graham Winters taunted. “Corinne D’Alessandro is one of Missy and Regina’s oldest friends, so forgetting her name is about as flattering as complimenting her on how good she looks for her age. And Daphanie Carter is Danice’s sister. You met her last night at the wedding reception. So much for Rafael De Santos’s famous touch with women.”

  “Ah, forgive me, ladies,” De Santos begged with a grin that could probably charm bracelets. From what Danice had said of him in the past, Daphanie suspected that “charm” was the werejaguar’s middle name. “I was clearly ill or suffering from some sort of mental impairment when we were introduced, otherwise I would never have forgotten such beauty.”

  “Christ, I’m gonna need hip boots if he keeps shoveling this stuff.”

  Missy elbowed her husband in the ribs hard enough to make him grunt. “Enough of your flirting, Rafe. Tell us what you meant about ‘once a Guardian, always a Guardian.’”

  Graham had been correct. Daphanie had been introduced to Rafael De Santos during her sister’s reception, but the man had been simultaneously meeting about a dozen other people and already schmoozing with five or six more. She supposed that was part of the job of being the head of the Council of Others. She watched as the man settled himself gracefully in the vacant club chair opposite Missy’s.

  “I meant just exactly that, my dear,” he said, speaking to Missy but training that glittering golden stare on Daphanie. “It is not in the nature of a Guardian to abandon a human once she has been taken under his wing, as it were. Especially if there is, perhaps, a lingering threat.”

  “That’s what we’ve been trying to decide,” Missy said. “Whether or not the threat lingers.”

  “May I ask what sort of threat?”

  Corinne groaned and threw herself back into the sofa cushions. “No. I’m not telling that story again. It was hard enough to remember all the details the first time.”

  “It’s not your story anyway,” Missy dismissed. “Daphanie, do you mind running through it all again? I’m sure the Cliff’s Notes version will do.”

  Daphanie figured it would have to. Even after retelling and hearing the story retold in the bright light of day, somehow the events of last night seemed less real to her than the events her subconscious had conjured up this morning while she slept. If they’d asked her about the dream, she could have described every detail. About the episode at the club, she could offer not much more than an outline. The events had begun to blur somehow. The only figure she could remember in HD clarity was Asher, and she had to wonder if that was because her hormones played a part in keeping the image fresh in her mind.

  And other places.

  Forcing eyes of silver and gold out of her mind, she sketched a brief summary of her and Quigley’s jaunt to Lurk. She described the encounter with D’Abo, the altercation with the witch doctor and his entourage, and her timely rescue.

  When she finished, Graham winced. “I swear, you humans must work at getting into this kind of trouble.”

  His wife smacked him hard on the leg and scowled. “You can take your idiot Other prejudice and shove it, right alongside Rafe’s charm, Graham Winters. Were you listening to the same story I heard? Because it sounded to me like this Charles D’Abo character was the one who started the trouble. Daphanie was the innocent party here. Let’s keep that in mind before we open our smart mouths, okay?”

  “Obviously Daphanie was not at fault for the altercation,” Rafe agreed smoothly, “but the unfortunate truth of our world is that when a human and an Other find themselves at odds, it is the human who faces the greater danger. I doubt that D’Abo is worrying whether he is in continuing danger this morning.”

  Corinne pounced on the words. “Does that mean this creep really is dangerous? Should Daphanie be worried he might mean that crap about her getting ‘what she deserves’?”

  “It is hard to say…”

  “Wait, D’Abo said he wouldn’t hurt me,” Daphanie reminded them. “He told Asher that himself, so wouldn’t that indicate that I shouldn’t be worried?”

  She hoped she sounded more convinced of that than she felt. The trouble was that she wasn’t convinced. That was why she’d let Corinne bring her here for answers, instead of relying on the word of a man who seemed to regard humans as beneath his notice. Did that suggest that they were beneath his sense of honor, too?

  “Yeah, he said that, but does his word actually hold any water?” Corinne argued. “I mean, what do we know about this guy? Is he the kind who keeps his word, or would he say anything he needed to at the given moment and then forget all about his promise as soon as he got home?”

  Missy tilted her head to look questioningly up at her husband.

  Graham shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I’ve never heard of him.”

  “I know his name,” Rafe admitted, “but I have never encountered him personally. I cannot vouch one way or another for his sense of honor.”

  Corinne crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, I’m not inclined to take the word of the kind of jerk who would throw that sort of tantrum over a glass of spilled milk.”

  “Root beer,” Daphanie corrected automatically.

  “Whatever.”

  “I’m not suggesting that anyone take the man’s word for his promise. I would be happy to make some inquiries to learn more about him, and I intend to do so immediately.” The authority in Rafe’s voice assured Daphanie that the head of the Council was definitely a man of his word. “In the meantime, however, I have to say that my worries for Daphanie’s safety are not extreme. Not only will she now have the Council monitoring her situation, but the fact that she is under the care of a Guardian would make any direct attack on her person next to impossible.”

  “I wish he’d at least popped in to say hello when he dropped you two off,” Missy said. “I would have liked to meet him.”

  Corinne snorted. “Judging by how hard it was to convince him to let Daphanie out of his sight even while she was here, I don’t imagine you’ll have to wait much longer for that honor.”

  The corner of the Felix’s mouth curved up in amusement. “I believe Corinne is correct. Guardians do not give their protection lightly. If one placed himself between Daphanie and a threat to her person, she will remain in his charge until a higher authority releases him. Therefore, you may assume he will be around for the foreseeable future.”

  “A higher authority like what?” Daphanie asked.

  Broad shoulders shifted under his elegant silk shirt. “The Watcher, I suppose. But more likely death.”

  Daphanie squeaked. “Mine or his?”

  Rafe chuckled. “Neither of the scenarios you appear to be envisioning. I am uncertain as to the mortality of the Guardians, but I do know they do not suffer from a human life span, so I don’t suppose his death to hold the key. And I’ve never known a Guardian to fail in his duties, so the only death of yours that might apply would be a natural one, achieved after many, many long and healthy decades of life.”

  Graham shifted on the arm of his wife’s chair. “Daphanie, did you say that the name of the Guardian who helped you out last night was Asher?”

  “That’s what he told me. Asher Grayson.” She paused. “Why?”

  The alpha whistled. “Because I may not have heard of this D’Abo guy, but I have heard of Grayson.�
��

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “For you? Good, I’m guessing. How it winds up being for D’Abo will likely be entirely up to him.”

  Daphanie sighed and leaned back into the sofa cushions. Her adventure in the surreal life didn’t look to be ending anytime soon. How was it possible that a week ago today, the most complicated thing on her mind had been reminding herself to drop off her change of address cards at the post office so that her current clients and galleries would know that she was still working and how they could reach her?

  What a difference a day makes.

  Providing, of course, that day was this past Wednesday, when she’d gone out for Vietnamese with Mac, Niecie, and her parents and sat staring while Danice explained about the Others as steaming drops of beef broth dripped slowly off her noodle-laden chopsticks. A day like that made a hell of a difference. The question left to her now was, what kind of a difference did Asher Grayson intend to make? If any.

  “You know, I appreciate the reassurance from you guys. I really do. But frankly, I’m not the kind of girl to put all her eggs in one basket, especially not one someone else is carrying. I’d much rather get a straight answer on whether or not I need to worry about D’Abo. And if I do, what I should be doing about it.”

  “I wish we could tell you more about D’Abo,” Rafe said, “and rest assured that I will make gathering this information my highest priority. But in the meantime…”

  He glanced at Graham, who nodded.

  “In the meantime, I’ll get in touch with the Guardians. It can’t hurt to have their official approval for Grayson keeping his eye on you.”

  Daphanie couldn’t decide whether that surge of adrenaline in her bloodstream was due to the annoyance of having men she barely knew making decisions for her, or the prospect of spending all this time with Asher Grayson.

  Somehow the idea frightened her as much as it thrilled her.

  “I don’t think I need a babysitter,” she protested with a frown.

  “Don’t think of it as having a babysitter, then,” Corinne suggested, her grin turning sly. “Think of it as having really nice scenery. I mean, I did happen to notice—in a purely theoretical way, of course—that Asher is pretty damned fine scenery to look at.”

  “Did you?” Daphanie muttered.

  “Based on your descriptions, I think Corinne might have a point.” Missy’s smile hinted at a certain sense of sympathy. After all, the woman knew all about hot men, judging by the one currently hovering over her.

  “No one suggests that you need a sitter,” the Felix assured her. “After all, at the moment, we have no evidence that D’Abo does not intend to honor his promise to leave you alone. You were not harmed after you left the club, yes? Nothing unusual has happened since then?”

  That question should have been easier to answer. While the foggy remnants of her dream had mostly faded by this point, she still had a hard time believing that conversations like this one made up her new reality. The memory of the firelit dance felt almost as tangible to her.

  Daphanie shook her head. “Not unless you count me sitting here right now. Or my developing a craving for milk in my coffee.” She quirked a grin at Rafe. “You’re not contagious or anything, right?”

  The shifter laughed. “I assure you, no. You will catch nothing from me.”

  “Not even fleas,” Corinne taunted. “I hear Missy makes all her visitors wear preventive collars.”

  Rafe merely glanced at her.

  “Don’t worry, honey,” Missy assured Daphanie, leaning forward to pat her hand. “I’m sure you’ll be just fine. There’s no reason at all you shouldn’t go on with your life as usual. Let us take care of this Charles D’Abo character. That’s what friends are for.”

  Six

  While vampires and shapeshifters (particularly werewolves) are easily the most recognizable types of Others, they represent only the tip of the supernatural iceberg. Vampires, as we explored in chapter two, are fairly straightforward creatures, and the shapeshifters featured in chapters three through six are many and varied, but possess commonalities that make studying them a fascinating but manageable task for the average human. When it comes to magic, however, and the Others who use magic, the varieties and possibilities and vagaries are, quite literally, endless.

  —A Human Handbook to the Others, Chapter Seven

  At the moment, it wasn’t her friends that Daphanie was worried about. Her friends were kind, funny, generous, supportive, and endlessly entertaining. The man currently glowering at her from the corner of her downtown studio space didn’t look very friendly. In fact, he looked irritated. With her. As if she’d wanted him to follow her to the renovated industrial loft where she worked.

  That only served to increase Daphanie’s own irritation. The last few days had not been the most pleasant of her life. Since Saturday, she’d spent every waking moment trying to find a way to get her life moving back in the direction it had been taking before the incident at Lurk. Or, as she liked to call it, B.Q. Before Quigley.

  Of the imp, she’d seen neither hide nor hair since the moment she’d left to fetch his root beer. He hadn’t stuck around once the fracas in the club had started, and he hadn’t even had the decency to check afterward to see if she’d made it out alive. No wonder her sister apparently had the little creep penned onto her shit list. Daphanie had etched his name on hers in indelible ink, in the number one position.

  Number two belonged to the man standing in front of her now.

  Since Sunday morning, the man had stuck to her side like a barnacle on the hull of a seventeenth-century pirate ship. She could swear he was giving her a rash.

  The problem was that the rash wasn’t due to irritation, it was due to the constant hum of arousal that prickled her skin every time he got within ten feet of her. Which meant every damned minute of the day. He was there in the apartment when she woke up, brewing tea and puttering around her sister’s kitchen. He was there when she went to sleep, stretched out on the enormous sectional sofa, the remote control in one hand the only hint that he might bear some passing resemblance to a normal man. He was even there in her studio when she tried to work. Like now. And at all of those times, her powers of concentration became extremely hampered by the burning desire to see if his granite-carved lips would soften at all if she pressed her own against them.

  As it turned out, Asher Grayson was a hard man to forget, and trust her, Daphanie had been trying. It seemed odd that other than him, the details of most of the Event had gone a little fuzzy around the edges. The dream she’d had afterward still felt more real to her, though maybe that partially stemmed from having been repeated second for second every night since. But when it came to Saturday, it was like her subconscious only had room for one memory from Saturday night, and for some reason it had chosen to retain the dream instead of the reality.

  Except for the reality of Asher. Whether or not he was always near, she couldn’t stop thinking about him. Her mind strayed to him when she should be working or sleeping or eating or jabbing herself in the eyes with a fire poker. She couldn’t get him out of her head, and maybe that contributed to her peevishness this morning.

  “You know, you don’t have to just hover all the time. You could … I don’t know, do something useful. Something at least slightly less annoying.”

  His glower morphed seamlessly into a scowl. “What are you talking about?”

  Her gaze shifted from the short length of mild-steel gas pipe she currently held in one hand to the side of Asher’s head. Tempting as the thought might be, she really wasn’t in the mood for a fight. Instead, she stepped back from the studio’s door and returned to the crate she’d been unpacking onto the enormous carpenter’s table in the center of her work area.

  “I mean that since Sunday, you’ve watched me eat, you’ve watched me read, you’ve watched me talk on the phone, you’ve watched me check my e-mail, you’ve watched me paint my toenails. Hell, you’ve even watched me watch TV. I’m
getting really sick of being watched. And frankly, I imagine you’re getting sick of looking at me.” She set aside the pipe with several others of the same length and sifted through the packing material for the shorter cuts she knew had to be in there. “So why don’t you make yourself useful and help me out here?”

  “You want me to help you sort pipes?”

  “I just want you to do something other than your garden-statue impersonation. It’s driving me frickin’ demented.”

  He remained silent, but she could almost say she was getting used to that. The man was about as talkative as a bedroom slipper. He had a sort of absolute self-containment she both admired and found infuriating. Clearly, he had no problem with silence, no problem being alone. She just wished he wouldn’t make her feel like she was alone even when they were in the same room.

  She watched out of the corner of her eye as he stirred from his station near the far window and walked through the studio toward her. His haunting silver-gold eyes scanned the space, taking in the stacks of crates yet to be unpacked, the surfaces already coated with oils and metal shavings, the narrow, dirty windows, and the custom furnaces that had been installed against the exposed brick wall.

  “I thought artists needed lots of light to work,” he said, his gaze finally returning to her.

  Damn him. Even his voice made her stomach clench, smooth and dark as Colombian coffee. Why had she wanted him to start talking to her?

  “What makes you think I’m an artist?” She struggled to sound casual, wondered if she succeeded. “Most people take a look at my setup and guess demented mechanic.”

  “I saw the window-box cages outside the Silverback’s home. I admired the work. The alpha said you’d made them.”

  She had. In fact, she had labored for almost a month to create the six intricately worked pieces so that Danice and her friends could present them to Missy for a wedding gift. She’d debated for almost as long as she’d worked, worrying over the motif of moon phases half concealed in tendrils of twining vines. In the end she’d gone with her instincts. The bride had liked them enough to have them mounted on all the ground-floor front windows of her husband’s enormous home.