Oculus

by S. E. Akers

  For the record, my mental swear jar regrettably got that crisp full dollar bill it was hell-bent on collecting after all, right along with PLENTY of loose change to spare.

  All of a sudden the locked doors flew open like a pair of angel’s wings and Silas charged into the library, scanning the perimeter. Something shot out of his hands as he spun around the room. The air filled with a vapor-like mist that quickly fanned throughout the entire space. My eyes sparked as soon as the citrusy-scent registered in my head. Not a second had passed before I heard a faint cough and the sound of a harsh “thump” on the floor. Then two more “thump… thumps…” boomed from a spot near the busted computer. The last one took a little longer, but when the relieving sound finally came, I swore I heard a mousey voice cry out, “Why?” just before its final “thump”. All the faeries were bound and down for the count — THANK GOODNESS!

  I stared at the room, numb to my core. It was totally trashed, ceiling to floor. Tanner’s alchemy area looked like someone had detonated a bomb. All nine of the bookshelves were completely bare and their former contents now littered the room like a hodgepodge of leather and parchment confetti. Most of them were tattered, a countless number were missing their pages, and some had been burnt straight down to their spines. Water was dripping off everything. I didn’t even want to think about how many jars of herbs and tinctures were lying around smashed to pieces, but it was hard not to with everything covered in what looked like a snowstorm of glass and potpourri. No two ways about it. I was standing smack dab in the devastating aftermath of World War Fae and all its magical mayhem & misery.

  I rushed towards Silas and grabbed his arms. “What did you do to them?” There was no getting out of this. He’d managed to successfully bind four faeries with some crazy mist that he’d sprayed out of his hands and into the air. How many “humans” could pull off a stunt like that?

  Silas casually stepped out of my grasp and then pulled a bright yellow can out from behind his back. He held it up to my face. “I sprayed the little buggers with Pledge.” Then the house steward twisted the furniture polish around to the writing on its side and tapped his finger twice. “They use real lemons . . . It says so right here.”

  If I didn’t feel horrible enough about completely destroying Tanner’s library, I would have dropped to my knees in a heated growl. All I could do was stare at him with a defeated brow and somberly wail on the inside.

  “Tanner’s going to be livid,” I groaned.

  “What did you honestly think would happen if you summoned faeries?” Silas demanded, “ . . . Attention-seeking magical beings that are essentially children in regards to right and wrong?”

  “I swear I didn’t think THIS!” I contended, my arms fully stretched.

  “You didn’t think at all,” he countered. “That’s the other half of your problem!”

  I didn’t have the audacity to mount the first defense, nor the gumption. It wasn’t a secret that I’d been off my game all week—correction—for the past several weeks now, dating right back to Day-One. But this? Monsters aside, this latest goof was one mother of a shit-storm.

  I bent down and started gathering up books straightaway, only to be halted by Silas. “NO, Ms. Wallace! You have done enough! I will handle the cleanup — AGAIN!”

  “But I want to—”

  “No,” Silas repeated.

  “But I was the one—”

  Silas held up his hand. “Please, Ms. Wallace, go to your room. Draw that bath you were so eager to soak in earlier,” he scolded and then panned the space with a dreariness tugging his eyes. “Truth be told, I’m afraid of what you might do. I wouldn’t put it past you to fancy another spell in an attempt to be ‘helpful’. My broom may sprout a pair of arms and feet and then start fetching buckets of water on its own. And we both know how that turned out!”

  “But Tan—”

  He shushed me with a wave and gave his watch a painful glance. “I can have it all put back together before he gets back — IF you let me get to it.”

  I picked up one of charred beyond-repair books. “But that’s impossible,” I huffed. “Some of this stuff can’t be patched or mended. Some of it went up in flames.”

  “Trust me. I’m as handy with working miracles as I am at guessing,” Silas assured. “Off with you . . . and close the doors on your way out.”

  I rallied my most heartfelt voice. “Silas, please let me—”

  “NO!” he snapped and grabbed hold of my arm. My listless frame was out in the hall with a shove before I knew it. I turned towards the library only to have the doors slam shut in my face with a thunderous “BANG”. I jumped back and then landed feeling even lower. My warden couldn’t even trust me with an elementary punishment like trash-detail. How crappy was that?

  I sulked all the way up to my room and for a solid couple of hours afterward. I was mad at myself and even madder at my faeries. I had no idea they would go all rogue on me with their hellish hijinks. After all, they were supposed to be my faeries. I figured their obedience was implied. Shame on me. But the absolute worst of my troubles were the unrelenting bites of guilt eating me alive. My hands were just as red as the faeries. Truth be told, they were much redder. I was the one who’d summoned them in the first place. Tanner’s library looked a thousand times worse than my imp-ransacked bedroom and the scope of the repairs reached farther than a few busted pieces of furniture, shredded linens, and punched-out patches of sheetrock. I only hoped whatever mystical mojo Silas was pulling didn’t run out before Tanner got home tomorrow. Thinking about that made the “ticks” coming from the clock on the bedside table sound like a countdown timer on a bomb with no kill-switch to flip the damn thing off.

  I finally climbed into bed around a quarter till midnight, though I was far from ready to fall asleep. My guilt was suffocating me, my nerves had twisted my stomach into knots, and my head was whirling non-stop. I didn’t know how I was going to explain myself to Tanner if Silas couldn’t flawlessly fix everything. In the end, I didn’t have the first valid excuse whatsoever other than stubbornness and sheer stupidity — basically, a little girl’s cop-out.

  Needing to alleviate some of my worries, I hopped out of bed and headed down to the library. I wasn’t about to get a lick of peace until I’d checked on the situation down at ground-zero. Then again, depending on the status of the room, I still might not get any. And I didn’t care how much Silas protested. I couldn’t “not lift a finger” a second longer. I was even open to being blindfolded if he was so intent on keeping his mystical identity under wraps, just as long as he threw a daggone broom in my hands.

  I approached the library doors thinking about all the ancient and irreplaceable journals that had been burnt to a crisp. Or handed me a miracle-making magic wand to wave.

  “Silas?” I called and gave the door two firm warning knocks. He never issued the slightest response. I pressed my ear to the door. It sounded as quiet in there as it did out here in the hall. With a tight squeeze on the knob and a cringing squint, I slowly opened the door and edged into the pitch-black room. Seeing how I hadn’t stopped praying for the past couple of hours, I just bit the bullet and flipped on the lights. My stomach simply couldn’t take the suspense any longer.

  The library illuminated in a flash so powerful it sent my entire frame sagging with relief. I stepped towards the center of the room. I could have shed a few tears from not hearing the soggy slush of wet carpet alone. Tanner’s laboratory had been perfectly pieced back together, from its flaming burners straight to its bubbling beakers. I ran over to the cupboards and threw open the doors. Every glass container was back on their shelves, resting in their designated spots no less, and fully stocked with their former mystical ingredients. I turned my attention to the nine levels of bookcases. All of The Guild’s sacred volumes looked to be there, lining the wooden rows from end to end. I hurried up the steps and hunted down one of the journals I knew had burned up. Sure enough, there it was. I pulled it out and flipped through its
pages. Not a one of them were missing, soaked, or even the least bit singed. After sliding the book back in its place, I walked over to the railing and surveyed the room with a bird’s-eye view. It wasn’t bewilderment guiding my gaze; it was gratitude. I was totally indebted to Silas for this one. He could have waited to fix this after Tanner’s return, but he didn’t. The man who had been on my case since Day-One actually wanted to help me. Of course I was beyond relieved that Tanner would never find out, but that didn’t have a thing to do with the smile bursting across my face. It was realizing that Silas didn’t hate me. Now that was the bright-red cherry topping my sundae.

  I headed back up to my room, still extremely thankful and very much wide-awake. Now that my nerves had uncoiled, the roll of my stomach started pleading its case for some relief. Worrying always made me hungry. Between the way my guilt had pretzeled my tummy earlier and all those sugary sweets the faeries kept pulling up on the computer still haunting my thoughts, I inevitably found myself en route to the kitchen for a midnight snack. And I was sort of hoping I would run into Silas. I might even give his cheek a kiss on sight.

  The main house looked the way it always did around this time — lights doused and nothing stirring. I didn’t alter its ambiance as I made my way to the kitchen. Despite my recent blessing of buoyant emotions, I still had plenty of somber ones that felt quite comfortable riding the house’s lonely vibe.

  I noticed Tanner’s iPod docked on the speaker in the kitchen as I made my turn around the island. I grabbed the remote lying on the counter and pressed “PLAY”, hoping fate would crank out an inspired beat to cap off my rollercoaster day. A familiar string of chords pierced the air. The song wasn’t even in the ballpark of uplifting, but then again Tanner’s bat didn’t really swing to trendy Top-20 Pop. He was more of a Classic Rock guy, just like Daddy. In fact, the tune was one my father would have popped into his old boom box on this very day. A Billy Squirer song. Lonely is the Night. My eyes fell to a mindful close. The way I felt right now, it certainly was.

  I let it play, yielding to its rhythmic beat. I’d always found the song’s words kind of melancholy, but tonight they were more evocative than anything. And at this point, anything that could sway my frame into anything other than the droop I’d carried around over the past week was fine with me.

  Fortunately for my sugar-craving, Tanner was a certified ice-cream-aholic (although Beatrix had dubbed him with a more colorful name). The number of flavors he kept stocked in his Sub-Zero freezer rivaled a daggone Baskin Robbins. Now I just needed to figure out which of the umpteen pints sounded good. The frosty air was enough of a push to make my scan as speedy as possible. They all sounded yummy enough—Rocky Road, Butter Pecan, Strawberry Cheesecake—but none of them seemed to hit the spot. I even passed over the Cookies & Cream, and it was pretty high on my temptation list. I breathed out a sigh. I felt so overwhelmed by everything else. The last thing I wanted was a towering wall of ice cream burying me alive. When it came down to it, all I really wanted was vanilla — a plain and faithful stand-by. Uncomplicated. Straightforward. And above all, not the least bit stressing.

  There has to be some in here somewhere. When my scan of the top shelves didn’t yield any treasure, I bent over and began searching the ones on the bottom. Since there wasn’t much room to shift the pints around, I gathered as many as I could, stacking them against my chest to get a clearer view of the selections hidden towards the rear. It wasn’t long before my boobs started to feel like two icebergs casually floating on a frozen sea. Luckily I spotted a lone pint of vanilla tucked in the back corner. Needing to free my hands and thaw out the girls, I turned to place my frosty pyramid on the marble island behind me, only to be startled by the sight of Tanner and his glistening rock-hard and rippling bare chest standing on the other side.

  I shrieked and inevitably dropped them all. A few pints had made it to the counter, but the majority crashed onto the floor. Picking them up gave me the perfect excuse to duck down and compose myself. From what I could tell, all he was wearing was a towel around his hips and an amused grin to go with it.

  I remained hunkered down on the other side of the island, picking up the pints and setting them on the counter. “How long have you been standing there?” I asked, praying he hadn’t been there too long. I wouldn’t say I was dancing during my search, but my ass was swinging more than a bit.

  “Just stepped into the room,” he said.

  “Okay,” I said tersely, acknowledging the chuckle he was struggling to suppress. With all the containers off the floor and sitting on the counter, there was nothing to keep me down here. But there was only one problem. I may have wanted to get up, but “the girls” didn’t want to stay down. Crap… Discreetly, I directed the warm air streaming from the vent under the freezer straight down my shirt and then pressed my folded arms against my chest. Any harder and I would have snapped my daggone spine in two.

  Now that any further embarrassment had been literally nipped in the bud, I rose to my feet in a snap, disturbed by something else. “Why didn’t I sense you?” I nodded to his stone necklace. Tanner wasn’t wearing his identity-hiding tiger’s eye. The pendant dangling between the Amethyst Talisman’s pecs was his larimar.

  Tanner held up his right hand and flashed a domed golden ring that I’d never seen before. The metal peeled away from its center to reveal his tiger’s-eye not a second later.

  “Federo took it from me in Mexico,” he admitted. “I’m lucky he didn’t destroy it.” I watched the golden cover shroud the stone as he lowered his hand. “That won’t happen again,” he vowed. “Tiger’s-eyes are too hard to come by.”

  I could feel my lip starting to curl. “Yes, they are.”

  I started putting the ice cream back in the freezer before my peepers went to wandering on their own. “I thought you said you wouldn’t be back until tomorrow?”

  “It is tomorrow,” he replied.

  I stepped back and glanced at the clock on the wall. “I didn’t realize early meant twelve-thirty.”

  “You can’t get much earlier than that,” he grinned.

  I grabbed a couple more pints and returned to my restocking. “I just figured Malachi’s chopper wouldn’t be headed back this way until later tomorrow morning.”

  “I made other arrangements,” he said with a hint of cunning in his tone.

  “Did you use a ruby?” I posed. “Or maybe one those precious sapphires you like playing with so much?”

  “Neither,” he laughed. “I swam back.”

  I whipped around. “Really?” Well that explained his delectable dew-kissed chest. “How far was that?”

  “Two-hundred miles, give or take,” Tanner shrugged.

  “Did you run into any trouble?” I asked. The full moon’s rise was set for tomorrow morning. I could see the sea-bitch’s hungry-hide already camped out under the current like someone desperate to score the newest iPhone at an Apple Store.

  “A little,” Tanner admitted, “but it was worth the risk.”

  I quickly cleared every jealous thought from my head. That was the last thing I wanted the Emotion Whisperer to sense. I’d always found myself amazed at the amount of strength you could rally after a quick mental chat with your red-suited shoulder-fellow.

  “That must have been a pretty boring meeting to chance a run-in with Lorelei,” I submitted.

  Tanner’s expression softened. “It was the last place I wanted to be.”

  I wasn’t sure if it was his earnest tone or the way his muscles flexed as he leaned on the counter, but something rocked my insides with a quiver. I snatched up the last of the pints and turned for cover before my cheeks shot into a flush. “Did your cravings carry you here?”

  “What?” Tanner asked sharply.

  I glanced back and waved one of the pints in the air. “For some ice cream?”

  “Yeah. Good guess,” he replied.

  “Guessing wasn’t necessary,” I assured. “I know about that wicked sweet-tooth of yours an
d all its midnight raids. Beatrix fussed every time you cleaned out her freezer.” Thinking about her little nickname for him forced a few laughs. “You know she called you an ice-cream whore.”

  “Then I guess that would make me a lying ice-cream whore if I denied it,” he agreed, unabashed.

  “Well the first step is admitting it,” I teased, sounding sagely. “So? What are you in the mood for?”

  An unexpected silence wafted between us. Tanner leveled his eyes to mine, looking the height of pensive.

  Feeling he needed a push, I opened the freezer door and waved my hand as fluid as any model. “What’s your pleasure? You have pretty much every flavor in there.”

  “Vanilla,” he requested just as silky as the gleam lighting his natural hazel eyes.

  I shook off the bewitching effects of his gaze and nodded to the pint I’d left on the counter. “That’s the only one, but you can have it. I’ll find something else.”

  Tanner slowly pulled off the lid and placed it on the counter. “Well, I suppose if I can give you a key to my vault of weapons, I can share my ice-cream with you too,” he said and licked a hint of vanilla off his finger.

  “How generous,” I noted and tapped the freezer door to a close.

  I grabbed two spoons out of the utensil drawer and casually hopped up on the marble counter. My rear rocked around on the slab for a moment, noting that my choice of seats may not have been the best thought-out move. The marble felt colder on my silk-packaged butt than the air wafting out of the freezer had on my T-shirt clad breasts.

  Tanner’s eyes fell to a spot on the counter — in particular, my rear. “Those are my boxers,” he remarked confidently.

  I cringed, knowing he was right. I happened to be wearing a pair that he had left at Bea’s. And this wasn’t the first time I’d thrown them on. They were my go-to whenever I stayed over at her house. I needed something a little more comfortable than her floor-dragging floral nightgowns. And no, I hadn’t given them back, simply because they were too daggone comfortable and breezy…and because they were his.