“No,” I said, barely able to breathe. “It didn’t just fly. It couldn’t have.” The shock of thinking arachnids had invaded my apartment had left me unable to digest the impossibility of such…magic. I wondered, if I laid the razor back on the peeling, blue non-skid fishy sticker, could I do it again?
I did, but not until I stared at the razor for a while and felt the necklace burn against my skin. Wowsers.
The feel of power in those beads scared me more than the idea of a spider on my neck. Way more.
My fear, however, was short-lived. I dried off, got dressed and fingered the necklace. What had that goofy guy said about the necklace? Secrets? Power? If…if I thought about believing the concept of a magic necklace, would I also believe I could channel the power? Didn’t he say not to use it? That implied it was possible. Unbelievable, but possible.
Within ten minutes I had my brush dancing on air and my toothbrush twirling like a live baton.
“You shouldn’t toy with the power.” Sam stood in the doorway to the bathroom. He put up a hand and stopped the shriek I had opened my mouth to emit. “No matter who you scream for they won’t see me unless I want them to.”
“Why are you in my house?” I emphasized each syllable, all the while wondering why I didn’t have enough guts to throw the contents of the bathroom at him.
“Because my magic is stronger.”
I froze and looked at him again. “Huh?”
“You won’t try to fight me with your magic because you know mine is stronger. Much more controlled.”
“Why are you in my house?” I repeated.
“Because I needed to be sure you don’t hurt yourself with the magic.”
“Listen, Sam or whatever your name is, you cannot do this to me. I don’t want to be some witch and I certainly can’t handle you just creeping up on me like this. And this magic stuff?” I shook my head. I couldn’t insist I didn’t believe, because I was using it, doing it. But I didn’t understand it, and didn’t want to.
“What if I told you it was me in the bathtub, tickling the back of your neck?”
I screamed.
He laughed. “Just kidding. You felt the ties to the necklace—and I know because I read your thoughts, not because I was there. Now go to the door and tell Bertie you found a spider in the bathtub.”
There was a knock at the door. He inclined his head toward it.
I should have passed out, freaked out or demanded he get out. Well, I’d tried that. I suppose an explanation was equally out of the question. Magic? How? How? I really did want to jump up and down screaming at him to show me more, get the damn thing off my neck and tell me what the hell was going on—all at once. But poor Bertie needed to be attended to. “I’m going, I’m going.”
“Don’t lie. I’m not here.” I looked back. He wasn’t. What the heck was going on?
I calmed my downstairs neighbor with the spider story. I stood with my back against the door after she’d gone back downstairs. None of this made any sense. How did Sam get in here? And why? Did he want his necklace back? Was this some sort of a trick?
Back to the bathroom I went. Sam was still gone or invisible or whatever. It hurt to think about what that meant.
I studied myself in the mirror. Nope, nothing different. Eyes a little wild, but that’s to be expected in crazy people. And that damn necklace. Perfectly round, glass beads lay on either side of my neck. They looked clear to me, but hadn’t Jess said they were blue or purple or something? “Freakin’ Frankenstein looking things.”
They pulsated pink. I raised an eyebrow. “Useless cockamamie glass shooters on a thrown away slip of leather.”
Red. Ow, damnit. Hot, too. Okay, so I couldn’t insult the nice piece of jewelry or it bit back. It was time to take it off, once and for all.
But not right now. My wonderful long, hot shower had swelled the rawhide and my stubby fingers were no match for it. Figured.
I held up one finger, mad scientist style. I had scissors. I’d admit it scared me, putting something that sharp against my neck, but—Ow, Ow, Ow! I swore I had to have two hickey-looking marks on my throat from the heat they emitted. Okay, so no scissors. These beads didn’t like the idea of scissors.
The wall clock struck a chord. Half past what? I wondered, just knowing I was a good two hours late for work already. I hadn’t even managed to put my watch on yet. I was really slipping.
The alarm clock said eight-thirty. I retrieved my watch and confirmed it. Wow. I could have sworn it was later. That meant I still had a half-hour to brush my hair and coat my lashes with mascara. Perhaps even dig out my lip gloss. Maybe it was going to be a better day than yesterday.
My illustrious job was with the travel agency around the corner and three doors down from the antique shop. I refused to even look at the sign above door promising “Treasures of the Past” as I drove by and signaled my turn. Parking was a cinch, and I strolled into the office with a big smile plastered on my face.
Everyone there, all of two girls, stopped to stare at me.
“What?” Did I get dressed? Did my hair turn purple or fall out on the drive in? “What?”
“It’s Saturday, Ella. Since when do you work Saturdays?”
Flippin’ fleepin’ phooey. Slap me and tell me to dance a jig. I paused and toed the carpet. “I…uh…just forgot I told this client I’d deliver his tickets to him. I left them here last night.”
Breathing with a bit more confidence, I sat behind my desk. “B, B, B,” I recited, zipping through the envelopes in my file. “Got it. Thanks, gals.”
I headed back out before I managed to make a fool of myself. Funny how I had been at the job the longest and still felt like the new girl. Or maybe just the poor, pitiful Ella whose life was stuck in a rut, financially, socially…everyway.
Screw that. I had something Sara and Althea didn’t. A day off. Maybe I should see if I could do something about it, something that would give my life more purpose.
Feeling generous, I held the door for a man in a Chicago Bears sweatshirt.
“Thanks. Ah, wait,” he said.
I paused, leaning forward to see what this guy wanted. Okay, really eager to see what this guy wanted. I hadn’t seen one this live in a coon’s age. “Yeeesss?”
“You’re Ella, Ella Mansfield, right?” And he was asking for me. My toes tingled.
“Yeeesss,” I answered again, blinking. “You are?” Only the most handsome man in the universe alive today and I want to jump your bones, cook your dinners and have your babies.
Okay, I’d admit to thinking the first thought, but added the last two just to make it not-so-cheap. My God, he looked good. In a bad boy kind of way. Hair that looked like it intentionally fell into his eyes—and those eyes. Vivid green framed by dark lashes, enhanced by thick eyebrows. Strong jaw lined with stubble. He looked the type to wear black leather or even ripped up denim. Thank God he didn’t, because I don’t think I’d be able to breathe faced with that vision.
“Who are you?” I repeated, desperate to get my bearing and stop ogling the customer.
“Quentin Paige.” He hooked a thumb in the general direction of the corner. “Sam down the street said to talk to you.”
“Oh, no, sorry. Don’t want anything else Sam has to share with me.”
“So you can’t sell me a trip to Denver?”
I’d put my hand out, nearly touching his chest to push him back away from me, but at the word “sell” I reached a little farther and bunched my fist in the material above the Bear’s logo. No sense ruining a sale. In fact, after scaring me this morning Sam owed me. “Right in here, what was your name again?” I released his shirt once I was sure he’d follow me back to my desk.
“Quentin. I know. Different. My parents were hippies, what can I say.”
I nodded. “Mine were rednecks. Still are. Have a seat.”
He was silent after that. I totally ignored Sara and Althea despite the holes they were drilling in the back of my head with their
eyes.
They were the Saturday regulars who usually managed to make the bulk of their paycheck from those who wandered in on Saturdays. Most of their clients were the working people needing a quick escape. We were good at those.
Marnie, the boss, had taken a mini-vacation herself just this weekend. I’d get tattled on for snatching customers when she got back. Yeah, so I wasn’t scheduled to work, but it’s not like I just stole the customer. He asked for me. Worst that would happen was I’d have to surrender any commission I made on this one. Or ship the boss back off to Vegas for another weekend. And this time, I just might accompany her. And if I was lucky, never return. No one would miss me, at least for awhile.
“Will you be traveling alone?” I asked in my sweetest professional voice.
He glanced around and nodded. Was this a secret?
“Travel dates?”
“Now.”
“What?”
“As soon as I can get on a plane and fly.”
I leaned over, a mistake because I caught a load of the heavenly lure he wore as cologne. “Did you try the airport? It’s a little faster to get a ticket that way on this short notice.”
“They want ID. I don’t have any.” I studied him. He had to be at least my age, but he dressed more like a footloose college student. Must be it, I figured. Emergency run home.
“And you think I can get you a ticket without ID?”
“I know you’ll help me get where I need to go.”
I stood up. I needed my job. Wanted Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome who was sitting in front of me, but he wasn’t gonna cover my rent when it came due in two weeks. “Sorry. No ID, no ticket.”
Quentin grabbed my hand and hauled himself to his feet. The toes of his shiny new Nikes touched the tip of my boring black ankle boots. Must be a lot of static in the air. I felt the tingles of it up and down the front of my body.
He grabbed both my hands and flipped those deadly emerald eyes in my direction. “Holy—” I said before his mouth landed on mine. I love roller coasters, but saying that’s what his kiss felt like would be an understatement. Maybe I could liken it to being the roller coaster, not just riding it. When I drew back, his eyes had turned dark.
I caught my breath and tried to step back. He had my hands tightly in his. “Hey, you’re hurting me.” What in the heck were Sara and Althea doing anyway, charging admission? “Help me here.”
“Looks like you’re doing fine all by yourself,” Sara jeered.
“You’re doing just fine,” Quentin repeated, his breath fanning against my cheek in a way that cooled my skin and set my blood on fire. That was not good. Men weren’t any more abundant in my life than money, so of course I’d react this way. I drew in a breath. “I’m still not going to sell you a ticket.”
“I don’t want a ticket. I need you to help me in another way.”
“I—”
“Shhh,” he crooned. I felt like the rats in the Pied Piper, mesmerized by the spell of his once again green eyes. He lifted our joined hands to my chest. Whoa, danger zone. His eyes met mine. His stare was so intense, I couldn’t look away. I tried, trust me.
The high neck of my sweater had hidden the necklace. Until now. He pulled the collar down just a bit until he could see it, and sighed, almost a lusty sound. His eyes were black again. I wanted to rip my gaze from his and check his mouth to see if he had fangs. I expected his next move to be Dracula style, leaving me drained of blood on the floor of the office. Talk about a gruesome death. Sara and Althea would really charge admission to see that.
His head didn’t move closer, but his hands reached higher. He touched the bared skin just above my pulse and electricity coursed through me. From the necklace? I wanted those beads to freakin’ electrocute him for scaring me this way. I held my breath.
He was smarter than that. He made me touch them, his fingers closed over mine. “Move them together.”
“What?”
“Push them together. They’ll slide.”
He jerked my fingers toward the center. I half-expected the rope to break on the back of my neck. Or sever my head.
“Break it up, you two. There’s a customer here,” Althea ordered.
The spell was broken. I stepped back, shaking and feeling like I’d run a marathon. Backwards. While wearing scuba gear.
“Quentin.”
The voice snagged my attention. Sam was here.
I tugged my collar back over the necklace and slid into my chair. Let Sam handle this.
“Can I help you, sir?” Althea, in her long, tight skirt, walked toward Sam, her behind twitching. I groaned and rolled my gaze back toward her intended victim. At least he was ignoring her.
“He’s come after this one.” I pointed at Quentin, trying to let Althea know Sam wasn’t a potential customer.
“You stay out of this Ella-Mae. This one’s mine.”
I raised an eyebrow, but realized she was nothing. The action was happening right in front of me.
“What are you doing in here? I told you to stay away from her.” Sam walked right past my co-worker and launched into Quentin.
“I need to get out of this town, man. You need to give me my stuff back.”
Sam’s finger tapped the still smiling Bears’ logo. “What are you going to do, call the police? You’ve been identity diving all over the place. You realize you’re causing more havoc than you’ve helped to avert. I may have to replace you.”
“You wouldn’t do that. I’ve got the power now.”
“Not without the gems.” Sam looked my way.
Quentin dove at me, landing right on me, on my chair. The chair wasn’t prepared either and tipped right over.
“Blasted!” I yelped and pushed upward. Quentin popped three feet in the air above me and hung there like a side of beef in a meat locker.
I laughed at the expletive that emitted from his nicely shaped mouth.
And once I realized I could think and keep him afloat, I checked out the rest of him too. I’m one to like longer hair, but his was just plain messy. I was totally convinced those weren’t his clothes. The baggy sweatshirt belonged on someone about a dozen years his junior or thirty years his senior. I wondered if I could undress him while he hung there. I leaned back, still positioned in my tipped chair, and waggled my pinky. His sweatshirt rose to show off a nicely defined set of abs. “Nice,” I murmured.
“Cut it out, you bitch.”
“Tsk, tsk,” I warned him. “You don’t want me to just drop you like the worthless sack of potatoes you are, do you?”
Sam stepped around the corner of the desk, leaned on one leg and smiled. “Doesn’t look like I need have worried about Quentin here taking advantage of you.”
“Yes, you do need to worry. He kissed me and tried to strangle me with this rope around my neck. What’s with the pull them closer thing?”
Sam snapped his fingers and Quentin collapsed in a heap on the floor beside the desk. Good thing, because I wasn’t sure how to get him down. Someone behind me muffled a gasp, but I wasn’t going to look at Sara. Althea was in my line of sight, and she was already crossing herself and backing away from the little circle we made.
Sam held up a finger to me. What? Wait?
I waited, only because Sam grabbed Quentin by the shirt and hauled him to his feet. I eyed both of them while biting my lip. What now? I felt helpless—and I wasn’t a fan of helpless. But I knew nothing about either of these men except that one gave me a magical necklace and the other one wanted it. I was a pawn it seemed, suckered into the middle of some fight for power. My life wasn’t exactly excitement central, but I didn’t ask for this to liven it up.
Neither of them, I figured, was truly safe. I didn’t know who to trust, then decided I didn’t have to trust either. While they were otherwise occupied, I could make my escape.
Or so I thought.
As soon as I started sprinting toward the door Sam had me running in place about three inches above the ground. Quentin had the aud
acity to laugh.
“Chill out, punk. You started this,” I warned Quentin.
“How’s it feel to hang in mid air?” he teased back.
“Not nice,” I shot back at him. Then I pointed at Sam. “Put me down.”
Sam intervened. “I can see you two are going to get along just fine. Now stop. You aren’t ten years old. If I had wanted ten year olds, I would have recruited them.”
This got more preposterous the longer it went on. I stopped air jogging. “Recruit? You call floating over a table and attaching the electric fence around my neck recruiting?”
Quentin glared at Sam. “At least you got yours. He took mine away.”
I could see by the blackness of Sam’s eyes he wanted to make like the Three Stooges and bash our heads together. I however, wasn’t interested in experiencing such a thing.
“Well, now you’ve done it. He’ll probably take mine away too. Until you learn to keep your hands to yourself.” Of course, as soon as the words were out of my mouth I remembered I did want the beads off. But this very moment wasn’t the time. I was still concerned what I had been recruited for. Until I figured out why I had been blessed with the magic, I wasn’t giving it up. It made me feel a wee bit safer.
I heard talking. Sara was on the phone. Police? I whirled to find out. At least that range of motion wasn’t stripped from me. “Sara, what are you doing?”
She looked up at me as if I’d grown horns and a tail. “Sara,” I hissed again. “Hang up the phone. I don’t know what these two are capable of. Look at me!”
That worked. The phone dropped in the cradle.
I spun, still in mid-air and waved at Sam. “Hello? Can you put me down now? The police are coming.”
When the cops walked in, hands on their guns, Sara, Althea and I were intently working. Well, okay, I was playing computer solitaire, but it looked good from their side of the counter. I didn’t know what Sara was going to say, but my lips were sealed. Again.
I wondered what it took to learn the art of invisibility. Sam had done it earlier—I’d watched him disappear in a snap. But I quit stressing about parlor tricks when I heard Sara telling the truth. I was as good as in jail. And Althea sat there and agreed. I wondered if sliding onto the floor and under the desk was more than just a temporary option. I clicked the game off, leaving the main menu to glare at me. I bet this was my last day on the job. But I knew just what I was going to do. Walk into that antique shop and demand a position there. Maybe then I could find out what the hell was going on and why I was involved.
Believe the Magic Page 2