by Cherry Adair
“It would seem to me that being a wizard and being evil would lend itself to a lot of bad wizards being really bad people. Robbers, murderers, terrorists.”
“Absolutely. They use their magical powers to gain wealth, or fame, or political power. It’s a hell of a problem worldwide.”
She frowned. “And your powers aren’t working right?”
Yeah. That inconvenient little glitch. “It’s like having power surges. One minute something works, the next it doesn’t.”
“Are you sick—Physically? Maybe it’s something you need to check out with a—a wizard doctor? Like immediately?”
“I had a complete physical two months ago. So no. I don’t believe it’s physical.”
“So it’s your powers that are sick?”
He smiled. “You think it might be contagious? A virus of some sort? I’ve never heard of such a thing, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility. I’ll have to ask.”
“Are any of your wizard buddies at T-FLAC having these power outages?”
“Not that I know of. I haven’t asked. It’s not like we sit around a campfire at night eating those marshmallow chocolate things, baring our souls.”
“S’mores,” she said absently, still frowning. He didn’t like seeing her frown and placed a finger between her brows to smooth the little line there. She batted his hand away, scowling even harder. “Is that what happened to the Rover you were driving? You had a short circuit in your power while you were teleporting?”
“I was trying to get ahead of you. The car dropped out of the air unexpectedly.”
“God, Simon. You could’ve been killed.”
“I wasn’t. Probably because the vehicle was armored. But yeah, it was close.”
“How long have you been having these problems?”
“Couple of weeks.”
“Is there someone you trust? Someone you can confide in that knows about your wizardness and can fix whatever’s wrong?”
“I don’t know if he can fix whatever this is, but there is a man I trust implicitly. Mason Knight has been an incredible influence on my life, and a mentor when I badly needed one. He’s a wizard, and a powerful one, and a good friend. I’ve already left a message for him to contact me when he has time.”
“When he has time?” Her voice rose a little. “He better find time now. This is urgen—This doesn’t seem to worry you, does it? Or, you’re making light of it because you don’t want to know?”
“I’m not sure if it’s fixable, or if for some reason I’m actually losing my powers.”
“Would you hate not having them?”
“I wouldn’t be a wizard.”
“And? You wouldn’t be less than who you are now. You wouldn’t lose your job, would you? You wouldn’t lose your friends, or your T-FLACy skills, or your good looks.”
“Being a wizard is who I am. And yes, I believe that not having my powers would intrinsically change that.”
“I don’t agree with you, but I absolutely understand what you’re saying. Are all your powers on the blink like this? Or are some of them still operational? And while we’re on this incredibly fascinating subject: What else can you do?”
“My powers?”
She nodded. “Let’s start with the guy who looks like you and isn’t your brother.”
“Nomis. He’s a duplicate. He has—usually—all my powers. Basically I can be in two places at once.”
“Handy. But might I suggest that in the future you have him comb his hair the same way you do, and switch wrists for his watch? He’s exactly like you—as a mirror image. Someone else might notice the difference just as I did. Keep going. What else can you do when you can do it?”
“I have ubiquitous vision.” At her frown he said, “I can see three hundred and sixty degrees.”
“Do you have eyes in the back of your head? I didn’t feel them.”
He smiled. “No eyes in the back of my head. Just another power.” He wondered if she might be onto something important, and decided to ask, discreetly, if anybody else was having problems. “I use teleportation more than all of my other powers combined. I become invisible and can move between point A and point B almost instantaneously, all without being seen.”
“That is really cool…”
“When it’s fully operational, yeah. When it’s not, I could appear midair without warning. Usually I can teleport an object wherever I need it to go. You, for instance, up to that cave. Earlier today I tried teleporting your camera’s SIM card to our lab in Montana. Couldn’t do it without me going with it. And by doing that I didn’t have enough juice to leave Nomis with you.”
“No teleporting until we figure out what’s wrong with you.”
Apparently, Simon thought with a combination of amusement and alarm, Kess had just made his problem her problem.
Ten
Simon had brought Kess back to the city a couple of hours before. He’d taken her to pick up a few basics at a local mall because he didn’t want her returning to her room at her hotel. They’d been led away from the city. To what purpose Simon had no idea. But he wasn’t letting Kess out of his sight until he knew.
Now they were in the president’s office as Abi got ready for a press conference.
Hair gleaming like a new penny, and skin glowing from their manic bout of lovemaking earlier, Kess stood beside the president searching through a flat box of neatly laid out silk ties on his desk. Simon sat in the chair opposite, admiring her focus despite the turmoil around them.
“I don’t need you here, Kess. I want both of you to go with the supplies,” Abi told them. “I’m sending fifty of my militia with you—just as a precautionary measure, of course. I don’t expect any trouble.”
Fifty militia didn’t sound like not expecting trouble. Fifty militia sounded like Abi expected some action. That single sentence told Simon just how much his friend had changed in the time since their college days. As he absently rubbed the pad of his finger along his chin, Simon read Abi’s body language and facial expressions as well as listened to the subtext of his conversation.
Maybe it was the evolution from carefree collegian to political power broker. Whatever the reason, this Abi was drastically different from the man he’d known. Simon felt a warning tickle at the back of his neck. Normally, he would have acted on his intuition but this was an old friend, so he tamped down the disquiet and turned his attention to Kess. Not exactly a difficult task since she was one hell of a distraction. Pleasantly so.
There was to be a press conference in fifteen minutes, and Abi had sent the camera crew to wait outside his office until he was ready. They’d set up the lights, leaving them directed at the president, so that he and Kess were spotlit while Simon, sitting farther back, was in shadow.
For a moment Simon simply watched Kess talking to Abi. He knew he had to get a grip on how often he looked at her. But that was easier said than done. He constantly found his gaze lingering on the sweet curve of her smiling mouth, or the way her gray eyes lit up with amusement. Maybe it was her lightness to his darkness that he found so damned fascinating. Perhaps it was because he found her unbearably sexy in a non-overt way. Her animation and zest for life, her interest, and her passion for her job, intrigued him.
Everything about this woman captivated him. It shouldn’t have. She was about as far from his ideal woman as possible. He’d always envisioned sharing his life with someone who’d be content to live in an isolated house in Montana. Not a June Cleaver, apron-wearing housewife, but definitely someone who would accept the demands of his job and be there waiting for him when he returned home.
He almost smiled. He had no doubt Kess would support her husband’s job, only he was fairly sure she’d insist on standing at his side rather than staying at home.
Just looking at her fully clothed and unaware of his scrutiny filled his mind with images of the two of them, naked limbs entangled, making love in the sunlight, or candlelight, or fucking moonlight. Didn’t matter. It was only
a couple of hours since they’d left the motel, but he wanted her again.
He’d tasted her skin and felt her come apart in his arms. Now he needed to feed the addiction again. Her lashes and brows were much darker than her hair, but in the bright lights he noticed the tips of her long eyelashes were dipped a pale ginger. He had the insane urge to run his tongue lightly over her lashes to feel their softness.
“Hey?!” Abi said a little too loudly, drawing Simon’s attention back to him. The president frowned. Simon suspected he wasn’t annoyed because he wasn’t paying attention. What was going on in his friend’s head? Hard to tell. The lie about Joubert still had to be addressed. He suspected Abi was giving him busywork, which intrigued him even more. Why did Abi, who’d contacted him for help in the first place, suddenly want to send him out into the bush?
“You want me to go with the supplies,” Simon repeated, leaning back in his chair. Whatever was going on in the other man’s head, he was keeping it damn close to the chest. “A complete waste of time, but I hear and obey.”
“Kess and you.” Abi’s lips quirked a little. “You always played by the rules, didn’t you, Blackthorne? No coloring outside the lines. No shades of gray.”
Simon’s entire life was shades of gray. Always had been. And now that was the nature of the business he was in. His job was to seek the dark and eradicate it. Activities that went from dingy white to pitch black were all just degrees of gray as far as he was concerned. Some of those shades needed to be caged, the rest needed to be dead. Simple as that. “Rules and order are what keep us civilized, and make sense.”
Abi rose and walked around his desk to clamp him on the shoulder. “You need to live a little. Haven’t I always told you that?”
“Yes, indeed.” Simon smiled. Abi had been a chick magnet at college. Simon had been the quiet one. “And both times I listened to you we almost got our asses expelled. And oh yeah. There was that time your ‘live on the wild side, Blackthorne,’ almost landed us in jail. You go right ahead and color outside the lines, Mr. President. I’ll stick to following the rules.”
“Hell, Simon. You need to live a lot. What do you say after the election we go to Bahrain or Paris and kick up our heels for a week or two?”
“With all due respect, Mr. President. No kicking of heels, and no Bahrain,” Kess told him firmly. “You’re going to win this election by a landslide by being everything good your people believe you to be. And after the election you’re going to continue doing just that. No vacations for a while.”
“The woman’s a slave driver. I’ll be as discreet as I’ve always been, Kess. But I’m not a monk, and I refuse to behave like one.”
She held a tie up to his shirt, then bent to select another. “It wouldn’t hurt for you to have a wife.” Kess winked discreetly. “Sorry to be so blunt, sir. But we all know a wife and family represent stability and commitment. Good qualities in a leader.”
“I’ll look for a lovely wife next year. Will that make you happy?”
Yet another tie in hand, she smiled. “Find one who makes you happy. Your people will be ecstatic to have a first lady.”
Kess might as well give up trying to play match-maker. Abi was a confirmed bachelor who Simon doubted would ever settle for just one woman. Hell, he only had a few years left to sow his own wild oats before he found his luscious brunette and started filling his Montana house with children.
He’d be home. Kess would be…Simon cut the mental musing mid-thought.
“Okay, you two,” Simon interrupted them. “What’s the situation at this village, and what do you want me to do when I get there, Abi?”
Abi sobered and went back to sit in his mammoth chair behind his desk. “Over seven hundred villagers are already dead,” he informed Simon tightly. “More than half of the village. I want to be there myself to see what is happening to my people. It’s about a three-hour trip. You two go on ahead, I’ll follow directly after the press conference. We should arrive close to the same time.” He met Simon’s eyes. Abi wanted no magic. He needed Simon to arrive in a normal length of time.
Abi would teleport and join them there, appearing to have traveled with them. Simon nodded. “Kess can stay here and help you with the press. I’ll go check it out for you, and report back.”
“No. I want Kess to go with you. Everyone knows she’s my publicist. They’ll talk to her. Show her things they won’t show you. Kess will be my eyes. You’ll be my muscle.”
“You’re sending fifty men, plus me, as muscle,” Simon said dryly. “If you don’t expect trouble, Abi, why such a show of force?” Simon rubbed a hand across the back of his neck where a chill of foreboding made the short hairs stand on end. He wished to hell one of his powers was mind reading. He was damn good at reading facial expressions, and right now Abi’s was closed, resisting the topic.
“There won’t be trouble if you and Kess accompany the relief team to the village. I’d like your opinion on this virus. You don’t need to stay long. Take a vehicle and come back in a couple of days.”
Jesus. Did the man not know what was happening out there? Did he just glance at reports and dismiss the gruesome truth? The idea that Abi wanted to cavalierly send Kess into the dangerous unknown pissed Simon off royally. “You’ve sent Kess into God knows how many villages filled with the dead or dying already. This is bullshit, Ab, since you don’t know what the fuck this is, or how to cure it. You’re the president, but with all due respect your actions are irresponsible.” His accusation came out more harshly than he’d intended and both Kess and Abi started at the vehemence in his tone. Fuck. He was too personally involved here, something that had never happened before. He was starting to become dangerously consumed with her. He had to stop.
Easier thought than done.
“It’s not just this unknown killer.” Standing, Simon was suddenly, surprisingly, furious that Abi, and Kess, damn it, were being so fucking careless with her health. “How about her encountering one of your other top four? Bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis A, typhoid fever, or how about fucking malaria?” He paced the room, uncomfortably aware that Kess’s eyes had darkened with an unnamed emotion.
Kess, a tie clasped in each hand, stepped around the desk. “I’m not stupid, Simon. I’ve had every shot there is, plus I’m on every antibacterial, anti-malaria, and antiviral known to mankind.”
“Which is great for a run-of-the-mill ear infection, but not guaranteed against whatever is killing the villagers. It’s irresponsible of Abi to think you’ll be protected against everything. Especially now that millions of his people have dropped like fucking flies.”
Kess gasped and she shot him a horrified look. “Simon!”
The five-carat diamond on Abi’s pinkie shot multicolored sparks on the wall as he raised his hand to halt her protest. “It is all right, Kess. Simon is right. I should not have sent you into danger—”
“You didn’t send me.” She spiked a narrow-eyed glance at Simon. He gave her a noncommittal look back. “I offered because I needed an accurate account and photographs. And yes, I’ll go to this village with the relief team to record the situation.
“The last thing we need this close to the election is a hint that you’re in any way trying to sweep this epidemic under the rug. The people need to know that you’re one hundred and ten percent committed to getting to the bottom of this outbreak. Simon can come or go as he likes.
“Here.” She handed the president a conservative yellow tie with some small print on it. Abi took it from her, then lifted the collar of his white shirt and wrapped the thing around his neck, his dark eyes fixed on Simon’s face.
“All right. We’ll both go.” And I’ll wrap Kess in so many layers of protection it’ll take a nuclear bomb to get at her. “I’d like a look at this first-hand.” Thank God I never have to wear a tie, Simon thought sourly, watching Kess fuss over her boss’s navy pinstriped suit with a lint brush. She started instructing Abi on the talking points she’d written and printed out for him, st
udiously keeping her back to Simon.
As they talked, and ignored him, Simon strolled to the window, his temper banked. Abi’s city hall office overlooked the crescent-shaped bay. While the sky was once again a hard, cloudless, blue, the rain from the day before was evident in the glistening water-filled potholes in the street and the darkened stone of many of the buildings.
Simon listened to Kess’s melodious voice. God, even her voice turned him on. Yeah. He definitely had to nip this itch in the bed. Damn it. Bud.
Squinting against the brightness, he stared out at the view, tuning out his ubiquitous vision as Kess leaned her bright head close to Abi’s, resting her hip on his chair as she pointed to something on the papers in his hand. She could talk to her boss just as easily from across the desk, Simon thought, mildly annoyed that he’d even noticed how close they were.
The sun was out. Hot and beating down unmercifully on the people filling the streets and sidewalks below. A guy in ragged shorts, and not much else, herded seven cows and a calf down the middle of the street, the speed of the stick he wielded in no way translating to the speed of the cattle. Traffic going both ways had to wait him out.
The women’s colorful cotton dressing vied for attention with the men’s bright clothing. Simon raised an eyebrow and lightly shook his head as a guy in a flower-print, red-and-yellow, three-piece suit tilted his red felt hat jauntily at a woman buying fruit from the stand on the corner.
A four-lane street fronted the Government Building, on the other side a wide stretch of scraggly grass, mostly comprised of dirt patches where a young girl was allowing her sheep to graze. Where they were going, and where they had come from, here in the middle of the city, was a mystery.
Beyond that was a row of shops and beyond that the deep, dark turquoise of the south Atlantic Ocean as far as the eye could see.