Magic in the Desert: Three Paranormal Romance Series Starters Set in the American Southwest

by Christine Pope

  The storeroom wasn’t all that large, maybe ten by fifteen feet, with boxes stacked neatly against the wall and a couple of forlorn mannequins set in one corner. In the winter we’d pull them out when it was time to display the handwoven shawls and cloaks that went over big as holiday presents, but in the meantime they’d been stuck back in here with the rest of the display items we weren’t currently using. Their blank eyes seemed to watch me as I bent down and entered the combination to the safe, then set the money bag and stack of rubber-banded receipts inside.

  So now I was letting a couple of pieces of fiberglass get to me? I shook my head at myself and closed the safe, then straightened up before heading toward the open door. For a second I thought I saw a shadow moving outside in the hallway, and again a shiver traced its way down my spine. Then I realized it had to be someone walking down the sidewalk outside the shop. The sun was just beginning to go down behind Mingus Mountain, and the light was chancy, uncertain.

  You’re being just a bit too jumpy for a girl who talks to ghosts, I chided myself before I exited the storeroom and closed the door behind me. It would lock automatically; we had keys, of course, but Aunt Rachel and I rarely used them — mainly if there were enough customers in the shop that they’d notice something strange if we went in the room without unlocking the door first.

  I kept my purse on a shelf under the counter, so I retrieved that and double-checked to make sure the front door was locked as well. Of course it was, so I threw my purse over my shoulder and began to walk toward the short hallway that led to the rear entrance. Once again I thought I saw a shadow move against the wall, tinted golden with the last rays of the sun.

  Without stopping to think, I turned around. A dark figure stood in front of the door to the shop. It was about the size and shape of a tall man, although I couldn’t see any details. Not like any ghost I’d met so far in Jerome — they all tended to look to me the same way they must have in their previous lives. And then I felt it, a wave of cold, of malice, as it waited there, seeming to watch me, though it had no eyes.

  Still, I’d been talking to ghosts since I was a child, and although this apparition looked like none I’d ever seen before, I thought I should at least attempt to make contact. “Who are you?” I asked, making sure my voice was calm, steady.

  Nothing. It stood there, the air around it feeling twenty degrees colder than it should have. I was surprised that frost didn’t start forming on the shop window behind it.

  Fine. I’d try another tack. I stared at it, trying to look more or less where its eyes should be. “What do you want?”

  For a few seconds it did not respond. Then one shadowy arm lifted, and it was as if a finger pointed directly at me. The reply came in a whisper, soft and chilling as the rustle of leaves in a graveyard.

  You.

  4

  A Binding

  I didn’t stop to think. Instinct took over, and I was bolting toward the back of the shop, running down the corridor, until I reached the back door and flung it open, then slammed it behind me. Yes, I know — some way for the next prima of the McAllisters to act. But I’d never seen or heard of anything like that before, and had no idea of how to fight it or dispel it. The smartest thing seemed to be to put some distance between it and myself.

  Once I was outside, I felt a little bit better, and retained enough presence of mind to lock the door before I hurried down the smaller, less-traveled street that backed up to our building, then cut back up to Main. Although most of the stores closed at six, there were still a good number of people out and around, either on their way back to their cars or heading for an early dinner. As soon as I had people around me, some of the cold and dread seemed to leave me, although my hands were still shaking.

  No thought now of getting a pizza to go and taking it back to the apartment over the store. I knew I should probably high-tail it down to Tobias’s place and get my aunt, tell her what had just happened, but I hated to bother her, especially after the run-in we’d had this morning. Besides, I was supposed to be the next prima — shouldn’t I be trying to figure these things out on my own? Aunt Rachel would find out soon enough; she might be spending the evening with Tobias, but she wouldn’t stay over for the night. She never left me alone, not for that long.

  So I continued walking up toward Grapes. I still needed to eat, one way or another, and better to do it in a familiar place surrounded by other people.

  As I’d feared, the restaurant was crowded, but a group was just being seated outside as another party was leaving their table, and so I was able to snag that one. Normally I would’ve just sat at the bar and not kept a whole table to myself, but I wanted to snug in against the wall and feel something solid at my back. And apparently Linda, who was tending the bar and also doing traffic control, saw something in my face, because she didn’t even suggest that I not take that table.

  “Rough day, huh?” asked Tina, the server who came up to check on me.

  I knew her, of course, just like I knew everyone in Jerome, but she felt a little closer than some because she’d babysat me from time to time back when I was in elementary school. Neither she nor Linda were part of the clan, although as long-time residents, they knew about the McAllisters. Like Sydney, though, they could be trusted to keep our secrets. A quiet vetting process went on in our town every time a house or apartment became available. We made sure that no one moved in whom we couldn’t trust. It was a quiet spell, but an effective one, the charm that brought sympathetic souls to us.

  “Rough day,” I echoed. “Yeah, you could say that. A glass of the Plungerhead, please?” I hadn’t bothered to look at the menu; I could probably recite it by heart at this point.

  “Got it. Know what you want to eat?”

  I shook my head. “Not yet. Pizza, yes, but I haven’t decided which one.”

  She shot me a reassuring smile, then said, “I’ll get that wine for you right away.”

  Goddess knew what was on my face right then, but I didn’t much care. It just felt good to be there, surrounded by familiar smells and friendly faces. About half the crowd was made up of tourists, but everyone seemed to be having a good time, so the energy was good…a far cry from what had been emanating from that entity back at the shop.

  Another shiver, and I clenched my hands on the tabletop. No ghost like any I’d ever seen, but maybe the ghosts themselves would have some input. Normally I wouldn’t bother Maisie on a Saturday night, since she didn’t like crowds. In this case, though, I didn’t think I had much of a choice. I would have to try coaxing her out, see if she’d heard anything.

  Felt anything.

  I crossed my arms and wished I’d brought a jacket. Not much chance of that happening when I was bolting from the store like a frightened hare. Anyway, the chill moving through me right now didn’t have much to do with the air temperature, although I knew it would get cold outside damn quick once the sun was down. That walk over to rustle up Maisie would not be a comfortable one…and it would only be colder when I walked down to Tobias’s house.

  But I wasn’t completely unprepared. Aunt Rachel had taught me a long time ago to always carry a scarf or wrap of some kind in my purse, so I reached in and pulled out the same pashmina I’d worn the night before. The bright emerald green wasn’t the best match with the pale blue top I wore, but I wasn’t trying to impress anybody.

  I heard the door to the restaurant open, but I didn’t bother to look up. No, I stared down at the chipped polish on my nails and vaguely wondered when I’d have the time to take it off, and then tried to figure out why I even cared. I had much bigger things to worry about at the moment.

  Someone approached my booth and sat down without so much as a by-your-leave in the seat opposite me. I looked up, frowning, a frown that only deepened when I saw who it was. Adam McAllister, my third-or-fourth cousin, someone I really didn’t feel like dealing with at the moment.

  “Hey, Ange,” he said. “Word on the street is that you’ve been looking for love
in all the wrong places.”

  I blinked at him. “What?”

  “I heard about your little ‘incident’ at Main Stage last night.”

  Damn. I’d almost forgotten about my scuffle with Perry in the parking lot the night before. “How the hell did you find out about that?”

  “Alicia’s working dispatch for the Cottonwood P.D., remember?”

  Oh, right. Adam’s big sister had gotten a job as a dispatcher for the police department about six months ago. It was a little out of character for a McAllister, since we tended to be artsy types who stuck around Jerome, but she wasn’t a very strong witch. On the other hand, she was a hell of a gossip. Working as a dispatcher was probably her dream job, since she got to hear everybody’s business firsthand.

  And obviously she’d heard all about my business last night. Sigh.

  “It was just a misunderstanding,” I said, and hoped Tina would come by with my wine soon.

  “Must’ve been some misunderstanding, with him ending up in the hospital.”

  At least one wish was granted, because Tina did appear with my zinfandel, which she set down in front of me before sending a quizzical glance in Adam’s direction. Naturally I’d said nothing about someone joining me…because I had no idea somebody would.

  “A Corona for me,” Adam said, and I had to keep myself from rolling my eyes. Typically tone-deaf of him to order a beer in a restaurant called “Grapes.”

  Maybe it would’ve been polite to wait until he had his beer before I drank any of my wine, but the hell with that. It wasn’t as if I’d invited him to sit down or anything. So I picked up the little carafe Tina had brought me and poured about a third of it into my wine glass, then took a good swallow. Much better.

  “Is there a point to all this, Adam?”

  “I just don’t know why you’d bother to pick up some civilian down in Cottonwood when you’ve got me right here.”

  I really did not need this right now. “I wasn’t ‘picking up’ anyone. He’s a friend of the guy Sydney was with. That’s all.”

  “‘All’ doesn’t usually end up with someone in the hospital and the Cottonwood P.D. paying you a visit.”

  “He got a little handsy, okay? Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

  “I guess so.” He grinned, and I really wished it was permissible for the future prima to sock someone in the jaw.

  That wouldn’t be dignified, though — and would definitely bring down Aunt Rachel’s wrath — so I settled for asking in acid tones, “Is that the only reason you’ve invaded my space, or did you have some other reason for dropping in without an invitation?”

  He shrugged. “It’s a public place.”

  “The restaurant, yeah. Not the booth I just happen to be sitting in.”

  “Okay, you got me.” He opened his mouth, as if he were about to say something else, but Tina arrived with his Corona and set it down in front of him.

  “Ready to order?” she asked.

  “Prosciutto and mozzarella for me,” I told her.

  “Italian meat,” Adam said with a grin.

  She shook her head slightly and headed back to the kitchen. I would have been even more annoyed by him ordering something besides just the beer, but I’d known I was doomed from the minute he sat down in my booth.

  “So you were saying,” I prompted.

  He was in the middle of taking a swig from his Corona, and so I had to wait until he swallowed the beer. “I went by the shop first, but you’d already closed up.”

  “You did?” Despite my better instincts, I couldn’t help asking. “Did you…notice…anything?”

  “What was I supposed to notice? You weren’t there. I’d already thought about getting a pizza to go, so I came up here and saw you through the window. And here we are.”

  Yes…unfortunately. In a way it was funny, because a lot of girls back in high school had had their crushes on Adam, and yet all he cared about was pursuing me, even though it was hopeless. We had no connection. It didn’t matter that he was good-looking, with his thick brown hair and gray-blue eyes and nice strong chin. He wasn’t my match, my soulmate, my other half. And I really wished he would figure that out once and for all, and leave me the heck alone.

  More importantly, though, he’d gone by the shop and hadn’t sensed anything, seen anything out of the ordinary. He wasn’t an overly strong warlock, but normally he was sensitive to places, air currents, weather. If a weather spell needed to be cast, he was often the one to do it. Wouldn’t he have been able to feel something terribly not right about the store if there really was some malignant presence lurking around the place?

  I couldn’t think of the right way to ask him, though. If I told him what had really happened, then he’d probably try to get all manly and protective, and that would almost be worse than the ghostly figure I’d seen.

  No, scratch that. A guy trying to protect you when you really didn’t want to be protected wasn’t exactly on a par with some vaporous apparition reaching toward you and saying that it wanted you.

  Maybe I shivered. Adam set down his beer and stared at me, eyes narrowing. “Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen — ” He broke off, but I knew what he’d meant to say.

  You look like you’ve seen a ghost.

  Well, hey, that was nothing new. That was just something Angela McAllister did. I wished that was all I had seen. A ghost was fine. But this?

  Not fine at all.

  I took a few more swallows of wine. “It’s nothing.”

  Adam was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. His gaze sharpened. “You don’t look like it’s nothing. What’s going on?”

  It would probably get out sooner or later anyway. We McAllisters didn’t keep a lot from one another. “I saw…something.”

  “Saw what?”

  “I don’t know what it was. I’ve never seen anything like it. And I’ve seen my share of strange things.”

  “True.” He shifted in his seat, and for a second or two I was worried he would try to reach out and touch my hand where it rested on the tabletop. He appeared to resist that impulse, though, and said, “But it scared you.”

  I didn’t like to admit it, least of all to Adam, but he’d already seen the truth in my face. “It did. I had to get out of there. So I came here.”

  “What did you see?”

  For a few seconds I didn’t say anything, only ran a finger along the wood grain of the table. Even thinking about that shadowy apparition made a wave of cold move over me, a chill that had nothing to do with the warm, friendly surroundings in which I sat. “A shadow. It was standing in front of the door to the shop. I could feel it watching me. I thought it had to be some sort of spirit, even though I’d never met one like that before. I asked it who it was, and it didn’t say anything. Then I asked what it wanted, and…” I paused again, and swallowed. “…And it told me, ‘you.’”

  Even Adam seemed shocked by that revelation. “Damn, Angela, you need to tell someone. Someone besides me, I mean.”

  “I know. I will. It’s just that my aunt is over at Tobias’s place, and I didn’t want to bother her….”

  “I don’t think she’ll mind being bothered.” He hesitated. “I’ll walk you over there, if you want.”

  Never did I think I would be so relieved by Adam McAllister offering to accompany me somewhere. But there were lots of dark and shadowy places between here and Tobias’s house, and I forced myself to admit that I’d feel a whole lot better about the whole thing if I didn’t have to walk it alone. “Okay,” I replied. “I’d like that.”

  He grinned, and for a second I wished I hadn’t agreed to him coming along after all. But then Tina showed up with our pizzas, and for a minute or two everything seemed normal and prosaic, just Adam and me dishing ourselves a slice, doling out the parmesan and the red pepper flakes. I knew better, though. There wasn’t anything normal about any of this.

  Still, now that I knew what I was doing after this, I felt a little better. I had no
idea what Aunt Rachel was going to say, and it seemed as if my plan for talking to Maisie would have to be shelved for a while. She wasn’t going anywhere, though, and I could always try to scare her up — so to speak — the next day.

  Whether she’d have anything useful to contribute, I couldn’t begin to guess.

  The sun had long disappeared by the time Adam and I emerged from the restaurant. I pulled my wrap around my shoulders in a futile attempt to stave off some of the brisk wind blowing outside. At least it was coming from the south. Although I knew the Wilcoxes had little to do with it, a north wind, the kind that blew down from Flagstaff, always put me on edge. An ill wind, as Great-Aunt Ruby liked to say.

  Adam noticed the somewhat flimsy pashmina, and I worried that he might try to make the gallant gesture of offering me his jacket. Something in my expression must have warned him off, though, and so he kept silent, walking next to me as we headed down Main Street. It was too early for that night’s band to have started up at the Spirit Room, but the street in front of the bar was already lined with Harleys, and people hung around outside, chatting and smoking. Their presence comforted me, although I knew the crowds would thin out as we wended our way down the hill.

  As they did. By the time we passed the Ghost City Inn, Adam and I were the only people on the sidewalk. Down here I could feel the wind even more strongly. The stars glittered against the black sky, and a thin moon had just begun to rise above the mesas to the east. It would be full on Halloween, I realized.

  All around me were buildings and trees and cars I’d seen hundreds of times, and yet somehow now seemed foreign, unfamiliar. Part of me wanted to draw closer to Adam. I told myself that was foolish, for several reasons. I certainly didn’t want to give him the wrong idea, and of the two of us, I was the far stronger witch. Having him come along had been sort of silly, in that respect, although of course the two of us working together would be more effective than even me casting a spell of protection alone.