The Lost Enchantress

by Patricia Coughlin

  He took it all in now, still smiling.

  Taggart stepped forward, poking him with his elbow. “He means to say please come in.”

  Hazard shook himself. “Yes. Of course. Forgive me.” He took her hand to help her step over the threshold and let it go reluctantly. Still standing in the front hall, he made introductions. He wanted to bring her inside and spend more time with her, an hour or even fifteen minutes, but he didn’t dare. Any time he spent with her now would be too long, and not nearly enough.

  Pulling a black jewelry case from her purse, she held it out to him. “Here you go.”

  “Thank you. Taggart will return this to you as soon as we’re through.”

  “Okay.” She smiled. “Well, good luck.”

  “Perhaps the lady would like to watch,” Taggart suggested.

  Hazard shot him a warning look.

  Her green eyes brightened. “Well, maybe . . .”

  “No,” Hazard broke in. He quickly softened his too-sharp tone with a smile. “Eve would rather not go up to the turret. You haven’t changed your mind about that since the other night, have you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Good,” Hazard caught himself. “I mean good because I know you’ll be more comfortable waiting down here.”

  “Why don’t we perform the ritual down here?” Taggart asked.

  “Because everything is set for us upstairs. It was you who said the turret has the strongest residual magic in the house.”

  “The strongest, aye,” Taggart allowed. “But since the whole place is steeped in magic, I don’t think we could go wrong no matter where we do it.”

  “Why take chances?” Unclenching his jaw, Hazard turned to Eve in a way that deliberately excluded Taggart. “Please, go in and make yourself comfortable.”

  Taggart got the message and started up the stairs.

  Ignoring his own good sense, Hazard lingered beside Eve for just a moment and even that was too long. His fingertips itched to touch her, the temptation was too much to resist. He brought his hand to her face and felt the quick jolt of connection he’d come to expect, like oppositely charged magnets coming together. Putting his palm against her cheek, he slowly coasted down to cup her chin, his thumb moving back and forth over the side of her jaw as that initial burst of feeling settled into a steady current running between them.

  Their gazes locked.

  He could tell she felt what he felt, and his heart pumped faster.

  He bent his head closer to hers. “A kiss?”

  His voice was low and just the tiniest bit unsteady. Unsteady. He, who had stolen hundreds of kisses in his time, stolen and seduced and beguiled kisses—and more—from women as willing to give as he was eager to take, women who longed to be conquered as surely as he’d been born to conquer. And now his damnable need for this one kiss from Eve had him feeling unsure, and desperate.

  “A kiss for luck?” she countered, her soft, rosy mouth curving into a small smile. “A bit ironic, don’t you think?”

  He stared down at her, puzzled. “Ironic?”

  “A good-luck kiss to help you break a bad-luck curse. It struck me as ironic.”

  “Right . . . the curse. Then let it not be for luck,” he said, savoring her nearness, the fresh scent of her hair and the warmth of her breath on his cheek.

  He felt her pulse skitter, and his heart thumped in response.

  “For what then?” she asked.

  Hazard moved his hand to the back of her neck and slowly pulled her closer. His fingers in her hair, he tipped her face up to his.

  “How about just for the hell of it?” He whispered the words against her mouth in that last heartbeat before he claimed it with his own.

  When he kissed her, she kissed back, igniting an explosion of sensation, hot and quick and dizzying. Something powerful and unknown stirred inside him and then spread like fire through his veins.

  His mouth played with hers. He kept it gentle, as gentle as he could, when what he wanted was to kiss her deeper and harder and longer. He wanted to kiss her forever.

  Forever. Now there was irony for you, he thought. They didn’t have forever. And he didn’t have any right to make this more complicated or difficult for Eve. He forced himself to stop and gently disentangle.

  She looked dazed.

  Hazard took his hands from her slowly, regretfully, sliding down her arm to catch her hand and lift it to his lips for a final kiss. “Thank you.”

  It was all he said before starting the long climb to the turret.

  Eve hung out at the bottom of the stairs, her heart still beating wildly from his kiss, and watched him go. She ran her fingertips along her bottom lip, replaying the kiss in her mind. He was a good kisser, which is exactly what she’d expected. A man didn’t look the way he looked and charm the way he charmed without racking up a whole lot of experience in that department. What she hadn’t expected was the sharp sense of loss she felt when it ended and he headed upstairs to the turret. So sharp she’d almost called out to stop him from going. Now that would have been embarrassing.

  She turned her thoughts to what was going on upstairs and wondered how they would know if the ritual was a success. Flip a coin and see if Hazard could call it in the air? Or just wait and watch for changes in his life? He’d told her that being cursed was like living in chains, that it caused him to keep his distance from others for fear his bad luck would spill over and bring tragedy or disaster to someone else. He didn’t say he felt responsible for the death of his wife and daughter, but she surmised he did, at least in part. Faced with the choice of being a lonely recluse or a threat to anyone who crossed his path, he’d chosen loneliness for himself.

  When her knees no longer wobbled, she wandered down the hall to the kitchen and looked around, peeking inside the drawers and refrigerator, telling herself it wasn’t as tacky as looking through someone’s bathroom medicine cabinet and lots of people did that. Whether he preferred whole or fat-free milk and owned matching pot holders wasn’t her idea of highly personal information. It was a moot point anyway since there was no milk or anything else in the fridge and not much in the drawers. Plates, bowls, cups, flatware, that was about it. Plus a healthy supply of white cloth napkins pressed and folded laundry-service style.

  What did they eat? she wondered. Then she spotted the containers neatly stacked by the back door, all with the “Catering to You” logo on them. Catering to You was a pricey catering service that specialized in delivering gourmet meals to people who lacked the time or inclination to cook for themselves and were rich enough not to have to. Most people she knew used them only for special occasions. From the looks of it, everyday was special at Chez Hazard.

  The sound of footsteps pounding down the stairs and a rowdy verbal skirmish in the hallway interrupted her snooping. Taggart appeared first, his arms full of what could best be described as stuff. Hazard was right behind him, a candle gripped in each fist and a dark cloud hovering above his head. Metaphorically speaking.

  “We ran into a small glitch,” Taggart announced.

  Eve glanced from one to the other. “What sort of glitch?”

  “An imaginary one,” Hazard snapped.

  “I didn’t imagine it,” Taggart said with a roll of his eyes only Eve could see. “I tried to get it done.”

  “You should have tried harder,” Hazard told him.

  “What sort of glitch?” she asked again.

  “The sort where we need your help,” Taggart replied.

  “My help? Oh no.” She looked at Hazard. “I told you I don’t do magic.”

  Taggart snorted and jumped in before Hazard had a chance to respond. “Do magic? Madam, you are magic. I saw the rune stones out front and the ones at the other doors. You’re an enchantress by birth, a mighty one . . . in fact, if you ask me—”

  “No one did,” Hazard broke in. “Can we just get on with it?”

  Taggart shrugged. “That’s up to the enchantress.” To Eve, he added, “What we need
from you is a power boost. All you need do is focus on what it is we want to accomplish and then lend your will to mine. Simple.”

  “Reality bends to desire,” she murmured, contradictory thoughts running laps in her head.

  “For you,” Taggart told her. “Me? I’m but lowly fae. I need the words and charms to bring my will about. But together we can get this done.”

  Again she looked to Hazard, undecided. “Is he right? All I’ll have to do is focus?”

  “Evidently,” he said tightly. “Taggart will be doing the work; I’m the target. You just have to be present, an innocent bystander.”

  “Right . . . just your average, everyday innocent bystander with a zillion-watt battery at her disposal,” quipped Taggart. “So you’ll help?”

  She hesitated for only a second before nodding. “I’ll try.”

  It sounded simple enough, Eve thought. Except for the part where she didn’t have a clue what she was doing, and the fact that it was a powerful bad-luck curse they were messing with, and her unfortunate history with the house. Other than that, it was as simple as pie . . . very complicated and dangerous magic pie.

  What could possibly go wrong?

  Taggart prepared to attempt the ritual a second time by rolling back the living room rug and using yellow chalk to draw a circle on the wood floor. Eve stood out of the way and watched as he arranged the items he’d brought down from the turret inside the circle. She was more interested in details than her small role required, and she wasn’t sure if it was because what they were doing involved Hazard, or magic, or both.

  When Taggart placed a pentagon shaped mirror at the center of the circle and made a smaller circle on its flat surface with what appeared to be dried herbs, she leaned closer to get a better look at the pieces of leaves and stalks. Grand had grown herbs as well as roses, and she’d taught Eve how to tell one from another, as well as their uses and dangers. Grand had called it folk medicine; her mother had called it madness and warned Eve to stay away.

  “Agrimony?” she ventured.

  “Aye,” confirmed Taggart. “Some call it cockelbur. For cleansing the blood. There’s belladonna and valerian root too.”

  Inside the smaller circle he placed a gold pocket watch and candles bound with twine. The candles were standing upright, with a single red taper in the center, surrounded by five black candles and a ring of white candles on the outside. The final item was a small silver pedestal. When it was in place, he removed the pendant from its case and held it out to her.

  “Would you care to do the honors?” he asked.

  From across the room Hazard made a rough, impatient sound.

  Eve took the pendant and placed it on the silver pedestal, noticing as she did so that the candles, the watch and the pendant formed a triangle.

  Taggart stepped back and considered his work with a critical expression. Then he bent and moved the candles an inch to the left, stepped back for another look and moved them back.

  “For God’s sake,” snapped Hazard. “Stop fussing and get on with it.”

  “A bit touchy, aren’t you?” countered a blasé Taggart. “These things can’t be rushed. It’s not my fault that having time to think about what you’re about to do makes you edgy.”

  “I’m not edgy,” growled Hazard.

  “Jittery then.”

  “Or jittery.”

  “Why would he be edgy?” Eve directed the question to Taggart, but it was Hazard who answered.

  “I am not edgy,” he snapped.

  Taggart turned and rolled his eyes for Eve’s benefit. “ ‘Not edgy,’ he says. What do you think, Enchantress?”

  “Please. Call me Eve,” she said to him. To Hazard she said, “You do seem a little on edge. Are you afraid this won’t work?”

  “Or afraid it will,” muttered Taggart.

  Eve frowned. “I don’t understand. Why would you be afraid it would work? I thought you wanted to end the curse.”

  “I do,” responded Hazard. “I’m not afraid . . . or edgy or jittery. I just want to get on with it. Can we do that?” He glared at Taggart. “Or do you want to waste more time rearranging the bloody candles?”

  Taggart gave a lofty shrug. “I’m ready when you are.”

  “Finally,” muttered Hazard.

  “You’re going to have to walk me through this step by step,” Eve reminded Taggart. “Starting with where you want me to stand.”

  “Anywhere inside the circle will do fine,” he told her, waving her forward.

  Eve stepped over the yellow chalk line, and the two men did the same. The circle was a snug fit for the three of them; she was standing close enough to Hazard to smell him. He smelled good.

  “A few points before we begin,” Taggart said.

  Hazard groaned with frustration; Taggart ignored him.

  “The ritual itself is simple,” he told her. “A curse is really nothing but a spell with evil intent. Sometimes it’s cast and done with, like when you curse someone to break a leg or miss an appointment. Sometimes it’s meant to go on long after the casting is done. What we’re dealing with here is a continuous curse, one of those that goes on and on, and since magic—white and black alike—needs energy to fuel it, something is fueling this curse.”

  “What is it?” she asked.

  Taggart’s mouth quirked grimly. “Good question. I’ve known of curses that tapped into ley lines, or particular ceremonial rites, ones that could be counted on to reoccur frequently enough to provide the energy needed to keep the curse going.”

  “Is that what’s happening here?”

  “Unfortunately, no.”

  “What’s happening here,” Hazard chimed in, his tone dripping sarcasm, “is that we have no idea what’s happening here. And we’re wasting time. Just tell her what to do so we can get this over with.”

  “He’s right,” acknowledged Taggart. “We can’t say for certain where the energy for the curse is coming from. But I dare say we’ve found a way around it. Or rather he did.” He hitched his head toward Hazard. “He’s moody but clever.”

  He explained to Eve that regardless of what was fueling the curse, stopping or interrupting that flow of energy would cause the curse to fail and the natural order of things to be restored. Since they couldn’t find the source of the energy, they couldn’t stop it; so they were going to block the flow instead by raising a protective shield around Hazard. The energy would hit the shield and be bounced back to who knows where, and Hazard would be free.

  And that would be that and they would all live happily ever after if only magic were a science instead of an art. It wasn’t, and so they needed exactly the right catalyst to make it work; in this case only the catalyst that had been used to cast the curse could break it. They needed the pendant, and according to Taggart, they needed her help. He had a lot more faith in her abilities than she did. When she told him that, he assured her that all she had to do was conjure an image of Hazard surrounded by an impenetrable protective shield, one strong enough to deflect whatever came at it, and then gather her power and focus it on turning that image into reality.

  “Do you think you can do that?” he asked.

  Eve nodded, and he closed the circle. It made a small snapping sound, like the magnetic clasp on a purse.

  She linked her hands behind her and rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet the way she sometimes did when she was anxious. Hazard stood still and watchful as Taggart lit the candles. His arms were loosely folded, his stance relaxed, but he didn’t fool Eve. She was able to read him well enough to discern the tension in his squared shoulders and the taut line of his jaw. She could understand him being apprehensive; what she didn’t understand were Taggart’s remarks suggesting that Hazard could be—or should be—having second thoughts about what he was doing.

  Speaking in a quiet voice, Taggart moved the lighting taper from wick to wick, starting with the red candle in the center.

  Flame of power, flame of might, flame of magic brightly burn,r />
  Let the wheel of fortune turn and grant this last desire.

  Red for life, black for death, white for passage safe.

  He switched to what sounded like Latin, chanting briefly, and then calling out, “Tributo is votum.”

  Instantly the candle flames flared higher and brighter to form a single glowing sphere of fire. Using that as her focal point and following Taggart’s instructions, Eve formed an image of Hazard in her mind’s eye and envisioned a shield around him.

  “Rector succurro,” Taggart said.

  The room grew warm, and the air seemed to vibrate silently. Eve felt the power gathering inside her; it was a heady feeling. She drew it in, focused on the image in her mind and released it fully. She hadn’t sought to do this, but that didn’t make it any less thrilling to see the shield, a translucent silvery film, begin to slowly materialize around Hazard. So far so good, she thought, envisioning it becoming stronger and harder, impervious to everything but her will.

  She continued to focus as faint tendrils of light appeared above the silver pedestal, curling around the pendant like ribbons of smoke. More continued to appear, bands of grainy gray light, each about six inches wide; they drifted upward, spinning and weaving into a column that grew steadily more solid and defined until it had taken on the unmistakable shape of a man. No one had mentioned this part. She glanced around to see if the others were as surprised as she was and realized they were.

  A sudden explosion of sparks filled the air with smoke and sizzle. Eve squeezed her eyes shut to protect them and when she opened them again, the swirling bands of light were gone and a man she had never seen before stood in the center of the circle and the receding smoke.

  He was tall and thin, gaunt really, with a long narrow face and a chin that jutted out of proportion. His mouth was cruel, his eyes dark and angry. And he was gray. His skin was the pale, fish-belly gray of someone who’d been living in a cave, without sunlight, for a very long time. But none of those things were as striking to Eve as the way the man was dressed. He was wearing a dark brown cutaway coat over a striped silk waistcoat and fawn-colored trousers tucked into knee boots. His white linen neck cloth was elaborately knotted, and rode so high on his throat it called even more attention to his prominent chin.