Hot Magic

by Holli Bertram

  She yanked her fingers back quickly. “It’s got an electrical charge.”

  Julie closed her eyes. “I am sleeping. This is all a dream.”

  “Mom, I know you sent Harrison home, but I think you better go talk to him.”

  “No need.” Julie opened her eyes, surprised to see the glow building in intensity, just at the thought of him. “I’m sure I’ll wake up in a few minutes.”

  Tasha backed away. “Okay. Listen. You go watch the noodles and I’ll just step outside for a breath of fresh air. I’ll be right back.” Tasha turned and raced through the kitchen. Julie stepped out of the bathroom and watched her practically leap over the deck as she headed toward Harrison’s house.

  Tasha looked so athletic and beautiful. Her little girl was all grown up. Smiling, Julie stepped back into the bathroom. The white pedestal sink and bright yellow walls made her feel safe and happy. She’d bought white hand towels for the room when Tasha had left for college. Ha! And Jack thought she wasn’t a risk taker. She fussed with the towels and noticed her fingers left small, brown singe marks. Good thing this wasn’t real.

  Getting into the spirit of things, she pointed her finger at the toilet. “Be clean!” She squinted at the porcelain. The toilet hadn’t been all that dirty to begin with and she couldn’t tell if was any cleaner. The bathroom mirror began fogging over and she walked into the kitchen to turn down the fire under the noodles. Her brain felt fried by the heat consuming her. Too much. Everything was too much. She wanted a normal, boring dream. The tears starting down her cheeks hissed and evaporated into puffs of steam.

  “Mom. I need you.” She whispered into the empty air of the kitchen, hugging herself. She wasn’t at all surprised when her mother popped into the room.

  Her mother, on the other hand, screamed.

  Harrison had just ended a phone call to his secretary when the banging on his door started. He stalked through the empty house to the door, not in the best of moods, and threw it open. Young Natasha’s fist landed square on his chest.

  “Ow!” she yelped and sucked on her knuckles. “Are you wearing a cement vest or something?”

  He would have felt flattered, but the minute he opened the door, he sensed the tsunami of power. He grabbed Natasha and pulled her close. Fear trickled into him for the first time since this whole fiasco began. In a heartbeat, they stood in Julie’s kitchen.

  Natasha crumbled to the floor the moment his arms loosened. An older woman stood in the middle of the room, a startled screech echoing from her lungs. Julie smiled at him, glowing like a bloody angel. Only the immortals could contain that much power without bursting a blood vessel. Julie certainly couldn’t.

  He scooped her up like a baby, the glow dampening slightly. What the hell was happening to her?

  “Harry, this is my dream, and I want you to kiss me again.” Julie’s arms, hot as pokers, circled his neck. Her power pulled his head down. He met her lips, jolted again by the taste of her—sweet, salty, addicting. For a brief second, he lost himself in the absolute rightness of the hot press of her mouth. The fiery burn of her body against his. He lifted his head and met her dreamy eyes. He thought one word.

  Bascule.

  Tasha struggled to her feet, sucked air into her lungs, and watched her mother disappear from the kitchen with Harrison. She didn’t faint and she didn’t scream. She didn’t even have a panic attack. Instead, she stumbled to the closest chair and sat down. “I’m hallucinating, aren’t I?”

  “I saw it.” Jean Dancer wore a particularly grim expression on her face.

  Tasha rubbed her head. “Unfortunately, you’re in Chicago, so I’m hallucinating you, too.”

  Jean reached over and pinched her arm, hard. “Hallucinations don’t pinch.”

  “Ow!” Tasha had no idea if that was true, but she decided to go with it. “Is Mom all right?”

  “No. But if anyone can help her, the Balance can.” Her grandmother lowered herself into a chair slowly, as if every muscle pained her. She wore a flowery, flowing skirt and a peasant style blouse. Grandma changed styles on a daily basis. Sometimes she went for sleek and sophisticated, sometimes hip and fashionable. Today she’d been caught in a sixties time warp—a decade she’d no doubt owned.

  “Who or what is the Balance? What’s wrong with Mom? How can people teleport through space?” The words tumbled over each other. Her mouth and tongue couldn’t move quickly enough to frame the questions in her head.

  “Slowly.” Jean drew out the word.

  Tash took a deep breath and put a brake on her racing thoughts. One question at a time. “How can Harrison zap in and out of places like a Star Trek character?”

  “In Star Trek, you need a transporter device. Totally different thing,” Jean said absently.

  “Grandma. Look at me. Tell me what you know about this.” The soft demand sat between them like a grenade.

  Jean looked up. Lines creased her usually smooth skin. “I know I’ve been incredibly foolish. Something triggered a release of Julie’s power.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Jean put her head on the table, the soft blonde curls she currently clutched in her hands a tribute to her hairdresser. “I don’t, either. This is impossible. Besides, she’s Sun Dancer and he’s Penumbrae.”

  Harrison had called Mom a Sun Dancer, too. When Jean kept her head on the table, Tasha pulled out her phone and googled Sun Dancer. Mom was not a member of a Native American or First Nation tribe. She was also not a nudist or a boat. No help there.

  “This is not the time to be chatting with friends.” Jean sat up. “Put your phone away, and tell me exactly what happened before your mother went nuclear.”

  Tasha stuck her phone in her pocket and then repeated the story of the kiss, the violins and fireworks and her mom’s odd electrical glow.

  Jean’s frown deepened. “Using power is a balancing act. There are three parts to it—absorbing energy from the environment, transforming that energy and releasing the power back into the environment. Your mother hasn’t been trained. If she begins absorbing energy without knowing how to release it....”

  “Are you saying Mom might die?” Tasha put one hand against her chest, to physically hold in the hysteria she could feel pushing for release.

  “No. No! The Balance has her. He’ll take care of her. He’ll help her.”

  Her grandmother’s words didn’t sound as certain as Tasha needed them to sound. She stood up but there was nowhere to go. Nothing she could do. No way to help her mother.

  Steam from the simmering lasagna noodles fogged the windows. She carried the heavy pot to the colander her mother had set in the sink, her heart twisting as she thought of her mom bustling around the kitchen. Her strong, dependable mom. Her steady rock.

  She tipped the noodles and hot water into the colander and stood, taking the full force of hot steam that bathed her face. Hair that had escaped from her tight ponytail twisted into corkscrew curls. Hair color from her dad, hair curls from her mom. What else had her genes gifted her with?

  She turned and braced both hands behind her on the counter. “Grandma, who are we?”

  The man lounged in a camel-colored vinyl armchair, watching reruns of The Simpsons. One long, leather clad leg draped over the side of the chair, his foot ticked a lazy rhythm. Not a muscle in his lean body jerked when Julie and Harrison appeared in the hotel room with him.

  Julie gasped at the lightning-quick change in venue and tightened her grip on Harry’s neck. He sucked in his breath, and she smelled burning hair. Now that was definitely bizarre. She’d never been able to smell in a dream before. She moved her arm and saw singed neck hairs on Harry. She turned her head and spit on her skin. The water danced like moisture on a hot griddle. Oh man. How would Freud interpret this?

  She loosened her death grip on Harry and looked around, storing details for later therapy sessions. She appeared to be in a small, bland hotel room decorated in shades of pale beige. Okay, Freud would think she was boring.
No surprise there. She turned her attention again to the room’s single occupant and stared in growing wonder at the man sitting in the armchair. Thank you, deep unconscious. “I’ve dreamed up a young Johnny Depp!”

  The man lifted a dark brow. “Johnny Depp?”

  “She’s about to ignite, Bas.” Harry’s deep voice broke in. “Her abilities have triggered, and she’s absorbing power.”

  The man stood quickly. “How did it happen?”

  “I’ll explain later.” Harrison’s accent sounded more clipped than usual. “Can you siphon off any of the power?”

  The man held out both hands toward her. Julie felt a moment of intense relief, a chill breeze that quickly got sucked up in the heat. She smiled at him. “I loved your pirate movies.”

  He looked at Harry. “We need an angel. There’s too much energy.”

  “The angels aren’t allowed to interfere,” Harry bit out. A muscle in his jaw twitched once. Julie resisted the urge to put her hand against his cheek. He probably wouldn’t appreciate having his facial hair burned off.

  “Rules are like rubber bands. They can stretch more than you’d expect before they break. Something you, Harrison, have yet to learn.” The man called Bas held up both hands in a simple, fluid gesture. He murmured a word that Julie didn’t catch. A flash of light, gaining in intensity like an expanding star, filled the room.

  Julie realized she’d finally exploded. Her soul floated free into blessed cool. So this was death.

  Wait! She frowned and tried to put the brakes on her drifting consciousness. No fair. She refused to enter into the Great Beyond before her life passed before her eyes. She didn’t mind missing a replay of the Married Years, and strangely, she felt no tinge of sorrow at leaving Tash and her mother behind. She did, however, want one last memory of that kiss with Harrison. Death had obviously released her inner floozy.

  Try as she might, she couldn’t hold her thoughts together. They slipped out of her head like wisps of morning fog meeting the sunrise. The last thing she remembered was a remarkable feeling of peace.

  Grandma’s head jerked and she stood. Her whole body trembled. “Something’s happened.”

  “Of course something’s happened. People are teleporting all over the place and Mom has disappeared.” It only took Tasha a moment to realize her grandmother meant something else. Dread filled her and a band tightened around her chest. “What? Is Mom okay?”

  Grandma sat down again, a shaky hand running through her short curls. “I don’t know. I’m a bit of a Sensitive. I just felt a huge jolt of power. I don’t know what it means.” Her brown eyes, usually bright and laughing, were full of despair. “I don’t know what it means.”

  Tasha sat down beside her and took both her hands. “I need you to tell me what is going on.” She still managed to speak slowly, even though her heart felt like a ping-pong ball bouncing against her ribs. “Tell me about Sun Dancers, the Penum-whatever and Sensitives. Tell me where Mom has gone and what is wrong with her.”

  Grandma nodded, taking a deep breath. “I thought I could escape all this. Keep you and your mother free of it.”

  “Escape what? Keep us free of what?”

  “Your heritage. Your birthright and your birth curse.” Her grandmother spoke in a voice of doom.

  “Stop with the mumbo-jumbo horror movie stuff, Gram. Talk in clear English.”

  “All is not what it seems.”

  “Grandma!”

  The older woman shuddered and gave Tasha a defensive look. “Well, it’s not. There’s more to this world than meets the eye. Humans are only part of God’s grand equation. There are immortals, spirits and mortals with special powers. You, my dear, are a mortal with special powers.”

  Tash didn’t say anything for a moment. Obviously her special power was her ability not to scream in frustration at the craziness coming out of her grandmother’s mouth. Instead she said, very slowly, “Tell me more.”

  “Several types of these special mortals exist. The ones you need to be concerned with now are the Sun Dancers, the Shadow Walkers and the Penumbrae. These three together form the Triad and serve as a buffer against evil. ‘Wherever three or more are gathered, evil cannot prevail.’” Her grandmother spoke the last sentence as if it was a known truth.

  “Is that a Bible verse?” Tash’s head felt like it was whirling. She had so many questions.

  “No. I really have no idea where that came from or even when it was said, but it’s something all Triad learn in the cradle.”

  Except, apparently, for Tasha and her mother. “I don’t have any powers.”

  “Your mother didn’t either. Your grandpa was human, and I thought you’d both somehow missed out on the magic gene.”

  Tasha closed her eyes. If she hadn’t beamed from Harrison’s front porch to this kitchen, if she hadn’t seen her mother blink out of the kitchen in Harrison’s arms, she’d think her grandmother had truly taken a dive over the edge. “Do you have powers?” She opened her eyes to see Grandma shrug.

  “I’m a Sensitive, which means I can sense others with power. I’m very rusty at the whole energy wielding business.”

  “Grandpa was a normal human?”

  “As normal as they come. Not a whiff of power about him.”

  Soft, cuddly Grandpa Abe had loved nothing better than to sit on the couch and tell Tasha endless stories. He always smelled like he smoked a pipe, and she often thought of him on cold winter nights when Mom had the fireplace going. “Did he know about you? About the power?”

  “Yes. And he loved me anyway.” Grandma smiled sadly. “He made me feel safe.”

  “Why did you need to feel safe?” Didn’t power give you…power?

  “Many years ago, there was a huge civil war in the Triad. We call it the Great Rift.” Grandma stopped abruptly. Her eyes widened and she looked around the kitchen like a cornered rabbit. Before Tasha could reach her, she slid off her chair to the floor. Grandma placed a trembling hand over her heart.

  Tasha knelt beside her, grabbing hands suddenly gone cold. Was she having a heart attack? “Grandma!” Tasha stared at the stricken, pale face, desperately wishing for help, for sanity, for Red Cross first aid training.

  “Shadow Walkers.” Grandma said the words so softly Tasha had to lean forward to hear. “There are Shadow Walkers near.”

  A husky laugh broke the silence that followed her statement. “How astute of you.”

  Tasha’s head swung around at the softly accented voice, and she jumped to her feet. A crowd of people filled the kitchen. She blinked rapidly, but they didn’t disappear. Slightly in front of the rest, two people stood side by side—man and a woman, both beautiful beyond anything Tasha had seen outside of touched-up magazine photographs. Both were tall, the man topping the woman by four inches. Even standing still, they radiated an innate grace. Their faces were long and fine-boned, their hair a slide of silver moonlight that reached the shoulders of the woman and touched the collar of the man. Both had deep blue eyes and dark lashes, striking against their otherwise pale coloring.

  The group wore modern clothes—cotton slacks, khakis, jeans, and a variety of shirts and tops all in subdued colors—but something about them felt ancient. Tasha stiffened her spine. “What are you doing here? Who are you?”

  The woman took a step forward. “We are the shadows that frighten you at night. We have come for the Dancer.”

  Chapter Four

  “‘Shadows don’t scare me.’” Tasha tried to squash the quaver in her voice as she stepped in front of her grandmother. “‘There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast.’”

  The quote came tumbling out without thought. She threw back her shoulders, going with the theory that if she looked brave she might feel brave. Her heart rate slowed when the lips of the silver man quirked in amusement and his eyes lit with interest. A man with a sense of humor wouldn’t hurt her, right?

  “Dickens,” he murmured. “The Pickwick Papers.”

>   Shadow Walkers read Dickens. And had French accents. They couldn’t be all bad.

  Drama Queen—as Tash had mentally tagged the woman—crossed her arms and sighed heavily. “Let’s gather the chairs in a circle and form a book group, why don’t we?”

  Silver Man’s grin widened, but the men behind him looked alarmed. One of them cleared his throat. “Uh, I haven’t read that one, Marguerite.”

  She gave the man a blistering look. “I’m astounded, Adrian.” She turned back to Silver Man, her voice clipped. “Are these Dancers? Is this the one I’m looking for?”

  Silver Man shrugged. “There’s Dancer energy here. Difficult to tell if the power is coming from these women or if it is a residue from the one who was here. The one who exploded.”

  Tasha’s legs gave out, just like that. She sank to the floor beside her grandmother. Harrison and her mother were the only other people who’d been here. Harrison hadn’t looked anywhere close to exploding.

  Marguerite frowned. “No matter. The bond has not wavered again. We’ll go to the Balance’s house and wait for him.” With a graceful swipe of her arm, the bizarre entourage disappeared.

  Tasha barely noticed. She turned and buried her head against her grandmother’s shoulder, refusing to believe what she’d just heard. Her mother couldn’t be dead.

  “Is she dead?” Harrison asked. The pace of the blood thundering through his veins had nothing to do with the angel who had just left the room. It had everything to do with fear. The unfamiliar emotion made him want to roar in protest.

  The angel had absorbed the excess energy, allowing Julie’s own system to begin processing the energy, but had left her slumped and unconscious. Angels were never chatty, and this one, after a long look at Bas, left without saying a word.

  Bas contemplated the still body sprawled on the floor. “No, she’s alive. It’s night though. Since she’s triggered, she’ll be more attuned to the power rhythms of light. She may not wake until morning.”