Fire Raiser

by Melanie Rawn

  —is for me to make big eyes at you right under your wife’s nose so you can go home and fuck each other’s brains out because her jealousy really gets you both going?

  “Don’t,” she snapped. “I don’t care what you want. Whatever game you’ve got going, I won’t be a part of it.”

  “I don’t understand.” His eyes had kindled with restless anticipation, flickering from her to Erika and back again. “Oh, wait a minute—you think she—?” He gave her his most disarming smile. “Well, I admit she is the jealous type. But, hey, come on, Holly, how long have we known each other?”

  “We knew each other for a couple of years a long, long time ago. I’m telling you again, Gib, whatever you’re playing at, leave me out of it.”

  “I can’t help it that she’s like that. Besides, that’s just marriage.”

  “Not my marriage, it isn’t.”

  “Do you really think it works like that?” he asked, his smile expanding.

  She wanted to slap him. She came so close to doing it that she had to turn away, almost shaking with anger and insult—and disappointment, that he had turned out to be so much less than the man she had once thought he would become.

  EVAN WATCHED THE LITTLE BYPLAY with increasing interest, and no small amount of apprehension. He knew what Gib was doing. It was the kind of thing guaranteed to detonate Holly’s temper. As much as the man deserved it, Evan quite selfishly needed her calm and focused for whatever they’d have to do later, when Lulah arrived and applied her substantial experience to that magical staircase.

  As he kept one eye on Holly and Gib, and the other on Erika, he thought over what the woman had said about jealousy and possession—although she hadn’t used those words. If Gib was single-minded about flying, Holly was perfectly ruthless about writing. Uncompromising, as only a committed craftsperson can be; so completely self-centered when she was working that she didn’t even realize it.

  Work came first. He’d recognized that a long time ago. It never bothered him that much, because he figured she’d scrunch things around until there was room enough for him, and then the kids when and if they came. He had discovered during their first months together that when she worked, she worked. She ate, slept, thought, dreamed to the rhythm of her book. This happened for days on end, sometimes as long as a week; then she’d come back from wherever she’d been. But when it came time for work again, she took herself off to her interior landscapes. And at such times she became ruthless again, self-centered again, totally alive only when totally alone within herself.

  To be honest, he missed that about her. She needed to find a book. He couldn’t imagine being jealous of it; he did love that she was passionate about things, because he was one of the things she was most passionate about.

  And right now she was passionately pissed off at Gib Ayala. Lachlan touched Cam’s arm, nodded in the appropriate direction, and the two of them set off—not to Holly’s rescue, but Gib’s.

  “—Holly, we’ve always been friends—”

  “Hey, Freckles!” Cam said brightly. “How’re you doin’, Gib? You won’t remember me—Cam Griffen, Holly’s cousin. I hear you’ve been running Shenandoah Regional lately. Nice gig for a frustrated fighter pilot, right?”

  He kept up the inane spill of chatter as Evan coaxed Holly a few paces away. “Do I need to challenge him to a duel?”

  “No, my liege lord. My honor wasn’t impugned—no, I take it back. It was. He was using me to make her think—and she thinks that if I got the chance I’d—”

  “I know,” Lachlan interrupted gently. “I was right about them, huh?”

  “I owe you an apology.”

  He slung an arm around her waist. “I woulda been good at a duel. Swords, pistols, a good swift kick in the balls—”

  She snorted. “He could bench-press your weight without breaking a sweat.”

  “He can bench-press my Glock.”

  Her brows drew together in a long, slow frown. “Evan . . . he said ‘that’s just marriage.’ But it isn’t. That’s—possession. Ownership.”

  “Well, I kind of hate to bring it up, but—seems to me you used to get jealous every so often.”

  “Yes, I did,” she replied. “But that was before we were married.”

  “You put that much trust in a license from city hall, a Handfasting, and your own blood?”

  “If you’d been spelled six ways to next Imbolc, it wouldn’t have mattered, because I’m the one the spell would concentrate on and my blood doesn’t work on me. I put that much trust in you. Evan, we promised each other certain things. Did you mean them?”

  “Yes!” he exclaimed, stung that she could even ask.

  “I know. You gave me your word. There aren’t many people who understand what ‘honor’ is anymore,” she mused. “It’s more than keeping a promise. It’s that any promise you make, you never would have made it in the first place if the truth and the emotion behind it weren’t as much a part of you as your own heartbeat. Do you see what I mean? Your honor is a fundamental truth of who you are, the way you think and the way you live your life.”

  He nodded, and waited, knowing she wasn’t finished.

  “We belong to each other because we choose to. Neither of us bought and paid for the other. What we paid for, what we went through hell to get and hold onto, was to be together and make a life with each other.”

  He smiled and hugged her closer. “And here I thought you only wanted me for the sex.” Looking over her shoulder, he added, “Nice work, Cam.”

  Holly turned. “Yeah—thanks, Peaches. Have we got our story—you should pardon the expression—straight?”

  “I’m being a sweet, adorable, thoughtful, generous nephew and giving Lulah my room and my spa certificates as a respite from you and your enfants terribles. Will she remember to bring an overnight bag?” Not waiting for an answer, he went on, “You realize that this is going to be damned tricky, right?”

  “How tricky?” she asked.

  “Those magic stairs are mucking about with reality on a scale most of us never dare. Dad always said that when it comes to magic and the laws of physics, the latter will get their revenge, no matter how thorough the spells or how careful you are with them.” He paused a long moment. “And it’ll take a lot of power. I’m not sure I’m up to it.”

  “Between you and Lulah, we’ll do just fine,” she predicted with confidence. “She’s got the spellcraft, you’ve got strength to add to hers, and I’ll just do what I usually do—”

  Lachlan tickled her ear with one finger. “Stand around looking cute with your thumb stuck in the air?”

  “I may not be much by way of the family heritage, but I have relatives I can threaten—and they can transform you into any kind of toad I want.”

  “Out of luck, lady love. I already figured out Cam’s real name.”

  They had been speaking quietly, not in the furtive whispers that always attracted attention but not loudly enough to be heard above the music. Nobody could have overheard their conversation, unless she had deliberately approached to listen.

  “Mrs. Lachlan,” said Erika Ayala. “May I have a word?”

  The three of them swung around. She stood there, fragile and pretty, square-shouldered as a West Point cadet on parade. Evan glanced at Holly, then at Cam. He knew his expression must mirror theirs: What the hell did we say?

  “I have a favor to ask.” She looked briefly at the two men. “In private.”

  “Holly?” Cam ventured.

  “It’s all right,” Holly said, not taking her eyes from Erika’s grimly determined face. “Evan, it’s all right.”

  He nodded and took Cam’s elbow in an uncompromising grip. “We’ll be around.” As they walked a few yards away, he muttered, “Please, God, don’t let her rip the woman’s throat out.”

  “At least not without a drop cloth on the floor.”

  HOLLY GESTURED TOWARD THE PIANO alcove with a commendably steady hand. When they were at a reasonable remove from the
thinning crowd, she asked bluntly, “Favor?”

  “I know what you are. My husband has hinted at it. So have some other people—they let things slip, thinking nobody will understand or believe. I’m not sure I do believe it, but the evidence does seem to add up.”

  “To what?”

  “I don’t know what you call it among yourselves. Conjuring, witchcraft, Satanism—casting spells or consorting with spirits, I don’t care. I don’t have any interest in you or your kind, except for one thing.”

  “The favor.”

  Erika was silent for a moment. Then, the words almost torn out of her: “Make my son not be a queer.”

  Holly didn’t react. She couldn’t. It wasn’t physically possible to react.

  “You can do some kind of spell or incantation and make Troy change. I’ve seen him looking at other boys in school, and tonight at Mr. Stirling—I tried to tell you earlier that I was worried, I was hoping I could appeal to you as a mother. But then I heard what you were saying about power, and I realized what you are—” She gulped a breath. “He’s only seventeen, he’s too young to know anything about—”

  “No.” Was that her voice, so soft and quiet?

  “You have to.” She stated it as simple fact. “I will not have my son be a queer. I just won’t allow it. But I will let everyone know exactly what you are.”

  “No,” Holly heard herself say again.

  “I’ll do it. I’ll find a way to prove it. You were so sure of yourselves, so smug—talking about such things right out in the open—how many other mistakes have you made? Someone knows. And not everyone in this county thinks you and your family are the next best thing to the Second Coming! You, especially, trying to steal my husband—” She got hold of herself. “But we’re not talking about that right now. I’ll forget about that if you do what I want.”

  Holly could only shake her head.

  “You have to,” Erika insisted. “I won’t stop until I get proof—and if you were stupid enough to talk here, tonight, what about the last twenty or thirty years?” She looked down at her tightly clasped hands for a moment, then back up into Holly’s face. “The rumors alone would—”

  “What makes you think you’ll be allowed to spread rumors, let alone find this ‘proof’ you’re talking about?”

  Erika didn’t flinch. Holly smiled thinly, awarding points for sheer stubbornness.

  “If I am what you seem to think I am,” Holly went on, “then surely you have some idea what ‘my kind’ are capable of. Do you really want to risk it?”

  “For my son—of course. Change him. Make him normal.”

  “He is normal. You’re the one who’s sick. Appeal to me as a mother? You want him to be straight for your sake, not his.”

  “Help my son.”

  “He doesn’t need help. He doesn’t need to be fixed or healed or changed—”

  “You slut,” she breathed. “I’ll ruin you. Everyone will see you for the filthy witch you are—”

  “Take your best shot,” Holly invited coldly. This wasn’t the first time she’d been threatened with exposure as a Witch—but this was the first time she’d ever made threats in return, and it horrified her. She forced herself to calm down. “Erika, this isn’t necessary. You don’t have to—”

  “It won’t be necessary if you cure my son of being a fag!”

  “I wouldn’t even if I could!” Looking down at the exquisite little face, the perfect little body, all at once she understood everything. “You can’t stand it that you can’t control everything that doesn’t fit with your idea of perfection. You don’t want people to look at your gay son, and then look at you, and whisper, ‘Poor dear, she produced a defective.’ You want him to be your idea of perfect—because otherwise what would people think of you? You love the idea that other women want your husband, because that means he must be a real catch, so if he’s married to you then you must be pretty terrific as well. And lucky you, you get to prove it over and over again, because he’s really good at making you jealous—is that the only way he can get himself laid? When you get freaked out and reassert ownership?”

  “Shut up. Just—shut up!”

  “You stupid, pathetic—I’m warning you, Erika, right here and now. Let Troy be. He’s your son. At least pretend that you love him enough to accept him as he is. Because if you make him hate himself, I’ll hear about it. I’ll hear any rumors you try to spread and I’ll know if you ask any questions you shouldn’t be asking. And I will make your life a hell you can’t possibly imagine. Do you understand me?”

  Holly didn’t wait for an answer. She walked as quickly as her trembling knees would allow to where Evan and Cam stood watching. When she got to them, she sought the shelter of her husband’s arms.

  “Don’t ask,” she said when Cam drew breath to speak. “Not now. Just get me out of here.”

  Twelve

  HOLLY VAGUELY HEARD EVAN telling Cam to take her upstairs, that he was going stay and wait for Lulah. Whatever; she was climbing stairs with her cousin’s arm strong and fierce around her, and then walking down a corridor of lush dark scarlet carpeting and Regency-striped walls, and then inside a sitting room with a desk in one corner and an arrangement of two sofas and a chair around a low coffee table. Cam guided her to one of the sofas, shifting his embrace to her shoulders, and pulled her against him as they sat down. She stared out the window at the rain for a little while, until a blast of lightning made her flinch.

  “Talk to me, Freckles.”

  “It’s not so much what she said,” Holly began. “I mean, it is, but it’s so many other things besides that.”

  “Start with the easiest.”

  She sorted through disgust and disappointment, worry and outrage, and came up with what was not exactly easiest but certainly the most selfish—and therefore least important. “I threatened her, Cam. I’ve never threatened anybody in my life with retaliatory Witchcraft. It’s not as if it’s ever been an option for me. But I told her if I heard anything I didn’t like, I’d—”

  “You admitted what you are?”

  She thought back. “Not really. But I didn’t deny it, either. I let her think what she wanted. And I told her I’d make her life hell.”

  “But you didn’t actually use words like—”

  “—like magic and Witch? No.”

  “Then don’t worry about it. What did she want?”

  “IS THERE SOMETHING WRONG?” asked Bernhardt Weiss, and Lachlan turned from watching Cam escort Holly to the stairs.

  “She’s always forgetting that as much as she likes crab, it doesn’t much like her,” he lied easily. “Her cousin’s taking her up to his room for a little while.”

  “I’m so sorry. Perhaps someone on our staff might be of assistance?”

  “She’ll be okay in a half hour or so. I’ll keep it in mind, though, thanks.” He scanned the remaining guests, all waiting for their cars—or for umbrellas so they could get to their cars without drowning. “Man, it’s really comin’ down out there, isn’t it?”

  “Quite spectacular, the thunderstorms in the Shenandoah Valley. So different from hurricanes—” He stopped, then continued smoothly, “I find these storms most stimulating.”

  “So do my kids, unfortunately. My daughter wants to stay up all night and watch every raindrop, like she expects them to be all different, like snowflakes. My son goes for the crayons and starts drawing on anything handy—sometimes the floor.” He chuckled. “And then there’s the dog, who just hides under whatever he can scrunch himself beneath.”

  “Ah, brave children, are they? And interested in the world. In a child these are very good things.”

  Evan nodded, trying to get a fix on his expression—complacency?—when a very familiar and very unexpected voice called his name. He looked over the crowd and at the main doors saw a wet blond head beside a wet red head. “Nicky?” Rudely abandoning Weiss, he threaded his way to them. “Lulah, where the hell did he come from?”

  “Connecticut,
of course,” she drawled.

  “How are you, Evan?” Nicholas Orlov shook his hand, smiling, but worry furrowed his brow. “Alec and I arrived about an hour after you and Holly left. I’m afraid we got rather distracted by the children—te jó Isten, they’ve grown! Just since June!” He ran his fingers through his sopping hair. “You wouldn’t happen to have a towel handy, would you?”

  “Upstairs, in Cam’s room.” He turned to Lulah, who was wringing rainwater out of her ponytail. “Why didn’t you tell me on the phone that Alec and Nicky were here?”

  “Because I didn’t want to waste time. I have a powerful and immediate need to skin that boy alive for not bothering to mention he was coming home. A hotel, for the love of all the saints! And this hotel, too!”

  CAM SHOOK HIS HEAD. “I don’t know why anything surprises me anymore. Will she bully the boy, or do to him what Morgan’s parents did?”

  “I don’t know. I think—I think Jamey’s example is a good one, that maybe Troy will compare Jamey’s life and the way people respect him to what his mother’s attitude is, and—oh, shit, I don’t know.”

  “But she’s his mother. Whatever happens, he’ll always hate himself in some way for disappointing her.” He sank back into the cushions. “Why do people do these things to each other?”

  She waited until he looked at her again, and then waited some more until a tiny smile quivered at the corners of his mouth.

  “Yeah,” he said, “I know. Ours not to reason why—because reason has nothing to do with it.” Grasping a pillow to his chest, he started picking at its crimson silk fringe. “If Erika hadn’t overheard us talking about magic, she wouldn’t have said anything—but if she hadn’t said anything, you wouldn’t know to look out for Troy.”

  “What was it your father always said? That there are no accidents, just opportunities disguised as coincidences.”

  “I never did think that made any sense.”