That got my attention. I turned, and when I did, Patch dropped one of my sneakers with a thud, panting at me with her tongue hanging out. “No! No, Patch! Shoes aren’t for puppies.” I waited to see her response. She tucked her tail and approached me, wiggling her head under my hand. The dog had me just where she wanted me. It didn’t matter that she’d tried to destroy one of my favorite pairs of shoes. I still scratched at her behind the ear and lifted her into my lap before turning back to Granny. She totally had me wrapped around her little paw. “This is Patch, my new pet.”
My grandmother’s dark brows quirked up and she eyed me carefully. “I wouldn’t have taken you for a dog person, Lynlee.”
“You’re not the only one.”
She raised her chin and licked her bright red lips, then smiled. “So you believe your lover is untrue, then?”
I snapped my mouth closed and refused to answer that. Granny and I didn’t have the sort of relationship where I would ever come to her with my personal issues. Today was a rarity, but I wasn’t willing to give away too much. I gritted my teeth and stared her down.
“It has been my experience,” she finally said, “that when you suspect something is wrong, that you should trust yourself. A truth spell isn’t usually necessary.”
“How bad can it go?”
She shrugged. “The No Spells can go horribly wrong, or simply fizz and sputter and do nothing. I venture the real issue with your truth spell will be whether you’re prepared to hear the reality it will reveal.”
I took a deep breath and worried at one of my fingernails a moment. I got a faraway look, moving my head here and there as I mentally discussed the matter with myself. I finally decided there were some risks that were just worth taking.
“Heavens to Murgatroyd.” Granny sat up straighter and clapped her hands. “I know what you really need. I can’t tell you how many curses I used in my lifetime, but they always made me feel better in the end.”
My head bobbed in agreement, then I screwed up my face as realization set in. I sputtered, “A curse? No, Granny, no way. I don’t need a curse.”
“Oh, my dear, you have no idea how badly you need a curse. Every witch should issue one or two in their lifetime. And they’re only minor curses, nothing serious. Teach that man of yours what’s what. It will do you both good.”
I flicked my finger back and forth at the mirror. “No. Besides, how can you make assumptions like that? You don’t even know what happened or if the truth spell has anything to do with Beck.”
Before she could respond, my doorbell rang, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. I wasn’t expecting anyone and wasn’t entirely sure what time it was anyway. I was still refusing to look at my phone since I hadn’t heard a single call come through. That meant Beck hadn’t called back.
“I gotta go, Granny. Thanks for the help.”
I saw her open her mouth as if to speak, but before she could issue any words, I tapped the mirror and she was gone. The doorbell rang a second time, and I hurried to answer it. I got to the top of my stairs, then glanced down at myself. I was entirely too underdressed to greet anyone.
A quick 180 had me back in my room and grabbing a bra and some real pants as opposed to my pajama bottoms. Slipping my arms from my T-shirt, I hurried to put the tatas in their sling and then pulled the shirt back down. Barely had I gotten halfway down the stairs when the bell rang a third time.
“Geez! I’m coming, okay?”
Swinging the door wide, I was surprised by the man I saw standing there. He wore a grey suit that was about two sizes too small. If he tried to button the coat I was afraid the explosion would put both my eyes out. The blue shirt underneath was a really bad color for him, making his pale skin look even grayer.
Gerard Latham glanced over his shoulder as if he thought someone might be following him, then he shook his head and forced his way into my house.
“Is it Helene? Is something wrong?”
“She’s fine. Everyone at Hideaway Land is fine for the moment. But I need your help to be sure they stay that way.”
I dramatically waved my arm to motion him into the house, even though he was already heading for the living room. My head was starting to pound. All I really wanted was to grab some aspirin from the medicine cabinet and take a nap. “Why don’t you make yourself at home, Latham.”
Since I was inviting him in, Patch must have thought he was a friend because her entire backside started moving with her tail wagging. She approached him to sniff at his heels. He gave her an affectionate pat to her head before turning to me.
“I know I should have called you first. I’m sorry, but I really do need your help. Have you seen the news today?”
“Crap on a cracker. That’s all anyone ever asks me anymore. No, I haven’t seen the news, and I darn sure don’t want to. It’s like MAUCs gone wild or something.”
“And it’s only getting worse.”
I raised an eyebrow and stared at him so hard he actually backed away from me. “You’re involved. I told Helene I thought you were involved, and I was right. Latham, you can’t force MAUCs and humans to live together. It’s like courting disaster.”
His head shook back and forth, then he dropped into a chair as if the weight of the world were on his shoulders. “It isn’t me, Miss Lincoln. I know this takes time. Hideaway Land is an experiment, but also a primer to teach us how to make it work when the rest of society is ready. But the world isn’t ready yet.”
“Then what is it you aren’t telling me?”
“He’s young and I thought just a little impetuous. Sometimes it was difficult to rein him in. I never thought he would. I mean, how could I ever think he would do this? It can’t work. What could he have been thinking to believe it would work?”
I inhaled a long, slow breath and closed my eyes, willing my nerves to calm and my magic to settle down. There were little pinpricks of energy pulsing against my skin, and I was very close to blowing my top. Once I was a little more controlled, I looked at him and walked to the chair just opposite. “I need you to help me out a bit here, Gerard. I’m not following you.”
His glassy eyes focused on me. “It’s my assistant. Nelson Everett. He’s always had beliefs that we could make the idea of Hideaway Land a reality for the world. He’s eager. I called him an eager beaver…” He chortled in a crazy sort of way. “I never realized what his powers allowed him to do. I never realized how dangerous he could be.”
“What type of MAUC is Nelson?”
“An angel. He’s a fallen angel. I mean, who knew they could do that?”
I struggled again to tamp down my impatience and annoyance. “Do what?”
But Latham didn’t have the chance to answer. We both heard a sound behind us, and Patch began growling. I conjured my wand just in case, though there was a certain tug down deep inside me that signaled who was in my house.
“Mr. Latham, I believe it would be best if you were to come with me.”
I blinked, swallowed and licked my lips before I stood to face Prieto. He kept his eyes averted from mine, instead staring those icy orbs straight into and through Gerard Latham. The warlock actually trembled.
“But it’s not me. I’m not the one who’s responsible for all of this.”
Prieto’s chest rose and fell with a deep breath. He crossed his arms before speaking again. “You are responsible for the people on that island. You were warned when you asked permission to undertake this experiment. Whatever is going on has originated there. And that means the department needs to speak with you.”
“He’s here. You’re here. I’m here. Speak to him.”
Prieto’s black brow shot up as his eyes found mine in a condescending glare. “Miss Lincoln, you are not an Enforcer.”
“I’m sort of an Enforcer. And besides, you folks want me to join the team. Show me now why I’d want to do that. Interrogate him here.”
I thought maybe I might have him when he paused and dropped the severe stare for a moment. I knew I was wrong when
I felt the change in him. I was pretty sure my panties were going to go up in flames. My entire body froze as I tried to find a way to get myself under control before I jumped him right there in front of Latham.
And that was when the amulet around my neck began buzzing. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to do anything. My eyes couldn’t seem to break away from Vincent Prieto’s hot gaze.
“Miss Lincoln, you’re buzzing…”
It was Latham’s voice, and he managed to shatter the spell Prieto had on me. I took a step back, wanting to put some space between me and the source of my disorientation. With a trembling hand, I touched the amulet and then turned flummoxed all over again when I realized it was Beck. I retracted my hand as if the stone had burned me. I wasn’t anywhere near ready to talk to him.
While I considered what to do, Prieto advanced on Latham. I could hear him speaking, though the words were too low for me to understand. Within just a few seconds, purple smoke rose up from under Prieto’s feet, ensconcing the two of them.
Patch barked and ran to hide behind my feet, growling until all signs of them disappeared. She tentatively approached the spot where they’d been and sniffed the floor. Apparently this entire going up in smoke thing didn’t sit well for her because a ridge of hair was still raised along her back as she inspected the spot.
My amulet vibrated again, and I heaved a long sigh. A herd of cattle seemed to be stomping around in my head, and all I really wanted was to go back to bed and start the day all over. I headed for the nearest medicine cabinet as I clasped the amulet in my palm. “Hey Beck.” I spoke to him through the magical connection of the stone.
“You’re alive then,” he said, his voice heavy with sarcasm and laced with anger.
“Yeah, I’m alive.” Tossing two aspirins back, I tried to swallow but found the darn things wouldn’t go down. Still clutching the rock around my neck, I retrieved a bottle of water from the fridge.
“Any reason you’re not answering my calls then?”
Bringing the bottle away from my lips I frowned. Without answering, I slowly placed the bottle onto the counter then slipped a hand into my back pocket for my phone. When I pressed the button, I saw a red check mark on the top bar indicating a missed call. Five missed calls, I discovered when I pulled down the menu. He’d been trying to call me since just after eight o’clock last night.
While I was dancing that bizarre sexual push and pull with Prieto, my boyfriend had been trying to call me.
The same boyfriend who may or may not have been cheating on me with a nymph who looked entirely too much like his beloved, dead wife.
“Ugh… yeah, sorry about that. I just looked at my phone, and I guess I somehow had it on Silent Mode.”
And so Beck turned silent, for so long that I began to twitch and pace the kitchen, Patch following behind me with concerned eyes. I reached into the fridge and grabbed a piece of cheese, tossing her a big chunk. She took it gladly and pranced to the far corner to enjoy it.
“Listen, we’re both adults here, Lynlee. If there’s something going on that I need to know about, then we should talk. If there’s not and this was just some crazy mistake with your phone, I get that. But it’s almost noon. I told you I’d call you last night, and I find it a little hard to believe you never once glanced at your phone to see that I’d tried. Maybe you’re just not as interested in talking to me as I am to you, but the thing that really pisses me off here is that you have a very dangerous job. I try to give you your space, but I need to know you’re okay. A phone call, a text, a magical amulet message. I think I deserve that.”
Guilt rose up sour in my throat. At that moment I couldn’t even remember why I had been suspicious of him in the first place. All I could think of was Prieto, sitting in my living room, making me so hot and bothered that I’d strongly considered advancing on him. And all the while Beck had been calling, worried about me.
“I’m sorry, Beck. Things were crazy and …” I stopped talking when Patch started growling again. Her hackles were up once more, and she was looking at something behind me. I wondered if it might be Prieto, but I wasn’t feeling that intense sexuality I always did when he appeared in the room. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, but before I could turn around, my gaze went foggy until the world went black.
I woke up what I figured to be a few hours later and snapped my eyes open in alarm. Trying to inhale a deep breath was difficult and it took my fuzzy mind a moment to realize my hands were tied so tightly behind my back that my lungs weren’t able to fully inflate. I was sitting in a chair, my head lolling forward and I whipped it upright fast enough that my neck popped. When I tried to move my legs I discovered there were ropes securing them as well.
I wasn’t the sort of woman who was given to fits of panic. I reminded myself of that as I swallowed to force down the rising ball of alarm in the pit of my stomach. With a huge puff of air, I tried to dislodge the thick strands of my hair from covering my eyes so that I could examine my surroundings.
There was a small breakfast-like table in front of me. In fact, closer inspection all around revealed I was probably in the nook just to the side of someone’s kitchen. Despite the noise it created, I took a chance and hefted my weight back and forth to wobble the chair around a bit.
There were three doors: one leading to the outside, one that appeared to go into a dining area, and another that looked to lead into a hallway. I had the best view through the last one, although I had to try to bend my back and neck to see anything. A shadow was moving around, and I knew I wasn’t alone, wherever I was.
My mind immediately turned to thoughts of Beck. I glanced down for my amulet, but it was gone. There was no room to panic, and besides, as far as I could tell I wasn’t in any immediate danger. But that didn’t mean I shouldn’t try to get out of my restraints.
With my hands tied as they were, it was difficult to shake my wand free. A few attempts and my fingers started to sting with little pinpricks. I scowled and took a deep breath. Granny would say I should just use my magic without the wand.
“But who wants to burn down an entire house just to get a few ropes free?” I told myself, then chuckled a little. I was feeling punchy from sleep deprivation and from whatever had happened to knock me out earlier.
“So you’re awake. Good, we should get down to business.”
The voice came from behind me, and I had to bounce my chair around to see the person speaking. I found before me a surprisingly young man. His hair was white-blond, which made his eyebrows so pale they were almost transparent. His eyes were grey but striking. There was something powerful and overwhelming about him.
“What business do we have to get down to exactly, Nelson?”
He grinned, surprised. “You know of me. How refreshing. As an assistant, I rarely get recognition.”
“Probably that way in Heaven too, huh?”
A flash of emotion crossed his face, though it was too brief to pinpoint its nature. He took a few steps closer, then folded his hands in front of him in a calm, assured posture. “You should be very easy, Lynlee. You understand the dilemma. You understand why change is necessary.”
“I do, huh?” My voice was suspect.
“Indeed. Wouldn’t you like to live out in the open with your human lover? And what of his daughter? Is it right that she should live a life of intrigue and secrets?”
I was a bit alarmed by his knowledge of my personal life, but I only stared at him without emotion and waited.
“There have been times when you’ve wanted to be in the open. You’ve wanted to use your powers. You’ve wanted to help. Remember the bridge?”
A little dagger stuck into my psyche, poking at the memory that I never liked to have surface. I remembered the bridge. I remembered the deaths. I remembered Tig hadn’t allowed me to save more of them.
“You do remember, don’t you, Lynlee? Wanting to help isn’t something you should be ashamed of. It isn’t something you should have to hide. The world needs
us.”
Something inside me was cracking open. It made me yearn for a world as one, a world in which MAUCs and humans could live together. The hiding was bad, yes, but it was the failure to help that just about killed me some days.
The bridge was one of several, but it was certainly the worst.
Somehow one of Tig’s MAUC’s detected the imminent failure of the Thedford Bridge in Mississippi. But we weren’t allowed to intervene. I was young then, barely nineteen, and it seemed perfectly reasonable to me that we should pool our magic and hold the bridge together while it was evacuated of vehicles. Instead, we stood on the sidelines, watching the metal crunch and twist and collapse. The most we were allowed to do was use the barest amount of magic to rescue some of the victims.
I flinched, turning my eyes down as if I could escape the memory and the pain, but somehow they were like a movie turning over and over in my mind. Why couldn’t I turn it off? Why couldn’t I stop seeing it? Feeling it? I yanked at my hands, wanting to rub my eyes to clear the images, but they remained firmly restrained.
“Here, let me help you…” Nelson approached, grabbing a knife from the kitchen counter. From behind I heard the sound of the rope being cut. My arms fell forward, limply swinging back and forth a moment before I could manage to exercise some control over them. I rubbed them together, trying to work out the sting.
“What do you want from me?” I managed to ask, my voice just a whisper.
Nelson looked down at me, his grey eyes decisive as he reached both hands up and cupped my face. I knew something was wrong, that something strange was happening, but I couldn’t pull away. And I recognized the strange sensation. It was wholly nonsexual, but exactly the type of mental influence I always felt when Prieto was in the room with me.
But I didn’t care about that now. All I cared about was fixing the wrongs in my world. I held a key to breaking the wall of separation between us. I had the means to bring us into the open and to make the world love MAUCs.
“Do you understand?”
A Bundle of Trouble (The Lynlee Lincoln Sets Book 1) Page 26