When You Believe

by Jessica Barksdale Inclan

  “Okay, fine,” she said. “No Quain. Just give me the synopsis of what happened tonight. No, wait. First tell me what Moyenne means. What it is, I mean, beyond the French word.”

  Sariel sat back. “You are Moyenne. We use the meaning ‘ordinary,’ but it’s to differentiate you from us.”

  “And you are?”

  “Croyant.”

  “Believer?”

  He nodded and sipped his drink. She watched him press his lips together at the taste, and then she took another sip, too.

  “Where do you come from?” She sank back into the pillow behind her.

  “We come from where everyone comes from. It’s just that somewhere along the line, Croyant learned how to do things differently. To manipulate the world in a way Moyenne can’t. Or won’t.”

  “So, well, how many of you believers are there?”

  Sariel laughed. “You’ve been with me for about a minute and you already want someone else?”

  “I like variety.” Miranda smiled back, wishing he would laugh some more, loving the deep sound in the dark room. “Magic or not.”

  “Not surprising. You are a woman of infinite tastes,” he said. “Well, let’s see. We’re maybe about one half of one percent of the total population, which is what? Six point five billion?”

  “A baby born every half second.”

  “We humans are a fertile bunch.” He looked at her, smiling again, and she sipped her drink, hoping to hide her ridiculous blush behind her glass. What was wrong with her? She was acting as if she’d never gone on stage and read poems about sex and very specific body parts. Something about the way she felt around him brought her back to junior high dances after school, her desperate hope that Matt Braccia would ask her to dance to “Stairway to Heaven,” everyone’s favorite oldie because it turned into a slow dance and lasted for twenty minutes.

  Miranda put down her glass, forcing herself to concentrate. “Okay, so here I go, math major that I am not… That’s three million? Three million! Where do you all hide?”

  “In dark smoky rooms wearing robes. Where else?”

  Miranda stared at him, thinking, watching the light reflect and flicker in his eyes. “Of course. How silly of me. Why did I ask? So, what about the language thing? All the French?”

  “It’s our history,” Sariel said, swirling his drink. “In the fourteenth century, we formed a worldwide government that was first located in Paris, under the auspices of Louis XL Times were different. Moyenne blamed us for an outbreak of plague. Well, I didn’t do well in history classes, but creating our governing body—the Council—was a way to protect ourselves from…”

  He trailed off, taking a deep breath. Of course, she thought. What happened to anyone in the past that seemed magic, different, strange? Salem, Spain, England. People thrown in water to see if they bobbed like corks, townsfolk tortured for the names of those who cast the evil eye, women who healed and midwifed thrown in prison.

  “I know. To protect yourselves from us. The ignorant, torch bearing witch burners.”

  He nodded. Miranda watched as he took another sip and then brought the glass away from his mouth, his lower lip slightly wet, sticky with the aromatic sweetness. Embarrassed by her long gaze, she picked up her glass and took an awkward sip of her own.

  “Doesn’t sound like anything I ever learned in history,” she said, licking the liquid off her lips. “But let’s go back to tonight. What happened there?”

  Sariel seemed to startle out of a thought and smiled. “You know more about it than I do. I was just there for the showdown.”

  “Well,” Miranda said. “What about how I got in there? I mean, things were looking really strange. The parking lot was gone and a gas station from the Mission was there instead. No one was around. Then there was a door I pushed through and then there wasn’t. Explain that.”

  Sariel laughed and shook his head. “Okay. But since this is a dream, you have to believe everything until I make you forget. Like in a dream, anything is possible.”

  Miranda smiled, a flick of nerves in her chest. “Agreed. But haven’t I already gone along with quite a bit?”

  He nodded and then took a sip of his brandy and then put down his glass. “We had arranged a meeting—”

  “Who are we?” Miranda interrupted.

  “A group of Croyant, brought together for a meeting.”

  “Believers of what?”

  “Our full name is Les Croyants de Trois. But don’t interrupt. It’s my story.”

  She took another sip. The believers of three. Like in the trinity? Or was it even older than that, going back to the days of goddess worship, prehistoric belief centered on the maiden-mother-crone, three the number symbolizing the cycle of life?

  Miranda licked her lips, put down her glass. At least they weren’t Satanists. Then they would be believers of one. Satan was a real loner.

  “Exactly,” Sariel said. “And by the way, you don’t look like a caged animal. Your hair is lovely, in fact.” He leaned forward and touched a flyaway curl with his fingertips. “It’s beautiful. Such an amazing color.”

  Once, again, Miranda was glad for the dark, her face burning. Holy cow! What else had she thought? “You cheater! You said you turned your mind off!”

  “I did,” Sariel said. “But then I turned it on. If I’m going to tell you secret stories, I need to see exactly what you need to forget.”

  “You really are going to make me forget?” Suddenly, her head felt woozy, as if he were trying already.

  “I have no choice. Protocol.”

  Miranda touched the place where his hand had smoothed her curls. Her lovely hair. “Don’t make a mess in there, okay? I’m a poet. My memory is my stock in trade.”

  “Of course. Now, can I tell the story? Or do you want to go home already?”

  She knew she should feel irritated with him for listening to her thoughts, but the drink was making her feel warm and soft and slightly pliant. “All right. So you arranged a meeting.”

  “Right,” he continued. “People were coming in from all over because we needed to talk about—well, we’re having some issues. There’s a faction that’s trying to upset our balance. A power struggle. Problems with—”

  “Problems with Quain—” She stopped speaking when she saw his forehead crease, his eyes flicking in quick anger. “Sorry. Go on.”

  Sariel swirled his drink, looking into his glass. “So in order to keep Moyenne away from the meeting, we created a vortex. It’s like energy to push them away from us. Nothing was supposed to get through. Nothing ever has before that I know of.”

  “How—” Miranda began.

  “Remember, you have to believe.”

  “You can tell me anything because I won’t remember. Remember?”

  “No, pro—”

  “Protocol. Of course. How boring,” she said, yawning. “Not even a hint?”

  “Well,” Sariel leaned back and watched her for a moment, rubbing a hand on his taut cheek. “Let’s put it this way: thought is energy. That’s how I got us here tonight. How I’ll take you home. How a number of Croyant can think up a vortex together. But if we somehow moved a parking lot and brought in a gas station, we need a little refresher course. Someone wasn’t focusing.”

  “Oh.” Miranda blinked and tried to get her mind around that idea, but her head felt wobbly, and she could barely keep her eyes open. “Okay.”

  “So,” he said, “somehow, you got through, dragging your three ghouls with you. And lucky for you, it seems that they didn’t see the door or even you going into it. What I can’t explain is how you walked right into the vortex. Very strange, indeed. They are usually one hundred percent Moyenne proof. But I suppose even with magic, nothing’s perfect.”

  Miranda closed her eyes but laughed. “You are magic. My ankle…”

  She heard Sariel sit up, the leather creaking. Then she felt him take the glass from her hand and set it on the table. She felt him touch her foot briefly, his fingers slidin
g over her heel, the tent of ankle bone, the top of her foot, and then he let his hand slide up her shin. Thank God I shaved, she thought, smiling, wondering if he’d heard her.

  “Bad meat,” she said softly, barely able to stay awake.

  “That’s another story for another time,” he said, and then he was leaning up to her, kissing her gently on the lips.

  “Smooth all over,” he said, letting his mouth travel over her face, her jaw, the soft skin of her throat.

  She could smell his warm skin against hers, and she tried to kiss him back, knowing she shouldn’t. He’d turn out to be worse than Jack; Sariel would be a boyfriend who could literally bail out at will. But Miranda wanted to kiss him, though, wanted to feel his lips on her face, her throat, her… But, oh, she was so tired, her head too heavy to even move. And then later, when his arms went around her and he pressed her to him, just as he had done on the street, Miranda felt herself disappear into nothing, everything darkness.

  Chapter Three

  She was so soft, so smooth, so beautiful—so unconscious. Sariel brought his lips away from her face, laughed, and looked at Miranda’s full upturned lips, a smile even as the potion finally took effect. He sat up and pushed his hair away from his face, wishing he didn’t have to take her back to where she belonged.

  He shook his head, breathing out in amazement. What was he doing? It had been a long while since he’d been this close to a Moyenne, no matter what rumors Brennus Broussard liked to spin across a meeting table. Sariel had kept his distance, but he wasn’t the type of man to take advantage of any woman, Moyenne or sorciere, even if he wanted her. And he wanted Miranda Stead. From the minute she’d flung herself into the meeting. Or maybe even before, when he felt her energy as she pushed through the vortex. As he’d sat in the corner of the room, he’d listened to her mind, smiling as she made fun of them even as Brennus and his pals did their scary trip. Carving her up! Even though the threat from Quain was real, no one at the meeting would have hurt her once it was clear she wasn’t a spy. After all, wasn’t the fight against Quain really a fight for the Moyenne, for them all? But Miranda hadn’t known that, and she’d stood up on her fractured ankle and fought back.

  Sariel smoothed a curl away from her forehead and sighed. But how had she gotten into the meeting? Sure, she’d told them all how she’d been running, terrified of the men close behind her, and pushed into the room; but it was unlikely that a Moyenne could find her way to them in the middle of a vortex. Amazing. Like her.

  Miranda turned a bit, grabbing his hand in her sleep. Sariel watched her, feeling her dreams flit through his mind, random images—a shoe, a bar, a man. Words, unreadable, emerged on a page. Voices. Running. Pavement. And then darkness, velvet, candle wax, warmth, pleasure.

  He shook his head, not wanting to know any more. What he wanted was to awaken her from her sleep and make love to her. Sariel knew she would be agreeable—he’d felt her thoughts when she first looked at him and had been reading them most of the evening. If she’d been able to read his—and actually at times he thought she was—she would have felt how much he appreciated her flushed bright face, her fetching red curls, her long full body. How wonderful it would be to slowly pull off her dress that clung to her curves, to put his hands on her lovely pale skin and breathe her in.

  Afterward, he could put her back to sleep, peel away the memory of the past two hours, and take her home. End of story. She could go on with her poet life, unaware of the tension in the universe and the dark fight that Sariel and his people—Les Croyants de Trots—were embarking on, unaware of the threat to the most important objects in the world. Instead of staying here with Sariel, Miranda could hook up with the man—what was his name? Dan?—Sariel had felt in her thoughts.

  There wasn’t time for that or for any lovemaking right now, and he wouldn’t take advantage of a woman, even if she were drugged and willing and beautiful. Brennus was probably fuming, the meeting had been interrupted, and Sariel, again, was probably blamed for it all, a rule-breaker to the end.

  “You’ve got that right,” said a familiar voice.

  “Rufus,” Sariel said. He extricated his hand from Miranda’s grasp and stood up to face his brother. Rufus Valasay was a large man, tall—almost as tall as his younger brother Sariel— and heavy with muscle. Over his jeans and flannel shirt, he wore a burgundy robe and hood, his face reddened and his long brown hair tangled from the journey, his black eyes wide with concern.

  “Exactly. I got the message from Brennus like a freight train,” Rufus said, unbuttoning and taking off his robe and smoothing his hair with a large hand. “There I was eating a beautiful ham sandwich—I mean righteous beautiful—and wham. I’m on the floor! So I had to leave it all behind and get myself here before you do any more damage. You’re lucky Brennus didn’t get in touch with Felix first. He’d have your head.”

  Sariel walked over to Rufus and hugged him, glad to see his older brother, regardless of the situation. Rufus had lived in the U.K. for the past fifteen years, the last two in Edinburgh with his wife, a sorciere named Fabia. By day, he and Fabia worked at a local clinic as volunteers, a good cover for them both, but their real work was monitoring Moyenne thoughts in all of Britain to detect any sign of Quain influence in ordinary life, because that’s where it would start first. Where it always had before. Moyenne would suddenly be fixated on staying away from a certain area, changing their daily patterns. One by one, Moyenne would be turned to Quain, and Quain and his followers could hide in plain sight, in the midst of the unconscious Moyenne. Croyant had to pay attention and listen carefully.

  Sariel, Rufus, and their youngest brother Felix were all telepaths. Felix lived in Hilo, and only the most important news forced him off his Big Island tropical paradise.

  “You’re sounding more and more like Fabia.” Sariel held his brother’s shoulders, smiling. “I swear, that brogue is getting deeper by the month. In a year, I won’t understand a damn thing you are saying.”

  Rufus laughed. “You’d be talking like her, too, if she were the only real voice you heard. Other than the folks I work with at the clinic, all I hear is drivel. I swear, Sariel, the thoughts! I’m sick to death of them. They’re all daft! Day in and day out, nothing but money and commute and traffic and the bloody boss. Or it’s the baby-sitter and who is sleeping with whom. I’m about ready to kidnap Fabia and whisk us away to Hawaii. I’m sure Felix won’t mind us moving in and ruining his bachelor life. Not even a full Quain takeover is worth listening to Moyenne minutiae all day long!”

  But Rufus punched Sariel gently on the shoulder. Rufus’s telepathic gift had come later than either Sariel’s or Felix’s, and he was proud to be able to use it, no matter what he said. And under any circumstances, he’d never leave Fabia Fair. Not for all the Hilos in China.

  “So tell me, brother.” Rufus pointed over to the couch, raising his eyebrows. “Who’s the lassie? And how did she get into the meeting?”

  Sariel took Rufus by the arm, and they walked over to dark wooden chairs by the table. Sariel poured Rufus some red wine, and they both sat down.

  “That’s the question, Ru,” Sariel said. “She’s definitely Moyenne, but there she was flying through the portal. And something was off with the vortex. She claims that the geography was displaced. I know it was a clean vortex. It’s as if she somehow—”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “I know it is,” Sariel said.

  Rufus looked over at Miranda and then back at Sariel, his dark eyebrow raised. “But is that the whole story? I think I know you a little better than that.”

  “Ru, you know I’m in no mood for women. After—”

  “Don’t mention her name.” Rufus held up a hand. “Not that evil bitch or… or…” He stopped speaking, his language hooked on the name he, Sariel, and Felix couldn’t say without a dark sad swallow.

  A moment passed between them, Sariel reading the loss in his brother’s thoughts. Finally, Rufus took a long sip of wine. “S
he’ll get what’s coming to her. They both will.”

  Sariel breathed out and rubbed his forehead. “Maybe Kallisto will get what she deserves, maybe she won’t. That’ll be up to Quain. Or us.”

  The brothers were silent, sipping their wine. Finally, Rufus put his goblet down and scratched his head, glancing at the bottle of amber liquid on the table.

  “Is this a sleeping potion?” he asked. “Or did you knock her out with brandy and whip up a sleeping spell? Or did you make her swoon from your magnetic personality?”

  Sariel looked over at Miranda, curled and warm on the couch. “She’s a fighter, so my personality alone wouldn’t have done it. I used a spell to get her here, but I knew I’d need her to sleep a while so I could take her home. And the potion du sommeil is healing, too.”

  “So do you think she’s a spy? Brennus thought so. I think he’s contacted Adalbert,” Rufus said. “You’ll probably get a message soon from the Council.”

  “A waste of time! Brennus is blinded by anger. He can’t properly read anyone’s thoughts anymore,” Sariel said, snorting. “I’ve been in her head, Ru, and it was a fluke. She’s a poet, worrying about her work and writing. Worrying about the men chasing her. She’s not a highly trained operative, accustomed to shielding her mind. I actually think I picked up her thoughts before she burst into the meeting, when she was at the bottom of the street. I did almost feel like I recognized her in some way, but she’s not working for—for him. She’s as clear as a bell.”