Enchanted Again

by Robin D. Owens

  “Payment first, dwarf.” He opened his mouth and it stretched into a maw.

  Mrs. Daurfin huffed, broke the chocolate into halves and tossed one piece straight into the man’s—djinn’s, surely he must be a djinn—mouth, wrapping and all.

  “Mmm.” A little dribble of chocolate, like syrup, came from the corner of his mouth.

  Then he was there, wrapping his hand around Amber’s upper arm. They were at the couch and he raised Rafe to his feet, closed his other hand around Rafe’s biceps, and they were down in front of the building.

  Before Amber could grab another bribe from her purse, the djinn was gone, leaving a slight heat haze in his wake.

  Weirded out, Amber turned in place, but no one seemed to have noticed.

  “Dammit, he ruined my jacket.” Rafe frowned at his arm, there were scorch marks in the shape of a hand with flames as fingers.

  She studied her own jacket, equally burned. Since it was a light wool weave, it gave off a stench…or maybe… “I think he burnt my arm,” she said weakly.

  “What! Let’s look at that.” Rafe stood behind her, gently pushed her jacket down. Her silk blouse was ruined, too. “Hell,” Rafe said, putting an arm around her. “You know of a nearby clinic?”

  “No,” Amber said. She would not let her voice tremble. She couldn’t be that badly hurt, could she? But fear nearly overwhelmed the pain as her imagination kicked into gear and she thought of flame eating flesh to the bone. She refused to give in to panic. “There’s a drugstore clinic close to Mystic Circle.”

  “And I bet the brownies would know how to handle this.”

  The sweet cool rush of relief washed through her. “Of course they will.”

  Rafe went to her good side and put his arm around her waist. “Let’s get home.”

  That statement made her a little dizzy, too. He was considering her house his home? Or maybe just Mystic Circle. But it seemed like a tempting path to a relationship had just opened before her.

  They had terrible problems to overcome, but if they could do that…an incredible future beckoned.

  She must be light-headed. No way was this going to work out. And she realized Rafe was helping her into the Hummer and muttering about Eight Corp.

  “That went well,” she said.

  A few minutes later Hartha brownie-chanted over their wounds. Amber’s was worse than Rafe’s, and whatever degree burns they had been, they were well on the way to healing now. She’d gratefully given the brownie woman the other two chocolate bars in her purse.

  Amber was sitting on the couch in her downstairs study and Hartha was standing beside her. One of the dogs was lying on Amber’s feet, one of them was near Rafe. He was at her laptop, grumbling and fuming. “Okay, the corporate documents list an Alex Akasha as the CEO of Eight Corp. No telephone number except the one to the receptionist who won’t ever talk to us again. We didn’t even talk to anyone important. Dammit, she took our chocolate and hurt us.”

  Tiro, who’d opened all the doors of the first floor that connected to each other, was stalking around. His snort was huge and disdainful. “Not some stupid human name. The King of Air is the head of Eight Corp—Cloudsylph.”

  Rafe’s spine snapped straight from his hunch over the computer. “The King of Air,” he repeated, loading the phrase with wonder. The man was really becoming interested in magic. Not surprising when Amber sensed some of his own was wisping out from under the sigil that was supposed to contain it. If the man had believed in magic for a while, how much would he have to command? Too late to ask now.

  “Eight Corp is the four magical royal couples,” Hartha reminded them, wrapping a bandage around Amber’s arm. “The Cloudsylphs of Air and the Emberdrakes of Fire are new to their thrones, only fifteen years. Also, human technology is becoming close to magic, so finally a meld is possible. Soon more magic will be in the world. That’s part of Jenni’s quest.” Then the brownie woman pressed her lips together, as if unwilling to speak more about Lightfolk dealings, or danger to Jenni.

  Rafe opened his mouth, then shut it, squelching a comment.

  “We probably should have asked one of you to go to Eight Corp for us,” Amber said, then exclaimed as Hartha pulled the bandage too tight, hurting her for the first time.

  “Sorry, sorry!” Hartha said.

  “You’ve been wonderful,” Amber soothed.

  Pred’s ears didn’t even roll, but flattened. “Dwarves and others would not talk to brownies. Brownies like and live with humans so we are lowest status.”

  “Oh. Well, I think you are quite wonderful. Furthermore, I believe I’ll make more chocolate pie today,” Amber said.

  “They’ve got more than one email addy,” Rafe said with a hard gleam in his eye. “No troubleshooter or troublehacker, but I’ll send a message to every single one. Telling them that Pavan and Vikos gave us cards, what we wanted to discuss and the results. Ask for compensation for our damage.” He grinned. “Maybe tell them that the Davail lawyers will speak with their’s.”

  “Don’t think they have lawyers,” Tiro grumbled.

  “Everyone has lawyers,” Rafe said.

  “They have magic,” Amber said faintly, thinking of the papers she’d file for Jenni if the woman didn’t come back, of Jenni’s sunroom that had gone up overnight in February.

  Rafe’s lip curled. “Well, we’ll see what happens when I mention attorneys.”

  Amber glanced at him. Her right arm had been burned, his left had. “You’re going to your fencing lesson today?” She already knew the answer, but wanted to hear it aloud. He’d loved fencing.

  “Yeah, it’s only my shield arm,” he replied absently, slowly plinking at the keyboard.

  Tiro grunted, probably pleased that Rafe believed the brownie’s words about there being a shield to match his dagger.

  “I don’t think we should ask any of the brownies to go with you,” Amber said.

  “Nope.”

  Even Tiro shivered with relief.

  Rafe looked over at her. “I’ll do my best to stay safe.” His smile was strained. “I’m on red alert.”

  Amber pampered her arm for the next three days, working on her new genealogical cases. It was a relief to do them and she sent two out in record time. She’d included a couple of “extras,” little, nearly innocuous dips into the past that showed no death.

  She studied Conrad’s and Rafe’s charts name by name, again noting when she got a pinch that there would be a scene in the past, and keeping track of anything she sensed about those incidents in her work journal.

  In long time lines like these, she was more often than not drawn to a moment of death. Not something she ever cared to experience, but sometimes necessary to glean information. She put that off until she could be better prepared.

  Neither chart went to the twelfth century and she began sifting through records farther back.

  She reread the one volume of her ancestress’s journal and noted the small mentions of magic. And wrote down the warnings about death curses—avoid at all costs unless you plan to die and the money you get will be enough to fund many generations to come. Do not fall in love with a death-cursed.

  Cursed ones are attractive, like flowers to bees. Beware!

  A shivery feeling in Amber’s bones told her it might be too late. She ignored that.

  The other journals hadn’t arrived. Despite the fact she’d paid for overnight shipping, the seller had sent them by media mail. Amber knew from experience that could take a month. She got her money back but that didn’t help speed the books.

  She’d also reviewed the case which had cost her the most years, and found that the release on that one wouldn’t have helped. The person who’d cursed her client had died and not been available for a groveling apology. She didn’t think her client would have done the squirm-on-your-stomach-to-my-feet anyway. It did sour her, though, to think that she’d cleaned up the man’s mistakes. But he’d been a good man when he’d come to her.

  The brownies,
even Tiro, stayed out of sight. She thought they were deeply uncomfortable that she and Rafe had brought themselves to the attention of the unpredictable Lightfolk at Eight Corp.

  As for Rafe…there were touches between him and her. And kisses. And groping hugs. But they hadn’t taken that last step. She knew what was holding her back—fear of falling for a man and lifting a curse that would age her—and everyone to whom she was emotionally attached—many years. Falling for a doomed man who was already touching her heart. She couldn’t take the step into sex.

  She didn’t know what was holding him back.

  It only took three days of fencing lessons for Rafe to bond with his coach and the other students at the Denver Fencing Lyceum…and agree to spend the night of St. Patrick’s celebrating with them.

  He’d told her that he’d been pronounced a “natural,” which didn’t surprise her, and that he was also learning old-fashioned swordwork. She’d bitten her tongue to stop asking about the shield.

  Of course he’d be more interested in athletic men—and women—than her. He would never have sought her out. That had been Conrad.

  If she were jealous of Rafe’s new friends, that was her problem. And to be honest, it was good to have the man and his death-curse energy out of the house.

  He was driven to and from his lessons and activities at the Lyceum by a bodyguard in an armored car from Brilliant Limos, with a nervous Pred on board. There hadn’t been any situations…yet.

  That evening Tiro had disappeared after a lofty remark about celebrating the holiday with Irish brownies. Why magical folk, some of them no doubt older than St. Patrick himself, would celebrate a Christian saint’s day was a mystery to Amber. But maybe brownies just liked to party. She’d noted that the chocolate milk she’d bought earlier in the week had also disappeared from the refrigerator and thought that if that was Tiro’s contribution, he would be a hit.

  She tried not to be anxious about Rafe. He’d be fine. These were people who valued their bodies and practiced control. None of them would get drunk. And they all knew how to fight. He’d promised not to be alone that night except in Mystic Circle.

  Usually she’d go with Jenni and Tamara to O’Hearn’s but not this year. Amber had spoken to Tamara and her friend had been more reserved than usual. Amber got the feeling that Tamara knew what was going on with Jenni and worrying. Tamara had told Amber that she was busy baking shamrock and four-leaf-clover cakes. Green cakes. They’d shared a moment of laughter, then decided to get together when Jenni got back.

  Amber felt stupid staying up and waiting for Rafe, but she did it all the same. The weather was still cool enough for her to light a fire in the living room and watch the flames. That in itself was more than usually interesting. It seemed as if the flames had flickers and auras and afterimages of magic—greeny-blue for water energy, usually problematic in Denver; deep gold with hints of brown for earth; flashes of white for air; and tints of yellows and oranges and reds that she’d never seen before in fire.

  She wore a T-shirt and jeans with an open ancient flannel plaid shirt that was several sizes too large.

  Her couch was comfortable and the puppies were settled down on their beds and Amber was dozing when something thunked hard against the door. The dogs growled, then jerked her into wakefulness with riotous barking. Their tone told her Rafe had returned. There was scratching at the lock as he tried to insert his key. Rafe had little to no Celtic blood, nor had she, but that hadn’t stopped either of them from wearing green, and it hadn’t stopped him from drinking more beer than was wise, either, she guessed.

  Since she hadn’t heard a car, she thought that he’d been dropped off here. Too late to meet one of his new friends.

  Still, she looked through the peephole before she opened the door. It was Rafe, with a wicked grin and a cut by his mouth and a black eye.

  She opened the door and stood back. “What happened to you?”

  The dogs were circling, sniffing lustily. There was a scent of yeasty alcohol wafting from him, as well as some blood. She narrowed her eyes. It seemed his suppressed aura of magic, and the binding glyph, was brighter. More questions. Because he was drunkish? Because of his companions? Or because of the slight taint of other darkness he brought with him, as if he’d tangled with death once again.

  Chapter 18

  HE TILTED BACK his head and laughed. “Bar fight.”

  She blinked. “There really are such things?” Then she frowned. “I thought you were going to a respectable bar.”

  He nodded enthusiastically. “A real Irish bar. With real Irish men. Who took exception to Freddie Armathwaite and his foil.” Rafe pruned his lips. “Only English-descended sissy-boys use thin swords like foils and not good solid fists.” Rafe dropped his arm around her shoulders and she saw that though he wasn’t near sober, he was still steady on his feet.

  He continued, “Did I tell you that Freddie is a brown belt in karate?”

  “Oh.”

  “Not one of us has to pay for the damage,” Rafe announced as if that were unique. “The Irish guys have to. Tommy Corbin, the owner, said so.”

  “That’s good. Ah. Why don’t you come over here and sit down on the couch?” she said. His arm dropped from her shoulders to curl around her waist and give her butt a nice squeeze.

  “The couch sounds ex-cell-ent.” He nibbled at her earlobe. “You smell great.”

  “Thanks.” She pulled him down to the cushions and when it appeared that he wanted to be more horizontal than she was ready for, she slapped him lightly. “Listen up, Rafe.” She pushed him back into a sitting position. “You smell like minions.”

  He blinked, scowled. “What?”

  She turned on the Tiffany lamp at the end of the couch, winced as she saw the red-scrape, purple-bruise side of his face. A lumpy cut seemed dangerously close to his eye. She touched it.

  “Ouch!”

  “Sorry. You sure you shouldn’t go to an E.R.?”

  “Cho was there, he’s a doctor. He said not. I’m okay.” Rafe frowned. “I’m pretty much the worst, everyone else fights better.”

  “Or the minions concentrated on you.”

  He shifted to take off his coat, pulled the stick from his inside pocket. Easy enough for them both to see that it was greasily black along the tip.

  “Uh-oh. Minions. Dark.” He flopped back and closed his eyes. “I think it vibrated. Should have paid attention. Didn’t.”

  “Not good.”

  He opened his bad eye to squint at her. “They didn’t get me, though.”

  “Not this time.”

  Nodding, he said, “Was a good idea to stay with the Lyceum group.”

  “I agree. I’m going to get a cold compress for you. Maybe some herbal tea, too.”

  “Blech.”

  Amber went to the kitchen and got an old and softly worn dishtowel, pulled an ice pack from the fridge and wrapped it up and put hot water on.

  By the time she returned, Rafe was polishing his stick on the lining of his jacket, which was doing it no good, then stroking and sniffing the jacket itself. After a deep breath, he looked up at her, his expression serious. “Definitely minions. I can smell ’em.” He handed her the jacket and she took it and narrowed her eyes. She couldn’t tell how many or what sort they were and that bothered her.

  Rafe rubbed his neck. “I think there were some professional toughs in there. Guys who hire out to beat other guys up.”

  “Not part of my worldview,” Amber said.

  Rafe grunted. He shifted and the stick that he’d been holding lightly between his fingers fell. It flashed silver, but didn’t make it to the floor. Instead it angled toward the coffee table and lit with a slight clink on the glass atop the wood. Pointing at Rafe’s tablet computer.

  He stared at the device and so did Amber. When she raised her gaze, his stare met hers. Angry and laced with despair.

  “Another attempt on my life,” he said roughly.

  “Looks like.”

  �
�But they couldn’t get to me because of the Lyceum fighters.” Rafe stood and stretched. “I put more people in jeopardy with me.”

  “Despite the injuries and damages, nothing major was hurt?”

  “Nothing major.” His jaw flexed. Now when his eyes met hers, they were dark, and seemed to have sunk into his sockets. She didn’t like how the shadows of the room painted his face. Almost like a skull. No. Not if she could help.

  “Pavan said that he’d given you a construct to help you learn how to manifest the dagger. The game.”

  “Yeah, and you’ve been wanting me to do it, and I’ve avoided it.” He shrugged. “Stupid game.”

  “I know it’s not physical—at least the regular game isn’t. But Pavan also strikes me as a very physical male, and his app says REAL. If he thought this would help…”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ll do it. Now.” A side of his mouth twisted. “When I’m still a little sloshed and won’t feel so stupid about it.”

  “All right.” She picked up the tablet and handed it to him. The kettle whistled.

  Rafe’s nostrils flared. “Go get the tea. I can probably use that, too.”

  She made it strong, a good head-clearing tisane, added a touch of honey and poured it into two mugs, a delicate floral one for her and a good solid pottery one for Rafe.

  Once again Rafe had evaded curse-brought danger. They were being smart. But how long before their luck gave out?

  And to get the dagger he would have to “manifest” it, use magic to bring it into his life, or use his new skill of seeing energies to find it. If it was a real knife in the real world. She didn’t know enough.

  Neither of them did.

  She handed Rafe the mug. He made a face at the flowery scent, but drank it.

  He sat in the middle of the couch, so she took a place to his left. His tablet computer was on his lap.

  “Guess I’ll see if I can ‘manifest’ stuff in the game.”

  “A lot of virtual learning going on.”

  “Don’t think I’d like learning to fight that way.” He shifted restlessly. His upper lip lifted. “Though if we could reduce Bilachoe to a character and slay him that way, once and for all, fine with me.”