Enchanted Again

by Robin D. Owens

  “We just need to find the dagger.” He gestured to the brochure with his miniature stick. “We have a map…a treasure map.”

  The idea of breaking into the museum made her sick. “This floor plan is general. We need exact blueprints. Plans on how to avoid alarms—light and motion and weight and whatever.”

  Rafe made a disgusted noise and tapped the end of the rod against the paper. “The dagger isn’t on the first floor.” He flattened the pamphlet and held his small rod over the second floor. Again the stick swept the plan with no stop or hesitation. After a sharp breath, he shook out his arms, drank a sip of coffee, set the cup down and moved the paper again. His shoulders set and his eyes went out of focus. She could almost see him calling his magic, gathering the bit that seeped out from under the binding spell.

  This time he went slower, following the path they’d done in person up the escalator to the third floor. The small stick halted and quivered right outside the pirate exhibition.

  “What? What’s here?” he asked, looking at her.

  “It’s the first concretion,” Amber said. “I was reading the placards as you were following the school children into the small theater.”

  “That big conglomeration of stuff. Didn’t it have X-rays, though?”

  “Not all of it. The center was dark, so maybe you manifested the dagger right into it.”

  “Someplace very protected,” Rafe said.

  “That it is. Why couldn’t it be on the grounds outside? I’m not sure how to do this.” She waved a hand.

  He set his stick down and caught her hand, gave her fingers a quick kiss. “I am. That dagger belongs to me. I can get it. With magic.”

  They crowded around the table. Rafe stood, Amber sat and the three brownies stood on chairs, watching him.

  Rafe tapped the floor plan again. “This is where the Cosmos Dagger is. I think with all our magic, we can get it out.”

  But Pred and Hartha were shaking their heads.

  “Think of it as a challenge!” Rafe cajoled.

  “It is bad to go into big human buildings with scare-aways,” Pred said.

  “Scare-aways?”

  He made a high, pulsing sound like an alarm system.

  “Oh.”

  Tiro snorted. “I’ll go. You’ll only need me and Sizzitt.” His lip curled. “Amber can stay, as well as the Mistweaver brownies.”

  “I’m going with you,” Amber said.

  “I’d rather you didn’t,” Rafe said.

  Amber stared at him. “You don’t want me to come?”

  His lips curved but his eyes were dark and serious. “Let’s face it, breaking and entering is a crime. Especially museums with heavy alarm systems. I don’t know how to do it. I’m thinking more of a smash-and-grab. I’d rather you aren’t involved. You can post bail if I’m caught.”

  The Mistweaver brownies vanished without a word, leaving dust in the air and a hint of fear in the atmosphere.

  She narrowed her eyes and pressed her lips together. “I don’t think so.” Tilting her head, she said, “You’re sure you don’t have any friends....”

  “Conrad might have connections, but he’s still in Eastern Europe and I don’t want to talk to him about this. Too much explanation, and not on a cell phone or landlines.”

  As she held his gaze, she knew he was right. They’d gone on a journey together and far beyond the original project that she’d signed on for.

  “All right. But I don’t like it.”

  “You getting any bad feelings?”

  She huffed. “I usually only get feelings about the past. No. You can’t depend on me for premonitions.”

  Rafe sent her a look from under lowered brows. She matched his stare until he let a slow breath out. “If you insist on coming…”

  “I do.” She didn’t want to, but she wouldn’t let him go alone and she was sure she could help.

  “You got any ideas?” he asked.

  “For breaking into the museum? Nada.” She shook her head. The very idea made her insides quake. She was a law-abiding person. She didn’t even like caper movies.

  “No pointers like you had about how to play Fairies and Dragons, or how to sense magic with a dowsing rod?” He twirled his stick in his fingers.

  “Rafe, the game isn’t real.”

  His face hardened briefly. “Felt real enough to me.”

  She shrugged.

  “I do have an idea for the museum,” he said.

  She shifted in her seat. “We know nothing about its security or breaking in!”

  “Nope. But I bet everything runs on electricity, even any backup systems. Sizzitt, you want to play with electricity in a big, big building?”

  Sizzitt flashed in a streak of red, sat on the wick of the thick candle in the center of the table, flashing madly. “Yesss.”

  Rafe stared at her. “Can you cycle through electrical circuits and interrupt them?”

  “Easssily!”

  He raised an index finger at her. “Only interrupt all circuits for about, um—” he set his shoulders “—ten minutes? That will include the main electrical system and the backup.” He glanced at Amber. “There’s bound to be a backup, right?”

  “Must be, and probably a separate generator, like you said, and the electricity is from solar panels.”

  “What?” Rafe blinked, grinned again. “It will be night.”

  Amber snorted.

  “Tiro…” Rafe looked at him. Though the brownie appeared solid, his arms crossed on his chest, the tips of his ears quivered in interest. He’d already bought in to the scheme.

  Rafe narrowed his eyes, as if not quite sure of the brownie. Amber kept her mouth shut. “Tiro, could you transport me to a large chunk of rock and sand and iron, here, and in complete darkness? Unlike all the other rocks in the museum, this one is being kept wet with a trickle of water. It’s not submerged and it’s not completely dry.” Rafe tapped the map.

  “I can feel such,” Tiro said, jerking a nod. He raised his nose. “Darkness is not a problem in tunneling or transporting.” Then he looked away. “But I can’t transport you and me from here. We will have to be closer.” His forehead wrinkled as he calculated. One shoulder rose and fell, then the other, and he spread his hands. “Can’t transport you as far there as I could here in Mystic Circle. Maybe four blocks.”

  “Better to be close on site, then. Drive there. I’ll need to release Sizzitt into one of the electrical lines going into the museum anyway,” Rafe said.

  Amber wetted her lips. “So Sizzitt can’t run down, um, lines from here to the museum?”

  “Yesss, I can!” Sizzitt said. For a moment fiery features appeared showing wild eyes and grin.

  “She could take out all of Denver’s electricity doing that,” Rafe said.

  “Yess!”

  “Oh. I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Amber said.

  Sizzitt squashed down into a low, bright blue flame that Amber understood was irritation.

  “Neither Sizzitt nor Tiro know Denver that well,” Rafe said. “Not even as much as I do.”

  “So I guess I’ll be driving.” Amber frowned. “I think the best time to do this would be about 2:30 a.m. Do we know when end of shift is? I’ve read somewhere that it’s best to hit a place then.”

  Rafe’s brows rose. “No, we don’t, and I don’t think we should ask.”

  “There’s plenty of traffic cameras between here and there, too,” Amber said. “Maybe I should find a good route to minimize those.”

  “Amber,” Rafe said quietly. “I want you to stay here.”

  “Nope. I’m your Denver expert.”

  “It’ll be just a few minutes.”

  “If everything goes right. Everything doesn’t go right in situations like these.”

  Rafe reached out and caressed her cheek. “It will be okay. What you need to remember is that we are taking nothing from the museum. I’m only retrieving an item I manifested inside the concretion.”

  “I
don’t get that,” Amber said.

  Rafe’s turn to shrug. “Magic.” He looked at the shield. “Like that is.” He walked over to the shield, set it at right angles to the wall. Brows lowered in concentration, he took the edge and to Amber’s amazement, began moving the shield into the wall.

  Her mouth dropped open.

  With the shield about halfway in, Rafe began panting and sweat sheened his neck, hands and face. He released the shield.

  Tiro walked up to the wall, then vanished inside it. Amber stifled an exclamation. Then Tiro was back nodding and rubbing his hands. “The molecules of the shield are between the spaces of the molecules of the wall. Well done.”

  “Ugh,” said Amber, trying to picture that and not quite managing.

  His mouth a flat line, Rafe wiped his hands on his jeans, then curved them around the edge of the shield and pulled it out of the wall, much more rapidly, turned the disk and leaned it back against the wall. He nodded to Amber gravely. “I can do this.”

  “In the complete dark, with guards patrolling? Don’t you think the first thing they’ll check is the special exhibit?”

  A corner of Rafe’s mouth lifted. “Don’t know. I’d check the entrances first, myself.”

  “This is insane. We don’t know anything about museum security.”

  “We don’t have the time to learn. Quick and dirty, Amber.” He smiled at Tiro and Sizzitt. “But I think we can do this. Take the electricity down. Transport to the concretion and hide in the shadows, pull out the dagger.”

  “Why can’t you just manifest it from there to here?”

  Rafe shrugged. “It’s stuck.” He frowned. “I think it got stuck when I manifested it from Chicago to Denver. My focus wavered or something, or maybe because we were in the game and not the real world.”

  Now Amber’s arms were crossed over her breasts. “Crazy.”

  “Will you bail me out if we get caught?”

  She closed her eyes. “Oh, my God. Even if you take out the electricity someone will call the cops. There’s a police station near there.”

  “So we’ll park at the farthest limit of Tiro’s transporting skill. He’ll take me there.” Rafe zoomed his hand and whooshed. “Then back. Easy peasy.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “Amber, honey. Honey, Amber…” His voice was low and caressing and he drew her up and into his arms. “It will work. What do you think, Sizzitt and Tiro?”

  “What do I get for thiss?” asked Sizzitt.

  “It will work,” said Tiro. “We are Lightfolk. We do not accept human limitations.”

  Amber leaned against Rafe. His heart was thudding hard with excitement. She shook her head.

  “Since this is going to be fun for you, Sizzitt, I don’t think I should pay much.”

  “Two potss of chocolate a week, not one,” she insisted.

  “I should invest in a chocolate factory,” Rafe grumbled. “Agreed, for seven months.” He tensed as he said the words.

  “Done!” said Sizzitt.

  “We can do it tomorrow night,” Rafe said. He looked at Sizzitt. “You can practice on the electricity here tomorrow.” Then he gazed at Tiro. “Do you want to practice transporting? How much will it wear you out?”

  Tiro shrugged. “I can transport you maybe four times.”

  “Good. We’ll try once tomorrow.”

  With teeth gleaming in a smile, Tiro said, “Yes.”

  Amber didn’t say again that she had a bad feeling about this. “We’ll have to be careful.”

  Rafe’s grin was quick and wide. He was enjoying the thought of the caper, already had an adrenaline rush going. “My middle name is ‘careful.’”

  “No, it isn’t,” Amber said at the same time as Tiro and Sizzitt.

  Rafe raised his brows, smiling his pirate’s smile again. “My middle name is Barakiel, the angel of good fortune.”

  She had nothing to refute those words but the curse and she didn’t want to mention that. So she kissed him.

  That night their lovemaking was urgent and panting and totally consuming.

  Dawn had just sent light through her curtains when Rafe left the bed to run. Amber felt the mattress dip, then she slid back into sleep. A while later, the puppies bounded from the room and awakened her, still earlier than usual. Stretching her senses to follow her bonds with them, she found them quiet and in the kitchen, not eating. Their attention was fixed on something. Curious herself, she pulled on sweats and went downstairs to turn on the coffeemaker. She was on the second-floor landing when the rich smell of melted chocolate wafted to her nose. Smiling, Amber reckoned that the dogs were watching Sizzitt in the fondue pot. As Amber walked through the living room, sunlight hit the windows. She tiptoed through the dining room and stood on the threshold of the kitchen.

  Sure enough, the dogs were sitting by the island, heads angled up. Amber could see the chocolate bubbling and boiling and—two?—glowing humanoid flames in the pot. She stared a few minutes before she realized they were mating. Then she couldn’t tear herself away.

  The dancing and melding and patterns formed were gorgeous. Not at all like random flames in a fire. She was mesmerized. And as she watched the two merge, there came a pop and spark and a minuscule white flare no larger than her pinky nail came into being.

  Her throat closed in awe.

  “Done! Good chocolate!” said a tiny voice. One of the flames shot away and three of the large bars of chocolate disappeared with it. The small white flame moved to the top of the larger yellow-orange one—Sizzitt.

  “Get candless, big, sstupid human!” Sizzitt demanded. “The sspark and I need more food than thiss chocolate.”

  Amber ran to a cupboard in the pantry, got down her thickest candle with three wicks, set it in the curve of one arm and grabbed a few tea lights. She plunked them down on the island and arranged them.

  Sizzitt and the white spark moved to the three-wicked candle, but the teeny white flare stayed attached to the larger flame. Zillions of questions buzzed in Amber’s brain, but she didn’t know enough about firesprites to understand what would be discourteous.

  The front door slammed and a draft filtered through the house. Amber went to the island to block the air and Sizzitt stretched tall and laughed with crackles. “We are not sso weak to be blown out by open door air rush.”

  “Oh, excellent.” Amber sighed as she saw the drying chocolate fondue and the caking in the pot. She reached toward the handle and stopped when she felt the bite of Sizzitt’s flame.

  “That iss my chocolate.”

  “I was going to clean—”

  “We will usse every bit.”

  “All right.”

  “Something smells great,” Rafe said. He walked in, bringing the odor of sweaty man. His T-shirt was stuck to him and his cutoff sweats unraveled even more along his thighs. Amber’s pulse picked up.

  “My chocolate,” Sizzitt insisted.

  “For sure,” Rafe said and went to the coffeepot that had filled while Amber wasn’t paying attention. He poured out a cup and leaned against the counter, savoring it. “So, Sizzitt, how went the mating?” He winked at Amber.

  “I have a sspark,” Sizzitt said. She withdrew an instant to show the bitty white flame. It wavered wildly and she expanded again.

  “Cool,” Rafe said. “I mean hot.”

  “I have done my duty,” Sizzitt said. There was a fire snap. “It cosst me much.”

  “Three chocolate bars and a dip in the fondue pot,” Amber said. She wondered if that was a fortune to the firesprite.

  Rafe hid his smile behind his mug. “Yeah?”

  Amber frowned at him.

  “But my name iss no longer tainted. Family demandss much.”

  Rafe’s eyes went distant. His mouth flattened. “Yes.”

  Amber let one of her questions tumble from her lips. “Can the spark survive on its own?”

  “If ssomeone watchess it.” A little pop that reminded Amber of a sniff. “Even a human might feed it.
Better that fire Lightfolk help.”

  “Oh.”

  Clumping footsteps came from the basement stairs. Before Tiro put one foot farther than the last step, Sizzitt was there, hissing and flashing blue-white in his face. She’d left the spark alone on one of the tea lights. “You do not touch my chocolate! You do not touch my ssspark. If you do, I will tell Cumulusstre!”

  Tiro flinched, hunched into his balance. His gaze slid to the kitchen island and the diminished stack of chocolate bars. His nostrils opened wide as he sniffed and turned his eyes toward the fondue pot. “Haven’t touched your chocolate, have I? Won’t. Won’t harm the spark.” He raised a palm outward. “By the first jewel.”

  Sizzitt flicked back to the tea light, gathered the spark, and blurred up to the wick on the large candle. Tiro shuffled along the far side of the room, lifted big eyes to Amber. “May I have some hot cocoa at least? Even that powdered stuff.”

  “Yes,” Amber said and turned on the burner. There came a whispery “sssht” and the spark flew to the gas ring. Amber hesitated in putting the kettle on it.

  Sizzitt added her flame to the fire. “I will heat water, then take the spark to the pilot light.”

  “All right,” Amber said.

  A mug with a huge heap of hot chocolate powder settled beside Tiro. “I can make it,” he said. He jutted a chin at Rafe. “You stink.”

  Rafe raised his brows, went to the faucet and washed his mug, setting it to dry in the rack. “I would have thought that you’d be in a better mood after tunneling. Are you sure you want to go with us to the museum tonight?”

  Tiro stamped his feet, his steps now sounding like rock grinding on rock, though he left no mark on the kitchen’s wooden floor. “You can’t do without me.”

  “Maybe not. Maybe I would contact Eight Corp again, or ask Tamara next door to do so.” A green pasteboard card appeared in Rafe’s hand and he flicked it with his thumb. “This is a nice magical artifact, loads of power. Bet I could write a message on it and send it to Pavan.”

  “He is very busy. He could not come.”

  “But someone might…”

  “Wait, I remember,” Amber said. “There’s another brownie next door. One who’s been disgraced, like Sizzitt. Sizzitt has found honor with us—” Amber waved a hand at the kitchen island and stack of chocolate “—and fortune. Maybe this other brownie could help clear his name by helping us.”