Enchanted Again

by Robin D. Owens

  It hardly felt heavier than a good chef’s knife.

  There came a banging at the door and a loud clunk. The dogs raced from the kitchen to the door and hopped up and down, barking furiously. Amber glanced at the clock. “Postal carrier. I don’t recall ordering anything heavy— Wait!” Her eyes widened. “I wonder if my ancestress’s journals finally came.”

  “I’ll go get them. Then you can study your books and I’ll exercise with my weapons.”

  “In the backyard, without the dogs,” Amber said.

  “Yeah.” At the door, Rafe ordered the dogs to sit. Amber turned to see the pups’ butts hit the floor. He pointed at them. “Stay!” They wriggled but didn’t leap to their feet or shoot out the door when he opened it. “Thanks!” he called in the direction of the carrier, and waved a hand before picking up a U.S. Post Office box and pulling the cardboard tab.

  Just before he reached her and the desk, he seemed to stumble. The box fell, two books about eight by five inches and three inches thick fell out.

  “Wha—” Amber stepped toward him.

  Black smoke boiled from the box and filled the room. Stinking like rotting things, it pressed against her, sliding like grit over her skin.

  Darkness fell. She saw nothing. She froze, afraid to move, not knowing where the others were. She saw nothing, could barely breathe, the dogs went crazy with hysterical barking. Rafe was yelling her name. Tiro was cursing like sharp rocks poking her eardrums. She was enveloped in black dust like a fog of coffee grounds. It hurt to breathe. She coughed.

  No. Not fog. Blue eyes blinked. Mist-with-eyes-and-teeth!

  This time she felt the teeth.

  Sharp, snapping bites, eating her bare skin like acid. She screamed, her fingers tightened on the dagger and she brought it up and around, kept it close to her body and slashed. Again and again. The fog tore in swathes.

  The edge of the shield and dagger sheath shredded the mist, too, wielded by a grim Rafe.

  They fought.

  Finally, the mist thinned, small holes turned into ragged patches, then portholes, then it was gone.

  She was crying with pain and fear. Red and stinging bumps covered her arms, her neck and face. She opened her mouth wide, moaning each breath as her face swelled. Her fingers felt like sausages and she worried that her flesh would break her skin. Falling to her knees, she let the knife go. It slid into the sheath Rafe held. He dropped both shield and sheath on the desk.

  “Hartha!” Rafe yelled. “Help!” He reached out an arm to hold Amber, then moved back. The dogs were circling a large pile of ashlike dust.

  “Sit!” Rafe commanded, and they did.

  The female brownie appeared, screeched like chalk on a blackboard, then held pale green stuff like seaweed in her hands. The next moment Amber’s head and neck and arms were covered with cool and slimy compresses that soothed and numbed the sting.

  “My God. Amber.” Rafe’s voice was thick. “What was that?”

  “Mist-with-eyes-and-teeth,” Tiro said. He kicked the dust heap and little pings and clatters came. To Amber’s horror she saw small round objects, blue like the mist’s eyes, roll from the pile. Bile swarmed up her throat and she forced it back, whimpering.

  Rafe was there, sitting on the floor, his hands around her waist, pulling her back between his legs to lean against him.

  “Mist eyes very valuable,” Pred said matter-of-factly and gathered them up.

  Amber could breathe through her nose again, so she shut her mouth and looked away until her roiling stomach steadied. The scent of burning sage made her glance back at the pile and she saw Hartha mixing the herb with the residue of the mist. Spark was dancing, a long and narrow yellow flame eating the sage leaves and dust.

  “Came from the box,” Pred said, and ripped the cardboard easily, adding it carefully to Spark’s fire. The only thought that crossed Amber’s stuttering mind was that she hoped the wooden floor would be all right. Hartha would probably stop Spark before it reached that.

  “Attached to a book,” Hartha said. She removed the drying seaweed from Amber and summoned more slimy fronds that Amber gratefully bent to have wrapped around her sores.

  “But here in Mystic Circle we have balanced good Lightfolk magic,” Pred said. “It could not live for long.”

  “Not to mention that Amber went after it with the Cosmos Dagger,” Rafe said. He squeezed her middle. “Really good job.” He kissed her head. “My heroine.”

  “Yes, the knife hurt it,” Tiro said. “So did your shield and sheath.”

  “Tssst. Tssst. Ssst,” contributed Spark. No one translated for Amber so she figured no one knew what the firesprite said, but its satisfied tone was evident.

  “The mist headed for Amber,” Rafe said.

  Another warning. Since her lips were feeling nearly normal again, Amber spoke. “The journals are for me.”

  Tiro looked at the two fallen books, but didn’t pick either up. “Pretty sure they are Tshilaba’s. Look like hers.”

  “And the one that I have,” Amber said, then decided not to talk much, she sounded odd—and scared—to her own ears.

  “Booby-trapped,” Rafe said grimly.

  Tiro nodded. “Guess we know who. And he’ll know that both his mists failed.”

  “Mists are minor,” Pred whispered.

  “That’s right,” Tiro said.

  None of the brownies followed up with any listing of more major evils that might attack.

  Hartha stripped Amber of her seaweed wrap and banished the old and replaced it with new. Then the browniefem was pressing the inevitable mug of healing tisane into Amber’s hands. She sniffed. This time the herbal tea didn’t smell good. All down ASAP, then. She guzzled. A sour taste coated her tongue, but her stomach settled. Her fingers were only a little swollen, her rings hadn’t cut into her fingers, including the ring to remind her of Spark.

  “Candle for Spark,” she said.

  Spark was larger than it had been this morning. Maybe it liked mist-with-eyes-and-teeth fuel. It seemed to skip over the floor, looking for every tiny mote of mist-dust.

  Hartha handed Amber a candle. “Come on, Spark,” she said.

  The young firesprite hesitated, then flew a couple of feet to the wick.

  “Good Spark!” Amber and Rafe said in unison. The dogs barked.

  Rafe took the candle, stretched and put it on the desk.

  “And good brownies,” Amber continued. Her eyes watered. “I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

  “That’s for sure,” Rafe said. He moved from behind Amber, stood and lifted her to her feet. “Thanks for the healing. How many more times do you need to do the kelp thing?”

  Hartha’s lips thinned. “Once or twice. We are lucky that evil magic does not like Mystic Circle.” She jutted her chin at the desk chair and Rafe put Amber into it.

  Once again the compresses were exchanged. This time Amber could smell the seaweed, and maybe a hint of Spark’s vanilla candle. “The rotten stench is gone.” She frowned. “I don’t recall the mist smelling like that last night.” Last night had smelled of oil and gas and fire.

  Sniffing, Hartha nodded. “The mist began to die when brought into Mystic Circle.”

  “It was still too damn rough for Amber,” Rafe said. He picked up the knife, pulled it from the sheath. Then he angled the dagger back and forth, letting light glint along each edge and across the blade.

  Hitching a hip on the desk, he looked at the brownies. “This is only going to escalate, isn’t it?”

  Amber said, “Yes.”

  The brownies nodded. Spark hissed.

  “The sooner I become competent with the dagger and the shield, the better.” His jaw went hard, then he walked over and picked up the two leather volumes.

  “Your hands!” Amber gasped. Swatches of seaweed fell from her face. Hartha tsked and replaced the seaweed on Amber’s head and around her neck with new, wet plants.

  “They’re fine. No mist scum on the journals.” H
e placed the two books side by side before her.

  Then Hartha was there with a jar that she opened, scooping out green cream with glitter and rubbing the seaweed away from Amber’s hands and the cream into them. As she did, Amber’s own magic responded to the magical glitter, sparkling lavender. Amber wanted to lean back in her chair and give in to the sensual pleasure of having her hands rubbed, but she played it cool. She could feel the tea working inside her and the seaweed still soothed her hurts.

  “Feeling better?” Rafe asked.

  “Yes. Really, Hartha, I don’t know what we’d do without you. Is there anything special I can get you?”

  “Or I?” asked Rafe. “You patched me up a couple of times, too.”

  The small woman turned a deeper brown—from embarrassment? Amber thought so. Hartha shook her head. “No. We are well. You are keeping us company when Jenni is away.”

  “Ditto,” Rafe said.

  Amber sighed and decided to let ideas about how to reward the brownies sit in the back of her mind until she came up with something. “Will the cream hurt the leather book covers?” she asked.

  “No,” Hartha said.

  Amber glanced at Rafe, then at Tiro. “I wonder if Tshilaba ever ran across the Davail curse.”

  Tiro crossed his arms and glowered. Rafe lifted his brows.

  Shrugging, Amber flipped open the book and stared. The pages appeared to have been glued together and the center hollowed out. Her stomach sank. She made a noise and Rafe joined her.

  Tendrils of gray fog floated, then cleared and she was looking down at a three-dimensional image of the torso of a handsome, sophisticated man. His hair was a wavy blond, his eyes blue, his tanned cheeks were sculpted and his chin had a cleft.

  He looked at her, blinked, and a low and rolling laugh echoed through the room. The brownies vanished. The pups howled.

  “Bilachoe,” Amber whispered. She tried to close the book but the cover seemed stuck to the desk. Her other hand shot out to twine with Rafe’s.

  The man’s head tilted forward as his laugh ended and he smirked. “I see my little surprise did some damage.”

  Amber’s face and neck heated. Stupid to be embarrassed instead of panicked, but she was.

  “Too bad you didn’t die,” the man continued. Oh, yeah, fear was rising. Amber flinched and stared. The image’s mouth moved but none of the muscles in his cheeks or around his eyes did, a little like computer-animated people. Just…creepy.

  Again Rafe took a corner of the desk and looked down. “Hey, Bilachoe.”

  A snarl came and went on the mouth. Now Amber thought the image rippled.

  “The curse breaker and the death-cursed. You’re together. How touching.” Another smile. No, the image didn’t ripple, the skin of the evil thing’s face did, as if it didn’t cover regular muscles, but—Amber thought hideously—a snake or two. She swallowed hard and some of her seaweed fell off and now it felt like protection. They weren’t seeing the real evil, and he wasn’t seeing her face, either. The dark cruelty in his eyes was focused on Rafe, Amber had been dismissed, as if he believed the threat of torture had cowed her.

  Rafe showed his teeth. “I’m going to kill you.”

  Another laugh. This one didn’t show human teeth, but sharp and jagged things that didn’t belong in a human mouth and there was more gurgle to the sound. Bilachoe had been human, right? He didn’t seem like that now. But what decent human could drain others of their lives and their hope and their magic for his own benefit?

  The polar opposite of her, Amber realized.

  “That was easy,” he said. “Because I cursed you, the curse itself constrained me from initiating personal combat.”

  Amber had been right, there had been a cost to Bilachoe for laying the curse, at least one weakness, and they hadn’t known about it.

  Bilachoe’s torso minimized as a gray glove appeared, flew toward them. Amber jerked back. Rafe tensed but didn’t move. The glove hit some barrier and fell.

  “But since you threatened me, I am free of that constraint,” Bilachoe said. “I challenge you to a duel.”

  Chapter 27

  RAFE’S HAND CLOSED over the hilt of the dagger. “A duel.”

  Bilachoe lifted his lip. “Don’t you know the word? Didn’t the lyceum you attend in that one-cow town teach you the history of the art you practice, child?”

  Rafe’s eyes flickered with calculation. His muscles, still tense, seemed to freeze and Amber knew why. Bilachoe knew where they were. He knew what Rafe was doing. And he had to know that Rafe had the shield and the dagger.

  Amber tightened her fingers with Rafe’s. “No.”

  Again Bilachoe smiled and now it appeared like a newscaster’s. “Talk it over.” He glanced down. “I’ll give you two minutes. But know this, you can’t win, Davail. During our fight your curse will draw all my attacks.” Bilachoe threw back his head and laughed and wattles, red and black, showed under his chin.

  Amber had to look away, but she knew what to ask. “What are the consequences if he doesn’t meet you?”

  Bilachoe’s brows went up. “The man has issued a death threat. I have the right to defend myself…personally.”

  So he’d been bound not to touch Rafe. Send minions but not come himself. They hadn’t known that. Amber’s pulse picked up with fear and she bit her lips. The Dark one was right. They’d played into his hands.

  She looked at Rafe. He met her eyes, squeezed her fingers. In his other hand he flashed the dagger at her. She knew that wouldn’t be enough.

  “I can’t always stay in Mystic Circle. I need to train,” he said.

  “We could bring your teachers here....”

  But he was shaking his head, then his eyes went distant. “Mystic Circle is a special place. I don’t want it to turn into a prison for me.”

  “At least wait until Pavan and Vikos are available to help!”

  “How could they help? Stand by and watch? This is my curse.” His face—all those tiny muscles that Bilachoe didn’t seem to have—hardened. “Bilachoe and his minions know where we live. He’d damn well want to hurt you…to hurt me. We aren’t safe the minute we leave the cul-de-sac. I can’t live like that.”

  “You can. You can live.”

  His smile was humorless. “Can I? With this guy waiting to ambush me?” He turned back to Bilachoe. “When can you be here?”

  Bilachoe’s eyebrows raised until they disappeared and a bumpy forehead sloping steeply back showed in a pale shade of gray. Not too human. “There?”

  Amber wondered if he was already in Denver. He could probably move instantly like other strongly magical folk.

  “Forget I asked. We’ll do this tomorrow night. I mean after midnight, early in the a.m. One a.m.,” Rafe said. His brow lined as he thought. “Not in the city.”

  “Not in the city,” Amber agreed. A place popped into her mind. She didn’t know why, but it felt right. Or as right and blessed as a place could be. “Red Rocks.”

  “The amphitheater?” Rafe drew back in surprise.

  She hadn’t thought that far. It was March and there would be no shows. As far as she knew the only thing coming up would be the sunrise services Easter morning next month. She pulled over her laptop and accessed the page. Even if the park closed, what would keep magic out?

  “Not the amphitheater. We don’t want to ruin the place,” Rafe said. He smiled at Bilachoe and said louder, “God knows what the thing has for blood.”

  A feral growl came from the image and once again it wavered.

  Rafe scanned the map on Amber’s laptop, and his tiny stick was in his fingers. “Yeah, Red Rocks feels good.” He shot a glance to her, whispered, “Blessed. Sacred.” The small divining rod swept over the map, then quivered at one point. “Red Rocks, Creation Rock, just north of the amphitheater, 1:00 a.m. See ya.” He yanked the cover of the book up, applying magic and muscle and closed it. He paced. “Yeah. This feels good.”

  It didn’t to Amber. She felt scoured with fea
r and had to hold herself still to keep from trembling at the knowledge that she loved Rafe.

  Tiro had been right all along.

  She couldn’t see him die. She knew what she had to do. She had to use her major power to break Rafe’s curse before…or during…the fight. She would save her lover at the cost of herself.

  From cold lips she said, “Not much time to prepare.”

  “That works for us, too.” He drew her into his arms. “I’d bet he has more going on than we do.” Her seaweed caked off, sticking to his shirt, skittering to the floor as she set her head against his neck. “Let’s face it. No matter how hard I’ve trained, I’m still a human and he is…other.”

  The brownies popped in. They all looked sad and afraid. Hartha twisted her hands in her apron, Tiro twisted his hands in his cap and shot hot, angry glances at Amber.

  Rafe went on. “And if Bilachoe’s busy, he isn’t sending minions after us, or coming himself today or tomorrow.” Rafe gave them all a slashing grin. “Though I think I’ll get there in plenty of time tomorrow, before sundown for sure.”

  Spending hours out of doors wouldn’t faze him. “Make sure you pack out your trash.”

  “Yeah.” He pushed the top of the laptop open flat, settled into his balance and closed his eyes, humming under his breath. Holding his stick loose between his fingers he checked the map again. Once more it stopped at Creation Rock. A breath filtered from his chest. He opened his eyes and nodded. “A lot of human energy there. Good human energy. I think I can tap into that.” He returned to a previous page on the website. His eyes widened. “Next event is Easter. Sunrise.”

  “That’s right,” Amber said.

  “Did I know that? I think I knew that,” Rafe said. “Have Easter services been there for a long time?”

  “I think before you and I were born.”

  “Good, that’s good then.” His shoulders moved. “I’m heading out. I need a good workout at a dojo and at the lyceum.” He set the dagger down on the desk, placed his hand over the shield, smiled again. “It’s vibrating. It’s ready.” He touched the knife with his index finger. “So is the dagger.” Standing straight, he lifted his chin. “So am I. Get this over with when I’m at my peak. We’ll make solid plans later today.” He kissed her on the lips, swept his tongue over her mouth and she let him in. He probed, then withdrew, still smiling. Then he stretched and went into a kata pattern. “By God, it will be good to have this over with. One way or another.”