Mystical Love

by Rachel James

  Frustrated, he rubbed his forehead. He had to think of a plan — any plan. However, he was currently devoid of ideas. And concentrating with such fervor to find one only forced his head to ache. He let his gaze do a long, slow slide to the chapel doors at the rear of the aisle way. What was the cloud’s next trick? Would it be a fiendish revenge for their success in outwitting it so far?

  He heard movement nearby and remembered he wasn’t alone in his apprehension. Janice was exhibiting her fair share of nerves. In fact, her restless pacing back and forth in front of him was getting under his skin. With each turn of the room, her edginess raised a few more notches. Well, it was understandable. Fear of the unknown was knotting his own stomach. Should he reassure Janice? No, he didn’t think it would calm either of their strained nerves. Anyway, he wasn’t sure he wanted Janice to be calm. Fear kept the senses heightened and if Janice were scared, she wouldn’t relax her mind. For the last few minutes, he couldn’t chase away the unsettling thought that if either of them dropped the barriers of their minds to a relaxed state, their attacker would seize the opportunity to overwhelm them.

  Adrian watched a flash of blue streak by his line of vision again. Sweet Jesus, the silence around them was enough to give anyone the screaming meemies. A blue pant leg flashed by again, striding away and then back again. Adrian stretched one leg out, barring Janice’s path.

  “Stop. You’re making me dizzy.”

  She stood there, facing him, but managing not to look directly at him.

  “Sorry. I keep thinking that if I don’t keep moving, my mind will be snatched away.”

  They were on same wavelength, Adrian thought. Both sensed the same danger. Both knew the consequences. Adrian cocked his arm and patted the cold marble slab beside him.

  “Come sit down. Let me entertain you.” She hesitated, a momentary look of unease crossing her face. Adrian grinned, patting the slab beside him again. “C’mon. I don’t mean what you think. I’m not going to touch you. I thought we might wile away the time with a little magic.” Sighing, she plopped down beside him, wrapping her arms around her knees and casting him an attentive glance. Adrian reached out his hand. “Your compass, please.” She forked it over quickly. As his fingers collided with the plastic, a mewling wail screeched beyond the chapel doorway, rattling the nails on its hinges, and sending both of their glances to the back of the chapel in alarm. Behind their heads, the stained glass windows began to vibrate under the bellowing wail.

  “Sweet Jesus!” Janice muttered, grasping Adrian’s arm and huddling closer to him.

  Adrian’s head whipped around, stunned to hear his favorite vulgarity leave her lips. She had been around him too long — not only was she thinking like him, she was starting to swear like him. He switched the compass to his left hand and the mewl hissed away, cascading over their heads like the hum of live power wires. Adrian squashed an urge to duck under the invisible heat. It wouldn’t do to let the spirit sense their agitation. He listened to the silence that fell instead. When no other sound taunted them, he wrapped his fingers around the compass and turned to Janice, clearing his throat.

  “As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted.” He raised his hand, flashing the compass at Janice, who nodded. Sure of her attention, he rhythmically moved his fingers, making the compass vanish from his right hand to his left and back again. He heard her swift intake of breath and explained, “The one thing that makes an act better than average is showmanship. Showmanship makes the ordinary extraordinary. This is called the French Drop.”

  Adrian began a series of now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t swaps. As his fingers flexed through the motions, he felt an unexpected surge of enjoyment. It was good to see a face register obvious pleasure in his illusion. It made him feel young again, when as a boy, the joy of magic had been the center of his universe. He had done magic for the love of it then. It helped take away the edge of his loneliness. With one last flow of his fingers, he raised both hands to Janice, displaying empty palms. She inhaled sharply.

  “How did you do that?”

  Adrian lowered his hands.

  “Tricks of the trade.”

  “No, really, Adrian, where is the compass?”

  Adrian’s lips tilted in a boyish smile, liking the way her eyes sparkled at him with a combination of disbelief and eagerness. He leaned forward, his right hand searching her left ear. Pulling back his hand, he revealed the compass once more to her. She tore it from his grasp. Wonder filled her voice as she turned it over in her palm.

  “How did you do that? I was watching carefully.”

  Adrian’s mouth snaked to a wry grin.

  “Obviously not close enough.”

  She seemed to accept that answer, though she didn’t look up at him again. Instead, she continued staring at the compass and twirling it. Adrian wondered what she found so intriguing to think about.

  “What happened to you, Adrian? What happened to you to make you so jaded and cynical about life?”

  She asked the question with such sincerity and caring that Adrian responded unexpectedly with the truth.

  “Death. That’s what happened to me.”

  Her head shot up then, her glance searching his.

  “You lost someone you loved very much?”

  Adrian tore his gaze from her searing one, to a point beyond her right shoulder.

  “Not just someone. Everyone. My life is one long trail of people dying and me moving on. I never knew my parents. They were killed in a sailing accident. I was washed up with the boat wreckage and eventually found by a retired sea captain. Life was good back then. He loved me a lot. No one’s ever loved me that way since, not even my ex-wife.” His gaze sought Janice’s face and he noticed her expression was pained, as though she had been wounded. His laugh sounded broken even to his ears.

  “He recognized my gift of second sight long before I did and encouraged it. He saw how good I was with my hands. Taught me what little magic he knew. The rest came from books. He said it would help to ease the loneliness of living with a crusty old bachelor.” Adrian smiled, suddenly amused. “He was right, the old salt. Magic became the center of my universe.”

  “You saw his death coming, didn’t you?”

  Adrian dropped his gaze, scanning the slim fingers caressing the compass.

  “Yes. I suppose being the foolish boy I was back then, I thought my gift could overpower death. It was a devastating moment for me when I realized I couldn’t save him.”

  Reaching over, Adrian plucked the compass from Janice’s fingers and began to flip it in and out of his palm. She watched the nervous gesture a moment before commenting softly.

  “I once saw a film where a character said how we face death is as important as how we face life. That thought stuck with me for a long time. In a small way, it wormed its way into my paintings, which in turn have given meaning to a lot of people who can’t cope with their lives as they are.”

  Adrian spun the compass between his fingers. He ventured a subtle question.

  “What would you tell a patient haunted by visions of a red-headed woman?”

  Her reply was husky.

  “Was it as bad as all that, Adrian?”

  Adrian lifted his gaze from the compass.

  “No, actually your image was comforting. I could always rely on it, no matter how many foster homes I was moved to. It would go away for months, but, like the proverbial bad penny, it always came back.”

  Slim fingers plucked the compass from his grasp and Adrian twisted his head to find Janice staring at him pensively.

  “I don’t suppose this will mean much to you coming from me, Adrian, but my sister Bibi saw your act in Vegas last year. She talked about it for months afterwards. Tonight at the rehearsal, I saw what impressed her so. Watching your illusions, I never felt so connected to the beauty of sight,
sound and movement. And the others in the room felt it, too.” She pinned him with a long, silent scrutiny and though he wanted to look away, Adrian found he couldn’t. She was mesmerizing him with her sexy, husky contralto. “You’ve been blessed, Adrian, though you can’t see it. And you’re luckier than most. Some people never find anyone to love or anyone to love them. You’ve been loved by a sea captain, a wife, and an adoring public.” Adrian felt her open his palm and drop the compass into its center. He looked down at the fingers curling his own over the plastic and took comfort from the warmth. “You’re a nice man, Adrian Magus,” she murmured, “and all your barbed insults can’t ever make me dislike you again.”

  She removed her fingers, leaving him to stare at the compass in his palm. He felt a strange wetness forming behind his eyes and willed it away.

  “You’re one hell of a counselor, Doctor.” He closed his fist and cleared his throat. “You’d make one hell of a lap dog.”

  She gave a bright laugh and Adrian swung about, depositing the compass on the floor in front of them.

  “Now,” he grinned boyishly, “here comes my best trick yet.”

  Janice bent down, wrapping her arms around her knees, her attention glued to the compass.

  Adrian raised his hands confidently, feeding off her excitement. Abruptly, the compass vanished, replaced by a small book. Adrian’s fingers froze in place.

  “What the hell? … ”

  “That’s amazing, Adrian!” Janice exclaimed with a clap of her hands.

  He cut her off with a growl.

  “I didn’t do that. I can’t manipulate matter.”

  She panicked at once, inching closer to him with a gasp and quickly scanning the air around them.

  “Who did it then?”

  The question needed no answer. They both knew who had done it. Adrian reached out and picked up the book. Absently, he flipped through the pages.

  “What is it?” Janice asked, peering over his arm curiously.

  “Lisette’s diary.”

  She snatched the book from his fingers and Adrian suppressed a desire to snatch it back. What was this new trick sent their way? Janice began flipping pages, scanning the passages.

  “The answer is here, Adrian,” she declared. “Why else would Lisette transfer the book to us here?”

  “We don’t know it was Lisette.”

  “I know,” Janice stated. “Like Muriel said before, when we are slow to act, the ghosts push us along.”

  Adrian wrenched the book from Janice’s fingers.

  “I tell you there’s nothing here.” He flipped through the pages with annoyance. “It’s a typical diary, filled with romantic, fairytale notions about Prince Charming.” Adrian sent Janice a side-ways squint. “In this case, call Prince Charming the Baron Dumas.”

  She yanked the book from his fingers once more.

  “We just haven’t seen the clue, that’s all.”

  Adrian swiped the book back.

  “I tell you there’s nothing here. Just a lot of female gibberish about living happily ever after. Lisette was a typical ditz.” His gaze scanned the last pages of the journal, studying the sporadic passages of writing. “At least we can be grateful that once the ship docked Lisette didn’t have time to write more of that romantic hogwash.”

  “What did you say?!”

  Once again, the diary was ripped from his fingers and Adrian fought down an urge to box Janice’s ears. She was being a royal pain in the ass with her insistent grappling of the journal. He watched as she eagerly bent over the dog-eared pages. What the hell was she looking for?

  “Of course!” she exclaimed, a moment later. She smacked the pages and flashed the book at Adrian. “Right there all the time — beneath our noses.”

  Irked, Adrian peered over at the scrawled, faded handwriting.

  “What’s there?”

  With a hiss, Janice bolted to her feet and spun around.

  “It’s so clear, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. Lisette never left the ship. Those last entries aren’t hers!”

  “Don’t be absurd!”

  She bounced back down, slapping the pages of the book in emphasis.

  “I’m right, Adrian. I feel it to the depths of my being. Lisette was murdered on the ship.” Her hand swept the air. “The crawlspace isn’t in this house. It’s on the ship. Lisette never made it off the ship.”

  Adrian frowned, digesting her words. Could she be right? He inspected the scrawled writing closer. It was similar but he couldn’t swear it was the same. And she had a point. The whole tone of the diary did seem to change at the end.

  “I’m right, Adrian, you know I’m right,” she insisted. “You hit it on the head before. Lisette was filled with romantic notions, the diary’s full of it — except at the end. Trust me, Adrian, an eighteen-year-old girl is not going to stop fantasizing in her diary just because a ship has docked. If anything, with a wedding day approaching, she is going to be even more of an airhead … what’s that smell?”

  Janice’s fingers brushed her nose. Simultaneously, Adrian’s own nostrils filled with a sickly stench that cut off his breath and sent a series of sharp pains rippling across his forehead. The pain was so acute and unexpected he almost slipped from the steps. Holy Vegas, someone was trying to invade his mind. He dug his heels into the floor, throwing up a mental barricade. Beside him, he heard a stuttered cough and caught sight of Janice now holding her sweater to her nose in an attempt to keep from breathing the noxious odor.

  Adrian knew it was useless. The spirit had finally found a weapon to use against them. Damn, there was that probing pain again in his head. Someone was seeking entrance, hammering at him with a muted strumming.

  “I’m going to pass out, Adrian,” Janice mumbled through the folds of material.

  “Oh, no you don’t.” Adrian cautioned, leaping to his feet. Snatching her wrist, he dragged her up from the steps and toward the sacristy door. As they fled, the stained glass windows over the mounted crucifix began to rattle in their frames and behind them, a strangled groan wheezed.

  Passing under the crucifix, Adrian felt a second sharp sizzle across his forehead. The probing was more insistent now, getting harder to keep out. He clutched Janice’s wrist tighter and rushed them both through the sacristy door in two seconds, into the small room and out into a deserted atrium beyond.

  The fresh air hit Adrian at once and he began to gulp in streams of it. Janice did the same, collapsing against the wall and bracing herself against it.

  “I can’t make it, Adrian,” she murmured between a stuttered gulp. “I think I’m going down first.”

  Adrian opened his mouth to deny her words but the probing pain sliced off his breath. Clutching his head, he doubled-over.

  “Adrian!” He heard Janice’s call but it became distorted in his head. He willed the probing to stop, pleaded with it. It didn’t. He felt fingers digging into his arm. “For God’s sake, Adrian. Tell me what’s happening to you. Let me help you.”

  “You can’t,” he groaned, “it’s a mind meld.” Another wave of pain shot across his temple and Adrian slumped, shoving Janice away from him. “Get away. Stand back.”

  She took a hasty step back but went no further.

  “I’m not leaving you, Adrian. You can’t make me.”

  Her words caused another stabbing pain to rip along his scalp. It was coming for him. Sweet Jesus, why him first? His question was lost in the hiss of static that bounced off the atrium walls and slammed him back hard against the cement piling and away from where Janice stood. The sharp wrench gutted his shoulder blades and collarbone and seared his lungs. Shit, but the spirit was as strong as Hercules. He struggled to gain his footing, ignoring the rousing pain emanating in his right shoulder.

  In the next instance, a spar
kle of multicolored lights appeared out of thin air before him. Stupidly, he reached out to ward it off and felt an immediate connection. The pain in his head subsided completely as the lights swallowed his fist. Fascinated, Adrian stared at the lights tripping up his arms to his shoulders, across his neck and rippling down his left side to his pants and on to the tips of his toes. He was going down, he could feel it. He was going to leave Janice at the mercy of the baron.

  Swinging his head, he sought Janice through the scrim of light. His eyes lit on her frozen figure. She stood in stark terror, staring at the sprinkle of lights encasing him. Immediately he knew she thought he was being possessed by Lisette’s murderer. If only he could find his voice, tell her not to worry. If only he could tell her he was in no pain. If only he could beg her forgiveness for what the baron was about to make him do.

  A caressing urge bade him close his eyes and he did so, finally giving into the pull of the feathery caress on his brow. Ahead was darkness, a resting place. He felt his knees buckle and knew he was falling. He hit something hard, but couldn’t name what it was. He was only aware of a deep voice calling softly in his head.

  “I will do you no harm.” The words were oddly comforting and Adrian felt his pulse rate begin to descend downward into a slow crawl. Willingly, he surrendered his mind to the lullaby in his head. “Dormez. Sleep. I will do you no harm.”

  Chapter 23

  SATURDAY — 5:15 AM

  Janice felt as if whole sections of her body were torn away. A harrowing headache pounded her forehead and the heaviness in her energy felt like a millstone. Emotionally, she was spent, spiraling downward into a deep chasm. This couldn’t be happening, she reasoned. Someone was trying to invade her mind. It was if she stood in the middle of a burning lake of herself, unable to escape. What did the invader want? She tried to think it out, but only found her thoughts murky and muddled. Save. Save someone. But who? Adrian! The word was a whisper of terror running through her mind.

  Her gaze fluttered left, to the floor, to the body encased in swirling lights. Beneath the core of sparkles, Adrian’s body was motionless and Janice’s heart plummeted. Adrian was past helping. If the evil cloud hadn’t spun his mind around and killed him, the resounding crack of his head against the atrium floor surely must have.