Mystical Seduction

by Dorothy McFalls

  She didn’t want to be found dead in the middle of the club’s dance floor completely nude. A foolish thought, she supposed, to worry about something like that. But she didn’t care.

  She simply didn’t want to die in the nude.

  “Be gone!” Stone shouted again. Talk about being foolish. He needed to do something more than shout at the shooter. What did he hope to accomplish with that? His voice echoed through the empty club. “Be gone!”

  Her phone sang a little tune as she switched it on. No one seemed to notice. Letting Stone serve as a diversion, she quickly dialed 911.

  “You’re not on the list, Frank Stone,” Ballou said. The gun clicked as he cocked it.

  “Hello? Police?” she whispered into her phone. Could the operator hear her voice over the thundering of her heart? “I’m calling from Club West. There’s a gunman—”

  Ballou suddenly swung toward Faith and, without even turning his head, aimed the gun so that she found herself staring clear down its dark barrel. He pulled the trigger.

  Time seemed to move at a snail’s pace after she saw the explosive flash. She watched the golden bullet swirling toward her forehead, heard Horace give an anguished shout, felt a great power leap out from Stone’s upraised arms, and watched as a whirlwind surrounded Ballou and sucked him into oblivion.

  Though the assassin had vanished, the bullet still hurled toward her.

  “Stop!” she shouted.

  She closed her eyes and held out her hands, as if that would do any good. It wouldn’t.

  It was too late for her.

  No one could stop a bullet.

  Instead of her life passing before her eyes, her future paraded before her...a bright, beautiful future that, because she’d been too stubborn to listen to Horace’s warnings to stay away, now would never get the chance to unfold.

  She’d never see her parents again. Never get the chance to make them proud by earning a Ph.D. of her own. Not to mention the whole marriage deal. Dead at twenty-three. A spinster before her time. No husband to mourn her. No children. She’d always pictured having at least one child. Perhaps two. They’d both be scamps.

  But now, that would never happen. None of that would happen, because she was dead.

  Dead.

  Dead.

  Dead.

  She covered her face with her hands and cried. Since it didn’t matter anymore, she let go and wept loud, messy sobs.

  “Shhh..shhh...” A familiar, welcome hand rubbed up and down her back. “It’s okay. It’s over, sweetie.”

  “Nooo,” she sobbed. “You-you don’t un-understand. I’ll never have a husband to love me, or children to pester me. It’s all over for me.”

  Loving hands pulled her into a tight embrace. “Nothing is over for you. You can still have a brood of children if you want. I promise. Please, Faith, please just stop crying.”

  She sniffed and blinked up at Horace. He looked close to tears himself. He brushed the pad of his thumb against her cheek, wiping away a crystalline tear.

  “That’s my brave girl,” he said gravely.

  She carefully touched her forehead, expecting to find a gaping hole. Of course, there wasn’t one.

  “How?” she asked.

  His gaze traveled to the floor where a perfectly shaped bullet was lying next to her foot. “Looks like he missed.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. Her heart started to pound out of control again. The bullet may have fallen short of its target, but it wouldn’t have dropped from the air intact like that. Not unless something unnatural had stopped it.

  But how?

  You stopped it.

  But that would be impossible.

  She glanced down at the bullet again. As impossible as it seemed, she needed to start trusting her own instincts. She might not want to believe what they were telling her, but deep down, she knew the truth when she heard it.

  “I did that,” she whispered.

  “If you say so,” Horace said with a shrug.

  How could he so readily dismiss what had just happened? She had stopped a bullet. By wishing hard enough, she’d changed the course of the future.

  Impossible.

  No one could simply will a solid object to change its course mid-stream like that. She wanted—needed—to talk about it.

  But Horace didn’t seem interested. His attentions had already turned elsewhere. He glared at her pearly pink cell phone she’d dropped on the floor at her feet. The lights on it blinked periodically. He picked up the phone and held it to his ear.

  “Yes. We’re okay,” he said.

  Faith remembered then that she’d never finished that rather frantic conversation with the police operator.

  “Yes. Yes,” he said. He listened for what felt like several minutes. Though, thinking back, the conversation couldn’t have lasted for more than a few seconds. “I understand.” He snapped the phone closed and handed it back to her.

  “The police are on the way,” he told Stone.

  He didn’t sound happy about it. Instead of thanking Faith, he gave her such a disgusted look, she felt an urge to bury her head in her hands again.

  Why wouldn’t he want the police involved with...with...mysteriously disappearing gunmen?

  Oh...

  Even she could understand how that might be difficult to explain.

  “I’ll get Hadrian over here,” Stone said, pulling a cell phone from his suit coat pocket. “He’s got connections with the police department. He can handle the difficult questions for us.”

  Horace nodded, but he didn’t look satisfied. “You had to go and call the police, didn’t you?” he grumbled.

  “There was a man shooting at us,” Faith shot back.

  “We had it under control.”

  “Did you?” She motioned toward the spent bullet on the floor.

  His lips tightened. “This isn’t the time to argue.”

  “Oh?” But she felt like arguing. It was either do that or start crying again. Her hands started trembling. She quickly tucked them under her arms. “When will it be a good time? After you try and break up with me again. Or...or should we wait for another man to start shooting at us?”

  Horace rolled his eyes.

  “What was that thing?” he asked Stone. He helped Faith to her feet and pushed her pair of panties and jeans into her arms.

  “I don’t know, but it sure as hell wasn’t human.”

  “No kidding,” Faith said. Whatever had attacked them had disappeared into thin air before her eyes. No ordinary man could do that. And neither man seemed interested in hearing what she had to say about it.

  “It wasn’t anything I’ve ever seen or heard of.” Stone said.

  “You mean it’s new?” Horace asked.

  “Or that ancient.” Stone shrugged. His eyes suddenly darkened. “Judging by its power, I’m betting on ancient.”

  Chapter Eight

  Horace was impressed with how well Faith handled herself. After a few well-deserved tears, she’d managed to pull herself together and had, though not happily, accepted what must have appeared to her to be an unfortunate trip into insanity.

  Instead of dwelling on what almost had happened—his body still shook from the thought of how close she’d come to dying—Faith blushed furiously while dressing. He found her sudden bout of modesty charming.

  When she finished buttoning up her jeans, she turned around and thrust her hand out to Stone. “I know we’ve already met, but everything about last night seems hazy. You’re Stone, right?”

  Stone raised a brow as he focused his steady, unforgiving gaze toward her proffered her hand. “You remember meeting me?”

  “It would be impossible to forget you,” she said, “seeing how you’re the only person Horace would let me call after he was shot.”

  “Indeed.” Stone’s silvery eyes widened a touch.

  It wasn’t an easy feat to surprise a man as talented as Frank Stone. Horace’s pride swelled. Faith was indeed an uncommon
woman.

  “I suppose it would be difficult to forget something as important as that, wouldn’t it?” Stone said.

  Faith frowned and rubbed her temples.

  “But perhaps,” Stone continued. His steady voice carried with it a power that pressed down on the club like an oppressive hand. “Perhaps, it would be easier to forget me and Horace and what you witnessed last night and today.”

  The spark in her pale blue eyes dimmed, and she nodded slowly.

  “Yes, it would be easier to forget...” she said.

  “You don’t need the pressure of things that seem fantastic, things that are impossible. Life is complicated enough. Don’t you agree?”

  She nodded again. “Life is complicated...”

  Stone flicked a glance in Horace’s direction. “You came to the club this afternoon to talk to Horace, did you not?”

  “Yes, yes I did!” A glimmer of life returned to her expression. “I wanted to—”

  Stone shook his head. “You wanted to resign your position as bartender. That was why you came here this afternoon, remember? You wanted to resign.”

  The power behind Stone’s voice had been enough to overwhelm Faith’s excitement. Her rosy cheeks paled, as the life seemed to drain from her body.

  “Now see here!” Horace protested. He didn’t want to lose a competent employee. Hell, he didn’t want to lose her. “It’s one thing to make her forget about what happened here, and quite another thing to force her to leave—” To leave me!

  He didn’t want her to leave him. Ever. But he couldn’t say that. He couldn’t reveal that much of himself or his feelings. So he quickly changed course. “You can’t force her to leave Club West.”

  Stone lifted a staying hand. All the while, he kept his gaze locked on Faith. “Life is complicated enough, Faith, don’t you agree? You don’t need this job when you can get another one at the university.”

  “Yes,” she said her voice as flat and empty as her expression. “That would make my parents happy. They worry.”

  “And you wouldn’t want to worry them.”

  “No.” The spark had completely dimmed in her eyes.

  Horace felt her slipping away. Her memories of what had happened between them would soon be gone. Unlike last night, Horace didn’t feel so relieved about letting her go anymore.

  “Wait,” he said. He wedged himself between Stone and Faith. “Wait.”

  “I know you have feelings for her, but think this through. You can’t keep her.” Stone put his hand on Horace’s shoulder. “We both saw it. She’s still able to control your powers. We need to make her forget, to lock that knowledge away forever. Otherwise, she might attract the attention of the Council.”

  And that would be a disaster.

  Some members on the Council seemed to love power more than justice. Neither Horace nor Stone could predict the amount of trouble the power-hungry members of the council might make if they found out about Faith’s powers.

  “You’re right. Damn, of course, you’re right. We can’t let her fall into the Council’s hands.” Horace started to step away and let Stone wash away her thoughts for a second time. “But how do you know it will work this time?”

  “I’m pushing harder, deeper.” Stone’s expression darkened. “She’ll forget.”

  Horace believed him. Stone’s push on Faith’s mind was so strong that the power fogged even Horace’s thoughts. This time, the process would surely stick.

  Horace rubbed his temples, trying to hold onto the important thing he needed to tell Stone, the thought that kept nagging at him. But because of Stone’s magic he couldn’t seem to keep the words together long enough to put them into his mouth.

  “You’re-you’re not going to harm her, are you?” he asked Stone, but that wasn’t what he was trying to remember.

  “I’ll try not to.” Stone promised. Somehow, it didn’t seem good enough.

  Stone may have vanquished the assassin from the club, but Ballou—whatever it was—hadn’t been destroyed. It was still out there.

  Waiting.

  The assassin’s warning haunted Horace.

  “You’re now a package deal,” it had said, which meant Faith’s life was in as much danger as his. Only she didn’t understand what was going on...and would soon know even less.

  Taking away what little she did know would leave her vulnerable. She would be as good as dead if Stone succeeded in wiping her memories clean.

  And that’s what he’d been trying to remember!

  Not only that, Horace had marked Faith twice. He couldn’t quite remember what those marks meant. And it made his head buzz to try and remember the importance of marking a woman, but he knew that what he’d done to her meant something. Something important.

  He couldn’t let Faith go. At least, not until they untangled the mystery of why someone would want to kill the both of them.

  “She’s part of this,” he said. He put his arm around Faith’s shoulder and pulled her to his side. “Until we figure out why, we need to keep her memories intact.”

  Stone didn’t look convinced.

  “That monster tried to kill her,” Horace reminded Stone. “It could have shot you. It had every opportunity to shoot you, but it clearly said you weren’t on its hit list.”

  Faith’s expression remained vacant. Stone needed to release her and let her have her own thoughts again. And that would happen only if Horace was successful in convincing Stone to release her.

  “You were working to vanquish Ballou from the club, and yet it pointed its gun at Faith and pulled the trigger. Don’t you think we need to find out why?”

  Stone chewed on his lower lip and frowned. It wasn’t a promising sign. “I’ve already pushed several of her memories away,” he said after a long span of silence. “It might be dangerous to stop now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Her memories are fractured. Look at her.” Stone waved his hand in front of her face. “She’s not able to process any of this because there are too many holes. I’ve never tried to reverse someone’s memories. For all I know, I might end up entangling her in this haze forever.”

  “No.” Horace knew he was being stubborn, but he didn’t care. “I won’t let you take her away from me. Not like this. Not yet.”

  Impulsively, he slanted his lips over hers and claimed her.

  ****

  Faith felt like a fairytale princess and the dashing hero’s searing kiss had just broken through the evil wizard’s spell that had bound her. She blinked several times as her thoughts pushed through the thick haze that had clouded her mind. She liked that image of Horace. A dashing hero prepared to fight for his lady. A prince riding on a glorious white steed.

  The hero image suited him.

  Gradually, Faith’s mind cleared. The fog and the fairytales floated away. She didn’t need the power of Horace’s kiss to hold her thoughts together anymore. But her arms tightened around his neck all the same. She enjoyed the feel of his lips against hers, and she didn’t want him to stop.

  After all, if they stopped kissing he’d probably try to break up with her again. He seemed to do that every time they stopped kissing.

  Didn’t two people have to be dating to break up? She decided she’d use that argument the next time. And there would be a next time. She felt quite confident he would try to wiggle out of this relationship of theirs every chance he got.

  But oh, but he could kiss!

  She could feel the brush of his lips and the touch of his tongue all the way down to the curl of her toes. She opened her mouth to him and encouraged him to deepen the kiss. He took her cue and plunged into her mouth, stirred her desire. Naturally, she wrapped her legs around his waist while feeding on the sensual movement of his seeking tongue.

  But like all beautiful things, their kiss couldn’t last forever. Feeling breathless and more than a little unbalanced, she found her footing again.

  “You okay?” he asked. He gently caressed her cheek.

&n
bsp; Not willing to trust her voice to be steady, she nodded, slowly.

  That made him frown. “Are you sure?”

  “If I say no, will you kiss me again?”

  Stone shouted a laugh. “She’s okay. And I think we should get out of here before the police arrive and start asking questions.”

  “Where should we go?” Horace asked.

  “The café.”

  Those two words—harmless in and of themselves—had an ominous ring when coming from Stone’s lips. Horace gave Faith a long, assessing look and then nodded gravely.

  The café.

  God help her.

  Chapter Nine

  “I don’t understand. Why are you so reluctant to talk to the police? What are you afraid of?” Faith asked as Horace led her toward the bar’s exit.

  “I’m not afraid of anything,” Horace said.

  “The police are an inconvenience we don’t need right now,” Stone explained.

  “An inconvenience?” Faith blocked the exit and crossed her arms over her chest. “The Chicago police are professionals. You should trust—”

  Horace lifted her into his arms and carried her through the doorway. “Trust me. The police, no matter how competent, can’t help us. Not with this.”

  “Why?” Someone had tried to kill the both of them. Faith’s every instinct screamed that they needed to call in the professionals. “Someone needs to investigate. Why not the police? Or the federal government? Or better yet, the military? Someone needs to be called in. Why are you fighting me on this?”

  Horace’s lips remained stubbornly sealed as he carried her to his obscenely large and luxurious black SUV. He set her down and opened the passenger door for her. Stone smiled when she glanced in his direction, but remained just as tight-lipped.

  Well. Fine. Faith brooded—for all the good that it did her. Horace didn’t appear to even notice that she was giving him the cold shoulder as he drove to this café Stone had mentioned. Stone followed in his own car.

  By the time Horace pulled into a parking space in a part of town Faith rarely visited and knew nothing about, Faith had worked herself into an impressive temper. She had no intention of going anywhere with him, not unless he planned to tell her why they shouldn’t talk to the police. When Horace stepped out of the SUV, she refused to move. Instead, she crossed her arms over her chest and stared forward.