by Martha Carr
“Stop it,” she muttered and frowned herself into submission.
So when she appeared in the doorway of room A10, Nathan looked surprised to see her scowling. “Hi!” He straightened from where he’d been scooping huge stacks of books out of a box on the floor. “Is it twelve already?”
Laura glanced at the Expedition watch on her wrist. Oh, crap. “Uh, no. It’s eleven-thirty.” Her frown morphed into a tight smile. “I wasn’t paying attention to the time.”
“Oh, yeah?” Nathan chuckled, his eyes with their faint-purple Kashgar glow studying her face. “Or maybe you just couldn’t wait to see me again.”
“Don’t get cocky.” She’d meant it as a warning, and the prickly way she’d said it was nothing more than a defense mechanism.
Nathan burst out laughing, shaking his head and stepping around the boxes, totes, and binders littering the floor of his new office. “I’ve been put in my place.” He grinned and stepped close, arms open wide as he bent toward her.
Laura leaned away. “What—”
“It’s called a hug.” He nodded, smirking at her. “You know, when you see somebody you enjoy being around. Don’t tell me you’ve never been hugged before?”
Pressing her lips together, she stared at him and tried not to laugh at them both. He’s at least a foot taller than me. “I’ve been hugged plenty, thanks.”
“Oh, so…you don’t need any more?”
He was obviously messing with her, but it made her feel like a frigid monster when that wasn’t anything remotely close to how she was starting to feel about him. She rolled her eyes and stepped in for the hug.
“There. Thank you. I feel better already.”
Laura chuckled and shook her head against his chest before they pulled apart. Then she took a deep breath and widened her eyes. “Okay. So, sorry about being early.”
“That’s a silly thing to be sorry for. Especially when I want you here.” Nathan tilted his head and leaned back against the edge of his desk, which was also cluttered with everything imaginable in a physics professor’s office.
“Do you wanna keep working on your…stuff.” She scanned the mess. “Or do you wanna take that break now?”
He flashed her a wide, careless grin and batted his lashes. “Gee, Laura, I thought you’d never ask.” She couldn’t help but laugh. “Coffee or lunch? It’s a good time for either.”
“Wait, you want me to choose?”
“Sure. I mean, we could stay here, too, but I’m pretty sure it’s a little too messy, and maybe you’re hungry. I am.” He shrugged. “Up to you.”
“Well, if you’re hungry, let’s get lunch.”
“Excellent.” Nathan pushed himself off the edge of the desk and pointed at the door, grinning. “Let’s do it.”
Laura smiled at his enthusiasm and followed him out into the hall, wondering just what kind of casual, coworker, potentially romantic lunch date this was going to be. Most of those don’t include an explanation of a witch-hunting creature draining the lifeforce magic out of a mutual acquaintance, do they? Yeah, I got this. No big deal.
They walked a few blocks northwest to the Fricano’s Deli on Nueces Street. They hadn’t hit their lunch rush yet, so Laura and Nathan stepped inside, got their table in record time, and were greeted as one of three total tables in the whole place. Nathan laughed when she ordered the half sandwich and cup of soup, and she must have shot him a strange look. “Sorry. I just…” He glanced up at their server and chuckled. “I’ll have the same.”
“Sure. I’ll have those right out for you.” The young girl, probably a student at the university, smiled sweetly and headed back to the kitchen.
“What’s so funny?” Laura stuck her straw in her mouth and sucked down some iced tea just to keep herself from saying anything else.
“I was just surprised. That’s all.”
“By the fact that we both know how to order good food?”
He grinned and smoothed his hand across his dark, slightly wavy hair. “No, I consider that a good thing, actually. “I just…I don’t know. For some reason, I was expecting you to be one of those picky customers who orders but changes everything on the menu. You know, the ones who say not to over-salt anything because they’re allergic.”
Laura snorted. “I mean, large amounts of salt have been linked to allergic immune reactions.”
“Wait, really?”
She frowned at his complete confusion and hoped he was messing with her again. “Yeah…I’m not allergic to salt. I think.”
“Oh, jeeze.” He scratched his arm and stared at the table. “I used to wait tables before I hit the fast track to becoming a professor. Not as fast as you, of course, but I went through pretty quickly. I did have one woman tell me she was allergic to salt, and I thought she must’ve been out of her mind. Salt being part of the human body, at least.”
“Pretty sure it’s part of the witch and wizard body, too.” Laura smirked. “I have no idea about Kashgar, though.”
Squinting, Nathan set his crossed forearms on the table and leaned forward. “Me neither. But I’m mostly human, so you dropping that bit of knowledge on me still applies.”
“Well, it’s true. Lots of salt and allergies. But I guess it’s a good thing I’m not one of those picky customers.” She pressed her lips together and stared at the table. This conversation is already a failure. And we just started.
They were silent for a few moments. Laura felt Nathan’s faint-purple gaze on her face, which was starting to flush with ten times more burning heat than the agony she’d put herself through by calling him. Say something, Laura. You are a Hadstrom witch and an expert in your field and an adult who doesn’t need somebody to prompt her into normal adult conversation. Even if this is a date. Se cleared her throat and tucked her dark hair behind her ear. “It wasn’t that fast.” Slowly, she looked up at him.
He was still smiling, leaning forward over the table like he just couldn’t get close enough. “What wasn’t?”
“My ‘fast track’ to tenure.”
“You know, I’ve looked you up, Laura Hadstrom.” Nathan grinned. “You got tenure at the University of Texas, your own alma mater, as an archaeology professor when you were twenty-five. Right after receiving your PhD. That sounds pretty fast to me.”
“Are you trying to say I rushed it?” Her own boldness surprised her, because now she realized she was actually flirting. On purpose.
“Not at all. That stuff can’t really be rushed, so you must have known what you were doing.”
“Honestly, it wasn’t that hard.” Setting her elbow on the table, she propped her chin on her fist and raised her eyebrows. “All it took was finding a few rare, magical artifacts, delivering them straight to the university, and helping the magicals there figure out what the heck those artifacts were for.”
“Which, of course, you had no problem doing.”
She grinned. “Correct.”
Nathan sat back in his seat with a burst of laughter and nodded. “I love how unapologetic you are about it. False modesty doesn’t fit you. I’m guessing that’s not something you like in other people either, is it?”
She stared at him. Then she narrowed her eyes and asked, “Kashgar can’t read people’s minds, can they?”
Nathan smirked. “Not that I know. I’m just good at paying attention.”
“To me?”
“I hope that’s okay.”
There was that flush again. I thought I was getting the hang of this. Laura took a deep breath and forced herself to smile through her burning cheeks. “So far, I don’t think I have a problem with it.”
“Then we’re off to a good start.”
Just when Laura was settling into the realization this was how a date was supposed to go, Nathan brought up the Gorafrex.
“So, like I said, Vanessa told me this morning about what happened. Well, as much as she could for having been abducted and…” He cocked his head and frowned, glancing at the ceiling. “What would you ev
en call that? The thing was draining her? Sucking the magic out of her through a dark-intentioned straw?”
Laura removed her lips from the straw in her iced tea and blinked at it. “That was an oddly eloquent way to put it.”
“Sorry. I’m just trying to understand.”
“No, that’s okay. Uh…I’m not quite sure where to start.”
“How ‘bout you start with why you and your sisters ended up being the heroes.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Don’t call us that.”
“Why not? That’s what you are to Vanessa. The way she tells it, she wouldn’t have made it if the three of you hadn’t shown up when you did.” He rubbed his chin. “Then again, I’m not sure anyone would have a very clear memory of what actually happened, after going through what that woman went through.”
“I’m willing to bet she remembers more than enough.” Laura shrugged. She was conscious the whole time. She just couldn’t move.
“Okay, but what about the music?”
Laura froze. “Sorry?”
“Vanessa said Nickie showed up with an electric guitar and a portable amp and…rocked that thing into submission.”
A snort escaped her, and she shook her head, looking away from him because she knew she’d burst into hysterical laughter for no reason if she focused on how seriously he was taking this. And we should take it seriously. Laura cleared her throat. “I’ll tell you what happened as long as you promise not to say, ‘rocked that thing into submission’ again.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think that’s quite what happened.”
“Uh, no that’s exactly what happened. Vanessa just gave you the simplified version. Can’t blame her for that, but there’s a little more to what happened than that.”
Nathan leaned forward again over the table and sucked a few long gulps of his Cherry Coke. Then he sighed and nodded. “Please, do tell.”
“Okay. Just…eat your soup and don’t look at me like I’m about to do a magic trick. A magician’s magic trick. There’s a difference.”
Chuckling, the part-Kashgar professor spooned up another bite of soup and dipped his head. “I’m all ears.”
Chapter Six
“Wow.” Nathan raised his eyebrows, blinked, then busied himself with his Cherry Coke while he mulled over the whole story. “That’s…”
“I know. It’s a lot to take in. But I promise you every single bit of it is true.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that at all.” He pushed his plate away and leaned back. “It makes sense. I mean, I might be mostly human, but I still have magic. And I know all about this ship and how we got…where we are. Not much of a stretch to add a creature who wants to drain witches and wizards of all their magic to power an escape pod and hightail it outta this solar system.”
Laura closed her eyes and couldn’t keep from smiling. “You have no idea how happy I am that you called it an escape pod.”
“That’s what it is, right?”
“Yes.” Rutilda would have a few things to say about that, but she’s not here, and it doesn’t matter. “So now you know the pickle we’re in. And why we ran out of your party without any explanation. It’s kinda hard to find the time for those.”
“Yeah, especially when your sisters’ boyfriends still have no idea what they are and what they can do.”
“My sisters’…oh, you mean Chuck and John?”
“Yeah.” Nathan ran a hand through his hair and swung his arm over the back of the chair. “I like those guys.”
“They’re pretty good guys, yeah. And actually, it has been pretty hard for Nickie and Emily to keep things on the downlow.” She shrugged. “I mean, I don’t know how serious things are with Emily and John, but apparently, it’s been affecting her work when she…”
“Go on.” Nathan folded his hands on the table and didn’t quite succeed at looking serious. “Now I’m really interested.”
Laura shook her head. “Nothing. That doesn’t matter.” He already knows about the Gorafrex, so we can go down that path. But I’m not gonna put all my sisters’ secrets out there on the table too. We don’t know each other well enough for that. “Anyway, that’s been tricky for her.”
“I’m guessing Chuck doesn’t know anything, either.”
“Nope. Nickie’s been with him for years, and he still doesn’t know she’s a witch. Or that he’s got a tiny second brain at the top of his neck just waiting to burst into life.”
Nathan nodded, his smile gone—there wasn’t anything funny about the Peabrain situation. “That’s probably best, though. I mean, if he does figure it out, she wouldn’t be able to help him much anyway.”
“I know. My sister knows that too. She acts like it doesn’t bother her, like it’s just another relationship thing that goes right along with dating her manager. Chuck’s practically family at this point, just not…completely.” Taking a deep breath, Laura realized how much she’d been talking about her and her sisters’ personal lives and wanted to change the subject. Okay. Apparently, Nathan’s just a little too easy to talk to. Keep it casual, Laura. Simple. “So.” She drummed her fingers on the tabletop.
Folding his arms, Nathan sat back. “So.”
“Now you know what we’re dealing with. And why it’s important for us to get on this as soon as possible.”
“Yeah, we don’t want that thing to take any more hosts or kill any more magicals. Or turn on any more energy cells. You know, I thought I felt something funny in the air this morning.”
Laura squinted. “What do you mean?”
“Like an earthquake, almost. Except in the air instead of the ground. Sorry. That probably doesn’t help with everything else on your plate.”
“No, it’s fine. That’s actually good to know. Something I can recognize, at least, if it happens again. It might mean something.”
“Oh. Well, you’re welcome, then.”
She laughed. “I didn’t say thank you.” Nathan smiled and blinked those purple, glowing eyes at her. “But thank you.”
“Anything I can do to help, Laura.”
The butterflies went crazy in her stomach again when he spoke her name, and she glanced away before she turned into a nervous, stuttering, melty witch-mess. “Oh. Yeah, that was the other thing I wanted to talk to you about. What I wanted you to look over for me, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course not.”
“Okay.” Glancing around the restaurant, she found the servers all tucked away in the back somewhere and one of the other two occupied tables vacated and already bussed. “Good thing it’s a slow lunch.”
Nathan shrugged. “Mondays.”
Laura focused on her silver legacy ring and willed it to bring up the image of the rune she’d found behind the Gorafrex prison. Like a magic camera. Thankfully, she’d focused enough on what she wanted that the ring responded perfectly. The rune projected from her ring onto the tabletop, the golden light glowing there in the ancient shape she couldn’t pretend to recognize. “I found this carved into the back of the prison in the Greenbelt. I have no idea what it means, so I’m hoping somebody else does. Have you seen it before?”
Nathan narrowed his eyes and leaned closer to the table, tilted his head back and forth to study the image from every angle. “Not specifically. But the style is familiar.”
“Really? That’s great.”
He chuckled. “I like the way excited looks on you.”
Laura blinked, swallowed, and pointed at the glowing rune again. Focus. “You think you could point me in the right direction? Wherever I need to go to find out what this rune stands for, I’ll go.”
“Well…” The part-Kashgar rubbed his lips and nodded slowly. “I think I have a book on ancient pre-orbit technology spells in my office.” When he looked up at her, he couldn’t keep the small, inviting smile to himself any longer. “If you don’t mind accompanying me back to the first floor of the Liberal Arts building.”
The glowing golden light disappeared into the silver ring on her thumb. �
�I should’ve just showed you the rune the minute I stepped into your office.” Did I say that out loud? Laura surprised herself and laughed, hoping he wouldn’t be offended by any of the things she normally said to herself when she was by herself.
“Oh, hey. Come on. If you’d done that, you would’ve missed out on excellent company for lunch and riveting conversation.”
She tilted her head and playfully rolled her eyes. “I’m glad you were riveted. I just want this to be over so all witches and wizards are safe again.”
“Plus the Peabrains.”
“Plus the Peabrains.” And I’d really like to get my life back. I know Nickie and Emily feel the same. “All right. Should we ask for the check?”
Nathan aimed a dismissive wave at the table. “I took care of it.”
“What?” Laura turned around and looked for their server. The woman was headed right for them again with a checkbook in hand. “No, there it is. Nice try, Nathan, but I’m paying for my own lunch. Thanks anyways.”
The server set the checkbook on the table and smiled. “Thank you so much for coming in, folks. Have a great day.”
“Thank you.” Nathan nodded, opened the checkbook, and signed the receipt, leaving a tip as he slid his credit card out and pocketed it.
“Wait a minute.” Laura watched their server leave. “How did you… She didn’t bring the check.”
“I told you I already took care of it.” Those purple-tinted eyes glittered as he met her gaze. “And I’d do it again. Hopefully, I’ll get to.”
Her mouth popped open, and it wouldn’t close even when she smiled in confusion. “You haven’t left the table since we sat down.”
“I slipped it to her on the way in. The Huldu are great at staying hidden, but we Kashgar still know how to skirt by unnoticed too.”
“Oh, claiming the whole race as your own now, are you?”
He grinned. “If it makes you look at me like that, Laura, then yes.”
“Well… I…” Literally can’t think of anything to say right now. “Thank you for lunch.”
“My pleasure. Care for a stroll?”