by Amber Garr
“You need to go now,” River said when the young man started walking back toward us. “Please remember what I said, Cressa. They have spies. Everywhere.”
I focused on my brother, who stood a few inches taller than me. Somewhere underneath his warped sense of self, I still believed he cared. His arrogance that I’d witnessed in the coffee shop had disappeared today. I did think that he wanted to warn me, even if I was suspicious of an ulterior motive.
“I got it,” I grumbled.
“Do you?” he snapped. “I’m serious, Cressa!”
“Okay!” I shouted, and four different heads turned to stare at us.
River reached down and unsnapped the bracelet from my wrist. “I left a piece of electrum on your bed so that I can send you home.”
“Wait,” I pushed his hand away. “What is this? Is it like copper?” Copper had a lot of properties that Caster’s, and Sorcerer’s like my brother used to their advantage. Kind of like my hair clipping and chicken foot. Rituals that had been developed thousands of years earlier were needed to help enhance the natural magic.
“It’s a mix. Copper, gold, silver, and sometimes a few other metals. It kind of combines the power of all of them.” River played with the bracelet in his hand, admiring it like it was the most revered object in the world.
“And you have some?” I asked hesitantly.
“We all do,” he said and then pressed his lips together.
“Everyone in the Imperium?” I guessed, but River stayed silent.
“I have to send you back. You might feel a little woozy at first, but it should go away within the hour.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m used to that.”
“You still get sick afterward?” He wasn’t asking to prosecute me, I could tell. He was genuinely curious. There were several times when River witnessed the after-effects of my necromancy. But at least before, he used to hold my hair back.
I shrugged. No need to admit any wrongdoing. River ushered me over to the only wall in the room not blocked by all of the monitoring equipment. “Don’t forget what I said.”
Looking at him in exasperation, I bit back any comment that might start another fight. I certainly wouldn’t forget what I saw here today. In fact, I vowed to use it as ammunition for my new source of income.
“Are you ready?” River asked, and I nodded. “Good.” He lifted his hand, sucked in a deep breath, and said “Remeo.”
A rush of wind blocked out all other sounds while the bright lights blinded me again. Seconds later, I was lying on my bed back in my apartment. A sharp object pressed into my spine, and after shifting to the side, I pulled out another piece of metal. This time, it was only the size of a ring—a homing device for those teleporting through time and space.
My head spun with thoughts about the physics behind something like this, and the nausea threatened to keep me knocked down. I stayed still for several minutes contemplating what had happened over the last forty-eight hours.
In the background, I heard small knock on my door, but it took me a moment to comprehend the sound. Apparently that was too long, as Brit opened the door and walked inside.
“You okay? I’ve been calling for you the last few minutes.” She looked around the room in suspicion. “Where’s your brother?”
“He left.”
She sat on the bed next to me, the mattress bouncing in a way that made me feel even more sick. “Good. Everything okay?”
I covered my eyes with my arm, trying to stop the room from spinning out of control. Talk about motion sickness on steroids. “Yes, it’s fine.”
“So when are you going to tell me about last night?” Brit nudged me in the arm several times.
I couldn’t help the smile spreading across my face. “Are you here tomorrow?”
“Yes!” she said a little too enthusiastically.
“Then I’ll tell you all about Noah tomorrow.”
“Noah?” Brit sucked in a breath so large I thought she might choke on the air itself. “Noah? Oh my god, like the Noah from the bar?”
Her excitement was contagious and I quickly found myself forgetting about the last twenty minutes. “Yep.”
She punched me in the arm again. “You have to spill!” Then she looked at her watch and sighed. “Well, not now. But soon, all right?”
“Yep,” I said again.
“Okay, see you tonight. Or maybe tomorrow…” Her voice trailed off as she slipped out the door.
Tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow would be another day. And by tomorrow, I hoped to have a better plan in place about how to save my mom sooner than later.
It took a full day for me to accept my plan and another day after that to build up enough courage to execute it. Noah was a big help in making me see things clearly. I’d talked to him Saturday evening, told him everything that had happened with my brother. He’d agreed that regardless of my brother’s warnings, I needed to get my mom out of magic jail. Plus, he said that he had friends of his own that could help protect me while I do my necromancer jobs. I decided not to think into that too much.
And speaking of those jobs, Noah already had a few lined up for me. On Sunday evening, I’d raised a dead dog, just so its owner could say goodbye. The boy had been playing in a school soccer game when his beloved Labrador was hit by a car. His mother begged me to awaken the dog so that Eli had one chance to see him alive again. After one abandoned father and two failed marriages, the dog had apparently been the only consistency in Eli’s life. They’d offered to pay me a couple hundred dollars, but I couldn’t accept their money. Something about the situation hit a little too close to home, and so I used the opportunity to give back and practice my skills a bit more. The scar on my back resembled a heart and that actually made me smile.
By the time I got home from class early Monday evening, Noah was waiting for me in our parking lot. His dark leather jacket nicely complimented his black jeans and that hair I wanted all for myself. I couldn’t stop the anticipation of what tonight might hold. And not just for the job. He’d told me that he had another human rising for me and that the client was willing to pay. A lot. If I’d wanted to question anything, I would have asked him how he was finagling all of these jobs. But each one I did got me one step closer to my mom and so I chose not to ask.
“You’re here,” I said by way of introduction when I closed my car door.
Noah walked straight over to me and kissed my cheek. My knees weakened like every smitten girl in a romance novel. The smell of fresh cologne and sun hit me with a force powerful enough to knock me off my feet.
“I thought I’d meet you here and then we can ride together.”
Sounds perfect to me. “Okay, great,” I said. “Come on up. Brit’s dying to meet you anyway. She should be here for a little while longer before she has to go to work.” In all honesty, I hadn’t seen much of Brit. Sure we had a chance to chat on Sunday, but then she left again for another “study group”. I wondered if I should be concerned for her rather sudden focus on Carson, but Brit was a grown woman, and it wasn’t really any of my business.
“So this is your crappy little apartment complex you’ve been telling me about,” Noah teased. He’d heard my complaints many times on the phone when the heater kicked in and I could barely hear myself speak over top of it. Or when I told him about several of the other magical beings that had been stuck living a low-rent life like me.
“Is it everything you imagined?” I asked with sarcasm.
“Yep. Pretty much,” he said as he followed me up the stairs.
Once again, when I passed Mr. Padlo’s door, it open with a groan and glowing white eyes peeked out from the darkness. “Ms. Cressa,” he said.
“Hi, Mr. Padlo.” I continued up the stairs, hoping that he would let Noah slip by unnoticed. No such luck.
“Hello?” he said to my company.
Noah stopped on the platform and took a step closer to Mr. Padlo’s apartment door. After a moment, Noah began to speak to him in a foreign languag
e. I think it was French, languages were never my strong suit. The two of them conversed for a minute or so while I stood on the stairs above. It was the most I’d ever heard the Conjurer speak to anyone. With smiles on both of their faces, the two shook hands and my neighbor’s door creaked shut.
“What was that all about?” I asked as Noah started to climb the stairs again.
“Just making conversation. You never want a Conjurer working against you.”
I stopped mid-step and turned to face Noah. “You speak French?”
“I speak many languages,” he replied.
“Oh, right. Because you’re super old,” I teased and that earned me a small laugh.
“Because I’ve traveled a lot in my many lives,” he corrected me.
Once we reached my door, I stopped again. “What did he say?”
“Who?”
“Mr. Padlo,” I said with a groan. Noah totally knew who I was talking about.
“Ah. Well, he’s very concerned for your safety. He wanted to make sure that I protect you.”
“Protect me?”
“I’m a phoenix remember. That’s what we do.” He winked and I focused on the task at hand again, trying to absorb what he’d just said.
I turned the key and pushed open the door. “And he knew what you are?”
“Of course.”
“Why of course?” I asked, irritated that he sounded like this is something I should know.
“Because he has a ridiculous number of spirits surrounding him. Surely that gives him multiple sets of eyes to see all that is going on.” Noah stepped inside and took in our tiny hallway.
“Living room and kitchen are over here—” When we rounded the corner, I almost dropped my bag once I saw Brit. “Um, hi roommate.”
Brit jumped up from the couch, Carson following closely behind. Although he stumbled and fell on his hands and knees in the middle of our living room floor. I tried not to laugh out loud. They hustled to get their clothes back in place and Brit hastily brushed her hair with her hands.
“Hey Cressa. I didn’t hear you come in…” Her voice trailed off when her eyes drifted to the guy standing behind me. “Oh god, I’m so embarrassed,” she muttered.
Noah took his jacket off and lifted my bag from my frozen hand. “Hi Britt. Nice to see you again. Carson.”
Brit flushed two thousand shades of red, as did Carson. “Hey Noah,” Brit said with a shaking voice. Tearing her eyes away and turning back to me, she asked, “So, I thought you two had a thing tonight.”
“We do,” I said with a smirk.
“So…why are you here?”
Her unease was just too much for me, and I finally busted out in giggles. She quickly joined me, but not before sparing a quick glance at Carson first. He wasn’t laughing and was instead trying to button up his shirt. So far, he was off by two places at least.
“We’re leaving soon,” I finally said. “I just needed to grab some warmer clothes.”
“Well, don’t let me stop you,” Brit said.
I gave her a quick hug and then escorted Noah out of the living room and toward my bedroom. “Let’s give them a chance to recover,” I joked.
“I feel like I’m in college,” Noah mused.
“What?” I asked.
“Like the sock on the doorknob thing. You know what I mean, right?”
“I guess. But we’re not living in a dorm.”
“No, but it’s close enough that I feel I can experience it for myself.” His smile stretched wide across his face as he imagined what his life would have been like as a student. We’d discussed this numerous times already and it made me appreciate just how much college was a rite of passage. Human or not.
“You know, you could enroll,” I suggested.
Noah’s enthusiasm disappeared as quickly as Brit and Carson’s make out session. “No, I can’t,” he said quietly.
“Why not?”
He sat on the edge of the bed and then threw himself backward over the center of it. With his arms out wide, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. I wanted so badly to jump on top of him. “Because my time here is limited.”
It was almost a whisper. Quiet enough that I could pretend I didn’t hear it. But I had. And it threatened to break me. “Limited? How limited?” I didn’t like how desperate I sounded, but damn it, I couldn’t help it.
“I don’t know yet,” Noah said quietly. “But let’s not think about that now.”
How am I supposed to do that? I thought to myself. I quickly turned and dug through my dresser drawers hoping to hide the tears sparkling in my eyes right now. Noah was the first magical person I’d ever been able to talk to. In fact he was the first decent person of the opposite sex I’d ever spent any amount of time with. And I’d been enjoying every minute. What would happen when he left—
“Cressa?”
I snapped out of my inner sadness at the sound of his voice. “What?” I asked, noticing him looking at a photo collage on the wall.
“Please tell me this isn’t another one of your Mystical Marianna outfits.”
I reached his side and he pointed at a photo of me and Brit at a Halloween party. I was dressed as a sexy zombie bride of course. Brit was a Playboy Bunny. With a laugh, I shook my head. “No. Definitely not. Although…” I tapped my finger on my chin.
“Don’t even think about it,” he said. “I think you see enough zombies to know that they never look as good as that.”
I knew I blushed, but I liked it. If I only had limited time left with Noah, then I wanted to take advantage of every moment. Without another thought, I jumped forward, wrapping my hands around his neck and pushing my lips against his. With only a second’s hesitation, he pulled me closer and deepened the kiss. Light and warmth flooded my senses like a stiff drink or an adrenaline rush. My body tingled in every place he touched, that electrical energy sparking between us in a way it never had before.
Our tongues danced together while I ran my hands through his soft hair. With this being his first and only time in true human form, I wondered how he knew exactly what to do. But before I could muster another thought, I felt myself fall back on my bed. A moment later, Noah’s body weight covered me with anticipation. He sucked on my bottom lip and I nibbled on his ear when his kisses dropped down to my neck. With intent to keep this activity going longer, I wrapped my legs tightly around his hips and he moaned into my mouth. One of his hands started to slide up my shirt while another greedily grabbed at my thigh. I took the opportunity to run my nails lightly over his warm skin, the hard arm muscles and the beyond-defined back giving me even more momentum. Again, every place our bare skin met, that magical insurgence almost sent me over the edge without even touching those places below my stomach.
But all too soon, Noah broke away from the kiss. He rested his forehead against mine and pulled away slightly when I tried to initiate contact again. “Cressa,” he sighed. “I’m not sure if this is a good idea…”
I didn’t have anything to say to that, so I placed my hands on his cheeks and forced him to look at me. “Did you like that?”
He chuckled and lowered himself a tiny bit more. I felt all of him digging into me in a way that made me want to order him to stay. “Of course. But—”
“No buts. It was just a kiss and that’s all it has to be.” Liar!
Noah focused on my eyes for a second and then turned his head so that he could kiss my hand on his face. “It’s not that I don’t want to—”
“Shh.” I placed my finger over his lips. “Let’s just leave it there for now, okay?”
He opened his mouth and sucked on my finger tip. I closed my eyes in pure delight and almost forgot that he was trying to slow us down. When I felt him laugh, I finally opened my eyes again, disappointed when he lifted himself off of me. “We should get going.”
“Just let me cool down a minute here,” I grumbled, totally apathetic to how he might make fun of me for that statement.
“I like you like t
hat,” he said.
I lifted my head high enough to see him staring at me from across the room. “Like what?”
“Spread out on the bed.”
With frustration, and a rush of hormones threatening to take me down, I dropped my head back onto the mattress. “You know,” I spoke to the ceiling while trying to think of unsexy objects, “if you keep saying things like that, then I’m not going to let you leave my bedroom.”
“Fair enough,” Noah said with a hoarse voice, indicating he felt something too.
Several moments later, I peeled myself off the bed and grabbed a jacket from my closet. Once I put my boots on and wrapped a scarf around my neck, I could finally look at Noah again without having tingling sensations shooting through my body. Well, almost.
“So where are we going?” I asked.
“Another cemetery I’m afraid.”
“That’s okay with me. I like cemeteries.” I shrugged because, well, I really did. I guess when your special talent is working with the dead, their places of burial take on a different meaning.
Noah wrapped his arm over my shoulder. “You’re weird.”
“Really? You’re calling me weird?” I asked. “The man who turns into a bird thinks I’m weird?”
After Noah squeezed me a little tighter, a small part of the knot in my stomach loosened. But as we left my apartment, I felt a sudden sense of loss. Would this be the last time he’d be here with me? How much longer would he be in town?
Negative thoughts swirled around me like Mr. Padlo’s uncontrollable spirits. If I didn’t get a hold of them, they may just make me crazy like the Cajun Conjurer. I had to smile at myself when I thought about it some more, even though deep in my gut, I feared that Noah would be leaving me all too soon.
While we were at another cemetery, this one was much nicer than the first place. Located in the middle of Millionaire Row, the smaller plot of land boasted rows of mausoleums built to rival those you might see in Savannah, Charleston, or New Orleans. Vines grew on many of them, giving off that old, yet sophisticated vibe. Most were made of gray stone and all of them had some sort of sculpture above each door.