Spell or High Water Page 9

  My first thought was that Josh wasn’t wearing his glasses. I actually liked glasses on guys, but without them, it was easier to appreciate the man’s thick, dark lashes and finely arched eyebrows.

  My second thought was why did he have such a strange look on his face? It was almost like hope.

  “Did your dad tell you I was here?”

  “Oh, hi, Josh. No, he didn’t. Why?”

  Just like that, the look on his face slipped away, but he covered well, and his smile was still friendly. “I just thought maybe he had. I called to see how the deal went and if you might be free for the evening. He said you were off doing something, so I asked him to let you know I was heading to Mariasol’s and that you could join me if you got back in time. I knew it was a long shot, but I like the pier anyway.”

  I made a mental note to discourage Dad’s meddling by staging a full-blown tantrum if I had to. He’d known full well where I was and with whom. Dad might have thought he was setting up a meet cute, but all he’d succeeded in doing was hurting his friend.

  “Why do you like the pier so much?” I asked because I couldn’t think of anything else to say. “It’s so touristy.”

  “I know.” He shrugged. “But it’s fun too, and full of life. The pier has its own story, like it’s something out of…”

  “Legend?” It took a moment before I realized I’d finished his sentence for him.

  “Exactly! It’s like heightened reality when I’m here. Besides, I love the water.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  Now, to be honest, being a fire witch, I didn’t exactly love water, but I did understand what he meant. Though my affinity was to fire, I was at least partially sensitive to all the other elements too.

  I looked at Josh with renewed appreciation, and Mac chose that moment to come looking for me. “All paid up. Are you ready to go?”

  Josh was a very smart guy. I could tell it took him no time at all to figure things out. Once again, I felt like a witch with a capital B. But I also didn’t have to answer to my father’s renter about who I did or didn’t go out with, so I pushed the guilt away.

  Mostly.

  I made the introductions. “Josh, this is MacAdam Ward. He’s buying the house in Beverly Hills. Mac, Josh is a friend of the family’s. He’s kind of a bigwig in the tech side of the film industry.”

  Mac’s smile was sincere. “How fascinating! Theresa and I were just leaving, but I’d love to hear more about it sometime. Maybe Don can set something up.”

  Josh nodded. “Sure. I was just leaving too. The sky is so strange today that I thought I could get some cool pictures.” I realized then that the leather bag slung over his shoulder must be a camera bag.

  “You’re a photographer as well? Talented man!”

  “Just an amateur.”

  I turned to Mac in the moment of slightly awkward silence which followed. “We should probably get going then.” And then more awkwardness ensued as we realized we were all leaving at the same time.

  Once outside, we said our goodbyes again, and Mac hurried off towards the very end of the pier. Josh strode over to the railing and began pulling out his gear. I was less excited to get so close to the icy spray coming off the water, so I paused to knot the hair whipping around my face into a rough bun.

  “Theresa!”

  I turned back. Josh was holding a camera with a long lens on it, but he was looking at me.

  “Yes?”

  “Aren’t you cold? Do you want my jacket?”

  “I’m fine,” I reassured him. “I’ll see you later.” As I hurried after Mac, it didn’t escape me that he hadn’t once asked if I was cold, or offered his jacket. Of course, coming from Scotland, he probably expected women to be of heartier stock, weather-wise.

  As I approached the end of the pier, the wind stung my skin, and it was cold, so much colder than just outside the restaurant. There were no other tourists nearby. In fact, there was hardly anyone else on the entire pier from what I could see. The Ferris wheel had stopped moving, and the rides appeared to have shut down. The weather had gone from being a novelty to something almost a little frightening.

  I exerted a little more magic to raise the temperature of the air immediately surrounding my body. It was like igniting tiny, almost invisible flames. Someone with magic could probably see them, but no one else.

  Mac was staring intently out at the Pacific, but I’d lost any enthusiasm for this venture. Maybe it was all the water dampening my fire sense, but the place felt more than cold.

  It felt hostile.

  But Mac appeared to be in his element. “It’s here! Can’t you feel it?” His excitement was almost manic.

  “I don’t know. Maybe. What are we supposed to do now?” I was afraid of the answer. I hadn’t made the connection until now that finding this mystical place of power between realities might require going in the water.

  And there was no way on God’s warm, green, dry earth I was going to do that!

  Mac raised his arms as if to embrace the entire ocean. “The magic is rising! I can feel it!” He frowned. “But it’s fragmented somehow. Gran told me the focus on the summer solstice by so many witches and fae would create a magical nexus bridging the barriers between realities, making it easier to cross. By her calculations, the rising disturbance should be at its height, but I can’t quite grasp it.” He struggled to explain, “It’s as if it’s rising and falling all at the same time.”

  For some reason, my gut was filling with dread. “But why? What is it?”

  Mac set his jaw. “That’s what I intend to find out.”

  I touched his arm and was surprised by a sudden feeling of weakness. Alarmed, I let go, but the strange lassitude had already passed. Then, as if the magical pressure building around us had been waiting for that moment, I felt something—something—go through me like an arrow.

  Horror filled me. I looked down, expecting to see a gaping wound in my chest. There was nothing. But I was cold, so very cold. The flame of my magic was only a tiny thing burning deep in my soul, and hardly enough to keep me warm and alive.

  “Mac!” I staggered and nearly fell, but the man wasn’t looking at me. His gaze was fixed intently on the waves.

  “Help me!” I begged through chattering teeth. “Please!” I needed to get somewhere safe and warm where my magic could recover, not to mention my human body which was now as prone to frostbite and exposure as anyone else’s.

  As the panic in my voice registered, Mac turned, but I couldn’t see his face. Fat snowflakes were hurtling down from the sky between us, swiftly coating the wooden surface of the pier in a layer of icy frosting.

  Chapter Six

  To his credit, Mac didn’t hesitate. Rushing over, he put his arm around me and guided me along the increasingly slippery pier, holding me upright whenever I slipped. Every step, I felt weaker and weaker. I had to have been barely carrying my own weight because Mac was trembling and gasping for breath by the time we reached the car. He wasn’t that much taller than I was, I realized. Josh wouldn’t have been so winded.

  That strange, stray thought made me look back to see where my dad’s renter was. Finally, I located him. He was still at the end of the pier. We must have gone right by him, but the swirling snow had concealed him from view as we passed. Someone else was with him too—someone much smaller, like a child—but before I could tell for certain, Mac had got in the driver’s seat and unlocked the car. I felt a little stronger, but the cold made it hard to think. I got in the car too. Josh was a big boy. He could take care of himself.

  Mac cranked up the heat and then sped out of the parking lot, barely managing to avoid sideswiping another fleeing vehicle as we pulled onto the main road. I put Dad’s address into the onboard mapping system for him and then closed my eyes as the heat embraced me.

  The next thing I knew, Mac was shaking me awake. “Theresa, we’re here.”

  “What?” I sat upright. “Oh, sorry, I must have fallen asleep.”

/>   “You scared me. I thought you were unconscious. I didn’t know if I should take you to the hospital or not.”

  I took a mental inventory and was pleased to discover both my physical and magical warmth were almost restored. “I guess the mix of jet lag and the cold just knocked me out.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I felt it too. Something made me weak. It’s better now, but I wasn’t going to dare going in like that.”

  I’d guessed right; the route to the Heart was through the water.

  I wiped the fog off my window and looked out. The patch of grass which normally passed for my dad’s front lawn was covered in a layer of snow, and the sky was so dark with storm clouds that the automatic streetlights had come on. “This isn’t natural.”

  “No, it isn’t.” The excitement was back in his voice. “Which is proof my great-grandmother was right. As soon as you’re safe inside, I’m going back. This might be my only chance to find the space between realities and what’s in it.”

  I wanted to volunteer to go back with him, but couldn’t make myself. I’d never felt so helpless before. There was a threat there I didn’t know how to name, let alone combat.

  “It’s not safe there. I wish you would stay.” I surprised myself when I heard the note of longing in my voice.

  Mac smiled, but from the abstracted expression on his face, his thoughts were already back at the pier. He brushed my concern away. “I’m planning on staying on this side of the pond for a wee while. There’ll be lots of time to get to know one another better once this mystery is solved.”

  And with that promise, he escorted me to the door. For a moment, I thought he might kiss me—I wanted him to—but he only brushed my cheek with his fingers. My skin was already numb with the cold and I couldn’t feel it.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow and tell you all about it.” Careless of the ice and snow, he bounded down the path to his car. Once inside, he gave me a jaunty wave and then pulled away. I watched until the car disappeared around the bend.

  Disappointed, I punched the code into the keypad to open the door and went inside. “Dad!” I yelled, but there was no response. I pulled my phone and credit card out of the pocket of my sodden skirt, and since no one was home, I stripped down right in the middle of the foyer. Leaving my clothes in a wet pile by the door, I went to my room and put on a pair of soft tights and a ballet wrap top. Unknotting my hair, I shook it out and gathered it back into a tight ponytail.

  When I checked, I saw my phone was getting low on battery, so I took it to the kitchen to plug it in and charge. Then I called my father using the house phone, and after two tries, he finally picked up. “Sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t hear you ring at first.”

  I could barely hear him over the noise in the background. “Where are you? When are you coming home?”

  “I tried, but it’s gridlock everywhere. The highway’s a mess from a bunch of accidents.” Dad’s office was on the other side of Hollywood Boulevard, a good half an hour away even on a slow traffic day. “I decided to check into a hotel for the night, and apparently so did the rest of LA! I’m just glad you’re home safe.”

  “Are you sure you can’t make it?” The strange weather had gotten under my skin and I didn’t want to be alone.

  “I’m sure. It took me over an hour just to go two blocks. Now that I know you’re safe, I’ll take a hot bath and order some room service. Once I get my room key, that is. Wait a second…” I heard someone speaking in the background. “That’s me. I’m up. Gotta go, sweetheart. I’ll see you in the morning bright and early.”

  “OK. Bye, Dad.”

  After I hung up, I turned on the gas fireplace and the TV above the mantle with the same remote, flipping through the channels until I found a newscast. It wasn’t comforting. The commentators were throwing around phrases like storm of the century and state disaster. This freakish cold that no one saw coming was moving up the coast.

  “Well, there goes Dad’s theory about a cold front from Canada.”

  A sudden flash of movement in the corner of my eye made me jump to my feet, fire leaping into my hands before I remembered it was probably only Josh going over to the guest house.

  Closing my hands into fists to extinguish the flames, I thought of what Mac had said about using the closest water source to power his abilities, but the flames in the fireplace hadn’t even flickered. I’d used available fire at hand before—it was how I’d first discovered my abilities—but I couldn’t remember the last time I’d concentrated hard on finding a nearby source. Fire came to me so easily and naturally.

  I walked over to the wall of glass to check for Josh, and yes, a tall, lean form was just visible through what was developing into an honest to goodness whiteout. It had to be him, and this time, I was certain the small figure with him was a child. Did Josh have a kid with an ex? I couldn’t remember Dad ever mentioning it, but then, I’d always deliberately turned my attention off whenever he started talking about Josh.

  For the first time, I wondered if I’d disregarded Josh precisely because my father liked him so much. Mom and Dad’s divorce was hard on me and my brother—of course it was—but we never heard them fight or say a bad word about one another. And as I got older and understood things better, I couldn’t blame Dad for leaving my mother. She was a wind witch. The very nature of her powers combined with the tragedy of my uncle’s death and the following estrangement from her only sister had made Mom unstable at best.

  Honesty time. No, I didn’t blame Dad for leaving her. I blamed him for leaving me to deal with her mess. I didn’t trust him because of that. And I certainly couldn’t trust a man my father had recommended.

  But my brother had always called me contrary, so perhaps that’s what propelled me to get my phone and head out the glass doors and across the patio.

  I pounded on the door, but it took a surprisingly long time for Josh to open it. “Theresa?” he said in surprise.

  “Hey, would you like some company? Dad’s stuck and is staying in a hotel for the night, so I’m all alone.” Even to my ears, that sounded like an invitation for something more, but I kept my eyes wide and innocent.

  “Um, now’s not really a good time…”

  “I know someone’s here. I saw you get home. I don’t mind. I love kids. Maybe we can play a game or something.” He hesitated. “C’mon, Josh, it’s freezing out here.”

  “Sure.” Strangely reluctant, he backed up slowly so I could enter.

  I shook the snowflakes off my hair and stamped my feet before going into the living room. “The place is even nicer than it looked in Architectural Digest.” Both the main house and the guest house had been designed by a famous architect, but over the years, the main house had been remodeled several times and lost its historical significance. The guest house retained a mid-century elegance combined with a touch of artistic whimsy in the décor. I walked over to a large black and white print depicting a closeup of three horses running. Their bodies were blurred by motion, but the wild joy in their eyes was sharp and focused. I had a sudden intuition.

  “Did you take this photo?” When he nodded, I was impressed. “You’re no amateur, Josh.”

  He shrugged, but he looked pleased. “I had to choose between science and art when I finished high school. I made the right choice for me, but I still like to dabble.”

  “So, Dad never said you were married before.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “Sorry, I just assumed with a kid and all…”

  He put up his hand. “It’s not like that. Look, can you promise not to freak out?”

  “Um, OK…”

  Josh motioned for me to follow him down the hall to the only bedroom. He opened the door carefully so as not to make any noise and I looked in. A small boy with dirty blond hair that was almost gray in tone lay nestled in the center of the bed.

  “I found him on the pier,” Josh whispered.

  “What do you mean you found him?”

  “He was al
l alone.”

  “So you decided to just take him?!”

  Josh pulled me away by the arm and back into the living room. “Look, it wasn’t like that! I started shooting, but the temperature dropped so fast, I was afraid my lens might crack. And then with the snow, I couldn’t see anything anyway. I was packing up when this kid appeared out of nowhere! He was shivering so hard, I thought he was having a seizure. I asked him if he was here with his parents, but he shook his head no. He wouldn’t say anything else. I tried to get help, but everyone else was gone by then.”

  “So you thought it was OK to abduct him?” Maybe my instinct not to trust Josh was right. Not his judgment anyway. I brandished my phone at him. “You need to call the police right now! Someone might be looking for him.”

  Shaking his head, he backed away from the phone like it was a snake ready to attack him. “No! You didn’t see him, Theresa. He was dressed in rags. He didn’t even have any shoes!”

  I stared at him for a second. “So you think he’s homeless?” The thought was sickening. By his size, the child I’d seen couldn’t have been more than four or five years old.

  “It’s possible. Yes.”

  “You still need to tell someone, the authorities…” I almost couldn’t believe I’d just said that. As witches, we considered ourselves above the law of the Mundanes. We policed ourselves. And we’d recently seen firsthand that law enforcement was more aware of our existence than we’d realized, and was taking measures to control us.

  “I’m not going to do that.” Josh’s jaw had set in a stubborn way I’d never seen before.

  “Josh…”

  “I was in the foster care system, OK. I was lucky. I finally ended up with a family which was only neglectful, instead of abusive like the three before them. My smarts got me out of there, but I won’t put that kid through it if I can help it.”

  I was reminded that aside from Dad’s assertions that Josh and I would be a good match, I knew almost nothing about the young man. For example, I hadn’t known he was an artist, or that he’d come from such a difficult background, or that he’d made something out of himself with no other support, or that he was so caring and compassionate.