.5 To Have and To Code (2 page)

“Dude.”  Daniel pulled his friend to a stop.  “Do not let her set me up on any more dates.”

Becky was Pedro’s sister—and she’d inherited matchmaking genes from both the Hispanic and Chinese sides of the family.  It was her calling—and she was insanely good at her job.  She’d hooked up her older brother, several cousins, a grateful uncle, and half their college baseball team.

Daniel and Pedro had been the last men left standing.  Until Christmas, and Chloe—the soft-spoken, potty-mouthed police dispatcher who had knocked his best friend’s heart into the next town’s bleachers. 

It had been like watching a grown man drown.  Happily.

“It’s not so bad, you know.”  Pedro dodged a fleeing skateboard and its pursuing owner.

“What isn’t?”

“The life you think I have now.” 

Daniel knew enough to keep his opinions to himself.  Psychologists ate innocent opinions for breakfast.  “Think we’ll break our losing streak today?”

Pedro snickered and ignored the pathetic attempt to change topics.  “Just because you’re still standing in the single-guy swamp doesn’t mean you have to build a mansion there.”

The time for that warning had long since come and gone.  “I’m a loner.”

That just earned him more snickers.  “Like hell you are. The right woman just hasn’t come along yet.”

If his recent dates had been any indication, she wasn’t anywhere on the continent. Daniel turned the corner and ducked through the narrow gate in the chain-link fence, suddenly grumpy.  “Let’s just go play some freaking baseball.”

“Wasn’t trying to poke at you.”  Apology laced his friend’s voice.

No—but a certain psychologist was damn good at making people poke themselves.  “I know.  Let’s go earn our beer.”

“Okay.”  Pedro grinned and waved at the monster guy standing behind home plate, and then turned to catch the child-shaped bullet launching into his arms.  “Hey, Maddie—what are you doing here?”

“I came with Auntie Chloe,” said the small girl, fluttering her eyes.  “Mama said I was a stinker and someone should take me away before she left me at the zoo with all the monkeys.”

Chloe had twin three-year-old nieces who followed her everywhere and had wrapped Pedro around their capable little fingers before Becky’s carefully engineered Christmas party had come to an end.  Now they were apparently the closest thing the Dustkickers had to a cheering squad.

Daniel headed off toward first base—watching his best friend get all gooey with a little girl in his arms was just going to make him grumpy again.  And it was worrisome.  The closer Pedro and Chloe got to holy matrimony, the more likely Becky would divert her gaze long enough to notice someone else was still happily single.

Becky was death to single—of the happy variety or any other kind.

Dammit.  Since when had the single-guy swamp been
un
happy?  Daniel shoveled his angst into a dark corner and put down the beer, waving at the guy behind the plate.  “Hey, Truck.  Ready to catch a few?”

“Always.”  What Truck lacked in agility, he made up for in sheer volume.  And he had insanely fast hands.  “Sure we can’t talk you into pitching?”

Daniel didn’t bother to answer—they’d already had that conversation too many times to count.  MVP college pitchers didn’t cream recreational players—it just wasn’t cool.  Pedro didn’t bat clean-up for the same reason.

Truck thought they both had an overdeveloped ethics gland—but he’d needed players badly enough to strike the deal.

Daniel stepped up to the pitcher’s mound—warming up with the catcher fell within deal terms, and it kept his mind off Pedro playing googly-eyes with a certain police dispatcher.

He lobbed a couple of soft ones at the plate, getting a rhythm moving, working the kinks out of his elbow.  Thunk.  Thunk.  The easy sound of ball on leather, a breeze blowing in off the ocean, and pizza in his future.  Forget the swamp.  Life was good.

Two arms wrapped tightly around his knees, nearly tipping him over.  He looked down at their owner.   Maddie or Carlie—he had no idea how to tell them apart.  Maybe all little girls just looked the same.  “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be out here, munchkin.”

Auntie Chloe, quick-marching across the diamond, seemed to think the same thing.

Defiant eyes glared up.  “I wanna learn how to throw the ball.”

The baseball was nearly as big as her head.  “You have to grow a bit first.”

“Do not.” 

Chloe arrived, out of breath.  “Maddie darling, let go of Daniel’s leg.  It’s not safe to be out here—one of these balls could put a big hole in your noggin.”

“No way.”  Maddie grinned and patted his shins.  “He throws way better than that.”

Dang it, how had he ended up a stubborn three-year-old’s best friend?

Truck shuffled toward the mound, fishing around in his pocket, finally emerging with something small, round, and screamingly pink.  “Here, try this.”

The darn thing ricocheted off Daniel’s glove and nearly blinded Chloe before he snagged it with his free hand.  “You want me to pitch a freaking Superball?”

“Nah.”  Truck took up his classic catcher’s position, sans glove, about six feet away from Maddie.  “I want her to do it.”

Daniel watched, stupefied, as a beaming three-year-old drilled a Superball into Truck’s chest—and the man with the fastest hands in baseball fell over backwards, feigning dead.

And then listened, oddly captivated, as sunshine-bright giggles spread out into the universe.

-o0o-

“It’s coming.”  Retha Sullivan stared out the window, well aware she was causing her husband of almost forty years significant worry.  It couldn’t be helped.

They’d always called it The Prophecy.  Said in hushed tones, with capital letters.  It was the only secret they’d ever kept from their daughter Nell—but it was a big one.

There wasn’t much else they could do.  Retha’s precog talent was sketchy and unpredictable—but it had drawn vivid, inescapable pictures of the future on the day Nell made her entrance into the world.

A child of fire and grit and impressive magic. 

A teenager of glorious power and fierce temper.

A woman of creativity, drive, and finely honed skill.  The best spellcaster of her era.

Mother to the most powerful witchling of five generations.

It was the last that had made them absolutely certain.  They’d held hands over their baby girl and resolved not to tell her.  No small and fragile child deserved to have her growth, her choices, the woman she would become, shaped by a vision.  Nell’s life would be hers to live.  It had been their own rebellion against the fates.

Retha prayed every day that it had been the right choice.

As Nell had grown, each of The Prophecy’s vivid pictures had come to life.  It was only the last that had yet to become real.  And the face of the child-who-might-be—the one who would hold the power of a dozen witches in his tiny hands—had haunted Retha.  She’d tucked his picture deep into her mind, well away from Nell’s mindreading talents.

And fallen in love with him anyhow.

They had raised all seven of their children to be shapers of their own destinies—and with Nell, she’d always wondered if it wasn’t a lie. 

Usually her precog visions were snippets.  Airy and uncertain—interesting, but often in error.  She’d never been able to convince herself The Prophecy was anything other than truth.  And her heart had always ached to hold the small boy she’d seen—the one with her eyes, the Sullivan curls, and unfathomable magic.

The child who would call her Gramma—and plunge her daughter into a life of enormity. 

Huge magic came at great price—to those who carried the magic, and to those who loved them in their often all-too-short lives.  And Nell loved with fire, depth, and unmatched loyalty.  Exactly the kind of mother the fates would pick for the witching world’s next Merlin.  History was full of evidence the universe was often just that cruel.

Michael’s arm wrapped around her shoulders, interrupting ground she’d walked in her mind far too often.  He tipped his head down to hers.  “Maybe it’s coming.  And maybe our daughter will kick whatever was planned to the curb and decide her own life.”

Her husband had always maintained that even destiny was going to have a hard time pushing their daughter around.  They’d raised her that way, nurturing the fiercely independent spirit she’d been born with.  “Perhaps.”  The Prophecy had been deadly accurate so far, right down to the stripey tights Nell had been wearing when she’d mastered her first complex spell.

And it was hard not to remember that little girl in pigtails when Retha contemplated the enormity of what might yet come.

“She’s had time,” said Michael softly.  “She’s a grown woman now, and a wonderful one.  More than capable of handling whatever life throws at her.”

Retha smiled up at the man who had held their tiny newborn daughter and dared anyone, the fates included, to mess with her.  “Just remember that when the poor guy shows up on her doorstep, will you?”  She was very sure he was coming.  Adorable, magical small boys required fathers.

But first, Retha hoped for the kind of romance that would sweep her daughter off her sturdy feet and touch the marshmallow heart that lived deep inside.

The Prophecy had suggested no such thing—but it hadn’t included the pigtails, either.

Michael smiled, picking up the edges of her thoughts.  “I loved those pigtails.  And if some guy shows up on Nell’s doorstep, I’m not the one you’re going to have to keep out of his way.”

Retha grinned.  Indeed.  Destiny hadn’t counted on Nell’s little brothers.

Chapter 2

Nell walked in the door of her parents’ house, laptop bag in one hand, obligatory box of cookies in the other.  And winced at the horrendous smell.  Cripes, she’d forgotten it was Wednesday night, the designated evening for all Sullivans to gather at the family home and be fed. 

Which was a good thing on the weeks someone competent was cooking.  This clearly wasn’t one of those weeks.  “Mom, are you torturing food again?”

Retha Sullivan poked her head out of the kitchen.  “I’m following your brother’s recipe.  He was fairly sure I couldn’t screw this one up.”

The wisdom of that advice depended on which brother was involved.  “Matt or Devin?”  Matt, studious and about as responsible as nineteen-year-olds got, might have managed to be helpful.  If it was Devin, she was going back for the snails.

Retha’s chuckle suggested her mindreading was in fine form today.  “Neither.  It’s one of Jamie’s, and he’s downstairs waiting for you.  Something about a librarian about to crack the Eternal Tower.”

Oh,
really.
  Game action!  Nell opened the cookie box, grabbed a couple, and cast a quick glance at the charred mess in her mother’s frying pan.  “I think you killed it, Mom—order pizza.  We’ll be up in a couple of hours.”

Laughter followed her down the stairs.  Which probably meant they’d get their pizza.

Nell hurried down into the programming headquarters of Enchanter’s Realm, a chaotic, homey place more commonly known as The Dungeon.  Her brother Jamie was coming out of the temperature-controlled room that housed their onsite servers, an amused look on his face.  “Hey.  The Hacker’s making a run for it.”

The Hacker was one of the newest players in Realm’s gaming online levels—and he’d ripped through the ranks.  In less than a month, he’d gone from newbie to the third-ranked player in their public portal, all while walking around with his nose in a book and dropping sneaky lines of code into everyone else’s spells.

He was a damned good coder, even if he played exactly the kind of game that usually bored Nell to tears.  She preferred fireworks—The Hacker slunk around in the shadows and did his damage with little fanfare.

Fanfare or no, he was now steps away from the secret door.  Nell grinned at her brother.  “Think he’ll make it in?”

Jamie shrugged.  “He’s got the coding chops, but we haven’t seen a whiff of magic from him yet.”

Realm had a set of very private, very secure witch-only levels, where magic and code blended to make the game an entirely different beast.  The only way to get there was through the secret door of the Eternal Tower—and it was magic that unlocked it.

It had always amused Nell that their sleepy little game had a secret underbelly.  Rumored, but never proven.  Unless you were a witch.

A new player approaching the magic test was high excitement in The Dungeon—they hadn’t had fresh blood in the witch-only levels for a while.  Gaming skills were required to fight through the devious traps in the first seven floors of the tower, however.  Nell looked over at Jamie’s king-sized monitor, scanning the streaming text.  “Made it through the first four challenges, did he?”  That was insane progress for a first run.  She looked up—the second-floor trap was one she’d just redesigned.  “How long did it take him to get past the mage?”

Her brother’s mind had smart aleck written all over it.  “Less than two minutes.”

Not freaking possible.  She slammed down into Jamie’s chair, scanning chat history and time stamps.  Damn.  Eleven minutes from start to floor five—and every last gamer in Realm had come to watch.