Black Magic Woman (9 page)

“Feel free to give notice anytime,” she grumbled. “I didn’t ask for your ‘protection’ and since I don’t see the jerk from last night hiding behind the drapes, I think we can assume that I’m safe now.”

Asher set down his teacup with great deliberation and leveled those silver-gold eyes on her with serious displeasure. “I was afraid after listening to your version of last night’s incident that you weren’t taking this seriously enough, and now I’m certain of it. Just because you’ve been removed from D’Abo’s presence doesn’t mean you’re any safer than you were inside that nightclub.”

“How do you figure? Unless you’re planning to curse me this time.”

Corinne made a strangled sound, but Daphanie was too busy watching Asher’s jaw clench to see what might be the matter with her friend.

“I am stronger than temptation, Ms. Carter. I am also a Guardian, and therefore the only thing at the moment standing between you and a serious magical threat.”

“Um, I’d like to get back to the serious magical threat thing in a minute,” Corinne said, raising her hand tentatively even as she interrupted the conversation. “You might have picked this up from us talking earlier, but neither Daph nor I are what you would call experts in Others identification. So would you mind explaining exactly what a Guardian is, first off?”

Asher shifted his gaze from one woman to the other and sighed. “In the simplest terms, we are a group of defenders whose job it is to protect humans from harm at the hands of the Others. If a human does violence against a human, that’s what the police are for. If an Other attacks an Other, the Council of Others can take appropriate action. But humans are so much weaker than the Others, at such a disadvantage against beings who can use magic or enhanced strength and senses to harm them, that the Guardians were created to … balance the scales, as it were.”

“So are you human or an Other?” Corinne demanded.

“What good would I be if I were merely another human?” Asher scoffed. “Guardians are our own race, created by the first Watcher and bred since then for the sole purpose of continuing our mission.”

The man hated explaining himself. It showed clearly in his expression, which Daphanie watched as intently as she listened to his words. She couldn’t get over how a face could be simultaneously so blankly grim and yet so easy for her to read. Maybe it wasn’t really his expression she was reading, she decided. Maybe it was those changeable silver-gold eyes.

“Oh, right. Daphanie mentioned the wings. I suppose that should have answered the human question, but I guess I’m a little unclear on exactly how you’re going to protect her. Or from what.”

Daphanie saw a flicker of anger in Asher’s metallic eyes and reached out a hand as if she could grab Corinne and yank her back from the precipice. But Corinne was a reporter. She alternately scaled and leaped from precipices for a living.

“I see Daphanie is not the only one who fails to take this seriously.”

Corinne shrugged. “I guess I just don’t see what the big deal is. So she got into an argument with this D’Abo guy at the club. You broke it up, he said he wouldn’t hurt her, and everyone walked away. It sounds to me as if Daphanie was right in thinking you overreacted.”

“Is that so?” Asher’s voice had turned silky. Somehow it made Daphanie wary, especially when he turned to her and arched one imperious brow. “Daphanie, you mentioned earlier that you had an odd, unsettling dream last night. Why don’t you tell us about it.”

There wasn’t a hint of question in his tone; it was all polite command.

“What does her dream have to do with—”

Asher cut her off and gestured for Daphanie to go on. She wished he hadn’t. In fact, she wished she could forget the dream altogether. The coffee and conversation had all but wiped the last of the cobwebs from her mind. Just thinking about the dream made her feel somehow muddled again, as if the fog might begin to creep back with the memory.

“It was just … weird,” she began reluctantly. “I’ve never had a dream like this before, where I really felt like I wasn’t myself. I mean, I’ve had dreams where I wasn’t really me. You know, where I was playing some other sort of character or in some nonsensical situation, but I’ve never had a dream before where I felt like I did in this one. I really felt like someone else, right down to my bones. The thoughts, the feelings, the way of looking at the world. They were all just … foreign. Not me at all.”

She could see Corinne’s confused face out of the corner of her eye, and she could feel Asher’s gaze intent upon her, but she didn’t look at either of them. The minute she’d tried to remember, the dream had flooded back and filled her vision.

“I don’t know who I was supposed to be. No one was talking in it, so it’s not like I heard someone call my name. And I didn’t actually see where it was. It was like I had my eyes closed, even in the dream. I could hear things, and smell things, but I couldn’t see anything about where I was.”

“What did you hear?” Asher asked quietly, forcefully.

Daphanie paused, remembering. “Drums. Not like a drum kit for a rock band, but a lot of single drums. Like in African or Caribbean music, or in a Native American ceremony. There were a lot of people playing drums. And I think some of them were singing in the background, or chanting. But I couldn’t really hear the words, just the sound of voices.”

“What else?”

She frowned, almost afraid to concentrate too hard on the memory of the thing that had almost taken her over. “That was the main sound. I’m mean I’m assuming there was background noise from people moving around or the fire crackling or whatever, but it didn’t really make much of an impression.”

“There was a fire?”

“Yeah. Like a bonfire. And it was nighttime, because I could feel the heat from the fire, but on the side that faced away from the fire, my skin felt almost cold.”

“Go on. What else did you feel?”

“My clothes. I think I was wearing a dress, something with a full skirt, but not a really long one. A few inches past the knee, maybe. And I think I was dancing. I can remember feeling the skirt swishing around while I moved.”

“Do you remember anything else?”

Daphanie shook her head. “Just the smells. I remember the fire and wood smoke, but I smelled charcoal, too. And some kind of incense, I guess. I remember that it smelled sweet and musky and smoky all at once.”

Deliberately shaking herself, throwing off the sticky tendrils of the dream-memory, Daphanie wrapped her arms around herself and glared up at Asher. “That was the dream. But I don’t see what it has to do with last night.”

Asher’s brows shot up, but he didn’t look surprised so much as he looked like he was intentionally prodding her. “Don’t you? You don’t see what dreaming of a voodoo ceremony has to do with your encounter with an irate witch doctor?”

Daphanie’s heart skipped a beat. She assured herself it was shock. She was just shocked at his assumption. “A voodoo ceremony? What on earth makes you think that was part of my dream? I think it’s a pretty big leap from dreaming about wearing a dress and hearing drums to dreaming about a voodoo ceremony.”

“And how many voodoo ceremonies have you been to?”

Beside her, Corinne coughed. Daphanie contented herself with a glare. “None, as I’m sure you’ve assumed. How many have you been to?”

“Enough to make an educated guess about the content of your dream,” he replied evenly. “If I’m wrong, I’ll happily apologize later, but in the meantime, it’s my job to assume that your dream is evidence of D’Abo’s continued interest in you. You have no idea what the man is capable of, but influencing your dream would not be beyond the skills of a powerful practitioner.”

Daphanie felt a stirring of unease. “Is D’Abo really that powerful?”

“Do you want to take the chance of assuming that he isn’t?”

“I don’t want to assume anything, but I also don’t want to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder and waiting for some crazed witch doctor to jump out from behind a tree and turn me into a toad. I want an accurate gauge of exactly how much worrying I’m supposed to do.”

“None,” he told her, his voice firm, his tone dismissive. “While you are under my protection, you don’t need to worry at all, merely exercise common-sense caution.”

“That’s not an answer.”

Asher looked like he wanted to answer with an attempt at strangulation. Instead, he glared at her and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

“How. Powerful. Is. Charles. D’Abo?” Daphanie demanded through clenched teeth.

“I don’t know.”

Daphanie blinked.

“You don’t know?” Corinne repeated after a long minute of silence. “You mean you’ve made all of this fuss over someone who might not be any more powerful than … a first-year Hogwarts student?”

Asher apparently got the pop-culture reference. At least he looked sufficiently unamused for Daphanie to guess that he had.

“No,” he bit out carefully. “D’Abo is definitely worth our concern and our caution. He reeked of magic when I saw him last night, all of it dark. That’s not something to take lightly. And do I have to remind you that the fundamental truth remains that no matter how powerful a witch he is,
he
is
Other
and
you
are
human
?”

Daphanie and Corinne looked at each other. Corinne pursed her lips.

“There is that,” she conceded.

“Thank you,” Asher snapped.

“So what we really need to know, then, is who this D’Abo fellow really is and how seriously we should take him as a threat,” Corinne continued, nodding decisively. “I know I’ve never heard of him before today, but I’m not sure that means much. For as many stupid sensation pieces my paper has run on black magic and human sacrifice threatening the very heart of Manhattan, there have to be at least a hundred supposed voodoo temples in the city. There’s no reason for his to have stood out.”

Asher nodded reluctantly. “I had planned to begin making inquiries, gathering information, but I am reluctant to do so with Daphanie at my side. I can’t guess what we could be stirring up, and I don’t take chances with the humans in my care.”

“Leave her to me.”

Daphanie watched in annoyed bemusement as the two people in the room set about planning her day for her.

“I’ll take her with me. I’d like to do a little digging myself, and when it comes to things Other, I always head straight to the source. Daph, go put on some clothes. We’ll head over there now.”

“Over where?” Daphanie and Asher asked simultaneously.

“The bat cave,” Corinne said. “Missy’s place.”

“Missy?”

“Missy and Graham Winters,” Corinne explained to Asher. “I can’t think of anyplace safer for Daphanie to be when she’s not with you than under the nose of the alpha of the Silverback Clan. Can you?”

Daphanie saw Asher actually mull the question over before he conceded with a sharp nod.

“Plus, Missy’s my primary source for this kind of material. I’ll ask her about this D’Abo character.” Corinne stood and shooed Daphanie toward the bedroom to change her clothes. “And let me tell you, if she doesn’t have the answers, someone next door will.”

Five

Of course, by saying that the average human has no need to fear the Others, we’re not suggesting that nonhumans can’t be dangerous. They can be—very dangerous. But if a person minds her own business and makes a modest effort to respect the Others around her, she can be fully confident that she’s no more likely to be killed by one of them than by one of her own kind.

—A Human Handbook to the Others,
Chapter Three

The reason for Corinne’s confidence in the knowledge possessed by her friend’s next-door neighbors owed a lot to the fact that Melissa Roper Winters lived in the town house directly beside and adjoining the building that housed Vircolac. The club had been established centuries before by ancestors of her husband, and Graham Winters continued to own and operate the venerable Other institution in addition to managing the city’s resident Lupine pack, the Silverback Clan. More than once, Daphanie had heard Missy refer to her husband half jokingly as a bit of an overachiever.

Daphanie just called him scary. Almost as scary as the Guardian who had walked her and Corinne to their friend’s front door and refused to go any farther than the end of the block until he could see them inside.

Thankfully, Missy informed them that Graham wasn’t in when she answered her bell and welcomed both women to her home. Daphanie stepped inside and out of Asher’s sight with a mingled sense of relief and … loss?

“Well, this is a surprise.” Melissa, a petite blonde with sweet features and intelligent eyes, led them into a cozy study and settled them on a luxuriously battered leather sofa. “I figured you’d both be sleeping until noon after yesterday. Especially you, Daphanie. Your mom told me how ragged Danice had you all running with prep work. She said she didn’t expect to hear from you anytime before next weekend.”

Daphanie shifted uncomfortably. She’d liked Missy from the first time she’d met the woman, but then she couldn’t imagine anyone who didn’t. Melissa was a kindergarten teacher by training and a nurturer by design. Even before she’d married and started having kids, she’d always struck Daphanie as the maternal type. She was always trying to take care of the people around her, and just being with her made a person feel more tranquil.