Night Magic (3 page)

“Jesus Christ.” The younger one looked around and held his nose. He was a handsome
young Hispanic man.

Jane hurried forward, holding Kemble’s handkerchief to her cheek. “I’m so sorry.”

“Ms. Butler.” The older man with the salt-and-pepper hair nodded to Jane. “You know you have to keep your mother quiet.”

“Hard to do when she’s being assaulted,
officers,” Kemble said. He stood behind Jane. At least her mother had quieted down. She was muttering to herself and plucking at the covers.

The older officer peered at Jane. “It’s nothing,” she said. Kemble wasn’t helping.

“Doesn’t look like nothing to me. Do you want to press charges, Ms. Butler?”

“Of
. . . of course not.” She looked around, feeling a little confused. Kemble stood stiffly off to one side. Her mother looked triumphant.

“Well,
ma’am, you call her doctor and get her a sedative or something. You know we can’t have her disturbing the peace like this.” The older guy’s eyes were apologetic. “You need any help here?”

She shook her head. The officers turned to leave. The young one looked very relieved. Kemble strode past her and shut the door behind him.

Well, that was that. A little piece of her heart seemed to break off and flutter to the ground. Nothing new about that. Jane had been slowly losing pieces of her heart for years.

*****

Kemble couldn’t believe this whole situation. “Wait, officers. Aren’t you going to do anything about this? She’s a danger to her daughter.”

“What do you want us to do?” The older officer looked disgusted. “Arrest an old woman in a hospital bed? The girl won’t press charges on assault. She never does. So she just has to keep the old bat quiet.”

“And clean up the house,” the younger one murmured.

“This has happened before?”

“About once a week,” the older officer said, shrugging. “Minus the shit all over the walls.”

“But you’ll file a report
,” Kemble insisted. “At least note that Jane was assaulted.”

“Sure.” The older officer sighed. “For all the good it’ll do.”

Kemble watched them walk away. He’d never felt so frustrated in his life. He’d had no idea what Jane had been dealing with. No one at the Breakers knew. How could they let this happen to someone they considered part of the family? He should have checked it out. Jane had no one to protect her. And it sounded like Jane had been hit before. He’d fallen down on the job, as usual. But as of now this had to stop. The police wouldn’t do anything. Maybe they couldn’t, but what about social workers or something? Couldn’t the old witch be put in a home?

He turned back to the house, hesitating. Jane wouldn’t allow that. Taking care of your mother was what you owed for her raising you, she said.

But nobody owed this.

He pushed back into the house without even knocking. He had a feeling Jane might not let him in. It wasn’t lost on him that she hadn’t wanted him to see this. She was standing behind her mother’s bed, turned away toward the window, her back to Kemble. Her mother’s incoherent mumbling was punctuated by cursing, and cackles. “Jane, come back to the Breakers. Let Mother take care of that cut on your cheek.”

“You know I can’t leave her alone.” Her voice sounded distant.

“Sure you can. Ernie and Ken can take a turn watching her.”

“And leave you unprotected?” She sighed, turning. “Go home, Kemble.”

“I’ll send over a cleaning crew
. . . .”

“Kemble, no. I’ll clean it up.”

“Really, it’s just a call away.” He reached for his phone.

“No.” Jane actually raised her voice. “How would I pay for it?”

He shut his mouth when he found it hanging open. “You don’t have to pay for it, Jane.” He shrugged and tried to muster a grin, just to lighten things up.

Now Jane started wringing her hands. “Your father built me a darkroom at the Breakers, for goodness’ sake. I eat with your family, drink with you. I’ve been mooching off the Tremaines for
. . . for years.” Her voice broke. “I’ve got to stop.”

“What good is having money if you can’t use it to help people you like?”

He thought that was a pretty good response. So when her hands dropped to her sides and her gaze got flat and bleak, he didn’t understand what had gone wrong. “You’ve always been the one to give,” she said. Her voice was too calm. “You don’t know how it is to be the one who has to take all the time.”

He had no idea what she was talking about. The whole family loved Jane. Even after Drew
got married, nothing had changed. Jane still practically lived at the Breakers, at least until recently. She was as much a part of the family as. . . .

“Just go, Kemble. I mean it.”

He still hesitated. Whatever he said seemed to just make things worse. He ran his hand through his hair. His father would know what to do.

But Kemble didn’t.

He couldn’t just stand here forever, feeling useless.

So he tu
rned around and left her there.

CHAPTER TWO

Morgan smiled into the mirror. She wasn’t getting younger anymore, but soon she would. She turned her head. The long hair was streaked with gray, but it was only streaks. It looked more dramatic than old at this point. She peered at her eyes in the reflection. The sclerae were almost white again around her golden irises. Wrinkles, yes, of course. Who was it that said a woman’s neck never lies? But it could be worse. It had been worse. Rotting corpse worse.

And now Hardwick had located the Cup. She squinched her eyes shut as the thrill of it rolled through her. She’d be getting younger again soon. And she thought there was a way to take the Tremaines out at the same time. She wanted to shout or jump or scream. But she didn’t. Best she channel the energy into her plan.

She pulled on a red velvet dressing gown. She didn’t like to leave the presence of the Talismans for long. At first they’d made her feel queasy, the force of their power overwhelming. But now their power was seeping into her, making her own powers grow stronger, her body young. Their magic was a drug that made her feel like the queen it was her destiny to be. Wrapping her robe around her body, she entered the living area of her private suite. She owned the casino and its attached hotel now, thanks to her Cloaker. Cloaking was a great power for robbing things. Jason just made himself disappear, followed the staff into any vault she named, pulled sacks of money in under his shroud of invisibility, and walked out. Talk about money seeming to just disappear. It almost made up for having her plot to bring down the European banking system foiled last year by Brian Tremaine. Almost.

The new
, lighted display case that held the Wand had joined the one that housed the Sword. In the dim room, they glowed with their aura of power. Beautiful. The Sword was pristine, no matter that it was nearly sixteen hundred years old. The blade glinted. The jewels in the hilt winked at her. It was a huge weapon, as swords were in Merlin’s Dark Age Britain. That made it of similar size to the Wand in the case next to it. She grinned. The Wand had been concealed in plain sight as a walking staff. It was silver, inlaid with twining ribbon dragons that wound up the shaft. Its gleam was dull and throbbing rather than sharp like the Sword. Together they made half of the symphony of power she required for her purpose. Merlin, the idiot, left them for his progeny, never thinking that his archrival’s descendants would have the magic gene as well, and could use his precious Talismans. And now the Cup was within her grasp.

Hardwick was a genius. She’d have to think how to reward him. Only he would have kept at it until he found those crumbling manuscripts that mentioned finding a
“cup fit for a king.” The monk who found it embellished it with more jewels and gave it to his bishop. In France. That was the key to tracing the Cup’s whereabouts. Centuries later, it was given to a king.

In the shadows of the room several figures waited. The Clan was growing. She still hadn’t found a Firestarter to replace the one the Tremaine spawn killed, though.

Tremaines. A flash of hatred shuddered over her. They bred like rats. She sat irritably at the escritoire she used for makeup, not writing. She’d offered Brian Tremaine everything. And he’d turned her down to go it alone with his little do-gooder nurse. If she hadn’t lost track of them on his escape route, she’d have convinced him to dump the bitch, destiny or not. Why was a brilliant con man using his ability to make boatloads of money in a legitimate business? Let alone one that invested in “green technology” and “disaster relief.” Disaster relief was about the last thing Morgan wanted. Well, soon they’d pay. With everything they held dear.

A channel of light cut into the dim room with the opening of the door to the outside corridor, breaking her reverie.

Ah. “Hardwick. What have you got for me?”

The spectral man held up a fan of ticket jackets
. “Twelve plane tickets to Athens tomorrow, under pseudonyms, of course. The return trips are scheduled for two weeks. The Intercontinental Hotel in Athens has rented us the whole floor. Twelve doubles have been engaged. I’ve made the usual arrangements to get you to the monastery Monday. And you will return three days later.”

“Excellent.” She took the proffered ticket jacket. Her reflection in the glass of the display cases showed a covetous smile. “I can’t wait to see how my little project is doing. Wouldn’t do to let him forget how grateful he is to me.”

Hardwick cleared his throat. “Is he . . . safe?”

She chuckled. “Brother Theodosius is very devoted to his God and my donations. And a monastery is as safe a place as any for a virgin.” She examined the ticket briefly to see if he’d gotten her favorite first class seat. Yes. 2b. She glanced up at Hardwick. “And when I return, we are off to L.A. Keep track of the Tremaines. I want to make sure they know where the Cup is as well. That will pry them out of their fortress.”

Hardwick nodded. “And we’ll sit tight here until you return.”

“Locked in the suite. No one leaves. I want no sightings stateside.”

*****

Kemble turned on his heel and strode down to the wing the family called
the Bay of Pigs, because it had once housed all the less-than-tidy Tremaine boys. He and his youngest brother, Lanyon, were the only male Tremaines in residence here since Tristram and Devin were both married. He closed the door to his room and went to the window. It overlooked the stables where Tamsen kept her horses, and farther on, the sea. Off to the right, the shoreline of Santa Monica Bay curved. Planes hung in the clear late-May air as they landed and took off at the L.A. airport fifteen miles away. For once the view didn’t soothe him. Maybe it was the noise of the wedding party. He shut the window and pulled the heavy drapes.

He touched the keyboard of his computer absently. It leaped to life and glowed softly in the dark. He stared down at the screen without seeing it. His vision was filled with the pain in Jane’s gentle gray eyes. He’d left her there, for God’s sake. What kind of a man was he?

Damned dinner jacket. He couldn’t breathe. He pulled the bow from his tie and threw the jacket on the bed. To hell with it. He was sending a cleaning crew over there. Jane was a good person. They all depended on her for advice. She had common sense and a quiet, determined way about her that made everything seem possible. Jane knew before just about anyone that Devin and Keelan were destined for each other. And underneath that gentleness, Jane was strong. Witness her living with her mother for all these years. She deserved more than the life she led.

He sat, typed in his password, and started a search for emergency cleaning crews.

Then he sat back. Jane didn’t want charity.

A strange quiet came over him. He saw his life stretching out ahead of him and it seemed
small. His father would probably never retire, thank God, because Kemble was no Brian Tremaine. He was a competent second in command for Tremaine Enterprises. But he’d never be able to lead the company or the family, or protect them from the descendants of Morgan Le Fay who were on the hunt for any Tremaine they could find. His father, with his razor sharp instincts and his brutal intelligence, was all that was standing between the Tremaines and those who wanted to kill them. Plus rule the world or something. The Clan had incredible destructive powers, and now they possessed two of the Talismans made by Merlin to increase the power of his descendants. They might be unstoppable even for Brian Tremaine. Kemble was no help at all.

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. “You there, son?”

Great. “Yes.”

His father strode into the room like it was the shareholder meeting of a public company, commanding a stage much bigger than his son’s bedroom suite. But when he got inside, he paused. Guess it surprised him that the room was dark. The channel of light from the open door kept him in silhouette but still
Kemble could tell his dinner jacket fit him perfectly. His gray-streaked black hair only made him more commanding. Senior closed the door quietly and just stood there. Kemble saw him glance to the bow tie and the jacket tossed on the bed. He knew it wasn’t like Kemble to be untidy.