Night Magic (9 page)

She left the boy standing naked and walked out into the twilight, the monk behind her.

“Until your next visit,” he called. “May a merciful God bring you back soon.”

Yes. She’d be back, more often now that the Talismans had made her young and healthy again. She’d be younger still when she acquired the Cup. She chuckled to herself. Even now, the Tremaines would be realizing that the Clan was out of the country. They’d feel safe. With luck, they’d attend the opening of the exhibit of medieval art at the museum. She’d have the Cup. She’d have the Tremaines. Only two steps left in her plan.

Once she had the Pentacle, Thomas would make her immortal.

*****

“You’ve been really on edge since that last vision,” Michael said. Drew let him draw her into his arms in the kitchen. Everyone else had gone to up to bed. Kemble had taken Jane home and made a beeline for the computer in his bedroom when he got back. The rest of the family had departed hastily thereafter. No one wanted to say what was on everyone’s mind about Jane. “Wanna share?” Michael prodded. “Makes it better.”

Just what Drew didn’t want to do. “I have visions three or four times a day, lately. I thought I had them under control but they’re getting worse.” That was depressing in itself.

“Most don’t upset you like this anym
ore. Maybe that’s a good sign.”

“What good is it to see the future if you can’t do anything about it?” The anger just burst out. She was as surprised as Michael probably was.

“You were instrumental in saving all of us up in Hollywood,” Michael reminded her. Delta Force, unflappable. “We’d all be dead today without the knowledge you got from your vision.” He drew her over to the couch on the far side of the little breakfast table for six, and sat, pulling her down. “Now cough it up, baby.”

Drew sank onto his lap and buried her head in the soft skin at his neck where it joined his shoulder, burrowing into his open collar. She inhaled deeply. Michael: her anchor when she lost her compass, her dose of gritty reality when things got unreal. The light from the one table lamp in the corner made the setting intimate, safe-feeling. “I saw a funeral,” she said. It came out muffled against his muscle.

She felt him tense before he could check himself, then deliberately relax. “Okay. Not enough info yet, darlin’.”

“We were there, the family. At least most of us were, I think. And Jane. I couldn’t see too many faces. I couldn’t see you.” Her throat was almost closed.

“We all have to go someday. Fact of life, baby.” He stroked her hair. She was stuck with long hair until she was ninety, because as long as he loved it, she would never cut it short. “Maybe it was way in the future.”

She’d been racking her brain to remember every detail of that horrible vision. “I’ve been trying to figure out whether the few faces I could actually see looked older. Tris and Maggie looked pretty much the same. But their heads were bowed and besides, the Tremaine men hold age well and Maggie’s turned
-up nose and pixie face will make her look young forever, drat her. Jane was there, but she wore a short veil. Lanyon looked—drawn. Maybe older.” Why didn’t that make her feel better? “I didn’t recognize the minister. It wasn’t Pastor McFarland.”

“That’s it. The minister was probably someone new who won’t arrive for decades.” She could feel the rumble of his words under her hand on his chest. “Or the grave isn’t for one of the family. Jane’s mother hasn’t been well, and we’d all go to her funeral just to support Jane.”

Drew brightened. That was bad of her. But personally, she thought the woman deserved the death she was likely to get. Or it could be their attorney, Miles. She didn’t want to think of Miles dying. But it was better than Michael or one of the immediate family being the focus of the funeral. Guilt struck. Maybe it’s Miles’s mother, she amended. We’d go to her funeral too.

“Honey, you can’t worry about this stuff. You’ve got to let it go, for your own good.”

“I know. . . .” Drew sighed. Easier said than done.

Michael held her away from his body. His eyes got a gleam. “I know something that would take your mind off that vision.”

Drew couldn’t help her grin, but she tried to infuse it with some disgust. “You have the same solution for everything. Dry skin, hangover, PMS; sex cures everything.”

“Well, doesn’t it?”

She chuckled. Enhanced sex drive was part of the whole “destiny and magic” condition. “Pretty much, I guess. Let’s go over to the house.”

“Before you go home
. . . .”

Both Drew and Michael jumped. “Mother, you startled me.” Drew patted her chest rapidly as she caught her breath.

“So sorry, dear.” Her mother came out of the shadows into the dimly lighted breakfast room. “Michael, I hope you don’t mind, but Brian and I need to talk to Drew for a minute.”

Michael raised his brows. “Well, she is the expert on Jane, I guess.”

Brina shook her head. “Why do they all have to marry smart ones?” she asked the ceiling. “Couldn’t you have picked a big, dumb jock?” she complained to Drew.

“Don’t indulge in stereotypes, Mother. Lots of athletes are very bright.” Drew sighed. She was not looking forward to this conversation. But there wasn’t a lot of choice involved. She trailed a finger over Michael’s stubbled jaw. “Hold the thought.”

Drew and her mother left the room without a word. Drew would feel better prepared to face her parents if she knew for sure how she herself felt about Kemble and Jane.

On the way up the stairs, her mother said, “What’s wrong, Drew? You’ve looked so pale and anxious the last few days.”

Her mother was far too perceptive. So Drew told part of the truth. “I’m having trouble controlling the visions again.”

Her mother stopped on the stairs and frowned. “You were doing so well.”

“I’ll get back in the groove. I expect it’s just a process.” She continued up the stairs.

Her mother put her arm around Drew’s shoulders. “Maybe Maggie
. . . .”

“Absolutely not. I’m not having Maggie Calm me. That gets to be like a drug.”

Her mother sighed. “I know. I just. . . . Well, I expect things come in their own time.”

Her parents had the huge master suite that occupied the greater part of the second floor on the south wing of the old hacienda. They’d kept it in the austere Spanish style, with worn clay paver tiles grown almost pastel with age, whitewashed walls
, and bright Turkish carpets in red and blue. The dark original beams had been left exposed, and the windows had matching wood shutters that could be opened to the marvelous view of Catalina Island and the channel. They were closed against the night as Drew entered. The light from worked-iron sconces and the big wrought-iron wheel chandelier cast a warm glow over the room.

Her father was pacing, wearing black silk pajama bottoms and the red velvet smoking jacket he’d gotten from her mother for Christmas. He stopped and looked up at her entrance.

“Good,” he said briefly. Drew never got used to the stabbing intensity of his blue eyes. “We could use your opinion.”

“About what?” Drew was wary. The best thing she could do here was answer only what she absolutely must. As if she knew any answers.

“About whether I should tell Kemble there’s no way he’s marrying Jane.” Her father was in Captain-of-Industry mode.

Her mother’s look at Drew said she shouldn’t get tangled up in arguing with the approach. “Before we go there,” her mother began, “You know Jane, Drew. Does she love him?”

“I’ve never seen any signs.” Jane probably just wanted to escape her home situation. And that was a situation worth escaping, if what Kemble had hinted at to her mother last night were true. It was why Drew couldn’t object to the marriage. Jane needed a lifeline and Kemble had offered her one. Could she blame her friend for grabbing at it?

Her father ran his hand through his hair. “I can take care of her mother,” he said. “And Jane is more than welcome to live here without marrying Kemble. I like Jane.”

“Then the other cogent question is why Kemble thinks he won’t get magic.” Her mother shot a look at her husband, who became acutely uncomfortable.

Drew tried to save her father. “He is thirty-seven, Mother. He’s been fussing about not having magic for the past couple of years.”

“More than fussing,” her mother said absently. “He’s been miserable.” She sat calmly on the small chair of her vanity. “Brian? Do you know something about this? Kemble intimated in his declaration that you agreed with him.”

“Well, it’s a distinct possibility.” Her father stopped and crossed his arms over his chest defensively. “The gene could be recessive. That’s the way genetics works. We always knew it could happen. We just chose not to burden the children with doubt.”

Her mother sighed. “We might have been wrong about that. I’ve cast the cards a hundred times for Kemble. All I ever get is various indications of a hard road ahead. I can’t tell whether he’ll ever get magic. But . . . it could be he won’t. When did you tell him?”

“Yesterday. I
. . . uh . . . suggested he settle down.”

“And he goes out and proposes to Jane today.” Her mother shook her head.

“He could do worse than Jane,” Drew offered.

“Of course he could do worse than Jane. Jane is a wonderful girl. I’m trying to figure out whether he’s going to break her heart or not.” Her mother tapped a finger to her lips. “What happens if he does find the one who is his Destiny? What then?”

“Jane told him she would give him a divorce, no questions asked.” Her father acted like that solved something.

Both Drew and her mother stared at him. Her father looked guilty.

“Oh, that’s great,” Drew muttered. “It does mean her heart isn’t engaged, though.”

“It means no such thing, Drew Redmond,” her mother said. “It means she doesn’t value herself very highly. That’s different.” She chewed her lip. “Just think about this. Where does Jane sit at the dinner table when given a choice?”

“With Father and Kemble. . . .” Drew replied. “But she just does that because no one else wants to hear them talk business and she’s good-hearted.”

“That’s what I always thought. But we sent Kemble to get Jane to tell us where you’d gone when you took off to find Michael.” Her mother was gathering steam.

“But that’s just because she talks to him better than she talks to me,” her father said. “You said I’d scare her to death, if I recall.”

“But that is the point. I think we knew on an intuitive level that she feels she can talk to him. Who
m, for instance, did Jane tell that Devin was surfing monster waves at night in the nude last year?”

“Kemble,” Drew said thoughtfully.

“Devin is surfing storms at night buck naked?” her father asked, voice rising. Uh-oh. His brows had tucked together and his blue eyes had storm warnings flashing.

“Was,” her mother said calmly. “It was during that awful time when he was figuring out that he was in love with Keelan and his power was trying to get out. He was very upset. As Jane knew.” She brought the conversation away from dangerous shoals. “The point is that she may be more connected to Kemble than we thought.”

“That’s evidence?” her father demanded.

But Drew began to think back. “You may be right, Mother. I’m flashing on other examples over the years. The way she blushes at the pool when he comes out of the water
. . . . We may have missed the signs just because Jane is so self-effacing.”

“I think so too.” Her mother leaned back in the little chair upholstered in red needlepoint roses. “I think she loves him. I have to cast the cards to be sure of course.”

Drew didn’t have as much faith in the tarot as her mother did. But her mother was uncanny at understanding those around her, and what they needed. And there had been a couple of very convincing portents that her mother had revealed in advance of actual events. Maybe it was coincidence, but the tarot did come down from Merlin. It could be that someone with the Merlin gene really could use the cards to predict the future. It sure beat Drew’s power for effectiveness.

They stood there thinking for a moment. Finally, Drew said, “Then if you could convince Kemble to call it off
. . . which I doubt, Father, even if you forbade the marriage altogether. Kemble is an honorable man. He offered and he’s going to go through with it. But if you could get him to call it off, you’d break Jane’s heart.”

“And if he marries her and doesn’t really love her?” her father insisted. “We haven’t talked about that, but he sure didn’t sound like a man in love to me today.”

“He breaks her heart,” his mother said quietly.

“And if he finds his real destined lover, double-bad heartbreak with chocolate sauce and cherries,” Drew almost whispered.

“Which makes our course clear,” her mother said, standing up.

“It does?” Drew and her father asked in unison.

“We can’t save Jane’s heart,” her mother said, standing. “And Kemble needs the steadying comfort of her presence right now. So our job is to support them the best we can.”

That was about the saddest thing Drew had heard in a while. Her father didn’t look any happier about it. But what could they do? Kemble wouldn’t back out. Drew didn’t believe Jane would either, once she’d made a commitment. This could get ugly.