Remnants of Magic (20 page)

She laughed, low and seductive, for no amount of biting would deter a vampire. “It will be a pleasure.”

And he knew that it would indeed.

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Compelled

Chapter One

“You screwed the pooch on that one, babe.” Joe tilted back his beer bottle like that was the punctuation on the statement.

“Should I be thankful you didn’t say ‘I told you so?’” London picked up her cell phone from the bar. She’d set it out to show him the text message she’d gotten.
We’re coming for you.
It still gave her the shivers, like she needed to keep looking over her shoulder. The number hadn’t been one she’d recognized, but she had a good idea who sent it. Kieran had taken her business card. If the message didn’t come from him, then it had to be one of the other Unseelie of the Glamour Club. There were two kinds of people in the world; the kind that dropped the chase when you outran them and the kind that would hunt you to the ends of the earth no matter how long it took. Wouldn’t you know it? The Unseelie were the grudge-holding kind. “It’s not like I got a manual on how to be enchanted when the Sidhe cursed me. I made a mistake.”

“A bunch of mistakes,” Joe corrected her.

“A bunch of mistakes,” she agreed. “But I am trying to change.” She dropped her phone into her jacket pocket. “Probably too late now. I’ve got a big target on my back and no way to redeem myself.”

Joe slid a glance at her, eyes half-closed like he was debating something. The cold blue of his gaze made his attention hit with more impact. For a human, Joe Lansing was one hell of a guy. Tall, casually handsome in those worn jeans and Dallas Cowboys t-shirt, with an edge of toughness that could stare down a werewolf without flinching. The military and law enforcement background showed in his bearing, but he’d been out of them long enough to lose that clean-cut look a lot of guys kept for a while after the service. His sandy-colored hair looked finger-combed and the stubble on his face was at least a day old. It added to his whole ‘don’t mess with me’ vibe. It was a trick that worked for a guy like him. Made him seem impressively badass without even trying. And yet he was just as enchanted as she was. Just another human cursed by the magic of the Sidhe. He said, “Don’t count yourself out just yet.”

“You’re not thinking of introducing me to your boss. He’s Unseelie.”

“Donovan might run the show at the Glamour Club, but he doesn’t speak for all Unseelie.” When Joe smiled, he looked like trouble.

London shook her head, playing with her bottle of Guinness without any real interest in drinking from it. Amazing how living on borrowed time put a damper on the small joys of life. “But you said this Tiernan fellow is mates with Donovan.”

“You wouldn’t know it to look at him, but Tiernan’s a businessman. He wraps himself up in the partying playboy image so people underestimate him, but he’s wicked sharp. Trust me.” Joe pointed at her with the neck of his bottle. “Your problem isn’t that Donovan wants you dead. It’s your reputation. Snatching one of Donovan’s boys for your personal Touch slave isn’t something anyone’s going to soon forget. It doesn’t matter that you came to your senses and gave him back. It doesn’t matter that you fought your way through a bunch of werewolves to do it. Nobody even cares about that.”

She winced. “Tell me again why I shouldn’t count myself out yet?”

“You’ve got a bad reputation. A well-deserved bad reputation at that. But it happens. What you need to do now is prove yourself.” Those blue eyes twinkled with wickedness.

London laughed, and not the amused kind. It was the I-know-I’m-going-to-regret-this kind. “Why do I have the feeling that you have just the very idea about how I can prove myself to your boss?”

He grinned, and somehow it managed to be both sexy and sly at the same time. “Because you’re perceptive.”

“You want my help for something and that’s why you called me.” London finally put two and two together. That evening she’d driven all the way to this pub in Dundalk to meet him, since it was halfway between Dublin and where he was staying outside of Belfast. Catching up over a couple of pints and bending his sympathetic ear was all she’d expected. After all, Joe was the only other person she knew who’d been cursed. The only person who could really relate to what she was going through. The only person who might clue her in on how to survive as an enchanted human. “It wasn’t just that you’d heard about my death sentence and wanted to give me a friendly pep talk.”

“I never have been much of a pep talk kind of guy.”

“And you reckon Tiernan will take me on if I prove myself?” The possibility seemed valid. Joe hadn’t a pristine reputation, either. They’d met on a nasty job for a Changeling. Turned out that the Sidhe the Changeling claimed to work for was actually his captive. London hadn’t figured it out at the time. From the things he’d said, she was pretty certain that Joe had. So if Tiernan could overlook Joe’s sordid history, maybe he could overlook hers.

“Honestly? I haven’t a clue.” Joe shrugged, all casually blunt. As if it wasn’t her life or her death that they were discussing. “But couldn’t hurt to try. What else have you got to do?”

“You’re a prat, you do know that, don’t you?”

“Pretty much.” He set down his beer. “So that’s a ‘yes, I’d love to risk my neck to help you,’ right?”

London snorted. He was right. What other choice did she have? Wasn’t that the story of her life since becoming enchanted? Not having any choice but the one that fed her addiction to the Touch, no matter how dangerous or morally questionable? “Just tell me the job.”

“I need to check out some guy who’s come to Tiernan’s attention.”

“Why do you need my help? You’ve got skills.” And wasn’t that the truth? The man handled a gun like the Marine Corps Special Forces that he’d been. All focused and professional, even in the heat of a firefight.

“But not the right equipment.” He winked with a randy flirtatiousness that was altogether delicious on him. “This dude’s a real ladies’ man. You could probably just do the hair-flip thing and get him to spill his guts.”

“My hair’s too short to do the hair-flip thing.” She slid her fingers through her close-cropped, dark hair. The style looked good on her, she thought, but more importantly, it kept it out of the way. One time having her ponytail snatched in a scuffle was enough for her. And since she frequently worked for vampires, she could imagine one using her hair like a handle to force her to arch her neck. No point in making it easy.

“Then do the sultry batting-eyelids thing. Work it, girl.”

“This is the part where I slap you, right?” she joked.

“Nope. This is the part where you think it’s an easy gig and if it gets you in good with a Sidhe, then it’s worth admitting for five minutes that you’re a sexy woman.”

She smirked at him. Admittedly, she might be somewhat attractive by human standards. But compared to the fey, she was the epitome of average. Even if Joe thought she was easy on the eyes, she knew this flattery was all about leverage. “You’re so full of it.”

“Part of my charm.” He dug a folded bill from his pocket, tossed it down on the counter for the bartender, and then extracted a slip of paper and handed it to her. “Meet me at the pier in Newcastle tomorrow. The arrangements are all set up.”

London watched him walk out. Nothing wrong with the way his jeans fit when he swaggered. The cocky chap hadn’t for a minute doubted that she’d agree to this job. In truth, she’d not at all been offended by the suggestion of sex appeal to get an advantage. It was nice to know Joe thought she had some.

Smiling a little to herself, London unfolded the paper. It was a flier for some bloke claiming to be a druid. He was having some kind of a ceremony at Cashtal Yn Ard, an old burial site on the Isle of Man.

London’s smile vanished. The Isle of Man. Wizard territory.

Chapter Two

For someone on Donovan’s hit list, London couldn’t muster enough fear to obliterate the utterly fabulous feeling still tingling and flexing beneath her skin. Kieran’s Touch, his glorious Sidhe magic, lingered powerfully within her body. The stroke of his fingers, the warm scent of his skin, the taste of his kiss, his eternal and youthful fey sexiness— all of it rolled over in her mind on a loop. She obsessed worse than a teenage girl with her first crush. Although Kieran’s Touch was truly amazing, it wasn’t London’s first experience with the Sidhe. This magnificent feeling, and the addictive intoxication that simulated the heights of romantic love, was nothing but a side effect of the magic. It wasn’t real. Not for her. And certainly not for Kieran.

Eating breakfast in the teahouse across from her flat, London watched everyone coming and going on the bustling Dublin street. This was the first time she’d staked out her own apartment. It chilled her to the core of her soul to recall Donovan ordering her death as he’d nearly crushed her throat himself. But instead of killing her then and there, he set the earthborn Unseelie upon her, like a leopard dropping a fawn before his young, teaching them to hunt for themselves.

And had those teenaged Unseelie not mucked up the job, she wouldn’t have escaped.

Not for a second did she imagine that Donovan would accept this failure. Not for a second did London imagine that she was safe, even on the other side of Ireland. Thank the heavens that she’d not put her address on her business card, only the city. Depending on how clever they were with investigation techniques, she wouldn’t be all that difficult to find. Luckily, the fey in general relied more on magic than technology, otherwise a half-hearted Google search would have them beating down her door. So for the two nights since she’d escaped the Unseelie, London stayed in a hotel a couple blocks up the street.

Staking out her flat, watching for possible assassins, seemed a far better way to spend the morning than sitting in that very apartment jumping over every incidental sound. With her netbook and her phone she could conduct business right from the safety of the window booth, and pay her rent of it with the purchase of a Cream Tea.

She smoothed the flier Joe had given her, considering the information it provided. At first glance, it didn’t appear vastly different from any other modern pagan gathering. At University she’d known a couple of modern pagans. Their claims of mystical knowledge stemmed from what they could glean from books, other humans that passed on an oral tradition, and imagined spiritual connections they might feel in meditation and ritual. Not from direct contact with the Sidhe who populated to Celtic pantheon. The Sidhe didn’t play at being deities any more. London had uncovered that fact within the first week that she’d been enchanted.

What made this Riley Flynn stand out was his claim that he had firsthand knowledge of the Sidhe deities. He claimed proficiency in the secret powers of the true druids and would share them for a price. That, despite what the historians might think, the druids had in fact once been a sect of ‘blessed’ humans who served the Sidhe. All these claims hit too close to the mark for coincidence. If this bloke actually knew anything about the real Sidhe, then he’d be a serious threat to their safety and secrecy.

No wonder Joe’s boss wanted him to check out this fellow.

London plunged herself into research on the Internet. From what she could find, Cashtal Yn Ard wasn’t even a druid site, just a circle of standing stones that were the last remnants of a Neolithic burial ground. That detail didn’t seem to matter as much as the Stonehenge-like venue with an impressive view of the hills and sea. A perfect setting to invoke the sense of ancient mystery and power.

Riley’s personal website clinched it. London almost choked on her tea when she saw the splashy headline.

Druid of the Sidhe.

London flipped through the entries on his blog, pressing her fingers to the pulse in her temple. Riley gave detailed accounts of his Sidhe encounters, calling them gods and goddesses. He even described the Touch, which he called a ‘blessing.’ No doubt about it, the man had experienced the Touch— from the initial devastation as the magic burned a path through the soul, to the heights of sexual arousal and love, to the longing and desperation as the magic faded over time if not replenished.

But if he was an enchanted human, why the bloody hell was he on the Isle of Man?

Her cell phone chimed with a text message, bringing her out of her mental investigative zone and back to the teahouse. London had been so consumed with her research that she didn’t know how long she’d sat there. She’d certainly not been keeping an eye out for the Unseelie sworn to kill her. For a moment her hand hesitated over the phone, loathed to check it and find some other cryptic threat, but the message was not from the Unseelie this time, so her heart rate immediately dropped to half the thundering speed it had jumped to.

Instead, the text came from Selena. London thought the vampire mistress would have long since laid down to rest for the day. It wasn’t even the early morning anymore, with the sun fully breaking over the horizon. The message read:
You’re going to just love this.
My place. ASAP.

Selena loved sending vague summonings, figuring people should come when she called. And after living for however many hundreds of years, she’d long since passed the age of explaining herself, or her motives, to anyone.

Chapter Three

It didn’t matter that it was daylight out. The Satin Club, which was the center of Selena’s empire, never closed. The windows were coated with blackout paint that prevented the sunlight from seeping in, no matter the angle. London waved to the bartender as she headed through the mostly empty club, and he called her over. “Hey, take this tray up to the Mistress and I’ll love you forever.”

“You said that last time.”

She waved him off, but Trent persisted, “Yeah, but this time I mean it.” He smiled that brilliant smile of his, not in the least hiding those fangs.

“How can I resist that charm?” London winked at him, grabbed the tray he’d left on the bar, and headed up the steps. Considering the contents of the two glasses, there was little mystery as to what she might find. The blood was for Selena, and the orange juice would be for her donor, whoever that had been last evening.

She balanced the tray as she climbed the steps to Selena’s private chambers on the second floor. Given the early hour, London took a chance and knocked on the bedroom door, rather than the one to the office. She’d deduced right and the door opened to her.