Spell Fire (15 page)

Aunt Terra and Uncle Esmun headed for the back room, reaching for each other's hands as they walked.

My heart constricted as if one of Lucia's demons had it in a stranglehold. Jett lifted a case of votive candles and carried it to a display table near the front. I grabbed my handbag and a stack of recycled scratch paper and headed for the book section near the back. There was something soothing about the smell and orderliness of well-kept bookshelves. They helped me think, even if the books were about nonscientific subjects like angels and animal totems.

Eschewing the two rattan chairs, I found a corner and sat cross-legged on the recently vacuumed carpet. Digging into my handbag, I retrieved my purple gel pen from beneath the almanac, a bottle of hand sanitizer, and my gold scrunchie. Since I doubted my life could get any more grim, I extracted the almanac. My hand shook as I opened it to today's page.

December Nine

Second quarter begins 7:12 a.m. Pacific Standard Time.

Tarot: The Queen of Wands.

Be confident and strong-willed. Today favors accomplishment. Develop your warmth and creativity.

The almanac said something positive! I gaped at the drawing of a flame-haired woman wearing a medieval gown and holding a long, branch-like wand. I straightened my spine.
I'm an Avalon-Bennett. I take charge and accomplish whatever I set out to do.
Pumped, I stashed the little book inside my handbag. I depressed the top of my pen.
Click. Click. Click.
Where to start? Make a list.
Click.
Lists were creative.
Click.
Lists were calming.

I started with "Ten Reasons Why Jett is a Jerk," and got to number five,
He's a
coward
, before guilt seeped in. I had avoided the spotlight for the same reason he had — fear of what I couldn't control. My anger deflated. I scribbled over the list and pulled out a fresh sheet of paper. "Possible Unique Concepts for the Solstice Event."

If the storefront signs along the main road were any indication, Jett was right. The town
was
lousy with psychics, tarot readers, alien chasers, and vortex hunters. What made Spiral Journeys unique? Dragon shamans? I wondered what they did. Hard to sell people on what they couldn't see.
Well, maybe not here.

"It won't work."

My heart stopped, then restarted. Thor stared down at me, as silent as a ninja's shadow.

"Dragon shamans." He crouched and pointed to the page. "They don't do demonstrations. It's against the code."

"There's a code?"

"Sort of."

I rubbed the space between my eyebrows. "Can you start at the beginning? How does one become a dragon shaman?"

Thor sat down beside me on the carpet. He had dressed like the casual park visitors, with his brown hiking boots and khaki cargo shorts. His beige polo shirt bore a purple lotus emblem and the name of a wellness center embroidered above the pocket. "The shaman mentally journeys to the dragon realms and petitions to be paired with a dragon. He or she may ask to partner with a dragon with certain characteristics."

"Like green scales, not white?" I breathed in Thor's lavender-and-sage scent.

He shook his head. "No. More like virtues the shaman lacks. Like if you are fainthearted, you'd ask for a dragon who is strong and courageous."

So I would ask for a germ- and fun-loving dragon?
I rolled my shoulders. "Does a dragon ever randomly choose a human? You know, someone who didn't ask to be paired up?"

"You know the answer." Thor stretched out his legs. His calves were tan and muscular, but not super-sculpted like a jock's. The side of his hiking boot touched the edge of my flip-flop. "One found you."

"You think so?"

"Know so." His right eyebrow twitched. "Young dragons have an affinity for pretty damsels in distress."

"Is that how you see me?"

"Pretty?" His eyes gleamed.

"No." My cheeks heated like twin wildfires. "In distress. Because beneath this fragile-looking exterior, I'm a ninja warrior."

"Then the dragon was attracted to your fire." He pointed to my heart. "Your passion. It might be here to help with a spell you cast."

"I haven't cast any spells. I wouldn't know how."

"Spells are mainly focused intent. Maybe there is something you've been secretly trying to make happen. Since dragon magic is monumental, the spells can take years."

I flashed on Sophia and preventing my parents' divorce.

"You have a warrior's heart," Thor added. "What dragon could resist you?"

"Yeah. Right. Or maybe I blocked its flight pattern and it couldn't avoid me."

Thor shrugged. "Everything happens for a reason. Even getting mowed down by a guardian dragon."

"You mean, like a guardian angel?"

"Pretty much."

Except it made me dragon drunk, which increased my need for extra protection.
"So how does the code fit in?"

Thor scratched the skin beneath the medical alert bracelet on his left wrist. I had never seen one with a woven rope band before. "Dragon magic can cause ripples through the universe. So the dragon trusts the shaman will summon it only for matters of global importance."

"I saw the people in your class. No offense, but I have a hard time imagining some of them understanding global issues, much less working to solve them."

"Judging the books by their covers, eh?"

I had the decency to blush. Again.

"The goth wants world peace because her sister is in the Army on active duty. Portia's son-in-law died during the conflict in Afghanistan. The woman who looks like a soccer mom? She wants a clean environment for her kids…"

"Stop. I get it. I'm sorry." I crossed out dragon shamans. "So you and Portia are on the board
and
in the dragon shaman class."

"Yes." Thor bumped his shoulder against mine, rocketing tingles up and down my core. "Guess what's inside her black bag."

"A large book?"

Thor dropped his voice. "Better. An ancient spell book."

"Seriously?" Maybe it contained a happiness spell for broken marriages.

"It belongs to Portia's granddaughter. Evie loaned it to someone named Salem, then they decided Portia should study it."

The name Salem triggered the image of a waif-like goth a year behind me in middle school. "Why did they give it to Portia?"

"To see if any of us can fix it."

"You lost me."

He motioned as if swiping his fingers across an electronic device. "Almost all of the text has vanished. It
was
there. Then something bad happened—" he made an explosion-like sound and raised his arms, "—and the writing disappeared."

Just like Sophia.
A sick feeling twisted my stomach. The room spun. My mind catapulted backward through time.
The spell book went from here, to gone.

"Are you okay? You've gone all pale."

I tried to make a joke. "You mean, more than usual?"

His head bobbed up and down. "Totally Team Vampire." He shifted his legs and planted his hands on the carpet as if to rise. "I'll get Terra."

I clutched his forearm. Soothing warmth seeped into me. The spinning stopped. "No. Don't. I'm fine."

He angled his head. "Ten minutes. If you don't appear normal by then, I'm calling in the big guns."

"Fair enough."

He stretched out his legs. Beneath my grasp, some of the tension eased out of his arm. Thor glanced across the store. I followed his gaze to Jett, who appeared sullen as he rang up a sale.

"He didn't agree to it, huh?"

Reluctantly, I released my grip on Thor's arm. "Nope. Not yet."

"His loss."

"Ours, too. The landlord is raising the rent on the store."

Thor's brows lifted. "Esmun and Terra love this place. Can they afford to stay?"

"Seems iffy. Hence the list."

He rubbed his chin. "We'll think of something."

A fresh mantle of soothing warmth settled over me like a fuzzy blanket on a cold, rainy night. He had said
we
, as if we were in this together. As if he wouldn't flake on me.

"Do any of the board members have a special talent we could tap into?" I asked.

"We're all Reiki Masters. We could do a healing night."

I wrote it down and made a mental note to look up
reiki
on the Internet. I bet it had something to do with warmth and calming.

"And Portia works with a Council of Light Beings."

"What do they do?"

"Heal. Help people in transition."

I doubted he meant transitioning between jobs. I guessed more like transitioning from living to not living. Still, I added Portia and the council to my list. So far, it didn't appear too promising. "Can Mac summon an alien ship?"

Thor laughed, a sound like distant thunder rumbling across the desert before much-needed rain. "If he can, he's not telling."

I bumped his shoulder. It was as solid and warm as a boulder in the sun. "What's up with you guys and secrecy?"

Thor's eyes sparkled. "I'd tell you, but then I'd have to—"

"Kill me. Yeah, yeah." Our eyes met. The room rocked on its axis. My stomach lurched. The space-time continuum shifted. Spiral Journeys faded away and the air grew cold. A setting straight out of a kung fu movie — tightly clustered, gray-tiled rooftops with curved eaves jutting up into the evening sky — appeared before me. Thor raced across the rooftops.

I squinted, trying to comprehend what I was seeing.
Not raced. Flew.
Thor rode a dragon. Maybe he was the dragon.

"Ainslie?"

"Huh?" The vision vanished. Spiral Journeys took shape around me.

"You okay?"

"Sure." Maybe the store was a portal to ancient knowledge. Whatever was going on here, we needed to protect it.

Thor shifted position, and his knee grazed my leg. A tingle skyrocketed up my thigh. "What about you?" he asked. "Harboring any secret talents?"

Does obsessive hand washing and dragon melding count?
"Just amazing accuracy with throwing stars."

Thor blinked and his head jerked. "Get out of here! Aren't they illegal?"

"Sort of." My stomach grew queasy at the thought of doing a year in prison.

"I'm shocked." Thor massaged a spot behind and below his left ear.

One. Two. Three. Four.
His outdoorsy tan had retreated behind an ashen pallor and sweat droplets glistened along his hairline. My worry meter cranked on. The throwing stars shocked him? How would he feel about my stint in the lockdown ward?

"Don't worry," I assured him. "I buried them long ago. By now they've probably rusted away."

His eyes narrowed, and the corners of his lips twisted into a barely suppressed smile. "Good, because you don't need them."

"I don't?"

He drew closer and his gazed focused on my lips. "No, you don't. You have—" He sounded breathless as he leaned in for a kiss.

A loud clatter pinged off the wall. Startled, we sprang apart.

"Sorry!" Jett sounded anything but sorry as he reached down to retrieve a brass gong that had fallen — or been pushed — off the Buddha altar.

I glared at Jett. What had Uncle Esmun been thinking, trying to set me up with him?
Why not Thor?
I exhaled a cleansing breath. "So…back to the solstice."

"I'm not helping, am I?"

"Yes, you are. You are keeping me from freaking out."

"You don't freak out." Thor slipped the leather cord from his ponytail and his blond hair fell like a wavy mane around his face.

I snorted. "Yes, I do. All the time."

Thor scratched the back of his head. "Not around me."

I thought back.

"See," he prodded. "There's nothing wrong with you."

I sensed Jett's stare from across the store. "I have plenty of witnesses who would say otherwise."
Including my parents and everyone who knew me from middle school.

"Maybe they're the problem, not you." He squeezed my hand, then stood. "Sorry. I have to study for finals."

My chest tightened as I remembered how far behind I was on my schoolwork. "The pressure must be high, since it's your senior year."

"Way high. No scholarships, no college."

"Good luck."

His smile could have melted snow in Tibet. "You'll think of something brilliant. I have faith."

"Thanks." I wished I shared his confidence. He touched his palm to his heart again before heading out the door. As I watched him leave, an unexplained breeze — crisp and smelling of high mountain lakes — ruffled my hair. I studied my hand and wondered why I didn't feel the need to wash it.

Chapter Seventeen

December Ten

Moon enters Aries at 5:06 a.m. Pacific Standard Time

Tarot: King of Cups

Your emotions, courage, and loyalties will be tested. Don't lose sight of your true purpose.

Anxiety swirled around my feet, looking for an opening, a way in. Its screechy voice wormed toward my ear.
You need to study. You need great grades to get into Columbia. Don't blow your chance to study under Professor Sean Mackenzie. If your dad were here, he'd say, "Drop the solstice crap, Ains. Terra and Esmun are not your problem. Focus."

"Yeah. Right." I silently banished the voice from my head. If my parents had wanted me to concentrate on school, they should have left me at Athenian. Maybe there had been room in the dorm. Too bad none of us had thought to ask.

I heaved a long, resentful breath out my nose. My loyalties were in
void of course,
and if my emotions were tested any further, I
would
find a throwing star.
Okay, maybe I won't, since they're illegal and I want to go to Columbia University, not jail. But still…

Standing — almost blocking — the front door at Spiral Journeys, I stamped my feet. The anxiety retreated a little. I sensed it eddying nearby. Waiting. Watching. My hand twitched, desperate for something I could hurl to disperse my frustration. Eleven days until the winter solstice, and Jett still hadn't stepped up. None of my backup ideas compared to his fire fortunes. The schools still thought we were going forward with the event. The press kept calling. Aunt Terra bit her nails a lot and deep worry lines had furrowed across Uncle Esmun's forehead.