The Wicked (14 page)

The tension in his body eased somewhat as she spoke. He slipped an arm around her shoulders as he said, “You’re not ready to scuba dive.”

“I am too,” she told him. “I can walk a mile.”

He shook his head. “I don’t believe you’re under twelve minutes yet.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m close enough.” When he opened his mouth to argue, she covered his lips with one hand. “It’s a brief trip. Derrick will come with us, and he’ll monitor me the whole time. Sebastian, it’s time to go.”

He looked at her with so much pain in his cursed eyes.

It broke her heart. She loved him so very much.

So they would come full circle, back to Florida. It was not quite where everything had begun, but it was where the most important thing had begun—it was where they had first met.

Sebastian refused to let her swim at all during the crossover, and when she protested, Derrick backed him up until she threw up her hands and let them have their way. While she forced herself to remain passive, Sebastian held her in his arms and did all the work.

In the end she was grateful for it. Breathing from the oxygen tank seemed to take much more effort than it had the first time. Her chest ached, and the dry air irritated her lungs.

On the other side of the crossing, she sensed Phaedra’s presence a split second before the Djinn surrounded her and the world fell away. When reality solidified again, she and Phaedra were standing on the deck of the yacht. While water streamed off Olivia’s wetsuit, Phaedra looked perfectly dry.

One of the crew members shouted a greeting from the pilot’s cabin. She waved at them. Then she removed her mouthpiece, pushed back her mask and took a deep breath of fresh air as she looked around her. Sebastian was nowhere to be seen.

Angling out her jaw, she said, “You forgot Sebastian, dimwit.”

Phaedra shrugged, her eyes narrowed. “I didn’t forget him. He knows how to swim.”

She sighed. “In any case, you’ve got to stop transporting people without their permission.”

“I don’t see why,” said Phaedra as she crossed her arms. “Sometimes it can be quite useful.”

Olivia pinched her nose. Now she knew from personal experience why Grace had said,
Oh I don’t know why I bother.
 

Phaedra studied her. The Djinn’s expression turned serious. “You are better now? The damage has repaired itself?”

“More or less,” she said. She shrugged out of the heavy oxygen tank and left it on the deck as she walked to the railing to watch for Sebastian.

Phaedra walked to her side and touched her shoulder. As Olivia looked at her, Phaedra said simply, “I’m glad.”

Surprise softened her irritation. She reached up to touch Phaedra’s hand. The Djinn did not pull away from her overture. Wow, she thought. It made Phaedra seem almost warm and cuddly.

They both watched as Sebastian exploded to the water’s surface. He sliced through the water and climbed up the hull ladder. Olivia looked from his furious expression to Phaedra’s impervious one. She decided she did not need to be a part of their upcoming conversation, so she left to shower and change into street clothes.

Sebastian had been tempted to ask Phaedra for a ride to Florida, but after her latest stunt, he refused to even consider it. Instead, he chartered a plane and they spent the flight mostly in silence. He bought a pile of newspapers and magazines, and they passed the time looking through everything. Three months had passed on Earth.

At one point, Olivia said, “This is the strangest, worst case of jet lag I’ve ever experienced, and that’s not even taking into account traveling from coast to coast.”

“It can take a couple of weeks to re-acclimate,” he said, his voice toneless. The ground glass was back in his chest, and even that much conversation was an effort. He thought she understood, because she took one of his hands between hers and didn’t say anything more.

Once they landed in Miami, they took a car service to Grace and Khalil’s house.

Olivia had called ahead, so they knew that Grace and Khalil waited at home for their arrival. Sebastian’s heart began to pound as the car pulled up to the front of an attractive ranch house. They climbed out. He reached for Olivia’s hand as they walked up the path, and she squeezed his fingers.

When he rang the doorbell, a pretty, titian-haired young woman answered the door. She rushed forward and threw her arms around Olivia, and the two women murmured to each other as they hugged.

A massive male Djinn walked up beside them. Khalil had white, regal features, long raven hair held back with a strip of leather and those typical, piercing, diamond-like eyes. Phaedra looked a lot like her father.

“Come in,” Grace said. She kept an arm around Olivia’s waist as she said, “I asked Atefeh and Ebrahim to babysit Max and Chloe so we could have time to ourselves without the children. I have been so worried about you. Are you really better?”

“Almost a hundred percent,” said Olivia with a small smile.

The ground glass in Sebastian’s chest shifted, cutting at him. His voice was harsh as he said, “You know why we’re here. I need to petition you.”

Khalil frowned, but Grace turned to Sebastian immediately. Even though her face was young, her hazel gaze was filled with a kind of compassion that seemed ageless. “Please, come sit and talk with me,” she said.

Somehow there was an indefinable yet essential shift in Power, and it was the Oracle that spoke to him.

Sebastian followed her to a gleaming oak dinner table with six matching chairs, set in front of ceiling high windows that looked over the ocean. The Oracle sat at one end of the table, and gestured for Sebastian to sit at her right. He complied, while Olivia and Khalil remained several steps away, present but not participating.

The Oracle said, “Tell me your story.”

It poured out of him in a convulsive rush, while she listened in silence. Finally he stopped speaking and watched her.

The Oracle frowned, her gaze unfocused, and rubbed the polished surface of the table with her fingertips. Then her lips moved silently. She looked for all the world as if she were talking to herself.

Sebastian clenched his hands into fists.

He thought, This is where she tells me there is no hope. This is the final answer to my question.

Suddenly he couldn’t bear to wear his sunglasses for one more moment. He tore them off and flung them across the room. They shattered to pieces against the opposite wall.

The peripheral vision on his right side was almost completely gone, but he still sensed the Djinn shifting in unfriendly reaction.

Then the Oracle’s expression underwent a drastic change.

“Khalil,” she bit out. “Please retrieve that shrunken head from Jamaica for me, will you?”

“As you wish,” said the Djinn. His physical form dissipated, and he blew away.

Sebastian and Olivia had no time to do anything other than exchange one mystified look. Then Khalil returned again to place the shrunken head in the Oracle’s hands, his expression filled with distaste.

The Oracle spoke again, silently. This time she appeared to be arguing. Her expression flashed with anger. She slapped a flattened hand on the table and barked out, “You will obey!”

Her Power shifted. To Sebastian’s magical sense, she seemed to reach out, grasp hold of an insubstantial something and shake it.

The next voice that poured out of her mouth was not hers. The rapid words it spoke were not English, but an indigenous language that was, to Sebastian, all too familiar.

Before he could react, Power flared out of the shrunken head. It cut through him like a saber and blasted him out of his chair.

Then with a snap, the Power disappeared.

Disoriented, his head ringing, Sebastian struggled to his hands and knees. Dimly he became aware that Olivia had fallen to her knees beside him. She flung her arms around him. “Are you all right?”

“I don’t know,” he heard himself say.

Nearby, Grace said in horror, “Oh my God, I really am holding a
shrunken head
.”

The Djinn said in a gentle voice, “Yes, Gracie. I will just remove that object from this house forever, shall I?”

“Pleeeeeassse.”

Olivia cupped Sebastian’s face. Her hands were shaking. “Sebastian, look at me.”

He tried to focus on her. Everything in his head throbbed.

“Your eyes,” she whispered. “The black—it’s all gone.”

He shook his head and then wished he hadn’t. Carefully he shifted to sit cross-legged on the floor. “Your face is blurry. Everything is blurry.”

Grace said, “It will probably take a few weeks for your vision to return to normal.”

He blinked in her direction. “What did you do?”

“For the first time in my life,” Grace said grimly, “I forced a ghost to do something. And I’m not sorry, either. That chieftain was a snot. Feel free to use the guest room if you need to lie down.” A chair scraped across the floor. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go wash my hands in Purell for a couple of hours.”

The sound of her footsteps retreated.

Holy hell. Did Grace just say what he thought she’d said?

Carling had been right all along. They had needed the chieftain to use the shrunken head to lift the curse. It had been a totally impossible solution that had, somehow, still happened.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

He groped behind him. The wall was nearby. He shifted over until he could lean his back against it. Only some time afterward did he realize that he had kept such a clenched hold on Olivia, he had forced her to scoot over with him. He pulled her onto his lap, bowing around her as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

After a few minutes, she loosened her hold enough to pull back and study him. He wasn’t sure, but he thought she looked shell-shocked, thrilled and concerned.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go to the guest room.”

He let her pull him to his feet. Taking his hand, she led him down the hallway. Wary of his blurred vision, he walked carefully, reaching out once to touch the hallway wall.

They walked into a quiet, shadowed bedroom where he eased himself down on a large bed. He stretched out with a sigh. That cutting blast of Power had been just like the first time. His body was still reacting to the adrenaline dump. All of his muscles shook with a fine tremor.

She stroked his hair. “Sebastian?”

“I’m all right,” he said. “Just, holy fuck.”

“That scared me half to death.” Her voice wobbled. “Did it hurt?”

“It happened too fast to hurt, but I have a headache now.”

“Let me get you some medicine,” she said. “Then you can rest for as long as you need.”

“Only if you lie down with me,” he told her.

“Of course.” She walked away, and a few moments later she returned with a glass of water and aspirin. He gulped both of them down, groped to put the empty glass on the nightstand and then stretched out again while she pulled off his shoes, then lay beside him.

He pulled her into his arms. Holding her felt incredible. Her body’s soft, warm weight was the essential something that he had needed for a long time, and in a few short weeks she had become his bedrock.

He pressed his lips against her forehead and murmured, “We both got a little beat up recently, didn’t we?”

A snort escaped her. “A little. But it’s all over now, thank God. Just rest.”

And so he did, turning his face into her hair and eventually drifting into a light doze. When he stirred, his headache had eased and the bedroom had grown darker.
 

He tensed and gripped her shoulder. “Tell me the bedroom really is darker.”

Olivia sat up. She said in a strong voice, “Yes, it really is darker. It’s evening now. Here, let me get the light.”

He put his hands at her waist, bracing her as she leaned over him to click on the bedside light. Brightness flooded the bedroom, and he squinted as he looked around.

His vision had still not cleared completely, but it wasn’t as blurry as it had been earlier. He let his gaze linger over the details in the stylish room before he turned his face up to look at Olivia, who remained draped over him.

Her gorgeous face broke into a smile as she searched his gaze.

“It’s gone,” she told him. “All of that black is really, really gone. Your eyes are the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.”

“You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” He cupped the back of her head, pulled her down to him and kissed her.

He knew, realistically, that it would take just as long to get used to the absence of the emotional weight from that curse as it would to physically recover, and he looked forward to every delicious minute of it.

She whispered against his lips, “Tell me that again when I know you’ve fully recovered your eyesight in a couple of weeks.”

“I don’t need to wait any longer,” he said. “I can see quite clearly right now.”

He could, too.

They had a wealth of time in front of them, and their future had never seemed brighter or more full of promise than it did in that moment.