VoodooMoon (17 page)

A knock sounded on Ian’s private apartment door. He set the two glasses of wine he’d just poured on a low table in the center of the sitting area and settled back onto the cushioned sofa. “Come in,” he called.

The heavy door swung open and Danielson, the night guard on duty, stepped in followed by Fiona.

She came fully into the room, maneuvering around Danielson and stood wordlessly in the doorway. The flickering light from the fire in the heart and the two crystal lamps he’d activated, one on his desk on the other side of the room, and the other in the corner of the sitting area offered enough light for him to see the damp spots on her shirt and the glistening sweat on her skin. Her hair was a mass of loose tendrils that had worked out of her crooked braid and floated around her head like a chaotic halo. Her appearance was as disheveled and unkempt as he’d ever seen, yet, at this moment she was as beautiful to him as ever.

He cleared his throat, just to make sure the lust that had just flooded his body didn’t show up in his voice, and said, “Thank you, Danielson. That will be all for the evening.”

Danielson didn’t blink. He clipped out a brisk, “Yes, sir,” and left the room quickly, shutting the door behind him.

“You have very efficient people,” Fiona said, nodding her head towards the door. “Does he wake you in the middle of the night every time a strange woman stands across the street for more than two minutes?”

Ian let out a bark of laughter. “Hardly. Actually, I was already awake. Couldn’t sleep.”

“Seems to be going around,” she said, noncommittally.

When she didn’t continue, Ian went on. “After a bit of tossing and turning I got up to have a drink watch the boats on the river, it helps me relax. I was at the window and saw you running alongside of the river, and when you stopped just outside my doorway, it seemed polite to ask you in for a drink. I thought you might need one as much as I do.” He gestured towards the glasses on the table.

Fiona shrugged, “I am a bit thirsty.”

She crossed the room, sat in an upholstered arm chair opposite the sofa, picked up one of the glasses and took a tentative sip of the dark liquid. “Mmm,” she moaned, then took another sip. “You got this from Pinky.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes, I did, actually. He gave it to me tonight before I left.” He took a sip, his first, and let the fruity taste roll over his tongue. “Wow, that is strong.”

Fiona laughed. “I would say so. It’s his special Blackberry wine. It has a higher alcohol content than any other wine he makes, almost as high as whiskey. But it has a sweeter, fuller flavor. He makes only a few bottles a year and lets it age for several years before it’s ready to drink. He doesn’t sell it or serve it in the bar. He keeps it for special occasions and friends.”

Ian took another, larger drink. “It’s delicious. I can see why he saves it. He handed both Rangel and I a bottle as we left. I figured it was a thank you for having your back tonight.”

“Either that or he figured you guys would need something a little stronger than normal after what went down tonight. I’m sure Jarrett is back at the bar being treated to some of Pinky’s finest whiskey.”

“No doubt. Why aren’t you there imbibing with him?” He let out a chuckle at her raised eyebrows. “Not that I’m not happy to share my wine with you, I just figured you would have already belted back a stiff drink or two.”

She signed, settling back in the chair with her wine. “Too restless.”

“I imagine that is normal for you, considering the way you pull energy.” Ian drained his glass.

“It happens. Running usually helps.” Fiona replied, then as what he said sunk in she sat up straighter, sliding to the edge of the chair. “Wait. What do you mean, with the way I pull energy?”

“You are a succubus,” Ian said, matter-of-factly.

“I’m a what? What do you know about how I pull power?” Fiona asked, her tone becoming higher pitched with every word.

“Calm down, Fiona. I’ve known you work your special brand of magic by pulling energy into your body since the first time I worked with you. I don’t blame you for keeping it close to the vest, though.”

Fiona eyed him suspiciously, but her voice was calmer when she spoke. “What makes you think I work magic differently than anyone else?”

“Clever ploy to get the information you want without actually admitting to anything. You might want to go into politics, you’d make a great magistrate, or even better, senator.” He laughed at Fiona’s glare. “Okay, I’ll play the game. I’m a necromancer, but definition I see energy. Most necromancers only see life energy that has passed out of a body. It’s not uncommon for a mage to have a minor ability or two or three, in addition to their main power. I happen to be able to see currants of energy. It’s a minor power, and I can only see when large amounts of energy are being worked. Though I can usually feel the shift in energy it when someone is about to perform magic very close by, with the exception of spell and crystal work.”

“Currents of energy? Like auras?” Fiona relaxed back into her chair, obviously intrigued.

Ian grinned. “No, auras are usually colored and denote specific types of energy. I only see pulses of white, a bit like the energy streams that you produce when you focus your energy with your hanbo, only not quite so rope like, and I have to focus my own magic to see it. But, I think you know that already.”

“Oh, so since you have told me something about yourself, now I’m supposed to spill all my secrets,” her tone was flippant, but her eyes took on that suspicious look again.

Ian silently debated himself on how much he should tease and bait her. Considering what she’d been through tonight, probably not much at all. But he had her here, in his apartment, and they were sitting and chatting, and that felt amazing. He didn’t want it to end. He knew if he pushed just enough he could get her talking, possibly even sharing some of her secrets, or what she thought were secrets. Then they’d be having an actual conversation. He couldn’t let an opportunity like that slip by.

“No,” he told her. “I don’t expect you to tell me anything. How about I tell you?”

Fiona’s lips tightened, he could tell she was desperately trying to hide a smile. “Okay, then. Enlighten me.”

“Okay, then. I don’t know the exact nature of your secondary ability, but I believe you can see energy patterns that tell you when someone is lying.”

Her face was impassive, her tone measured, giving away nothing. “What makes you say that?”

He had her. Any moment she’d actually be contributing to the conversation. “You have an uncanny ability to tell when people are telling the truth. And, I’ve felt you pull energy during interrogations. It was simple deduction.”

“You are close, but not entirely accurate.” She paused for several minutes, but when Ian didn’t say anything she seemed to make a decision. “I can see the energy waves of emotions. Unlike what you see they aren’t bright, but more of a smoky gray. I can tell what they are by the patterns. It took me a long time to figure them out, but by my late teens I was an old pro.”

Ian leaned over the table picked up the bottle of wine and offered it to her. Wordlessly she held out her glass and let him refill her glass. Once he’d replenished his own drink, he sat back and thought a moment. “And you kept it a secret both because it was handy and because you thought it was unusual?”

Fiona took another long drink of her wine. “I was a hellion child raised by a vampire that slept all day. No matter what Pinky did to keep me inside, I found ways around it and around any babysitter he hired. Before my sister’s came along I spent my days roaming the streets. A kid that is good at finding hiding places can hear and learn a lot. Among the things I picked up was that having a very unusual power was not a good thing. I heard stories about people’s family and friends taken away by Science-Mages to be studied, or to be forced to work for the City-State in some way, whether they wanted to or not. At the time I was too young to realize the stories came from the very old, and those practices were no longer legal in Nash. But, by the time I got old enough to realize that, I was also old enough to know that illegal didn’t mean it couldn’t or wouldn’t happen.”

“Your ability to detect emotions isn’t that rare, but you wouldn’t know that unless you took advanced magical studies at the Academy.” Ian told her.

She let out a hoot of laughter. “No way. I barely made it through the two primary courses required of all mage agents. I learned the basic spell work needed in law enforcement, and I even bungle those upon occasion. My ability, my main ability, using energy as an offensive and defensive weapon is more instinctive than intellectual. Training as a fighter helped me hone those skills more than any books or magical practice.”

Ian nodded. “I can understand that. You wouldn’t have learned about succubus powers in a primary course, either.”

“What the crap is a succubus?” Fiona asked, thoroughly curiously now.

“In ancient times succubi were believed to be demons that fed off of sexual energy of men. Hey. Stop.” He ducked as the two pillows he kept in the arm chair Fiona was sitting in whizzed past his head.

“You just called me a soul sucking demon, you’re lucky I haven’t finished my wine yet or I’d be throwing this glass.”

“Sex-sucking, not soul-sucking,” he said, and threw one of the pillows back, smacking her in the knee and eliciting a giggle out of her. A jolt of awareness zinged through him. Had he actually just made Miss Sourpuss Fiona laugh? Probably just the wine.

“Oh, well that makes a huge difference. Carry on.”

Ian laughed. “Well, we now know that succubus aren’t demons, there are no such thing. Succubus are actually mages, female mages if you want to be technical, that work magic by pulling energy into their bodies before expelling it. The types of energy they work with can be different, so I imagine there are some that pull sexual energy. How they work it is different, as well.”

“So, not all succubi have battle magic?” She asked.

“No. Succubus doesn’t really denote a type of power as much as a unique way of working the power. Succubi are rare, but not unheard of. Like I said before, for hundreds of years, even in the magical community succubi were touted as demons. Even in modern times, it makes people nervous.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t plan to start telling my secrets. I’m still a little freaked out that you figured it all out. I’m guessing that you’ve kept your mouth shut this long, I can trust you to keep doing so.” She smiled at him, making his heart jump.

“Mum’s the word.”

“I can’t believe I told you my deepest, darkest secrets. You now know almost as much about me as my family does,” she said as she leaned forward and refilled her glass and then his a third time, emptying the wine bottle.

Not likely. He could study her for a hundred years and still not know everything there is to know about her, and still not get bored of trying to learn. He took the full glass from her and leaned back. “Oh, I doubt that. There is more to you than you would like for people to see. But would that really be that bad, me knowing more about you? Despite your preconceived notions of me, which I don’t completely understand, I’m not such a bad guy. You would know that if you let yourself get to know me a little bit.”

“Okay, then, I’ll bite.” A slow, mischievous grin spread across her full, kissable lips and she leaned back again, this time crossing her legs so that the expanse of bare thigh below her shorts hem caught his eye. “You know two secrets about me, but you only told me one about you. Tell me something about Ian Barroes that isn’t common knowledge.”

“Okay, then, let’s see.” Ian tapped his finger to his mouth while he thought. There was so much he could tell her that she likely didn’t know about him. As a prominent member of the Nash City society and the head of one of the largest guilds in the City-State there was a lot of public speculation about his life, not to mention the fact that the Barroes family was quite notorious. But very little of what the public knew about his life was accurate, and it was his guess that Fiona, in her ongoing quest to keep distance between them, hadn’t ever bothered to dig deeper than public opinion and rumor.

So, almost anything he told her would be new to her, but something told him he needed to choose his next words carefully. He finally had her engaged in a conversation; had her full, undivided attention. He could be light and flippant, or go the way of heavy innuendo. After all, it was the middle of the night, they were on their third glass of wine, his bed was just a few feet away, and his body had been on high alert since she’d walked through the door. He knew, deep down, she wanted him as much as he wanted her, yet she’d never admit it. He didn’t think that, if put his cards on the table, or the bed, so to speak, she would turn him down. But something told him that wasn’t the way to go. Not yet. She had very real reservations about getting involved with him. Whatever he said next, while it may not get her into his bed tonight, needed to break down some of the walls she’d built between them based on what she thought he was.

It only took seconds for all of that to race through is mind and for him to come to a decision.

“Most of my wealth comes from my family,” he said, matter-of-factly.

A shadow passed over her face. “That’s not exactly news,” she clipped out.

“Perhaps not, it is popular misconception that my money comes from my father’s family.” He couldn’t help the rush of satisfaction that went through him at the raw curiosity that came into her eyes. Yes, this had been the right topic.

“Oh?” she asked, not quite aloofly.

“There is no debating the fact that the majority Barroes’ family wealth was accrued through manipulation, if not downright cheating. It is also no secret that I inherited a large bit from father, including the family compound. A part of it is set aside for upkeep on the compound so that my aunts, uncles and cousins have somewhere to live. Their own coffers have dwindled since the enactment of the Necromancy laws, and it is seen as my family duty to care for them,” he told her.

“You don’t seem to see it that way, yet you do it anyway. Why?” Fiona’s tone and quizzical expression told him she was genuinely interested in knowing.