Waiting for Magic (27 page)

“Ah, Ms. Le Fay, how nice of you to come to my humble abode. May I offer you coffee, sherry? Something stronger for such a gray day?”

“Sherry,” she said, sitting down in a red leather chair with those wing-things on it that looked like blinders on a horse. It had brass nails making a line along the seams of the leather.

The rest of them opted for coffee. Jason was as fond of good whiskey as the next man, and there were several decanters on a long sideboard, but he had a feeling they would need their wits about them today. Pendragon was more than he seemed. Jason hoped the old woman didn’t underestimate him. The uniformed girl poured coffee from a silver tea set that sat on a huge desk at one side of the room.

Pendragon smiled, pouring the old woman a glass of sherry then taking one himself.

“Sherry is a holdover from a more civilized time,” the old woman observed. Her gold eyes had sharpened as she looked around surreptitiously. “I appreciate that.”

Pendragon smiled enigmatically. “I thought you might.” The maid slipped out of the room.

“
I think we have that appreciation for a former age in common for a reason.”

Pendragon lifted his glass in salute. “Perhaps we do. To interests in common, then.”

The old woman held up her glass. She sipped, nodded in approval. But her eyes never left Pendragon’s face.

Pendragon turned conversational. “I have a wide acquaintance in the world of those who seek connection with otherworldly forces, Ms. Le Fay. And yet you and your group,” he waved his glass to encompass the rest of them, “leave a very light footprint.”

“For now, it suits our purposes to be invisible,” the old woman said.

“But not forever.” Pendragon tapped his lips. “How very interesting. And when it suits you to ‘come out of the closet’ as it were, what are your aims?”

The old woman smiled. “Why should I tell you that, Mr. Pendragon?”

He didn’t blink at the slight. He turned and picked up a fancy foreign cigarette in a long holder. “Because,
if
you have power, I have the arcane knowledge that will help you to use it to better effect,” he said, waving his glass expansively.

“
If
I have power.” Her voice had grown hard. “What is this arcane knowledge?”

Pendragon smiled. “So direct,” he murmured. “So, you require proof, is that it?”

The old woman nodded. No smile now.

“Oh, very well,” Pendragon said, giving a big sigh. “How do you think I find your number, no matter how many times you change it? Eh? Because I have the ability to enter the astral plane at will.”

Jason snorted. All eyes turned toward him. “You just go up into the ether, or whatever, and check phone records?” What was this guy asking them to swallow?

Pendragon suppressed a chuckle and gave a sly kind of look. “Oh, ye of little faith. Souls find souls on another plane. My soul finds one of yours and follows you home, so to speak. My spirit can visit your earthly location. And then I just look around. That’s how I knew you wanted revenge on Brian and Brina Tremaine enough to want to kill their children. Now I know why of course.”

“So do it.” The old woman’s voice was final.

“Astral projection?” Pendragon shook his head, now chuckling outright. “No, no. Not likely. It leaves my body vulnerable. Not to say I don
’t trust your estimable companions, but.
…
”

“I’ll kill anyone who touches you or threatens you in any way.” When she said it like that,
he had to believe her. He wouldn’t know the catch to her promise.

Still Pendragon hesitated.

“It’s the price for partnership,” the old woman whispered.

Pendragon chewed his lip, then nodded and went to sit at the big, old desk. He closed his eyes. A second later his body went slack. His jaw dropped and his head lolled. He looked like somebody had pulled the bones out of his body. Hardwick started to move toward him and the old woman held up her hand.

“I meant what I said. Let him alone.”

“This whole setup is just to get into your confidence,” Jason protested.

“For what purpose?” The old woman asked. “He doesn’t yet know what we can do, or what we plan.”

“You don’t know he doesn’t know,” Jason said.

“If he did, he’d be pissing in his pants.”

He
had to give her that.

“Besides. If he can achieve astral travel, he might be able to perform alchemy. That could be useful in an acolyte.”

Turning metal into gold? But then she wouldn’t need Jason and his robberies. Jason felt like he’d swallowed ice cubes and they were sitting in a pile in his stomach.

The old woman laughed. God, but he hated her laugh. “Just so. You’d have to prove valuable in other ways, now wouldn’t you?”

The old woman returned to staring at Pendragon. Jason was wondering how long the old bag of wind could fake this astral travel stuff when he seemed to get bones again and his eyelids fluttered. He took a deep breath and looked up.

The old woman just raised her eyebrows in a challenge to him.

“I returned to your hotel suite. You left some of your group behind. Phillip? Poor Phil. Still not doing well. Seems he had a run-in with someone named Hardwick?”

Hardwick obligingly raised his hand.

“Impressive. A young woman named Raffia and another named Jackie are quite in awe of you, Mr. Hardwick, and very resentful for having to clean up Phil. Apparently he disgraced himself in a rather messy way. They’re trying to figure out how to dispose of his Dockers and his polo shirt. It’s green. I think.”

Jason was shocked. How could Pendragon know that? “He’s got the suite bugged.”

“Please.” Pendragon looked pained. “I know colors, and what the girls look like. Do I need to go into detail?”

“Then cameras.” There had to be some explanation.

“How could you possibly have allowed that?”

Trap. The old woman chuffed a laugh at Jason’s discomfort. Jason checked the suite regularly for security breaches.

“And alchemy?” the old woman breathed.

Pendragon nodded, knowing he’d captured her interest. “Much as you want. Just don’t attract attention when you sell it.”

“Do it,” she commanded.

“Sorry. That one takes smelting equipment, as well as some spell casting. Very industrial. I don’t do it on the premises.” Pendragon let the silence last for a minute. “Your turn?”

Jason thought the old woman was going to refuse. He, for one, had no desire to have her demonstrate her power. But instead she looked at Jason. “Show him.”

Well, that was better than the alternative. He went quiet in his mind and let the power surge up from his belly. It took no time at all. He was shocked at how fast the world turned that
faded color that meant he’d Cloaked himself and disappeared. Something was amping up his power. He let his power fade, but it wouldn’t go. He had to tamp it back down. He grunted with effort until the room flashed back to color.

The Talisman was somewhere close.

“Well. That was certainly impressive. The invisible man.” Pendragon looked at the old woman expectantly.

“I don’t think you want a demonstration of Hardwick’s power.”

Pendragon shook his head, a little too hard. “I’ll pass.”

“And Rhiannon here draws energy to create weather. We have too much weather going on already. How about Talbot? You’re a magician. You’d like his power.” She nodded to Talbot, who blushed in pleasure. He had one of those white and pink complexions that blushed at the drop of a hat. That and his longer hair made him look younger than he was
, the stand-out performer in a college chemistry lab perhaps, proud of his nerdiness.

Talbot looked around and fixed on the fern in the huge Chinese-looking blue and white pot. He pointed to it and it rose quietly into the air. He directed it down and pointed at the desk where Pendragon sat. It rose just as easily and floated up near the stamped tin ceiling. Talbot glanced over at the old woman, surprise and pleasure in his eyes. He felt the Talisman too. Pendragon was staring up at the heavy desk over his head.

“Let it down, Talbot. Gently. You’re frightening Mr. Pendragon.”

The desk floated toward the floor.

“Well.” Pendragon cleared his throat as he stood. “I suppose I’ll take the others on faith.” He stared at the old woman with curiosity glowing in his eyes. “I don’t suppose you’d like to reveal your own power?”

She shook her head.

“No. I didn’t think so. Still, I think it’s clear we could have a partnership which is truly productive for all concerned.”

“Perhaps.” The old woman was thinking. “But do we really need you?”

Pendragon was no dummy. “No one of you is indispensable, but together you are very formidable indeed,” he said. “Why not add brains to your little family as well as just individual talents?”

Uh-oh. Pendragon had just made a bad mistake.

“I like being the brains of the outfit.”

Jason knew what the old woman’s flat voice meant.

Pendragon made a recovery effort. “That’s the beauty of a partnership. Two heads are better than one.”

She downed the last of her sherry. “I think we’ve both seen enough, Mr. Pendragon. It’s been interesting at the very least.” She rose to go. Jason couldn't believe it. She was going to leave without what she came for?

“Wait,” Pendragon said, limping around the desk that had been hovering over him a minute ago, his cane thumping on the carpet. “You want the Tarot Talisman, don’t you?”

That’s what she wanted him to say. Jason could see it in her eyes. She wanted him to offer it, identify it. Then she could just take it. Oh, she was one smart cookie. By the time she turned slowly back to Pendragon, her expression was under control.

“Actually, I have two things you want.” Pendragon was falling all over himself now.

“I’m not interested in any crumbling books of magic lore, or some fake unicorn horn or any other of your chicanery, Mr. Pendragon, just the Talisman.”

Jason saw Pendragon swallow. “You must have one, too. When you escaped the hospital in Chicago, you were so ancient you were literally moldering” At the old woman’s look of surprised malice, he continued. “I said you leave a light footprint. But it isn’t
no
footprint. When I found you alive and looking not a day over sixty, I knew you had a Talisman. They can make you younger. Maybe immortal. I’m not sure about that, though certain texts discovered by the Golden Dawn seem to indicate.
…
But that’s neither here nor there. I have a Talisman. You knew that because you suspect that I, too, am older than I appear.” He drew himself up with that sly smile. “I’m one hundred and fifty-two.”

The old woman started to speak, but again he held up his hand.

“Hear me out. You want what I have. And perhaps two Talismans are the key to immortality. But the Talisman could be anything in the house. Or well protected in a vault where you can’t get it. I’m willing to produce it, in return for a full partnership with you. I’ll even throw in a Tremaine or two, since you couldn’t manage to get them the other night.”