Believe the Magic Read online

  I tried. I knew the mute button must somewhere in that smorgasboard of menu buttons. Zing. Oops. Nope, that was the volume button. The up volume. I covered my mouth to keep from giggling. Then my ears when Old Mathilda there hit a high C note. I swore I could hear every glass in my wine cabinet shattering.

  “Ella!” Quentin screamed.

  “Just a second. Don’t get your panties in a twist.” I aimed for the button on the end.

  Mathilda disappeared behind a screen of blissfully silent blackness. “Ah.” Quentin lowered his hands. “I don’t think we need to worry about power. Just aim.”

  That sounded positive. “Whoo hooo!” I pumped one fist in the air.

  “What I meant was, it’s good you didn’t have to scrunch up your nose and concentrate just to do that piddly trick.”

  “Oh.”

  “You need a lot more practice.”

  “Oh.”

  I, however, was not willing to practice destructive type exercises in my apartment. Do I need to explain why? Ask Quentin. He’d be more than pleased to tell you. My aim sucked.

  I think I heard it at least fifty times on the drive there. I drove. Which I think irritated him into repeating my shortcomings over and over. But I wasn’t giving up the keys. Even if it was a cream and rust Oldsmobile from seventeen years ago. Didn’t matter the right taillight was actually red tape and the bumper was held on with a bungee cord. It was mine—and paid for. He wasn’t driving.

  Quentin directed me to a landfill. That’s right. A landfill. I had to admit, it was the ideal place—if you could stomach the smell. And don’t even point out the fact there were probably maggots in there. Vile, nasty creatures. Nothing worse in the world. But, it was October. Hopefully that meant they had all grown up to be pesky flies. Those weren’t much higher on my list. After watching the movie The Fly I couldn’t handle having winged things land on me. Could just picture them projectile puking on me and my skin dissolving. Okay, all together now…ewww.

  “Here.” Quentin stopped my mental rant. “See you if can pick up the half-smashed can over there and throw it into that box.”

  I almost, but not quite, reached for it with my hand. Quentin’s eyes flickered. I swear those things glowed at times.

  And of course, my mental pitching arm was three feet off.

  “Again.” Quentin braced his feet wide and leaned back on his heels, then rose to his toes. I was tempted to give him a push while he was moving. But then he’d carry the stench into my car. Nope, not worth it.

  I settled on picking up an old tire and flattening the TV sized box.

  “Nice idea, but not what we were looking for.” He shook his head. “Not what I expected from a girl. I might have believed it if you wanted to grow daisies in an old coffee can. But sure hadn’t counted on you going for violent overkill.”

  I offered a tight-lipped smile and sprang a daffodil from a pile of diapers.

  “Cute, El. I’m beginning to think you’re a woman after my own heart.” Oh, that scared me. More than maggots.

  “What did you do to get your gems yanked, anyway?” I started concentrating. The dump was starting to irritate my sinuses. And it was creepy.

  “Used violent overkill.”

  “Oh.” I glanced over at the flattened cardboard.

  “I hurt someone. Someone innocent.” He raked his hand through his hair and I saw something new in his eyes. Something real. And raw.

  Damn, the guy had a heart. But I didn’t feel like laughing.

  “So Sam came and got me and said I needed someone to straighten me out.”

  “Me?” I squeaked. “He chose me to straighten you out?” What did I look like, a psychologist?

  “I believe he said you were supposed to keep an eye on me.” But Quentin rolled his eyes as if he doubted I could do even that.

  I nodded. Shift subject before someone pissed off the magic girl. I had blissfully forgotten about all the purpose for this magic and was enjoying the ride until he had to go and call me his glorified babysitter. I didn’t like not having a say in this—even though I’d probably go along with it now, because playing with magic was a lot more fun than booking the seniors flights for their southern migration. Still…

  I took a deep breath and changed the subject. “So, where ya from?”

  “Anchorage.”

  “Alaska?”

  “Is there another one?”

  My aim was improving. Slowly. I was getting within a foot of the target. Much better than the yard when I’d started. There’d be a pile of tin cans to heaven at the rate I was stacking them. “How’d you get here?”

  “Sam. He gets around.”

  “Guess so.”

  I knew he was getting bored. Alternated between heavy sighs and checking his watch.

  “So what’s the deal with the necklace?”

  He tilted his head in a curious puppy dog look. My turn to say duh?

  “The beads, gems, whatever. I get moving them closer equals more power. But this seems to be pretty potent for having them at the North and South poles.”

  I picked up another can and easily tossed it into the center of the tire. “I didn’t even have to say abracadabra,” I called. “Let’s go home.”

  “The beads,” he said, stomping through the mess, “have some sort of magnetism, I guess you’d say. When they’re closer together, they produce more potential power. Can you imagine what it’s like to have all ten together?”

  I couldn’t see his face when he spoke, but the concept had me speechless. Then I remember Sam saying this bad guy had six gems. What had I gotten suckered into?

  “Where do I need to drop you?” I queried. Quentin stared straight ahead. A muscle in his jaw twitched.

  “Don’t have anyplace.”

  “But—”

  “And I’m not staying at Sam’s.” Wow, vicious. I’d assumed that’s where he’d come from.

  “I just got into town today. Forgot how cold it is here.”

  “Where were you? Obviously not Anchorage.”

  “Hahaha. Panama.”

  “Why there?”

  “I got in trouble remember? What’s in Panama?”

  “I dunno. Drugs are what I think of.”

  “There’s a lot more than that. You’re close, though. I was involved in firearm movement. Made a bit of dough too. Until our boy yanked me out.”

  “Can’t use the magic like that, huh?”

  “Nope. No lottery numbers, no casinos and no illegal sales of firearms.”

  I raised an eyebrow. Guess that’s where the nice tan came from. “And what were you supposed to be doing?”

  “In Panama?”

  “Where else?”

  His sheepish grin was my undoing. I couldn’t regret this whole thing because whether I wanted to or not, I liked Quentin. He avoided answering my question, I noticed. My mind was already romanticizing the reasons why. If Quentin smiled at me like that again, I might even be willing to admit I had fun at the stinky landfill.

  Instead of tempting fate, I parked in front of my apartment building. “Let’s find us something to eat. It won’t hurt for you to sleep on my couch.” I was such a pushover.

  Groucho Marx he was not. But he tried to mimic the elevator eyebrows and fake cigar movement. “Why thank you. Yes, yes indeed.”

  “Don’t push it, buddy. You’re here to train me to baby-sit you. This is insane.” I unlocked the door and he followed me up the stairs.

  Once inside he took up residence on my couch again. “Training, right. You asked me this before. Right now you really are pretty limited on what you can do. Probably a fifty pound weight limit to lift and move. No fire power. Hardly any electrical power.”

  “Elect—”

  “Whoa, Nellie.”

  “El-la,” I pronounced.

  “Yeah, I know. Just playing with ya. Geesh.”

  I wasn’t going to let him get under my skin. No sirree, it wasn’t going to happen. “So.” I smiled nice. While planni
ng how I could drop him from my second story window as he slept. “Tell me more.”

  He was busy putting the batteries back in the remote. Guess he didn’t trust me to change channels for him. I tried again. “So, if the gems were ninety degrees from each other instead of at one eighty, I could snap my fingers and we’d be eating prime rib right now?”

  “At someone else’s expense, of course.”

  “You had to go and ruin it for me, didn’t you?”

  “Nothing is free. Remember the rule in science class? For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

  “Hello? You memorized that crap?” I shook my head and stared at him.

  “Remember it and live by it.”

  “Holy smokes, there’s homework to this stuff?”

  “Guess you’re not gonna like the geography part.”

  I couldn’t help it. I squealed like a pig.

  “Well then, smarty pants,” I struggled with the idea of school work, but Quentin was kind enough to point out I used geography every day at the travel agency. “How did I manage to disappear?”

  “That,” Quentin advised, “was pure magic.”

  “There’s a difference?” I gave up trying to keep my distance. I was cold and not going to sit on the floor. So I perched on the opposite arm of the couch.

  “Fine line.” He drew his brows together and frowned. “How do I say this?”

  “Out loud?”

  “It’s all magic really. There’s the displacement thing, like with the meal you were talking about. You can’t make something from nothing. You move objects. You will learn to manipulate electricity and fire, but the energy to start it will come from you.”

  I nodded. Made a world of sense to me. And I wanted to try it right now.

  “You’ll start to hear other people’s thoughts. Not necessarily thoughts, but, hmmm, I guess it’s what you say out loud in your head. That’s what you’ll hear.”

  “How does Sam do that even though he doesn’t wear a necklace?”

  “Just say wear the gems. Necklace sounds so…feminine.”

  “Not too in touch with your feminine side, are ya, Quen?”

  “No.” He leaned over and hauled me onto the couch. “But I could sure handle touching your feminine sides.”

  I untangled myself from the octopus man and strode into the kitchen. “Well, mister, are you going to answer me?”

  “Sam? Yeah, well. He draws on your strength. If none of us had a necklace he couldn’t read minds.”

  “You just called it a necklace.” I couldn’t help but point that out. “Besides, I want to know more about this mind reading thing.”

  “Shut up and feed me, okay.”

  Oh, no. Things didn’t work that way in my house. “You want to eat you have to either cook or clean up.”

  He was right behind me, his voice hot against the back of my neck. “We could really cook together, baby.”

  I should have been turned off by this punk. Wanted to feel nothing but disdain. Certainly not experience the vibrations that had nothing to do with magic. I whirled around, not expecting him to remain so close after scaring me like that. But there he was, and I was practically in his arms. My heart pounded, my breath caught. So close I could smell his cologne, feel his breath.

  He looked surprised as well, his forest green eyes darkened, reminding me of an uncharted row of woods. I was afraid and intrigued, curious about what lay behind the surface.

  Did I mention I was a daredevil? Couldn’t manage to be afraid of much. At least not until I tried it once. Discovered I didn’t like bungee jumping. But this? This scared me.

  Quentin yanked me back from my tangent much too quickly. I can’t get into trouble when I’m lost in thought. But enveloped in the warmth Quentin offered, knowing there was more heat available if I just dared. Well, that spells trouble.

  “No.” I gripped his forearms and pushed his hands back between us. The ripple of his muscles beneath my fingertips caused shockwaves in my senses. “You really need to stop distracting me. I can’t think.”

  “There’s no thinking to it. You just do.”

  “Oh, I know how it works. But that’s what we need to practice right now—logical, practical thinking. A lot of it. And you’ve got questions to answer. Seems to me, if I’m the one that is supposed to be keeping an eye on you and keeping you out of trouble, the last thing we need to do is indulge in a little lust party.”

  “You’re tempted?”

  “If you need to stroke your ego, yes. It’s been awhile, okay?”

  He laughed and ran a hand down my cheek. Damn it, my knees were instant spaghetti noodles. Fully cooked.

  “How about Italian?” I turned and dug a jar of pre-made pasta sauce from the cabinet.

  “That’s cheap.”

  “It’s just me. I don’t home cook spaghetti sauce for dinner for one.”

  “Still.”

  “Listen. It’s this or, um, there might be a frozen pizza in there. I haven’t exactly gone grocery shopping. I do that on Sunday mornings.”

  “Anyone deliver a good pie around here?”

  “You got money?”

  His face fell. “No.”

  “Then I don’t think we’re gonna get more delivery than freezer to oven to coffee table.”

  “I suppose that would work.”

  I put the pasta sauce back and stood up, right into his arms again. “We can’t keep doing this.”

  “Am I wearing you down yet?”

  “My patience it getting thin. And I have the power, remember.”

  “Sam said no magic used against us.”

  “He ain’t here.”

  Sam opened the door and walked through.

  “I thought you locked that.” I slapped Quentin on the arm.

  “Hey,” he slapped me back, “I did.”

  “You two are so busy arguing you didn’t hear me. That won’t work out there when we’re sneaking up on Bergestein and his spawn.”

  I looked at Quentin and he looked at me. Sam had a point. I wondered if I could tolerate this guy. In silence.

  His eyebrow lifted. I heard it, as plain as if he said it out loud. “I can think of a good way to keep our mouths occupied.”

  “Hey!” I turned to him, too shocked over the fact I had heard his thoughts to register what he had said. “I heard you.”

  Quentin groaned. “Brilliant, Sam. You got me a live one that can read my head even with the gems at one eighty. “

  I touched the beads, which rested on opposite sides of my neck, still hiding under the turtleneck I wore. Sam winked at me. Since I wasn’t hearing any more mental conversations, I had a good idea I hadn’t heard a thing he hadn’t put in my head. So I winked back.

  “We were just going to have pizza. Care to join us?” See? I could be a generous hostess. “And since you’re here, can you tell me about this mind reading thing? Or talking to one another in your head? I’ve got to learn that.”

  “You will. Just tune in. Takes concentration. You can also block it out, but that takes even more skill.” Sam frowned at Quentin, who was clearly saying something mentally I wouldn’t want to hear. But try as I might, I couldn’t “tune in”. Maybe I was on the wrong channel.

  “I can’t hear anything. Do I have to be closer, or stare into your eyes or something?”

  Quentin groaned. Sam shot him a look and nodded at me. “You’ll get it. You more or less need to be in the same room, or if outside, within reasonable vicinity. I think I told Quentin if you could hear them if they spoke normal, then you should be able to detect their thoughts.”

  “So no listening through walls and stuff?” I tried to be hopeful. Otherwise I would feel spied on, constantly.

  “Not unless they’re paper thin and you’re both very close to the wall. Now come here.” Sam hooked a finger in my direction. It felt odd to get the “c’mere” signal from a man at least fifteen years my senior.

  “I’m flattered,” he grinned. “Try twenty-
two.”

  “You’re fifty?” I blurted. “No freakin’ way. You’re pretty hot for an old guy.”

  Quentin snorted. I wanted to go hide under the couch. Sam just smiled. I had a feeling this was going to hurt.

  “Now that we’ve got that clear, I need to see you. Come here.”

  Baby steps, baby steps. Don’t step on the cracks. I tiptoed across the linoleum. Hard to miss the cracks in a floor older than me.

  I stopped in front of Sam. Afraid to pay the consequences for calling him an old guy. I glanced up through my eyelashes, figuring they had to be good for something. I’d rather gotten caught up in the circus-like fun of doing magic all afternoon and temporarily forgotten Sam’s serious agenda. It probably wasn’t a good idea to have insulted him, even playfully.

  Quentin stepped behind me and slid his hands around my waist. I shivered. “Hey now. I ain’t no hugging machine.”

  “Nope.” I heard Quentin’s voice in my hair. “Tonight, you’re the rocket ship.”

  Sam grabbed my hands and led them to my throat. He repeated the steps Quentin had started at the travel agency. At his bidding, my fingers closed over the beads and slid them closer together.

  For the love of God, get me out of here.

  Chapter Four

  Disneyland. California

  “I didn’t mean it, really I didn’t.” But, by golly, there I stood, looking up into the permanently grinning face of Mickey Mouse.

  “Uh, Sam?” I looked around. This wasn’t where I wanted to be. “Quen?”

  Mickey held out his hand. I shook it. Then he held out his other hand. Okay. I shook with my left while searching for a familiar face. Then the big mouse held out both arms in an I-wanna-hug gesture.

  “Uh, no.” I walked away. Poor Mickey, I bet he’d never been turned down like that before.

  All right. Think, Ella. Use that brain before atrophy sets in and you’re trapped in an amusement park. I was totally caught off guard with this new development. All I remembered was Sam moving the gems closer, then wham, we were gone. No one told me it was time to fly. Zapped literally. From point A to point B without so much as the chance to grab my purse. I had no money, no credit cards. Well, okay, so they were maxed out, but I still felt a little better with them in my wallet.