Believe the Magic Read online

  I moved slow, reaching before me as I half crawled to the left. All I needed was to find my way blocked. Then I’d for sure be stuck.

  “Well, Jonesy, what are we going to do with her? Feel her out for the gems and leave her wandering out here? Someone will find her and no one will believe her story.”

  The other guy replied, “I don’t know. I didn’t think they wanted us to just leave her. They expected us to kill her.”

  I crawled a little farther. I made my thoughts stick to the smell of the ground, the chill in the air. Weather was always a good neutral subject. Tiny rocks cut into my palms. My knees would undoubtedly be threadbare. Too bad tore-up denim wasn’t the big style right now. I would have fit right in.

  That thought must have slipped through the weather. The pursuer, who didn’t have a name yet cut in. “It’ll be more than a couple of tears in your clothes that you’ll be dealing with when I’m done with you, sister.”

  “I’m so not your sister.” God, where was he? He needed a swift kick—

  “Ah ah ah. You forget I can hear you.”

  “Bite me.” I jumped up and ran. Something told me he was just about to reach down and realize I’d already put three feet between him and myself. I stumbled and fell once but rolled, got up and continued running. Until I reached a chain link fence. With rings of barbed wire keeping me from climbing over it.

  I couldn’t hear anything that sounded like a pursuit. But they were there. I knew it.

  Now the theme music to Jaws started thudding in my brain. I followed the fence line. There had to be a gate. Damn, damn, damn. All this for a freakin’ purse. But who, me? Listen? Yeah.

  The thicker bars of silver fencing made me think there was a break in the fence. Yes! I needed a bathroom and warmth. And a phone. I wonder if I called Jeannie if she’d come and get me. I could say my purse was stolen. They’d issue me new ID, right? I could just walk away from this whole magic thing and forget about it.

  The warning music turned into a steady pulsing at my neck. The break was a gate, but it was locked. Son of a—wait. Sam had walked into my house by moving the tumblers in the lock and letting himself in. Why was I being so ignorant?

  “There!” I heard the shout when I pushed the gate open enough to slip through. It would have been pointless to waste time locking it again. I just bolted toward the nearest trailer that still had its lights on.

  What would I say? I’d have to become visible again. Could I just ask where that particular animal trailer was, maybe find someone to accompany me there, and then back out to the front of the studio? Ah, sure. That was gonna happen. Right after the aliens came and injected my body with odd shaped metal objects.

  Plan B. What the hell was it?

  Chapter Seven

  I paced in the shadows. If this were the movies, what would happen next? I envisioned an arm slinking around my waist and a second around my face, smothering my scream.

  I left the shadows and moved between the small buildings. The ache in my head muffled any sounds I heard. I was scared. Just about to wet myself scared. And my full bladder didn’t help any.

  The next building was dark, and quite a big bigger than the first. There’s got to be a bathroom in there. With a little more ease than the last one, I picked the lock. The building appeared to be a storage unit, packed with boxes and chairs and numerous other things I couldn’t see from the faint glow of the streetlight.

  That was just great. All I wanted was a toilet. Maybe not all. I really wanted to be home, but I’d settle for a bathroom. Then I could go back out and find Quentin and Sam again. I’d even forfeit my purse for a bathroom.

  I felt my way through the room. An extension cord tried to wrap itself around my leg like a snake as I walked by. Shudder. I felt my way around the boxes until my hand hit drywall. Rooms. Hallelujah!

  But I got no farther. A gloved hand reached around me and covered my mouth and an arm pinned my arms to my body. I tried to scream and kicked like a pissed off donkey at the person who lifted me right off the ground. It didn’t matter. My mind reached out through the room and started hurling some of the smaller items at my back. The reverberations of a few hits had my spirits soaring. But it also had the grip on me tightening.

  “I can’t breathe,” I shouted mentally. “Relax a little or you’ll kill me.”

  Thankfully he didn’t growl back something about that being his intention. The hand over most of my face shifted so I could suck air through my bruised nostrils.

  I couldn’t hear any conversations, mental or real. Was this the same person who had been tracking me outside—Jonesy or his counterpart—or a whole new flavor of stalker?

  Twisting to try to catch a glimpse didn’t work. The slightest pressure had me back off the ground and holding my breath. Unwillingly.

  I knew it wasn’t Quentin. His heat, his scent would have triggered something, some sort of familiarity. That, I knew, was missing from this confrontation.

  But why weren’t my gems heating up like an electric fence? What was the problem? Had I shorted them out? No, or I wouldn’t be able to throw things. Or be invisible.

  I expected a retort considering my rambling thoughts. I was practically talking to myself—mentally. But it was silence that answered. I spoke up, mentally since my spoken word would have been a gasp. “Listen, who ever you are. I’ve got to pee. Considering your position, you’ll be smelling sweet and feel rather wet if you don’t find me a bathroom. Stat.”

  I learned stat watching those trauma room shows on the Discovery channel. Apparently, he wasn’t impressed. Calling my bluff. I couldn’t force myself to willingly wet my pants either. Figured.

  Then I remembered Quentin’s words. Some electricity. If the beads weren’t going to do it on their own, I’d shock him myself. I sucked in a mouth full of air as the leather clad hand was readjusted across my face. I was more or less pinned between this person’s body and the wall, so knocking my heels together wasn’t going to do it.

  Picture lightning bolts. A small arc—something the common person could create by shuffling their feet across the carpet—jumped from my body to his.

  I expected to hear him laughing at my weak attempt. He had to be thinking what a piece of cake it was going to be to kill me—or whatever it was he wanted to do with me.

  I needed more than a few sparks. It’d be cool if I could breathe fire. I pulled in another leather tasting breath. I figuratively reached down, jerking anything possible from the tips of my toes and fingers. The gems heated up and grew, or at least felt like they did, along with the vortex I sensed twisting in my chest. I closed my eyes. Held it in, let it build. Heat, precious heat flamed up when I thought about my predicament. My throat burned, my tongue was on fire. Anger was its fuel.

  It might actually be better than sex, I thought. Then thought again. Nah, not quite. This was intense, a rush, but it was also consuming. I opened my eyes and my mouth and envisioned a fire breathing dragon.

  There was a loud yelp in my ear, a bright flash, then an evil sounding laugh.

  Arms slid beneath my shoulders and knees. I couldn’t muster the strength to think about fighting them. It’s all I could do to keep my eyes open. Acrid smell burnt my nose. Bright orange and yellow flames climbed the drywall.

  Hands were at my neck, pulling. “Go away,” I pushed past my chapped lips. “Stop.”

  It was too late. In an explosive brilliance I was sucked into a dimension where travel was warp speed. And I dreamed I was a little girl again.

  New discovery; we didn’t just relocate this time. We went backwards in time. Wicked.

  “Annabelle, quit dawdling. Get up out of your bed and get ready for your lessons.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I replied. Initially I was startled by the voice—it wasn’t mine! Then I looked down. How fun, I thought after a few deep breaths. I get to be a spoiled rotten child of a wealthy family. I took a moment to absorb the surroundings.

  It was warm here, I realized as I stripped off
the long sleeping gown and stepped into the muslin dress laid on the foot of the four poster bed. By Nanny. I grinned. There was enough true Annabelle left to guide me through the day. Maybe I could keep from being detected. For a while at least. I might have time to think of a plan.

  My hand flew to my neck and connected with lace. Oh, Jeez. What if they stole the necklace? Then I’d really be stuck. No. No. It had to be there. Somewhere. I was Annabelle. I couldn’t rightly be Annabelle without it, could I? Not unless those thugs had snatched the gems and cast some sort of witchy spell to turn me into a girl living a hundred years before their time.

  “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” I cried while clawing at the dress on my throat.

  “Annabelle Rockford.” Nanny waddled into the room and wound her gnarled hand into my hair. “What would Papa say if he hears you talking like them boys?”

  I didn’t even know that word was used back then, er, I mean now. I shrugged mentally. I wasn’t about to have poor Annabelle shrug and subject her eight-year-old body to any more of Nanny’s fierceness. And Papa? I felt Annabelle’s tears well up in fright. He wouldn’t hesitate to lay down the law.

  But Nanny released my hair and was prattling on about the stable boys. “I told your mother not to allow you to watch them boys saddling them horses, cussing and swearing the ways thems do. Ain’t no good for a proper little girl’s ears.”

  She jerked me around and deftly buttoned the back of my dress. Those fingers were deceptively strong and nimble. Chalk it up for future reference. No upsetting Nanny.

  “Where’d you get such a piece of primitive jewelry?”

  “Uncle Charles,” I replied. Who? His name was Sam, Annabelle. But it was the right answer.

  “Uncle Charles, Uncle Charles. It was probably that man, overcome with spirits who taught you such speech.”

  “Papa would not like you to speak of his brother that way.”

  Not my ear, no. Not my ear! Nanny yanked me across the room and laid her wide hand to my backside. Ugh…now I’m thinking in this era. She flat-out spanked my butt.

  “You’ll not disrespect me, young ‘un.”

  I turned, probably red in the face but not broken down. “I will hold my tongue of your talk of dear Uncle Charles and you will breathe no word to he or mother of my own outburst.”

  Nanny’s wrinkles disappeared as her jaw fell open. “Annabelle, you’ve been listening a far cry too much to your daddy and brother making deals. I swear it. You’re too smart for your own britches.”

  She didn’t scold me though. Just pulled the mosquito netting over my bed evenly and set out the water for me to wash my face.

  “Hurry, child. No more dawdling out of you this morning. Already too much going on in this house today.”

  I raised an eyebrow and used the mirror to look back at the heavyset woman behind me. Nanny was humming and pulling frocks from the wardrobe.

  I shifted my eyes back to the chocolate ones in the mirror. Wide set they were, set above a perky nose and cupid’s bow mouth. Yep. Doomed to be a real debutante in seven or eight more years. But wow, check out those curls—

  “Now, quit being prissy. You’re getting pretty enough without memorizing every line to your face. Afore long you’ll be old like me and no one will see anything that was once beautiful.”

  I refused to comment and simply walked out of the room and down the hall to the library. I wouldn’t slow my pace. I’d already managed to get Nanny on the defensive. Any more odd behavior would surely blow my cover. And I’d gotten here somehow. That meant someone else was here too. Someone probably worth hiding from. Still I gawked inwardly at the finely carved dark wood trim that lined the hallway walls and encircled each doorway. What was this place, a castle?

  “Closer to a palace, anyway.”

  The voice was real, but it wasn’t really Ernest, my older brother—Annabelle’s older brother. He’d read my thoughts.

  “Who are you?” I dare not speak out loud—not in the little girl’s voice.

  “My name is Jim, Jim Hansen.”

  “Did you bring me here?” I could feel the vortex churning in my chest again. Building, building.

  “Whoa, there, Ella, dear. No more flame throwing. Though I have to admit, that was pretty impressive for a novice.”

  I glanced at his hands. “No.” He laughed. “It wasn’t me you fried. It was one of Bergestein’s goons.”

  Goons. I liked that. “So, who are you, what were you doing there and why did you whisk us back to this?”

  He didn’t have a chance to answer. Nanny came up behind me and tapped my shoulder. “Quit scowling at your brother and let him get on by. Your lessons are waiting.”

  “Yeah, your lessons are waiting,” he teased.

  As he pushed past I couldn’t help but reach out and zap his arm. Just lightly, I swear it. He turned around with a grin. Not a frown.

  What was I in for?

  I let Annabelle lead through the rest of the day. It turned out to be quite dull. Needlework and costume changes. It was no fun to sit while Nanny jerked her way through my thick, wavy hair.

  “Well,” Nanny spoke as she tapped the silver backed brush on my shoulder. “You didn’t utter a peep through all that. Maybe I will take you up on our bargain from this morning.”

  Annabelle—I—just nodded and fumbled with my fingers on my lap. Nanny must have accepted that, thank goodness, and continued her job of undressing and redressing me like I was a doll.

  Ernest was at dinner. So being the good children we are, we ate silently while having an intense mental conversation.

  “So why did you kidnap me?” I hit him as soon as he had entered the room.

  “To save your ass.”

  “To save the gems, I’m sure.”

  “It makes me sound like a nicer guy the other way.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “Annabelle, don’t you act like you’re going to throw your food at your brother.” Mother was the peacekeeper. Submissive woman that she was. Papa just ate, his features in a permanent scowl thanks to the single eyebrow dividing his eyes from his forehead. I felt no daughterly compassion toward that man. So I ignored him and faced Ernest again.

  He chewed his vegetable carefully. “I used to be Sam’s partner.”

  Oh, this had my utmost attention. “And?”

  “Let’s just say he’s stuck to the straight and narrow. Never misused his magic. Not once.”

  “He kidnapped me.”

  “He recruited you. You saw things before he gave you the necklace, did you not?”

  The picture of me as an Indian girl flashed into my head. “That was fake. He made me see the image.”

  “Yes, he let you see. You chose to see it.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Doesn’t matter now. Magic is a part of you. You can’t go back.”

  “So what’s all this with Sam and you and this Mr. B dude?”

  Ernest passed the serving platter to Mother. It seemed our bodily hosts were acting perfectly normal while we carried on. This was way too bizarre for me.

  “In a nutshell, a very small one, Mr. B needs ten gems to complete a circle and basically control all the magic out there. The council, which has been felled by none other than—”

  “Mr. B,” I finished.

  “Yes, Mr. B. Anyway, the council had passed the rule no men could have more than two. Or wait. I think it was use more than two. He could hold four total while recruiting, as Sam did.”

  “But wouldn’t Sam have had six, mine, his and Quentin’s?”

  “The ones Quentin wears are Sam’s. Quentin lost his and Sam had to go save him.”

  “Quentin lost his? I could have sworn I heard that Sam lost his.”

  “It all works out, doesn’t it? Sam is strong enough not to need them on. Like me, he can use those belonging to others.”

  “Then you have none?”

  His eyebrow arched. “I have a pair. Now. Courtesy of the goon you scor
ched.”

  I clapped my hand over my mouth. “Did he die?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Annabelle, are you ill, dear?”

  “No, ma’am. Just felt as though I would cough. Pardon me.” This little gal had some manners now. I wish I could’ve thought to be so courteous and precise with my words at that age. I would have said. “No, just had something go down the wrong pipe” and then proceeded to hack it up.

  Dessert was being served. I still didn’t trust him. There had to be an ulterior motive. “What now, Jim? Why did we go backwards in time?”

  “It’s safe here. Mr. B’s men won’t be looking for you here.”

  I touched the collar of my dress, feeling the gems beneath the stiffly starched cotton. “Why are they looking for me?”

  “Your magic is unpracticed. You’re vulnerable.”

  I shivered. No kidding. Did I trust this person? I didn’t even know what he looked like. I sure did want to get a look in his eyes to see if I could detect a lie.

  What were my choices? Jim was listening. I could see it by the sleek smile on Ernest’s face.

  “You like the pie, Ernest, son? The cook made it from gooseberries.” Papa scooped up mouthful after mouthful.

  Tonight’s conversation was over. The little girl had an early bedtime.

  Well, I thought the conversation was over. Turned out this Jim guy had some pretty strong magic. We could talk with the wall separating us. Oh joy. I’ll never be able to think again without wondering who was honing in on my precious thoughts.

  “I can see why Sam chose you.”

  “Enjoying my wit and charming personality?”

  “Well, I was actually referring to your ability to adapt and accept your circumstances while maintaining control. There are many more men in our circle because—”

  “Because women get hysterical?”

  “Yep.”

  “Bastard.”

  “I have been called worse.” Jim chuckled. I imagined Ernest lying back on a masculine looking bed, his hands cupped beneath his head. Just like I was.