Books > Waiting For Magic > Chapter 1

WAITING FOR MAGIC

CHAPTER ONE


What?” Kemble Tremaine never used that tone of voice with his father. His only excuse was that he was shocked.

Miles Vanderlaan, their new corporate lawyer, snapped his gaze up from the contracts he was reading in surprise. The three of them were in the office wing of the Breakers, cleaning up details of the latest acquisition.

“I said I’d like you to focus on acquiring some objects for the museum. Miles can help you with the contracts.” Senior’s tone was mild, just as though he hadn’t practically slapped Kemble. When his father was stretched thin managing Tremaine Enterprises and the family was in constant danger of attack, to relegate Kemble to buying antiques. . .

“They have an acquisitions department,” he said, jaw clenching. “You give them the money, they buy the stuff.” This was a make-work job. A flush rose from his neck into his face.

“Is that really necessary?” Miles asked. “Kemble should be focused on absorbing the new acquisition.”

Senior got that “Captain of Industry” look about his mouth. “Cameron Phelps is a good man. He’s brought Petra this far and he’s eager for it to be a part of our family of companies. He and Johnson can handle the integration.”

Miles shut down. One didn’t argue with that tone. He began packing up his contracts.

But Kemble couldn’t let it go. “How am I ever going to take over for you if you never let me do the important things?”

“Are you planning a coup?” His father had picked up the quarterly reports on the wind farms and was leafing through them.

“Of course not,” Kemble snapped. He was only too aware that he’d never be able to match a father who could do anything after simply being told about it or reading a book. That included anything his sons were interested in doing; surfing, music, engineering, sailing, racecar driving. Didn’t matter. He sighed. “But you have to retire sometime.”

Kemble couldn’t believe he’d said that. His father looked up, his sharp blue eyes fixed on his son. There wouldn’t be anything he didn’t see, once he focused. He just didn’t often focus on Kemble. His oldest son was just part of the Tremaine Enterprise infrastructure.

“I’ll have these ready tomorrow,” Miles said, as he closed his briefcase. His expression was impassive. There was no way he’d get between Brian Tremaine and his son. “I’ll let you know if the final proposals on the wind farm come in.” He gave a nod and vacated, while Kemble stood there, stiff with rage.

“Is this because I don’t have magic?” Maybe he could blurt it out because he’d begun to accept that fact, depressing as it was. “And not likely to get any at thirty-six. Maybe you could bring Tristram into the business, or Drew.” They’d each found a soul mate who also had the magic gene. They’d gotten a power.

His father blinked at him. “You’re kidding, of course. They have no interest in the company. You’re it. Even Tristram calls you ‘the Prince of Wales.’ ”

“What difference does that make?” All the frustration of the last years welled up into Kemble’s throat. “I’ll never be an Adapter. I’ll never be able to run the business or lead the family like you do. But that doesn’t matter, because you’ll never retire. So that leaves me where? Acquiring artifacts for the museum.”

“What’s wrong with you?” his father asked, anger rising. “I ask you to take on an important task and you throw a fit like a five-year-old.”

“Important,” Kemble snorted. “Acquiring artifacts?”

Senior was about to retort, but caught himself. A look of surprise crossed his face before his expression turned wry. “I couldn’t call them Tarot Talismans in front of Miles, now could I?”

Kemble felt his anger drain away, probably along with the rest of the blood in his face. His father was asking him to take responsibility for acquiring Talismans?

Senior tossed the reports onto the conference table. Behind him, French doors looked out across the terrace and lawns, past the pergola covered in bougainvillea to the iron gray of the Pacific and Catalina Island. The sky was fractious with storm clouds. It was supposed to rain like sixty later. “I’ve been wrong, Kemble,” his father said, leveling his gaze at his son.

Kemble raised his brows, stunned into silence.

“I know. I know. I don’t admit that often enough.” His father rubbed the bridge of his nose. Kemble had never really noticed the gray infiltrating his father’s black hair, or the lines deepening around his eyes and the corners of his mouth. His father looked at that moment as though he had turned the corner out of middle age. What was he, fifty-nine? Kemble had always thought Senior was invincible, but his father was tired. Kemble felt the supports knocked out from under his world.

Senior looked up. “I’ve been fighting a defensive battle. I’ve tried everything I know to keep you all safe from the old woman and the Clan.”

“And you’re doing a great job. The Secret Service could learn some tricks from you.”

His father stared up at the painting that looked vaguely like a Rothko on the conference room wall. His sister Keelan’s work, of course. “I’ve thought about selling the company so we could keep a lower profile. Move the family somewhere harder to find.”

Kemble was really shocked now. “Tremaine Enterprises is force for good in the world. That counts for something. Besides….”

“I know. Your mother wouldn’t let me.”

Exactly what Kemble had been thinking.

Senior sighed. “But my family is paying the price for this feud.”

“Tamsen was homeschooled. Big deal.”

“We’re under siege, Kemble. Keelan can’t study in Paris. Lanyon had to turn down Julliard. Children grown and married are still living on the estate. We’re a compound.”

“It’s how things are. You didn’t start this thing. The old woman found you.”

Senior leaned over the table on braced arms and hung his head. Then he pounded the table so the pile of reports jumped. Kemble jumped too. “That’s the problem. We’re playing defense when we should be playing offense.” For the first time, Kemble saw fear in his father’s eyes. “We’ll make a mistake … or one of the children will run off in frustration like Drew and make themselves vulnerable. That was almost a disaster. And she wins.”

Kemble was shaken.

“And I might not catch her next plot. There have been six or seven since she brought down Lehman Brothers.”

“That was the Clan?” The ensuing recession had caused misery for untold millions.

“She tanked the economy and then bought up banking shares, knowing the government would have to bail them out. These weather-related disasters? The old woman’s weather witch. Tornados, storm surges. How do I stop those?”

Kemble felt small. If his father couldn’t stop the Clan, who could? “What do we do?”

His father turned. “It’s what you do, son.”

“Me?” Panic squeezed his chest. His dismay at being relegated to the sidelines was nothing compared to the dread of having such an important, impossible task.

“Morgan said to me once that with a ritual and just the right timing, Talismans could increase our powers. What if she’s right? What if more still exist? If she gets them all, she might be invincible. Lehman Brothers and a few bad storms would be dwarfed by the things she could do to the world. I should have been working on finding them since the moment we got back from Chicago, not just hunkering down at the Breakers and thwarting a few plots.”

“If you need to find something, Michael’s your man. He’s the Finder.” Kemble found he could breathe again. Not his job. Not his imminent failure.

“He could find the Sword because the Clan discovered what it looked like.” Senior ran his fingers through his hair. “I have no idea what the other Talismans look like.” He got up to pace the conference room. “If they still exist. They’ve had sixteen centuries since Merlin’s day to disappear. And if we do find them, we have no idea how to use them to augment our power.” His father rounded on Kemble. “We’re totally in the dark. That’s not a place I like to be.”

Kemble got that. An Adapter could do anything, but he had to know what to do first. It must frustrate the hell out of Senior. Still.… “You can’t think I can help here.”

His father strode forward and took Kemble’s shoulder. His grip was firm, steadying. “You may be the only one who can, son. If the Talismans are out there, someone knows about it. And these days, if knowledge exists, it’s in the virtual universe. Nobody is better with computers than you are. You can hack anything, which means you can look everywhere.”

His father valued him? Kemble had to remind himself to breathe. It was what he’d always wanted. But that made disabusing Senior of his confidence feel even worse. “Any trace would be in old manuscripts or something.…”

His father turned and stood with his hands in his pockets, looking out at Catalina again. Was he embarrassed by that moment of connection with his oldest son? “All transcribed online. You’ll get Drew to help you, of course. She’s a history major. She found the true origin of the tarot, for God’s sake.” A small smile touched his lips. “That was good work.” Then he was all business again as he turned that ice-blue gaze on Kemble. “Together, you can do this.”

Kemble chewed his lip. He could almost feel the disappointment creeping up from behind, waiting to surprise his father. Failure wouldn’t be a surprise to Kemble, of course.

“Please.”

Kemble sucked in a little breath. He wouldn’t call it a gasp. Not exactly. When had his father ever asked him to do something? He’d used the word “please” before. But there was a way to use it that was really a command, not a request. This was almost as if his father needed him. He couldn’t refuse that, even if Senior was doomed to disappointment. “I’ll give it a shot.”

It was only a matter of life and death to the family, if what Senior said was true. And Senior didn’t feel up to tackling it himself? What chance did Kemble have?


* * * * *


A misshapen shadow fell across Kee’s canvas. Her brush, laden with the deep teal she was using for the early November shadows under the pergola, paused in midair. The somber tone of her painting matched her mood today. She might be moving out of her Monet period. The question was, whose style was she moving into? She sighed.

“Those are going to fall off one of these days,” she said to the shadow without turning.

“You always say that,” the familiar deep voice complained. “They never do.”

She gave a reluctant smile and swiveled. In spite of his protest, Devin put his surfboard down on the lawn and hiked up the baggy, wet board shorts from hips to waist, retying the cord. The chill November wind had dried his body on the hike up from the beach, but his longish blond hair was still wet and dark. She refused to ask if he was cold. He always called the weather “brisk,” even if she was freezing. Today she’d bundled up in a turtleneck under the men’s work shirt she used as a painter’s smock, while Devin was half-naked. Salt rime left a wavy line over his tanned chest and shoulders. He had to be strong to surf the big waves and he’d worked hard at it. His muscles were sleek. Like a seal, he seemed to have been born for the water.

Kee turned herself forcibly back to her painting. Somehow the bougainvillea looked like the last bright defiance of the coming winter. She hadn’t intended to make it seem so poignant.

“You just want to give those surfer girls a thrill,” she said over her shoulder.

He snorted and plopped down on the grass. “Like I care.”

“Not for any of them?” she asked, suddenly serious.

“No.”

Her brother, with whom she’d shared everything since they were nine, had seemed, well, closed off lately. She’d thought maybe he’d finally found a girlfriend. “You’ve got to start dating.” It was inevitable. She’d been dreading it, but he had to move on. He wasn’t a boy anymore.

Everyone’s life would move on, except hers. She was like that mosquito stuck in amber for a zillion years from Jurassic Park. Frozen, still.

“Back at you.” Devin plopped down on the grass next to her, drew his knees up to his chest, and looked up. People said you couldn’t really tell what brown-eyed people were thinking. She’d never understood that. Maybe it was only that they had lived practically like twins, but Devin’s eyes usually told her exactly what he was thinking. Not right now, though.

She cleared her throat but nothing came out.

Devin glanced to her canvas. “That’s good.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Different then. What’s wrong, Kee?”

She waved her brush around in the air. “Oh, you mean besides the fact that I’m stuck here at the Breakers when I wanted to be studying in Paris? Or the fact that some horrible people want to kill our family for what we are? Or that Father’s overprotectiveness is ruining our chance of having any kind of life? We’re on lockdown, waiting for an attack that hasn’t come in more than four years. That’s not living.”

“Yeah.” A tiny curve appeared at one side of his lips. “Besides that.”

Could she hide from her best friend? Her brother? Technically, some cousin, but they’d all considered him family ever since the Parents took him in after his family died. What was the use of hiding? Maybe she’d quit wondering every morning whether it was safe to go to her volunteer gig at the museum, even with her “escort” in tow, but that was just because they’d all gotten used to being prisoners of war. The whole thing could come to an end at any moment. She might as well tell him. Live for today and all.

She looked back at her painting, feeling his presence behind her. The clouds needed to be darker to balance out the strong dark verticals of the pergola posts. A swirl of ominous threat, just like their lives. She stabbed her brush into black and mixed a charcoal, then curved a swipe that feathered into the lighter gray of the clouds. That was better. She always seemed to paint more cohesively with Devin around. He grounded her.

“Earth calling Kee Tremaine,” Devin called, as though from a distance. “There’s a question hanging. It’s not polite to ignore people.”

Case in point: grounding. Well, she could start with the obvious answer. “Autumn, I guess. Time passing.” But that was only part of the reason she was restive.

“You’re only twenty-two, Kee,” he said softly.

“Almost twenty-three. Old enough.”

“Yeah.”

“I keep waiting for lightning to strike. That’s how Father said it happened for him with Mother.” She turned to stare at Devin. “And Tris was obsessed with Maggie from day one. Drew saw Michael on TV, for goodness’ sake, and that was it for her.” She sighed. “But lightning never strikes me. I never even meet people now that I’ve graduated, except at the museum.”

“Kemble is thirty-six, and he hasn’t found the One.”

“Which is why I think it … it may pass some of us by. Maybe I’m never going to get it.”

Devin stood up. “The only ones living at the Breakers who will never get magic are Mr. Nakamura and me. It’s in your genes, Kee. When you find the One with genes to match, you’ll fall in love and get the power, whatever it is. Destiny.” He shrugged and looked away.

“That’s another thing,” she added darkly. “They each got a power that had to do with what they were good at.” She paused. Could she say this out loud? It was the other half of her pain. She took a breath. “What am I good at? My painting is competent, but not brilliant. ‘Not an auspicious talent.’ That’s what the review panel at UCLA said.” Something seemed to be sitting on her chest. “And what kind of a power would art be, anyway?”

He chuckled. “First you’re afraid you’ll never find your soul mate and get a power. Now you’re afraid it won’t be a cool power.” He grabbed the brush out of her hand and set it on the little table that held her paint box. “Come in for lunch with me before I head back out.”

When she looked mulish, he softened. “You can’t make it happen.”

“I’m not good at being patient.”

“No. So in the meantime, have fun. Be impulsive. You’re good at that. Go on a date.”

“With paterfamilias requiring bodyguards everywhere we go?”

“Tammy managed that prom for homeschooled kids and her date didn’t even know she had shadows. They’re discreet.”

I’d know they were there,” Kee muttered. “I don’t know how you can be so patient with them trailing you all over UCLA.”

Devin shrugged. “They’re nice guys.” He chuckled. “Not overly fond of oceanography when they attend lectures with me. I think they don’t like the math part.”

“Or the botany part, or the computer modeling, probably.” Kee was amazed her surfer-boy brother was a whiz at all the things that went into his passion for the sea. Such a whiz he’d gotten a McGovern Grant to continue his studies at the graduate level. Probably the only way he would have worked on his doctorate. He was getting touchy about depending on the Parents for support. “It’s so strange to think that someday I’ll have to call you Dr. Tremaine.”

“Like you’d do that,” he snorted. The two walked into the kitchen. Devin opened the left-hand fridge and Kee sat on a stool at the bar that overlooked the food preparation area.

She could tell Devin was mulling something over.

“Kee, you can’t tell me no one’s asked you out.” Devin turned back, his arms stacked with packages of wrapped deli meats, blocks of cheese, and some tomatoes, all precariously balanced with a jar of mayo and one of mustard. “I wouldn’t believe it.”

“You’d be right.” Her sister Drew strolled in from the office wing of the Breakers.

“So who asked her out?” Devin grinned at Drew.

Kee frowned at her, for all the good it would do. Drew was not as sure of herself as she’d once been, what with her power being so difficult, but she was still an older sister. Enough said.

“The new curator at the museum.” Drew raised a supercilious eyebrow. She had their mother’s nearly black hair except with sea-grey eyes, and of course the pale porcelain skin the Tremaine women all shared. She wore a sleek red silk jumpsuit with a wide black patent belt and a tiny black lacy sweater as a gesture to the rising wind. How did she always manage to look so nonchalant and sophisticated?

“Betrayer,” Kee muttered. She always felt either frumpy or way too flamboyant around Drew. Kee’s hair was pale in comparison, her eyes a so-so blue, even though she had the standard Tremaine good looks. She was a pale shadow of Drew’s dramatic presence. It grated. “We had coffee in the cafeteria. It wasn’t a date or anything.”

“Do you like him?” Devin asked. He seemed particularly intent on slathering mustard on the load of protein he’d stacked on his poor slice of bread.

“Yes. She likes him,” Drew answered. “Even though she only talks to him about old belt buckles. Which is why she must go out with him when he asks her out on an actual date. Which he will.…” Drew hovered over the kitchen counter. “Hmmm. Is that prosciutto?”

“Yeah. Have some.” Devin pushed several packages wrapped in white butcher paper and the bread toward Drew.

“I’m just a volunteer,” Kee said, through gritted teeth. “I’m not going out with my boss.”

Michael came in through the terrace doors, looking tired. “At least I know how to find lunch.” He was big, six-five, and looked Italian, not at all like a descendent of Merlin. But the genes were in there somewhere. He and Drew acted like magnets across the kitchen and he put his arm around her waist.

Michael’s decision to use his Finding sense to locate lost kids wasn’t easy on him. He needed a picture of something before he could Find it. His power worked even if they had grown older. But if they were dead his Finding sense didn’t work. Every failure hit him hard. He kept at it though. Sometimes the kids had been snatched and sometimes they’d run away because of physical or sexual abuse. Michael always found the bad guys too, but he and Kee’s father took special interest in prosecuting those who abused kids in their family. Incest was a trust betrayed, her father said.

“Let me make you a sandwich,” Drew said, rubbing her palm over his broad back. “Help us pressure Kee to go out with the curator who likes her,” Drew invited.

“I think I’ll sit that one out.” Michael grinned apologetically at Kee. “And here I always thought I wanted a big family.”


* * * * *


The old woman sang softly to herself. Only she didn’t look that old anymore. Maybe sixty-five, seventy. Sure, she had gray hair and her fair share of wrinkles. But her yellow eyes weren’t glazed with cataracts and she wasn’t one step away from being a desiccated corpse. Jason could actually look at her now without his stomach rebelling.

He stood in the shadows of the darkened hotel suite, silent, careful, watching her as she knelt in front of the lighted glass case that held the Sword. Sometimes he thought they were all crazy. Could they really believe the Sword had reversed her aging process? Sympathetic vibrations coursed through Jason’s body when he was anywhere around the damn thing. That Sword had something. He just wasn’t sure what.

Several new members of the Clan stood in the shadows with Jason. Phil, Denny, Talbot. The ever-present Hardwick hovered protectively behind the old woman. Rhiannon lounged on the big couch. She’d dyed her hair pink, of all things. Her stock was riding high after she’d gotten the Sword for the old woman, even though she lost the Finder to the Tremaines.

Jason couldn’t understand it. He hadn’t been forgiven for letting the biker Tremaine brother get away with his little rodeo rider. The fact that the Tremaines had hunkered down at their estate was at least as much Rhiannon’s fault as his. So why hadn’t she been punished? Jason sucked in a breath, trying to suppress the memories of the price Morgan exacted for his failure. Now he just did as he was told, expecting nothing.

The old woman lapsed into English. “Help me, oh Talisman of the Tarot. Help me find your mates. Give me the power to gather magic, as it wants to gather. Rivulets will turn to streams that flow into rivers, until they run into a mighty sea of power. I, Morgan Le Fay, will change the world forever.” She held out a hand. Hardwick lifted her to her feet. “Help me,” she hissed to the Sword, stalking toward the lighted case.

But the Sword only sat, immobile, silently gleaming. The silence crackled with tension.

“Faugh!” the old woman exclaimed, turning away. “This is getting me nowhere. I need the other Talismans.” She turned on Hardwick.

Hardwick took a deep breath. “Nothing in the British Museum, nothing at the Vatican. The Nazis don’t seem to have had any. That’s a disappointment. They were obsessed with objects of power. I thought sure…”

Only Hardwick could survive offering excuses.

“We don’t even know the others still exist.” Hardwick shrugged his lean shoulders. Hardwick had been with her from the first. What was it now? Almost thirty years?

“They exist. I feel it in my soul.” The old woman’s eyes went harder, if possible. “The Cup has got to be a chalice of some kind. Start combing the world for chalices.”

Hardwick looked daunted.

“I don’t care if you have to go through every chalice that still exists from that period. I want—that—cup.”

There was no arguing with that. Hardwick sighed and nodded.

The old woman beckoned to Jason. “Where can we get an infusion of cash?”

“How about a football game? The gate receipts.…” Jason couldn’t help but grin. He loved to use his Cloaking. At least this would be fun.

“I was thinking someplace closer to home.”



* * * * *


Of course Kemble found it impossible to get Drew alone. These days she was never far from her husband, Michael. They’d been married almost four years, but they acted just as sickeningly newlywed as Tristram and Maggie still did. Right now they were eating lunch on the terrace, even though the wind was rising.

Kemble stood in the doorway. Maggie was just bringing in her four-year-old, Jesse, from playing on the lawn. His hair was Maggie’s soft brown, but the kid’s very blue eyes belonged to Tristram. Tristram was downtown at his body shop today. He thought he was the only Tremaine who’d avoided having a security detail because he’d thrown a fit when he found Senior had assigned him one. Senior canned those guys. The new ones were more careful not to let Tristram catch them. Devin was disappearing down the cliff path with his surfboard. He’d seemed off lately. Kemble would have to check in with him, see what was up.

Once Maggie and her charge disappeared he sidled up to Drew and Michael.

“Hey, Kemble,” Drew said, smiling at him and setting her sandwich down on her plate. Kemble felt his stomach rumble. He’d forgotten lunch again.

Michael lifted a hand in greeting, his mouth full. He was tough. Ex-Delta Force. Kemble had seen him fight. Must have been a target growing up, at six-five. He had an at least an inch on Tristram and two on Kemble. But he was a gentle giant with Drew.

“Got a proposition for you, little sister.” Might as well get it over with.

Drew immediately looked suspicious. Well, he hadn’t figured it would be easy. He’d spent more than an hour thinking about how to approach her. In the end, all the stratagems seemed, well, stupid. The family had a need. Drew had to pony up.

He sat down at the weathered teak table. “Senior thinks we’ve got a problem.”

“Nothing he can’t take care of, I’m sure,” Drew drawled. She always liked to pretend she didn’t care. Ever the cool sophisticate. But she was family, and he detected the fragment of concern beneath that one raised eyebrow.

“Actually, he’s asked me to take care of it and I need your help.” Probably too direct.

“Really?” She didn’t have to sound so surprised that Senior had asked him to take care of a problem. She retreated to her bored sophisticate persona, crossing her long legs and leaning back in her chair.

“What is it?” Michael asked. His sincerity was a good match for Drew. Kept her honest.

“He’s concerned Morgan will get the other Talismans.”

“If they still exist, they are well and truly lost,” Drew drawled.

“How does he know the Clan doesn’t already have them?” This from Michael.

“Yes they are, and he doesn’t. Of course they have the Sword. But they don’t have all four.” He saw the question in both pairs of eyes. “Because if they did, worse things would be happening. Did you know the Clan was behind the fall of Lehman Brothers?”

Michael’s brown eyes snapped. Drew chewed her lip. Okay, he had their attention.

“Now, you ask, why me?” He sighed. “I asked that too. Senior will continue to play defense for the family and run the company while I comb the digital universe for any sign of the Talismans. Drew, we need you to help us with the historical research. I can acquire any primary resources you need, or digital versions online. But you’ve got to point me, little sister. And Michael, if Drew and I do our job and discover what they look like, then you come into play.”

Drew nodded, thoughtful. “It would help if we knew what a pentacle was. The cards show it as a coin.”

Suddenly she gripped the arms of the teak chair. Her eyes went wide, staring but not seeing. She began to shake. Michael lunged forward and put his arms around her, kneeling beside her chair. Her glass of iced tea rolled off the table with a crash.

“Drew, honey, you’re okay,” Michael soothed, holding her steady.

Kemble felt helpless. Drew’s visions gripped her like seizures and wouldn’t let her go. She was getting better at controlling them, but it was a long road, and episodes like this still occurred fairly regularly.

She sucked in little gasps of breath as she began to blink convulsively. “Michael.…”

“I’m here, honey.” He picked her up and carried her over to a cushioned chaise lounge and laid her gently down, then crouched beside her.

Kemble hovered in the background. Finally her breathing calmed. “What did you see?” he asked. Maybe all the talk of Talismans had prompted a vision that would help find them.

Drew’s eyes were big. “A flood. Mud and trees and debris all washing down a canyon, like an avalanche. There was a house there. A big house, but old. It was burning and it was about to be engulfed. There were people in it….”

Okay. Natural disaster. Big enough to roll out the company’s disaster relief resources? “So, any clues as to where or when?”

She shook her head.

“Just the one house though?” Michael asked.

“Yeah. But I just got the feeling that this would be something … devastating.” She looked at first one of them and then the other. “Maybe … personal.”

Both Kemble and Michael went still. Kemble cleared his throat. “So, uh, not a third-world country.”

Drew blinked, as though replaying what she had seen. “I don’t think so. It was a mansion, really. A little spooky. The grounds were well kept. Definitely not third world.”

“Europe, maybe?” Michael asked. “Some of their architecture looks spooky.”

“Hmmm. There was a tower that looked Italian. The house was more … Victorian? Below the tower were some SUVs. No Peugeots or Citroens, anything like that. I think it was America, maybe Canada. I can’t be sure.” She shook her head. “I just got an overwhelming sense of fear.”

Michael looked up at Kemble. “She sees it like a newsreel, no feelings, unless she’s personally involved.” He turned to Drew. “Did you see yourself?”

She shook her head. But she looked frightened. “There were some figures on the lawn.…”

“Take her in to rest for a while, Michael.” Kemble smiled down at his sister. “Then when you feel more the thing, we’ll brainstorm how to go about this Talisman search.”

She nodded and exhaled as though she was expelling the vision. “Okay. That’ll be good.”

Michael shot Kemble a grateful look and gathered Drew into his big arms. They exchanged looks that slowly turned heated. She laid her head on his shoulder as he carried her into the house. Michael had his own ideas about how to distract Drew from her visions.

God, it was hell to be around all this magic and all this love when it didn’t seem he had a chance in hell of ever having either for himself.



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October 25, 2013
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