Barely Bewitched (8 page)

“Matt, you’re in charge. Don’t let anything happen to the other kids,” Bryn yelled into the yard.

“If I tell them to, they’ll stop you,” I said as he pulled me toward the door, and indeed the kids rushed to block the hall. Bryn paused, letting go of my arm, and stared at my pint-sized warriors.

“What about Mercutio?” Bryn asked me.

Mercutio! My cat! The kids would flip over him. “Yes, drop him off. I’ll protect him from the wizards now.”

“No, you have to come get him. He’s the reason I’m here. He was going crazy at the house, and Jenson had to call me out of a meeting with a client. He’s been agitating my dog. Angus may very well break his chain.”

I smiled. Bryn’s ploy was as transparent as cellophane. On the other hand, I did want my cat back, and I wasn’t afraid to go to Bryn’s house. None of his mediocre mortal magic was a match for the power of faery. At least that was the way the trees told it.

“Okay, my darlings,” I said to the kids. “I’m going to get a surprise, and I’ll be home soon.” They gave Bryn a superior smile that said they had complete faith in any- and everything I said. It was fun to be taken seriously. I don’t know why I ever bothered to hang out with anyone over the age of thirteen before.

I pinched out a little dust and blew it into the room over their heads. They leapt off the ground, hovering over the floor before landing.

Bryn’s jaw fell open in shock.

The kids chanted the word “surprise,” tapping their forks on whatever was handy. They bounced off the walls, the bright colors of their clothes like streaming rainbows.

“That is extremely disturbing,” he said.

“Jealous?” I asked with a smirk.

“Absolutely not. I have zero interest in being Lord of the Fireflies.”

Chapter 10

As we drove to his house, Bryn asked me questions about everything that had happened at the bar. I told him the verse that Jordan had used to cast the spell that cursed lying.

“He never said the nature of the curse? Never mentioned the fae?” Bryn asked for the second time.

“Nope.”

“So it was random chance that the curse took this form. You could just as easily have ended up in a trance or have lost your memory. There are millions of possibilities. It was extremely reckless spell-casting. It doesn’t make any sense for Perth to have left it random.”

I shrugged.

The moment we drove through the gates, I regretted it. My window was rolled down, but all the sounds, the birds and trees, the grass and crickets, everything went silent the instant we crossed onto his property.

“Stop!” I yelled. “Let me out.”

Bryn ignored me, but as soon as the car stopped, I bolted from it and ran to the front gate, which had already closed behind us. I buzzed security. “Open the gate, right now!”

“Don’t open the gate, Steve,” Bryn said, coming up behind me.

I looked at my arms. They still shimmered golden pink. I wasn’t changed. It was only that his place was like some kind of graveyard for nature.

“What have you done? How come none of them is talking?”

“Who?”

“Let me out.”

He shook his head.

I’ll fix you! You’ll see and believe and accept!
I yanked the lid open and flung the dust at him.

He threw his hand out and shouted in Latin. A gust of wind blew hard, sending the dust away from him and out through the gates, onto the wind.

“Oh my God,” he mumbled.

“Don’t blame Him. You’re the one who did it.” I looked over at Bryn, whose hands were white from the grip he had on the wrought-iron rungs of the gate.

Iron. Yuck.

With clenched jaws, Bryn shook his head. Finally, he turned, narrowing his eyes at me. “How could you throw an entire box of what you believed to be faery dust at me? Had I been human, it could have driven me insane, permanently.” He glanced out the gate, shaking his head. Then he scowled at me. “It’s a reflex for me to protect myself. Now we’ve scattered whatever that was to the four winds. Can you tell me what you were thinking?”

I shrugged. “You made me mad.”

He stared at me, his muscles tight enough to snap.

“I’m fae. We’re capricious,” I added.

“You’re not a faery!”

I blinked. I’d never heard Bryn yell before. He was usually Mr. Cool. Mr. Calm. Mr. Control even in the face of attacking werewolf packs. Here I was, one little golden pink girl, and I’d gotten him shouting. And he claimed I didn’t have faery magic.

He balled his fists and dragged air in and out of his lungs. He leaned toward me, jaws clenched. “I’m a wizard, and I can taste your magic. I can feel and smell it. However distorted and misguided your magic is right now, I still recognize it. I’m a wizard. You’re a witch. It’s that simple.”

“You’re wrong. The tree told me I’m—”

“Someone put a spell on that tree! Can’t you see that?” he said, his Irish accent as thick as I’d ever heard it. “I trained under the Polaris Wizards in Dublin for six weeks every year from the time I was seven until I was nineteen.”

“Who?”

“And while I can’t claim omnipotence, I do know more about the magic of a woman I’ve made love to than some bloody tree does.”

He turned and stalked toward the house.

Kind of touchy about me changing teams.
“When you get in, tell Steve to open the gate!” I called after him.

He turned and looked at me, walking backward. “You’re not going anywhere until I figure out a way to unspell you.”

“You can’t undo this. I’m elven, I tell you.”

He stretched his arms out with a nod. “Then welcome to your new home.” He spun around and continued walking without breaking his stride.

“Is that right? Well, I’ve got one word for you.”

He didn’t turn back.

“You know the wizard’s word for betrayer, don’t you, Bryn?” He yanked the front door open just as I yelled, “Warlock!”

Chapter 11

No wonder faeries
hate wizards,
I thought, marching to Bryn’s house. “Mercutio!” I called. Bryn wasn’t going to keep me prisoner. I’d go over Cider Falls if I had to.

Mercutio ran down the stairs, but stopped short.

“It’s all right. It’s me. C’mon, we’re getting out of here. A little white water’s nothing to us. We’re indestructible.”

Mercutio meowed.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure about that. I’d say ninety-nine, well, ninety-five percent positive.”

Mercutio darted down the hall, looking over his shoulder.

“What? You’ve got something to show me? A way out?”

He swiped the air with his paw. I jogged after him. He turned a corner, and I followed. Bryn’s house was like a maze.

Merc stopped at a door and put his paw to it. I unlocked the door and opened it.

“Tamara, don’t go out that door,” Bryn said from behind me.

I saw a pillared-off inner courtyard with a fountain, swimming pool, flowering plants, and palm trees. On the far side, I could hear the falls and the river, where the stolen paddleboat waited to help me make my escape.

I stuck my tongue out at Bryn and darted out the door with Mercutio. I ran about five feet when I heard a pop. The air shimmered and when I got to the far side of the courtyard, I ran smack dab into an invisible wall.

I fell backward, landing on a chaise. Mercutio stopped short of the magical barrier and hopped up on the edge of the fountain. I looked down and saw a symbol drawn on the stone and marked with a drop of blood. I stood and walked around, finding the other symbols of the circle.

I paused and looked back at the door we’d come through. Bryn was leaning casually against the frame.

“Hubris,” he said. “It’s a big problem with the fae. If I didn’t know better, your overconfidence, more than anything, would lend credibility to your story about being one of them.”

He held up a piece of chalk in his right hand and licked blood off his left thumb.

Fury roared through my veins. I wanted to smash the whole world into tiny little pieces. “You tricked me! You trapped me.”

“That I did.”

I spun to face Mercutio. “And you helped? You’re named for the wrong Shakespeare character! Mercutio was loyal to his friend to the end. From now on you’re Brutus,” I snapped.

I slammed against the barrier, testing my rage on it. It didn’t give way, and I was left with trembling muscles and a cold fury that burned in my belly.

I walked to the edge of the circle, so that Bryn and I faced each other. I put my hands up. If there’d been no magical barrier, I could have touched his chest.

“Let me out now, and I might still forgive you,” I whispered.

“No.”

I leaned my mouth to the edge, puckered my lips, and closed my eyes. If he kissed me, it would break the circle and set me free. Moments passed while I waited. I felt him eyeing me like I was a raspberry truffle.

His voice was low and smooth. “ ‘So burns the god, consuming in desire. And feeding in his breast, a fruitless fire.’ ”

My eyes popped open. “Huh?”

He stared at my mouth and licked his lips. “From Ovid. It means I’m very tempted to kiss you, but I can’t.” He took a step back.

“Coward.”

“So it seems,” he said with a slight smile. “Stay out of trouble.”

Chapter 12

It got later and later. I banged against the walls of the circle until my whole body ached. I was well and truly caught. Periodically, I felt the ground shake and knew that Bryn was amassing power for something.

I floated on the warm salt water of his pool, biding my time. Most people probably think faeries are basically harmless, like in those whitewashed, white-chocolate-sweet Disney movies. We’re not. Actually, faery tales are bloody and dark, and, if I ever got free, I’d introduce Mr. “I’m a preternatural-prison-wielding wizard” to a real Tinker Hell.

Mercutio padded around the pool, occasionally meowing at me.

“I’m not talking to you,” I said.

I ignored him for the most part, and, eventually, the sky turned as black and velvety as an Elvis cape.

“Let’s trade,” Bryn said when he appeared in the doorway.

I swam to the edge of the pool, resting my chin on my arms. “You don’t have anything I want,” I said, sounding much calmer than I felt.

“No, nothing much. Just your freedom.”

“I don’t think you’ll leave me here forever. Eventually, you’ll break this circle. What if you feel like swimming?”

“Are you willing to wait that long?” We studied each other for a moment. “If you’re really fae, nothing I do will change that,” he said.

“That’s true enough.”

“So there’s no harm in allowing me to try to lift the spell I believe is on you.”

No magic could affect what I was. The tree had sworn I’d be fae evermore.

I climbed out of the pool, and the cool night air chilled my skin. I wanted a bonfire or, better still, to be underhill in the land where the other faeries lived.

I walked to the doorway. Bryn stood straighter and looked me over. I glanced down. The wet dress was as transparent as a moth’s wing. I folded my arms across my chest.

Looking at him, I felt a slight pang of regret. He might be a human wizard, but he was still utterly beautiful. There was even a sliver of his magic, a curl of power as silky as his hair, that I wanted to touch. But I didn’t reach for him. He had captured me, and that made us enemies. If only things had been reversed. If I’d lured him underground and captured him . . . then maybe I could’ve kissed him as much as I wanted to.

“Trywhatever spell you want.” I walked to a cushioned lounger and lay down. “You’ve got five minutes, then I want something to eat. If I wasn’t immortal, I’d be starved half to death by now.”

He smiled. “I thought we were going to use a kiss to break the circle.”

I was tempted, but I kept my voice as cold as the coming winter. “That offer expired when my stomach started growling.” I wagged my finger for him to cross over.

He stepped past the threshold, and I heard the pop, feeling a faint tingle of power. He brought me a cup of hot chocolate.

“What’s in this besides cocoa?”

“A piece of the stars.”

“Right,” I said, rolling my eyes. I drank the delicious cinnamon-spiced cocoa.

He took the cup and slid a piece of smooth stone into my hand. “Hold that for me.” He closed his hands around mine and murmured something in Gaelic. The wind whipped around us and for a moment the heavens above seemed to pulse with bright light.

He kissed me and the power shot through me, knocking me back onto the cushions. My skin burned, and I jerked in pain. Two snakes coiled together inside me, sinking their fangs into each other’s necks.

I screamed and screamed while they fought, their writhing bodies hopelessly tangled until they finally went limp.

After, I lay gasping for I don’t know how long. Then I sat up dizzily and pulled my hands free of Bryn’s and whipped the stone away from me.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

Some of the fae power was still coating my body, but it wasn’t smoldering from within as it had been. And with every passing moment, I felt like I was fading away.

“What’s happening?” I got up and pushed past him, staggering into the house. I stood under the hall light and examined my sweating skin. The golden pink had paled to my former creamy complexion. I leaned against the wall for support while the dizziness subsided.

Bryn stood in the doorway. “You’re probably wondering what you’re doing here,” he said.

I cocked my head, confused and angry. He’d taken something precious from me, and I wanted to hurt him for it.

“You had an accident, and I brought you here to try to heal you.”

I smiled bitterly. “If you tried to erase my memory with that spell, you better go back to wizard summer camp in Dublin.”

He frowned. “What do you remember?”

“I remember, sure as Sunday, that you’re now the permanent owner of an ocelot. I hope you’ll be very happy together.”

I stalked down the hall, my steps growing heavy. Gravity pressed down on me in the most irritating way.

“Tamara.”

Strands of my wet hair kept falling in my face, and I shoved them back from my eyes.

“W hat about your neighbors’ children?” Bryn asked. “Think about what you were doing.”

I didn’t want to talk to him. I wanted to get out. Perhaps if I got off his property, I’d breathe easier. The air was too thick indoors.

“You’re angry that I undid the spell on you? You think it would’ve been better to let you keep a couple dozen children that didn’t belong to you?”

I spun to face him, my temper blazing again. “That kind of spell wouldn’t have been permanent. My spellbook says unstable spells don’t last long, and you told me last week that magic dissipates.”

“The spell on you was more expert than any I’ve ever felt. It totally changed you.”

“Totally changed you, too! I never expected you to keep me prisoner,” I snapped, rushing to the front door and flinging it open. A wave of compressive magic poured over me as it flowed into the house from the driveway.

Bastard!
He’d closed a second circle.

“Imprisoning you was just temporary,” he said.

“Then how come you have a second containment spell around the house?”

His eyes widened for a moment. “As a backup plan in case my first attempt to unspell you didn’t work. I couldn’t let you just walk out of here still under the influence of some dark magic. How do you know I’ve got a second circle?”

“I can feel it.” I pushed the hair back from my face. “Yours is the only magic I can ever sense.”

“Doesn’t that strike you as interesting—”

“Nope,” I said, cutting him off as I strode out onto the paving stones.

“Tamara, wait. You have to let me open it,” he said, just before I stepped right across the circle. I knew where he’d closed it. It was like I’d made it myself. I’d known it wouldn’t hold me now, though I couldn’t say why.

I went to the security buzzer and pressed it.

“Steve, it’s your old friend Tammy Jo. You better open the gate this minute, or I’ll make a report and the police will come arrest you for kidnapping.”

The gate slid open.

I didn’t look back, and Bryn didn’t call after me. Just like that, our brief friendship was over.