Call Out (18 page)

The show went on. Nothing cataclysmic
happened, and London didn’t leave the stage again until he walked
off with the rest of the band before the first encore.

“Time to go,” Quinn told us.

He led us back to the green room where we
watched the rest of the show on monitors and waited for the boys to
join us. Two encores and a big, dramatic bow later, the band
strolled off the stage and came directly to the green room. Dylan
greeted Brian at the door, and they shared a brief, sweaty hug.
London came in right behind Brian; his pupils were blown and he was
sort of bouncing as he walked. He looked like he was strung out on
speed, but I knew better. He was high all right, but it had nothing
to do with drugs.

London spent a minute or so exchanging verbal
pats on the back with his friends, and then he turned his head and
our eyes met. I felt a sudden spark of need, of lust. The spark
flamed up so fast it should have scared me, but it didn’t. Now that
I knew what to look for, I recognized the multiplier effect Ashe
had described, but I was still powerless to stop it.

London bridged the distance between us in a
few long strides, capturing my face in his hands and bending low to
kiss me hard. The desire built between us, and London gave into it.
He pulled me hard against him, his mouth eager and demanding
against mine. His hands slid up beneath my skirt, gliding over skin
and satin and lace. I pushed up onto my toes, trying to make up
some of the difference in our height, and London spun us around so
that my back was against a wall. He lifted me up a little, and I
wrapped a leg around his waist.

Raised voices and the sound of a scuffle cut
through the fog in my brain. And just like that I realized that I
was all but having sex in front of an audience. I’m so not an
exhibitionist.

The cognitive dissonance Ashe had talked
about rose up and put a wall between me and London. He let me down,
his face shuttered, and backed away.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice hoarse. “God,
Elizabeth, I’m so sorry.”

I shook my head and stepped forward,
intending to lay my hand on his arm in a gesture of comfort. London
backpedalled until he hit the opposite wall.

“Don’t touch me,” he begged. “I can’t handle
that right now.”

“Well that’s pretty fucking obvious,” I
snapped. “You couldn’t have figured that out before you tried to
fuck me in front of our friends?”

I clapped a hand over my mouth, not sure
where the words or the anger had come from. I concentrated on my
feelings and thoughts, and once again I recognized the ripple
effect of our combined emotions. I shook it off.

“London, I don’t want to be pissed at you,
dammit. Get your shit together.”

“I can’t,” he admitted. “I can’t.” He slid
down the wall to sit with his knees drawn up and his head down, his
arms covering his head.

I felt sadness welling in me, tears pricking
the back of my eyes, but I knew that sadness wasn’t mine. I was
still working on the angry thing. But I needed to shelve it. If
London couldn’t put himself back together, someone else would have
to do it for him. He couldn’t go on feeling like this. It wasn’t
right, and it wasn’t fair.

Someone was asking if I was okay, but I
ignored him and went to kneel at London’s side. He looked up at me
with fear in his eyes as I fought to push away the weight of his
emotions to focus on my own. I cupped his face in my hands,
smoothing my thumbs along his cheekbones, concentrated on all the
emotions whirling inside of me and letting him feel them: my
gratitude for his help in finding Dylan and for saving me from
Julia; my admiration for his strength and determination; my
frustration with his bull-headedness; my concern; my compassion; my
affection and adoration. I let London feel that I was falling for
him.

And just like that, the dam broke.

Tears slid from the corners of London’s eyes
to spill over his cheeks. I wiped them away even as I felt
answering tears of my own. London leaned forward to wrap his arms
around me and hide his face in my hair. The position was awkward,
and I had to fight to keep my balance, but I didn’t mind.

London’s feelings – doubt, and fear, and
hope, and the first stirrings of love - and the echo of my own,
amplified by his powers, washed over me. The rest of the world
faded away, and there was nothing but the two of us. The tide of
our emotions doubled and redoubled until I thought we must surely
drown.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and the flood
of emotions disappeared as if someone had flipped a switch. I
opened my eyes to find Ashe kneeling beside London and me. I knew
now what Ashe had meant about shielding against a third party
influence.

“Come on, Stretch," Ashe said, "if you can
stand, we need to get you upstairs. We’ve all had enough excitement
for one night.”

I felt London nod against my neck, but he
made no attempt to move. I pulled away enough to look him in his
teary eyes. Dylan, bless her, handed me a couple of tissues which I
handed to London. I acted as a human shield while he mopped his
face and got himself under as much control as he could.

Ashe and I got London up and moving, and
Dylan and Quinn left with us to go back to our hotel rooms. There
was a little debate about whether Brian should join us, Ashe
arguing that there were things Brian needed to hear. Brian refused
to come with us, even though I knew he didn’t want to let Dylan out
of his sight. He felt he needed to stay with the other boys in the
band to do the picture and autograph thing and to do some damage
control where Jimmy was concerned. London’s empathy bleed had hit
the younger man like a freight train, and he was pretty shaken.

The five of us went up to London’s room. He
headed for the shower, and as much as I wanted to join him, I did
my best to bury the thought. London must have felt the intent
behind it though, because he shivered and leaned against the door
jamb for a moment before locking himself into the bathroom.

Ashe shook his head. “Guess I was right about
you being trouble after all.”

I shrugged. “It comes naturally.”

Ashe grinned at me. “I just bet it does.”

He sat down at the table, and Quinn sat down
across from him. Quinn retrieved a laptop case from under the table
and pulled out an oversized notebook computer. He booted it up,
ignoring everyone else.

“Okay, girls,” Ashe said. “We got through
this hurdle. It’s time to start preparing for the next one.”

“How do we do that?” Dylan asked, sitting
down on the bed and pulling the duvet over her legs so she didn’t
have to remember to be ladylike in her dress.

“We’re gonna start by talking about magic,”
Ashe said. “I told you earlier about how everyone has different
abilities. And I told you London picked up the flame magic from me.
I told you that he’s a mimic. What I didn’t tell you is that mimics
are really rare. I’ve only known one other than London. I met her
the same place I met Quinn here.”

“Which is where exactly?” I asked, pulling
bottles of water from the mini fridge. I kept one, gave one to
Dylan, offered one to each of the men.

“We met through work,” Ashe said, accepting
his bottle of water.

Quinn looked up from his computer, smiling at
me as he took the water. “Thanks,” he said. And then, “Ashe and I
were both recruited by an agency that doesn’t officially exist. A
government agency.”

“Like the CIA?” I asked.

Quinn laughed. “Please. The CIA wish they
were us.”

“So you’re what?” Dylan asked. “The magic
police?”

“Essentially,” Quinn confirmed.

“There are different branches of the agency,”
Ashe explained. “Quinn works in internal affairs. I was part of the
terrorist response team.”

“Terrorist response team?” I asked, curling
up in the armchair.

Quinn turned his chair and scooted it back a
little so that he could see me, Ashe, and Dylan. “Yeah, there are
magical terrorists. The response team tracks down suspects. Brings
them in for questioning. That sort of thing.”

Ashe snorted. “I thought we agreed to tell
the whole truth,” he said.

Quinn nodded. “Yeah, okay. Sometimes the
response team has to deal with things on their own. Sometimes
they’re put into situations where they can’t bring suspects
in.”

“Oh, hell, Quinn,” Ashe interrupted. “What
he’s dancing all around here is that people get killed. Sometimes
it’s self-defense, but other times it’s assassination, plain and
simple.”

Dylan and I were both quiet a moment. We
looked at each other and nodded.

“People like Julia?” Dylan asked.

“Yeah.”

“Did you use your magic flames trick?” I
wanted to know.

Ashe snorted again. “If you’d seen me do it,
you wouldn’t call it a trick. What London did to the ex, that’s
just a faint shadow of what I can do.”

“We call him ‘Ashe’ for a reason,” Quinn
added.

“Shit,” I said, my eyes going wide. “Remind
me not to piss you off.”

Smiling a little, he shook his head. “You
keep surprising me, princess. A lot of people – a lot of women –
hear the word ‘assassination’ and run screaming.”

Dylan and I exchanged a glance, and I
shrugged.

“Some people need a good killin’,” I
said.

Quinn tried to smother a laugh and ended up
choking on it.

“Don’t get me wrong,” I added, “I know it’s a
big deal. I don’t think I could do it myself. But I’m not going to
judge you for doing what you had to do.”

“And if it were London?” Ashe asked. “If he’d
killed Julia?”

“I’d probably love him even more.” I covered
my mouth with my hand, shocked by what had just popped out. I
seemed to be doing a lot of that tonight. I sat there stunned for a
moment before lowering my hand to my lap. “I don’t mean that. I
don’t love him. I barely know him.”

Dylan rolled her eyes. “I seem to remember
saying the same thing about Brian right after we met. Just trust me
on this one, Em – don’t fight it.”

I shook my head.

“Elizabeth,” Ashe said, making me look up at
him. “One, remember that there are all types of love. Just because
this is the first, temporary kind, it doesn’t make it any less
real. And it can lead to the lasting kind. And two, as important as
I know it is for you, your love life is not the most important
thing right now.”

I felt like throwing my water bottle at him
for making me feel like an awkward teenager. I reigned it in,
though, opting to drink the water instead of using it as a
projectile weapon.

“Anyway,” Quinn said, “the point we were
trying to make, once upon a time, is that the agency would love to
get their hands on London.”

“And we don’t want that to happen,” Ashe
said. “So here’s hoping his little stunt tonight didn’t draw the
wrong kind of attention. One more thing we’ll need to watch out
for.”

“Why’s London so attractive to them?” Dylan
asked.

“Being able to learn new abilities,
especially as easily as he does...that’s pretty useful,” Quinn
explained. “And London’s got a lot of power. He’d be one hell of an
agent.”

“But he wouldn’t want that,” I said.

“Hell no, he wouldn’t,” Ashe said. “It’s
sheer hell. I wouldn’t wish it on my ex-mother-in-law, much less a
nice kid like London.”

“Lucky for him, I’m in a position to
misdirect the powers that be and keep them from noticing him.
Hopefully,” Quinn said.

London emerged from the bathroom then, damp
from the shower and dressed in nothing but pajama bottoms. I tried
to ignore him, worried about starting another domino reaction, but
he made a beeline for me. “Up,” he said, and I complied. He took my
chair and then pulled me down onto his lap.

“You got your shields back up,” I noted.

“Yup,” was all he said as he pulled me down
for a chaste kiss.

I looked up to find Ashe and Quinn having one
of those silent conversations I’d grown to hate. This one ended
when Quinn asked a question I never would have expected.

“So...this Julia. What does she look
like?”

I felt London tense, and I moved my hand to
rub the back of his neck. He relaxed a little.

“Jessica Rabbit,” Dylan replied. “She looks
like Jessica freaking Rabbit.”

“Who?” Quinn asked.

We all looked at him like he’d sprouted
horns, and then Ashe explained the reference. Dylan and I chimed in
with more specific details on her appearance, and all the while,
Quinn tapped away on his keyboard.

“Okay. And what kind of abilities does she
have?”

Dylan shuddered and pulled the duvet up to
hug it against her chest.

“She can make you feel pain,” I said. “Or
pleasure, apparently.”

“Anything else?”

We were all quiet for a minute, thinking, but
if Julia had any other super powers, I didn’t know what they might
be.

“I don’t know,” London answered for us all.
“But...Adrian can see magic. And he never knew she had any ability.
I’m not sure what that means.”

Quinn and Ashe looked at each other, and I
didn’t like what I saw pass between them.

“Bad juju?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Quinn said. He tapped on the keyboard
some more. Then he turned the laptop to where London and I could
see it. “That her?” he asked.

London’s shields buckled. Wrapped up in his
arms, I could feel his grief and confusion. I hugged him hard,
fighting to keep my own emotions in control. I heard a chair scrape
against carpet as London buried his face against my shoulder. Ashe
laid his hand on London’s head, and the torrent of pain and guilt
washed away on a gentle wave of tranquility.

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’,” Quinn said.

A moment passed in silence, and then Dylan
asked the question that was only just forming in my mind: “Why’s
the wicked witch of the west on your laptop?”