Love Charms (123 page)

“A condom?” I frowned, confused and
reached to touch him.

Jacob captured my hands in his, keeping
them from their intended target. “I’m sorry, I don’t think we can do this. I
don’t have any protection.”

“You pick now to bring this up?” I shook
my head. “ Jacob, I’m on the pill. I’ve had blood tests, I’m good. What about
you?”

“My last blood tests were fine.”

I ran a finger along his arm, tracing the
curve of his bicep and read him, deciding it was worth the risk to verify the
truth of his words. A girl can never be too careful and as frustrating as it
was to have the subject come up now, he had a point. The mental heat of his
desire flushed through me, making my own flare brightly. Underneath that, I
found the image of his last doctor’s visit. I broke the connection and smiled.
“So, we’re both healthy and since I’m on the pill...” I leaned forward, a sly
smile on my face to nuzzle his neck while my hand went lower to make sure we
hadn’t lost any momentum with our little ‘safe sex’ interlude. We hadn’t and
Jacob was only too happy to show me how to throw that momentum into overdrive.

* * *

Later that night, a cold finger worked
its way up my spine interrupting my dreamless sleep and beckoning for me to
follow it to the upper levels of the astral plane. Leaving my body behind, I
floated up into the gray over world, wondering if Mark had found a way to
contact me even in Fairy.

Drifting in the swirling fog of the over
world, I stopped short at the sound of an amused chuckle. Not Mark. The laugh
was high and reedy. I'd heard it before. I turned in a circle, eyes narrowed,
searching for the source of the sound.

A shadow of a man stepped in front of me.
The fog obscured his face and his manifestation flickered in and out of focus,
like a home movie in a bad projector. I could tell he was taller than me with a
gaunt frame. Bony shoulders served as hangers for some kind of floor length
coat, but all other features were hidden by way the smoke-colored air coalesced
around him. He bowed his head at me and said in a voice deeper than his laugh,
“So at last we meet.”

I took a step back. “Who are you?”

He ignored my question. “You thought you
would be safe in Fairy, but I am stronger than you think. All I have to do is
reach out with my mind to find you.”

Pressure, with the weight of a mental
sledgehammer behind it, slammed into my mind. I screamed, hands cradling my
head, as he forced his way inside my mind. “Get out!” But he paid no attention
to my protests and ruthlessly went through my mind, bringing forth memories and
examining them with great interest.

“I see you’ve always had the gift, but
you were a late bloomer. And what is this?” The afternoon’s events came to the
forefront and the Eros goblin leered at me once again. “How interesting. I knew
you and the ghost had a thing, but I didn’t realize you would be so easily
fooled. And here you are with, what is his name?” He paused and riffled through
my mind like it was a file cabinet. “Ah yes, Jacob. You’ve been busy. So full
of...life,” he said in a sneering voice.

I gasped. How did he know about Mark? So
far, I was the only one who had seen him.

The stranger laughed. “Yes I know all
your secrets Sofia. I’ve been watching you for some time now. I have even
visited you in the dark of night in the shadows of your dreams.”

I flushed, speechless. This was all news
to me.

“You look surprised. I’m sure if you
think about it the memories will come. Let me see if I can find them for you.”
He thrust through my brain and pulled forward a succession of images.

Me, asleep in my bed, moaning while a
dark cloud hung over me. It became clear that the mornings I had woken up, my
fingers cold as ice, were not due to the loving presence of my dead boyfriend,
but to the malevolent man now inside me.

“Who are you?”

“I am your Master.” His tone was a
malevolent as his words.

“I don’t think so.”

He waved a dismissive hand.“It doesn’t
really matter what you think, my dear. I control the steps in this dance and
soon enough you will be mine.”

My jaw clenched. “Bullshit.”

“Protest all you want. It changes
nothing. You will do as I command.”

“What do you want from me?”

“Many things, but to start, your
allegiance.”

“I’m not about to ally myself with a
metaphysical rapist.”

“Arguing is futile and I refuse to answer
such pointless barbs. It is a waste of time.”

“Then leave me alone.” I pushed against
him, trying to evict him from my mind.

“That is not possible.” He projected
stronger inside me, weighing down my personality through sheer force of
presence. “Tomorrow you will come to me.”

“No.”

“I thought you might say that and I have
prepared a bit of an incentive for you. Look.”

A picture of Vera flashed through my
mind, bound and gagged, and unnaturally still. “No!” My stomach lurched.

“Yes, I have your friend.”

“Let her go.”

“Only after you do as I request.” His
voice was cold.

“How will I find you?” I asked, defeated.
He had me. I couldn’t turn my back on Vera.

“Call Detective Wallace, he knows where I
am. Now I think it’s time to go back to your body.” He pushed me down through
the fog of the astral plane and into my body. “Disobey me and Vera will
suffer.”

I woke with a start and scanned my room
half expecting to see my attacker, but the room was empty and quiet except for
the snap of the fire. I shivered and got up to throw another log into the
fireplace, as I tried to absorb everything that had happened during my astral
nightmare.

Most people would dismiss the whole thing
as a bad dream, but I wasn’t most people and I knew better. The ‘ghost’ was
real, and, by his own admission, had been stalking me for quite a while.
Somewhere out there was a body to match the astral projection and they had
taken Vera.

Shit.

My adrenaline kicked on and my heart
began to pound a frantic rhythm. I had to save my friend. I had to go right
now. I went back to the bed and shook Jacob. “Wake up.”

He rolled away from me with a grunt.
Okay. So he wasn’t a morning person. Fine, but now was not the time for this.

“Jacob, get up. It’s an emergency,"
I yelled, continuing to shake him.

“What? What is it?” He opened his eyes
and then closed them again, pulling the covers tighter around him.

I yanked the covers off, using my body
weight as leverage to compensate for his death grip on the blanket. “Jacob,
this is serious. You have to get up.”

“I’m up. I’m up.” He sat up and glared at
me. “What’s going on?”

“Vera has been kidnapped.”

“By whom?”

“I don’t know.”

“What?” He frowned and rubbed his eyes.

“I had a visitor.”

“And I slept through it?”

“No. My visitor was metaphysical. Some
guy who says he has Vera and he’s going to kill her if I don’t do as he says.”

“What does he want? Money?”

I shook my head. “No. He wants me.”

He looked alarmed. “What are we going to
do?”

I smiled liking his use of the word ‘we’.
“We’re going to save her.”

“You have a plan?”

“No.”

“That’s right, I forgot you never have a
plan.” He sighed and swung his legs over the side of the bed to stand.
Stretching his arms over head he asked, “Where do we go from here?”

I pulled on my clothes and quickly swept
my hair up into a pony tail. “Let’s see if Wyllven’s up. If not, I’ll make
arrangements to come back and finish the case at a later date.”  Assuming I
survived to see later.

Chapter
Thirteen

Wyllven, unfortunately, still showed no
signs of recovery or consciousness.  Which left us no choice but to seek out
Zyllven. Either that or strike out into Fairy on our own, and I wasn’t brave
enough for that.

The prince lived in a large suite almost
on the opposite side of the castle from his father’s apartment. A guard ushered
us to a large living room where Zyllven sat on one of two overstuffed couches
across from a tall woman. Her short black hair was styled into stiff spikes
that looked sharp enough to cut flesh. They stopped talking as we approached
and watched us cross the room.

The guard snapped to attention in front
of Zyllven, “Miss Sofia Parker and Mr. Jacob Sanders to see you, my lord.”

“Thank you Kyllven. You may leave us.”
Zyllven said. “Sofia, Jacob, we were just talking about you. This is Athena, a
business associate.”

“So this is the famous Sofia you were
telling me about.” Athena looked me up and down with narrowed dark eyes.

I shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know
about famous.”

Athena laughed. “With as many newspaper
articles there are on you? You can’t be serious.”

I stared at her until she stopped
laughing and then turned to Zyllven, “I need to go home. Now.”

“What about our agreement?”

“I’ll still help you,” Jacob said moving
forward. “Assuming you follow through on your end.”

“You have to give it back, all of it” I
said, choosing my words carefully in case Athena didn’t know what was going on.
“Our agreement hasn’t changed, just the timing of it.”

“I see.” Zyllven and Athena exchanged
glances. “If I had known you would be leaving early, I might not have called
Athena.”.

“Oh, I don’t know Zyllven. I don’t see
any reason to alter our original plan.” Athena inspected a perfectly manicured
hand. “Besides, I can give you permanent results, not the stay of execution
she’s offering.”

Suspicion raised the hair on the back of
my neck. Something was off. “What’s going on?”

“Athena has presented an excellent
alternative to your solution. One that is more to my advantage.”

She laughed. “And mine too, Zyllven.
Don’t forget, we’re fifty-fifty partners.”

“Of course.” Zyllven smiled, showing all
his teeth. Not good.

“Partners?” Jacob asked.

“You see, Athena here runs a large
organization in your world. Perhaps you’ve heard of them, the Renegades?”

“You’re going to make a deal with
renegades?” I narrowed my eyes, staring into Zyllven’s. He met my gaze,
unflinching and unrepentant.

“Not just a deal, more of a revolution in
the making. I’ve decided not to give back the Sidhe’s gold, instead I’m using
it to fund the dragon invasion of the human world and the takeover of Fairy.”

“What? Are you insane? That will never
work.” The Sidhe had stronger magic than the dragons. I doubted Zyllven would
get very far in his revolution once they learned of his plans and the gold
itself was likely riddled with curses. Most of it would turn to dust in the
Renegades’ hands. The thought comforted me.

“Yes it will," Athena said. “Zyllven
and I have been negotiating for the last several months. The plan is quite
solid and last night he called to say he was ready to commit...if I help him
take care of a little problem he’s having.”

My stomach sank. “You mean me.”

She gave an evil little smile. “Very
perceptive. Yes, I mean you.”

“The Sidhe aren’t going to let you just
walk off with their gold. They’ll come after you, upset your revolution,” Jacob
said, a hard edge to his voice.

Zyllven shook his head. “No, they won’t.”
He reached into his robe and pulled out a gold crown. “They won’t risk a direct
assault, not with this on my head.”

“You have the Sidhe crown,” I said, my
heart sinking. It looked just like the king’s but had the sheen of real metal.
This was no imitation, it was the real thing.

“Yes, they kept it with their gold.”
Zyllven laughed. “I wasn’t even looking for it, it just fell into my lap.”

“So you’re invincible.” I worried my
bottom lip. This was bad. Real bad.

“Pretty much.” He grinned at me, pleased
with himself.

“Why are you even worried about me? I
can’t touch you.” I didn’t like the predatory look in Athena’s eyes or the two
goons that had stationed themselves behind us.

“Suffice it to say, we have our reasons,”
Athena said. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get on with it.”

I frowned. “With what?”

“Your kidnapping," she said in a
matter-of-fact tone of voice. Like it was an everyday occurrence. For a
renegade it probably was.

“You can’t do that, we have safe
passage,” Jacob said glaring at Zyllven.

“No, you don’t," Zyllven said. “You
were in breach of contract when you ran after the Eros goblin. You left the
path and your guide nullifying safe passage.”

Jacob and I looked at each other. His
gaze flickered to the window behind Zyllven and back to me, questioning. I gave
an imperceptible nod. If we could get to the window and down to the terrace
below, we might have a shot at escape. A chance to warn someone about Zyllven’s
crackpot revolution. Moving in unison, we both made a run for it.

Time slows down when you’re running for
your life. Even though I was moving as fast as I could, I noticed Zyllven’s
stunned reaction as we ran straight for him, leapt up onto the couch, and over
its back. Two more strides and I would’ve been at the window, but a hand
grabbed my ponytail yanking me hard enough that I flipped back onto the couch,
my head landing next to Zyllven’s thigh. Athena didn’t leave me there for long,
and pulled me upright by my hair to face her.

Her ruby lips stretched into a wicked
smile as she said, “Nice try, but I’m not going to let you go that easily. I
have plans for you that don’t involve jumping out of windows.”

One of Athena’s goons wrestled Jacob’s
hands behind his back and goose-stepped him around the couch to stand next to
me.

I clawed at Athena’s hand, hoping to peel
her fingers off me, but she smashed a fist into my jaw. I fell to my knees,
hand cradling my face, and neck arched back from her death grip on my hair. My
scalp burned with the tension of her grip and individual strands of my hair
snapped, giving way.

Next to me, Jacob broke free of his
captor and landed a hard punch to the one guy’s solar plexus. The goon went
down with a grunt and lay still. Jacob came for Athena next, but behind him I
saw another goon storming toward us, ham-hands clenched into fists.

“Jacob, run," I said. If one of us
could get away there might still be a chance to stop Zyllven.

Jacob hesitated. I could tell by the
uncertain expression on his face that he didn’t want to leave me behind.

“Run," I screamed, my hands going up
to keep Athena back, further away from Jacob. She resisted and fought to move
forward, but I threw my whole weight into her stomach, leading with my
shoulder. She grunted and had no choice but to fall back with my momentum.

It was too late, though. The second goon
was on Jacob, his fist crunching into Jacob’s temple. Jacob’s eyes glazed and
crossed as he crumpled to the floor, his head hitting the stone with a sick
thud.

My heart stopped and a wail sounded from
deep in my gut.

Using my hair like a leash, Athena
whipped me around and slapped me, cutting me off mid-wail. “Shut up.”

I rubbed my aching jaw and went quiet as
Athena nodded to her goon. “Is he breathing?”

The goon kneeled and checked. “Yes, but
barely. That was a hard hit. I don’t think he’ll wake up again.”

We all looked at Jacob for a long,
silent, moment. His eyes were half open and glistened, unseeing, at us. My
stomach convulsed and bile rose in my throat. Jacob was going to die. The
second man to die because of me. The first man I had let close to me since Mark
died was now dead too. Last night had been a horrible mistake.

I didn’t even fight when Athena covered
my mouth and nose with a cloth. I inhaled the acrid scent it carried deciding I
didn’t want to be conscious for what came next.

But before I passed out, I heard Athena
instruct Zyllven to have Jacob’s body dumped in the Wastelands. “No one will
find him there," she said.

The Wastelands. What a perfect place to
hide the mistakes of my love life. No one would ever know I had killed yet
another boyfriend.