The Magic's in the Music (Magic Series Book 5) (2 page)

That chord seemed to reach right down into your guts and quiver. Greta found it almost shocking. As the echo died away, the man on stage threw his head back and began to play in earnest. It was no song she knew. She’d be willing to bet no one except this Ghost knew that song. The cascading notes were angry, but with a sobbing sound below that vibrated with sadness in your lungs. The notes started to soar only to be dashed to earth again and again by evil riffs. It was as if the man was ripping out his soul with that music. It went on and on. Nobody danced. Nobody fidgeted. Nobody talked. Nobody got up to go to the bathroom. They just listened, mesmerized. Maybe they knew they’d never hear something like this again.

He turned around to the audience, but Greta knew he wasn’t seeing anybody in the room. Emotions flickered across his expression as he pulled out those wild notes and sent them skittering or thundering or sidling slyly into the room.

When the last resounding chord crashed into silence, he stood with head down. The place erupted in applause and shouts. “Ghost!” Greta felt like a linen suit in Arizona in the summertime. She came to herself and grabbed for her martini. Her hand was shaking.

What the hell?

When she turned back, about ten security guards were converging on the stage.

“Wasn’t he wonderful?” Jax was saying from somewhere far away. “I can’t believe we saw him. He could have been at a dozen clubs tonight, but I just had a feeling it’d be Magma.”

“I chose the club,” Greta murmured.

“Well, I agreed. He hasn’t been here in three weeks. It was time.”

The bouncers had almost reached the stage. “They aren’t going to throw him out, are they?” Greta asked, as if Jax would know such a thing.

“Oh, no. He just doesn’t like to be touched. They’ll escort him to the bar, and he’ll drink for free as long as he wants. He doesn’t talk to anybody. And then somehow he slips out without anybody knowing and just… disappears. That’s why they call him the Ghost.”

“Who is he? I mean he’s got a real name, doesn’t he?”

Jax’s eyes were big as she turned toward Greta. “Nobody knows.”

Greta watched as the Ghost set aside the guitar in its stand and jumped down into the circle the bouncers had formed. He seemed to stagger before he righted himself, as though his legs had almost given out. The phalanx made its way over to the bar. People kept shouting his name. Well, to be fair, his name probably wasn’t actually Ghost, Greta decided. Pandemonium had broken out across the club. Greta glanced at her watch. He’d played for nearly an hour. Wait staff fanned out, taking orders. The din was back, in volcanic spades. The usual band peeked out to see if the coast was clear before they took the stage.

“No wonder he drinks for free,” Greta shouted at Jax. “This place is minting money with everyone hoping he’ll show up.”

“He’s been doing this for a couple of months. Business is up all over the club scene.” Jax’s short dark hair flipped as she swung to see where the phalanx would land at the bar. No wonder she’d refused the table they’d been offered. And that explained the drape neckline of the pink dress she was wearing that clearly showed most of her breasts. Jax had pulled out all the stops.

But she wasn’t alone. The pheromones hung heavy in the air. Everyone along the bar, male and female, watched the circle of security guards push through the crowd.. She could catch only glimpses of the Ghost behind the huge bouncers. He didn’t look up, just shuffled along with his striding escort.

Damn it.
Greta was not one to fawn over anyone, but the combination of all that talent and torment and that tug she’d felt from the first moment he came in was making her….wet. Didn’t she have a shred of self-control?

Oh, outstanding. They were coming down to this end of the bar. The two front bouncers broke away and politely asked the two guys to her right if they might be provided a seat elsewhere in order to make room for the club’s guest. Drinks would be on the house. To Greta’s surprise, neither complained. They took their drinks and followed the bouncers away, staring at the man now revealed clearly in the center of the circle. The bodyguards were huge, all of them, but the Ghost wasn’t little. He had to be over six feet by several inches with a pair of shoulders on him, as revealed by a dark, Henley-knit shirt. His shaggy, dark hair clung to his head, wet with sweat. He looked…dazed and a little lost.

He took the far bar stool, the one in the corner. A bouncer laid the Ghost’s long leather coat and his pack on the seat next to him almost reverently. Greta felt his presence down in her bones.

“Thanks,” he said his voice sounding as though he was someplace far away.

The bouncers, except for two, melted away into the crowd. Those two turned outward to face the crowd, which kept edging closer to get a look. A woman yelled, “That was really good,” over the noise of the band that had started to play again. The man they all called Ghost didn’t acknowledge her.

“Scotch,” he said. “Old. Neat.”

“Yes, sir,” the bartender yelled. He pulled out a bottle of Lafroig 15yo. “Will this do, sir?”

The Ghost nodded. “Yeah.” The bartender poured a generous shot. The Ghost hunched over the glass and downed it. “Might as well leave the bottle.”

The bartender didn’t blink an eye. He set the bottle on the bar in the empty space between Greta and the guy. “It’s all yours.”

Greta needed about three more martinis to numb the electric reaction her body seemed to be having to the man one barstool away. The regular band’s music sounded tinny and predictable. She’d sure hate to follow this guy’s act.

Greta clutched her martini, trying not to sneak glances at her neighbor, but she could see in her peripheral vision that he’d downed another glass of Scotch. She felt like some kind of schoolgirl, deliberately not looking at the object of her attentions. She hadn’t felt like that since way before she’d stopped being a schoolgirl.
Time to get out of here.

She turned to Jax to say that. To Greta’s horror, Jax leaned forward and held out her hand across Greta. Jax’s plump breasts dangled, front and center, on view to their ghostly neighbor.

“Hi, I’m Jax. Great session tonight.”

Greta tried to sink into the barstool. Hadn’t Jax just told her he didn’t like to be touched? And he wasn’t exactly putting out ‘I’m-on-the-prowl-for-companionship’ vibes, not with two bodyguards keeping people away. Unable to look away from a train wreck, Greta couldn’t help turning to the guy next to her.

Unbelievably, he bothered to raise his shaggy head. The look he gave Jax was filled with faint disgust. He didn’t take her hand. He just left her hanging.

His eyes flicked to Greta, flicked away, slowly returned. They widened.

She couldn’t really see the color of his eyes in the pervasive red light. The faint disgust in his expression turned to something almost startled and then to…revulsion. He thrust himself away from the bar, snatched up the bottle, his pack and his coat and dashed for the back of the club, mumbling something she couldn’t hear.

Was he running away from her? Greta sat at the bar stunned. Insulted. And, God help her, fascinated.

She watched the Ghost push through the crowd. He shifted away from pats on the back by the men and the clutch of his arm by several women as though they were blows. He disappeared into the hallway that held the club’s kitchen and restrooms.

“Well, shit,” Jax said. Then she shrugged. “At least I saw him.”

Greta threw two fifties on the bar. She gave a wave to catch the barman’s eye. “Let’s get out of here. We’ll take the back way to avoid the paparazzi.”

‡

Lanyon Tremaine swung
his leg over and off the back of the motorcycle and trudged to the post that held the keypad, his backpack slung over his shoulder. The chug of the Yamaha’s engine almost covered the cooing of mourning doves. Cameras swiveled toward him from the top of the gateposts with a mechanical click.

“You sure this is where you live?” the blonde on the Yamaha called. “I’ll drop you somewhere else if you want. My house, for instance.”

“Nope. This is it.” He punched the buttons for the gate code. He wasn’t getting tangled up with some bimbo. She’d just want things from him he’d never give. Later he’d hitch up to Hollywood, pick up his Harley and find a new flop.

“Well, uh, see you then.” The girl revved the cycle as though she was going to take off, but let it drop to a low rumble again, giving him another chance to change his mind.

The gate began to creak open. Sounded like the gates to hell opening. God, but he had a hangover. “See you around.” He didn’t even look back at her.

“Bastard,” he heard her mutter. The cycle revved up and spun out.

Lan took a big breath and let it out. This was the last place he wanted to be.
Fuck.
Why was he here?
Because I’m a chicken-shit.
And hitting the clubs now held its own danger after that disaster at Magma. At least he could guarantee he wouldn’t see her here at The Breakers. He started down the long drive lined with oleanders. The breeze from the cliffs ruffled his hair. Too bad it couldn’t clear his brain. He plodded along the circular drive. He could see Catalina Island floating on the blue Pacific, behind the three-story hacienda perched on the cliff. Seagulls squealed and wheeled on the updrafts. The leaves on the trees in the center of the drive had started to turn. Trees in southern California didn’t go out in a blaze of glory. Their leaves just gave up, turned brown and drifted away. Pretty much what he was doing these days.

Edwards stepped into the driveway from the wing of the house that held the security offices. His arms were folded across his chest, his look disapproving.

“Don’t say it,” Lan muttered. “I was here just last month.”

“It was July. And you wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t her birthday.”

Lan shoved past the older man. “Do us both a favor. Stop letting me in.”

“I wish I could, the way you worry them. But they’d never forgive me.”

Edwards watched him push into the house through the big wooden doors with the iron straps. Lan shut the door on him. It was cool inside. The heat Hollywood had been sweltering in for the past month seemed distant. Maybe he could make it to his room without having to face anybody. He heard conversation drifting in from the terrace. He slid through the foyer to the archway that led to the Bay of Pigs, so named by his oldest sister because it used to be the wing that housed the Tremaine’s four boys. Now he was the only pig left in it, on those rare times he was here. The others were all mated. More than just married. Shackled for life.

He made it past the room commandeered as a hospital set-up for his father last year. It looked like Kemble and Jane had taken up residence. Devin’s old room was now a gym.

“Lanyon.” The tone was commanding. Kemble. Formerly Prince of Wales, now the Prince Regent if you wanted to continue such a stupid metaphor.

Lan stopped, but he didn’t turn. “What?” He could practically feel his eldest brother fuming. It must be a constant irritant that Lan came and went as he pleased in spite of any order ‘Brother Dear’ might give.

But all Kemble said when he finally spoke was, “Welcome home.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Mother and Senior are on the terrace, after you’ve had a chance to shower.”

“What makes you think I’ll shower?” He couldn’t quite say, ‘What makes you think I want to see them?’”

Exasperation crept into his brother’s voice. “Because I can smell you from here, and it would be disrespectful to appear like that when you finally deign to show up.”

Lanyon was about to stalk off when he heard a soft voice. “You look starved, Lan. I’ll make you a sandwich.”

Jane.
He’d always liked Jane, even before she married his stick-up-his-ass brother. He half turned. “That’d be…nice.” He cleared his throat. “Thanks.”

She smiled at him, even as his brother glowered. They made a funny pair. Jane was all soft curves and pastel colors these days, more than a foot shorter than his brother as well as pretty much pregnant, while Kemble was about as starchy and business-like as you could imagine. He searched his brother’s face. No, there was some new softness there as well. In the eighteen months they’d been married, Jane had rubbed off on Kemble. Thank God. His brother might get slightly less insufferable eventually. Lanyon caught himself. What did he care? Wasn’t he drifting away from the family as fast has he could go? Safer that way.

“I’ll meet you on the terrace,” Jane said, still examining his face.

He grunted and stalked back to his room at the end of the hall. Not drifting fast enough. He was here for his mother’s Goddamned birthday just like the dutiful son he’d once been.
Maybe you’re here because you’re running away from something outside the gates, too.
Or someone. He wouldn’t think about that.

He slammed into his room and began to pull off his boots. The Prince of Wales might have been right about his need for a shower. Alcohol had dulled the senses, just not quite enough these days. And even dulled, he could smell he needed a shower. He stripped naked and tossed his clothes on the bed. Staggering toward the bathroom, his eye was caught by the tablature paper scattered across the big desk, covered with scribbled notes. Nobody had thrown it away. Even looked like someone had dusted it. Had he left it here last time he’d been home? He didn’t remember…. Of course, he didn’t remember much of anything about the last time he’d been home, except going through most of Senior’s stash of Scotch.