Totally Spellbound (8 page)

“That’s an important rule,” Rob said.
“If we start behaving like every other mage and use our magic only
to help ourselves, then we become no better than—”

“—
the kings we used to
fight,” John finished. “Blah-de-blah-de-blah. When was the last
time you used magic for yourself? Hmmm?”

Then he blanched as he remembered the
answer. Rob had used his magic to try to save Marian’s life, only
to get reprimanded by the Fates.

He had been summoned in front of the
Fates after working a successful spell to reverse the aging that
had caused Marian’s organs to fail. The Fates had a temple near
Mount Olympus, but the place wasn’t real. The sky was too blue, the
grass too green, and the temple itself too white.

The women had had an
otherworldly beauty as well, but at the time, he had seen it more
as an abomination than as a blessing. How could they be so
lovely—forever lovely—when his Marian had to wither and decay and
die like a summer flower on a fall day?

Each life has a
termination point, Mr. Hood
, Clotho had
said to him that day.

You have no right to
violate the workings of destiny,
Lachesis
had added.

He stood before them, a
rough-hewn man who hadn’t even known about the Greek Gods until he
had come back from the Crusades—a campaign that had soured him on
following the lead of other men.

He had gained respect for other
cultures while away from his own. The other soldiers hadn’t. They
had tried to destroy it.

We should imprison
you,
Atropos said.

He had felt alarmed at
that. They were going to take away Marian’s magical good health and
then imprison him so that he couldn’t spend the last few days of
her too-short life with her.

If it were not for
your history of good works,
Clotho
said,
and for your love of the unfortunate
Marian
.

We are sympathetic to
love
, Lachesis said.

He had let out a small
breath, his hands folded in front of him. He had felt so tiny,
standing there. A single man warring against time and fate and
rules he didn’t entirely understand.

However,
Atropos said,
we cannot
allow love to violate the rules of existence.

Of course they couldn’t. Because every
beloved of every mage would live forever then. As if that were
wrong.

He wasn’t sure how that was
wrong.

Much as we would like
to
, Clotho said with more gentleness than
was necessary.

They hadn’t wooed him, exactly, but he
felt a little better. At least he would be with Marian at the
end.

Besides,
Lachesis said,
you have
yet to find your soulmate.

What?
he snapped.
Marian is my
soulmate. You know that. All of England knows that. I love her more
than life itself.

And therein lies your
problem,
Atropos said.
You have given too much too early
.

No, I
haven’t
, he said.

You have a long life
ahead of you,
Clotho
said.

One that will be
lonely if you are not careful,
Lachesis
said.

Of course it will be
lonely,
he said.
You won’t let Marian live.

She cannot. She has
lived her life,
Atropos
said.

You knew she was
mortal when you met her
, Clotho
said.

I thought I was
mortal when I met her
, Rob
cried.

Then you should not
have left her to fight in those silly wars,
Lachesis said.

Those silly wars were
where I discovered that I couldn’t die,
Rob said. He had learned, just outside Jerusalem, exactly
what his powers were and how deadly they could be. He had turned
away from them then; he’d never been a man to use his abilities to
harm others.

War had been the exact wrong thing for
him—the greatest mistake of his life.

He hadn’t needed these Fates to remind
him of that, and all the lost years, the years away from his
beloved.

You might miss your
love altogether if you do not open your eyes,
Atropos said.

It was hard for him to focus on them.
The sadness that he thought he had put aside when he had tried to
save Marian’s life was beginning to overwhelm him.

If you do not see how
like follows like
, Clotho
said.

If you do not listen
to the prophecy,
Lachesis
said.

You have never asked
us your birth prophecy. It’s time you hear it
. Atropos looked mysterious and strong, standing against the
pillar.

You shall regain your
true self
, Clotho said.

And save the world
for true love
, Lachesis
said.

If only you recognize
that true love has many lives,
Atropos
said.

You denied me that
life,
Rob snapped. He could take no more.
He clapped his hands together, casting a powerful spell that flung
him away from the Fates and their so-called
justice.

Later, he found out through Little
John that the Fates had nearly imprisoned him after that insolence.
Only John’s argument, and Rob’s obvious grief, prevented
it.

“I didn’t mean that,” John was saying.
“I didn’t mean to bring up Marian again. Really. I meant besides
then. You know, in the past 800 years.”

Rob must have had an expression, then,
something that told his best friend he had been reliving the
prelude to the worst moment of his life.

Even now, he could barely think of
that day, holding the frail shell of the woman he’d loved as she
died in his arms, knowing that he had the power to save her—and
everything he would do, everything he would try—would be reversed
by those evil Fates.

“It’s all right,” Rob said, shoving
his plate away. The food no longer seemed appealing. “I know what
you meant.”

The good humor was gone from John’s
face. He finally seemed to understand why Rob wasn’t going to use
his magic for something as trivial as finding an attractive
woman.

If he hadn’t been able to use that
magic for something crucial, he wasn’t going to waste it on a
whim.

“I just think it’s important, you
know?” John said. “I think you had a sign last night, and I think
you need to act on it.”

“A sign from the Fates?” Rob asked
with more than a touch of bitterness.

John shrugged.

“I did what they wanted one too many
times,” Rob said. “I don’t care about their signs.”

John sighed. “Maybe you should,” he
said, almost to himself. “Maybe you should.”

Megan spent most of the morning on the
phone, making sure that she truly had tied up all of her loose
ends. She used the phone in her suite—which Travers swore she
deserved (what had Zoe done to him, anyway? Whatever it was, Megan
was starting to like it)—and then she returned to Travers’ for
lunch with Kyle.

She and Kyle finished first and went
to the couch while Zoe and Travers discussed wedding
dates.

“Dad’s gonna leave soon,” Kyle
whispered to her. “You wanna do something fun?”

“Like what?” she asked, not
questioning Kyle’s knowledge of his father’s future
plans.

“Star Trek
Experience
, maybe?”

“You’ve already seen that,” his father
said from across the room.

“With the Fates. It
wasn’t the same. They really weren’t into
Star Trek
.” Kyle looked at his dad as
he said this last. “Aunt Meg loves
Star
Trek
.”

“Classic,” Megan said. She had a thing
for the young William Shatner that none of her friends ever
understood.

“I’m saying no on a
repeat of the
Star Trek
Experience
,” Travers said. “How about
something wholesome? There’s got to be some museums around
here.”

“In Vegas?” Megan asked.

“There’s a neon place,” Kyle
said.

“Not to mention the Elvis-A-Rama and
the Liberace Museum.” Zoe came in from the kitchen, munching on a
candy bar.

Megan suppressed a sigh. How did women
like that stay so slim when they ate so poorly?

“I don’t think either of those are for
Kyle either,” Zoe continued. “But there’s a children’s museum
that’s across the street from the Natural History
Museum.”

Kyle blatted a Bronx
cheer. Megan had to work to suppress a smile. She’d had the same
reaction—mentally, at least.

“We can find something to do, can’t
we, boyo?” she said. “If nothing else, we can go to the water park
I saw.”

“No,” Travers said. “The last time
Kyle went there, he got a hideous sunburn.”

Megan looked at the boy. His skin was
fine, so it couldn’t have been on this trip. “The last time? You’ve
brought Kyle to Vegas before?”

Zoe and Travers exchanged a look.
“Long story,” Travers said after a minute.

“And it wasn’t my fault,” Kyle said.
“The Fates didn’t have any sunscreen.”

“You’ve spent a lot of time with those
women,” Megan said, trying to keep the disapproval from her
voice.

Kyle shrugged. “I
like them, even if they don’t know much about
Star Trek
.”

“They shouldn’t bother you too much,”
Travers said. “They have some business of their own to take care
of.”

“With the Faeries,” Megan said,
keeping her tone flat.

“Yeah.” Zoe finished the last of the
candy bar. “Now that we found the wheel for them.”

Zoe and Travers were
serious. Megan resisted the urge to shake her head. She had
accepted the psychic part—she was aware of the studies conducted in
the 1970s that showed psychic powers existed (even if all her
professors had debunked those studies)—and she had been around Kyle
for eleven years. She liked the psychic explanation a lot better
than the intuitive one. If the kid had been as intuitive as she had
given him credit for, then he would have to have been almost
superhuman.

She smiled to herself. For
some reason, she didn’t think that psychics were superhuman but
that intuitive people were. That was one for her own shrink to
figure out.

“Megan,” Travers said, putting a hand
on her shoulder. She started. She hadn’t heard him approach. “We’re
going to get a marriage license. It shouldn’t take long, but I’m
leaving Kyle with you, if you don’t mind.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” she said a
little too brightly. “And you can take as much time as you need.
Maybe a little…alone time…would be appropriate?”

Travers grinned at Zoe, who grinned
back.

“We’ve been so busy saving the world
that we really haven’t had time for ourselves,” Zoe said, and once
again there was no real irony in her voice.

“We might take you up on that,”
Travers said.

“Just not here, please.” Kyle put his
hands over his ears. He was blushing furiously. “I don’t want to
think about this stuff.”

Travers laughed. “Promise, kiddo. I
don’t want you thinking about that stuff ever, although I supposed
I won’t be able to stop you some day.”

“Stop now!” Kyle said, his eyes
squinched shut.

Megan shook her head.

Travers kissed Kyle on the
crown of his head, then smoothed the hair over the kiss. “See you
soon, kid.”

Kyle nodded.

Zoe waved at them both, and then she
and Travers almost skipped out the door.

“You can put your hands down now,”
Megan said.

“Not yet,” Kyle said tightly. He
brought his knees up to his chest and wrapped himself in a ball.
“They’re broadcasting from the hallway.”

Megan put her arm around her nephew
and pulled him close. “I’m so sorry I never realized what was going
on.”

He relaxed against her. “It’s okay,”
he said after a moment. “You know now.”

“Yeah.” And it baffled her. How had
Kyle grown up to be so normal with everyone else’s thoughts in his
head? How had he been able to tell the difference between himself
and other people?