Wilder Mage (8 page)

With a start, Justus pounded his fist into the palm of his other hand and growled. Shit. He needed to guard his actions, or he would end up forgetting himself and be the instrument to their capture by the Imperium.

Justus felt a thrum against his arms, the familiar tingle.

Sable was close, and his heart began to beat faster with the knowledge he may have to find a way to leave if he couldn’t control himself.

With the murmur of voices from the front room, Justus opened the office door.

Emmett was telling a story about Maggie, and Sable chuckled. The sound of that laugh made him gasp softly and then curse again, despite his promise to himself. Damn that
tener unus
crap. What a mess he had gotten into. He averted his eyes when she walked to the middle of the shop floor. But she laughed again, and he couldn’t stop himself from looking at her.

He marveled at his lack of observation. How could he not have noticed the rich color of her hair, like the varied red and deep brown of his mahogany wood? It had a wave, soft not curly, and it flowed over her shoulders like liquid.

On one arm, the silver bracelets, made of several hoops and medallions, chimed, and the burnished metal complimented her loosely gathered turquoise T-shirt. The vivid color of the shirt and the silver teased his memory, and he frowned as it slithered into his brain and then slipped away when Sable turned to him, still smiling. He stiffened in response to her presence, and her easy smile died as she looked at him.

He realized now that his strange obsession with her was due to the magical aura surrounding her, a
tener unus
. He wondered what the effect would have had on him without the ward stone. Bad idea, to allow that thought to take hold, and he turned away without attempting a greeting. But even then, his body responded and his pulse and respiration increased as the mental picture sprang into his imagination. He sucked in a breath, pulled a chair from a dining room display, and sat down.

Get a grip,
he savagely told himself.

She turned away, nervously plucking at her blouse, then smoothing the material.

Emmett inspected the newly arranged shelves, sliding a finger along on the clean surface.

“Geez,” he said. “You got busy yesterday. This place looks really different, almost like a store and everything.” He winked at Sable.

She snickered. “It just took a fresh eye, is all. Justus did most of the cleaning before I got here.”

“So, what we doin’ today? Gonna work on the web site?” Emmett said.

She nodded, glancing at the silent Justus. “I suppose so,” she said slowly. She adjusted her bracelet, and the charms jangled. The sound captured his full attention.

The turquoise color of her blouse against the silver bands, the musical chimes as the bracelets moved up her arm, and the figure of a young woman helping an old man to stand; it was all a part of the dark night and the sound of the muggers’ groans. He stood, and two pairs of startled eyes jerked to him when the chair thumped to the floor.

Hoarsely, he said, “You were at the concert.”

“The concert? Last Friday, you mean. I didn’t go. I stayed outside…”

She stopped.

“Huh. Strange that you show up here the next day…” His voice trailed off as her face turned hard. “What?”

“You. Didn’t. Do. Anything. You left. And that old man, you just left him there.”

Justus looked at her, surprised, and then he felt a burst of anger. He flicked a finger at the scratch on his cheek. “How do you think I got this? Playing shadow-puppets?”

Sable took a step closer and pulled her lips back from her clenched teeth. “You left,” she said again.

Justus barely managed to hold his place, his instincts screaming at him to step away. Inanely, he wondered briefly if he should be wearing a cup.

Man up, you coward,
he thought as he stood firm.

In that instant, he felt the curling flutter of another mage close by. He reached out, took Sable’s hand, and felt the immediate flow of magic from his ward stone to her skin, protecting her before she jerked her hand away.

Magic crackled and her eyes were an inferno.

He gasped as his ward stone became as hot as a branding iron, searing his chest.

“You don’t touch me.” Her voice vibrated with anger, low and dangerous. She whirled and went out the door, Emmett in pursuit, nearly trotting to keep up. Justus could hear her low mutters as she ignored Emmett’s pleas to slow down.

Justus stepped out the door, rubbing his hand over his chest where her unintentional use of Fire-magic had touched him. In that instant, as he watched the fires swirl around her in agitated spirals, his heart seemed to stop.

Sable stalked down the sidewalk with Emmett in tow. Walking toward her were the two hunters, one gesturing and talking. The distance between them closed rapidly, and without thought, he prepared to gather the energies flickering around him.

To fight? To defend? Shit, he couldn’t do anything with his magic and remain anonymous to the Imperium. Gritting his teeth, his mind in a vapor-lock whirl, he readied himself for the coming battle with the two hunters. For now, he shoved the possible consequences aside.

Strangely, Sable continued to storm away from him, not hesitating. Emmett stopped to stare after her, shaking his head. She came even with the hunters, passed between them, and then she walked on, the anger surrounding her like a cloud.

Neither party took notice of the other.

The two hunters continued down the walk, passed Emmett, and ignored Justus as they stopped and stood looking in the shop.

“I think she bugged out,” one said to the other. They looked at each other, shrugged, and crossed the street, walking away.

Justus laughed without humor. Several things occurred to him. The hunters relied on their target’s personal “signature” of talent that every mage emitted, the feel of her magic to find her. Without the signature, the hunters were essentially blind.

His warding kept her invisible, enveloping her with the fixed magic. The effects seemed to last even after breaking physical contact with him.

Another thing that Justus realized: the misunderstanding about his role after the robbery gave him the perfect excuse to fix his dilemma with Sable. If she saw him as an ass and a coward, it fashioned a wall between them. He could keep his distance and let her have a small measure of peace while she lived with the McIntyres.

The other realization rocked Justus. His chest still burned from the ward stone. That small spark of Fire-magic that she had inadvertently expended was not a significant amount of magic. But the ward stone read it differently. It interpreted
potential
in disbursed magic and the potential talent. And the level of talent that Sable had was tremendous, waiting as a massive fireball ready to explode. Justus had never encountered more raw talent.

Except for one.

Without conscious thought, Justus rubbed his throat and walked into his shop, his thoughts grim.

Chapter Six

B
ert leaned back in the office chair and rolled the pencil between his fingers, his face scrunched in concentration.

“So, you are the ass—”

“Bert.”

“—coward,” Bert said without missing a beat, “who didn’t come to the lady’s rescue, and she is really pissed about it.”

Justus rubbed his face, wearily thinking of the turn his life had taken.

In the days that had followed, Justus watched the McIntyres become more confused as he treated Sable with indifference and she looked at him with distaste. It fixed the problem, but it still didn’t fit his sense of integrity, and it rankled. The barrier between them gave him the excuse to hold her at a distance. And the booming Internet business allowed her to stay as a valued employee. Any attempt on her part to mend their crappy relationship met with his cold, frozen expression. After a few days, she didn’t try to be friendly and ignored him.

It appeared to be an excellent solution all around.

So why did he feel so irritated?

The signature of the hunters had disappeared. He figured as far as they knew, their quarry was gone, vanished into the throng of humans. Justus made excuses to bump into Sable, touch her hand, or brush her shoulder. It was similar to what he did to relieve Maggie’s pain, but with a big difference. With every touch, he extended his safety net and ward stone effects, covering Sable with obscurity. Justus warded the area around the McIntyre house, infusing a patio bench with fixed magic. In slow draughts, it released the magic to cover her and the area around her. He visited the McIntyres often and refreshed the warding, sneaking out to the garden when he was alone.

He felt secure enough to leave, and several road trips later, he had enough junk from estate auctions to build up his inventory and satisfy client lists. The last auction was especially productive, with purchases of blue and mint-green Depression glass, a creamer and sugar bowl of a china pattern requested by a buyer, several unique pieces of dragonware or
moriage
, and many boxes of potential treasures.

And one smooth oval moonstone.

Justus dug into his pocket. “Here,” he said. He flipped the rock at Bert, who dropped the pencil to make a fumbling catch.

Bert turned the stone over, looking for markings. It was dull gray-blue, unpolished and unmarked. His wide, expectant smile turned into a frown as he flipped the rock over again, and then he looked at Justus. “So? Looks like another fuc—”

“Bert,” Justus warned.

“—rock to me,” Bert continued smoothly. He handed it back to Justus.

“It was in a box of rocks advertised as collectibles, a box of mica, quartz, granite, and”—Justus held the oval rock up—“one moonstone with an attitude.”

Bert whistled and held his hand out. Justus flipped the stone into his waiting hands again.

“No kidding. What did it do?”

“It told me to get the fuc—”

Bert’s mouth twitched.

“—the hell away. Then it threatened to, I don’t know, eat my fingers or something.”

The boy froze and stopped rubbing the smooth surface of the stone.

Justus held his grin. “Don’t worry, I took care of it.”

It had snarled evil things, promising dire consequences if he touched it. Well, boy, howdy, how could he resist checking out an invitation like that?

It was a nasty little bugger. Around a human, it could cause subtle fits of depression, infecting them for its entertainment. When Justus wasn’t impressed and even snickered at the threats, it spread its nasty influence into the crowd, inciting a bidding war for the mostly worthless box of rocks. After allowing it to escalate to three-times its worth, Justus shrugged and threw a shield around the box. It negated the stone’s effects on the humans. He won the bid soon after.

The oval moonstone had seemed to shrink from his touch when he dug it from its hiding place in the box of rocks. It continued to scream warnings and vile promises as Justus took the smooth stone into his hand and murmured a low command to shut the hell up. And of course, it did. He pocketed it as soon as the diatribe ceased and the stone was silent; another touch of his gathered magic of Earth element, and he collapsed the evilness of the shadow in the rock, and that was that. No more mischief or fussing from it.

“It’s gone; the little guy inside the rock is gone.”

Bert frowned and turned the rock over, rubbing the surface between his palms. “I don’t understand. There was…something in it?”

“A familiar. It’s like a little spirit that inhabits objects or animals.”

“Or people?”

Justus shook his head. “No. People have souls. Familiars cannot occupy a space with a soul. Now it’s a pocket-piece. Just another fuc—er—freakin’ rock.”

Bert tossed the stone to him, and Justus put it with the other rocks in the box. A rock hound would love digging into that box, and he made a mental note to tell Emmett. He would want first chance at it.

The familiar curl of energy touched him.

“She’s here,” Justus said. He stood looking at the open office door that led to the entrance.

Bert moved to stand in front of him, eyeing him with a surprised expression.

“So, she’s here. What does that mean?” Bert said.

“Nothing, nothing.” Justus squashed the anticipation and nodded in the direction of the front room. “They’re coming, the McIntyres and, um, Sable.”

Damn it.

Justus heard Emmett say something, Maggie answered with a laugh, and then Sable spoke. “Here, I’ll get it.”

He heard the familiar squeak of the front door and pulled in another breath, cursed the
tener unus
magic, and brushed past the now-amused teenager.

Maggie was the first to see the cardboard boxes filled with items from the auctions. She whooped and pointed at the used grocery boxes carpeting the floor just inside the entrance. “Oh, wonder, the boss has brought us some work to do.”

She clapped her hands, an unusual gesture for her, and she seemed more limber to Justus, moving easier. Living with an adept seemed to be good for her. Even as he watched, he saw Sable stroke Maggie’s shoulder to keep the pain away.

The warmth he felt then had nothing to do with the magical aura of a
tener unus
.

It was like Christmas morning for his friends. Bert and Justus stood back while Sable and the McIntyres dug into the boxes, comparing their finds and whooping when one found something of special delight.

Emmett held up a small copper bulldog. The patina was old, rich, and thankfully undisturbed. Some people scrubbed the surface to remove the age, thinking it was dirt or corrosion. But to the true collector, the ones who valued history and the natural aging process, the patina was beautiful. And the value went up relative to the untouched surface.

Sable grinned at Emmett when he held up the copper bulldog, its metal head cocked as if curious. With all the noise and distractions, he could look at her now and she wouldn’t notice.

He started in surprise. “What the hell?” Justus snarled.

Sable straightened from the box she was leaning over, her eyebrows pitched to her hairline. Maggie and Emmett froze in similar positions but Bert had his arms wrapped around his waist, chortling.