Chapter Seventeen
For the first time in many days, I woke up feeling almost like myself. I was walking Magnus, who was beside himself with joy at my recovery, when my phone rang. It was Kane.
“Hello?” I held the phone in my left hand, pulling the leash with my other hand while Magnus barked at a squirrel as if it was his lifelong nemesis.
“Lou! How are you feeling?”
“Better, thanks.” I tried to sound cool and professional, failing miserably.
“Glad to hear it. Are you walking your dog?”
Magnus stretched against his leash to the point of choking, his barking almost deranged with fury. This squirrel was clearly the source of all evil, and had to perish. The squirrel watched Magnus with the jaded boredom of one who had seen all the dogs, and found them lacking. I tried to pull Magnus away. “Yeah. There’s a… squirrel.”
“They’re the worst. Listen, can I drop by this morning?”
“Why?”
“I have the teleportation spell all figured out, but I need to practice it. I’ve never cast it before.”
“Don’t you need a dragon scale for that?” The squirrel turned away in disgust and hopped up the tree. Magnus whined, the chance to save the world from this vile presence forever lost.
“To actually teleport, sure. But I can practice the chant, the alignment of the mystical energy. I need to see if I can get the focal point of the arcane force to center on our combined entities—”
“Is this some sort of sorcerer’s techno-babble?”
“Of course not.” There was a pause. “Maybe. A bit. Basically, I need to train at casting the spell on both of us.”
“I need to be in the mansion this evening, Kane.” Magnus raised his leg and peed on the tree the squirrel had escaped to. He seemed satisfied with this outcome of affairs. He’d managed to have the final word. Or pee. Whatever.
“I know. I’ll be out of your hair by noon, okay? And I’ll bring brunch.”
“You could have started by saying that. See you in a bit.”
“Where can I draw a circle?” Kane asked, looking around my shop.
“I’m sorry?” My hair was a bit damp from the quick shower I’d taken. I told myself I hadn’t showered because Kane was coming over—I’d showered because I wanted to feel fresh. And if I wore my blue shirt with the nice cleavage, and my tightest-fitting jeans, it was because I wanted to dress nicely. It had nothing to do with Kane.
When he entered the shop, he paused for a long moment to look at me. His eyes lingered on my chest for a bit, and when he finally tore his eyes away, there was something hungry in his gaze.
Then he pulled a piece of charcoal from his pocket, and began looking at the floor of my shop in a way I didn’t like.
“I need to draw a circle to focus the energy. That’s how the spell works.”
“Then maybe we should have practiced it in your office. You’re not drawing anything on my floor, mister.”
“It’s just charcoal. It washes off.”
“Will you be the one doing the washing?”
He sighed.
“Fine. Just draw it anywhere,” I muttered.
Kane crouched in the middle of the shop and outlined a circle on the floor with his charcoal, about two feet in diameter. He then retrieved a long, silvery needle from his coat’s lapel, and pricked his finger with it. A large droplet of blood materialized. He let the drop fall on the circle’s perimeter, intoning an arcane chant slowly. The circle seemed to glow with a faded orange light. He squeezed his finger, and additional drops of blood dripped on the charcoal marks. The hair on the back of my neck prickled as the mystical energy in the room began to converge around us. Magnus whined behind the bedroom door, where I’d shut him to prevent him from interfering with the spell. He sensed something was going on.
“Okay.” Kane stood up, putting the charcoal in his pocket. His fingers were smudged with black. “What I want us to do is stand in the circle. I’ll cast most of the spell, focusing the energy on our bodies. I just want to make sure it can work on both of us.”
“Will it hurt?”
“No. The energy can feel a bit… ticklish at first.”
I peered skeptically at the circle. “It’s awfully small. You’re teleporting us together?”
“Yeah.” He looked at me in surprise. “Isn’t that the plan?”
“But… can’t you draw one circle for each of us?”
“No.”
“Is it possible that it’ll merge us? Like in The Fly?”
“What?”
“In the movie. The Fly. Jeff Goldblum invents a teleportation device, but when he uses it, he doesn’t notice there’s a fly in the device with him. The machine merges their bodies together, and then Jeff slowly becomes a man-fly—dribbling acid on his food, skin peeling—and he’s all yucky.”
“I didn’t see it. It sounds ridiculous.”
“The movie is much better than it sounds. The point is, will I slowly become Lou-infused-with-Kane after your spell? Chain-smoking and wearing outdated coats?”
“Maybe I’ll become Lou? Constantly looking for trouble and spouting snarky remarks?”
“I can think of worse fates. Anyway, I’m not that snarky.”
“And my spell will not merge us into one body. Right now, it won’t even teleport us, I need the dragon scale to do that. It’ll just tickle a bit, and you’ll feel the magical energy accumulating in your body. There’s no reason to worry. Please stand in the circle.”
I entered the circle. Kane stepped in as well, and I had to shuffle a bit to give him room. We were standing very close to each other, our bodies nearly touching. My heart began to beat faster, my throat feeling dry.
“Don’t touch the circle with your feet,” Kane murmured, his eyes closed in concentration. When his sharp eyes were shut, he seemed much softer, almost defenseless. I stared up at his face as he began to chant, his lips inches from my face. He was a foot taller than me, and if I leaned forward, I could press my ear to his chest, my head nestled under his unshaven chin.
My skin felt as if something was prickling it lightly. The mystical energy of the spell surrounded us as Kane’s arcane chanting grew louder. My hair hovered around me, as if an unseen wind blew through it. Kane’s voice dominated the room, strong, deep, commanding. A voice that could change reality, twist the laws of physics, manipulate the fabric of space and time.
And then he stopped, and gazed down at me.
His eyes glowed, their green color shining at me, exuding power. “I think it worked,” he said. The air throbbed strangely as he spoke. His body crackled, as if infused with static electricity.
“What’s going on?”
“The mystical energy of the spell accumulated in our bodies, but the spell remained unfinished, so it wasn’t released.” His voice echoed in my ribcage, in my heart, my stomach, between my legs. “It should take a few minutes to dissipate.”
I tried to convince myself to step away from the circle, to let the energy leave my body in peace. But the rush in my body, the warmth, the pulse of power and need was almost impossible to resist. Instead of taking a step back, I put a hand on his chest, feeling the energy coursing between us, two bodies connected together. His heart thrummed underneath my palm. I felt his breath quicken as he wrapped his arm around me, pulling me closer. His scent, clove and pine, was everywhere, and I breathed it in huskily, licking my lips.
My other hand found its way under his shirt, sliding up his back, enjoying the feel of his skin. He leaned forward and my lips parted, meeting his halfway, my tongue finding his. At that moment all I wanted, all I needed was more.
He grabbed my ass with both hands and I coiled one leg around him. Half lifting me, he took a few steps forward, pushing me against the counter. I pulled off his trench coat hungrily, consumed by a desire to feel his skin on mine. My shirt rose, my stomach pressing against his, and his hand sank into the waistband of my jeans, only my panties between his fingers and my body. I could feel the warmth in my chest and my face, my legs tightening around him. The touch of his fingers was tantalizing, brushing against that thin soft fabric, tracing its edges, touching the skin of my inner thigh.
And then I pushed him away. He stumbled back, his eyes widening in surprise. I quickly vaulted over the counter, to keep it between us, not trusting myself to keep away from him.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted. “I can’t. Not now.”
He nodded hesitantly. “Okay.” His voice still had that sexy, otherworldly thrum, though it was fading.
“I don’t hook up before jobs. It complicates things.” It ends badly. “I need to be focused tomorrow. I can’t afford to be distracted.”
He cleared his throat. “That’s fine. I didn’t anticipate the effect of the spell’s energy on us.” His eyes had stopped glowing. The energy had dissipated.
“Right,” I said, my voice hoarse. “It was just the energy. That’s all.”