Midnight Magic Page 3

  I have to do something. I can’t live this way much longer.

  She considered moving out, but discarded the thought as soon as it surfaced. Other than that one trip where she’d taken Eleanora to the doctor as soon as she regained consciousness, she hadn’t been able to coax her to leave the house. There was no way she was going anywhere if it meant leaving her mother. Besides, if she stood down, Tyler would waltz away with everything.

  Never. That will never fucking happen.

  A repeat of last night’s fury rushed through her, an infusion of courage mixed with energy.

  It felt good.

  Half an hour later, dressed in a denim skirt, cream-colored linen blouse, jacket, and boots, she wound her wet hair into a bun and secured it with a scrunchie. Hector meowed at the door. She supposed he needed to go out. Sure enough, as soon as she pulled her door open, he raced down the hallway, probably heading for his kitty door.

  Cassie grabbed her purse and computer case, locked the door, and tiptoed down the hall, taking the back stairs since they were farthest from Tyler’s rooms. On the ground floor, she poked her head into the library—a wonderful room lined from floor to ceiling with books—to make certain Murietta, her mother’s African Gray parrot, had survived the séance.

  “Awk, morning, child. Awk.”

  A smile tugged her lips upward, and Cassie scooped a handful of seeds, dropping them into Murietta’s dish. Back in the hall, she stopped to listen. Other than muted pecking from the library, the house was silent. She grabbed an orange and a granola bar when she passed through the kitchen and crept down the wooden risers leading to the garage.

  She didn’t realize how nervous she’d been about running into Tyler until she slammed and locked the door to her Subaru, hit the remote to raise the door, and backed out of the garage. Tyler’s old VW Passat was parked on the street, so she figured he was inside somewhere.

  A cold spear of fear pricked her.

  Please, she prayed to no one in particular, let Mother be all right until I get home.

  ****

  Cassie pushed against the door of the coffee shop. It had been a hell of a day. When the door didn’t budge, she shoved harder, really shouldering into it. Rain pelted against the glass. Wind rose to a screech as she finally wrestled her way through, a large latté clutched against her chest. The minute she jockeyed herself outside, wind caught her hair, plastering black strands across her eyes. Lightning split the sky, and she counted under her breath, “One one-thousand, two one-thousand...” Thunder boomed sooner than she expected and, for a moment, she considered running back into Starbucks, drinking her coffee, eating her pumpkin bread, and waiting out the storm.

  “Can’t do that,” she muttered. “Got to get back to work. Haven’t accomplished a damned thing today.” Setting her mouth in a firm line, she pulled her short coat more closely about her with her free hand and set off at a brisk pace.

  Damn! I never called Jeremy. But he didn’t call me, either.

  She felt vaguely guilty, but she’d been so immersed in e-Ouija, she’d forgotten about her friend’s middle of the night call. Until just now.

  “Lady...” A thin wail rose the same time someone grabbed at her skirt.

  Cripes! Another homeless person. Jesus, they’ve gotten gutsy.

  “Leave me alone,” she snarled, snatching her clothing away from the palsied hand rising out of the shadows of Yesler Way’s gutters.

  “Don’ be like that,” the voice mewled. “Ise hungry. Bet you never missed no meals. How ’bout a fiver?” Wine fumes, sour and unpleasant, rose along with the words. He scrabbled for her skirt again.

  “You’d just drink it up.” She wrenched away from the bum and half-ran down the street.

  “You be sorry you didn’ hep. Youse cursed, but I curse you agin, I does.”

  “Isn’t that just fucking great,” she mumbled. “Can’t figure out how to fix my e-Ouija project, Tyler’s looking like a predator, and now I’ve been cursed.”

  You forgot leaving home without a decent coat, her inner voice reminded her loftily.

  “Oh, shut up,” she growled, reaching the front door of the Smith Tower. Since it was past seven o’clock it was locked, so she punched in the code, checking carefully that no one was watching. The Tower, as it was known to the denizens renting office space there, was the oldest office building in Seattle. Its lower levels reached into catacombs riddling the hills beneath. She’d used them a few times as an underground shortcut, but hordes of homeless were quite a deterrent. They made Mister Curses-On-You look like a real slacker.

  Safely inside, she took a tentative sip from her cup, breathing appreciatively as the rich, fragrant beverage warmed her throat. She thought about taking her wet coat off and shaking it over the marble foyer, but didn’t want to spend too much time under the illumination of the antique chandeliers lighting the lobby. Even if someone didn’t know the code, it’d be an easy enough matter to rock out the glass. Settling for pushing her soaked hair behind her shoulders, she trotted to the bank of elevators, inserted her key, and waited for a car to deposit her on the thirteenth floor.

  Cassie closed her teeth over her lower lip. Working in Eleanora’s office held a bittersweet aspect, but it seemed like a waste of money to rent another space when her mother wasn’t using this one. Initially, she told herself she was keeping the office warm and inhabited until Eleanora returned. But her mother doing anything beyond wandering like a wraith looked less and less likely as months dripped by.

  Don’t think like that. I can’t give up hope.

  Cassie glanced at the keys in her hand and wondered how long she’d been standing outside the door of thirteen-twelve. Long enough to finish her coffee, she realized, disappointed the paper cup was empty. She inserted her key into the lock, turned it, and let herself into the electronic design shop she’d fashioned out of her mother’s spacious, high-ceilinged workplace.

  She stopped dead when she saw Jeremy seated across the room. “Jesus Christ,” she gasped. “How’d you get in here?”

  “Magic?” Jeremy smiled fetchingly from Eleanora’s psychic-reading divan. His too-long blond hair, cat-green eyes, and chubby body had a girlish grace.

  After her initial shock receded, Cassie was glad to see him. Since she tended to be a loner, he was the only consistent presence in her life other than her mother...and Tyler. Except Tyler scarcely counted at this point.

  “No, really.” She kicked the door shut and shuffled to her desk where she set down her purse, tossed her cup in the overflowing wastebasket, and dragged her smashed pumpkin bread out from under her wet jacket. She slipped out of her coat and shook it briskly over the hardwood floor. Taking a bite of her erstwhile dinner, she eyed Jeremy.

  “I coaxed my way in,” he admitted, color staining his pale cheeks. “Thought you might need me.”

  “Planning on a future as a telepathic cat burglar?” She scrunched her nose at him as she continued eating.

  “Looks good.” He stared at the pumpkin bread, while ignoring her question.

  “I need it more than you do,” she replied, chewing. “Wish I had some coffee left to go with it, though.”

  “Humph.” He made a snorting noise. “Maybe we could catch dinner.”

  “Nah, I came back because I’m really close to something. In fact, since you’re here, maybe you could help me. Your psychic energy might make all the difference.”

  “With the e-Ouija thing?”

  “Yeah.”

  She looked away, embarrassed. Jeremy was the only one she’d confided in about how the electronic Ouija board might help her mother. He’d been less-than-optimistic about the odds of it working. His lack of enthusiasm was why she never told Tyler. Just as well. It would’ve turned into one more thing for him to use against her.

  Her forays using the old-fashioned Ouija board were promising. Cassie had been within an angstrom of communicating with Eleanora, but something always happened. That was why she’d begun her work on e-Ouij
a, hoping she could create something far more powerful that would break through whatever was standing between her and her mother.

  Despite Jeremy’s doubts, she’d worked nights and weekends for months, using her electrical engineering skills to develop the circuitry and software, but there’d been a phalanx of unexpected problems, including a couple break-ins, where her computer was vandalized. She’d no sooner recovered from the second burglary when someone hacked her and corrupted her design files. After that, Eleanora’s rapidly deteriorating physical condition forced Cassie’s hand. She quit her engineering day job, since she didn’t really need the income, and threw all her energies into the e-Ouija project.

  “Sure, Cass, I’ll help. At least for a while.”

  Cassie snapped her head up. She’d been so lost in thought, she’d almost forgotten Jeremy still sat on the sofa.

  “You’re a really good friend...” she began just as her phone trilled “March of the Valkyries.”

  “Crap, it’s Tyler.”

  She fumbled mechanically in her purse for the phone, still off balance from his threats the night before. He hated Wagner, so she’d assigned that ringtone to his phone number as a joke

  “’Lo?”

  “Christ on a crutch, Cass. Where the fuck are you? It’s closing on nine.”

  “Nice to hear from you too,” she purred.

  “Never mind that. When are you coming home to keep an eye on your mother?”

  “Another hour.”

  “So you’ll be here by ten?”

  There was something she didn’t quite like in his tone, an undercurrent of malice. “Is Mom all right?”

  After a pause that felt a shade too long, he replied, “She’s fine. Why would you even ask?”

  “No reason.”

  He cleared his throat ominously. “Ten, Cassie?”

  “Okay.”

  “You alone?”

  She looked over at Jeremy, who was making chopping motions with both hands. “Yeah, why?”

  “I figured you were holed up with that fag friend of yours. You spend way too much time with him and that faux magic of his.”

  “Oh, so yours is better?”

  Whoops, shouldn’t have said that. Don’t want to set him off.

  “Mine is real.” His voice went deadly quiet. “Don’t you ever forget it.”

  She began to say something, but he hung up on her.

  “He’s at least partially right.” Jeremy left the comfort of the divan and crossed the room toward her. As usual, he wore faded blue jeans, a nondescript sweatshirt, and butter-colored leather boots. He stopped a couple feet away.

  “About what? How would you even know what he said?” She frowned at the phone before setting it down. Having second thoughts, she picked it up again to turn it off.

  “Sharp ears.” He favored her with a wry expression. “Seriously, his magic isn’t the same as mine—or Eleanora’s.”

  She waited, but Jeremy didn’t seem inclined to add to his statement. “Look,” she finally said in exasperation as she booted up her computer, “it’s not okay to drop a tantalizing comment and then clam up.”

  “What are you doing? I thought you’d be heading home after that call.”

  So much for answering me.

  “If I don’t have to be there until ten, I’ve got some time to work a little more on e-Ouija.” She watched him carefully. As usual, there were things he wasn’t telling her.

  He drew his eyebrows together into a fuzzy blond line, shifting from foot to foot. Finally, he blurted, “His magic’s from the fae. Mine’s from the Druids. His is, uh, sneaky and dark. Demon-linked.” There was a long pause. “Your mom wouldn’t have liked him.”

  A sad smile rose, and she struggled to hold back tears. “You miss her too don’t you?” At his nod, she went on. “He always told me he had the same magic Mom did. So that’s a lie?” She held her breath. If there was one thing she’d learned about magic-wielders, they didn’t like to talk with normies about their gifts.

  “He told you that?” Jeremy grimaced, bending a thumb and two fingers into a sign against evil. “He’s nothing like Eleanora. Her magic is like mine, rooted in Celtic traditions. We help humans. Fae mostly play tricks on them. And some really disgusting ones at that.”

  He paused to suck in a breath, blowing it out slowly. “I’ve pretty much bitten my tongue since you’re sleeping with Tyler, but I don’t think you should leave him alone with Eleanora.” His words came faster, tumbling atop one another. “Didn’t it seem odd he showed up mere days before your mom checked out?”

  She stared at the Electronic Workbench program flaring across her screen. The circuitry for e-Ouija was demarcated in a rainbow of different colors, some flashing where she’d made a mistake, others glowing softly.

  Of course it seemed weird. It has a whole different flavor hearing someone besides me say it out loud, though.

  “H-how long have you thought that?” she stammered, trying to pay attention to the complex circuitry and failing utterly. Electronic design was a lot like high level math. You had to hand over your undivided attention, which wasn’t possible given what hung in the air. It didn’t take much of an imagination to feel her mom’s things bending closer, almost as if they were absorbing Jeremy’s words and urging her to do something about them.

  “Ever since you met him.”

  She looked at him, her eyes wide with shock. “Why the hell didn’t you say something? It’s closing on a year for chrissakes.”

  “Aw, Cassie. You don’t remember, do you?” His glass-green gaze bored into her.

  “Remember what?” she demanded indignantly.

  “You were so hot for him, all you could talk about were those shoulders and those eyes and that dick.” He colored slightly, and then dropped his gaze. “Uh, sorry, didn’t mean to be crass.”

  “No, sounds like I was. Did I really rave about his equipment?”

  Jeremy nodded, looking uncomfortable.

  “Humph, guess he pretty much mesmerized me.”

  “That’s about the size of it, no pun intended. He sweet-talks his way into your bed, your mom exits stage left, and he’s conveniently positioned to move in on her clients. Leastways things likely started with her clients. Now I think he wants it all: her house, her money, her things...”

  Cassie groaned, flinching away from the painful truth in his words. She shut off her computer. She’d never be able to glom onto enough focus to place even one more capacitor or diode. No point in making her circuitry mistakes worse than they already were. She couldn’t address her software issues until the basic circuit board worked without bugs.

  Shame flooded her for ignoring the truth about Tyler—until she heard it reflected in Jeremy’s words.

  “I’m embarrassed I was that gullible.” It was hard to look at her friend. “And that I didn’t see through that scumbag long before last night.”

  “You were lonely, Cass, and scarcely the first to fall for a smooth pick-up line. Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

  “Before we go, you said Mom’s magic was like yours. She’s not a Druid, is she?”

  Jeremy shook his head. “No, but her power has Celtic roots, just like mine.”

  “You also mentioned Tyler’s magic is fae-linked. I thought the fae were Celtic too.” She chewed her lower lip and worked to understand.

  “Fae magic is powered by demons. Sometimes lesser demons, but I believe Tyler has links to Abaddon and the Irichna.”

  “Shit! Goddammit.” She pounded a fist into her desk and winced as pain lanced up her arm.

  “Good that you get it.” Jeremy looked right at her, his expression resolute.

  Cassie pushed up from her chair. She tossed her things into her battered leather shoulder bag and packed up her laptop. Donning her denim jacket, still sodden from the earlier rainstorm, she shuddered as the cold, wet fabric settled over her body.

  “Did what I said about Tyler hurt your feelings?” His question was so soft she wasn�
��t sure she’d heard it.

  “No. I needed to hear the truth—up close, personal, and out loud,” she admitted grimly. “I do appreciate it, even when it’s tough to stomach.” She hesitated. “Tyler’s going to a big spiritual gathering. That’s why he wants me home by ten. To trade off watching Mom. For some reason he’s more worried about her being alone than I am. It’s almost like he’s afraid she’s going to escape or something.”

  Jeremy cocked his head to one side and frowned. “Of course,” he muttered. Meeting her gaze, he added, “You’ve stumbled onto something, Cass. Tyler must be afraid if your mom leaves the house, she’ll break free of whatever ensorcellment has her in thrall.”

  Ensorcellment, thrall—it’s like a foreign language.

  “Could you come with me?” She laid a hand on his arm. “Maybe you could reach Mom, somehow.”

  After a long pause, Jeremy said. “Sure. Tyler gives me the creeps, but I’d like nothing better than a run-in with him.”

  She bit back a snort of laughter, mostly so she wouldn’t scream. “Funny, he gives me the creeps too. Ready?”

  “Not quite. Sit back down for a few minutes.”

  Something about how he said the words generated a resurgence of her discomfort from the night before. She perched on the edge of a soft chair. “Okay. I’m sitting. Now what?”

  He bit his lower lip. “I can’t tell you much, but I was, uh, called out to deal with something last night. The veils between the worlds are thin right now. Demons—um, wicked spirits—are afoot.”

  “I know what demons are. I—” She almost told him Tyler had looked like one, but it felt so absurd, she bit her tongue.

  “What?” He cocked his head to one side and locked his sharp gaze onto her.

  “Nothing. Go on.”

  “Not much more, really. Except it’s dangerous. More so for you because of your lack of psychic ability.”

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  A corner of his mouth turned down. “Lots. For now, if you just pay attention and do what I tell you—without hesitation—I believe I can keep us safe. Ready?”

  She swallowed hard before getting to her feet. “Not really, but it doesn’t seem like there’s a whole lot of choice.”