The Lost Enchantress Read online

  “I don’t.” He flicked the cigarette to the pavement and ground it out with one black leather boot heel.

  I don’t. Not I can’t. Not even I won’t. I don’t.

  “What are you?” she asked, looking directly into his eyes and not bothering to hide her suspicion.

  “My name is Hazard.”

  “I didn’t ask who you are. I asked what you are.”

  “Hazard,” he repeated. “Gabriel Hazard. And let’s just say I’m a collector.”

  “Of what?”

  “This and that.”

  “Specifically.”

  “Rare books. Antique firearms. And unique treasures such as the pendant you purchased this evening. It so happens I’ve been searching for that particular piece for a long time.”

  “Why?”

  He hesitated before shrugging. “The answer to that is complicated. Very complicated.”

  “Then you’re in luck.” She ignored the sardonic lift of his dark brows. “Because complicated is not a problem for me. It so happens I’m clever. Very clever.”

  “I’m relieved to hear that. It means you’ll accept the exceedingly generous offer I’m about to make for the pendant without a fuss.”

  “No fuss. And no deal. Sorry.”

  She took a step toward the car and though Eve didn’t actually see him move, he was suddenly there, blocking her path. She felt the energy around her stir, just as it had when they crossed paths earlier.

  “You haven’t heard my offer,” he pointed out.

  “I don’t need to hear it. The pendant’s not for sale.”

  “That hardly seems sporting. Considering.”

  “Considering that I won it fair and square?”

  He smiled. It wasn’t a genuine smile, of course, but it was still plenty effective, more than enough to make her heart do a little stutter step.

  “Define ‘fair,’ he challenged.

  Ouch. Best not to let the conversation veer in that direction.

  “Look, I’m very sorry to disappoint you,” she said, trying to sound reasonable but firm, “or seem uncooperative, but this discussion is really a waste of time.”

  “That’s a matter of perspective. As I told you, I’ve already invested a great deal of time searching for the pendant.”

  “And as I told you, it’s not for sale.”

  He hesitated, his expression clouded, as if she were a puzzle he couldn’t quite figure out. “What if I told you it was a matter of life and death?”

  Everything inside her went still. Was that a threat? Belatedly it occurred to her that remaining there alone with him hadn’t been the smartest move she’d ever made. She’d chased down interviews with enough unsavory types to know better than to let herself be manipulated into such a vulnerable position. It was more evidence—as if she needed any—that she’d been thrown way off her game.

  “I suppose I’d ask whose,” she said in her calm and even reporter’s voice.

  “Mine.”

  It wasn’t the answer she expected, and she immediately suspected it was a trick. Before she had a chance to find out for sure, someone spoke from the shadows behind them.

  “Not so fast there, pal. If you want to be real about this, both your lives are on the hook here.”

  They both turned in that direction, Gabriel Hazard as startled as she was.

  Eve would have bet the night couldn’t get any stranger. She would have lost. Standing in front of the concrete wall ten yards away, wearing shiny black suits, dark glasses and black felt fedoras, were the Blues Brothers, or at least a damn good facsimile.

  Whoever they were, they definitely had not been there when she arrived a few moments ago. Eve was certain of that. Well, as certain as she was about anything that had happened in the past few hours. The relevant point was that they seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, which she knew enough to know meant they had appeared from somewhere else . . . another dimension or world or someplace equally fantastical.

  That couldn’t be good.

  “So,” said the shorter and rounder of the two, “that being the operational situation, why don’t you just do yourself a favor, doll, and toss that pendant my way?”

  “What pendant?” she asked with what she hoped was a credible aura of utter cluelessness.

  The Blues Brothers chuckled and elbowed each other.

  Brother Small adjusted the tilt of his fedora. “What pendant, she says. Everybody’s a joker these days.”

  Their laughter stopped abruptly, as if someone had jerked the needle off an old record album.

  “I hate jokers,” said Brother Tall. “But just on account of I also don’t go for messing up a dame if I don’t have to, I’m going to give you one more chance to play nice and hand over that pendant. A little something I call the three-second chance. Three . . . two . . .”

  He skipped one and both men started toward her. So much for chivalry.

  Acting on instinct alone, Eve grabbed the pendant right through her dress and held on to it as tightly as she could. She had no idea what prompted Hazard to grab her and try to shove her behind him and no time to think about it. As soon as he touched her, the same iridescent glow that had materialized in the ballroom appeared again, this time forming a dome over the two of them so that they were cocooned inside a bubble of highly charged mist.

  Hazard scowled suddenly and pressed his fingertips to his forehead as if his head ached, but still managed to keep his body angled protectively in front of hers.

  “Nice trick,” said Brother Tall, his smile smug as he examined the mist. “Too bad for you I got a nicer one.”

  They kept coming, their hands raised in front of them, palms open flat. When they were just inches away, blue lasers shot like blades from the center of their palms.

  Terrified, Eve cringed backwards and came up against Hazard’s arm; it curled around her like a steel cable. She fully expected the evil-looking lasers to slice and dice their way through the mist and then do the same to them. Instead, there was an explosion of white sparks and a screeching sound so high-pitched it was painful, and the lasers were deflected with enough force to send both brothers flying backwards in a blue-black blur. They slammed into the concrete wall ten feet away and came to rest on their butts.

  For a few seconds they just sat there, stunned. A very few seconds as it turned out. Rolling to their feet, looking all too resilient, they began moving forward once again, but this time there was more caution than swagger in their approach. Brother Tall even seemed to hold back half a step and let Brother Small take the lead as he lifted his right arm and moved it over them slowly, without actually making contact with the mist. Instead of the lethal-looking blue lasers, his outstretched palm glowed with a soft white light. It seemed to Eve that he was checking for something. She had no idea what it might be, but she was in the business of reading people, and whatever bizarre breed these guys were, they were close enough to people for her to read them. The look they exchanged was one of surprise-laced fear.

  The laser boys were afraid of . . . what? Hazard? The mist? She couldn’t tell, but something had sure spooked them and that was good enough for her.

  Brother Small muttered something under his breath that Eve decided must roughly translate to “Let’s get the hell out of here,” because Brother Tall quickly reached out with one gangly arm and made slicing motions in the form of an X. At once the air in that spot rippled and separated, creating a dark opening that both men tumbled into and disappeared.

  Eve saw it happen and she still had to look around, twice, to make sure they were really gone and not just lurking in the shadows, waiting for the mist shield to come down so they could strike again. Only when she was convinced they were nowhere around did she allow herself to sag with relief, thankful for the strong arms and solid chest supporting her. Her relief lasted only seconds, and then she remembered who owned those strong arms and solid chest. She wrenched free of Hazard’s hold, which wasn’t difficult since he seemed more than willing t
o let her go.

  The mist disappeared as well, melting back into the atmosphere and leaving them eyeing each other across several suspicion-laden inches of space.

  They spoke at the same time.

  “How did you . . . ?”

  “How did you . . . ?”

  “Me . . . ?”

  “Me . . . ?”

  Their scintillating conversation was cut short by a security vehicle rounding the corner at the opposite end of the garage with its rotating yellow spotlight on.

  Hazard grimaced.

  Eve wasn’t sure, but he might have also growled.

  “I’ll be in touch,” he said through clenched teeth.

  She wanted to fire off a clever comeback, but there wasn’t time in the fraction of a second it took him to vault to the top of the garage wall in a single fluid motion and—as she looked on in disbelief—drop out of sight on the other side . . . leaving her to deal with the security guard.

  Fortunately, years of arriving at a news scene and being told she was going live in sixty seconds had prepared her to think fast and run without facts. She told him a group of teens had hit her up for spare change and taken off when they saw his lights. Strange loud noises? No, she hadn’t heard any noises. Nor had she seen anyone leap over the wall behind her.

  “Wouldn’t that be dangerous at this level?” she asked him.

  “Dead dangerous,” he declared. “And dead is what you’d be if you tried it. I guess my eyes were playing tricks on me, because I could have sworn I saw a fellow . . .” He shook his head.

  Then he told Eve that he and his wife watched her all the time and asked her to sign his cap.

  After making sure she was safely inside her car, the guard drove off, probably to see to it the phantom gang of kids weren’t hassling anyone else within his domain. Eve wasted no time doing the same. She was anxious to get home, to whatever safety there was within those walls. And to Grand, the only one who could answer the questions rioting inside her head.

  But first she made one small detour. She pulled out of the garage and turned right, circling around to check out the spot where Hazard had pulled his disappearing act. She carefully counted to the level where she’d been parked.

  Dead dangerous was right. It was a fifty-foot drop from where he’d taken off, straight down, ending in blacktop. Even if a man was lucky enough to survive a jump from that height, he’d be left broken and bleeding. But there wasn’t a body or a drop of blood in sight.

  Just a collector my ass, she thought.

  Four

  “Dest—” “No! Please don’t say it. Not the D word.”

  Ignoring Eve’s exasperated plea, Grand continued to regard her with regal serenity, something she did exceptionally well. “If you want a different answer, my darling Eve, ask a different question.”

  Eve settled for making a small, disgruntled sound and staring at the teacup in front of her. It was fine bone china, its color the soft white of heirloom pearls. The gently curved handle fit her hand perfectly, and there was a sprinkling of hand-painted red roses just below the rim. It was simple and elegant, like everything in Grand’s home, like Grand herself. She was eighty but looked and acted younger, something Eve attributed to her fiery spirit and magical T’airna genes. Her white hair was cut in an asymmetrical bob that played to her great bone structure and beautiful eyes, and she’d always had a strong, intrepid sense of style. All the color and adventure lacking in Eve’s closet could be found in Grand’s.

  They were sitting at the old, polished oak kitchen table in Grand’s kitchen. She lived in a cozy three-room addition to the brick Tudor Eve shared with her sister and niece. It was a perfect arrangement. Grand had a place where she could retreat for a bit of peace and quiet, and there was a solid door equipped with dual dead bolts to keep whatever magic she chose to conjure on her own turf, out of sight and out of mind for the rest of them. Eve would have preferred to keep magic out of the house entirely, but a deal was a deal.

  The door connecting their kitchens was usually left open, and that’s how Eve found it when she returned home after the auction. It was late, and as she pulled into the garage, she was afraid her grandmother might already be sleeping. She wasn’t sure she could stand to wait until morning to talk to her. But she found Grand still up and waiting with a pot of tea steeped to perfection; two teacups and a plate of lemon shortbread sat on the table. It was as if she’d known not only that Eve would come rushing in, shaken and bewildered, and in need of her special calming brew, but also the precise moment. How she always seemed to know such things was something Eve didn’t want to think about just then. She had enough magical mystery to deal with for one night.

  Words usually came easily to her. She made her living stringing them together in logical order. But when she opened her mouth to tell her grandmother what had happened, out poured a jumbled tirade about magic and strange men and wild, irresistible impulses. While Eve rambled, Grand calmly nudged her to sit and tucked her favorite shawl around her shoulders. Faded blue and soft as feathers, the shawl smelled of sweet rosewater and a thousand happy memories. And all the time Grand was soothing her and pouring tea, she listened.

  That was one of the wonderful things about Grand; she always listened and understood and told you exactly what she thought, even if it wasn’t exactly what you wanted to hear. Or even close to what you wanted to hear.

  Like tonight.

  Eve sipped her tea, letting the sweet warmth and spicy fragrance relax her until she was able to consider Grand’s explanation with a reasonably open mind.

  “Fine,” she said, “let’s assume you’re right and destiny is responsible for everything that happened. Why now? Why tonight? And why, for pity’s sake, in front of hundreds of people?” Her voice took on a disgruntled edge. “Hasn’t destiny ever heard of discretion . . . you know, the ‘better part of valor’ and all that?”

  Grand’s smile was gentle. “Ours is not to reason why . . .”

  “Of course ours is to reason why,” Eve argued. “If we don’t, we’re like . . . like balls in a pinball machine, getting randomly slapped around for no good reason. And for the record, “do or die” was nowhere on my To Do list for today.”

  “So it is with destiny.”

  “My point exactly,” Eve said. “I need answers, and as answers go, ‘destiny’ falls in the cosmic, big-picture class of explanations. I was hoping you could give me something a little more specific and small picture. Like a snapshot. More focus, less hocus-pocus. I want to know why, after years of détente, destiny suddenly decided to rear its ugly head and steamroll my life tonight.”

  “Oh dear, I suspect the only thing sudden about it was your own sense of awareness . . . or perhaps I should say lack thereof.”

  “Lack thereof? Me?” Eve shook her head emphatically. “I’m all about awareness. It’s what I do . . . it’s who I am.”

  Grand looked bemused. “Now don’t be getting all miffed. I wasn’t talking about your job. Of course, you’re very good at what you do, but your work calls for awareness of a different sort . . . one might even say more focus, less hocus-pocus.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?”

  “Not a bit. To be sure; it’s a fine quality to have. It just won’t help you to understand what happened tonight.” She paused and it seemed to Eve that she was choosing her words very carefully. “Tell me, Eve, do you remember anything of what I taught you about magic?”

  The question took Eve by surprise.

  “Of course I do. I remember everything, Grand. How could I not?”

  Grand looked so pleased that Eve didn’t even consider spoiling the moment by mentioning how often she wished it weren’t the case. Or how many nights she’d lain awake fantasizing about how different her life would be if she’d never opened the Book of Enchantment and found the Winter Rose Spell.

  “Then you remember that magic is all around us, always. It’s the energy of life itself, and it’s present in the wind and the tides and—
”

  “And in the tallest tree in the forest and the smallest wildflower growing in the shade below.”

  Grand smiled approvingly. “Then you must remember that all that magical energy trapped in nature can be called forth; why even a drab with enough knowledge and persistence might learn to coax out a wee bit of it.”

  Even a drab. Eve had to smile. It had been a very long time since she’d heard the word “drab” used that way. It was the name the magical world gave to mortals who possess no magic. Drab, as in colorless and boring. There was a time when a drab was the very last thing she wanted to be. That was before she understood that in the great cosmic carnival that is the universe, drabs are really the lucky ones. They get to sleepwalk through life blissfully unaware of the mystical danger lurking just out of sight. They can tuck their kids in at night and tell them that of course there are no such things as monsters or ghosts or goblins with a clear conscience, never knowing how wrong they are. And if they’re really lucky, they never find out.

  “But the greatest magic,” Grand continued, “is the magic inside you, the magic you were born with. That’s what sets us apart as enchantresses. It’s always with you, Eve, and it always will be, as long as there is blood running through your veins.”

  “But I haven’t used magic in years. I don’t even think about it.”

  “It’s still there,” Grand countered. “The magic within us is different from the magic around us, and far greater, but it’s also one with it. And like calls to like. You were born with a connection to the magic of the universe, and I suspect it’s draining you more than you know to try to suppress what is meant to be.”

  She took a sip of tea while Eve considered that. Could Grand be right? She’d always assumed that when she made the decision to reject magic, that was that. End of story. Could it be that instead she’d been unconsciously suppressing it all this time? And if so, what had changed tonight?

  “You’ve been working much too hard,” Grand continued. “Such dreadful long hours and deadline on top of deadline, there seems no end to it. And with Chloe away, you take it on yourself to see to Rory even more than usual.”