Missing powers, p.7
Missing Powers, page 7
“But men go missing too. They get mugged or murdered, or disappear, and no one ever hears from them again. It isn’t just women and children who disappear.”
“Of course not. But he can take care of himself. He is a powerful warlock. Even if you don’t know that from your direct experience, you must know it by virtue of the fact that he is the current leader of the coven. I don’t see what could have happened to him.”
“Sarah thinks he had a nervous breakdown. That he’s too serious and has too many responsibilities and was bound to break sooner or later.”
“There is something to be said for that.”
“Do you think that he just took an impromptu vacation?”
“Well…” Corvin eyed her, “Of course that is a possibility. And Sarah is right about him having a lot of responsibility, a lot of things to stay on top of, and that could easily become overwhelming. I would like to ease that burden a little, and he was very happy to hear that I would take over leadership of the coven from him. He deserved a break.”
“He was happy about it?”
“You know what it is like to carry a heavy burden.”
Reg had actually avoided taking responsibility for anything she didn’t have to for most of her life. She didn’t like to have people relying upon her. She didn’t promise anyone anything, and then they couldn’t say that she had disappointed them. If she did something nice for someone, it was just a bonus. Not something that she had promised.
But she had inadvertently taken upon her other burdens since she had moved to Black Sands. Trying to help people who were sick or injured. Trying to reunite jewelry and gemstones with their rightful owners. Protecting Corvin and Julian from siren attacks. It had been difficult, and she kept telling herself that she would soon be able to relax and just think about herself and her own needs. Soon. But other things kept coming up.
All the more reason not to take on the additional responsibility of helping Jessup and the police to track down Davyn. Davyn was just fine, wherever he was.
“Maybe he’s gone to visit Julian,” Corvin suggested. “The two seem very close, and it has been some time since they saw each other last. Long-distance relationships can be difficult.”
“He would have told his office. He wouldn’t just… not show up one day.”
“You would think. But like Sarah said…”
Reg nodded. “I suppose. He might have just gotten burnt out. Decided that he’d had enough.”
“I’ve seen it happen to other practitioners,” Corvin assured her. “You might think that having gifts would make life easier for us, that these powers would pave the way. But they take a lot of energy and attention. This isn’t a TV show where you can just flick a magic wand and have whatever you want without any energy expenditure. And for a guy like Davyn…”
“What do you mean ’a guy like Davyn’?”
Corvin raised his brows. “An inherently nice guy. Someone who truly wants to help other people with his gifts. Someone who has problems saying no, so he keeps taking on more and more.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Reg felt a slight twinge, realizing that he had also taken on her training as a firecaster without indicating that the time and energy it took were a drain on him. He was just there, every week, helping her to learn how to use her firecasting without putting anyone else in danger. He took it on because he knew that no one else in the area could mentor her. But he took time away from work to do it and, as Corvin had said, handling fire and helping Reg keep hers under control took energy and attention. Maybe he had been spread too thin.
“Someone should call Julian,” Corvin said, his eyes moving away from Reg again. “He probably knows where Davyn is.”
“Wouldn’t the police have called him?”
Corvin raised his brows. “The police? Have they gotten involved in this?”
Reg nodded. She poked at her fish and ate a couple more bites. “Jessup called me about it.”
“Indeed. I didn’t know it had been reported to the authorities.”
“You don’t think it should have been?” Reg guessed from his tone.
“Matters concerning practitioners should be left to the magical community. No good comes from involving non-magical investigators.”
He was probably right. Reg couldn’t see what good it would do to involve people who had no idea what Davyn could do, what he spent his time on, and the people he associated with. They would think that he was just a regular office worker bee and would only look in the obvious places. It didn’t make sense to involve them in something where they only had a fraction of the facts. Jessup might know more, having come from a practicing family. Still, she didn’t have any powers to speak of herself, so she was a member of the magical community by tradition only, not a full participant in all that it had to offer.
“Do you think Jessup knows about Julian?” she asked Corvin.
“I don’t know. Did she ever meet him?”
“I don’t think so. But he is with Magical Investigations, so maybe he interfaced with the local police through her?” Reg tried to remember. Her brain was like Swiss cheese. Or like someone had rifled all of the drawers of the cabinets her memories were filed in and thoroughly tossed the place. Anything that had happened before Wilson’s intrusion could be affected. “I think… Jessup knew that I was talking to someone from MI. But I don’t think she ever met him. Not while I was there, anyway.”
“Maybe someone ought to fill her in, then.”
“Not me. I already told her I didn’t want to talk to her about the case.”
“Why not? I thought psychics were always trying to get in on this sort of thing. Big case. Get on the news making predictions and then become famous when they prove to be true…”
“I’m not looking to get on the news,” Reg told him, horrified at the idea. “I like to keep a low profile.”
“So you won’t help her with her case.”
“No.”
“Then… I guess you’re not concerned about Davyn after all.”
“I… of course I am! I’m more concerned than you are!”
“But you won’t go to the police with what you know.”
“No. They can find that out from his other friends. I’m not the only one who knows about Julian.”
Corvin nodded slowly. “Maybe they’ll get around to it tomorrow or the next day.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The trickiest part of a date with Corvin was always escaping at the end with her powers intact. She knew that Corvin would really turn on the charm as they were having their final sips of coffee and getting ready to go. That’s when the rubber met the road, and Corvin knew that if he was going to get anywhere with Reg, he only had minutes to act.
“You enjoyed your fish?” Corvin asked, looking down at Reg’s plate, which was nearly clean.
“Yes, it was very good.” Looking at Corvin, Reg couldn’t help but think about taking him for a walk on the beach, as she had once before. Actually, he had taken her, but the results had not been what he had expected. And Reg knew that she couldn’t get close to the water, much less get her feet wet, with him at her side. Despite his powers, he might not be able to escape a second time. Reg was growing in her abilities, and the siren instincts were getting stronger.
Reg licked her lips, then turned away from him. She couldn’t let herself think about what would happen if she gave in. What would the police do if another man she was associated with disappeared? They wouldn’t just stand by, Reg was sure. She’d seen too many times how they would insist on being involved, turning over every stone and looking for anything at all suspicious, even when she was completely innocent.
“I need to go,” Reg told him. She adjusted her grip on her purse on her lap as if she were going to have to race him to the door. “Sorry, I have a few appointments tonight.”
He was looking away from her, across the room. But his eyes were so distant that she wasn’t sure he was looking at anything actually in the room. He was somewhere else, lost in thought. After a moment, he seemed to realize that she had said something to him. His eyes returned to her.
“Sorry, what?”
“I have to go. I have to prepare for my sessions tonight.”
“Yes. Of course.” He stood up.
Reg stared at him. He had never before missed the opportunity to try to persuade her to go home with him. Or to another, more intimate location. Corvin stood there, waiting for her. He held his hand out to her to help her to her feet. Reg didn’t take his hand, wary of the effect of his touch on her, and slid out of the bench seat of the booth.
“That was nice,” she told him awkwardly. “And I hope that whatever is on your mind is resolved soon. If it’s the coven… I hope everything goes well.”
She didn’t, of course. She didn’t want him to take over as the leader of the coven. And he would sense that in her.
“Yes,” he agreed. His lips pressed together for a moment, thinking.
Reg had fleeting images in her mind of gatherings of the coven, many of which seemed to be far in the past, of arguments and of Corvin stymied in his goals, prevented from advancing as he had wished. Arguments with other warlocks who must have been his coven members. Long, dark, lonely hours. And other impressions that went by too quickly for her to see or analyze them. A lot of dark memories.
She felt a little sorry for him, as she hadn’t before. She had felt for the little boy that he had been and how he had been abused by his father and by the deep, painful hunger he suffered if he did not fill the void within him with the powers of others. But she had never understood how isolating life was for him, separated by his gifts from the rest of the magical community.
But she steeled herself against the pity she felt for him. He would use those feelings against her. The images that had flashed through her mind could be a ploy, another way to draw her to him and get her to let down the barriers she had to keep between them. It could all be another way to seduce her. So she didn’t smile, touch his arm, or say that she was sorry. She gave a curt nod and walked briskly away from him, clutching her purse tightly.
He didn’t call her back or follow her out.
Though distracted by thoughts of Corvin’s strange behavior, Reg managed to get through her readings and seance without any issues. Her clients were happy with the results, and the woman who had set up the seance with her family members had even given Reg a generous tip at the end of the session. Reg enjoyed the satisfaction of her clients almost as much as the money. With the gemstones that she had been able to liquidate, she didn’t need to worry about her bank account, and other measures of how her business was going came into play.
She went to bed satisfied with the day, despite all of the ups and downs and her concern over Davyn’s disappearance. It wasn’t her job to find Davyn. Jessup was on the case and others in the magical community were talking about it. Reg had no doubt that they would sort it all out soon enough.
Reg awoke a few hours later to whispering. She lay in bed, trying to figure out if it was the rustling of leaves outside the window, or maybe the fridge was making noises again. She was sure, to begin with, that her brain was just misinterpreting something else in her environment. No one could come into the cottage. Unless maybe they were outside in the garden. But even the garden was protected by charms and wards. Forst wouldn’t be whispering; if he were talking to Fir or one of the other gnomes, he would use his inside words, not a whisper. And if he were talking to Sarah out loud, he wouldn’t be whispering long sentences, but conversing in his usual brusque, one- or two-word answers.
She rubbed her eyes and grabbed her phone off the nightstand to check the time. It was way too early for her to be awake yet. She’d barely been in bed for three hours. Reg groaned and rolled over, pulling the blanket over her head to block the sun and the irritating whisper.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Eventually, Reg couldn’t stand it anymore and rolled out of bed to see where the noise was coming from. She found Harrison in the kitchen with Starlight. Two mornings in a row. Harrison often went long periods without putting in an appearance, or only showed up when he was called. It was unusual for him to be there two days in a row.
Starlight was sitting in the middle of the kitchen island, his furry butt firmly planted in the middle of Reg’s appointment book. He knew he wasn’t allowed up on the counters. Harrison was standing facing him. He turned and looked as Reg walked out of the bedroom. He put his finger to his lips, telling Starlight, “Shh. Don’t wake her up.”
“It’s a little late for that,” Reg told him. “What are you doing here?”
“Whispering.”
“Clearly,” Reg laughed. “What are you two talking about?”
She didn’t think Starlight had been whispering, but she couldn’t be sure. And certainly, Starlight could have been communicating with a method other than whispering. Reg had found that there were many more methods of communication than just speaking aloud. Gestures and body language, telepathy, visions, feelings and auras, and probably several others she wasn’t thinking of. Even non-magical humans had other methods of communication when someone did not want or was not able to use the spoken word.
“We are friends,” Harrison stated.
“Yes. You and Starlight, or you and me? Or all of us?”
He raised his eyebrows, considering. “It is complex.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Humans have friends.”
“Immortals don’t?” Reg was sure that she remembered Harrison calling Destine, the Witch Doctor “my old friend.” But had they really been friends, or had Harrison just been using a human figure of speech because he thought it was appropriate? They had probably known each other for a long time, but Reg wasn’t sure they had ever been buddies. They had very different natures. Harrison was more concerned with human life, or at least the lives of a few of the humans that he knew. He tried to follow the rules the immortals had agreed to. The Witch Doctor preferred to find his way around the rules and was concerned with accumulating power and ruling over the human race. Or maybe the whole universe.
“Not the same,” Harrison confirmed. “Tell me about your friends.”
Reg was put on the spot. She looked at Starlight, then back at Harrison. “I just woke up. I’m going to need a cup of coffee.”
He moved out of the way so that she could see the coffee machine. “Coffee!” he said, sounding delighted. “Look!”
“You made coffee?” Reg was impressed. Harrison’s grasp of human machines was not great. She had shown him how to make coffee before, but the idea of using buttons to make the coffee brew seemed to be a bizarre concept to Harrison. “Good job.”
Harrison grinned widely at her. Reg walked over to get out a mug and filled it from the carafe. She held the cup up to her nose to smell the coffee, but didn’t inhale any steam. She tentatively brought the mug to her lips for a sip and found the coffee stone cold. She touched the side of the carafe and looked at the settings on the coffee machine. The warming element was not turned on. But for the coffee to be that cold already, Harrison had either brewed it several hours before or had magically produced the coffee and forgotten that it should be hot.
She cleared her throat and tried to smile. “It’s better hot,” she told him, hoping he would not be offended.
Harrison nodded. “Yes.”
“Well… that was very nice of you.”
“So.” Harrison bent over so that he could put his elbow on the island and rest his chin in his palm. “Tell me about your friends.”
He must have seen the gesture and expression on TV or from someone else. It was such an out-of-character performance from Harrison. Was he really trying to learn about human friendships? Or was he just mimicking something he had seen, thinking it would feel natural to Reg?
“I don’t know…” Reg shifted awkwardly. “I have a lot of friends.” It was true that she made friends easily. But she didn’t retain them very well. She was used to moving from place to place, leaving friendships behind. It was harder to keep a friend than it was to make one in the first place. After a while, people started to irritate her. Or she decided they weren’t the kind of people she wanted to be with after all. A twinge of guilt pricked at her heart when she thought of Jessup. But having a cop in her life really didn’t work. It wasn’t Reg’s fault that that relationship hadn’t worked out. She had tried to make it work—girls’ night out or girls’ night in to watch movies and eat ice cream. Going to events Jessup had invited her to. But then… being questioned as a suspect in a murder. Being accused of stealing jewelry she hadn’t even touched. Repeatedly being put on the hot seat by someone who was supposed to be a friend.
“There’s Sarah,” Reg offered. “She has been a very good friend. Renting me this house, bringing me food, helping me learn things about wards and charms and other magical stuff. She even brings me in new clients for my business.”
Harrison nodded sagely.
Was it weird that the first person Reg could identify as a friend was possibly centuries older and more of a mother figure than a girlfriend? She pushed any doubts aside and thought of who else. Corvin? She wouldn’t call him a friend, but they had worked together, protected each other, and shared each other’s thoughts and powers. It was a very intimate relationship, but she didn’t know what to call it. They weren’t really friends or lovers, but were bound together.
“Uh… there’s Damon and Jessup and Davyn.” Reg hoped to distract Harrison from the fact that they weren’t close friends by giving him several names at once. Each of them had been a friend at one time, and Davyn had grown to be more of a friend, not simply a mentor. There were some non-humans that she considered friends, but Harrison had been asking about human friendships.
“They are all friends?”
Reg made a face and shifted uncomfortably. “It depends on what you call a friend.”
Harrison cocked his head. “What you call a friend.”
