A Kind Of Magic (8 page)

“But I don’t know anything.”

Roderick could feel her fear and uncertainty. “Together you all will. Until then, it is imperative that you stay alive. Originally, there were twelve infants sent to Earth, six boys and six girls. All the boys and one of the girls are dead. Only five of you remain, and we are unsure with only five of you that we will discover the answers we need.”

“And if we don’t know the answers?”

He rose to his feet and put his back to her. “Let us think about the Harpies for now.” He had no wish to think what it would mean to his realm if Elle and the others didn’t have the answers. They had to have the answers. He had lived with his sin for too long, and his people had suffered for too long for there not to be a solution.

“Roderick?”

He jerked at his name and turned toward her. “I know this is hard for you, but I need you to trust me and Val. We will keep you alive.” Before she could respond, he heard the door to their home open and close. A moment later the door to the library opened, and Val and Aimery stepped inside.

“What did you find?” Elle asked as she came to stand beside him.

“No one in Galveston ever sold that necklace,” Val said.

“You must not have checked every store.”

“We did,” Aimery said softly.

Roderick glanced at Elle to see her face crumble.

“No,” she cried, unconvinced. “Jennifer told me Alex found it in a shop in Galveston, and they went to buy it.”

“They could have lied,” Roderick said.

She turned her pale blue eyes on him, and the anger and confusion tore at his gut.

He remembered seeing the same look in his sister’s eyes, a look he had hoped to never see again.

“Jennifer wouldn’t lie to me.”

Aimery stepped forward. “Tell me, Elle, has Jennifer never lied to you before?” Roderick wanted to punch Aimery for crushing Elle like he had just done. Her face fell as her eyes shown with tears, but she held them back.

She was much braver than he gave her credit for.

“With the stone now missing, I think I should take Elle with me to keep her safe,” Aimery said to Roderick and Val.

Roderick knew it was a wise decision, and it would be one less distraction for him and Val, but he felt responsible for Elle now.

“I won’t go,” Elle said loudly. “I lost the necklace, and I will get it back.” Aimery’s brow furrowed. “Haven’t you listened to anything Roderick has told you? There are only five of you left. We need you to survive.” “Roderick will keep me alive.”

It surprised him how her words pleased him, and the fact she had such faith in his abilities. It had been a long time since anyone had put that much devotion and trust in him.

Aimery shook his head. “Roderick needs to concentrate on finding a way to kill the Harpies, not worry about keeping you alive.”

“I’m not going,” Elle declared.

Roderick watched her walk from the library, leaving him with Aimery and Val.

He returned Aimery’s stare, knowing the Fae commander was about to give him a piece of his mind.

“Is there something going on between you two?” Aimery asked.

Roderick crossed his arms over his chest. “Why ask me when you can dig through my thoughts and discover for yourself.”

“I already have. I want you to answer me.” His words stunned Roderick. If Aimery had already seen the answer to his question, why then did he ask?

“Nay.”

For several heartbeats Aimery didn’t move. Finally, he gave a small nod of his head. “I will leave her, but only because I cannot shift her through time without her agreement. Convince her to come with me, Roderick.” And with that, Aimery vanished.

“Nice mess we’ve found ourselves in,” Val grumbled.

“It always is.”

Elle stared out over the city she had called home for seven years. It wasn’t because she loved the city, in fact, she preferred a nice quiet small town, but she had needed to escape after high school, and Houston had been the closest place.

She couldn’t complain. She had gotten a decent job to work her way through college at the University of Houston and had managed to land a job at the museum, which she loved. The job supplied her with a nice income, which allowed her to buy her house. It wasn’t much, but it was better than an apartment.

And despite her home and her job, she could easily leave this town and not look back. It was crowded, noisy, and could be downright dream crushing on occasions, much like any large city.

“Elle?”

She jerked slightly at hearing Roderick’s soft timbre. She hadn’t even heard him enter the living room.

“Don’t try to convince me to go with Aimery,” she said before he had a chance to open his mouth. “I need to fix this.”

She felt more than saw him stand beside her. “I understand,” he said.

“You do?” she asked as she turned to look at him.

He nodded. “There are times in a person’s life when they need to take a stand and mend a wrong. I suppose now is your time.”

“And if I die?” She didn’t want to think about it, but she was curious as to why he had given in so easily. “You and Aimery keep telling me it’s imperative that I stay alive since there are only five of my kind alive.”

“True,” he said and looked out the large two story windows. “I cannot promise that you will live, but I will do everything I can to make sure you do.” She studied his profile a moment. “That’s all I can ask.”

“Aimery isn’t going to like this,” Val said from the hallway.

Elle turned to him. “I need to do this, Val. Will you help us?” He smiled, a smile she was sure had melted many hearts. “Of course. I just had to say the obvious. There is no way I would allow Roderick to do this alone. We are brothers, warriors.”

Val looked from Elle to Roderick. “’Tis time to go ahunting.” Elle glanced over in time to see Roderick grin, a wicked gleam in his eye. “I suppose this is something y’all like to do?”

“Y’all?”

Roderick

repeated.

“Yeah. Its kind of like your ‘’tis’. It’s a Texan thing.”

“If you say so,” he said and walked to his room.

Elle followed him and stopped in her tracks when she entered his domain. The front of the apartment was made to look as though he and Val were men of the twenty-first century, but his bedroom was another matter entirely.

Hanging from the ceiling in various lengths and thicknesses were sheer panels of the darkest burgundy and gold. On the floor were pillows of all sizes in matching colors.

There was no bed but what looked like a mattress with a black fur blanket thrown over the top of it.

No lamps, ceiling fan, radio or TV was in the room. Instead, candles where everywhere, hanging from the ceiling like a chandelier, beside the bed on a candelabra, and in clumps throughout the room.

The room took her to another time and place, one that she liked. As soon as she stepped into the room, she was instantly at peace, as if she had come home. And she could well imagine the romantic ambiance this room invoked when he brought a woman inside. That thought irritated her, so she turned her mind to wishing she were in his room because he was attracted to her, not because they were trying to save the world.

This room was straight out of one of her fantasies and so was Roderick.

“Incredible,” she breathed as she fingered one of the sheers beside the bed.

Roderick turned to her and glanced around the room. “’Tis very similar to the chamber on my realm. The only difference is the color.”

“What colors did you have?”

“White

and

silver.”

“Pretty colors,” she said, thinking how soothing that could be.

“It’s very nice together, but when I became a Shield, I found a love of darker colors that I never knew.” He shrugged and waved a hand around the room. “These are my colors now.”

“I

love

it.”

Their eyes met and held, and for an instant she could almost imagine that they had shared a connection. She glanced away and licked her lips.

When she raised her gaze, Roderick had walked a few paces from her and opened a door she hadn’t seen. Inside was an array of weapons like only a collector could dream of owning.

“Goodness gracious,” she said as she hurried to stand beside Roderick and gawk at the weapons. “In all my years working in the museum, never once did we encounter anything like this.”

“As a Shield, the Fae equip us with any weapon they think will aide us. We also have a shield that has our personal emblem on it, though Val and I agreed to keep them hidden here.”

She heard the note of pride in his voice. “Incredible,” she breathed. “I would hide them.”

“Why?” he asked as he looked down at her, his brows furrowed.

“I would be afraid that I would damage or lose something.”

“The Fae replace it if I do,” he said and reached out to grab a small dagger. He handed it to her along with its sheath. “Do you know how to use this?”

“No,” she answered honestly as she reached for it. “But, I can figure it out.” A faint smile touched his lips. “I will always be beside you, as will Val, but if something should happen, I want you to have a weapon.”

“Are you sure one is enough?” she asked as she looked longingly at a jewel encrusted sword.

Roderick chuckled as he closed the doors. “Maybe another time. For now, the dagger is enough.”

Elle wasn’t so sure, but she didn’t argue with him. She bent down and tied the sheath to her thigh. Once it was secure, she placed the dagger inside and straightened.

She watched as he belted on his sword at his waist, a long dagger at his thigh, and stuffed another in his boot. He then reached over and grasped his two headed flail.

“Where do we start our hunt?” she asked.

Val walked into the room, his sword buckled to his waist, and holding a halberd of the like she had never seen. She gasped and walked to him.

She saw him look over her head at Roderick.

“She likes weapons,” Roderick explained.

Elle examined the seven foot tall halberd as if it were a Fabergeègg. The base looked like wood, but as she ran her hand over it, she knew instantly that it wasn’t like any wood she knew.

“It was made from a magical oak tree that only grows in the Fae realm,” Val said as he watched her.

She nodded and noted the intricate scroll work that had been etched on the metal that came to a point as if a spear. Attached to the spear on one side was a thick blade like one would see on a war axe and the other side came to a startling needle sharp point.

Her hand lightly traced the surface of the blade and saw a design that resembled the Celtic knotwork on Roderick’s flail.

“’Tis our mark,” Roderick said.

She looked over her shoulder at him. “Mark?”

“The Shields,” Val said. “That mark is on all our weapons and anything else given to use by the Fae.”

Elle looked again at Roderick’s flail and spotted the design on the handle as well as on each of the spiked balls. “Incredible work,” she said as she stepped away from Val.

“I’ve seen some fine halberds and flails before, but nothing like what y’all have.”

“Enough about the weapons. I’m eager for a hunt,” Val said, one side of his mouth pulled in a smile.

Elle was once again seated behind Roderick on his motorcycle. She had tried in vain to get them to use her car, but he and Val had adamantly refused.

“And if someone spots us carrying those weapons?” she had asked.

“They won’t,” was all Val would say.

“Where do we start?” she asked as she finished buckling the helmet in place.

“We follow the stench,” Val said just before he started his bike.

She waited until he had ridden off before she asked Roderick, “What does he mean?”

“We can smell evil, Elle. The truly nasty evil like the Harpies, and the people that have the blue stones.”

She shuddered and held on as he started the bike and raced after Val. Maybe she had made a mistake in not going with Aimery.

Roderick hated Houston. The air hung with smells of rotten garbage and other things he couldn’t name that poured out of huge cylinder’s that Elle called refineries. He didn’t care what they were, they were killing the air.

He pulled off the side of the rode they had been traveling on for the better part of two hours and waited for Val. Most of the day had been spent traveling down roads Elle had pointed out to them, but they had found nothing.

An entire day’s search, and they hadn’t found one clue.

“Smell anything?” he asked when Val shut off his bike.

Val grimaced and shook his head. “I can hardly smell anything over the nastiness that hangs in the air.” He looked at Elle. “How can you stand to live here?” She shrugged. “It’s all I’ve ever know. The refineries have started to get clean, though only because the government is making them. They’ve polluted our waters and air for many, many years.”

“I know,” Val grumbled.

“We’ve looked nearly all day,” Roderick said and glanced at the sky and sun that was beginning her descent.

“Since Elle doesn’t have the necklace, we can’t bait the Harpies,” Val said.

Roderick turned and looked at Elle over his shoulder. “Jennifer still hasn’t called?”

“No, and it’s not like her. I can’t help but feel she’s in trouble.”

“Would her man harm her?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know Alex all that well, but I don’t think so.” Roderick pushed his hair out of his face and looked around. They had driven aimlessly, trying to pick up the scent of the Harpies, but had found nothing.

“We’re wasting time,” Val said. “Let’s return home and look for them in the sky.

They will attack somewhere tonight.”

“Good idea,” Roderick said and started his motorcycle. He led the way back to the Huntington with Elle shouting directions in his ear.

At first he hadn’t felt comfortable with her on the back of his bike, but the more she was there, the more he found he liked it. Her arms held snuggly against him, but they didn’t dig into him, and the feel of her full breasts against his back made him hot and hard.

When he had turned onto Kirby and realized where he was, he felt her lay her head on his back. It had been a long time since a woman had been this close to him and, the protective feelings Elle stirred in him could only get him in trouble. He knew that, but he couldn’t help it. All he could do was not act on his feelings.