Magic & Memory (13 page)

          “This from someone that ate a werewolf yesterday.”

          “Ugh don’t remind me, that was gross. Though technically I didn’t
eat a werewolf
, I just accidentally swallowed some of his blood. To actually eat a werewolf would require an industrial size Hibachi and like four hundred gallons of barbeque sauce.” His green eyes sparkled as he smiled at her.

          She looked at him with mock disgust as she tried and failed to suppress a grin. “You’re a total dork, you know that?” she told him.

          “I do know that.”

          “Ok, so the garlic-and-vampires thing is a myth. Clearly that whole having to be invited into somebody’s home thing is a myth, too. Both you and Alastair came into my house uninvited.”

          “That’s
kind of
a myth. Plenty of homes, especially older ones, have been warded specifically to keep vampires out. In those places we really do have to be invited in to get past the wards.”

          “And wards are what exactly?”

          “Spells. Protections put in place by someone who practices magic.”

          Lu twirled her fork in the pasta. “I gotta say, even though I’ve somehow come to grips the whole vampire thing, I’m still having trouble accepting that magic is real.”

          “But it’s one and the same, really. Vampires are what they are because of a curse. Magic is at the root of it.”

          “Part of my brain refuses to accept it. I keep trying to find an explanation for all I’ve seen,” Lu said, shaking her head. “Even as I sit here in a warlock’s kitchen, in a house where doors appear and disappear. There’s probably magic all around me right now, isn’t there?”

          Joey smiled. “You wouldn’t even believe me if I told you how much magic is in this place. I wish you could see it, actually. It’s incredibly beautiful.”

          “You can literally
see
the magic?”

          “Yup.”

          “Weird. What does it look like?”

          “It looks like a subtle white glow, breaking apart at the outermost edges of my vision into vibrant color, like a prism.”

          Lu tried and failed to picture this as she ate.

Joey hopped up onto the breakfast bar and sat swinging his legs. After a while he changed the subject by asking, “You’re like, seventeen, right?”

          “Yeah.”

          “So how come you live alone?”

          “How do you know I live alone?” Lu countered.

          “Yours and Alastair’s were the only fresh scents in your house. There were older scents too, but they were really faded out.”

          “The scent thing is pretty odd,” she told him, then pulled up a big tangle of noodles and folded them into her mouth.

          “You’re totally not answering my question,” he said.

          She sighed and finished chewing and swallowing. Then she said quickly, before tears had a chance to cut her off, “I live alone because my Aunt Claire died in September. I used to live with her.” Lu put her fork down.

          “I’m sorry about your aunt,” Joey said gently. “But how come you’re alone if you’re underage? You’d have to have a legal guardian or something.”

          “I do, my cousin Bonnie. She’s Claire’s only child and my guardian until I turn eighteen next year. The house is being held in a trust for me until then.”

          “So where’s Bonnie?”

          “She lives in Chicago, where she’s doing this high-powered-lawyer-plus-perfect-wife-plus-supermom thing.”

          “Does she mind that you’re inheriting her mother’s house instead of her?”

          Lu shrugged. “It’s not like Bonnie wants it.” Then she added, “And she told me she thinks I deserve the house, since I’m the one who took care of Claire while she was dying. Bonnie only came out twice after her mom’s cancer diagnosis, once for a two-day visit, once for the funeral. I think she feels guilty about that. So she’s being super nice about the whole guardian thing, kind of letting me do whatever I want, including not making me move in with her.”

          Joey had stopped swinging his legs. “You took care of your aunt? That must have been hard,” he said.

          Lu fidgeted with the heavy silver fork, her appetite long gone. “Yeah, well, Aunt Claire took care of me for five years before she got sick, so it was my turn to look after her for a change. She really didn’t want to end her life in a hospital, which I can certainly understand. So even though it
was
really hard, I’m glad I was able to do that for her.”

          “No wonder you’re good in a crisis,” Joey said gently. “You’ve already dealt with a lot in your life. Maybe that’s why you’re able to deal so well with all of this.”

          “I guess.”

          He asked quietly, “So, did you have to drop out of high school to take care of your aunt?”

          “No, I graduated this past June. When I moved to Oregon five years ago, I got bumped up a grade based on these placement tests they had me take. That’s why I graduated at seventeen.”

Lu remembered her graduation with a sharp stab of sadness. Her aunt was already pretty sick in June, but despite that, she had made it to the ceremony. In fact, Aunt Claire had absolutely insisted on going. She was the only real family Lu had at her graduation, though Ted and his parents and sisters were there to see her graduate, too. His parents had always insisted Lu was part of their family.

Before Ted dumped her, anyway.

          “I’m sorry for asking so many questions,” Joey said. “I was just curious about your situation. I didn’t mean to like, open up a can of worms. Which, incidentally,” he added, trying to lighten the mood, “is exactly what that junk you’re eating looks like.”

Lu was more than happy to let the conversation veer into less serious territory. She tried on a little grin.

“Seriously,” Joey continued, “what do you call that dish?
Night crawlers verde
?”

          “And once again, I feel the need to call you a dork.” She smiled, and Joey was delighted that he’d managed to cheer her up.

          He was about to fire back a retort when suddenly the entire house rumbled and shook. “Oh my God, earthquake!” Lu exclaimed. She grabbed Joey’s arm and dragged him under the counter with her.

          Joey smiled as they hunched together on the floor. “You saved me, how sweet!” he exclaimed. “Even though you think I’m a dork.”

          Everything was quiet for a drawn-out moment.

And then once again the house shook violently. Joey put a protective arm around Lu’s shoulders. The pasta launched off the counter and splattered across the polished wood floor, and glass shattered behind them as wine glasses spilled from an open shelf.

An eerie stillness followed.

After a minute of waiting and listening, Joey let go of Lu and said, “I have good news and bad news. The good news is, that wasn’t an earthquake. The bad news is, that wasn’t an earthquake.”

          “Then what--” Lu was cut off in mid-sentence as a particularly sharp jolt threw her back, smacking her head against the base of the breakfast bar. “Ow!”

          “Let’s go find Alastair.” Joey grabbed her hand and took off running. Lu sprinted to keep up, her heart pounding like it was going to beat its way out of her chest. When they were halfway up the spiral staircase the house shook again and Lu almost fell, but Joey dragged her to her feet and they kept climbing.

          They got to the top floor, and Joey let go of her hand and bolted down the hall ahead of her. Another tremor knocked them both down but Joey was up again in an instant, and Lu raised her head to see him hurtling through Bryn’s open bedroom door.

          When she burst through the door a few seconds later, Joey was kneeling at Alastair’s side. Alastair looked like he was about to pass out, but still he held Bryn in his arms, cradling him like a child. “It’s going to be ok, Bryn,” he was saying gently. “Don’t worry. You’ll be ok.”

Bryn’s eyes were open but unfocused, blood running from his nose. His dark hair was matted with sweat, his dress shirt soaked through, his skin an alarming grey. After a moment he met his friend’s gaze. “Are you ok, Allie?” he asked, his voice reedy.

          “I’m fine,” Alastair told him.

          Bryn smiled weakly. “Liar. Let Joey attend to you.”

          Lu ran and got Bryn a glass of water and a washcloth from the bathroom, and he accepted both with a whispered thanks and a shaking hand. She helped prop him up as he held the washcloth to his bloody nose, and Joey grabbed Alastair just as he started to fall over.

“Cheers,” Bryn said before taking a few sips of water. Then he pivoted around and leaned against a nearby chair, saying, “What terrible timing. It was all I could do to extract myself from Allie’s mind when the shaking started. I could have accidentally destroyed him.”

          “What’s happening?” Lu asked. “What’s that shaking?”

          Bryn swept his wet hair back from his forehead and said simply, “Someone’s trying to get in.”

          “With what? A giant battering ram?”

          “Metaphorically speaking, yes,” Bryn said, the corner of his lips tilting up slightly. “Actually, someone’s bombarding the wards on this house with some pretty powerful magic.” He dabbed his bloody nose with the cloth.

          Another shockwave rattled them, then a second one in quick succession. A heavy crystal vase against the far wall fell and shattered, scattering lilies across the floor.

As soon as the tremors stopped again Bryn struggled to his feet with Lu’s help. He sighed and said, “You know, if this were happening at any other time, we’d barely notice this attack.”

          “How so?”

“Everything I do takes a certain amount of energy,” he explained. “Going into Alastair’s mind was incredibly taxing, so I must have diverted energy from the defenses on my house without realizing it. And now someone’s trying to break through the remaining defenses at a time when I’m rather compromised.” He leaned heavily against the chair as he spoke.

“Who do you think is coming after you?” Lu asked.

“I don’t know who it is. But I do know they’re not coming after
me
,” Bryn said, then took another drink of water. “They’re coming after Alastair. I feel all the intention directed at him. Not that Alastair being the target makes any difference. I still take an attack on my home quite personally.”

“So, what are you going to do?”

“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,” Bryn said, standing up straight and setting the glass on a nearby end table. “I’m going to go take a shower.” And with that he crossed the bedroom and stepped through a dark wood door. After a moment she heard water running.

“Okaaay,” Lu muttered, staring after him.

Meanwhile, Joey had guided Alastair to the bed and covered him with a blanket. He brushed Alastair’s hair back from his face and watched him with concern for a long moment. Then Joey took a wooden stake from his waistband and swiftly drew its point across his own wrist. He tossed the weapon onto the nightstand as he held the cut against Alastair’s lips.

His maker immediately grabbed his arm and drew in deeply, feverishly. Joey’s body went rigid and he pressed his eyes shut, his hands knotted into fists.

As with the time before, it was all over quickly.

When Alastair released him Joey licked his wrist, then crossed his arms over his body, sort of hugging himself as he said gently, “Try to rest, Allie. Everything’s going to be ok. Just rest, bro.” Alastair exhaled softly as his eyes slid shut.

Joey and Lu waited for several tense minutes, expecting the shaking to resume.

The house remained still.

Lu went around and peered out all the windows at the bright December afternoon, pulling the curtains back just an inch or two before letting them fall back into place.

“What’s out there?” Joey asked, keeping back a considerable distance from the sunlight that threatened to ignite him.

“Nothing that I can see,” Lu said. She paused at Alastair’s bedside and ran the back of her fingers gently down his cheek. He took her hand without opening his eyes.

“They’re out on the street, beyond the row of barrier houses you had to pass through to get here,” Bryn said, startling them by bursting into the room from a different direction than he’d exited. “So you won’t be able to get a look at them.” He was freshly showered and dressed in a western-style shirt, Levi’s, and a pair of pointy cowboy boots, his wet hair slicked back. Color had returned to his cheeks, and his eyes once again sparkled. Crossing the room to Joey, Bryn tossed a large duffle bag at his feet. “Here pet, you may as well arm yourself. You know, just in case.”

“You forgot the cowboy hat,” Joey told him cheerfully, dropping to his knees and pulling back the long zipper on the duffle. “If you’re gonna go all ‘Outlaw Josey Wales’ you might as well go all the way.” Then he chuckled. “That’s actually really funny. Josey
Wales
. And you’re Welsh. Sometimes I crack myself up.” He continued to chuckle as he dug through the bag.

Bryn said with a grin, “I was going for ‘Showdown at the OK Corral,’ but Josey Wales is good too. And I didn’t forget the hat. It’s just that my hair’s still damp and I’m trying to avoid total hat-head.”