Gabriel ran to Duncan, so I whirled on Russ. “What the hell!”
“Relax, it’s just a sleeping spell.”
“A sleeping spell that knocked him across the room?” Gabriel asked.
“Shut up, dude, before I hit you with it too!”
“Russ!”
“Chill Dani! He’ll barely be out long enough for us to get out of here.”
I looked back at Duncan and then sighed. “Fine.”
I started toward the bedroom to throw some clothes on, but Gabriel stopped me. He looked panicked. “Are you really going to go?”
“You don’t think we should?”
“We?” Gabriel asked.
“We?” Russ repeated unhappily.
“Gabriel, this is our chance to stop that vision. We can find him.”
Russ asked what we were talking about, but Gabriel and I were caught up in our conversation. “What about the Councilor?” Gabriel asked me.
“You heard what Duncan said. He wants to separate us.”
“That might be a good thing,” Russ muttered.
“He would never do that, Danielle,” Gabriel said.
“You told me yesterday that he thinks I’m a bad influence on you.”
“But he would not—”
“He left me alone in that holding cell for over two weeks! I can’t go through that again!”
Gabriel took my face in his hands. “I will not let that happen,” he promised. “But we cannot just leave. If the Councilor is right, the only people who have the information about my visions, and enough power to hold a spell like that are Constance and Robert.”
“And the Councilor,” I said. “He’s just as powerful and he hates humans enough not to care about killing them. Maybe that’s why he wants to separate us. He learned what I can do and doesn’t want me having any more visions. He could be guilty and now knows that we’re on to him and is asking us not to tell anyone so that he can think of a way to take care of us. What if we sit here and do nothing and not only does that family die, but we get ourselves killed as well?”
Russ finally lost his patience. “Dani! We need to get out of here before Duncan wakes up. What are you guys talking about? Who wants to kill you?”
“I’m sorry, Russ. I’ll explain in a minute.” I looked back at Gabriel. “I won’t leave if you really think we should stay.”
“What do you mean you won’t leave?” Russ hollered.
I ignored him this time. “I do trust you, Gabriel, but are you absolutely sure? There’s no way the Councilor could be behind this?”
“I do not think he is behind the attacks, but…” Gabriel’s face looked pained. “I worry that he does want to separate us.”
I took Gabriel’s hands in mine. “Then let’s get out of here before he can. We’ll still be helping the council. If we figure anything out we can always come back.” I glanced back at Russ and lowered my voice. “Gabriel, the glimpse I saw of our future the other night that scared me so much? We were not here in the consulate. I think our destiny lies elsewhere.”
Gabriel looked at me with wide eyes. “You have accepted our destiny?”
I couldn’t answer him, but I blushed while remembering our kiss.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, your destiny?” Russ pulled me away from Gabriel. “Okay, that’s it. Time to say goodbye to your new husband, Dani. I’m getting you out of here and I’m not bringing him with us.”
I dug my heels into the floor. “I’m not going without him! I need him!”
Russ flinched like I’d slapped him. The look of betrayal on his face broke my heart. “Listen to you Dani! “You don’t need him. You have me.”
Perfect. Now I had to feel guilty with Russ too? I wasn’t sure how much of this I could take.
I crumpled beneath Russ’s intense gaze. “I want to go with you. More than anything, I want to escape with you right now and go someplace where no one will ever find us. Where I can be free of the council, and the nightmare visions, and the prophecy, and destiny…and all that crap.”
I knew Gabriel wouldn’t stop me either. One look at the despair on his face and I knew he’d let me go.
Russ gave my hand a tug. “Sweet. What are we waiting for?”
Of course it was that same look of despair on Gabriel’s face that forced me to think beyond myself.
“I want to,” I said again. “But I can’t. I can’t ignore what’s going on, and I can’t just ditch Gabriel. I’m sorry, but I won’t go anywhere without him.”
Russ took a deep breath and just when I was about to thank him for being a good sport about this he picked up a chair from our dining table and sent it crashing into the kitchen with a string of four letter words. It took him a good three minutes before he could get his temper controlled enough to think straight again. Still, when he spoke he shook with anger. “All right fine. Both of you go pack your stuff.”
. . . . .
We took the secret elevator that we’d taken to go on our picnic, but once we were standing out in the open, Gabriel and I remembered another problem.
“Russ, you have to hide us,” I said.
“What are you talking about?”
“You know, with a spell. The Councilor hid us with a spell that made us invisible.”
“A cloaking spell?” Russ asked. “I could put one on myself easy enough, but I’ve never tried it on someone else.”
“You must try,” Gabriel said.
When Russ glared at him I stepped in front of Gabriel and took over the conversation. “Duncan said that our auras make us a target to every supernatural for miles around. He said we’re both so powerful that together we could probably be detected from space.”
Russ glanced at us nervously and then pushed his sleeves back. His brow furrowed in concentration and he began muttering an incantation. After a minute he broke into a sweat and had to sit down. “You’re too powerful. I can’t hide you.”
I swallowed a smirk. It probably killed him to admit that. And this would probably kill him worse. “I’m more powerful than you, right? Let me try.”
He was mad enough about Gabriel that when I held out my hand I wasn’t sure he’d let me touch him. His face was grim, but he took my hand.
His energy was not the same as Gabriel’s—not nearly as strong—but his touch was familiar and comforting. I felt myself change and welcomed that warm tingly rush as the magic came back to me.
“Okay,” I whispered to myself. “All I have to do is wish it.” I closed my eyes and imagined Gabriel and I walking down the busy New York sidewalk completely invisible to those around us. “Hide us.”
I could still see Gabriel and myself, but we must have disappeared because Russ started looking all around. “Dani?”
“We’re still here,” I told him, but I got no response. “Russ?”
“Hello? You guys?”
“It seems he cannot hear us either,” Gabriel said.
I waved my hand in front of Russ’s face. Then I tapped him on the shoulder. When even that didn’t get a response I grinned at Gabriel. “Am I awesome or what?”
Gabriel laughed. “Danielle, this is truly amazing.”
He put his arm around me and I leaned into his shoulder. I laced my fingers in his without thinking and suddenly Russ could see us again. “I guess it works,” he grumbled.
“Yeah,” I said. “Except I didn’t drop the spell on purpose. I wonder why it wore off.”
Russ glared at me. “You have to have magic to hold a spell.”
When I caught his meaning I blushed and jumped away from Gabriel. I’d never seen Russ look more satisfied. “Looks like you two lovebirds are just going to have to keep your hands off each other from now on.”
“How convenient for you,” Gabriel replied, letting slip a tiny hint of the emotion he’d been trying to hide.
Russ smiled and threw his arm around me. “Hence the return of my good mood. Come, Danielle,” he said mockingly. “Your destiny awaits!”
“Could yo
u at least try to be nice?” I snapped.
“To the love of my life’s husband? Doubt it.” Russ mock-saluted Gabriel using only his middle finger, and then made a show of kissing my cheek.
Once I was a warlock again I hid all three of us then pushed Russ off me.
“Jackass.”
I headed toward the street rubbing my temples, which were, not surprisingly, starting to ache.
Russ freaked when I made him hop a train to New Jersey instead of calling his dad. But the warehouse from my vision was in Newark and I had to stop that vision before anything else. As a result, Russ was giving me the silent treatment, which, considering he was really pissed off about the whole Gabriel issue, wasn’t such a bad thing. The ride so far hadn’t been peaceful, but it had at least been argument free.
When we boarded the train Gabriel started to take the seat next to me, but Russ grabbed him by the collar and threw him into the seat across the aisle.
“Russ!” I snapped as he took Gabriel’s seat.
He raised his hands innocently. “Hey, nothing personal.”
“Bull.”
“Bull yourself. You can’t seem to keep your hands off him and we can’t afford for you to drop the spell because you’re a horndog.”
“You did not just say that.”
“I wish I’d known that about you, by the way. I would have ignored my dad’s advice not to tell you the truth years ago.”
“You wanted to tell me sooner?”
“I’ve always wanted to tell you.”
Gabriel chose that moment to interrupt our conversation. “I believe he is right, Danielle. We are likely not safe to sit with one another. Surely I could not restrain from touching you were you in my reach.”
Gabriel smiled affectionately, which I knew he didn’t do on purpose to annoy Russ. At least I don’t think. It was still enough for Russ to spell a huge woman who’d just boarded the train to take the seat Gabriel was sitting in—invisible from my cloaking spell. When the woman sat on Gabriel it was as if she couldn’t feel him beneath her at all. Gabriel gasped, trapped beneath the woman’s substantial weight.
“Make her move!” I shouted at Russ.
“That sucks, dude,” Russ said to Gabriel. And yes, he was laughing hysterically.
When I called him a very not nice name he looked at me like he was hurt. “You think I did that? It was one of the only vacant seats on this train and you didn’t place a misdirection spell on us.”
“Make her move!” I shouted again.
“Or what?”
I thought for a moment and then removed Russ from my cloaking spell. When he appeared in front of the woman she startled. “Oh, my! Where did you come from?”
It took Russ a minute to realize what I’d done. When he looked over his shoulder I made it so that Russ would still remain visible but would be able to see and hear Gabriel and me. When he saw me he screamed at me.
“Oh, my!” the lady said. She stood up and hurried away muttering under her breath how the crazies were getting younger and younger every year.
I howled with laughter.
“Dani!”
“Ah, ah,” I warned. “People can still see you.”
“Fix it.”
“No.”
“Hide me,” Russ hissed. “Before we get caught.”
“Or you could shut up before we get caught. I don’t have to hide you. You’re not the one with the crazy aura and it takes a lot less energy to cloak just the two of us. Plus, I kind of like you not being able to talk to us right now.”
After that I got up and moved so that I was sitting next to Gabriel. “This is my first time on a train,” I said to Gabriel, showing Russ that I was not going to budge.
Gabriel thanked me for saving him and then said, “It is my first time leaving Manhattan. It is also my first time being outside the consulate without the Councilor. I find it strangely sad, but I am happy you wanted me with you.”
“Are you nervous?” I asked.
Gabriel smiled, but didn’t answer the question. I think because he was more than nervous. He looked slightly terrified.
“We can be nervous together,” I said.
I mindlessly reached over to take Gabriel’s hand until Russ cleared his throat. I stuck out my tongue in response to the look he was giving me, but he was right. I’d only been sitting next to Gabriel for a matter of seconds and I’d already forgotten I couldn’t touch him. “Sorry,” I grumbled, then slumped against the window with a pout, leaning my chin in my hand.
After a moment Gabriel sighed beside me and then his soft melodious voice whispered, “See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand! O, that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek!”
I sent a sideways glance to Gabriel and tried to keep up my pout, but couldn’t hold it after I saw his grin. When Russ made gagging noises I broke down and laughed.
“I suppose we should be trying to figure out where in Newark we’re going to start looking.” I decided to change the subject for Russ’s benefit. If Gabriel quoted much more Shakespeare at me, Russ was likely to turn him into something unnatural. “The only helpful thing I noticed in the vision was the phonebook.”
Gabriel nodded. “There was also part of a logo still on the window of the office door behind the man.”
“Really? How’d you notice that? If I looked anywhere near the guy all I saw was him licking his own blood off his dagger.” I shivered.
“Do not feel bad, Danielle. I have had years of practice learning how to ignore the vision and focus on the details. This particular symbol was partly scraped away, but I can guess how it looked. It is a long shot, but if we start in the run-down part of the town we may be able to find the right building.”
“It might not be that hard. If you’re sure what you saw was a company logo we could probably find an Internet café and Google it.”
“Google it?” Gabriel asked.
“Okay I am not even going to try to explain the Internet to you right now. You’ll just have to trust me on this.”
Russ muttered something and then asked, “He doesn’t know what the Internet is?”
“Dude!”
Russ rolled his eyes. “You’re not the only one who can use a cloaking spell genius. I may not be able to hide you two freaks, but I can hide myself just fine.”
“Pity.” At Russ’s glare I dropped the argument. “Gabriel’s never had a computer or a TV and the phone in his apartment only dials the Supreme High Councilor. That man has kept him locked up in that tower like Rapunzel since he was six.”
“I know of television and computers,” Gabriel said. “I remember them from my childhood and have seen them in many visions. The Councilor said they would have a negative influence over me.”
Russ stared at Gabriel as if he’d just sprouted a second head. “You’re as brainwashed as she is, aren’t you? What do you do for fun?”
“The Councilor and I often take walks in the city, and I very much enjoy reading.”
“What a geek.”
“Be nice, Russ.”
“The consulate also has an excellent gymnasium,” Gabriel said. “I train with the guardians in self defense and I enjoy swimming.”
Well that would explain the yummy physique. I’d pay good money to watch Gabriel work up a sweat. “All this time, we had a pool and you didn’t tell me?” I asked.
“You were not well enough to go, but I was looking forward to taking you there.”
“How sweet.”
Russ clearly thought it was anything but. “Enough, Russ! Either be nice or shut up,” I snapped. “You’re giving me a headache.”
Russ went back to his brooding and I turned to Gabriel. “So the symbol you saw, what was it? What did it look like?”
“It was two letters that were sort of drawn together in one line—first an E and then a C. The E was higher and had stars or sparkles swirling around it.”
“Sparkles,” I said automatically. Somewhere in the back of my
head bells went off. I closed my eyes and a vague image began to form. “Sparkles, not stars.”
“You know this symbol?” Gabriel asked in disbelief.
I shook my head. “No. I don’t know. I can’t remember it, but it sounds so familiar. Was there anything else to it?”
“I could tell each letter had a word written out, but the words were gone.”
“The letters E and C?”
Gabriel nodded and I could practically see the way they swirled together in one long flowing stroke—the E above the C. “Where do I know that from? It’s going to bug me.” I shook myself and tried again to think logically. “The good news is it shouldn’t be that hard to find. We can just look up manufacturers in Newark and find companies with those initials. I mean we’ll have to look back a few years because the building is obviously abandoned, so it might take a while but—”
“Enchanted Cosmetics.”
Gabriel and I both looked up at Russ startled. He was still frowning out the window.
“Huh?” I asked.
Gabriel was a little more polite. “You know of this symbol as well?”
Russ tried to ignore us but couldn’t do it. He sighed dramatically and then explained himself. “It sounds like the logo for Enchanted Cosmetics. As soon as we’re out of this tunnel and I get signal on my phone I can look it up for you.”
“Yes!” I shouted. “That’s it! I knew I’d seen it before. Thank you!”
Gabriel looked baffled. “You truly know this company?”
I snorted and Russ glared at me. “They were a cosmetics company based out of New Jersey,” he explained, striving for nonchalance. “Went out of business about two years ago when the company’s founder croaked.”
I laughed. “Russ was devastated. It was his favorite brand of make-up.”
“Face wash!” Russ snapped. I laughed again, even harder this time because Russ’s cheeks were turning bright pink. “Face wash is not make-up.”
“Maybe not. But tanning lotion, moisturizer and facial masks are close enough you girl.”
Russ flipped me off. “You’re just jealous of my silky-smooth skin. You know, it’s too bad for you they went out of business. They had a great frizz-control product.”