“I read Tarot cards for God’s sake and I’ve only seen one ghost!”
I could taste my fear. I didn’t know what to do and stepped back, feeling the unwelcome edge of the door in my spine. Maybe this was real? He was super pissed off with me thinking it an act. Okay, now … how to save myself?
“Don’t fear me.” He said the words in a soft tone, as if realizing his display was a bit on the intimidating side.
Saying nothing, I sank into the open seat before me. I was relieved when it didn’t pull itself back up to the table. I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach and couldn’t catch my breath. Panting, I sat there for a moment and was grateful Rand didn’t say anything. I guess he realized it all needed to sink in. He stood near me, his arms crossed against a wide expanse of chest. His aura had tinges of purple, something I figured happened when he was upset or angry.
“A warlock, you said?” My voice was strained and incredulous.
He chuckled and straddled the seat across from me. “I assume you’ve never come into contact with one before?”
I laughed but the sound was tight. “Yeah, that’s a safe assumption.”
He nodded. “Our breed’s a dying one. Witches and warlocks don’t abound as they used to.”
I willed myself to stop trembling. I didn’t know if I could handle this. He’d said he needed my help but what did that mean? I tried to remember what, if anything, I’d ever heard of warlocks. I didn’t think they ate humans or drank blood or turned into scary creatures. Okay, so far so good …
“Are you … evil?” I asked, wishing I hadn’t sounded so … lame.
He cocked his head with a laugh. “I don’t think of myself as evil, but no one can say they’ve led a perfect life. As warlocks go, I’m not half bad.”
A respectable answer, so why was I still shaking? “So what do you want with me?”
He considered my question with a lengthy pause. “How about we discuss it over dinner tonight?”
“Tonight?” As a rule, I didn’t date, and I definitely didn’t go out with warlocks. The idea was extremely dissatisfying. Then it dawned on me that I hadn’t had a date in months. Maybe I should go just on principle.
I shook my head, hoping to force the ridiculous thoughts right out of my ears. What in the hell was wrong with me? There was no flipping way I was going out with a psychopath just so I could tell my mom I’d actually had a date.
“Yes, tonight.” He was serious.
“Well …” I tried to think of any excuse in the book as to why I couldn’t go to dinner with him. “Okay, dinner sounds great.” The words just sort of spilled from my lips of their own accord. Flabbergasted, I’d been thinking there was no way in hell I’d go with him, and yet I’d acquiesced as easy as you please.
“I was responsible for that,” he said, in response to what must’ve been a horrified expression on my face. I swallowed the bile in my throat. Now I knew how Pinocchio felt—I was the puppet to Rand’s puppeteer.
Once my heartbeat went from dangerous to as-normal-as-could-be-expected given the circumstance, I faced the ugly facts before me. It seemed there wasn’t anything I could do—I had a dinner date with a witch.
~
Thirty minutes later, we awaited a table at Marmion, one of the poshest restaurants in LA I’d never imagined I’d step foot in the place, yet here I was, on a date with the most handsome man I’d ever seen who just happened to be a warlock.
Well, it wasn’t so much a date—more a business meeting, I reasoned with myself. I was still wearing my work clothes—a pair of low-waisted denim jeans, a yellow sweater tied around my hips, and a crisp white polo shirt. I’d also insisted we take separate cars which was decidedly undatelike.
“So why do you need my help?” I asked, once an ample roll of rosemary bread, three cubes of herb butter, and a bottle of Perrier found their way to our table.
“I have a job that would require traveling to Chicago to the 1920s. I need you to learn who killed my client, the spirit you recently met.”
Okay, I believed in ghosts, and I’d accepted the fact that I’d seen one, and I was beginning to be okay with the existence of warlocks, but time travel? I leaned forward and lowered my voice. “You can time travel?”
He shook his head. “I used that word lightly. You wouldn’t be going back in time; your mind would.”
I nodded like I knew what he was talking about. “So what does that mean?”
I noticed he hadn’t touched the bread. Did warlocks eat?
“It entails a lot of focusing and projection, something I’ll have to teach you. It seems that although your powers are plentiful, they need guidance.”
Back the mule train up.
“I haven’t agreed to go with you,” I said.
“I’d make it worth your while.”
This appealed to the businesswoman in me. “How?”
“If you accompany me to Chicago for what should take no more than a fortnight, I’ll double whatever income you earn at your shop in a year.”
“A fortnight?” I could never remember how many days that was. I must’ve learned it five times in the course of undertaking my English degree, but somehow it never stuck.
“Two weeks.” Ah, that’s right.
Wow. That was a pretty good offer. I narrowed my eyes—things that sound too good to be true usually are. “For two weeks of work?” I wondered when the terms and conditions would reveal their ugly selves.
“Well, however long the job takes. I don’t think it’ll take longer than that, but I can’t predict it.”
I shook my head. When it comes to business arrangements, I’m black and white. Either it’s a good deal or it isn’t. “No deal. That could mean years.”
“Very well … how about we agree you assist me for no longer than two weeks?”
“And if I did decide to agree to this, of course you’d pay me some of the fees up front?”
He nodded. “Half up front and the remainder upon completion.”
I was quiet as I considered it. From most angles, it didn’t look half-bad. If this guy actually believed I could help him, who was I to argue? Hell, even if it didn’t work out, I’d still get paid at least half. No harm done. Hmm, money certainly does talk. This would mean I could relax a bit as times had been tough.
“What if I want to bring Christa with me?” Now that we’d handled the monetary side of things, I should also consider my safety. I’d seen Rand perform some strange stunts, but that didn’t mean I believed his story one hundred percent.
“Bring whoever you want. I’ll cover her expenses, as well.”
The cynic in me raged against the ease of the arrangement. “Why me?”
He leaned back in his chair and toyed with the saltshaker, cupping the cover in his palm while he rotated the shaker up and down. “I’ve been searching for people with the innate abilities required to perform such a task. I’ve been looking for months. When I found you, I sent Jack, the spirit, to ensure me of your abilities. Once you passed that test, I came to see you for myself. I must say, I’ve been quite impressed, Jolie.”
“How did you find me?” I asked, noticing I’d been picking at the crust of the bread, and now it looked like a battlefield of littered crumbs.
“The Yellow Pages.”
Note to self—advertising in the yellow pages paid off. I nodded, thinking this conversation something out of the Twilight Zone. “You must be pretty powerful yourself?”
I disregarded the smile he sent my way and refused to notice the dimples that lit up his entire face. “I’m considered to be one of the strongest warlocks, yes.”
My eyes narrowed. I didn’t like arrogant men, although Rand would appear to have more cause than most. “So if you’re so strong, why can’t you do it yourself?”
That had the desired effect—his irritation.
“It requires two people. I’ll be focusing on you, and you’ll be focusing on Jack. I can’t very well send myself back as I’d have no way of
returning.”
I’m sure my eyes popped out of my skull. “There’s a chance I might not come back?” Maybe this wasn’t quite as good as it had sounded. There’s always the fine print.
He shrugged off my concern. “No chance, I can ensure your safety, but that’s why there needs to be two of us.”
I scouted the restaurant, realizing the waiter hadn’t ventured near us. “Well the service in this place could use some improvement.”
Rand’s lips parted in a grin. “I was keeping him away. I wanted to finish our conversation. Do you know what you’d like?”
Yeah, to get the hell away from you. I couldn’t help the fear that bubbled up from my gut as I wondered just how powerful he was. Maybe I was stupid and taking my life into my hands. Scratch that, I was definitely stupid.
I blinked, and the waiter was before us, his pen poised on a pad of paper and his eyes riveted on me as if I were a field mouse and he, a hungry eagle.
“The tofu salad please,” I said in a spineless voice, repeating the first thing I read on the menu. Once the sentence fell off my tongue, I remembered I didn’t like tofu.
Rand scrunched his lips in obvious disapproval. I guess he didn’t care for it either. “The prime rib please. I’d prefer that rare.” He picked up the wine list and scanned it, signaling he’d found one with a flick of his long fingers. “Chateau Petrus, vintage 1961.”
I didn’t know much about wine, but I had to imagine anything that old had to be expensive. Once the waiter departed, Rand’s attention returned to me.
“I imagine you have many questions.”
I nodded, about to deliver one. “So if there are warlocks, are there other creatures we don’t know about?”
“Many. They keep themselves well disguised. I’ll introduce you to some in time.”
That sounded a little too ominous, and I convinced myself that day would never come. “The man I saw in my vision?”
Rand interrupted me. “Oh, yes, that. I sent that vision to you. I needed to ensure we could communicate telepathically and, it seems, we can,” he finished with grin.
“You thought of that and sent it to me?”
“Yes. The man you saw in your vision is Sinjin Sinclair, and you were correct in your observation that he’s a dangerous man, well, vampire, actually.”
I gasped. “Vampire! As in ‘I vant to suck your blood?’” I asked, holding my fingers up to imitate fangs.
Rand chuckled. It was a deep and hearty sound. A sound a girl could get used to. If she could wrap her mind around the warlock thing, that is. “Yes, quite so. He’s a very old vampire, and I’ve worked with him upon occasion. And before you ask, no, he won’t be in Chicago.”
I sighed in relief. I couldn’t handle a vampire. I didn’t think I could even handle Rand. “How come no one knows about all these creatures?”
“Our goal is to live among people undetected, and we do quite a good job of it. We’ve had to live in such a way for thousands of years.”
The thought left me cold. “Are you that old?”
He laughed. “No, not exactly. I’m older than you’d assume, though. As a warlock, I can use magic to remain young. I was born in Kent, England, in 1843.”
I choked on my fizzy water. 1843! He didn’t look a day over thirty-four. “How’s that possible?”
“That, dear Jolie, you’ll learn to stop asking. Never wonder how, just accept it. ‘There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy,’” he finished with a sly smile.
Oh, yes, he was definitely English, but Shakespeare was no foreigner to me. “Touché Hamlet,” I said with a grin.
THREE
“Are you excited?” Christa asked as she looped one gold hoop earring through her ear. She turned from her reflection in the mirror and studied me, threading the matching earring through the other ear. “It’s kinda cool, being in Chicago, ya know?”
“Yeah,” I said and turned my attention to the pounding rain outside my hotel window. The drops pelted against the pane as if demanding entrance, the lightning issuing a warning of the coming thunder.
Chicago weather was the pits.
I checked my watch; Christa took eons to get ready. “How much longer?”
She shrugged and returned her attention to her reflection, picking up a tube of lipstick—the color somewhere between magenta and a week-old bruise. She made a pouting sort of expression and painted her lips, taking care to dab them with a napkin.
“The lips, Jules, are the most important part of a woman’s face.” Her reflection met mine in the mirror. She pursed the most important part of her face and made a sort of kissing gesture at herself. I couldn’t keep my smile to myself. She looked ridiculous.
“I thought the eyes were.”
She shook her head emphatically. “Nope. The lips.”
Rather than get into the world’s dumbest argument, I shook my head and glanced at my watch again. “You almost ready?”
Rand had requested we meet him in the lobby for dinner, and I didn’t want to be late.
“Yep,” she answered, giving her hair one last fluff before turning to face me, epiphany suddenly plastered on her face. “Hey, you think Rand would pose for me?”
Hmm, I wasn’t sure what Rand would think about it, but his chiseled face and masculine beauty would definitely make any portfolio shine a little brighter. “I don’t know; you can always ask.”
My cell phone broke into a beepy rendition of Clare De Lune and halted our progress. I checked the caller ID and sighed. To answer or not to answer, that was the question. Finally, I decided it wasn’t right to ignore one’s mother and flipped open my phone.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Jolie, you forgot to call me when your flight landed.” Her voice shook, and I immediately regretted answering the phone.
“We sort of got caught up. But don’t worry, I had a great flight and I’m in Chicago.”
She paused, and I could hear her turning a washing machine dial in the background. How worried could she be when the call to do laundry was still of prime concern?
“Well, I’m glad to hear it. You know how I worry about you traveling.”
She worried about everything, not just traveling. She was the type of person who would rather stay home than confront an unknown world outside her doorstep. To sum up her life: she’d been born in Spokane, and she’d die in Spokane.
I eyed Christa who pointed at her watch. “Sorry, Mom, but I’m sorta busy at the moment. Christa and I are just on our way out.”
“Oh, sorry, dear. Tell Christa I said hello.”
I dropped the phone from my ear.
“Mom says hi.” I pulled the phone back up to my mouth. “Christa says hi back. Can I call you when we’re in LA?”
“Sure, love you. Bye bye.”
“Love you, bye Mom.”
I flipped the phone shut and turned to look at Christa’s inquiring smile.
“You still haven’t told your mom how you support yourself, have you?” she asked.
I smirked. “She thinks I’m a receptionist at a law firm. You know how religious she is, she’d never be okay with me reading fortunes, and she’d soooo not be okay with Rand.”
I’d learned at a young age not to mention the bright colors I could see around people or the strange visions I had that always came to fruition. Multiple holy water cleanses from Father Charles have a way of teaching you when to hold your tongue.
Christa shook her head and laughed, her voice sounding like notes picked on a harp. She was dressed to the nines in a tight black bodysuit that embellished her small waist and broad hips and cheetah stiletto heels that embellished nothing. Her loose dark hair graced her back, and I was sure she’d capture everyone’s attention. I envied her nerve.
I glanced down at my lackluster outfit with a sigh—caramel brown slacks with sensible heels (less than two inches), and a nutmeg turtleneck. Christa had pooh-poohed my outfit, saying it was way too conservative. But I could
never feel comfortable in the getup she was parading around in.
“God, could I use a drink,” Christa said as I pulled the door shut behind us. I was thinking the same thing.
Upon reaching the ground floor, I immediately noticed Rand seated at the bar. My heart did a little flutter when he turned his attention to me, his smile and dimples giving him a sort of boyish quality. He stood up and started toward us, his stride long and purposeful. The dark blue of his suit and grey of his collared shirt lent him a definite business look—I certainly would never use the word “casual” to describe Rand. I suddenly wished I’d taken Christa’s advice and worn something a little more daring. But this was work, not play, and I was who I was.
Humph, take that inferiority complex!
Rand gave Christa a cursory glance as she flitted before him like a moth trapped by a flame.
“I made reservations at a Japanese restaurant,” he said in his sexy accent.
“Great! I love sushi!” Christa sang.
I guess she figured since I wasn’t going to go after Rand, she would. I was quick to subdue the pointed fingers of jealousy jabbing me in the gut—it was none of my concern and what’s more, their getting together was probably inevitable.
“Why don’t you both wait inside while I hail a taxi?” Rand asked, motioning to the fury of the rain outside.
“I’ll go with you, a little rain never bothered me,” Christa chirped.
She sidled up to Rand and led him outside while I followed behind. He turned toward me, offering his arm, but I waved it away, not wanting to infringe on Christa’s kill. The overhang of the hotel awning did nothing to hold back the rain as it surfed the wind and threw itself against me. I wiped the sting from my cheeks and watched Rand flag down a cab.
The cab stopped before us, and Rand opened the door. Christa crawled inside, making sure to stick her ass out as she bent over. I couldn’t keep the frown from pulling at the corners of my mouth. Sometimes she was so obvious. I hazarded a glance at Rand, imagining he’d be mesmerized by the sight before him, but he met my expression with an embarrassed smile.