Motor City Fae (17 page)

“The obelisk?” he asked softly.

“Umm-hmm. If you want it, that is.” He could have been flattering her when he’d offered to buy the lot. “If not, Elise will take it back.”

He swung his right arm out and dragged her across the console between their seats, smacking a kiss on the top of her head. “Uh-uh. You gave it to me; it’s mine. She can’t have it back. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She was glad he couldn’t see the stupid grin she probably had plastered to her face.

“Want to stop for lunch on the way back?” he offered.

“One last meal in the mortal realm?”

Yikes! He didn’t have to make it sound so ominous.

“I’ll give Aidan a call, so he doesn’t send out the cavalry.” Ric snapped his fingers and his phone popped into his hands. He apparently also dialed it magically, since his fingers never touched the keypad. His eyes never even flickered from the road as he navigated the busy traffic with smooth precision.

Even with her enhanced hearing, she could still only make out every third or fourth word from the other end of the conversation, so she decided to try again to contact Jase and left yet another voice mail. It was unlike Jase to ignore his calls for so long, but if his hot new romance was going anything like Meagan’s, she could certainly understand. “Call me when you come up for air.” She hung up and turned back to Ric.

It only took a few seconds before Ric said, “See you later,” flipped his phone shut, and poofed it, she supposed, back into his pocket. She was really, really going to have to learn how to do that. She wondered if it worked for laundry, or cleaning bathrooms.

“Hey, wait a minute! I thought you said you couldn’t poof electronics. How come you can do it with your phone?”

“First of all, we call it blinking, or transporting, not ‘poofing.’ Secondly, look at the brand name.” He poofed—uh—blinked it back into his fingers and handed it to her.

“Underhill Electronics. So what? Underhill makes all kinds of stuff. That’s why Aidan gets the mansion, right?”

“That phone isn’t one you’ll find on the market, it was a ‘gift’…” She could practically hear quotation marks around the word. “From Queen Llyris, so she can keep tabs on me. It’s put together with a lot more magic than technology.”

“Okay.” Yet another totally weird, yet weirdly logical explanation. If it kept up, Meagan’s brain was going to explode. Since Ric was smiling, she assumed he’d won his argument with Aidan. She smiled back. “So what’s for lunch?”

They ended up at a busy chain restaurant along the freeway where, Ric explained, they should be safe, since the bustling crowd provided its own sort of anonymity.

Ric cheerfully plowed through a tower of onion rings while Meagan toyed with her salad. So much for thinking she was starving.

“Might as well enjoy it now. You can’t get stuff like this Underhill,” he noted, popping another crispy ring into his mouth, closing his eyes and humming with pleasure at the taste. “Want one? Self-defense.”

That made her grin. She accepted a small one and munched thoughtfully. “So even the food’s different, huh?”

Ric grinned around a mouthful of food and wiggled his hand in a gesture of ambiguity. She loved watching those hands with their long fingers and short, neat nails. With or without his glamour, the fingertips on his left hand bore thick calluses from his guitar strings and she found that small consistency comforting. After he swallowed, he replied, his voice pitched soft and low.

“Not so much different as less creative. Think traditional English cooking, but with a mostly vegetarian bent. Quite formal, carefully prepared, but rather bland. And it’s all good for you, or mostly. Of course, you can request anything you want, you’ll be in a position of power, after all, but some things…” He waved at the empty onion ring dish. “Some things they never get quite right.”

“Will I be able to paint?”

“Of course. You won’t be a prisoner. I mean, I expect Llyris will keep you pretty close till the meeting, but after that, your time will be your own. You’ll be able to stay, come home, or whatever. If you do decide to stay awhile, you can contact someone on this side, like Aidan and arrange to get anything you need, paint, canvas, Diet Coke. That’s one of the reasons that we maintain a presence in this realm.”

After lunch they walked slowly back to the car.

Meagan was having some serious cold feet and even Ric seemed to be stalling. As he started the engine, she pulled out her cell phone.

“Still trying to reach Jase?”

“Yeah.” She pushed the speed dial and waited, but didn’t bother leaving another voice mail before flipping the phone shut. “I don’t suppose we could stop by my house on the way back to Aidan’s?”

“You’re that worried about him?”

“I guess.” She shook her head, gnawed on a lock of hair. “Hell, I don’t know. I’m probably being silly, but it isn’t like him to ignore my messages all day like this. I wanted to ask him to take in the mail and whatnot.”

“He might be—occupied. You did say things sounded pretty hot and heavy between him and George.”

“Maybe. But Jase is such a worrier and I felt sure he’d want to know how our talk turned out last night. I really expected him to call me first thing this morning for a complete rundown.”

He squeezed her thigh. “We can check. Meanwhile, why don’t you try calling the New Moon? Greg or George should be there about now. Maybe Jase is there with them.”

He rattled off a number which she dialed as he spoke.

A cheerfully gruff Greg answered the call. “Nope, gorgeous, haven’t seen him today. But George is right here, want to talk to him?”

“Sure.”

But George hadn’t seen him either.

“No, he hasn’t called me back today and he never showed up for our lunch date. I figured he’d changed his mind.”

He sounded so dejected, Meagan had to reassure him.

“I’m sure that’s not it. Yesterday when I talked to him, he was really looking forward to seeing you again.”

“Well. I guess that’s good news and bad. I’ll make a couple calls, see what I can find out. If I do hear from him, I’ll tell him to give you a call, right away. I’m sure he’ll turn up with a perfectly rational explanation.”

“I hope so.” But nothing much had been rational in her life for the last few days, so she wasn’t counting on it.

She heard a minor scuffle on the other end of the call and Greg’s lower voice came back on. “Hey, Meagan, let me talk to Ernie for a minute, would you?”

“One of these days you’ll explain that.” She laughed and handed over the phone. Ric um-hmmed a couple of times. “No problem, Spot. We’ll call you when we get there.”

It only took a few minutes to reach Meagan’s house, especially at the speed Ric was driving. She wondered if he had a spell that protected him from traffic cops, but she didn’t want to distract him by asking. She held on to the armrest with a white-knuckled grip. When they pulled into her driveway, safe and unticketed, she let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

“I don’t suppose you’ll wait in the car while I check things out?” Ric sounded resigned. Ah, how well he was coming to know her and how quickly, too.

She patted his thigh and grinned. “Not a chance, ear boy.”

“At least stay behind me while I check the wards on your house, all right?”

“Fair enough.” It wasn’t like she’d recognize a ward if one smacked her in the face. She obediently waited in the driveway while he strode up to her back door and seemed to study it intently. He squeezed his eyes shut and straightened his shoulders before turning to face her. Uhoh, that couldn’t mean good news.

“Owain’s been here,” Ric told her flatly when he returned to the car and leaned close to her opened window. “Not in the last hour or so, but today. He didn’t get through my wards on the house, but who knows what that means?”

“How can you tell?”

“Magical activity leaves, well, we call them energy trails. They’re like fingerprints, no two alike. And they fade after time. These are still pretty fresh, but not brandspanking new. Now, can we skip the magic lesson and go check on your friend?”

She climbed out of the car and gestured for him to lead the way back to the two-story garage. An exterior staircase led up to the small balcony that opened on to Jase’s apartment. Ric’s footsteps slowed as they walked back toward the garage.

“The trails are getting stronger and for lack of a better word, slimier. Something nasty happened here, Meagan. Maybe you should go back to the car and call Aidan.”

Oh, God, he thought Jase was dead and he didn’t want her to see the body. Squaring her chin, she grasped his hand and looked straight into his eyes. “Together.”

The one word had been enough. He nodded and pulled her closer, though still slightly behind him, where he could shield her body with his own. Some abstract part of her brain that wasn’t occupied with Jase and imminent danger was warmed by the gesture.

She was surprised when Ric didn’t head up the wooden staircase, but instead moved to the small window of the garage itself and peered inside.

He swore, snapped his fingers and handed her his magically appearing phone. “Star six. Now.” He made an arcane gesture, humming under his breath.

She’d never seen him look this grim, not even when he’d told her she was an elf. She opened the phone and hit the asterisk and the six. Greg’s gravelly voice answered before it had even started to ring.

“Yo.”

“Greg, this is Meagan. Apparently we’ve got a problem here.”

“What’s going on?” The softness left his tone, was replaced by a razor-sharpness a person could cut herself on.

“Trouble.” Ric spoke loudly enough to be heard over the phone even though Meagan still held it to her ear.

Ric’s eyes never left the glass. “George might want to get over here.” He might have said more, but at that moment Meagan’s phone chirped and they both jumped like a cannon had gone off.

Ric pulled Meagan’s phone out of her pocket. After checking the number he flipped it open, announced without a hello, “Aidan, we’ve got trouble.”

There was a brief pause, during which she watched Ric’s knuckles turn white and his breathing go shallow.

“Son of a bitch! You have got to be kidding me!”

Meagan heard Greg’s voice shouting from the phone she still held limply in her own hand, but she didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t say anything, just tried to breathe.

“No!”
Pause. “Shite, shite, shite!” There was more, but she couldn’t comprehend it.

Meagan gulped and lifted Ric’s phone back to her ear.

“Uh, Greg?”

“Yeah?”

“Ric’s swearing at Aidan, in Welsh, or something. Apparently, there’s some sort of problem. Another one.”

“No shit, Sherlock. Where are you right now?”

“Standing outside my garage.” She dragged in a breath, fighting back tears. “R-Ric saw something inside. I think it’s…Jase, but he h-hasn’t said.”

“Tell Ric to sit tight. We’ll be right there. Aidan’s goon squad is pretty good, but mine’s better.” Hmm, maybe the rumors of organized crime ties hadn’t been all that exaggerated. Right now, she could only be glad he was on her side.

She turned to relay the information to Ric, who had finished swearing at Aidan. She was just in time to hear him finish.

“Do what you can and for goddess’s sake, stay in touch. Meanwhile, since your staff is off-limits, where can I find a healer I can trust?” There was a brief pause.

“Well, fuck me sideways.” He flipped the phone closed, handed it back to Meagan and wiped his sweat-dampened hair out of his eyes with the back of his hand. “Could you please call your friend Elise and ask her to come over? I’m pretty sure Jase isn’t dead. Yet.”

Meagan stared at him with glassy eyes, but she blinked hard and traded him phones. Obediently, she dialed Elise’s number and waited for an answer. Meanwhile, Ric pulled her onto her back porch, away from the garage.

“Elise? This…” She gulped back a sob that wrung Ric’s heart. “This is Meagan. Ric needs to talk to you.”

She shoved the phone at him, and sat down on the concrete step, resting her chin on her fists and biting hard on her lower lip.

“Ms. Sutton? Ric Thornhill here. There’s been trouble and Aidan Greene tells me you’re the best healer in the area. Could you come over to Meagan’s house right away?”

He heard her suck in her breath, but her voice stayed taut, controlled. “Is Meagan okay?”

“Meagan is fine. It’s Jase Monroe. And, I’m not sure, unfortunately. He’s in some kind of magical trap. All I can tell you is that I still sense life force. But not much.”

He saw Meagan stiffen and blink back tears.

“On my way.”

“Elise has a daughter,” Meagan interjected. “We can’t ask her to come here if it will put her or Adina in danger.”

“Owain already knows about her connection to you,” Ric told her as he handed back the phone. Elise had hung up without further comments. “You gave him the name of the gallery, remember?”

“Shit.” She leaned into him as he sat beside her and wrapped an arm about her shoulders. Her breath hitched before she asked, “Why aren’t we going in there to rescue Jase?”

“Because right now he’s in some kind of stasis,” Ric admitted. “Apparently he set off a trap that was probably waiting for you. I’m not the world’s greatest mage and I don’t want to try to disarm the trap until we have a healer standing by for him and a back-up bodyguard for you, in case the trap backfires on me.”

“Got it.” Her voice cracked, but she soldiered on.

“And there’s something wrong at Aidan’s which is why he can’t send anybody to help, right?”

“Right.”

“Care to explain?”

“I’d really rather wait and do it once, if you don’t mind. And right now, I’m kind of busy watching for further trouble.”

“Got it.” After a long, nearly painful silence, she swallowed hard, her butt wiggling on the step. “You said my house was still warded, right?”

“Yeah.” He was proud of how well she was holding things together, though he could see the effort it cost her not to ignore his advice and run to her friend.

“Can you play watchdog from inside?”

“I suppose. Why?”