Tegan's Magic (The Ultimate Power Series #3) (10 page)

“Rita...” I say and trail off, worried that she might be serious. She gives me a silencing look, pulling a clear glass bottle containing a yellow-ish liquid from the cupboard. Jesus, does she just keep poison sitting nestled between the salt and pepper or something?

“Please don't – don't make me drink that. Eliza is very protective of her donors. She will kill you.”

“I'm not afraid of a vampire,” Rita snorts, bringing the bottle over and setting it down on the table. She doesn't say anything. Instead she starts sliding the bottle back and forth over the Formica surface, creating a weird sense of tension in the room. She reminds me of a cat toying with a mouse.

“I swear it, I have nothing else I can tell you,” he pleads, his eyes staring at the bottle in fear.

“I think he's telling the truth,” I venture softly. “He ate the herbs. He can't lie even if he wants to.”

Rita doesn't acknowledge what I've said. She lifts her eyes to Damien. “Are you scared?” she asks. “Does it terrify you, the idea of being forced to drink this?”

“Yes,” he whispers, a tear rolling down his cheek.

“Good. Now you know how Tegan would have felt if you'd taken her to be killed by your bitch of a mistress.”

I let out a relieved sigh, thinking she was only trying to teach him a lesson. She wasn't really going to make him drink it. But then, just as I've started to relax, Rita shoots up from her seat, rapidly uncorking the bottle. She grabs Damien by the jaw, forces his lips open and spills the contents into his mouth. She does it so quickly that he barely has time to react before he's pulling away from her and trying to spit it out. He's already swallowed too much of it though.

I pull Rita back harshly by the shoulders. “What the fuck have you done?” I yell at her.

She laughs and gestures to Damien, who's no longer trying to spit out the poison but is sitting down placidly in his chair with a vacant expression on his face.

“Why are you laughing? Have you gone mad? You've poisoned him!”

“It's not poison,” Rita explains, pulling away from me and walking over to Damien. “It's a mild hypnotic. See,” she waves her fingers in his face but he doesn't react.

I put my hand to my heart in relief. “You scared the life out of me!”

“Yeah. Sorry about that. I thought he deserved a bit of a scare and there was no way for me to explain to you what I was doing without giving the game away,” she replies casually, which annoys me a little.

She puts both of her hands on each side of Damien's head. His eyes follow her in an empty sort of way. “You won't remember any of this,” she says to him, her voice a low monotone. “You will tell Eliza that Tegan is never left alone, so there's no time when you could successfully take her. Tell her that her witch friend keeps a constant watch over her and she's extremely powerful. You will say that even ten of her strongest vampires wouldn't be able to get past me.”

She clicks her fingers in his face and he blinks, waking up from whatever kind of trance he'd been in. “Now that's you all done, honey. Let's hope you get that work promotion you were hoping for,” she says with a big smile.

Damien nods, still a little dazed. He shoves his hand in his pocket, pulls out a wad of cash, hands it to Rita and leaves the RV.

I shake my head at her. “I can't believe you just did that.” I pause, looking out the window to make sure he's really gone. “I also can't believe you took all that money from him.”

“Yeah, you're right. Since he was here to help kill you I should give you at least 50%.” She divides the bills and shoves half of them into my hand.

“You're nuts,” I say, shaking my head at her in awe. I really don't know what to think of her right now. I had been frightened of her actions, but maybe that's just Rita. You certainly never know what she's going to turn around and do next.

“Why thanks,” she replies, deadpan, before going to clean up the herbs scattered across the table.

Finn and Ira arrive home later in the evening. Ira goes straight out to the back garden to meditate. He seems happy that the mists have been cleared from the shed, thanks to Rita and the vamps. It's his favourite place to be, yet he hardly set foot in the garden when those things had been out there. Perhaps they gave off bad karma or something.

I bump into Finn in the kitchen. He's standing by the fridge, taking big gulps out of a bottle of water. I feel weirdly vulnerable around him after spending last night wrapped up together in his bed. Even though we've slept together before, it had always been with an invisible barrier between us. Now I don't really know where the line is drawn, or if there's a line at all. More to the point, I'm not sure whether or not I want there to be one.

“Hey,” I greet him, so quietly it's almost a whisper.

“Hey yourself,” he replies with a small smirk. It quickly turns smouldering, probably because of the way I'm looking at him. He's all sweaty after spending the day out in the city chasing and killing chaos entities. His t-shirt is stuck to him, providing a very attractive effect.

He takes a small sip from the water now. “You should stop looking at me like that.”

I can't help it when I answer back with a teasing, “Why?”

“Because it makes me want to throw you over my shoulder and carry you upstairs like a caveman.”

I give him a little smile. “You're a grown adult. Surely you can have me look at you like this and keep yourself under control.”

“Under other circumstances, yeah I probably could. But it's been a rough few weeks – it's also been a while.”

“A while?” I question.

All he does is raise an eyebrow at me.

“Oh,” I say, my gaze widening in understanding. “How much of a while are we talking?”

He shakes his head, putting the water back into the fridge and grinning. “Just a while, Petal.” He steps forward so that we're almost chest to chest and pinches me on the nose. “You're inquisitive today.”

He allows his fingers to drift down from my nose. I suck in a breath at the sensation of his touch as he presses his finger softly to my lips. “What's with the whole “Petal” thing?” I ask, in an effort to distract myself from how close he is to slipping a finger into my mouth.

“It's a good name for you. You're like a petal, all delicate and soft.”

I almost snort at that. “I am not.”

“You are. On the outside you've certainly got a hard shell, but on the inside you're just this lovely little sensitive creature.”

“Shut up or I won't hesitate to bite you,” I warn. I'm seriously incapable of acknowledging what he's just said to me. I hate how he so easily sees through my bitchy façade.

Finn pulls his hand away then. “I better go and get cleaned up.”

“Yeah,” I agree, coughing to cover up my embarrassment. “You better.”

About an hour later Rita comes into the house with a huge amount of Chinese takeaway for dinner. It's a good thing Finn and Ira eat so much or we'd never get through it all. Rita tells Finn all about our encounter with Damien today, to which he curses and gives my knee a subtle squeeze.

He asks me if I'm okay and I tell him I'm fine. I don't know how to react to this new Finn, the one who says sweet, concerned things to me and calls me Petal, as opposed to the one who would tell me off for trusting vampires and flirt with me in an aggressively sexual fashion.

Just as we've finished cleaning away the dinner there's a knock at the door. I can tell it's Ethan when the last remnants of the lust spell wake up. It feels more like a dull fizzing in my belly now, rather than an all-consuming...passion. He strolls into the house like he owns the place, as per usual, followed by Lucas and Delilah.

“Hey, any way for you to tell your ex to fuck off sending her blood donors to try and kill me?” I ask, angry at how he's just standing there, staring at me in that cold, judgemental way of his.

He glances at me impassively. “What are you jabbering about?”

“Eliza sent one of her blood donors here today to spy on us. If it weren't for Rita giving him a truth spell and hypnotising him then he might have gotten away with it as well.”

Out of the corner of my eye I see Rita face-palming. Oh right, maybe I shouldn't have told Ethan about her doing spells like that. Although he
has
seen her flood a mansion, so it can't be that big of a deal. Maybe she just doesn't want me reminding him of her powers. Good luck to her with that. Just like the elephants, Ethan never forgets.

The only indication of his surprise is a slight twitching of his brow. “She did that?”

“Yes, apparently she wanted him to cart me across the river to vampire territory so that she could kill me publicly as some kind of an example to traitors.”

Ethan nods, scratching his short nails across his jaw. “Eliza is not the kind of person to let go of a grudge, and after what you did to her in her father's home, I'm assuming that her grudge against you is now quite a substantial one.”

“
All
of you aren't the kind of people to let go of a grudge,” I mutter under my breath.

One end of Ethan's mouth tilts up. “What was that?”

“You heard me,” I reply, turning away from him dismissively.

“You're acting like a petulant child.”

“Compared to you I am a fucking child.”

He laughs harshly. “Is that a put down about my age?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you need to learn some manners.”

“I think you need to pull that stick out of your arse.”

We stare each other down and I'm vaguely aware of Rita's amused laughter.

“Oh for God's sake,” says Delilah, pushing Ethan away from me and down into a seat. “I thought we agreed that you, Finn and my brother would avoid being all in the same place at the same time from now on.”

“Finn's upstairs,” I say flippantly. “And you lot are the ones who came over here.”

“Yes well, we came to see if Rita would like to join us again in our hunt tonight.”

“You bet I would!” Rita puts in enthusiastically.

The fact that they're going out of their way to include Rita irritates me, mostly because I'd bet my last snickers it was Ethan's idea. Now that the lust spell is almost worn off, I'm remembering how much he gets on my nerves.

Delilah smiles at Rita, but the smile vanishes when she turns back to me. “There's the three of you in it, yes, but that also needs to apply to you and my brother. You two should go back to not talking to one another at all. I'm sick of this squabbling.”

“Okay, Mother,” I reply snappily. Jesus, Ethan's right, I am petulant.

Delilah scowls at me.

“Speaking of mothers,” says Rita, “mine just called. She, Alvie and Gabe will be home in about a half an hour, so would you three mind if we wait until they get here? They said they have news.”

“Of course,” Ethan answers her, with a well-practised smile of charm. More and more these days I'm becoming irritated by his too-polished way of interacting with people. Maybe that's why I like to push his buttons. I enjoy seeing his genteel mask slip.

“Good news or bad news?” I ask.

She pulls a stray thread from the sleeve of her top. “Um, I'm not sure. She didn't specify.”

“Well you told them you figured out how to kill the mists, right?”

“Yeah. It's not about that. Apparently this warlock dude they visited has crazy psychic skills. He can cast spells that allow him to project his mind into another person's and see their intentions.”

“Can he see anybody's intentions, or just those who are in the room with him?” Ethan questions.

“Anybody's, I think,” Rita answers with a shrug.

“Ah, this news should be interesting then.”

He clasps his palms together and sits back in his chair, a contemplative look on his perfect face.

You're Lovable, But You're Just Trouble

We spend the next half hour in awkward conversation, and it gets even more awkward when Finn comes down. He and Ethan don't breathe a word to one another, however there are quite a few cutting looks being thrown back and forth. I make myself some tea and sit up on the kitchen counter, since there are no seats left. I look up at one point to see Ethan watching me closely.

“Has Marcel's potion worn off yet?” he asks over the conversation of the others. Finn's describing Pamphrock's idea for modifying the fire extinguishers.

“Yes,” I answer, a half lie. I'm not sure whether the tingles I get when he looks at me now are from the potion, or just the usual “Ethan effect”. I see a small glimpse of the warmth on his face that he used to show me and I feel a pang of loss. It makes me remember the affection I once held for him. Who could have predicted it would be a vampire who'd be so troubling to my much abused heart?

“Good,” he replies, emotionless now. Delilah gives him a stern look, warning him to stop talking to me in case it escalates into another argument.

The front door opens and Noreen, Gabriel and Alvie spill into the kitchen, after which there are hugs and warm welcomes exchanged. I make tea for everyone, although Ethan and Lucas decline a cup. I'm half tempted to make a joke about adding a drop of blood so that it'll be more their style, but I rein it in. I think I've made enough snooty comments to Ethan tonight as it is.

The atmosphere in the room gets hushed when Gabriel begins to tell us the news Noreen had alluded to over the phone. I take the razor Finn gave me out of my pocket and begin flicking it open and shut. The movement comes strangely easily to me. I'm antsy right now, and when I'm antsy I like to fidget.

Gabriel puts his hands around his mug, but he seems a little hesitant to start talking.

“Out with it,” says Rita impatiently when he still doesn't speak.

“I take it you all know about the spells Neil can do,” he says finally, glancing around the room.

“Neil's your warlock friend?” Delilah asks.

“That's right.”

“Yeah, we know. Rita told us.” I interject.

“Okay,” says Gabriel. “Well, after Rita called to let us know that she'd figured out how to kill the mists we decided to make use of the trip by getting Neil to perform one of his spells. This was with the intention of projecting himself into Theodore's mind.”

There's an audible communal intake of breath during Gabriel's brief pause.

“He managed to successfully connect with the sorcerer and discovered that he has an active affiliation with hell and can now bring entities over to this side whenever he likes. That's what he's been doing with the mists.”

“The bastard!” Rita exclaims.

“That's what I said when Neil told us,” says Alvie with a quirky grin. Rita gives him a little fist bump.

“But that's not all,” Gabriel goes on. “He's been bringing the mists over here with a distinct purpose.”

“And what's that?” asks Ethan.

Gabriel swallows. “He wants to drive the humans insane so that their numbers will dwindle.”

“Why though?” I interrupt.

“Because if the humans start to die out there'll be less and less blood sources for vampires and they'll be forced to leave the city. The ones who stay will end up fighting amongst themselves for the remaining humans to feed off. In other words, things on the south side will be left wide open for Theodore to step in and take control.”

Ethan rises swiftly from his chair at this piece of information. He paces back and forth across the small room.

“Well, I can't say I find the thing about the vamps very upsetting,” says Finn. “But I can certainly see the disadvantages of Theodore having the run of the city. The DOH is still recovering its numbers, so if he gets rid of Whitfield and sets his sights on Pamphrock it'd be lights out for us.”

I can't help watching Ethan as he paces. “Why are you so on edge?” I ask him. “These are the people who exiled you. Do you really care if they're forced to leave the city? It's not like they'd stay just to prove a point. They'd starve if they did that. Obviously they'll just move on to some other place.”

Ethan laughs without joy. “Do you have any clue about my people? We do not simply bow down to an attack. We fight against it. Vampires have staked their claim in Tribane for hundreds of years. They will not simply run away with their tails between their legs. There will be a war even worse than the one we just fought.”

“So we keep killing the mists every night before they have a chance to infect people,” says Rita. “Theodore can keep bringing them over here and we'll just keep killing them. Simple as that.”

“She has a point,” says Finn.

“But then the fight will never end. It could be a continual struggle for years and years,” Ethan objects.

“Well that's nothing new. I've been killing vampires for years; it can't be much different to killing chaos.”

Ethan hisses at him loudly and it makes me almost jump out of my own skin in fright. Delilah pulls her brother back to sit down in the seat he vacated a minute ago. She whispers soothing words in his ear and he visibly calms. Without realising it I'm flicking the razor in and out more rapidly, shifting it from one hand to the other in nervousness.

“Jesus!” Rita exclaims when her eyes land on me. “Where the hell did you learn how to do that?”

Everyone looks to me then and I let the blade fall to the floor.

“I didn't learn it. I was just fidgeting,” I explain.

“You were not fidgeting. You were flicking that thing around like a fucking ninja,” says Alvie. “I was watching you.”

“Is that the razor Finn gave you?” Rita asks.

“Um, yeah.”

She turns to Finn. “Where did you get it from?”

“I have a set of them. They belonged to my grandfather. He was a barber in his day.”

“Aha! So it has meaning for you?” Rita questions him further.

“Yeah, quite a bit actually. My grandfather taught me how to shave with them when I was in my teens.”

“A gift that holds meaning given to one who means something to you can be a powerful thing, especially so if the gift is bestowed upon a person with magic,” Noreen interjects sagely.

“Meaning...” Finn prompts.

“Meaning Tegan is your close friend and she has magic, which in turn means that when you gifted her the blade there was an exchange of power, or of skill to be exact. Through the giving of the gift you have also given her your talent for using it,” Noreen explains further.

Finn turns to me with a huge grin. “Score! That'll save me the time teaching you how to use it.”

“Handy,” I agree, smiling back and bending over to pick it up from off the floor.

When I glance at Rita I see her shaking her head at me and smiling. “Every day it's something new with you. Tomorrow we'll probably discover that you can time travel or something.”

“That, too, would be handy,” I tell her, closing the razor and slipping it back inside my pocket.

“Can we get back to the topic at hand?” Ethan requests coldly. He seems annoyed that the attention is on me, or maybe that I'm being praised.

“Of course,” says Gabriel. “I plan to continue researching this matter. Perhaps there's a way for us to break the connection Theodore has with hell. If we can do that then it'll be one less thing he has to use in his favour.”

“Me and Alvie can help with that,” Rita adds.

“Thank you,” says Gabriel.

“Well, if that's everything, we have a long night ahead of us. We better get moving,” says Delilah, rising from her seat. Lucas, Ethan and Rita follow her from the room. Gabriel heads upstairs to his room and Noreen and Alvie go out to the RV. That leaves me still sitting on the counter, alone in the kitchen with Finn.

He grins. “No need to thank me.”

“Thank you for what?”

“Uh, for giving you my skills with a blade. Now you've got your magic
and
expert knife-fighting chops. Any opponent you come up against will be hard pushed to get the upper hand with you.”

I laugh. “Yeah, you're right. I must be in, like, super hero territory now or something.”

“And it's all thanks to me,” Finn adds. “So, I'll say it again, how are you going to thank me for this wonderful gift?”

“I dunno, bake you a cake?”

He shakes his head. “I haven't got much of a sweet tooth. How about another kiss? I don't think I got enough of one from you last night.”

I do my best to come across cool and unaffected. “If you want one, take one.”

At this he moves to stand before me at the counter, pushing my legs apart and standing in between them. He runs his hands up my thighs, taking in a deep breath. Instead of going straight in for my lips, he brushes his mouth along my jaw line. The sensual touch causes a small moan to escape me. Next he grips the back of my neck, his hands warm and solid against my skin. His mouth moves along to meet mine and he slips his tongue slowly inside.

I grip his shoulders, pulling him in closer. His hand moves from my breast, to my torso, to down between my legs, where his cups me gently over my thin black leggings. Then he starts rubbing, creating this delicious friction. For a little while I get lost in the vibrations that his hand cause to shoot through me. We continue to kiss, slow and languid, but intense. The movement of his hand gets more urgent and our breathing becomes hurried. My entire body explodes seconds later, as I tremble against him in orgasm.

“Fuck,” I hear him swear into my mouth.

I drag my lips from his and bury my face in the warm skin at the hollow of his neck. I love how he smells. Sort of like home, or maybe just homeliness? We stay like that for a while, holding each other, unsure whether to throw caution to the wind and run up the stairs to my bedroom.

“I thought you said you wanted to take things slow,” I mumble against him.

“Yeah, about that, it's kinda hard sometimes.”

“I agree, it's very...hard.”

He laughs and gives me a light slap on the thigh. He breathes out, pulling away from me. “I suppose we'll just leave things where they are, for now.”

I look him up and down, embarrassed. “You sure you don't want to, um...”

“I'm a big boy, I'll be fine. I have some computer work I need to get done for Pamphrock, so I'll be upstairs.”

He practically darts out of the room, as though afraid of what he might do if he stays around me a second longer. I saunter into the living room and flick on the television, but when I do all I find are a ton of news reports about muggings and fights, even a few murders. With a distinct chill, I switch it off and go back into the kitchen, deciding I'll put the rubbish out.

I tie it all up in a black bin bag and make my way to the back door. When I first step into the garden I'm almost certain I can hear somebody's voice. It's a male voice and whoever it is sounds like they're chanting, or praying maybe. It ceases immediately.

I squint my eyes in the darkness, making out Ira's large form sitting cross-legged on the grass.

“Ira, what are you still doing out here?” I ask. “It's getting late.”

Obviously it's kind of stupid waiting for him to answer, but I do anyway. I'm convinced it was him I heard just now.

He sits still, watching me, not breathing a word. I put the bin down for a minute and walk over to him. Standing before him, I look around the garden. It's dead quiet out here, and I can't see any of the neighbours about. It had to have been him I heard.

“I thought I heard someone talking,” I say casually, turning back to glance at him. “You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?”

Nothing, not even a nod or a shake of his head. I'm not backing down though, so I plonk myself in front of him and cross my legs the same as his.

“It's sort of nice out here at night – peaceful,” I say.

I might as well be talking to myself for all the response I get. Ira closes his eyes and begins breathing deeply, as though meditating. I've seen him doing this a few times now.

“You know,” I continue, “if you have a reason for not talking around everyone you can tell me. I promise to keep it a secret. That way you'll have at least one person you can speak to.”

He opens his eyes then and seems to be looking at me in a speculative manner.

“Cross my heart,” I say. “I won't breathe a word. You can trust me.”

I think I see him opening his mouth, as if about to say something, but the words never come.

“I know you can understand me. I can see it in your eyes when I look at you. I'd like to hear you speak, Ira. We're friends, at least I think we are. When you were an animal I really loved you, you know. You were such a comfort to me.”

When I still get no reply I remain silent, resigning myself to the idea that he's not going to speak to me tonight, even if it was him I heard before.

A couple of minutes pass. I lean my head back so that I can lie on the cool, damp grass. The feel of it soothes me.