Books by Maggie Shayne (56 page)

"Of course I did. I just--lately I've learned some things that contradict what I thought I knew."

"From whom?"

He shook his head. He wasn't going there, not with her.

"Tell you what," she said. "I'll loan you a book or two, so you can read up on the subject. And then we'll talk some more. All right?"

She's lying.

He frowned, ignoring that whisper in his mind. "You're going to give me one of those light, fluffy, 'harm none' books, aren't you?"

"Harm none is one of the core values of the Craft, Alex."

"So you all keep telling me."

"We all?" she asked. Then she frowned. "You sound as if you've been doing some digging on your own."

He nodded, getting to his feet, frustrated and angry. Even more angry that he didn't want to leave this spot, this woman. He wanted to stay. For her, not the information he sought. "I really hoped you'd be different. Willing to tell me the truth," he said. "I'm disappointed that you're only giving me the same party line as the rest of the so-called Witches in town."

"So-called?" She got up as well. "Maybe if you told me just what it is you're looking for?"

He sighed, shaking his head. "Look, Melissa, not every character in this show is a do-gooder. I mean, we need opposing forces. Villains. The polar opposite of good Witches who play around with white light and moonbeams."

She stood very still, pinning him to the spot with her eyes. "Alex, don't mess with the dark stuff. You don't want that kind of energy clinging to you, trust me on this." Then she frowned. "You've already been messing with it, haven't you? That's where all that negative energy came from."

He held her gaze. Eyes like black velvet, deep and dark and potent. "Don't be so dramatic. It's not as if any of this is for real."

She closed her eyes as if praying for patience. "It's for real." Her words emerged as a whisper, one that sent shivers of reaction creeping up his spine, into his nape, tingling along his scalp. But not so much as when she opened her eyes again and they locked onto his, held them.

Something moved between them. Some energy he couldn't have put a name to even if he'd tried. It tagged him, bodily, so much so that he swayed forward. He gripped her upper arms, and she tipped her face up. And then he lowered his head to kiss her.

She turned her face away, so his mouth only grazed her cheek.

"I don't... I can't..." She drew a breath. "Go, please," she whispered.

God, the woman pulled him in like gravity. What the hell
was
that? Since when did he hire a woman he knew nothing about and proceed to make a move on her?

He turned and hurried back up the stone steps, around the little beach house, and to his car. He would get his answers, just apparently not from her.

He drove back to the gloomy mansion that belonged to him, pulled into the driveway, and sat there for a long moment, just staring up at the huge granite stones of the place, thinking about the events of the past several weeks, as if thinking about them, analyzing them, would cause them to make sense. They didn't. They hadn't then, and they wouldn't now.

And now there was one more inexplicable event unfolding in his life. An attraction to a woman he'd just met that felt like the most powerful force in the entire universe. God, maybe he needed therapy.

Mists rose from the river far below, engulfing the suspension bridge and the couple who stood upon it. Melissa stared through the rising mists at the man, who bore a striking resemblance to Alexander Quinn, except that he wore black ritual robes and an inverted pentacle of solid gold with diamonds winking at each of its five points. The woman stood near the railing, her back to the man, her flowing white dress dancing in the mist-laden breeze like a living thing. Her wild golden hair was damp with the kiss of the moist air. Melissa couldn't see her face, but she knew the woman was weeping.

The man spoke, though his lips never moved.
Go on. Do it. Do it, now!
He pulled something from his pocket, a small white-robed doll with hair like the woman's.
Do it!
He shoved the doll toward the railing.

The woman climbed over it.

"No," Melissa whispered. "No, wait."

But neither of them could hear her. It was as if she weren't really there.

The man moved closer to the rail, held the doll out over the water. As he did, a pair of hands, strong astral hands, attached to nothing and no one, appeared behind the woman, hovering above her shoulders.

The woman turned, as if suddenly aware of the presence, and Melissa gasped as she saw her face. It was almost like looking into a mirror.

Do it!
the man commanded, and then he flung the doll over the rail.

The hands closed on the woman and pushed her.

She fell silently, her white dress wafting behind her. Like an angel cast from heaven, she spiraled downward. The water opened where she plunged into it, then closed around her, swallowing her down.

Melissa screamed.

The sound of her own voice shocked her awake, and she found herself sitting bolt upright in her own bed. Her skin was damp with sweat, her heart pounding, as she looked around the room. But it was real. She was there, in the beach house, and the rest had just been a dream.

"No," she said softly. "Not a dream. Something else--a prophecy, or a memory, or something--it was too vivid to be just a dream."

She glanced at her nightstand. The clock read 2:00 a.m. A soft, steady beep emanated from somewhere in the living room, startling her for just a second, before she recognized the familiar sound of her answering machine. Somehow, she'd been too deep in the vision to have heard the telephone ringing. Sighing, she got out of the bed, padded into the living room, hit the playback button, and then shivered at the sound of Alexander Quinn's deep voice.

"We're meeting with the writers in the morning, Melissa. Ten A.M., my office." The machine beeped once more to signal the end of the message and then went silent.

Pushing a hand through her hair, she wondered if she should just quit now and have it over with. She wandered through the living room, toward the table in the back where she'd dropped the script he'd given her the day before. As she did, she looked up, through the glass doors.

And she saw something on the beach--a shape, with long golden hair and a flowing white gown.

Her heart tripped and she lunged forward, hands pressing to the glass, eyes straining. What the hell... ?

There was nothing there. Maybe it had just been a reflection, a trick of the moonlight on the water, or a stray light on her glass doors. But she couldn't quite shake the feeling that she'd just seen the woman from her dream, standing in the sacred space of Melissa's own circle.

She checked her locks, just in case. Then she picked up the manuscript and took it with her, back to her bed, where she felt safe.

She wanted to do this job right--and for more reasons than just the money. She'd made a promise to her Goddess that if she could land this job, she would do it justice, set the record straight on prime-time network television. For her Craft, for her fellow Witches, for all those who'd died due to ignorance in the past.

She couldn't quit. Maybe all of this was some kind of a test.

It was not easy, forcing Alex and that troubling dream from her mind. Something was going on with him--with the two of them, maybe. She felt it in her gut, and she never ignored her intuition. It was usually dead-on. She was as afraid of him as she was drawn to him. She knew he felt that attraction, too. The air between them practically sparked with it when he was close to her.

What was the dream then? A warning? Was Alex to become her lover or her killer? Or both? Or was the dream just a manifestation of her own fears of failure and of this sudden, potent desire?

She couldn't dismiss him or the questions from her mind, only push them to the back long enough for her to do her work. She spent the rest of the night with her copy of the season's story arc, a stack of episode-by-episode breakdowns, and a red pen, which ran out of ink, so she had to finish in blue.

She wasn't exactly fresh when she finished at 7:45 A.M. She spent a half hour doing yoga, fifteen minutes in the shower, and just had time for her morning ritual before she had to begin the transformation into working-girl Melissa. The change involved taming her wild hair into a nice neat bun, corralling her breasts within the confines of a bra, putting on panties and nylons and a nice, civilized-looking outfit that included an ivory-colored silklike sleeveless blouse, a matching skirt, and a pair of pumps with two-inch heels. She flat-out refused to wear heels higher than that.

Then she drove her beloved lime-green Bug into the city, into the traffic, whispering prayers of protection to keep from being hit by the frantic driving tactics common to LA.

She made it to the meeting at one minute before ten. The others were already there, seated in comfortable overstuffed chairs and minisofas in a room that looked more like a living room than an office. The head writer, Merl Kinney, was there, gray hair, white at the temples, three-hundred-dollar suit, way too thin for a man his age and way too tan as well. Only one of his underlings had shown up, a young, pale woman with blond curls. The two were sleeping together. Melissa wasn't sure if it was as obvious to everyone else as it was to her, but as far as she was concerned they might as well have been wearing a sign. The director, Karl Stone, was there. But one presence dominated the room. Alex.

He was as potent to her senses as a shot of adrenaline. Dark hair, killer smile, and those piercing black eyes that seemed always to be focused on her. He

wore tight-fitting jeans, a tank-style undershirt, and a short-sleeved button-down shirt, unbuttoned. All black. As her gaze slid over him, it froze on his chest.

He wore a pendant that rested there. An inverted pentacle with diamondlike stones winking at its five points.

Melissa's blood went cold. It was the same as the one from her dream.

She dragged her gaze from it, up to his eyes, and then got stuck there, captured. If he saw the fear in her eyes, he didn't show it. He smiled as if he knew something she didn't, then rose from his chair until she sat in one of her own.

Karl Stone said, "What do you want, Mel, coffee? Tea? A soft drink?"

She tried not to grimace at his calling her Mel. "Nothing, thanks, I'm fine." She opened her briefcase, pulled out the story arc and breakdowns, and stacked them on the coffee table in front of her.

Merl Kinney leaned forward, brows drawing together at the red markings on the

top page. Without asking, he drew the stacks toward him, flipping through the top several pages. "My goodness," he said. "Had I known I was in need of a ghostwriter, I'd have hired one myself."

The room went dead silent. She could hear the soft ticking of someone's wristwatch, it was so quiet.

Drawing a breath, Melissa called up her courage. "These are only suggestions. I wouldn't dream of changing your words, Mr. Kinney. I only tried to highlight the places where I found... technical inaccuracies. The notes in the margins are suggested corrections."

He lifted his gaze from the script pages, locking it with hers. "I've won an Oscar and three Emmys, Miss St. Cloud."

"I've worked magic, Mr. Kinney."

Their gazes held.

Alex broke the silence. "Merl, Melissa was hired to tell us where we were getting it wrong, as far as the Witchcraft stuff goes. All she's done here is exactly what I hired her to do." He drew the manuscript toward him, began flipping through. "Keep in mind, we are free to take her suggestions or leave them--"

"If you leave them, I'm going to have to quit," she said, addressing Alex now.

He blinked at her as if she'd suddenly levitated or sprouted a wart on the end of her nose. "I don't follow..."

"I'd prefer not to have the entire Pagan community think of me as a traitor, much less an uninformed poser, Alex. I don't want to deal with the mail I'd get, much less the E-mail." Turning her gaze to the head writer's again, she went on. "And I don't mean to tell you what to write, or how to write. Only what's accurate. And Alex is right: you can take it or leave it."

Kinney frowned and leaned back in his chair. But the tense, offended body language remained. "Why don't you nutshell some of these... inaccuracies for me?"

She nodded, licking her lips, wishing she could snatch the script back from Alex as a reference, but he was engrossed. And she found it easier to concentrate when his eyes were not on her, so she decided to let it be. God, she so wanted to keep this job. But she might very well be fired or forced to walk on her first full day.

"Just as a for-instance," she began, choosing her words carefully, "the spells. When a Witch casts a spell, there's a lot more to it than just reading a couple of lines from a book. The words aren't magic. The Witch is."

"So... how would
you
go about casting a spell?" Alex asked, lifting his gaze from the manuscript, pinning her with it. It burned. There was something in his eyes both attractive and intense. It shook her right to the core. And those damned stones in his necklace winked in the light, adding to her discomfort.

"First I'd determine the goal, then do a divination to determine whether I should even proceed. If I got the okay, then I'd calculate the best possible timing for the spell. Best day of the week, moon phase, other astrological correspondences, best time of day, and so on. I'd determine what herbs or scents, crystals or colors should be used, picking ones whose energies and vibrational frequencies mesh with the goal. I'd compose the words of the spell, and they would be very important, everything from the rhyme scheme to the number of syllables per stanza would have meaning. I'd decide how I wanted to raise energy. Then I'd do yet another reading to ensure every precaution had been taken."

Kinney raised his eyebrows. "It sounds like we're going to need longer episodes. This might end up being a Costner-length feature every single week."

"Even if you just refer to the preparation involved, it would help," Melissa said. "A throwaway line or two would be enough. Just acknowledge there's more to it than simply opening the book and reading the lines."

He nodded. "Doable, I suppose. But boring. This
is
entertainment, Mel. Not a documentary."

"I understand that. And naturally there will be times when your characters have an emergency situation and have to act instantly."

"What about the actual spell-casting part?" Alex asked. "I mean, all the rest is prep work, correct?"

He was on the edge of his chair, leaning forward, eyes glued to hers, except when they veered south every little while, to slide over her body, down her legs like a caress. She could
feel
his eyes when they touched her that way.

"Yes. When the time is right, I would create sacred space and cast a ritual circle. I'd invoke the forces and entities I had chosen to meld their powers with mine. Part of the spell casting would involve raising energy by dancing or chanting, drumming or rattling, clapping or whispering, or any number of other methods. When the energy reaches its peak, the Witch releases it from the circle, sending it off to do its job. Then she gives thanks and releases any forces or entities she has invoked. Finally, she takes up the circle."

"So instead of a thirty-second scene it's a half-hour scene," Kinny said, his voice dripping sarcasm.

"Sounds like a riveting scene to me," Karl Stone said. It was the first comment from the director. "Can you imagine the special effects we could put in there? Tell me, Melissa, is this magic circle visible to the naked eye?"

"Not usually. But most experienced Witches know it's there. It wouldn't be outrageous to show it, as if the Enchantress were seeing it with her inner vision."

"And the... forces and, uh, entities she invokes?"

"Those, too. But they would always be positive in nature, so I wouldn't make them too scary-looking."

"Because our Witches only practice white magic, right?" he asked, clearly intrigued.

Alex rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair.

"That's not exactly true," Melissa said. "True white magic is magic designed to put the Witch more in touch with the divine, more in tune with spirit. Magic designed to help yourself or others is more accurately referred to as gray magic. Nothing wrong with it, but it's not pure, either. That's why you do the divination first, to be sure it's wise to proceed. Magic designed to cause harm to yourself or anyone else is black, and to be honest, there are times when it's called for."

"I thought the rule was 'Harm none,'" Alex said. He was watching her. She swore her blood was heating while her skin sprouted goose bumps.

"Some would say allowing evil to flourish unchecked is doing harm," she told him. "So some don't feel restricted from using magic to stop evil, or protect the innocent, or see to it that a criminal is caught. Some Witches wouldn't use it even then. Others insist on doing no more than turning the evildoer's own energy back to its source, so he ends up destroying himself. That would be the most likely course of action for your characters when they were attacked by surprise, with no time to prepare--just flinging up a reflective barrier that bounces the energy back to its source. Personally, I've never subscribed to the belief that we are given the power of the gods to wield and then expected to be victims or passive witnesses to wrongdoing."