ENTANGLED (5 page)

Neither of them could read her mind.

Only the cat could do that.

A fatalistic feeling spread inside her like indigestion. The kind she got after she did something really, really stupid. She took a deep breath, and when she let it out, so did words she’d never have thought to say when she woke up this morning, excited at the thought of adopting a kitten.

“I’ve decided to take the black cat.”

While they looked at her as if wondering whether her brain cells had gone funky—something she wondered, too—she heard the cat again.

I’m hungry. Got tuna?

October

“You’re killing me.” The cold wind in Tory’s Madison condo raised goosebumps on her skin beneath her Badgers’ sweatshirt.

Still, it was better than the vile stink that came out of Samson’s back end. No matter what she fed him, it was always the same thing.

It left her with one choice.

She sat cross-legged on the floor, eye level with Samson, who was sprawled on the couch. He wouldn’t deign to sit on the wooden floor when he could have a cushion under his plus-sized body.

“I don’t want to do this.”

He opened one eye.
Then don’t
.

“But I can’t stand the smell anymore.”

He closed his eye.

“I don’t like messing with Mother Nature, but I’ll do it this one time. Because of the smell, of course.” She was lying. His farts were vile, but she’d lived with Phil. His hadn’t smelled like lilacs in spring. No, she was doing this because Samson was old and aging fast. He had arthritis and obvious intestinal problems.

And the thought of losing him so soon after she found him squeezed her heart.

Leaning forward, she landed a kiss on his head. He lifted his head, and she felt his smile inside her chest.

“Would you like to be young and virile again?” she asked.

Yes.

No hesitation. No time to think. She shook her head. “It won’t be as wonderful as you think. It never is. My spells don’t always come out the way I mean them.” She glowered, picturing the coven she’d been kicked out of because she wouldn’t follow outdated customs. “No matter what anyone says, it’s not because I don’t dance nude or say my spells in bad rhymes. As if the goddess cares for that.”

I don’t care, either. Do it
.

“You trust me.”

A sigh whispered in her head, and a breeze from the window she’d opened to clear out the smell chilled the back of her neck. She reached up and pulled the tie from her ponytail, her hair falling over her shoulders and covering her nape.

Do it.
His green eyes were mesmerizing. She suspected he had witchy powers of his own. Why else was he the only animal she could hear?

His gaze continued to bore into hers.
Do it
.

“Okay, okay.” She sucked in a deep breath. No more postponing this. She needed to get on with it and ignore the dread that sat heavy in her belly like a fist-sized hairball.

She scooted closer to the couch. Put one hand on his head and one on his back, near his tail. The breeze coming from the open window picked up, blowing tendrils around her face, but she kept eye contact with him.

Power filled her, stronger than usual tonight. The nearly full moon and the blustery wind added to her energy, feeding it.

Tomorrow night, All Hallow’s Eve with a full moon, would be off-the-charts more powerful. Like a tsunami compared to a flood.

As she took in a deep breath, the words came to her. No rhymes, no memorized spells that never worked for her. Just words that flowed from her heart instead of her mind, as natural and inevitable as a waterfall.

“I see youth surround you. I see vitality settle into your bones, your muscles, your cells, your DNA. I see your body healing, filled with energy, your fur thick and luxurious.”

A tingle started inside her chest. It shook her from the inside out, her hands trembling on Samson’s head and hips. The tingle expanded, growing, thickening to a current. Reaching her shoulders then traveling down her arms, past her elbows, her forearms, her wrists. Down her hands, her fingers, her fingertips. Streaming into Samson’s cat body.

He jerked under her hands then grew still, his gaze still on her face. Power zapped from his gaze to hers and back again. On and on and on. His eyes glowed neon green with black in the centers. She felt the glow inside her, too. So bright the room was incandescent. So bright she wanted to weep from the beauty of it.

A cry came out of her throat and Samson’s at the same time. Sounds of awe and wonder.

Their “ahhh” still lingering in the air, the current joining them dissolved, the light in her living room dimmed, and the light inside her shrank to a tiny presence. She moaned, her hands sliding off his body, her muscles like noodles boiled too long.

She sagged forward and her forehead hit the top cushion. Her eyes closed and she stayed there for long moments, reclaiming her power with each breath and each beat of her heart.

Finally, she pushed herself up and opened her eyes, looking at Samson. Still old. Still fat. Still staring at her.

“How do you feel? Younger?”

Hungry. Feed me
.

The disappointment was bitter, a twist in her heart. Like sipping a sweet wine and tasting vinegar. Like opening the door to paradise and finding hell.

It’s okay. I’m okay.

Blinking away tears that wanted to fall, she stood. If he was okay with it, she shouldn’t complain. Some things just weren’t meant to be. Knowing the love of her life was old and would probably be dead in the next year sucked.

A sudden flood of energy wiped out her tiredness. Too much, too fast, overwhelming her. Her nerves jangled. Leftover magic shimmied. She felt wired, restless, as if she were the pink bunny with the battery running.

Another gust of wind chilled her. She hurried to the window and shut it, peering outside. Not at the Capital building that she could glimpse from her eleventh floor condo. At the yellow-orange moon above.

A ray of moonlight shivered through her, pulsating, seeking. A different energy. Light with a hint of darkness.

She backed up, away from the window, away from the moon and its strange energy. Something was pulling at her. Not physically, but as if someone was sending her messages she couldn’t quite hear. As if someone needed her…

Snapping around, she started for the bathroom. A long bath might calm her nerves. As she passed the phone on the table next to the sofa, she glanced at it, half expecting it to ring. Half expecting someone on the other end to speak to her in a voice laden with overwhelming fear and grief.

Her breath quickened and she changed her direction to the kitchen, deciding to pour a glass of her favorite Wisconsin blackberry wine instead.

Two steps toward the kitchen, the phone rang.

Nerves buzzing, she headed back and grabbed the phone, an odd feeling inside her that the ‘hell’ in her ‘hello’ was exactly what the person on the other end was in. Deep and black and fiery.

“Tory? This is Jan Nyland, Nikki’s mom.”

Apprehension slithered beneath Tory’s skin. One jagged puzzle piece clicked into another.
This
was who needed her. The mother of her best friend from middle school through college, until their careers and life choices put them on different paths.

“Something’s wrong with Nikki,” Tory said, not a question.

A sob came from the other end of the phone before it was gulped down. “I don’t know who else to call.” Tears thickened Jan’s voice. “The police think I’m nuts.”

“What’s wrong?”

“You’re going to think I’m nuts, too, but he claims he’s a warlock. Nikki told me about you being a witch and I thought—”

“Jan! Slow down. Of course I’ll help if I can. Who is this warlock? And what has he done with Nikki?”

“Okay, okay, okay.” Jan sucked in a breath and a sob, the sound loud in Tory’s ear. “You know how independent Nikki is.”

Though Jan couldn’t see her, Tory nodded. She used to say she wanted to be like Nikki, her soccer playing, mountain climbing, Harley riding, five-foot-ten-inch friend who strode boldly through life as if it were a great adventure. “Go on.”

“She met this man...” Jan stopped with another sob.

Tory perched on the sofa cushion next to Samson. “She’s always meeting men.”

“Not like this. He’s…done something to her. She only met him six weeks ago, and she’s changed. I think he’s drugging her or something.”

“How has she changed?” Tory heard the forced patience in her voice, as if she were talking to a child. She couldn’t imagine Nikki letting a man change her. That would be like the sun dimming its light on the moon’s orders.

“It’s as if she’s sleepwalking. Two weeks after she met him, she quit her job.” Jan’s voice raised and tightened. “Didn’t even give notice. Left all her stuff in the office. As if none of it mattered. You know that’s not like her.”

Tory nodded again, and the worry inside her grew. A big, sticky, black pit of worry.

“Then she moved in with him. When I told the police, they said she’s old enough to make her own decisions. But they don’t know Nikki. You know Nikki. She’d never do that. Never.”

“Not the Nikki I knew.” But she could have changed. People did. Even stalwart goddesses.

“The first night they met, he told her he was a warlock. I warned her to stay away from him, and she laughed at me.” Her voice rose again. “She’s not laughing now. Neither am I. The only one laughing is
him
.”

Tory gripped the phone tightly, the plastic digging into her fingers. “His name. Tell me his name. And his address. I promise I’ll talk to her.”

“It’s Damon Lamont. One of
those
Lamonts.”

“The cleaning product Lamonts?” AG Lamont, headquartered in a northern suburb of Madison, manufactured cleaning supplies found in stores the world over.

“I think that’s the real reason the police didn’t want to go there. Will you go?”

The magic in the room swirled around Tory, but not sparkling now. Instead it was darker. Agitated.

So was she, her heart pounding too hard and too fast.

“Save her,” Jan said, the words urgent, as if wrenched from her soul. “Save my beautiful daughter.”

Tory closed her eyes. Her brain told her that she shouldn’t agree. Her witch magic sensed danger. Not to Nikki. To herself.

But her heart… It ached for Nikki. It couldn’t imagine her in thrall to any man. It wanted her to run in, grab Nikki, and whisk her back to her mother’s arms.

“He lives in some kind of fortress.” Jan’s voice trembled. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s got a torture chamber in the basement. Please, Tory. Save her.”

Tory opened her eyes. “I can’t make any promises, but I’ll go over there tomorrow.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I’ll come with you.”

Wincing, Tory told her she worked best alone. A lie, but she suspected the fear tightening her nerve ends was feeding on Jan’s energy. But when she hung up, the fear remained inside her like a ticking bomb, ready to explode any second.

A weight crawled onto her lap. Warm and furry and comforting.
Don’t go. Stay home with me. I have a bad feeling.

She glanced at Samson, her hand resting on the curve of his back just below his thick neck. The ache inside her lessoned. The tension eased. The blackness lightened.

“Me, too. But I’m going anyway.” She lifted him off her lap and onto the cushion.

I’ll go with you
.

“What are you going to do?” She stood and stretched, her tension easing another notch. “Spit up a hairball on him?”

I can. I can puke on him, too
.

She wasn’t surprised. Along with his flatulence skills, Samson was the king of puking and hairball spitting.

And spraying. He did that, too. There should be a show called Cats Got Talent. He’d be a runaway winner.

“Sure, why not? You’ll be my secret weapon.”

His chest puffed up and he jumped to the floor, ready for battle. She grinned, feeling almost normal, thinking she might sleep well tonight after all.

The next instant, a wild gust of wind blasted against the tall building, rattling the triple-paned windows and Tory’s nerves. The room darkened then brightened, then darkened and brightened again. As if the moon had an electrical short.

The final brightening stayed, and images of a half dozen women slammed into Tory’s mind. One after another. Young and beautiful. Short and small. Thin and curvaceous. Eyes empty and staring.

Speechless.

Hopeless.