Hot Magic (12 page)

“Superseding the written law is not to be done lightly. Rules provide order and structure to our society.”

“I’m all for rules. How could you have the fun of breaking them if they didn’t exist?”

Harrison shook his head, wondering how a man could be so old and not grow up. “You’re supposed to teach me, not tempt me.”

“Sometimes they’re the same thing.”

“Bascule, the Obscure,” Harrison said, naming one of the many appellations assigned to the man in front of him.

“Don’t be a concrete thinker. Look beyond the surface, Harrison. A good judge is interested in justice, not strict adherence to rules.”

“Rules ensure justice.”
 

Bascule shrugged. “Rules are just a tool. They can be used for good or evil.”

Harrison nodded. “So you’ve said. Many times. I have to go back into the meeting. Will you be here when I’m finished?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. I’m thinking of taking Heidi out to dinner.” Bas looked over at the dreamy-eyed woman.

“If you do, I’ll expect you here in the morning, ready to work, because Heidi will be useless. For approximately a week.”

Bas laughed. A thick, leather-bound book appeared in his hands. “I dug up an old copy of the
Mots de Sagesse
,” he said, his voice suddenly serious. “You asked for it in the hotel. Read it.”

Harrison took the book. “Is there a prophecy germane to the situation I find myself in?”

“Read the book,” Bas responded.

“No offense, Bas, but this is dryer than dirt in the desert.”

“Nothing worth knowing comes without great effort.”

“Bollocks.”

“Read it.” The easygoing voice contained a thread of command.

Harrison looked at the book, then at Bas. He nodded slowly, an uneasy feeling settling at the base of his spine.

“And remember,” Bas said, as he took a step toward Heidi. “Destiny doesn’t play by the rules.”

“
J
ulie.” A deep voice barked her name from her office doorway. Why hadn’t she shut her door and locked it? Because Linda wouldn’t let her. She’d given the woman a magazine and made her sit in the hallway so she could get some work done, but she’d had to agree to leave the door open. Of course, ‘work’ was a term she was using loosely after her lunch experience. Her brain couldn’t handle anything more stimulating than deleting the cascade of messages that kept clogging her email program.

Julie looked over from her screen to see Dr. Phoebe Waters, primary investigator on the Bad Luck study—officially known as
Mediating Factors in Negative Life Events
—standing in her doorway. Joe stood slightly behind her.
 

“Hello, Phoebe. Joe.” Julie straightened her shoulders and swiveled her chair to face the duo.

“We have a problem.” Dr. Waters walked briskly into the room. The woman was often referred to as the grandmother of social psychology. Julie figured people who called her that had never seen her. She didn’t look like any grandmother Julie had ever met.
 

At seventy years old, Phoebe Waters stood close to five feet, ten inches tall. Her face almost glowed in pale contrast to the dead black hair that hung in a braid down her back. She had piercing green eyes and skin so tight it wouldn’t dare sag into a wrinkle. Her lips, soft and full, contrasted with the angles of her cheekbones and drew the eye. Julie watched them pull into a frown.

“What’s up, Phoebe?”

“We’ve got the results back on the first field interviews.”
 

Julie sat forward. The new study fascinated her. Their research team hoped to identify the factors that caused some individuals to always get dumped on by life. The hypothesis was that people with a proportionally higher amount of negative life events were poor decision makers. Eventually, Julie planned to develop a decision making training module that would halt or slow the bad luck cycle for these individuals.
 

Julie had screened each subject in the study, both the control group and the bad luck group. She could vouch for the fact that every person in the bad luck group more than met the study criteria for negative life events. Interviewers were now in the field—in this case, the subjects’ homes—administering a questionnaire that Dr. Waters and Julie had developed to assess the past month of their life.
 

 
“How are the results?” Julie prompted when Phoebe didn’t immediately continue.

“An odd thing happened between your baseline screening and the field interviews.” Phoebe didn’t look happy.
 

Julie’s gaze darted to Joe, wondering what could possibly have gone wrong. She’d trained the field interviewers and they were a bright and eager bunch.

“Everyone’s luck changed,” Phoebe stated simply.

“What?”

“People who have had years of karmic crap piled on them are suddenly winning the lottery. One of the respondents got a promotion out of the entry-level position he’s worked in for fifteen years. A woman who’d been homeless for five years had a miserly uncle die and leave her over a million dollars. A third found the title to some New York City property that had been missing for generations. The list goes on and on.”

Julie blinked. “How amazing.”

Phoebe nodded. “More than amazing. What is the probability of something like this happening by chance?”

Julie glanced at Joe, their statistics expert. He shrugged, a small smile on his face. “I could run the numbers, but so far the interviewers have completed questionnaires on twenty subjects who are in our bad luck group. All twenty have had an unprecedented run of good luck this past month.”

“Which is bad luck for our study,” Phoebe said. “The odd thing is, this isn’t as unusual as you might think. I spoke with Dr. Bartel and Dr. Jacobs at lunch today. A similar thing happened to Bartel during his study on divorced parents delinquent with their child-support payments. Before he could begin any of his planned interventions, the checks started rolling in. Jacobs said that on his study of sex offenders, erectile dysfunction became rampant among the offenders, skewing data on the effectiveness of his group therapy. He ended up having to treat everyone in his subject pool for depression.”

“I remember that. I—”

Phoebe interrupted her. “I don’t want all the time and money we’ve put into this study to go to waste, but how am I supposed to study adverse life events when everyone in my sample is acting like they have a four-leaf clover tattooed on their forehead?”

Excellent question. Another glance at Joe showed no help coming from that quarter. In fact, he seemed highly amused.
 

“Well, perhaps our focus is too narrow,” Julie said slowly. “Perhaps we should be looking at the mediating variables that impact both positive and negative life events to help guide our intervention.” Julie took a deep breath. “We can modify the questionnaire and send back the interviewers.”
 

Phoebe stared at her for an endless second, and then nodded. “That might work. I’ll research what standard instruments are available to assess this. Call the interviewers. You can train them on the new instrument next Monday. You’ll need to call the Institutional Review Board and get an okay to revise our protocol to include the second interview.”
 

Julie nodded, relieved a crisis appeared to have been averted.

Phoebe paused on the way out the door. “Good thinking, Dancer.”

Julie smiled weakly and watched her stride through the door. Joe chuckled.

“What’s so funny?”

“Didn’t you work with both Bartel and Jacobs on those studies that Phoebe mentioned?

“Yes, I did.”
 

“Interesting coincidence. If I believed in coincidence.” Joe crossed his arms over his chest. She caught the familiar scent of the citrus cologne he always wore. He watched her as if he knew something she didn’t, and waited for her to make a connection.

The puzzle pieces clicked together. “You think that I had something to do with this?” Julie stared back, aghast. “How? Aside from the ethical issue of messing with subjects in a study, it would be impossible to do something like change everyone’s luck.”

Joe’s expression didn’t change.

Julie gave him an exasperated look. “So, what’s your theory? I have pixie dust that I throw on the subjects or something?”
 

He cocked his head and studied her. “I don’t know. Do you?”
 

She glared. “Joe, you’re not making sense. It’s not as if I have some kind of woo-woo….” Julie’s voice trailed off as she used the word Dorie had just used at lunch. She did have woo-woo. At least according to Harry. Could she have screwed up the Bad Luck study without even realizing it? And the other studies she’d worked on? No. The alimony checks and limp penises had nothing to do with her. They couldn’t. Her ability to absorb power hadn’t started until she kissed Harry. But hadn’t her mother said that even before Triad members came into their full power some of them were able to use small amounts of energy? Could she have been somehow using energy without even realizing it?

Joe stood and pulled Julie to her feet. “Don’t look so frazzled. The study will still yield interesting data.” He squeezed her hands, which he still held. “There’s no need to feel guilty.”

She met his eyes, almost on a level with hers. His were full of laughter. Why was he taking this so calmly?
 

Before she could question him, Tasha breezed into the office. “Mom, who is that sitting outside your office? Are you doing a study on women wrestlers or something?” Tasha stopped when she saw her mother wasn’t alone. “Oh, hi, Dr. Kradeno.”

“Tasha.” Joe dropped Julie’s hands and took a step back.

“Are you still working, Mom? Do you want me to,” Tash hesitated and looked over her shoulder toward the door with obvious reluctance, “wait out in the hall?”
 

Julie shook her head and reached for her briefcase. “No, it’s late. Dr. Kradeno and I will finish talking tomorrow. Let’s go home.”

J
ean’s meatless chili had everyone reaching for water glasses. Only Linda seemed unaffected.

“Thanks for dinner, Mom,” Julie gasped, surprised when flames didn’t erupt from her mouth.

“You’re welcome, dear. I called Phyllis this afternoon and got the recipe.”

“Phyllis?”

“One of the Gigis.” At everyone’s blank look, Jean elaborated. “You know, one of the Gay Grays—the G.G.s.”

“Ah.” Julie nodded. “Of course.”

 
“Every Monday night,” Jean continued, “the girls have a themed dinner get-together and Phyllis cooks. She’s a bit territorial about the whole thing.” Jean frowned. “She hasn’t let me have a turn yet.”

Smart woman, that Phyllis.

“What’s tonight’s theme? Fire-breathing dragons?” Tasha asked dryly.

Jean beamed with approval. “Actually, it’s Sean Connery movies. I chose
Dragonheart
, so you’re close.”

“Weird theme for a group of lesbians, isn’t it?” Tasha muttered, pushing beans around her plate.

“We’ve already covered male-bashing and vibrators, so….”

“Grandma!”

“Mom!”

Linda doubled over, sputtering with laughter.

Jean folded her arms and looked at Tasha. “I’m still your grandma, Tasha. I still love you. The Gigis aren’t defined only by our sexuality, baby. We’re particularly into community service these days.”

“I think that’s great, Mom.” And Julie did. She could see that Tasha was about to comment, so she quickly continued. “Now that dinner is over, we need to talk about this Sun Dancer business.”

Tasha nodded. “Speaking of that, you’ll never believe who I saw today in the library.”

“Who?” Julie asked, wondering at the soft smile on her daughter’s face.

“Luc, that Shadow Walker who dropped by this morning.”

“He gets around,” Julie said, sudden fear for her daughter spiking through her. Why hadn’t she thought they might go after Tasha? Only the fact that her daughter sat at the table, safe and sound, kept her hands from shaking. “I saw Luc today, too. He was with his sister, and they tried to….” She paused. What had they tried to do? Kidnap her? Out of a public restaurant? That sounded too bizarre to say out loud.

“They tried to kidnap her out of a public restaurant,” Linda inserted.

Tasha shot Linda a disbelieving look—which was actually the type of look Tasha had been giving Linda ever since they met. Then she turned to Julie.

“Mom?” She wanted Julie to deny it.

“I don’t think they like me, Tash. Luc’s sister thinks I’m out to thwart her evil plans or something. Did Luc say anything to you at the library?” Julie tried to keep her fear for Tasha’s safety out of her voice.

“We went out for coffee. I don’t know where you get the idea he doesn’t like you, Mom. You must have misinterpreted something he said.” She sounded desperate. “Are you sure they tried to kidnap you?”

Jean jumped up, knocking over her chair, startling everyone. “You are not to go out with him again. Stay away from him, Natasha.”