PHENOMENAL GIRL 5 (22 page)

“You broke the spell when you ordered me out.”

“And it only works when I tell you something?”

“That’s right.”

“I guess it would be handy,” I admitted. “And I can start trying spells with a bit more difficulty?”

“Yes. I’m not saying you’ll be able to do them all, but you can try.”

“Great.” I turned and started for the door. “We’d better get back to work.”

“Lainey?”

“Yeah?” I glanced back.

“Was there something in particular you didn’t want me to know?” His face was impassive, like he had no idea what it could be and was just curious; but given what I had been
thinking about moments before the spell, I wondered if he remembered something. Or suspected.

“No. I just like my privacy.”

He nodded. “You still have it. I’ll see you at lunch.”

“See ya.” I left him, my thoughts in a jumble.

I was dressed in my costume and ready to patrol, and Wesley was nowhere to be seen.

I sighed and tapped my foot impatiently. He had spent all afternoon in his lair except for the hour I made him eat lunch upstairs. Even then he had been distracted, barely making conversation, until I finally gave up trying. It was typical Robert behavior, and just seeing that bit of similarity made me feel better, but I still didn’t know this version of him.

I gave up on waiting and stalked downstairs, where I knew he would be hiding. Grunge rock was playing as I walked in. There were stacks of thin books piled up on one of the tables, thick, dusty, leather-bound books on another, and the computer seemed to be flipping through villains at random.

“Wesley?” I said, skirting another pile of books.

He was bent over reading a book, sitting at the computer console. “Hmm?” he said, distracted, not even looking up. He probably didn’t even realize I was in the room.

“I thought we were going patrolling.”

“I’m sorry, what?” He looked up and all his words ceased. His mouth hung open.

“What?” I asked, feeling self-conscious, but in a way I wasn’t used to. He was looking at me like I was a particularly yummy dessert he couldn’t wait to devour.

“What are you wearing?”

“M-my costume,” I said. He wasn’t the same man who was disgusted at the thought of being with me now. “I thought we were going patrolling, so I wore my costume. I know you once had this whole ‘going incognito’ thing, but there’s no point in being incognito when you’re flying. We’ve had this conversation before, trust me.” I pulled my short jacket closer to my body.

“It’s very…” He looked me up and down, the heat from his gaze penetrating. I had the disconcerting feeling that he was undressing me with his eyes.

“Black leather?” I supplied weakly.

“Tight,” he finished. “How do you get into that?”

“You’ve got to buy me a drink first,” I said automatically, and then realized how inappropriate that old joke was now. My face flamed.

“I think there’s some brandy around here.” He tossed me a wry grin.

“Stop picking on me about my stupid costume.”

“You think I’m picking on you?”

We had to get back to professionalism quick. “If you’re finished being a bookworm for the evening, let’s go patrol so I can grab something to eat. I’m starving.”

“You missed dinner?”

“And so did you, and the reason why I missed it was I waited for you.”

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said, closing one of the books and stacking the others into piles.

“Well, I did. And let me tell you, I won’t make that mistake again.” I watched as he pulled a black leather jacket that I had never seen over his ribbed black sweater and blue jeans. With the beard stubble, which didn’t seem to be going anywhere, he was very good-looking. Wait, was I checking Wesley out? “You’re, um, wearing that?”

“You’re wearing sexy black leather; I thought I’d join the club,” he said with a smile, loading vials into the jacket’s inner pockets. “Let’s go.”

Sexy
black leather? I followed after him.

When we got outside, he stopped in front of his cars. “Which one do we normally take?”

He had to be kidding. “We don’t. You have a thing about not taking your precious babies anywhere that doesn’t have valet. You do a teleportation spell for us to travel anywhere to patrol. And then we walk or fly. Walking is a key factor.”

“A teleportation spell. Right.” He rubbed his hands together. “How do I do that?”

I stared. I knew my mouth had to be hanging open. “You’re not serious.”

“You’re right, I’m messing with you,” he said, lips twitching.

I made a face at him. “You grow a sense of humor, and it happens to be a bad one. Figures.”

His smile widened. “Now you’re starting to break out of your shell. I may not be able to remember everything, but this feels familiar.”

“You tormenting me and getting a sarcastic remark as your prize? Oh, yeah, this is a normal run-of-the-mill day for us,” I said, trying hard to be all business, and not smile back. I barely contained it, but not enough that he didn’t notice.

“Good. I like someone who will talk back to me and not be meek and mild.”

“You’ll like me, then.”

“I do,” he agreed, and something in his tone made me meet his gaze. I shivered, seeing a hint of Robert there in the blue depths.

“Thanks.” I jammed my hands in my coat pockets. “Shall we?”

“By all means,” he said, and stepped closer to me.

He recited the familiar words, created the circle, and I felt the spell take effect. One second we were in front of his house, the next we were in an alley in the middle of the city. The queasy feeling I used to get had disappeared, but Wesley doubled over, turned, and immediately threw up.

“What the hell?” I asked, turning away and fighting not to join him. Anyone yaks, I feel the urge, too.

“Sorry,” he said, holding on to the wall of the building, still looking down. “This body isn’t used to transport-travel yet. And my magic has been reduced since…” He broke off.

“Since you brought me back,” I finished.

“I’m not blaming you, Lainey, just stating a fact. Now let’s get out of here, this alley isn’t helping my stomach any.” He said something under his breath and rose up to fly above the buildings. I followed after.

We drifted down the road, landing on rooftops to rest. Wesley needed a lot of breaks.

“You should have just let me do this,” I said after the tenth time we stopped, annoyance creeping in.

“No, I need to be able to do it,” he snapped back, almost panting, sitting down on a ledge. He was pale and sweating.

I softened. “God, Wesley, you’re forcing too much. Like you said, your magic’s weaker now.”

“I can’t afford to be. Something’s going on.”

I looked around. “There’s nothing going on. This town is dead to night. Not so much as a mugging.”

“Nothing has felt right since I came back,” he said, putting his head in his hands.

“Tell me about it,” I mumbled.

“What?” He looked up, ruffling his hair in a cute way.

Whoa, why am I noticing he’s cute when a day ago I practically hated him?
“It’s just all a bit hard to deal with,” I said, sitting down next to him. “Dying. Having a piece of your soul. Your acute memory loss of me.”

“It hasn’t been easy on you, either,” he admitted. “Not what you pictured when you joined up, eh?”

“You have no idea.”

“I’ve been thinking about what Jihad did to you all afternoon.”

“That’s not the least bit creepy.” I shivered, even though it really wasn’t that cold out.

“Did he say
your
blood specifically, or just the blood of an innocent? I read about you having an innocent soul.”

“He said the blood of the innocent, not me in specific. Would it make a difference?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” He was shaking his head and muttering to himself. “I’ve read it somewhere…chaos spell.”

“Wait, what’d you say?”

“Hmm? Oh, just that the blood of an innocent is part of an old chaos spell.” He gazed off into the city night.

“Talon mentioned chaos a lot in the interview with Pendergast. About it being difficult to work with.”

“Damn!”

“What? What is it?” I had a feeling things had just gone from bad to worse.

“Chaos spells using the blood of the innocent, part of something bigger, that all adds up to one thing.”

“What?”

His blue eyes darkened. “An apocalypse spell.”

“There’re spells that cause the end of the world?”

“Oh, yes. Very powerful and dangerous spells. We may have lucked out for now, though.”

“How’s that?”

“I think I may have gotten to Jihad before he could finish. But there’s nothing to stop this Dragon from trying it again.” Wesley frowned, lost in thought. “I wonder why he didn’t do it himself.”

“Maybe in case it backfired?”

“Could be.” He seemed to come back to reality and noticed the fear on my face. “Cheer up, Lainey, we get to save the world again. Just another day in the life of a hero,” he teased.

For some reason, his flippant remarks loosened the choke hold fear had on me. “Such pleasant things happen when I’m with you, Wes,” I said. “Soul-eating, death, possible apocalyptic spells…”

“I like it that you called me Wes,” he said.

His tone made me look over to see him watching me intently. He looked as if he wanted to kiss me. He leaned toward me, and I felt my body moving toward him.

Oh, my God, what was I doing?

“Well, we’re friends,” I stressed, sitting back again. It was true. I couldn’t harbor resentment against him anymore. I liked him. But I had to remind myself it wasn’t exactly Robert sitting next to me. Robert had been like me: reserved, and always keeping people at a distance. Wesley frankly scared me a bit. Maybe it was his youth, but I could already tell he was a bit more aggressive. He had hit the wall around my heart, and instead of walking away, it was quite likely he’d just start tearing it down.

He took my rebuff in stride. “Yes, we are. And since I made you miss dinner, how about we grab something to eat?”

“Is anything open this time of night?”

“There’s always something open. If I wasn’t so weak, I’d teleport us to Italy. We could get a good meal and you could get some practice speaking Italian.”

“Does that really fall into the ‘not using magic for frivolous reasons’ category?”

I couldn’t tell if he got the reference or not. “Not really an option anyway, since I think I’ve used up enough magic for the evening.”

“Do you want me to carry you, old man?” I teased.

“Ha-ha. You need to start working the teleportations.”

“How about we go to Pizza Pi on Market? It’s a college joint, so it’s got to be open. We can eat ourselves sick and you can teach me some more Italian.”

“Sounds good.” He handed me the vials needed for the spell. “Just teleport us down to ground level, and we’ll take a taxi to the restaurant.”

“You trust me not to kill us?” I asked as I tossed powder into the air.

“Of course.” He reached out to take my hand as I spoke the now familiar Italian words.

When we popped into existence on the sidewalk in front of the building, he was still holding my hand. He looked down at it, smiled, and rubbed a thumb across the back like Robert used to. And he didn’t let go. My heart fluttered.

Oh, my God. Surely I wasn’t starting to fall for Wesley?

“Lainey! Lainey!” He burst into my room later that night, looking frazzled.

“What?” I sat up, in an instant awake and ready for action. “What is it? Was there an attack somewhere?”

“I remembered something!”

My adrenaline cooled off. “What?”

“I remembered something about you that I didn’t read in the journals!” Wesley looked as excited as a lottery winner.

Now my adrenaline was back on again. “What do you remember?”

“You went out with a guy I hate from the EHJ—Simon.”

And now it was cooling off again. “That’s it? That’s what you remember?”

He deflated. “Well, I know it’s not anything exciting, but it’s something I remembered.”

He was right, it was something. I glanced over at the clock. “Wes, it’s four in the morning! This news couldn’t wait a couple of hours?”

Now he looked like I kicked his puppy. “I thought you’d be thrilled, since you were so devastated I forgot you.”

“I’m glad you remembered, just shocked. I barely remember the date, and I was the one who went on it.” But what happened after was burned into my memory forever. “It’s hard for me to get too excited about it in the middle of the night.”

Now he looked sheepish. “Sorry. Go back to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.” He shut the door behind him.

I fluffed my pillow and tried to settle back down. Just as I started to drift off, a thought occurred to me.
If he remembers that, what else is he going to remember? And do I want him to remember what happened after that date?

Those thoughts were enough to keep me awake for the rest of the night.

“Now, a few things about Fantazia,” Wesley said a few days later, as we stood in an alleyway in one of the seedier parts of town. Music from the nearby bar could be heard, along with raucous laughter and the sound of glass breaking. Someone was having a good time. “She does not involve herself in our fights—she is a neutral party.”

“So she’s like Switzerland.”

“If Switzerland were a double agent, yes. She cozies up to both sides and listens. She will give us information about the villains for a price, but she will also do the same for them. So it’s important to be very cautious about what you say around her. And do not antagonize her; she is very powerful and old. And she has a legendary temper. She was close to being as powerful as me—well, me before the Jihad incident, so I guess she’s the most powerful now.” He seemed a little sad about that.

I patted his arm. “It’s okay, Wes. You’re still big and bad.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“You’re welcome.” I don’t know why it felt so easy to flirt with Wesley now; maybe because he did it so often with me that it became automatic, but it scared me.

“Now, it’s likely we’ll see some magic-user villains. We may well see some of our Dragon cult members, too.”