The Wizard of Seattle (7 page)

“Gray’s
Spells and Incantations?”
Merlin said, naming the book she had studied.

“Uh-huh. According to him, it’s fairly easy to control another mind, especially a weaker one. But he seems to have his doubts about making people do something that’s completely against their core morality. Sort of like the limitations people believe about hypnosis, I guess.”

Merlin nodded and said, “I did tell you we could never completely control another mind, which is quite true.
Momentary
control is possible, at best, but it’s almost always imperfect. The human mind is too complex to be fully controlled. And it’s a dangerous device to use without great care.”

“Is that why you haven’t taught me?”

A bit dryly Merlin said, “Alphabetically,
mind control
comes after
invisibility
, which is what we were working on yesterday and today.”

Unwilling to let him get away with that, Serena said, “You called it
vanishing
, and so did my manual, which puts me near the end of the alphabet—and well past
M
or
C
.”

Merlin sighed, giving up the attempt to placate her. “It’s a difficult device, Serena, and I just don’t think you’re ready yet.” He often used the word
device
when referring to a spell or incantation; it was another way he had of avoiding magical terms for their art.

She looked down, pushing creamed corn around on her plate and feeling annoyed. It was easy for her to get annoyed these days, and knowing her irritation stemmed from other things did nothing to lessen it. “Yeah, I’m not ready for anything challenging, according to you.”

“You couldn’t vanish,” he murmured.

Serena didn’t look at him. He sounded amused, and if she looked at him and saw him smiling, she would either say something she’d undoubtedly be sorry for later
or throw her corn at him, she decided mutinously. “It was my first lesson,” she said. “Give a girl a chance.”

After a moment of silence he spoke in a very conversational tone. “Can you read my mind, Serena?”

She did look up then, startled out of her funk. “I don’t know. I’ve never tried.” Oddly enough, she really hadn’t.

“Do so.”

Obediently, Serena put down her fork, folded her hands in her lap and closed her eyes, and rather hesitantly sent her mind wandering. She fully expected to find herself blocked by Merlin’s mental shields; just as her powers guarded her thoughts from even a Master wizard, so would his screen his mind from her probing. At least that was what she expected.

She felt nothing for a moment, but then, as if a curtain blocking her mind’s eye were suddenly swept aside, she saw herself. Sitting. Eyes closed, face calm. And she felt a peculiar, unfamiliar spring-coiled vitality in her lean body. A different weight distribution. A consciousness of muscle and sinew and incredible, living power contained by a strong, masterful, and confident hand. Her eyes widened, but they weren’t hers somehow. There was surprise, yet it wasn’t hers, either. There was a feeling of being enclosed in a strong, warm embrace, and seeing through black eyes….

Get out, Serena
.

Steely. Polite.

Hastily, she climbed back into her own body, confused. What on earth had she done? Her eyes—her own eyes—opened slowly, cautiously. He was watching her with an intent, searching stare, and despite his composed expression, she had the notion that he was deeply shaken.

“What … what did I do?” she asked uncertainly.

“You didn’t read my mind. You were
in
my mind. Inside my head, my consciousness.”

She blinked. He didn’t sound angry, only thoughtful. Apparently his shield would allow her in, and even allow her to sense some of his emotions, while still protecting
his thoughts. “I was? Did you … um … could you …”

“Read your thoughts? No. As always. I merely felt your presence, curious and—” He broke off and looked away from her, leaving the rest unsaid. “Interesting,” he murmured finally.

Serena tried and failed to read his expression, but she had that feeling again, the perception of a sudden withdrawal in him. She had surprised him, somehow unsettled him, and as usual he was pulling away, closing himself off from her as if she posed some kind of threat.

She was positive that if she were to try now to read his mind, she would find no way in at all.

She wanted to confront him right then and there, to tell him she felt his remoteness, and to demand to know what caused these swift, silent retreats of his. Had she somehow reminded him she was no longer a child, or was she entirely wrong about that being the cause of his withdrawal?
What’s wrong with me? What am I doing to make you go all cool and distant?

But she didn’t confront him. Instead, as always, she instinctively tried to find some cautious path back to the comfortable and familiar relationship they had established over the years.

In a light, wry tone she said, “If you were trying to make a point, you succeeded. Obviously I’m not ready for any kind of mind skill.”

“One step at a time, Serena.”

She didn’t wince because she had her features under control, but the aloofness in his deep voice cut her like a knife. Holding her own voice as steady and light as before, she said, “And patience is a virtue, I know. Well, I’ll just concentrate on vanishing until I’ve mastered that.”

Merlin rose to carry his plate to the sink. “A good idea. But no more studies tonight, I think. Don’t you have an early meeting tomorrow?”

Serena’s “normal” job was as an assistant office manager at an engineering firm, which she found pleasant enough but not especially challenging. She could have been a part of Merlin’s real estate business—he had left
it up to her—but she had reluctantly decided to avoid the appearance of being always in
his
company.

“Yes, at eight,” she answered.

He nodded and said, “There’s some work I should finish up in my study tonight.” Then, rather abruptly, he added, “I have to go out of town for a day or two, probably tomorrow or Tuesday. Will you be all right?”

“Of course.” It wasn’t unusual for him to go out of town, and as far as she knew, he always went alone. Serena had asked only once where he went; he had ignored the question, and she had never asked again. She could only assume he had business of some kind, or that, perhaps, his trips concerned activities known only to Master wizards.

“Good. I’ll see you in the morning, Serena.”

“Yes.” She remained there at the table, reminding herself steadily that his remoteness would likely be gone by morning. Or, at the very latest, when he returned from his trip. Then things would be back to normal between them.

After a while she got up and carried her plate to the sink. She straightened up the kitchen, then went to her room. It was far too early for sleep, but Serena got ready for bed anyway, and curled up with the book of incantations once again. But this time the book failed to hold her attention—until she idly looked for some reference to what she had experienced in the attempt to read Merlin’s mind.

Nothing. As far as Gray’s
Spells and Incantations
was concerned, inhabiting the mind of another individual didn’t seem possible. There was no spell, and no mention whatsoever of the trick, which left Serena puzzled and uneasy. Was that why Merlin had been upset? Because she had inadvertently done something objectionable or unique?

Serena fully intended to ask him about that, but when she went down to breakfast early the next morning, he had already gone.

“He said he’d be at the office for a few hours, and then off on one of his trips,” Rachel said placidly. Middle-aged and utterly unflappable, she had been
Merlin’s housekeeper for years; exactly how many she never said, and she’d only smiled when Serena had asked her bluntly.

“He said it would just be overnight,” Rachel continued, “to expect him tomorrow evening, probably in time for supper. Did he tell you?”

“Yes. But he wasn’t specific about when he’d return.”

“I imagine he didn’t know for sure himself last night,” the housekeeper offered tranquilly as she set Serena’s breakfast in front of her.

“No, I guess not,” Serena responded a bit hollowly. She couldn’t help thinking that Merlin
had
known, that he had decided on this trip simply because his mental and emotional withdrawal from her hadn’t allowed him enough distance. And she still didn’t know what she had done wrong….

His fingers touched her breasts, stroking soft skin and teasing the hard pink nipples. The swollen weight filled his hands as he lifted and kneaded, and when she moaned and arched her back, he lowered his mouth to her flesh. She tasted faintly of salt, but more of woman, a taste that aroused him further and yet drew a hazy curtain across his mind. He stopped thinking. He felt. He felt his own body, taut and pulsing with desire, the blood hot in his veins. He felt her body, soft and warm and willing. His mouth toyed with the beaded texture of her nipple, sucking as if commanded by instinct. He felt her hand on him, stroking slowly, her touch hungry and assured. Her moans and sighs filled his ears, and the heat of her need rose until her flesh burned. His hand slid down her rippling belly to cup her, fingers probing her swollen wetness, testing her readiness. The tension inside him coiled more tightly, making his body ache, until he couldn’t stand to wait another moment. He spread her legs, positioning himself between them. Her hand guided him eagerly, and the hot, slick tightness of her sheath surrounded him. He sank his flesh into hers, feeling her legs close strongly about his hips. Expertly, lustfully, she met his thrusts, undulating beneath him, her female body the cradle all men returned
to. The heat between them built until it was a fever raging out of control, until his body was gripped by the inescapable, inexorable drive for release and pounded frantically inside her. Then, at last, the heat and tension drained from him in a rush, and he heaved at the intense pleasure of pouring himself into her….

Serena sat bolt upright in bed, gasping. In shock, she stared across the darkened room for a moment, then hurriedly leaned over and turned on the lamp on the nightstand. Blinking in the light, she held her hands up and stared at them, reassuring herself that they were hers, still slender and pale and tipped with neat oval nails.

They were hers. She was here and unchanged. Awake. Aware. Herself again.

She could still feel the alien sensations, still see the powerful bronzed hands against paler, softer skin, and still feel sensations her body was incapable of experiencing simply because she was female, not male—

And then she realized.

“Dear God … Richard,” she whispered.

She had been inside his mind, somehow, in his head just like before, and he had been with another woman. He had been having sex with another woman. Serena had felt what he felt, from the sensual enjoyment of soft female flesh under his touch to the ultimate draining pleasure of orgasm.
She had felt what he felt
.

She drew her knees up and hugged them, feeling tears burning her eyes and nausea churning in her stomach. Another woman. He had a woman somewhere, and she wasn’t new because there had been a sense of familiarity in him, a certain knowledge. He knew this woman. Her skin was familiar, her taste, her desire. His body knew hers.

Even Master wizards, it seemed, had appetites just like other men.

Serena felt a wave of emotions so powerful, she could endure them only in silent anguish. Her thoughts were tangled and fierce and raw. Not a monk, no, hardly a
monk. In fact, it appeared he was quite a proficient lover, judging by the woman’s response to him.

On her nightstand the lamp’s bulb burst with a violent sound, but she neither heard it nor noticed the return of darkness to the room.

So he was just a man after all, damn him, a man who got horny like other men and went to some slut who’d spread her legs for him. And often. His trips “out of town” were more frequent these last years. Oh, horny indeed …

Unnoticed by Serena, her television set flickered to life, madly scanned through all the channels, and then died with a sound as apologetic as a muffled cough.

Damn him. What’d he do, keep a mistress? Some pretty, pampered blond—she had been blond, naturally—with empty, hot eyes who wore slinky nightgowns and crotchless panties, and moaned like a bitch in heat? Was there only one? Or had he bedded a succession of women over the years, keeping his reputation here in Seattle all nice and tidy while he satisfied his appetites elsewhere?

Serena heard a little sound and was dimly shocked to realize it came from her throat. It sounded like that of an animal in pain, some tortured creature hunkered down in the dark as it waited helplessly to find out if it would live or die. She didn’t realize that she was rocking gently. She didn’t see her alarm clock flash a series of red numbers before going dark, or notice that her stereo system was spitting out tape from a cassette.

Only when the overhead light suddenly exploded was Serena jarred from her misery. With a tremendous effort she struggled to control herself.

“Concentrate,” she whispered. “Concentrate. Find the switch.” And for the first time, perhaps spurred on by her urgent need to control what she felt, she did find it. Her wayward energies stopped swirling all around her and were instantly drawn into some part of her she’d never recognized before, where they were completely and safely contained, held there in waiting without constant effort from her.

Moving stiffly, feeling exhausted, Serena got out of
bed and moved cautiously across the room to her closet, trying to avoid the shards of glass sprinkled over the rug and the polished wood floor. There were extra light bulbs on the closet shelf, and she took one to replace the one from her nightstand lamp. It was difficult to unscrew the burst bulb, but she managed; she didn’t trust herself to flick all the shattered pieces out of existence with her powers, not when she’d come so close to losing control entirely.

When the lamp was burning again, she got a broom and dustpan and cleaned up all the bits of glass. A slow survey of the room revealed what else she had destroyed, and she shivered a little at the evidence of just how dangerous unfocused power could be.