Do You Believe in Magic

chapter FIVE



When he returned to his home in West University Place, Clay wandered out onto the deck in back. A few leaves had fallen into the swimming pool, so he picked up the long-handled net and removed them. The manual labor did nothing to stop his thoughts from repeating the entire conversation with his family.

Soul mates. Holy hell.

He’d always assumed he’d find his mate in the ranks of practitioners. Damn, he knew every single female witch in Texas and many other places. He’d even dated a few, but that had been more like going out with a sister. None had generated any sparks, but then, they wouldn’t have. No soul mate, no sparks, by definition. He certainly hadn’t taken any of them to bed. Female practitioners always went to their soul mates as virgins. No soul mate, no bed, either, for women. That’s just the way the practitioner world was.

Few male practitioners, himself included, were virgins. Usually quite the contrary. He chuckled as he remembered his mother’s comment when Daria asked why it was the case. “All that testosterone,” she’d said with a matter-of-fact wave. He’d dated a number of nonpractitioner women, and while he’d enjoyed their company, both in bed and out, he’d never stayed with one woman very long. He’d had no desire to—probably part of the male side of the soul-mate situation.

What was Francie? Was she a virgin? Nah, she couldn’t be. Not at her age in these times. What about his other conclusion? That some bozo must have misused her to make her so skittish, to cause her to retreat into those horrible clothes and behind those big glasses? He still believed in that. Damn, he’d like to get his hands on the bastard.

On the other hand, though . . . If the idiot hadn’t treated her badly, she might have believed she was in love with him and might even have married him. Nonpractitioner women were known to marry the wrong men. He’d never have looked at a married woman, and he’d have lost her before he even found her. Now there was a gut-wrenching thought.

So what was he going to do?

Run? Fight it? Deny it? Probably none of those would do any good. At least not according to Daria and Bent. A little jab in his center confirmed his conclusion.

Clay leaned on the net handle and stared at the water rippling softly in the slight breeze. How did he feel about the whole situation? He was thirty-four years old. Most men were married by then. He had to admit, the bachelor scene was beginning to pall. And coming home to an empty house, having no one he could share his life and accomplishments with, no one to share his bed—it had all become increasingly dissatisfying.

He grunted. Who was he trying to kid? Basically, it sucked.

No camouflage, no artificial barriers. Only the truth.

He had to be truthful with himself, as well as with Francie. He wanted her with a blazing, red-hot passion that lit up the sky and dimmed all other past attractions to the strength of one candle.

What was even better, he knew they were destined for each other. None of this “will she or won’t she” nonpractitioners had to go through. No hassle. She was his.

He felt an inner glow right in the middle of his chest. A warmth spread through him, and the itch turned into a happy little tingle. He rubbed the spot and felt himself grin. Evidently the imperative agreed with him.

Okay, what now? He had a job to do—catch the damn hacker. The question was, how to do it and handle the urge to claim his soul mate at the same time?

Did he himself have the strength to hold his attraction to Francie in abeyance, to stay away from her, not engage in any more kisses, certainly not take the physical side any further until this hacker mess was over?

Not without going crazy. He couldn’t stay away from her. He had to work with her to trap Brenner. Maybe he could treat her like he would if she were a practitioner. What was it his father had told him way back when? Oh, yeah. He could remember the exact words.

“Warlocks seem to be preconditioned—it’s in our genes or something—to let our women come to us,” his dad had told him. “My grandfather told me our patience comes from the way witches were mistreated in the past, when they were beaten or raped or worse. They have to be sure we’re not out to hurt them. They have to trust us. You’ll know when she’s made up her mind.”

Francie wasn’t a practitioner, but the same rules had to apply. So he’d take it slow. Get to know her, let her get to know him, gain her trust. Definitely not heat up the physical side with more than a few kisses.

Did he have the internal strength to resist taking the physical to its logical conclusion? He groaned to himself. From all he’d heard about the imperative, it would be a close contest, a real trial of his self-control. But it would all be okay in the end.

Soul mates were destined to be together. She wouldn’t be able to resist him.

He agreed with Daria and Bent: he had to tell her about practitioners and the whole bit. But they had to catch Brenner. Should the job be the first priority? Put off telling her until they had plenty of time and no distractions? God knew, it was going to be hard to concentrate on the hacker with all this soul-mate business churning him up.

Well, hell. He rubbed his chest as he realized he was already a goner, already accepting that Francie was, in fact, his soul mate. It had to happen sometimes, he guessed. Practitioners always found their soul mates. What had Bent said? The idea of it scared him half to death? Oh, yeah.

On the other hand, look at the benefits. No, benefit, singular, all in one package: Francie.

How would Francie react when she found out about him, his abilities, the practitioner world? About her being his soul mate? Bent had a point about women being different from men. He himself had seen it in his sisters often enough. Look at the fight Daria had put up, all her talk about wanting to be her own woman, not be subject to medieval matchmaking.

Francie was already skittish, although for reasons he didn’t know—yet. He’d have to bring her around.

He wouldn’t fail. He couldn’t fail. After all, in the end, the soul-mate imperative would have its way. He felt a huge rush of confidence, and his magic center warmed up, as though it was smiling.

Maybe he could reconnoiter the situation, sound Francie out, bring up the subject of magic, see what she thought before he laid it on her. Prepare her, sort of. Pave the way. Yeah, good idea. Clay looked at his watch. Eight o’clock. He’d give her a call like he promised.

He walked inside to his desk, sat down, picked up the phone, and punched the buttons.

Francie answered on the first ring. “Hello?”

“Hi,” he said, wondering if she had been waiting for his call. “What are you up to?”

“Just checking my e-mail.”

“I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

“No, not at all. I was just sitting here by the computer.”

He grinned to himself. She had been waiting—must be the SMI at work. She sounded a little flustered. “How’s Tamara?” he asked to change the subject.

“She’s fine. She dropped by this afternoon. On their date Kevin said something about ‘big plans at work’ but didn’t elaborate. She thinks it’s a sales promotion. I told her about my working late this week.”

“Good. Let’s hope he’s anxious to hack into Brazos and takes the bait for Thursday.” He paused, but she didn’t fill in the gap.

“So, what did you do all day?” he asked to keep the conversation going. Why was he having such trouble talking to her? Why wasn’t she responding to him like she did last night?

“Just the laundry, a little cleaning, grocery shopping, some other stuff, nothing special.”

“I had dinner at Daria’s. Gloriana, my other sister, was in town and wanted to get back home, so we ate early.”

“That must have been nice.”

Man, getting her to talk to him was worse than finding a bug in a computer program without a spell to help. “Yeah, it was. Daria’s a good cook. Bent, he’s her husband of two months, but I think I told you that already. Anyway, he has fit right into the family, and it’s always fun to hear what Glori’s up to.” God, now he was running off at the mouth. He cleared his throat. Get to the point, Morgan. “We had an interesting discussion about magic.”

“Magic?” Francie asked. “Like magicians? Magic tricks? Or more like TV with all those special effects? Or fantasy stories?”

“No, more like the existence of magic today, extraordinary abilities, inexplicable talents, both generally in the universe and specifically in people. To manipulate energy and matter. Not the goofy stuff in movies or the magical aspects of religion. Just ordinary magic.” God, he was so lame.

“Uh-huh.”

She sounded wary, or like she was humoring him. He rolled his eyes to the ceiling, happy at least she couldn’t see his face. “So, do you believe in magic? If somebody might be able to work magic?” He almost crossed his fingers in hope.

“That magic exists? That a person might be able to do something by casting a spell? That sort of thing?”

“Yeah.”

She was silent for a few seconds. “No, I can’t say that I do.”

Her words ricocheted through his system and left him feeling like a spell had gone bad and erased all the data on his hard drive. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

Francie, however, kept talking. “I’ve always felt that the supernatural, outside of religion, was just a big fake. Anybody claiming ‘magical powers’ has to be a charlatan. I guess I’m just a skeptic. I mean, the idea of magic, outside of fantasy books and computer games, Dungeons and Dragons, that sort of thing, well, the idea is ludicrous. I like the computer games as much as the next person, probably more, and I enjoy reading fantasy. But what adult would think it real, or such a possibility exists? Wizards and witches and sorcerers? Puh-lease.”

She paused, but he couldn’t utter a word. His thoughts had spiraled off into the void. He managed to cough, but she had more to say and ignored his interruption.

“I’m afraid I’m too grounded in the real world to even entertain such an idea. What’s the use in even daydreaming about how nice it would be to cast a spell and, oh, I don’t know, make it rain, make Kevin disappear, or get my housework done? That will never happen. I’ve always believed you have to make your own way in the world and take it as it is. You can’t hope for a magical something to help, a miracle to happen. It all comes down to your innate abilities and how hard you work.” She paused, then asked, “What about you?”

He cleared his throat and managed to croak out, “Oh, I’ve kept an open mind.”

She didn’t reply, but seemed to be waiting for him to say something else.

Mercifully, his brain started working again, and he knew he didn’t, absolutely did not, want to continue this topic of conversation. It wouldn’t do his cause any good. He might be able to use her comment about “innate abilities,” and God knew, casting was hard work, but he couldn’t show her any magic over the phone. None she’d accept. From those words about being “grounded in the real world,” he knew she’d have to see something with her own eyes to believe it. He obviously had to do some rethinking about his strategy and tactics for breaking the news to her. Time to change the subject. “Listen, do you feel all right?”

“Sure, why?”

“You sound a little down.”

“No, I’m fine.”

“You’re sure?” He knew something was wrong. She had sounded more like herself when she was denigrating magic. Now she was back to those flat tones.

“Well . . . I guess I’m a little depressed from talking to Tamara. I just hate deceiving her. It was so hard hearing her talk about Kevin as though he’s a great guy.”

“You’re doing fine, Francie. I know it’s difficult, but we’ll catch Brenner soon. We just need to set the trap.” He injected as much heartiness as he could into his voice to counter the listlessness he heard in hers.

“I guess. I’d better let you go. I still have to do some laundry.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, right? We have the meeting with Herb at ten.”

“Oh, right. Well, bye.”

“Bye, and don’t worry, everything will be fine.”

“Bye.” She hung up.

“Well, hell,” Clay said as he put down the phone. “That went nowhere. Worse than nowhere, it went backward.”

Something was definitely wrong. What was going on in her head? Besides no magic and no belief in magic. She didn’t even want to entertain the idea it could exist.

Daria had had it easy. At least Bent had accepted the idea of magic and practitioners. But what had his brother-in-law said? He’d wanted Daria so badly nothing mattered except that?

What was going on with the imperative? Why wasn’t it harder at work? Francie didn’t seem to be in the same sort of state toward him. She seemed to be just the opposite. Retreating instead of advancing. Running away from instead of toward him. Was she afraid of him?

Maybe if he backed off and let the soul-mate imperative do its work, he wouldn’t have any problem. When the time came, he’d explain everything logically, and the rest would be clear sailing. Wouldn’t it?

Yeah, that would do it. Take it easy, reassure her, become part of her life. Not let her avoid him without getting some answers why. God knew, it wasn’t going to be easy, a few kisses here, a hug or two there, while his body was screaming for hers, clamoring for release.

He could do it, he was absolutely certain. All the pain and anguish would be worth it in the end. The imperative seemed to agree with him; a warm feeling engulfed his magic center.

He went off to the kitchen to pour himself a Scotch and contemplate his universe. But the color of the Scotch just reminded him of her smoky eyes, and then made him think of her kiss, and that didn’t do him any good at all. Thoroughly disgruntled, he tried playing a computer game and surfing the Web, but those didn’t work as distractions either, so he finally went to bed where he could stare at the ceiling until he fell asleep. At least he’d see her tomorrow.

His last thought was, everything would be all right.





Francie hung up the phone and sat back in her chair. She felt like she’d run some horrible uphill race. What was wrong with her? She was such a coward.

Just before he’d called, she had decided to reiterate that it could be nothing but business between them, no more of those kisses. She wouldn’t see him alone outside of the office. She couldn’t take it.

But there she’d sat, by the phone, waiting for his call like some hormone-addled teenage twit, and the mere sound of his voice had given her a thrill that blew all other thoughts out of her head. Maybe if she avoided being in his presence, she could control herself better. Keep it purely business.

She had told him one truth. The talk with Tamara had depressed her.

And what was all of that stuff about magic? In everyday life? Francie snorted to herself. Yeah, right. Just like in the role-playing computer games she liked. True, she did like to play a sorceress and throw fireballs, but pretending to do so was the extent of any magic in her life. Unfortunately. She’d sure like to cast a spell and make all this go away.

The painful itch returned suddenly with a vengeance, and she rubbed the spot vigorously for a minute. What she really needed was a spell to zap the bug who had bitten her. A good frying would teach it to fool around with Francie, Sorceress of the Gulf Coast.

Speaking of computer games, she had a little task to accomplish with a program for Conundrum, so she relentlessly quashed any other thoughts and turned to her programming. She was able to lose herself in the codes until it was time for bed. She took a couple of aspirins to thwart an incipient headache and managed to fall asleep by concentrating on relaxing her muscles slowly, from her feet up to her head, and not thinking about anything else.

It worked after a fashion. She did go to sleep about one in the morning, only to dream of being in Clay’s arms while multicolored lights swirled around them. She woke to a curious state of both exhaustion and exhilaration, convinced of one certainty: real life might not contain magic, but her dreams most assuredly did.