Sixteen
The Solstice Café was located just outside
the city, sandwiched between a hair salon and a bookstore in a row
of small neighborhood shops. There was a bike rack out front, and a
brick patch just big enough for a few tables when the weather
warmed. Inside, the café was bright and uncluttered, with natural
wood tables and chairs, and whimsical prints of the sun and the
moon on the walls. The air was filled with the aroma of freshly
brewed coffee and the clatter of dishes as waitresses in black
slacks and starched white shirts ferried trays from the kitchen to
a full house of lunchtime diners.
It was the sort of place you went for a great
chicken caesar salad, not to have your palm read. There was no sign
proclaiming “Madame Lavina: Fortunes, Charms and Potions,” with an
arrow pointing to the back room. Madame Lavina’s clients heard of
her by word of mouth, the way Eve and Hazard had learned of her
from Taggart.
They needed to find Pavane. Scrying was out; even
if they had something suitable of Pavane’s to use, he was sure to
have cloaked his whereabouts. That left them with the roundabout
approach. He was bound to seek out his own kind for anything he
needed, and Taggart came up with the names of three mages he knew
to be well connected with the local magic scene. Madame Lavina,
whose business occupied a small section of her son’s popular café,
was their third and final stop of the morning, and their third
strike. Although all three mages were aware of some recent buzz
about a disturbance in energy currents in and around Providence,
they had no knowledge of whom or what was causing it.
“I wish I could be of more help,” Madame Lavina
told them, her soft voice regretful. A slender woman in her
forties, she had high cheekbones and dark, exotic eyes. She sat
across the carved ebony table from them with a deck of tarot cards
untouched before her. Her serene, self-assured manner made Eve
think the woman was very good at her craft.
“I appreciate you making time to see us without an
appointment,” Eve told her.
She smiled and gave a little shrug. “I found myself
with an unexpected lull.”
“Our good luck,” said Eve.
“Or fate,” Madame Lavina countered, holding Eve’s
gaze. “Shall I read for you before you go?”
If she’d been alone, Eve might have been tempted to
take her up on her offer; it couldn’t hurt to get some fresh
insight into what lay ahead. But there was no way she wanted her
life spread out on the table and dissected in front of Hazard. She
shook her head. “Thanks, not today. Another time, perhaps.”
“Perhaps,” murmured Madame Lavina, looking
doubtful. She remained seated as Hazard stood and held Eve’s chair
for her to do the same. When she extended her hand, Eve reached out
to shake it and Madame Lavina held on tightly.
“He came here for you, you know,” she said,
managing to indicate Hazard without taking her eyes off Eve’s
face.
Eve shook her head, unsure what she meant and
uneasy with the way she was gripping her hand. “No. He’s not . . .
I mean, we just . . .”
“Yes,” Madame Lavina said, her tone resolute, her
gaze becoming both intense and remote. “He came here to find the
truth and give the same, of power lost and power claimed.”
Eve recognized the words of the prophecy, and the
skin at the back of her neck prickled. She jerked her hand away,
but the fortune-teller was not deterred.
“The whole restored from these two parts,” she
recited, as if reading the words in Eve’s eyes. “Life to life;
heart to heart.”
“We really have to go,” Eve said, looking around
for her purse. Hazard retrieved it from the floor at her feet and
handed it to her.
“You can’t rely on luck,” she warned as Eve turned
toward the door. The urgency in her voice made Eve stop and glance
back. Madame Lavina looked at her with knowing eyes. “But what was
lost can be regained, if the heart is willing.”
They’d parked about a block away, and neither she
nor Hazard said a word until they were back in his car.
He slid behind the wheel and turned slightly toward
her without starting the engine. “Do you want to talk about
it?”
Eve turned her head to look at him, cautious.
“The prophecy,” he added before she had to ask.
“That is what Madame Lavina was referring to, isn’t it?”
“You know the prophecy?”
“I know of it. I’ve never read the actual
text—I don’t know anyone who has. To be honest, I always thought it
was a myth.”
“Maybe it is. I mean, really . . . the Lost
Enchantress? It sure sounds mythical. Right up there with Snow
White and Peter Pan.”
“Obviously Madame Lavina disagrees. So does
Pavane.”
“And my grandmother,” she admitted reluctantly,
“who probably knows more about it than anyone. She also has an
annoying tendency to be right about these things.” She rested her
head back on the high leather seat and puffed out a deep sigh.
“This is one time I really wish she would be wrong.”
“But you don’t think she is?”
She glanced sideways at him, debating with herself,
and then twisted in her seat and loosened the ties at the neckline
of her pale blue and white peasant blouse just enough to reveal her
birthmark. “Look familiar?”
His eyes narrowed, but he showed no sign of
recognition. “Should it?”
“Maybe not. I’m not sure how good a look you got at
the pendant, but my birthmark and the bottom of the hourglass are
exactly the same.”
“And you think that means. . . .”
“I’m not sure what it means,” she returned, redoing
her ties. “If I’m lucky, it means nothing. But considering what
Pavane said, and now Madame Lavina, it all seems just a little too
coincidental. I have read the actual text, and some of her words
came straight from it.”
“And if it is true that the prophecy is about you,
you’d rather stay lost. You’re not tempted by thoughts of what you
could do with all that power?”
“You mean with unlimited amounts of what I don’t
want any part of in the first place?” Eve countered. “Funny, I
expected you, of all people, to understand. I thought you felt the
same way I do about magic.”
“I detest it, if that’s what you mean. But my
feelings are those of an outsider, and based on personal
experience.”
“So are mine . . . based on personal experience,
that is.”
“You’re talking about the fire that killed your
parents.”
It wasn’t a question. Eve looked at him sharply.
“What do you know about the fire?”
“Only what I could find in news reports from the
time. And that it happened on the one night of the year reserved
for a legendary spell, which, according to your family lore, you
would have been exactly the right age to cast. The rest I’m just
guessing.”
She raised her eyebrows, wondering how he knew
about the spell. “The rest?”
“That’s right.” He leaned back and crossed his
arms, observing her expression closely. “My guess is you did cast
the spell that night, and that something went wrong, something that
made you blame yourself for everything that happened afterwards,
the fire, your parents’ death, your grandmother and sister losing
their home, all of it. And that you’ve been trying to atone for it
ever since. I think cutting yourself off from magic is part fear,
part penance.”
She flushed revealingly and looked away. “Well,
you’re a lousy guesser.”
“Maybe so.”
“And even if you happened to get some of it right,”
she added, turning back to him, “it’s really none of your
business.”
“Maybe so,” he said a second time. “But I’m a damn
good listener, and I’m willing to bet there’s never been anyone
else you could talk with about what happened . . . at least not
honestly.”
She didn’t deny it.
“Tell me about that night,” he invited softly.
“What went wrong with the spell?”
Her chin went up and her shoulders tensed, and for
a moment Hazard was sure he’d pushed too hard, too soon, and she
wouldn’t answer. Then she sighed.
“Nothing. It wasn’t the spell that was wrong—it was
me.” The irritation was gone from her voice, replaced by something
bleak and haunted. “The fact is a lot of that night is a blank for
me. I know I finished casting the spell. I know there was a fire. I
know my parents died in it. The details don’t seem that important .
. . it’s not as if knowing them will change anything.”
“Maybe that depends on the details.”
“Nothing can change the fact that I was wrong to
cast the spell in the first place,” she argued. “My folks were dead
set against magic. All my mother wanted was for my sister and me to
fit in, to have a nice safe, normal life. I wanted . . . anything
but. I wanted more. More excitement, more passion. I was never the
prettiest or most popular girl at school, and I never really wanted
to be. But, God, how I wanted this. I knew magic would set me
apart, make me different . . . special.”
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting that,” he said
quietly.
“But there is a wrong way to go about it. My
parents were out that night because I arranged it. I had to—I was
determined to cast the spell and that was my one and only chance to
do it. You were right about that,” she acknowledged.
“The Winter Rose Spell,” he said.
Eve nodded. “A chance to see the face of my beloved
. . . my one true love,” she drawled. “How could I pass that up? I
was young and starry-eyed . . . and stupid.”
“And did you?” he asked, careful not to sound as
invested in the answer as he felt. “See your one true love?”
She tucked her hair behind her ear, a gesture that
struck him as so young and excruciatingly vulnerable it was like a
hot wire laid across his heart.
“According to Grand I did; I don’t remember it.
That’s one of the blanks. What I do remember is lying to my parents
and sneaking around behind their backs for weeks getting ready to
cast the spell. If I hadn’t, there wouldn’t have been any candles
left burning in the turret that night.”
“That’s what started the fire?” he asked. “Candles
burning in the turret?”
“You said you read the news stories.”
He bit his lip. He had indeed; he’d read every old
news article he could find and watched all the available film
footage. What’s more, he understood that news was Eve Lockhart’s
business, her stock and trade, her armor. She dealt in facts and
details and cold, hard truth. She’d built a reputation on her
ability to tell fact from fancy, and it was going to take more than
some theorizing or conjecturing on his part to sway her from what
she knew to be true. Especially a truth she’d clung to for so
long.
“I can’t believe I’m going on and on about this
with everything else we have to worry about,” she said. “We need to
find Pavane before he finds us, and that won’t happen if we sit
here all afternoon rehash—oh no.” She checked her watch.
“Damn.”
She’d lost track of the time. Allison Snow was
having her bandages removed that afternoon, and Eve had promised
she would be there to lend moral support. Now, because she’d been
busy wallowing in her own misery, she was probably going to be
late.
“Problem?” Hazard asked.
“Yes. I’m supposed to be at the hospital in ten
minutes. It has to do with work,” she explained when his expression
became concerned.
He still looked concerned. “I thought you were
taking time off from work until this is over?”
“I am. Mostly. But there are places where my work
spills over into my life, and I can’t take time off from those
things.” She briefly explained the bond she shared with Allison.
“It doesn’t matter what else is going on, I have to be there for
her . . . I want to be there. And I’ll never make it on time
if I go all the way back to your house to get my car. If you don’t
mind dropping me off, I can grab a taxi and pick up my car later.
The hospital’s not far from here.”
“I know where it is. And I do mind,” he said, even
as he started the car and began driving in that direction. “I’ll
drive you there, but I’m not going to drop you off and leave. I’ll
wait for you.”
“I could be there a long time.”
“I’ll wait.”
He really was a confusing man, thought Eve. Hot.
Cold. Charming. Rude. This morning he was none too happy to see
her, and now he didn’t want to leave. “It’s nice of you to offer,
but it’s really not necessary.”
“I’m not doing it to be nice, and it is necessary
if I want to protect my side of our deal. If Pavane gets his hands
on you before we get the pendant, I’m out of luck.”
“How gallant,” she observed, a sardonic edge to her
tone. “But I don’t think you have anything to worry about; Pavane’s
not likely to pounce on me in the middle of a busy hospital.”
“If you’re naïve enough to believe that, then you
need protecting even more than I thought.” He braked when the
stoplight ahead turned from yellow to red and glanced at her, as
somber as she’d ever seen him. “I didn’t tell you this earlier
because I was hoping we’d get lucky this morning; I didn’t want to
worry you if I didn’t have to. Last night I read everything I could
find on the spell Pavane used to bind his spirit to the pendant.
There are different theories about how it’s done, but they all
agree on one thing: no matter what energies he called on to get
back here, his presence in this realm is only temporary.”
“How temporary?”
“About forty-eight hours, maybe a little more.
After that he’ll be too weak to perform the ritual to make his stay
permanent.”
Eve began to smile. “And you were afraid this was
going to worry me? It sounds like you’re saying all we have to do
is be patient and he’ll go away on his own.”
“No. I’m saying that he’s going to be desperate to
perform that ritual, and getting more desperate by the minute. To
do it, he’ll need to draw on the pendant’s full power, and for that
he needs you. Get used to me being around, because I won’t be
letting you out of my sight anytime soon.”
Hazard had no problem keeping an eye on Eve from a
chair off to one side of the hospital waiting room. He would have
been hard put to keep his eyes off her. That had been true from the
start, of course, but there was something different about her
today, something fresh and even more captivating to him.
The waiting room was already filled with people
when they arrived. Allison Snow had asked Eve to be with her for
the removal of her final bandages, but others had come on their own
to surprise the young woman with an enthusiastic show of support.
There were friends and family members, a couple of her college
professors and several nurses who had cared for her along the way.
And there were firefighters, some in uniform, some off duty, as
well as the rescue crew that had been the first to treat her after
she was carried from the building. They mingled and talked like
friends, and Hazard soon realized that’s because they were. They’d
been brought together by tragedy, and they’d run into each other in
the hospital hallways and waiting areas many times in the months
since, ready to do whatever they could to help put back together
the young life some of them had risked their own to save.
When Eve walked in, there was an immediate
outpouring of warm greetings. Accustomed to being a stranger
wherever he went, he found an empty chair on the sidelines and
watched her move around the room, giving and receiving hugs and
affectionate teasing. She reminded him of a butterfly released into
its natural habitat, free to spread its wings and soar. He’d seen
her worried and afraid and dazed with passion, and he’d watched her
on camera, both as the lost-looking fifteen-year-old in film clips
from the days after the fire, and as the competent, controlled
professional journalist she was today. But he’d never seen this
easygoing and breezy side of her.
Even her clothes were different today; both the
color and the fit were softer and, to his eye, more feminine. He
liked it. A lot. Especially what she was wearing on top. Not that
he didn’t appreciate the snug-fitting clothes she usually wore;
there was just something about the blue and white thing she had on
that reminded him of sunny skies and made him want to smile and
never look away. Maybe it was the way it swirled with her body when
she moved, and settled on her curves when she was still. And the
teasing sheer-ness of whatever it was made of, seeming to offer a
glimpse of what was underneath but never really doing it, no matter
how closely he looked.
He wished they were alone so he could slide his
hands inside, up over her soft, warm skin all the way to her
breasts. And then he remembered his vow never to touch her that way
again, and he just wished things could be different.
“Friend of Eve’s?”
The query broke his musing and he looked up,
instantly on guard and ready with a frown for the man who had
appeared beside him.
Not discouraged, the man held out his right hand
and smiled. He had short sandy brown hair and was wearing a tan
shirt with a Providence Fire Department emblem on the pocket.
“Jack Porter,” he said. “I saw you walk in with Eve
and I thought I’d come on over and say hello. It’s easy to get lost
in this crowd.”
He was trying to be friendly, Hazard realized. He’d
seen him sitting there alone and had taken pity on him and decided
to walk over and befriend him. It was the kind of basic human
interaction that he vaguely remembered from long ago. He even
thought there might have been a time when he was comfortable with
such gestures, and the feelings that inspired them. But not
now.
He stood and went through the motion of shaking the
man’s hand. “Gabriel Hazard. I find it more comfortable on the
outskirts.”
“Opposites attract, huh?” Jack Porter quipped. He
caught Hazard’s puzzled look and gestured across the room to where
Eve stood, laughing and surrounded by firefighters. “You and Eve.
She’s really something, isn’t she? I mean, you see someone like her
on television and what’s the first thing you think? Snooty. But
she’s not. She mixes right in, no puttin’ on airs. And bighearted
as all get out. Hell, she logged more hours by Allison’s bedside in
those early days than anyone outside the family. Not afraid to get
her hands dirty either; we held a car wash as a fund-raiser, and
she was the first one to grab a bucket and a sponge. But then, you
probably already know all that.”
He paused and grinned, and Hazard tried to decide
what he was supposed to say at this point. Porter spared him the
trouble.
“You’re lucky I’m a happily married man,” he told
Hazard, “or you’d have some real competition. So. What is it you
do, Gabe? Can I call you Gabe?”
“Why not?” Hazard countered, thinking that the
other man’s friendliness might be motivated at least in part by a
desire to find out if he was good enough for Eve. “I’m in
finance.”
Porter nodded. “Investments, that kind of
thing?”
Hazard nodded. It was true enough. He was good at
managing investments. You could become good at most anything if you
had enough time.
Porter winced and whistled softly between his
teeth. “That’s got to be a tough business these days, with the
economy tanking and all.”
“It has its moments. I’m sure your work does
also.”
“Oh yeah,” Porter agreed heartily. “Long hours, the
city always trying to stiff us at contract time, and I threw my
back out humpin’ hose the other day. Hurts like a bastard.” He
braced his hands at his waist and bent slightly from side to side.
“I still wouldn’t trade it for anything else. It’s in my blood; my
grandfather was a fire-man, I’ve got uncles and cousins on the job,
and my dad worked a ladder until he got bumped up to
investigations.”
Hazard regarded him with new interest. “Your father
is a Providence fire investigator?”
“Was. He retired a few years back, but he was lead
investigator for over twenty years. He handled all the big fires in
the city. And man, has he got stories.”
“I’m sure he does.” Hazard formed a smile and held
his hand out toward the empty chair beside his. “Have a seat, Jack.
I’d love to hear a few of them.”