“The more curses you break, the sooner you’ll die.”

Magic has a price—and for Amber Sarga it’s days and years off her life. Each curse she breaks ages her—and the bigger the curse the bigger the cost, and not only to her. That’s why she hides away and has vowed not to get involved again… That’s why she hates looking in a mirror…

And then an ill-fated stranger arrives. Rafe Davail doesn’t believe in curses—not even knowing that in his family every first son dies young. Amber offers guidance but she won’t break the curse. Still, as she grows closer to Rafe and discovers the secrets of their pasts, she wonders if for this time, this man, she should risk it all…

Praise for the novels of

Robin D. Owens

“RITA® Award-winner Owens offers a world strongly imbued

with a sense of magic in this contemporary fantasy series launch.…

Romance and fantasy fans will enjoy Jenni’s preparation to enter a

new world of compromise between the Folk, humans, and technology.”

—Publishers Weekly, starred review, on Enchanted No More

“A multi-faceted, fast-paced gem of a book.”

—The Best Reviews on Guardian of Honor

“This book will enchant readers who enjoy strong heroines.”

—RT Book Reviews on Sorceress of Flight

“Fans of Anne McCaffrey and Mercedes Lackey will appreciate the novel’s

honorable protagonists and their lively animal companions.”

—Publishers Weekly on Protector of the Flight

“Strong characterization combined with deadly danger

make this story vibrate with emotional resonance.

Stay tuned as events accelerate toward the final battle.”

—RT Book Reviews on Keepers of the Flame

“A glorious end to the series.”

—Wild on Books on Echoes in the Dark

Enchanted Again

Robin D. Owens

www.mirabooks.co.uk

To all my friends, online and off; to my critique buddies

and beta readers, word warriors and other LUNA authors.

I couldn’t do this without your continued support.

And to my mom and my new stepdad.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

March

Denver, Colorado

IF SHE AGED naturally, Amber Sarga would have been twenty-six. But her gift for curse breaking cost her days, weeks, months…years.

She’d found another gray hair today. Gray hair on a gray day.

Amber was taking a break from her home genealogical business to prepare a flower bed. Halfheartedly she stuck the big trowel into the dirt. An odd scent drifted to her and she straightened. There was something in the air....

When her yellow Labrador puppies, Baxt and Zor, went into a barking frenzy, she turned. And saw a small brown being in her garden. Her mouth fell open. He was plucking a bloom from the heavy mass of her violets and dropping the flower into a jar.

He was nothing human. Small, under three feet, thin, triangular face and large triangular ears, he was definitely magic. Over the past few years, living in Mystic Circle’s cul-de-sac, Amber had gradually become aware that there was true magic in the world, and magical people.

Although they tried, the puppies couldn’t get near him. They bounced off some sort of force field. He wore boots and sturdy pants and a shirt. All brown.

Amber swallowed. “What are you?”

“I’m a brownie,” he grumbled.

She had a brownie in her garden. She swallowed again. “And you are, uh, harvesting violet blooms?”

His brown slit-pupil gaze fixed on her trowel, he gave a short nod. “You have good stuff here.” He sniffed. “Much better than Jenni’s few plants.”

He must mean Jenni Weavers, her neighbor to the south. With enough spit to speak again, Amber said, “Thank you. And you need the blooms for…?”

“Going to crystallize them as a candied accent.”

“Ah.” Amber nodded. It didn’t seem strange that a magical being would eat violets. “I have a chocolate pie recipe with crystallized violets.”

The brownie’s large eyes grew huge, seeming to take up more space on his face. “Chocolate pie,” he breathed, clutching his jar. Then he offered it to her. “Chocolate pie.” The tips of his ears quivered.

Ah, so he loved chocolate.

“I could make a chocolate pie for you. And maybe you could help me with my magical gift.”

His mouth pursed as he scanned her from top to toe. “One of the Cumulustre human offspring. Gypsy strain?”

“Huh? I’m Amber Sarga.”

He scrinched his boney shoulders together and kept his mouth shut.

The puppies’ yips increased in volume. With a flick of his fingers and a guttural mutter, the brownie cast something fine and silky at the pups. They abruptly collapsed into snoring sleep. Then he glanced at her from the corner of his eyes and bent down to caress another violet bloom. “I can candy them for you…for the chocolate pie.”

“Of course.”

“When will you make it?”

Amber raised her brows. “I’ll shop for the ingredients today and the chocolate pie will be done tomorrow afternoon.” Every time she said chocolate pie the brownie’s catlike pupils dilated a little more.

Again with the mournful eyes. He was better with the appealing look even than the puppies.

He said, “All the chocolate in Jenni’s house disappeared.”

Into a round brownie tummy, Amber figured.

A shiver ran along the ground under Amber’s soles. Her ears popped as a female brownie appeared. “What are you doing here, Pred?” She put her hands on her hips and tapped a tiny foot on the yellow grass. Her flexible triangular ears rolled close to her skull and up again. She glared at the man. “You knew she has enough magic to see you, and that she believes in magic. Why didn’t you turn invisible?”

The guy threw out his chest. “She’s Jenni’s friend and our neighbor. If she can see magic, better that she sees me than violets being plucked and vanishing.”

With a huff of breath the woman shook her head. “We agreed that we wouldn’t contact her. You know the consequences.”

“What consequences?” asked Amber.

The female brownie sniffed lustily in Amber’s direction. “As we thought. A descendant of the air-elf Cumulustre family.” The tiny woman frowned. “Cadet branch. Strain of Romani blood.”

“Not enough for the gypsies to claim me,” Amber said, barely able to speak for the words buzzing in her brain: Descendant. Elf. Cumulustre. Elf!

“Now we’ve met her, we can’t ignore her,” the little woman continued, staring at Pred. “You will have to inform the great brownie Tiro that he is not free. His geas to serve the human branch of the Cumulustre family is still in effect.”

The guy cringed, shoulders up, ears down. “Tiro will be angry.”

“Were the violets worth it?” the woman asked.

Standing tall—nearly three feet—the guy hissed, “Yesss. She is going to make us chocolate pie with the violets. Anything else is not our problem.”

“Chocolate pie.” The woman stilled. Weakly she said, “Well, I suppose the damage is done.” She took the jar from the guy’s limp fingers, sprinkled fizzing magic on it and the violets candied.

“This enough?” asked the man.

“Yes,” Amber said automatically.

The brownie woman sighed. “Maybe, if we are careful, we won’t have to say anything to Tiro for a while.” She put the jar on the ground, linked elbows with the man, muttered, “Cumulustre” and they both vanished. Probably to next door. Amber’s next-door neighbor, Jenni Weavers, was not quite human. Amber wasn’t exactly sure what Jenni was, but the woman had a way with fire.

Amber sat down hard, and the puppies, now released from the sleep spell, bolted over to her and tumbled into her lap, licking her face.

Rafe winced as his friend’s fist hit the top of his car. No way to treat a Tesla. Rafe said nothing. Conrad had just watched his wife divorce him and the judge give custody of his son to his ex.

Not to mention the fact that former wife, infant son and her attorneys vanished as soon as they’d left the courtroom. No sign of them, hide nor hair.

Rafe dreaded the words Conrad would say pretty damn soon.

“It’s the curse,” Conrad said.

Those words. Everything in Rafe stilled. Or maybe his muscles froze and his blood pumped hot. One of the strange things that had brought them together in college, the fact that they both came from “cursed” families. Weird in the modern world.

Conrad fumbled his key chain. Rafe jostled Conrad, snagging the door opener when it dropped from his fingers. “You’re riding. I’m driving.”

Grumbling, Conrad shambled to the passenger side. As soon as he was strapped in, he repeated, “It’s the curse.”

Rafe stopped checking the rearview for the progress of the huge SUV inching out into the lane behind him. He looked at Conrad, who was as pale as the white shirt he wore with his gray suit. “You can’t believe a guy you saw once,” Rafe said.

“The guy was my father, and he was right. We Cymblers love and lose. Lose our sons, too. Soon after we find the kid again as an adult, we die. Has been happening for generations. He left a family tree. You saw it.”

“You shouldn’t believe an alcoholic.”

“That’s brutal, Rafe. You’re just in denial of your own damn deadly curse.”

Rafe started the car. “I’ll get you home and we’ll check in with the private investigative firm I hired to keep track of your wife.”

“Wait. Rafe, just wait a damn minute.” Conrad sounded drunk. He hadn’t been sleeping well, Rafe knew that, and Conrad was probably hanging on to the last shred of his control. Hell, the man was desperate.

Rafe flexed his fingers on the steering wheel. Nice machine. He preferred Italian, but this electric vehicle was excellent. “What?”

Conrad said, “I’m thinking we need to try more unusual avenues to get rid of our curses.”

“What are you talking about?” The SUV was finally gone. Rafe reversed.

“I’ve got the name of a curse breaker.” Conrad tapped the nav and a map showed up. “That’s the way.”

Snorting before he grimaced, Rafe said, “This is stupid.”

“Humor me.” Conrad’s voice cracked.

“Yeah, right.” Rafe waited a beat. Conrad said nothing more. Rafe could understand pride. “Okay.” He scrolled the map so he could see the whole thing, then back at the route. Rafe hadn’t been in Denver for a while, but he was good with maps.

A lot of cops were in the vicinity and they eyed the hot red Tesla roadster. Rafe drove carefully to the street.

Before he could say anything, his cell rang with a familiar tone. “That’s my detective. Pocket of my jacket. Put it on speaker.” A cop was tailing him, watching. He’d mind his manners.

Conrad snatched the phone, thumbed it on. Through the static, Rafe heard, “Davail, this is Herrera at Ace Investigations.”

“Yeah?” Rafe asked.

“We lost them,” reported the private detective Rafe had hired…just in case.

“Find them. Money is no object.” He jerked his head at Conrad, who turned off the phone. Then Rafe accelerated on northbound Speer and kept to the posted, low speed limit on the elevated bridge.

Conrad said, “Thanks, bro. I’ll pay you back.” He rolled his shoulders. “Now it begins, the search—” he waved “—everything else. At least I know I’ll live until I see him again. Not like your family death curse. You really think you’re going to last eight months to your thirty-third birthday?”

Rafe ignored the fast clench of his gut. “For sure. Don’t worry about Marta and Dougie. We’ll find them. This P.I. firm’s the best.”

Conrad shook his head again.

A few minutes later they’d pulled up and parked in front of a brick Victorian house, complete with turret. The place was tucked away in a quiet cul-de-sac.

“This is such a stupid idea,” Rafe said.

Conrad said stiffly, “She’s the real deal, a gypsy and a curse breaker. I got her name a while back from a Romani psychic.”

Conrad had always believed more in the “curses” than Rafe. Believed enough to research them a little, visit a psychic or three, line up experts, “keep his options open.” Rafe had ignored his friend’s quirk then. Now it was a real pain in the ass. More, Rafe was worried that some wacko would latch onto Conrad’s hurt and fear and milk it for all he was worth. Which was considerably less than it had been since Marta had wanted a lump sum settlement and Conrad had paid it.

But Conrad still had a couple of million to attract leeches of the worst sort.

Conrad closed his door, glanced around. He rolled his shoulders. “Don’t need to lock the Tesla. Lots of good energy.”

Rafe winced, but Conrad loved his car. Seemed to Rafe that was a good sign they wouldn’t be staying long. The sooner he got Conrad back to the home he’d inherited from his mother, the better.

“I’ll know if the woman’s a fake. I always know,” Conrad said.

Rafe shrugged. Conrad had always said that, Rafe had always doubted the whole thing.

“There’s a certain something about a woman with psi.” His mouth twisted. “Marta had it, a strong gift.” Conrad cocked his head. “Do you hear voices?”

“Kids,” Rafe said. The tones had been high and piping, but were lost now in wild puppy barks. Reluctantly he followed Conrad as the man ignored the front concrete sidewalk and went around the south side of the house to a six-foot iron-post gate.

“Hello, Amber Sarga!” Conrad called.

Two young golden Labs raced from the back to jump on the other side of the gate. A frowning woman appeared a few instants later, not looking anything like the image Rafe had imagined. He’d visualized long dark and curly hair, and her wearing gypsy garb like he’d seen in films.

Instead he thought of honey. Her skin was a natural tan, her eyes slightly tilted and golden brown. Her shoulder-length hair was a mixture of honey-and-maple-syrup-colored shades. And her lips were full and a dark rose. She wore blue jeans and two layered sweaters. The bottom one was white, a nice contrast against her skin, the top a dark turquoise.

“Ms. Sarga.” Conrad actually grabbed the gate and rattled it. “I need to speak to you immediately. It’s an emergency.”

Amber stared at the pair of handsome guys. About her physical age of early thirties, older than her true age of twenty-six.

The dark, sophisticated-looking one appeared sweating and desperate. The guy with blond hair was scowling. If the clothes they wore and the car they drove was any indication, they were rich.

None of that mattered as much as the fact that her fingers were tingling like they did when her gift stirred. She was in the presence of a strong curse. Then a wave of air rippled toward her and she revised her thought. Two strong curses.

“Hsssst!”

She glanced back and saw the male brownie just around the corner of her house.

“Come back here! Don’t go near them! Don’t use your magic!” A stream of hushed words shot from the small man.

“Please, Ms. Sarga,” the dark guy pleaded.

A lump of aching emotion formed in her chest. She didn’t want to refuse someone who needed help. She hated doing that.

A desperate man. A desperate curse. A decade of aging.

“Baxt, Zor, go to the yard.” She used a hand signal but didn’t think the pups would have obeyed her if they hadn’t spotted the brownie.

Slowly Amber walked to the gate. It wasn’t padlocked, so the men could have entered, good that they hadn’t.

“I’m sorry.” She made her voice as soothing and gentle as she could. “My workload is full right now.” A lie, she could use a good client or two—but not this one. “I can recommend—”

“Please, Ms. Sarga. I must speak with you immediately.”

“Sir, genealogy is not a business that has emergencies.” She couldn’t help him now—maybe never—but not now, when she might be able to learn more about her magic from the brownies and how to use it better.

There was a long pause. His voice cracked. “My wife has vanished, along with my year-old son.”

A shudder passed through her. She wanted to ask what his curse was—but that would be revealing too much.

“I’m sorry.” She forced the words from her throat.

The man jerked hard on the gate and she stepped back.

“Conrad, take it easy.” The blond guy put his hand on the dark one’s shoulder.

“Conrad?” asked Amber, then felt a surge of anger at herself. Don’t ask names. Don’t get involved. Her gift didn’t age only her. And she’d given up her magic as too dangerous months ago, gotten the puppies to ensure she wouldn’t waver.

The blond man weighed her with a hard stare.

Words tumbled from Conrad. “I’m Conrad Tyne-Cymbler. My curse has already happened. I’m worried for my son.” He drew in a ragged breath. “I don’t want him to grow up without a father like I did.”

She flinched at the pain in Conrad’s voice. “I’m sor—”

“Please help me. You’re a genealogist. I have a family tree. I can hire you to work on that as well. I’ll pay you whatever.”

“I can’t find your son—”

“I have private investigators,” Conrad said at the same time the blond man said, “We’re working that situation.”

Conrad continued, “I’m desperate. Please help me.”

Amber blinked again, this time against stupidly stinging eyes. She couldn’t refuse a direct and desperate request for help. At least she could listen, maybe trace the original curse so the guy could break it himself. That could happen. Maybe.

“All right.” Her voice was thick, dammit! She didn’t want the man to know how weak she was.

“Can we come in?”

She said the first thing that came to mind. “Do you have your family tree?”

“I…uh…no.”

She looked at the blond, who had angled his body as if to protect his friend from her. “Do you?”

He snorted. “No.”

She widened her hands. “I need to prepare. Come back tomorrow.”

“You promise you’ll listen?” persisted Conrad.

Amber hesitated.

“I need you,” he pressed.

Again she couldn’t say no. A problem most of the women of her family had had. They were all dead now. “All right. Tomorrow. Nine a.m. at my office on Hayward and Oak. You have the address?”

Conrad nodded. “Thank you.”

“This is crap,” said the blond.

She sucked in a breath. “Do you have a card?”

“Card?” Conrad asked blankly.

After another narrow-eyed stare at her, Conrad’s friend dipped a hand in the pocket of Conrad’s fine gray suit jacket and pulled out a piece of pasteboard. Scowling, the man shoved it though the spears of the gate.

Amber had to go closer to get it and as she did, the hair on the back of her neck rose. This man’s curse was even worse than the other’s. He didn’t appear to care.

She took the card, avoiding his fingers.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” She turned and walked to her backyard. Pred, the brownie, was still there.

They stared at each other silently until the roar of the engine announced that the men were gone. The brownie looked up at her with big, sad eyes, his ears rolled down to his head. “Too late now. I will have to tell Tiro about you. He will be angry.” The small being shook his head. “It is not good to live with an angry brownie.”

“Live! What?”

With a shake of his head, Pred said, “And that is not the worst. Your magic hurts you when you use it. I am sorry for you.”

But not as sorry as Amber was…

Chapter 2

RAFE HAD BEEN driving for several minutes when he had to say it. “That was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen you do.”

“I’m dealing with my curse and the aftermath,” Conrad snapped, not opening his eyes. “Unlike you. And you’ve made a career of being stupid. Rock-climbing, glacier snowboarding, extreme sports. Like you’re tempting death to take you before you’re thirty-three.”

“Like I’m living every moment of my life to the fullest,” Rafe said evenly, an old argument.

“I really love Marta and my son.” Conrad veered back to the most important topic.

“I know you do,” Rafe said. He threaded through the traffic on Speer, muscles moving as he used the clutch and gearshift. He was better with action.

Conrad said, “You told the P.I. team to check out flights to Eastern Europe, right?”

“Of course. And did you do a run on her?” Rafe asked.

“Marta ran,” Conrad answered.

“I meant, did you have someone investigate the sexy genealogist?”

Conrad cracked an eye, the side of his mouth near Rafe kicked up. “Sexy, huh?” He closed his eyes. “She did have a good body. Looked like her name…Amber. Yeah, I had someone research her background.”

“When?” Rafe asked.

“When?” Conrad’s tones were getting slow and foggy. “When I got her name. ’Bout a year and a half ago, I guess.”

“You still have the file?”

“Sh-sure.” Conrad fell asleep.

Rafe took the exit for Conrad’s mansion in Cherry Creek. Since Rafe only had a small, dusty apartment in Manhattan that he hit from time to time between adventures, he was bunking with Conrad.

At a stoplight, he punched the in-car phone for his investigators.

“Mr. Davail,” the detective’s assistant said politely. “We will call you with any updates.”

“Got another job for you.”

“Oh. Yes?”

“Name is Amber Sarga, gypsy genealogist, age in the early thirties, brown hair and eyes, about five feet seven inches, a hundred and thirty pounds.” He still thought of the woman as honeyed, much warmer and more vital than amber. Not stony to him. “She lives at number seven Mystic Circle in Denver.” He paused, mouth turning down, decided to say the words anyway. “Supposed to be—” but he couldn’t get “a curse breaker” out of his mouth “—psychic.”

“We’ll get right on that,” the assistant assured him.

“It’s urgent. Got a meeting with her tomorrow morning.”

“We’ll have a report to you by the end of the day.”

“Thanks.” He disconnected the call and wondered what the hell he was getting into. Conrad twitched and moaned.

A fleeting curiosity about his own family tree—and all those first sons who died before thirty-three—wisped through Rafe’s mind.

Maybe he’d call his younger brother. Gabe was the practical one, running the family corporations, salt of the earth. He’d said something about a family tree a long while back. Rafe would bet his helicopter that Gabe had a chart or two Rafe could slap down in front of the honeyed Ms. Sarga.

Not that it would change anything. A tendril of fear began to whip acid inside his gut. Conrad’s curse had come true.

Would his?

Amber played with the pups, enough to tire them for a few minutes, then went to her downstairs office and initiated a computer search for Conrad Tyne-Cymbler.

He didn’t have any social network pages, but her online investigation program showed his home—inherited—at a pricey address in Cherry Creek. His worth was recently downgraded due to a prospective divorce settlement. Amber winced, recalling the hurt that had emanated from the man. A quick search of public court files showed that the divorce hearing had been set for this morning.

She did an online query about his wife, Marta Dimir. Nothing showed up…except a quick ice-cube quiver sliding through Amber. Her minor magic that she used in genealogy, a certain past-time-sense, warned her that if she explored Marta Dimir’s background she would find violence, despair, darkness.

Amber shook off the feeling. Let Tyne-Cymbler’s investigators take care of the wife angle. The man had spoken of his son, and Amber noted that the boy was nearly a year old. But that wasn’t what snagged her interest. Tyne-Cymbler obviously felt that the curse that affected him would also impact his son.

A father-to-son curse.

She brought up the professional genealogical database she used most often. The Colorado Tynes had a family tree available online, about five years out of date. The chart listed Conrad’s father, deceased, and Conrad, but named no other Cymblers. It didn’t show the Cymbler line.

There were some pics in the family albums and one of them showed the blond guy, an old college roommate of Conrad—Rafe Davail. Very uncommon surname.

Very good-looking guy who lived in Manhattan.

Without thought her fingers typed in his name on the ancestry site and got a hit. She stared at the chart.

Davail had a father-son curse, too. Anxiety tightened her throat as her eyes tracked the graph. For the past three hundred years, the first Davail son had died before he’d turned thirty-three. Rafe’s father was gone, so was his grandfather and great-grandfather. There was a great-uncle who was a second son, and Rafe had a younger brother.

That wasn’t good.

The only item of value Amber had in the world from her family was a gypsy ancestress’s journal. A far too sketchy journal when it came to talking about curses.

But she knew what she was seeing.

Rafe Davail was very cursed.

Thumps and bumps woke Amber in the night. Her heart pounded—home invaders! The pups sprang from her bed and shot down the hall, barking. She snatched at the phone, pressed 911, started shouting over the dispatcher. “This is number seven—”

The ceiling light flicked on and a brownie appeared on the end of her bed. The phone slipped from her grip.

He wasn’t Pred from next door. This one wasn’t as skinny, though he was still thin. His face was more wrinkled, with lines of bad humor. His head between his large triangular ears was black. “Go ahead,” the brownie said. “Let’s see some fun.” He went transparent.

Amber fumbled for the phone. “Never mind,” she panted into it. “False alarm. My… A friend came in.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?” asked the dispatcher.

“Fine. Fine,” Amber said.

“We have a fix on your phone and will send a squad car by.”

The brownie opened and closed his hands, fingers stiff, mumbling something. Again her phone dropped.

“Changed the signal. They’ll go to the wrong address, blocks away from Mystic Circle,” he sneered.

“Who are you and what do you want?” Amber asked.

His features drew together and darkened with anger. His large triangular ears shook, probably with fury. She felt at a disadvantage in bed so she hopped out. “Who are—”

“I heard you the first time. Tiro. I gotta live with you.” He jumped from the bed, making gargley noises that might be brownie cursing.

“Tiro?” Amber asked.

“My name, human.” The brownie stalked over and walked around her. She turned in place to keep an eye on him. He opened his mouth and curled his tongue…like a cat using a sixth sense.

“The Mistweaver brownies were right. A wretched Cumulustre descendant. I thought your whole line had died out from stupidity four generations ago.”

Amber crossed her arms. The March night was cold since she kept the heat low. Her nightgown was flannel, but her feet were bare. “I beg your pardon,” she said in a voice as chilly as her feet.

She heard the grinding of his teeth, then he flung his head back. “And you look as stupid as all the rest. Smell like it, too. A curse breaker, right? And when you ‘help’ someone, you age? And your body is nearly a decade older than your true age?”

He knew her magic. He knew her family. What else did he know and what could she learn from him?

She sighed. “Yes.”

Tiro stomped to the middle of the room. “If you human women of the Cumulustre bloodline had learned your lesson, I wouldn’t be here. Bound to watch over you and serve you—those’re my ancient orders from the elf.” Stomp. “Can’t contact Cumulustre without permission. Those damn Mistweaver brownies won’t talk to him, either. Stuck.” A hard jump on her floor.

“Watch over me why?”

He shot a finger at her. “’Cause you’re a curse breaker and you age when you do magic. Cumulustre wants you watched until all of you are gone.”

Amber opened her mouth.

“Stop pestering me,” he snapped, whiskery eyebrows dipping.

She took a different angle. “So are you going to fall down and froth at the mouth?”

“No.” But he stomped again. “But you’re going to press your luck and break curses and age and die before your time, ‘helping others,’ like all of your ilk. Damn women.”

Now ice chilled her insides as well as the late winter air wrapping around her. She was afraid he was right.

“Never saw a curse you didn’t want to break. Have to help.” He barked a laugh and the puppies yipped louder, pushing against him. He rubbed each of their heads and didn’t move an inch when they bumped against him. “Stupid,” he repeated, staring with a considering eye. “You look softer than most. You’ll probably go fast.”

“I don’t think so.” She cleared her throat, knowing she shouldn’t ask, but couldn’t help herself. “You can’t help me with my gift?”

Tiro smiled with all his pointy teeth and Amber took a step back. He looked more than happy, positively gleeful. “Give me permission and I can contact Cumulustre and all your problems will be over.”

Grue slithered along her spine as if she’d stepped into a horror movie. One where you made a bad choice or a bad wish and suddenly you were running for your life or tortured or dead. She could hear her now-rapid pulse in her temples. “No, thank you. You can take the guest room.”

His lip curled. “I want your office. Ground floor, view of the gardens, round window.” He leered a bit. “Closer to the elemental energy balancer’s house and the best magic.”

“Huh?”

“Jin-des-farne Mist-wea-ver.” His so-precise enunciation was to intimidate.

Her eyes narrowed. “Fine. Tonight you move everything in my office to the room above it, place things exactly as they are below. If you can do that, you can have the office as your room. If I find anything out of place, you immediately move everything back to the room on the ground floor and you get a cubicle area in the basement.” She didn’t know the brownie’s magical powers, and from his widened eyes and a hint of respect, she thought the job might press him a little.

She kept her gaze steady and widened her own smile to show teeth, even though they weren’t as sharp as his. “And you do that without the rude thumping noises that woke the puppies and me.”

The dogs were drooling on his feet and he didn’t seem to notice.

Tiro clapped his hands. “Done!” He vanished, and the pups looked at the dark square of the hallway beyond her open door. Then their heads swiveled back to their baskets on the floor and her comforter on the bed. Baxt plopped onto his rump and scratched his ear, then hopped back onto the bed. Zor circled around where Tiro had stood, sniffing deeply. He ambled to the door, sniffed again, then joined Baxt on the bed. They stared at Amber with big brown eyes and thwapped their tails on the bed and her chest loosened. Tiro was not the new object of adoration.

Settling back into bed and turning the light off, she considered the information she’d gleaned. Jenni Weavers’s real name was Jindesfarne Mistweaver. Sounded magical to Amber.

The brownies that Amber had met that morning were now called “Mistweaver” brownies. Were they bound to Jenni like the unhappy Tiro was to Amber? So many questions.

But with every conversation Amber learned a little more. Jenni was an elemental energy balancer and Tiro wanted a room closest to Jenni’s house. Amber could draw deductions from that. The old elements—earth, air, fire, water—Jenni could equalize, which, in turn, probably made the magic better somehow. Amber had always liked the feel of Mystic Circle and Jenni’s magic might be the reason why.

As Amber let her eyelids drift shut, she listened for sounds. Nothing more than the dogs’ breathing, the hum of the furnace turning on. Nothing from Tiro. Was he a dream? Perhaps. Dream or not, would he still be here in the morning?

She didn’t know. She snuggled deeper into the pillow-top on her mattress. She’d learn more about magic from him, she was sure. A smile curved her lips.

Meanwhile he was moving all her bookcases and books and maps and charts and the huge desk and credenzas up to the second-story room at the end of the hall. She’d known after she’d furnished the office downstairs that she’d made a mistake and should have used the upstairs room that got more sunlight during the year. Now that was being fixed.

Perfect.

When sun glistened on the faint coating of mist on her windows, Amber woke again—a little late as the puppies weren’t bouncing around on her bed. She figured the brownie was taking care of them as she heard playful barks from the backyard. Stretching languorously, she wondered at her changed circumstances.

Brownies in her garden, then a very grumpy one in her house. Just how nasty could he be? He wasn’t happy to be here, that was for sure, but if he’d moved her office, she’d cut him a break until he went on his way.

She slid from bed and noticed her door was shut. She liked the wiggling warmth of the puppies’ bodies, but waking to dog breath wasn’t always great. And if the brownie decided to stay—and she’d surmised that the brownies at Jenni’s house were responsible for a lot of the changes next door in the past couple of months—she’d prefer nominal privacy from him. She considered herself an outgoing and laid-back person but Tiro had been sour.

After showering and dressing, she went to the door at the back of the house that had been an exercise room.

Tiro appeared before the closed door, now painted a rich vanilla color. Apparently what she’d thought was a part of his head was a skull cap…and he was twisting it in his hands.

He was nervous. Good. She’d need to keep the upper hand in this relationship.

Stepping by him, she turned the knob, swung the door open, entered the room…and stood in shock. It was no longer the drab gray that she’d been meaning to paint. It was creamy beige like her office. She hadn’t meant… But other than the fact that the room was slightly smaller than the one below, everything looked precisely as she’d left it. She stared for a good minute at the shelves against the walls, the U-shaped desk facing the windows, the credenzas stacked with her current open files.

Amazing. But it wouldn’t do to be approving. She went to a bookshelf and lifted a cracked maroon mug that held pencils. Sure enough, her lucky penny was there. Slowly she walked into the U of her desk. A few pages of paper were on her desk, covered with notes on the Smart-Gortel job. She picked up the pen angled on the paper. It was blue.

She didn’t think she’d used a blue pen yesterday. She glanced at her engagement calendar/journal to her left. The ink noting her progress yesterday—a few hours of work, she’d have to step it up—was green.

Were brownies color-blind? Was Tiro?

She picked up the pen, turned to look at Tiro, who stood in the doorway. “This is wrong,” she said as coolly as she could. Her wits were still scattered from the amount of work he’d done—the magic that had happened when she’d slept.

His small shoulders tensed. She rolled one of her own, let her gaze scan the rest of the room.... “I’m sure there are other flaws. But the job is…acceptable.... You may stay in the downstairs room that was an office. Where did you put the exercise equipment?”

“In the basement. I painted the ceiling here.”

She glanced up. It was a wonderful trompe l’oeil, three-dimensional paint job, and it seemed like she was looking up into the round blue dome of the sky…with clouds.

“You like?”

Amber looked back at the brownie. She didn’t doubt that his disposition was grumpy, but there was a vulnerability in his eyes that softened her and she couldn’t crush his spirits. “Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.”

He plunked his cap back on his head, turned and thumped from the room down the hallway and the stairs. “I’m going to my room. If I must stay here…” His grumbling tapered off.

So far, so good. Somehow she’d convince Tiro to help her, and if not him, the Mistweaver brownies. She’d figure out how to make the curse breaking work without such a huge downside. There must be a way.

Rafe got up early and ran the streets of Cherry Creek for exercise. He’d looked in on Conrad and found the man sweaty and moaning in his bed. Guy wasn’t going to have much good sleep again. They’d heard nothing from the private investigative firm that was supposed to be tracking and finding Marta and Dougie.

Ace Investigations had reported on Amber Sarga. There was no evidence that she practiced as a psychic. She had a sole-proprietorship genealogical firm called Heritage that she marketed to expectant parents in upscale neighborhoods. She was a model citizen except for one speeding ticket on the elevated bridge on Speer Boulevard. That item made Rafe smile. The one anomaly was that although Rafe thought she was in her early thirties, her birth certificate said she was twenty-six.

Three years younger than Rafe’s brother, Gabe. Rafe had called Gabe.

His brother had been impatient when Rafe had called. A pang had gone through him. He’d once been the adored older brother. Not anymore, not for several years. He’d “played” and left Gabe to work at the family businesses. More, Rafe barely made time to see his family at holidays…what little family he had. Gabe was twenty-nine and hadn’t married, so there was only him and Uncle Richard. Rafe missed the closeness he’d had with Gabe, but they had little in common anymore. Rafe got the idea that his brother was counting the days until Rafe’s thirty-third birthday.

Just as he had been trying to ignore the image of an hourglass with sand zooming from a small amount at the top to a large pile in the bottom.

As his feet hit the sidewalk and force pounded through his legs and body, his thoughts segued to his curse, much as he didn’t want to think about it. How could he believe in something like that?

He’d asked Gabe, and his brother had replied the same as Conrad had. How could he afford not to?

Rafe still didn’t have any answer. But he knew one thing. If he were going to act, it would have to be soon.

And how did you act to stop a curse?

Curse breaker. Could there be such a thing?

He’d find out soon. And if she screwed with Conrad, he’d break her.

Chapter 3

AMBER HAD BRIBED the brownies into attending the morning meeting with Conrad Tyne-Cymbler. The bribe had been chocolate cake and cocoa with whipped cream.

She needed all the information on curses and her gift that the small magical beings could give her.

The Mistweaver brownies had sensed that Tiro had arrived and had dropped in to check on her. Amber got the feeling that with Jenni gone, they were bored. And curious. Tiro appeared truculently curious himself.

The only difficult part was that the shared office space she rented was down a few blocks in the small neighborhood business district. Apparently only the cul-de-sac was completely magical, and though the brownies could go anywhere, the cul-de-sac was “protected” against evil. So the brownies would be on the watch for any adverse magics. Since time was growing short, Amber didn’t ask about that.

She wondered if Rafe Davail would be with his friend and decided that he would…no matter how stupid he thought the whole situation was. He struck her as a man who looked out for his friends.

After a chat with the receptionist, Amber confirmed that the shared conference room was free and set up there. The brownies perched—invisible, she thought, though she could see them—on a corner cabinet, full of chocolate cake. The huge mug of cocoa they shared was between them. It seemed to waver between opaque and invisible if she stared.

She put the remainder of the cake on the table along with plates and forks, and had urns of coffee and tea prepared on one of the credenzas.

The sound of a high-performance car stopping and parking came. She twitched a lace curtain to look out the front window.

Yes, there were the men. Wearing casual clothes today, high-end jeans and raw silk shirts, Conrad in dark teal under a black bomber jacket. Rafe wore a long-sleeved navy shirt under a black motorcycle jacket. Conrad Tyne-Cymbler looked worse than yesterday. Rafe Davail appeared fiercely determined.

Her pulse beat faster. If she let it, the sound of her own blood pumping would magnify her anxiety. She could always turn down Conrad.

The front door creaked open, and the receptionist greeted the men.

Amber’s hands began to tingle and as she watched a faint pinkish-purple haze rose from her fingertips. She froze.

Tiro scowled, gestured his long-fingered hand at the mist. “You are stup— Not smart to break curses.” Another sniff. “But the more you age, the sooner I can leave.”

The more she aged, the sooner she would die, for sure.

And two cursed ones had just entered the building.

Double whammy.

“The men are here.” Hartha, the female brownie, opened the door a crack, then stepped back and put her hands on the small bumps of her hips and her foot—shod in a pointed-toe shoe of purple suede—tapped. “I think humans would consider them attractive. Elves would think them very ugly.”

Amber poured out a mug of hot black coffee and took a sip. Lovely. Yes, she found both of them attractive. She could guess what elves looked like from myths and movies. No doubt most humans looked ugly in comparison. To her, the brownies appeared a lot like wet cats. Who knew if these brownies were considered comely or not? Tiro’s features were more squashed than Hartha’s or Pred’s. Was that generational, or due to place of origin?

“The dark-haired one is staring at me and blinking, but I do not think he sees me. His face is pale and strained.” Hartha sniffed and Amber couldn’t decide whether it was in punctuation or she was scenting him. “He has a fair amount of magic for a human, but has suppressed it until it erupts in pulses. His magic is golden and orange with a touch of pale pink-violet.” The little brownie woman turned her head to Amber as if to prompt a response.

Amber had no clue what the colors meant.

“Earth and fire and air,” Pred said and smiled under a whipped-cream moustache.

“Air is elf,” Amber murmured.

“Earth is dwarf, fire is djinn,” said Pred.

Tiro grunted. “We don’t need to teach the girl.”

“She gave us chocolate cake and hot chocolate with whipped cream and is making us chocolate pie,” Hartha said as Pred slurped his cocoa. “It is difficult for minor folk such as we to obtain chocolate. You’ve had more than your share.”

“Earth is dwarf and fire is djinn,” Amber repeated. “Djinn like a genie. My neighbor Jenni Weavers—you call her Jindesfarne Mistweaver—is good with fire. She must be djinn.”

“Jenni is one quarter djinn and one quarter air and half human,” Hartha said, still looking out the door.

Fascinating. Amber continued her line of reasoning, slid her gaze to Pred to watch for any reaction that her next words were right. “Elves and dwarves and djinn are…ah…not minor elementals.”

“Greater Lightfolk,” Pred said. “Dwarf, djinn, elf, mer.”

“Mer…mermaid…merfolk?” Amber asked.

“Yes.” Pred came over to stand with Hartha, stared through the crack. “The dark-haired one is looking at us and is uncomfortable. The blond man is leaning on the desk and flirting with the human woman.”

Trying to get information about Amber from the receptionist, no doubt. Since Amber had rented the office space for several years and the receptionist appreciated well-built and well-heeled men, Rafe was probably getting several earfuls.

Pred made faces, then giggled. “The dark one—”

“Conrad,” Amber supplied.

“Conrad can almost see us. Maybe.” Pred wiggled his nose, stuck out his tongue. “He has much, much human blood.”

Amber returned to learning mode. “Conrad has no, um, minor Lightfolk in his bloodline?”

Pred chuckled like gravel skittering down the sidewalk. “We are too small to mate with normal-size humans. Especially air and fire sprites. And you are ugly.”

Hartha hissed and hopped a full yard back from the door. “The other! The fair-haired one!”

“Rafe,” Amber corrected.

“He has turned toward us. He does not see us, but I feel his magic and his curse.”

“What?” asked Pred and Amber.

“Death curse.”

Amber shuddered. The thread of hope she’d held that she was wrong died. One of the main things the journal of her ancestress warned of was to never—never—attempt to lift a death curse.

She didn’t know what happened, but it would be really bad, probably kill her and everyone she was emotionally linked with.

Hartha continued to speak as she sidled away from the entrance and back to the far corner cabinet. “Rafe’s colors are white-violet and blue-green, gold with a tiny hint of orange.” She reached for the large mug, wrapped her long-fingered hands around it as if they were cold.

Pred’s eyes protruded and he gasped. “Four elements? Four!”

Amber had thought that was good. “That isn’t an asset?”

Hartha’s face was hidden as she drank from the hot chocolate mug. She set it down and her gaze sharpened. “He has great magic, but carries a major glyph of green sealing most of his power.”

The door opened and the bad magic enveloping the men expanded to hit Amber in a huge wave. She wanted to run. She glanced wildly at the brownies. Conrad was too desperate, Rafe too attractive. She’d made a bad mistake.

No way out. She had to be strong. She had to say “no” and mean it.

Tiro stared at her. His upper lip lifted in scary amusement. “How old is this fair-haired fellow called Rafe?”

Hartha lifted and dropped her shoulder. “Young. Not too much more than his third decade.”

“His uncursed life span could be sixty more human years.” Tiro rubbed his hands. “I will gain my independence much sooner than I thought. She will lift the curse and die.”

There was a terrible high-pitched buzz in the room that would drive Rafe crazy if he had to work here. The back of his neck prickled as if someone were watching him. He glanced out the main window, saw the Tesla and other parked cars, and no one on the street. The spot between his shoulder blades tingled—and that was his main warning signal.

He wanted out of the room, out of the building, hell, out of the States. He could be snowboarding in Vancouver. Nah, he was ready for spring. But somewhere else.

He wanted Conrad out of the place, too.

Amber was paler than yesterday, as if she’d had a shock. Not his problem.

Rafe shifted his shoulders, rubbed the back of his neck, and followed Conrad’s stare to a corner of the room that seemed to blur. No. Of course not.

Conrad swallowed, but then his mouth hung open. Rafe took a step and jostled him. No man should look so clueless in front of a threat. And despite her truly excellent figure showcased in a red knit dress, Amber Sarga was a threat.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t help you—”

Conrad choked and crumpled, panting. Rafe grabbed him and steered him toward one of the chairs that he half fell into.

Amber poured a cup of black coffee and put it on the table in front of him. Conrad plunked the mailing tube he was carrying onto the table. “I…brought…my…family…tree,” he panted.

“I can’t.” But Amber’s voice wavered. She looked at the strange blurry corner. Conrad rubbed his eyes and his temples, scrubbed his face. Rafe blinked to clear his vision. Nothing there.

“Please, we know you’re a curse breaker. I’m begging you, I need your help. If not for me, for my son.”

“What kind of curse is it?” Her voice was low and gravelly, full of satisfaction. Rafe shook his head. It hadn’t been her speaking.

Of course it had been.

“Like I said yesterday, in the Cymbler family, soon after we have a son, he disappears. We don’t meet him again until he is an adult. Shortly after that meeting, we die and it goes on and on and on and on and—”

Rafe put his hand on Conrad’s shoulder, squeezed it. “Drink your coffee.” He lifted his hand, moved to put himself between Conrad and Amber’s pitying gaze.

But she didn’t look as if she were pitying Conrad because of his delusional ramblings. She appeared terrified. No golden tan like Rafe had admired yesterday. She was unnaturally white.

Almost as if she believed in curses, too.

“I met m’ father. He told me of the curse.” Conrad hunched over the drink, lifted it trembling in his hands. Droplets of coffee dribbled down his cup, hit the table.

No, they didn’t. There was no wetness on the table.

There had to be. Rafe better get his eyes checked.

Conrad gulped from the mug. His hand found a paper napkin and he wiped his mouth, plunked his cup down and looked around Rafe to stare at Amber. “You know,” Conrad said quietly. “You know there are such things as curses, and you know how to break them.”

Amber stood, gazing at Conrad, still too pale. “You don’t know what you ask.”

Straightening, Conrad reached for the tube. “This is the Cymbler family tree. It’s five years out of date. Study it. You can see that what I said is true.” He glanced up at Rafe. “Rafe’s is there, too.” He jerked his head, indicating Rafe. “This is my friend, Rafe Davail. He’s cursed, too.”

Amber’s light pink lips moved. “I know.” Rafe didn’t actually hear the words.

“More coffee?” Conrad lifted his cup.

Amber moved to a side cabinet and reached toward a carafe. Rafe intercepted her. “I’d like some. I’ll do it.”

She stiffened and her body nearly brushed his. He could catch her scent and he recognized it, knew he’d never forget. Naturally it was the fragrance of crumbling amber. Dark. Musky. Dangerous.

Rafe poured himself a cup of coffee, stepped over and filled Conrad’s cup. Nope, not a drop of liquid on that table. He put the pitcher back.

Conrad drank, then cleared his throat. “I know there are rules to curses. Some sort of release or unbinding must be built into a major curse when it is invoked.” Conrad smiled but it wasn’t in amusement. He really believed this stuff.

Rafe strove not to.

Amber looked startled. She wet her lips. Color was coming back to her face, her lips were rosy now. “Yes?” she asked.

“The least you can do is follow my family tree back, see when the curse might have begun. I know you’re an excellent genealogist, can work back farther than others. I know you…have a special touch.”

Her whole body went stiff. It didn’t look good on her, she should always be supple. “I strive to give my clients satisfaction,” she said flatly.

“I’ve seen some of your reports,” Conrad said. “Incredible research and stories.” His eyes narrowed, and he drank more coffee. “Almost as if you were there.” His face went hard and Rafe was glad to see it. Conrad continued, “I’ll pay whatever you want for you to remove the curse on my son.”

“Conrad!” Rafe protested.

“And Rafe will pay whatever you want to remove the curse on me, even though he doesn’t believe in it.”

“I can’t do that,” Amber said.

“Then you look at my family tree and use your psychic gift to tune into the past and find out how I can break it.”

Rafe stared.

His cell rang and he pulled it from his pocket. “Ace Investigations.” He thumbed the speaker on.

“This is Herrera of Ace.” The prime investigator sounded tired. “We’ve found Marta Dimir and Dougie Tyne-Cymbler in Bakir Zagora.”

Conrad shot to his feet. Years dropped off him. “I’m outta here. I’ll be in Bakir Zagora by this evening.”

“Black Stream Hotel,” said Herrera.

“Wait!” Rafe said, blocking the door. Conrad shoved him away and ran through the lobby to the front door. Rafe knew he’d have to take the guy down to stop him.

“Rafe, take care of this business for me. Please.”

Rafe strode to catch up. “You can’t mean…”

Conrad grabbed Rafe’s shirt. “Look. I need all the help I can get.” He swallowed hard. “I feel like I’m in a war. I gotta go.”

“I understand that, but—”

“Never asked much from you, Rafe, but you need to fight for me on this front. Please.”

Chapter 4

RAFE LOCKED GLANCES with Conrad. Rafe didn’t know what to say, but time seemed to slow down and a chill touched his spine like the winter wind of mortality. Conrad was his best friend. Rafe had been hard on friends. Not even his brother wanted to be with him. Too bad, so sad.

And while he stood, Conrad shot out the door, into the Tesla and was gone. The way he was driving, he’d better watch for cops.

“Davail, you there?” That was shouted from his phone.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Keep an eye on Marta and Dougie. Conrad’s on his way.”

Herrera said, “I’ll need another man or two here in Bakir Zagora.”

“Money’s no object,” Rafe said.

“Right. Later.” The P.I. hung up.

When Rafe went back into the conference room, Amber had her arms crossed over her very fine breasts. Her expression was cool. “There are some things money can’t buy.”

Rafe shut the door hard behind him. He should go after Conrad.

But his friend had asked him to help him here. “Are we talking about ‘curse breaking’?”

“That’s right,” she said. “No amount of money on the face of the earth—”

Rafe waved. “Yeah, yeah.” He didn’t believe her. People always had a price. And he usually solved problems by throwing money at them. Money he’d inherited and which his brother invested very well, as he’d been told acidly the night before.

He ran his hand through his hair. His scalp was sweaty and he hadn’t noticed. “What about genealogy?”

“What about it?”

“Money can buy a good trace of family trees. We’re very good clients, Ms. Sarga.” He rubbed his neck, squeezed his shoulder blades. “Look, can we discuss this somewhere else? The buzz from the lighting here is really giving me a headache.”

Her brows rose. “Buzz from the lighting.”

“That’s right. And I’ll need to get a taxi or rent a car, or buy one.”

She sighed. “There’s a good coffeehouse around the corner, the Sensitive New Age Bean.”

“That where you got the drinks?” He gestured to the carafes on the sideboard.

“Yes.”

“Sold,” he said.

“You go ahead. I’ll meet you there. I need to tidy up here.”

Nodding, he opened the door and walked out, leaving the tube with the family trees on the table.

Amber moved to the credenza, and all three brownies were there before her. Hartha cleaned up and Pred claimed the cocoa carafe. She scowled at Tiro. “You had no right to answer as if you were me, asking what kind of curse it was. I won’t have that.”

He sneered, shrugged. “Humans and their rights.” His upper lip lifted. “You can’t do anything to me.”

“I can give all the chocolate pie I’m making to Hartha and Pred.”

Pred snorted with laughter. Tiro growled and the younger, smaller brownieman disappeared.

Amber walked over to the table and looked at the tube. Her palms tingled and wisps of pink-purple emanated from them as she touched it.

“Tell me, Tiro, did any of my, uh, forebears ask you to help them?”

His face darkened and looked like it became the consistency of rock. Amber stepped back. His big eyes turned down briefly as if sad, then he shrugged again. “They always thought they could fix curses. Every one of them. They all died young.”

Like Amber’s mother and aunt had. They’d cut all emotional connections with her and sent her away to relatives when she was six, where she’d been cared for but never really loved. Looking back, she thought they had decided to do a major curse breaking and had failed. She didn’t know for sure, though.

They hadn’t taught her about curses. She only had that one journal—obviously a middle volume of a set. She’d never thought to trace a bloodline back to witness the beginning of a curse. Usually she’d just felt the hideous shroud of the curse and broken it.

“Was Conrad right about there being rules for curses? That a release or unbinding is built at the time of the original curse?”

“What of it?” Tiro asked. “The curse lasts and the requirements for the unbinding gets lost and that’s the end of it.”

Possibilities surged through Amber, enough to make her light-headed and lean against the wall. “But I am proficient in finding information in the past. Maybe this is another way…”

“Occasionally there are witnesses to the curse or it’s recorded,” Hartha encouraged.

“I have a smaller magical gift that might help,” Amber said.

Tiro grunted. “You women are always hopeful. You always try. You always die.”

Hartha finished inspecting the surface of the mahogany table. Somehow she’d stopped coffee from splashing on it from Conrad’s cup.

“All right?” Amber asked, pushing away from the wall.

“Yes.” Hartha lifted her chin with pride in her work. Her gaze scanned the room. “All is tidy.”

“Thank you,” Amber said.

Hartha nodded. “Your chocolate cake was very good.” The tips of her ears quivered. “And we will have chocolate pie with candied violets for tea this afternoon.”

“Yes,” Amber said.

Hartha vanished with the cake and Amber was left with Tiro. He stumped around the room, then cackled. “Buzz of the lighting,” he said, mocking Rafe Davail’s words.

“Not very courteous of you,” Amber said. She picked up the tube. Magic ran from it to her hand, sank into her skin. She wished Jenni were here to ask about things. One last glance and she said, “We are all bound together for a while.” As she said that, she knew it was the truth. She didn’t know how or why, but they were bound together. “Rafe Davail and me and you.”

“You’ll die soon.”

“Maybe I will.” She didn’t want to. There must be ways to mitigate the consequences of curse breaking; she should be able to find them. She was sure her ancestors didn’t have three brownies to help them. She opened her hands and flicked her fingers at him. “I thank you for moving my office, but I release you. Go back where you came from, I sure don’t need you in my life.”

“I can’t.” Tiro didn’t roar loudly, but affected the air pressure so that her ears popped. He hopped onto the table so they were eye-to-eye. “The great elf Cumulustre put a binding on me to serve your line until there were no more of you stupid curse-breaking women.” He stomped back and forth on the conference table, and Amber swore she could hear wood splintering, but the top was smooth and polished, not even a trace of small brownie footprints.

Magic.

“I thought you were all gone. All dead. The main line and all its branches.”

“So you have to live with me, huh?” Amber asked. “Keep an eye on me? Is that all? Can’t you help me? I can see you. I can see the other brownies. Jenni is a djinn. I could have a lot of help.”

“Not enough, not ever enough.”

Amber shrugged a shoulder. “Well, wherever you’ve been, and however you’ve spent your time since you were last with humans, it sure has made you grumpy. Not even regular infusions of chocolate would sweeten you.” She turned and walked from the room, leaving the door open.

“I was very happy by myself in my cottage!” he shouted.

She didn’t look back. By the time she crossed the foyer to the outer door, waving to the receptionist, Tiro was gone and the conference room was empty.

The wind had come up and whipped her hair around her and she’d wished she’d buttoned up her raincoat. But the Sensitive New Age Bean was only around the block, so she wouldn’t be in the spring cold for long. She tucked the long tube under her arm and hurried. As she did so, she noticed the…flatness…of the scent of the air, and when the wind kissed her lips, the flavor wasn’t tasty. And she knew what was missing. The fragrance and savor of magic.

She pushed the door open to the coffee shop. Instead of magic there was the rich smell of espresso, and the slight sweetness of baked goods.

The place was crowded as usual. Amber was not the only one doing business at the Bean. People worked on laptops, spoke quietly on cells, spread papers or textbooks on the tables. There were a few meetings, too. A local Realtor, a financial planner, one of the architects from the firm on the corner—all were deep in discussion with one or more clients.

Rafe Davail had chosen a small table for two in the back room. The round table was painted with fluffy Chinese clouds with a dragon peeking out, chasing a shiny gray pearl. Rafe lounged in a low-backed chair, his arm along the top rung, his legs showing long muscles in his faded jeans, his leather jacket open. She was sure it was outrageously expensive. She’d never thought a blond could look darkly brooding, but he managed.

As she passed the threshold of the front room to the back, he glanced up, then stood. He gestured to two cups in front of him. “Seemed like a day for hot chocolate.”

Tiro perched on the high shelf of the back bookcase, and had his gaze fixed on the drinks as if he hadn’t tasted the treat in millennia. Was chocolate addicting to brownies? She’d better ask.

Meanwhile, Rafe had slipped the large tube from her grasp and set it on the table, then touched her shoulders and she realized he was going to take her coat. She hadn’t expected such manners from him, then recalled he’d been brought up in wealth and figured he’d had etiquette drummed into him. The feel of more than a curse zinged through her. Magic, power, something. And desire. That was bad.

He folded her coat over her chair, waited until she was seated and sat. Then he pushed the mug of cocoa to her, and got his brood back on.

“Just so you know, I don’t want to be doing this.”

“I never would have guessed,” she said.

One side of his mouth lifted. “Pretty evident, huh?”

“Yes.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, shook his head. “I thought my headache would get better here. Doesn’t seem to be happening.”

“Just a minute,” she said. He didn’t look up as she stood.

She sauntered back to the bookcase. “What are you doing here, and why are you bothering Mr. Davail?”

“I am bothering no one. He can feel magic, but he doesn’t believe, so he can’t see me. Can be irritating.”

“I’m sure you can tamp down your magic and be a little less intrusive and odd. It will be so much easier to talk to him if you aren’t bothering him.”

“You’re the one who’s talking to a bookcase,” Tiro said.

Amber gritted her teeth, glanced over her shoulder and saw Rafe staring at her. Had he heard her? The espresso machine had been going and she’d kept her voice down. Still…

Amber glared up at Tiro. “I’m only a duty to you. Go sulk in your room and leave us be.”

“He is attracted to you.”

“I’m an attractive woman.”

“And he is handsome for a human, this I know.” Tiro began shaking his head slowly.

“I don’t want to hear anything more about how I’ll die. Just go.”

“I will keep my magic close to me.” Tiro said. “Not let it spread through the room.” He crossed his arms. It seemed his only concession. Amber wondered if it were a good or bad sign that he was interested in Rafe Davail. But in the next few seconds, she did feel a thinning of magic in the atmosphere. Well, she had a business to run. She spun on her heel, quickly enough to see that Rafe’s gaze had been aimed at her butt.

Too bad he had a death curse, she really would have liked to spend some time with him. She plucked down one of the notebooks with blank paper that was kept for the patrons and walked back to the table, keeping her smile easy. “I’m sorry, I didn’t bring any supplies with me.” She reached into her purse and a pen slipped into her fingers. The way her hand felt, that was another minor magic. Maybe hanging around the brownies was increasing that, too. She hoped so.

She opened the tube and pulled out rolled charts. One was older, the other smelled like it had been copied at a shop with a blueprint machine that morning. She glanced at that one and saw the Davail line. Once again several entries jumped out at her…all men who had died before they were thirty-three. She glanced at Rafe as she set it aside—he was in the last months of his thirty-second year.

Then she unrolled the Cymbler family tree. The last entry, “Douglas Dimir Tyne-Cymbler,” was printed in ballpoint ink. No doubt Conrad’s addition. She let that end of the paper curl up as she scrolled to the beginning of the large sheet and the thirteenth century. She couldn’t tell just by looking whether Conrad’s curse had been in effect then. Surely if it had happened later, there would have been documentation.

“Do you know anything about the Cymbler curse?” she asked absently.

There was a creak as Rafe tilted his chair back on two legs. His gaze met hers over his cup as he sipped. “I vaguely recall Conrad’s ramblings after he met his father. We were in college…roommates. You and Conrad. Puzzle solvers.” Rafe shrugged, this time a regular-type shrug. “I’m more into action.”

“Sports.” She recalled some of the pics online she’d seen, he wasn’t sitting in one of them.

“That’s right.”

Amber kept her hands flat on the roll. “Mr. Davail, just what do you expect of me?”

His chair came down with a clunk. “I expect you to research Conrad’s family tree. Check out whether there really is some sort of…bad luck.”

“Does he have any histories, stories, notes?” Amber asked.

“Not that I know of. He would have brought them to you if he had them.”

“How far back do you want me to go?”

Rafe waved a hand. “As far back as it takes, as long as it takes.” He leaned forward, blue gaze steady. “Charge your usual rates and keep track of your time and expenses.”

Anger surged through her. “You don’t seem to get it, Mr. Davail. I didn’t contact Mr. Tyne-Cymbler or you. I did not come to your home and ask for your help. I have absolutely no intention of taking monetary advantage of Mr. Tyne-Cymbler in the state he’s in.” She drew in a breath, checked around, but no one was paying much attention to them. Keeping her voice low, she continued. “I’m not promising to break his curse. I’m contracting to do genealogy for him. That’s all.”

“He said something about special stories.”

Amber glanced away. How could she have known that those little bits of magic she did during her historical work would lead to such problems? “Now and then I can…find certain family moments or two that my clients are unaware of. I include them in my reports.”

“Psychic?” Rafe asked, his voice laden with disbelief.

She blinked but didn’t meet his gaze, shrugged herself. “Extrapolation.” Now she looked him in the eyes. “But there’s usually documentation for the stories.” She thought that’s how her minor magic functioned, only showing what was recorded somewhere. She just had to find it.

Rafe reached into his jacket pocket. “Do you need a retainer?”

“No.”

“I want you to work on this as hard as you can.”

“I do have other clients.”

He nodded. “All right, I agree.”

“What?”

“Bump up your price until you can work only for us.”

“No. I have other clients.”

“Finish ’em up first, then give us all your time.”

She stared at him. “You don’t believe in curses.”

“Of course not.”

She glanced up to Tiro. He whistled and Rafe flinched. Rafe was magic whether he knew it or not, whether he believed or not. “But somewhere inside you, you don’t think that Conrad will find his wife and child, do you? That’s why you’re authorizing such a push on my part.”

“Just do it.” He narrowed his eyes. “And let’s hope one of your stories you find during your little psychic episodes is the event that Conrad wants to hear about.”

“You are a very irritating person,” she said. “Very arrogant.”

“Deal?” He put out his hand, palm up. Amber had studied palmistry briefly. She couldn’t help but notice that his life line had a dark bar and a break when he was a relatively young man. The line faded after that.

Her heart gave a hard thump. But there was a square near, indicating protection. And another curved line nearly parallel. Again, showing he could have help. That meant his life could go on.

“Deal?” he repeated, impatiently.

Chapter 5

SHE PUT HER hand in his and he turned his hand over and clasped her fingers. More intimate than a handshake. Again she felt the curse, the magic, the sizzle of desire.

His body heat seemed enormous, as if he were living life fast and hard. He withdrew and finished his hot chocolate, nodded to her own. “That’s getting cold.”

She sat and drank it, felt the cool melting of whipped cream on her upper lip and sucked it off. Wonderful. “What can you tell me about Mr. Tyne-Cymbler?”

“Call him Conrad, and call me Rafe.”

Now his posture was more casual, his long legs stretched out. He stared into the bottom of a cup that had to be near empty, then looked up. “He’s my best friend. He has been since we met freshman year in college. He’s loyal.” Rafe jerked a shoulder. “He’s solid, will keep his word. He loves Marta and Dougie and he was too good for her. She was a schemer from the beginning.”

Amber recalled the feeling of darkness that had made her uneasy when she looked at Marta Dimir’s name. She shook her head slightly.

“What?” asked Rafe.

“I looked you two up on the Net.”

“Of course you did.”

“And on the main database I use.” But not all the databases. There were others, more obscure. If there were information on Conrad and his family curse, she’d find it. “The Tyne family tree is online.”

Rafe grunted. “Bunch of tight asses.”

“But the Cymbler family tree isn’t.”

He didn’t look at her, but said, “You were going to make a comment about Marta?”

“It seemed to me that she was more…used…than a schemer herself.”

Rafe sat up. “What?”

“I just got that feeling.”

“Yeah, feelings.” He frowned, then stood and walked back to the counter, placed his mug in the dirty dish bin, then leaned on the bar and asked for a hot black espresso. He drummed his fingers and looked out the main window to the street. Amber thought he was considering her words.

He was still here, because of his friend. Conrad wasn’t the only one who was loyal and solid.

Then Rafe yanked his phone from his pocket, called. Scowled. He left a message, then made another call and words shot from him in what she already knew were orders.

She drank her own cocoa. He was an interesting man. The barista shot Amber a grin as she placed Rafe’s mug on the counter before him. Oh, yeah, Amber’s gaze had wandered along his body. It was evident that he was in prime shape from all those sports of his.

All those extreme, risky sports. One of which could kill him in the next few months. Would that be fate or free will?

Heavy questions she’d never really wanted to contemplate.

Rafe nodded to the server as he laid down a bill, flashed her a smile that Amber hadn’t been given. Then he prowled back toward her, stood over her with narrowed eyes, drank from his cup. “You have a feeling that Marta is being used.”

“Yes.”

He sat back down in the chair opposite, his entire attention focused on her in a way he hadn’t done before. “If Marta is being used, then someone tougher than her might be after Conrad, and now he’s going to their playing field. I called him and Ace Investigations.”

Again Rafe glanced aside. This part of the coffeehouse didn’t have windows and she believed that bothered him since he spent so much time outdoors. Thinking back, there hadn’t been a free table in the front room—except the table saved for group and community events, and he hadn’t encroached on that.

There were a lot of things to like about Rafe Davail.

“Conrad also believes in psychic crap.” Rafe drank more, didn’t look at her. His expression turned to one of scorn. “Nothing I could say could talk him out of spending money on those fakers. He claimed Marta was psychic, was fascinated with her because of that. She hosed him good. Now I’ve got to deal with another woman with feelings.”

And there was a lot to dislike about Rafe, too. “Like I said before, I didn’t seek you two out.” She stood and rolled the charts, stuck them in the tube and picked it up. “I’ll get right to work.” The smile she aimed at him was cool. “You’ll be pleased to know that I do work on weekends.”

“Marta married Conrad, broke his heart, took his money and his kid,” Rafe said. He stood, too. “I can see that I should have gotten this to go. Wait for me.”

“Why? You hired me to do a job for a friend of yours. You don’t like me. You don’t respect me.”

“I’ll walk you home,” he said.

“That’s not necessary,” she said.

He moved his shoulders, not quite a shrug, more like an itch in his back. Amber looked at Tiro. He was glowering, as usual. At Rafe.

“I’d rather you let me walk you home,” Rafe said.

She cleared her throat. “You have a hunch or something?”

“No,” he snapped. Then he grimaced, ran a hand through his hair. “Sorry. It’s been a very long couple of days. Probably shouldn’t have hinted that your feelings make you a bad person.”

“No. You shouldn’t have done that.” She waited for his rationalization.

“Sorry. And Conrad dumped me, and there’s something about this place that feels funny. No offense.”

She stared at Tiro. “None taken, though you were uncomfortable in my office, too.”

“Okay, I get it. It’s me.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “This whole damn thing has made me twitchier than usual.” He managed a smile at her. “And Conrad left me flat. I’d just as soon wait near your place—”

“Mystic Circle?” She leaned on the words.

Rafe winced, nodded. “Yes, Mystic Circle. Please. Wait.” He hesitated. “Not quite done with this discussion.”

Amber heaved a put-upon sigh, but stayed while he charmed—and tipped—the barista for putting his drink in a to-go cup. Rafe was old money and big city and it showed.

But she was Mystic Circle. Magic. Brownies. Right now she was hiding that fact, but it warmed her insides. And she’d match that as an exclusive club against any other Rafe might belong to: winners of extreme sports, old money wealth, Manhattan home owner.

Death cursed.

Yes, that might be very exclusive, too, but not a group anyone would want to belong to. And she should remind herself that whether he believed in curses or not, most of his male forebears had died before they were thirty-three. He was thirty-two.

That would certainly weigh heavily on her. Almost as heavily as Tiro’s doomsaying.

They left the coffeehouse in silence and began walking back to Mystic Circle. They were away from the storefronts and into the residential area before he spoke again. “Aren’t you going to ask me about my curse?” His smile was sharp.

“No.”

“It was a gypsy woman—”

She lifted her brows. “Really?”

“That’s the story. Really common story, isn’t it? What else would someone say if you talked about such a crazy thing? Hell, who else did curses? But we don’t have much in the way of histories, stories or notes. Too many deaths in the family.” His expression was shadowed again, dim with brooding. “I was five when my dad died. He and Mom were estranged.” Another quick smile, this one humorless. “Though they got together a few months before he died—long enough to make my brother, Gabe.”

“I’m sorry. How did he die?”

“Hit-and-run car accident.”

“Even worse.”

“Yeah. It was bad. Lived with my great uncle after that.” Rafe glanced at her. “’Til my teens. Then he and Mom decided I’d be better off in an academy. That wasn’t too bad. It was European and we were all into sports.” He chuckled. “I’m not too bad of a polo player.”

“Uh-huh. Is your mother still living?”

His athletic stride became stiffer, she didn’t think he’d noticed. “Yes. She’s not in our lives. Never really wanted to be. What of your own parents?”

Well, she’d asked him. But she was the genealogist and interested in families. She didn’t know why he’d ask about hers except it was small talk people did when they were attracted to each other. Though she couldn’t gauge how much he was interested in her. He might like looking at her, but she wasn’t in his league—any of his leagues—and didn’t think she’d care to be. Didn’t guys like him date supermodels or minor European royalty?

“I never knew my father. My mother and aunt died when I was about six, and I was brought up by distant cousins.” Well-paid relatives who hadn’t loved her, not as much as she sensed his uncle and brother loved Rafe.

“Huh. Something we have in common.”

“I guess so,” she said. They stopped at the sidewalk leading up to her house. She gestured with the tube. “I’ll start work on Conrad’s lineage tomorrow. I have another job I need to finish first.” Rafe was looking down at her with intent eyes, as if, for the first time, he was seeing her instead of some gypsy psychic woman taking advantage of his desperate friend.

She wasn’t sure that she liked him looking at her as if he were interested. She should definitely not get too close to this guy and his curse. “Due to the circumstances, I won’t be putting Conrad’s family tree online, unless you notify me that he—or you—want it public to try to garner additional information.” Rafe was still staring at her. “Your family tree is already online and public, but the living are masked except on my pro databases. Do you want me to add information and comments to the public database, or not?”

That query clunked a bit as they stared at each other. Would he still be living in eight months?

He took a step back and his expression became more guarded, his smile casual with a lack of sincerity, a flash of hurt in his eyes. “I’m sure my brother and uncle would appreciate that.” Rafe nodded toward the tube. “Gabe sent that to me.”

She nodded. “And maybe, since Conrad is soon to be out of the country, I could have your contact information? Since you want reports and all. If your brother didn’t provide you with an account name and password for the database, I can do that for you, too.”

He ran his hand through his hair, his smile turned lopsided. “I did bring a tablet computer. I was staying with Conrad. Don’t know that I’ll remain there. He wouldn’t mind, but it’s a cold place.” He shifted his balance, as if uneasy, something she didn’t think he usually did. “I should be windsurfing in Tarifa, not here.”

“Up to you. Think about it and email me or call.” She handed him her card and started up the sidewalk to home. It looked good, a sanctuary from scariness. Death curses, lost children…men who’d been lost children. “I’ll have your first report in about three days. Then we can update weekly. Naturally, the farther back we go, the slower it gets. I’ll let you know if I have to travel on site anywhere.” A quick business smile and she slipped in the door, shut it behind her with a sigh and leaned back against it, closing her eyes.

“You gonna break his curse and die?” Tiro said.

She jumped, clapped a hand to her chest. Talk about scary weirdness.

Tiro said, “You shouldn’t even associate with him. Just going to lead to trouble. I tell you that right now.”

“Where are the puppies? I prefer their greeting.”

“They wanted out,” he said. “Nice pups. You know if you break a big curse while you’re emotionally attached to them, they’ll die, too. Dogs age even faster than humans.”

That made her insides clench and hurt. “I know.” She could feel blood drain from her face as memories of dying pets stabbed her. She glared at Tiro. “I learned that the hard way. It would have been nice to have someone around to let me know such consequences.”

“I thought Tshilaba left journals. She’d worked on them long enough.”

“Journals! Plural? I only have one, and it doesn’t tell me very much.”

Tiro whistled and the back door slammed open and the puppies raced in. For the first time, the morning tilted into balance as she hugged and scratched them. This is what mattered—loving, being loved.

Helping mattered, too, but not at the cost of loving.

“So,” Tiro said. “Can I help you with the chocolate pie?”

“Can you help me with my magic?”

He scowled and shuffled his feet. “I helped in the beginning for the first five women. Didn’t work, no matter how I tried. I’ve a binding to serve you. Can help or not. But you don’t learn, none of you.” He pounded his chest and it was like an echo against rock, then he pointed a four-jointed finger—the brownies all had four-jointed fingers—at her.

“You have a binding, too. Your elf Cumulustre blood gives you magic, but being human limits it. You drain yourself for others. That isn’t healthy. That’s your great lesson. And none of you women have learned it.” He threw up his hands. “Why are you all so stupid?” With a last glower, he disappeared.

Shaken, Amber let the puppies knock her on her rump, accepted doggie kisses. She let emotion storm through her, past regrets…and current fears.

She decided to focus on current hopes. Being around the brownies seemed to have boosted her magic. She would concentrate on her minor magic, the visions of past events as she worked on family trees. She needed to check her ancestress’s journal to see what it said about the solution of a curse given at the same time the original curse was laid. But Amber was sure she’d have remembered that if it had been there.

Curses. Bindings.

They were much alike.

Rafe watched the very-easy-on-the-eyes Ms. Amber Sarga shut her house door firmly behind her.

He turned and looked at the round park in the middle of the circle, finished his drink and noted an empty trash can. He crossed and dropped in his cup. The park smelled nice, like winter passing.

The place had a good mixture of full evergreens and tall, budding deciduous trees. When the bushes leafed out and the flower beds were full of blossoms, the park would be as pretty as any in Denver; the garden as good as any at Conrad’s house.

Not that he would be here to see them. Winter sports were done, and he was looking forward to the summer season—beaches and waves, at least in the Northern Hemisphere.

It had been one odd morning. All the back-and-forth with the gypsy Sarga. The unaccustomed headaches and irritation. Conrad had acted strange even before he’d dumped and abandoned Rafe. He was pretty cool with that, he understood why Conrad ran, but it still left Rafe stranded. He pulled out his phone and called a limo service owned by another mutual friend.

“Brilliant Limousines,” the female dispatcher said in a throaty voice.

“Yes, I need a pickup at Mystic Circle.”

“Mystic Circle?”

“Yeah, you know, in northwest Denver?”

He heard rapid key tapping. “Oh. Yes. Mystic Circle. Where are you going?”

He had to pick up his stuff from Conrad’s, but he sure wouldn’t be staying there. “One hundred South Gilpin.”

More tapping. “Right. Would you like to charge that now?”

“I have an account.” He rarely used it. “Rafe Davail.”

“We’ll have a car there in half an hour.”

“That’s fine.”

“And you’ll be at what house address on Mystic Circle?”

“I’m on the street. It’s a cul-de-sac, find me.”

“Yes, sir.”

He hung up.

Birds warbled in the trees. Someone was baking something that smelled really good. Nice day.

Conrad had been right about the neighborhood. The area was charming. It felt…safe. Rafe shrugged off the word. He hadn’t spent his life feeling safe.

Maybe because he’d never known “safe.” His parents had argued since he could remember, which had made living with them tense as a small child, a fact he’d forgotten until Amber had asked about his upbringing.

Safe. An odd word, and maybe that wasn’t what he was feeling. Maybe it was the simple lack of pressure to do the next competition, to be what acquaintances and the press believed him to be, to… Hell, he didn’t know. He only knew he had a half hour to burn and walking around the cul-de-sac was a good way to do it.

Mystic Circle. He snorted. How lame could you get? As if there were really woo-woo in the world. Magic.

Curses.

Did he really believe Conrad would find Marta and Dougie? Deep down? No.

Did he really believe he, himself, would be alive at the end of the year? Deep down?

Chapter 6

DEEP DOWN IN the dark inside him, something was screaming like a bloody animal caught in a trap.

He shoved that thought firmly aside. He didn’t think about it. Ever.

The circle was a good-size neighborhood, the houses not too close together. The first division of their family business had been real estate and Rafe knew enough about that to appreciate the area. Like many Denver neighborhoods, it was a mixture of styles. A brace of craftsman bungalows, the smallest of the houses, sat at each side of the entrance of the cul-de-sac. The street was only wide enough for two lanes—and two lanes the size of regular cars. Forget SUVs here.

Amber’s southern neighbor was a Denver square, two-storied of deep redbrick, and round windows on the second level that almost looked like eyes. When he and Amber had passed it, it had seemed to waver so he’d continue around. Amber’s place was a Victorian with a turret and a round window or two.

Next was a Tudor English-manor-type place that wouldn’t look out of place in the Berkshires. Then came a four-storied castle with round turrets on each side. The land rose a little and there was a stone wall topped with iron spikes before that place. Rafe paused before the gate. The house looked empty, but was obviously the most expensive lot in the neighborhood, and well-cared-for.

The following house wasn’t a style he knew. Wide at the bottom with a large porch consisting of many-paned windows. He liked the look of it. Redbrick, white trim. Solid. Three stories. It made him think of sea captains.

In Denver, right.

He kept on going to see a Spanish-style place with a red-tiled roof. Next was a house of angles, square towers, round windows again. Oddly charming though it was pink. A little plate on the gate read The Fanciful House. Then he reached the last bungalow and was at the street entrance and he still had fifteen minutes.

And he was getting hungry. There was an Irish pub in the business district. He’d call Brilliant Limos and direct them to O’Hearn’s. But he was reluctant to leave the cul-de-sac; it offered a quiet peace. He’d often thought that peace was overrated, but he liked it here.

His stomach grumbled and decided for him.

Within the minute, he’d asked the limo service to divert to O’Hearn’s and was informed that his friend Don was driving a black BMW sedan. He told the dispatcher that he’d treat Don to lunch and got an affirmative. Everything was set. He was a block from the business area and crossing the street to the corner pub when they dive-bombed him.

Huge crows. No! Shadowy bats.

He flung his arms up to cover his head, beat the things off. Could’ve sworn their beaks pierced his skin at his wrist. Were sucking.

His hand grasped something—feathers? Oily fluff, leather. But he felt a neck in his fingers, the thing struggled madly. More things hit his head, his shoulders. Too much force for birds or bats. Like he’d been caught in a shot of forced air.

He fell. Hard on the pavement. Heard the neck snap. The bird went limp.

Brakes squealed and a big, black Beemer stopped inches before hitting him. The door flew open and a man got out, yelling, “Hell, Rafe, what the hell are you doing in the middle of the street!”

Rafe let the thing go, sat up and rubbed his head. It hurt, but he didn’t think he’d hit it on the tarmac. One of the bat things had thudded into his temple, hard.

No. Of course not. “You see any bats?”

“Bats!” Don sounded incredulous. He set a beefy hand under Rafe’s elbow and boosted. “On a sunny day? In Denver?”

“No, I didn’t think so,” Rafe said. Blinking, he looked around. There were pigeons on the phone lines, but not even one crow. Damn.

“Geez.” Don, a stocky man a decade older than Rafe, manhandled him into the back of the car. “I’d’a never heard the end of it if I’d hit you. You need a doc? Should I take you to an emergency room?”

“No.” Rafe rubbed his temples. Liquid trickled along his left arm from his wrist. Tears in his shirt, scuffs on his jacket that he couldn’t determine came from sliding along gravel or a claw or two.

He used Don’s word. “Hell.”

Don pulled over to the curb, looked at Rafe over the seat. “A walk-in clinic’s close.”

Rafe worked his jaw, then smiled. That hurt. “No, I’m good. Had worse problems from a fall or two.”

Don grunted. “Better you than me. You still want to eat at O’Hearn’s or go to Conrad’s?”

“Conrad’s first. I want a hot shower.”

“Heard his divorce went through.”

“Yes.”

“Damn shame.”

“Yes.”

“Strap in, buddy,” Don ordered and kept his gaze in the rearview until Rafe did, then he checked for traffic—none—and pulled back into the street.

“You know any good hotels in the area?” The words were out of Rafe’s mouth before he knew he was going to say them. He didn’t know why. Except he liked the looks of Mystic Circle. And maybe he wanted to keep an eye on Sarga.

“There’s a good bed-and-breakfast a few blocks away. Big old Victorian place.”

“Girly?” Rafe asked.

“Nah, not so much. Also, an apartment place that might have something open.”

“I’ll take the B and B,” Rafe decided.

“Not staying at Conrad’s?”

“No. He’s going out of town, and I like the looks of this area. We can pick up my duffel, then come back to O’Hearn’s.”

“Sounds good. Steak is good at O’Hearn’s,” Don said.

“Right.” Rafe leaned back against the leather seat. The morning was catching up with him. He felt more battered than he should have, weaker. A glance at his left wrist showed blood crusting his blue cuff. He pushed the cuff back and saw bruising around the puncture.

Unaccustomed to being attacked from the air, he’d landed poorly. The left side of his face was scraped, and the fact that he’d gotten it from pavement when he wasn’t riding a bike and having fun pissed him off. His head ached and he figured he had a nice lump coming up above his temple. His left knee throbbed.

He talked basketball teams with Don and wondered about bats and crows and headaches and gypsy curses.

Rafe and Don never made it to O’Hearn’s. Instead Rafe showered and changed at Conrad’s and they ate food that had been prepared for Conrad and Rafe. He found a quick text from Conrad that he’d gotten Rafe’s message about Marta being used, and would be wary. Conrad had hired a plane to fly to Bakir Zagora. That reminded Rafe to call a car leasing company and rent a car. He settled for a Jag.

After lunch, Rafe informed the dour housekeeper he’d be staying at a bed-and-breakfast and saw relief in her eyes. He left her the number in case of any emergency.

When the Jag arrived, Don insisted on following Rafe to Juno’s Inn. The limo owner kept a shrewd gaze on him as Rafe took the steps. He ached, he didn’t deny that. At the porch, he turned and jerked his thumb for Don to go away. The BMW drove slowly, and Rafe figured he’d be hearing from Don the next day—just in case he was in worse shape than he admitted.

The middle-age woman who admitted him also noted his scraped face and limp and assured him that his room had a spa tub. Rafe nodded. He gritted his teeth up another flight of stairs. The place was too fussy for him, and he wondered how Amber Sarga decorated her Victorian.

Then he made it to the bed and decided to lie down for a couple of minutes. As sleep swirled around him, he saw shadows dive-bomb him again, felt the peck and stab of beaks…and the thing’s bone crack as its neck broke.

It took longer for Amber to wrap up Cissy Smart Gortel’s family tree and report than anticipated. But by the time Amber had, she was feeling better.

After she’d finished the family tree, she’d spread it out on her large worktable. Even before she touched the large chart, pink-purple magic swirled from her fingers. Surely it was a good sign that her minor magic came quicker now?

She knew, then, that she’d be able to include a story. Darkness had swirled around her and she’d observed a scene in the Smarts’ past. A wonderful, hopeful scene. Cissy’s forebears had been part of the underground railroad and helped slaves escape. A couple of hours later, Amber had found documentation of the event from several stories of ex-slaves compiled after the Civil War.

Smiling, Amber rolled up the chart and the report and put them in a tube and attached the proper postage. Before she left the room, her gaze was drawn to the tube that Conrad had given her.

No, it should wait for another day. Or at least after chocolate pie.

At the bottom of the stairs Tiro stood, scowling and with his arms crossed. For an instant he looked like an odd garden statue and she had to choke back a laugh.

“I’m ready for my pie,” he grumbled. He glanced at the mantel clock in the living room. “It’s almost tea time.”

“Chocolate pie takes twenty minutes to make at the most.” She had some frozen crusts.

He grunted. Amber shrugged and headed into the kitchen.

Time with the other brownies mellowed Tiro slightly. He was downright gleeful when he learned another brownie at Jenni’s place was indentured to a cat. And Tiro was pleased to be asked to help with Pred’s excavation projects.

Pred finished his piece quickly and said, “I will extend the tunnel from the common meeting area under the center of the cul-de-sac to your basement.” He glanced at Tiro. “You can help.”

Tiro’s eyes gleamed. “Digging!”

“See what you miss when you live by yourself?” Hartha said.

Pred tilted his head. “Open the tunnel from Jenni’s basement to yours. Put in a door.”

Amber stared, thought of the sunroom that had appeared nearly overnight on the back of Jenni’s house. “Where’s Jenni? She’s been gone a month.”

Jenni’s brownies appeared unhappy, even with rings of chocolate around their mouths and on their lips. “Jindesfarne is on a dangerous mission,” Pred said.

Hartha looked toward the south, where the street of the cul-de-sac led to other human byways. “Change is coming, for sure.” Her thin shoulders shivered. She stared at Tiro. “And sometimes it isn’t good. Mystic Circle is a special place. And great evil Dark ones know of it.” She frowned at Tiro. “Now we have this brownieman here, and someday he will bring Cumulustre. That is not something to anticipate, either.”

“What’s a Dark one?” asked Amber.

“Pure evil with power you can’t imagine. Only four remain,” Tiro said. “Of course this place would draw them. We’ll run if we need to.”

Amber didn’t think he meant her. Sounded like she might be sacrificed one way or the other.

Chapter 7

RAFE AWOKE WHEN the light changed, the last yellow slant of the sun angling from the windows. Sitting up, he groaned. Damn, he felt like an old man, stiff and sore. But the short sleep had cleared his mind. He knew what he needed to do. He was going back to the business district near Mystic Circle and find that dead crow. Maybe then he’d get a clue about what was going on.

Ignoring his aches and pains, Rafe headed into the diminishing day. Once he was in the car, the purring motor and the sweet vibration soothed him. It was a short drive to the place where he fell. He had a good geographic sense and was sure he could find one bird corpse.

The street had many more cars parked along it than before. He found a spot near where he had fallen and began checking the street and curb. Absolutely no feathers. An odd porous-looking hollow stick of grayish-white caught his eye. Hunkering down, he picked it up. It was light and felt…slimy. There hadn’t been snow in Denver for days, and nothing else was damp.

He looked closer at his prize and the back of his throat coated as a nasty scent rose from it. Definitely a bone. But clean. Like something had eaten whatever the bone belonged to. Standing, his gaze ran along the gutter and bumped at another gray bone. This looked roundish…with, maybe, a tooth?

Again he squatted. This time he didn’t touch the thing, didn’t even want to nudge it with his foot. God knows what crap it would leave on his shoe. He found a stick and stirred at the mess of old leaves and gravel and a shoddy leather patch.

For an instant he thought he saw a skull. And not a regular bird skull. Something out of his childhood playtime when he had dinosaur action figures. He shook his head. No, of course not. He looked closer. He’d been wrong. Now it looked birdlike. He poked it with a stick and the whole damn thing fell into dust. Must have been there a long time. Not just today.

Then there was a last shaft of light through purple velvet clouds and he glanced up to see a bloody sun. He dropped the stick.

The whole day had unsettled him. His head ached. He must have banged it harder than he’d thought.

He damn well wanted a drink, and O’Hearn’s would be the place to get it.

Green paper shamrocks decorated the pub’s windows, reminding Rafe that St. Pat’s holiday was soon. Walking through the canvas-and-plastic outdoor porch toward the door, he opened it to the smell of good pub food and excellent beer.

The long room was floored in dark wood, with cushy-sided booths all along the walls. Since it was a little early for the office-job slaves, he had a pick of tables and seated himself in the corner. He ordered chips and salsa and the best imported beer they had and desultorily watched the TV over the bar, where silent talking heads were imposed in front of a basketball game.

Damn Conrad for getting him into this. God-awful strange stuff had been happening to him all damn day.

A tall man with gleaming silver hair, wearing a long, caped-shoulder trench coat that swirled around him, strode up to Rafe and slipped into the opposite seat. Rafe eyed him but wasn’t inclined to protest. There was something about that man…

The dude was…well, not pretty, ’cuz he was masculine enough… Aw, too handsome. But he carried the same brand of beer Rafe was drinking. Stretching out long legs covered with smooth, dark brown leather, the man looked toward the door, didn’t meet Rafe’s eyes. It seemed more like he was being courteous than cowardly. Rafe guessed it was the way he moved—like a guy who could take care of himself and wipe the floor with you.

Someone turned the TV volume up and sports stats spewed from it, drowning out all other sound. The man said clearly, “So, Rafael Barakiel Davail, how would you like to learn how to live past your thirty-third birthday?”

Rafe choked on his beer. Spewed. Oh, that was couth. Worse, his bottle fell from his limp fingers and hit the table and tipped over, chugging out beer. Liquid went on his hands and the table and his pants and dripped onto the floor. He stared at the gathering puddle, not wanting to look at the guy. Maybe he wasn’t really there. Maybe this was all a hallucination.

Despite himself, his gaze slid to the man’s long, elegant fingers. He moved his forefinger in an arc of no more than a half inch. The pungent scent of spilled beer vanished. So did the amber liquid Rafe had been looking at. So did the stickiness on his fingers, the dampness on his knee. The wooden table shone as if another layer of poly had just been added, and two full glasses of beer with light froth stood on the table.

“I prefer draught porter, don’t you?” the man asked.

Rafe just closed his eyes and thunked back into the corner.

“Rough day?” asked the guy.

“Somehow I think you know,” Rafe said. He cracked his eyelids and saw a concerned expression on the man’s face. And ears as pointed as a movie elf’s.

Damn. It. To. Hell.

Rafe looked away and when he glanced back there were no pointed ears. The man studied him quizzically.

“You said something about my birthday?”

A corner of the man’s mouth lifted, but his eyes grew hooded. “Cautious? Being so stubborn isn’t wise.” He shifted a trifle, as did his coat, and Rafe thought he saw a weapon strapped to the guy’s hip. Then the man lifted his drink and drank, and his expression grew pleased. When he looked back at Rafe, his smile faded. “What I could tell you is a long and convoluted story. Which I see that you would not believe. And not believing, it would fade from your mind within hours, particularly the details that are vital.”

He met Rafe’s gaze and Rafe was caught. The blue of the man’s eyes became all there was in the universe. Dimly, Rafe knew he was in trouble, tried to twitch, do anything to break the man’s mental hold, couldn’t. No fear came, only the wish to please this one.

Then the guy looked away and Rafe’s gut churned. He should get up, leave. Hell, he should kick the chair out from under the man and head out the back door. He didn’t think he’d get far.

Once again the dude kept his gaze aside and Rafe appreciated that.

“Rafael Barakiel Davail,” he said softly. So softly that Rafe shouldn’t have been able to hear him over the loud TV.

Rafe drank his beer. Unusual taste. He let it sit on his tongue while he considered if it actually came from this place. Helluva thing to think. “That’s my name,” Rafe said.

“Indeed. But the addition of the name of the angel of fortune will not keep you from death from the curse.”

Now the man’s voice was all too deadly.

Rafe took another swallow. “You here to kill me?”

“No. And I did not set the shadleeches on you.”

All the fine hair on Rafe’s body ruffled. Shadleeches. The image of the bird-not-bird skull came, the hollow gray bone.

“The sooner your life ends, the sooner some will rejoice.” The man cut his gaze to Rafe, then back. Rafe felt the power of him, knew he could have snagged him again.

“So there are things that you can hear. Such as discussion of your curse.”

Rafe kept his flinch inward, didn’t think doing that hid it from the man’s sight.

“Shadleeches,” the guy said.

“What are shadleeches?”

“Will you remember if I tell you?” the elf mused. “They are the evil things that attacked you, born from dark magic in the last half decade. Dark ones—greater magical beings whom we Lightfolk fight—use shadleeches to attack and weaken people with magic.” The elf paused two beats. “Like you.”

Rafe’s mind grappled with the notion. His mouth was dry and he drank more ale, swallowed. “What do they look like?”

“Rather like airborne stingrays but with defined heads.” Another few seconds of silence, then the guy repeated, “Shadleeches.”

Rafe shuddered.

“That’s a good sign. We may be able to save you.”

“We?”

“I. A friend. Yourself. You are not as blind as you might be, and your hearing is better than your sight. I advise you to listen to that around you.”

“My birthday,” Rafe persisted.

“That is the complicated story that you can’t hear yet. But you might hear and remember this—I can offer to ensure you are where you must be on your thirty-third birthday.”

Damned if the man’s voice didn’t lilt in an almost musical way, and the light caught the silver of his hair and his ears were back to being pointed…then round.

“M’father, all my forefathers…” Rafe lifted his hand in a helpless gesture. “One’a them must have listened to you.” That came out bitter. If they had listened, he wouldn’t be here listening to one strange dude.

“I couldn’t make this offer to your father, or any of your forebears. But in the last few months there have been developments.” He smiled and Rafe felt uncomfortably stunned. Like he was slowly being wrapped up in a silken spiderweb.

“I can see I disconcerted you.” The elf…no, the man stood. “We can talk later, after you give up trying to convince yourself that you have brain damage, are mad, or hallucinating. When you accept the truth.” He stood looking down on Rafe and every breath he took was hard, as if the air wouldn’t be sucked into his lungs. “I’m not sure it is a good thing that you are attracted to Amber Sarga. That’s bound to cause complications.” There was a shrug and the guy’s cape…coat…whatever…rippled. His nod was regal. “Don’t wait too long, Rafe Barakiel, or it will be too late.”

Then he was gone and Rafe’s nose twitched and he thought he smelled ozone after a hard rain.

He studied the beer, then decided to drink it anyway. As he reached for it, he saw a business card. It was pale green. One word was in script. Pavan. The rest read Eight Corp, and gave an address in downtown Denver.

He drank his beer and threw down a twenty, decided to leave the Jag and walk to Juno’s Inn. His steps took him to Mystic Circle and he stared. There was a For Sale sign in front of number two, the fanciful pink house. Fumbling in his pocket for his phone, he snapped a pic, texted his financial agent “buy now.”

Then he jogged to the inn, every step making his head ache, sloshing the beer in his belly. And he felt as if the shadow of a beast of prey fell over him.

Amber couldn’t help herself. After dinner she went up to her office and opened Conrad’s tube and took out the family tree charts.

Rafe’s chart felt odd and slick and yet had an undertone that she liked, that called to her.

More than just a curse needing to be broken called to her.

She leaned Rafe’s roll against a bookcase next to the window. Conrad’s she spread out on her worktable. Handling the paper had magic gathering in her hands, flowing through her body. Her own minor magic that let her experience moments of the past.

This magic she’d discovered by accident. The gypsy journal made no mention of it.

She placed her hands on the middle of the family tree. The connection wasn’t as good because the paper wasn’t hers, nor was the work. But her hands stuck, so there was something there. Many scenes, perhaps. And, maybe, far back in the past, the vital scene.

Amber drew in a long breath.

Pink-purple sparks rose from her fingers to circle her head. As she fell through the well of blue-black, her ears rang. Her magic adjusted first to any change of language. The fall was short, but the abrupt stop was hard.

Not far back, then, a few decades. Amber blinked the dark fog away to settle into the vision.

The colors of the world had faded as usual to black and white.

Two men were sitting on a park bench, they both had features in common with Conrad Tyne-Cymbler. Both were wearing sixties clothes, the older man, who was in his late thirties, had on a suit and tie. The younger lounged, arms crossed and legs stretched, in jeans and sneakers and a white sweatshirt, scowling as he drew short puffs on a cigarette he held between thumb and two fingers.

“Son, I’m sorry we didn’t meet before.”

“Yeah, right.” He blew out a stream of smoke.

Amber could hear the conversation clearly, but no other ambient noise.

The older man shook his head. “I was afraid.”

The younger laughed, cut off as he saw his father dab at his face with a handkerchief.

“Afraid I’d die. We have this bad family thing going on. Some say it’s a curse.”

“Come on, man....” The one in jeans glanced around, saw a bottle and dropped his cigarette precisely into it, glowing end first.

The bottle exploded.

Older Cymbler’s yell cut short as a fragment slashed his jugular, ripped it open. A terrible dark flow painted his throat, widened into a spurt. Younger Cymbler’s mouth opened in a scream that echoed through the years. He clapped his hand on his opposite arm, which had more glass poking out of it.

He stared and stared at his father’s body as it slumped off the bench and rolled to the grass.

Horror. Terror. Grief. The huge flash of feeling, of tearing emotions, slammed into Amber, plummeting her back to reality and the now. She always experienced this fall and the distortion of her senses to understand the past event, then the blow of emotions from those in the scene shocking her back to her own time and body.

This time she didn’t have to sort the emotions, replay the words to extrapolate what had happened.

It had been all too hideously clear. Almost as bad as battle scenes.

She’d slipped and lay on the floor. There was movement from the threshold and her heart stuttered. Who?

Tiro watched her.

Gingerly Amber sat up, holding her head. Her eyes focused slowly from the dimness and dreary colors of the past to the eye-hurting color of the backs of her reference books—maroon, hunter-green, navy. The reason she kept her walls a creamy beige in this room. Easy on her eyes when she transitioned from the then to the now.

Tiro clomped over, each footfall seeming like an ogre’s instead of a brownie’s. He stood looking down at her, shaking his head. Then he drew in a long, sniffing breath. “Ah. At least this magic doesn’t age you or your pups. Bad on your eyes and ears, though.” He narrowed his eyes. “Somewhere in your branch there is more than elf magic. Hard to determine. A touch of lesser water-naiad or naiader.” Again he snorted. “And Treefolk—maybe a different Treefolk-elf mix. Huh.” He turned and stomped away.

Head throbbing, she was too late to ask what on earth the Treefolk were and how her magic might be affected.

Moving muscle by muscle, she pushed from the thick carpet—this wasn’t the first time she’d landed on the floor—and back into her office chair. She stared at her own family tree on the wall. She’d become fascinated with genealogy when she’d wanted to trace back her gift to discover if there were any additional journals that would help her with the aging thing.

She’d lost her line in the fourteenth century when a small city had been wiped out by the Black Death. She certainly hadn’t made it back to an elf named Cumulustre.

Nor had she experienced any past moments that showed an elf. Mostly the visions of her own bloodline showed women aging and dying as they broke a curse.

All her life she’d yearned to understand her talent, to mitigate or circumvent the consequences of it, the aging, studying each word of the journal…experimenting with small curses, ill will cast by children with magic at each other.

The past few years she’d lived at Mystic Circle, she’d come to believe in magic and had even more hope that somehow she’d discover how to help people and not pay the high cost.

But today her mind scrabbled to understand this new world and find her way among concepts she didn’t understand, to glean what could work for her.

She took some aspirin from her drawer, tossed them down with cold coffee. Then she went to work on her computer. Sure enough, the freak accident had happened, Conrad’s grandfather had died—and Conrad’s father had an injured arm that had never quite healed. That curse wasn’t quite a death curse. Apparently if the men didn’t meet, the elder could live until old age and die of natural causes. Very strange.

Next she searched for more journals of her ancestress. It had been several years since she’d done that and online resources were so much better now. She sent some requests to antiquarian dealers.

Branches tapped on the window, the wind was rising. Rafe’s chart fell down. Steps slow, Amber went over to it, picked it up. As always she was hit with the slick evil of the curse, the tingle of magic—stuff she was sensing more and clearly all the time—and something about the man and the family tugged at her.

Drawing in a good breath, she rolled the chart out on the worktable, too.

She shouldn’t care what happened to the man. But like she’d done on the database, she traced the Davail line back and back and back, and the sense of the curse and the magic was all along the chain of lives. To the beginning of the chart, three hundred years before.

Too tired and sad to want to experience another vision, she went to her chair and swiveled in it, thinking about curse breaking. Nothing in the journal said that a major curse, one that would last generations because the curser knew what he or she was doing, had a release, too. Amber’s eyes went to the top notebook on her bookshelf. The black one detailing the curse that had cost her the most—five years and her old cat, Jasmine. Hurt and guilt still twisted inside her at that. She hadn’t realized until then that she paid the price for fixing curses. Probably why her mother and her aunt had cut all ties with her when she was a child.

Even then she’d felt when their love had dropped away from her, when they’d abandoned her to relatives who only valued the pay they got to raise her.

She shivered. She’d felt cold and wondered what her aunt and mother felt. She’d believed her mother and aunt had loved her. Had they? She’d always question that.

Swinging back and forth, she stared at the black notebook. She’d been twenty-three at the time and new to her business…and already passing for older than she was due to various small curses broken over the years. Roger Tremont’s daughter had had the curse, an ill-health thing that would shorten her life.

Amber hadn’t been able to resist—she never had, much—and had done the preparations as noted in the journal. She’d asked Roger and his daughter over for their last genealogical meeting and took the girl’s hand while Roger was reviewing his family tree. Amber pulled, drawing out a fine net of gray magic. It shattered as it hit the air, but had also drained Amber. She’d collapsed, fallen and seen her cat go into convulsions and die.

Roger had helped her up and she’d gotten him out of the house. Over the next minutes, she had aged and some of the obscure language in her ancestress’s journal that she’d never understood about consequences had become obvious. Later, she figured she’d lost five years. How many years she’d given Roger’s daughter, she didn’t know.

Another result of that action was that her perception of curses became more sensitive, and the images of what they were doing to their victims grew worse. And the need to break them and help became difficult to ignore.

Slowly she stood and took down the notebook. But as she recalled, the curse hadn’t been going on long. Roger had consulted her to discover if there were any genetic reason for his daughter’s sickness.

Putting the book on her desk, she didn’t open it. Not tonight. But if there was someplace to start looking for a curse that might have had an unbinding built in when it was cast, that was the case.

She turned and left the room, flicking off the lights and closing the door behind her.

Already too late for her, and her cat, they’d paid the price and that was still harsh and bitter in her blood.

She walked by a glowering Tiro, who lurked in the hall and drank a mug of hot cocoa.

Neither of them said anything.

The blue eyes followed Rafe into sleep. They stared, then the eyelids closed and Rafe saw that they were fringed with silver. Not white lashes, not gray. Silver. Like the elf’s hair.

In the dream he knew the man was not a man, but an elf.

In the dream he was not alone. There were men behind him, many of them. He could feel them, like many shadows at his back. Yes, the sun was before him, and the bright blue eyes had vanished into the bright blue sky. With clouds edged with silver from the sun.

Rafe shuddered. He knew this dream now. The one he’d had as a child. The yearning one.

The first yearning had been for a father, a man who would love him. Hell, a man who would spend a few minutes of time with him, even a damn weekend morning that some of his friends had with their fathers who’d been divorced from their mothers.

Next came the yearning for the dagger.

A couple of the shadows had been with him then.

During the hot, sexual dreams of puberty, he’d yearned for a girl. Some specific girl. He didn’t know her, but figured he’d know her if he saw her. Or touched her. Or plunged his body into hers.

And the dagger dreams had increased.

More shadows had been at his back, then.

He’d banished the dream after college. When he knew that he wouldn’t have a special woman. Not with his family history. No wife or son for him. He’d known then, too, that the blade was an unattainable magic he didn’t believe in.

And he knew that he’d become a gray shadow behind another boy and man.

Chapter 8

THE ELF HAD brought the dream back to Rafe.

No. In the way of dreams and his unconscious that formed them, he knew the crow-bat-evil-things had brought the dream back. That had started the countdown to his death.

He wouldn’t be able to outrun it, or speed away by cycle or car or boat.

And the dagger was back.

It floated before him horizontally, blue-steel and glittery as if there were an enamel coating on it with silver and gold sparkles embedded in it.

Or maybe those were stars.

His heart thumped hard. He wanted that blade. The shape of the weapon was more triangular than a regular sword blade and the length was less than a sword but more than a long dagger. The simple grip was a silver wire-wrapped handle.

He’d forgotten how the need for that blade…and maybe the girl…swallowed him, an ache that filled him, the dream, the universe.

As much as the longing to live, not for three more months, but until he passed away in his sleep from old age. After seeing his children, his sons—first and second and however many more—and daughters grown.

He wanted life with a passion that others couldn’t understand. He wanted the woman and he wanted the children.

But the elf’s eyes in the dream opened again and glittered like the blade and Rafe knew in his core that if he wanted to live and love, he must find the dagger.

Rafael Barakiel Davail, the elf said and Rafe woke up in a cold sweat.

Hell! What a dream. He rubbed his eyes, his face. And found that he had dried perspiration on his skin.

Flinging the sheets and heavy comforter aside he went to the bathroom and the mirror. His left wrist burned. The light was soft but didn’t make him look any better. His eyes appeared sunken, the skin on his face white and tight. When he looked down at the inside of his left arm, the veins looked black, not blue.

The sight caught at his throat, closed it. Fear shot through him. The type of fear that he clamped down on hard, refused to acknowledge, buried beneath other physical fears.

Three o’clock in the morning, of course, and it was time for the hardest question.

Did he believe that he would die before he reached thirty-three?

He tried to put the question off, but it throbbed in his brain like a splinter. How could he believe in something so irrational as a curse?

Conrad’s curse had come true.

Rafe didn’t have to look at the family tree file on his computer pad to know that every first son in his family had died before thirty-three for generations, and the family name had gone to a younger son or a nephew. That was beyond weird. What were the odds?

Could he afford to not believe in the curse? Face it. His life was on the line and there were no stakes higher. His eyes narrowed and he shifted from foot to foot, thinking that that was wrong. But what could be higher stakes to him than his own life?

That of his brother’s.

But his brother was safe. Gabe’s firstborn son wouldn’t be, a tragedy to come, that Rafe wouldn’t be around to suffer.

Conrad was safe, too. Rafe had gotten a short text from him. He was still hurting, but determined to find Marta.

Curses.

Just too much to believe in. Because if he believed in curses he’d have to rethink his whole life…and believe in other stuff, too. Like creatures that weren’t birds or bats but nasty, oily something-elses with hollow bones that disintegrated. And believing in blue-eyed elves that could snare you with a direct gaze. And dreams of magical blades and women.

And death in under eight months.

Nope. He just couldn’t believe. Not now, not even in a Victorian bathroom with cream-colored paper and lights in colored glass that looked like flowers that seemed more fantasy than real.

If he believed in the curse, he would have to act in some way to forestall it. And he didn’t know what to do, and from the past, all the other men in his family had been helpless to change their fate.

He couldn’t be helpless.

Since he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep, he decided to do a little research of his own and pulled out his computer notepad.

The man-elfman had known his full name. Rafe turned on his tablet and pulled up search engines, keyed in his full name. Nothing. Not much under Rafael Davail or Rafe Davail, either. His wins, that made him smile. A few pics of him on the slopes or in the wind or waves, and that was good, too. Some with a lady or two on his arm. No special woman.

He recalled the name of the man—Pavan—and searched for that. Nothing that referred to a male individual who might have pointed ears. Definitely no social pages.

Then there was Eight Corp. Also very low-key. A closely and privately held corporation based in Denver and doing something in the energy sector. Which could mean about anything.

The low-battery icon on his screen flashed and Rafe swore. He hadn’t been quite ready to quit. Rolling off the bed, he crossed to his duffel and pulled out the cord, attached it to his computer, hunkered down to plug in the thing.

Shock sizzled up his fingers, flung him back into the middle of the room.

The lights went out.

His limbs flopped. Wha’?! Shaking his head, he levered himself up. He knew he hadn’t touched the prongs of the plug, or the outlet.

But he’d been shocked, for sure. If he had been closer to the outlet, touched it or the metal of the plug, he’d be dead.

His nerves still quivered under his skin. He lifted his hand and sniffed. Didn’t smell burned and that was a relief. He rubbed his fingertips together. Still working, still could feel them. Also good.

Moonlight from the large window pasted a pale square of light on the rug, but the lamps he’d had on were dark. He staggered to his feet and pulled the lamp chain, then tried a wall switch. Nothing.

Glancing out the window toward the corner, he saw that streetlights were on.

Again he shook his head and considered going to the lobby. He opened the door, no light in the hallway except from the skylights. Tiptoeing to the staircase, he listened. Nothing, no commotion. Which, if they hadn’t already noticed the electricity was off, must mean everyone else was in bed and probably asleep. So he went back to his room.

A rectangular red light blinked at him from the bed. His tablet. The screen looked like it was covered in blood spatter. Frowning, he picked it up. The screen went from red to black with dripping scarlet letters. Time has run out. The bomb exploded. You die.

Swallowing hard, he touched the pad. The end logo of the game, “Fly or Die,” scrolled down for a few seconds before the computer turned off.

Shaken, he sat on the bed in the dark. Yeah, of course he had the app “Fly or Die.” He’d played it a few times.

He’d never lost.

He shoved the tablet onto the bedside table, squinted. Something else was luminous.

It was the pale green business card he’d gotten that evening. Odd. He picked it up again, eyes widening when he saw a new word on it. “Pavan,” it said, then below, “Troubleshooter.”

Rafe began to think that he’d need someone to help him shoot the trouble in his life.

He crawled under the covers. It was a cold night. He waited to hear the heat turn on, but it didn’t. The old-fashioned wind-up mantel clock ticked the seconds away.

In the morning he was awakened by an apologetic host, informing him that the inn would have to close. There had been a freak accident that had blown the electrical system.

Rafe nodded, dressed and paid his shot and took off in the Jag to Mystic Circle. He wondered if Amber would like to go out for breakfast, then noted it was late, about 10:00 a.m.

He didn’t want to be anywhere except the cul-de-sac. Amber and the house he was interested in were good rationalizations to go back. Not just because he felt safer there for some unknown reason.

His cell lilted with the orchestral tune of his financial advisor. Since the Jag was a stick shift, he didn’t answer. As soon as he pulled into Mystic Circle, tension eased from him. He stopped before number two, the one he wanted to buy. The For Sale sign was gone. His heart gave a solid thump of disappointment. Had someone—say a dude with silver hair and pointed ears—snapped up the house before Rafe? And would it appeal to such a guy?

More hard thoughts about curses that worked when there should be no such thing. Of tall men who could look at you and have you sitting still to do whatever they wanted. Of disappearing beer and appearing lager.

He closed his eyes, replayed his conversation with Pavan and the implications. He’d followed his hunches most of his life, all except the deepest ones. Decision time.

His phone rang again and he answered his financial advisor’s call. “Hey, Cynthia. I’m sitting in front of number two Mystic Circle right now.”

“It’s very odd,” said Cynthia. “They won’t close without proof that you’ll be alive at the end of the year. I’ve never heard anything like it. Who can give proof of such a thing? I can forward some medical records if you want…”

“That wouldn’t work,” Rafe said. “Will they take earnest money to keep the house off the listings?”

“Yes…but, you know, it didn’t get listed.” Her tone was disapproving at the inefficiency.

“Who’s the owner?”

“Oh. It’s a firm there in Denver, not a regular real estate firm, though they have holdings.... Eight Corp.”

Rafe wasn’t really surprised. “All right then. Give them the earnest money.”

A pause. “The amount is such that I’ll have to notify your brother, Gabriel.”

Rafe didn’t say that she could tell Gabe the next time they were in bed—he was slightly less rude. “When’s the wedding?”

“He won’t make plans until next year.”

Probably because he thought he’d be mourning a brother. Gabe hadn’t told Cynthia the family secret, then. Tough on a good guy to inform a beloved that their first son might die because of a curse. Too many ways a discussion like that could go wrong.

“Tell Gabe that he’d like the house, and the area. Anything in the block is worth snapping up. And let him know my will is up to date.”

“You aren’t doing anything dangerous, are you?”

“I’m not participating in any competitions right now.” No sports at least, though an idea was forming in his head that he’d be going on a quest. Which would be the most dangerous thing he’d ever done in his life.

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