Enchanted Again

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 The Colorado Tynes had a family tree available online, about five years out of date.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.