Steve’s voice was calm. “Whoever did this is recovering, too. Working such magic takes great energy, and I can’t imagine they’ll be up to the same shenanigans for a while.”
It usually exhausted me to work magic, too, but in a really good way, like a long run through the woods blew the cobwebs out of my mind. It was a lovely feeling, but the defense I’d put up earlier had been something else. I felt utterly sapped.
“You know, I had protections all over this place,” I said. “Plus my amulet.”
“You’re not wearing it now.”
“It changed.”
“Changed?”
“Um. Yeah.”
Curious, he asked, “Where is it?”
“Someplace on the living room floor. I tore it off and threw it away from me when I saw what had happened to it.”
His eyebrows rose when he heard that.
Even breathing seemed to take effort. I reached down and picked up Mungo. “Poor little guy looks about ready to drop.”
“Here. I’ll take him.”
Mungo didn’t seem to mind riding in Steve’s arms, and I was tired enough to allow him to carry my familiar into the bedroom and put him on the bed. I started to collapse beside him, but Steve stopped me, took off my robe, and then pulled back the covers. I snuggled underneath, and he tucked me in.
“Thanks,” I mumbled, oddly grateful to be taken care of even though it made me feel like a weakling at the same time.
“Go to sleep.”
The last thing I remembered was Mungo burrowing in next to me and beginning to snore softly.
* * *
I awoke to daylight streaming in through my bedroom window and the sound of male voices in my living room. It was so strange for me to wake up after dawn that for a long moment I simply stared at the sunshine splashing across the quilt. Then I looked over at the bedside clock. It was after nine o’clock.
I sat straight up and rubbed my eyes.
The events of the night before came flooding back. In the light of day I could hardly believe it had happened at all. I searched for Mungo, but he wasn’t in the bedroom.
Holy cow, was I ever late for work. Lucy must be frantic with worry.
“This isn’t about you,” I heard Steve say from the living room. “This is about Katie.”
“Like you know what’s good for her. Like you care what’s good for her.”
I recognized Declan’s voice, and my stomach sank.
Throwing off the covers, I leaped out of bed and ran into the living room. Mungo sat on the purple velvet couch watching the two men face off. Steve stood with his hand on one of the wingback chairs. His hair, so wild the night before, was smoothed into its usual sleek ponytail, but he wore the same clothes. Declan stood next to the other wingback, five feet away. His blue T-shirt read, FIRST IN, LAST OUT, and his jeans were faded and worn. His jaw slackened when he saw me.
“Katie? Are you okay?”
I nodded. “I’m fine.”
His mouth clamped shut and his eyes turned hard. “I went to the Honeybee to pick you up, and Lucy told me you were sick. So I came by to see if there was anything I could do.” His hand struck the back of the chair, and I flinched. “Obviously you don’t need my help—not with that little favor you asked me for, and not with anything else, either.” He turned to glare at Steve. “You’ve been here all night.” It wasn’t a question. His attention transferred to me, and his eyes swept me up and down. “And obviously you’re feeling anything but under the weather.”
I became aware of what I was wearing and looked down at my tank and knit shorts. Great. Crossing my arms over my chest, I said, “Deck—”
He held up his hand. “I don’t want to hear it. You’ve made your choice.”
“No, wait. You don’t understand. And I do need your help.”
Incredulity infused his features. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“What favor?” Steve asked me, his gaze running over my body.
“I wanted him to go with me to see Greer Eastmore.”
“You don’t need him for that,” Steve said. “I’ll go with you.”
“It’s none of your business, Dawes,” Declan said.
“It’s more my business than yours,” Steve countered.
“Katie and I found that man in the square, not you.”
“There’s more going on than you know, McCarthy, more than you’re equipped to deal with.”
The muscles along Declan’s jawline flexed dangerously.
“Will you two stop it?” I said.
Declan turned to face me. “Yes. I will. You’re on your own. Good luck with this guy, Katie. I’m done playing your game.” And he strode out the door. It slammed behind him. I heard his pickup start up out front and the squeal of tires as he accelerated away.
A low whine issued from the back of Mungo’s throat.
Margie would be asking all sorts of questions about the screeching comings and goings in the last twelve hours. With a sigh, I pushed the thought out of my mind. Enough time to think about that later.
“You stayed here all night?” I asked Steve.
“Did you really think I’d leave you alone?”
“I was too tired to think anything,” I said with a grimace. “But thank you.”
“Sure got you in trouble with your firefighter.”
“He’s not—” I started to protest, then saw him grinning. “Stop it.”
Steve shrugged and changed the subject. “I called Lucy around five this morning—luckily she was up and heading out the door to the bakery already—and told her you weren’t feeling well. She said she’d call your new employee in to cover for you.”
My shoulders relaxed a fraction, then tensed again. “You didn’t tell her about last night?”
“No. I thought that should be your decision.”
“And she knew you were here.”
“Yes.” Amused.
Great. More explanations. Though knowing Lucy, she would applaud any forward momentum in my love life.
“Katie, go shower and put on some clothes, will you? You’re driving me crazy in that getup. I’ll throw together something to eat, and we can discuss Greer Eastmore.”
* * *
Despite the after-midnight nosh, Mungo and I both wolfed down the breakfast Steve had set out on the back patio: bowls of my homemade granola topped with yogurt and fresh strawberries from the garden. A couple cups of strong, steaming coffee didn’t hurt, either. As we ate, Steve played with my amulet, running it over and through his fingers like a Las Vegas showman.
“I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“I don’t want it anymore,” I said.
He paused in his machinations, considering, then nodded. He reached back and unwrapped the leather braid from his ponytail. His hair swung forward, obscuring his face as he worked something out of the plait. It flashed in a wayward ray of sunlight that had found its way under the patio roof. When he held it up, I saw a thin silver wire circle.
It was one of the Dragoh rings.
“Steve, no.”
“Hush.” He removed the ruined amulet Lucy had given me, and slipped the thin ring onto the chain instead. Then he stood and fastened it around my neck. His fingers ran lightly across my jawline, just once, and he sat down again.
The thin metal felt cool against my warm skin. I watched him tie his hair back once more.
“This is your protection, isn’t it? But aren’t these to repel Dragoh magic?”
“It’s supposed to fend off all potentially harmful magic, actually. Father gave one to me and one to Arnie when we were children.”
“You can’t give this to me,” I protested again.
“I just did. Besides, I don’t know how much good these really do, you know? The one Andersen gave you didn’t help much last night.”
“We don’t know that,” I said. “It might have been part of what saved me.”
“Well, Arnie’s sure didn’t do him much good.”
I knew by now it wouldn’t do any good to point out that his brother had perished as a result of bad judgment, not magic. So all I said was, “Thank you.”
* * *
Half an hour later my big, powerful wolf from the night before was sitting in my tote bag as Steve drove us to the Honeybee. I’d insisted that we stop by and put Lucy’s and Ben’s worries to rest. Besides, Nel was still brand-new, and it seemed like a lot to ask her to cover for me on her very first full day as an employee. Even though Steve suggested I check in via telephone, I knew I wouldn’t feel right until I’d stopped by and made sure everything was okay. Besides, it was only blocks from the Eastmore home.
After breakfast, I’d showered, and now I wore sedate khaki capris, a short-sleeved camp shirt, and flip-flops—unsexy and mundane. Still, I kept catching Steve’s eyes cutting to where I sat in the passenger seat, looking at me in a way that reminded me of how Mungo looked at steak sizzling on the hibachi.
I remembered the break in my resolve the night before, how I’d clung to him. The feel of his hands on my back, his lips on my neck…
“Whatcha thinking about?” he asked.
I realized I’d been staring straight at him without speaking for over a minute. A deep blush crept up my neck and flared in my cheeks. “Nothing. So what do you know about Greer Eastmore?”
He shrugged. “Not much since I was a boy. He’s in his late forties, and he left to live in Europe when I was about fourteen. So he would have been in his twenties still. I remember him as a pretty cool guy, actually. He’d toss a ball around with me—something my father never had the time or inclination to do. Greer took me hiking right before he left, on the Tupelo Trail in the wildlife refuge. We made a fire and cooked our lunch over it. Fried baloney on a stick.” His laugh held bitterness. “Can you believe that? But wow, did I feel like a real Boy Scout.”
I thought of fourteen-year-old Steve, poor little rich boy, thrilled with the experience of eating baloney toasted over a fire in the woods.
“Then he went away,” he continued. “And he ended all contact with his father for decades. I missed him, but it broke Lawrence’s heart.”
“That’s what Andersen said.” The fear I’d been successfully keeping at bay suddenly swooped through me. “Do you think Greer attacked me?”
“I don’t know.” He sounded almost angry.
“Does he practice magic at all? Or did he turn his back on it altogether when he broke off contact with his father?”
He lifted one shoulder and let it drop.
“We really don’t know anything about him. Maybe he needed money.” I was thinking out loud. “He obviously wasn’t close to his father. What if the murder didn’t have anything to do with the Dragohs or the Spell of Necretius? Maybe he killed his father out of old-fashioned family greed.”
“Then why is the spell for summoning Zesh gone?” Steve asked.
My throat tightened at the name. “Right. I don’t know. Maybe someone else took it? What does Greer do, anyway? Is he obsessed with worldly success?”
“Not unless he’s changed a lot. He used to be kind of a Bohemian, actually. The family money was part of the problem between him and his father.”
“Heck.” I thought for a moment. “Who knows? Perhaps Eastmore Junior will turn out to be another ally in this investigation. At least be able to shed some light on what happened. Seems like we could use all the help we can get, you know. Tomorrow is Samhain.”
“Just be careful when you’re talking to him.”
I put up a hand. “I’m not going to spill the beans. Andersen suggested I ask to borrow another book from Dr. Eastmore’s collection for our book club.”
Steve rolled his eyes. “Right.”
“No, really. He wants me to get a copy of The 33 Curses for the counterspell he’s working on in case the killer tries to summon this Zesh character.” But something had been bothering me ever since I’d talked to Andersen the day before. I waited, allowing the thought to gel. “Steve, do you think…Could Andersen have asked me to help him in order to divert attention from himself? He’s the only druid who doesn’t have an alibi. He told me he got into Dr. Eastmore’s collection and took a couple of books to help with the counterspell, but what if he didn’t? What if he wants me to get this other book because he can’t get in? I mean, something called The 33 Curses doesn’t exactly sound like it’s full of nice fluffy magic.”
Steve’s expression was grim as he pulled to the curb a few doors down from the Honeybee.
“But we have to do something,” I said. “If whoever came after me last night has the additional power of this Zesh character behind them, things are going to get really bad really fast.”