Derek hadn’t given all that much thought to his natural father. He supposed, in the back of his mind, that he thought Grace’s youthful indiscretion had been with a college student, someone her age who’d been terrified of the prospect of a child.
When he said as much to her, she smiled.
“Your father is a very important man. One might say he’s the most important man in the entire world.”
Her voice didn’t sound young now. Instead it held a somber undertone, as if she were delivering a dire prognosis to him instead of a fantastical comment.
“What is he, a Saudi prince?”
“Oh, if that were only the truth.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment and he wanted to jump over the coffee table and shake her to get the words flowing freely.
“I was fascinated by all the stories and rumors I’d heard. I was intrigued by his power, you see. I felt it even being in the same room with him. The atmosphere was charged as if electrical sparks flowed from him.” She looked at him and smiled a strange, almost sad, smile. “I was a foolish girl, but I fell in love with the stories, first, and then the man.”
“So who is this most powerful man in the world, Grace?”
Maybe his father was the scion of a wealthy family. Or he had some political pull. He ran through a number of names of famous San Antonians about the same age as Grace. Some of them were powerful, but not to the degree she seemed to believe.
“A wizard, Derek.”
Of course he was. Did he expect any less? After all, she’d just outed Breanna as a witch.
He put down his cup, stood, and headed for the door.
“Derek.”
“Thanks for the coffee, Grace, but as for the rest, I’m not buying it.”
“Breanna said you’d say that. It’s one of the reasons she didn’t tell you. She said you were stubborn, that you were a pragmatist. According to her, you said everything has an answer and a reason.”
He said that often. Very well, she might have met Breanna. She might even have been friends with her, but the other? The woo-woo stuff? No, not on a bet.
“She wanted to warn you, Derek. Exactly what I’m doing now.”
“Sorry, Grace, I don’t believe you.”
She pursed her lips and shook her head. Good. Let her be annoyed or half as angry as he was becoming. A moment later she extended her hand toward the archway, wiggled her fingers, and spoke a few words.
“Did you just curse me?” he asked. “Not impressed, Grace. I’ve already been cursed.”
He turned and headed for the door only to be caught up by something that felt like a spider web. Hundreds of sticky fibers clung to his face. He tried to brush them off but they stuck to his fingers. His arms were suddenly encased. The more he tried to free himself the tighter they became. Kicking at them didn’t help, either. One foot was suddenly caught up in mid-air.
What the hell?
“You won’t be able to leave until you hear me out, Derek.”
She stood, moving past him in the archway without being affected by the web. Once she was facing him, she continued.
“You’ve never heard of NASACA, have you?”
“Whatever you’ve done, whatever kind of trick this is, stop it.”
“I’ve spelled the doorway. It won’t last long. Fifteen minutes at the most, but long enough to get you to listen to me.”
“How did you do it?”
She blew out a breath. “You’re as stubborn as Breanna said. Must I do something else to get you to believe?”
“Believe in what, exactly? Witchcraft?”
“Magic.”
He stared at her.
She shook her head. “You really must believe, Derek. It’s your legacy.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about and I sure as hell don’t know how you’ve done this, but stop it right now.”
“Not until you listen.”
“Then hurry up and tell me because I’m losing my patience.”
To his surprise she smiled at him. “In addition to looking like your father you sound like him, too.”
He didn’t give a damn how his father sounded.
“The Meriduar is a group of five regions formed centuries ago to protect those of us with…” Her voice trailed off. “Abilities. Perhaps that’s the easiest way to say it. Jeffrey North is the leader of the European group.”
“I take it this Jeffrey is my biological father.”
“Yes, he is. He’s a very powerful wizard.”
“Not a witch?”
She shook her head.
There was a contingent of people in Austin who believed themselves touched with magical powers. They’d formed a political group and insisted upon coming before the legislature with various proposals to promote magic.
He’d always ignored them like the kooks they were.
This woman was his mother. She’d given birth to him and then ensured that he was raised by people who would care for him. He had always believed himself to be a sane, practical man. He had goals. He had dreams and visions. He knew what he wanted in his life. Some of that had already come true, with his job and marrying Breanna, with plans for children a few years down the road. He didn’t believe in fantasy. His was a life structured by facts, dates, quotes, documented actions, and research.
Yet everything had been turned on its head with Breanna’s death. Now Grace expected him to believe what she was saying, speaking the words in such a calm and matter-of-fact tone that he was almost drawn in.
“I know this is all very difficult for you to understand, Derek. You’ve been protected from the truth all these years. I argued against it, but no one listened to me. They thought if you were a civilian that you would be safer, somehow. They ignored my advice because of what I’d done. Jeffrey was only here for a meeting between all five regions. I shouldn’t have even met him, but I did.”
Maybe if he stayed silent she would release him from whatever was keeping him trapped.
“People kept telling me it was an allure that he generated through a spell. It might’ve been. Or it might have been who he was down deep. It didn’t matter in the end, you see. I fell in love.”
That part he understood. He had an idea of where this story would go and when she continued, he wasn’t disappointed.
“The discovery that he was married came as a nasty surprise. So, too, did Millicent’s threats.”
“Who the hell is Millicent?”
“Jeffrey’s wife. It was Millicent who said that she’d kill you. Jeffrey had no children and I think she wanted to keep it that way. I was determined that she would not get to you. That’s why I gave you away.”
He really didn’t care why he’d been adopted, only glad that he had been. He didn’t even want to think about what his life would have been like with Grace as his mother.
She wasn’t finished. “Breanna knew my story and she knew about Jeffrey. His powers have only expanded over the years. Many people believe that he’s become too powerful and they’ve fought against him in their own way.”
“Great, people in your group believe he’s a powerful wizard. How does that affect me?”
“You don’t understand, Derek. It isn’t just that you’re Jeffrey’s only child. It’s that you have his bloodline and mine as well. I come from a long line of formidable individuals. Although he’s the most powerful wizard in the world you’re even stronger.”
“What?”
“You’re a wizard, too. Don’t you understand?”
“I don’t believe in magic.”
She smiled. “That’s like saying you don’t believe in God. God doesn’t care whether you believe in Him or not. Neither does magic.”
“So you’re saying that God and magic can coexist in the same universe?”
“Of course. Who do you think invented magic?”
“I thought you people prayed to Satan.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. That Satanism. That’s not magic.”
“Whatever you call it, I don’t believe in it. I only put my faith in things I can see or touch or feel.”
He felt a little strange saying that since he was caught up in an invisible web that incongruously smelled of caramel. She didn’t, however, call him on it.
“Yet you could be the most powerful wizard ever known,” she said. “Breanna said it would be difficult for you to accept the truth. Angie and Paul made a mistake. Their mission was to protect and guard you. They thought the best way to do that was to lead you away from magic. I wish they would have instructed you in it.”
“You’re saying that my parents do this magic thing, too?”
She nodded.
He had a headache beginning between his eyes.
“You want me to believe that Breanna knew all this? Knew who my father was, who Angie and Paul were, all of it?”
“More than that. She was instructed to date you, marry you, and become your wife.”
“She was a plant, is that it? Someone who could watch me day in and day out and report back to some gigantic mastermind of this entire thing?”
“The NASACA.”
“The what?”
“NASACA. One of the regions of the Meriduar. It stands for North America, South America, Central Africa. The American division is headquartered here in San Antonio.”
His headache was getting worse.
“Your meeting was orchestrated, Derek. So, too, your ultimate marriage, but Breanna fell in love with you. It was the best resolution from my point of view as your mother. Angie and Paul didn’t feel the same, unfortunately. They knew that Breanna’s power was beyond their own. They wouldn’t be able to control her like they would someone with fewer abilities. Or a civilian.”
There had been an almost indiscernible strain between his mother and wife. He’d never been able to put his finger on what it was. The two of them had never fought. They’d never exchanged a harsh word. Still, there had always been something there.
“So, to recap, my father is a powerful wizard, but I have the capacity to be even more powerful since you’re also a witch. His wife wanted to kill me. Tell me, does she still want to kill me?”
“She died some time ago.”
“But good old dad is on the warpath, is that it?”
She frowned at him. “This is not a joke, Derek.”
“I don’t believe in magic,” he said, enunciating every word slowly so that she wouldn’t have any difficulty understanding him. “In fact, I don’t believe anything you’ve just told me.”
He decided to ignore the fact that he was still caught up in her web.
She didn’t look upset about his comment. Instead, she smiled slightly. “I expected nothing else. You’ve been carefully shielded from anything that had a hint of the divine.”
“The divine?”
“What else would you call it, Derek? To be so close to the pulse of earth that you can alter the wind, command rain, send birds as your messengers, and tap into the force of nature itself. Isn’t that the essence of divinity?”
He pulled at the web and to his surprise it released him. The strands disappeared, leaving no residue behind. He wondered if they’d been real at all or something he’d imagined. Had the coffee been laced with some kind of drug?
“You can deny your heritage all you want, but it will catch up with you. I don’t doubt that it’s already started.”
He glanced at her over his shoulder.
“People will come for you, Derek. People who believe that you have the capacity to be even more powerful than your father and that you pose a threat to them. Only a few of us know that you have no training and until today you didn’t know about your heritage.”
He wasn’t a damn wizard. He might be the son of another crazy person, someone who billed himself as a practitioner of magic, but he didn’t have to go along with the insanity.
“I don’t believe in magic.”
He approached the front door and would have opened it but for the arc of electricity that suddenly obscured the knob.
Cautiously, he took a step back, glancing at Grace. “I don’t know what you did, but I’m leaving and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
“I haven’t done this,” she said, her voice holding an odd tone.
Reaching out, he was about to grab the doorknob again when the arc flared once more.
He turned and faced her. “If that’s not you, then what is it?”
“You said you didn’t believe in magic. But magic believes in you.”
“You have to be doing it.”
She shook her head. “I’m not doing anything. I give you my word.”
When he didn’t say anything, she smiled.
“You have so much to learn, Derek. Just because you renounce a gift doesn’t mean that the gift goes away. There’s enough magic in the world that hasn’t been claimed and it will find its way to you one way or another.”
She looked at the doorknob and then back at him. “That’s what’s happening right now. I imagine that it has been happening to you for your entire life, but you’ve never noticed.”
“I hate to disappoint you, Grace, but I’ve had a very normal life until the past two weeks.”
Her smile didn’t dim. “No transformers that blew in your neighborhood? No light bulbs that only lasted days instead of months? No devices that failed but couldn’t be repaired? I think that technicians probably told you it was a one in a million glitch.”
He felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. The guy at the phone repair place had said almost those exact words. Plus, in the last year he’d had bad luck with two computers, one laptop for his personal use and the other his desktop Windows machine. Both had to be replaced because they’d unexpectedly failed.
“You don’t have to take your rightful place as Jeffrey’s son, but you do need to protect yourself against those who are coming. And, you need to control the magic around you.”
He frowned at her but couldn’t think of a thing to say.
She went to the table by the archway and picked up a green leather bound book with gold letters. He didn’t understand Latin so he couldn’t translate it.
“This is for beginners in the art of magic. Learn what you can, Derek, if for no other reason than to protect yourself.”
He hadn’t meant to take the book from her, but he found himself reaching out, their hands touching. Time seemed to oddly slow in that instant. He was tired. He was grieving. Whatever he was imagining would pass in time. All he had to do was to return to his normal life, at least as much of it as he could.
Once more he reached for the knob, determined to open the door. She put her hand on his arm.
“Wait.”
Something was happening. It felt like the charge was running through him. He was suddenly a conduit, a part of the electricity.
“Ad quos eieci te,” she said, holding out her right hand, fingers pointed at the knob.
The sensation immediately vanished.
This time when he touched the doorknob nothing happened.
“Cool trick.”
He didn’t look at her when he opened the door. Nor did he turn as he walked across the porch and down the steps.
He would never see Grace Colson again. He would never have to subject himself to her particular brand of insanity. A wizard. He was as far from a wizard as a frog was from a Boeing 737.
Okay, there might have been some electrical issues in his past, but that didn’t mean anything. Nor did he care about who his biological father was. The man had provided sperm and that was it. Derek might have some of his DNA, but what he did with it was his business. He had no intention of believing in magic or that he had any ability in it.
Harry Potter had a lot to answer for, not the least of which was everyone running around thinking they were wizards.
What a bunch of crap.
He tried to start the car, but nothing happened. He pushed the button again, but it didn’t respond. Finally, he dug his keys out of his pocket and tried to start the car the old-fashioned way.
Grace was standing in the doorway, one hand extended toward him. He could have sworn he saw lightning coming out of her fingertips.
He needed to get some sleep.
He wouldn’t put it past her to have somebody disable his car while he was inside her house. He knew how those things went. When you were trying to convince someone to your cause, a little chicanery often helped.
She surprised him, though, by coming down the steps, her hand still extended.
“Get out, Derek,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. He hadn’t paid any attention to her expression, but now he realized she was frightened.
“Please, Derek, if you never listen to me again, listen to me now. I beg you.”
It was ridiculous to put any credence in her fear, but he got out of the car anyway. He was halfway up the walk when she grabbed his arm, and pulled him with her. Instead of heading back toward the front door, she rounded the side of the house.
The explosion was loud enough to rock the neighborhood.