Spellbound Read online

  “It certainly was,” she agreed. “You were the indulged youngest son of a wealthy congressman. Rory’s a self-reliant paranormal who faked his own death to escape an asylum.”

  Arthur dropped heavily into his own chair. “All the more reason for me not to complicate the poor boy’s life. I won’t pressure him.”

  “Yes, because Rory would never tell you what he really thought. He’s such a wilting flower.”

  “Even hellcats can be taken advantage of—”

  “Of course they can,” Jade said, more gently. “But you’re overprotective as a bear and he triggers all your soft spots. All I’m suggesting is perhaps by trying to protect him, what you’re really doing is trying to make his decisions. Let Rory decide what Rory wants.”

  Arthur opened his mouth—and found he didn’t have an argument for that. The ringing of the phone spared him from having to conjure a retort. Arthur picked up. “This is Ace.”

  “I’ll go to Hyde Park,” Rory blurted, voice too high. “I’ll go anywhere if I can bring Mrs. B.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Rory’s heartbeat was too fast, his hand sweaty where he clutched the phone’s candlestick stand. Gwen saw magic, and she’d come to the antiques shop looking for the paranormal. Looking for Rory.

  But instead, she’d found Mrs. Brodigan, and now Mrs. Brodigan could be in danger and it was all his fault.

  He curled his fingers impossibly tighter around the phone, like he could somehow reach for Arthur on the other end. “You meant your fancy promises, right? About Hyde Park, about getting us out?”

  He’d given Mrs. Brodigan the line about a rush job for Arthur’s brother. He didn’t want to tell her the truth about the relics when he’d already gotten her more involved in this mess than he ever should’ve.

  “Of course I meant the invitation to Hyde Park,” Arthur said, and Rory grasped for the reassurance in that deep voice. “You two can be on the first train out of Grand Central tomorrow morning—”

  “How ’bout tonight?”

  There was a pause. “You could take the evening train. I’d frankly like nothing better,” Arthur said, more slowly. “But any particular reason for such a sudden change of heart?”

  Rory screwed his eyes shut. If he’d just kept his temper in that Chelsea art gallery, if he hadn’t run his big mouth—

  “Rory?” Arthur’s voice had gone a little softer with concern. “Is everything all right?”

  He had no right to beg Arthur to bail him out, to ask his big brother to take them in tonight.

  But Gwen had come after Mrs. B.

  Rory bit his lip. “Ace—”

  “Are you ready, dear?”

  Rory whirled around, nearly ripping the phone out of the wall as he turned toward Mrs. Brodigan. She was already in her hat and coat, her purse on her shoulder and her keys in hand.

  “Was there anything else you needed from the shop before we lock up?” she asked. “I’ve got to stop at church before any trains are caught.”

  “What?” Rory said, too sharp. “Why?”

  “I promised Eileen I’d be at the widows’ group tonight. I’m terribly sorry to say we have someone new joining us.” She tilted her head. “I know you said we needed to rush, but surely Mr. Kenzie’s brother can wait for that?”

  “What did Mrs. Brodigan just say about Harry?” Arthur said into Rory’s ear over the phone.

  Rory winced. “Ace, I gotta go.”

  “Wait—”

  He hung up, cursing under his breath. “I’m gonna come with you,” he said to Mrs. Brodigan.

  Her eyebrows flew up. “To church?”

  “My mom raised me Catholic too,” he said defensively.

  Her eyebrows stayed up. “You haven’t set foot in any church in all the time I’ve known you. I was under the impression religion was—” she hesitated “—complicated, for you.”

  That was one word for it. There were other words people called a kid whose dad wouldn’t marry his mom, but Mrs. Brodigan was too nice for those, and way too nice to bring up a pastor who had thrown his son out of a church and into an asylum.

  “Yeah, well,” Rory said gruffly, “I can still walk you there. It’s getting dark early and Hell’s Kitchen ain’t the safest place.”

  She broke into a smile. “Well, I can’t say I don’t appreciate you being brave enough to get out more. I like you with Mr. Kenzie in your life.”

  Rory wished he had Arthur there right about now.

  * * *

  It was a twenty-minute walk to Mrs. Brodigan’s church. Rory stayed tense, fingers too tight on the strap of his messenger bag, eyes peeled for any sign of Gwen or the mobsters from the dock in his vision. But there was nothing to see but the usual riff-raff loitering on boarding house steps, reeking of bathtub gin and cheap tobacco.

  Finally, they reached Mrs. Brodigan’s church on 42nd Street, its tall red brick facade and arched windows cleaner than anything else on the block. Rory eyed the cross at the top. Church was complicated, all right.

  He followed Mrs. Brodigan up the concrete steps, automatically pulling off his cap as they passed under the arch and through double doors into the open sanctuary. Under a soaring ceiling, the last of the day’s light filtered in through stained-glass windows and rows of wooden pews framed the path to the white altar.

  His steps faltered. The last time he’d been in a church, he’d picked a snuffer up from the altar and lost three weeks of his life—

  At his side, Mrs. Brodigan quietly cleared her throat. “You’ve walked me here, so run along now, dear.”

  He hesitated. “I oughta—”

  “I’ve been coming here since long before you joined me in Hell’s Kitchen. I’ll be just fine.” Mrs. Brodigan was warm but firm. “Go pack your own things and we’ll catch a late train together.”

  As if he had anything worth packing to take up to a ritzy mansion upstate. He bit his lip. There was nothing dangerous-looking in the church. No Gwen, no hired hands, just a dozen or so people praying quietly in the pews.

  And hell, if he did see trouble, what was he gonna do anyway? Scry their weapons? Tell them how old their guns were?

  “There’s Eileen now.” Mrs. Brodigan pointed to the petite gray-haired woman coming their way, and nudged Rory with a sly smile. “If you keep dawdling, she’ll be delighted to meet you. Her granddaughter is exactly your age.”

  Rory’s stomach did a guilty flip as his mind instantly brought up a picture of Arthur at the top of that skyscraper. “But I’m—”

  He bit down hard on his lip. It was stupid to feel like he’d be straying if he got set up with a girl. He wasn’t taken. He wasn’t anything but hopeless.

  Still, he found himself retreating back out to the freezing afternoon. He paused on the church’s steps and ran a jerky hand over his hair before jamming his cap back on.

  Mrs. Brodigan needed real protection, like Zhang, who could see Gwen from the astral plane, or Jade, who’d take a knife straight out of a mobster’s hand from across the church. Rory’s magic was useless, and he wasn’t even brave like Arthur.

  He looked around the neighborhood. He could run all over the block, try begging a shop to use their phone...or he could take a cab and be up in Arthur’s part of town in under ten minutes.

  With one last look back at the church, he darted to the curb.

  * * *

  Minutes later, he was scrambling out of the cab onto the sidewalk along the park side of Central Park West, across the street from Arthur’s building.

  He fidgeted as he stood on the curb and waited for a break in the cars to cross west over the busy street. “Come on, come on—”

  * * *

  “—I wouldn’t open that box if I were you, Mr. Mansfield.”

  “I don’t have a choice. The buyers will be at the gala tomorrow to retrieve their pa
ckage and I haven’t even seen it myself.” Luther Mansfield, a thick-set white man with a blond goatee and ruddy skin, holds open the lead-lined lid of the amulet’s box. On the wall behind Mansfield is an open safe, set into the wall past a marble bust, above a fireplace half as tall as a man.

  Gwen doesn’t look away from where she’s perusing a bursting bookcase. A headscarf tops her long curls again, her coat replaced with a floor-length dress. Her demeanor is calm, almost bored, but when her hand grips a book’s spine, her fingers clench too tight. “The amulet’s magic is strong. It will be a beacon to any subordinate paranormal in this city.”

  Behind Mansfield, the fireplace’s dancing flames illuminate the clean-cut white man from the docks in his hunting cap and double-breasted coat. He has his jeweled knife in hand, toying with it openly with his eyes fixed on Gwen.

  Mansfield doesn’t even seem to notice the man with the knife. His icy eyes are irritated as he looks up from the amulet. “I thought you told me you’re the only one.”

  “I told you the old woman who runs the Hell’s Kitchen antiques shop is not a paranormal of any kind,” Gwen says with an edge. “Hardly the same thing as saying I therefore must be the only subordinate paranormal in Manhattan.”

  * * *

  Something shoved Rory hard. “Watch it, bum—get off the drink—”

  Rory staggered, seeing double: a clean-shaven angry young man with a fedora and a fancy cane; the icy-eyed man with the blond goatee. He blinked hard. Something was pulling him, something to the east, across the park.

  He took a step backward. “Sorry, I—”

  But the vision knocked him over again, like an ocean wave too strong to fight.

  * * *

  “Shame the old bird wasn’t magic. Imagine if I had someone to see the past. That’s even more useful than you.” Mansfield runs a greedy finger over the bright blue jewel set in the amulet. “Copper is an odd metal for a jewel like this. We could make a fortune just selling the sapphire.”

  “Don’t be a fool.” Gwen approaches the relic, almost as if she can’t help herself. “I see a value beyond money.”

  Mansfield’s face turns greedy. “Yes, what do you see?”

  Her eyes glint in the firelight, yellow as a cat. “All in due time, Mr. Mansfield.”

  “You’re supposed to tell me what it does,” Mansfield snaps. “That’s what your witch-sight’s for.”

  Gwen’s gaze locks on him. “A bargain has two sides,” she says sharply. “And I will hold my end and tell you the relic’s magic when you produce your payment—and the names of your buyers.”

  * * *

  A hard jab with a cane sent Rory stumbling down the sidewalk. “Damn rummies,” said the man in the fedora. “Talking nonsense—”

  Rory fumbled to catch himself as he crashed into a parked car. There was a long honk and an angry shout. “Get off my cab!”

  Another, longer honk, more shouts, but Rory ignored it all. He had to keep walking, keep following the draw across the park, the wrong way.

  The wrong way?

  Because that’s the magic pulling you.

  You don’t want the magic. You want Arthur.

  There were several ear-splitting honks, a shrill whistle. “Someone grab that kid!”

  Find Arthur.

  But before Rory could get his bearings, the vision swept him again, another ocean wave with the riptide pulling him under.

  * * *

  “Maybe I want to change our deal,” Mansfield says darkly.

  Gwen sighs, almost put-upon. “I would not advise it—”

  The man in the double-breasted coat holds up the knife pointedly.

  “—then again,” Gwen says calmly, her gaze on the man, the smallest of smiles on her lips, “who am I to tell you what to do?”

  “You’re damn right you won’t.” Mansfield’s lip curls in a sneer. “I’ll pay you when I’m good and ready and you’ll watch your mouth around me. Your kind doesn’t have rights in America. No one would care if I told the amulet’s buyers about you and your magic. I bet they’d like to meet you.”

  The man with the knife stares hard at Gwen and pointedly spins it by its jeweled hilt.

  Gwen tilts her head. “Very well,” she says, and if the threats make her nervous, it doesn’t show. “The money can wait. Give me the names of the buyers.” She raises her hand, one finger extended, and runs it along the air like she’s tracing Mansfield’s outline. “Why prolong our business? I can see how much you dislike me.”

  Mansfield makes a face like he’s sucked on a lemon, but he reaches into his breast pocket and holds up a small, folded piece of paper. “Four buyers. I’m not going to bother trying to say their German gibberish names.”

  She takes the list and unfolds it. Her yellow eyes catch the firelight again and the corners of her lips curl up. She tucks the list into her pocket and leans closer to Mansfield. “The tide,” she whispers.

  Manfield’s eyes widen, blue but like ice, not like the sky, not like Arthur’s—

  * * *

  And with the thought of Arthur, Rory wrenched himself out of the vision—

  To find himself right in the path of an oncoming car.

  * * *

  Arthur hung up the phone with his brother, relieved. “Harry can take in Rory and Mrs. Brodigan tonight,” he said to Jade. “He’ll send a car to the Hyde Park station. Now I’ve got to get down to Hell’s Kitchen and—”

  He paused as a clamor rose up from the street.

  “What’s all that commotion?” Jade pushed up from the table.

  Arthur was already crossing to the study window, Jade at his heels. On the street four stories below, cars were honking, people were shouting, and a police whistle had split the air. “It sounds like—Rory?”

  Arthur reached uselessly for the window as on the sidewalk down below, Rory stumbled into an overdressed young fop with a gold-topped cane and a fedora. The man viciously jabbed Rory with the cane, sending him reeling into a cab, then Rory dodged the grip of a policeman only to stagger off the sidewalk like a drunk—

  Right into the middle of Central Park West and an oncoming Model T.

  “Rory!”

  But even as Arthur’s heart split, Jade flung out both her hands. The cane ripped itself out of the fop’s hands like a bullet, hooked itself in the strap of Rory’s messenger bag as it flew past, and toppled him safely onto the sidewalk just as the car sped by.

  Arthur looked at Jade in shock. “What did I say before?” she said, breathing like she’d sprinted a mile up a mountain. “He’s small enough to move if I can find the right thing?”

  Beyond words, he kissed her on the cheek and then sprinted for the stairs.

  By the time Arthur got out onto Central Park West, there was a crowd around Rory, including a policeman who was ominously reaching for his handcuffs. Arthur cut past a pair of astonished young ladies to kneel at Rory’s side.

  Behind the glasses that had somehow survived, Rory’s eyes were closed and he was worryingly still. Was he still trapped in a vision? Was he with the relic?

  Arthur took his hand, trying for all the world to look like he was just checking Rory’s pulse, not clutching it tightly. Solve one of Rory’s problems at a time. If they stick him in the tank, he could be stuck in a vision and surrounded by strangers until you post bail. “I’ve got him, officer, you needn’t worry.”

  “That boy’s fried like an egg,” said the officer. “He’s coming downtown with me.”

  “He’s not drunk, he’s just lost. He was trying to find my home.” With his free hand, Arthur pointed at his building.

  He watched the officer look at Arthur’s very nice building, and then at his very nice suit and his very nice watch. “Hmmm.” The policeman pursed his thin lips. “And who’re you?”

  “Arthur Kenzie.” Arthur tried to ignore the
crowd’s sudden chattering. “You may have heard of my father, John Kenzie? Of course, that’s also my eldest brother’s name—he’s in politics too—or you might know my mother, Anna. She’s on several of Manhattan’s charity boards and helps host the Policeman’s Ball every year—”

  “You’re a Kenzie.” The officer’s eyes widened. “Then who’s this kid?”

  “He’s my—nephew.” Hell, it works for Mrs. Brodigan and I’ve got five times the siblings. “Visiting the city from one of our estates. Country boy, used to cows, not cars. You know how it is.”

  The policeman furrowed his brow, looking uncertain. As if on cue, Rory’s long eyelashes fluttered. “Ace?”

  Oh, thank Christ. “That’s Uncle Arthur to you, young man,” Arthur said sternly, like he wasn’t weak with relief to find Rory in the present. “Now tell the nice policeman you’re not illegally ossified.”

  Rory’s gaze flicked past Arthur to the expectant officer with handcuffs still in hand. He swallowed. “No, sir,” he said meekly.

  The policeman pursed his lips again as Arthur pulled Rory up to his feet. Rory took a moment to steady, but when Arthur let him go, he stood firm and his brown eyes were clear. He didn’t look drunk—or lost in a vision, thankfully.

  “See?” Arthur took Rory’s messenger bag from him, slinging it over his own shoulder. “Just needed to get his bearings. His town has too many sheep, too few Tin Lizzies.”

  “Seems like it.” The policeman appeared willing to buy that excuse, at least for a Kenzie relation. He pointed at Rory. “I nearly mistook you for a rummy, son. You watch the traffic, you hear? And mind your uncle.”

  “Yes, mind your uncle.” Arthur ignored Rory’s dirty look as he picked up the cane from the sidewalk. Gold-and-ivory-topped with an ornate carving, a perfect match for the flashy white suit worn by the young man coming Arthur’s way. Arthur hefted the cane—made from solid mahogany, he’d bet. Certainly heavy enough to leave a painful bruise, especially wielded like a cattle prod on a vulnerable psychometric stuck in a vision.