Natural Mage (Magical Mayhem #2)(21)

Small miracles.

I turned back to the door, finding a black maw in place of the wood. A shape loomed in the darkness, tall and wide and full of muscle.

“Hah!” I flung out my hand, and a shot of red zapped from my palm. The ol’ zapper never let me down. Except when I was trying to kill rodents. Those buggers were fast.

The shape in the doorway dove to the side.

“I will save you,” came a collection of grunts from across the street. The man was fighting gravity again.

As I backed up, knowing the reflex attack was almost certainly my bad, Darius’s assistant, Moss, who I’d briefly met in Seattle and had been one of the vampires at the training the night before, reappeared in the doorway with a surly expression, a ruined suit jacket, and a burned arm beneath. How bad the wound was, I couldn’t say because of the shadows draping him, but it was more than a skim.

“Miss Bristol,” he said in a less-than-enthusiastic voice. “How good of you to come. Please, come in.”

The man across the street was braced on his forearms, staring my way. “Isn’t that place haunted?” he asked, apparently to himself.

Inside, gorgeous furniture graced the well-appointed and spacious rooms. Fresh flowers sweetened the air and oil paintings hung on freshly painted walls.

“Wow,” I said, taking it all in. Callie and Dizzy’s house was really nice, but this took luxury to a whole new level.

Moss led the way up a winding staircase with strings of flowers draping down from the banister.

“Are those flowers magic, or…?”

Moss didn’t so much as glance to the side. “We are not in the Realm.”

“Is that a no, or…?”

“Those are real flowers.”

“Right.” I nodded, breathing in their fragrance. “Is it to mask the smell of death in here, or…?”

This time he did glance back at me. With a frown.

“I mean, you know”—I waved my finger at him and then around—“vampires. You smell good with cologne, but in your other form… Does that form smell as swampy as it looks, by the way? I’m usually too caught up in the moment to notice.”

At the second-story landing, Moss paused and turned to me, his face expressionless in the low light.

“Is this a taboo subject?” I asked, suddenly unsure. “It probably is, isn’t it? Sorry.”

“This way.”

I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen a vampire stiffen, despite the whole “being dead” mythos, but Moss came awfully close.

“Do you get the flowers delivered fresh every day?” I couldn’t let go of the flower situation. Why Darius, or whoever arranged it, wanted them draped on the banisters, I didn’t know. Vases would do just fine for overall appeal, and the flowers wouldn’t die nearly as fast. What a waste of money and plant life. “Oh!” I snapped, the light bulb clicking on. “The flowers lost their lives, just like you, but they’re still beautiful. It’s symbolic, right?”

Without a word, Moss stopped in front of a pair of double doors. He stared down at me with a clenched jaw and his magic, seething, pulsed around us.

“Get in,” he said, not moving in any way to indicate the door beside us.

“Sure. Yup.” Hunching reflexively under that hard, dangerous stare, I scurried into a formal dining room.

A huge table occupied the middle of the room, surrounded by four chairs, one at the head of the table, and the others close by down the sides. Each place setting held my worst nightmare: multiple fine china plates stacked on top of each other ending in a bowl, forks and spoons for days, two knives, and three crystal glasses in front. A crystal chandelier hung in the middle of the table, bedecked with electric candles. Big, draped curtains closed off the windows, blocking out all light, and a large cream rug stretched beneath all of this.

“What a nightmare,” I murmured.

Heavy footsteps sounded just outside the door, like someone was standing in one place and stomping their feet rhythmically. After a short pause, Moss followed me into the room, his body tense. His suit coat had been changed and his injured arm hung down by his side, the hand clenched.

“Miss Bristol,” he said. “Please. Shall we sit?”

“Um, yup. Sure.” I stepped backward, and he paused, eyeing me. I kept my hands down to ease his mind. “There’s no magic around me. I mean, I haven’t collected any of it…at present. There’s magic around us all the time. You, for example, count as magic.” His blank stare was off-putting. “What I mean is, I won’t accidentally zap you.” I figured I should cover my bases so I didn’t turn into a liar. “At present.”

“Yes. Fine.” He held out his hand, gesturing toward the table. “Would you like to sit down?”

“Sure, yup.” I took another step back to allow him plenty of room to cross in front of me—he didn’t seem nervous per se, but he didn’t seem at ease, either—and waited patiently.

His brow furrowed.

“Sorry, am I supposed to be doing something?” I asked.

“Pardon me. I wondered why you were backing away. Would you prefer drinks in the lounge, first?”

“You have a lounge? No, this is fine. I don’t even really know what a lounge is, to be honest. Where, uh…do you want me?”