Part 14 (1/2)
To snuff him like a candle . . .
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
Glorious!” Meg's call reached Simon as he cantered forward to meet her. They rode together every morning and always started with a wild, reckless gallop to burn off the horses' energy. He usually stayed a couple of lengths behind because he enjoyed watching her blaze through the soft morning air. She was a magnificent horsewoman. Being able to enter a horse's mind was obviously a plus.
Laughing, she brought her horse into step with his. ”A run like that drives Lord Drayton from my mind. Or at least reminds me that he's just a nasty little ferret, of no real significance.”
Drayton did have significance, but Simon didn't ruin Meg's exhilaration by contradicting her. ”I shall probably see him at tonight's meeting of the Royal Society. You might want to invite Jean Macrae over for dinner to bear you company.”
Meg brushed at the strands of dark hair that had escaped from the ribbon tied at her nape. ”Why do you wish to attend if Drayton will be there?”
”It is wise to know one's enemy,” he replied. ”Tonight's lecturer is a professor from the University of Leipzig. He's speaking on electricity, a special interest of mine, so it would be odd if I didn't attend when I'm in London.” He shrugged. ”Since I must see Drayton sooner or later, it might as well be tonight. I'm curious to see how he'l behave toward me.”
Meg frowned. ”He will taunt you about not proving your case before the council. Don't let him provoke you into losing your temper.”
”I will do my best not to become enraged.” He chuckled. ”If I turned into a unicorn at the lecture, it would be a demonstration that would impress even the most jaded member of the Royal Society.”
”Much better to bore them. Shall I give you virgin's blood for safety's sake?”
He grimaced. ”I know we've joked about that, but there is something profoundly barbaric in the thought of carrying a vial of your blood.”
”Rubbing it into a cut would look odd in the midst of a meeting of natural philosophers.” She stretched out her hand. ”Remember that I am only a mind-touch away if needed.”
He took her hand. That was safe enough since they were on horseback. At home, they avoided touching or drawing too close, since the results would be unpredictable.
Actually, the results were highly predictable. s.e.xual tension hummed between them and every time they succ.u.mbed to it, if only for a kiss, the attraction became even more unruly. If not for the need for her to remain a virgin-and their mutual qualms about a deeper relations.h.i.+p-they would be lovers already.
Sometimes he wondered where this unusual relations.h.i.+p would take them. And then he would try to think of something else.
Simon paused in the doorway leading into the lecture hall of the Royal Society. He liked that most members were mundanes. There was more to the world than magic.
His mouth tightened when he recognized Drayton in a group near the speaker's podium. Usually Simon found satisfaction in confronting his suspect after he finished an investigation, but that wasn't the case with Drayton. The rogue mage was so closely connected with Meg that even Simon's best efforts at protection couldn't completely guarantee her safety from the man. The thought was deeply troubling.
Drayton must be attuned to Simon's energy, because he broke off his conversation and turned to face the door. He smiled with pure pleasure and crossed the hall to Simon, saying amiably, ”Good to see you, Falconer. I guessed that a presentation on electricity would bring you here.” He accompanied his commonplace words with a ma.s.sive energy attack.
Simon's s.h.i.+elds sprang into effect, but it was harder to control his shocked reaction. b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, was Drayton insane? He had to know that he couldn't do any real damage, and he risked catching the attention of others. Most mundanes had at least a trace of power, and a major blast of energy would not go unnoticed. Already men were glancing in their direction. d.a.m.n the man!
A familiar blurring sensation flowed through Simon, and his shock turned to horror. The unicorn spell was reactivating.
No! Instinctively he reached for Meg, needing her strength and magical innocence. When he touched her mind, her flash of surprise changed to quick understanding. She flooded him with her energy, as pure as it was powerful. After an instant of nausea, his normal form stabilized. He sent a swift thanks and rea.s.surance to Meg, thinking wryly that he would resent his dependence if he didn't need her so much.
Could Drayton have known that provoking Simon's anger would trigger the transformation spell? No, the rogue was merely hara.s.sing him, confident that Simon wouldn't make a scene in front of mundanes. If his a.s.sault hadn't been so outrageous, Simon wouldn't have become angry enough to trigger the spell.
Only seconds had pa.s.sed since Drayton's attack, so Simon replied blandly, ”Electricity is a tremendous power, if we ever learn to harness it.” On the magical plane he returned a fierce, narrowly targeted blast, rather like slamming a door on a snake that was trying to slither inside. ”My own experiments have been most interesting.”
Drayton's eyes lit with pleasure at the skirmis.h.i.+ng. ”I suppose you bought a Leyden jar to play with.” He returned another blow.
”I didn't buy one. I built it after I read an article describing how they work.” Tired of Drayton's games, Simon altered his s.h.i.+elds so that the next attack would bounce back on the attacker. Few people could master the attack-repulsion spell. It was worth reminding Drayton that Simon was one of them.
Drayton attacked again, then gasped as his own power ricocheted back into him.
Simon said coolly, ”You might not want a Leyden jar. They can be . . . quite shocking.”
”Not half as shocking as I am.” Drayton's eyes glittered with anger, but he didn't attempt another attack. Instead, he surrounded the two of them in a spell that would make their words unclear to listeners. It would also discourage anyone from joining them. ”You are going to get exactly what you deserve, Falconer. I will personally destroy you.”
Something dark and hungry lurked under the other man's words. Simon frowned. ”I expect to be resented by lawbreakers, but it's more than that with you. Why?”
”You know why.”
”Actually, I don't. Is there some history I should be aware of?”
Drayton's brows arched. ”I suppose it's no surprise that your father never spoke of an incident that was so shameful. He accused my father of breaking the Guardian laws and stripped away his power.” His eyes narrowed to slits. ”My father killed himself rather than live without his magic.”
Simon was rocked by the news, but he kept that from his voice. ”My father would never take the power of a mage who was innocent of misusing it.”
Drayton's laughter was chilling. ”Any more than he would murder your mother and kill himself? You're a fool, Falconer.”
His words struck harder than his earlier magical attack. News of the Falconer murder-suicide had been covered up and very few people knew of it. Hearing Drayton gave Simon a sudden unprovable conviction that the other man had been involved in the double death. He had wanted vengeance against Simon's father, and perhaps he had found a magical way to wreak it.
Putting aside the thought for later, he said, ”My father kept his files private, so there's no special meaning in the fact that he didn't mention your father's case. But he would never have been able to punish your father unjustly-the council would have known and held him to account. Your father had to have been doing something that merited punishment.”
An odd glint showed in Drayton's eyes. ”My father was experimenting with older spells. As we are encouraged to do. Your father judged and destroyed him.”
The pieces of the puzzle clicked together in Simon's mind. ”Your father's experiment involved stealing the magic of others, didn't it? That must be what started you on your crimes. No wonder my father hunted him down and stripped away his power. As I shall do with you.”
Drayton's smile was feral and full of teeth. ”After you are dead, I will have Meggie again. My illusion spell was so good that I never noticed what a toothsome morsel she had turned into. I need a wife to bear me sons, and when I put her into thrall again, she will be the wife of any man's dreams. Lovely, obedient, and a wh.o.r.e in bed if I ask that of her.”
Instead of rage, Simon reacted with ice-cold control. ”I have never taken pleasure in destroying a fellow Guardian, but for you I will make an exception. When I strip your power away, I will do it slowly so that you suffer as each particle is ripped from your soul. You will scream and beg, and I will be glad of it.”
He pivoted and stalked away to find a seat since the lecture was about to start. In a distant corner of his mind, he recognized that the danger of hatred was that it could turn a man into a mirror of what one hated. Because Drayton was brutal, Simon was discovering brutality in himself.
That was another thing to ponder later.
During a pleasant evening with Jean, Meg monitored Simon with a corner of her mind. She had sensed disturbed emotions for a time after his call for help, but they didn't rise again to the level of triggering the transformation spell. Eventually his mind settled into concentration. She guessed that the lecture had begun and it was engrossing.
Long, too. After Jean was sent home in the Falconer carriage, Meg retired early with a good book. Now that she had regained the ability to read, she raced through books as if trying to make up for all the years she'd missed. When she wasn't practicing magic, she read all kinds of volumes from Falconer House's impressive library. She'd found that mage lights were much better for reading than candles, and they didn 't run the risk of burning the house down.
She had set her book aside and fallen asleep when something brought her abruptly awake. A noise in the street? No, Simon had returned. She concentrated on him, and decided that he was safely bipedal but troubled.
And he wasn't going to bed, blast him. She tossed and turned and punched her pillow restlessly, unable to separate herself from his overactive mind for what seemed like hours. Gradually it occurred to her that his energy was different from usual. Though she'd seen him in a range of moods, tonight his mind had the tenor of a . . . a ringing blade.
She rose to don slippers and robe, then went into the corridors with mage light in hand. Finding Simon was easy-his energy flared like the sun. She bypa.s.sed his bedchamber, where any sensible man would be at this hour. He was downstairs, probably in his study.
Wrong. When she opened the door, the study was empty. She frowned. He was very close, but where if not here? She sharpened her magical vision-then blinked when the image of a door s.h.i.+mmered into place at the far corner of the study. How long had Simon been concealing that door from her and the rest of the world? Crafty devil!