Bridgebreaker (The Echo Worlds Book 2) (6 page)

Mentally, he returned to his old standby; the Branches.  In his mind, he could see the choices and where they may lead him.  Some he discarded because the choice had already been made for him; Marcus had kicked him out, so he didn’t have choices involving the Bridgefinders at the moment.  Another choice was to end this and go home, wait it out.  But the Branches there were decidedly not pleasant.  Assuming it was true, that Grellnot, and the Slyph were at war, not having him as a Bridgefinder meant bad things, for both him and Jasmine.  Even to Marcus, he grudgingly admitted to himself.  Going with Heather led to some Branches that at least seemed to offer some decent outcomes.

“What magic are you working?” Heather asked him curiously, breaking his concentration.

“What?” Cendan asked, bringing his attention back to her.

“Magic; you were working it right then. The sparks of it where flying around you in a very unusual way.  I’ve never seen that, and I’ve seen a lot of magic get worked.”  Her eyes appraised him, and for once he didn’t detect any mocking in them.

“I wasn’t working magic; just a mental exercise I do to see where choices could lead…”

Heather held up a finger.  “Scrying.  You were scrying.  Never seen a scryer spell like that one though.  Interesting.”

Cendan laughed.  “It wasn’t a spell, I was just making a decision.”

Heather didn’t respond, instead just cocking her eyebrow in a ‘whatever you say’ manner.  Cendan found himself instantly wondering what she had seen.  It was just his mental exercise, he’d done it many a time, going back years.  It wasn’t magic, was it?  For some reason, he found the idea rather unsettling.  If he had actually been doing some sort of magic for years and not known that, he didn’t like it.  He’d chalked up that little exercise to logic and weighing of factors.  It had been a mental thing.  But perhaps it had been magic all along, a scrying of some kind that meant the answers weren’t based on logic and fact, but some ethereal force of which he had very little understanding.

He had prided himself on that; making decisions on logic and understanding.  If Heather was right…

“Are we going to go soon?  It’s getting dark.”  Heather asked, breaking into his head, full of new self-doubt.

“Yeah… I guess.  I uh, well, my car isn’t here it’s at my old house.  Dunno if I should borrow one of the Bridgefinder cars or not.”

A petulant eye-roll greeted this piece of information.

“Ok fine, we will get a cab to your house then,” Heather snapped at him.  “I just want to get moving, I’ve waited around long enough.”

Cendan grabbed his bag and gestured her to take the lead.  Truthfully, his mind was trying to make sense again of everything.  A month ago he felt like a curtain had been ripped from a window that he didn’t know existed, showing him the world of the Bridgefinders.  A world of magic, creatures, violence and danger.  Now things are torn, but even more than they were after his first week in the Bridgefinders.  Kicked out of his new home, new knowledge of the users of magic outside the Bridgefinders, and the idea that he’d been using magic for years, and not known it.

Add in getting punched – punched! – By Marcus, and quite simply this day could end anytime now and he didn’t think he’d have ever been so happy to have it do so.  Heather quickly called a cab, Cendan noted with some level of wry amusement, she was impatient to get out of here wasn’t she?  Giving the driver his address, Cendan sat in silence, staring out the window as the outside world flew past.  He loved this town at night, he realized; not that he often saw it that way.  It seemed that after night fell, he’d be inside, away from it all.  There was something rather pretty about it though, just different enough to get his attention away from this gnawing self-doubt that had engulfed him with Heather’s spell casting question.

They rode on in silence, but shortly they pulled in front of his old house.  It looked odd to him now, even stranger than it had the last time he’d been here.  The lawn service had done its job; the place had been mowed.  All the bills were on autopay so Cendan didn’t have to worry about them, at least for now.  Quickly paying the driver, they stood in the gathering gloom for a moment before Heather broke the silence.

“Nice place.  Must have some money to live around here.”  She glanced around his old neighborhood.

“Yeah well, before...  Well before all this, I was pretty successful in business.”  He really didn’t want to go into what he had done for a living.  That would just drive more questions and thoughts he wasn’t quite ready to deal with yet.  “C’mon, let’s go in.  I’ll get my car keys and we can head out.  And mail, I probably better clean up the mail.”

Cendan unlocked his front door to find a small pile of the stuff.  His old place had one of those in the door mail slots, handy, but capable of quite a mess if not dealt with.

Most of it, of course, was junk mail, a few letters from old clients probably wanting to know where he was.  He’d gone dark on his old job of consulting when he’d moved into the Bridgefinders lair.  There wasn’t much reason to do it in a place where modern technology didn’t really work for the most part.  Dropping his bag on the floor, he quickly sorted through the small pile.

“Nice place inside as well.”  Heather remarked as she looked around.  “It’s very you.”

“What do you mean?” he asked as he flipped through a bunch of sales flyers; how many new cars did they think he needed?

“It’s nice, but clean, organized, and a bit… sterile.”  Heather shot back, with a slightly amused tone.  He raised his eyes at that to see her face bearing that slightly mocking grin again.

“Sterile?” he asked, not sure if he really wanted to know what she meant.  He just liked things his way.  Simple.

“Yeah, Sterile.”  Heather didn’t provide any details, which suited Cendan just fine.

Finally, he pared the mail down to fifteen letters that he figured at some point soon
he better give his full attention
to.  He’d have to return to all this now that he apparently was going to have to go back to his old life.  Darkness was falling fast outside, and he had told Heather he’d get her to wherever it was they needed to go.  He did wonder why they hadn’t just taken a cab to where it was, instead of coming here first.  Heather had wanted to come here though.  Why?

“Well, let me get my keys and we can be off.”  Cendan headed toward the office where he kept the keys, noting that the cleaning crew had come as well; no dust to speak of.

“Actually, let’s just stay here tonight, and leave in the morning.  It’s dark now, and it might be better to talk to people in the light.”  Heather sat on the couch with a slightly expectant look.

“Uh ... excuse me?” was all Cendan could think to say.  What was the game here?

“Don’t worry, I’ll throw some wards on the house for the night, make sure nothing attacks or messes around with you or I.”  She replied as she pulled her fetish off her wrist where she wore it.  “Won’t take a minute. Just need to step outside.”

Cendan watched her walk outside before he started and ran after her.

“Hey now, my neighbors…”  He stopped once he saw her.  Heather was standing in front of his house, facing away from it, her red and blue hair barely visible in the fading light.  What truly stopped him, though, was the feeling he got. His skin pricked as if something had rubbed it with steel wool that had been frozen.  Wards, he thought.  Protections.  I need to see this.

Opening himself to the sight, he saw what she was working.  A series of layers of magic, sparks pushed together tightly, forming an invisible wall to the normal eye.  Green, then red, then blue layers formed around the place.  Above and below, he could somehow see the walls in the ground, extending into the dirt.

It all seemed tied together and then anchored to his house in some way.  He felt a small level of frustration rise in him; he wanted to
understand
this!  He still didn’t get how Marcus could be so short sighted.  This was power, protection from what wanted to harm them all.  But yet, forbidden somehow.  All Oakheart had said was a small group believed that using magic was wrong, but here they were thousand years later, and no idea how to use the power granted to them.

Heather settled her shoulders and turned back to the house.

“There. Good for the night.”  Flashing Cendan a smile, she brushed past him, smelling of something sweet or spicy; he couldn’t put his finger on it.

Smelling her?  Cendan mentally smacked himself.  Stay focused, he told a fairly distracted part of his mind.

“What does it do?  I mean, I saw the layers.  No idea what it means though.”  He closed and locked the door behind them as he followed her inside.

“Really?  A basic ward?”  Heather was already sitting on the couch. Was it his imagination or was she posing a bit?

“Yeah, no idea.  Bridgefinder remember?  And a new one at that.  Magic forbidden.”  He sat down in a padded chair near her, but kept a bit of distance.  She seemed trustworthy enough, but she was a witch after all.

With a glance skyward, Heather gave off a sigh.  “I know, Ok fine.  A ward has three layers.  Green is a general deterrent.  It makes people getting too close not want to be close.  It basically keeps anyone or anything from randomly wandering into the area being warded.  Red is the alarm; if something pushes through which means they
want
to be there, it will wake me.  Blue, blue is the actual protection, and if something makes it that far, the red, the last layer will harden like concrete.”

“I get it.  Green keeps the riff raff away, red alerts you to non-riff raff and blue stops them while you come deal with it.”  He nodded his approval.  It was a simple and nice system, and it made sense, just the way he liked it.  “Ok well, now that we are ‘warded’ and the door is locked; I don’t have much to eat here, just some canned stuff.  I hadn’t been expecting to stay the night. There’s a bathroom and guest room off that door there.  I think there’s shampoo and stuff, and towels are in the closet.”

Heather stood, “Aren’t you going to give me the grand tour?”

Cendan, who had been heading towards the kitchen, paused at this.  What was her game?  Was she trying to…  No, stop thinking that way.  Focus.

“OK… I... Sure.”  Swinging his hands around.  “Living room.”  Pointing down the hall lined with books, “Office and library.”  Turning again, he pointed to the same door he had just pointed out.  “Guest room and guest bathroom.”  Turning back to the way he had been going.  “Kitchen, mudroom and garage.”

Finally, hooking his thumb towards the stairs, “My room, bathroom, more library, two empty rooms and an unused bathroom.  Tour done!”  He could feel her irritation from behind him as he made his way into the kitchen and opened the pantry.

“All I have is soup it looks like!  I do have some crackers though.”  He called out to Heather in the living room.  Silence greeted him.  “Heather?” he called out again, and turned to head back to the living room.

Heather was standing there, in the kitchen, leaning against the archway that lead into the living room.

“Fine, but don’t we have something else to do first?”

Desire rushed into him in a torrent.  Dimly, he was aware of the fact that this must be a spell.  She’s casting some sort of mind control, or love spell.  He could feel the roaring in his ears and blood rushed past them, a slight tightness in his chest.  He had already been attracted to her, but now, she was... stunning.  She walked towards him slowly, her lips already in a small smile.

“Cendan Key, do you like me?” a fake coquettish voice asked as she batted her eyes at him.

He tried to speak, to tell her to stop, knock it off, but he couldn’t.  Her eyes; the curve of her face.  His body responded to her walking towards him as she moved closer.  Dimly, he nodded.  Of course he did, she was beautiful.

“Kiss me, Cendan.”  Her voice seemed to reverberate in his skull; he couldn’t think of anything else.  He leaned forward as she rose up to meet him.  Lips met as fire rushed through him and thought became impossible.

Morning came to find Cendan groggy and unclear.  Sitting up in bed, he headed towards the bathroom to wash his face and stop the odd pounding in his ears.  The cold water helped some, but he still couldn’t put a finger on why he felt so tired, so off.

“I feel like I’m hung over.”  Cendan said to his reflection.  He’d only been hung over once in his life, a feeling he hated so he’d never done it again.  He vaguely remembered it feeling something like this.

Cold realization crossed his mind, accompanied by a wave of goose bumps forming up and down his arms.  Heather.  Turning towards the bed, he gulped and saw… nothing.  No Heather.  The bed was a mess to be sure, but it was always a bit of one; he tossed and turned a lot.  Maybe it had been a dream?  Some sort of magic she worked on him for her own reasons?  He searched the bed and found nothing, not even a stray red hair, or a blue one for that matter.

“What would Jasmine say?” he wondered as he sat on the edge of the bed, trying to remember the evening. Immediately he discounted the thought. He and Jasmine were just friends now, they had no claim on the other. But still in the back of his mind, he felt himself uncertain on that point.

Confused, but feeling somewhat calmer, Cendan took a quick shower.  He didn’t know where Heather was, but he also wasn’t sure he was in the right mental state to deal with her.  He felt like he needed to center himself, and a good cold shower would do that.  The water was bracing, but when he exited, he felt much more like himself, if not a bit hungry and in need of a cup of coffee.

His eyes fell on the bag he had brought from the lair; that much at least seemed consistent with his memories.  Marcus had kicked him out, for real.  Dressing quickly in shorts and a polo, he made his way downstairs somewhat slowly, looking out for the witch.  There was no sign of her anywhere, however, which just made him more puzzled than relieved.  He wasn’t exactly worried.  Truthfully, he considered worry to be a useless emotion in most cases.

But this was strange.  Mentally, he recounted what he could to himself.  He remembered the wards, then soup, Heather walking towards him, then a kiss…  And that was it.  It faded off after that, like looking through frosted glass.  He could imagine what had happened after, and maybe he could remember it, but was it just his imagination trying to fill in the gap in his mind?

Wards.  Were they still there?  Had he imagined those as well?  Stepping out on his front porch, he brought forth his sight, and there in front of him still were the wards.  Slightly less bright than last night, but he sort of remembered it being said they would last for twenty-four hours – so until dusk today.  With one last look at the wards, he went inside and made himself some coffee.

Listening to the sound of the coffee-Maker working, he found himself at a bit of a loss.  Heather had been here, the wards were proof enough of that.  Marcus had kicked him out of the Bridgefinders – his head felt well now, or at least somewhat normal.  Something had happened with Heather last night, he was sure of it, but what or how was the question.

Coffee in hand, he headed to the office.  He didn’t enjoy this sense of not knowing things or understanding what had happened.  Sitting in his office, maybe, would calm his mind down some and help him concentrate better.  Every time he tried to remember what happened after the kiss, his mind sort of slipped away.  It was highly frustrating.  His office seemed normal if a bit foreign to him now.  Settling into his chair, he flipped on the computer and sipped his coffee, looking out the window onto the garden outside.

Garden.  He would miss the garden in the Bridgefinders’ lair; some of those plants had been fascinating, and he’d barely scratched the surface of what was there and what they could do.  In his heart he had little hope that Jasmine could change Marcus’s mind.  That didn’t mean, however, he was going to give this up.  He may be here, but he had his focus, some of the journals, and his powers, even though he wasn’t sure what he could do with them.

Grellnot and the Slyph were the real problem, not Marcus and not Heather.  If Marcus didn’t want him around and those two weren’t in the picture anymore, he’d be fine with it.  Not happy maybe, but fine.  Still, last night bothered him a great deal.  And the growing awareness that EVA, while in his head still as a presence, couldn’t seem to talk to him at all now.

If he had to describe it, it was as if someone had wrapped that little nodule of thought that was EVA in cotton, then put it inside a bag.  He had no idea how or why, and he wasn’t going to be able to figure it out, not from here.  Cendan sighed at the fact that the list of things he couldn’t do anything about kept getting longer.  Marcus.  EVA.  The Map.  All of them, things on the list.

The Elves were still there too, waiting for him to find a way into our world.  Fun times indeed, he thought with a snort.  If he was going to be at home for a while, he needed to do a few things first.  Mostly buy groceries.  He also considered restarting his work and going consulting again.  Oddly enough the idea didn’t particularly appeal to him.  His bank accounts were still fat, so he didn’t need the money.  He knew in his heart the reason was simple; his old life seemed so grey to him now.  Grey, cold and lonely.

He took a long sip of coffee and shook off some of his melancholy.  Sitting here pondering everything he couldn’t do wasn’t going to get anything done; it just wasted time.  As much as Cendan had changed, he still found that unpleasant.  Action it was.  Quickly getting his wallet, Cendan also took his Key out of his bag.

As usual, the feeling of its warmth and weight gave him some clarity of purpose.  A slight tension he hadn’t been consciously aware of left him as-well.

“I guess I should keep you with me.”  Cendan said out loud.

“Well that’s good.”  Heather’s voice came from behind him.

Cendan spun around, somewhat surprised.

“Heather!  Um...  Where have you been?”  Oddly he felt himself somewhat embarrassed in front of her.  What had happened last night?

“I went to the store of course.  Took your car to.  Sorry about that.”  The look on her face was anything but sorry, however.  She was enjoying this, him not talking about what the true subject in the room was.

“So….” Cendan paused.  “OK I’ll say it; what exactly happened last night?”

Heather grinned at him.  Grinned!  And with a bit of a dramatic flourish, spun away and headed down the stairs.  As she walked her voice called out

“What do you think happened?”

Cendan frowned.  He didn’t these games.  He wasn’t completely ignorant of this kind of stuff, but he’d never enjoyed this game.  It was one reason he had a hard time with relationships.  Banter seemed silly to him.

Following her down the stairs, Cendan found her in the kitchen putting a few items away.  But not that many; not enough for a stay of any real length.

“I mean it, what happened?”  He tried to put some sort of edge in his voice as if he was angry.  He wasn’t, he was confused, and felt out of his element.  “Heather, I remember kissing you and that’s all...  The rest just sort of slides away.”

She sighed and tossed her hair back as she put it in a ponytail with one of those hair things that women always seemed to keep somewhere.

“Does it matter?” Heather asked him as she worked.  “I mean, if we did, or we didn’t, does it matter?”

Cendan frowned.  Of course it mattered.

“Yes, it does.  Look, there obviously was magic involved, and if you cast some sort of spell on me to make me do that…  I don’t like that idea at all.”

Eyebrow arched, Heather looked at him.

“You know, Cendan, most men wouldn’t be all mad about this.  You and I had a very, very good time last night.  Surprisingly good in fact.”

“Did you use magic to make me sleep with you?”  Cendan kept his tone flat.  He was getting angry now, the embarrassment fading into irritation and anger.

Heather rolled her eyes.  “No, not really.  I did, however, use a touch of magic to enhance feelings that were already there.  On both of us.  It doesn’t make you do anything, but it amplifies attraction, desire if, and only if, that attraction is already there.  We both were attracted to each other on some level.  I just sped things along a bit.”

Silence fell and Cendan considered this.  Logically, she was correct.  He was attracted to her.  She was striking, intelligent, and tough.  All qualities he found attractive.  But the idea of using magic to ‘speed things along’ as Heather put it wasn’t cool.  He didn’t like that idea at all.

“So you’re saying you basically used magic to mimic the effect of giving me too much to drink?”

Heather eyed him with a somewhat surprised expression.

“You’re unhappy about this?  You were interested; I was interested.  It would have happened anyway, at some point.”

Heather cleared her throat. “Does this have anything to do with that other Bridgefinder, Jasmine?”

Cendan shook his head, disgust and annoyance shutting down any lingering traces of attraction. “No. This does not.” The words shot out of his mouth.

“Then what the hell is the problem?” Heather sighed, stretching and leaning against the kitchen counter.

Feeling his skin crawl, Cendan shot her a look of disgust.

“It’s wrong!  If I want to do that, I want to be in control of it.  Not under the influence of some charm.”

“Ok fine.  You’re overreacting, though.”  With an eye-roll, she went back to putting away the few things she had got at the store.  “So, Breakfast?”

Cendan looked at her with new eyes.  She really didn’t understand his disgust with her actions.  To her, using magic to get what she wanted was second nature.  To him, it was wrong all over.  Wrong to use people; wrong to use magic; just wrong.  Maybe this was the reason that the group of Bridgefinders had walked away from magic.

It was so easy to do things like this; change people; manipulate things.  You lose sight of what life is like for those who can’t do magic.  Having that tool, one could change everything and everyone around you, based on your whims.  For once he could see why people would be afraid of that.  Without some kind of moral compass, without some grounding, it would be far too easy to treat everyone else like a toy, something to use and then walk away from.

That didn’t mean he agreed with the idea that magic was evil or wrong, or whatever idea it was that people like Marcus had.  Magic was a tool.  A powerful, awesome tool.  Put a powerful tool in the hands of someone who was a sociopath, and there are problems, potentially huge ones.  That same tool in the hands of someone who has some moral center, someone who wants to help others, and you get a very different outcome.

Heather had grown up with magic.  Her whole life, it had been there for her to use, and use it she had.  To her, getting what she wanted with it was as normal as breathing air.  It didn’t make what she had done to him right, but it made sense.  It also meant he needed to be prepared for more of it.  If not from her, then from the others like her.  He was still going to go with her to meet these other users of magic.  Whatever the moral compasses, he needed knowledge and training; training he wasn’t going to get at the lair.  The books didn’t really cover much, and Oakheart’s knowledge in his focus was short of details in a lot of subjects.

“Breakfast, I said?” Heather asked again, the edge of annoyance in her voice becoming more pronounced.

“Yeah sure.” Cendan answered, his stomach reminding him that on top of anything else, he was hungry.

A fast meal later, Cendan found himself ready to face whatever it was Heather wanted to show him.

“Ok, let’s go meet these people.  Or place...  You’ve not been clear, you know,” he asked Heather, carefully keeping his magic sight open, and his focus in his pocket.  He wasn’t sure what good it would do him, but if she tried to cast something on him unexpectedly, he hoped he could do something back if he had the focus with him.

“Ok, but let me warn you.  The place we are going; it may shock you a bit.  More than a bit.” Heather answered.  “And if you got mad about what I did; that was very mild compared to things that have happened there.”

His brow wrinkled at this piece of information.  “Is it safe Heather?”  Cendan had no desire to end up some plaything of anyone.

“Safety is relative.  I’ll say this.  Stay with me,
do not wander off
, and we should be fairly protected.”  Heather looked at him.  “I could cast a spell to help protect you—”

Cendan cut her off, “No!”  He swallowed and continued, quieter now.  “No.  No spells.  No using magic on me.”

Heather somehow made the thumbs up she flashed look sarcastic as they cleaned up the kitchen and headed toward the car.

“So, where do I drive to?” Cendan asked, trying to put last night and this morning behind him.

“Just head out of town bearing west, towards the mountains.  I’ll tell you where and when to turn.”  Her voice continued to show that edge of annoyance.  He found it still somewhat surprising that she was annoyed.  She had taken advantage of him; he was the one who should be annoyed, not her.  Truthfully, he should be far more than annoyed.

The drive was silent.  Whatever banter or beginnings of friendship there had been yesterday didn’t seem to be there now.  That may be for the best though, his inner voice told him.  Let it go and concentrate on what needs to happen.  One, learn enough to fix the map; two, figure out how to deal with the elves; three, deal with the Grellnot-Slyph war.  And finally, what the hell to do about Marcus?