Chameleon (Supernaturals) (27 page)

“You heard what Duncan said. He wants to separate us.”

“That might be a good thing,” Russ muttered.

“He would never do that, Danielle,” Gabriel said.

“You told me yesterday that he thinks I’m a bad influence on you.”

“But he would not—”

“He left me alone in that holding cell for over two weeks! I can’t go through that again!”

Gabriel took my face in his hands. “I will not let that happen,” he promised. “But we cannot just leave. If the Councilor is right, the only people who have the information about my visions, and enough power to hold a spell like that are Constance and Robert.”

“And the Councilor,” I said. “He’s just as powerful and he hates humans enough not to care about killing them. Maybe that’s why he wants to separate us. He learned what I can do and doesn’t want me having any more visions. He could be guilty and now knows that we’re on to him and is asking us not to tell anyone so that he can think of a way to take care of us. What if we sit here and do nothing and not only does that family die, but we get ourselves killed as well?”

Russ finally lost his patience. “Dani! We need to get out of here before Duncan wakes up. What are you guys talking about? Who wants to kill you?”

“I’m sorry, Russ. I’ll explain in a minute.” I looked back at Gabriel. “I won’t leave if you really think we should stay.”

“What do you mean you won’t leave?” Russ hollered.

I ignored him this time. “I do trust you, Gabriel, but are you absolutely sure? There’s no way the Councilor could be behind this?”

“I do not think he is behind the attacks, but…” Gabriel’s face looked pained. “I worry that he does want to separate us.”

I took Gabriel’s hands in mine. “Then let’s get out of here before he can. We’ll still be helping the council. If we figure anything out we can always come back.” I glanced back at Russ and lowered my voice. “Gabriel, the glimpse I saw of our future the other night that scared me so much? We were not here in the consulate. I think our destiny lies elsewhere.”

Gabriel looked at me with wide eyes. “You have accepted our destiny?”

I couldn’t answer him, but I blushed while remembering our kiss.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, your
destiny
?” Russ pulled me away from Gabriel. “Okay, that’s it. Time to say goodbye to your new
husband
, Dani. I’m getting you out of here and I’m not bringing him with us.”

I dug my heels into the floor. “I’m not going without him! I
need
him!”

Russ flinched like I’d slapped him. The look of betrayal on his face broke my heart. “Listen to you Dani! “You don’t need him. You have me.”

Perfect. Now I had to feel guilty with Russ too? I wasn’t sure how much of this I could take.

I crumpled beneath Russ’s intense gaze. “I want to go with you. More than anything, I want to escape with you right now and go someplace where no one will ever find us. Where I can be free of the council, and the nightmare visions, and the prophecy, and destiny…and all that crap.”

I knew Gabriel wouldn’t stop me either. One look at the despair on his face and I knew he’d let me go.

Russ gave my hand a tug. “Sweet. What are we waiting for?”

Of course it was that same look of despair on Gabriel’s face that forced me to think beyond myself.

“I want to,” I said again. “But I can’t. I can’t ignore what’s going on, and I can’t just ditch Gabriel. I’m sorry, but I won’t go anywhere without him.”

Russ took a deep breath and just when I was about to thank him for being a good sport about this he picked up a chair from our dining table and sent it crashing into the kitchen with a string of four letter words. It took him a good three minutes before he could get his temper controlled enough to think straight again. Still, when he spoke he shook with anger. “All right fine. Both of you go pack your stuff.”

. . . . .

We took the secret elevator that we’d taken to go on our picnic, but once we were standing out in the open, Gabriel and I remembered another problem.

“Russ, you have to hide us,” I said.

“What are you talking about?”

“You know, with a spell. The Councilor hid us with a spell that made us invisible.”

“A cloaking spell?” Russ asked. “I could put one on myself easy enough, but I’ve never tried it on someone else.”

“You must try,” Gabriel said.

When Russ glared at him I stepped in front of Gabriel and took over the conversation. “Duncan said that our auras make us a target to every supernatural for miles around. He said we’re both so powerful that together we could probably be detected from space.”

Russ glanced at us nervously and then pushed his sleeves back. His brow furrowed in concentration and he began muttering an incantation. After a minute he broke into a sweat and had to sit down. “You’re too powerful. I can’t hide you.”

I swallowed a smirk. It probably killed him to admit that. And this would probably kill him worse. “I’m more powerful than you, right? Let me try.”

He was mad enough about Gabriel that when I held out my hand I wasn’t sure he’d let me touch him. His face was grim, but he took my hand.

His energy was not the same as Gabriel’s—not nearly as strong—but his touch was familiar and comforting. I felt myself change and welcomed that warm tingly rush as the magic came back to me.

“Okay,” I whispered to myself. “All I have to do is wish it.” I closed my eyes and imagined Gabriel and I walking down the busy New York sidewalk completely invisible to those around us. “Hide us.”

I could still see Gabriel and myself, but we must have disappeared because Russ started looking all around. “Dani?”

“We’re still here,” I told him, but I got no response. “Russ?”

“Hello? You guys?”

“It seems he cannot hear us either,” Gabriel said.

I waved my hand in front of Russ’s face. Then I tapped him on the shoulder. When even that didn’t get a response I grinned at Gabriel. “Am I awesome or what?”

Gabriel laughed. “Danielle, this is truly amazing.”

He put his arm around me and I leaned into his shoulder. I laced my fingers in his without thinking and suddenly Russ could see us again. “I guess it works,” he grumbled.

“Yeah,” I said. “Except I didn’t drop the spell on purpose. I wonder why it wore off.”

Russ glared at me. “You have to have magic to hold a spell.”

When I caught his meaning I blushed and jumped away from Gabriel. I’d never seen Russ look more satisfied. “Looks like you two lovebirds are just going to have to keep your hands off each other from now on.”

“How convenient for you,” Gabriel replied, letting slip a tiny hint of the emotion he’d been trying to hide.

Russ smiled and threw his arm around me. “Hence the return of my good mood. Come,
Danielle
,” he said mockingly. “Your destiny awaits!”

“Could you at least try to be nice?” I snapped.

“To the love of my life’s husband? Doubt it.” Russ mock-saluted Gabriel using only his middle finger, and then made a show of kissing my cheek.

Once I was a warlock again I hid all three of us then pushed Russ off me.

“Jackass.”

I headed toward the street rubbing my temples, which were, not surprisingly, starting to ache.

Russ freaked when I made
him hop a train to New Jersey instead of calling his dad. But the warehouse from my vision was in Newark and I had to stop that vision before anything else. As a result, Russ was giving me the silent treatment, which, considering he was really pissed off about the whole Gabriel issue, wasn’t such a bad thing. The ride so far hadn’t been peaceful, but it had at least been argument free.

When we boarded the train Gabriel started to take the seat next to me, but Russ grabbed him by the collar and threw him into the seat across the aisle.

“Russ!” I snapped as he took Gabriel’s seat.

He raised his hands innocently. “Hey, nothing personal.”

“Bull.”

“Bull yourself. You can’t seem to keep your hands off him and we can’t afford for you to drop the spell because you’re a horndog.”

“You did not just say that.”

“I wish I’d known that about you, by the way. I would have ignored my dad’s advice not to tell you the truth years ago.”

“You wanted to tell me sooner?”

“I’ve always wanted to tell you.”

Gabriel chose that moment to interrupt our conversation. “I believe he is right, Danielle. We are likely not safe to sit with one another. Surely I could not restrain from touching you were you in my reach.”

Gabriel smiled affectionately, which I knew he didn’t do on purpose to annoy Russ. At least I don’t think. It was still enough for Russ to spell a huge woman who’d just boarded the train to take the seat Gabriel was sitting in—invisible from my cloaking spell. When the woman sat on Gabriel it was as if she couldn’t feel him beneath her at all. Gabriel gasped, trapped beneath the woman’s substantial weight.

“Make her move!” I shouted at Russ.

“That sucks, dude,” Russ said to Gabriel. And yes, he was laughing hysterically.

When I called him a very not nice name he looked at me like he was hurt. “You think
I
did that? It was one of the only vacant seats on this train and you didn’t place a misdirection spell on us.”

“Make her move!” I shouted again.

“Or what?”

I thought for a moment and then removed Russ from my cloaking spell. When he appeared in front of the woman she startled. “Oh, my! Where did you come from?”

It took Russ a minute to realize what I’d done. When he looked over his shoulder I made it so that Russ would still remain visible but would be able to see and hear Gabriel and me. When he saw me he screamed at me.

“Oh, my!” the lady said. She stood up and hurried away muttering under her breath how the crazies were getting younger and younger every year.

I howled with laughter.

“Dani!”

“Ah, ah,” I warned. “People can still see you.”

“Fix it.”

“No.”

“Hide me,” Russ hissed. “Before we get caught.”

“Or you could shut up before we get caught. I don’t have to hide you. You’re not the one with the crazy aura and it takes a lot less energy to cloak just the two of us. Plus, I kind of like you not being able to talk to us right now.”

After that I got up and moved so that I was sitting next to Gabriel. “This is my first time on a train,” I said to Gabriel, showing Russ that I was not going to budge.

Gabriel thanked me for saving him and then said, “It is my first time leaving Manhattan. It is also my first time being outside the consulate without the Councilor. I find it strangely sad, but I am happy you wanted me with you.”

“Are you nervous?” I asked.

Gabriel smiled, but didn’t answer the question. I think because he was more than nervous. He looked slightly terrified.

“We can be nervous together,” I said.

I mindlessly reached over to take Gabriel’s hand until Russ cleared his throat. I stuck out my tongue in response to the look he was giving me, but he was right. I’d only been sitting next to Gabriel for a matter of seconds and I’d already forgotten I couldn’t touch him. “Sorry,” I grumbled, then slumped against the window with a pout, leaning my chin in my hand.

After a moment Gabriel sighed beside me and then his soft melodious voice whispered, “
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand! O, that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek!
”

I sent a sideways glance to Gabriel and tried to keep up my pout, but couldn’t hold it after I saw his grin. When Russ made gagging noises I broke down and laughed.

“I suppose we should be trying to figure out where in Newark we’re going to start looking.” I decided to change the subject for Russ’s benefit. If Gabriel quoted much more Shakespeare at me, Russ was likely to turn him into something unnatural. “The only helpful thing I noticed in the vision was the phonebook.”