The Wizard of Seattle (10 page)

Merlin’s bedroom was down the hall, and the closed door didn’t tell her whether or not he was up.

They hadn’t talked, beyond what was absolutely necessary and then with distant courtesy, since Tuesday. He had spent his evenings in the house closeted in his study, so she had seen him only at meals. As she went quickly down the stairs, she could only hope that a late night of work, or whatever he was doing in his study these days, had kept him in bed past his usual time. Both of them tended to rise early, usually before six
A.M
., as Jane had noted.

The front door was still latched, and Serena breathed a sigh of relief when she opened it to find the morning’s newspaper lying on the porch. Rachel always entered the house through the kitchen door in the mornings, and so the newspaper was brought in by whoever happened to come downstairs first.

Pushing the door shut, she rifled quickly through the sections until she found the one that always held Kane’s column.

“Looking for something, Serena?”

Swearing silently, she replied in a light tone, “The life-style section. You know I always read my horoscope in the morning.”

“And you know it’s meaningless,” Merlin said as he joined her in the foyer.

“It amuses me.” Serena shrugged, then handed the remainder of the newspaper to Merlin and followed him toward the kitchen, from which came the smell of frying bacon. She would have much preferred to steal
away somewhere private to read Kane’s column, but didn’t want to do anything that appeared suspicious.

She sat down across from him at the table, casually greeted Rachel, and sipped her coffee before unfolding her part of the paper. She forced herself to turn the pages without haste, but had to struggle not to stiffen in silent fury when she saw the title of Kane’s column.

“Uncle and Niece …?”

Thinly disguised as one of those Meet a Couple of Our Leading Citizen commentaries (which would fool no one; Kane’s articles were eagerly read because he invariably trashed somebody), the piece was actually not as bad as Serena had feared, and certainly not as bad as it might have been. Obviously Kane knew better than to go over the line and risk libel. Other than with the title, he didn’t even make implications about Serena and Merlin’s true relationship, in fact—perhaps because her scornful charge that he would resort to “tabloid journalism” had touched him on the raw.

Nothing he said about Serena in the article bothered her in the slightest, especially since most of the details of her various relationships had already been made public. He didn’t refer to her as the whore of Babylon, though the picture he painted wasn’t far off the mark.

But what Kane
had
done with his malicious article was focus a spotlight on Merlin, as well as Serena, which was the kind of unwelcome publicity the wizard had always studiously avoided. And he must have battered his way through a few of those walls he’d mentioned, because he had unearthed several hitherto unpublished facts about Richard Merlin’s background. Facts that surprised Serena and pointed out to her how very little she actually knew about Richard.

His father, for instance, was a judge in Chicago. Mother deceased for a number of years, her death caused by some accident. No siblings. Merlin had attended Harvard University, earning a degree in political science “at an unusually young age.” Never married or engaged, he had lived briefly in Boston after college, then had moved to Seattle almost fifteen years ago. From all appearances—and no doubt to Kane’s immense
disgust—he seemed to have led a blameless, fairly unremarkable life.

Deliberately unremarkable, Serena thought shrewdly. After all, the best way to escape undue notice was to lead an outwardly bland existence with no unusual highs or lows.

“What is it?”

She looked up with a start to find Merlin watching her. “What’s what?”

“Your horoscope. Isn’t that what you’re reading so intently? What fascinates you so much?”

Looking into those unreadable, impenetrable black eyes, Serena suddenly knew it was useless to try to keep him ignorant of the article. He was, after all, Merlin. Trying to keep something hidden from a Master wizard—especially
this
one—was rather like trying to hide a storm from radar.

With a sigh she said, “It’s going to be a bad day.”

“According to the stars?” He held her gaze steadily. “Serena, despite your newfound ability to contain your energies, I can certainly see and almost hear your distress. What’s happened?”

She glanced around, realizing only then that they were alone; Rachel had apparently left the kitchen some time ago. Serena hadn’t even touched her breakfast, which was rapidly growing cold. No wonder he had noticed her preoccupation; she
never
ignored meals.

Looking back at Merlin, she tried to think of some way of cushioning the blow, but finally blurted, “I didn’t know your father was a judge.”

He frowned. Instead of responding to her statement, he held out a hand for the section of the newspaper she’d been reading, and Serena gave it to him.

“It’s not so bad,” she offered as she watched him read the article. “Kane could have done a lot worse. I know you hate publicity of any kind, but he didn’t say anything bad about you. And all that stuff about me is old news. I guess I could have tried to stop him, but he didn’t seem to know anything for certain when he talked to me—”

“When he talked to you?” Merlin raised his eyes from the paper. “At the party?”

“No.” She cleared her throat, unnerved by the mask-like hardness of his face. “It was later. He sort of cornered me leaving work, and—”

“Serena, why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

Merlin swore rarely, and she’d never heard his voice sound so harsh. She didn’t know what was so wrong about the article, but there was no doubt he was seriously upset. She knew then that she should have told him about Kane’s interest while he could have done something to stop or at least deflect the man.

“I … I just forgot about it,” she explained.

“Forgot?”

His disbelief touched a nerve, and Serena felt herself stiffen. A bit tautly she said, “It was on Tuesday. You may remember I had a lot on my mind Tuesday.”

He leaned back in his chair slowly, still gazing at her with grim eyes, the newspaper lying on the table before him, his plate pushed to the side.

Serena’s instincts told her to keep her mouth shut until he calmed down, but this hadn’t been her best week, and she needed to let off a little steam. Being Serena, she opened every valve.

Recklessly, she said, “If you’re so worried about the damned article, zap it out of the paper. Of course there’ll be a rather large blank place, but you can probably fill it with a farm report or something.”

“And am I supposed to
zap
it out of the mind of everyone who’s already read it?”

“Why not? I may be no good at mind control, but I’ll bet you’re terrific at it. Aren’t you? It certainly can’t be beyond the powers of a Master wizard to create a little amnesia here and there.”

“Kane’s column,” Merlin said evenly, “is syndicated in a hundred newspapers across the country.”

“Including one in Chicago, I’ll bet. That’s it, isn’t it? You don’t want His Honor to know you’re living with a woman he knows damned well isn’t your niece.”

Ignoring that, Merlin said, “I can hardly influence
the minds of a few million people. I’m not all-powerful, Serena, and certainly not infallible.”

“I know.” She suddenly wanted to cry.

His anger drained away as quickly as hers had, and Merlin looked at her with instant awareness. They were both remembering a blond woman and an all-too-human act, and this time it was Serena who looked away first.

“Sorry I didn’t warn you about Kane,” she said. “It’s obviously a little late to worry about closing the barn door, since the horse is on its way and there doesn’t seem to be much we can do about it. Anyway, the article certainly could have been worse, so we’re lucky there. And maybe whoever it is you don’t want reading it won’t.”

Merlin didn’t say anything for a moment, and when he did speak, his voice was still a bit rough. “Serena, don’t judge me before you know all the facts.”

Her gaze returned to his face, the green eyes guarded. “Sure. You just tell me when I have them, okay?”

He couldn’t blame her for the frustration she clearly felt, nor could he make it easier on her by disclosing a few of those necessary facts. There was far too much he didn’t understand himself, and his own emotions were making it more difficult for him to see the situation clearly.

All he could do was try to keep everything, including Serena, under control until he found the answers for which he’d been searching.

Serena pushed back her chair and left the table, every taut line of her body expressing her vexation with him. Merlin rose, as well, and followed her out into the foyer, intending to say something that would allow them to part for the day on fairly amiable terms. He didn’t like being at odds with Serena; it made him feel uncharacteristically morose and had a tendency to cause the rest of his day to be miserable.

But before he could say anything, the phone on the hall table rang.

She was getting her raincoat from the tree by the
front door, so Merlin answered. And even though he’d been half prepared for it from the moment he had read Kane’s article, the matter-of-fact voice on the other end of the line nonetheless caught him by surprise.

“Merlin, this is Jordan.”

Unconsciously, Merlin gazed straight at Serena. “Hello, Jordan. How have you been?”

Ignoring the pleasantry, the other man said, “How soon can you get here?”

An interesting question, Merlin reflected. He could, of course, “get there” instantly, and both of them knew it. But the appearance and demands of his normal life made instantaneous transportation an extremely rare thing, used only during the direst of emergencies.

“I can clear my desk by lunchtime,” he said.

“Good. Take the first available flight after noon. I’ll meet you at the airport.”

“I’ll be there.” Merlin listened to the dial tone for a moment, then cradled the receiver. He was still looking at Serena. She had put on her raincoat but hadn’t left the house because his stare and his end of the conversation had caught her attention. So much so, in fact, that she seemed to forget she’d been mad at him.

“Be there?” Her voice was hesitant, as if she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.

Merlin started to tell her he was going out of town for a day or so, but the memory of what had happened last time forced him to be much more specific. “A meeting of the Council of Elders has been called,” he said. “I’ve been asked to attend.” Asked? He’d damned well been ordered.

Serena took a step toward him, still hesitant but probably alerted by some tone in his voice. “Have you done something wrong?”

A bit dryly Merlin replied, “You could say that, yes.”

W
izards were born with finite degrees of power, some high and some low. No amount of learning could increase that inherent level of force; instruction and knowledge could only perfect the control, the mastery of what was innately possessed. Merlin was on the high end of that scale, one of the extraordinarily rare beings born with almost unlimited potential. Jordan was at the low end of the scale. He was almost as tall as Merlin, but lacked the other man’s power in almost every respect. Jordan was fair, thin, pale-eyed, soft-voiced. Born with so little ability that he barely qualified as a wizard, he might have grown to resent those farther up the evolutionary scale than himself; instead, he had chosen to put his stronger talents of organization and efficiency to good use, and so served as a kind of administrative manager for the Council of Elders.

He met Merlin at O’Hare Airport, his cool Nordic looks and placid voice an island of tranquillity in a sea of bustling humanity, and led the way briskly to the dark, inconspicuous Lincoln he had left in a no-parking zone. Naturally there was no ticket. Merlin sat in the front beside Jordan, unwilling to
give the appearance of being chauffeured, even though he was. He disliked ceremony and avoided it whenever possible. Especially whenever he was in the company of other wizards.

It was just after six o’clock, and since it was late autumn, it was both dark and chilly outside. A gloomy omen, Merlin thought, and instantly chided himself for the superstition.

“Where’s the meeting?” he asked, even though he was fairly sure he already knew.

Jordan didn’t turn his attention from the road. “The judge’s house, as usual,” he replied.

Merlin glanced at his driver, wondering idly and not for the first time why Jordan referred to the Council members by their positions or tides in the “real” world rather than their names. A mania for secrecy perhaps? If so, it was no wonder. The six men he served had in common a secret that would have rocked this technically advanced and cynical world if it had been made public.

The news wouldn’t have done wizards much good, either. Though Serena had been flippant when she had described another Salem witch hunt, the truth was that the discovery of wizards in their midst could certainly have the powerless population of the world both frightened and up in arms.