Touch of Magic Page 21

  The tape that had caused her so much trouble, the trick that Yussuf had left her, had proved a part of him had been genuine. In the end, his friendship for her had been real. His love for magic had been real. She never could forgive what he'd been, let alone understand it. Still, the invisible things represented by that tape gave her a certain peace.

  "Drink, Channing?" asked one of the men at the table.

  She shook her head.

  Restless now, she excused herself and stood up, hugging the sleeves of the dark green dress she'd found in a shop two days ago. It had pockets in all the convenient places where they were usually missing in women's apparel. It had seemed like an omen, a promise of new beginnings. Yet in spite of the dress, Yussuf's trick, and the warmth being offered her here tonight, she felt adrift. She wandered past the dining room with its stained-glass windows and ceiling fans, past the theater where a live show was in progress, through happy murmurs of conversation, and back to the bar again.

  She had come here to meet Oliver Lemming. He was late. It annoyed her. But she knew her irritation was directed at herself and the wisps of emptiness that kept creeping up on her when she was unwary.

  She hadn't seen Bill Ellery since the night he'd saved her life more than two weeks ago. Even before he had picked himself off the floor after the bomb blast, Oliver and other armed men had burst in. There had been a fury of questions, shouted orders, and suddenly, as Serafin pressed close to her and someone asked for the third time if she was all right, Ellery was being hustled away toward the helicopter. He'd looked back at her.

  She'd thought he was about to pull away and cross the room to speak to her. He hadn't. She'd thought she'd hear from him the following morning. She hadn't.

  Now she realized she'd probably never see him again. Logical, of course. Whatever had sprung to life between them had been colored by the danger they'd faced. Both of them were old enough to realize that. It was better this way. And less complicated.

  Yet the knowledge was forcing her to face something she didn't want to see. It was more than her estrangement from magic that had driven her since she'd lost Gramps and Tony. She had gone from country to country, from challenge to challenge, filling her time, filling her head with thoughts so she wouldn't be forced to confront her own loneliness.

  It was effective, she told herself. Maybe it was even healthy.

  She could do it again.

  She and Bill Ellery never would have worked out.

  At one end of the bar a young man in full evening attire was doing the cups and balls beneath the approving eye of two older men. Two men at a table were challenging each another with their dexterity with coins. The little group she had left was exchanging card tricks. All the other women in the room were wives or girlfriends. Channing felt a keen and piercing sense of being a hybrid -- an oddity of nature -- alone.

  Seeing Oliver's silver head appear amid the others in the room, she straightened herself and went to meet him. He had stirred her curiosity with his phone call yesterday. She had thought their business was finished, and all accounts settled.

  "Say, this is quite a place," he said, looking around with almost youthful delight. "Would they have kept me out if I hadn't said the magic word to that owl downstairs?"

  Channing smiled. Brief as their contact had been, she'd come to like this man. He'd been brisk yet concerned the night they had managed to thwart Max's plan for their premature funerals. Even as Oliver had stood in that deserted clinic barking orders, he'd scanned both her face and Serafin's for signs of strain. She had seen how his presence brought out the best in the men who were with him. She could understand why Ellery had been so torn by the possibility of his crookedness.

  "How're Rundell and Serafin?" he asked as they settled down at a table for two with drinks in front of them.

  "Fine. I broke down and bought Serafin his own setup for video games so I wouldn't go bankrupt. They're both getting pie-eyed playing them."

  Channing sat forward, smoothing her sleeves again.

  "Get to the point. Your department's paid for my Jeep -- and my other expenses. What's left to talk about? And why didn't you want to come to the house?"

  She thought his eyes gave a twinkle.

  "That little pitcher you took in has big ears. I thought things were better discussed somewhere neutral."

  He leaned forward.

  "I thought you'd like to know those phony passports have already helped nab some people intending to blow up part of an airport. They'll do a lot more good before Ballieu's outfit figures out what happened. Incidentally, there's a rumor Ballieu's in the hospital with some ailment and won't likely be coming out."

  She was silent, trying to square her image of Ballieu with that of a man dying in an ordinary hospital.

  "Any word on Max?" she asked.

  "We've got him." Oliver's eyes betrayed a glint of satisfaction. "We're huddling with the Mexican government on an extradition agreement."

  He looked down at his glass and frowned.

  "This is a sales pitch, Dr. Stuart. You went in cold, and you did an amazing job for us. It's hard to find good people -- men or women -- for our kind of work. You've got what it takes. Bill thinks so, too, though I don't mind telling you he was skeptical when he first met you.

  "What I'm leading up to is, would you go on working for us? It wouldn't be full-time. We'd want you to go on with your own work in hydro-geology. It gives you the kind of cover we couldn't invent if we had to. We'd want you to undergo some training first, and then we'd call on you whenever something came up where we could utilize your skills."

  Channing formed her fingers into steeples and thought about things she'd discussed with Ellery: a kind of global warfare. And she could make a difference. She'd be using her magician's know-how, not in the way her forebears had but in a way that suited her. She could feel the Stuarts of the past giving silent approval.

  There was Serafin to consider, of course. She had responsibilities now. Yet she'd like to think it was partly for Serafin and other unknown kids that she'd agree to Oliver Lemming's offer. Maybe the reluctance to get involved was the very weakness on which people like Henri Ballieu counted.

  "I'll do it," she said quietly.

  Oliver Lemming sighed his relief and downed part of his drink.

  "I ought to have some pretty speech," he said. "But the fact is, I don't know what to say except 'thank you.' It's from the heart, and from a lot of people who'll never even know they ought to say it for themselves."

  Channing traced the rim of the table. She thought she kept her own question casual,

  "Speaking of Bill Ellery, did his shoulder heal?"

  She was thirty-two years old, but the man across from her looked at her as though he found her very young and very amusing.

  "Why don't you ask him?"

  He nodded toward the bar behind them. Channing turned and saw Ellery standing at the far end, eyes resting on her. All the poise she had accumulated over a lifetime slipped for a moment, and she was vulnerable. She felt the temperature of her body change from warm to cold and back again.

  "Excuse me," said Oliver Lemming cheerfully, getting to his feet. "I forgot to feed my cat."

  Ellery could almost read his boss's words, but too much of his attention was fixed on the woman now facing in his direction. She was as stubborn and enigmatic-looking as he remembered, Ellery thought. He watched her rise.

  Oliver threaded his way out of the room, and then, even though there were people all around them, there were just the two of them. Ellery took a step forward.

  She began to walk toward him. She was bristling. Holding herself very tightly. He understood that part of it. He'd vanished like one of the colored scarves she used on stage. He wanted her; he wanted to be a part of her life. Yet he knew he wasn't willing to give up his work, and a woman would have to be crazy to settle for what he could offer with that. Besides, he still wasn't sure how completely she'd gotten over her doctor.

  He'd spent two
weeks on recuperative leave, off by himself, fishing and thinking. Now he hoped the decisions he'd struggled to reach were valid.

  They met in front of a vacant stretch of bar. Channing turned, planting her elbows on the solid edge behind her and leaning against it.

  "I figured you were saying good-bye when you walked off without a word back there in that clinic, Ellery."

  Her voice would have sounded steady to a stranger. But not to him. She didn't look at him.

  "Yeah. Well. I meant it to be," he said.

  Channing could feel him take a step closer. He was looking down at her hair.

  "I got to thinking about what you said -- about nothing in life being guaranteed." He turned and braced against the bar as she had done. His jaw worked once before he spoke again. "I need a partner for a job in Belgium next month. Wondered if you'd be interested."

  His eyes were waiting as hers flashed up. They both understood it was more than professional involvement he was offering. He'd taken the first step, and it was scary for both of them. Instinctively Channing knew he'd never reached out to anyone before. And she'd lost Tony.

  She grasped at safe ground, where they wouldn't have to reveal too much of themselves and where they could ignore the magnitude of the threshold they were crossing.

  "I don't know. I've had a pretty good offer to look for water in the Sahara." She plunged a hand into her pocket. "Tell you what we can do. We can flip a coin."

  Ellery stared for an instant, then sparked with the realization that she was at least partly teasing.

  "Uh-uh." His eyes were narrowing with mistrust. He detained her fingers in his, and she felt their intensity. "We'll use my quarter."

  "Your quarter," said Channing agreeably.

  An equilibrium was being struck -- one they both understood, one they could modify through the years. They had been through a lot together. They would go through a lot more before they were finished.

  A few of the bar's nearest occupants were turning to watch. Ellery rooted through his pocket.

  "And I call," he said, pulling back the coin he'd produced as she was about to grasp it.

  "You call," she agreed.

  He paused.

  "You can't be serious. You're going to keep up your work hunting water? And do magic? And work for Oliver?"

  "Well, I don't have a hobby, Ellery. Quit stalling." She took the coin.

  She knew where she fit now. She was a Stuart. And she wasn't alone.

  As Ellery watched, she flipped the coin. It glittered up in a shining arc, with Ellery's gaze nailed to it.

  "Heads!" he said.

  He stole a look at her. They shared a grin.

  Ellery's eyes jumped back to the quarter.

  It tumbled down and down.

  And then...

  ...in front of Ellery's eyes...

  ...in midair...

  ...it disappeared.

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  M. Ruth Myers