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Next he turned south, and welcomed the spirit of fire, then east and west and
their associated elements before kneeling again for the business of the ritual
at hand. Already he could feel the heightened energy pulsing within him. His
body shivered, but his mind was on fire. Magic lived and
breathed roared inside him. He would have rejoiced to have the weariness which
had cloaked him lifted, except along with the positive energy of the magic, a
dark force crept up on him. He could feel it at the outer edges of his
consciousness, but he couldn't see it.
Damn it, how could he fight an enemy he couldn't see?
Hands shaking from frustration and the bitter cold that his body knew even as
his mind rejected it, he pulled his final token, a piece of lapis lazuli, from
the box and dropped it carefully in the bowl of water.
"Oh, beloved god and goddess, lend me your eyes that I might see the danger
that threatens us. Lend me your wisdom that I might recognize it. Lend me your
strength that I might defeat it. All that is yours is pure and good. Tonight I
seek that which is not of you. Show me the unclean. Reveal to me your evil
enemies that I might protect your children from that which approaches. Blessed
be!"
Moonlight, the gift of the goddess, glinted off the rippling surface of the
liquid. The blue stone beneath shimmered as if lit from within. Almost
immediately Teryn's vision began to change. His perspective shifted until he
felt as if he were looking at his city from a great altitude, so high that the
gentle curve of the earth's surface was visible to him. He could see the black
water of Lake Michigan and the shore beyond. His gaze traveled across hundreds
of miles to the north where a black mass of malevolence swarmed.
A band tightened around Teryn's chest. Suddenly the cold wind had teeth. It
tore at his skin while the energy that had surged through him only moments
before flickered, fighting for life like a candle in the wind.
Teryn struggled for breath. Again he wished Nathan were here to add his
strength to Teryn's own, but he had to force that thought out of his mind.
Nathan was gone. Teryn was alone.
Alone against an evil he intuitively knew would destroy him if it had the
chance.
He pressed his lips together to stop the moan that threatened to escape. He
clamped his eyes shut against the pain, squeezing out two tears that left a
frozen trail down his cheeks.
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In his mind he continued his quest for sight, continued his chant. He spat
out each word in a staccato rhythm, concentrating on getting the
pronunciations just right, the order perfect.
"Oh, god and goddess, lend me your eyes that I might see the danger that
threatens your children. Lend me your wisdom."
He drew a ragged, frozen breath. The wind battered him. Even the pigeons
squawked in discomfort, but still Teryn continued. The dark cloud to the east
bubbled and boiled, but grew no more distinct. Teryn still couldn't put a face
to his nemesis, a name.
He would stay here until he could, he vowed. He would search until sunrise,
if need be, and then again the next night, and the next. If the effort drained
the last of his strength and left him nothing but a carcass on the stone, so
be the will of the god and goddess.
Either he would know his enemy or he would die.
Rachel heard Nathan's voice before she opened thedoor to auditorium 411-B in
the Chicago University Fine Arts Building. The low tenor vibrated inside her
like a tightly strung wire in a high wind. It hummed in her solar plexus.
Squaring her shoulders, she pulled on the brass door handle and slipped into
the top row unseen.
She wasn't supposed to be here. He had promised to pick her up in the lobby
of her hotel after his last class at noon, as he had each of the past two
days.
But she was tired of being cooped up in the bland room with its stock
curtains and blah bedspread. She was tired of the bad Renoir prints on the
walls, theSeinfeld reruns on TV, the laptop that had, until this morning,
refused to give her any clues to the whereabouts of Von Simeon, no matter how
many databases she searched.
Today she'd made a breakthrough. She'd found her first concrete lead in a
file of obscure state records, and she was ready to follow it.
She'd almost left to pursue the information on her own, but why go alone when
she could share her glory? This nut had been a tough one to crack, and she
deserved a little recognition. She wanted to thump her chest, sing the
"Tarzan" cry, and have someone congratulate her on her superb investigative
skill.
Not just any someone Nathan.
With Nathan, even this small victory would seem larger. Everything seemed
somehow& richer when she was with him. Happy was happier, funny was funnier,
and sexy was definitely sexier. He was stimulating. Exciting. He titillated
her every sense.
She crooked her lips in a wry grin.Titillated ?
Geez, she had it bad.
Now if she could only figure out what "it" was.
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To say she was curious about the man would be one of the great
understatements of all time. To say she had the hots for him too shallow, too
crude.
What she had was something she'd never felt before.
Some kind of deep connection. She had never met him before the night of the
museum gala, yet she felt as if she'd known him all her life. She recognized
him& but from where?
The feeling was unsettling. It left her restless. Edgy. Her mind wouldn't
stop thinking about him, and her nerves wouldn't let her sit still.
So she'd given up. Given in.
She wasn't quite sure what kept her sitting in an art history lecture when
she had a hot lead to follow, but sit she did, feeling a bit like a voyeur for
watching him unawares. The auditorium was large enough and dim enough, and he
was intent enough on his lecture that he didn't seem to have noticed her
entry. Lord, she was practically stalking the man.
Except she was a cop, so she could call it investigating and get away with
it. Satisfied, she sank deep into the hard plastic chair to watch.
He was wearing navy blue Dockers and a light blue shirt that might have been
crisp four or five hours ago. Now the rumpled sleeves were rolled up to his
elbows, and the knot of his tie hung down to the third open button beneath his
collar. He was lecturing on pottery, the fine ceramics of the Jingdezhen kiln
in Japan, circa A.D. 800. He stepped into the light of a slide projector
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