Robin Owens - Enchanted Again

Not that it would change anything. A tendril of fear began to whip acid inside his gut. Conrad’s curse had come true.

Would his?

Amber played with the pups, enough to tire them for a few minutes, then went to her downstairs office and initiated a computer search for Conrad Tyne-Cymbler.

He didn’t have any social network pages, but her online investigation program showed his home—inherited—at a pricey address in Cherry Creek. His worth was recently downgraded due to a prospective divorce settlement. Amber winced, recalling the hurt that had emanated from the man. A quick search of public court files showed that the divorce hearing had been set for this morning.

She did an online query about his wife, Marta Dimir. Nothing showed up…except a quick ice-cube quiver sliding through Amber. Her minor magic that she used in genealogy, a certain past-time-sense, warned her that if she explored Marta Dimir’s background she would find violence, despair, darkness.

Amber shook off the feeling. Let Tyne-Cymbler’s investigators take care of the wife angle. The man had spoken of his son, and Amber noted that the boy was nearly a year old. But that wasn’t what snagged her interest. Tyne-Cymbler obviously felt that the curse that affected him would also impact his son.

A father-to-son curse.

She brought up the professional genealogical database she used most often. The Colorado Tynes had a family tree available online, about five years out of date. The chart listed Conrad’s father, deceased, and Conrad, but named no other Cymblers. It didn’t show the Cymbler line.

There were some pics in the family albums and one of them showed the blond guy, an old college roommate of Conrad—Rafe Davail. Very uncommon surname.

Very good-looking guy who lived in Manhattan.

Without thought her fingers typed in his name on the ancestry site and got a hit. She stared at the chart.

Davail had a father-son curse, too. Anxiety tightened her throat as her eyes tracked the graph. For the past three hundred years, the first Davail son had died before he’d turned thirty-three. Rafe’s father was gone, so was his grandfather and great-grandfather. There was a great-uncle who was a second son, and Rafe had a younger brother.

That wasn’t good.

The only item of value Amber had in the world from her family was a gypsy ancestress’s journal. A far too sketchy journal when it came to talking about curses.

But she knew what she was seeing.

Rafe Davail was very cursed.

Thumps and bumps woke Amber in the night. Her heart pounded—home invaders! The pups sprang from her bed and shot down the hall, barking. She snatched at the phone, pressed 911, started shouting over the dispatcher. “This is number seven—”

The ceiling light flicked on and a brownie appeared on the end of her bed. The phone slipped from her grip.

He wasn’t Pred from next door. This one wasn’t as skinny, though he was still thin. His face was more wrinkled, with lines of bad humor. His head between his large triangular ears was black. “Go ahead,” the brownie said. “Let’s see some fun.” He went transparent.

Amber fumbled for the phone. “Never mind,” she panted into it. “False alarm. My… A friend came in.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?” asked the dispatcher.

“Fine. Fine,” Amber said.

“We have a fix on your phone and will send a squad car by.”

The brownie opened and closed his hands, fingers stiff, mumbling something. Again her phone dropped.

“Changed the signal. They’ll go to the wrong address, blocks away from Mystic Circle,” he sneered.

“Who are you and what do you want?” Amber asked.

His features drew together and darkened with anger. His large triangular ears shook, probably with fury. She felt at a disadvantage in bed so she hopped out. “Who are—”

“I heard you the first time. Tiro. I gotta live with you.” He jumped from the bed, making gargley noises that might be brownie cursing.

“Tiro?” Amber asked.

“My name, human.” The brownie stalked over and walked around her. She turned in place to keep an eye on him. He opened his mouth and curled his tongue…like a cat using a sixth sense.

“The Mistweaver brownies were right. A wretched Cumulustre descendant. I thought your whole line had died out from stupidity four generations ago.”

Amber crossed her arms. The March night was cold since she kept the heat low. Her nightgown was flannel, but her feet were bare. “I beg your pardon,” she said in a voice as chilly as her feet.

She heard the grinding of his teeth, then he flung his head back. “And you look as stupid as all the rest. Smell like it, too. A curse breaker, right? And when you ‘help’ someone, you age? And your body is nearly a decade older than your true age?”

He knew her magic. He knew her family. What else did he know and what could she learn from him?

She sighed. “Yes.”

Tiro stomped to the middle of the room. “If you human women of the Cumulustre bloodline had learned your lesson, I wouldn’t be here. Bound to watch over you and serve you—those’re my ancient orders from the elf.” Stomp. “Can’t contact Cumulustre without permission. Those damn Mistweaver brownies won’t talk to him, either. Stuck.” A hard jump on her floor.

“Watch over me why?”

He shot a finger at her. “’Cause you’re a curse breaker and you age when you do magic. Cumulustre wants you watched until all of you are gone.”

Amber opened her mouth.

“Stop pestering me,” he snapped, whiskery eyebrows dipping.

She took a different angle. “So are you going to fall down and froth at the mouth?”

“No.” But he stomped again. “But you’re going to press your luck and break curses and age and die before your time, ‘helping others,’ like all of your ilk. Damn women.”

Now ice chilled her insides as well as the late winter air wrapping around her. She was afraid he was right.

“Never saw a curse you didn’t want to break. Have to help.” He barked a laugh and the puppies yipped louder, pushing against him. He rubbed each of their heads and didn’t move an inch when they bumped against him. “Stupid,” he repeated, staring with a considering eye. “You look softer than most. You’ll probably go fast.”

“I don’t think so.” She cleared her throat, knowing she shouldn’t ask, but couldn’t help herself. “You can’t help me with my gift?”

Tiro smiled with all his pointy teeth and Amber took a step back. He looked more than happy, positively gleeful. “Give me permission and I can contact Cumulustre and all your problems will be over.”

Grue slithered along her spine as if she’d stepped into a horror movie. One where you made a bad choice or a bad wish and suddenly you were running for your life or tortured or dead. She could hear her now-rapid pulse in her temples. “No, thank you. You can take the guest room.”

His lip curled. “I want your office. Ground floor, view of the gardens, round window.” He leered a bit. “Closer to the elemental energy balancer’s house and the best magic.”

“Huh?”

“Jin-des-farne Mist-wea-ver.” His so-precise enunciation was to intimidate.

Her eyes narrowed. “Fine. Tonight you move everything in my office to the room above it, place things exactly as they are below. If you can do that, you can have the office as your room. If I find anything out of place, you immediately move everything back to the room on the ground floor and you get a cubicle area in the basement.” She didn’t know the brownie’s magical powers, and from his widened eyes and a hint of respect, she thought the job might press him a little.

She kept her gaze steady and widened her own smile to show teeth, even though they weren’t as sharp as his. “And you do that without the rude thumping noises that woke the puppies and me.”