Read Online The Lost Soul (666 Park Avenue 3) by Gabriella Pierce - Free Book Online
Authors: Gabriella Pierce
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from the other side of it, as though she could hear Malcolm’s heartbeat.
She entered before she thought to knock, and promptly blushed: Malcolm was extended along the floor’s wide open space, stripped to the waist and glistening with sweat. She had caught him mid-push-up, and from the looks of things it wasn’t his first or even his fifteenth. Never a small man to begin with, Malcolm had put on easily ten new pounds of muscle during his travels around the world.
Lots of calisthenics alone in his room,
she guessed, and then he saw her standing in the doorframe and she blushed harder.
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ she mumbled, stepping inside and closing the door behind her. Her palms suddenly felt slick with sweat, and it took her two tries to turn the enameled knob, but finally it clicked closed. When she turned around again, Malcolm was pulling a thin gray T-shirt over his head, and she felt a quick stab of disappointment.
‘You seemed exhausted,’ he told her, brushing a damp curl of dark-gold hair back from his forehead. ‘And I didn’t want to crowd you in your own home.’
‘It’s been a long couple of weeks,’ she agreed noncommittally, catching herself searching for the flat curve of pectoral muscle beneath his thin shirt. ‘We’re hurtling toward a deadline, and I can’t make Annette contact you in time, or even figure out how to actually help her if she does.’
He smiled wanly and settled himself into a low white armchair. Jane, feeling uncomfortable about sitting on the bed without some sort of invitation, folded into a cross-legged position on the crocheted rug in the middle of the floor.
‘We’re underpowered.’
Malcolm didn’t try to contradict or reassure her; he just nodded. ‘How can I help?’
He leaned his upper body forward. His attention felt like radiating sunlight, and she closed her eyes for a second, basking in it. ‘Help me think,’ she requested, and he nodded.
They began with the nearest source of additional power: Lynne Doran’s athame, which Jane had kept locked safely away in a bank vault ever since it had been handed over to her. Malcolm started out surprisingly neutral about it – technically it could be considered a part of his sister’s inheritance, but under the circumstances that was a trivial concern. Annette had plenty of magic of her own, and Jane had bartered it from Lynne fair and square. Besides, to hear Malcolm tell it, magic was stolen fairly regularly, or mistakenly allowed to die with its owner; obtaining such a massive store of it was a rare gift that no witch could really expect. Still, he seemed reluctant to actually tell her to go remove it from the bank for their use, and Jane wondered if he shared her worries about the real nature of its power.
He certainly has reasons to distrust his mother’s magic. Maybe his hesitation should mean even more than my own
.
‘If nothing else, we could melt it down,’ Malcolm suggested, as in sync with the direction of her thoughts as he frequently seemed to be. ‘There’s a spell – Emer would know. You melt it and then transform the silver into something else – mercury, usually, or zinc. Something that can’t hold magic, and it dissipates.’
Jane considered this, but as troubling as the thought of having the athame around was, destroying it didn’t seem much more appealing. ‘I worry that we might need it someday,’ she explained, spinning her plain silver ring idly around her finger. ‘That it could be the key to saving Annette, or that we might need it . . . later.’
Worry lingered around Malcolm’s eyes, but he didn’t bother to ask what ‘later’ might mean – he had grown so much more serious in the last few months. When they had first met, his relaxed manner and easy charm had attracted her: she had wanted to share whatever life had made him so open and confident.
Of course, he didn’t really have it so good even back then,
she reflected, but regardless, the change now was
She entered before she thought to knock, and promptly blushed: Malcolm was extended along the floor’s wide open space, stripped to the waist and glistening with sweat. She had caught him mid-push-up, and from the looks of things it wasn’t his first or even his fifteenth. Never a small man to begin with, Malcolm had put on easily ten new pounds of muscle during his travels around the world.
Lots of calisthenics alone in his room,
she guessed, and then he saw her standing in the doorframe and she blushed harder.
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ she mumbled, stepping inside and closing the door behind her. Her palms suddenly felt slick with sweat, and it took her two tries to turn the enameled knob, but finally it clicked closed. When she turned around again, Malcolm was pulling a thin gray T-shirt over his head, and she felt a quick stab of disappointment.
‘You seemed exhausted,’ he told her, brushing a damp curl of dark-gold hair back from his forehead. ‘And I didn’t want to crowd you in your own home.’
‘It’s been a long couple of weeks,’ she agreed noncommittally, catching herself searching for the flat curve of pectoral muscle beneath his thin shirt. ‘We’re hurtling toward a deadline, and I can’t make Annette contact you in time, or even figure out how to actually help her if she does.’
He smiled wanly and settled himself into a low white armchair. Jane, feeling uncomfortable about sitting on the bed without some sort of invitation, folded into a cross-legged position on the crocheted rug in the middle of the floor.
‘We’re underpowered.’
Malcolm didn’t try to contradict or reassure her; he just nodded. ‘How can I help?’
He leaned his upper body forward. His attention felt like radiating sunlight, and she closed her eyes for a second, basking in it. ‘Help me think,’ she requested, and he nodded.
They began with the nearest source of additional power: Lynne Doran’s athame, which Jane had kept locked safely away in a bank vault ever since it had been handed over to her. Malcolm started out surprisingly neutral about it – technically it could be considered a part of his sister’s inheritance, but under the circumstances that was a trivial concern. Annette had plenty of magic of her own, and Jane had bartered it from Lynne fair and square. Besides, to hear Malcolm tell it, magic was stolen fairly regularly, or mistakenly allowed to die with its owner; obtaining such a massive store of it was a rare gift that no witch could really expect. Still, he seemed reluctant to actually tell her to go remove it from the bank for their use, and Jane wondered if he shared her worries about the real nature of its power.
He certainly has reasons to distrust his mother’s magic. Maybe his hesitation should mean even more than my own
.
‘If nothing else, we could melt it down,’ Malcolm suggested, as in sync with the direction of her thoughts as he frequently seemed to be. ‘There’s a spell – Emer would know. You melt it and then transform the silver into something else – mercury, usually, or zinc. Something that can’t hold magic, and it dissipates.’
Jane considered this, but as troubling as the thought of having the athame around was, destroying it didn’t seem much more appealing. ‘I worry that we might need it someday,’ she explained, spinning her plain silver ring idly around her finger. ‘That it could be the key to saving Annette, or that we might need it . . . later.’
Worry lingered around Malcolm’s eyes, but he didn’t bother to ask what ‘later’ might mean – he had grown so much more serious in the last few months. When they had first met, his relaxed manner and easy charm had attracted her: she had wanted to share whatever life had made him so open and confident.
Of course, he didn’t really have it so good even back then,
she reflected, but regardless, the change now was
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