Neon Blue by E Frost (best book reader .TXT) 📗

handful of Solomon’s Seal and return to my kitchen.

Tracking charms aren’t hard. But I’ve never been any good at them. My practical magic professor always said I lacked sufficient imagination. I never understood what she meant.

Which is, I suppose, why I can’t get my tracking charms to work.

I retrieve a candle from the kitchen windowsill and sit down at the table. The candle flares to life when I look at it. I stare into the flame as it grows long and yellow, letting my mind empty. When I’m calm and relaxed, I think of the ring and my mental image of King Solomon’s Seal slowly traces itself in glittering lines in the air above the candle-flame.

I pick up one of the leaves of Solomon’s Seal and hold it in the flame.

It burns without smoke, without scent, and I know the charm is working.

I focus on the bright image of the ring and reach.

I’m immediately yanked out of my body. Shit, this isn’t what usually happens when I do tracking charms. The best I usually get is a fuzzy directional sense. This is more like astral projection. Only a lot scarier, since I’m doing it without a circle of protection against anything that might come along, without even the anchor of my Dala’s bracelets to help me find my way back.

Whose stupid idea was this?

I struggle to return to my body, to regain some control. But fighting doesn’t do any good. I’m pulled along by a burning chain that stretches from the image of the ring off into the darkness. It drags me along inch by inch. The chain runs through my astral body. Right above my navel. It feels like there are hooks in my gut, dragging me along. It’s a horrible feeling, and the more I struggle, the worse it gets. And nothing I’m doing is getting me back to my body.

Finally, I stop struggling.

As soon as I stop fighting, I begin to move, faster and faster, flying over my neighborhood, through the tonier streets of Cambridge, across the darkly glinting Charles, and into the brownstones of the Back Bay. I shudder to a stop in a high-ceilinged room. Over a bed where a woman sleeps.

A pretty woman, with high cheekbones, perfectly shaped eyebrows, and hair that shines pale and silvery in the light from the street. She sleeps between satin sheets, in a bed that gleams with antique brass. A dark-haired man sleeps beside her, his arm thrown possessively across her waist.

She opens her eyes and looks up at me. “Zee-Zee?”

I snap back into my own body, and vomit that good green curry all over my kitchen table.

I wrap myself in two sweaters, my bathrobe, and my winter wool coat. And I still can’t stop shivering. I curl on my couch, rocking back and forth, holding the phone receiver between my hands. It’s after midnight, but I’m not asleep. I can’t sleep. I need to know.

Peter answers after the fifth ring. “Someone better have died,” he groans.

“It’s Tsara.”

“Oh, hey, sorry.” I hear a shuffle, like he’s sitting up. He was probably in bed. The mental image of him, in his boxers with that nice chest bare, makes my eyes prickle. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m really sorry to call you so late.” Now I’m crying audibly. I can’t help it. “I need to know something.”

“Sure. Do you want me to come back, or—”

“No, I just need you to answer a question.”

“Yeah, sure, but if it’s ‘am I crazy about you,’ you already know—”

I sniffle and shake my head, even though I know he can’t see it. “I need to know why you and Rowena broke up.”

“Oh, Jesus.” I hear him flop back on his bed. “Is that what’s been bothering you? Seriously, it was nothing. Ro and I didn’t really break up. She just sort of . . . moved on. And we were barely even together. We only went out a couple of times.”

Because she would have realized he was a null after the first time they kissed.

“What do you mean, moved on?”

“She met someone else and moved on. Heck, I introduced them.”

I shiver. I have barely a flicker of precognition, but I can feel this. Feel the weight of the question I’m about to ask and the answer he’s about to give. Feel the way the skein shifts. “Introduced who?”

“Andy Smith. I’ve known him since we were kids. I took her to a fund-raising party he was having—”

“Andy Smith?”

“Yeah, you know. Andrew Smith. You must have heard of him.”

Oh, yes, I’ve heard of him. I’ve even seen him. Every morning when I ride the T into town, his square-jawed, classically handsome face leers down at me from his campaign banners. Andrew Smith, the democratic candidate for Governor. The man I just saw sleeping with his arm around Ro’s waist.

“Ro’s dating Andrew Smith?” I ask hollowly.

“Yeah, but it’s no big deal. Look, I’m over Ro. And she wouldn’t mind us getting together. Really.”

Of course she wouldn’t. Because you’re a null, and she got what she wanted from you. An introduction to your childhood friend, Andrew Smith. Oh, Peter.

I still dream of world domination, she said.

She decided to be the power behind the throne.

I shake myself. “Peter, I’m so sorry to have called so late.”

“It’s no biggie. Hey, listen, are you sure you don’t want me to come back?”

Sadly, very, very sure.

“Yeah. I’m going to bed. I was just sitting here thinking crazy thoughts.” Like that my best friend from college has King Solomon’s ring. And she’s used it to ensnare a gubernatorial hopeful. “I’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay. Call in the morning and we’ll talk about this weekend.”

“Sure. Sweet dreams, Peter.”

“Night. I am crazy about you, you know.”

Where I’m just crazy. “I know. G’night.”

Chapter 12

I sit at my desk the next morning, turning my empty coffee cup around and around in a wet circle. I have a cosmic hangover. Lack of sleep and the residue of power I swallowed last night and the knowledge that Peter is a null and the