"Not Mars." Brian stopped, his stare measuring David. "Do you care enough about Jo to reset your brain? To throw out a lot of stuff you know is true?"
An eye of quiet settled in the middle of the storm. Images floated by: Jo talking, Jo skittering around the kitchen in her start-stop squirrel mode, Jo in sunlight and in moonlight, Jo in bed and Jo fuzzy-eyed and snappish and foul-mouthed in a ratty bathrobe across the breakfast table with her hair in curlers.
"I care enough about Jo to die for her. I've asked her to marry me."
That drew a blink and raised eyebrows. "We're not talking about pretty songs. You bloody well might get a chance to die for her." Brian seemed to think for a moment and then shrugged.
"Get the box of matches from the stove. Take one and strike it on the box. Strike it once and then hold it. Keep your fingers well away from the head."
David did as he was told. The head sparked but didn't light. He held it up, puzzled. There was nothing strange about that; normally he would have just struck it again.
Suddenly the match exploded in a single burst of light and heat as powerful as a flashbulb. David blinked. Through the sparkles of the after-image, the head and half the wooden shaft had vanished. The remaining matchstick ended clean at a blackened line. There was only a faint wisp of smoke.
"Magic exists," Brian said. "You are not hypnotized. That was not a stage trick, not an illusion. The man who took Maureen from the store uses magic like you walk and breathe."
A suspicion crept into the corner of David's brain and whispered. Words, weapons, healing, the magic show: what does this add up to? David sat down again, very slowly, as if the Doberman had just growled and bared its fangs.
"You've dragged them into some kind of war, haven't you?"
Brian quieted like a cat ready to pounce. He studied the edge of the kukri.
"Not intentionally."
The Gurkha knife seemed huge, a bent sword. David saw his own blood on it. That thing could take a man's head off with a single stroke. He could be dead already. He might as well ask the rest of the questions.
"Just what, exactly, do you mean by that?"
"I mean, before I knew her, I was following some dangerous men. One of them chased Maureen into an alley. I took him out. That's where I met her."
David shuddered at the bald, terse statements. He suddenly wasn't sure if he was willing to live with any more answers.
"One of them . . . . What about the others?"
"Another was the shark who took the bait. My half-brother."
"What right did you have to risk Maureen?"
"That first time? I didn't even know who she was. She wasn't in danger until just before I moved. Last night was desperation. She refused to call in sick. By tonight, I would have been well enough to guard her."
"Where is she? Where the hell are Maureen and Jo?"
"Another world, the thickness of a sheet of paper away from you. Sean would take Maureen there. How Jo went, I can only guess. She may have tried to stop Sean, or she may have followed on her own. She has the Power. David, your lover is not entirely human. Neither is Maureen. Neither am I."
A cold knot formed in David's belly, the chill reaching out to his fingers and toes. However, things could be worse. Brian could be using that knife already. Apparently the big soldier thought David might help, or at least not get in the way.
I suspected this. I called Jo a witch. I knew the other night was freaky.
He swallowed his heart. "You're going after them."
"Yes."
"I'm coming with you. I said I'd die for Jo and I meant it. I don't want to even think about living without her."
Brian shook his head. "No. You're not a fighter, and you don't have the blood to work with Power. Someone like Sean would take you like a grizzly snapping up a trout."
David winced. The image was too vivid.
He gritted his teeth. "You take me along, or I'll call the cops on you. If nothing else, I can carry your pack. You're not fully healed yet. I saw you limping. And if you have something like a shotgun, I can at least scare those bastards."
A grim smile flitted across Brian's face. "Call the cops? Maureen wouldn't let you use the phone, and she didn't even realize what she was doing. Try to get out of your seat."
Stand up? Simple. But nothing happened. David cussed, silently. Nothing below his waist worked. He had feeling, he still balanced upright on the chair with all the unconscious adjustments an unstable posture needs, he didn't feel heavy or have any sense of magic glue holding him to his seat, but his legs simply wouldn't make the necessary moves.
And then his hand reached out and picked up the discarded matchstick. It turned and moved steadily toward his face, toward his right eye, and he couldn't move his head away, he couldn't turn his head, he couldn't stop his hand or drop the match or even blink his eyes.
An animal scream forced its way out of his throat, low and quiet but rasping with pain against clenched teeth. He smelled the char on the stick, he lost focus on it, he felt it brush his eyelashes, and then it stopped. His hand finally answered the scream and whipped the splinter of wood away from his eye. It bounced off the refrigerator with a tick that echoed in the quiet kitchen.
David collapsed across the table, his arms wrapped over his head in a vain attempt at shelter. He gasped for breath and fought against the instant replays running through his head, that blackened weapon inching toward his eye as if it was held in a
