Arcane Heart (Arcane Talents 3)

Arcane Heart (Arcane Talents 3)
Angela Knight
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Copyright ©2024 Angela Knight

It was sheer, stupid impulse, and she knew better. But when Deputy Erica Harris’s gaze fell on the Potions sign, she whipped her patrol car into the nearest empty parking space. For a moment she sat there, listening to the cooling engine tick and staring at the nighttime crowd streaming past her cruiser. “You really are an idiot.”

Shaking her head, she picked up her radio’s handset mic and clicked the button to call dispatch. “Laurel County, Alpha 22, going 10-8 at Potions.”

“10-4, Alpha 22.” The dispatcher sounded bored. No surprise; it had been a slow night.

So now Jake knows where I am. Question is, will he show up?

Yeah, Potions was Jake Nolan’s favorite restaurant, and she hadn’t heard him go 10-8 -- the Laurel County police code for “out of service” -- to take a dinner break. That didn’t mean he’d take one now and join her.

So go for it. Call the man and ask him to meet you…

Yeah, no. Much as she wanted to see him again, only a masochistic twit would want another ride on the Nolan merry-go-round. The last time had damn near destroyed her.

Yet here she was, masochistic and twitty, with the need she’d felt for months threatening to overwhelm her sense of self-preservation.

Screw it. If he shows, he shows. If he doesn’t, I’m still hungry. Erica got out, a spring breeze sighing cool against her cheeks. The Friday evening crowd surged around her, heading in and out of the bars and restaurants along Faraday Square. Her stomach growled, and she headed up the sidewalk toward Potions. She’d been too busy working a traffic accident to grab dinner. It was eight o’clock now, and she craved the greasy goodness of a cheeseburger combo.

Almost as much as contact with Jake Nolan. Her two Mideast tours as a member of his Arcane Corps team had turned the man into an addiction. Hunting terrorist sorcerers together built emotional connections that were hard to break.

The thought of the war made her automatically check the crowd, though she shouldn’t have to worry about terrorists in Laurel County, South Carolina. Still, last year’s attack by the polar bear Feral and his witch partner proved even Laurelton wasn’t immune to psychos. The Faraday Square Massacre had occurred months before Erica had joined the department, but even she could tell the whole community still suffered the aftereffects.

Breathing in to center herself, she opened her awareness to her Talent. Most Arcanists had to close their eyes to see the arcane energies surrounding all living things, but Erica was much more sensitive.

Suddenly those around her wore glowing overlays of healthy blue and green, though splashes of red here and there indicated pain -- headaches, feet hurting from pinching high heels. That poor bastard on the right probably had a bleeding ulcer; that shade of red wasn’t right for cancer.

All pretty standard. She started to close her Talent down…

A block ahead, the crowd parted, revealing a tall man just as white light exploded across his aura like a bomb blast.