Page 18 of Captured in Love
The driveto Reykjavik feels endless, not helped by the fact that Levi slept for most of the trip there, leaving me to my brooding thoughts. We grabbed an entire car full of diving gear, cleaning out the small but well-stocked rental shop we found near the harbor. Once the shop assistant realized what we wanted, he kept piling on ‘essentials’ for cold water diving. Since I’ve never gone diving with actual gear—being a vampire does have its perks—I left the negotiations to Levi, who spoke with enough authority to let me know this wasn’t his first time organizing a dive.
“Nora and I did a job in Chile,” he says as we load the gear into the trunk, “so we had to get our permits. But the water wasn’t as cold there. Sixty-five degrees. Here, the guy says we’ll have around fifty-four on the surface but could get down to fifty or below as we dive deeper.”
“Fantastic,” I grumble. “You couldn’t have picked the Caribbean or somewhere warm for your next location?”
Levi claps me on the back. “And here I thought you didn’t like the sun.”
I roll my eyes and close the trunk. “There’s a happy middle between burning to death in the desert and freezing your ass off in the middle of the summer.”
“Yeah, it’s called Greece. Which is where we’re going as soon as we finish up here, so we better get a move on.”
He’s right, but we still stop at the covered food hall by the harbor where Levi gets enough seafood to feed an army, as well as some groceries for tomorrow. I roll the car’s windows down despite the light drizzle still seeping from the gray clouds above, because holy gods, the fish smell terrible. Levi, however, methodically works his way through one food package after another, collecting the cardboard boxes and tinfoil wrappers in a heap by his feet as I drive us back east.
“This was amazing,” he mumbles through his last bite of a particularly pungent lobster bun that smells like dill and mustard.
“Where did you put all that food?” I ask, wrinkling my nose.
He pats his still-flat stomach. “I need fuel to keep this going, man.”
I can’t help but crack a smile. Levi has so much energy radiating from him, it sometimes feels like staring into the sun. I understand why Nora feels what she does for him, why they’re best friends, and now, lovers.
The knowledge of what I saw in Levi’s memories when I drank his blood rises to the surface, but I don’t want to ruin this easy moment with that. We need to discuss his unwillingness to tell Nora about his father’s role in her mother’s death, but not now. Not when we’re preparing to execute a very dangerous dive. His focus needs to be on that, or he and Nora will be in mortal danger.
“Listen,” he says suddenly, interrupting my thoughts, “I think we should stop and do what Nora is doing back at the hotel room.”
I raise my eyebrows. “You want to perform magic? Out in the open?”
He peers through the windshield at the stark, empty landscape. “Yeah. I think I do.”
We drive until we come upon a rest area, and Levi has me stop the car. He dumps the empty food wrappers in a trash can, then leans down to look at me through the driver’s side window.
“You can stay here,” he says. “Wouldn’t want you to get wet.”
I snort, already unbuckling my seat belt. “And who will watch your back when you’re deep in your trance?”
He pulls his backpack from the car and glowers at me. “It’s not a trance. It’s like a…a meditation. I’m still aware of my surroundings, just ignoring them to focus.”
We leave the road and the car behind and hike up a ravine through which runs a small, clear stream. The wind intensifies, carrying the rain in almost horizontal sheets.
“Good thing we came here in the summer,” I call. “Wouldn’t want to have bad winter weather.”
Levi grins at me, as though he’s surprised at my joke. I resist the urge to grumble at him that I am not a humorless old man, but that would just undermine my point. The fact that I care about his opinion of me is worrying enough.
“This will do,” he announces a couple of minutes later, indicating a flat stretch of gray sand by the stream. “But the rain might wash away the circle if I just draw it into the dirt. So I’ll need…” He turns on the spot, searching along the ground.
“Would pebbles work?” I ask, crouching to pick a fistful from the stream bed.
The water is crystal clear and cold enough to sting my skin. We’ve found a perfect, untouched piece of land, so rare in this century.
“Great idea.” Levi gives me an approving look.
We set to creating a circle for him. Then I sit on a moss-covered rock—my jeans are wet already, so there’s really no difference—and watch as he sets out his tools and concentrates on his magic.
I’ve only seen Nora do a full power circle, as they call them, once, but not Levi. When he’d broken through the curse that held the door closed in the Egyptian tomb, there was no visible magic to be seen, not for me, anyway. Now, though, a red glow surrounds him slowly, starting from his chest and moving outward through his limbs. His brow furrows in concentration, and the muscles in his jaw bunch with strain.
I remember then what the two witches told me about their abilities. Nora is a magic weaver, creating intricate spells with ease, especially if they are meant to influence people’s minds and behavior. But Levi is a curse-breaker, and his talent lies in dismantling magic that other witches have wrought. They also mentioned he has a small gift for healing, inherited from his father, though neither of them elaborated on that.
Knowing what I know of Levi’s father, I understand why Levi would want to distance himself from the man.
