Beguiled

by Darynda Jones

  Dad stood, too, but the chief was actually the one I was worried about. I didn’t want this guy arrested. He was searching for something and, based on recent experience, ignoring that could cost someone their life.

  “Let her go,” Papi said, literally getting in the man’s face. “Now.”

  “What is this about?” the chief asked.

  “It’s okay, Papi. Chief.” I held up a hand to halt the proceedings, wherever they may have led. This was my fault. I’d leaped before looking again. “It’s okay,” I said to him. I put my free hand over the one attached to my wrist. “I didn’t send anything. Can you explain what you’re looking for?”

  The man finally noticed the chief standing there in full uniform and let me go. Tears shimmered in his eyes. Dad lifted me out of the chair like I weighed nothing and took my place to stare the man down.

  “It’s okay,” I repeated. “There’s been a misunderstanding.”

  Even surrounded by three rather large and very protective males, the man didn’t seem the least bit scared. He grabbed his ticket as he rose, shoved past Papi, and headed toward the register.

  I realized Roane had been running to the scene. He barged into the restaurant and practically skidded to a halt when he saw me. Then he questioned me with a slight tilt of his head.

  “I need that man’s name,” I said softly.

  His gaze drifted to the man paying, and he nodded, his gaze wary, and stepped closer to the register.

  The minute I sat down, Annette grabbed my arm. She must’ve missed the part where the man had nigh wrenched it out of its socket.

  “What’s going on?” she asked. “What happened?”

  The chief and my dads took their seats.

  “I need to know who that guy is.”

  “Why?” She leaned in and drunk-whispered, “Did you get something?”

  “I don’t know. He’s searching for something. Something very valuable. I just don’t know what.”

  “See? You are psychic.”

  “I’m not psychic.”

  “You’ll do great at the séance tomorrow.”

  The reminder caused my stomach muscles to clench painfully. “No, I won’t. You’re the psychic, remember?”

  “Oh, right.” She put two fingers on her temples to concentrate. “Okay, I can’t be 100 percent, but I think his name starts with an R. Or a T.” Her lids flew open, and she whispered, “Or both. I think those are his initials.”

  If I weren’t so worried for the man, I may have giggled at her theatrics. “Okay, thanks. Roane is going to find—”

  “I’m on it.” She stood and headed toward the register, and I could only pray she wouldn’t mess up Roane’s plan. At least she’d snapped out of her stupor. It was probably the decaf. Her system reported an error and had to reboot.

  “What was that about?” the chief asked.

  My dads were still glaring at the man’s back, making sure Roane got a name for the guy.

  Gigi came to my rescue before I could explain. “Her powers, Houston. She can’t control where they take her any more than you can control the rising and setting of the sun.” She patted my hand. “Are you okay, dear?”

  “I am. Thank you, Gigi. But that man is not.” I looked at the chief. “Do you know him?”

  He shook his head. “He’s not a local.”

  “I shouldn’t have just sat down and started questioning him like that. His reaction was totally my fault.”

  Dad put down the spoon he’d been stirring his coffee with a little more forcefully than necessary. “That did not give him the right to accost you, Cariña. You understand that, right?”

  I hopped up, walked around the table, and hugged him from behind. “I know, Dad.” I did the same to the other man who raised me. “I love you guys so much.”

  He squeezed my arms, pulling me closer. “We love you more.”

  Laughing, I kissed his cheek, then looked over just in time to see Annette wedge her way between a pastry display and the man, conveniently as he was signing his credit card receipt. She practically shoved him aside to hand the cashier a dollar. “Here you go, Louise.”

  Though confused, the cashier took it and stuffed it into her apron. “My name’s not Louise.”

  “Don’t spend it all in one place.”

  When Annette jostled him again, her boobs the only obstacle in an otherwise expertly executed sting, the man stopped and glared at her. She couldn’t have been more obvious if she’d been a bull sipping tea in a china shop, but she didn’t break character. Goddess bless her.

  Roane stood off to the side, pretending to wait his turn in line. When he lifted a hand to his forehead, I could only imagine it was to hide the grin he was fighting tooth and nail.

  “Sorry,” she said to the man before traipsing back to the table.

  He watched her, then scowled at the lot of us, nigh setting us on fire, before leaving.

  Louise, on the other hand, melted upon seeing Roane at her register. He nodded a greeting, then ordered a coffee to go. Louise was more than happy to accommodate.

  “Were you right?” I asked Annette when she sat back down. “About R and T being his initials?”

  Her satisfied smirk evaporated, and she suddenly needed to wipe invisible crumbs off her lap.

  I took that as a so close.

  Roane borrowed a chair from the next table and sat beside me, drinking his to-go coffee while we ordered lunch. Then the inevitable happened. The server got to me. Thus, I had a decision to make. I’d been waffling. It was a big decision. On the one hand, the pasta sounded delicious. On the other, the sandwich was calling to me like a siren in the sea.

  Roane cut in. “We’ll have the chicken broccoli alfredo and the Cuban.”

  “With sweet potato fries!” I added.

  “With sweet potato fries.” When I pinned him with a look of wonder, he lifted a shoulder. “We can share.”

  “How did you… can you read minds?”

  He gave me a lingering once-over. “No, Ms. Dayne. I’ve told you. I cannot read your mind.”

  I wasn’t entirely certain I believed him.

  Eight

  I don’t think I get enough credit

  for doing all of this unmedicated.

  —Meme

  The chief interviewed Annette as we ate, asking her things like: Where did you get the food from? Did you see anything suspicious? Was anyone following you? Have you bought any arsenic lately?

  Annette hadn’t been kidding. She had no answers. Nothing that would shed even an ounce of light onto the subject.

  Gigi seemed to grow more introspective the longer the chief talked to Annette. Or worried, maybe. She kept eyeing Annette with suspicion, but she couldn’t believe my BFF would try to harm anyone. Then her gaze would bounce to Roane, like they had a secret of some kind, and my curiosity rose to new, loftier heights.

  Satisfied with Annette’s innocence, the chief closed his notebook, gave Gigi a kiss on the cheek, and rose to go back to work.

  My dads left to go antiquing. After all, those antiques weren’t going to buy themselves. They would soon have enough to open their own museum.

  And at last, I got the chance to confront Roane and Annette. “Well? What was the guy’s name?”

  “Joaquin Ferebee,” Roane said.

  “Anything else?” Gigi asked.

  “Only that his adrenaline was off the charts.”

  “You could tell?” Annette asked.

  He ate another fry and nodded. “And his pulse was over 120.”

  “That’s dangerously high,” I said, biting my already abused lip. I needed another nervous habit.

  “Did you notice anything else unusual?” Gigi asked.

  I glanced between both Roane and Annette. “Any clues as to what he was searching for?”

  “No. Nothing that—” Roane stopped suddenly and looked out the window, so naturally the rest of us did as well.

  I was busy scanning the crowd outside—tourist season was
in full swing—when I heard a soft gasp from Gigi. Annette and I turned to look at her, but Roane lowered his head. Coiled his muscles. Dropped onto all fours, like he was about to burst through the window and pounce.

  Gigi’s expression turned to one of pure fear, and she eased back from the table.

  “What is it?” When she slowly rose to her feet, I asked again. “Gigi, what’s wrong?”

  “Roane,” she said, her voice a scalpel in the dull hum of the eatery’s patrons, “Defiance first.”

  He continued to watch as my gaze darted from tourist to tourist, searching for whatever—whomever—he was staring down. I followed his line of sight, and for the briefest of seconds, spotted a man in a black coat. Shoulder-length, solid white hair. Eyes so dark they were like inkwells.

  Before I could register anything else about him, a tall woman crossed in front of the window and, for the briefest of seconds, I lost sight of him. When I looked at the same spot, he’d disappeared into the crowd. Literally vanished in front of my eyes.

  Roane emitted an inhuman growl, giving away his supernatural status, and I weighed the pros and cons of putting a hand on his shoulder to calm him. I figured it could go one of two ways. He could snap out of it or he could snap at me. Either would be preferential to him jumping through the window, though surely he wouldn’t.

  “Roane,” Gigi said with a hiss, and he finally stopped.

  He stood and turned to her.

  “Defiance,” she ordered.

  He nodded, tossed two hundred-dollar bills on the table, and ushered us all toward the back.

  “Wait,” I said, trying to grab the money. “My dads already paid.”

  But he took me by the arm and led us through the kitchen—much to the surprise of several employees—and out the back door. The crisp wind stole my breath. It cut instantly to the bone, and Gigi’s sharp intake proved she wasn’t immune either.

  Roane tore off his jacket and wrapped it around her as he led us to his truck. He kept a close vigil on our path, checking over his shoulder every few seconds. When we got to the truck, he helped Gigi into the front seat as Annette and I slid into the back.

  “Well, that explains it,” Roane said when he climbed into the cab.

  “What?”

  “The wolves.” He took a moment to scan the area one more time, then started the truck. “Why they’ve been restless.”

  “Okay, then why? Who was that?”

  His head whipped around to me. “You saw him?”

  “The man with white hair and black eyes? He was hard to miss, though I only caught a glimpse.”

  Annette crossed her arms over her chest. “How did I miss him?” In all fairness, the top of her head barely reached my chin. It could’ve been a height thing.

  Gigi turned back to me. “How did they find you?” Fear reverberated out of her, becoming palpable in the enclosed space. “The protection spell should have cloaked your powers. They should never have been able to lock on to you. I don’t understand.”

  Roane pulled onto the busy street and headed home.

  “Guys, seriously, who was that? Why is it such a big deal?”

  “He’s a hunter,” Gigi said, her pallor ashen.

  Roane took a sharp left onto Chestnut. “I need to get back.”

  “And do what?” I asked. “He’s hunting me? Is that what you’re saying?” When no one answered, I raised my voice. “Let’s say he is. What of it? What is he going to do? And what are you going to do, Roane? Fight him to the death?”

  The muscles in his jaw flexed as he pulled into Percy’s drive.

  Still no answers. His mind was racing a thousand miles an hour, his scowl distant, distraught, while Gigi seemed to be lost in the fantasies worrying her soft brow.

  When he put the truck in park, the doors unlocked, and Roane went for the door handle.

  Without thought, I put my left hand on my door and drew a spell on the air with my right. The doors locked, trapping us inside.

  Roane tried the door, then looked at me in the rearview.

  “I want at least three answers before anyone leaves. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”

  “We need to get you inside,” he said, his voice a low warning.

  “Then answer my questions.”

  “Defiance…”

  “Roane…” I leaned closer. “I can do this all day.”

  He released a heavy sigh and laid back his head. “I need to get back.”

  “Why? Just answer that.”

  “Because he’s a hunter, dear,” Gigi said, as though that explained everything. She’d warned me about them before, when she first told me about my powers, but it had seemed like a fairy tale. All the talk of warlocks and hunters and black magic.

  “And what do hunters do, exactly?”

  Roane turned back to me, his expression almost sad when he said, “They hunt.”

  “I gathered that from the title. They hunt what?”

  “All kinds of things, but in this case, they hunt you.”

  I’d gathered that as well, based on the urgency, but it didn’t answer the most pertinent question. “And again, I ask why? Why would a hunter be after me?”

  Gigi expelled a long breath. “We’ve been over this, Defiance. Because you’re a charmling.”

  “Yes. I know. I get that, but why?” My frustration was growing by leaps and bounds. “A hunter hunts for a reason, right? What would he have to gain?”

  Roane rubbed his brow, then condensed the problem into a nice, tidy nutshell. “Hunters work for warlocks. They’re made by warlocks, actually. Warlocks control charmlings. They have for hundreds of years. Whenever a charmling comes into her powers naturally, when a blood heir inherits her magics, they’re almost always woefully unprepared. The hunter grabs her up, takes her to the warlock, and she is either forced to work for said warlock, or a ceremony is performed to transfer her powers to another witch, one whom the warlock can control.”

  “The blood heir dies in the process,” Gigi added. “And now they know we have one in Salem.”

  “Does he know it’s Deph?” Annette asked. “That she’s a charmling? Is that why he followed us to the café?”

  Roane’s gaze slid past us. “I don’t know yet. I’m not convinced he followed us. He may have simply been scoping out the area when we showed up.”

  “And you felt him?” I asked.

  “Yes. I sensed the dark magic. I’ve never felt power like that before. It’s like yours, only dark.”

  “How long has he been here?”

  “The wolves sensed a presence in town a few days ago, so my gut tells me he’s just fishing. Otherwise, he would’ve been sniffing around the house. But now… there’s simply no way to tell what he knows, which is why I need to get back out there.”

  “But what drew him here in the first place?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, his voice little more than a growl. Whether his frustration stemmed from the hunter or me was hard to tell.

  Gigi put a hand on his arm, her own mind seeming to swim in worry and doubt if her expression was any indication. “Roane, when Defiance first regained her powers a few months ago, she was vulnerable for an entire day. Could they have felt the surge then? Before she learned to camouflage her magics with the protection spell?”

  “That would be my guess. Otherwise, why show up now? But I need to hunt him down to find out for sure.”

  “And I ask again,” I asked again. “To do what? To what end?”

  He turned around as much as the seat would allow. “Are you concerned for him? For a thing who would just as soon kill you as look at you? Once they’re made, they’re no more human than a demon is.”

  Admittedly, I was more concerned for Roane. “You can’t know that.”

  “Wait, demons are real?” Annette swept the area around us with a wary gaze.

  “I can, actually. You must understand, Defiance. They’re controlled by the warlocks who created them. They have no say. No qualms. N
o morals or reservations about doing the right thing.” He leaned closer. “They aren’t like us.”

  “So, how often does a blood heir inherit powers? How many heirs are there?”

  “There’s no way of knowing,” Gigi said. “In fact, it was assumed for many years the original bloodline had died out. That is, until you were born, Defiance.” Her face softened at the memory. “Before you, there hadn’t been a true blood heir in decades. And even if there were blood heirs walking around out there, the witch holding the power would have to die for the magics to be transferred to one of them. The warlocks won’t allow that power to escape. Each time an aging charmling grows weak, the warlock enlists a younger, stronger witch to take her place. So the magics are never set free to seek out a rightful heir, so to speak.”

  “Naturally, the older witch dies in the process,” I said, trying not to let my revulsion for the process show.

  “Yes. That’s how it’s been done over and over for centuries.”

  “So, if the charmling dies before the power has been transferred to another witch—”

  “Presumably, a blood heir will inherit it. If there are any left.”

  I sat back in thought. “Is that what happened with me? A charmling just happened to die at the same time I was born?”

  She lifted a frail shoulder. “It would seem so.”

  “You do realize the odds of that are astronomical.”

  “I do. And I’ve pondered that very subject often over the years. It could be that someone knew you were a blood heir and somehow managed to kill a charmling when you were born.”

  “Who could possibly know that?”

  She held up a finger. “That’s not the hardest part.”

  “What is?”

  “Killing a charmling,” Roane said.

  “Like I’ve told you, dear, charmlings are very well protected, most often by very dark magics. For one to die of natural causes, much less be killed, speaks volumes to the power of the being who did it.”

  “Okay, then who has that kind of power?”

  Her gaze flitted to Roane.

  “Oh, come on, Gigi. We’ve come this far.”

  “It’s just… Roane and I have discussed that very thing. The way we see it, there’s only one person it could’ve been. One person with the power and the knowledge to pull something like that off.”