“So that was her name,” Cassandra murmured, frown gone, a sort of angry sorrow in its place. Gabriel made an inquiring sound, and she went on, “Renata murdered my grandfather.”
“Ah,” the Escobar warlock said. “I am sorry for that. Her talents were immense, but she was her father’s daughter, and used those talents mainly for ill. I did not know her very well, for I was barely more than an infant when she left Pico Negro to go to Arizona and assist our father.”
“And your brother?” Tony asked, hoping he could keep all these Escobars straight in his head. “The one who’s running things now?”
“Vicénte.” Gabriel went over to the table and poured some water for himself, then sent his two guests an inquiring look. Tony wasn’t thirsty — or rather, he was more interested in hearing what the warlock had to say — so he shook his head. Cassandra also demurred, and so Gabriel went on, “He is ten years older than I, and was too young to be left in charge back then, but such a minor detail did not stop my father. Only a son of Joaquin Escobar would be in command of the clan in his absence, and his word was law.”
“Is that why we didn’t hear anything of your clan for so long?” Cassandra asked. “Because the person in charge was a child?”
“Yes,” Gabriel replied. He drank some of his water and paused, looking thoughtful. “The clan elders ran everything until Vicénte was of age, and things were quiet for a time after that as he began a family of his own. But lately he was been brooding more and more on the loss of our father, planning and plotting. Word came to him of a cache of magical books, grimoires that would give the Escobar clan more power than they have ever had before.”
It always came back to those damn books. Right then, Tony thought the world would have been a much better place if his mother had had the sense to throw a match on the goddamn things and be done with it. The Castillos could have lied and told the de la Pazes the books had disappeared. Who would have known?
“So Vicénte sent you to get them,” Tony said.
The other man nodded. “Exactly. Although I did not want the books in his hands, I knew better than to go against his wishes.”
“Why?” Cassandra asked frankly. Her arms were crossed, and her expression seemed to indicate that she wasn’t too thrilled with their host. “Why help him, when you knew what he was planning to do with the books?”
“Because of my mother.”
Tony shot a questioning look at Gabriel. His expression now was subdued, hard to read.
“What about your mother?”
Now a faint smile touched the Escobar warlock’s mouth, but only for a moment before it disappeared again. “As I said, Joaquin believed in spreading his seed around. I do not share a mother with Vicénte, just as Renata was born from another woman entirely. After Isabella betrayed him, he made sure he wouldn’t trust his heart to a woman ever again.”
Did Gabriel blame Olivia and Matías’ mother for leaving? Hard to say, although Tony tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, thinking that Gabriel certainly wouldn’t be confiding in them now if he believed what his father had done was right.
“And your mother…?” Cassandra prompted him.
“My mother is not from El Salvador,” Gabriel said. “She was a young girl from Portugal, traveling here with some college friends. She met my father in a bar in San Salvador.”
And the rest is history, Tony thought. He’d heard stories about Joaquin Escobar’s ability to control minds, to bend everyone around him to his will. Probably he’d seen Gabriel’s mother and wanted her, and the poor kid didn’t have a chance.
“She wasn’t a witch?” he asked, and Gabriel shook his head.
“No. He was interested in seeing whether I would be as powerful as his full-blood children, but of course he died…was killed…before he had a chance to see me grow up.”
“It doesn’t look like your civilian blood affected your powers,” Cassandra remarked.
“‘Civilian’?” Gabriel repeated, and then comprehension dawned in his face. His mouth quirked, and he added, “That is an amusing term. I will have to remember it. But no, my powers were just as strong as Joaquin’s — in a way, stronger than Vicénte’s, although of course you will never hear him admit to such a thing.”
“So why aren’t you in charge?” Tony asked, genuinely curious.
“Because I am not Joaquin’s heir.”
While that still didn’t make a lot of sense, Tony decided to roll with it. All witch clans were bound by tradition, and he supposed the Escobars were no different in that regard from anyone else.
“I don’t see why that has anything to do with your mother,” he said.
A frown pulled at Gabriel’s brows. “Once Joaquin had had her, and had a child by her, he saw no reason to keep her around. He cleared her memory of everything that had happened from the moment they met and sent her back to San Salvador. It was supposedly all over the newspapers, for of course everyone had suspected the worst — that she had been taken by human traffickers, or killed by drug smugglers. To have her walk back into town, alive and unharmed…it was quite a sensation, or so I’m told.”
“Did she know she’d had a child?” Cassandra asked.
“Yes, because that was not something Joaquin’s magic could hide. And that was why she remained in El Salvador and would not go back to Portugal — she knew she had a child here and would not abandon that child.”
What a horrible story. Joaquin Escobar truly was the gift that kept on giving…just as soon as you thought you’d heard everything, along came another despicable act to prove he probably was one of the worst human beings to ever walk the planet.
“And because she’s still here, Vicénte uses her as leverage over you,” Cassandra said, eyes blazing with indignation. Tony didn’t know whether she was even aware of it, but her hands had clenched into fists as she spoke. “He’s threatened to harm her if you don’t cooperate, right?”
“I am afraid so,” Gabriel replied.
“Then why help us now?” Tony asked. “I mean, aren’t you putting her in danger by even talking to us?”
The Escobar warlock glanced away from him, toward the tall windows on one side of the room, which showed off a courtyard lush with tropical plants. “I suppose I am, but it is a risk I have to take. Vicénte must not have those books.”
He sounded weary but resolute, and Tony figured it was probably better not to push too hard. “Why now?” he asked suddenly. “Why the change of heart?”
Gabriel released a breath, brows furrowed. He glanced away from Tony, out through the window that showed the lush garden beyond. Maybe he was looking toward where Pico Negro lay, although since Tony had no idea where this villa was even located, he couldn’t say for sure. “Because of your presence here,” the Escobar warlock said quietly. “You and Cassandra can take the grimoires away, and Vicénte will never have to know about my part in the scheme.”
Yes, that would make things a lot easier for him, wouldn’t it? Gabriel could place all the blame on the two interlopers and stay in his brother’s good graces. Maybe not the most heroic thing to do, although Tony wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have devised a similar plan if he’d been placed in a similarly difficult position. What would he do if someone were threatening his own mother’s safety…or his little sister’s?
Cassandra’s eyes narrowed suddenly, and she sent Gabriel a piercing look. “There really isn’t anything wrong with our truck, is there?”
“No,” he replied. “I needed to send you to Hector’s shop so I could speak privately with you. None of my clan have any need of his services — we Escobars do not believe in tearing up the rainforest with those vehicles — and so there was little risk of running into anyone who would try to stop me.”
Despite everything, Tony had to struggle to hold back a laugh. How crazy was it that this witch clan that left so much death and destruction in its wake also seemed to be a bunch of environmentalists?
His companion didn’t seem similarly amus
ed. Voice brisk, she said, “Is it going to be a problem that we were asking about Pico Negro in the café?”
“No,” Gabriel replied. “María will not even remember you were there.”
“Because you put the whammy on her.”
“I do not know what a ‘whammy’ is, but if you mean that I used my magic to erase her memories of you, then yes, that is what I did.”
Because that was just how the Escobars rolled. Although Tony could see why doing such a thing had been necessary, he still wondered how much truly separated Gabriel’s actions from those of his half-brother if he could act so cavalier about messing with someone else’s mind.
Then again, maybe he’d thought he was protecting the café’s owner.
All Cassandra did was nod. Her expression was grim, though, her pretty mouth pulled down at the corners, eyes still narrow. Hands on her hips, she faced Gabriel squarely and said, “Why are we supposed to believe any of this?”
He looked as though he’d been expecting that question, because he shrugged and said, “You will have to make the decision whether or not to trust me. However, if I’d truly meant you harm, I could have killed you back in the waiting room at Hector’s shop. I would not have had to bring you here.”
Tony had no doubt of that; he could tell that the Escobars had all of San Matías under their thumb, and so if Gabriel had decided to murder them in that shabby little room, Hector probably would have only gone in afterward and quietly cleaned up the mess. But even if Gabriel didn’t mean to hurt them directly, it was entirely possible that he wanted to use them as patsies in case this all went south and he needed a convenient scapegoat to direct attention away from himself.
“Too bad Ava isn’t here,” he murmured, and Gabriel looked at him inquiringly.
“Who is Ava?”
“My sister,” Tony replied. “Her talent is reading minds. She could look right inside your head and tell us whether you were lying or not.”
“A useful gift,” Gabriel agreed. “Yes, that would probably be helpful, but since she is not here, you will have to rely on your own judgment.”
And there was the problem. Everything Gabriel said had the ring of truth, but if he really was Joaquin Escobar’s son, then maybe he’d also inherited the ability to bend everyone around him to his will. If that were happening, would he and Cassandra even be able to tell whether their minds were their own?
Not exactly the sort of conundrum Tony had thought he and Cassandra would face when they came to Escobar territory, but they had to figure out somehow whether any of this was legitimate.
“Your mother lives in San Salvador?” Cassandra asked.
“Yes. She is a secretary at a law firm.”
That sounded so normal, Tony wanted to shake his head. However, there wasn’t anything normal about this situation.
Gabriel went on, “I’ve done my best to observe her from a distance, to make sure that she is safe and comfortable in her life. Unfortunately, I cannot come close without risking her safety.”
That all sounded unutterably sad. Cassandra asked gently, “And she doesn’t know anything about you?”
A simple shake of the head. “No. Vicénte made sure that I would have no contact with her. He said it was because he thought it would be too dangerous, but I know it was merely a way of him asserting his power as primus.”
Well, Gabriel’s reply seemed to settle that particular question. Tony knew people had wondered whether Joaquin Escobar was merely an aberration, or whether the Salvadoran clan had a tradition of male clan leaders like the Wilcoxes in northern Arizona did. Clearly, the Escobars followed that same model, or Gabriel wouldn’t have spoken so casually of his brother’s role as primus.
“So, what’s your plan?” Cassandra asked. “You must have something in mind, or you wouldn’t have brought us here, would’ve just let us try to get the books back on our own.”
Gabriel shook his head. “That would have been certain death for you,” he said. “Or rather, it would have been certain death for you,” he added, fixing Tony with a direct stare. “Cassandra, I fear, would have met a different fate.”
A fate worse than death, no doubt. From what he’d heard so far, Tony was pretty sure that Gabriel’s brother Vicénte wouldn’t scruple at a little casual rape, just like his father.
Cassandra gave an overly off-hand shrug. “Well, they could try.”
“You are a very brave woman,” Gabriel said, “but I fear you would be no match for my brother. But,” he went on, “we have no need to worry about such things. I will use my powers to protect you, to give you the help you need to get close to the books. And then you will take them away with you. I can only hope that once they are in the possession of your clan, Cassandra, you will be more careful with them in the future.”
“No worries,” she said. If what Gabriel had just said about her clan’s carelessness rankled, she didn’t show any sign of it…maybe because Tony was fairly certain the same thing had already passed through her mind on more than one occasion. “Our prima just built a library attached to her house so all the clan’s grimoires can be gathered in one place and be watched over by her — and her successors — at all times. I don’t think we need to worry about any more thefts.”
Gabriel said, “Good,” but there was still something troubled about his expression, as though he didn’t know for sure whether Zoe’s protection would be enough.
Tony had a few reservations along those lines as well, although he knew better than to bring them up with Cassandra. The important thing was to get the books out of the hands of the Escobars. After that, they could worry about beefing up the magical security around Zoe’s house. From what she’d told him when she cast the shield to protect his car, Cassandra’s magic apparently was the type that was “set it and forget it” — in other words, she could cast one of her magical spells and it would remain in place until she purposely removed it — which meant that might be an easy way of protecting the books in the library without having to take extraordinary measures.
“Where are the books now?” Tony asked.
“In my brother’s house,” Gabriel replied. “He already had his own small library of such things, although the de la Paz grimoires have made it much more extensive.”
Well, that was great. Tony had been kind of hoping that the books were being stored in a neutral location, maybe the Escobars’ village library, if such a thing even existed. But he probably should have realized that Vicénte would make sure to keep such valuable items close to him.
“And how are we supposed to get the books out of your brother’s house?” Cassandra asked, tone dubious. “I mean, he must have the place warded up the wazoo, right?”
Gabriel stared at her for a moment, eyes narrowed, before he appeared to nod to himself, as if he’d just worked out the idiom she’d used. “Yes, he has protections in place. They were set by one of our elders, a woman who is skilled at such things. However, what she doesn’t know is that I’ve been able to undo her warding spells for some time now, so they are not as effective a protection as she or my brother think.”
That was encouraging. At the same time, though, Tony felt a stir of unease. He was used to witches and warlocks who possessed one specific talent — two at the very most — and yet it seemed as though Gabriel was able to produce new magical gifts at the drop of a hat. If nothing else, his prodigious abilities had to be proof that he was not ambitious, or scheming to take his brother’s position in the clan, because he certainly should have been able to do such a thing fairly easily…as long as he wasn’t lying about Vicénte’s powers being lesser.
Cassandra’s thoughts appeared to have run along the same lines. She crossed her arms and tilted her head, surveying Gabriel through narrowed eyes. “If you can do all that, I don’t see why you need our help. Just, I don’t know, teleport the damn books back to Arizona.”
That suggestion made Gabriel chuckle. “I know you think my powers seem unlimited, but truly, they are not. I can
only send living things in such a way. That means I need the two of you to be holding the books when I send you away from Pico Negro.”
“Send us — ” Tony broke off there, shaking his head in bemusement. “You held our hands when you brought us here. Did you not need to do that?”
“No,” Gabriel said. “I expend less energy when I can have physical contact with the people I am teleporting, but it’s not necessary. I only need to know where to send you.”
“Which in this case would be Zoe’s house in Scottsdale,” Cassandra put in. “That would be convenient. No explaining the books to some customs officer, no paying penalties for all the extra baggage we’d be hauling back with us.”
She probably wasn’t being completely serious, because those concerns were minor compared to getting the grimoires out of the Escobars’ hands. However, Gabriel seemed to take her comments at face value.
“Yes, that would be easiest. It is a very great distance, but I think I can manage it.”
“You ‘think’?” Tony demanded. He wasn’t too thrilled about the idea of Gabriel’s magic coming up short and dropping him and Cassandra in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico or something. “What happens if it doesn’t work?”
“Nothing happens,” Gabriel replied. “That is, the spell will fail, and you would remain wherever you were standing when I made the attempt.”
Which also wasn’t so great. If Vicénte caught them in the middle of the heist….
However, Cassandra didn’t seem too worried. “I can live with that,” she said. “So you’ll…what, make us invisible or something?”
“Not precisely,” Gabriel said. “More that I will cast an illusion over you so you look like two of the people from my clan, probably the women who clean my brother’s house, since they would have the most reason for being there.”
That made sense. Someone who sounded as arrogant as Vicénte Escobar probably wouldn’t even look at them twice while wearing that kind of a disguise. He definitely didn’t seem like the sort of person who would pay much attention to the help.
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