Mysterious Ways

by Christine Pope

  I really didn’t want to close up the small distance between us, but I knew I didn’t have much of a choice. And while I was so scared of being down in that room, of what was going to happen next, I made myself think of everyone once again — Rafe and Cat and Eduardo and all the others — and how I needed to do whatever I must to make sure they were safe.

  If that was the case, though, what was I doing here? Shouldn’t I be doing anything I could to prevent Simon from carrying out his terrible plan, even if it meant sacrificing myself? I had to admit the idea wasn’t very appealing, but sometimes you had to consider the greater good. Death wasn’t really anything to fear, or so I’d been taught. It was only a portal to the next world. Still, I didn’t think I was ready to step through that portal, not when I had so many reasons to live.

  As I went to stand next to Simon, as he shifted our positions so we stood at the “north pole” of the terrible compass he’d drawn on the floor, a plan began to form in my head, one so audacious, I wasn’t sure I’d have the strength to carry it out.

  But I’d have to try. For all their sakes, I’d have to make the attempt.

  “You’ll need to stand very still,” Simon said quietly in my ear. “Don’t move or speak, no matter what happens. I’ll be drawing on your energy. You’re powerful enough that you probably won’t notice, but if you do, all you should feel is a faint dizziness at the very most. Okay?”

  I only nodded, since I didn’t quite trust myself to speak. The last thing I wanted was to dwell on that “should” in his instructions. What if he was wrong, and I fainted, or worse? Beyond that, would this plan I’d begun to devise be successful if I were having some of my energy taken from me? I had no idea, but I guessed I was about to find out.

  Simon’s hands settled on my shoulders, heavy, warm even through the silk fabric of the hooded robe and the T-shirt I wore underneath. I experienced a small tingle, followed by a shiver running down my back, but I honestly didn’t know whether that was only a reaction to his touch, or whether he’d begun to tap into my powers already.

  Then he began to speak. The words weren’t English; I didn’t think they were Latin, either, but something utterly foreign, harsh-sounding and yet somehow flowing as well. Whatever the language was, it made more of those shivers work their way down my spine. More than anything, I wished I could pull away from Simon and run, but I knew I couldn’t. I had to stand there and wait for what was about to happen next.

  Into the stillness of the underground room came a wild breeze that caused our robes to flap and the flames atop the black tapers to flicker wildly. With it there was also a strange, creeping cold, one that seemed to seep up out of the ground, freezing my feet in the flats they wore. I could smell a harsh, acrid odor like spent gunpowder, although I supposed that could have come from the candles, which smoked as their flames were bent this way and that.

  And out of the center of the diagram drawn on the ground arose an enormous shadowy figure, one with great leathery bat-like wings and long black hair that fluttered in the unnatural wind of his arrival. The being was so tall that he had to bend down, or risk hitting his head against the ceiling eight feet above us.

  I knew I wasn’t supposed to move or speak, but I couldn’t quite hold back the gasp that slipped past my lips.

  Red eyes opened, and glared at us. “Why have you summoned me, mortal?”

  English. Perfectly good English. I didn’t know why I was so surprised, only that I’d thought maybe this being would have spoken to Simon in the same language he’d used for the summoning.

  “Lord of Chaos.” There was a triumphant note in Simon’s voice, one that frightened me almost more than the inhuman figure which stood before us. His ambition was something I knew all too well, and rightly feared, while this demon lord was still an unknown.

  “Some have called me that. What is it you want?”

  Despite the cold terror pulsing through me, I felt my mouth quirk slightly. The demon sounded almost annoyed, like someone who’d interrupted their dinner to answer a phone call that turned out to be from a telemarketer.

  “I have bound you in the circle of air, of fire, of earth, of water. I have — ”

  “Yes, I can see that. Very pretty artwork. What is it you want?”

  I couldn’t help it. The tiniest of giggles escaped my lips, and at once the demon’s red eyes fixed on me. It was hard to make out much of his face in the darkness, because his skin was black as night, but I thought I saw harsh, nightmarish features, a mouth full of jagged teeth.

  As I stared at him, I heard his voice in my mind. You find me amusing, mortal woman?

  No, not you, I replied hastily. The way you were treating Simon.

  Ah. He is the one who drew the diagram, yes?

  Yes.

  A pause, and the Lord of Chaos said, I sense that you are not a willing accomplice in this endeavor.

  No, not at all. He’s brought you here to make you his servant, to help give him control of the Castillo clan.

  This is not an outcome you wish for?

  No, I said firmly. He has no right to rule this clan, no right to be here in Santa Fe at all. And he has no right to summon you.

  Ah. Another of those pauses. Then the demon went on, It was very unwise of him to bring me here. He is a child meddling with things he cannot comprehend. But you — you, young witch, I think I can help you.

  You can? I asked, not daring to hope that the creature’s offer might be sincere. Was this demon really offering his assistance?

  Yes. You see, this Simon did the summoning, but he performed the ritual using your energy to strengthen it enough that it would actually work. This means you are as bound up in its success as he. You can break the charm that binds me here, set me free.

  And you’ll go back to — well, to wherever you came from?

  That is my hope.

  It wasn’t a definite yes, but it was better than nothing. But maybe he was lying. He was known as the Lord of Chaos, after all. Maybe he was trying to trick me into setting him free from the binding so he could go out and commit whatever mayhem he chose.

  And I have your word that you will go back, that you won’t hurt anyone here?

  Why on earth would I do that?

  Well, you are a demon, I pointed out.

  A demon lord, he corrected me. I have no use for the kind of petty vengeance you fear. But yes, I give you my word that I will cause no harm to anyone on this plane.

  That seemed about as good as I was going to get. What do I need to do?

  It is simple enough. You only need to destroy part of the pattern that binds me here. Then its power will be broken, and I will be free. A pause, and then he went on, amusement clear in the deep voice that had somehow managed to penetrate my very thoughts, A simple stumble to blur a few of the markings will suffice.

  That did seem easy…almost too easy. What if he reached out to grab my arm as I broke the circle? But I realized then that I couldn’t keep dithering over possibilities. Our mental conversation had taken less than a second, since it had traveled at the speed of thought, but very soon Simon would start to realize something was off, and right then I was a lot more frightened of him than I was of the Lord of Chaos.

  I understand, I responded.

  Then I took a breath, acted as though I was shifting my weight and had gotten my foot caught on the hem of the robe I wore. I stumbled forward, foot scuffing the line that formed the outer perimeter of the chalked circle.

  “No!” Simon cried out.

  The Lord of Chaos’ great wings beat at the air, and he smiled, showing several rows of sharp teeth. Thank you, mortal.

  Can you do something to get rid of Simon? I asked desperately. Even if he fails in this attempt, he’s going to try something else.

  I fear I cannot help you in such a way. You yourself just made me swear an oath not to hurt anyone on this plane.

  Well, damn, I had. Who would’ve thought a demon would be so law-abiding? But you’re the Lord of Cha
os! I pleaded.

  I am. But that only means I will do what you least expect. He stopped there, terrible head lifted, like a dog catching a strange scent on the wind. I sense…someone.

  Someone what? I asked.

  Someone who can hear me as you do. Perhaps they can help guide me back whence I came, for the way seems blocked. A good night to you, mortal.

  Then he was gone, blinking out of existence right in front of our eyes.

  Simon rounded on me. “What,” he ground out, “the hell did you just do?”

  13

  Whispers in the Dark

  Rafe

  He started awake, realizing a dark figure stood next to his bed. Visions of demons danced in his head for a moment…until he realized the figure was only his sister. “Jesus Christ, Cat,” he snapped. “What the hell are you doing in here?”

  She hesitated, looking over her shoulder at the hallway. Faint illumination from a nightlight plugged into one of the outlets in the hall cast a halo over her long dark hair, and it was hard to see her expression clearly. Even so, he could tell she was shaken.

  “What is it?” he asked, his irritation melting away. “Has there been another attack?”

  That question only elicited a shake of the head. “No. I mean, everything seems to be quiet. No one’s called. Only….”

  “Only what?”

  Without replying, she went and sat at the foot of the bed, her back to one of the large pillars that made up the bed frame. This had been his room once, but his mother had picked out the furniture, heavy pieces that were intended to work with the Spanish Colonial architecture of the house but had only made Rafe feel as though he slept in a high-end hotel room rather than his own bedroom.

  “I heard something,” Cat said at last. Once again her gaze shifted to the hallway.

  “Here in the house?” Rafe demanded, adrenaline already beginning to pump into his veins. Damn it, if that bastard Simon Escobar was trying to break in somehow —

  “No, not in the house.” She stopped herself there, then pointed at her temple. “In here.”

  He stared at her, wondering if all the stress had finally started to get to her. “You’re hearing voices in your head?”

  “Yes. I mean…one voice.”

  “Whose was it?”

  “I have no idea,” Cat responded. She hugged her arms to herself. In her baggy T-shirt and with her hair pulled into two braids for the night, she looked like the little sister who used to sneak into his room after bedtime so they could plot and plan how to deal with Genoveva’s next onslaught. “I was asleep — I conked out pretty fast, after everything that happened today.”

  Rafe couldn’t blame her for that, because he’d pretty much passed out the moment his head hit the pillow as well. That had been unexpected, since he was sure that his worry for Miranda would have kept him up half the night. Apparently, weariness had won out over anxiety, though. “And?”

  “And then I heard a man’s voice in my head. He said, ‘Look in the place of the marshes.’”

  “That’s pretty specific. Are you sure you weren’t dreaming?”

  “Completely sure, because I’d woken up just a second or two before I heard the voice. I was staring up at the ceiling, watching the shadows of the tree branches move, and then there was this voice in my head, talking to me.”

  Strange, but definitely not the weirdest thing that had happened this week. Rafe sat up a little straighter and ran a hand through his hair. “What did he sound like?”

  “I — I don’t know. Like a man. It was a deep voice.” Cat played with one of her braids, head cocked to one side as she appeared to contemplate Rafe’s question. “He didn’t have an accent or anything.”

  “But the voice wasn’t familiar to you.”

  “No.”

  “Do you think it might have been a ghost?” Considering speaking to spirits was his sister’s talent, Rafe wondered why she hadn’t thought of that possibility right away.

  “Well, that’s what I thought at first, but usually I can see ghosts as well as talk to them. There wasn’t anyone there…just this voice in my head.”

  “Did you talk to it?”

  “Yes. I said, ‘What do you mean?’ and he said, ‘That is all I can tell you. I’m sure you’re clever enough to figure it out.’”

  “So a sarcastic ghost.”

  Cat shot him an annoyed look. “I just told you it wasn’t a ghost. At least, I don’t think it was. This voice felt like it belonged to someone real…corporeal, I mean.”

  Leaning back against the headboard, Rafe said, “Are you suddenly developing psychic powers or something?”

  “No. I mean, I don’t think I am.” She closed her eyes for a moment, then asked, “Can you hear what I’m thinking?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then.” She picked at the hem of her T-shirt, frowning so deeply that her expression was clear even in the semidarkness. “I think I only heard him because he wanted me to. After that exchange, I asked him, ‘Who are you?’ And he said, ‘I don’t think I will tell you that. It’s probably better if you don’t know. This is all the help I can give you.’ Before I could say anything else, he added, ‘I have a quest of my own, you see. Good luck.’ And then he was just…gone.”

  “How could you know he was gone if you couldn’t see him?” Rafe asked reasonably.

  “I don’t know. I just could. Like…there was a presence somewhere near, even if I couldn’t see him. It was just sort of a feeling.”

  That sounded creepy as hell, although Rafe refrained from making a comment on the subject. Clearly, Cat was already shaken enough, and he didn’t need to add to her unease by making her think there might have been an actual stalker somewhere nearby.

  “‘The place of the marshes,’” he repeated. Something was tickling at his brain, but he couldn’t quite figure out what he was overlooking. “I wonder what it means.”

  “I don’t know. I was hoping you’d have some insight.”

  It could mean nothing at all, although Rafe somehow doubted that Cat’s invisible visitor would have taken the time to stop by and offer that handy hint if it weren’t significant in some way. “I guess we could try looking up the phrase online. I’ll try it in Spanish first, just because that makes the most sense for someplace in or around Santa Fe.” He leaned over and retrieved his phone from the nightstand, unlocked it, and then entered “the place of the marshes” in the phone’s built-in search engine. What popped up made his eyes widen.

  “What is it?”

  Rafe angled the phone so she could see the screen. “This is what we get for not studying Spanish.”

  Because in Spanish, “the place of the marshes” was la cienaga. The spelling of the location here in Santa Fe was slightly different, but this had to be what Cat’s visitor had meant.

  “So Miranda is in La Cienega for sure?” Cat asked, eyes wide. “How did he know?”

  Good question. Maybe the visitor had been Miranda’s guardian angel. Things had been crazy enough lately that Rafe wasn’t about to overlook any possibility, no matter how outlandish. “I have no idea. But at least now we know there’s no reason to look anywhere except La Cienega for strange real estate transactions…assuming your invisible friend was telling the truth.”

  “He was,” she said immediately, her tone all conviction. “Or at least, I’m about ninety-five-percent sure he was. Why would he come here and lie to me about something like that?”

  Good question. Unfortunately, since they didn’t know who “he” was, they couldn’t really make too many assumptions about his relative trustworthiness. Then again, while Rafe and Cat and Eduardo had all agreed that it was better for Daniel to focus on La Cienega, they hadn’t specifically told him not to poke around in other places. As soon as the hour was decent the next morning, they’d have to get in contact with him and let him know where to focus all his efforts.

  Assuming, of course, that the person who’d given Cat that little bit of intel wasn’t simpl
y trying to mess with them.

  Still, it wasn’t as if they had any other leads, so they might as well go with it. If nothing else, at least concentrating on La Cienega for the time being would allow them to cross it off the list and move on to other prospects if they didn’t turn up anything useful.

  “I have no idea,” Rafe said. “But we don’t know who ‘he’ is, so it’s hard to guess at his motivations. This is something to go on, though. In the morning, I’ll get in touch with Daniel, and we’ll go from there. But now we’d probably better both go back to sleep.”

  “All right.” Cat pushed herself off the bed and stood, then hesitated for a moment.

  “What is it?”

  Silhouetted by the faint light coming in from the hallway, her shoulders lifted. “It was strange, having his voice in my head like that. But also….”

  “Also what?”

  “I kind of liked talking to him. I hope I can do it again sometime.”

  Despite his resolve to get up early and fire off a text message to Daniel first thing, Rafe slept late, not cracking an eyelid until it was almost eight-thirty. He was irritated by his sloth, while at the same time he had to wonder whether his late night — or early morning, depending on how you looked at it — convo with Cat might have had something to do with his oversleeping.

  Still, there wasn’t much he could do about the hour, except shower hastily, put some clothes on, and get downstairs for some coffee as soon as he could. To his annoyance, Cat was already there, dressed and done, sipping at a mug of French roast.

  “There’s plenty more in the carafe,” she said blithely as he shot her an irritated look.

  Of course, she couldn’t know that concern about there not being any coffee left was not the main reason for his annoyance. Without replying, he went over and filled his mug. As he stirred the tiniest bit of cream and sugar into it, he asked, “Where’s Dad?”

  “John called and asked if he could come over and sit with Malena for a while. I guess he had to take Elisa somewhere. Of course Dad said he would — he left about twenty minutes ago.”