Mysterious Ways

by Christine Pope

  “You’re married?” he asked, although I noticed he only looked at Rafe, seemed to be doing his best to ignore my presence.

  “Yes,” Rafe said. “Look, Oscar, I know this is rough for everyone, but it’s Louisa’s decision.”

  “You’re right — it is,” she put in as she appeared at Oscar’s shoulder. “Let them in, for God’s sake,” she added, an edge to her voice seeming to indicate that she was just as irritated with her husband as he was with her. “We don’t have a lot of time to waste.”

  Reluctance clear in every line of his body, he stepped aside just enough that Rafe and Cat and I could squeeze past him into the foyer. We followed Louisa, who led us into the living room.

  “Miranda, go ahead and sit down,” she said, gesturing toward the couch. “I’ll sit next to you.”

  This felt more uncomfortable by the minute, but there wasn’t much I could do at this point. I’d already agreed to this crazy plan of action, and so I had to go ahead and follow Louisa’s instructions.

  I sat on the sofa and she took a seat next to me, shifted sideways so she faced in my direction. Realizing she wanted me to do the same thing, I changed my position slightly so I could look directly at her. It was strange to sit this close, staring into her face. I was able to see some of the resemblance to Rafe now that we were only a few inches apart: the fine arch of her brows, the warm brown of her eyes, although her nose was sharper, more like their mother’s.

  “Give me your hands,” she commanded me, and I couldn’t do anything except reach out with both hands. She took hold of them, fingers laced tightly with mine. Her skin was cool, her grip stronger than I had thought it would be, considering she’d been in a coma only an hour earlier. “Ready?”

  There was a question. Of course I wasn’t. How could I be? I’d never heard of such a thing ever happening before, despite her story about that former Castillo prima and her daughter. You shouldn’t be able to hand over your magical gifts like some kind of white elephant present at a holiday gift exchange, especially to someone whose own powers were so newly awakened.

  But because I’d agreed to this, all I said was, “I’m ready.”

  She closed her eyes. I didn’t know whether I should do the same thing, because she hadn’t told me to. However, I figured it might be better to shut my eyes as well, partly because it might help me to focus…and partly because I was scared shitless of what was going to happen next.

  A second or two passed, and nothing happened. I began to wonder whether this was going to work at all.

  But then I felt it — the warm glow of my magic within me, only growing brighter and brighter by the second, a glowing ball of white-hot power unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. It shimmered within, pulsing, a supernova of magical energy that felt as though it wanted to burst out of my fragile human frame.

  It didn’t, though. After a moment, it seemed to calm down, to withdraw into itself, although I could still feel it there, waiting for the time when I might call on it.

  Louisa’s fingers still gripped mine. Once a few more seconds had passed, she finally let go of me. “It is done,” she said, her voice only a spent whisper.

  Oscar made an incoherent sound of despair, even as Rafe came toward the couch and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Miranda, are you okay?”

  I tried to laugh, although the sound came out more as a hiccupy little cough. “I don’t know if ‘okay’ is exactly the right word. I’m…I’m all right, I guess. And the power…it’s mine, Rafe. Louisa gave it to me. What the hell am I supposed to do now?”

  In response, he took me by the hand and raised me from the sofa, then folded me into his arms. “Give yourself a little time to adjust,” he said quietly as he held me. Yes, I was thrumming with so much power, I felt like a human nuclear reactor, but it still felt so good to have Rafe next to me, to know that my gifts didn’t frighten him. “No one expects you to run off and face Simon Escobar right this second.” He looked over at his sister, who had just stood up as well, looking pale and shaky. “Louisa, are you all right?”

  She nodded. “I’m fine. My — my own powers are still there. Giving away the prima energy doesn’t seem to have changed anything. And really, I was only prima for a few days. It wasn’t enough for me to really get used to having those powers.”

  Was she telling the truth, or merely putting a brave face on things? I suddenly got the sense that, if I wanted to, I could look inside her mind and see for myself whether she was lying to herself…and to the rest of us.

  No. If I did something like that, I would be no better than Simon. Louisa should be allowed her privacy. If she was trying to fool herself, well, she should be permitted to do so without any interference. I had taken on these extra powers to help protect the clan, and that was the only reason I would use them. The implications of anything else were far too frightening.

  “You’re sure?” I asked, and she nodded again.

  “I’m sure. They’re in better hands with you.”

  I was relieved to see Oscar come up and wrap his arm around his wife, offer her his own comfort. Whatever harsh words they might have exchanged over her decision, it seemed that now he was willing to put their differences aside and accept what she had done. In the long run, he would probably be relieved. As the daughter of a prima, I could safely say that it wasn’t always that fun to be the head of a clan. Everyone looked to you for guidance, came to you when disputes arose that couldn’t be solved by the elders. And I realized that the Castillos apparently didn’t even have elders, so all that responsibility would end up on my shoulders.

  It was overwhelming. I wished I could push it all away, say that I was only going to use the magic Louisa had given me to fight Simon, and that I had no interest in being the head of their clan. Unfortunately, it didn’t work that way. I had the prima powers…and that meant being the prima in word and deed, not just in name.

  But I could push that aside for later. Right now, I had something far more deadly and dangerous to focus on.

  Simon Escobar.

  “Okay, I’m locked and loaded,” I said, gently pulling away from Rafe. He let me go, although he still held on to one hand — the one with the ring I’d borrowed from Cat. “What next?”

  “Well, we know where Escobar is,” Rafe replied. “I guess what we have to figure out is the best way to approach him.”

  “I could teleport in — ” I began, but he immediately shook his head.

  “That won’t work, because none of the rest of us have that ability, and you can only carry one person at a time, right?”

  “I think so,” I replied. When I’d grabbed Rafe and gotten the hell out of Simon’s compound in Tesuque, I hadn’t been thinking about much more than fleeing as fast as I could. However, it was probably safe to assume that I could only carry one person with me when I teleported.

  “And there’s no way you’re going in alone,” he said. “Simon might not have the Lord of Chaos to do his dirty work, but I’m sure he can still call in his flying monkeys.”

  “‘Flying monkeys’?” I repeated, not sure what he was talking about.

  “His demons,” Cat said.

  “Right.” I’d almost forgotten about them, since they paled in comparison to the demon lord Simon had called to this plane. However, since his lordship was occupied elsewhere and no longer under Simon’s control, he wouldn’t be a factor. Those demons, however…. “Who in your clan has the kind of magic that might work against them? We need offense, not defense.”

  Louisa and Oscar looked at each other. He cleared his throat and said, “I can call the fire, direct it where it needs to go.”

  “Good,” I said, although I hated to have Louisa’s husband dragged into this. Still, I couldn’t scruple at bringing him along. We needed all hands on deck for this confrontation. “Who else?”

  “Our cousin Arturo can call lightning…but he’s all the way down near Las Cruces.”

  “How far is that?” I asked. I was still hazy on a
lot of New Mexico’s geography.

  “About a four-hour drive from here,” Rafe said. “We can’t afford to wait that long.”

  “I could teleport and get him — ”

  “You need to save your strength to face Escobar. If you teleport all over the place gathering your troops, how much energy are you going to have left?”

  Good question. I honestly didn’t know, because at the moment I felt absolutely bursting with energy, thanks to the prima powers Louisa had given me. However, I couldn’t consider them inexhaustible. As Rafe had said, I needed to conserve my energy, know that I had enough in reserve to make sure Simon didn’t prevail.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “But you’re probably right. I need to be careful. So I guess the question is — who’s local who has a helpful power?”

  “Our cousin Tony,” Cat suggested. “He’s not a weather-worker, per se, but he can control the wind.”

  Wind control against airborne creatures could be very helpful. Then again, Tony didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who would necessarily be all that good in a fight. His careless attitude could get him in trouble.

  But maybe I wasn’t being entirely fair. After all, the only time I’d had any real interaction with Tony had been at his Halloween party, when he’d been — well, “drunk” was too strong a word, but definitely elevated. I couldn’t judge how he’d act when sober and in a fight, based solely on that one encounter.

  “That’s good,” I said. “I guess we’d better contact him.”

  Cat nodded and dug out her phone, and began texting away. Rafe said, “You know my talent is helpful.”

  Yes, it was. I wished I could keep him out of this — I worried that Simon would try to target him specifically — but there was no way to prevent him from coming along. In a confrontation between a wolf and a demon, I wasn’t sure who would prevail. About all I could do was hope for the best.

  “I know,” I said. “Of course you’ll be there with me. Anyone else?”

  Cat stopped typing. “I’m coming.”

  “No,” Rafe said, his voice flat.

  “You can’t tell me what to do,” she retorted.

  “Maybe not, but Miranda is the new prima, and she can.”

  Great. The last thing I wanted was to get in the middle of an argument between brother and sister. As I looked at them, at the rebellious spark in Cat’s eyes and the angry set to Rafe’s jaw, I realized that Cat should come along. Her talent for speaking with otherworldly creatures could come in handy — now that she knew to be on her guard, she might be able to reach out and help to at least partially block Simon’s control of his demons.

  “Cat comes along,” I said. At once Cat grinned, and Rafe treated me to a fearsome scowl.

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously,” I told him. I really didn’t want to get into an argument with my new husband, and so I laid a hand on his arm and looked up at him with imploring eyes. “She might be able to talk to the demons…control them. Or at least distract them enough that they’re not as much of a threat.”

  For a long moment, Rafe didn’t reply. He just stood there, staring down at me, until at last I saw his expression soften a bit. “Okay,” he said. “I don’t like it, but…okay.”

  “Anyone else?” I asked.

  A silence, and Louisa gave a helpless shrug. “It’s much the same in our clan as it is in most others. Possibly we possessed more warlike talents long ago, but over the years, those gifts have sort of disappeared, their places taken by magical skills that are more useful now.”

  “It’s all right,” I said. “That’s still five of us against one of him.”

  Cat still looked thrilled that she was being included. “And you’re more like four or five people on your own anyway.”

  I had to hope she was right. The prima energy burned within me, and I prayed it wasn’t giving me false confidence when it came to assessing my ability to take on Simon Escobar. I still didn’t know exactly what everyone expected me to do. Despite his horrible crimes, deep down I wanted this to end with him fleeing. As long as he knew he couldn’t prevail here, he’d never come back. That should be good enough…shouldn’t it?

  But then I thought of what his father had done to the Santiagos, what Simon had wanted to do to the Castillos. He’d never believe it was enough to live quietly, concealing his warlock powers. Forever an outcast, he wanted to take a clan for his own, and he didn’t care who stood in his path.

  And I knew then that this could only end one way.

  17

  Showdown

  Tony appeared at the house about fifteen minutes after Cat had texted him. His expression was much more subdued than it had been when we’d met at the Halloween party at his house, and he looked different, too. Then again, I supposed the change in his appearance shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise — he was wearing an untucked flannel shirt and jeans, and his hair wasn’t slicked back. Gone was the fake pencil mustache he’d sported as part of his Gomez Addams costume. As I thanked him for coming over, I realized he had been present at the wedding, too, as one of Rafe’s groomsmen, but honestly, that afternoon had been such a hideous blur that I’d erased huge chunks of it from my memory.

  “Just the five of us, huh?” he asked as he looked at the assembled group.

  “Five of you with unique talents,” Louisa said. “It should be enough.”

  I didn’t know exactly what Cat had texted to him, but it seemed that she’d explained the situation, since Tony didn’t bother to ask why Louisa would be hanging back here at the house rather than coming with us. Her talent for tracking down where and what kind of magic had been used in a particular place was handy, but in this case, it wouldn’t help much. We already knew where Simon was hiding…and we also knew exactly what kind of magic he planned to use.

  Or at least I could guess. He’d call his demons, of course, and would probably use fire and wind and anything else to strike out at us. The real question was whether I would be strong enough to protect everyone, while at the same time giving them the freedom to utilize their own particular skills to help neutralize our mutual enemy.

  “We’ll go in one car,” I said. “We can all squeeze in your Wrangler, right?” And I looked up at Rafe.

  He gave a small lift of his shoulders. “It’ll be tight, but sure. Why my car, though?”

  “Because it’s not automated like a newer one would be,” I replied. “I’m not saying that Simon might not try to interfere with it in some way, but it might be harder for him to take control of a vehicle that doesn’t have a self-driving mechanism.”

  “Makes sense.” He glanced around the room at everyone. “I don’t see much point in waiting. Are we all ready to go?”

  I knew I wasn’t. Every muscle in my body was tense, bracing for our final confrontation. Unfortunately, there was no way past this battle. We had to go through it, had to face Simon Escobar once and for all.

  Tony was the first to respond. “Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess. But if we all survive this, you owe me a beer.”

  “Just one?” Rafe quipped.

  “Okay, a six-pack.”

  “I’d like in on that, too,” Oscar said.

  Rafe grinned. “Done.”

  Louisa didn’t look entirely thrilled by this exchange, but she didn’t say anything. Maybe she knew — as I did — that they were all just doing their version of whistling in the dark.

  “Cider for me,” Cat put in. “But let’s go do this thing. The sooner we kick Simon’s ass, the sooner we can all head out for happy hour.”

  Her remark elicited a round of chuckles, which I assumed was her reason for making it in the first place. But it served another purpose — it got us all moving toward the door, Oscar pausing so he could give Louisa a kiss before he went out. Her expression was almost preternaturally calm, and I guessed that she was exerting every ounce of will she possessed to conceal her fear for him…and her frustration that she couldn’t come along.

  R
ight then, I would have given a lot to be in her position.

  However, fate had decreed that I needed to be the leader of this little expedition. Oscar and Tony and Cat all piled into the back seat, with Cat squeezed in the middle because she was the shortest. I took shotgun, and Rafe got behind the wheel. A pause while he put the address of our destination in the nav system, and then we were backing out of the driveway and headed toward the main road.

  No one said anything as he pulled onto the 599 and pointed the Jeep south toward La Cienega. Even the ebullient Tony seemed subdued; I caught a glimpse of him staring out the window, his mouth pressed into a flat line. That seemed wrong, since he had one of those quirky, mobile mouths that always appeared to be on the verge of laughter.

  There was no laughter about him now, that was for sure.

  Far sooner than I would have liked, we turned off toward La Cienega, right before the 599 would have connected with the interstate. Almost at once, our surroundings grew rural, with rolling hills on either side, and homesteads tucked far back from the road. As we drove, the landscape grew golden, trees in their autumn finery clustering on either side of the road so thickly that it felt as though we were traveling through a tunnel decorated in copper and gilt.

  Following the nav’s commands, Rafe turned down an even narrower road, one that was still paved but so full of potholes, it might as well not be. He slowed so the Wrangler moved along at barely ten miles an hour. “The turnoff for Los Gatos Lane is coming up in a few hundred feet,” he said. “What’s the plan?”

  The truth was, I really didn’t have a plan. If Simon had any kind of wards set up to guard his property, he would know we were there almost immediately. Coming in slowly wouldn’t help at all.

  “I’ll cast a spell of protection around your car,” I replied. “After that, you might as well go in as fast as you can. Everyone else, just be ready.”