Mysterious Ways

by Christine Pope

  “Ready for what, exactly?” Oscar asked.

  “Whatever Simon might throw at us,” I said. “I don’t know what that could be, since he has so many different magical skills. Demons for sure, but after that…?” I let the words trail off and gave a helpless shrug. “Just don’t let yourself get rattled, and be ready to use your own magic against him. Okay?”

  Everyone in the back seat mumbled an “okay,” although none of them looked exactly thrilled. I couldn’t really blame them, because I was less than thrilled to be here myself. But, as Rafe had pointed out earlier, we couldn’t allow a rabid dog to linger in our territory. He had to be put out of his misery, for all our sakes.

  I imagined the bubble of protection encasing Rafe’s dusty Jeep Wrangler, making it so no magical attacks could get through, no assault by demons would have any effect. This was simple enough, since we were all together in a confined space. I didn’t know what would happen once we had to get out and move individually. Should I cast protection spells on everyone? Could I? Theoretically, I supposed I should be able to manage such a thing, since I’d protected so many individual Castillo families here in Santa Fe, but I’d never had to test my talents under such stress.

  You’ll do it because you have to, I told myself as Rafe turned down Los Gatos Lane and we began to bump our way along the badly rutted road. Everyone here is precious. You can’t allow any of them to get hurt.

  Easier said than done, though.

  Trees lined the little lane, crowding on both sides. The effect was extremely claustrophobic. Then again, they helped to create something of a barrier. Any demons diving at us would have a hard time getting a clear shot.

  I hoped.

  We emerged into a wide gravel area. To one side was the detached garage; to the other was the house. Everything appeared dead still, with no signs of life at all.

  Rafe stopped near the garage and turned off the engine before he glanced over at me. “Is he even here?”

  I gave a helpless shrug. “It doesn’t look like it, but — ”

  My sentence was cut off there, because in the next second, the earth seemed to heave under us, shaking the Jeep like a toy instead of the sturdy off-road vehicle it actually was. I’d never been in an earthquake, but this felt like some kind of 8.5 monster, the kind of temblor that shook buildings off their foundations, collapsed bridges, and exploded gas mains. Cat let out a little shriek as the vehicle started to tip to one side.

  “Hold on!” Rafe shouted.

  I clung to the “Jesus handle” on the roof, my stomach turning over as the Wrangler capsized, falling onto the driver’s side. The seat belts held us all more or less in place, but it was going to be hell trying to get out of there.

  “Everyone okay?” I asked once the shaking had subsided.

  “Think so,” Tony replied from the back seat. He sounded mildly freaked out, and I couldn’t really blame him. Yes, I’d expected Simon to attack almost as soon as we appeared, but still —

  And I realized then how vulnerable we would all be as we tried to climb out of the upended Jeep. I could teleport myself out, but….

  You can get all of them out, I realized suddenly. Just imagine everyone standing out there in that open area, ready to fight.

  Almost as soon as that image passed through my mind, there was a blink!, and all five of us were free of the vehicle, taking up defensive postures next to one another. I thought I heard Cat gasp, but I didn’t have time to pay much attention, because Simon had emerged from the front door of the house and began walking calmly toward us. He looked very ordinary — it wasn’t as though he’d put on his black robes for this confrontation, was only wearing his usual jeans and a long-sleeved dark gray T-shirt.

  When he was about six feet or so away, he stopped and regarded our little group, one eyebrow raised at an ironic angle. “This is the best the Castillo clan could gather to fight me?”

  “It’s all we needed,” I retorted. “No need to drag everyone into this, not when we can easily beat you.”

  For a moment, he didn’t respond. He only stood there, staring at me, and his eyes narrowed slightly. I lifted my chin and met that black gaze, doing my best to forget how I had once laughed into those eyes, had thought I might possibly have a future with this man. He was very good at deception, this Simon Escobar.

  I had to remember that.

  When he spoke, his tone was almost musing. “There’s something different about you, Miranda. You look almost lit up from within.”

  “That’s just happiness at being reunited with Rafe.”

  That barb got its hooks in him. His nostrils flared, and he glanced away for a second to look over at Rafe, who stood a few paces from me, his stance making it clear that he was ready to attack at only a second’s notice.

  Then Simon shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  I felt him reach for me, his magic moving in my direction and then recoiling almost immediately, like someone touching a surface they realized was far too hot. Again his eyes narrowed.

  “How did you do it?”

  “Do what?” I asked sweetly.

  “Take the prima powers into yourself. I can feel them. Your magic was strong before, but now — ”

  “But now it’s enough to defeat you.”

  For just a second, I sensed his confusion, a flicker of sudden fear. He hadn’t been counting on this particular wrinkle, I could tell that much. The realization relieved me a little, because it told me that even Simon Escobar couldn’t guess at our every move.

  Almost immediately, though, he took a step backward, and the blue skies overhead darkened. I glanced up and saw a horde of demons appear from nowhere, their terrible shapes blocking out the sunlight. How many? Fifty, a hundred?

  It didn’t matter.

  The bubble of protection shimmered into existence, shielding all of us. A few seconds later, the first of the demons plowed into it and rebounded, shrieking in pain. So it hurt them to come in contact with the shield.

  Good.

  Simon’s lips curled in a snarl. His hands moved in that same pushing gesture I’d seen him use before, back at the house in Tesuque. Something hugely heavy plowed into the bubble, and I could almost feel the way it began to cave in, collapsing before the insane force Simon had directed at it.

  Shit. I focused, visualizing the invisible shield repairing itself, regaining its structural integrity. As I did so, I pushed back against Simon, directing more energy toward him in the hope that it might knock him off his feet, or at least off balance.

  He did stumble backward a pace or two before regaining his footing. “Nice trick,” he said. Perspiration gleamed on his forehead, even though the day itself was cool enough. “It won’t be enough, though.”

  “Oh — really?” I panted. Even with the prima energy buoying me up, this was harder than I’d thought it would be. I honestly didn’t know how long I’d be able to maintain the protection spell while also mounting any kind of an assault against Simon.

  “Really,” he responded. At the same time, he raised one foot and stomped it into the ground.

  A shockwave exploded outward from him, one as fierce and violent as the blast from an explosion. It shredded my bubble of protection and kept going, knocking all of the Castillos off their feet. I heard Cat cry out but couldn’t allow myself to look back and see what was happening to her, because as soon as the shield was gone, the demons dove toward us once again.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tony push himself to his feet. His dark hair was disheveled, and dirt had smudged his face, but he stood straight and tall, hands raised.

  The winds came shrieking from nowhere, a gale-force blast that brought tears to my eyes and whipped my loose hair around my face. Dead leaves scattered everywhere, rose up in their own mini-tornadoes. I lifted a hand to protect my face from the debris, and saw that the wind had caught many of the demons, hurling them this way and that as their leathery wings beat at the violent air.

  At the same ti
me, a wall of flame came from nowhere, rising up from the gravel ground and burning between Simon and me. I risked a quick glance to my right and caught a glimpse of Oscar standing a few feet away, his hands outstretched. Sweat dripped down his face, which was taut with effort, high cheekbones standing out as he clenched his jaw.

  How long would he be able to hold that wall of flame?

  A few seconds later, that question was rendered moot, because out of nowhere rain began to fall on all of us, soaking our clothes and hair, smothering the fire and calming the winds Tony had summoned. Oscar swore, even as Simon stepped toward us, dark eyes gleaming in triumph.

  “Nice display,” he said. “But it’s pretty obvious that you just can’t beat me, no matter what you try.” He paused, his lip curled in contempt. “Miranda, you know what you have to do.”

  “No,” I replied. “I’m not going down that road again.”

  “I think you need to.” He came closer, gaze lingering on my thin, rain-soaked sweater, which now left basically nothing to the imagination. “In order to save them, that is.”

  Revulsion rose in me. I opened my mouth to speak, but Rafe was there next to me, furious gaze fixed on Simon’s face.

  “What did you just say to my wife?”

  At once, Simon’s fists curled in anger. “Your what?”

  “His wife,” I said. “We got married this afternoon.”

  A pause, and then Simon replied, “It doesn’t matter. Marriages end every day. Especially,” he added, “those caused by a spouse’s death.”

  His hand went out, and before I could call another shield to protect my husband, he’d gone flying backward, traveling at least twenty feet before he hit the ground with a terrible thud.

  “No!” The same syllable left both my and Cat’s lips at the same time, and she hurried over to him, bending down in the gravel to see how badly wounded he was.

  “Stop it!” I cried. “I’ll never go with you, Simon, because I don’t love you. Nothing you do here will change that. Even” — I pulled in a gasp of a breath and forced myself to say the words — “even if you kill Rafe, that won’t make me yours. I’m sorry for you — ”

  “‘Sorry’?” he cut in, voice trembling with rage. “You’re sorry for me? I have everything I ever wanted!”

  “Except people who care about you,” I said sadly. “That’s not all your fault, but at some point you have to stop blaming everyone else for your troubles. For all our powers, none of us can change the past. Not even you.” I risked a quick glance back at Cat and Rafe, saw her slowly helping him to his feet. Thank the Goddess. Whatever Simon had done, it didn’t look as though it had been enough to cause any permanent harm. Lowering my voice, I went on, “Have you ever stopped to think what might have happened if you’d been brave enough to come to me before I ever left Arizona, had offered to help me with my talents then, told me the truth about yourself?”

  His black eyes glittered. “You would have still hated me.”

  “No,” I replied. “I wouldn’t. Because you wouldn’t have lied. You wouldn’t have concocted a plan specifically designed to hurt the Castillos. You would have only come to me offering an enormous gift, the gift of awakening my talents. But you didn’t. It was more important for you to hurt others than to help me.”

  For one long, terrible second, Simon didn’t respond. His gaze was fixed on my face, and I did everything I could to remain where I was, to look back at him with all the truth of what I had just said, to let him know that — just possibly — things might have been different, if only he had come from a place of healing rather than of hatred.

  But then an angry flush suffused his cheeks, and he shook his head. “Pretty words, Miranda. Too bad I don’t believe any of them. I gave you a chance. You could’ve kept all these Castillos from harm. But you thought it was a better idea to tell me everything I’ve done wrong. Now it’s your turn to realize what a terrible mistake you’ve made.”

  Darkness began to swirl around him, a whirling maelstrom of hatred, fury, the throbbing resentment of an entire life misspent. The cold from it reached toward me, and I barely had a chance to stumble away before those icy tendrils began to drift in my direction, implacable as the tide coming in.

  “Get back!” I shouted at Oscar and Tony, who stood a few feet away, eyes wide in horror. “Get back behind the Jeep!”

  In all honesty, I had no idea whether that would help at all. But even turned on its side, the Wrangler offered the best protection I could think of.

  They nodded and then ran, and I hurried over to Cat and Rafe, looping an arm around his waist so the three of us could run after Tony and Oscar.

  Rafe had an obvious limp, and I looked up at him.

  “Think…my ankle’s broken,” he grunted as we stumbled along. “No big deal.”

  “‘No big deal’?” I echoed, trying to keep the worry out of my voice. With his ankle broken, there was no point in him transforming into a wolf or coyote, because his animal forms would also be injured.

  “Yesenia…will fix it,” he gritted.

  I supposed a broken ankle was no big deal for the Castillo clan’s healer — assuming we lasted that long. But did we even have to wait for her? Compared to some of the other feats I’d pulled off lately, fixing Rafe’s ankle seemed relatively minor.

  “Wait,” I said, and Cat looked at me like I’d just gone mad.

  “Wait? That thing’s almost on us!”

  The whirling darkness was moving ever closer, strange sibilant voices seeming to emerge from somewhere within its depths. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, but I couldn’t allow myself to be distracted.

  “Just one second.”

  I leaned down and wrapped my hands around Rafe’s injured ankle, imagined a warm, healing glow coming from my fingers, penetrating into the broken bone and healing the fracture. Almost at once, his eyes widened.

  “What did you do?”

  “I healed you,” I said. “Now, run!”

  We sprinted the last few yards to the Jeep, then huddled behind it with Oscar and Tony.

  “What the hell is that thing?” Tony asked. Under his warm-toned skin, he looked pale as death, and I couldn’t blame him.

  “I don’t know for sure,” I said. “All of Simon’s hatred, all his resentment, all the years he’s spent nursing his wounds, real or imagined. All of it wound up together in some sort of monstrous summoning.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  Next to Tony, Oscar made the sign of the cross. I wished that might do us some good, but I had my doubts.

  I had a feeling we were on our own.

  “Are you all right now?” I asked Rafe.

  “I think so.”

  “Good.”

  I pushed myself up from my crouch as he stared at me in consternation. “What are you doing?”

  “Going to fight him,” I said. That sounded brave. Too bad I was so knotted up in fear, I worried that I might throw up then and there.

  “You can’t!”

  “Neither can you,” I said gently. I glanced around at all of them, at Oscar and Tony and Cat. “None of you can. This is my fight. This is why Louisa gave me her powers.”

  “Not so you would fight by yourself!” Rafe protested. He got up as well, although he retained enough presence of mind to stay partially bent over so his head wouldn’t rise above the protection provided by the Jeep and provide an easy target for Simon’s malevolent energy. “You fixed my ankle. Let me transform…get the drop on him like I did in Tesuque.”

  I kissed my husband then, a swift kiss…all we had time for. “I know you want to protect me, Rafe. But I’m the prima now. It’s my job to protect you. Your wolf self is strong, but I know it’s not strong enough.”

  He let out a frustrated growl, but I could tell he wouldn’t keep arguing the point. As much as he hated to admit it to himself, he knew he was no match for the roiling, hideous presence churning away only a few yards from us.

  Cat was shaking her head. “Ther
e has to be another way — ”

  “We tried that. It didn’t work.”

  Before any of them could say anything else, I stepped out from behind the Wrangler. There, just a yard away, was the monstrous spinning form that had engulfed Simon. Or had it been with him all along, and only now showed me his true face?

  His voice echoed from somewhere within, oddly distorted. “You can’t win.”

  “Neither can you,” I replied. My skin crawled as though a million ants marched their way across my body, and my fingers were shaking. Even so, I held my ground.

  That reply elicited a disembodied laugh, one that was echoed overhead by the screeching of the demons. They hung in the air, watching the scene below. Apparently, Simon was confident enough in the eventual outcome of our confrontation that he’d ordered them to stay back and keep out of the fight. “You’re very brave now, aren’t you?”

  “Not brave,” I told him. “Determined.”

  “Determined to die.”

  I summoned the shield, but as he moved toward me, those strange, ghostly tentacles that obscured his form reached out to the protective bubble and shattered it as easily as if it had been a real soap bubble. Cold enveloped me, drew me in, as though I was being pulled down into some strange vortex in arctic waters, freezing me, preventing me from doing anything except stand there.

  Simon’s laughter echoed in my ears. “Not as strong as you thought, Miranda.”

  Those weren’t tentacles holding me now, but his arms. I saw him now, saw him as himself again, while we stood inside the eye of the storm he had conjured and those ghastly clouds swirled all around us.

  For all my fear, I could still feel the prima energy burning within me. It was warm while all else was cold, telling me of the strength I’d been given, the powers that had come down through countless generations of Castillo witches, and which had finally come to me. Those strange gifts told me what I must do now.

  “Strong enough, Simon,” I replied.

  I reached out and cupped his face in my hands. His night-dark eyes widened, and I saw a flare of terrible hope in them, hope that I might finally be succumbing to him.