Tells

by Scott Rhine

  I couldn’t let this guy learn about the witches. My eyes darted to the three-foot-tall mandala against the closet sliding door. The decoration had two overlapping patterns, with a void in the center. The border was fancy Celtic knotwork. Together, they gave the illusion of a tunnel. Suddenly, I knew exactly where her magic filing cabinet was.

  He followed my gaze. “The closet? I already looked there.”

  Tearing my eyes away, I said, “In the garage.”

  “It’s a hidden panel, isn’t it?”

  “That’s crazy talk.”

  He holstered the gun, grabbed a crowbar, and ripped open the closet. “After pissing in a coffee can for nine months, I deserve to crack this case!” He smashed the crowbar against the drywall in the closest corner. “Am I getting warmer?”

  You’re getting crazier. Maybe making him angrier had been the wrong tactic. I could almost feel him using that iron bar on my bones, not stopping with the arm.

  “How about now?” He bashed several holes in the center wall.

  I gripped the amulet. God, please help me.

  His eyes got a wild look. “One wall left.” He roared and battered the final wall.

  I crouched in the corner, hoping Luca had heard the demolition.

  Anger washed over him, and the agent turned on me, his chest heaving. “Are you making a fool of me?”

  Then a melodic African accent rang from the doorway—our boarder. “You don’t need a child to look like a fool.” Abdul Baatin was a six-foot-seven black man with a long machete gripped in his only hand. His right arm ended at the elbow. His muscles rippled against a tight t-shirt. Peace enfolded me as he said, “Step away from her. This household is under my protection.”

  The agent’s hand went instinctively to the grip of his pistol.

  Abdul shook his head. “At this distance, I could chop off your head before you could fire. You need to leave this house. Now.” He stepped back to allow the agent room to depart.

  Pointing at me, the agent said, “If you find her files, bring them out to our van.” He backed out, unlocked the front door, and slammed it behind him.

  I hugged Abdul. “Thank you!”

  Leaning around him, I looked over the open floor plan to the kitchen. The back door was locked, too. Why hadn’t Luca signaled me? How had Abdul snuck past her and the locked door? Then the meaning of his name hit me—Servant of the Unseen.

  I hopped back and knelt. “Forgive me for touching you. I heard angels don’t like that sort of thing.”

  Abdul sighed but didn’t slouch like a human would have. “Fear not, child. I will give you a boon if you tell me what gave me away.”

  “That depends. Who am I speaking to? Your disguise was so realistic.”

  “My title is the Keeper of Martyrs.” He gestured to his chest. “I can assume the identity of any person killed in the name of God. Abdul refused to harm others or defile himself with drugs. He was praying even as they murdered him.”

  “I liked him.” I decided to trust the Keeper guy. “I’m guessing that when you change forms, your sword changes shapes too.”

  He nodded.

  “Abdul would never carry one. He’s too much of a pacifist. After you gave orders, I felt the same way I do when my angelic amulet protects me. Plus, you could only get past Luca if you had serious juju.”

  “Ah. Three mistakes. Your request?”

  “Could you tell me about my mother’s murder? She died during Advent. That can’t be a coincidence.”

  With his head tilted, he said, “Truth wants to be known. It’s ingrained in the fabric of the universe. The search for it will train you in the way you must be raised. I cannot shorten your route without lessening who you become.”

  “Could you give me my family Book?”

  Rolling the bat toward me with his sword, he said, “It is not in my domain, but I can grant you a visitation. Do not summon me until your greatest enemy is before you.”

  Numb, I picked up the bat. It smoked a little where the sword had touched it.

  “Fear not,” he said. “All you need to know to find the Book is in your phone.”

  I snuck a peek at the phone. It was at 50 percent. I’d need a charger if I was going to finish this quest. “How can this tell me how to find it?”

  Another message from Dina filled the screen. “People at school are asking if you’re pregnant. What should I tell them?”

  Subtle. When I looked up, Abdul was gone.

  As much as I wanted to track the Book, I needed to protect all witchdom first. I scanned Mom’s call history and clicked the last number she’d dialed on the night she’d died—the emergency response team.

  The woman on the other end answered in a brusque tone. “Who is this? Why are you pretending to be Althea?”

  I recognized the voice as one of mom’s cousins, Blaise’s mom. “This is Isa. We have a situation. The FBI broke into our home in Holy Oak tonight, looking for my mother’s secret files. They’re probably listening now.”

  She paused. “Understood. You did the right thing. Get to safety.”

  Dina’s house should be safe. I owed her a visit in person to explain. Maybe I could ask her a few questions while I was at it. Before I left, I slipped Mom’s kaleidoscope into my jacket pocket.

  14. Dina’s Condition

  I didn’t tell anyone about the angel because I didn’t want to spend the rest of the weekend as an inpatient, but Luca believed my story about a hunch. By 7:45, we were standing on Dina’s front porch. I knocked on the door, and she peeked through the curtain a moment later. “My parents are at sundown services. I can’t open the door to strangers.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Come on, D. We’ve worn each other’s pajamas. I came a long way to clear this up. I didn’t want to do this over the phone. You deserve better.”

  The front door clicked as it unlatched.

  I pushed the door open and waved Luca inside. “Leave your shoes on the mat.” I locked the door after I took off my own sneakers.

  Dina was standing in the living room with her arms crossed. “You’re dressed as twinsies? I see I’ve been replaced already.” She wore a full-length skirt that concealed her panda slippers.

  When Luca opened her mouth to fire back, I held up a hand to keep the peace. “It’s the school uniform, and Lucretia is a friend—to both of us. She gave up her Friday night to bring me to Holy Oak. Not to mention how helpful she’s been to me in a strange town. I didn’t choose to leave my home. Dad and my aunt decided for me.”

  With a sigh, Dina informed Luca, “I have some freshly baked almond cookies. What would you like to drink with them?”

  “Uh, I’m good.”

  “She likes coffee done up like a freaking sundae,” I said, shoving Luca toward the kitchen. “Barring that, some Coke product with extra sugar.”

  “Hey,” Luca objected.

  “Dude, when in Rome,” I said. It was traditional hospitality, and I wanted the two to get along. “They’re really good cookies.”

  I sat at my usual stool in the kitchen and took the first cookie from the plate while Dina punched buttons on a high-tech coffee maker. “Is French Vanilla with whipped cream okay?”

  “Oh, yeah!” Luca replied. “I’m going to need it for the trip home.”

  “Which is?”

  “She practically lives in my aunt’s backyard,” I said, covering. Then I gave her the sanitized version of how tough the new school was, how much I hated the girl that a university was named after, and how Dad was winning over the people at Colony Prep. I also told her about the Rejects’ table. “You remember my cousin Blaise?”

  “Never met,” Dina said, pouring a mug of coffee and spraying it with whipped cream from the fridge.

  “I told you about her. She’s the one who pet a squirrel when she was five, and it had rabies. We all thought she’d croak from it.”

  “The pale one?”

  “That’s her,” said Luca, accepting the mug. She took a sip. “Ahh. I like
her, so I’m going to skip ahead. Isa misses you, but circumstances were beyond her control. Have you seen an old family journal of her mom’s anywhere?”

  I tried to smack her shoulder, but she dodged me. Man she was fast.

  “What?” Luca said. “I don’t have time for us to paint each other’s toenails tonight.”

  She’d been sarcastic, but Dina looked disappointed. “Maybe. The one written by her great grandmother who was a code breaker during the war?”

  Luca nodded. “Sounds about right.”

  “Wait,” I said. “I only knew about Mom writing in it. I didn’t know about this grandma. How did you two?”

  “History class,” Luca replied.

  I turned to Dina, and she wouldn’t meet my eyes. She asked, “What’s so important about this book?”

  “A couple reasons. First, I need it for a school project. Second, Mom may have written clues in there we can use to catch the Advent Killer.” Both girls became wide-eyed. “So the sooner I can retrieve it, the better. I can call my Aunt Audra. She was the executrix for Mom’s will, and she’ll tell you the Book belongs to me.”

  “So you want it tonight, if possible.”

  Rolling her eyes, Luca said, “Duh.”

  “I’ll tell you where it is on one condition—I want to go along.”

  “Sure,” I said, expecting a trip to the local library or something.

  She clapped her hands and moved the cookies from the plate to a tin. “He’ll love these. I’ll need my phone and some makeup.”

  “Where’s the Book?” Luca asked.

  “MIT.” Dina grabbed her purse and a jacket with a hood from the hallway, leaving me alone with Luca in the kitchen.

  “That’s only an hour and a half away,” I said, trying to sound positive.

  “No way!” Luca shook her head. “It’s in the wrong direction. We’ll never make your curfew.”

  “I said I’d be back at the house, not which house. We can sleep over at my house here. Allowing three hours to the university and back, we have plenty of time. It’ll be fun.”

  “No, no, no. Why the hell is the Book at MIT?”

  Pausing in her preparations, Dina poked her head in. “Duh! If you were really Isa’s friend, you’d know. Her brother is a supersmart math wizard.”

  “Wizard?” Luca repeated.

  I held up my hands. “Not like that. It’s an expression.”

  “The journal is what inspired him to be a crypto-whatever-ist,” Dina said. “He just got his clearance for a big Defense Department project.”

  “How do you know?” I asked. Does everyone keep secrets from me?

  “Zaki and I share things.”

  Luca growled. “You let a man read your Book?”

  “Give me a break. I didn’t know it was my Book until a couple days ago. How did he even find it?”

  Again, Dina provided the answer. “Your dad needed to get into your mother’s fireproof safe to get some papers, but the battery died the moment he tried to enter the code.” Magic or coincidence? “Zach managed to pull the keypad apart and crack it.”

  “Do you have a picture of this wizard?” Luca asked.

  I scratched my head. “I may have one from a birthday party on Mom’s phone from a few years ago. It may take me a few minutes, but I can dig up—”

  Dina thrust her phone at Luca. The screen saver was Zak’s high-school graduation photo, the brooding one with the wannabe mustache.

  I closed my eyes. “This is a cry for help.”

  “He’s not hideous,” Luca said, snapping a photo of the screen with her own phone. Zak inherited Dad’s height and Middle-Eastern complexion, but he was blessed with Mom’s genteel nose. To phrase it delicately, Dad’s face was rugged.

  “He’s mine!” said Dina. “Back off.”

  In French, Luca said, “Can we talk?”

  “Uh, hairbrush,” I reminded Dina. She darted upstairs. “Why the 180?” I asked Luca.

  “You didn’t tell me your brother was a freaking warlock!”

  “We had the same mother. What’s the surprise?”

  She buried her face in her hands. “Warlocks are bad!”

  “So are witches if you ask the Church.”

  “This isn’t name-calling. Warlocks have no intuition and can’t tell right from wrong. They hear voices, but they don’t know which ones are lying.”

  “He’s a computer nerd. How bad could it be?” I asked. “It’s not like he knows the gestures to cast spells.”

  “The ideas in the Book as just as dangerous. Remember Da Vinci?”

  “Yeah. He invented hot tubs, anatomy textbooks, and helicopters.”

  Luca lowered her voice. “He only had a Book for a few days. Your brother has been reading it for almost a year, and he works for the military.”

  15. Rat Boy

  Once we were all in the car, Luca put the pedal to the metal. She did not want to stop for me to shop for a phone-charging cord. We argued until Dina pointed out a strip mall with a cell-phone store and an ice-cream shop. She added, “I forgot to go to the bathroom before we left.”

  Luca growled but pulled over. While the two of us were taking care of necessities, she grabbed a pint of birthday-cake ice cream.

  After we resume our insane speed, Dina made me wash my hands with the industrial-sized sanitizing gel from her huge purse. Then we shared the tub of dessert while we caught up. We listened to Luca’s workout playlist, lots of thrash metal and Nightcore versions of popular songs.

  “What did you tell your parents,” I asked Dina.

  “I’m catching up with you.”

  The voice of the GPS program told us to change lanes, and Luca responded so fast that the tires squealed.

  Dina dropped her spoon, so I gave her mine.

  Luca made a disgusted sound. “Can somebody get me some intel? What are we walking into?”

  I volunteered to do the research since my phone was plugged in now. “MIT is smashed up against the river, so it can’t grow. They only accept 4500 undergraduates a year.”

  Dina licked sprinkles off her fingers. “No wonder the competition is so steep.”

  “Women are over twice as likely to be accepted than men,” I read aloud.

  Luca said, “That doesn’t mean the standard is lower. Most colleges have more women than men. They’re just more qualified.”

  Matriarchal bias. Dina won’t qualify for MIT because her Math scores suck. Her strengths were science, following instructions, and killing germs. I could see her being excellent as a medical technician, researcher, or as a nurse who didn’t face a lot of angry patients. She wasn’t very assertive.

  I brought them back to the plan. “When we arrive, we’ll park at the Massachusetts Avenue guest lot and walk straight toward the river. Gack, his dorm is right next to the Harvard Bridge. I can’t get away from that witch.”

  Luca asked, “Where will we find your brother?”

  “Let’s see. On Friday night, the bars are hopping, and girls want to have fun. So, he’ll be in the basement study room.”

  “Anybody with him?”

  “Maybe Rat Boy.”

  Snorting, Luca asked, “Who?”

  “Peter Winthrop III.” Dina shuddered. “His roommate. He’s a business major. He keeps a pet rat in an aquarium. Disgusting.”

  “A fancy rat?” asked Luca, intrigued.

  “I don’t know.” Dina sounded irritated at the question. “Anyway, it’s gone now. I don’t know how he kept it that long when it was against the rules.”

  More things made sense to me now. “His name dates back to Boston Colony and means old money. They have a lot of influence.”

  “You don’t seem to care too much for him,” Luca said.

  “As a way-underaged Junior, Zak got picked on a lot. Dad tried asking nicely to get Rat Boy to look out for him. When he laughed at the request, Dad called in the complaint about the illegal pet. Then, he convinced several girls in the dorm to come forward with harassment compla
ints. Rat Boy had to sit through a daylong seminar on valuing diversity.”

  “Your dad knows how to work a bureaucracy,” Luca said.

  “Well, it wasn’t enough. Zak still ‘lost’ his meal card. We had to remind Rat Boy his parents paid another kid to take the ACT for him. Now he goes almost everywhere as Zak’s guard.”

  Luca’s brows shot up. “Your dad actually blackmailed this guy?”

  “It’s called graymail when you pressure someone into doing the right thing,” I said, not quite believing the distinction myself. Dad can be a little too protective.

  Luca slowed down to only ten above the limit. “So no scratches on Mr. Morris’ car, or I’m in trouble.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Dina. “He drove us to school the day our diorama was due. I put the project on his hood while I was tying my shoe. It slid off and scratched the dickens out of the paint. He didn’t raise a hand or his voice to me. He just helped us put the pieces back together. People are more important than things in that household.”

  Okay, I could see by comparison to her family why Zak might be appealing. I decided not to tease her too much about it. She’d see his flaws for herself, especially if he hadn’t showered in a few days.

  ****

  On the hike from the visitor’s lot to the dorm, Luca kept complaining. “We could’ve parked in the loading zone.”

  “If his car got a ticket, Dad would know,” I said. Looking around, I noticed how deserted the streets were. Normally, this place was packed. The clouds and cool breeze threatened rain. I’d have to wrap the Book to keep it dry.

  Luca increased her pace. “It’s after nine-thirty. We’re running out of time.”

  “Blaise’s mom might help cover for us.” She was also a Hutchinson, just not a “direct” descendant from the famous Anne.

  “Captain Blood? Why?”

  “My Aunt Harlow’s bark is worse than her bite. As an officer of the Law, her job is to protect people.”

  “She’s killed more criminals than any other cop in the Colony.”

  I pointed to the park on the opposite side of the street. “That green space leads to the Dome. Hey, those people are playing a game.” Dina lagged behind to snap another photo. I leaned toward Luca. In French, I whispered, “Don’t scare the kid.”