“What?”
“Mama.” I didn’t know how to explain how hollow I was, how much I needed her. “Can I sleep with you tonight?”
She gazed down at me. “Why, Saskia?”
Why? Why? Why?
The question danced around my mind and I couldn’t make sense of it. Why? Because she was my mommy.
“I’m scared of the dark,” I said.
It was a half-truth. I missed my father with such an intensity it physically hurt.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” she replied.
The unfamiliar ping of lies had only awakened in me recently, like a flavor I hadn’t yet learned to describe. I heard it again then, leaving me wondering what other terrors lay in wait for me at night.
Someone stirred in the darkness behind her.
“I’m scared, Mama,” I cried, holding out my arms to her.
She looked over her shoulder, then sighed. “Come here.”
I thought she would invite me into her bed, into her embrace, but instead her ringed hand shot out and stopped me. She held my skinny arm, her fingers hard as bone, and looked deep into my eyes. Something spread through me, an expanding cloud. The energy sunk thick and deep and dark, filling the gaps of my soul until fear dissipated to the foreground of my mind. Not gone, but muted. Maimed. I felt sleepy, even though my fear still lingered.
I yawned, my arms suddenly heavy as lead.
“Now go,” she ushered. “Sleep in Mikayla’s bed if you must.”
And with that her bedroom door swung shut.
Still empty and hollow, yet now filled with emotion that wasn’t mine, I headed to my sister’s room. Mikayla wordlessly lifted her bedsheets for me to climb beneath and rocked me to sleep.
When I come back from my memory, I’m choking on a sob. Angel’s hands are a comfort on my shoulders. I flinch. It takes a moment for me to realize I’m no longer that little girl. I’m safe.
“Oh honey,” he says, his voice laced with sympathy. “That was rough. But, sorry, we need one more. As they say, third time’s the charm. Literally. You know that saying comes from Mages, right?”
I didn’t, but this time I don’t bother to argue. After a few steadying breaths, I’m ready and he starts the incantation again.
“Dig as deep as you can,” Angel says.
I dive in. I’m back in the cold living room of our Marbella home. I’m back in my mother’s reach.
Her cooling touch was draining my anxieties. Numbness spread through me as I looked at the body she just claimed — the dead politician, bleeding out from where she sliced him. When his blood hit my sandals, I screamed and screamed until I felt my mother’s arms close around me. An alien calm wrapped its fist around my heart, squeezing with each beat. I whimpered.
I wanted to feel shock, pain and fear, I needed to – just like I did when my father died. Instead, as I stared at the man bleeding out before us, feeling exactly what my mother always wanted me to feel.
Angel completes his incantation, and my eyes flicker open. I watch as a tendril of lilac energy expands from my chest and into the cauldron.
The Warlock smiles. “We’re done.” He pours the now light blue liquid into a small glass vial. “Five drops once a day, sweet cheeks. No skipping. Pretend it’s birth control.”
When Jackson returns, I’m curled up on Angel’s comfortable sofa with a chai tea where he’s already added some drops of the mixture. Even though revisiting the trauma was exhausting, feeling the release of the energy was euphoric. An emotional exorcism. I feel way more confident about my trip to Barcelona now.
“You really are very good at what you do,” I say to the Warlock when he walks us to the door.
“Oh. darling, I know,” he answers, winking at Jackson. “Don’t forget to Venmo.”
Jackson nods as I halt by the door. “I’m sorry I said those shitty things about Warlocks.”
“Used to it,” Angel replies. “My skin is so thick by now I’m probably bullet-proof. But do me a favor, honey cakes, don’t judge a Mage by their spellbook in the future.”
He smiles and I grin back, then he hands me a vial of something clear and viscose. He already gave me the protection brew, so what’s this?
“For your lashes, darling. They are too short and stubby,” Angel coos. “Just like my ex!”
Cackling with delight, he swings the door shut and leaves me looking at the vial, dumbfounded.
Rude.
I huff past Jackson, but he puts his arm out, grabbing my hand. His golden eyes bore into mine, deep and earnest. “Saskia. Sorry, I couldn’t help overhearing. I had no idea your mother was so cruel. You don’t have to go to Spain, you know. I’ll get someone else to cover the story.”
Jackson… worries about me?
“I’ll be fine.”
“I don’t want you to get hurt.”
There’s a noticeable absence of pings.
“I can handle it, Jackson.”
I need more info on Mikayla’s life, and I’m going to find that in Barcelona. Maybe whoever is behind the disappearance of Maribel is also behind Mikayla’s.
Jackson nods. He knows he can’t change my mind.
“Come to think of it,” he says, following me down the stairs. “Your lashes are rather stubby.”
“Shut up, or I’ll maim you!”
Chapter Two
“This level of turbulence is completely normal,” the prim Delta stewardess says with her red-slick smile. She’s lying straight through her perfectly lined lips.
Her tin cart rocks against her leg as her fingers close far too tightly around the orange juice carton she’s serving the woman nearby. She must be new to this if a gusty day is making her nervous.
“I’m really afraid of flying,” I lie in return, plastering my face with all the childlike innocence I can muster.
“Is there anything I can get for you, darling?”
“Perhaps a double gin tonic would help calm my nerves?”
“Of course.”
Score! The orange juice lady across the aisle has worked out my con and gives me the side-eye. I’ve already had two gin tonics from two other flight attendants, plus a raspberry Absolut sneaky shot from my backpack.
I check my phone, even though I know very well there’s no cell reception in the sky. Force of habit. Ever since Maribel, my mother’s best friend and boss, went missing, she has been texting me more often than a grandmother who just discovered WhatsApp.
When are you getting here?
I need you!
I’m sorry for all the trauma I caused.
OK, the last text is a product of my imagination.
Basically, my mother asked for my help before Jackson even assigned me the piece, no doubt needing my meager truth-telling abilities to snoop around. I was frazzled at the time and said yes. That was ten minutes after I thought I saw my missing sister on the train platform. Which was a few weeks after returning from Moscow after killing a polar bear bouncer Shifter with the heel of a stiletto and falling for a crazy Vampire who looks like a Russian version of Vanilla Ice.
So, excuuuse me if I need to stay drunk for the rest of my life!
Yesterday’s trip to the Warlock’s house calmed my nerves a little, I was even excited about getting Jackson his story, but the closer we get to Spain the more I doubt my strength. My mother is expecting me and knowing her I’ll be thrown into Witch high-society before I’ve even had a chance to unpack.
The flight attendant drops off my gin tonic, draped in a napkin, and a pack of sad pretzels that scream, ‘don’t get too drunk!’
I drain the plastic cup. Then, in a sneaky one-hand-in-my-purse maneuver, open the raspberry vodka and pour some in my empty cup.
Two tiny eyes watch me through the space between the seats. Is this kid judging my onboard refreshment situation? I put a finger to my lips.
Shhhhhh.
I hide the no-longer-sealed duty-free bag reading DO NOT OPEN by my feet. The kid is still staring at me.
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Jezzuuuz.
What’s the matter, kid? You never seen someone with mommy issues take a flight home? I shake the pack of pretzels at him.
“Don’t you miss the times they used to have nuts onboard?”
He shakes his head at me.
“Right,” I mumble, opening the packet. “You weren’t born yet.”
“I’m avergic!” he declares through the slit.
Oh yeah, that’s why they stopped serving nuts.
Now I feel like an asshole. The boy loses interest and turns away.
My eyes search the cabin for a fourth stewardess that might fall for my gin tonic con. I’m justified in my fear; this turbulence is pretty bad. You’d think I’d be used to this with the amount of flying I do with my job.
After a few minutes, Prim Pan Am takes my empty cup away and gives me a slightly judgmental look. I swallow down my drunk desire to tell the stranger my deepest feelings. To justify myself and explain I’m not just a free booze enthusiast, I’m actually a very important investigative reporter sent on a very important mission.
This is my first time back to Spain in years. I haven’t been anywhere near the MA since a Mage event I went to with Mikayla years ago. The Association may be terrifying, but to be fair, they can throw a party to rival P. Diddy. I mean, Sean Combs may be able to make everyone wear white, but he can’t lace Crystal with magic.
I think back to the Moscow nightclub Lukka took me to. The enchanted music and the crazy assortment of Paras my mom would have hated, and I clench my eyes tightly. It’s too soon. Throwing myself into my mother’s world after all that happened in Russia is too much. There’s no way I’m going to be able to keep up the pretense of being a dutiful daughter while also looking into Maribel’s disappearance for Jackson.
I rifle through my purse and pop a stick of gum in my mouth, chewing furiously. I don’t even care about Maribel! I haven’t seen her for years, not since I left Spain behind for good. I chew at the gum so hard my jaw starts to ache.
Jackson told me all about the weird sigils that have been popping up around the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona, convinced they are somehow linked to Maribel vanishing. But how? I pull out my phone and scroll down the photos he sent me, the gum fast turning into a wad of tasteless cement in my mouth.
I zoom in. These aren’t your usual spray-painted graffiti marks you get all over the city, and they aren’t anarchic symbols or political slogans either. These are hardcore Bruixa shit — magical Witch symbols carved out of stone and wood. I didn’t do great in symbology class. OK, I didn’t do well in any of my little Witchling classes as a kid, but hopefully I’ll figure out what they mean once I get to speak to some MA members.
I sigh far too loudly, and the orange juice-drinking Judge Judy gives me a sharp look. I close my eyes and drift off to sleep, lulled by dreams of blood-soaked Russian nights.
I wake hours later with the overly-enthusiastic pilot announcing “Bienvenido a Barcelona!” far too loudly. In a couple of hours, I’m going to be facing my mother. Fuck.
My jaw automatically stiffens, and I roll my shoulders back. With a deep breath, I mentally brace myself. Thank god for Angel and his protection brew. Shame I didn’t also ask for a concoction to get rid of jet lag and a killer hangover.
Chapter Three
As soon as I step into the arrival hall of the airport, I can’t help but smile. It’s the smell. I’m not saying Spain smells good exactly, it just reminds me of home – fried garlic, cologne, and old cigarette smoke.
The sun is streaming in through the tall glass panes, and everyone is wrapped up in thick coats, even though it’s seventy degrees outside and spring has already started.
I see a man in a formal suit with a sign that reads de la Cruz. I duck and put my sunglasses on, rushing past him unnoticed. Of course, my mom would send a town car to pick me up and usher me to a location of her choosing.
No, thank you!
Solina’s favors always come with strings attached and my Pinocchio days are behind me. I’m getting in and out of this mission without her gilded gifts.
I push my way through the haphazard excuse for a taxi line, trying to block out the squawk of everyone talking at once. My hangover makes everything ten times louder – although in Spain everything is always ten times louder.
I breathe out a sigh of relief as I throw myself back into the taxi’s leather interior.
“Barri Gòtic,” I say in perfect Catalan, instructing the driver to take us to the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona.
His eyebrows raise a fraction, clearly not expecting me to speak the language of the locals. Barcelona may be in Spain, but they fought long and hard to continue speaking Catalan after the civil war. I’m not short on issues, but learning languages isn’t one of them.
I rest my head back on the worn leather of the taxi seat and let the afternoon sun wash away my hangover. A reggaetón song is playing on the car radio, the husky voice singing of full moons and full lips. I drift off to sleep, light flickering beneath my eyelids in time to the music.
“Want me to stop at the cathedral?” the driver barks.
I sit up too quickly, my head pounding as if the old guy has hit me with the sledgehammer.
“No. Just a minute….”
I scroll through Jackson’s email to the address of my rented apartment. No doubt The Chronicle secretary has outdone herself in booking the cheapest shittiest accommodation, but at least I’m not staying at the MA HQ. My mom would probably have a video feed leading straight into my bedroom. I give the driver the street name, frowning as we pull up to a dark, narrow street. There’s no room for cars, so I’m going to have to walk the rest of the way.
I tap my bank card against the payment machine, and the driver drops my luggage at my feet before squeezing himself back into the perpetual traffic.
All around me is gothic grey, the sun struggling to find me among the cool shadows of the ancient streets. Tiny wrought-iron balconies jut out above my head, dotted with red geraniums or colorful laundry suspended between one house and the next like Tibetan flags.
I take a moment to compose myself, blinking away the jet lag and gin. According to Google maps, I’m only a few minutes away from the heart of Europe’s Witch land. The Gothic Quarter is home to Barcelona’s second most famous cathedral and the MA headquarters. Which is where I’m meeting my mother.
My stomach clenches, but I breathe it away, reminding myself that she has no idea why I’m really here or who I work for. Although it doesn't help my nerves knowing the last time I saw her was nearly two years ago in LA, when she basically blamed me for Mikayla’s disappearance.
I follow the directions on my phone, the streets getting narrower, every wall covered in graffiti — but these aren’t the ancient-looking sigils Jackson told me about. I still don’t get it. Who has time to carve magical markings into walls...and why?
The keys to my apartment are in a box attached to the outside of a big ugly door. I punch in the number from my email, extract the keys, and drag my case up three flights of stairs. Luxury all the way.
After a long shower, a nap, and a change of clothes, my head has gone from pounding to a dull thud. I pop a couple of aspirin and look out of the window. My appointment with my mother is at 2pm.
I text Jackson.
I’ve arrived, into the den of lions I go…
Jackson’s reply is near immediate, despite the time difference.
Don’t forget the catnip!
I grin and type back. I bet you say that to all the girls.
The MA HQ looms on the other side of the street. The tourists know it as Palau Güell, an imposing palace commissioned by some industrial tycoon in the nineteenth century. Its giant oval gates are adorned with spindly privacy screens made of wrought iron. You can look from the inside out, but you can’t see the inside from the street. It’s all very MA.
We are always watching, but you will never see us in return.
The metal above the screens is twi
sted into elaborate vegetal shapes that curve without rhyme nor reason, like beached seaweed or veiny coral. I shudder as I remember the Merhives in LA. A metal bird statue squawks atop a thorned cage of gold and iron perched above the gate. It’s as if it’s warning people of the magic inside… or the horrors.
Down the street, I spot a guy leaning against the wall. He has short, cropped hair, and his lashes are casting shadows on his tanned cheeks. He must feel me watching him as he looks up and takes a slow drag of the joint pinched between his thumb and index finger. He smiles. A boyish grin, despite his broad shoulders and arms of corded muscle.
Dragging my gaze away, I take my place in line with the tourists. I decided to wear my skinny jeans this afternoon, along with a t-shirt sporting the logo of some obscure band I saw play in Queens one night, cut low enough to show off what the Witch goddess gave me. The idea of disappointing my mother with my too-casual outfit is giving me a secret buzz.
The revving of an engine startles me. I step back quickly as a scooter misses me by inches and comes to an abrupt stop next to the boy I was watching. He tips his head to one side, rubbing it at the back, as the figure on the scooter dismounts, pulls her helmet off, and strides towards him. I’m not close enough to see her face, but her hair is short and dark, and her petite body lean. The guy pushes himself off the wall and scoops the tiny girl into a passionate hug, lifting her off her feet. She laughs and wraps her legs around his waist as he twirls her.
Must be nice.
Someone in the line hisses that it’s my turn and I step forward. I tell the ticket person I have an appointment in their upper offices, and she lets me into the chilly marbled hall.
Navigating thick grey columns, I marvel at the ornamented ceiling and decorative tiling. My legs burn as I climb the wide carpeted stairs, past red and yellow stained windows in the colors of the Catalan flag. The first time I was here was with my father. Hand in hand, he led me around the MA building, pointing out all the pretty details while telling me about the architect’s vision.
Witches of Barcelona: A Dark, Funny & Sexy Urban Paranormal Romance Series (Blood Web Chronicles Book 2) Page 3