Her voice caught on that last word — clearly he was still her little boy, no matter that he was a grown man in his mid-twenties. “Well, that’s something,” Rafe said, wishing he had something more encouraging to tell her. Problem was, he couldn’t summon much enthusiasm for anything right now. As much as he told his brain to shut up and leave him alone, it kept summoning ever more gruesome possibilities as to what might be happening to Miranda at that very moment. Had she been caught by human traffickers? Had she lost her memory somehow, was shut up on a twenty-four-hour psych hold somewhere?
“You get your lunch,” Cat said, her tone soothing. “Take as long a break as you need. We’ll be here.”
“Thanks, Cat.” Sophia offered them another smile and then headed off toward the elevator.
Rafe expelled a breath. “Well, I guess we’d better go in.”
His sister nodded and led the way inside. Just as Sophia had said, Marco seemed pretty much the same as he’d been the day before, tubes still running into his arm and his nose. At least it seemed he was able to breathe on his own, because his mouth was unobstructed. A ventilator lurked in the corner, though, waiting for the moment when it might be needed.
Two chairs had been placed up against one wall, and Cat and Rafe sat down in those. Thank God this was a private room, so they’d be able to talk without too much worry about being overheard.
“I’m glad Sophia seems to be holding up okay,” Cat ventured.
“Well, she’s a tough lady. Genoveva could learn something from her. It is possible to suffer losses and not turn into a bitter harpy.”
“Rafe.” Cat’s tone was reproving, but she didn’t bother to admonish him beyond that. Whatever closeness had existed between her brother and her mother had been burned away years earlier, and she must have known there was no real way to repair the breach now.
“Whatever.” He rubbed the palms of his hands against the knees of his jeans and wondered whether it had been a good idea to come here after all. What was he trying to prove, anyway? That he was a good son, a good Castillo who understood his place in the clan?
No, he thought suddenly, looking at Marco’s slack features, at the bluish shadows under his eyes, he was here because Marco was his friend. Not just a member of the clan, not just a cousin. Rafe wished they could have been closer, because Marco was a decent guy and fun to hang out with, but the distance between Taos and Santa Fe was just great enough that they didn’t get together as often as either of them would have liked. He knew then he would have come here anyway even if they hadn’t been related at all, because it was the decent thing to do.
And because poor Sophia really looked like she needed a break.
“Anyway,” he went on, knowing he needed to say something to try to erase the wounded look in his sister’s eyes, “I’m also hoping that Daniel might get back to me this afternoon. He texted this morning to let me know he was running a trace on a few things, but he had meetings with clients and didn’t exactly know when he’d be able to be in touch. ‘Running a trace’ means he must have figured out a way to track Miranda’s movements, right?”
“I guess?” Cat said, her shoulders lifting slightly. “I have to admit I don’t know much about being a private detective. I assume Daniel isn’t wandering the streets of Albuquerque with a magnifying glass or something.”
The image her remark conjured was so ludicrous, Rafe couldn’t help chuckling a bit. “No, I think he does a lot of his work online. Forensic data analysis, he said one time. Not that I know exactly what that’s supposed to mean. But since he knows what he’s doing, I have to hope he’s got some kind of lead about Miranda, even if we can’t figure out what that might be.”
“I hope so,” Cat said. “It’s hard to understand how someone could just vanish without a trace like that.”
“Unghhh….”
Rafe and Cat both paused and looked toward the bed. Marco didn’t seem to have moved — until Rafe saw the way his cousin’s fingers were clutching the thin hospital blanket. Was it possible…?
“Marco?” he ventured, hoping he didn’t sound like a complete fool. “Did you say something?”
“Unghh…Maahhhhh….”
Cat’s dark eyes were wide, the color in her cheeks gone. “Should I call a nurse?” she asked in an undertone.
“I don’t know,” Rafe replied. He got up from his seat and went over to the bed. “What’re you trying to tell us, Marco?”
“Teh — ” The syllable came out more as a huff of breath. “Tess….”
Now Cat was up and out of her chair, standing next to Rafe, her entire body tense. “Who’s Tess, Marco?”
“Tess…tess….”
The beeping of his heart monitor began to accelerate. Rafe saw beads of sweat gather on Marco’s brow and roll down his temples before soaking the hair next to his ears. “We don’t understand,” he said. “Who’s Tess?”
“Tess…uhhh….”
The heart monitor was going crazy. The next thing Rafe knew, he was being pushed aside by a pair of nurses, one of whom looked at Marco’s vitals and said, “Get the doctor,” even as the other woman began to shove Rafe and Cat out of the room.
“You’ll need to go,” she said, the crispness of her tone allowing no room for argument.
“But he was trying to tell us something!” Rafe protested. “He was out of the coma!”
“No, he wasn’t,” the nurse said calmly. “Sometimes patients in his condition make vocalizations that sound as though they’re trying to speak. His brain activity hadn’t changed, though. And now his pulse is dangerously high, so we need to get that under control. You can go over there,” she added, pointing toward the small waiting area that faced the elevator doors.
A pretty Asian woman wearing a white lab coat hurried into Marco’s room, and the nurse who’d been speaking to them quickly turned away and went in as well.
Feeling helpless, Rafe said, “I guess we’d better go wait.”
Face pale, Cat nodded. The two of them walked over and sat down on the hard chairs there, although they’d only been sitting for a minute or two before the elevator doors opened and Sophia stepped out, a Styrofoam coffee cup in one hand. Spying the two of them, she said, “What’s the matter? Why aren’t you in with Marco?”
“He, uh, had kind of an episode,” Rafe began, but he didn’t get any further than that, because Sophia turned away and hurried toward Marco’s room.
She wasn’t even given the chance to get inside. The nurse who had shooed Rafe and Cat away a few moments earlier stood at the door, barring her from entry. Her words came clearly to the waiting area, even though she was some yards away. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Delgado, but the doctor’s working on your son right now.”
“I need to see him! What happened?”
“We’re not entirely sure yet. He had a spike in cardio activity. We’re trying to get him stabilized. If you could please go and sit with his friends, that would be great.”
Even as she ended this sentence, the light next to the door turned red and began to flash.
“What’s happening?” Sophia cried.
“He’s coding. Please — we need to work.”
Rafe got up from his seat then and went over to Sophia, taking her by the shoulders. “She’s right,” he said quietly but firmly. “Marco needs the doctors and nurses to do their thing, and we’d just be in the way. Come sit with Cat and me.”
He could feel the tension in her thin frame, but she seemed willing to accept his advice, allowed him to guide her over to the waiting area. Cat took the cup of coffee Sophia had been holding the whole time, then helped lower her into one of the chairs.
A pair of nurses came out of the elevator, dragging a piece of complicated-looking equipment with them. Rafe had no idea what it was for, but he assumed it was something needed to resuscitate his cousin. Cat’s eyes met his, full of wordless alarm. All he could do was stare back. Right then, he couldn’t remember feeling any more useless. The only thing they could do
was sit here and let the professionals do their work — and hope it was enough.
The minutes crawled by. Rafe could hear a murmur of voices coming from within Marco’s room, but none of them spoke loudly enough for him to hear what they were saying. He didn’t know which was worse — to not know at all what was happening, or to have some idea but still realize there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about any of it.
At last the doctor emerged from Marco’s room. Her shoulders were slumped, which told Rafe everything he needed to know. Still, his mind didn’t want to recognize the truth. This couldn’t be happening…could it?
Apparently Sophia guessed as well, for she slowly rose from her chair and went to face the young woman, who probably was only in her early thirties, barely out of her residency. “He’s gone, isn’t he?”
The doctor’s gaze shifted toward Cat and Rafe for a second. Possibly she was trying to determine whether they might be Marco’s brother and sister, or if they were merely friends. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Delgado,” the doctor said. “For lack of a more scientific term, his heart simply gave out. We’re not sure why. Possibly damage related to the stroke, although none of the EKGs we ran seemed to indicate that was even a possibility. We did our best, but it wasn’t enough, clearly.” Once again her slender shoulders drooped. “I am so sorry.”
Sophia nodded. Tears gathered in her eyes, bright and terrible, and ran down her cheeks, but she still remained almost preternaturally calm. “Thank you, doctor. I suppose you will want to do an autopsy?”
The doctor’s finely arched brows lifted even further. “I’m not sure we need to discuss that right now — ”
“I just want you to know you have my permission.” Sophia pulled in a breath. “I want to know what it was that killed my son.”
Rafe came to her, said quietly, “You can worry about that later, Sophia.”
She nodded. “You’re right. For now, I would like to be alone with my son.”
The doctor said, “Of course. Come with me.” Gently, she placed an arm around Sophia and led her into Marco’s room. Rafe hung back, standing near the waiting area, not sure what to do.
Cat’s fingers twined around his. “Rafe, what’s going on?” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” he said. He didn’t understand any of this. How could Marco be dead? Marco was a year younger than he was. The whole thing was crazy.
And what had Marco been trying to tell them? Who was Tess? Was she somehow connected to Miranda’s disappearance?
It seemed that whatever Marco had known, whatever he’d been attempting to say, it had gone to the grave with him.
Now they would never know.
11
Explorations
Miranda
Breakfast with Simon was surprisingly mellow — so mellow, in fact, that I wondered if I’d imagined the tension between us the night before, had allowed my semi-tipsy brain to manufacture undercurrents that simply weren’t there. We’d goofed around in the kitchen, making bacon and pancakes, and started putting together a list of things we’d need from the grocery store the next time we ventured out.
As I said, almost relentlessly normal…and completely the opposite of what followed.
More practice, of course. This time, I indulged a childhood fantasy of mine and managed to turn myself invisible. That is, I could look down and see myself, but Simon claimed that I had completely disappeared, even though he could hear my voice and was able to feel my hand when I reached out toward him. So maybe it was some kind of weird magical stealth ability rather than being truly invisible, but the result was the same.
“Well, that was fun,” I said, willing myself back to visibility. Even though I had been able to see myself the whole time, I still took a second glance down at my jeans and brown boots, relieved they were clear as day against the gravel driveway.
“It was,” Simon replied with a grin. “And you’ve got one up on me. I’ve never been able to manage invisibility, no matter how many times I tried.”
Interesting. Because he seemed able to master so many different magical abilities, I’d just sort of assumed he could do almost anything he put his mind to. “It’s a fun trick, but unless you plan on a career in spying or bank robbery, I’m not sure how really useful it is.”
“You’re just trying to make me feel better.”
“No, really,” I said. “I mean it.”
“What else do you want to try?”
Good question. There were so many possibilities out there, but I was interested in something a bit more subtle than being the new incarnation of the Invisible Man. “I want to know how you block your warlock nature. That seems like it would be handy to know. That way, I could change my appearance, block my witchiness, and go shopping in Santa Fe if I wanted to.”
A flash of white teeth as he shot me one of his sly grins. “If you really want to go shopping, we can always head down to Albuquerque. There’s probably less chance of running into a Castillo since they’re spread a bit more thin there.”
“It’s not shopping, exactly, more….” I stopped to think about what I was that I really wanted to prove. “More that I think it would be awesome to slip in under their noses, and they’d never be able to tell.”
“After what they put you through, I can see why you might want to thumb your nose at them.”
We were standing out in the driveway again, since it was a good place to practice various sorts of pyrotechnics without having to worry about damaging anything in the multimillion-dollar property where we were staying. Simon came toward me and paused a foot or so away.
“Reach out,” he said. “I know that we don’t get that special ‘tingle’ or whatever you want to call it after we’ve been around each other for a bit, but if you focus, you can still sense it. Try it now.”
I held myself still and let my newly developed powers drift out, touch his. Yes, there it was — that strange prickle at the back of my neck that told me I faced someone else with witch blood. But even as I felt that unique tingle, it vanished. For all that my witchy senses were telling me, I might as well have been standing next to a civilian.
“Wow,” I said. “It’s just…gone.”
“Exactly. But it’s really easy to do. You only need to think of the power at your core, your own witchy nature. Close your eyes and reach inside yourself. Feel it.”
This was easy enough to do, because I’d felt that same power awaken in me just the day before, that center of brilliant, glowing light, warm and golden as the sun. I closed my eyes and almost immediately it was there, comforting, reassuring me that I possessed just as much magical talent as any other witch — actually, far more, since I wasn’t confined to a single gift but apparently could encompass them all.
“I feel it,” I whispered.
“Good. Now imagine blanking it out. It’s not that it’s disappeared — it’s more like the sun during an eclipse when the moon passes in front of it. Do that now.”
I nodded obediently, visualizing an eclipse, the darkening of the sun, the utter blackness that took its place. And the core of light within me dimmed and seemed to be gone, although I could still feel its strength, waiting for the time when I would call upon it again.
“You did it,” Simon said. I opened my eyes to see him looking down at me with approval. “I can’t feel your power at all. Now bring it back.”
Eclipse over, the warm golden light of my magic flared out, thrilling in its strength.
Simon nodded. “And now I feel it again. It’s really as simple as that.”
“It’s still amazing,” I said. “To be able to hide my powers, just by thinking about it. My uncle supposedly was able to hide my father’s powers from the McAllister clan, but I always heard that was a spell, not something my uncle could do on his own with his own innate abilities.”
Simon shrugged. “I wouldn’t know anything about that. I mean, I always heard that Damon Wilcox dabbled in some questionable stuff, so I suppose he could have found a spell to do
basically the same thing. But obviously it’s a lot easier when you’re just doing it on your own.”
That was for sure. I didn’t really want to talk about my uncle, or the dark spells he’d explored before his death, long before I was even born. Certainly the topic never came up in my household; the few things I’d overheard about him were in whispered conversations, conversations that halted abruptly once the people talking realized I was around. I didn’t even know what my uncle had looked like, because my parents didn’t have any pictures of him out anywhere in either of our houses. I’d always gotten the impression that my father would have liked to erase Uncle Damon’s existence altogether, that the topic was so painful he preferred to push it away and pretend he’d never had a brother to begin with.
“Much easier,” I agreed, then went on, eager to change the subject, “So…what next? I’ve always thought it would be fun to control the weather.”
“It’s a useful talent, but one you need to be careful with. Nature has a balance of its own, and you don’t want to mess with it too much.”
“I won’t,” I promised. “I just want to see what I can do.”
“All right.” Simon looked up toward the sky — the day was still sunny and mild, but a few clouds wreathed the topmost peaks of the Sangre de Cristo mountains to the east. “It’s easiest when you have something to work with. Making it rain when there aren’t any clouds around is tough, because you basically have to make some clouds form out of water vapor before you can even think of doing anything with them. But there are a few.” He pointed to the clouds I’d noticed, white and fluffy and looking as if they were stuffed with moisture, although it was too late for monsoon storms and really too early for snow. “Call them over here.”
“‘Call them’?” I repeated, looking at the clouds in question with some skepticism. “How am I supposed to do that?”
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