The Witches of Canyon Road, Books 1-3

by Christine Pope

  “It’s all right,” Miranda said gently. “I’ll just go down the hall where it’s a little quieter and cast the spell there.”

  “Thank you,” Louisa said, gratitude clear in her voice and her expression. Although her eyes were bright with unshed tears, she appeared to be holding herself together, at least until the clan’s healer could arrive and deliver her verdict.

  Reluctantly, Rafe let go of Miranda’s hand and watched as she left the living room and went a little ways down the long hallway that ran the length of the house. Since the layout curved somewhat to match the contours of the landscape — and to offer the best possible views on the east side of the house, which faced toward the Sangre de Cristo mountains — he couldn’t see exactly where she stopped. And because their kind of magic was quiet, everything to do with internal focus for external effects, it wasn’t as though he could hear her reciting the words of the spell.

  “What next?” Rafe asked his sister.

  “When Miranda is done here, go to the houses where Malena cast her spells and make sure that they’re truly protected. As soon as I hear something from Yesenia, I’ll call you.” Louisa hesitated, fingers toying with the silver cross she wore around her neck. “I’m not sure there’s much more any of us can do right now.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Cat said. “Maybe I can help a little.”

  “Thank you, Cat,” Eduardo said. “I’m sure Miranda and Rafe would appreciate that.”

  Rafe didn’t bother to argue, although he didn’t know for sure what Cat could do. Casting spells of protection wasn’t where her powers lay. But she wasn’t needed here, either, for of course Louisa and Oscar and John would be with Malena until the healer arrived.

  Miranda came back to the living room. “The protection spell is in place. I hope — I hope it will work.”

  “I’m sure it will,” Rafe said. He extended a hand, and she came over and took it. Her fingers felt cold, and he wished he could take her back to his house and make love to her again. Maybe that would do something to fix this dead, hollow feeling at the center of his body, as though he wasn’t quite himself, was watching all these tragedies strike his family without allowing any of them to really affect him. “And Cat and I will show you where we need to go to strengthen the protection spells Malena cast yesterday.”

  “All right.” She glanced from him to Louisa. “I’m — I’m so sorry.”

  “I know,” Louisa said. “But we mustn’t give up hope. Malena is still alive, and Yesenia is a very powerful healer. She may very well be able to bring Malena back to us.”

  Rafe could only nod. After what Simon had done to their mother, he wasn’t nearly as sanguine as his sister. More likely, this was a spell that had gone awry, one that had been intended to kill just like the one that had struck down Genoveva. Now that the house had a real spell of protection on it, maybe Malena had a chance, but he couldn’t be sure of that.

  None of them could. Not really. Never before in his life had Rafe felt so helpless — not even after Miranda had disappeared — and he knew he would do whatever it took to make sure he never felt this way again.

  They all went out, John bringing up the rear so he could lock the door. Rafe and Miranda waited until Rosa and José and Eduardo all climbed into Eduardo’s S-Class, and then they got in the Jeep, with Cat squeezing herself in back.

  Dead silence as they followed the Mercedes out to the main road. It wasn’t until Rafe turned the Jeep north on Fin Del Sendero, while the two other cars kept going straight to the highway and on into town, that anyone spoke.

  “God,” Cat said. One simple syllable, but her voice trembled with emotion.

  “I know.” Rafe glanced at the rearview mirror, catching a glimpse of his sister’s pale face. “You okay, Cat?”

  “I’m not sure. I know Louisa’s right, that we shouldn’t give up hope, but…I guess I’m just sort of shell-shocked right now.”

  That was a good phrase for it. Just…numb. Too many shocks, too much pain. If he let it in, he wouldn’t be able to function.

  “I’m so sorry,” Miranda said again. She was huddled into her seat, looking very small and forlorn. Gone was the strong, vivid woman who’d made such fierce love to him the evening before.

  He couldn’t really blame her. But obviously she was still blaming herself, and that needed to stop.

  “It’s not your fault,” he told her.

  “It isn’t,” Cat chimed in from the back seat. “You’ve done everything you could. Malena swore she could handle the protection spells. Obviously, she couldn’t.”

  Maybe they should have challenged her more on that particular assertion. But they’d all been stressed and worried, and Malena had seemed confident enough about her abilities to take care of her own household and the other Castillo families in the area that there hadn’t been much point in arguing with her. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, especially since the last thing Rafe had wanted to do was make Miranda go to every single witch-occupied house in Santa Fe and cast her spell. That would have taken hours and hours, and she would have been completely exhausted by the time she was done, especially considering she’d started the day being attacked by Simon Escobar.

  Frowning, Rafe did his best to push that ugly image out of his mind. At least he hadn’t gotten any more panicked phone calls from clan members. He didn’t think he could take much more of that. Bad enough that they’d have to get out the news of Malena’s collapse, her inexplicable coma. Well, all right, it wasn’t that inexplicable. He had a pretty good idea of where it had come from.

  As he looked back to change lanes so he could turn onto Tano Road, he caught another glimpse of Cat. She was staring off into the distance, lips pressed firmly together as though that was the only way she could keep herself from crying.

  If anything should happen to her….

  Was it wrong to admit to himself that he loved Cat more than either of his other sisters? It had always been that way, ever since she was born. Oh, sure, at the time he’d scowled and declared he was sick of sisters and wished he’d had a little brother instead, but the truth was, they’d bonded almost immediately, were always close, co-conspirators against their mother and sometimes even their sisters, if Malena and Louisa were being particularly stuffy about something.

  And now they all seemed so fragile, their lives something that Simon Escobar could apparently reach out and snuff the way an ordinary person might blow out a candle. No care, no thought except how such an act might affect the Castillo clan.

  Why Malena, though? Trying to get into Escobar’s thought processes was unpleasant at best, but you’d think if he was really trying to destroy the Castillos, he would have gone after Louisa rather than Malena.

  Maybe he had. Maybe the combination of Malena’s protection spell and the prima gifts that had just come to Louisa from their mother had been enough to repel that dark magic, prevent it from finding its true target. If that was the case, then he could see why the spell might have sought out Malena next. She was a strong witch, possibly stronger than Cat, although it was hard to say since their talents were so very different.

  But she hadn’t been strong enough to completely fight off Escobar’s death spell.

  “Should we go to Nina’s house first?” Cat asked from the back seat.

  That had been his plan, although there were several Castillo households out this way. Still, Nina’s was probably closest, although “close” was a relative term in an area where almost all the lots were between three and five acres in size, and the roads wound everywhere and meandered in picturesque but not very speedy ways.

  Miranda stirred in her seat, looking out her window at the dry brush and junipers passing by. “Another cousin?”

  Cat replied, “Yes — she’s an artist. She lives by herself.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Rafe saw Miranda’s brows lift. It wasn’t very common among witch-folk to be unattached, especially for someone like Nina, who was in her late forties.

/>   “Nina always did things her way,” he said. “She has a daughter around my age — she’s married and lives down in Rio Rancho. But Nina didn’t want to get married, even though I heard my grandmother threw a fit about her having a child out of wedlock. That’s ancient history, though.”

  He supposed that was a true enough statement, although part of the reason Lisa, Nina’s daughter, had settled in Rio Rancho was to put a safe distance between her and Genoveva, who’d decided that disapproval of Nina’s life choices needed to be an intergenerational thing.

  “No one knows who Lisa’s father is,” Cat put in. Now she didn’t look quite as strained and pale, as though she, just like Rafe himself, was desperately searching for a distraction that would allow her to focus on something other than the tragedy that had once again struck her family. True, Malena was only in a coma, and hopefully she should come out of it at some point, since otherwise she was a healthy and energetic woman, but…. “Everyone thinks he was a civilian, since if it had been a Castillo, he probably would have said something.”

  “That sounds like my Aunt Margot’s situation,” Miranda said. “Her father was some Italian painter that her mother had a fling with when he came to the Verde Valley to paint one summer. Margot’s mother didn’t want to get married, either, so I guess it was a good way to have the child she wanted without having to get attached.”

  “I’m glad it’s not too much of a trend,” Rafe remarked. “Because that would leave a bunch of warlocks with no one to marry.”

  Miranda reached over and laid a hand on his leg. Gently, in a reassuring sort of way, but even that light touch was enough to get his blood racing again. God, he had never expected she would have this kind of an effect on him. “I doubt that’s going to be a problem,” she told him, “considering how irresistible the Castillo men are.”

  He couldn’t help but chuckle a little. “Not according to Cat.”

  His sister made a sound of disgust. “Thanks for the support, Rafe. Like it wasn’t bad enough to have Mom — ” She broke off there, clearly realizing she shouldn’t be speaking ill of their mother when they’d only lost her the day before.

  While Rafe understood why she’d stopped, he didn’t think Cat should be too hard on herself. It was all right to grieve and yet still recognize the shortcomings of the person they mourned. Genoveva had given Cat way too much grief about being single, and everyone knew it.

  Miranda said, “He’s out there, though. I think you’ll stumble across him when you least expect it.”

  Since they were only going twenty-five miles an hour, Rafe thought it was safe to steal a quick glance at his fiancée. She had a faraway look in her big green eyes, as though focused on something that none of them could see. A weird little chill ran down his back. “What, are you a seer now, too?”

  The question seemed to make her snap back to herself. “I — I don’t think so,” she said with a nervous laugh. “I’m not really sure where that came from.”

  “Well, I hope you’re right,” Cat said. She’d been leaning forward slightly, but now she settled against the seat back, fingers playing with the safety belt that stretched across her chest. “Maybe this means some gorgeous, rich Wilcox warlock will appear and sweep me off my feet.”

  “I have to say, there are several who match that description. I guess it’s just a matter of coaxing them over here.”

  “Which isn’t going to happen, unless we can figure out what to do with that barrier Simon’s put in place,” Rafe remarked, glad he could comment on something other than the apparently overwhelming attractiveness of Wilcox men.

  At once the faint smile Miranda had been wearing disappeared. “Right. I’d almost forgotten about that.”

  “I hadn’t. But Louisa got the word out over the family grapevine, so I don’t think we’re going to have any more car accidents at least. Good thing we witches and warlocks don’t tend to travel much.”

  Cat grumped, “No, we never go anywhere.”

  He refrained from mentioning that the two of them had just flown to San Antonio a few days earlier. It wasn’t as though that had been a pleasure trip, however. Besides, he hadn’t yet told Miranda about his and Cat’s abortive trip, and didn’t want to add to her guilt over this whole situation, a guilt she couldn’t quite seem to shake.

  They pulled up into Nina’s driveway. Her house wasn’t large, but it sat on a hill that commanded a striking view of all of Santa Fe, with the Sangre de Cristos looming off to the left.

  A chill breeze had begun to blow, and although the day had started off clear enough, a cloud passed over the sun. Rafe felt another one of those strange little shivers move its way down his spine, although he told himself there was nothing here to be frightened of. What Simon had been doing was horrible, but it was also obvious that he was intent on striking at the heart of the Castillo clan, rather than random distant cousins. There was no reason to think anything was wrong here.

  It seemed as if both Cat and Miranda had felt it, too, however, because Cat frowned as she got out of the car, and Miranda hugged her arms around herself, as though she was suddenly far colder than the brisk breeze would warrant. By instinct, the three of them clustered together as they went up the front walk, which Rafe knew was surrounded by flowers in the warmer months, although the beds on either side were now not much more than carefully raked dirt, waiting for the return of the summer sun.

  Wind chimes sang mournfully from the overhang that shielded the front door. Rafe stepped forward and pressed the button for the doorbell, heard it sound within the house. However, no one came to answer that bell.

  “Maybe she has music on or something and can’t hear the doorbell?” Miranda asked.

  “No, she works in dead silence,” Rafe replied, with Cat adding,

  “She always says that music distracts her. Anyway, we all heard the doorbell, so we should have been able to hear music if it was playing.” Biting her lip, she leaned forward and knocked on the door, then called out, “Nina? Are you home? It’s Rafe and Cat.”

  Only silence. Now it was almost impossible to ignore the creepy crawlies moving up and down his spine. Rafe knocked again, then decided the hell with etiquette. He put his hand on the latch, which pressed down easily. “It’s not locked.”

  “Should we go in?” Miranda didn’t seem too thrilled by her own suggestion — not that Rafe could blame her.

  “I think we’d better,” Cat replied. “Rafe, you go first.”

  “Thanks,” he said, but went ahead and opened the front door.

  He’d only been here a few times, but as far as he could tell, everything seemed to be in order in the small entryway. One of Nina’s paintings — an impressionistic blur of warm-hued autumn aspens — hung on the wall that faced the front door, and on the low table beneath it sat the same slate fountain, water quietly playing into the silence.

  “Nina?” he called out.

  Still nothing.

  The house had three bedrooms — the master, one that had been Lisa’s before she moved out, and one that Nina had converted into her studio. Rafe headed that way, mostly because he hadn’t heard any signs of life in the main part of the house. Miranda and Cat followed, neither of them speaking.

  As they approached the open door to Nina’s studio, he at last heard something, a quick, whispery sort of sound. He glanced back at Miranda, and she gave a small lift of her shoulders, even as her worried gaze met his. Clearly, she’d heard the same thing.

  He peered around the corner of the doorway and froze. Nina stood there, brush moving rapidly across the canvas. However, instead of one of her usual landscapes, it was a rectangle of solid black, the paint growing thicker and thicker as she kept adding more and more from the palette perched on a small stand next to her.

  “Nina?” he asked, having to work to get even those two small syllables out.

  She didn’t move, gave no sign that she knew anyone was there at all. Her brush kept swiping across the canvas.

  Then she spo
ke, her voice only a cracked murmur. “They’re coming. They’re coming. They’re coming.”

  And behind him, Cat let out a gasp and fainted dead away.

  8

  Army of Darkness

  Miranda

  I didn’t stop to think, only dropped to my knees, immediately reaching for Cat’s wrist. Thank the Goddess — there was her pulse, too fast, but strong enough.

  Rafe’s stricken gaze met mine. “Is she…?”

  “She’s okay,” I said. “She just passed out. We need to get her to a couch or something.”

  Nodding, he bent and picked her up, then left the muttering Nina behind and headed back the way we’d come, back to the living room. Once there, he set Cat down on the sofa. Her head lolled on the pillow, dark hair streaming over it almost to the floor.

  Rafe straightened, staring down at his sister. His expression was a tortured combination of anger, fear, and confusion. “What the fuck is going on?”

  I didn’t have a clue. “A different kind of spell?” I suggested. “One that affected your cousin and your sister in different ways?”

  “Maybe.” He ran a hand through his hair, eyes never leaving Cat’s pale face. “You’re sure she’s okay?”

  “Well, I’m not a healer or anything, but she’s breathing and her heartbeat sounds fine. Luckily, she just sort of slumped down instead of going over backward, or she could have cracked her head open on that tile floor.”

  “Shit, you’re right.” Rafe hesitated, then glanced down the hallway toward Nina’s studio. “‘They’re coming.’ Who’s coming?”

  Again, all I could do was lift my shoulders in mystification. “I don’t know. Is Nina a seer?”