by Jen Kirchner
Okay, maybe it’s not as bad as it sounds. Maybe it’s not obvious that Brad cast a spell that previously did not exist.
Luucas’s head snapped in my direction. His eyes widened. His lips formed an angry O shape.
Nope.
You really need to stop letting Brad name the spells.
Uncle Rick’s brow creased in disapproval as he continued. “All of the sound in the immediate area seemed to gather where Brad was standing, and then let loose. The sound was amplified to a deafening level that cracked windows. The girl went flying away from Brad and into the street.”
Luucas’s face flushed an angry shade of immortal gray. “You made Brad an awesome spell, and you didn’t tell me? That spell is ten times better than that stupid Sneeze spell!”
Brad’s and my lives were in danger, and I was close to being outed as a dangerous necromancer, and he was focusing on the Sneeze spell?
“There’s nothing wrong with the Sneeze spell! It’s a solid, well-thought-out spell that doesn’t hurt people.” I turned to Mikelis for support. “Would you use the Sneeze spell?”
He glanced at Luucas, then back at me. His words were slow and careful. “I would use any spell or technique that stops my enemy.”
“See?” I demanded.
“He has to agree with you because he’s in love with you! His opinion doesn’t count.”
Mikelis is in love with me? I looked at Mikelis, then back at Luucas. Then back at Mikelis.
Okay, now is probably not the time for this. Stay on target, Kari.
I turned back to Luucas. “It’s a very effective spell!”
“Why would you make spells without consulting anyone?”
“Because I would have been told not to!”
“That’s not true—and we would have made sure those spells didn’t circle back to you.”
“Yeah,” I hissed, “but you would have shared the spells with the world. The whole point of those spells was to give Brad the advantage.”
“Why do they need to be a secret? Just having some new offensive spells is enough.”
“Are you kidding?” My hand sliced to Uncle Rick, like I was presenting him as a prize at a game show. “That’s why. Whenever someone figures out I’m a necromancer, my family is the first to get attacked. Brad’s now the most vulnerable. It’s better that people don’t know what he’s armed with so they can’t plan for it.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
I could tell by his waning tone that I was winning the argument. Also, Mikelis looked impressed, so I knew I was right.
I held up one finger. “Number one, my dad’s the most accomplished necromancer who’s ever lived, so no one’s going to mess with him.”
I extended my thumb. Number two. “My mom’s a two-thousand-year-old Seer who would know when an attack is coming—not to mention that my parents are almost always together—so no one’s going to mess with her, either.”
I flipped up my middle finger. Three. “Uncle Rick was human when he put up a hard fight against a conservator. Now that he’s immortal and going through conservator training, no one’s going to mess with him again.”
Last two fingers. “My godfather and my grandfather created your species. They have wacky powers running through their blood that even I have yet to identify. Only a psycho would dare attack them.”
I dropped my hand back down at my side. “That leaves Brad as the most vulnerable. The best I can do is arm him with the element of surprise—an attacker is more likely to be defeated if they don’t know what he’s capable of.”
I didn’t have a lot of experience in warfare, but I was positive about that last point.
Uncle Rick’s head cocked to the side. “As a concerned parent, I have to side with Kari on this one. But now, the problem is that the photo and the story have gone viral. People are linking Brad’s Let’s Rock spell with Eliana Rendon, and Brad’s wanted for questioning.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“I switched cars with him, and local PD pulled me over twice on my way here. I lied and told them I didn’t know where Brad was. They had a lot of questions, but given my exempt status as a conservator, they had to let me go.”
Inwardly, I cringed. I really should have thought the spells through a little better. But the truth was that I made the spell because I thought Brad was never going to need it. It was supposed to exist for a life or death emergency. Considering that the organized voodoo empire was finally destroyed, I really thought that spell would never have a use.
I’m an idiot.
“Where’s Brad now?” Luucas asked.
“I told him to make himself scarce for the next few days. I think Marcus has a place where he stashes witnesses who need to stay out of sight.”
I frowned. “Should I go into hiding, too?”
“Too obvious,” Mikelis said. “You need to act normal, but without anyone being able to get to you.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” I glared at Luucas. “Thanks to your little tutorial in self-defense, my access spell is destroyed.”
Luucas’s mouth fell open. His gaze drifted to the front door, as if he could see through it to the lack of protection spells around my house. He hissed out a Finnish curse and rubbed his forehead.
“We’ll figure it out,” Mikelis said. “Don’t worry. We just need to make sure you aren’t alone until we get another access spell up.”
Uncle Rick folded his arms across his chest. “Kari, this is going to make people even more determined to find you. It was one thing when people just thought you could make spells at will for yourself. Now they know you can make spells for other channels.”
Panic slid around me and squeezed like a vice. “I don’t want to die.” I gasped and pressed my hand over my mouth. The words had slipped out before I could stop them.
Mikelis shook his head. He sounded casual, like he was talking about the weather. “You probably don’t have to worry about that anymore. I bet you’re wanted alive by enterprising governments and rogue terrorist cells who could use your abilities for their ends. Most governments would probably love to have you as their not-so-secret weapon.”
We stared at him.
His lips pursed for a second. “I’m sorry. That was probably the wrong thing to say. You know I forget people have sensitive feelings. I’ve been working on fixing that.” He paused. “I’m getting better at it.”
“No, you aren’t,” Luucas said.
“In the meantime,” Uncle Rick said, “I have another problem. The feds will go to Brad’s house to question him and probably to run a search. Channel-scanning someone’s property is against New York State law, but I bet someone’s getting a warrant as we speak.”
My dad had placed a fourth-channel protection spell around Brad’s house. If a second-channeler visited and decided to scan the place, they were going to wonder what the world’s most accomplished necromancer had to do with Brad… and then they were going to connect the dots pretty quickly.
“I can remove my dad’s protection spell,” I said. “It wouldn’t take more than a few seconds.”
“No!” they chorused.
I was a little offended at how fast they responded. “Why not? My parents live four hours north of here. We don’t have that kind of time.”
Luucas glared at me. “Were you not listening when we said you need to stay out of sight and act like a normal, non-magic human? Your magic isn’t like Mikelis’s, but it’s not exactly subtle, either. We can’t have you standing in front of Brad’s house in the middle of the day, smoking like a freight train while black spell strings get hurled around.” He pointed at Mikelis. “Mikelis can remove it.”
All attention turned to Mikelis, who shrugged. “I may destroy something inside his house, but I can do it.”
Uncle Rick nodded. His phone returned to his back pocket. His keys jingled in his hand, and he turned to open the front door. He wasn’t wasting time.
“Stay with Kari,” Mikelis said to Luuca
s. He gave me a quick kiss, brushing his lips against mine. “I’ll pick you up later. Nine o’clock?”
I nodded.
Uncle Rick opened the front door. Luucas shielded his eyes with one hand and squinted from the light.
A small vibration tickled my brain. Smoke spiraled around Stubby’s blade.
What happened to the girl who attacked Brad?
I was so surprised by Stubby’s telepathic voice that I held up the knife to look at it. Stubby had been so quiet, studiously listening to the entire conversation, that I’d almost forgotten the knife was there. The silence was totally unlike Stubby. Usually Stubby couldn’t wait to talk.
I repeated the question out loud.
Uncle Rick glanced back over his shoulder. “She got away. They lost her in the commotion. Everyone was more interested in that new first-channel spell.”
Mikelis was early for our date, but I was ready. He’d parked a few blocks away and picked me up at the back door. Even though we cut through the woods behind my house, he still didn’t hold my hand in case someone saw us. But he did open the passenger door for me.
He climbed into the driver’s seat and shut the door. Shadow fell over us, somehow pronouncing the silence inside the car. The late summer sun had just finished its voyage beneath the horizon, and Mikelis had parked under an overhang of trees in the darkest spot. The air was hot. The technicolor of life existed outside of our bubble, just beyond our reach.
He slid the key into the ignition. Before he could turn over the engine, I reached out and touched his arm.
“I should have worked this out with you earlier, but…” I took a deep breath. There was no good way to say this. “I’m wondering where we’re going tonight. I can’t be seen with you. Romantically, I mean.”
His expression didn’t change. The best I could say is that it went from neutral to extra neutral. He was totally unreadable, especially behind those black sunglasses. Lips soft. Jaw hard. His expression saying nothing, and yet saying everything. My internal warning bells went off. I’d come to learn that this was his dangerously angry face. I was automatically flustered. My explanation tumbled out, and I couldn’t change its course. My stupid mouth had a mind of its own.
“That came out wrong. I mean that my contract with Cody Springer isn’t up yet, and if someone takes a photo of us together…” Nope, that still wasn’t better.
In fact, talking about someone else I was romantically linked to—albeit, via a business transaction—was infinitely worse.
Before I could course-correct, my mouth was running again. “Obviously, I don’t care what people think, but Cody has been taking this stupid dating contract seriously and I don’t want him using this against me. There’s a clause that allows either party to extend the date for various reasons, and the last thing I want is to be shackled to him for even one extra day. This isn’t about you.”
That last statement wasn’t exactly true, and we both knew it. This had everything to do with Mikelis.
Three months ago, Mikelis had been photographed rescuing me from Cody’s burning penthouse. Cody had been evacuated almost an hour earlier, clearly concerned with saving his own skin.
To say that Mikelis had made Cody look bad was an understatement. I wasn’t sure Cody would ever forgive or forget. I honestly didn’t care what Cody thought, but I didn’t want to stay in this stupid contract longer than I had to.
“Please say you understand.”
Mikelis sat back against the seat. I stopped talking. My heart thudded in my chest.
“I understand,” he said. “Your dating contract is up in three days. I can wait.”
A smile crept across my lips. “You know when the contract’s up?”
“I’ve been counting down the days. Given what happened with Brad today, you shouldn’t be seen in public anyway.” He started the car. “I thought we’d go to Irondequoit Bay. We could get coffee and take a walk.” He gave me a sideways glance. “We shouldn’t see anyone out there at this hour.”
We caught up while he navigated us onto the highway. Our conversation flowed easily, like we’d never been apart. Thirty minutes went by in a flash. I recounted highlights of our latest tour, and Mikelis caught me up on everything he’d been doing while I was gone. Mostly, he’d been dividing his time between repairing the damage I’d done to his properties on Fast Food Row and rebuilding my kitchen.
“It sounds like you’ve been at my house a lot,” I said.
He smiled and nodded. “Yeah. I don’t have a lot of experience with general contracting, and the people I hired are immortals that only have experience with old carpentry tools. Very old tools, in fact.”
I raised an eyebrow at him.
He laughed. “Yeah. They were doing carpentry before electricity was discovered, so we were kind of clueless about power tools.” His smile turned devilish. “No one’s lost a finger yet, so I figure we’re doing okay. We’re learning as we go, but it’s slow.”
I asked, “Were you at my house when my dad came down?”
Mikelis’s smile faded. His brow creased in a frown. “Diaco Rendon?”
“I don’t have another dad.”
My lame attempt at a joke fell flat. I was adopted. Illegally. He knew that. It’s part of the reason the Immortal State is so pissed at my family.
“Diaco and Isadora live four hours away,” Mikelis said. His words were slow, like he was trying to work out a puzzle.
“Yeah. And Luucas said he came down.”
“Why?”
The uneasy feeling returned—the one I’d had when I discovered those boxes in the panic room.
Luucas’s explanation hadn’t totally jived, but, to be fair, I was still in shock about my situation as one of the world’s most wanted. I didn’t have the wherewithal to pay close attention to what Luucas was doing and to deal with my situation, too.
“He was helping Luucas with the investigation. The one to keep Henri Boisseau under house arrest.”
Mikelis didn’t speak for the longest time. I watched his profile. His eyes squinted behind those dark sunglasses as a whirlwind of thought churned in his head. A few minutes went by. Pockmarked asphalt bumped beneath us. The sun sank a little lower behind the trees.
Finally, I said, “Mikelis, please tell me you know about the boxes Luucas has been hiding in my panic room.”
“What boxes?”
“The evidence for his investigation. He said you knew about it.”
He glanced over at me. His voice was low and controlled. “What’s the investigation?”
“Voodoo master Ruairí O’Bryne.”
Mikelis slammed on the brakes, throwing me hard against the seat belt. My alluring date-night hairdo exploded from the pins securing it, blanketing my face. So much for sex appeal.
He released my hand and jerked the car left, swerving across three lanes of traffic and throwing me toward the window. Whatever was left of my hairdo was gone. All that remained was an obnoxious, frizzy mane that I could barely see through. When I pulled it back, visibility was low. I realized the car was filled with necromancer smoke. It wasn’t from me.
“Sorry.” His fingertips brushed my cheek, then gripped the steering wheel again.
He hit the gas and steered the car toward the narrow dirt turnaround that connected the opposite sides of the freeway. A No U-Turn sign stood at the entrance. Mikelis pulled into it and made a U-Turn. He hit the gas again, flattening me against the seat. We were heading back to Rochester.
I cracked the window to let out some smoke.
“Luucas lied, didn’t he?” I said.
“After you left for your tour, we agreed as a group—Diaco, Marcus, Heraclitus, the Fathers, even Luucas—that we’d let Henri Boisseau go free.”
“Are you crazy? Henri knows about me. He knows how my magic works. His testimony could have me locked in some government laboratory where I’m tortured and turned into a lab rat. Or killed, which would probably be the best alternative.” I placed a hand over my thr
oat. “I can’t believe I just said that.”
He took my hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “We thought it would draw more attention if Henri was detained. Your grandfather, Ashur, placed a spell on Henri that’s so difficult to execute that few people even know it exists. When Henri tries talking about you, he can only say one word instead. It’s supposed to discredit Henri’s testimony. That was the plan. We all agreed to it. So Henri was released from jail, though he promptly disappeared.”
Luucas diverged from the plan. And for whatever reason, my dad was helping him. None of it made sense.
“So,” I said, “what’s the word Henri says?”
“Hippopotamus.”
Subtle. Everything my family isn’t.
“Why do you think Luucas is doing this?” I asked.
He took his other hand off of the steering wheel to rub his forehead. He used his knee to steer so he wouldn’t have to release my hand. “Ruairí O’Bryne murdered Luucas’s youngest son. It’s been five centuries since. When you killed Ruairí…”
His voice trailed off for a second. He shook his head as if dismissing a thought. “I admit, I was a little angry with you at first. I’m pretty sure Luucas was, too.”
I reared back. “With me? Why?”
“Luucas and I spent two centuries hunting Ruairí for the deaths of our families. And when you finally killed him, you robbed us of something that we’d based almost our entire lives on. It probably sounds stupid but it felt very real.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. The truth was that I didn’t feel good about what had happened with Ruairí. I’d had nightmares about it, though I hadn’t told anyone.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “What did I steal?”
His voice was soft, but the word reverberated in my head. “Revenge.”
Chapter Eight
Without the access spell, my house looked naked. In the dark, it looked vulnerable and exposed.
We approached from the back. The porch light was off. Death Radar was blank. Luucas must have gone back to work.
Mikelis didn’t wait for me to grab my keys; he’d already had his ready. I guessed Luucas or Marcus had given him a key for the kitchen renovation.