Secrets and Lies (Cassie Scot)

by Amsden, Christine

  “Kaitlin?”

  “Sh! Loud. Too loud.” She moaned.

  I had never seen a migraine that bad, and, as far as I knew, Kaitlin had never had one. But pregnancy could cause all kinds of symptoms so I didn’t question her. I did, however, go into the kitchen and set a kettle of water to boil. In the meantime, I went through our stock of vitamins until I found the magnesium, which I took to Kaitlin with a glass of water.

  “Drink this,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.

  Shutting her eyes tightly, Kaitlin lowered the pillow and sat up. “Doctor gave me Tylenol. Didn’t work. Worse. Much worse.”

  “Try this.” I put the glass into her right hand and the pills into her left.

  Obediently, she took the magnesium, then she handed me back the glass and buried her head under the pillow.

  I didn’t have much luck getting Kaitlin to drink the tea, but I didn’t think it would help all that much anyway, not for a migraine. It was more of a comfort thing.

  Half an hour later she was showing no signs of improvement and I had not even started getting ready for my date. Sighing, I took out my cell phone and, disappearing into her room to keep the noise down, I called Evan. “I’m not sure I can come. Kaitlin’s got an awful migraine and I don’t want to leave her alone.”

  “Did you give her anything?” Evan asked.

  “Magnesium. It’s all I have.”

  “Do you think she’d let me try a spell?” Evan asked.

  I hesitated. “I don’t know... I told her all about magical debt.”

  “Trust me, there would be no debt. She’d be doing me a favor if I can take you out tonight.”

  “She’s pregnant. She won’t let you do a spell if it would hurt the baby.”

  “Pregnant?” He hesitated. “Well, Linda Eagle would be a better choice, but I’m almost there and have a couple ideas.”

  “All right, I’ll see you–” I broke off. Someone was knocking on the door and Kaitlin started screaming.

  Tossing the phone down, I raced out to the living room and opened the door to see a rather surprised Nicolas standing on the other side, holding a metal thermos.

  “What’s going on?” Nicolas asked, loudly.

  Kaitlin made a sort of choking sound.

  “Sh!” I gestured at Kaitlin. “She’s sick.” I mouthed the words, but somehow Kaitlin still seemed to hear.

  Nicolas lowered his voice. “I just came by to drop this off. It’s the potion we were talking about the other day.”

  It took me a minute to remember what potion he was talking about – and then it hit me: anti-love. I had completely forgotten. I also no longer intended to use it, but this wasn’t the time to tell Nicolas. It might never be the right time. I took the thermos from him, trying hard not to make any noise while I set it on the table, but in the dark I didn’t see my purse on the floor. When I stumbled, Kaitlin screamed again.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Nicolas asked.

  “She’s pregnant.”

  “Jason’s?”

  I was about to tell him I didn’t know when the building began to shake and I nearly fell. Nicolas caught me and after a second, the tremor passed.

  “What just happened?” I stared at Kaitlin, who had gone ominously silent beneath her pillow. Her left arm was dangling limply to the side and I took it, feeling for a pulse.

  Before I managed to find it, Kaitlin pushed me away so hard that I flew halfway across the room. I landed, heavily, on top of my brother.

  Nicolas yelled as he caught the full force of my weight and we both fell to the floor in a graceless heap. Kaitlin screamed and once again, the building shook.

  This time it was nearly a full minute before the building stopped shaking. Nicolas and I were pinned to the floor the entire time, scrambling away from falling pictures and knick-knacks.

  Then, suddenly, everything went still. Neither of us moved for a long time, afraid that if we made a false move or sound, Kaitlin would explode again.

  Slowly, Nicolas crawled to Kaitlin’s side and pulled back the bean bag covering Kaitlin’s face. Her eyes were shut tightly, her face a mask of pain. Nicolas touched her and muttered something – a spell. Immediately, Kaitlin’s eyes flew open and her mouth made a large ‘O’ of surprise or pain.

  “You’re hurting her!”

  I whirled to see Evan standing in the doorway, panting as if he’d been running. Kaitlin’s body arched off the floor, but Nicolas didn’t back away until Evan used his will to throw Nicolas away. When Evan knelt by Kaitlin’s side and took her hands in his, the pain instantly left her face.

  Nicolas got to his feet and made a move toward Evan, but I stopped him with a look. The last thing Kaitlin needed was for these two men to get into a fight right now.

  When Evan let go of Kaitlin and backed away, Nicolas was still glaring at him. “I was handling it.”

  “You were trying to bind her magic, weren’t you?” Evan stood and took a few steps toward my brother.

  Nicolas stood his ground. “I can do a simple binding spell. She obviously can’t handle the magic yet.”

  “A simple binding?” Evan took another step forward. This time, Nicolas stepped back. “She doesn’t have any magic to bind! You have to bind the baby’s magic. If you want to do advanced magic, then get an apprenticeship and learn how. Otherwise, you’re going to get someone hurt.”

  “Stop!” I placed my body between the two of them. “Now is not the time. Please!” I glanced meaningfully at Kaitlin, who was blinking rapidly, as if fighting back tears.

  “I’m out of here.” Nicolas stalked toward the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Cassie.” With that, he left the apartment, closing the door behind him.

  “What’s happening to me?” Kaitlin’s voice was faint, but at least it lacked the earlier pain.

  Taking a deep breath, I sat beside her and put an arm around her. It seemed obvious to me now that Jason was the father of her baby, but I didn’t know what to tell her about what had just happened to her. I knew my mother channeled the gifts of her unborn babies, but I’d never seen anything like this happen to her.

  “Cassie?” Kaitlin asked. “What’s going on? You know, don’t you?”

  I looked helplessly at Evan. “Sort of. I mean, it seems obvious that Jason is the father of your baby.”

  Evan cleared his throat. “Kaitlin, you’re channeling the baby’s magic. I bound its powers for now, but that’s not ideal.”

  “Why not?” Kaitlin asked.

  “Because if you don’t learn how to manage the magic now, the baby is going to go through what you’re going through after it’s born.”

  A tear slid down her cheek. “But how am I supposed to learn magic?”

  “Call Jason,” I said. “Call him right now. He needs to know.”

  Her face went pale. “I-don’t know.”

  “I do. Where’s your phone?”

  She pointed to her purse, set atop the kitchen table, and I brought it to her.

  “Evan and I will give you a few minutes to make the call.”

  Kaitlin nodded, but I’m not sure if she heard me. Pulling Evan by the arm, I guided him into Kaitlin’s bedroom and softly shut the door.

  I turned to look at him. He looked calmer now, with the target of his ire gone, but an unnatural breeze played with the ends of his hair.

  The night before I had managed to separate Evan, the man, from Evan, the sorcerer, and realized that it would be possible for me to fall in love with the man. Tonight, however, I saw that the two could never truly be separated.

  Evan frowned, slightly. “She’ll be okay. Or don’t you think Jason will take care of her?”

  I opened my mouth, then shut it again. I wasn’t sure if Jason would take care of her or not, but I knew my family would. That wasn’t the issue. Forget diapers and formula, the cost of having a magical baby was much higher than mere numbers could describe.

  “Cassie?” Evan said, stepping forward.

  I step
ped back. “I think I’d better stay here with Kaitlin tonight.”

  He nodded. “I expected that. It’s okay. We’ll do this tomorrow instead. You can come out to my place – I’ll make dinner.”

  “Okay.”

  “Something’s not okay.”

  “I just... I don’t think I ever want to go through what Kaitlin’s going through right now.”

  Evan flinched. “I was hoping that wasn’t it.” He took a deep breath. “Look, Kaitlin’s strong. She’ll get through it, especially if you’re there to help her.”

  He took another step forward and I tried to take another step back, but found myself pinned against the wall. “Besides,” Evan said, “I thought you always wanted a taste of magic.”

  Yes, but not like that. Not when it would tease me for nine months and then go away just when I needed it the most, because suddenly I would have a magical child and no magic of my own with which to control it.

  Evan planted a kiss on my cheek, daringly close to the corner of my mouth. “You’re stronger than Kaitlin. And you’ll have me.”

  I swallowed, hard, wanting to tell him how presumptuous he was. Then I remembered Grace Blair’s prophecy and for a terrifying second, I wondered if I would have him at all.

  “You could start teaching her grounding and centering tonight.”

  It surprised me, his suggestion that I teach Kaitlin the most basic element of magic, but why not? I knew it, and practiced it. Even without the magical energy, it had a peaceful, calming effect. Mind over body.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow night?” Evan said. “Dinner at my place?”

  “All right.”

  I didn’t walk him to the door, or even watch him leave, too caught up in my own doubts and reflections.

  22

  KAITLIN DIDN’T GET A HOLD OF Jason right away, which didn’t surprise me in the least. Jason wasn’t always an easy man to find. Even his mother, my mom’s twin sister, fell out of touch with him for months at a time. At least, thanks to Evan, Kaitlin wasn’t in danger any longer, and she also didn’t seem to be having morning sickness anymore. The next morning when she woke up, she decided to go in to work the breakfast shift to try to make up for the previous day’s lost wages.

  She wasn’t the only one setting out to make some money on that dreary, overcast Wednesday morning. At seven o’clock in the morning I was back at the sheriff’s department, once again wearing the drab, unflattering brown uniform of a deputy. I felt like I was dressed in mud, but for all that, the uniform had never been the problem with working for Sheriff Adams.

  He set me to work just as he said he would, riding around town in a squad car equipped with digital cameras. All squad cars have a camera on the front to provide a record of routine traffic stops and other incidents, but this one also had cameras aimed off to the sides, out the back windows, where they had a fairly clear view of the sidewalks and shops.

  After a dull morning of patrolling, I stopped by the hospital to see how my family was doing. I got a few odd looks when I came in wearing my uniform, but no one looked terribly surprised.

  “Are Isaac and D-,” I paused and corrected myself, “Edward visiting?”

  Nicolas shook his head. “Isaac ran away again. Dad’s looking for him. Mr. Wolf is in with Mom.”

  “I’ll keep an eye out for Isaac this afternoon.” I looked at Nicolas for a while. Something about his presence was wrong, but it took me a while to figure it out. “Didn’t the chief say you were out if you didn’t show up today?”

  Nicolas didn’t look at me. “I’m done. I, um, talked to Clark Eagle this morning and he says he’ll take me on as an apprentice. He and Dad just need to work out the financial arrangements.”

  He didn’t say it and I didn’t ask, but I had a feeling that Evan had tipped the scale for him the night before. Edward had been on his case for months about getting an apprenticeship and at least putting off the whole firefighter thing until he had completed his magical studies, but it had to have hurt Nicolas’ confidence to have hurt Kaitlin.

  I didn’t stay long. The atmosphere was still subdued, probably more so than usual because of Isaac’s absence. Besides, I didn’t want to take too long a lunch break on my first day back at work, so after only half an hour I went back to the car and hit the streets, looking at the video screens on the dashboard as often as I looked at the road in front of me.

  It took me a minute to recognize the discrepancy. Up ahead was Lewis Brothers Jewelers, a nondescript red brick building set amidst a whole row of similar red brick buildings. With my eyes, I saw a young couple enter the store, the door getting stuck behind them for a moment before it closed.

  Through the video camera, I saw a black-clad figure catch the door and sneak in behind them.

  I pulled my car to a stop in front of the jewelry store and called for backup. Then, grabbing one of the hand-held video cameras, I positioned myself just outside the door to Lewis Brothers and let the camera catch the thief in the act.

  Neither the man working behind the counter nor the young couple seemed aware of the black-clad figure, but the camera saw him perfectly. He wore a ski mask that covered his face, except the eyes and mouth. From a distance it was hard to guess his height, but he seemed quite a bit shorter than the man working the counter. He bent down, slid open one of the supposedly locked cases, withdrew a large diamond and emerald necklace, tucked it into his shirt, and started for the door.

  I didn’t need the camera to see him anymore. Illusion is a sort of mind magic, which is why it doesn’t work on video cameras. The sorcerer can fool the mind into thinking it is seeing something that’s not there or, the more simplistic version, into thinking it’s not seeing something that is there (invisibility). Once the mind figures out the trick, however; it can often see through the illusion, especially in the case of a weaker spell caster. Good, strong, motivation on the part of the person trying to see through the illusion helps, too.

  The thief paused at the door, probably waiting for the couple to leave so that he could once again go through the door without being detected, but just then the sound of sirens screamed through the air. My backup had arrived, and the figure on the other side of the door no longer seemed inclined to wait. He pushed open the door and fled down the street, away from me.

  I tore off after him. I had the advantage of knowing that I could see him. He either didn’t see me or didn’t think I could see him, because he largely seemed to be running from the sirens.

  He was just about to round a corner into an alley when I caught up to him. “Stop, police!” I ordered.

  He shot a startled glance behind him but did not stop. He did, however, trip over something in the alley and stumble, falling to his knees. I took advantage of this stroke of luck and pinned him to the ground, twisting his arms behind his back.

  “You’re under arrest,” I began. “You have the right to remain silent–”

  “Stop! Please!” There was desperation in the voice, but that wasn’t what made me stop. I stopped because I knew the voice. I knew it very, very well.

  “Isaac?”

  “Just let me go and I swear I won’t do it again. Please!”

  “Why would you–?” I stopped, trying to gather my thoughts. What in the world would possess Isaac to steal? Our parents were alchemists. They literally turned lead into gold for a living and there had never been any shortage of money.

  The sirens, which had been drawing steadily closer, came to a stop at the mouth of the alleyway and two of my fellow deputies stepped out.

  “Cassie,” Isaac said, “are you going to let them take me to jail?”

  I didn’t see how I had much of a choice. “Why, Isaac? Why?”

  “I wanted to buy a gift because I don’t have one.” He lifted his hand toward me to show me a gold locket, probably the one from McClellan’s – apparently he hadn’t stolen that, only the money to buy it. Thank God for small blessings, since I didn’t want our family to have to handle their wrath.

>   I took the locket from him, closing my fingers around it, still confused.

  “It’s not a very good gift,” Isaac said. “It just protects against minor curses. I could probably do the same thing with my talent, so I wanted to buy a better one in case... in case Mom and Dad decided they don’t want me either.”

  “Oh, Isaac.” I had no idea what to say. I knew he’d always had a bit of an inferiority complex for not having an active gift the way the others did, but he wasn’t like me. He did have the ability to control magical energies.

  The deputies came upon us then and I backed away, allowing them to finish making the arrest even though Isaac kept looking at me with pleading in his eyes.

  Damn you, Mom and Dad, I thought. This is all your fault.

  23

  I DIDN’T RETURN TO THE STATION with Isaac, despite the pleading look she cast me as the deputies slapped handcuffs on him and shoved him into the back of a squad car. He looked so small and fragile, only twelve years old, and in way over his head. If it occurred to him to use some kind of curse to try to free himself, he wisely set the idea aside. At this point, he could only make the situation worse for himself, not better.

  When the shock wore off, I called my brother, Nicolas, who didn’t answer his phone. Without him as a buffer, I would have to confront my former father directly, so I drove the four blocks back to Eagle Rock Memorial Hospital.

  It seemed like it took forever to find a parking spot, and an extra eternity for the elevator to arrive at the first floor lobby. Finally, I found a sign pointing to the stairs and took them two at a time in a mad dash for the waiting room where I’d last seen my family.

  They were still there – all but Nicolas, who was in with his mom, and of course, Isaac. Even Edward was there, grilling Juliana about Isaac’s friends in case there were any he didn’t know to call.

  He stopped as soon as he saw me. “What’s wrong?”

  “Isaac’s in jail.”

  Edward stared at me, blankly.

  “He robbed a bank and a jewelry store that we know about,” I said, slowly, trying to make them understand when the entire situation was utterly perplexing to me.