Mind Games

by Christine Amsden

  17

  I DON’T NORMALLY RUN QUICKLY. I TEND to start out with a measured pace that I can maintain for several miles, but that night I ran full tilt, without a care to my health or even my direction. Maybe I thought if I ran far enough, I could outrun the ghost of unwanted knowledge. Maybe the world would suddenly right itself and I could go back to being Cassie Scot, normal detective, the ungifted daughter of two of the most powerful sorcerers in town.

  By the time I reached the thick woods outside of town, I knew that I could never be that person again. I didn’t know who I was; certainly not Cassandra Morgan Ursula Margaret Scot, the long anticipated heir to a magical legacy going back generations, but not just Cassie, either. I couldn’t pretend anymore that there was now, nor had there ever been, anything normal about me.

  Drained. Sucked dry. Through all those years and all my attempts to muster up enough magic to spit out a candle, I’d never had a chance. Worst of all, my parents had known and never told me. Maybe they really couldn’t have told me, but that part wasn’t my problem. For years they’d watched me hope, dream, pretend, and ultimately accept who I was, only to find out that even my acceptance had been a lie.

  Overhead, clouds began to form in the sky, darkening the early September twilight. Rain started to fall, first in a light drizzle that under any other circumstance might have soothed my body’s rising heat but which, under the current circumstances, felt more like water torture. After another thirty minutes or so, the rain began to fall harder. The downpour grew closer and closer to matching my mood until at last, from somewhere southwest of town, lightning flashed.

  Then it really began to rain. It fell in sheets, wave upon wave drenching me to the bone and still not managing to wash anything away or make anything feel better.

  I couldn’t see and had no idea where I was, other than somewhere south of town, en route to the lake. Somewhere nearby, I thought, a road forked east to the strip of resorts and hotels, or west to the private homes of some of the wealthy – and in almost all cases magical – members of the community. Unless I’d already passed the fork, in which case I had no idea where I was or where I was going. I considered turning around, but I could no longer see and despite the warmth of the day, was beginning to feel chilled.

  Reality finally set in then. What was I doing? I’d suffered a blow, yes, but I’d suffered blows before. Earlier in the summer my parents had attempted (unsuccessfully) to magically disown me. When they’d told me so…

  When they told me so, I’d tried to go to Braden for support and had ended up in Evan’s arms.

  Now where did I go? Kaitlin and Madison were probably the best support I had, considering that my parents had kept this from me for God only knew how long, but I’d never been able to talk to them about magic. Growing up, that’s what Evan had been for.

  I could talk to Matthew. I stopped, trying to determine my location, aware that I’d gone out without so much as a cell phone, leaving me truly alone in the woods.

  A car drove by, headlights reflecting off the rain. It passed me by, kicking up enough water to drench me if I hadn’t already been soaked, but it didn’t stop.

  The headlights did reveal a flicker of something – or maybe it only existed in my imagination. Then a flash of lightning illuminated the area anew and I saw it again, a few yards into the woods – it might have been a cabin or merely a shed, but either way it had a roof on it and would keep me out of the rain until the deluge passed.

  With renewed vigor, I ran toward the structure, which turned out to be a small abandoned cabin with a leaky roof. At least the leak was contained to one corner of the one-room dwelling. The rest of the room, including the fireplace, remained dry, albeit filthy and neglected. Not seeing a stick of furniture, I found the driest spot on the floor and sat, leaning against the stones of the old fireplace.

  My mind began to wander, going over everything that had happened to me since June, when I’d somehow managed to get myself in Evan’s debt. Only I never had been. And he’d known it for weeks.

  Which hurt more, I wondered, discovering that I’d been drained of my birthright or discovering that Evan had been the one to do it? I didn’t know how to separate the two.

  But he hadn’t known. He hadn’t known until my father had told him, and then he had been too much of a coward to tell me.

  My teeth chattered and I wondered if it would help to remove my clothing. Probably not, since I didn’t have a way to dry myself and would then have to sit, naked, on the dirty floor. The cabin was fairly dark, but the occasional flash of lightning would offer clues to its layout and features. There were wooden beams everywhere, a hard wooden floor, and the stone fireplace. A single door led out, in the direction of the woods, and a single window looked out in the same direction.

  The lightning flashed again and for a second, I thought I saw a name carved into a wooden beam. Even though I couldn’t read it, the barest sight of the letters made my skin crawl, as if my subconscious knew something I did not. Rising slowly to my feet, I felt my way over to the beam and traced the carved wooden letters with my fingers: T-R-A-V-I-S

  Crap. I must have run farther than I thought if I’d managed to stumble onto Travis property. Not that it mattered. I had to get out of there. The Travises were the most secretive, most secluded family of practitioners in the county, almost more a self-contained clan than a functioning part of the community. I’d never met any of them, not even the kids, since they were all home-schooled. They were loners who hated people, technology and, most especially, intruders. They were thieves, but for the most part people overlooked that one. Rumor also had it that they sometimes kidnapped brides. They had definitely dabbled in blood magic until a decade or so ago when Henry Wolf had led the community in a rescue mission that had put an end to that practice. Now, a tenuous balance existed between the Travis Clan and everyone else: Don’t bother us and we won’t bother you.

  Shacking up in one of their cabins, even if it was abandoned, would probably count as bothering them.

  Spinning on my heels, I raced for the exit, preferring the downpour to whatever would happen to me when they realized someone had intruded on their property. And they would; no doubt I had tripped a ward. Any normal family would have positioned first-degree wards as warnings that their property line had been breached, but the Travises were not normal.

  The doorknob felt cool in my hands as I twisted it. I pried open the door and stared up… up… up into the dark, sinister eyes of a thirtyish man with a thick growth of beard. He had to be nearly seven feet tall.

  “I-I was just leaving,” I said.

  He pushed his way into the cabin, blocking the door with his bulk and causing me to take a few steps back. Then another man stepped into the cabin, one almost as big as the first, and with far more menacing eyes.

  They both looked around, as if they hadn’t seen the place in ages. They probably hadn’t. “Ain’t no one been here in a while. No one with sense. Cain’t you read?”

  “Not when it’s dark,” I pointed out.

  The second man grinned, an ominous look. “Ain’t that your bad luck?”

  “I-I’m really sorry I stopped here. It was just raining and I-well, I couldn’t read the sign. But I’ll get going.” When they didn’t look moved, I added, “I can pay you for, er, renting this place.” For five minutes, I thought.

  The second man’s grin grew wider. “Now, that’s a fine idea.” Striding forward, he pinned me against the wall, pressing his unwashed body far too close to mine. “Sister said the storm would reel in a fine prize.”

  I blinked. “You made the storm?” I hadn’t known there were any weather mages around. But of course, the Travises were very secretive. It didn’t bode well that he’d eluded to that particular secret. Mustering up my courage, I hit them with the best weapon in my arsenal. “My parents are Edward and Sheila Scot.”

  The first man grabbed the second one away from me. “Shit, Jim, we got the wrong one.”

  J
im frowned. “But, Jacob, how we know she ain’t lying?”

  “I seen her before,” Jacob said. “She ain’t lying.”

  “But we can’t let her go, she knows too much.”

  “We can’t kill her. You want the whole town to turn on us?”

  Jim scratched his beard. “All right, then we’ll just borrow her for a few days, till we finish the spell.” He grabbed me by the arm and started pulling me out of the shack.

  “Where are you taking me?” I demanded.

  “Main house.”

  The door opened before us and he dragged me into the downpour. I had to get away from him; I couldn’t let him take me to that house. So, for a few yards, I went docile, until the moment I felt his grip slacken. Then, in a swift defensive move, I broke his grip on my arm and landed a knee in his groin. While he doubled over, I bolted for the scant protection of the road. At least then I wouldn’t be on his property or in his territory anymore, but I had no idea what kind of magic he could unleash against me. I had a few protective wards, but they could only do so much.

  A force from behind knocked my legs out from under me just as I reached the edge of the road. I careened forward, landing on hands and knees on the rough pavement, tearing my skin in several places.

  To make matters worse, a car was coming. Far from hoping for rescue, I expected the driver not to be able to see me in the rain. And I wasn’t sure I could scurry away from the fast-approaching wheels.

  Scrambling to my feet, I tried to leap out of the way, but I would never have made it if not for the screech of brakes. Miraculously, the car stopped, though it shouldn’t have been able to do so in such a short space.

  Jim Travis marched across the road and grabbed me by the upper arm. He shook me, hard. “That was stupid.”

  Before I could protest, Jim staggered back a step. Then, with a look of utter astonishment on his face, he flew backward hard, landing somewhere in the trees near the cabin.

  “What the-?” I looked first at the car, which appeared, from the glow of the headlights, suspiciously like a metallic blue Prius. Evan’s car. When the driver’s side door opened and he stepped out, I knew for sure that once again, he had come to my rescue. Somehow, it made the whole thing that much more humiliating.

  “Get in the car,” he said loudly enough to be heard over the rain. “I’ll take you home.”

  I moved away from Jacob, toward the relative safety of Evan’s car, hoping that when he saw the dampness on my cheeks he would blame the driving rain.

  Sliding into the passenger seat, I fumbled for the seat belt, but was unable to grasp it in my shaking hands. After a minute, the seat belt latched itself, almost at the same time that I became palpably aware of the man who had ruined my life sitting in the seat next to me.

  “Madison got worried when it started raining and you didn’t come home,” Evan said, as if I’d asked for an explanation. I wondered, fleetingly, why she hadn’t called my brother instead, but I had more important concerns.

  “So she called and you found me in two seconds flat?” Since one of my new wards prevented sorcerers from magically scrying for me, there was only one way he could have managed to find me so quickly. Somehow, he had a blood sample. Not that he hadn’t had plenty of opportunities to get one, especially when he had healed me from the vampire attack, but it still felt like a betrayal of trust.

  Evan ignored the implication. “What possessed you to go running in a thunderstorm?”

  He didn’t know I knew. For some reason, as we’d been talking, I had been sure he must have known or at least guessed that I’d figured it out. If for no other reason than because the shock, humiliation, and sense of betrayal shook me with such tangible force. If he had an ounce of intuition, he would have had to realize it, but that wasn’t his gift. He had two gifts – a rarity – but neither one allowed him to read my mind or guess that I’d made the connection.

  “Cassie?” Evan repeated.

  His eyes remained on the road, what little of it he could see. My eyes went to his face, set in its usual cast of determined arrogance. With two words, I could wipe that expression away, and I used them like a weapon. “I know.”

  The color drained from his face. He fumbled the steering wheel as he entered a sharp bend in the road and ended up slamming his foot on the brake.

  Evan reached forward to help me steady myself, but I slapped his hand away. “Don’t touch me.”

  He withdrew his hand, but continued to stare at me with the same shell-shocked expression. “How-?”

  “I’m a detective, remember? Sooner or later I was going to figure it out.” I should have figured it out much sooner, in fact. All the clues had been there, but how was I supposed to guess that somehow, someone had managed to steal my magic from under my parents’ noses? That sort of thing happened to weaker or less protected sorcerers, not to a Scot. I still wasn’t entirely sure how it had happened, but Laura’s thinly veiled hints had helped me remember the most fundamental rule of investigation: When you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truth.

  Victor had wanted revenge and somehow he had made it happen.

  “I should have told you.” Evan’s voice shook.

  “That’s true.”

  “I almost did.”

  I turned my face away.

  “Cassie, please don’t cry,” Evan reached out a hand to touch me, but stopped himself just in time.

  “They’re not tears. My hair is wet.” I rubbed the water from my face, then prayed it remained dry.

  “I didn’t know until I approached your father to see if he would buy your debt,” Evan said. “You have to believe that I had no idea. I’ve been trying to get up the courage to tell you for a while now, but I was out of town most of the summer and when Matthew started…”

  “Oh, please, finish that thought. Even assuming that he has used mind magic on me, what has Matthew done to me that in any way compares to what you did?” The anger of my words tasted like bile, but I had to get them out. They were eating me up inside.

  “Cassie, I didn’t do it. I never would have done it. My father did it.”

  “Yes, but now you have the power and I-I apparently need you to rescue me all the time.” I swallowed, not sure how to release the pain. Anger didn’t help, though at that moment I hated Evan Blackwood more than I could say.

  “I loved you enough to let you go,” Evan said.

  Tears once again began to sting my eyes, but I blinked them back, furiously. “Love? Is that what you’re calling it? I don’t think you know what it means. Someone who loves me would have told me the truth.”

  “When I found out, all I could remember was you telling me about what happened to your mom. You said you’d never forgive anyone who did that to you.”

  “That’s not why you didn’t tell me,” I said, and I suddenly knew with startling clarity why he had been afraid to share the truth. “It’s not like we were going to be friends ever again anyway, the way you ended it.”

  “Then enlighten me, if you know so much about me.”

  “You didn’t tell me because you were afraid I’d ask for it back.”

  Outside the car, the rain still came down in heavy sheets, but inside, silence hung thickly in the air. The chattering of my teeth finally broke it after who knew how many minutes had passed.

  “You’re cold,” Evan said. “Let me help.”

  I put up a hand. “Not that way. Not any way, for that matter. I need you to not rescue me again.”

  “I can’t do that. Ask me anything else. Please, you can’t be angry at me about getting you away from that crazy clan? Alexander’s making them nervous and I think they’re trying to put together some blood for a powerful spell.”

  “No, I’m not angry with you for that.” I felt shame, possibly, but not anger. “But speaking of powerful spells. How in the hell did your father pull this one off under my dad’s nose?”

  The look that flashed across Evan’s face
was one I recognized, that of a sorcerer teetering on the edge of revealing a secret. It wasn’t a question I should have asked. Common magical courtesy did not allow for me to ask, point-blank, what someone could do or how something could be done.

  Screw courtesy. This time, I was going to find out the truth. “Don’t even think about holding back on me. Not this time.”

  He nodded. “To be honest, he doesn’t remember the whole spell and isn’t sure he could repeat it. He was drunk at the time.”

  “Terrific,” I muttered. “I hope he had a killer hangover.”

  “Apparently, he and your mom were lovers.”

  I winced. “More information than I needed to know.”

  “I’m afraid not. You actually need even more. Not only were they lovers, but he was your mom’s first. There is old magic that forms a link between a woman and her first lover, a link that he followed with that spell. He claims he only meant to cast a spell cursing her first child to be born without magic. It suited his sense of irony, since drained women were supposed to be able to produce magical children. I’m not sure he gave the spell much thought after that, because he met my mom and for a time, got over his anger. What he didn’t realize was that your magic had to go somewhere, and when I was conceived right around the same time you were, that’s where it went.”

  I closed my eyes, letting the information sink in. “Is there still a link between your dad and-?”

  “No,” Evan hastened to say. “It would have begun to weaken when you were conceived and been destroyed before you were born.”

  “Small favor.”

  “Is there anything else you want to know? I’ll tell you anything.” He sounded almost desperate to please, but I couldn’t give him the one thing he really wanted – forgiveness. The wounds were too fresh, the emotions too hot.

  “How about if I take you home?” Evan said, putting the car back in gear. “You have a lot to deal with right now.”