by Bryn Donovan
This book would not have been possible without the support of my family and my friends, especially my beta readers. Most of all, I am so grateful for the encouragement and the help of my wonderful and brilliant husband and the love of my life, Gill Donovan.
—Bryn
Copyright © 2017 by Bryn Donovan
Published by Almeris Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews—without written permission from the author. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
ISBN 978-0-9967152-4-9 (paperback); 978-0-9967152-3-2 (eBook)
To learn more about the author, visit her blog, bryndonovan.com.
Dedicated to J.R. Boles
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
SNEAK PREVIEW
CHAPTER ONE
Cassie came home late from her dinner with Ana. Her friend had assured her that she’d find another job soon, this time at a place where she felt like she belonged. For the first time in a few weeks, Cassie believed everything would be all right.
When she flipped on the light, the room remained dark. Weird. Hadn’t she just changed that bulb?
Someone grabbed her around the shoulders from behind.
She squeaked, trying to yank away. He dragged her a few steps backward and set her down on a chair. Her kitchen chair, moved to the living room. Terror streaked through her. What is happening? The next thing she knew, he was half kneeling on her, pinning her down where she sat, his shin pressed across her thighs.
Fuck! She swung a fist at him. He grabbed her wrist, held it down to the back of the chair, and tightened something around it. A zip tie. She’d never seen one in real life. Do something. Gouge his eyes out! She tried, but he caught her left hand and secured it to the chair as well. He was so fast, so efficient. Like he’d done this a hundred times.
Her loaded gun waited in the drawer of her nightstand, but a lot of good it did her now. Years of target practice with her dad and her sister, not to mention hunting with Uncle Charlie, all going to waste. Scream. I should scream. She turned her head toward the door. “Help! Help!”
“No one’s going to hear you out here.” His calm, baritone voice suggested that she was being unreasonable.
In her small ranch house in the desert, her closest neighbor was almost a mile away. That was one of the reasons she’d rented it—all that wide, open space made her feel free. I’m such an idiot. She doubted anyone had seen him on her side road with no streetlights. If they had, he wouldn’t have stood out much—nondescript in a black T-shirt and jeans. She leaned her head closer to his ear and shrieked, wordless, at the top of her lungs.
He got off her and crouched near her leg. She tried to kick him, but he was too far to one side, out of her range of motion. He bound one of her calves, and then the other, to the chair legs with plastic ties.
“Who are you?” Stupid. Like he was going to hand her a business card. A robber with any sense would’ve chosen a nicer house. She didn’t like the other possibilities.
He stepped behind her and tipped the chair back. More panic sparked through her nerves—the primitive fear of falling. He dragged the chair to the kitchen, set her next to the table, and took a step back to look her in the face.
He was white, with narrow, steel-blue eyes in a rawboned face. She would need to describe him to the police. Hopefully. Over six feet tall, broad shoulders. Light brown hair buzzed almost to the scalp on the sides and a little longer on top. Military? Around her age, maybe, thirty-two. His nose bent slightly in the middle, as if he’d broken it once.
Why didn’t he care if she saw him? Because she wasn’t getting out of this alive? Her mouth went dry.
He walked to the front door. He hasn’t really hurt me yet. But that was no reassurance. As strong and deft as he was, he hadn’t needed to. Maybe he was just getting started. He locked the front door, turning the double bolt with a click, and strode back to her. Images flashed through her head. Torture, sexual violence. Her pulse slammed in the side of her neck as though the vein might explode.
“Please don’t kill me,” tumbled out of her mouth. “Or rape me.”
Did he flinch? No, he couldn’t have. “I’m not a rapist.”
Just a killer, then? A fresh current of anger surged through her. “Is this how you get off?”
He crouched down next to a black backpack in the corner of her kitchen. “I’m going to cover your mouth so you can’t cast a spell.”
“A spell.” He thought she was a wizard, or a witch? If only. She could wave her wand and have the next rent payment, or better yet, a job. “You’re insane.”
He leaned close with a length of duct tape. Cassie jerked her face away, but he pressed the tape hard over her mouth. A strand of her long hair got caught in it, tickling the corner of her lip. He said, “Of course, for all I know, you don’t need to speak words out loud.”
She struggled hard against the zip ties. Although she wasn’t particularly strong, five-foot-five and average-sized, she hoped adrenaline would give her the strength to pull through them or break the chair. They only bit into her skin. Stupid well-made furniture.
“Looks like you’re breathing fine.” The impassivity in his shadowed, sculpted face made him look like an angel of death. “Cassandra Rios, you are accused of using deadly magic against your enemies.”
She stopped struggling. Nobody called her Cassandra, except her dad, when she’d gotten in trouble as a kid. She was in trouble now. This guy was out of his damn mind. Would the cops tell her parents they’d found her body? Would anyone find it, or would he hide it somewhere? Her heart pounded hard and fast. Maybe she’d have a cardiac arrest before he had a chance to murder her. “A jaguar killed your ex-husband six months ago.”
Shit. The animal attacks. She wanted to scream, They weren’t my fault!
Rick’s death had horrified her, and it had panicked everyone in Phoenix. Jaguars had only just been discovered in Arizona again. This one had ambushed her ex in his driveway in the middle of Scottsdale, leaping from the top of his SUV to tear out his throat.
“Your coworker was seriously injured by a coyote two months ago.” She cringed at his words. Coyotes usually avoided humans. They didn’t go after them in populated places any more than jaguars hung out in cul-de-sacs slaughtering people. “And last Tuesday, not long after he left your mother’s house, your uncle was attacked by a javelina.” His eyebrows rose. “In a parking garage.”
A few hours before it had happened, C
assie had seen Uncle Charlie at her parents’ house. He’d tried to get her mom to loan him more money, although she didn’t have it to loan. Almost no one got rich running a stable, and in the last few years, business had slowed. Her dad hadn’t been home. Cassie couldn’t hear most of the conversation, but after he’d left, her mom had been crying.
The blurry security camera footage had made the evening news. A big, black, hairy desert pig had come out of nowhere, tusks bared, and slashed Uncle Charlie’s shins. The uncanny coincidence—three attacks against people she’d been mad at—had made her feel guilty, even though there was no way, logically, she could have been to blame.
“Since you’ve killed with this spell once, we can only assume you will again.” His voice carried no emotion. Who the hell was we? He pulled up another chair for himself and sat down, so close that his knee grazed her thigh. “I’m here to go into your psyche, verify your guilt, and learn what I can about the magic you’re using, because we haven’t seen it before.”
Cassie struggled against her bonds again as he reached down into the backpack. A faint smell emanated from it—incense, of all things.
He took out a gun.
Cassie stared at the Glock with its dull gleam. Her blood chilled. I am going to die. I am really going to die.
“You’ll have one minute after I release your mind to prepare yourself, and then you’ll be killed with one shot to the head.” He laid the weapon on the table, right next to a pile of junk mail and an empty drinking glass. Her stupid, messy life, finished before she’d even done anything with it. She started shaking, but she willed herself not to cry. Instead, she glared at him. He could remember the look in her eyes when he was burning in hell.
A bullet to the brain. At least it would be quick. She imagined her blood on her dirty kitchen tiles. Was that why he’d dragged the chair in here? So the mess would be easier to clean up? No, he’d probably done it because the kitchen couldn’t be seen from the street. Maybe no one would even hear the gunshot.
She jumped when he gripped her right hand where it was tied to the back of the chair. Her fist felt tiny and cold in his. He bowed his head.
Raw force pushed up against her brain, her heart, her self. Behind the duct tape, she whimpered, squeezing her eyes shut. It pressed from all sides and sucked at her at the same time. What the hell was happening? Go into your psyche, he’d said. He could do that? Gritting her teeth against the pain, she willed herself to stay intact. Something was trying to crack her skull open like an oyster shell to inhale the quivering morsel inside. She thrashed and shoved against it with all her strength.
The invisible walls separating her self from him and the rest of the universe tumbled inward. Her eyes flew open.
CHAPTER TWO
Jonathan stood facing Cassandra Rios. The scents of creosote and ozone, smoky and fresh, startled him. He was in her psyche, and she was a murderer. He’d been prepared for the smell of blood or rotting flesh, not the desert after rain.
Every person had a unique inner world that reflected their character and their experiences, their pain and their dreams. He looked around him at Cassandra Rios’s psyche. Many-armed ocotillo cacti, fuzzy teddy bear cholla, and rough shrubs dotted a rolling plain. No roads, telephone poles, or other signs of human habitation marred the landscape. No sound intruded upon the silence. Cobalt blue and bright pink streaked the sky, and near the horizon, the clouds glowed orange. Near his feet on a prickly pear cactus, pink-red fruits ripened. They reminded him of hearts.
Doubt coiled in his gut. This wasn’t the soulscape of a killer. At least, it wasn’t like any he’d ever seen. He’d expected ugliness inside her, even if it didn’t show on her outside.
In her photograph in her file, she’d struck Jonathan as more attractive than the usual target. She had big brown eyes, a prominent nose, and long, dark hair, and in the picture, she was laughing and full of life. A pretty woman is just as likely to be evil as anyone else. He’d reminded his younger brother of that on the drive from the middle of New Mexico to Phoenix.
Of course, it had been an imagined conversation, the only kind he could have with Michael now. His brain kept playing tricks on him, though, making him think he would see his brother again, as if he were merely posted in Manila or D.C.
Her soulscape wasn’t perfect. Scarred black trunks of trees covered one mountain. A wildfire had blazed through. But even that looked like damage, clean and simple, more than anything else. What had hurt her?
Wrong question. He had to find out how she’d caused the animal attacks. They couldn’t be a coincidence.
Far in the other direction, about a dozen horses grazed. No saddles, no bridles, some of them tawny, others extravagantly spotted. They threatened no one.
She’s a bruja. This is a trick. He’d never heard of anyone being able to conceal the truth of their own psyche before…but after hundreds of years’ worth of carefully documented missions and the study of ancient and obscure lore, Manus Sancti still occasionally encountered something new.
“You killed me?” Cassandra demanded. “This is heaven?”
“If this were the afterlife, I wouldn’t be here. I’d still be alive.”
“True. And I’m pretty sure serial killers go somewhere worse than this.” If she’d been innocent, he would’ve admired her spirit. “How did you get me out here?”
“It’s not out anywhere. We’re inside you.”
“What?” She closed her eyes as though willing reality to return.
“This is your psyche. It feels familiar, doesn’t it?”
Her brow creased. “You drugged me.”
“You know I didn’t.” This conversation was pointless. With most targets, simply asking them a few questions while inside their psyche proved their guilt. In her case, he’d been assigned to go through her memories first to understand exactly how she was doing the spells.
One of the horses spooked and ran away, and the others followed him in a panic, rumbling toward the far hills. The saturated colors in the clouds tumbled and shifted in a rhythm like music: sapphire, tangerine, fuchsia. A dark hawk cut across the swath of color, not hunting, just flying. He couldn’t remember when he’d been in a more beautiful place.
She said, “You have no right to be here.”
Maybe she was right. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was trespassing on sacred ground. “It isn’t what I expected.”
“What did you expect? Oh yeah, you thought I was a witch. Did you think I’d be in some kind of cave? Or some, like, scary castle with flying monkeys?”
“Something like that.” He took a step closer to her. “You’re not able to lie to me now. You can’t even avoid answering me. Let’s watch the coyote attack. You saw that one.” He raised his hand in a slight, beckoning gesture. A huge image appeared on the sky above the mountains, like a giant movie screen. The company picnic at Arroyo Park. Dozens of employees wearing bright blue T-shirts with the corporate motto.
Cassandra said, “I don’t want to watch.” She shouldn’t be able to feign emotions in here, but misery clouded her features.
“You have to.” His voice came out hard. He knew from having his own memories reviewed, perhaps a hundred times in the past, that she could feel herself in the recollection, even as she watched it.
The coyote ran toward the group. A middle-aged man looked up and asked, “Hey, whose dog is that?” Its silver-bronze fur glinted in the sun as it rushed them.
“Run!” a young woman screamed, vacating her spot at the picnic table—Ana, Cassandra’s friend. Jonathan recalled the name and face from the debrief. Others scattered, including Tiffany Daly, but the coyote went right after her, ignoring everyone else. His jaw clamped down on the woman’s calf, and she fell flat on the ground.
Next to Jonathan, Cassandra cringed at the awful scene. Tiffany’s leg soaked in blood, and her awful, high-pitched screams. She tried to push the coyote away, and it bit her hand, its gory teeth sinking into the flesh. In the memory, Cassandra
ran toward Tiffany and the enraged beast. Jonathan straightened. No one had told him she’d done that. Why would she? A show of trying to rescue the other woman so no one would suspect her as a witch?
Cassandra yelled at him, “Make it stop!”
He lifted a finger and the screen abruptly disappeared, leaving only sky.
“What the hell is happening?”
“Not sure.” He folded his arms across his chest in a pretense of detachment, as if he didn’t have a growing sense of dread telling him that he’d made an unpardonable mistake. “Let’s talk about your ex. Why did you two split up?”
The screen materialized again. Richard Belton was driving, and she was in the passenger seat, wearing a red sequined dress that revealed a lot of smooth, golden skin. It was a contrast to the plaid shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots she wore tonight, though that looked great on her, too.
“Not this.” Her voice had taken on a pleading tone that cut through his defenses.
Not trusting himself to look at her or reply, he shook his head, touching a finger to his lips.
On the screen, she kicked off her stiletto sandals and flexed her feet. As the SUV passed a trio of saguaros with upraised arms wrapped in twinkling colored lights, she said, “That was so much fun.” Glowering at the road, Richard Belton didn’t answer. “What’s wrong?”
“How many beers did you have?” he asked her.
“Three.” He said nothing, and she spread her hands. “What?”
“I thought you had more than that, with the argument you got into.”
“It wasn’t an argument,” she protested. “Your friend’s wife kept telling me how much she loved Mexico and how she’s been to Cancun five times. All I did was tell her I’ve never been to Mexico in my life.”
“It was your tone. You made her uncomfortable.”
Jonathan had to stop himself from shooting Cassandra a look of sympathy.
In the memory, Cassandra said, “That’s not my fault!” She turned the heater down.
Richard Belton dialed it back up. “Don’t you get it? He’s not a friend, he’s a colleague. I have to present a certain image every single day, and it’s like you’re trying to ruin it.”