“What the hell?” Declan took a step forward, placing me behind his left shoulder.
Kett didn’t take his gaze off me, though his lip curled upward.
“He’s playing you, Declan,” I said. Then an idea hit me so hard that I could barely believe I’d only just thought of it. I stepped around Declan, charging into Kett’s personal space, suddenly and viciously angry. “Tell me this isn’t a test!”
“It isn’t a test.”
I shoved my finger against his exposed chest. My knuckle cracked painfully, but I ignored it as magic gathered around the bracelet hanging from my wrist. “Tell me this isn’t a test for Declan.”
“A test of what?” Declan echoed behind me, sounding as pissed as always.
Kett regarded me for a moment. Then he offered a hint of a smile. “This isn’t a test, Wisteria. I know what Jasmine means to you.” He lifted his gaze to take in Declan over my shoulder. “Though I have done nothing to contrive the situation, I will take full advantage of observing the Convocation’s most sought-out extraction specialist.”
I pivoted back, looking at Declan in disbelief. His face was a cloud of emotion — anger and frustration warring with underlying concern.
“Extraction specialist?” I asked.
Declan only shrugged in response.
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“It means I like to blow shit up, Wisteria,” he said. “That’s not news to you.”
“No, it isn’t,” Kett said smoothly. “What is news to Wisteria Fairchild is that you’re working for the Convocation at all. You and Jasmine. You are an interesting trio. I look forward to seeing all three of you in the same space.”
I eyed the vampire. “Don’t be creepy, Kett.”
He laughed quietly.
“What have you and Jasmine been up to?” I asked. “Tracking Nigel’s maker?”
“Indeed.”
“And it brought her here?”
Kett lifted his gaze to the hotel. “Apparently. Though she didn’t share whatever drew her home with me.”
“And how exactly do you know each other?” Declan asked. “I’m sure the Conclave’s executioner has better things to be doing than hanging out with a couple of low-rank witches.”
I glared at him for the ‘low rank’ comment, but neither Kett nor I bothered to answer his question.
“They’re on the eleventh floor,” I said. “At least they went up there about twenty minutes ago.”
Kett nodded.
“Do vampires often stay in hotels?” I asked.
“Follow me in two minutes,” he said. Then he disappeared.
Declan flinched. “Jesus Christ!”
“It’s a trick,” I said with an offish wave of my hand. “He just moves quickly and uses the shadows to his advantage. He doesn’t teleport or anything.”
Declan was staring at me as if I’d gone insane. I waited patiently, expecting to be bombarded with questions.
But he only opened his mouth, then shut it. Twisting away, he ran his hand through his hair before finally speaking. “So this is the vampire Jasmine is dating, then?”
“I’m not sure. We’ll have to ask him.”
He turned back to stare at me, as aghast as he was frustrated. “The executioner of the Conclave.”
“Yes.”
Declan raised his left arm, still holding the blasting rod. The runes etched along it were glowing a faint blue. “I hit him. I wasn’t trying to kill anyone, but that blast, point-blank like that, should have taken him down.”
“Yes.”
“Are you dating him?”
“No. He’ll get pissy, though, if we don’t follow in exactly two minutes. All right?”
Declan didn’t respond.
“Declan. Jasmine might be in the hotel, and —”
“Yeah, yeah. Fine. Let’s just follow the uber-powerful vampire into a hotel filled with vulnerable humans.”
“The three vampires already in there are the only ones we should be worried about. At least for right now.” I stepped past him, swiftly crossing through the courtyard toward the side door I’d exited twenty minutes before.
Declan matched me stride for stride. “He’s different than them.”
“Older,” I said. “More powerful.”
He didn’t comment further.
I paused before the glassed doors of the side entrance, checking my reflection and confirming that I was tidy enough to be wandering around the hotel without drawing attention.
Inside, the doors to the nearest elevator opened and Kett stepped out. He was already looking our way, expectant. His ruined sweater had been swapped out for a dark-green T-shirt. The damage to his black cashmere jacket was less obvious.
Declan reached around my shoulder, opening the door before me.
I stepped through, murmuring polite thanks as I did so.
The elevator door closed behind Kett, who waited for a moment to give us time to traverse the hall. Then he turned and tapped a white plastic key card against the security panel, punching in the eleventh floor.
I didn’t ask where or how he’d sourced the room key. Because I knew he wouldn’t bother answering anyway, deeming the question either beneath him or the answer obvious.
I stepped up beside the vampire, facing the elevator and waiting for it to return. Declan stood shoulder to shoulder with me, his gaze fixed to the vampire on my other side. Kett remained still, staring straight ahead rather than up at the numbers flashing above the door.
“You got the bag,” he said. His tone was hushed, almost intimate. Perhaps even slightly anxious.
“Yes,” I said. “I … it was waiting for me this morning, along with the package addressed to the Conclave. Thank you.”
“It took me a while to source it.”
“Yes. It’s from the 2010 collection. I appreciate your time.”
Kett nodded sparely. I caught the movement in my peripheral vision as the elevator doors slid open before us.
We entered in silence. After a moment, the door closed behind us. There were no room number buttons on the inside panel, only a display declaring the eleventh floor as the next stop. It made perfect sense given the security features the hotel employed for the elevator system. But for some reason, it made me exceedingly aware of the confined, almost suffocating nature of the space around me. I was hemmed in, with Declan on my left and Kett on my right.
“Breathe,” Kett whispered.
Declan looked at him sharply.
I wrapped my hand over top of my coat sleeve, feeling the bracelet underneath dig into the skin of my wrist. “Did you find them?” I asked, keeping my thoughts focused on the task ahead.
“No,” Kett said. “But they’ve been here.”
“And Jasmine?”
“Not that I picked up.”
The elevator doors opened, and Kett stepped into the corridor.
“We’re just supposed to follow him around?” Declan asked, too loudly.
I stepped out of the elevator as Kett reappeared at the end of the hall, pausing for us to catch up. At least, that was what I assumed he was doing.
“Since he’s the invulnerable one,” I said to Declan, “following behind is prudent.”
“He could be leading us into their lair,” Declan said, stepping in front of me to stop my forward progress without touching me.
“The ones we saw aren’t his … nest mates,” I said, stumbling over the proper group noun for vampires.
“And how do you know?” Declan asked. “If you aren’t seeing him? Because you sure as hell aren’t friends.”
I gazed up at him. I understood he was angry with me. And that he was frustrated by the situation and the lack of information. But we needed to be moving forward, not arguing over small details in the middle of a hotel corridor. “Why are we here?” I asked pointedly.
“Don’t school me, Wisteria.”
“Then stop demanding to be schooled.”
Declan glared at me. I held his gaze steadily,
but every tense second that I did so, my mind screamed for me to soothe his anger and placate his concerns.
Except I needed him focused and angry, and I had no actual answers with which to soothe him.
He dropped my gaze. “Fine. I’ll back you.”
I nodded and stepped ahead.
He whispered something harsh under his breath. It sounded like, “As always.”
My heart sank in my chest, and I almost faltered. No matter what I said or didn’t say, it seemed I couldn’t help but hurt Declan. And Jasmine. Both of them always wanted answers and assurances I couldn’t give. I knew that Jasmine would have said that wasn’t true, and that all she wanted was to be let in, to participate in our relationship as an equal. But I never knew what to do with that statement.
I squared my shoulders and strode forward to the vampire waiting for me at the end of the hall. He was emulating a statue as he was prone to doing — and most likely listening in on everything and everyone in the nearby rooms, in addition to the argument between Declan and me.
Kett rested his silver-blue gaze on me as I paused beside him, raising his eyebrow. “Ready now?”
Even I could hear the mocking in his tone.
“Are the vampires near?” I asked.
“I believe they’ve left, or they are elsewhere in the hotel,” Kett said. “I’ll let you into the room, leaving you to your reconstruction while I search further.” He shifted his focus to Declan. “I assume you are somewhat capable of watching over the reconstructionist while she works?”
“Yeah,” Declan said sarcastically. “Somewhat capable.”
I ignored him to question Kett. “There’s magic within the hotel room to reconstruct?”
The vampire nodded as he continued down the hall, finally pausing to slide his key card into the door lock on room 1115.
I was feeling slightly disoriented now that we were inside, but I was fairly certain we hadn’t scanned the windows on this side of the hotel yet.
Kett opened the door, stepping partway in and flicking on a light.
“Kett,” I whispered, my words momentarily catching in my throat, “is there … blood? Jasmine’s blood?” Tears welled behind my eyes, but I held them back fiercely.
Kett brushed his fingers against my cheek so lightly and quickly that I saw the movement only as he withdrew his hand. “I would have prepared you,” he said, “if that were the case.”
I nodded, reaching for and pulling a candle out of my bag. I needed to focus on collecting clues rather than my fundamental fear that Jasmine might be injured or dead.
“I’ll be back before you’re done,” Kett said. Then he disappeared from my sight a second time.
Declan darted forward, stopping the door with his foot before it closed. Then he gave me a withering look. “You aren’t dating the vamp. Right.”
He stepped inside the hotel room without waiting for me to answer. I almost admonished him about possibly contaminating the reconstruction I was about to collect. But then I reminded myself that I knew the tenor of Declan’s magic almost as well as I knew my own.
Room 1115 appeared to have been recently cleaned. Declan crossed the length of the small living area, tugging the curtains closed. The decor was modern, echoing the black-and-gold palette of the lobby, though less intensely. The bed, pillows, and shams were swathed in white cotton linen with black piping. A muted gold duvet was neatly folded across the end of the bed. Two side tables, a desk, a sideboard for the TV — all stained a dark walnut — and a black, square-edged chair all made for nothing out of the ordinary in the room.
Except for the large pocket of residual magic occupying the space between the foot of the bed and the TV.
I glanced into the bathroom, noting the sparkling chrome faucets and the perfectly fluffed, folded towels. Then I stepped halfway into the room, following Declan as I held my right hand out to the magic hanging in an invisible cloud three feet off the ground.
Declan glanced at me. “I felt it too.”
I nodded, not surprised. He’d walked right through the residual.
“No one has been here since housekeeping cleaned this afternoon,” I said, tugging the rest of my pillar candles free from my bag and placing them around the room one by one.
Declan frowned. “Except the vampires, you mean.”
“Well, no one who leaves fingerprints. Or footprints, for that matter.”
Declan glanced at the tightly woven, light-beige carpet beneath our feet. “Don’t mythologize them, Wisteria. They aren’t gods. Any dirt they picked up outside would have been scuffed off in the lobby before they even hit the elevators.”
“No, they aren’t gods,” I said agreeably, circling the room a second time to light my candles. “Just immortal and invulnerable. And possibly playing some game with the Conclave that Jasmine has gotten mixed up in.”
“And why is that exactly?” Declan asked pointedly.
I stood at the base of the bed with my back to the curtained windows and Declan. Without answering him, I raised my palms toward the residual magic and closed the circle I’d paced out.
“Does it have something to do with the case you worked with her in Astoria?” he asked.
“Perhaps.” Keeping my attention on the interior of my circle, I coaxed the residual forward. It revealed itself as a swirl streaked with teal blue. “Witch magic,” I said, identifying it by color and tenor. “But I don’t think it’s Jasmine’s.”
Declan stepped forward, standing beside me and pressing his hand to the invisible edge of my circle. As he had in Jasmine’s bedroom, he tapped effortlessly into the reconstruction I was collecting.
“Copper’s,” he said thoughtfully.
“The magic belongs to a witch named Copper? You know her?”
He nodded. “Proficient in charms.”
“And tracking spells?” I asked, clumsily tying the conversation back to the witch who’d tried to track Jasmine on Declan’s behalf when he’d received the cellphone. The witch he’d hesitated to mention.
“Yeah,” he said begrudgingly. “And tracking spells.”
“Spells she sells? Specifically to Jasmine?”
“I think this was part of a set of spells she gave Jasmine as a Christmas gift.”
My heart sank. Part of me had been hoping that the residual witch magic wouldn’t be tied to Jasmine.
“Call it forth, Wisteria.” Declan’s voice was demanding, but then his tone softened slightly. “The vampire said Jasmine hadn’t died here.”
“No,” I said tightly. “He just said there wasn’t any blood.”
Declan glanced at me, concern overriding his seemingly perpetual gruffness.
“The vampire,” I said pointedly, “has a certain way of phrasing things. Or of not speaking, actually. I’m sure you’ll pick it up soon enough.”
“I don’t plan on getting to know him as intimately as you obviously do.”
I matched his offish drawl. “Well, I certainly don’t know him intimately enough to pick up his magic in a circle not of my own construction with a single glance. I’m guessing Copper is proficient in more than just spells.”
Declan curled his lip at me. Then he snorted. “You can’t be jealous, Wisteria. Just because you don’t want me in your life, it doesn’t mean I have to be celibate.”
I opened my mouth to retort, but he leaned in to me. He was close enough that his breath stirred the hair at my temple that had worked its way out of my French twist.
“And I’m definitely not celibate.” There was a deep layer of loathing laced through his innuendo.
I met his gaze, completely weary of his incessant hostility. Jasmine might be dead. I could be about to reconstruct the moment of her death.
“Shall we continue, Declan? Or shall we waste more time while you snarl and strut? You’ve made your feelings known, from the moment you first called. But then, I’ve known how little you ever truly loved me, at least beyond the bonds that Jasper forced upon us, for a very long time now.�
�
Declan stilled, eyeing me darkly. “I could say the same.”
I shrugged as if it all meant nothing to me. I was back in Connecticut for Jasmine, not for some long-lost lovers’ reunion.
He nodded stiffly, then returned his gaze to the circle.
I didn’t bother trying to figure out what he was thinking. I wasn’t a teenager anymore, desperate for someone to love me. I was an adult who wore her white picket fence on her wrist, knowing she’d never have any part of what it represented. I’d arrived at that resolution years ago — and having Declan by my side again made it that much more painful, but not any less true.
I called the residual magic in the circle toward me, speaking out loud for Declan’s benefit as I would have for any other investigative partner. “No other magic in the room, just this pocket. Jasmine must have not stayed here at all. There aren’t any personal items.”
Declan grunted, acknowledging me but not contributing his own observations.
The residual magic resolved into a flash of movement, coming back toward us from the door. Multiple people, but moving so quickly that I couldn’t track them without slowing the reconstruction down. I couldn’t modify the initial manifestation while I collected it, though. I had to wait for whatever scene I’d captured to play out backward. Then I could pause and enhance it.
Jasmine appeared in the center of the room, her back toward me. Her dark-blond hair was a cascade of curls across her shoulders. She was wearing dark-blue jeans and a three-quarter-length brown suede jacket I’d never seen before.
She was also surrounded by three vampires. The two females from the lobby, dressed as Declan and I had seen them, along with a ruddy-haired male in pale-blue jeans and a long-sleeved dark-brown henley. I didn’t recognize him as he pulled Jasmine toward him, then set her on her feet. Or, rather, as he picked her up and tossed her sideways in reverse.
“They grabbed her,” Declan said. He was gritting his teeth.
I nodded, trying to keep calm. “I’ll slow it down for the next viewing. But … we know she’s alive.”
“She was alive.”
“She is alive,” I said, gaining confidence as what appeared to be a conversation played out backward before us. “They want something from the Conclave. They kidnapped her. But she’s just a bargaining chip.”
Tangled Echoes (Reconstructionist 2) Page 9