“We’ll text as soon as we know anything,” I said, buttoning up my trench coat.
Nevada rewarded me with a smile. “I know you will, Wisteria. Would you like Shadow to accompany you?”
“We’ll be fine,” Jasmine said, eyeing Lavender. “Fairchild witches don’t need bodyguards.”
Shadow stiffened beside me. It was a subtle shift in energy, but Jasmine’s cutting words — though directed at Lavender — had hit home on an unintended target.
“It would be an honor,” I said, speaking first to Shadow, then to Nevada. “But with the passage of time since the incident, I don’t believe we are in any danger. Thank you.”
Jasmine frowned. But then she followed me out into the hall and through the front door without a word.
Chapter 3
A brisk wind rushed us the second we hit the rain-slick front walk. Gray clouds were rolling by overhead, possibly heralding another thunderstorm, but it wasn’t raining. Yet. Shivering, Jasmine tugged a massive brown knit cowl out of her satchel and twined it around her neck. She glanced at the map app on her phone, then turned left at the sidewalk. I followed, opening my witch senses in the hope of picking up any obvious residual magic around us.
“Way to back me in there,” Jasmine muttered, speaking into the cowl that covered her chin, neck, and most of her shoulders. Her dark-blond curls fanned out over its bulk in a wide, unruly mane.
I glanced at her, but she didn’t meet my eye. “They are young,” I said mildly.
“Nothing ruffles you,” Jasmine said, though without heat.
A bright ping emanated from within the depths of my bag. I’d almost forgotten about having texted Declan with my concern about Jasmine’s state of mind. I retrieved my phone from the bag’s inner pocket.
Jasmine leaned across, reading the name of the sender before I’d even had a chance to see the screen.
“Declan,” she said. “I thought it might be Kett.”
I opened my messages app, reading the text.
>I’m on my way.
“He knows where we are?” I asked. Then I remembered that Jasmine had mentioned we were in Chicago when she’d been on the phone with him in Whole Foods. I’d still been reeling from having my connection to the Fairchild estate magic torn asunder.
Jasmine nodded without comment.
I texted back.
Thank you.
Then I slipped my phone back into my bag before I tried to address the other half of Jasmine’s comment. Assuming she was going to let me. “I haven’t heard from Kett —”
“Never mind,” Jasmine interrupted, as she had every other time I’d mentioned the executioner of the Conclave since she’d been kidnapped. “It doesn’t matter. Not right now.”
“I know the contract weighs on you.”
“On me? You’re the one whose name is on it.”
My concern deepening into a heavy ache that stretched across my upper chest, I brushed my fingers across the back of her hand.
She shook her head, waving her hand offishly. “I’m fine. I’m fine. Don’t look at me like that. I’m fine.”
“I know you are. But I still feel a bit hollow. Since before, in the grocery store.”
Jasmine looked relieved at my admission. “Yes. That’s it. I’m fine. It’s just all that.” She glanced at her phone, then up at the street corner we were approaching. “Left here.”
I obligingly followed her around the corner, once again wondering if I should push her to address the subject of Kett and the contract with the Conclave. A contract that condemned me to death, then immortality — but only if I survived the transition. Only if my magic and my physical body accepted the transformation. It wasn’t yet clear to me what would happen to my soul in the process of becoming a vampire. And I wasn’t actually certain I believed in such things, at least not in a religious sense.
But I knew that all living things released an energy when they passed — because I’d felt it when I held our brownie, Bluebell, as she died. And what was magic if it wasn’t the energy that fueled us? So perhaps it was our souls?
As best as I could figure it, Kett was proposing to replace, or at least to supplement, my energy with his own. As directed by the Conclave, in conjunction with my uncle Jasper when he’d tied me unwillingly to the contract in the first place. But did that process release my soul — the very energy that fueled me, that fueled my magic? Or did it absorb it into the transformation?
I wasn’t certain anyone could answer that question definitively, but I still had a little less than four months before the deadline. And by unspoken agreement, Kett seemed content to wait until the last minute to fulfill the terms. Namely, imbuing me with half his power and remaking me as one of the undead.
So that gave me more time with Jasmine. Even as it gave Kett more time before … well, at least a century of some sort of mentorship, from the way he had described it. A century to guide me through being a vampire. A drinker of blood. One of the immortal — possibly damned — few.
The curve of a metal fence painted light blue ran along the edge of a green space, coming into view before I figured out how to broach the touchy subject with Jasmine a second time.
“Cotton Tail Park,” she said.
The park took up about half a city block, ringed by a series of what appeared to be walk-up apartment buildings, and surrounded by deciduous trees in the process of leafing out. I caught a glimpse of a large orange structure, which I assumed was a playhouse. Various paths radiated out from a central ring of green, trimmed grass. Green-painted benches, matching the image that Nevada had planted in my mind back in the living room of the townhouse, were scattered throughout the park.
“Do you see swings?” I asked. “Or a blue slide?”
Jasmine lifted her hand, pointing toward a structure to our left that was mostly hidden by the trees. “I think that’s a slide.”
I glanced both ways, then jogged across the empty street to the sidewalk beyond. Pausing at the entrance to the park, I eyed the slide that Jasmine had pointed out. “That could be it,” I said. “Maybe the reader showed it to me from a different angle?”
“Do you feel any magic?” Jasmine asked. “Leading to or from the path?”
“Not yet.” Stepping onto the path, I slowly scanned what I could see of the park, now that it wasn’t mostly blocked by trees. “No magic nearby. Though I should check the swings before we try one of the other parks. The image is so drilled into my brain, I doubt I’ll ever forget it.”
Jasmine laughed. “Yeah, I’m not sure about the bodyguard and the witch, but the reader is damn scary. You think she’s one of those types that could, you know, snap and turn us all into her brain-dead army? I always thought that level of power was folklore, or a fairy tale.”
“I think she’s off-the-charts sensitive, given her handmade clothing.” I crossed the trimmed grass, managing to not twist an ankle in the sand as I circled the play structure with the slide. I finally spotted the swing set on the far side of the park.
Continuing on until I was a few feet away from the swings, I turned back to eye the slide from that new angle. Then I looked at Jasmine grimly. “As long as the other parks aren’t duplicates of this one, then this is it.”
Not picking up any immediate residual, I paced the edge of the play area, approaching the swings from the other direction. I caught a hint of something faint by the second swing from the left. Hunkering down near the far side of the apparatus, I lined up my view of the slide through the loop created by the chains and the bright-blue wooden seat of the swing.
Other than the greenery, the view matched the image the reader had shown me.
I sighed harshly. No matter that I wanted to find Ruby, I wasn’t looking forward to reconstructing whatever had occurred at this spot last December.
“You’ve got something?” Jasmine asked quietly.
I nodded. Still crouched, I glanced around the park and the surrounding neighborhood, which wasn’t exactly quiet — and wh
ich I was fairly certain was about to get even busier in the hours between the end of work and dinnertime. “We’re going to need a perimeter. Do you have something in your bag?”
Jasmine nodded, already digging through her brown leather satchel.
“We can keep it tight.” I straightened up, shifting to one side to grab a fallen branch. “And quick. Just in case this is nothing and we need to go to the next park.”
I began drawing a circle in the sand, just encompassing the swing set.
“I brought enough to do them all if needed,” Jasmine said.
As I passed her, she stepped inside the circle, placing a smooth white stone in the groove I’d left behind in the wet sand. It appeared to have a rune carved on it, most likely rechargeable by the witch who had spelled it. And pricey.
Unless … I almost opened my mouth to ask if Jasmine was using spells she’d gotten from Copper — the witch that Declan was currently cohabiting with. But then I completed the circle in the sand, and I kept the question to myself. I never would have asked any other lead investigator about the magic at her disposal. It wasn’t my business.
I pulled out my four pillar candles, pacing a smaller circle just wide enough to include the two middle swings in my reconstruction. I could move the inner circle within the outer one if it became necessary.
Magic spiraled around me as Jasmine triggered a barrier spell designed to hide us from sight. Passersby who knew that the park contained a swing set would still be able to see it, but they wouldn’t see Jasmine and me, or the magic we were casting. It was risky to use a single barrier spell on its own, though, which was why Jasmine paced along the inner edge of the larger circle a second time, setting out two more premade spells. Directed toward the paths that converged on the swing set, those would distract anyone who entered this area of the park. As long as they couldn’t see through or sense magic.
I was still placing my candles when a mother and her son approached the playground, walking hand in hand. The three-year-old boy was all smiles and awkward steps as he trundled off the path, through the grass, and then into the sand. He tugged at his mother’s hand emphatically when she paused by the slide, intending to make a beeline for the swings.
Jasmine straightened up from applying the second distraction spell, watching the mother and son. I could sense her readying some sort of explanation for our activities in case the spells failed. Though with me fiddling around with candles, it was going to be pretty difficult to convince anyone that we weren’t performing some sort of witchcraft in a children’s park.
A half-dozen feet away, the mother suddenly hesitated. A frown creased her brow. Then one hand pulled her phone out of her pocket, checking the screen. The boy tugged at her other hand.
“Mom! Swings.”
“Sorry, Ethan. I was wrong about the time.” She started to turn around, heading back the way they’d come.
The boy’s face crumpled, reddening. “But they get to play!” He lifted his hand, pointing at Jasmine with tears welling in his large brown eyes. Apparently, he had no trouble seeing through the magic of the barrier, and wasn’t at all affected by the distraction spell like his mother was. Magic had possibly skipped a generation in his family. Or he might not have been blood related to his mother, or simply took after his father. Whatever the case, he was a fledgling Adept of some sort.
“Ethan,” his mother said, “I’m sorry. But we’re going to be late for dinner.” Despite her son’s insistence, the compulsion of the distraction spell made her tug lightly at the boy’s arm.
His lower lip quivered as he turned away, looking mournfully back over his shoulder at us.
Jasmine waved to him.
He offered her a halfhearted wave back. Then, dropping his chin to his chest, he toddled onto the path and out of the park toward the sidewalk, his now-harried mother at his side.
“She’s going to be confused when they get to their next destination early,” I said.
Jasmine sighed. “Yeah, ruining a kid’s day. Top of my list of things to do.”
I crouched to light the candles, beginning with green for earth, but my attention was drawn to Jasmine as she stuffed her hands into her jacket pockets. She was still standing with her back to me, looking out at the park.
“Stop watching me so closely, Betty-Sue,” she whispered, hunching her shoulders forward. “You know I’m okay. I’m with you.”
I dropped my gaze, lighting the candle with a snap of my fingers. Magic flashed through the inner circle, lighting the other three candles. And, with a light mental push, my reconstruction spell sealed into place around the residual I’d felt on the swing.
I straightened, raising my palms toward the energy contained within the circle. “There isn’t much here,” I murmured, coaxing the residual forward, then directing it to reform.
The light within the circle shifted, marking the reconstruction as closer to evening but still not after sunset. A late-afternoon day shrouded with heavier cloud cover, perhaps. It was difficult to tell without widening the reconstruction.
Coral appeared before me, sitting on a swing. I quickly stepped to the side so I could see her profile. She was staring straight ahead. Her face was etched by terror and streaked with tears.
Despite my continual resolve to be as professional as possible, a heavy dread seeped into my stomach. “I have Coral,” I said.
Jasmine turned to press her hand against the side of my circle, tapping into the reconstruction effortlessly. I didn’t need to compensate for the addition of my best friend’s magic. I knew the tenor of it as well as I knew my own.
Red-streaked energy blurred the reconstruction. For a moment, I thought I’d lost my grasp on the residual. Then a ruddy-haired male set a ginger-haired girl into the swing next to Coral.
Jasmine swore viciously, slamming her fist against my circle. The accompanying thrust of anger-induced magic momentarily dispersed the reconstruction.
I didn’t hear her exact words. Every bit of me was focused on keeping the collection running, and on watching the man visible within it.
No. Not a man.
A vampire.
Specifically, Yale.
Yale was kidnapping Ruby Cameron.
A pulse of adrenaline ran down my spine, weakening my knees and souring my stomach. I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing myself to breathe deeply while I attempted to assess the situation as quickly and rationally as I could. Had I contaminated the reconstruction somehow? Had I influenced the residual with the concern for Jasmine that had been building up in me for almost four months, muddying the magic? Was that even possible? And if so, why would my concern have manifested as Yale? Why not Valko, the vampire that had actually ravaged my cousin?
Because Valko was dead? And Yale was alive?
I felt the magic within the circle ebb, then dissipate.
“He let him go,” Jasmine said tonelessly. “The asshole let him go.”
I opened my eyes.
My best friend was staring straight ahead, but without really seeing anything in front of her. She lifted her arms, wrapping her hands around her neck as if attempting to cover bite marks that had healed months before. “Kett let him go,” she whispered, completely lost in whatever was going on in her mind.
“Jasmine,” I snapped, harsher than I’d intended in my worry over her mental state.
She flinched. Then she dropped her hands from her neck, looking guilty.
“Ruby was taken in December,” I said, the words rushed as I pieced together the timeline. “Kett took Yale to London in January.”
Relief softened Jasmine’s face. Then she looked chagrined. “Sorry. I … jumped to conclusions.”
“Plus, I’m worried I screwed the collection up somehow.”
“You? Screwed up a spell you can call forth in your sleep?”
I nodded, distracted as I felt the reconstruction beneath my hands, waiting to be replayed. “I’m going to play it again before I collect it. Hopefully with sound.”
Without waiting for Jasmine to respond, and before I could spend any more time thinking about the ramifications of what I had just potentially discovered in the playground, I triggered the reconstruction.
Within my circle, Yale was crouched before Coral, who was sitting on the swing. The pale-skinned, ruddy-haired vampire was reaching up to touch the witch’s cheek. Ruby, sitting in the swing next to her mother, was clutching Coral’s arm. Mother and daughter both wore heavier wool jackets and cable-knit hats. Matching mittens hung from Ruby’s sleeves, connected through the arms of her jacket by a string.
I held the image still for a moment, absorbing the visual. The skiff of snow on the ground. The clothing everyone was wearing. The tears streaking Coral’s cheeks.
The bite mark on her neck that wept with blood.
“He’s trying to compel her,” I said.
“Wipe her mind, more like.” Jasmine’s voice was hollow. “And he was successful.”
“She fought,” I said. I felt the need to defend the witch who had lost her daughter to a vampire, in a playground only blocks from her home.
I stirred the magic of the reconstruction underneath my hands, looking for something, anything, that felt superimposed or false within it.
“You didn’t screw it up, Wisteria. Play it out. Then we need to make some calls.”
I loosened my hold on the reconstruction.
“There is no Ruby,” Yale said. His Welsh accent was sweet and lyrical. “You have no daughter, Coral Cameron.”
“Mom?” Ruby cried, shaking her mother.
Coral was staring deep into Yale’s eyes, as if oblivious to Ruby’s pleas. Except for the constant stream of tears running down her cheeks, dripping into the red plaid scarf looped around her neck.
“You hear me, Coral,” Yale said, ignoring Ruby. “You have no daughter. Say it.”
Coral opened her mouth. Then she clenched her teeth in a fierce grimace.
Unleashing Echoes (Reconstructionist 3) Page 4