How exactly she was supposed to manage that, when she barely knew the Santiago witch, Hayley had no idea. Also, after everything she’d been through, Lucinda didn’t really seem like someone who would be in the mood for mixing up skinny margaritas and discussing the relative merits of Channing Tatum versus Tom Hardy. But Hayley supposed she’d figure out something. Better to have to play babysitter for a while than sit down with the elders and work on the impossible task of trying to figure out how to make a town full of pacifist witches and warlocks face down whatever supernatural army Joaquin Escobar planned to send against them.
Lucinda was quiet as she walked with Hayley down to the building where the flat was located. Even though she was silent, her eyes scanned the streets around them, looking at the tourists, nodding to herself as her witch sense detected the others of her kind mixed in with the civilians. There was also a certain amount of surprise and interest in her expression as she looked at the restored buildings, the steep hillsides above them.
Well, Jerome was certainly nothing like Pasadena.
As Hayley opened the door to the flat, she said, “This is actually my brother’s place. I’m kind of crashing here — my parents started to get a little freaked about everything that’s been going on, and they thought I’d be safer in Jerome.”
The corner of Lucinda’s mouth quirked slightly. “Joke’s on them, I guess.”
Hayley couldn’t really argue with that comment. And as insane and horrible as the last half hour had been, she was also glad to see that Lucinda appeared to be a little more connected, not quite as out of it, as though having come face to face with even more trauma had helped to knock some of Matías Escobar’s fog right out of her brain.
“Do you want a glass of water?” Hayley asked. Having seen the inside of her brother’s refrigerator, she knew there wasn’t much more she could offer besides water, except maybe a bottle of Lumberyard pale ale. But as much as the notion of having a beer sounded pretty good right about then, she wasn’t sure alcohol was such a good idea, considering Lucinda’s still somewhat fragile state.
“Sure.” She looked around at the living room, but her expression was so neutral that Hayley couldn’t really guess what she was thinking. At least the furniture was in a more pleasing arrangement now, and the odds and ends she’d bought while shopping with Levi had been put in their proper places, but the flat still wasn’t exactly what you could call elegant. From what she’d heard, the Santiago prima’s house in Pasadena was pretty ritzy. But, since that house was currently occupied by the Escobars, it made this humble little flat a haven in comparison.
Hayley busied herself with getting a couple of glasses from the cupboard, then dispensed some ice and water from the refrigerator door. Thank God that the place had up-to-date appliances. Lukewarm water out of the tap probably wouldn’t have cut it.
She went into the living room and handed Lucinda one of the glasses. “Here you go.”
“Do you know her well?” the other witch asked abruptly.
Hayley didn’t have to ask who she was talking about. “Not really. I actually only met Rachel for the first time last night, when we dropped you off.”
Lucinda frowned. “But aren’t you a McAllister?”
“Yes, but I’m from the branch of the family in Payson. That’s about a hundred miles from here. Like I said, I came here to stay with my brother because it seemed safer at the time. I’ve only been here a couple of days. Not very long.”
“Long enough, though.”
Hayley tilted her head and gave Lucinda a questioning look. “What do you mean?”
“I saw you with Levi. You seemed…close. So I guess the McAllisters are like most witch families and don’t care too much about cousins being together, as long as they’re distant enough?”
Obviously, Lucinda had been paying closer attention than Hayley had thought. She would have liked to tell the truth, to say that while Levi had taken the last name of McAllister, he wasn’t genetically related to the clan at all. But doing so would require divulging his secrets, and she knew she wouldn’t do that. In time, he probably would want to tell Lucinda the truth. It was his place to do so, however…not hers. “Yes, that’s pretty much how it works. We marry civilians, too. Don’t the Santiagos do the same thing?”
“Mostly. But our clan is big — we have people everywhere from San Diego all the way up past Santa Barbara. And we’ve been in California for a long, long time. It’s not quite the same thing.”
Hayley didn’t know if Lucinda was trying to be condescending, or whether she just didn’t realize how her words had come across. Yes, so the Santiagos had a huge clan, and it was therefore a lot easier to be with someone who was technically a cousin but who might not share any more genetic material with you than a stranger down the street. Probably best to ignore the comment for now. She did seem remarkably recovered for a woman who’d been under a dark warlock’s mind control for the past few weeks, but that didn’t mean she was all the way back to herself.
“I guess,” Hayley said, her tone noncommittal. “But yes, Levi and I…made a connection, I suppose. He lives in the apartment across the landing, so I guess it’s not that strange that we’d bump into each other. My brother Brandon works long hours, and so at first I think Levi was just trying to make sure I wasn’t left alone in a new place.”
As if to give the lie to her words, since it was only a little after two in the afternoon, the doorknob turned and Brandon walked in. He stopped dead a foot or so inside the door, his gaze locked on Lucinda. “Um, sorry. I didn’t know you had company.”
“It’s okay,” Hayley replied. Should she get up from the sofa? No, that would make the situation even more awkward. “Lucinda and I were just chatting. But what are you doing home in the middle of the afternoon?”
He fished his iPhone out of his pocket and sort of waved it at her. “I got a text alert about Rachel. Tricia set up the alerts right after that whole Escobar mess down in Scottsdale.”
Lucinda flinched at the mention of the Escobars, but otherwise she seemed content to stay silent, watching Brandon out of slightly narrowed eyes. Taking his measure? Hayley couldn’t really be sure. Yes, her brother looked even scruffier than usual, his sandy hair tousled, a haze of dark beard on his chin since he hadn’t bothered to shave that morning, the usual oil and grease stains on his T-shirt, but certainly no one could have ever detected an aura of evil around him.
“That’s a good idea,” Hayley said. “I didn’t get one, though.”
“Probably I didn’t think to give Tricia your number. My bad.” Once again, he looked over at Lucinda and then quickly glanced away. If Hayley didn’t know better, she would have said that was a slight flush she spotted in his cheeks.
Was he interested in Lucinda? Hayley had to admit that the Santiago witch was very pretty, with those big dark eyes and lashes that looked fake but obviously weren’t, considering she wasn’t currently wearing a speck of makeup. And with her full mouth and that long fall of near-black hair, she was certainly not anything like the McAllister witches Brandon would have met over the past few months.
Maybe it wasn’t that he wasn’t interested in women. Maybe it was only that he hadn’t encountered the kind of woman he’d be interested in.
Hmm….
“It’s all right,” Hayley told him. “I was with Levi, and he got the text. We were up hiking on one of the trails on Mingus, and came back down as soon as we heard.” Now it was her turn to feel a flush touch her face, one that couldn’t be blamed on the sun exposure she’d gotten earlier. Just thinking of the mountain trail made her remember that bright clearing, and the way Levi had kissed her as they sat on the fallen log. “Anyway,” she went on hurriedly, “Rachel has already been taken to the hospital, and a bunch of the clan members are cleaning up the mess from the accident. About all we can do now is wait to hear from Connor and Angela — they went down to Cottonwood Regional to be with Tobias.”
“I saw the boarded-up window at the
store,” Brandon said, his tone somewhat absent. Then he looked down at the stained T-shirt he wore and tugged at the hem. “I’d better get changed. I doubt I’ll be going back down to the shop today.”
“You work on cars?” Lucinda asked.
“Yes,” he replied. “Mostly restorations, vintage muscle cars, that kind of stuff. We’re going to be featured in an episode of Dream Machines next month.”
“Oh, that’s interesting,” she replied, although Hayley could tell from the politely empty intonation in those words that Lucinda had absolutely no idea what Dream Machines even was.
Brandon apparently noticed as well, because he gave a hitch of his shoulders and said, “Anyway, I’ll be back out in a few.”
He went down the hallway and into his room, closing the door behind him. Lucinda seemed to watch for a few more seconds before she shifted on the couch and once again faced Hayley. “What’s Dream Machines?”
“It’s a TV show. You know, on cable. Every week they feature a different car restoration. It’s kind of a big deal to get chosen. Brandon and the rest of the guys at the shop are pretty excited about it.”
“Ah.” Lucinda went quiet for a moment, her fingers playing with the embroidered edge of her shirt in an unconscious imitation of Brandon’s gesture from a moment earlier. “That seems like an odd occupation for a warlock.”
“Well, his talent is working with mechanical things. Engines and wiring and all that stuff. He can fix pretty much anything.” Belatedly, Hayley realized it was a breach of witch-kind etiquette to divulge someone else’s talent without their permission, but she doubted her brother would mind too much. His wasn’t the sort of gift that needed to be hidden away, and besides, it might help to enhance him in Lucinda’s eyes.
“That’s a good talent to have. He’s lucky that he found someplace to work where he could put it to use.” She let out a small sigh then, her gaze moving away from Hayley’s so it could rest on one of the new pictures that hung in the living room, this one of a serene river with willows bending over it. “Mine was never much good. A small talent for predicting the weather. I knew I was a disappointment to my parents.”
“I doubt that,” Hayley said, her heart aching for the other witch. All right, Lucinda hadn’t been strong enough to be prima, but everyone knew that the succession in witch clans didn’t always run in a straight line.
“You didn’t know them.” Lucinda smiled then, a small, bitter smile. “My mother would never say anything, and because she was injured when I was very young, she didn’t have the strength to show her disappointment, but my papa — he was a different story. I saw it in his eyes every time he looked at me. Maybe it would have been good for me to use my talents in the civilian world, as your brother has. I have no doubt I would have made a passable weather girl on a local television station. Not, of course, that my father would have ever allowed such a thing.”
“I’m — I’m sorry about that,” Hayley said in a small voice. No, she hadn’t known the Santiagos, but it didn’t seem as if anyone else had yet offered Lucinda any condolences over the loss of her parents. Possibly Connor and Angela would have, once they came to visit their refugee, but the accident that sent Rachel to the hospital had probably driven any thoughts of condolence calls straight out of their minds. “And about your cousin Marisol and her husband.”
Lucinda rubbed her hands over the knees of the jeans she wore. Hayley wondered where she’d gotten the clothes. Maybe from Angela; the two of them looked as if they were roughly the same size. “It’s…well, it’s not all right, but it’s just what is right now. We witches have many powers, but raising the dead isn’t among them.” A shiver went through her. “At least, I have to hope it isn’t. I still don’t know everything about what Joaquin and Matías are capable of.”
It was Hayley’s turn to shiver. Demons were bad enough; the last thing she wanted to think about was whether the Escobars had learned the dark spells required to raise the dead. She tried to comfort herself with the notion that they certainly wouldn’t want to raise the very people they’d murdered, as they wouldn’t make very good servants. Unless, of course, Joaquin and Matías were able to force the formerly deceased Santiagos to their bidding, just as they had done with Lucinda and her cousin Marisol and everyone else who’d crossed their path.
“Anyway,” Lucinda went on, “since the past can’t be changed, about all I can do is pray that the Escobars meet their final justice. It won’t bring back the dead, but at least if the two of them end up rotting in the ground, then I’ll know they can’t cause any more damage.”
Strong words, but Hayley couldn’t argue with the sentiment. It did seem as though the only way anyone would be able to rest easy was after father and son met their all-too-deserving fate. But who would mete out the justice they so richly deserved? Connor and Angela? Luz Trujillo, or possibly all three of them working together? It was both their place and their right, as clan leaders.
And yet…would they be able to prevail, when the time came? Or would they turn to Levi, as they already had once before?
Footsteps came down the hallway, and both women fell silent as Brandon entered the living room. He looked much more socially acceptable now, in a clean dark T-shirt and jeans that didn’t look as if they’d just been dragged across a hundred miles of bad road, his hair combed, his face and hands washed. Next to Hayley, Lucinda sat up a little straighter, and pushed a lock of long dark hair back over her shoulder.
It seemed as though the interest just might be mutual, although Hayley told herself it was kind of silly to be thinking about such things at the moment. Lucinda had just been extricated from a damaging, abusive situation, and probably wouldn’t be too interested in starting anything for a long time. And, as Hayley herself had just pointed out to Levi earlier that afternoon, this didn’t seem the right moment for any of them to be looking at a new relationship, not with the threat that hung over all their heads.
But she and Levi had kissed anyway, which meant she was the last person who should be lecturing someone on being cautious in these dark times.
She couldn’t tell if Brandon had overheard any of hers and Lucinda’s conversation. His expression was neutral enough, but that, Hayley thought, probably stemmed more from a need to prevent himself from staring at Lucinda than because he’d heard something he knew he wasn’t supposed to.
“Nothing new yet,” he said, indicating the phone he held in one hand.
“Well, it’s probably going to take a while to run all those tests,” Hayley replied.
“Where’s Levi?” her brother asked, as if noticing his neighbor’s absence for the first time.
“He went to talk to the elders. Lucinda was worried that this might have been an attack by the Escobars.”
Brandon’s eyebrows lifted, and his gaze shifted to the Santiago witch. Something about the change in his posture told Hayley that he was glad of the chance to be able to speak to Lucinda directly. “What makes you think that?”
“It’s the sort of thing they would do,” she said, her tone hard. Hatred flashed in her dark eyes. “I doubt they were happy that I was taken. Not because they valued me so much, but more because doing such a thing right under their noses was a direct challenge. It was like spitting in their faces.”
Well, Hayley couldn’t really argue with that assessment. And although the whole experience had been frightening enough as it happened — she was glad she’d been there. It had felt good to strike a blow against the Escobars.
“I’m sure the elders will investigate what happened,” Hayley said. “Even with Connor and Angela down at the hospital, they should be able to find something.”
“I hope so,” Brandon said, his tone grim. “Going after Rachel — that’s just not right.”
Lucinda’s dark eyes held his. For that moment, they might have been the only two people in the room. “I am afraid the Escobars care little for what is right.”
Levi had been at Tricia’s house before, but not in an “o
fficial” capacity such as this. Yes, he’d become a confidant of sorts to Angela and Connor, but they didn’t interact with the elders as often as some might think, instead preferring to allow that trio of two witches and one warlock to manage the day-to-day affairs of the McAllister clan.
Now he sat on a comfortable overstuffed chair, while the three elders took their seats on a large beige linen couch. Although Tricia had poured sparkling water with lemon for everyone, none of them seemed inclined to drink. Bryce’s blue eyes were still crackling with angry fire, while Allegra’s usual air of detached bewilderment seemed stronger than usual. Tricia herself appeared calm and collected, not one hair out of place in her red bob. Even so, Levi detected the smallest shake of her hand as she set down the last of the glasses of water, and realized the youngest elder wasn’t quite as composed as she wanted everyone else to think.
“Angela called me a few minutes ago,” she said. “Rachel is stable…for the moment. She has a concussion and two cracked ribs, and they still want to do an MRI, but it sounds as though she’s going to be okay.”
“Thank the Goddess,” Allegra breathed, even as Bryce said, his tone as gruff as his eyebrows,
“That doesn’t help us with trying to find out who did this. Does she remember anything about the accident?”
“I don’t think Angela or Connor have asked her,” Trish replied. “She’s in a good deal of pain, and medicated. They probably want to wait until things have stabilized a bit.”
“Well, we can’t wait forever,” Bryce said. “I’ve asked around, and asked others to ask around, and no one can say much about the car involved except that it was silver and sporty and had tinted windows.”
Allegra frowned. “But surely any car that crashed into a building like that would have sustained a great deal of damage. It wouldn’t be that hard to find it, would it? You wouldn’t think it could have gotten very far.”
“Unless….” Levi began, and paused as the others suddenly focused on him.
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