Deception of the Magician (Waldgrave Book 2)

by A. L. Tyler

  She stared at the low hotel ceiling and fidgeted with the stiff blankets; she had never remembered hotel rooms to be so unaccommodating. The bed was so lumpy it was practically impossible to find a spot where she was comfortable. The alarm clock was the wrong color, the bathroom was cold, and Lena hated having to share a room. She turned over on her side and pulled the covers tighter around her shoulders, but it didn’t help. She had full temperature control over her room back home…

  At Waldgrave. She was thinking of Waldgrave as home more and more since she had been away. She missed it. She missed Howard; deep in her heart, she was conflicted. She wanted to leave, but she knew she couldn’t leave Howard. He was her last true family.

  Lena sat up in bed and looked very slowly around. The ugly tan walls and the cheap television; the furniture bolted to the ground and the bleached white and sterilized sheets that smelled vaguely of starch. The noise and cold air pouring past the thin, lanky curtains; it was all alien to her. It was exactly the way she remembered, but it was so far from feeling what she wanted it to feel like. She wanted to go back to Waldgrave and she didn’t. She wanted to be here and she didn’t. She didn’t know what she wanted, but she knew she didn’t have it. And not knowing what she wanted, she didn’t know where she should be going or how to get there. An alarm went off in her brain; she knew she was treading dangerous waters. If she couldn’t pick a direction, she would drown.

  *****

  CHAPTER 7

  The next morning at breakfast, Greg gave Lena a gentle interrogation. The scene from the night before had made it around to all of the other Representatives, and some of the New Faith group were apparently concerned that there was some sort of conspiracy going on. Having actually seen what happened, Master Prescot was more of the mind that Lena was being pressured into a conspiracy. She took it upon herself to speak to each Representative individually that day to assure everyone that nothing was going on; it had been a discussion about Ava’s drinking. She didn’t need rumors flying around that could potentially derail her chances of bringing the portal back.

  Her dreams were becoming stronger and more memorable with every day closer they came to Ecuador. Her anxieties were beginning to get to her as well, and she wasn’t sure why. The night they crossed the border into Panama, she had the most lucid dream she could remember.

  Ben was sitting in a corner of a small roadside diner somewhere. All the signs were in Spanish, but all the people were speaking English. It looked like it was the fifties.

  A woman was walking out of the kitchen. She was wearing a bubblegum pink floor-length evening gown covered in sequins that glimmered like champagne fizz and had puffy red hair. Her makeup was flawless, and as she walked towards Ben she pulled a diary out of her imaginary back pocket. She flicked it open, and suddenly there was a pen in her hand.

  “Can I take your order?”

  Ben looked across the table. “Lena?”

  And she was sitting at the table, staring distractedly off into space. She looked over at Ben. “Hmm?”

  He nodded at the menu, and she picked it up. “Oatmeal.”

  The waitress pretended she was writing it down. She looked at Ben.

  “Oh, no. I can’t read it. Lena will order for me.”

  “What?” Lena looked over at Ben, who smiled sheepishly. She looked back at the waitress in the pink dress, but she had turned into Devin.

  “I don’t want this.” He handed the diary to Lena, and then sat down where Ben had been.

  Lena looked around the diner again. There was raucous laughter coming from somewhere, but she couldn’t see anyone laughing.

  “I can keep a secret.”

  “I don’t have any secrets to tell you, Dev.” Lena looked back at him. The laughter was getting louder, and it was starting to unnerve her.

  “I can keep a secret.”

  “I don’t…” But it was Marie this time.

  The laughter was so loud it was buzzing in her ears. Lena couldn’t hear anything but the laughter, but when Marie whispered, it was as clean and clear as sunlight. She leaned in close to Lena, her dark hair and eyes shining with despair. “He told me not to tell you. He’s going to kill you, too.”

  Lena sat straight up in bed. Goosebumps had broken out all over her skin; there was a dark form in the doorway between the two hotel rooms, and she almost screamed.

  Bad dreams, Princess?

  “What are you doing?” She whispered.

  His form was frozen in darkness in the doorframe. You were talking in your sleep. What did you dream?

  Lena closed her eyes tight. She wasn’t sure if she was still dreaming or not. When she opened her eyes, he was still there; he was still Griffin. “I was…it was a nightmare. Just a nightmare. It didn’t make any sense.”

  Griffin stood in the door a while longer, then he wandered back into the other room. Lena laid back down on the bed. The mattress and sheets were soaked with cold sweat.

  “This is it?”

  The shabby single-level hotel hadn’t been painted in ages. It was peeling all over; the gray paint was a slightly different shade than the wood revealed around the cracks. The brown roof was a nice change of color, but the row of leafy green plants in front of the hotel almost made the whole structure disappear into the shadows. There was a litter of kittens hiding under the boardwalk-like porch that lined the hotel doors. Only some of the windows had shutters, and some of them only had curtains. The deadbolt locks on the doors were the only things that looked new. Lena turned and looked out at the ocean instead. At least it had a nice view.

  “So this is where you left me and dad?” She turned her head and looked at Ava. She actually looked sad, which surprised Lena. The breeze was blowing her hair in her face, and she hadn’t put on makeup that day. She was staring out into the water; for Ava, time was standing still. It had been so long ago, and the ocean was ever unchanging. It looked exactly the way it had the day Aaron had insisted they go scuba diving, leaving the twins in the boat with his shaggy friend, Azul.

  “Yes. This is where it happened.” She took a breath like she was about to say something, but then paused. “It’s so strange…”

  Lena turned and looked back at the hotel. This place wasn’t going to have adjoining rooms. She would be amazed if this place even had running water. She glanced over at Greg and Master Spelman, who were attempting to get rooms. The lobby was actually more of a shack that had been painted to look nice. Someone had put French doors on the front, which were currently thrown open to let in the good weather. Master Spelman gestured Ava over; as she left, Griffin sidled up next to Lena.

  Any more dreams?

  Lena looked around at the other Council members. Most of them were unloading luggage or sitting in the van. She didn’t exactly like that Griffin knew she was dreaming again, but her nightmares had continued to persist, and she wasn’t sure why. She hated admitting that she was afraid, but Griffin was as close as she was going to get to a confidant while she was out looking for the portal. Anyone else was likely to tell Howard, who wouldn’t hesitate to pull the plug on her only chance at freedom.

  After one more quick look around, Lena started to mumble under her breath. “I was in the bathtub, and then the water got cold. Devin was there again, and it got really dark. It was like the night when…Well, the night we snuck out together and went swimming in the reservoir, except it was so dark. Then it started raining, and it was like the water started rising around me. It covered my head, and I couldn’t get to the surface. It felt like someone was holding me under.” She shivered. Griffin didn’t look concerned; he just looked stern, the way he did every time she mentioned a dream that Devin was in. She wondered if he was jealous.

  I’m not. He replied without a hint of humor. There wasn’t anyone else there?

  Lena thought hard. She hadn’t seen anyone else, but there had been other people there. “I think so. I didn’t see who they were. I don’t think this one was a big deal, though. I mean, it kind of freak
ed me out for a while, but Ben Collins wasn’t in it. It didn’t mean anything.” She had said the last part more for her benefit than his…she had been trying to convince herself that the dreams didn’t mean anything for some time. It had all the feel of a regular nightmare, but it had seemed so real. She knew that other Silenti had vivid dreams; she had read about it in some of the books in Waldgrave’s library. Some Silenti dreams were premonitions, and some were clairvoyant, but she couldn’t see her dreams being anything but ordinary. When was she ever going to eat with Ben in a diner, or drown in a bathtub that turned into a lake?

  Her cell phone went off. It was Howard. As she raised the phone to her ear, Griffin turned to face the water.

  “Just wanted to check in.” Howard’s voice sounded tired, and possibly even bored. He’d become more comfortable with the fact that Lena was away, and though he still wasn’t happy about it, he had stopped calling to check in every three hours just to be sure she was still alive.

  “Everything’s fine here. We made it to the hotel.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah.” Lena turned back to face the hotel. “It’s the crappiest little hotel I’ve ever seen. You know, most of them around here by the beach are really nice, but this one is straight out of the sixties and that’s probably the last time it was cleaned or repaired or anything. I’m surprised it hasn’t been torn down yet.”

  “You’re not staying there, are you?” She heard the slight prick of concern that usually led to questions about whether or not she was “really safe out there,” and immediately started into damage control.

  “We kind of have to, Howard. It’s part of the…process. Your dad stayed here the night he came to pick the thing up, in room twelve, so that’s where I’m staying. I need to do this, and it’s only one night, anyway.” She wasn’t sure if it would only be one night or not. Under the porch, the mother cat had returned to her litter with a rat larger than any of her kittens in her mouth; Lena sincerely hoped it was only for one night.

  “I don’t know…” Howard said, sounding concerned.

  “Don’t worry so much. Worst case scenario, I get tetanus. What’s new there?”

  Back over at check-in, it looked like a down-played argument was happening. Greg seemed to be trying to get Ava to calm down. Master Spelman looked very frustrated, and Masters Brendon and Sabina had gotten out of the van to investigate.

  Howard sighed. “Well, not a whole lot. There was some trouble at the Colburns’ last week. Apparently some of the staff walked out. They’re still sorting it all out. It's created a mess with a lot of fostered or boarded human-borns...”

  “Anyone I know?” Lena furrowed her brow.

  Master Sabina wasn’t quite yelling, but he looked like he was talking very sternly to the manager behind the counter. Griffin left Lena’s side and walked briskly over. Soon he had pulled out his cell phone.

  “Oh, I don’t think so.” Howard said. “I didn’t even think about it, in fact. Is there anyone you’d like me to ask after?”

  “Devin and Marie, I guess.” Lena took a deep breath to steady herself; Devin’s sudden and constant appearances in her dreams had her worried now that she knew there had been a disturbance at the Colburn residence. “Actually, if you could get my cell phone number to Devin and have him call me, that’d be great.”

  “I’ll try—“ A beep interrupted the call. “I believe I have a call on the other line. I’ll call you later, okay?”

  “Okay. Bye.”

  Lena closed her phone and walked over to the check-in desk, where several people now had cell phones pressed to their ears. Lena walked up close to Greg Mason.

  “Tell Howard I said hey.” She leaned against the wall.

  Greg eyed her for a moment. “They only have two rooms available, though, and they already have reservations for…Yes, it’s the right room. Hold on a moment.” He looked over at Lena. “They don’t have enough space for us. If you had to stay here with seven other people, who would you prefer?”

  Lena looked around at all the old men barking into their cell phones. Griffin was staying for sure, because Master Daray said so. Ava was staying because she said so, and even though she didn’t hold political sway, she became a royal pain when people stopped giving her what she wanted. That left five…If she only picked one or two, it was more likely that her request would be honored because it left squabble room for the parties to pick the other Representatives they wanted. It was better to pick two in case one was objected to.

  “I want you and Master Rivera.” Lena said firmly. “I don’t care about the rest, so you can figure it out by vote or whatever.”

  Greg put the phone back up to his ear. “Okay, did you hear that? Yes. Yes. There’s a place down the road that we passed on the way…”

  The phone conversations went on for a while with the elderly desk manager watching, bewildered. Lena bet that no one had ever made such a big deal over his crappy little hotel before. After a while, half of the Representatives piled into the van and set off to get rooms down the street. As Lena had predicted, Ava and Griffin had stayed; Greg, Master Rivera, Master Spelman, Master Baker, and Master Sabina were also staying. The desk manager took them to two rooms down that walk; numbers twelve and thirteen. Ava, Lena, Greg, and Master Rivera settled into number twelve.

  As luck would have it, there were only two beds. Small beds. The bed linens didn’t look washed, and the bathroom was mildewed and smelly. The only light in the bathroom came from a single low-watt bulb hanging from the middle of the ceiling. What Lena had taken to be gray tile revealed itself to be a persistent mold that covered the shower, tub, and parts of the floor. Once upon a time, the tile had probably been white.

  Ava’s eyes were wide and disgusted. “I think I saw a bar down the way…”

  After they finished unpacking, Greg cleared the excursion with the other members staying at the hotel and then they walked down to the bar. It was already getting dark, and Master Rivera was anxious about staying out too late, but Ava was really going to need something to survive a night in a hotel like theirs. Soon they were seated, and Ava was ordering herself a margarita. Twenty minutes and three margaritas later, they went back to the hotel.

  Ava wasn’t quite drunk yet because she had downed the margaritas so quickly, but she was very giggly. After getting her to change into her pajamas and settle onto her side of the bed, Lena couldn’t get her to stop talking. Matias Rivera and Greg seemed to have developed a high tolerance for ignoring her. Lena strongly wished she could do the same.

  Greg sighed. He was taking the first shift of sitting up so that Matias could get half a night’s sleep in the tiny beds each pair had to share. He was sitting in a chair in the corner, using a small lamp light to read over some paperwork he had brought along. Lena and Ava were sharing a bed; after helping Ava get her shoes off and tucking her in, Lena had changed into pajamas and wiggled her way under the thin blanket on her side of the bed.

  As Ava let out another loud, giggling snort, Greg’s eyes met Lena’s. At least she’s not complaining…

  “I guess…” Lena mumbled. “Mom! Shh! Quiet down…you need to quiet down now, because people are trying to sleep.”

  Ava got really quiet as she cautiously peered over her shoulder at Matias, who only appeared to be asleep; Lena doubted he really was because Ava’s cacophonous laugh was downright irritating. She looked back at Lena, her glassy eyes very serious and her rosy cheeks glowing.

  “You know…You were always my favorite.” Ava started. “You were always…”

  Lena closed her eyes, shaking her head. “Mom, don’t. Let’s just go to bed.”

  But Ava continued to babble; she had quieted down some, so Lena let her. “I never wanted to be like my mom, but I guess I screwed that one up. You know, I never grew up with a mom…she died…like I left you when you were little. She left me when I was little. She burned with the house…did you know I always thought she saved me? I can still remember seeing her there, next
to me…outside the house, like she got me out…standing there, crying. But of course she wasn’t there because she burned down with the house and died. My father’s the one that carried me out.”

  Ava went quiet. For several minutes, Lena thought she had dozed off.

  “That’s how I know it will work…we have strong connects…we know each other, like, all the people in the family. I saw her standing right there…next to me…even though she was dead. You’ll see him. You’ll find it. I’m so sure of it. My father’s sure, too, but he’s an old…an old…” Ava broke out in giggles. She leaned in close next to Lena, her breath reeking of sour fruit. “An old fart!”

  She giggled uncontrollably for a few minutes as Lena tried to quiet her down again. But when she finally did, she still wasn’t in the mood for sleep.

  “Oh…that just kills me. Kills! Did I mention my mother…? She’s…dead. Died…and I saw her…Oh, but I never wanted to be like my father! Was your dad an old fart?” She looked blearily at Lena.

  “No. He was great. He was the best friend I think I’ll ever have.”

  Ava stared uncertainly at Lena for a moment, and then burst out in tears. “That’s the kind of parent I always wanted to be…I wanted to show you everything…I wanted to be there for you, but…but it was so hard! I never…” She sobbed, and unsure of what to do, Lena reached over and pulled her into a hug. Lena gazed across the room; Greg must have been able to hear what was going on, but he was doing a good job of pretending he didn’t. Lena was grateful for the pretense of privacy; real privacy was at a premium in her life lately.

  “I never had it good when I was a kid…do you remember when you were just a kid? You got to play outside and go outside and play and everything. I…I made sure of that. When I was a little, little kid…I never…he never let me go out and play. It was always studying…and copying…he made me copy out of those stupid books! All the time!” Her eyes misted over, and she put a clammy hand on Lena’s cheek. “I’m so, so sorry I made you do it! …You don’t ever have to copy out of those books again…I scribbled in one of them really good one time because I hated it so much. I wasn’t good at it like you. I just…sometimes I don’t get all the right words…don’t think I see them all the way he sees them. He told me I did it wrong. I think I was…a little kid. I scribbled it all out…he was so, so, so, mad! So, so mad…”