“Admired or coveted,” Ileana murmured loud enough for many to hear.
Karsh ignored her. “The corporation known then as CompuMage, now DuBaer Industries. Aron and Thantos disagreed about how the company should be run, how its resources should be used —”
Ileana shot Thantos a sidelong glance. His face was a stony mask, but his eyes blazed with anger.
Karsh continued, “This is what I know and one thing more: Thantos was the last to see Aron DuBaer alive.”
Silence fell over the amphitheater as Karsh bowed slightly to the Exalted Elders and retreated to the People’s bench.
Thantos chose not to question Karsh but rose slowly and deliberately surveyed the amphitheater. Wordlessly, the hulking tracker demanded the rapt attention of every member present.
“Lord Karsh is right.” The proclamation, declared in Thantos’s deep booming voice, rocked the amphitheater. Until the menacing warlock thundered, “Right, that is, in his use of the word alive.” He paused for effect. “I will recount what happened that tragic day.” Thantos leveled piercing eyes at Karsh. “For I was there. The old man was not.”
Ileana’s face flushed with anger, but Karsh stilled her with a touch.
Thantos would not sit in the witness chair but paced as he talked, his hobnail boots pounding the gleaming floor of the amphitheater. “I came to my brother’s door, this is true. He invited me to meet my newborn nieces. I very much wanted to, but urgent company business had arisen. I did not want to intrude on my dear sister-in-law’s bliss, so I asked my brother if he would talk to me outside. Aron agreed. When I told him of the crisis at our company, he demanded I leave immediately for the CompuMage compound. It was not until the next day that I heard about Aron’s murder. I was shocked and saddened.”
“When you found out,” Rhianna quizzed him, “why not return to Coventry Island? Aron was your brother.”
Ileana could contain herself no longer. “You hid for fifteen years! You’re a coward!” she shouted.
Thantos’s face hardened. To Lady Rhianna, he said, “I knew nothing of the circumstances surrounding his death; there was nothing I could have added to the investigation. After that” — he whirled, staring straight at Ileana and without emotion — “it was just too painful. My beloved brother dead. My cherished sister-in-law vanished. My nieces under the protection of an arrogant young guardian. In the end, I did what Aron would have wanted: I made CompuMage the unrivaled company it is today.”
It had come down to this: Karsh’s circumstantial yet compelling argument versus Thantos’s word.
As was customary in Coventry Island disputes, Lady Rhianna called for character witnesses. The Accused would begin. “There are many I could call,” Thantos bellowed confidently, “countless who could attest to my exemplary character, but there is one known the world over, whose word is impeccable. I call the warlock Bevin Staphylus.”
Ileana was puzzled. Bevin? Who was that? One of Thantos’s lackeys, a tool, a turncoat? Ileana shaded her eyes against the glare of the lights. She saw him rise, and her hand flew to her mouth; her gasp became a strangled scream. Tall, handsome, and Armani clad, the young man swiftly approached the witness chair. His head was bowed, but Ileana, as millions of others would, recognized his distinctive body and stride. Brice Stanley. Her Brice. How could that be?
Thantos’s thundering laugh filled the domed room. “Or should I say, Brice Stanley, as my former ward is now known. One of the biggest movie stars in the world!”
His ward? Ileana felt dizzy, her throat dry. If not for Karsh’s steadying grip on her shoulder, she might have fainted.
His real identity shocked her. His testimony set her reeling. If what Brice said was truly unrehearsed, the actor deserved a second Oscar! He sat in the witness chair, suntanned and cool, expounding on all Lord Thantos had done for this community, how his generosity had aided charitable causes globally. Throughout his testimony, Brice avoided Ileana’s eyes. He ended by reminding the Exalted Elders that Thantos, though reclusive, was too well known in the outside world to allow himself to stand trial if he were not completely innocent.
As Brice walked back to his seat, Ileana rose, pinning him with a searing stare. Blinded by rage and betrayal, she didn’t notice the slight slump to his shoulders and surely knew nothing of the sadness in his heart.
A second character witness was summoned — this one by Karsh. “The People call Shane Argos.”
It was Thantos’s turn to be unpleasantly surprised. The handsome young Coventry Island native testified that he grew up believing legends of the brilliant and powerful Lord Thantos. When Shane came of age, he made no secret of his allegiance to the leader of the DuBaer clan. Not long ago, he’d helped the powerful warlock attempt to return Apolla and Artemis to their birthplace.
Thantos sat grim-faced. He knew what this boy would say.
Candidly, straightforwardly, Shane explained. “Had this trial taken place several months ago, I would have corroborated all Bevin testified to. But in recent months, I have witnessed another side to Lord Thantos. I no longer believe him incapable of murder.”
“Tell the assembled what you witnessed,” Lady Rhianna instructed.
Shane recounted Thantos’s orders to make contact with the twins through one of their best friends, Beth Fish. The task successfully fulfilled, Thantos then casually ordered the young warlock to “dispose” of the innocent girl.
Thantos banged his fist on the Accused’s table. “I said dispense with her … not kill her.”
“Perhaps I misinterpreted your will,” Shane stared daggers at Thantos, “or perhaps I interpreted it all too well.”
Ileana knew what would happen now. Both sides would continue to present character witnesses, one refuting the other. Both had already presented believable testimony. The scale was evenly balanced. Without an eyewitness? The verdict would be rendered in favor of the Accused. An outcome Ileana could not allow. Karsh read her mind. “There is nothing more we can do, child. We must accept …”
“No. We mustn’t,” she countered, standing tall. An idea flew into Ileana’s mind, fluttering there like a hummingbird. If they can do it, surely I can, too.
“You are thinking of the twins again?” Karsh said.
“Who, besides the murderer, is the only one who would know for certain where and how Aron was killed … and who did it?” Ileana asked. “The victim himself,” she replied to her own question.
“Lord Aron?” Karsh was alarmed. “But he’s dead.”
“Did you know,” Ileana asked, slipping her cape back on and feeling in its pocket for her Little Book of Spells, “that using the herb marjoram instead of mugwort changes the results of the Transporter spell?” she asked coyly.
“Marjoram, marjoram …” Karsh thought about it. “The herb helps one accept big changes in one’s life. And, of course, in early times, it was said to escort the dead in their travels to other — no, Ileana,” he whispered sharply. “You cannot seriously be thinking of summoning Aron to testify against his brother.”
“Oh, can’t I?” Ileana laughed.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MOJO IN NO GO?
A jarring screech came from Alex’s guitar. She dropped it on the floor and jumped up, snapping her fingers. “Cam! You know what just hit me?”
“That you can’t, in fact, play guitar?”
Alex ignored the lame quip. Her sister had been in a guilty funk all evening, ever since seeing McCracken’s picture on the news. “We didn’t do the Transporter spell wrong.”
Cam’s brow was furrowed. “Once more, for the slow section?”
Alex set down her guitar and paced the room. “Our magick got ahead of us, that’s all. It knew, if we didn’t, where at least one of us had to be. Someone needed help. Desperately. And you were there. You saved the mother and child.”
“So what are you saying? Our magick has a mind of its own?” Cam scoffed uneasily.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Alex insisted,
excited. “Think about it: Did I ask to break into the shallow mind of your most superficial friend? Rhetorical question alert. I didn’t have a choice. That night at the bowling alley, Bree was crying out for help.”
It was happening with increasing frequency: Alex’s extraordinary mind-reading power turning on and tuning in without her say-so, even against her own free will! Witness the stealth break-in today on Bree’s bizarre thoughts. She had no clue what that was about.
Cam challenged, “If our magick is so smart, why did I manage to save only two out of three? I couldn’t help the photographer.”
Alex didn’t want to say it. Because you were up against a black belt tracker.
“So in a battle of me against Thantos, he wins. I can’t cut it?” Cam said glumly, replaying the events of yesterday in her head.
“Hit the escape key on the I’m-not-worthy screen,” Alex advised. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. Maybe you weren’t a match for him alone, but together …”
“No!” Cam sprang off the window seat. She suddenly made a decision. Or maybe she was voicing one that had been brewing inside her since the hit-and-run.
“No, what?”
“You’re mind-reader girl. Go for it. Wait, don’t bother. If Uncle T wanted to scare me, guess what — score! I am handing in my resignation. I’m out of the witch business.” Cam folded her arms.
Alex cracked up. “You’re out of the witch business? As if you could be.”
Cam walked up to Alex and looked into her twin’s eyes. “Wrap your brain around this: Bad stuff is happening. We can’t handle it. We need to summon Ileana. And Karsh.”
“Busy signal,” Alex reminded her. “Do not disturb. Cerrado,” she added in her best Sesame Street Spanish. Not wanting to be stunned, dazzled, poached, or roasted, she backed away to escape Cam’s gaze.
“Thantos sent two of his thugs to kill McCracken and his family. This qualifies as 911!” Cam exclaimed.
“Your point? This isn’t the first time he’s offed someone. He murdered our father, Cam. And probably my late, unlamented adoptive dad, too.” Alex bent over, picked up Cam’s book, and chucked it on her sister’s bed. “Anyway, this is our fight, not Ileana’s.”
Stubbornly, Cam said, “If you don’t want to summon our guardians, fine. But I’m taking a pass. I’m off the case.”
Alex refused to take her seriously. “Oh, just deal, Cam-ille. Our mom’s alive. You sensed it. You ‘saw’ her. The notes prove you were right. All we have to do now is find her. And we aren’t lead-devoid. We have two.” She ticked them off. “One: wife of shutterbug. She’s alive, thanks to you. She might know where Elias took the picture. And she owes you.”
“What part of N-O don’t you get?” Cam’s patience was running out. The photographer’s wife was on the West Coast. No way was she using the Transporter spell again.
Alex pretended she didn’t hear Cam. “Two: Whoever’s been sending the notes — even if it turns out to be our dear uncle Thantos — knows where she is. We find out who’s doing it, we find our mother.”
With or without Cami’s help, Alex decided, she would get to the photographer’s wife. For an encore, she would expose “anonymous.”
Brianna Waxman was no part of this plan. Yet there she was, rattling around in Alex’s brain again — tiny, tired, tart-tongued as ever. In school the next day, Alex found herself hyperaware of the elfin snob. Long on gossip, short on temper. Practically lost inside her economy-size threads. But brittle, as if she might snap in half at any moment. What was Bree’s issue?
And what was Alex’s? For instance, why, after lunch, was she sneaking around following Bree? This time, the brown bag went into the garbage in the girls’ room.
“The Waxman heiress dumped her lunch,” Alex told Cam later at her locker.
“And?” Cam scoffed, disinterested.
“This isn’t the first time.”
Cam rolled her eyes. “Hello, leftovers. Bree is hardly Ziploc girl.”
“Okay,” Alex said with a shrug. “You would know. She’s your home girl.”
“Anyway,” Cam continued, annoyed that Alex thought she was an expert on friends Cam had known practically all her life. “She’s always been weird about food. At PITS, she orders Beverly Hills pizza. Instead of cheese and sauce, it’s topped with salad. Even then she cuts off the crust. Besides, if I know Bree, she probably called for a sushi takeout and had it delivered to her locker or something.”
“In the category of ‘If I know Bree’ for the daily double, here’s another puzzler,” Alex challenged.
“Lay it on me.” Cam feigned boredom.
“Remember that tasty tidbit Bree dropped the other day? Did she not say she was partying with Hollywood heartthrob Brice Stanley? Well, Access Hollywood states that Brice is on holiday, far from the movie crowd, in his retreat on an unnamed island.”
“So, he’s probably on Coventry. This relates to Brianna exactly how?”
“Timing,” Alex responded. “How could he have been in L.A. on the chum-patrol with Bree at the same time?”
Cam sighed. “Brice Stanley is a warlock. Duh. Warlock. Transporter spell? Shape-shifting. He could totally be in two places — if not at exactly the same moment, he could commute from one to the other instantly, making it seem like that. Any of this sound familiar? As in … did we not just do something pretty similar?”
“That’s your hypothesis,” Alex said.
“And yours would be?”
“We know Kristen didn’t go, and Brianna lied about that. I say Bree never went, either. Daddy dropped the ball again. Only this time, she was really too mortified to tell anyone.”
Cam hadn’t meant to stamp her foot. She almost took a header on the waxed linoleum. “I’m not ‘anyone.’ I’m one of her best friends. She would tell me.”
Alex shrugged and walked away. Livid, Cam watched her go. If something were seriously wrong with someone as close to Cam as Bree was, her mojo would be in overdrive now. She would have had a premonition, a vision. She would just know.
“Sibling rift?” Cam held on to her locker handle this time as, startled, she spun to face Beth.
Pausing to make sure no one was in hearing range, Cam’s tall, curly-haired bud followed up with, “Any progress on the mother search?”
What could Cam say? Thantos had Miranda locked away in some loony bin — and Cam couldn’t get to her? “Not yet,” she murmured, flipping the combination on her locker.
“You will,” Beth said encouragingly. “BTW — did you remember to bring those bizarro notes?”
“Forgot.” Cam flipped open the locker. Panic kicked in and she dropped her books. There was a note taped to the inside of the door.
“What is it?” Beth cried. “What’s there?”
This one was a collage. Done in bits of material, calligraphy, and strangest of all … letters pasted in bits of food.
Altogether, it spelled out: Open your eyes, why can’t you see what’s happening to her? She’s crying out for help — why can’t you hear her?
Cam couldn’t stop trembling. Whoever left this note was mocking them — her supersight and Alex’s keen hearing. She barely realized she was speaking aloud. “Whoever wrote this —”
Beth finished her sentence, “Is a copycat!”
“Huh?”
“This is totally Kristen’s style,” Beth pointed out. “You know that.”
Cam stood there, dumbfounded.
“The calligraphy is just like the Chinese silk kind that Kris is learning,” Beth explained. “And the food-as-art thing? Identical to the ones in her friendship collage.”
“Someone’s copying Kristen?” Cam repeated dumbly.
Beth arched her eyebrows. “Unless … it is Kristen.”
Cam shook her head vigorously, as if she could shake off her rising panic. “Why would Kris be sending me anonymous messages about my mother? Make sense much?”
“Not even,” Beth agreed.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
&
nbsp; STUDY BUDDIES
Brianna was clearly startled — and not in a good way — to find Cam’s clone at her door. Not that Alex had expected a friendly welcome when she rang the bell.
Listening to Brianna thinking, What’s she doing here? was unsurprising. Hearing her say aloud, “Love that Montana hat but trick or treat is months away. Lost much?” earned her honors in the totally rude category.
Alex deserved it, she guessed. Showing up on Bree’s doorstep was kind of a stealth attack. Whether Cam agreed or not, Alex knew that the pint-sized girl was in trouble. Ignoring that fact, no matter how she personally felt about Bree, was not an option. Witching 101 demanded that she find out what was going on and help the girl. So Alex had talked Mrs. Olsen into giving her and Bree dual makeup tests. After balking, Bree had finally agreed to a study session. Only Alex neglected to mention that today after school was the only time she could do it.
At Bree’s house.
Caught off guard, Bree went from rude to hostile. “No can do now. I’m on my way to the gym.”
She didn’t look it. She was still in the same clothes she’d worn to school — down to her Steve Madden slides.
Alex played the parent card. “Look, I’m grounded for the Tuesday cutting thing. This is the only way I could get out of jail free. Besides, we can do this in a half hour.”
Bree wavered. I don’t want her to see my house! I told Cam not to bring her. She had? Alex was stunned. Cam had never said a word about that. Not that Alex cared about Bree’s crib, but what was up with that?
Whatever. Alex got back on track. “I borrowed Sukari’s notes. If we start with them,” she suggested, and went on and on about grade points and PSATs and college admission requirements until she finally wore Brianna down.
“Oh, fine. Come in. But a half hour, that’s it.” Not that I care what she thinks, but … I’m sure she didn’t expect this dump.
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