Darktide

by Christine Pope

  A long pause. Then she said, “It was Joaquin Escobar.”

  “You sound pretty certain.”

  “Who else could have done such a thing? Also, there have been developments, Jack. I didn’t call you because I wasn’t sure how much help you could provide, but now….”

  “What’s happened?” he asked, already imagining the worst.

  “Escobar came into our territory and kidnapped Levi McAllister while he was down here in Tucson, investigating the apartment where Roslyn was killed.”

  Holy shit. Jack scrubbed his free hand over his face, wishing right then he had another margarita sitting on the counter there next to him. No, scratch that. A margarita was too wimpy. A shot of Scotch.

  “Why the apartment? Why now?”

  “There was a…disturbance with the civilians who were living in the unit. I went there first, with Angela and Connor and Domingo. Domingo felt it first, but Angela sensed its presence as well.”

  “What was it?”

  “We don’t know.” The edge to Luz’s voice sharpened. “It was some kind of entity, but not a ghost, not a demon. Something…other. We left before it could do us any harm.”

  “You thought it would hurt you?”

  “We knew it. The thing attacked Domingo first, probably because he was the most sensitive to otherworldly entities. Angela drove it off, and we hurried away. Afterward, she suggested that Levi should go and see if he could discover anything about the entity in the apartment. Because he is not from here, and because he’s already shown himself to be successful at driving off demons, we thought it was a good idea.”

  “Apparently not,” Jack said dryly. He really didn’t want to think of what might happen with Levi McAllister — and all his attendant powers — in Joaquin Escobar’s hands. And the problem was, Jack couldn’t quite figure out how to get from point A to point B. How could Escobar have even known that Levi would come to visit the apartment? Was there a spy in either of their clans? No, that didn’t make any sense, especially when you considered it had only been Angela, Connor, Luz, and Domingo present during the first foray into the place where Roslyn McAllister had died. Jack couldn’t believe that any of them was a spy. No, it had to be something else…more like an elaborate trap of some sort.

  A trap. Of course.

  “Holy shit.” This time he said the words aloud, instead of thinking them, and at once Luz responded.

  “What is it? Did you think of something?”

  It was crazy…but then, Joaquin Escobar was crazy. No, scratch that. The guy wasn’t a maniac, just a cold, calculating killer. There was nothing he would stop at, if he thought it would further his cause.

  Taking a breath, Jack said, “I think I know why the Aguirres were killed.”

  8

  Angela

  I was getting sick of my phone, probably because every time it rang, it seemed as if it was someone calling with even worse news. The night before had been rough, with both Connor and me tossing and turning for what seemed like half the evening. No one actually called, so that wasn’t the reason. No, it was more that my brain kept coming up with worse and worse fates for Levi to be suffering, even though I tried to tell myself that Joaquin wouldn’t hurt him, that he was worth far too much.

  If only I really believed that. Joaquin Escobar had already proved himself to be ruthless and unpredictable, which meant I really didn’t know what the hell was going to happen next.

  The morning passed with agonizing slowness. I called Margot to check on the twins, was able to FaceTime with Emily and Ian for a few minutes, where they told me, “Lucas and Margot took us to the movies!” and “We went on a hike and saw some deer!” in a cheery babble of voices before they decided that talking to Mommy wasn’t nearly as interesting as the fort they’d been building in a corner of Lucas and Margot’s backyard. But at least I was able to see that they were happy and healthy, and definitely not suffering from separation anxiety.

  That was something, I supposed.

  But after Connor and I shared a lunch of the pizza we hadn’t eaten the night before, my cell phone rang. My whole body tensed.

  Connor must have noticed, because he reached over to stroke my hand before he picked up the phone and handed it to me. I looked down at the display, saw that it was Luz calling.

  Well, with Levi already captured, how bad could the news be?

  It could be plenty bad, I thought. Maybe Caitlin has had another vision, this time of Levi being tortured or something.

  I told myself to chill out, then touched the screen to accept the call and immediately put it on speaker so Connor could listen in. “Hi, Luz.”

  “Hello, Angela. I have some information that may shed some light on what might be in the apartment.”

  “You didn’t go back there, did you?” I asked, my voice sharp with worry. The last thing I needed was Luz taking unnecessary risks.

  “No, I did not. But my cousin Jack just called to let me know that the Aguirre cousins are dead.”

  I wasn’t sure how to feel about that particular piece of news. Yes, they were scum, nearly as bad as Matías himself, although they’d both protested that he had them under his control as well, that they shouldn’t be held accountable for their actions. Maybe that was partially true, but it didn’t excuse what they’d done. “And?”

  “Their deaths were…suspicious. Jack has a theory about that. He thinks that Joaquin Escobar killed them precisely so he could trap their unquiet spirits here on this plane, in the very apartment where they helped to torture and murder your cousin Roslyn. That is what we all felt.”

  “Those weren’t ghosts,” I said, my voice flat. There were a lot of things I didn’t know about this world — or the next — but I could tell when something was a ghost and when it wasn’t.

  “Not how you perceive them, no. But whatever dark spell Escobar used to kill them, it altered their spirits, changed them into the entity we all felt. That is why we couldn’t identify it, and why we ended up sending Levi to investigate.”

  Again a wash of guilt went over me. Still, I wasn’t so bent on self-recrimination that I couldn’t recognize the truth in Luz’s story. Besides, I’d had my own suspicions that the whole thing might have been a trap; I just hadn’t known how the dark warlock might have accomplished such a thing. “You’re saying Joaquin Escobar did all this just so he could trap Levi?”

  “That’s what Jack thinks. I can’t come up with another reason for how Escobar knew exactly to be in the right place at the right time. He has many talents, but he is not a seer.”

  And, according to Lucinda, the Santiagos didn’t have one. Joaquin Escobar would have to operate using his own instincts — which, I had to admit, seemed to have served him pretty well so far. He’d know that we’d turn to Levi, since Levi had already helped the McAllister clan defend itself against the demons he’d sent to attack us. How Escobar and his team of Santiago witches and warlocks had managed to infiltrate de la Paz territory, I wasn’t sure, but if Damon Wilcox could come up with a spell to mask Connor’s warlock nature so he could safely meet me and convince me he was a civilian, then I guessed Escobar could do the same thing. He’d already shown that he had access to a wide arsenal of magical weapons.

  I had an uneasy feeling that we were going to see a lot more of those dark talents in the near future if we didn’t start to get our act together.

  “Well, the trap definitely worked,” Connor said. He glanced over at me, expression grim. “I guess our next question is, what is Escobar doing to do with his prize?”

  “I’m not sure,” Luz replied. “Any number of things, I would think. I suppose much will depend on Levi’s ability to resist him.”

  Having known and worked with Levi for more than a year, I’d learned a lot about his inner strength, about the goodness that fairly pulsed from him. He might have come from a different plane of existence, but he was no demon. More like the opposite.

  No, he wasn’t an angel. I still couldn’t say exactly what
he was, only that I — and pretty much everyone in the McAllister clan — were very glad that he’d come to join our little family here in Jerome. And while he still had a lot to learn about this world, he would know how much was at stake. He’d suffer a good deal to make sure we were kept safe, especially with the woman he loved living amongst us.

  That thought sent a sudden chill down my spine. Would Joaquin Escobar try to come after Hayley now that he had her lover in his possession? Without Levi here to help, it could be a lot more difficult to keep her safe.

  “I think Levi would rather die than let harm come to the McAllisters, or anyone from the Arizona witch clans.” I hated that I’d even had to utter those words, but I forced myself to press on. “Which wouldn’t suit Escobar’s purposes at all. So I guess we have to hope that Levi will be okay for now, at least until we can break him out.”

  Even as I spoke, Connor raised an eyebrow. I couldn’t fault him for his skepticism, because prying Levi away from his captor wasn’t going to be easy, especially in Santiago territory. However, we’d have to try. Leaving him in Escobar’s hands was not an option.

  Clearly, Luz shared Connor’s view of the situation. “I admire you for wanting to rescue Levi, Angela, but how exactly do you propose to do such a thing?”

  “You have any teleporters amongst your clan?” I asked. I had a feeling what the answer was going to be, but I needed to know.

  “No,” Luz replied at once. “That is, my cousin Marisela can move objects from one place to another with her mind, but only small things. She certainly doesn’t have the strength to move a person from place to place.”

  Even though the talent seemed trivial for now, I still filed it away for future reference. You never knew when you might be able to use even the smallest of magical tricks. “Invisibility?”

  The de la Paz prima laughed. “No. I fear you have an inflated idea of what our clan is capable of. We may be numerous, but in general, our skills aren’t terribly unusual. There is Alex, of course, but his gift is something of an outlier.”

  “Yes, but it will still be helpful if we need to make a frontal assault.”

  Although I couldn’t see her, I got the impression that Luz frowned. I doubted she liked the idea of us sending Alex in alone to rescue Levi, of him charging into the Santiago house solo, like some modern-day equivalent of Audie Murphy charging an enemy line in one of those old black and white movies that used to be shown on the local station when I was a kid.

  “It wouldn’t work,” Connor said gently, cutting in before Luz could reply. “As soon as Alex got close enough, Escobar’s null talent would nuke Alex’s dome of protection, and he’d be basically helpless.”

  Basically helpless. That was how I felt right then. It seemed no matter what idea or plan we came up with, it came crashing into that horrible “gift” of Joaquin Escobar’s, the one that ensured no other witch or warlock had a chance against him.

  “There has to be something we can do,” I protested.

  “Maybe there is,” Connor said. “But it might not involve magic at all.”

  “What do you mean?” Luz asked.

  “I mean that none of our gifts can stand up to Escobar’s ability to render them useless as soon as we come in range.”

  “Do we know that for a fact about Angela’s and my prima talents, your primus powers?”

  For a second, I thought she had a point, and hope flared within me. Then I remembered how Joaquin Escobar had overpowered the Santiago clan’s new prima, used his mind-control tricks to bend her to him. Yes, I supposed you could argue that poor Marisol had been reeling from the knowledge of her mother’s death, hadn’t had even a half hour to learn how to use the new powers that had come flooding into her. Even so, Caitlin’s visions had shown someone who should have been a powerful witch being completely overwhelmed by the dark warlock.

  “Remember what happened to Marisol,” I said, and an uncomfortable silence descended.

  Connor was the first one to speak. “Yes, Escobar got the drop on her, but she was only one person. We don’t know what would happen if the two of us used our combined gifts against him.”

  “Or all three of us,” Luz offered.

  “Is there a way to do that?” I’d never heard of such a thing, but then, both Connor and I had experienced a lot of firsts in our time together. We’d learned how to join our powers, which made sense, since we were bonded as consorts in addition to being the prima and primus of our clans. But was there some means to bring Luz into that bond, to make it so all three of us were able to wield our combined powers as one?

  “Not that I know of,” she replied. “But it’s something that might bear looking into. Escobar is powerful, but I can’t see how he would be able to fight all three of us at once.”

  Connor looked over at me. His expression was grim enough, but I saw a certain speculative gleam in his eyes, one that meant he was beginning to think over the possibilities of such a collaboration. “We’ll start doing some research here,” he said. “Angela and I will talk to our elders, and I should probably pick Marie’s brain, too. She’s about the closest the Wilcox clan has to an elder, and I know she’s been gathering information on our family history and a bunch of other stuff for years.”

  “That sounds like a good idea,” Luz said. “I’ll do what I can on my end. We also have a clan historian, and she might be able to dig up some information for me.”

  “All right, sounds like it’s homework assignments all around,” I put in. While I hated the thought of delaying our attempt to rescue Levi, I also knew that rushing in half-cocked wouldn’t do him any good, either. We had to make sure that our effort was successful, because I didn’t know if we’d be allowed a second chance. “We’ll be in touch as soon as we have some information to share.”

  “And so will I.” A pause, and then Luz added, “But if we learn nothing?”

  That worry had already begun to tickle at the back of my mind, that the situation was so unprecedented, there literally wasn’t information available to help us. And although I had weathered storms nearly as bad as this when I was pregnant with the twins, I couldn’t help but worry that all this stress might be bad for the child I carried now. However, I did my best to push those nagging concerns away. Admitting defeat before we even got started wouldn’t help anyone.

  “Then we regroup and think of something else,” I said firmly. “Even if it’s hiring a bunch of mercenaries to storm the house and yank Levi out of there. Joaquin Escobar’s null powers wouldn’t be much use against a bunch of civilians.”

  “No, but he has other talents, and if he is not using his null powers, then the witches and warlocks who surround him will be free to use their own gifts,” Luz said. She let out a sigh, then added, “But I take your point.”

  Connor was frowning. He said, “We’ll have to hope it doesn’t come to that. On the other hand, using civilians might not be a bad plan if all other routes fail.”

  “But let’s focus on what we can do with our own powers for now,” I said. “I only mentioned mercenaries because it never hurts to have a backup plan.”

  “All right. I’ll be in touch.”

  Luz ended the call there, and I straightened up and looked over at Connor. That same pucker continued to pull at his brows, which meant he was still processing, still mentally weighing all the possible options that lay before us. However, he wasn’t distracted enough to forget to reach over and take my hand. “You okay?”

  Of course I really wasn’t. The harder I tried not to think about what might be happening to Levi, the more gruesome possibilities flashed through my mind. Was Escobar torturing him to earn his cooperation, tormenting him with the specter of horrible futures for his adopted clan, the woman he loved?

  At least now we had a course of action. The worst part was always sitting around and not knowing what to do next.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “But we need to contact the elders, have them come over now. There’s just so much I don’t know ab
out when it comes to my family’s history.”

  “I know the feeling.” He reached for my phone and picked it up, then went to the messaging app and sent out a quick text. I knew he was probably contacting Trish, since she was the most tech-savvy of the three elders. A text to her meant she’d call the other two, thus saving Connor and me time and effort. “Well, that’s done,” he said. “I asked them to be here as soon as they could. Should we call Hayley?”

  The thought had crossed my mind, but something made me shake my head. “No. I mean, we’ve already told her that we’re going to do everything we can to get Levi back. Giving her details isn’t going to change anything. Besides….” I stopped there, not sure whether I wanted to state aloud the worry that had been niggling at the back of my brain.

  “‘Besides’?” Connor prompted me gently.

  I might as well say it. We’d long ago promised that we wouldn’t keep secrets from one another. “Besides, if Joaquin Escobar does try to take Hayley again — and, Goddess forbid, succeeds — then it’s better if she doesn’t know very much. Safer for everyone, right?”

  His lips pressed together, but he nodded and didn’t try to contradict me. “Right. And that’s what we always have to keep in mind — the safety of our clans. Lord knows I hate to even entertain the thought, but we can’t let the safety of one person outweigh the needs of so many others.”

  I hated the thought, too, but I knew what he meant. As the heads of our clans, we had to make sure we protected all of the people in our care. We couldn’t put the needs of one person ahead of all others, just because their magical talent might be greater, or because we personally liked them better.

  It was an uncomfortable feeling, and one I’d never experienced before. And the Goddess help me if those noble sentiments were ever put to the test.

  9