Darktide

by Christine Pope

  But that was a question I’d have to put aside for now. “I thought maybe we could get Lucinda to describe some of the rooms in the house, give us detailed information on the furniture placement, that kind of thing. It should be enough to give us the destination we need.”

  “I suppose so. It’s too bad none of us are mind readers. That would be the easiest way to be sure.”

  Connor’s words made me pause as I was lifting my glass of iced tea to take another sip. Our adventures in teleporting had proved a very important point — if we imagined a power, visualized ourselves using it, then there didn’t seem to be any magical gift that was out of our reach. We hadn’t wanted to address the issue before this, because the power we’d summoned to destroy Matías Escobar’s magic — and the magic of the Aguirre cousins — has frightened both Connor and me. We’d wanted to leave it alone. Now, though, with Joaquin Escobar forcing our hand, we didn’t have much of a choice. “But we are mind readers, Connor. Just like we’re teleporters.”

  He stared at me for a second, and then comprehension flared in those cloudy green eyes I loved so much. “Of course. Which means there’s no reason why we can’t get all the information we need from Lucinda.”

  “If she’s willing,” I said. “It can’t be fun to have someone walking around in your brain.”

  “I don’t think it would be like that,” Connor said. He spoke slowly, as though formulating his thoughts right before uttering them. “At least, not the sort of thing we were talking about. We’d just ask her to visualize a room, and then we’d be able to see it, too. It would be more like…looking at a series of images on someone’s phone.”

  That concept did sound infinitely better than trying to sift through all the memories and images stored in Lucinda’s mind, some of which I would much rather not have to see. And it would make the process easier for her, since all we’d be requiring was a very particular data set.

  “Okay,” I said. “We’ll talk to her after we eat. Hopefully, she’ll understand that this isn’t something we’re doing lightly.”

  “It seems like she’s gotten pretty close with Hayley,” Connor replied. “I think she would do a lot to help rescue Levi.”

  True. I just had to hope that my hypothesis was correct, and that we’d be able to see into her mind as easily as we’d been able to send ourselves to Southern California.

  In the meantime, though, there was a late lunch to be eaten. Jackie emerged from the restaurant with our burgers and set them down in front of us. “Anything else?”

  “No,” I said with a smile. “I think we’re good.”

  “Enjoy.”

  She went back inside, and I picked up a french fry from my plate. “Do you think any of them guess?”

  Connor didn’t have to ask what I meant — Jackie was a civilian, but she knew about us McAllisters. Even so, there was a lot that Jerome’s civilian population didn’t know anything about. “I don’t know,” he said. “Everyone’s on edge, and so she and the rest of our civilians have to know something’s up.” He paused, fingers tapping against the edge of his plate. “Maybe we should have that town meeting after all. It’s not really fair to keep so many people in the dark. If they’re going to be caught in the middle of a magical war, then they should be given the chance to get out if they want to.”

  This was another topic we’d gone back and forth on with the elders. They didn’t think it was a good idea to be too specific about what was going on with Joaquin Escobar, just because they worried that a mass exodus from Jerome might raise even more questions. On the other hand, letting the town’s civilian population go along blithely, thinking that everything was okay, didn’t sound like a very good option, either.

  “Maybe,” I allowed, then picked up my burger, although I didn’t bite into it. “Do you think that many of them would leave?”

  “I’m not sure. We’re really careful about who we let live here, and so I want to say that they probably would stay, just because they feel a special bond to this place. But I can’t really say for sure.”

  I took a bite of my burger, allowed myself to savor the taste of the meat and cheese, the fresh tomatoes and Thousand Island dressing. Nothing fancy, just an amazing cheeseburger. I could almost feel the nutrients flooding into my bloodstream, nourishing me and the child I carried. “I think we should let it go for now. If we can rescue Levi, then we’ll have regained some ground, let Joaquin Escobar know that we’re not people to be trifled with. Maybe he’ll back off.”

  Connor lifted an eyebrow at me. “You really think that?”

  More like I wished for it to happen. Right then, despite our success in our teleportation experiment, I was feeling more tired than anything else. If Escobar would leave us alone, I was willing to leave him alone. I would be the first to admit that such a sentiment wasn’t exactly brave, but then, I wasn’t Joan of Arc, just someone trying to guide her clan as best she could. Was it really my job to police the entire witch world? The other clans had to know something of what was going on in Southern California, even though we did tend to keep separate from one another. At the very least, I was fairly sure that the Ludlows must have some intel on the change in power in the Santiago clan. Even if they decided to stay out of it, they were probably watching Joaquin Escobar with wary eyes, just in case he tried to mount any kind of an attack on them.

  “I don’t know,” I said wearily. “Probably not. He hasn’t exactly shown himself to be hands-off. But maybe once he knows that we can go in there and take back anyone he tries to steal from us, anyone he tries to hurt, he’ll at least think twice before giving the McAllisters crap. A girl can hope, anyway.”

  “That would be something,” Connor replied, although I noticed that his tone was noncommittal. I couldn’t really blame him; he’d grown up with a driven and megalomaniacal older brother, someone who had no qualms about delving into old, forbidden magic if it suited his purposes.

  It had taken death to stop Damon Wilcox. I had a feeling that Joaquin Escobar was no different.

  “Anyway,” I went on, after I’d consumed a few more bites of my burger. Damned if I was going to let the thing get cold while my husband and I tried to solve the world’s problems. “If Lucinda can help us, then we need to act soon. The Goddess only knows what they’re doing to Levi right now.”

  Connor’s mouth tightened. Neither one of us wanted to think about that; we could reassure ourselves all we wanted that Escobar wouldn’t do anything to hurt Levi, that he was far too valuable, but the problem was, you could do a lot to inflict physical pain without causing permanent damage. And that didn’t even take into account the dark warlock’s mind-control abilities.

  “I know,” Connor said. “Why don’t you try texting Lucinda, make sure she’s around?”

  I didn’t see why she wouldn’t be, but I didn’t argue, only fished my phone out of my purse and sent off a quick text to Lucinda, asking if Connor and I could see her sometime this afternoon. Just the week before, Hayley had taken her down to Cottonwood and gotten her a phone, so I knew she was connected, had made sure to enter her information on my contacts list.

  The reply came back just a short time later. Sure, it said, Brandon and I are on our way back from Sedona now. We should be in Jerome in about twenty minutes.

  No problem, I responded. Connor and I are having a late lunch, so we’ll meet you at Hayley’s place when we’re done.

  I set down my phone. “I didn’t know Lucinda and Brandon were going to Sedona.”

  Now Connor looked almost amused. “I didn’t know they had to file a flight plan.” Then, apparently taking pity on me, he added, “Brandon told me about their little expedition. I didn’t think it was that big a deal, so I didn’t bother you with it.”

  Maybe it wasn’t, but I still would have liked to have known that they were heading into neutral territory. After all, when Hayley and Levi ventured there, Joaquin Escobar had sent a pair of demons to attack them. Not that Brandon was of much use to Escobar, and going a
fter Lucinda wasn’t probably high on his list of priorities, either.

  I didn’t feel like arguing, though, and so I returned to my neglected burger. Good thing the sun was still shining down warmly on us, or the food would have started to get cold.

  Connor tilted his head to one side and gave me a considering look. “I thought you were glad that they were spending time together.”

  “I was,” I said. “I mean, I am. That’s not it. Right now, I just feel like keeping everyone here in Jerome and putting bubble wrap around the whole damn place until this is over.”

  “It would be nice if it were that easy.” He couldn’t reach out and take my hand, since both of them were still wrapped around my burger, but he did pat my thigh under the table before going back to his own plate of food. “But they’re both adults and probably thought it was safe enough, as long as they didn’t go venturing out into the wilderness like Hayley and Levi did.”

  I wanted to argue that Red Rock Crossing wasn’t exactly the wilderness, but I knew he was right. There were still very secluded spots in the state park, even as popular as it was. Whereas wandering around in Uptown Sedona, which was generally stampeded by tourists about 365 days a year, basically guaranteed your safety.

  “You’re right,” I said. “And they’re on their way back here, which is the important thing.”

  “Exactly.”

  Somehow knowing that Lucinda and Brandon would return before we were done with our meal lent a certain urgency to finishing the rest of the food on our plates. We were quiet after that, eating what remained of our burgers and fries. Connor didn’t even wait for Jackie to come back out with the check, but instead put a couple of twenties down on the tabletop, knowing that would be sufficient to cover our bill and leave a very generous tip.

  It did feel good to walk down the hill after that, to hold hands as we made our way to the building where Brandon’s flat was located. All around us were visitors to our town, people who had no idea that the couple walking hand-in-hand past them were a witch and a warlock, or that this quaint little place had been under attack by demons only a few weeks earlier. I envied those tourists’ ignorance, even as I halfway resented the way we had to hide our true natures from them. It was just the way things were, I knew, but even so, always pretending, always hiding, got to be tiring after a while.

  We went up two flights of stairs to reach the third floor. I’d asked Lucinda to wait for us at Brandon’s place because she was already with him, and also because we’d have a heck of a lot more privacy there than we would in my old room at Rachel’s apartment. I loved Rachel — in a lot of ways, she was the mother I’d never had — but that didn’t mean I wanted her involved in everything I did. For one thing, if she knew even half of what Connor and I were planning, she’d do everything in her power to stop us. Yes, she cared about Levi, but I was her niece, the girl she’d raised from an infant. I didn’t think even my biological mother would have been as fiercely protective.

  Brandon came to the door almost as soon as Connor knocked, which meant he must have been hovering there, waiting for us to arrive. “Come on in,” he said.

  Although he sounded casual enough, I couldn’t help noticing the way he wouldn’t quite look me in the eye. It wasn’t very typical behavior, although I had to admit I didn’t know him all that well. When my gaze moved from him to Lucinda, I noticed that she appeared a little diffident, too, as if she wasn’t sure how she should react to Connor’s and my presence.

  When I came closer, I noticed the slightly swollen look to her mouth, and what appeared to be a faint reddish mark on the side of her neck. Well, that explained a few things. I didn’t know what else the two of them had done on their trip to Sedona, but it sure looked as if they’d gotten in a fairly heavy necking session.

  Again, none of my business, although I was happy for Lucinda — and happy for Brandon, too, since he’d been living as solitary an existence as it was possible to in Jerome…until Lucinda showed up, that is. Sometimes you just had to go with what the universe was telling you, even if the timing wasn’t always perfect.

  Now, though, it was telling me that we needed to rescue Levi. Soon.

  Connor and I exchanged a glance, and then he nodded slightly, as if letting me know that I should go ahead and do the explaining. Although this had all sounded logical enough to me when the two of us were hashing it out, now I had to figure out the best way to tell Lucinda and Brandon that Connor and I had tapped into a whole new set of powers, and now we really needed to see into her mind so we could figure out where Levi was being held in the house that was once hers.

  “Um,” I began, as Brandon took a seat next to Lucinda on the couch. He didn’t offer us a place to sit, although I thought that was more oversight than rudeness. Besides, right then I was so full of nervous energy, I didn’t know whether I’d be able to sit down anyway. “Lucinda, we need your help. Connor and I think we can get into your parents’ house, but unless we know exactly where Levi’s being held, there’s too much risk of appearing in the wrong place and alerting Joaquin Escobar that we’re there.”

  For a second she didn’t reply, only looked from one of us to the other, as if she wasn’t entirely sure of what I was trying to say. Then comprehension seemed to dawn, and her dark eyes widened. “You mean you can get into the house the same way Levi did?”

  “Yes,” Connor replied, a small smile playing around his mouth. “A newfound skill. But it won’t help if we don’t have our destination securely fixed. That’s where you come in.”

  “Right,” I said. I inched closer to my husband, laced my fingers through his. Yes, I needed the reassurance — and also, we had to be touching for any of this to work, for our prima and primus powers to join and make this craziness possible. “Where do you think the most likely place is for Levi to be held captive?”

  “The guest suite,” she replied promptly. “The house has five bedrooms — the master suite, my room, one bedroom that my father used as an office, and then two more. One of them is small, though, and has to share the upstairs bathroom with the office. The guest suite has its own bath, just like my bedroom did. I’m pretty sure that’s where Escobar would have put Levi.”

  “We need you to visualize it,” I told her, and her dark, arched eyebrows lifted.

  “‘Visualize it’?” she repeated, clearly baffled by the request. “How is that going to help?”

  “Because we’re going to look into your mind and capture the image. That way we’ll know exactly where we need to go.”

  This explanation didn’t seem to reassure her. Still with lifted brows, but an element of worry entering her eyes, she asked, “You’re mind readers now?”

  “Not exactly,” Connor said. “That is, we haven’t tried yet. But we do need to try, because otherwise we’re going to have a hell of a time getting Levi out of that house.”

  Lucinda’s mouth pursed. Brandon reached over and took her hand; a quiet gesture, but one I didn’t miss. She didn’t attempt to take it away, either, which meant there had obviously been some significant advances in their relationship. “I don’t know — ”

  “Please, Lucinda,” I said. “We just want to see an image of the room. We won’t — we won’t be poking around at anything else.”

  “Imagine it,” Connor put in. “Hold the image in your mind. Only that image, and nothing else.”

  Silence. Her free hand plucked at the sequined cotton of her skirt — my skirt, really, or at least, one I’d given her. I had to admit it suited her dark, exotic beauty better than it did me. “All right,” she said at last. Her eyes shut, her dark lashes lush against her cheeks, so thick I wondered if they were even real.

  Connor’s fingers tightened on mine. I closed my eyes as well, wondering just how the hell I was supposed to do this.

  Then I felt a surge of power from my husband…my consort, and so much more. In the darkness behind my eyelids, a warm light took over, showing me a room I knew I had never seen before.

  I
t was large, but not overly decorated, with a queen-size bed, two bedside tables, and a wing chair and matching table off in an alcove to one side. The furniture was all dark wood, simple and heavy, similar to the hacienda-style pieces I’d seen in high-end stores in Sedona. Filmy curtains moved at the window, which looked out on a residential street lined with big two-story houses in a variety of styles — Spanish, Tudor, American Colonial. Through an open door opposite the alcove I caught a glimpse of what had to be the bathroom, cheerful with hand-painted Mexican tile in shades of blue and yellow. A flat-weave rug in blue and yellow and beige covered the wood floor, and a wrought-iron chandelier hung from the ceiling.

  All this I caught in one brief glimpse, but it was enough to sear the room’s details into my brain, enough so I knew I would never forget it, knew I would always be able to close my eyes and immediately take myself there. Connor squeezed my fingers briefly and I blinked, returning to this plain and small living room here in Jerome.

  “Did you see it?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Clear as day. You?”

  “The same.”

  Lucinda was staring at us, her left hand still tightly held in Brandon’s right. “You really did? You saw the room?”

  “You didn’t feel us?” I hadn’t felt as if we were being intrusive, but then, we’d hardly known what we were doing.

  “No. Except — suddenly I was warm, just for a second, so quickly, I hardly noticed it. But maybe that was your minds touching mine.”

  I thought that was probably a good guess, since I’d noticed the same sensation of warmth whenever Connor and I joined our powers. However, I was glad to know that the experience hadn’t been a negative one for Lucinda. I hoped we wouldn’t need to do this again, but you never knew.

  “Probably,” I said. “But we saw it all — the tile in the bathroom, the curtains at the window. We can get there.”