Strange Magic (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 9)

by Christine Pope

  For some reason, he felt more real to her right then than any of the men she’d known her entire life. And that was trouble, because she needed to bond with her consort, not someone she just thought was attractive.

  Not attractive, she chided herself. Totally smoking hot.

  As if this wasn’t hard enough already. She let out a groan of exasperation, then got up from her bed and headed into the en suite bathroom. Although she had a feeling sleep would be a long time coming that night, she might as well get herself ready for bed.

  As she got out her face wash and moisturizer and toothpaste, she wondered what Evan was doing right at that moment.

  This place was…well, he should have known that Luz Trujillo wouldn’t put him up at the local Motel 6, but as the front desk clerk handed Evan the plastic key card for his hotel room, he couldn’t help thinking that he would have been perfectly happy with something just a little less upscale.

  It was probably his imagination, but he got the distinct impression that the other guests at the CopperWynd resort were staring at him as he made his way to the elevator, giving his worn boots and jeans and untucked henley shirt the side-eye. All right, he definitely was out of place here, among these smooth, polished-looking people in their chinos and polo shirts and perfectly tailored dresses, but he couldn’t do much about that now.

  Thank the Goddess, no one else was in the elevator. Its doors shut, closing out all those quietly disapproving stares. Evan stood there, beat-up duffle bag clutched in one hand, and waited for the elevator to take him up to the top floor. He had to hope that Luz hadn’t booked his shabby self into the penthouse suite. That would have been a bit much.

  When he entered his room, even though it wasn’t the penthouse, he saw at once that it was still far nicer than he needed, with a big king bed covered in expensive linens, a little sitting area off to one side, even a fireplace — the last thing you’d think a person would need in Phoenix, he observed with a shake of the head. The bathroom was all gleaming black granite, and almost as big as the flat he owned in Jerome.

  But he knew he couldn’t protest. If this was how Luz Trujillo wanted to play things, so be it. He dropped the duffle bag on the little folding stand in the closet and then went back out to the main room, heading for the sliding glass doors that let in an amazing view of this desert suburb. Off to the east, beyond a range of jagged mountains — the Superstitions? Evan wasn’t clear enough on the geography of the area to know for sure — a large yellow moon had just begun to rise.

  He wasn’t watching the moon, though. For some reason, his gaze moved toward the lights that covered the hilly suburb, as if his eyes could somehow pick out Zoe’s house from all the others clustered there.

  Which was just stupid. For one thing, he wasn’t even sure if he could see her house from the resort, considering the way the terrain undulated here. The Sandoval residence could very likely be hidden behind a hill. And anyway, he’d been in the house twice and didn’t have that clear an image of its exterior, only that it had been pale beige stucco with a red tile roof, and some kind of palm trees planted in the front yard.

  Definitely not the kind of place you’d find in Jerome, or probably not even in Cottonwood. Maybe Sedona; he knew the resort town boasted a fair number of upscale houses, even though he hadn’t personally seen any of them. No McAllister witches lived in Sedona, since it hid its own powers, and one of the only things the McAllisters and the Wilcoxes had agreed on back in the day was that neither clan could call it home. That would have been giving too much of an advantage to the witch family that claimed the small desert town as its own.

  His stomach rumbled then, and Evan realized it had been a good eight hours since the sandwich he’d hastily assembled around noon and then eaten one-handed as he fiddled with the Barracuda’s engine. He and Zoe had been so busy chasing around that they hadn’t bothered to eat anything. They could have ordered some food at BJ’s, but they’d both been shaken by their encounter with the monster, and had been much more interested in having a drink to steady their nerves than choosing something to eat.

  No way was he going downstairs and eating alone in the resort’s restaurant, though. He could only imagine the looks he’d get then. Instead, he picked up the room service menu, winced a little at the prices, and then decided on a burger, since it was hard to go wrong with that.

  Luckily, the kitchen was still open, and the woman who took his order promised it would be up in no more than fifteen minutes. Evan resisted the urge to have a beer along with the burger; while one beer wouldn’t do that much to impair him, he was feeling tired and sluggish, and realized he’d be better off without it. He couldn’t risk not being at his best if he got a call in the middle of the night and had to go back out on the monster’s trail.

  As he waited for his food to arrive, he went back to the window and looked outside. Several floors below, the resort’s swimming pool shimmered blue-green in the darkness. He even thought he saw people in the water, which seemed crazy to him. But this was Phoenix, not Jerome, and maybe it was still warm enough outside that you could go for an evening swim without completely freezing your ass off.

  His fingers found the piece of black tourmaline that he’d stowed in his pocket. He pulled it out and turned it over in his hand, watching as the flat edges of the crystal caught the lamplight in his hotel room. Strange to think that this hunk of rock could be anything except a bauble that should have been hanging from a necklace, or maybe a keychain. In this coolly elegant room, the world of witches and spells and creatures from other dimensions seemed very far away.

  But Evan knew better.

  He didn’t get any sort of vibe from the stone. It felt completely neutral. That didn’t necessarily mean anything. It could be working on protecting him, and he wouldn’t even know it. What Jack Sandoval had said about it also acting as a tracking device — well, Evan wasn’t so sure about that. He wasn’t getting even the faintest tingle from the tourmaline crystal. Which meant…what? That the monster was too far away for the stone to detect it, or that, for whatever reason, he just wasn’t capable of picking up the stone’s signals?

  A knock came at the door, and he went to open it. A Hispanic kid who didn’t look old enough to vote, let alone drink, stood outside in the hall with a room service cart. He wheeled it in and put the covered silver tray on the table by the window, then paused. “Anything else, sir?”

  Oh, right, the tip. It had been so long since Evan had stayed in a hotel — in fact, the last time had been his honeymoon with Kelly — that he’d pretty much forgotten about that part of the ritual. He dug in his pocket and pulled out his wallet, then retrieved a ten-dollar bill. That was probably way too much, but otherwise all he had was twenties stuffed in there, and he knew twenty bucks was definitely overkill.

  The kid looked thrilled with the tip; he grinned and said thanks, and then informed Evan he could put his empty dishes and their tray out in the hallway when he was done. After Evan thanked him, the kid pushed the cart back into the corridor and took off.

  Well, overpriced or not, the burger smelled delicious, and his stomach told Evan that he’d better sit his ass down and eat it before it got cold. So he did, taking a seat at the window with its perfectly framed view of the rising moon.

  The first few bites told him this was exactly what he needed, and he ate some more before he allowed himself to slow down and really savor the food he was consuming. When he paused to take a sip of water from the bottle he’d found in the welcome basket, he found his gaze moving around the room once again. This really was quite a place. He had to wonder what Luz Trujillo had been thinking when she sent him here. Were the fancy accommodations just a courtesy, as the de la Paz clan would never consider putting a guest up anywhere that wasn’t the best? Or was it a more subtle way of showing the difference in wealth between her clan and his, and letting him know that her niece deserved better than a scrubby McAllister warlock?

  No, that was ridiculous. For one thing, Luz
had reached out to the McAllisters to invite several men of eligible age to see if they were Zoe’s consort. Normally, that wasn’t the sort of thing Evan would pay much attention to, except that the younger brother of his cousin Travis, one of Evan’s closer friends among the clan, had been one of those who’d gone down to share what turned out to be a not-so-fateful kiss with Zoe Sandoval. Donny had struck out, of course, but Travis and Evan had still discussed the situation a bit while drinking beers in Evan’s garage. It had been strange to contemplate that a McAllister might be the consort of a de la Paz, since in general clans liked to have their prima’s match be a member of the same family. Kept things stronger, or whatever.

  So clearly Luz Trujillo didn’t have an issue with McAllister warlocks in general. Those dark eyes of hers seemed to miss very little, which meant she’d probably noticed a certain kind of chemistry between him and her niece. Evan had been doing his best to seem completely uninterested, but he’d never been that great an actor. He knew he was attracted to Zoe. That in itself felt strange, because after Kelly had bailed out on their marriage, he hadn’t paid much attention to other women. A few dates with more distant cousins from the Prescott branch of the family, and even a weird sort of “friends with benefits” arrangement with Tina, one of the civilian waitresses who worked at Grapes restaurant up in Jerome. At least with Tina he didn’t have to hide what he was, since Jerome’s civilian population knew there was a little something extra about the McAllister clan, but even so, he’d known that relationship wouldn’t work in the long run. He liked Tina, and they could laugh and share a beer together, and have some fairly satisfying sex afterward, but the spark hadn’t been there. Their breakup had been amicable, and she didn’t seem to harbor any ill will toward him after the relationship ended.

  But this weird pull he felt toward Zoe…it was just wrong any way you looked at it. He would be thirty in June, and she wasn’t even twenty-two yet. To some people, that might not be that much of a difference, but that wasn’t how these things were done in witch families, where most couples got together young and were generally fairly close in age. Also, Zoe would be her clan’s prima one day. The last thing she needed was someone nearly eight years her senior, a man with the millstone of a very conniving ex-wife around his neck — an ex-wife who could expose them all with some spitefully ill-timed words. Not that Zoe’s clan would ever allow the two of them to get close enough for that to happen.

  Did Luz Trujillo know anything about his history? He had a feeling she must, just because during the last few weeks, he’d heard through the grapevine that the de la Paz clan had begun reaching out to unmarried warlocks older than twenty-five, which was the usual cutoff for a prima’s consort. But no one had contacted him. Even if he’d thought to offer himself, which he hadn’t, that sort of thing just wasn’t done. It was up to the prima-in-waiting’s family to decide who was suitable and who wasn’t.

  Evan ran a hand through his hair and wished he’d ordered that beer after all. But he ignored the temptation to pick up the phone and call room service again, and instead methodically finished the rest of his burger and the parmesan truffle fries that had come along with it. He figured afterward he’d sit up in bed and watch TV, give himself time to digest. Then he’d go to sleep, and pray that he didn’t dream of Zoe Sandoval. And he wouldn’t let himself think of what it might be like to have her lying in that big king-sized bed next to him.

  Following the room service waiter’s instructions, Evan put the silver cover back on his plate, then went and deposited the tray with his dirty dishes on the floor outside his room. Afterward, he untied his boots and took them off, and reached into his pocket to remove his keys so they wouldn’t dig into his hip as he sat there on the bed.

  When he took out the chunk of black tourmaline, it felt warm in his hand.

  What was that supposed to mean? Had it become active because the enemy was somewhere close by? Evan had a sudden flash of that misshapen monster tearing through the lobby of the resort and prayed he was mistaken.

  But….

  He hefted the stone in his palm. A weird tingling sensation moved up his arm, while at the same time something seemed to whisper in his mind, East.

  For a moment, he stood there, wondering whether he should call Luz Trujillo, or maybe Zoe’s house. Luz had given him the number. But he was feeling conflicted enough about Zoe that he didn’t think that was a very good idea. Besides, he’d been called down here to take care of the problem. He and Zoe had tried working together earlier today, and that hadn’t gone very well. Wouldn’t it be better for everyone concerned if he could just slip out, confront the monster using the techniques Jack Sandoval had shown him earlier that afternoon, and then go back to Jerome once the situation was handled?

  That way, he could leave Zoe to find her consort, and he…well, Evan told himself he’d forget her soon enough. They’d only spent a few hours together. He wouldn’t deny the attraction he felt for her, but neither would he allow it to ruin relations between the de la Pazes and the McAllisters. Stepping in when he hadn’t been invited was probably the fastest way to put the Phoenix witch clan on the warpath.

  Well, when he put it that way….

  Mouth grim, he went to retrieve his boots. It looked like he’d be heading out for a nighttime drive.

  8

  Zoe sat up in bed, heart racing. What had awakened her, she really couldn’t say…but she supposed that didn’t matter. She was definitely awake now, eyes straining into the darkness. Actually, the room wasn’t all that dark, since a soft glow from the nearly full moon made its way in here, allowing her to see the outlines of the furniture, the way the drapes at the window moved gently in the night breeze. It had been a warm day, but since it was still only early March, temperatures had cooled enough that, once the sun was down, her parents turned off the central air and made sure the windows were opened instead.

  All was quiet. Zoe glanced at the clock on her nightstand and saw it wasn’t really that late, only a little past ten-thirty. Her parents were probably still up, although if they were watching television, they must have been doing so in their own room, rather than out in the family room where the big 60-inch TV was located.

  Without thinking, she pushed back the covers and went to the window so she could look outside. Maybe the sound that had woken her had been a car pulling up in front of the house; heart beating a little faster, she wondered if it might have been the deep bass rumble of the Barracuda’s engine.

  But the street was empty, everyone’s cars safely tucked away in their garages for the night. No sign of Evan, or his car.

  And yet….

  Zoe went to her dresser and pulled out a pair of jeans and a plain dark V-neck T-shirt. She grabbed a scrunchie and pulled her hair back, then dug out some tinted lip balm from the top drawer of her nightstand and applied a thin layer so she wouldn’t feel completely bare-faced. After that, all she needed was a pair of socks and her running shoes, and she was ready to go.

  Well, almost. Acting mostly on instinct, she picked up the piece of tourmaline Uncle Jack had given her and slipped it into her pocket. The stone felt warm to the touch, which meant it must be picking up on something wrong, something that shouldn’t be prowling the safe neighborhoods of Fountain Hills.

  No wonder she’d woken up. A little tremor went through her, and she wondered if she should go tell her parents what she was experiencing.

  No, this was her mistake, her fight. Besides, she didn’t know how much they could actually do to help her. Her mother was one of the clan’s mediums, but no spirits of de la Pazes past had yet appeared to give any guidance on Zoe’s predicament. And while Luis Sandoval was a silver-tongued devil in the courtroom, his own magical powers were not all that strong. He was something of a weather-worker, but more that he could sense when storms were coming than actually possessing the ability to change their paths, or to summon them when the sky was clear. With his talent, he probably would have made a great meteorologist, but he’d alw
ays been interested in the law instead.

  Anyway, their powers weren’t anything close to the gifts their daughter possessed. Better to keep them out of this. Aunt Luz would be a great help, but she was fifteen minutes away, and Zoe had the feeling she had to act now, or the opportunity to catch up with the creature might slip away.

  What she really should do was call Evan, but he’d neglected to give her his number. She doubted that was an accidental oversight, and wanted to curse his caution. Yes, she knew where he was staying, and so she could always call the CopperWynd and have the front-desk operator there transfer her to his room, but….

  Forget it. She touched the unnaturally warm tourmaline in her pocket, just to reassure herself that she wasn’t imagining things, then picked up her purse from where it rested on top of the dresser and slung it over her shoulder. This was her problem, and she should be the one to fix it. Anyway, as much as she’d enjoyed spending time with Evan today, she’d really been the one doing the heavy lifting when it came to dealing with the creature. She could handle this without him.

  Moving as quietly as possible, she tiptoed down the stairs. As she’d thought, once she reached the first floor, she could hear the faint murmur of the television coming from the slightly open door to her parents’ bedroom. The background noise should serve to cover up any sounds she made, but she still crept along until she reached the laundry room off the kitchen, and went from there into the garage.