by R. L. King
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll do it. But you’d better not be trying to pull anything on me. My sense of humor’s pretty much gone right now.”
“I don’t blame you. Believe me, the last thing I want to do is make you suffer any more than you already have. Or Sebastian, for that matter. He made a mistake, but it’s a mistake many people—mages and mundanes—make every day. He doesn’t deserve this kind of punishment for it.”
I have to agree with her there, even though I’m still angry at my mother for cheating on Dad. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
“Yes. If all goes as planned, you should have an hour or so to spend with him before you have to leave. That gives us a large cushion, so we can get you out well before Lydia’s meetings finish.”
“Yeah.” I almost say “Thanks,” but I stop myself. Maybe after this all goes down I will, but not yet.
As she gets up, she touches my shoulder. “It’s…good to meet you after all these years, Verity. You look a lot like Sebastian.”
I don’t answer, and after a moment her hand trails away.
A sudden thought seizes me, and I whirl around before she’s made it three steps away. “Josie?”
“Yes?” She stops and turns back.
“Do…Sebastian and Lydia have any other kids?”
Her smile is faint and a little bit wistful. “They do. You have a half-brother and a half-sister, a few years older than you. We’ll talk about them more tomorrow, all right?”
And then she’s gone, too far away to yell after or get up and chase without drawing attention. I watch her go, and my brain’s even more screwed up than before.
I don’t get up for a couple of minutes, to give her time to get away before I leave. By the time I leave the restaurant, take a careful look around with magical sight, and head out to my car, I’ve come to a couple of conclusions.
First, I do want to meet Sebastian. Even after everything that’s happened, if he really is my biological father, I want the chance to talk to him before he dies.
That’s the easy one.
The harder one—the one I don’t plan to tell Josie Kilgallen—is that I don’t plan to sneak away like a scared mouse after our meeting’s over.
There is no way Lydia is getting away with this.
Maybe Sebastian is too weak to stand up to her, but I’m not.
9
I sleep like crap again, but that doesn’t surprise me. Finally, around two a.m., I give up any pretense of trying, throw off the covers, and sit in the chair by the window in my little room, looking out over the street. The town’s dead this time of night; I don’t even see any cars rolling by on their way home from the bars—assuming Fairbreeze even has any bars.
My thoughts are a whirl of confusion, anger, and sadness. All this time, I’ve had another family I knew nothing about—a father, a half-brother, and a half-sister—and it was mostly because of Lydia and her pathological rage and jealousy that I never got to find out about them.
I caution myself several times against letting my anger get too bad, remembering the lessons Alastair drilled into me during my apprenticeship. Magic is dangerous, and magic driven by anger can be the most dangerous of all, for both the practitioner and the recipient. Powerful emotions lead to powerful magic, to the point where even mediocre talents can lash out stronger than they ever did before when driven by the right passions.
Do I want to kill Lydia? I remember how miserable I felt after I accidentally killed Mathias, the pedophile in Las Vegas who used his talent for illusion magic to enslave children for his horrible “business.” If anybody had needed to die, and with extreme prejudice, it had been him—and I’d killed him by using my healing abilities and my knowledge of the human body to give him an aneurysm. I hadn’t meant to do it, but when it came down to the choice between him and Jason, there was no question about what I’d decide. I’d lashed out in anger, using the only tool I had available.
I still feel guilty for what I did, but I don’t regret doing it.
Could I do it again with Lydia, if she comes after me? I don’t know. It’s not a question I can answer ahead of time, without knowing all the variables.
But part of me, a small part, knows I am capable of it, under the right circumstances.
Another part of me wishes Alastair were here, but I don’t acknowledge that part. This is my problem to deal with, not his. It’s my family and my history.
I hope I can do the right thing, whatever that ends up being.
As I continue looking out the window, watching a shadowy cat slink across the street and disappear under a parked car, I have to consider the one thing I haven’t let myself think about yet: that Josie might be lying to me.
I don’t think she is—I’m a pretty good aura reader, and nothing in hers suggested any deception—but it’s always possible. I’ve never met Lydia, or Sebastian. I don’t know what they’re like. Hell, I don’t even know if they exist. I might be walking into a trap tomorrow, carefully set up by Josie for her own reasons.
But why? What could she gain by it?
I sigh, slumping back. Being smart and aware of potential dangers is a good thing, but paranoia isn’t. So far, everything Josie has told me fits with the small number of facts I know from Stan, and if I had to make a wager on this situation, I’d bet she’s exactly what she claims to be: a concerned party trying to make things right and atone for an old guilt while there’s still a chance to do it.
She’s my aunt.
I keep forgetting that, all caught up in thinking about my biological father and my half-siblings. Josie Kilgallen is Sebastian’s sister, so she’s my aunt. That means I’ve got four relatives I didn’t know about two days ago. It’s a weird feeling, half-scary, half-exciting. My emotions are swirling again: guilt at the disloyalty of being excited about meeting new family members, anger at Lydia for killing my mother, worry that Sebastian will die before I get a chance to see him. And I can’t do a damn thing about any of them before tomorrow. I’m stuck here in this tiny room with nothing but my thoughts for company, and right now they’re lousy company.
I glance at my phone on the table, wanting so much to try calling Alastair again. If I can reach him, just hearing his voice will help settle me down, even if I don’t tell him anything that’s going on here.
I go as far as reaching out with my power, levitating the phone off the table and bringing it toward me. I let it hang there in midair for a few seconds before lowering it back down.
I can do this. And I can do it on my own.
In less than ten hours, I’ll have my answers, and then I can call him.
Right now, I should probably try to get some sleep.
I don’t know how I do it, but I manage to act normal when I come downstairs the next morning, and even let Mimi fix me a breakfast of eggs, bacon, and cold cereal. She bustles around dropping off plates and filling my juice glass as I shovel food down while barely tasting it.
“Did you meet your friend yesterday?” she asks.
I glance up sharply, but both her face and her aura show nothing but harmless curiosity. “Uh…yeah. We’re meeting up again this morning, and I’ll probably be heading home before tomorrow. When’s checkout time? I doubt I’ll be done by noon.”
She waves me off. “Oh, don’t worry about it. It’s not like I’m swimming in guests or anything. We’ll settle up later if you decide you need another night.”
“Thank you.” Her kind words mean a lot to me, when I feel like everybody else in this town might be watching me.
A sudden, terrifying thought pops into my head: is she watching me, reporting back to Josie or Lydia about what I’m doing?
Damn it, V, we went through this. Caution good. Paranoia bad.
But even so, now I feel uncomfortable in her presence. It’s only an hour before I’m meeting Josie; if I can hold it together until then, I’ll be set.
I toss my napkin aside and stand. “Thanks for everything. I’d better get going. I’ll let you know
about tonight.”
She’s already carrying plates back to the kitchen. “That’s fine, dear.”
The address Josie gave me is in a little town named Los Robles, and it’s even harder to find than Fairbreeze.
To start with, it’s not on my map.
I’m not sure how they managed that, and I’ll admit to more suspicion as I follow Josie’s directions and drive out of Fairbreeze. The road is narrow and bordered on both sides by forest, and the farther out I get, the more remote the area looks. By the time I’ve made it ten miles out, I’m halfway convinced Josie sent me off on a wild-goose chase and there isn’t any town called Los Robles.
Still, I keep going, and five miles later the road widens and the trees open up onto a small main street dotted with small shops. There’s no Welcome to Los Robles sign—or at least if there is, I don’t see it as I pass by. Beyond it, high up on a hillside, a massive, Spanish-style building seems to loom over the town. I wonder if it’s the winery Josie mentioned. If it is, it seems fitting that its shadow would hang over Los Robles.
I pull off and consult the paper again, then follow the last of Josie’s directions out a winding road until I’m parked in front of a small, single-story white house set well back from the street. A low wall separates it from the road.
I don’t drive up the gravel driveway—another bit of paranoia, I guess. If I need to get out of there in a hurry, I want to park where I can make a fast exit without having to back down a narrow space.
My heart’s thumping hard as I get out and look around, using both mundane and magical sight. The place is pretty, quiet, and peaceful—the trees with their overhanging branches remind me a little bit of Ojai. Nice place to live if you don’t need much human contact, I guess. I wonder where Sebastian and Lydia live. Josie said they were wealthy, so maybe their places are up in the hills, or near their vineyards. I hadn’t seen any vineyards on my way in—just that big place up on the hillside.
Keeping a lookout around me, I trudge up the driveway, the gravel crunching under my boots. Above me, birds call to each other, and I hear a far-off dog barking.
My first hint that anything’s wrong is the front door, which stands open a couple inches.
I don’t spot it until I’m on the porch, standing next to a large potted cactus and a hanging flag that says Welcome. I’m about to knock on the door when I notice.
I tense. This isn’t normal. Sure, maybe people out here in the boonies leave their doors unlocked, but I’ve never heard of anyone leaving one open—at least not without a screen to keep the bugs out.
I pause there on the porch, considering my options. A quick look around with magical sight reveals nothing out of the ordinary, so that’s a good thing. “Josie?” I call, loud but tentative. “Are you in there?” I almost add, “It’s me, Verity,” but catch myself. If anybody else is around, she wouldn’t want me spilling the secret.
There’s no answer. Even the birds stop calling.
“Josie, it’s me. Are you there? Are you all right?”
Still no answer.
Okay, so this is the time when my long association with Alastair Stone is showing. There are all kinds of things I could do right now: I could call the cops. I could walk away. I could go sit in my car for a little while and wait. I could even drive back to Fairbreeze and shake down the barista at Croney’s until she gives me the whole story.
Or, I could push open the door and walk inside the house.
Most people would think that’s the most unwise of the possible options, and they’d probably be right. But at this point, there’s no way I’m walking away. Not when I’m this close to the answers I’m looking for.
I’m not a helpless mundane. I’m a fully trained mage, and I can deal with this. Alastair wouldn’t walk away, and neither will I.
I pull up a shield around me, use magic to shove the door open, and step inside.
I’m standing in a hallway, on a blue runner rug. To my left is a mirror on the wall, almost startling me with my reflection until I realize it’s there. To my right is a doorway leading to an empty kitchen, and the space in front of me opens out into what looks like a living room. The curtains are closed, wreathing the room in shadows. Magical sight still doesn’t turn anything up.
“Josie?” I call again, more softly. Hell, for all I know she’s got a sawed-off shotgun for home defense, and while I’m pretty sure my shield can take the shot, I’d rather it didn’t have to. The feedback would give me a headache for hours.
No reply.
My heart beats faster, and a chill works its way up my back.
Come on—it’s okay. She probably stepped out to go to the store or something.
But even as I think that, my every instinct tells me it’s not true.
I creep forward down the hall toward the living room. There’s another doorway to the left, leading down another hall. I take a quick glance with magical sight, but don’t see anything there either.
I step into the living room and stop. My breath catches in my throat, followed by a low moan. “No…”
Josie Kilgallen is on the floor in the middle of the room. She’s on her stomach, her arms splayed out, a pool of dark blood staining the light brown carpet under her. She’s wearing the same pale-green sweater she wore at our meeting last night, its soft color marred by more blood.
A wooden-handled steak knife sticks out of the center of her back.
“Oh, God…” I murmur, shoving my fist into my mouth to keep from yelling. “Oh, God…Josie…”
She’s obviously been dead for a while, and there’s nothing all my healing skills can do to save her at this point. Magical sight doesn’t reveal even the faintest hint of an aura; by magical standards, she’s an inanimate object. The only thing I see are the swirls of unease and astral discord that always accompany violent crime.
Somebody killed her—that’s obvious—but it’s just as obvious to me that whoever did it didn’t use magic.
Did someone lie in wait for her, hiding in her home until she returned from her meeting with me? Did they surprise her so she didn’t even have a chance to fight back before they plunged that knife into her back?
Is her murder related to her meeting with me?
I admit it—I probably stand there too long, staring down at Josie’s body—my aunt’s body—with horror and a reluctance to leave. What should I do? What can I do? I can’t just leave her here. Lydia or no Lydia, I’ll have to call the police.
I slip my hand into my jacket pocket for my phone.
The front door slams open, and suddenly the room is full of men. “Hold it right there!” one of them barks. “This is the police! Put your hands where we can see them!”
10
I could have gotten away. There are only two cops—their loud voices and fast movements made it initially seem like more—and even though they have guns pointed at me, I could have used magic to escape them. A shield, a little invisibility, it wouldn’t even have been hard.
I don’t do it, though. Instead I stop, glad I had the forethought to make my shield invisible, and raise my hands. Maybe if I let them take me in, I might find out something else. “Don’t shoot. I didn’t kill her.”
“Get down on the floor! Hands on your head!” One of the cops, in maybe his middle thirties, points toward the clear patch of floor near Josie’s body. The other one, older, moves over to examine Josie.
I do what he tells me, and he pulls my hands around behind me and cuffs them. I don’t resist; I know I can get out of the cuffs whenever I want to. “I didn’t do it,” I tell him. “I found her like that.”
He reads me my rights, then helps me to a standing position and frisks me, pulling my phone and my wallet from my jacket pockets. I notice he’s not overly rough, and seems almost more nervous than authoritarian. I remember what Josie told me last night, about Lydia having the local police in her pocket. Does she know I’m here? I guess she’ll find out soon enough, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I do
want to see her, now more than ever.
“I’m not kidding,” I insist, taking a last glance at Josie before I’m led outside to the squad car. “I didn’t kill her. I was supposed to meet her this morning. I found the door partially open and she was like that when I got here.” I narrow my eyes at him. “How did you know to come here, anyway?”
“Neighbor called it in. And it’s a good thing, too.” He sounds gruff, but still not outright mean. “What’s your name?”
There’s no point in lying to him, since he has my wallet. “Verity Thayer.”
“Where do you live?” He opens the squad-car door and presses my head down until I climb into the back seat.
“Not around here. I’m from the Bay Area. Listen, if you’ll just—”
“We’ll be questioning you back at the station after you’re processed,” he says briskly, moving around to get into the driver’s seat. Already I see another police cruiser pulling up. Must be a really small town without much crime if they can get here that fast. The other guy who busted in on me is still in the house.
“So what are you going to do with me?” I demand. “I get a phone call, right? A lawyer?”
“Yeah, sure, you’ll get your phone call once we get down to the station. Just sit tight and be quiet.”
It only takes five minutes to get to the police station, a low, tan building off the town’s tiny main street. During the drive, I think over what’s just happened, wondering how a neighbor could have possibly known something was going down at Josie’s house. That’s got to be a lie, but if it is, who did inform the police? Will Lydia be waiting for me at the station?
I consider my options. The reason I’m so calm, even though my heart’s pounding hard, is because I know I can get away from this situation whenever I want to. They can put me in cuffs or lock me in a cell, but they can’t take my magic away. As long as I have that, no jail cell or pair of handcuffs can hold me. And if I can get these oddly nervous cops to talk to me, maybe I can get a better idea of who might have killed Josie.