Darker Paths (The Witches of Canyon Road Book 2)

by Christine Pope

  “That was just the dealership reminding me of my service appointment next week,” she said, then picked up her glass of iced tea and took a long sip. “I’d completely forgotten about it.”

  “Well, life has been a little crazy lately.”

  There was an understatement.

  “I know.” Cat swirled her straw around in the iced tea, watching as the slice of lemon floating there was temporarily submerged beneath the ice before it popped back up again. “Do you think it will ever get un-crazy?”

  He shrugged, about the only response he would allow himself right then. “I don’t know.”

  And he didn’t. Despite the friction between his mother and himself, Rafe knew his life had been fairly placid for the most part…until Miranda came on the scene. He didn’t think she had caused any of this havoc directly, but it did seem as though it liked to swirl around her, as if she was some kind of magnet for chaotic energy.

  “But,” he went on, hoping he could help cheer Cat up a bit, “I have a feeling things will get better once we find Miranda. Coming down here is probably the best thing we can be doing right now, no matter what Genoveva might think.”

  His sister’s expression did brighten slightly, which made Rafe feel better. “You’re right.” She glanced down at her phone where it lay on the tabletop. “It’s almost two. We should pay up and get out of here.”

  A plan he wholeheartedly endorsed. He flagged down the waitress and gave her a couple of twenties without even bothering to look at the check. It was close enough, and it never hurt to give a big tip if the service had been even halfway decent. He knew he would never have the patience to put up with demanding customers all day.

  Judging by the look of surprise and the bright smile their waitress flashed him, it had been a very good tip. Even better. His own day might have been shit, but that didn’t mean everyone else’s had to be.

  He and Cat left the restaurant and drove over to Daniel’s office. There was a parking garage next door, so at least they didn’t have to waste time looking for someplace to park on the street.

  When the two of them got in the elevator, they got a couple of sideways glances from the people who were riding up with them. Rafe glanced down at his faded jeans and hiking boots, and over at his sister’s ensemble, which wasn’t all that different, except that she wore black ankle boots and her jeans were in a little better shape. Still, they stood out in contrast to the two men in business suits and the woman in the silk blouse and expertly tailored knee-length skirt who also occupied the elevator, clearly professionals with offices here, or possibly some of their clients.

  Whatever. Rafe knew he wasn’t here to impress anyone. He supposed he should be grateful that his position in the Castillo clan allowed him to pursue an offbeat vocation. Actually, he didn’t have to work at all — his stipend from the clan would have kept him comfortable without any outside income — but he’d learned early on that an excess of sloth wasn’t necessarily a desirable thing. At least with the pre-visualization work he did for virtual reality games, he was able to keep himself busy with something he enjoyed.

  Daniel’s office was on the fourth floor. Rafe and Cat got off there, leaving the silently judgmental stares of their fellow elevator passengers behind. Once the elevator doors closed, she let out a chuckle and shook her head. “Maybe we should have gone home first and changed.”

  “Why?” he asked. “I’m not worried about what a bunch of strangers think about me.”

  “No, I guess you aren’t,” she said easily. “Most of the time you don’t seem to worry about what anyone thinks of you.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” he replied, holding the door to Daniel’s office suite open for her so she could enter the small reception area. Directly ahead of them was a gleaming stainless-steel desk, and sitting behind the desk was a pretty civilian woman probably around Cat’s age, just as well-groomed as the people who’d ridden in the elevator with them. However, unlike that group, this woman offered them a friendly smile.

  “Hello,” she said. “Rafe and Cat, right?”

  “Yes,” Rafe responded.

  “Daniel’s waiting for you. This way.” She got out from behind the desk and led them down a hallway that ended in a door. Opening it, she said, “Daniel, your two o’clocks are here.”

  “Thanks, Lisa.”

  Rafe and Cat went ahead and entered the office, which occupied a corner of the building and offered a panoramic view of downtown Albuquerque looking east, as well as a stunning vista of the Sandia Mountains. Daniel got up from behind his desk and came forward, offering a hand first to Cat, then to Rafe.

  “Good to see you, Cat,” he said. “And you, Rafe.”

  “I wish it were under better circumstances.”

  At that remark, Daniel’s smile faded slightly. He was thirty years old, dark like most of the Castillos, but with hazel eyes he’d inherited from his civilian mother. Attractive, Rafe supposed, although he’d never been all that good at judging other men’s looks, except possibly by the way women reacted to them. However, from the way Cat flushed a little at her cousin’s greeting, it seemed clear what her opinion of Daniel’s appearance must be.

  Maybe that connection was something Cat should cultivate. They were cousins, but not close cousins, at least three or four degrees of separation. It was hard to keep track of all that stuff, and anyway, he’d never had to worry about hooking up with a Castillo cousin, since he’d been intended for Miranda McAllister for as long as he could remember.

  Rafe shelved the idea of Cat and Daniel for further consideration later. The last thing he needed right now was to get distracted by his sister’s love life.

  “Did you find anything?” he asked.

  “Go ahead and sit down,” Daniel said, indicating the pair of chairs that faced his large antique desk of burnished curly maple. That piece of furniture must have cost him a lot, but Rafe had to admit it looked impressive.

  Cat and Rafe took a seat. She sent him a quick sideways glance, one he couldn’t quite interpret. Was she worried that the news must be bad, since Daniel hadn’t immediately given them any information?

  After opening up the shining silver laptop that sat on his desk, Daniel went on, “Well, this is what I’ve found so far. Or rather, what I didn’t find. Robert Marquez is a fairly common name, and I found 202 people with that name in the greater San Antonio area.”

  Great. Rafe had feared he might hear something like this from his cousin, but he hadn’t known the number would be that high. “Needle in a haystack, huh?”

  “Not quite that bad.” He tapped away on the laptop’s keyboard. “Since you said the Robert Marquez you were looking for was young but still an adult, I narrowed the search to those between the ages of twenty-one and thirty. That brought us down to ninety-seven people. Two of them actually had moved out of the area and not updated their information, so they’re probably not the person you’re looking for. For the rest, I sent a few spiders crawling across the internet to see if I could locate any evidence of them traveling to the Santa Fe area in the past month.”

  “Did you find something?” Cat asked.

  Daniel nodded. “Two of the Robert Marquezes in question had vacationed in Santa Fe during the month of October. One of them stayed at the El Dorado Hotel, so he probably wouldn’t be your guy, right, Rafe?”

  “Probably not,” Rafe replied. “I mean, I suppose he could’ve actually stayed at the hotel and used the Airbnb for his other activities, but that doesn’t sound as likely.”

  One of Daniel’s eyebrows lifted at the “other activities” remark, but he didn’t comment on it. “I couldn’t find any information about where the other Robert Marquez was staying. If he’d been using an Airbnb, you’d think it would have shown up somewhere, but I’ll admit they lock their accounts down more tightly than most hotels do. It’s still possible he was staying at the place you visited.”

  “Do you have a photo of this guy?” Rafe asked.

 
“Sure.” Daniel turned his laptop around so both Rafe and Cat could see the display on the screen. It was clearly a DMV photo of some sort, or maybe from a work I.D. The man in the picture stared straight forward, unsmiling, and appeared to be around Rafe’s age, maybe a little older. That fit the parameters they’d set. As for the rest….

  “He’s kind of cute,” Cat said. “I mean, that photo’s not doing him any favors, but….”

  “Which means he probably fits the Airbnb owner’s description of him being good-looking,” Rafe finished for her. His gaze swiveled back to the image on the screen. Too bad you couldn’t tell from looking at a photo whether someone was a warlock or not. He didn’t know much about the witch clan that ruled the part of Texas where San Antonio was located. The Montoyas, who’d been there almost as long as the Castillos had been in New Mexico. This Robert Marquez could be part of their clan, or not. It was impossible to know for sure.

  Well, unless he went and paid him a visit in person.

  “Do you have an address for this guy?” Rafe asked.

  “Yes,” Daniel replied, and then frowned slightly. “You’re not thinking of going to see him, are you?”

  “What else am I supposed to do? He’s the only lead I’ve got — and if it turns out he really was the person staying in that Airbnb, then the last thing I want to do is give him any warning that I’m coming.”

  “Mom will never give her permission for that,” Cat said.

  Rafe wanted to snap that he didn’t give a rat’s ass about their mother’s permission, but he knew Cat had a point. It was considered common courtesy to ask a neighboring clan for leave to enter their territory. Then again, if Robert Marquez was part of the Montoya family and had come here to Santa Fe without asking whether it was all right, then he was just as guilty of violating clan etiquette. One would have thought that Genoveva should have detected the presence of a strange warlock in her territory, but she’d been distracted lately, what with getting ready to have Miranda come to Santa Fe, and laying all the groundwork for the wedding so plans could be put into motion without much forewarning. Rafe supposed she could have missed the subtle warning signs of such an incursion.

  “I think she’s otherwise occupied right now,” he said evasively, and Cat raised an eyebrow.

  “I doubt she’s so occupied that she won’t notice you disappearing for a few days to go racing off to San Antonio. That’s a long drive, in case you didn’t know.”

  He knew well enough, since he’d driven to Austin once, and the two cities weren’t that far from one another. “Who says I’d drive?” he asked. “We’re in Albuquerque — the smartest thing to do would be to head over to the airport and catch a flight. I could be in San Antonio in a couple of hours.”

  Cat turned a pleading gaze toward their cousin. “Daniel, please tell him he’s being crazy.”

  “I’m not going to comment on the craziness of the plan, but Rafe’s right. He could be there pretty fast.” A glint entered Daniel’s hazel eyes. “You want me to check flights for you?”

  “Great, you’re both crazy.” Cat crossed her arms and settled back in her chair. “Or maybe I’m crazy, too, because if you’re going to go tearing off to San Antonio, you sure as hell aren’t going to do it alone.”

  “I don’t think — ” Rafe began, then stopped when he saw the mulish set of his sister’s mouth. Clearly, if he was going, then she was going, too. He could waste his breath on trying to dissuade her, but he knew it probably wouldn’t do much good. Turning toward Daniel he said, “Yeah, check on the flights.”

  At once his cousin began typing away. After a moment, he paused and said, “It looks like there’s one leaving in an hour. Puddle jumper, but that’s probably what you want anyway. Most of the bigger airlines go to the hub in Dallas.”

  A small plane on an obscure airline. That sounded perfect — and a hell of a lot better than spending ten hours on the road one way. Rafe got his wallet out of his pocket and fished out his credit card. Handing it over to Daniel, he said, “Go ahead and book it. Two seats.”

  As his cousin took the card from him, Cat shook her head. “I seriously can’t believe that we’re doing this.”

  “Oh, believe it,” Rafe said. “I’m going to find Miranda, no matter what it takes.”

  Even if that meant going into a neighboring clan’s territory without permission…and without his mother’s knowledge. Right then, he wasn’t sure which was worse. Not that he cared.

  He had to do this, consequences be damned.

  7

  Meditations

  Miranda

  A soft breeze played with my loose hair. The day had continued sunny and mild, almost too mild for early November, although I could tell it was warmer here in this quiet corner of Tesuque than it had been in Santa Fe. We were in a river bottom in this part of the world, so I supposed the lack of altitude had something to do with the milder temperatures.

  Simon and I stood in the garden, the sun shining down on both of us. He’d suggested that we work out of doors, since the weather was so nice, and I hadn’t been about to argue with him. Soon enough real winter would descend, and the chance to stand outside for long periods would be gone until the following spring.

  Where I’d be when winter and spring came, I had no idea. I supposed a lot of that would have to do with how these practice sessions went. A little thrill went through me as I thought of what it might be like to no longer be a nunca, someone other witches and warlocks looked at in pity.

  “Think about your magic for a moment,” Simon instructed me. He stood a few feet away, the breeze ruffling his short, thick hair. It was crisp and lively, with just the faintest wave.

  I wondered what it would be like to run my fingers through that hair, then wanted to shake my head at myself. Thinking about Simon’s hair had nothing to do with magic.

  “What about it?” I asked. “I mean, I’m not trying to be a pain, but isn’t our magic always just sort of…there? I thought the whole point was not having to think about it. Using magic is pretty much like breathing for our kind.”

  For a moment, he didn’t reply, only stood there and watched me carefully. I couldn’t detect any disapproval in his gaze, but he also wasn’t smiling. At last he said, “Well, yeah, that’s true…up to a point. But you could argue that there are lots of disciplines in this world that use focused breathing. Different kinds of meditation…yoga…even biofeedback. For most witches and wizards, you’re right — they don’t have to really think about it. But you’re not most witches.” He paused, head tilted slightly one side as he regarded me the way you might look at a lock that needed to be picked, eyes narrowed. “So tell me — when your magic kicked in and you had those experiences of teleporting, what did it feel like?”

  “It felt….” I paused to consider his question. What the hell had it felt like? Mostly, I’d just been trying to figure out what the heck was going on. “I’m not actually sure. At first, I was just scared. I didn’t know what was happening.”

  “But then…?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, realizing that was not what Simon wanted to hear. Still, I needed to tell him the truth. “I mean, every time my magic kicked in, I was stressing out about something. It didn’t feel good, I can tell you that much.”

  “Extremes of emotion — like when Rafe rejected you at the altar.”

  Did he really have to bring that up? I’d been starting to feel a little better about life, mostly because I’d gotten that phone call to my mother out of the way. Now, though, it was almost as if I was living that horrible scene in Loretto Chapel all over again, the strange glitter in Rafe’s eyes, the cold indifference in his tone as he tossed me aside like a piece of garbage.

  “I guess you could call it extreme,” I muttered.

  At once Simon came over to me and took my hand. Annoyed as I was with him in that moment, it did feel good to have his fingers wrapped around mine. His skin was warm and smooth, friendly. “I’m sorry, Miranda,” he said. “I know y
ou don’t want to think about what happened. We need to get past that, though. You need to understand that strong good emotions can help you far more than negative ones.”

  “I know that intellectually,” I replied. “It’s just difficult to internalize, I guess.”

  “It’s all right.” He smiled, and the sunlight glinted on his even white teeth. “How about you just try breathing for a minute or two? Slowly, in through your nose and out through your mouth.”

  Since I was feeling jittery, I thought that following his advice was probably a good idea. Following his instructions, I pulled in air through my nose and gently released it from my mouth, and then did the same thing again. And again.

  Slowly, the tense, angry sensation that had tightened the muscles in my neck and shoulders began to dissipate. I continued to breathe, savoring the bright, clean scent of dry, sun-warmed grass, the dark, rich aroma of fallen leaves against damp soil. I almost fancied I could smell the house itself, warm and snug under the clear, shimmering sky.

  “Good,” Simon said softly. “Now, while you’re still breathing, reach inside yourself. Reach for the bright center of your magic. It’s there…you know it’s there. Without it, you couldn’t have sent yourself from the chapel to my apartment…to me.”

  Almost against my will, my eyes closed. Somehow I knew I had to turn my focus away from the clear, shining beauty of that November morning and deep within myself. Simon was right. A nunca could never have done the things I’d done over the past few days. The magic was inside me. I just had to learn how to bring it out.

  There. It was like staring into the heart of the sun, or into the depths of a volcano. Bright, so bright it almost hurt my eyes, even though I knew I was looking at the thing with my mind’s eye and nothing else. Shimmering gold and copper, turning and twisting in on itself, practically vibrating with power.