Darker Paths (The Witches of Canyon Road Book 2)

by Christine Pope

  Interesting. Because he seemed able to master so many different magical abilities, I’d just sort of assumed he could do almost anything he put his mind to. “It’s a fun trick, but unless you plan on a career in spying or bank robbery, I’m not sure how really useful it is.”

  “You’re just trying to make me feel better.”

  “No, really,” I said. “I mean it.”

  “What else do you want to try?”

  Good question. There were so many possibilities out there, but I was interested in something a bit more subtle than being the new incarnation of the Invisible Man. “I want to know how you block your warlock nature. That seems like it would be handy to know. That way, I could change my appearance, block my witchiness, and go shopping in Santa Fe if I wanted to.”

  A flash of white teeth as he shot me one of his sly grins. “If you really want to go shopping, we can always head down to Albuquerque. There’s probably less chance of running into a Castillo since they’re spread a bit more thin there.”

  “It’s not shopping, exactly, more….” I stopped to think about what I was that I really wanted to prove. “More that I think it would be awesome to slip in under their noses, and they’d never be able to tell.”

  “After what they put you through, I can see why you might want to thumb your nose at them.”

  We were standing out in the driveway again, since it was a good place to practice various sorts of pyrotechnics without having to worry about damaging anything in the multimillion-dollar property where we were staying. Simon came toward me and paused a foot or so away.

  “Reach out,” he said. “I know that we don’t get that special ‘tingle’ or whatever you want to call it after we’ve been around each other for a bit, but if you focus, you can still sense it. Try it now.”

  I held myself still and let my newly developed powers drift out, touch his. Yes, there it was — that strange prickle at the back of my neck that told me I faced someone else with witch blood. But even as I felt that unique tingle, it vanished. For all that my witchy senses were telling me, I might as well have been standing next to a civilian.

  “Wow,” I said. “It’s just…gone.”

  “Exactly. But it’s really easy to do. You only need to think of the power at your core, your own witchy nature. Close your eyes and reach inside yourself. Feel it.”

  This was easy enough to do, because I’d felt that same power awaken in me just the day before, that center of brilliant, glowing light, warm and golden as the sun. I closed my eyes and almost immediately it was there, comforting, reassuring me that I possessed just as much magical talent as any other witch — actually, far more, since I wasn’t confined to a single gift but apparently could encompass them all.

  “I feel it,” I whispered.

  “Good. Now imagine blanking it out. It’s not that it’s disappeared — it’s more like the sun during an eclipse when the moon passes in front of it. Do that now.”

  I nodded obediently, visualizing an eclipse, the darkening of the sun, the utter blackness that took its place. And the core of light within me dimmed and seemed to be gone, although I could still feel its strength, waiting for the time when I would call upon it again.

  “You did it,” Simon said. I opened my eyes to see him looking down at me with approval. “I can’t feel your power at all. Now bring it back.”

  Eclipse over, the warm golden light of my magic flared out, thrilling in its strength.

  Simon nodded. “And now I feel it again. It’s really as simple as that.”

  “It’s still amazing,” I said. “To be able to hide my powers, just by thinking about it. My uncle supposedly was able to hide my father’s powers from the McAllister clan, but I always heard that was a spell, not something my uncle could do on his own with his own innate abilities.”

  Simon shrugged. “I wouldn’t know anything about that. I mean, I always heard that Damon Wilcox dabbled in some questionable stuff, so I suppose he could have found a spell to do basically the same thing. But obviously it’s a lot easier when you’re just doing it on your own.”

  That was for sure. I didn’t really want to talk about my uncle, or the dark spells he’d explored before his death, long before I was even born. Certainly the topic never came up in my household; the few things I’d overheard about him were in whispered conversations, conversations that halted abruptly once the people talking realized I was around. I didn’t even know what my uncle had looked like, because my parents didn’t have any pictures of him out anywhere in either of our houses. I’d always gotten the impression that my father would have liked to erase Uncle Damon’s existence altogether, that the topic was so painful he preferred to push it away and pretend he’d never had a brother to begin with.

  “Much easier,” I agreed, then went on, eager to change the subject, “So…what next? I’ve always thought it would be fun to control the weather.”

  “It’s a useful talent, but one you need to be careful with. Nature has a balance of its own, and you don’t want to mess with it too much.”

  “I won’t,” I promised. “I just want to see what I can do.”

  “All right.” Simon looked up toward the sky — the day was still sunny and mild, but a few clouds wreathed the topmost peaks of the Sangre de Cristo mountains to the east. “It’s easiest when you have something to work with. Making it rain when there aren’t any clouds around is tough, because you basically have to make some clouds form out of water vapor before you can even think of doing anything with them. But there are a few.” He pointed to the clouds I’d noticed, white and fluffy and looking as if they were stuffed with moisture, although it was too late for monsoon storms and really too early for snow. “Call them over here.”

  “‘Call them’?” I repeated, looking at the clouds in question with some skepticism. “How am I supposed to do that?”

  “Think about the air currents, about the winds that drive them. It’s not as if they move on their own. Find the wind and make it push them here.”

  That still seemed like a tall order, but I figured I should at least try. I drew in a breath and let my arms hang at my side as I focused on the power in my core. It was still there, waiting for me to tell it what I wanted it to do.

  Show me the wind, I thought.

  The sky remained as blue as ever, but now I thought I could see currents moving within it, odd translucent rivers snaking their way far above the landscape. And now that I could see those currents, I could try to get them to do my bidding.

  Bring the clouds to me.

  At first, it didn’t seem as if anything was happening. But then I saw the clouds that crowned the mountaintops drift away, begin to move westward toward the spot where I stood. Not quickly, but anyone who was paying attention would have noticed that those clouds were no longer moving with the area’s prevailing wind currents.

  They drifted closer and closer, until at last they were directly overhead, blocking the sun. A chill went through me, even though a moment earlier I had been warm enough.

  Simon spoke to me, the words soft, almost a whisper. “What do you want them to do?”

  Good question. It seemed enough of an accomplishment merely to have brought them here. But then I thought of the fierce monsoon storms of July and August and September, the wild downpours of rain, the sharp crack of lightning, and how much I missed them as summer began to shift into autumn.

  The clouds rumbled, seemed to turn darker. They pulsed with light from within.

  And then a bolt cracked down from one of them, striking the lightning rod that graced the peaked roof of the caretaker’s house. All at once, rain began to pour down, drumming so hard against the gravel of the driveway that it bounced back up a good several inches.

  Simon and I shared one wild, wide-eyed glance, and then we both ran for the side door that would let us into the kitchen. It only took us a few seconds to get inside, but in those few seconds we were both soaked to the skin.

  I hurried over to the draw
er that I knew held the kitchen towels, and pulled out a couple and handed one to Simon before I began to blot my dripping hair. “Wow,” I said. “I wasn’t really expecting that to happen.”

  He wiped off his face, but from the way he was smiling, I could tell he wasn’t upset with me for turning the two of us into a couple of drowned rats. “That’s what I meant about weather being hard to control. The clouds can have a mind of their own. Did you actually want it to rain that hard?”

  “Not really,” I said, touching the now-damp towel to my cheeks. Good thing there wasn’t a mirror around; I didn’t want to know what that downpour had done to my mascara. “I was thinking of the monsoon storms, how much I missed them. And then the clouds just sort of let loose.”

  “That’s the thing.” He scrunched his hair with the towel, making it stick up all over his head. The effect was definitely punk rock, and I had to keep myself from smiling. Normally, that wasn’t the sort of style Simon tended to sport. “With magic, intentions can have power. You need to think about what you want to have happen and be very clear about it to yourself. Luckily, all that happened to us was that we got soaked, but sometimes the side effects can be a lot more severe than some wet clothes.”

  I nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind from now on.” And I would. Over the past few days, magic had been something that just sort of happened to me, rather than vice versa, but I could tell I needed to work on paying attention to what I was doing.

  “Good.” His gaze moved upward, to where I could hear the rain still pounding down on the skylight. “Do you think you could get it to stop? I need to change, and I’d rather not get soaked all over again on my way to the caretaker’s house.”

  “Sure,” I said, realizing with some embarrassment that his dark T-shirt now clung tightly to his body, showing off muscles in his chest and shoulders that I really hadn’t noticed before, since he tended to wear his clothing somewhat baggy. At the same time, I could see that my own shirt was doing much the same thing, only instead of revealing muscles, it was showing every outline of my bra. Blood flooded into my cheeks, but I told myself to focus on something more important, like getting those storm clouds to move away. I breathed in, imagining them now free of their burden of moisture and heading back to cluster around the topmost peaks of the Sangre de Cristos once again.

  The drumming of the rain stopped abruptly, and a few seconds later, the gloom that had enveloped the house dissipated, sunlight returning now that the clouds were gone.

  “I think it’s safe now,” I said.

  “Sounds that way. How about we regroup here in the kitchen in twenty minutes?”

  “Sure.”

  He let himself out, and I set the damp towel I’d been holding down on the countertop and hurried back to my room. The mirror in the bathroom revealed the utter wreck of my hair and makeup — and showed just how revealing my wet T-shirt really was. Muttering a curse, I stripped it off, but draped it over the shower door along with my jeans so I wouldn’t be putting wet clothes in the hamper. It did feel good to get into dry things after having my soaked clothing stuck to my skin.

  Twenty minutes. It wasn’t enough time to blow-dry my hair, so I got out some of the serum I used when I wanted it to dry natural and wavy, and scrunched it in as best I could. Again, not enough time for full makeup, but once I’d repaired my raccoon eyes, I reapplied mascara and put on some lip gloss.

  Did Simon even notice these things? Did he care? I was having a hard time deciding one way or another, although before we’d come here he hadn’t done too much to hide his interest in me. Now, though….

  Now he’s giving you space. Isn’t that what you wanted?

  I thought so. I just didn’t know for sure.

  Shaking my head at myself, I went back to the kitchen. Simon was already there, studying the contents of the fridge.

  “Is it lunchtime already?” I asked. My gazed moved to the digital readout on the stove. No, it was only eleven-fifteen. Maybe not an outrageous time for lunch, but I thought it was jumping the gun a little, considering we’d had breakfast at eight.

  “No,” he replied. “Not unless you’re hungry, anyway.”

  I thought possibly I should have been, after all the magical energy I’d expended. But no, I could tell I wasn’t quite ready for lunch yet. I shook my head. “I’d rather wait.”

  “Good, because I was thinking we should make a run to the grocery store.”

  “Into town?” I asked, a nervous thrill going through me. Technically, such a trip should be all right, since Simon had taught me how to block my powers. Even so, after all the morning’s exertions, I was feeling a little tired. I would have rather given the magic a rest for a while.

  “No,” he said. “I wouldn’t do that to you after all the work you did this morning. I was thinking we could go to Los Alamos.”

  “‘Los Alamos’?” I repeated blankly, wondering whether I’d heard him correctly. It seemed like a long way to go just to do some grocery shopping.

  “Yes,” he said with a smile. “I know it sounds kind of funky, but I heard the Smith’s there is like a temple of grocery stores…and I know you’re not a fan of Española.” I made a face at him, but he continued, still smiling, “So I thought we could go up there, do our shopping, have some lunch.”

  “Are there a lot of Castillos in Los Alamos?”

  “There aren’t any. Most of the people who live there work at the labs in one way or another, and when you’re a witch or warlock trying to hide your identity, it’s usually not recommended that you do something that requires a security clearance.”

  I hadn’t even thought of that particular angle, but of course he was right. The witches and warlocks I knew in Arizona had all sorts of jobs, but none of them were FBI agents or worked for government labs or did anything that would require some kind of official organization to probe too closely into their personal lives. I eyed Simon, who still wore faint smile. “You seem to know a lot about the Castillos.”

  “I did my homework. I didn’t know how long I was going to have to stay undercover until I met you, so to speak, and so I tried to learn everything I could about the Castillos, and about Santa Fe and the towns within driving distance. It never hurts.”

  No, I supposed it didn’t. I thought of how I’d done my best to ignore most information about the city that would soon be my home, driven more by contrariness than anything else, sort of, well, you can make me live there, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it. Which, in hindsight, had been pretty foolish. What was that old saying about forewarned was forearmed?

  “Okay, Los Alamos it is.” I paused, then looked down at my jeans and flats and patterned peasant blouse. “Is this okay?”

  His gaze moved over me swiftly, almost carelessly. “You look fine. You might want to bring a jacket, though, just in case. It tends to be a little cooler there because of the elevation.”

  “All right. Let me go get my purse and a jacket.”

  He nodded, and I hurried back to my bedroom to fetch the items in question. Once there, I gave my appearance a quick once-over, but all seemed to be in order. If I’d known we’d be going out to lunch, I might have tried to put a little more work into my makeup, although I told myself that really didn’t matter. Who was I trying to impress, anyway? A bunch of rocket scientists?

  If that was even the sort of thing they did in Los Alamos. I knew the town had a national lab, and that it was where the atom bomb had been developed, and that was about the extent of my knowledge when it came to Los Alamos.

  I went back to the kitchen, and the two of us got some reusable shopping bags from the pantry before heading out to the garage. Now it was all blue skies around us, the only sign of the downpour I’d summoned a few puddles on the walkway and on the gravel.

  “How far do you think the rain extended?” I asked as we got into his SUV.

  “I don’t know for sure.” He backed out of the garage, then touched the controls to shut the door. “That’s something you’ll
need to focus on next time. Really good weather-workers can tell exactly how much area is being covered by the storms they call to themselves.”

  Frankly, I’d been so startled by the heavy rain that I hadn’t even thought to reach out and see if I could determine my storm’s area of effect. Next time, I’d know better — and I’d focus on exactly what I wanted the clouds to do.

  If I was given the chance, of course. It was entirely possible that Simon would want to move on to a different skill, now that I’d proven I could call the clouds to me almost as easily as I could teleport or bring a wall of fire out of nothing. And really, at this time of year, it wasn’t as though we needed a ton of rain. October had been fairly wet in northern Arizona, which was somewhat unusual. Since storms tended to keep heading east after they were done with us in Flagstaff and Jerome, I had to guess that Santa Fe and the surrounding areas must have gotten some of that same moisture.

  We headed north on the same highway we’d taken to get to Española, only we cut off on another highway going west right after we passed the massive Buffalo Thunder casino and resort. This road was fairly wide, comparatively speaking, and seemed in better repair than some of the other highways I’d traveled in New Mexico. I mentioned this to Simon, and his shoulders lifted slightly.

  “There’s a lot of traffic to and from Los Alamos that uses this road. They keep it in good shape.”

  I nodded. It made sense. Did a lot of the scientists who worked there live in Santa Fe, rather than in Los Alamos itself? I could see how that kind of situation might be desirable, if the job was high-powered enough and paid well.

  We crossed over the Rio Grande, where the cottonwoods were still blazing in all their golden glory. Seeing them sent a little pang through my heart. Back home, the trees would also still be bright with their autumn foliage. I remembered how I could see the line of the Verde River from my bedroom window in Jerome, how I’d watch every year to see when the leaves began to turn, a trail of gold with the majesty of Sedona’s red rocks off in the distance. It had been so very beautiful.