Darker Paths (The Witches of Canyon Road Book 2)

by Christine Pope

  Rafe was shaking his head. “You’re amazing.”

  “Not as much as you might think.” I took a breath, then went on, “I wouldn’t be able to use any of these powers if Simon hadn’t showed me how to access them. That doesn’t mean I forgive him, but….” I let the words trail off, not sure what I was trying to say. Rafe watched me with understanding in his eyes, and he waited patiently for me to continue. Rubbing my damp palms on the knees of my jeans, I said, “Even with all that, even with finally being able to tap into my powers, I still couldn’t get away from Simon on the first try. Before you even got there, I tried to teleport away from him, and it was as if he’d blocked my powers. It was terrible. I’d never felt so helpless.”

  Spots of anger burned on Rafe’s high cheekbones. “When I see him again, I’m going to kill him.”

  As angry as I was, I didn’t know whether that was the solution. Also, even through my love for Rafe, I knew he wasn’t strong enough to take Simon down. He’d gotten lucky back there at the house and had caught him off guard, but I couldn’t count on that happening a second time.

  “We’ll worry about that later,” I said.

  He let out an angry breath, but at least he didn’t try to argue. “If he was blocking you from teleporting, how were you able to do it that last time when you got us out of there?”

  “Like I said, he’d let his guard down. He was in a lot of pain from your attack, I think.” I stopped, remembering that horrible moment, remembering also how the magic had flowed through me, strong and sure. “And I sort of felt how he was managing to block me, and I maneuvered around the block. That’s all.”

  “As I said, you’re amazing.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Oh, shit.”

  “What’s the matter?” I asked, concern flooding through me. “Are you hurt after all?”

  “No, I’m fine.” A rueful glance down at the clothes he was wearing, and he added, “It’s just that I left my clothes on the floor of Simon’s living room. And I left Cat’s SUV sitting on the side of the road by the front gate to the property. She’s going to fucking kill me.”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “It’s just a car. I’m sure she’d be much more worried about your well-being.”

  “Maybe. Still, I hate to think that Simon can get at it. I mean, the key fob was in my goddamn jeans pocket.”

  Which meant Simon could happily drive the SUV right off a cliff if he felt like it. However, I wasn’t sure he would do something like that — not because he had a problem with destruction, but because the Mercedes would have been sitting out there long enough that someone might have noticed. I thought it far more likely that he would call the sheriff’s department and complain about someone abandoning their vehicle on his property. That way he could maintain the law-abiding façade he’d worked so hard to establish.

  However, since Rafe had left his clothes behind, that meant he’d also left his wallet, the keys to his house, his phone…everything. “What does your wallet look like?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Your wallet. Describe it.”

  “There isn’t much to describe — ” he began, then broke off, comprehension spreading over his features. “You’re going to try to get it back?”

  “If I can,” I replied. This flexing of my powers was still very new to me, and I still didn’t have a clear grasp of what I could and couldn’t do. Still, I could teleport myself and another person at the same time. Moving a small object like a wallet didn’t seem like that big a deal. “The car is one thing. But your identity is in that wallet, and I have a feeling we’re going to have enough to deal with in the very near future without having to get you a new driver’s license and credit cards and all that.”

  “You have a point. Well, it’s brown leather, a simple double fold about yay big.” He described the wallet’s rough dimensions by making a square with this thumbs and forefingers. “The edges were starting to get worn, the dye rubbing off. I don’t carry cash, so it just had my I.D. and a couple of credit cards in it, which means it was pretty thin.”

  “Thanks, Rafe.” I sent him what I hoped was a confident smile, although I didn’t feel all that confident. But I had to try. I visualized his jeans lying on the floor of the living room at the house in Tesuque, and realized the easiest thing to do would be to bring them here, rather than just the wallet. That way, I could recover his wallet, house keys, phone — and the key fob for Cat’s Mercedes.

  Assuming, of course, that Simon hadn’t pounced and begun rifling through the discarded pants as soon as we’d disappeared. I hoped his anger and his frustration would vent themselves in other ways, though.

  Another breath. Okay, Rafe’s jeans, faded Levi’s that had started to go a bit ragged at the hem. For all the Castillo wealth, he obviously tended to wear his clothes until they began to fall apart, probably because he couldn’t be bothered to go shopping.

  And instead of them lying on the floor of the house Simon had borrowed or stolen or cajoled out of the property management company — I still wasn’t sure which — suddenly those jeans were draped over Rafe’s lap. He gave a start of surprise, then flashed me a grin that had both relief and admiration in it.

  “Wow,” he said, running a hand over the faded material before he reached into the back pocket and pulled out a wallet that exactly matched the description he had provided just a minute earlier. “I’m going to have to find a different adjective than ‘amazing’ to describe you, Miranda. The powers you’ve developed over the past few days — I’ve never seen anything like it. And here” — he set the wallet down on the coffee table and fished around for something in one of the jeans’ front pockets — “here’s the fob for Cat’s Mercedes. I’ll text her and tell her to send the auto club to tow it back to the house. I doubt Simon will interfere with them if he’s as concerned about his public image as you seem to think he is.”

  “Fingers crossed,” I said. “He might have already called someone to have it towed, because he knows that will inconvenience us. I wonder if he knows it’s Cat’s car and not yours?”

  “I have no idea.” Rafe picked up his wallet and placed it in the pocket of the jeans he now wore. “He does seem to know more about all of us than I would like. But I can’t do much about that.” His gaze met mine, intent, worried. “What’s our next step?”

  “Well, you’ll need to let Genoveva know that I’m back, and safe,” I replied. “But first I’d really like to call my parents and tell them I’m okay. Simon tricked me into thinking I was communicating with my mother, but it was really him the whole time.”

  A scowl creased Rafe’s brows. “That’s pretty low, but about what I’d expect from him.” He got his phone out of the jeans I’d recovered from Simon’s house, unlocked it, and handed it over to me. “They’ll be relieved to hear from you. They knew you were missing, knew the Castillo clan was doing their best to locate you, but….”

  “But you probably had a lot of fun convincing them to let you handle it, rather than have them come here and try to help,” I finished for him, and he gave me a rueful smile.

  “Yeah, something like that. They gave me two days.”

  “Well, now you don’t have to worry about it, because I’m here.” I reached over with my free hand and touched his arm briefly, then punched in the number for my mother’s cell. It picked up on the first ring.

  “Rafe? Have you heard something?”

  She’d answered so quickly, I wondered if she’d been sitting there, staring at the screen, willing Rafe to call her. “No, Mom. It’s Miranda. I’m fine.”

  “Oh, thank the Goddess.” My mother let out a little huff of a breath. “Where are you?”

  “I’m at Rafe’s house. We were able to get away from Simon.”

  “This Simon person. Who is he? I checked with Zoe because Rafe thought he might be a de la Paz, but she’d never heard of him.”

  “He’s — ” I paused and looked over at Rafe, and he gave me an encouraging nod. “Mom, he’s Joaquin Es
cobar’s son.”

  “Goddess….”

  That was about my reaction when I’d learned the truth about him. “How was that possible, though? I mean — ”

  “Marisol was pregnant when your father and Isabel Castillo and I rescued her from Escobar. We never heard anything further about the child, though, so everyone just assumed she — well, we all thought she must have ended the pregnancy. Who could have blamed her?”

  Who, indeed? The thought must have crossed her mind many times, but I supposed that Marisol, being a good Catholic in addition to being the prima of her clan, had decided she couldn’t go through with it. Instead, she’d done everything she could to hide the truth of who Simon really was.

  Since I hadn’t responded right away, my mother went on, her tone musing, “Even his name was a clue — Simón Santiago was the consort of the former prima. I suppose Marisol gave her son that name in some kind of twisted tribute. I don’t understand how they could have kept his existence a secret this whole time, though.”

  “Because she gave him to Simon’s half-sister Olivia to raise. Then it sounds like he got bounced around the clan when he turned out to be too much for her to handle. No one knew he was Marisol’s.”

  “He told you that?”

  “Yes. He — ” I honestly didn’t know how much I should tell my mother. There were things that, frankly, I didn’t want either her or my father to know. “He confided in me because he thought he was in love with me, thought we were going to be some kind of perfect match — you know, the son of a prima and a primus and the daughter of a prima and a primus. But I didn’t feel the same way. Rafe came and rescued me.”

  “Rafe?” my mother said, disbelief clear in her voice. It was obvious enough that she hadn’t expected too much from my Castillo fiancé.

  “Yes,” I said firmly. “We got out of there. And we’re definitely going to get married, although we don’t know when that’s going to happen. We need to deal with this Simon situation first.”

  “Your father and I — ” my mother began, but I didn’t let her get any further than that.

  “Let us handle it,” I said. “I’m pretty sure the resources of the entire Castillo clan are enough to handle one bastard of a dark warlock, no matter how powerful he might be.”

  “‘Us,’” she responded, her tone musing. “You already think of yourself as a Castillo?”

  I looked over at Rafe, who was sitting quietly, letting me have my conversation with my mother. He must have been burning to get in contact with his own family, and yet he had let me reach out first, as if he knew my family was the one that needed the most reassurance. “Something like that,” I said. “Anyway, we’re on top of this. Of course, I’ll be in touch if we need help.” I paused, then asked, “Is Dad there?”

  “No, he went up to Flagstaff for the day — he needed to finish winterizing the house there. He’ll be upset that he missed your call.”

  I was also unhappy that I wouldn’t get a chance to talk to him now, but I reassured myself that I could call him the next day. Sooner or later, I’d have to get a new phone — a real phone, not one that Simon had hexed.

  Which reminded me that, while I’d retrieved Rafe’s jeans and all the valuables contained in them, I hadn’t done anything to get my own stuff back. Everything I owned was hanging in the closet at the house back in Tesuque, and my purse was still sitting on the dresser. Great.

  “I’m bummed about it, too,” I said, bringing myself back to the conversation with my mother. “But I’ll call again tomorrow. I need to go, though.”

  “All right, Miranda.” A little pause, and she added, “Tell Rafe thank you from all of us. We’re so grateful for what he did.”

  “I will, Mom. Love you.” I pressed the button to end the call, then handed the phone back to Rafe. “Well, that’s settled. Of course, I just realized that all my belongings are still at Simon’s house. I need to try to get them back.”

  “Well, considering the way you basically snapped your fingers and made my jeans reappear, that doesn’t sound like it should be too much work.”

  I hoped not, although in this case I’d be retrieving a bunch of items, not a single pair of pants. Still, the principle should be the same. I shut my eyes for a moment, thinking of my clothes hanging up in the closet, the weekender bags on the shelf above them, the toiletries in the bathroom. Since I’d never been upstairs in Rafe’s house, I didn’t know what the bedrooms looked like. I’d have to have everything appear here and then move it later.

  When I reached out with my magic, though, it was as if I had hit a blank wall. Again and again I attempted to push through and lay magical hands on the items I needed, and again and again I was thwarted. At last I let out a frustrated breath and said, “I think the little stunt with your jeans pissed Simon off. He’s not letting me through to get my stuff.”

  He frowned. “You’re sure?”

  “Pretty sure. I can try again later, but I think for now we’ll just have to write it all off. I can call the bank and cancel my cards, and I needed to get a New Mexico I.D. anyway, but literally all I’ve got right now are the clothes on my back.”

  “We can take care of that,” Rafe said, his tone reassuring. One hand reached out and took mine, strong and warm and comforting. “I’ll take you shopping just as soon as I talk to Cat. I’ll get you anything you need.”

  A part of me worried that it wouldn’t be safe to venture out into Santa Fe, but I tried to tell myself that Simon wouldn’t attempt anything in front of a bunch of civilians…would he? Anyway, I could take that invisible bubble of protection with me. I needed to go out, if only to get some new underwear and a toothbrush.

  “Thanks.” I squeezed his hand. It felt so good to be here with him, to know that he loved me and wanted to be with me, that all of these other minor annoyances were just that — annoyances that could be handled easily enough.

  His phone buzzed, and he looked down at the screen. Letting go of my hand, he swiped the screen to accept the call and mouthed it’s Cat at me. I nodded, thinking that was just about perfect timing. He could let her know that he’d gotten me away from Simon, and then the two of us could go shopping. Yes, we’d need to sit down with Genoveva and Louisa and the rest of the clan’s strongest witches and warlocks, and begin to prepare for what was about to come, but surely the world could spare me an hour to get some replacement underwear and toiletries.

  “Hey, Cat,” Rafe said. “Great news. I — ” He stopped there abruptly, face going stony and cold, so without expression that he was almost unrecognizable. “When?” A long silence as he listened to his sister’s reply. “We’ll be right over. Just — just hang in there.” He ended the call and set the phone down on the coffee table, then stared at it as if he’d never seen it before.

  Fear lanced through me, although I still had no idea of what was going on. “Rafe? What is it? What’s the matter?”

  He stared at me for a moment, still with that horrible stony expression on his features, the one that turned his face into that of a stranger. The room was so quiet, I thought I could hear my heart beating in my chest. What was wrong? Why was he looking at me like that?

  At last he said, “My mother is dead.”

  And as I looked at him in horror, I realized this was far from over.

  One way or another, Simon would have his revenge.

  Rafe and Miranda’s story concludes in Mysterious Ways. Turn the page for a peek at Chapter 1!

  There are more Witches of Canyon Road books planned after that, however, so make sure you sign up for my mailing list!

  A Peek at Mysterious Ways, Chapter 1

  Partings

  Miranda McAllister

  Rafe wouldn’t let me drive him over to his parents’ house. Just as well, probably, since I didn’t have my I.D., no way of proving that I even had a license. But with both of us reeling from the shocking news of his mother’s death, a death most certainly caused by some very nasty dark magic, I’d wanted to do at least o
ne small thing for Rafe, wanted to help however I could. He still wore the same cold, stony expression that had settled on his features as soon as we heard the news, an expression that betrayed nothing of what he might be feeling.

  His mother is dead, I thought. How the hell do you think he’s feeling?

  That question was a lot more complicated than it might have been for most people, however. My fiancé and Genoveva Castillo hadn’t exactly shared what you would call a warm and loving relationship. All his life, she’d tried to control him, and he’d fought back every way he knew how. And a large part of their fractious interactions had to do with me.

  Well, not because of anything I’d personally done. No, it was more that Rafe had hated being saddled with an arranged marriage, no matter who he was being forced to marry. I couldn’t really blame him for feeling that way; I’d had my own rebellious thoughts on the subject as well, although most of the time, I’d done what I could to look at the whole thing as an adventure. We had gotten off to a rocky start, but we’d both come to realize that we were just as intended for one another as a prima — a clan’s head witch — and her consort, even though I certainly wasn’t the prima of the Castillo clan.

  No, that would be Rafe’s older sister, Louisa, now that Genoveva was gone.

  The reality of her death hadn’t truly sunk in yet. Maybe it would all start to feel real once I was surrounded by Rafe’s family, could share in their loss. The horrible thing was that — well, all of it was horrible, but the circumstances just provided an additional dollop of irony — from what Cat, Rafe’s younger sister, had told us, it sounded as though Genoveva had basically dropped dead in the middle of the wake for their cousin Marco, right in front of more than a hundred Castillo relatives.