Mind Games (25 page)

“I could.” He hesitated. “I’d better do it late at night, though. And there’s no guarantee I’ll find anything.”

“I understand. So, can you do it tonight?”

Before he had a chance to answer, someone rang the doorbell. Frowning, my father went to discover the identity of our unexpected guest. When he reached the door, he let out an audible groan.

“I was expecting this,” Dad muttered as he opened the door.

“Mr. Scot,” came a vaguely familiar tenor with a very pleasant timbre. “I realize we haven’t been introduced, but your reputation precedes you, and I was hoping we might have a word.”

“Your reputation precedes you, too, Mr. DuPris, and you have to know that I’m not in favor of joining your cult of personality.”

“I realize that,” Alexander said. “But I thought that perhaps today, we could set aside our differences to talk about something more important.”

“I can’t think what you might have to say that would interest me.” My father was acting more hostile than he needed to, but I recognized the effort as part of resisting Alexander’s charismatic charm.

“It involves your daughter Cassie,” Alexander said.

I straightened. Dad’s head swung around to gaze at me, his eyes attempting to penetrate my mind, but it wouldn’t have helped if he could. I had no idea what Alexander meant. Matthew, who could read my mind, looked just as baffled.

“Come in.” Dad stood stiffly as he stepped aside for Alexander to enter. His gaze swept the room and he said, sharply, “Kids, off to the play room. Cassie, you stay.”

“What about me?” Nicolas asked.

Dad hesitated. “All right, you stay, too.”

“And me?” Juliana asked. She didn’t appreciate being in that awkward middle stage where she wasn’t a child or an adult, but in this case, I hoped she wouldn’t be allowed to stay. Whatever Alexander had to say, I wasn’t sure I wanted Nicolas to hear, either.

“Go,” Dad said to her.

Amidst a cacophony of grumbling, Juliana and Isaac herded the rest of the kids out of the room, leaving behind the legal adults.

Alexander took a seat in one of the vacated chairs and waited for the noise to die down before speaking. “I understand your community has had a long-standing problem with a particularly reclusive family of practitioners who have been known, from time to time, to engage in kidnapping and murder to achieve their ends.”

Understanding dawned, and I started to open my mouth to speak but Alexander hushed me with a gesture.

“Are you talking about the Travises?” Dad asked. “They were causing trouble a while back, but we put an end to that years ago.”

Alexander shook his head. “From the intelligence I’ve been able to gather, they’ve continued in their illegal and immoral activities. They usually select victims from outside the community, but recently they decided to cast a spell requiring an enormous amount of power. Their intent was to banish me and my people from the area and, given that there are at least a dozen of us around and that none of us are particularly weak, this should give you an idea how much raw energy they needed. Gathering that kind of blood magic from outside the area takes time, and the local population has a much greater concentration of magical potential.”

Dad’s face paled somewhat. “I personally spoke to Eugene about an opposition, but it never occurred to me that they’d try to put together the magic for a banishment.” His face went even whiter as he glanced at me. “What does this have to do with Cassie?”

Alexander looked mildly surprised, though I didn’t think the expression was particularly honest. “Didn’t she tell you? They tried to take her for the ritual.”

“They what?” Dad roared to his feet in such a fury that sparks flew from his eyes. He turned to me. “When did this happen? Why didn’t you say something?”

I spluttered. “It was last night. I was out running when the storm hit and I got lost.”

“You must have gotten pretty damn lost to end up anywhere near their property. It’s not even all that close to your house.”

I’d thought of that, but I still hadn’t quite worked out how I’d made the turn that would have taken me to their property. “I don’t know if they would have killed me.”

“It’s hard to say,” Alexander said. “But they did try to take you. If it hadn’t been for Evan–”

“Stop!” I put my hands up to ward off the name.

My father shot me a look that said
we’ll talk about this later
. He was clearly upset that I hadn’t told him, but I’d had other things on my mind. “All right,” Dad said. “Do they have anyone now?”

“Two of my people,” Alexander said. “I think it’s time we took care of this threat, don’t you?”

“I suppose so,” Dad said.

Alexander inclined his head toward Matthew. “What about you?”

Matthew shook his head. “The Travises don’t know about me and I’d like to keep it that way. Unless you’re running desperately short on men, I’d prefer to stay out of it.”

A sense of something – disappointment, perhaps – came over me at hearing his answer. Weren’t some things more important than anonymity?

“I’ll go,” Nicolas said. So much for his investigating the remains of the Robertses’ house tonight.

“Great.” Alexander stood. “I’ve got a little more recruiting to do, but we’ve got a dozen men and women lined up so far, not counting my own men.”

“This doesn’t mean I’ve changed my mind about you,” Dad said. “I’ll still oppose you.”

“Of course.” Alexander didn’t look in the least perturbed. He didn’t act like much put him out. “So, is there anything that would make you support magical unification?”

“No,” Dad said, but his eyes fell on me and suddenly, he didn’t look as sure. “Well, maybe one thing.”

My mouth fell open, but Alexander beat me to the question.

“What?” Alexander asked.

“If you’re really into justice, then get my daughter’s magic back.”

My mouth remained open, but my voice failed me. What could I say? What should I say? Dad was asking Alexander to get me exactly what I had always wanted.

Burgeoning hope overwhelmed me to the point of pain. Get me my magic back? Wow. I wouldn’t have to take crap from people like the McClellans anymore. As a deputy, I could enforce the laws more equally, even if the law breakers used magic. I wouldn’t need a name to protect me – I could protect myself.

I also wouldn’t need Matthew, although I would still marry him anyway. It would be an even better relationship, because we could be equals. Maybe he would even share the secrets of mind magic with me, and I could learn to read his mind, or at least his feelings. Sharing his mind last night had been one of the most intimate moment of my entire life.

With magic, I would completely belong to my family and community. I would no longer be a weak link or a disappointment. I would be… Cassandra.

“I’ll give it some thought,” Alexander said, shooting a slight speculative glance in my direction. “Right now, we need to get going.”

Then he, Dad, and Nicolas headed out the door to deal with the Travises, leaving me alone with my mother and my pounding heart.

“He shouldn’t have said that,” Mom told me. “I wouldn’t want you to get your hopes up. I used to dream about finding the guy who took my magic and somehow getting it back. If he can make Evan…”

Evan
. I hadn’t considered him, had I? What would this cost him? How much pain? I remembered sharing my mother’s pain when we had been connected. Would it hurt us that much, too? Then I remembered the recently drained woman we’d met the other day, the one with the light gone from her eyes. Would it return in time? My mother’s had, or at least, some version of it had. But how much had she lost that had never returned? And how long had it taken to reclaim what she had?

“Would you do it?” I asked. “Would it be worth the pain?”

“Oh yes,” Mom said, a strange gleam in her eyes. “It’s worse for the person losing the magic. And then I’d have it back, and he’d just have the pain.”

The look in her eyes frightened me, though I couldn’t say why. She was describing what I desperately wanted, wasn’t she? If only I could get the image of a drained Evan out of my mind.

“It’s not his,” Mom said, as if sensing my doubts. “It’s yours. I know his father is to blame for it all, but he still has it, and it doesn’t belong to him.”

W
ESLEY AND I HAD A FULL
and exhausting day on Monday. Our first stop was Clark and Linda Eagle, two of the oldest and most respected sorcerers in town. Linda was the witch midwife who had delivered me, along with all of my brothers and sisters. One of those brothers, Nicolas, was apprenticed to Clark Eagle. Nicolas was there when I called, beads of sweat dotting his forehead as if he’d been working hard. They were outside, Clark and Nicolas, practicing defensive shielding around the back of the house. I saw the flames long before Linda Eagle rushed outside to point the way.

“Yes, your father told us you’d probably be by today,” Linda said with her usual sedate and understanding air. “It’s such a shame that it’s come to this, but most of us knew it was only a matter of time.” Then she changed subjects faster than blinking. “How’s your mother doing? She always eats too many sweets when she’s pregnant. Those weight control potions are no substitute for eating a healthy, balanced diet.”

Since my mother had eaten at least two pieces of chocolate cake the night before, I would say she wasn’t following her midwife’s advice, but I didn’t rat her out.

“She’s been a bad influence on that young friend of yours, Kaitlin. Not that she’ll let me look at her, you know. Insists on seeing that hack Dr. Williams. I swear he cuts open half his patients when a little patience and common sense would do the trick. Childbirth is more spiritual than magical, you know. Oh, I help out a bit here and there, especially if my patients get too uptight. People like to freak out young moms, in particular. Why, when she went into serious labor with you, your mom had a full-blown panic attack!”

Linda went on in that vein, talking practically nonstop until we reached the practice field in back – a large clear space, about an acre, where two men, young and old, battled for supremacy. Linda rang a bell that, to my ears, made no sound. It seemed to mean something to Clark and Nicolas, though, because they immediately stopped their lesson to join the three of us on the back porch.

“I hope you’re being welcomed, Wesley,” Linda said, turning to my partner as if seeing him for the first time. “We’re a small town, but a touristy one, so we’re used to outsiders.”
“Everyone’s been very nice, ma’am,” Wesley said.

“So polite! Now that’s what I like to hear. I’m sure our little Cassandra has been filling you in on what you need to know. Well, not so little now, but you’ll excuse an old woman who was, after all, the first person to see her come into the world. Cassandra’s special, you know. She cares about people.”

My face went red, but luckily Clark and Nicolas reached the patio before I had to find something to say.

“Dad never called me last night,” I said to Nicolas.

“We didn’t get back until five in the morning and he crashed,” Nicolas said. “Sorry about that.”

“Everything’s okay, then?”

He looked at Wesley suspiciously for a moment, but gave a slight nod. “Yeah, and I’ll check out that other thing tonight if I can.” Clearly that meant details would follow when civilians weren’t present.

Clark was a short, balding man in his late sixties who had a tendency to bounce on the balls of his feet. “Yes, yes, Cassandra, nice to see you. Wish it were under different circumstances. Don’t like being accused of murder just because I could have pulled it off, you know.”

“So you could have done it?” Wesley asked.

Clark bounced and nodded, a motion that made him look oddly like a marionette. “Yes, yes, everyone knows that. Well, maybe not you since you’re new here, but my family has never hidden what we are. We founded this town, you know. Well, my great-great-great grandfather, at any rate, back in 1826. The lake wasn’t there at the time, of course. That was man-made only fifty years ago or so, so he built his house directly over the node.” Clark pointed in the direction of the water. “That caused some fights later on, because everyone wanted to be as close to the node as possible. That’s why my grandfather compromised by influencing the creation of the lake over the top of it. Now we all have beach houses, nobody much closer to the energy source than the next person.”

“You seem to care a great deal about the town,” Wesley said. “What do you think of a group coming in and claiming that witches should be killed?”

Clark stopped bouncing for a few seconds. “That’s an awfully accusatory question, young man. Think carefully before asking questions like that.”

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go.”

“No, no, I’ll answer,” Clark said, resuming his bounce. He winked at me. “You know I don’t get bent out of shape over words, but others do. No, I tell you what, my father wasn’t thrilled when outsiders started filling the town in the 1950’s, setting up hotels and resorts, but by then he knew the world was going to be bigger than this settlement we had going on. We founded this place because we didn’t want to be a part of the world, but that wasn’t going to happen. Instead, we chose to be a part of a small, controlled part of it. So we tolerate the others.”