Frowning, the other man gave him a considering look. “What’s your name?”
“Agent Valentine.”
“My boys call me Scope. And I’m not telling you a damn thing until I talk to a lawyer.”
“I’ll get back to you on that.” Val closed the folder and rapped his knuckles on the door for the agent on the other side to open it. Halfway into the hall, he called out, “How’s that coffee coming?”
As soon as Agent Jared Anjewierden closed the door, Val turned and gave him a wink. The baby-faced member of the Phoenix crew shook his head and tried not to laugh. In spite of his youthful appearance, the one-time Air Force SP was second-in-command of the Phoenix office.
“Remind me not to get on your bad side, sir.”
Val gave him a crooked grin. “Just having some fun. Next one?”
“Right here,” Anjewierden pointed out. “The elder De La Rosa.”
“Ah, the family scion. Wish me luck.”
Val pulled open the door and stepped into the interrogation room. It was identical to the one next door, down to the bland baby-poop green paint color on the walls. The agency had probably gotten the shade on a bulk discount. Division M was one of the few, if not the only, branch of the government that invested the majority of its budget dollars into core requirements over fancy decor.
Esteban De La Rosa might well have been on Val’s side of the table, given his dignified air and ruler-straight posture. His demeanor made sense, considering he’d retired as an Illinois State Police detective before joining the family business.
Val took his seat. “Fancy seeing you here, Detective.”
The elder Esteban’s eyes narrowed. “Have we met?”
“Not as such, but there’s enough in here to give me a grasp of the man, I suppose.” He raised the folder.
“Fair enough. You have questions?”
“I do.”
“I have answers, but there are conditions.”
Val leaned back and raised an eyebrow. “Such as?”
“We got close enough to see Kent’s house on fire—are my friends safe?”
He considered quibbling but guessed the detective would see through it. “The Sikoras and Father Rosado are under observation in a hospital. Smoke inhalation, some minor burns. They’ll be fine.”
“Cassie? Paxton?”
“The young lady seems to be on a road trip with Paxton’s mother. As for the young man, himself…well, he’s not in a great place, to be honest.”
De La Rosa’s nostrils flared in anger, but he closed his eyes and took several deep breaths to calm himself before responding. “Look, I know you think that you’re helping, but you aren’t. We’re not the bad guys here.”
“Oh? Between the piles of bones left out on the city streets and what we found under the gymnasium at Upward Path, I’ve got at least a hundred bodies. If you’re not the bad guy, here, please, enlighten me.”
“I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing at, here, but if you know about Upward Path, you know about the boys we—” De La Rosa caught himself, then seemed to decide that he didn’t care about pesky little things like self-incrimination. “The boys that we helped Paxton save. I sure didn’t see any of you FBI pricks around.”
Val chuckled. “Oh, I’m not FBI. Here’s my problem, though. We got the story the boys gave. And it paints a pretty compelling picture. The problem with that is, I’ve got a wizard with the known ability to compel people to do or say what he tells them to. So how do I know he didn’t lay the mojo down on all of you and make you tell whatever story he dreamed up?”
“Known wizard?” Esteban’s face worked through a half-dozen expressions as he processed the fact that Val had made the statement with no hint of irony. “What agency are you with?”
“That’s neither here nor there,” Val assured him. “We’re here to find out what side you’re on. And by extension, what side Paxton is on.”
The detective tried to throw his hands up, but the cuffs interrupted the motion. “Whoever you work for, they must not screen for intelligence. You’re a damned fool if you think Paxton Locke is some kind of monster.”
“Why?” Val pointed out. “You used to. I’ve read Patrick Locke’s murder book. You had Paxton tabbed as an accomplice in his father’s death. That makes me more than a little suspicious when I see such an abrupt change of heart.”
“If you read my notes, you know why.” Esteban shrugged. “There were a few things I glossed over, but I followed the evidence. Evidence says the boy didn’t do it. DA even offered the mother a deal if she’d say he was in on it, and she laughed in the man’s face. It’s ironic, in a way. Pax was haunted long before he ever talked to ghosts.”
“What did you gloss over?”
“It’s kind of hard to rationally explain the skin-crawling terror one feels while examining certain artifacts. That woman had some bad mojo laying around.” He cocked his head to one said and gave Val a canny stare. “But you know what I mean, don’t you?”
“I—” Val started, but the fist banging on the door cut him off before he could speak. He rose and rapped lightly in return. Once the door opened for him, he slid through and tried not to slam it closed in frustration. “What?”
“We got something,” Anjewierden said, voice tight with tension. “Last night in Amarillo, a truck stop burnt to the ground when the underground fuel tanks exploded. Local cops were interviewing witnesses and enough weirdness popped up that the read-in portion of the department called it in. We’ve got a confirmed sighting.”
“I’ll track down Morgan and George,” Val said, annoyance immediately dispelled. “Get us a chopper to Luke, I’ll make some calls on the way and see if I can rustle up a jet.” Damn the cost—they had a witch to hunt.
Chapter Seven
Cassie—Sunday, before dawn
Oklahoma
Restricted to sitting quietly, it was no surprise that Cassie fell asleep. The hum of the big rig’s wheels on the highway and slight swaying of the sleeper on air shocks led her to lie down. Visions of the store clerk’s fate chased her into an uncertain sleep that was still better than the intermittent snatches of sleep she’d caught while riding shotgun with Helen.
Carried by inertia, she rolled toward the front of the cab as they came to a slow stop. Catching herself, she managed to keep from falling out of bed and sat up.
The natural thing to do would be to ask what they were doing, but the spell remained indefatigable. She took a deep—but quiet—breath. You can do this. Don’t give up.
“… go ahead on to your original destination, dear. As soon as we’re out of sight, I want you to forget that you ever saw us. As for why you’ve gone so far out of your way, you had to take a detour to avoid that horrible incident at the truck stop in Texas. Understood?”
“Yes,” the driver said, his voice dull. A surge of hope rose in Cassie at the realization that her captor might be letting him off none the worse for wear.
Why they were stopping already was another question. She crossed her fingers that Helen was feeling chatty.
“Grab our things, Cassie. We’ll need them, where we’re going.”
The nice thing about her body being on a magical autopilot was that it gave her plenty of time for introspection. While her hands pulled the water and bag of snacks out of the truck’s mini-fridge, she was considering the momentary view she’d gotten out of the front windshield. Save for the cones of illumination projected by the headlights, it was dark as far as she could see. Spits of intermittent snow drifted across the beams. She’d only spent a few days in Phoenix, but the warmth in the Valley had almost been enough for her to forget that Thanksgiving was only a few weeks away.
A lump rose in her throat. I hope my dad isn’t going out of his mind. Since leaving with Paxton, she’d kept in regular contact with him, if only by text, but she couldn’t remember the last time they’d spoken. It had to be going on two days at this point. Will it be better if he never finds out where I am,
or if he knows I was taken?
This time of year had always been tough without her mom, but the two of them had pushed through it together. She wanted to think that her dad would go on if something happened to her, but the way he’d quizzed Pax in the hospital made her doubt he’d so easily accept it.
Shit, girl. Quit moping and put on your big girl panties. If you do something about, it isn’t going to be a problem.
The wind of the semi’s passage ruffled her hair, and she shivered as she realized she now stood outside in the chill air. The snow was thickening, with no care that it was unseasonably early.
She found herself walking beside Helen on the side of the road. The other woman cupped another ball of flame in her hand. This served more for light than as a weapon. With the truck gone, the darkness wrapped them. Combined with the chill, the night struck Cassie as particularly oppressive, and the hairs standing on the back of her neck told her that something was watching them.
Helen’s grin was wicked in the firelight. “Feel that, do you? You can speak. There’s no one around to hear.”
“Something’s giving me the creeps,” Cassie agreed. “Where are we?”
“Beaver Dunes, Oklahoma.”
“I thought we were going to Maine,” Cassie said.
“We are. We’re taking a shortcut.” Helen turned her head and gave her a look. “I shouldn’t have done that in Texas.”
“Is that why you let the driver live?”
“What?” Helen stopped walking, face contorted in obvious confusion. Catching herself, she laughed. “No, I’m not talking about the deaths. As I said, a few here and there are a drop in the bucket. I’m talking about attention. That was a huge signal to Division M. If we stuck with the truck, they’d have caught up to us sooner rather than later.”
Keep her talking. “Division M?”
Helen turned off of the main road and headed down a lightly-graveled track. “A secret government agency tasked with securing the country against supernatural threats.” She looked back over her shoulder. “Fascinating history, really. Been around as long as the country itself, in one way or another.”
“How about that,” Cassie said. The shiver that crawled up her spine then was only partially due to the cold. “Mulder and Scully are real.”
“Who?”
She tried not to laugh. Helen was calm at the moment, and she didn’t want to do anything to change that. “Never mind. TV show—I don’t remember if Pax liked it or not.” Helen led them off the path. Patchy scrub grass grew out of sand, of all things. The snow collecting on the ripples of sand seemed out of place. Somehow, the weirdness seemed right given the turn for the strange her life had taken the last few weeks. “Guess these are the dunes. Where are the beavers?”
Helen ignored the question. “In the mid-1500s, the Spanish explorer Coronado led an expedition from Mexico through what’s now the southwestern United States.” She laughed derisively. “He was looking for gold. He struck out there.” The other woman stopped. She turned, waiting for Cassie to catch up. “I wonder how he felt about some of the things that he did find.” She waved a hand at the darkness behind her. “The Native American tribes living in this area knew to avoid this area, and they tried to warn him about the dangers. But Coronado didn’t listen, and several of his men disappeared without a trace during the course of their journey across what’s now called Beaver Dunes State Park.”
Cassie swallowed. “What happened to them?”
Wiggling her fingers, Helen whispered, “Vanished without a trace. Ever since then, people have gone missing in this area. Others have reported seeing strange lights and hearing mysterious sounds.” She grinned. Combined with her youthful face, the expression made her look like an exuberant teen telling ghost stories.
The fact that Cassie was fairly certain this particular story was true shattered the illusion. “You know all the secrets of the universe, what’s the real story?”
Helen turned in place. She seemed satisfied with their location. She gave the ball of light a soft, underhand toss that lofted it into the air. A few feet above their heads, the fire stopped, lending the entire area the atmosphere of shadows dancing around a campfire. Nothing about this particular patch of grass and sand looked any different from any of the others Cassie had followed Paxton’s mom through.
“Here’s the deal,” Helen said finally. “The Edimmu opened my eyes to a lot of the unseen gears and mechanisms of the world around us. That’s all that magic is, really—tapping into the primordial energies that forged existence itself. When I say reality, what ‘s the first thing you think of?”
Cassie rubbed her arms, wishing for a heavier coat, and said, “I don’t know. Earth, I guess. Life, and everything that comes after.”
Helen dug through the brush until she found a short length of wood, then used it to trace a circle around them. “The universe, to put a picture into your head, is like the ball pit at Chuck E Cheese.” She raised a finger, cutting off Cassie’s response. “What we consider our reality, our plane of existence if you will, is one of those balls. But there are countless other planes, all rubbing together in the pit. Sometimes certain realities touch, sometimes they don’t. There are places, then, where the surfaces of the balls in the pit, are a little closer to—elsewhere.” Circle finished, Helen inscribed strange symbols around the perimeter, muttering under breath as she went.
“You got all this from a shadow monster imprisoned in a clay pot?”
“Such a gross simplification. The creature was not of our world, but able to exist in multiple realities at once. The shadow, as you call it, was simply an aspect of that.”
“So when Pax stopped it, did he really kill it?” Cassie knew that was giving him more than a little credit since Pax himself believed a no-kidding act of God was what stopped the thing and its human host. It was a long shot, but who knew—maybe his mother would drop whatever it was she was doing if she thought that her son could foil her plans.
“Who can say? The shadow was truly that—a vague impression of the thing’s true form. I don’t know that you could call it eternal or even immortal, but it counted its life in terms that would make our own seem the blink of an eye.”
If anything, the night was growing colder, the wind whipping stinging sleet against her exposed skin. Hugging herself, Cassie opened her mouth to keep asking questions, but Helen brought a finger to her lips.
“Quiet, now,” she said. “We don’t want to spook our pathfinder.” She drew the grimoire from the satchel and let it fall open. If it worked for her the way it had for Cassie and Pax, it didn’t matter where she looked at it—in Pax’s experience, the book showed him what was on his mind, conscious or not. For Cassie, it had been less generous. Every page she’d opened had been the truth spell, which felt less and less useful every minute she remained in Helen’s clutches.
She had a sneaking suspicion that the book worked just a little better for the other woman. Holding it up to let the light from her unearthly fire illuminate the pages, the other woman read in a steady voice too sonorous for her frame. Her words came as though from some malevolent megaphone. For a moment, even the wind stopped, surrounding them with silence.
Cassie didn’t see the glowing greenish orb at first. The flame over their heads washed it out, even against the ink-black night. She saw it on its second circuit of the perimeter Helen had described, and her breath caught in her throat.
Something about it seemed to sing to her, and she took one step, then two, toward the edge of the circle, wanting nothing more than to reach out and touch it as it zipped by. She first regarded the sickly green color as something poisonous and sepulchral, but just as quickly a little voice in the back of her mind whispered that it was beautiful, the color of polished jade. One touch, won’t that be nice?
She reached out, then jerked back to her senses as Helen seized her wrist mere inches from reaching out to the light. “Not yet,” Pax’s mother whispered. “Seductive, isn’t she? The will-o’-th
e-wisp isn’t evil, really—she’s a thing of instinct and emotion. More curious than cruel. To keep on with the earlier analogy, they’re the children playing in the ball pit. Shame.” The pitch of her voice shifted, and Cassie shivered as she recognized the push. “Stop.”
The green orb froze along its circuit, hovering in front of Helen. A screaming sound, right above the range of Cassie’s hearing, made her flinch. The other woman chuckled.
“She’s not happy with her chains. Haven’t had that problem before, have you? Don’t fret. I need you to take us somewhere.”
The squeal rose and fell with the wind. Push or not, the light seemed to be arguing the point. Stowing the grimoire in the satchel, Helen crossed her arms.
“This isn’t up for debate. You are bound—if you want to regain your freedom, you will take us where I want to be, at the next spring equinox. Now.” The magic-powered fury in the final word made the grains of sand at their feet vibrate, and Cassie felt as though she were sinking.
The will-o’-the-wisp recoiled from the perimeter, brightened, then circled them. Faster and faster it moved, until a solid band of green light surrounded them at chest level. “Take my hand, Cassie,” Helen said, and the wave of gratitude that went through at the almost-human expression elicited a surge of self-loathing. If the witch was aware of the storm of emotion running through her, she didn’t let on. She continued, “Imagine the poor, hapless conquistador or hiker, coming across such a being. Entranced, making contact—cast into alien dimensions. The luckiest of them would die quickly. From what the Edimmu said, our plane is an island of sanity in a sea of torment.”
Cassie swallowed and blinked at the band of green. It was thickening, and she could make out vague shapes through the haze. Trees, perhaps? A squared-off silhouette might be a cabin, but further examination ceased when daylight burst across her face. Recoiling, she covered her face with her free hand even as she cried out.
Come, Seeling Night Page 4
