An Ill Wind

by Christine Pope

  “Good. That’s something, I guess.” Cass glanced over at the clock radio. “It’s probably a little early to drop in at Marisol’s house. Do you want to get some breakfast first?”

  “Definitely.” Their quickie meal at In ’N’ Out had been almost fourteen hours ago, and Tony realized he was hungry. Really hungry. “Ready when you are.”

  “I’m ready now.” She went and retrieved her jacket from the closet, although she draped it on her arm rather than putting it on. The phone went in her oversized purse, which she slung across her shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  They took the elevator down to the lobby, then went to the separate parking garage elevator to ride the rest of the way to the level where they’d left his Fiat convertible. As soon as he pushed the button to unlock the vehicle, however, a group of tall men, all in their twenties or thirties, converged on Tony and Cassandra.

  Warlocks, he thought at once, feeling the distinctive twinge at the back of his neck that told him he was in the presence of witch-kind.

  Next to him, Cassandra shot him a worried glance, but she was otherwise very still, as if bracing herself for what was about to come next.

  One of the warlocks stepped forward. He wore a black leather jacket and had a barely visible tattoo encircling his neck, although the parking garage was dimly lit and Tony couldn’t tell exactly what the tattoo was of.

  “You’ll have to come with us,” the strange warlock said. “Our prima would like a word with you.”

  6

  Cassandra sat next to Tony on a cream-colored leather sofa, hands clasped in her lap. The room they were in was objectively beautiful, with its tall windows and expensive furniture and even more expensive art, but at the moment, she could think of many places she would much rather be. This was definitely not how she’d envisioned their meeting with Marisol Valdez, the prima of the Santiago clan.

  The other woman looked to be in her forties, slim and pretty, with heavy dark hair she wore pinned up in an artfully casual manner and dangly silver earrings — Mexican work, by the look of them. She sat in a leather wing chair opposite the couch, arms crossed, a frown tugging at her elegantly arched brows.

  “We were on our way to see you — ” Cassandra began, but Marisol held up a hand.

  “Maybe you were, but you know you should have reached out to me before coming into my territory at night and with no warning, no permission. The only reason I waited until this morning to speak with you was that it was so late when you got into town. Since I knew where you were staying, I decided to hold off until a decent hour.”

  “And thanks for that,” Tony said. He’d deployed one of his winning smiles, but it seemed a little shaky, possibly because the prima seemed singularly unimpressed by his looks or his charm. “It’s just that our business was urgent — and my own prima isn’t feeling well — ”

  “Yes, you’re very good at offering excuses,” Marisol cut in, this time staring at Cassandra. “From what I’ve heard, your de la Paz relatives were also fairly good at it back in the day.”

  That was a low blow. All right, from what Cassandra had heard, Angela McAllister and Connor Wilcox hadn’t bothered to ask for permission when they came to California years ago, and neither had Cassandra’s own cousin Alex. Still, they’d all had very good reasons for dropping in without an invitation. It wasn’t as though they’d all gotten a wild hair about going to Disneyland or something.

  “This couldn’t wait,” Cassandra said. Although she’d gotten a fairly decent night’s sleep, she still felt tired from the long car ride of the day before, and she knew she didn’t have a lot of patience. Besides, it was pretty obvious that Tony’s charming act wasn’t working, so she might as well cut to the chase. “We needed to talk to you about Joaquin Escobar.”

  At once, Marisol went rigid, her dark eyes glittering. “Do not say that name in my presence.”

  “We’re sorry,” Tony broke in, shooting Cassandra a quick warning glance. “But we’re worried that an Escobar witch or warlock has committed a crime in Castillo territory, and we really need to know what you know.”

  “I know nothing,” Marisol shot back. Her hands gripped the knees of her dark jeans; her hands were bare of rings, and Cassandra recalled how the prima had never married again after Joaquin Escobar murdered her husband, never had any children after Simon…a child born of rape. “You are young and possibly don’t know the whole story, but my mind was not my own when Joaquin Escobar took over this clan. There is nothing for me to remember because he did not allow me to remember anything. In a way, I suppose that was a mercy.”

  Cassandra and Tony exchanged a glance. From the strained set of his mouth, she could tell that he was rethinking this plan, thinking that they’d come a long way for nothing.

  But she wasn’t about to give up so easily.

  “What about Matías, then?” she asked. “I mean, he grew up in your clan, didn’t he? You were probably around the same age, right?”

  Once again, Marisol’s mouth tightened. Very likely, she didn’t like remembering that the man who had forced her, who had given her an unwanted child, was old enough to be her own father. “Matías was a year or two older than I,” she said, although the words came out tight, controlled, as if she had to force herself to push each syllable out between her lips. “The Santiagos are a large clan. I didn’t associate with him very much.”

  Probably because you were the prima-in-waiting and they didn’t want you hanging out with an orphan boy from nowhere, Cassandra thought, although she only nodded and hoped her expression wouldn’t give away anything of what she was thinking. “You never spent any time with him at all?”

  “I said I didn’t,” Marisol snapped, and Tony shifted uneasily.

  “That’s fine,” he said. “We understand. But what about his sister…Olivia, right?”

  “Much the same. She’s about four years older than I am, and they lived in a different part of our territory, down in Orange County. There was no reason for us to be around each other, although I remember she came here a few times when her mother — she was a healer — came to check on my aunt, the former prima.”

  Cassandra remembered hearing that the Santiago prima had been confined to a wheelchair for years, thanks to a very bad fall and the Santiagos’ lack of a healer. No wonder they had taken in Matías’ and Olivia’s mother. They’d been hoping for a miracle, that the woman who had turned up on the clan’s figurative doorstep might be able to do what the civilian doctors couldn’t.

  Unfortunately, even her skills weren’t up to the task of healing a spine that had been broken years before. The Escobars had remained in Santiago territory, since the clan had been in dire need of a healer, but that was definitely a case of no good deed going unpunished, considering what Matías had turned into.

  “Maybe Olivia knows something,” Tony suggested.

  At once, Marisol’s expression brightened, as if she was glad of an easy way to get rid of them and their questions. “Possibly. She was a very young child when she came to California, but there’s a chance she remembers something of her life before her mother left Central America.”

  “Would you mind if we talked to her?” Cassandra asked. This had been part of their plan all along, although they would have to rely on the Santiago prima to provide the other woman’s contact information.

  “No, if you think it might help. Let me get you her address and phone number.” Marisol lifted a hand, and one of the burly men who’d escorted Tony and Cassandra from the Hilton’s parking garage appeared out of nowhere. Or at least, it seemed that way, although Cassandra had noticed how he’d been lurking in the foyer the whole time she and Tony had been talking to Marisol.

  He handed a slim, gunmetal-gray phone to the prima, and she entered her passcode and navigated to her address book. “Here it is — Olivia Gutierrez. She’s in Temecula — that’s about an hour drive from here.” Marisol rattled off the phone number and address, and Cassandra hurriedly entered them on her own phone.r />
  “Thank you,” she said once she was done. “We’re sorry we bothered you, but we were just hoping to get some information that might lead us to the Escobars.”

  “What makes you think they were involved in the crime in your territory?” the prima asked, looking over at Tony.

  “Just an educated guess,” he said. “One of our witches said the residue of the magic they used felt very similar to the sort of magic Simon Escobar dabbled in. Not the world’s biggest lead, but it’s the only one we have.”

  Marisol’s jaw tightened, and Tony glanced down at the floor in obvious embarrassment, clearly realizing that the name he’d uttered so lightly had belonged to her wayward unacknowledged son.

  When she spoke, however, her voice was soft, sad. “I am sorry that he caused such havoc in your clan. I suppose I thought — I hoped — that he would find his own way to be a better person, that his father’s blood would not come out in him as strongly as it did.”

  Well, maybe if you hadn’t neglected him and tried to hide the fact that you were his biological mother, he wouldn’t have been such a sociopath. Cassandra drew in a breath, willing those thoughts words away. Marisol had probably beaten herself up mercilessly over the way she’d treated her unwanted son, so there wasn’t much point in berating her about it now.

  “It’s all right,” Tony said, and Cassandra felt an inward sigh of relief, glad that he had been the one to reply to the prima. It was his clan that had borne the brunt of Simon’s dark powers, so she supposed it was better for Tony to do the talking now. “Luckily, we had Miranda McAllister fighting on our side. She kept us from suffering too much harm.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard that she’s grown up into quite a remarkable witch,” Marisol said, although her tone was absent, as if she didn’t much care one way or another. Maybe it had been tough for her to see the daughter of another prima do so well when she had no children of her own to carry on her magic. That had to have been from choice, though; Cassandra had never heard anything about Marisol not being able to have more children after Simon. More likely, she’d simply never recovered from what Joaquin Escobar did to her.

  “She is,” Tony said, but he stopped there, possibly guessing that it was better not to wax too rhapsodic about Miranda’s gifts. “And thanks for Olivia’s information. Like you said, since she was there from the beginning, she’s probably the best person to talk to.”

  “I hope she can help,” Marisol replied, then stood up. That seemed to indicate the audience was over, so Cassandra rose as well, quickly followed by Tony. “I’ll let it be known that you two are free to travel within Santiago territory for the next few days. That should give you ample time to find what you’re looking for. If not….”

  The words trailed off, but it was pretty obvious what she meant. If they didn’t have any success — if Olivia couldn’t offer any information of substance — then they needed to head back to their own territories and not linger here, poking around for random clues.

  “That’s fine,” Cassandra said hastily. “We’ll drive down to Temecula now, and we shouldn’t have to stay more than a day anyway.”

  “Good. Then best of luck to you two.”

  Those words were clearly a dismissal, so Cassandra told her goodbye, a farewell that Tony echoed. Within the space of a minute, they were back out in Tony’s car, which one of the goon squad had driven here while the two of them rode in the back seat of Marisol’s big white Suburban.

  On the ride back to the hotel, they were both quiet. It wasn’t until Tony pulled into the parking garage that he finally spoke. “I guess we’d better get our stuff together and check out.”

  Cassandra nodded. She didn’t see the point in hanging around Pasadena, not when it was painfully clear that Marisol had no intention of providing any useful information. “I guess we can look for some hotels in the Temecula area. There’s got to be something — I’ve heard it’s kind of popular with wine tourists.”

  Tony shot her a relieved smile. “Sounds like a plan. I don’t think I ever even heard of Temecula before today, so I’ll let you do the research on that one.”

  They went up to their room and gathered their few belongings, and then Cassandra sat down with her phone and searched for anything in the general Temecula area that had a room available. Apparently, early November was a popular time to vacation there, but she was able to snag one of the last two rooms at the Best Western right in the heart of town, and allowed herself a quick sigh of relief.

  “Okay, we’re set,” she told Tony, who had just put away his own phone. “Everything still quiet on your end?”

  “Looks that way,” he replied. “At least, I haven’t missed any important texts or phone calls, so I guess my mother is maintaining for now.”

  That was a relief. If Sophia took a turn for the worse, would Tony be willing to stay here in California and continue the search? Cassandra hoped so, but she knew that was a choice he’d have to make for himself — she wouldn’t try to put any pressure on him to remain here. That wouldn’t be fair.

  Luckily, it seemed as though he wouldn’t have to make that decision. About all she could do was hope that Sophia continued to improve and that her health wouldn’t be a determining factor in whether or not to continue looking for their thief.

  Since the room at the Hilton had been booked on Tony’s credit card, they didn’t have to do anything to check out except follow the prompts on the TV to close out the room and then leave their key cards on the dresser where they’d be plainly visible. After loading up the car, they headed to the freeway.

  “You know, we never stopped for breakfast,” Tony remarked as he eased onto the eastbound 210 Freeway.

  He was right. During their interview with Marisol, Cassandra had been too keyed up and tense to think about her empty stomach, but now it asserted itself, growling loudly.

  Tony chuckled. “I guess that means you want to get something to eat.”

  “I guess so,” she said. “But maybe drive through? I don’t want to waste time in a sit-down place.”

  “Well, see if you can find something on your phone.”

  She pulled it out of her purse and did a quick scan on Yelp. “It looks like there’s something called a Farmer Boys right off the freeway in Irwindale. That’s about five minutes from here. They’re still serving breakfast.”

  “Sounds good. You can guide me in.”

  It wasn’t that hard, because the place really was right off the freeway. It was late for breakfast and a little early for lunch, so there was only one car ahead of them in the drive-through. A lot of the breakfast options weren’t really portable, but they were still able to order a burrito for Tony and a sandwich for Cassandra, along with a couple of iced teas for the road. In less than five minutes, they were back on the freeway, with Tony pausing to read Olivia’s address to the Fiat’s nav system so the self-driving function could take over.

  “About an hour and a half,” he announced before beginning to unwrap his burrito.

  “That’s not so bad,” Cassandra said, glad that Marisol’s estimate for the drive had been correct and that she hadn’t made it seem closer than it really was in order to quickly get rid of her unwanted guests. “Now we just have to hope that Olivia will be home.”

  Tony took a bite of his food, chewed for a minute, then sort of nodded to himself, as if reassured that someone outside New Mexico could make a decent burrito. The gesture reminded Cass that she should eat her own breakfast sandwich before it got cold, so she allowed herself a few bites as Tony spoke.

  “Do you think she won’t be there?” he asked.

  “Well, it’s a weekday. I have no idea whether she has a job or not. I don’t know much about her, except she’s a nunca and is married to a civilian. Or at least, she was.” Unfortunately, there hadn’t been a lot of contact between the de la Pazes and the Santiagos after the whole Escobar debacle, and Cassandra knew a lot of her intel was woefully out of date.

  “A nunca, huh?” Tony said, the
n drank some of his iced tea. “That had to be rough with a brother like Matías.”

  She hadn’t thought of it that way, but she supposed he was right. A nunca was someone born to witch parents who never developed any powers of their own. Everyone had thought Miranda McAllister was one, too, but her witchy talents had come out full force after she moved to Santa Fe to be Rafe Castillo’s bride.

  However, Olivia hadn’t enjoyed that kind of fairy-tale ending. Apparently, she was the next thing to a civilian, which was probably why she’d married one. That seemed to happen a lot in those instances, partly because of worry that a nunca might pass on their lack of any magical talents to their offspring. Whether or not that was true, Cassandra had no idea. As far as she knew, there weren’t any nuncas in the de la Paz clan. People with a wide range of talents and powers, but no one who had absolutely no magic at all.

  “Probably,” she said. “Matías sounded like a real winner, so I’m sure he did whatever he could to make his sister’s life miserable.”

  Tony’s mouth twisted, but he didn’t reply, only ate a few more bites of his burrito. Maybe he was thinking about his own sister, or maybe just pondering the dark strain that seemed to run through all the Escobars. You couldn’t even say it was only the men who committed such terrible acts, because Joaquin Escobar’s daughter had caused plenty of havoc before Cassandra’s own parents took her down.

  Not before the Escobar witch’s dark magic had touched their family, though.

  She must have frowned, because Tony shot her a quick proving glance. “You okay?”