An Ill Wind

by Christine Pope

  They got up from the table and went out to the truck, then climbed in. Cassandra pushed the starter button.

  And nothing.

  “What the hell?” she demanded.

  “Does it have a full charge?” Tony asked, leaning over to peer at the instrument panel.

  “Of course it does,” she snapped. At the same time, a niggle of doubt went through her. Could someone have sabotaged the vehicle? No, that was impossible — they’d been inside the restaurant for a couple of minutes at the most, and there hadn’t been any sounds from the street outside except a couple of very noisy birds. Trying not to sound impatient, she added, “I double-checked everything before we left this morning. We had a range of more than four hundred miles, and we’ve only gone about thirty-five.”

  “Maybe there’s a mechanic here somewhere,” he suggested.

  Cassandra thought that sounded like a long shot, but they didn’t have a lot of alternatives. The truck was a rental vehicle, true, but it wasn’t as though the agency where they’d gotten it offered twenty-four-hour roadside assistance. They had a number they could call, but then they’d be sitting around and waiting for a tow truck to show up. She knew how to change a tire and test a battery for charge, but this wasn’t like the good old days before electric vehicles when you could whack at a carburetor with a wrench and get things running again.

  “All right,” she said after a long pause during which she weighed their options and realized they didn’t have many. “Let’s see if we can find something on your phone.”

  He got it out of his pocket, then did a quick search for mechanics. “There’s an ATV repair shop,” he said after a moment. “I don’t see anything about an actual mechanic, though.”

  “Well, that’s better than nothing. Even if they can’t work on the truck themselves, maybe they can point us in the direction of someone who can.”

  Tony didn’t appear terribly hopeful about this suggestion, but at least he didn’t try to shoot it down. “Okay. Looks like it’s on the other side of town, toward the north end.”

  “Lead on,” Cassandra replied, although her instincts were already telling her that they should be heading in the opposite direction, the one that led back to the highway. Something about this place gave her the creeps, despite its picture-postcard appearance.

  They started walking in the direction he’d indicated, Tony still holding the phone out so he could follow the map’s murmured prompts to get them where they needed to go. An older-model Ford truck drove by, and the young boy in the passenger seat gave them a curious glance as he passed them. That was the only traffic they saw; clearly, San Matías was either a very sleepy place, or word had gone out that the two Americanos who’d gone into the café were asking the wrong questions and should be avoided at all costs.

  A fitful breeze tugged at Cassandra’s hair, but even it wasn’t quite enough to mitigate the oppressive humidity, so different from the desert environment where she’d grown up. Nearer to the coast, it hadn’t been so bad, but now they were inland, the countryside all around the village lush and green, thick with unfamiliar flowers and plants. A strange, sweet scent hung on the heavy air, one she couldn’t identify.

  “This way,” Tony said, and they turned a corner onto a street that looked much like the other ones they’d traversed, with houses of various sizes built nearly right next to each other, some painted bright white, others the ruddy hue of dark brick, some a brilliant turquoise. Flowers bloomed in planters and terra-cotta pots, adding their various perfumes to the air as well.

  As she’d noted almost as soon as they arrived in the village, there didn’t seem to be much separation between businesses and houses. A shop might be set right between two people’s homes, or a restaurant in the middle of what appeared to be a residential block. Because of that, she wasn’t too surprised when they came upon the ATV repair place, which consisted of a shabby-looking open garage with several bays attached to a modest little whitewashed house.

  But at least it had a sign out front, and there actually was a man working on an old Polaris ATV in one of the bays. Tools were strewn everywhere, and he apparently hadn’t noticed their approach, since Cassandra had to call out to get his attention.

  “Discúlpeme, señor,” she said. “¿Usted repara vehículos regulares?”

  The man straightened up and raised a single thick eyebrow at her. He looked like he was somewhere in his fifties, short and stocky, with grease-stained hands and broken fingernails. “What is wrong with it?” he asked, in passably decent English.

  “It won’t start,” Tony said, his expression one of relief. Cassandra guessed that he was getting tired of having to keep figuring out what she was saying in Spanish. “We left it parked on the street around the corner from the café.”

  “Hmm,” the man said. “I promise this ATV to a customer already. Can you wait?”

  After all the effort they’d made to get here, having to wait to continue with their mission felt excruciating, but she knew they didn’t have much choice. She sent a helpless glance at Tony, who only shrugged, looking resigned to yet another delay.

  “Sure,” she said. “How long?”

  “Not long,” he replied. He tilted his head toward the little house attached to the garage. “You can wait inside. The first room is waiting room, sí?”

  That made her feel a little better. It would have been very strange to go into this man’s house and sit there and wait for him to look at their truck, but if he’d already set up part of it as a waiting area for his clients, then that didn’t seem quite so bad.

  “Okay,” Cassandra said, after Tony gave her the faintest of nods, letting her know that he was all right with this plan as well. “Muchas gracías, señor.”

  They went in through the door he’d indicated. Almost at once, they were hit with a welcome rush of cool air from the A/C unit mounted in the window. That was the room’s one real amenity, since its furnishing were shabby and looked like cast-offs from his neighbors — a couch with patched brown vinyl upholstery, a banged-up coffee table, an ugly brass floor lamp.

  But hey, the air conditioning worked. As for the rest…it was a mechanic’s waiting room. She shouldn’t have been expecting the Ritz-Carlton.

  The two of them sat down on the couch. Even though the jeans she was wearing felt far too heavy in this tropical climate, right then Cassandra was grateful for them. If she’d had on shorts, she probably would have stuck to the vinyl.

  “Well, this is…anticlimactic,” Tony said, then ran a hand through his hair so he could push it away from his damp forehead.

  “That’s for sure.” Unfortunately, there wasn’t much they could do about the situation, except wait and see what the mechanic had to say. At least it was still early enough in the day that someone from the rental company should be able to get back out here with a tow truck before it got too late.

  “Maybe we should ask him about the Escobars,” Tony suggested.

  “That didn’t work too well the last time,” Cassandra replied.

  “True. But if he does know something and is willing to tell us, then this trip won’t have been a complete waste.”

  That was a possibility, but even if the mechanic was willing to talk and gave them some kind of actionable information, what were they supposed to do with it? With their truck out of commission, they didn’t have a lot of options.

  Or maybe we do, she thought then. After all, Isabella Escobar walked from Pico Negro down here to San Matías with a baby in arms and a toddler in tow, so it can’t be that far.

  Still, she didn’t want to get too hopeful. “What if he freaks out like the woman in the restaurant did?” Cassandra asked. “Then we won’t even have someone to work on the truck.”

  This possibility obviously hadn’t occurred to Tony, because as soon as she spoke, his expression fell. “Right. We probably don’t want to risk that.”

  “Unless he says he can’t fix the truck,” she said. “At that point, we won’t have much
to lose. We’ll end up having to call the rental company and see if they can send someone out to look at the truck.”

  He nodded, looking a little more cheerful. “Okay, we’ll wait and see what the guy has to say, but let’s hope he can fix the damn thing. I’d rather not have to spend the night here…or walk back to San Salvador.”

  It wasn’t a great plan, but better than nothing. Cassandra realized that the village had other people living in it, people who might have been able to offer information, and yet she guessed that it probably wouldn’t be very smart to start roaming the streets, asking anyone they bumped into if they knew how to find Pico Negro. Doing so would probably be the easiest way to attract the Escobars’ attention, and she sure as hell didn’t want that.

  She reached over and took Tony’s hand. His fingers were warm but comforting, not damp the way she’d halfway expected them to be. The air conditioning was doing a good job of keeping the worst of the humidity at bay.

  “Sorry I got you into this,” she said.

  “Into what?” he asked. “It’s car trouble. It happens to everyone sooner or later.”

  “True, but most of the time it doesn’t happen out in the middle of nowhere in a foreign country.”

  He chuckled. “I’m not worried. Worst case, the rental company bails us out. Complications like this are why we didn’t book a round-trip ticket. If we end up having to stay longer than we first thought, it’s no big deal.”

  His words cheered her slightly, as did his relaxed outlook about the situation. She knew she had a tendency to overthink things, to worry too much. Cassandra supposed she had inherited that quality from her father, but knowing where it had come from didn’t do much to change how she reacted to things.

  She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Thanks, Tony.”

  “For what?”

  “For being you.”

  He began to smile, but stopped as the door to the waiting room opened. However, the man standing there wasn’t the mechanic, but someone much younger, probably in his mid-twenties at the most. And, unlike the mechanic, the stranger was tall and slim and almost model-handsome, with his chiseled features and piercing dark eyes.

  “Hello,” he said, in perfect, almost unaccented English. “I am Gabriel Escobar.”

  17

  Tony’s first instinct was to grab Cassandra and make a run for it out the room’s other door — which he guessed opened into the rest of the mechanic’s house — even though he knew there wasn’t much chance of them getting away. Unlike Cassandra, he’d seen Simon Escobar in action. He knew what the warlocks in that clan were capable of.

  But although her eyes flared wide with shock for just the barest second, she remained sitting, then looked at the newcomer and said coolly, “I think you have something that belongs to us.”

  Damn, what a woman. He didn’t know too many people who could stand — all right, sit — in Escobar territory and calmly face one of their warlocks down.

  The man — Gabriel Escobar — chuckled. “Oh, is that why you have invaded our territory without asking permission?”

  Without blinking, Cassandra returned, “I really don’t think an Escobar has the right to comment on a witch or warlock coming into someone else’s territory uninvited.”

  This remark only made the strange warlock smile, then glance over at Tony. “Your woman is very brave.”

  “I’m not sure I’d call her ‘my’ woman,” he said, still wary, but also somewhat relieved that Escobar hadn’t just blasted the two of them into the next century. “Cassandra is her own person.”

  “Yes,” she said, then let go of his hand so she could stand up and face Gabriel Escobar straight on, her arms crossed and expression defiant. “I am. And I’m here to represent the de la Paz clan and ask that you return our stolen property immediately.”

  Gabriel’s right eyebrow assumed an amused tilt. Right then, Tony was just glad that Cassandra had already proclaimed her love for him, because otherwise he might have felt a bit threatened by someone so ostentatiously good-looking, Escobar or not. “But we have stolen nothing.”

  “That’s not true,” Tony protested, standing up as well. Although it felt a bit surreal to be standing here and arguing with one of the fearsome Escobar warlocks, he figured he might as well at least look as though he was bargaining from a position of strength. “The evidence seems to indicate that it was an Escobar warlock who — ”

  And then he broke off, since he wasn’t sure Cassandra wanted him to go blurting out the exact nature of the items that had been stolen from them.

  “Who what?” Gabriel asked, expression all innocence. When neither of them said anything, he smiled again and went on, “All right, I suppose there is no use in playing these games. Yes, we took your books from you. In fact, I was the one who took them.”

  Anger flared through Tony as he recalled the way his mother had looked crumpled on the family room rug, so small, so helpless. No one should ever have to see a parent like that. And although she seemed to be fine now, that didn’t erase what this handsome, arrogant son of a bitch had done to her. “So you’re the bastard who struck down a defenseless woman?”

  Gabriel’s smile faded. For a second, he looked almost regretful, but Tony figured he just wasn’t reading the guy’s reactions correctly. He was pretty sure that no Escobar was even capable of remorse.

  “She would have seen me,” the warlock said quietly. “I had to make sure she couldn’t do that. However, I did take care that she would suffer no permanent harm.”

  “Thank you for the humanitarian effort,” Cassandra remarked caustically. “That doesn’t change the fact that you stole my clan’s property.”

  “If it was your property, what was it doing in the hands of the Castillos?”

  He probably knew very well why it was there, so it was obvious she wasn’t about to waste her breath pointing out that particular detail. Instead, she planted her hands on her hips and said, “It was being kept safe.”

  “Not safe enough, apparently.”

  Her eyes narrowed and her lips parted, and Tony got the impression she was about to say something they might all regret. To forestall her, he said, “All right, you’ve caught us. What happens now?”

  For a second, Gabriel didn’t reply, only glanced back and forth between the two of them, as if he was doing his best to take their measure. When he spoke, he sounded almost amused. “What happens now? I suppose I will just have to help you steal them back.”

  Wait…what? Tony looked down at Cassandra, saw the same confusion in her features that he knew he was currently experiencing.

  “I don’t understand,” she said slowly.

  “I’ve startled you,” Gabriel said. “I suppose this is not so surprising. You see, I took the books because I am the only one in my clan with the ability to travel in such a way — ”

  “Teleporting,” Cassandra put in, and the Escobar warlock nodded.

  “Yes, teleporting. But you see, I wanted you to know who had taken the books. I could have covered up all trace of the magic I used, but I hoped there would be someone in your clan with the gift to identify magical residue, someone who would be able to tell that it was the magic of my own clan that had been used to steal the grimoires.”

  Tony wanted to shake his head, which currently felt as though it was spinning with the effort to understand this complete reversal. “You wanted us to track you down here.”

  “Exactly.”

  Cassandra was frowning fiercely, as if trying to figure out what the hell was going on had given her a massive headache. “But…why?”

  “We should go somewhere else to talk. Hector” — Gabriel inclined his head toward the door that opened on the repair shop, clearly indicating the ATV technician — “is a good and faithful servant to the Escobar clan, just as are everyone in San Matías. However, what I am about to say is not something I want him to hear.”

  “All right,” Tony said, his tone dubious. It wasn’t as if they had much of a choice.
“Where do you want to talk?”

  “A safe place.”

  Before any of them could reply, he’d stepped forward and taken each of them by the hand, grasping it firmly. And then the shabby waiting room around them disappeared, and they were standing in a much more elegant space, the kind of room that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Santa Fe, with its white plaster walls and wrought-iron chandelier overhead and heavy Spanish colonial antique furniture.

  “Where are we?” Cassandra asked, looking around in confusion.

  “As I said, a safe place,” Gabriel replied. A wave of his hand, and a pitcher of water and three glasses appeared on the coffee table in front of the linen-covered sofa.

  So much power…used so casually. Tony had known the Escobars produced some of the strongest warlocks the world had yet seen, but, aside from that final battle with Simon, he’d never personally witnessed the evidence of their magical talents. Now, though, after Gabriel had brought him and Cassandra here without batting an eye, Tony had much more of an idea about what they were up against.

  Or…were they? Gabriel was acting like an ally, not an enemy.

  Forehead still creased in a frown, Cassandra said, “Why are you helping us?”

  “Because I fear what my brother will do with those books he has taken,” Gabriel told her. “He is already powerful enough, for our father’s magic came to him in almost its full strength. He does not need the assistance of those grimoires.”

  “Your father?” Tony asked, already guessing at the answer even though he really didn’t want to believe that was what they were dealing with here.

  “Yes, my father,” Gabriel replied. Then he added, just in case there was any doubt, “Joaquin Escobar.”

  “Jesus!” Cassandra exclaimed. “How many kids did that bastard have?”

  Rather than appear offended, Gabriel only smiled. “He was a man who believed in spreading his seed around. First, there were Olivia and Matías, whom he had with Isabella and who she stole from him. Then there was Renata, who came to your land to help Joaquin seek vengeance on those who had wounded his son…and to help Matías recover his powers.”