An Ill Wind

by Christine Pope

  Well, at least until the null arrived. After that, all bets were off.

  Now the pile of books was fully engulfed. Looking at them, Cassandra couldn’t even be sad over the knowledge within them that was being destroyed. It was terrible knowledge, something that no human being should be able to control.

  And with the grimoires gone, there would be no reason to fight over them, no worries about the next dark witch or warlock trying to capture the books for their own nefarious purposes.

  She glanced over at Tony and saw that he was grinning, as if he, too, had realized this was the best possible end for those horrible volumes.

  Raúl arrived, a pitcher of water in either hand. He ran into the library and attempted to douse the flames, but of course the water only ran over the shield, exposing it for moment, like a strange, fiery soap bubble before the water was gone and the shield had returned to its usual invisible state.

  “A very good talent, indeed,” Gabriel said. While the elder was gawking in dismay at the utter futility of his effort, the Escobar warlock moved quickly, the magical hold on his feet now apparently gone.

  “Not so fast,” Vicénte snarled, then hurled himself at his brother, knocking him to the ground.

  And while Gabriel might have been a stronger warlock than the primus, he wasn’t quite as heavy, and obviously hadn’t been expecting a physical assault. He let out a grunt of pain, but then seemed to gather himself and swung with the arm that wasn’t pinned down under him, catching his brother in the jaw.

  Now it was time for Vicénte to groan, but the blow didn’t stop him. He lashed out with his right hand, hitting Gabriel in the temple. The watching toad-like elder chuckled, as if glad to see the upstart get what was coming to him.

  “You know,” Tony remarked in oddly conversational tones, “I’m really getting tired of you.”

  Before the elder could react, Tony raised his hands and a blast of wind came from nowhere, wailing with hurricane force as it struck the man with its fury and blew him all the way across the living area until he hit the back wall with an audible crack and fell to the floor, unmoving.

  Even though she had no liking for the man, either, Cassandra couldn’t help wincing. However, she noticed right away that, with the elder knocked out, the force holding her to the floor was now gone. Tony also seemed to realize he was no longer constrained, and at once ran over to where Vicénte and Gabriel were wrestling and made an enthusiastic swing that connected with the primus’s nose, which exploded with blood.

  He howled and slumped over, clearly down for the count, and Tony stepped away, shaking his hand. “Ouch.”

  “First time clocking someone?” Cassandra asked with a grin.

  “Yep. Now I know why boxers wear gloves.” After giving his abused fingers another flex, he reached down to help Gabriel to his feet.

  The Escobar warlock was looking slightly bruised, but he flashed a smile at them as he stood up, a smile that broadened as he looked at the pile of books in their protective shield, now fully engulfed. The shield kept the flames from spreading farther into the room, and so the rest of the house seemed safe.

  For now, at least.

  The front door opened with a bang. Gabriel’s smile disappeared, and he said, his tone urgent, “You must go.”

  “What about you?” Cassandra asked. Surely he couldn’t be considering staying here — his clan would eat him alive, after what he’d done.

  “The distance is too great for me to travel with you. I can only send you two, no more.” He glanced over his shoulder, and Cassandra followed his gaze to see the female elder hurrying toward them, a much younger, intense-looking man who must have been the null at her side.

  She didn’t know how close a null had to get to destroy a person’s ability to use their magic, but she really didn’t want to find out, either.

  “Tell me where you must go!” Gabriel said, his voice tight with worry.

  “My house in Santa Fe,” Tony replied at once. “Hillside Avenue — 322. It’s a gray Victorian house with green trim and a big oak tree in front.”

  How that was supposed to help, Cassandra didn’t know, but she guessed that Gabriel’s power must allow him to triangulate on a place even if he’d never been there before. He nodded, eyes closed tight as if visualizing their destination, and then she felt an odd tingling in her fingers and toes. The room began to dissolve around them — the fire roared, hungry and angry now that it had been released from the shield she’d cast — and the female elder and the null ran into the library, clearly thinking they might be able to rescue the books, even though they were already fully engulfed and beyond salvaging.

  And then, right before the room disappeared altogether, Gabriel’s despairing eyes met hers as his brother rose from his faint and swung his fist.

  Cassandra never saw whether the blow connected.

  20

  It was if someone had been holding them approximately three or four feet above the floor and then abruptly dropped them. He and Cassandra fell onto the Persian rug in the living room, both of them letting out a shocked “oof!” as the air was knocked out of their lungs.

  “Jesus Christ,” Tony muttered, then rolled over so he could look over at his companion. She’d pushed herself up to a sitting position and had a hand held to her temple, as if trying to determine whether the fall had done any actual damage. “You okay?”

  She gave him a cautious nod. “I think so.” After sending a quick glance around the room, she asked, “We’re back at your house, right?”

  “Yes. He did it.” Tony got to his feet and extended a hand, then pulled Cassandra up from the floor. She still looked kind of dazed, but not so dazed that she didn’t immediately go to him and put her arms around his waist.

  “I honestly didn’t think he’d be able to send us this far,” she murmured. Then she pulled in a hitching sort of breath and said, her tone urgent, “Tony, we have to help him.”

  “How?” he asked gently. While he could understand why she’d be fearing the worst for their benefactor, the sad truth was that there really wasn’t much they could do for Gabriel.

  “I don’t know!” she burst out, then let go of him and stepped back a pace. The pain and worry in her eyes was clear, and he wished he could say something to make it all better. However, there really wasn’t anything to say.

  He had to try, though.

  “Our clan isn’t going to invade the Escobars’ territory,” he said, trying to sound calm and matter-of-fact. “Yours isn’t, either. It would take a lot of us to make a difference, and that simply isn’t going to happen. We both know that.”

  Cassandra was silent for a moment, face pale. At last, she gave a reluctant nod. “You’re right, of course. It’s just — he helped us, and we just left him there!”

  “I know. It sucks. It really, really sucks.”

  “What do you think they’ll do to him?”

  Her hazel-green eyes were enormous, imploring. And while he could try to tell her some pleasant lie, say that Vicénte wouldn’t do anything too terrible to Gabriel because he was his brother, Tony wouldn’t do that to Cassandra. She was tough and smart and brave, and she knew just as well as he did that the Escobar primus was utterly without mercy.

  “I honestly have no idea,” he said at last. “They brought the null in, so Gabriel wouldn’t have been able to use his powers. And although the guy has a mean right hook, there’s no way he could fight the whole damn clan. I guess it really depends on what they do to traitors.”

  Cassandra winced at the word, but she didn’t try to contradict him. She had to know that the Escobars would look at Gabriel as the very worst of traitors. You weren’t supposed to go against your clan, especially when such a betrayal meant destroying something that could have granted your family a considerable magical advantage.

  “But at least they don’t have the books anymore,” Tony added, and she nodded, looking a little less troubled.

  “Thank God for that,” she said.

/>   “So you’re relieved?”

  “Of course I’m relieved,” she shot back. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  He shrugged, not sure what to say. “Well…they were your clan’s property.”

  “Yes, and now they’re no one’s, which is how it always should have been.”

  Tony went to her and took her in his arms again, and she snuggled her head against his shoulder. “I feel the same way,” he said. “Someone should’ve taken a match to those damn things years ago.”

  “I know. That kind of power is too tempting.” She released a breath, and he felt some of the tension in her slender body begin to melt away. “Still, we’re going to have a heck of a time explaining all this….”

  His parents took the news calmly enough, especially after Cassandra said she’d talked to her prima and that Zoe had informed her it was probably all for the best. Tony’s sister Ava, however, didn’t appear nearly as satisfied with the story.

  “Seriously, you just left him there?” she demanded as she sat on the couch across from him, echoing Cassandra’s words from a few hours earlier.

  “What were we supposed to do?” Tony countered, wishing he didn’t feel so guilty. After all, it had been Gabriel’s wish that they leave without him. He’d known the extent of his powers, had known he couldn’t get out and still ensure that his compatriots made it safely home. And, Tony realized, Gabriel had probably guessed that such an outcome was a definite possibility…and had taken the risk anyway. “Neither Cass nor I can teleport, Ava, and there was no way we could have fought the whole goddamn village.”

  Ava opened her mouth as if to protest, then subsided, apparently realizing that her brother was only a warlock and not some super-powered action hero. To tell the truth, Tony had halfway been expecting this reaction from her, just because his little sister had always been the kind to rescue stray dogs and kittens and the occasional wounded bird. Their mother hadn’t been very happy about any of those strays and the messes they brought with them, given how picky she was about keeping the house clean. She’d allowed Ava to keep one dog, a lively little chihuahua/terrier mix, who’d lived to the ripe age of sixteen before finally passing away just as Ava was about to go off to college.

  The rest of the animals had either found homes within the clan or had been sent off to the shelter, which luckily was a no-kill facility and worked very hard to adopt out all the various dogs and cats. But anyway, Tony could see why Ava would immediately fear for the man they’d had to leave behind, even though she’d never met him.

  “I guess so,” she said, then went quiet, her big brown eyes sad. Maybe she was inwardly mourning Gabriel, although of course none of them really had any way of knowing what had happened to him.

  Still, Tony could guess…and what he was speculating wasn’t very pretty.

  Eventually, he and Cassandra were able to escape the questions, slip away and get her a few items to replace the things she’d left behind in their Airbnb in San Salvador, then go out to dinner. He noticed that she didn’t have much appetite but guessed it was probably better not to call attention to her apparent disinterest in the excellent meal they’d ordered.

  And that night, they made love, fiercely, furiously, as if they both needed to confirm that they had survived the ordeal, were alive and well, if not completely whole.

  While Cassandra showered the next morning, Victoria the ghost appeared in the kitchen as Tony was making coffee, her translucent brow furrowed in annoyance.

  “Am I to expect more of those goings-on?” she demanded.

  “‘Goings-on’?” he repeated.

  She jabbed an accusing finger upward, as if indicating the second floor of the house that had once been hers. “Your nocturnal activities.”

  Trying not to smile, he poured the coffee he’d just ground into the coffeemaker. “Um, Victoria…wasn’t it those sorts of ‘activities’ that got you in trouble in the first place?”

  Arms crossed, she retorted, “A lady doesn’t confess such things.”

  “Of course not.” He turned back to her. Now she was floating in the middle of the kitchen, the toes of her buttoned boots a few inches above the tile floor. “Not to get snotty, Victoria, but this is my house. I think I’m allowed to be with my girlfriend if I want to.” As he spoke, however, he could see why the ghost might be a little miffed with him; he’d never brought any of the civilian girls he’d slept with back to the house, had always shared those encounters in their hotel rooms. For all he knew, his home’s resident ghost thought he was celibate.

  Ha.

  “Your girlfriend,” Victoria repeated, looking pained. Except for being partially see-through, she was still very pretty, and Tony could understand why her husband had been so inflamed with jealousy that he’d shot both her and her lover. “So I am to expect more of this?”

  “’Fraid so,” Tony replied calmly, even as he wondered exactly how this was all going to shake out. It was early days yet, and he and Cassandra certainly hadn’t made any promises to one another. Still, he knew he wanted to be with her, didn’t want to say goodbye and send her back to her clan and call it a day.

  But did she feel the same?”

  “Hmph,” said Victoria with a sniff before disappearing.

  “Typical,” he remarked, just as Cassandra entered the kitchen, looking slightly confused.

  “Was someone in here? I thought I heard voices.”

  “Oh, that was just Victoria, my friendly neighborhood ghost. She was registering her displeasure over our ‘nocturnal activities,’ as she put it.”

  Cassandra’s lips quirked. “Oops. I forgot we weren’t alone in the house.”

  “Well, Victoria kind of made herself scarce the last time you were here, so it’s not as if you’d even seen her yet. Coffee?”

  “Love some.”

  Tony got out a mug and filled it with Italian roast, then handed it over to her. Cassandra looked more like herself this morning, face bare of makeup except some mascara and lip gloss, the shadows of sadness and fear gone from her face. But even as she sipped at the coffee, he thought he could see a trace of worry in her hazel eyes. Had she, too, been wondering exactly where the two of them were supposed to go next?

  “You can stay here as long as you like,” he blurted, and she smiled at him.

  “Thanks. It’s going to be weird to slip back into normal life.”

  “Is life ever normal for us witches and warlocks?”

  Her mouth pursed, and she shrugged. “Good question.” She was silent for a moment, drinking coffee in a contemplative sort of way, as though she had so many thoughts running through her head, she wasn’t quite sure which one to articulate first. When she spoke, though, it was to make a comment he hadn’t been expecting. “You know, you’re going to need to get your car out of hock. It’s still sitting in the long-term parking at the airport in San Diego.”

  Tony wanted to clap a hand to his head. In all the insanity, he’d completely forgotten about the Fiat sitting there in a corner of the fourth level of the parking structure. It was a “pay when you leave” kind of setup, so he knew he didn’t have to worry about the car getting towed or anything, but obviously, he couldn’t leave it there. And then there was the truck they’d rented and left behind in San Matías, not to mention all the stuff presumably still sitting in their Airbnb. They hadn’t been due to leave until today, so they still had something of a buffer before anyone started asking questions. Even so, he was going to have to get on the phone and handle some logistics this morning, no matter what else happened.

  “I can go with you, if you want,” Cassandra offered, and he sent her a relieved smile.

  “You can?”

  “Sure. I’m on kind of indefinite leave from my job — business of the prima and all that.” She swirled the coffee in her mug for a moment and stared down into it, as if trying to decipher some meaning from the patterns of dark and light in the doctored Italian roast. “We can fly to San Diego, and then you can drop me in Tucson on the
way back.”

  “Oh,” Tony said, not sure he liked the sound of that. While he knew Cassandra would have to go home eventually, he really didn’t want to think about the moment when he’d have to say goodbye to her.

  That sort of attitude really wasn’t like him. Usually, he was all too happy to bid farewell to the girls he’d hooked up with, their company growing staler by the minute. Cassandra wasn’t like that, though. Every day she surprised him, and he wanted her to go on surprising him.

  But since he didn’t know if he could or should articulate all that to her right now, he only said, “Another road trip? Sounds great.”

  She looked slightly relieved by his response, although he didn’t know for sure whether that was because they’d still have some time before they had to say goodbye…or because he hadn’t tried to argue with her about going back to Tucson.

  Maybe a little of both.

  As expected, he spent a chunk of the morning on the phone or on his computer, trying to tie up all the loose ends they’d left behind them. The guy at the car rental agency in San Salvador, who luckily spoke decent English, told him that the truck had been dropped off late the day before, after they’d closed. The keys had been left in the night dropbox, so no one had seen who’d brought the vehicle back. It was a mystery that probably would never be solved, although Tony knew that Gabriel couldn’t have been the person who’d driven the truck back to the capital. One of the Escobars? Maybe. Or, more likely, Hector at the ATV repair shop or one of the other residents of San Matías doing their master’s bidding. While Tony figured that Vicénte Escobar had no reason to do him any favors, he most likely would have wanted to avoid any interference from the outside world. The truck, like all vehicles these days, had a built-in location tracker; sooner or later, someone would have come to retrieve it.