Mysterious Ways

by Christine Pope

  Cold inched its way down Rafe’s spine. He recalled how Cat had experienced some kind of strange sensation while they were at St. Vincent’s, but had felt better once she was outside. “You felt it at Arthur and Casey’s house?”

  “No,” she replied immediately. “Now it’s as though I can feel it everywhere. The air seems heavier somehow. It almost feels as though something’s pressing down on my temples, like I’m about to get a migraine or something.”

  “You don’t get headaches,” Rafe pointed out.

  “I know. But that’s what it feels like.”

  Rafe glanced into the back seat so he could gauge Miranda’s expression. She looked concerned, but also puzzled. “You don’t feel it?” he asked.

  “No.”

  Well, that was a relief…or was it?

  “My magic’s strong,” Miranda said, “but I never said it lets me do anything and everything. Cat’s ability to see and talk to ghosts probably makes her sensitive to vibrations the rest of us can’t feel.”

  “That’s great,” Cat said. “Except I don’t have any idea what this is supposed to mean. It feels like a thunderstorm coming on.”

  Rafe didn’t like that description. They were well past the monsoon season of thunder and lightning, which meant his sister was talking about an entirely different kind of storm. But since there didn’t seem to be much they could do about it, he said, “I guess tell us if anything changes. In the meantime, though….”

  Cat nodded, even the tight smile she’d been wearing now gone. “In the meantime, we have work to do.”

  4

  Connection

  Miranda

  In all, we went to six houses on Santa Fe’s south side. At every one of them, we were met with the same sympathy for Rafe and Cat…and some rather furtive speculative glances sent in my direction. I couldn’t even blame Rafe’s cousins for looking at me that way, because not even a week earlier, I’d disappeared into thin air right in front of hundreds of Castillos, teleporting myself away from that botched wedding ceremony. The Goddess only knew what kind of gossip had been circulating, and we didn’t have time to go into lengthy explanations.

  At every house, I cast the same spell of protection, and every time I did it, I hoped I was actually doing some good and not wasting all our time. True, Rafe and I hadn’t been attacked when we were at his house, and there hadn’t been an assault on the Castillo prima’s home, either, at least not after I got there. But were the spells really that effective, or was Simon only biding his time, waiting to see where he should strike next? I didn’t have any way of knowing for sure.

  But everyone seemed grateful for what we were doing, and maybe that was almost as important as the spell itself…that we were offering some hope. At least Genoveva’s powers had passed smoothly to Louisa; Simon hadn’t been able to interfere with that ages-old process. Her ability as a clan leader was as yet untested, but what I’d seen so far seemed encouraging. She hadn’t allowed grief to overwhelm her, had done a good job of coping with the situation.

  I was worried about Rafe, though. He’d seemed calm enough as we went from house to house, had been friendly with everyone, and thankful for their words of condolence, but each time someone told him they were sorry, I could see the way he tensed up, as if he was being wound tighter and tighter. I worried that sooner or later he was going to give way, that at last the dam would have to burst.

  About all I could do was hope the breakdown would wait until we were alone.

  At last we were done, though. As Cat pointed her car northward toward the hacienda, Rafe called Louisa to let her know we’d taken care of all the Castillos on the south side. From what I was able to overhear, it sounded as though our little protection operation had gone smoothly in the other parts of Santa Fe as well, and that now the clan was about as safe as we could all make it.

  “Do you want to come to the house, or should I take you home?” Cat asked as she turned onto Paseo de Peralta.

  Rafe hesitated. I could tell he wanted more than anything to go back to his own place and decompress, but family loyalty appeared to win out. “I can come to the house if you need me to.”

  “It’s okay.” She was facing straight forward, so from my position in the back seat, I couldn’t really see her expression. “Dad texted me while we were at Trey’s house — and he said José had stayed the whole time, and that Aunt Rosa was going to come over to be with him, too. And I’ll be there. He won’t be alone.” A pause, and she added, “You’ve been separated from Miranda for days. I don’t think anyone’s going to hold it against you if you go home and have some downtime together.”

  She sounded reasonable, but I hoped she was right. Family could be a strange thing, and I could see how some people might resent Rafe for not spending this time with his father. I certainly didn’t want to be blamed for keeping him away from his family at such a terrible time.

  “Maybe,” he said, and he sounded as dubious as I felt. “What about you? Still getting that thundery feeling?”

  “No,” she replied. “I mean, it was there for a while, but as we were driving from Trey’s condo over to David and Lily’s place, it went away.”

  “What do you think it means?”

  A nervous laugh. “I have no idea. I guess I’m hoping that it doesn’t mean anything at all.”

  That was probably a vain hope. I hadn’t been at the hospital with Cat and Rafe when they’d gone to visit Marco — before Simon killed him outright to keep him from talking — and so I had no idea whether I might have experienced that terrible, thundery sensation if I’d been there to experience it for myself. Certainly today I hadn’t felt anything, which seemed to indicate it was something my own witchy senses couldn’t detect. But just because I couldn’t feel it didn’t mean it wasn’t important.

  Rafe seemed to be thinking about the same thing. “Maybe it would be better if we stayed together.”

  Cat made an impatient noise. “I’m fine, Rafe. Besides, weren’t we all saying earlier that it was better not to be together, that it was better to make Simon have to spread his resources?”

  “That was just a guess,” I said. “I don’t know for sure.”

  “None of us knows anything for sure,” Cat replied. “But Louisa agreed with you, and since she’s the prima now, I guess we need to do as she says. You’ve already cast a spell of protection on the house, so it’ll be safe there. If Simon knows as much about us as you seem to think he does, then he’s going to know that my gifts don’t present any kind of threat, and neither do Dad’s. There’s no point in coming after us.”

  Well, except psychological warfare, I thought, but I didn’t say anything out loud. It would definitely throw the clan off even further for Cat and her father to be attacked. Right then, I wouldn’t put anything past Simon.

  At the same time, I didn’t want to go back to that big, gloomy house. I wanted to go with Rafe to his place, which still didn’t feel like home but at least was his own, someplace where we could be alone to truly reconnect. I felt my need for him growing, and wanted him to hold me.

  Actually, I wanted a lot more than that, wanted his kisses and his touch to erase every taint of Simon’s assault on me, but I knew I couldn’t ask for more than what Rafe was willing to give. He’d lost his mother today, under the worst possible circumstances. I couldn’t expect him to be intimate when dealing with that kind of pain.

  He glanced back at me, and all I could do was give a helpless shrug. This was his decision to make; I didn’t want to force him one way or another.

  A gust of a breath, and then he said, “I guess just take us home, then. We’ll only be a couple of minutes away. But you call me the second something doesn’t feel right.”

  “I will,” Cat replied immediately. “I really don’t think you have anything to worry about, though.”

  “Maybe.”

  They both fell silent after that, and I sat quietly in the back seat, watching as the tall old trees and older adobe houses passed by ou
tside the car windows. We looped around downtown, then turned onto the street where Rafe’s house was located. The sun had dropped low enough that I couldn’t see it anymore, only a warm orange flush on the western horizon, and a shiver went over me.

  Even though I would be with Rafe, I feared the approaching night. Black magic was strongest in the dark hours.

  What are you up to, Simon? I thought as Cat pulled up into the driveway. Are you just biding your time, waiting to see what the Castillos are going to do, or do you already have some terrible plan in the works?

  There was no answer. He and I weren’t connected at all, even though he’d wanted us to be. In his black and shriveled heart, he’d imagined us as some sort of unholy prima and primus, a dark echo of my parents’ joining, only he’d wanted us to use our powers to control others, to subjugate those he saw as less worthy.

  Thank the Goddess Rafe had gotten there in time. I still didn’t want to know what would have happened if —

  My mind shied away from that horrible thought. I was safe for now. Simon hadn’t gotten what he wanted.

  Of course, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try again.

  Cat turned off the engine. “Do you mind if I don’t get out? This day has been — ” She stopped herself there. “What I meant was, I’m exhausted.”

  “It’s fine,” Rafe said hastily. “Just let Miranda and me get her stuff out of the back, and then you can go on home.”

  “‘Home,’” she repeated, then shook her head. “It’s going to feel so strange now that Mom is gone.”

  “I know.” He reached over and touched Cat on the arm. “You sure you don’t want us to go back there with you?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. I’ll be fine.”

  A long pause, during which I sat without moving, worried that he was going to press the issue. But then he seemed to realize it was worse for him to keep insisting, because he said, “All right. Just call if — ”

  “If there’s anything weird,” Cat broke in. “I know. Now get going.”

  He finally unbuckled his seatbelt, and I undid mine as well and slid out of the SUV, grateful that it looked like Rafe and I would finally have a chance to be alone together. The only problem was, I had no idea what we would be doing with that time.

  Whatever Rafe wants, I told myself as we retrieved my new purchases from the back of Cat’s car. You’ll just have to roll with it.

  The house was very dark, but he flicked the switches in the hallway as soon as we were inside. It was hard not to let out a breath of relief once I saw that the place was empty. I didn’t know what I’d been expecting — Simon standing there, waiting for our return so he could blast us with more dark magic? — but it seemed that the spell of protection I’d cast had held up just fine in my absence.

  “We might as well take this stuff upstairs,” Rafe said.

  “Okay.”

  I followed him to the second floor. When we got to the upstairs hallway, he paused, looking uncomfortable. “There’s a spare bedroom I don’t really use. Did you want — ?”

  I wouldn’t let him finish the question. “I want to stay with you, Rafe, in your room. If that’s okay,” I added hastily, because I realized almost as soon as I’d interrupted him that maybe he didn’t want me to stay with him. Maybe he needed to be alone for a while to get things sorted out.

  But he appeared to visibly relax, and even smiled a little. “I was hoping you’d say that, but I didn’t want to presume anything.”

  “We’re together now,” I said, my voice firm. “And that means I shouldn’t be sleeping in your extra bedroom.”

  “Good.”

  He took me into the master bedroom, which was large and spare, almost monastic in its simplicity. A king-size bed with a plain oak frame, a dresser in matching oak with a Mexican mirror of pierced tin hanging over it. A large picture, almost abstract, of what I guessed were supposed to be the Sangre de Christo mountains.

  That was it. The bed had a dark red duvet on it, but everything was rumpled; clearly, he hadn’t bothered to make the bed before he left the house this morning.

  The room practically screamed for a woman’s touch. I didn’t voice that opinion aloud, though. Rafe had been through enough today, and the last thing he needed was to hear me making plans for redecorating.

  “The closet’s here,” he said, opening a door.

  Clearly, the home’s architect had planned for a more extensive wardrobe than the meager single rack that Rafe’s clothes appeared to take up. There was plenty of room for me to hang up my new purchases and still have two more racks to spare.

  “Thanks.”

  We set the shopping bags on the floor, and I got to work placing my new clothes on hangers and then putting them on the rack. That left the jeans and the underwear and the socks. Rafe took a look at the pile of stuff I still had left to put away and said quickly, “I’ll go clear a drawer in the dresser.”

  I almost protested, but I really did need a drawer — or several — to store the items that needed to be folded. Instead, I nodded, then watched him go hastily through several dresser drawers, removing what looked like old T-shirts and mismatched socks. Well, at least I didn’t have to worry about him displacing anything important. Once he was done — and had gone to stash the things he’d removed from the drawers on a high shelf in the closet — I went ahead and put all the underwear in one drawer and the jeans and T-shirts in the other.

  “Well, that’s settled,” I said after I’d finished that task. There wasn’t a clock in the room, and I thought it would be rude to pull out my phone and check the time, but I guessed it must be way after six. We might as well think about getting something to eat. “Are you hungry?”

  A lift of his shoulders. “I don’t know. Not really.”

  This response didn’t surprise me all that much, but I knew he needed to eat. And, after my exertions of that afternoon, casting all those protection spells, I was starving. “You should have something, though. Who delivers around here?”

  I was worried my question might have annoyed him. To my relief, he only looked thoughtful. “A bunch of places, since I’m so close to downtown. But I think I could have some pizza. Is that okay?”

  A few days earlier, I’d shared a pizza with Simon. The idea of having another one didn’t seem all that appetizing, but I told myself it was silly to deprive myself of one of my favorite foods just because I’d eaten it with a dark warlock. If I let him influence me that much, I was giving him too much power…and he already had way more than his fair share.

  “Pizza sounds great,” I said.

  “Good. Does just pepperoni work for you? I don’t feel like getting too adventurous today.”

  “Pepperoni is my favorite,” I replied, which was only the truth.

  Looking relieved, he got out his new phone and called up the website for the pizza place in question. A few swipes over the screen, a pause while he dug his credit card out of his wallet and passed it over the on-screen reader, and then he said, “All right, it’s on its way. We might as well go downstairs.”

  I nodded. “Sure.”

  He led me into the kitchen, where he got a bottle of Sangiovese out of the wine rack, then plucked two glasses from the cupboard. “I don’t know about you, but I need this.”

  Although a glass of wine sounded great right then, I wondered whether Rafe should be drinking, considering everything he’d been through that day. But no, he deserved to have the opportunity to relax. If that meant cracking open a bottle of sangio, so be it.

  “Me, too,” I told him. “Do you want me to set the table or anything?”

  “I thought we’d eat in the living room. It’s more comfortable in there.”

  This suggestion worked for me. It wasn’t as though pizza was the sort of meal that required you to sit at a dining room table. “Sounds great.”

  We went into the living room, taking the bottle of wine and the glasses with us. Once he’d set the bottle down on the coffee table, Rafe waved a neglige
nt hand toward the kiva fireplace in the corner. The gas logs within flared to life immediately, sending some warmth into the room, which had felt a little chilly. I realized that I could have easily done the same thing, whereas not even a week ago, I would have had to physically lay hands on the logs to get them to light. So much power, just lying there, coiled, waiting to be used. After all those years of living as a nunca, or a witch with no real talent, I wasn’t quite sure how to deal with the idea of my magic. It still frightened me, not the least because it was Simon who’d awakened that power. He said it had been there all along, only asleep, but I hated knowing that I might have gone my whole life without tapping into my inborn talents…if it weren’t for him.

  I did my best to push those thoughts aside. Whatever Simon had done, it didn’t affect what I felt for Rafe, the nearly overwhelming need that surged over me as we sat next to each other on the couch. He was so very close, so close that his knee brushed against mine when he shifted to reach for his glass of wine.

  Maybe he felt it, too…or maybe not. His expression, which was closed off and calm again, didn’t tell me very much. And while there were so many things I wanted to say to him, now that we were together, I didn’t know where to start. It was quite possible he wasn’t even ready to have a serious discussion about our future together. We’d started a little ways down that road earlier in the day, when we’d kissed and he’d told me he still wanted to get married. However, that was before Simon had attacked again, before he’d murdered Genoveva. Now everything was back up in the air.

  So, instead of trying to broach a more intimate topic, I thought I should ask something more innocuous. “Rosa and José? Who are they again?” I remembered that Rafe had said Rosa was his aunt, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to bring it up once more.

  “Rosa is my father’s oldest sister,” Rafe replied, then took a swallow of wine. “He’s the youngest of four kids — the only son, just like me. José is Rosa’s husband. He also owns the funeral home all we Castillos use.”