I wanted to retort that I would never be ready for that kind of terrible magic, but my tongue seemed to be sticking to the roof of my mouth. At last I was able to swallow. Then I said, “What are you doing messing around with that kind of stuff, Simon?”
His head tilted slightly. “I hope you’re not going to get all sanctimonious and start lecturing me about the left-hand path, or whatever it is you McAllister witches call it. After all, your own uncle dabbled in some pretty dark enchantments.”
“And paid the price for it,” I said, surprising myself with my daring.
Simon came close, wrapped the fingers of his left hand around mine. More than anything, I wanted to pull away, but the cold fear coiling in my belly kept me from being quite that bold. A bird sang in a tree somewhere across the field, but even that innocuous sound only served to remind me of how alone we were out here. “I will pay no price,” he said. “All I’m doing is claiming my birthright.”
“Your ‘birthright’?” I repeated, trying to ignore the harsh sensation of his fingers clamping down on my hand. “I’m pretty sure the de la Pazes don’t mess around with this kind of magic, either.”
A chuckle escaped his lips. “Ah, Miranda, that was just another story I told you. I’m no de la Paz. My real name is Simon Luis Escobar.”
No. The cold in my center spread outward through my body, freezing all my limbs in a kind of numb terror. That wasn’t possible. How could it be possible? The dark warlock Joaquin Escobar had died before I was born, and his only son, Matías, had died even before his father’s passing.
“You look confused,” Simon said. He reached up with his free hand and touched my cheek, and I couldn’t help flinching. The half-smile he’d been wearing that whole time abruptly disappeared. “What, you don’t want me now that you know who I am? That shouldn’t change anything, Miranda. I’m still the friend who’s protected you, taught you…loves you.”
He bent and touched his lips to mine. At once I was nearly overcome by a sensation of wrongness, of being consumed by something cold and evil. My whole body wanted to rebel, and yet I somehow knew that if I tried to openly defy him, I would only provoke the sort of confrontation I wasn’t certain I could win. Yes, my powers had grown exponentially over the past week — thanks to Simon, much as I hated to admit it — but I still didn’t know whether they would be enough.
If he noted my revulsion, he gave no sign of it. A satisfied expression on his face, he pulled away and straightened up, then reached over to touch my hair. “Good,” he said. “You don’t know how hard it’s been, making myself wait for you. Now there’s no reason to wait any longer.”
Oh, Goddess, he didn’t mean what I thought he meant, did he? Once again revulsion rose up in me, but I pulled in a breath of cool morning air and told myself I needed to stay calm. “I guess not,” I said, my tone deliberately casual. “Only…I don’t understand. How can you be Joaquin Escobar’s son?”
He shook his head. “I have a lot to tell you, Miranda. Let’s go into the house, though. It’s too cold to keep standing out here. The last thing I want is for you to get sick.”
His fingers twined with mine again, and he began to lead me toward the house. I wished I had the courage to tear myself from his grasp and take off running. Where exactly I would run, I had no idea, since I wasn’t even sure how close the nearest neighbor was. Not that it mattered; anyone living nearby would be a civilian, and therefore of as much help as a bucket of water in a raging forest fire.
We went in the house, and he guided me into the living room and sat me down on one of the couches. “Your hands are cold,” he said. “How about some more coffee, or tea? I don’t think there’s any hot chocolate.”
“Tea,” I said faintly. Although coffee was my morning drink of choice, I had a feeling if I tried to drink any, I’d be sick to my stomach. Tea seemed a bit more manageable. And maybe while Simon was occupied with making the tea, I could make a run for it.
Even as the thought crossed my mind, I knew I wouldn’t try to flee. For one thing, I very much feared that Simon would be able to easily catch up with me. Also, as much as I hated to admit it, I wanted to hear what he had to say. I still couldn’t quite get my brain to process the revelation that he was Joaquin Escobar’s son, Joaquin Escobar, the dark warlock who’d nearly had all the Arizona clans under his thumb in addition to the Santiagos, the California clan he’d infiltrated first and made his own.
So I sat on the couch like the coward I was, listening as Simon moved around in the kitchen and heated some water for my tea. A century later — or maybe more like five minutes — he came back in with a mug of the same heavy biscuit-colored stoneware as the plates we’d eaten our breakfast on. The tea bag was still in it…Darjeeling from Republic of Tea. Had he left the tea bag there to reassure me that he hadn’t messed with it in some way, given me a potion to make me more cooperative?
“Here you go,” he said, pressing the mug into my chilled fingers.
And you know, it did feel good. I held on to the mug, willing some of its warmth to penetrate the icy fear that seemed to have invaded my entire body. Maybe I could just hold on to the mug but not actually drink from it. “Thanks.”
He smiled and sat down next to me. Too close to me, but I knew I wouldn’t protest. Not yet. I needed more information, and didn’t want to upset him. After seeing that terrible temple, I knew he must be capable of all sorts of horrible things…if provoked.
“My mother is Marisol Valdez, the prima of the Santiagos,” he said. He’d brought a glass of water for himself, and he took a sip of it before he set the glass down on the coffee table and continued, “Of course, for a long time, I didn’t know that. I thought my mother was Olivia Gutierrez, a nunca.”
So that was why he’d told me his name was Simon Gutierrez. It probably had been for most of his life, no matter what his birth certificate might have said. Was his legal last name really Gutierrez, or Valdez? I somehow doubted the prima of the Santiagos would have allowed him to be called Simon Escobar. He’d probably adopted the name once he was squarely on the same dark path as his father.
“A nunca like me,” I murmured.
“No, not like you,” Simon replied, a flash of anger coming and going in his too-black eyes. “Your magic was only hidden, not nonexistent like my sister Olivia’s.”
“I thought you said Olivia was your mother.”
“I said I thought she was my mother.” He went quiet for a moment, expression grim, as though he revisited unpleasant memories he had done his best to shove away somewhere in the dark. “My real mother was pregnant with me when my father died, but she hid the pregnancy from everyone in the clan. When I was born, she smuggled me out, had my half-sister Olivia tell everyone I was her second child with her civilian husband.”
“I’m sorry,” I murmured, and I realized I was. Simon might have been the son of the devil, but no innocent child deserved that kind of treatment.
Simon appeared grateful for my response, because he reached over and took my free hand for a moment. I had to force myself to stay still, but my forbearance seemed to have worked, because he seemed slightly less tense as he went on, “It happened. Problem was, my powers started to show up early, when I was only around nine years old. It soon became clear enough that Olivia and her husband couldn’t handle me. When I was ten, I got sent to live some other relatives in Orange County, a Santiago witch and warlock who were supposed to be pretty powerful in their own right. That went on for about four years. Then they said I was too much to handle, too, and that was when Marisol was forced to step in and take me to live with her.” His mouth twisted. “My mother. Of course, she didn’t come out and tell me the truth right away. I always thought she was detached because I was the problem child no one wanted to deal with, and I did my best to behave myself around her — tried to keep my powers in check, tried to be a good student in the civilian schools she sent me to. But then one day after I’d been living with her for about three years, I overheard her
arguing with her cousin Lucinda about the situation, and that was when I realized what they’d done to me.”
Oh, Goddess. Part of me wanted to give Simon a hug and tell him I was sorry for the way his family had deceived him. But how could I allow myself to feel pity for him when I knew he’d been dabbling in black magic? For that matter, exactly what the hell kind of spells had he been casting out in that shed?
Since I wasn’t sure what to say, I settled for giving him a sympathetic nod, during which I hoped I wore an appropriately understanding expression on my face. It seemed to be enough, because after a brief pause he continued with his story.
“I confronted her, of course. And she broke down in tears and told me she’d only done what she thought was best for me, that although she couldn’t allow herself to get rid of me before I was born, she also knew she couldn’t bear to look at me and see anything of my father in my face. I told her she was weak and wasn’t fit to be prima, and I took my stuff and got out. I’ve been on my own ever since.”
I couldn’t imagine having to live on my own when I was just seventeen. At the same time, I was afraid to ask how he’d gotten by. I supposed he could have stayed in Santiago territory, since his ability to hide his warlock powers would have allowed him to blend in with the civilian population. And I also guessed that he wouldn’t scruple at breaking a few laws to get the things he wanted for himself, whatever he needed to survive. Still, it must have been a terrible and lonely existence.
To cover my confusion, I lifted my mug of tea to my lips and took a large swallow. By that point it was only lukewarm, but it was still soothing enough going down my throat, and it tasted fine. I didn’t think Simon had done anything to it. Since he didn’t seem inclined to say anything else, I knew I needed to speak. So I uttered the first words that came to my mind. “But why me?”
“Because I knew there was something special about you. I’d heard Lucinda and Marisol talk about you, about how it was a shame that you didn’t have any magical gifts when your parents were so powerful. It made me think, and wonder.” His dark eyes fastened on me, and I didn’t know how to look away. “After all, we’re not so very different, are we? You and I — we’re both the children of a prima and a primus pairing. Even at seventeen, I knew I was stronger than anyone in the Santiago clan, stronger even than my birth mother. Why was I that strong, when you didn’t appear to have any powers of your own? It didn’t make sense. So I traveled to de la Paz territory, where no one knew me. It was easy enough to gain access to their libraries — with my own talents hidden, they thought I was just another civilian house cleaner or gardener or pool guy. I was basically invisible to them. I read, and I learned. That part of what I told you was true enough. I did read accounts of people like you, people whose magic came to them much later than it should have. It just needed…waking up.”
“And were you the one who did the waking?” I asked, not sure whether I really wanted to know the answer to that question. Still, I also knew I couldn’t avoid the truth forever.
“Yes,” he replied at once. Gently, he took the mug from my hands so he could clasp them between his own. Those long fingers of his were very strong, and I knew I probably wouldn’t be able to pull away — even if I’d been crazy enough to provoke him so openly. “I made an amulet filled with certain powerful herbs, and I wore it under my shirt when I met you on the Railrunner. If you truly had been a nunca, those herbs wouldn’t have had any effect on you. But because your powers were only dormant, it brought them to life. That was why you began to feel the effects almost immediately, why you were able to talk to ghosts, why you could suddenly teleport. That was all because of me.”
His grip on my hands tightened as he said that last sentence, and the intensity of his gaze only increased. Again unsure as to how I should I respond, I said, “Then I owe you a lot of thanks. I would have gone my whole life without realizing there was magic in me if it hadn’t been for you.”
I’d only been trying to keep him from suspecting how much I wanted to get away, but clearly he took my words as something else altogether. At once he pulled me toward him, kissing me again, his hands sliding up my arms. And once again I experienced that sense of wrongness, of horror. It was far more than just being kissed by someone I really wasn’t attracted to. It was more that the magic in me recognized the power in him as something dark and twisted, something that could never walk in the light.
He held the kiss for a long time, so long that I wondered in some despair what he would do if I began to gag, since I could feel my entire body beginning to recoil, desperately trying to get some kind of space between us. At last, though, he lifted his mouth from mine. “You feel it, Miranda?” he asked. “This is why I came here to be with you. I knew you had powers that were the match of mine. And that’s exactly what we should be — a perfect match, a prima and primus, just like your parents, just like mine. Together, we can do anything, be anything.”
“I’m not a prima,” I protested, my voice shaky. I had to pray he thought its unsteadiness was only due to the effect of his kiss, and not because I was using every amount of will I possessed to prevent myself from either throwing up or fleeing the room. “I’m only a witch.”
He reached over to push a lock of hair away from my cheek. How could his touch be so tender when I knew the soul within had to be black as night? “No, Miranda, you are not only a witch. You’re a witch that the world has never seen before. Don’t you understand? My father proved that it’s easy enough to take a clan for your own, and he was only one man. You and I working together — we would be unstoppable.”
“Oh, no.” I couldn’t bear to be sitting next to him for one second longer. Ignoring the possible consequences, I got to my feet and went to stand over by the fireplace. “You can’t think I would ever do something like that, Simon.”
“Why not?” He rose as well and came toward me, thus rendering my minor retreat basically not a retreat at all. “Look at those asshole Castillos. They treated you like crap, especially Genoveva. Wouldn’t you like to see her begging for your forgiveness, cowering in front of you? That could happen. It would be easy for the two of us.”
“I-I’m not that person,” I said, wishing my protest didn’t sound so pathetic and weak. “I mean, I would be the first person to admit that I’m not a fan of Genoveva Castillo. But that doesn’t mean I want to grind her under my boot heel. And there are people in the clan who are really nice — Rafe’s sister Cat, and his cousin Tony, and the girls who were supposed to be my bridesmaids. I couldn’t possibly hurt any of them.”
For a moment, Simon didn’t reply. He just stood there and watched me, his expression almost unreadable. Then, to my surprise, he smiled. “And this is why I love you, Miranda. You’re a good person. I gave up being a good person a long time ago, mostly because everyone expected the worst of me. Maybe I wouldn’t do that to the Castillos…if you asked nicely.”
“Then please don’t,” I said. My voice was almost a whisper. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to them.”
“Well….”
From the way he stopped after that one syllable, I knew he’d already done something terrible. My gut clenched, but I made myself ask the question. “What did you do, Simon?”
His gaze slid away from me. One hand tapped against the heavy plaster of the mantelpiece. “I’ve done a lot of things, Miranda. Most of them were to make sure I survived. Lately, it’s been to make sure that you and I would be together. Like the cat.”
“‘The cat’?” I echoed, then stared at him, eyes narrowing with suspicion. “You sent that cat when I was staying in Genoveva’s casita?”
“I was the cat,” Simon said, pride clear in his voice. “Unlike your former fiancé, I don’t have any size limitations when it comes to shapeshifting. It was an easy way to keep an eye on you — or to make sure you didn’t have any contacts I didn’t want you to have. Why do you think I scared you into dropping your phone? You were about to call your parents and possibly blow the wh
ole thing.”
There hadn’t been many times in my life when I was rendered speechless, but as I looked at Simon, I couldn’t think of any coherent way to respond. I’d let that damn cat wander all over the casita. Had it ever seen me when I was getting out of the shower? I didn’t think so — I was fairly sure I’d always kept the bathroom door closed — but just the mere suspicion that Simon might have already seen me naked was enough to make me feel nauseated all over again. Then I realized his last sentence didn’t even make sense. “If you didn’t want me contacting my parents, then why that whole production of taking me to Walmart so I could buy a new phone? My mother and I have been talking and texting just fine for the past few days!”
His mouth curved into a smirk. “Have you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You thought you were calling your mother’s number. In reality, all your calls and texts were going straight to my phone. I was the one responding, not your mother.”
This revelation was so astonishing that again I could only stare at him, flabbergasted and outraged at the same time. “But — ”
“But nothing. It was a simple little spell, really, even the times when I had to disguise my voice to fool you into thinking you were talking to your mother. I needed to make sure your parents wouldn’t come here to Santa Fe and stir up any trouble. If you’d really been in contact with your mother and told her what you told me, you know she and your father would have been here in a heartbeat — literally, since of course they don’t have to wait to take a plane like most people would.”
This was all insane. Or rather, Simon had to be insane. I wouldn’t argue that the Santiagos had done a piss-poor job of managing the cuckoo that had been dumped in their nest, but on the other hand, no sane person would have gone to all these machinations just to get close to one particular woman, no matter how powerful her magic might be. All this plotting and planning, all to make sure I would be his. Unfortunately, in all that scheming, he’d left out the most important part of the equation.
The Witches of Canyon Road, Books 1-3 Page 47
