Darktide

by Christine Pope

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, but it appeared that Luz didn’t want my condolences, because she continued without missing a beat.

  “Everything is still something of a mess, but a few of the cousins had started to organize her work as best they could, had at least begun to separate her books and notes into categories. Among all that I found an account from before our clan even settled here in Arizona, back when they were still living in Sonora, down in Mexico.”

  “Go on,” I told her, going over to one of the armchairs that faced the couch where Brandon and Lucinda sat so I could take a seat. This sounded as if it might take a while.

  “It seems that the prima of the de la Pazes was being hounded by a brujo — that’s a warlock, but a dark one.”

  “You mean like Joaquin Escobar?” I asked dryly, and Luz gave a faint chuckle.

  “Yes, this man sounded as if he was cut from the same cloth. Because he was calling up dark spirits and invoking the very blackest of spells, the prima was having a difficult time keeping her people safe. She reached out to the prima of a clan in a neighboring province, and asked if there was anything she knew of that might help. Well, it turns out that the other prima and her clan were also being tormented by this same brujo, so they decided the best thing for them to do was to join forces.”

  “And how did they manage to do that?”

  Connor hadn’t sat down, and instead was leaning up against the wall a few feet from me. His eyebrows were getting a definite workout, but it wasn’t like I could interrupt my conversation with Luz to give him a blow-by-blow. That discussion would have to wait until after I was done with the call. Lucinda and Brandon also looked intrigued, but they seemed content to remain silent while I was talking.

  “They reached deep into their souls and tapped into their prima powers, then brought them forth. Those powers were described as being visible, like a glowing halo that surrounded the two of them. And they made those powers join. When the brujo came against them, he was utterly destroyed.”

  “Destroyed how?” Not that this particular fate didn’t sound like something Joaquin Escobar richly deserved, but I wanted a little more detail.

  “According to the account I read, when he tried to use his dark powers to fight against their light, his own black spells rebounded on him, and he burned to dust where he stood.”

  That was something I’d like to see…especially if it was happening to Mr. Escobar. A fiery death would suit him, although even a painful demise via immolation wouldn’t be enough to atone for all the human misery he’d caused. “Well, that seems promising,” I said, trying not to sound too hopeful. After all, I didn’t know anything about those two long-ago primas, how powerful they’d been. While all of the women who led their clans were by necessity the strongest and the most suited to that role, it still didn’t mean they were all equal. I was fairly strong, but what made me really strong was my bond with Connor. On my own, I was pretty sure Luz’s mother Maya could have easily beaten me.

  Or Great-Aunt Ruby, come to think of it. That woman had been a powerhouse.

  “I think it’s more than ‘promising,’” Luz told me. Her tone wasn’t exactly waspish, but I could tell that she’d been expecting a bit more enthusiasm. “Also, that was only two primas working together. With you and Connor and me joined, I think we’d be able to defeat Joaquin Escobar, even as powerful as he is.”

  “You might be right. But I need to talk it over with him.”

  “Of course. I wouldn’t delay too long, though. We still don’t know what’s happening to Levi.”

  No, we didn’t. He might as well be on another planet for all the information we had. Right then I could’ve used another of Caitlin’s visions, but unfortunately, those came as the universe willed, and not when I really needed them. “I’ll get back to you within the hour,” I promised.

  “I’ll be waiting for your call.”

  She ended the call then, and I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked over at Connor. “We need to talk.”

  “I kind of got that impression,” he said, and moved away from the wall where he’d been leaning.

  “Sorry,” I told Brandon and Lucinda. “This is prima and primus stuff. Connor and I need to get going.”

  “It’s fine,” Lucinda said. “I hope it works — whatever you come up with, that is.”

  “Me too,” I replied.

  We made our goodbyes, and then Connor and I headed back up the hill to our house. I supposed we could have just teleported ourselves from the landing, since no one was around to see what we were doing, but it felt good to walk, felt good to have the reassuring warmth of the sun surrounding us as we made our way along Jerome’s steep streets. Once we were back inside the house, I said, “Luz thinks she has a way for us to fight Escobar.”

  “So I figured. What is it?”

  I related the story she’d told me. Connor listened intently, a faint frown puckering his eyebrows. When I was done, he said, “And you really think that’s going to work?”

  “Luz seems to think so. It worked in the past.”

  He didn’t reply right away, which made me think he was trying come up with a tactful way to tell me that second- or third-hand accounts of something that had to have happened a couple of hundred years ago might not be the most reliable things to be basing our strategy on. While I couldn’t disagree with that opinion, I also knew we didn’t have a lot of options. I certainly hadn’t come up with anything better.

  “We can do a test run,” I said. “That is, let’s go to Luz’s house, see if we can even make this combining powers thing work. We don’t need to attack anyone with it, but we have to at least see if the three of us can get our powers to mesh. Her story was about two primas working together, so I don’t know what’s going to happen when we add you to the mix.”

  “You make me sound like an ingredient,” Connor remarked, but I could tell from the way a corner of his mouth twitched that he was only teasing me.

  “We’re all ingredients in a super-powerful mix,” I replied. “We just have to make sure it’s a mix that works.”

  “You’re right. Go ahead and call Luz, let her know we’ll be right down.”

  I honestly hadn’t been expecting too much of an argument with him, but I was still relieved to know he was willing to get started right away. But then, what choice did we have? The clock was ticking for Levi.

  After extracting my phone from my pocket, I pulled up my list of recent calls and pushed the phone icon next to Luz’s number. Her phone barely rang once before she answered.

  “Angela?”

  “We want to try this. We’ll come down to your place and do a test run, see if we really can get all our powers to combine.”

  “Oh, good,” she said, the relief in her voice obvious. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours, then.”

  “No,” I replied with a grin, even though I knew she couldn’t see it. “We’ll be there in a minute.”

  “What — ”

  “I’ll explain when we get there. Expect us in your living room.”

  I ended the call there, even as Connor shook his head. “You do like to mess with people, don’t you?”

  “I’m not ‘messing,’” I protested. “I just figured it would be easier to explain once we were there.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Whatever.”

  We didn’t bother with the bickering after that, however. Moving as one, we stepped toward each other, then reached out to join hands. Luckily, we’d spent enough time in Luz’s living room that we knew it well enough, which made it an ideal destination. I’d barely closed my eyes before the warm glow surrounded us and I heard Luz’s shocked exclamation.

  “¡Madre de díos!”

  Very rarely did I hear her speak any Spanish, so I knew we must have really startled her. I opened my eyes to see her standing next to the coffee table, a tray with a pitcher of iced tea and three glasses waiting on the table. I had the impression that if we’d arrived just a
second or two earlier, she would have dropped the whole thing.

  “I told you we’d be right over.”

  Connor gave me a reproving look, even as he summoned one of his most charming smiles and said, “We didn’t mean to startle you, Luz. Angela and I have figured out a way to exploit a whole bunch of new magical talents, among them teleportation.”

  “Like Levi,” I said. “Well, except better, because we can go a lot farther than he could. We figured it would be better to travel here this way, since it would save us a few hours.”

  “I — I suppose you’re right.” She put one hand up to her forehead, although she tried to disguise the movement by pretending to brush at a nonexistent stray strand of hair. Then she straightened, and nodded slightly. “But this is good. If you’ve already begun exploring how to expand your powers and strengthen them, then I’m sure we will be able to do this.”

  “I hope so,” Connor said. He looked through the double doors that opened into a wide hallway, but there wasn’t anything much to see. “Are we alone?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “David’s at work, and of course Alicia is down in Tucson at school.” A slight frown creased her forehead. “What does it matter?”

  “It probably doesn’t,” Connor said. “But just in case any of this backfires, it will probably help that no one else is around.”

  I hadn’t even thought of that. Probably I should have, since we were all working with forces we still didn’t entirely understand. If our powers got out of control somehow, of course it would be better for there not to be any innocent bystanders.

  Luz didn’t appear entirely reassured, but I noticed that she didn’t try to argue with him. Instead, she stepped closer to the two of us. “Then I suppose we might as well give this a try.”

  “What do we have to do?” I asked.

  “From what I read, it seems that we each need to visualize our power as a separate force, something we can call forth from within ourselves. I suppose in a way that’s true, because I know I felt the prima power come to me when my mother passed, felt a different kind of energy than the talents I’d possessed before then. Was it the same for you, Angela?”

  I nodded. “Yes. It felt almost…alive…for lack of a better term.” A quick glance up at Connor told me that he didn’t much like this topic of conversation. Of course I knew why — he and I had both been instrumental in his brother’s death. Not that we’d had a choice, since Damon had invoked the dark magic of the skinwalker, his soul lost and hungry, seeking more and more victims, but Connor and I had purposely avoided the subject since then. Why bring up old wounds?

  However, I had to ask. “What about you, Connor?”

  “Maybe not exactly the same,” he replied, reluctance clear in his voice. “But yeah, I could feel it come to me. I didn’t much like the feeling, but I’ve learned to work with it since then.”

  His response made me think there had to be something fundamentally different about primus energy, although I didn’t know how to ask without making him even more uncomfortable. Anyway, I’d never felt anything hostile or strange about his talent during those times when we’d joined, so I had to assume it would be safe enough for Luz to also combine her powers with ours.

  “Okay,” I said, hoping I sounded confident and in command, and not worried that we were a bunch of kids playing with dynamite, “then I guess we all need to try summoning our energy now.”

  Luz nodded, then closed her eyes and pulled in a breath. Still looking like he’d rather be almost anywhere else, Connor did the same. And it was time for me to breathe in as well, to reach within and ask the energy that had been part of me ever since my Great-Aunt Ruby’s death to come forth and show itself.

  It wasn’t exactly that I couldn’t feel it anymore. The power was there, ready for me to use it as necessary. However, when I opened my eyes, I saw it floating before me, a softly glowing orb of golden-white light. And there was Luz’s as well, hers tinged more bluish than gold. Connor’s orb was closer to my color, although I noticed flickers of red pulsing through it from time to time.

  I had no idea what the color variations meant — if they meant anything at all. Possibly they were a reflection of our individual auras, although since I couldn’t see people’s auras, that didn’t help much. A question to be left aside for a different day. We had more pressing matters to attend to.

  “Good,” Luz said, her voice a low murmur, as if she was worried that speaking too loudly would somehow make the orbs disappear. “Now we have to see if they will meld.”

  “Okay,” I replied, also keeping my voice down. Since I wasn’t sure how else to do it, I made myself think of the orb, of my precious prima power, and silently told it to move toward the others so they might become one.

  It shifted slightly, then went toward Connor’s orb. Not so strange, I supposed, since we’d already combined our energies on more than one occasion. The two orbs blended, growing larger and brighter as they did so. At the same time, I thought I could feel the touch of Connor’s mind on mine, although I couldn’t make out any individual thoughts. Just a sense of his presence, familiar and reassuring, even though the current situation was anything but.

  Then Luz’s orb came toward the one made up of Connor’s and my energies, and was somehow swallowed by it. I could feel her as well, although not as distinct as my husband, just enough to sense something of her worry, her fear.

  “That’s good,” I said, still speaking softly. “Now we need to see if we can do something with it.”

  “What about Alex’s field of protection?” Luz asked. “That’s something I can’t manage on my own, but it would be helpful.”

  That sounded like a good idea. I cast a quick glance at Connor to see if he agreed with her suggestion, and he nodded.

  “Then let’s imagine it,” I said. “Surrounding all of us, protecting everything within.”

  Which I did, thinking of that miraculous shimmering bubble Luz’s son was able to cast, and how it would keep us all safe. She and Connor obviously did the same thing, because at once the field leapt into life all around us, slightly distorting our view of the room, but still clear enough that we could see everything — the dark leather couches, the Saltillo tile on the floor, the worn Persian rug.

  This bubble seemed bigger than the ones Alex could cast, taking up nearly the entire space. I also got the impression that absolutely nothing could get through it, a thought that reassured me…until I realized none of us were sure we’d even be able to retain our powers around Joaquin Escobar’s null field.

  As soon as that notion popped into my head, the bubble disappeared, and immediately afterward, my little glowing orb basically popped back inside me. I pushed out a breath, then shook my head. “Sorry about that,” I said. “I let my concentration slip.”

  “It’s all right,” Connor said. As he spoke, both his and Luz’s orbs also retreated, disappearing within their bodies. “The important thing is that we were able to make it work.”

  Luz’s dark eyes were wide. She put one hand to her chest, as though attempting to feel the power that had returned within her. “It was extraordinary. Even after reading the account I found, I still wasn’t sure it was possible to join power in such a way. And to evoke a gift that none of us had before this — well, I think we have a very good chance to take on Joaquin Escobar. The only real question is how.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” I said. Connor shot me an inquiring look, and I continued, “I don’t think it’s a good idea to go in magical guns blazing, so to speak. A frontal assault isn’t necessarily going to take him out. What I was thinking was that we should hit him where it hurts — by taking away his powers.”

  “Good one, Angela,” Connor said. Although he didn’t move any closer to me, I could still sense the warmth of his approval from where I stood. “It makes sense. Once you remove Escobar’s power, then Levi is free to jump in and help us out — and I have to think that any Santiagos around who were under his control would
also come to our aid. Even if he tried to fight back physically, he’d be way outnumbered.”

  “And of course this is a thing you’ve done before.” Luz nodded, eyes narrowing slightly as she seemed to think it through. “Because you know what it is to take someone’s powers from them, there won’t be any need to guess, to feel your way through it. You can act decisively.”

  “Well, that’s the theory,” I remarked, glad that they both seemed to be in agreement with my plan and didn’t want to discuss throwing fire bolts or something. “I mean, based on what Lucinda told me, there’s a very good chance that Escobar’s null field will knock us all out.”

  “You don’t know that for sure,” Connor said. “This thing we just did, combining all our powers — that’s something different. We’ve never faced off directly against him. There’s just as good a chance that null energy can’t overcome prima energy.”

  “It did with Beatriz Santiago,” I pointed out. I hated to be a buzzkill, but I knew we needed to go into this with our eyes open.

  “Whose powers were weak, who’d spent the greater part of twenty years in a wheelchair,” Luz said. “I don’t believe she had the ability to fight back like we do. And although Simón Santiago was a powerful warlock, he was not a primus. We all know that our energy is different from that of the other witches and warlocks in our clans. And believe me, I’ve also combed through Consuelo’s papers to see if I could find anything about a null being able to overpower a prima. While I found accounts of those with null powers, there was not a single story about them trying to take over a clan, which one would think was something a null might do, if he or she wielded that much power. So I have a feeling that a null’s talent isn’t enough to neutralize a prima, or a primus.”

  A feeling. I knew I should be somewhat relieved that she’d found at least a little anecdotal evidence to suggest that Joaquin Escobar’s talent wasn’t enough to take us out. Still, I would have felt better if I’d been able to know for sure that he couldn’t touch us.