Darktide

by Christine Pope

  “They’ll be over in a few minutes,” Connor said as he set his phone down on the coffee table. “I figured you probably didn’t want to go over to Trish’s house.”

  Good call. Right then my legs felt like rubber, so even walking a block would have been a chore. Luckily, the house was clean enough for company — at least the public parts of it, like the living room and the guest bath just down the hall.

  “Not really,” I told him. “I’m really not looking forward to this. You know Boyd is going to rip us a new one for even daring to go to Escobar’s house.”

  “Well, Boyd isn’t the prima,” Connor said reasonably. “Or the primus. He’s entitled to his opinion, but that doesn’t mean we have to listen to it. And I can see you beating yourself up, so I’m going to tell you again — this was as much Luz’s idea as it was ours. It wasn’t like she was forced into it. Of course I feel terrible, because Luz was an amazing woman, and she didn’t deserve what Escobar did to her. But don’t you dare try to tell yourself her death was your fault, because it wasn’t. There’s only one person to blame, and that person isn’t you.”

  I leaned my head on his shoulder, treasuring that stolen moment of intimacy, needing to feel his strength. Connor always had been my rock. With him there to hold me up, I knew — well, I didn’t know if it was going to be okay, but I did know that we’d somehow manage to get through this.

  The doorbell rang, and he gently slid out and away from me, then got up and went to answer the door. Outside, as expected, were Tricia, Boyd, and Allegra. Tears glittered in Tricia’s blue eyes.

  Oh, no.

  “Caitlin just called me as we were walking over,” she said as she came inside. “How could this have happened?”

  “Luz was a very brave woman,” Connor said. Once the other two elders were also standing in the foyer, he closed the front door. “Come into the living room. We need to talk.”

  “I should say so.” Boyd almost always looked irritated about something, but right then, with his heavy eyebrows knitted together and his thin-lipped mouth pressed tight, he appeared on the verge of an apoplectic fit. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  For some perverse reason, his anger made a little of my sorrow recede. Maybe it was only that fighting with Boyd might help to make me forget how much it hurt to know that Luz was gone. “We were thinking of rescuing Levi,” I shot back. “None of us planned for this to happen. We thought we would be safe.”

  Allegra stepped forward, silver bangles clinking together as she raised both her hands. “Please. There is no point in fighting about this, not when the damage has already been done. We all know that Angela and Connor would only act for the good of the clan.”

  Boyd looked almost startled, as if he hadn’t really thought Allegra would intercede. That made two of us; usually she was the elder who hung back, who didn’t speak until the other two had already spoken. But maybe she’d realized that Tricia was in no shape to be arguing with Boyd, so she’d stepped in.

  “Unless you thought it was a good idea to leave Levi in Joaquin Escobar’s hands, that is,” Connor remarked, and Boyd’s scowl deepened to a ferocious level.

  “I never said it was good idea,” he retorted. Jamming his hands in his jeans pocket, he continued, “I only said that, valuable as Levi is to this clan, he isn’t as valuable as you two. What happened to Luz only proved my point. What if that had been you?”

  Almost against my will, my hand moved toward my stomach. Boyd was locked eye to eye with Connor, and Tricia was still holding back tears, so I didn’t think either of them noticed. But Allegra saw my gesture, and tilted her head to one side as she gave me a considering look. Since I couldn’t take back the gesture, I scratched the side of my belly, praying she would only think I’d had an itch. I doubted the subterfuge worked, though. Allegra Moss might cultivate the image of a distracted hippie-dippy witch, but there was a shrewd mind under all the jewelry and gypsy skirts and crazy graying hair.

  “It wasn’t us,” Connor said. His voice was calm, but I could hear the tension in it. More than once he’d told me that he’d practically had to sit on his hands to prevent himself from socking Boyd in the jaw, and I really couldn’t blame him. Boyd tended to have that effect on people. “But just because it wasn’t, doesn’t make Luz’s loss any less difficult.”

  “But the transition went all right?” Tricia asked. Her eyes still looked far too bright, but her voice was steady enough.

  “Yes,” I replied. Since everyone else was standing, it felt strange for me to remain seated on the couch. I stood up and straightened my shirt, and prayed that Allegra wouldn’t feel the need to start inspecting my midsection. “Zoe is now the prima of the de la Paz clan. She’s a tough girl. She’ll be able to handle it.”

  “Good thing she’s married to a McAllister,” Boyd said. “Evan’s a steady kid. Even so….”

  “Even so, Zoe is new to all this, and she has a baby,” I said. “Which means I’m not sure how much help she’s going to be able to give us.”

  Allegra’s watery blue eyes blinked behind the wire-framed glasses she wore. “How much help do we need? After all, you did get Levi back.”

  “Yes,” Connor said. “But I doubt Escobar’s going to take that lying down. Also, I’m not sure if he knows that Luz is dead. I thought — I think we all thought — that she’d only been knocked out. It wasn’t until we got her back to her house that we realized the worst had happened.”

  “Even if he didn’t know right away, he probably knows now.” I spoke with certainty, although I wasn’t sure why. From what I’d been able to tell, Joaquin Escobar didn’t seem to be a mind reader, but he sure had an uncanny ability to know what was going on in both the McAllister and the de la Paz clans. “Which means he knows that the de la Pazes are now headed by an extremely inexperienced prima. That can’t be good.”

  Tricia pushed back a lock of flaming red hair, tucking it behind her ear. “No, it’s not. But unfortunately, I’m not sure how much we can do about it. We already have asked everyone in the clan here to be careful — to not stay out of Jerome too late, to try not to go outside the town alone. I’m sure the de la Pazes are doing the same…and the Wilcoxes, of course,” she added, glancing over at Connor. “But how much good will it do? They were still able to get Levi.”

  “Because they set a deliberate trap for him,” I said. Briefly, I explained how we had encountered the Ludlow prima-in-waiting at Joaquin Escobar’s house, and how Levi had told us they’d intended him for her consort. “I don’t think any of us are that valuable to them. At least now we’re wise to their game.”

  “Well, that’s just wonderful news,” Boyd grumbled. “So now we have to worry about the Ludlows, too?”

  I glanced over at Connor, and he shrugged very slightly. “We don’t know for sure. They could have cut their losses and backed out, or they could be working with Escobar to figure out another way to steal Levi. Problem is, we know next to nothing about their clan, except that there are a lot of them. Whether any of them have the kind of magical skills to pull something like that off — who knows?”

  “One thing I could tell,” Connor put in. “The Ludlow prima-in-waiting — she was very clearly there of her own volition, and working with Escobar. I didn’t see any sign of mind control with her, whereas it was pretty obvious that Marisol, the Santiago prima, was foggy and out of it. She’s there because Escobar is keeping a firm grip on her head.”

  A silence fell, during which the elders all seemed to share a quick look, although nothing constructive seemed to come of it. I had to wonder then why Escobar was able to control Marisol so easily, when Connor and I seemed, if not impervious to his various powers, then at least strong enough that they didn’t have much effect on us. Was it because of the bond that we shared, or was it only that he’d grabbed Marisol right after the prima powers came to her, before she’d had any chance to learn how to use them?

  I wasn’t sure if we’d ever get the answer to that question.
<
br />   “They may be an unknown quantity, but it’s pretty clear the Ludlows are no friends of any of the Arizona witch clans,” Tricia said. “Otherwise, they would have come to us and told us about Joaquin Escobar’s plans. We’ll just have to treat them as another hostile clan, even if we’re still not sure whether they’re going to continue actively working with Escobar and the Santiagos.”

  “Well, I doubt any of us were planning any trips to the Bay Area, so it should be pretty easy to avoid them,” Connor remarked.

  “Unless they bring the fight here,” I said. “That Ludlow prima-in-waiting — she looked pretty pissed off. She might be able to talk her own prima or her clan elders or her parents or whoever is calling the shots into continuing to go after Levi.”

  Connor shook his head. “Well, then, unless we’re planning to lock him up in a lead-lined bunker or something, I don’t know how we can keep Levi completely safe.”

  “We conjured that protective field like Alex’s,” I said. “Why don’t we try casting that same spell so it encases his whole apartment? He’d be stuck inside, but he would be safe.”

  “I’m not sure how well that would work,” Tricia pointed out. As Alex’s mother-in-law, she probably had a better idea than most how his particular gift functioned. “The field emanates outward from the spell-caster, and it moves with him, too. If you and Connor cast the spell together, then it’ll stay with you, move with you. Levi would have to be the one to do it if it’s going to work at all.”

  “Well, he should be able to,” I told her. “He’s already shown that he can do almost anything, magic-wise, so it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Again, he’d have to stay in his flat, because even in Jerome, someone walking down the street encased in a big shimmery bubble is going to draw too much attention, but better house arrest than getting kidnapped all over again.”

  “We’ll go talk to him about it,” Boyd said, in tones that brooked no argument. “You and Connor have done enough today.”

  I wanted to tell Boyd that I was the prima and I could do as I damn well pleased…but I realized what I wanted to do was stay home and pretend this day had never happened. If he wanted to take Allegra and Tricia with him and tell Levi he was basically stuck at home until all this blew over, then he was welcome to the task. “All right,” I replied, causing my husband to look at me with lifted brows, as though wondering why I hadn’t tried to argue the point. “You talk to Levi, and Connor and I will stay here. Tomorrow…well, I guess we’ll worry about tomorrow when it comes.”

  “A very good idea,” Allegra said. “You’ve had a very trying time, and you need to take care of herself.” For just the briefest second, her gaze slid toward my midsection, but, thank the Goddess, she didn’t say anything more than that.

  And while I knew that maybe I should be talking to Zoe, letting her know that the McAllister clan would be here for her, no matter what, I just didn’t have the energy. Evan was with her, probably telling her the same thing. Right then, she needed to be with her family. I’d be more than happy to give her any assistance I could, but Allegra was right about one thing. I needed to be more mindful of the tiny life I carried within me. If that meant I needed to put my feet up, have Connor bring me a lemonade, and push all my worries aside for a few minutes or an hour, so be it.

  Past experience had taught me that those worries — and the people causing them — weren’t going anywhere.

  18

  Caitlin Trujillo

  This whole thing had to be a nightmare. Her brain just couldn’t accept the reality of what Alex, pale under his dark skin, jaw set in an attempt to hold back his tears, had just told her — that his mother was dead, and at Joaquin Escobar’s hands. There was more, about Levi’s kidnapping and eventual rescue, but Caitlin knew she’d have to wait to absorb all those details. What mattered was that Luz was gone, and that Zoe was now in charge of the de la Paz clan. Zoe, who might have grown up a bit over the past few years, and yet seemed to be forever etched in Caitlin’s mind the way she’d first seen her — with a streak of pink in her long dark hair, wearing Doc Martens, and a T-shirt from Hot Topic, and a pair of the world’s skinniest jeans.

  How could any of this be happening?

  They’d driven over to Luz’s house as soon as they got the call from Evan, Alex silent and grim-faced, clutching the steering wheel so tightly that Caitlin could clearly see his knuckles standing out white against his brown skin. When they’d gotten there, they spotted the Mercedes that belonged to David, Alex’s father, parked in the driveway, next to an ambulance.

  Seeing the ambulance brought the whole thing home to Caitlin in a way that no overheard phone conversation could. Its presence startled her for a moment, since she didn’t think the clan would have brought in outside medical help for something like this. Then she realized that the de la Pazes probably had EMTs among them, just like they had doctors and lawyers and insurance adjusters and anything else that helped the family blend in with regular civilian society.

  Because there was no room in the driveway, they parked on the street and went up the front walk, Alex gripping Caitlin’s hand the whole time. She wished she could give him some words of comfort, some wisdom to help guide him through this, but she didn’t know what the hell she was supposed to say. You weren’t supposed to lose your mother when you were in your late twenties.

  A wave of guilt went over her then, that they’d delayed having kids until Caitlin felt she could manage the interruption in her writing career. She should have just sucked it up and given Luz at least one grandchild. It was an irrational thought, she knew, because Alex’s older brother Diego and his wife Letty had a daughter already, and another child on the way. They must be driving up to Scottsdale, too, but since they lived on a vineyard somewhere out near Bisbee, it was going to take them even longer to get here.

  Alex didn’t bother to knock on the front door, but let himself in. A murmur of voices came from the living room, and so the two of them headed that way, went in to discover Zoe and Evan talking quietly to Alex’s father, who looked as if he’d just aged ten years, his strong, even features etched with sorrow. Standing off to one side next to a gurney was a man around thirty, movie-star handsome like Alex, wearing an EMT’s uniform. Caitlin wanted to kick herself for not remembering the EMT’s name, but really, there were so many de la Pazes, it was almost impossible to keep them all straight, especially the members of the family who lived here in the Phoenix area rather than down in Tucson where she and Alex had made their home.

  At once the conversation died away. David opened his arms, and Alex went into them, an Alex Caitlin had never seen before, lost and frightened, tears glittering in his dark eyes. Oh, he’d been upset when his grandmother Maya passed away, but it was a very different thing to lose your own mother. She didn’t even want to think about that, to think about what her life would be like if she lost Tricia so soon.

  Evan touched Zoe’s arm, as if to excuse himself, then came over to Caitlin. “Did you call your mother?”

  “Yes, as we were driving over.” It felt hard to get the words out, to push them past the thickness in her throat. “She’ll let the elders know, and I suppose the news will start to spread. I just — I just can’t — ” She had to stop herself there, partly because the de la Paz EMT standing by the gurney shifted slightly, and she was able to catch a glimpse of Luz lying on the sofa, a knitted throw covering her up to her chin.

  Her cousin seemed to have noticed the source of her distraction, because Evan’s gaze flickered in that direction before he returned his attention to her. “I know. This whole thing is a nightmare.”

  “How’s Zoe?” Caitlin murmured, watching as the new prima walked over to David and Alex. Their brief, fierce embrace over, father and son were now talking in low tones.

  “About as well as can be expected.” Evan paused and pushed at the lock of dark red hair that always managed to fall over his forehead. Caitlin remembered all too well how some of their more distant cousins used
to go all goo-goo-eyed whenever he did that. “She’ll hold up because she has to, but just between you and me, this Escobar thing has me scared shitless. How could he manage to kill a prima?”

  “Primas are mortal, just like everyone else,” Caitlin said sadly, right before she realized that probably wasn’t a very diplomatic thing to tell someone whose wife had just become prima. “What did Angela and Connor say?”

  “Not a lot. They told us that they’d come up with a way to combine their powers, and so they can use types of magic they really hadn’t been able to access before. They thought that was probably how they’d managed to survive, even as Escobar’s attack killed Luz.”

  That was something Caitlin didn’t know much about, but then, she’d been kind of out of the loop down in Tucson. And, looking at everything that was going on, she thought that was a good thing. Bad enough to get called in to investigate that creepy apartment, where she’d had that terrible vision of Levi being hauled away down the stairs. Yes, it sounded as if he’d been rescued in the end, but still….

  Her phone buzzed right then, vibrating away in her purse. Caitlin was inclined to ignore it — she thought it might be rude to answer a call or a text while Alex and David and Zoe were so obviously grieving — but on the other hand, if it was her mother calling back, Caitlin would feel terrible about missing the call.

  “I should probably get that,” she said apologetically. “It might be my mother.”

  “It’s fine,” Evan replied. He offered her a half-sympathetic, half-encouraging smile before going back over to the little group so he could put his arm around Zoe, hold her close.

  Caitlin pulled her phone out of her purse, saw that it was a text she’d missed, not a phone call. She didn’t recognize the number, although she thought it might be a California area code.