Darktide

by Christine Pope

  A thin smile. “Oh, they know where to find me.”

  “I’ll need my phone. It’s on the kitchen counter.”

  Still wearing that mocking smile, Escobar gestured toward the French doors that opened on the kitchen. Margot went inside, all too aware of the weight of his gaze on her, the cold-eyed scrutiny of his followers, the fear and worry on the faces of the children. She cursed herself for being so helpless, even while she knew deep down that there was nothing she could have done to stop this.

  Swallowing, she picked up the phone and began to write a text.

  21

  Angela

  We reappeared on a quiet, tree-lined street, right next to the thick adobe wall I’d seen on Google Street View. From what I could see, there didn’t seem to be much traffic here, whether by car or on foot. Yes, I heard the faint, hushed murmur of cars off in the distance, but where we stood, we might as well have been the only people around.

  Not for very long, though. A few yards away, a heavy gate of age-darkened wood swung outward, and a dark-haired man who looked as if he might be somewhere in his late thirties or early forties peered out at us. “You are Angela and Connor Wilcox?”

  We nodded. I didn’t bother to correct the stranger, to tell him that I was going by a hyphenate these days. Judging by the no-nonsense set of his mouth, I guessed such a pronouncement wouldn’t go over very well.

  “This way,” he said, gesturing for us to come inside the gate.

  Connor glanced down at me, brows lifting slightly, and I shrugged. This was what we had come here for. There was something somewhat ominous about both the high walls that surrounded the property before us and the utter quiet of the street where we stood, but we really didn’t have much choice.

  I moved first, Connor following a pace behind me. As I passed through the gate, I could see that the grounds of the property were even more extensive than I’d thought, and must take up almost an entire city block. Huge cottonwoods, their leaves a bright, fresh green, towered overhead. The grass still looked somewhat patchy, but I remembered that Santa Fe was a good deal colder than Jerome, and could get snow even later than Flagstaff some years.

  Ahead was an enormous house built in the old hacienda style, with thick adobe walls from which jutted exposed beams. A porch made of the same age-darkened wood as the gate dominated the front of the building, and on that porch were flowers beginning to bloom in pots — snapdragons and pansies and bright blue lobelia. Off to one side I spotted a smaller house, not much more than a cottage. A casita, I guessed.

  “She’s waiting for you in the living room,” the man said as he led us up the steps to the front porch. “I am Juan Castillo, by the way — Isabel’s oldest son.”

  “It’s very nice to meet you,” I said politely, while Connor murmured something along those same lines.

  “But the circumstances are not so nice, are they? Even here in Santa Fe we’ve heard something of the problems in California.”

  Maybe that was a good sign. If Isabel Castillo already knew about all the mayhem Joaquin Escobar had been up to, then I wouldn’t have to waste valuable time explaining the situation. On the other hand, if the Castillos knew what was going on, why hadn’t they reached out to help us?

  I nodded, unsure as to how I should respond. Actually, I was glad I hadn’t, because in the next moment, Juan had guided us into a large room with lofty ceilings, more exposed beams, and an enormous wrought iron chandelier hanging down in the center of the space. Although all the windows were open, somehow it still felt dark and oppressive in there, possibly because of the heavy antique furniture, or the thick tapestry drapes that framed each of those windows.

  Sitting in a large carved chair placed directly in front of the enormous stone hearth was a woman. Her dark hair was swept up into a complicated knot at the back of her head, and she wore a dead-simple long-sleeved black sheath dress with a huge silver and coral cross hanging in the center of her chest. As we approached, she rose from the chair and extended a hand.

  I retained just enough presence of mind to take it, although some part of me wanted to curtsey, so queenly was her attitude. Connor did the same after me; she gave him a quick glance up and down, then smiled slightly, although I couldn’t begin to guess whether she’d done so because she found him pleasing, or because his hastily put together “good” outfit made him look so ill at ease.

  “Welcome, Angela, Connor,” the woman said. “I am Isabel Castillo — although I’m sure you’ve already guessed that. Although I know why you are here, I thought it might be a good idea to hear it from your mouths.”

  From the way Connor’s eyes narrowed slightly, I could tell he didn’t much care for these sorts of games. However, he knew the stakes here as well as I did. He wasn’t about to do or say anything that might jeopardize our mission. “Joaquin Escobar, a dark warlock from El Salvador, has taken over the Santiago clan, and now he’s doing his best to forge an alliance with the Ludlows in northern California. Both those clans are large and powerful. Together — especially led by someone like Escobar — they could be a very real threat to everyone, not just the Arizona clans.”

  “Ah,” Isabel said. “I assume you’ve tried to make peace with this man?”

  “We don’t much like his terms,” I told her. “Apparently the prima-in-waiting of the Ludlows wants one of our clan members for her consort, even though he’s already in a relationship with someone else. There’s no way we’re going to hand over one of our own just so some Ludlow witch can get the boy toy of her choice.”

  Isabel’s mouth quirked. She wore a dark brick-colored lipstick, although it didn’t seem as if she had any other makeup on, except mascara. Then again, she didn’t need it. In her features, I could see the proud, clean bones of the conquistadors who must have been her distant ancestors. She was still very beautiful, the kind of beauty that only seemed to become more refined with age, even though I guessed she must be at least in her late fifties, but more likely her early sixties, judging by her son’s apparent age. “You speak very plainly, Angela. And while I can understand that this man Escobar has caused trouble for you and your clan, I am not quite sure what you expect from us. He has not approached us in any way, hasn’t come anywhere near our territory. If he had, I would know.”

  “No, he’s been a little busy making our lives hell,” Connor said, his tone wry. “But if he gets his way, manages to do to the McAllisters and the de la Pazes and the Wilcoxes what he’s already done to the Santiagos, then he’s going to be camped right on your doorstep. I’m not sure you’re going to like that very much.”

  “Most likely not.” Isabel stepped away from us, moved to one of the windows so she could gaze out into her expansive garden. What she was looking for, I wasn’t quite sure. Maybe she just wanted to reassure herself that all was still calm in her corner of the world. “What he has done goes against all that we witches are taught. We are supposed to be content in our clans, in the territory that our families call home. To take that which belongs to another, to seize lands which aren’t yours — it is a terrible thing. But we are also taught that wars among witch-kind are a terrible thing as well, and something to be avoided.”

  “Believe me, we would have preferred to avoid all this,” I said. “Unfortunately, it ended up in our laps whether we wanted it or not. Now all we can do is figure out how to survive. We believe the same things you do, Isabel. But those beliefs aren’t what’s going to save us. It’s having enough people on our side that Joaquin Escobar won’t have a chance. That’s the only way we’re going to survive this.”

  For a moment, the Castillo prima didn’t speak. She watched me carefully, then tilted her head to one side. “How far along are you?”

  “What?” How could she have known I was pregnant? It had only been in the last week or so that my jeans had begun to get tight, that I’d realized I was going to have to start shopping for maternity clothes in the near future. And the flowing skirt I currently wore certainly hid any of the small te
lltales I’d begun to notice.

  “I told you — I see many things. I can feel when there are interlopers in my territory, and I am able to sense certain things about people. It is one of my gifts, although not the only one.”

  Every once in a while I really wished that I’d been born into a completely normal family. No witches, no magic, no weird powers I had to deal with. This was one of those times…not that I could do much about it. “A little over three months,” I confessed.

  She nodded, that same small smile playing around her lips. “I can see why you would be especially fierce in your desire to protect your clan. You want your child to be born into a safer world than the one you inhabit now.”

  “Yes, exactly,” I said. Her words encouraged me, because it seemed clear enough that she understood my situation. “I assume you would wish the same for your own children.”

  “My children — all five of them — are grown, and quite able to take care of themselves,” Isabel responded. “But yes, of course I would not wish to see any harm come to them. So you can understand why I might be reluctant to drag them into a war that has nothing to do with us.”

  “Nothing to do with you…yet,” Connor said, his tone grim. “There’s no guarantee that Joaquin Escobar won’t come for the Castillos once he’s done with us. Working together, we have a chance to stop him. Who will come to your aid after he’s swallowed up all the Arizona witch clans, and you’re left to fight him alone?”

  Again a small silence fell. I could tell Isabel was considering Connor’s words, because her mouth tightened again, and she crossed her arms. An enormous diamond winked on the ring finger of her left hand as she did so, and I wondered about her consort. So far we hadn’t seen any sign of him, but that didn’t mean much. Traditionally, a prima’s consort didn’t get involved with the day-to-day management of a clan unless he was asked to. And from what I could tell of this proud, imperious woman, she didn’t seem the type to ask for assistance very often.

  My phone pinged. At once I reached into my purse, digging for it, even as I said, “I’m sorry, but I’ll need to check this. With everything that’s been going on — ”

  “I understand,” Isabel cut in. “Go ahead and see what it is about, if only to set your mind at ease.”

  I pulled the phone from my purse, took a glance at the message on my home screen. My whole body went cold, as if someone had just flicked on the room’s air conditioning at full blast.

  “What is it?” Connor asked at once, clearly seeing how upset I was.

  “It’s — it’s Margot,” I told him, holding out the phone so he could read the message on the screen. “He has the children — he has our twins, Connor! Our children, and Mia, too!”

  “My God.” He rubbed a hand over his face, as if by passing his hand over his eyes, he could change the reality of what he’d just read. Then his gaze moved to Isabel Castillo, his expression turning hard. “You see who we’re dealing with here? This man doesn’t care about rules, about honor, about anything! Anyone who’d stoop to using children as a bargaining chip — ”

  “What is this bargain he is proposing?” she asked.

  “It’s crazy. You don’t bargain with terrorists.”

  “Of course not,” she responded, still cool, still completely unruffled. “But I would still like to know what he demands from you.”

  “His daughter Olivia, who ran away to take refuge with the de la Paz clan,” I said. “Lucinda Santiago, the daughter of the late prima…she’s been staying with us in Jerome. And the man I told you about earlier — Levi McAllister, the one the Ludlow prima-in-waiting wants for her consort.”

  “Three for three,” Isabel mused. “What do you plan to do?”

  “I suppose a lot of that depends on you, Mrs. Castillo,” Connor said. His eyes were so hard, they might have been chips of green ice. I could tell he wanted to get the hell out of there, back to Arizona so he could talk to Margot, so he could try to do something. Every second wasted in conversation was another second that that monster had our babies.

  Tears stung my eyes, and I did my best to blink them away. Terror and panic were beginning to well up in me as the reality of the situation sank in. Joaquin Escobar, with my two children and Lucas and Margot’s little girl in his possession. I already knew there was absolutely nothing he wouldn’t do to achieve his ambitions, and that thought frightened me more than anything else, made my stomach churn with the sour acid of fear.

  Isabel Castillo’s cool, proud features were almost sympathetic. Her dark gaze lingered on me for a moment, so long that an entirely different kind of unease began to creep over me. At last she spoke. “No, I think now it very much depends on Angela.”

  “On me?” I asked. What the hell was she driving at?

  “I have…a feeling. Nothing more than that, but my feelings have never steered me wrong. I will give you the support of my clan…if you give me the child you are carrying.”

  “What?” Connor and I both burst out simultaneously. I was so upset that I couldn’t find the words to respond right away, outrage and shock warring for dominance in my mind, but my husband definitely didn’t have that problem.

  “That’s a hell of a thing to ask,” he said fiercely. “This isn’t a fairy tale, and you’re not some modern Rumplestiltskin. We don’t give up babies in exchange for favors.”

  This outburst didn’t seem to ruffle Isabel at all. She stood there watching the both of us, arms still crossed. “I am not asking for your baby. I want the woman she will grow to be. You will be able to raise her, to enjoy her childhood. But on her twenty-first birthday, she is to be sent to me.”

  “For what?” I asked. This all sounded unbelievably strange. Isabel couldn’t think that the child I carried would be the next McAllister prima, did she? For one thing, even though she clearly believed I was going to have a girl, I didn’t know the sex of the baby. But asking the child to be sent when she turned twenty-one — the same year a prima-in-waiting was supposed to find her consort — seemed a bit too much of a coincidence.

  “For my grandson,” Isabel replied imperturbably. “The only son of my youngest daughter, who is our prima-in waiting. He is five years old. I want her for him.”

  This was crazy. Absolutely insane. I sent a pleading glance over at Connor, who looked like he was ready to commit murder. Most of the time, I would say he didn’t share much of a resemblance with his late brother, but when he got really angry, something of Damon Wilcox did seem to surface in his features.

  “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. This isn’t the Middle Ages — we’re not going engage our daughter to your grandson while she’s still in utero!”

  “We don’t even know that she’s going to be the next prima — ” I began, but Isabel held up a hand.

  “I did not say she is going to be the next prima. I know that the daughter you have now — Emily? — will be your heir. But this one…she will have her own purpose, her own destiny. And it lies here.”

  Connor stared down at me, mouth hard. His voice echoed in my head, seemingly coming from nowhere. Can you believe she’s asking this?

  Just another shock, although I didn’t know why I should be so surprised he was able to speak directly into my mind like that. Over the past few days, we’d both begun to explore powers we’d never possessed before. And I had to admit it was handy to be able to talk without Isabel being able to hear what we had to say. Still, I had to wonder where it would all end. I pushed that worry aside and thought at Connor, I don’t want to believe it. But she’s serious.

  We can’t give up our child.

  I know that. Or at least, I thought I did. Right then, I was so panicked and worried about Ian and Emily, I didn’t know what to think.

  “It’s really very simple,” Isabel said. “Joaquin Escobar has your children. If you promise to send the daughter you carry to me when she reaches her twenty-first year, I will pledge the support of the Castillos. We will help you to prevail against this dark
warlock and ensure that he can harm no others. I am a mother. I do not ask this lightly, for of course the bond between a mother and child doesn’t end when that child reaches adulthood. But I have seen that your daughter belongs here with us. Really, is it so very different from her falling in love, say, with a warlock of the de la Pazes, and going to live someplace several hours away from the place where she grew up? It is not as though I am asking you to send her to the ends of the earth.”

  “No,” I said. “But you are asking us to commit her to a relationship she’ll have no choice in. Like Connor said, this isn’t the Middle Ages. Arranged marriages aren’t really in fashion anymore.”

  “Oh, they are still in some cultures. What I’m asking is not so very far beyond the pale.” Her shoulders lifted, slender beneath the perfectly fitted dress she wore. “That is for you and Connor to decide, however. If matters are as dire as you say they are, then I’m afraid you don’t have many options. Your daughter will be the child of a prima. She will understand why you had to do this.” Isabel smiled then, but in an almost rueful way. “Rafael is a very young child, but I know he will grow to be a handsome man. He will always have a prominent position in the Castillo clan, for one day his mother will be prima after me. I don’t think that what I am offering will present all that much of a hardship to your daughter.”

  Easy for Isabel to say. If the man who had brought us here to see her was any indication, then sure, the Castillos weren’t exactly lacking in the genetic department. But there was so much more to a marriage, to a relationship, than having a good-looking partner. What if it turned out that Connor’s and my daughter and this Rafael hated each other?

  I didn’t think I could ever forgive myself for that.

  But then, how could I forgive myself if I turned my back on this offer of help, and Joaquin Escobar ended up taking control of my clan? What if something terrible happened to the twins, or Mia? I would know that I’d had the chance to save them, and had walked away because of worries about something that might never happen.