by D. G. Swank
Rowan was shooting daggers at me, and I was certain she thought I was selling out our sister.
Trust me, I sent through our bond.
Her facial muscles softened, but she still looked reluctant.
“You both can’t leave,” he said, shooting a hesitant glance at my sister. I was sure he was expecting her to protest, but she stayed surprisingly quiet. “Rowan, it’s better if you stay here. A Whelan needs to watch over the land—especially now—not to mention that one of you should be here in case Celeste shows up. She might need a magical anchor to help her find her way.”
I’d expected him to offer more resistance, and even though his logic was sound, I was still suspicious that he’d agreed so readily.
“You’re right,” Rowan said. “And I agree that Phoebe should be the one to go.” She turned to me and I expected to see defiance or anger in her eyes—Rowan Whelan wasn’t a sit-around-and-wait kind of woman—but she was accepting that role right now without so much as the bat of an eye. “You can access your ancestral talents. You’ll be much more useful.”
I wanted to believe this was all an act to convince Brandon we were on board with his plan, only I couldn’t ignore the sadness in her voice. Or the guilt rolling off her in lapping waves, along with her long familiar insecurity that out of all the Whelan sisters, her powers were the weakest, the most generic. Rowan had spent most of her life feeling like she had to live up to the rarer, more powerful talents of her younger sisters.
Staring at her slack-jawed, I realized that she’d given up. She didn’t think she could help. My heart stuttered at the thought, and I projected to her through our coven bond the only truth I knew: You are not useless.
She shrugged as if it didn’t matter, even though we both knew otherwise. “When the Protective Forces team is finished in the house, I can work on concealing it and strengthening its protections. I’ll be a contact point for whoever wants to assist us from this end.”
“Rowan, you know you’re just as—”
She raised a hand to put a stop to my protests. “Phoebe, seriously. I’m so ridiculously behind on all my projects, anyway. The local lumber guys are waiting on their website, and I really should work on the essay that magazine requested. Someone needs to clean up here, and working will help keep me from going crazy while we wait to hear about Celeste.”
I gave her a doubtful look, but she approached and wrapped me in a hug.
“I promise,” she said.
I pressed my lips shut, resigned to her winning this fight. “Okay.”
“Good,” Brandon said matter-of-factly. “Phoebe, since I’m not sure how quickly we’ll wrap this up, you’re going to need to pack an overnight bag. I’ll walk you in myself. Then we can hit the road as soon as the team arrives.”
“I need a shower.”
He shook his head. “We need to get in and out. I shouldn’t let you inside in the first place, but you’ll need a few changes of clothes.”
I shot Rowan a look—I desperately needed to tell her what I’d found, and it would be so much easier to use verbal communication instead of our coven bond, but Brandon had his hand on the small of my back, ushering me toward the porch steps. I considered telling Brandon that I needed to grab something to eat, but the kitchen was in ground zero of the destruction and lingering magic, and considering the way Brandon shuttled me to my room, keeping me at the edge of the living room, I knew he’d never let me anywhere near the kitchen.
Five minutes later, we emerged from the house. Brandon had slung my duffel bag, which was packed with several changes of clothes and toiletries, over his shoulder. When he reached the bottom step, he held his hand out to Rowan.
“I’m going to need to borrow your vehicle. I promise I’ll be careful with it.”
I looked at Rowan, and when our eyes met, we both burst out laughing. Brandon had inadvertently provided us with some much-needed levity.
“Oh, sweetie. You are not driving my SUV.” Rowan paused to breathe, clutching her middle. She walked to her car, opened it up, grabbed something from inside, then walked over to him. Patting him on the shoulder, she held up a ring with a single key dangling from it.
I swallowed another laugh. She’d gotten it from my purse, and Brandon was not going to like it.
“We get to take Old Faithful,” I said. “Treat him right. Hopefully, he’ll do the same for you.”
Brandon rolled his eyes to the sky before they landed on the beat-up pickup truck parked at the side of the house. “Your car?” He directed the comment toward me. “Let me guess. The truck you drove in high school.”
“Don’t let the rust or the rattling bumper fool you. His beauty lies within.” It was true. I did adore my truck. My father bought it when I could barely walk, and I’d learned to drive a stick shift on it. Yes, the light-blue monstrosity was ugly, but his engine purred like a kitten.
Three dark SUVs appeared in the long drive from our house to the road. Brandon gave Rowan a dark look before he dropped my bag on the ground at the back of her SUV and walked over to greet the agents.
“Are you okay?” Rowan asked. “How many times did you shift?”
“Twice.”
“You need to eat, Bee,” she said, sounding like a mother hen. Her gaze flitted down to my neck and her expression softened. “At least you’re wearing the necklace.”
My fingers drifted to the necklace I’d clasped on in preparation for the trip. At first glance, it might look like it was a strand of large, unpolished freshwater pearls staggered with tiny garnets. The pearls weren’t pearls at all, though. They were actually a collection of carpal bones harvested from the grave of my mother’s great-great-grandmother, Corlew Whelan who possessed a talent for kinematics—what most laypeople referred to as telekinesis. Since they came from her wrist, and her talent was a tactile one, they held strong memories of the magic she’d wielded in her lifetime. Wearing them against my body meant that I could access her talent wherever I wore it, even away from home, where the rest of her was buried.
“What about the ring?” Rowan asked.
I held up my left hand to show her the large oval ring on the middle finger. What looked like an intricately etched design of a gravestone under a weeping willow was actually formed from a couple strands of hair. The gravestone was fashioned with a three-millimeter bone from the inner ear of Imogene Booker, my great-grandmother on my father’s side, who’d had extensive talents in elemental magic—manipulating earth, water, air, and fire to her will. While alive, she’d worked hard to develop the talent to draw kinetic energy from the molecules around her and condense it to give herself super strength. I’d done the same with the help of the ring. Like the necklace, it lent me the talent of my ancestor so long as I was wearing it.
“See, I’m prepared,” I said with a forced grin.
She glanced back at Brandon, then turned to face me. “I don’t like that you’re leaving with him. We should find her on our own.”
Now that I didn’t have to perform for Brandon, my grief and fear bubbled to the surface. “Rowan,” I said, my voice catching. “We need to know what he finds out.” I started to shake, and Rowan grabbed my hands. “Out there… it’s bad.”
“It was hard to understand everything you sent through our coven bond. Did you say there was an animal sacrifice?”
I nodded, turning my back to Brandon and the other agents as I blinked back tears. “When was the last time you saw Celeste’s workspace for her part of the ritual?”
Worry filled her eyes. “I don’t know. Maybe a year ago? I glamour the book, but then I give it to her. She does whatever she needs to do with it. We decided long ago to keep each of our own parts of the ritual secret, and I guess I just… I never questioned it. It seemed like the best way to protect the book. I never imagined… I never thought…”
“When you were there, did the area look… different?”
“Different how?”
There was no good way to tell her. Might as well rip o
ff the Band-Aid. “There’s a pentacle burned into the ground. And someone made an animal sacrifice in the center.”
The color drained from her face.
“I only used Margaret’s power at first, so I headed back toward the graveyard to pick up Samuel Abbott’s power to communicate with the animals.” I paused. “The animals are repeating one word over and over.” I caught her gaze. “Evil.”
Her eyes widened, and she looked terrified. With just cause.
“Brandon was all over her workspace. I highly doubted he would tell us what he found and I was right. That’s why I have to go with him, Rowan. I’m sure he thinks Celeste played a part in this.”
“What do you think?” she asked so quietly I could barely hear her.
“I think she’s our sister.” Which was no answer at all, yet somehow answer enough. “The animals didn’t tell me much, but they did say someone else showed up. Someone cloaked in magic.”
“Hiding their identity?”
I nodded. “They left with Celeste and the book, but the animal I spoke to didn’t answer when I asked if she left willingly.”
“So she did steal it,” she whispered, guilt pinching the corners of her eyes. The disappointment in her voice was suffocating.
“Not necessarily,” I insisted. “The doe wouldn’t tell me. It ran away in fear.” I refused to believe it. Little Celeste who’d always found wonder in the world around her could not be capable of evil. Except she hadn’t been that Celeste in years. What about this Celeste?
“Are you going to tell Brandon what you know?”
We were silent for a moment as we watched Brandon give directions to a bunch of mages twice his age. Lucia must think highly of him to put him in charge. But no matter how much I wished I could trust him, I knew better. “No. He’s keeping secrets from me, so I’ll keep my own.”
Her body tensed. “You know you’re not supposed to withhold information during an investigation. You could be charged with treason, Bee.” When she saw I didn’t waver, she added, “Tread lightly.”
I narrowed my eyes as I continued to watch Brandon give his crew orders. Two mages headed into the house as Brandon led the remaining four toward the woods. “I know how to handle Brandon Cassidy.”
“Be careful there too.” Her voice was tight.
I jerked my head to face her. “What’s that mean?”
“It means he’s a lot more experienced than you. Hell, almost everyone...” Her cheeks pinkened.
My gut clenched. I’d only had a couple of boyfriends in the past ten years, and neither had been serious, whereas Rowan had slept with more men than I could count—not that I was judging. If anything, she tended to judge me. “Go ahead and say it. Almost everyone is more experienced than I am.”
“So you’re more selective than I am,” she said with a shrug. “Maybe that’s a good thing, but Captain Cassidy is likely to use every trick at his disposal to get you to cooperate. And the fact that you used to have a crush on him… let’s just say he’ll use that too.”
I suspected she was right, which meant I needed to stay one step ahead of him. “I’m not sixteen years old. I’ve grown up. I have no interest in Brandon Cassidy.”
“I don’t know, Bee. He’s a good-looking man,” she said in an appreciative tone.
“Who’s after our sister.” My voice was ice-cold. “I know my priorities.”
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, even when your enemy was hotter than July in Florida.
Brandon gave our house a long look before heading back toward us.
“Rowan,” he said when he approached. “I trust you’ll follow the agents’ directions.”
She answered him with raised eyebrows and a glare so cold I was sure his balls shrank.
He continued, without pause, “When the agents finish, they’ll bring in a crew to put everything back together.” He gave us a dry smile. “Expenses covered by the Council for your service.”
“Our homeowner’s insurance agent will appreciate that,” Rowan said with a dry smile of her own.
Brandon turned to me. “Ready?”
“Yep!” I chirped with way too much enthusiasm.
He gave me an odd look, then tossed the key back to Rowan. “We’ll be driving something else.” With that, he picked up my bag and headed toward one of the Protective Force’s SUVs. “If you’re coming, Phoebe Whelan, we need to get going.” He popped the hatch of the SUV and tossed my bag inside.
Rowan walked over to her open car door and reached in to pull out my purse. “Don’t let him get the upper hand, Bee. Celeste…” Her voice trailed off.
I threw my arms around her and squeezed tight. “I love you, Rowan.”
“I love you too.” She hugged me back hard, then pushed me back. “Go before he leaves without you. Keep me updated.”
I stared into her worried green eyes and nodded. “I will. Stay safe.”
“You’re the one in danger,” she countered.
“I’ll call you if there’s any trouble,” I promised. “And you keep me updated on what’s going on here. We can always text to stay in touch, unless things get bad.” The coven bond was useful, but exhausting and unreliable when used over great distances.
The blare of a horn made me jump and I turned to glare at Brandon for honking at me. Unbelievable.
A grin lit up Rowan’s face. “Give ’em hell, Bee.”
Gritting my teeth, I said, “Oh… I plan to.”
Chapter Nine
I marched over to the SUV and opened the passenger door. I’d climbed in and had barely gotten my door shut when Brandon punched the gas and the SUV shot forward, throwing me back in the seat.
“What the hell was that honk about?” I demanded.
“It was turning into a North Dakota goodbye,” he said in a patronizing tone. “I hope to be in Pittsburgh by sundown.”
Sundown? But I pounced on his other statement first. “What the hell is a North Dakota goodbye?”
His head tipped to the side. “You know, when you take a half hour for what should take ten seconds.”
“Are you purposely trying to be annoying, or does it just come naturally?” I asked, grabbing the seat belt and buckling myself in.
His response was a cocky grin. “Did you find me annoying back in high school?”
No, he’d always been nice to me. But I wasn’t about to tell him that and I didn’t feel like lying.
“My younger sister’s been kidnapped, and I left my older sister alone in the house where we were robbed and magically attacked. The least you could do was spare me thirty freaking seconds to say goodbye.”
His face seemed to soften. Then his grip on the steering wheel shifted. “I presumed you were telling her goodbye while I was talking to my men. You two seemed deep in conversation.”
I shot him a scowl. A quick glance at the dashboard clock told me what I’d already suspected. It was barely eight thirty in the morning. “Even if I took that half hour to say goodbye, we’d still be in Pittsburgh by lunch. It’s a four-hour drive tops. And that’s with a bathroom break.”
A lazy grin spread across his face as he leaned back in his seat, his arm extended to hold the steering wheel at the twelve o’clock position. “I guess we’ll be able to make it in three since you took so long to pee in the woods.”
We rode in silence for about five minutes before I asked, “What’s in Pittsburgh?”
His grin was back. “Official Council business, Ms. Whelan. I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”
“Really?” I asked in a disgusted tone. “That’s the best you can do? The Brandon Cassidy who went to Mount Vernon High would have done better than that.”
His smile wavered for a half second before falling back into place. “I’m all grown up, Phoebe Whelan. Looks like you are too.” He gave me an appreciative glance. “We’re different people now.”
I almost fell for it, but something in the way he said it made me think it was an act, obviously for m
y benefit. What did he hope to gain by acting like an asshole? If he remembered anything about me back in high school, he’d know that his current behavior was the worst way to get me to trust him. But maybe that was the point. Maybe he didn’t want me with him after all.
“Look,” I said, turning halfway in my seat to face him. “We’re in this together, whether either one of us likes it or not, so the best thing we can do is pool our resources and actually work together. So what’s your lead?”
His eyes darted away from the road for long enough to give me a quick, appraising look.
“A couple of years ago, there were a few incidents that left traces of magic similar to what I found in your house.”
“You mean the Lincoln shooting?” I asked.
“Yes, along with a couple of other similar occurrences. But there was also a more recent one,” Brandon said, barely keeping the annoyance out of his voice. “In Pittsburgh. I have a contact. A witch who might be able to help.”
“What did she see?”
“I think we should wait until we talk to her. Hear it firsthand from her.”
He obviously wasn’t going to tell me anything else. I considered pressing him but couldn’t see the point. I’d find out when we got there.
The movement of the car was making me sleepy, but I also knew I needed to eat or I’d be in serious trouble. “I need to stop soon.”
“I thought you already peed,” he said, sounding annoyed.
“I did,” I lied, although I’d probably need to do that soon too. “But I need to eat. Since Rowan and I were passed out for over twenty-four hours, it’s been at least thirty-six since I’ve eaten anything.”
“You’re hungry.” At least he didn’t sound so annoyed. “You could have just said so.”
“That’s what I’m doing now.”
