“I think that’s our cue.” Angela smiled, some of the care erasing itself from her delicate features. “Just text us when you’re ready.”
“I will,” Levi said.
The prima and primus left the bedroom, and a moment later, Hayley heard the front door quietly shut. At once she bent down and kissed Levi on the lips. To her relief, he kissed her back with even more fervor than he had the last time they’d embraced, a fierce need communicating itself to her, as though he had to know that nothing had changed between them. After the kiss ended, she asked, “Do you want to tell me about it?”
“Not really,” he replied, then went on before she could interrupt, “but I will. Not now, though. It is…a difficult thing, to take a life.”
“Even when that life belonged to Matías Escobar?” Hayley had never considered herself a vengeful person, but the thought of what Matías had done to Lucinda…had done to Danica Wilcox and the Goddess knew how many others…made her blood run cold. As far as she was concerned, the Escobar warlock had gotten exactly what he deserved.
“Even then.” Levi’s tone was very gentle, and he reached up to touch her hair again, as if marveling at its texture. “I suppose I’d like to think that he had a core of good in him somewhere. Perhaps if he had had a different life — ”
“A different father,” Hayley interrupted, and Levi tilted his head to one side, apparently considering her words.
“Perhaps. It’s hard to say. His father’s blood ran in his veins, but he wasn’t raised by the man. But if he’d grown up among the McAllisters, if he’d been accepted as all of you have accepted me…possibly then he would have been a different person.”
“We’ll never know,” Hayley said.
“No,” Levi said, the word tinged with sadness. “We’ll never know.”
He got up from his bed soon after that — against Hayley’s protests, although she subsided once he promised he would sit down on the sofa in the living room. After admonishing him to stay put, she went into the kitchen and got him a glass of water, and also brought a plate of cheese and some grapes he had in the refrigerator.
“I didn’t know if you’d want any wine, after all that,” she said as she sat down next to him.
“Not right now. Maybe later.” Truth be told, he was experiencing a weariness that seemed to have settled into his very bones, and he honestly didn’t think that drinking alcohol would help with that at all. It was good to sit here by Hayley, to steal a glance at her, to watch the light from the lamp across the room shimmer over her golden hair. During the time he’d been on the demons’ plane, night had fallen here in Jerome.
Levi didn’t want to admit there might be any particular significance to that observation.
“I understand.” She waited until he’d picked up a slice of cheese and slowly eaten it before she went on, “So…what happens now?”
“I don’t know.” He reached for his glass of water and took a sip. There, that helped. His throat had been dry ever since he’d awakened back here. Perhaps the acrid air of the demons’ world had settled in his lungs. “That is, Matías died in that other world, but he would have died here as well, in the very instant that his soul was extinguished. I’m sure his father knew immediately, because he must have been with him when he traveled to that plane, just as you were here, keeping watch on me.”
Her lips pressed together, and Levi could see the fear that flared in her eyes. He couldn’t blame her; Joaquin Escobar might not have turned out to possess the demon-summoning abilities of his offspring, but he still had a veritable arsenal of other nasty powers at his disposal. However, she only said, “Well, at least Matías wasn’t alone when he died.”
Such evidence of compassion — especially unlooked-for as it was — made Levi love her that much more. Many would have said Matías Escobar was a monster…and Levi wasn’t sure he could refute such a statement…but perhaps even monsters deserved to have someone who cared about them nearby when they passed on.
He reached over and took Hayley’s hand. Her fingers wrapped around his, warm and welcoming, but also so slender, so fragile. That very fragility told him he needed to be here for her, to protect her against whatever might be coming next. Yes, she was brave and strong and true, but her magic on its own could not save her. And he thought then of all the McAllisters, so many of whom had abilities that any civilian might marvel at, and yet who still wouldn’t be able to do much when it came to the fight ahead.
His expression must have altered, because she said, “What is it?”
“Nothing.” At least, nothing he wanted to say in that moment. Very soon they would have to all come together and decide how to face the storm that was approaching, but for now he wanted only to sit next to her and breathe in the sweet scent of her hair, bask in the comfort her mere presence here provided him. “Will you stay with me tonight?”
“Tonight, and all the nights after that…if you want me to.”
He pulled her close and kissed her then, needing the fierceness and the fire in her lips as she returned the embrace. She held on to him, pulling him close. Ah, yes, that was better; the warmth of her body seemed to dispel the chill that had settled in his bones from his brief sojourn in the demons’ world.
After the kiss ended, however, and they had pulled apart, an expression of dismay passed over her face. “Oh, damn.”
“What’s wrong?”
She glanced toward the door, in the direction of her brother’s flat. “It’s Lucinda. We still really haven’t figured out what we should do about where she’s staying — at least, until Rachel is back home and able to take over again. I’d started to toy with the idea of having Lucinda stay in my room while I slept on the couch. If I stay here with you, it feels like I’m kind of abandoning her.”
“She can still take your room,” Levi said. “You won’t be using it.”
Hayley sent him a skeptical look. “Don’t you think it will be strange, to have her staying alone with Brandon?”
“I don’t know,” Levi replied. “Why don’t you ask her?”
“I — ” She broke off there, because at that very moment, someone knocked at the door. Her eyebrows lifted. “How did you know?”
Levi’s body was human, but his senses were just enough sharper than most people’s that he’d been able to hear Lucinda and Brandon coming up the stairs. “I told you I had many powers.”
Hayley made an exasperated noise and got up from the couch, moving quickly, thus making it clear that she expected him to stay put while she answered the knock. As she opened the door, she said, “Hey, Brandon, Lucinda.”
“Hey,” Brandon replied. He peered past his sister’s shoulder into the living room. “We’re not interrupting anything, are we?”
“No,” Levi said. Ignoring Hayley’s frown, he got up from the sofa and came to the door. “But we were discussing accommodations.”
From her spot on the landing just behind Brandon, Lucinda shot him a puzzled glance. “Accommodations?”
“Well, it’s definite that Rachel won’t be coming home from the hospital until tomorrow,” Levi said. “And Hayley mentioned how she thought she could offer you her room.”
“She really doesn’t need to do that,” Lucinda protested. “I mean, it should be okay for me to stay at Rachel’s by myself, as long as Rachel and Tobias don’t have a problem with it.”
“I don’t think anyone’s asked them,” Hayley said. “The thing is…I really won’t need the room, because Levi wants me to stay here with him. But if you think it’s weird to crash at Brandon’s place, then we can put that off until Rachel comes home.”
This revelation made Brandon’s eyebrows work overtime. It wasn’t difficult to see that he wasn’t terribly thrilled about his little sister moving in with his next-door neighbor, especially since they’d only known each other for a few days. However, he remained quiet, seeming content to allow Lucinda to make the final call, since Hayley had been addressing her.
The Santiago witch
appeared somewhat flummoxed by the offer. She glanced from Hayley to Brandon and then back again, her dark eyes troubled. “I — I’m not sure — ”
“Or we could find someplace else to put you up,” Levi said. “Maybe one of the rooms at the Mile High Inn, or at the Connor Hotel?”
“I wouldn’t want to cause anyone any trouble,” Lucinda said hastily. “If Brandon is okay with me staying in Hayley’s room, then I’m okay with it, too. Besides, it should only be for tonight, right?”
“Probably,” Levi replied. “Maybe two nights at the most.” He paused, wondering whether he should tell her of what had transpired in the demon world, how Matías Escobar was no longer a threat to her. Probably more than anyone else, she deserved to know. “And Lucinda — ”
Her head tilted to one side, her gaze sharpening slightly. Perhaps she had caught the shift in his tone, or his own expression had altered enough to signal an important change of subject. “What is it?”
“Matías is dead. You won’t need to worry about him coming after you.”
This pronouncement made her hand go to her throat. She seemed to stumble, as if her knees had begun to give way under her. At once Brandon had a hand on her elbow, steadying her. “You’re sure?” she gasped. “How can you know that?”
“Because I was there. I saw it.”
With her warm complexion, it was difficult for her to go completely pale, but Levi could still see the way the blood drained from her cheeks. For a few seconds, she didn’t reply. Then she glanced up at Brandon. “I think — I think I would like to take Hayley’s room. If it’s all right.”
“Of course it is,” Brandon said, sounding more solicitous than Levi had ever heard him. “Do you want to sit down?”
“I think I’d better.” She paused for a second, then looked back at Levi. “Thank you — thank you for telling me.”
And then she was letting Brandon help her across the landing and into his flat, his hand on her elbow the whole time. The door shut behind them, and Hayley looked up at Levi.
“That’s got to help, doesn’t it?”
“I think so,” he replied. He closed the door and went back over to the sofa, glad of the chance to sit down again. Damn, he really was more tired than he’d thought.
Hayley followed him and resumed her seat as well, only this time with one leg tucked under her, so she might face him. “I’ll need to go back over in a little while and get some of my stuff, but I figured it was better to give them some time.”
“Probably. Lucinda has to allow herself to understand that the thing she feared most can no longer trouble her.”
A nod, but from the way Hayley looked down, seemingly preoccupied with turning the ring on her middle finger around and around, it appeared that she was troubled, indeed. “And what about the rest of us?” she asked. “Matías is gone, but….”
“But Joaquin Escobar still controls the Santiago clan. I know.” Levi glanced past her, at the window that framed the rising moon, now only a few days away from full. Somewhere beyond these hills and mountains, beyond the dry deserts that surrounded Phoenix, almost all the way to the ocean, a man grieved the loss of his son.
And Levi knew that grief could bring about their downfall.
Epilogue
Somewhere in the background, a woman was weeping. Joaquin wanted to tell her to be silent, that he needed to be alone with his thoughts, but he stopped himself. He would not show any outward grief over Matías’ death, and so he supposed he might as well allow Olivia to cry now, for the brother she had lost. His son deserved that much.
A black wreath hung on the door, and some of the Santiago women had come to the house to drape cloths on all the mirrors. Tomorrow would be the funeral, with a line of hundreds of cars going to St. Andrew’s in Old Town Pasadena, so all the Santiagos could grieve for the son of their primus.
Olivia’s tears irritated Joaquin, though. They had been estranged the last few years of Matías’ life, mostly because Olivia could not see past her own weaknesses to understand how truly great her brother was destined to be. What a waste of skin, his only remaining child. Such an irony the universe had cast before him, that the only one to live would be a nunca, a witch whose true powers had never developed. Indeed, for many years, he had barely thought of her as his daughter.
No, all his hopes for the future now lay in the child Marisol carried. With his runaway coward wife Isabella long dead, the Santiagos no longer had a healer. However, modern-day pregnancy tests were as good as healers when it came to confirming that a woman was with child. It was very early yet, so early they had not yet bothered to find a doctor, but Joaquin knew he must do so soon. The thought grated on him, that an Escobar should be brought into the world by a civilian physician. Better that, however, than the child be unhealthy in any way. No, this heir of his must be perfect.
Would he — or she, although Joaquin had already begun to think of the child as a son — also carry the Escobar gift of command? He must, or he would not be able to continue ruling this clan after his father was gone. The Santiagos would accept him for a while, because he would be the child of their prima, but such a grasp would be tenuous if he did not have the means to keep them obedient, like a pack of hunting dogs cowed by their master’s voice.
Well, the child’s birth was still months in the future, and his days as the ruler of this clan further off still. In the meantime, Joaquin knew he must seek vengeance for the death of his son. He must extend his reach beyond the Santiagos, so his enemies would have no hope of victory. They must be crushed utterly, beyond any means of recovery. All of them — the Wilcoxes, the de la Pazes.
And yes, the hated McAllisters.
Yes, a storm was coming…and soon it would sweep all of them away.
The End
The Witches of Cleopatra Hill series will conclude with Darktide, releasing in January 2018. A spin-off series, The Witches of Canyon Road, will release in March 2018.
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The Arizona Witch Clans
This list does contain some minor spoilers for earlier books in the series. Married names are indicated with parentheses.
The McAllisters (Jerome, Arizona, and the Verde Valley)
Angela McAllister (Wilcox) – prima, or head witch, of the McAllister clan
Rachel McAllister – Angela’s aunt
Bryce McAllister – one of the McAllister clan’s elders
Allegra Moss – one of the McAllister clan’s elders
Margot Emory (Wilcox) – formerly one of the McAllister clan’s elders, now married to Lucas Wilcox
Sylvia Emory – Margot’s mother
Ruby Lynch – former prima of the McAllister clan
Henry Lynch – son of Ruby McAllister and Patrick Lynch
Tobias Miller – fiancé of Rachel McAllister
Sonya McAllister – Angela’s mother, deceased
Boyd Willis – a McAllister warlock
Micah Landon -- an absentminded artist
Floyd Barnett – lives above the store next to Rachel’s
Rosemary McAllister – lives on the other side of Rachel’s store above the tea shop
Susan Callery -- an artist with a studio in the same building as Tobias’ flat
Efraim Willendale -- runs the post office
Wyatt McAllister -- owns a B&B on Paradise Street
Dora McAllister – Great-Aunt Ruby’s caretaker
Jocelyn Riggs -- the clan’s strongest medium
Kirby McAllister – a cousin of Angela’s and one of her “caretakers”
Tricia McAllister -- the new clan elder after Margot Emory steps down
Richard McAllister – Tricia’s husband
Caitlin McAllister (Trujillo) – daughter of Tricia and Richard; a seer
Michael McAllister – Caitlin’s older brother, a chef
Roslyn McAllister -- Caitlin’s first cousin; youngest sister of Jenny and Ad
am
Marcus McAllister -- Tricia McAllister’s older brother, father of Jenny, Adam, and Roslyn
Lysette McAllister – Marcus’ wife and mother of Jenny, Adam, and Roslyn; a civilian (non-witch)
Jenny McAllister – eldest daughter of Marcus and Lysette McAllister
Adam McAllister – only son of Marcus and Lysette McAllister
Roslyn McAllister – youngest daughter of Marcus and Lysette McAllister
Evan McAllister — a distant cousin of Angela’s; the clan’s “fixer”
Levi McAllister — an otherworldly being adopted into the clan
Hayley McAllister — a witch from the Payson branch of the family
Brandon McAllister — a warlock from the Payson branch of the family; Hayley’s older brother
The Wilcox Clan (Flagstaff, Arizona, and the northern third of the state)
Connor Wilcox – primus (head warlock) of the Wilcox clan
Damon Wilcox – former primus of the Wilcoxes, now deceased
Lucas Wilcox – a cousin of Connor’s, now married to Margot Emory
Mason Wilcox (McAllister) – Connor’s cousin and a friend of Angela’s; now married to Adam McAllister
Danica Wilcox – Mason’s younger sister
Joseph Wilcox – Mason and Danica’s father
Olivia Wilcox – Mason and Danica’s mother
Andre Begonie – Angela McAllister’s father
Marie Wilcox (Begonie) – a cousin of Connor’s, the Wilcox clan’s seer
Eleanor Garnett – the clan’s healer
Darrell Wilcox – a Wilcox warlock gifted with heating the area around him
In the 1880s:
Jeremiah Wilcox – the Wilcox clan’s primus
Nizhoni – Jeremiah’s second wife, a woman of the Navajo
Jacob Wilcox – Jeremiah and Nizhoni’s son
Samuel Wilcox – Jeremiah’s brother
Deep Magic (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 13) Page 25
