Kaitlin's Tale

by Christine Amsden

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have you asked Xavier?”

  “Xavier lies.”

  “About this?”

  “About everything.”

  She blinked. “I don’t care. End it. While I’m still human enough to care. Or can you tell me my humanity isn’t going to slowly disappear? I’ve watched you with Kaitlin. How much was an act?”

  Most of it. She didn’t know – the nanny didn’t know – that he spent an hour every night in the nursery with Jay, rocking his son and talking nonsense to him. Kaitlin thought the boy was sleeping through the night, but it wasn’t true.

  But was it him or his flesh host that wanted to spend time with the child? His flesh host had wanted the mother too – or thought he had. It hadn’t taken the new Jason more than a week in her constant presence to tell Xavier he could have her for his experiments if he wanted. The silly twit expected some kind of happily ever after with him, like they were living in a fairy tale. She’d said so, under the influence of the thrall, when she couldn’t lie to him if her life depended on it.

  Neither Jason nor his flesh host had ever been a fairy tale hero.

  “End it,” the nanny repeated.

  “No.” Was he being perverse or had he just decided that he liked this woman’s company more than Kaitlin’s after only a few hours? It didn’t matter. He wanted the same answers she did: What am I? Xavier wouldn’t tell them; perhaps they could uncover the truth on their own.

  He held out his hand to her. “Come. I’ll help you through the trees. And when we go into the gas station, I’ll show you how to take only what you need.”

  Chapter 5

  EVERYTHING WAS FALLING APART. OVER A year-and-a-half of working, planning, strategizing, and building, and he could feel it slipping through his fingers. Matthew wasn’t making a dent in Alexander’s power base and to make matters worse, he had lost rather than gained members in the weeks since he’d returned from New York.

  He was seriously questioning his decision to leave mundane politics to threaten Alexander in a far more powerful sphere. If he had stayed the course, he would be gearing up for a run at the U.S. House of Representatives right now. After a few terms there he would try the U.S. Senate, then Governor of Missouri. Eventually, he would have become President of the United States. He could see it all before him now; he could probably reclaim that path, find some way to explain his absence and continue down the same road with only a couple of years delay.

  But something held him back. He wasn’t sure what, though his brother Robert had called it stubbornness. Matthew preferred to believe it was honor – if he didn’t challenge Alexander here and now, then who and when? The man needed to be stopped and there simply wasn’t anyone else to do it.

  Not that Matthew was a hero or anything. That was Evan’s thing, not his. Evan was the kind of man to want power to bolster his own protections and those of the people he loved. Matthew, on the other hand, wanted power for its own sake. To lead the formation of a bigger, better world. He had wanted to be president. Now he wanted to run the magical world, and he hadn’t yet conceded that Alexander had him beat.

  So yeah, maybe he was stubborn, but he had his reasons. He’d had reasons for almost two years, beginning with a young woman from his hometown who’d died at the hands of a mob Alexander had stirred up. It hadn’t been an isolated incident, of course. Matthew had traced other patterns of strange behavior to the man, in addition to murders and disappearances, but there was never proof. There wouldn’t be any where Devon was concerned, either. The latest in a long line of inconveniences would vanish, and no one would even go looking for him because they would all believe the story that he’d sold his own daughter’s magic.

  Matthew spent the next few weeks after his return from New York in a holding pattern, watching the people around him carefully for signs that they too had been tampered with, that someone might have a sample of their blood. Anyone was suspect, especially those who had been to visit Alexander in his compound in Pennsylvania.

  Evan had been to the compound. Evan, Matthew’s most powerful ally, was compromised. He hadn’t entirely trusted the man before due to some personal issues between them, and the feeling was mutual, but they had always been able to set that aside and work together for a common cause. Now Matthew couldn’t even trust that Evan was acting entirely under his own power.

  Evan was distracted these days by the strange disappearance of his sister Madison and his best friend Scott, the leader of the local werewolf pack. Matthew found the matter disturbing as well, but he trusted that Evan was doing everything he could and would ask for help if he needed it. In the meantime, Evan’s preoccupation might keep him from noticing Matthew trying to shift him out of his inner circle.

  Matthew’s father noticed. James Blair, Eagle Rock’s mayor and local truth-teller, could not be lied to, which was why Matthew had avoided him for the past few weeks. James had been to Alexander’s compound and might also be compromised, despite his gift and his power.

  If Matthew couldn’t trust his own father, who could he trust?

  James himself was apparently determined to answer that question late one Monday evening in June. He arrived on Matthew’s doorstep uninvited, and did not go away when Matthew pretended not to be home.

  “I know you’re in there! You’d better hurry up and answer the door before the others get here.”

  “Others?” Matthew asked, flinging the front door open to stare at a man who was an older version of himself, impeccably dressed in suit and tie. He couldn’t read his father’s mind, of course. He had learned almost everything he knew about mind magic from his father, a master of the art.

  “Yes, others,” James Blair said, handing him a vegetable tray and a bag of chips. “I wasn’t sure you’d have refreshments so I brought some. Your mother’s right behind me with drinks.”

  “A family powwow?” Matthew asked. He studied his father, trying to use what he knew of reading facial features to understand what might be going through the man’s mind. He wasn’t all that good at reading faces, not even his father’s. A result, no doubt, of having clearer answers shot directly into his head the vast majority of the time.

  “No, a White Guard meeting. You haven’t called one in a month and everyone’s wondering why. You’re losing control. Something’s bothering you and you’re letting yourself show weakness.”

  Never show weakness. It was the first thing his father had taught him. He recalled the lesson now by keeping his face completely impassive and expressionless.

  “In any case,” James continued, “something’s come up that has your mother worried. She’s the one who wanted me to call the meeting, and you know how she can get. She won’t take no for an answer.”

  “All right.” Matthew stepped aside and let his father enter the freshly cleaned living room. The cleaning service had come by that afternoon.

  James set the food down on a buffet against the wall then sat on the burgundy love seat. He looked at his eldest son in the penetrating way he had that reminded Matthew he could not lie to his father.

  “What’s going on?” James asked finally.

  “I can’t tell you.”

  James looked surprised. He didn’t look that way often. “You really can’t. Or think you can’t. I don’t know which disturbs me more. I’m your father; I’m on your side. I know you have trouble trusting some of the others because they support your cause more than they support you, but it’s the opposite with me.”

  It was true. Matthew usually appreciated how his father stood by him, even though James Blair thought uniting the magical world under anyone was a bad idea. James’s plan had initially been to wrest power away from Alexander and then try to put things back the way they were, when local clusters of sorcerers were laws unto themselves, but Matthew had seen pretty quickly that such a thing could neve
r work. He soon came to believe the other members of his inner circle who said that magical unification was a good thing, at least under the right leader. Whether his belief in the need for such a leader had come before or after his desire to become one was irrelevant at this point.

  “I would tell you if I could,” Matthew said.

  “I’ll accept that for now. You could have said that much, at least.”

  “Maybe.” Probably, but Matthew hadn’t been sure enough of where he stood, which was why he hadn’t called an inner council meeting himself. Well, his parents had taken that decision out of his hands, and maybe it was for the best. If Alexander did have spies in the organization, unwitting though they may be, he might know that Matthew had been successfully rattled by his latest trip and the information he had gleaned – along with the broader implications.

  James leaned forward, shot a quick glance over his shoulder at the front door, then turned his head back to his son. “You can’t lose your nerve, son. Not against someone like Alexander. Never show weakness.”

  “I know.”

  “You could always go back to the state legislature,” James said, and Matthew didn’t have to be able to read his father’s mind to know he had ulterior motives in suggesting such a thing. “You did well there.”

  “And accept defeat? Wouldn’t that be showing weakness?”

  “The difference between giving up and moving on is all in the presentation.”

  Matthew was saved the need to answer by the arrival of his mother, Caroline, and his brother, Robert. They each held two 2-liter bottles of soda, which they placed on the buffet with the snacks. Robert then made himself at home inside Matthew’s cabinets, looking for the ice bucket, while Caroline hugged her son and chastised him for being so distant lately.

  She hadn’t been to visit Alexander, Matthew thought. Neither had Robert, though Robert had been in contact with the Magical Underground’s troops plenty of times over the last year.

  Not for the first time, Matthew wondered if part of the reason that he’d been allowed to see Evan’s memory lapse was to cause him to second-guess everyone and everything in his world. If it were true, it was working beautifully. Matthew felt disgusted with himself. Never show weakness indeed.

  A few others arrived over the next fifteen minutes, town founders Clark and Linda Eagle among them. Evan arrived last of all; Matthew was surprised he had come, with his sister still missing. Dark circles under Evan’s eyes suggested that he had not slept lately, and he barely grunted a greeting as he crossed to the last vacant armchair.

  “No word on your sister?” Matthew asked.

  Evan shook his head. “I’m sorry I’ve been unavailable lately. How are things going?”

  “Just fine,” Matthew lied smoothly. “Take all the time you need.”

  “I’m going to get Cassie on the phone,” Evan said. “She had to stay home with the baby.”

  Matthew nodded by way of pretending he believed Evan. Cassie had been listening in to these meetings via speaker phone long before she’d given birth, and Matthew didn’t have to be a mind reader to know why.

  Cassie was the source of the “personal issues” between Matthew and Evan. Matthew had once been engaged to Cassie, but in the end, Evan had proved more determined to win her. Determined enough that he had used some sort of compulsion strong enough to make her forget that Evan had stolen her magic. Evan still seemed to fear she would come to her senses and leave him, if Matthew interfered. Well, he wouldn’t. She’d made her decision, however ill-advised. He certainly wouldn’t risk the White Guard’s already fragile alliance over a minor moral high ground.

  “Now that we’re all here,” Matthew said, taking a seat on a barstool he habitually moved into the living room for this purpose (it gave him the advantage of height), “we can begin. Let’s start with old business.”

  For the next few minutes they went through the motions just as if this were any ordinary meeting. As if five weeks hadn’t elapsed since the last one, when they usually met every week or two. Clark Eagle mentioned that his recruits were improving, but they hadn’t had any new recruits in over a month and a few of the old ones had left. Robert and James also discussed the drop in recruitment Matthew already knew about.

  Evan, of course, said nothing at all. He had been as distracted as Matthew of late, though for different reasons. Cassie, from the other end of the phone, said she had another lead on Sean Wood, a man Alexander had accused of slave trade but who they believed had simply gotten in the man’s way. Evan couldn’t follow it up, though, so they’d sent a new recruit. Matthew didn’t have much hope for the mission’s success. He wasn’t even as certain as he would once have been that Cassie herself was passing them sound information. She’d stayed with Alexander longer than any of them, and none of her leads had borne fruit.

  “New business, then,” Matthew said, looking pointedly at his mother.

  “Alexander has begun a new attack campaign,” Caroline said. “It was in today’s issue of The Wizarding Word.”

  Matthew managed not to wince. The Wizarding Word was a propaganda tool put out by Alexander DuPris. “I assume it’s not more of the same conspiracy nut nonsense.”

  Caroline shook her head. “This seems to be in response to your recent rescue of that young woman from the Travises.”

  Matthew sat up straighter. Just before he’d gone to New York, he’d sent Evan and a few of their best recruits to get the girl, who had been drained of her magic and sold into marriage with one of the most disgusting sorcerers in the country. The mission had been an immense success and had played well in the magical world for a while – in forums, chat rooms, and through the newsletter Linda helped put out weekly.

  “How can they possibly have anything negative to say about that?” Matthew asked.

  “They said it was a publicity stunt, meant to make it appear as if you take the issue seriously, but it insinuated that your inner circle is personally involved in magic theft and slave trading.”

  “They’re making things up again,” Matthew said, remembering Devon.

  “They didn’t actually lie this time,” James broke in. He glanced at his wife for a moment before continuing, “They twisted the truth, but more than one of us is married to a drained woman.”

  Matthew scanned the room, looking from face to face to gauge their reactions. The only mind he could read was Linda’s, and her thoughts were focused on Caroline Blair, who was determinedly not meeting anyone’s eyes. She often did that in a room like this. It made her look like what she was on the surface – a woman who had been drained of her magic thirty years ago and sold into marriage.

  Is she really as happy as she always says she is? Linda was thinking. How can she be when she had no choice?

  Matthew shook away the uncomfortable thought. His mother was happy; he’d know if she wasn’t. His father should never have bought her, but the incident was thirty years in the past. There was a far more recent transgressor in the room; Matthew focused his gaze on Evan, who was staring just as intently back.

  What was Evan thinking? Not for the first time Matthew wished he could read the powerful sorcerer’s mind. Not that he would know right now if Evan’s thoughts were his own or a product of blood magic. This was exactly why Matthew hadn’t been ready for a council meeting. He still hadn’t decided what to do about Evan, but from the look on the other man’s face, he would have to decide quickly.

  “You didn’t care much about this issue before you decided to go up against Alexander,” Evan said accusingly. He glanced at Caroline before turning back to Matthew. “It’s not like you can say you didn’t know it was going on.”

  “Of course I knew it was going on.” Matthew did not look at his mother and he kept his face expressionless. “I just didn’t think I could do anything about it.”

  “You were originally agains
t magical unification,” Evan said, leaning forward. His blue eyes flashed with anger. “You only jumped on board when you saw it happening without you.”

  That one was a low blow, although if he was honest with himself, it was fair. But it didn’t mean he liked to see injustices being done. All he’d done was change his mind about how best to correct them, and in what way he could be personally involved.

  “That’s enough,” Caroline spoke from her quiet corner and all eyes turned to her. “Evan, you have no moral high ground here. Everyone in this room knows you’re married to the woman whose magic you stole.”

  Everyone in the room did know that, but no one in the room had said it outright. What game was his mother playing? She was an empath, so surely she wouldn’t want to make Evan angrier.

  “I didn’t take it, my father did!” Evan rose to his feet.

  “You didn’t give it back,” Matthew said, also rising to his feet. He glanced at his mother, who nodded almost imperceptibly. He didn’t know why, but she thought they needed to have this fight. So be it. He’d been putting it off for months anyway. Part of him actually relished the idea.

  “You haven’t given your mother her freedom,” Evan said, jabbing a finger in Caroline’s direction. “And your father is a ‘trusted’ member of this council. Tell me the truth, James, are you even remotely sorry for what you did?”

  “No,” James said mildly, not rising to Evan’s bait. “But my sins are not my son’s. As I recall, your own father bought his first wife and won his second in a poker game.”

  “Fine. I’ll stick to your sins, Matthew,” Evan said. “You used magical compulsions to try to force my wife to marry you. I’m not clear on how that’s different from what your father did. Is it more noble because you didn’t use money? That instead you reeled her in through family favors and mind mojo?”

  “You’ve been wanting to say that for a very long time, haven’t you?” Matthew didn’t have to be an empath to feel the anger heating up this room. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his mom and brother flinch.