Darker Paths (The Witches of Canyon Road Book 2)

by Christine Pope

  “Good.” He got up from the couch and approached me. This time he did reach out to take my hand, to wrap his warm fingers around mine. “Let’s get started.”

  6

  Investigations

  Rafe

  He stared down at his cousin’s slack features, at the tubes attached to Marco’s arm and chest. The beeping of the heart monitor seemed set at precisely the correct pitch to grind into Rafe’s eardrums. “I don’t get it.”

  “What don’t you get?”

  Genoveva’s tone was even sharper than usual, but Rafe figured he could forgive her that much. This whole thing had to have been an enormous shock.

  Doing his best to soften his voice, he said, “Why is Marco in the hospital? Why didn’t Yesenia take care of him?”

  Rafe’s mother glanced toward her husband, who was standing off to one side, Cat next to him. His sister’s features were drawn with shock and sorrow, and Rafe knew exactly why. Marco was so full of energy, so lively…so goddamn young…that it didn’t make any sense why he would now be lying in a bed here at St. Vincent’s Hospital rather than off drinking somewhere with his Santa Fe cousins.

  “I called Yesenia as soon as…this…happened,” Genoveva said. She glanced over at Rafe’s father Eduardo, who appeared almost shell-shocked, as if he still was having trouble processing the tragedy that had overtaken his young cousin. “Thank God we were speaking in Marco’s room at the La Fonda, rather than out in one of the public spaces. His room had a little sitting area, and we were all seated at the table there. He was reaching out, trying to find Miranda, and then — ”

  “And then he went very pale, then stiff,” Eduardo said. “And he slumped forward, his head on the table. We called Yesenia immediately, and — ”

  “And she came to the hotel room,” Genoveva cut in, looking somewhat miffed that her husband had interrupted her narrative. “She said Marco had a stroke, but she should have been able to manage that. And yet when she tried to use her power to repair the damaged blood vessels, to restore the blood flow to his brain, it didn’t seem to help at all. That was when she said we had better call an ambulance.”

  “Which we did, at once,” Rafe’s father said. He rubbed at his temple, as though he had a headache. Rafe couldn’t really blame him; his father was used to having everything go his way, and so much had not gone his way — or anyone else’s — over the past few days, it was enough to give anyone a migraine. “They brought him here. He’s been stabilized, but I don’t know how much that truly means.”

  Probably not a lot. “Stabilized” was hospital speak for “not in imminent danger of dying.” Rafe glanced back at Marco, at his cousin’s slack features. Strange, how much someone’s personality altered their appearance. If he hadn’t known that was Marco he was looking at, Rafe wasn’t sure whether he would have even recognized him.

  “But they’re going to run tests, right?” Cat asked, speaking for the first time. Her arms were crossed tightly against her chest, as though she needed to hug herself to provide some reassurance that everything would eventually be okay.

  “Yes,” Genoveva said. “Cat scans and MRIs and something else I can’t remember. I’ve called Sophia, and she’s on her way down from Taos.”

  Sophia Delgado was Marco’s mother. His father had died some years earlier, in a terrible wrong-way crash on the I-25. Rafe didn’t want to think what his cousin Sophia must be going through now, to worry about losing her only son when she had also lost his father.

  “He’s in good hands,” Eduardo said, although something about his expression told Rafe that his father wasn’t quite as confident about modern medicine as he pretended to be.

  Who could blame him? Most witch clans relied on their healers to handle these sorts of matters, although so much depended on the strength of a particular healer’s talent. Some could heal everything short of death itself, while others could only manage broken bones and fevers, leaving civilian healthcare professionals to handle strokes and heart attacks and cancer.

  Rafe had to hope the civilians would be on top of this one. “Was Marco having any luck?” he asked.

  His father blinked at him. “‘Luck’?” he repeated.

  “With finding Miranda,” Genoveva said, the usual sharpness returning to her tone. “But no, he hadn’t. Then again, he’d only just begun to make his attempt when he collapsed. Really, Rafe, while I know it’s imperative that we find Miranda, right now we have more important matters to concern ourselves with.”

  He gave an absent nod, not willing to argue the point. It was true that Marco’s health should be uppermost in their thoughts…but at the same time, Rafe didn’t see how he could do much good by being here. Marco certainly couldn’t tell who was standing next to his hospital bed. His consciousness must be buried deep within, focused on healing the damaged nerves and blood vessels that had put him in this coma in the first place.

  “Do you…?” Cat ventured, then paused as everyone focused on her. She cleared her throat, although she looked as though she regretted speaking up at all. “Do you think his collapse is connected to our search for Miranda?”

  “I doubt it,” Genoveva said crisply, although her reply had come almost too fast. Had she entertained that same unsettling thought before she pushed it aside? “Marco has been using his talent safely for almost fifteen years now. It is a horrible thing to acknowledge, but strokes happen, even in young, otherwise healthy people. Not that I would have called Marco the picture of health.”

  No, you wouldn’t, you harpy, because he’s not a perfect specimen, and you don’t much like having to acknowledge that every single Castillo isn’t perfect. Rafe scrubbed a hand against the side of his face, acutely aware of last night’s tequila and this morning’s coffee resting uneasily in his stomach, and how much he really needed something to eat. It seemed a horrible thing to be thinking about at a time like this, but he couldn’t help himself. His stomach didn’t care what was going on in the world; it just wanted to be fed.

  “I suppose you’re right,” Cat murmured in answer to her mother’s comment, although from the way she still frowned slightly, Rafe guessed that she was still far from convinced.

  “What now?” he asked.

  “There isn’t much we can do except watch and wait,” Eduardo said. “There are a few procedures they can try, but they’ll have to hold off on most of those until the test results come back.”

  “But you don’t need me or Cat here.”

  Annoyance flickered across Genoveva’s face. “No, I suppose not, although one would think you might show a little more concern for your cousin.”

  “I am concerned,” Rafe said evenly, doing his best to control his anger. Genoveva always did know the best way to provoke him. “But I also know that there isn’t a damn thing I can do to make him better. So I might as well focus on trying to locate Miranda.”

  “With Daniel’s help,” his mother responded, disdain clear in her voice.

  “Yes, with Daniel’s help,” Rafe told her. Part of him was annoyed that Eduardo would remain here as long as Genoveva told him to stay, which meant he wouldn’t be contacting any local hotels in the near future. Someone might as well keep working on finding Miranda. His gaze moved to Cat. “Do you want to stay here, Cat, or would you like to come down to Albuquerque with me?”

  Her relief at being asked this question was obvious, but she hesitated for a moment. “I — I don’t know. Mom, would you rather I stayed here?”

  “Oh, go,” Genoveva said irritably. “Like your brother said, neither one of you can do anything to help, and you would have had to leave when Sophia got here anyway. We’re already bending the rules by having this many visitors in the ICU.”

  Rafe hadn’t even thought about that, but she was right. Only immediate family, and two at a time, should have been allowed in Marco’s room. Then again, Genoveva always did manage to get her own way, whether dealing with her own family or the faceless bureaucracy of a hospital.

  Well, she almo
st always managed to get her way. The last few days had been clear proof that the universe didn’t always rule in her favor.

  “Then we’ll go,” Rafe said, his voice calm. “Call us if anything changes.”

  “We will,” Eduardo replied. From the way he had answered for his wife, it seemed clear enough that he didn’t trust her to make a civil reply.

  “Yes, call,” Cat said, then slipped out of the hospital room. Rafe joined her in the hallway, and together they walked over to the elevator. As she pushed the button, she said, “Thank God you got us out of there. I don’t know if I could have stood another minute.”

  “Hospitals are rough,” he agreed.

  The elevator doors opened, and they both got in. Luckily, they had the elevator to themselves. “Oh, it’s not just that,” Cat said. “I mean, hospitals are worse for me, because they do tend to be haunted, even if the hospital staff would never admit to it. And there’s hardly ever any romance or adventure about a death in a hospital. Just suffering.” She paused there, her hands jammed in the pockets of her jeans. “No, it’s that I was getting the most terrible feeling, almost like…pressure…bearing down from all sides. I’ve never felt anything like it before.”

  “You’re sure?” Rafe asked. “I mean, I can see how Genoveva might have that effect on you.”

  Cat made a face. “That’s not funny, Rafe. No, it was much more than Mom being her usual pain-in-the-ass self. It just felt…wrong.”

  “Do you still sense it?” Despite his attempt to keep his tone casual, he felt a flicker of cold move down his spine. His sister wasn’t exactly a medium or even psychic, in the way that most people thought of the term, but having a talent that allowed you to talk to ghosts had to make you more sensitive than the average person, or even the average witch.

  “Not as much.”

  The elevator doors opened, and they stepped out into the lobby. By unspoken agreement, they were silent as they crossed the space and went out through the glass doors that opened on the parking lot. After they got in Cat’s SUV, she sat there for a moment, making no move to turn on the ignition.

  “Are you all right?” Rafe asked, now feeling slightly alarmed. “Do you want me to drive?”

  She gave him a wan smile. “No, I’m okay. And it does feel better out here.” She pulled in a deep breath and pushed her long, sooty hair over one shoulder. “I don’t know what the hell that was.”

  “I have no idea, but I’m glad you can’t feel it out here.” He hesitated for a moment; she’d said she was okay, but was she all right to make the trip down to Albuquerque? Even with the vehicle doing most of the work, you still had to stay alert in case something came up that the car’s computer couldn’t handle. Heading to Albuquerque wasn’t quite the same as driving across town to go home, or even to get something to eat. People tended to speed on I-25, where it wasn’t mandatory to engage a car’s auto-drive function.

  “Really, I’m fine,” she said, clearly noting his concern, even though he hadn’t said anything further. “Even to go to Albuquerque. Actually, Albuquerque sounds like a great idea. Right now I want to get far, far away from Santa Fe.”

  Rafe had to agree with that sentiment. Maybe it wouldn’t look so great to the rest of the family that he and Cat had bailed to head south for the day, but on the other hand, there truly wasn’t anything they could do here. Neither one of them was a healer, or possessed any sort of talent that might be remotely useful in this situation, such as brewing fortifying potions. It seemed like a better idea to go see Daniel in person, do their best to make some progress in tracking down Miranda.

  Cat pushed the button to turn on the ignition, then backed them out of their parking space. It wasn’t very far from St. Vincent’s to the onramp for I-25, so within five minutes they were moving south, leaving Santa Fe behind them. As they were passing the National Guard Armory on the outskirts of town, she spoke.

  “I still think they’re connected.”

  “Marco’s stroke and looking for Miranda?”

  She nodded, hands clenched on the steering wheel, gaze fixed forward. “Maybe I’m being crazy. But it does seem like an awfully strange coincidence.”

  “Maybe,” Rafe allowed. At the moment, he wasn’t ready to pass judgment either way. “I mean, no one really knows exactly how we use our powers, how they affect us physically. It’s not as if any of us are going to volunteer to go into a lab for some testing.”

  “That’s for sure,” Cat said with a small chuckle. She was starting to look a little more like herself now that they were away from the hospital, the tension leaving her jaw and shoulders.

  “So what if Marco was straining to locate Miranda, really forcing it this time because the last time he tried this, it didn’t work at all? What if that strain made him blow a gasket, so to speak?”

  “I’ve never heard of anything like that happening before,” Cat replied, her tone doubtful.

  “Well, maybe not among our clan, but who’s to say it hasn’t happened somewhere else? You know the witch clans are terrible about trading information, which is kind of stupid, when you stop to think about it. There’s a lot we could learn if we were just willing to share.”

  His sister didn’t reply at once, but Rafe could tell from her thoughtful silence that she was mulling over his words.

  “Possibly,” she said at last. “Although in some cases, there were very good reasons why the clans kept themselves separate.”

  He thought of the rampage by Joaquin Escobar that had forced the bargain between his grandmother and Angela McAllister, and acknowledged that Cat might have a point. Still….

  “All I’m saying is that you could be right in that there is a connection, but only because Marco was working too hard — over-clocking his processor, you know?”

  “I suppose.” She was quiet for a moment. “Although that doesn’t explain the pressure I felt in his hospital room.”

  Which could have been anything. Nerves, or stress, or quite possibly the unseen force of many ghostly presences pushing on her all at once. Rafe decided it was better not to point out all these possibilities, just because he didn’t want to sound condescending. His talent was utterly unlike his sister’s, and so he had no real frame of reference. It could be frustrating when he tried to understand what she might be experiencing.

  “No, it doesn’t. And I’m the first to admit that a lot of weird shit has been going on lately. I wish you could’ve felt that dark presence I experienced downtown by the wine tasting room — then you could’ve told me whether this felt similar.”

  “Maybe when we get back to Santa Fe, you should take me by there, see if I can feel anything.”

  That wasn’t a bad idea. She was more attuned to otherworldly vibrations than he, so possibly she’d be able to pick up nuances that he couldn’t. “And maybe ask the ghosts in the area if they’ve noticed anything out of the ordinary.”

  She nodded. “That’s probably what I’d have to do anyway. Even though I did feel something strange at the hospital, it wasn’t the usual strangeness of ghosts hanging around. This was something different.”

  Well, Cat wasn’t a medium, or a sensitive. She had a very specific talent, which was talking to ghosts. And he didn’t possess anything like her gift. Besides, it hadn’t been what he felt downtown, exactly, but what he smelled. Too bad the scent trail had died away before he could follow it to its destination.

  “We’ll try that.” His stomach growled, and he grimaced. In the seat next to him, Cat grinned.

  “Sounds like we need to get some lunch down in Albuquerque before we do anything else.”

  “Probably. We might as well, because Daniel doesn’t know that we’re coming. When I talked to him earlier, I made it sound as though I’d wait for him to call me. But it suddenly seemed better to go down and see him in person.”

  “I get it. We can call from the restaurant before we eat — that way he’ll have more time to get ready to see us.”

  And hopefully Daniel wouldn�
��t have any appointments he’d have to cancel to fit them in. He did seem to be pretty busy. However, Rafe figured that he and Cat could come up with something to keep the two of them occupied until their cousin could see them.

  “Sounds good.”

  They were quiet after that, each of them occupied with their own thoughts. Rafe was especially glad when they descended into the Rio Grande valley after passing the turn-off for Cochiti Lake; for some reason, he always thought of that as the demarcation point between Santa Fe and its environs and Albuquerque and its suburbs of Rio Rancho and Corrales, and he wanted to be well clear of Santa Fe for a while. In less than a half hour, they were inside Albuquerque’s city limits and headed downtown.

  Neither he nor his sister knew the city that well, but the car’s nav system gave them several options for restaurants near the high-rise where Daniel’s office was located. Since this would be breakfast for both of them, they decided on American diner food rather than New Mexican or something along those lines.

  “Thank God,” Cat said after the waitress had brought their food, a huge platter of eggs and bacon and hotcakes for her, an omelette loaded with meat and peppers and cheese for him. “I could really feel it those last few miles. All this stress on an empty stomach kind of sucks.”

  Yes, it did. Rafe knew he’d gone way past the point where he didn’t feel like eating because of said stress, and on to the other side where his over-tired body needed some fuel to keep it going. He’d called from the parking lot, and Daniel had said that his two o’clock had canceled and so Rafe and Cat were more than welcome to stop in. Despite the train wreck that the day had been so far, it did seem as though things were going about as well as could be expected.

  They ate quickly but not too fast, letting the food fill their empty stomachs and the distance from Santa Fe provide some much-needed relief. Neither of them mentioned Marco, although Rafe noticed how Cat jumped visibly when her phone buzzed. She picked it up, looked at the caller I.D., then shook her head ruefully and put the phone back in her purse.