Cast Into Darkness (16 page)

Kate jogged down
the stairs to Dad’s office and checked her watch. Three o’clock. She’d barely had enough time to shower and change into street clothes—khaki shorts and a tank top—before the meeting. The last thing she wanted was to be late. Again.

She cracked the door open an inch. Grayson and Dad were by the fireplace, her dad in the leather chair, Grayson half sitting against Dad’s desk, talking about something. Victor sat tense on the sofa, listening.

“—didn’t have much to say about it. That was the last time I…” Grayson stopped and cleared his throat. He brushed back tears. Was this about Brian?

She bit her lip to have something to concentrate on beside the grief that welled up inside.

Her father spotted her and nodded. “We’ll continue this later. Have a seat, Kate.”

The only place left was next to Victor. Damn. Well, it wasn’t like he had cooties. She sat, leaving a good foot between her and Victor. Her father and Grayson nursed tumblers of whiskey, while Victor gripped a beer bottle. A pitcher of lemonade occupied the center of the coffee table—a drink meant for her. Her father might let her discuss caster business, but apparently he still intended to treat her like a child.

She poured herself some lemonade, her hands shaking.

Calm the heck down. It’s just Dad and Grayson. And Victor. And the first time they’ve ever let me in on their secret meetings. I can handle this.

Her father finished his whiskey, put the glass on the fireplace hearth, then turned to Victor. “What’s your progress on tracking the rogue who attacked Kate?”

“I haven’t found her, sir.”

“You haven’t… What’s the hold up?”

“She’s disappeared. The college has no record of her enrollment, and her apartment has been cleared out. I ran her fingerprints and DNA, and they came back negative.” Victor leaned forward, and Kate could almost feel the frustration rising from him.

“Somebody’s gonna find her dead at the bottom of a lake, the back of her head caved in by a spell. This is a family operation, I’d bet money on it. No one else can pull off such a total disappearance.”

“That tells us something,” her father said. “Now we just need to know which family.”

“I went back to the site of the freeway attack, to the theater, where Brian gave Kate the stone. I tried to trace the teleport spells—”

“It’s too late for that,” Grayson said.

Victor shrugged. “Worth a try. If I could track Brian’s path back to where he started, we might learn something. But I couldn’t.”

“Told you so.” Grayson said.

Victor shook his head. “They’d been erased. If I didn’t know Brian had been there, or that the rogue had, I wouldn’t ever have been able to tell. Not even a residual trace of magical energy. Someone doesn’t want us to trace Brian’s path…or find the rogue.”

“Brian couldn’t have done it, could he?” Kate asked.

“He might have erased his own trail, but why cover up the rogue’s?” Victor said. “According to you, he didn’t know about her. No, someone else tampered with the evidence both times. Only one reason to do that—so we wouldn’t trace their teleport back to the source.”

“Any leads on who tried to get past the grid last night?” her father asked. “Can’t be coincidence that it happened right before the stone killed Brian and changed Kate. The western gate is close to the Sanctum.”

“The trail went cold.” Victor shifted against the couch. “But I’ll bet the same guy who was after Brian tried to crash our security. Pretty gutsy to try to get through the grid. Gutsy but pointless. I upgraded it last week.”

“That brings us back to who was chasing him,” her father said. “Odds are they’re also the party behind the attack on Kate. It’s also likely they’ll come after the stone again. Find them.”

Victor nodded. “I have a few ideas.”

“Dad, I could help Victor. Run down leads for him, look through records, stuff like that. It would even help me learn about the major players.”

She glanced at Victor. His grimace made him look like someone just spiked his beer with pickle juice. She knew how he felt. But if working with Victor would get her closer to the truth about Brian, she’d do it and hold her nose.

“I told you no,” her father said. “You’re too busy training. Besides—” he glanced at Grayson “—we have an advantage with you we want to keep.”

“What?”

Her father smiled. “Here’s your first lesson in strategy: never let your opponent see all your cards. No one knows you’re a caster. We maintain that advantage if no one finds out.”

“Can’t they tell? From my aura?”

“Grayson can mask that,” her father said.

Her uncle stroked his chin. “Maybe. It’s not an easy thing to do.”

“Make it happen. And soon. Our enemies will figure out the ruse the first time Kate’s on a mission, but it will buy us some time. Until then, let only a few trusted casters in on Kate’s secret. Make sure they understand to stay quiet about it. We’ll keep Kate’s new status ‘need to know’ only.” He turned to Kate. “Do you understand what that means?”

It meant she’d still be an outcast, still be sitting at home while Hayley and her friends teleported off to parties, giggling in their little clique and avoiding her.

“I thought you wanted me to make friends with other casters. Get to know them.”

“I do. You don’t have to be a caster to do that.”

That’s what you think.
“Sure, Dad. Business as usual.”

“Good.” He stood and walked to the door, opening it. “That’s all we need you for. You have homework to do, I understand.”

That was it? They didn’t need her in this meeting? All she’d done was sit there and listen. Her face burned as she slammed the lemonade glass on the table. Dad invited her to get her to shut up and play nice. He’d thrown her a bone.

What about the stone, Brian’s death? The others made no move to get up and leave. She knew they were going to keep on talking about all that important stuff. Stuff she really wanted—no,
needed
—to know.

Dad’s tight frown and crossed arms made it clear how any pleas to stay would be received. Grayson avoided her gaze, staring instead at the box he’d pulled out of his pocket—the box containing the stone. Victor just took a long swig of his beer. It wasn’t like she expected Victor to take her side. Far as she knew, Hell hadn’t opened its ice skating rink.

One last try.
“Dad, I’m a caster now. I’ve earned a place here. At least let me hear what you’ve discovered about the stone. I need to know what it does. You owe me that.”

“I don’t owe you—” her father began.

“Maybe you do, sir.” Victor broke in.

Kate turned to him, startled.

“Kate’s been thrown into the deep end of the pool,” Victor said. He leaned back on the couch, cool as ever, no evidence in his steely eyes of how much it must cost him to talk back to her dad. “Don’t you think she needs a life preserver?”

“And you think knowledge would give her one?”

Victor’s face was missing its habitual smirk. He just stared stoically up at her dad. “Worked for me, back when I needed it.”

Kate sat back, the air rushing out of her with a
whoosh
. Victor was standing up for her? But why? Did she really remind him of what he’d gone through as a rogue caster, newly discovering his powers?

“All right, Kate can stay,” her father said. “But only through the discussion of the stone. Then it’s back to your studies. Agreed?”

Kate nodded.

Her father turned to Grayson. “What have you discovered about it?”

Grayson hopped down from his perch on the desk. “I ran a full diagnostic but haven’t had time to do more. Here’s what I can tell you: The stone’s function is to create new casters. But it can only work on someone who already has the gene for magic as a recessive. In other words, a Null. It ignores Normals and plants a subtle suggestion in the minds of casters who handle it to pass it along to Nulls.”

“Is that why Brian gave it to me?”
Not because he trusted me?

“Possibly. It would have influenced any caster who handled it without the proper precautions. He might have had other reasons, as well. But the spell contained in it certainly played a role.” Grayson took the stone out of its box and held it in his hand, covered in a square of blue silk. “I’ve never seen a primal magic artifact potentially this powerful.”

Kate stared at the stone, a few feet away in Grayson’s hand. She tried to take her eyes off it, to look down at her lemonade, but its black depths were strangely compelling.

She blinked and looked at it with magesight. Her eyes widened as the stone zoomed to fill her vision. Beyond the deep black of its surface, beyond the iridescent green flashes that took on a more vibrant aspect through her magical vision, she noticed something else. Stream after stream of dark energy flowed through the stone in an endlessly repeating figure eight. She watched it ripple in and out of itself, but she couldn’t tell where it started or stopped.

The energy bothered her. Something about its dark purity made the fine hairs on the back of her neck prick up.

It reached to her. Called to her to touch it, just touch it one more time.

Blinking, she shut off her magesight. The connection eased, but the stone’s pull was still there, just a gentle tug on her soul.

“—pretty casual with that,” Victor was saying. She had missed part of the conversation. No one seemed to notice but Grayson, who gave Kate a measuring glance as he held the silk-wrapped stone in his hands with a nonchalance she found disturbing.

Grayson laughed. “I’m not being controlled by the stone. The silk protects me.”

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” her father asked.

“As much as anyone can. This thing is thousands of years old and very powerful.” He paused. “There must be hundreds of Nulls. If we could transform them into casters and secure their loyalty, we could change the Game.”

“The thought had crossed my mind. And also that Nico Makris or Justine Delacroix could do the same if they got their hands on it.”

“True,” Grayson said. “But they don’t have it. We do.” He put the stone back in the box and closed the lid. The tug on the line connecting it to Kate lessened.

“But wouldn’t using something like the stone blow the whole Game wide open?” Kate asked Grayson. “Isn’t the whole point to control the Normals from the shadows? I thought the big honking lesson from the First Era is that when casters used primal magic back then, it resulted in lots and lots of Normals getting killed. Then they ganged up on us and did the whole ‘villagers with pitchforks and torches’ thing. Isn’t that what this whole secrecy rule is about? Why the Game was invented? To stop that mess from happening all over again?”

“
A
-plus for the history lesson,” Victor said. “That’s why we have an official policy these days about primal magic artifacts.” He quirked an eyebrow at Grayson. “You know, the one you helped write. The cross-clan policy that says to destroy the damn things when we find them.”

Grayson narrowed his eyes at Victor.

“I assume there’s an unofficial policy?” Kate asked.

“An arms race no one will admit to,” her father said. “We keep the primal magic artifacts we find to make sure the other clans don’t get them. No one expects to ever use them, but if someone else does, we want to be prepared.”

“Prepared for what?”

“Whatever we need to be.”

Kate picked up her glass and sipped her lemonade. She tried to absorb the knowledge that her father stood ready to use something as dangerous as the stone to counter his enemies’ threats. That
thing
had killed Brian. Who knew how many other people it could kill? Was this really the world he lived in?

“This is a lot for you to take in, Kate,” her father said. “Don’t worry. It’s nothing you will have to concern yourself with for a long time. Better get back to your studies. I’m sure you have a lot to do.”

Kate hesitated. She knew a dismissal when she heard it. But should she tell her father about how the stone had called to her? Grayson had told her he’d handle it….

She left, her dad shutting the door behind her.

She put her ear up to the door, desperate to hear something, anything. But his office must have the same kind of protection that the Sanctum did. Not even a whisper got through.

Kate marched over to the staircase and slumped down, head in her hands. Yeah, sure, she’d promised to study, but how was she going to find out anything about Brian’s death when everyone shut her out?

Twenty minutes later, the door opened. Her father and Grayson went their separate ways, backs stiff, tension making their steps ring on the marble floor. Neither noticed her. What had happened between the two of them?

Victor waited in the hallway for her. “By the way, princess, we’re in security lockdown. That means you stay here. No driving into Southampton for a fro-yo.”

She flushed. “I don’t—”

“Until we find Sparkles and figure out who was behind her attack, no one who isn’t operative-class or above leaves the grounds without an escort. That means you. Got it?”

“Yeah.” Oh, she got it. She got that Victor’s defense of her didn’t mean a damn thing. But he was dead wrong about her inability to handle trouble. Kate was a caster now. She could shield, even throw a couple of spells. If Brooke tried anything, she’d show her what’s what.

Kris would be in Montauk tomorrow night. Nothing was going to stop her from seeing him. Not Victor, not his stupid rules. Somehow, between now and tomorrow, she’d have to figure out a way around his precautions. Stomping up to her room, she realized with a sinking feeling she had no idea how.

Kate cracked open
the textbooks. The review material—the names of the Second Era casters who developed modern casting after they’d outlawed primal magic, the understanding of why paranoia was a side effect of modern casting when it wasn’t one of primal magic, the history of when the Game had started, and a list of the Rules—made for fast reading. She’d aced enough pop quizzes to be able to predict what material would be on the test, concentrated on that, and skimmed the rest.