Flamebound (4 page)

“The D.A. has decided to seek the death penalty. He'll probably call you today or tomorrow to fill you in. He's planning on contacting all the victims' families.”

When I don't immediately respond, he looks at me questioningly, but I'm not sure what to say to him. Especially since I'm too busy considering what that decision means to focus on an answer that won't give anything away.

I wonder if the prosecutor plans on contacting Declan, since he was the closest thing Lina, the first Austin victim, had to a family. If he doesn't, I'll have to tell him. Kyle was the Council's hired killer, and right now, Declan's magic is the only thing keeping them from stepping in and seeing that Kyle evades justice. But once they realize the death penalty is on the table, they'll up their efforts to break Declan's spell.

It's no easy task—the man has so much power it leaks from his every pore—but the Council is filled with some of the most talented practitioners of Heka in existence. It's not a stretch to think that together they'll find a way to circumvent him.

Hell, they've probably been working on it for the last eight days. Not because they actually care about Kyle—he was just a tool to them, after all—but because the Council has always stood firm on the fact that witches do not stand trial in human courts. Ever.

It's a carryover from the times when we were hunted, tortured, burned and hanged by people who didn't understand our powers and what we could do. And while I agree with the Council's stance in theory—humans do have a tendency to get a little excitable when magic is involved—I still think witches that commit crimes in human society deserve to pay for those crimes by human laws. Three of the four women Kyle killed had no power, and no way to defend themselves against what he did to them. He needs to answer for that. And while I've never believed in the death penalty before, I know the blackness of the magic that lives inside Kyle. Letting that magic loose—ever again—is not an option.

I shudder to think what Declan will do if the Council steps in, because not killing Kyle is already eating away at Declan's soul. I can feel it when he holds me, see it in his face when he thinks I'm not looking. And that eats away at me. I know he's trying to spare me the pain of it—my power is such that I feel the violent death by magical means of anyone within a certain number of miles from me (I'm not yet sure how far that power extends)—but I'm not so naïve as to think Declan won't step in if the Council tries to interfere with Kyle's trial and sentencing. By the time he's done, there won't be enough of Kyle left to recognize, let alone rescue.

“How are the families doing?” I finally ask, my voice breaking a little under the weight of my guilt. It's my fault those women died screaming, my fault they were taken away from the people who loved them.

“The funerals were this week. It was rough.” He pauses, looks uncomfortable. I'm sure he's remembering that Declan was responsible for Lina's, that he saw both of us there. “How are you doing?”

“I'm fine.” It's my standard answer. Just close enough to the truth that I can't be accused of lying. Kind of how I've lived all twenty-seven years of my existence up to this point.

“You look tired.”

“So do you. Must be something about coming into close contact with a sociopath that makes it hard to sleep at night.”

“Or any other time.”

I laugh, but it doesn't hold a lot of humor. Because he's right. For me, the only thing that keeps the horror at bay is Declan. My only nightmare-free sleep comes after he's made love to me until I'm quivering with exhaustion.

Suddenly I need a break—this conversation is slowly leeching all the joy from me that I felt earlier after being in Declan's arms.

“Is that all you wanted to tell me? About Kyle?”

I gesture vaguely toward the tables around us, all of which are taken. It's three o'clock and the coffeehouse is filling up again.

Employees on their midafternoon coffee break.

Students finished with classes for the day, looking for a quiet place to unwind or study.

Tourists combing downtown, looking for a place to wait out the rain, which has turned the air cold and the sidewalks slick.

“Actually, that's not what I came to talk to you about at all.” He reaches into his pocket, pulls out an envelope. “I should have gotten to this sooner. I know you're busy.”

“It's fine.” I watch as he slides the envelope across the table to me. “What is that?”

“I have a favor to ask. I know you don't normally do the whole psychic thing—at least not if you can help it. But—”

“Nate, no.”

He holds up his hands. “I know, I know. It's uncool of me to ask. And I wouldn't, if it wasn't desperately important. There's a little girl. She's missing.”

I want to slam my hands over my ears, to sing “la la la la la la” like a little kid who doesn't want to hear that it's bedtime. Because it's not that I don't want to help. It's that I can't help.

“It doesn't work that way.”

“What doesn't?”

“My . . . gift.” I barely stop myself from blurting out the word
magic
. “I don't see things that I concentrate on. I feel emotions. Pain. Violence. Fear . . .”

Death.

The truth is, I sense death and all the intense emotions that go along with it.

“Maybe if you look at her, you'll pick something up. She's got to be scared, right? She's been missing for four days.” He grabs the envelope, slides a picture out of it and puts it faceup in the center of the table.

And despite my best intentions, I can't help but look.

She's a pretty little girl, maybe six or seven. In the photo, she's smiling, and there's a huge gap where her two front teeth should be. Her wide green eyes are bright and innocent and her long, brown ringlets are tied back from her face with purple ribbons that have white polka dots on them.

I stare at her for long seconds, mesmerized. I know I should close my eyes, should look away—the last thing I want is a picture of this lost little girl in my head. I can't help her, can't find her, no matter how much I wish I could. She'll just be one more nightmare for me to live with when the lights go out.

When I finally manage to pull my eyes away from her sweet, happy smile, I find Nate staring at me, his blond brow furrowed with concentration. “Did you . . . ?”

“I told you. It doesn't work that way.” I look at him curiously, doing my best to ignore the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. “How did you get involved in a kidnapping case anyway?”

“It's my neighbor's daughter. She was playing in the front yard with two friends after school. Her mom went to the back of the house to start a load of laundry and when she went to check on her about seven minutes later, Shelby was gone. She checked with the neighbors, but it turns out their mom had called them home about five minutes before. So sometime in the space of those five minutes, Shelby disappeared. Her parents are—” He breaks off, shakes his head. “They're a mess.”

“I can't even imagine.” The horror of it is pressing in on me, making it hard to breathe, hard to think. Pulling at me until I can feel myself spiraling downward, though I don't know why. It's a sad story, a terrifying story, but it isn't much different from a dozen others I'd heard about on the news in the last year.

Knowing I have to get away from Nate, from the picture, from the grief that seems to be closing in, I push my chair back from the table and stand up. I tell him, “I'm sorry. I can't help you find her.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Still, some instinct I don't even recognize urges me to pick up the photo. I slide it carefully into the back pocket of my jeans. “And you don't want my help. Because if I knew where she was, if I
could
find her, it would only be because she was already dead.”

I
can't get the little girl out of my head. All day I think about her—while I'm running the register, while I'm mixing cookie dough, while I'm waiting tables. Her face is there every time I close my eyes, every time I pause for breath.

At first I panic, terrified that a compulsion is setting in. That the reason I'm fixated on her is because she's dead. As the day passes and I realize that I'm not going to be pulled out of my shop by some urgent need to find her, though, the fear begins to recede. But in its place grows a determination to do something, anything, to help her.

With that thought foremost in my head, I text Declan at five o'clock, as I'm walking out the front door of Beanz—just a quick note to tell him I'm going to spend the night at my own house tonight. I know it won't go over well, but I want to talk to Lily about Shelby. She has different magic than mine, and while she's no better at finding lost people than I am, she reads a mean tarot. Maybe, if she concentrates, she'll pick something up that can help Nate.

I drive the few short blocks to my house, praying the whole way that Lily will be home—and alone. I know it's not her boyfriend, Brandon's, fault that his brother is a crazed killer, but the truth is being around him now makes me really, really uncomfortable. It's another reason I've been staying with Declan since I got out of the hospital. Well, that and the fact that it's not exactly easy to convince him to let me out of his sight for longer than I spend at Beanz. And most days, even that is pushing it. I've grown used to looking up from my spot in the kitchen to see him ordering coffee or lounging at a table, a book in his hands.

I pull onto my street and breathe a sigh of relief as I spot Lily's car in the driveway, by itself. Brandon's car is nowhere to be seen. Thank the goddess.

I'm still reveling in my good fortune when I walk in the front door and find my best friend sitting on the couch, drinking a martini from an extra-large margarita glass and painting her toenails cyanide green. Neither is a good sign.

“What's wrong?” I demand, dropping my bag by the door and approaching her cautiously. When she's in this mood, there's no guarantee that she won't bite.

“Nothing. Why?” She reaches for the martini, takes a huge gulp of it, then goes back to painting her toes. All without once looking at me.

“Try telling that to someone who actually believes it.” I hold up the bag of chocolate-covered potato chips resting next to her on the couch. “We both know these only come out in times of extreme trauma. As does the nail polish. So spill.”

She blows out a breath, shrugs. “Brandon and I broke up.”

I ignore the spurt of relief that shoots through me. Now isn't the time for a happy dance, especially when I get my first real glimpse of Lily's face and realize her eyes are rid-rimmed and swollen.

“What happened?” I ask after it becomes obvious that no details will be forthcoming.

She looks at me in disbelief. “Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's the fact that his nut-job brother tried to kill my best friend?”

“Yeah, but Brandon had nothing to do with that.” Why am I defending him? Brandon's given me the creeps for a while now and I should be thrilled he's out of Lily's life. And I am. I really am . . . only I hate seeing her look so sad.

“Maybe not, but he insists on defending Kyle. He keeps saying things like it must have been a spell, that Kyle would never do something like that without a good reason.”

My skin crawls. “He thinks there's a good reason that Kyle raped, tortured and murdered four women?”

“That's what I said. And then—” Her voice breaks. She grabs the martini and drains it.

“And then?”

“He said the Council must have some reason for wanting you dead. That maybe Kyle was only doing what had to be done. That's when I gave the sick fucking bastard the boot.”

The boot? Knowing Lily the way I do, I'm a little surprised I didn't get a call asking me to help her bury a body. “I'm sorry,” I tell her. “I know how much you cared about him.”

“No,
I'm
sorry,” she answers. “I'm sorry that I ever brought them into our lives. I can't believe I did that to you.”

“That's ridiculous. Kyle was going to get to me one way or the other. It's not like I trusted him more because you introduced us.”

“But still. I invited that monster into our house. Made you double-date with him.” She shudders as she finishes the second coat of toenail polish and recaps the bottle.

But when she reaches for the martini shaker, I grab it away before she can pour another glass and drink herself straight into oblivion.

She glares at me but doesn't say anything. It's proof that her bad mood is lifting a little. “So, how are things with you and Declan?” she asks. “I haven't seen you much the last few days, so I figure that has to be a good sign.”

“They're fine.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

I must not sound very convincing, because this time when she reaches for the martini shaker, she pours the drink and hands it to me. “Then what are you doing here?”

“It's . . . complicated.”

She laughs. “Sweetie, when you decide to tangle with a man like Declan, you'd better like complicated. It's pretty much his middle name.”

“It really is. But that's not why I came over. I actually wanted to talk to you about something else.”

“Oh yeah?” Her eyes narrow with interest. “Well, go ahead and spill then.”

I take a long sip of the martini she handed me, searching for a little Dutch courage. The vodka burns on its way down my throat, but it takes only a moment for the fire to turn into a pleasant warmth. As it does, I settle myself on the couch beside Lily and reach for the tarot cards she always keeps in a basket on top of the coffee table. “It's not about me.”

She eyes the cards. “So, there's another person's future you want me to tell you about?”

“Actually, yes.”

“Declan's?” She sits up straighter, pulls the cards to her.

“No. Not Declan.” I pull the picture of Shelby out of my pocket and lay it on the table in front of her. Then I tell her everything that Nate told me.

She has tears in her eyes before I'm halfway done. Lily may talk a good game, but she's the biggest softie in the book. Long seconds pass before she reaches for the picture of Shelby, runs her fingers over it once, twice. Then she sorts through the deck and pulls out the Sun card.

After laying it in the center of the table, she hands me the deck and tells me to shuffle.

“Why me? This is for Shelby.”

“Yes, but you're the closest thing to a seeker we've got in this room, so you're elected. Besides, you know more about Shelby than I do.”

“That's not true,” I say, even though I'm already shuffling. “I told you everything.”

“You think you did.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” I set the cards down with a definite slap.

“You want me to tell you the future, right? I'm telling you the future as I see it, so shut the hell up and let me do my job.” She picks five cards off the top of the deck and lays them out on the table—two on either side of the Sun and one crossing it.

“This is the World spread,” she tells me. “It's the best place to start when looking for someone that's alive.”

I nod, but my head is still whirling with what she said—and what she didn't. What did she mean about there being more for me to tell her? Am I missing something? And if so, what? I don't know Shelby, don't even know if it's possible for me to do this. But if it is, and if there is something I'm not seeing, I better figure out what it is pretty damn quickly.

I want to pepper Lily with questions, but she's already in reading mode. Her fingers linger over the Sun card for long seconds before moving on to the others. I don't know tarot very well—I have always relied on Lily for this part of Heka—but the spread doesn't look too bad to me.

None of the cards that I consider particularly menacing are there, at least none of the ones that normally pop up in my readings. I can only consider that a good thing since mine are usually so awful that I've made Lily stop doing them for me.

Still, I'm impatient. I want to know what she sees, but when Lily's reading tarot, she can't be rushed. The meaning of the cards mingles with something else inside her, some bit of foresight that allows her to get a really good grasp of the picture at hand.

“She's alive,” Lily says after a minute. She's touching the first card in the spread—the Seven of Pentacles. “But everyone involved in the situation is frustrated. Her parents are terrified, the cops baffled because they have no real leads. Even the people who have her—” She closes her eyes for a second, concentrating. “I can't get a read on them, but they're also getting frustrated. Little Shelby is more trouble than she's worth. She cries all the time; nothing makes her happy. What are they supposed to do? If she doesn't shut up, someone will hear her.”

A chill runs down my spine at the words, and the singsongy way Lily says them. Her body's right in front of me, but I know that she's gone far away. I want to scream at her to come back, to tell her that it's dangerous, but she wouldn't thank me for it. This is what she does—what I asked her to do. It's not her fault that I'm suddenly filled with an overwhelming trepidation, a sickness in my stomach that warns me this reading isn't going to end as well as I had hoped.

She moves on to the second card. It's the Seven of Wands, the siege card that pictures a man defending himself against six other wands. “Whoever has Shelby is anticipating an attack. They will be the ones to start it, but whether they finish it is still up in the air. But their resolve is strong. They're determined to make it through, to win, no matter what they have to do or whom they have to kill.”

The chill becomes a full-blown shivering. Dread starts in the pit of my stomach, a small ball that gets colder and more deadly with every second that passes. My palms and the bottom of my feet start to ache, and I know it won't be long before I have to listen as my hopes for Shelby crash and burn around me.

The third card, the King of Cups, is the contradiction card, the one that warns that things are not what they seem. As Lily talks about it, I try to puzzle out what is being hidden—besides Shelby herself. This is the card of ulterior motives and hidden agendas, and I can't help but wonder what we're missing. Is this not a straightforward kidnapping? And if it isn't, what is the real motive? Murder? Sexual abuse? Or something darker? Something involving black magic?

I know the odds are against the kidnapping being magic related. This is a human child in the human world. And yet . . . something niggles at me. Some detail I've failed to pick up on or one I haven't yet learned. Whatever it is, there's more going on here than meets the eye.

The more I think about this, about Shelby, the more nauseated I get—until it takes every ounce of self-control I have to stay seated as Lily's hand brushes over the fourth card, the Three of Swords. This card is secrets—I know because it shows up in my readings a lot. It's not a bad card, has no harsh meanings associated with it, yet as I stare at it, I start to wonder.

No, please, no. I don't want to. I don't want to.

The voice comes out of nowhere, slams into me with the force of an eighteen-wheeler at top speed.

I won't. I won't. I
—

I hear a high-pitched scream deep inside my mind and then a silence so ominous it scares the hell out of me. It's Shelby. I don't know how I know, but I do.

Helpless, hurting, I wait for more, for something else to come out of the unsettling quiet. It takes longer than it should, so long that I start fearing the worst. But then Shelby finds me again. She's whimpering now. Begging. Crying. Pleading.

Don't make me. Please don't make me.

I don't know what's going on, what they're forcing that poor child to do, but her fear is palpable inside me. And for the first time since my powers unlocked, I pray for them to come. Pray for that soul-deep compulsion that takes over my mind, my body, my very will, and drags me out into the world in search of evil.

I've spent the last few days terrified that I would feel it again, but now I want it. Now I'd do anything for it. Suffer anything if it means finding the terrified little girl whose fear is ripping at the corners of my mind.

I reach for the card. I know better, but I do it anyway. Maybe if I can touch it, I can see her, find her. But my fingertips sizzle the second they come in contact with the Three of Swords and I yank my hand away. Damn it. Lily always warns me not to touch any of the cards once she lays them out in the spread, but I always thought that was just because she didn't want me to disrupt the flow of energy during the reading.

But that fire, that sear, was something else entirely. I turn my hand over, stare at the blisters starting to form on the three fingertips that touched the card. They burn, ache, and I know I should run some cool water over them. But the pain in my hands is nothing compared to the pain rising up inside me, slowly consuming me from the inside out.

With it comes fear of the most bitter kind. I'm not going to be able to find Shelby. At least, not until it's too late.

With this realization, the questions that have haunted me since I found Lina down by Town Lake rear their ugly heads once more. Why do I have this power? Why do I see these things, if I can't do anything but relive them after they've happened? What's the point of living through the pain, if I can't do anything to stop what I see?

What's the point of seeing little Shelby if she's doomed to suffer anyway?

Lily reaches for the last card, and even she seems hesitant. She's staring at the burn on my hand, trying to puzzle out what it means. I can tell from the look on her face that in this one moment, she is as lost to the darkness as I am now. It's a sobering realization, especially considering we've always been careful not to tread too close to the shadows.