Spellcasters (101 page)

“In general? Or as an instrument of escape?”

“Escape. I have some in my pocket and I can almost reach it. What if I’d smeared lip gloss on the ropes? Could I have slid out?”

As Jeremy answered, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up to see Benicio. As I stood, he embraced me.

“Well done,” he whispered in my ear.

“I’ve just called the Cabal, Papá,” Lucas said. “They’re sending an extraction team.”

“Oh, I don’t believe that will be necessary.”

Benicio pulled back from me. As Lucas and I exchanged a look, Benicio headed for the end of the alley.

“He’s quite secure, Papá,” Lucas called after him. “Perhaps—”

Benicio lifted a finger, and kept walking. His voice floated back to us, barely above a whisper. Lucas frowned and jogged after him. I followed, trying to hear what Benicio was saying. Then I caught a few words of Latin and knew he was casting. Lucas realized it at the same moment and broke into a run. When we reached the corner, though, Benicio had stopped the incantation. He was leaning over Edward, who lay on his back, staring up, cold-eyed and defiant. Benicio’s lips curved in a small smile.

“Vampires are indeed the race of arrogance, aren’t they?” he said, his tone pleasant, even congenial. “And perhaps not without reason. You did manage to kill my son once. Almost managed to do it twice. Did you really think you’d get away with it? If you had, I’d have pursued you through every level of Hell to wreak my revenge. As it is, though, things are a bit”—his smile broadened, showing his teeth—“easier.”

Benicio lifted his hands and said the last three words of the incantation. As his hands flew down, a lightning bolt severed Edward’s head from his neck.

No one moved. We all stood in shock, watching Edward’s head roll across the alley.

Benicio lifted his hands again. This time, his voice boomed down the alley, as he cursed Edward’s soul for eternity.

F
or me, the case truly ended only when it returned to where it had begun: with a teenage witch named Dana MacArthur.

While we’d been tracking Edward, Randy MacArthur had finally arrived in Miami to see his daughter. When the initial flurry of activity over Edward’s execution died down, we admitted to Benicio that Dana was gone. Of course, the Cortez Cabal wasn’t taking Jaime’s say-so, but their necromancers tried to contact Dana and confirmed that she had indeed passed over. So, two days later, Lucas, Savannah, and I stood in a Cabal cemetery and said good-bye to a girl we’d never known.

Since I’d now seen what lay on the other side, Dana’s passing pained me less than it might have. Yet I still felt the full weight of the tragedy her death brought for her father and her younger sister, and maybe even her mother. Even for Dana herself, there was tragedy here. She’d gone to a good place, and I was sure she’d be happy, but that didn’t mean her life hadn’t been cut short, that she hadn’t missed out on so much. And for what? To avenge the death of a vampire who had herself killed so many, gone so far beyond the needs of her nature? As I stood in that cemetery, listening to the minister try to eulogize a girl he’d never met, I looked out across the graves and thought of all the other fresh graves in other Cabal cemeteries. I glanced over at Savannah, and thought about Joey Nast, the cousin she never knew. On the other side of the group of mourners, I could see Holden Wyngaard, a plump red-haired boy, now the lone survivor. I thought of the others. Jacob Sorenson. Stephen St. Cloud. Colby Washington. Sarah Dermack. Michael Shane. Matthew Tucker. All gone. And how many tombstones would it take to commemorate the lives of everyone else Edward and Natasha had killed, the scores of humans they’d murdered trying to become immortal? I thought of that, of all those lives, and I couldn’t for one second disagree with what Benicio had done. No matter what kind of hell Edward now faced, it was no less than he deserved.

I looked out at the small crowd gathered around Dana’s open grave. Her mother wasn’t there. I still wondered what had gone wrong in that woman’s life to make her abandon her daughter, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether having a Coven would have helped. I’m sure it would have, at least for Dana. If she’d had other witches to turn to, she would never have ended up on the streets of Atlanta, and now here.

Yet, as bad as I felt for Dana, I had to accept that the responsibility for starting a second Coven did not lie squarely on my shoulders. I was willing to start one. I would always be willing, and I’d make that willingness known, but I would no longer actively try to convince witches that they needed a Coven. They had to come to see that for themselves. In the meantime, I certainly didn’t lack for work. I had an interracial council to reform and a new partnership with Lucas to pursue. Yes, I would have been more comfortable pouring my energy into a dream that started with me, but I think part of growing up is realizing that everything doesn’t have to be
mine
. It could be
ours
, and that wasn’t a show of weakness or dependence. I liked what Lucas did. I believed in it. I wanted to share it. And, if he wanted to share it back, well, that was damned near perfect.

When the service ended, Benicio leaned over and whispered an invitation to lunch, before we left for Portland. We agreed, and he slipped away to offer final condolences to Randy MacArthur.

The others had all gone their separate ways. The werewolves left Miami the morning after the showdown with Edward. Cassandra and Aaron had followed later that day, after they’d met with Benicio and the other CEOs to discuss possible fallout between the Cabals and the vampire community. Jaime had done her Halloween show in Memphis the night before, then zipped back to attend Dana’s morning memorial service before returning to Tennessee for her next show.

As the mourners drifted away from the grave site, I glanced back one last time. Lucas took my hand and squeezed it.

“She’ll be okay,” he said.

I managed a smile. “I know she will.”

“Mr. Cortez? Ms. Winterbourne?”

We turned to see Randy MacArthur behind us, looking uncomfortable in a too-tight black suit. His hand rested on the shoulder of an equally uncomfortable-looking young girl with Dana’s long blond hair.

“I—we wanted to thank you,” he said. “For stopping him. This—it should never—I don’t know how it happened. I had no idea how bad things were—”

“It’s okay, Dad,” the girl murmured, her red-rimmed eyes fixed on the ground. “It was Mom’s fault. Her and that guy. He didn’t want kids, and she let him chase Dana off.”

“This is Gillian,” Randy said. “Dana’s sister. I’m going to be looking after her now. Mr. Cortez is giving me a job in town here, so I can stay with her.”

“That’s great,” I said. I tried to catch Gillian’s eye and smiled. “You must be what, thirteen? Fourteen? Just starting your second-level spells, I bet.”

Gillian looked up at me and for a moment, her eyes were blank, then she realized what I meant. “Spells, no, we don’t do that. My mom, I mean. She never … well, not much.”

“That was, uh, one reason I wanted to speak to you before you left,” Randy said. “I know Miss Nast here is about Gillian’s age …”

It took a moment for me to realize he meant Savannah.

Randy continued, “I know that you’re teaching her, and that you used to be with the Coven and you did some teaching there, so I thought maybe you could help Gillian. Long-distance, of course. By phone or e-mail or whatever, maybe visit when you’re in town, or we could visit up there. I’ll pay you, of course. I hate to impose, but I don’t know any other witches. My ex-wife didn’t keep in contact with her sister, and I wouldn’t even know where to find her, but I really want Gillian to know more, to be able to cast spells, so she can protect herself”—a quick glance at his daughter’s grave—“against everything.”

“And so she should,” I said. “I would love to help her, in any way I can.”

“Are you sure?” Randy asked.

I met Gillian’s shy gaze with a wide smile. “I’m positive.”

C
ross-legged on the bed, I stared at the white blanket of papers around us, another stack in my hand.

“Roses, carnations, or orchids? Chicken, fish, or beef? Music playlist, guest requests, or a mix of both? Photos inside, out, or off-site? Rent a limo, car, or use our own?”

I sighed. I was usually very good at dealing with adversity. I was Paige Winterbourne, daughter of the Coven Leader. Witches knew all about adversity, and I did better than most. At the age of twenty-two, I’d found myself with custody of Savannah Levine, twelve-year-old daughter of a dark witch—her mother dead, her father to follow soon after. Flash forward a couple of years and I’d been kicked out of the Coven, watched my house burn, and been driven from town. I still had Savannah, though. And, as a bonus, I got an amazing guy who wanted to spend the rest of his life with me … which was where the current problem started.

I flourished the papers. “We rented the hall, reserved the chapel, picked caterers and florists and photographers and DJs … and still the work never stops. Isn’t that what we hired all these people for?” I looked over at the page Lucas was studying. “What’s that one for?”

“Matchbooks.”

“What for? To light the centerpieces?”

“No, as I recall, we have yet to reach the critical ‘table arrangement’ decision.”

“Candles. Or maybe the goldfish bowls Savannah wants. Or your mom’s disposable camera idea, to get candid shots—” I slapped my palms to my temples and thumped back onto the bed. “Ack, more choices.”

Lucas rubbed my bare feet. After a moment, I peeked through my fingers.

“Do I even want to know about the matchbooks?” I asked.

“Probably not.”

“Procrastinate, and we’ll only have more work later. Let’s get it over with.”

“Well, it appears that commemorative matchbooks were included in the cost of our wedding invitation package.”

“Bonus. Okay, then, that’s settled. On to the next order of—”

“Not so quickly, I’m afraid. We need to decide what we want the matchbooks to say.”

“Oh, I don’t care. Paige and Lucas. Lucas and Paige. Whichever. Then the date. There, on to—”

“Color.”

“Color of—?”

“The matchbook and the text. We also need to select a typeface. And artwork. Plus, they’d like to know if, for an extra hundred dollars—”

“—we can cancel the damned matchbooks altogether?”

He chuckled and resumed my foot massage. I let myself enjoy it before pushing onto my elbows.

“You realize there’s only one answer.”

“To which question?”

“All of them.”

He arched his brows. “Elopement,” I said.

He shifted closer to me, carefully moving the papers aside as he did. “If you really want that …”

I sighed. “We can’t. Your mother—”

“Has already said it’s our choice. Yes, she’d like a church wedding, but considering that I found someone actually willing to marry me, she’s not about to quibble over the specifics.”

“But she’d be disappointed. And your father wouldn’t forgive us.”

“Which, one could argue, is all the more reason to elope.”

I play-punched his leg. “Things are going well with your dad—far better than I dared hope. If a church wedding makes him happy, it’s a small price to pay.” I lifted the ledger. “Well, not a
small
price, but worthwhile.”

I glanced over at Lucas. “He’s still letting us run the show, right? Hasn’t insisted on paying again?”

Lucas shook his head. “Just general ‘if the costs get to be too much’ reminders that his checkbook is available.”

“Nothing else, right? No advice, no suggestions …?”

“None.”

“Which worries you.”

“Terrifies me. But perhaps he realizes this is one area where his interference wouldn’t be welcome.” He paused. “And, in the more likely event that he’s simply lying low, plotting his mode of attack, we have the backup plan.”

“We do, indeed. Now, on to the next life-or-death matter.” I flourished a page. “Rubber chicken, dried-out beef, or fish that hasn’t seen water in a week …”

Savannah and I were out front planting mums. I wasn’t much of a gardener, but I figured that as a new homeowner in a neighborhood with magazine-ready gardens, I should at least make an effort.

“I wouldn’t,” Savannah said. “If you can’t compete, don’t join the race, my mom always said. Better a spectator than a loser.”

“Dig,” I said.

“Like you have time for this crap. What’s more important, saving the world from evil or having a pretty garden? It’s stupid.”

“No, it’s ‘fitting in.’ Now dig.”

A horn honked, and I looked up to see a sporty little black car pulling to the curb, passenger window sliding down. Leaning over from the driver’s seat was a tall woman in her late forties, her dark hair short and stylishly tousled, broad grin lighting up an unexceptional face.

“You girls look busy,” she called.

I smiled and stripped off my dirty gloves. Savannah tossed her trowel onto the sidewalk and bounded over to Lucas’s mom, her arms wide. “Grand—” she began.

“Don’t you dare,” Maria said, raising a warning finger.

“One more week,” Savannah said as she got in the passenger side. “Do you prefer Gran or Granny?”

As Maria eased the car into the driveway, I grabbed my trowel and gloves and followed. When Savannah jumped out and headed for the back door, I stepped into her path.

“Maria’s suitcases are still in the car,” I said.

Savannah sighed and gestured for Maria to pop the trunk.

Maria hesitated, key fob raised. “Are you sure about this, Paige? I can stay at a hotel. Just drive in to help and—”

“And waste precious time traveling? We have a lot to do. Stay here. Please.”