Witch Eyes (19 page)

Fresh air helped. The turmoil in my stomach was rising higher in my throat now, preparing a passageway for everything to come back up. I almost wanted to laugh. My stomach wanted to betray me too, but there was nothing there to unleash.

I leaned over one of the stone railings, gasping in huge breaths of air. This was the second time today I’d felt nauseous, and I wasn’t enjoying it.

“I don’t know why she meets with him. He’s a snake.” Trey’s voice was grim behind me.

I couldn’t focus on that. I had to spend all my energy keeping my stomach in line. It was wasted effort.

I heaved, and heaved, and heaved some more. The pastries had decomposed into something grayish and clumpy as I threw them up. Right into one of the bushes.

I couldn’t see Trey, only the bush in front of me. The constant heaving made my glasses start to slip down, and I closed my eyes. With each successive attempt to purge everything inside of me, my eyes opened just a slit.

The pile of goo that had been in my stomach a minute before glowed with gold fire. Catherine had used magic on me after all.

Twenty-Seven

“What are you hiding from me, Braden?” Trey’s tone was gentle, but there was an unmistakable demand to his words.

It was a spell. My mind started unraveling it, seeing the strands of silver and gold that had been hidden inside the food. How had she managed to do that? And why hadn’t I seen it coming?

You never eat the food when you come to a witch’s house. Even fairy tales tell you that. Everything started falling into place. Jason had told me that Catherine had found a way to channel her power in a new way. It wasn’t in the food itself, but somehow woven into the crafting of it—an ingredient that wasn’t apparent in the final product.

It was some sort of truth spell. The magic was subtle, even in its current state. More Jason’s style than mine.

I had to know that the effects had worn off, to know that it was safe to open my mouth again. “I’m really a girl,” I muttered, my tongue shrieking with every motio
n.

When I looked up, I could see the shock in Trey’s eyes. “What?” His face had gone white, and if I wasn’t currently vomiting up my nonexistent breakfast, I might have laughed.

“It isn’t working anymore,” I went on. “Save your breath. And your questions.”

My gag reflex started to diminish, and I rested my head against the cool marble stone and practiced my breathing. My body was already starting to recover now that the magic was gone from inside of it.

“What are you talking about?”

Had he known? Why else ask me that question? “That was the point of dinner, wasn’t it? Give Braden the magical roofie and watch him spill his guts. See if he’s got any deep, dark secrets your mother can exploit, right?”

“You’re talking crazy. You’re just not feeling well, that’s all.” Someone had flipped a switch, and now Trey was all gentleness and smooth edges. Just trying to make sure I was okay. I wasn’t.

“I can’t believe I thought this was a good idea,” I raged. “She basically threatened me, and you don’t even see it.
”

“Hey!” He grabbed the fabric over my shoulder and used it to yank me back up. “She wanted to get to know you. The least you could do is show a little respect.”

I struggled to get myself out of his grip, but the fact was that he was bigger than me. “Did you miss what happened in there? She tried to put a spell on me.” I shook myself. “No wait, she actually
did
put a spell on me.”

Trey was breathing hard, his eyes narrowed down as he glared at me. “Was she wrong? My mother’s not an idiot, Braden. You show up out of nowhere, start looking into Grace, and she’s not supposed to be suspicious? She’s worried you might be a threat.”

“Of course I’m a threat, you idiot.” I lashed out, striking him with an ineffective fist. He didn’t let go, and didn’t even budge. “It’s not like you’ve been honest the whole way through either, Mr. Lansing.”

If I’d thought he couldn’t get any more angry, I was sadly mistaken. His eyes burned like a gas flame as he pulled me forward. “This isn’t some stupid high school game. Jason’s always looking for a way to hurt my family. And he’ll hurt you if you don’t give him what he wants.”

People in Belle Dam had issues with personal space. “And what happens when she finds out what I can really do?” It was too bad the nausea was passing, because I would have really liked to purge myself all over his shoes.

Trey didn’t seem to care. He just kept pulling me closer, until we were nose to forehead. “What the hell’s the matter with you?” he breathed. “We’re just trying to protect you. Jason needs to be stopped. You know he does.”

He was never going to see the truth. Catherine had raised the perfect little soldier. “Listen to yourself. You’re talking about violence.” Inspiration struck me. “People could get hurt. The last time there was a war between the Lansings and the Thorpes, they flooded the town! What, the serfs and vassals aren’t special like us so they don’t matter?”

It was the wrong thing to say. Trey shoved me back, finally releasing me. I stumbled, barely catching myself on the railing. “Of course you wouldn’t understand,” he seethed. “You’re just a kid.”

Just a kid? Trey didn’t have a clue what my life was actually like. Just being some spoiled kid would have been a blessing. I almost told him everything, right at that moment, until something drew my attention to a far corner of the house.

The house was shaped like a backward “L” from what I could see, and the rear part of the house looked much different from the rest. New siding had been put up, but it was clearly part of a much older structure. Above the house, a railing circled the roof. A widow’s walk. Standing against the edge, a finger pressed to where her mouth should be, a veiled woman with glittering eyes was looking down on me.

I reached up, not to pull off my glasses, but to make sure they were still there. The woman was transparent; I could see the old bricks of the cupola through her midsection. But I could see her, even through the glasses.

She didn’t speak out loud, but I could hear her just the same.
Be silent
, she said.
Don’t act.
This was the woman I’d glimpsed in the vision last night in the cemetery. Seeing her again was like an anchor, allowing the details to be dredged up. In all the confusion of dark magic, attacks, and adrenaline, I’d forgotten about her.
True power locked away, keys that cannot be held or felt or seen. Torn into death, from one world to the next.

I wanted to protest, to explain that I didn’t understand. But Trey was still standing behind me, and I couldn’t just start talking to myself. I knew without question that he wouldn’t see the veiled woman. Grace.

I turned back to him. “You’re right.” I kept my voice quiet and low. “I don’t want any of this.” I walked past the railing and into the garden, following the side of the house back toward the front.

“Where are you going?” he shouted, still rooted in place on the patio.

I shrugged and kept moving. I’d been about to tell Trey the truth about everything—why I was here, and about Jason. Grace had warned me to stop. What I couldn’t figure out was, why?

¤ ¤ ¤

Jade was just getting out of Trey’s car when I reached the front of the house.

“What’s wrong?” she said cautiously, hesitating with the car door. Whether to shut it and move on, or get back in.

“I’m a threat to your mother’s evil empire, and your brother and I are fighting again.” My words were short and succinct, a rapid-fire summary of the afternoon.

Her lips thinned, and she nodded across the car. “Get in. I’ll give you a ride back into town.”

Jade was the only one of them I actually trusted.
Maybe because with her, what you saw was what you got. A few minutes later, we were pushing the speed limit in silence. “What’s my mother’s issue with you now?” she finally asked, once we were back in the safe haven of commercial property.

I stared out the window, watching the yellow lines at the side of the road dip left and right as we accelerated. “Well, aside from the dinner party from hell, she kinda … threatened me, I guess.” I stopped. “Well, she didn’t
actually
threaten me, but you kinda had to be there.” I still didn’t know how much Jade knew about Catherine’s lifestyle, and getting into the magic stuff was way too much to handle right now.

“Oh, I’m sure she was threatening you,” Jade said, like it was an ordinary occurrence. “That’s her style. Most kids have a father cleaning a shotgun to scare the boys off. We got my mother and her dinner parties.”

“She was meeting with Lucien Fallon,” I added. “So the interrogation got cut shor—Jade, watch the road!”

In the middle of my sentence, Jade had whirled on me. Her shock
was matched only by my fear of the oncoming traffic we were drifting into.

She focused back on the street, and turned the wheel so we slid back into our own lane. Angry horns trailed in our wake. “She was meeting with him? Again?”

This wasn’t the first time? “I don’t know. I guess. He said he had to get back to town, though.”

“Lucien’s their intermediary or something.” Jade’s tone was grim. “He shows up so she doesn’t have to deal with Jason.”

“They seemed a little more friendly than that,” I said, thinking back to the exchange. “And I think she was offering him a job.”

Jade’s hands tightened around the wheel like her brother’s. “Did you know he hit on me when I was a freshman? Got all pervy and kept talking about all the things he could show me.”

“He’s slime,” I agreed. How many girls had he hit on over the years? It was extremely gross to think about. “It’s disgusting. He should stick to girls his own age, y’know?” I said it halfheartedly, secretly wondering how old he really was. Were there even girls his own age? He had to be over a hundred.

She pulled into a parking spot in front of the hotel. “One of his secretaries was on the cheerleading squad a few years ago. Had a full ride to college and six months later, she walked away from it. She moved to Seattle to live with her aunt or something.” Jade pursed her lips. “I think I heard she was waitressing now. Just dropped out of school entirely.”

After working with Lucien for only a few months? “Does that happen to all of them? I heard someone say that none of them last long.”

“I dunno. Maybe. Most of the girls that go to work for him don’t know any better. They just see a hot, single guy that’s willing to pay them crazy money.”

I thought about that after I got out of the car. What was Lucien’s obsession with young girls? Aside from the obvious, of course. Was there something more to it? Or was he just a pervert?

¤ ¤ ¤

There was no sign of Jason when I got back to the hotel room, but maid service had been busy. Everything was neat and orderly—they’d even gone so far as to fold the clothes I’d left strewn over the bed. Or maybe Jason had done it. How long had he stayed here after I’d left?

I ordered a hamburger from room service, and took a shower while I waited. Later, a much cleaner and fuller me curled up under the covers of the bed. Night was just starting to approach, but so much had happened today. I figured I could sleep for a few hours, and then get back up and try and make some headway on both schoolwork and the Lucien issue.

Catching up on schoolwork didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would. Half the things I had to finish up were in subjects I’d already gone through with John. I gave up about halfway through the math homework though. When I couldn’t even manage to finish the easy problems, I knew it was a lost cause.

There also wasn’t anything to find out on the Lucien front. Everything I’d seen on the Net was the sum total of what was out there. I was still feeling anxious and nervous about the things that had happened today. Being set up by Trey, accosted by Catherine, and then having Lucien stroll in like it was no big deal.

I’d never get back to sleep this way, unless I seriously tired myself out. John used to run, back when I was younger, but I’d never taken up the hobby. But now, it seemed like a great idea. It only took a few minutes to change into something warmer and slip on a pair of tennis shoes.

There was only one car on the road when I finally got outside and crossed the street. It turned the same way I was heading, passing me by and allowing me only a momentary glimpse of the dark metallic color as it passed under a streetlight.

I started running so I wouldn’t have to think. About Lucien, the feud, Grace, any of it. I crossed block after block, expecting any minute would be the one where I’d lose steam and need to stop. But I didn’t. I kept going, taking turns at random. Eventually, I ended up turning back toward the docks on the north side of town, far past Sather Park.

A block down from me, a car turned to the left. Black chrome. I slowed my jog, feeling a moment of concern. Part of me wanted to shrug it off; it could have been anyone. Belle Dam wasn’t that big of a town, and if I’d learned anything, it was that it paid to be paranoid.

Instead of continuing down the sidewalk, I crossed into the small car dealership next to me and watched. Sure enough, I could see a glimmer of red brake lights where the car had paused. Just out of sight from the street.

Someone’s following me.
I pulled the silver necklace from out of my shirt and rubbed it between my thumb and finger.

“Hide me from their sight,” I murmured, releasing only a trickle of magic. Since I planned to run, it wouldn’t work very well this time. But it was better than nothing.

I turned back the way I’d come and zigzagged along streets. I stuck to the shadows, running through darkened parking lots and run-down yards.

My footsteps echoed all around me, louder and more distinct than they’d been when I was running for the fun of it.
They’re still out there.

I was almost back to the hotel, but from here to there the streetlights blazed. I’d gotten turned around with all the running, and was coming back from a different direction. There wasn’t a cover of darkness to hide behind.

I stopped running, but the echo didn’t stop around me.

“You run like a girl.” Drew jumped out of the shadows and shoved me into a row of bushes.