Protector (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 5) (4 page)

He had a pretty good idea of what she’d been about to say. “Mexican?” he suggested.

A nod. “Well, I was going to say Hispanic, but yeah. Yes. I didn’t know if you were one of them, too.”

“Can you describe them?” Valentina asked, her tone troubled.

“There were three of them.” Caitlin drew in a hitching little breath, as if even attempting to recall the faces of the young men who had assaulted her was physically painful. “The leader, his name was Matías, and the other two were Jorge and Tomas. They said they were brothers, but I don’t know if that was true or not.”

“But you’re certain they were warlocks,” Alex cut in. None of this made sense. He didn’t know anyone in Tucson, or in his extended family in Phoenix, named Matías. Jorge and Tomas were more common names, but again, among his cousins, he didn’t have any brothers who shared those names. He might have said one or two of his wilder cousins were capable of messing with some
gringa
witches who’d come down to Tucson to party, just to show them whose territory they were in…but certainly not to the extent of physically assaulting them.

“Yes, they were definitely warlocks,” Caitlin replied, her voice barely above a whisper. She drank some more of her water. It seemed to revive her, because she sounded stronger as she continued, “They took us to their house, which is in that residential area just past the traffic light, the one where there’s the closed-down gas station on the corner. You know, that way?”

She made a vague gesture toward the wall with the window in it, which was in completely the opposite direction from the neighborhood he thought she was talking about. But that was all right; Alex knew which one she meant. And he also knew that none of the de la Paz witches or their extended families lived there. So who the hell were these strange young men she was talking about?

Caitlin continued, “Matías was the tallest. He was probably about your height.” Then she hesitated and seemed to study Alex a bit more closely. “Well, maybe a little shorter. He was good-looking, I guess. Black hair and brown eyes. He had a snake tattooed around his neck.”

“There’s no one in our clan with a tattoo like that,” Valentina said, her tone troubled. She shot a significant glance in Alex’s direction, one that he knew most likely meant she wanted to call his mother now, before this went any further. He supposed it made sense, since his mother was Maya’s daughter and the
prima
-in-waiting, and Maya was in Scottsdale, more than an hour away.

Without taking his focus from Caitlin, he nodded slightly at Valentina. Murmuring that she needed to make a call, she headed out the back door, no doubt so she could get her cell phone out of her purse and make that necessary call.

After she’d gone, Alex said, “What about the others?”

“Jorge and Tomas? I guess you could say they were good-looking, too. Not as tall as Matías. They had tats, too — a bunch of symbols I’d never seen before. And Tomas had what looked like a ring of roses and barbed wire around one of his biceps.” For some reason, the recollection seemed to upset her; Alex saw her hand begin to shake again as she lifted the bottle of water to her lips.

All good details — and he was sort of surprised she’d been able to remember that much, considering how shaken up she was, how much blood she’d lost. Even so, he could tell there was something else she didn’t want to talk about. Yes, she’d recognized that the young men who’d approached her and her friends were also witch-folk, but that didn’t explain how she’d sensed they were bad…and it sure didn’t explain the knife wound in her side.

Maybe with Valentina gone, Caitlin would feel more like opening up, now that it was only the two of them in the room. He guessed she had to be a few years younger than he was, maybe as much as five, but they were still a lot closer in age than Valentina, who was old enough to be Caitlin’s mother.

“And so…you said they felt wrong. How did you know that?”

A blank expression seemed to settle on her pretty features. Her gaze shifted to the wall, to the calendar from one of their produce supply companies and the overly bright still life of pears it was showing for the month of March. “I just knew. I sensed it.”

He got the feeling she didn’t want to say anything more than that, and he wasn’t going to push it. After all, he didn’t know her. He’d leave the poking and prodding to his mother, who was all too skilled at extracting information from her children and pretty much anyone else she set her focus on.

“So you went to their house….”

“Yes. The guys said they were going to make margaritas. Danica and Roslyn really wanted to go, and I could tell I wouldn’t be able to talk them out of it. Also, they were acting strange.”

“Strange how?”

With a nervous gesture, she reached up to push some of the heavy hair that hung over her shoulder back a little, so it wouldn’t be lying against her neck. Alex had a sudden flash of what it might feel like to have those silky dark copper strands running through his fingers, brushing against his face, and then frowned. Where the hell had that come from? Sure, she was pretty — beautiful, really, or would be, once she wasn’t so shaken and pale — but they had far more important things to focus on right now.

“Strange like…almost like they were drugged or….”

“Or under a spell?”

A nod. “Yes. Like Matías had cast a spell on them. And I could feel it, too, or at least feel
something
, but for some reason it didn’t seem to have the same effect on me. That is, I went along, and some part of me was trying to fight it, but I couldn’t open my mouth to really say anything, to tell them to stop, that we shouldn’t go to the guys’ house. Every time I tried, I felt as if I was choking.”

That did sound like a spell, a dark one of compliance, of control. Alex didn’t know of anyone who possessed those kinds of powers. It was the sort of spell Damon Wilcox might have cast back in the day, but he was long gone. And anyway, if anyone in the de la Paz clan had attempted to meddle in those sorts of things, his grandmother would have sniffed them out immediately.

Well, she would have, once upon a time. Now….

His expression must have darkened, because Caitlin asked, voice sharp with worry, “What is it?”

“Nothing,” he said immediately. His clan had been careful to keep hidden as much as they could about the truth of his
abuela
’s condition, and he didn’t think it was his place to discuss it now. “I mean, there’s no one in my clan who can do that sort of thing. Did they say they were de la Pazes?”

“Well, no,” she admitted. “I just kind of assumed….”

He wanted to be annoyed with her for making that assumption , but he knew he probably would have done the same thing, had he been in a similar situation. Witches and warlocks always stuck to their clans’ territories. Sure, you’d get some visiting from time to time, but always with permission. Since he wasn’t privy to all of his grandmother’s affairs, he didn’t know for sure that Caitlin and her two companions had contacted her directly, but you could be damn sure someone in her clan had reached out to her, just to make sure it was all right for the girls come visiting in de la Paz territory. For all he knew, Maya had passed the information along to his mother, since she was sort of in charge down here in Tucson.

Which meant she was not going to be happy when she found out that a trio of unknown warlocks had been using some kind of forbidden magic right under all their noses.

“Anyway, that doesn’t matter,” Caitlin went on, pushing at the blanket that covered her, then sliding her legs off the couch. Her mouth tightened in pain, but she went on, “We need to go find them. Goddess only knows what those bastards are doing to Danica and Roslyn right now!”

“Hey,” Alex said, and took a step toward her. “We can’t just go charging in there if we don’t know what we’re dealing with.”

She shot him an impatient look and got to her feet. For a second she seemed to teeter a bit, as if she wasn’t quite as steady as she’d hoped, but then she straightened. When he saw her standing like that, he realized she was taller than he’d thought, unbending and slender. Of course, the impression of strength was marred somewhat by the unsightly bloodstains that marked her blouse and jeans.

“I left them,” she said, and her tone had shifted from impatience to a sort of desolate pleading. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

He moved even closer, putting a hand on her arm. She tensed, and he let go. Even so, he maintained eye contact with her, hoping he could find a way to convince her that she’d done the right thing. “If you’d stayed and tried to fight them, you’d probably be dead now, Caitlin.”

Her mouth compressed to a tight line, but she didn’t argue. Encouraged, he went on,

“Running away was the smartest thing you could have done. You came here, got help. We’re not going to abandon your friends. We’re just waiting for reinforcements.”

“And they’re here,” his mother said crisply, coming in through the back door, Valentina a few paces behind. Alex had been so focused on the young witch before him that he hadn’t even heard the door open.

Neither apparently had Caitlin, since she startled, but then seemed to regain some of her composure. “Who are you?”

“I am Luz Trujillo, Alex’s mother — and Maya de la Paz’s daughter. You might say I’m the deputy
prima
for Tucson.” Her gaze moved from Caitlin to Alex and back again. “Now, tell me more about these warlocks you met.”

T
here was
such a note of command in Luz Trujillo’s voice that Caitlin didn’t quite have the courage to continue with her protests, but instead gave a quickly truncated account of what she’d already told Alex and the healer, Valentina. Like Valentina, Alex’s mother was darkly beautiful, her shining black hair pulled back into an elegant ponytail that hung halfway down her back. She was wearing a simple bright pink dress that complemented her olive complexion, and low-heeled sandals.

Really, it looked like she’d come here from brunch with friends or maybe early drinks at the country club, and it felt somewhat incongruous to be talking to her about spells of coercion and spiked margaritas. But as Caitlin went on, and did her best to describe the circle she’d seen chalked on the floor in that empty sunroom, Luz Trujillo’s elegant arched brows kept pulling together into a deeper and deeper frown.

Once Caitlin was done with her account, explaining how Matías had stabbed her after she’d kneed him in the groin, all was silent in the room for several seconds. Three pairs of dark eyes were fastened on her, all of them troubled, and she didn’t know quite what to do with her hands. She ended up crossing them in front of her; at least that covered up some of the bloodstains on the peasant-style blouse she wore. In a way, Alex’s concerned regard was the worst, just because she still felt awful for thinking that he could have been connected in any way with Matías and his cronies. Alex practically radiated good, and she could see how worried he was about her, even though they’d just met.

At last Luz said, “Can you take us back to this house? Do you remember where it was?”

The image of it was burned permanently on Caitlin’s brain. She nodded, then asked in diffident tones, “So…only the four of us will be going?” It seemed rude to come right out and say she didn’t think they would be enough to combat those three warlocks, but she had to voice her concern somehow.

An amused smile spread over Luz Trujillo’s full mouth. “Actually, it will only be the three of us. Valentina is…not one for confrontations. But I think you’ll find you will be well protected.”

Confused, Caitlin looked over at Alex for clarification. His expression had turned grim, and he gave a small nod at his mother before saying, “You’ll see, when the time comes.”

Well, that was reassuring. But she didn’t want to waste any more time talking; she just wanted to get out there and pray that Roslyn and Danica were still all right. Or at least as all right as they could be, given who they were with.

Luz appeared to sense her impatience. “Lead us there, Caitlin. Valentina will wait here for us.”

Each step seemed to jolt the tender spot in her side, the place where Matías had slid his knife in, but Caitlin ignored the pain, instead taking Alex and his mother from the room in the back of the store, across a stretch of asphalt that appeared to be both the loading area for the business and the employee parking lot, and over to the street. At first she wondered why they hadn’t driven, but then she noted how Luz walked with her hands spread before her, as if she were sensing the psychic currents in the area.

When they got to the corner where the main street intersected with the smaller road that led into the residential area, Luz paused. “Now, Alex. I can feel…something…but I am not sure what it is.”

He nodded, then told Caitlin, “Come in a little closer.”

Mystified, she did as he’d instructed, while his mother did the same thing on his other side, standing a foot or so away from him. He pulled in a breath, dark eyes somber, and then —

— and then the air seemed to somehow shimmer around them, forming a kind of dome approximately seven or so feet high and around ten feet in diameter. Caitlin could see through it, although the world appeared slightly distorted, as if she were viewing it from inside a soap bubble.

“What is that?” she breathed.

“His talent,” Luz said, sounding as proud as if she’d conjured that strange transparent dome herself. “Nothing can get through it.”

“Nothing?”

“Well, air, obviously,” Alex replied, and his tone, in direct contrast to his mother’s, was almost embarrassed. “But nothing else. Rain. Sticks. Stones. Spells,” he added significantly.

“Wow,” Caitlin said, impressed despite the situation. She’d never heard of a talent like that before. No wonder Luz hadn’t been concerned about going back to the evil warlocks’ house with only her son and Caitlin at her side.

“So lead on, please, Caitlin,” Luz said in that commanding way of hers.

It wasn’t far. Down this short feeder lane, then left onto a street lined with one-story houses. Nothing appeared to have changed since she’d run past here — maybe a car was now in one driveway, and had left another. Just the typical coming and going you’d see on any weekday.

And there was the house, looking perfectly ordinary, with its neat walk and carefully arranged succulents in the yard, and one graceful palm as an accent. Even so, looking at it made the blood in Caitlin’s veins go cold all over again, as if she’d just had another sip of Matías’ tainted margaritas.

“It’s all right,” Alex murmured. “There’s really nothing they can do to get through the shield.”

“How long can you hold it?”

“At least an hour.”

That reassured her a bit. Luz nodded, and Caitlin began moving up the walk, Alex right next to her, his mother shifting so she was a few paces ahead of them. When they got to the front door, it stood slightly ajar. What the…?

Luz paused there, seeming to breathe in the air and taste it, as if somehow by doing so she could divine who was in the house and what they were doing. At the same time, Caitlin attempted to force that unruly sixth sense of her own to tell her what the warlocks were up to, but she felt nothing. Well, not precisely nothing. Even though she knew Alex’s dome was protecting the three of them, her hands still shook, and cold fear seemed to be eating away at her stomach. But she’d run away once; she wouldn’t do that again.

At last, Luz reached out and pushed the door open all the way. That was strange, seeing her hand go through the dome to touch the door handle and then come back inside the bubble of Alex’s spell. She sent an inquiring glance in his direction.

“It’s sort of like one-way glass, I guess,” he told her in a murmur. “We can reach through it and not harm ourselves, and even cast spells through it, but it doesn’t work the other way.”

“Handy.”

But then Luz was moving forward, and so Alex had to move with her, Caitlin sticking close to his side. It should have felt strange to be so near someone she’d only just met, but instead his presence felt safe, comforting. He smelled good, too.

Of all the things to be thinking about right now,
she scolded herself, even as she crossed the threshold into the house, halfway expecting some sort of magical attack to begin assaulting the dome that surrounded the three of them.

Nothing happened, though, and she looked around in some mystification. The house was dead silent, except for the background hum of the central air conditioning system.

“Where?” Luz whispered.

“Down the hall is the kitchen, and then off that is the sun porch with the — with the circle.” Caitlin didn’t know how else to describe it. The thing had been some sort of summoning device, some sort of gateway, that much she knew, even if she had no experience with that kind of dark and terrible magic. But “circle” worked well enough to describe what she had seen.

Luz nodded and moved through the living room and past the dining room, then into the kitchen. No sign of the three warlocks, or of Danica and Roslyn. Even the counters were clear, the blender’s mixing container washed out and set back on its base.

This whole thing was wrong, but for some reason that cleaned-up blender felt the most wrong of all. How could the warlocks have so quickly gotten rid of any trace of their being here? It couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes or so since she bolted from the house.

Worse, she could feel Luz and Alex giving her puzzled glances, as if they were wondering whether she’d screwed up and brought them to the wrong house or something. But she knew that wasn’t the case — this
was
the right place. See, there was the bowl of limes on the counter, sitting exactly where she remembered seeing it.

Without thinking, she stalked past Luz, almost through the dome’s protective membrane. Behind her, Alex moved quickly, making sure she stayed even with the bubble. He didn’t say anything, didn’t reprimand her for being so careless, but even now, tense and worried as she was, she knew that had been a stupid move.

Not that it really mattered, because when they got to the sun porch, it was empty as well. No circle. No ring of colored candles. And definitely no warlocks or captive witches.

“It was right here,” Caitlin protested. “I saw it. I swear.”

“We’re not saying you didn’t,” Alex said quietly, his tone reassuring. “
Mamita
, you feeling anything?”

Luz held herself very still, breathing in and out. Then her nose wrinkled, as if she had just smelled something foul.

“Drop the spell for now, Alex,” she told him. “There is no one here, and it is getting in my way.”

At once the dome shivered out of existence. Luz stepped forward so she was standing nearly in the center of the room, almost exactly where the circle had once been, although no trace of it was left. Caitlin didn’t bother to wonder how Luz had managed to do that — she was Maya de la Paz’s daughter, after all, and most likely the next
prima
. Her talents must be very strong.

“Yes,” she said at last. “It was some kind of summoning spell. Black, and made blacker still by being mixed with blood. What they were summoning, I can’t say for sure. Perhaps the spell was interrupted by your running away, Caitlin. That frightened them, I think, or at least compelled them to leave this place so they would not be caught. I’m not sure if they knew the
mercado
was owned by witches, but I think perhaps they did. And they knew if you sensed that, then you would soon be bringing help.”

“But I
didn’t
know,” Caitlin said, wondering why Luz Trujillo would think she’d gone to the store on purpose. “I just went to the first place that looked safe.”

“Ah, that is what you think happened,” Luz replied. “But there was another restaurant and a dentist’s office between that street corner and our store, and yet you headed straight for the
mercado
. Your witch senses instinctively sent you there because it was the one place you were certain to find help.”

Was that what had happened? It was hard to know for sure. She’d been in so much pain and frightened out of her mind, so Caitlin knew she hadn’t been thinking clearly. And yet she had gone into that one particular store, and straight to the young man she knew would help her.

Alex. He was watching her carefully now, expression sober. Goddess, but he was good-looking. Angela must have been awfully disappointed when it turned out Alex wasn’t her consort. Well, she’d done all right in the end, but at the time….

And that’s a ridiculous thing to be thinking about now. So what if Alex is good-looking…and kind…and powerful? Roslyn and Danica are still missing.

Caitlin pulled in a breath and tore her gaze away from Alex so she could focus on Luz. “So…what now? Can you sense where they’ve gone?”

The older woman didn’t reply at first, only stood there in the center of the room, her hands still spread in that gesture Caitlin was coming to recognize as her “divining” one. Then she shook her head. “Not really. Maybe the faintest trace of some kind of energy pulling toward the south. But nothing beyond that.”

“But what do we do now?” Caitlin asked. She knew she sounded frantic, but she didn’t much care. Her friends were still missing, taken the Goddess only knew where by a trio of warlocks who clearly had no compunction about using them to power their own hideous rituals.

“We don’t panic,” Luz said. Her expression softened, and she came back over to where Caitlin stood next to Alex, then laid a hand on her arm. “We are certainly not going to let the matter go. Valentina promised to contact Maya while we came over here, so she knows of the situation. I think now we should go and speak with her.”

“Go up to Scottsdale?” Wait, what was the point of that? She couldn’t leave Tucson, not if her friends might still be hidden somewhere within the city limits.

Sensing her turmoil, Luz pressed her fingers against Caitlin’s arm for just a second, as if to reassure her, and said, “My dear, Maya will most certainly want to speak with you. We will send out the word here in Tucson, so that all of our clan members in the city will be on the lookout for your friends and the warlocks who have kidnapped them. You will not be abandoning your friends, only leaving for a few hours. You can come back here afterward.”

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea to have her staying in a condo by herself after what happened,” Adam began, his tone dubious, and Luz broke in, saying,

“Of course not. It would probably be best if she stayed with you.”

Caitlin felt her eyes widen. Had Alex’s mother seriously just suggested that she stay with her son?

He didn’t look all that enthused by the prospect. Not making eye contact with either of them, he said, “Are you sure that’s such a good idea?”

“You are the best suited to protect her,” his mother said, her tone so matter-of-fact that it didn’t leave much room for argument. She glanced over at Caitlin. “Unless you would prefer that we send you home to Jerome so your family can watch over you?”

No, that didn’t sound good at all. Never mind that she didn’t actually live in Jerome anymore, but in the apartment she shared with Danica in Flagstaff. That sounded even less secure than going back to her old room in her parents’ big Victorian house on Paradise Lane. Yes, she supposed the Wilcoxes would make sure she was looked after…if her parents would even agree to her going back up to Flagstaff after what had happened…but that was the coward’s way out. Hide up in northern Arizona while those bastards still had Danica and Roslyn with them? No way.