Spellbound (5 page)

“Tell the truth, Jaime.”

The voice rang out from the middle of the crowd. Beside Adam, the reporter perked up.

Jaime smiled. “That's what I'm here for. To spread the truth, that there is life after this, and we are all going—”

“You know what I mean, Jaime O'Casey.”

Jaime didn't react to the use of her real name, but I craned my neck and scanned the audience.

“I can't see who it is,” Adam whispered.

Ushers and security appeared at every doorway. One lift of Jaime's hand, and they came no further.

“Comfortable lies, Jaime,” the male voice continued. “You tell them comfortable lies. We all do. We hide in the shadows and we tell comfortable lies, to them and to ourselves. Lies about what we are. Lies about what we can do.”

Now Jaime waved to the guards to start searching. The man made it easy by standing up. He was younger than I would have expected, probably not much older than me. Not a wild-eyed nutcase either. Just a regular guy—dark hair, average build, decent-looking.

“Recognize him?” Adam whispered.

“No, I've never—”

The man's gaze passed over mine and I felt a jolt that had me whispering a curse. He was a sorcerer. We recognized one another on sight.

He felt the jolt, too, and his gaze swung back. He saw me this time and he froze. Then he blinked and his lips parted. The man in the row in front of him shifted, blocking our sight line, and the sorcerer practically dove across the seats to shove the man out of the way. He stared at me. An openmouthed gape, as if he'd spotted a zebra in the audience. His lips formed my name.

Adam tapped my arm to get my attention. “You
do
recognize him?”

“No. Just that he's a sorcerer. But he seems to know me.”

I turned back. The man had looked away and others between us had shifted so our sight line was blocked again.

“Why are you pandering to humans, Jaime O'Casey?” the sorcerer called.

The guards simultaneously reached each end of his aisle.

“You have power,” he said. “True power. Unbelievable power. You can't just speak to the dead. You can't just raise the dead. You have a direct line to the Almighty. There's an angel sitting on your shoulder.”

“I don't think that's an angel,” Jaime said.

A whoosh of laughter from the audience, too loud and too long for the joke, relief subsiding into nervous giggles and uncomfortable whispers.

“Get him out of here!” someone shouted.

“He's holding up the show!”

Real audience members? Or Jaime's plants? Either way, the cry spread, drowning him out.

“I think those guys are going to ask you to leave,” Jaime said as the guards closed in on the man. “I'm sorry, but folks here paid good money to see the show.”

In the hush that followed her words, the sorcerer shouted, “The end is coming! The end of hiding! The end of pretending! The end of comfortable lies!”

He waved his hands over his head. Fog spread from his fingertips, swirling around him. The audience gasped. I shoved my way along the row to the aisle. Adam followed.

The guards ran at the man. He hit them with a knockback. Then another fog spell, cast over and over, the clouds spreading, covering his retreat.

When the fog dissipated, the guy was gone, and Adam and I were standing in the outer aisle. Jaime saw us and nodded.

“Wow,” she said. “And I thought my special effects were good. Hey, Kat?”

Kat's voice came over the loudspeaker. “Yes, ma'am.”

“Next show? Dry ice. Lots of it.”

The audience laughed nervously, grateful for the excuse.

“Did he say I could raise the dead?” Jaime said. “You know, my mom used to say that, too. Every time I cranked up my stereo.”

More laughter. People settled into their seats. Adam and I glanced at each other then headed for the door. A guard pulled it open for us.

“The end is coming.” Jaime climbed onto the catwalk. “Can't give him any points for originality, can we?” When that spate of laugher died, her voice dropped an octave. “Some people believe that. I don't agree. But I know one thing. When our own end does come, we have nothing to fear, because there is an afterlife, with our loved ones waiting for us . . .”

The guard eased the door shut behind us, muffling her voice as she steered the show back on track.

A
supernatural displaying his powers in public? And exhorting another to do the same? Unheard of. Occasionally a few will argue that it's time for “the big reveal”—for us to tell the world what we are—but they never gain much momentum . . . or many supporters.

It's a simple matter of statistics and history. Supernaturals account for a very small portion of the population, maybe half a percent. The vast majority of them are from minor races with powers so weak that most live their entire lives without ever realizing they are supernatural.

Whenever humans have discovered evidence of our existence, we've suffered. They've hunted us. They've tortured us. They've killed us. Would it be any different today? No. Most people today are enlightened enough not to burn us alive, but they'd still want to control us, test us, contain us. Having the power of numbers, they could do it.

Maybe the guy yelling at Jaime was mentally ill. We aren't as susceptible as humans to things like schizophrenia, but it does happen.

If he was mentally ill, though, he was high functioning, because by the time we got to the road, he was gone.

We jogged to the theater parking lot, hoping to see him peel out. No luck. He'd delivered his message and made his escape.

“Damn,” I said as we walked back. “I was really hoping he was nuts. No one listens to crazy people.”

Adam shrugged. “As far as most people are concerned, anyone talking about raising the dead is crazy. I doubt he's worth worrying about, but the council will need to follow up. This will help.” He lifted his cell phone. He'd snapped a photo of the sorcerer. It was a decent shot, enough to confirm that I'd never seen the guy before in my life. Adam sent me a copy, and I filed it away to pass around to some contacts later.

 

 

We waited for Jaime in her dressing room.

“Well, that was a new one,” she said as she walked in. “Normally supernaturals give me crap for being too
open
with my powers. Did you catch up to the guy?”

I shook my head. “Adam got a photo and we know his type—sorcerer, though that was obvious from the fog spell.”

“He seemed to recognize Savannah,” Adam said uneasily.

“And, for once, it wasn't just someone mistaking me for my mother. He said my name. Made me feel special.”

“Just what you need.” Adam grabbed a bottle of water from the tray. “Anyway, if Hope's feeling up to it, we should get her to run with the story.”

Hope's day job was working for a tabloid. Specifically, she covered the paranormal, everything from Bigfoot sightings to alien encounters. Having her write about the incident might seem ill-advised, but that was how we handled a lot of exposure threats. Hope covered it, sprinkling in enough false information to throw serious paranormal investigators off the trail. Something like this was bound to hit the Internet, and nothing made people say “bullshit” like having the story featured in
True News
.

“There's something we need to talk to you about, too,” Adam said. “The real reason we're here.”

He glanced at me and, for a second, I didn't know what he was talking about. Then it all rushed back.

“What's up?” Jaime opened an icy bottle of water as she settled into a chair. “Jesse isn't suffering from any lingering effects, is he? That kind of possession can leave serious psychic bruises. They'll take time to heal.”

“He's fine. It's me. I . . .” I've lost my spells. My power. It's gone. The words stuck in my throat.

“Are you okay?” She tightened the cap back on the bottle and rose. “I'm sure you're not, but—” She stopped, gaze shifting to the right in a look I knew well.

“Ghost?” I said.

She nodded, then rose and turned to the newcomer. “If you were sent to protect me, you're about an hour late.”

“Hey, Mom,” I said.

I said it casually enough, but it didn't feel casual. It never does. When my mother first became Jaime's spirit guide, the Fates had threatened to end the relationship if Mom had too much contact with me. God, how I'd hated that. Threw tantrums. Screamed at the heavens. Cursed the Fates the way only a fifteen-year-old would dare.

Over the years, I'd come to realize they were right. If we couldn't be together, we couldn't keep pretending we were. We both had to move on. Still I loved being able to have some contact with my mother, and it was hard, knowing she was right there and I couldn't see her, couldn't hear her, couldn't touch her. Couldn't be with her.

“It's not your mom, Savannah,” Jaime said.

Not Mom? Who else would come to protect her? No, not come. Jaime had said “sent.” Who would be sent to protect Jaime?

“My father.”

When she nodded, I turned to the empty air and said, “Hey.” Again. It was as casually as I could say it, but there was nothing casual about it. I couldn't even say “Hey, Dad,” because Kristof Nast had never been my dad. I'd only met him a few days before he died. Died at my hands. Caught up in a storm of grief, thinking he'd had Paige killed, I'd launched a knockback spell so hard it threw him against a concrete wall. I'd been in a trance state, so everyone thinks I don't remember what happened. But I do.

So does he, I'm sure, but when I brought it up once through Jaime, he stuck to the fiction that he'd died when the house collapsed. He said it was his own fault, that he'd screwed up trying to get custody from Paige, and he regretted that. But he was with my mother again so he was happy, even if he did miss his sons and the chance to really get to know me.

I missed that, too. Sometimes I think about what it would have been like if Mom was still alive and Kristof had come back into our lives. I knew from my half brother, Sean, that our father had been everything he could have wanted in a dad, maybe everything I would have wanted, too. Only I'll never get the chance to find out. Not really.

Anyway, awkward. Just all-around awkward.

“If you guys need to talk,” I said, “we'll step out and—”

“No, he's here for you,” Jaime said. She glanced his way, listening. Then she blinked, startled. “Can't you just—?” A pause and her cheeks flamed. “No, of course. Right. Okay, well . . .” She forced lightness into her voice. “Just take good care of it. I put a lot of work into making it just the way I want it.”

“What's he—?” I said.

Jaime's head jerked back. The water bottle fell from her hand.

“Savannah.”

Jaime's voice was pitched low, the inflections wrong. She'd let my father take over her body. Full-channeling, something she'd once claimed she'd never let a ghost do. Since then she has a few times, with my mother. She trusts her. My father? Not so much.

I knew he scared her, though she tried to hide it. In life, Kristof Nast had scared most people. He'd been the heir to the most powerful Cabal in the country, a corporation that gained and maintained its position through raw, merciless ambition. According to everyone who'd known my father, he'd been perfectly suited to lead the company. Even my mother called him a ruthless bastard, though coming from her, that was a compliment.

My mother loved him. Jaime tolerated him only because of that. Yet she trusted he wouldn't have any reason to keep her body, so she'd let him do it once before, the first time we “met” after his death. To allow it again . . . ?

Something was wrong.

“What's—?” I began.

“Sit, Savannah. Please.”

I did.

“Your mother wanted to be here,” he said. “But the Fates have sent her on a mission, and if she'd made a stop to see Jaime, they'd know it was to speak to you.”

Figures. The Fates were always sending my mother on errands. That was the bargain she'd made to return Paige and Lucas from the afterlife. Don't even ask how they ended up there—long story—but to get them returned, Mom agreed to do a favor for the Fates, which somehow turned into years of favors, proving that when it comes to dealing with otherworldly entities, it's not just the demons you have to watch.

“I need to talk to her,” I said. “Or to the Fates. Can you arrange that?”

“I could,” he said. “But . . . I know what happened last night, Savannah. With your powers. That's why I'm here.”

My hands trembled with relief. “Good. Thank you. It was a mistake. I wanted to fix the mess I made, but I didn't seriously mean I'd give up my powers. I didn't even say it out loud.”

“Someone took advantage of you, sweetheart. A bargain requires a spoken or written binding agreement, not just a thought or a wish.”

I managed a smile. “Next time, I'll call you. You're the expert in demon deals.”

He chuckled. “True, but in general, my advice would be simply not to make them. In this case, though, you clearly were not making a bargain. We have no idea how such a thing could be accomplished. That's what the Fates have your mother investigating.”

“The Fates? But they're the ones who did this.” My heart battered my ribs. “Aren't they?”

“The Fates can be as devious and underhanded as any demon. But they aren't responsible for this, and they have no idea who is.”