The Witch Collector Part II (6 page)

“He ran away? Why? What is he hiding?”

“He was afraid of the demon.”

“At least he’s intelligent,” Miro said without a trace of humor in his voice.

“He’s been running around the city looking for Gavin,” I explained. “Nothing much has come up beyond the fact that Brandon’s mother, who he hasn’t seen in years, is here as well. That can’t be a coincidence. I don’t know anything about her, or what she’s capable of, only that she might be helping Gavin. Brandon doesn’t know where my parents are, but he is convinced his dad is dangerous.”

“Does he know you’re unmarked?”

“I didn’t tell him. I didn’t even tell him I’d started to get my magic.”

“Why not?” Miro said, and then knelt before me, wrapping his hands around my upper arms. He pulled me closer to him, the kitchen chair scraping against the wood floor. Surprise caught the breath in my throat. “What stopped you? Wouldn’t you want to share that with your boyfriend?”

“I’m not sure.” I leaned back slightly. Miro wasn’t hurting me, but the fierceness in his expression told me he was balancing on the razor-thin fence between controlled anger and wild fury.

“You’re wondering, aren’t you?” he said, his low voice reverberating against every nerve in my body. “Why didn’t he come sooner? Why isn’t he here now? Why isn’t he camped out in front of your bedroom door, protecting you from his father?”

I placed my hands against Miro’s chest and attempted to push him back. It was like trying to move a steel beam. “Maybe,” I said pointedly, “he’s afraid.”

In response Miro dragged the chair closer still, and my hands slid toward his shoulders. His voice was barely above a whisper. “Is there something you’re still not telling me?”

I looked at him, my own anger bubbling up. “Let me go.”

“If you’re not telling me everything, if you’re not seeking to explore all avenues, then maybe you don’t really want to find your parents. Maybe there’s something going on here that I don’t understand. Are you really who you say you are, Breeda Fergus? Are you an honorable person? I’ve tried to be. Do you know how hard it is to be honest with yourself when you are living with what I did to my brother? It makes you have zero tolerance for liars. Are
you
a liar?” Miro locked eyes with me, his face inches from mine. In the fathomless depths of green and gold and brown I saw a boy teetering on the edge, in constant battle with the darkness trying to claim him. I thought about what Evie said about the witching world, about its turbulent nature. Miro was falling victim to it, just like his brother had.

Still, he had no right to bully me, and I was in no mood for feeling like a victim myself.

“Let. Me. Go,” I said, each word a slap.

He pushed back the chair, and I scrambled to my feet. Then I strode down the hall, ignoring Miro as he called my name.

“We’re out of here,” I said to a round-eyed Shelley as I grabbed my backpack. We thundered down the back stairs, and this time I didn’t care if anyone heard me.

The root cellar was in the far, dark corner of the basement. A wood bar lay across the door. Evie shoved it to the side. “Got a present for you, demon!”

Shelley stood by my side while the demon strained at its chains to reach me. Its black eyes burned with need.

I stuck my tongue out at it. And then we took off in search of Seralina.

Chapter 7

T
he Moonstone, I learned from Shelley, housed transient witches. The building looked worn, its grayish cement bricks and block glass windows giving it the appearance of a free clinic or halfway house. Damp newspapers accumulated at the entrance, and cardboard covered one section of the glass door.

“You’re sure this is it?” I asked Shelley.

“Don’t be judgmental,” she replied. “This place needs to look nondescript. We wouldn’t want any old person checking in, right?”

Chicago’s witching world infiltrated the city in the most clandestine of ways. It was vast and deep, as I learned on the L ride over to the Moonstone, but barely visible. Shelley pointed out strange landmarks and shops and dense, well-shaded, witch-friendly parks—I would have walked by any one of them without sparing a second glance. There were options in the city but limited freedom for witches, and I silently thanked my parents for giving me the run of a deep wood, the freedom of sprawling, open spaces untouched by human hands. It may not have been wise to follow Gavin, but what he offered must have seemed very attractive.

The Moonstone’s front door was held open with a brick, so we walked in. The registry clerk watched us from behind a glass partition. He was so ancient I thought dust might fall out of his sleeve as he handed us the sign-in book. “Who’re you here for?” he said over comically circular glasses.

Shelley straightened her shoulders. “Ion Romany, please.”

“Ah,” the old man said, eyeing her lasciviously. “Lucky boy.”

Shelley curled her lip in disgust. “Room number?”

“You young witches are no fun,” the ancient complained. “He’s in 6A
and
B. His mother rented a suite.” When I smiled my thanks he leaned over the desk and gave an exaggerated wink. “She’s loaded,” he stage-whispered. “But not very nice. Keep your guard up.”

I winked back at him, trying to ignore the flutter of nerves in my stomach.

The place didn’t have an elevator, so Shelley and I sprinted up the stairs. By the time we got to the sixth floor we both had lost our breath, so we stopped on the landing to gather ourselves.

Shelley grasped the railing. “I think . . . Ion . . . likes . . . me . . . .”

“Not . . . a . . . news . . . flash,” I responded, breathing heavily.

Shelley inhaled and exhaled deeply, regulating her breathing. “It’s just, I know it might be helpful to use that—to find your parents, I mean,” she babbled on. “I really want to find them, don’t get me wrong; I mean, I really want you to find them, you know that, right?”

“Yes. Thank you,” I said, finding my breath as well. The need to find my parents had gone from a panicked, restless feeling to a constant ache, burning steadily through my heart and brain and muscles.

“It’s just that . . .” Shelley paused.

“What are you trying to tell me?”

She reddened. “I kind of like someone else. Leading Ion on seems mean, but if it’s necessary, I’ll do it.”

“I don’t think it’ll be necessary,” I said quickly. I didn’t want to keep asking people to make sacrifices on my behalf, no matter how seemingly trivial. Shelley and I opened the door to the sixth floor. Surprisingly, it was tastefully decorated, with a plush, cream-colored rug and French-blue doors. As we headed for 6A, my mind couldn’t help but drift to Shelley’s crush. “Are you going to tell me?” I asked before we knocked.

“It’s Vadim,” she admitted in a low voice. “He’s not my usual type. I mean, he’s rude and doesn’t talk much and always looks like life is kind of a chore. But one day he was fixing my bicycle, and there was something in the way he was moving. It was so
confident
. Weird, huh?”

I thought about the hypnotic smell of cinnamon and cloves, and the effect it had on me. “Not so weird.”

Someone walked across a hardwood floor in 6A.

We fluffed our hair, plastered on some smiles, and knocked on the door.

Ion answered. His mouth opened and closed like a dying fish. “What are you doing here?” he asked. “I mean, hi! I hoped you’d come over, but you said you were busy.”

Ion babbled just as much as Shelley when she was nervous. Maybe he was a better match than Vadim.

“Can we come in?” I asked.

“Yes! Yes, of course.” Ion shuffled us into the foyer. “My room’s kind of a mess,” he said apologetically, “but we could talk here.” He gestured to the most beautiful living room I’d ever seen.

It was sunken, two steps down from a marbled ridge leading to a sweeping balcony. A white rug—the kind that always looked new—covered most of the distressed wood floors. A modern, black leather sectional ran the length of room, and could probably have seated twelve comfortably. Oversized paper lanterns hung from the ceiling, providing flattering lighting for the woman who sat in the middle of the dark sofa like a single star in the night sky. Chopsticks held her white-blond hair into a twist, and she wore a crimson kimono wrapped around her slender body. Her ruby talisman lay at the base of her neck like blood on snow.

“Hello again, girls,” Seralina said acidly. “What brings you to the Moonstone?”

“They came to see me,” Ion said, but I heard doubt in his voice.

She smiled at him, her lipsticked mouth stretching across her face. “Don’t be ridiculous, darling. I know why these girls are here.”

Ion looked at Shelley beseechingly.

“
I’m
here to see you,” she said. “Would you like to show me the view? It looks amazing.”

They’d just closed the glass doors to the balcony behind them when Seralina said, “Did Evie send you to deliver my order? I placed it nearly a week ago.”

“That’s not why I’m here.”

She tossed me a skeptical look. “Even so, you tell your aunt I will pay her when she completes a project, not a second before. That woman takes forever to split a diamond.”

I sat on the edge of the couch, far enough away from Seralina to give myself the opportunity to escape, close enough to see some worry lines etched into her alabaster skin. “You don’t trust her?”

“No,” she snapped. “I don’t trust anyone.”

“Neither do I,” I lied. “But I’m willing to trust you.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I’d like you to complete the reading you started in Sandy’s apartment.”

“You left quickly enough. Did I frighten you?” The corner of her mouth lifted as she fought a smile. She liked the idea of having such an effect.

“Yes,” I said. “That’s why I left. I’m sorry if I was disrespectful.”

“Well, I can’t simply pick up where I left off. I’m not an unfinished chess game one leaves on a dining-room table.” She reached into the pocket of her kimono and pulled out her ornate tarot cards. “I must say I am curious, but I’ll need to give you an entirely new reading. I only had time for the present, past, and future the other night. That is the heart of the story, but not the whole story.”

Seralina held the cards in her hand and looked at me expectantly.

“Could we get started?” I asked.

“Information is currency, young lady, so what am I going to learn about you that will make this worth my while?”

I racked my brain, trying to come up with something of interest to her. With only a second’s hesitation, I threw Evie under the bus. I figured she’d understand. “Since Evie is my aunt, my reading may reveal something about her.”

“Why would I care?”

“If she is going to be a member of your coven, shouldn’t you know everything about her?”

Seralina snorted—an indelicate sound coming from such a delicate person. “An alchemist and a Romany in the same coven? Are you insane?”

I frowned, miffed on Evie’s behalf.

“Ah,” she said, “you’ve been talking to Sandy. That daffy witch has cotton candy for brains.”

I still felt a surge of pity for Sandy and her attempt to create a true home. “Have you told her yet?” I asked, unable to wash the disapproval from my tone.

Seralina shrugged. “She knows I haven’t broken the oath with my coven, as much as I’d like to.”

I wondered what a Romany coven was like. I couldn’t visualize it, but I was pretty certain they didn’t practice witchcraft in Birkenstocks and hemp T-shirts like mine had. “So Sandy still assumes her dream coven is a possibility?”

“I suppose.” Seralina bent over the coffee table and slid open a hidden drawer. From it she pulled frankincense resin and a few pillar candles of the deepest indigo. She lit the candles and then the resin, filling the space with a pungent, heavy odor. “If we’re going to do this, let’s do it. We’ll just say you owe me one.”

Being in debt to Seralina was not exactly ideal, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to use the smell as a steadying influence. Then I took a breath, knowing what was coming but not fearing it quite as much.

Seralina shuffled the cards and placed the deck in front of me. “Cut,” she said.

Simply placing my hands on the ancient cards sent a jolt up my arm as though I’d touched a live wire. I bit my tongue, waiting for it to pass. Seralina watched me carefully. “Ask your question. Concentrate on it. Let the words flow through your body.”

Where is Gavin?

She peeled off three cards and placed them in a line, facedown. One by one, she turned them over. Betrayal. Ignorance. Death.

My stomach flipped, but Seralina remained unruffled by the ominous message. “Same old, same old,” she said. “Someone really did a number on you. Who was it? Do you know yet?”

I shook my head, not trusting my voice. The magic pulsed within me. If felt different from before—stronger but more connected to my breath, my heartbeat, the blood coursing through my veins.

Seralina began to lay cards down around the three at the center, and then formed a staff beside the circle.

“A Celtic cross,” I whispered.

“It’s going to tell us your story,” she said, her black eyes glowing like hot coals. “There is so much to learn.”

She studied the configuration for a moment. Her mouth began to harden, and the faint bit of color she had in her cheeks drained away. “This can’t be right,” she muttered, and picked up the deck to reshuffle. She laid the cards again to the same outcome.

“Who are you?” she demanded, grabbing my hands. “The center is yours but the rest are mine. I did the same reading earlier.”

I tried to yank my hands away from her but she held fast. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

“I’m going to ask you again,” she said, her voice holding an unspoken threat. “Who in the hell are you?”

“Breeda Fergus.”

“You’re looking for him, too, aren’t you, Breeda Fergus?” She clutched harder, her nails digging into my skin. “The question is, have you found him yet?”

The magic leapt within me, fear and anger prodding it to act. “Please release me,” I begged.