Deep Magic

Chapter 1-1

1

Hayley McAllister turned the key she held over in her hand. Technically, she didn’t need it, because all witches and warlocks possessed the ability to open locked doors without the help of a key, but not using one when it was given was generally considered to be in bad taste, if not downright rude. Besides, Brandon had texted her to go ahead and get herself settled in, since he wouldn’t be home from work for a few more hours.

Going inside seemed so…final, somehow. She still wasn’t sure she even needed to be here in Jerome, but her parents had been so unsettled by all the craziness of the past few weeks — the prima of the Santiagos murdered, some sort of psychopathic wizard from Central America taking over the Santiago clan — that they’d insisted she leave Payson, where a small branch of the McAllister family had lived for a hundred years, and come to the mountain town that was the main settlement of their witch clan.

“You’ll be safe there,” Hayley’s mother had told her. “It’s much better than being here in Payson, where there might not be enough of us to protect you.”

Hayley really didn’t think she needed to be protected. But her parents wouldn’t stop worrying that somehow the warlock who’d usurped the leadership of the Santiago clan might be able to sniff out her talent, might try to steal her away for his own nefarious purposes. So in the end she’d agreed, mostly because she couldn’t put up with the nagging any longer.

Her brother Brandon was three years older than she, and had been living in Jerome for the past six months. His talent was for all things mechanical, and he worked in a custom car and motorcycle shop down in Cottonwood. The shop was owned by civilians, so they didn’t have a clue that the newest member of their team just happened to be a warlock. All they knew was that he could smooth out the world’s most crumpled fender, could bring his engine-whispering skills to bear on the most complicated transmission rebuild.

And since the flat he’d been renting had two bedrooms, it seemed logical enough to have Hayley come stay with him. Of course, he’d confided to her that he hadn’t been home much lately because he and the guys at the shop were working on a car they hoped would get them on some cable TV show, but he figured she didn’t need to tell their parents that.

“Anyway,” Brandon had added, “it’s not like I’d be of much use saving you from this big, bad warlock anyway. It’s more likely the other witches and warlocks in town would be handling that part of the deal.”

Which, Hayley had to admit, was only the truth. Brandon’s skill was a super-handy one, but it wouldn’t exactly provide much in the way of magical defense.

She pulled in a breath and inserted the key in the lock, then picked up her bags and walked into the flat. The air smelled slightly stale, and she wrinkled her nose. Brandon hadn’t been kidding about not spending much time here.

Right next to the door and placed up against the wall was a battered-looking table with chipped milk-wash paint. It looked like it might be original to the flat, and Jerome’s former mining days. Hayley set the key down on the table, and put her bags on the floor under it before going to the window so she could pull up the blinds and open it, letting in a warm, fresh breeze.

That was better. The day outside was bright and clear, and from the third-story apartment, she could see all the way down the hill, out to Sedona, and on to the purplish outlines of the San Francisco Peaks, more than fifty miles away in Flagstaff.

Of course, she realized as she turned away from the window, all the extra light coming in also helped to illuminate what a mess the flat actually was. All right, Brandon had made a slight effort in the living room area, where the only thing really out of place was a pair of scuffed work boots lurking under the coffee table and a couple of controllers for the Xbox that sat on an entertainment center made of plain pine boards and some cement blocks, but the kitchen was a disaster — empty pizza boxes from someplace called Grapes sitting on the countertop, a pile of dishes cluttering the sink.

“What, did you think you were getting a live-in maid with me staying here?” she grumbled.

Problem was, she guessed that Brandon had been counting on exactly that. He might have a big heart and not a mean bone in his body, but he was also one of the world’s biggest slobs…just as he knew that his little sister tended to be something of a neat freak.

Lips pressed together, she went into the kitchen and opened the cupboards under the sink, praying that her brother at least had some cleaning supplies on hand. Yes, she could always drive back down the hill into Cottonwood to buy what she needed, but since she’d just spent two hours getting here, she really didn’t feel like sliding back behind the wheel of her car.

That had been her one small victory. She’d agreed to come here, but she’d insisted on driving herself, wouldn’t be brought here by her parents like some kid getting dropped off at summer camp. After all, she was almost twenty-three, more than old enough to handle a simple drive of a hundred miles or so. Her parents hadn’t been thrilled with that idea, but in the end they’d relented, mostly because they could tell she was willing to call off the whole plan if they wouldn’t budge on this one small detail. Besides, Hayley doubted the boogeyman from El Salvador or wherever it was really had the time to drop everything to try to grab her during that one window of opportunity.

Actually, she doubted he was going to come after her at all, but she was tired of trying to argue that point with her parents. Her gift might be powerful, but so were the talents of a lot of other witches and warlocks, many of them in the de la Paz clan, making them much more accessible to someone in Southern California than a single witch holed up in the northern part of Arizona. All that mess with the woman whose ex-husband was killed had been down in the Phoenix area, not up here.

At least Brandon had his act together enough to have liquid dish soap and cleanser and disinfecting wipes in the cabinet under the sink. Hayley got out the soap and a dish brush, and grimly started in on the mess her brother had left behind. Not exactly how she’d planned to spend her first day here in Jerome, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to relax until she had all this cleaned up. Also, truth be told, she’d rather wait until her brother got home before she ventured out into the town. That way, he could handle the introductions. The witches and warlocks here were her distant relatives, true, but she hadn’t visited Jerome since she was in junior high. The Payson McAllisters always kept themselves a little aloof; it had been something of a departure for Brandon to move here, although, given his talents, Payson didn’t have much to offer.

Not much to offer her, either. Hayley knew her parents had been expecting her to settle down, but the thought of marrying a cousin — even a second or third cousin — didn’t much appeal, and the civilian population in Payson hadn’t presented any interesting prospects, either. She didn’t want to marry some guy who cared more about the lift kit on his truck or his g*n rack than he did his wife. Better to be single than second fiddle.

As to whether she’d meet anyone here in Jerome, well, she’d just have to see. She wouldn’t have admitted it to her parents, and definitely not to Brandon, but somewhere in the back of her mind she’d had the thought that this extended stay in Jerome might not be such a bad thing after all, if she ended up finding someone who caught her interest.

He’d have to be pretty out of the ordinary, though. She’d had enough ordinary to last her a lifetime.