An Ill Wind

Chapter 2-1

2

The Castillo clan’s healer was a slim woman in her late forties or her early fifties, her sleek dark hair pulled into a low ponytail at the back of her neck. She murmured a greeting to Tony and spared the barest of glances for Cassandra, who stood awkwardly to one side, not exactly sure what to do with herself, before she knelt on the thick Persian rug in subtle hues of brick and blue and cream. The healer took Tony’s mother’s wrist in her hand, then laid her palm against the unconscious woman’s forehead.

Through all this, Tony stood off to one side, arms crossed, handsome features impassive. His dark brows were pulled together, but he remained silent, obviously waiting for the healer’s verdict before he said anything.

Honestly, Cassandra didn’t know what she would have done if she’d come home to find her mother unconscious and her house burglarized. She’d like to think that she’d stay calm the way Tony had, would know the right people to call and the right order in which to call them, but she had no idea if she could hold it together under that kind of pressure.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. When Cassandra had been called to talk to her cousin Zoe, the de la Paz prima, about traveling here to Santa Fe to reclaim the clan’s grimoires, it had all been described as a very cut-and-dried sort of endeavor, one that shouldn’t have presented any particular problems. The books had been safely hidden for almost a year now, and everyone seemed to agree that Miranda’s powers were pretty staggering, and definitely up to the task of keeping the books safe until they could be handed over to Cassandra.

Now it seemed clear that those powers weren’t quite as impressive as everyone had thought…or, worse, that whoever had come here to take the grimoires and incapacitate Tony’s mother was so powerful that even Miranda Castillo’s insanely strong spells had been broken under their assault.

Not good. Not good at all.

“I don’t think we need to take her to the hospital,” the healer said as she rose from where she’d been kneeling by Sophia Castillo’s side.

“She’s going to be okay?” Tony asked, a hint of relief showing on his face.

“That’s not what I said.” The healer’s tone was gentle, but firm. Cassandra had no idea what the woman’s name was; she hadn’t introduced herself, and Tony hadn’t said her name when he made his phone call. “Right now, I don’t know one way or the other. Her pulse isn’t strong, but it seems to be normalizing, and I don’t think a hospital could do much for her, either. In a way, her condition reminds me of what happened to Malena and Louisa.”

“Who are Malena and Louisa?” The question slipped out before Cassandra could stop herself. Possibly it would have been better for her to stand by and remain quiet, since she was a stranger here, but at the same time, she didn’t want to ignore any clues that might possibly lead them to the person or persons who’d stolen the grimoires.

Tony glanced over at her, and something about his taut expression softened just a hint. When she’d first caught sight of him at the airport, she’d allowed herself to acknowledge that he was good-looking, then pushed the thought aside. She wasn’t here to meet eligible warlocks, but was on a mission given her by her clan’s prima. Now, though, Cassandra couldn’t help being struck by his appearance once again, mostly because he seemed completely oblivious to it.

“They’re my cousins,” he said. “Daughters of Genoveva, the former prima. They were attacked by Simon Escobar’s dark magic and were in comas for a while.”

Right. Cassandra had been told about the unorthodox way Miranda had become the current prima even though that title had first gone to one of her husband Rafe’s older sisters. All the goings-on in Santa Fe had been a topic of several discussions in the Sandoval household, not least of all because Cassandra and Miranda were very distant cousins by marriage. Anyway, the whole thing had sounded kind of crazy to Cassandra — since when could a new prima voluntarily pass on her powers to someone else? — but she’d accepted it because that really was what had happened.

She looked over at the Castillo healer. “You think whoever did this used the same kind of magic? But Simon Escobar is dead.” A horrible thought came to her, and she added, “Isn’t he?”

“In the ground dead,” Tony said, and a sudden glint entered his eyes, as if he was all too glad to be able to inform her of that fact. “I was there.”

“You were there when he was buried?” Cassandra asked, surprised.

“It was his right,” the healer said. “He was there during the final confrontation with the Escobar warlock, so no one was surprised that Tony would want to make sure the man really was dead and buried.”

Now he looked almost embarrassed. Maybe he hadn’t wanted that unexpected bit of heroism exposed. To be honest, Cassandra was a little surprised by the revelation; Tony’s off-hand manner didn’t exactly make a person think that he was the type to run headlong into a battle with an insanely strong warlock.

“Anyway, he’s dead,” Tony said, trying to sound casual and not quite succeeding. “I know that for a fact, so whoever did this, it’s not Escobar risen from the grave.”

Small comfort. At least Simon Escobar was something of a known quantity. But it was a mystery as to who could have managed to tear aside Miranda Castillo’s illusion spells and take the prize with no one even being able to detect that a stranger with those sorts of powers had come to Santa Fe.

Before anyone could respond, the front door slammed, and they all jumped. A moment later, a tall man with gray-frosted dark hair rushed into the room, a man so like Tony in appearance, Cassandra guessed the stranger had to be his father.

He ignored all of them and went at once to kneel by his wife. Only after touching her hand and apparently reassuring himself that she was still alive did he look up at Tony. “You found her like this?”

“Yes. But Yesenia says she should be okay here.”

The man’s dark gaze immediately flicked up toward the healer. “Is that true?”

“For now,” the woman — Yesenia — said gently. “And now that you’re here, we can move her to her bed.”

“Of course.” He glanced over at his son. “Tony?”

Without speaking, Tony came forward and knelt as well, and then the two men lifted Sophia from the rug and carried her out of the room. Yesenia began to follow them, then paused, her dark eyes taking in Cassandra as if really noticing her for the first time.

“You were here when he found her?”

“Yes,” Cassandra replied. She hesitated, wondering how much the healer knew about the books, if anything. Zoe had made it sound as though their presence here in Santa Fe was a secret shared by only a few, so she guessed it was probably better to say as little as possible. “I’m — my name is Cassandra Sandoval. I’m here from the de la Paz clan on the prima’s business.”

“I assume that ‘business’ has something to do with what happened to Sophia?”

About all Cassandra could do was nod and pray that Yesenia wouldn’t try to probe any further.

But part of being a healer was knowing how to keep secrets, and so the older woman didn’t say anything else, only gave her another considering look before she excused herself and hurried out of the family room. Since she didn’t know what else to do, Cassandra trailed along in her wake, following her to the sweeping staircase that led to the house’s second floor.

As soon as they got to the upstairs landing, Yesenia hurried through a pair of double doors to their right. This was clearly the master bedroom; Tony and his father had laid Sophia down on the bed and removed her shoes, then pulled the white comforter over her.

It seemed better to wait near the door, so Cassandra stayed there, watching as Yesenia went over to Tony’s father and murmured something to him. The older man’s face was bleak, calm, as if he’d already resigned himself to the worst, but Tony stood on the other side of the bed, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, the shocked expression he wore now appearing to shift to one of anger.

Well, Cassandra could understand that. She knew she’d be on a rampage if someone had attacked her own mother in such a way. A flicker of fear went through her, but she told herself that there was no reason for anyone to go after her parents. They were safe in the heart of de la Paz territory. Anyway, this attacker was clearly after the books, and since all of her clan’s pilfered grimoires were now in this strange witch or warlock’s possession, there probably wasn’t much left in Phoenix or Tucson to even tempt them.

Tony went over to his father and said something in an undertone, and the older man nodded, then placed a hand on his son’s shoulder for a moment before he turned back to the unconscious woman in the bed. After that exchange, Tony came over to where Cassandra was waiting.

“We should go,” he said, his tone quiet, as if he was somehow worried that his comatose mother might be able to hear him.

“All right,” she replied, glad of an excuse to slip away. She felt far too much like an interloper here, an unwilling spectator to an unexpected tragedy. As soon as they were headed back down the stairs, she added, “We should really go talk to Miranda and let her know what happened.”

Tony looked a little startled at the familiar way she’d referred to his clan’s prima, but then he seemed to brush the matter aside, maybe reminding himself that Miranda and Cassandra were distant cousins. “I can call and talk to her,” he said. “But she’s not really receiving visitors right now.”

“Why not?” Cassandra demanded. “This isn’t exactly dropping in to have tea and cookies. She needs to know what happened.”

“And we’ll tell her,” Tony replied, his tone equally brusque. “But her baby’s due in seven weeks, and she’s been confined to bed because she fell last week and had a few issues, and Yesenia doesn’t want her to exert herself.”

Oh, hell. Talk about putting your foot in it. She hadn’t heard anything about Miranda’s unfortunate mishap and wondered if even Zoe knew. The two primas talked to one another fairly frequently, but it seemed there were some matters Miranda didn’t wish to share. “Sorry,” Cassandra said. “I didn’t know.”

“Well, it’s not exactly the sort of thing we’re advertising to the other clans. I mean, obviously Miranda has talked to her parents, but I doubt they’re spreading the story all over the place, either.”

No, probably not. Still, this was an unsettling and unwelcome turn of events. At the back of her mind, Cassandra had been thinking they could call Miranda in to offer assistance if necessary, but it sounded as though she was sidelined until the baby was here. “So what do we do now?” she asked, wishing her voice didn’t sound quite so plaintive.

“We can go to my place and regroup.” Expression somber, he went on, “And you’ll probably need to call the airline and cancel your ticket.”

Right. She hadn’t even thought about that, but it seemed obvious now that she wouldn’t be heading back to Tucson any time soon. Maybe it was pointless for her to stay here, since her whole job had been to protect the books while she ferried them into de la Paz territory. Something inside her told her that she needed to stay, though, to help the Castillos figure out who was behind this attack. If they could discover who had stolen the books, then maybe they’d also be able to find out where they had been taken.

“Okay,” Cassandra said. “Let’s go to your house.”