The Devil's Standoff

chapter 10-1

The mess in Hettie and Abby’s room looked much worse by the light of day, but the chaos and destruction wasn’t confined in there. Throughout the house furniture had been tossed, dishes broken, and in one room a rug had hung itself on the chandelier. Abby’s nightmare had turned the great house upside down, and the servants cleaning up looked nervous and none too pleased.

In the main dining room, the man who’d been in her room last night was arguing with Raúl. Clearly they were talking about her and Abby. The man stopped abruptly when he spotted her.

“Buenos días, señoritas.” Raúl smiled broadly and gestured. “Please, join me for breakfast. Luis was just leaving.” The look he flicked the man was as effective as a whip. Luis hurried out.

“I guess he told you what happened.” Hettie and Abby took seats next to each other.

“I do not think there is a person in Villa del Punta who did not know. Only the great house was affected, but the ripples of magic were felt throughout the village.” He did not seem displeased—quite the opposite. “Abby leaves quite an impression.”

As Raúl sat, servingwomen placed big platters of sausages, peppers, and eggs on the table, then disappeared, casting Abby and Hettie the briefest of narrowed looks. Walker appeared in the doorway soon after, searching the girls’ faces worriedly.

“We’re fine,” she preempted stiffly. “Abby had a nightmare.”

“I know.” He pursed his lips. “Jeremiah told me. He’s left to … attend to business.”

Raúl’s glance bounced between them, then returned to his meal. The unspoken conversation between her and Walker rang in all their ears: Jeremiah had left because the situation with Abby was untenable, and Uncle would rather risk the dangers beyond the safety of Villa del Punta’s walls than continue dealing with the unknowns of Abigail’s mysterious powers.

Walker sat. “I let him take Lilith. She’s younger than Jezebel and isn’t as easily recognizable.”

She smiled briefly, acknowledging his generous gesture. A man’s horse was his best friend, but a man’s magicked horse was a partner in life. It also told her he trusted the old man would return. “Thank you.”

After breakfast Hettie and Abby were once again relegated to Raúl’s stewardship. He wanted the data they’d collected yesterday transcribed.

Hettie hadn’t been sure what to expect from a sorcerer’s workshop. In Newhaven there’d been a small sorcerers’ salon where magic practitioners could consult the thinly stocked library for spells and recipes to make potions and talismans. The space could also be used as a studio. Hettie had been there once or twice with Pa. It’d been an empty, sterile space, which kept different spells from contaminating others. A ring of markings on the wall contained the spells.

Raúl’s workroom was nothing like that salon. The sty was completely at odds with his pristine appearance. His worktable was covered in notes and drawings. Piles of melted candle wax caked the thick hardwood. Three large south-facing windows helped light the room, their sills writhing with potted plants, but the space also featured a cobweb-coated chandelier and many multiarmed candelabras. Shelves overflowed with bottles and jars and phials, books, scrolls, and knickknacks. The bric-a-brac spilled onto the floor, as well.

“Apologies for the mess,” he said, shifting a pile of books off one chair. “This is my father’s workshop. I’m not inclined to clean up in here in case—when he wakes up and wants to use it again.”

Hettie waved him off, distracted. A copy of the Arcanum lay closed on a lectern in the corner. Newhaven’s salon had a copy of the sorcerer’s quintessential spell book, too. She wondered if the massive tome had anything useful to say about the soothsayers’ blackout, but then she realized Patrice Favreau would surely have looked there and beyond for answers to the mysterious loss of her colleagues’ scrying abilities.

A map of the province was pinned to one wall. Arrows and runes were printed in neat, tiny script all over, but Hettie could discern no pattern to the notations. Her job was to write the numbers she’d recorded into arrows and runes on the map. It took Raúl a long time to explain how the runes worked, but once she had it figured out, she set herself to the task.

Abby curled up on a pallet on the floor in the corner and promptly fell asleep. Her behavior reminded Hettie so much of Cymon, her chest tightened.

“Does she have nightmares often?” Raúl asked, watching from his armchair where he read a book.

Hettie lifted a shoulder. “Now and again, like any child. But she’s never moved furniture around the way she did last night.”

“It may be that her powers are stronger here because of the node. Have you noticed any increase in her abilities as your neared the village?”

Maybe, but she didn’t think it had anything to do with their journey south. She didn’t want to go into the ordeal Abby had faced with Zavi, her death, and the bargain that had brought her back as a blood drinker. It would bring up too many questions.

When Hettie didn’t respond, Raúl sighed. “I understand that you don’t trust me. Be assured, I only want to help her learn how to control her powers. After last night, I’d think you’d realize she needs guidance—someone who can show her how to keep her gift from affecting others.”

“You mean someone like you.”

“I am qualified,” he told her matter-of-factly. “Since my father’s illness, I’ve taken over training and educating the gifted children here. I’ve coaxed many latent minor gifts out, as well.”

Hettie doubted he had ever encountered anyone like Abby, though. Her indigo powers weren’t common, according to Ling, which was why the Division of Sorcery was so interested in her. Besides, Hettie didn’t fully trust Raúl. The man was hiding something.

“What’re you doing?” she asked, nodding at his book, hoping to distract him.

“Research. When my father made El Diablo, he bound it with a mixture of several kinds of lock and key spells, but I have no idea which spells he used. If I could produce a master key spell of some kind…”

She sat forward as hope filled her. “You could unbind it from me?” She hadn’t meant to squeak in excitement, and she pursed her lips now.

Raúl smiled. “I make no promises. It will take time to find anything that might help.” He laid the book on his lap. “I hope you understand I only want to help you and your sister. I would not trust you any more than you trust me, except that we have my brother’s judgment in common. Walker never made friends easily.”

After that Hettie kept conversation at a minimum as she worked. It was some time before Abby stirred. Slowly, she propped herself up and yawned.

“Good morning again, señorita,” Raúl greeted. “I have a task for you. Do you think you would be able to help me?” He didn’t look to Hettie for permission, and it annoyed her, but she didn’t have a chance to protest.

“With what?” Abby stared up at him.

He beckoned her over. “I have this drawing here. It has some markings on it, but my eyes aren’t very good. I need help tracing them. Can you see them?” He unrolled a scroll. Hettie only saw a few lines sketched out in a circular pattern, but nothing else. She’d been given something similar when she’d been tested for magical abilities. Numerous spells were written in special magicked inks only the gifted could detect. A sorcerer’s potential was determined by how many spelled lines they could see.

Raúl handed Abby a piece of charcoal. She placed it on the ground and slowly and carefully filled in radial lines and curves, extending the pattern. Raúl sat back and watched, eyebrows rising as the paper filled with more and markings, runes, and then … a rabbit. Or something that looked like a rabbit. The sorcerer cleared his throat. “What’s that you’re drawing?”

“Cymon,” she said happily, drawing two more man-shaped blobs next to the rabbit. Her and Abby, she supposed.

“Cy’s our dog,” Hettie explained. She told him briefly how he’d been left behind at the border.

Raúl pursed his lips as Abby kept drawing. “Are you done tracing the lines?” he asked finally.

“Mm-hmm.” She drew a long, squiggly line from Cymon and the blobs to the circle pattern. “Okay.” Finally satisfied, she handed the scroll back to Raúl. “This is for you.”

“Thank you. It’s very clear now.” There was a hitch in his voice. He studied the sheet wide-eyed. “Would you like more to do?”

Abby shrugged, and he handed her another scroll. Raúl gestured to Hettie to follow him while Abby worked. “I’ve never seen a complete test diagram before. Minus this”—he pointed at her drawing of Cymon—“Abby can see every spell written on the sheet.” He glanced at the ten-year-old, who was quietly humming to herself. “She may be the most gifted potential I’ve ever encountered.”

They didn’t go on any more expeditions—the chupacabra attack had made everyone nervous, and the villagers were on alert. They didn’t say it to her face, but Hettie sensed that they believed she and Abby had something to do with the creature’s sudden change in habits. Considering Diablo’s ineffectiveness against the monster, she wasn’t sure they were wrong about that.

Instead Raúl devoted most of his time in between his various village duties testing her sister and researching Diablo’s curse. Clearly Walker’s brother was an important man in Villa del Punta. People went to him for advice, to mediate disputes, and to get help with spells or talismans. He also tutored the gifted children.

Raúl insisted Hettie and Abby join the class as observers, though they stopped short of actually participating. “It’s not a good idea,” Hettie told him frankly. “Abby can be … easily distracted.”

“You won’t know until she tries.” His tone teetered between condescending and critical. She didn’t appreciate his judgment—he had no idea what her sister was like.

When the students had gathered in the courtyard behind the great house, Raúl greeted his class and in English introduced the girls. There were five students in all, ranging from age twelve to sixteen. They looked nervous and wouldn’t meet Abby’s unblinking violet gaze.

“Pedro,” the sorcerer addressed the oldest boy, “recite the rules of magic, por favor. In English.”

The teenager stood. “One: you do not do magic to harm others. Two: you do not waste magic if you do not have to. Three: what is made by magic is shared.”

“Bueno. Good.” Raúl beamed and said to Hettie, “I give them English lessons occasionally, though others in the village are in charge of the mundane lessons.”

She nodded, and when he didn’t proceed, she added, “It’s very good.”

Relief showed in his grin. She wondered whether the praise he sought was for his students or himself.

The lesson was not what Hettie had expected: she thought they would be casting spells and learning incantations, or maybe reading from spell books. But Raúl spent the first hour meditating with the students, eyes closed, hands resting on their knees, breathing deeply. After a long time squirming and fidgeting, Abby slid to the floor and fell asleep. Hettie’s chin drooped, and though she would have preferred to walk around and get her blood moving, she didn’t want to disturb the other students. So she sat still and let her legs go numb.

The meditation was followed by an exercise in which they passed a small pebble around and made it glow different hues, the brightness wavering with each pass. Hettie noted the protection circle Raúl drew around the ring of students before the game began. Abby woke up in time to watch as the pebble changed hands, turning warm orange, then bright blue, then strobing rainbow—Pedro’s way of showing off.

When the lesson ended and the students dispersed, Raúl led the girls back into the great house for lunch. “Did it look like fun to you, Abby?” he asked. “Is it something you’d like to try?”

Abby didn’t reply. Her attention wandered as a fly buzzed around her head. Raúl called her name several times, but still she did not respond. He looked to Hettie, vexed, but she shrugged. “That first hour wasn’t particularly exciting.”

“Meditation is important to help sorcerers learn how focus and turn their awareness inward,” he explained. “Abby will need to learn to sit still for a long period if she wants to train.”

Hettie wouldn’t say anything to encourage her sister. She didn’t like the way the other children had looked at her. Besides, she hoped they would leave once Diablo was back in Javier Punta’s possession and Uncle returned.

“So those rules … are they universal?” Hettie asked. They sounded vaguely like something her pa had once told her, though he hadn’t attended the Academy. Magic etiquette, he’d called it.

“They are our rules here in Villa del Punta. I believe the Division Academy has some oath it makes their students recite that is similar, but frankly, you Americans seem to delight in flaunting the rules, even when they are designed to keep you safe.” His lips twisted up wryly. “It is not as if the Division can enforce the latter two rules. The first, however…”