Protector

Chapter 10-1

10

The afternoon was gone, and Alex was driving them back into Tucson proper after suggesting that they go downtown for dinner. That sounded good. Walking over the old movie sets and watching the shows and yes, even panning for gold like a silly tourist, had worked up quite an appetite.

“What’re you in the mood for?” he asked.

By then she was so hungry that even the greasiest fast food would’ve sounded good. “You choose. It’s your city. Whatever’s your favorite. Except sushi.”

“What, you’re not into raw fish?”

She made a face, remembering the one time Danica had talked her into trying some sashimi. “Not really.”

He grinned. “That’s okay — neither am I.”

Well, thank the Goddess for that. True, most Japanese restaurants had teriyaki and tempura, and she was okay with eating either of those. That didn’t seem to be an issue now, though. She did have to wonder where they were going to end up, however, as they zigzagged off the freeway and headed into the heart of the city. They wound through the streets of downtown, some of which ran one way, and ended up opposite a structure that appeared to be an official building of some sort, maybe a courthouse. That clearly wasn’t their destination, as Alex instead led her to a brick-fronted building with no obvious signs. It didn’t look like a restaurant from the outside, but once he ushered her in through the front door, it was clear that’s exactly what the business was.

And obviously it wasn’t the first time he’d been here, since the girl performing hostess duties greeted him with a “hey, Alex!” and led them right to a table off in one corner, much to the disgust of the people who’d been waiting there ahead of them. True, they were a party of four, and Caitlin guessed the hostess could use that excuse as to why they hadn’t been seated first, but….

“It’s good to know people, isn’t it?” she said to Alex as the hostess made her way back to her spot by the entrance.

He managed to look embarrassed. Sort of. “Yeah, I might have eaten here once or twice.”

Caitlin decided to leave that aside for now. Her stomach had really woken up when it got a whiff of the savory smells that filled the restaurant, and pretty much everything on the menu sounded good — it was Mexican food, but an artsier kind than she was used to. “Do you recommend anything?”

“Their mole is really good, and pretty much any of the tacos, depending on what you like. And we definitely need to have some of their sangria.”

That did sound good. A few glasses of sangria, the two of them tucked into this intimate corner…anything could happen.

And nothing should happen, she told herself. You’re eating because you’re hungry. This is not a date.

Then she remembered that she had no I.D., no money. Alex had paid for everything at Old Tucson Studios, and she hadn’t protested because she didn’t want to make a scene, but she couldn’t let him keep on doing that indefinitely.

“And what about me having no driver’s license to prove I’m of age?” she asked in an undertone. “They’re totally going to card me.”

“No, they won’t,” he replied, apparently not worried by the situation at all. “It’ll be fine.”

She raised an eyebrow at him, but didn’t have a chance to protest further, since a waiter showed up right then and asked for their drink orders. “A mason jar of the sangria de rosé,” Alex said without batting an eye, and the waiter just nodded and said, “Sure,” before heading off toward the bar.

“What, do you have Matías’ mind-control abilities or something?” she inquired. “I always get carded. Always.”

“Like I said, they know me here. And they know I wouldn’t be out on a date with someone under twenty-one.”

A date. He called it a date. But had he really meant it, or just used the word as shorthand for whatever they were actually doing? “So have you brought a lot of ‘dates’ here?”

His gaze slid away from hers. “A couple.”

Of course he had. Someone like Alex, good-looking, with a good job and an awesome house? He was probably knee-deep in girls wanting to go out with him. But had they been civilians, or the kind of distant cousins it was okay to have a relationship with? Probably a mixture of both, if her own experience was any indication. Having to hide the truth about who you were from a civilian could be a real pain, but having an ex who was also part of the extended family could be even trickier….

She was distracted from that line of thought by the arrival of the chips and salsa. Thank the Goddess. At least she’d have something to munch on along with the sangria.

Which appeared almost immediately after the chips, forcing her to make a quick scan of the menu and decide on the carne asada tacos, while Alex got the mole. He poured some sangria into her glass and then into his. She waited a second after she lifted her drink, wondering if he was going to clink glasses with her or something. But apparently he thought that wouldn’t be in the best taste, considering their current situation, so she continued bringing the glass to her lips as if her hesitation had been for some completely different reason.

“So what now?” she asked.

He was munching on a chip, and waited to swallow before he replied, “I don’t know — there are a few places nearby where we can listen to live music after dinner, if you want.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“No, I guess not.” His fingers wrapped around his sangria glass, but he didn’t drink. Instead, his dark eyes watched her steadily as he said, “What are we supposed to do? Obviously, my mother’s working on it in the background, since she has Miguel snooping around and doing what he can, but I don’t know how much that’s really going to help. Even if someone saw Matías and the other two guys when they took you to that rental house, what good is that going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Caitlin responded. She’d never been much for reading mysteries or watching detective shows, preferred science fiction and fantasy instead. Head in the clouds, her brother used to tease her. It certainly hadn’t prepared her for this sort of situation. Still, she wracked her brain, trying to think of something they might have missed. “Maybe…maybe if someone did notice the warlocks, then saw them drive away with Roslyn and Danica?”

Alex’s expression brightened somewhat at that suggestion. “Okay. Did you see a car when you went to the house?”

Time for more brain-wracking, as little as she wanted to revisit those harrowing memories. She’d been sort of out of it at the time, thanks to Matías’ grip on her mind. But she’d noticed what the house looked like, more or less, and as far as she could recall, she didn’t remember seeing a car in the driveway or parked out front. She supposed they could have hidden it in the garage; even if they didn’t have a remote, they could’ve opened the door from the inside once they had access to the rest of the house.

“I don’t think so,” she replied slowly, shuffling through her memories as she spoke. “It might have been in the garage. Or maybe they parked it a few streets over so they wouldn’t be obvious.”

“If they did that, there would’ve been more chance of someone noticing them taking Danica and Roslyn to it.” He shifted slightly, and Caitlin realized he was getting his phone out of his pocket. “Do you mind if I email my mother, send our ideas along? For all I know, Miguel’s already thought of it, but….”

“No, please, go ahead,” Caitlin broke in. If nothing else, at least it would show that they’d done something today besides spin their wheels. Not that going out to the studios with Alex hadn’t been fun, but it hadn’t exactly gotten them any closer to finding Roslyn and Danica, either. On the way back into town, she’d closed her eyes for a bit, tried once again to empty her mind of everything and let the visions pour through her. It hadn’t worked. Nothing came to her at all, and she could only hope that Alex had thought she was merely resting her eyes instead of proving what a crappy seer she was turning out to be.

While she sipped at her sangria, Alex tapped out an email, fingers moving with surprising dexterity on the tiny screen of his phone. Maybe it had really good auto-complete software. She wouldn’t know, because she tended to get by with bargain-basement Android phones, not the gleaming silvery iPhone Alex currently held.

“All done,” he said, then slid the phone back into his jeans pocket. “Here’s hoping that’s an angle they haven’t thought of yet.”

She nodded, but the memory of her failed attempt at forcing another vision still nagged at her. “Alex, what are we doing?”

“Having dinner?” he joked. But when she didn’t smile, he told her, “We’re doing what we can. It’s like I told you earlier today — beating yourself up the whole time isn’t going to help your friends. And awful as it is, thinking about what might be happening to them, they’re still alive. Matías needs to keep them alive for that magic he’s performing.”

Just the mere memory of the strange circle and its unnatural symbols, the way Roslyn’s blood had dripped onto it and made that horrible mist rise into the air, curdled Caitlin’s stomach. Ignoring the sangria, she picked up her water glass and took a large swallow. It helped a little.

“What do you know about that, anyway?” she asked, pitching her voice low and shooting a wary glance at the couple sitting at the table next to them. Luckily, it looked as if they were on their first date or something, as they seemed to be doing the standard “what shows do you watch? Oh, you liked that movie, too?” sort of thing people tended to do when they were getting to know one another. At any rate, they didn’t seem to be paying any attention to her or Alex, or to their conversation.

He obviously didn’t miss that quick, sideways darting of her gaze. Lowering his own voice, he said, “Not very much. I mean, we all have slightly different flavors to our magic — the de la Paz clan came here from Mexico, so we use some rituals that are different from yours, just as you came from Scotland and follow a more Wiccan tradition. But dark magic, blood magic — it was outlawed everywhere centuries ago. We might be descended from the guys who used to throw human sacrifices off pyramids, but I promise we haven’t done anything like that lately.”

Caitlin couldn’t prevent herself from smiling at that remark. “No, I guess that would be kind of conspicuous, wouldn’t it? The problem is, that makes us fly even more blind, really, since we don’t know for sure what they were doing, or why they needed blood for their spell.”

His gaze didn’t quite meet hers. “Well, we may not know, but I can guess.”

She crossed her arms. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Not that I know firsthand or anything, but there are witches and warlocks in our clan who do know something of that kind of magic — not because they practice it themselves, but because it’s important to know what your enemies might be up to.” He drank some more of his sangria, and this time his eyes did flicker back toward hers, troubled and dark. “The doings of the Santiago clan haven’t always been entirely on the up and up. Not as bad as this, at least not that I know of, but I’ve heard rumors. We’ve tried to be vigilant. The McAllisters are far enough away that the Santiagos’ doings weren’t much of a concern. Same with the Wilcoxes. Anyway, the Wilcox clan had a bad reputation for long enough that even the Santiagos wouldn’t have wanted to tangle with them.”

That made some sense, although she wondered at the way Connor and Angela had gone into Santiago territory several years ago, with no one apparently warning them about what they might be walking into. It was possible that no one had worried too much, because the combined power of a primus and a prima was certainly nothing to mess with.

“So what do you think Matías is up to?” Caitlin finally picked up her sangria and took a swallow as well, mostly because contemplating a new threat in the shape of the entire Santiago clan had left a definite bad taste in her mouth.

“Like I said, I don’t know for sure, because I didn’t see what you saw. But generally when a witch or warlock is doing blood magic, it means they’re calling up something to assist them in casting a black spell. That would’ve been the mist you saw beginning to rise from the floor.”

“You mean…it was alive?” she asked, her voice barely more than an aghast whisper. Yes, Luz had mentioned that the warlocks were summoning something, but at the time she’d been so shaky and out of it that she hadn’t really processed the statement and its implications. Although it was warm enough in the restaurant, a river of ice suddenly seemed to run down her spine.

“Sort of, if not exactly the kind of thing most of us think of when we say ‘alive.’ But it was some kind of spirit…entity…energy…whatever you want to call it.” He picked up a chip from the basket and broke it in two, but didn’t eat either piece, instead staring down at them as if he wasn’t sure what he intended to do with them.

“What were they doing with it?”

“I don’t know. I’m sure my mother went back to that house with someone who knows more about that kind of magic, but if they discovered anything else, she hasn’t told me.” He hesitated then, as if he’d been about to say more but had decided to stop there, for whatever reason.

Caitlin thought she could guess the reason why. If Luz and whoever was helping her had dug up something really terrible, she might not want to frighten her son…or the unpracticed seer he was supposed to be protecting.

Another shiver moved down her spine, but then she had to sit up and act halfway normal, as the waiter showed up with their meals. She thanked him and stared down at the food on the plate before her, hoping she could reclaim some of her appetite. Right then her stomach was churning with an uncomfortable combination of worry and fear.

“It’s all right,” Alex said, apparently noticing her unease. “We’re safe here. And even if something were to happen, you know I would protect you.”

Well, that was true. Or at least she hoped it was. She’d seen the odd shimmering sphere that Alex could cast to surround himself and anyone near enough to him, but she’d yet to see anyone or anything challenge it. Luz had said nothing could get through it. Did that include strange mist-like entities called here from the Goddess only knew which dimension?

“Right,” Caitlin said, and forced herself to smile at him, even though she knew it must have looked watery and weak. “I guess I’m just not used to this kind of thing. I mean, Damon Wilcox did some terrible stuff, but he’s gone, you know? I suppose it was naïve of me to think there wouldn’t be someone or something equally awful out there.”

Alex nodded, but she noticed how he’d barely looked at his food, either, although his left hand was resting on his fork, as if he’d intended to pick it up and then got distracted. “Well…you McAllisters do tend to be kind of isolated. In a way, that’s good. You’re focused on your own clan, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But there are a lot of other clans out there, some good, some…not as much, for whatever reason. At least with Damon, you knew exactly why he did the things he did, even if they were terrible. But this?” His shoulders went up, and at last he retrieved his fork and stuck it into the mound of chicken on his plate, even though he didn’t make a move to lift it. “I can’t figure out what their game is. k********g a couple of witches from clans that are bound to retaliate isn’t exactly the smartest thing to be doing.”

“But we aren’t retaliating, are we?” Caitlin asked, and Alex gave her a considering look.

“Not yet. But don’t tell me that Angela and Connor won’t do something about it, or at least try to, once we’ve located Matías and his buddies. I know I would.”

Any protests she might have made died away as Caitlin considered Alex’s point. Neither Angela nor Connor was the type to go flying off half-c****d, but they also both had a strong sense of right and wrong, and the unwritten rule of the witch world was that if someone messed with your clan, you found some way to bring them to justice. No matter what.

Since she wasn’t sure how to respond, Caitlin finally picked up one of her tacos and took a bite, knowing if she didn’t start eating, the food would soon get cold. In an abstract way, she realized it was very good, and so she took another bite. Strangely enough, eating something seemed to help settle the nervous churning of her stomach. After she washed the food down with a swallow of her sangria, she said, “Maybe they will retaliate. I can’t speak for them. But I know that whatever they do, it will be measured. They won’t do something stupid, just in the name of revenge.”

Alex didn’t respond at first, but followed her lead by eating a few bites of his own meal. Then he asked, “You think a lot of them, don’t you?”

“Connor and Angela? Well, why wouldn’t I? She’s my prima, and he’s her consort.”

“True, but not everyone always agrees with their prima, do they? Even if they publicly go along with what she says.”

Caitlin thought that over for a few seconds. “Maybe, but so far Angela hasn’t done anything that would make me question her judgment. She and Connor are both kind of live-and-let-live types. I’m not saying she hasn’t stepped in from time to time when someone’s gotten out of hand, but she’s definitely not some kind of dictator. Which is as it should be. I don’t have any reason to think she’ll do something crazy now, either.”

The expression on Alex’s face was hard to decipher. He didn’t say anything at first, but from the way his eyes narrowed slightly, Caitlin wondered if he was trying to process her view of her prima with the girl he’d only met a few times, someone he hadn’t seen for several years. And those were important years. Angela was now a mother, had a few years of being prima under her belt. She’d changed. But then, who wouldn’t, after everything she’d experienced?

Finally, Alex said, “Well, that’s good to hear. Because the last thing we need is a clan war on our hands.”

Caitlin couldn’t argue with that. “Even though Matías might turn out to be one of Simón Santiago’s, I kind of doubt he’d do much to stick up for him, once the truth comes out about what Matías has been doing. You’d think Simón would wash his hands of him, if only to do some damage control.”

“I hope you’re right.” The worried expression on Alex’s features smoothed itself into something else entirely. There was even a hint of a smile playing around the corners of his mouth. “So, since we can’t fix all the world’s problems at dinner, why don’t we let that all go for now?”

That sounded like a great idea. She raised her glass in agreement. “I’ll drink to that.”