The End of Magic, page 15
“I’m Arrabelle’s friend Evan, and Niamh is my coven mate.”
The pieces began to fall into place. Her mind flashed back to Devandra’s house, to the Mucho Man Cave and to the last time their coven had all been together . . . might be the last time that they were all together. She remembered that Arrabelle’s friend Evan had reached out to warn Arrabelle about the danger from The Flood. That Arrabelle had left her coven mates behind to go and rescue him.
Well, it seemed that Arrabelle had accomplished what she’d set out to do.
The young woman, Niamh, stopped just shy of Daniela, not wanting to get too close.
“Since you’ve been comatose, a lot of things have changed,” she began, turning to look at Evan.
“And not for the better,” Evan interrupted, resting his hands on the bed’s metal guardrail.
“Where’s Lizbeth?” Daniela rasped, almost crying with gratitude when Evan plucked a plastic cup of water from the side table and handed it to her. She sipped the cool liquid, her raw throat feeling a bit better. “I saw her . . . in my dreams . . .”
“She’s gone. Somewhere in the dreamlands,” Niamh said—and Daniela felt a deep worry in her heart.
“What aren’t you telling me?” She wanted them to give her all the bad news at once. Otherwise, it would just draw out the pain.
“The world has changed . . .” Niamh paused. “Your coven mate Lizbeth brought magic back into the world through her dreams.”
“But humanity’s not taking it very well,” Evan added.
Daniela’s heart sank. She couldn’t help but feel responsible. She was the idiot who’d trusted Desmond Delay—that traitor—and unwittingly sold out her blood sisters to him. In her defense, she really had been in the dark. But ignorance was not an excuse. She, of all people—a fucking empath—should’ve known better. Maybe if she’d been smarter, she’d have controlled Lizbeth better and worked out a way to share the dream gradually . . . to manipulate the flow of information and allow humanity time to process it properly. Everyone was highly aware that human beings were bad at dealing with the unknown. Humans loved to shoot first and ask questions later.
Weeks before the insanity had begun—before Lyse had even left Athens, Georgia, and come home to look after a dying Eleanora—Devandra had drawn a tarot spread that intimated there was a Judas among the Echo Park coven.
The spread had been a simple one:
The World
The Magician
The Hierophant
The Devil
The Fool
No one knew who The Fool belonged to, but it turned out to be Daniela’s card. She was the Judas—
As if something hot and blazing had been conjured into life by her thoughts, Daniela saw orangey-red flames flare up in her peripheral vision. When she turned her head, she saw that Niamh’s body had been engulfed in flame.
“You’re on fire,” Daniela said, as she stared at Niamh—though it had only taken her a moment to realize that Niamh wasn’t on fire. Her aura was burning so bright.
“What’re you talking about?” Niamh said, her eyes wide and scared.
“Your aura, it’s burning up.”
And I’m terrified of what all that anger would do to me if I ever touched you, Daniela thought.
Niamh closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The orange-red glow instantly began to fade away.
“Better?” Niamh asked, opening her eyes.
Daniela nodded.
“I’ve never . . . I couldn’t see auras before,” Daniela said.
“It’s the magic returning to our world,” Evan replied. “It’s making everyone’s powers manifest in new ways.” He turned to Daniela. “You’re an empath, so why shouldn’t you start seeing auras, or at least some kind of visual manifestation of the emotions you feel when you touch someone.”
She felt herself nodding. What Evan said made sense—the gray and orangey-red changes in Niamh’s aura had to be manifestations of Niamh’s sadness and anger. If the negative emotions she felt from Niamh could hurt her, she wondered, would the positive ones—like love or joy—act in the opposite way? She wanted to try her theory out, but there was so much else to discuss, so many things that she needed to know. And she was already worn out from this minor interaction with Niamh and Evan. In fact, her eyes were already starting to close.
“Daniela?” she heard Evan say, but she didn’t answer. She was already drifting to sleep . . . and out of their reality.
• • •
“Hi, Daniela,” Lizbeth said. “You’re in the dreamlands. Sort of.”
Her friend sat in front of her, cross-legged on the floor, her long russet hair tied back in a loose braid. She was wearing a white shift dress that exposed her thin arms and delicate shoulders, but Daniela was not deceived by the delicate image Lizbeth presented. The Dream Keeper was anything but fragile. She was imbued with so much power that Daniela could see it sparking off the teenager’s body in streaks of shining gold.
“You brought me here,” Daniela said, realizing—after the fact—that the pain in her throat was gone. She looked down and saw that she was in a matching shift dress to Lizbeth’s, her own short hair a frazzled purple-and-pink rat’s nest.
They were sitting in a room that was the color of bone. It wasn’t a place Daniela had ever been before, and the coldness that emanated from the space, the crisp emptiness that filled the room, made her shiver.
“I did bring you here,” Lizbeth said. “I wanted you to know that Dev’s girls are here with me and Eleanora and Hessika. They’re safe for now, but they can’t stay forever.”
“Dev’s girls are with you, okay,” Daniela replied, nodding. “Even though I have no idea why Dev would let them out of her sight . . .”
Lizbeth’s face fell.
“Not enough time. Just tell them that I have to stay here to learn to use my powers—but the girls can’t stay. We will all be with the magicians at the Red Chapel—”
“The magicians? At the Red Chapel?” Daniela interrupted, her confusion growing.
Lizbeth nodded.
“I know it doesn’t make sense right now, but just remember what I say. Go to the Red Chapel. It’s a real place in our world and in the dreamlands. We will be there with the girls. But go soon. As soon as you can. It won’t be safe for them here for long.”
“Who are the magicians?” Daniela asked as she tried to commit Lizbeth’s words to memory.
“The brothers. Tem and Thomas,” she said, a secret smile pulling on the corners of her lips. “They’re magicians. They’re going to teach me how to use the powers I have—”
“And Eleanora and Hessika are okay with all this?” Daniela asked.
Lizbeth frowned.
“They don’t like it. But they understand why it’s necessary. They’re taking care of the girls. When you find Marji and Ginny, you’ll find Eleanora and Hessika, too. If I don’t see you again, I love you and the others. Tell them I said that!”
“I will, but why wouldn’t we see you again—” Daniela started to ask, but Lizbeth only shook her head.
“You’re about to wake up. Remember . . . the Red Chapel—”
• • •
Daniela opened her eyes.
“Lizbeth, tell me . . .”
But Lizbeth was gone.
Daniela sat up in her hospital bed.
“What’s wrong?” Niamh asked—she and Evan were still standing by the side of the bed. For them, time had barely inched forward; for Daniela . . . it was like she’d been asleep for centuries.
“We have to go,” Daniela said—sending a silent thank-you to Lizbeth for somehow making the fix on her throat cross over into the real world. “The Red Chapel. Dev’s girls are there waiting for us.”
She didn’t stop to call a nurse to remove her IV. She simply yanked the needle from her hand—blood flying—and threw the tubes onto the bedclothes. She dragged herself off the mattress, her feet hitting the cold tile floor and sending shivers up her spine.
“The Red Chapel? We know it . . . of course, we do . . . but it burned down—” Niamh began, but Daniela cut her off.
“Don’t ask questions,” she said, hunting for her old clothes. She found her pants and a clean T-shirt in the chest of drawers. “Just go get the others.”
As Niamh shot out the door, Daniela slipped her pants over her bare legs, her body shivering with the cold.
“What did you see?” Evan asked—and Daniela could tell that he wished he could help her get ready. But she was an empath. No one could touch her.
“I saw Lizbeth. She’s in the dreamlands with Dev’s girls. She said we need to go to the Red Chapel. That the girls would be there waiting for us . . . and she said they wouldn’t be safe there for long.”
“Jesus . . .” Evan said.
“Exactly . . .” Daniela replied. “I just hope we’re not too late already.”
Devandra
The dreamlands. The girls were in the dreamlands.
Dev’s mother had said it and so Dev believed it. The question then became: How could she and Freddy get to the Dreamlands to rescue them?
These were the thoughts flowing through her head as she stood at the kitchen sink, washing the dishes from their late-afternoon lunch of store-bought chicken soup.
“There’s someone at the door.”
They’d been expecting Lyse and Arrabelle, but as soon as she turned her head, her hands wet from the soapy water, she realized something was wrong. The panicked look on Freddy’s face gave it all away.
Freddy had seemed to instinctively understand something was different about the woman he’d loved for so many years, and he’d been acting accordingly. Giving her the space she needed in order to figure out who this new person she’d become . . . was. But whoever was at the door had upset him so much he wasn’t walking on eggshells. He was just reacting.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Police. At the door. I could see them through the peephole.”
Peephole. Freddy’s nervous chirp of a voice, coupled with the absurdity of the word itself, made Dev giggle.
Freddy’s mouth fell open and he stared at her.
“You’re laughing.”
She shook her head.
“No . . . I’m not . . . laughing,” she said, in between giggles.
“It’s not funny,” he replied, frowning at her, his caterpillar-thick eyebrows turning down in the middle so they formed a V.
This made Dev laugh even harder. Which did not please Freddy.
“This isn’t the time to be laughing, Devandra.”
He only used her full name when he was mad at her. Otherwise, it was Dev or darling or honey pie or sweet-ums—her man very much liked his terms of endearment.
“Don’t be mad,” she said, drawing a deep breath and hoping it would stifle any further giggles.
“You saw the news,” he said—and gone was the smooth charming voice he usually employed. It was replaced by a tight, strained cadence that spoke to his fear and unease. “They’re here to take you away.”
“They’re not taking anyone away, love,” she said, patting his arm as she crossed the kitchen and headed for the front of the house.
Freddy was hot on her heels, and she could smell the terror oozing out of his pores like a foul musk.
“Devandra,” he said in a harsh whisper. “Stop!”
She did as he asked, but only long enough to set him straight.
“Love,” she said, placing her hands on his upper arms. “I have this. You don’t need to worry.”
She looked deeply into his eyes, channeling a wave of calm that she hoped would relax him. The police would know she was a liar in two seconds if they caught sight of him. He needed to chill out, or else she’d send him to the back bedroom where he wouldn’t be a liability.
“Go to the back of the house, Freddy,” she said, letting the confidence in her voice cajole him into doing her bidding.
“I can’t lose you,” he said, his voice cracking. “I just . . . I can’t.”
She nodded. She wanted him to know that she understood—and she really did. He’d lost everything, too, and she had no intention of adding to his grief.
“You don’t have to worry,” she said, reaching up and stroking his cheek with her index finger. “Trust me. I won’t let anything happen to me . . . or to you . . . or to the girls.”
He swallowed back a sob, and nodded.
“Okay.”
“Thank you,” she said, leaning forward and giving him a quick kiss on the lips. “Thank you for trusting me. Now go to the back of the house.”
He stood there for a moment, locked in uncertainty, then did as she asked and padded down the hallway toward the bedrooms. With Freddy out of the way, she could do exactly what she pleased. Whoever was on the other side of the door would be no match for her.
Dev had not been born assertive. In her family, she was always the peacemaker. The one to settle arguments, not start them. But with the life-changing experience of losing most of her family in one fell swoop, something switched on inside her—or maybe it was more truthful to say that something switched off inside her. She’d stopped giving a shit, stopped caring about what anyone else thought. Not in a bad way. But in the sense that she didn’t feel the need to please other people anymore. Especially the people she didn’t love and care about—like whoever the hell was at that front door.
As if the person on the other side of the door knew she’d been thinking about them, they gave another knock. This was followed by a muffled: “Ms. Eleanora Eames? This is the police. Please open the door.”
Dev felt like laughing again. They’re so stupid that they don’t even know she’s dead. So much easier for me, then.
She gathered her wits about her and opened the door.
Two men in ill-fitting suits stood on the threshold waiting for her. She smiled warmly at them.
“Sadly, Ms. Eames passed away not too long ago. I’m Ellen Mendoza. My husband and I are house-sitting while Ms. Eames’s niece, who lives here now, is away.”
A little kernel of truth always gave a lie more credence—and the real beauty was that there was very little lying being done. Her middle name was Ellen, and if she and Freddy ever made it official, she’d take Mendoza as her last name.
One of the men—he wore old-fashioned round spectacles and his greasy hair was probably longer than regulation allowed—took out a notepad and began flipping through it.
“This niece,” he said, looking up from his notepad. “Would that be Lyse MacAllister?”
Dev nodded.
“Why, yes, it would be. I don’t really know her, though. I was acquainted with Eleanora through neighborhood meetings and such.”
The other man nodded. He was older and gruffer, with a nervous tic that made the muscle above his right cheek twitch. It was hard not to look at it when she talked to him, but she managed.
She was not interested in offending him or giving him a reason to stay longer than necessary.
“Do you know when she’ll be back?” the man with the spectacles said, giving her a strange grin. It split his lips but did not touch his eyes.
A sociopath’s smile, Dev thought, and put on her kid gloves. As far as she was concerned, they were both dangerous predators that she wanted off her scent as soon as possible.
“Next week. She was visiting abroad. Italy, I think.”
She continued to stick close to the truth. They could easily check and see that a Lyse MacAllister had booked a flight to Italy.
The older man pulled a card from his suit jacket pocket and offered it to her.
“If you hear from Ms. MacAllister, please give us a call.”
Dev nodded, giving them what she hoped was a helpful look.
“I will.”
They seemed satisfied with their mini-interrogation and turned to go—but then the one with the spectacles pivoted back to face her.
“We have the house under surveillance, Ms. Mendoza. We’re tapping the phones, all perfectly legal and obtained under special court order. So should you try to warn your little witch friend not to come back home, we’ll know it.”
He gave her that strange cold smile again—The smile of a snake, Dev thought—and then he rejoined his partner, who was waiting for him farther down the deck. Dev watched them go, keeping the smile pasted on her face until she was sure they’d crossed the koi pond and were heading back out onto the street.
“You sons of bitches,” she murmured.
She stepped back inside and closed the door, leaned against the smooth wooden surface. Her body was taut as piano wire. She hadn’t realized how much the two policemen had affected her until they were gone.
“Freddy?” she called.
He was out of the back rooms in a flash, looking sheepish.
“I shouldn’t have let you handle that all by yourself,” he said, running a hand through his thick, dark hair.
“No, you did the right thing,” she said. “They were here looking for Eleanora and Lyse, but I put them off. I used your last name. They won’t have that on their list. I’m Devandra Montrose to them. There’s no Ellen Mendoza to go chasing after.”
The words came out in a rush, disjointed and frenetic. She was more upset than she’d realized.
Freddy came to her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, pulling her in close. The stench of fear had dissipated and he smelled like himself again.
“I can’t lose you, Dev,” he whispered in her ear.
“I know,” she whispered back.
They stood clinging to one another for a long while. Until the shadows of the afternoon leaked in through the windows and cast them into darkness.
• • •
Dev wasn’t surprised that the first test of this new, improved version of herself had followed so closely on the heels of saying good-bye to her mother and sisters. What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger, she thought—and she believed this mantra because it had proved true in her case.
