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He wondered what it was like to love someone like that. By now he was able to ponder their relationship in an almost abstracted way, for the months he’d spent here in this world had shown him that he apparently was not destined to be as lucky as the McAllister clan’s leaders. The affection shared by Robert and Danica Rowe also seemed strong but did not have quite the same intensity, possibly because they were only an ordinary warlock and witch, not clan leaders like Connor and Angela. During the time Levi had spent here in Jerome, he had seen much affection shared by its inhabitants, from the youngest of newlyweds to couples married for fifty years and more. They were a loving lot, these McAllisters. They had also done their best to make him feel at home here, to make it seem as if he belonged to their clan, right down to a false driver’s license that gave his name as Levi James McAllister and his current address as Jerome, Arizona.

  Perhaps it would take a few more years to make this place begin to feel like home. He hoped so. He knew he could never go back to where he’d come from…not that he wished to. This plane of existence was so much more pleasant, had so much more to offer, even with all the recent developments in California.

  “We’re dealing with something none of us has ever encountered before,” Angela put it. Her sharply delicate features were strained, her skin pale, making her emerald-green eyes that much more brilliant in contrast. “I mean, even just discovering how to take Matías Escobar’s talents away was a real leap. The last thing we ever thought was that he’d somehow find a way to get them back.”

  Levi cleared his throat. “To be precise, he didn’t get them back by his own efforts. It was the spirits conjured by his sister’s spell that accomplished the task.”

  Danica shifted on the couch, her gaze seeming to bore into him. With her dark hair and hazel eyes, she appeared as though she could be a close cousin of Angela’s, even though Levi knew the two were only distantly related. “Then tell us about these spirits, Levi, since you seem to know so much.”

  He did his best to ignore the anger in her voice, since he knew it was only born of fear. “I’m not sure I can tell you very much at all. There are many, many spirits that exist on planes other than this. There are many planes, some dark, some light, some in perfect neutral balance. Jack Sandoval has sent me images of the sigils used to summon these spirits, but they haven’t been of much help, for those sigils are human constructs that have their origins here, on this plane, and I have no real knowledge of how they came to be devised in the first place.”

  “I’m fairly certain the planes where these particular spirits originated had to be dark,” Robert Rowe remarked, his tone dry. His blue eyes, a startling contrast to his near-black hair, looked flinty. “So that should help to narrow things down a bit.”

  Levi wouldn’t allow himself to sigh. These people, although brilliant and kind and gifted in their own ways, simply didn’t understand the complexity of those other worlds. Even though Levi himself had come into being there, he could only speak for the place whence he had come, and planes similar to it. Certainly he had never encountered anything like these spirits — these demons, as humans referred to them — before.

  “Not as much as you might think,” he said. “I have been working on the problem, and I’ll continue to work on it. But I think for now, vigilance is the most important thing. Also, the usurper has been in power in Santiago territory for almost two weeks now, and he has made no move against us. There is every possibility that he only means to consolidate power in Southern California, and will leave the Arizona witch clans alone.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Connor responded, his tone grim. Even from across the room, Levi could see the way his tanned fingers tightened on his wife’s hand. “He didn’t have a problem with sending his daughter to murder people as sacrificial lambs down there in de la Paz territory. That witch is dead now, but with Matías escaped and his powers returned to him, it may only be a matter of time before father and son decide they want a bigger piece of the pie.”

  True enough. Or rather, Levi could just begin to force himself to make an attempt at comprehending the motives behind such evil. Humans, even witches and warlocks, did tend to have a regrettable fascination with power, with taking more than the universe had seen fit to give them. Had the usurper, this Joaquin Escobar, grieved at all over the loss of his daughter, Matías’ half-sister? Or had he shrugged and moved on, glad that at least his son had been returned to him, a son with a magical gift which could bend everyone around him to his will?

  While Levi found himself continually fascinated by human behavior, he was not quite certain whether he wanted to know the answers to those questions.

  “Possibly,” he admitted. “I can’t say for sure whether they’re merely biding their time. However, even if they plan to make some kind of move, it’s one that will have to be carefully plotted out. The Santiagos are a large clan, but all of them put together — even if every single one of them has been somehow suborned — are not enough to take on the combined forces of the McAllisters, Wilcoxes, and de la Pazes. They will have to get some kind of help to accomplish such a thing.”

  “What kind of help?” Robert Rowe asked.

  “I don’t know for sure. Possibly from the other witch clan in California…?” He trailed off there, because he didn’t know the name of the family in question.

  “The Ludlows,” Connor said. “They tend to keep to themselves — from what I’ve heard, there’s a sort of no-man’s-land in Central California that keeps them separated from the Santiagos. The Ludlows started out in San Francisco around the time of the Gold Rush and then spread out in all directions. Eventually they bumped up against the Santiagos, and that was when it was decided it would be better to have some kind of a buffer zone between them.”

  “Like the Neutral Zone,” Angela remarked, and Levi tilted his head at her, not understanding the reference.

  “It’s from Star Trek,” she said hastily. “It’s not important.”

  Ah. A television show, he thought. Or was it a movie? Either way, he supposed it didn’t matter all that much. “Right. Well, it’s possible that Joaquin Escobar might attempt to use his son to get the Ludlows allied with the Santiagos, even if they’ve been enemies in the past.”

  “How big is the Ludlow clan?” Danica asked. Some of her earlier panic seemed to have retreated, but she was still hanging on to her husband’s hand the way a drowning swimmer might cling to a life raft.

  “Pretty big,” Connor replied. “About as big as the Wilcox clan, I think. So if they join up with the Santiagos, that’s like putting our clan together with the de la Pazes. It could get ugly very fast.”

  “It’s already ugly,” Angela said. For a moment she went silent, as though remembering those who had died because of the Escobars’ machinations. “But it’s also been quiet, at least so far. The Scottsdale P.D. hasn’t discovered any actual supernatural elements in the deaths of Kate Campbell’s ex-husband or her father, thanks to Jack Sandoval doing his best to bury as much of it as he could before he resigned. But we can’t keep everything covered up forever. That’s impossible.”

  Everyone in the room went quiet at that statement. Levi might not have been born into this world, but even he knew how important it was for the witch clans to keep their magical natures secret from civilians — people born without magical powers, that is. Actually, now he felt vaguely ashamed of the chaos he had created down in Phoenix and its environs as he’d vainly pursued Zoe Sandoval, who’d summoned him onto this plane of existence in the first place, and who had seemed like a lodestone to him, drawing him to her with her mere presence. In the end, he’d realized his mistake and had stepped back, allowing her to be with her true soul mate, Evan McAllister. However, in the meantime he’d created quite the mess for Zoe’s Uncle Jack to clean up.

  “Well, we’ll have to worry about that when the time comes,” Connor said. “Right now, I think the only thing we can really do is stay vigilant, stay together, stay strong. The wards here in Jerome h
ave been reset, right?”

  “Yes,” Angela said. As Levi tilted his head at her, not quite sure what they were talking about, she went on, “Up until recently, the clan elders would put wards on the town to let us know if a Wilcox crossed over into our territory. Now, of course, we don’t have any reason to keep the Wilcoxes out” — she flashed a quick grin at her husband, the tension in her features disappearing for one brief moment — “but we definitely have every reason in the world to take precautions so we know as soon as possible whether we have any Escobars or Santiagos skulking around.”

  “How is such a thing accomplished?” Yes, the wards sounded like a very good idea, but it seemed to Levi that keeping away people they’d never met might prove challenging when the time came to cast such a spell.

  “A few drops of blood, or strands of hair, are the most effective,” Angela said, “although we can do without if we have to. This time, though, thanks to the de la Paz clan’s connections in our state’s criminal justice system, they weren’t as hard to get as you might think. Matías might be long gone, but the blood samples he had to provide while he was incarcerated aren’t. Same thing for his partners in crime, Jorge and Tomas.”

  “The wards won’t keep them out, though,” Connor added. “They’ll just let the elders know that we have intruders in the vicinity.”

  “You’ve done the same thing in Flagstaff?”

  “No,” Connor replied, his jaw tight with worry. “The area we’d need to cover is way too big. Jerome is unique in that it’s very small, with only one road in and out. It’s a lot easier to keep an eye on things. But Robert here has the talent of being able to detect when magic is being used — and within a fairly wide radius — so that will help us out. And I have to assume that Luz Trujillo down in Phoenix probably has someone with similar skills. Joaquin Escobar may be evil, but he’s not stupid. He has to know that we’re waiting for him.”

  Levi nodded. An accurate assessment, he thought. Still, the Escobar warlock had also shown a brazenness that indicated he was willing to take chances, as long as the payoff was large enough. He most likely would not hold back if he detected a weakness he could exploit.

  Which meant Levi had to refocus his efforts on these demons that Escobar’s daughter had summoned. Were they still here, or had they departed this plane with her death? Jack Sandoval’s description of his and Kate Campbell’s confrontation with the witch made it sound as though the demons had left upon her death, but Levi wasn’t so sure. Much depended on the spell she had used to summon them. There was always the chance that they remained on this plane, waiting for the right person to come along and press them into service.

  He decided it was better not to reveal his concerns to the people assembled here. They had enough to occupy them, and for the moment, all Levi had were idle speculations, nothing more. Certainly no real proof.

  And if that person did come along? The Santiago clan was large, after all, and it was possible that Joaquin Escobar might convince one of its members to explore a talent which had been previously ignored, or suppressed.

  If that happens, Levi told himself, then we will find a way to destroy them. We must.

  He wouldn’t allow himself to think what might happen if his confidence turned out to be misplaced.

  2

  There. Every inch of the kitchen had been scrubbed, and since she’d found some microfiber cloths in a drawer in the kitchen, Hayley figured she might as well dust, too. The living room sparkled in a way it probably hadn’t since her brother Brandon moved in, and she’d dusted the room that was to be hers and wiped down the bathroom, too. They’d have to share, it appeared; the flat might have two bedrooms, but it boasted only a single bath — one that, luckily, appeared to have been updated in the past couple of years, with warm faux-granite tile in the shower enclosure and on the floor.

  The bedroom she’d be using wasn’t big, but it also had a beautiful view, and a closet with more storage space than she’d expected. And because it looked as if Brandon had never used the space at all, the room didn’t require too much of her attention.

  She put her things away, glad that her brother had at least left her a drawer in the bathroom for her use. Once she was done with that task, she wandered back out to the living room, went to the window to look outside again. The landscape had begun to take on warmer tints as the afternoon lengthened and the sun prepared to slip behind Mingus Mountain — because of the tall peaks looming over the town, it would be something of a reverse sunset here, with the most obvious effects of the sun going down seen in the east.

  Her purse was still sitting on the little side table where she’d left it; Hayley got out her phone and checked for any messages. Another one from her mother, even though Hayley had already texted to let her parents know she’d arrived here in Jerome safely, right before she got her things out of the car and came up to the flat. Apparently a text message wasn’t good enough, though — her mother probably wanted to hear the sound of her voice.

  Sighing or rolling her eyes seemed like a waste of effort, since she was alone here in the flat. Instead, she pushed the button to return the call.

  Her mother picked up almost immediately. “You got there okay?”

  “Mom, I texted you right after I parked the car.” And thank God the flat came with two parking spaces behind the building. Jerome’s streets seemed awfully crowded for such a small town. Probably all the tourists, but still.

  “But you didn’t call.”

  “I’m calling now.” What was it about conversations with her mother that always made Hayley feel as if she was regressing to her junior high days? “I needed a little time to get settled in.”

  “Is Brandon there?”

  “No. I was just about to text him.”

  “He should have been there to meet you.”

  Well, Hayley couldn’t argue with that remark, but she also wasn’t about to throw her brother under the bus by saying so out loud. “He’s really busy. It sounds as if they’re going to get one of their builds on some TV show. Anyway, he left me a key, told me where to find everything.” Which was a complete lie, of course. However, just because Brandon tended to be absent-minded about such niceties, there was no reason to point out his shortcomings. “Anyway, I was about to go out and explore a little.”

  “By yourself? Maybe you should go over to Rachel’s, let her know you’re there.”

  Rachel McAllister, although a distant relative like almost everyone else in Jerome, wasn’t quite as distant as some. Her great-great-great-grandmother — or something like that — was Hayley’s great-great-great-great-aunt…or something along those lines. The genealogy of the witch clans could get complicated, and she’d never had the patience for such things, leaving it up to the more analytical minds in the family to keep track of who could marry whom and that sort of thing.

  Not that she’d yet run across a cousin who interested her enough for her to care. Most of the time she was able to convince herself she was just fine with the current state of affairs, even though she knew in her heart that she was damn tired of being alone.

  “I will. I mean, I was planning to stop by her store, since it’s just next door. Anyway, shouldn’t it be perfectly fine for me to go wandering around Jerome by myself? I thought that was the whole point in sending me here, so I’d be someplace safe.”

  A pause, and then her mother said, “Well, yes, that was the idea. It still doesn’t hurt to be careful.”

  “I’ll be careful. But really, everything seems fine here. Quiet.” Hayley decided it was probably better not to mention the row of Harley-Davidson motorcycles she’d seen parked in front of one of the bars out on Main Street. She had a feeling the local witches and warlocks made sure the bikers behaved themselves, but still, it was the sort of detail that would give her mother palpitations.

  “‘Quiet,’” her mother repeated, sounding dubious. But then she apparently decided it was better to let that subject go, and instead return to the topic of Hayley
’s absent brother. “Don’t forget to text Brandon. He’ll just keep working and working if you don’t remind him to come home.”

  “I will.” The last thing she wanted was to be a nag, but she figured one short text couldn’t hurt. “But really, it’s fine. I like the flat. And I think I’m really going to like it here.”

  “Well, good,” her mother said, although she didn’t sound as if she thought that was such a good thing. No, she sounded almost hurt, as if it wasn’t fair for Hayley to warm up to Jerome so quickly, that it was somehow disloyal to her hometown of Payson.

  But Hayley knew better than to get into that subject. At some point, she might miss the expansive forests that surrounded the town where she’d been born — although Brandon had told her you only had to drive a few miles up Mingus Mountain to get plenty of ponderosa pines and other foresty stuff, so she shouldn’t be too deprived. Again, better to keep quiet on the subject.

  “I should text him now,” she said. “You know, just in case he gets up to his elbows in a transmission or something, and I miss my chance.”

  “All right. But you let me know if you need anything.”

  And if she did, what would her parents do about it — drive all the way out here to Jerome to bring her a spare phone charger or something? Not happening. This was her chance to break free, to prove she wasn’t their little girl anymore. It would have been different if she’d gotten married and moved out to start her own life that way. But her mother seemed determined to treat her like a child, even though she hadn’t been one for years…in the eyes of the law, anyway.

  “I will, Mom. I need to go.”

  A long pause. “All right, sweetie. You take care of yourself.”

  “I will. Goodbye.”

  Hayley ended the call there, and began to set the phone down on the coffee table before realizing that she still needed to text Brandon.

  Hey, I’m here, she typed. You coming home anytime soon?