Darktide Read online

  She had a point. Sometimes a place just couldn’t be salvaged. I was glad that Connor’s brother Damon’s house had been sold to civilians — at least they would probably be oblivious to any bad energies that might be lingering in a place where two people had died violent deaths. That is, I had to hope so. The house had been far too valuable not to sell; demolishing it really hadn’t been an option. And it seemed, at least according to reports from some of Connor’s cousins, that nothing untoward had happened to its current residents, so whatever negative energy that might have once existed there was now long gone.

  “Demolishing the building would displace a lot of people,” I agreed. “And really, if none of us are sensing anything here, there wouldn’t be much point. What would we be protecting these civilians from, if the place is clean?”

  Luz nodded and opened her mouth, as though she intended to reply. She didn’t get the chance, though, because Domingo abruptly stood up, hands clenched into fists at his sides, dark eyes staring out at something apparently only he could see.

  “Oh, it’s there,” he said, his voice not much more than a hushed murmur.

  “What’s there?” Connor asked, brows drawing together. His gaze moved around the room, but as far as I could tell, we were alone here.

  “Dark energy,” Domingo replied. “Perhaps once it was human, but no more. Now it only watches and waits.”

  “Waits for what?” Those creepy crawlies were back, whispering up and down my spine.

  “For whatever it can feed on. Fear. Despair.”

  I took a step back, felt Connor’s fingers wrap around mine. The warmth of his touch didn’t completely dispel that shivery sensation on my back, but it helped a little.

  “Can you communicate with it?” Luz inquired. She looked as though she would have been glad of a little comfort, too, but of course her husband hadn’t accompanied her on this mission. To tell the truth, I couldn’t even remember what his magical talent was.

  Domingo shook his head. That blank expression remained on his aristocratic features, but now it wasn’t so much calm I saw, but an attempt to keep his mind clear of any emotions that might attract the entity…or whatever it was.

  “Can…can you see it?” The words were barely a whisper as they left my mouth. I supposed I should be glad that whatever was here in the apartment, it certainly wasn’t a good old-fashioned ghost, which meant I couldn’t see it. On the other hand, even if turned out to be terrifying to look at, maybe it would be better if I could detect some kind of physical presence. That way, it would have far less of a chance of sneaking up on us.

  “No. It’s just a sensation.” Domingo paused. “With an entity such as this, there’s nothing to see.”

  Luz’s mouth tightened, compressing her normally full lips. “Is it what killed Miguel?”

  “Difficult to say.” The medium reached up to rub his temple with his fore- and middle fingers, as though his head had begun to ache. “I — ” His words faltered then, and he put both hands to his head, eyes widening abruptly, so that I could see a ring of white all around the dark irises. “Oh, God, it hurts.”

  “Domingo!” Luz hurried to her cousin’s side — and not a moment too soon, because he abruptly slumped as though his legs could no longer hold him up. She grabbed his arm but still staggered under his weight.

  At once Connor let go of my hand and went to help, slipping an arm around the faltering de la Paz warlock. “We need to get him out of here.”

  No arguments from me. I still hadn’t felt anything, but Domingo’s reaction was enough to convince me that it was time to go. Connor and Luz began hauling the medium toward the door, and I followed, lagging behind by a pace or two.

  And then it was as if a cold hand had descended on the nape of my neck, and the chill from those unseen fingers began to flood through my entire body. I gasped, and staggered, and then forced myself to turn around so I could confront my unseen assailant.

  “Get away from me!” I cried out, summoning the prima energy from deep within to send a wall of shimmering power outward and away from where I stood.

  Dimly, I heard Connor call out my name, but I didn’t turn. No, I knew I had to stand my ground, couldn’t give this thing the opportunity to come after me from behind again.

  And, for the briefest moment, I saw it. As Domingo had said, it was shapeless, an amorphous being of pure malevolence, floating in the air of the dingy living room like a blob of shivering, evil smoke. For a second, it almost looked as though it was trying to extrude arms that reached out for me — until the wave of prima energy, bright and golden white, crashed into it. A tinny, far-off cry scraped at my eardrums, and then it was gone.

  Dead silence. Domingo began to stir, and pushed himself away from Luz and Connor’s support, as though his strength had returned to him now that the entity was gone. Luz’s dark eyes were wide, staring, while Connor appeared to be focused only on me.

  “What,” he said, “the fuck was that?”

  2

  Angela

  Domingo’s house was much the same as the man himself — impossibly neat, decorated in impeccable taste. The Spanish villa–style home was perched in the hills above Tucson, but even though the sun was beginning to set, casting a shimmering golden light over the sharp-edged mountains that surrounded the desert town, I couldn’t allow myself to enjoy the view.

  Actually, I couldn’t stop shivering, even though Domingo had made a pot of hot tea for those who wanted some. It was ninety-five degrees outside, my fingers were wrapped around the mug he had given me, and yet I still felt as though I might never get warm again.

  “More of Joaquin Escobar’s dark magic?” Luz asked. We sat in the living room, a large space with white plaster walls and a white plaster ceiling ornamented by thick dark wood beams. On the walls hung an impressive display of abstract art, all of it original. I didn’t know enough about art to judge the technique, but under normal circumstances, I would have at least enjoyed looking at the range of colors, blue and green and coral and ochre. Now, though, I kept wishing there was some brandy or whiskey to pour into the tea I was drinking, something to lend me a little courage. But I couldn’t drink, because of the baby, so instead I shut my eyes briefly and prayed that exposure to the dark spirit hadn’t caused any harm to the child I carried. It wasn’t exactly sort of thing that was covered in What to Expect When You’re Expecting.

  “It didn’t feel quite like that,” Domingo said, and I had to nod. Whatever that thing had been, it had been alive. Or rather, it had possessed some kind of intelligence and free will. It wasn’t only a force sent here by the Escobar warlock to cause more havoc.

  “Then what?” Connor asked. He’d turned down the hot tea but had accepted a tall glass of iced tea. After sipping from the glass, he added, “I didn’t really feel whatever it was that you two experienced, so you’re going to have to be as specific as possible.”

  “I think,” Domingo began, then paused, as though gathering his thoughts. “I think whatever it was, it knew how to focus on my weakness. I am prone to migraine headaches — a byproduct of my talent, I’ve always believed. So it focused on causing excruciating pain in my head. I assume you felt nothing like this, Angela?”

  “No,” I replied. “It hadn’t really started to attack me before I went ahead and attacked it. Maybe it was too occupied with you to stop me.”

  “Possibly.” The medium glanced over at his prima, who had also accepted a mug of hot tea, although she didn’t seem too inclined to drink it, since she hadn’t touched it yet. “It would definitely be easier to deal with if it’s only capable of focusing on one person at a time.”

  Luz didn’t seem too heartened by this possibility. Her fingers clenched on the pale yellow stoneware mug in front of her, and she paused a long time before making a reply. “Maybe that’s how it got Miguel. It somehow knew his heart was weak, and so that was where it concentrated its energies. No wonder there was no sign of foul play. The creature gave him a heart attack.” />
  A frown pulled at Domingo’s straight black brows. “And no doubt, if we’d allowed it to continue, it might have given me an aneurysm.”

  We were all silent for a moment, digesting that lovely little piece of information. I wondered what the entity would have tried if it had had the chance to truly go after me. It would have had a harder time of finding anything to focus its energies on — except for some mild seasonal allergies, I was as healthy as a horse.

  But then I thought of the life just stirring inside me, the secret that no one besides Connor and I — well, and my OB-GYN — knew. If this creature or being or whatever it was had been able to figure out I was pregnant, that was one vulnerability I had no doubt it would try to exploit.

  Although so far my pregnancy had been a placid one, with no sign of morning sickness or any real symptoms to speak of, right then my stomach twisted with a sudden bout of nausea. I grabbed the mug in front of me and took a large swallow of tea, hoping that might help to settle things a bit. At least the drink had been sitting in front of me long enough that it wasn’t terribly hot anymore, or I might have scalded my tongue.

  Next to me, Connor shifted on the leather sofa. “You okay, Angela?”

  I nodded. “Just a little jumpy.”

  “That can be excused, I think,” Domingo said, his eyes meeting mine and holding. Was he able to guess that I carried a tiny life within me? No, I didn’t think that was possible; he was a medium, someone who communicated with spirits that had moved on to the afterlife. His talent for dealing with those who had gone before, not those who had yet to live their lives.

  “None of this answers the central question,” Luz put in, “which is, what on earth is this thing? It’s not a ghost, not the soul of someone departed.”

  “Not a demon, either,” I said. “I mean, I’m not intimately acquainted with demons the way that Levi is, but I know enough to be able to recognize when one has been around.”

  “And that puts us back at square one.” Connor ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back off his brow, since it had begun to slide forward in that way which always annoyed him. Of course, if he’d kept it longer, he would have been able to pull it back in a ponytail, but he’d said it had started to get too heavy and hot. “If it’s not a ghost or a spirit or a demon, then what is it?”

  “Nothing I’ve ever come across,” Domingo said. “My gift came to me in my tenth year, so I have been communicating with the dead for more than four decades now. I’ve dealt with many spirits, some sad, some angry, but nothing like this. It felt like a being of pure malevolence, whose sole purpose here was to cause harm and destruction.”

  Yes, that was similar to what I had felt, too, right down to that one particular word. Malevolent. Even Damon Wilcox at the height of his destructiveness had never felt anything like that. Not even Matías Escobar, who was usually my go-to when it came to compiling a list of truly horrible people. They were still people, though, despite all the terrible things they’d done. This thing…it definitely wasn’t a person.

  “It’s too bad it’s not a demon,” Luz remarked, and I raised an eyebrow at her. “Well,” she went on, sounding somewhat defensive, “Levi has shown that he doesn’t have too much trouble getting rid of demons. At least if it was something like that, we’d have a built-in solution. As it is….”

  As it was, we were basically all spinning our wheels here. Although I’d made the decision to have Levi stay in Jerome, I wondered now whether it might not be better to have him come down here and poke around, see if his otherworldly sensibilities could pick up on something the rest of us simply weren’t equipped to detect. Not until Connor and I were back home, of course. Now more than ever, I knew it was vital to keep as many people with useful powers in Jerome, so they might safeguard those who couldn’t protect themselves.

  I hated to divide the clan into those with “useful” powers and those without, because really, all powers had their uses. Instead, I really just needed to think in terms of defensive or offensive powers, rather than the more subtle talents that might help in maintaining our quality of life, but which couldn’t do much to protect us from Joaquin Escobar and the Santiagos who now did his bidding, or from the dark powers of the spirit which seemed to be inhabiting that awful little apartment in south Tucson.

  “Why don’t we ask Levi to come down here and take a look around?” I asked. “He might be able to provide some insights.”

  “That sounds like a great idea,” Connor said, not bothering to hide his relief at the suggestion. I could tell he wanted to get back to Jerome as soon as possible. Maybe it was simply that he didn’t like being so far away from the twins, even though Ian and Emily were perfectly safe at Lucas and Margot’s place — possibly even safer than they would be in Jerome.

  Luz tilted her head to one side, as if considering the possibility, then nodded. “Yes, he might be able to offer some different perspectives. But he should probably be the only other person to go to the apartment. Oscar tells me that the girls have no plans to return here to live, are going to have some college friends come over the weekend and help them move their things out, but still, it’s probably better if we don’t have too much coming and going over there.”

  “Will they be safe — those friends who’re helping with the move?” Connor asked.

  Although he’d directed the question at Luz, it was Domingo who responded. “I believe so. The girls lived there for several months and came to no harm. This entity…it seems to be attracted to witch-kind — or at least, it appears much more inclined to make us its prey. Perhaps it has a way of feeding on our powers.” His shoulders lifted, a fatalistic sort of gesture, as though he knew some dark magic was at work here, even if we were powerless at the moment to do anything about it.

  “Well, that’s a lovely thought,” I remarked. “Also, horrible as this thing is, we’re overlooking something here. My prima powers were enough to drive it off. I didn’t even have to link up with Connor to get rid of it, and usually, if I’m trying anything big, I need the extra boost.”

  “Yes, that’s something,” Luz said. “However, even if Connor and I are also able to do the same thing, there are only three of us. We can’t be everywhere at once.”

  “True, but at least it’s a start. It means we aren’t completely helpless.”

  Domingo laced his fingers together and frowned slightly, not in disapproval, but more as if he was concentrating on something. “Also, the attacks only occurred at the apartment. Does that mean the entity is locked to a particular location, possibly because of the deaths that have already occurred there, the dark spells that were worked in that place?”

  Well, it would make all our lives easier if that turned out to be the case. I experienced a pang of guilt at thinking of some innocent civilian moving into the apartment once the current hubbub had died down, but I tried to reassure myself that the most any nonmagical people had suffered while living in the apartment were some serious attacks of the heebie-jeebies.

  Then I realized we had a very simple solution to the entire problem. “We should rent the apartment.”

  Luz blinked. “Excuse me?”

  A slow smile spread over Connor’s face. “I get it. If the entity really is confined to the apartment, then all we have to do to make sure no one else comes to any harm there is to rent it ourselves. Or at least, to someone from one of our clans. It would probably make more sense if it was one of the de la Pazes, though, just because you’re local.”

  “Of course,” Domingo said. “Rent it, and keep it vacant. If nothing else, that should tell us whether the entity is fixed in that one place, or whether we’ve made a false assumption simply because the attacks occurred there.”

  “And if that turns out to be the case?” Luz asked.

  “Then we’ll have wasted a little money,” he replied. “It’s not as if the clan can’t afford it.”

  Her gaze slid away from his, and I knew she wouldn’t bother to contradict him. Even the McAllisters cou
ld afford such a minor expense, and we were nowhere near as wealthy and settled as the de la Paz clan.

  “Very well,” she said after a pause. “I’ll have someone talk to the management company about renting the apartment. We might as well wait to have that settled before you send Levi down here — once the unit is rented to one of us, then there’ll be less chance of anyone asking questions.”

  “I don’t think we should wait too long, though,” Connor told her. “We still don’t know what we’re dealing with here.”

  “I should think we can have it settled by next Monday. That’s only four days from now.”

  I had no doubt Luz would have everything managed by then. She might not be quite the same force of nature that her mother had been, but she was still an eminently capable woman.

  “And we’ll talk to Levi,” Connor went on. “I’ll let him know that he can expect to come down here on Monday, unless you tell us otherwise.”

  “That should work. We will keep in touch.”

  There didn’t seem to be much more to discuss after that. Connor and I thanked Domingo for the tea, and we headed out soon afterward, the setting sun in our eyes and unanswered questions filling our thoughts.

  Would those questions ever be answered? Right then I didn’t have a clue.

  It was too late by the time we got back to Jerome to think of continuing to Flagstaff and picking up the twins — they were probably already in bed, or would be soon.

  “Besides,” Connor pointed out as he parked the SUV by Bordello’s, where we’d decided to grab a late dinner. “I’m starting to think it might be better if we just leave Emily and Ian with Lucas and Margot.”

  “Forever?” I asked, my mouth quirking despite the seriousness of the situation. To tell the truth, there had been a few times during the twins’ toddler stage when I would have happily dumped the kids on Margot and Lucas until they reached the age of reason…say, when they were old enough to vote. We were mostly past the tantrums by now, and every day I was surprised and moved by the changes I saw in my children, their rapidly developing personalities — Ian’s stubbornness and questing spirit, Emily’s little flashes of insight, the way she’d taught herself to read with very little help from me.