Cast Into Darkness (11 page)

An expression she’d never seen before veiled his eyes. No, she had seen it once. The day she failed her magic test and been declared a Null.

Defeat.

He looked back up at her. “Tell me what happened. Why were you in the Sanctum?”

Her thoughts flashed to her last few minutes with Brian, when she had tried so desperately to get rid of the stone and Brian had cast a spell that ended with him dead and her unconscious.

Should she tell her father the truth? Brian had some reason not to.

But Brian was dead.

Her father sat and listened as she told him about the stone and the whole horrible mess. She confessed all the stupid mistakes she’d made, mistakes that had led to the disaster that ended with Brian’s death. As she spoke, she kicked the coverlet off her bed. It felt way too warm in here.

Kate’s voice rose. “I should be dead, not Brian. His death is my fault. If I hadn’t—”

“That’s not true. You’re not to blame.” Her father brushed Kate’s hair from her forehead. His hand blurred as it moved across her face, as if a faint, multicolored outline ghosted his movements. She wiped her eyes. The blurriness was gone.

Her father still spoke. “If anything, this mess is Brian’s fault. He should have brought me the stone. You wouldn’t have been involved if Brian had—”

“Don’t you blame him.” Rage charging her body, she shot straight up in her bed, the sheet falling from her shoulders. “Don’t you dare. It’s not his fault.”

“I’m sorry.” He sighed. “You need to rest. You’re too distraught now to answer any more questions.” He got up to leave.

“I have questions, too, Dad. I need the answers now. What spell did Brian cast? Is his spell what killed him? Or was it the stone? I know you have it all figured out.” She twisted the sheet around her fingers. Her double vision was back. She saw her father standing by the bed, and outlined around him, his shape in rainbow hues. Interwoven into the colors and lines of the shape were spirals, twirls, and triangles with squiggles across them—vaguely familiar symbols.

She blinked, then lost the colored outline completely. Maybe her weird vision was a side effect of her injuries. Or the healing spells.

Her father gave her a long, measured look. “I said, we’ll talk later. Get some sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning. I’ll tell the doctor to give you a sedative.” He headed toward the door.

“Don’t you walk out on me. Not this time. Where were you last night? Off on another oh-so-important emergency? Why weren’t you
here
?”

Her father stopped, his back rigid. He turned around. “Kate, I’m sorry, so sorry, I was away. But I can’t always be where I want.” His voice sounded low and gentle, but his eyes were like steel.

“Do you even care that Brian is dead? Or is losing him just a setback in your plans?”

He paused and swallowed. “That’s… You know better. I loved Brian. I love both of you.”

“Yeah, in your own way. With conditions.” The pain around her heart had flared into a blaze. “What did those conditions drive Brian to do? What’s your favorite saying? ‘If you don’t control the situation, the situation controls you.’ Brian was always trying to prove himself to you. That’s why he kept playing all these games, isn’t it? So what the hell was he doing?”

“I have no idea.”

“Don’t lie to me.” The blaze inside Kate kindled something she’d never felt before—a spark of power. “And don’t tell me to take some pills and go away. I need to know why Brian died.”

Her father turned to leave. “Stop worrying about Brian and the stone.” He cleared his throat. “Whatever Brian did, it’s caster business. Not yours.”

“Stop it, just stop it. You keep shutting me out. I’m sick of it.” Kate spat out the words. The spark of power inside her burst into a white-hot ball of fury, searching for something to burn. It raged inside her mind, rummaging through her thoughts, her impulses, her memories.

The symbol for fire sprang to her consciousness like a blazing wheel. The same magical glyph she’d failed to conjure up six years ago in the Sanctum. The power boiled over into the symbol, filling its arcane lines with overheated energy.

Before she could say or do anything, fire formed in the air in front of her and shot toward her father. He had no time to defend himself.

The bolt of flame hit him like a burning spear, the tip aimed at his heart.

Kate watched in horror, her anger gone cold, as the impact hurled her father backward through her bedroom door, the crash splintering it into sharp, jagged pieces. He landed with a boom in the hallway. His head hit the polished wood floor with a crack. The fire on his chest smoldered as he lay limp and bleeding.

The single remaining spark from the fire above her dropped to her bed, flared for a moment, then went out.

“Help! Brian!” Her
stomach seized at the futility of that call. “Grayson! Help!” Kate jumped out of bed and ran toward her father. Swirls of red, yellow, and orange lights moved around her, all jumbled together. Little strands of color jumped off her and twirled out to him, as if she remained connected to him through the lights.

She blinked, and the colored tendrils disappeared.

Maybe they were an illusion. Was Dad lying burned and bleeding a mirage, as well, a trick to get her to believe she’d hurt him? Had someone drugged her or cast a spell on her to make her think she had attacked her father?

Hayley sat right next to me earlier. She must have done something. I can’t trust Hayley. I can’t trust anybody.

Kate stumbled to the hallway, dropping to her knees and touching her father’s neck, looking for a pulse.

Please, please be okay
.

Her fingers came away sticky with blood from where a piece of wood sliced him. His chest rose and fell. He was breathing—still alive. But burns slashed across his chest and blood splattered the hardwood floor of the hallway, the walls, the potted hydrangea in the corner.

Shouts and footsteps sounded from down the hall, and Grayson appeared, Hayley trailing close behind. Kate looked up into her uncle’s eyes, hoping to find reassurance. Instead she saw only questions.

“Who did this? Is the attacker still here? Are you hurt?” Her uncle’s eyes went from her bloodstained nightgown to her shaking hands. “Kate.” He leaned down and grabbed her arms. “Who did this? Is there someone in the house?”

Kate took a deep breath. “There’s no one else here. Please help him. I think…I think I—” She couldn’t stop staring at the blood on her palms.

Grayson pulled her father’s shirt away and assessed his wounds. “These are bad. Hayley, go to my room. Get my bag.”

He pushed Kate back as Hayley took off at a run. Kneeling at her father’s side, Grayson held his hand about a foot above him. His gaze went distant as he chanted a spell.

His palms lit up with a yellow glow. The faint aroma of gardenias filled the air.

Kate rocked back on her heels. She stared as Grayson passed his hands slowly down her father’s chest, and the radiance pouring from her uncle, as golden as sunshine, flowed into her father’s wounds and knitted his flesh together as if he had never been hurt at all.

She saw the magic. The subtle power she hadn’t been able to see six years ago in the Sanctum, despite the desperate urging of her father, she now perceived as clearly as the blood staining his white shirt.

Victor, followed by two of his security team, pounded up the stairs, sliding to a stop next to her dad.

His team took up positions at each end of the hall. Grayson looked up with a start, then turned back to finish his spell.

“Is he…?” Victor asked.

Grayson touched the amber-and-silver cufflinks on her father’s shirtsleeves. “His shield talisman was active but on low power. A lot of energy got through, but the damage is superficial. No major organs were hit. I fixed the worst, but there’s still more to do.” Grayson took a small pill case out of his pocket. He took out two pills and swallowed them. “Any idea who did this?” He stood.

Victor’s eyes lost focus, then refocused on Grayson. “External shields are all secure. The attack had to come from inside.”

“Victor, I—” Kate tried to get his attention.

“Someone or something was already here?” Grayson asked Victor.

“Yes.”

“Shut up already and listen to me.
I
did this.”

They stared at her. Victor said, “What do you mean?”

“We were talking. I got mad at him, and I…” Her words trailed off as her gaze fixed again on the blood all over her hands.

“You can’t do this, Kate. This is magical damage,” Grayson said.

“Yeah, I know. I can’t explain it. But one minute we were…arguing. And the next, I’d done…something. Blasted him, I guess. Something else, too… I could see the spell you cast, when you were healing Dad. I could see it.”

Grayson’s eyes flicked to Victor, then Kate. “Come with me. I’ll take you to the Sanctum where we can sort this out.” He reached for her arm.

Victor stepped between them. “Nope, security issue. I’ll deal with Kate.”

“Whatever happened here concerns magic, young man, and that’s my arena. You have other things to do.”

“My first priority is protecting the boss.”

“So stay here and protect him.”

“My team can do that. If Kate’s responsible, I need to find out how.”

“Stop it.” Kate stepped around Victor and glared at the both of them. “You two are arguing while my dad is bleeding. Grayson, don’t you need to finish healing him? I’ll talk with Victor. Okay?”

A look passed between the two of them, a signal Kate couldn’t decipher. Then Grayson nodded, turning back to Kate’s father.

Something was going on with Victor and Grayson, and it had nothing to do with territorial posturing.

Hayley ran over, breathless. She handed Grayson a yellow silk bag. He pulled out a talisman shaped like a silver snake with bloodred stones for eyes and laid it on her father’s chest. Grayson rested his hand on top, and after a brief word, the talisman lit up with a golden light that sank down into her father’s skin. Kate’s vision seemed to shift all of a sudden and the luminescence turned off as mysteriously as it had begun. Glow or not, his angry burns began to turn into healthy pink skin.

Victor grabbed her arm. Kate stiffened and pulled away. “Let go of me. I’ll talk to you, but I need to clean up first.”

“Two minutes.” Victor said.

Kate went inside the bathroom down the hall and closed the door. Leaning against the cold wood, she slid to the floor. She sat staring down at her bloodstained hands in a kind of numb horror. What the hell had happened? One minute she’d been arguing with her father, the next he’d lain in a bloody mess in the middle of the hallway.

She went to the sink and turned on the water. It washed over her hands, sending the blood swirling down the drain in a pinkish torrent.

Dimly, through the haze of her shock, she thought she heard a knock at the door.

She left the water running and sank to the floor again, gazing at the underside of the white pedestal sink. Her eyes followed the S-curve of the porcelain drain until it straightened and plunged down into the black-and-white hexagonal tile floor. She closed her eyes and let her mind find a pattern in the curves, folding the shape around and around until it resembled one of the magical symbols she had learned in class, years ago.

One of the designs Brian had traced when he cast a spell.

She didn’t remember what the curved symbol meant, but that didn’t matter. She wound the curves over and over in her mind, then traced them with her fingers, building the power up until it was hers to use.

The knock grew more persistent. She ignored it. Her eyes were filled with the curves of the pattern, seeing nothing else. The power rushed through her like a clean, cool wind. She felt lighter than air. She—

“What the hell is taking so long?” Victor yelled. “Kate! Are you all right?” The door crashed open.

Her vision came rushing back. The expression on Victor’s face was priceless. But what was he gaping at? Then she caught her reflection in the bathroom mirror.

She hovered halfway between the floor and ceiling with nothing between her drawn-up legs and the ground but several feet of air.

“Oh my God.” Kate fell hard, losing her breath along with whatever force was holding her up. She slammed her wrist on the sink, sending a jolt of pain shooting down her arm.

Victor lunged at her, reaching with strong arms to catch her before she hit the floor. “What the hell?”

Kate was pressed against Victor’s chest, heart beating fast, his arms holding her way too tight.

Victor’s eyes widened. “Uh…”

The cotton of her nightgown seemed very thin all of a sudden. “Let go of me. Please.”

He set her down and took a step back. “What happened? Did someone—”

“No one did anything to me.” She grabbed her bathrobe, which was hanging on a hook by the shower, and pulled it on, wincing at the pain in her wrist. “Whatever I’m doing, I did it myself.”

Unless Victor was responsible. Maybe he made me attack Dad. Was he behind everything?

Victor waited just outside the door, eyes steady on her.

“Where do you want to talk?” she asked.

“Your dad’s office.” He turned and walked down the hall, clearly expecting her to follow.

Shields protected her father’s office. If Victor wanted to try something, no one would know. Kate shook her head.
That’s just silly. I’m as twitchy as a caster.

She went with Victor to her father’s office. He motioned to her to sit in one of the leather chairs next to the brick fireplace. She hesitated, then sat. This room had her father’s stamp on it as much as his DC office did—his mahogany desk, Arkady Makris’s amulet, kept in a secure display case on the mantel, an oar mounted on the wall from his championship rowing days at Harvard. She shifted in her seat and focused on the imposing portrait of her mother, painted when Kate was six. Maybe she could draw some comfort from the painting. Then again, maybe not. Faith Hamilton, red hair wild about her shoulders, blue eyes blazing, shined forth as everything Kate wasn’t. A caster, a wife, a mother, a powerful woman.