Cast Into Darkness (6 page)

“I don’t know, Dad. I didn’t even know she could cast. It’s not like I can tell, the way you can.” She hoped he didn’t feel her trembling as she stepped away from his embrace. “I don’t know why she’s after me.”

He gave her a long look. “Go home, and get some rest. We’ll talk more later.” He squeezed her shoulder and walked back to his desk. “I am sorry about what happened to you. Whoever is responsible will pay. That I guarantee.”

He picked up the phone and buzzed his secretary, asking her to send in his next appointment.

He’s already dismissed me and gone on to other things. Which company to influence, which country to dominate.

She walked out into the reception area.

“Ready to go, princess?” Victor leaned against the counter, an annoying smirk on his face.

Victor, not Alex. Dammit.

“Yes. Take me home, please.”

“No problem. Nothing I like better than being your chauffeur.” He pushed off the counter and marched down the hall. She hurried to keep up.

“You could drive me in one of the limos.” Her headache had faded—another teleport would only bring it back.

“Not secure enough.” He increased his pace. She had to jog to catch up.

“What’s your problem? Doing what my father tells you is your job, after all.”

“Yeah, it is, but so is finding who attacked you. Which do you think I should be doing: playing escort or catching a rogue?”

“Hey, don’t bite my head off. Nothing I’d like better than having you looking for Brooke. Alex can take me home.”

“Your father has other things for Torres to do. Besides, aren’t you tired of him trailing after you? He’s been doing it since you two were kids.”

She felt her face flush. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Alex is worth ten reformed rogues like you.
“So…did you find Brooke in the database? Is she working for anybody?”

He slowed down. “Rogues don’t work for anyone. That’s why they’re rogues. But no, I didn’t find her.”

They arrived back at the rotunda, Victor leading Kate onto the smaller version of the double-
H
logo that served as a marker for outgoing teleports. Not that casters needed to teleport onto a specific pattern, but having markers to use sure cut down on the gruesome accidents.

“So what will you do now?” Kate asked.

“Go to your school, track her down. Somebody will know something about her.”

I know something about her. I know what the hell she wanted.

Before the spell took hold of them, she slid her hand into her pocket and felt the stone, cold and smooth. The sensation vanished for a moment as the rotunda disappeared around them and the foyer of her family’s house in the Hamptons appeared in its place.

Home.

Kate let go
of Victor’s arm and stepped off the incoming teleport pattern in front of the big curved staircase. Interwoven stripes of black and white in the marbled floor served as the marker. Across the foyer, fresh flowers topped the Queen Anne console table. Marigolds and red carnations caught the rays of the noontime sun streaming in from the picture window.

“I’ve got work to do. Try not to cause any more international incidents.” Victor shot her a snarky look before walking down the walnut-lined hall. He headed toward the security office, boot heels ringing on the floor.

She pressed her lips together.
Don’t react.
The last thing she needed was more of Victor. She had her own agenda: find Brian and give him back his stupid stone. Oh, and get rid of her resurgent, post-teleport headache.

Kate ran up the stairs to Brian’s room—the last one on the left, past hers. The door hung partly open, but no backpack lay on the hardwood floor, no broken-in leather jacket slung across his old captain’s chair. The just-made perfection of the white linens on his untouched bed further proved that he hadn’t been by yet. She tried the game room next, its billiards table covered, Xbox silent in the corner. Then she checked the kitchen, bustling with staff preparing lunch. She even braved her father’s den, its old brick fireplace banked for the summer. Nothing.

She stomped across the big corridor leading from the den to the family room and jerked open the bifold glass doors to the pool area. The blast of heat that greeted her wilted her hair and made sweat spring to her skin. Oh yes, summer in the Hamptons.

A few of the caster kids, most of them a year or two younger than Kate, hung out at the pool, their laughter mingling with the scents of chlorine and tanning lotion. Classes at the family’s caster training school—the one she’d attended until she’d turned twelve, failed her magic test, and been consigned to eternal Nulldom—must have gotten out early. She scanned the crowd. No Brian.

“Great,” Kate muttered. “Just great.”

She stared past the pool at the long, brown two-story building framed by two tall oaks, slightly to the right of the tennis court. The Sanctum—training ground, center for the caster school, and general hangout for casters at her family’s estate. Clever that it looked like a stable or oversized gym from the outside—except for the lack of windows and the single, large, locked door. Not that Victor’s security spells let Normals see anything her father didn’t want them to see.

The Sanctum was the one place she pretended didn’t exist, the place that made her stomach do a little flip-flop every time her eyes passed by it. The one place she never, ever went. Not anymore. If Brian practiced magic in the Sanctum, he might as well be light-years away.

Her hand brushed her pocket, the stone a heavy lump. Sure, she could read a book or go swimming, but the problem of the stone would keep preying on her mind. Until she found Brian and gave the damn thing back.

She squared her shoulders and set off across the lawn, the Sanctum in her sights.

Kate dodged a grubby boy, maybe ten or eleven years old, barreling out from around the corner of the house. His dark head turned to watch the girl chasing him. “You missed me!”

“No, I didn’t. Got you, you dirty Null!” A little girl in red shorts, a pink T-shirt, and white tennis shoes sped after him, a slim hand outstretched toward her quarry, pretending to throw a spell.

“Whatever! I get to be the Hamilton agent this time. You have to play the Makris.” They ran past Kate and toward the hill leading to the beach with barely a glance at her.

Students from one of the Affiliate families that owed allegiance to hers. The boy was a Torres, one of Alex’s cousins. The girl, a Hashimoto.

The younger kids always scurried underfoot like that—playing Caster Wars in the woods or down by the beach when they weren’t in school. A tight smile crossed Kate’s face. That game never changed.

She rounded a large clump of trees and reached the lawn that extended about twenty feet in front of the Sanctum. The breeze from the ocean blew salty air through the trees, cooling the sweat on her skin.

When she got closer to the Sanctum, she could see that the square, white “In Use” sign hung on the door. She knew better than to go up and knock. No one interrupted training. Ever.

Better wait for Brian someplace safe. Her stomach tightened as she turned the corner of the rough, stone building and wandered into the tree-lined plaza beyond. A few tables sat scattered over the lawn, one piled high with the backpacks casters usually took on missions, their owners nowhere in sight. Kate leaned against the Sanctum’s outer wall, head resting on its wooden trim, warm from the sun.

No point in thinking too much about the last time she had been inside the Sanctum, how she’d stood in its center, six years ago. How her father, mother, and her uncle Grayson, his hair still solid black, had watched from outside the ring of glowing circle stones, the light of their protection shimmering toward the ceiling. They’d watched as she failed all three magic tests, the stones winking out, leaving her in darkness. She remembered how her father had turned away from her, back stiff, her mother’s attention on her father’s bent head, not on Kate and her tears.

“What’s that smell? A pig?” Kate started at Missy Hashimoto’s shrill voice. Missy was one of Brian’s classmates—a caster. She floated in the air above Kate, her high-pitched giggle wafting down from tight, smirking lips. Her fingers stroked a shining silver talisman perched on her red leather jacket, activating the spell that kept her hovering.

“No, silly—pig shit. Can’t you tell?” Her brother Gordon floated next to her, arms crossed, a sneer across his handsome face.

“Wait, we were both wrong,” Missy giggled. “It’s a Null. But who could tell the difference?”

“Missy, stop it.” Kate’s cousin, Hayley. Blond ponytail bobbing as she hovered in the air, fingers busy casting. “Leave Kate alone.”

Missy shot Hayley an oh-so-sincere look of contrition. “Oh, that’s right. Shouldn’t be mean to the boss’s daughter. Might get in trouble.”

Kate’s face burned. “I was just… I’m looking for Brian.”

Missy jerked her head from one side to the other, her eyes wide and an ultra-fake smile painted on her face. “I don’t see him? Do you?” She gaped at Gordon.

“Maybe he’s in the Sanctum.” Gordon’s handsome face twisted in a cruel smile. “Why don’t you go inside and find out?”

“I can’t. You know that.”

“Then what the hell are you doing out here in caster country?” He sneered.

“I—”

Missy laughed. “You come here, snooping around, looking to learn our secrets? Checking up on us for your dad? Maybe we should teach you a lesson.” She raised her hand, and her body got all tense, her eyes narrow and sharp.

Oh shit. She’s going to cast.

Gordon muttered a quick chant and slashed his hand in a figure eight.

Chunks of concrete blew from the pavement at Kate’s feet, carving a hole in the ground. Kate screamed and jumped back, her whole body shaking.

“You can’t cast at Kate! She’s off-limits! What the hell are you doing?” Hayley yelled.

“Open the door. Now.” Gordon’s voice sent ice shooting down her back.

Over the crackle of the fire spell that had sprung to Missy’s hand and Hayley’s protests, Kate wondered if anyone would hear her if she screamed for help. And what would really happen if she opened the door. Would she look like a stupid, Null idiot who didn’t know her place to the people inside, or would she get sucked into some kind of other-dimensional hellhole? She didn’t want to find out.

“No.” She faced the three casters hovering above her. “Go to hell.”

Gordon’s face went dark. His fingers slashed and jabbed through the air too fast for her to follow. Even a Null like her could feel the spell forming around his hands—something black and writhing and filled with screams.

She froze, mouth gone bone dry
. Shit, he’s really going to—

“Look out!”

Brian’s yell shocked Kate more than the impact of his body as he threw himself on top of her. A roar like a freight train sounded as Gordon’s spell rushed past her head, so close her ears rang with the near miss. They hit the ground, the impact knocking the wind out of Kate and jarring her still-sore head. Gordon’s spell slammed into the Sanctum door and evaporated with a swoosh.

Brian rolled to his feet, chanting. Everything around Kate took on a wavy look, as the world might appear from the inside a glass bottle.
A shield spell, just like under the car.

Missy squinted. She thrust her arms out and fire formed around them—finally, a spell Kate could see. Missy threw the flaming sphere straight at Brian. It hit his shield and disappeared. Brian grinned.

“That’s enough of that.” It was her uncle Grayson’s voice, accompanied by his firm footsteps on the concrete walkway. One slash of his hand and all three—Missy, Gordon, and Hayley—fell from the sky like birds whose wings had been clipped. Another wave pinned Missy’s and Gordon’s struggling forms to the ground. Grayson seemed to be able to hold Hayley with just his glare. She cringed under the heat of his anger.

“Are you okay? What in the hell are you doing here?” Brian asked as he helped Kate up. She couldn’t find a trace of the beaten-up Brian from last night. Instead, his usual “No Hair Product Left Behind” look was back. He could have posed for a magazine cover in his perfect polo with the collar turned up, cocky stance, and just-ironed khakis.

“I’m looking for you,” Kate said. “Don’t know how I could have forgotten how unwelcoming a twitchy caster could be.”

“Yeah, well…you know how it is.”

Did she ever.

Brian glanced at Grayson, still chastising Missy, Gordon, and Hayley a few yards away, then turned his attention back to Kate. “Do you still have it?” he whispered, eyes narrow.

“Do you know how much trouble—” she hissed.

“Not now. Meet me tonight. At nine. Our old place. Remember?”

The catalpa grove, at the edge of the estate. She nodded.

“Not a word to anyone about it.”

“Grayson should know,” she whispered, with a sideways look at her uncle. “He’s the expert—”

“No. No one.”

Grayson gave Missy and Gordon a final glare before he sent them on their way. Kate had been too busy whispering with Brian to hear what punishment Grayson had given them, but judging from the glower Missy shot her, it must have been a doozy. She’d better watch her back.

Hayley ran over, breathless. “Kate,” she squealed, throwing her arms around her cousin. “You’re home. Sorry about those guys. They can be real jerks after a mission.”

“Yeah, right.” Paranoia backlash might be a pain in the butt, but it got used as an excuse for all-around bad behavior way too often. Especially when the victim was a Null.

Grayson frowned at Hayley. “And what do you think you’re doing, hanging around with casters back from a mission? You should be in class, young lady—if you expect to graduate this year and join those hooligans on a mission.” Grayson pointed to the caster classroom, filled with students Hayley’s age, a good distance across the lawn.

“I know, Dad, but—”

“No buts. Good thing for you the lunch bell is about to ring.”

“I was helping Kate, defending her…” Hayley sighed.

Grayson waved Hayley’s excuses away and gave Kate’s ripped shirt a puzzled look. “Are you sure Gordon missed you?”