Mind Games (26 page)

Wesley had an odd, faraway look on his face, so I decided to try to lighten the mood. “We would be the others.”

Clark laughed. “Not you, Cassandra. Even if it wasn’t self-evident, both the town seers swear there’s something special ahead for you. Alexander might have left your name off that guest list of his, but that only shows he doesn’t understand us here.”

My mouth fell open a little. “How did you know that?”

Linda put her arms around me and gave me a gentle squeeze. “It’s a small town, dear. Your roommate told your mother, who told me.”

“So are you going?” I asked.

Linda hesitated. “Yes, I think so. It never hurts to listen. Doesn’t mean we’ll accept what he has to say, of course.”

“Of course.”

We said good-bye to the Eagles and made our way back to the patrol car, Wesley oddly silent during the walk. He didn’t even try to fight for the driver’s seat.

“What’s up?” I asked him. “You don’t think they had anything to do with the fire?”

“Hard to say. They’re the most outspoken people we’ve talked to so far. So what’s up with that guest list they mentioned?”

That was one thing I did not want to talk about. “It’s not important.”

* * *

By lunchtime Monday, I was ready to pull my hair out. Not only had most of the people we’d seen that morning been fairly hostile, but it was all useless. The sheriff wasn’t even letting me in on his part of the investigation, and sitting idly by while someone else did all the real work had never been to my liking. I wanted to do something; I even thought I’d be the best woman for the job, if I could only dedicate my time to it. True, I hadn’t made any headway on the McClellan case after many weeks, but this was different. This time, I felt like there was something hanging in front of me, just out of reach. I even thought it had something to do with the McClellan murder, though I kept getting stuck on that point. On the surface, the murders didn’t seem to have anything to do with one another.

Monday afternoon brought us to another person I dreaded seeing, even though I’d never met her. Abigail Hastings was a powerful seer, which was bad enough, but she also happened to be Evan Blackwood’s maternal grandmother. She was almost eighty years old and wheelchair bound, though it surprised me that magic couldn’t have cured that.

When I rang the bell, she bade us enter through a speaker system. “Come in, Cassandra! And your young man, as well.” She began to chuckle before she cut off the speaker.

Tentatively pushing open the door, I walked through her foyer and into the formal dining room where Abigail sat, along with tea for three. “Come on in, I’ve been expecting you.”

I glanced at Wesley, who gave me a helpless sort of shrug before taking the chair to Abigail’s right.

“You’ll have to excuse a tired old woman, but if I’d waited until you got here to set everything out, you might have left before I had it done. I’m a feeble old woman, you see.” She coughed, dramatically.

“Mrs. Hastings,” I began.

“Grams. You simply must call me Grams.”

“Um, is that something people call you?” I asked.

“Of course not.” Abigail said. “Only my grandchildren call me that. Now, pour yourself some tea. Don’t be shy. It’s hard for me to reach.”

I picked up the tea pot. “You’re not my grandmother.”

“A technicality. I will be when you marry my grandson. I’m old, but I’m not senile. I still know present from future… most of the time.”

I splashed some tea on the white linen tablecloth and cursed, softly.

“Speak up, my dear,” Abigail said. “I’m a little hard of hearing.”

“I think what I said was, ‘There’s no way in hell I’m going to marry your grandson.’”

Abigail sighed. “He didn’t tell you the truth, did he? And you’ve found out for yourself. Tsk. Tsk.” She looked at Wesley imploringly. “I did warn him, you know, but he never listens to me.”

“I don’t think the messenger matters nearly as much as the message,” I said.

“Come now,” Abigail said. “There’s no point mincing words on young Wesley’s behalf. He can handle it.” She turned to Wesley, conspiratorially. “What Cassandra doesn’t realize is that I’m the one who made sure her parents wouldn’t tell her, so if there’s anyone she should be mad at, it’s me.”

“What?” I stood up, splashing more tea on the tablecloth. “Why?”

“So you would marry my grandson, of course. Aren’t you paying attention? It’s the same reason that stuck up Grace Blair tried to manipulate your family into disowning you a few months ago. Although if you ask me, they accepted her twisted prophecies way too easily.”

My head was spinning. “Back up. How did my parents ever end up owing you anything in the first place?”

“Oh not me. They owed Victor.”

“After he stole my magic?” I asked, outraged.

She scowled. “No, after your father sterilized Victor. Don’t think their enmity went only one way.”

“Good! I’m glad my father got him back.”

Her scowl deepened. “And cost me all those grandchildren I might have had. At least you were born. Do you regret it so much?”

My mouth flapped open a couple of times, but I didn’t have anything to say to that.

“Drink your tea, dear,” Abigail said.

“Did you poison it?” I asked, red-faced. “Spike it with love potion, maybe?”

“What a question! You’re confusing me with the Blairs. Grace and I had quite a fight recently about what her grandson is doing to you. She’s encouraging it, of course. Thinks you’re perfect for him, and even fixed it so your family couldn’t interfere.” She glanced at the diamond sparkling on my finger. “Seems to be working.”

For a few short, heart-stopping moments, I knew exactly what she meant. A strong, almost overpowering sense of fear stabbed viciously through my body and, irrationally, I almost lashed out at the woman who, in my mind, had caused the pain and fear. My hands were nearly at her throat when something blocked me – an invisible but impenetrable wall.

My head cleared and I sat, trying to pick up the last tendrils of sanity. It wasn’t true. The things Abigail said couldn’t be true. Not that it would matter if they were. I loved Matthew and he loved me. What was love if not this overwhelming feeling coursing through my body? Did it even matter what had caused me to fall in love in the first place?

It was more than love, though. I needed Matthew. I needed his strength, his compassion, and his protection.

“I have to go.” I stood.

“You can fight him, my dear,” Abigail said. “But first you have to acknowledge what’s happening. He’s doing everything he can to make it tough, but I know you can fight him.”

Fight him? Why would I even want to? At the moment, Matthew was the only thing standing between me and Evan. “Why do you care? So I can marry your grandson? He’s the one I need protection from.”

She shook her head. “You don’t need protection from anyone, dear. You know, you really ought to stay with me for a while. I could show you a few things. I haven’t had an apprentice in years.”

“Apprentice?” I was so shocked I could barely form the word. And yet, I sat back down. “Did you miss the part where your grandson and son-in-law stole all my magic?”

“So? I never had any to begin with. No one questions my power.”

“You can see the future,” I reminded her.

“Yes, which is why I know that you’re ready to take charge of your own magical destiny. So come learn from me; I doubt you’ll get a better offer.”

For a minute, I teetered on the edge of anger, trying to decide what to make of this outrageous old woman. There was no question that she wanted to manipulate me into marrying her grandson for whatever strange reasons she had, but she knew things. I’d never even considered getting a magical apprenticeship. I wasn’t even sure what I could learn, but here was this crazy old woman, handing me a surprisingly tempting offer.

“Ah, you’re interested, I see.” Abigail took a sip of her tea and gave Wesley a conspiratorial wink. “You’re a quiet young man. Are you always so quiet?”

“I’m a listener. You hear better when you don’t talk too much.”
Abigail laughed. “I like him. You should go out with him, if you’re dead-set against my grandson. He’d be better than Matthew.”

I glared at her. “There’s no way I’m going to take you up on your offer if you keep giving me unsolicited dating advice, especially if it involves your grandson.”

“Oh?” She went suddenly serious. “Will you think about it, then?”

Think about it, yes. I would be a fool not to seriously consider her offer, but I was definitely not ready to make promises. “Will you give me some straight answers?”

“Straight answers are very difficult. There are many possible futures and we seers are limited by our own mortal minds. The most powerful of us can see multiple paths and multiple possibilities, but never all, and even then it works best with direct contact.”

“Direct contact?” I asked.

She lifted a hand. “Will you put your hand in mine?”

I hesitated, not trusting this, and not trusting her. When Grace had asked me to take her hand, my instincts had rebelled. In retrospect, I think I should have listened. Now, my instincts weren’t rebelling, more my nerves. Curiosity was actually imploring me to reach out and take the offered hand.

“I don’t bite,” she said.

Slowly, I nodded, and rested my hand in hers. “What do you see?”

“You’re at a crossroads. Every choice you make now ripples through your life, changing it in dramatic ways. There is a lot of darkness in your future, and…” She paused, and her voice suddenly went throaty. “You must fight free of the mind mage. He cannot protect you from what is coming.”

I tore my hand away. “And I suppose your grandson can?”

Abigail frowned. “I don’t know. You tore your hand away before I could see down those paths.”

“And what, exactly, is coming?”

She stared at me with soul-deep blue eyes. Evan’s eyes, I realized with a pang. “Your death.”

I stood, knocking my chair over in the process. “When? How?”

“I don’t know,” she said sadly. “There are too many possibilities.”

“Too many ways I could die, you mean?”

She nodded.

I shook my head, stubbornly. “That doesn’t make sense. If I die just because I stay with Matthew, then what possible reason would Grace Blair have to set us up?”

“Grace can’t see past her own death.” Abigail’s eyes were suddenly haunted.

“Grace is going to die?” I asked. Then I amended, “Soon?”

“Yes. At this point she’s doing a lot of guessing. More than she’s used to doing, I would say.”

“I think that’s quite enough for today.” I started for the door, not bothering to see if Wesley would follow. Briefly, I wondered what he thought of that entire insane exchange.

“You’ll be back soon,” Abigail called after me.

“I doubt it,” I muttered.

She cackled. “You have to. You forgot to ask me about the murder.”

I hesitated at the door, but pushed through, not really caring about her answers to stupid questions. When we got to the car, I let Wesley drive. He started the engine and put it into gear. “She didn’t seem very clear about anything.”

I looked at him, trying to work out the reason for the unusual tension painted across his face. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Who’s next on the list?”

I hesitated for a moment. Was I going a bit too far, involving him in a world of personal magical problems that went beyond the scope of his job? Sooner or later it would drive him away, and maybe that’s what had happened to all of my other partners. Not all of them had been completely unwilling to believe, but none of them had been able to handle an investigation with me.

I glanced at our computer-generated list and groaned. “Jasmine Hewitt. She enjoys cursing people for the fun of it, and for some reason, she blames me for her daughter’s death.” I programmed the address into the GPS and once again we were off.

T
HE REST OF MY WORK DAY
might have been completely uneventful if it hadn’t been for the sheriff calling me into his office just as I was about to go home.

“What’s up?” I asked him, shutting the door behind me. I tried not to sound too eager for any information he had on the case, though I was beyond tired of asking powerful people inane questions. At least most of them were coming forewarned now and if they didn’t condone the department’s action, they at least recognized my own lack of power in the situation. The only exception had been Jasmine Hewitt, but a bouquet of stinging nettle had ensured that her muteness curse rebounded upon her. I wasn’t sure if she would be able to undo it if she couldn’t speak, but the question wouldn’t keep me up at night.

“I’ve been hearing rumors about some kind of magical meeting going on this weekend,” Sheriff Adams said.

Swallowing my disappointment that this had nothing to do with the Roberts case, I nodded. “Yeah, an out-of-towner is trying to rally the community into joining his nationwide magical governing body. I don’t really know the details, but the idea of magical unification isn’t new and in fact, most areas have some kind of council of elders, at least.”