Mind Games (30 page)

“Juliana,” I whispered.

She noticed the direction of my gaze and harrumphed. “Nobody saw who did it in this crowd, not even Jenna. Besides, she had this horrible clot in her brain…”

I winced, wondering if any of the other injuries might prove to be more serious later on. “Look, we’ve got to start getting everyone home.”

Mom turned to me, as if noticing me for the first time. Anger burned in her eyes and she was having trouble controlling the fire she channeled for her unborn child. “They attacked Elena.”

“Okay, and we’ll have to decide what to do about that, but for right now, don’t you think we ought to get the children out of danger?”

I must have chosen the right words, because Mom suddenly saw the milling children, her own and others’. “Let’s go!”

Dad hesitated. “You go on, I’ll catch up.”

“Dad, please, not here. Cool down and think about things first.”

Mom led the children away, but Elena paused and took my hand, looking up into my eyes with matching blue eyes that, at the moment, appeared utterly lost. “They won’t speak to me.”

“Who?” I asked, confused.

“The others.” Her hand slipped away from mine and she followed in Mom’s wake. It wasn’t until the group reached her Dodge Sprinter that I realized what Elena must have meant – that the dead people weren’t speaking to her.

I was about to wind my way through the crowd in an attempt to reason with others when James Blair drove up, Matthew riding in the passenger seat. The mayor and the senator stepped out, giving both halves of the crowd brilliant smiles. Then they separated, each to deal with a different half. James went off to talk to the pastor and his crew, while Matthew came to calm the restless practitioners. He spared a quick smile for me as he got to work, compelling people with every smile and handshake that maybe it was time to take their children home. It’s been a shocking day for everyone and we all need to recuperate.

Slowly, it worked. I think everyone was a little too edgy to really want a confrontation right there, outside a damaged elementary school.

I stood in the middle of it all, half expecting curses to start flying anyway, but gradually, the crowd thinned.

The sheriff came up behind me. “There you are. I just want to say I’m done pandering to Pastor Roberts. You have better things to do than question every sorcerer in town. I need reports from the students and teachers about what happened here today. I need you to handle the practitioners’ kids. I’ll have Wesley handle the others. I’m putting another pair on the teachers. I want this taken care of quickly and efficiently and I expect a report at the end of the day.”

“Yes sir,” I said. Then I looked around. “Where is Wesley?”

Sheriff Adams frowned. “I don’t know. He hasn’t checked in all…”

He didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence before Wesley strolled up to us, his hands tucked casually into his pockets. His slightly pale face belied the casual posture, though. It seemed odd, him suddenly showing up like that when he’d disappeared as soon as we’d arrived. As Sheriff Adams repeated his instructions to Wesley, I took a minute to really study my partner. Something nagged at the back of my mind, but it wasn’t until he looked my way and I stared into those crystalline blue eyes that suspicion dawned.

Quickly, facts began to pull together in my mind: He’d disappeared the moment we’d arrived. Evan had arrived out of nowhere minutes later, somehow, coincidentally, appearing from a drug store across the street. On Saturday, I’d almost felt the wards keeping me out of Evan’s house and somehow… somehow, I’d gotten in. In the middle of a mob, a gunman lost his gun. None of the practitioners we’d visited had cursed us, even the nasty ones. The Chases had even threatened us, but nothing had come of it.

I told you to stop trying to protect me.

And I told you I wouldn’t do that.

The sheriff wandered away and the man I’d known as Wesley turned to me, his face set in a deep frown. “What?”

“Evan.”

“What about him?” I had to give him credit, he didn’t even blink. He’d played the whole thing very convincingly, down to his innocent questions about magic. But there were a few too many coincidences here. And now that I saw them, I saw something else. Wesley might not look anything like Evan, but he walked like Evan. He stood like Evan. He grew angry and tried to protect me, just like Evan.

“Don’t play games with me,” I said. “I’m no Lois Lane.”

This time, he paused a fraction of a second before answering. “And I’m not Clark Kent.”

“I’ll tell the sheriff.” I moved to head after the sheriff, but he reached out an arm to stop me.

“He already knows.”

I stopped and stared at the arm still clutching mine. “Didn’t you think I’d figure it out?”

“Yeah, but I hoped it would take longer. I think if I hadn’t had to pull a disappearing act this afternoon while my alter ego took over, it would have.” He paused. “The sheriff said it wouldn’t even take a week. I think you disappointed him.”

“He wouldn’t be the first.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Evan, please, I need you to stop protecting me. I need you to let me go.”

“No.”

Just that. No. Given in the same unwavering tone he’d used when I’d asked for my magic back. The single word hung between us, an immovable barrier. God help me, but at that moment, I found myself thinking about my father’s challenge to Alexander, that he get my magic back from Evan. He wouldn’t want to protect me then. He might not even be able to.

“You’re the reason I need protection in the first place,” I said.

He didn’t argue.

“I won’t work with you. I’ll tell the sheriff to get me a new partner.”

“He won’t do it. I’m working for him for free with the single stipulation that I’m your partner.”

I balled my hands into fists. “Let me put this another way then. Either you quit or I do.”

His mouth fell open. “You don’t mean it. You love this job.”

“Yes, I do.”

We squared off against one another, each sizing the other up. I had no idea what he would do. Would he call my bluff? Only, it couldn’t be a bluff. I had to carry through with my threat to quit, though it would kill me to do it. He knew how much this job meant to me, and once upon a time, I would have said that mattered, but now… I just didn’t think I knew him anymore.

“I’ll quit,” Evan said. “But not today. The sheriff’s in over his head. Let me stay until the end of the week. I’ll have him assign you a new partner.”

“Fine.”

I
T WASN’T FINE. I SHOOK WITH
anger as I left the scene in search of the children who had been there, who had been a part of it. How could I not have seen it before? How many times had he told me he would protect me, no matter what? He didn’t take no for an answer.

I wasn’t the only one shaken. As I sought out each child, I found them and their families in a state of advanced shock. Cormack McClellan, his nephew’s guardian after his brother’s death, didn’t have anything crude or intimidating to say to me when I spoke to Nathan. Jasmine Hewitt didn’t try to curse me when I visited her great-nephew. Or perhaps the muteness curse hadn’t worn off. She didn’t speak at all.

The children were surprisingly open, painting a picture of the day’s events that gradually filled in with each new contact. The picture was dark, and boded ill for the whole town.

I went to my parents’ house last, hoping to end the day on a moderately friendly note and possibly to find some dinner, even if everyone else would have eaten long ago.

“Sit. Eat.” Mom dished up a serving of roasted vegetables, garlic quinoa, and homemade bread, then ruined the effect of the health food by passing around “individual” servings of Ben and Jerry’s for dessert.

I spoke to Adam first, taking him up to the library with our containers of ice cream. His version of events pretty much matched what Barry had told me and didn’t add anything new to my growing picture of the day’s disaster.

Then Elena came up. She hadn’t touched her ice cream or, apparently, her dinner. “They still won’t talk to me.”

I put an arm around her, not sure what to say or do. “Do you know why?”

She choked on a sob. “Grams said… she said… I needed to talk to the living.”

Personally, I thought Grams finally had the right idea, but I wasn’t about to tell Elena that. “Will you talk to me?” I asked. “Will you tell me what happened today?”

Elena sobbed on my shoulder for a long time before she answered, and when she did, it was in broken sentences. She described her attempt to hide from the teachers and students, Amanda’s gang coming to confront her, and how she had lost control of her magic. “It’s all my fault,” she said in conclusion, rocking back and forth.

“Sh. No it’s not. It was an accident.”

“Not that part,” Elena said. “I-on the first day of school Amanda told me she sometimes knew what was going to happen. She said she was afraid to tell anyone. She thinks the devil possesses her. I told her he didn’t, that she’s a nice person, and that she should be who she is.”

“She’s a seer and invulnerable to magic?” A rare and powerful combination, even if she didn’t have any magic reserves to back it up, and there was every chance that she did. Gifts and talents can hide in families for generations, after all, and her father was related to the McClellans.

I actually felt sorry for the young girl, even if she had hurt my sister. I knew where my heart and loyalties lay, but how terrible to grow up with a father who would damn you to hell if he knew who you really were.

“There you are.”

I looked up to see Nicolas at the door to the library, his face awash with anxiety. He bounced ever so slightly on the balls of his feet, in imitation of his mentor.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Elena,” Nicolas said. “Cassie and I need a few minutes, okay?”

Elena, ever mature for her age, wiped the tears from her eyes and stoically marched from the room, closing the door behind her.

Nicolas stared after our waiflike sister. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Ask her later. What’s so important?”

“I went to check out the burned down house last night like you asked. I’ve been trying to call you all day.”

I snapped instantly to attention. He had called, but I had ignored any call that hadn’t come from the sheriff. “It was a crazy day.”

“I know, but this is important.”

“Did you figure out how it was done?”

“Oh yes.” His face darkened.

“Well?” I prompted.

“It was done with gasoline and a match.”

I shook my head. “That’s not possible. The fire chief…”

“Lied.” Nicolas left no room for doubt in his tone.

“I gotta go.” In an instant, I was on my feet and out the door.

“Can I help?” Nicolas called after me.

“Yes, go talk to Elena. She needs someone right now.”

* * *

Half an hour later, the sheriff met me in his office. Unfortunately, he invited Wesley/Evan, who was waiting there when I arrived.

“I won’t have anything to do with him,” I said.

“Now isn’t the time,” the sheriff said. “We just got a call about an apartment fire while you were on your way here. We think Jennifer Adams was still inside.”

I sat in the chair next to Evan and drew in a deep breath. “Arson?”

“We won’t know until we get the report.”

“You may not know then. I sent Nicolas to look at the Robertses’ house last night and he says the report was wrong. That the fire was a product of good old fashioned gasoline and a match.”

“Is he sure?” Sheriff Adams leaned forward, his posture rigid.

“If there’s one thing he knows, it’s fire. The chief lied.”

“Or was coerced,” Evan said, giving me a significant look through a stranger’s face. But I now recognized his eyes. “Maybe by mind magic.”

He meant to offend, I knew, but I didn’t take offense. I remembered what Matthew had been saying about another force fighting their efforts to reclaim sanity. Who? How? Why? I had no idea, but I couldn’t ignore the possibility.

“We’ll have to reinvestigate from the ground up,” Sheriff Adams said. “Starting with a motive. Who would want her dead and why? From everything I saw at that church, the parishioners loved her.”

I was already shaking my head before he finished speaking. We didn’t have to start from square one. I already had a pretty good idea what had happened. Now, I just needed to prove it.

* * *

Abigail Hastings wasn’t doing well. When I arrived, she lay in bed while her son, Kevin Hastings, tended her. Kevin gave us a dirty look when I insisted on seeing her, sick bed or no.

“Now don’t you get mad at her.” Abigail spoke slowly, breathing heavily. “I told her to come up. Yell at me.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Minor stroke,” Kevin said. “She needs rest.”

“I need to talk to Cassie.” Abigail made a weak shooing motion with her hands. “You can leave.”

Kevin retreated, grumbling something about needing to mix another potion anyway.