“What the hell?” he demands, fear at my disappearance forgotten. He moves in front of me, slides his fingers around to the other side of my jaw, probing delicately. “Who did this to you?” His voice vibrates with fury, with power.
It takes me a second to remember what he’s talking about—so much has happened tonight that I actually forgot that the whole left side of my face looks like someone took a baseball bat to it.
“Xandra.” It’s another command, one I might feel inclined to defy if I didn’t already feel the healing warmth flowing in from his fingertips. The ache I’ve carried since I woke up from the dream about Shelby slowly dissipates under his oh-so-tender ministrations.
“It’s been a rough night,” I finally tell him.
Behind me, Lily snorts. “Yeah, you could say that.”
“Tell me.”
“Later.” Declan’s touch muted the compulsion for a couple of minutes, but now it’s back, worse than ever. I feel like I’m going to jump out of my skin—or worse, claw it off my body—if I don’t figure out what this small, plot of grass is trying to tell me. “I have a body to find.”
Declan freezes. “What, here?”
“It appears so. Goddess knows the compulsion won’t let me move more than three feet in any direction. But we can’t figure out where the victim is hidden.”
Declan steps back, pulls me gently to my feet. “You’re sure it’s here?”
“Pretty sure.”
“Fuck.” His hand wraps around the back of my head, pulls me closer as he leans down and presses his forehead gently to mine. For long seconds he doesn’t move, doesn’t do anything but stand there—as if he’s gathering strength from me even as he’s loaning his to me. The last of my anger abates. It’s hard to stay mad at a man who literally trembles at the idea of me being hurt.
“We’re going to talk about everything I missed tonight later.”
“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
“Somehow I figured that was how it was going to be with you.” Still holding me tightly, he takes a few deep breaths—it’s probably fanciful thinking, but I swear it feels like he’s drawing my scent deep inside himself. Goddess knows, that’s what I’m doing. The wild cinnamon scent of him is a gift to my senses even after the night I’ve had.
Eventually, Declan pulls away. “I think I know where your body is.”
“Goddess, I hope so. Because I’m about to jump out of my skin here.”
“I’m so sorry you have to go through this, baby.” He kisses me softly, sweetly, then steps back. He walks over to the historical sign I paid absolutely no attention to, then turns to look at Lily. “I’m not really sure how this works. Go stand near Xandra and both of you stay back for a little bit. Just to be safe.”
“What are you doing?” I ask. “We’ve already looked over there. There’s nothing.”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
I glance at Lily whose eyes are wide, but probably no wider than mine at this point. She looks about to swallow her tongue and I don’t blame her. Because insane as it sounds, I’m beginning to think that maybe—just maybe—she was onto something earlier with that whole ACW headquarters spiel.
Declan lifts his hands to about shoulder height, spreads them wide. And then he doesn’t move again for what feels like forever. Seconds become minutes and I’m starting to wonder if he’s entered a trance, when it occurs to me what he’s doing. Safeguards. He’s unraveling safeguards. Holy shit. Lily was right.
Finally, finally, Declan drops his arms. He glances back at us—to check on us or make sure we’re both following orders or maybe both. Once he’s satisfied that we’re staying out of trouble, he starts to chant, loud enough that I can tell he’s speaking Ancient Egyptian, but not so loud that I can decipher what it is he’s saying.
Intrigued, I step closer. I may not have had my powers very long, but I’ve spent my life around Heka—and most of my adolescence trying to be the überwitch my mother so desperately wanted me to be. If he’s working an actual spell, and not something he’s just put together himself, I should recognize it. I want to recognize it. Because what we’re doing now is Twilight Zone stuff and I want to know how it happens. How I can do it on my own if I ever need to.
Admittedly, my magic isn’t like Declan’s. I can’t just mutter a spell and have it work. He has a real talent for those things human beings refer to as magic because they don’t know any better—transubstantiation, moving from one place to another by manipulating the time-space continuum, creating things from nothing, interpreting safeguards.
I’ll never be anywhere near as talented as he is in those areas. But that doesn’t mean I can’t practice, can’t learn how to do the basic stuff. Goddess knows, on nights like tonight, it would really come in handy.
Not that I think what Declan is doing is basic. The ACW is made up of nine of the most powerful witches, wizards and warlocks in existence. If, by some miracle, Lily and I have actually stumbled upon their mystical headquarters, then I have no doubt the wards they have protecting them are the most potent, most dangerous in existence.
And yet Declan thinks he can get around them. No, I tell myself as the ground beneath his feet starts to tremble. He is getting around them. Unbelievable.
Moments later, the whole area starts to shake. My knees go weak, as if they’re going to collapse beneath my weight at any second. But as I look down, I realize it’s not my knees that are the problem. It’s the ground I’m standing on. It’s bucking and rolling, just like it does when there’s an earthquake—I remember from when I was caught in one in Los Angeles years ago.
Lily whimpers, throws an arm out to help keep her from falling. I grab onto it, pulling her in close even as I plant my feet firmly on the constantly shifting grass. I might be the one wearing all the bruises these days, but she’s always been the one with major balance issues. Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, I let her borrow some of mine.
The rolling stops as suddenly as it starts. Lily breathes a sigh of relief, starts to pull away. But before she can get more than a step or two, the ground starts to shake violently. It’s mimicking a different kind of earthquake, one I’ve never been in. And though it seems more violent, and harder to stay upright, I try to comfort myself with the knowledge that it’s the rolling quakes that cause the most destruction. The shaking ones just scare the hell out of people.
Goddess knows, it’s scaring the hell out of me. Lily, too. Declan’s the only one who seems unaffected as he stands upright in the middle of the small garden, completely calm and cool as the earth beneath us does its worst.
“Are you two okay?” he calls over his shoulder.
Before I can answer, the wind picks up, going from almost nothing to slapping against us with the force of a stage-one hurricane.
“Shit,” Lily gasps, bending nearly double to protect herself from the leaves and twigs and rocks the wind has transformed into missiles. “Your boyfriend sure has pissed someone off.”
“It’s a talent of his.”
She looks around, nearly gets a twig in the eye for her trouble. “I guess.” She opens her purse, fumbles around for a minute. “Why didn’t I bring my sunglasses?” It comes out as a wail.
“Because it’s the middle of the night and neither of us was anticipating playing the role of Wicked Witch of the East.”
She looks confused. “Don’t you mean the West?”
“The East is the one who got caught in the tornado and had Dorothy’s house land on her.”
If possible, Lily ducks even more. “Great. Now I have to look for flying houses,” she mumbles under her breath.