“Can you at least tell me where we’re going?”
“I think you’ve got a pretty good idea.”
I don’t actually, unless they’re bringing me back to ACW headquarters. Which, now that I think about it, they just might be. What better place to grill me than at the scene of the crime, after all?
We walk outside and it’s raining again. I swear, these last couple of weeks Austin has confused itself with Seattle. I slip a little on a slick patch on the sidewalk and throw an arm out to catch myself. But the shorter agent is already there. He wraps a hand around my upper arm to steady me—or at least that’s what I think he’s doing—and then I feel a weird tugging movement. Not so much on my arm as on my entire body. Dizziness swamps me and for long seconds, the world goes black.
Which is strange. Really strange. Because I’m awake, alert, but it’s as though all my senses have been stripped from me. I can’t see, can’t hear. I can’t even feel the cold rain falling onto my skin anymore. It’s like everything has just stopped.
Then suddenly it all comes back, in one excruciating rush. Pain slams into me like a sledgehammer, and I gasp. Stumble backward. I expect to feel the rough rock of Beanz’s outside wall behind my back, but instead I feel a soft cushion. Which doesn’t make sense. Except, when I open my eyes—I don’t even remember closing them—I’m not on the busy downtown street in front of my business. Instead, I’m sitting on a couch in a low-lit room, staring at shelf upon shelf of ancient Hekan artifacts.
I don’t bother to gasp, or demand to know where I am. I must be somewhere at the Council headquarters, after all—that much is obvious by the décor of the place. As for how I got here? My first experience with a travel spell that very few witches can master. Declan has—it’s how he escaped when he was trapped at the top of the UT tower last week—but I’ve never met anyone else who could do it before now.
This blatant demonstration of power makes me even more uncomfortable. Sliding my hand into my pocket, I reassure myself that my cell phone is still there. The second I get the chance, I’m sending another text to Declan—and this one will have 911 attached to it.
“Can we get you something to drink, Xandra?” the tall one asks me. He’s looming over me, and not for the first time, I realize how vulnerable I am.
I spring to my feet. “What happened to Ms. Morgan?” I demand, going on the attack.
I expect him to step back, but he doesn’t. Instead, he spreads his arms in the most totally useless attempt to appear nonthreatening that I’ve ever seen. Now that we’re out of my coffeehouse and away from all the normal mortals on the street, menace rolls off him in waves.
Still, he keeps up the façade by saying, “I was trying to make you more comfortable.”
“You’d make me more comfortable if you stepped back a little and told me who you were and where you’ve taken me.”
“Of course. I’m John.” He gestures to the shorter man. “And this is Larry. And you’re in one of the parlor rooms at the ACW.”
John? Larry? Two names that sound less Hekan I have never heard. As the parlor, it seems more like a place designed for torture than one where people drink tea and eat crumpets. Or whatever the hell a person is supposed to do in a parlor.
“Better?” John asks me.
Not even a little bit. “What do you want from me?”
“Why all the hostility?” Larry asks as he closes the distance on my other side. Suddenly I’m all but surrounded by the two of them. It freaks me out even more than I already am, and I reach into my pocket for my cell phone. Screw subtle. I need Declan, now. He’s the last person in my call log, so if I can just hit SEND—
I never get the chance. John rips my phone out of my hand and sends it flying across the room. It smacks into the harsh stone wall, then plummets to the ground with a sickening crack.
Nineteen
And they wonder why I’m feeling hostile? I stare at the remnants of my iPhone and try to figure out what the hell I’m supposed to do now. Deep inside I feel my magic start to well up, but it’s not enough. Not even close to enough, considering I still don’t know what to do with it. So far, my experience with power has been much more about it driving me than me channeling it.
I reach for it anyway, try to grab onto it the way I did during Kyle’s attack on me. But I can’t get a grip, can’t get anything but a little spark, no matter what spell I try to recite. And judging from the looks on John’s and Larry’s faces, they know it, too. Damn it.
“Come on, Xandra. You don’t want to do this the hard way, do you?” Larry gestures to the sofa. “Have a seat.”
“It feels like we’re already doing this the hard way.”
John grins and it’s a terrifying sight. “Only because you haven’t seen how much harder it can get.”
I sit.
“Good girl. Your mother would be proud. Now, tell me what you know about what happened to Viktor Alride.”
I think about lying, about trying to bluff my way out of this. But the fact of the matter is, we didn’t leave any evidence of our presence behind. So if they know I was in Alride’s office last night, they know it. Denying it won’t do anyone any good.
“I don’t know much. Only that he died badly.”
“Badly? That’s one way of saying he was drawn and quartered, isn’t it?” John leans forward, and suddenly there’s a knife in his hand. He doesn’t bring it anywhere near me, but its presence is threatening enough.
I meet his eyes. “Yes.”
“Now, Councilor Alride wasn’t the nicest guy I’ve ever worked for,” he continues, “but he wasn’t a bad sort, either. And the number of people he might have pissed off enough to do something like what was done to him? It’s small. Very small.”
“Good for him.” I can’t take my eyes off the knife. He’s tossing it into the air a little, turning it end over end so that his fingers grab onto the handle, then the tip of the blade, then the handle again.
“Maybe. But not so good for you, as you and your boyfriend definitely make the short list.”
“Then it must be a pretty long short list.”
“That’s the thing. It really isn’t.” He grabs the knife by the handle, flicks a finger over the tip of the blade. I watch, horrified, as a drop of blood drips from his fingertip onto my hand. I’m dying to wipe it off, but I don’t want to take the chance of setting him off so that he uses that knife on me.
“I didn’t kill him.”
“No. Now why should I believe that, considering your history with Councilor Alride?”
“We don’t have a history. He knows my parents, obviously, and I’ve met him a few times, but that’s it.”
The knife is against my throat in the space of one breath to the next. “Don’t play stupid, Xandra. We both know what the Council did to you. The only question is what do you plan on doing to the Council?”
I lean backward, straining away from the knife, but John follows me with it. He even lets me feel the bite of it against my skin, followed by the warm dribble of something down my throat.
“Nothing. I swear.” He presses harder. I feel a sharp pain followed by the sensation of more blood leaking down my neck.
“Why were you here last night?”
I don’t know what or how much to say. But I don’t have anything to hide. Not about this. “I felt him die,” I finally say after a long silence.
“Because of your connection to the warlock?” Larry demands, getting in on the inquisition for the first time.
“Because of my connection to Alride. It’s what I do, how my magic works.”
“And how about Chumomisto’s magic? How does that work?”
“I don’t know.”