Maybe with Valentina gone, Caitlin would feel more like opening up, now that it was only the two of them in the room. He guessed she had to be a few years younger than he was, maybe as much as five, but they were still a lot closer in age than Valentina, who was old enough to be Caitlin’s mother.
“And so…you said they felt wrong. How did you know that?”
A blank expression seemed to settle on her pretty features. Her gaze shifted to the wall, to the calendar from one of their produce supply companies and the overly bright still life of pears it was showing for the month of March. “I just knew. I sensed it.”
He got the feeling she didn’t want to say anything more than that, and he wasn’t going to push it. After all, he didn’t know her. He’d leave the poking and prodding to his mother, who was all too skilled at extracting information from her children and pretty much anyone else she set her focus on.
“So you went to their house….”
“Yes. The guys said they were going to make margaritas. Danica and Roslyn really wanted to go, and I could tell I wouldn’t be able to talk them out of it. Also, they were acting strange.”
“Strange how?”
With a nervous gesture, she reached up to push some of the heavy hair that hung over her shoulder back a little, so it wouldn’t be lying against her neck. Alex had a sudden flash of what it might feel like to have those silky dark copper strands running through his fingers, brushing against his face, and then frowned. Where the hell had that come from? Sure, she was pretty — beautiful, really, or would be, once she wasn’t so shaken and pale — but they had far more important things to focus on right now.
“Strange like…almost like they were drugged or….”
“Or under a spell?”
A nod. “Yes. Like Matías had cast a spell on them. And I could feel it, too, or at least feel something, but for some reason it didn’t seem to have the same effect on me. That is, I went along, and some part of me was trying to fight it, but I couldn’t open my mouth to really say anything, to tell them to stop, that we shouldn’t go to the guys’ house. Every time I tried, I felt as if I was choking.”
That did sound like a spell, a dark one of compliance, of control. Alex didn’t know of anyone who possessed those kinds of powers. It was the sort of spell Damon Wilcox might have cast back in the day, but he was long gone. And anyway, if anyone in the de la Paz clan had attempted to meddle in those sorts of things, his grandmother would have sniffed them out immediately.
Well, she would have, once upon a time. Now….
His expression must have darkened, because Caitlin asked, voice sharp with worry, “What is it?”
“Nothing,” he said immediately. His clan had been careful to keep hidden as much as they could about the truth of his abuela’s condition, and he didn’t think it was his place to discuss it now. “I mean, there’s no one in my clan who can do that sort of thing. Did they say they were de la Pazes?”
“Well, no,” she admitted. “I just kind of assumed….”
He wanted to be annoyed with her for making that assumption , but he knew he probably would have done the same thing, had he been in a similar situation. Witches and warlocks always stuck to their clans’ territories. Sure, you’d get some visiting from time to time, but always with permission. Since he wasn’t privy to all of his grandmother’s affairs, he didn’t know for sure that Caitlin and her two companions had contacted her directly, but you could be damn sure someone in her clan had reached out to her, just to make sure it was all right for the girls come visiting in de la Paz territory. For all he knew, Maya had passed the information along to his mother, since she was sort of in charge down here in Tucson.
Which meant she was not going to be happy when she found out that a trio of unknown warlocks had been using some kind of forbidden magic right under all their noses.
“Anyway, that doesn’t matter,” Caitlin went on, pushing at the blanket that covered her, then sliding her legs off the couch. Her mouth tightened in pain, but she went on, “We need to go find them. Goddess only knows what those bastards are doing to Danica and Roslyn right now!”
“Hey,” Alex said, and took a step toward her. “We can’t just go charging in there if we don’t know what we’re dealing with.”
She shot him an impatient look and got to her feet. For a second she seemed to teeter a bit, as if she wasn’t quite as steady as she’d hoped, but then she straightened. When he saw her standing like that, he realized she was taller than he’d thought, unbending and slender. Of course, the impression of strength was marred somewhat by the unsightly bloodstains that marked her blouse and jeans.