Unleashing Echoes (Reconstructionist 3) Page 15

  And second … well, that remained to be seen.

  Chapter 8

  I bumped into Copper — literally — in the hotel corridor while on the way to breakfast. I had the uncomfortable feeling that the witch might have been lying in wait for me, but immediately quashed the uncharitable thought with a forced smile.

  “Good morning,” I said.

  “Wisteria,” Copper said, speaking as though she’d prepared what she was about to say, “I feel like I’ve intruded … but it’s just that you, and Jasmine, are so important to Declan, and when the opportunity presented itself …” She trailed off, offering me a curl of a smile instead of finishing her sentence.

  I got the distinct feeling that I was supposed to complete or reciprocate the sentiment. Unfortunately for her, I was terrible at making friends or saying things I didn’t actually mean. So I simply nodded. “Let me make sure Jasmine is actually joining us.”

  Copper’s face blanked, then she nodded stiffly.

  I turned back to run my keycard through the door lock, feeling bad for excluding the witch even though this wasn’t the time or place for bonding. Then a thought came to me.

  “Copper?” I called back over my shoulder.

  She paused a few steps up the hall, turning back expectantly.

  “Do you know of any way to contact a brownie?” I asked. “When not on their territory, I mean.”

  “You … a brownie bonded to a certain family? Or an estate, you mean? Bonded to you?”

  I nodded. “Yes. There must be a … well, not a summoning spell, because —”

  “That would just be wrong!” Copper exclaimed. “They are sentient beings. A blessing. Not some magical creature to be presumptuously summoned.”

  I eyed her. “Yes. As I was saying.”

  Copper twisted her lips. “My immediate family isn’t so blessed. But I understand that the main New York office of Sherwood and Pine have such a connection. I could make a call.”

  “That would be appreciated. I’m concerned for the brownie’s welfare. Lark, bonded to Fairchild Manor.”

  Copper nodded curtly, obviously trying to keep her opinions to herself as she retrieved a phone from the tan-colored purse looped over her forearm. Then, as if forcing herself to speak her mind, she said, “A brownie is more than capable of taking care of herself. Perhaps more so without witch interference. If she hasn’t contacted you, I would suggest it is her choice.”

  “I understand your opinion and your reservations, Copper. Thank you for your assistance in this matter.”

  “Of course,” she said. “I’m always pleased to aid a Convocation specialist, and …”— she hesitated as if reminding herself — “… a friend of Declan’s.”

  She stressed the word ‘friend’ a little too sharply, then appeared momentarily mortified with herself.

  “We do what we can,” I said, attempting to be kind. “For the people we care for.”

  She nodded awkwardly, returning her attention to her phone.

  I unlocked the hotel room door. Jasmine had promised that she’d be right behind me when I stepped out.

  Just inside the door, I found my best friend leaning back against the wall next to the closet, texting or playing a game on her phone.

  She grinned at me saucily. “Is the coast clear?”

  I shook my head at her. She must have heard me speaking to Copper before the door swung closed behind me. “Breakfast,” I said.

  “Right behind you,” she said. “As always.”

  “Yeah, you’ve really got my back.”

  She laughed, and I couldn’t help but grin at her. Copper was going to have a dreadful time making a place in Jasmine’s life, but some part of me was glad to know that the witch would at least try.

  I stepped back out into the hall, quashing the mournful thought. I wasn’t gone yet. I had at least one more breakfast to enjoy with the two people who meant more to me than anything else in the world. Whether I had to begrudgingly put up with Copper’s presence or not.

  When breakfast was done, Jasmine, Declan, Copper, and I piled into Copper’s rental car, which she had arranged to have picked up at the airport. Then we headed out to meet up with Kett and the jet. Everyone seemed consumed by their own thoughts — excepting Jasmine, who kept up a steady stream of chatter detailing her progress with the various threads of her online investigation.

  I wasn’t certain that Declan had said a word since we’d murmured our good mornings at the table in the restaurant. Whatever was going on between him and Copper obviously hadn’t healed overnight, and I was starting to feel sorry for the witch. But given that she was here, we needed to drag her with us across the country. I was about to reconstruct a large event — if there was magic involved in the car accident that had claimed Dawn Fairchild’s family. And Jasmine’s distraction and cloaking spells weren’t anywhere near as effective as having a talented witch on site would be, especially one who could adapt her magic quickly if we needed her to.

  Moments after we arrived at the private hangar and boarded the jet, Kett disappeared to wherever he went when we took off, and we all settled in for the six-hour flight. The vampire had been completely close-mouthed about what he’d been doing in San Francisco, and I hadn’t bothered needling him. If he’d obtained pertinent information, he’d share it.

  After the jet took off, Declan leaned back in his seat, swiveling it to face me. He hadn’t removed his sunglasses, so I wasn’t certain if he was settling in to sleep or preparing for a conversation.

  I glanced over at Copper, who’d sat directly across the aisle from Declan. The copper-haired witch had been looking at me, but she quickly returned her attention to the collection of spent spells she had arrayed on her table. She had chalked, then closed, a tiny circle around her workspace and was renewing Jasmine’s collection. I kept my personal shielding up, layered even more tightly than I usually held it, not wanting to affect her casting. And I was surprised that she was willing to pull from her personal reserves in such a fashion, with no connection to the earth. She was either quite powerful, capable of storing magic on her person — likely in an object similar to my bracelet — or she was overly confident in her abilities.

  I knew that not many items similar to my bracelet existed. At least not among the general population of the Adept, who didn’t have some sort of a relationship with an alchemist. As far as I knew, Jade Godfrey was the only such alchemist of our era, and she didn’t sell objects of power.

  Kett slipped back through the passenger cabin, pausing to tower over me. He was carrying three objects — a brown, leather-bound book; what appeared to be an ornate chess set; and a box of Ghirardelli chocolates.

  He handed me the book and the chocolates. “Go join your cousin on the couch,” he said almost gruffly.

  I started to laugh — but then I felt the magic radiating from the book. I slipped out of my seat, taking Kett’s offerings and looking at him questioningly.

  He flicked his gaze to the book I held in my hands. “That doesn’t leave the jet. The bastard wanted my blood for it. Thankfully, I had an excuse he couldn’t counter. Your imminent remaking. So I had to trade an open-ended favor to get it. It will return to its owner in three days, or if it falls into the wrong hands.”

  “Well, I’m intrigued.” I smiled softly. Then, impulsively, I kissed his cheek lightly before I stepped around him and shoved the box of chocolates in Jasmine’s face.

  My best friend looked up from her laptop, squealed, and tried to snatch the box from me.

  Laughing, I pulled it from her grasp, then wandered back to the white leather couch at the back of the passenger cabin, pretty much dragging her and her laptop along with the lure of chocolate. The couch was a feature of the slightly different model of Learjet that Kett had brought back from San Francisco. I briefly wondered if he’d made the change solely so that Jasmine and I could sit together.

  Glancing back at Kett, I was surprised to find him watching me. He smiled, then took the seat I�
��d vacated, facing Declan. He then swiftly pulled out a table and set up the chess game he’d been carrying, his hands moving in a blur.

  “Declan,” the vampire said, blunt yet inviting.

  Declan dropped the pretense of sleeping, straightening his chair. He removed his sunglasses and eyed the executioner for a moment. Then he barked, “White.”

  Kett spun the chess set.

  “The vampire is making friends,” Jasmine murmured. Her mouth sounded full, because it was. She’d already opened the box of chocolates. I hadn’t even noticed her grabbing it from me a second time.

  Of course, the magic emanating from the book I held was fairly distracting. I frowned at my best friend as she popped the second half of the first chocolate she’d purloined into her mouth.

  “What? It’s a soft center … strawberry … mmm. You only like the caramels and clusters.”

  I snorted, settling beside her on the couch with the box of chocolates between us.

  Jasmine chortled to herself, shifting her laptop farther away from me.

  I placed the book in my lap, running my fingers along its supple leather binding. It was an easy guess that the magic it radiated was the timed spell that would return it to its owner in three days — along with whatever spell could possibly determine what the ‘wrong hands’ were.

  “What is that?” Jasmine asked, leaning her shoulder against mine.

  I opened the book. Scrawled across the first page was the handwritten title:

  The Chronicles of Ve

  Collected by a child of his blood

  Without permission.

  Jasmine sighed with so much pleasure that I almost laughed. Except I was fairly certain I was holding a book filled with information that could get me killed. If I hadn’t already been slated to die.

  “Without permission,” Jasmine whispered. “Child of his blood. Kett?”

  “No,” I said. “Ve is his grandsire. Estelle’s maker.”

  “Right. So … this was the mysterious trip to San Francisco?”

  “Apparently.”

  Jasmine looked up at me. “He’s preparing you.”

  I nodded.

  “Well, then. Turn the freaking page.”

  “Don’t take notes,” I whispered. “At least not where Kett can see.”

  “He can see I’m reading it with you. He practically told you to invite me.”

  “No,” I said. “He gave me the book and told me to come back here on the pretense that he wanted my seat. And now he sits with his back to us.”

  “Plausible deniability.”

  I laughed. Then I sobered as I ran my fingers across the black-inked lettering of the title. I couldn’t be completely certain without retrieving the contract from my bag, but I thought the handwriting might be the same. Which meant that whoever had written the chronicle also drafted contracts for the Conclave, or at least had drafted the contract that tied me to Kett. Ember and her associates had assumed it was constructed by a sorcerer, so maybe the vampire in question had once been such an Adept. Before he became a child of Ve and a sibling of Kett’s maker, Estelle.

  I kept my thoughts to myself — not wanting to bring the contract up with Jasmine if I didn’t need to — as I flipped the first page.

  Then I spent the next five hours eating chocolate and learning about ancient vampires, blood wars, and the origins of the Conclave.

  By the time I was done, I was exceedingly glad that Kett had indicated we’d be avoiding London for as long as possible. Because I was about to inherit a great-grandsire who had fashioned himself as a god on more than one occasion. And who could likely destroy me after my remaking merely by focusing his capricious will in my direction.

  Of course, the text I’d been reading might just have been an elaborate mythology. But something about the ‘without permission’ tag underneath the title told me that the chronicler, at the very least, held what was contained within the book as the utter truth.

  Dawn’s family lived in Rye, a relatively small city in Westchester County, New York, close to the Connecticut border but not right on top of the main branch of the Fairchild coven. As Jasmine had originally guessed, we were distant cousins, but it was likely that Amy, Dawn’s mother, didn’t actively pursue magic. This made me wonder if Dean, Amy’s husband, had any inkling of the Adept world. That had to be a fine line to walk for a husband and wife, especially if Dawn showed any magical proclivity.

  It was evening by the time we landed at yet another private airfield and climbed into yet another SUV — with Copper tucked into the back seat between Declan and me. This time, the behemoth vehicle was dark green and a rental, meaning Kett hadn’t been able to source his preferred make and model. I didn’t catch the name of the airport. But then, they were all starting to blur together. And it was the destination, not the trip, that held the most importance for me. I always felt useless through the distance in between.

  As we neared the site of the accident, Jasmine pieced together a working narrative for the incident we were about to investigate. “Based on the last charges on Dean’s credit card, it looks like the family were on their way home from dinner and a movie. The accident took place about five minutes from home, which is near enough to a wildlife sanctuary to be relatively remote. At least they died together.”

  “No,” I whispered, staring out at the dark, tree-lined street blurring past my window. “Each of them would have wanted the others to survive.”

  Jasmine didn’t respond.

  Kett pulled over onto a wide gravel shoulder a few moments later, stopping at the exact point Jasmine had punched into the GPS.

  We climbed out of the vehicle into tree-shrouded darkness. The headlights illuminated the immediate area, but there weren’t any streetlights. The houses were spaced far apart and back from the street, not offering any light of their own.

  “The accident took place there,” Jasmine said, pointing ahead of us.

  “How do you know?” Copper asked.

  “Burn marks,” Declan said grimly, walking in the direction Jasmine had indicated. A few steps away, he activated a small flashlight and began scanning the narrow two-lane street.

  Kett slipped off into a dense row of trees beside us, some of which were still leafing out. At a guess, he’d be making a quick check of the perimeter. I buttoned my trench coat, tucking my silk scarf into the lapel. New York was chilly compared to LA, but not uncomfortable.

  Jasmine set up her laptop on the hood of the SUV as I wandered after Declan, opening my witch senses and seeking any residual magic.

  The headlights on the SUV winked out. Copper, as per protocol, had been silently trailing along behind me so she didn’t interfere with my sensing. But now she murmured something quietly and light bloomed behind me. With another whispered command, she fixed the light-blue orb she’d called forth over our heads. It was high enough that it would look like a streetlight to a casual observer, and wouldn’t interfere with any reconstruction.

  A car passed as I traversed the remainder of the half-dozen yards between the SUV and the site of the accident. I paused at the edge of the gravel, shoulder to shoulder with Declan, practically able to taste the residual magic coating the immediate area. Copper coaxed her orb slightly closer, until it illuminated the dark marks along the asphalt.

  “Wait until this next car passes.” Declan was looking farther up the road. “Then we can get closer.”

  “No need,” I said, raising my voice so Jasmine could hear me. “There’s more than enough magic here to attempt a reconstruction.”

  Beside me, Copper nodded in agreement, sweeping her arm forward. “Concentrated magic here. Likely at other points just off the road, setting up some sort of masking.”

  Jasmine jogged over to join us.

  “Witch magic?” I asked Copper, wanting to confirm what I could sense.

  “Feels like it. Could be purchased spells, of course.”

  Headlights swept across us from a car slowly approaching in the opposite direc
tion.

  “Then there are probably at least two other points farther up the road in both directions,” Jasmine said grimly. “For redirecting traffic that night. They would have been timed spells, since no one found the vehicle until the fire had burned itself out.” She turned to me. “I seriously hope this is some weird, isolated incident. But you should reconstruct it before I report any of our findings to the Convocation.”

  I nodded.

  The car slipped past us, then slowed further to turn into a nearby driveway. I caught sight of a young girl with light blond hair watching us from the back seat. She might have been around the same age as Dawn. Maybe even a schoolmate, given that we were only a few minutes from Amy and Dean’s home.

  Declan crossed into the road as the car passed, crouching down to get a closer look at the burns.

  “It will take me a few minutes to redirect the traffic,” Jasmine said.

  “I’ll cast a large circle, rather than a mobile one,” I said. “Grab it all at once.”

  “One circle?” Copper echoed. “The integrity —”

  Jasmine curtly cut the witch off. “If Wisteria says she can do it, she can.”

  Copper nodded stiffly, apparently still questioning my abilities as a reconstructionist. But I came by my skills honestly. I deserved my reputation, so it wasn’t ego or posturing to suggest I could collect such a large area in one pass.

  “I’ll set the distraction spells,” Copper said. “They’ll be stronger if anchored here, rather than using the premade I gave you. Moving vehicles are more difficult to reroute.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Jasmine said. “So I can document any residual you might pick up from previously laid spells.”

  “Of course. Then I’ll place a shielding around the reconstruction circle itself. About five feet out? Will that disrupt your casting, Wisteria?”