Dinner that night was a silent affair for those of us attending. Three women were confined to the infirmary; three were dead. One had fled. So there was a sorry-assed group of seven of us pushing some Mexican dish called Pibil Pollo around on our plates. It might have tasted good or it might have been dirt, I didn’t care.
I could use only one hand, the other so bundled it looked like I was waving a cotton muff around. The wrap reminded me not to use that hand much. The pain still pumping through it in spite of the bucket load of meds I was on, another reminder.
The only good news was Kelly had reappeared. Seemed her ability was to disappear. Sounded like something cool, but it had a nasty side effect. For as much time as she was invisible, when she reappeared she was blind for double the time. She also couldn’t control her gift that well, given she had hidden it most of her life.
Not like there were a lot of teachers who could show her the ropes either.
So in the gym after she’d been ethereal, about ten minutes max, when she poofed back into corporeal form she was as helpless as any person suddenly losing their sight.
On the other hand she wouldn’t go to bed with images of the corpses of three dead women and one murdered shifter in her memory. Though Kelly had seen them killed. They were all murdered as far as I was concerned but hadn’t voiced my anger aloud. Not yet.
But it was brewing and bubbling beneath my skin.
Vaughn leaned toward me, her voice pitched low. “After lights out, meet me outside the dorm.”
I looked up, a thousand questions thrumming through me, but all I did was nod.
“Tell no one,” she added, as if I needed the warning.
I could feel my eyes narrow, my lips thin as I shoveled a cold bite into my mouth before I asked. “When?”
“Midnight.”
The Bewitching Hour. My smile was bitter sweet.
I nodded, then caught Chiquita and her friend staring at me. Most of the remaining recruits had been casting me wary glances as afternoon slid to evening. They knew I’d used my other abilities to get rid of Bitsi. Most of them assumed the hyena shifter was dead. Who knew, she might be.
I hadn’t shared with anyone except Vaughn and Stone that there’d been magic at play in the gym. Dark magic. And I hadn’t shared with either of them that I wasn’t going to stop hunting for the one who’d set off the chain of events this afternoon. It was my silent promise to Serena, who had saved my life.
We trooped back to the dorm almost immediately after dinner. I skipped my next round of pain meds to keep my wits about me as I got ready for bed. Not easy one-handed.
It seemed like everyone walked on eggshells, only too aware of the empty cots that had been occupied just that morning. On one cot personal belongings still remained of those who had died. The one that fled before all the bloodshed had begun had cleared out her space.
I sat on the edge of my cot, aware of my pulse beating through my injured hand. A hand I wouldn’t know if I’d retain full use of for a few days. The focus helped me channel whirling thoughts, slowly clearing as the medication left my body.
What had happened and why? I eliminated Stone as being behind the black magic attack that turned a training exercise into a slaughter. He had nothing to gain and a lot to lose. So that meant one of my fellow recruits.
But was it a crime of opportunity or motivated? Just a fluke that the magic pulsed through the room when I was pinned down by Bitsi, or was someone specifically out to get me and the other deaths were collateral damage?
I circled around the same questions over and over as I swung my feet onto the bed.
“You need help getting your shoes off?” Kelly whispered, creeping up beside my cot. I hadn’t even heard her. She pointed to my feet. “I can help.”I heard what she wasn’t saying. Guilt and regret tumbled beneath her words. She wanted to make nice, but with three dead it wasn’t easy.
Could she be the cause of the magic? Hiding so much darkness behind her kindness?
Nah, the drugs must have made me pure stupid. I rocked back to a sitting position, tilting my head toward the nearest cot for Kelly to sit down. “Thanks for the offer,” I whispered, aware we were the only two at this end of the dorm now. “I think I want to stay fully dressed and ready tonight.”
Kelly’s voice dropped so much I had to lean forward to hear her. “You expect more trouble?”
Once she said the words I realized she’d pinpointed the unease scrambling over my nerve endings like horse flies drawn to sweat. Someone had gotten away with magic use, twice, with no repercussions. Why wouldn’t they try again?
If it were me, I wouldn’t stop. I’d press my advantage. Go for broke. But what was the ultimate goal? Wreak havoc for the sheer power thrill? Destroy the team? Destroy me?
Damned if I knew.
“Yeah,” I nodded, looking at Kelly. “There’ll be more trouble.”
“Tonight?”
I shrugged. “Don’t know.”
“But why?”
“Don’t know that either.”
Kelly sighed, a quiet release of breath that sagged her shoulders and paled her skin. Without looking at me she said, “I’m sorry.”
“’bout what?”
She fluttered one hand—not a grand gesture, more like the dying twitch of a butterfly’s wing. “About disappearing on everyone.”
I leaned forward, tapping her knee with my good right hand. “You drew the circle didn’t you?” I hadn’t asked before, but that was the only explanation I could think of.
She nodded.
“Then you’re the reason the rest of us lived.” And I meant it. Without that circle empowering the spell I’d never have been able to slow the flow of magic.
She glanced up as if I’d thrown her a lifeline. “I did?”
“Yeah. You broke the back of the black magic.”
A confused expression creased her face as I realized my blunder. She hadn’t known dark magic was in play.
I glanced over my shoulder to make sure no one was paying us too much attention. Only Chiquita was looking in our direction.
Could she be a dark witch? Or practice voodoo? That could explain the magic.
Something to look closer at, but now I had to protect Kelly. I turned back to her and offered a smile that was shaky around the edges. “Look, you don’t tell anyone what I said.”
“About the black—”
I held up my hand and nodded. “Yeah. It’s our secret.”
“Sure.” A crease of concentration furrowed her brow. “You mean that’s what you were doing? Using magic to stop Bitsi?”
That threw me for a loop. “Didn’t you know?”
“No. Not really.” She glanced toward the other team members getting ready for bed. “I mean there’d been rumors that you might be a witch or a sorcerer or something,” she added, “but it’s not like any of us have admitted what we are or can do. So I didn’t know for sure.”
“So why did you finish the circle?” I asked, not sure if I was stunned because of the ramifications of her words or the realization of how close I’d come to having my throat ripped out like Serena. If Kelly hadn’t acted as she did, the magic flow wouldn’t have been cut.
I looked Kelly in the eye, waiting for her answer.
“It seemed the right thing to do.” She seemed to shrink in on herself as she added, “I mean, there I was, not helping at all except for tripping Bitsi. And there you were, fighting her all by yourself. So I just guessed that you wanted something done with your blood and I followed your lead.”
I didn’t know if I wanted to hug her or shake her. No one should play willy-nilly with magic. It was like gunpowder. Use it wrong or mess with it and there were costs. Even practitioners, those trained or blood born to it, realized how easily something could go wrong. And black magic, driven by blood, was the most volatile and unstable of all.
Which made me think. How was the other person using black magic without blood?
“Kelly,” I leaned so close we were practically nose-to-nose. “While you were . . . invisible, did you see anything?”
“Like what?”
“Like any of our team, or someone from the other team, anyone, run their hands through any of the blood on the floor? Or act as if they were spell casting?”
Kelly’s eyes grew saucer wide. “I don’t know how people spell cast,” she said, swallowing deeply.
Of course she didn’t. Most people didn’t. Any witchcraft they were exposed to tended to be of the white kind, the benign flowers in our hair and dance around in circles kind. Which is mostly Hollywood trying to make witchcraft into something the average human could understand and not freak out about. Magic was woo-woo stuff. But hippies or flower children or old crones were something concrete.
“But I did see something,” Kelly added, as if trying really hard to get an answer right on the test. “It might be nothing.”
“What?”
“I saw Mandy flicking her hands as if shooing someone away.” Kelly cut a scared glance at me. “But there wasn’t anyone near her.”
“Mandy,” my voice was paper thin, the pounding of my heart threatening to rip through my chest. “As in Mandy Reyes? The other team leader?”
Kelly nodded.
Chiquita girl. I knew it!
Got you, you bastard.