Personal Demon

LUCAS: 10

“SO HAVE I COMPLETELY LOST MY MIND?” I asked as I drove.

Paige gave a tiny smile. “Not yet.” She directed me around a corner, following the instructions the Cabal had given. “For your father’s sake, I hate to say it, but your reasoning is sound. I just hope you’re wrong.”

“As do I.”

I glanced in the rearview mirror as a dark car pulled in behind us. A flash of its headlights told me it was the guards I’d requested. “Am I wrong to keep my suspicions from Hope and Karl?”

A pause this time. Choosing her words with care, she finally said, “It’s…not ideal. But you already know that.”

I nodded.

“If you tell Karl the truth, he won’t help, but the only way to answer your questions about your brothers is with his tracking abilities and Hope’s visions.”

“So I’m employing questionable means to achieve a goal I believe is in the best interests of the majority. Sounds like my father.”

“It isn’t the same.”

Isn’t it?

AT HECTOR’S HOUSE, the Cabal guards pulled in behind us.

I was about to see family members I’d never met. Family who didn’t know I existed.

No matter how sound my justification, Hector would say I was just using a shrewd excuse to undermine his authority. Proof I was becoming a threat.

Paige took my elbow and rubbed her thumb across the back of it, pimpled with goose bumps despite the warm night air.

“Is there any other way we can do this?” she asked.

I shook my head.

Someone had walked into my father’s house, bypassing security without raising alarms, someone familiar enough that the door guard not only accepted poisoned take-out coffee from him, but didn’t feel it necessary to clear his admittance with my father. Someone Troy would chat with, unperturbed, in his bedroom.

There were four people who could get into Benicio Cortez’s home without question: his sons. Only one did I deem capable of orchestrating such a complex, coldhearted and technically brilliant scheme. A plot that required not only intelligence but patience. First, he needed to have Cabal security harass the gang members, causing noticeable friction between the two groups. Then kidnapping and murder, done by employees who probably believed they were working under Cabal auspices. The gang, incited to violent retaliation, would make the perfect scapegoats for murder.

Only Hector could pull it off. But that didn’t mean the others weren’t involved. This was why I couldn’t phone my brothers. They had to be surprised, their whereabouts confirmed by myself or someone whose impartiality I trusted.

I turned to Paige. “Perhaps you should wait-”

“No,” she said. “And don’t ask again.”

CABAL FAMILY SORCERERS are expected to marry human women and keep their supernatural side a secret, which means there is an entire side of their lives-a critical side-they cannot share with their life partner. Yet they rarely challenge the custom. Men like Hector and my father are raised to believe in the archaic tradition of the noble classes, where wives are chosen for political connections and their suitability as gracious hostesses and loving mothers.

A modern wife like Paige might expect to be a full partner, influencing the workings of the business. That is unacceptable. One could blame it on sexism, but it is more a matter of race.

The upper echelon of a Cabal is staffed entirely by sorcerers, who are, by default, male. We rule the Cabals as if by divine decree. To allow a member of another race to have a say in the workings of the business would be dangerous. Ask any Cabal family sorcerer and he’ll rationalize the prejudice by saying that sorcerers have always been in charge and have done a fine job so far, and therefore there is no need to appoint a member of another race to the board. The truth, though, is rooted in fear.

Marry a supernatural woman and she will, by necessity, be a race other than sorcerer. If she is truly her husband’s partner, she may be equally ambitious, with an eye toward the executive offices and an eventual seat on the board. Most of the time, a supernatural wife would have no such designs, but the Cabal will not take that chance.

So, my brother’s wife was human, and that made what I was doing all the more difficult. It did, however, mean that getting access to their house was simple. All security had to be human in origin-it would be difficult to explain away a trigger illusion to a wife who knew nothing of the supernatural. It also had to be as unobtrusive as possible. Even the most trusting wife, if forced to live in an armed camp, will eventually start suspecting her husband’s business isn’t as legitimate as he claims. That meant there was only common external security, but everyone from the butler to the gardener to the maid was a trained Cabal security officer.

Hector’s butler had been expecting us, and had the front door open as soon as we walked up the steps.

“He’s in his office,” he whispered.

“Has he been in there long?”

“Since returning from work shortly after eight.”

“And the family?”

“Mrs. Cortez is discussing tomorrow’s menu with the chef. I told him to keep her occupied. The boys are in bed, so you shouldn’t be disturbed.”

We followed the butler. The two guards brought up the rear. We were passing a darkened living room when a woman’s voice came from the doorway just ahead.

“Hello? Oh. I didn’t hear the bell ring.”

The butler stepped sideways, as if blocking me from her sight. An unnecessary precaution. Bella, Hector’s wife, had never met me. I presumed that was the petite blond woman who stood in the semidark doorway.

She was well dressed and attractive, a combination that usually indicated self-confidence, yet she paused a few feet from us, as if uncertain she had the right to question the appearance of strangers in her home.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Cortez,” Paige said, stepping forward. “We asked your butler not to disturb you. We’re from the office, on a matter that I’m afraid can’t wait until morning.”

Bella cast a nervous glance from us to our guards. “Is Hector expecting you?”

“It’s quite all right, ma’am,” the butler said. “I’ll vouch for them, as will Mr. Cortez.”

“But he doesn’t want to be disturbed. Carlos made that very clear.”

“Carlos Cortez?” I said.

“Yes, his-” She colored. “Of course you know who Carlos is. I’m sorry. Yes, that Carlos.”

“When was Carlos here?”

She checked her watch. “An hour-no, I’m sorry, I mean he left an hour ago, so he arrived perhaps twenty minutes before that. He wasn’t here long.”

Which meant both Carlos and Hector had been here when Troy was shot. So neither could be responsible. William as the mastermind? Much less plausible, which is why I’d felt safe sending Hope and Karl after him.

“I’ll call Hope,” Paige murmured, as if reading my mind.

“Carlos made it very clear Hector didn’t want to be disturbed,” Bella went on. “And when he says that, he means it.”

Paige shot a pointed look at me. Bella’s nervousness had nothing to do with the late-night arrival of strangers-she was afraid of upsetting Hector. Very afraid from the way her hands trembled.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Cortez,” Paige said. “We know this is an inconvenience to both you and your husband, and we wouldn’t have come without calling again if his father hadn’t insisted. If you’d like to phone Mr. Cortez…”

Paige intended to calm Bella with the assurance that we had my father’s blessing, but the fear in the woman’s eyes only grew. Afraid of arousing Hector’s anger by calling my father? Or fear of my father himself? Because my father refused to name Hector heir, Hector insisted he was robbing his grandchildren of their birthright and therefore deserved to play no significant role in their lives. So they had little contact with him. A decision that hurt my father like nothing else Hector could have done. As for Bella’s fear, I could only imagine what stories he told them to keep his sons from wanting to know their grandfather better.

“Mom?”

Stockinged feet appeared on the steps, then a stocky youth dressed in jeans and a T-shirt.

“Emilio,” the butler mouthed to me.

My sixteen-year-old nephew.

“What’s wrong, Mom?” Emilio said as he came down.

“I’ll call Hope,” Paige murmured, and backed away.

Emilio stopped at the bottom of the stairs. He looked at me, then the guards, then back to me, his face registering not an iota of recognition.

“They need to speak to your father,” the butler said. “They’re from the office and they’ll be gone just as soon as they can.”

I fought to hide my growing frustration. Hector was probably less than fifty feet away. We could check on him and be gone in five minutes.

“Who’s this?” Emilio said, jutting his chin at me.

“He works with your father.”

“Yeah, you said that.” He looked at me. “I’ve never seen you before.”

“No,” I said softly. “You haven’t. I work in the Pacific Northwest. I’m sorry, Emilio, but I need to speak-”

“How do you know my name?”

“He works for the company, sir,” the butler said, now openly struggling with his exasperation.

Emilio looked at me. “Then it’s not Emilio to you. It’s Mr. Cortez.”

I felt a flicker of true impatience, and maybe something more, but said, calmly, “As you wish.” I turned to the butler. “Now, the office is-”

“I really don’t think-” Bella began.

“I’ve got it, Mom,” Emilio said, with a snap in his voice that, at his age, would have earned me a five-hundred-word essay on the nature of respect for one’s parents.

Bella didn’t reprimand him. In fact, I swear I saw her flinch.

“Go see Ramon,” Emilio said to his mother. “He was looking for his gym uniform.”

With that, Bella hurried off up the stairs. I felt that familiar chill down my spine as I looked back at Emilio.

“Lu-” Paige began, then stopped herself, just in case. “We really should hurry.”

As she spoke, she kept her gaze down, which seemed odd-Paige never avoids eye contact. Then I realized why she’d stepped away so quickly.

“Yes, right,” I said, then to Emilio, “I’m sorry. Please excuse-”

He jumped into our path so quickly it startled Paige, and she looked up. Their eyes met. His went wide in shock. Then his lip curled.

“A witch?” He turned to me. “You brought a witch into our house?”

“No, I brought my wife.” The words came out before I could help myself. I took Paige’s arm. “If you’ll excuse-”

“No, I don’t excuse you, and she is not welcome in my house.”

Under other circumstances, Paige wouldn’t have stood for that. But Emilio was young, and it was not the time to educate him on the follies of prejudice, so she laid her fingers on my arm and said, “I’ll be in the car.”

With a nod to the guards, who parted to give way, she started forward, then stumbled, feet flying out, hands going up to brace against a fall. As I scrambled to grab her, I saw Emilio’s fingers raised, and knew she hadn’t tripped.

“Walk faster, witch,” he sneered, and lifted his hand in another knockback spell.

I wheeled on him and caught his hands so quickly he yelped.

“Don’t,” I said.

“You-”

Emilio froze, caught in Paige’s binding spell.

“Go,” she said. “I’ll keep him.”

Her expression was annoyance mingled with regret-this was a step she’d rather not have taken.

I strode behind the butler, who seemed not at all perturbed by his young employer’s predicament…and perhaps somewhat amused to see the boy trapped by a witch’s spell.

One guard followed at my heels. The other, after a motion from me, stayed with Paige.