10. Know Him From Adam
10
KNOW HIM FROM ADAM
Even though it had been his idea to go inside the cabin, Seth was starting to have a few second thoughts. It was one thing to stand here with the structure sheltering them from view, in a place where it would be easy enough to blink Devynn and himself away with no one ever knowing they’d been there, but actually going in felt like crossing some sort of line.
Then again, he’d kick himself if they missed a piece of vital evidence just because he was too chicken to follow up on his original suggestion.
He put his arms around her waist — once again wishing he could lean in and kiss her, and knowing at the same time that they were here on business and couldn’t allow themselves to be distracted — and sent them into the bedroom they’d been peering at just a moment earlier. It wasn’t very large, maybe ten feet by ten feet at the absolute most, and held a narrow white iron bedstead, a plain bedside table, and a small wardrobe. Probably when the cabin had first been built, there would have been a table with a washbasin and a mirror, but he had to assume the cabin had indoor plumbing by this point.
Devynn immediately began poking around, even going on her hands and knees on the rag rug so she could peer underneath the bed.
“I doubt Ruby is under there,” he remarked, and Devynn pushed herself back up to a standing position even as she sent him a sour glance.
“Obviously,” she replied. “I was looking to see if anyone had dropped something, if there was some kind of evidence that might be useful. But there isn’t even a dust bunny under there.”
Seth had already noted how tidy the room looked, so he wasn’t too surprised by that piece of information. “Well, let’s look at the other bedrooms.”
Those proved just to be as empty as the first one, with not even a spare jacket or sweater in the wardrobes and dressers to show anyone had ever been here at all. He supposed that wasn’t so strange; Devynn had told him the cabin was shared amongst the various Wilcox family members, and they’d probably do their best to make sure the place was clean and ready for the next group planning to stay there.
“I wish I had that magical gift where you can touch things and see visions,” she said, standing in the middle of the living room with her hands on her hips, expression mightily annoyed. “Then I could lay hands on a lamp or something and get some real information.”
“Psychometry?” he said, and she nodded, now looking a little surprised. “My cousin Bertha had it, but she passed a few years ago,” he added by way of explanation.
“I don’t think anyone in the Wilcox clan in my time has it,” Devynn said. She went over to the fireplace, which was a massive stone structure that took up most of one wall, and peered inside.
Was she hoping to find Ruby wedged in there, like a female version of Santa Claus?
No, Devynn was just being thorough.
All that effort didn’t seem to be doing either of them much good, though. Dutifully, Seth followed her into the kitchen, which again, was just as clean as the rest of the cabin, the dishes put away, the butcher-block counters wiped down and clear of even a single crumb.
“We’re not going to find anything,” he said, doing his best to keep his tone gentle. Devynn already looked disappointed enough, and he wasn’t about to give her grief for wasting their time like this. At least now they knew Ruby had most likely never been here at all, and with that unfortunate fact confirmed, they needed to get back to the hotel. “I — ”
He broke off there, his disbelieving ears not wanting to acknowledge what he thought he’d just heard.
Was that a car coming up the narrow dirt lane that led onto the property?
Devynn must have heard the same thing, because she all but ran to the nearest window and peered outside.
“Someone’s coming,” she said. “Big green car.”
All right, at least it wasn’t Jasper. Or maybe it was. A man with his kind of wealth could certainly afford to own more than one car.
Either way, they weren’t going to stick around to find out who was driving.
Time to get the hell out of here.
“Devynn,” he said, his voice urgent.
She didn’t even pause to ask what he wanted. No, she came right to him and put her arms around his waist, hanging on tight.
He fixed the image of their hotel room in his mind — thank the Goddess at least they were able to share here in 1947, rather than being relegated to separate spaces the way they’d been in 1884 — and willed them away from the Wilcox cabin.
Only…nothing happened.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, big blue-gray eyes staring up at him in worry and fear. “Why didn’t we jump?”
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice tight. “I tried to use my talent, but we’re still here. You have the amulet with you, right?”
“Of course I do,” she said. There was just the faintest snap at the edge of those words, conveying some irritation that he would even suspect her of leaving something so vital behind, but she sounded mostly in control. “We wouldn’t have been able to travel here together if I didn’t.”
Right. If he’d been thinking clearly, he supposed he would have thought of that.
Well, he’d worry about what had gone wrong later. Right now, the important thing was to get the hell out of here, even if they had to do it the old-fashioned way.
Luckily, the kitchen had a door that opened onto the small quasi-yard separating the cabin from the storage shed. The two of them ran over there and he yanked the door open, figuring they’d take off through the forest until they were far enough away from the cabin that he could try using his powers again to send them to the hotel.
Standing on the back step and blinking at them with astonished eyes was a man who looked halfway familiar, with dark brown hair and the sort of features that under normal circumstances might have been friendly and open, even if right now he appeared utterly confounded.
“Who the hell are you?”
Seth’s first instinct was to push the man out of the way — they were around the same height, although the other warlock…he’d known right away that the man who’d confronted them was a Wilcox…didn’t seem quite as muscular of build — but then Devynn said,
“Adam Wilcox?”
Right. This was the man Devynn had followed to the Northern Lumber Holdings building…who’d walked into the diner with Jasper Wilcox only a few hours earlier.
The man’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know who I am?”
“Oh,” she said, somehow managing to put on a smile that would have been disarming under most circumstances, “the man at the newsstand told me who you were.”
Adam Wilcox appeared nonplussed. “What are you doing in my family’s cabin?”
Good question, one he had every right to ask.
“A mistake,” Seth replied, thinking quickly. “We’re visiting Flagstaff, and we thought it would be fun to rent a cabin and spend a few days out in the wilderness, roughing it, you know?” Although he would never attempt the kind of smile Devynn had just essayed, he knew he needed to do whatever he could to make the two of them seem as harmless as possible. With her magic hiding their witch natures, he had to hope Adam Wilcox would view them as only a couple of misguided travelers and send them on their way. “I suppose we got the directions wrong. There aren’t many road signs out here.”
“No, there aren’t,” the Wilcox warlock said, and although his expression hadn’t shifted too much, Seth now couldn’t help noticing that an edge of suspicion had entered his voice. “But that also makes me wonder why you’re lying.”
Cold ran down his spine, but he did what he could to keep his tone even. “‘Lying’?” he repeated, and hoped he sounded properly incredulous. “Why in the world would you accuse me of lying?”
“Because you are,” Adam Wilcox said, his tone flat, as though he spoke of a truth that all of them needed to acknowledge. “What are a couple of strange witch-kind doing in my family’s cabin?”
Devynn’s eyes widened, but she somehow managed to keep her cool despite the way the Wilcox warlock had just casually indicated that her protection magic was no longer working. Even as Seth desperately tried to come up with a reply that would have brushed the other man’s comment aside and, at the same time, allowed the two of them to escape out the back door, she spoke again.
“Your power is knowing when people are lying, isn’t it?”
Adam Wilcox’s eyes — which were hazel and not dark, the way most Wilcox eyes were supposed to be — narrowed ever so slightly. “What makes you say that?”
“Because most people don’t come straight out and accuse strangers of lying unless they have some pretty good proof,” she answered calmly. “And I’m guessing this cabin has some sort of trap spell or enchantment laid on it that let us in, but then disabled our powers once we were inside?”
“A very good guess,” he said. “I’m surprised — most witches wouldn’t know about spells like that.”
“Probably not,” she said, still acting so unbelievably casual that Seth wondered if she knew how much trouble they really were in. Without their powers, there wasn’t much they could do to get out of here. Yes, tackling Adam Wilcox and bolting was a possibility, but what if the same spell that was blocking their powers would also prevent them from walking through the door, even though they’d been able to open it? “But,” she went on, “I’m not most witches. And since you’ll know whether I’m lying, I can tell you the simple truth. My name is Devynn Rowe, and I’m a Wilcox witch on my mother’s side.” Another pause, and now her expression was almost amused. “And I’m from the future.”
Halfway through all this, Seth had wanted to clap his hand over her mouth to keep her from speaking, even though he would never have done anything so rude, not even in a moment of extremity such as this.
But what the ever-loving hell did she think she was doing?
Adam Wilcox only stood there, staring at her, disbelief and realization warring in his face. The disbelief was natural enough…how could anyone believe what she’d said about coming from the future?…even as Adam understood she wasn’t lying, because otherwise, his talent would have exposed her falsehoods for what they were.
“A-a Wilcox witch from the future?” he stammered, and she nodded.
“Is he…?”
“Oh, no,” she replied at once. “He’s Seth McAllister from Jerome. Jerome in 1926,” she added.
Adam Wilcox now wore the expression of a man who needed a stiff drink, and in that moment, Seth could only sympathize with him. His drinking career had only existed for the last couple of weeks, but even he knew that sometimes a good shot of brandy was exactly what the doctor ordered.
Rather than raid the liquor cabinet, Adam went over to the long table that separated the living space from the kitchen, pulled out one of the chairs, and sat down.
“How can this be true?”
“You know it is,” Devynn said, and the man ran a hand through his hair, clearly trying to settle himself enough to grasp everything he’d just heard.
“Yes…all right, damn it, you’re telling me the truth. But what are you two doing traveling together if you’re from such different times, and what the hell are you doing in Flagstaff in 1947?”
A question Seth had asked himself on more than one occasion.
Rather than answer right away, Devynn sat down across the table from her distant cousin, and Seth followed suit, thinking it would look awkward for him to remain standing when the other two had already seated themselves.
“That’s a long story,” she said. “One we probably don’t have time for right now. But I have two talents — one for concealing my witch nature, and another for traveling in time. Unfortunately, the concealment power works a lot better than my time travel one. So I can’t tell you exactly why we ended up here, only that it seems to have set off a chain of events we need to fix as quickly as possible.” She clasped her hands together and met the increasingly astonished expression Adam wore with an almost amused gaze, as though she also wanted to admit to the absurdity of the situation. “You see, we need to find out where Jasper has taken Ruby. What he’s going to attempt is insane.”
Adam Wilcox blinked and his lips parted for a moment, as if he was going to tell her he didn’t know what she was talking about.
However, Devynn seemed to anticipate that maneuver and said, “I’m from the future, remember? I know much more than you could ever imagine. Maybe your talent doesn’t prevent you from lying, but I’ll still know if you do.”
Now the other warlock looked as if he was the one who desperately wanted to escape. “You’re a Wilcox,” he said flatly, and Devynn nodded. “Then you of all people should know how badly we need to break the curse.”
Her gaze became almost compassionate. “I understand that,” she replied. “But this isn’t the way to do it.”
“Then what is the way?”
For a moment, she seemed almost hesitant. She sent the slightest sideways glance in Seth’s direction, almost as if asking forgiveness for what she was about to do.
No…they shouldn’t be interfering any more than was strictly necessary. She’d told him that when they were in Flagstaff in 1884, saying they needed to be careful not to disrupt any events that had already happened.
Clearly, Devynn didn’t have the same view of the situation. “The curse will be broken,” she said, again in that calm, level tone. “Decades from now, a son of a Wilcox primus and the McAllister prima -in-waiting will fall in love and work together to undo the terrible magic that Nizhoni cast on Jeremiah Wilcox and all the sons of his line. The two clans are reconciled, and everything is so much better than you could possibly imagine.” A pause, and when she continued, she leaned forward slightly, as though to drive home the point she was making. “But if you allow Jasper to bind himself to Ruby McAllister, that possible future will be destroyed. Terrible things will happen.”
Although most Wilcoxes had the kind of complexion that didn’t seem to show much of a flush or pallor all that well, Adam Wilcox still seemed to pale visibly as he listened to all this.
However, he recovered himself enough to say, “You make it sound as if I can stop the primus. Do you have any idea how powerful he is?”
“Not completely,” Devynn said. “But we met Jeremiah Wilcox in the past, so we have an inkling. Still, as strong a warlock as Jasper is, he’s just one man. Surely if all the Wilcoxes got together and told him this was a terrible idea, he’d back down.”
A small chuckle escaped Adam’s lips. “That shows you don’t know very much about my primus. When he has an idea set in his head, he goes through with it, no matter what.” The warlock drummed his fingertips on the tabletop, adding, “Besides, my clan would never do anything to circumvent his wishes. If Jasper has decreed that the best solution to breaking the curse is joining with Ruby McAllister, then no one will gainsay him.”
Although those words were uttered firmly enough, Seth noted how Adam Wilcox didn’t meet either of their eyes as he spoke, his gaze fixed on something outside the window. He might not have been psychic, but he could tell the Wilcox warlock wasn’t quite as on board with his primus’s plan as he might have wanted them to believe.
Devynn must have noticed his evasion, too, because she fixed her gaze on the other man and said, “You don’t agree with what he’s doing.”
At once, the Wilcox warlock frowned. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Maybe not,” she allowed, and leaned back in her chair, no tension in her posture at all. “But even though your gift lets you see the lies of other people, you’re not very good at telling them yourself.”
Once again, he glanced out the window, more likely to stall having to give her a reply than because he cared whether a few more leaves had fallen from the oak trees that must give the cabin marvelous shade in the summer.
When Adam spoke, his voice was openly strained.
“Look,” he said, “I know you’re telling me the truth, so I suppose I have to believe you. And even if I came out and admitted that I don’t agree with what Jasper is doing, I’m just one warlock in a very large clan that has an entirely different view of the situation. My talent might assist me in matters like this, but it’s not going to allow me to help you free Ruby.”
“Do you know where she is?” Seth asked then, knowing how eager he sounded. But even though Adam Wilcox wasn’t exactly an ally, it seemed clear enough that he wasn’t an enemy, either, and that meant he was currently their best option when it came to getting some help from within the Wilcox clan.
He hesitated again. “Not now,” he replied. Although he managed to refrain from glancing out the window again, he gave the impression of someone who was still worried that unfriendly ears might be listening to their conversation.
Devynn also glanced around, then said in an undertone, “Does the entrapment spell allow Jasper to hear what we’re saying?”
“No,” Adam replied at once, and relief was visible in the way her shoulders seemed to grow a little less tense. “It’s…it’s sort of like flypaper, I guess. It doesn’t even tell him that someone is caught here. A few years ago, a couple of vagrants decided to shelter from the cold in here, and they weren’t found until they’d been stuck in the house for almost a week. Good thing the last family that stayed here left lots of canned food behind.”
Although that wasn’t a very pleasant story, Seth was glad to hear that Jasper wouldn’t be hot-footing it over here to discover who his spell had just caught. But if there wasn’t any kind of alarm attached to the spell, what had Adam been doing out here?
The question was obvious on Devynn’s face…and probably mirrored on Seth’s own as well.
“I volunteered to come out and double-check that there wasn’t any sign that Ruby had stayed here, since some of the cousins wanted to come to the cabin and go deer hunting in a couple of days,” Adam explained, and Devynn suddenly looked triumphant.
“So, she was here.”
“Only for that first night,” Adam said. “Jasper and Isaac and Matthias came and moved her sometime yesterday.”
If only they’d thought of the cabin when they’d first arrived in 1947! He and Devynn could have rushed over here and….
At that point, Seth’s train of thought came to an abrupt end. Try as he might, he couldn’t think of a single way the two of them could have ever overcome Jasper Wilcox, let alone all three men who’d spirited Ruby away in the first place.
Still, he hated to think that she’d been here and they hadn’t even known.
“Are those the two men who came with Jasper to Jerome?” he asked abruptly, and Adam nodded.
“Yes. They’re two of the clan’s most powerful warlocks, so Jasper likes to have them along whenever he’s engaging in some dirty work.” Without warning, Adam pushed himself up from the hard wooden chair where he’d been sitting and walked over to the window. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this.”
“You’re telling us because you’re a decent person,” Devynn said. “You don’t agree with what Jasper is doing, and you know we’re being truthful with you.”
Adam stared out at the landscape for a moment, at the solemn green of the ponderosa pines and the graceful bare branches of the other trees. “You were at the café earlier.”
“We were,” Devynn replied. “My protection magic was still working there, and that’s why neither you nor Jasper noticed we were witch-kind.”
A grim chuckle. “Good thing. I doubt Jasper would have made a scene at the restaurant because even he knows we shouldn’t attract too much attention to ourselves, but I’m sure he would have tracked you down later.”
No doubt. Seth didn’t want to think about that scenario, not when there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot he could have done to protect the woman he loved…except hope his reflexes were fast enough to get the two of them away before Jasper could hit them with some kind of magical blast or cast some kind of blocking spell that would prevent either of them from using their magic. At least he knew Devynn slept with the amulet around her neck, so even if the primus had caught them in bed, they would have had a chance.
Maybe a very small chance, but better than nothing.
“Do you have any idea where Jasper and the two others would have taken Ruby?”
Adam went very still then. Seth noticed how Devynn continued to sit quietly, so he did the same, guessing that the other man was wrestling with some pretty fierce inner demons at the moment and that it probably wasn’t a very good idea to disturb him until he was ready to answer the question. The cabin was utterly quiet, without even a ticking clock or a fire whispering in the hearth to break up the stillness.
“A few guesses, possibly,” the Wilcox warlock said at last, and Devynn released a breath, one so small that Seth had a feeling the other man wouldn’t have noticed it at all. No, Adam hadn’t come right out and said he would help them, but it seemed doubtful he would have even said that much if he hadn’t decided to throw his lot in with theirs. “Jasper still has some time to work with.”
“Because he’s performing the ceremony on the night of the dark moon,” she said, and again, Adam appeared more startled than anything else.
“How could you have known that?” he demanded.
“When we were back in 1884 — when Jeremiah was trying to help us figure out a way to get back where we were supposed to be — I had a series of dreams. Nightmares, really,” Devynn said. “They kept showing me a black-haired man and a black car and a black starry sky. After Jasper kidnapped Ruby and we discussed what had happened with the McAllister elders, one of them pointed out that the very darkest magic is performed during the black moon, so that’s how we knew Jasper would be waiting until the twelfth until he…well, until he tried to make Ruby his.”
Adam stared at Devynn as though he’d never seen a witch like her before. Maybe he hadn’t. While the Wilcox clan married plenty of civilians, they wouldn’t have intermarried with other witch clans in his time, not when they were considered pariahs by most of the other magical families in the region.
With her Rowe and her Wilcox blood, she was something special. Very, very special.
And Seth had known that from the very first moment he laid eyes on her, even back before he’d known she was a witch. Some inner essence, some inexpressible quality, had made her the only woman he could ever love.
“You didn’t tell me you were a seer,” Adam said, and she smiled a little.
“I’m not. Believe me, those dreams caught me off-guard. Until I saw Jasper driving away on Friday morning, I had no reason to believe they were anything but ordinary nightmares.”
The Wilcox warlock’s gaze moved to Seth. “Any other strange dreams I should know about?”
“None at all,” he said cheerfully, glad that at least he hadn’t been plagued by prophetic dreams at inopportune times.
And because Adam already knew he was telling the truth, Seth didn’t have to worry about explaining himself any further.
“So, what are those ‘guesses’ you were thinking of?” Devyn pressed, clearly wanting to get back to the matter at hand.
“Probably better that I don’t say anything until I have some more information,” Adam replied at once. “Where are you staying?”
“We’re at the Weatherford,” Seth told him. “Are you going to have any trouble contacting us?”
Adam’s mouth quirked a bit at the corners, but there was still something strained about his expression, as though he’d forced a smile because he wasn’t sure what else he should do.
“Hard to say,” he said. “Part of the reason Jasper met me for lunch earlier today was that he wanted to impress on me how important it was that all we Wilcoxes were united in overturning the curse, so he knows I’m already something of a risk.”
Well, that wasn’t good.
“You discussed that kind of thing in public?” Devynn asked, now looking a little shocked.
Adam’s shoulders lifted in a dismissive shrug. “A simple spell of Jasper’s. We can discuss clan business right in front of regular people, and it’ll just sound like ordinary conversation about the weather or the latest income reports at the company, or anything else that would be dry as dust to someone trying to listen in.”
Handy. Once again, Seth couldn’t help but be impressed by the breadth of magical skills the Wilcox primuses seemed to possess.
Too bad they’d never used those powers for good.
With the exception of Jeremiah Wilcox, he supposed, but even the man who had done what he could to help them escape 1884 — and had been a large part of the reason why Devynn’s father had survived Samuel’s attack at all — had a few black marks on his history.
“So…Jasper doesn’t trust you?” she pressed, and Adam shook his head.
“That’s probably taking it a little too far. He thinks I’m young and na?ve, and was trying to explain to me exactly why sometimes we had to do things that seemed morally questionable in order to advance the greater good. I told him I understood what he was saying, and we left it there.”
Devynn still looked troubled. “Do you think he’s going to be keeping a closer eye on you because of this?”
“I doubt it,” Adam said, and if he was lying — not that Seth would have been able to tell if he was — he seemed convincing enough. “We’re a big clan, and although my talent is somewhat useful, it’s nothing that could ever be seen as threatening to him or anyone in his inner circle. Most likely, he thinks I’ve accepted what he’s doing and am content to go back to my ledgers and my spreadsheets.”
“Is that what you do at Northern Lumber?” Seth asked.
Now the smile that Adam wore seemed genuine enough. “It looks as if you’ve been doing your research on me. But yes, I work in the accounting department. I suppose when my cousin Edward retires some twenty years from now, I might even be in charge of the whole thing.”
He didn’t sound too happy at the prospect, and Seth thought he could see why. Although even the Wilcoxes had to work at “real” jobs to continue the illusion that they were no more than regular members of society, not everyone could be a painter or a musician or a sculptor. Sometimes, you had to take on less glamorous careers, like miner or shopkeeper…or accountant.
“At any rate,” Adam continued, “Jasper thinks I’m toeing the line, which means I should be able to pick up some information about where Ruby is being kept.” He stopped there, and a flash of a strange emotion crossed his features…well, strange to anyone who hadn’t felt that same expression on his own face.
The Wilcox warlock was soft on Ruby. Seth couldn’t call it love, not when he guessed the two of them had only spent at most a few hours in one another’s company, but still, he could tell the prima -in-waiting had made an impression on the other man. Adam wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, even though he appeared to be in his late twenties and probably should have settled down by now.
Well, even in the McAllister clan, some people wanted to wait a little longer, hoping they would find their true soul mate if they were just patient.
Unfortunately, Adam would have even less chance with Ruby than Jasper. If they somehow succeeded in freeing her and taking her back to Jerome, then she would find her consort among her own people.
He wouldn’t be a Wilcox, that was for sure.
Of course, Seth kept these thoughts to himself. He couldn’t tell whether Devynn had caught that flash of emotion, because at the moment, she still appeared calm and cool, and not ruffled at all by the way Jasper’s spell had caught them here.
Well, the two of them could discuss that odd little impression once they were safely back in their hotel room. The important thing was that Adam’s feelings — whatever they might be — could be another reason why he was willing to assist them.
And right now, Seth knew they needed all the help they could get.