Killing Time (The Witches of Mingus Mountain #3)

16. The Lady Vanished

16

THE LADY VANISHED

Daylight bled around the curtains, telling Seth he could finally abandon his hopeless attempts at trying to sleep and get up at last. He sat upright and rubbed his eyes…and then stared down at the empty spot in the bed next to him.

She’d never come home.

Around midnight, he’d decided he couldn’t take the waiting anymore and had gone down to his cousin Helen’s house and knocked on the door. As the clan healer — and now as one of its elders — she had plenty of experience being woken up at all hours. And although she’d seemed surprised to see him, she’d still told him to sit down and that she’d make a couple of phone calls.

Those calls had been to her son-in-law and a few others in Payson. While another tense hour passed, they waited to see if those searchers had discovered any sign of Devynn on Highway 87 between Winslow and the crossroads.

And then…nothing.

“The roads are clear,” Helen had told him after she hung up the phone. “Ed and the others didn’t find Devynn’s car or any sort of wreckage to show there was an accident. They’ll go back after it’s light to see if there’s something they might have missed. It’s pretty dark, with not much of a moon.”

No, there wouldn’t be, not with the dark of the moon approaching in a few more days.

Afterward, there hadn’t been much he could do except return to his house and try to get some sleep. He’d been up pretty much every hour on the hour, startling at every sound, but none of those noises had been Devynn arriving, apologetic about getting lost and causing so much worry.

And now it was day — six-twenty, to be precise — so he could get out of this damned empty bed and fix some coffee, take a shower.

He did all of those things, feeling like a marionette whose strings were being pulled by some unseen entity. His one solace was that Helen had reassured him she’d be over early, and they could go to the elders and ask for their input.

Sure enough, his cousin was at his door at a little past eight, looking much more chipper than he felt. Well, even though he’d woken her up in the middle of the night, she’d probably slept a lot better than he had.

“I phoned Gilbert,” she said as Seth welcomed her into the bungalow. “He knows the situation and will reach out to Charles and Abigail when it’s a little later. Our prima doesn’t like to be disturbed before nine at the very earliest.”

Of course she didn’t. As far as Seth had been able to tell, the McAllister prima didn’t appear to be much good for anything. She was only a figurehead and nothing more.

“We should probably have Ruby at the meeting, too,” he said. “I’m sure the other elders will want to hear everything about what happened to her.”

“Yes, I stopped by Louise’s to check in before I came here. Ruby was already up and eating a pancake breakfast, so I’m sure she’ll be ready when it’s time to go up to the prima’s house.” Helen paused there and looked him over with a critical eye. “You seem a bit peaked, Seth. How about we go down to my place and I make you some eggs and bacon? You look like you could use a decent meal.”

He probably could. Although food was about the last thing on his mind right then, he realized he had better eat.

And his cousin Helen always had been a good cook.

“Sure,” he said, although he knew he’d partly agreed simply because going to her house for breakfast would use up a little time until it was a socially acceptable hour to walk up to the prima’s home.

Helen’s husband Calum wasn’t anywhere to be seen. “He’s moved on to carpentry and is working on a project down in Cottonwood,” she said to explain his absence, and Seth nodded.

Calum was one of the lucky ones, since he had a talent he could easily transfer to another line of work, something that would still allow him to stay close to home. Most of the miners who used to work at the United Verde probably hadn’t made such an easy transition.

The conversation lagged there as Helen got some eggs and milk and bacon out of the refrigerator, and promptly put together a scramble she made more interesting with the addition of some cheese and onions, along with cutting several slices of homemade sourdough bread for toast.

That, combined with the excellent cup of coffee she poured for him, helped improve his mood ever so slightly. Devynn was still missing and he feared the worst, but at least now he felt as though he could begin to think clearly.

Just as he was scraping the last of the eggs and cheese from his plate, the phone mounted on the wall by the fridge rang. At once, Helen hurried over to answer it, and Seth set down his fork, steeling himself to hear the worst.

Because who else would be calling at this hour if it wasn’t her son-in-law or someone else in Payson checking in with whatever they might have found once the sun came up?

She seemed content to listen to what they had to say, and didn’t interject or ask any questions. When they appeared to be done, she said “thank you” and then hung up before turning to look over at Seth.

“That was Ed,” she told him, which was about what he’d been expecting. “He drove back down the highway to take a look in daylight, and this time he noticed some skid marks on the asphalt. No sign of an accident, though — no debris or broken glass or anything like that. And it didn’t seem as if whoever had braked so hard had gone over the side of the road. In fact, the skid marks stopped so abruptly that he was sort of surprised there wasn’t something to show there had been a collision of some kind.”

Seth had to admit that this description of the condition of the roadway seemed more than a little odd. While he didn’t pretend to understand all the advancements that had taken place in the automotive world since the 1920s, he’d driven his father’s Chevy Stylemaster just enough to know it couldn’t stop on a dime like that, no matter how good its brakes might be.

No, something strange was going on here.

“Anything else?” he asked, and Helen shook her head.

“Not that Ed was able to see. He didn’t want to drive any farther than that, as he knew he was probably a mile or two into Wilcox territory already and didn’t want to push his luck.”

Although it wasn’t as if the members of the other clan patrolled the borders of their land to keep out any interlopers, Seth knew it still wasn’t a good idea to pretend as though those borders didn’t exist. The Wilcoxes would somehow be able to sense when a McAllister decided to trespass…unless, of course, they were protected by Devynn’s gift, which wasn’t Ed’s case. Seth had no idea what Helen’s son-in-law’s talent was, but he knew it couldn’t be that, not when no one outside the Winfield clan appeared to have the same kind of power.

“Well, at least it’s good there doesn’t seem to have been a crash of some kind,” he said, although he hated that they didn’t have any kind of definitive proof as to what might have happened to Devynn.

Right now, it seemed as if she’d vanished into thin air.

The second that thought passed through his mind, Seth’s stomach clenched. No, she couldn’t teleport the way he did, but her particular mode of time travel did make it seem as if she had disappeared right in front of your eyes. Eventually, of course, the world would catch up with her, but….

What if Devynn had used her time travel ability to get away from Jasper, who might have been in hot pursuit?

His brain told him that wasn’t even a possibility, not when the car had disappeared as well. It was one thing for her to send her mind and body into the future, and quite another to make a couple of tons of Detroit steel vanish completely.

That thought made him relax a little, although he still couldn’t rid himself of the worry that she had been captured by Jasper. If that was the case, then she might use her gift to send herself just far enough ahead that she’d be effectively alone where she was, and could simply walk away as though she hadn’t been a prisoner at all.

Well, that was a pretty fiction, one he’d like to believe even when he knew Devynn wasn’t capable of controlling her talent to such a degree. Yes, she could send herself into the future, but that could be five minutes from now…or fifty years. Somehow he doubted she would take such a risk, not when the price of her freedom might mean leaving him alone in the past forever.

He supposed some people wouldn’t think twice about doing such a thing, not if it meant getting away from their captor, but he knew Devynn wasn’t capable of such a cold-hearted maneuver.

Instead, she’d try to wait this thing out and hope he’d rustle up the cavalry to come rescue her.

“It’s one thing more we can tell Abigail and the other elders,” Helen said, although something in her manner seemed almost hesitant, as if she wasn’t terribly sure whether filling in the prima about the situation was going to change the situation too much.

Seth wasn’t very sanguine, either. If Ruby had been in charge of the clan, then he thought she would have done whatever was necessary to make sure Devynn was returned safely to them, but Abigail was made of very different material. She’d probably wave a languid hand and say it was all very sad but that since the missing woman wasn’t part of their clan, there was very little they could do to get her back…if she even was in Jasper’s hands, something that none of them could know for sure, not without any way of seeing what was happening in Wilcox territory right now. Lacking a seer, the McAllister clan didn’t have many options when it came to that sort of thing.

“But,” Helen went on, tone turning brisk as she picked up his now empty plate and coffee mug and set them on the counter by the sink, “I think it’s time to fetch Ruby, and then we can get all this hashed out and decide what we should do next.”

Seth was grateful for that, if only because getting up from his chair and following Helen down to the house where Ruby lived was something of a distraction. The prima -in-waiting seemed chipper enough this morning, hair once again perfectly coiffed, a dark blue sweater covering the brown and blue print dress she was wearing.

“Oh, I slept very well,” she said in answer to Helen’s question, then looked over at Seth, her expression darkening a bit. “Where’s your friend?”

“She never made it to Jerome,” he replied, knowing how curt he sounded, disappointment and worry sharp in his tone.

“I’m so sorry,” Ruby said, wide-eyed. “That’s terrible. Does anyone know what happened?”

“Not so far,” Helen told her. “We had people go out to look for her, but there’s no sign of her or the car she was driving.”

The prima -in-waiting’s brows drew together. She didn’t say anything else, though, but only continued to frown slightly as they made their way up the hill to Paradise Lane. Was she trying to come up with a plan to look for Devynn?

Seth didn’t know what more they could do, though. It sounded as if the crew in Payson had done a thorough job of searching the roads for any evidence that she’d even come that way, and besides the odd tire marks on Highway 87 about five miles outside Winslow, there didn’t seem to be anything at all they could point to as a piece of helpful evidence.

When they climbed the porch steps and knocked, Charles answered a moment later. “They’re in the back parlor,” he said as he stepped out of the way so his visitors could come inside.

Of course everyone had gathered there. The Goddess forbid that Abigail should have to hold court anywhere except from her favorite chair.

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, though, Seth couldn’t help feeling a little ashamed of himself. While he didn’t think much of the way Abigail seemed to handle her duties as prima, he had to admit that he had no idea what kind of pain she was in or how much effort it might be for her to even get herself out of bed every morning. Frustrated and worried he might be, but that still didn’t give him the right to judge her actions.

Even if he might have liked to, considering everything that was at stake.

She straightened in her chair as Seth entered the room with Helen and Ruby at his side. For just a moment, the prima’s mouth compressed, and it came to him in a flash.

Abigail didn’t like her prima -in-waiting. No, not at all. Was it simply that she wished her only child had been a girl who might carry on after her, or was it more that she didn’t like the way her overall frailty seemed even more pronounced whenever Ruby, vibrant and beautiful and clearly a force of nature, was around?

Maybe a little of both.

About all Seth could do was hope that Abigail’s ingrained hostility toward her heir wouldn’t get in the way of finding Devynn and bringing her back to Jerome.

The prima stared at him, and he could already feel his body growing taut with dread.

That was not the gaze of a woman who planned to offer a helping hand.

“I told you and that witch-girl that this was your foolish scheme and yours alone,” Abigail said, pale eyes fixed on his face. “If she hasn’t come back, it has nothing to do with us.”

Even Charles looked a little shocked. “Abigail — ”

“No,” she cut in, tone both peeved and imperious, “we are not going to risk ourselves to save a woman we barely know. They knew they were taking a risk going into Wilcox territory. If Seth’s friend managed to get herself trapped there, then it’s her responsibility to get out. Stirring up trouble with the Wilcoxes is the very last thing we need.”

Hands clenched into fists at his side, Seth took a step forward. “Without her, I wouldn’t have been able to get Ruby out of there. Are you going to ignore the help Devynn gave us?”

“Besides,” Ruby put in, also shifting her position so the two of them stood next to one another, providing a united front, “I think most people would agree that Jasper was the one who ‘stirred up trouble.’ Devynn and Seth wouldn’t have had to put themselves in harm’s way if it weren’t for him causing this whole mess in the first place.”

Gilbert spoke then. His voice sounded calm enough, but Seth noticed the way the lines around his eyes seemed even deeper than normal and guessed he was not happy about having to defend his prima’s stance.

“We don’t even know for sure whether Miss Rowe has been captured at all,” he said. “Yes, it sounds as if our people in Payson have done an excellent job of trying to track her down, but we also need to remember that those forests are vast, and if she somehow lost control of her vehicle and went off the road, it could take many days to determine where she actually is.”

Although Seth supposed the older man might have a point — the forests around Payson were dark and dense, and it would take a veritable army of volunteers to search them adequately — deep in his heart, he knew Devynn wasn’t there at all. He still couldn’t quite piece together what had happened on Highway 87 last night, but whatever it was, Jasper Wilcox had been at the heart of it as usual.

And that meant the primus was holding Devynn captive somewhere.

He opened his mouth to speak, but Abigail waved an impatient hand.

“I don’t want you bothering me with this foolishness any longer, Seth. The important thing is that Ruby is safe. That was why you went into Wilcox territory in the first place. Your friend seemed like a clever enough girl — I’m sure she’ll figure out a way to come safely home.”

“Just like that,” he said, his voice hard. “A woman alone, trying to get away from a crazy warlock who’s more powerful than all of us put together.”

Abigail’s faded blue eyes narrowed. “He’s not crazy. Power-hungry, yes.” She paused there for a moment before adding, “Honestly, even if Jasper has your friend — which I doubt — there’s no reason to believe he’ll do anything except let her go eventually. After all, it’s not as if she would be remotely useful to him.”

On the surface, maybe not. She certainly couldn’t serve the original purpose for Ruby’s kidnapping, not when she wasn’t a prima -in-waiting, the one person Jasper needed to break the curse.

Or at least, what the primus thought he needed. According to Devynn, the actual solution lay in the future, not here in 1947, so all of Jasper’s machinations had been for nothing.

Unfortunately, Jasper Wilcox didn’t seem to be the type of man to let it all be bygones and allow Devynn to simply walk out of his territory.

“It’s good to know that the help she gave means absolutely nothing to you,” Seth remarked.

Then he turned and stalked out of the parlor before Abigail — or any of the elders — had a chance to reply.

When he was halfway down the porch stairs, however, he heard light footsteps coming from the house and saw Ruby hurrying toward him.

“Oh, she was just awful, ” she said as she joined him on the middle porch step. “I had to get out of there before I positively bit her head off. My mother always says I need to show Abigail the proper respect, but just between you and me, I don’t see much about her that’s deserving of respect.”

Neither did Seth. He smiled wanly and replied, “Thanks for the moral support.”

“It’s the least I could do.”

By that point, they’d reached the path that wound its way to the gate by the sidewalk. He paused to open it, and Ruby headed on through.

“But we don’t have to rely on her…or the elders,” she went on, and he sent her a curious look.

“What are you talking about?”

The prima -in-waiting glanced around them, but no one from inside the house seemed inclined to come out and give chase. After what had happened to her, Ruby wasn’t supposed to be left alone, but maybe the elders — and Charles — had decided being in Seth’s company was protection enough.

After all, he’d gone into Wilcox territory and lived to tell the tale.

“Abigail wants to play it safe, and I suppose that’s her prerogative,” Ruby said as they began walking down the sidewalk, the two of them seeming to reach some unspoken agreement that they should head toward the street they both called home. “But I think the de la Pazes should know about what Jasper has done. If he’d been successful in keeping me captive and binding me to him at the dark of the moon, then the Wilcoxes would have become even more powerful, and that isn’t anything either the McAllisters or our friends down south would want.”

Definitely not. From what he could tell, Abigail was doing her best to sweep the whole thing under the rug, but secrets as big as this one couldn’t stay hidden forever.

“I agree,” he said. “But exactly how are you going to tell the de la Pazes? Pick up the phone and call their prima? ”

“I could,” Ruby said with a grin, one bright enough that she could have lit up half of Main Street with it. “But I think this is the sort of thing that would be better for them to hear in person. It would be easy enough, thanks to your teleportation talent.”

True, if he’d been able to blink the two of them from Flagstaff to Jerome, then theoretically, he should also have the ability to get them to Phoenix, even if it was a bit farther away.

Except for the part where he had no idea where he would be going.

“Oh, that’s easy enough,” Ruby told him after he raised a halfhearted objection. “I went to the prima’s house there once, just after my eighteenth birthday. Abigail was against it, but the elders overruled her and said it was important for me to meet the head of the de la Paz clan because one day we would be working together.”

Seth thought that made some sense. Although Abigail probably wouldn’t have been too happy to face this evidence of her own mortality, even she had to know deep down that she wasn’t going to live into her seventies or eighties.

Hell, at the rate she was going, he doubted she’d make it to her fifties. Devynn had said that Abigail died fairly young, but she hadn’t known for sure precisely when. And why should she? It wasn’t as if she was a member of the McAllister clan.

No, she’d only been repeating one of the tidbits she’d heard growing up…or possibly during her brief tenure in Jerome.

“Can you sketch out the house for me?” he asked. “I need to know something of where I’m going, even if the drawing doesn’t need to be one hundred percent accurate.”

“I can manage that,” Ruby said at once. “Do you have paper and a pencil at your place? It just seems safer to do this from there. If we go to my house, I’m worried my mother will come up with some silly reason to make me stay home.”

A valid enough concern, considering how Louise McAllister most likely thought the safest place for her daughter would be inside her house.

Probably wrapped in cotton wool, and maybe tied to a chair for good measure.

However, Seth could already tell his cousin wasn’t the sort of person who required much protecting.

“I’ve got everything you need,” he said. “Let’s go.”

While Ruby wasn’t nearly as strong an artist as she was a witch, Seth could still tell from her sketch that the prima’s house in Phoenix was a low, Spanish-style structure, complete with a tile roof and what looked to be a courtyard out front, guarded by a wrought-iron gate.

It was enough to go on.

“I’ll need you to hold on to my waist when we travel,” he told her, knowing he sounded almost apologetic. It wasn’t as if he was trying to get close to his cousin, just that this was the only way he would be able to travel with her.

Well, thanks to the amulet that currently resided in his breast pocket. He hated the idea of Devynn being trapped in Wilcox territory without the magical device’s assistance…but he hated even more the thought of it falling into Jasper Wilcox’s hands.

Once more, it seemed as if the Goddess had been watching over them.

Looking entirely matter-of-fact, Ruby came closer and placed her arms around his waist. The perfume she wore rose to his nose as she did so, sweet but with some underlying spice.

Sort of like herself, he supposed.

Holding the image of the house she’d sketched firmly in his mind, he closed his eyes and imagined them standing on the sidewalk out front.

And just like that, they were there.

The air here in Phoenix was warmer — not hot, but mild and friendly, seeming to scoff at the idea that winter was only a few weeks away. At once, Ruby let go of his waist and gazed around with interest.

“They planted those since the last time I was here,” she said, pointing at the bougainvillea with its hot pink flowers that had begun to cover the outer courtyard wall and a couple of tall, slim palm trees that appeared to stand sentinel on either side of the front walk. “But then, I know the house was almost brand-new when I visited with my mother and Abigail a couple of years ago.”

It was certainly a handsome place, very different from the houses in Jerome or Cottonwood or Clarkdale. They weren’t here to admire the architecture, though, but to see if the de la Paz prima could offer them some much-needed help.

“Ready?” he asked, and Ruby shot him a red-lipped grin.

“Born that way.”

A little buoyed by her confidence, he stepped up to the gate and rang the bell that hung next to it.

Now all they could do was wait.