15. Liar, Liar
15
LIAR, LIAR
I opened my eyes and stared up at the ceiling. It was a nice enough ceiling, I supposed, smooth plaster with dark crown molding circumnavigating the room, but it wasn’t a ceiling I recognized, which meant I was in a lot of trouble.
No clear memories of what had happened after Jasper appeared in the mist, a mist I thought he might have conjured to slow me down a bit. Otherwise, even his magic might not have been enough to prevent me from careening right into the big black Cadillac that had been blocking the road.
Another spell, I supposed. With all the various miracles he was able to manage, knocking out a single woman without any useful powers of her own probably wouldn’t have been much work.
My shoes had been removed, but otherwise, I’d been dumped fully clothed in this bed. The pretty dark blue dress I’d been wearing was now a rumpled mess, and my hose had a few new runs and were threatening to slip of out their garters.
Well, I wasn’t here to enter a fashion show.
I pushed back the covers — the bed had a pretty white-on-white quilt and a white wool blanket underneath — and slid my feet out so I could set them on the floor. A pause to pull off those annoying hose, and then I padded barefoot across the big oriental rug that covered most of the polished oak floor so I could take a look outside.
Before I’d even gotten out of bed, I was pretty sure that I’d been brought to Jasper’s house, and the landscape outside the window only confirmed my suspicions. Yes, there were the formal gardens we’d seen from his dead wife’s music studio, and there was the studio itself, sitting about twenty or thirty yards from the house, the rosebushes that surrounded it neatly trimmed, the whole scene reflecting absolutely nothing of its owner’s true motives.
Whatever those might be, I thought, my stomach knotting with anxiety even as I tried to reassure myself this wasn’t as bad as it looked.
To be honest, I didn’t know what Jasper thought he was going to achieve by taking me captive. His big prize had flown the coop, and I was pretty much worthless as a bargaining chip. No matter what Seth’s views on the matter might have been, I knew there was no way in hell the McAllister elders would ever exchange me for their prima -in-waiting — and if they managed to somehow learn I was half Wilcox, then they’d definitely wash their hands of me and say I’d only ended up where I belonged.
A peek inside the closet showed that my clothes, which had been packed in my suitcase and then stowed in the Chevy’s trunk, were now hanging up, so at least I’d have something to change into.
And this room had an en suite bathroom, something I guessed was a rarity in the 1940s, and even more so back around the turn of the century when the house had been built.
That seemed to decide things. I had no idea what Jasper had planned for me, but I knew I’d feel better about it if I was able to face him following a hot shower.
But even after I’d showered and gotten dressed and spent a decent chunk of time doing my hair and makeup, since those supplies had been dropped in the bathroom, no one came to fetch me — and no one, especially not the master of the house, had dropped by to bring me some food.
Did Jasper intend to starve me?
I went to the window over and over again, hoping to see some sign of life on the property, but everything was utterly still. If anyone was in the house or the gardens, they were being damn quiet about it.
As an hour passed, and then another, I found myself fretting about Seth more and more. I didn’t have any reason to believe that he and Ruby hadn’t made it safely to Jerome, but there would have come a point when he would have realized I wasn’t going to arrive.
He must be worried sick.
Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be too much I could do about it except hope he’d listen to reason and not try to come here and rescue me all by himself. His teleportation powers were impressive, but I doubted he’d be able to get past any wards Jasper might have placed on this property.
On the other hand, I wasn’t too thrilled by the prospect of being stuck here indefinitely.
I’d already tried the door handle multiple times, and it had never budged. I did it again anyway, mostly because I was just stubborn like that.
This time, though, it turned.
For a second or two, I could only stare down at it in astonishment. But then I recovered myself and pushed the door open, glancing either way to make sure no one was lurking nearby, just waiting to pounce.
No, that was silly. Whatever horrors Jasper had planned for me, I doubted he would waste his time hanging around in this upstairs hall just to be there when I emerged.
Acting as if all this was the most normal thing in the world, I went to the wide staircase with its elegant, squarely carved balustrade and headed downstairs. I’d already noted that the day outside was much grayer than it had been earlier, and even if it wasn’t snowing now, it would probably start in the next couple of hours.
I didn’t like that idea very much. Unfortunately, though, unlike Addie Grant — one of the “orphan” witches my cousin Jake had found, a woman he’d ended up marrying — I had zero control of the weather.
Come to think of it, I had pretty much zero control of anything.
But I shoved that self-pitying thought aside and headed toward the kitchen, figuring I could raid Jasper Wilcox’s fridge if nothing else.
As I headed in, though, the warm scent of coffee met my nose, and when I entered the room, I saw that the man himself stood in there, leaning against one of the counters and sipping from a big white mug as though he didn’t have a care in the world.
“Did you sleep well, Miss…?” he asked as he lowered the mug.
“Deborah,” I said quickly, then grabbed the most innocuous last name I could think of, one that probably belonged to at least a couple of the civilians who’d married into the Wilcox clan. “Deborah Smith.”
“I see,” he said politely. “Did you have a pleasant night’s sleep, Deborah?”
I sent him a narrow glance from under my eyelashes. This was the first time I’d been able to get a good look at him, and I had to admit the 1940s movie star vibe was still pretty strong, from the heavy black hair combed straight back from his high brow to the long nose and sculpted mouth and jaw. He wore a black argyle sweater and gray dress pants with a white button-up shirt under the sweater.
Yes, he and Lana would have made a very attractive couple. Too bad for everyone involved that he didn’t seem interested.
I’d already been brooding over what had happened to her and Adam, and — for what felt like the hundredth time — could only hope they’d gotten safely away because Jasper had been focused on blocking the highway that led to Payson rather than watching the roads that went back into Flagstaff.
“I wouldn’t call it ‘sleep’ when I was really knocked out,” I said, and he shrugged.
“You were only unconscious during the drive back here,” he told me. “After that, it was a normal enough sleep, albeit one that was magically induced. Coffee?”
And he nodded toward the pot that sat on the big white-enameled stove a few feet away.
Maybe coffee would make me feel a little more human…or at least allow me to better process what was going on with Jasper. He was acting awfully casual for a man who had just kidnapped two women in a row.
Some people might have warned me not to drink or eat anything the primus offered, but I knew he didn’t have to resort to such clumsy methods, not when he had so many other magical tricks at his disposal.
“Sure,” I said.
He got another mug out of the cupboard and poured me a cup, then handed it over. “I don’t have any cream,” he said. “Never cared for it.”
No, Jasper definitely seemed like the kind of guy who would take his coffee black.
I didn’t like it that way, but I’d drink it undoctored if I had to. Wrapping my hands around the mug, I blew on the liquid inside a few times to make sure I wouldn’t scald myself when I took a sip.
God knows I already had plenty to worry about without adding a burned tongue to the mix.
“How did you know I would be going that way?” I asked.
“It was the only logical escape route,” Jasper replied. “I doubted anyone capable of stealing Ruby from that hotel room would do something as foolish as drive back through Flagstaff.”
Since his comment was pretty much what I’d been thinking only a few minutes earlier, I couldn’t really argue with him on that point.
“I’m curious, though,” he went on. “How were you able to undo all those protection spells? That would have been some very advanced magic.”
So, he had no idea about Lana’s involvement and thought I was solely responsible for breaking Ruby out. Or rather, he had to guess I had an accomplice of some sort, because otherwise the prima -in-waiting would have been in the getaway car with me, but it seemed he thought I was the one who had unwound all the enchantments keeping her trapped in that hotel room.
And that meant Jasper wasn’t anything close to all-seeing or all-knowing. Sure, he was probably the most powerful warlock alive, but that still didn’t make him a god.
While I couldn’t exactly relax, that bit of knowledge gave me just the tiniest sliver of hope.
I shrugged and sipped some coffee. It was too hot, but I’d rather deal with that than have to respond to his comment.
His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything for a moment and instead appeared focused on drinking his coffee. Then he said, “I can tell you’re a Wilcox. How is it that I’ve never seen you before?”
The swallow of coffee wanted to get caught somewhere in my throat, but I managed to gulp it down. Was that something clan leaders could always do — know who did and who didn’t have their family’s blood flowing in their veins?
I remembered how Ruby had been able to sense that Seth was standing only a few yards away from her hotel room, and guessed something similar must be operating here as well.
Smiling thinly, I said, “I don’t get out much.”
Jasper’s impassive expression didn’t shift even an inch. “This is not a joking matter.”
“No, I suppose it isn’t,” I replied. “So, is it because you realized I was a member of your clan that I’m not locked up in a dungeon somewhere?”
“Flagstaff is rather short on dungeons,” he replied, and for the first time, I thought I caught a flicker of amusement in his black eyes, so similar to Jeremiah’s in color and shape, although there was something about this man I instinctively distrusted.
I’d never had that reaction to Jeremiah Wilcox.
“Point taken,” I said. “To answer your question, I was raised on a ranch outside Williams, and my family never came into Flagstaff. So I suppose that’s why I was overlooked.”
Jasper drank some more coffee. “I’m afraid I don’t believe you. There’s something more going on here than a farm girl coming to the big city for the first time and deciding out of nowhere that she’s going to free the prima -in-waiting from a rival clan.”
When he put it that way, I had to admit my story sounded a little far-fetched. I’d been grasping for anything that might have sounded like a reasonable way to explain why he could tell I was a member of his clan but had never seen me before.
Before I could speak, though, he nodded, as if something had just occurred to him. “You were the young woman I saw at the café the other day. I assume your companion had something to do with the way Ruby McAllister vanished from La Posada last night?”
“Possibly,” I allowed. It didn’t seem like too large a risk to admit to Seth’s involvement, not when he was more than seventy miles away in Jerome and far from even Jasper Wilcox’s reach.
Or at least, I didn’t think Jasper would try anything like that again in the near future. I wasn’t a McAllister elder or even a member of their clan, but I had to believe every single person in that witch family who had even the slightest bit of defensive magic at their disposal was doing their best to make sure a Wilcox would never set foot there again without tripping all sorts of alarms.
“He looked like a McAllister to me,” Jasper went on. “And while I’ll admit it makes sense that they would attempt to steal her back — hence all the protection spells on her hotel room to prevent that very thing from happening — I also have to say that you don’t seem to fit in anywhere. You’re a Wilcox, but I’ve never laid eyes on you before, and I should have been able to sense that both you and your McAllister companion were of witch-kind the second I entered that café.”
“I guess you were just having an off day,” I said blithely, and sipped some more coffee.
Without warning, he reached over and took the mug from my fingers and set it down on the counter. For a second, I could only gape at him, since never in my life had I ever had anyone do something so downright rude.
“Whoever you are, your tone needs some correcting,” Jasper said, night-hued eyes narrow.
So do your manners, I thought, but I realized I needed to tread a lot more carefully than I had these past couple of minutes. The current head of the Wilcox clan was nothing like Jeremiah, and I needed to remind myself of that.
This man was an enemy, not an ally, even if he might have been my great-great-grand-uncle or something along those lines. To be honest, I’d never been that big on genealogy, even if certain people in my clan seemed almost obsessed with it. I guessed some of that obsession made sense, since it was important to keep track of people’s connections within the family and not have to worry if that distant cousin you had a crush on might suddenly turn out to be not so safely distant after all.
I certainly had no desire to tell Jasper the truth about me, or to let him know I had the ability to travel in time. A fairly shaky ability, true, but I still had a feeling he would do whatever he could to exploit it.
But a little sliver of truth might be enough to put him off the scent.
“It’s probably my talent, if you even want to call it that,” I said, and one eyebrow lifted slightly.
“What talent is that?”
“It hides my witch nature,” I explained. “For a long time, it wasn’t anything I could control, so everyone thought I didn’t have any magic at all. So even if you might have seen me when you visited Williams, you would have thought I was just a civilian girl and ignored me.”
Jasper’s expression had gone impassive again, so it was hard for me to tell whether he believed a single word of what I had just said or whether he was doing what he could to mentally poke holes in my story.
“That is an unusual gift,” he said after a long pause. “One I don’t think anyone in my clan has ever had before. Where did it come from?”
“Where does any magic come from?” I countered, which I thought was a valid question to ask. There wasn’t any rhyme or reason as to who received what gifts or how strong they were, or anything like that. True, sometimes a gift would get passed from generation to generation, just as I’d gotten this one from my father, but that kind of situation tended to be the exception rather than the rule.
It seemed Jasper wasn’t going to bother answering me, which was fine. I’d meant it as mostly a rhetorical question, anyway.
“And why were you working with a McAllister?”
I thought he was cute, went through my mind, but I kind of doubted Jasper would be too happy to hear that particular response.
No, I had to come up with a story fast — and hope like hell it sounded plausible.
“He came to Williams a couple of days ago,” I said. “He told me his cousin had been kidnapped and he and his family were sure she was in Wilcox territory. And he asked me if I’d seen her, since he thought I would have noticed if I’d seen someone around my age suddenly appear in town.”
“McAllisters came into our territory?” Jasper asked, brow now thunderous.
“I guess so,” I replied, secretly kind of happy that I’d managed to cause him some mental distress at the idea of his enemies managing to sneak into his territory without him knowing anything about it. “He said they were looking at some of the smaller towns, just because they seemed like good hiding places…and also because they thought you might have less chance of detecting them there.”
The primus didn’t respond at all to that comment, which made me think it was probably a little closer to the mark than he would have preferred. I didn’t know for sure whether the Wilcoxes had wards all along their borders the way the McAllisters did in Jerome — which would have been extremely impractical, considering how much bigger Wilcox territory was than the tiny mining town — or whether Jasper relied on his own sharp senses to know whether any outsiders had come onto his family’s land.
My suspicions told me it was most likely the latter, which I guessed was why he hadn’t been too happy to hear that the man who’d broken Ruby out of her room at La Posada had been lurking under his nose all along.
But then Jasper said, “If several McAllisters truly did enter Wilcox territory to search in those ‘smaller towns,’ then what were the two of you doing in that café the other day? One would think your companion would have been doing whatever he could to stay far away from downtown Flagstaff.”
Okay, the primus had a point there. Still doing my best to look utterly guileless, I said, “Oh, when I told him about how I could hide my witch nature and that of anyone close to me, he agreed that we should look in Flagstaff as well. We didn’t find anything, though.”
“Not here,” Jasper agreed. “But you seem to have done a decent job of locating Miss McAllister in Winslow.”
“Oh, that,” I said, and waved a hand. At least I could be mostly truthful about that part of the story — and I wanted to tell him the truth because I knew hearing how we’d stumbled across Ruby in what could only be described as an utter fluke would only make him that much more frustrated about the situation.
So I gave him a somewhat edited version of what had happened, obviously leaving out any mention of Lana and Adam’s involvement in Ruby’s jailbreak and making it sound as though the wards had already been partially dissolved by the time we’d gotten there. That part didn’t seem too far-fetched to me, not when Ruby was certainly a strong witch on her own and might have gotten started on unraveling all those imprisonment spells after it became clear no one was coming to save her.
“How would you even know how to do such a thing?” Jasper demanded once I was finished with my story. “That is not the kind of magic anyone can do off the cuff.”
No, probably not. But it also seemed clear that the Wilcoxes dabbled in enchantments that weren’t exactly common knowledge, and since it sounded as if Lana had trained herself using old spell books or grimoires that had been lying around, I didn’t see why I couldn’t appropriate that part of her past to round out my own faux biography.
“From books,” I said vaguely. “My grandmother raised me, and she had lots of old magical books lying around. It sounded like she’d been collecting them for a while.”
Once again, Jasper’s black eyes narrowed. “Who is your grandmother?”
Oh, hell. Maybe he had every single one of the current crop of Wilcoxes memorized and maybe he didn’t, but about all I could do then was bluff and hope for the best.
“Mildred Garnett,” I said quickly. “My mother was her daughter.”
Not even a nod, and tension coiled in my stomach…tension that had nothing to do with the coffee I’d just swallowed.
Then the primus said, his tone almost conversational, “I have a cousin named Adam,” and the knot in my belly tightened that much further.
“Oh?” I said. The syllable sounded normal enough, thank God, so I had to pray Jasper hadn’t noticed anything off about my response.
“Yes,” he replied. “His talent lets him know whether people are telling the truth.” A weighted pause, and he added, “But I don’t need him here to let me know you’re lying.”
So much for Mildred Garnett and the rest of my story.
However, I raised my chin and said, “I’m not lying.”
“Oh, yes, you are. I know you’re a Wilcox, but almost everything else you’ve said is a complete falsehood.” He sipped some more of his coffee. “Go back to your room — the sight of you annoys me.”
I supposed I could have refused, but something in his tone told me he’d zap me right back into that suite if he had to.
Or worse, throw me over his shoulder and carry me up the stairs.
“Are you going to starve me?” I asked, even as I guessed that probably wasn’t the best delaying tactic I could have come up with.
Still, despite everything, I was hungry.
“Some food will be sent up,” he said, and although he didn’t say “eventually,” I got the impression that feeding me wasn’t high on his list of priorities.
“Fine,” I said blithely, and walked out of the kitchen and headed toward the stairs.
My back muscles wanted to cringe the whole time, since I wouldn’t have put it past him to hit me with some sort of magical blast as I was moving away, but it seemed he’d decided I wasn’t worth the effort, not when I was meekly following his orders.
I walked up the stairs and went into the room where I’d awoken a half hour earlier, then closed the door behind me.
My fingers gave the knob an experimental twist, confirming my suspicions.
It had locked behind me…and I was pretty sure Jasper wasn’t going to let me out again anytime soon.