Chapter 16
Grayson
It was close to ten thirty when Grayson put Cassandra into the passenger seat of his car. He closed the door and turned, only to run into Elias’s glare. “When will you be back in the morning?” The older man’s frustration came through loud and clear.
“As soon as I have everything I need to help Sofia.” He rounded the hood, not giving a rat’s ass if Elias found his answer lacking, and got behind the wheel. After his conversation with Walter, Grayson didn’t trust either of the older Ambroses as far as he could spit.
He was pulling out of the drive when Cass asked, “You sure she’ll be okay?”
As they drove under the muted streetlights, he glanced over to see Cass staring straight ahead, unnaturally still, her hands fisted in her lap.
He turned back to the road but not before taking one hand from the wheel to cover hers and give it a comforting squeeze.
“The stasis spell will hold the curse in check.”
“But it won’t stop it.”
“No, but with the addition of your grandmother’s protection, it should last until morning.” He let her go and took the freeway exit.
She shifted in her seat. “What did you find out that you didn’t want to share in front of my parents?”
He wasn’t surprised by her perception. “The hex on Sofia is based on a Cabal spell.”
Instead of the disbelief he expected, he got a shocked “Cabal? You’re sure?”
“Positive.” He knew he looked as grim as he sounded. “And Sofia’s not the only one.”
“What do you mean?”
“According to my source, over the last year, there have been some alarming incidents that involve a handful of the original Families.”
“Alarming how?” When he didn’t say anything, she demanded sharply, “Grayson, alarming how?”
He kept his attention on the road. “Magical experimentation on unwilling mages, demon pacts, big-money fraud, kidnappings, and hexes for hire. The kind of things the Families don’t want made public.”
She was quiet for a moment. “The curse victims—they survived?”
It was futile to hope she wouldn’t zero in on that particular issue, but he wouldn’t lie, not to her. “Not all of them.”
She sucked in a breath and, on a choked sob, whispered, “Oh gods, Sofie.”
“Hey.” He reached out, found her hand, and held it tight.
She held on as words tumbled from her in a panicked rush. “You told my mother you could reverse it, but mixing dark magic and science—that’s not the same.”
“It is and it isn’t, Cass.” He forced his voice to stay level. “A Cabal-based spell is complicated because of how it’s created, but that doesn’t make it impossible to break.”
With her free hand, she rubbed her forehead and muttered, “Okay, okay,” as if trying to convince herself.
When she tugged on her other hand, he let her go.
A tense minute passed before she regained her composure.
“All right. According to your source, the ones behind Sofia’s curse are part of the Cabal? ”
He nodded.
“And they’re sure? I mean, like, you believe them?”
“I do.”
“Why?”
Old oaths prevented him from sharing details such as Walter’s name or how, in a previous life, Walter’s work with Cabal casts had been legendary. Instead, Grayson stuck with the simplest answer. “We have a business arrangement based on mutually assured destruction.”
“Seriously?”
It was one word, but in it he heard her flickers of doubt.
He needed to head them off before they found fertile ground.
Frustration and desperation left his voice hard.
“There have been times when I’ve had to work with less-than-legit players, and one of those times includes this source.
I can’t—not won’t, Cass, can’t—share beyond swearing to you that he would not risk the repercussions of lying to me. ”
He waited, tension knotting his gut. The seconds stretched into eternity.
Then came her quiet “Okay.”
“Okay,” he repeated, relief loosening the knots as he flexed his bloodless fingers on the steering wheel.
“You said Russ wasn’t behind the hex.”
“He didn’t set it, but that doesn’t mean someone else isn’t using him as a stalking horse.” He gave it a beat. “Do you have any idea what the Cabal would gain by targeting your sister?”
She didn’t rush to answer. “I don’t know.
” She fidgeted with the hem of her skirt.
“There’s always a chance she’s got a client who’s the target, but unless things have drastically changed, her clients wouldn’t rate that kind of attention.
High-level clients, the kind more likely to earn Cabal attention—those would be handled by my parents. ”
If that was the case, Zane would sniff it out.
“But…” she said.
When she fell quiet, he prodded, “But…?”
“Okay, I need you to stick with me because this convoluted, but it makes a twisted sort of sense when you consider the services Pythia provides.”
He caught a glimmer of where she was headed. “Prediction.”
“Right, and the majority of Pythia’s mages are Mystics.”
“Because predictive magic is intuitive in nature.” He caught her nod as he checked his mirrors.
She turned in her seat until she was facing him. “Which is directly opposed to what the Cabal practice.”
She wasn’t wrong. The Cabal earned their nightmarish reputation by having zero qualms about mixing horrific science with darker magics, and they had less than zero reservations about using the results to get what they wanted.
“If they’re behind all these supposed ‘incidents’”—she used finger quotes on the last word—“and trying to stay off the Families’ radar, they would have two choices to get what they wanted. Hire Pythia or cripple it.”
His gut soured, and he hated that he had to even ask. “Would your mother work for the Cabal?”
“Knowingly? No.” She sounded resigned. “But if a client waved enough money around, she wouldn’t ask questions.”
That was far from reassuring. “The second option?”
“To cripple Pythia’s operations and keep them from getting in the way, they’d be more likely to target my mother, not Sofia.”
Maybe. He flipped the turn signal for the upcoming exit as an ugly suspicion crept in. “Cass, how sure are you that Iris died of natural causes?”
She stared at his profile. “No, that’s not…” she said, her voice cracking. She turned away, shaking her head. “No, if anything was hinky with Yaya’s death, Mother would be on the warpath.”
He didn’t say anything because he had his doubts and Cass had had a hell of a day. Still, it might be worth adding a deeper dive into Rhea’s client list to Zane’s research. He turned onto the surface streets, grateful that the traffic was light.
Accurately interpreting his silence, Cass touched his knee. “It wasn’t murder, Grayson.”
He didn’t want to hurt her, but from the outside looking in, her family was a problematic nightmare. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because my mother would have looked,” she said calmly.
Right. Because Sages can see the past. “But would she?”
“Yes.”
The depth of her certainty threw him off. “You sound awfully sure.” He shot her a look. “What happened while I was gone?”
“She and I had a long-overdue conversation.”
As she shared the details involving her aunt’s prediction and her mother’s resulting decisions, he didn’t miss the hints of compassion and flashes of anger as she repeated Rhea’s justifications.
Cass was struggling to come to terms with what her mother had revealed.
But the more she shared, the more his concern grew, and he had to wonder if she was too emotionally tied to the situation to see the same glaring warning signs he saw—Rhea’s deliberate decision to climb into bed with the Families, the way she manipulated situations and people to get what she wanted, and how she justified hurting those she loved.
That last one tripped his personal trigger in a big way and made him wonder just how far Rhea would go to get what she wanted.
He didn’t like the answer.
When Cass stopped talking and fell quiet, he picked his words carefully. “Does it help, knowing all this now?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted softly, almost sadly. “I’ve spent years with this image of her in my head, and now…” She sighed. “She was right about the holding-a-grudge thing because even now, after everything she told me, part of me wonders if it’s all some sort of ploy.”
Trying to ignore the way his chest loosened at her admission, he focused on playing devil’s advocate. “To what end?”
“That’s the thing. I don’t know.”
Well, maybe he could help with that—at least he hoped she’d view it that way. He cleared his throat. “Just so you’re aware, I have someone looking into Russ and your parents.”
Fortunately, her response was more resigned than outraged. “Probably a good idea.”
He pulled into the condo’s parking lot. “I’m hoping he’ll bring me something by early tomorrow.”
“That’s fast.”
“Zane’s that good, and he knows I’m working against the clock.
” He turned into his assigned spot and noted someone had parked in his visitor’s lot.
Not that he minded. The compact wasn’t Zane’s truck and probably belonged to someone visiting a neighbor.
He shut the car, popped his trunk, and undid his seat belt.
“So, what’s the plan?” Cass asked as she undid hers.
“I’ve got Zane grabbing a couple of items I need, so I can dive into the leads my source gave me.”
“What leads?”
“I’ll show you.”
They got out and met at the trunk. Grayson lifted the lid, and Cass frowned. “What are those?”
He picked up the two heavy leather-bound books, shifted them to one arm, and then closed the trunk. “Research journals,” he murmured.
She matched his tone. “Research?”
“The kind that shouldn’t exist,” he admitted as he curled his free arm around her waist. Together, they started toward the condo.
Her eyes widened, but she followed his example and, despite no one being around, kept their conversation quiet by mouthing the word, “Cabal?”