Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
“That’s not possible,” I say. Antonio motions for me to put the call on speaker. I pull the phone away from my ear and tap the button. “I just found a police report with her name on it. She’s alive. Or at least she was a few weeks ago.”
“What did the police report say?” Marie asks.
“She ran away from a group home and was trying to get back to family in Connecticut.”
“A group home?” Marie repeats. “So she’s a minor.”
“Yes. She’s—”
“Seventeen,” Marie and I say at the exact same time.
I go quiet.
“Well, that confirms one of the rumors I heard,” she continues.
“The Eudora Bellamy I’m talking about died sixteen years ago.
” She pauses. “Supposedly, she had a summer fling with a non-magical boy and got pregnant. The Bellamys, like I mentioned, are a prominent magical family. And they’ve always been very particular about keeping their bloodlines pure. ”
“She was forced to give up the baby,” I say, filling in the blanks.
“That’s the rumor.”
My stomach twists.
“And the car accident that killed her a year later was officially ruled accidental,” Marie continues. “But there were plenty of people who believed she drove into that train on purpose.”
“Holy shit,” I whisper.
“Yeah,” Marie says softly. For a moment, no one says anything.
“So Eudora had a daughter,” I say slowly. “And the daughter was given up for adoption.”
“Yeah, it appears so. And the grief of losing her child and probably her lover was too much for her.”
“Hang on a second,” Antonio says, twisting around in his seat.
“Oh.” I hold the phone closer to me. “I probably should’ve told you that you’re on speakerphone and my brothers are in the car.”
“Hello, Wren’s brothers,” Marie says cheerfully.
“You said the Order had her,” Antonio continues. “But she was living in a group home. They just let her go?”
“The notes made it sound like she didn’t show much promise,” I say with a shrug. “Maybe they tested her and let her go. Though that doesn’t really fit the Order’s MO unless she had no idea she was being tested in the first place.”
“Typically,” Marie says, “witches start showing signs of magic relatively young. But a half-witch can develop differently. Sometimes their powers don’t really start coming in until later. Usually closer to seventeen or eighteen.”
“So…right now.” I close my eyes in a long blink. “Okay. The Order figured out her mother was Eudora Bellamy, a witch from a notable magical bloodline. They assumed her daughter would be powerful too.”
“That makes sense,” Leo says. “And that definitely sounds like something the Order would do.”
“Yeah,” Antonio and I say at the same time. I rest the phone on my thigh, and the car falls silent while we all take that in.
“The Bellamy family…” I start, closing my eyes and pressing a hand against my forehead. “They fought demons just like my family did?”
“Yes,” Marie tells us. “Though I think the Blackwoods and Bellamys had some sort of falling-out in more recent years. But I do know for a fact that your families worked together. The Blackwoods and Bellamys created the spells used to make the supernatural prisons used to contain powerful demons.”
“So what you’re really saying,” Leo says slowly, “is that there could still be demons trapped inside Bellamy prisons the same way they’re trapped inside Blackwood prisons, needing the blood of the family who locked them up.”
“Yes.”
The single word lands heavily between us.
“And if someone knew Claire was a Bellamy…” Leo continues.
“They might want her blood to open one,” I finish. “She could be a key.”
“Possibly,” Marie says. “She may not have known who her family was until recently, since she’s trying to get home to them.”
“Then why was she in a group home?” Antonio asks. “If the Order knew who she was, why leave her there?”
“It could’ve been an easy way to keep an eye on her,” Marie suggests.
“Or maybe the Order doesn’t understand how magic manifests in someone with only one magical parent.
If they tested her when she was younger and she showed little or no power, they may have assumed they were wrong about her potential.
” She pauses. “You said most of the names in that notebook were crossed out, right?”
“Yeah. Most of them.” I nervously twist my massive engagement ring around my finger. “I just feel like we’re missing something.” I let out a breath. “I mean, obviously we are. But this is one of those gut-feeling things. There’s something here that I can’t ignore.”
“Let me do some more digging,” Marie says. “I’m going to the Covenstead library now, but I might not be able to get the answers I need until later tonight when everyone leaves. Asking too many questions about two of the founding families is going to start raising suspicions.” She’s right.
And if she’s trying not to draw attention for my sake, then maybe I need to put my pride aside and eventually let my family know what one of their descendants did. Maybe they’ll be so happy to find out I’m alive that everything else will be easily forgiven.
“The last report from the group home said Claire started hearing voices,” I tell Marie. “She has no documented history of mental illness.”
“That could mean a number of things,” she says. “She could be able to hear spirits now. She could be tapping into a power she doesn’t know how to control.” Marie hesitates. “Or it could be something demonic.”
My stomach drops.
“We need to find her.”
“I have a vial of her blood,” I say. “I could cast a locator spell.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Marie replies. But I hear the hesitation in her voice. “I agree with you that we’re missing something important here. If you’re going to cast any kind of spell using her blood, I think you should do it here at the Covenstead, where you’ll be protected.”
“Okay,” I immediately agree. Both of my brothers give me skeptical looks.
They don’t have to say anything. I know exactly what they’re thinking.
Marie could just be using this as an excuse to lure me back to the Covenstead.
They still don’t trust her. And maybe I’m being naive. But I don’t have many other options.
And more than anything, I really, really want to trust her.
“I’m about to go through the Covenstead door,” Marie says. “I’ll lose service once I’m inside. Text me if you find anything else. I’ll step outside periodically to check, and I’ll let you know as soon as I learn something.”
“Thanks.” I end the call. For a moment, the three of us sit in stunned silence. Then Antonio puts the G-Wagon into drive.
“I need you to get into that group home’s computer system as soon as we get back,” he tells Leo. Leo raises an eyebrow. Antonio looks toward me.
“Something about this doesn’t add up. If the Order decided Claire wasn’t useful, then why is her blood sitting in a vial dated only a few weeks ago?”
“I don’t know. I found the blood in the bag while Vivian and Marco were trying to free Vaelric. Maybe it was a total assumption thinking everything in that bag had to do with freeing the demon. I mean, they knew Blackwood blood was needed. They knew it needed to be fresh.”
“Who knows what they were thinking,” Antonio says. “Obviously, they’re out of their fucking minds. Maybe they just grabbed all the shit they could and ran.”
“I don’t want to sound like an asshole here,” Leo starts, letting us know he’s one hundred percent going to be an asshole.
“I can empathize for this girls and all, but maybe we should put this rescue mission on hold until we get through, I don’t know, the small problem we have on our hands where our mother is possessed by a really fucking powerful demon? ”
“I’m telling you, it’s connected,” I press.
“How” Leo exasperates. “You didn’t even know this girl existed until you saw her name, what, yesterday?”
“It’s a feeling.”
“Saving her isn’t going to undo what happened to you,” Leo rushes out, earning a side-eye from Antonio.
“That’s not why I want to save her.” I clench my jaw, letting out a strangled breath. “Something isn’t right, and the universe lead me to—”
“The universe?” Leo scoffs with a laugh. “You’re starting to sound like your fucking woo-woo friend.”
“Woo-woo?” My brows go up. “We literally are woo-woo. We’re witches. Accept it.”
“I always have!” Leo shoots back.
“Guys,” Antonio says but we both ignore him.
“That’s the thing, Wren,” Leo goes on. “You’re so stuck on your poor, pitiful me bullshit sometimes you cannot see the forest through the goddamn trees!”
“You’re such a fucking asshole sometimes.”
“Right back at ya,” he grumbles. “Everything is fucking falling apart.”
“We don’t have to,” Antonio says. “We don’t have to fall apart and we all know we’re stronger together, as a family.”
“Fucking pathetic ass family,” Leo says under his breath and I want to smack him upside the head. “Gia is out of state in hiding, Riss is in jail, and Mom and Dad chose demonic power over us. It’s just the three of us.”
“That’s more than what a lot of people got.” Antonio tightens his grip on the steering wheel.
Leo softens. “You’re right.”
“I usually am.”
“I found her adoption papers, and it seems you guys guessed right. Her mom, Eudora Bellamy, was only sixteen. Given what I heard about the Bellamy family, making your teenage daughter give up her baby fits the bill, even if the baby is pure blood. The Order probably made the assumption she was magical, like you.”
“That’s kind of a big assumption,” Devon continues. “You know I love to play Devil’s Advocate. But then I saw the adoption papers.”
“She was adopted?” My brows pinch together. “Why did she end up in a group home? Isn’t that what usually happens to older foster kids still in the system?”
“Yeah. She was adopted and then it seems the adoptive parents surrendered their parental rights,” Leo says and turns the laptop around. “Look at the signature on the papers.”
I lean in, heart dropping to the bottom of my chest when I see his name.
“Marcus Henry.”