Awakening (15 page)

She shrieked as I threw a damp dish towel at her.

“It wasn’t Hunter. If you must know,” I said, grabbing my backpack, “I was talking to Bree.”

Mary K. beamed at me. “That’s great!” She knew how much my friendship with Bree meant to me. “Maybe now things will get back to normal around here.”

Robbie honked outside. He was giving us another lift to school. I’d pick up Das Boot later, and then things really
would
get back to normal!

Just as I was slipping into my coat, the phone rang. My witch senses tingled. What could Hunter want so early in the day? I picked up the phone. “Hi, Hunter.”

“Good morning.”

“I can’t really talk,” I told him. “I’m on my way to school, and Robbie and Mary K. are waiting for me.”

“I’ll make this quick,” he said. “I just—I feel I need to prepare you. I know you’re being loyal to David, and that’s good. But I don’t want you to be blind to dark forces just because you like him.”

“I’m not,” I said, stung. “Don’t you think, after what Cal did to me, that I’ve learned my lesson? It just doesn’t make sense to me, that’s all. David’s not like Selene or Cal. He’s not power hungry. He’s not even Woodbane.”

He drew a long breath. “Listen, I told you how my brother, Linden, died. How he called up a dark spirit and it overpowered him.”

That wasn’t the whole story, I knew. When we’d joined our minds, I had learned that Hunter had been accused of causing Linden’s death and had stood trial before the International Council of Witches. He’d been found innocent, but he still carried the pain of his loss and the conviction of his own guilt.

“I remember,” I said.

“What I didn’t tell you is that Linden had called up dark spirits many times before,” Hunter went on. “After that first time, when he did it with me—it was as if the door had been opened for him. He liked working dark magick. It spoke to him. But the first time, Morgan—the first time we did it for the purest of reasons.”

“And you think David did the same thing,” I said. “You think he opened the door.”

“I think it’s possible, yes.”

Robbie honked again outside. “I have to go,” I told Hunter. “They’re waiting for me.”

“We’ll talk more later,” Hunter said.

“Fine. Whatever.” I hung up and stared at the phone for a minute. I remembered my own pleasure when I fought off those horrible guys at Aunt Eileen and Paula’s. I had enjoyed it. Did that count as dark magick? No. Even if I had felt a rush from it, I was defending people I loved against an attack. That couldn’t be bad.

As I walked out to the car, I made a decision. I was going to prove that David was innocent. That Cal was the source of the evil energy Hunter was feeling. I’d go talk to Stuart Afton myself and get this all straightened out.

After school I called Stuart Afton’s office to make an appointment. His secretary told me that he wasn’t in the office.

“Is he sick?” I asked.

She hesitated. “He’s . . . indisposed. He’s been out since the middle of last week.”

Something in her voice made me extend my witch senses. I picked up on strong confusion and unease. She didn’t know what was wrong with her boss, I sensed, and that was very unusual.

It also occurred to me that I’d first sensed the dark presence in the middle of last week. Around the same time Afton had stopped coming into his office.

Coincidence, I told myself.

There are no coincidences, my inner witch voice said.

“Did Mr. Afton come into any large sums of money recently?” I asked on impulse.

“Not that I have any intention of answering a question like that—but you’re the second person to ask it in the last few days,” the secretary said, sounding amazed. “What is going on?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “Thanks for your help.”

I hung up and looked up Afton’s home address. He lived in a fancy section of town, but one I could get to by bus. I didn’t want Robbie to know what I was doing. Somehow I felt I needed to do this alone. I’d just take the bus back to pick up Das Boot.

The bus let me off a few blocks from Afton’s house. The houses were enormous, with wide lawns. Even the snow looked more elegant in this neighborhood. I walked fast, trying to stay warm, my breath forming a little fog in front of me.

I rang the bell and stamped my booted feet on the welcome mat. Was I nuts coming here? Would Afton even see me? I heard footsteps on the other side of the door, and then it swung open. A thick woman in a maid’s uniform looked at me. A wave of worry radiated from her.

“Yes?” she asked. “May I help you?”

“Uh,” I said brilliantly. “I was wondering if I could talk to Mr. Afton?”

She pursed her lips, and I realized she looked pale. “Oh, dear, I’m sorry. Mr. Afton . . . Mr. Afton . . . was taken to the hospital earlier this morning.”

“What?” I gasped.

She nodded. “The paramedics thought he’d had a stroke.”

“I—I’m so sorry,” I stammered. My heart thudded hard. It’s just a coincidence. It has nothing to do with magick, I told myself.

A crumpled shopping bag sitting in the hallway behind her caught my eye. It seemed so out of place, just lying there, as if perhaps Mr. Afton had been holding it when he’d suffered from his stroke. The forest green color and silver handles looked familiar. I was about to ask the maid about it when my witch senses tingled. Hunter was coming up the walk.

What was he doing here? I whirled and stared at him.

“Is everything all right?” he asked as he reached the door.

“Stuart Afton is in the hospital,” I blurted. “He had a stroke this morning.”

Hunter’s green eyes widened slightly. He glanced at the maid. “I’m sorry to hear that. Can you tell me what hospital he’s in? I’d like to send over some flowers.”

“Yes—Memorial. That’s the closest.” She shook her head. “He runs six miles a day, more on weekends. You’ve never met anyone who takes better care of their health than Mr. Afton. A stroke just doesn’t make sense.”

I didn’t need to do a mind meld to know what Hunter was thinking. A stroke made sense if dark magick was involved.

“Thank you. We’re sorry to have bothered you,” I said to the maid. Then I grabbed Hunter’s arm and pulled him down the porch steps. “What are you doing here?” I demanded.

“The same thing you are, I suppose,” he replied. “Trying to get some answers.”

I didn’t want to think about the conclusions I knew he was jumping to.

“Where’s your car?” he asked as we reached the curb.

“I have to go pick it up from the shop,” I said.

“Hop in. I’ll give you a lift.”

I stood on the sidewalk. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get into the car with him, knowing the conversation we were about to have. My stomach felt knotted.

“Morgan, make up your mind. I’m freezing.” Hunter walked around the car and slid in behind the steering wheel.

I was freezing, too. I climbed into the car and told him how to get to Unser’s.

I didn’t know what to think and was lost in my own thoughts while Hunter drove. True, sometimes people did have inexplicable strokes. Maybe he had some congenital defect.

“Someone like Stuart Afton is a very unusual candidate for a stroke,” Hunter pointed out, and though it was exactly what I’d been thinking, I felt a flash of irritation. Hunter always had to be right.

“It happens,” I said. “All kinds of freak things happen. Look at my life.”

Hunter nodded. “Exactly. Your life was straight-on normal until magick kicked in. I could say the same for Afton, except magick has dealt with him far more harshly than it has with you.”

“You don’t know that this has anything to do with magick,” I reminded him tightly. “You’re jumping to conclusions.”

“Am I?” he asked.

I took a deliberate breath and tried to keep my tone reasonable. “Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s say David did have something to do with Afton erasing the debt. Well, Afton did it. David has the shop. So why would David hurt him now? He’s grateful to Afton. Hurting him now doesn’t make sense.”

“Unless David made mistakes, got involved with forces he can’t control, lost his power over what was supposed to happen,” Hunter said. “The darkness is not predictable. It often has effects beyond the immediate, planned ones.”

He sounded so self-righteous that I lost my temper and words shot out of my mouth. “You know what? I think being a Seeker makes you suspicious of everyone. I think you’re furious because Cal and Selene escaped, so now you’re determined to get someone else. David just happens to be a convenient target.”

The brakes squealed as Hunter suddenly swerved and pulled off the road. I barely had time to brace myself before he cut off the engine and turned to face me, his eyes blazing with anger. “You have no idea what you’re talking about! Do you think this a
game
for me, where I cut notches in my belt for every renegade witch I run in? Do you think I get off on going after other witches?”

My own temper caught fire. “You do it, though, don’t you? You
chose
it.”

The muscle in his jaw twitched, and one hand clenched the steering wheel, his knuckles white. Then Hunter relaxed suddenly, releasing the tension from his body on a deep breath. He rubbed his hand over his chin, the way he did when he was thinking. The car was filled with the vanishing traces of our anger, our quiet breathing. The air seemed alive and crackling, and it occurred to me that when I was with Hunter, I literally felt more alive. Probably because I was so often angry at him. But when I was with him, I didn’t have time to be crushed with sorrow over Cal.

“Morgan, it’s important to me that you understand that what you accused me of—is not true,” Hunter said, his voice low. “That’s not what being a Seeker is. If the council even suspected me of acting that way, they’d strip me of my powers in a heartbeat. I don’t understand how you could think that of me.”

His gentle answer made me ashamed. “Okay,” I said. “Maybe I was wrong.” I’ve always been a rotten apologizer. It was one of the things I wanted to work on.

“Maybe?” He shook his head and started the car again. Neither one of us spoke after that until we were almost at Unser’s. We drove past the entrance to the Afton Enterprises gravel pit, and I saw him turn his head to read the sign. When he faced front again, he was frowning.

We pulled into Unser’s yard. “Is this where you felt that dark energy?” Hunter asked me, his frown deepening. “Right here?”

“Yes,” I said, puzzled.

“What day was it?” Hunter asked.

“Last Wednesday,” I said, but then I saw Das Boot parked over to the side, and I forgot everything else. My beloved white car had a new hood and new bumper, but the hood was
blue.

“Oh my God,” I gasped. “My car!”

Bob Unser heard Hunter’s car and came out of the garage, wiping his hands on a rag. Max, the German shepherd, loped out at his side, grinning amiably. Hunter and I climbed out of his car, and I walked slowly to my Valiant, feeling like I was about to cry.

Bob looked over Das Boot with pride. “Good fit, huh?” he asked. “That hood is perfect. We got lucky.”

I was speechless. The two front sides of my car had been hammered out and covered with Bondo body filler to fix the crumpling. The Bondo was sanded and looked like steel-gray dusty spackle all over the front of my car. And the hood was
blue.
The bumper looked all right, but was unusually shiny and looked out of place. My beautiful, lifesaving car looked like crap.

“Uh . . . uh . . .” I began, wondering if I was going to hyper-ventilate. After losing my boyfriend, almost being killed, having my magick disappear on me in a circle, worrying about David Redstone; now, ridiculously, what was finally sending me over the edge was owing my parents almost a thousand dollars so my car could look like
crap.

Hunter patted my shoulder. “It’s just a car,” he offered hesitantly.

I couldn’t even respond. My mouth just hung open.

Bob gave me a look. “Course, it needs to be painted,” he said.

“Painted?” I was amazed at how calm my voice was.

“I didn’t want to do that without talking to you,” he explained, scratching his head. “We can paint it white, to match the rest of the car, but to tell you the truth, the whole car needs a paint job. See those bits of rust under the door? We should really sand those out, give it a coat of rust protector, then paint the whole body. If we Bondo the other dings, this car could look brand-new.” The idea seemed to fill him with enthusiasm.

“How much?” I whispered.

“Another four hundred, five hundred, max,” he said.

I gulped and nodded. “Um, does it run okay?”

“Sure. I had to tighten the engine block a bit, knock a few hoses tighter. But this baby’s a tank. It was mostly bodywork.”

Max panted his agreement.

Silently I handed Bob Unser the check my mother had made out, and he dropped the keys into my hand. “Let me think about the paint job,” I said.

“Sure thing. Take care of this car, now.” He headed back into the warmth of the garage, and I turned to face Hunter. It was dark now, but I could still see Das Boot’s tricolored nose, and it made me incredibly upset.

“I’m sorry about your car,” Hunter said. “I’m sure it will be fine.”

I closed my eyes and nodded. It was obvious he didn’t understand at all.

16

Uncertain