Burning in a Memory (5 page)

             
Adelaide plastered a smile on her face and sat up straight. The first to arrive at the table was a male. He was shorter than Adam but with a much broader chest and distinctive abdominal muscles. She barely memorized the distinctive square shape of his face, the color of his eyes, or the trim short haircut before he assaulted her.

             
It happened in a flash. He grabbed her by the shoulders and hoisted her weight free from the booth. He spun her against the wall and snatched her wrist in a vice-like hold. She gasped in pain but he ignored it and stared her down.

             
“Mages always have an aura even if they’re weak…”

             
“Tony!” Adam’s voice was lost in the background, mixed with the sounds of people nearby. No help came for Adelaide and she found herself in his mercy.

             
“No aura.” He grabbed her shoulders instead. His own magical aura now pulsed, causing an invisible, but potent, distortion in the air around them. “Shades always have a tattoo to identify their clan on the back of their neck. Move your hair!”

He spun her and this time she didn’t fight.
She pulled her fluffy hair aside so he could spy the back of her neck. It was bare and untainted.

             
“You’re a spy then, a human spy.” He flipped her back to face him and studied her face.

             
“Stop!” This time Adam’s voice sounded loudly and he hit Tony’s shoulder. The other mage shifted from the force of the blow, and although it couldn’t have done much damage, it snapped him from his attack.

             
“What are you doing? Are you kidding me?” Adam roared.

             
“You don’t know who she is!” Tony hollered back. Their voices must have spread throughout the entire parlor. Adam obviously realized that too, because the next thing he said came out as an urgent whisper.

             
“Neither do you! You didn’t even let me get out her name before you tore into her. Like Charlotte didn’t just do the exact same evaluation?”

             
Tony ended his assault with a sour look Adam’s way. He stepped back into a crowd and Adelaide noticed his companions for the first time. There were two women that clung to either side of him, but they appeared unremarkable. Adelaide didn’t have long to size them up. Adam’s hand came down on her shoulder.

“Come on, we’re leaving,” he commanded. Before he could lead her away, Charlotte rounded the corner. The short
, older woman pushed through the others and stood in front of Adam.

             
“Sit, please, and we’ll talk. You all are attracting too much attention, here of all places,” the woman urged.

             
“I’m sorry Charlotte but I don’t have a choice. It’s not like we could sit and eat in peace after that. I brought Adelaide here on my good word that everything would be okay and Tony just ruined that.”

             
Adelaide stayed quiet, feeling paralyzed in the middle of the group. She looked to Adam for a response. He was seething from the encounter, but managed to keep his reaction under control. Unfortunately, Tony took that moment to speak again.

             
“Yea, sit Adam. After exposing us, our entire way of life, and the safety of our coven to danger, you better talk,” Tony hissed.

             
Adam stiffened and Tony went on. “You know what’s out there in the dark. You know that half the shades in the world want our coven destroyed, and you don’t think twice about wandering around with some girl. Alone, no less, in a house Angie told me you thought had a bad vibe to it.”

             
Adam suddenly spied the redhead in the back of the room. The meek wave of her hand spoke volumes about her apparent inability to keep a secret.

             
“Tony, now listen to me,” Charlotte interjected, “you could have sized her up without assaulting her. And Adam, sit down. They may drive you crazy, but an apology with nice free meal and treats will make it up to Adelaide. You need to hear them out.”

             
Adelaide was surprised that Adam took the bait. He obeyed first and Tony followed. They sat at opposite sides of the booth with the remainder of the coven providing a barrier of bodies. Adelaide perched at the very edge of the bench, closest to the exit.              

             
“I’m sorry,” Tony said and it took a moment for Adelaide to realize he spoke directly to her, “I don’t know you, but I’d like to.”

             
Adam asked the next question.

             
“Are you okay?”

             
She nodded. The table’s focus remained on her, and she remembered how to speak, though in a gravelly voice.

             
“So this is your family?” Adelaide asked, feeling nothing less than stupid.

             
“We’re called a coven, meaning we’re extended family that lives together. It’s hard to explain in…simple terms. But this is Priya and Preeti. You’ve already met Angie and, of course, Tony,” Adam explained slowly.

             
She swallowed the lump in her throat and committed the names to memory. If she could have stopped her hands from shaking, she would have been set. Charlotte brought over a vibrant some fruity drink concoction. Adelaide couldn’t smell what was in it but she took a quick swig anyway, letting it hit her stomach like a rock. She suspected that there wasn’t alcohol but nursing the liquid made her calm down a bit regardless.

             
“So are we really going to talk here?” Angie cued the conversation. Adelaide tried to prepare herself for anything, but was surprised when the questions came. No one asked her much about her personal life, but they did ask about the rockslide. They asked if she told anyone and if she’d seen a doctor. Angie did most of the questioning while Tony stayed silent. The women in the corner watched her more than listened to her. Adelaide eventually noticed that the two were twins.

By the time the pizza came, Adelaide felt too tired to enjoy the food. When the meeting came to an end, she
happily let Adam escort her out.

             
“Nice meeting you, Adelaide,” Tony said on behalf of the group. He stood apart from them in the parking lot but earned nothing but a curt nod from Adam. Only after they made it back to the highway did Adam finally open up some.

             
“I think you’re the only person I’ve ever had to apologize to this much,” he admitted.

             
“Don’t,” she said. “I mean, I’d be lying if Tony didn’t scare the hell out me but he was looking to see if I was something evil, right?”

             
“Yea, a shade. That’s another story for another time. Tony’s just overly paranoid and thought that something must be up. I think it made him feel better seeing you—as was the point of the trip, but I’m sure it didn’t make you feel better about us.”

             
She paused for a calculated moment.

             
“Is something after you guys?”

             
Adam kept his attention on the road, and the wheel in a steel grip. He pulled off for her exit while pumping the break.

             
“Again, another story for another day.”

             
His words felt dismissive and his mind appeared to be other things. For the first time, Adelaide sensed that she’d lost his undivided attention. If his mind stayed on other things, there was the chance she would become irrelevant. All they had thus far was a pizza date and rockslide. It wasn’t enough and it made Adelaide uncomfortable. She suddenly wanted to reach out and touch him; she wanted to say exactly the right thing to strengthen their bond. She wanted to, but came up with nothing. By the time they pulled up to her house, he seemed more despondent than ever.

             
“Have a good night, Adelaide,” he said half-heartedly. He watched the road in front of him, his gaze distant. “Thank you…”

             
She hopped out of the car. He didn’t wait until she got inside before driving away. Her gut churned and her mind threatened to tear as it stretched in a dozen different directions. Her fingers sought out the hard metal lump of her phone in her pocket before she thought about it. Dialing, she stuck the phone to her ear.

             
“Hello?”

             
“What’s up, rubber duck?” she asked, though her voice lacked enthusiasm.

             
“...nicknames aren’t making up for deadbeat sisters who didn’t come to my birthday party. Or my graduation. In fact, I’m almost insulted you called at all. What do you want?”

             
“Chill out, Bradley. You know why I couldn’t make it and I sent you gifts for both of those.” She felt awkward having this conversation outside at a moment like this so she made for the house.

             
“You need a favor then.”

             
“I do…but this is for the best. And I’m thinking it may get me a one-way ticket to come home for awhile.”

             
She struck a chord, she knew, because she heard the waver in his voiced answer.

             
“Tell me what you need.”

             
“There’s a mage out west around Denver that I need to find. Subtly though, I can’t have him think that I’m looking for him. I’ve meet everyone else in his coven but no one even talks about him. I’m worried now. Maybe he left for somewhere else. Maybe I’m looking in the wrong place.”

             
“Um, okay…”

She could hear the scratching of a pen in the background.

              “I need you to find him for me and tell me I’m looking in the right place.”

             
A moment ticked by and the scratching stopped.

             
“Okay, just give me the name.”

             
“The man I’m looking for is Leonardo Colton. And I need to know if I can go through his brother, Adam, to finally see Leon in person.”

Five

              A jolt of excitement raced through her when her phone buzzed. When she grabbed the Nokia and read the screen, the excitement rapidly disappeared. The text message came from an anonymous number which really only meant one person. And that person wasn’t Adam. Her hope turned back into frustration quickly.

             
“Green light,” it said and nothing more. She recognized it as Bradley’s incognito way of telling her that he’d caught the first trail and that she was in the right place. While it might have been good news, she was still waiting for Adam to call. It made sense now that he had only taken her phone number and never given out his.

             
She frowned until she found the strength to delete the text and toss the phone back on the jumbled sheets of her bed. Sitting cross-legged in the bedroom, she returned to watching the rain fall outside through the foggy window. Nothing really happened in suburbia and even less with the bad weather blowing through. The place didn’t have cable or internet and she was already sick of reading.

             
The house felt smaller with each day that passed and with each minute she felt more anxious than ever. She hated waiting. She’d made it a point throughout her life never to wait for a guy and she didn’t like it now. When she couldn’t sit still any longer, she paced the familiar confines of the house. She sized herself up in the bathroom mirror. Her outfits had becoming increasingly less thought out until she wore her last cotton dress and tights. Her makeup got thicker but she left her hair down and free. When she gave up on her appearance, she walked by the garage and checked on her car. It had collected dust since the last time she’d seen it. She sized up the tags and registration that would lead back to her old dorm mate. She left the garage and double locked the front door and windows. Then she heard the crash.

             
Looking for the source of the loud sound, she crept to the window. The rain blew sideways now and made the outside world nearly impossible to see. She scrubbed the glass panes with her sleeve and worked at the little condensation that she could. She squinted; lightning lit up the sky and the street. With the flash, she saw the bright red car on the curb. Its entire hood had been crushed but she couldn’t immediately identify the cause. Adelaide backed away from the window.

             
Instinctually, she knew immediately. It took another minute for her brain to piece it together. Senses becoming hyper aware, she walked around the house one last time. Adam sensed a bad vibe in this place. Mistel had caused a bad vibe in this place. She wondered immediately if any other shades had sensed the magic here and would come to investigate. It drew them like maggots to a bloodied wound.

             
The doors remained shut and windows intact, but when she returned to the front living room, she felt no better. The Hawthorns were powerful shades, but they were far from common. Most shades were weaker and more desperate. She wondered twice if they’d listen to her like Mistel did.