Fire Raiser (21 page)

“You heard Holly. Evan found out by accident, just like you. It’s not something we put on billboards on Sunset Boulevard.”

“But this is
me,
Cam! Did you think I’d—I don’t know, blackmail you? Betray you? Does everybody automatically get thrown into the same category as Erika Ayala?”

A soft but emphatic knocking on the door interrupted him. Cam flung his arms wide in a
Fuck it, I give up
gesture and called loudly, “Come on in! Join the circus!”

Jamey watched with escalating bewilderment as Holly, Lulah, Evan, and a slight-shouldered blond man aged maybe fifty-five entered the room. There were hugs and exclamations, smiles and kisses, and Jamey felt even more of a fool than before.

Evan sauntered over during the reunion festivities. “It’s a shock,” he remarked, “but you’ll get used to it.”

“How long did it take you?”

“Less time than you’d expect. Me, I was more pissed off because she didn’t tell me how much money she makes.”

“You people are all insane,” Jamey announced.

“Yep. Like I said, you’ll get used to it.”

“Or run shrieking into the night,” said the blond man. “Hello, Mr. Stirling. I’m Nicholas Orlov—Cam and Holly’s Uncle Nick. I understand you’ve learned our little secret.”

“Uh—yes. Nice to meet you.” He shook the man’s hand. “And please call me Jamey.”

“Lulah was right—lovely manners.” He slanted a look upward at Evan. “Do you want to guide him through this using your own experience, or just throw him into the deep end and see how he swims, the way Holly did with you?”

“Oh, I’m sure he can handle it.”

Looking around to find that all eyes were on him, Jamey met Cam’s worried, wary gaze, and deliberately called up the kind of smile he used in the courtroom when counsel for the defense had just blindsided him. “I can handle it,” he said to the world at large, hoping he wasn’t telling the biggest lie of his life. And then he looked at Cam again. All the gentle whimsy had fled that expressive face, leaving a man who was a little tired, a little scared, and a lot alone. “It’s okay,” Jamey added. “I can handle it.” It wasn’t a lie at all.

NICK TOOK THE DESK CHAIR, straddling it with his arms folded across its back. Holly perched on the arm of the chair where Evan sat with long legs negligently sprawled. Lulah sat between Cam and Jamey on one of the sofas. This was by her own design. Nick wondered why for a moment, then decided it was consideration for Cam’s obviously raw state of nerves. Proximity to the gorgeous young man with the troubled gray eyes was probably difficult enough. If touch, or even the prospect of touch, affected Cam the way Alec had always affected Nicky . . . well, it was better if Lulah sat between them.

Cam had very kindly dried off their clothing and removed the mud from their shoes. He couldn’t do anything about their hair. Nick ran his fingers one more time back through the damp mess on his head, spared an interior sigh for the slow, inexorable retreat of his hairline, and wondered where to start.

Holly beat him to it. “Not to be ungracious, Nicky, but why are you here?”

“I’ll tell you, but we don’t have time for you to throw a fit. I know—saying that is the quickest way to guarantee it, but I’m telling you we don’t have time. Alec and I, through various methods—all of which we checked at least twice—have come to the conclusion that one of your children is in some kind of danger, and it’s going to happen in the next few days.”

She fixed her husband with an angry glare. He arched a brow and shrugged. “No fits,” she muttered.

“Thank you,” Nick said, meaning it; he had longer experience of Holly in rant-and-rave mode than anyone here but Lulah and Cam. “We couldn’t get anything specific—not which child, or where, or what would happen. But that’s a separate problem. Lulah and I are here right now to investigate Cam’s discovery.”

“The staircase inside the walls.” Jamey said it as if he dealt with such matters every day of the week.

“Yes,” Cam said to his own hands, which were clasped schoolboy-prim in his lap. “Like the one at Woodhush, it’s originally architectural, but it also reeks of magic. I think the staircase here is as old as the first house, but the spells are recent.”

“Jesse and I worked for weeks on—” Lulah stopped, fixing her nephew with a long, dangerous look. “ ‘
Like the one at Woodhush
’?”

“Long story, tell it later,” Evan suggested.

“I think we can count on that,” Lulah snapped.

Cam gave an audible gulp. “Anyway, that sign outside, about cell phones—it’s there to take care of probably eighty percent of the questions that might come up about why there’s no reception here. If your phone’s off, you’re not going to get any incoming calls. There’s a barrier of some kind, but whether it’s magical or electronic—”

“I’ll be able to find out,” Nick told him. “If I can’t sense Alec, even at this distance, then it’s spellcraft.”

“Okay. But whichever, and I’m betting it’s not technology, the other twenty percent could be explained by dead batteries or something—if people keep their phones on anyway and don’t leave them at the front desk like it asks—”

“Cam!” Evan chided. “Breathe. What he means is that Lulah felt blind here—”

“Still do,” she said. “It’s magic. I’m convinced of it now. You won’t sense Alec at all, believe me.”

Nicky didn’t like to explore the feelings this provoked in him. He rested his chin on his folded arms for a moment and wished his partner were here. “Then we’re dealing with Witches who don’t want to be discovered as Witches—and if they’re hiding from the legitimate practitioners in Pocahontas County, then—” He glanced over at Cam, who had suddenly sat up very straight. “What is it?”

“The piano. I sensed magic, I’ll swear I did.”

“In a piano?”

Jamey Stirling, Nick observed, hadn’t quite gotten the hang of this yet. “All manner of things can take and hold a spell. There are formulae that determine the strength of a particular working of magic, how long it will last, even who can be affected and who gets a free pass, as it were. Just as Cam works with fibers, some people specialize in wood, gem-stones, herbs, fire, water, weather—”

“The piano tuner,” Holly interrupted. “Sorry, Uncle Nicky—but there was a little Polish guy who was making the rounds just before Westmoreland opened—he’d been brought in special to deliver and tune the pianos here, and Weiss was courting the county, so he sent him around to tune everybody’s pianos. We had him look at the upright in the parlor—”

Lulah was shaking her head. “I would have known. I never sensed any magic about that piano.”

“You’re not Cam, either. You don’t know pianos inside and out. Music is part of his magic. And the upright,” Holly concluded, “hasn’t gone a hemidemisemiquaver out of tune since. Not in the heat or the cold or the damp or the dry.”

Lulah’s gaze flickered from niece to nephew. “All right. I’m convinced. But mainly because I still feel blind.”

Nobody said anything for a minute or so. Nicky used the time to reach for his partner, miles away at Woodhush. Their connection was as real, as unique, as inexplicable as the one between Holly and Evan—which had nothing to do with magic at all—and the one he sensed was forming or perhaps strengthening between Cam and Jamey. The linkage was comfort and warmth, safety,
home
—and not there.

Even knowing why, he was shaken.

“Let’s get this done tonight,” Evan was saying. “I don’t feel like leaving and then making up an excuse for getting all of us back in here. Besides that, Weiss keeps looking at me kind of funny. I don’t like him. The chances that he doesn’t know about the magic in this place are slim to none—and it seems to me that ‘slim’ just left the building.”

Pushing aside the feeling of emptiness, Nick said simply, “I agree.”

“There’s a pretty large staff to get past,” Holly mused. “The spa people, chambermaids, waiters, kitchen crew, security—but a lot of them will be occupied with cleaning up downstairs, won’t they?”

“People are
still
slipping and sliding around in that mud rodeo they’ve got going out in the parking lot,” Lulah added.

“So by the time it all gets sorted out, it’ll be pretty late and they’ll all be tired.” Evan checked his watch. “It’s almost eleven. I’m hoping that except for a few regular guards or whatever, they’ll all just go to bed. But it’s the ‘whatever’ that bothers me.”

Cam shook his head. “Nothing set off any alarms when I was checking out the staircase behind the walls.”

“No alarms that we know of.”

Holly bumped Evan with her elbow. “Just the perfect ray of sunshine, aren’t you?”

Jamey held up a palm. “Um . . . I don’t mean to spoil the fun, but has anyone given at least a passing thought to the Fourth Amendment?”

Evan nudged Holly in return. “Pesky thing, the Bill of Rights. We really ought to get a warrant.”

“Picky, picky.”

“Grounds?” Cam prodded.

“I don’t need any,” Nick informed them.

“I thought you and Alec were retired,” Holly said. “Besides,
your
mandate doesn’t cover officers of the court.”

Jamey was trying very hard not to look confused, and succeeded only in looking rather forlorn. Nick opened his mouth to explain. Evan beat him to it.

“They have rules, and a tendency to police themselves. Think of Nicky as an officer of a somewhat esoteric court. Another long story I’ll save for later. Okay?”

“Okay,” Jamey agreed warily.

“I don’t know what you’re worried about,” Holly said. “We’re all reasonably bright. I’m sure we’ll think of something.”

“If all else fails,” Evan conceded, “I can always say I caught Nicky breaking and entering.”

“Were I ever to do anything so crass,” he replied with a sniff, “you would
never
catch me at it. Holly’s right. Worry about it later. Now, what about other guests? Did anybody check the register at the front desk? Do we even know how many people are in residence tonight?”

“I can fix it so they won’t hear anything,” Cam volunteered. “All the wallpaper is silk. No expense spared.”

Lulah nodded her satisfaction. “A silence spell and some coercion on the locks will keep them all safe enough. How many rooms?”

“Six on each floor,” Evan said. “Varying sizes. Eighteen total.”

“It’ll take a while.” Cam’s frown cleared swiftly. “But I can explore walls for hidden entrances while I’m at it.”

“Okay,” Evan announced, “here’s how it’ll work. Cam, Nicky, we’ll start from wherever we can get in, and head up. Lulah—”

“And Holly,” Holly stated flatly.

“—and Holly,” he acknowledged with an exasperated glance at his wife, “you head down. Jamey guards the entrance.”

“From outside or inside?” Lulah asked.

“How would he warn us if he’s outside? It’s got to be within the staircase.”

Cam scowled. Nick watched Holly try and fail to hide a smile.

“Not a word,” Jamey warned. “I’m useless, but I won’t be left out any more than Holly.”

“We’re real pains in the ass, aren’t we?” She grinned at him.

“A lifelong aspiration. It’s gratifying to know I’m fulfilling it at so critical a juncture in the proceedings—”

“Stash the
sesquipedalia verba
,” Cam admonished.

Jamey leaned around Lulah and glared at him. “ ‘
Quid de utilitate loquar stercorandi?
’ ”

“Oh, shut up.”

Nick waited what seemed a decent interval before asking, “Where’s Herr Weiss likely to be after the ballroom empties out? Where’s his office, his quarters?”

“Map,” Cam said, “top desk drawer.”

Turning, he rummaged and came up with a full-color brochure. As he fished for his glasses in his jacket pocket, he remarked, “I suppose you’ve noticed that they don’t spell ‘Westmorland’ correctly.”

“No!” Cam exclaimed with a sudden grin. “You’re kidding!”

Nick eyed him dourly over the rims of his glasses, but forbore comment. “Hmm. I think we may assume that the staff dorm won’t be of much interest. The main house is rather large, isn’t it?” He studied the layout. Ground floor: restaurant and kitchen, ballroom, library, six smaller guest rooms. Second and third floors: six suites each, identical layouts. In the huge cellar was the spa, with the usual facilities for massage, workouts, sauna, steam; locker rooms, whirlpool, lap pool, and Olympic-sized pool. Also, interestingly enough, cold and hot plunges, like a Roman bath. He spared a moment’s nostalgia for the Russian
bania
his stepfather Sergei Maximovich Orlov had built long ago in Hungary, then returned to the diagram. Outside the main house were two more buildings, one labeled CONFERENCE ROOMS AND OFFICES and the other one STAFF. He glanced at Cam. “Do we dare take the time to sneak over and put lock and silence spells on the outbuildings?”

“Cars,” Holly said suddenly.

Evan nodded his understanding before Nicky had entirely comprehended the import of the word. “Lulah’s the only one who can legitimately stick around. Eventually the place will clear out, and somebody will notice all our vehicles. Can we move them, hide them, without being seen?”

“It’s a muddy mess out there,” Lulah said. “Nobody will count heads. Stash Jamey’s motorcycle in the back of my pickup.”

Holly nodded. “Better than my Beemer.”

Evan eyed his wife sidelong. “How come you have to think of this stuff when we’ve got other things to do?”

Succinctly: “I plot.”

Nick repressed a smile and scrubbed his fingers back through his hair again. “All right, somebody go take care of the cars. Jamey, find a back door and let them in—”

“Not in those white shirts,” Lulah pointed out. “And Holly honey, you ain’t goin’ noplace in those ridiculous shoes.”

“I
like
those shoes,” Evan said in wistful tones.

“So do I,” Jamey seconded. “But she’ll break an ankle for sure. And the skirt isn’t all that practical, either. What’s in your suitcase, Cam?”

Nick expected Holly to whine at least a little. Instead, she smiled and said, “I will consent to looking like a refugee from a trailer park yard sale only if somebody translates Jamey’s Latin for me.”

“It’s one you ought to learn,” Cam replied with equal sweetness. “Cicero might have had you in mind.” Striking a pose, he declaimed, “ ‘What shall I say about the usefulness of spreading manure?’ ”