Five: Out of the Pit (Five #2) (21 page)

ome on you guys.” Halli poked her head back around the wall she’d just disappeared behind.

I sighed as Johnathan’s lips left mine. I missed their warmth and softness already. “We’d better go see what’s going on.”

“Yeah, I guess.” He hugged me tight one more time before releasing his embrace. He held my hand as we walked down the hallway and into the den of the lion.

The room was surprisingly plain for what I expected. Then I remembered Mariah saying that Trey never took girls to his house. He’d conducted his hanky panky in their homes or in hotels.

“So, what did you find?” Johnathan asked.

“Johnny, come check this out.” Alec looked out of a doorway on the other side of the room.

We walked over there. Joe and the other three were in what had to be the largest walk-in closet in the world. There were no clothes, only shelves from floor to ceiling. On the shelves were boxes—each one with a woman’s name, first name only, and a date. Some had a series of dates.

I pulled a box from one of the shelves nearest me and opened it. Inside was a movie ticket stub for ‘Top Gun’ and a small lock of brunette hair. The name inscribed on the box was Colette and the date read May 17
^th
, 1986.

“What is this stuff?” I asked, returning the box to its shelf.

“Keepsakes. From his favorites.” Joe’s disgust was apparent in his voice.

“Look at this one.” Halli held out a box that said ‘Lilly—November 10
^th
, 1601’. “It’s so old.” She opened the lid and pulled out a gemstone broach and a lock of red hair.

“He had a thing for hair, apparently,” Seth said.

Some of the boxes had a range of dates and that caused a thought to come to me. “Hey, Alec. What’s your birthday?”

“August eighth, why?”

I didn’t answer him as I did the math in my head. I moved to the section of boxes dated in November of the year before he was born—the month his mom would likely have become pregnant. As I searched for the right range of dates, Seth said, “Here’s your box, Paige.”

I froze. What could he possibly have of mine? “What’s in it?”

“Some of your hair is all,” Seth answered.

“Hmm. I guess I didn’t have anything worth stealing.” One of the boxes caught my attention. Dated October 7
^th
-December 10
^th
, 1995, the name on the box was Natalie. I pulled it out and hesitated for a moment before opening it. Johnathan looked at me questioningly. I glanced at Alec then back at Johnathan then at the box. Understanding dawned on his face.

“Open it,” Johnathan whispered.

I lifted the lid. Inside were several items. The usual lock of hair was there, the same dirty blonde as Alec’s. Also inside were a couple of restaurant receipts, a simple gold chain, a small diamond stud earring and a picture. The woman in the picture had hazel-brown eyes and medium length, dirty blonde hair. She had a beautiful smile that made her eyes sparkle and showed off the dimples in her cheeks.

“What’s that?” Alec asked, moving to where Johnathan and I stood.

I handed him the box. “I think it might be your mom.”

Everyone gathered around as Alec took the items out and inspected them one by one. “Why do you think it’s my mom?”

“The dates. You would have been conceived in November, assuming you were born at full term. And, the picture. You look like her.”

Alec pulled the picture from the box and studied it. “She’s beautiful.”

He replaced the picture and took the gold chain out. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a small heart locket. When he held it next to the chain, it was obvious they were made out of the same material. The colors matched perfectly. He opened the locket. “It’s her.”

He handed it to me. There was a cracked and faded picture of just her face, but it was definitely the same woman. “Where did this come from? I’ve never seen it before.”

Alec shrugged. “I’ve always had it. I guess my mom left it at the hospital before she ran off. The nurses gave it to the Social Services people. One of them, her name was Cheri, saved it for me until I was eight. She figured I was old enough then to keep track of it myself. I’ve kept it with me ever since.”

Seth laid his hand on Alec’s shoulder. “I guess he really is your dad, then. Merlin.”

Alec elbowed him in the gut. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Alec looked at Joe. “Do you think she could still be alive?”

Joe considered before answering. “It’s a possibility. She was alive when she fled from the hospital. If the pregnancy and birth didn’t kill her, she could still be alive.”

Alec looked down at the picture in the box and whispered, “How can we find her?” He sat on the floor of the closet, staring at the box in his lap.

Joe sat beside him. “With her hair. We can trace her with her hair.”

Alec whipped his head up to look at Joe. “Are you serious? We can do that?”

Joe nodded. “But, you have to be prepared. You might not like what we find, Alec.”

“I just want to know what happened to her. If she’s still alive. If she even remembers having me.” His voice got quiet.

“She may well be alive. She just might not be… all there. Mentally. The Incubus, the pregnancy, would have affected her mentally, Alec. I just want you to be prepared for that very likely possibility. If she’s even still alive.”

“Anything we find out will be better than not knowing.”

With a single nod of his head, Joe stood. “Okay, everyone to the kitchen. I’m going to teach you how to perform a tracking spell.”

Alec remained on the floor, looking at the items in the box, as the rest of us shuffled out of the ginormous closet. I’d always suspected his nonchalance about his mom, and why she’d abandoned him the day he was born, was nothing but an act.

Johnathan grabbed a hold of my hand and started to walk out of the room with the others. I stopped him. “Wait just a minute, ‘kay?”

“Okay.” He squeezed my hand before letting go. Having physical contact with Johnathan again felt like having a severed limb returned. I yearned for some alone time with him. I frowned; it didn’t look like that would happen anytime soon.

I went back into the closet and sat next to Alec on the floor. He looked over at me and then away, as he wiped his eyes. In a hoarse voice he said, “It’s dusty in here… bad for my allergies.”

I smiled. “Allergies, huh? I’ve never known you to have allergies before.”

“Yeah, well, I do.”

“Okay, whatever you say, tough guy. You wanna talk a little before we go to the kitchen with the others?”

He shrugged and looked at me from the corner of his eye. “I just never let myself believe she was alive. Or that I’d ever be able to find her.”

I laid my hand on his arm. “And now that it’s a possibility?”

He dropped the chain back into the box. “I don’t know. It seems crazy. Why am I so anxious to see the woman who abandoned me? She obviously didn’t want me. What makes me think she’ll want to see me now?”

“Alec, I really don’t believe she didn’t want you. I think Joe must be right, her exposure to the Incubus made her… not right. She didn’t understand what she was doing. Maybe, if she’s alive and we’re able to find her, it’ll bring you both some happiness. And no matter what the outcome, at least it’ll give you some answers.”

He looked at me and wiped away another allergy-induced tear. “What if the answers I get aren’t the ones I want?”

“Then you deal with it. And, we help you. I promise to help
you
better than you helped me with Johnathan.” I slugged his arm.

He smiled and ducked his head. “Yeah, I kinda messed that one up a little, huh?”

“You did. But, we worked it out just like you will, no matter what we find out about your mom.”

Alec sighed and put the lid on the box in his hands. “Let’s go learn how to make a tracking spell.” He stood and helped me up. Johnathan waited just outside the open closet and the three of us walked to the kitchen together.

Joe stood on the kitchen side of the large island and the five of us sat on the stools on the other side, facing him. He’d gathered together a rather odd collection of items: a toothpick, a stick pin, a Styrofoam cup, and an eye dropper. He had water boiling in a small pan on the stove.

In his best teacher voice he said, “If I had a simple compass, I wouldn’t need most of this stuff, but, since I don’t—”

“I have a compass,” Seth interrupted.

“That would have been nice to know before I went on a treasure hunt for this stuff. Can I borrow it? It should work just fine after the spell wears off.”

“Sure.” Seth unzipped a pouch on his gear belt and dug around for a few seconds before presenting Joe with a small Boy Scout compass.

“Great. This will be much better,” Joe said, smiling. “There are several different ways to track someone. The way I’m going to show you is simple and involves no Dark Magic. The other ways involve Dark Magic and I won’t be showing you those.

“Alec, hand me a strand of your mom’s hair, please.”

Alec carefully separated a single strand of hair from the others and handed it to Joe. Joe placed the hair in the small amount of boiling water. “Now, Alec, I need you to come say some words of magic and seal it with your magical will while the water boils down to just a drop or two.”

Alec slid off his stool and walked around the island to stand next to Joe by the stove.

Joe put his hand on Alec’s shoulder. “The words are,
invinio-constitui-aucupo
—to find, to locate, to seek. Repeat them three times, infusing your will into the water.”

Alec took a deep breath and closed his eyes in concentration. “
Invinio, constitui, aucupo. Invinio, constitui, aucupo. Invinio, constitui, aucupo.”

As the last word left his mouth, a small cloud of green smoke puffed up out of the pan.

“Perfect!” Joe removed the pan from the stove and turned the burner off. He picked up the eye dropper. “I cleaned this out thoroughly and let it dry. You have to be sure you, or anyone else, don’t touch the part of the dropper that is going to retrieve the potion. Otherwise it’ll be contaminated and you could end up following the trail of the last person to touch the dropper instead of the person you intended to follow.”

Joe handed the dropper to Alec and said, “Suck the remaining water up into the dropper and drop it onto the needle of the compass.” Joe opened the glass top of the compass as Alec got the water.

Alec’s hand shook so badly I was sure he would drip the water onto the counter instead of onto the compass needle. He closed his eyes and took another deep breath. It helped a little; the shakiness improved. Two drops of potion splashed onto the needle. He released the dropper and let it fall to the counter.

“Okay. This compass should work to find her for about twenty-four hours. If it takes us longer than that, we’ll have to redo the spell. You can reuse the same hair over and over. That’s why hair is the preferred object to use in a tracking spell. You can use blood or other bodily fluids, but you can only use them once.”

I thought about
Shalbriri
and the fact that he had some of my hair. I shivered and Johnathan put an arm around me.

“That was pretty easy.” Halli tilted her head. “I have a question, though. How are we going to find Alec’s mom without transportation? She could be anywhere and we’re on foot.”

Joe’s smile faded to a frown. “Hmm. Yeah. I guess we should’ve thought of that before invoking the spell. Any ideas?”

“I can ask Mariah if she’ll drive us. She told me her uncle has a really old truck with a camper on it. I bet if we all ride in the camper, the engine won’t be affected.” Alec stopped to look at me. “Unless someone pisses Paige off and gets her mojo-magic all riled up that is.”

I stuck my tongue out at him.

Joe furrowed his brows. “The old truck is a good idea, older vehicles don’t have as much technology for your magic to screw up. What are you going to tell Mariah, though?”

Alec shrugged. “The truth. She already knows we’re magical… she saw Paige disappear right in front of her, remember? Plus, I might have, kind of, shown her a trick or two before that. Magic is a great way to impress the ladies.” He grinned.

Joe shook his head. He’d never told us we couldn’t tell anyone, we’d just thought it safest to keep our talents to ourselves as much as possible. I wasn’t at all surprised Alec had used his abilities to pick up a girl.