Mind Games (10 page)

Then Pastor Roberts stood to talk to the congregation. He gave everyone a minute to be seated, then he began, his voice booming in the classic cadence of a fire and brimstone pastor. “There are dark things happening in this town,” he began.

There was a general murmur of agreement.

“Dark things going on because we have allowed the practice of witchcraft to go on unchecked and undiscouraged. These people have made a pact with the devil, selling their very souls in exchange for fleeting mortal power!”

I tried not to look bothered, but I could feel my face heating up. Out of the corner of my eye, I once again spotted Angie staring at me.

“Just the other day the police were in here asking me about one of these men who made a pact with the devil. One who was brutally murdered and even now burns in the fiery depths of hell. The police were here, making threats and accusations of decent, God-fearing people, because they, too, are in the pockets of these devil worshipers. This is a blight upon our fair town and it is spreading.”

There was a collective gasp. I found myself caught between a cringe and an eye-roll. Really, he could be all talk, but what did he think these other people were going to do? What did he think he was suggesting they do?

“Do you know where your children are?” Roberts asked, suddenly. “Do you? Do you know where they are all day? These witches are sending their children to school with yours, infecting their minds with their evil ways. Just this evening, my beautiful little Amanda told me about one of her classmates who claims to speak to the dead!”

I did cringe, then. I wondered if his beautiful little Amanda was one of the girls bullying my fragile little sister, Elena.

“This little girl tried to tell Amanda it was normal and right and even that she couldn’t help it. These are the ideas our children are being exposed to in school and we must protect them!”

Looking around, I saw that the entire congregation was captivated. I might even say spellbound. It took me a moment to piece it together, probably because the direct attack against my little sister kept his tactics from affecting me, but it finally occurred to me that the dear pastor had more than a touch of charisma. He might not win out in a head to head confrontation with my little brother, Adam, but the hypocrisy of it wasn’t lost on me.

I couldn’t listen anymore. If I stayed put it was only a matter of time before I did something to give myself away. Taking a deep breath, I hobbled out of the back of the auditorium on my crutches, heading for the women’s restrooms. I needed to pull it together if I wanted to find out which of these people might just be crazy enough to act on the hate-filled words of Pastor Roberts, so I splashed cold water onto my face and shook my head savagely. “Get a grip.”

The restroom door opened with a loud creak. Angie stood there, her back against the door, her arms folded across her chest. “Cassie.”

“Crap,” I said.

“Who are you trying to fool?” Angie asked.

“Obviously, not you.”

“I wasn’t sure until you bolted. That was kind of a giveaway.”

I sighed. “I couldn’t help it. Did anyone else notice?”

“Probably not. They were too busy watching the pastor.” She paused. “You don’t belong here. Go home.”

“No one belongs here,” I retorted. “How can you stand to listen to him? He’s so full of hate. Is he trying to start a war or something?”

She looked away. “He wants us to vote Sheriff Adams out of office this November, replace him with someone who’ll fire every deputy in the place and put in new people.”

“Yeah, well, not only is Sheriff Adams the best man for the job, but he has a lot of popular support.”

“Popular support or powerful support?” Angie asked, though I suspect we both knew it came down to the same thing.

“You don’t believe in magic. Or was that just your way of rationalizing your friendship with me? I guess it’s not important anymore.”

Angie didn’t move for a long time. “You killed my boyfriend.”

My head jerked up and I stared at her, startled. “What?”

“I don’t have any proof, but I’m sure you did.”

“That’s ridiculous.” It wasn’t at all ridiculous. I had killed her boyfriend, but since he’d tried to eat both of us I couldn’t feel sorry about it. The trouble was, she shouldn’t have remembered. The Blairs had shrouded the entire incident, although I had always suspected a weak spot where Angie was concerned. “Is that why you haven’t spoken to me for almost three months?”

“I got active at church again… redesigned the fliers. Do you like them?”

“Do I like fliers suggesting that my parents and all my brothers and sisters should die? Gee… let me think about that.”

“Don’t get angry with me!” Angie’s voice became shrill and she took a few steps forward. “My parents warned me about you. My friends told me to stay away from you, but I decided you were worth trying to save. I was your friend and you… you…”

“Killed your boyfriend?” I made it sound ridiculous, even though it wasn’t.

“Yes.” She spit the word.

“You didn’t decide to be my friend to try to save me, not that I needed it. You were my friend because you felt like rebelling and it was the best way you could imagine to tick your parents off.”

Her thin, bony cheeks turned scarlet. “I could go in there and tell everyone who you are.”

“What would they do then? Burn me at the stake?”

Her nostrils flared.

“Seriously, Angie, just answer me one thing. Do you or do you not believe in magic?”

For a moment, she just stared at me, then she shook her head. “I believe in demons and I believe in God. One day there’s going to be a war and I believe you are playing for the wrong team.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised. I’d always known that our friendship had been tenuous at best and that despite Angie’s deep-seated hatred of the way she had been raised, she clung to the foundation that had been built so long ago. But I was surprised. I was surprised that she could know me and still hate me so thoroughly.

“Right now, I’m playing for the sheriff’s department. I’m undercover, so I hope you’ll stay away and let me do my job.”

“That’s ironic. You… protecting and serving the law.”

“I protect and serve the people, Angie. I even saved your life once.”

Something flickered in her eyes, but she shook her head and it disappeared. “You know what? I don’t think you belong here, cop or no cop.”

She was going to blow my cover. After everything I’d done for her, she still refused to see reason. I’d saved her life by killing her vampiric boyfriend…

I’d saved her life.

“Stop, Angie.”

She stopped and turned back to scowl at me. “What?”

“Don’t tell anyone I’m here.”

She glared at me, balled her hands into fists, but when she spoke it was with a single word. “Fine.” Then she fled from the restroom.

I was about to follow her back to the auditorium to sit through the rest of the torture session when I heard – and felt – a tremendous explosion coming from someplace nearby.

Racing from the bathroom as fast as I could on crutches, I nearly ran into dozens of people pouring out of the auditorium and heading for the front doors of the church. When I finally squeezed through the crush, I saw the source of the disturbance. A house, a few yards from the church, was engulfed in flames. Something must have exploded, because soot and debris fluttered from the sky.

From whispers passing through the crowd, I gathered that the house had belonged to Pastor Roberts. Then, from somewhere near the back of the crowd, I heard the pastor himself cry out, “My wife! Oh God, my wife stayed home sick tonight! She was in that house.”

S
OMEONE CALLED THE FIRE DEPARTMENT, BUT
if there had been someone alive inside that house a minute ago, I didn’t see how she could be alive now. If Nicolas were with the department there might be a chance in hell, but the chief had wanted Nicolas out and now my brother was apprenticing with Clark Eagle.

Digging my cell phone out of my purse, I told it to call Nicolas.

“Hello?”

“Where are you?” I asked without preamble.

“Wal-Mart,” Nicolas said. “What’s up?”

Wal-Mart wasn’t five minutes away from the church. “There’s a house on fire near the Gateway Christian Church. Someone was in there.”

“Give me two minutes.” He hung up.

Nearly everyone had filed out of the church by that point, including the children and teens who had been in the basement. There were a few screams and shouts, and I thought I heard one girl cry out, “Mommy!” But for the most part, people just stood in shocked silence.

I didn’t. I got moving. First, I dashed to my car and grabbed my spare deputy’s uniform from the backseat. I tossed away the glasses, the crutches, and removed the ace bandages. After that, I scrambled into the uniform and pinned my name tag to my chest. My fingers fumbled to undo the French braid and I did a quick finger comb, letting the honey-blonde hair fall in thick waves around my shoulders. There was nothing I could do about the color, but in the heat of chaos it probably wouldn’t be enough for anyone to connect me with the gimp newcomer to the church.

The whole process couldn’t have taken two minutes, but by the time I headed back toward the crowd, I could already hear the scream of approaching sirens. Not a minute later, both of the town’s fire trucks came to an abrupt halt in front of the flaming house. Men began scrambling for their hoses while three police cars, including the sheriff’s, raced onto the scene.

Nicolas’s car peeled in two seconds behind the sheriff’s, but he didn’t stop away from the fire as they did. He parked his car right behind the fire trucks, jumped out, and headed for the front door of the burning home.

“You!” The fire chief’s bellow could barely be heard over the roar of the fire, but his madly pointing finger and body language told me everything. He was not happy to see Nicolas.

My brother, already running into the heart of the fire, ignored him. Nicolas probably hadn’t even heard the fire chief, given his intensity of concentration and purpose. With the possible exception of my father, no one knew fire like Nicolas did. But walking straight into an inferno comes with consequences, even for someone with serious magical protection.

A heightened buzz of voices swept through the crowd, but I ignored them. I rushed toward Sheriff Adams, whose gaze kept darting from the engulfed home to the gray-haired fire chief shaking his fists at it.

“Sheriff,” I called.

He shot a startled glance my way. “Was that your brother running into the house?”

“Yes.”

He shut his eyes for a moment. “Somehow, I don’t think that’s going to make anything better.”

Before I had a chance to ask what he meant, Nicolas shot out of the house, carrying something engulfed in flames. At first my mind didn’t want to believe that the thing could be human. But when Nicolas set her down at the feet of the fire chief, there could be no doubt.

Nicolas fell to his knees by the burning figure. Somehow he managed to find enough strength to extend his arms. He closed his eyes and the next instant, the flames were gone.

Nicolas tried to stand, stumbled a few feet away, and collapsed. His face was set in a paroxysm of agony.

“I gotta go,” I told the sheriff before I ran to my brother’s side. Or at least, I tried to. He emanated so much heat that I couldn’t get within a few feet of him.

“I’ll be okay,” he said, breathing hard. “Do you think… chief was watching?”

The chief was still glaring at Nicolas, even as paramedics dealt with the charred body of a woman. I couldn’t tell if she was alive or not, but I have to admit that I hoped not.

“You sure showed him,” I said.

Nicolas tried to smile.

“We need to get you home, but I can’t get close to you.”

“Just give it a few minutes,” Nicolas said, panting. He glanced sideways. “Is she alive?”

I didn’t want to look, but I did. Two paramedics were loading her into the back of an ambulance. If they were taking her to a hospital rather than a morgue, it had to mean that she remained alive. For the moment. “Yeah.”

Nicolas sighed. “How bad?”

“I don’t think she’ll live.” I didn’t even think she would live with the help of magic. Since Nicolas was in no position to provide further assistance it was just as well that I didn’t feel tempted to ask.

“Witch! Devil worshiper!”

I whirled to see Pastor Roberts running full-tilt toward us, something like murderous intent in his eyes.

“Stop!” I yelled.

Too late.

The force of his own momentum hurled Pastor Roberts forward, through the circle of warning heat. He didn’t even seem to notice Nicolas’s scalding aura as he grabbed my brother with both hands. An instant later, a scream tore from the pastor’s throat and he reeled back, his hands red and blistering.

“What have you done to me?” Pastor Roberts asked. He fell to the ground in agony. “What have you done to my wife?”

“What’s going on here?” the fire chief asked.