Soulbound: A Lone Star Witch Novel (25 page)

“Mom, do you know anything about binding spells?”

There’s a long silence on the other end of the phone. “Xandra, are you practicing your magic?”

I think of the fire I started and don’t know quite what to say to that. “Yeah, I am. A little, anyway.”

“That’s wonderful, sweetheart. But don’t mess with binding rituals. They’re so dangerous and they backfire so easily. Not to mention that any of the really effective ones are also very dark.”

“So you don’t do them?” I want to clarify this, to be certain.

“Absolutely not. Not for well over a hundred and fifty years.” She pauses, and when she continues she sounds sober and more than a little reticent. “When I was young I had a group of friends who were into the dark arts and I dabbled with some spells then that I wish I hadn’t. They demanded a lot—more than I had to give. It was a very bad idea.

“But if you want some simple spells to practice, I can e-mail you some. They’ll help train your magic, make you more open to accepting the energy of the goddess deep inside you.”

That’s the last thing I want, but now that I’ve gone down this road with her, I’m not sure I have a choice. “Okay, Mom. E-mail me two or three, but don’t expect miracles.”

“Of course not! I know these things are slow going. Are you wearing the boots I sent with Salima?”

I glance at the dresser where the boots are resting drunkenly, having been knocked over in all the commotion from earlier. Not in a million years am I putting those things on my feet. Been there, done that, and it really didn’t work out that well for me.

But sometimes saying less is better with my mother. “I’m not now, no.”

“I know you have an irrational phobia of cowboy boots—”

“It’s not a phobia, Mom. It’s not like I run away at the sight of them.”

“Okay, not a phobia. A little fear, then.”

“Dislike, Mother. The word you’re looking for is dislike. I don’t like boots.”

“Fear, dislike, whatever. What I’m trying to say is that they’ll help you. My magic is much stronger when I’m wearing a pair of Luccheses.”

“Okay, Mom. I’ll remember that. I need to go now.”

“Already? We’ve barely talked—”

“I know, but I’ve got a lot still to do tonight. Work, you know?” I refuse to feel bad about fibbing. I recognize the signs—if I don’t get off now, I’ll be stuck here for hours.

She sniffs a little, her normal reaction to the mention of my work. “I’ll send you those spells, Xandra. You’ll probably remember them from when you were younger, but they’re really good starter spells. Oh, sweetie, I’m so pleased you’re doing this.”

I can’t help feeling a little guilty at the excitement in her voice, at least until she continues, “Salima deserves every penny I’m paying her! I can’t wait to tell her about your progress—she’ll be as happy as I am. And I’m sure she’ll be calling you with some suggestions as well.”

“Fantastic. I can’t wait.”

Either my mom doesn’t notice or she chooses to ignore the singular lack of enthusiasm in my voice. “I have a good feeling about this, Xandra. I’ll come up next weekend and we’ll have a girls’ day. Get facials, work on potions. It’ll be so much fun.”

I want to argue, but it won’t do any good. Once my mother has her mind set on something it doesn’t change easily. Besides, nearly burning to death tonight made me realize something. “I love you, Mom.”

There’s a startled little silence and then she says, “Oh, Xandra, I love you, too.”

I hang up before things go from mushy to maudlin. I debate for a few seconds, but my questions are nowhere near answered and I need someone who will give it to
me straight. My mom would freak out, Declan dances around the subject, and spells are not Lily’s area of expertise. Which means I need to call Donovan. My brother never lies to me.

He picks up on the third ring. “Hey, Sis. What’s up in the big city?”

I laugh, like he intends me to. “I have a couple questions if you’ve got time to answer them.”

“Sure, why not? The Spurs are losing anyway.” I hear him turn a TV down, then a sleepy feminine voice murmuring in the background.

“I didn’t realize you had company,” I tell him. “I can call back later.”

“Lisa’s not company,” he says, mentioning his fiancée. “Besides, she’s dozing on the couch. Now what can I do for you?”

“What do you know about binding spells?”

Again, there’s that long silence. Coming from him, it makes me even more uncomfortable. “What the hell are you involved in, Xandra?”

I start to tell him that I’m just curious, that I’m exploring Heka and ran across some binding rituals, but this is Donovan. If I trust no one else in the world, I trust him. “I don’t know,” I finally say.

I hear a door shut firmly on his side of the phone and then he says, “Tell me everything.”

So I do. I start with Declan’s reappearance in my life and the body in Town Lake and end with what happened tonight. By the time I’m done, Donovan is cursing viciously. “I’ll be there in three hours.”

“You don’t need to come, Donovan. I told you, I’m fine.”

“Shut up, Xandra. And do me a favor. Check your body out and see if anything’s different.”

I look down at my bandaged wrists and ankles. “Different how?”

“Do you have any new tattoos? Has your mark changed colors? Anything like that.”

I think immediately of the two Sebas on my back. But I don’t know what else has joined them since the last time I looked. “It’s going to take me a couple minutes to check,” I say, climbing to my feet. “Do you want me to call you back?”

“No. I’ll hold. I need to get dressed anyway.”

“You’re not coming.”

He ignores me and I can hear him murmuring to Lisa, though I can’t make out the words. I know her voice sounds a lot more alarmed than it did earlier.

“What if there is something?” I ask Donovan. “What does it mean?”

“Did you find something?” he asks sharply.

“I haven’t even looked yet.”

“Damn it, Xandra!”

“Tell me what it means first.”

“That depends what you find. Hopefully, there will be nothing.”

I get up, walk carefully into the bathroom. My heart is beating too fast and my hands are shaking. Donovan is making me nervous with his doom-and-gloom voice and determination to be in Austin tonight. He’s my older brother and I know he considers it his job to look after me, but sometimes all I need is information. If he’d just tell me what’s going on, I could stop imagining the worst.

I shed my top, then look in the mirror. After wincing at the sight of the bruises—somehow they look worse today than yesterday—I focus on searching the skin beneath them. There’s nothing new on my chest, stomach or neck, and my mark—the one I got on the day I was born—looks the same as it always does. But I wasn’t really worried about the front of my body, anyway.

I take a deep breath, and turn so that my back faces the mirror and I’m craning my neck to look behind me.
On my shoulders, the two silver Sebas are still there. I breathe a sigh of relief when I realize nothing else has joined them across my shoulders.

Though they belong to Declan—or maybe because of it—I know instinctively that they aren’t malicious. That they aren’t what Donovan is concerned about. It could be wishful thinking, but I doubt it. I can still see the panic in Declan’s eyes when he crashed through my front door. I can’t believe—won’t believe—that he’s the one who put me in that position.

I tell Donovan that I haven’t found anything and he breathes a sigh of relief. “You’ve checked your whole body?” he demands. “There’s nothing anywhere?”

“I checked my upper body—” I start, but he cuts me off.

“This isn’t like getting a mark from the goddess, Xandra. Dark magic can scar you anywhere.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” I tell him. “I’m fine.” But I unbutton my jeans anyway, just so I can tell him I’ve checked. I pull them off, and right there on my inner thigh is a circlet of Isis—only instead of being gold, like mine, it’s black and looks like it’s been branded into my skin.

It looks, I realize with a detached kind of horror, exactly like the markings we found on Amy and Lina.

D
onovan makes it to Austin in a little more than two hours. Since it’s usually a three and a half hour drive, I decide not to ask him how fast he was going. Not that he gives me much of a chance to ask him anything—he hits the door shouting questions so fast that I feel like I’m dodging a firing squad. All I need is a blindfold and a cigarette to make the scenario complete.

After answering every other question or so for what feels like forever but is probably more like thirty minutes, I hold up my hands in the universal time-out symbol. “Whoa, Donovan, I’m not sure you’ve breathed since you walked in the door. Let me make you a cup of tea and then we’ll keep talking.” What I’m really saying is that I need a break, but he doesn’t appear to be listening.

“I don’t want a damn cup of tea.” He bites the words out like bullets and as I look at him I’m reminded what a formidable wizard he is in his own right. Sure, being the heir to the Ipswitch throne gives him a little extra oomph, but even without it, he’s packing a lot of power. Power that he has very much on display as he prowls down the hallway to my bedroom. I follow him, noting as I do that he’s wearing his ass-kicking boots. Usually he runs around in a pair of plain well-worn brown boots that he’s had for years and just gets resoled when they need it.

But this pair, black and fancy and more formal than
any other pair he owns, tells me he means business. Because these are his ceremonial boots, the ones he wears on the Solstice and other big holidays when he has to channel a lot of power to a lot of people. If possible, my tension ratchets up a notch.

“Jesus,” he says when he sees my room. “Were you trying to kill yourself?”

“I was, yes. How did you know?”

He ignores me. “Take your pants off.”

“Excuse me?”

“I want to see the mark.”

I walk over to my dresser, pull out a pair of short pajama bottoms that I usually wear in summer. “I already told you, it’s not a mark. It’s more like a brand. Which is better, right? Because it means whoever does it isn’t strong enough magically to tattoo the mark.” Without thinking, I stroke my fingers across the Seba on my palm, the mark that showed up all those years ago when I was with Declan by the lake.

My brother shoots me a look of disgust. “I think you’d remember some guy coming in here and branding your thigh.”

“I don’t remember anyone coming in and casting a spell to tie me to my bed either, but that obviously happened.”

It wasn’t a prudent thing to say, as my brother growls low in his throat. He actually growls. It’s a noise I’ve never heard Donovan make before, one I know I never want to hear him make again.

I close the door and hastily change from my jeans to my pj’s. A quick glance in the mirror tells me the bruises on my legs aren’t too bad—especially after Declan healed the ones on my shins and calves. Which is a good thing—telling him I experienced what Lina went through is one thing. Him seeing physical evidence is quite another. After all, my brother isn’t exactly loaded with patience
right now. Not to mention the fact that I think he’s about one more disaster away from dragging me back to Ipswitch and handcuffing me to Mom.

With that in mind, I’m back out in under a minute and still Donovan scowls at me. The scowl only darkens when he sees the silver dollar–sized brand on my inner thigh. He squats down in front of me and places two fingers on it.

Agony, white-hot and overwhelming, shoots through me and instinctively I jerk away. The pain’s bad enough that I stumble and nearly land on my ass, probably would have except Donovan reaches out and catches me. If possible, he looks even more grim than before.

“Do you know how to get in touch with Declan Chumomisto?” he demands.

“Yes.” Dread pools in my stomach. After that kiss, I’m not ready to talk to Declan yet. Especially since, if he’d just been a little more forthcoming I could have asked him all the questions I’ve been asking Donovan and spared all of us the trauma that comes with getting him involved. “Do you want me to call him?”

“I don’t know yet. Now that I’m here, take me through everything that happened again.”

I do, and am just about at the part where I free myself when he reaches out and touches the brand again. This time I do fall down from the pain, my eyes rolling back in my head as I fight to stay conscious.

“Stop doing that!” I yell at him, punching him in the arm when I can finally breathe again. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Does it hurt when you touch it?”

“It stings a little, but nothing like when you do it.”

If possible, he looks even more grim. “Damn it, Xandra, what the hell have you gotten yourself into?”

“You tell me. You’re the one freaking out.”

He points at the brand. “That brand is a product of the blackest Heka there is.”

“Well, that’s a big surprise. I thought it was a white wizard who tortured and raped those poor women before branding them.”

“You’re not hearing me.” He holds up a hand at about eye level. “This is where regular practitioners of Heka are. Down here”—he holds his other hand at neck level—“is where your average sociopath or practitioner of dark magic is.” He moves his first hand down to waist level. “Someone who can make those kinds of brands is practicing dark magic way down here—at a level so far removed from the Heka you and I know that it’s a perversion to even refer to it by the same name.”

His words make me nervous. I can’t pretend otherwise. But even more than that, they get me curious. “Where would a warlock fall, Donovan? Someone with Declan Chumomisto’s capabilities?”

My brother’s violet eyes darken until they’re almost black. Then he holds a hand far to the left of where he’d held any of the others. “Declan Chumomisto operates on an entirely different plane from where the rest of us are,” he tells me with a grimace. “He is not someone you want to mess with.”

Me messing with him is not something I’m worried about. Him messing with me, however? Of that, I am absolutely terrified. Especially when I can still taste him.