The Calling (7 page)

For a long moment we just glared at each other. I saw Hunter struggling to keep his temper in check.

“If you stay,” he said between his teeth, “you've got to give me your word that you'll keep a low profile. No flashy magick on the street. In fact, while we're in the city, I want you to avoid any magick that isn't absolutely necessary. I don't want you drawing any attention to yourself.”

I knew he was right, much as I hated to admit it. “Okay,” I said sulkily. “I promise.”

“Thank you.” Hunter's grasp relaxed.

“Be careful,” I said.

He kissed me again. “That's my line. Be careful. I'll see you tonight.”

I hurried back to Columbus Avenue. As I neared the restaurant, I passed a father carrying his little son on his shoulders. The boy was laughing, as if it were the greatest treat in the world.

It made me wonder about Killian and his father. Was there ever a time when they were close? What would it be like to be the child of a father who was devoted to evil?

Maybe, I thought, it explained Killian's recklessness. Maybe he was running away from the darkness. That, I thought with a sigh, I could certainly understand.

Bree and the others were on their way out when I got back to Murray's.

“Perfect timing,” Bree said as she stepped out of the restaurant. “Do you want to come to the Museum of Modern Art with me and Sky?”

“I opted out,” Raven said. “I'm going to see a movie down in the Village.” I didn't know Raven well enough to be sure, but she was talking more loudly than usual, and I had a feeling it meant that things between her and Sky were still tense.

I glanced at Robbie. He looked so miserable, I was certain that he hadn't been invited on the museum trip. I tried to remember: Was Bree always this ruthless in relationships? Or was Robbie getting special treatment because he was the one she actually cared about? Either way, her behavior made me uncomfortable.

“No thanks,” I said, my voice curt. “I'm not in the mood.”

Bree shrugged. “Okay, we'll see you back at the apartment.”

I started for Broadway. Since I was unexpectedly on my own, it occurred to me that now would be a good time to see if I could find Maeve and Angus's old apartment. I thought of the promise I'd made Hunter, to refrain from anything that might draw unwelcome attention to me. But looking for my birth parents' old apartment wouldn't do that, I reasoned. I'd just have to make sure I avoided using magick during the search.

A ray of late-afternoon sun emerged from the clouds as I walked, and that bit of brightness seemed to lift the mood on the street. Two skateboarders whizzed by while a woman assured her reluctant poodle that it was a beautiful day for a walk. I suddenly realized that Robbie was trailing behind me.

“Robbie,” I said. “Where are you going?”

Robbie gave an overly casual shrug. “I thought I'd hang with you. Is that okay?”

Robbie looked so miserable and abandoned that I couldn't say no. Besides, Robbie was special. He'd been with me when I found Maeve's tools.

“I'm not going to a very scenic part of the city,” I warned. “Um—I was kind of trying to keep this quiet. You know, discreet.”

Robbie raised his eyebrows. “What, are you going to score some dope or something?”

I swatted him on the shoulder. “Idiot. Of course not. It's just…Maeve and Angus had an apartment in Hell's Kitchen before they moved upstate. I want to find it.”

“Okay,” Robbie said. “I don't know what the big secret is, but I'll keep my mouth shut.”

We walked on in silence. I was the one who finally broke it. “I think your restraint is admirable,” I told him. “If I were you, I would have decked Bree a long time ago.”

He grinned at me. “You did once, didn't you?”

I winced at the memory of a horrible argument in the hallway at school. An argument about Cal. “I slapped her across the face,” I corrected him. “Actually, it felt awful.”

“Yeah, that's what I figured.”

I tried to think of a delicate way to put my question. “Did things go—okay—between you two last night?”

Robbie took a deep breath. “That's what's so weird. It was great. I mean, as great as it could be with Raven snoring right next to us. We just cuddled. And it felt good to be together, totally warm and affectionate—and right. It was sweet, Morgan, for both of us, I swear.”

“So, what changed this morning?” I asked.

“I don't have a clue. I woke up, said good morning to Bree when I saw her in the kitchen, and she snapped my head off. I can't figure out what I did.”

I thought about it as we waited at the bus stop. I wondered how much I could tell Robbie without betraying what Bree had told me. After about ten minutes of waiting, a bus finally lumbered to a stop. We managed to snag seats together, facing the center aisle.

“Maybe you didn't do anything wrong,” I said, grateful for the blasting heat. I loosened my scarf and peeled off my gloves. “Or maybe what you did wrong last night was to be right.”

Robbie massaged his forehead. “You just lost me.”

“Okay, maybe last night things were every bit as great as you thought they were,” I said. “And maybe that's the problem. When things are good is when Bree has trouble trusting them. So that's when she has to mess them up again.”

“That makes absolutely no sense,” Robbie said.

I gave him a look. “Did I ever claim Bree was logical?”

We got off at Forty-ninth Street and began walking west. “We're looking for number seven-eight-eight,” I told Robbie.

He glanced up at the building we were passing. “We're nowhere near.”

We waited for the light on Ninth Avenue to turn. Ninth Avenue looked pretty decent, with lots of restaurants and small shops selling ethnic foods. But as we kept walking west, Forty-ninth Street became seedier and seedier. The theaters and little studio workshops were gone now. Garbage was piled by the curb. The buildings were mostly residential tenement types, with crumbling brickwork and boarded-up windows. Many were spray-painted with gang tags. We were in Hell's Kitchen.

I knew that this neighborhood had a long history of violent crime. Robbie was wide-eyed and wary. I cast my senses, hoping to pick up any trace Maeve might have left. At first all I got were flashes of the people in the neighborhood: families in crowded apartments; a few elderly people, ailing and miserably alone; a crack junkie, adrenaline rocketing through her body. Then I felt the hairs along the back of my neck rise. In the worn brickwork of an abandoned building I saw vestiges of runes and magickal symbols, nearly covered over by layers of graffiti. It didn't feel like Maeve's or Angus's work. That made sense; they had renounced their powers completely when they fled Ireland. But it was proof that witches had been here.

“This is it,” Robbie said as we came to a soot-streaked redbrick tenement with iron fire escapes running down its front. The building was narrow and only five stories high. It seemed sad and neglected, and I wondered how much worse it had gotten since Maeve and Angus had lived in it nearly twenty years ago.

I couldn't pick up any trace of my birth mother, but that didn't mean there wasn't something inside the building. If only I could get into the actual apartment where she'd lived. Three low stairs led to a front door behind a steel-mesh gate. A sign on a first-floor window read Apartments for Rent, Powell Mgmt. Co. I rang the bell marked Superintendent and waited.

No one answered the bell or my pounding on the steel gate. Robbie said, “Now what?”

I could try a spell, I thought. But I wasn't supposed to use magick unless I absolutely had to. And this didn't qualify as an emergency.

“Can I use your phone?” I asked Robbie. I called the management company on Robbie's cell phone. To my astonishment, the woman on the phone told me that apartment three was available. I was so excited, my voice shook as I made an appointment to see the place the next day. It was meant to be, I thought. Obviously.

“I hate to bring this up,” Robbie said when I hung up. “But you look like the high school kid you are. I mean, why would anyone show you an apartment?”

“I'm not sure,” I told Robbie. “But I'll find a way.”

When we got back to Ninth Avenue, Robbie took off on his own. I went back to Bree's father's place. We hadn't made any group plans for the evening, and the apartment was empty. For a while I couldn't settle down. I was too revved up—from the news about Ciaran being here in the city, from having found Maeve's old building. Was the watch still there? I wondered. If it was, would I be able to find it? I tried to scry for it, but I was too wired to concentrate. Finally I curled up with the book on scrying that I'd bought in SoHo and read for a while.

The sun had almost set when I sensed Hunter walking down the hall. I couldn't quite believe my luck. Were we really going to have a chance to be alone together in the apartment? I rushed into the bathroom and quickly brushed my teeth and my hair.

But the moment Hunter opened the door, I realized this was not going to be a romantic interlude. He walked in, took off his scarf and jacket, gave me a curt nod, then went to stare morosely out the window.

I went to stand beside him. Despite his mood, I immediately tuned in to our connection. I couldn't have defined either of them, but this was completely different from my connection with the man in the bookstore. Hunter touched everything in me. It was a delicious tease to stand near him, not physically touching, and let myself feel how his presence stroked my every nerve ending into a state of total anticipation.

He reached out and caught my hand in his. “Don't,” he said gently. “I can't be with you that way right now.”

“What happened?” I asked, feeling a twinge of alarm. “What went wrong?”

“My finding Killian. I didn't. Either he got wind of the fact that a council Seeker is looking for him or Amyranth has already snatched him because I can't find him anywhere.”

“Did you try—”

Hunter began to pace the length of the living room. “I found his flat, rang his doorbell and his phone. I went to the club, found out the names of some of his friends, and asked them. I've sent him witch messages. He doesn't answer any of them. I even took out my
lueg
and scryed right on the street. That's how desperate I was for a lead—any lead. And none of it has done a bit of good,” he finished bitterly.

He dropped onto the couch and ran a hand through his hair. “I simply don't know where to go next with this. I'm going to have to contact the council again.”

“Want me to try scrying?”

“I've scryed my way to Samhain and back again and I haven't seen a trace of Killian.”

“I know. But I scry with fire,” I reminded him. “I might get a different result.”

He shrugged and reached for a thick, ivory candle on the coffee table—one that Bree must have bought the day before—and pushed it toward me. “Be my guest,” he said, but his voice was skeptical.

I settled myself cross-legged on the floor. I focused on my breathing, but my thoughts didn't slip away as easily as they usually did. I wondered if I'd be able to transfer what I'd done with the crystal to fire. Whether this time I'd be able to control the vision.

“Morgan?”

“Sorry,” I said. “I got distracted. Let me try again. You want to see where Killian is right now?”

“That'd be a start.”

“Okay.” Again I focused on my breathing. This time I felt my mind quieting and the tension draining from my muscles. I stared at the candle's wick, thought of fire, and the candle lit. I let my eyes focus on the flame, sinking deeper into my meditative state until the coffee table, the room, Hunter, even the candle itself faded from my consciousness. There was only the flame.

Killian. I let a picture of him as he'd been at the club fill my mind—confident, cocky, laughing, with that heady mix of danger and delight in his own power.

I focused on the fire, asked it to give me the vision that I sought, to show me Killian as he was right now. I asked it to let me in, and I sent my energy toward it. I couldn't touch it the way I'd touched the crystal. The fire would burn me. But I let my power flicker beside it, calling to its heat and energy.

Something inside the flame shifted. It danced higher, blazed brighter. Its blue center became a mirror, and in it I saw Killian in profile. He was alone in a dark, dilapidated room. There was a window across from him, casting reddish light across his face. Through the window I could see some sort of gray stone tower, partly cloaked by a screen of bare tree branches. Killian seemed frightened, his face pale and drawn.

I sent more of my power to the flame, willing more of the vision to appear, something that would give a clue to his location. The flame crackled, and Killian turned and looked straight into my eyes. Abruptly, the connection was severed. I pushed back a surge of annoyance and focused on the flame again. Again I asked for the vision of Killian as he was now and sent my energy to dance with the flame.

This time there was no vision. Instead, the flame winked out, almost as if someone had snuffed it. I blinked hard. The rest of the room came back into focus.

Hunter was watching me, his eyes inscrutable. “I saw him,” he said in an odd tone. “And I wasn't joining my power to yours. I've never been able to do that before, see the vision of the one who's scrying.”

“Is that a problem?” I asked uncertainly.

“No,” he said. “It's because your scrying is so powerful.” He pulled me up on the couch beside him and wrapped his arms around me. “You are a seer.” He kissed each of my eyelids. “And I'm awed. Even humbled—almost.”

“Almost?” I couldn't help being thrilled that I'd managed to pull off a feat of magick that had stymied Hunter.

“Well, you know, humble isn't exactly my style,” he confessed with a grin.

“I've noticed.”

“Nor is it Killian's,” he said, his tone serious again. He blew out a breath and leaned back against the couch. “At least we know he's alive. He didn't seem hurt, either. He looked scared, though. That room he was in, do you have any sense of where it is?”

I shook my head. “None.”

“I wonder,” Hunter said, “why the vision was snuffed out so quickly and why it didn't come back. It's almost as if someone didn't want you to see.”

“Maybe Killian himself,” I said. “He looked at me, remember? Maybe he felt me scrying for him. Do you think he's got enough power to cut off a vision?”

“I'd guess that he's not lacking in power,” Hunter said with a sigh.

“There's got to be a way to find him,” I said.

“Hang on a minute,” Hunter said. “The window across from him. Did you notice the church steeple you could see through it?”

“Oh!” I exclaimed. “That's what it was.”

“Yes. And there was reddish light on his face, so I'm pretty sure the window must have been a westerly one. Also, wherever he is must be far enough west that the sunset isn't blocked by lots of tall buildings.”

“Wow.” I was impressed by his deductions.

He looked intent, eager. “I'm thinking maybe I could find a building that satisfies those conditions—far west, with a westerly window, opposite a gray stone church.”

“That sounds like a lot of legwork.”

“Maybe tomorrow I can come up with a way to narrow the search. Listen, there's one more contact I want to try to track down tonight. I'm not sure when I'll get back.”

I glanced at my watch. It was six. “Are you telling me not to wait up?”

Hunter looked genuinely regretful. “I'm afraid so.” He put on his jacket and scarf and kissed me. “I'll be back as soon as I can.”

Robbie was the first to show up at the apartment. After we'd split up, he'd gone down to the Village, where he'd dropped in on one of the chess shops near Washington Square Park. “Got beat by a seventy-year-old grand master,” he reported with a satisfied grin. “It was an education.”

Bree, Raven, and Sky showed up a few minutes after Robbie—Raven must have hooked up with the other two at some point during the afternoon. Bree was irritable and out of sorts, but Raven and Sky seemed to be getting along again. We ordered Chinese food, and then Raven and Sky went out to look up some goth friends of Raven's while Robbie, Bree, and I watched a Hong Kong action movie on pay-per-view. An exciting Friday night in the big city.

Whenever it was that Hunter returned to the apartment, I was asleep.

On Saturday morning I woke up before Bree. Raven wasn't in the room; extending my senses, I realized that she was in the study with Sky. Quietly I pulled on jeans and a sweater. I found Hunter in the kitchen, washing up a plate and cup. “Morning,” he said. “Want me to make you a cup of tea before I go?”

“You know better,” I said, and reached into the fridge for a Diet Coke.

“Ugh,” he said. “Well, I'm off on a long day of looking for gray stone churches and westerly windows.”

“It sounds like it could take you a week,” I said. “There must be hundreds of churches like that in the city.”

He shrugged, looking resigned. “What else can I do? Whether Killian is hiding his own tracks or someone else is doing it for him, I'm not getting anywhere trying to find him by magick.” He picked up his jacket. “What are you going to do today?” he asked.

I helped myself to one of the Pop-Tarts that Bree had thoughtfully stocked up on and tried to look nonchalant. “Robbie and I thought we'd wander around the city for a while.” It wasn't a lie—I knew better than that with Hunter. But it wasn't the whole truth, either.

Hunter gave me a searching look but didn't question me further. “I'll see you this evening for our circle,” he said.

“We'll be the perfect young couple,” Robbie said as we walked down Forty-ninth Street. “I mean, you've got a ring and everything.” He glanced at the fake diamond ring we'd just bought at a tacky gift shop and shook his head. “Whoa. It's a little freaky to see that thing on you.”

“Yeah, well, imagine how I feel wearing it,” I said.

Robbie laughed. “Just think what a promising future we're in for, starting out in a tenement apartment in Hell's Kitchen.”

“That's all Maeve and Angus started with in this country,” I said. I felt suddenly very sad. “The entries from her Book of Shadows at that time were all about how she couldn't bear living in the city. She thought it was full of unhappy people, racing around pointlessly.”

“Well, it is, sort of.” Robbie gave me a sympathetic glance. “And didn't they come here straight after Ballynigel was destroyed? Of course she was depressed. She'd just lost her home, her family, nearly everyone she loved.”

“And she'd given up her magick,” I added. “She said it was like living in a world suddenly stripped of all its colors. It makes me sad for her.”

We reached the building. It seemed even more dilapidated today. Robbie grinned at me. “Well, Ms. Rowlands. Are you ready for your first real estate experience?”