The Witch Collector Part I (12 page)

I thought of Ion's floppy hair, his earnestness. “I know him about as well as I know you,” I snapped.

Miro's head flew up. His eyes looked dark and empty. “I guess that's true.”

Regret tugged at me. I wanted to touch his arm, to tell him how much I appreciated all that he was doing for me. Instead I said, “Can I ask you a personal question?”

He nodded once and I swore I detected a hint of amusement in the set of his mouth. “Go ahead.”

“What's your last name?”

He exhaled loudly. “Oh. Not what I was expecting. It's Dabrowski.”

“What does it mean?”

“Something about trees. My ancestors always lived in the forest. We were the first coven to practice in a city, which my grandmother said was bad luck.” He paused. “She was right.”

I wanted to ask more questions, but Shelley and I needed to get moving. And Miro backed away from me, as though my curiosity were a physical attack he needed to ready for.

“Thank you. Now I know you better than Ion,” I said. “That counts for something.”

“I suppose,” Miro said, one foot already in the hallway.

“Wait,” I called to him. “What did you think I was going to ask?”

He laughed, a great, booming sound that bounced across the tiles. “I don't want to give you any ideas.”

“Please do,” I pleaded, half joking. “I could use more of those.”

Miro's smile faded. “Maybe Evie can provide some,” he said. “But remember, alchemists always ask a high price. Be careful, Breeda.”

“She's family,” I said.

But I knew as soon as I said it how meaningless it was.

D
owntown Chicago was a charming mix of old and new. Art Deco windows displayed stylish clothes and shoes, and century-old streetlamps stood guard next to recycling bins. Sonya and I had begun to explore the malls closer to Portland—it's why our parents broke down and bought us cell phones—but this was nothing like the barely populated strips of fast-food joints and dollar stores I was used to. Chicago streets were busy, but the people rushing past us didn't scare me because I was with Ion and Shelley.

Ion led the way, pausing every so often to point out the Chicago Theater, the stately Art Institute, and other touristy things. I thought he'd be irritated I'd brought someone along, but when we'd walked up to him, hunched and standing in the shadow of St. Sylvester's massive doors, his eyes lit up when he saw Shelley and hadn't left her face much since we'd gotten off the train. She was breezy and kind, and gave him attention without making any promises. Being comfortable in your own skin is a certain kind of magic, the kind that has nothing to do with witchcraft. Shelley and Miro had loads of it. Ion and I pretended to. The difference was obvious if you looked hard enough.

We turned onto Madison Street, and Ion approached the glass doors of a tall, gray brick building in the middle of the block.

“Is there a guard?” Shelley asked as we walked in.

“No need for one,” Ion said.

Shelley and I shared a glance. The large, old lobby looked worn and sad, its black-and-white tiled floor crumbling in spots. I didn't see security cameras or intercoms, but we found a tarnished copper plaque listing the tenants. E. Soledad Jewelry was in Apartment 811.

We stepped into the elevator, a cagelike relic at least a hundred years old. The gilded bars still shone in spots, but age had turned most of them a moldy blackish green. It groaned and creaked as we made our way up to the eighth floor.

“So, does your aunt hate your family or something?” Ion asked. He shuffled nervously from foot to foot, sending the elevator listing to the side.

“I guess so.”

Shelley slipped her hand into mine, and squeezed. “We've got your back,” she said quietly. “Don't let her manipulate you. We're here for you to get information from her, not the other way around.”

“I know,” I said. “If it doesn't feel right, I won't tell her much.”

The elevator settled into place on the eighth floor with a sigh, and I tugged at the bars, freeing us.

The eighth-floor landing was as desolate as the lobby. Fluorescent lighting flickered and buzzed, giving our skin a jaundiced glow. A single door, grated with iron, stood at the end of the wood-paneled hallway.

Ion slowed as we reached the door. “Your aunt's kind of a bad-ass,” he whispered to me. “Just so you know.”

“Who says
we
aren't bad-asses?” Shelley said. “There's a buzzer. Come on.”

I had only raised my fingers when the door flew open. The woman standing in front of us had golden skin, dark eyes, and the same nose as my mother, straight and long. But unlike my mother's soft, welcoming face, Evie's features seemed hard and immobile, like she'd had them cast in bronze.

“What?” she said, running a hand through short black hair tipped with silver. Snakelike bracelets of gold and copper curled around her impressive biceps. In her other hand, a thick silver chain dangled from a closed fist. “What do you want?”

I coughed, a feeble attempt to force the fear from my voice. “I'm Breeda. Lupe's daughter.”

Aunt Evie stared at me, her dark eyes examining my features for proof of relation. Once satisfied I was telling the truth, she pushed forward and poked me in the shoulder with the heavy chain. “I told my sister she could have my spare apartment as long as she stayed away from me. If she sent you thinking I'd change my mind—”

“She didn't,” I said quickly. “She doesn't know I'm here.”

Evie raised an eyebrow. She had a small coppery star at the corner of her right eye, a metallic beauty mark.

“Can we talk for a few minutes?” I asked. “Please? I promise we won't take much of your time.”

Evie glanced at Shelley and Ion. “You have two minutes. Your friends can wait in the shop.”

We filed in after her. Once inside, I saw E. Soledad Jewelry. Rows of glass cabinets displayed earrings and rings, necklaces and bracelets, all arranged in neat, organized rows. Evie wasn't into the delicate look. Evidently, wrist cuffs and heavy linked chains were her specialty.

Evie chucked Ion under the chin. “Your mom know you're here?”

“Yeah. She knows.” But Ion kept his eyes trained on an enormous mirror instead of looking at anyone.

“Liar.” Evie laughed, a guttural, throaty sound.

Entranced by a gold necklace, Shelley ran a finger down its twisted, engraved links.

“Don't touch anything,” Evie ordered. “Either of you.” Ion and Shelley nodded, and Shelley snatched her hand away from the necklace, mumbling an apology.

Evie tossed my friends one final glare, and then led me to an expansive mirror that took up the entire back wall. She placed a palm on a panel of it and pushed in, revealing a disheveled interior office. With a quick glance toward my stunned friends, I followed Evie through the opening and the panel closed behind us. I could still see the shop from behind the mirrors. Shelley and Ion stood frozen in place.

“One-way mirror,” Evie grunted. “They can't see or hear us.”

“Oh,” I said. I wasn't sure if I liked that.

Evie smiled, her coal-black eyes glistening. “The time for worrying was before you knocked on my door. Now, ask your questions. Quick.”

I took a steadying breath. Evie's toughness threw me. “Did you see my mom last night?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light.

“Your mother and I haven't said more than a dozen sentences to each other in nine years,” she said. “She asked to use the apartment and I said yes. She must have called me on a good day.”

“Didn't you plan on seeing her while we're in town?”

She gave me a sharp look. “I hadn't planned on it. We'll use Sandy as the go-between while you're visiting. You can tell your mom that.”

“My mom—” I paused, unsure of how to phrase it without giving too much away.

Evie drew closer. “Spit it out.”

“My mom and I . . . aren't speaking,” I began.
Careful
, I told myself.
Think before you speak
.

“And?”

“I was wondering, do you have a family book for the Soledads? I forgot mine and my mom won't give me hers.”

Silence. Evie narrowed her eyes, the small space between us crackling with energy. “You know what you are, don't you?”

“Yes.”

“Then why are you asking me that?”

What did she mean? I wished I'd asked Dobra more questions earlier. I wished my parents had told me everything.

Evie waited for my answer.

“My parents haven't been very specific about what I am.” I shifted my gaze, staring at the copper star at the corner of her eye. “I only just found out.”

“Honest to Isis?”

“Yep.”

“Damn it, Lupe,” she said, kicking at a cardboard box. She raised her head and asked, “What
do
you know?”

I sighed. “Not much.”

“A family book is useless for people like us. You and I are genetic glitches. Weirdos. Different
kinds
of weirdos, but definitely outside the norm. There hasn't been an alchemist in our family since the Aztecs built their temples. I have no idea if there's
ever
been an unmarked.” Evie smiled, and for the first time, her face had a shade of warmth to it. “Welcome to freaktown, niece. The rules don't apply to us.”

“Are there
any
rules . . . for us?” I hated to think that there weren't. I liked rules. No rules meant chaos, and chaos meant danger.

“Sorry, but you're going to have to figure things out yourself. I did.”

Evie turned to the mirror and watched Shelley giggle as she slipped a massive chain over Ion's skinny neck. He gazed at her with equal parts horror and fascination. My heart squeezed, fearful Evie would go ballistic. She didn't erupt, but her jaw tightened, the muscles in her neck rippling under the skin. “
They're
certainly not able to help. Who are they to you anyway?”

“My friends,” I said, not bothering to temper the defensive quality from my voice.

“For how long?”

I stayed silent.

“Do they know what you are?”

“No,” I lied. It was better to keep her in the dark about what Shelley knew.

A fire lit behind my aunt's eyes, smoldering and dangerous. “Don't tell them. Don't tell anyone.” She paused, and the air in the small room seemed to grow dense. “Remember one thing: you don't have any friends.”

I looked at Shelley and Ion, laughing together over some joke I couldn't hear. I wanted to say she was wrong, that I wasn't in this alone. But a voice surfaced, whispery but insistent.
You've always been alone; you just didn't know it
.

“Hey.” Evie's eyes were still hard, but something in the way she tilted her head to the side reminded me of my mother. “Breeda, I—”

A noise interrupted her, the scrape of metal against cement. I shivered. “What is that?”

“Nothing,” Evie said, but there was a warning in her tone.

The scraping sound returned. Defiance sparked in Evie's eyes, dilating her pupils. Her mouth curled into a sneer, a challenge insisting to be met. How could I be so stupid? She may've been my aunt, but she was nothing like my mother—nothing at all.

Without thinking, I grasped at the chain holding my fake talisman. “What have you done?”

“You had no business coming here.” I thought I saw a flicker of unease flash across her features, but if there was one, it disappeared as quickly as it came. “No business at all.”

I ran to the closet door. It was steel painted to look like wood, a dead-bolt lock built in.

I turned to Evie. “Open it.”

She widened her stance. “No.”

My magic awakened, pushing upward through my veins, a rocket unsteadily launched. I worked the lock, twisting it around and around.

Then I saw it.

Blood
. A thin line of crimson on the tile floor, winding from the file cabinet to under the closet door. I flashed to my parents' bedroom, to the blood smears on the wall. My breath came faster, magic and fear vying to take over my nervous system. I gathered my strength and slapped the steel door, hard.

Evie grabbed my upper arm and held tight. “You don't want to see what's in there.”

Anger bubbled inside me, exploding with such force I knocked her back into a tower of boxes. She shouted something, but I didn't care enough, or the magic was making so much noise inside my head that I couldn't make sense of her words. My hand searched out the dead bolt again, this time turning it with ease. I yanked the door open and blinked, trying to figure out what I was seeing.

I felt Evie behind me, her hot breath in my ear. “Told you not to look.”

“W
hatever you do, Breeda, don't run.” Brandon stood next to me in the clearing as we watched a black bear pick through the remains of our lunch. The bear looked almost comical, sitting on a red-and-white checked picnic blanket, its nose in a bag of pretzels
.

“Aren't we supposed to talk to it?” I whispered. “That's what your dad says to do.”

“Do you want to have a conversation with a bear?” Brandon took a slow step backward.

“You can have the ham sandwich,” I said, loud enough for the bear to hear me, but light enough to sound nonthreatening. “I don't like mayo, but maybe you do.”

The bear lumbered to its feet.

“One step back,” Brandon pleaded. “Slowly.”

The bear moved toward us.

“You could always go with the turkey and avocado.” My mouth felt dry, but I forced a smile. The bear tilted its head quizzically.

“Your call,” I rasped.

With a disdainful look, the bear turned toward the forest and disappeared into a copse of hemlock trees.

“Now,” Brandon said, breathing heavily, “we run.”