Cast Into Darkness (41 page)

Her head jerked up. “I’m not spoiled.”

“Willful, headstrong, rebellious, and won’t do a damn thing you’re told.”

“And you’re not my father. You’re not even my brother.” Her voice caught. “You’ve no right to talk to me like you are.”

“Maybe not. But you’re Cooper Hamilton’s daughter, and he’s the man who took me in and gave me a chance when everyone else wanted to kill me on sight. I will
never
stop owing him.” He paused and rubbed at something in his eye, then twisted the cap off the beer bottle and took a drink. “That means I owe you. There’s only one problem.”

You’re an arrogant jerk with delusions of grandeur?

“You don’t trust me,” Victor said. “Why didn’t you tell me about this power of yours? I can’t protect you if I don’t know the threat.” He leaned back in his chair, hand around the beer bottle.

“Victor…” Why hadn’t she told him? If she had, if she’d trusted him with the knowledge of how her magic was different, they could have…done what? Well, she wouldn’t have gone around him to see Kristof, wouldn’t have gotten kidnapped, and Dad would still be alive, sitting in this chair, instead of her.

The hard line of his mouth softened as he gazed at her. Behind him, her mother’s portrait hung above the fireplace, reflecting the light from the big picture windows.

She sat back down. “Why did you take me to San Francisco, the night my mom died? Keep me there, not let me call, talk to her, anything?”

He sighed. “All this is about your mother.”

“It’s about you. You asked me why I don’t trust you. So answer the question.”

“Kate, she was trying to kill you. The mirror smashing, the paranoid break—it all came together when you came back from school that day. We took a knife away from her right before you hugged her at the front door. She’d figured out a way to get free of the spellcuffs. She was convinced that if she could sacrifice you to the ancient casters, they would leave her alone.”

No. That can’t be true.

She tried to remember that day, two years ago, when her mother had her last, and worst, paranoid break. The way her mother had run toward her, the hard gleam in her eyes, how she’d clutched at Kate and screamed. And the knife. The knife that had flashed once in her hand before Victor twisted it away.

Victor is telling me the truth. She wasn’t trying to escape. She was after me.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Every time I yelled at you about keeping me away from her, every time I… Why did you keep it a secret?”

“Because that’s what your dad wanted, princess.”

Well, shit.
She buried her head in her hands.

“Can we start fresh?” She raised her head. “Pretend we’re meeting for the first time today and start trusting each other?”

“Let’s begin with this.” He tossed Brian’s journal on the desk, along with her grandfather’s watch.

She sighed and told him about finding the journal and the watch in the catalpa grove. About using primal magic for the first time, no idea what she was doing, to extract the journal and watch from their hiding place. Combing through the journal, trying to figure out why Brian would hide a book filled with pointless facts behind a magical ward spell.

“He wouldn’t hide something irrelevant.” Victor picked up the journal and flipped through it. His eyes had gone soft, unfocused, as if he was using his magesight. “The book’s spell-coded.”

“What?”

“Someone encrypted it using a cipher spell. The spell makes the writing look like a bunch of meaningless crap, unless you have the original cipher spell. Or the key.”

“Key? What would…” Her gaze fell on the watch. It couldn’t be that simple, could it? She picked it up. “Is this it? I found it in the cache along with the journal.”

“Stupid to hide both in the same place. Maybe he was in a hurry.”

“Or he knew I was the only person who’d find anything in the catalpa grove, and he wanted me to find the journal and the key to decode it.”

Victor raised an eyebrow. “You like your answers all wrapped up in little packages, don’t you, princess?” He took the watch from her. “Let’s see what happens when we put it alongside…” As he placed the watch directly on top of the first page of the journal it lit up with a bright-green glow. “Whoa. I’d say we found the key. Want to see what Brian wrote?”

“Yes.”

“What do you think you’re going to find in there?” he asked.

“The name of the person who sent Brian after the stone.”

“Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

She’d suspected some things when Dylan had told her his theories, when Melina had confirmed them, when she’d finally understood how to deal with primal magic. An understanding she gained from the book on Brian’s bedside table. A book only one person would have given him.

“I think so,” she said. “But the journal should confirm it.”

He set the watch on the desk. “So let’s decode it. You need to put up a shield. I wouldn’t put it past Brian to booby-trap his precious tell-all.”

She touched her father’s cufflinks, still in her pocket, and sent the quick command for shield. A strong blue glow sprang up around her. Victor raised his own shield.

She watched as Victor sent a tiny purple tendril of energy into the journal. It scanned the pages of the book, first slowly, then faster until it spun on the desk like a firecracker about to burst. The watch glowed green and began to shake, moving closer and closer to the book. When they met, the glow flared in brilliance, then went dark.

“No bang,” Kate said.

“Nope. Maybe Brian really did want you to find it.”

Kate turned off the shield, picked up the journal, and opened to the first page. The gibberish about the tests Brian had aced and the girls he’d dated was gone. In its place was an account of the meeting where Grayson had sat Brian down and set about convincing him that becoming the world’s first primal magic caster would be a great and wonderful thing.

Kate read, and read more, then handed the journal to Victor. As he paged through the book in the dying light of the summer sun, she took the cufflinks out and spun one on the table.

Then she leaned back and planned her first move.

I labored over this novel for a very long time, and many people have extended to me their time, expertise, support, and guidance. If you enjoyed this book, it is in a large part thanks to them. Any mistakes made are mine alone.

Many people deserve my thanks and acknowledgment, and given that I am quite scatterbrained at times, I am sure I will inadvertently leave someone off my list who was tremendously important to this book. If so, I humbly apologize and thank you for your assistance.

My editors—Mark Clements and Danielle Poiesz—gave me oodles and oodles of help making sure that my plot made sense, my characters were compelling, my facts were straight, and my grammar and spelling were top-notch.

I received invaluable help and support from my fellow writers while working on this book. Some critiqued individual chapters, some read the entire book and let me know what they thought, some gave me helpful advice on the industry, some offered a shoulder to cry on and a friend with whom to celebrate. I want to especially acknowledge the Gorilla Writers (Scott Barbour, Suad Campbell, Charlie Daly, Aron Diaz, Melanie Hooks, Rick Landin, Doug Lathrop, John Mullen, Cris Powell, Ely Rareshide, Kathy Paulek, and Indy Quillen), the Freedom Writers (Aron, Melanie, Doug, Cris, Ely, and Laura Perkins), and the Flying Pink Elephant Society (Marie Andreas, Shoshana Brown, Cassi Carver, Melissa Cutler, Rachael Davila, Lisa Kessler, Georgie Lee, and Tami Vahalik). I also want to give a shout-out to friends and family—John Rogers, Barbara Vivian Rogers, Sharon Arkin, Margaret Bloodgood, Stuart Dervish, Cat Gengler, Sue Glueck, Bree Kauzlaurich, and Cindy Leech—who read my book and gave me an unfiltered reader reaction.

I am fortunate to belong to several communities of writers. Each one was unstinting with their help and advice. My colleagues at the San Diego Chapter of the Romance Writers of America provide a supportive environment for learning, networking, connecting with publishing professionals, and sharing my triumphs and disappointments. The staff and attendees of the Southern California Writers Conference gave me editorial help, critiques, valuable information on the business, and endless camaraderie. My friends from Martha Beck’s Writers’ Retreat and San Diego Writers Ink have encouraged and supported me.

My writing teachers—Nancy Holder, Orson Scott Card, Stephen Potts, Mark Clements, and Judy Reeves—were instrumental in teaching me the nuts and bolts of the craft of writing. My work would be infinitely poorer without their lessons and advice.

Kim and Chris from A Butler’s Manor B&B in Southampton, NY graciously provided both hospitality and useful local info on my research trip to the Hamptons.

Finally, my family has supported me and sustained me when stinging rejections and creative frustrations made me want to pound my head against the wall until the gremlins of disappointment and despair flew out my ears. This book would not have been written, much less published, without the unfailing support of my husband, John Rogers. He guided me, comforted me, consoled me, and encouraged me every time I needed his love and friendship. I love you more than I could express in an acknowledgments section, or for that matter, if I had all the words and all the pages in the world.

Janet Tait has loved writing for as long as she can remember but tried IT administration, website development, market research, and product management before surrendering to her inevitable destiny. She lives in San Diego, California with her husband and, in her spare time, enjoys haunting the halls of comic and science fiction conventions, playing old-timey tabletop role-playing games with her friends, and binge-watching British TV shows on Netflix. You can reach her at
www.janettait.com
or via email at
[email protected]
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I hope you enjoyed
Cast into Darkness
. I am hard at work on the next book in the series. If you’d like to be notified when it comes out, get the see the cover before it is released, and find out about my other books, you can subscribe to my monthly newsletter at
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If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review where you purchased it. I welcome your honest feedback.

In gratitude, Janet Tait