Whisper of Shadows (The Diamond City Magic Novels) (2 page)

“Perhaps we should hear Sam’s explanation.”

Mel sounded unfazed and totally in control. Her calmness gave me something to cling to. Right now I felt raw. I needed some sort of armor to protect me from him, from all of this. Mel wasn’t armor, but she took his focus, settling on the emerald camelbacked couch, crossing her legs elegantly and lifting a brow at her husband.

“Provided you’ve come to explain?”

Dad tipped his head toward Mel. “As best I can.”

His cagey answer made my stomach churn. Would we get any truth from him at all? Or would it be carefully cut and shaped, turning the ugly reality into a pretty snowflake lie?

That’s when my rational brain caught up with my emotional-overload brain. My dad was a dreamer, which meant he could worm his way into any of our minds without touching us. He could cause us to see visions, change our thinking, give us false memories, all without any of us knowing. I had a knack for sensing magic, which meant I could usually sense when someone was actively attempting to use it around me. Plus I had a strong sensitivity to dreamer touch. I could feel it when one tried to wriggle into my head. I had to wonder if that had anything to do with him. Had he taught me that? Or had his tampering made me extra sensitive?

Didn’t matter, and now was no time to consider. Dear old Dad hadn’t attempted to come after any of us yet, as far as I could tell, but just in case . . . I slid my hand down to touch Price’s belt. Inside the leather were a dozen silver disks, each one a null. I activated one.

A magical dead zone surrounded Price. No spell—good or bad—could affect him until the null was deactivated or its power was drained.

“I don’t trust you,” I said to my dad. “Everybody, activate your nulls.”

I’d made each of my family powerful nulls in various shapes and forms. Sometimes jewelry, other times zippers on clothing—though nulls didn’t hold up well to multiple washings. I felt each of theirs activate almost before I finished speaking. I took a little comfort in knowing I wasn’t the only one so caught off guard I’d not thought about protecting myself.

Mel was the only one who hadn’t triggered a null. I understood why. She wanted to be able to read Dad’s emotions. She couldn’t if her powers were nulled. Neither Dad nor Dalton had active nulls either, probably for the same reason.

I stiffened with another realization. Everybody leaves behind trace. It’s a ribbon of light that only tracers can see. Some can only see it for a few minutes, others for an hour or two. I can see it always, even after a person dies. The only time I can’t is when someone nulls out their trace, which means for as long as that null is active, their ribbon vanishes. Those were the rules. Except that when my father disappeared, his trace vanished with him. One day it’s looped all around our house and my life, the next it’s gone like he’d never existed. Every last scrap of it gone. Just like Dad. It should have been impossible.

For years, I’d tried to puzzle it out and just recently I thought I’d figured out the trick. He hadn’t erased his trace, but rather he’d simply made it impossible for me to see it. He’d gone into my head and blinded me to him. Now I had the chance to test my theory. I dropped into trace sight. Nothing.

I don’t know why it bothered me so much. I mean, he’d tried to kill me. By comparison, this was nothing. And yet—it went to the core of who I was. He’d made me doubt myself, made me feel like a failure when I couldn’t find him. I bit my lips so that I wouldn’t swear. My eyes burned with tears I refused to let fall. One of these days I was going to figure out how not to care. Thanks to my family, thanks to Price and my friends, I’d moved on. I’d broken through Dad’s prison shackles. He didn’t matter anymore.

I told myself that and tried to believe it.

Dad nodded to Mel. “That’s why I came. I am here to explain what I can. Riley, I am glad to see you well after your recent interactions with Mr. Caldwell.”

I glared. “Dalton told you about all that, did he? Did Dalton also tell you that he tried to kidnap me, too?”

“He merely wished to get you to safety.”

Dad smiled. I sucked in a breath, my heart aching. I had so many memories of that smile. Good memories. Or they had been. Now they seemed fake, as if he’d been wearing a mask. Hell, for all I knew, they were fake and he’d planted them in my head.

“I doubt my safety was uppermost in Dalton’s mind,” I said, my lip curling.

Dad turned to glance at Mister Tall, Dark, and Broody, and then back at me. “You can trust him. He’s a friend.” He focused on Price. “Clayton Price, I presume?” He actually held out a hand like he expected a shake.

Price eyed it and then looked back up at my dad. “I am.”

Dad let his arm fall, seemingly unfazed. “Your brother is Greggory Touray?”

“Aren’t you the one who’s supposed to be answering questions?” I demanded. “You aren’t welcome here. So do us a favor, get to the point of this little visit and then get out. What do you want?”

He scanned us all, his gaze lingering on each of us, finally returning to me. “It’s quite simple, really. My absence no longer protects you. There’s no point in hiding anymore. It’s time for us to be a family again.”

Chapter 2

I THINK MY JAW might have actually fallen off my face. Mine wasn’t the only one hitting the floor. Even Mel looked like she’d been hit with a baseball bat.

“If you’re trying to make a joke, it’s a bad one,” Leo said. He went to put an arm around Taylor, who’d gone pale.

I wondered what she was thinking. Over the past couple months, Taylor’s world had been turned inside out. Her boyfriend had been kidnapped and now refused to have anything to do with her, Percy Caldwell had murdered a half dozen of her employees before infecting her with Sparkle Dust, and now for the cherry on top, Dad—who it turns out wasn’t anything like who we thought he was—walks back into our lives and announces he wants to be a family again. It had to be tearing her to pieces. I know I felt shredded.

“It’s not a joke,” Dad said.

“Then you are delusional,” Jamie shot back. He’d gone to stand behind Mel, his hands resting on her shoulders. She’d recaptured her composure. The fruits of FBI training.

“Samuel, perhaps you should just tell us what you came to say,” she suggested.

She simply ignored his pronouncement. It’s not like there was any point in asking about what was never going to happen. Like Jamie said, the man was delusional.

Dad gave a little shrug and resumed his seat near the fire. “I can’t tell you much. The less you know, the better.”

“That’s it,” I said, anger shearing through me. “I’m leaving.” I let go of Price and whipped around, striding for the door. I’d gone two steps before I spun back around. Price was right behind me. He always had my back, always supported me. He’d returned to me what my father had stolen—trust in another man, and unconditional love. More than that, I knew he would never abandon me.

I pushed past him to face my father, stabbing a finger at him. “You know what? I’m not leaving. You are. You have brass balls, you know that? You fuck with my head, you abandon us, and now you show up with some fantasy about being a family again. You’ve got some bullshit story about keeping us in the dark because of—I don’t know—global warming? Radical vegetarianism? Maybe the Wicked Witch of the West is coming after us?

“Whatever you have to say, I don’t want to hear it. It’s all lies. That’s what you do and I’m not falling for it again. I don’t know why you really came here, but I’m done. You left once, leave again. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”

“Riley,” Mel said quietly.

I shot a hot glare at her, wrapping my arms around my stomach. “You can’t want to hear this.”

“I think we must,” she said.

I wanted to argue, but something in her voice asked me to trust her. I did. Completely. Especially since she’d taught me to stand on my own two feet. To make my own choices and believe in myself. After Dad’s disappearance, I’d gone wild, but Mel hadn’t given up on me, no matter what I did. I’d been a complete bitch. Even so, she’d managed to help me grow up and be independent. If not for her, hell, if not for my brothers and Taylor, I don’t know where I’d be now. I wasn’t alone in this. If Mel thought we should listen, then I would.

“You’ve got two minutes. Start talking,” I told my dad coldly.

He gave me a measuring look, then nodded. “All right. None of you are safe anymore. My enemies have learned of your existence and they plan to use you against me. I did my best to erase all evidence of my life before I disappeared, but alas, some small clues remained, and some very motivated people followed up.” He paused. “The people who killed your mother are after you now, too.”

My mouth fell open. Again.

“When Elaine was murdered, I believed the crime was random. Certainly the police said so. Years later, I discovered Elaine had been killed because of her ties to some dangerous people. She’d always kept her past a secret from me.”

“You’re a dreamer,” I said, fighting through the tightness in my throat. “You expect us to believe you never tiptoed into her skull to have a look around?”

He shook his head. “I should have looked, but I trusted her. I loved her. I regret it with all my heart, now. When I learned why she was killed, I promised myself I’d never make that mistake again. I’d do whatever I had to do to protect the people I loved, no matter the cost.”

I bit the inside of my cheek til I tasted blood. If he thought that justified what he’d done to me, he had another thing coming.

“What exactly did you discover about Elaine’s murder?” Mel asked.

Thank goodness for her. I wasn’t sure I could stay logical. I just wanted to scream. He was blaming my mom for her death. At least that’s what I was hearing. If only she didn’t keep secrets, he could have protected her.

“Elaine had stolen things from people who don’t tolerate that sort of thing. They wanted their goods back and they wanted her to pay.” He sighed and looked at me. “I hate to say it, but your mom was a grifter. She knew how to run a con, and she was good at it. When she met me, she quit. I didn’t learn about her previous profession until years later. I’m sorry, Peach, but I can’t hide it from you anymore. Your mother wasn’t the woman we thought she was.”

My brain burst into flames. First, calling me Peach. He’d called me that as a kid, but he didn’t have the right anymore. Second, my mom was a con artist? Did he really expect me to buy that line of bullshit?

I didn’t want to believe him. Believe that Mom was responsible for her own death. But inside, I just didn’t know. I couldn’t know. I couldn’t believe anything he said, and I couldn’t not believe it. I had no facts, and none of my childhood memories were reliable. That’s when I remembered I could actually ask my mom. She might be dead, but her ghost was hanging around in the spirit dimension, and she wanted to talk to me. Dad knew nothing about that. Doubt crept in again. What if she
was
a con artist? What if everything she said was a lie? God, what a complete clusterfuck.

Taylor pushed away from Leo and went behind the bar. She poured herself a healthy drink, but left it untouched. I understood the need to do something, not to mention she’d put a massive piece of wood between her and Dad.

Abruptly, I strode over and picked up the drink that she hadn’t touched and drank down half of it. It was pretty much straight-up vodka with a touch of lemon. It burned down my throat and made my eyes water.

Taylor met my gaze, her blue eyes sunken and bruised. Her lips ghosted in a smile as I raised the glass in a toast and swallowed the rest. She reached for a bottle and set up another one as I set the glass back down.

“Nothing like a dysfunctional family reunion to make you start drinking, is there?” she murmured. “Do you think he’s telling the truth about your mom?”

My teeth bared. “I think we can’t trust a word he says.”

She lifted her glass. “Amen to that.”

“You all right?”

“Sure. Why not?” Her smile was brittle.

I reached over and touched her hand. She gripped mine tightly, then let it go. I took a breath and let it out, then faced back around. Time to deal with this head-on.

I wasn’t entirely sure what I was going to say, but I never got a chance.

A flash of brilliant light burst outside. At the same time, a rumble like thunder rolled underneath the floor. Wood groaned and strained.

“What the hell is going on?” Price demanded, glaring at my father.

Leo and Jamie had that preoccupied look they got when they were talking to metal.

Dalton had started talking into his hand. He eyed the walls and ceilings. Not for the first time, I wondered just what the hell he could see with those weird eyes. I didn’t think they were X-ray vision à la Superman, but clearly they were specialized.

“We have to get going,” he said, turning back to my dad. The outer rings of his eyes were green. I’d seen them orange, blue, and red.

“Report,” my dad ordered.

Dalton gave that ever-familiar impatient snarl. “It appears the FBI has come calling. Time to go.”

The FBI? I’ll admit. I wasn’t as surprised as I could have been. I’d had a run-in not too long ago with the super special agents of the FBI. The one in charge—Sandra Arnow—was a particularly nasty bit of business. She was ambitious, cold, and ruthless. She and I shared a mutual hate-hate relationship.

“What do you want to do?” Price asked, looking to me, but Mel answered.

“Open the door when they make it that far. Not much else we can do. Jamie, shut down the house.”

Jamie jogged out of the room to turn off the house spells before our intruders launched binders, which they were sure to do any second now. Binders bound all the magic within their range so nothing worked. They also played havoc with active spells, sometimes twisting them so they didn’t work again. I deactivated my trace null.

“What are they
doing
out there?” I asked as thunder rolled under the floor again. But then I felt their binders spring up and suck all the active magic down. “They’ve got the binders up,” I said.

I hadn’t been paying attention to my dad. He’d come across the room. Price stepped between us.

“That’s far enough.”

Dad stopped

“I have to go,” he said. “You aren’t safe. None of you.” He turned to look at everyone else, then faced me again. “I can protect you if you come with me.”

I didn’t have to consider. “No thanks. So far your protections have been almost lethal,” I said, tapping my forehead. “I don’t trust you to get me a glass of water. I sure as hell won’t trust you with my life.”

He nodded, his expression unchanged. “Fair enough. I’ll see you again. Soon.”

With that, he and Dalton walked out of the room.

“Where are they going?” Price asked, watching them go.

“There are dozens of routes out of here. He built most of them,” Mel said, edging aside a curtain to look out the window. “It is the FBI. They’re coming in the gates.”

“What do they want?” Leo asked.

“I guess we’ll find out.” I looked at Price. “You don’t have to be here.”

Connected as he was to his brother’s Tyet organization, he was technically a criminal. For all I knew, the FBI had come to arrest him.

He narrowed his eyes at me, a line cutting deep between his brows. “I’m not leaving you.”

I got the message. He wasn’t going to betray me or abandon me to save his own hide. My heart swelled, and I grinned at him. My smile faded. “Our two weeks is going to get postponed, isn’t it?”

I’d promised him that after the dinner tonight, we’d hole up alone for two weeks and spend it together, no distractions or interruptions. If my dad’s arrival hadn’t shattered that glorious plan, certainly a mass of super special agents showing up did.

He shrugged. “I’ll still have you in my bed and sitting across from me at my breakfast table.”

“Unless I’m going to jail.”

“No one’s taking you to jail,” Mel inserted. She frowned at Price. “You’re going home with this man?”

Not the way I wanted to break the news. I nodded. “We’re moving in together.”

Mel gave me a sharp look and then examined Price again. Finally, she nodded. “Good. Better you aren’t alone right now.”

She turned to Taylor. “You either. I want you to stay here.”

Taylor laughed. “No thanks. Besides, Dad’s not interested in me. He’s all about Riley.”

I could hear the pain stitching her voice. I could have pointed out that being the target of his interest had nearly killed me, but it wouldn’t have helped. I understood. He’d always made me special by making sure everybody was watching out for me and protecting me. That put Taylor always on the outside. She didn’t complain, and she and I had managed to be close for the most part, even though she lived with a constant wound. It amazed me sometimes that she didn’t hate me.

“I agree with Mel. Dad might have been telling the truth about his enemies wanting to get at his family. I don’t think you should go home. Your house doesn’t have enough protections.”

“Actually, it does,” Price said. “Gregg and I had them installed this week. There’s also a twenty-four/seven watch on the place, and Taylor’s got bodyguards who travel with her now, too.”

I eyed him in surprise. This was the first I’d heard about any of that. I looked at Taylor, lifting my brows in a silent question.

Her expression turned sour. “I told them no, but arguing with the two of them is like arguing with a couple of rocks. Or Jamie and Leo, for that matter.”

Price smiled. “All part of the service. After all, we’re family now.”

“You are?” Jamie said, choosing that moment to return. “Since when did you adopt my sisters?”

Price snorted. “Adopt? Oh no. Riley is most definitely
not
my daughter. She’s—”

I looked at him. Just what exactly was I to him? But just then someone pounded on the door. With a battering ram. Wood cracked. It was a very solid door.

We all jumped.

“What the hell?” Jamie exclaimed. “What the hell are they doing? Why didn’t they just knock? Mom, you’re one of them.”

My stepmother’s face had turned to alabaster, her lips pinching together in fury. She made herself relax, smoothing a hand over her hair. “I’m sure they’ll have a good explanation,” she said, but I couldn’t imagine what explanation would be good enough. ’Course, her colleagues might be having a conniption fit about her inviting the brother of a major Tyet player to her house for dinner. Or maybe it had to do with my dad. It was awfully coincidental that this invasion happened now, right when he showed up for his first visit in a decade.