Chapter 34

There was no doubt it was my mother, even with the intervening years. She was wearing clothes that belonged on a woman a decade younger and her breasts spilled over the top of her tank. Her purple bra straps were showing. Her skin was more spotted, less firm—she had always had lines, but now they were more pronounced, etched deeply into her skin. Her hair was blonde, but not the way it had once been natural. There was no doubt she had bleached it, since it was almost white and her darker roots were showing at the top. There was enough makeup on her face that I was afraid it would just fall off to the floor like some kind of mask. I didn't want to think about what would be underneath.

She looked just the way I would in twenty years and the thought made me want to launch myself off the balcony.

"Kris—" And that's when she saw me. But it had been almost ten years. She couldn't be sure. "Gillian? That you girl?"

"Yes, it's me. How are you?"

Her eyes narrowed and she sat down at the table. "Kristy, is that my daughter on the other side of the table?"

"It sure is. Isn't this a perfect little treat, Lynsay?"

Mom evidently disagreed. "Why is she here?"

"They say they got business with you."

A cold look spread across my mother's face. "Always were Daddy's little girl, weren't you, Gillian? Only coming home when works makes you."

Dana was Daddy's girl, I wanted to shout, but I needed to do this. "Mother, there's something I need to talk to you about. This is Bryce Nast. Do you remember who the Nasts are? We'd like to talk to you in private."

"Now that just ain't nice," Kristy pouted.

Lynsay knew what that meant. "Kristy, could you just give us a minute? It won't be a long conversation. I know who the Nasts are, Gillian. It was your Daddy who never did listen."

Kristy stood up, fixing her shirt and smiling at Bryce the whole while. "I guess I'm going to head to that pool then. Nice seeing you again Gillian. Remember, you come see me any old time."

"Thanks, Kristy," I said with a brittle smile. The three of us waited in silence until the door shut behind her. Mom spoke first, her voice cold.

"I appreciate this room, sorcerer. But I'm telling you right now, I ain't doing you no good turn. I don't help Cabals." She looked at me, disgust on her face. "Even if my family does."

"This is a unique situation, Miss Dixon," Bryce said smoothly. "You're daughter is not working for my Cabal. She is temporarily working for me in a personal capacity. I assure you, this is as off the record as possible."

"A friend of mine recently went missing, mother. She was also a close friend of Mr Nast. We're trying to recover her. But to do that, we need your help. There's a communication spell that we can perform, but I need you to perform it with me."

"Sugar, you know I don't do magic. Didn't know you could either."

"I learned," I snapped, more harshly than I intended. I tried to cover. "If you could just try. If it doesn't work, there's no harm done. And if it does then you've helped save my friend's life."

"You're friend got a name?"

"Savannah. She's a witch, too."

"And she's friends with a sorcerer." My mother regarded Bryce with a look I did not like at all, just as appraising as Kristy's had been, though Mom's wasn't filled with lust. "Didn't know that happened."

"Rarely," Bryce admitted. "You would of course be compensated for your effort, Miss Dixon."

"And get kicked out of this room if I don't?"

"Of course not. Your visit to L.A. is a separate issue. It stands no matter what you agree to. Though your situation would obviously improve if you did your daughter this small favour," he said with all the arrogance of his kind. A tiny smile may have appeared on my face. He was just too good at being a Cabal prince.

Mom liked that, though she tried to hide it. Failed miserably, but at least she tried. Money was always tight and how could you blame her for trying to make a little extra anyway she could? I hated myself for thinking that, for justifying it, but it was habit. And I couldn't seem to stop.

"What would I have to do?" she said slowly. "Because I'm going to be straight with you. I don't know jack about spells."

"It shouldn't be hard to teach you. It's just a supplementary cast, so you don't even have to be powerful. I would be doing most of the work," I told her. If I had the strength, but that was a whole other problem. "You'd just have to repeat a few lines in Latin. We should be done before supper and then we won't bother you for the rest of your trip."

"Rest of my life you mean, right, sugar?"

"Whatever you'd like," I agreed quickly. I didn't want to be near her, and I really didn't want to be near her if she didn't want to be around me. "So what do you say?"

"You're not involved with them?"

"Like Bryce said, this is strictly off the record. I just want Savannah back. And if the Cabals are the only way to do it, then that's what I'm going to do. They don't scare me."

I hadn't meant for that to come out. But Dana had been unconscious for days and Mom hadn't gone to her side, hadn't even told me Dana was sick in case I begged her to visit. She was stronger than me in that way. When Mom said enough, she never went back on her word, even when she should have. She said she would die before she went near the Cortezes again—so she let Dana die without us.

"Now, sugar, that's just you're sister talking."

"Dana can't talk anymore, Mother. She hasn't been able to talk for a long time now."

Bryce interrupted before we could get into it anymore. "We are on a deadline Miss Dixon. Savannah might not have a lot of time. Are you going to help us or not?"

Lyndsay leaned back in her chair and watched me, long enough that I started to squirm.

"Well, Mr Nast—Bryce, wasn't it?—as mighty fine as this here hotel room is, like I said before, I don't work for the Cabals. My daughter may be involved with you, but I sure as hell won't be."

"I'm going to ask you again to reconsider, Miss Dixon."

"I'm always going to say no."

She was serious; she wasn't going to do this. No Cabals didn't just mean no Cortezes.

"So help me god, if she dies because you didn't help—" I was choking on the words, but I didn't care, "If I lose her because you were too damn stubborn—How could you? You can't do this to me twice! Just let me see her! Just one last time..." Stupid tears. "I won't let you do this again. You have to help. You have to."

"Like you helped your Daddy?"

"I didn't leave him. I'm not the one who ran away from him, who stole his children without leaving him so much as a note. He told me to go and so I went." I never would have taken the scholarship if I'd known what he would do when I left. Never. "I didn't know he would—I wasn't like you. I wasn't trying to hurt him. I wasn't—"

"Gillian, get out."

"What?"

It wasn't that he was ordering me about; that was par on course for Bryce. But I hadn't expected him to pull his Cabal bullshit right then. He didn't flinch when I turned to glare.

"Go wait in the hall. Miss Dixon and I have some business to discuss and it's taking too long with you here. So get out."

Even though he sounded like a Cabal boss, he hadn't pulled on the aura of overconfidence that should have accompanied his speech. He was asking me to listen to him, in the politest way he knew how while we were in front of other people. So I did.

"I'll be in the hall."

Once again, I waited outside the door while Bryce conducted business with an older woman. This time, however, I got to pace, so it was a little less awful. Who was I kidding? It was a thousand times worse than having him face Alba.

But this time it only took him two minutes before he came storming out the room.

"She's agreed. She'll be out as soon as she finishes getting ready."

I didn't ask what he had given her. I didn't want to know.

When we arrived at the conference room, everyone else was waiting for us. Sean had followed the instructions perfectly and I knew Paige would have already double-checked everything. There couldn't be any mistakes. Also in the room were Grant and Fitz—the other bodyguards were outside the door. They were watching an old woman who I recognized as Margaret Levine. She was talking quietly with Paige in the center of the room, clearly uncomfortable. She still had the badly dyed hair. Old woman couldn't pull off black hair, it was just a fact of life.

I led my mother over to them. Margaret took a step back and I noticed how all the men in the room were giving her wide berth. Even Bryce was standing back against the wall, though unlike Sean his eyes were not downcast.

"Hello Margaret, I'm Gillian. We met once before, at Theresa Moss's funeral, remember?"

She took my hand, but her attention was still on the sorcerers. Paige shot me apologetic look, but this wasn't her fault. Coven witches couldn't help being timid. Savannah would hate that we had turned to them for help.

I quickly ran through what would be required of the two of them. It was a simple enough ritual, requiring only candles, strategically placed herbs and the casters. "The phrase is fairly simple. We should—" There was a very good chance this wouldn't work. "Sean! Come over here. This way you can learn it too, just in case we want to try the spell with you, later."

Both Nast brothers came towards us and Margaret got decidedly more nervous. Even my mother noticed. "Sugar, they ain't going to hurt you. We're no used to them dead."

"What Mrs MacArthur means is that the Nasts are here to help Savannah just like you," Paige explained soothingly. "They need our help more than we need theirs."

"I should have listened to Victoria," Margaret said simply, like a child might.

Victoria Alden was the reason Paige was no longer leader of the American Coven of Witches. Paige did not like hearing that at all. "If you can live with Savannah's death on your hands, than I can send you back right now," Paige said. Savannah would have been proud. I had never heard Paige talk like that before.

Margaret was too pathetic to deal with something like that. When Sean stood five feet away from her she didn't bolt, even if she shook like a leaf.

"Why can't Bryce do it?" Sean asked. It was a good question, considering he knew the spell already.

"The oldest brother might work better," I lied. The truth was I didn't think Sean and Paige would let me push as far as I wanted to; Bryce would let me have more time—and then pull me back in the end. "Shall we proceed?"

It was slow going. In a striking blow to sorcerer/witch relations, both witches proved useless. Lynsay didn't know magic so at least her incompetence was forgivable. The only reason I didn't strangle Margaret was because she was so damn old.

Bryce fixed up his brother's small problems with the rhythm while Paige and I tried to help the witches. My mother had no concept of the accent, but she got it eventually. Whatever else she was, Lynsay was a hard-worker. She didn't like to fail. Margaret had barely gotten the second line when I thought my mother had done as well as she was going to do enough. I sent her over to Bryce—who she was still watching, and that was really starting to get annoying, especially since Sean was clearly better looking—and began helping Paige. It took long enough, but finally Margaret was ready.

We were ready. Now we just had to hope it worked.

Sean had drawn a shape with salt. A perfect circle, with a square inside. The three of us sat in our respective corners, the two older witches on either side of me, an empty space for Savannah across from me. I was on my mother's right; Savannah would have been on Margaret's. There were four unlit candles in the center.

We did a walk through first, to get them comfortable with the spell, to make sure they entered at the right parts and didn't become surprised by anything during the spell. They seemed to handle it all right, so everyone else in the room backed up and we began.

I lit the candle in front of me and began the spell. When I reached the forth line, Margaret and my mother began their part, taking their candles and putting them to my flame as they spoke the words I had taught them. When the candles were lit I held out my hands and they placed theirs in mine, leaving their other hands open to the empty space where Savannah should have been. We finished up the last part of the spell they had learned. That was the easy part.

It was up to me now. I began another spell, calling on Savannah, asking for a response. Slowly the fourth candle began to smoke. The words kept coming, the same phrases over and over again until I could have said them in my sleep. Then the tiniest flicker appeared. I switched to the next part of the spell.

Immediately I was overwhelmed with sensations, screaming ringing through my head. Fear and hate and more fear, confusion and disappointment, love and duty—and nothing that was Savannah.

"Shh..." I whispered in English. "I need you two to calm your minds. You're blocking out everything. Please...quiet your minds."

Slowly the noise in my head dimmed until it was almost silent. And then I threw everything I had out, calling for Savannah.

I would know her anywhere. This didn't work like a normal communication spell. There was no annoying voice in my head. Instead I got a brief flash of emotion, of impotent rage and overwhelming hunger that I knew too well...I could feel her banging her hands against a prison she couldn't break out of...there was fear too, fear that she had gone too far, fear that no one would come, fear that the fear would overwhelm her...and then there was more rage.

Concentrating on the flashes of emotion, I cast the second part of the spell again, trying to strengthen the tentative connection. If I could get her to realize I was there, she might have the power to break through to me. But it was like watching television—however much I shouted, nothing I did effected what was on screen.

But I was too close to give up just yet. I tried the second part of the spell, yet again, sucking myself dry. I was beating against a closed iron door and there was no answer.

"Enough," a voice snarled and I found myself being dragged out of the circle. "Gillian, stop it."

Bryce had his hands under my arms, half-dragging me up. I didn't even waste time getting angry. "I felt her. She's there. She's alive. Pissed as hell, but what else is new?"

As I talked I became aware of the wetness on my face. Now on my feet, I lifted a hand to my face to find my upper lip was covered in blood. A quick look told me mother and Margaret didn't share my condition. They were regarding me with looks of trepidation and concern.

Bryce handed me a tissue without a word.

"She's out there," I told Paige. "I was this close. We need to try again."

She shook her head. "You were like that for ten minutes Gillian. You're exhausted. I don't think it's possible."

Even though my first instinct was to argue, I had to agree. Everything I had was poured into that spell. Damn. Paige went to Margaret, to thank her for her time. As I dabbed at my nose, I glanced up at Bryce. "Thanks for letting me try." Because Paige and Sean wouldn't have stood by why I bled out unless actively restrained.

"It was supposed to work," Bryce muttered.

"We should try with your brother," I said. Addressing my mother, who was still crouched in the circle I asked: "Are you up for another go?"

"I think so. Strange feeling, this spell stuff."

"It just takes some getting used to. You did really well though. Thank you."

"Don't know how you managed to stay so calm, what with that twitchy one panicking in your head," Lynsay said. I smiled because Margaret's freak out had been annoying, but said nothing because Paige was still helping Margaret out of the room, thanking her all her help. It must have cost Paige a lot to go to her Coven and beg for their help; for her sake, I hated that it hadn't worked.

"Practice—I'm still not very good. Savannah would have been able to do it, if she had been casting. This time we need to—"

"Sean'll redraw the circle," Bryce interrupted. "You need to get cleaned up."

"I'm fine."

"The blood says otherwise. Come on."

Instead of leaving me time to complain, he just grabbed my arm and dragged to the washroom. I hadn't even noticed they were there, in the corner of the room. Bryce walked me right inside, and I had an irrational urge to kick him out of the women's washroom—we were the only people with access, but I was still so conditioned that I almost told him to get out before I had time to think.

In one swift movement he lifted me up and seated my on the counter, then wet a paper towel before handing it over.

Half turning on the counter, I carefully wiped the blood off my face. It wasn't too bad, actually. Just a small trickle. None of it had even gotten on my shirt—good thing too because it was the only blouse I owned.

I glanced in the mirror and saw Bryce leaning against the opposite wall watching me intently. "Are you really trying to get yourself killed or do you really just not care?" he asked me slowly.

"I just want my best friend back."

"God, if it wouldn't make me such a hypocrite, I'd be ordering you to stop right about now."

"Maybe we should try a deal with Lucifer. He could—"

Bryce smiled a little. "Don't you dare. Besides, I'm sure someone in the company is already working on the demon deal angle. It's what we do."

I laughed a little, and if it wasn't a happy laugh, neither one of us said anything. Bryce examined my face and then wrapped his arms around me. I shivered, exhaustion and cold hitting me all at once. My eyes were closed and I was half-asleep before I realized it. But I didn't want to move for the next year so I just let my head rest for a little while longer.

"I've been thinking..." he said quietly, "If they kidnapped Savannah to heal their son, shouldn't they have brought her back in time with them? Back to when the kid was still alive? If she's still here..."

"We don't know why they want her," I reminded him. "So as long as the board of directors doesn't think of that..."

The bathroom door opened and Paige walked in. "We're all set up and I just wanted to check on Gillian," she explained.

I forced my eyes open and lifted my head off Bryce's shoulder. "I'm fine. I should be able to do it."

"There's no way you're fully recovered," Bryce pointed out.

"It probably won't work anyway," I sighed. "Sean...he's only her half-brother. There's no way—we should try, but I don't have to be at full power."

"Maybe there's another spell we can try," Paige suggested.

"Maybe," I agreed. "Shall we?"

Lynsay and Sean were in position when I re-entered the conference room. Paige and Bryce went back over to the wall, opposite sides of the room. I wanted to roll my eyes, but I understood that even corresponding interests did not make them friends.

Sitting back down, I began the spell again, relighting the candle. We did the first part of the spell and I held out my hands. My mother's were rough against mine. They had been completely wrecked. Shrivelled and knotted, they belonged to a woman twice her age. They felt like sandpaper—the soap at the diner having long ago eaten away the last vestiges of femininity. It took me a second to squash down the surge of love, but I did it, using anger to fan the feelings of betrayal.

This time it was harder to get the fourth candle to light and even when it did I could only pick up Savannah every few moments, when a particularly strong bout of emotion washed over her. I didn't bother wasting much time trying to get it to work.

"I'm sorry, but it's just not happening," I told Sean. "There's no point in pushing it."

"That's what we were afraid of. Back to the drawing board then?" he asked.

"There is another possibility," I allowed. One that wouldn't work, wasn't possible, but we were so close...and her fear had scared me. Savannah was never scared and I didn't like thinking someone had come and tried to change her. "We could try it with someone else."

Paige was the only one who knew what I was talking about and though she looked tempted, she also looked resigned. "I don't think that's possible."

Sean asked what I was talking about, but I glanced behind me, directing the answer at Bryce. "I need your grandfather."

"This is just another crazy guess," he dismissed.

"Of course it's a crazy guess. That's what I do. But I'm pretty sure—I mean, it should. It's worth trying."

"Getting him not to interfere with efforts to find her took a miracle," Sean said. "He won't actively help her. Especially...no offence, Gillian, but he doesn't particularly like you."

"I consider that a great compliment." Then I turned to Bryce. "You could get him to agree."

"Just to get him to do a stupid spell that might not work?"

"It's working. And you could...I'm sure you could figure out how to extend your advantage."

"Why do I not like the sound of this?" Sean wondered to the world at large.

"We'll be right back," Bryce said, and then the two us slipped back into the washroom. "What is it you want me to tell him?"

"Whatever you were going to tell him before. Hell, I don't care what you have to tell him. Just get him here. The only thing I won't play along with is if you want me to actually birth spawn. Otherwise—"

"You're just as crazy as normal."

"Thanks."

He nodded, kissed me and sighed. "Do you have this sinking feeling that this will blow up in our faces?"

"I think it's kind of fun."

The laughter helped him, I think. Even if he was rolling his eyes at me. We agreed, though. He would call Alba, tell her we were going through with it, and then he would call Thomas. Unfortunately, when we exited the washroom, we found we had missed an equally important conversation in the other room.

The second I stepped out of the washroom, my mother was screaming at me.

"Cortez? You have me working for the Cortezes?"

"What?"

"He called her Mrs Cortez!" Paulson stood guiltily along the wall, a piece of paper in his hand. Someone had left Mrs Cortez a message and the overeager bodyguard had to prove he was brain-dead. "You little bitch, how dare you—!"

"Grant!" With one bellowed word, Bryce summoned the body guard between my mother and I. "I want the trailer trash dead."

"Grant, stop." Thankfully, the bodyguard listened to me. The pause allowed me to turn on Bryce. "You can't kill my mother."

"I warned her and she didn't listen. So watch me."

"You can't be serious."

"Do I look like I'm joking?"

"You have to be."

"She broke our deal. She dies. End of story. She knew what she was getting into when she agreed."

And then he had both mother and daughter shouting at him.

"Do you have any idea what they did to me? They stole my husband! He sold his soul and I did nothing but watch, just watched as they took him from me. So I said no more Cortezes. My daughter was dead and I still stood by that. I'm not going to change my goddamn mind just because you think you can push me around. I never agreed to work for the Cortezes—I would never agree to that!"

"No one ever knows what they're getting into with your goddamn Cabals, otherwise no one would sign up. No one wants to sell their soul. They don't want to give up their families; they don't want to become useless shells of themselves because someone higher up can't be bothered to double check that the money's going to be where they said it was. They don't want to end up dead in a bathtub, but they do, because that's the only way to stop all the shit you threw at them from slowly killing them—and they never agreed to that!"

"Okay, everybody," Sean muttered. "Why don't we take deep breathes?"

"Miss Dixon?" Paige interrupted. "I might be married to a Cortez, but you can be assured that I like the Cabals as much as you do. My husband has been trying to remove himself from that world his entire life. This isn't about the Cabal. This is about a girl named Savannah. More importantly, this is about your daughter asking you to help her. This isn't about the Cabals."

"It's always about the Cabals," my mother spat. "I haven't been part of your world for years and even I know better than that. Your husband has been trying to get out? He can't. None of them can. It sounds good right up until they take everything from you. Haven't you figured that out yet?"

Paige shifted uncomfortably. Because Benecio Cortez wasn't Thomas Nast—he wasn't planning on working until the day he died. And then Lucas was going to have decide whether leaving the Cabal in the hands on his incompetent BDSM loving brother was the sort of thing he really wanted on his conscience.

"Maybe you're right," she said at last. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to give up on Savannah just yet. So please, help us."

"My grandfather will be here in half an hour," Bryce promised. "I won't have you killed in the meantime. So if you could just wait here..."

"Please?"

I sounded thirteen again, but I didn't care. If begging was what it took, then begging was what I do.

She looked at me a long time, this funhouse mirror image of me in twenty years. I couldn't read her any more. I used to think she loved me best and then I realized it was just because she didn't love Dana at all. I didn't want to know her; I couldn't make her stay.

"Double or nothing," was all she said.

"Done," Bryce agreed, so quickly it was startling. "I'll be back soon. Try and be polite."

Silence descended on the room after Bryce had left, Grant following on his heels. In the quiet, Margaret Levine spoke, in her thin, timid voice:

"Can I go home now, please?"