Missing powers, p.16
Missing Powers, page 16
It was Florida. There were a lot of orange groves.
In the car, Damon explained to Reg that the temple orange grove was a nature preserve where there had once been a pagan temple. It had been long enough ago that no one could remember much about it, other than that it had been a temple. Its particular purpose or deity was long forgotten, as were most traces of the temple itself.
There were some rocks that had been part of the foundation of the temple. Someone looking very carefully could find where the outer walls had stood so many years before. Other than that… it was an orange grove carefully maintained by a foundation that had received a grant from an anonymous donor for just that purpose.
“Do you think we’ll be able to find anything out?” Reg asked.
“Well, you have as much a chance as anyone. Maybe more so. And if Corvin is going to show that caring attitude that you talked to him about, then he can encourage the other members of the coven to support you and tell you everything they can. I don’t know if that will result in the clue that lets you find Davyn and bring him home safely, but it’s at least worth trying.”
“Yeah.”
Damon looked at the time on his radio panel. “Do you want to get some lunch before we go over? Kill some time until they start showing up?”
“I guess so, yes. That would make sense.” Reg’s stomach gave a rumble. She hadn’t realized that she was hungry. But all that she’d had so far was coffee, and she had obviously burned that off during the session with Corvin.
They found a cafe nearby and ordered. Reg still found it difficult to talk to Damon. First of all, because of the social distance between them, when they had previously been feeling out the possibility of a romantic relationship. Reg didn’t want to say anything too intimate or familiar, but she didn’t want to give him the cold shoulder either. He had agreed to ditch his regular work and help her out, when she had offered nothing in return but an interesting day. Reg paid for his lunch, and figured that was something, anyway. At least there was a free lunch.
But she also had never really clicked with Damon. He had been interested in her and had sent out clear signals, offering her an escort and giving her his business card when they had first met, the day of Corvin’s tribunal. But their first attempts at dating did not turn out well. They didn’t seem to speak the same language. Reg could get along with Corvin, whose life experience had been nothing like Reg’s, and she still found him interesting and attractive. But Damon tended to do things that triggered negative emotions and memories for Reg. And he put visions into her head, which, as far as she was concerned, was very creepy. Especially when she couldn’t tell at the time whether they were real or imagined. It was pretty disconcerting to play along inside a vision for a while, thinking it was reality, and then to find out that it had all just been something some guy had stuck into her head.
“I hope you’ll be able to find Davyn. He’s a good guy. Seems like he would be a good, solid, stabilizing leader for a coven. Hunter, on the other hand…”
“You don’t think he’s stable?” Reg asked, heavy with irony.
Damon snorted. “No. Stable is not the word I would use for Hunter ever—and even more so now. I don’t know what is going on, but he seems like he could blow at any time.”
“Yeah, I’ve been worried lately. I think maybe it’s just the stress of being reintegrated into the coven and trying to run for leadership right away. Maybe he should have waited a year, or however long would have been customary to get settled back in first.”
“Maybe he thinks this is his only chance.”
Reg frowned. “Why would he think that?”
“The rules are shifting. Right now, they’re in his favor, but all it is going to take is a single report that one of these, umm…”
“Power drinkers?” Reg suggested. Damon was clearly uneasy even naming Corvin’s condition. That was what came of making it taboo even to discuss. People had to tiptoe around the issue. Reg didn’t like to tiptoe.
“Right. Power drinkers… all it is going to take to swing the pendulum back the other direction is for one of these power drinkers who has been allowed to lead a coven to make a mistake, and they’ll shut all the rest down. Corvin has this one small window before someone steps out of line. And then, if he isn’t the leader of the coven already, it will be too late. He’d be closed out again for decades, maybe longer.”
Reg was sure that one of those cursed leaders would step out of line sooner or later. It was only a matter of time until one of them let go of his self-control and wrested the powers from one of the other warlocks in their coven. She knew Corvin’s hunger, and she knew how difficult it had been for him to follow the magical community’s laws in the past. He had failed before. He would fail again. Or one of the other leaders would. And the ramifications would be heard all around the practicing world.
Damon drove to the temple orange grove, pointing out a couple of other landmarks on the way there. Reg had been in Black Sands for close to a year, but there was a lot she still didn’t know. The town had a lot of history for such a small, sheltered place. It had been around for a long time and some of the residents were very long-lived.
“Here we are.”
At first, there was nothing to set the site apart from any other grove Reg had seen. They had a short distance to walk from the parking lot. When Reg entered the grove she drew her breath in quickly in surprise. She found herself holding her breath, afraid to let it out again in case anything should change.
Damon looked at her curiously. “What is it?” he asked in amusement.
“This is amazing.” Reg looked at the edifice in shock. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Damon looked around at the trees and shook his head. “It’s a grove of trees. You’ll find them all over. Granted, not every state has oranges, but you’ve been here long enough that you must have seen a few.”
“Oh, it’s not the trees. It’s the temple.”
Damon raised an eyebrow. “The temple.”
Reg breathed slowly out and then in again, afraid that she would do something that would make it all disappear. It was clear that Damon did not see the same sight she did.
“It’s a beautiful building,” she explained. “It looks like… it’s made out of silver and gold light.”
“Really.” He gazed at the air in front of him. “What does it look like?”
Reg did her best to describe the structure. They walked into the grove and Reg walked around the temple structure without looking down at the ground at the stones still visible from the foundation. She stopped at the doorway and pointed it out to him.
“This is really something.”
She had been so wrapped up in the temple that she hadn’t noticed the warlocks arriving while she toured Damon around it. They stood quietly at a distance around her, listening with interest to her descriptions. Reg suddenly became aware of their presence and her cheeks grew hot.
“Oh… I’m sorry. I was just…”
“Can you really see all of that?” a young-looking warlock asked skeptically.
Reg rolled her eyes and didn’t bother engaging with him.
“I’ve seen pictures of what they think the old temple looked like,” another contributed, “and she’s pretty much bang on.”
“She’s probably seen the same pictures,” the young skeptic pointed out.
They all looked at each other. Reg knew that there was no point in trying to convince nonbelievers. It just made them more likely to attack and to try to recruit others on their side. Things could get very messy very fast.
“Sorry about this, but we have a meet-up planned here,” a warlock with a white handlebar mustache and red face told Reg. “So when you’re done…”
Reg felt like pointing out that there was no way to book the site and she had as much of a right to be there on a pilgrimage as they did to meet there as a coven. But the guy had at least been polite about it.
“Are you Davyn’s coven, then?”
He raised his brows, surprised at this. “Yes, we are. And you are…?”
“I’m helping with the investigation. I was hoping you could answer a few questions about the night he disappeared.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
The man looked around at some of the other warlocks, standing in a rough circle around the temple site. “The police have already been making their rounds asking questions. You don’t look like a cop.”
“I’m not, obviously, but I was hired on as a consultant. So I’d like to follow up with those who were here Monday night to get their impressions of how Davyn was and what happened after he left here. I know that no one knows, but I’m used to dealing with more… speculative ideas.”
“A psychic?” a man standing close to Reg, wearing what looked like a long black raincoat, suggested. The raincoat looked like it would be incredibly uncomfortable in the Florida heat. Like a portable sauna.
“Yes. Reg Rawlins, Psychic Investigator.” Reg patted her pockets, looking for her business cards.
The warlock waved away her attempts to find them. “I don’t need any proof.”
“I have business cards. I should hand them out so that if any of you need to contact me later if one of you remembers something that might be relevant—”
“I don’t need your number. I’ll just reach out to you telepathically.” The warlock made a show of putting his fingers to his temples and concentrating hard, mocking her.
There was laughter from the group. Reg shook her head. “You do that,” she said. “And for those of you who don’t want to make a fool of yourselves…” She found a stack of business cards in one of the pockets of her purse and started handing them around. “You might want to try a more conventional method. Of course, if you’re not up on current technology, like telephones, you could always send me a message by raven…”
The laughter of the warlocks was now directed at the unfortunate warlock who had decided to tease her, rather than at Reg. Most of them took a card from her, encouraged by the fact that others in the group were doing so. Peer pressure working in Reg’s favor.
“We do have a ceremony scheduled,” the warlock who seemed to have taken it upon himself to lead the group reminded everyone. “So maybe after you’ve finished handing those out, you could go back home and people can contact you if they have anything to report…”
Reg shook her head. “I wanted to ask a few questions while you’re all together here. That saves me running around trying to track everybody down individually. I can ask now or wait until after your prayer thing.”
Damon was still there, hanging at the edges of the group, keeping a sharp eye out for anything suspicious. Reg was happy to have him there and grateful that he knew when to keep quiet and just hang back. His job providing security for private and public functions had trained him to stay in the background until she needed him.
The warlocks looked at each other, not liking the idea of Reg staying there to watch their rituals. But they couldn’t kick her off of property that wasn’t theirs. It was open to the public and could not be booked for one particular group. They could ask her to leave nicely, as they had, but she didn’t have to leave.
“Why don’t we just do it?” one of the younger men asked. “Let her ask her questions, and then we’ll be alone for the ritual.”
There were several nods and voiced agreements. Reg looked around at them to make sure that there was a consensus. Corvin was not there, and she didn’t know whether he would be coming to put on a show of concern over Davyn’s disappearance or not. She figured he would. And she preferred to ask her questions before he got there, when he might influence their answers.
“Fine. If that’s what everyone wants to do,” the leading warlock conceded, not sounding too happy about it. “But let’s make it quick. Some of us have other places we need to be and only have a short time for this meeting.”
“Can I get your names?” Reg asked.
He looked at her. “Are you going to write them down?”
He might have been against her writing them down, or might just have wondered how she could be conducting such an investigation without the aid of a notebook to record her findings. Reg really didn’t like reading or writing. Both were difficult for her, and writing down all of the names would take up all of the time she had before Corvin’s arrival. She had developed a pretty good memory for names and the relevant points she would pick up in the investigation to compensate for her disabilities.
At least, she had a good memory for things that had happened since Wilson’s death. The things that had happened before that were still scattered in her brain.
“No, I’m not writing it down.”
There were relieved reactions from a number of the warlocks. So, despite the fact that there was greater acceptance of those who practiced in magic, especially in Black Sands, there were apparently a few of them who would prefer not to have their names made public. Or who did not want to be associated with a police investigation.
“I’m Wilf Martin,” the de facto leader introduced himself curtly.
John Saunders was the young skeptic, Hershel Benson the man in the black raincoat, and so on around the circle. Reg did her best to commit them all to memory.
“So, is everyone who was there Monday night here today?” Reg asked. She wasn’t sure whether she could tell the core eleven members of the coven from those who were in junior positions. She could go by age and confidence, but that wouldn’t necessarily be accurate, since some of those who practiced magic managed to stay very young-looking.
“There are a few missing,” Benson advised. “People tend to work during the day. Some of us can get the time off for something like this, and others can’t.”
“Who is missing?”
They exchanged looks. “Corvin Hunter,” Saunders pointed out. “Uh… Jeremy Frederick. Marshall Brown.”
Reg would try to follow up with them later. Although if everyone in the grove could vouch for them, Reg could at least be confident that they had been there Monday night and had not been the person who had called Davyn.
It might be a good idea to catch a couple of them separate from the group. They could be more open about what they saw and thought than the warlocks who were present and would have to watch what they said in front of their peers and to toe the party line.
Reg didn’t whip out a notebook to write these names down, and again, there seemed to be a collective sigh as they saw that she wasn’t going to record any of what she heard there. They were gradually getting more relaxed about talking to her.
“Those of you who were at the coven on Monday… can you confirm that those three were present the whole time? Including when Davyn got the phone call and headed home?”
They looked around at each other, nodding, gradually forming a consensus. “Yes,” Benson agreed. “We were all there. They were there. They never left the group.”
“And no one who was there had to go… to get something he forgot out of his car, or to find a restroom, or get refreshments? Nothing like that?”
She had no idea how the coven operated, but those all seemed like reasonable excuses to leave the group for a few minutes. And maybe to be a little longer than expected. It wouldn’t be hard to drive a mile or two to a phone or a remote area and then place the call to Davyn while he was still there with everyone else.
The warlocks shook their heads, apparently sure of themselves.
“Okay, great. That’s really helpful.”
It pretty much eliminated the chances that anyone in the coven had been involved in Davyn’s disappearance.
“And Corvin Hunter was with the group the whole time?”
More definite nods. Of course people had paid attention to Corvin. It had been his first time back with the coven since he had been shunned.
“How did he seem?”
Wilf Martin shrugged. “He seemed just the same as ever. It was nice to have him back in the coven. We have missed him. You know about, err…” he cleared his throat, looking awkward.
“About his sentence, yeah.”
“She was the one,” Saunders said. “She was the one that pressed charges against him for trying to take her powers by force.”
There were dark looks from a number of the warlocks, and Reg cursed her bad luck. Of course someone had recognized her from the tribunal. It wasn’t that big of a community. Several of the others had probably been there too.
“I never pressed charges,” Reg reminded him. “That was the fairies. The tribunal called me to testify about what had happened, but I wasn’t the one who started it.”
Nods and grunts of acknowledgment from around the circle as others remembered this detail.
“It had nothing else to do with me,” Reg insisted. “I just answered their questions about what happened. That’s all. I’ve seen Corvin plenty of times since then. He’d tell you that himself. He doesn’t hold a grudge against me.”
There was silence for a few minutes. Then others began to answer her last question. “Yeah, he seemed just the same as ever. As glad to be back in the coven as we were to have him back.”
“He didn’t seem stressed at all? Angry?”
She was surprised by the negative answers around the group. Corvin hadn’t been stressed on Monday? That didn’t make any sense. She had seen him both before and after that. His negative mood had been going on for several weeks. Had they been so happy to see him that they had just overlooked his crankiness? Or had he been able to put it aside and remain good-humored for the night’s rituals? Maybe he was just so happy to be back there that he’d been able to stay in a good mood while he was with them. She imagined that it would have been quite encouraging to have all of his peers talking to him again after the long months of silently ignoring him even if they saw him at the grocery store or in some other setting.
“And he was definitely there when Davyn got his phone call?”
“Sure.” Lots of heads bobbed up and down. People’s eyes had been on Corvin that night, his first night rejoining the coven and, Reg assumed, announcing his candidacy in running for leadership of the coven. He would not have been able to wander off without their noticing, even for a few minutes.
