Awakening

17. Breaking In

August, 1999

Beck contacted us today. I knew as soon I saw his face in my leug that the news was bad. But I didn't imagine it would be this bad.

Linden was killed. Beck told us, trying to summon the dark spirits. “He called on the dark side to ask how to reach you and Fiona,” was what Beck said in his blunt way.

Goddess, what have I wrought? I've abandoned four children, and now one is dead because of me. I didn't know this kind of pain was possible.

— Maghach

I sat in Das Boot, trying to take meditative breaths to calm down, it doesn't mean anything, I told myself. It's just a shopping bag.

Right Afton was just the type to shop at Practical Magick, Twenty minutes later I pulled up in front of Afton's sprawling home. What was I doing here? How was I going to prove anything?

I gazed gloomily out my car window. It must be garbage day, I realized, spotting the cans lining the curbs.

Could my proof be in those cans? I wondered. I scrambled out of the car and raced to the cans in front of Afton's house. I opened one, and the stink hit me. Ew. Was I really going to paw through someone else's trash?

I held a hand over the can, trying to get a sense of what I was looking for. I seek witch power, I thought. If there is an object that has been handled by a witch, lead me to it please. The tips of my fingers tingled, and I ripped open one of the black plastic bags.

A green shopping bag with silver handles lay on top. The logo for Practical Magick was stamped on its side in silver. A gift card was tied to one of the handles. With shaking hands, I pulled it out of the garbage. I flipped open the card and gasped. These are for you, the card read. You know why.

The card was signed, Blessed be, Alyce.

I dropped the bag as if it had bitten me. Home-baked muffins tumbled out into the snow.

A car drove up and stopped behind me. Once again, I realized, Hunter had tracked me down. "Morgan, what is it?" he asked.

I lifted my stricken face to him. "It can't be," I whispered.

If Alyce had used dark magick to cause Stuart Afton's stroke, then everything that I thought I knew or understood was wrong. And no one was to be trusted.

"Get in the car," Hunter ordered.

I simply obeyed. My mind whirled. Alyce? Then she was an amazing liar because she had seemed to be very certain that no one should mess with dark forces.

Hunter got out of the car and picked up the bag I had dropped. He gathered up the muffins, sniffed them, gazed at them. Then he dumped everything back into the garbage can. He climbed back into the car.

"They're not spelled," he said.

"Wh-what?" I asked.

"The muffins, the bag, the note," he explained. "None of it is spelled. Alyce had nothing to do with Afton's stroke."

I leaned back and let out a sigh of relief.

I felt Hunter's eyes on me. "You suspected David, though, didn't you? That's why you came back out here?"

"I–I don't know what I thought," I said.

"I went to Red Kill, to Memorial Hospital. I saw Stuart Afton," Hunter said.

I didn't bother to ask how he had been able to see Afton since he wasn't a relative or even a friend.

"I had heard he'd been acting strangely for days, which they believe may have been signaling the stroke, despite the fact that there was no medical reason for it to have happened. And he was sort of babbling while I was there."

"What did he say?" I asked apprehensively.

"He said, I did what they wanted. Why isn't it over? "

"That doesn't mean anything," I felt compelled to say. "He could have been talking about work or something."

"There's more," Hunter said. "Remember the dark presence you felt at your garage? I hadn't realized until I drove you there that the garage is right down the road from the Afton gravel pit. But when I saw that I realized that the dark presence might not have been looking for you at all."

I gaped at him. "You mean. .?"

Hunter nodded. "Maybe it was looking for Stuart Afton."

I put a hand to my forehead. I didn't know whether to be relieved or upset. If the dark presence had been after Afton instead of me, that meant I wasn't being stalked. But it also meant that Hunter was right and David had called on the dark side.

"Anyway, I was heading over to his office to do some more checking, then I got this sense that you needed me," Hunter said.

I bristled. "I was fine," I said. "It was just upsetting to think that Alyce might have been involved somehow."

"Well. . good," Hunter said. "So I'll see you later."

I turned in my seat to face him. "I'm going with you."

"What?"

"I am part of this now," I said firmly. "If you're going to check out Afton's office, then I'm going, too."

For a moment it seemed like he was going to argue with me, but then he sighed. "Fine. You'd just follow me, anyway."

I managed a grin. "Gee. I guess you do know me after all."

I scrambled out of his car and into mine. Then I followed him to Stuart Afton Enterprises. Hunter took my arm, and we crossed the street to Afton's building. "I want to get into his office and search for signs of magick."

"You mean like breaking and entering?" My voice sounded strangled. I'd never even so much as shoplifted.

"Well, yes," Hunter said. "Not to put too fine a point on it."

"Don't tell me: You're a Seeker and have some sort of magickal permission that lets you break all kinds of human laws." I crossed my arms over my chest.

Hunter smiled, and I caught my breath at how boyish he suddenly looked. "That's right," he said. "You can back out anytime. I didn't invite you, remember?"

I rolled my eyes. "I'm in."

"Fine. Just so long as you remember who's in charge here."

I gritted my teeth in irritation as he murmured under his breath, quickly tracing runes and other sigils in the air. "This is a spell of illusion," he told me. "Anyone looking at us here will see something else—a cat, a banner, a tall plant—anything but us."

I was impressed and also envious of Hunter's ability. I realized again how much I had to learn.

"All right, now. Here's something for you to do," Hunter instructed. "There's an alarm wired into this door. It runs on electricity, which is just energy. Focus your own energy, then probe inside for the energy of the security system and do something with it."

I didn't want this responsibility. "What if I short-circuit the microwave by mistake?"

"You won't," he assured me.

I sent my energy inside the building. It was the first time I'd ever tried to focus on energy that wasn't attached to a person or somehow linked to the land. This was searching for electric currents that had no character or easily recognizable pattern; they were simply circuits, designed to register a response when they were opened or closed.

At first all I felt was a general emptiness within the rooms of the building. I probed again and this time felt a lower-level energy around the perimeter of the building, steady and unobtrusive, designed to be noticed only if it were broken. It ran across all the doors and through the glass of the windows. I went deeper into the building and I picked up other kinds of energy—ultrasonic sound waves I and, upstairs, a laser, both motion detectors. And something else on the ground floor: a passive infrared light, designed to pick up on the infrared energy given off by an intruder's body heat

"Well?" Hunter asked.

"This is so cool," I murmured.

"Find the security system," he reminded me.

"Right." I cast my energy again, found the security control box in the basement, and let my mind examine it. I concentrated harder, sensing a pattern that had been punched in time and time again.

"Six-two-seven-three-zero," I said. "That's the code."

"Excellent." Hunter tapped the numbers into the keypad by the door, and we heard a quiet click. "Let's go."

Inside, Hunter headed for a big, windowed room at the back of the first floor: Stuart Afton's office. Inside the room he looked around, closed his eyes for a moment, and controlled his breathing. Then he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an athame. The hilt had a simple design, set with a single dark blue sapphire.

Hunter unsheathed the blade and pointed it at Afton's desk. A sigil flickered, lit with sapphire blue light. Magick had been done here.

Hunter pointed the blade at Afton's chair and I saw the rune Hagell, for disruption. The rune Neid, for constraint, flickered over the doorway. There were other signs that I didn't recognize.

"These are used to mark targets," Hunter explained, holding the athame at some of the unfamiliar figures. "Do you still doubt that magick has been used against Afton?"

"No." Seeing these sigils, knowing they had been wrought with dark intent, was deeply upsetting. "But we still don't know whose magick this is."

"Don't we?" His voice was soft, dangerous. He held the athame to the sigil once more. "From which clan do you arise?" he asked.

The shape of a crystal flickered above the sigil.

"What is that?" I asked.

"The sign of the Burnhides," Hunter said. He didn't sound triumphant, just sad.

"Oh, no," I said. I felt hollow inside.

"This isn't real proof," Hunter said. "There are probably other Burnhides in the area besides David. Making magick is like handwriting—if you know someone's work, you can recognize it. I need to learn David's magickal signature. Then I'll have the proof I need."

I swallowed. "Great."

Hunter and I split up after leaving Afton's offices. Needing a break from the strain, I went home.

I walked in to find Mary K. sitting at the kitchen table, white-faced.

"What's wrong?" I asked quickly, thinking, Bakker.

"Aunt Eileen just called."

"What happened? Are they all right?"

She nodded, looking stricken. "Nobody was hurt, but those guys—or some of their buddies—came back last night. This morning they found the front of the house covered with spray paint."

"What did it say?"

"Aunt Eileen wouldn't tell me," said Mary K. "So I guess it was bad. They just got back from the police station."

I felt a surge of irrational guilt. If I hadn't gone to Practical Magick and then been with Hunter. .

"I've never heard Aunt Eileen sound so shaken up," Mary K. went on. "She called here looking for Mom, and I could tell she'd been crying. She wants to put the house on the market."

"What? Oh, no! She can't be serious!"

Mary K. shook her head, her perfect bell of auburn hair brushing her shoulders. "They're tired of the Northeast. They think that in California, people will be more tolerant." Her voice trembled. "Aunt Eileen wants Mom to relist their house."

"That's crazy!" I said. "It's just three high school kids! Three idiots, three losers. Every town has them."

"Tell that to Aunt Eileen and Paula," Mary K. said. She got up and began taking clean dishes out of the dishwasher. "God, they were so excited about that house. I hate it that anyone is doing this to them!"

"I do, too," I said. And I can do something about it, I thought.

I glanced at my watch. I had about four hours before I had to be at Jenna's house for our circle. That would give me time to finish the protection charm. And to find a spell to teach those thugs a lesson they'd never forget.