©2005 by Amy J. Webb
All Rights Reserved
No portion of this book may be reproduced—mechanically, electronically, or by any other means, including photocopying—without written permission of the author.
ISBN 1-4116-3353-9
The Devil’s Deal
by
Amy J. Webb
Acknowledgements
There are so many people that I need to thank for helping me see this dream to fruition. First off, I have to thank the readers of the original Devil’s Deal, who provided me with critique and gentle criticism necessary to continue on my path toward success. The people who read my works in their earliest stages are some of the most amazing people you’ll ever meet and I continue to be awed at the writing talent I see everyday, in one-shots and novels lovingly crafted by people who enjoy the same things that I do.
I would like to thank several people who have helped me edit, read through portions of the text and given me virtual hugs when things haven’t gone exactly as planned, and because there are so many, I might leave someone out, but trust that it’s unintentional: Kaytie, Amie, Catherine, Sharon, Kikei, Curia Regis, Twinkle, Jasmine, Sam, Claudia, Regina and everyone on my LJ-friends list!
Special thanks go to the cover artist for The Devil’s Deal. Her name is Katherine Crenshaw, and a more talented artist would be hard to find indeed. Please, take a minute and visit her website, www.oshinchan.com and take a look at the wonderful treasures she has there. Also a fan of my series, I knew from the moment I first saw her work that I wanted her art to grace the front cover of book one.
To my high school English teacher, Tim Humphrey, I say, thanks for putting up with me, even though I hated Ethan Frome, believe that the ERA really does hurt a pitcher’s credibility and that yes, sometimes I was acting like a smartass just to annoy you. Despite what it looked like at the time, I had and continue to have the deepest respect for you. It’s your teaching that helped me fall in love with writing in the first place.
Finally, I’d like to thank you, the reader, for buying this book. Proceeds from the sale of this book will go in part to the Autism Society of America, which helps to educate people about autism spectrum disorders and promotes research into this enigmatic disorder.
Prologue
Roger Blake was a man who liked to be on top of things. One of the most powerful wizards in the world, a member of the Department of Magical Defense and an upstanding contributor to the Loyalist Movement, Blake was shrewd, clever and a force to be reckoned with. He could count the number of times he had misread a situation on one finger, and on that finger, he wore his fiancée’s engagement ring as a reminder to be ever vigilant, ever careful, ever watchful and suspicious of everything. After all, anyone could be the enemy… even your best friend. The day Corinna had died had been the worst day of his entire life.
Until
Sunny, cloudless and a balmy seventy-seven degrees, the weather conditions were perfect for a baseball game. Even better, the match up pitted two of the sport’s biggest rivals: the woebegone Boston Red Sox and the American League’s bad boys, the New York Yankees. Roger had scored front row tickets on the first base side in an office raffle and looked forward to taking his family to
He was on his way out of the office for the day when his desk phone rang. “Yeah?”
“
An icy fear knotted in Roger’s stomach. He thought he recognized the voice, but before he could respond to the cryptic message, a soft click and the sound of a dial tone echoed in his ears.
With trembling fingers, Roger dialed his sister. One ring. Two. Three.
Damn it, sis, where are you? Answer the goddamned phone!
“Hi there, you’ve reached Marshall, Amber and Scott Madison! We can’t come to the phone right now, so leave us your name and number…”
They should be home! Why aren’t they answering the telephone?
The angry blare of a horn interrupted Roger’s thoughts. He watched through his office window as two fire engines and an ambulance flew through the red light, sirens howling. Seconds later more emergency vehicles sped through the intersection, paying no attention to the light. Two more ambulances screeched by, followed by several police cars. All were going in the same direction as the fire engines and the first ambulance. For the first time, Roger caught the whiff of smoke and saw a thick, dark haze billowing into the sky in the west.
No—not after everything they’ve been through!
Roger sprinted out of the office, raced across the parking lot, hopped into his car and, with a squeal of tires, barreled out of the parking lot and into traffic, narrowly avoiding a collision with a Jeep. Weaving in and out of lanes, not caring if he cut people off, the panicked man headed straight, towards the highway.
As he turned onto Highway 9, the smoke became more acrid, thicker. By the time he reached
Roger’s heart skipped two beats as he slammed on the brakes and turned off the engine. Leaping from the car without closing the door behind him, he dashed toward the house, pulling his polo shirt over his nose and mouth as he ran. Heavy, suffocating black smoke poured from the broken windows and gray ash carpeted the lawn. He cried out and threw his arms over his face instinctively as a bay window on the first floor exploded outward and a ball of orange-yellow flame barreled out. Several firefighters rushed to the newest hot spot and trained their hoses on the blaze.
Before Roger could break through the yellow police tape that surrounded the property, a police officer called to him, “You can’t go in there!”
“Where’s my family? What’s going on here?” Roger asked, blinking against the intense heat put forth by the fire.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Roger Blake, Amber’s brother!”
“What brings you here, Mr. Blake?”
“We were supposed to be going to the Red Sox game tonight. Is she all right? Where is she?”
The man pulled a small notebook and a pencil from his pocket. “My name’s Turner—Al Turner. I’m an officer with the Covington County Sheriff’s Department. What time was the ballgame supposed to start?”
“Am I being interrogated? Will you please tell me what in the HELL is going on?” He tried once again to push past the officer.
“Hold on, hold on. Can I see a photo ID?”
“Jesus Christ, what is this?” Roger shoved his hand into his pocket and pulled out a leather billfold. He opened it to the slot that held his driver’s license and thrust it into the officer’s hands.
“Where is my sister? Was she at home? Was she hurt?”
The officer looked at the license and then back at Roger, comparing the information on the license with what he saw in front of him.
“An ambulance passed me on the way here; did they take her to the hospital? Where is she? Mercy? Beth-Israel?”
Officer Turner sighed. “I’m sorry. They’re dead, Mr. Blake. The firefighters tried to get to them both in time but weren’t successful. I’m sorry.”
“What?” Roger’s legs felt weak, as if they might buckle beneath him. The hot-sour taste of bile filled his mouth and he swallowed several times to prevent himself from vomiting. The Visionary Coalition found them, despite everything, he thought. It didn’t matter to them that Marshall and Amber were out of the loop and couldn’t have told them anything, even if they’d wanted to. Both of ’em wanted out for Scott’s sake...
...And the Visionists capitalized on it.
A movement in the
Roger watched, horrified, as the doors to the awaiting ambulance opened and Marshall Madison was placed carefully into the vehicle. The medics slammed the doors closed and the ambulance rolled away. No flashing lights, no sirens, nothing. The dead needed no fanfare.
“My sister,” Roger said weakly. “Where is my sister? She’s five months’ pregnant!” He tried to look past the officers, but they motioned him to stop.
“You don’t want to go in there, Mr. Blake,” the officer advised. He placed a heavy hand on Roger’s shoulder. “She’s dead, too, like I said.”
Roger shook his head in disbelief as he stared at the burning building.
“Mr. Blake, we have reason to believe that this fire was set deliberately. Do you know of anyone who might have held a grudge against your sister and her husband, such as a co-worker?” The officer took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and then exhaled. “Were Marshall and Amber happily married? Were they faithful to each other? Was either of them seeing someone else?”
Roger looked incredulous. “Of course not! What the fuck are you getting at?”
“We have reason to believe that they were dead before the fire started, Mr. Blake.”
Roger clenched his teeth and fought the lump rising swiftly in his throat. Their deaths—they were all his fault! He should have known that they were in danger! He had been following the Visionists’ movements for months. Marshall and Amber were dead because he hadn’t read the signals properly. He traced his dead fiancée’s engagement ring with the pointer finger of his right hand.
Officer Turner cleared his throat and placed his hands in his pockets. “The coroner’s report will tell us for certain, but it appeared that both Marshall and Amber had been shot. Did they keep guns in the house?”
“Of course not! They’d have been too worried about Scott getting his hands on it!”
Roger pivoted on his heel, turning away from the officer. He began to weep silently. “Oh God…oh God, no, their son,” he said, in a voice so quiet that the officer had to strain to hear. “He’s just a little kid. He’s only six.”
“I’m sorry—”
“Sorry? You’re sorry?” Roger spun around and faced the officer, his eyes bright with tears. “Who’s going to tell him that his mommy and daddy are dead?” He consulted his watch. “It’s two-thirty, so he might still be at school. Someone needs to call them and tell ‘em to keep him there for a while. I’m his uncle; I’ll go and get him. It was in their will, that if something should happen to them that I would care for Scott!” He bowed his head.
“Mr. Blake, hang on.”
“I have to go get Scott. I have to tell him, he needs to hear it from someone he loves, not some stranger he doesn’t know!”
“Scott’s here.”
Silence.
“No,” Roger whispered. “He’s not dead too, is he? They didn’t—please tell me that they—”
“Who would ‘they’ be, exactly?”
“The Visionists, damn it! Don’t you understand? My sister and her husband were magicals, former members of the Scarlet Guard, actually, but the Visionists…they killed them all—Scott too—didn’t they?” Roger swore. “Scott had absolutely nothing to offer them – he hasn’t shown a smidgen of magical powers, but it wasn’t good enough for
“Jesus,” said Turner. “I’d heard the rumors that the Coalition was still out and about, causing trouble, but I’d hoped they were wrong. I’m going to have to contact the Head of Security at the Department of Magical Defense about this. He’s going to have to know what’s going on… maybe he’ll get the Scarlet Guard involved.”
“Damn straight he will,” Roger insisted. “Them an’ the Loyalists wouldn’t have it any other way.”
The power struggle between the Loyalists, men or women with magical abilities who supported a healthy political and social balance between those who chose to develop their magical skills and those who chose to live without the aid of spells and enchantments, and the Visionists had been going full swing for almost thirty years.
Raphael Valdez, a wizard with powers so awesome that the most courageous of men feared him, was the Visionary Coalition’s leader. Those who supported
Roger spoke again, his words halting, afraid of the officer’s response. “You didn’t answer me when...when I asked before, you know...about my nephew. They murdered him too, didn’t they? He was just an innocent kid.” He paused, his eyes filled with despair. “They’ve taken everyone I care about away from me… Amber, Marshall, a little nephew I’m never going to meet, Corinna, Scott—”
“No, Mr. Blake. The boy’s still alive.” Turner pointed to the one remaining ambulance. Medics were tending to a tiny body on a white stretcher.
Scott.
Tears welled in Roger’s eyes as he stared at his unresponsive nephew. The child was covered in dirt, his dark blond hair streaked with ash. Scott wore a T-shirt bearing the name of Roger Clemens, his favorite baseball player and a pair of navy blue shorts. Roger could hear the medics as they spoke to Scott, urging him in hushed tones to speak, to cough or to squeeze a hand if he could hear them. When, several seconds later Scott coughed and began to cry, a cheer arose from his caregivers as quickly, they threw a white blanket over him and prepared him for transport to the hospital.
Roger watched as a tanned arm slipped from the confines of the blanket, the hand grimy and covered in soot. “So what happens now?” he asked Turner in a tired voice.
“The first responders are stabilizing him now, before they take him to Beth-Israel. The smoke got to him, so he’s in bad shape. They’re not sure he’s going to—”
An inhuman scream coming from the house interrupted the officer’s words. He turned around, his eyes wide.
“Was that a person?”
“There’s someone else in there!” yelled one firefighter.
“Christ! I thought it was all clear,” hollered another.
“We’ve got to go back in!”
As the firefighters raced towards the house, a huge ball of fire ripped the house apart. They heard the sound of breaking glass, followed by an ear-splitting crack. The firefighters watched, helpless, as the house caved in on itself, collapsing in a flurry of ashes, flames and smoke. The officer stared at the blaze and shook his head, his mouth slightly open.
“If there’s a just God, it was quick,” he said.
You’ve got it all wrong, pal, thought Roger. If there’s a just God, the motherfucker’s burning in Hell.
~1~
Tessa Laughlin leaned backward in her chair and crossed her legs, a pleased smile dancing across her lips. She loved it when her students performed to their potential. “You, my dear, are going to be brilliant tomorrow night. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Chopin’s ‘Heroic’ played with as much fire and feeling as I did just now, and that includes the time I heard it played by Voronietsky,” she complimented the blonde-haired girl sitting on the piano bench before her.
“You’re just saying that to be nice,”
“Since when have I ever been nice?” Tessa fixed a panicked expression on her face. “I’m losing my touch, aren’t I? Have I gone soft? Is that what people are saying?”
“Well then, you’ll always know that when I do compliment, I mean it. Constant praise is detrimental and results in weakness. You can always do better,
“The only good thing about your rendition of the ‘Minute Waltz,’ Shelby, is that it would have been over in a minute,” Tessa said. “You made the right choice in switching to the ‘Heroic.’ I wouldn’t tell you something that isn’t true and you know that.”
“If you’re so worried about the fingering, we can work out an alternate method that’s more comfortable,” Tessa offered. She reached for her red pen and asked her student to give her the copy of the music. Scanning the passage in question, she placed her pen to the staff and wrote in a series of numbers.
“There,” she said finally, handing the music back to her charge. “This’ll work better, I think. And don’t take the run quite as fast as you did earlier. There’s a natural ritard built in at measure—”
A knock at the door interrupted Tessa’s lesson. “Yes, what is it?”
“
Tessa glanced at the small clock that rested on top of the piano and saw that it was five-forty. Her eyes widened.
“Oh no! We got so into what we were doing we totally forgot about the time! You’re going to be fine tomorrow night, Miss Snow,” Tessa said, giving her student a brief hug. “Just remember to relax and have fun. That’s what this is all about, okay?”
“Tell my mother that,” muttered
Tessa nodded and patted her on the back as she left the room. Distantly she could hear
“So Mrs. Snow was in fine form today, huh?” Tessa asked, peeking out the studio window and watching her drive away.
Michelle sat on the piano bench and rolled her eyes. “Was she ever! I gave her your usual excuse.”
“Not again! I wonder if she’ll ever see through that? How many weeks can one have explosive diarrhea?” Tessa said with a snicker as she put her metronome and notebook in her desk drawer and picked up her handbag.
“I’m not bailing you out again, Tessa. She’s a real bitch. I’d watch my back with her, if I were you,” Michelle warned. “She was wicked mad this week. She wants your head on a platter. You should have heard her— ‘My daughter’s going to be late for her tanning appointment and those beds don’t come cheap. If I have to pay a late charge, Miss Laughlin’d better reimburse me. If she can’t keep her eye on the clock, I’m going to start taking my daughter to someone who can’— and she went on and on! Her poor daughter just rolled her eyes and made a beeline for the car, and I don’t blame her a bit. If I’d had a mother like that growing up I would have slit my wrists!”
“I’m not worried about Mrs. Snow,” Tessa said, placing loose sheet music into her book bag. “She knows that I’m the best in town and her dignity won’t allow her to take her daughter someplace else, even if she wanted to.” She giggled. “Think of what the other pageant mothers would say. Oh, the scandal!” She threw an arm across her eyes and pretended to faint. “I’ve worked here for three years, and I’ve got a reputation for being the best piano teacher there is. People come to me because I make ‘em work: drills, technique, scales, theory and so forth. I get results, and the serious piano students in this state know it.” Tessa reached for her jacket. “I’d bet next weeks’ pay on
“Well, I hope that
Tessa took the note and glanced at it. Rolling her eyes, she crumpled it into a ball and tossed it in the wastebasket. “I have so much more I could be doing tonight! I mean, it’s not as if I’m a damned member, anyway. When is she going to learn that I don’t like going to these stupid social events?”
“Maybe when you move out of the house and get married?” suggested Michelle.
“Don’t you go starting on me, too,” snapped Tessa. “God, you’d think I was an old maid at twenty-four, the way she tells it—you’re our only daughter and we want to be grandparents someday…don’t you even care? When are you going to settle down with a nice young man—it’s annoying.”
“Well, I’m jealous of you,” Michelle said with a scowl. “I wish I’d been invited, but well…not enough magical talent, you know. That, and I don’t have any cool connections.”
“As if my magical skills are anything impressive,” Tessa retorted. “I can barely levitate a spoon! The only reason I was invited is that my parents are former Scarlet Guardsmen and still carry a little weight. Hopefully everything will blow over soon and everybody can get back to normal.”
“We can only hope,” Michelle agreed, looking away and biting her lip. For a moment, she fell silent. Tessa noticed that she looked different…almost nervous.
“Is there something the matter? Don’t tell me you’re really upset about not being able to go to this thing tonight,” Tessa said.
“Jesus, Tessa, it’s coming up on
Tessa fished her car keys out of her pocket. “You’re impossible,” she said, shaking her head as she left the studio and walked to her Saab.
Michelle watched her co-worker and friend climb into her car and adjust the mirrors. As Tessa sped out of the parking lot, leaving tire marks and a cloud of dust in her wake, the bookkeeper reached over the counter, picked up her cell phone and dialed. Before she could even hear a ring, she was connected. “It’s done,” she said. “She’s on her way home now. If she doesn’t stop anywhere, she’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Excellent, Miss Keegan. You will b-be rewarded handsomely for your work tonight. Ten thousand dollars for one telephone call isn’t b-bad scratch, now is it?”
“I guess not. I just want this over with. I wish I’d never agreed to it. What if someone finds out what I did? “
“Don’t you worry your p-pretty little head,” the caller intoned in a patronizing, oily voice. “This will never get traced b-back to you, angel. We’re a very efficient organization. When you hang up, go to your car. You’ll find your money in the b-backseat, underneath your overdue library books.” The man on the other end chuckled. “Those library fines add up quickly. Let that b-be a lesson to return your materials on time.” With that, the line went dead.
Michelle shuddered as she placed her cell phone in her pocket and locked the studio for the night.
Two minutes later, she was blown to bits when she opened the door to her Subaru and triggered the bomb hidden in a bag filled with Monopoly money.
***
I hope that mom thought to iron my gown because I sure as hell didn’t, Tessa thought as she attempted to put on mascara and drive at the same time. It was a talent that she had perfected during college, when she would roll out of bed ten minutes before she had to be at class and needed to make herself up in rush hour traffic. Maybe she didn’t. Then I’d have an excuse to stay home.
Tessa knew that the banquet was the premiere gala event of the year, but that didn’t mean that she was excited about going. The annual five hundred-dollar per plate event drew well-known dignitaries, wizards, political leaders, the social elite—in other words, a veritable A-list of people—and anyone who was anyone was sure to attend. The affair was the Loyalist’s biggest fundraiser of the year. Millionaires would donate vast sums of money to back funding for the capture and execution of members of the radical Visionary Coalition.
Tessa understood the importance of the banquet, and knew that the danger of the Coalition’s movements was very real. In the last several months, the acts of terror against non-magicals and those who supported the Loyalist’s causes had grown more brazen, more terrifying: an entire family of staunch Loyalists in Ireland tied to fence posts and eviscerated with tree branches; a young woman training for the Kenyan branch of the Scarlet Guard found raped and beheaded. Only the week before, the Department of Magical Defense discovered the body of a non-magical in a pool of his own vomit—the apparent victim of the worst magical curse of all—the dreaded Memento Mori, a spell that caused its target to regress rapidly, physically and mentally, until the victim simply forgot to breathe and choked on his own saliva. The attack had taken place less than one hundred miles from
As the sun fell below the horizon, Tessa pulled into the driveway of
Tessa pushed the front door open. She could smell chocolate chip cookie bars from the kitchen and smiled. She loved her mother’s cookie bars. More than once, she had suggested to her mother, Linda that she ought to write a cookbook. Her appetite whetted, Tessa poked her head into the kitchen.
“I’m home, mom. Can I have a bar?”
But nobody was in the kitchen. A plate of the treats rested on the divider, cooling. Tessa saw that a baking dish had fallen to the floor, cookie batter still in it. A floury handprint was on the nearby wall. Tessa thought it odd that her mother would have been baking so late in the day, and not bothered to clean up after herself. With a shrug, she picked up the bowl, placed it into the sink, reached for a cookie and bit into it as she walked up the stairs to her bedroom.
She found her gown lying across her bed, neatly pressed. Tessa smiled. Her mother hated this dress, but it was Tessa’s favorite. Emerald green with an empire waist and accented with gold trim, she had worn the dress in public several times but she didn’t care. Sometimes she wondered if there had been a mix-up at the hospital and she had been switched with another baby at birth. While both of her parents were comfortable in the limelight, seeming to crave the world’s attention, she was more comfortable in a pair of sweatpants and sneakers.
The only daughter of Michael and Linda Laughlin shucked off her work clothes, gave her armpits a sniff and swiped each with deodorant before slipping the dress over her head and zipping it up. Running a brush through her hair, she debated for a moment about how she ought to wear it. Her mother liked it down and swept to one side. Tessa wrinkled her nose at the image and decided to pull it into an elegant bun, held in place with rhinestone clips. Finally, she clasped her favorite silver chain around her neck.
At ten minutes to seven, Tessa stepped into a pair of high-heeled sandals and left her bedroom. As she walked down the stairwell, she yelled to her parents.
“Mom? Dad? I’m all dressed. Where are you two? Don’t you want to see how well I cleaned up?” she asked. There was no answer.
Halfway down the stairs of the Laughlin house was a small landing that broke up the long staircase. On the landing was the doorway to her parent’s bedroom. The door was closed, but she could see that a lamp was on; the soft yellow light poured from underneath the door. Tessa placed an ear to the door but couldn’t hear anything.
This is strange, she thought. It’s not like them not to be here. If they left without me, I’m not going. If they can’t have the courtesy to wait for me, then they deserve what they get!
BANG!
Tessa gasped with surprise at the sound of the back door slamming. The house had been quiet, almost eerily so and the noise seemed out of place. The back door led to her parent’s summer garden, a place they frequented often for peace and quiet. They had probably been out there the whole time, sitting in their deck chairs and waiting for her. That was why they didn’t answer when I yelled, she thought. If they’re out here, they couldn’t hear me. She consulted her watch and frowned. They were going to be late at this rate—unfashionably so.
As she stepped into the hallway that led to the back door, the hairs on Tessa’s neck rose. Something didn’t feel right. Her mother should have come up to her bedroom, railed at her for being late, and reminded her that it wasn’t polite to be tardy to such an important social function. She should have chastised Tessa for eating a cookie bar so close to dinner and told her that she’d never fit into the dress if she kept it up. Something wasn’t sitting right with the entire situation…
…And her parent’s car was still in the driveway, parked next to hers.
Where were her parents?
Now angry and frightened, Tessa reached into her handbag and withdrew her wand. Being the daughter of two members of the Scarlet Guard had its advantages; she was in the minority of magical people allowed to possess and carry a concealed wand. Only those formally trained in the magical arts, such as law enforcement and medicinal arts could legally have one in their possession. Occasionally, however, the rules were relaxed for family members of Scarlet Guardsmen, and her parents had insisted she obtain one. They had taught her several self-defense spells not normally taught to civilians. Holding her wand in front of her, her throat dry and her heart pounding, she pushed open the back door and stepped into the summer garden. Everything looked normal; a warm evening breeze blew through the hanging plants and the rosebushes, causing a faint rustling noise. Her father’s enormous set of wind chimes bonged lazily; a finch drank from the birdbath.
Tessa stepped away from the back door. One step… two… three. The heels of her sandals echoed. The back yard appeared deserted. In frustration, she allowed her wand hand to fall to her side.
And then she saw it…
The cigarette.
On the wicker table in the center of the summer garden, a cigarette burned, its smelly smoke snaking upwards, spoiling the otherwise perfect setting. The cigarette hadn’t been lit long; Tessa could still see the brand name on the filter:
Her parents didn’t smoke.
“Oh no,” she whispered, stepping backward. Suddenly everything made awful sense and she whirled around to run.
A pair of strong arms grabbed her roughly from behind and threw her to the ground. She tried to scream as she twisted against the arms and kicked wildly, but a sweaty hand clamped itself over her mouth. She managed to thwap her assailant with her wand hard enough for his grip to relax for a second. In desperation, she yelled for her dog.
A crushing blow to her head caused her to see stars and she went limp. Her assailant pressed a cloth to her nose and mouth. She struggled weakly against his hand, trying to catch a breath of fresh air. Despite the pain, she raised her arms to try to fight off her attacker but her vision began to blur and the laughter she heard seemed far away.
Chloroform, she thought as her world went dark. It’s the oldest trick in the book.
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