Riga and Donovan hurried up the steps to Brigitte’s room in the B&B.
Never arrived, not answering her phone… Riga told herself it was probably nothing. Brigitte was tough enough to come back from the dead, or wherever/whatever she’d been. But she feared that the shattered gargoyle had been an omen.
Riga knocked. No one answered.
“I’ll find the owner.” Donovan jogged down the green-carpeted stairway before she could remind him of her magic key.
But it didn’t matter. She didn’t need it. Riga pressed her palm to the door and closed her eyes, felt outward with her other senses.
The room was empty. But it should be empty. Brigitte should be with Lenore. And yet she was not.
Riga returned to their own room and opened the door. Brigitte wasn’t there either.
A nearby door snicked opened, and the red-headed lodge member stuck his head out. “Oh. Hey.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Have you seen Brigitte?”
“Who?” Wincel asked.
“Don’t play who,” she growled. “Aries has been watching us from day one, and he used you two as his spies.”
“Oh, your friend. No, I haven’t seen her.”
Or he was lying. He was part of a black lodge, of course he was lying. And she’d left him alone, unwatched. An electric charge of fear raced through her, followed swiftly by fury at the two men, at herself.
Wincel stumbled backward, his blue eyes widening. “Oh. Whoa.”
Her vision narrowed. She strode down the hall toward him. “No more games.” A wave of heat arced off her body.
“Riga,” Donovan said behind her.
Her head whipped to face her husband, at the top of the stairs.
“She left on her own,” Donovan said. “Susan saw her. And you might want to tone down the fireworks,” he continued mildly, walking down the hallway.
“Fireworks?” She looked down. Sparks arced off her hands. And that was new too. She released an uneven breath.
“Are you... okay?” the redhead asked.
She barred her teeth to snarl at Wincel, then realized there’d been real concern in his tone. Her shoulders crumpled, her arms loose at her sides. “Sorry,” she said briefly. “I’m worried about my friend.” That didn’t excuse her overreaction.
But seeing that shattered gargoyle… That didn’t excuse it either.
“Maybe we can help,” Wincel said. “Help look for her, I mean.”
His colleague limped, yawning, into the doorway and rubbed his rumpled hair. “What’s going on?”
“Their friend is missing,” Wincel said. “We need to help find her.”
The blond hung his head. “Fine.” Patrick turned and slouched back into the room.
“Where do you want us to look?” Wincel asked.
“Susan said she walked down the street,” Donovan said. “She left an hour ago, and we think she was heading for the bookstore on Main Street.”
Wincel nodded. “Okay. There are a couple short cuts into town. We can walk along them, see if we find her.” The young man hesitated. “If that’s okay with you.”
“It’s fine.” Donovan handed him his card. “Call if you learn anything.”
“Oh, yeah.” He pulled out a cell phone and tapped the screen. Donovan’s phone rang inside the breast pocket of his suit jacket. “Now you’ve got my number too.”
His colleague swayed into the hall, a pair of sunglasses obscuring his eyes.
“Come on, Patrick,” Wincel said. “We’ve got to move.” He hustled a grumbling Patrick down the hallway.
“They’re being suspiciously helpful,” Riga said.
“After that display you put on, I’m not surprised. You looked like something out of a comic book. No wonder Wincel was impressed.”
“Terrific.” Face hot, she stalked into their room. Brigitte was missing. Her kids were out of control, and so was she.
Donovan followed her inside and pulled her close. “We’ll find her.”
Riga relaxed against his muscular warmth. “There’s something else,” she said, her voice muffled against his jacket. She couldn’t hide it any more. She never should have tried to.
He stepped away. “Oh?”
“You heard me ask Pen about bindings?”
“And I didn’t ask you why.”
“Karin’s magic was bound when she was young,” Riga said. “She didn’t have any real power until her aunt released it, as an adult.”
“And?”
“And I wonder if we should bind Jack and Emma. Their powers, I mean.”
Donovan blinked. “What?”
“I know, I know,” she said, pacing in front of the window. “Is it right? I don’t know. But no one that immature should have that much power.”
“I don’t disagree.”
“It’s dangerous for them and dangerous for others. And I’m not just talking physically dangerous. It’s morally dangerous as well. They’re kids. They don’t understand ethics. The more they get in the habit of misusing their powers, the stronger a habit it will become.”
“And you want to bind them,” he said.
She turned, her sleeve brushing the cheerful curtains. “I don’t know, don’t you see? Karin seems to have come out of it okay, but she didn’t have any choice in the matter.”
“And neither would Jack or Emma. Is this a little… extreme?”
“I saw the Devil.” She stared at the closed window.
He quirked a brow. “I assume you’re speaking metaphorically.”
“No. Not a metaphor. He was at the house—”
“The Devil came to our house,” he said slowly, “and you didn’t tell me?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, miserable. “I should have told you earlier, but I was so shocked, and I knew what it meant—”
“What did it mean, aside from a major failure of our wards?”
No ward she could create could keep out the Devil. “The kids. They’re literally going to the Devil, or they will if something doesn’t change.”
He raised a brow. “Is that the only explanation?”
“What else could it be?”
He gave her a long look. “They’re not even three.”
“But they’re already using magic,” she said. “I had—we have to act fast, change something.”
He folded his arms. His Armani jacket didn’t wrinkle. “So that’s why you suddenly agreed to come here. You wanted to change your pattern.”
“I panicked.” And that wasn’t like her. But she’d seen the Devil. “And then when I came here and learned about Karin’s binding—”
“You thought you had your answer.”
“But I don’t even know if we can bind them,” she said. “I’ve been looking through their aunts’ old journals. There’s nothing useful on the spell she used. I asked Brigitte, but she doesn’t know how to do it either.”
He rubbed his chin. “That’s... strange.”
“What is?”
“You’d think that would be something Brigitte would know.”
Riga’s jaw slackened. “Oh, no.”
“What?”
“Brigitte,” she said heavily. “We got into it because I thought she might have used magic recklessly, and then...”
“You asked her about magical binding spells.”
Riga stared, aghast. “What if she thinks I want to use the spell on her?”