“Then sure, I’ll go next,” Harley replied, with a wary smile. “And sorry for tackling you to the ground like that. Desperate times called for desperate measures.”
Marjorie smiled. “It’s okay, Santana explained everything. I’m sorry for running.”
“Don’t be. I’d have done the same thing in your situation,” Harley said.
“Can you hold out your hand for me?”
Harley obeyed, putting out her hand for Marjorie to hold. The girl’s eyes closed again, the whole room getting weirdly still. Everyone leaned forward in their seats, waiting for the verdict. I’d seen it happen once already, but when she spoke, shattering the silence, it still made me jump out of my skin.
“I see rivers of blood… I can’t tell where they’re coming from… It’s pouring, but… it doesn’t make any sense,” she said, her eyes returning to normal. “I’m sorry. It’s like I was telling Santana: the omens aren’t always clear. Sometimes, I get a lot to go on. Other times, I just get little fragments—it varies from person to person.”
“Well, at least it wasn’t anything terrifying,” Harley joked. Beyond the amused tone, I could see real fear in her eyes. Rivers of blood could only be a bad thing.
Marjorie shrank back into her chair. “I’m sorry… I wish I could tell you more.”
“Astrid, do you want to go next?” I suggested, wanting to break the tension in the room.
“Absolutely!” she chirped.
“Now, Astrid is a little different. She’s human. Does that make things clearer or less clear?”
Marjorie frowned. “I don’t know. Clearer, maybe? Up until now, I didn’t know if I was using my abilities on humans or magicals, so I’m not really sure.”
“No worries. I guess we’ll find out in a couple of seconds,” I said.
Astrid held out her hand before Marjorie asked, an excited smile on her face. Marjorie grasped the outstretched hand and held it for a few moments. Without warning, tears began to trickle down her face, her body shaking.
Her eyes flew open. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I can’t say it.”
“Go on, I can handle it,” Astrid said encouragingly.
Marjorie closed her eyes. “You’re going to die soon. I… I, uh, saw you on the ground. There was blood and… a blinding light around you, but it was no good. I’m so sorry… the life had gone out in your eyes.”
Astrid shrugged it off like a pro. “Not to worry. I’ve died three times already. Did someone come and bring me back to life? That always tends to happen.” A ripple of nervous laughter made its way around the room.
Marjorie grasped for Astrid’s hand again, as though desperate for good news. When she drew away, however, we could all tell that she’d seen something that none of us wanted to hear.
She shook her head with agonizing slowness. “No… nobody’s there. Your heart has stopped and you’re completely cold. That blinding light has gone, and you’re still on the ground. You’re dead.”
“Is it possible that you’re not seeing the whole thing?” I asked urgently.
She nodded. “Yeah, completely. I never see the whole picture. Someone might run over to you five minutes after what I saw and resurrect you. If that’s happened before, then maybe it happens again, and I just didn’t see it.” She sounded so heartbreakingly hopeful. I shared in it. There was no way that we’d let Astrid die for good—no way.
“I’m never out for too long,” Astrid replied with forced cheer. She sounded more worried than she wanted to let on, which unsettled me. Then again, surely Alton would bring her back again, if that image came to pass. I tried to offer her a look of encouragement, but she wouldn’t hold anyone’s gaze.
“Do your visions always come true?” Wade asked.
“No, not always. They’re suggestions of what might happen. Loads of variables can change the outcome. I could look at Astrid again tomorrow and see something completely different.”
Raffe frowned. “So it’s not an exact science?”
“No, it’s pretty hit and miss.”
Maybe Marjorie just didn’t see all of it. Maybe if she looked again, she’d see Alton bringing Astrid back. I had to cling to that hope.
“That’s something the coven can help with,” Harley said. “They’ll help you to hone your skills so you can see things more clearly. It’s like anything, I imagine; you just need practice.”
Marjorie nodded. “That’s what Santana was saying.”
Harley cast me a congratulatory glance that I was only too happy to accept. It looked like Marjorie and I were developing ourselves a nice friendship. I’d never had sisters, but I figured this was the closest thing to a little sister I was going to get. She was cool. I liked her. More than that, I knew she’d fit into the mechanics of the coven like a perfect cog. And we were lucky to have her.
“What do you know about these other kids?” Wade asked, sliding a folder over the desk toward Marjorie. She took a glance at the names and abilities listed beside the children.
Her brow furrowed. “They might be like me. The twins said that they were specifically looking to recruit ‘particularly gifted’ kids. They didn’t say I was a Clairvoyant, but they said I was one of the rare creatures that they were looking for—someone with a special power. To be honest, they made it sound like they wanted exotic animals for their private zoo.”
“Sounds about right,” I said.
“Yeah, clearly there’s a method to Katherine’s madness,” Harley conceded. “Sounds to me like she’s rounding up the children with super rare abilities, like Clairvoyants, Morphs, Herculeans, Sensates, and Portal Openers. Micah had Earth and Telekinesis abilities, but who knows what else he’s capable of? We might have only just scratched the surface, but Katherine may know something about them that we don’t. Take that Devereaux girl—she appeared to have some kind of Telepath quality. That’s why she ran.”
Wade grimaced. “That’s what I was thinking.”
“Yeah, but the twins killed her,” I chimed in. “I saw the limbs when I went to get her file from Krieger.”
Marjorie gasped, clamping her hand down over her mouth. I guessed she realized it could’ve been her. Poor thing. She looked horrified. Clearly, we were scaring her with our chat. She knew some aspects about Katherine Shipton—before handing the interview over to me, Alton had made sure she knew what we were dealing with, and who had snatched the rest of the kids—but being in the know didn’t make it any less terrifying.
“It might have been an accident. They’d never have purposefully killed someone as powerful as that,” Harley replied.
She had a point. “Katherine is probably pissed about losing that one.”
“Why is she doing this to us?” Marjorie whispered. This couldn’t possibly be easy for her. It wasn’t for us, either, but she was the one with the target on her back.
“Hey, don’t worry about a thing. We’ve got you covered, and we’re not going to let anything happen to you,” I promised. “Sorry about all of this. You must be exhausted. Do you want to go to your room, settle in a bit?”
Marjorie nodded.
“Okay, no problem. You’ll have twenty-four-hour security while you’re here with us, so you’ve got nothing to worry about. I’ll also give you this so you can call me for help if you feel threatened, or any kind of emergency comes up.” I handed her an ancient Aztec coin with markings etched across the surface. I’d charmed it so that it connected directly to my Orishas. As soon as Marjorie called for me, I’d know about it. It would be like fireworks going off in my head.
She took it gratefully in her trembling hands. “Thank you, Santana.”
“Not a problem, mi changuita. Like I said, we’re all here to keep you safe.”
Having two magical guards at all times and an emergency charm with her was the only way that Marjorie could stay at the SDC, given that Katherine still had her spies in our midst. Alton was trying to keep her presence here quiet, but news always leaked out in places like this. Our plan was to be better prepared this time, in case anyone came after her again. With the guards and the charm, we’d have a better shot at catching whoever was working for Katherine, without having to deal with the bloody aftermath of another Cranston and Devereaux scenario.
As the two Security Magicals came in to take Marjorie to her room, I wondered what abilities these other kids might have, beyond the ones we’d seen and written down. We still had Louella’s limbs in the coven mortuary. There was only one problem… A Reading couldn’t be done on dead people.
Sixteen
Santana
The following evening, I lay back on Astrid’s bed and covered my face with a pillow. Music played from Smartie’s speakers—a slow ballad that was making me sleepy. Exhaustion was already creeping in, after a full day spent following leads that went nowhere.
Marjorie had touched a few of the belongings from the rest of the missing kids and done her best to piece together where they might be, but every location we’d visited had been a dead end. Either the kids had been moved, or it had been an old vision of where they’d been. Nobody nearby knew anything about them, nor had they caught a glimpse of them. All these false steps were starting to annoy me.
“This is hopeless,” I muttered into the pillow.
I knew I was being a defeatist, which wasn’t like me at all, but exhaustion had a way of wrecking my positivity. There were still a bunch of leads for us to follow, and we were set to try again tomorrow. After all, Marjorie had told us that her visions changed, shifting like the colors in a kaleidoscope. One day, they showed one thing, another day they might show something else. We were hoping for the something else; otherwise, we were right back at square one.