“What is it?” Ben asks quietly.
I try to be casual about it, but tears threaten behind my eyes. Not just because it’s a ton of work to get the cards closed and the charges disputed before my credit is ruined (well, more ruined), but because every time it happens, it feels like a fresh betrayal. To them, I’m just another person to grift from, not a daughter that should be loved and cherished. I love how they never remembered my birthday when I was growing up, but they apparently have my Social Security number memorized, because this happens all the fucking time. Swallowing hard, I compose myself. “My crappy parents opened a bunch of credit cards in my name. Again.”
Ben grunts. After a moment, he looks over at me. “Want me to kill them?”
I slap his arm. “That’s not funny!”
He smirks, just a little. “You already think I’m a heartless murderer. What’s one more? Two more?”
I scowl. “I asked you if you killed your parents, and you said yes!”
Ben nods, slowly. “And I did. And I’d do it again.”
“So what am I supposed to think when you joke about shit like that?”
He’s quiet for a moment and then shrugs. “I suppose you either think the worst of me, or you think I have a bad sense of humor.”
I shake my head, not wanting to answer that. Honestly. “Look. My parents are not good people. That doesn’t mean I want them dead. I just want them to be . . .” I pause, thinking.
“Not them,” he answers flatly. “Good luck with that.” Ben pauses, staring at the steering wheel, and then glances over at me. “I know what it’s like to want better for someone than what they want for themselves. But sometimes you have to accept that some people are just the way they are and there’s no saving them.”
“Is that what happened with your parents?” I ask.
“Does it matter?”
I guess it doesn’t, since his solution was to murder them. I shake my head. “No. Forget I asked.” I pull out the printout that Penny gave me. “So should we talk to this Gwen person after you cast the obfuscation spell?”
“No.”
“But Lisa didn’t know anything. Maybe this Gwen person might?” I gesture at the paper. “And she’s a few hours away—”
Ben looks mulish. “No, Reggie.”
I turn to face him. “Why not? Is she dangerous? Horrible? Will she hurt us?”
He shakes his head, then rubs a hand down his face. “Gwen is just . . . We don’t get along.”
That’s why he doesn’t want to go visit her? “Ben Magnus, the list of people you get along with isn’t exactly going to stun anyone with its length. Are you really going to be a stubborn ass about this when we should be taking every opportunity to find out what happened to your aunt and who’s behind this? Maybe Gwen will have some insight into things you haven’t thought about. Maybe—”
He groans. “Fine. You win, Reggie. We’ll go visit Gwen.”
25
BEN
The car ride out of the city and into the countryside is uncomfortable. There’s a faint feeling of magic in the air, the weight of the obfuscation spell pressing onto us like a gentle blanket. Reggie’s in the passenger seat, phone in hand and her feet up on the dashboard as she goes through another customer-service chat with the bank, typing furiously. She’s been on the phone for the entire drive, her expression growing more drawn and tense as the details of the fraud her parents committed are made more evident. Six cards in her name, three of them linked to her account, and her savings has been drained away.
I try not to stare as her throat works and she sniffles. She doesn’t want to cry in front of me, and even though I ache to comfort her, I focus on driving. I know how she feels, though. That soul-deep betrayal. That hurt that goes far, far deeper than anything monetary. It’s the realization that how you feel doesn’t matter to the people that should love you most. That they can’t—won’t—change, no matter how much it hurts you.
Yeah, I know just how that fucking feels, and four hundred years isn’t enough to dull the ache. But vomiting out my sad past will feel too convenient right now when Reggie’s got enough shit on her plate.
“How are you feeling?” I ask once she puts her phone down.
“Fine.” Her voice is tight.
I pull a sports drink out of one of the cup holders. “You should drink this. Get some electrolytes back into you. The obfuscation spell is going to be a slow drain on your energy. And you might want to eat something. A pack of those nuts, or some crackers—”
“I’m fine, Ben.” Reggie hugs her knees to her chest and stares moodily out the window. “Are we almost there?”
“Almost.” I don’t tell her that we’ve been in Gwen’s vicinity for fifteen minutes and that I’ve been driving in circles around the small town so Reggie could finish her business with the bank. “She knows we’re coming? You texted her?”
Reggie nods. “She said that we’re welcome.”
I’m not sure if that’ll be the case, since she and I weren’t the most comfortable with each other. Or rather, I was never comfortable with her after a while. I swallow hard. This is going to be more awkward than I could have imagined. I can’t believe I’m driving the woman I’m in love with to my former lover’s farm.
But like Reggie said, what other options do we have? We need to find out what’s going on with Aunt Dru. She can’t sleep forever. She’ll wither away and starve to death in a sopor spell. Just because it makes you sleep, it doesn’t stop the rest of the body’s needs. If Gwen doesn’t prove useful—and something tells me she won’t—I’ll have to contact some of the warlocks I know, feel around for information. I won’t give up. Even if I have to bribe every warlock on the Eastern Seaboard to help me, I’ll find a way to fix this for Aunt Dru, because I know she’d do the same for me.
We turn down a country road, and Reggie perks up. She peers out the window. “Is this a farm?”
“No, lots of corporate buildings have gravel roads leading up to them.”
She looks over at me, and a snort-giggle escapes her. “You asshole.”
I smile a bit at that. “I should probably tell you a bit about Gwen. She’s very much the crunchy-vegan type and has been for the last two hundred years. She’s going to give you this whole Earth Mother song and dance, but she’d also happily sacrifice one of her beloved chickens for a spell, so don’t let it fool you.”
“Yikes.”
“She’s also, ah . . .” I try to think of the most delicate way to put it. “A very specialized sort of witch.”
Reggie looks over at me, her beautiful dark eyes full of questions. “How so?”
I shrug, trying not to focus too hard on her or else I’ll moon like a schoolboy rejected by his crush. I keep my gaze on the road as we pass lines of trees and pastures with goats. “So back in ancient Rome, a lot of witches and warlocks specialized in a particular kind of magic. Back then, it was common to set up a business where you cast spells for those that needed it. So you had the local haruspex, who would sacrifice an animal and read what the entrails told you.”
“Ew!”
I flash a grin over at her. “The ancestors were big on entrails. It’s a practice that’s fallen out of popularity, thank goodness.” Well, mostly. Aunt Dru still likes to do it every now and then, but she’s avoided it lately since Reggie is so new. “And then you have your augurs, who specialized in interpreting the patterns and flights of birds. They were also government officials, by the way. Magic was very respected in Rome.” I run my hand over the steering wheel as I pull up to the charming white farmhouse with the wraparound porch. “You have your oracles, too, and then you have people like Gwen.”
“And what does Gwen specialize in?” Reggie asks innocently.
I bite back a sigh. “Sex magic.”
26
REGGIE