Devil in Disguise (Kai Parker)

Chapter Twenty-Six: The Old Parker Home

‘We’re gonna need Jo’s magic knife.’ Kai trudged through the piles of leaves, walking backwards so he could watch Meg. ‘The merge won’t work without her having her magic.’

‘It’s a good thing we know where it is.’ she grinned, flickering out of existence and appearing several feet away. ‘Coming?’

Kai narrowed his eyes, and used his stolen magic to jump right next to her. Two could play at that game. ‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world…’ he drawled, looking at her out of the corner of his eye.

Lips curving into a sarcastic smile, she linked arms with him and started walking through the woods as if they were an ordinary pair, just taking a stroll. Good lord, that sounded like such a dreary existence.

Eventually, the homely white house appeared out of the trees. It looked just as she remembered it. The Gemini Coven wasn’t exactly a group that embraced change. The varnished white wood was a little sun bleached, perhaps, and the threshold a little more worn, but the little mat by the stairs remained, and the walkway was still lined with weathered stones. If she focussed really hard, she could just feel the faint stirrings of nostalgia at the back of her mind, but she didn’t care. All she remembered was that the people who lived here were the ones that killed her.

‘So, the old Parker home…’ she clucked her tongue. ‘Can’t say I’ve particularly missed the place…’

‘Hey, look.’ he pointed at the topmost window with his free arm, across which a shadow had just passed. ‘Someone’s home.’

‘Probably Joshua.’ Meg guessed, looking at the silhouette coldly. She could see, as if it was happening right in front of her, that calculating gaze fixed upon Kai’s writhing form as he sent him away, and the slight agreement in his eyes as the people around him discussed murdering her. ‘Is it weird that I want to hurl knives at him?’ she asked conversationally.

‘Not at all.’ he detached himself from her and crossed over to the tree stump, rummaging around in the random debris collected in there until he pulled out the wicked-looking knife.

‘Careful,’ she warned, as the blade started to glow red. ‘You don’t want to take her magic before the ceremony.’

‘What kind of idiot do you think I am?’ he shot back, twirling the knife in his hands. The blade slipped and grazed his thumb.

Meg laughed. ‘D’you really want me to answer that?’

Throwing her a look, Kai unzipped his backpack and slipped in the knife. ‘Now, we just need to figure out where Jo is.’ his eyes flicked to the white house. ‘I think dear old dad would have some sort of record, don’t you?’

‘I think it’d be rude not to visit him.’ she agreed, adjusting her shirt and taking the steps two at a time. The doors banged open at her approach, and she smirked. That was an entrance she could get used to.

‘His study…’ Kai jerked his head towards a perpetually locked door, one of the many taboos of his childhood. None of Joshua’s children had ever been allowed in his study. With one sweep of his hand, Kai undid all the magical seals around it and knocked down the door silently. There was an expression of self-satisfaction on his face as he walked across the plank of wood and into the forbidden room.

 Meg followed, and was severely disappointed. Trust Joshua Parker’s secret to be a small, paisley-patterned room lined with desks and mounds of paperwork. ‘I expected dusty spell-books, at the very least…’ she muttered, digging around in one of the desk’s drawers.

‘Here,’ he threw a large mound of something, tied together with string, over his shoulder. Meg didn’t even bother to catch it; she just used her magic to hold it suspended in mid-air as she rifled through them.

One was a grainy photograph, of a young woman dressed completely in black. Jo, at her brothers’ and sisters’ funeral. Another looked like an old resume. There was one childish drawing, done in crayons, addressed to ‘daddy’. There was one of two twins wearing the same jumpers, smiling widely at the camera. ‘Jo’s done a lot…’ she looked over a newspaper article, singing her old friend’s praises.

‘Anything on her location?’

‘Not that I can see. Gimme a minute.’

She concentrated, closing her eyes and feeling every particle in the air around her still. There was something here, something about Jo’s whereabouts… but where was it?

There was a light coming from the bunch of papers in front of her, but it wasn’t bright enough. Nothing in there. She screwed her eyes shut tighter, feeling her way through the dark, until an almost blinding light hit her. There was a corkboard against the east wall. Without opening her eyes, she walked with one hand outstretched over to the board and put her hand to the paper that had nearly burned her eyes out.

The spell collapsed around her as she removed the pin and straightened it out. It was another newspaper cutting. From October, 2014. It sure was weird seeing that date. There was a picture of an older woman splashed across the centre, some look of ironic triumph in her eyes as she held up some prestigious-looking award. Though she had to be about twenty years older, Meg could recognise those pale eyes anywhere. It was Josette.

Doctor Josette Laughlin, forty, has claimed yet another award for her work on internal bleeding at Whitmore Hospital, Virginia –

‘Success!’ she exclaimed, spinning around to show the paper to Kai. He snatched it from her, reading it greedily.

‘Good work, Nut-Meg.’ he clapped her on she shoulder, making her bristle slightly, and jogged as fast as he could through the mess of paper and carpet to get to the door. Meg was slower, looking around the house she’d been in just a moment ago. It really wasn’t any different. The only thing missing were the bloodstains.

As she was about to leave the house, something made her pause and turn on her heel. Joshua hadn’t stirred at all during the time they’d been in his super-secret study; she could still see his outline against the window. Her magic had broken through all the protective charms he’d placed upon the house. He remained utterly oblivious to the face that his son, who’d murdered his other sons and daughters in cold blood and was then sent away for being a madman, was just a few feet away from his front porch, along with a girl they thought long dead and gone. This was too good an opportunity to pass up.

Raising her hand, Meg watched the flaked timbers of white wood splinter and crack in the sunlight. The whole house was dry as a bone, considering it was November. She could set it alight, and watch the flames tower from miles away. It would be magical fire. You’d need power to put it out, and by the time Joshua was aware of it, it’d be far too late. Anything lower than the attic would be destroyed.

Joshua had never believed in human fire detectors. He put all his eggs in the magic basket, trusting to his spells to tell him if anything was wrong inside his land. There were no spells to help him now. Three words, and all his legacy would go up in flames.

‘Fes Matos Incendia.’ she cocked her head, smiling a sly smile as a tiny flame sprouted to life on one of the white planks and quickly started dancing on the wood, running along one timer and onto another quicker than she could follow.

Satisfied now, she skipped away from the slowly burning house and down to where Kai was standing at the edge of the woods, an unreadable expression on his face. ‘Ready to go?’ she asked, shoving her hands in her pockets.

‘Aeroplane sound good to you?’

‘Sure. Lead the way.’