“I wanted to call it a graboid,” Lily said, returning to the table. I’d been so focused on the conversation I hadn’t even heard her come back in. “But Simon wouldn’t let me.”
“Why graboid?” I asked.
They shot me identical disbelieving stares, which I recognized as Lex is missing a pop-culture reference. I held up my hands. “Forget I asked. Let’s go with ‘sandworm,’” I decided. “It’s a lot less terrifying than ‘Mongolian Death Worm.’”
“Plus, very Beetlejuice,” Lily said agreeably.
Simon looked up at his sister. “Did you get a hold of Sybil?”
“Yes, and I called the thaumaturge,” she reported. “She said she’s worked with psychic trauma before, like repressed memories, but never on a witch. She’ll come if you want to give it a try, but only if we pay her expenses and a fee, and she wants to bring her daughter along.”
“How much?” I asked.
Lily winced. “I did a quick look at last-minute flights on my phone. It’s not going to be cheap.”
She named a figure so high I nearly fell off my chair. “What? I could buy a car and go pick her up for that much.”
Lily shrugged. “She gets top dollar for what she does, Lex. That’s already with a friends-and-family discount.” She looked at me hesitantly. “Don’t you have, like, mad hazard pay from being in the army?”
“Not anymore,” I said shortly. I had made good money as a soldier, and hadn’t blown through it the moment I got home, the way a lot of us did. But Sam had died so young, without much life insurance, and John had wiped out a lot of their savings to pay for the memorial and moving back to Boulder, not to mention the empty grave with Sam’s headstone. My parents had money, but it was all tied up in Luther Shoes, which had taken a hit during the recession that they still hadn’t bounced back from. So I’d quietly shoved all of my leftover army pay into a savings account for Charlie’s college.
I was making a bit more money now that I had the stipend from Maven, but my checking account barely had a comma, much less the money I’d need to bring the Las Vegas witch to Boulder. Especially after my recent last-minute trip to LA.
“You want me to call it off?” Lily asked, seeing my expression.
“No.” I stood up. “Gimme the info. I’ll call Maven and ask for the money.”
Lily handed me a scrap of paper with a name and number written on the back. “Better you than me, lady.”
Chapter 15
Simon promised to call me as soon as he had more information, and I said I would let both of them know when I had the travel plans for the thaumaturge witch. Lily offered to walk me part of the way back to the coffee shop to get my car, and I accepted, suspecting that she wanted to talk about something without her brother present.
Sure enough, as soon as we were in the parking lot, Lily blurted, “He looked bad, didn’t he?”
I glanced over at her worried expression. Lily was a sunny person, cheerful, animated, with very little interest in filtering. I was starting to feel like everyone in my life had done some sort of bizarre personality flip-flop. “He looked tired,” I said cautiously. “This sandworm thing . . .”
She shook her head. “It’s not just that. He’s been different since . . . well, since you brought him back.”
Oh. That’s what this was about. I had never actually told Lily what I’d done to Simon, preferring to let him decide, but he must have told her. Or, more likely, she’d pried it out of him. “He was only gone for a couple of minutes,” I offered. “That happens to people all the time, with no lasting damage.”
A big group of CU students threaded through the two of us, talking and laughing. When they had passed, Lily said, “Yeah, but it’s not like Simon was brought back with a defibrillator and kept alive with an IV. That, he could accept.”
“Well, that’s kind of hypocritical,” I pointed out. “You guys are witches, and you’re suggesting Simon could only tolerate being brought back to life by science?”
She shook her head. “Simon doesn’t see science and magic as mutually exclusive, but that’s not really the point. There are things that we . . .” She struggled for the right words, finally sighing. “Look, Lex, how much do you know about the witches’ deal with Maven?”
That got my attention. I looked over at her. Lily had jammed her hands into the pockets of her jean jacket, and there was something like anger on her face. “Quinn told me that when the werewolves were going crazy under Trask, some of the clans got caught in the crossfire. Your mom went to Maven and asked for her help,” I said carefully. “Maven got Itachi to ride into the state and kill the bad guys.”
“That’s all true,” Lily allowed. “But how much did he tell you about what we gave up in exchange?”
My brow furrowed. I wasn’t sure what she was getting at. “He said the witches had to agree to Maven and Itachi’s leadership in Colorado for a period of twenty years. You guys basically have to do what Maven says. And that was, what, thirteen years ago?”
Lily nodded. “Also true. But there’s something Quinn left out, or maybe he doesn’t even know. He’s only been a vampire for a few years. Hey, stop a second.” She led me to a nearby wrought-iron bench, scrunching herself into the far corner and glancing around to make sure no one was paying attention to us.