Thirteen

Page 33

The trick was a modified glamour spell. The normal one allows the caster to take on the appearance of another person, but it only works if the target expects to see that other person. Mom’s “modification” was actually an older version, predating the spell we used, and didn’t require expectation to work. I’d heard of it before. Even seen it in a grimoire—an old spellbook—at Cortez headquarters. But it required that most troubling of special ingredients: human sacrifice. It took an average of a hundred iterations for a witch to master the spell. Even the Cortezes hadn’t taught anyone to use it since before Benicio’s time. The cost-benefit ratio was just too high.
Fortunately, Mom had learned the spell to help her celestial bounty-hunting duties, which meant no body count—there’s no way of killing someone in the afterlife. So Mom could cast the spell without a corpse. Or she could in the afterlife. Here? She wasn’t sure. Also, it was difficult to test, because even after she cast the spell, she looked the same to me. So we accosted a few unsuspecting passersby, which left some people in New Orleans wondering about the crazy women asking what color their hair was.
But the spell had worked. We’d glamoured ourselves based on two photos from Glamour, appropriately enough. We picked the two most average looking young women in its pages, which still meant we were well above average. As for clothing, we outfitted ourselves in jerseys, sneakers, and jeans. Two students, pretty but nonthreatening.
*
 

We almost missed Amanda. When we arrived, she was leaving, gym bag in hand. She looked to be in her early thirties, with soft features and sleek, shoulder-length ash-blond hair. She was dressed stylishly and conservatively, in slacks, boots, and an Oxford shirt. Put a crop in her hand and she’d look ready for a day of riding. Horses, I mean. Not the kind of riding she apparently did for a living. I strode up behind her, and said, “Um, Amanda? Amanda Griffin?”
She turned. Looked me up and down, expressionless. “Yes?”
“Um …” I wiped my hands on my jeans. “Sorry, I—I’m just a little nervous. I’m Brianne White. I go to Delgado with my friend here, Sami. Someone gave us your name and, uh …”
Her brows arched. Amused. “If you’re looking for a little college experimentation, honey, I can give you some names. That’s not my thing.”
“Experiment—?” I let out a high-pitched giggle. “Oh, no. Not that. I mean …”
Mom leaned over and whispered to me.
“Oh, right. Okay.” I cast a nervous look around, then lit a light ball in my palm.
“Ah, I see,” Amanda said.
“Right. So, we’re new to town and we heard about this … stuff going on, and this guy we met, Shawn Roberts, he said you could—”
“Don’t lie, Bri,” Mom whispered. When I looked over, she leaned in and mock-whispered. “She can check on that. Tell the truth.”
“Okay. Right.” I wiped my hands again. “So Roberts wouldn’t tell us where to find you, but he sent us to this guy named Toby. He didn’t want to help us either. But then Sami …” I cast a knowing look at Mom. “She kinda … convinced him.”
 
“I’m sure she did,” Amanda said. “And I’m sure it wasn’t hard. Look, girls, whatever you heard—”
“We know about the Supernatural Freedom—”
“Liberation,” Mom whispered.
“Right. Supernatural Liberation Movement. They recruited a couple of our friends who go to UCLA. Our friends want us to join, but we’re not sure if it’s a good idea.”
“It’s not,” Amanda said.
I exhaled. “Whatever you’re doing, we can help. Sami here, they say she’s a Conspicio, but we think she’s an Aspicio. She can do the X-ray vision thing.”
That stopped Amanda in her tracks. She waved to the wall of the building. “That’s the super’s apartment. Look inside and tell me what she’s doing.”
Mom walked over and cleared a peephole. “I don’t know where ‘she’ is, but there’s a guy inside. About three hundred pounds, surfing porn, wearing only his—no, I don’t think he’s wearing anything.”
“That’s good, right?” I said. “I mean, not about the naked guy, but Sami’s power. It would be useful, right?”
Amanda shrugged, but her eyes glittered. “And the blinding power?”
“I can cause temporary blindness,” she said. “It only lasts a few minutes, but it’s handy.”
“I bet it is.”
“I can help, too,” I said. “I know witch and sorcerer magic up to the third level, and it usually works.”
A dismissive nod my way. Amanda laid a hand on Mom’s arm. “How about I skip the workout today and treat you girls to a drink. There’s a nice little place down the road. Very private.”
 
 
THIRTEEN
 
I got a text from Elena while we were still walking to the bar. Their plane had landed and they were ready to take over as Mom’s bodyguards. I texted back to say we’d made contact, and I needed to play this through.
Amanda led us to a neighborhood pub, already dark inside and reeking of hops. We took a booth in the back and Amanda explained the situation. If I were her I’d have gone with a whole lot less detail for potential recruits. But that’s what happens when you launch a revolution with no previous revolutionary experience. It all seems like a grand, adventurous game. You’ll be cagey, of course, because it’s top-secret stuff. But when you have a reason to spill—like trying to woo an Aspicio half-demon to the cause—you’re happy for the opportunity to prove how terribly clever you all are.
Amanda’s group was anti-SLAM. I’d suspected that because Roberts had switched the drugs, but to be honest, I couldn’t see the advantage of feeding stimulants to werewolves—for either side.
Now, as Amanda explained it, I understood … they were idiots. Their scheme only proved I was right about their lack of experience with this whole revolt business. I’m sure the plan made sense to them, but to anyone who’s seen the dark side of supernatural life, it was a very, very stupid idea, guaranteed to go horribly awry.