Page 40 of Killing Time

Only…nothing happened.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, big blue-gray eyes staring up at him in worry and fear. “Why didn’t we jump?”

“I don’t know,” he said, his voice tight. “I tried to use my talent, but we’re still here. You have the amulet with you, right?”

“Of course I do,” she said. There was just the faintest snap at the edge of those words, conveying some irritation that he would even suspect her of leaving something so vital behind, but she sounded mostly in control. “We wouldn’t have been able to travel here together if I didn’t.”

Right. If he’d been thinking clearly, he supposed he would have thought of that.

Well, he’d worry about what had gone wrong later. Right now, the important thing was to get the hell out of here, even if they had to do it the old-fashioned way.

Luckily, the kitchen had a door that opened onto the small quasi-yard separating the cabin from the storage shed. The two of them ran over there and he yanked the door open, figuring they’d take off through the forest until they were far enough away from the cabin that he could try using his powers again to send them to the hotel.

Standing on the back step and blinking at them with astonished eyes was a man who looked halfway familiar, with dark brown hair and the sort of features that under normal circumstances might have been friendly and open, even if right now he appeared utterly confounded.

“Who the hell are you?”

Seth’s first instinct was to push the man out of the way — they were around the same height, although the other warlock…he’d known right away that the man who’d confronted them wasa Wilcox…didn’t seem quite as muscular of build — but then Devynn said,

“Adam Wilcox?”

Right. This was the man Devynn had followed to the Northern Lumber Holdings building…who’d walked into the diner with Jasper Wilcox only a few hours earlier.

The man’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know who I am?”

“Oh,” she said, somehow managing to put on a smile that would have been disarming under most circumstances, “the man at the newsstand told me who you were.”

Adam Wilcox appeared nonplussed. “What are you doing in my family’s cabin?”

Good question, one he had every right to ask.

“A mistake,” Seth replied, thinking quickly. “We’re visiting Flagstaff, and we thought it would be fun to rent a cabin and spend a few days out in the wilderness, roughing it, you know?” Although he would never attempt the kind of smile Devynn had just essayed, he knew he needed to do whatever he could to make the two of them seem as harmless as possible. With her magic hiding their witch natures, he had to hope Adam Wilcox would view them as only a couple of misguided travelers and send them on their way. “I suppose we got the directions wrong. There aren’t many road signs out here.”

“No, there aren’t,” the Wilcox warlock said, and although his expression hadn’t shifted too much, Seth now couldn’t help noticing that an edge of suspicion had entered his voice. “But that also makes me wonder why you’re lying.”

Cold ran down his spine, but he did what he could to keep his tone even. “‘Lying’?” he repeated, and hoped he sounded properly incredulous. “Why in the world would you accuse me of lying?”

“Because you are,” Adam Wilcox said, his tone flat, as though he spoke of a truth that all of them needed to acknowledge.“What are a couple of strange witch-kind doing in my family’s cabin?”

Devynn’s eyes widened, but she somehow managed to keep her cool despite the way the Wilcox warlock had just casually indicated that her protection magic was no longer working. Even as Seth desperately tried to come up with a reply that would have brushed the other man’s comment aside and, at the same time, allowed the two of them to escape out the back door, she spoke again.

“Your power is knowing when people are lying, isn’t it?”

Adam Wilcox’s eyes — which were hazel and not dark, the way most Wilcox eyes were supposed to be — narrowed ever so slightly. “What makes you say that?”

“Because most people don’t come straight out and accuse strangers of lying unless they have some pretty good proof,” she answered calmly. “And I’m guessing this cabin has some sort of trap spell or enchantment laid on it that let us in, but then disabled our powers once we were inside?”

“A very good guess,” he said. “I’m surprised — most witches wouldn’t know about spells like that.”

“Probably not,” she said, still acting so unbelievably casual that Seth wondered if she knew how much trouble they really were in. Without their powers, there wasn’t much they could do to get out of here. Yes, tackling Adam Wilcox and bolting was a possibility, but what if the same spell that was blocking their powers would also prevent them from walking through the door, even though they’d been able to open it? “But,” she went on, “I’m not most witches. And since you’ll know whether I’m lying, I can tell you the simple truth. My name is Devynn Rowe, and I’m a Wilcox witch on my mother’s side.” Another pause, and now her expression was almost amused. “And I’m from the future.”

Halfway through all this, Seth had wanted to clap his hand over her mouth to keep her from speaking, even though hewould never have done anything so rude, not even in a moment of extremity such as this.

But what the ever-loving hell did she think she was doing?

Adam Wilcox only stood there, staring at her, disbelief and realization warring in his face. The disbelief was natural enough…how could anyone believe what she’d said about coming from the future?…even as Adam understood she wasn’t lying, because otherwise, his talent would have exposed her falsehoods for what they were.

“A-a Wilcox witch from the future?” he stammered, and she nodded.

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