Witch Lights by Michael M. Hughes Read Free Book Online Page B

go?”
    El Varón smiled. “They are here to protect everyone in this house. Including you.”
    “Well, you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t feel so safe around them.” She pointed at one of their guns. “Where I come from, you’re not supposed to carry weapons around in your house. Especially guns like that.”
    “
Señora,
those guns may save your life. And your son’s life. But I will ask them to put them away if it makes you feel better.” He opened the door and gestured into the room. “Go ahead. Take some time to rest. I will have some clothes brought for you—very nice clothes, very stylish. Take a bath, if you like. And dinner will be delivered soon. Do you like chicken?”
    Only William answered. “It’s okay.”
    “Very well. Juanita is an excellent cook. She’s been with me for almost twenty years.” He smiled. His teeth were ridiculously white, like something out of a dentist’s brochure. “Rest now. We can talk after you eat. Luis and Ricardo will wait out in the hall—just let them know if you need anything. Do you speak Spanish?”
    William nodded warily. “Not much,” Ellen said.
    “Bueno.”
He bowed slightly, walked past the two guards, and descended the stairs.
    Ellen closed the door. She tried the lock but it didn’t work. She turned and looked at William. “Well, isn’t this a pickle,” she said.
    —
    The room was hideous. It was clearly decorated by a man for a woman—or, more likely,
women,
Ellen thought—with gold-plated everything, from the gilt on the large canopied bed to the faucets and lamps. Ellen took her shoes off and her feet sank into the thick white shag carpet. How nice it felt to get those shoes off. A painting of a menacing jaguar took up most of the wall next to the bed. A dresser was covered with designer perfumes, powders, and a hand mirror and hairbrush covered in pearls.
    “Gross,” William said.
    “It sure is,” Ellen answered. And it was. Like some kind of man’s fantasy of what a woman desired, a man whose taste was informed by bad eighties TV dramas. And with no windows, and the loud hum of the air conditioner, it felt like a prison. Which, despite its frivolous furnishings, it was. And who had the room been put here for? And where had the previous tenant gone? Ellen picked up the hairbrush. A wisp of blond hair was caught in the bristles. She dropped the brush and shuddered.
    William sat on the bed. “What are we going to do, Mom?”
    Ellen sat next to him. Pulled down the blanket. Red satin sheets. Yuck. It got worse the more she looked. “I don’t know, kiddo,” she said. “But we’re getting out of here the first chance we get.”
    “Good. I want to get back to Ray. And I don’t trust that guy.”
    She shook her head. “Me, neither.”
    William leaned against her. She hugged him. “They took my watch,” he whispered. “Before I got to use it.” His emergency distress beacon.
    “Mine, too,” she said. “But they didn’t take these.” She pointed to her silver stud earrings.
    William brightened. He nodded. “Really?” he whispered.
    She winked. The tiny locators in them were supposed to work, but she didn’t know their range, only that it was shorter than their confiscated watches. She hoped Ray had gotten away and reached Mantu and the Brotherhood. If so, they’d be looking for them right now. Maybe even on their way. Which she had to believe, because breaking out of this fortress looked damn near impossible. “And we’ll do the exercises. The weird stuff Mantu taught us. Remember? The reaching out thing.”
    William’s eyes widened.
    “I know. It’s silly, but we might as well do it. I don’t believe they work, either.”
    William shook his head. “They do work. All that stuff he showed us—reaching out, sending for help. It’s real.”
    Ellen waited for him to continue, but he grew quiet. “How do you know it works?”
    He still wouldn’t look at her. “I’d rather not talk about it now. I’m too