Keller was tempted to check the wards, but she knew it wouldn't do any good. She wasn't sensitive enough to the witch energies to gauge them. They'd been put up by Grandma Harman and checked by Winnie, and she would have to trust to that.
The wards were keyed so that only the Dominick family and ordinary humans could come inside. No Night Person could enter except Nissa, Winnie, Keller, and Galen. Which meant, Keller thought with a grim smile, that any lost witch relatives of Iliana's mother who came by were going to get quite a surprise. An invisible wall was going to be blocking them from crossing the threshold.
As long as nobody on the inside removed the wards, the house was safer than Fort Knox.
Grandma Harman had also taken the limo, Keller found. Sometime during the night, it had been replaced by an inconspicuous Ford sedan parked at the curb. The keys had been in a manila envelope dropped through the mail slot in the front door, along with a map of Lucy Lee Bethea High School.
Circle Daybreak was efficient. "I didn't finish my hair," Iliana complained as Nissa hustled her to the car. "It's only half done." "It looks terrific," Winnie said from behind her. And the thing was, it was true. There was nothing that could make that shimmering waterfall of silvery-gold look anything less than beautiful.
Whether it was up or down, braided or pinned or falling loose, it was glorious.
I don't even think the little nitwit has to brush it, Keller thought. It's so fine that she couldn't make two hairs tangle if she tried. "And I left my scarf"
"Here it is." Keller lassoed her. The scarf was ridiculous, crushed velvet in muted metallic colors, with a six-inch fringe. Purely decorative.
Iliana choked as Keller wound it around a few times and pulled it tight "A little aggressive, Boss?" Winfrith asked, extricating Iliana before she could turn blue. "Worried about being late," Keller said shortly. But she saw Nissa eyeing her, too.
Galen was the last to come out of the house. He was pale and serious-that much Keller saw before she shifted her eyes past him. Iliana's mother actually remained standing at the door with the baby in her arms.
"Say bye-bye to your sister's friends. Bye-bye." "Kee-kee," the baby said. "Kee-kee!"
"Wave to him," Winfrith stage-whispered.
Keller gritted her teeth. She half-waved, keeping her senses opened for any sound of an impending attack. The baby held out his arms toward her.
"Pui!"
"Let's get out of here." Keller almost shoved Iliana into the backseat.
Nissa took the wheel, and Galen sat up front with her. Winnie ran around to get in the back on the other side of Iliana.
As they pulled out, Keller saw the outside of the house for the first time. It was a nice house-white clapboard, two and a half stories, Colonial Revival. The street was nice, too, lined with dogwoods that would be a mass of white when they bloomed. The sort of street where people sat outside on their rockers in spring and somebody was bound to have a stand of bees in the side yard making sourwood honey.
Although Keller had been all over the United States, sent from one Circle Daybreak group to another, the hospital where she'd been found had been near a neighborhood like this.
I might have grown up someplace like this. If they'd kept me. My parents...
Do I hate her? Keller wondered suddenly. I couldn't. It's not her fault.
Oh, no, of course not, the voice in her mind said. Not her fault that she's beautiful and perfect and has parents who love her and blue fire in her veins and that she is going to be forced, whether she wants it or not, to marry Galen...
Which I don't care about, Keller thought. She was shocked at herself. When had she ever let emotion interfere with her job? She was allowing herself to be distracted-she had allowed herself to be distracted all morning-when there was something vitally important at stake.
No more, she told herself fiercely. From now on, I think about nothing but the mission. Years of mental discipline came in handy now; she was able to push everything to the side and focus with icy clarity on what had to be done. "-stopped a train in its tracks," Winfrith was
saying.
"Really?" There was faint interest in Kiana's voice. At least she'd stopped talking about her hair, Keller thought.
"Really. It was one of those BART trains in San Francisco, Like a subway train, you know. The two girls were on the tracks, and the Wild Power stopped the train dead before it could hit them. That's what the blue fire can do."
"Well, I know I can't do anything like that," Iliana said flatly. "So I can't be a Wild Power. Or whatever." The last words were tacked on quickly.
Nissa raised a cool eyebrow. "Have you ever tried to stop a train?"
While Iliana bit a fingertip and pondered that, Winnie said, "You have to do it right, you know. First, you have to make blood flow, and then you have to concentrate. It's not something you can expect to do perfectly the very first time."
"If you want to start practicing," Nissa added, "we can help."
Diana shuddered. "No, thank you. I faint when I see blood. And anyway, I'm not it."
"Too bad," Nissa murmured. "We could use the blue fire on our side today."
They were pulling up to a charming old brown brick high school. Neither Galen nor Keller had said a word throughout the ride.
But now Keller leaned forward. "Nissa, drive past it. I want to check the layout first."
Nissa swung the car into a circular driveway that went past the school's oversized front doors. Keller looked right and left, taking in everything about the surroundings. She could see Winnie doing the same thing-and Galen, too. He was focusing on the same danger spots she was. He had the instinct for strategy.
"Go around the block and circle back," Keller said.
Iliana stirred. "I thought you were worried about me being late."
"I'm more worried about you being dead," Keller interrupted. "What do you think, Nissa?"
"The side door on the west. Easy to pull up reasonably close, no bushes around it for nasty surprises to hide in."
"That's my pick, too. Okay, everybody, listen. Nissa's going to slow the car down in the right place. Slow down, not stop. When I give the signal, we're all going to jump out and go directly to that door. We are not going to pause. We are going to move as a group. Iliana, are you paying attention? From now on, you don't go anywhere unless Winnie's in front of you and I'm beside you."
"And where's Galen?" Iliana said.
Keller cursed herself mentally. She wasn't used to working with a fourth team member. "Hell be behind us-okay, Galen?" She made herself look his way.
"Yes. Whatever you say." There wasn't the slightest hint of sarcasm in his face. He was dead serious. Absolutely miserable, earnest, and dead serious.
"And Nissa, once you've parked, you join us and take the other side. What room's your first class in, Iliana?"
"Three twenty-six," Iliana said dismally. "U.S. History with Mr. Wanamaker. He went to New York to try to be an actor, but all he got was some disease from not eating enough stuff with vitamins. So he came back, and now he's really strict unless you can get him to do his impressions of the presidents-"
"All right," Keller broke in. "We're coming to the door."
"-and he's actually pretty funny when he does Theodore Roosevelt-or do I mean the other one-"
"Now," Keller said, and pushed her as Winnie pulled.
They all made it out smoothly, although Iliana yelped a little. Keller kept a good grip on her arm as they hurried to the door.
"I don't think I like this way of coming to school."
"We can turn right around and go back home," Keller said. Iliana shut up.
Galen kept pace behind them, silent and focused.
It was Nissa's usual position when the team wasn't heading for a car, and Keller couldn't help feeling the difference. She didn't like having someone behind her she couldn't trust absolutely. And although the enemies didn't seem to know yet that Galen was important, if they found out, he'd become a target; Face it, she thought. This setup is a disaster, security-wise. This is a horrendous accident waiting to happen.
Her nerves were wound so tightly that she jumped at the slightest sound.
They shepherded Iliana to her locker, then up a staircase to the third floor. The halls were almost empty, which was exactly as Keller had planned it.
But of course that meant they were late for class.