Hecate sat in the bay window and growled low in her throat. Black with a silver blaze down his forehead, Osiris was pacing behind Kari, back and forth, his claws ticking on the hardwood floors. He knew he was being left behind.

  Both cats knew things, told her things, and Hecate promised that she could lead Kari to Nicole Anderson-Moore, who was Hecate's mistress. Maybe the witch could help them both--make them truly live again. She wasn't certain what Hecate would do to Holly. Holly had sacrificed Hecate to gain magical power-- had heartlessly drowned the poor cat in a bathtub. How could Jer love someone like that?

  Hecate yowled; she wanted Osiris to come too. Maybe Nigel could drag something else back from the afterlife to keep the poor thing company.

  All this Kari thought in a sensible, cohesive manner. But when she tried to speak, it was a struggle to string more than three or four words together. She could barely write.

  She remembered the name of a condition caused by brain damage--aphasia. When she had been doing her folklore research, she had come across dozens of fairy tales in which the heroine was unable to speak-- the Little Mermaid, the girl threatened with death if she didn't defend herself in

  "The Six Swans." She had written a paper suggesting that it was a means by which simpler folk explained the presence of aphasia, saying the silence was brought about by magic, or a curse.

  Maybe magic could lift the curse.

  Maybe death had struck her dumb.

  "Okay, Hecate, crate," Kari murmured as she glanced at the time readout on Nigel's cable box. It was almost one a.m. The cab should have been there at twelve forty-five. The crate sat beside Nigel's wide-screen TV; it was a plastic box with a see-through metal door. Labels reading live animal were plastered all over it. She had found several such crates in Nigel's basement--for lab animals, she guessed. How many failures had he had, before successfully revivifying Osiris?

  And her?

  Hecate stared straight ahead, growling. Kari reached for the cat; Hecate leaped off the bay window and trotted over to Osiris. The two animals turned as one and stared at Kari, and then meowed in unison. They sounded insistent, grief-stricken.

  She shook her head. "One cat." It was strict airline policy. She had checked and double-checked.

  An image poured into her mind: Osiris in a shipping crate, in the belly of the plane with the cargo. Just pack him in, stow him away. But they would x-ray the box to see what was inside it.

  She would be caught, maybe even thrown off the plane for cruelty to animals.

  He cannot die, came the thought. And then, a clear image of all Nigel's many sleeping pills filled her mind. As understanding dawned, she recoiled in horror. The cats wanted her to give Osiris an overdose.

  He cannot die, the thought repeated.

  She took a deep breath. "The cab…"When you are done, the cab will come. Hecate stared hard at her with her yellow eyes, which seemed to glow in the lightning flashes. Kari knew the thoughts were Hecate's thoughts. She knew she was communicating with a dead cat--that, apparently, had magical powers."All right," she said.

  Cold dread filled her as she went down into the basement and collected the bottles of pills from Nigel's medicine cabinet. As she placed them into an empty yellow plastic bin she'd located beside her hospital bed, she couldn't help but wonder if he had planned to sleep with her once he'd brought her back. She'd known he was in love with her. But she'd only had eyes for Jer Deveraux. Nigel had been too much of a gentleman to push.

  She stared at the vast array in the bin. It would be tempting to take them all, just go unconscious, but she knew it wouldn't end there. She wondered if she would have to go back to hell. Maybe what Nigel had done was actually rescue her from another hellish version of the Dreamtime, as Richard had rescued Jer?

  She carried the bin back up to the living room. The two cats were waiting for her. Hecate was licking Osiris's head. To comfort him, maybe.

  Another image filled her mind: Osiris, limp, his heart stopped. And then his eyes opening. His heart starting again.

  He could not be killed.

  Because he isn't alive, she thought as she opened a small amber plastic bottle. It was Ambien.

  She knew that was a prescription sleeping aid, very strong. She saw herself emptying all the capsules and mixing them with the cat food. If we're dead, why do we eat?

  Then she saw herself taking a couch cushion and smothering him. With a cry she dropped the bottle back into the bin.

  She couldn't, wouldn't, do such a thing. But how was it different from an overdose? The degree of violence? That it was so direct?

  Get it done, Hecate Urged her.

  And in that moment she felt a twinge of sympathy for Holly, who had killed Hecate in the first place. Just a twinge. When she finished getting the poison ready--that was exactly what it was--

  she found Osiris inside a heavy cardboard box filled with clothes. He was snuggled inside a large, old-fashioned lead-lined pouch, used back in the day for storing camera film when suitcases passed through X-rays. She had no idea where the cats had found it, nor why Nigel had it, but it twisted her stomach to see him placidly curled up inside it. It reminded her of a body bag.

  Her hands shook badly as she held out the food. He gazed up at her and licked the tip of her finger, then gobbled down the food.

  Twenty minutes later the taxi arrived.

  Scarborough: Amanda, Nicole, Tommy, Richard, Owen

  The childe of magicks is made in a minute, homed of womane in a moment. His fatheyr he unknoume, even unto ye Motheyr. And ife theys childe be grown until a manne, The World be forfeiyt, yea, the very Erth and Skye Runneth as Dragonne's Bloode…

  "No," Amanda said aloud as she shut Merlin's book and leaped away from it. She shuddered as if someone had thrown a bucket of ice water over her head--or desecrated her grave. She rubbed her arms and shook her head. She must have read it wrong. She had been reading in bed, and it was three in the morning. In magical terms, it was the dark night of the soul, when Black Magic was strongest. Maybe an evil spell lingering in the house had jumbled the words. Or maybe she'd fallen asleep and dreamed it.

  Gingerly she murmured a spell of protection and opened the book again. The words were still there. A child whose father is a mystery, "made in a minute." If such a child grew up, the world would end.

  Her stomach clutched. It can't mean Owen. Not our little baby.

  She read on: Three signes there be: ye childe will possesse a Marke, behind his Ear Sinister; Ye childe will sing, and Ye Monsters will comme; Ye childe will kill a creatuyr most innocente. An ye babe shews these sigyns, better thou grab it bye its ankles and dash its head upon the chimneye, than you suffar him to live. If he liveth, all else dies.

  She actually laughed out loud. "Sinister" meant "left." Owen didn't have any kind of mark behind his left ear--or his right, for that matter. And as for the other two--Not gonna happen.

  She closed the book and set it on her nightstand, then wiped her palms on her pajamas. That wasn't enough; she wanted to wash her hands. She grabbed her flashlight and went into the hall.

  As always, she paused before Tommy's door. They were engaged now. It would be okay for her to climb into bed with him, find some comfort there.

  Not with Daddy in the house, she told herself.

  She walked down the hall toward the bathroom, passing the door that led to Nicole's, Owen's, and Richard's rooms. She heard soft snoring, and smiled to herself.

  And then she heard… singing--sweet, high-pitched, and breathy.

  She stopped dead, listening. Five notes, over and over again. La, la, la, la-la. Maybe it was a toy.

  You could record your voice, to be played back when a child squeezed his toy around the middle or tugged on its nose.

  Five notes. La, la, la, la-la.Owen.

  Her face went numb. He was too little to sing. She wasn't really hearing it. Someone was making her think she was. It was this house, this terrible, evil house.

  But remember what happened that day, when Nicole said he spoke and he transformed before her eyes? She shivered.

  "We're going to move out of here," she said aloud. And suddenly she meant it. She would do whatever was necessary to get Nicole to leave. The house, or castle, or whatever it was, belonged to a dynasty of murderous, barbaric warlocks. Not the right kind of place to raise a child.

  But the book… It had foretold about Seattle, Holly's possession, everything.

  "I'll tell them about the book," she said.

  No. It is for you. The book is for you. Do not tell.

  "I…" she murmured, suddenly confused. What had she been thinking about?

  La, la, la, la-la. Chills went down her spine; she opened the door and poked in her head.

  "Nicole?" she whispered. She walked past Richard's door and opened the door leading to the bedroom Nicole shared with Owen. She hesitated, afraid to open it--afraid of what she would see. What it might mean.

  No one is going to kill Owen. La, la, la, la-la.

  She kept her flashlight lowered, afraid to announce her presence, but more afraid to move through the dark without it.

  She heard squeaking.

  Footsteps. Rapid, and small, across the room.

  Chills washed over her. She tried to call Nicole's name, but her throat was bone-dry. The arm holding the flashlight seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. She couldn't move. The footsteps changed direction. They were headed for her.

  Her mouth worked; her thumb played over the flashlight switch. She couldn't make it go on, couldn't make it work… and then a tiny hand slipped into her free hand, and gave her a little squeeze.

  He's not walking yet.

  "Nicole!" she screamed.

  At once the room flowed with light from Nicole's bedside. Nicole was leaping out of bed. At the same time, Owen started wailing--from his cradle."Amanda, what's wrong?" Nicole cried as she grabbed up Owen and ran to Amanda.

  There was no one standing beside Amanda. No one had squeezed her hand. No one visible, anyway.

  "Oh, Nicole," she said, bursting into tears. Owen began to wail."Amanda," Nicole said, rushing to embrace her.

  At the same time, Richard appeared in the doorway, in a white T-shirt and black sweatpants. He flicked on more lights.

  "What's wrong?" he shouted, gazing around the room as he ran to them.

  Don't tell him. It was a voice deep inside her, maybe the same one that had sung the eerie little tune and squeezed her hand. Maybe the one that had urged her to call for Tommy when she'd been trapped in the secret tunnel. She didn't know what to do. Her father was protecting them, but he wasn't a member of their magical circle.

  "Amanda?" That was Tommy, thundering into the room. Nicole was still hugging her. Owen was crying.

  She should tell him. She was in thrall with him. But he wasn't a Cathers witch.

  "I--I had a bad dream," she said, holding tightly to Nicole. Tommy took her hand--the same one a ghostly hand had squeezed--and pulled her against his chest. As she loosened her grip on her twin, she thought she heard the eerie singing… coming from Owen, who was still crying.

  Am I losing my mind?

  Mumbai: Philippe, Anne-Louise, and Eli

  Eli had tracked the magic emanations to a huge park. Now he stared in disbelief at the two witches. He had no idea who the woman was, but the man was the European witch Nicole was in thrall to. The bastard.

  "No freakin' way," he grunted.

  They were twenty feet apart, plenty close enough that Eli could kill him with magic, not close enough to kill him with his bare hands. He growled low in his throat, clenching and unclenching his fists. From the look on the witch's face, Eli was pretty sure he was thinking something similar.

  The woman stepped forward, and with a flick of his wrist Eli sent her flying. She landed in a heap on a pile of rocks close to the lake.

  "You are Eli Deveraux," the witch said."In the flesh."

  "I am Philippe. Nicole is in thrall to me."

  "I guessed that much. Tell me where she is."

  "I wish I knew."

  "Tell me, damn you!" Eli threw a fireball at his head.

  Philippe reached up and plucked it out of the air, extinguishing it with his fingers. So. The jerk had some magic skills."Why are you looking for her?" Philippe asked.

  As an answer Eli threw another fireball. "Just tell me."

  This time Philippe not only blocked it, but sent it back to Eli.

  Oh, yeah, this is going to be a long fight, Eli thought.

  He dropped to the ground and sent a hailstorm of fire Philippe's way. The witch deflected the wall of flame to his right, where it set a tree on fire."If you kill me, you'll never find her,"

  Philippe yelled, sending bolts of electricity flying at Eli's head.

  "You can't keep me from her… or my kid," Eli shouted, spinning out of the way as he tore a crack in the ground beneath Philippe's feet.

  Philippe tottered wide-legged for a moment before jumping away, dropping to his knees, and throwing a small cyclone into Eli's chest.

  Eli grunted as the force made impact; he heard ribs cracking and rattled off an incantation to dull the pain."You didn't honestly think it was your baby," Eli taunted.

  The French witch swore in French, probably damning Eli to hell. Not yet, he thought.

  He could taste blood on his lips. Not good. Had he punctured a lung? He twisted the cyclone up tighter and sent it back to Philippe, who deflected it back to the burning tree. The wind spread the fire, and suddenly not one but a dozen trees burst into flame.

  "The child might not be mine, but neither is he yours," Philippe said.

  It was the truth that Eli was afraid of, and he could tell it cost the other man to say it out loud.

  And suddenly Eli wanted very, very much to break every bone in the witch's body.

  With a roar he crossed the distance between them. He slammed into Philippe and they both went down in a tangle of arms and legs. Philippe regained his footing first and staggered away, trying to put space between them. Eli made it back to his feet and closed the distance again. He grabbed Philippe around the throat and started squeezing.

  Philippe exploded a fireball in Eli's eyes; he went blind, but he held on, knowing it would pass.

  Philippe staggered backward, and Eli went with him. As they grappled, Philippe's hands found Eli's throat and he could feel the breath being squeezed out of him.

  "The water," he heard Philippe wheeze. Eli's vision cleared just enough to show him that they were on a ledge above a vast lake covered with water lilies. And then he heard Philippe in his mind.

  Those who are loved by a Cahors witch are cursed to die by drowning.

  Eli grinned wickedly at Philippe, remembering the bad old days when suspected witches were tied to stools and dunked to determine their innocence. Witches and water had a long, unhappy history. And to lay a curse of water on top of that…The odds were decidedly in a warlock's favor.

  So, which one of us does she love? I guess there's only one way to find out, Eli thought.

  Anne-Louise sat up with a groan. Whatever Eli had thrown at her had sliced through her personal wards as if they were tissue paper. She struggled to her feet; pain shot through her left arm, and she guessed that it was broken.

  Trees were blazing. Sharp winds cut through the smoke, and as she staggered forward, she saw neither Philippe nor Eli.

  "Philippe?" she called, breathing a prayer to the Goddess for his safety.

  There was no answer, but a moment later she heard an angry shout. She spun around and saw Eli and Philippe, their hands locked around each other's throats, teetering on the rock ledge above one of the lakes.

  "No!" she screamed, and ran toward them.

  Philippe turned, gave her a ghost of a smile, and then the two of them went over the side and tumbled into the waters below. Anne-Louise ran to the edge and tried to conjure a spell that would lift them out of the water.

  Nothing happened. She strained her eyes but could see nothing beneath the surface. She considered jumping in after them, but that seemed like folly. She stood for several minutes, eyes probing the surface of the lake.

  Nothing.

  They were both gone.

  France, Thirteenth Century: Sasha

  Sasha had been trapped in the past for nearly a year. She had been forced to watch, helpless, as history repeated itself. Jean and Isabeau married. The Cahors-attacked the Deveraux and the lovers died. All she could do was watch and try to stay alive.

  She had studied the origin of the blood feud between the two families ever since she had left her husband, Michael Deveraux, and found sanctuary in the Mother Coven. Living through the storied events, though, she had come to discover something very important.

  The deaths of Jean and Isabeau did not herald the start of the blood feud. Indeed, Cahors and Deveraux history went back much, much further. At one point they had been very closely allied.

  Then something, she still didn't know what, had happened that had driven the families apart forever.

  The other thing that she had learned was that Jean's lover, Karienne, had been pregnant with his child when she was sent away, Sasha had no idea if the child was male or female or whether there were more offspring that carried Deveraux blood without the Deveraux name.

  One other thing she had discovered was fascinating. There were two types of magic practitioners--"natural born" and "borrowers." Natural born witches and warlocks inherited their power from their parents. It ran in the blood. Those who were borrowers had no natural talent, and only came to the practice later in life through close contact with a practitioner. She was still trying to figure out how it all worked, but as near as she could tell, the borrower's magic came not from within but from the one they were close to. Which meant that she, Sasha, was a borrower. She had known nothing of witchcraft when she'd met Michael Deveraux, and in all her study since then she had never found a single witch or warlock in her family tree. So, whatever power she had was courtesy of Michael.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26