Beautifully Broken (28 page)

A dark mist rose at the edge of the circle, smoky tendrils writhing and glowing with an eerie intensity. Candles around the circle sputtered out, plunging the room into darkness. Terror washed through me. My heart contracted. Too dark. Also entirely silent. Nothing. Not even the sighing wind or shadows whispering.

A slight noise disturbed the stillness. Footsteps. Charm twitched her tail, hissing. A scream froze in my throat. My muscles froze too.

Oh. My. God. What have I invited into Ravenhurst? And where did I leave that damn bat?

All at once the candles sprang back to life. The room shifted, shadows crawling toward me from the bends and crooks. Rising from the shadows was a serpent head. Its shape suggested a cobra, but its face held human characteristics. Darkness lengthened and reached out for the entity, helping it to assume the form of a man as the body became more substantial.

 
Esael glowered with yellow eyes, the mutated face of a serpent. “Why did you summon me?”

Charm howled, looking almost feral. Rather than freak out, I mustered my courage. “I didn’t call
you
.”

His face in the candlelight was distorted and eerie. “Are you sure?”

 
“Did I stutter?”

“Don’t be indignant.” Each second I stared at him he appeared more human, not as insubstantial. He was regaining his strength. Esael had on clothes, dark and indescribable. He stood seven feet tall and was sinewy. Scaly body rippling with muscles. No hair on his bald head. His taloned feet raked the floor. His foul sulfur scent, pungent and sharp, made me want to gag.

Panic expanded to every pore of my being.
Where did he get clothes? From the trunks?
“W—why are you here?”

“You summoned me, thus here I am.” His baritone voice, gruff, menacing.

Nightmare—this has to be a nightmare—not real.

Reading my mind, he said casually, “I am no figment of your imagination.”

Be careful, Shiloh, Esael is a soul-eating demon. Ancient, vile and treacherous. Something you’re totally not ready to face alone.

 
“You’re upset. Forgive my transgression.” But Esael didn’t seem sorry. “Are you ready to join me now, my sweet?” Esael moved a step closer to the circle. His eyes were unusual, golden and savage.

I jumped to my feet and yelled, “No! And I don’t have time to deal with your crap, Esael.”

“Mmm, I can’t wait to draw out your essence. Drink your potent witch blood.” His voice brushed against my skin, making my flesh prickle.

“Ewww, you sicko.” I scooted away, uneasy. “There’ll be no sucking of the witch’s blood tonight.”

He smirked. “Someday soon, we should have a heart-to-heart. Tell you how the sorceress you call
mother
resurrected me years ago. Released me from my underworld prison.”

“How do you know my mother?” My tone sounded strong and didn’t betray the real terror sliding through my veins.

“I know a great deal about you and your powerful family.” Esael paced the outer edge of the circle, but did not enter. His aura squirming. Black and ugly. “The woman who raised you made a bargain with me many years ago. As did the others in her coven.” Esael radiated old magick, shrewdness and deadly cunning. Yet his form wavered, losing strength. His eyes were yellow orbs—searing like the light of the sun. Most substantial thing about him. That, and his demonic voice.

 
“I don’t understand. What exactly do you want?”

“Why do my sacrifices always ask the same tedious questions? Why are you here? What do you want? When you
know
why I’m here. You know what I want.” He licked his lips with a forked tongue.

“No…I don’t.” My heart clamored too loud.

“Of course, you do. Look deep within yourself. You bear the mark.” He pointed at my scar. The uneven skin on my wrist burned, stinging with fever. “I need your witch’s blood to become corporeal.”

I struggled to keep the shock his words filled me with from my expression. I held my arm against my ribcage, my chest rising and falling rapidly. “It’s just a scar,” I lied.

Esael advanced, stepping near the edge of the chalky circle. He didn’t cross it. I was safe within, but it gave me little comfort. My body vibrated with tremors. I clutched my stinging arm tighter against my chest and with the other hand, I pointed at his chest. “I bind thee with white light!” A surge of silver magick blasted from my fingertip and hit him. It did nothing more than cause him to take a step back.

He brushed himself off, the magick falling like glitter to the floor. “Another binding spell?” he asked with a menacing chuckle. “But I love the dark.” Esael lifted a black boot onto a trunk and cocked his head.

“So…is there…really a supernatural hit list?”
My voice shook. I couldn’t help it.

His mouth frowned. “List?”

“You know, the kids whose souls you sucked out. Is there some sort of list?”

“No, not an actual list. But I know which souls to claim. I made a blood oath with a coven of witches after I was resurrected. Thirteen, to be exact. In exchange for
favors,
I collect souls.”

“Like an evil genie summoned to grant bogus wishes,” I muttered.

A bemused smile touched his lips.

“Why did you suck the souls outta those kids?”

“Oh, trifles of being a powerful demonic being, I’m afraid. In order to keep from returning to the underworld, I have to consume innocent souls from time to time.” He shrugged.

 
“You can’t stay here.” My jaw flexed. I stood motionless. Hardly breathing.

“Nor do I want to.” His expression darkened. “Haven’t we already gone over this?” He chuckled, balancing his elbow on his uplifted knee. “I happen to like it here. For now. Ravenhurst has immense power. Every soul I take nourishes me. Grants me the strength to release myself from this prison. Now, finally, my ascension is close at hand.”

Shadows skidded closer to the circle. Morphed. Little clawed hands, pointed teeth, red blinking eyes. They absorbed my fear. Sucked it up. It melted away and into them. I’d have to remember to thank them later.

“Whatever.” I snorted. “You can do all the hanging out you want—slack away, evil slacker guy. I really don’t care!”

“Slacker? You attack me with your words.” He chortled, but it sounded threatening. His eyes luminous. “One day I’ll drink of your sweet blood.”

With the fear gone, rage vibrated my limbs. “Maybe. But don’t forget I’m a heritage witch. I’m getting more powerful each day.”

“White witch? Are you sure, thirteenth daughter?” He eyed me contemplatively, as though sizing up a worthy opponent. I transferred my weight from foot to foot. The continuing silence made me anxious. He stood there, unmoving and watching me. “Do you believe it was chance that you and the boy met? That you’re here now?” He humphed. “Do you deem the love you feel for him is real? Natural?”

“Don’t change the subject.” Something hard and heavy grew in my chest, making it ache. “What do you mean? Of course it’s real.”

“Only that perhaps those emotions, those suppressed yearnings, are not quite yours alone.”

“What?” My white light of protection became weary and flickered like a butterfly. Blood dripped from my hand, the cut stinging as I clenched my fist and the red liquid seeped onto the floor. “I love Trent. I’m gonna save him—from you.”

“How sweet. Yet I’m surprised she has allowed this to go on.”

“She
who
? You and Claire talk in riddles.”

He clucked his forked tongue. “You’ve had plenty of warnings but you refuse to heed them. Refuse to see. Yet I wonder if you are stronger than I first believed…or extremely foolish.” He laughed, prowling like a practiced predator around the circle. Waiting. Patient. Treacherous.

“Your blood…sings to me, my love.” He sniffed the air and grinned. “It calls to the dark. Join me, witch. Together, we could set fire to the sky. Torch the night. Be my queen of darkness.”

“Never.” Anger was building inside me, clawing its way up from my stomach, and tensing my muscles. “Enough with the chitchat—in the name of all that is holy—
get out
!”

“One way or another, little witch, tonight I shall accept payment. Debts must be paid.”

Those horrible eyes stayed fixed on mine, making me increasingly uncomfortable. Then I realized something. Something astonishing. Esael’s aura rippled in rapid saffron hues.

He was uneasy, hesitant. He disguised it skillfully, his inhuman face composed, but I sensed it. Made the shadows twitchy, restless. They slithered away from him and toward me, crossing into the circle. Something he could not do. Esael glanced at the shadows with surprise. Four little shapes morphed and gathered at my ankles. A little hand slipped into mine. Kasha grinned, a mouth full of sharp teeth.

I liked that Esael was nervous. It gave me power—strength—determination.

A gust whistled across the rooftops and seeped inside the cracks. Slamming against doors and sending a chill through the rafters. Esael’s eyes were wild, fierce. Edged in anonymity. Fathomless and dark. His body blended with the shadows, losing its solid form. A smoky hand reached across the circle and I stepped back. “Until we meet again,” his diminishing voice said as he disintegrated into mist.

My body relaxed. Alone. Well, if you didn’t count the hellish little shapeshifters.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Bummed the spell hadn’t worked; I lit another candle and told Zrekam and the shades to go downstairs and be on the alert for Esael while I finished getting ready. They dashed from the room, melting back into shadow. I returned to the trunk filled with Claire’s things and pulled from it a dingy white wedding dress. Entangled in some deep compulsion, I removed my clothes, tossing them aside. I yanked the gown over my head and buttoned the front. I was a girl playing a dangerous game of dress-up by resurrecting memories of a dead woman, but I couldn’t stop now. In another trunk, I found a black wig. I took my hairbrush from my purse and brushed the long mane. I fussily arranged the wig on my head until it fell in soft waves to my hips. Floating panels on the gown swirled when I turned and took one more look at my reflection.

Pretty darn close
. But something wasn’t right. Ariana hadn’t asked why I’d wanted to go to the optician. But I’d had a plan. I fished out blue contact lenses and placed them over my brown irises.
Ah, much better.

Then something happened. Darkness stirred beneath my ribs. Revenge, anger, bitterness. The emotions turned the silver, violet, aqua light swirling around my body into something darker. Black power spread from my heart to my flesh, into my scar, and poisoned my mind. In the mirror, my reflection was ambiguous, but when I stepped closer, Claire’s image stared back.

Something tugged on my spirit and with it a change in the atmosphere. I slowed my breath and relaxed my limbs, summoning the spirits of my Native American ancestors to give me confidence—strength. To drive the darkness from my heart. Warmth—deep and infinite, fiery and radiant—rattled beneath my ribs, rising in my blood and flesh to course through my veins. My people’s blood fought the black magick and lost. Every sense became intensified, like being lit from within with a supernatural energy.

In that same instant I went from being a white witch to black. Like my mother. Lauren was right. We were so much alike.

Now I was ready to confront the woman who had brutally betrayed me. A mother whose love was a twisted web of deceit. She’d hurt me deeply and her heap of lies had severed any love I had for her. She’d be Jillian forever to me now. I’d never call her mother again. The lies would end tonight.

I opened my eyes.

A slow-moving apparition shuffled forward, reaching out for me.
Claire?

“Aw, jeez,” I said, clutching my throat. “You scared me, Madison!”

She stepped into the candlelight and patted my scratchy wig. A spindle of saliva dripped from one corner of her mouth. “You Claire?”

“Only for tonight. Never mind that now. I have to go and I need you to come with me.”

“Trent, my brother.
Mine
.”

“Yeah, well you can have him,” I corrected, scratching my head, er, wig.

“Brother…
mine
.”

“Fine. I get it.” I sighed and I think Madison sighed too, or maybe she yawned.

Shadows whispered, beckoning me from the attic.

“We can talk about that later,” I said. “I have to confront our parents. I need to know why you were kept a secret from us.”

I stooped to grasp the rope I’d taken from a trunk and tied it into a noose, then pulled it over my head, the tail end of it trailing behind me. I didn’t need to turn and gaze into the mirrors to see how morbid I looked. Totally dramatic, sure. But I knew answers wouldn’t come from plainly asked questions. These secrets had been hidden too deep, too long. Claire needed this confrontation as much as I did. Together we would face our enemies. I grabbed the dagger off the floor.

“This way, Claire.” Madison led the way downstairs with slow, jaunty steps. Instead of heading in the direction of the back stairs, she ambled toward the second-floor balcony.

I grabbed her hand and tugged her back. “No, not that way. Someone will see us,” I whispered. “Madison—stop!”

She ignored me and gazed at the crowd below from the rotunda. Loud bongs from the grandfather clock rang out. I was about to make a dash for the back stairwell before I was spotted when I heard a familiar voice rise above the music that stopped me cold.

“Get out of my way!” Jillian stood in the middle of the foyer. “I’m looking for Shiloh.”

I looked down below to see Trent, his forehead scrunched in confusion. “I told you, she’s not here.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

Jillian yanked free of his grasp. “She is. I can
sense
her presence.” Her gaze slowly moved upward until her eyes settled on me.
Or should I say Claire?
She lost her poised cool and clamped a hand over her mouth before the screams threatened to break free. She was clearly shocked to see me standing there in the whitish-grey wedding gown with a noose dangling from my neck.

 
Madison grinned and waved at Trent, who turned to see why everyone froze. The DJ stopped playing. A luminous orb flew above the rotunda. It whizzed past my head. Eerie light shimmered and pulsed, swelling until the round shape formed a woman.

Claire.

I had planned to do this in the privacy of my own home, had planned to confront my mother and let suicidal Claire possess my body, but now that option had been taken from me. Had Jillian sensed what I was about to do? Had she come here to stop me?
Obviously too late for that.

I nodded at Claire. Before I knew what was happening—we became one. Our souls intertwined; our spirits binding to form an eerie glow around my body. Her wrath—her agony—surged within me. It diseased my veins, seeped from my pours, scorched my flesh. The air swirled around me. Colder like a winter frost. The blue contacts had fused to my pupils, changing the color of the iris from sable to glittery sapphire. I looked out of Claire’s brilliant blue eyes. Vengeful eyes that gazed at the crowd beneath.

Rumblings from a mystical storm shook the sky. Gray clouds pooled, piling in on themselves, wisps overwhelmed by cumulus, turning to thunderheads—centered exactly over the mansion. Demonstrating my powers. My anger. My wrath.

 
I stared out windows at the torrent. I felt disconnected from the elemental ferocity outside, although every five minutes the gale shook Ravenhurst hard enough to rattle the windowpanes. Pines and oaks lashed in the wind under tossing solid clouds that spattered drizzling sleet on the estate. In the dreary light of the storm, the isolation seemed ominous, as though we were severed from the rest of the world. Lightning flashed, followed by the roar of thunder.

My eyes rested upon Jillian. She trembled with anger.

Something happened inside my head, Claire’s voice bubbled from my throat. “It was her! Jillian Broussard.” She raised my finger and pointed at Jillian. “You destroyed my life. You whore!”

Jillian rotated the gold band on her ring finger.

Trent stared, his eyes wide. His apparent distress at seeing his dead mother appear made a feeble sound escape his lips.

“Murderer!” The loud voice that tore from my throat was practically an affront to the silence and it caught everyone’s attention. “Jillian, you are a murderer of children! A witch dabbling in the black arts. Remember, I caught you in the bathroom that day?” Claire’s spirit squirmed inside me, her bitterness radiating through my skin. “But your ritual will be your undoing. Because that’s the thing about spells, Jillian…sometimes they can
backfire
.”

The air surrounding Jillian vibrated with dark magick deeper than shadow. Her eyes narrowed, her voice booming, “Get over it. You’re
dead
.”

“No! You shall pay for your wrongdoings! You stole my husband!”

“Really, Claire. It wasn’t my fault you lost Maxwell. You brought this upon yourself.”

Murmuring swelled within an instant. Rains beat on the roof and windows. The lights blinked once…twice, but didn’t go out. Winds howled and shrieked with a growing fury.

Jillian’s stare went dark and shadowed. Eyes, black as a starless night. Just as cold. “I figured eventually you’d find a way to return, Claire. But to use the thirteenth daughter?” Jillian’s aura darkened to mud. An ugly, brownish color of hate. “I underestimated you. But come now. Enough. You need to move on. Go into the light.”

“You stole what was mine,” Claire accused in a voice loud and formidable, making my throat hoarse.

“So you keep saying. And really, what good did that do you?”

“None, I suppose.” Claire’s spirit wiggled inside me like a tick. “You were my best friend—how could you?”

“Love can make a fool out of anyone. I can offer no excuses, Claire. Nor do I want to.” Jillian’s eyes still smoldered with jealousy. Jealousy for a dead woman. “I admit that I pursued Maxwell. He couldn’t resist me. Yet the pregnancy wasn’t planned.” She closed her eyes briefly. “Life is not without irony…for you were pregnant too, with the Donovan heir—a legitimate successor to the family fortune. Maxwell was trapped in a quandary by fate.” She sighed. “But Maxwell was the one thing I could not relinquish—no matter the consequences—no matter what it cost me. Even if I had to sacrifice a life.” Her eyes met mine. Indifferent and empty. Cancerous eyes that had swallowed too much depravity. Which the twinkling of loyalty had long ago expired.

All the guests’ eyes jumped from me to Jillian in her dress of burgundy and black pumps. Her legs bare. Pale. Her short blond hair framed her delicate features. I gazed at her, understanding that she was not only beautiful but irrational—high on old, lost magick and wondering why her insanity only fueled her wrath and intensified her beauty.

“I thought you couldn’t have children, couldn’t give him an heir, but I did and”—she pointed at Madison— “just look at the girlish freak I produced for your husband.” Jillian laughed. Hysterical wild laughter like someone demented. Her voice became unnaturally shrill. “Maxwell promised he’d take care of everything and our lives would return to…” she paused, sorrow engraved on her face. Then she added quietly, “Normal. If I didn’t tell anyone.”

Trent looked confused. “What? I don’t understand. Madison is my sister…isn’t she?”
 

I shook my head and in Claire’s voice I said, “Yes, she’s your half-sister. Your father’s sin created this child.”

Everyone stared at Madison and whispered, shaking their heads.

Nature raged, the thunder clapping loudly as lightning illuminated the room. A rolling boom heralded a flash of lightning, and rain pelted against the roof, loudly clanking in the metal gutters. My own dark powers clashed with Jillian’s, like how the raging storm outside fought with nature. Winds howled and shrieked, bending the tree branches so they made creepy scraping noises along the sides of the mansion.

Jillian’s voice faltered, her expression became a mask of pain and remembrance. Her eyes went all black, all pupils. Those dilated eyes settled on my blue ones. Her voice whisper thin, she said, “Esael lusted after you. Ah, Darkness is always attracted to the light…I studied the dark arts, the summoning spells that awoke the Soul Eater, and freed him from the underworld. We needed power, and he agreed to the coven’s request to cause physical or mental illness to fall upon our enemies to fulfill our darkest desires.”

Oh god, all those mystical disappearances—it made sense now.

“You mean murder,” Claire and I said.

“Yes…that too.” Jillian shrugged. “At the time we didn’t care. We presumed we could trick him, only bring forth his essence, a shadow of his natural form, so he would do our bidding.” Sticky threads of blackness soared from Jillian’s fingertips, a dangerous, antiquated magick that I finally understood. It looped in the air, swirling above her head. Everyone backed away and now she stood alone in the center of the room.

“Oh!—the shadows, the whispers. All those miscarriages I suffered.” Claire’s words from my mouth.

“The demon, Esael requires pure souls as offerings. But Evil is tricky. Initially, the demon agreed to only take the lives of the first born children in our coven…however, soon he wanted more. In order to become corporeal, Esael must open the nexus under Ravenhurst. First, he needs a certain number of innocent souls and the blood of a heritage witch to complete his ascension.” Jillian waved her hands through the air, resembling a spider spinning a black, sticky web. “When we realized what we’d done—what we’d unleashed upon the world, we attempted to bind him to this house.”

A loud clap of thunder and a brilliant flash of lightning preceded a heavy downpour.

Jillian stared apprehensively at the guests. I couldn’t tear my gaze from the shadows coalescing around her. Black shapes with smoky limbs. Fog creeping along the floor.

No—it can’t be fog. It must be smoke. But it isn’t that either.

Mist swirled, rose higher, the shadows gathering shape, roughly the size of a man. Esael materialized a few feet behind Jillian. Eyes with slitted pupils filled with the cruelty of a shark.