Authors: Susan Squires
The Cup floated by on its way to Morgan. Kemble lunged for it, but it merely drifted up out of his reach. He was dimly aware that the light-eyed guy was aiming his pistol, at least until it glowed red and he dropped it with a cry. Tris
tram.
T
he Cup drifted into Morgan’s left hand where she cradled it against her side. Kemble had never felt so helpless in his life. Morgan started forward just as Kemble dove for her.
A cone of blinding light enveloped Morgan. Kemble bounced off it as
though it was steel and fell to the floor. His ears were ringing, his head split with pain. Was this what it felt like to get struck by lightning? He tried to move but his limbs wouldn’t obey him. He could only watch as Morgan advanced on the tableaux of Keelan and his mother bending over Senior. His mother was straining, the veins standing out in her neck and her temples as she struggled to Heal her husband. Devin stood over the women and his adopted father. A pipe burst out of the wall in a flood of water and sound, and flashed across the room like a missile at Morgan. Another explosion sounded, another pipe flung itself at Morgan. But they bounced off the impregnable channel of light that surrounded her. One hit the geeky guy, though, felling him instantly.
Morgan pushed Devin out of the way with the Wand
. He dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes. Was he dead? The yellow-eyed bitch stood over his parents and Kee, watching his mother strain to keep her husband from dying of his head wound. Kemble saw with relief that Senior’s chest still rose and fell.
“
Hmmm,” Morgan said. “I think you’ve done it. You’ve brought him back from the brink.” She cocked her head to one side. Her growing grin was illuminated clearly by the light from the Wand. “That doesn’t mean, however, that you’ve saved him.” The bottom tip of the Wand moved outside the cone of light. Morgan touched it to the wound still gaping in Senior’s head. His mother’s hands were still pressed to Senior’s chest. The wound glowed.
“
No!” his mother yelled. “What have you done?”
Morgan laughed.
Tears blinded Kemble’s vision. His mind willed his body to move, but all he managed was a grunt of pain. Kee scrambled up, choking back the sobs that went with the tears streaming down her face.
Suddenly the gallery vanished. The Tremaines were gone and so was Morgan. In their place were shrieking, wailing, devilish things almost like gargoyles, or aliens. They were grimacing in anger, advancing everywhere. Blood dripped from fangs that still held shards of flesh. A smell of rotten meat filled the air, nauseating him. One was advancing on Kemble. He tried to move, to no avail. This was it. Whatever Morgan had conjured, was going to rend his flesh from his bones. All he could think about was that he was never going to get to have his conversation with Jane. He’d never be able to ask her
. . . .
The slavering beast moved through Kemble’s body, insubstantial as air.
The beasts weren’t Morgan’s doing, but Keelan’s. He’d always assumed Kee’s strength was misdirection. That’s why Senior had made her part of the escape plan. But what she’d conjured here was an offensive weapon. Though it wasn’t real. Could it get them out of here?
He managed to lift his head
. The beasts were moving on the Clan. Morgan yelled for someone named Jason to get the body. The light-eyed guy slung it over his shoulder like it wasn’t a dead weight. He turned, impassive, though the banshees shrieked around him. Kemble couldn’t see the Clan any more, just the monsters Kee created, writhing, shouting…
Then they were gone. Keelan’
s apparitions slowly faded. The Tremaines were alone in the dark. Tristram’s flashlight cast a single channel of light from the corner where it had been cast away. Kemble turned his head to see Kee standing, shuddering, in the middle of the dim room. Tristram was bent over Maggie, trying to revive her. His mother was gasping over Senior, putting her hands again on his chest. She strained, keening, over him. Kemble was relieved to see Senior’s chest moving. He was alive. His mother’s Healing had come to the rescue once again. But why was his mother still straining? She looked utterly drained, as though she was dehydrated or had aged twenty years in the last minutes.
Tristram propped Maggie up against the base of the display as she blinked to consciousness. He half
stumbled, half crawled over to Senior and their mother in his haste. “Mom, you okay?” he asked, putting his arms around her. His eyes were glued to Senior though.
“
I can’t,” she said, her voice small and wondering. “I can’t Heal him.”
Tristram looked around.
“Kee, see to Dev.” He lurched up and came over to Kemble. Kemble tried to heave himself up without success. His shoulders got about four inches off the ground, like he was doing girls’ sit-ups. Tristram put his arm under Kemble’s shoulders and heaved him up.
“
Wand knocked me for a loop,” he muttered thickly.
“
You’re hair’s standing up. You and Dev both look like you had a close encounter with a power line.”
“
Maybe we did.” He looked up at his younger brother. “I couldn’t do anything.”
“
Yeah, well I wasn’t exactly effective.” He glanced to Senior. “I didn’t keep him from getting shot.”
Kemble made a supreme effort, and with Tristram hauling on him, got to his feet.
“You were busy with Maggie. She okay?”
“
Knocked around some.” He glanced to where Maggie sat with her head hanging. “We’ve got to get out of here. Morgan will probably call the cops on us after she’s out of harm’s way.”
Kemble hadn’t thought of that. He blinked, groggy.
“You okay on your own if you stick near a wall?”
Kemble nodded. Not exactly an asset to the team right now. Kee was pulling Devin up, who looked exactly like Kemble felt.
“Kee, you’ve got Maggie and Dev,” Tristram called. “I’ll get the Parents.” He walked Kemble over to Maggie’s display case and leaned him there. “Maggie, hon, stay close to Kee.”
Maggie pushed herself up.
“Don’t need a babysitter, Tris. I’ll hold my own.”
“
Of course you will.” Kemble could hear the love in Tristram’s voice and the worry.
“
We can watch each other,” Kemble said to her as Tristram went over to gently pry his mother away from his father. “Neither of us is in prime shape right now.”
“
Not by a darned sight,” Maggie muttered. “Thanks for the monsters, Kee. They scared away the monsters.”
Tristram leaned ov
er his mother. “Will it hurt him if I carry him out over my shoulder?”
Their mother turned anguished eyes up toward her son.
“What choice do we have?”
Kemble stepped away from the display case.
“I wouldn’t hang his head. If we each take an arm we can haul him out upright at least.”
Tristram looked doubtful, but in the end, he nodded tersely. Kemble tr
ied to look steady on his feet as he pushed off the display case and stumbled over to Senior. He picked up his tablet from the floor. Just a little blood on it. Tristram hauled Senior up and Kemble ducked under one of his arms and pulled it across his shoulder.
“
Wagons ho,” Tristram called softly and the Tremaines dragged themselves to the archway, leaving a security system in disarray, an empty case where the Chalice of Charlemagne had been, some heaps of metal slag, and a very big pool of blood on the floor.
They heard the sirens approaching
as everybody piled into the Suburban. Tristram drove. Kemble rode shotgun. Still groggy, he was beginning to recover. “They’re coming in the front,” he managed. “Use the service road through the tar pits.”
“
Check.” Tristram put the Suburban in gear and shot out of the loading dock area.
“
Whoa.” Kemble grabbed for the dash. “Normal speed. Normal people. Not suspicious.”
“
Normal people at the museum at four in the morning,” Tristram muttered. Still, he slowed.
Kemble turned around. Senior was laid across their mother’s lap in the seat just behind him. Her hands were covered in blood. The three others squeezed into the back row.
“Mother.”
She tore her attention from Seni
or and turned frightened eyes to him.
“
Does . . . uh . . . does he need a hospital?”
The fear in her eyes turned to utter defeat. She nodded.
“I couldn’t Heal him. I don’t know whether Morgan stopped the process with the Wand or . . . or maybe my power is . . . gone.” She looked away. “He was so close to death. Maybe . . . maybe. . . .”
She didn’t h
ave to finish. They just didn’t know. But her Healing hadn’t worked, so maybe he wouldn’t make it. All they could do was get him help.
“
When you get to Wilshire, turn left,” Kemble told Tristram. St. Catherine’s wasn’t the closest hospital, but with all that blood on the floor, the police would check the closest hospitals. And he needed somewhere the Tremaine name meant something. St. Catherine’s had a new cath lab courtesy of Tremaines, and a longtime family friend, Dr. Belvedere, practiced there. Now they just needed to get there fast. While going a sedate speed. Which meant they needed the system that controlled traffic lights to cooperate.
Kemble was betting he could arrange that. He took a
breath and touched his tablet.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Morgan smiled down at the chalice cradled in her lap and felt the power of it fill her. The interior of the limo was flashing light and dark from the passing street lamps as they cruised up Sunset to the Mon
drian Hotel. Three! Three Talismans were hers. Morgan Le Fay’s descendants would win out now, not Merlin’s. The artifacts of her ancestor’s nemesis allowed her to triumph. An extra pleasure. With all the Talismans, what could she not do?
“
Do you feel it?” she whispered. She would have looked around at the others in the strobe of the streetlights, but she couldn’t tear her eyes from the glittering chalice.
“
Yes,” Hardwick said.
“
Yeah,” Jason agreed. “Bet I could Cloak the whole west side right now.”
“
Wanna see a little Weather?” Rhiannon asked slyly.
“
No. No demonstrations.” Morgan held out her hand. Even as she watched, the skin plumped and smoothed. Satisfaction washed over her like a fall of pure clear water, refreshing, life-giving. She was getting younger again.
“
So, uh, why didn’t we kill them all?”
Phil could be so dense. She shot him a withering glance.
“Because I want them to suffer. I want the Tremaine spawn to see their father cut down to a shadow of his former self. His little whore-wife managed to pull him back from the brink. But I made sure she couldn’t make him whole. That’s even better. I gave her a dose of the power of the Wand too. If I robbed her of her power, then they’ll know they have no defense against what I can do to them. I want them afraid. Before we kill them.”
“
They’ll just hightail it back to their fortress,” Jason muttered. “And we’re back in the same spot as before. We can’t get in, and they won’t come out. Not after this disaster.”
“
Who says we can’t get in?” Morgan asked. “We still have our contact. Let’s motivate him to shut down the security.”
“
I don’t know,” Hardwick muttered from up in the driver’s seat. “They might realize he’s a traitor. And after he sees what happened to Brian Tremaine, he might balk.”
“
They’d never suspect him,” Morgan snapped. “And we have something it would kill him to lose, don’t we? I want them to have a few days to stew in their fear before we move in for the kill. How about Thursday?”
“
If they realize we’re still in town they might go on the offensive,” Jason mumbled.
“
With Brian Tremaine at death’s door? He was the glue that held the family together, the leader. Notice I say, ‘was.’ Who’s going to organize an offensive? Wifey is devastated with guilt that she couldn’t save him. The oldest son doesn’t even have magic. And let’s not imagine the motorcycle repairman has enough brains to challenge us. That leaves the alcoholic Finder, the cowgirl, and the fashion plate.” She chuffed a laugh. “I think not. Without Brian, they’re done.”
“
Excuse me. . . .”
Morgan jerked
her attention to Phil. The mouse had an objection?
“
I know they’re competition, but you all seem to hate them so much. . . .” He let the “why” hang in the air without really saying it.
“
Me. I hate them,” Morgan said, drilling him with her glare.” She glanced to the new members, Rick and Meredith. They needed to know at least the superficial reason the Tremaines must be destroyed. “They will fight to the death to make sure we don’t get the power and the future that we want. And therefore they must die.” Meredith blanched but Rick straightened his shoulders and looked determined. She’d have to watch Meredith.