Witch & Curse (48 page)

Uncle Richard phoned from the hospital parking lot to say that it was a mob scene and that he would get to them as quickly as he could. He had no recollection of his possession, and Holly and Amanda agreed to keep it that way.

Kialish showed. Dan could not be reached. It fell to Holly to deliver the blow of Eddie's death. Kialish
fell apart, thanked her, and told her he was so very glad that she and Amanda had survived.

She felt awful; she had not told him that she had abandoned Eddie to the monsters.
That I could have saved him. I picked Amanda
. . .
and I didn't even know if she was still alive
.

“Why did you tell us to go?” Holly shouted at Tante Cecile, deflecting her guilt on to the other woman. “To meet on
water
?”

Tante Cecile flashed with anger. “Of course I didn't, Holly! You were set up! All of us!”

“But . . .” Amanda wiped her eyes. “But you called me.”

Tante Cecile shook her head. “I didn't.”

The two witch cousins stared long and hard at each other. “Michael,” Holly said, her jaw set.

“It sounded exactly like you,” Amanda murmured. “How can he do that?”

“Same way we do so much of what we do,” Silvana cut in, her arm around Eddie's stricken lover. His face was gray; in the last five minutes, he seemed to have aged twenty years. “With magic.”

“Maybe that's why I wasn't called,” Tommy said. “Michael doesn't know I hang out with you guys.”

Tears rolled down Kialish's cheeks. “Holly . . .” His
shoulders heaved and he began to sob. “Tell me it was a quick death.”

She swallowed hard. “Yes. He didn't even see it.”

Oh, Goddess, forgive me
.

A woman in bright tropical scrubs scuttled over and put her arm around Kialish, saying, “Do you need something, sir?”

He shook his head, utterly defeated. Like a very old man, he let her lead him to a chair. She bustled off and got him a sandwich and a blanket. He stared down at them as if he had never seen such alien objects in his life.

Silvana put her hands on his shoulders, closed her eyes, and began a quiet incantation.

Tante Cecile turned to Amanda and Holly. “You see how he works against us,” she said. “How important it is for us to stick together.” She gazed levelly at Holly. “And why you have to remain the High Priestess. Your power is stronger than Amanda's.”

“Nicole's coming home,” Amanda added. “We'll be the three again.”

Holly felt as if she had swallowed a stone. She said, “But Jer and I . . . our power combined is even stronger. It's unbelievably strong.”

The others stared at her in disbelief.

“Don't you dare leave us, Holly!” Amanda shouted at her.

Tommy went to Amanda's side, slid his arm around her waist in that defending way boyfriends—not best friends—did. Despite her distraction, Holly took note of that.

“He's going to win if we don't get some help,” Holly shot back. She tried to keep her voice calm. Taking a few deep breaths, she said, “I know this so deeply in my soul, Manda. I have to save him. My power merged with his can defeat his father.”

“You don't know that! You can't know that!” Amanda shouted. Heads turned in their direction. “You're just like us, figuring all this stuff out as we go along!”

“Shh, Manda,” Tommy cautioned. “He might have spies around. We have to be discreet.”

Silvana raised a hand. “I'm taking Kialish home,” she announced.

That stopped the argument. The three took in Kialish's disheveled appearance, his bereft, lost expression, and the heat among them simply evaporated. Tommy kept his arm around Amanda, and Amanda let it stay there.

“Good,” Tante Cecile said, obviously proud of her daughter. “Be careful. Very careful.”

“We're not the ones he's after,” Silvana said.

Holly felt another rush of shame.
I will kill them one by one. I carry the curse. Will I take it to Jer? Will I kill him, too?

I have to go to him. I know it. And I know it's not Michael leading me to him. . .
.

At the window of the hospital conference room, Fantasme, spirit familiar of the Deveraux, screeched and flapped his wings. He had just come to Michael from England, magically flying to Seattle in a splitsecond to his master's side.

The bird flew toward the moon, bathing himself in its rays, turning his shiny black body this way and that.

Then he swooped down into the utter confusion of the hospital parking structure, landing on the outstretched arm of Michael Deveraux, who had been waiting for him.

Bird eye gazed into warlock eye, and Michael saw everything that Fantasme had. He nodded.

“Time for mischief,” he told the bird.

With a wave of his hand, he parted the crowd in front of him. They moved without realizing it; he had a clear path that no one else noticed.

He strode down the stairs, disdaining the elevator. Cameras did not aim his way; reporters did not see
him. No one saw him, or the huge, magical creature that perched on his arm.

At the foot of the stairs, near a bush, he snapped his fingers.

The imp emerged, its fanged mouth grinning broadly, its eyes shining with glee. Michael was put in mind of Ariel, from Shakespeare's
The Tempest
.

The creature bobbled along beside Michael, gazing up at him with eagerness. It said, “What are we doing?”

“We're up to no good,” Michael informed him.

They sauntered along, three figures who could have been alone in the forest, for all the attention anyone paid to them. Then Michael uttered a finder's spell and closed his eyes, seeing in his mind the covenates of Holly Cathers.

The ones named Silvana and Kialish were being escorted by an overly cheerful woman in Hawaiianmotif scrubs, who was vainly trying to get them to take sandwiches with them. Michael shook his head, marveling at her inappropriate behavior. The boy had just lost his lover, for God's sake.

Continuing on his unobstructed walkabout, Michael and his companions began to head toward the same exit, down the side of the hospital, stepping over the cables where TV crews had set up their equipment,
observing the emotional after-effects of his attack on the ferry.

It was a good piece of work
, he thought.
I'll be censured for it, no doubt, for performing magic in a public place
.

A TV reporter was standing in front of a camera, delivering her version of what had happened.

“A lost gray whale caused an uproar earlier this evening,” she began, “when it accidentally tipped over a ferry. Compounding the tragedy, a school of sharks attacked the hapless passengers, all of whom could have been saved by the Coast Guard vessels that sped to the side of the stricken vessel, if only they could have swum more quickly to safety . . . .”

Some will remember what really happened
, he thought.
Others will talk themselves out of it
.

Either way, Sir William will not be pleased. But there's not much he can do about it. He wants the Black Fire
.

They were almost at the exit door—both he and his companions, and Silvana and Kialish. Grief was making them sloppy; the wards they had set around themselves would be simple to neutralize.

He did so with a few incantations and gestures of his hands.

Then the exit door opened, and he planted himself rather dramatically in front of it.

“Hi,” he said to the startled pair.

Silvana opened her mouth; whether to shout or scream—
or say hi back
—he had no idea.

The imp darted forward and leaped at her, both its fists doubled, and slammed them into her face. Kialish would have shouted then, except that Michael aimed a glowing ball of energy at him, and it knocked him out.

The two tumbled to the floor.

Michael stepped around them to an empty gurney pushed against the wall, wheeled it back, and loaded the two on it, Kialish first and then Silvana on top of him, like cord wood.

Whistling to himself, he wheeled them outside.

No one noticed. No one tried to stop him.

She'll be madder than a wet hen
, he thought, delighted.
And they won't let her leave to find my son
.

The falcon threw back its head and laughed. The imp joined in, cackling madly. Michael only smiled.

EIGHT

PLANTING MOON

Fear us now our power grows
Strength to vanquish all our foes
Will to crush and might to maim
We'll not rest till they are slain

Growing, swelling, fill the night
Shine upon us with thy light
Blessed moon above us give
Guidance now on how to live

Nicole: En route to London, November

Nicole awoke feeling as if she was going to throw up. She was lying down and was being bounced all around. She lay still, trying to suppress the nausea as her brain raced trying to figure out where she was.

She seemed to be reclining in the back seat of a car; she tried to sit up but couldn't. Her arms and legs felt constricted, and she craned her neck trying to look at her legs and finally caught a glimpse of ropes.

It all came flooding back to her. The battle, the hand over her mouth and nose, the leering face.

And, most of all, Philippe's voice telling her he'd be coming for her.

In a whisper she commanded the knots to loosen. A stabbing pain shot through her skull, but the ropes didn't budge. She blinked hard against the pain and tried again. Nothing except more pain.

A voice laughed hard and low. “Forget about it. You're bound tight both physically and magically.”

Eli
. A wave of hate washed through her being. Eli was behind this.
Of course
.

But what about the other man, the one from her vision? How did he fit into all of this?

She bounced painfully as the car hit a pothole. Her stomach twisted even more fiercely. The car turned suddenly to the right, and the top of her head smacked against the door. The car stopped hard, and she went flying into the back of the front seats and fell, wedged into the space between them and the back seat.

Disgusted, she lay waiting for assistance. Several minutes passed before the back doors finally opened. Eli chuckled cruelly.

“That can't be comfortable.”

She bit back a retort, refusing to rise to his baiting. He picked up her feet and someone else grabbed her
shoulders. They threw her up onto the seat. Then Eli grasped her ankles and began to pull her from the car. The friction burned her legs. She was more concerned, though, about her shirt as it began to bunch up around her bra. Finally her feet hit the ground, and with Eli's help she struggled to a sitting position. He grabbed a fistful of her shirt and pulled her up and out of the car to a standing position.

The other man came around the car and his eyes caught and held her. He bent and put his shoulder into her pelvis and rose. She folded in half over his back, feeling helpless and angry as he carried her like a sack of potatoes. Her chin banged painfully against his back, and she felt a little better when he winced.

The small building reminded Nicole of the safe houses she had visited with José Luís's coven. The floor here, though, was covered with dirt, and the furniture was of a cruder make. She'd refused the chair that her captors had offered her, choosing to stand instead. It made her feel more in control, even if it was just an illusion. Eli and the other man conferred together for several minutes, speaking in hushed tones. At last the stranger turned to her.

“Just kill me and get it over with,” she said.

Nicole winced as the words sounded hollow even
to her. She'd been trying for defiance, a fierce, fearless declaration of her will. Instead it sounded like the helpless, pitiful cry of a victim who feared her captor's intentions more than death.

His lips twisted in a cruel sneer. He stepped closer to her, so close he was nearly touching her. He met her eyes, and she forced herself to stare back.

“Maybe I will. Probably I won't.”

The words hung in the air between them, half-threat, half-promise. Something cold and hard glittered in his eyes: the look of the predator eyeing his prey and imagining the taste of it.

She lifted her chin higher, another instinctive act of defiance. By exposing her throat she showed no fear, at least in theory. A wolflike smile turned the corners of his lips up, and he bared his teeth ever so slightly. His eyes bored deeper into hers, conveying his hate, his contempt, and something more.

He stepped back abruptly and turned away growling, but it was too late. She had seen that which he did not want her to. Aside from the cruelty, the rage, and the evil, she had seen curiosity.

She could work with that.

She quietly tested the ropes that bound her both physically and psychically. There was no give. Holly would be able to escape these bonds. Holly might even
be able to take on both Eli and the other man by now, if her strength had grown. But there was something Holly couldn't do that Nicole could.