Beneath the Black Moon (Root Sisters) (28 page)

“Hattie?”
Brent asked in concern, stepping forward and reaching out as if to catch her if
she collapsed. Slowly, so slowly, she raised her eyes from the floor. Her gaze traveled
across the room, passed Brent completely and fixed on Cam. Her eyes were eerily
mismatched, with one pupil dilated more than the other. The gleam in them was
almost animalistic.

“Hattie?”
Brent called her name again. Hattie lurched forward, still staring at Cam, and
every hair on Cam’s body rose. Fear filled her as she stared at Brent’s sister-in-law,
realizing suddenly that Hattie’s left arm wasn’t visible, that the woman was
holding
something behind her back
. “Hattie?”

“Brent!
Get away from her!” Cam’s voice went shrill with panic and she reached for him,
at the same time that Hattie lunged forward, slamming one hand into his chest
with inhuman strength and shoving him backwards. Brent tumbled over an armchair
as Hattie withdrew from behind her back a butcher knife, wide –bladed and
wickedly sharp.

“Hattie?”
Brent said in complete shock as his sister-in-law faced Cam, spinning the knife
between her nearly skeletal fingers.

“It’s
not Hattie,” Cam told him. “It’s Pauline.”

The
girl’s dark eyes glinted, and her cracked lips parted. “Good guesssss,” she
said slowly, and the voice that emerged from Hattie’s lips was ghastly. The
words were hissed out like air from a corpse.

Realizing
that he was up against a powerful rootworker and not his sister-in-law, Brent
jumped to his feet and began to slowly edge around, trying to get in between Hattie
and Cam.

“Ssstay
back,
nephew
,” Hattie – Pauline— said in that same creepy voice.

Brent
held up his hands as though to show that he wasn’t a threat, but Cam saw the
way his shoulders flexed and knew that he was prepared to fight to the death.

But
Cam wasn’t about to allow him to get himself killed. She reached into her
pocket and fisted the powerful protective charm that had helped her before.
This time it was going to help Brent.

“Ssstay
back,” Pauline said again, her eyes roving from Cam to Brent and then back
again.

“I’m
not going to cause any trouble,” Brent said easily. “I’m tired of trouble. I’ve
been fighting women all afternoon. Old women, sick women,” he eyed Cam,
“stubborn women.” Pauline followed his gaze to Cam, and that was when Brent lunged.
Pauline tried to dodge him, but stumbled instead. He seized her, wrapping his
arms around her and shaking her until the knife dropped from her pale fingers.
“Run!” He yelled to Cam as he grappled with Pauline. He wasn’t having an easy
time of it. The conjure that allowed Pauline’s spirit to possess Hattie may
have made her a little uncoordinated, but it had compensated by giving her great
strength. It was a testament to Brent’s willpower that he was able to best her
and throw her into the wall.

“Don’t
hurt her too badly!” Cam told him. “You’ll hurt Hattie.” 

Brent
turned to stare at her in confusion, and that was when Pauline rallied,
pointing to Brent with one shaking finger, a curse on her lips. Cam grabbed
Brent’s hand and pulled him into the dining room, locking the door behind them.

“I
had her,” Brent told Cam.

“You
had Hattie too,” Cam told him grimly.

“I
thought it was Pauline?” He said, raking a hand through his hair frustratedly.

“It
is Pauline— in Hattie’s body. That’s what the conjure was for,” Cam said, her
mind suddenly filling in the blanks. “That’s what she had planned for the black
moon. Her magic was strong enough to overcome us but her body wasn’t. She was
probably going to possess Hattie tonight and attack us. She’s been using conjure
to weaken Hattie’s spirit for weeks. I don’t know much about this kind of
conjure, but if Hattie’s spirit is weaker it’s probably easier for Pauline to
slip in and take control. Did you see her faint just before Caro put in the
pin? She must have escaped her body just before we killed her and fled into
Hattie’s.”

Brent
stared at her for a moment, and then his shoulders slumped. “Damn,” he said. “I
didn’t realize— I thought that Pauline had enchanted herself somehow to look
like Hattie— I didn’t realize it was actually Hattie’s body.”

“It’s
alright,” Cam said. She faced him, reaching up to touch his face. He leaned
into her caress for a moment, although he was still watching the locked door
behind them warily. Cam took advantage of his distraction to slip her most
powerful charm into Brent’s pocket. This fight wasn’t about him. He and his
family were innocents caught in the crossfire of a blood feud, and if it cost
Cam her last breath, Brent wasn’t going to get hurt.

“We
need Caro and Grandma,” she told him. “I can’t take her on alone. This is black
conjure, and her magic is drawing on the power of the black moon.”

Brent
nodded. “Go,” he told her quickly. “Take a horse from the stable and get them.
I’ll manage here.” If he hadn’t had her charm, Cam would have absolutely
refused. But now he was the protected one and she was vulnerable. She didn’t
know much about the kind of conjure Pauline had used. She needed Caro and her
grandmother to devise a way to lift Pauline’s spirit from Hattie’s body without
harming Brent’s sister in law.

She
took his hand and squeezed it. “Be careful,” she told him.

He
nodded and leaned down to capture her lips in an all-consuming kiss that was as
fiery as it was brief. “Go,” he said again. “I want you away from her. The sooner
the better.”

They
both glanced at the door to the drawing room, and Cam was a little alarmed by
the silence on the other side. “What’s she doing?” She asked, a terrible foreboding
creeping into her veins.

“It
doesn’t matter. I’ll distract her. Take the servants’ hall to the back door, and
then run for the stables. Go!” Brent said, and this time Cam obeyed.

She
ran down the dark servants’ hall, her pulse pounding in her ears. From the
other side of the house she could hear Brent shouting to Pauline, yelling all
manner of threats and insults. Alarmingly enough, Pauline didn’t seem to be
responding.

Cam
could see the back hall just ahead of her, and if she could only get out of the
house she stood a decent chance of making it to the stables. But as Cam
exploded from the servants’ hall and into the back foyer she caught sight of
Hattie’s ghostly figure turning the corner. Cam gasped and threw herself past
the backdoor and into the ballroom instead. Thankfully Brent and his brother
obviously weren’t planning any balls in the near future; they were storing old
furniture in the ballroom. Cam leaped behind a sofa that was still draped in a
white sheet and crouched as low as she could. She just hoped that Pauline had
missed seeing her when she turned the corner.

But
the sound of Pauline’s shuffling footsteps moving in the direction of the
ballroom didn’t bode well. Cam patted her gown frantically, searching for any
charms that she might have forgotten. But no, when Grandma had given her the
powerful one she’d taken off the rest.

Damn,
damn, damn.

There
was a scraping sound as Pauline crossed the ballroom threshold, and Cam bit her
lip. Her hand curled into a fist, and she wondered what the chances were that
Pauline wouldn’t look behind the sofa.

Please….

No
such luck. Pauline was making a beeline for it, and Cam refused to be
discovered cowering there like a child playing hide-and-seek. She inhaled
deeply and jumped up before Pauline could get any closer.

A
savage gleam lit Hattie’s eyes when the evil woman caught sight of her. “Brat.”

“Bitch.”

“I’m
going to ssssstop your heart.”

“
Good
luck
. Honestly, you may have been Kat’s mentor, but the pupil certainly
exceeded her master. I mean it only took her one try with my mother, and this
is what, your third try at killing me?”

“Third
timessss the-”

“Cam?”
Loud footsteps sounded as Brent came running.

Pauline
heaved a sigh. “Not him again.” She waved a hand carelessly, and the ballroom
doors were flung shut. “Ssssstopping a heart is sssssuch a perssssonal thing. I
think we sssshould have our privacy.”

“Cam!”
Brent’s shouting grew louder as he hammered on the door with his fists.

For
all her brave words, Cam could feel fear constricting her chest as she faced
the woman alone and without the aid of any defensive magic. The pressure grew
more and more intense, until Cam felt herself struggling to breathe. She had to
fight to stay standing as her vision grew increasingly cloudy with each labored
beat of her heart.

It
was only when Cam’s pulse began to slow that she realized that what was she was
feeling wasn’t fear. Pauline was already working her conjure. Sure enough, when
Cam stared up at the woman through eyes that were fighting to stay open, she
could see an expression of fierce triumph on Pauline’s face as she pointed a
single bony finger at Cam’s chest.

“Cam!”
Brent had resorted to body slamming the door, but it refused to open.

“L-l-look
in your pocket.” Cam called, through a throat that felt as if it was
constricting.

“What?”
Brent sounded wild with fury and fear.

“T-there’s
a charm. Press…. It…. Against the door and…. Wait.” Cam managed to get out.

There
was a moment of silence, and then she heard Brent mutter “damn it Cam, you
should have this, not me.”

As
she fell to the floor, collapsing like a flower with a broken stem, Cam could
only hope that he was following her instructions. The world spun above her, and
the pain her chest grew so intense that if she could have screamed she would
have.

Then
there was a bang. From where she lay on the floor, Cam could see Hattie’s bare
feet move as Pauline jumped back, hissing a curse. The sound of boots pounding
across the ballroom told Cam that Brent was running to her side.

“Cam?
Cam?”

The
pressure on Cam’s chest eased as Pauline was distracted, and Cam greedily
sucked in one breath after another. She pressed her fingers to the wrist of her
other hand, and was relieved to feel that her pulse was coming back, even if it
was a little weak.

“Cam?”
Brent tried to help her up, but Cam was still too weak to stand. She tried to
smile at him, but couldn’t quite manage it when she saw the knife in his hand.
He must have retrieved it from where Pauline had dropped it in the drawing
room. “What are you going to do with that?” Cam asked, panic coloring her tone.

“What
do you think?” Brent asked. He left her where she lay and instead stood over
her, facing Pauline. He held the knife in one hand and in the other wielded the
charm like a weapon.

“You
can’t! You’ll kill Pauline, but you’ll kill Hattie too!”

“If
I don’t she’ll kill you!”

“Brent,
you can’t!” Even if he was willing to do it now to save Cam’s life, she knew
that he would be tormented by it for the rest of his life. Yet there he was,
with the blade in his hand and his face set like stone.

“Tell
me another way that you’ll get out of this alive, Cam,” he said urgently, still
wielding the blade with his knuckles practically white. “Tell me how to stop
this bitch without killing Hattie and I’ll do it.”

“It’ll
take conjure,” Cam said frantically, “you need to kill Pauline’s spirit without
killing Hattie’s— or damaging Hattie’s body.”

“Well,
that’s your specialty, darlin’, not mine.” He squared his shoulders, and the
blade flashed in the light.

Cam
had never thought that she’d regret not learning black rootwork, but she did
now. With her defensive magic rendered powerless by the combined power of the
coming black moon and the sheer force of Pauline’s evil, she was all but
helpless.

If
Brent killed Hattie, he’d destroy himself.

But
if he didn’t, Cam would die as surely as her mother had.

I
need something dark
, Cam thought.
I need something as
black and as evil as Pauline.

A
poppet would require a strand of Hattie’s hair, and it would destroy Hattie
just as swiftly as Pauline. Cam needed something powerful enough to rip away
Pauline’s spirit and leave Hattie untouched. Not the protective magic of holy
water and candles, but the wild and ruthless magic of floods and flames.

Flames

Cam
frowned as some memory stirred at the back of her mind. Next to her, Brent was
standing his ground. “We’re running out of time, sweetheart,” he told her, and
his face was as emotionless as a mask.

Flames

Cam’s
heart all but stopped.

I
have it. I have everything I need.
And it was true.
Because in a vial in her pocket was all that remained of some of the darkest
conjure that could be done. Bad magic; Black moon magic. It was unpredictable
and all-consuming. The only limit on it was the will of the one who harnessed
it. Its old mistress had been dead for fourteen years. All that was required
was a new mistress to wake and unleash it.