Charmed (26 page)

His grip around Paige’s neck relaxes, and she takes huge, gulping breaths. For a split second I think he’ll do it—he’ll let her go—but then something in him snaps and he snags her neck, his arm taut again.

Of course. Why would he care about me now? All that talk about family back in his office—it was just part of the ruse, to make the teenagers feel bad for him. He has no heart.

I feel a twinge inside my chest, but I refuse to believe it’s because I’m hurt. I don’t care about him. He isn’t family.

“Take me instead,” I say, changing tack. “Look.” I point
to the dimming light of the portal overhead. “They’re not willing sacrifices anymore. They can see what you’re doing. My energy is worth more than a human’s. My blood is both sorcerer and witch.” I have no idea if any of what I’m saying is true, but I’m desperate.

“Indie, no,” Bishop says, grabbing my arm. I shake him off and lift my chin.

The Chief’s eyebrows raise, his jaw moving as he thinks. “Now, that is an offer I’m willing to consider.”

He shoves Paige back into the herd of teens.

“Come,” he says, beckoning me forward with his hand. His eyes are filled with a disgusting longing at the prospect of murdering his own daughter, using my blood for his dark magic.

“Indie, don’t do this,” Bishop pleads.

I take a step forward. The rest of the battle falls away as I lock eyes with my dad. Magic pours through me like lava, getting hotter and hotter until it’s unbearable to hold it in any longer. Still, I wait. My whole body feels like a flame, and I’m sure I’ve caught fire. Black clouds scud across the moon too fast to be natural; the air crackles with electricity. The heat flows down to my fingertips in a painful swell of magic dying to be released. I wait a moment longer.

And then I let it go.

The clouds break apart, and a bolt of lightning strikes the Chief. He’s lifted a foot off the ground, captured in a flash of white light, his back bent unnaturally, his eyes wide, and
his mouth open in an O. And then he slumps to the ground. His ox mask is singed black and wisps of smoke curl into the air. He doesn’t move.

I did it. I killed my dad.

“Whoa,” Bishop breathes.

A violent gag chokes me, and I fall to my knees.

The place becomes absolute bedlam. A ragged crew of sorcerers keeps up with their chanting, while the rest come at me from all sides. Shouts and cries ring out through the night, fire and arrows flashing past too quickly to follow. I would be dead if it weren’t for Bishop, defending me as I heave vomit into the dirt.

I killed my dad.

But then the lights in the sky dim, then flicker, and the place goes silent. I haul myself up and look out over the hillside.

A hundred people stand along the brim of the Hollywood Bowl, looking down into the amphitheater with an eerie calm. It takes me a moment to figure out who they are. Not sorcerers—they’re all here for the ceremony. Not rebels—there are just too many of them. But who else would be in Los Demonios?

And then I put it together. The flickering light. The people with a secret entrance into this place—a portal used to shove inmates inside.

It’s the Family.

E
veryone flees. Sorcerers and rebels alike fly in every direction, like they can’t get away from the Family fast enough. What’s left of the pitiful portal of light above the stone formation winks out completely. The humans huddle together in the circle as fires blaze all around. Two girls whimper loudly. Paige looks around dazedly.

All the while, the Family floats calmly down the mountainside toward us. I leap in front of Paige, shielding her body with my own. Bishop follows, his arms out at his sides to cover the humans. I don’t know what they want, how they found us here—all I know is that I’ll do anything to keep the teens safe.

The Family members range from fresh-faced teenagers to adults in their fifties, but they all share one thing in common: eyes so hard they lack even a glimmer of empathy.

“So you’re in charge, then?”

A man glides forward, landing lightly in the charred earth across from me and Bishop. He’s wearing one of those pinstriped suits that have a long, forked tail at the back. His sideburns are just a bit too long and pointed, and he wears his hair parted down the middle and slicked flat against his head. Despite the fact that he’s dressed like a circus trainer from the 1930s, he’s handsome. He clasps his hands behind his back, assessing me.

“Where is she?” he asks.

And all of a sudden I realize how they knew: they followed Aunt Penny’s tracker.

“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I stammer.

“Here!” someone shouts. A man steps over the crest of the hillside to our left, carrying Aunt Penny’s body in his arms.

“Aunt Penny!”

I stagger forward. Two warlocks move to block me, but I blast past them until I’m right in front of Penny. I desperately want to pull her into my arms, but I stop short at the sight of her. Her arms are ravaged with angry-looking pink burns, which slowly seep blood. Her face is pale, with a sheen of sweat, and a frightening amount of blood is streaked through her blond hair.

No, no, no
.

“Aunt Penny!” I cry, my chin wavering uncontrollably. Her eyes flutter open at the sound of my voice.

“Not looking so good, Penny Blackwood.”

Aunt Penny shrinks into herself at the sound of the voice.

“Damien,” she croaks.

I recognize the name. Damien—the leader of the Family who sentenced her to wear the tracker.

The man in the pinstriped suit strides over slowly, a grin pulling up his lips. I step in front of her.

“Move aside,” Damien says calmly.

“No.”

“Do it,” Aunt Penny whispers.

Damien stares at me, his face a mask of calm.

“Do it,” Aunt Penny repeats.

I grunt, then reluctantly step aside.

Damien crosses over to her. For a long moment, he just looks at my aunt. And then he reaches up and tenderly brushes her matted hair away from her eyes. I bite my lip hard to keep from screaming out, but Aunt Penny remains very still.

“Penny, Penny, Penny,” he clucks. “Why couldn’t you just follow the rules? You knew we’d track you here.” He sighs. “What am I going to do with you?”

“She violated the AMO!” a witch yells out. “Burn her!”

A cheer of support goes through the witches. My stomach gives a violent heave.

“It seems your witch family doesn’t think very highly of you,” Damien says, a mock-sad look on his face. But I see
something beneath his act—the way he looks at her, it’s almost like he loves her. In a flash, I remember what Aunt Penny told me before about Damien—that she was his pet, his favorite. He could have had her tossed in Los Demonios for having a relationship with their enemy, and yet he fitted her with a tracker instead.

Damien runs his finger along her trembling jaw. “You really leave me no choice—”

“She did it for you,” I announce loudly.

Damien looks up at me, like he’s just remembering I exist.

“She did it for all of us,” I add. There’s a loud sob behind me, but I refuse to look back, to see the scared looks on the teenagers’ faces. Or maybe I don’t want them to see that I’m just as frightened as they are.

I swallow. “The Chief was trying to open a portal out of this place. He was kidnapping teenagers and mind-wiping them so he could use them as sacrifices for the spell. When they got out, they planned to overthrow you. Aunt Penny came here to help me stop him.”

The hillside is quiet for a long moment, save for the cracking and popping of fires burning and the quiet tears from behind me.

“Is that true?” Damien finally asks Aunt Penny. She gives a tiny nod. His face breaks into a wan smile, and he utters a soft chuckle. “Well then, you’re either very brave or very stupid.”

“So you’ll let her go?” I ask.

He considers. “I suppose it’s the right thing to do,” he says after a moment. Then he gives me that same false sad look. “It’s just a shame she doesn’t look like she’ll survive much longer.”

I look at Aunt Penny and know he’s right. It could be hours before we get shot back to Los Angeles, and we’ll be all the way in Venice Beach, far from any hospitals. Aunt Penny doesn’t have that long. She needs help now. And even then, she might not make it.

“Next order of business,” Damien says. “Bring forth the traitor.”

I don’t know whom they’re talking about, and I’m not sure anyone else does either. And then she speaks.

“I’m right here.”

Jezebel stands with her chin held high, her mask tipped back on her head. Her brown robe is ripped and torn, but her curls still hang in perfect loose ringlets down her back.

“Kill her!” someone shouts. The crowd goes into a frenzy. A dozen witches spring forward and grab Jezebel, tearing at her from all angles, their eyes burning with intense hatred. She flinches as they pull her in every direction, but she doesn’t cry, just keeps eye contact with Damien.

“Well, Jezebel. Do you have anything to say for yourself? Any heroic story to share?”

She shakes her head.

Damien raises his eyebrows. “So it’s concluded, then. You’ll burn at the stake.”

I think I see Jezebel shudder, but when she speaks, her voice is loud and confident. “I ask only one thing,” she says.

“Oh?” Damien holds up a hand, and the witches pulling at her clothing let go. “And pray tell, why should we do anything for you?”

“I’m not asking for much. All I want is one minute to speak with Penny Blackwood, and then I’ll go with you willingly.”

My spine goes ramrod straight. “No!”

“I won’t hurt her,” she says. “I just need a word.”

“Absolutely not,” I say.

“I’m afraid that’s not your decision,” Damien says. He turns to Aunt Penny. She looks between Jezebel and me through drooped eyelids. If it’s possible, she looks worse than just minutes before.

“Okay,” she whispers.

I exhale, unable to believe what’s happening.

“Go ahead,” Damien says, gesturing to Aunt Penny. “Hurry up.”

“In private,” she says.

“What? No! She’s going to kill her!” I shout.

“And what would that accomplish?” Jezebel says.

I open and close my mouth, searching for an answer.

Damien gestures toward the tree cover. “I’m looking forward to burning a witch today, so make sure she doesn’t get away.”

Jezabel turns to Bishop. Her eyes are pained, and for a moment, I think she’s going to say something. Apologize,
or profess her undying love for him. But then Aunt Penny is carried toward the trees, and Jezebel turns to follow. The man who’d been carrying her emerges a second later, alone.

I watch the woods, my stomach clenched in a tight knot. Every second that passes seems like an eternity. My heart feels like it will give out at any minute, but still I keep watching the trees, waiting for Aunt Penny and Jezebel to emerge again. But minutes pass, and no one does. I look desperately to Damien, but his face is impassive.

Finally, I burst into flight toward the trees. Others follow me, but I touch down first and let out a primal wail when I discover them.

Aunt Penny and Jezebel are lying a few feet from each other, and neither of them is moving. Behind the dense tree cover, it’s too dark to know for sure what the black pools are all over the forest floor, but the metallic smell gives it away as blood. I take a feeble step forward, and my boots make a sickening slurping sound as I step in some. Vomit rises up my throat.

Jezebel lies facedown in a puddle of blackened leaves, a wet knife held loosely in her hands. Aunt Penny is on her back, staring unblinkingly at the tree canopy above her.

Oh God. I fall to my knees at Aunt Penny’s side and pull her to my chest. Her body is heavy and slack in my arms.

“No, no, I can’t lose you,” I cry into her hair. Tears blur my vision. I can feel the eyes of dozens of people on me as I cry. “Come back, please, come back. You can’t die. You’re all I have.”

I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye. The thought makes me cry harder.

I feel a tiny flutter of movement against my chest. I gasp, then hesitantly lay Aunt Penny down on the leaves again. My eyes rove over her body. Her chest moves up and down, and it almost looks as though her arms are no longer ravaged with burns.

It’s impossible.

That’s when I notice the glint of metal on Aunt Penny’s hand. I lift her palm up and find a heavy metal ring on her index finger. Etched into the ring is the Roman numeral one.

It’s just like Bishop’s ring.

I look over at Jezebel’s prone body just as someone flips her over. There’s a stab wound in her gut; blood has seeped through layers of thick robes.

I suck in a breath, realization slamming into me so hard it takes my breath away. Jezebel used the same spell that Bishop’s mom used on her deathbed—the spell that gave him extra lives. Jezebel transferred her magic to Aunt Penny, sacrificed herself to give my aunt another chance.

“She saved her,” I whisper.

Aunt Penny’s eyes flutter open.

“Well, it looks like your luck has improved.” Damien stands over us, considering my aunt. “How brave of the traitor to give her life only after it became clear she was going to be killed.”

“Aunt Penny, are you okay?” I run my hands along her body, checking for injuries.

“Well, as nice as this has been,” Damien says, “I think we’ll be heading back now.”

“Wait!” I say, turning on him. “What about the humans?”

“What about the humans?” he repeats.

“We can’t just leave them here,” I say.

“And why not? Like you said, they’ve been mind-wiped. Taking back a couple dozen teens with memory loss would only raise questions that we can’t answer. I’m afraid this is a sacrifice we’ll have to make, my dear.”

My heart beats hard.

“But what about the witches back home?” I ask.

He raises his eyebrows.

“You think everyone doesn’t know about what you did to us on prom night? How you used your own people as bait and threw us to our enemies to get slaughtered? You can say it was for the greater good, but no one trusts you anymore. But if you returned all these teens, if you did something good, imagine what that could do for your image. I know you have a door into this place—let us take them out.”

“I’m a smart man,” he says. “I can tell when I’m being manipulated.”

“They’re going to hate you,” I say. “When they find out you let all these kids get dumped into Los Demonios, there
will
be a revolt. Mark my words.”

His jaw twitches. I leap on his moment of hesitation.

“Take them back. Wipe them again if you have to, feed them some bullshit story. It’ll all blow over soon enough and people will trust you all the more for doing something kind and good.”

“She’s pulling one over on you,” someone says.

“Please,” Aunt Penny pleads, speaking for the first time. “Do the right thing, Damien.”

He clenches his jaw.

“Fine,” he says finally. He turns and walks away.

Relief floods through me. But it’s not over yet.

I haul myself up and run down to Bishop, who remained to guard Paige and the rest of the humans in the stone formation. I’m scared that if given a moment to think, Damien will change his mind.

“What happened?” Bishop asks, his tense eyes searching my face.