Heaven and Earth (33 page)

“Maybe we are. Maybe we’re talking about all of this. It’s a cycle, after all. What started it is inside us. What’s inside us will end it. He was hurt,” she said, appealing to Zack now. “Confused, afraid. He doesn’t know what’s going on.”

“Do you know?” Zack asked her.

“I’m not sure. There’s a power, and it’s dark. It’s using him. And I think . . .” It was hard to say it, hard to think it. “I’m afraid, it’s using Evan. Like a bridge, from wherever it is through Evan to this poor man. We need to help him.”

“We need to get him off the island,” Ripley interrupted. “We need to get his ass on the next ferry to the mainland, and it doesn’t take magic to do that.”

“He hasn’t done anything, Rip,” Zack reminded her. “He hasn’t broken any law, made any threats. We’ve got no right to order him off the island.”

She slapped her palms on his desk, leaned forward. “He’ll come after her. He’ll have to.”

“He won’t get near her. I won’t let it happen.”

She spun back to Nell. “He’ll destroy what you love. It’s his reason for being now.”

Nell shook her head. “I won’t let him.” She reached for Ripley’s hand. “We won’t let him.”

“I’ve felt what he is, and what he’s capable of. I’ve felt it in me.”

“I know.” Nell’s fingers linked with hers. “We need Mia.”

“You’re right,” Ripley agreed. “And I hate that.”

“You’re a fascinating
woman, little sister.” Mia leaned on the kitchen counter and watched Nell slide pasta into boiling water. “A crisis is upon us, an event that has been brewing for three centuries. Ripley frets and curses. And you cook and serve.”

“We all do what we do best.” She glanced up as she gave the pasta a quick stir. “What do you do, Mia?”

“I wait.”

“No, it’s not as simple as that.”

“I prepare, then.” Mia lifted her wineglass, sipped. “For whatever comes.”

“Did you see this? What’s coming?”

“Not specifically. Only something strong, something blighted. Something that formed from blood and vengeance. It craves what birthed it,” she said. “And grows as it feeds. It uses weakness.”

“Then we won’t be weak.”

“It underestimates us,” Mia continued. “We should take care not to underestimate it. Evil doesn’t concern itself
with rules, with what’s right and fair. And it’s clever. It can twist itself into the desirable.”

“We’re together now, the three of us. I have Zack, and Ripley has Mac. I wish—”

“Don’t wish for me. I have what I need.”

“Mia . . .” Trying to find the right words, Nell got out her colander. “Even if—when—we face what’s here now, there’s one more step. Yours.”

“Do you think I’ll fling myself off my cliffs?” Mia relaxed enough to laugh. “I can promise you, I won’t. I enjoy living entirely too much.”

There were other ways, Nell thought, to leap into a void. She started to say so, then held her tongue. They had enough to deal with for now.

What was
wrong with them? Ripley listened to the conversation hum around the table, spiced with the scent of good food well served. Everyday words in easy voices.

Pass the salt.

Jesus.

It felt as if something was simmering inside her, right on the edge of boil, ready to bubble up and spew over the lid. And everyone else kept chatting and eating as if it were just another evening.

A part of her knew it was only a lull, that space of time used to gather forces and brace. But she had no patience with it, with Nell’s utter calm, with Mia’s cool waiting. Her own brother helped himself to another serving of pasta as if everything in his life that mattered wasn’t teetering on the brink.

And Mac . . .

Observing, absorbing, assessing, she thought with a helpless resentment. A geek to the last.

There was something hungry out there, something that wouldn’t be sated with a tidy, home-cooked meal. Couldn’t they
feel
it? It wanted blood, blood and bone, death and anguish. It craved sorrow.

And its need clawed at her.

“This blows.” She shoved at her plate, and conversation snapped off. “We’re just sitting here, slurping up noodles. This isn’t a goddamn party.”

“There are a lot of ways to prepare for a confrontation,” Mac began, and laid a hand on her arm.

She wanted to slap his hand away, and hated herself for it. “Confrontation? This is a battle.”

“A lot of ways to prepare,” he said again. “Coming together like this, sharing a meal. A symbol of life and unity—”

“It’s past time for symbols. We need to do something definite.”

“Anger only feeds it,” Mia chimed in.

“Then it should be full to bursting,” Ripley snapped back and shoved to her feet. “Because I am supremely pissed off.”

“Hate, anger, a thirst for violence.” Mia brought the glass of wine to her lips. “All those negative emotions strengthen it, weaken you.”

“Don’t tell me what to feel.”

“Could I ever? You want what you’ve always wanted. A clear answer. When you don’t get it, you pound with your fists or turn away.”

“Don’t,” Nell pleaded. “We can’t turn on each other now.”

“Right. Let’s keep the peace.” Ripley heard the bite in
her own voice, and even while it shamed her she couldn’t soften it. “Why don’t we have coffee and cake?”

“That’s enough, Rip.”

“It’s not enough.” Frustrated beyond bearing, she rounded on Zack. “Nothing’s enough until this is dealt with, until it’s over. It’ll be more than a knife to her throat this time, more than a knife already coated with your blood. I won’t lose what I love. I won’t just sit here and wait for it to come after us.”

“On that we can agree.” Mia set down her glass. “We won’t lose. And since arguing is bad for the digestion, why don’t we get to work?”

She rose, began to clear the table. “Nell will feel better,” she said before Ripley could make some snide comment, “if her house is put in order.”

“Fine, great.” She snatched up her plate. “Let’s be tidy.”

She sailed into the kitchen and gave herself points for not simply heaving her plate into the sink. What control. What amazing restraint.

God, she wanted to scream!

It was Mac who came in quietly behind her, alone. He set the dishes on the counter, then just turned her, put his hands on her stiff and rigid shoulders.

“You’re afraid.” He shook his head before she could speak. “We all are. But you feel that the weight of this, what happens next, is on you. It doesn’t have to be.”

“Don’t placate me, Mac. I know when I’m being a bitch.”

“Good. Then I don’t have to point that out, do I? We’re going to get through this.”

“You don’t feel what I feel. You can’t.”

“No, I can’t. But I love you, Ripley, with everything that’s in me. So I know, and that’s the next thing to feeling.”

She let herself give, just for a minute. Let herself go into his arms and be held there. Safe within the circle of him. “It’d be easier if we’d found this after.”

His cheek rubbed her hair. “You think?”

“You could’ve come along when everything was normal again, and we’d’ve gotten mushy on each other and had a regular life. Cookouts, marital spats, great sex, and dental bills.”

“Is that what you want?”

“Right this minute, it sounds aces. I’d rather be mad than scared. I work better that way.”

“Just remember, it all comes down to this.” He tipped back her head, laid his lips on hers. “Right there is more magic than most people ever know.”

“Don’t give up on me. Okay?”

“Not a chance.”

She tried to
curb her impatience as the preparations were made. She refused to lie down on the couch because it made her feel too vulnerable. Instead she sat in a chair in the living room, her hands on the arms, and blocked out the monitors and cameras.

She knew she should have felt comforted by having Mia and Nell standing on either side of her, like sentinels. But she felt foolish.

“Just do it,” she told Mac.

“You need to relax.” He’d pulled a chair up to face hers, and sat there, almost idly holding the pendant. “Breathe slow. In and out.”

He put her under. So effortlessly this time, so swiftly, it brought him a quick ripple of nerves.

“She’s tuned to you,” Mia said, herself surprised at how
completely Ripley had given herself over. “And you to her. That, itself, is a kind of strength.”

They would need it, she thought, as she felt something cold shiver along her skin. In response to it, she stretched out her arm and, across Ripley, clasped Nell’s hand.

“We are the Three,” she said clearly. “And two guard the one. While we are joined, no harm can be done.” As warmth seeped back, she nodded to Mac.

“You’re safe here, Ripley. Nothing can harm you here.”

“It’s close,” she said with a shudder. “It’s cold, and tired of waiting.” Her eyes opened, stared blindly into Mac’s. “It knows you. Watched you and waited. You share the blood. You’ll die through me, that’s what it wants. Death to power, and power to destruction. Through my hand.”

Grief ground down to her bones. “Stop me.”

Her head fell back, her eyes rolled back white. “I am Earth.”

She changed, even as they watched, her hair springing into curls, her features subtly rounding. “My sin must be atoned, and the time grows short. Sister to sister, and love to love. The storm is coming, and with it the dark. I am powerless. I am lost.”

Great tears spilled down her cheeks.

“Sister.” Mia laid her free hand on Ripley’s shoulder, and felt the cold again. “What can we do?”

The eyes that focused on Mia weren’t Ripley’s. They seemed ancient, and unbearably sad. “What you will. What you know. What you believe. Trust is one, justice makes two, and love, without boundaries, makes three. You are the Three. Be stronger than what made you or all is for nothing. Should you live, your heart will break again. Will you face that?”

“I’ll live, and guard my heart.”

“She thought the same. I loved her, loved them both.
Too much or not enough, I’ve yet to see. May your circle be stronger and hold.”

“Tell us how to hold.”

“I cannot. If the answers live inside you, the questions won’t matter.” She turned to Nell then. “You found yours, so there is hope. Blessed be.”

Ripley gasped again, and came back. “In the storm,” she said as the first flash of lightning burst blue light into the room.

A lamp crashed to the floor. A vase of Nell’s flowers spun into the air to hurl itself against the wall. The sofa upended itself, then shot across the room.

Even as Zack whirled toward Nell, a table tumbled into his path. He leaped it, cursing, and gripping her, used his body to shield hers.

“Stop.” Mia called into the wind that had gushed into the room. “Nell, stay with me.” She tightened her hold on Nell’s hand, used her other to take Ripley’s limp one. “Still the power and quiet the air. Challenge this circle, he who dares. Here we stand, we are the Three. As we will, so mote it be.”

Will pressed against will. Magic thrummed against magic. Then as abruptly as it had begun, the wind died. Books that had been spinning in the air fell to the floor with a thud.

“Ripley.” Mac’s voice remained utterly calm, in direct opposition to his speeding heart. “I’m going to count back from ten. You’re going to wake up when I reach one. Slowly.”