Legacy & Spellbound (32 page)

Deep within the castle, on a table in the wizard's workshop, the sorcerer's hat began to glow.

Seattle: Michael Deveraux

Michael placed his scrying stone down with a loud
thump
. He had been trying to use it to find his son, Eli, and James Moore. It had not worked.
They must be blocking me,
he thought angrily. With Holly subservient to him, it was the perfect time to try to claim the Throne of Skulls, leadership of the Supreme Coven. Unfortunately, he needed Eli's and James's help to do so.

“If only I could summon the Black Fire by myself.” He sighed, more to himself than to the imp chattering away on the back of the sofa in his living room.

He turned and gazed at Holly for a long moment before shaking his head. The girl was huddled in a corner with her knees tucked under her chin, muttering to herself. Even if he could explain to her how to help him summon the Black Fire, it would be too dangerous with her in this condition. No, he would just have to find his son.

He observed Holly quietly for a moment. Her magic and her potential were nearly boundless. If only he could find a way to merge it with his own. Fortunately the insanity that made her unpredictable and dangerous also kept her unfocused enough to diffuse her power and some of the spells she sent out at random intervals. It was almost safer for him to have her in this state.
Tell that to my lamps,
he thought with a grim laugh. The one thing she seemed hell-bent on avoiding was the light.
Is that the witch in her or the demons?
He didn't know. She had managed to destroy several valuable antique lamps before he had subdued her. He was lucky, though. If the insanity hadn't kept her energy unfocused, she would have destroyed the entire building they were standing in.
And us along with it.

If I could harness her power, I would be unstoppable. It would be easy enough to place her in thrall; there is no will there to circumvent
. He knew that Jer had passed up an opportunity to be put in thrall with Holly.
Fool. He didn't understand the kind of power he was turning away. Together they could have destroyed me.

He crouched down and approached her slowly, palm extended, as if she were a wild animal. She shrank away from his hand when she saw it, retreating even farther into her corner. He sat quietly, waiting.
He could be very patient when he wanted to be. He had wooed many a wild woodland animal in just such a manner, building trust with them until they would come to him.

The bloodstains on his altar could attest to that.

Mother Coven: Santa Cruz, California

People went to the Santa Cruz Mountains in search of peace and quiet, a deeper communion with nature, or a place to hide. A person could lose themselves on any of the dozens of tiny nameless streets or winding access roads. The mountains were home to executives from Silicon Valley seeking a higher standard of living; old hippies in denial of the fact that the sixties were over or hiding from a government they thought still cared about finding them; and witches.

Up at the very top of Summit Road was a tiny dirt path that led even higher up the mountain. It wound through the trees, hundreds of feet above the last of the Christmas tree lots that covered the mountains. At the end of the dirt path was a driveway, guarded by two giant stone cats. The cats looked Egyptian, with their long necks and alert sitting posture. At the end of the driveway, guarded by cats and wards and the Goddess herself, was a house.

A visitor—if any ever happened to come to the
wild and isolated place—would have an overwhelming sense of peace and life. The spirits of the woods and streams were alive here. Even the very trees seemed to breathe upon one, their breath the silvery mist that draped the land.

The tranquillity without the house was unearthly. The suffering inside it was unreal.

The closest thing to what it was, was a field hospital in a war zone. This hospital was owned and run by the Mother Coven, and the suffering women inside it had fought Michael Deveraux and his family to save Holly Cathers and her coven.

Lying in a bed in an upstairs room of the house, Anne-Louise was lucky she wasn't dead. The same couldn't be said for dozens of her sisters. Yet, as she lay in bed nursing thirty broken bones, she didn't feel lucky. Actually, she felt pissed. The healers of the coven were working overtime, not just on her but on others as well. Still, it would be a couple of weeks before she or the others would regain any semblance of normalcy.

She glared at the High Priestess of the Mother Coven, who was standing at the foot of her bed. The other woman actually looked nervous. She had not been present at the slaughter. In fact, of all the witches of the Mother Coven, only a small percentage had
been present, and most of those were the weaker covenates.

Still, the High Priestess was standing before her, murmuring platitudes. “We did the best we could—”

“Really?” Anne-Louise managed to ask, her voice a throaty whisper. Her vocal cords had been badly burned, and there was a chance they might not recover—even with witches for her healers.

“The forces allied against us were too strong. We must conserve our strength now, prepare for battle—”

“While our enemies only grow stronger?”

The High Priestess remained silent, her eyes skittering away toward the door and then back again.

“You want to know what I think?” Anne-Louise asked. She continued, not waiting for an answer. “I think the Mother Coven has no intention of trying to save those three girls or their coven. I think you're just hoping that Michael Deveraux kills them all. Then the Mother Coven can return to ‘business as usual.' If the Mother Coven were truly opposed to the Supreme Coven, we would have acted against them years ago.”

The High Priestess seemed to bristle at that. “The Mother Coven has always stood against the Supreme Coven,” she hissed.

“Really? Then how come the Supreme Coven is still standing? How come both Covens are still around
if they are so bent on destroying each other? No, I think that having a visible enemy to point to has been good business for both sides. It keeps us from fighting amongst ourselves, and questioning the leadership of our superiors.”

The High Priestess blanched, and if Anne-Louise wasn't mistaken she saw fear creeping into the other woman's eyes. She pressed on.

“If not, then why did you only send the weakest of our coven to fight, or those who held any sympathy for the girls at all,
or those who ever questioned anything you do?
”

Silence, pregnant as the full moon, descended on the room. Anne-Louise stared at her leader. She had probably shocked the other woman. Anne-Louise had been orphaned at a young age and had been raised in the coven. She had always been the good little witch, doing as she was told, going where she was ordered, even studying only that which she was instructed to.

Now she didn't care. Maybe it was the pain, maybe it was the aftereffect of witnessing the slaughter of her friends and sisters, maybe it was a lifetime of unasked questions that finally demanded answers. Whatever it was, she knew that she had hit a nerve with the High Priestess. The woman was in danger of losing her place in the coven. Anne-Louise wasn't the only one questioning her judgment since the battle.

She continued to stare at her, when six days ago she wouldn't even have met her eyes. The world had changed, though.
I have.
She had always viewed the High Priestess as the anointed of the Goddess, almost a deity in her own right. Now she just saw a tired woman, one who looked more frightened than any of the young women who had faced death two nights before.

All Anne-Louise knew was that she would not blink first. The High Priestess lifted her chin slightly, seeming to rally her mystique back around her. Her eyes began to flash with heat and power,
real
power.

The door opened, and three witches glided in, shattering the moment. They closed the door, and the High Priestess turned to formally greet them. They all dipped their heads in acknowledgment.

“You are to come to work some more on Anne-Louise.” It was a statement, not a question. The three nodded their heads and moved to the bed.

“I will leave you then to their ministering,” the High Priestess informed Anne-Louise. She smiled coolly and left the room, gliding through the closed door. It was a simple show of power, but one that Anne-Louise had to admit was quite effective.

She closed her eyes as the healers laid their hands on her broken body. She could feel heat flashing
through her, agonizing in its intensity. Dislocated shards of bone began to right themselves in her body, tearing even more flesh and muscle as they did so. Soon, they would begin to knit back together, but not today. They first had to find all the bone fragments.

Anne-Louise lay quietly. The healers had gone again, for a while at least having done their best to numb her pain. Still, it hurt to move, to even breathe.

Mew!

She opened her eyes just as a gray cat leaped up onto the bed beside her. The cat stared at her with large, unblinking eyes. “Where did you come from?” she asked in a tortured whisper.

The cat began to purr as it continued to stare at her.

“Do you have a name?”

Whisper.

“Whisper, yes, that does suit you,” she said, feeling herself grow groggy.

The cat curled up against her side, lending her body heat to her. A feeling of well-being began to spread through Anne-Louise, and she fell asleep with a smile touching her lips.

Tri-Coven: Seattle

Amanda awoke to the sun streaming into her eyes. She rolled onto her side with a groan but quickly sat up as
her cracked ribs screamed in protest. She choked back a sob. Next to her, Tommy stirred. She glanced at the clock. It was nine A.M. They had been asleep nearly twenty-four hours.

She glanced over and saw Pablo sitting on the other bed. His face was scrunched up like he was in pain.

“Are you okay?” she asked, her heart starting to pound in fear.

He looked at her and his eyes were glazed over. He nodded slowly. “Someone is close, one of ours. I'm not—” He stopped. “I'm not quite sure who. They don't feel … right.”

“Then how do you know they're one of ours?” she asked, heart pounding faster.

He shook his head. “That's the only thing I can read clearly.”

She nodded. She would just have to accept that. It didn't make her happy, but Pablo's gifts were not hers to understand. At least he was sure that it was a friend. She felt a ray of hope. Maybe it was her father, or maybe Nicole had escaped.
Or it could be Holly.
She shuddered and instantly felt ashamed of herself. She didn't wish any harm to Holly, but in her cousin's possessed state, Amanda also wasn't sure she could face her.
Not just yet.

“Are they close?” she asked Pablo, praying to the
Goddess that they were. She would rather know soon than spend hours wondering.

“
Sí,
about a mile away.” He stood up. “I will go and see.”

She stood, too, doing her best to ignore the fire in her side. “I'll go with you.” She glanced at Tommy. “We'll let him sleep. He's earned it.”

Pablo nodded sympathetically. “We all have,
señora,
we all have.”

She was about to correct him, to tell him that since she was not a married woman, she was a
señorita
. Then she glanced at Tommy. They had been placed in thrall, the most sacred ceremony between a man and a woman in Coventry. A lump formed in her throat. Pablo then was correct in a way. In his eyes, those of a young man born and raised in Coventry, she was a
señora
.

She scribbled a note to Tommy on the hotel stationery in case he awoke and she was not there. Then they exited the room, locking the door behind them. She warded the door, something she should have done the night before.
But all the wards in the world didn't save us,
she thought, remembering the cabin and the demons breaking into it.

She shuddered and almost couldn't leave. She began to panic. What if she didn't come back? Or
worse, what if she returned to find Tommy dead or gone? She didn't know if she could handle that. In an agony of indecision, with tears sliding down her cheeks, she reached for the doorknob.

Pablo gently grabbed her wrist, stopping her. “If anything is going to happen, it will happen whether you are here or not,” he told her. “Perhaps he is even safer without you.”

She stared into Pablo's eyes. He was a couple of years younger than she was, but the wisdom of a far older man shone forth from his eyes. She knew that he was right.

Together they turned and headed back to the forest from which they had dragged themselves the day before. When they reached the timber line, they stopped.

“Can you tell where they are?” she asked.

Pablo closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and nodded. “They're closer. Maybe half a kilometer away.”

She tried to ignore the chill that danced up her spine, but she couldn't quite do it. Pablo stepped into the trees and began walking. She squinted for a moment along the direction he was traveling, but couldn't see anything. Heart in her throat, she followed.

Pablo was like a bloodhound, stopping every minute or so as if to pick up the scent. Every line of his body was taut, alert, and she couldn't help but admire him. He was more in touch with his instincts than anyone she had ever seen. Suddenly he stopped, head up, and held his hand up for her to listen.

She couldn't hear anything. She closed her eyes, trying to
feel
something. There was nothing. She opened her eyes. “Where?” she finally whispered.

Pablo shook his head. “Here.”

The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. “Where?”

“Right here,” a voice said, nearly in her ear.

She screamed and jumped toward Pablo, twisting in midair.