The Lost Enchantress (41 page)

“Mine,” she said, and used her will again to slip the chain over her head.

“Of course, Enchantress. Haven’t I said all along that you are the key to unlocking the power of the talisman? Of course it belongs to you. I wanted only to help you, to guide you since you yourself admit you have had limited experience using your gift.”

“And you have,” she told him. “I was especially helped by what you said about portals.”

He tried to mask his uncertainty by taking back control. “Good, good. Shall we get on with it now?”

He reached for the dagger, and Eve swept her gaze over it, sending it flying away from him and off the altar so forcefully it hit the wall and fell to the floor.

“Not this time,” she told him, no longer smiling. “You’ve had the last drop of T’airna blood you’ll ever get.”

She knew what she was about to do down to the smallest detail; she’d planned it while she waited for him to wake. She’d envisioned each moment, and when she put on the pendant, the moves she’d planned took on a new, intuitive certitude. She knew things she had no way of knowing, understood things she had never understood. It wasn’t Pavane’s curse that had kept Hazard alive, it was T’airna magic. That was the magic she was able to call on when they were together. She had never done this before, but those who’d gone before her had, and their wisdom was hers. It always had been, born in her blood, speaking to her too softly to be heard above her fear.

She heard it clearly now as she held out her hands, saw him struggle to resist her will, saw him fail and stare aghast as his own hands betrayed him and obeyed her silent command. She took his hands in hers and grasped them tightly, and immediately the walls seemed to be spinning around them, slowly at first and then gradually faster so that the visual details blurred into a whirl of muted color. It was an odd sense of motion. Like sitting in a stopped train and having a car drive alongside and for just a second not knowing whether the car is moving or you are.

It grew dark around them, and cold. There was a whooshing sound that gave way to one that was keener, like wind sweeping across a canyon, carrying them with it. Eve couldn’t explain it, but that didn’t matter. She didn’t have to explain to make it happen.

The spinning gradually slowed. Where there had been stone and stale air there was now sky and budding trees and the cool clear night. They were no longer in the crypt, but in Grand’s rose garden. There had been no moon in the cemetery, but there was one here, full and pale. She looked around and with a nod conjured a circle of candles; with another she set them aflame and saw Hazard and Grand and Rory there waiting for her.

Good. She would need them for what she was about to do.

T
his was as far as she’d planned while Pavane was sleeping. The rest had come to her later, when she claimed the pendant and put it on. She knew then what she must do, and that it must be done here, with soil steeped in memories beneath her feet and the moon in that velvet patch of sky directly overhead. There, in the place where she’d first felt her power on the same night she lost it . . . and lost herself.

She released Pavane’s hands, and he staggered a few steps away from her. There was an expression of astonishment on his face as he hurriedly glanced around, and again she saw a spark of fear in his eyes. But this time the spark ignited a sudden blaze of rage and hatred as understanding of the situation dawned on him.

Eve held her hands out, palms up, and gazed at the moon overhead. “Within this circle of light I gather what is mine. What I hold fast inside these flames cannot be taken from me; what I cast out from this light is gone forevermore.”

“Words,” Pavane said with contempt. “Speak all the words you want. You have no power over me.”

He attempted to stomp from the circle, but with a quick movement of her hand, Eve stopped him.

“You’re wrong,” she said as he turned back and glared at her. “This is not your place or your time. You’re only here because you stole and murdered and used power that was not yours to use. And all that keeps you here is the bond you managed to forge with this . . .” She lifted the pendant. “And over this I do have power.”

His upper lip curled back. “Power? Ha! You didn’t even have enough power to detect a most rudimentary glamour or to lift your foot when I bid you not to.”

“That was then,” she retorted, smiling. She turned and held her hands out to Grand and Rory. “Join me.”

As they moved to her side and linked hands with her, Hazard backed out of the way.

“No . . . you too,” Eve said to him. “You’re a part of this too. As much a part of it as anyone.”

He hesitated, regarding her uncertainly.

“Trust me,” she said.

He nodded his head once and stepped to stand shoulder to shoulder with Grand.

“It is our will to cast this darkness from our midst.” She stared into Pavane’s eyes. “Phineas Pavane, I cast you from this time and place. With the T’airna power of the past I cast you out. With the T’airna power of the future I cast you out.”

“Think of what you are doing, Enchantress. I could make you a queen,” he declared, stuffing his anger under a flimsy layer of concern. “Join your power with mine and we will be indomitable.”

“I don’t need your power.”

Grand squeezed her hand, and Rory breathed a soft, emphatic yes. Eve felt their pride in her but resisted acknowledging it with a quick glance, not about to underestimate Pavane and take her eyes off him for even that long.

“With all the power and wisdom entrusted to me, be it from blood, the elements or the divine, I cast you out.” Her voice rang out strong and clearly. “Let whatever it is that resists our will and holds you here reveal itself now so it can be severed forever.”

She pulled her hands free and held them in front of her, closing her eyes and calling to mind a detailed image of the athame she used to cut the winter rose, and as she did she felt the cool, solid weight of its silver handle in her left hand. She opened her eyes just as a dark line was taking shape before them, running from the pendant around her neck to the center of Pavane’s chest. The line was grainy and translucent . . . and not real. It was only a mystical manifestation of Pavane’s connection to the pendant. Unlike that grainy line, the link was very real, and the spell that created it powerful and devious. Eve hoped the athame would do the trick. A mystical weapon to break a mystical bond. As soon as the link was broken, nothing would stop the bonds on his wrist from sucking him back where he belonged.

“No,” Pavane cried when he saw the athame that had appeared in her hand. “You bitch. You can’t do this . . . I won’t let you. Who are you to destroy all I have worked for?”

“You know who I am,” she replied, and brought the blade up.

“Bitch,” he growled again.

Eve caught the sudden movement of his arms from the corner of her eye and looked up quickly to see his face a feral mask, with teeth bared and eyes that were no more than faintly glowing orange slits.

She wasted no time planting her feet, her body braced for whatever came. She felt more than saw Hazard straining at the tether of his self-control, and knew that if she didn’t act fast, he would. If there were dragons to be slain, he wanted to be the one to do it, risks and consequences be damned; she knew that and loved him for it. And chivalry aside, he had a reason of his own to slay this dragon. But tonight was about more than rescuing her or evening the score with Pavane. Much more. She needed Hazard there in order to do this, but he couldn’t do it for her.

With one hand, Pavane made a circle in the air above his head and set wind swirling around them, a wind so vicious it felt more like a wave of water than air. Rory lost her balance and crouched down to brace herself with her hands on the ground. Hazard gathered Grand close and used his body to take the brunt of the punishment as they were pelted with crushed stone lifted from the garden path and anything else in the vicinity light enough to be swept up and flung at them: trash cans, rusty garden tools, fence pickets.

Eve focused and struck back, sending her will forth to push against his. They came together with a thud that she felt as pressure inside her head, and then the wind quieted as suddenly as it had come. And Pavane hissed in anger.

Here was the battle. Dark against light. Pavane wanted to possess her power and her soul. He couldn’t, so he wanted to destroy her instead.

And she wanted the same, to destroy him.

“I cast you out, back to the dark,” she cried, tightening her grip on the athame.

“Do that and what you love will cease to exist,” Pavane warned, and in spite of herself the words made Eve pause. He pointed his finger at Hazard. “Cast me out, and my last act in this realm will be to end the curse and let him die.”

“You can’t end what never was,” she retorted. “Your curse was a joke, a failure.”

“It was not a joke to him. He lives.”

“Not because of you,” she said, certain of that though she couldn’t explain why. “Hazard is alive because of what’s inside him; he lives because he carries what you crave . . . what you cheated and bullied and killed to possess: the magic of the talisman. You meant to curse him, and instead he was given T’airna magic to safeguard. “

“You lie,” he shouted. He lifted his arms and held them bent in front of him, with his hands fisted, and the Bonds of Arricles on his wrists turned the fire red of a blacksmith’s tongs.

“Eve, look . . . what is that?”

It was Rory’s voice, and Eve thought she was asking about the marks on his wrists until she saw the heavy black shadow that seemed to be oozing from the pores of Pavane’s body.

He’d told her the marks represented an open portal to the Void; now the marks were smoldering and something evil was crawling out of him and tainting the air. He was using the portal to draw the darkness here, she realized with a rush of new fear. The shadowy substance hung in the air around them, a strange, sinister presence spreading outward. As it neared the candles, Eve watched, anxious to see if her circle would hold. Whatever it was, she didn’t want it out there roaming free. It reached the edge of the circle and stopped, like water backing up behind a damn. Inside the circle it grew darker, and the air became saturated with the shadows, which felt oily on her skin and her tongue.

She called out to the sorcerer. “Don’t be a fool, Pavane. Whatever this is will end you too.”

“I am willing to chance that it will end you or one of yours first, and your circle will split open. Spare yourself that pointless sacrifice by releasing me now. We can agree to be done with each other and go our own ways.”

She wouldn’t agree to that even if she believed him, which she didn’t.

She couldn’t let him go as long as he had any connection at all to the pendant. He’d proven how resourceful he could be; she didn’t want another T’airna woman to have to fight him centuries from now because she failed to finish the job. She’d thought of magic as a gift, and as a burden, but never before as a responsibility.

Gathering her energy, she released it full force and straight ahead, driving the shadows away enough to see the dark line stretching between Pavane and the pendant. She focused, reared back and brought the athame down with everything she had.

The fact that the line was a magically wrought figment didn’t keep it from feeling real—unyielding, electrified, solid-as-hell real. When the blade struck the line, a high-pitched screech ripped through the night and ten thousand volts of very real pain shot up her arm. The sheer force of it made her stumble; the sheer agony of it made her drop the athame and clutch her shoulder, where the pain had stopped and pooled and gone to work ripping the joint apart, bone by bone, tendon by tendon. That’s how it felt anyway. Hot, paralyzing agony.

She wanted to cry but swore instead.

Still holding her shoulder, she bent to look for the athame. The shadows pouring from the Void were so thick she could no longer see her feet, so she crouched and used one hand to feel around the ground for it.

Eve froze, not sure it if the insidiously assured voice came from somewhere out there or from right inside her head. Either way, the message was unmistakable. But was it true?

Maybe she couldn’t do this.

She had no training. No experience. She didn’t even know all the rules. What the hell had made her think she could pull it off? Maybe the insight and unswerving confidence she was willing to believe were hers simply because she put on the pendant and said she was ready were as illusionary as that dark line . . . only not as impervious. Because now, at the worst possible moment, her confidence had faltered.

She abandoned her search and stood.

Maybe she couldn’t do this.

Before the lump in her throat had finished forming, Hazard was at her side, his body so close to hers there was no room for shadows in-between. He bent his head and put his mouth close to her ear.

“You can do this,” he said, his voice deep and strong. “You’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever known. Not because I love you, because you are. You can do this. You were born to do this. And I was always meant to stand by your side when you do.”

He lifted his head and their gazes met, his gray eyes holding nothing back as he pressed the athame into her hand.

“Finish it now,” he urged.

Eve’s fingers curled over the handle as she turned and lifted her arm in a single fluid motion. She thought only of her intention at that moment, and as she started down with the blade, Hazard reached to cover her hand with his so that they were acting as one.

There was the same loud piercing sound when the blade made contact, but this time it was met by Pavane’s enraged howl as they destroyed his only tie to their world.

Eve’s blood sang with a surge of power purer and stronger than any that had gone before. She threw her head back, turning her hand to lace her fingers with Hazard’s around the athame, gathering that boundless power, using it to turn all the evil and darkness that was in Pavane, and all the evil and darkness he had drawn there, back on him.