The Source (Witching Savannah, Book 2) (27 page)

“They are aware?” I asked, regardless of their deeds during life, it was a gruesome punishment.

“Of course they are,” Emily said and laughed, seemingly amazed that I’d ask such a silly question.

“They were all collectors?”

“Yes. Well, all but this one,” she said, lifting the head in her hand so I could see it better. “This one here is Alan. He never actually killed anyone. He would have liked to, but he didn’t have the balls for it. Alan,” she said, turning the head around so that it would have to look her in the eyes, “was a petty little despot who worked at an airline ticket counter. To make a long story short, he really, really irritated me.” She tossed the head into the shadows, and I heard a crunch as it struck against the stone floor. The sound of scurrying and the excited screeches of vermin filled the room as creatures like my guide descended on their prize.

I shook off my urge to vomit. “If you empowered these people to be collectors, you are responsible for the murders they committed.”

“They would have killed anyway. I merely took advantage of their natural inclinations.” Emily stood back and admired the new addition before waving her hand, signaling that the chandelier should rise. “And now I can turn their evil to a good purpose.”

“What good purpose could
you
possibly serve?”

An intricately carved mahogany Gothic throne materialized at her side. It was hideous, but in line with its surroundings. She sat and tapped the perfectly manicured nails of her right hand on the top of the lion’s head handrest. Joe came and sat at the throne’s clawed feet. He looked up at Emily, his face glowing with awe, and what else? Was it passion? The way he tilted his face up toward her was like a sunflower following the sun. She reached out and lovingly ran her fingers through his hair. “I told you before about how our teachers and guides have been deposed from their rightful place of honor and banished from this world,” she said. “I serve them in their desire to eradicate the evil that is the line.”

Filled with revulsion for Emily’s world, choking on my disappointment, and yes, hate, I lost patience. “I don’t believe the line is evil. I believe you are,” I said.

The hard look on her face softened, her eyes closed a little and lost focus, as if she were looking into her own soul. After a moment, she pursed her lips and looked up at me. “Evil? Maybe I am. But this is war. Yes, a war. Mercy, I know I’ve gone about this all wrong. I hadn’t intended to make an enemy out of you.”

“Then you shouldn’t have tried to collapse the world in on Jilo and me.”

Her eyebrows arched up. “I assume you don’t mean that poetically, but all the same I have no idea what you are talking about.”

I ignored her lie. “And you
really
shouldn’t have tried to kill my fiancé.”

“There are mother-in-laws who have done worse,” she said and smiled as if I would find any levity in her actions. “I was angry. I wasn’t thinking,” she continued. “His fairy blood ruined everything,” she said, more to herself than to me, then added, “We were so close when he came and interrupted us.”

“So close to what exactly?”

“To returning this world to its rightful owners, and to returning Maisie to us. The anchors and the witches who support the line will never allow her to return. You have to get that through your head. You want to talk about evil? The line has erased your sister from our very reality. Isn’t that evil enough for you? If not, think about the creature I sent to fetch you. I wanted you to see one of them up close. His kind are not of my making. No, they are a product of the witches who maintain the line. They developed the foul little beings to serve as spies among the humans, to keep tabs on them lest they seek to overthrow their masters as the witches did theirs. That little bit of history is one that’s never taught to the young witches. And so much of what is taught is a confection of half-truths and lies.”

“But bringing down the line
will
return us to the control of the demons.”

“Stop calling them demons. They are not demons. They are our creators. Our parents. Everything we have and everything we are, we got from them.”

“You are out of your mind.”

Emily’s head tilted to the side and her lips pulled back, revealing gritted teeth. She leaned violently forward, her hands white-knuckled and digging into the arms of her chair. My own muscles pulled taut, preparing themselves if she were to pounce. It may only have been Joe’s position at her feet that kept her from doing just that, but he proved barrier enough to slow Emily’s building rage. She sensed my body preparing to respond in kind to any violence, and she forced herself back against the chair, loosening her grip on its arms. “I am the sanest witch you have ever met. It is only your willfulness, your ignorance that makes you doubt me.” She regained control of herself, righting her head and relaxing her shoulders. “I brought you here to attempt to correct that ignorance.”

“All right,” I said, holding my hands out before me, palms down. “I’m sorry. I’m listening.”

“Thank you for the apology. I accept it,” she said, the final traces of tension disappearing from her face. She folded her hands and assumed a thoughtful pose. As she collected her thoughts, I stood in silence, calculating my odds of making it to Adam and sliding us out of here. “The old ones,” she said, interrupting my train of thought. “When they found our planet, no humans existed, leave alone witches. The small mammals from which we’ve descended were millions of years away from even developing prehensile thumbs on their own. We were tree-dwelling mice, doing our best to hide from the masters of this world, but our visitors saw potential in us, and they decided to make a long-term investment in our future. They claimed our world for us. They cleared the land for us.”

“You are saying they wiped out the dinosaurs?”

“Yes, they erased the dinosaurs, and everything that took their place until we were ready to rise to supremacy. They were always here to help us. Teach us. Protect us. Change us. Perfect us.”

“Enslave us. Even if what you say is true, even if they did play a nurturing role in our early development, they didn’t help us out of the kindness of their hearts. They engineered us to be their servants. Food, even. The witches rebelled to give us free will.”

“Free will to what? Kill each other in wars? Poison the planet with toxins? Gorge ourselves on chemical foods while millions starve? These are the products of your treasured free will. The old ones, our guides, would never have allowed such madness. There are six and a half billion humans on this planet, and that number is burgeoning by the minute. That’s six billion too many for the world to support. Humans are out of balance with nature. They are a virus, spreading, destroying. The human race is the ultimate ecological nightmare.”

“So you bring down the line. You let your
old ones
back in. Who decides who gets to live and which six billion people have to die?”

“You could. If you help them, I am sure they will let you determine who are the most worthy of life.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “I am not qualified to make that decision.”

“No? A nurse who dedicates her life to healing or a drug dealer who murdered his grandmother? Pick one.”

She stood, and pushing past Joe, she began to circle me, forcing me to turn. The movement combined with the blinking of the skull lights disoriented me. “That’s an extreme example. Life isn’t so simple,” I said. “It isn’t so black and white.”

“Oh, my dear girl, it will amaze you how quickly clarity comes to you. How soon you will realize that those shades of gray you worry about are such unnecessary complications.” She stopped and stood before me, the bruised light casting nightmarish shadows on her face.

“Those beings you want to help,” I said, “they want to enslave the human race.”

“Humans need to be subjugated for their own good and for the good of the planet.”

“My son will not live as a slave.”

“Of course not,” she said as she tilted her head toward me, a wrinkle forming between her eyes. “Your son will reign as a king. He will be truly free, not a slave of the line. My darling, you defend the line, but you know nothing of what it is or the blood that the witches spilled in its creation. Tell me, dear, what do you know about it?”

The dream I’d had a few days ago came to mind, and I found myself remembering it in vivid detail. I watched again as a faceless man slithered like a serpent away from a pyramid. Nearby obelisks lit up as lightning struck them. A whirring moan echoed from stone circles. I shook it off. “Pretty close to nothing, but what I do know is that you used me.” I paused and an odd thought hit me. “I have a special connection to the line, one that none of the anchors has,” I said, realizing the truth of the words as I said them. “What is it? Why me?” I asked.

“You are the witch of the prophecy. You are the one who was born to end the line and deliver us all from its tyranny. Why else do you think Ginny separated you from your magic? Why else do you think the united families have continued to estrange you from the power that is rightfully yours?”

She had sidestepped my question. I knew I’d never get any truth out of her, and the longer I allowed her to keep us here, the more likely it seemed that things would not end well. “No, you are wrong. You’ll have to find another messiah. Now let Adam and me go.”

“You are both free to leave whenever you would like, but remember this: They will never bring you into their fold. The anchors are terrified of you, since they know you will be the one to hold them accountable for their sins. Let me help you. Let me teach you what the line really is. How it imprisons you and how it will imprison your son . . . that is, if the other anchors even allow him to be born.” She paused and watched my face, making sure that her words had made the impact she’d hoped they would. “Half witch, half fairy? Certainly a challenge to the status quo. A wild card. The anchors, they don’t like challenges, especially ones they fear might be out of their control. If they learned the truth about my dear grandson . . .”

“Are you threatening me?” My hands curled into claws, ready to strike.

“No, my dear. Just the opposite. I am warning you. I am explaining to you how best to protect yourself and your child. I would never, ever betray your secret to the others, but you are already enough of an outlier in your own right, and I can guarantee that the anchors will also keep an eye on your little one, waiting to
remove
him from the equation should they ever feel the need. You’ll have to find a way to hide his true nature, or they will kill him just as they killed Paul. Just as they would have killed you and Maisie if they’d known Erik was your father.” Joe came and took her arm. “And just as they would try to murder Josef if they found out Erik was
his
father.”

I stood there dumbstruck as I looked at Joe with new eyes. The hair, the cleft chin, the high forehead. He did bear a strong resemblance to Erik. Leaning in, he placed a passionate kiss on Emily’s lips. I watched as animal electricity surged between them. Emily pushed him away and laughed. “Relax. He’s only your half brother.” He took her in his arms and pulled her near, so that her back was leaning against his chest. He caressed her, his fingers lingering near her hardening nipples, and nuzzled his face in her hair.

I couldn’t bear another moment of it. “Adam and I are leaving now,” I said. I tried to project confidence and authority, but she knew she’d shaken me.

“Of course,” Emily said. “I can see you need more proof than the word of the woman who gave birth to you. I’ll see that you get it. Please remember I tried to convince you the easy way first, but you left me with no choice. Now I’ll have to force the anchors to show you their true colors.”

I pushed past Joe and knelt beside Adam. When I placed my hand on his shoulder, he flinched. “It’s okay, Adam. I’m going to get you away from here.” He tilted his head up toward me. The look on his bruised face did not reflect gratitude. His swollen eyes narrowed even more, and he pulled back, as repulsed by my presence as I had been by the rodent with the human face. I offered my hand to help him stand, but he pushed it away and forced himself to his feet without my help.

THIRTY-SEVEN

Joe released Emily and raised his hands toward us, but before I could even react, the foul blue light he was generating condensed into a single point, and the stone walls disappeared from around us. We stood on a beach, the moon shining brightly from the western sky, the east beginning to show the first blush of purple. Adam collapsed to his knees, and I reached out for him.

“Do not touch me,” he warned. He bent over, his face almost touching the sand, and a wail reached out from the innermost part of his heart, disturbing the quiet of the coming dawn.

“Adam, it’s me. Mercy,” I said. I knelt down next to him and tried to comfort him.

“I know who the hell you are, and I know what the hell you are. Now get away from me.” Even though he hadn’t made his way up off his knees, his hands balled into tight fists, his right one higher and ready to strike out, his left one lower, ready to defend. He was prepared to beat his way past me if I didn’t do as he said. I stood and backed away. When Adam rose to his feet, his movements were jerky.

“Where the hell are we?” he said as he spun around, trying to find his bearings. He spotted the darkened, defunct lighthouse that loomed nearby. “That isn’t Savannah. It isn’t Tybee.”

“No,” I said. It wasn’t Tybee, with its motels and souvenir stores. The unspoiled Hunting Island Beach stretched out before us. Even though we had to travel a good hour away from Savannah, Iris had often brought Maisie and me here when we were children. I wasn’t sure if we’d landed here by hazard or design. “We’re in South Carolina. I can get you home.” At least I hoped I could. I’d never tried to slide this far before, and it would only be my second attempt at carrying a passenger. “But I will need to touch you.”

“No,” Adam said, leaning away from me. His face had contorted itself into a mask of pain. His right eye had now completely swollen shut. “No. I want no more of you people,” he said. “Your mother put a noose around my neck,” he said, pulling his still clenched fists up before his face. He drew them down and glared at me through his still functioning eye. “I am a black man, Mercy. You can’t begin to understand . . .”

“Please. I know she’s a monster. I am so sorry for what she’s done to you. Please, let me take you to Oliver. Let Ellen heal you.”

He continued to shake his head. “I know you mean well. I do. I know you aren’t like your mother . . .”

“Please then. Stay here and let me get Uncle Oliver,” I said, but Adam just shook his head.

“No. I know what’s in you Taylors now. I’ve seen it.” His good eye searched my face, as if he were trying to see through a disguise, but then he turned away. “I know what y’all are now, and I can’t bear it.”

Beneath the crashing surf, I heard that same growling I’d heard in the stone hall. At the edge of the line of trees, a retreating moon illuminated the wolf form that Joe had once again assumed. The beast padded up within yards of us and settled down, waiting for us to move so that it could give chase. Adam’s body vibrated, shivering from cold, quivering from adrenaline. “Don’t move,” I said, but my words came too late. Adam took off in a full sprint, heading in the direction of the lighthouse. The wolf looked up at me, glee in its amber eyes. Its right front paw shimmered and stretched out into a furry, human-shaped hand. I watched as each of the five fingers Joe showed me bent in toward the palm. He was counting down, giving Adam a head start. The hand shrunk back into a wolf’s pad, and Joe howled into the night, then leapt into the air and took off in pursuit.

I ran after them, ignoring the protest of my feet as the soft sand gave way to wood planks and then asphalt. I stopped on the road to get my bearings, but Adam and the wolf had already vanished from my sight. I turned in a circle, trying to hear some sign of them, but any external sounds were drowned out by the beating of my own heart. I was about to send out a psychic ping to see if I could get a fix on Adam when a beam shot out of the decommissioned lighthouse, illuminating the world around me. I saw my mother’s figure standing in silhouette on the external catwalk near the black-painted top of the beacon. Praying that Adam had managed to escape and find shelter, I closed my eyes and slid to the lighthouse’s white base.

I knew this place by heart, having climbed to the tower’s top many times over the years. Tonight, its entranceway stood wide open, and light—every bit as bright as what was shining from the beacon’s focal plane—poured out the black doorframe and reflected off the gold “1873” that adorned it. I put my foot on the first step, pulling it away again when I felt a sticky wetness. I looked down. It was blood. More had dribbled down on the next step and the next. I stepped up gingerly, trying to avoid further contact. I entered the tower, only to find more blood inside, much more, a puddle of it having formed at the base of the circular stairs that led up to the external railing where I’d seen Emily. Another drop of blood fell from above and splashed into the puddle. I looked up, but the brightness of the light and the curve of the stairs, combined with the way the tower narrowed as it went up, prevented me from seeing its source.

The silence in the tower was absolute, and the sound of my foot touching the iron mesh of the first of the winding steps echoed as loudly as if I’d hit it with a sledgehammer. “Come on up, darling,” Emily’s voice rang out in my mind. “We are all waiting for you.” I closed my eyes, focusing my thoughts on the ninth landing. When I opened them again, Joe stood there before me in his human form, completely naked. He wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Adam,” I said, feeling my knees start to buckle.

“Relax,” Joe said. “I only took a little taste.” He squinted and licked his lips.

“Where is he? What have you done with him?”

“He’s hanging out with your mother,” he said and opened the door that led to the external circular catwalk. “After you.”

“No, you first.” I would not turn my back on Josef. He shrugged and smiled, then stepped out the door, letting the wind slam it shut in my face. I grabbed the handle and pulled it open, a whistling sound coming through the crack. I peeked through, but could see nothing, so I opened it wider and poked my head out. Adam hung in midair, his head lolling down, his arms being whipped about in the wind. I forced the door fully open and stepped out onto the catwalk.

“Call them. Call them to you.” Emily said to me, making me jump even though I had known her to be there. “I want the whole dear family here for this event.” I considered a quick slide. Go out. Grab Adam. Get anywhere the hell away from here. Emily floated over to face me. “Don’t even consider it, darling. I’ll make sure he hits the ground before you can even blink. Now call them.”

“Do as your mother tells you. Call them, sister. Call your aunts. Call the ape’s
lover
.”

“You are mighty brave when you are hiding behind her skirt,” I said, my anger overtaking my fear. “You’d better hope I never catch you out alone. I will rip your big bad wolf costume right off you.”

He took a step toward me, straining so that his muscles would pop. “I am much more adept at using magic than you are.”

“I ain’t talking about using magic,
little brother
.”

“Enough, children,” Emily said. Josef’s taut muscles were still twitching even as he took a step closer to Emily. She ran her fingers through his hair and then trailed them down his naked back. “Shhh . . .” She soothed him and then turned toward the sea and leaned against the metal railing. She whistled three discordant notes, then repeated the sequence twice.

From out near the horizon, where by now I knew the sun should soon rise, a furious shrieking came in response to her call. The awakening sky lost all light, fading to a deep purple, the shade of Adam’s bruised skin, and then any hope of color was lost, repelled by storm clouds that had arisen from nowhere.

“A few simple sounds,” Emily said. “And not much power at all. Just enough to encourage nature to do what it already wanted to do anyway. The water was already so warm, aching for a touch to arouse it. So easy to start, so hard to end.” The winds began to whip up whitecaps. “What do you think, Josef?”

“At this rate, it will only make it to a category four by the time it hits Savannah,” he said, jutting out his head over the railing to assess the growing storm. “I want a five.”

“And so you shall have it,” she said. She whistled again, and this time the notes came more quickly, sounding shriller. She kept it up until I thought my eardrums would burst, but then the sound mercifully stopped.

“It’s building on its own now,” Emily said. “Remember, I tried to avoid this, but you left me with no choice.”

“A hurricane with no warning. No time for alerts. No evacuation,” Joe said. “The destruction will be spectacular.”

The clouds continued to thicken and blacken, and the first flash of lightening shocked the sky. “You have to stop this.”

“Oh, no, my daughter. If you want this stopped, you will have to be the one to stop it.” She smiled at me. “I know that you can . . . that is, if you are allowed.”

“What do you mean
if I am allowed
?”

“Ask the Duvals. They could have turned Katrina away from New Orleans, directing it to a less populated area. Or they could have used their magic to help the levees hold. But the anchors wouldn’t allow your cousins to save their home, just as they will not allow you to save yours.”

“That’s ridiculous. The storm was too powerful. If they could have done—”

“Oh, they could have done,” Emily interrupted me. “And they would have done too, but the anchors said that diverting that much power from the line would weaken it. They commanded the Duvals to step down, and they did.”

“Well, I am a Taylor, not a Duval,” I said, and another flash of lightning punctuated my words, the clap of thunder so near it caused the metal catwalk to sing beneath my feet.

“Oh, my dear, I’m counting on that. Now go ahead. Call your family. I want you to do your best to turn this destruction you’ve forced me to call upon Savannah back out to sea. My sisters and brother will give you all the help you need.” She closed her eyes and raised her hands toward the sea. “Now, I’ll give it the slightest nudge.” Her lips moved silently, and the horrible monstrosity on the horizon began to move closer to us, toward her outstretched hands. “My work here is done,” she said and reached out for Joe’s hand.

“Wait. Is it true? Is this just another trick to get me to endanger the line? Will the energy I use weaken it?”

“That’s what the Duvals believed. Tell me, do you?” A flash of lightning enveloped them, and they vanished. The world around me stopped as Adam fell.