The Thirteenth Sacrifice (26 page)

As if in a daze Karen recited a string of numbers and Samantha hastily committed them to memory. Then Karen went on her way and Samantha turned back toward the house. Bridget was the last to leave, closing the door firmly behind her. Samantha readied herself to run as soon as Bridget was out of sight, but the witch waved to her.

“Thank you,” Bridget said when she got close to her. Everyone else had already passed out of earshot.

Samantha shrugged. “Happy to help.”

“The few of the coven with any spine are away at the moment,” she said, making a face.

It wouldn’t take more than one, likely the high priestess, to murder the latest victim. What could the others be doing? Participating? Cleaning up the crime scene? Or perhaps they were spreading more fear and hatred to keep the witch frenzy alive.

“I’m surprised that there are so many… weaker… members. Especially given the size of the coven. I would think you would need only to choose the strongest.”

“Unfortunately, it’s not just about power; it’s also about the body count. We need to keep it high. But that won’t always be true and then we can afford to thin the ranks.”

“By my count we have one more sacrifice to make,” Samantha said, deciding to risk revealing how much she knew.

“You never cease to surprise me,” Bridget said with a laugh. “Yes, one left.”

“So, when are we holding the ceremony?”

“Very soon. I don’t know the exact time yet, but I’m telling everyone to be ready with half an hour’s notice.”

“That’s not much time,” Samantha noted.

Bridget shrugged. “At least we’re local. It’s harder on those coming from other cities.”

It was so surreal. They might as well be planning a business meeting or an office party, the way they were speaking. Given that lives were being taken, it all seemed far too casual, like Bridget was playing witch and no one had ever told her the stakes were real.

But when Samantha looked in her eyes and saw the darkness there, she knew that Bridget was very much aware of just what she was playing at.

Her stomach lurched and she clamped down on it even harder. She needed to leave, to find Anthony. But it was going to take forever to walk and almost as long to have a cab come pick her up.

“Do you need a ride to your hotel?”

Even though she didn’t want to spend another second in Bridget’s presence, she was intensely grateful since that would get her there sooner. “Yes, please.”

As they drove, Samantha struggled not to vomit up the blood she had drunk and tried to get her fear under control. Anthony was likely already dead and there was nothing she could do about that. But another voice in her mind refused to believe it and kept screaming at her to hurry.

Was he at the museum? If not, where was he? She thought of her candles in her room. Compelling him to come to her would be worse than useless if he was dead or imprisoned.

When Bridget finally pulled up in front of the hotel, it took all of Samantha’s willpower to step calmly from the
car. She walked inside the lobby, waited until she saw Bridget’s car pull away, then sprinted back out to the street.

She raced up Essex, legs pumping, terror spurring her on. At last the museum came into sight, but it was dark and locked. She grabbed hold of the door and tried to feel Anthony. He wasn’t inside.
Unless he’s dead already.

She thought about breaking down the door, but she forced herself to stop and think. If he was already dead, they could have dumped the body anywhere; they might even have used it in some way that would draw more attention to witchcraft. But if he was still alive, they’d likely kill him somewhere more private, less public.

His home.

But she had no idea where he lived. She yanked her cell phone out of her pocket and called Ed.

“Come on, come on,” she breathed, waiting for him to pick up.

“Hello?”

“I think they just killed another girl. I don’t know where.”

“What happened to you?” he asked, his voice filled with concern.

“Long story—talk later. Right now I really need you to get me Anthony’s home address. His last name is Charles.”

“Give me a second.”

She stood, agony gripping her as she could hear Ed typing. She was lucky he’d been at the precinct and not babysitting Katie. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, trying to anticipate which way she was going to need to run.

“Got it. Ready?”

He gave her the address and she repeated it hastily,
then ended the call. She spun to her left and dashed off at a sprint. Anthony lived just a couple of blocks from the museum. When she turned onto his street her eyes gravitated instantly to one house, a blue Victorian with white trim. Something dark was stirring inside it; she could feel it. She raced up the steps and shoved open the door, which was already ajar.

“Anthony!” she screamed.

Only the groaning of the floorboards beneath her feet answered. And there was something else. She tilted her head, listening. The sound was coming from upstairs. It was the sound of running water.

She put her foot on the first step of the narrow staircase that hugged the left-hand wall and leaped up the stairs two at a time. At the top, she ran toward the room at the back of the house. She burst into a large bedroom with an antique four-poster bed and flew across it into the bathroom.

She skidded to a stop as her mind froze in fear.

Before her was a monstrous gray dog-shaped creature, similar to the thing that had chased her and Ed out of the basement of Abigail’s old house. But this one was fully corporeal. It turned to look at her, blood and saliva dripping from its jaws, a demon from her nightmares made flesh.

Only it wasn’t the exact one from her nightmares. This one was smaller, and gray instead of black. She knew from her memories of the one she had seen as a child that when these creatures were in this state, they weren’t just so much energy that she could disperse like the snake or the kitten. Rather, what stood before her was a real creature, summoned from the bowels of hell to do its master’s bidding.

She looked past the creature and saw the bathtub,
filled with water, and Anthony struggling at the bottom of it, bubbles escaping from his nose and mouth. The creature held his chest down with one massive paw, drowning him. And even as she stared, Anthony ceased to struggle.

“No!” she screamed.

The creature pulled its paw off Anthony and turned fully toward her, its eyes glowing. She couldn’t outrun it, she had no time to draw a protective circle, and she had no idea how to banish it.

It must have realized that too, because it grinned at her in the most wickedly human way as it took a slow step forward.

“I will kill you!” she shouted at the creature, more fear than rage making her voice shake.

It opened its mouth and a deep laugh echoed from it. It began to speak in a language she did not know, the words thick and oily and sliding over her. Its hot breath stank of sulfur and the stench drove her to her knees in a fit of coughing. Water spilling over from the bathtub swirled around her on the floor.

Think!

The creature moved impossibly fast for something so large. She threw herself to the side, slamming her temple against the doorframe, to dodge it. Pain exploded behind her eyes and she smelled blood. She glanced down and saw that the beast had slashed her chest with its razorlike claws. In an instant what was left of her shirt was soaked with blood.

The sight was enough to send adrenaline pumping through her body and she could feel a swift buildup of energy unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. She dared not release the energy increasing inside her, though, because she would be electrocuted there in the water.

Water! That’s it!

She didn’t need to understand its language or figure out how to send it back to where it came from. All she needed to do was kill it.

She yanked her athame free from her waistband and brandished it in front of her. The creature snarled, eyeing the blade warily. As she struggled to her knees, it tracked her movements carefully. Hatred and cunning burned in its soulless eyes. She forced herself to try to stand. Her right foot slid out from under her, though, and she crashed to the floor again.

It leaped for her and she slashed with the athame. As the blade made contact with its hide, the creature howled and jumped back. She seized the moment to gain her feet. With a surge of strength she didn’t know she had, she jumped onto the bathroom counter.

She crouched there for a moment, dizzy, as blood continued to flow down her shirt and paint the water pink. The beast coiled all its muscles, readying itself to spring. Samantha brought her hands close together and a ball of energy formed between them, electricity sparking from her fingertips. If there were any chinks in the porcelain of the bathtub, if any part of the metal was touching the water, then she would have no hope of reviving Anthony. His body would fry too.

She shrieked a prayer heavenward even as she threw her hands down, hurling the crackling sphere of energy into the water.

There was an inhuman scream and the creature convulsed uncontrollably as the electric current running through the water entered its body. Finally it collapsed in a smoking heap, the smell of burned hair filling the room.

Samantha turned and looked at the bathtub. She
judged the distance and then jumped, crashing down in the tub near Anthony’s body. Pain ripped through her and she struggled to remove the stopper. Finally it came free and the water began to drain.

Straddling his chest, she began CPR, praying that she wasn’t too late. She felt a couple of his ribs break under her hands, but she kept going. After thirty chest compressions she hauled Anthony’s head out of the water. Slipping and sliding, she managed to twist in such a way that she could give him rescue breaths.

Nothing.

“Don’t you die on me,” she pleaded in the midst of her sobs.

She did more chest compressions and more breaths. Still there was nothing. No pulse, no sign of life. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

Anthony Charles was dead.

Samantha balled her hands into fists, scarcely aware that she was still bleeding from the wounds on her chest. She stared down at Anthony’s pale, still face in anguish.

“No!”

He couldn’t be dead. Not now, not like this. She slammed her hands down on his chest and sent a jolt of electricity through his heart.

His body arced and when she removed her hands it collapsed again. A shudder went through him and his eyes flew open. He began to gag and cough up water.

With a sob, she clung to him, terrified of what had almost happened and even more terrified that she had cared so much for a man she knew so little about.

Anthony made a gasping sound, followed by more violent coughing.

“What?” she asked, bending close.

“Blood.”

She looked down and realized that though the bleeding had slowed, it had not stopped altogether. She took a deep breath, then placed her fingers on her chest and forced herself to start healing.

As soon as the bleeding stopped she struggled to her feet and climbed out of the bathtub. Once she steadied
herself she grabbed hold of Anthony and hoisted him to his feet. He made a groan of protest.

“We can’t stay here,” she said. “We’ve already stayed too long.”

“Can’t move.”

“You can and you will,” she said grimly, picking him up and half dragging, half carrying him into the bedroom.

She eased him down to the floor and took stock. He was wearing a pair of khaki pants and nothing else. He was beginning to shiver from the cold and masses of bruises were springing up on his torso, some from fighting the hellhound and some from her attempts to resuscitate him.

She went into the closet and found a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt. She touched his hand and gave him a little boost of energy. While he changed, she busied herself with the body of the hellhound.

She had hoped that when she killed it the body would turn to ash or in some other way disintegrate. Instead it lay still, a giant, demonic corpse. She didn’t know how to send it back to where it had come from, and she couldn’t leave it here. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to touch the skin, which was rough and covered in tiny hairs that were more like barbs.

She superheated it until it began to burn itself from the inside out. There was nothing mysterious or accidental about spontaneous combustion. It was an old trick used by only the strongest of witches. A living body would fight against it, adapt, and adjust, making it one of the most difficult ways to kill something. With a dead body it was much simpler.

In a matter of seconds the hellhound’s body had completely burned.

She turned to look at Anthony, who was sitting with
his back against the bed. He had changed into the dry clothes, but the effort had left him gasping for air.

“What—what was that thing?”

She shook her head. “Their rightful name I don’t know. I’ve always thought of them as hellhounds, monsters summoned to do dark work. They’re most often used to kill people.”

“Why me?”

“Because you were stupid and careless,” she said, her voice harsh even to her own ears. “You lectured me about not knowing what I was getting into with witches when it was you who was the ignorant one.”

He was finally regaining his breath and after a moment he asked, “What are you talking about?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were working with someone who was trying to find her cousin’s killer?” she demanded.

He looked startled and quickly dropped his eyes. “You have your secrets; I have mine,” he said, coughing.

“Well, your secrets just got someone killed.”

He blanched. “Serious?”

“Of course I’m serious. This isn’t a game we’re playing at! They killed her right in front of me. And a few days ago they killed the woman who was helping her. The only reason you’re alive is because they said they were killing someone else, and from the description, I knew it had to be you.”

He refused to look at her.

“Okay, we have to go,” she said.