The Void (Witching Savannah Book 3) (10 page)

Rather than continue as a passive viewer, I decided to attempt to direct his consciousness to open even wider to me. It yielded with ease, and I pushed deeper into his psyche, following the line of dark magic that connected him to the font of his power. What I found there chilled me, for I recognized this entity.

What I uncovered was not a minor demon like Wren, nor even a greater one like Barron, the demon Emily had sacrificed in her attempt to deliver me over to the old ones. The source of Teague’s magic wasn’t a demon in the conventional sense at all. My mind flashed back to my first taste of magic, when I witnessed an image other than my own in the mirror. Then I realized, Teague had somehow joined forces with one of the most dangerous witches this world had ever know, Gudrun, onetime best friend of my own paternal great-grandmother, Maria Orsic.

“Gudrun.” Her name escaped my lips.

Teague trembled when he realized how easily I had breached his defenses. His eyes fell, and beads of sweat formed on his forehead.

I laughed in his face. “Even if you could hold me here, and watch from some safe and distant perch as my life force failed me, you would still have one big problem with this scheme of yours.” He stared at me, shaking his head as if he were trying to force me out of it. “Haven’t you felt it, Teague? The world has changed. The line has changed. You could wait a thousand lifetimes, and still it will never choose you. Never.”

I took advantage of his confusion and closeness to reach out and snatch his tattooed forearm. “Let me teach you a little blood magic,” I said, sinking my nails deep enough in him to break through his skin. He squealed as his blood covered the tattoo. I claimed the sigil’s magic for my own purpose. “Come on, Pinocchio, let’s go say hello to the puppet master.”

I closed my eyes and slid. This time I felt no resistance; I moved easily beyond the borders of my cousin’s latest trap, this time with Teague himself in tow. When I opened my eyes less than a second later, we stood in my own bedroom. Teague staggered away from me, falling to his hands and knees and vomiting all over my rug. He was going to clean that up himself, once I got through whacking him over the nose. I turned away from the sight of his stricken face, only to catch my own reflection in my makeup mirror.

I hated what I saw there, as the sheen of Gudrun’s foul magic clung to me. I forced myself to shrug off the fear of what my return ticket might end up costing me. “Come on, Gudrun. I got your boy, and I know you can hear me.” For a fleeting moment, I saw her face, ice-blue eyes and perfect nose framed by a black pageboy bob, but as with the first time I had used my mirror to see into her world, she waved her hand and faded instantly. This time, though, I heard a pop, and although the glass remained in its frame, a webwork of cracks shot out from the mirror’s center toward its outer edges. I guess Gudrun had had enough of my popping in uninvited.

To think the families had wanted to send me to this woman for training. If I had acquiesced, if I had gone to her, would I have ever made it home again? The sound of laughter rang out behind me, and I turned to find Teague back on his feet. “You don’t stand a chance, not against her. Not against us.”

“There is no more ‘us’ as far as you and she are concerned,” I said, trying to keep my voice firm but calm. “Get it through your thick head, Teague. Gudrun has been lying to you. Tricking you. She has no interest in protecting the line. If anything, she is the line’s greatest threat.”

“You’re wrong. She’s changed. She’s no longer a threat to the line. You are.”

I held my hand up to him. “Stop. Believe what you want, but I am going to send you home now. You’ve left me without a choice. The families, the other anchors, I will have to tell them what you’ve been up to. That you have been conspiring against me, against an anchor.”

“You are either a liar or a fool,” Teague said. His face was deep red with anger, but then his emotions seemed to turn on a dime. He broke out in raucous laughter, the mirthful outburst causing tears to fall from his eyes. He wiped at them with the back of his hand. “You know, you really are too much. You don’t have as many friends as you think you do. Do you think I approached Gudrun on my own? That we somehow figured out a way to sneak behind the other anchors’ backs so she could use me to host her magic? Some of the other anchors, Mercy, they already know, and they are rooting for me.” Was it my instinct or only my fear that made me believe him? “And I am going to keep coming for you until I get the job done.”

“Your scheming against me has nothing to do with protecting the line. This is all about your pitiable need to feel important.” The hate in his eyes made me wince. “You are going to leave me alone,” I said, but this time the words sounded much less convincing.

“Oh, no. I am going to do no such thing. The only way you are going to get me to leave you alone is if you kill me, and we both know you don’t have it in you.”

“You’re right,” a familiar voice replied. I had been so focused on Teague I hadn’t even noticed Maisie standing in the doorway. “She doesn’t, but I do.”

Before I could even think to stop her, Maisie raised her hand toward my shattered mirror. The largest shard broke free from the frame and whisked around me. It reached Teague and sliced his neck open, clean to the bone. The life shot out from him in a rush of scarlet as he fell to the floor before me. I blinked at the splatter of his blood that touched my face.

When I opened my eyes, Maisie looked up from Teague’s corpse to my face. “Oh,” she said. “Let me grab you a towel for that.”

ELEVEN

I’d seen so many horrors since the morning I’d found Ginny’s body lying in her parlor. In so many ways, the sight of my cousin’s corpse lying on the floor before me was just one more. I wasn’t sure what I should be feeling, but all I did feel was shame. Somehow I knew that in fifty or maybe one hundred years, when my own granddaughter or even great-great-granddaughter charged the atmosphere of this room, searching for memories of me, this one, this sight of me covered in Teague’s blood, would be what rose up before her. Would she feel the horror that remained frozen in my chest?

A scream caused me to raise my eyes.
Oh, good. That’s covered
. The words went through my mind as my cousin Abigail stood before me hyperventilating. My legs collapsed out from under me, and I landed on my knees. My gaze returned to Teague’s face, which lay turned toward me, his dead eyes glazed over but still full of surprise. I heard the heavy tread of boots running up the stairs, down the hall. Sam found my room before Iris could join him. I hadn’t expected to see him here today. He must have had a change of heart about joining us. I bet he was rethinking that decision right now. He knelt beside me and lifted me, carrying me from the room. Oliver met us in the hall. He dodged into my room, then came back just as quickly, the color having faded from his face.

Iris appeared in the hall, and Oliver grabbed her before she could go into my room. “Don’t,” Oliver said to her. “You don’t need to see this.”

The words that followed blurred together into an indecipherable barrage of meaningless sound. The light around me dimmed, and I closed my eyes. I drew a breath and forced myself to return to the moment. “I’m okay, now. Thank you,” I said. “You can put me down.” Sam shifted me carefully until my feet touched the floor. The room began to spin.

“I don’t think so,” Sam said and bent down to slide his right arm back beneath my knees.

“She killed him. Without a qualm. Her face . . .”
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun.
Yeats’s words surfaced in my mind. “No feeling. She just . . .” My voice failed me.

“I have a tarp and some duct tape in my truck,” Sam said in an even voice.
Sweet, handsome, and willing to help hide the bodies without asking a single question. He really was a keeper.
I began laughing again even though none of this should have hit me as funny. So this was what hysteria felt like.

Iris stood before us, looking like she wasn’t sure if she should hug Sam or slap him. “Hopefully we haven’t come to that,” she said to Sam.

Maisie reappeared with a dampened cloth. She had washed the blood from her hands, but there were still splatters on her shirt. The sight of her ended my laughter.

“I could see into him,” Maisie said, and I raised my eyes to meet hers. “He hated you, and he was never going to give up until he had taken everything from you.” Her eyes narrowed in disgust. “I saw that he dreamed, no, fantasized, about overpowering you, hurting you, killing you. It gave him
pleasure
.” The word came out sounding sick and dirty. “While I was gone, while I was wherever the line took me, I found myself in a place of such certainty, such clarity. I knew then if ever I laid eyes on you again, I had to do everything in my power to protect you. I’m sorry if my sense of conviction makes you uncomfortable, but I will gladly kill a thousand Teagues if it means keeping you safe.” I didn’t know whether to feel gratitude or horror as her words hung in the air between us. “Here.” Maisie offered me the washcloth.

“I’ll take it, darling,” Iris responded. “Abby, can you take Maisie back to her room?”

Abigail had followed us into the hall, but she was still pretty much frozen in the same stance. “Yes, I’ll do that, but then I’m packing my bags and going home. I thought I could help, but I’m afraid the girl’s too far gone.” She looked at me as tears brimmed her eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t sign on for this.” Maybe it was uncharitable of me after all she had tried to do for us, but I felt disappointed in her. The sight of blood caused her to give up on Maisie, even after Maisie had flung herself into Gehenna to save her.

“Of course, dear,” Iris responded without taking her eyes off me. “We understand.” I didn’t, but I had enough to think about without picking a fight. Abby hesitated to take Maisie’s hand, but then she grabbed hold of my sister and escorted her down the hall.

“Take Mercy to my room, please,” Iris said to Sam.

Sam maneuvered me through the doorway to Iris’s room and sat me on the foot of the bed. He knelt beside me. Oliver sat next to me, putting his arm around my shoulder to prop me up.

“Who is this guy Maisie killed anyway?” Sam asked Iris. He used the present tense. Iris didn’t respond. Instead she used the washcloth to dab at the splatters on my face.

“Teague Ryan,” Oliver answered for her. “He
was
our cousin.”

I looked up at Iris. “He’s been working with Gudrun to . . . trap me.” Iris’s head tilted up and her lips pursed. “He said the only way to stop him was to kill him, and Maisie, well, Maisie . . .” I didn’t recognize my sister since the line had allowed me to bring her home. On the exterior she remained unchanged. On the inside, though, well, truth was I had probably never really known what was going on in her soul. I wanted to believe my sister was not the person who had offered me up as sacrifice. That she was not responsible for her acts, considering she had been driven mad as a consequence of Ginny’s crimes. And I had hoped that somehow we could reach down into her and find the grain of the girl she had been born to be and nurture it. Abigail had much more experience plumbing the depths of souls. Maybe she was right, maybe Maisie was too far gone, but I wasn’t ready to give up hope yet.

“He was conspiring against an anchor of the line.” Iris’s words broke into my thoughts.

“Yes,” I said, “but he said the other anchors know all about it. He implied he had their consent, if not their assistance.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Iris said. “Well, it matters, but not in regard to how we are going to handle this situation. Listen to me.” She freed her hand and placed both her hands on my shoulders. “Maisie did not kill Teague. You did. Do you hear me?”

“I don’t understand.” I shook my head.

“You are an anchor. It is an anchor’s right to
remove
anyone who threatens them.”

“My right?” I asked. “That’s horrible. I shouldn’t have the right to kill anyone.”

“It’s their law, not ours. You were doing your duty. You were protecting the line. That is the story we need to stick to.”

“I don’t know what you two are talking about,” Sam said, “but why do you need to give these people a cover story? It sounds like this was self-defense to me.” Was it only my imagination, or had Sam started shifting away? He seemed to be trying to avoid Iris’s touch. Even an accidental one. That didn’t bode well for their relationship. Had he seen too much? Just moments ago he was ready to act without judgment.

Iris reached out her hand, and he stepped back. A small twitch of her right eye told me that she, too, had noticed Sam’s sudden coolness. “Of course it was self-defense, but all the same, if the families learn Maisie killed Teague . . .”

She didn’t need to finish her sentence. I understood. They would use any excuse to take Maisie from us. This time once and for all.

Maisie’s lack of any hesitation to kill or remorse for the murder she had just committed made me wonder if maybe this callous killer
was
the true Maisie. Our very conception was linked to black magic; we had been born as an unintended result of our parents’ attempt to destroy the line through the sex and murder magic of Tillandsia. Had my sister and I been tainted, stained to our very souls by their acts? Had I made a mistake bringing Maisie home?

“Maybe we just can’t save Maisie.” Ellen stood in the doorway. She stumbled a bit as she stepped over the threshold, but managed to catch herself. “Maybe we can’t save Mama either.” Even from ten paces away, I could smell the alcohol on her. She took a few more weaving steps, then stopped right before us. “Sometimes people get too lost for the saving.”

“Ah, damn it, Ellen, like things aren’t difficult enough around here,” Oliver said, removing his arm, and after reassuring himself I wouldn’t flop over, he stood. “Come on, I’ll put on some coffee.”

He walked over to Ellen and grasped her arm. She shook it off. “I don’t want coffee.”

“Sorry, sis, but right now I don’t give a donkey’s damn what you want.” He got a stronger grip on her and spun her around. He escorted her from the room, and Iris went to the door and stared after them. I heard Ellen protesting as Oliver ushered her down the stairs.

“I’d like to clean myself up now,” I said, then realized I didn’t want to use my regular bath in the hall, knowing very soon that hall would be swarming with witches. Iris’s bathroom was en suite, and that meant I could have two closed doors between me and the rest of the world. The doors wouldn’t provide much of a barrier against intrusion and offered none against magic, but in this moment the psychological separation they promised seemed precious.

“Aunt Iris?” I asked, and she turned to me.

“Yes?”

“May I use your shower?”

She nodded. “Of course, sweetheart.”