T*Witches: Destiny's Twins (10 page)

The Antayus curse!

Alex’s eyes flew open.

Thantos! He was the son who had taken control of the DuBaer family. He was the one in harm’s way.

Aron, her father and Cam’s, had died at the hands of his own brother, not by a descendant of Abigail Antayus. The curse had not killed their father, Fredo had.

And Fredo? He was pathetic and powerless now. He’d been kept in the Peninsula and would be returned there tonight.

Only Thantos, so like his ancestor the treacherous Jacob, was likely to fall victim to the curse, to be stricken down by someone of the Antayus bloodline.

“Shane!” Cam called out. She was holding her head, trying to keep her eyes open, coming back to consciousness. “He’s an Antayus. He and his father were both wearing the same kind of vests Karsh always wore.”

“Shane A. Wright!” Alex remembered Amaryllis calling him that. “That’s what it stands for — A for Antayus?”

Cam nodded and winced with pain. “That’s what Amaryllis and Sersee were hinting about. His family must be direct descendants of Abigail Antayus. That’s why Shane kept trying to win Thantos’s trust. To get next to him. To carry out the curse. Als, Shane’s going to try to kill Thantos.”

“If he hasn’t already.” Alex exclaimed. “He’s probably at Crailmore right now —”

“That’s why neither one of them showed for the Initiation,” Cam realized.

“And why Shane stopped by this morning. He tried to
cast a spell on you, to keep you away from Crailmore —” Alex remembered the way the sinister boy had looked at her, too. Realizing that she’d broken into his thoughts, he’d smirked and silently asked,
Does it matter so much to you? He’s done you nothing but harm.

Of course! It was Thantos he’d meant.

Alex grabbed Cam’s hand and started out of the dome. They had to get to Crailmore now.

“No. Wait.” Cam wouldn’t budge.

Alex panicked. Had Shane succeeded? Was her sister under his spell, fearful and forbidden to go near the fortress?

“No way!” Cam insisted. “Hang on to your moon charm. The Traveler’s spell will get us there faster.”

It was always colder on the barren north end of the island. Trees grew twisted by relentless winds. Waves battered the high cliff walls, churning up sprays of icy water.

A numbing chill hit Alex and Cam as they emerged from the spell to see Crailmore before them, standing tall and foreboding on the barren cliffs.

One of the tall iron gates guarding the mansion had been left open. It swung and creaked violently in the wind. Shivering, they raced through it, still clutching their amulets.

Their mother had left Crailmore only weeks before, yet the bountiful herb garden she’d created was destroyed. Whether by human or natural forces, it was hard to tell. The once-lush plot looked like an abandoned battlefield. Row upon row of plants lay slashed, shredded, tattered, as if a giant sword had cut them down. There were fresh footprints in the mud between the lines of demolished herbs that led to the entrance of the house. The massive front door was open. The mucky tracks went through it and down the long entry hall. At the end of the hall, in front of the paneled doors of the library, the tracks ended — and a pair of mud-caked boots had been left.

There was no doubt about it, the boots were Shane’s. The same ones he’d worn that morning, with his Antayus vest. Had he taken them off to sneak up on Thantos? Had he succeeded in surprising and possibly overtaking their wary uncle? Cautiously, Alex pushed the doors open.

The library was a shambles. There were books everywhere — books and pieces of books, torn pages, ripped covers, books sliced in two. Some of the shelves had fallen, some were broken, resting at odd angles in the bookcases. Thantos’s desk was overturned. And the portrait of Jacob DuBaer had been slashed.

Alex and Cam hurried through the room into the
back passage that circled the first floor. They stopped at the stone stairway behind the kitchen. “Upstairs?” Alex asked.

“They could be below,” Cam said, “in the caves.”

The clang of steel on stone guided them. Following the sound, they raced toward the back of the house to the huge, stone-walled, old kitchen. A scorched stench hit them before they ran through the door. The odor of smoldering wood. And burnt hair, Alex’s keen sense of smell told her, an instant before they entered.

Flaming logs from the immense fireplace had been flung everywhere. Having missed their intended target, Cam guessed, they’d left sooty scars across the floor and walls.

By the looks of it, Shane and Thantos had been at it for hours.

Deep gashes splintered the furniture, as if a giant cleaver had chopped at the chairs and work surfaces. The long wooden table, half a foot thick, that ran nearly the length of the room, was a collapsed wreck.

Behind it stood Shane Antayus Wright. His back was toward them as he bent forward, trying to catch his breath. The hilt of an enormous sword was wedged under his arm like a crutch. His black vest was torn just over his heart. Blood stained the knee of one trouser leg. The ends of his blond mane were scorched and blackened;
sweat drenched what was left of his long hair. Coils of it stuck to his brow. The smell of smoke drifted off him. When he lifted his head, they saw that his face was smudged with ash.

Shane squinted. His deep blue eyes strained to focus — on Thantos DuBaer.

The great bull of a man was on his back. His head rested on the fireplace hearth. His chest heaved as he gulped for air. There was a bloody slash along his cheek. He tested the cut gingerly with a gloved hand.

Shane’s hands were raw and bare as he struggled to lift the sword. Once it was in his grasp, he started toward Thantos. The once-mighty tracker lay on the floor, unarmed, but still sneering confidently.

“Go on, grin,” Shane gasped. “It will be your last. This is the sacred sword that has slain generations of DuBaers.”

He heaved the weapon above his head and brought it down with all his might. But Thantos rolled, scrabbled, and skittered out of the way. The sword clanged as it hit the stone floor.

Thantos tumbled back to the fireplace. With his protectively gloved hands, he plucked a burning log from the hearth and hurled it at the boy.

Cam and Alex had been standing in the doorway, riveted, immobilized by shock. Too busy trying to kill each
other, neither warlock had noticed them. But as the blazing log flew toward Shane, Cam sprang into action.

She focused her fiery eyes on the flaming missile — incinerating it before it reached its target. The burning wood became crumbling charcoal. Inches from Shane’s head, the charcoal turned to harmless ash and drifted to the ground.

Stunned, both Thantos and Shane now turned to see the twins.

“Are you mad?!” their uncle bellowed. “This loathsome warlock is your enemy as well as mine!”

The moment the tracker’s attention was off him, Shane swooped down and retrieved the sword. His eyes held Cam’s for only a moment. “He’s lying. I have no quarrel with you. Stand back —” he urged, turning to face his outraged enemy again.

“Stop him,” Thantos ordered, his back against the fireplace bricks. “If he succeeds, your legacy, all that I’ve built and safeguarded for you, will be gone — Crailmore, the family fortune, the respect of all —”

Cam could hardly look at Shane. His wounds made her ache as if they were her own. She turned away quickly. “Respect?” she said to her uncle. “You’re feared, not respected.”

He waved his arm, dismissing what she’d said. “Fear brings respect. Haven’t you learned that yet? People
cower before you, beg to do your will. Fear, rage, resentment, envy — when your enemy is filled with these bitter emotions, he becomes weak! Weak as your pathetic friend here. I pass along to you the honor of destroying him.”

Shane’s cold blue eyes never left Thantos’s face, but what he said was meant for Cam and Alex. “You can’t destroy me. You can’t stop me. Death is his fate; killing him is my destiny.” He swung the heavy sword over his head again. “This meeting was scheduled four hundred years ago!”

“This meeting is canceled,” Alex announced. She glared at the sword, willing it to fly from Shane’s hands. But the moment it began to wobble in his grasp, he tightened his grip on it and turned on her.

The sword was shaking too wildly to be directed at anything or anyone. But Shane’s eyes were steady, dark, and focused on Alex. He was trying to cast a spell on her, Cam realized. His lips moved slightly, stealthily, as he began the incantation.

“Watch out!” she warned, stepping in front of her sister.

A cyclone of snow suddenly enveloped her. Had it swirled around Alex, as it was meant to do, the icy funnel would have acted as a thick white veil, breaking her eye contact with the sword.

But heat was Cam’s specialty. She beamed her
powerful eyes in Shane’s direction, hoping she remembered precisely where his hands gripped the vibrating sword.

The whirlwind of snow melted. Cam’s aim had been true. The hilt of Shane’s sword had turned white hot. With a howl of pain, the wounded warlock released it.

At the same moment, Alex’s telekinetic effort succeeded. Instead of falling to the floor, Shane’s sword somersaulted through the air, landing on the broken table.

Not on, exactly.
In
was more like it.

The sword plunged into the thick tabletop — where, wedged deeply in the wood, it vibrated uselessly.

“Excellent!” their uncle exclaimed from the debris-strewn floor. Without getting up, he applauded them slowly and steadily. “I didn’t think you had it in you to be so brilliantly ruthless!”

Opening and closing his hands, testing them to see if they were all right, Shane looked at Cam again, his eyes wide with shock. “I thought you loved me,” he said. “I read it in your eyes, your heart, your thoughts —”

“She does,” Thantos taunted, rising menacingly to his feet. “But they’re fresh from the first day of their Initiation. They’ve been brainwashed by the Council. Now they love everyone, don’t you?” he asked his nieces mockingly.

“We’re pledged to help you, not to love you,” Alex
said, not up for her uncle’s games. “I’d say keeping you from being killed qualifies. As far as I’m concerned, mission accomplished.”

“And you?” Shane asked Cam, moving swiftly to the table where his sword was stuck. “Are you pledged to help him, too?”

“No,” Cam shot back, “I’m supposed to help you —”

“Which she’s already done!” Alex told him. “She just kept you from making the mistake of your life —”

“Destroying the head of the DuBaer dynasty is no mistake!” Shane ranted, trying to loosen the sword. “It’s my duty, my responsibility —”

Thantos’s face lit up with cruel inspiration. “If your duty is to destroy the head of my family, you
have
made a mistake,” he told Shane with malicious glee. “I’m not the one you want. It’s them — my clever little nieces will soon rule the DuBaer dynasty. They, not I, are the rightful targets of your vengeance!”

“How stupid do you think I am?” Shane said, continuing to push and pull at the sword. “No witch, no woman, has ever led your treacherous tribe.”

“Ask them!” Thantos laughed. “They have to tell you the truth. Honesty is one of the virtues they’re being viewed on.”

“Don’t you ever get tired of trickery, Thantos? I’m tired of it, tired of you and your deceit.”

Shane didn’t bother to look at the burly, bearded tracker. All his energy was concentrated on getting the sword out of the table. It was giving way, an inch at a time.

“It’s true, Shane,” Cam said.

Alex tugged at her hand. “Only if we want it to be,” she corrected her sister. “No one can force us to do it.”

“Tired of my trickery?” Thantos said. Shane had ignored the scheming tracker a moment too long. “Then rest!” Thantos shouted, tossing a handful of herbs at the boy. “Only try not to breathe. My private blend is quite capable of withering your lungs. Oh.” The hulking warlock pretended to have just thought of it. “But you must breathe … to live.”

Alex recognized the mingled scents of a toxic combination: foxglove, mandrake root, valerian and … and something else.

“Nightshade,” Cam ventured, recognizing the smell from the
Interactive Coventry Compendium of Scents and Nonsense.

“I forget how gifted you are.” Their evil uncle grinned malevolently. “Yes, some merely poisonous to the touch, others deadly when inhaled. Together, Shane, they should take care of your weariness and give you the rest you crave — permanently.”

Without thinking twice, Alex focused in on the green fragments that had landed on Shane. One by one at first and then in clumps they began to lift off him, drifting off his lips and soot-smeared cheeks and torn vest. They hovered in the air in front of the startled boy — until Cam applied the heat to burn them up.

While Thantos glared at his nieces, Shane coughed and spat, trying to rid himself of any particles of the herbs he might have inhaled. When he was sure he was safe, he turned toward Cam and Alex again.

To thank them, Cam thought.

Wrong,
Alex telegraphed her sister.
I thought you were premonition girl.

For a moment, the boy they’d rescued from death studied them through cold blue eyes. “If it’s true that you will rule, then your uncle is right,” he said at last. “You, not he, are now my prey.” With a final effort, he drew out the sword. “I will fulfill my vow. Abigail Antayus will be avenged.”

“I could have told you this would happen,” Thantos said. He had stepped back. He was leaning against the fireplace again, this time as a delighted spectator stroking his mangled beard. “Be my guest,” he told the agitated boy.

Shane hoisted the heavy sword once more.

Alex rolled her eyes. “Slow learner,” she told Cam.

Cam replied with a shrug and a quote from their high school English class: “‘Those who forget are doomed to repeat.’” The twins’ casual tones belied their sudden fear. Would they really be able to stop Shane?

Clutching their hammered-gold charms, they again turned their talented eyes on Shane and the sword.

Alex concentrated on the weapon, literally bending it to her will. She could do this. She
had
to do this.