Beguiled

by Darynda Jones

  Gigi sank into the wingback, her expression full of astonishment.

  “Did you just kiss me?” Annette asked, looking up at Roane as her eyes fluttered open like butterfly wings.

  “Annette!” I draped my body over her.

  “Still not a hugger.”

  I straightened. “Annette, are you okay?”

  “I don’t know.” She swung her legs over and sat up. “I think your boyfriend just kissed me. How’s my hair?”

  I took hold of her shoulders and shook her. “Annette, you drank ricin.”

  “Oh, crap. No wonder I have such a hangover. Is that a new kind of wine?”

  “No. Ricin? Castor beans? Deadly?” When she still didn’t snap, I added, “Breaking Bad.”

  The blood drained from her face. “I did crack?”

  “No, hon. The poison Walter White used to kill people.”

  “Oh, crap on a cracker. Am I dying again?”

  I looked at Roane who, in turn, looked at Gigi who, in turn, looked at Serinda.

  Annette’s gaze bounced between us like a ping-pong ball. “I’m dying again, aren’t I?” She stood and started pacing. “This is getting ridiculous. I’ve had enough of poisons and explosions and near-death experiences. Because I have to be honest, guys, I have yet to see a light at the end of a tunnel. Either I’m going in the other direction or I have been lied to my entire life.” She threw her arms wide to demonstrate the scope of how long she’d been lied to.

  I crawled onto the sofa and noticed the glances Gigi and Serinda were tossing back and forth. “Gigi?”

  Roane sat beside me as Serinda sank into the other wingback.

  Then something else hit me. “Wait a minute,” I said, suspicion niggling the back of my mind. I stabbed Annette with a suspicious scowl. “Roane drags you onto the floor then picks you up and puts you on the sofa, and neither of those things wake you, but his kiss does?”

  She shrugged. “It was a good kiss.” When I continued to give her the evil eye, she rolled her eyes. “Can we get back to my imminent death?”

  She did have a point.

  “Surely, she’s not, Georgi,” Serinda said. “How would that even be possible? I mean, there’s just no way. It’s too coincidental.”

  “Do you have another explanation, Serinda?”

  Annette stopped pacing. “Can you guys please share with the rest of the class? Am I dying or not?”

  Gigi stood and braced her hands on Annette’s shoulders, her gaze sparkling with joy when she said to her, “You, my dear, are a charmling.”

  Fifteen

  I wonder how many WTFs today will bring.

  —Meme

  After a solid minute of staring at Gigi like she’d just told us she was going to do magic for her talent in the Miss America pageant, Annette said, “Get the fuck out.”

  “Nannette,” Gigi admonished. That’d teach her. But the faux glower held a visible hint of astonishment.

  Roane and I exchanged glances before Nannette sank onto the coffee table in front of the two older women.

  “Coincidence aside,” Gigi said to Serinda, “how else do you explain the fact that she drank—drank!—both cyanide and ricin and lived to tell the tale?”

  Annette nodded, her gaze expectant as she waited for answers.

  “Not to mention, no side effects.” Serinda swept a hand over Annette. “No stomachache. No headache. I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  “Never?” Annette sagged in defeat.

  “I have,” Gigi said, her gaze intense and thoughtful. That got Serinda’s complete attention—not to mention Annette’s—so Gigi continued. “Think about it, Serinda. How did she get the poisons in the first place?”

  For a moment, Serinda just frowned, then she straightened her shoulders and glanced from Annette to Gigi and back again. “She’s mortiferata.”

  Gigi nodded in wonderment.

  “The alchemist,” Serinda whispered. “Could it be possible, Georgi, that we have not one, but two charmlings in Salem?”

  “It’s the only explanation.”

  A telltale wetness formed between Serinda’s lashes. She bowed her head to Annette. “Sarru.”

  I scrambled onto the coffee table and sat beside my bestie as she stewed in stunned speechlessness. A rare state for her. “Are you saying Annette’s a charmling like me?”

  “She has to be,” Gigi said. “It is absolutely the only explanation.”

  “But… but how?” Goosebumps spread like wildfire over my skin. The implications. The possibilities. “What does this mean?”

  Gigi didn’t answer. She went back to staring at Annette as though she were a science experiment that had produced unexpected yet astounding results.

  Serinda stepped up. “It means several things all at once, Sarru. But first, Annette, has anything strange happened lately?” When Annette bounced out of her stupor and gave the lovely woman sitting across from her the very best deadpan she could muster, Serinda elaborated. “I mean, something like a rush of energy like you’ve never felt before.”

  “Yes!” I patted Annette’s leg in excitement. “Like with me when I came into my powers. Have you felt anything like, oh, I don’t know”—I glanced up in thought—“the burning fires of a thousand suns bursting to flames inside of you?” That was a day I’d never forget. Mostly because Roane helped me into the shower and then joined me as he tried to cool me down. A perplexing contradiction considering the company.

  An audible gasp echoed around us as Annette focused on me. “I thought it was a hot flash. Wait.” She bent her head in thought. “That was only a few days ago. The day you woke up. I thought I was going to be burned alive from the inside out, and then you woke up. Once I learned you’d come out of suspended animation, I just thought, you know, with how wonky your powers were, maybe you accidentally tried to set me on fire when you awakened.”

  “Annette! Why would I do that?”

  “I don’t know. It’s not like anything has been normal since coming to Salem.”

  “Gigi, do you think Nette coming into her powers is what pulled me out of the state of suspended animation?”

  “I do,” Gigi said, nodding. “It makes perfect sense.”

  “Wow.” I elbowed her. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome? Look, I appreciate all of this.” She started pacing again. “I really do, but I am nothing like Defiance. She’s… she’s extraordinary.”

  “Nannette,” Gigi said, her tone full of reproach, despite the teasing use of her nickname.

  “I have to agree. Nannette.”

  “Okay, fine, fine, fine.” She dismissed our reproaches, waving her hands wildly before sitting down again. “Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that I am indeed a charmling and that I can magically make poison or whatever. How? And why? I mean, why me?”

  “Why indeed,” Serinda said.

  Roane spoke up at last. “It means a charmling died.”

  We all turned to look at him. He sat leaning into one corner of the sofa, his expression severe.

  “A charmling has to die for another to take her place. The shift of power created a rift in the vortex, for lack of a better phrase. It’s what shook you awake. But more importantly, someone almost certainly killed her for reasons other than to siphon her powers.”

  “He’s right,” Serinda said. “The power has been hoarded by the warlocks who control the charmlings for centuries. If that charmling is growing weak, another witch is chosen to siphon her powers before the actual point of death. Before the power can be set free and find its way to a blood heir.”

  “And that witch takes the charmling’s place,” Gigi added. “Thus keeping the powers under the warlock’s control.”

  “Which leaves me wondering if the faux charmling who died for me to inherit my powers died nefariously.”

  “Again, I’ve wondered that, too, Defiance. Either way, a charmling had to have died on or around the time of your birth. We knew instantly that you were different. That you h
ad immense power. Far more power than even the strongest blood witch would have. We knew that you were somehow a charmling and that your father was a direct descendant of the original three.”

  “Then how does Annette play into this? What does her coming into power mean?”

  “It means, Defiance, that you two are related. Either cousins or, however unlikely, half sisters.”

  Annette and I turned to each other. “No way,” she said, beaming at me.

  “I knew the minute I saw you we were destined to be friends, but I had no idea we were related.”

  Annette nodded. “Think about it. We’ve always said we were long-lost sisters. Do you think we knew somehow? Deep down?”

  “At this point, I’d say anything is possible.”

  “Who knows?” One corner of Annette’s mouth tipped up. “We could be twins separated at birth.”

  “True, though we look nothing alike. And we have different mothers.”

  “So, fraternal.”

  “I don’t think that’s how the twin thing works.”

  “And I’m pretty sure my dad did not impregnate your mother.”

  Serinda looked at Gigi. “That could mean there is more than one descendant.”

  “Wouldn’t there be?” I asked. “It’s been centuries. There are probably dozens of them.”

  “No.” Gigi stood and went to the bookcase I’d perused a couple of times but hadn’t had the time to delve deeply into. “Remember when I told you we thought the line had died out and that when you were born, it changed everything? There’s a reason we thought that.”

  Serinda clasped her hands in her lap. “When the warlocks figured out how to take control of a charmling’s powers, they had teams of their people research the lineage all the way back to the original three. Then they hunted down and killed all of the heirs, both male and female, in the seventeenth century.”

  “Why?” I asked, horrified.

  “To ensure there were no more blood heirs who could reclaim the power that was rightfully theirs.”

  “You must realize,” Gigi said over her shoulder. “An actual blood heir is said to be a hundred times more powerful than, what do you call them? A faux charmling?”

  I nodded.

  “The heirs have the blood of the originals coursing through their veins. It’s both a conduit for the power and an amplifier. A faux charmling does not have that advantage, which makes them easier to control.”

  “And,” Serinda added, “from what we’ve been told, that’s why they age very rapidly. They only live about five years once they take up the powers.”

  “No warlock alive would allow his charmling to die without having another witch waiting in the wings.”

  “They’re often killed before their time, for that very reason. They don’t want to risk that power slipping away from them in the night.”

  I shook my head. “This is all so barbaric.”

  “I agree,” Gigi said, leafing through a book.

  “You’re missing one salient point,” Roane said, his ire evident in the muscles stretched taut across his jaw. “She’s a charmling. A blood heir who has come into her power, and she’s been walking around unprotected for days.”

  Gigi spun toward us, book in hand. “Oh, Goddess.”

  “Do you think that’s why the hunter is in town?” Roane asked her. “Maybe it has nothing to do with Defiance at all.”

  Gigi walked back and sat down. “It’s not only possible. It’s very likely.”

  “I’m unprotected?” Annette asked. “So that means warlocks can feel me up, right?”

  “They can sense you, yes,” Serinda corrected.

  Annette stood and started to back away. “The hunter is here for me?”

  “Quick, Gigi,” I said, jumping to her aid, “teach her to do the spell like you did me.”

  “Right!” Annette said, pointing at me. “The protection spell. That should do it. But that spell took you days to learn.”

  “And you watched me. You know what to do. Right, Gigi? She just needs to draw the spell?”

  “We’re in new territory,” she warned. “I only knew about you because I’d had three years of experience with you before I had to give you up. I knew how you drew spells on the air. But every charmling is different. Each one has her own… specialized magics, if you will. Her own brand, and—”

  “And each one may do spells differently,” Serinda finished, getting her point. “Have you tried any spells lately, Annette? Just normal spells?”

  She shook her head. “Not since the hot flash. We’ve been a little busy not getting killed. If you don’t know how I do spells, how am I going to camouflage my powers? How am I going to hide from the hunter?” She started to panic. Her chest heaved with each breath and the lights flickered around us.

  I stood and gathered her into my arms. “It’s okay.”

  “Still not a hugger.”

  “I know, but you have to calm down before you blow up the house.”

  My soothing words of encouragement, the ones meant to soothe and encourage, did neither. The lights started flickering even faster, and I could’ve sworn I smelled an acidic smoke filter into the air.

  Roane stood at the ready, prepared for anything. He took a wary step closer to her, to do what, I didn’t know.

  That was when I felt something on the ground. I looked down to see Percy making his way up Annette’s legs. He wound past her hips and up her torso, weaving over her arms.

  I stepped back to give him room.

  “Percy,” she whispered, clasping him to her breast.

  Black roses blossomed all around her, the rich fragrance filling the room and soothing Annette much better than my words had.

  She held out her hand, and a vine curled into it, lacing around her fingers and wrapping around her wrist. A single rose blossomed in her palm, the bloodred undertones vibrant beneath the inky blackness of the petals. She brought it to her nose and inhaled.

  Annette and Percy seemed to have grown really close while I was out. Which was fine by me because the lights stopped flickering, and we had yet to be boiled alive in acid or suffocated with a noxious gas. Win-win.

  “Thank you, Percival,” Annette said. He’d headed off her panic attack.

  She walked to the sofa, and he shrank back. But when she sat down, he slid up the side of the sofa and kept a light hold on her hand.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I just don’t want to be some warlock’s bitch.”

  Roane coughed softly behind a closed fist, fooling no one.

  “You could do it,” Gigi said, glancing at me. She put the book on the coffee table and walked over to me. “You could do at least a temporary protection spell until Annette learns to do it herself.”

  She was right. “Okay, I’ll try.”

  “No,” Annette said. “Do or do not. There is no try.”

  I gave her a thumbs-up. “Thanks, Yoda.” After filling my lungs, I closed my eyes and searched for the protection spell I’d used on myself. I’d only done it a million times before it worked, but it didn’t appear. Like it was blocked somehow.

  Doubling my efforts, I searched harder, trying to remember where I last saw it. Was it behind…? Nope. Was it under…? Nope. I scoured the vast landscape of my very own mystical oasis and came up empty-handed. Then I realized maybe it was a different spell altogether. The one I’d used before was a protection spell for me. This time it would be for someone else. So, instead of searching for the spell, I concentrated on what I needed.

  I raced past protection spells of every sort. Apparently, there were a lot of them. The symbols were a blur, rushing past faster than I could see them, then they stopped, and I found myself standing at a precipice. Beyond it was a shimmering wall of water, and beyond that, suspended in air, were the spells meant only for my sister charmlings. They glittered as though made of gold, glistened as though made of diamonds, each symbol containing as much energy as a supernova.

  And in the very center was the most im
portant one of all: protect.

  I smiled and opened my eyes to an expectant Annette, hope warring with anxiety in her smoky gray irises. I raised my hand, drew the sacred symbol. A dash here. A loop there. When the spell was complete, the lines burst to life, bleeding that same blinding light, but the spell spilled out and washed over her like a wave of glitter before blanketing her and settling over her. Tiny luminous sparks twinkled around her as the spell masked her magics from any who would dare look for them.

  Annette looked on with fascination. She held out a hand as though she could catch one of the sparks.

  I sat beside her. “You really are a charmling, Annette. That spell, it was special. It wouldn’t have worked otherwise.”

  She shook her head. “It was beautiful, Defiance. Thank you.”

  “Unfortunately,” Roane said, raining on our light parade, “I do believe the hunter saw Annette uncloaked.”

  “When we went to eat today,” she said.

  “Yes. If he did, he’ll know who you are either way. And he may have even figured out Defiance’s deep dark secret.”

  I gasped. “How do you know my deep dark secret?”

  “No, honey,” Annette said, patting my hand, “the one about you being a charmling.”

  “Oh, right. Whew.” That was close.

  Annette nodded.

  “This is just so…” I scoffed, not sure what it was. “Crazy. I’ve known Annette since the ninth grade when her family moved to Phoenix. Even the fact that we went to the same high school—there are dozens—is suspect.”

  “And not a coincidence, if you ask me,” Gigi said. “How did you end up in Phoenix?”

  “My dad. He got a job offer, and we moved there from San Diego.”

  Serinda took out her phone. “I’m just making some notes. I think we need to look closer at your life, Annette. And, if you two are up for it, we should have some genetic tests run to see how closely you’re related. We didn’t think a single descendant of the original charmlings survived over the centuries until Defiance was born. And now to know there are two of you.”

  “Is it possible one of my parents has charmling blood and doesn’t know it?”