This Wicked Game

by Michelle Zink

  Sasha was in the kitchen when Claire entered through the back door.

  “Hey!” Claire rushed over, giving her a hug. She was surprised to feel Sasha—tough, stoic Sasha—shaking. She pulled back to look at her friend. “You okay?”

  Sasha nodded. “I think so. I mean, you know, I’m upset. But nobody was hurt, so that’s good. Everyone’s upstairs. Uncle Bernard sent over his security guys to take a look around.”

  Claire sat down on one of the chairs that faced the eat-in counter. She pulled Sasha into the chair next to her.

  “Did they take anything?” she asked softly.

  “Not that we can see.”

  Claire exhaled, panic building inside her like a wave. “Well, don’t worry. I found the Cold Blood spell.”

  Sasha shook her head. “Are you kidding? Because I’m really not—”

  “I’m not kidding,” Claire stopped her. “And that’s not all. The counterspell was with it.”

  Sasha’s eyes were wide. “Claire . . .”

  “Thank God,” Xander’s voice interrupted their conversation. He came into the room, his face flushed as he looked at Claire. “Don’t you ever check your phone? I’ve been texting you for the last half hour.”

  Claire blinked in surprise. “Um . . . I’ve been a little busy.”

  Xander sighed, stepping closer to her and pulling her against him. “I’m sorry. I was worried. I didn’t want you to ride your bike. I was going to pick you up on my way.”

  “It’s okay. I was in a hurry to get here. I didn’t think to look at my phone once I left the house.” She remembered her conversation with her dad. “Speaking of which, I take it my parents aren’t here yet?”

  Sasha shook her head. “Not that I know of.”

  Claire texted her dad to let him know she’d arrived safely. When she was done, Sasha turned to Xander.

  “She found the Cold Blood spell. And the counter was with it.”

  “Wait . . .” Xander said. “What?”

  Claire pulled the book out of her bag.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Sasha asked reverently.

  Claire nodded, suddenly feeling shy about it. “Yeah.”

  “Can I . . . ?” Sasha reached for it.

  “Sure.” Claire pushed it toward her.

  Sasha turned the pages, skimming the recipes. “I remember when you let me look at this for the first time. What were we? Five?” She laughed. “Your mom got so mad. She snatched it away faster than I could say Devil’s Pod. I’ve been dying for another look ever since.”

  “Well, you can look at it all you want later.” She pulled the book toward her and turned to the back of it. “I had this weird dream last night. I saw a woman, and for some reason, I was sure it was Marie the First. She was writing something in a book. I couldn’t see the words very clearly, but she mixed a potion and spread it over them and the ink just . . . disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?” Xander repeated.

  “Yeah, you know, it just . . . faded right in front of my eyes. So this morning I decided to see if maybe something was hidden in Marie’s old spell book. It took me a while to find an uncloaking recipe, but I finally found it in one of the wartime books. You know the ones with the—”

  “Wait a second,” Sasha said, a smile beginning to turn her mouth up at the corners. “Are you saying that you, Claire Kincaid, unbeliever of all unbelievers, used the craft to get this ink to appear?”

  Claire sighed. “Can we please not make a big deal out of it? Because I have a lot of stuff to tell you.”

  Sasha’s grin made her look more like her usual self than she had since Claire had arrived. “Sure. Go ahead. But we’re not done talking about this.”

  “Whatever,” Claire said, rolling her eyes. “Anyway, I followed the recipe and mixed up the potion. At first, nothing happened, and I thought I got it wrong, but then I came to this.” She opened it to the Cold Blood addendum and its counterspell, half expecting the words to be gone.

  They were right where she left them.

  “What the hell . . . ?” Xander murmured, leaning in closer.

  “It’s the same handwriting as the letters,” Sasha said.

  “I know. Marie wrote them both, I think. Here.” Claire pushed the book toward them. “Read it.”

  They were silent as they lowered their eyes to the paper. Claire tapped her toes nervously against the tile floor until Sasha looked up.

  “Well?” Claire said.

  “Maximilian wants to turn our blood cold?”

  Claire nodded. “The whole spell isn’t there, just the addendum. But I think that’s the entire counterspell.”

  “You can tell a lot about what a recipe requires by its counter,” Sasha murmured. “Some of this stuff is standard, but Asafoetida? That’s just weird. And what’s with the ‘blood given by one true and powerful enough to summon and call the loas to her aid’?”

  “I don’t know,” Claire said. “It’s so vague. I was thinking maybe it means a Houngan or Mambo gives their blood to help perform the spell?”

  “Man . . .” Sasha muttered. “Voodoo was freaky back then.”

  “Well, if that’s what it means, it sounds like you need the blood for both the Cold Blood spell and its counter,” Xander said, studying the page.

  “What makes you say that?”Sasha asked.

  “‘As with the addendum to the original spell, so, too, must the counterspell include it,’” he read. “It’s saying that the ingredient added to the original spell has to be in the counter, too.”

  Claire hadn’t gotten that far, but it made sense. “So to work the counter, you’d have to have the blood of someone powerful enough to use in the spell, too.”

  Xander picked up the book. “If this ties into the letters, Sorina’s the one Marie was talking about when she wrote ‘one among us seeks to work it for evil.’”

  “Right,” Sasha said. “So she made a plea to the loas that the spell be allowed only with blood from someone powerful enough to summon the loas.” She sighed. “Way to be vague, Marie.”

  “Well, she does use the word ‘she’ in the addendum,” Xander said.

  “Maybe Eugenia’s a Mambo?” Sasha suggested. “She could be planning to use her own blood in the spell.”

  Claire shook her head. “I don’t think we should rule out men. For all we know, Marie used ‘she’ as an all-purpose pronoun. I have a feeling Max is way more powerful than Eugenia.”

  Xander nodded. “That would make sense. He’s the one who wants to use the spell against the Guild.”

  “Against us,” Sasha said softly. “As revenge for what happened to Elisabeta.”

  Now that they were connecting the dots, Claire thought of something. “Maximilian had the letters, but they don’t contain the spell. How does he even know what to do if it was such a secret?”

  “There was one other book written by Marie,” Sasha said softly. “Another spell book.”

  Claire thought about the book that had been stolen from the Kincaid store. She’d been just a kid when it had happened and hadn’t given it much thought, hadn’t understood why her father’s face had been ashen, her mother near tears.

  “You think Maximilian stole it,” Claire said softly. “Which would mean he’s been working on this a long time.”

  “It makes sense,” Xander said. “And he wouldn’t have bothered with the other book if it looked like a standard spell primer.”

  “I don’t even know if they were together at the time of the theft. We only put the other book in the safe after the first one was stolen.”

  Sasha was quiet for a minute before she spoke. “Max probably got the letters first. Once he had those, he would know there was such a thing as the Cold Blood spell. Then, all he’d have to do is figure out where the recipe was. And that would have led him back to New Orl
eans.” Sasha looked into Claire’s eyes. “Back to you and your family.”

  “But why would Marie write down such a dangerous spell?” Claire asked.

  “Just because she was a Mambo doesn’t mean she had the memory to hold thousands of spells in her head,” Xander answered.

  They were quiet for a minute before Sasha spoke.

  “Well, at least we have the counterspell. We can work it up and Maximilian won’t be able to do anything to us.”

  “If we’re strong enough,” Claire added. “Plus, what about the other ingredient? The blood given by someone really powerful?”

  “The three of us plus Allegra should be able to counteract one voodoo priest,” Sasha said. “And we can ask Eddie what he thinks about the blood. He’s old-school. He has to know someone powerful enough.”

  “Where are we going to do this?” Xander asked. “Since we don’t have a store on-site, my place is out. We don’t have a work space other than the room upstairs that my mom uses.”

  A couple of guys in suits trailed through the kitchen.

  “Excuse us,” one of them said. Claire recognized him as one of Bernard’s security contingent.

  “I think it’s safe to say my house is out, too,” Sasha said when the men had exited through the back door. “Too much going on. Too many people.”

  “We can use our store,” Claire said. “My parents aren’t even here yet. Your parents will want to fill them in on everything, they’ll talk about it forever, and then my parents will want to stick around to make sure yours are okay. I’d say we have at least a couple of hours, probably more.”

  “Aren’t they expecting you to be here, though?” Sasha asked.

  “I’ll tell them we’re going back to our house to get you away from all the activity here. You can tell your parents the same thing. After everything that happened, it makes perfect sense. We can call Allegra and Eddie on the way.”

  Sasha’s nod was slow as she thought about it. “I’ll go upstairs and tell my mom and dad.”

  Xander pulled his keys out of his pocket. “I’ll drive.”

  “I have my bike,” Claire reminded him.

  “We’ll put it in the back. Sasha should still be able to fit back there if she squeezes.”

  After everything that had happened—everything that was happening—Claire wasn’t about to argue.

  She texted her parents while Sasha was upstairs. When she slipped her phone back into her pocket, Xander took one of her hands.

  “You used a de-cloaking spell.” He said it softly, like he was afraid that if he made a big deal about it he’d scare her off.

  “I guess I did,” she admitted.

  “So . . . what does that mean?” he asked.

  She considered the question, more loaded than it sounded on the surface.

  “I don’t know,” she finally said. “I needed answers. But I haven’t had a chance to really think about it.”

  He nodded, pulling her to him. “That’s okay. We have time.”

  Sasha returned a couple of minutes later. “All set.”

  “I’ll get my bike,” Claire said. “I left it out back.”

  “We’ll pull the car up,” Xander said. “The driveway was packed. I had to park around the block.”

  “Meet you guys out front in a couple of minutes.”

  Sasha and Xander headed for the front of the house while Claire exited through the back. She could hear Bernard’s men talking somewhere to the left of the property, probably searching the grounds for clues about how the intruder had gotten in and out without being seen.

  She headed for the garage, disengaging the kickstand and rolling her bike down the driveway toward the street.

  She couldn’t help being nervous about the counterspell. Working a spell in private on the off chance that it would do some good was one thing. Working it in front of others—people who were more skilled and knew more about the craft—when so much was at stake was a lot scarier.

  And it would all be for nothing if they couldn’t find someone powerful enough to give their blood for the counterspell.

  She stopped at the end of the driveway, looking left and right for Xander’s car. He must have had to park a long ways away. He wasn’t there yet.

  She was reaching into her bag for a piece of gum when she heard his footsteps. “I could have ridden my bike to the—”

  Claire barely had time to register the presence of the man, the one who had followed her to the cemetery on the day of the ball.

  He was within three feet of her when he opened his palm and blew. A fine dusting of powder escaped his hand, drifting across the space between them, coloring the air gray.

  Even as she moved to cover her nose and mouth, she knew she was too late. Some of the craft’s most powerful—and dangerous—potions were distributed as powders. She could already feel the particles clinging to the insides of her nose and throat. Could already feel her head buzzing as the mixture began to work.

  She commanded her feet to move. To run. But nothing was working right. The buzzing in her head was too loud now. Too loud to even hear the commands she was desperately trying to give her body.

  Darkness encroached on the edges of her vision. She lost her hold on the bike, the chrome handlebars, now slick with the sweat from her palms, slipping out of her hands. She only dimly registered its crash to the pavement as she started to fall.

  Strong hands grasped her arm. And then there was nothing.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  There were flashes of consciousness through the darkness.

  Pain in her head as she was shoved into a car.

  The smell of leather.

  A voice talking to someone a few feet away.

  Then nothing. Again.

  And finally, all at once, she was aware.

  She tried to open her eyes. At first, her brain wouldn’t listen. She struggled against the sensation that her eyelids were actually glued shut, the panic that she would never be able to open them again.

  Finally, she opened them a crack, then a little more.

  The room around her was familiar. Not home. Not Xander’s or Sasha’s. But a place she’d been before. She figured it out as soon as her eyes came to a stop on the pictures tacked to the wall.

  Allegra was there. And Laura and Daniel and the Valcour twins and Xander and Sasha.

  All of them with Xs through their image.

  She was in the house on Dauphine.

  Her mind shrieked escape, but when she tried to sit up, an ice pick seemed to pierce her brain and she laid her head back, whimpering.

  When the pain subsided, she realized that her hands were tied to the bedposts.

  Panic bubbled up in her throat. She had no idea if anyone had seen her being taken or if they even knew she was missing. Did the man who knocked her out with the powder take her bike? Or did he leave it on the sidewalk where Xander would see it and know something was wrong?

  If they had taken her bike, how long would it take Xander and Sasha to know she’d been kidnapped—that she hadn’t just misunderstood their plan and started for home?

  The questions came to an abrupt stop when she became aware of voices somewhere in the house. They were a vibration more than a sound, though she was dimly aware that one of them was higher in pitch than the others.

  Breathe, Claire commanded her body, forcing her mind to stop running in circles.

  And then: Think. There has to be a way out of this.

  There has to be.

  She took a few more deep breaths and looked around the room again, this time trying to locate any means of escape. She started with the bedside tables. If there was something sharp enough, maybe she could use her legs to get it to the bed, find a way to free herself from the rope that bound her wrists.

  But they were bare. Not even a lamp stood o
n their surface.

  She scanned the space beyond the bed. If she couldn’t free herself, maybe she could find a way to escape once they tried to move her. They probably wouldn’t keep her on the bed forever, and if they’d wanted to kill her outright, they would have done it already.

  There was Eugenia’s luggage, still against the wall. The bureau, an assortment of cosmetics and perfume bottles barely visible from Claire’s position on the bed. A big mirror in the corner almost identical to one her mother had.

  Could she break it? Use the pieces to fight her way out?

  Maybe, but it would be messy and noisy. A last resort.

  She came to the writing table and had to force her gaze away from the pictures on the wall. They brought forth a fresh batch of panic that served no purpose except to shut down her brain, make her unable to think straight.

  She turned her attention back to the writing table, this time to its surface. A computer cord wound its way up from the floor, but the laptop it belonged to wasn’t there. There was a stack of paper, and on top of it, an assortment of oddly shaped objects she couldn’t quite decipher.

  She lifted her head as much as she could with her hands tied to the bedpost, commanding her eyes to focus.

  When everything finally came into view, she knew exactly what she was seeing. It was what they had expected. What the Cold Blood spell called for.

  The forms were crude, but then appearance wasn’t the point. Claire could make out the base of the shape, a T formed by two sticks with Spanish moss wound around them for shape. Claire was willing to bet each one had hair from the Guild’s firstborns wound together with the moss.

  Each doll was covered in different scraps of cloth—probably articles of clothing taken with the hair during the break-ins. The faces were nondescript, with black buttons for eyes and thread sewn in tiny x’s where the mouths should be. The effect was twisted, a warped version of a child’s toy.

  The sight of them, on the desk and under the wall of photos, paralyzed her. For a minute, she couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t think about fighting or escape or anything at all.