Thantos saw that the painting had, as intended, commanded the newcomers’ attention. “Do you know who that is?” he asked like a proud professor.
From one of the armchairs facing the fire, a breathless, whiny voice piped up. “I know, I know. It’s Jacob DuBaer.”
Alex instantly recognized the voice. As if to confirm it, her head ached suddenly where, a week ago, one of her uncle Fredo’s violent sons had pulled her hair.
She glanced quickly at Cam and saw by her sister’s horror-stricken expression that she also knew who had spoken.
“No fair, Tsuris,” Thantos’s other seated guest complained. “Uncle Thantos gave you the answer.”
It was Vey, the chunky monkey who had assaulted Cam in Salem Woods … and then brought Karsh down…. Shaking with fury, Cam tried to control herself, to replace rage with reason. Shutting her eyes, she sensed Ileana stiffen beside her.
Instinctively, protectively, Cam took the alarmed witch’s hand while Alex’s fingers curled into fists as Karsh’s killers stood leering gleefully. Alex erupted, “What are they doing here? They’re murderers! How could you allow them to be here? They should be behind bars, in jail with their father!”
“Hey,” said Tsuris, his twisted smile as cold as his ice-blue eyes.
“Yo, what’s up?” the fireplug-shaped Vey giggled.
“I believe everyone is already acquainted,” Thantos said, ignoring Alex, “except for Miranda.”
Her smile suddenly frozen in place, Miranda stared at the odd couple, unnerved by their taunting, malicious tone.
“Miranda, meet your nephews, Tsuris and Vey, Fredo’s sons. It occurred to me that our family reunion would be woefully incomplete without them.”
Miranda wheeled to face Alex, understanding dawning on her. “They killed Karsh? Thantos said Lord Karsh’s death was accidental.”
Thantos raised his eyebrows in mock innocence. “It was. The poor boys inadvertently, purely by accident, totally unintentionally —”
“Murdered Karsh!” Ileana cut in.
“Oooo, she’s still upset,” Vey loudly confided to his brother.
“Well, wouldn’t you be if you were, like, this big-deal witch who had a sudden power outage? Like, poof! No more magick?” Tsuris snorted.
“Gentlemen.” Thantos stepped between his nephews and the women. “Please don’t forget that tonight is a very special occasion. It is the first time that all living DuBaers, except for your father —”
“Who’s in jail because of her.” Vey glared at Ileana.
Thantos’s smile wavered, his dark eyes flashed threateningly at Vey, who instantly — by choice or his uncle’s dangerous will — fell back against his chair. “It’s true that Ileana has not been the most devoted of DuBaers, but then again, she wasn’t reared knowing her loyalties as you boys were,” Thantos ventured charitably. “However, as my brother’s widow has convinced me, it is time to welcome her home. She and Aron’s children and you, Fredo’s sons, are all that is left of our regal dynasty.”
The servant boy returned with a tray of iced tea. Thantos took the first glass and, when everyone else was holding one, he lifted his to the bulky little man in the portrait. “To our heroic patriarch, Jacob DuBaer, the generous, good-hearted country doctor who saved dozens of witches and warlocks from persecution during the Salem Madness!”
All in the room politely raised their glasses, except for Ileana, who tossed hers into the fire, where it loudly shattered.
The others stared at her.
“I’ll never drink to Jacob DuBaer,” Ileana declared, “the jealous, lying wretch who hid his own warlock identity and sent Abigail Antayus, and who knows how many other good witches, to the gallows. Jacob DuBaer a hero? Ha! He was the dangerous madman who orphaned Abigail’s children and instigated generations of needless bloodshed!”
In a final frantic gesture of disgust, Ileana snatched off the diamond earrings Thantos had given Beatrice and threw them at his feet.
Two people in the room knew what Ileana was ranting about.
Miranda understood a little. But this was not the moment, she decided, to get into it.
Thantos understood a little more. So, his reckless, arrogant daughter had unearthed a bit of DuBaer history. How? he wondered. It didn’t matter. He’d have to disabuse her and her audience now — before she said too much.
A bell rang. Thantos’s hapless servant cleared his throat. Still, his voice squeaked and quivered as he announced, “Dinner is served.”
The fierce tracker took a deep breath and, with effort, found his hosting voice again and took Miranda’s arm. “Let’s eat, then,” he said. Then, setting a foot down firmly on the precious stones, he turned his back on his audacious offspring and ground his wife’s earrings into the cold, stone floor.
The dining room was a hub of hushed activity; serving people came and went, carrying baskets of bread, covered silver trays, and several platters simmering with delectable fare.
Grains and meats and greens of every description were deposited on a banquet table big enough to hold a massive floral arrangement and three very large candelabras.
Thantos clapped his hands and the flow of servants ebbed. Noiselessly, young witches and warlocks and a few elderly staffers set down their dishes and backed out of the room. Crailmore’s guests circled the long table looking at the place cards that had been laid out — and which suited no one.
Miranda was seated opposite Thantos at the far end of the table; her nephews had been placed on either side of her, while her daughters were several feet away, flanking their uncle. Ileana sat midway down the long board, with Alex on her left and the treacherous Vey at her right.
Alex considered using her telekinetic skill to shuffle the place cards. But Miranda pleaded with her thoughts and eyes to leave things as they were. For the sake of family harmony, she proposed.
“There will be no disruptions at my table.”
Thantos let it be known, like the Wizard of Oz, Cam thought — underwhelmed — that he knew, saw, and heard all. He was smiling again, back in his good-guy, great-leader mode.
Scramble the Oz image, Alex warned, guessing that four of the six other guests at the table would know exactly what Cam had T-mailed her twin. This is so not a safe communication zone.
Well, duh, Ileana sent back mischievously.
Cam and Miranda giggled. Thantos did not. And Tsuris and Vey glared around the table knowing they’d been left out, but not out of what.
Miranda, with her honed sense of fairness, sought to include them. “How is your mother?” she asked. “It’s been a very long time since I saw her. You were just babies —”
“Vey was the baby,” Tsuris sullenly accused. “I was hardly even born when Ahma moved back to California.”
“Ahma?” Ileana said without thinking. “Isn’t your mother’s name Coco?”
Tsuris blushed furiously, but his thrust-forward jaw and evil squint made him look more menacing than embarrassed.
“He couldn’t talk good when he was little,” Vey gleefully explained. “He couldn’t even say mama right. So he called her Ahma. How dumb is that, huh? Now we both do it.”
“She doesn’t like you, anyway,” Tsuris told Miranda. “Ahma says all the DuBaers were either stuck-up or stupid. She thought you were stuck-up —”
“Yeah, and Papa was stupid,” Vey added helpfully.
“How proud she must be that your father’s genes are dominant in both of you nitwits,” Alex said. To Cam she telegraphed, It’s raining idiots.
“Huh? Gene who? What are you talking about?” Vey asked, perplexed.
“We’d tell you, but we don’t speak Moron,” Cam finished him off.
But Miranda gave her a small shake of the head. “Coco wasn’t a witch,” she explained to her daughters. “She found us … difficult to understand. I hope she’s well,” she said to Tsuris and Vey.
They shrugged in unison. “She didn’t want us to come here,” Vey muttered, “but Daddy did.�
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“You should always obey your mother,” Cam dryly advised.
“Pops said he needed us,” her cousin continued, “to, you know, get even.”
“How DuBaer,” Ileana murmured. “Vengefulness runs in our veins.”
“It is not a trait exclusive to the DuBaers, Ileana,” Thantos said, helping himself to a chop. “Your mother’s family, the Antayus clan, was infamous for exacting revenge.”
A bit defensively, Miranda said, “Surely not all Antayuses are dangerous?”
“Yeah, but she is,” Tsuris whined again. “We were at the trial. We saw.”
“What of Lord Karsh?” Miranda proposed. “The gentlest warlock to ever live.”
“Who just happened to be murdered,” Ileana sneered, “by your honored guests.”
“Chickens coming home to roost,” Thantos snapped, instantly seeing an opportunity to put his spin-control plan into action. Whatever Ileana thought she knew about their family history, he was about to change.
“I don’t get it,” Vey admitted.
“It’s simple, really, and ironic and fitting,” Thantos went on. “Did you know that Karsh, the old tracker you killed, was the very warlock who murdered your grandfather Nathan?”
Cam and Alex were bewildered but unable to get a word in.
“It was an accident!” Ileana shouted, banging her fist on the table, “Karsh was trying to save Nathaniel.”
Thantos continued without acknowledging his daughter. “Oh, yes. Diabolically clever was good Karsh. First he befriended my father. Through wiles and witchcraft he convinced Nathaniel of his sincerity and friendship. But once my father was off guard, Karsh lured him down into the caves.”
“It was your idea,” Ileana contradicted. “You wanted to explore them.”
Thantos shook his head as if he were truly saddened by Ileana’s lunacy. Turning back to his other guests, he resumed. “It was well known that evildoers, maniacs, dwelled in the dark grottoes of the caves. And few knew that better than Ileana’s devious guardian. Karsh himself had brought food and blankets and healing herbs to the demented scum who hid underground. So he knew what perils awaited my father there. But it was not a pitiful maniac who murdered Nathaniel DuBaer. It was the man who called himself my father’s best friend.”
“They were best friends.” Ileana’s voice rose dangerously. “Karsh loved Nathaniel and was loved by him in return —”
Thantos ignored her completely. “And when he emerged carrying my father’s shattered body, the old trickster claimed that he had tried to save Nathaniel from the sword of a madman. But it was Karsh himself who crushed my father’s skull. He was Antayus through and through, sworn to bring down the house of DuBaer.”
“Lies and distortions!” Ileana could not contain herself and sprang up from the table.
“Of course your hotheaded guardian would say that.” Thantos smiled benignly at his nieces. “Since she herself is Antayus … and sworn to do harm to our kind.”
Shocked and dumbstruck, Cam and Alex had followed the exchange like spectators at a tennis match. Only they had no idea who had the advantage or even what game was really being played. There was some kind of ancient feud between Karsh’s clan and their own?
Now both looked at Ileana. She was crimson; tears of frustration were gathering in her beautiful gray eyes.
Miranda was upset, though Alex intuited that her birth mother knew something of this.
Thantos said sorrowfully, “Alas,” turning to his open-mouthed nephews, “you are the next generation of DuBaer sons.”
“So?” Tsuris demanded.
“So Ileana’s gonna try to kill us,” Vey explained blithely. “Fat chance. Yo, bro, pass the salt,” he ordered, stifling a laugh.
Snickering, his brother plucked up the heavy pewter saltshaker and hurled it across the table, missing Ileana’s cheek by inches. The shocked witch ducked just in time.
“Aw, you missed,” Vey grumbled.
“Boys, boys,” Thantos scolded with fatherly indulgence.
“Boys?” Cam exclaimed angrily. “They’re animals!”
“Amphibians?” Alex slyly suggested.
“Swamp meat,” Cam agreed. “Do you remember how it goes?”
“The beginning, yeah,” Alex said, holding her moon charm. “Good magick that lights the night,” she recited. “Um, moon and stars that make the sky bright.”
Clutching her sun amulet, Cam chimed in, “Take this creature as we request; turn it into —”
“How dare you!” Thantos thumped the table with his fist. Everyone jumped. But Vey jumped farthest of all. His webbed feet hit the floor with a sucking splat.
“Look what you did!” Tsuris shrilled, staring at his brother, who was Vey from the waist up, green and frog-legged below, and hopping frantically around the dining room.
“Now he looks like what he is: a half-brained half-toad. Let’s finish,” Alex said to Cam.
“You will do no such thing! Not while I’m the head of this family.” Thantos pushed back his chair and stood abruptly, towering over them. “Is this what your guardian taught you?” he demanded, leaning forward, his face a picture of unmasked hatred. “To show off at my table, to shamelessly flex your fledgling magick in my face? Undo the spell at once. This is my house. Do you dare challenge me? I am the rightful head of this family. No girl child will ever unseat me. No matter what that murdering old warlock may have told you, I am the just heir to the DuBaer dynasty.”
Now Miranda stood. “Stop it!” she shouted. Then, seemingly appalled at her outburst, she breathed deeply and moderated her voice. “Thantos, you have been kind to me all these years. And the kindest thing you have ever done is to reunite me with my daughters. I will be forever grateful to you. But now it is my place to discipline them … if I believe they need it.”
“Undo the spell!” Thantos commanded, ignoring her.
Miranda sat back down, looking stunned and angry. Ileana hurried to her and laid an arm over her shoulder.
The twins turned toward their mother and their guardian, both of whom had less power over their uncle right now than they did.
Only if you want us to, Cam telegraphed the women.
For the sake of family harmony, Alex teased.
Their mother looked up at Ileana, grasping the younger witch’s comforting hand. Ileana nodded her consent.
“Undo the spell,” Miranda gently told her children.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE TRAP
Cam and Alex spent a mostly sleepless night, their last on Coventry. In the afternoon, they’d journey back to the mainland. The night air, oppressively muggy, and the still strange sounds of the forest filtered in through the screen of Ileana’s open bedroom window. But the twins’ restlessness had little to do with humidity or creepy woodland noises.
Their stomachs were churning from dinner — the food and the fiasco. They’d learned too much about their regal family. And not nearly enough.
Now Alex wasn’t sure she wanted to leave. She didn’t feel ready. Oh, her bag was packed — compliments of compulsive Cam — and they had return reservations on the three P.M. ferry, but …
Alex thought suddenly of Evan, her Montana homey, going, “Yo, Als, don’t sweat it. It’s natural you want to stay. These are your peeps, dude. This is your ’hood.” The idea made her laugh aloud, rankling Cam, who kicked her in the darkness.
So why was she sweating it?
Miranda, Ileana, even the psycho uncle and retard cousins — for better or worse, they were her peeps. Her blood.
Coventry was her birthplace, the final resting place of her father, her grandparents, and beloved Karsh. One day, it might be hers, too. Although she’d been taken from here when she was barely a day old, reared until she was fourteen in Crow Creek, Montana, and then been welcomed into Cam’s family in Marble Bay, Massachusetts, this strange little island was her ’hood.
Exiting it now would be like leaving a really cool jigsaw puzzle unfinished. In this sh
ort, sad visit, an important picture had begun to form, but Alex couldn’t make out the details yet. Her personal list of missing pieces, or “stuff she didn’t get,” was topped by last night’s bizarre revelation.
There was some weird clan war going on. Thantos, Ileana, and even Miranda were in on this family secret — but disagreed violently on the details. She and Cam had not been looped in on any of this, not even by Karsh. Worst was Thantos’s words ringing in her ears: “Ileana herself is Antayus … and sworn to do harm to our kind.”
What was that about? No way would Ileana ever hurt them. She might cast a vengeful spell on Tsuris and Vey, but hey — they started it! They’d tried to kill her! And Thantos, Ileana’s own father, had been egging the fried-brain boys on. You didn’t need Cam’s super-sight to see the hulking unc for what he was: rotten to the core.
But what was Shane’s agenda? And The Furies, who fascinated and repelled her. Alex needed to understand them, so she could know how to fight them.
She flipped over and buried her head in the pillow.
There is time still. By morning’s light, roam the island. Alone. Then understanding will come to you and only you, Artemis.
Alex’s eyes flew open. She rolled over, inducing a monster sigh of annoyance from Cam. For a split second, she was back in the trailer in Montana. This time, the voice she heard wasn’t Evan’s. Nor was it Karsh’s. This voice was female. But whose? Ileana’s? Miranda’s?
She blinked. By morning’s light … The ferry wasn’t coming for several hours. Someone capable of breaking into her head had urged her to keep searching. By herself.
Soon after dawn, alone, Alex headed into the woods.
Cam was annoyed. Wired, edgy, irritated. More so because she shouldn’t have been. The safety and comfort of Marble Bay, of Dave, Emily, her brother, Dylan, her friends, was less than twenty-four hours away. Once home, she could let all this, Coventry, its colorful characters and creepy warnings, fade into the background, where — for now, anyway — it belonged. She was only fifteen, she reminded herself. Didn’t she deserve a few more “normal” years before having to deal?
T*Witches: Kindred Spirits Page 10