by Norah Wilson
Well, that appeared to answer that. No reaction. Which meant Brooke was the only one with red eyes. Maryanne prayed Alex wouldn’t point it out. Brooke was getting downright fatalistic about getting back to their bodies. Sometimes Maryanne thought she didn’t want to. Or maybe she thought she didn’t deserve to.
“We can’t stay here,” Alex said. “The walls might be concrete, but the ceiling,” she pointed up at the beams, “is wood. Unless the volunteer fire department gets out here in time to put the fire out, it’ll burn through. And then all that crap they put on the roof will rain down on us.”
“Not to mention the spikes from the collapsing walls,” Maryanne added.
“What will we do?” Brooke asked, turning to survey the small room.
“We get out,” Alex announced grimly. “And I know how we’re going to do it.”
Brooke spun around. “How?”
“The same way I searched for Connie’s grave. The same way I found it.”
“Oh no,” Maryanne cried. She remembered all too well.
Alex had gone through the ground, through the dirt basement of Harvell House to find Connie’s body. There’d been the terrible risk of getting trapped down there if she encountered any significant iron, but at least Maryanne and Brooke had been above, ready to rescue her, to dig her cast up, if necessary.
“We could all get trapped there,” Brooke protested. “In the freakin’ graveyard!”
“We’re trapped now!” Alex shouted. “It’s the only way we can get out and not be seen! Through the ground, up through the fog. We—”
Flames roared above them. There was heavy, tearing rumble as something gave way and came crashing down. Maryanne cringed automatically as if the whole building would crash into the little vault. “Just get us the hell out of here!”
“This way.” Alex moved to her left as she oriented herself.
“Are you sure?” Maryanne asked.
“As I can be.”
Brooke said, “Hold hands. We’ll make a chain. If one of us encounters iron, the other two can hold her back, pull her back!” She grabbed Maryanne’s right hand. Alex moved around Brooke purposefully, and grabbed Maryanne’s left. Brooke and Alex exchanged a subtle nod.
They were flanking her.
Maryanne could have cried. Her casting sisters knew her so well.
It was true that fear was put aside when they cast out, but only to a certain extent. Never completely. And Maryanne’s biggest fear? That her parents would lose another child so soon after losing Jason. That they would be rendered childless. She just couldn’t let that happen to them. Brooke and Alex seemed pretty determined to prevent it, too.
Back in the cave, Maryanne’s hand tightened where it had previously fallen—around the hagstone, the gift from Vesta Walker.
Mine! She ran a thumb over the smooth stone.
In the basement of the church out on Robinson Road, Maryanne squeezed her sisters’ hands, and they moved through the concrete wall of the vault into the graveyard beyond.
Steady and tight.
Steady and tight.
Ashes to ashes…
Chapter 23
Ascent into Hell
Alex
Worms and bugs scattered before them. They slid or skittered away as the three casters moved forward, keeping a pulsing rhythm with their squeezing hands.
Alex had started the hand signals as soon as she’d thought of it, practically the moment the three of them moved into the earth at the back of the church, headed toward the graveyard. Too late to tell them without hauling them back inside the vault, but not too late to act. She knew they’d catch on.
They did.
Squeeze-pause-one-two-three. Squeeze again, pause-one-two-three.
Maryanne had squeezed back right away, and Alex knew she was following the same pattern on the other side with Brooke. Now, if one of them ran into iron, the others would know by the pattern faltering, and then they would pull her back from it.
Alex stopped to orient herself.
Squeeze-pause-one-two-three. Squeeze-pause-one-two-three.
“This way.” She moved in a north-east direction.
Alex knew the others couldn’t hear her, but her words were for herself, not for them. God, she hoped she was right. That she was leading them into the cover of the old graveyard with its blanket of fog, rather than in a different direction. Like right under the hunters. That would be all they’d need, to pop up beside Melissa Kosnick.
Get one alive! I have an iron collar!
And Alex had to move not only in the right direction from the church, but also keep them far enough underground so that they didn’t inadvertently surface any part of themselves before they were safe. The only way to measure how deep they were, or weren’t, was to grab for some sort of marker.
Like the graves, six feet under.
Oh God!
She moved forward, keeping up the hand squeezing rhythm.
Then she squeezed a hell of a lot harder when she came across some bones. Ancient bones, the bodies practically mummified by time. As had happened when Alex had brushed against Connie’s bones buried in the basement of Harvell House, she got an impression. She’d felt the pain and anger condensed right into Connie’s bones, and she’d known with complete certainty that she’d been alive when they’d buried her.
And now, as she brushed past these bones, she knew they belonged to a young bride who’d arrived from County Donegal, Ireland, just weeks before she died. But unlike Connie’s bones, these ones were at peace, that soul, at peace. Radha—that had been her name—had longed for her mother as she’d lay dying, never knowing until she was very near the end and saw for herself that her mother had died just days before, back in Ireland.
But there were other bones in the graveyard. Bones of those who’d taken their grudges with them when they died. Taken their hate. Or their heartbreak. She pushed beside a bodyless skull. Oh God! The head of a boy who’d been mutilated, murdered, and tossed into an open grave. The anger and confusion from the child had a powerful pulse of its own.
There was an urgent tug at her hand. Maryanne was starting to pull her sideways.
Crap! She’d fallen out of the rhythm!
She tugged back and rectified the misunderstanding. Squeeze-pause-one-two-three.
Maryanne responded with a harder squeeze than needed. Squeeze-pause-one-two-three.
She got it—pay attention.
Alex moved around more bones as she made her way through the unresisting earth. Then past another, and another—oh, a child no more than six years old! Alex was glad Maryanne wasn’t brushing against this one. Yes, she’d made peace with her little brother’s death, and with Jason himself. Yet, by the occasional pause or break in the hand pattern she felt from her, Alex knew Maryanne was encountering her own share of the bones of the dead.
The worst part was they had to keep going.
Tree roots. Oak. Large ones, wrapped around, through, and over a rotten coffin. An oak tree? She’d only seen two in the cemetery earlier. So if she was feeling that, Alex knew they had to be at least half-way into the cemetery.
That meant—oh God, she hoped it meant—that it was safe to rise. That they were in far enough among the gravestones. Surely the mist still shrouded the cemetery. Unless the heat of the fire had dissipated it? But in that case, there would be drifting smoke to obscure the grounds. With any luck, no hunters would be there.
They’d be sorry if they were…
Alex stopped completely. She gave Maryanne’s hand a hard, prolonged squeeze, then an upward tug. Slowly, she started pulling up on that hand as she began to rise through the cold earth. Maryanne understood. She began rising too. Brooke was smart; Alex knew she’d have gotten the message on Maryanne’s other side and would be starting the ascent as well.
Alex pushed back her head, like a swimmer breaking water, looking to get her nose and mouth out first. Not that she was drowning under the earth. The claustrophobia had been controllable
. But naturally, spontaneously, she angled her head as she rose out of the ground. A quick glance to the side revealed Maryanne and Brooke doing the same as they broke through the surface. And thank God, the mist was still hanging around. The hunters were gathered around the church, watching the conflagration and celebrating.
Iron! Alex wasn’t touching it, but she felt the pulling drain of it near her left shoulder. At the last second, she moved sideways. How close had they been to being trapped down there?
“We made it,” Brooke said. Her words came out on an exhale, as if she’d been holding her breath underground. Not that she would need to, but Alex understood the sentiment.
They rose into the air, each of them flattening into a horizontal position so as to be able to hover within the mist. They let go of each other’s hands. Brooke was right. They’d done it. They’d escaped the fire and the hunters, unbeknownst to those who now whooped and hollered their victory in front of the burning building.
“Did…did you feel their bones?” Brooke’s voice trembled. “Feel what came from their bones?” She was turned toward Maryanne, which was no surprise to Alex.
Maryanne nodded but said nothing.
Brooke didn’t give her the chance.
“Me too! I moved through the bones of this woman. Damn it, she was practically laughing when she died. Not in a hysterical, losing-it way, but…” Brooke shook her head. “It was just so strange.”
If that was all Brooke had encountered, she was damn lucky.
Oh hell, they all were damn lucky to have made it out of there alive. To have known what to do. To have dared fall down.
Shouts continued around the burning building. “Bitches. Whores. She-devils!”
Again, again, again.
Alex grew more and more pissed at those who danced and cheered at the thought of the Hellers burning.
“Now what?” Maryanne said, and there was challenge rising in her voice.
There was no immediate answer. Only the sound of distant sirens filling the air, getting closer.
Two fire trucks rolled onto the scene, lights flashing, sirens silencing as they drew up to the burning building. A handful of men jumped out of each truck, and within seconds the small church was being doused with water.
Alex counted the hunters as they stood there watching. There were six of them.
Hands in pockets, looking like they didn’t have a care in the world and had just happened upon the scene, they stood back to let the firefighters do their job. If any of them worried they might face a charge of arson, none of them showed it.
“That’s John Smith.” Brooke pointed him out. “That prick!”
Smith was walking around the burning building, too closely evidently, because one of the firemen waved him back with a warning. Smith ignored him. Well, until the building looked as though it really was about to fall. Then he finally moved away from the flames.
Alex pointed at Melissa. “What’s in Melissa’s hand?” Just then the girl turned, her silhouette dark and practically dancing against the backdrop of racing flames.
“That’s her iron collar,” Maryanne answered. “And it—oh God!”
She didn’t say it. Maybe she didn’t see it. But Alex saw the spikes that rimmed the inside of that collar. Just like Brooke had seen months ago, drawn on paper when she’d snooped through Bryce’s bedroom. She’d told Alex and Maryanne all about it.
“Where’s Bryce?” Maryanne asked anxiously.
They all scanned the area. He wasn’t there. Alex could practically feel the relief vibrating off of Maryanne. Yet Melissa had to have gotten the spiked collar idea from somewhere.
Hadn’t she?
Or had Melissa’s mind taken the same diabolical twist that once had such a hold on Ira Walker?
“It looks just like the flames from the stained glass in the vault,” Maryanne said. “Oh God, the flames—”
“Flames without iron can’t hurt us, Maryanne,” Alex said.
She nodded. “Of course. You’re right. Hot iron can burn, but fire—we could walk right through it. Do they know that?”
Brooke laughed out loud in frightening way. “They call us devils, but they’re the ones—always the ones—who set the fires to burn us.”
Yes. They were. Yes, they had.
Alex held perfectly still. She watched. Mist rose from the graveyard around the three as if to cradle them now. The moon, which had been hidden earlier under the cover of clouds, shone down on them.
Alex’s anger tightened within her. As it tightened, it felt as though it would boil over. Erupt. And God help her, she did not want to tamp that feeling down. The hunters were trying to hurt her and her sisters. More than that. They were trying to take everything from them. Their lives, their souls. Their spirits. They were trying to destroy them.
Just like C.W. had tried to destroy her when he’d raped her. Called her a whore and left her half-naked in that attic. Just like—
“Burn, you bitches!” A staggering man wrapped an arm around Melissa as he hollered at the burning building. He was obviously drunk and he held a bottle up to the flames as if in a toast. Melissa laughed.
“They don’t know we escaped,” Brooke said. “Good.”
“Who’s that man with Melissa?” Maryanne asked.
“Cal Kosnick. Melissa’s father.”
As if on cue, he howled, then hollered again for the Hellers to burn.
Another man stepped over to where Melissa and Cal stood. Alex watched his hunched, frail silhouette. Watched him raise a fist and a bottle of his own up to the flames.
Then she heard him holler. “Burn, you whores of hell!”
That did it.
Alex shot toward the old man; Maryanne, then Brooke were right behind her.
Melissa saw them first. She pushed her father down and dived out of the way. Cal Kosnick cowered in a fetal position, but Melissa, collar in hand, sprang back up to her feet. She ducked when Brooke swooped her, but recovered quickly enough to swing the collar by its short chain after them.
“Missed!” Brooke shouted, even though the assembled people couldn’t hear her. She and Maryanne both laughed.
Alex glanced the other hunters as she flew over their heads.
John Smith sat on the ground as if he’d been knocked flat on his ass. His terrified eyes were round as saucers as he stared up at the casters. His hands were open and out, waving frantically, as if warding them off.
Two other men were on the ground. One, with a dark stain on his trousers where he’d pissed himself, lay on his back, shaking with fright. Another was cowered beside him, almost curling up into him. They looked too much like Cal Kosnick to be anyone other than his brothers. The firefighters didn’t fare much better. Abandoned hoses writhed and snaked on the ground with the water pressure running through them. The firefighters curled on the ground as well, bravado gone.
All stared up in terror as Alex, Brooke, and Maryanne flew toward the still-burning church and down into the fire.
“No pain,” Maryanne said. “Nothing!”
“No iron!” cried Brooke.
They flew out of the fire again, to hover in the air with the backdrop of flames behind them.
Alex laughed. They were the stained glass portrait come to life! Now they were those powerful casters. But they weren’t running from the flames, they were standing in front of them. Powerful in the night. Made more powerful still by their defeat of the flames lit to destroy them, at least in the hunters’ eyes.
And in Alex’s own.
They were the broken thorns; those who would hurt them so!
Bitches! Whores! The insults hurled just moments ago reverberated through Alex’s brain. She stared at the one who’d called them that. Then she pointed at the quivering man and streaked toward him. Maryanne was right behind her. Brooke followed like an arrow shot from a cross-bow.
“He called us whores!” Alex snarled. “That was his mistake.”
“Swoop him!” Maryanne called, her words urg
ent, her laughter near maniacal. “Let’s swoop them all.”
Alex glanced back at her briefly. “Let’s do more.”
Alex and Maryanne flew down at the old man. The few around him scattered, except for Melissa who, with a berserker-like roar, swung the spiked collar again. But as Alex and Maryanne charged the tormentor, Brooke went for Melissa. Feet first, she slammed into her from behind, catching her off guard and sending her sprawling on the ground. The collar flew from her hand, skittered out of reach, but the instant she hit the ground Melissa turned with a vicious kick.
It caught Brooke in the chest, Alex saw that much. She also saw it wasn’t enough to disable Brooke, or slow down her retreat.
“Now?” Maryanne asked.
“Now!” Alex answered.
Alex grabbed the old man under his right shoulder. Maryanne grabbed hold under his left and they lifted him off the ground. He was small, frail, nothing! And they lifted him with little effort. He dangled in the air, helpless. They carried him over the fire. His eyes rolled back in his head. His teeth chattered. All the blood drained from his face. They’d lifted him over the worst of the soaring heat, over the flames, but not over the fear of them.
Alex was hissing the words she spoke, and though she knew the old man couldn’t hear her, that didn’t stop her. “You thought you could break us, didn’t you? Whores? That’s what you called us! How dare you!”
She shook him. Maryanne did the same, but only for a moment. Alex’s tormenting lasted much longer.
The old man cried as he dangled there above the fire. “You’re hurting me!”
“Like you hurt me?” Alex’s words were familiar. “Like you left me on the attic floor after you—”
“Alex!” Brooke was beside her now, shouting at her. “This isn’t C.W.! It’s a drunk old man who called—”
“He’s one of them.” Alex’s anger flared to a level that scared even her as she ground out the words. Yet, as scary as it was, oh it was goddamn glorious!
“Put him down,” Brooke commanded. “On the ground! Not on the flames!”
Since when did she become the den mother?
Alex argued, “He called us whores! He tried to burn us to hell!”