by Brian Harmon
“You have to concentrate past it,” said Delphinium. “I see her, too. She was the most difficult of the three. You were there. You saw her body. We were so close to saving her… But now isn’t the time to dwell on it. When the magic man is defeated we’ll have time to mourn them properly.”
The steam was rising faster now. Bubbles were already beginning to form inside the bowl. The candles were burning brighter. The process definitely seemed to go faster with more witches at the table.
Eric glanced at Shondra again and saw that she’d noticed this, too. Her eyes were sweeping across the table, taking it all in. She looked a little afraid.
“What is that?” asked Alicia.
“It’s Eric,” replied Holly.
Eric looked around, surprised.
Alicia shook her head. “No. The…”
“It’s Eric,” Holly said again.
“We saw that before,” recalled Poppy. “Something inside him.”
He recalled something like this being said the first time he sat through this process. He’d been so busy tonight, he hadn’t had time to consider it. What was it Holly had said? There was something shiny inside him?
“Something really special,” observed Alicia.
“He’s a very special man,” said Delphinium. “It’s why he’s here. It’s why the spell pointed me to him.”
Eric shifted in his seat, feeling uncomfortable again.
“He’s still standing between us and him,” said Holly. “Like a shield.”
“He’s awesome…” sighed Alicia.
He ran his hand through his hair and glanced around. The witches were all focused on the bowl, but Shondra was staring at him now, as if trying to understand what in the world they were talking about. He didn’t blame her. He certainly didn’t look very awesome.
Bubbles were rising to the surface now.
Eric peered into the water, trying to catch a glimpse of what the witches were seeing, but all he could see was hot water and the bottom of the bowl.
Delphinium let out a shaky breath beside him and he glanced over at her. She looked pained.
“Oh hell…” breathed Cierra.
Eric leaned forward to see what was going on, but of course there was still nothing there but lightly boiling water in a big, stainless steel bowl, exactly as it had looked a few seconds ago. He only managed to make himself feel silly.
“Is that this house?” asked Charlotte.
Delphinium nodded. “In flames. Just like…”
“Just like before,” Cierra finished for her. “It’s going to happen all over again. Except this time he’ll kill all of us.”
“Not necessarily,” said Holly, but she didn’t sound very confident. “We still have Eric.”
“Death. Pain. Heartache,” said Poppy. “Every time…”
“But is there another way?” asked Delphinium. “Can we win?”
Several of the girls gasped.
“What the hell was that?” asked Cierra.
“It’s him,” said Delphinium. “The magic man. He’s pushing back. That was a hard one.”
“Felt like an electric shock right in my heart,” said Alicia.
Delphinium leaned forward. “Concentrate. We’re strong enough to push past him. Go deeper.”
More minutes passed in silence.
The water in the bowl continued to grow hotter, boiling faster and faster. The candles flared higher. The wax began to drip down the sides. Soon, they’d burn away and be gone.
Shondra was watching all this with wide, frightened eyes.
Siena looked fascinated.
Everyone remained silent.
As the water reached a rolling boil, Eric found himself staring into the bowl again. It was strange how calming it was to watch it.
Not what it seemed, he thought, although he had no idea why. What wasn’t what it seemed? Was that just a random bit of nonsense brought about by his overactive imagination, or was it a message from the water?
He leaned in a little closer, his eyes washing over the bowl. Something seemed to flicker across the boiling surface, a familiar shape, but it was gone as quickly as it appeared.
Betrayal.
He cocked his head. Where did that word come from? Why would he think something like that?
He tried to clear his mind. He didn’t trust these thoughts. His imagination was too uncontrollable. He focused all of his attention on the bowl.
He concentrated.
Something was there.
A face appeared for just a moment, flashing across the rolling surface of the water and then disappearing again, forgotten almost as quickly as it came. But he thought the face was familiar. It was someone he’d seen before, though he couldn’t remember where or when.
He had no idea what it meant.
“I feel him,” said Delphinium. “He’s with us.”
“It’s like he’s looking right back at us,” said Holly.
“He’s not going to intimidate us,” Delphinium insisted. Raising her voice, she asked, “How can we beat him?”
Eric saw something. A flash of dull metal at the bottom of the bowl.
“It’s Eric!” said Holly.
But before anyone could say more, Delphinium gasped.
A split-second later, the bowl erupted. Boiling water shot up out of the bowl and collided with the ceiling. All of them screamed and covered their faces as hot water rained down all around them.
“Is everyone okay?” asked Charlotte.
Eric looked around, half-expecting to find everyone writhing in agony, their faces red and blistered, but by some remarkable stroke of luck everyone seemed to be unharmed.
Or maybe luck had nothing to do with it. Maybe Delphinium’s magic had protected them.
“Maybe we should start trying this with lukewarm water,” suggested Jude as he shook the water from his arms.
“Sounds reasonable,” agreed Eric. “I take it that’s not supposed to happen.”
“Definitely not,” said Poppy as she wiped at a sizable wet spot on the lap of her capris.
“That was the magic man,” said Alicia. “He just blew it all right back at us. Right into our faces.”
“I’ve never felt anything so powerful before,” sighed Delphinium.
“But did you guys see it?” asked Holly. “When Del asked how we could beat the magic man, it showed us Eric.”
“It also showed us more pain and suffering,” groaned Cierra.
“But there was a way,” Holly persisted. “And it has everything to do with Eric.”
Eric sat in the chair, looking around at them. He had no idea what he was supposed to do.
“We can’t use the water again,” decided Delphinium. “Not like that. It’s too dangerous.”
Holly stood up, concerned. “But we still have to find Marissa!”
“I know where Marissa is,” said Delphinium. “I saw it.”
“You got it before he shut us down?” asked Eric.
She met his gaze. There was something in her eyes that he hadn’t seen before. It looked like dread. “No. He showed me.”
He frowned at her. “He… Wait… What?”
“He showed me where she was. He already knew.”
Eric’s heart sank. The magic man already knew where Marissa was? Suddenly it occurred to him that there had been no fire at the hospital. And now that he thought about it, Charlotte had said that the monster in the basement of the hospital first seized Shondra a few days ago…
The magic man had no reason to go to that hospital tonight. As soon as he left Clodsend, he probably went immediately after Marissa, giving him a huge head start.
“No…” said Holly. “We have to get to her!”
“It might already be too late,” said Cierra.
“We can’t think like that!” cried Holly. “We have to try to save her!”
“We have to think reasonably!” returned Cierra. “He’s probably waiting for you! If you and Eric rush out now, he’ll just kill
you both too. We need to stick together.”
“We do have to stick together! All of us. We’re not abandoning Marissa. She’s our sister.”
“She’s probably already dead.”
“Stop it!” snapped Poppy.
“I’m going after her,” said Eric. Cierra and Holly both turned to look at him. “I don’t know what this magic freak is up to, but somehow I don’t think he’s going to kill her. It just doesn’t fit. He has something else planned. I’m going to find out what.”
“He’s planning to kill you,” said Cierra.
“He’s already had plenty of opportunities to do that.”
She couldn’t argue with that.
“The sun’s coming up,” observed Poppy. “Whatever we do, we’d better do it fast.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Eric offered to go alone, but Holly wouldn’t hear of it. And he hadn’t expected her to. After all, she’d been at his side almost constantly since he first met her at the club. With the exception of the encounters in the hospital basement and a few moments when they’d been separated in the Clodsend woods, they’d faced every monster together. Even for a witch with remarkable, supernatural powers, her courage was astounding.
But he wasn’t eager to take her where he was going. The magic man had all but told them that he’d already found the final witch. His thoughts kept returning to that burning motel room, the frail, burnt shape lying in that blazing bed. That vision would haunt him for the rest of his life, he was sure. And now he had trouble believing that there wasn’t a similarly tragic scene awaiting them.
Would poor Marissa join her fallen sisters? Had she already? And what of the fools who tried to save her? What would their fate be? Perhaps Cierra was right and they were walking into a trap designed to weaken the coven’s numbers even more before the final battle began.
Eric felt sick deep down in his stomach.
The two of them climbed back into the minivan and followed Delphinium’s directions west as the sun began to climb over the horizon behind them. According to her, she was half an hour’s drive from the farmhouse, down several long and empty country roads, at a place called Neemley Farms.
As they drove, Holly told him about Marissa Lance.
She was twelve when Delphinium found her in an abandoned building near St. Louis nine years ago. Crafty and brave, she’d managed to survive on her own for over a year after running away from her third foster home. Like most of the girls, she hadn’t understood why she was different, but she understood perfectly well that she was different. She felt like an outcast. A freak. And although she’d eventually learn to accept her new family of witches, it hadn’t been easy on her for the first few years. She’d even run away again once, but Delphinium was one person she couldn’t hide from.
“She’s different than the rest of us,” explained Holly. “Even Del doesn’t fully understand her powers yet.”
Eric glanced at her, interested. “How so?”
Holly was biting her nails again. “It’s hard to explain. She… Well, for one thing…she…knows things about dead people.”
This made him raise an eyebrow. “Come again?”
“She says the dead talk to her.”
“She can talk to dead people?”
“No. The dead talk to her. She’s not sure she can talk to them.”
Eric scratched at his neck, confused. Usually it was the other way around. People went to gravesites to talk to their loved ones, a natural enough part of the mourning process, and it was the dead who couldn’t talk back. “How can you not talk to the dead when they’re talking to you?”
She shrugged her shoulders and puckered her lips, all while still biting her nails. Like most of the little expressions she made, it was adorable. “She says they never acknowledge anything she says. They don’t answer. They just…say things…and then go away. I guess.”
“Huh.”
“It’s true though. I think… I mean, sometimes she knows things that only a dead person would know. It’s kind of creepy.”
Eric nodded. He supposed it was.
She dropped her hands into her lap. “I know it sounds totally crazy, but it’s true.”
“I believe you.”
She turned and looked at him, her expression puzzled. “You do, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.”
“Have we already lost the ability to surprise you?”
Eric laughed. “No. I think you’ll always manage to surprise me. But I am getting a little used to you girls and your amazing gifts. Besides… I’ve talked to a few dead people myself.”
Her pretty eyes widened. “Really?”
Eric recalled the ghosts he met on his first journey into the strange and unknown the previous year. “They were special circumstances, but yeah. I’m pretty down with the dead.”
“Wow. Were you scared?”
He started to tell her that he wasn’t scared at all. Those spirits had been perfectly pleasant. Well…Edgar had been a bit of an ass…but he wasn’t frightening. But then he recalled that he’d encountered a much different kind of spirit just last month. An old hag with claws like kitchen knives… It still gave him shivers whenever he thought of her.
“Marissa says they scare her when they talk to her. She never knows when one is going to turn up. She says it’s extra scary when they whisper to her at night when she’s trying to get to sleep.”
“I can imagine…” Recalling the old woman had suddenly made him far less interested in this topic, so he moved the conversation along: “Does she do anything else?”
“She attracts cats.”
“What?”
“Feral cats,” she explained. Then she pouted. “Never ones that let you pet them… They just show up wherever she’s at, never more than two or three at a time, but they’re always there.”
“That’s a little unusual,” agreed Eric.
She nodded, serious. “A little.”
“Not the most practical superpower, is it?”
Holly smiled. “That’s what she says. Lamest gift in the house.”
His cell phone rang. It was Karen.
“Haven’t you saved everybody yet?” she snapped as soon as he answered.
“Not yet. I thought you were supposed to be getting some sleep.”
“It’s morning. Where are you?”
“On the road. You need to try to get more sleep. You’ll be miserable all day.”
“I’ll sleep when I know you’re safely on your way home. Where are you going?”
At least she was saying she wanted to know he was safe. That was a step up from threatening to shoot him. “We’ve got one more girl to bring home.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know. Face off against the magic man and his army of monsters, I guess.”
“That sounds so much more fun than getting ready for a romantic anniversary weekend with your wife. When does that start again? Oh yeah. Tomorrow.”
“Well, you knew how much I hate packing.”
“Clearly I didn’t realize the lengths you’d go to just to get out of it.”
“I’m nothing if not determined.”
“What’s going on? Isabelle said the monsters are getting more dangerous.”
“Don’t they always?”
Karen didn’t answer right away. Finally, after a moment of silence, she said, “I don’t like it. Why does it always have to be you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Isabelle said you saved a little girl and her mom.”
“I did. We did, actually. In fact, I didn’t do much of anything.” Thinking back on his experience in the old ICU of the Luscher hospital basement, he realized he’d been no hero at all. “It was Isabelle and Charlotte who really saved them.”
She didn’t ask who Charlotte was. She didn’t even ask if she was a stripper. She remained quiet.
“I’m sorry I had to go,” he said. “I know I ruined everything.”
“You didn’t r
uin everything. I’m sorry I was being such a bitch about it. I was just…”
“Embarrassed and angry about yesterday morning. I know.”
“And I’m worried about you,” she blurted. “I’m afraid you won’t come back. I’ll never get my anniversary weekend. Or any weekend ever again.”
Eric was surprised. Karen didn’t usually blurt out her feelings like this. She kept her emotions closely guarded, a bad habit from her troubled teenage years when she’d struggled with eating disorders and personal worth issues. “Hey, don’t say that.”
“I’m sorry.”
He realized that she was on the verge of tears and suddenly he felt awful. “Don’t be. Look, I’ll be fine, okay. I always am, aren’t I? I mean, come on. I fought a freaking genie!”
“You didn’t fight it. You just released it.”
“Okay, fine. You’ve got me there.”
“And you didn’t even have sense enough to get your wish.”
“I don’t think the jinn actually grant wishes.”
“But you didn’t ask, did you?”
Eric smiled. Now she was sounding like Karen again. “We both know you would’ve been mad about any wish I’d make anyway.”
“True. You’d probably just make my boobs bigger or something.”
“That’s ridiculous. I like you just the way you are. In fact, maybe I’d have wished for two of you. That would make for some fun anniversary activities.”
“Oh, you so would’ve regretted that.”
“Yeah. I guess I would’ve. You’d both be mad at me now.”
“It’s true.”
He glanced over at Holly. “Don’t worry about me. Remember, I’ve got a whole coven of witches to watch my back for me.”
“I’m still not clear on why a whole coven needs my husband.”
Eric shook his head, still smiling. “Yeah. Me too.”
“Where’s your brother, anyway?”
“I have no idea. Last I talked to him, he was having some trouble with his truck.”
She sighed. “You Fortrell boys are hopeless.”
“We get that a lot.”
“You tell your stripper she’d better get you home safely. And to keep her clothes on.”
She hung up before he could reply and he dropped the phone back into the cup holder. He glanced over at Holly. “I think she’s warming up to you.”