His Wicked Charm

by Candace Camp

  “Con...” Lilah whispered. “When Con gets back—”

  “He won’t. That was too bad, too,” her aunt said regretfully. “I didn’t want to hurt him. Such a charming young man—and one who understands the occult world. I thought I could get it all done before he got here, and nothing would have to happen to him. But he returned too early.”

  “You hurt Con?” Fury surged in Lilah, and she shoved herself up on her hands, struggling to rise. Her feet were bound as well, making it difficult to stand. It didn’t help that her head was spinning. She breathed shallowly, fighting her nausea.

  “I fear he got a trifle lost.” Vesta smiled to herself as she squatted down to untie Lilah’s ankles.

  Con was never lost. Lilah’s fear receded a little. Whatever her aunt had done, Con would find his way back. He would find her. She needed to buy him time; that was all. Lilah raised her hands to her face. She didn’t have to pretend. “I feel sick.”

  “Just breathe. It will pass. I did give you too much.” Vesta’s lips twitched in irritation. “It’s so hard to judge these things. Ah, well, I’m sure you’ll still be able to get downstairs.”

  “I don’t want to go downstairs.”

  “You don’t have a choice. Now, come along, Dilly.” Aunt Vesta put both hands under Lilah’s arm and pulled. Lilah made no effort to help her. “Stop that! Stand up!” She dropped Lilah’s arm and pulled a gun from her pocket. “Get up. I don’t want to shoot you here, but I will if I have to.”

  Lilah’s stomach lurched. “You would shoot me? With no more thought than that?”

  “I don’t want to. But this is too important. The Sanctuary needs you.”

  “Needs me? Don’t you hear how in—” Lilah stopped. Perhaps it was not a good idea to tell her aunt she sounded insane when Vesta was holding a gun on her.

  “Now get up.” Vesta waggled the gun at her.

  Lilah staggered to her feet with an assisting pull from her aunt. She slumped against the wall, wishing that she didn’t feel as groggy and unsteady as she looked. “I don’t understand.”

  “You never did.” Vesta sighed and pulled her through her bedroom toward the hall. “I tried. You cannot say I didn’t try. You refused to see the Otherworld even when it was right there in front of your eyes. And now—now that you can see it—” she shook Lilah hard, making pain radiate through her head “—you want to destroy it!”

  “I don’t—it’s dangerish.” No, that wasn’t the right word, was it? If only she could think more clearly.

  “It’s not dangerous,” Vesta said impatiently. “Not to me. Not to us. The Goddess will welcome us.”

  “Auntie, you can’t.” Lilah reverted to her childhood name for Vesta.

  “Don’t tell me I can’t!” Vesta jerked her forward, and Lilah stumbled into the hall. “‘You can’t, Vesta, you’re only a girl.’ ‘You wouldn’t understand, Vesta.’” Her tone changed from bitter mimicry to anger. “I don’t understand, Niles? You’re the fool. It was obvious when Hamilton died that I should take his place. None of them had the talent I had. I told them, but of course they refused to let me. Even my own brother. I knew better than to even mention it to Niles after Virgil passed. He would never let me join. I knew that I would have to do it all myself. Isn’t that always the way?”

  “No, it will kill you. Father said...” Lilah’s voice trailed off. Her legs felt like noodles, and the world swam around her. She grabbed at the banister at the top of the stairs, clinging.

  “No!” Vesta dragged her down the steps, Lilah holding on to the railing as best she could to keep from tumbling to the bottom. “Virgil was wrong. She won’t hurt me. It belongs to me. We are one. They just didn’t know—they were men. But the power called to me. I finally understood that it was the source of my ability. If I came back, if I entered the Sanctuary, the Goddess would heal me. She’d restore my power. It had to be me alone. I just had to get all the keys.”

  “So you stole them from Niles?”

  “Only one was Niles’s. The other was Sabrina’s, which he had stolen. And I didn’t steal it. My goodness, I wouldn’t know how. But I’ve met some skillful people over the years.” She frowned. “Though it was most foolish of Sid to tell them to grab you when you were with the Morelands.”

  “And you—” Lilah’s brain was operating at a crawl. “You were the one who tried to kidnap me?” Tears sprang into her eyes. Even now the betrayal stung.

  “I didn’t want to. They weren’t to hurt you. I told them straight-out that they could not harm you. I wouldn’t have had to do it at all if you would have accepted my invitations. I wrote time and again, asking you to visit me. But you refused to come. You avoided me—after all this time, after all I’ve done for you, you snubbed me.”

  “All you did for me! You used me. You used me, then you left me.” Lilah wrenched out of Vesta’s grasp. Off balance, she staggered and fell, tumbling down the last few steps and landing hard, the breath knocked out from her.

  Vesta yanked Lilah to her feet. Overbalanced, they reeled against the wall, and Lilah’s head rapped painfully on the corner of a picture. Dizzy and gasping for air, Lilah put up no fight as her aunt wrapped her arm around her and hauled Lilah down the corridor.

  “You ungrateful wretch.” Vesta fumed. “I showed you the power. I let you in, let you absorb it. And you took it from me! All those years I was gone, my talent draining away from me, you were here, pulling it into you. Making it yours.”

  “I never—never—” Where was everyone? Why had no one come, with all the clatter they’d been making? They had reached the front entry and Lilah realized that in another moment they would be out in the courtyard, where no one could hear her. Dragging in a desperate breath, she screamed.

  “Hush!” Vesta jerked her out the door. “Stop it. There’s no one to hear you. I’ve sent them all away. I’m not the silly, fluttery fool you think. My plan worked. Those fools botched the job, but my plan worked anyway. It brought you back here. I was so surprised when I saw you, I nearly fainted. I thought they had you, and then there you were on the doorstep. What a stroke of luck, I thought, but then I realized it wasn’t luck. My plan had worked, just in a different way than I envisioned. Everything had happened as it should. As the Goddess wanted.”

  Vesta propelled Lilah across the courtyard. Lilah hurt all over—her battered head, the ankle she’d sprained when she fell down the stairs, the rope digging into her wrists. Worse, her brain felt swaddled in cotton batting. She knew she must do something, but she had trouble even taking in what was happening, let alone thinking of a way out.

  They were headed for the tunnel. Vesta thrust her through the tower door. She dug the barrel of the gun in harder. “Pick up a lantern and light it.”

  Several lanterns sat on the floor where Con and Alex had left them, along with matches. Lilah’s movements were slow and clumsy; she felt so benumbed it took little pretense to move at a snail’s pace. At Vesta’s direction, she opened the door concealed in the wall, and they started down the stairs, Lilah carrying the lantern before her.

  She could use the lantern, she thought. No chance of it here in the tight confines of the staircase, but when they reached the tunnel, she could whirl around and swing the lantern at Vesta. Would she be able to do so before her aunt squeezed the trigger? It seemed unlikely. A day ago she would have said her aunt wouldn’t shoot her if it came down to that. Now, with Vesta in the fevered grip of her delusions, Lilah wasn’t so sure.

  “What is your plan?” she asked her aunt as they stepped into the tunnel.

  “What you are too scared to do. I’m setting the Goddess free.” To Lilah’s surprise, Vesta released her arm and grabbed the lantern, taking a long step back. She held the gun pointed at Lilah’s chest. “You cannot escape. I’m standing between you and the only way out. I won’t hesitate to shoot you, and at this distance I can’t miss. Go forward. Now!”<
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  “But why?” Lilah did as she was told, starting down the tunnel at a slow pace. Where was Con? How long would it take him to find her? She wished she could sense him the way Sabrina could Alex. “You have all the keys now. You don’t need me.”

  “Ah, but I do. It takes more than unlocking the door. She punished me for leaving her. She gave what was mine to you. I knew it as soon as you took my hand, and I felt her power.”

  “You can have it back! Believe me, I don’t want it. Take it.”

  “I intend to, you ungrateful girl. You cannot throw away the gift the Goddess has given you. But I can seize it. I was in despair when you said you would close the Sanctuary—do you think I didn’t hear the four of you plotting against me? But then I saw the Way. I found the Sacred Path, as every supplicant to the Otherworld must.”

  They reached the heavy door to the Sanctuary. Lilah could feel the power humming from beyond it—oozing around the door, vibrating in the stone. The hairs on the nape of her neck rose; her fingertips tingled; the soles of her feet were rooted to the floor. Lilah suddenly ached to feel that power, to open the door and let it wash over her. To have it.

  A yearning for freedom whispered through her veins, hungry and insistent. Lilah braced her hands against the stone beside the door, pushing back against the urge. She would not do this. She would not.

  Vaguely she noted her aunt set the lantern down and reach into her pocket. Lilah couldn’t move. She watched as Vesta, her face alight, fingers trembling with excitement, drew the keys from her pocket. One by one she thrust each key into its slot. Then she turned them, the yellow citrine sun first, then the sapphire sea and lastly the obsidian. Reverently chanting the creed of the Brotherhood beneath her breath, Vesta turned the keys in order, each tumbler falling with a click that echoed in the stone chamber.

  There was a clatter behind her. Con! Lilah’s heart leaped, and she started to turn. Vesta rotated the final key, and with a snap the door unlatched. The hinges shrieked. Vesta shoved Lilah through the doorway into the dark.

  * * *

  “CON! CON!” HIS brother’s voice was loud. Insistent.

  Con turned over, trying to escape Alex’s voice. Let me sleep. Suddenly, water was in his mouth, up his nose.

  “Con, get up. Get out.”

  Con thrashed around, pulling himself from the deep black cave of unconsciousness. The wedding. He was late. How could he have—

  “Alex?” He opened his eyes. The world was white and soft around him, and he was being swept along, pulled down. Once again water swamped him.

  He came up, coughing and spluttering, struggling against the inexorable tug of the water. He was soaked, the weight of the water in his clothes and boots pulling him down. Con realized he was about to drown.

  Instinctively he struck out to the side, floundering, tumbling, not fighting the current but cutting across it as it carried him along. He’d heard that somewhere. Undertow. But this couldn’t be the ocean, could it? Where the devil was he?

  The water beneath him was dark, and the air above him white. Lilah! The thought of her speared through his head. He could see the dark earth of the bank now, and he swam toward it in a more coordinated way. He grabbed at the bank, scrabbling for purchase, clawing upward.

  He was out. Con collapsed against the dirt, coughing, as the water lapped around his boots.

  “Alex?” He’d heard his brother; he knew he had. Con crawled the rest of the way out and stood up shakily. The whiteness all around him was fog. It was night; it must be dark, but all he could see around him was mist, dense and white.

  Dizzy, he sat down with a thump, sweeping his hands across his wet face and back through his hair, squeezing away the water. He winced as his fingertips touched the side of his head. He felt it gingerly. He’d been hit on the head.

  Lilah. He was looking for Lilah. He remembered now—he had been walking beside the water, calling her name. He’d heard a noise and started to turn. He’d seen...something. Then his head had exploded, and the next thing he knew he was being swept down the rhyne.

  Alex’s voice had been in his head. He had no doubt that Alex knew Con was in trouble; just as certainly, Alex would start searching for him. But Con couldn’t wait. Lilah was in danger. The face he had glimpsed before his head exploded was Aunt Vesta’s.

  Of course. Why the devil had he never once thought of her? This woman who had known about the Brotherhood, who had grown up with the men, whose father had started the whole bloody thing. It was so obvious now. Vesta had long felt the power of the force beneath the tor. She had realized she had no power away from Barrow House, and she had returned, wanting to find the Source, to rekindle her abilities.

  But he hadn’t suspected her. Even when he’d been unable to “see” Lilah’s path, it hadn’t occurred to him that Aunt Vesta had purposely led him astray. He had fallen like a dolt for her silly, fluttery act, dismissed her as a gullible, foolish old lady.

  There was no time to sit around, castigating himself. He didn’t know what Vesta intended to do to Lilah, but it couldn’t be good. He had to get back to her. Whatever Vesta intended, it would be at Barrow House; otherwise, Vesta wouldn’t have needed to lure him away.

  Con yanked off his boots and dumped out the water before putting them back on, then stripped off his sodden jacket and dropped it on the ground. Standing up, he turned full circle. All around him was featureless fog. There were no landmarks; he was in a place he’d never been before; and he could see no farther than his outstretched hand.

  Con touched the ring Lilah had given him. For once in his life, he actually needed a compass. How bitterly ironic was it that this compass, the one he was never without now, didn’t work? He could rely on nothing but his ability.

  Con set out, moving at a brisk walk. He ached to run, but he held himself back. Haste could prove disastrous. It would be easy to fall into one of the many waterways, not to mention the fact that there were still remnants of the former bog in spots. He wished he had taken the time to explore the area and set the layout of it in his mind. He wished he had the lantern he’d dropped when Vesta bashed him on the head.

  But he couldn’t let regrets cloud his thoughts. With his actual vision negligible, he must focus on the map in his mind, the subtle tug in his chest. Even in the fog, he could tell north from south and east from west, and he was certain in which direction the house lay. However, a straight line to the house made no allowance for rhynes or bits of bog.

  He had no idea of this rhyne’s length or how far he had floated down it before he climbed out. Nor did he know where he had fallen into it. Before landing in the water, he had twisted his way through the small canals like an obstacle course. How would he know where to turn? Con wished that he could “see” the trail of his own passage lingering in the air, but apparently that was not part of his talent.

  He kept on, his senses alert. The ground was muddy beneath his feet, and he didn’t notice that the mud was becoming softer, more giving, until he stepped down and water rushed into his boot. He had stumbled upon one of the pieces of marshy land. Panic swarmed into his chest, and he had to fight back the primitive fear.

  He pulled out his foot, though he left the boot behind, and took a step backward. He was able to feel for the top of the boot and pull it, too, out of the muck. Emptying it of water, he stared into the fog and thought. He would have to retrace his steps, though everything in him urged him forward, his instinct telling him that the way to the house lay straight before him.

  But he couldn’t be rash; Lilah’s life depended on it. As he started to turn around and go back, he saw a shimmer of light on the ground less than a yard from where he had stepped into the bog. He froze. Faint but visible through the fog, stretched a light—no, not exactly a light, but a line the color of moonlight, leading across the ground.

  “The Fae Path,” he breathed, hardly daring to believe it. The lege
ndary safe passage through the bog. No wonder it had also been known as the Silver Way, for that pale, luminous color.

  He mustn’t be rash. But he must have faith, as well. Con started out along the path. His foot sank into the mud, but only a little. It varied in depth, but beneath the muck was always solid footing. He had heard of ancient tracks, narrow paths made of split logs laid in V-shaped braces, but how had it survived this long in the watery land?

  The path disappeared, but the ground was now firm beneath his feet. He could no longer hear the water, and he felt a faint rise in the land. His steps grew ever faster, eating up the ground, following the arrow spearing through him, drawing him on. The fog grew wispier.

  And there it was. The tor loomed up above the fog, a blacker mass against the dark sky. Con broke into a run. His legs churned, and his breath rasped in and out as he pelted up the slope, but it seemed as if nothing moved, as if his goal would never be reached.

  Then he was atop the tor. He saw Barrow House ahead. He ran, heedless of the dark, of stumbling, aware of nothing but the thought of Lilah, the certainty of danger that vibrated throughout his being.

  It was easier along the garden paths and into the house. He didn’t bother going to Lilah’s room. He could see the hum in the air that told of her passage out the front door. He knew—had known from the beginning—where they had gone.

  He tore across the courtyard. He and Alex had set four lanterns in the base of the tower, and he prayed that no one had moved them. Lilah had passed this way; the glimmer in the air was thick, jumbled with the presence of another.