His Wicked Charm

by Candace Camp

  The lanterns were still at the foot of the stairs, though now there were only three. He lit one with shaking fingers. The doorway to the hidden staircase stood ajar. He raced down the stairs. The lantern flickered with his movement, and he had to slow his pace to keep the flame alive, even though his heart was pounding and his stomach churning with the need to hurry.

  He saw a glow ahead, and hope surged in him. He heard the clink of metal on metal, then clicks, and finally he saw Lilah and Vesta, illuminated by the lantern on the ground. Vesta was at the door, turning the keys in the lock, one by one. Beside her, Lilah’s bound hands were flat against the stone wall. She stood unnaturally still, staring straight ahead.

  The door opened with a screech. Con raced forward, and Lilah whirled around. Vesta shoved Lilah into the black void beyond the door, whisking up the lantern, and jumped in after her. Con had a glimpse of Vesta’s wild-eyed face as she threw herself against the door.

  Con dropped his own lantern and lunged the last few feet. The door snapped shut an instant before he slammed into it. “No!” He pounded uselessly at the thick wood. “No! Come back. Lilah!”

  He was locked out. Vesta had taken the keys with her. Lilah was gone.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  LILAH SCREAMED AND jumped to her feet, throwing herself at Vesta. Vesta swung the lantern in a wide arc, forcing Lilah back. Vesta pointed the gun at her, motioning her forward. “Go. Go.”

  Lilah stepped back. “Let me go. Please, Aunt Vesta. You have the keys. You’re in the Sanctuary. You have what you want. You’re welcome to it. Just let me go.”

  “No. Walk on.”

  “Why? Why won’t you let me go?”

  “Because you’re part of it. Can’t you feel it? The Goddess calls you. She wants you. Turn around and walk. We’re not there yet.”

  Lilah was viscerally aware that they had not yet reached the heart of the power. She turned. They were in a narrow cave that opened into another, and it was there that the energy thrummed. The truth was, Lilah wanted to go there.

  “Con...” She wanted even more to return to Con.

  “He’s a resourceful young man,” Vesta said. “I underestimated him. But he’s too late. He can’t help you now.” She jabbed the gun at Lilah, her hand trembling so much Lilah feared she might accidentally pull the trigger. “Forward. Go on!”

  Lilah moved slowly toward the opening. Con would come. She had no idea how, but she knew Con. He would find a way. She must keep her aunt occupied—and wait for a careless move, a moment of inattention, just in case Con didn’t make it in time. Lilah stepped warily through the open doorway. Energy surged in her, so strong and fast it made her dizzy. The very air crackled with it.

  Lilah stared around her, too astonished to speak or even move. The room—cave?—was almost perfectly round, with two more gaps in the walls leading into what appeared to be other anterooms. Once again, the number three. A short square cabinet stood against one wall. On top of it were a few ancient artifacts, as well as a bejeweled knife that looked wickedly sharp.

  Near the cabinet stood a large oval-shaped stone, hollowed out over the centuries into a shape like a great bowl. In it lay much more modern objects—bracelets, necklaces, tiepins, small books, carved figures of ivory and jade, all sorts of trinkets, piled high above the surface. Sacrifices from the Brotherhood.

  It was not these things, though, that entranced her. It was the walls. They were decorated all over with seashells. Though Barrow House lay thirty miles from the sea, there were small shells by the score, of all sorts of shapes and sizes. They stretched around the room in rows, the pattern broken in three places by a spiral design.

  The shells glistened in the dim glow of the lantern, appearing almost wet. Lilah looked up. Even the ceiling was embellished with shells, forming a spiral over the exact center of the cave. Below that spiral, the focal point of the room, was a long low slab of rock rising up from stone floor almost as if it had grown out of the rock.

  “The altar.” Lilah could scarcely breathe. She knew this place even though she’d never seen it, knew it because it lived in her, reverberated in her. She took a step forward, hardly noticing as her aunt came up beside her.

  “Yes, the altar.” Vesta’s voice was filled with awe. “This is where we must make our sacrifice.”

  Her aunt moved to the other side of the altar. This was her chance. Lilah knew she should run back to the door, but she was frozen to the spot and could only watch as Vesta dropped to her knees before the altar.

  Vesta braced her hands on the stone slab. Her face glowed, the light of the lantern on the floor beside her casting eerie shadows over her. She chanted the words of the creed Sir Ambrose had written, changing them by ending, “My Lady. My Queen. Come to me.”

  The power punched into Lilah, sweeping through her in a storm and racing back to the altar. It pulled her forward, and she took an unwilling step toward the altar, struggling to gain command of the primitive force filling her.

  Vesta gazed at her with wild eyes. “You see? You see how it must be?”

  “Aunt Vesta, you must not do this.” Lilah moved toward her.

  Vesta jumped up, grabbing her gun again. “No. Stop right there.”

  “Can’t you see? We’re trapped in here. The minute you walk out, Con will be waiting.”

  Vesta smiled slyly. “It won’t matter. By then I will have so much power he won’t be able to touch me.”

  “I won’t help you,” Lilah told her flatly.

  Vesta seemed unperturbed by her statement, sidling over to the small cabinet as she kept her gun aimed at Lilah. “The power will be mine, not yours.” Her eyes flashed. “At first I was furious. I thought the Goddess had betrayed me, that she’d taken back all my power. Then I realized what I must do. How I must get it back. The Goddess requires a sacrifice.” She reached out for the knife.

  In that moment, Lilah understood exactly what her aunt intended to do. Lilah leaped at Vesta, heedless of the gun. She slammed into Vesta, and the pistol clattered to the floor, but Vesta slashed at her. The knife sliced across Lilah’s arm, opening a long cut, and blood welled out.

  Lilah grabbed Vesta’s wrist with both her hands. Lilah had the advantage of youth and height over her aunt, but Vesta was imbued with an all-encompassing rage, and Lilah was hampered by the fact that her hands were bound. Vesta kicked and scratched and hit at Lilah with her free hand. They crashed into the stone bowl, sending jewelry and figurines tumbling, and reeled away, grappling in fierce silence.

  Lilah took a step back and her heel hit the lantern Vesta had set on the floor, knocking it over. The lantern rolled across the floor into a stone wall. The flame sputtered and went out, leaving them in utter blackness. Lilah, off balance, stumbled and came up hard against the stone altar. Vesta’s weight bore her over, and Lilah fell back onto the altar.

  * * *

  CON BEAT AT the door, shouting Lilah’s name, teetering on the brink of despair.

  No. He wouldn’t accept that she was gone. He couldn’t. Con stepped back, pushing his hands into his hair. Think. Lilah was alive. He had no idea what Vesta intended to do to her, but she was alive. And he was going to find her.

  He turned back and realized that everything around him was pitch-black. His lantern had gone out when he’d dropped it. It didn’t matter. The tunnel led straight to the staircase. He groped around until he came to the rock wall, then started forward, fingers trailing along the wall. As he trotted along the tunnel, he considered his options.

  The dynamite was coming tomorrow, so he couldn’t yet blow up the door. Why the devil couldn’t that old man have had the foresight to build a second entrance? After all, the tunnel could have caved in and—

  Con stopped short. Wait. What if Ambrose had built a second entrance? In his ramblings about the Goddess, he had said he communed with her on a daily basis. Maybe he went in p
erson; maybe he wanted to meditate in the Sanctuary alone. The thing lay right there, only yards from him. Why not build an entrance just for himself?

  The maze. It would be in the maze. Ambrose visited the maze frequently; Vesta had said he liked to sit there and meditate. And the maze was equally close to the Sanctuary. Con took the staircase at a run. The likeliest spot for an entrance would be in the center of the maze. Somehow that sundial must move. He’d looked it over, but he must not have been careful enough. He had been too certain the Sanctuary was beneath the house.

  Con grabbed another lantern at the top of the staircase, but didn’t take the time to light it. He could see well enough out here. After the total darkness of the tunnel, the moonlight seemed bright. He ran across the lawn into the maze, making his way easily through the twists and turns until he reached the center. His stomach churned as he lit the lantern and began to search the base of the sundial, looking desperately for some line or knob, any oddity to indicate an opening. Nothing.

  Con stood up and braced his hands on the sundial, fighting down panic and fury. His eyes fell on his ring, and the world stopped for an instant. The ring. The frozen compass. His dream—the compass needles spinning uselessly as he fought not to fail.

  Suddenly it all became clear to him. The frozen compass had been no accident, no flaw. The needle had been stopped deliberately, turned so that it pointed in only one direction—toward the edge of the maze lying closest to the Sanctuary. The cove where Lilah had been drawn in her sleep.

  He spun and charged back through the maze to the dead end where he had found Lilah. He went to the ornamental bench. It had to be here. Three triskeles decorated the board of the back. He bent instinctively to examine the middle one. It did not budge to pushing or pulling. But, he discovered, there was a tiny slit in the very center.

  His heart tripped in his chest. Con flipped up the top of the ring, exposing the miniature sundial beneath. The little triangular wedge popped up, and carefully he pushed it into the tiny slot. It fitted. He turned it.

  With a groan, the bench slid back, revealing a deep dark hole. Attached to the side was a metal ladder. Picking up his lantern in one hand, Con swung over the side and started down into the pit.

  * * *

  LILAH’S HEAD KNOCKED against the stone, sending bright shards of pain through her. Dazed by the blow, she managed to hang on desperately to Vesta’s wrist, keeping the knife at bay. Vesta’s weight pinned her down. Vesta bore down, panting with the effort. “Your blood must feed the altar. The Goddess demands sacrifice.”

  Lilah’s hands grew slick with the blood flowing down her arm from the cut. She slipped for an instant, then recaptured her hold and with a great heave, jerked Vesta’s hand to the side. She heard the knife graze the stone, and Vesta’s weight slid half off her. Lilah squirmed to get free, but then Vesta rolled back, pressing her into the stone.

  Lilah’s head throbbed, and Vesta’s weight was pushing the air from her lungs. Above her, Vesta again began to pant the creed from her father’s ceremony, adding her own words that called the Goddess. Beneath her back, the stone warmed. Power blasted into Lilah, filling every inch of her body.

  With a loud cry, Lilah shoved her aunt up and over, forcing Vesta back onto the altar. She straddled Vesta, holding her aunt down, and slammed Vesta’s hand against the altar. The knife fell from Vesta’s grasp, clattering on the stone.

  “No! No!” Vesta shrieked. “Come to me! Goddess, come!”

  Lilah was filled with strength, pulsing with energy, her connection to the altar as solid as a steel chain. Yearning permeated her, keening and deep. She felt the ache, the thirst, the need for freedom. She understood.

  “Go!” She cried, her voice ringing through the cave. “I sever the chains that bind thee here.”

  There was a scrabbling and scraping behind her, and light pierced the dark. “Lilah!”

  Con! She let out a laughing sob. He had come. Of course he had found a way to her. She heard his footsteps rushing across the floor, and she called out, “No! Wait.”

  “What—” He stopped. She could hear his harsh, fast breaths behind her, but he didn’t speak or touch her.

  Con’s lantern illuminated the altar beneath her. Vesta struggled wildly, but Lilah had no fear that she would escape, for the strength that held her there was not Lilah’s.

  “I release thee!” Lilah went on, the words flowing out of her without thought. “Thou art bound no more. Return now to thy home. Dwell in peace in the Otherworld, no more to be disturbed.”

  With a joyful leap, the power poured out of her, sinking into the altar, the floor, the walls of the cave.

  “No. No.” Aunt Vesta began to cry, her head shaking from side to side.

  Lilah sagged, suddenly shaky and weak. “Con...” She turned, reaching out to him.

  He pulled her from the altar and, grabbing the knife, sawed through the rope that bound Lilah’s wrists. “Lilah, my God, you’re bleeding. And your head!” He started to pull at his ascot.

  “No, no, there’s isn’t time.” Lilah grabbed his hand. “We must go.”

  “What? But—” He gazed around him in awe. “This place.”

  “We have to go,” Lilah repeated, unable to explain but certain she was right. She pulled Vesta up. “Auntie, come. We must go.”

  A deep rumble started in the earth. The floor of the cave began to vibrate.

  “This way,” Con said, grabbing the lantern and starting toward one of the openings.

  “No, no, leave me alone! I don’t want to. You horrible, wicked child!” Vesta slapped at Lilah’s arm.

  With a curse, Con came back and grabbed Vesta’s arm. “Shut up. You’re coming with us, though God knows why she wants you.”

  He dragged Vesta through the opening, and Lilah followed. The rumbling grew louder. The ground shook beneath their feet. The room seemed to have no exit, but Con directed them around a jutting rock that hid a narrow gap. He handed the lantern to Lilah. “Go on, slide through.”

  She did as he said, slipping between the rocks into a long, narrow chamber. At the other end of the tunnel, there was a metal ladder mounted on the wall, and at the top of it, a very faint light. The exit. The rumbling was growing ever louder, the shaking stronger. Behind her Con pushed her aunt through the gap and ran to Lilah.

  “Up! Up! It’s caving in.” Behind them they could hear rocks crashing. Con put his hands on Lilah’s waist and boosted her up.

  Lilah started climbing and glanced over at her aunt. Vesta was gone. “Aunt Vesta!”

  She started back down, but Con shouted, “No! Up! Don’t stop.”

  He whirled and started back, but the ground shook violently, knocking him to his knees. The other end of the room disappeared in a pile of rocks and dust.

  “Con!” She couldn’t see him. She began to back up.

  “Run, damn it, go!” Con burst out of the cloud of dust.

  Lilah hiked up her skirt and hurried up the ladder. Con was right behind her, their steps ringing on the metal rungs. Behind them the earth thundered and stones crashed. Dust billowed up, filling the air. The ladder trembled beneath Lilah’s hands, and her fingers slipped on one rung, but she held on tight with the other hand, steadying herself, and in an instant Con was close behind her, his arms around her on either side of the ladder. She began to climb again.

  They reached the top and climbed out, crawling away to collapse on the path. Con wrapped himself around her, and she clung to him. The ground continued to vibrate beneath them, but gradually the rumbling quieted, then stopped. The earth stilled.

  Lilah felt like crying and laughing and screaming, all at once, but was too exhausted to do any. It was enough right now to rest in Con’s arms, listening to his still-ragged breathing, feeling his chest rise and fall against her. She looked up at the moon above them. How could it still be night? It felt as if days had
passed.

  They could hear voices calling and through the branches of the hedge Lilah saw the bobbing lights of lanterns. Con rose to his feet and pulled Lilah up. They turned just as footsteps pounded into the maze and a man came running toward them.

  “Con! Thank God.”

  “Hallo, Alex.” Con took Lilah’s hand, and they started toward his twin. “Lilah decided to close the Sanctuary.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  THEY WALKED OUT of the maze with Alex as Sabrina ran up to join them, throwing her arms around Lilah. Servants clustered around them, all staring at the jumble of dirt, rocks and grass that lay before them like a wide, shallow cup in the lawn. A buzz of voices filled the air, but Lilah and Con could only hold each other and stare.

  After a time, they began to tell Alex and Sabrina what had happened, their tale breathless and disjointed. Sabrina and Alex, their eyes going wider with each detail, then related their own side of the story. They described how Alex had shot up out of his chair earlier that evening, certain that Con was dying. That terrible feeling had lessened, but, still sure something was wrong, he and Sabrina had ridden over from Carmoor, arriving in time to find the servants milling about in distress, unable to find Con, Lilah or Vesta.

  It was then that the great rumbling had started beneath the ground, rattling even the dishes in their cabinets in the house, and everyone had run out to find that part of the lawn was now sunken and the ground broken. Alex, certain of his brother’s location, hadn’t bothered with the cave-in, but had run straight for the maze, Sabrina following not far behind.

  “What will we say?” Sabrina whispered, turning to gaze at the broken ground.

  “She’s right. There are bound to be questions,” Alex agreed.

  Lilah was still too shaken to think and even Con had trouble coming up with any coherent idea, so it was left to the other two to create a story of a midnight exploration in the underground tunnels that had ended in a tragic cave-in. However implausible it sounded, it was more believable than the truth, and the evidence of the collapsed ground was indisputable.