“Did you honestly think that a coven could practice here and I wouldn’t know? Did you think you could use that house and I wouldn’t hear? Did you believe that you could dare to use my symbol and I wouldn’t feel it?” And the rage that echoed in her voice paled in comparison to that which she felt in her heart.
They stared at her, stunned and speechless. She pulled the edge of her shirt down so they could see the tattoo. They all shrank back with gasps. Karen turned her head away, as if the sight pained her. They knew the symbol, but Samantha was certain none of them was using it herself.
“So, why am I here? You summoned me. And now you have to face the consequences of that action. I’m here either to kill you all… or to lead you.”
They stared at her, dumbfounded. After a minute they began to look at one another. She had made an impact for sure. She took another sip of her brew while she waited for them to say something.
“We already have a leader,” Karen squeaked at last.
“Shut up!” Autumn snapped.
She looked at Samantha, who smiled at her. Autumn was weighing her options, trying to decide what would get her power and what would get her killed. She hadn’t yet realized that she was in a no-win scenario.
“You’ll have to meet with our elders,” Autumn said at last.
“Fine. You can find me here tomorrow at the same time.”
Samantha stood, yanked her athame from the table, and put it back in her waistband. “And tomorrow the beer’s on you.”
Samantha swaggered out. When she got to the sidewalk, her knees started to buckle and she braced herself for a moment against the wall. She could feel her blade against the skin of her back and she felt like she was going to be sick. Had the three witches at any point in the conversation decided to pool their power, she would have been no match for them and would have been pushed into a corner where she either had to kill or be killed.
I don’t want to kill anyone with magic, she thought, shivering.
She forced herself to straighten up and walk. She wanted to conceal herself and then follow them in hopes that they would lead her to the others. She didn’t know if that was what they would do or if they would simply make a couple of phone calls. Without knowing more about the way the group functioned, she couldn’t risk it. If she was caught following them, her chances of infiltrating the coven would be pretty much shot. Better to make them come to her; assume the high ground and fortify it.
Politics had been as much a part of the coven she’d grown up in as magic had. She remembered her mother taking five hours to dress for a meeting with their high priestess. She’d agonized over everything in her wardrobe, looking for something that showed respect but not weakness.
The high priestess had been Abigail, a woman with flaming red hair and eyes blacker than night. She’d been old, but not old enough to be weak. She’d been killed in the massacre along with everyone else. One of Samantha’s few memories from that night was seeing the witch’s face, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth, as she fell backward.
She still had nightmares about Abigail and would wake screaming. The woman had perfected a masterful use of terror.
And now someone else was following in her footsteps, leading a coven that was doing unspeakable evil. Who were they trying to resurrect and for what purpose? She was frustrated because every minute that ticked by meant one minute less to save the next victim. She’d never been patient, never been a fan of waiting, but that was all that was left to her now.
She put the walking mall behind her and headed toward the harbor. She wasn’t ready to go back to her hotel room just yet. She didn’t think she’d be able to stay cooped up within those four walls for the hours ahead.
She breathed deeply of the salty air as she reached the waterfront. She turned down the street and moments later walked past the house that had inspired Hawthorne to write The House of the Seven Gables. The mansion had always fascinated and frightened her as a child. It was rumored to be haunted and she believed it. Why wouldn’t she? Her entire life was haunted by specters of her past.
As she walked, the air swirled around her, eddies of energy moving as she passed through. She had worked for years to ignore them and had come close to succeeding. But the energies were always there, just as her powers were. When she was a child she had asked her mother why some, like the two of them, were gifted with abilities that others did not have.
Her mother had laughed the question away, telling her that they were simply favored, “blessed.” As she grew older and came to see the evil that so many had done with their power, she realized that it was no blessing but a curse.
She hated feeling the things she did, seeing what others could not, and hearing what others missed. Her father had said more than once that it helped to make her a great cop. She knew that what it made her was a freak. And with every spell she was performing she could feel herself sliding back into the hell she had once lived in.
She kept walking, trying to calm herself and center her thoughts for the task at hand. It would be difficult to convince the leaders of the coven to accept her quickly, but she had to pull it off. Only from inside would she be able to know enough about them to stop them.
A sudden wave of sorrow hit her broadside and she gasped at the feelings of pain, fear, and anger that accompanied it. She turned and saw a cemetery. Ancient monuments stood, proudly reaching for the heaven that their cherished dead had dreamed of as mortals.
The cemetery was old and Samantha knew that her ancestors were buried there. Including my mother, she realized.
As if compelled, she walked through the open gate. She had never known her father, not even anecdotally, since her mother wouldn’t talk about him at all. Samantha didn’t even know his first name. Castor was her mother’s last name. He could be anywhere, anyone, for all she knew. He could even be one of the corpses rotting in the ground beneath her feet. She had spent hours as a child wondering about him, who he was, what he was like. As she grew older she even daydreamed that he would come and take her away, rescue her from the coven and all the things she was being asked to do. She hadn’t thought much about him since she had left that life behind. Now she thought of the photograph she had seen, wondered if it was him.
She wandered through the cemetery, picking her way around graves, until she came to the mausoleum that housed seven generations of her family. Someone had added her mother’s name to the door when they’d interred her. It hadn’t been Samantha—she hadn’t even attended the funeral. She reached out a hand and touched the name. Her skin tingled and she pulled her hand away quickly. Even in death her family was still practicing its magic.
All the better to haunt me with.
She turned aside, preparing to leave, but something stopped her. There was power in the cemetery, more power than there should have been. She followed the feeling, twisting farther into the depths of the graveyard. She passed ancient monuments mixed with new. Rich or poor, colonist or modernist, everyone in Salem eventually died.
At last her steps brought her to a grave marker only slightly weathered. A fresh bouquet of flowers was propped against the stone. She bent down to read it and her blood ran cold. It was Abigail’s grave. She felt suddenly dizzy and pitched forward. She caught herself with a hand on the grave marker. The stone felt hot to the touch and suddenly the air around her was filled with the sound of laughter, hard and cruel and menacing. Samantha gasped and jerked back, but something tripped her and she crashed to the ground on top of the grave.
She pushed up with her hands and it felt as though the very life was being drained out of her and that in moments she would be as one of the corpses rotting in the ground. Suddenly she froze. There, in the dirt beneath the flowers, someone had drawn the symbol that burned on Samantha’s chest.
She scrambled backward even as a terrible suspicion took hold of her. They couldn’t be planning to raise Abigail, could they? But why would they want to? Why would they need to?
She pus
hed herself to her feet, afraid that she was going to vomit. She broke out in a cold sweat. It couldn’t be true. Not after all this time. Who would remember, or care? She glanced around wildly but didn’t see anyone. Still, she couldn’t deny that something had been sucking the life from her while she was touching the grave.
For one terrible moment she wondered if Abigail’s power reached beyond the grave.
Get hold of yourself. She’s dead and buried. She can’t hurt you anymore, she scolded herself.
Something that had been bothering her suddenly jumped to the front of her mind. It had been Abigail’s house where the party that Katie had attended was held. But how was that possible? The protections on that place were legion.
Unless someone knows how to take them down and put them back up again. Bridget. Could she have that much power? And is she the one who drew the symbol on Abigail’s grave and left the flowers and made it so that it sucked the life from those who come near it?
Whoever it was they were trying to raise, the very fact that they were attempting to do it, thought that they could, was a testament to how strong they must be. Raising someone took an incredible amount of power combined with absolute ruthlessness. It was not for the faint of heart, not something that could be done on a whim.
It would require careful planning. And she was suddenly sure that Abigail’s old house was once again truly being used as a center of activity. She should return and examine it more closely, but fear plucked at her heart, urging her to stay as far away from that place as possible.
It wasn’t just where Abigail had lived.
It was also where she had died.
Samantha turned and hurried back toward the street, eager to escape the cemetery before it revealed anything else to her.
She quickly began to retrace her steps and heaved a sigh of relief when she finally passed the Seven Gables house again. When I get back to the hotel I’ll just have to perform a calming spell—
Samantha stopped in her tracks, horrified at what she’d just thought. She’d been back to doing magic for such a short time, and yet her thoughts already turned first to it. No, not a spell! Pray, that’s what I have to do. Pray and meditate. Plan my next move, my next one hundred moves.
And some of those moves will involve doing more magic. I have to be prepared for it. But please, God, keep me from losing myself in it.
She shuddered suddenly. Someone was watching her. She turned her head slightly, wondering where the observer was.
“Samantha!”
She spun, prepared to defend herself, but then relaxed slightly when she saw Anthony walking briskly toward her.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi, yourself. Listen, I’ve been thinking. Would you like to grab some dinner?”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
She hesitated. She didn’t want to bring him into the middle of anything, but he might be able to help her. If he’d managed to get his hands on some of her coven’s things, then he had to be resourceful. She’d told the trio of witches that they could find her the next day at the Witchery. She believed there was a strong possibility that members of the coven might hunt her down at her hotel in the middle of the night. But until they reached out to her there was nothing more she could really do except troll for information.
And Anthony might be just the person she needed to talk to.
“Did I ask a difficult question?” he prompted, smiling uncertainly at her.
“No,” she said, smiling. “I had some work to do tonight, but I realized I could put it off. So I’m all yours for dinner.”
“Great. There’s this awesome restaurant called Nathaniel’s.”
She grimaced. “I’m staying at the Hawthorne and I was hoping to avoid eating there tonight. If I do, it will just remind me that I should be upstairs working.” It wasn’t true, but in case the witches decided to show early, she didn’t want them to see Anthony.
“Then away from the hotel it is,” he said. “How about seafood?”
“Fine.”
The truth was that at the moment, she felt fine about anything that didn’t remind her of the things that she was trying so hard to forget.
The way Abigail could glare and make a person crumble inside.
The fact that it was likely that someone else would die before she could infiltrate the coven.
The night of the massacre.
And most important of all, how much she loved doing the magic.
Because if she remembered that, then she’d truly be lost.
12
By evening, Samantha had gone back to her room, unpacked, changed clothes, and walked to the Whaler’s Inn. She met Anthony outside, and moments later they were seated in a booth, waiting for their food. The white tablecloth was topped with a small lantern and a vase holding a single red rose. A fire crackled on the hearth nearby and except for them the dining room was empty. The lighting was low and music played softly in the background. It was romantic.
And for a first date with a guy she didn’t know, it was too romantic. Especially considering that he had been all too eager to get away from her at breakfast. She looked at him suspiciously. Just exactly what did he want from her on this date?
Don’t think of this as a date, she warned herself. Think of him as a source, just another witness to interrogate.
But he was looking at her with his beautiful eyes and smiling at her in a way that made her pulse skitter out of control. It was crazy and uncharacteristic of her. Dating had never been her thing. Who would ever understand her, be able to cope with who she was, who she had been?
But staring at his face, lined with its own pain and shadows, she realized that if anyone could understand, he could. That wasn’t enough, though. Because of what had happened to his mother, he would never be able to cope, to accept her. And after what her family had done to his, she had no right to lead him on, to hurt him any more than he’d already been hurt.
“I saw you coming out of the cemetery today,” he said gently.
She blinked in surprise. “How?”
“I was in the cemetery too. I was checking on my mother’s grave.”
And the sick feeling was back, knotting itself around her insides. She should never have accepted his dinner invitation. He was looking at her expectantly, clearly waiting for her to share.
“I was visiting my mother too,” she said at last.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s hard to lose a mother.”
“Thanks. And I’m sorry about yours.”
He shrugged. “It’s strange, you know. There are days where I still expect to see her at her favorite coffee shop or walking down the street. Even though it’s been years.”
“This place is haunted for you.”
He nodded. “I guess you could say so.”
“Why do you stay?” she asked.
A shadow seemed to pass across his face and his eyes hardened. “The coven that killed my mother, when they were slaughtered, there were rumors that one witch survived. I’ve spent the past sixteen years searching for that person.”
“Why?” Samantha asked, trying to still the sudden pounding of her heart, which no longer had anything to do with how attractive he was.
He smiled. “Let’s just say that revenge is a dish best served flambéed.”
“As in burning?” she asked.
“As in witch,” he said with a nod.
She winced. Had he figured out already who she was? She studied his face carefully as she chose her next words. “It’s been years. How do you even know the witch is still alive?”
“I can feel it, in here,” he said, tapping his chest over his heart. “If she were dead, I’d feel peace. Someday, though, I will feel that peace. And then—then maybe I can leave this place.”
“It seems like you’re just punishing yourself by staying here with the memories. Why not move on? I mean, how do you know the witch hasn’t done the same thing? For all you know, she’s practicing in
Oregon or India. Maybe she’s not even a witch anymore.”
He smiled tightly. “Once a witch, always a witch. But I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that she had left the state. However, I stay because eventually she’ll come back. You see, I have something the witch will want. I figure in time she’ll find me.”
Is it one of those artifacts in the case? she wondered. My goblet, for instance? She took a sip of her water, trying to look nonchalant instead of guilty or too curious. For the first time she felt sympathy for the murderers she had interrogated over the years. They had sat across from her at tables in cold gray rooms, sweating and praying that she wouldn’t discover the one bit of evidence that would damn them or that they wouldn’t say something that would seal their fate and send them to prison.
“You okay?” he asked.
She nodded quickly. “I was just thinking, that could be incredibly dangerous.”
“Some things are worth the risk,” he said. He smiled at her. “Like asking you out.”
For a moment her heart stopped, thinking that he had guessed. But then she realized that he was just flirting. She forced herself to smile. “Hardly counts as risky compared to the other.”
“But still, a risk. I risked rejection because the potential reward seemed worth it.”
“You don’t even know me,” she protested.
“And yet I feel that I do. You’re smart, funny, and driven, just like I am. You’re curious and open to things that others dismiss out of hand.”
“Very observant of you,” she said, working hard not to squirm.
“You’re also looking for something. I know what it feels like to be looking for something. It makes me want to see you find it, whatever it is. If you tell me what it is you’re looking for, maybe I can help you find it.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said, forcing a smile.
“I do. It will give me an excuse to spend more time with you. I can’t explain it; I just feel like for some reason I need to help you.”
The Thirteenth Sacrifice Page 13