One thing the Crone didn’t need to teach to me was that spells are so specific that if any element is missing, if even one word is out of place, they will fail. As head cheerleader, as a singer proud of my perfect pitch, as an A plus student, I understood that kind of exactness and discipline.
I grabbed one of the bones on the ground and ran.
Heat singed my heels and I changed direction, darting between the tombs. With his long legs, Bel was gaining on me fast, and I could feel that another burst of flame was heading my way. Pulling the Voodoo doll out of my pocket, I twisted around and threw it at Bel, and then changed direction. Michel had said it would protect me against spells cast my way. I was gratified to hear an outraged yelp as the flame turned on its master. Slipping between structures that Bel had no hope of getting through, I was thankful for my five foot one frame and the pounds I’d lost while serving the Crone.
I reached Marie Laveau’s tomb. Tearing the three Mardi Gras necklaces from my neck, I let the green, gold, and purple beads fall to the ground among the other offerings to the great Voodoo Queen. Using the bone in my hand—one of Marie’s own by the rust-colored marks on it—I gouged three X’s through the pink paint and deep into the ancient plaster. Tearing away the police tape on the side of the structure—and hoping that the bodies of the vampire’s victims had already been retrieved—I dropped the bone through the opening in the wall of the tomb.
I ran back to the front and turned around three times crying, “Marie Laveau! Grant my wish! Take this bone from your own body and keep it safe for all eternity!”
The ground heaved and I fell. When I tried to stand, a ring of fire sprang from the ground, melting the scattered beads. Bel had found me. As he looked at me though the flames with the face of an angry god, I was truly terrified. He’d wanted the power of the bones for himself. There would be no mercy.
Without warning, the flames disappeared. As I watched in surprise, Bel jerked strangely and then crumpled to the ground. Ava stood behind him, swaying unsteadily, holding the bloodied laptop in her hands.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A DECISION
“Ava? Are you all right?” She looked at me with dazed eyes, clutching the laptop to her chest, but nodded yes.
Chloe stepped out from behind Ava, breathing quickly; she looked like she’d been running. She nudged Bel with her foot, but he didn’t move. “Two for two,” she murmured as she scraped her tattered blonde hair behind her ears. The pale skin on one cheek was marred by a red and purple bruise. “Sorry it took me so long to get here. He gave me the slip back in town.” She touched her face and winced.
I stood. “What are we going to do when he wakes up?”
The girl fished around in the pocket of her jacket and pulled out a gold ring. It was open in the middle and covered in twisting symbols similar to the ones that had marked my skin. She slipped it on Bel’s index finger.
“That’s it? That’ll hold him?”
“Until we get back to New York. The ring has a binding spell on it with an added compulsion to return home immediately—just a little bit of insurance I picked up on the magic black market when Bel wasn’t looking. He’s been twitchy ever since Arthur woke up. I guess he saw his chance to grab power in that new world order he’s always going on about.” Chloe smirked at me. “He’s not that bad once you get used to him, but I’m going to make him regret ever laying a finger on me. He works for me, not the other way around. I guess I’m going to have to remind him of that.”
Ava was blinking rapidly as she became fully awake and aware of her surroundings. “What’s going on? How did I get here?”
Chloe turned to face the tomb suddenly, as if something had caught her eye. The girl’s face was as expressionless as ever, but she took a quick step back and grabbed Ava’s arm. “C’mon, I’ll tell you all about it while we get out of here.” Ava tried to move towards me, but Chloe pulled her away. “Lacey’s got a little cleanup to do. She’ll be along in a minute” She nudged Bel again with her foot. “Bel! Get up and follow me!” Even though the man still seemed unconscious, he shambled to his feet. Chloe looked at me intently and jerked her chin in the direction of the tomb, before leading them away.
Puzzled, I turned, and my heart leaped in my chest when I saw the woman standing there. The light from the moon and the street combined to illuminate her face like a spotlight. Her skin was like Claire’s—coffee mixed with cream—and strands of dark, curling hair peeked out from underneath a white headdress.
Marie Laveau.
The spirit nodded as if she could hear my thoughts. “You’ve performed the magic well, petite, and I’ve granted your wish. And since you protected my bones from being used in a dark spell, I’ll grant you one more—the true wish of your heart.”
Fascinated, I took a step closer; she looked as real and solid as any living being. “Is your tomb one of the gates?”
“Yes, chère, though the gates were here long before this place was built. There are seven Gates of Guinee in N’awlins. They lead to Paths, as your kind call them. The first four have been lost, but the last three are scattered in this grand repository of mortal remains. They lead to the Path of Destiny, the Path of Time, and the Path of Life and Death. While there are entrances to these Paths in other places of the world, the magic is strongest here.”
“A descendent of your Li Grand Zombi was trying to reach the Path of Destiny. She was trying to trade places with Merlin in Avalon.”
The spirit laughed and the sound was warm and rich. “Ah, that man! So in love with his names and disguises. I called him Baron Samedi in my youth, though perhaps you know that. Let me tell you something that may aid you in the future. There are none alive who have heard his true name, just as Avalon is not the true name of his land. Find his true name, if you can, and you will have power over him.”
Bending down gracefully, Marie Laveau picked up a bead that had escaped Bel’s fire. It glistened gold between her fingers, gleaming like a fine gem. “The horned god lies in wait at the end of the Path of Destiny like a spider. Whatever its true purpose once was, he has corrupted it. I preserve the entrances to the other two. Perhaps, one day, someone will find the four that are lost. Till then, I hold the balance. That balance was almost lost today.” She blew on the bead and both she and it disintegrated and vanished, though her voice still echoed through the City of the Dead. “I hear your true wish, chère. As mistress of the gate to the Path of Life and Death, I answer it.”
I put up my hands to protect my face as a gust of wind swirled debris and dead leaves into the air. The wind died as suddenly and completely as it began, and the stillness was broken by a small voice behind me.
“CeeCee?”
The ache of coming tears began at the back of my jaw and travelled down the sides of my neck into my chest. When he was first learning to talk, my brother couldn’t say his L’s, so he called me CeeCee instead. Stephen, Stephen, Stephen, my heart cried silently as I turned.
“CeeCee?” Stephen whispered again.
My legs lost all feeling and I dropped to my knees in front of my little brother. He wasn’t wearing the black pants and stiff white shirt they’d dressed him in to put him in the ground. He had on his favorite t-shirt with the rip in the collar, and the grey shorts with the white stripe that he always insisted on wearing inside, even in winter. Clutched in one hand was a green plastic dinosaur.
“Stephen, Stephen, Stephen!” I cried, shuffling forward and throwing my arms around him. I could feel him, though he was strangely insubstantial, like he was made of vibrating air. Still, it was something. “I’ve missed you so much!” The tears flowed down my face, taking the ache with them.
He pulled away, laughing and pushing his long bangs out of his eyes. “I know! I hear you calling me all the time. Stephen, Stephen, Stephen,” he mimicked me.
He grinned and put his hand on my cheek, something he did even when he was a toddler. His hand wasn’t warm or cold, but I could still feel its gentle pressure
.
“You can hear me?” I whispered.
He rolled his eyes. “All the time. Even when I’m playing with Granny.”
My breath caught in my throat. Granny was my mom’s grandmother. She’d died when I was around Stephen’s age, before he was even born.
“You see Granny?”
The question seemed to upset him, and he dropped his hand. Big, round eyes looked at me uncertainly. Mom always said that he had Granny’s eyes; I could see it now.
I brushed the hair back from his forehead with trembling fingers; it was like touching down so fine that it left almost no impression on my skin. “What’s wrong? Aren’t you glad to see me? I’ve missed you so much.”
He glanced over his shoulder and frowned. “But Granny will be wondering where I am. We play together every day. She’ll be worried if I don’t come back soon.” He backed away towards the tomb.
A fist grabbed my heart. “Please! Don’t go! Stay with me. I love you, Stephen. Nothing’s been right since you went away.”
Then Stephen gave me that wonderful smile that always put a dimple in his right cheek; the smile that captured my heart when he was only a week old. Everyone says that newborns can’t really smile—that it’s just a reflex—but he did, when I held him. It was a kind magic between us.
I was grinning and crying at the same time as he ran back to me. Catching him up in my arms, I held him close—as close as if I could take him into myself and keep him with me, inside me, forever.
I knew it then, the terrible truth. I could feel something, but there was no warmth, no weight. He was real, but he wasn’t alive.
“I love you too, CeeCee. I’ll stay if you want me to.” He kissed my cheek and nestled his head under my chin, but there was only the brush of static electricity on my face.
I wanted him to stay. I wanted it so much that I felt sick with longing for it. I knew I had the power to do it too, somewhere deep in my bones where the marks of black witchcraft still lingered. I could make him stay. I could make him a part of myself to fill the hollow place in my soul. I could drag his spirit around with me for the rest of my life, denying him the joy he’d found in an Afterlife I’d doubted even existed.
I could damn us both to misery until the day I died.
The old Lacey would have done it. The Lacey who raised a dragon with the Crone would have done it too.
But I couldn’t—not to the brother I loved more than my own life. Untangling his insubstantial arms from around my neck, I kissed him on the forehead and put him down. “No, you’re right. Granny will be missing you. Will you take that kiss and give it to her? Tell her I miss her too.”
Stephen nodded. “OK, CeeCee.”
I looked up at the stars. I might be strong enough to let my little brother go back to Heaven, but I wasn’t strong enough to watch it happen.
The air was knocked out of me as something hit me around the middle. I looked down. Stephen had flung his arms around my waist and he was solid and warm. Laughing, I lifted him and hugged him tight, memorizing the feel of his soft skin and the way his floppy hair tickled my cheek. I rocked him back and forth in my arms and he wrapped his skinny little legs around me like a monkey, the way he always used to.
I heard Marie Laveau’s voice in the wind. “This was the true wish of your heart.”
She was right. All I wanted was to hold him one last time. I snuggled him close and kissed his smooth cheek. I kissed him on top of his little snub nose that was shaped just like mine. I turned a few moments into a lifetime of memories that would sustain me until the end.
Then I put him down. When I brushed the hair back from his forehead again, it was like wind running through my fingers; the magic was over.
Giving me a little wave, he turned and walked towards the tomb. When he reached the door, he looked back. Maybe it was just the tears streaming from my eyes, but his face seemed different. Through a watery mist, I thought I could almost see the man Stephen would have grown to be if Death hadn’t stolen him from me. Or maybe it was the man he really was, somewhere in a place beyond Time.
The mist thickened between us, but I could still hear his voice as it alternated between the sweet tones of childhood and the stronger ones of maturity. “Don’t cry, CeeCee. It doesn’t take any time at all. In a heartbeat, we’ll be together, forever, and then we’ll never be apart again. I promise.”
“Stephen,” I whispered, but I didn’t finish the incantation. I would never disturb his rest again.
The mist dissipated, and I was alone in a crumbling graveyard, standing in front of a bubblegum pink tomb, holding a green plastic dinosaur.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A BEGINNING
After Stephen’s spirit left me, everything was a blur. When I found my way back to the pyramid tomb, my bag was undisturbed, but the bones were gone. Even the remnants of the bokur’s human remains had disappeared. Fuzzy-headed and a little lost, I wandered through the cemetery, looking for the way out. When I stumbled upon the front entrance, the gate was open, and Ava stood on the other side holding the battered laptop. She didn’t know where Bel and Chloe had gone and wasn’t sure how she’d got there or who opened the gate. A taxi was waiting for us on the street, but when I questioned the driver as to who called him, he didn’t seem to understand English. When he dropped us off at the school, he sped away before I could give him money for the fare.
I followed Ava back to our room in the residence and collapsed onto my bed. There was nothing after that until a firm rap on the door woke me up the next morning.
Groaning, I rolled over and opened my eyes. Ava was only half awake and struggling to untangle herself from her bed sheets, so I got up and went to the door. When I opened it, a sprightly old lady even shorter than I was looked back at me. She was smiling and I could have sworn her eyes actually sparkled. I rubbed my own to clear the sleep out of them.
“Ah, Lacey McInnis—correct?”
I nodded and she peered past me into the room. “And Ava Brady, yes?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I didn’t mean to wake you, but since you’re the only girls currently on campus, I wanted to make sure you knew what had happened.”
Ava and I shared a look. “What happened?” I asked.
The woman laughed. “Oh my, you sound so serious. It’s nothing to worry about, I promise. Ms. Dalton has been offered a wonderful opportunity to head up an experimental arts school in Switzerland. It’s a great honor for her, but one of the conditions was that she leave immediately. I’m sure she would have liked to say goodbye, but there just wasn’t time. I promised to convey her well wishes to you two. Perhaps you can let the other students know when they return.”
I just stared at her as she lied to me, but I got the message. There would be no police, no murder investigation. We would participate in this pleasant fiction and no deviation from it would be permitted.
She laughed again, her apple cheeks dimpling adorably. “I’m so sorry. You have no idea who I am, do you. I’m the new headmistress. You can call me Mrs. Bell though. No ‘dean this’ or ‘headmistress that’. I’ve been on call just in case.” There was the barest hint of a tremor in her smile. “Just in case dear Elisha received the promotion she deserved.”
Something brushed against my legs. I yelped in surprise—it was a grey and white cat.
Mrs. Bell leaned down and scooped the animal into her arms. “This is Elisha’s cat William. Isn’t he a beauty? I couldn’t bear taking him to the pound so I decided to bring him here. He can belong to all of us.” The woman’s bright eyes twinkled at me over the cat’s head.
So the New Orleans coven already had a new leader. I knew it, and she knew I knew it, but apparently we were going to pretend she was just a harmless little old lady holding a fluffy cat. I was fine with that. I hadn’t decided yet whether my future plans included Westover Academy or not.
The rest of the Christmas holidays passed uneventfully. The new dean quickly put things back to normal at the school. Her office was
re-carpeted and freshly painted, and a team of security guards started patrolling the grounds again. Women this time. I had my suspicions about what other skills they might possess. Even the scratched glass over the print of the Witch of Endor had been replaced, but the wall where the portrait of Elisha Dalton had hung was conspicuously bare.
Mrs. Bell was a constant presence at the school. Although she smiled merrily each time we passed in the halls, something in her eyes made me wonder if she blamed me for what happened to the White Lady. I tried to avoid her whenever I could.
She wasn’t the only one I was starting to avoid. Maybe it was because of the trauma of everything she’d experienced, but Ava was increasingly vague on the details surrounding the witch’s death. When I told her about what happened to Michel, she was curious, but nothing more. She didn’t remember having any interest in the bokur, and she thought I was joking when I said she was a zombie for a short time.
There was tension between us after that. I was relieved when a few of the senior girls returned for New Year’s Eve. They were surprised to hear about Ms. Dalton, but by the time they followed Ava through the break in the fence to attend a party at the private boy’s school across the city, the dean’s abrupt departure was forgotten. Even though the charm of my lorelei ancestry encouraged them to include me, I declined the invitation and Ava didn’t press it.
As I sat in our room, waiting for the clock to count down to midnight, I regretted not going to the party. I’d never really been good at being alone, and since my charm drew people to me, I’d rarely had to be until these last few months. I stared at the sky through the window, but I couldn’t find peace in the stars. Giving in, I picked up my phone and dialed a familiar number.
After two rings, he answered. “Hello?”
“Hi, Peter. It’s me.”
Sword of Elements Series Boxed Set 2: Bound In Blue, Caught In Crimson & To Make A Witch Page 58