T*Witches: Double Jeopardy

by Reisfeld, Randi

  “Is that his hat?” Alex asked as Dylan’s eyes drifted shut. “Kenya described it,” she explained. Glancing at Cam, she added silently, We can track the bozo through his cap — thanks to Uncle T.

  Yeah, if we had quartz crystal and mandrake and chickenbrain —

  Henbane, Alex corrected her. Voilà! She tossed something to Camryn.

  Unc the skunk’s herb pouch! Cam was impressed. How did you — ?

  I’m getting soooo good, her sister crowed. I did the beg-and-boost thing; you know, stared at it, wanted it, wished for it — and boom!

  Gently, Alex took RideBoy’s knit cap from Dylan.

  “He shoved me out of the van,” the boy murmured. “I snagged his hat when he pushed me. And I’ve got his license plate number. How’s Kenya doing?”

  “Better than Mom and Dad,” Cam said.

  “Oh, man.” Dylan held his head in his hands. “I really messed up this time.”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “But you also caught a creep,” Alex pointed out, brushing mud and leaves from Dylan’s hair. “I mean, with his license plate number and your description of him and Kenya’s story of what went down — and don’t forget his hat. That may turn out to be really valuable,” she said, glancing significantly at Cam. If we can grab a couple of minutes’ worth of privacy to play Unc’s tracker trick with it. “I mean, a really valuable … you know, piece of evidence.”

  Cam nodded. “Know what, Dyl? My cellular won’t work down here. Why don’t Alex and I try to find better reception, while you just hang here for a few minutes more, okay?”

  “Sure,” Dylan said groggily.

  “Okay. Be back in a minute,” she assured him as they started away.

  “How come both of you have to go?” Dyl called after them.

  They stopped, looked searchingly at each other, and turned back to Dylan. His eyes were shut; his breathing was heavy but rhythmic. “He’s out,” Alex whispered. “Come on. We’ll do the Situater, find out where the sicko’s skulking, and be right back.”

  They went toward the choppy bay, then followed the uneven shoreline to an unexpected opening in the sea grass. Walking inland, between the rustling reeds, they came to an alley of overhanging branches. At the end of it, several yards of brush and trees had been cleared. The tamped-down area formed a nearly perfect circle surrounded by stones and strangely imposing evergreens, majestic and menacing.

  An icy wind rattled through the trees, raising goose bumps on Cam’s neck and arms. Alex felt it, too, as she stared up at the towering firs and spruces. “Maybe this isn’t the right spot,” she ventured. “There’s something … I don’t know … ugly about it, don’t you think?”

  “It’s majorly spooky,” Cam concurred. “There’s something here that … I can’t explain it, Als, but it reminds me of or makes me think of Karsh. Not our Karsh, not our funny, scary-looking, nubby-headed, sweet grand-guardian, but a cold, gray, lost Karsh —”

  Alex shuddered and, in a gesture of defiance, pulled open Thantos’s leather pouch. “Let’s do this thing,” she said. “Now. Situate RideBoy, 911 the cops, and get out of here. Fast.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHOICES

  Ileana was angry. She was an equal-opportunity blamer.

  Enraged at Thantos, she stomped around her cottage, ticking off the reasons. She blamed him for tricking Miranda. The greedy, power-hungry warlock had pretended to be taking care of her, when he was really taking advantage of her mental state. Miranda had blocked out her own memories. Thantos came sweeping in with his version of what had happened that November morning fifteen years ago — fiction to further his self-centered agenda.

  Ileana blamed him for trying to lure Camryn and Alexandra away from their duty to serve humanity to his desire to have them serve him. With the power of Aron’s family on his side, he’d truly be omnipotent. Woe to those who would cross him. Should the twins prove too smart to fall under his spell? He’d kill them.

  Mostly, she blamed Thantos for what happened the day of her own birth. He’d rejected her and, from that day forward, treated her as nothing more than an ordinary, irritating stranger. That she could occasionally be irritating, Ileana would be the first to admit, but never was she or would she be ordinary!

  Ileana blamed Miranda, too. How could such a once insightful and powerful witch be so easily ensnared? This was not the Miranda of her memory, far from the kind-hearted, brilliant shining star Ileana had worshiped — and wanted to be.

  How could this once exquisite and powerful woman have deteriorated so much? What kind of mentor was she now? What kind of parent could she be — sending a dangerous, deranged tracker to “protect” her children?

  A parent with neither experience nor good instincts to guide her, Ileana concluded, a role model for dismal failure.

  Ileana’s harshest fury was reserved for herself. How could her powers fail her now? How could she have fallen so far into the pity pot that she couldn’t climb out to help the twins, her charges. Her cousins!

  She threw off her heavy cape and smoothed the seams of the gauzy midnight-blue gown she wore beneath it. The choice to run off to Marble Bay in her current condition was not wise. What help could she be in this strange, weakened state?

  Yet what choice did she have? Miranda had sent Thantos to them — Lord Bad Dad himself, everybody’s favorite in the I’d Rather Be Cloned Than Have Him for a Father Sweepstakes. That kind of help was a disaster waiting to happen.

  Ileana shuddered suddenly. What if she ended up like Miranda; what would it be like to spend more than a decade powerless? No! She stomped her stiletto-heeled foot. That would never happen to her. She would not allow it. She would regain her gifts by sheer willpower. If anyone could will her magick back, she could!

  Briefly, Ileana considered asking Karsh to come with her, but thought better of it.

  He would try to prevent her from going, perform a spell to keep her grounded, and try even harder to talk her into letting him go in her stead. Which would make her, for all Coventry to see, the pitiable weakling she had become.

  No way! She might have lost her powers, but not her pride.

  Problem — immediate rather than long range — she had no way to quickly get to Marble Bay. She was already the flightless bird Karsh might have tried to turn her into. She could not rely on glorious wings to carry her soaring to the coastal Massachusetts town. Any other means of transportation would take too long.

  So Ileana did something she had sneered at others for doing. She admitted she needed help — and, swallowing that cherished pride, she summoned Brice Stanley.

  The handsome warlock she had almost given her heart to had betrayed her. Since the trial, where he’d testified on behalf of Thantos, she had cast him out of her life. But the willful witch was desperate. And the warlock movie star owned a private jet.

  Brice was the fastest route to the twins. And, as she knew he would be, People’s pick for Hollywood hottie of the year was eager to send his plane. No doubt believing, Ileana supposed, that the gesture was the fastest route back into her good graces.

  He’d be wrong about that.

  Ileana did not forgive easily. But the heinous loss of her powers had an upside. It had made her desperately practical. And at the moment, there was no faster, easier way to get to Cam and Alex.

  Karsh was alarmed.

  He was anxious about the twins. He was needed in a place he could not be. He had tried to help them telepathically. He’d “forwarded” his vision of Dylan’s whereabouts to Camryn. He’d telegraphed the longitude and latitude to Alexandra. He believed absolutely in the daughters of Aron and Miranda. They would save the boy’s life. He would not have to go there.

  And yet. He was nervous. What if something went wrong, something the not-yet-initiated pair could not handle?

  Karsh stared out the window of his cottage. Ileana’s cat, Boris, was wandering alone in the woods. Suddenly, he knew: His impetuous, willful charge had gone to the twins, was alre
ady on her way.

  His anxiety quotient was upped to all-out alarm. What made her think she was a match for Thantos? Her hatred would blind her; her diminished state would impair her; her pride would be her downfall. Here was a tragedy in the making. Unless he was there to prevent it.

  But he could not be. His every rational thought, every cell in his body warned against it. Besides, he was needed here, to relay the truth, to open the door to the twins’ future. He could not risk leaving Coventry Island right now — especially not to venture into the woods of Salem.

  Yet how could he not? If the twins were Ileana’s responsibility, the powerless but still impetuous witch was his. What choice did that leave him? If he didn’t intervene and the worst happened …

  He could not even think about that now. He needed every ounce of intellect and positive energy to forge his decision.

  Seconds passed that felt like hours. With a heavy heart, Karsh knew what had to be done. In the basement of his cottage was a very old wooden trunk. He’d never opened it before but he knew its contents. Most would be sorted through later, by others. What he needed right now lay on the very bottom. Gold-threaded, beaded with sparkling gems, it was a handsome cloak.

  He’d never worn it before, of course, never believed he would put it on by himself, alive and willingly. Nevertheless, after dusting off his best waistcoat and vest, Karsh donned the awesome cape.

  One other thing the aged warlock had to do before he left. The notebook in which he’d painstakingly recorded all that Ileana and the twins needed to know had been hastily stuffed into a random book the day Miranda surprised him by showing up at his door.

  Just before he left to follow the irrepressible child he’d raised as his own, Karsh retrieved it and inserted it instead into the most appropriate tome he could find: Forgiveness or Vengeance: Righting Ancient Wrongs. He pressed the worn book to his lips before returning it to the shelf.

  Their father was ruthless, faithless, and violent — a warlock from the wealthiest clan on Coventry Island. Their mother was simpler — ambitious, greedy, treacherous, she was a descendent of notorious crooks and con men. But because she was not a witch, Tsuris and Vey were only half warlock. They possessed a bit of the wit of each of their parents. Hence, they were also half-wits.

  Because they’d grown up with their mother on the mainland — in a little beach cottage in the gated community of Malibu — and not on the island where they might have been trained, they were ignorant of the craft. Ignoramuses, some said, which sounded to them very classically Greek.

  What Tsuris and Vey had learned, however, was this: A huge inheritance had once awaited them. But now, with their father incarcerated, their share of the money, their mother had told them, was threatened.

  It was all the fault of that vile, vain creature who had been chasing after Brice Stanley, the movie star their mama most adored. If that weren’t enough, Ms. Ileana DuBaer was their uncle Thantos’s child. She therefore stood to snag the loot she’d so cleverly denied them by putting their daddy in jail.

  They must make her pay for it, their mother had decreed.

  They had missed their chance at Rock Mount Cemetery. They believed she would next show at Karsh’s cottage. So there they went, hid, and waited.

  Because they had not even the basic warlock skills, let alone the more advanced like mind reading, they had no idea what Karsh was up to or where the old man was going as he put on his very gaudy traveling cloak.

  They decided to follow him anyway.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THE HAT TRICK

  They were inside a narrow room, a space capsule with cheap black velvet and faux leopard skin stapled to the walls and an orange shag carpet on the floor. The fabric was ripped in spots and rusty metal showed through.

  It wasn’t until they saw Dylan collapsed in a corner that Cam and Alex realized that they were looking at the interior of RideBoy’s van, which he’d apparently done up like some kind of den.

  Dylan was curled up on his side. His cheek was bruised, puffy, scraped. They were looking down at him.

  “Wise guy, right?” they heard. “What are you, a junior G-man or something?”

  “Junior G-man? What are you, Dick Tracy?” Dylan sneered, rolling onto his back.

  A hand lashed out and struck his injured cheek. Droplets of blood formed at the cut. Dylan, his hands bound with clothesline rope, tried to scramble to his feet. The hand shot out again, pushing him back down.

  “He’s tied up,” Cam whispered, appalled.

  “Hold the crystal steady,” Alex commanded, wrinkling her nose. Her hands stunk of burned mandrake root and henbane. She didn’t like standing there, shivering, in the eerie, swamp-stinking circle of rocks. But the spell Thantos had taught them was working.

  She and Cam were seeing Dylan from his kidnapper’s point of view — more specifically, from the point of view of the slimebag’s hat.

  “He’s getting back into the driver’s seat,” Cam said. “Als! Isn’t that the road we just drove over? He’s heading toward Salem —”

  “Duh. Where he’s going to dump Dylan in the woods,” Alex reminded her. “And the credits are going to roll on this part of the movie —”

  She opened her eyes, stretched, and blinked at the fading daylight, while Cam kept hers shut, clinging to the crystal and the cap.

  It had been like watching a miniseries. Following Dylan’s earring had been part one. Today’s episode filled in what had happened after the earring fell out.

  The potbellied guy had looked up (startled at Dylan’s “Yo, dude, wait up!” Alex assumed). From the point of view of the grungy knit cap, they saw Dylan walking slowly toward the man.

  “What do you want?” the guy had called to him. “Hey, what are you doing, taking down my license number? What’s up with you, kid?”

  Dylan had turned abruptly and pulled out a cell phone — which Kenya might have lent him, or it could have been Robbie Meeks’s, Cam thought. Anyway, he had a cell phone for about a minute … just until the blubbery bozo ran after him, knocked the phone out of his hand, and dragged him, in a headlock, back to the rusty red van.

  Dyl struggled. He got in a solid punch, a kick or two, and had almost wriggled out of the headlock, when the perv picked up a piece of pipe and put out Dylan’s lights with a blow to the side of his head.

  “What a sleaze,” Alex had hollered, outraged, as the man threw Dylan into the back of his van and pulled shut the sliding door.

  “Whoops. There it is,” Cam said, still staring through the quartz crystal. “The pig’s trying to shove Dyl out of the van. Dylan’s trying to grab the guy’s head with his hands tied. Alex, look. He got his hat instead. And … there goes my bro, hat’s-eye view, sailing out of the van, rolling over and over down a hill, bouncing in ditches and against trees. Ugh! No wonder Dylan looked so beat up when we found him.”

  She straightened up, a little green at the gills. “That was majorly disgusting.”

  “Hang on,” Alex said, keeping Cam’s hands clamped around the hat. “Don’t forget the rest. We’ve got to find RideBoy before he hooks up with some other gullible girl —”

  “Do you remember how it goes?” Cam asked. “It’s like: From this crummy dumby’s cap show us how —”

  “Maybe we’d better stick with the original words,” Alex suggested.

  “Fine.” Cam rolled her eyes. “From this object show us how, with herbs and stones so rare —”

  “We may find RideBoy now,” Alex recited, “and see how he does fare.”

  Their eyelids grew instantly heavy and fluttered shut. Their hearts jumped into their throats as they were hurled backward, up over the van, above the highway, farther and farther into space until they could see the rusty blood-colored truck making its way toward the narrow streets of Salem town center.

  They saw the van leisurely cruising along a cobblestone avenue near the historically restored wharf. Three times RideBoy circled the area, each time driving more slowl
y.

  The pier was dotted with strolling tourists. A young girl was sitting on an outdoor table at one of the food stalls. She was surveying the sparse crowd, craning her neck, looking this way and that. The girl was obviously searching for someone, waiting for something —

  “She’s it,” Alex cried. “She’s his next victim. We’ve got to find a way to warn her!”

  “Als, look! There’s a police car parked in front of that gift shop,” Cam shouted.

  “That’s probably why the predator hasn’t stopped.”

  “I can phone them,” Cam said. “I mean, I can phone 911 and explain what’s shaking —”

  “Can you read the numbers on the cop cruiser?” Alex asked, eyes still shut, hands holding on to Cam’s. “Then you can tell 911 there’s already a patrol car on the scene.”

  “Okay,” Cam said after a moment. “I’ve got it.” Pulling away from her sister, she flipped open her cell phone and punched in the police emergency digits.

  With a grunt of disgust, Alex threw down the knit cap and walked toward the water. Her intention was to clean the herbal ashes from her hands. She wished she could as easily wash away the ugly scenes Thantos’s trick had revealed.

  Suddenly, everything was freaking her — her dirty hands, the feeling that the forest was full of spirits, the voices she’d heard in the woods, the weird circle of rocks she’d stumbled upon in the middle of nowhere, the thick soggy leaves and wet sand underfoot, the quickly descending darkness, even the sound of wind whistling across the water. And then there was Cam’s feeling or premonition or vision of Karsh as a cold, gray, changed being.

  About the only consolation, Alex thought, elbowing roughly through the rattling cattails, was the pale face of the full moon overhead.

  But where was Karsh? Where was Ileana? Did Miranda’s appearance have anything to do with their disappearances?

  Alex shuddered. In spite of the chill night air, she felt a rush of hot rage.

  No biggie, she told herself as her hypersensitive ears caught the slam of a car door from the road above.