Alex rubbed her half-moon charm, feeling at once the hum of energy flow in her.
“Let’s blow him away,” Cam said, reminded suddenly of Leila’s enchanted sigh.
The same thought came to Alex. Grandmother, help us now, she urged. Great spirit of the stream, Leila…
They each took a deep, crystal-cold breath and, as one, expelled a blast of icy air. Derek flew! He tumbled backward like a celestial gymnast, a dark, spinning shadow in the sky. Then he landed — headfirst, on his soaked, misshapen hat — in the wobbly cart at the top of the Ole Wagon Wheel.
“Score!” Cam shouted, high-fiving her twin.
The door to the cabin opened, spilling lamplight onto the snow. “Well, well.” Kyle Applebee grinned grimly. He was carrying a red container. “Who let the Twisted Sisters out?”
“The Karate Kid’s got company,” Riggs called, following his brother outside.
“Where’s Evan?” Alex asked. But Cam was already on the case, staring at the log cabin, trying to penetrate its walls with her uncanny gray eyes.
Kyle was glaring at them. “How’d you get in here? Where’s Derek?” he snarled, looking around for his crony.
“He’s up —” Alex said, smiling defiantly.
“— to no good,” Cam quickly cut in. A second later, she gasped. Evan was inside the cabin. A woman clothed in black was slumped against him. It was Mrs. Fretts. Wrapped in Kyle’s greasy parka, Evan’s mother was crying softly on her son’s shoulder.
“They have his mom,” Cam reported.
Spilling gasoline from the red plastic container he held, Kyle whipped around and glared at his brother. “I told you to keep that door shut!”
“You were out at the trailer, weren’t you?” Alex demanded, remembering the gasoline smell.
“Wouldn’t be no trailer left,” Riggs snarled, “if someone hadn’t dumped your old man out there. We were going to use the place for practice. Burn that dive down.”
“But not with some stinking stiff inside. We woulda got nailed for murder,” Kyle added. “Who’s gonna believe we had nothing to do with it?”
There was a sudden commotion in the shed. Mrs. Fretts dove outside, shaking her fist at the Applebees. Evan grabbed her before she fell. Gently, he led her back toward the cabin but she refused to go inside. She leaned against the wall, arms stubbornly crossed, her distressed face trying to find a threatening expression.
“You know what?” Kyle addressed the twins, pretending to be laid-back about finding trespassers on his turf and one of his crew missing. “You want to stick around and watch? Cool. But you only get to see the previews. You won’t be around for the show.”
“Is that a threat?” Alex challenged.
Riggs reached inside his jacket and pulled out a gun. “That answer your question, Alex?”
“Guess so,” she told the grinning boy in the black head scarf.
Okay, she could probably make the gasoline can fly out of Kyle’s hand, Alex thought. Although his grip on it was pretty tight. And Cam might be able to bend the barrel of Riggs’s gun, which was no cheap toy. But they could seriously use a hand right about now.
Or, even better, a claw.
Didn’t happen to see Fredo in that vision, did you? Alex silently asked her sister.
I think we’re on our own, Cam said.
“Let them go.” It was Evan. “They don’t know anything. What are they going to do, report you for attempted tattooing?”
“Too late, kung fool,” Kyle said.
“It’s going down tomorrow,” Riggs reminded Evan. “We don’t need any heat between then and now —”
“Riggs, don’t you get it? If you hurt them,” Evan tried to explain, “you’ll have a lot more heat.”
“Really?” Kyle said. “How do you figure? I mean a couple of tourist girls disappear in the woods. Happens all the time. Too bad the sheriff’s office will be so busy trying to find them there’ll be nobody left to patrol the football field.”
OMG, Cam thought suddenly, this is it. This is when it happens. She recognized not just the place, but the time, the moment.
The woman in black was Evan’s mom, looking chunky in Kyle’s parka.
Derek was no longer in the picture; there were only the two boys that she’d seen.
The full moon, which had played peekaboo with the clouds all night, was now totally visible and very bright —
And Kyle was holding the red container.
Smiling his broken-toothed grin, he pushed the gasoline can at Evan. “Just take it,” he said. “You got to. It’s too late now.”
As he’d done in Cam’s vision, Evan pushed it away. “No. No way, man. No.”
“Okay, listen up,” Kyle said. “I’m through playing. Here’s the way it is. I’m not torching the school. Riggs ain’t doing it. And neither is that Chicken Little, DJ —”
“You the man.” Riggs laughed at Evan.
“That’s right,” his brother backed him. “You’re going to do this thing. So take it.” Again he shoved the red can at Evan. “Yo, Crouching Tiger, it’s one of them deposit things. You bring the gas can back empty tomorrow, we return your moms.”
“Take it!” Riggs shouted, pointing his gun at Evan’s head. “Let’s go, bro. Time to move on to the bonus round. And, man, what a bonus we got ourselves. You gotta set the gas and barbecue old Crow Creek High, or we get to keep your mama and the Troublemint twins.”
“Uh-oh,” Cam murmured. “Lucinda wasn’t kidding — ”
Kyle turned to glare at her. As he did, Evan made his move. Arm stiffly bent, one leg cocked, he shouted, spun, and kicked out. The martial arts move, meant to knock the gun out of Riggs’s hand, totally missed, but Evan’s fierce karate cry at least startled the hefty boy into nearly dropping his weapon.
“Lucinda wasn’t kidding?” Alex asked.
I had this premonition flash a second before Evan acted up, Cam explained. Lucinda wasn’t kidding. He really does bite at karate.
Alex felt her anger rise, fueled by her love for Evan. Before Riggs had steadied himself, before Kyle took in what had gone down, she whispered to Cam, “Grab your necklace. Let’s send the boy some juice!”
Cam rubbed her sun charm. Alex held tightly to her moon amulet. They felt the electric jolt rush through them and — focusing on Evan’s shoddy boots — they passed their parents’ powerful energy to the desperate boy.
Evan’s foot lashed out again. And connected. With Riggs’s jaw. The boy fell backward. The gun flew out of his hands. It landed several feet away in the deep snow.
There was no time to gloat. Kyle tossed the gasoline can to Evan. Automatically, instinctively, Evan caught it. The flammable liquid splashed all over his clothes and face, temporarily blinding him.
Kyle backed away, laughing. “Practice makes perfect,” he shouted, hunting for something in his sweatshirt pockets.
“He’s looking for his lighter,” Alex cried.
“He won’t find it,” Cam assured her. It’s in his parka — which Evan’s mom is wearing.
But Kyle remembered. He turned toward Mrs. Fretts, who began shrieking in terror.
Riggs stirred. Lifting his head from the ground, he massaged his jaw and tested his nose. “Oh, man,” he murmured, shifting his nostrils. “What is that?” He inhaled once, then fell back into the snow.
Alex caught a whiff of the odor at the same time.
“Get off me, get off me!” Evan’s mother tried to swat Kyle Applebee away.
“Leave her alone,” Cam ordered, rashly aiming her fiery eyes at the bully.
Kyle shoved Mrs. Fretts hard against the shed and tried to search the pockets of the jacket she was wearing.
Evan’s mom cried out.
Cam felt the vengeful heat gathering in her eyes. A single blink would send a bolt of flame at Kyle’s scraggly ponytail.
“Wait! No!” Alex warned her, as Evan, his hooded sweatshirt soaked with gasoline, ran blindly toward his mother’s screams.
Cam quickly lowered her gaze from Kyle’s ponytail to the snow at his feet. But suddenly a putrid odor assailed her. “Whoops!” she gasped as Kyle’s snakeskin boots burst into flames.
Alex tackled Evan, to keep him away from the fire. “Get out of that sweatshirt,” she urged. Eyes stinging and shut, Evan rolled in the snow, wrestling off his sweatshirt as Kyle, trying to stomp out the boot blaze, danced wildly closer to them.
All at once he stopped. He wrinkled his nose. And gasped.
Evan hurled his gas-soaked sweatshirt. It landed on top of the red can.
There was an unearthly roar. The ground rumbled beneath them. And Alex, lying facedown in the snow, recognized the ripe swamp stench of Uncle Fredo, who, she peeked and saw, had recklessly morphed into his favorite but forbidden form.
Better late than never! Cam grumbled, seeing — and smelling — the monstrous lizard.
Freed from his feeble body, practically giddy with glee, Fredo lifted Kyle Applebee off the ground. The ponytailed bully yelped once, then promptly passed out, his boots still aflame.
Fredo grinned madly. Mrs. Fretts slid to the ground, covering her face and howling.
“Put out the fire. Blow out his boots,” Cam called as her uncle lurched closer to the gasoline can hidden by Evan’s sweatshirt.
Cam, Alex, and Evan flattened themselves against the ground as the repulsive reptile batted at Kyle’s burning boots. They only dared look up when they heard the hiss of crackling snakeskin fizzling out in the frigid snow.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
FAMILY MATTERS
“Did you see that? Was I born to be huge, or what?” Fredo crowed, tossing Kyle aside.
“Why don’t you slip into something more comfortable,” Alex suggested, “like yourself.”
“Just in case one of Thantos’s spies is around,” Cam reminded their uncle, holding her nose as politely as possible. “That lizard look is off-limits, remember?”
“Oh, all right.” Fredo sulked. “But my brother will forgive me everything, once I bring you to him.” Slowly, with obvious regret, he began returning to his human form. Which was no great improvement, Cam noted, on his revolting reptile appearance.
She was glad that Evan and his mother hadn’t seen the changing. They were both inside the cabin. Mrs. Fretts had passed out cold, with her head on Evan’s lap. Evan, exhausted and still groggy from the gas fumes, leaned against a wall, resting his eyes.
“I love being a lizard,” the twins’ shrinking uncle confided. “And I’m good at it, aren’t I? Colossal!” With a semimorphed claw, he swept back his thinning, greasy dark hair. “So, are we all set?”
“Almost,” Alex said. “No hurry, right?”
“Yeah,” Cam agreed. “Why don’t we chill and chat, you know, about the family?”
“Which family?” Fredo asked coyly, brushing leftover lizard skin from his Coventry cape. “Yours, hers, ours? There are so many.”
“Ours,” Alex said. “Which, rumor has it, includes a certain beautiful guardian witch —”
Fredo’s squinty eyes grew large. The smile left his face at last. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said nervously. “I never said a word about it!”
“We’re talking about Ileana, of course,” Cam persisted. “Whose child is she? Is she our sister? Was our father married to someone else, before he met our mother?”
“Or is Ileana Miranda’s daughter by a previous marriage?” Alex asked.
“No,” Fredo said.
The word, rumbling with an echo that sounded most un-Fredo-like — aggressive, angry, impatient — was followed by the sudden meowing of a cat.
The twins looked down and there was Boris. Wet, scruffy, shaking with cold, he glared at Fredo. They looked up again, and there was Ileana, in not much better shape than her pet. It was her decisive “no” that had reverberated with Fredo’s.
“What is this?” Fredo demanded, backing away from Boris. “Who invited the party poopers? Did you forget that I’m allergic to cats — particularly to that one?”
Boris hissed and hunched his back. Fredo began frantically scratching his scrawny arm. “Go on, go on, try to best me as you did last time we met,” he taunted Ileana. “This time, you will not have the twins’ magick on your side. They are going with me — voluntarily!”
“Um, Fredo —” Cam began.
Their goat-bearded uncle could not be silenced. “All your power, both inherited and learned, may be strong enough to hurt me, Ileana, but you’ll never overcome our combined strength. I am just one against you, but with the daughters of Aron and Miranda on my side, there’s nothing you can do.”
Ileana shook her head in disgust and turned her back on their skinny uncle. “Do you know how far away Mexico is?” their guardian growled at Cam and Alex. “And how warm?”
“Is that where you went?” Alex asked.
Cam snapped her fingers. “You went to visit Brice, right? He’s supposed to be starring in the movie that a friend of mine’s father is producing —”
“Not Eric Waxman?” Ileana wrinkled her nose.
“Waxman, that’s it,” Cam affirmed. “He’s my friend Brianna’s father —”
“Father?” Alex sneered. “He’s as good a father as Thantos is an uncle.”
Ileana sighed. “We were having such a marvelous time until he showed up, unannounced, uninvited, and unwanted!”
“May I have your attention, please?” Fredo demanded, frantically scratching his ankle.
“Not now,” Ileana grumbled, waving him away. “Just stand still and be quiet and I’ll tell Boris not to rub against you.”
“Yes, goddess.” Fredo bowed slightly, then straightened and stood still as a statue.
“Ileana.” Cam had an idea. Alex instantly seconded it. “We’ve got a favor to ask.…”
Ileana tapped her pale chin thoughtfully as they outlined their plan. Basically, it called for Ileana to spook Eric Waxman and send him sprinting from Mexico to Marble Bay full of gratitude and dad-itude. To make good on the promise he’d made to Brianna, his daughter.
“Bonus: You’ll have more downtime with Brice,” Cam clinched the request.
“Brice?” Fredo brightened maliciously. “Oh, yes, one of my brother’s lackeys —”
The twins and their guardian whirled on him. “Brice Stanley?” Alex asked, shocked.
“The movie star?” Cam wanted to clarify.
“My Brice?” Ileana gulped.
“The very one,” Fredo insisted, rubbing his arms and keeping an eye on Boris. “How he idolized Thantos — and obeyed him unquestioningly.”
“I don’t believe you,” Ileana said, but Cam and Alex could see, could feel, that she did, and that Fredo’s revelation had shaken her.
Cam remembered how awful it was finding out that Shane was working for Thantos. The handsome young warlock had been sent to harm them but had stayed to help. Shane had refused to kill at her cruel uncle’s command. Maybe Brice Stanley, too, would disobey and abandon Lord Thantos.
“Yo, hold up,” Alex insisted. “Idolized and obeyed. Past tense. How long ago did this happen, Fredo?”
“Not that long ago —”
“I don’t believe you.” Ileana tried to remain haughty. “Let’s go. I’m transporting you home. And then I’ve got business — and pleasure — to take care of south of the border.”
“You’re taking me home? But you said …” Fredo looked pleadingly at Alex and Cam. “You said you’d come with me.”
“We said,” Alex reminded him, “that we wouldn’t let Thantos hurt you.”
“And we won’t,” Cam promised. “You’ll have Ileana’s protection, all the way back to Coventry Island.”
Fredo gazed at Ileana, letting his situation sink in. “Oh, very well. Brice was just a boy,” he told his traveling companion. “Very young. His parents were sick and sent him to the fortress to be reared. That was when my mother, Lady Leila, was still alive —”
“Fredo, what about our mothe
r?” Cam asked anxiously. “Thantos said he could take us to her.”
“And you believed him?” Ileana shook her head at them.
“He can and he will,” Fredo declared, “if you come with me now.”
Cam and Alex looked at each other, then turned to Ileana.
“She is a stranger, a nobody! I am your relative,” Fredo burst out. “Would I want to hurt you?”
“You are no longer children,” Ileana said stiffly. “The decision must be your own.” She snapped her fingers and Boris jumped into her arms. Then she turned away from them as if preparing to leave. “Oh, all right,” they heard her grumble as she swung back to face them. “I am your relative, too —”
“Who told you that?” Fredo looked around frantically. “It wasn’t me. I’d never say a thing like that! Relative, ha! Not from our side of the family!”
Ignoring him, Cam asked softly, “Ileana, was our mother your mother, too?”
“No,” their guardian said, “though I often wished she were. When I was a child, I longed for Miranda to be my mother. She was kind and beautiful. I remember growing angry with her when she told me that she and Aron were going to be parents. I became very jealous —”
“When did you see her last?” Alex asked.
“You already know. My lord Karsh told you. I saw her the day you were born. Karsh and I found your father. It was a great tragedy — for all. You see, I worshiped Lord Aron. He was brilliant and strong and his eyes were as gray as mine — and yours, of course,” she added. “I dreamed that they’d adopt me one day. And Karsh told me they hoped for it, too. Who knows what might have happened.…”
“What did happen?” Cam urged gently. “What happened to our mother?”
“I don’t know,” Ileana confessed. “We brought her your father’s robe, his bloodstained cloak. Lord Karsh and I stayed with her while she mourned and tore her hair. We stayed as she howled and screamed and rubbed her face into the bloody fleece of the cloak she had so lovingly made for him. We stayed and held you so that you would be safe — and, as we watched, Miranda went mad.”
“A crazy woman,” Fredo cackled suddenly. “That’s who your mother was. Dangerously demented. Incurably insane. She needed to be locked up!”
T*Witches: Dead Wrong Page 10