Crushed (City of Eldrich Book 2)

by Laura Kirwan

  “Was Marnie with them?” Meaghan asked.

  Emily shook her head. “Not that I saw.”

  “I don’t think she was there,” Nate said.

  Meaghan sighed. “That means the wizards still have her. So, then what?”

  “I got everyone behind me and tried to put up a barrier,” Emily said, “but I was so outgunned it was impossible. I told them to run and then I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Jhoro. He smiled at me, and then walked past me toward the mob.”

  Meaghan nodded. “And then he smiled at them, right? And they all stopped and smiled back?”

  Emily looked startled. “Yes. How did you know that? I still can’t believe I saw that happen.”

  “The same thing happened in my kitchen a couple days ago. It was only three witches, but I could barely believe it either. Then what happened?”

  Jamie snorted with disgust and walked away.

  “He led them away from us,” Emily said. “We were about to follow when we heard the wizards running up the street.”

  “So we all ran up this way and dove into the bushes to hide,” Nate said, “and then Sid told us what you guys were trying to do, so we decided to try to come find you. Before we could go any further, you almost stepped on us.” He grinned at Meaghan. “And you kicked me in the nuts.”

  “Yeah,” Meaghan said. “Sorry about that.”

  “No, I get it. Good fighting technique. Always go for the soft bits.” He looked back and forth between Meaghan and Emily. “So, now what do we do?”

  Emily looked at Meaghan. “Yes, now what?”

  We find a real leader, Meaghan thought. Out loud, she said, “Well, I think it’s safe to assume, based on what Annie told us, that the wizards found Jhoro and the witches right after they left you. We still need to find Marnie and we have to try to rescue Jhoro. And we have to stop the wizards opening the door to whatever’s on the other side. We still need to get inside city hall.”

  “We could do a locating spell,” Emily said.

  “We already tried that,” Natalie said, her voice cold. “I’m with Jamie on this. Why are we trusting her? On her word that she’s had some kind of mystic conversion experience? This is only a more clever variation of the Pollyanna fake-friendly crap she pulls all the time.”

  “Meg’s big lately with the misguided-trusting thing,” Sid added from the shadows. “That leprechaun sold us out. I know he did.”

  What if they’re right? What if I’ve killed everybody by trusting the wrong people?

  Annie stepped into the silence, shaking your head. “Sid, you’re wrong about Owen. He may have an agenda we don’t know about, but he’s on our side.”

  “How do you know?” Natalie said. “He’s not dead, is he? It’s only dead people you talk to.”

  Annie glared at her. “You should shut up once in a while. You don’t know as much as you think you do.”

  Natalie growled and began waving her hand.

  “Babe,” Brian said, stepping between Natalie and Annie. “Calm down.”

  “Don’t you ‘babe’ me,” Natalie snapped at him. “You aren’t my boyfriend. Stop acting like you are.”

  Brian’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, it’s like that again, huh? Good old Brian. There when you need him, like a faithful dog. I’m done chasing you. You aren’t worth it.”

  “Fine,” Natalie said. “You aren’t him and you’re never going to be him.”

  Meaghan groaned. Without Jhoro’s psychic influence, the spell was reasserting itself.

  Nate snorted. “Let the wizards have him. Maybe now I can get my wife back. All we need to do is take care of that bitch Marnie. She’s the one who started this mess.” He looked around the crowd. “Come on. Before it’s too late.”

  Before Meaghan could stop him, Nate ran off into the darkness followed by most of the crowd. She glared at Emily. “Is this your doing?”

  Emily shook her head, eyes wide. “No. I . . . no. If you want me to go I can, but I’d like the chance to help you. I’ve got a lot to atone for.”

  “No kidding,” Jamie said. He looked at Natalie. “Can you believe this shit?”

  “Not in the least,” Natalie said, lifting her hand again to cast a spell. “I think it’s time for some payback.”

  Meaghan stepped in front of her and slapped her face hard.

  “Bitch,” Natalie hissed. “Watch it or I’ll—”

  “You’ll what?” Meaghan snarled back. “Hex me? Go for it. Because we’ve got so much time to waste right now tearing each other apart.” She looked over at Emily. “For what it’s worth, I think you’ve had a genuine change of heart, but . . .”

  Emily nodded. “I’m a distraction. The best thing I can do for you right now is be somewhere else. I’ll try to find Marnie and protect her.” She took a last sorrowful look at Jamie, then ran into the darkness.

  “And off she runs, like the coward she is,” Natalie said, with a smug smile.

  Meaghan resisted the urge to slap her again. It’s the spell, Meaghan reminded herself.

  “What are you looking at?” Natalie glared at Brian. “Aren’t you supposed to be in Williamsport? Aren’t you supposed to be—” Natalie made air quotes with her fingers—“protecting Eliot and Ruth?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Brian glared back.

  “Oh, I think you know,” Natalie said with a sneer. “Meaghan sent you off to get you out of the way. So you don’t get hurt. Why don’t you go find some safe place to hide while those of us who can actually do something get back to work?”

  Brian stared at her for a long moment, his face unreadable, then he nodded. “I’m going after Emily.”

  Natalie refused to look at him. “You do that, babe.”

  Brian nodded again and disappeared into the night.

  “Nat,” Jamie said. “Geez, why are you being such a bitch? Emily needed to leave, yeah, but Brian could have helped us.”

  “It’s Marnie’s spell,” Meaghan said, her voice tight. She could feel the anger bubbling up inside her trying to burst out. “Ignore her.”

  Natalie glared at her. “You’re just jealous. Because I have real power. And I’m younger.”

  Seeing the look in Meaghan’s eye, Sid grabbed Natalie’s arm. “Whoa, there, sweetie, let’s go over here a second, okay?”

  As they walked past her, Annie said. “At least Meaghan has an actual human hair color.” She turned back to Meaghan. “So, what do we do next?”

  “Are you still with me? Have you lost your mind again, too?”

  Annie shook her head. “Not totally. But Natalie is getting on my last nerve. The way she treats Brian is inexcusable.”

  Meaghan shrugged. “That’s the spell.”

  “No,” Jamie said. “It isn’t. She’s always been awful to him. Poor guy. He’s loved her since high school. She gives him enough to keep his hopes up, but no more. He’d marry her in a minute if she’d have him.”

  “Maybe not anymore,” Meaghan said, remembering the flat, dispassionate tone in his voice when he said he was leaving. “Not that it matters if we don’t get into city hall soon.” She sighed, aware again of how exhausted she was. But that didn’t matter. She had work to do.

  Jamie and Natalie were by far the strongest of the group, but both were increasingly unreliable. Every moment took Jamie closer to when the lorazepam finally wore off and the black magic of the sigils reasserted itself. Or he had a heart attack.

  Natalie was now acting like the stereotypical high school mean girl, with the exception of being able to hurl hexes along with insults.

  Annie seemed to be keeping it together better and she could talk to the ghosts in city hall, true, but she had no defensive abilities. In a confrontation with the wizards, she’d be helpless to protect herself.

  Then there was Sid, who still didn’t trust Meaghan enough to tell her what was going on, but seemed to have no problem criticizing her judgment.

  The person she most wanted by her side right now was John. But he w
as locked behind a magical door that couldn’t be opened for hours. And she’d tricked him into being locked behind that door.

  Jamie touched her arm and smiled at her. “Don’t worry. John will get over it. You made the right call.”

  Meaghan frowned at him. “You can read minds now, too?”

  He laughed. “No. That one I could read on your face. I better go talk Natalie off the ledge before she turns Sid into a frog.” He gave Meaghan a sideways glance. “No matter what happens between you and John, I’m not calling you Mom.”

  Meaghan smiled, feeling better for a moment. “I can live with that.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  With everyone looking to her for answers and no better options, Meaghan decided to stick with the original plan. They would get as close to city hall as they could without being detected, so Annie could try to talk to the ghosts, Welland Eldrich in particular.

  The wizards must have all headed back inside after grabbing Jhoro. Meaghan couldn’t think of any other reason why they hadn’t been attacked yet. Even with Emily’s protection charm, they hadn’t exactly been quiet.

  But they were running out of time if they wanted to sneak up under the cover of darkness. The blackness now had a charcoal-gray quality to it. Birds were singing.

  “Let’s move, people,” she hissed. “Dawn’s almost here.”

  “The wizards aren’t out,” Jamie said. “Only the mob and the—”

  “Mob-ette,” Sid offered. “The husbands barely qualify as a full-fledged mob.”

  “Whatever,” Meaghan said. “Quit talking and move. We don’t want to run into either group.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with her,” Natalie said in a petulant tone, “unless she apologizes for all the cracks about my hair.”

  “Oh, please,” Annie said. “What about you? You called me a bleach blonde tramp.”

  “Like hours ago,” Natalie countered. “You’ve been busting on me all night.”

  For a moment, Meaghan knew exactly how Owen must have felt when they forced him to drink tea and eat cookies at the historical society.

  “Ladies,” she said, her voiced dipped in acid, “if it’s not too much trouble, I strongly recommend you stow this bullshit immediately or neither of you will have hair to insult. Because I will have pulled it out by the roots while knocking your bitchy little heads together.” She put on her most fearsome glare and pinned them under it. “I don’t care how addled you are by magic. Get your shit together. Right now. Because you aren’t any good to me like this.”

  “Now, Meg,” Sid said, “relax. They’re only blowing off steam. Something you should—”

  “Don’t start with me,” Meaghan said in a low tone. “You and I are on the outs at the moment, in case you haven’t noticed. I’m tired of being lied to. I’m tired of people hiding things from me. I’m still trying to process the fact that the only one who appears to have been straight with me is a leprechaun, who by all reports should be inherently untrustworthy.”

  Sid snorted. “Yeah, because he is. Why can’t you see that? He hasn’t actually told you any of the details of what he did.”

  “No, but he hasn’t hidden them, either.”

  “Oh, sure, he gets caught and he confesses he lied without actually telling you what it was he doesn’t want you to know about and that’s being honest? Come on, Meg, are you that naive that you’d—”

  “He told me about the prophecy.”

  Sid’s eyes widened in shock. He shook his head. “He wasn’t supposed to do that. Matthew didn’t want—”

  Meaghan had passed through the white-hot anger into icy rage. In a deceptively calm voice, she said, “He also told me about the war.”

  Sid whimpered.

  “How, Sid,” Meaghan said, her voice cold, “am I supposed to do the job that’s been dumped on me if nobody will tell me the whole story?”

  “But,” Sid said in a breathless squeak, “Matthew told us not—”

  “Matthew is dead, Sid. My father is dead. Which we are all likely to be soon if we don’t figure out how to stop these things. Whatever they are. But then I suppose you know that, too.” She took a ragged breath. The rage was waning, leaving her shaky and on the verge of tears. “You keep looking at me like I have all the answers, but you don’t trust me enough to tell me what I’m fighting. Am I truly that incompetent?”

  Sid shook his head. “No, no. You aren’t incompetent at all. But you’re not invincible either. The prophecy . . . it says . . .” He shook his head more emphatically. “I promised Matthew I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “What does it say?”

  “It says . . .” Sid looked up at her, his eyes shiny with tears. “It says you’re going to die. The Order is going to kill you.”

  Meaghan stared at him for a moment, mouth open, before replying. “That’s what everybody’s been hiding?” She rolled her eyes. “Let me guess. They want to burn Natalie because this stupid prophecy says they can take me out only if they kill her first.” She looked around at her companions. Silently, they stared at her, wide-eyed. “Quit looking at me like that.”

  “Like what?” Jamie said in a soft voice.

  “Like I’m about to explode. You guys . . . Owen was right. Humans will believe anything. Prophecy.” Meaghan snorted with disgust.

  “But they’re going to kill you,” Natalie said, her earlier peevishness gone. “And me.”

  “No. They’re going to try to kill us,” Meaghan said. “That doesn’t mean they’ll succeed. I don’t believe in prophecy. Point out one clear, unequivocal prediction that Alastair Eldrich got right.”

  They continued to stare at her, eyes wide.

  “Like I said. I don’t believe in prophecy.” Meaghan began walking toward Main Street. She didn’t care if they followed her.

  Natalie scurried to catch up. “Alastair predicted us. He predicted that Matthew and Vivian would hook up and have me.”

  Meaghan shook her head. “No. He didn’t. Think about it. He predicted that an impervious man and a witch would have two daughters. Why does that have to mean us?” She stopped walking and whirled around to face Natalie. “Alastair said they’d have two daughters, not a daughter together and a daughter from a previous marriage. I’m not Vivian’s daughter. Shouldn’t that disqualify us?”

  Now Annie caught up with her. “Well, that’s kind of splitting hairs, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, and that’s the whole point. A prophecy you can interpret to mean different things doesn’t tell you anything about the future. Because you can twist words around to mean anything. Trust me on this. I do it professionally every day.” Meaghan stopped and looked around. “Is Sid still with us? Or is he sulking?”

  “Both,” Sid stage whispered. “I’ll follow you, but I can sulk if I want while I do it.” In a very small voice, he said, “Are you still mad at me?”

  Meaghan was surprised to realize she wasn’t. “Not really. That was a big secret. I get why you didn’t want to tell me that one.”

  “You really need to take it seriously.”

  “No, Sid, I really don’t.” She began walking again. They were almost to Main. The square appeared deserted. “I’m not living my life based on the incoherent ravings of a madman.”

  “But,” Jamie said right behind her. “It says they’ll kill you. Haven’t you been listening?”

  Meaghan snorted again. “You of all people should know better. You can twist the law to fit any set of facts you get handed. I know. I’ve read your case files. You’re an even more talented bullshit artist than I am. How am I supposed to die? Does it even say that?”

  “Yeah,” Sid answered. “It says they’ll quench your vital spark.”

  “Which means what exactly?”

  “Your heart,” Sid said.

  She gave him a skeptical look.

  “All right, fine. Quit it with the lawyer face. That’s the way I’ve always heard it. Vital spark is the electrical charge that runs your heart.”

 
; “But,” Meaghan said. “It also says quench, which suggests drowning. And vital spark could also be interpreted to mean brain-wave activity. That’s the true measure of death.”

  “Yeah,” Sid said. “I suppose.”

  “Assuming for argument that I am the one Alastair wrote about, does it definitely say I’m going to die?” Meaghan asked.

  “Well, not as such . . .”

  Meaghan rolled her eyes. “That phrase could mean so many different things that trying to predict the future from it is useless. Worse than useless, because when people believe shit like that, they’ll force events to make it come true. At some point, it stops being a prophecy and becomes a to-do list.”

  “Your father believed in it,” Sid said.

  “You sure about that?”

  “Well . . . he believed other people believed it.”

  Meaghan smiled. “Now that I can believe. He sent me a message about it from wherever he is now. Through Finn. He told me to use my head and find the loopholes.”

  Jamie chuckled. “Yeah, that sounds more like Matthew.”

  “Guys,” Natalie squeaked behind them. “Trouble!”

  Jamie whirled to look at her. “What?”

  The mob boiled out of the shadows.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Meaghan was knocked aside by the mob in their rush to grab Natalie. When Jamie tried to protect Natalie, the mob grabbed him, too.

  Annie and Sid were nowhere to be seen.

  Rough hands seized Meaghan from behind and pulled her to her feet. A balding, middle-aged man in a gray robe, about her height but paunchy, stepped into her line of vision.

  “I’ve been wanting to do this all night.” With a leer, he pulled back his fist and punched Meaghan in the face.

  She squealed in pain, feeling the blood pour from her nose and lip.

  The wizard pulled back his fist for another blow, then a voice said, “Enough. Cooper wants her awake. He wants her to watch.”

  The first wizard scowled at her. “This won’t knock her out.”

  He dropped his fist and punched her in the lower abdomen.