by Nancy Holder
Help us now to end this fight
And we will defile the head
Of the Cahors Coven dead
Evil about, evil without
Don’t let it turn you inside out
But as we turn from their sin
We find it naught to the evil within
Michael Deveraux: Seattle, November
In the day, Michael mused as he held his athame up to the candlelight and admired the very, very sharp blade, a Deveraux warlock facing battle would have received last words through runners or carrier pigeons. Deveraux warlocks even conjured with smoke signals, back in the Wild West Phones are much more magical, carrying our disembodied voices across space, and yet they seem far more mundane. The romance is lost, somehow.
No matter that I have magically enhanced the connection, because of the rain.
November in Seattle was not a kind month. It was harsh and wild and angry—warlock weather. Samhain—Halloween in the parlance of humanity—had passed by without the proper obeisance from him. For the first time in his memory, he had not run his life by the esbats and sabbats of his tradition. Instead he had focused his energies on the Cahors and on regaining leadership of the Supreme Coven—an internally driven calendar based on ambition . . . and revenge.
“Why not try for a hostage exchange?” Eli asked. He was still in England keeping an eye on the Moores for his father. And watching his brother.
Jer, my errant son.
And if truth be known, my pride and joy. . . .
“She won’t sacrifice herself to save two people who aren’t even related to her,” Michael said. “She’s a Cahors, after all. The best I can hope for is that her coven will put the screw to her to make a rescue attempt.”
“It’s gotta happen, Dad,” Eli murmured, lowering his voice. “You’ve got to kill her. Sir William’s got them all totally freaked out. Some of them want to take you out.”
Because of the attack on the ferry, Michael knew. There’s some flaw in me, he thought. I could’ve been more subtle. So why wasn’t I? Deveraux rush in where angels fear to tread.
“Don’t sweat it,” he drawled. “I’m this close to conjuring the Black Fire again. Then past history won’t matter a damn.”
Just past ancestry.
Everyone knows the Deveraux should rule the Supreme Coven.
He changed the subject. “What’s the situation with Jeraud?”
“He’s still on Avalon. James has done a lot to make him feel better, but he sure looks gross.”
“So you’ve seen him.”
“From afar. I’m at the headquarters in London.”
You’ve probably been trying to kill him from afar too, Michael thought. If you manage it, you’ll be sorry. Jer’s the one who has made the connection with Jean and has the power to show for it Not you.
There’s some reason we were able to conjure the Black Fire last Beltane, and we have to find out why we haven’t been able to repeat our success. And I don’t think the answer lies with you, Elias.
“So, are you, like, challenging her to a duel? Inviting her over for hot wings and a Mariners game?”
“I thought I’d let her come to me,” Michael told his son. He added, “I’ll be in touch.”
“But—”
“Good-bye, Eli.”
He hung up and put the cell phone on the altar.
Michael was one of the premier architects of Seattle, and as such, quite a wealthy man. He had a lot of disposable income—not an unusual situation for a warlock of his stature—and much of it he had spent on a beautiful yacht, which he had christened Fantasme. When he took friends out, they were piloted around the bay by Michael’s captain, a man named Hermes. But when he was alone, Hermes revealed his true aspect: He was a fiend, a servant of Hell, and had been in the employ of the Deveraux family for sixty years. He had taken quite a liking to Michael’s little imp, and the two were having a grand time above deck, navigating the yacht through the black waters of Elliott Bay.
There had been discussion about closing the bay down entirely, then shutting it down to pleasure craft, then the entire matter had been dropped simply because the Coast Guard did not possess enough manpower. Michael had worked many obscuring spells and chants of forgetting, and the majority of the population had decided that there had not been monsters in Elliott Bay, but a renegade Orca and a school of sharks.
Also, as with any warlock of means, Michael’s yacht was equipped with a fine altar to the Horned God. His personal grimoire was placed next to the skull of Marc Deveraux, his father and a worthy warlock in his own right, and the cell phone next to that. A statue of the God loomed over the bowls and candles of the Rite, it being very similar to the one back in the chamber of spells in his home.
He bowed low, making obeisance, naked beneath his red and green robe, which was covered with signs and sigils. They matched the ritual scars with which he had decorated his body as a testament to his art. The blood from the original cuts had fed his blade well.
Now he turned to his two distraught prisoners. Propped up back-to-back on the floor, they were both bound and gagged without ceremony, he cut off one of the braids of the female and nicked the left cheek of the male. His athame sucked greedily at the young man’s blood, and he shivered with delight, feeling the power as it built up in the blade.
He flicked his finger at the Hand of Glory on the altar—the shriveled hand of a dead man, from which five black candles glowed. Then he loosened his robe and drew a long line down the center of his chest with the tip of his athame. The blood poured freely.
“I call upon the God,” he said in a loud voice. “I summon the powers at my disposal to aid me in battle. I seek revenge against the House of Cahors, and I call upon my imps and my demons, my fiends and my kinsmen, to aid me. I call this three, three, three; I call this seven, seven, seven, seven, seven, seven, seven. Abracadabra.”
He could feel the power rushing through him and around him. Memories of long dead kinsmen filled his mind, and he began to chant in an ancient tongue that not even he knew.
Swirls of green, blue, and red materialized along the wooden floor, rolling like carpets of mist and smoke, gathering momentum and tumbling upon one another. From the porthole window, the flash of lightning illuminated the terrified faces of Kialish and Silvana as the mist crept around them, slithering up their bodies and dancing along their skin. Thunder rumbled, joining the bass roar of the yacht as Hermes opened her up.
Then the sound changed. There was a deeper bass line, which gradually took on a rhythm—ka-thun, ka-thun—as the mist grew thicker, folding in upon itself repeatedly until it reached Michael’s knees and came up to the chests of his victims.
“I call upon my forebears,” he yelled above the noise.
Ka-thun, ka-thun . . . the distant pounding of horse hooves. Inside the mist, prone skeletons began to form and take shape, solidify, and rise to their feet. Shields appeared, strapped to their arms, and swords. Others materialized with rifles and six-shooters. Then more—the modern Deveraux—took shape as moldering corpses, machine guns and Uzi’s slung over their arms.
Ka-thun, ka-thun . . . Michael smiled as the mist completely filled the cabin, engulfing the two young people. Eagerly he crossed to the ladderway, his athame in his fist, and climbed up to the deck.
He beheld a glorious sight: the phantom hundreds of his kinsmen, riding on horseback down from the sky, driving up from the depths in sleek cars, cantering and racing to join the battle.
At the head of the skyriders, his standard bearer to his left, Laurent, Duc de Deveraux, rode astride Magnifique. His armor gleamed in the mist; Magnifique was armored as well and wearing the skirt of a warhorse, decorated in green and red.
The dead wailed with glee and a thirst for vengeance; as the Deveraux assembled, horned demons and imps popped into being. Red-skinned, long-knuckled fiends joined them, and the hellhounds bayed and globbered for witch blood.
Then came the falcons—hundreds of them.
All ready to gouge out eyes and pluck hearts from chests.
The duke rode down onto the deck, and Michael lifted his chin as he saluted him. In response, the duke took off his helmet and held out his hand.
“Well done,” he said to Michael. “Perhaps you’ll pull this off.”
Surrounded by her coven, Holly stood underneath a black umbrella at the water’s edge and watched hell fill Elliott Bay. Kari was staring through binoculars and muttering, “No freaking way.”
Beside her, Tante Cecile murmured a spell and Dan slowly shook his head, looking stricken.
Amanda left Tommy’s side, sidled up to Holly, and put her hand in hers, joining the two parts of the lily that they two bore as brands.
“Where’s the Coast Guard?” she asked.
“Hell with the Coast Guard,” Kari said. “Where’s the National Guard?”
Dan shook his head in a perverse sort of admiration. “He was cleverer this time. He’s cloaked everything. I doubt anyone else can see it. This show is for us and us alone.”
“Then he knows we’re here.” Kari’s voice was shrill.
“He wouldn’t be much of a warlock if he didn’t,” Dan ventured.
“Then why not attack?” Amanda asked, licking her lips. “Why stay out there?”
Holly closed her eyes. “Because he’s surrounded by water.”
And he wants my covenates to drawn.
Leaving me alone to face him.
I can’t let that happen.
She watched as the dead army of the Deveraux continued to mass; they were thousands against six.
Holly closed her eyes.
Isabeau, I call upon thee, she pleaded. I can’t fight them like this. I need your help. I am a Cahors. Bring on my kinsmen and their allies and their servants in the arts. Save us. . . and I will give you whatever sacrifice you wish.
Something churned inside her; she felt herself falling and tumbling; she was going into a very cold, very dark place. All around her, stars danced; there was no ground, there were no walls. She was in space. The stars stretched and glowed.
She was outside time.
Vivid colors swirled around her, blacklight and silverflash; purple, scarlet, cyan. Bursts of light danced and flamed out; stars fell by the hundreds.
She heard screams and wailing; she heard a single woman’s voice whispering, “My daughter, my daughter, my daughter. . .”
Mom? she wondered excitedly.
But it was not her mother who called.
It was Isabeau’s.
In a cloud of glowing rainbows, a woman shimmered into being. She was tall and imperious, wearing a double-horned headdress and clutching a bouquet of lilies to her breast. Her gown was black and silver, bunched up in yards of fabric around her feet. Her mouth was bound shut; she was a corpse being prepared for burial. Her eyes opened and she looked straight at Holly.
Are you worthy? she asked without speaking.
Holly swallowed hard. She raised her chin.
I have to be, she replied.
Are you worthy to carry the mantle? the ghost demanded. They have all failed me, all. No one has ever taken Isabeau’s place; brought our house back to its former glory . . . Are you the one? Should I bother sparing you?
“Yes,” Holly said.
She opened her eyes.
In the driving rain, Holly was surrounded by phantom warriors from other times and places, some carrying the standard of the lily, others waving swords. There were Cahors with crossbows and Cahors with spears.
When they saw that Holly had opened her eyes, they raised their halberds and their maces and their swords and shouted, “Holly, Queen!”
Holly gasped and looked around for the others. They had moved about one hundred yards farther down the beach. She was alone in the tornado that was her army.
A lady hawk fluttered down and hovered beside her; Holly raised her arm and the bird landed with ease. Then a young man materialized in front of Holly. He was wearing a tunic and leggings, and he led a massive warhorse by its reins. He knelt down and offered her the stirrup.
Holly understood; she put her foot in the stirrup, and somehow she had the wherewithal to hoist herself up and onto a boxy saddle made of bone and metal. The bird stayed firmly perched on her arm.
Armor magically covered her; the world narrowed through the slits of a helmet.
”Vive la Reine!” the army chorused, hoisting their weapons into the air. Long live the Queen!
Holly took a deep breath. I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing.
The other members of her circle scrambled toward her; she hurtled them away with a bolt of magic from her fingertips. Falling end over end, they managed to get to sitting positions, looking quite astonished.
“You’ll drown,” she said, but she knew they couldn’t hear her because of the wild war cries and cheers around her.
’Alors, mes amis!” Holly cried, though she had never spoken French in her life. “We shall kill the Deveraux once and for all!”
”Deveraux, la-bas!”
Her squire handed her a lance, just like in the movies about tournaments. Banners fluttered from the shaft; the head glowed a poisonous green. Though it was massively heavy, she hefted it into the air as if she would spear the rainclouds themselves.
Thunder rumbled; lightning flashed. The dead of the Deveraux wailed and shrieked. Their falcons were more numerous than raindrops.
“Holly!” Amanda shouted. “Holly, take us with you!”
Holly paid her no mind. Live, she thought to her cousin.
Then she put her heels to the flanks of her warhorse and cantered toward the water. Cheering wildly, her soldiers followed her.
As soon as the horse’s hooves hit the water, it galloped on top of the waves, sending out flumes of water as it hastened to the battle. Steam issued from its nostrils; tiny flames danced along its back and mane. Holly’s entire being tingled and jittered as if she had been plugged into a huge machine. She felt the connection between her and each member of her army . . . and she saw Isabeau on one side of her, and Catherine, Isabeau’s mother, on the other side, although she knew they were invisible and what she was seeing was a sympathetic vibration in her mind.
Like volleys of cannon, she and her troops flew across the water. The Deveraux falcons began to dive-bomb at them; Holly raised her lance and conjured a spell. Fireballs issued from her lance, taking out dozens of the birds; then another fireball followed, and more.
Others of her army did the same. Corpses of dead falcons plummeted into the water.
From the center of the Deveraux storm—the yacht—horsemen and soldiers took a cue from their leader and raced toward Holly and her hordes. The sound was deafening; Holly could hear nothing; and yet, she could hear the thundering of her heartbeat—
—and someone else’s—
Her lance crossed the lance of a Deveraux whose face was a skull. Though she had never jousted before, she pushed hard against her enemy’s lance, and to her astonishment, he dropped it. In her left hand a sword materialized. She raised herself in the saddle, leaned over the horse, and stabbed the skeleton in the rib cage.
It exploded.
She blinked, but had no time to process what she’d seen as more Deveraux converged on her. She swung her sword and aimed her lance as if she had been born to battle; the lady hawk fluttered at her ear, chirruping as if she were giving Holly directions. It felt to Holly as if she were actually guiding her arms and legs; she had no idea how to fight like this, and yet she was doing a superb job.
Down the Deveraux fell, and down, exploding into nothingness; her army was astonishing in its daring and skill. Whooping and yodeling with pure wanton battle lust, her warriors attacked with fearless abandon.
Holly fought just as well as they; and when she realized that she was actually making headway toward the yacht, she was so amazed, that she was nearly taken out by a hideous creature dressed in skins and a helmet topped with a human skull.
; But it was there! She could see the navigation tower and the thing inside it, an imp larger than the one she had drowned seated on its head. The yacht was flying through the water as if Michael were retreating, but Holly knew that would be too good to be true.
“Allons-y!” she shouted, gesturing to half a dozen of her ghostly companions. She pointed with the tip of her sword at the yacht. “We’ll board her!”
“Non, non,” a voice sounded in her head. “Below decks.”
Her horse galloped at an angle, its hooves working underwater. A line of portholes gleamed with magical energy at Holly’s eye level.
She knew deep in her soul that Silvana and Kialish were inside.
“Attack!” she shouted.
All around her, her fighters launched themselves at the line of portholes, smashing them with sheer bodily mass—startling, for they were phantoms—and Holly’s horse flew into the gash. It was pitch black inside.
The vessel immediately listed and began taking on water.
Holly leaped off her horse into the icy bay, slogging waist-deep, shouting, “Silvana! Kialish!”
Her right knee hit something; she reached down and grabbed a head of hair. There were two of them.
They’re tied together.
She felt down farther and found ropes, gathered her hands around them, and began to struggle back toward the gash.
The yacht was going down.
“Horse!” she shouted.
Her horse chuffed at her, and she dragged the nearly dead weight toward it.
How long have they been under? Goddess, protect them, keep them alive. . . .
Then, with strength she knew she did not possess, she hoisted them up out of the water.
In the moonlight she saw the faces of Silvana and Kialish, slack and empty, and she feared the worst. But there was no use worrying about that know.
With her sword she cut them free, trying to position them so that they would be able to stay on the horse. But they were too limp.
“Help here!” she bellowed.
Two phantoms rode up. One was a skeleton; the other was dressed in the soggy clothing of a Jamestown Puritan. Each took one of the stricken comrades without comment, laying them in front of them over their saddles.