Ileana stood, but had no time to protest. For the moment Rhianna flew out of sight, two strangers appeared and jostled the young witch rudely.
“Beware,” the taller one hissed, gripping Ileana’s arm. “My father’s punishment will be painless compared to yours.”
“Let go of her,” Karsh demanded. But the short, squat boy seized the old man’s collar, almost strangling him in the process. “You. Karsh. Father of no one. You have already outlived your usefulness. Harm him and pay with your miserable life!”
Witches and warlocks all around them had stopped to stare at the ruckus. Almost wearily, Karsh reached into the pocket of his waistcoat, pulled out a pinch of herbs, and began mumbling an ancient incantation.
The stocky boy started suddenly to shrink. His large head grew small, his broad nose shortened, his lips pursed, and the thick fingers clutching the medallion turned into a tiny baby’s hands that slipped from the ribbon.
Karsh was more astonished than the boy, who had become a feeble infant. It was not the spell he had intended. The second intruder, too, had been transformed — into a baby goat. Tiny and helpless, it stood on wobbly legs, bleating pitifully.
Karsh was stunned. He heard a flutter of wings and, looking up, saw his old friend Rhianna grinning mischievously. “Thank you, old friend,” Karsh called to her. “Thank you for helping us. I … I tried to —”
“It was not I who performed that spell,” Rhianna confessed. “Look around you. It was your friends. You are a much-loved warlock, Karsh. The witches of Coventry would not stand by and see you harmed.”
Karsh, with Ileana holding his arm, turned to survey the group gathered around them. Among them Karsh recognized many fledglings, now grown, some now trackers themselves, whom he’d taught through the years. They had learned well, he thought gratefully.
“Who were those thugs?” Ileana asked.
“Tsuris and Vey,” Lady Rhianna responded. “Fredo DuBaer’s sons. They’ve lived with their mother on the mainland for most of their lives. They’ve returned for their father’s trial.”
As Rhianna sailed off, an unwelcome thought buzzed in Ileana’s brain.
Karsh had told her that she was related to Camryn and Alexandra.
Fredo’s wild sons, Tsuris and Vey, were also related to the twins. They were their cousins.
Was it possible that Fredo was Ileana’s father?
She shuddered — not out of fear of what the reckless bullies would do, but at the repulsive possibility that they might be her brothers.
Karsh was bothered by something having nothing to do with Fredo’s sons. “Your loathing of Lord Thantos runs deep, my child. Have you ever thought about why this is?”
Ileana did not speak out loud. She could not admit the possibility that had poisoned her thoughts recently — ever since she’d found out she was related to the twins. She wanted justice for Cam and Alex, she told herself. They were, after all, her responsibility now.
Typically, they needed help — though, thank goodness, they hadn’t called for it yet. They were trying to track down their mother. As if fifteen-year-old fledglings could succeed where seasoned witches and warlocks had failed.
Yes, but none were Miranda’s children. Karsh read her mind and responded.
At least they know who their parents were! she silently telegraphed back, hating the shrill sound of her own thoughts.
And so shall you, in time, Karsh promised.
How she wished he were her true father. In every way but biology he was. The wise old tracker, whose hair had already been white the day he found her, had done everything for her: fed, clothed, and sheltered her; schooled her brilliantly in the ways of the craft; persuaded the Unity Council to appoint her guardian — the youngest witch ever promoted to such a position — of the infant twins; and instilled in her a strong, if trouble-some, sense of goodness and justice, though he hadn’t done as well with courtesy and tolerance.
Ileana never doubted that Karsh loved her. And that there was little he would refuse her. She had forced him to admit her kinship with Camryn and Alexandra. Long ago she’d found out from him that her mother died in childbirth. The only thing Karsh wouldn’t do was reveal the name of her father.
Karsh and Ileana made their way back to the vast, circular building. The message had been sent telepathically: The Exalted Elders had made their decision. The verdict was in.
Walking to the People’s table, they passed Thantos and Fredo. The tall, evil tracker ignored them, but Fredo, his swamp-green eyes glistening with hatred, grinned at Karsh. “So you’ve met my boys,” he whispered proudly in his grating, high-pitched voice. “Little demons. They’re utterly unpredictable.”
Ileana followed Fredo’s glance to the highest tier of the round auditorium. There in the shadowy rafters were the boys who had accosted them during the break, Fredo’s sons, returned to their human forms. Their father’s glare was mild compared to the look Tsuris and Vey bestowed on her.
Ileana quickly turned away from them.
At that moment, the dome darkened. The chattering grew hushed. All eyes faced the center of the arena, where three gilded chairs sat empty, except for plush velvet cushions. A spotlight fell on one of the chairs. In a puff of pink smoke, a magnificent Asian child appeared — a girl so young her feet barely reached the edge of the cushion.
The auditorium grew animated. Whispers of “Fan, it’s Lady Fan” reached Ileana’s ears. In a moment’s time, the child aged from two to twelve to twenty-two; from a delicate girl to a petite middle-aged woman to a distinguished Elder to, finally, Fan, the wizened crone with dark shining eyes and tiny wrinkled hands.
As the aged Lady Fan dipped her head, acknowledging the applause of the coven, the spotlight shifted to a second empty chair. A burst of green smoke gave way to a gulping toad that quickly grew into a greenish, rubbery-limbed man who became an olive-skinned old warlock with long white hair, recognizable as the doddering Lord Grivveniss.
The clapping had barely subsided when a great golden gust swirled on the empty center chair. All quieted in anticipation. And Ileana noticed a tender smile creep across Karsh’s white face as he stared expectantly at Lady Rhianna’s spotlighted throne.
Fire leaped from the cushion. Tongues of heat spread outward. From the center of the blaze a magnificent bronze dragon materialized; the dancing flames became its golden wings. The dragon spun once, twice, three times — at the third turning, Rhianna’s buxom form burst forth, aglow with power, wisdom, and joy.
Settling herself into the chair, her wings folded inside a golden cape, the brown-skinned leader of the Unity Council raised her plump arms triumphantly. And the dome exploded with pleasure.
One cheer boomed above the others. Ileana didn’t have to look to know it was Thantos’s. But she did glance over at the Accused’s table. And, yes, the dark tracker was admiring Rhianna’s transformation. Fredo, too, was grinning — but not at Lady Rhianna. He was gleefully looking just behind and just above the bench where Karsh and Ileana sat.
If he were reading her mind, he would have realized she’d long ago lost interest in his trial and that this was the moment she’d decided to stand and formally accuse Thantos. She would keep silent no longer. She scrambled to her feet.
“Wait!” a scratchy voice suddenly whispered in her ear. “They may need you.” Startled, she whirled, to see Fredo’s chunky son, Vey. “Apolla and Artemis may be in desperate trouble. And you won’t be able to rush to their aid, will you?”
“Not while you’re busy betraying their family!” Tsuris leaned forward, behind Karsh, a shock of dark hair falling over his slitted eyes. “Our pretty little cousins may cry out for help. In vain, alas, in vain! No one to answer their pathetic pleas.” Vey giggled cruelly. “So you must choose,” he said. “Which is more important to you: seeing my father destroyed, plotting to soil my uncle’s reputation with your ruinous accusation — or saving the twins?”
CHAPTER NINE
THE TRIP
Cam was out of breath as she raced up the snowy path to the top of the hill. She felt like a tuning fork tingling with anticipation. She and Alex were about to attempt extreme magick. “Tell me we’re not really doing this,” she said, elated.
“We’re not really doing this,” Alex deadpanned. A step behind her twin, she stopped and took a deep breath, partly to get calm, partly to get ready. Because she wasn’t.
She reviewed why the drastic step they were about to take was necessary.
One, she reminded herself, the anonymous notes warning that their mother was in grave danger and needed them.
Two, Cam’s vision of the desperate woman weeping in the snow. Who else could it have been but Miranda?
Three, the photo of Thantos visiting a clinic. Clinic, sanitarium, asylum, nuthouse, cuckoo’s nest — whatever you called it, it was a practically perfect place to stash someone who had gone crazy.
“But why would he keep her there? Why not kill her?” Cam checked in.
“Simple,” Alex said, sounding surer than she felt. “To get at us, of course. We’re supposed to develop into these genius witches, right? Take after our parents and all. And Ileana’s always saying that Thantos wants to get us on his side, use our powers to —”
“Get richer and more powerful himself,” Cam offered.
“So he kept her alive just to tempt us — or, like, blackmail us into working with him.”
“I’m getting a headache,” Cam complained.
“Are you having another vision?” Alex asked hopefully.
“No, just this monster migraine from thinking about our messed-up family!”
For the first time that morning, Alex laughed. “Okay, dude, let’s do this thing.” She glanced at her watch. It was still early. Emily and Dave would be thinking that they were on their way to school. Never guessing that Cam, pretending to be Emily, had called the attendance office asking that “her daughters” be excused for the day due to stomach flu. Or that, for the price of four new CDs, Dylan was down with the caper and had sworn not to rat them out.
Tuesday morning, Cam thought, and here they were at the highest point in Mariner’s Park, standing under the sacred old oak tree. From the mound in which its deep roots burrowed, the entire U-shaped, boat-lined harbor was visible below. But Cam had never come for the view. It was the tree itself that had drawn her. She’d always known there was something special about it. Recently she’d discovered that her instincts were right. It was beneath the ancient oak, fifteen years ago, that Karsh had entrusted her to David Barnes. Alex was the only other person who knew the importance of this place. If they were going to make their scheme work, this was the spot to start.
The spell was called the Transporter. Accomplished witches and warlocks who knew how to use it were instantly carried from one location to another. Cam and Alex had tried it only once before — and had wound up not just transporting themselves, but calling up a traveler from the past!
“And that time,” a nervous Alex reminded Cam, “we only had to go across town.”
Cam, psyched, unzipped her backpack. “I don’t remember there being a limit on how far it could take you.”
She hoped she was right about that.
They needed to find the “intrepid” photographer — Als had looked it up; “intrepid” meant brave, fearless — who took the picture of Thantos leaving the celebrity clinic. He could tell them where their uncle had been. Plan B: They’d wheedle the guy’s whereabouts out of that photo editor, Edwards, who had to know more than he’d told them over the phone.
Mission? Rated D — for Doable.
Speed bump? Starstruck’s offices were three thousand miles away, in Carlston, California.
Take the next jet west? Not an option. Get Dave and Emily to finance the one-day round-trip? Not this millennium. The Barneses were so not Eric Waxman, who’d send his daughter a first-class ticket on a whim.
Thinking of Brianna made Cam uneasy. There was something so off about that whole L.A. party thing. Cam’s convo with Kristen had proved it. But what was really going down? Ouch! Too much thinking again.
“Yo, Cam, we are now leaving Six Pack land. We didn’t cut school so you could moon over your buds.” Alex had tapped into her overloaded brain. “Oh, speaking of buds — as in flowers — did you get the mugwort?”
Cam pulled a handful of scraggly dried weeds from her backpack. “Herbs in the ’Burbs had one bunch left,” she crowed. “And I’ve got the candles, crystals, and incense.”
“Incantation right here.” Alex waved the sheet of notebook paper on which she’d copied the spell. “Now all we need is for our heads and hearts to be in the right place.” She was quoting from Ileana’s Little Book of Spells.
“Right,” Cam agreed, taking out the candles. She’d bought the ones in jars, to shield them from the wind. “And a passion to do good.”
“Whatever.” With a twig she’d found, Alex drew a circle in the snow, wide enough to surround Cam and herself.
Placing the candle glasses at the four points of the circle, Cam instructed, “Face east.”
“I know.” Alex knelt inside the circle. “Toward the water.”
As Alex lit the candles, Cam sprinkled the dried mugwort flakes around them, then handed the dregs of the herb and one of the crystals to Alex. “Got passion?” she teased, stepping into the circle.
“Got all the time in the world?” Alex shot back, pulling her sister down into the snow. “Just get it over with. We need to do this and get home.”
Holding hands, they read the incantation together. As they recited the final lines, “Good magick like air and water flow, Transport me body and spirit now,” snow began to churn about them. The icy wind seemed to whip away their words. And then they were swirling inside a spinning darkness.
In an instant Cam knew something had gone very, very wrong. “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.” The line from The Wizard of Oz reverberated in Cam’s head as she slowly gazed around. She was completely lost … and alone.
A trio of “nots” flew through her addled brain. She was not inside the offices of Starstuck; the spell had not worked; and she had so not prepared for this possibility.
“I will not freak out. I will not freak out,” she chanted, trying to slow her thudding heart. Repeated calls for Alex — out loud and telepathic — went unanswered.
“Okay, I may be scared,” she confessed, hoping the sound of her own voice would reassure her, “but I’m not helpless.” She paused. “I’m a witch. Maybe not full-fledged yet. But I can handle stuff.”
A wet and furry, long-tailed, gray creature brushed her leg as it scurried by. Cam shrieked and leaped back as the trembling rat disappeared down a sewer grate.
“Stuff that doesn’t include rodents,” she amended.
Looking around, she saw warehouselike buildings surrounded by empty parking lots. She was in some kind of industrial area. But what state, what city?
It was still dark. She’d probably gone west, where the day hadn’t yet dawned. And south, as it was warmer here, no snow or wind, just air thick with an eerie silence. The area was run-down, deserted, creepy. The single streetlight still working cast a pale green glow over a nightmare setting, where danger hid and pounced.
What next, what now?
Hello! Her cell phone! She plucked it out of her pocket.
No service were the words across the screen.
Cam stopped suddenly. There was a break in the silence. She heard the unmistakable sounds of footsteps. People! She was either saved — or sunk. Using her zoom-lens eyesight, she found them.
A block away, diagonally across a wide street, a couple was headed toward her. The one walking faster was a tall, stocky man wearing a baseball cap. He carried a suitcase in each hand. Cam focused in on his face. Did he look dangerous? More like desperate, she decided. He gnawed on his bottom lip; his deep-set eyes darted constantly as if he were fearfully looking out for something or someone.
A few steps behind him, a w
orried woman holding a sleeping child hurried to keep pace with the man.
Waving, Cam was about to shout, “Hello!” but the word never left her throat. Still a block away from the worried strangers, Cam stopped dead in her tracks and whirled around.
Behind her. It would come from that direction…. Her eyes began to sting viciously, her vision went blurry. An icy chill wracked her. And she saw: a big black car skidding around the lamppost corner, swerving wildly toward the frightened family.
Two guys were in the high front seat, one tall, the other short and squat. The tall boy, who was driving, pushed back a shock of dark hair that had fallen over his eyes. His face was animated by a wild grin.
The passenger next to him turned suddenly as if he’d felt Cam’s eyes on him. He leered at her, then let out a spine-tingling laugh.
The boys from the bowling alley, Cam realized. They were aiming deliberately at the frightened couple and their child. But why? And when would their car turn the corner? How much time did she, and they, have? Five minutes, ten at the most. It would happen …
Now!
She burst from the vision back to reality, shouting, “Watch out! Watch out!”
The woman clutching the baby stopped, terrified. “Don’t cross the street!” Cam warned as the wary mother stood at the edge of the curb, searching the darkness for her.
Suddenly, the man stuck one of the suitcases under his arm and reached to pull his wife forward. “Come on!” he hollered impatiently. “There’s no time to stop. I told you, he said they’re looking for me!”
Cam raced toward them, holding up her hand, yelling, “Wait! Don’t go! A car is coming.” But the man’s frantic shouting drowned her out. “Molly, come on!”
And then it was too late.
They were off the curb, rushing across the broad boulevard.
In desperation, Cam clutched her sun necklace, focusing hard on the threesome. A nanosecond of doubt held her back. Would it work alone, without Alex’s moon charm? Could she save them all by herself? “Help,” she whispered. “Tell me what to do. I don’t know what to do….”
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