I wasn’t sure what scared me more, accessing his knowledge of the black arts or learning what Jared really thought about me.
“I don’t see any ley—.”
“You’re using the wrong eyes to see.” Jared tapped a finger against my forehead. “Stop thinking like a person and think like a witch for a change.”
“For a change?” I punctuated my irritation with a one fingered salute. Easy for him to say when magic’s always come easy for him.
“She’s charming, Jared. I see why you’ve been keeping her all to yourself.” Helene strolled through the garden gate like she was fashionably late for tea party.
“Holy Hecate.” I backed up, putting a few steps between my would-be killer and myself.
“Not quite, dear. But close. Closer once I’m finished with you.” Helene’s smile revealed perfectly white, perfectly aligned teeth. With porcelain skin and good bone structure she was quite beautiful. Until you looked in her eyes and saw the ugliness within. “I admit, I’d lost faith in you Jared but here you are. The girl and the grimoire with minutes to spare.”
For someone who was supposed to be street smart, I did a lot of stupid things – like trust Jared Adams. Again.
“And you released the bind. So thoughtful.” Helene slipped off her strappy high heeled shoes and padded across the damp grass. “A deal’s a deal, Adams. Hand it over.”
Jared traded the book of spells and my last shot at saving Prudence for a deed and his freedom. “Ellie, it’s—.”
“Save it, Jared.” I’d heard enough of his hollow apologies and lies. “Where’s Pru? I want to see her.”
Helene laughed as she flipped through the pages of the grimoire. “You’re in no position to make demands, cousin. But, since this is a family reunion of sorts....”
Helene’s entourage came around the side of the house with Prudence in tow. She was alive. Tears tracked down my cheeks at the sight of her. From a distance she appeared to be well kept. Her raven hair was styled in two long braids and the clothes she wore looked expensive.
But the truth became evident the closer Pru got.
Dark circles and blood shot eyes. Sunken cheeks and protruding collar bones. Telltale signs of a sleep and hunger strike. Prudence fell into Helen’s trap but she refused to be used as bait to catch someone else – namely me.
“She’s stubborn. A trait you both seem to share. Doesn’t matter. She’ll break once you’re dead.” Helene sounded almost giddy but her amusement didn’t last long. The curve of her lips flattened to a straight line, erasing her deviant smile. Her precision plucked brows knitted together as she narrowed her eyes and zeroed in on Jared. “Where is it?”
“Where is what? The spell?” Jared shrugged. “Some pages are missing. Someone must have torn them out.”
“Don’t. Play. Dumb. With. Me.” Helene punctuated every word as her anger increased. She waited a beat for Jared to produce the missing pages. When he failed to produce them, she tapped a line in a show of power.
How did I know that?
The answer came with the soft hum of magic in the ground beneath my feet and the illumination of every ley line running through the yard. Silver lines cut across the grass, dividing the property into equal wedges of a pie.
Holy Hecate. Jared actually did it.
Energy coursed through my veins, flushing my body with power unlike anything I’d ever known. If Helene wants my magic, she can have it. Just not the way she expected. When Jared unleashed my magic, the spells held within the pages of the grimoire came with it. My mother’s plan to lock away all that power and knowledge to hide me from Helene didn’t work. But I had a plan of my own. I just needed to buy enough time to implement it.
“You’re willing to risk everything for a half-ass street trash witch?” My cousin shed her layers of refinement and revealed the dark witch beneath the designer dress. “We’ll see how good your chances are now.”
Helene pulled an athame from the pleats of her skirt and pressed the blade against Pru’s neck. A fine trail of blood trickled down her neck. “The missing pages or she dies.”
“No.” I rushed forward but Jared grabbed the back of my jacket and yanked me back. Terrified Helene would kill Pru, I wriggled free of the coat and spun on Jared. “Give her the pages. I’m not going to let my sister die because of me.”
“The first dreamwalker in Gaston?” Jared threw my jacket on the ground. “She’s not going to hurt Prudence. She’s too valuable.”
“If there’s one thing Jared knows, it’s priceless items on the black arts market. Your sister is a rare find and it would pain me to kill her. But....” Helene pressed the athame deeper into Prudence’s neck. “Her life isn’t worth as much to me as your death.”
“Ellie.” Prudence spoke for the first time; her voice calm and even. “If you die, we all die.” Her eyes held a depth of emotions – fear, sorrow, love.
The most terrifying of them all was resolve.
“Pru, no. No, no, please.” I knew what she was about to do and I knew there was no way for me to stop her.
That didn’t stop me from trying.
I rushed forward, hoping to knock Helene off balance and the blade from her hand. Helene didn’t kill a coven of witches and survive as long as she had by being an easy target. She shoved the energy from the tapped ley line in my direction. The rush of magic hit me with enough force to leave me flat on my back gasping for air. I rolled to my side and locked eyes with my sister. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I shook my head, praying for the Goddess to intervene.
“You never stick up for yourself. Fight back, Ellie.” Prudence didn’t beg or plead for her life. She simply leaned forward, relaxed her muscles and let the weight of her body finish what Helene started. Pru’s neck slid across the blade as her legs went out from under her.
Racked with sobs, I managed to get to my knees and crawl to my sister’s side despite the weight of the grief crushing down on me. She was right, of course. I survived but I never fought. Never once stood up for myself. I was a punching bag, taking hits as they came. Barbara, school yard bullies, Jared, and now Helene. From the moment I was born, life seemed intent on knocking me down.
But I always got back on my feet and I intended to stay that way – for Pru.
Helene sidestepped the blood soaking the ground in front of her. “What a waste of a sacrifice when you’re going to die anyway – with or without the spell. I’d prefer to have your powers but closing the circle works too.” She raised the athame, poised to drive the blade down into my skull.
“I curse you, Helene Vonigan. I curse you to—.” Jared’s protest was short lived as Helene’s men pummeled him into submission, dropping his bloodied, beaten body beside Pru’s.
“Such devotion in such a short time. I’m impressed. Jared only ever looks out for himself. I’d consider bringing you into the fold if I didn’t have to kill you. Mores the pity.” Helene struck, connecting with my shoulder as I ducked my head to avoid the killing blow. “This could all be over, Ellie, if you’d just hold still.”
Her men moved in, one on each side to hold me down like medieval executioners. A woman with a miniature sword took the place of an axe and chopping block. Fear and adrenaline kicked my heart into high gear, pumping more blood through the stab wound in my shoulder. A warm river of red ran down my arm, coating my fingers and eventually the ley lines.
The soft silver glow of the ley line turned bright red before fading to a pink shimmer as my blood was carried out across the grid. I never worked blood magic, or any real magic beyond tarot and simple gris-gris, but that didn’t matter. I inadvertently made an offering when my blood hit the ley line – an offering that was accepted. The spells were all there inside my mind. The magic flowed through my veins.
All that was left to do was use it.
Helene’s blade sliced across my cheek as I rolled out of the way. She let out a ferocious battle cry and lunged for the kill. I yanked the ley line and spooled the energy until I c
ouldn’t hold any more, pushing some of it toward Helene. She hit the ground hard enough to bounce her head off the grass. I channeled what was left of the magic into working the same spell she’d hoped to use on me. She scrambled to her knees and reached for the athame. With one hand dug into the dirt, I clawed at her ankle until I could grab hold of her foot and pull her back.
The magic flowed through me into Helene and back, completing a circuit. It was designed to siphon the power from a witch on her death bed. When used on the living, it pulled more than magic into the circuit. Helene’s lifeforce and energy coated everything like an oil slick on the ocean. The darkness that made its home inside her body sought out a new residence in mine, contaminating everything it touched as it slithered around inside of me.
The spell continued to drain the life from Helene; changing my aura in the process. She writhed on the ground, fighting until her last breath and the last ounce of her wickedness transferred to me.
“Goddess, please.” I cried out for help, overwhelmed with the power of the magic and evil intermixed within me.
“Ellie?” Jared stirred from unconsciousness. “Holy Hecate. Ellie.”
He got to his feet and staggered over, dropping to his knees beside me. After prying my fingers from around Helene’s foot, he placed my outstretched palm against the ground. “You have to force it out.”
“I don’t know how.” I ground out through clenched teeth.
Time slipped through my fingers like grains of sand. The transformation was almost complete. I was becoming something else, something dark and deadly.
And I feared there was no going back.
Chapter Twelve
The dark magic growing within me curdled my stomach. On my knees and hunched over, I retched until it felt like my insides turned inside out. I hoped the darkness took the same route as the contents of my stomach, but it filled the void until I felt bloated and sick again. My abdominal muscles cramped while I dry heaved as the evil tried to make more room in my body.
“Ellie, it’s consuming you. You have to force it out.” Jared tore another strip of fabric, this time from the bottom of his shirt, and wiped my mouth.
Drenched in sweat, my clothes stuck like a second skin as a fever raged while my immune system fought to kick out the magic’s parasitic invasion. It was a losing battle. The magic Helene tainted with her wickedness was going to succeed in killing me where she had failed.
Too bad she wasn’t there to see it.
Jared switched from shouting at me to fight to praying for the Goddess to save me. “I’m going to see what I can find in the house to help. I’ll be right back, Ellie. Just... keep fighting.”
What kind of spell was this? My family was seriously screwed up if this was the type of magic they practiced. My birth mother was right – I was better off in foster care. Thoughts of family turned my mind to Pru who died so I could live.
In other words, she died for nothing.
Didn’t she?
A small tremor in her right pinkie gave me hope. Prudence had a little fight left in her. So, what’s my excuse? The possibility my sister might survive was all the motivation I needed. I scratched and clawed through the dirt until my hands were buried. Jolts of electricity carried through the lines into my fingertips. I traced the current of energy back to the source and downloaded everything I picked up from Helene into the magic network.
Once again, the light illuminating from the lines changed color from silver to black where I tapped the line, lightening again as the darkness was dispersed back into the vast pool of magic running beneath Gaston City and the ley lines across the continent.
Jared lit what was left of the candles and a small stash of sage he’d found in the kitchen. His cleansing ritual helped increase the speed of the transfer and recovery time for me and the network of magic. The crease between his brow smoothed as the line’s silver hue returned. “Holy Hecate, Ellie.” He cupped my face in his hands, leaned in, and pressed his lips to mine in a crushing, passionate kiss. “I thought you were going to die.”
It looked like I wasn’t the only one affected by my near death experiences.
I rested a hand on his chest just above his heart and pushed back from the kiss. “Prudence.”
He nodded his understanding but I caught a hint of regret in his eyes, as if an opportunity had passed and he knew we’d never get it back.
Still feeling the aftereffects of Helene’s magic, I decided crawling was faster than trying to stand and walk over to my sister’s side. The knife wound narrowly missed the jugular. My hands shook as I reached out to check her pulse. There was blood. So much blood. And in varying stages of coagulation. Between the injury and the blood, I didn’t know here to press my fingers, so I checked her wrist.
“I can’t tell if she actually has a pulse or if my blood is pumping so hard I’m just feeling my own.” I looked over the limp body of my sister at Jared. “Will you check?”
He nodded and moved in but the look on his face said he already knew the answer. “I don’t feel.... Wait, there. It’s so faint I almost missed it. How is this possible?”
“I don’t care about how. I just care that it is.” Overcome with emotion, tears streamed down my cheeks, falling in heavy drops.
My happiness was short lived when I saw heartache reflected back at me in Jared’s eyes. “I don’t think she’s going to.... She doesn’t have long, Ellie.”
“I can fix her.” I moved Jared’s hand from Pru’s wrist while he tried to convince me that even with magic nothing could be done to save her.
He was wrong.
The same way I knew the spell for Helene’s undoing, I knew my family’s spell for restoring life. My ancestors didn’t walk the line between black and white magic, they tap danced right over it. But Prudence wasn’t dead. Reviving her wouldn’t tilt the natural balance of the world any more than a blood transfusion or those shocker paddles hospitals use.
Once again, I clawed through the grass and dirt until my right hand was completely covered in blood-soaked earth. Once again, I tapped a line. The process of giving and taking life was so similar, a simple change in direction and intent was all that the spell required.
Prudence’s body reclaimed her spilled blood, down to the last drop. Every blade of grass and spec of dirt around her was cleaned until the spot where my sister died no longer existed – because her death never occurred.
Pru gasped as her eyes fluttered open. With a shaky hand she reached for her neck and gingerly touched the spot where her throat had been slit. A scar, still angry and red from where the skin knitted back together, took the place of an open wound. “Oh Ellie, you died, too?”
“I’m not dead, Pru.” I brushed a few stray hairs from her eyes. “Neither are you. How do you feel?”
“Like I died.” Prudence tried to sit up, apparently reconsidered, and remained on her back. “Is that the cute guy from the park? The one who was always watching you? He’s your boyfriend now, huh?”
“You’re chatty for someone who almost died. Don’t make me regret saving you.” I offered a playful warning as I wiped the tears from my eyes.
The fear and tension marring Prudence’s face eased into a beautiful smile as she dozed off. Being mostly dead and then brought back to life had obviously taken its toll on her.
Jared hung back, mouth agape as he watched the sisterly banter between us. He looked confused, bewildered, and a bit scared all at once. “That’s not possible. Only necromancers can do what you just did.”
After reassuring Pru that she was safe, that I’d be right back, and planting a kiss on her forehead, I went over to Jared. “And we’re going to keep it that way. No witch should have this spell or the one Helene was after.” I held out my hand. “Where is it?”
Jared pulled a folded piece of paper from his back pocket. “You’re right. It needs to be destroyed.” He spoke with conviction but the look of longing in his eyes said he had a few regrets.
I took the spell before
searching the backyard for the family grimoire. With the book complete, I grabbed Jared’s backpack and emptied its contents on the ground. “There they are.” I came up with a book of matches and took everything to a fire circle in the back corner of the yard.
“You’re going to burn it?” Jared asked, following me across the yard. He sidestepped in front of me to block my path. “The whole book?”
“Yes, the whole book.” I answered, noting the way he eyed the spell book with such longing. “Some day I’m going to find someone who looks at me the way you look at this grimoire.”
“You already have. You just haven’t noticed. I’ll see if I can scrounge up some kindling.” Jared took the matches and walked off toward the hedge line, saving me from my romantically awkward self. I had little experience with compliments or relationships and had no idea what to do with either.
After piling enough leaves and dry grass clippings to get a small fire going, I set the grimoire in the flames. Hungry for food, the fire devoured the old pages.
“I don’t suppose you have any marshmallows in that bag of yours? I have a killer craving for sugar.” Prudence placed a hand on my shoulder for stability and sat down in front of the fire pit. “It must be the blood loss.” She shrugged, taking the entire experience in stride.
And that was why I had to save her. Pru was my counter weight, adding balance to an otherwise topsy-turvy life.
“It must be.” I wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her in close. “We’re almost finished. I just need to make sure this is done and then I’ll take you back to the house.”
“I don’t think I want to go back.” Pru stared off into what remained of the fire.
“That’s a fight for another day. I’m no help where Barbara’s concerned. You’re on your own for that one.” I was only half joking.
Pru knew I had her back but bringing me along would only hurt her case. After all, I was the reason she went missing in the first place. And while Barbara Harris would never know the truth, she’d sure as hell find a way to pin it on me anyway.
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