Legacy & Spellbound

by Nancy Holder

  “Whom do you serve?” Philippe asked, gazing steadily at Holly. “To whom do you owe allegiance?”

  “Holly, don’t answer that,” Sasha said firmly, coming up beside her and putting her hand on her shoulder. “We don’t know who these men are.”

  Holly pursed her lips.

  “We lost José Luís during a kidnapping,” Philippe informed Holly. “The Supreme Coven took one of us.” He paused, then added carefully, “Her name was Nicole.”

  “Nicole!” Amanda cried, rushing toward the man. “Where is she?”

  Holly raised her hand. “Amanda, be careful. Don’t say anything else until we know what’s going on.”

  The man looked sharply at Amanda, who was bursting with questions. “You know Nicole?” He narrowed his eyes. “You look much like her.”

  Holly stepped forward. “I’m the High Priestess of this coven,” she announced. “You need to deal with me.”

  “We are here to rescue her,” the man said. The other men nodded, and the oldest one crossed himself.

  “Oh, Holly!” Amanda cried.

  Holly softened. She decided to trust him. After all, they had risked death to fight beside them. “So are we,” she said.

  After a brief discussion, Holly decided the best thing to do would be to go to the second London safe house for which Joel had given them directions.

  She was worried that he had not reappeared after Catherine had eliminated the battle for them. Of everyone she had seen at the battle, he was the only missing person.

  There was to be a price, she reminded herself, with a terrible feeling of dread. If I caused his death …

  She could not think further about it.

  She had a coven to save.

  San Francisco

  Tante Cecile gasped as she was wrenched from her meditations. The girls were in danger. She glanced uneasily around the Victorian house and wondered if she should go find Dan. They had been in San Francisco for several days, watching over Amanda and Nicole’s father and Holly’s friend, Barbara Davis-Chin.

  It had been hard to be separated from her daughter, Silvana, knowing that they might never see each other again. Still, each of them did what they had to for the good of the Coven.

  She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples slowly, trying to draw the images she had seen into clearer focus. A great battle, her Silvana fighting nobly. Then, suddenly it was over, as though it had never been. Why? She saw Holly standing before a veiled woman promising her... what? Something.

  Her eyes flew open as her heart skipped a beat. Oh, Holly! What have you done?

  London, Safe House

  The second safe house was more in keeping with what Amanda had expected the first one would be like: a small London flat festively decorated for Yule with garlands of holly and ivy, and a Yule log atop a cheery mantel awaiting the birth of the sun. The flat was over-seen by a female witch named Rose, who ushered in the ten fugitives and led them as far away from the doors and windows as possible.

  “There’s no guarantee you’re safe any longer,” Rose told them after Holly related the story of the battle and the undoing of it. “But I don’t know what else to do.”

  She gave them something to eat and excused herself to figure out sleeping arrangements.

  As they crowded into her sitting room, Philippe approached Holly and Sasha and said, “We must talk.”

  Amanda frowned, somewhat hurt by the exclusion. She was obviously not one of the inner sanctum of their group.

  Then Tommy took her hand and said, “Let them deal with it for now, Amanda. Holly’s our leader.”

  The contact of his skin, though she had felt it a hundred times during rituals, sent an unexpected shiver through her. Her mind began to go someplace that frightened her. Tommy... Tommy Nagai is a man... he’s a guy … and I … I’m a woman … we’re growing up. We can … there are things we can do and be together, the two of us … if, um, he wants …

  Suddenly she wasn’t interested in what Holly and the man were talking about. She wasn’t jealous that Sasha had been allowed to join in and she wasn’t. She was just intensely aware of Tommy. None of them is with him. I am.

  She looked down at his hand in hers. She felt herself flushing and said, “Nagai, you’re making contact with my skin.”

  His smile was wicked gentle. His almond eyes were dancing. He looked as if he had swallowed a flashlight, and her breath caught. We’re so having the chemistry thing, she thought.

  “Tommy, you’re … you’re holding my hand.”

  “So?” He chuckled.

  She gave his hand a shake. “C’mon, let me go.” When he didn’t, she said, “What’s your deal, Tommy?”

  “You are such an incredible dork,” he told her fondly. “Anderson, I’ve been crushing on you for years. Haven’t you ever noticed?”

  “Oh.” She was taken aback. Tommy?

  Tommy the joker, who never took her seriously but who was always there, always listening, always commiserating over everything that ever happened to her?

  Hello?

  “Years,” he repeated, as if trying to penetrate her astonishment. “Since we were babies, practically.”

  “Oh.” She gave him a shy smile. “Hi.” It wasn’t poetry, but it was all she could think to say. Somehow, though, it was all she needed to say.

  He smiled back. “Hi.” Gave her hand another wag. “Not so bad?”

  “Not so bad,” she agreed. “But we’re still babies.” “Not so much.” He pecked her cheek.

  “Mew.”

  A cat jumped up onto Amanda’s lap. Startled, she jumped and then settled as the cat began to purr and curled up as though to go to sleep.

  “Well, where did you come from?” she asked the bedraggled-looking feline. “Are you Rose’s cat?”

  “Her name is Astarte. She is Nicole’s. She came to Nicole a few nights before she was kidnapped. She has joined us in the search,” Pablo told her.

  Amanda felt her stomach twist into a tight knot. A few nights before she was kidnapped … Did this cat come to her when Holly drowned Hecate? she wondered. A chill rippled up her spine.

  Philippe looked over at Amanda and Tommy. He looked envious. “They found each other,” he murmured.

  “Well, they didn’t have far to look,” Sasha said dryly. She looked expectantly at Holly.

  Holly cleared her throat. “As you know, there was a battle, and I … I made contact with a veiled woman. She undid it somehow.”

  “What was her price?” Sasha asked. As Holly flushed, she pressed; “It was worse than the cat, wasn’t it?”

  Holly narrowed her eyes. “That’s my business.”

  “No, it’s not, not when you’re part of a coven. We all have to agree on things. It’s the way of the Mother Coven.”

  Jer’s mother was putting Holly on the defensive, and she didn’t like it. Holly threw back her head and shot back, “And that’s why the Mother Coven is so weak, Sasha. Look at us. They can’t even protect us, while the Supreme Coven kidnaps some of us and kills others. They’re lame.”

  Sasha blinked. “I can’t believe you can say that, when—”

  “Alors,” Philippe said, raising his hands. He turned his attention to Holly. “I beg your pardon, but we must move to action, not discuss philosophy.”

  “You’re right,” she said tersely. “What’s done is done. What I did or said …” She exhaled. “I’m not certain what I agreed to, in all honesty. But it saved us.”

  “Sometimes that’s not the right thing to do,” Sasha insisted.

  “Well, when you get down off your high horse, let me know.” Holly turned on her heel.

  “Holly,” Philippe called, following her as she stomped into the kitchen. She looked around, found Rose’s electric kettle, and lifted it to see if there was water in it. Satisfied that it had recently been filled, she plugged it in and rummaged through the scattering of tea things on a silver tray for a tea bag.

  “You’re the one Nicole called,” Phi
lippe said, leaning against the white-tiled counter. “It was then that James and Eli were alerted to our location. Then that José Luís was killed.”

  She hunched her shoulders as she selected a Prince of Wales tea bag and smoothed the string away from the little pouch of fragrant tea. “Are you trying to guilt-trip me into saving her? Because you don’t need to. I said I’d do it and I will.”

  “I’m only saying that I care about her. We care about her,” he amended.

  “No, you don’t.” She scowled at him. “You’re just as bad as the Mother Coven. All this talking isn’t going to get anyone back.”

  “We need to figure out who each of us is first,” he replied. He gestured to the tea bag. “May I have some as well?”

  “Sorry,” she muttered, picking up a second bag. “There should be some cups around here somewhere… .”

  He opened a cabinet and pulled out two mugs that said LILITH FAIR. He chuckled. “Rose is such a one who would go to a thing like that, eh? Sarah McLachlan?”

  Despite herself, Holly smiled in recognition. “My mom loved her stuff. She thought that made her hip and cool.”

  “Moms yearn to be hip and cool.” He chuckled. “My own mother is a traditional French housewife. Except that she sells magic herbs and potions to all her rich girlfriends.”

  “Some sell Avon, some sell love spells.”

  “Exactement.”

  She pointed to the cabinet. “You have a bit of psychic awareness. There’s no way you could have known the cups were in there.”

  “Peut-être.” His shrug was pure French.

  The kettle began to burble. Holly took the cups from him and settled the tea bags inside them.

  “Okay. You’ve broken the ice and found common ground, thereby bonding with me. What do you propose we do now?”

  “Transportation spell,” he said. “Go to them.” Her grin widened. “I like that.”

  He grinned back and pointed to his head. “Psychic awareness,” he replied. “You see? We will work well together.”

  “I hope so,” she said as she lifted the kettle again.

  He frowned. “Let it boil. Americans never let it boil.”

  Setting the kettle down, she folded her arms. “I’ll let it boil over, if that’s what it takes. To make good tea,” she added pointedly.

  “To make good tea,” he echoed.

  Jer: London

  James and Eli swaggered belowdecks, pints of beer in their hands, and chuckled at the mess that was Jer, lying prone on a sleep-away cot nestled among the ship’s cargo. They had taken one of the Supreme Coven’s private yachts for the voyage to London— James, being who he was, commandeered it—and Jer, though in terrible pain, understood that he was being taken to headquarters to help with the conjuring of the Black Fire.

  Does my father know what’s going on? he wondered. Whose side is he on these days? Will he be there?

  He knew that his days of relative isolation were over. Now he would have to earn his keep … and ensure his own survival.

  But it was Eli and Dad who conjured the fire. I have no idea how they did it.

  He wondered how Holly was. Where she was. He had dreamed of her so many times.

  I hope I haven’t sent my spirit out to her, but I can’t be sure. I’ve spent so much time half-unconscious, and I know I’ve thought about her. They’re looking for her. They want to kill her.

  “Want a beer, Jer?” Eli asked, sidling over to his brother. Viciously he pressed the bottom of his beer mug against Jer’s burned, swollen lips. Jer groaned in pain as his lower lip cracked and began to bleed. “Not thirsty?”

  Jer was thirsty. He was practically dying of thirst.

  I won’t give them the satisfaction of begging, he thought. But with his next breath he moaned, “Water.”

  “Sorry? What’s that?” Eli queried politely.

  Jer clamped his mouth shut.

  Eli laughed. He made a show of swigging down his beer and walked away.

  “Help James and me conjure the Black Fire,” he said, “and you’ll have all the water you can drink.”

  London, Safe House

  Kari sat quietly, rocking gently. She had been feeling better, safer when they were at Joel’s. Now the realization that a huge battle had happened and she couldn’t even remember it terrified her. Was I going to die? she couldn’t stop herself from wondering. And just how did Holly stop it? Something wasn’t right with that. Didn’t the others see that as well?

  They’re too busy kissing the ground she walks on, she thought bitterly. Well, I certainly didn’t elect her as head of the Coven. I don’t know why we have to do everything she says.

  Truth be told, she would much rather have Sasha as their leader. The older woman was more experienced and kinder, especially to Kari.

  And Sasha was Jer’s mother. Kari wasn’t so naive as to believe that that didn’t play a huge part in how she felt. Tears stung the back of her eyes. There was something so comforting in Sasha’s presence, and she reminded Kari of Jer so much—her manners, her features.

  Kari could feel the tears streaming openly down her face now. The others didn’t notice, though. They never did. Either that or they didn’t care.

  So many nights she had lain awake wishing she had never met Jer and been introduced to the world of magic. Then she would repent her thoughts because she couldn’t imagine a life without Jer Deveraux. So many nights she cried herself to sleep praying that she would see him again.

  But when she had seen him … he had only had eyes for Holly. Kari tried to convince herself that Holly had bewitched him. But was I already losing my hold on him? He was so dour and withdrawn. Things were coming to a head between him and his father … almost as if they sensed they were going to have a showdown.

  Holly came between them and forced the issue. She’s the most arrogant chick I’ve ever known … and with her power, that makes her dangerous. God, I wish I’d never gotten involved in all this crap.

  I’d have a Ph.D. by now, if I’d just stayed the course.

  Yeah, but I was too into Jer to turn back when I realized he really was a warlock, and there was such a thing as true magic. By then I was hooked on him, and on trying to learn how to use magic on my own. I can’t blame that on Holly.

  But I can blame her for taking him away from me.

  Some time there’ll be payback, Cathers. Count on it.

  Kari balled her fists and closed her eyes.

  The tears kept coming.

  Part Two

  Imbolc

  “When they hung her, I watched and laughed. She was innocent. I was the witch they

  sought. I sold my soul to the Devil himself, and the Devil

  protects his own. He protected me, and he protected the Cathers woman. She told me once she was

  descended from queens of powerful witchery, and I believe her.”

  —Confession of Tabitha Johnson, upon her deathbed

  Salem, Massachusetts

  FOUR

  HEMATITE

  We lick the wounds that we have borne

  As limb from limb we have been torn

  But we will rise and live again

  Death’s the beginning, not the end

  Find now the strength to change

  To take our souls and rearrange

  We can be as we will

  We can love, or laugh, or kill

  Headquarters of the Supreme Coven: London

  In the clothes she’d been captured in, although freshly laundered, Nicole paced the floor of the honeymoon suite. Her dark hair was in a tangle, her thoughts as jumbled.

  I have to get out of here.

  The room was her prison, and she was not allowed to leave it. She had tried everything, from blasting at the door with magic bolts to hacking at the knob with a wooden coat hanger. She felt terribly inept at figuring her way out—real life certainly wasn’t like the movies—and it embarrassed her that she gave up so easily.

  James had been gone for two da
ys, which was a relief, but she was unbearably tense from wondering what was going to happen next. Tension squeezed her heart as she gazed at the carved relief of the moon on the headboard of the bed. All witches knew when the full moon blazed; in two more nights, it would be Yule, one of the most sacred nights of the Coventry calendar—and the night James had promised he would force her into thrall. She would be the Lady to his Lord, and he would exploit her magical energies, use them for his own evil purposes … and there would be nothing she could do to stop him. It was the worst violation she could imagine.

  I blew it. I should never have left the coven.

  In anger, she tossed another bolt at the door.

  To her shock, the section of wood adjacent to the jamb splintered from the doorknob to the top.

  She gaped at it openmouthed, unable to believe it. Racing to it, she pushed on the weakened section, hearing a sharp crack as it continued to split. Her heart caught; she glanced around guiltily, listening for footsteps in case someone realized what she’d accomplished, then shot another bolt against the wood.

  This time the section detached sufficiently for her to push her hand through and unlock the door on the other side. She scraped her hand on the rough wood, but she would have been willing to push her way through a broken window if it meant getting out.

  Easing the door open, she peered into the hallway. There was no one there, but that didn’t mean it was unguarded. For all she knew, she had already triggered an alarm and James’s family’s henchmen were on their way here to subdue her.

  She took a step into the corridor, which was papered in black and red, and then another. She shook her head, amazed that she had gotten this far. She ticked her gaze over her shoulder, anxiously scanning for movement.

  And then she ran like hell.

  She had no idea where she was going, and she told herself she should slow down and figure out a plan. But how? What plan? She didn’t know anything about this place except that it was home to the greatest evil force in Coventry, the Supreme Coven. That people died here.

  That I might die here.

  And so she ran.

  * * *

  Seated on the throne of skulls, Sir William cocked his head as Matthew Monroe, one of his principal lieutenants, walked into the room.