by Nancy Holder
“‘And kills him’?” Holly repeated. “But how can Isabeau kill Jean, when they’re both spirits?”
“I think you know the answer to that,” Sasha said gently. She laid a hand on Holly’s arm. “Isabeau has the ability to possess you, and Jean can live again through … my son.”
“Jer,” Holly murmured with a shudder. She looked down at Sasha’s hand on her arm. She was grateful for the older woman’s sustaining, calm presence. Though Sasha was nothing like her own mother, still, she was someone’s mother … and Holly felt very much in need of mothering these days.
She’s Jer’s mother, she reminded herself. How can she talk about this so calmly?
“I think we can figure out a way to beat this,” Sasha said firmly. “I have to believe that, Holly. I don’t believe you’re destined to kill my son.”
“Or for your son to kill me. Isabeau may want resolution, but Jean wants revenge,” Holly reminded her.
“He’s still madly in love with Isabeau. They were very passionate people, Jean and Isabeau.” She made a little face. “That’s what attracted me to Jer’s father. His passion for life.” Stirring, she gave Holly’s arm another squeeze. “But that’s a different subject. What we need to concentrate on now is finding your cousin, and figuring out where Jer is. He keeps making contact with you, so that means he’s … alive… .”
Her voice caught. Holly put her hands in Sasha’s and gazed steadily into her eyes. “I’ve already had to do things I didn’t want to do, for the sake of the Coven,” Holly told her. “I’m strong, like Isabeau. I’ll find him, Sasha. But I won’t harm him.”
Sasha closed her eyes and let out a heavy sigh.
“When Michael forced me to leave, I worried so about my boys. Not a day has gone by since then that I haven’t wondered and worried about them. That’s why I went to the Mother Coven—so I could learn spells to protect them and keep them safe. And then I began my online friendship with Kari, who kept me informed about her boyfriend, ‘Warlock.’”
Holly flushed, feeling awkward. Jer and Kari had been hot and heavy for over a year, until Holly came along. She couldn’t help her mixed feelings on the subject.
Sasha continued: “I’m sure Michael told them that I deserted them.”
Holly swallowed. Michael Deveraux had indeed told his sons that their mother had abandoned them. Eli pretended not to care, but she knew it had wounded Jer deeply. As the only semi-good Deveraux in the family, Jer had suffered the most from Sasha’s absence. She knew he believed that if his mother had stayed or taken him with her, he wouldn’t be as tainted with evil as he was now.
I don’t think he’s evil at all, Holly told herself. She realized, though, that was wishful thinking, and not something she was positive of.
But I am tainted, she thought. I have let evil come into me in order to protect my coven.
I can’t be with anyone who’s completely good. I’ll ruin him.
For a second, she panicked. What have I done to myself? To my life?
And then she raised her chin. I did what I had to do. It’s done, and there’s no use going back over it.
“Are you all right, Holly?” Philippe asked, peering at her. Then he gave her and Sasha a crooked smile. “A strange question, in these strange times.”
“I’m all right,” she said steadily. “I am.”
“Then we must press on. We must plan a strategy,” Philippe said, looking at them both. “My theory is that since you had such a vivid image of Jer when we were in the battle, it means he’s nearby. If that is so, it’s possible he is in the Supreme Coven’s headquarters.”
“But he told me he was on the island of Avalon,” she argued. “He told me that himself, in a dream.” She balled her fists. “He lied to me.”
“Perhaps he’s been moved,” Sasha put in.
“Yes,” Holly breathed, uncomfortable.
Philippe shrugged. “We do know that Nicole is at the headquarters. And that she is married to James. Or at least that is what the Mother Coven was told by their spies. Perhaps he is there as well.”
Overhearing, Rose came over. She nodded as she said, “I can confirm that. We had a message to that effect, from someone on the inside. Someone on our side,” she added. “I mean, that Nicole is married to James, and that she’s inside the headquarters.”
Philippe clenched his jaw and doubled his fists. His dark brows pinched as he gritted out, “That cannot stand. We must free her as soon as possible.”
“So you know the location of the headquarters?” Holly said slowly. “And you didn’t tell us?”
“I don’t know the location,” Rose shot back. “That hasn’t been revealed to us.”
“Who is the spy?” Holly asked Rose. “And if she—or he—knows so much, why don’t they just give you the location?”
“We don’t know who it is,” Rose said bluntly. “We have a friend inside, but he—it’s probably a male—has not identified himself. As for giving us the location, we’re hoping that he will, in due time.”
“Then how do we know this friend isn’t just feeding us misinformation? Messing with us?” Holly persisted.
“Pablo also confirmed Nicole’s presence there,” Philippe interjected. “He is a Seer. He can also read minds.”
Holly glanced up sharply. “And he can’t read the address, either?”
“Think about it,” Rose said. “Such information is probably one of the most closely guarded secrets of the Supreme Coven. They’ve probably found a way to protect it, even from someone like Pablo. Surely they’re aware that there are mind readers on our side as well as theirs.”
“He’d better stay out of my head.” Holly’s tone was tense. Harsh. She couldn’t help it. She wanted no one to know the depths she had gone to in order to protect her covenates … nor to grasp how far she was willing to go in the future.
I’m not even sure how far I’m willing to go.
“Understood?” she asked, even more harshly.
Philippe looked surprised, but said nothing. She could see the wheels turning, however, see his uncertainty about her.
You’d all better stay away, she thought hotly. I’m not what I seem. Her hands trembled at the fury—and the fear—warring inside her.
“Holly?” Amanda asked, coming up to the group. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. I’m fine,” she said tersely. She turned away.
“Has Pablo been able to sense the location again?” Sasha asked Philippe, perhaps to placate Holly. Clearly frustrated, he shook his head.
“Then here’s what I suggest,” Sasha said tentatively. “With you and Pablo working together, we try to connect with Nicole. We work through her, try to find the headquarters again.”
Amanda covered her mouth with her hands. “Nicole,” she murmured. “God, I hope she’s all right.”
“Trying to connect like that may put her in danger,” Philippe pointed out. “If they realize what we’re up to …”
“I don’t know what else we can do,” Sasha said. “And she’s already in danger.”
Rose raised a hand. “Maybe we need to rethink. We’re rushing—”
“We can’t just sit around and wait for something else to happen,” Holly cut in. “We have to make it happen.”
“She’s right,” Philippe said with approval. He stood. “I’ll get Pablo.”
“First, we need to eat,” Sasha insisted. “Holly’s been working hard. She’s drained, and so am I. We need to regroup.”
Philippe hesitated, and then nodded. “Eh, bien. You’re right. We need to be strong, and prepared.” He looked through the doorway at Alonzo, who was handing out cups of coffee to some of the others. “We of the White Magic Coven would like to have a Catholic Mass. Do you object?” he asked Holly, Sasha, and Rose.
“Not at all,” Rose replied. “The more blessings on us, the better.”
“I’ll speak to Alonzo,” he said, rising.
Sasha watched him go. She said, “We’re lucky that they found us.” Then she tu
rned to Holly and said, “Tell me more about how the battle vanished. We need to know everything we can about their magics.”
A cold knot wound in Holly’s stomach. She said, “Isabeau came to me while I was hurt. I was dying.” She swallowed. “She told me she could help us. Then …” She took a breath. Should I tell her everything?
“Go on,” Sasha prodded.
“Her mother was there.”
Sasha looked surprised. “Catherine?”
“Yes. She appeared to me once before.” Holly thought a moment. “But she was a corpse the first time. This time she was veiled.”
And then she knew: Isabeau lied to me. That wasn’t her mother. It was the Goddess as Hecate, Queen of Witches.
Hecate still hasn’t forgiven me for sacrificing Nicole’s familiar, Hecate. Her statue on the grounds of the Mother Temple wept at the sight of me.
If I’m right, I sacrificed Joel to her. That was my second sacrifice to her. Maybe even my third, if Kialish’s death counts. And any witch knows that the more sacrifices you give to one manifestation of the Goddess, the more that manifestation owns you, controls you.
She set her jaw.
I am controlled by no one. Not Hecate, not anyone. I am my own mistress.
“Never mind,” she said aloud. “Forget all this. It’s time to look for Nicole. Now.”
“But …” Sasha looked confused. “You need to eat, and the men want to have the Mass …”
“Who’s in charge here?” Holly asked shrilly. She got to her feet and called, “Philippe! Change of plans!”
After Nicole was certain that James was gone for good, she tried the door again and found that it was locked. Before she hurtled magical energy at it, she tried using the athame on it. The ultra-sharp and sturdy weapon stripped the doorjamb as clean as a bone, and she pushed out of the room and into the corridor as before. She stuffed the stones, the figurine, and the ring in her pockets.
Instead of running, she tiptoed stealthily, wondering if Jer’s spell would help her find her way back. The headquarters of the Supreme Coven was enormous; the architecture spanned centuries.
Allowing her intuition to guide her, she wove her way down innumerable passageways, some so narrow, she had to turn sideways to get through. Cobwebs stretched across walls of stone; she panicked as she realized she was in unexplored territory, not retracing her steps from the first time, and then she reminded herself that she didn’t need to go the same way. She only had to find Jer.
Time was ticking by, and she was still wandering; then, just as she began to lose hope, she heard voices.
Intrigued, frightened, she drew close to a wood-paneled wall and put her ear against it. Then she realized that farther up on her right was a sort of balcony, and she dropped to her hands and knees and crawled to the low wall.
“… traitor,” a voice said from a distance below her location. She cringed. That was Sir William. My father-in-law.
“No, I swear it. I’m loyal to the Supreme Coven. Why would I want to see the Mother Coven in ascendance? I’m a warlock. That would be madness!”
The speaker was the man who had come to their room. Monroe. The one who hadn’t been able to stop looking at her in her room. He sounded terrified. His voice was shaking.
“Monroe, do you take me for an idiot?” Sir William demanded. “I watched you with my scrying stone. You thought your mind was warded, hidden from my gaze. How dare you underestimate me! You’ve been feeding information to those bitches for nearly a year! All your family has betrayed us, for centuries! And you thought the time was right. You let down your guard and contacted them. I’ve been watching all this time.”
“No, Sir William! There’s been a terrible mistake—”
“Indeed there has. And you made it!” Sir William boomed.
There was a horrible scream. Nicole covered her ears, but the sound penetrated. It went on and on and on until she thought she would scream as well.
And then there was silence. After that there was a thud, as if a body had fallen down.
“Clean it up,” Sir William commanded.
For a moment, Nicole was so frightened that she couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe. Then she scuttled as fast as she could on her hands and knees until she could stand up again. She doubled over and retched; then she started running, praying to the Goddess to get her to Jer before whatever had happened to the man named Monroe happened to Jer, or to her.
She found stairs and raced down them; she was gasping for breath as she rounded a stairwell and flew down another set of stairs. She groped in the darkness, hearing that heartrending scream in her mind.
Straight ahead, a light hovered about two feet off the ground.
She froze, backing away, shaking so hard she could barely stand.
A voice emanated from the center of the light.
“Nicole?”
“Holly,” Nicole whispered. “Holly!” She ran toward the light, praying it wasn’t a trap, and whispered, “I’m here! It’s me!”
“Stand in the light,” Holly said. “It’s a teleportation spell. We’ll get you out of there.”
Nicole began to obey. And then she hesitated and said, “Jer’s here, too. In the headquarters. But he’s not with me.”
There was a pause. Then Holly said again, her voice steady, “Stand in the light, Nicole. We’ll get him later.”
“But—”
And then she heard footsteps coming down the stairs.
She ran forward to the light. But just before she stepped into it, it vanished, utterly. Now she stood in pitch darkness, blinking at the afterimage of the bright light, completely disoriented and beginning to panic again.
The footsteps were nearing the bottom of the stairs. They were heavy, a man’s footsteps; was it her imagination, or did they sound like James’s?
Her heart pounded. She looked back over her shoulder and saw a small light, like a candle or a flashlight, bobbing as whoever was approaching took the last step. By the unhurried pace, Nicole assumed the intruder hadn’t seen her yet.
She moved to the left, finding nothing in her way, and began to walk as quickly and as quietly as she could. Her shoulder bumped into a wall; as far as she could tell, she had moved into a corridor. She kept going, biting her lip to keep from crying out when something scurried over her shoe.
Then she sloshed into foul-smelling water; she slogged through it until it splashed around her knees. Nearly choking from the odor, she pressed on, fearfully glancing backward. She was making too much noise, but she couldn’t make herself walk any more slowly. She was too frightened.
At last the water grew shallower; then she was out of it. The corridor let out onto another stairway and she took it, tired and sore and beginning to lose hope that she would ever find Jer. She kept hearing the horrible scream; it was all she could do to force herself not to imagine what Sir William had done to the man named Monroe who had been branded a traitor.
Then all of a sudden she realized she was standing on the landing of the last stairway before the dungeons, and as she stepped down she saw again the watery light and the row of cells.
Her heart leaped and she broke into a run, giddy with relief and wobbly with exhaustion.
“Jer!” she whispered sotto voce. “Jer, it’s Nicole! I have the stuff!”
She reached his cage just as the familiar sphere of light appeared inside and Jer, apparently not having heard her, stepped into it.
Then it disappeared again, and Jer with it.
Leaving her behind.
She stepped toward the cage and reached out a hand. The cell was completely empty. “Hey,” she whispered. “Jer? Holly?”
“Hey, yourself, baby, what’s going on?” drawled a voice.
Nicole whirled around.
Eli and James stood less than three feet away, grinning at her.
SIX
JADE
Quietly now, grind their bones
Our eyes set on the throne of thrones
We crush
them now as we rise
Use them as stepping-stones to the skies
Weave and work and cast a spell
To send the Deveraux straight to Hell
See the fear in their eyes
As they watch House Cahors rise
Holly: London
As Holly stood in the bright light, she could barely make out the shape of another figure inside the blazing whiteness with her. She reached out a hand and whispered a name that had rested on her lips for more nights than she could remember.
“Jer.”
Speaking his name aloud was like casting a spell. He was there with her at Rose’s house; he really was, alive and safe. She felt his warmth, smelled his scent. She could hardly stand up, she was so amazed and happy. He put his arms around her and crushed his mouth against hers; his lips were chapped, but she didn’t care; she held him tightly as he kissed her, reveling in his nearness, so overcome that she burst into tears. He’s here, he’s all right. I have him at last. Thank you, thank you for surviving. And for loving me. By the Goddess, Jer, I love you… .
The light abruptly vanished.
They tumbled from the magic portal Philippe’s coven had helped her coven create in Rose’s sitting room, both landing hard on the carpet. Then Jer roughly pushed her away, rolling into a ball and hiding his face in his hands as she lay there, stunned.
“Jeraud!” Sasha cried, running to him. She threw her arms around him and held him, but he kept his frozen position, refusing to move.
“Don’t look at me!” he shouted.
“Jer? Sweetheart?” Sasha said, astounded. She tried to pull his hands from his head, but he held firm.
And then Holly saw his hand, and caught her breath. It didn’t look human. It was nothing but scars upon scars, wrapped around bone. Her stomach turned at the sight. “The Black Fire,” she murmured, looking at his mother, who was stricken. “You were so badly burned.”
“Yes.” He cleared his throat. “Could someone get me something—a blanket, a towel?”
Holly understood his humiliation, and she looked searchingly at the others, who were standing around dumbfounded. Philippe glanced from Holly to Jer to Sasha, his brows knitting as he frowned in bewilderment. “Who is this?” he demanded.