by Amanda Ashley, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Maggie Shayne, Ronda Thompson
CHAPTER 9
Alex followed Elizabeth's voice but didn't find her on the ground floor as he'd expected. He did hear her, though. Footsteps from—the stairway to the basement?
"Elizabeth?"
He headed down, the basement stairs, worrying about what he might find. Was Elizabeth hurt, sick?
"Elizabeth, are you there?"
"Down here, Alex. Hurry, now, there's not much time!"
Alex picked up the pace, heading into the basement, wondering what on earth was wrong with the woman. If she was hurt, why the hell was she heading into the basement?
He wished he'd had time to dress in more than the pajama bottoms he was wearing. He'd never been in the basement of this old house. Elizabeth had told him there was nothing down there but the furnace and, now that he thought about it, seemed to have actively discouraged him from poking around below. He didn't relish the idea of traipsing through the cellar shirtless and barefoot. The concrete floor, while cool under his feet, seemed clean enough, and no spiderwebs stuck to his chest as he followed the sounds of Elizabeth's footsteps, and occasionally her voice, through the basement. The lights, what few there were, were low-wattage bulbs suspended from the ceiling and covered in red glass globes that were held in place by metal frames. Odd choice for a basement. But then again, his father had been an odd man.
The basement was huge, with cinder-block sides and a concrete floor. There were a furnace, a water heater, a fuel tank, and some boxes, all the things one would expect to find in a basement. There was also a wooden door, arched at the top, painted red, and standing open, that didn't seem to belong. But it was that door through which Elizabeth had gone. Beyond it, there was only darkness. Her voice floated back as if from the bowels of hell: "Come, Alex. Hurry now."
He stepped inside, wondering when she would find the light switch and flip it on. Then he heard the door close behind him, heard a lock turn. His stomach clenched tight.
"We don't want to be interrupted," Elizabeth said. A match flared, the sudden orange light licking at her face, making her seem demonic in the darkness. But she smiled and touched the flame to a candle on the floor, and then another, and another, moving around the room, spreading the light until he could finally see. He was standing within a circle of black candles. Shapes and symbols were painted on the floor, and in the center was a stone slab that looked like a bier, waist-high, rectangular, shaped as if to support a coffin.
He lifted his gaze toward Elizabeth. "What the hell is going on?"
She met his steady look with a smile. "Hush, now, and listen. It's time. It's time for your father to pass his gift on to you."
Alex gave his head a shake. "It's his gift, Elizabeth. Not mine. I'm not even certain I want it."
She went still, just staring at Alex's face. Then she seemed to shake herself. "You'd deny your father's dying request? Would you, Alex, after all he's done for you?"
Alex said nothing, just pushed a hand through his hair, trying to find a way to explain.
"Never mind," Elizabeth said softly. "Never mind then. It's your decision, after all." She dabbed tears from her eyes. "At least… join me in a drink to your father's memory. After that, we'll go back upstairs. I won't bother you about any of this again."
She nodded toward the slab.
Alex looked at it. "Let's go upstairs now. We can toast my father's memory up there."
"Oh." She seemed disappointed. "I… I thought you'd want to see this place, though I admit I was saving it for this special day. Now, it doesn't matter. This was your father's sacred room, Alex. He loved this room more than any other in the house."
"Really?"
She nodded. "I'll get the lights, in a second," she said, "so you can take a look around." She came toward him, carrying a tray with two ornate goblets on it. "Just sit, for a second. Take your drink. Then we'll go upstairs."
Alex pushed himself up onto the table, his legs hanging over the side, facing Elizabeth. He had to admit, he was curious about this room. "Thank you for understanding."
She lifted a goblet and handed it to Alex and took the other for herself, lowering the tray to the floor.
'To Victor Moring," Elizabeth said, lifting her glass. "May he find his ultimate joy. And to his son, may his body retain its power, its health, and its youthfulness for a long, long time to come." She tapped her goblet to Alex's, men drank.
Alex took a sip as well. The liquid was honey-sweet, with the sting of hard alcohol and the slightly thick texture of a liqueur. Alex swallowed, then lifted his own goblet in salute. "To my father," he said softly. "May his mistakes be forgiven, and his soul be at peace."
Again Alex drank, deeply this time. "This is very good," he said. "What is it?"
"Your father's special blend," Elizabeth told him. "He called it ambrosia."
"Nectar of the gods, huh?" Alex drained the glass, set it beside him on the slab.
She smiled, nodded, and turned to walk away, muttering, "Now where is that light switch?" She wandered into the shadows beyond the candlelight.
Alex waited. "Elizabeth, did you work for my father before I was born?"
From the darkness she answered, "Yes. I've been with your family for a very long time."
"I'd really… I'd like to know more about my mother."
"Your mother?" she asked. "What do you want to know about her?"
Alex blinked. Had Elizabeth's voice turned suddenly harsher than it had been before? No matter. He had to force himself to go ahead with his questions. "How did she die?"
"How do you think?"
Dizziness hit Alex like a wave hitting the sand. It made him think of the sacred place on the beach behind Melissa's house as he swayed and bobbed with the tide.
"Are you all right, Alex?"
"Yeah, I—" He pressed a hand to his forehead, got his upper body to stop wobbling. "I don't know what that was. That ambrosia must be stronger than it tastes."
"It is. A lot stronger. Lie down, Alex. It'll pass."
Alex lay down, obeying without resistance. He kept thinking he should be alarmed, he should be getting the hell out of this eerie basement. He kept wondering why it was taking Elizabeth so long to find the light switch. But his brain was too numb to act on any of it. His bare back pressed to the cold stone slab. He drew his legs up, stretching them out on the slab as well.
"Better?"
"Yes. But you didn't answer my question. About my mother."
"She committed suicide, Alex. Jumped off a bridge. You see, she had taken you from your father. His own newborn child. She ran away with Victor's son and heir. And then she just gave you away, like a stray cat she no longer wanted. Just gave you away, hoping Victor would never find you. You, his own guarantee of immortality. I suppose she couldn't live with the guilt of having betrayed her husband so horribly."
Alex shook his head from side to side, but the act made his head spin so badly that he had to close his eyes. "That doesn't make sense."
"Well, she knew why Victor wanted a son. Needed a son. Victor knew he would die relatively young, you see. He'd foreseen his own demise, dreamed of it. He knew exactly when it would come. Fortunately, he also knew your mother's plans. He found her precious little wooden box with her note to you inside it, and he substituted it with a box of his own, an identical one, with a hidden compartment. Then he spoke an incantation over it, ensuring you would find it in time to come to him before he died." Alex heard the woman sigh deeply. "But the cancer in his brain took an unforeseen turn—or maybe it had help from one of your mother's allies. At any rate, he passed just before his work came to fruition and brought you back to him." Her words seemed to echo, as if coming from within a deep well.
"If he knew her plans, why didn't he just… stop her from leaving?"
Elizabeth laughed. "To be honest, he had no intention of raising her brat on his own. Why should he, when he knew he wouldn't need you until much later? He let the nuns keep you. He knew you would come to him when his time drew near."
"He… he didn't want me?"
"Didn't need you. Not then."
Footsteps came closer. Elizabeth was back within his range of vision now but different. She'd donned a dark hooded robe that hid her face in shadows. She came to Alex's side, even as he tried to sit up and found his body completely unwilling to cooperate. She leaned over him, and chains rattled. Real fear crept into his blood, chilling it, when he realized she was locking manacles around his wrists and then his ankles.
She vanished again, and when she returned this time, she was holding a dagger. She muttered words in some language he didn't understand and drew the blade across his chest.
Pain sprang up in a fiery trail that followed the knife point. His back arched, lips pulling away from his teeth, arms jerking against the restraints. He cried out, but he couldn't escape. Whatever she'd given him made him weak, dizzy and confused, but it did nothing to dull the pain.
Again and again she lifted the blade, turned it, and drew another line, as if inscribing a message in his flesh. He could feel the warm blood flowing over his ribs, pooling at his sides.
"Are you insane? Jesus!"
She wiped the blade across Alex's thigh, turned, and left him. He managed to turn his head. "What the hell are you doing to me?"
"I'm sorry, Alex. But your father needs your body. He'd planned to take it before he passed, but he was a powerful magician. He's still a powerful magician. He can make it work, even from beyond. Sadly, you can't both fit in there at the same time, so I'm afraid you're going to have to leave."
He wasn't sure what the hell she meant—and when he tried to figure it out, he wasn't sure he wanted to know. But he had to know. "You're going to kill me."
The woman shrugged. "Technically, no." Even as she said it, Elizabeth was wheeling what looked like a defibrillation unit up beside Alex's stone bed. "The minute your heart stops, you'll leave your body. Your father has already left his. But he has trained and practiced with this type of thing his entire life. He is in complete control. He will enter your body. You will go on to the afterlife. And then, I'll restart your heart. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, you'll still be alive."
Alex shook his head weakly. "You're insane. It won't work. It will never work."
"Nonsense, Alex." A sharp stabbing pain at his wrist made Alex jerk his arm against the chains, but he couldn't pull clear of the pain. Elizabeth had returned, and she was leaning over him now, adjusting the intravenous line she'd just stuck into his wrist. The tube that led from his wrist hung down, and he lifted his head to see what was on the other end.
Nothing. The tube ended abruptly at an open end that dangled over an empty pail.
He slid his gaze up to his wrist, saw his own blood filling the tube, up to the point where the former nurse had it clamped. "Whenever you're ready, Victor," she said, to no one in the room.
And inexplicably, Alex heard a man's voice whisper, "Begin."
She removed the clamp. To Alex's horror, a stream of blood began flowing through the tiny tube, into the pail on the floor.
CHAPTER 10
Melissa pulled her car into the driveway of the ancient-looking house. Storm clouds had gathered overhead, almost as if conspiring to block morning from coming to this desolate place. As she and Marinda walked to the front door, thunder rumbled in the distance. But to Melissa, it didn't sound like thunder at all but more like the menacing growl of some cosmic cur, warning them away.
She hesitated. Marinda closed a hand on her arm. "There's no such thing as a deity of absolute evil," she whispered, her voice close to Melissa's ear. "There's only energy. Victor has mastered his ability to tap into it, but the choice to use it for evil was all his. He was just a man, Melissa. Only a mortal man."
Melissa nodded.
"Center yourself, Witchling. We can tap into the same source, the same energy, and direct it against him. His spirit is working against nature. Nature's on our side."
Nodding, Melissa closed her eyes, drew a deep breath, curled her toes inside her shoes as she let the mighty force of the planet, the Mother, flow up and into her. She tipped her head back and opened her eyes, letting the endless energy of the Sky, the Father, pour down into her. She even tapped the power of the storm, and knew, when the wind whipped harder against her face and the lightning flashed, that it was real.
The power of the universe was real, and she was a part of it and a conduit for it.
Lowering her head, she stared at the house. "I'm ready."
The two of them marched side by side up the front stairs, to the door. Melissa was surprised to find it unlocked. She opened it and stepped inside. But she saw no one. The house was silent and brooding, and it felt abandoned.
"Victor's temple room is in the basement," Marinda said.
"How do you know?"
"My daughter lived here, for a time. She told me many things. This way, come on."
She led the way through the massive house, and Melissa followed, struggling to hold on to her connection with the Source of all power. They came to a door, which hung open, went through it and down a steep, long set of stairs into the bowels of the place. It was eerily lit with red-globed bulbs, and the energy that filled it was toxic. Melissa felt it around her, prickling her skin and raising goose bumps on her arms. Marinda never hesitated. She walked through the basement and up to a large door, carved all from one slab of wood. She tried the knob, careful not to make a sound as she twisted.
"Locked," she said.
"Wait." Melissa dug in her bag, pulled out a long, heavy hairpin. "I expected the place to be locked. I'll try to get it open." Marinda moved aside just slightly, and Melissa inserted the pin into the keyhole, twisting, feeling, willing the lock to open.
Marinda pulled something from her pocket, a dry brown flower on a tall, nearly leafless stem. "Maybe this will help." She held the blossom against the lock.
Immediately Melissa felt the tumblers turn against her hairpin and knew the lock had opened. Whether due to her own efforts or the other woman's weed, she couldn't be sure.
Marinda whispered, "Chicory cut with blade of gold, midnight or midday at the height of Sol, clears the pathway to your goal, against it no man's locks will hold." She shrugged. "Hold on to the stem, dear. Folklore claims it grants invisibility as well."
Melissa dropped her hairpin back into her bag and closed a hand around the bottom of the stem the other woman held. "Hell, it can't hurt."
Melissa turned the knob and pushed the door open. The scene laid out within the circle of dancing black candles in the room she entered shocked her right to the core. Alex was on a stone table, chains on his arms and legs, his chest covered in blood that ran in rivulets down his sides. A tube in his arm ran with more blood that was collecting in a pail on the floor.
"Alex, my God!" She let go of the weed and ran to his side, yanking the needle from his wrist and closing her hand over the wound, to halt the blood flow.
"So you've arrived," a woman said.
Melissa jerked her head up sharply, so focused on Alex that she hadn't even noticed the woman standing in the circle. She wore a hooded robe that shadowed her face, and stood between the table on which Alex lay and a machine of some kind.
"You broke the circle," she whispered. "But it's not going to matter." The woman lifted a dagger and came slowly toward Melissa. "Back away from him. Now."
Melissa looked down, and her stomach convulsed when she saw the amount of Alex's blood in the pail. She clenched his wrist tighter, refusing to let go. "You can't kill us all."
The woman looked up, surprised, and only then did she seem to notice that Melissa hadn't come alone. Marinda stepped out of the shadows, into the light cast by the dancing flames of the candles.
"You," Elizabeth said, her v
oice louder than before.
"That's right, Elizabeth." Then she looked around the room. "Do you hear that, Victor? I'm not going to let you murder my grandson the way you did his mother. What kind of spell did you use to make her jump off that bridge?"
Elizabeth smiled slowly. "Oh, it was nothing so complicated for a man of Victor's power, Witch. A mind control spell, some posthypnotic suggestion, and it was done."
She moved toward Melissa again. Melissa flung up a hand, projecting all the energy she could muster. "Halt, damn you!"
Again the woman stopped.
Melissa focused on Alex then. "Mother Earth, goddess strong, stop this blood by witches' song. Mother Earth, goddess strong, stop this blood by Witches' song. Mother Earth…"
Marinda joined in the chant, coming closer, standing right at her side, placing her hand over Melissa's. Melissa felt the wound tingling against her palm.
"Stop it! Dammit, stop right now!" Elizabeth cried. She raced forward again, swinging her blade at Melissa.
Marinda yanked Melissa aside, pulling her hand from Alex's wrist as she did. The blade hissed by, doing no damage. And as Melissa stumbled, regained her balance, and glanced back at the wrist, she saw no further bleeding. Either the charm had worked or Alex was already dead.
Elizabeth stood crouched, blade aloft, ready to attack. But there was something beside her. Some dark, shapeless form that pulsed with evil.
"He's here," Marinda whispered, leaning close. "Open the Western Gate, Melissa. We have to send Victor back through, it's the only way to end this."
Melissa nodded, but she didn't want to leave Marinda's side with this mad knife-wielding woman so close by.
"Go!"
Melissa went. Elizabeth moved to come for her, but Marinda was ready. She snatched the bag from Melissa's shoulder and swung it, catching the other woman upside the head and knocking her to her knees. The dagger clattered to the floor as Elizabeth scrambled to her feet, and then the two women were locked in a struggle, hitting, punching, clawing each other. Melissa knew Marinda had a blade of her own, but she would never use it. Not to do violence.