Always a Witch (14 page)

Run,
I want to scream. Instead, I lock the scream inside my throat and try to keep my face blank. The child pauses, one foot digging into the thick golden carpet, and then he moves forward, his eyes fixed on Liam's face. Leaning back in his chair, Liam produces a small bottle from his coat pocket and pours half of it into his wineglass. He pours the remaining half into another glass and hands that one to the child. After dipping one hand in his pocket, he pulls out a small blue bottle and shakes it over his own glass until a few drops fall into the wine.

The man across the table from Liam opens his mouth, but La Spider puts her hand on his arm and he leans back. Silently, he wraps the handle of the silver spoon around and around his thumb, his eyes watchful.

Next, Liam lifts his own glass in a mocking toast and says gently, "To your health," before draining it.

The child stares at his wineglass as if he's never held something that fine before.

"Come, come, drink it all up, like I told you," Liam says, and winks at the table in general. But the child still hesitates, his eyes flickering around the room.

The elderly woman stirs and hisses, "Drink it, you little—" but one of the other women whispers something too soft for me to catch and the elderly woman subsides, her mouth bunching into a hard knot.

"Come along," Liam says in a still-jovial tone, although now a thread of steel runs through it.

"What about the dollar?" the child says at last, his voice rough and harder than expected. He juts his shoulders forward like a boxer.

"You'll have your money, never fear," Liam says, and then spreads his hands wide to the table. "A little entrepreneur, we have here."

"Indeed," La Spider murmurs, her fingers tightening on her own glass.

Do something!
I scream silently at Jessica, but she never raises her eyes from her lap.

The boy sips at his glass. He makes a grimace and jerks his head away, but Liam says softly, "All of it. That was the deal."

The rest of the liquid disappears down the boy's throat. He swallows, shudders, and then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand before saying, "My money?"

There is a sharp swell of silence, and then almost imperceptibly the boy's hand begins to tremble. His face draws into a knot and then he opens his mouth as if he's about to be sick on the carpet.

"Easy now," Liam murmurs, and all at once the boy's face smoothes out and he turns blank eyes on Liam, who leans back in his chair, a small smile playing around his lips.

The silence in the room is overwhelming.

"Boy," Liam says softly, "I want you to turn in a circle three times."

Obediently, the child shuffles his feet until he has come about-face. He does it twice more, then stops and looks at Liam with a waiting expression. "Excellent," Liam murmurs. "And now walk over to that side of the room and keep walking until I say stop."

The child turns again and begins heading toward the wall with precise, easy steps. As he passes me, his eyes are alert, focused, and it's clear that he has no intention of stopping. As he comes within three feet, then two feet of the wall, Liam strokes his mustache thoughtfully but remains silent. The boy's forehead makes contact with the wall with a sickening thud and as he stumbles and falls to the floor. Titters fill the room.

"Astounding," says one of the men who followed behind La Spider and her escort. He steeples his fingers on his chin, his eyes darting between Liam and the child on the floor.

One of the Knight teenagers pipes up. "Make him do it again."

"No, make him take off all his clothes," the girl interjects with a giggle. She stands up and says in a pretty good imitation of La Spider's tone, "Take off your clothes."

But the boy, still sprawled on the floor, ignores her, rubbing his forehead.

The girl sits back down, looking crestfallen. "Why won't he do it, Cousin Liam?"

Liam smiles at her fondly, a smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "Because he'll listen to me only. I've mixed his blood and mine in the spell, so only I can control him."

A soft murmur breaks out and then the Knight boy leans forward with a glinting smile. "I want one, too," he says to the woman I presume is his mother. She smiles down at him brightly and says, "Soon enough, Edmund. Uncle Liam will show us how." Then she aims an arch glance across the table. "Won't you, darling? So we can all have ... a little pet?"

But it's La Spider who answers. "As usual you fail to grasp what's happening, Clarissa." Clarissa's face flushes and her fingers flutter up to her pearl necklace, but she remains silent. "We do not do this so we can all have
little pets
for our own personal amusement."

"How long will it last?" asks the second man, the one with the golden handlebar mustache who escorted Clarissa into the room. There's something similar to La Spider in the set of his chin and the way they both turn their heads in whiplike movements.

Liam shrugs. "Not long, but as long as it's renewed, he'll remain under my control."

"And will it work on one of us?" the man asks, his voice trembling a little.

Liam's chair creaks loudly as he straightens up. He exchanges a look with his mother. "So suspicious, Calvin," La Spider says with a small smile flitting across her lips.

I stare at the man. So that's Calvin Knight.

"I was just about to get to that," Liam says softly.

"Do you see, Clarissa?" La Spider chides.

"Yes," Clarissa breathes, and then makes a preemptory movement to shush her son, who has opened his mouth again.

"It will."

There is a collective gasp around the table. I drop my own gaze to the floor, studying the dark inlaid squares of wood, but my head is spinning.

"How did you learn this?" Calvin Knight asks, his eyes darting from his sister's face to Liam's. I try to figure out if it's fear or greed in his expression. "Who ... volunteered to..." His eyes fasten on Jessica now.

Liam laughs. "Oh, no. I didn't experiment on anyone you know. We don't experiment on each other. Unless anyone would like to volunteer?" No one replies except for Clarissa, who gives a small, nervous titter. La Spider's eyes dart to her and Clarissa flushes and looks down at her fingers gripping the table, her sleeve almost dipping into her dish of melting lemon ice.

"I would," Jessica says suddenly. Everyone's head swivels to her. I fight to keep my gaze neutral.

"Jessica," Liam begins with a smile playing across his full lips. But the look she sends him blasts the smile from his face.

"I would let you drain me of my blood as long as it would drain all my Talent away. But somehow I doubt that you really want the ability to heal people, Liam. That's not your specialty, is it?" Her tone is icy, mocking.

"Oh, I don't know about that," Liam murmurs. "It could prove useful." He nods toward the child, who appears to be unconscious, on the floor. "But it's not necessary. For now," he drawls, and something about the way he says it makes me very afraid. "Just recently we had a visitor. A very special visitor. He proved to be more useful than I ever could have imagined. Allow me to introduce our next guest." He gives another nod to Mr. Tynsdell, who exits the room once again.

Suddenly, it feels as if the walls are pressing in on me.

As if locked in a bad dream, I watch the door swing open and Mr. Tynsdell return followed by a shuffling, stumbling figure. A bandage is wrapped around the man's head, and both of his arms are encased in gauze. He licks his lips once and scans the room, taking in all of the Knights, who are staring back at him.

I edge backwards until I bump into the wainscoting on the wall. Looking left, I calculate the distance to the still-open door. About twenty feet.

Just when I'm weighing my odds of sprinting out of here, the man turns his face in my direction. Those blue-gray eyes burn right into me.

"Tamsin Greene," Alistair hisses.

Twenty

FOR THREE HEARTBEATS
the room is still and then Liam pushes back his chair and says, "Who?" just as Alistair flings his arm out toward me and screams, "
That's her. She's here. I told you she's here.
"

"Who
is
this madman?" Calvin Knight says, also coming to his feet to stand next to Liam. "And what is he talking about?"

Behind Alistair's shoulder I see Liam stare at me and then gather himself as if he's about to spring. My skin suddenly tingles. But Liam remains solid. And very surprised.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.
That was the third time.

La Spider flings up one hand and the door suddenly slams shut.

So much for that exit.

I take a step closer to the sideboard and the dumbwaiter. In my peripheral vision, the rest of the Knight family is coming to their feet, and voices begin to buzz through the room. But Alistair only has eyes for me.

"You won't succeed, Tamsin," Alistair says, his voice hoarse. His lips are dry and cracked, and the whites of his eyes have taken on a yellow tinge. "It's too late. I've made sure of that. I've saved my family."

I note the half-empty champagne bottle within reach and try to gauge how hard I could hit someone with it. "And look how they rewarded you!" I indicate his bandaged head and arms. "By practically killing you."

"Apparently, you don't understand what it means to sacrifice for your family."

"I understand—"

"My Talent is gone." He raises pole-thin arms and shows me the fresh scabs crisscrossing his skin. "It's been bled away. But I don't mind. As long as it's helped my family to understand their true potential, their truth worth."

His words have shaken me more than I want to admit.

"Not that you'll be around to see it." I inject a breezy note into my voice as I add, "It's been three days for you, hasn't it? You've got what, hours to live?"

"Enough," La Spider says, breaking our locked gazes.

"This is the girl you were warning us about? The maid?
She's
a member of the Greene family?" Liam says, studying me with something close to amusement.

"Took you long enough," I say, mostly to drag the smirk off of this face. "I've been in your house for almost three days. You guys are kind of pathetic."

La Spider tightens her lips and flings up her hand again. A sharp prickling washes over me, followed by that super sense of clarity.

I smile sweetly at her. "Still here."

"Kill her," the old woman hisses just as Clarissa disappears. I reach out with my mind and snap her back into sight. Next to her, her son flickers and then stretches, growing larger and larger by the second until his head's about to bump into the ceiling. He cracks his knuckles and begins lumbering toward me.

"Stop it," I say almost kindly to him, and with a quick snap he shrinks back down to his normal size. Too bad I couldn't keep going until he was the size of a pencil.

"Don't use your Talent on her," Alistair roars just as La Spider shrieks, "Enough!"

"This is truly fortunate," Liam purrs into the silence. He places a hand on his mother's arm. "We were going to start
selecting
members of the Greene family as it was. But now one has fallen into our laps." He smiles warmly at the rest of his family. "As I was about to demonstrate with our honored guest here"—he nods to Alistair—"I have discovered how to borrow someone else's Talent. Of course, the process still needs a little refining, but now that we have her—"

"I don't think I'll be sticking around for that," I interject.

"Oh, really?" Liam says coldly, and now there's no amusement in his voice whatsoever. Behind his back, Jessica is staring at me. She looks afraid, but I can't tell if it's of me or for me. "I'm afraid you don't have a choice in that matter."

"Restrain her," La Spider says to Mr. Tynsdell.

I glance sideways at the butler, who is hesitating.

"Now," La Spider says, her voice like a whiplash.

I have a second to feel almost sorry for him as he comes toward me. He raises his arms to grab me. Twisting sideways, I evade his grasp and slap him on the forehead.

A terrified expression crosses his face and he jumps back as if I've burned him. He scrubs his hand across his forehead.

Great. Perfect time for Aunt Beatrice's power to desert me.

The rumble of the dumbwaiter rising behind me shatters the silence.

"Seize her," La Spider calls again, and this time Calvin Knight moves forward.

Rage has tightened his mouth into a snarling knot. "You little b—"

Gathering myself, I coalesce into what feels like a ball of energy, and then I dive straight into Calvin Knight's chest. With a flash, my flesh evaporates, my sight dulls, and I feel a pulling sensation as if a strong wind could suddenly scatter me into a thousand pieces.

And then I am solid again.

"What happened?" Clarissa shrieks just as Alistair stumbles forward.

"She's inside of him," he says hoarsely.

The entire room erupts into pandemonium.

"Get her," La Spider shrieks again, clenching her hands together as if to prevent herself from flinging me/her brother against the wall.

La Spider's other brother darts forward and drives his head into my chest. I struggle away from him long enough to grab the champagne bottle. With a wide swing, I manage to clobber the side of his face. He grunts and steps back, and that's all the space I need. Moving as fast as I can in my new body, I throw myself into the dumbwaiter shaft and pull the rope.

Hurry, hurry, hurry.

Thankfully, each servant in this horrible house has learned to move with a clockwork precision. With a creaking groan, the dumbwaiter platform begins to descend through the dark shaft into the kitchen below.

With a crash the dumbwaiter stops in the kitchen. Dawn, her arms coated in a thin gray film of soapsuds, turns from the sink and starts toward me, intending no doubt to take the next load of dirty dishes. Instead, she stops short, staring at me, her hands dripping water across the stone floor. Abruptly she claps one wet hand over her mouth. A sort of moan leaks out between her fingers.

"Hi, Dawn," I say, scrambling off the platform and knocking aside a dish. Calvin Knight's dark evening suit is blotched with the remains of dinner. Good.

At the sound of a male voice, Cook whirls from the stove, her silver whisk clutched in her right hand. Her eyes widen.

"Cook, it's me, Tam ... er ... Agatha. Seriously, it's me. It's not him. Sorry about crashing in on you guys here. Tell them I went out the front door."

Even now I can hear voices above our heads somewhere calling. "
Lock the doors,
" La Spider is screaming, and then there's an answering shout.

Cook crosses herself with the whisk still in her hand as I thud down the back stairs.

"How did you ... are you ... is it—? Wait!" she calls.

Fumbling with the latch, I throw one look over my shoulder.

"My sister," she implores. Her eyebrows slant upward in such a desperately hopeful expression that I bite my lip.

"Elements," I mutter, flinging the door open.

Behind me, Cook cries out, "You promised."

An almost full moon sails across the sky, shining down on the stone woman trapped in the garden. Sprinting across the frozen grass, I skid to a stop before her. "Please let this work." My breathing comes in ragged gulps as I slap one hand down onto where the woman's heart should be.

A pulse abruptly kicks to life under my fingertips, and the cold stone heats to hot skin so fast that I jerk my hand away. The statue lifts her head and blinks her eyes, and even in the bleach-colored light I can see that blood is rushing to fill her cheeks. With an audible popping noise, she stumbles toward me, her arms pinwheeling. Terror spasms across her features like a tidal wave.

The door creaks open behind me and I jump, but it's only Cook, still carrying her whisk, and hurrying across the grass to us. "Mary?" Cook whispers, and the woman swings her head toward her sister.

"Matilda," she says in a creaking voice as if stone dust has clogged her throat.

"Oh, thank God, thank God," Cook sobs. Dropping her whisk, she runs forward, and the two women careen into each other's arms. Looking up, I can see lights flooding through the windows of each room on the second and third floors. The hunt's in earnest.

"Take my advice?" I say to both of them. "Leave this house. Now." Without waiting for an answer, I dart across the lawn. Peering through the side gate, I check out the street beyond it. Empty.

I ease open the gate as quietly as I can. Still, it makes a creaking noise that sets me to grinding Calvin Knight's back teeth. Inching down the walkway, I listen as hard as I can. There's a shout in the distance, a burst of laughter from a small group of passersby, and then the sound of carriage wheels rolling down Twenty-seventh Street. All the normal night noises.

My fingers work the latch as quickly as possible, and then I open the gate door just enough to slip through. I figure I have just enough time to find Gabriel and have him help me figure out a way to slip out of Calvin Knight's body and then—

Pain explodes across the left side of my face.

I stagger backwards, my body falling through the half-open gate. Black spots weave and dance across my vision and slowly coalesce into the form of Liam Knight. He is standing over me, wielding an iron poker.

"Sorry,
Uncle,
" Liam says, his voice not sounding sorry at all. I shake Calvin Knight's head, but that only makes things worse. Blood is trickling down my jaw, and seems to be pooling in my ear.

"It couldn't be helped," La Spider says, emerging from the shadows to stand next to her son. She studies my/her brother's body with merciless eyes. "Calvin will just have to understand."

"He doesn't seem like the understanding type," I mutter, or try to anyway, but my words come out all slurry. The black spots are getting worse, although oddly enough one of them seems shaped like a crow. A small crow perched on the stone banister just above Liam and La Spider's heads.

"Isobel," I gasp. "Help me."

La Spider's eyes narrow and then she glances upward. Instantly the crow takes flight, but La Spider jabs one finger at it.

"No," I scream. I reach out with my mind to snap off La Spider's Talent, but my reflexes are just seconds too slow.

The crow's body slams once, twice in a first-floor casement window and then flops to the pavement below. Slowly, the bird's body shifts into Isobel's supine form. One dark feather drifts gently downward to land in her outstretched right hand.

"Well, well, what a harvest," Liam murmurs.

I do the only thing left that I can do. I black out.