Family Magic (33 page)

I didn’t plan to do either.

What was that sound? The kitchen door? Maybe
the Moromonds were finally leaving. It wasn’t until then I heard
multiple voices in the house, more than just Batsheva and Dominic.
Something was happening while I was out here battling boys, guilt
and fear.

Enough of this crap. I made my decision to
act.

I stormed inside and down the back hall, past
the stairs and into the kitchen, landing smack-dab in the middle of
a crucifixion in which my mother was the target.

The room overflowed with people, a few of the
more powerful witches conspicuously absent. Still, there were
enough of them there that the power swirled around wildly as they
struggled to focus. I knew then how much my mother’s strength was
the real core of the coven and wondered how long it would take them
to self-destruct with Batsheva Moromond at the reins.

Speaking of which, she spewed lies with her
back to me. I stopped in the threshold to listen.

“Here is your proof,” she held out something
to the gathering. I shifted position to see. Was that a knife?

The coven breathed as one. I felt a thread of
subtle magic escape, sliding around me like the coil of a snake,
trying to draw me into its influence. The demon snarled, sending
the coil back in a snap. Batsheva controlled them. It wouldn’t
matter what she showed them, what they saw or heard, she
manipulated them, holding them in thrall, corrupting the core to
subjugate the entire family.

Or not, I thought. After all, not everyone
was there, were they? Who stood against the Moromonds? What
happened to them?

Batsheva turned as she sensed me. I flinched
in horror when I saw Meira held in front of her. The protective
spell slapped me in the face. Batsheva’s bulk hid my sister from
me, her presence glossing over the demon girl. Meira wasn’t in any
real danger or I would have been compelled to help her, but seeing
her under the physical control of
that woman
was enough to
trigger it. My demon screamed in fury and reached out, tearing
through the subtle weave, pulling Meira free.

She ran to me. I hugged her to me as I faced
Batsheva. I saw my mother, my weakened and empty mother, being held
in a chair by two people.

I thought the demon was angry before. I had
to shout at her to calm her down, struggling to regain control
while the others watched, a cold sweat bathing me as I trembled and
fought to stay upright when a wave of dizziness took me. Batsheva
smiled in satisfaction.

“Get out,” I managed through clenched teeth.
“All of you. Leave us alone.”

Batsheva turned in a circle, reconnecting
with every witch in the room. “More evidence,” she said. “The Hayle
family are practitioners of negative magic and have been destroying
this coven and all we hold dear.”

I barked a laugh and felt the thread of her
control weaken while my own steadied and stabilized. Even with her
power manipulating them, the assembly knew us, knew my mother. They
struggled with the idea, rejecting it. It was taking all the
strength Batsheva had to keep them in check and I was getting in
her way.

Too bad, so sad.

“What evidence?” I snapped. “What proof?” Not
knowing what else to do, I pushed my demon against the veil of
control where she clawed and spit at the power that kept it whole.
“Do any of you really believe Miriam Hayle could ever be a
practitioner of negative magic?”

I was winning them over and Batsheva knew it.
She held the knife up again.
“This was hidden,” she declared, “in the basement, buried under the
statue of their unholy alliance.”

I shrugged. “A knife? So what?”

She spun on me. “A knife,” she stressed,
“with blood still on it.”

The coven gasped and for a moment I froze.
She was making a massive accusation. The use of blood or negative
magic was punishable by death. Unpredictable and utterly evil,
blood magic sucked at the soul until it ran dry, destroying
everything it touched.

My anger surged at the urging of my
demon.

“You lying bitch,” I snarled. “If anyone is
using negative magic, it’s you.”

The thread weakened further, stretched thin
as my demon slashed her way toward the power Batsheva hadn’t yet
had time to master. I felt the head of the snake grow close. I let
the demon do what she did best.

She reached out with a howl of fury and cut
it free.

Several things happened at once. Mom tried to
stand, her hand reached out toward me while the entire gathering
breathed a huge breath of fresh energy and flushed away the last of
the control Batsheva tried to hold over them. The Moromonds turned
on me, fury in their faces. My demon retreated back to me, still
writhing in anger but more content now she was able to act.

“I don’t believe it,” Louisa spoke up first,
shaking her head. “Not Miriam. Never Miriam.”

“She’s right,” James moved forward as though
to shield my mother with his body. His very pregnant wife Sandra
followed him. In fact, with the spell broken, the entire body of
assembled witches moved as one to form a protective shield around
Mom, their faces angry and appalled to find themselves in the
position they made.

“Enough,” I heard that soft voice speak. My
heart leapt as my mother, shaking and weak, parted the crowd and
stepped forward. “I am perfectly able to defend myself.”

I wanted to cheer and jump up and down and
make rude gestures at the Moromonds but I held still.

“Fools,” Batsheva snarled at them, at my
mother. “You just needed to sleep for a little while longer. Now
this will be much harder for you than it has to be.”

“I’m taking my power back now,” Mom said
simply. “With or without your co-operation.”

The family around her gathered and focused on
Batsheva Moromond.

And then they froze, all of them, Mom
included. They were motionless, senseless, trapped in a spell they
were too weakened to break, held by their own anger and fear that
brought them to this place. If they only trusted in my mother and
resisted the call to doubt, they would never have been brought so
low.

As a whole, they made all the wrong choices.
Their insecurities stripped the coven clean.

I watched, feeling around the edges but
unable to find a weakness before realizing their own energy was
being used, like the spell that trapped the Vegas, to feed what
held them. They would stand there, frozen, until released or until
the very last whisper drained from them and they died.

That was when I realized I was free. And,
from the clutching of the little hands in mine, so was Meira. I
felt the tight weave of the protection spell Mom had cast over us,
the promise to protect my sister humming to life, vibrating around
me. The power she put into it protected us like a shield.

“Let them go!” I yelled. Both Batsheva and
Dominic spun on us, her eyes going very wide with shock.

“Not possible,” she whispered. She struck at
us, but the shield Mom built held and grew stronger.

“Your power doesn’t work on us,” I said. “Now
let them go.”

Batsheva battered herself on our shield,
furious, desperate to destroy it. I knew as I felt her beat
uselessly against us the reason Mom was weakened and unable to
resist was because part of her stayed with us, surrounding us,
holding us and keeping us safe. My mother knew, somehow, that even
she would be worn down if she stood and fought. She would have been
able to protect the coven longer if she kept her magic. But, she
also knew despite her best efforts, she would ultimately fail. She
made a choice, to save her daughters, to shield us and keep us from
harm, at the expense of her own survival.

I cried, holding my sister, knowing what Mom
gave to save us, and clung to that part of my mother like a
lifeline.

Batsheva stopped her attack so swiftly I
swayed, not knowing I held myself tense and stiff. She breathed
heavily, more from anger than effort. She turned to Dominic.

“Fine,” she hissed. “If we can’t take them
with magic…”

She spun back to me as Dominic took the knife
from her and started to move toward us. I froze, holding Meira,
terrified. I knew the spell wouldn’t protect us from a physical
attack and from the way he held the knife, Dominic knew how to use
it.

Terrified, over-tired, battered and beaten,
overwhelmed at last, I stood there and watched him come.

***

I don’t know if I would have stayed there and
let Dominic take us at knifepoint, but I didn’t get to find
out.

The part of the shield generated by our
mother seized on the scorching power of my demon and freed her to
act.

My demon roared. Everything went to slow
motion. I barely took the time to bend as I simultaneously lifted
Meira into my arms and spun, taking the hallway at a dead run from
a full stop before I even had a chance to know I moved. I had no
idea what was happening behind me and really didn’t care.

Time sped up back to normal as I slammed open
the front door and hit the sidewalk running, Meira clutched
desperately to my chest. I didn’t know where I was going, what I
would do when I made it there or even how I would figure any of
that out. All I could focus on, breathe in, feel in every corner of
me, was flight.

If it hadn’t been for the spell of
protection, I would have stayed behind to fight. But the compulsion
to protect my sister was so powerful I had to get away, get us
away, and consider our options later.

We made it six blocks before I even thought
about slowing. I glanced back over my shoulder but there was no one
there, no panting Dominic Moromond with his bloody knife chasing us
down the street, no thread of snake-like magic pursuing us.

Still, I ran some more. And some more. I ran
until my lungs ached, my breath came in short, heavy panting gasps,
until Meira’s weight threatened to drive me to my knees.

I finally ground to a halt in an unfamiliar
part of town, collapsing on a bench with my sister still clinging
to me. I tried to get my breath as I listened to her cry.

“We have to go back!” Her little arms unwound
from around my neck so she could pound on my chest with her
delicate fists.

I didn’t even have the strength to stop her.
“Meems, we can’t,” I said, speaking an effort. “We can’t.”

“We have to!” She struggled with me. I let
her go. She hit her feet and grabbed my hand, trying with her whole
body weight to pull me up from the bench.

I let her struggle as I caught my breath and
wondered what the hell I was going to do.

I briefly considered going to Alison’s, but
dropped that idea pretty quick. There was no way I could involve
normals in our mess. I was at a total loss. Batsheva still
controlled the coven. Now that she trapped my mother, there was no
one left to fight her. I was pretty sure the missing Celeste and
Erica already fell victim to her themselves. I had a brief pang as
I admitted I abandoned Gram to the Moromonds but knew the spell
wouldn’t have let me stop for her.

I pulled against Meira who grunted with the
effort to make me get up. I manhandled her back into my lap and
hugged her until she fell still.

“Meems,” I whispered into her hair. “We can’t
go back.”

“I know,” she whispered back, face buried in
my shirt. “What are we going to do?”

I had no idea what to say.

The screeching of tires saved me from having
to come up with an answer. A shiny silver Volvo rocked to a halt as
Jared roared up and jumped out of the car. I leapt to my feet,
ready to run, Meira clinging to me.

“Syd!” He stopped on the edge of the
sidewalk, hands up, expression distressed. “It’s okay, Syd. It’s
just me.”

“So what,” I snapped. “It’s you, Jared. And
we’re supposed to trust you just like that?”

He backed off. “Okay, yeah, right. Sorry. You
have no reason to trust any of us right now, do you?”

“Not really, no,” I told him.

“I know,” he held out his hands again, eyes
pleading. “But, please, Syd. You have to come with me.”

“Why?” I was ready to run all night if I had
to. But something about the way he asked made me pause.

“Because,” he said. “There is no one
else.”

I reached out to him, felt around his edges,
but he was clean, or at least as clean as Jared ever felt.

“Where do you want to go?” I asked.

“For help,” he said. “There’s another coven
near here, a couple of towns over. They aren’t as powerful as ours,
but…” he trailed off. “Maybe they can do something.”

I didn’t point out our family wasn’t exactly
as strong as it used to be either. Instead, I debated.

“Syd,” he said. “Please.”

I wavered. I couldn’t run forever. I had to
find somewhere safe for Meira. For both of us. His idea sounded
like a good one. If we could get word to the High Council about the
Moromonds, maybe they could send some Enforcers to help. The
thought of having those steely, hardened warrior witches sweep in
and take out Batsheva and Dominic gave me a shiver of pleasure.
Besides, this was Jared. I knew him, liked him. I could trust him.
Couldn’t I?

“Have you contacted them yet?” I asked
him.

“No,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if calling was
a good idea. I figured it would be best to see them in person.”

He was right. There was no way they would
believe the Hayle coven was so completely torn apart. We were too
powerful for that.

I stood there with the weight of my little
sister in my arms, torn. The problem was, as much as I wanted to do
it, the spell made it harder to choose. It wasn’t just my own
welfare I was worried about. I had Meira’s to guard too. Finally, I
made my mind up and hoped my decision was the right one.

“All right,” I said to him, feeling calmer
now that I had a plan. “Let’s go.”