Legacy & Spellbound (13 page)

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.

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.

Then Amanda took a step toward her and shouted, “Holly, you liar!
Where's my sister?
”

“I have to go back for her,” Holly said, her emotions twisting her voice. She couldn't stop staring as Rose hurried to Jer's side with a large bath towel and draped it over his head.

Finished, Rose took a step backward, whispering to Kari, “Who is he, Kari?”

Kari was crying hard, her sobs coming in large, hot gasps. She turned on her heel and ran out of the room; seconds later, they heard a door slam.

“Oh, my God, what if she's gone outside?” Silvana asked. “What if the birds see her?” She hesitated, then rushed after her. “Kari? Come back!”

Alonzo regarded Jer as the younger man fumbled his way to the settee and sat heavily down. “This is a warlock,” he announced.

“Holly, damn it! Where's Nicole?” Amanda's voice shook. “You go get my sister! Now!”

“I will,” Holly said, taking a deep breath. “Philippe, we have to re-create the spell.” She looked at Amanda. “I saw her, Amanda. I'll get her.”

“Why didn't you this time?” Amanda shrieked at her.
“Why did you bring him instead?”
Her hand trembled as she pointed at Jer. “It's always the Deveraux! Always Jer who comes first!”

“She wouldn't come without him,” Holly answered weakly, but she knew that that answer wasn't worthy of her.
I found Jer, and I didn't give him a chance to say no. I pulled him in. He didn't even know what the light was.

“And this is how you repay her for being so kind?”

Amanda's accusations were cutting her to the quick—or maybe they were just hitting too close to home.

“Philippe, make the portal!” Holly shouted.
“Now!”

Rose joined Philippe, Alonzo, Armand, and Pablo as they made a circle and began to chant in ancient Celtic. Sasha pulled Amanda to the circle, and each of them joined hands with Rose. A pinprick of light formed in the center of the circle, about three feet off the ground. It began to shine more brightly, and to grow. A low, almost subaudible hum emanated from the light.

The light expanded into an ellipse, then split into
rings, then split again. The individual rings began to shimmer and rotate as the hum increased in volume.

There was the sound of a crash, and then the sphere became an elongated oval, pulsing with light from inside it.

The portal had been successfully created.

Now it was up to Holly. She closed her eyes and concentrated on Nicole, on merging with her vibrations, on becoming one with her. She was the only one in the group powerful enough to achieve such a union, and she knew why Amanda was so upset: Her entire concentration should have been filled with nothing but thoughts of Nicole, and yet she had obviously been thinking of Jer as well … for here he was.

Then Holly saw Nicole in her mind's eye … and what she saw, she did not like.

Her cousin was dressed in ceremonial robes of black and red and bound onto an altar, her eyes staring unseeing as Eli Deveraux, and a man Holly didn't recognize, both stood over her, chanting. “No,” she murmured.

“What? What's wrong? What do you see?” Amanda cried, stepping forward toward Holly, but Sasha firmly touched her shoulder, keeping her from breaking the circle.

“Don't break her concentration,” she warned. “Help us, Amanda.”

Amanda shut her eyes and took up the chant, which Rose and Philippe had pieced together from two spells, one from the Mother Coven's tradition and one from that of the Coven of White Magic.

Holly rode the strength of Amanda's sure image of her sister, using that to make herself connect more fully with her. Then she concentrated on Jer, who had draped the towel over his head, since he had just been with Nicole in person.