Legacy & Spellbound (27 page)

Armand and Tommy carried Holly into the room and placed her on the floor in the center of the
pentagram. Her eyes were glazed and she was still muttering quietly to herself. She rocked back and forth slowly.

The others filtered into the room slowly, each holding a candle and each standing as far back along the perimeter as they could. No one was sure what exactly was going to happen, so Sasha had decided that they should stay as far back as they could. She noticed that along with the candle, each of the men, with the exception of Dan, carried a cross. Tommy lifted his in a salute with a smile that seemed to say, “What can it hurt?”

When at last they had all taken their places, Sasha began. “Goddess, hear us, your servants, as we form a sacred circle tonight. Bless us, and bless your chosen one.”

“Blessed be,” the others murmured.

“We place her in the center of the pentagram and we recognize the five points of balance. Fire, we call upon thee to drive out those creatures that have taken up residence inside this body. Mighty wind, we pray thee sweep them back from whence they came. Earth, heal this body whose life springs from you and ground her spirit that it might stay. Water, nourish her spirit, for she has been wandering for far too long in a dry and desolate plane. And last, we call upon the spirit, the
fifth and final element. Return to your rightful place. Holly, be with us once more!”

The herbs caught on fire, and the pentagram burned and shone with an unnatural light. Holly had stopped muttering and was looking down at the fire. Suddenly the head snapped back, and the eyes, which had looked so glossy and vacant, filled with a malicious hate.

“No!” The voice that came out was not Holly's. Amanda screamed and clapped her hands over her ears. Wind whipped through the room, extinguishing all the candles.

Holly's face contorted and changed into a snarling mask with two-inch fangs and glowing red eyes. “We will kill it first,” hissed a serpentine voice.

“Yes, yes, we will,” confirmed another.

Holly began to seize uncontrollably. Her bowels released, and a putrid stench filled the air. Red fire blazed from her eyes as she dug at her face with her fingernails. The saliva that rolled down her chin was green and fetid. As though she were a doll, she was flung around the room.

“Holly, hear me, I know you're in there! Fight it!” Sasha shouted above a keening sound she had heard only in her nightmares.

* * *
Holly was asleep. Or, at least she thought she was. Someone was trying to wake her. They pushed and she pushed back. She opened one eye and saw the woman with red hair. Who was she again? She was somebody's mother, Jer, Jean … she couldn't remember. Couldn't be that important if she couldn't remember. She closed her eyes again.

Holly's mouth gaped open, and Sasha watched in shock as two spirits pulled themselves out of her chest. They were scabby, hideous creatures with snakelike skin and jaguar claws. Once outside of Holly, they flew, circling the room at an impossible rate. She tried to track them with her eyes but failed. She didn't even see them when they slammed into her, one on each side.

She fell hard and she heard the sickening sound of bones snapping. She began to scream as she could feel their claws digging into her throat and chest. One was trying to punch its way through her stomach. The other began to climb inside her mouth.

Frantic she stabbed at them with her dagger, slashing herself in the process. She heard the others screaming, and someone caught her wrist in midair as she was about to bring the knife down into her chest to kill the demon riding her there.

“Get it off!” she sobbed. “Kill it, kill it! And if you
can't, kill me!” Then there were hands everywhere, helping her, holding her, and the demons left. Slowly, she sat up, pain knifing through her cracked ribs. She glanced over at Holly and froze. Holly's face was frozen in the look of a death mask, but from the open mouth emanated loud, hysterical laughter.

As she watched Sasha stabbing her own body with the knife in an effort to kill the demons, Tante Cecile felt like she was five again. Images from the exorcism that had been long suppressed came flooding to her mind and she fell to her knees retching. As the others scrambled to help Sasha, she tried to push her mind into the memories, to remember what her grandmother had done, how she had defeated the demon.

She muttered a calming spell over herself, but it did no good. She glanced over to see Sasha sitting up, clutching at her ribs. She was bleeding from half a dozen wounds in her chest and stomach region.
Let them all be shallow,
she prayed. Alonzo helped her out and ushered her quickly from the room. Pablo was huddled in a corner, his eyes wide with terror, rocking himself. For one terrible moment she thought that he, too, was possessed. Then she remembered that the boy could read minds. The horrors he must be seeing in Sasha's and Holly's!

The others looked just as shaken and confused as she felt. “Time to finish this,” she muttered, turning to face Holly and her demons.

“We'll kill you and then her and then all the rest,” the demons chortled. “There are too many of us for you to stop.”

“I can stop you and I will,” she countered. “Holly, Holly, sweetheart. You must come back. Fight them, fight, fight!”

The face slowly began to contort back from a demonic one, to Holly's. The head lulled to the side, and Tante Cecile held her breath, hoping that Holly had heard her and was coming back to them.

Irritated, Holly realized that someone else was calling to her. She tried to put her hand over her eyes, but her hand wouldn't move. Panicked, she opened her eyes and looked down. She was wearing some quite white thing, and her arms were pinned inside it. The words
fight, fight,
echoed inside her head.

She panicked.
Are we under attack?
How could she fight if her arms were tied?

She muttered a couple of words, and the jacket fell off her. That was better; now that she could move her arms, she swung the left one slowly forward. Good. Now, what about a fight?

She closed her eyes. It would have to wait.

She needed a nap.

The straitjacket fell from Holly moments before her face changed back to its demonic appearance. A hideous snarling demon came to the front. Holly's arm jerked upward awkwardly, as though she were a marionette. Slowly her finger extended toward Tante Cecile.

“Muerte,”
the voice hissed.

Nicole watched in horror as Tante Cecile fell to the ground, clutching her chest. Her skin was ashen, and her lips stood out like a bruise. Her eyes bulged in terror and suddenly fixed, rolling back into her head.

Silvana began to scream.

Nicole took a step toward what used to be Holly. “I command you to release my cousin!” she cried, her voice shaking with wrath.

For a moment the world seemed to slow, and she could feel power, real power, rushing through her like a hot wind. The witchblood sang in her veins, and for one moment she understood all too well what it was like to be Holly.

“You will release her,” she thundered, her voice exploding the windows.

“My, my, how the rose has blossomed,” James chuckled.

Nicole gasped and spun around, her concentration shattered.

Air and water, earth and fire
All tools of our ire
Death and destruction are what we bring
The only chorus that we sing

Goddess, Priestess, now we plead
Both our souls and bodies feed
High Priestess, watch over all us keep
Wake now from your hateful sleep

James and Eli stood leering just outside the front window of Dan's cabin. Shards of glass were still falling.

“What do you want, James?” Nicole demanded, although where moments before her voice had been trembling with power, now it was trembling with fear.

“I should think that would be rather obvious,” he answered, allowing his eyes to travel the length of her body.

She flushed, but stood her ground. “Get out.”

He gave her a mocking bow. “But, of course, honey. I just came to deliver a friendly warning.”

He and Eli turned to go. Against her better instincts she asked, “What?”

He turned back to her. “Oh, it's just that Eli's dad has amassed quite an army of the Deveraux dead. He'll be attacking you in, oh”—he checked his watch— “about fifteen minutes.” With that, he turned and he and Eli disappeared into the darkness.

Nicole's legs started to buckle, and Philippe caught her. She glanced around the room at the stricken faces. All of them were staring at her except for Silvana, who was weeping over the body of her aunt and Holly, who was laughing at the sight. The noise was too much for her. She waved a hand in the air and it was as though she had hit the “mute” button on the TV. Silvana still cried and Holly still laughed, but she couldn't hear them.

Philippe lowered her slowly to the ground and she clung to his arm. In fifteen minutes they were all going to be as dead as Tante Cecile.

Holly heard explosions. She opened her eyes groggily, aware that she was having to fight to do so.
Where am I?
In a flash it came back, the Dreamtime, the demons. Had she made it home? She glanced slowly
around. She could feel taloned fingers wrestling with her, ripping at the borders of her consciousness.

Her eyes fell on Silvana. The girl was hunched over Tante Cecile, sobbing.
Is Tante Cecile sleeping?
Holly wondered. From the way the body lay, she would guess the older woman was actually dead. She heard them scrabbling at her mind, gnawing at the edges like rats. She heard their little claws clicking around. Everyone was looking at Nicole. Everyone but Silvana. Silvana's hair was getting wet from her tears.

Holly began to laugh.

“What are we going to do?” Amanda asked, bewildered and shaken.

“I don't know,” Nicole admitted as she held her head in her hands.

Alonzo came in from the other room. Then, suddenly in their midst, stood a woman Nicole had never seen before. Given how the rest of the evening had gone, she wasn't surprised.

Anne-Louise Montrachet stood unsmiling. “You need our help.”

Nicole stared at Amanda. “Who is this?”

Amanda's jaw was set in a tight line, but there was
no disguising the look of relief in her eyes. “Anne-Louise. She's from the Mother Coven.”

Nicole nodded and turned back to Anne-Louise. The other woman nodded cursorily at her.
She doesn't like us much,
Nicole thought.

“You're safe for now. The wards will hold.”

Nicole raised an eyebrow questioningly. Before she could ask, though, Amanda told her, “She's good at that sort of thing.”

“The best,” Anne-Louise answered. “But that doesn't matter. Michael Deveraux's army is coming. There's going to be a battle.”

Amanda took a deep breath. Tommy appeared from the other room, came to her side, and held her. He said to the woman, “Did you bring help?”

Anne-Louise nodded. “We will do what we can.”

“I only pray to the Goddess that it is enough,” Tommy said quietly.

In the distance, footfalls rumbled and birds shrieked. The ground began to shake.

The others looked at one another, then at Anne-Louise.

But Anne-Louise was staring at Holly, whose face had resumed its demonic cast.

“We may have to … to kill her,” she murmured.

Amanda and Nicole stared at her.
“They're coming,” Pablo announced.

The dead marched for Michael Deveraux. From the graveyards they rose, their burial garments caked with mud and decomposition. From the bay they fought their way through shipwrecks and kelp beds to break the surface, needing no air, and crawled up the embankments. As they marched through the dark-ness—and then through the rain—parts of them detached and were abandoned: arms, ribs, in a few cases, heads.

In the terrible rain and the thickly forested gullies, monsters broke loose from other dimensions and tumbled toward the cliff where Michael Deveraux waited. Flurries of falcons blackened the moon; imps rode winged nightmares whose talons dripped poison and blood.

They converged on the hillside where Michael waited, his arms spread, chanting in ancient languages. Demons in full armor raised their spears and shields to him. Enormous creatures—scaled, fanged, horned— lumbered through the mud, the white-blue lightning strobing on their teeth and red, glowing eyes.

Hovering above the bacchanal, Fantasme screeched
and capered with eagerness for the battle to begin.

Laurent stood beside Michael, his arms crossed, nodding his approval as the army massed. They were a short distance from the shaman's cabin, where the witches were no doubt quaking with fear.

“This is going to be over fast,” Michael said smugly.

Laurent raised one brow. “Where are your son and James Moore? They should be at your side.” He cleared his throat and added, “I warned you to watch him.”