Legacy & Spellbound (39 page)

Amanda just stood staring.
Another cousin? Did my mother know about him?

Alex stepped forward, hand extended. Amanda shook herself and stepped forward to clasp his hand. The contact sent electricity through her arm, and her palm burned. It felt like the first time she and Holly had clasped hands, when they had propelled each other across the room.

She broke the contact, stepping back. “Well, Alex, welcome to our little corner of the world. These are the other members of my coven: Tommy, Kari, Philippe, Pablo, Sasha, Armand. Barbara, and my father, over there,” she said, waving toward his prone body, “are not covenates, but they do fight with us.”

“I thought there would be more of you,” Alex commented.

“There were,” Philippe spoke up. “However, several were recently killed, and a couple of others are missing.”

“My condolences,” Alex said, dropping his eyes briefly in a show of respect.

“They are welcome, as are you,” Amanda said. “Please, take a seat. We are waiting for my father; he is in the Australian Dreamtime trying to rescue another of our number.”

He nodded as he sat in a chair across from the cabin's stone fireplace. “My two other cousins—Holly and Nicole?”

“Both missing,” Tommy said.

“Ah, it looks like I have a lot of catching up to do.”

“First, we want to know about you,”

Armand spoke. Amanda was startled. Armand, the member of the Spanish Coven who had studied to be a priest, rarely spoke up and almost never questioned anyone. It was a good warning for them all.

“Yes,” she said, raising her defenses back up. “Tell us all about you.”

He smiled in a way that sent shivers down her spine.
He
can
read my mind. His comment when he appeared wasn't just a fluke!

“I'm an actor by trade, a witch by practice and belief. I serve the Goddess.”

“And you just happen to show up right when we could use another person?” Armand questioned.

Alex raised his hands defensively. “Until a few hours ago I had never even heard of you guys. Then Luna sought me out and told me I had cousins and that they needed my help.”

“It's true,” Luna said. “I asked the Goddess to show me the lost Cahors witch; I was hoping to find Holly. Instead, she showed me Alex. His branch split off from yours at the beginning of the twentieth century. His family, like yours, forgot their ancestry. Like you, Amanda, and your sister and cousin, he discovered his magical abilities on his own.”

“I've been in a coven since I was quite young,” he confessed. “I'm the head of my coven now.”

“Well, you don't need to do a spell to find Holly anymore,” Kari said, her voice trembling.

“You found her?” Luna asked.

“More like she found us,” Philippe said ruefully. “She came after us.”

“She attacked you?”

Pablo cleared his throat. “I have something to tell you. All of you. I have been communing with … the forces that tell me what goes on in the ethers and vapors.”

“Holly is in thrall to Michael Deveraux.”

A stunned silence fell over the company. The High Priestess visibly paled. The other woman shifted her weight uncomfortably before she finally asked, “You know this for sure?”

Philippe glanced at Pablo and then nodded.

He had already told Philippe. But Philippe doesn't trust Alex, else he would have told her before what Pablo felt.
Amanda quickly banished the thoughts from her mind. If Philippe didn't want to share some information, then the last thing she needed was to start thinking about it and have Alex read her mind.

Suddenly Pablo lurched to his feet, wild-eyed. “She's here.”

Kari scrambled to her feet. “How did she find us? I never even told Jer about this cabin!”

Ignoring her, Amanda turned to Alex. “Welcome to hell. I hope you're ready.”

“What can she do?”

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than a skeletal warrior on a ghost-horse crashed through the wall. The beast's shoulder hit Luna, sending the High Priestess spinning into Amanda and they both fell in a heap.

From the floor, Amanda could stare out of the hole in the wall. She saw Holly, surrounded by a ghost army
of dozens, her arms lifted in the air and her hair swirling around her head.

Then the ghost soldiers were charging, heading straight for them. Then a voice cried out, deep as thunder, and the walls of the house shook. She looked up and saw Alex standing with his arms open wide.

“Ego diastellomai anemos o apekteina eneka!”
he cried.

“What?” she asked. Her words were snatched from her lips by a wind that seemed to spring from nowhere.

“It's Greek,” Armand shouted. “He's commanding the wind to fight on our behalf.”

Amanda watched in awe as warriors flew apart, tiny tornadoes exploding upon them. At last only Holly was left. She opened her mouth as though she were shouting something, but a blast of wind picked her up and hurled her through the air.

She lay still, unmoving, for a long minute, and Amanda's heart caught in her throat.
Is she—?

Slowly, Holly stood up. She stared for a moment, and Amanda realized she was making eye contact with Alex. Suddenly Holly turned and melted into the shadows.

The winds died instantly, and Alex seemed to slump a little. Amanda shakily rose to her feet and brushed herself off. “Is everyone okay?”

“Fine,” Philippe answered. He turned to stare at Alex. “How did you do that?”

Alex shrugged. “Air—it's one of the basic elements. Everyone in my coven gravitates toward one more than the others. I've always been good with wind.”

“And apparently Holly is not. I think we've found a weakness,” Luna noted as she, too, stood up. “We can't stay here, though. We need to move someplace safer, where she can't find us.”

“We can't go until my father comes out of the Dreamtime,” Amanda protested, panic rising in her.

“You say he went in to rescue someone, a witch?” Alex asked.

Amanda hesitated. “Actually, he's more of a war-lock … it's … complicated.”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “It must be. I could go in and try to get them out.”

“We've already sent too many people there,” Philippe protested.

“Ah, but did any of them have experience with astral traveling?” Alex asked with a smile.

Amanda shook her head ruefully. “No. None of us has experience with that.”

Alex's smile broadened. “Well, then, it's a good thing I'm here, because it just so happens that I do. It's one of the attributes of those who claim air as their element.”

“Of course it is,” Tommy muttered under his breath for Amanda's ears alone. She had to agree with him. It was awfully convenient. Still, anything was worth a try if it could bring her father back.

“All right, you're hired,” she said, forcing a smile that she knew didn't reach her eyes.

Richard and Jer: The Dreamtime

The fire was burning all around, rushing toward them faster than Richard could push it back. The wicked black flames writhed like something alive, and he could feel their heat upon his cheek. He pushed and the flames pushed back, inching closer until his skin began to blister. Beside him, Jer was chanting, but the roar of the fire was drowning out the words.

A man approached them, his body seeming to cut a path through the flames. Within a moment he was in front of them. “Uncle Richard?”

Richard hesitated only a moment before nodding. There was something familiar about the young man, though he didn't think he'd ever seen him before.

The stranger lifted his arms and shouted in a strange tongue. Suddenly wind was everywhere, so strong that Richard and Jer began to stagger. The stranger, though, seemed to remain unaffected. Then, as though the flames were from a thousand
birthday candles, the fire was snuffed out.

The silence was almost deafening, and into it the stranger spoke: “I am your nephew.”

Heaven help us all,
he thought as he stood blinking in disbelief.

“I am Alex. Let's go. Your daughter is waiting for us.”

Then, within a minute, Richard was opening his eyes and staring up into his daughter's face. “Baby,” he gasped.

“Daddy,” his Amanda cried as she threw her arms around him.

“Jer?” he said.

A voice croaked from beside him, “I'm here.”

“And—your cousin?”

“Well, thank you, Uncle.” The young man came into his range of vision, a pleased smile plastered on his face.

Richard slowly sat up, all the images of the Dreamtime flooding him at once. “No one's possessed, right?” he asked.

“Doesn't look like it,” Amanda assured him.

“Good.” He turned to look at Jer. Someone must have tossed him a towel, because he had it wrapped around his head and face.

“Anything happen while I was away?”

“Holly attacked us again.”

“Holly … attacked you?” Jer asked, sounding dazed.

Amanda knelt down and placed a hand on Jer's shoulder. “When she came back from the Dreamtime, she wasn't alone. Demons or something are possessing her.”

“No!” Jer gasped.

“There is more that you should know,” Philippe said, also placing a hand on his shoulder. “She is in thrall … to your father.”

The cry of anguish that came from Jer was like no sound Richard had ever heard from a human being. Out of respect, he ducked his eyes, the only gesture of privacy he could offer him.

When Jer finally spoke, though, Richard heard the steel in his voice. “I will find her and free her, if I have to kill my father and myself to do it.”

Let us all pray it doesn't come to that.

San Francisco: April 17, 1906 8:00 P.M.

Veronica Cathers waited in the hotel room at the Valencia for Marc Deveraux. She could feel him coming; it was a fever in her blood. It was a trap, it had to be, but still, she waited. She had not seen Marc in the six months since they had battled in the basement of the Coronado Hotel in Los Angeles.

Veronica had been visiting her sister, Ginny, in Los Angeles and had been staying at the hotel. Marc Deveraux had been another guest at the hotel, and it had not taken them long to find each other. She shuddered at the memory.

The hotel had burned down completely, she had heard, though she had never returned to see the wreckage. She had fled into the night to return home in time to bury her husband, who had died that same day.

Veronica, her son, Joshua, and her friend Amy were in San Francisco now. Amy had insisted Veronica needed a holiday, a chance to get away from all the pain present in her little house in Seattle, which was haunted by the memories of her dead spouse.
Some holiday it's turning out to be!

Marc Deveraux had called for this meeting, claiming a kind of truce so they could talk—about what, he did not say, but she could guess. His telegram had arrived this morning and had rocked her to her very foundation.
How did he find me?
She nervously smoothed down the skirt of her pale pink dress. The lace covering the upper part of her chest and throat scratched painfully. The thin, clinging sleeves restricted her movement, and she cursed her choice of garment.

Anxiety filling her, she lifted her hand to stroke the
locket she wore around her neck. Inside the small piece of jewelry she kept a lock of Joshua's hair. He would be one in another month. He was with Amy now, and the other woman knew not to wait up for her. She had promised Joshua that she would see him in the morning. She only hoped it was a promise she could keep.

There was a knock on the door. She crossed and opened it quickly, before she could lose her nerve.

He strode into the room, and she closed the door. When he turned and faced her, her heart flew into her throat, choking the words of a protection spell that she had been about to utter. He stared at her with his coal-black eyes burning into her. He looked like a panther, muscles coiled and ready to spring upon its helpless prey.

And inside her head she could hear Isabeau whispering,
Jean.

She couldn't look away from his eyes; they pinned her to the spot and probed her soul. The air between them became charged with electricity until she could feel the skin on her hands and cheeks tingling.
Does he feel it too?

Then he pounced. She threw up her hands to ward him off, but it was too late. They were crushed against his body as he wrapped his arms around her and kissed
her. “
Moi,
Isabeau, how I hate you,” he breathed in between kisses.

As she looked at him it was no longer Marc's face she saw, but another's, wilder and fiercer.
Jean!

From her mouth poured words strange to her. Still, she tried to keep herself; she struggled not to let Isabeau consume her completely even as Jean seemed to be consuming Marc.

He swooped her up in his arms and carried her to the bed, whispering words that were both fierce and tender. He laid her down and sat beside her. He picked up her hand and began to kiss her fingers, then froze at the sight of her wedding ring.

It was Marc who looked at her and asked, “You are someone's wife?”

Veronica shook her head. “I am someone's widow.”

Then he was crushing his lips to hers. She heard the ripping of fabric as he tore her dress away from her body. She, in turn, tore at his clothes. At last he lay down on top of her, their flesh touching.

“
Mon
Jean,” Isabeau murmured.

But it was Veronica who took Marc into herself.

When their passion was spent, they lay in each other's arms. Veronica had never felt so alive and so complete.

“You are my only love,” he whispered.

“Isabeau is Jean's only love. You and I are just the pawns in their game.”

“No,” he denied it. “I love you and hate you as Jean did Isabeau, but it is not his emotion alone that I feel, it is mine as well. In Los Angeles, I wanted you then. I have spent every night since thinking of you, searching for you.”