Legacy & Spellbound (53 page)

The boat ran ashore. After a few seconds and nothing had happened, they all breathed a collective sigh of relief. Philippe hopped out, and together he and Tommy tied the boat up so it wouldn't slip off the rocky shore back into the water.

“Can you feel her?” Sasha asked as she joined them.

Philippe shook his head in frustration. He glanced over at Nicole's father. Richard stood a few feet apart from them, tension evident in every line of his body.

A sniper rifle was slung across his back, and he was carrying ammunition on his person—and a few other things he hadn't bothered to identify to the group.

We really are at war,
Philippe thought.

They were standing on a rocky shore. A faint path led upward, wrapping around the base of a mountain. Sasha set out upon it, and the rest of them fell in behind her. Philippe strained his senses.
Nicole is somewhere on this island, and I should be able to feel her.

They wound their way up and around the mountain, tripping on loose stones that seemed to suddenly twist beneath their feet. “This whole place is cursed,” Tommy muttered, and Philippe had to agree.

At last they stopped for a rest on a small plateau.
The trail blanched here, part of it continuing upward and part of it beginning to head back down. A large rock stood on otherwise level ground, and all but Richard sank to a seat on it. The wind whipped past them, taking Philippe's breath away.

He touched Sasha's arm, and she turned to him. “How do you know where we're going?” he asked.

“I've spent much time on this island,” she admitted.

“A prisoner?” he asked.

She smiled faintly. “Yes, and no.”

“I don't understand.”

“I used to come here at night, when I was sleeping. I would astral-travel—my body lay in my room in Paris, and my spirit roamed here.”

“What were you doing?”

She shook her head. “I never really knew. It wasn't an active choice on my part. At first I thought there was something here I could use to help my sons, but all I ever found here was evil. When they brought Jer here, I was overwhelmed with sorrow and joy. I tried to speak with him, to comfort him, but I don't think he ever heard me.

“Holly heard me, though. She came one night to see Jer.”

“You were the one who showed her where the island was,” Philippe said.

She nodded. “I thought then that maybe that was why I had roamed the island every night for so long. If it freed my son, it was worth it.”

Her eyes took on a faraway look. “There's something here, something I can't explain… .”

As she drifted off, Philippe felt a cold chill sweep through his body. She was right: There was something here. It felt ancient, evil. It tainted everything. Sitting beside Sasha, he could barely even sense her; the evil was acting as some kind of filter, muting the feel of her presence. He closed his eyes, trying to ignore the evil, trying to push past it, to reach beyond it … and then, he felt—Nicole!” he exclaimed, leaping to his feet.

“She's not far away,” he said excitedly.

“Which path?” Richard asked, his voice strained.

“Down,” Philippe said. He could feel it in his soul.

Eli was angry with himself.
The witch is playing me, she has to be
. Still, part of him didn't care, and that's what got to him. Fantasme sat huddled in a corner looking miserable and angry at the same time.
He's probably as confused as I am by the fact that I'm sitting next to a Cahors witch and I'm not trying to kill her.

“Fantasme, find us a way out of here,” he ordered.

The hideous, birdlike creature screeched once and then disappeared.

“Alone at last,” he joked.

“Uh, not exactly,” Nicole answered, staring toward the back of the cave.

“What do you—”

And then he saw the three Golems lumbering out of the darkness.

Philippe, Sasha, Richard, and Tommy: Avalon

They had been on the island for almost two hours. They had worked their way down the path and were now standing on the crown of a hill facing east.

“Where is she?” Sasha said in a voice that was barely above a whisper.

“She is here. I can feel her presence, and she is very frightened,” said Philippe. He had been able to keep her presence with them since he had first felt her on the plateau. The hard part was, they had probably been only within a few hundred feet of her then, but the winding of the trail had taken them on a circuitous route.

At that instant there was a loud rumbling down the hill by the shore. A large dust cloud was rolling along the sand, and when it cleared, Eli and Nicole were lying in the water and three very large creatures were emerging from the ground.

“Golems!” yelled Philippe. With that, Tommy was
off running, stumbling, and rolling down the hill toward Nicole. He was still over a hundred yards away when one of the Golems reached Nicole. Nicole tried to kick it but to no effect. It reached down and picked her up by the front of her dress like a rag doll. A second Golem was reaching for Nicole's legs as if to tear her apart.

“Do something, hurry!” Sasha yelled in a near panic.

At that moment the hairs on the back of Philippe's head lifted, and four more Golems raced past him, heading directly for Tommy. Philippe shouted, panic flooding him.

Richard, who had been slightly higher up the hill than the others and was looking the other way, whirled around. In a movement so sudden and yet incredibly smooth, he had unslung the sniper rifle, raised it, and fired twice. There was almost no sound, just a soft
phfft, phfft,
and two Golems dropped to the ground, the first
e
on each of their foreheads neatly replaced by perfectly round little holes. Philippe was stunned by the look of controlled rage on Richard's face. Before he and Sasha could even react, Richard was racing past them and was about fifty feet behind Tommy.

Tommy reached Nicole just as the two Golems were beginning to pull her in opposite directions. He jumped on the back of the one closest to him, bringing
his right arm up and around the Golem's forehead. The Golem tried to shake Tommy off, but that only served to wipe away the
e
. Three down. As Tommy was riding the back of the Golem to the ground, three more shots rang out and the Golems who had just reached Tommy fell. Philippe felt his jaw grow slack.

The last remaining Golem had Nicole by the head.
He's going to kill her
.

Another
phfft
sound, and the final beast dropped to the ground still clutching Nicole. Richard had fired again while at a dead run.

As though in slow motion, Philippe watched as Eli rolled up to a sitting position and raised his hands into the air. He could see his lips moving but could not hear what spell Eli was chanting. Richard reached behind his head and unsheathed a long, wicked knife that had been resting between his shoulder blades. It went sailing end over end before driving itself into the ground between Eli's legs. Even from that distance, Philippe could see the warlock turn ash white.

“You just sit still,” Richard boomed. “Breathe wrong and I kill you.”

As Philippe scrambled down the hill, his heart was pounding. Eli was sitting absolutely still, not even blinking.

Tommy rolled off his dead Golem, turned, and
shouted at Richard, “You could have hit her.”

“No, there was six inches above her head,” Richard said as tears of joy rolled down his face. He was cradling his daughter in his arms, and she was clutching him and sobbing.

As Philippe ran up, Richard extended an arm to him and he joined them in the circle. He reached out and touched Nicole's arm, and an electric shock went through him.

He gasped and looked down at her distended abdomen.
She's pregnant!
His head reeled with the possibilities. He reached down with a shaking hand and touched her stomach.
What magic is this?
Then, with a sudden, devastating certainty, he knew—
it's not mine!

“Where, where did those other Golems come from?” Tommy panted.

“I think they were following us,” Philippe said.

Sasha stood, taking in the whole scene. Dead Golems lay everywhere. She reached down and touched one lightly, shuddering at the contact. “These last went after you, not Nicole,” she noted to Tommy. “I think they're the same ones that were trying to find Amanda.”

“But that makes no sense. Amanda's not here,” Tommy protested.

“It makes perfect sense,” Philippe answered quietly. “We've blocked Amanda's essence from them, so they
turned to the only person who carries a piece of her inside himself.”

“Yes, you and Amanda are in thrall, a part of each belongs to the other. When we left the group, the Golems must have been able to sense Amanda in you and came after you.”

Tommy shuddered. “Do you think there are any more?”

Sasha shook her head. “Jer said four came after Holly. We know these four”—she gestured—“were after Amanda. We may be able to assume they are searching in groups of four. If that's the case, though, only three were attacking Nicole.”

“One of them was dead already,” Eli said quietly. “I killed it back in the castle.”

Sasha turned to stare at him. “Thank you for getting her out.”

“Don't thank me,” he snarled. “I didn't do it for you, or for her. Trust me, I'll kill all of you the first chance I get.”

“I say we don't give him that chance,” Tommy muttered.

Sasha could tell that Philippe agreed wholeheartedly but compassion for her kept him from voicing his feelings.

She looked down at Eli. There was hate raging in his eyes. He stood slowly, head half-turned toward Richard, who kept his eyes riveted on him. “The Horned God will destroy you, all of you,” he hissed.

“Eli! I did not raise you to be a servant of evil.”

“No, that's right. You didn't. You didn't raise me at all,” he snapped. “No, you bailed out and left that to Dad. Now you want to come back into my life and judge
me
? How dare you! Instead, you are the one who needs to be judged. You are the one who abandoned your children and never once looked back! And now, what, you get to act all surprised and hurt that we take after Dad. Gee, big surprise, he was the one who was there. He gave me my first lessons in magic, he taught me how to drive a car, he told me how to treat women. You left me with him knowing what he is and you're surprised at how I turned out?” He was screaming at the last, his face crimson, and spittle flying from his mouth.

He raised his hands as though he was going to attack her. From the corner of her eye she saw Richard draw another knife, and then suddenly a shiny black demon knocked Eli off his feet.

The thing resembled a giant cockroach, complete with exoskeleton. It scrabbled on six legs and twisted
around, its fangs headed for Eli's neck. He punched the thing in the head, though, and it whimpered and skittered away while he leaped to his feet.

“Say good-bye,” a voice hissed from somewhere behind her. Sasha twisted around to see a nymph aiming a crossbow at Eli.

“No!” she shouted, lunging at Eli and trying to knock him out of the way.

She hit Eli, and both of them began to fall. She felt the arrow as it pierced her back, burrowing through her body and toward her heart. Then, there was a great
whoosh
and a blinding light.

They hit the ground, which was made of stone and covered with straw.

“Welcome,” a silky female voice purred.

Sasha looked up, amazed that she could still do so, and began to laugh hysterically.

“Who is she?” Eli asked, his voice dripping with fear.

A stately woman in black and silver robes, crowned with black veils and a diadem of silver, stood over him. Her mouth twisted. “I am Isabeau of the House Cahors, and you are most welcome.”

“Where did they go?” Nicole shouted.

A moment before, Eli and Sasha had been falling.
They had hit the ground and vanished. Their disappearance had been accompanied by a sound like a sonic boom.

The demon who had shot Sasha staggered backward, a dagger in its chest. It collapsed to the ground, wheezing and gurgling. Tommy had grabbed the cockroach creature and twisted its head off.

Tommy stood slowly, looking sick. Purple blood covered the lower half of his face.

“I'm not sure, but I think it might have something to do with a spell Amanda and I cast.”

“Explain,” Philippe demanded.

“We did a spell so we would stay alive and together. When we were done, there was a surge of power. Just now, I felt it again, just before they disappeared.”

Nicole felt a wave of nausea rush over her. “Maybe Pablo can figure out where they went,” she gasped when it had passed. “Where is everyone, anyway?”

She saw Philippe and Tommy exchange a quick glance.
They're wondering how much to tell me,
she realized.

“Let's just say they're on the Continent,” her father said cautiously.

She glanced up at him, seeing him with new eyes. “You never wanted to fight again, to use your training again, did you? You never wanted us to know who or what you are, and Mom never wanted to know either.”

The look on his face was validation, and she could feel all the pain that he had kept to himself for so long. “Mom recoiled from your scars and never let you talk, so your soul could heal. So you just turned into a simple, quiet, fade-into-the-background kind of person. Well, it's out now, Dad. You are—”

“Ssh, honey. It's okay,” he said, interrupting her. “All that matters is that you're safe.” His face was full of tenderness, but slowly his look changed to one of grim resolve. “Now, let's go find your sister.”

With her father on one side and Philippe on the other, Nicole rose shakily to her feet. “My men,” she joked weakly, and they both laughed, humoring her.