Spellbinder (20 page)
Thea's eyes focused on another human behind the adult. Eric. He'd been listening, too.
"Mom's such a kidder," he said nervously. His green eyes were apologetic-and intense. As if he
were
trying to make a connection with Thea.
But Thea didn't want to be connected.
Couldn't be, to these people.
She was surrounded by humans, trapped in one of their houses. She felt like the rattlesnake in a circle of big creatures with sticks. Sheer, raw panic overtook her. "You should be a writer, you know?" the human woman was saying. "All that creativity . . ." She took a step inside the room.
Thea stood up, dumping Rosamund on the floor. They were coming at her-by now, the very walls seemed to be closing in. They were alien, cruel, sadistic, terrorizing, evil, not-her-kind. They were Cotton Mather and the Inquisition and they knew about her. They were going to point at her in the street and cry "Witch!" Thea ran.
She slipped between Eric and his mother like a
frightened
cat, not touching either of them. She ran
down
the hall, through the living room, out the door.
Outside, the sky was clouded over and it was get-
ting
dark. Thea only stopped long enough to get her bearings,
then
headed west, walking as fast as she could. Her heart was pounding and telling her to go faster.
Get away, get away. Go to earth. Find home.
She turned corners and zigzagged, like a fox being chased by the hounds.
She was ten minutes from the house when she heard an engine pacing her. She looked. It was Eric's jeep. Eric was driving and his mother and Rosamund were passengers.
"Thea, stop.
Please wait." Eric stopped the jeep and jumped out.
He was on the sidewalk in front of her. Thea froze.
"Listen to me," he said in a low voice, turning away from the jeep. "I'm sorry they came, too-I couldn't stop them. Mom feels awful. She's crying, Roz is crying . . . please, won't you come back?"
He looked close to crying himself. Thea just felt numb.
"It's okay. I'm fine," she said at random. "I didn't mean to upset anybody." Please let me go away.
"Look, we shouldn't have eavesdropped. I know that. It was just . . . you're so good with Rosamund. I never saw anybody she liked so much. And . . . and ... I know you're sensitive about your grandma. That's why you're upset, isn't it? That story is something she told you, isn't it?"
Dimly, somewhere in the pit of Thea's mind, a light shone. At least he thought it was a story.
"We have family stories too," Eric was saying, an edge of desperation in his voice. "My grandpa used to
tell
us he was a Martian-I swear to God this is true. And then he went to my kindergarten Back to School and I'd told all the kids he was a Martian, and they made these beep-beep noises at him and laughed, and I felt so bad. He was really embarrassed. . . ."
He was babbling. Thea's numbness had receded enough that she felt sorry for him. But then a shape loomed up and she tensed again. It was his mother, silky hair flying.
"Look, Thea," Eric's mother said. Her expression was wretched and earnest. "Everybody knows your grandma, knows how old she is, how she's a little ... quirky. But if she's scaring you-if she's telling you any kind of weird stuff-" "Mom!" Eric shouted through his teeth. She waved a hand at him. Her little glasses were steamed up. "You don't need to deal with that, okay? No kid needs to deal with that. If you want a place to stay; if you need anything-if we need to call social services-"
"Mom, please, I'm begging you. Shut up." Social services, Thea was thinking. Dear
The Harmans in court.
Gran accused of being senile-or being part of some cult.
And then the Night World coming in to enforce the law. . . .
Her terror peaked and left her deadly calm. "It's okay," she said, turning her gaze toward Eric. Not looking at him, but going through the motions exactly. "Your mom's just trying to be helpful. But really"-she turned the same face toward his mother-"everything's okay. Gran isn't strange or
anything
.
She
does
tell
stories-but
she
doesn't scare anybody."
Is that good enough? Close enough to whatever you believe? Will it make you leave me alone?
Apparently so.
"I just don't want to be responsible for you and Eric-well. . ." Eric's mom exhaled nervously, almost a laugh.
"Breaking up?" Thea made a sound that was also almost a laugh. "Don't worry. I'd never want that." She turned a smile on Eric, looking down because she couldn't meet his eyes. "I'm sorry if I got- touchy. I was just-embarrassed, I guess.
Like you said about your grandpa."
"Will you come back with us? Or let us take you home?" Eric's voice was soft. He wanted her to go back to his house.
"Just home, if you don't mind.
I've got homework." She lifted her eyes, making herself smile again.
Eric nodded. He didn't look happy, but he wasn't as upset as he had been.
In the backseat of the jeep, Rosamund pushed up against Thea and squeezed her hand.
"Don't be mad," she hissed, fierce as ever. "Are you mad? I'm sorry. Want me to kill somebody for you?"
"I'm not mad," Thea whispered, looking over the top of Rosamund's shaggy head. "Don't worry about it."
She had reverted to the strategy of any trapped animal. Wait and watch for your chance. Don't fight until you see a real opportunity to get away.
"See you tomorrow," Eric said as she got out of the jeep. His voice was almost a plea.
"See you tomorrow," Thea said. It wasn't time to get away yet. She waved until the jeep was gone.
Then it was time. She dashed inside, up the stairs, and straight to Blaise.
"Wait a minute," Blaise said. "Go back. So you're saying they didn't believe any of it."
"Right.
At worst Eric's mom thinks Gran's bonkers. But it was a close call. For a while there I thought she might want to get Gran declared unfit or something."
The two of them were sitting on the floor by Blaise's bed where Thea had collapsed. Blaise was eating candy corn with one hand and scribbling on a yellow legal pad with the other, all the while listening attentively.
Because that was the thing about Blaise.
She might be vain and self-centered, quarrelsome, hot-tempered, lazy, unkind to humans, and generally hard to live with, but she came through for family. She was a witch.
I'm sorry I said you might be a little like Maya, Thea thought.
"It's my fault," she said out loud.
"Yes, it is," Blaise said, scribbling.
"I should have just found some way to keep him at a distance in the beginning."
But of course, it was because of Blaise that she hadn't. She'd thought Eric was safer with her than he would have been with Blaise. She'd thought that somehow . . . somehow . . .
Things would work out. That was it. There had always been some secret underlying hope that there could be a future with Eric. Some little hiding place where she'd kept the hope that things could be all right.
But now she had to face reality.
There was no future.
The only thing she could give Eric was death. And that was all he could give her. She'd realized that, all in one terrible explosion of insight when she'd seen Eric's mother in the room.
There was no way for them to be together without being discovered. Even if they ran away, someday, somewhere, the Night People would find them. They'd be brought before the joint Night World Council, the vampire and witch elders. And then the law would be fulfilled. . . .
Thea had never seen an execution, but she'd heard of them. And if the Harmans tried to stop the Council from killing her, it would start a war.
Witches against vampires.
Maybe even witches against witches. It could mean the end of everything.
"So it doesn't look like we have to kill the mother," Blaise said, frowning at her scribbles. "On the other hand, if we kill the kids, the mother's bound to be unhappy, and might make a connection. So to be safe-"
"We can't kill any of them," Thea said. Her voice was muted but final.
"I don't mean
ourselves
. I'm going to call one of our friendly vampire cousins. Ash-he's supposed to be out on the West Coast somewhere, isn't he? Or
Quinn, he likes that kind of thing. One quick
bite,
let the blood run out-"
"Blaise, I am not going to let vampires kill Eric. Or anybody," she added as Blaise opened her mouth. "It's not necessary. Nobody needs to die."
"So you have a better idea?"
Thea looked at a statue of Isis, the Queen of Egyptian Goddesses, on the desk. "I ... don't know. I thought of the Cup of Lethe. Make them forget everything about me. But it might look suspicious-this entire family with a gap in their memory. And kids at school would wonder why Eric doesn't remember my name anymore."
"True."
Thea stared at the moon held between
Then she saw it.
"What I really think would be best," she said slowly, because it hurt like a physical pain, "would be for Eric to stop caring about me.
To fall in love with someone else."
Blaise sat back. She stirred the candy corn with long, elegant nails. She ate a piece.
"I admire you," she said.
"Very sensible."
"Not yon," Thea said through clenched teeth. "You understand that, right?
A human.
If he falls in love with another girl he'll forget about me without any Lethe. Nobody will disappear or have amnesia; nobody will get suspicious."
SPELLBINDER
"Okay.
Although I would've liked to try him.
He's got a strong will-I think he'd have held out for a while.
Been a challenge."
Thea ignored this. "I still have some of his blood. The question is
,
do you have something you've been holding back, some love spell that will completely blow him out of the water?"
Blaise ate another piece of candy corn. "Of course I do." She narrowed her gray eyes. "Also, of course, it's a forbidden spell."
"I figured. Blaise, I'm now the princess of forbidden spells. One more doesn't matter. But I'll do the actual
working,
I don't want you to get in trouble."
"You won't like it. It involves the bezoar stone from the stomach of an ibex-which I just happened to pick up while we were living with Aunt Gerdeth."
Ibex were an endangered species. But this one was already dead. "I'll do the working," Thea said stubbornly.
"You really care about him, don't you?"