The Lost Soul (666 Park Avenue 3) (12 page)

‘I punched it up a little,’ Dee admitted, rolling her eyes and dusting her arms off theatrically. ‘I’ll go make some more.’

Harris watched her go, then turned his glittering green gaze to Jane. ‘Where’s the man of the hour?’ he asked, with minimal sarcasm. ‘I would have thought he’d be here by now.’

Jane took a deep breath. The Montagues had made so much progress in coming to accept Malcolm’s presence here, but it was always clear that he wasn’t really one of them. She hadn’t yet told them that he wouldn’t be joining them tonight. She knew it was cowardly, but she’d put off this discussion as long as possible, knowing it would break the town house’s fragile sense of peace. ‘He’s not coming with us tonight,’ she said slowly.

‘He’s with his sister,’ Maeve guessed in the pause that Jane’s discomfort left.

‘She was really upset,’ Jane confirmed, not quite looking at anyone in particular. Malcolm had read her a few of Annette’s increasingly frantic text messages until she had to ask him to stop – Annette’s panic was so intense that it began to feel contagious, and she needed a clear head right now. ‘Apparently Lynne told her that there was some kind of supersecret family initiation tonight and she totally freaked out. Malcolm tried to calm her down, but she begged him to pick her up at the house this afternoon and help her get out of the city.’

Emer nodded her approval, but Harris’s voice sliced through the air like a knife. ‘What did Malcolm tell her, exactly, to “calm her down”?’ Jane frowned, not understanding why the phrase would sound so sinister to him, and after a moment he clarified. ‘Did he tell her that we’d figured out how to break down the door? That we could find her mother – or at least, her tools – as soon as we got inside? That we know the earliest moment the spell could begin, because we have
Ella
’s call history? That Grandma knows how to trap Hasina between bodies?’

‘In other words, “our entire plan,” ’ Dee translated from the doorway, twisting her tawny hands together.

Jane froze, her tongue feeling heavy and uncooperative. ‘She was—’

‘Scared,’ Emer finished for her. ‘Sending frightened messages.’ Her voice was flat, and her face unreadable.

‘She was,’ Jane insisted, trying to fight off the new, squeaky note in her voice. She knew the truth – she had seen it on Annette’s face just a few days ago. Of course Harris doubted Annette’s sincerity. He hadn’t seen the horror that slowly overtook her, the pure fear etched into her features as though with a knife. Jane wished she could explain in a way that would show him what she had seen. ‘Look, I don’t know for sure how much Malcolm told her about any of that, but he’s with her right now. He’d tell us if anything had gone wrong.’ Her last words met a resounding silence that reminded her of the breathless pause before thunder.

When the thunder came, it started off deceptively softly. ‘Call it off,’ Harris growled, then he turned to include the rest of the room. ‘The whole thing is off, starting now.’

‘We can’t do that,’ Maeve temporized, but Harris was still gaining steam.

‘Jane. Can you reach him? He’s in a car with Hasina’s new body, so either he’s in on it, or he’s in danger. He has to pick one. Tell him that he drives his sister into an overpass this minute, or he’s not setting foot in this house again.’

His grandmother cleared her throat warningly, clearly gearing up to remind him whose house this actually was, but Jane found her voice first.

‘No one’s calling anything off,’ she insisted, wishing that she hadn’t delayed this conversation to begin with.

Harris leaped to his feet. ‘The hell we’re not,’ he shot back, his voice a low snarl. ‘They’re waiting for us. If you think any of us is going to follow you into the trap your boyfriend and his sister have set, you’re absolutely insane.’

‘Harris,’ Dee murmured, her amber eyes flicking anxiously between him and Jane. ‘Can we hear her out?’

He snapped his mouth angrily shut, crossed his arms across his triangular torso, and waited expectantly.
Thanks, Dee,
Jane thought silently at her friend, unsure how much of her own thought was sarcasm. ‘It’s not a trap,’ she began, improvising wildly as she went.
‘I think I love him’ isn’t going to be on anyone’s top-ten list of convincing explanations
. ‘Malcolm’s been totally up front about everything having to do with his family,’ she began. ‘He showed me his phone so I could see Annette’s texts, and I . . . I checked it, okay?’ She had felt an uncomfortable mix of embarrassment and vindication after scrolling through his messages and had hoped that ignoring it would make it go away. ‘The very first contact he’s made with any of them was when
we
asked him to reach out to his sister. There was nothing else; nothing that didn’t belong.’

‘That doesn’t sound like a double cross,’ Maeve agreed reasonably, laying a soothing hand on Harris’s sleeve.

He shook her off with an irritated shrug. ‘Or they just covered their tracks with, you know, magic,’ he countered angrily, gesturing at the cluster of women in the room. ‘Can any of you honestly rule that out?’

A charged silence filled the room. ‘You could do it,’ Dee murmured, her eyes downcast. When she lifted them, Jane could see how painful her indecision was for her. ‘I’m not saying that they did,’ she rushed to add. ‘If you trust Malcolm, then I do, too. But it’s not like it’s a completely unreasonable point Harris is making, is all.’

‘She married Malcolm Doran,’ Harris exploded, and Dee flinched away from his side. He balled his hands into fists and closed his eyes. When he reopened them, he seemed to have mostly regained control of his emotions, but Jane could see the fear and anger still bubbling just below the surface. ‘Am I really the only one who can see that Jane’s opinion isn’t the one we should trust when it comes to these people?’

‘He’s practically lived in our house for a week now,’ Maeve pointed out.

Is that all?
Jane wondered; it felt as though it had been much, much longer. In spite of her certainty that Malcolm had been truthful with them, a tendril of doubt snaked its way into her mind. He hadn’t been back in New York for very much time at all.

‘And he tried to help Jane,’ Maeve pushed on. ‘Even after seeing what happened to me when I tried.’

A heavy silence filled the room, and Jane felt herself losing the will to argue. She believed that she was right about Malcolm, but was that enough of a reason to keep endangering her friends?
I could have just left New York when I had the chance, and it wouldn’t matter whose side Malcolm was on,
she thought miserably.
I could still leave, and they could go back to arguing about where to go for brunch and which Broadway opening to attend this weekend
.

But even as the thought passed through her mind, Jane knew it was a lie.
‘She kills witches,’
she heard André say, as clearly as if he were sitting on the loveseat in their midst.
‘No truces, no deals, no peace.’
Running away from Hasina wouldn’t help anyone – she had gotten to Celine Boyle, after all, who had been about as isolated as it was possible to be.
She found her and sent Malcolm to kill her
.

‘I trust him,’ Jane breathed, and for a long moment Harris’s green eyes remained locked with her own.
I trusted him before, too,
she didn’t say, and she knew that everyone in the room was thinking the same thing. ‘I trust him,’ she repeated, this time more firmly, ‘and I’m going to Park Avenue tonight, even if I have to go alone. You all know how much I hate putting you guys in any kind of danger, anyway,’ she half joked, trying for a winning smile but fairly sure that it missed.

‘Don’t be silly, Jane.’ Emer waved away her protests. She turned her attention squarely on Harris, who shifted a little uncomfortably under her clear green gaze. ‘It would be an awful trap,’ she explained in a clipped, concise tone. ‘The spell is meant to happen tonight. If they know we’re coming, then letting us get all the way into their own home would be absurd. All they would have to do is keep us away for a few hours and then deal with us when Hasina has her brand-new body. Using Malcolm to lure us
closer
would be thoroughly pointless.’

Harris looked like he wanted to argue, but no words came out. Jane knew that, no matter how strong his dislike of Malcolm, he was a fair-minded man. She sighed gratefully when he threw up his hands in defeat.

‘All I had to do was out-logic you?’ She tried to joke, although there was still a lingering edge to her voice.

Emer turned squarely toward Jane, and this time it was her turn to flinch. ‘None of what I’ve said means that we’re safe,’ she reprimanded. ‘Annette should never have been told the details of our plan. I understand how you feel for the girl, but it was a terrible risk, and it’s put her life in worse jeopardy along with ours. We will all need to proceed very, very carefully tonight. Jane, you will prepare a message for Malcolm, ordering him to kill his sister immediately. If we are mistaken and the Dorans are ready for us after all, you must send it. I do hope that your trust in him is well placed, as he has now become our very last line of defense.’

It sounded like the meeting was adjourned. Most of the others made a decent show of returning to their preparations, but Harris lingered behind, his hands in his pockets. Jane could tell that everyone was watching them with faintly disguised interest. ‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured, and Jane could tell that he meant it. ‘I know I haven’t exactly been the guy’s biggest fan, but your opinion of him is based on personal stuff as much as mine, and my family is staking their lives on it. I hope that you’re right, you know.’ His eyes glinted with sudden mischief. ‘Hell, if it all works out right, maybe I’ll even get to go to your next wedding.’

‘Trust me,’ she told him, keeping her voice perfectly steady. ‘If I ever get married again – to anyone – I’m eloping.’

‘I’m still doing the cake,’ Dee shouted cheerfully from the kitchen. Seconds later she reappeared in the opening of the swinging door, arms full of bright-green branches with a baffling assortment of differently shaped leaves.

‘Better have a food taster on hand.’ Emer crossed to her in a few quick steps and pulled two of the branches out of Dee’s bundle, holding them as far away from the rest as her arm could reach. With the immediate danger out of the way, her tone became less tight and more playful. ‘What have we said about “improving” spells, young lady? I was just starting to look forward to living through the night.’

‘It’ll enhance the juniper,’ Dee protested, and the argument shifted her way. Jane watched with increasing amusement as her dark-haired friend fielded a storm of objections from the room’s ‘real’ witches, defending her herb choices with a quick wit and an impressive breadth of scholarly support.

It was clear that the storm over Malcolm’s plan had passed, and Jane hummed a bit to herself as she double-checked the little pouches that would make her magical ‘eye shadow,’ which Dee had given to her earlier that afternoon. The last one had been a rather strong gold color, but Dee had told her that this one should come out a shimmery pale pink, which could go with just about anything. Jane had chosen to pair it with a fashionable-yet-stealthy knit cap, jeans, and a thin black sweater she’d bought for ‘Ella,’ but which hugged her real curves surprisingly well.

She checked her Cartier tank watch (another Ella purchase, and one of her favourites), slid the pouches into her knapsack, relocated them to her pocket, and checked her watch again. Around her, the good-natured argument ranged from one corner of the great room to the other, getting further and further off topic as increasingly wild accusations and long-forgotten stories were tossed about as ammunition.

How can this group not succeed at whatever we set our minds to?
Jane thought fondly. ‘All right, everyone,’ she said loudly, and the chatter stopped abruptly. ‘Starting tonight, Hasina’s done stealing bodies.’ A single purpose filled the faces that turned toward her, and Jane had to suppress the urge to hug each of them. ‘Now let’s go put that bitch in the ground.’

Chapter Thirteen

A
N UNSEASONABLY CHILLY
wind blew through the open car window as Jane studied the front of the Dorans’ house. Although the brass plate read ‘665,’ the house squatted heavily between 664 and 668.
They could at least have left the right number, to warn people of what’s really living there
. The eight stories of greenish-grey stone seemed to loom over the sidewalk. No lights shone from the windows, which looked like so many empty, soulless eyes, and Jane’s heart beat a little faster.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Emer and Maeve climb purposefully out the opposite door of Harris’s electric-blue Mustang. Dee was still up front. Then she turned her attention inward, focusing all the power of her mind on the five shimmering powders in front of her. She poured four of them into the largest packet, which contained the fifth, and closed her eyes.

Mian an chroí an Hasina,
she thought fiercely.
Mian an chroí an Hasina
. It wasn’t enough to find any old thing belonging to Hasina, as it had been when she was looking for something of Annette’s. Everything in the mansion – even the mansion itself, its walls and floors and ceilings – belonged to Hasina. The difference called for this incantation, rather than a simple name, and a tricky extra powder.
Mian an chroí an Hasina. Mian an chroí an Hasina. Mian an chroí an Hasina
. Jane was just glad that she was allowed to recite the words in her mind; even thinking the Gaelic made her feel as though she had a mouth full of marbles, and it had only gotten worse when Maeve wrote it down for her. She balled her hands into fists and pictured the malevolence behind Lynne’s odd, lens-like eyes.
Mian an chroí an Hasina
. She recalled her own dreams and visions through Annette’s eyes; wasn’t that the view that Hasina wanted more than anything? Her spell would give it to her, and this would lead Jane to the spell.
Mian an chroí an Hasina
. She dipped her fingers into the mingled powders and smeared them liberally across her still-closed eyelids.