Witch & Curse (25 page)

“I sure hope not,” Amanda murmured to Holly.

“Do you think she's in danger too?” Holly asked. They had been trying to decide what to say to Nicole, wondering if she would believe them. She believed in enough to cast spells with Aunt Marie-Claire. But that was . . . gentle magic. Like wishing before one blew out the candles on a birthday cake.

“Sweetheart, we've just had a lot of accidents around here,” her father said reasonably. He gestured to Holly. “You need to be home, with your cousin. She's not going to want to stay with us if this keeps up,” he added wanly.

“I'll pay you back later if you get me a ticket to San Francisco,” Amanda said to Holly through clenched teeth.

“Daddy, honestly,” Nicole fumed.

She droned on and on, and on . . . and on . . .

With the warmth in the room and her tiredness—and her need to withdraw, be alone, think things over—Holly started to doze. The warm flames danced. They danced. . . .

It was in this room. Michael drugged Marie-Claire on this couch and tried to create the Black Fire, because no one remembers it no one remembers it no one remembers that we are . . . we are the
. . .

. . .
witches . . . he promised to kill us . . . he wants to kill . . . we were a noble House and a Coven. . . . We used to be the Cahors and . . . we forgot . . . we are the Cahors witches
. . . .

Nicole brushed her elbow as she swept past, startling Holly from her reverie.

“Hey,” Amanda said, smiling gently, “welcome back to the land of the living.”

“I was . . . was I dreaming?” Holly asked aloud. Muzzy, she touched her forehead and looked around. She couldn't remember what her dream was about. She knew it had something to do with . . . with . . .

She shook her head.
My mind is a complete blank
.

“I think snoring may qualify as dreaming in some people's dictionaries,” Amanda replied with a chuckle. “But you missed an earthshaking event while you were out.”

Holly braced herself. “
Now
what?”

Amanda waited a beat, then whispered, “Nicole did
not
get her way.”

“Go, Uncle Richard,” she murmured to Amanda. Her uncle didn't hear her—which had been her intention—and he innocently exchanged the section of paper he had been reading for another section, unaware of the conversation across the room.

Amanda and Holly sat quietly on the couch, eyeing
the fire. Then Nicole appeared above them on the stairwell and said, “Dad, Mom said she
wants
me to go.”

“Surprise, surprise,” Amanda grumbled.

“I don't think it's a good idea,” Uncle Richard said, looking up from the paper. But on his face was a look of total resignation.

Holly kept drowsing on the couch. Uncle Richard announced he was going up to bed, and suggested the two girls do the same.

“Who knows when your sister will be home,” he grumbled, then took the stairs without another word.

Amanda rose, stretching. She said, “I'm going to my room, but I'm going to try to stay awake until Nicole comes back.” She smiled at Holly. “Want to join me? We could zap some popcorn and watch
Charmed
.”

“Ha-ha, very funny.” Holly smiled wanly, grateful that she wouldn't have to sleep in the guest bedroom tonight.

They trailed after Uncle Richard on the stairs, parting in the hall to get on their pajamas.

Bast was on her bed; she lifted her head when Holly came into the room and dropped down to the floor. As Holly changed, the cat sidled against her affectionately and began to purr.

“We're going to hang out in Amanda's room,” Holly informed her.

Bast trotted toward the door, and Holly followed her.

“I swear, not only can you hear, but you speak English, too,” Holly said a little uncomfortably.

The cat meowed, and Holly opened the door.

But she couldn't keep her eyes open. She was exhausted, and Amanda's bed was very soft. As Amanda nibbled at the popcorn, Holly scooted down and got comfortable. Bast curled up beside her.

“Dude, you need to watch this part,” Amanda said. “It's about warlocks. Maybe we'll learn something useful.”

I can't believe what happened in the Rite Aid
, Holly mused, drifting.
That was so terrifying. Someone was attacking me with magic. Someone was trying to kill me
.

They've tried twice
.

I'm so tired . . . I don't want this. I want to go home. I want everything to be the way it was supposed to be
. . . .

Oh, Bast, fix it for me, little goddess kitty
. . . .

“Yee-ha!” Tina yelled, flashing her a wide smile.

“Yee-ha!” came the answering cries from Holly's mom and dad as the raft lifted into the air.

She was on the river again. The sun was shining
brightly, warming her skin even as the spray from the river rapids splashed her. Her parents were smiling—laughing, even—as everyone on the raft got caught up in the exhilaration of the white-water run. Holly grinned and drove her paddle in deeper. Now
this
was what a vacation adventure should be.

She laughed with sheer delight as the raft continued its roller-coaster journey down the river. Just ahead loomed the huge stone outcropping, its raw, rough lines pushing majestically into the clear sky. The current swept them around a slick black granite boulder. Then, without warning, the raft dropped over a short precipice, and Holly's stomach dropped with it. Now she remembered that with the adrenaline rush came risk.

When they landed, water roiled over the sides, and they rode deeper in the river. Holly dug her paddle in furiously, but the raft barely responded. Thick, black clouds swiftly flooded the sky, blocking the sunlight, and a lone raven briefly circled them before flapping away with one shrill cry. A long, deep grumble of thunder was the only warning they had before the heavens opened up, and immediately they were both blinded by the driving rain and soaked to the skin. The raft picked up speed, but refused to respond to their desperate paddling. All five of them tried to steer, even as the river
pushed them onward, seemingly determined to grind them between the huge monolith ahead and the giant boulders in the middle of the rapids.

No. Not again
.

Holly tried to cry out to Ryan, to Tina, to her parents—tried to warn them of the grave danger they all faced—but she couldn't form the words.

Suddenly, she was in the water again, feeling it rush over her, dragging her down.

Once more she fought, unsuccessfully, to unbuckle her safety straps. Once more the cold swept through her body as the waters closed over her. She tried to fight her way to the surface. Once more, she ran out of air, and once more, the brackish water began to fill her lungs.

Even as she began to panic, thrashing about in a futile attempt to reach air, part of her remained detached, quietly observing and remembering.

The blue glow will come next
.

There it was, right on cue. It glowed, it shimmered, it slowly coalesced. . . .

River algae streamed from its head in a grotesque parody of hair. Rotting strips of flesh hung from a caricature of a human face, with shiny bits of bone peeking through. The monstrosity reached out, its thin, grasping arms of rotting, fetid tree branches held wide to embrace her. Its mouth opened.

“Time to die now, Holly.”

The corpse was right, of course. She should have died on the river with her parents the first time they made this trip.

I'm dreaming. This is just a really bad dream. The whole thing is a dream. I'm back home, in San Francisco
. . . .

And in her dream, she was back on the riverbank, the only survivor. As she huddled, cold and frightened, the corpse rose from the river, drenched, water sluicing down its legs and arms.

It lurched closer. She shrank from it, but in the way of dreams, she couldn't move, couldn't get away.

Closer still.

“I am Duc Laurent de Deveraux, and I am your enemy. I avenge my House with your death, little witch.” The stench of decay from its breath hit her like a blow to the chin.

She shuddered. Why wasn't she waking up?

In dreams, you're supposed to wake up before the monster gets you
.

She could smell its breath now, even worse than its body odor, a revolting combination of rotting fish and decomposing leaves, hot and musty. Another step forward and it could grab her, and she knew if it grabbed her, she would die.
But I know I'm dreaming. This is a lucid dream. People who have them can direct them.
You can create anything you need, anything you want
.

She wanted to destroy the monster, and she wanted to live.

Anything you want
.

Her parents, arm in arm, appeared before her on the bank. The sun was shining, and the river birds were trilling. For a moment, the dead man became unimportant. Her parents looked happy and in love.

Then the phantom loomed over her father's shoulder.

“Daddy!”

Her eyes flew open. Her parents were gone. All that surrounded her now was the darkness and the sound of Bast's snores. She sucked in air, gut-punched by the sudden loss . . . again.

“Well, that was pointless,” Eli drawled.

Michael sighed and shook his head as he covered the dreamstone. “Nothing that gives you information about your enemy is pointless, son. You should have learned that by now.”

“Information? I thought you were going to kill her.” Eli pushed away from the table, stood, and began to pace across the room in front of Michael.

“Knowledge is power, Eli; don't ever forget that. If you know your enemy, you have power over
him . . . or her.” He chuckled at Eli's skeptical look. “I'm hardly a one-trick pony, after all. Just wait.”

Eli gazed levelly at his father. “Is that what you're going to tell Laurent to do? Because my guess is, he's tired of waiting.”

Michael crossed his arms and tilted his head. “Are you
threatening
me?” he asked in a pleasant, singsong voice that was loaded with malice.

“No way, Dad,” Eli replied, just as pleasantly.

“She'll be dead before Yule,” he promised. Then he caught himself, because he didn't have to prove himself to his own child. So he said, “And mind your own business.”

“Deveraux Coven business
is
my business,
mon père
.” Eli lifted his chin. “Don't forget, you're not the only Deveraux in this house. I have a stake in how well you do.”

Michael kept smiling. “That's right, son.” Gave him a wink.

Left the room.

Thought about killing him.

Thanksgiving.

Holly was dispirited. Alone, she walked along the seashore in a black pea coat, mittened hands in her pockets. Her right hand clutched the strange collection
of objects she had discovered in her locker a few days after Halloween. Dried salmon skin had been wrapped around a piece of ivory upon which a stylized bird had been carved. Four eagle feathers had been attached to the skin with—of all things—what looked to be the thin strap of a woman's T-shirt. A sprig of ivory had been wound around that.

There was a note, which read,
This is a ward. Soak it in salt water, then point it to the north, south, east, and west. We are with you. Jer
.

“Throw it out,” Amanda had insisted, and Holly might have done just that . . . except that that afternoon, after Holly had done as Jer had written, Michael Deveraux called her aunt and said that he was very sorry, but he and his sons would not be able to come for Thanksgiving dinner after all.

And there were no more attacks.

She sensed, however, that the quiet was just a lull before the storm. She didn't understand why Michael Deveraux wanted to harm her family, but she was firmly convinced that he was behind the attacks.

She had planned to go back to San Francisco to see Barbara Davis-Chin, who was still in the hospital. But Amanda's friend Silvana Beaufrere and her Tante Cecile were coming to Seattle for Thanksgiving vacation. Tante Cecile had been concerned enough about
the situation Amanda described that she had decided to investigate on the scene. They were due in sometime today, and she and Amanda were going to go over to their hotel to visit them after Thanksgiving dinner.

Despite the discovery of the ward inside her locker, Holly hadn't heard from Jer since. He was nowhere to be seen, and she had heard at The Half Caff that when anybody asked his father where he was, he told them some lame story about going to visit a sick friend in Portland. Tommy, in his role as liaison to the land of cool people, heard that Eli had gotten drunk at a party and told everybody he and his father were going to kill his brother when they found him. Of course no one took his threat seriously . . . except Holly and Amanda.

The seacoast before her was stony. Gulls hopped along the shore, pecking for fish or hermit crabs. Salt lined Holly's lips and she sniffled, her nose running from the chill. Seattle smelled of clean ocean water and pine trees, fresher than San Francisco. When she was in Girl Scouts, she had written her pen pal that San Francisco “smells like Chinese food.” It had become a family joke.

Staring out to sea, she had no idea if she was looking toward Alaska or Japan or California, but she knew that part of her was beginning to think of this place as
her home and the Andersons as her family. Oh, not in the way she felt about her parents—and she wasn't sure she would ever feel close to Uncle Richard—but she had been living here for almost four months. Granted, life here was incredibly strange, but what surprised her was that as time went on, all the bizarre things that had happened here began to feel normal to her.

“Warlocks and witches and wards, oh my,” she whispered to herself. But her joking fell flat. Tears slid down her cheeks. She had never expected to have a life like this. She had never even known one
could
have a life like this.