As she drove back to the house, the lipstick tucked in her bra, the pressure against her skin intensified. An urge nagged at her to think about anything else, to be anywhere else. The urge grew greater and greater until she was forced to drive the car onto the grassy verge, turn off the engine, and put the keys in her pocket, or else who knew where she might end up.
Eyes closed, she held the desire to run away in her awareness, felt it in her muscles and gut, became intimate with the tension it created in her body. Instead of avoiding it, she went into it. It took her breath away, a formless need that threatened to consume her. Any normal person would be powerless in the face of this kind of manipulation. Miranda never stood a chance.
As much as she loved her friend, she and Miranda were very different people. Miranda spent her life cultivating her emotions to use them as fuel for her music. Gosha spent her days controlling them, burying the memory of her childhood terror and distracting herself with art and artifice. She knew how to suppress unwanted emotion. The blood drained out of her fingers as she gripped the steering wheel in both hands and let herself get angry. Her fury at Margrave charged up inside her. Her heart pounded in her chest and her thoughts raced as adrenaline surged through her veins like hot lead.
She covered the ten remaining miles to the estate in less than ten minutes, her foot stamped down on the accelerator the whole way.
39
Scaling the wall surrounding Margrave’s estate wasn’t much of a problem. From the roof of the car, she hooked the short end of her lug wrench around the cast-iron filigree lining the top of the bricks. Her first attempt at climbing failed, her hands unable to get a proper grip on the iron shaft. She slid back down, tearing skin off her palms. She found her old leather driving gloves beneath an old copy of the Evening Standard under the driver’s seat. The black leather gave her enough traction to climb up the lug wrench. As she dropped down on the other side of the wall, soft earth broke her fall.
The other side was woodsy and dense. Feeble morning light filtered through the canopy of leaves above her. The only sound was the wind rustling in the leaves, the morning chorus of birdsong hushed. The estate was much larger than she expected. Woodland spread out around her with no sign of the house through the trees. If she kept the wall at her back and walked deeper in, she figured she would eventually find her way to it.
The pressure of Influence grew stronger and shifted in tone as she walked, replacing the unnamed desire to be anywhere but here with a more urgent need to turn and flee. Ten paces in, she was ready to run back to the wall, her nerves frayed, the slightest sound making her jump. A hundred paces later, she looked back and found herself surrounded by dense trees in every direction, neither the wall nor the house to be seen anywhere.
A branch snapped in the distance, a gunshot crack echoing off the trees. A hundred yards away, three figures raced toward her in a blur of speed. Large, stooped, and low to the ground, if they were human or animal, she couldn’t tell. She turned and ran.
Ahead of her loomed a large, thick tree trunk with branches sturdy enough to take her weight. Expeditions to the heath with the boys often ended with Edmund stuck up a tree, so climbing was second nature to her. She made it up as far as she could and clung to the trunk to peer down as the three figures caught up.
Human, but twisted. Clad only in trousers, their backs were bowed and thick with muscle, their arms distended down to their knees. Their faces were gnarled and as cracked as the bark of the tree she clung to, the mark of Margrave’s transformation. They climbed after her, swinging up from branch to branch. With no other tree for her to jump to, they had her trapped.
The first of the three warped creatures was strongest and vaulted up faster than the others. In his eagerness to reach her, he swung out to a branch within reach of her lug wrench.
“Kattak!”
She spoke the breaking spell as she swung the wrench down in a chopping motion. On contact, Influence extended out through the wrench and cleaved the bough from the trunk in one effortless swing. The creature fell, striking branches on the way down, bashing its head several times to end up a dazed and groaning mass on the earthen ground.
Its confederates stopped as it tumbled, watching it fall. The one to her left thrust its fist into the trunk, its arm sinking in up to the elbow. The trunk shook as the branch under her cracked and split down the middle, buckling under her weight. Without one arm wrapped around the branch above her for stability, she would have fallen.
If they could twist and break the tree beneath her, she wouldn’t last long. As the nearest creature grabbed at her dangling legs, she released her grip on the branch and dropped onto its back, striking down with the blunt end of the lug wrench with all her might.
“Kattak!”
The metal bar sank into its back. It roared and let go of the tree, sending them both plummeting to the ground.
She twisted the creature’s massive body beneath her to shield her from the branches as they fell and to cushion her landing. Winded by the impact, she rolled off it onto the damp earth, gasping for breath. The first creature to fall staggered to its feet as the third swung down from the tree. The second creature moaned as she yanked at the lug wrench embedded in its back. The iron slid free without resistance, leaving a perfectly circular hole in the creature’s body that filled with oozing blood. She held the wrench before her, the short, angled end pointed forward like the blade of an axe, and swung it back and forth in what she hoped was a threatening manner.
Unimpressed, the uninjured creature lunged at her. She stepped to one side and gave it a good whack with the wrench as she spoke the breaking spell. She only grazed its shoulder with the socket at the end of the tool, but the contact was enough. A long gash opened across its shoulder blade and blood welled out, coating its hairy back. It wailed and clutched its limp arm to its body and retreated into the gloom.
The third creature, still shaky on its feet from the fall, lurched toward her. Wary of the lug wrench, it pulled back at the last minute, staying out of the weapon’s range as she swiped at it. Without thinking, she lunged at him like a crazed fencer, slashing away. The creature ducked and pressed forward, coming up under her attack, plowed into her with its shoulder and knocked her on her back, ripping the lug wrench from her grasp. As it held her down with one hand and reached the other high to slash at her with its thick and yellowed nails, she tensed up, anticipating pain, but instead of fear curling her into a ball to await death, with her terror came a desperate fury as she scratched at every part of the creature she could reach with her black-varnished nails, shouting the breaking spell again and again. The spell’s keyholes within her never had a chance to close before the next opened. Influence poured through her, turning every surface of her body, every angle and pointed edge, into a blade that sliced at the creature. It pushed back away from her, but she didn’t relent. As she rolled onto her side, she gathered her legs up underneath her to launch herself at it, slicing and slicing until it lay dead on the floor, a bloody mass of meat.
It took the cold ache of nausea to slow her down as the frayed and abused pathways of Influence within her overpowered her fight-or-flight instinct. She rolled off the corpse onto her back.
“Why, Mrs. Armitage,” said a voice above her. “So vicious.”
40
A few yards away, in a clearing among the trees, stood Margrave in a dapper suit and pink silk tie.
“What a treat to have you here,” he said. “These woods can be so lonely with only the help to keep you company. The quality of conversation, as you might imagine, is meager.”
He flickered in and out of reality, one second there, one second not. Gosha wondered if he still had the power from Cressida’s torc. The quality of his splintering image was different this time: less a frantic jittering, more hazy and insubstantial.
“Where’s Miranda?” She retrieved the lug wrench and picked herself up off the ground.
“In the communion hall with all the others, I
suspect, getting ready for their big moment. The fulfillment of all their desires.”
She circled him, not daring to get closer, hoping that distance might give her an advantage.
Something about the way he stood there, unmoving, doing nothing to stop her, nagged at her. She looked at him with her second sight. The egg-like aura of Influence surrounding him was strong and unbroken, the jagged fusion of his power with Cressida’s life force gone.
He vanished, the clearing suddenly devoid of all trace of him and his Influence.
“My duty is to keep prying eyes away.” His voice came from only inches from her ear. She jumped and lurched away. “I thought I was doing a good job, but here you are.”
He vanished again and reappeared in front of her an arm’s length away. He sniffed at her and stuck out his tongue, a long, dark, and barbed protrusion that lapped at the air.
“A witch.” His face contorted in disgust. His eyes turned yellow, the pupils a cloven slit, for a brief instant before returning to their sparkling, clear gray. “How common.”
Between one blink and the next, he transformed into the gnarled, deformed demon of branch and bone that had reached out to grab her from Mrs. Dearing’s telling card and had lurked in the corner of her kitchen.
“You’re Margrave’s shade.”
“Yes. And you are an annoyance I must deal with.”
A rush of force pushed at her, but vanished before it could inflict damage. The wode sump grew hot against her chest.
“What is that?” The shade peered at her, yellow eyes bright with fascination.
It vanished and rematerialized in front of her, close enough to kiss. She flinched, but held her ground.
“Tricky,” it said, extending a twisted claw toward her chest. “I haven’t seen one of those in a hundred years. No matter. There are many ways to spay a witch.”
A sudden and powerful desire to run as fast and as far as she could threatened to overwhelm her, but she knew it for what it was, a projection from the shade. It took every ounce of focus she had to accept the feeling as not coming from her, an urge from which she had the choice to withhold consent. She allowed it wash over her and become nothing more than a physical sensation, the burning itch of an insect bite she refused to scratch.
The urge was clear about which direction it wanted her to flee. Charged with adrenaline from the assault on her emotions, she ran the opposite way as fast as she could. Legs pounding and arms pumping, she bellowed a war cry, hoping she was running toward the house. She made it a hundred yards before her legs gave out, her lungs ready to explode.
“You can’t get away from me,” said the shade from ten feet ahead of her, once again in the shape of Margrave.
As she hunched over, gasping, her legs bars of heavy lead, out of the earth snaked thick tree roots that wrapped around her ankles and yanked her to the ground.
“The human form is so frail.”
The shade leaned over her as more roots grew up to pin her in place. “I am in a difficult position. Like my principal, I can’t kill you without severe consequences. But it won’t take much to hold you here until it ceases to matter. And then you may die on your own time in peace. I understand it will only take four or five days.”
She spoke the binding and breaking words, throwing power from the wode sump at the roots. They exploded, sending splinters thick as nails across the clearing. She rolled onto her back and aimed the lug wrench at the shade like a rifle.
“Rasht!”
As the curse bore down on it, the shade dissolved into a cloud of oily smoke that twisted and snapped like a flag ripped from its pole by a stiff wind. Curse and shade coiled around each other in a blur of movement, the curse snapping at the shade as it sought to connect with its target, the shade always out of reach. The further the maelstrom tumbled from her, the weaker the curse became until it faded away into nothing.
The shade, in the form of Margrave, returned to her side just as she made it to her feet.
“Such a nasty creature you are,” it spat at her.
“If I must be.”
She could waste all the power in the wode sump on a blast of binding or breaking, but it would do no good. Both spells worked on the material world, and this thing had no physical form. But it fled from the curse, which meant it feared it. Had the curse connected, it might have done the shade harm. She needed to make sure it did.
The weight of the lug wrench in her hand gave her an idea.
She spoke the curse word again and aimed the long end of the lug wrench at the shade. The puzzle box opened within her and Influence flowed through to be shaped into yet another creation of evil. She grabbed at the curse with all the control the lipstick stuffed in her bra gave her, spoke the binding spell and threw the full force of the wode sump into the wrench. The curse resisted, bucking and writhing, but the power of stolen Influence from the wode sump washed it into the lug wrench and bound it there.
She gripped the wrench with both hands and struck, slicing through the shade before it could vanish. The wrench swept through the shade like a knife through smoke.
* * *
In the large foyer, he shivers in the draft. Each of the surrounding walls is covered by a single, vast painting, each depicting in appalling graphic detail the sexual congress of nude men and women. On a round table at the center of the entryway is a marble statue of the Greek god Pan standing on one hairy, hoofed leg, the other raised in preparation for a jaunty leap, a massive phallus between them protruding obscenely toward Emerson.
He blushes, too embarrassed by the decor to be aroused, his face flushing hot.
“Mr. Margrave,” said a voice from the top of the stairs. “You have surprised me yet again. After your outburst at the orgy, I thought we’d seen the last of you.”
The Magus descends from the darkness of the upper floor, dressed in a tailored three-piece suit, with a white high-necked collar and spats bright against his black shoes. He pauses three steps before the bottom of the staircase to look down upon Emerson with open contempt.
“I came to apologize.” Emerson bows his head and clasps his hands as if preparing to receive communion. “My behavior was inexcusable. You invited me into your home and your private circle and I acted like a boorish puritan. Please forgive me. I want to learn from you. I want to be a better man. Please give me another chance.”
The Magus considers him for a long time, Emerson’s hopes diminishing with each tick of the large clock mounted on the wall.
“Very well.” The Magus descends from the steps and approaches the statue to rest his hand on the shaft of Pan’s phallus.
Emerson feels his face flush, but recognizes this as another test, one which he is determined to pass.
“The circle meets again on Friday. You’ll have your chance. But you must apologize to everyone, not just to me. You will need to do a lot of groveling.”
* * *
The shade reappeared a few yards away clutching its abdomen.
“What have you done?” it hissed at her.
Without waiting to measure the effect of the cursed lug wrench, she launched herself at the shade. Covering the distance between them in five steps, she plunged forward to spear the shade with the tip of the wrench before it could vanish.
* * *
He kneels on a velvet hassock, nude except for a loincloth suspended from a gold chain around his hips that does little to provide modesty. The circle clusters around him, some as immodestly covered as he, others completely nude, both men and women. Seated on the dais before him on a carved wooden throne, the Magus is the only one in the room fully clothed, a black silk robe embroidered with black thread draped over his suit.
“We are gathered here on this most sacred day of Beltane to welcome Emerson Margrave into our order.” He rises from his throne to point his ceremonial sword at Emerson. “Speak your oath and become one of us.”
“I take refuge in the Lord of the Quiet Dark,” says Emerson, “in the cloven hoof and the
hidden horn. I vow to advance the primacy of Desire. I pledge fealty to the Fertile Bough that His Influence may flow around me and through me till I may die.”
The Magus taps the sword on Emerson’s shoulders and head.
“Arise, oath-bearer. Become one with the circle and enjoy the fruits of your devotion.”
As Margrave gets to his feet, a rush of vitality hardens his member and makes him giddy. The room spins, and he falls backward into a forest of bodies. Hands caress him, lifting him off his feet as his flesh tenses with exploding lust.
* * *
As the vision faded and she returned to reality, she found the lug wrench embedded in the shade’s chest. It clutched at the iron, shouting in fury, but no sound came from its mouth. The wrench jerked in her hand as the shade faded into transparency.
* * *
The syringe pierces the Magus’ skin and sinks into his neck with little resistance. He struggles in Emerson’s embrace, but the delicate chain of woven thread slung around his shoulders holds him as securely as if its links were made of iron.
“This won’t kill you, of course.” Emerson presses on the plunger with his thumb to pump the special concoction that took him years to perfect into his master’s bloodstream. “It will incapacitate you and loosen your connection to the Horned God enough that he will lose interest in you and be ready to accept another as his saint. And then, in time, you’ll die. If you’re lucky, it will be quick.”
The Magus’ mouth opens as if to speak, but all that comes out is a strangled gurgle.
“There’s nothing you can do, and there’s no one to save you. The circle is mine. It has been for some time now. You just haven’t noticed.”
The Magus’ body becomes a dead weight in Emerson’s arms. He struggles to get him to a nearby couch.
“It’s much better this way.” He removes the syringe from his former mentor’s neck. “You have such a limited understanding of desire and its potential. Under my leadership, the circle will flourish in ways you could never dream.”
Waking the Witch (The Witch of Cheyne Heath Book 1) Page 27
