Bewitched and Betrothed

by Juliet Blackwell

  Chapter 26

  The day of the Festival of Felons arrived cloaked in a thick blanket of fog that never burned off.

  Long ago, that parrot in a Hong Kong bar had advised me to go to San Francisco, but to be sure to “mark the fog.” Normally we magical folks love the mystical-seeming mist; it evens out the light and highlights the extraordinary while obscuring the ordinary. But today the air was cold and soggy, the chill cutting through clothing and sinking into one’s bones.

  Carlos had not succeeded in convincing the feds to shut down the Festival of Felons, which had begun with great fanfare that morning, with a variety of events scheduled all day long. The daytime events didn’t concern me. The showdown I was dreading would not begin until tonight’s full moon rose over the island.

  I had used the daylight hours to review the plan—such as it was—with my magical allies, and to gather the supplies I needed. The little map of Alcatraz which I had picked up a few days ago from Ralph Gordon was by now dog-eared and covered in notations, with arrows indicating who would be where and when, going in every direction, as if drawn by an insane general or football coach.

  Last night’s sacrifice of the trousseau had been exquisitely painful but also remarkably effective. After sprinkling several drops of my own blood on the beautiful embroidered linens, I burned them on my terrace while chanting, Oscar at my side. Almost immediately I felt the MoonWish spell come to fruition, the conduits opening, and a surge of strength I’d never experienced before.

  When I approached my mother with my plan for the trousseau she had labored over, she had once again surprised me by waving off my concerns. “Oh, my dear girl. If any part of me can help to keep any part of you safe, don’t you know I’d jump at the chance? There’s plenty more where that came from, after all, and besides—I think I’m finally getting the hang of this knot magic.” She even offered to accompany me to Alcatraz, but eventually agreed to stay in Bolinas with Calypso. Bronwyn, Maya, and their assorted loved ones would join them there, out of harm’s way.

  I begged Oscar to promise to stay with them, to protect them no matter what. If things didn’t go well out on Alcatraz, I wouldn’t put it past Renee to go after them—and Oscar—once she’d gotten rid of me.

  Of course Oscar wanted to come with us to Alcatraz, but I played the mistress-familiar card, even though we really didn’t have that kind of relationship. But if anything happened to Bronwyn and Maya, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. And if anything happened to Oscar . . . I couldn’t even think about it.

  “Anyway, you still need to finish negotiations with the woods folk,” I told him. “If all goes as planned we’ll meet you there after, and we can work out the honeymoon plans with Sailor.”

  “That’s a big if, mistress,” said Oscar. But he agreed, with reluctance.

  I fought against taking Selena with us for the showdown, but the coven was adamant that we needed her powers to join with ours, so I had a long talk with Selena’s grandmother. Ursula listened carefully, consulted her divining sticks, and agreed with the coven: Selena’s magic was needed on Alcatraz. I bowed down to the wisdom of grandmothers and promptly weighed the poor girl down with so many protective amulets and talismans that she could barely move.

  At the appointed hour, Selena, Graciela’s coven, and I met Captain Buddy at the Sausalito yacht harbor for the trip to the island. He had spruced himself up and reeked of Old Spice aftershave, and showed a great deal of solicitousness while helping Pepper onto his boat.

  The sun was going down, its last rays struggling to penetrate the wall of fog that encased us. My senses took in the chill in the air, the sound of water lapping at the boat, the steady churning of the engine. In the distance a foghorn blew intermittently, its doleful bellow highlighting the danger awaiting us. As we got closer we heard the sounds of a raucous party—music, laughter, the occasional high-spirited shout—and gradually the shape of Alcatraz emerged from the fog, looming over us. Captain Buddy piloted the boat over to an old dock on a rocky stretch of the now-abandoned bird sanctuary. As Pepper had pointed out, the birds had flown away.

  With a sudden, visceral jolt I remembered my nightmare, the harbinger of all that had happened.

  Dead Man’s Current, pulling at my legs.

  We disembarked—which took a while given the rocky shore, the bobbing boat, and thirteen elderly passengers. If I’d had my way, the women would have stayed behind at Calypso’s safe haven, but the coven had adamantly refused. “Why do you think we came all the way here, m’ija? Que ridículo,” was Graciela’s only reply.

  Selena had spent most of today with the coven, casting and talking and learning, and though her usual quiet self, she was also uncharacteristically helpful. Like me, she wore Keds and carried a backpack full of magical supplies slung over one shoulder.

  The island thrummed malevolently beneath our feet and the party sounds intensified as we made our way along the Agave Trail and up West Road toward the ruins of the warden’s house. As I observed the throngs of partygoers, I spied Hervé and other voodoo practitioners setting up on the south shore. In the brush, away from the crowds, a coven of Feris was drawing down the moon. As the crowd shifted and parted, I spotted other familiar faces, members of magical groups with whom we were allied.

  We weren’t doing this alone.

  Party tents had been pitched in front of the administration building and the main prison cellblocks, and women and men—and more than a few children—milled about, imbibing soft drinks and not-so-soft drinks, eating hot dogs, running in and out of the buildings and around the grounds. A band had set up not far from the warden’s house, as if to provide a musical score for the rotating beam and periodic foghorn of the lighthouse just behind it. People were laughing, dancing, and more than a few were enjoying brightly frosted cupcakes.

  Heavy fog obscured the Golden Gate Bridge, the lights of San Francisco, and even the bay itself, making it easy to believe that this island, here and now, was all that existed in the world.

  Suddenly there was a low bass vibration and a loud rumble as a small temblor shook the island. When it passed, the crowd cheered and yelled as though the earthquake were part of the evening’s entertainment.

  I led our group through the main cellblock and rendezvoused as planned with Patience and Sailor in the dining hall. Still wearing the crown of paper flowers I had given him, Sailor gave me a kiss and a long hug and then placed the garland upon my head. No words were necessary; his eyes said everything.

  Patience lifted one eyebrow and looked away.

  “Everybody ready?” I asked. Nods all around. “Let’s go.”

  We headed to the recreation yard on the southern D-Block. The rusting water tower—with its red graffiti—loomed high above us. Partygoers were everywhere—in the old showers, the cells, the dining room. There were twenty or so in the recreation yard as well, where our view was blocked by tall cement walls, topped with a cyclone fence and razor wire.

  Graciela’s coven remained at the top of the stairs, mumbling a spell.

  Patience and Sailor descended the steps to the yard and began to dance.

  They started slowly, but soon their movements became exuberant, wild; they stomped and clapped with abandon. Around them, mingling with the crowd, their Rom cousins joined in, clapping and singing and ululating.

  A long time ago, in Andalucía, I watched a group of weary agricultural workers dancing flamenco like this, moving not with the polished technique of professional dancers on stage, but with utter passion. I remembered sitting in that cobblestone square, watching the whirling and singing, and thinking the dance was almost magical. This time, it truly was.

  Sparks began to fly as their feet pounded the concrete ground. A swirl of white butterflies appeared and whirled around them, a sign of the woods folk joining their strength to ours.

  Graciela nodded to Selena, who was standing with us on the
platform at the top of the stairs. She tossed her shiny coins and milagros down upon the dancers, and as the metal pieces flipped and turned in the air they emitted tiny pinpoints of light that filled the courtyard and joined the sparks thrown up by the pounding of Sailor’s and Patience’s dancing feet. The lights mixed and swirled and spun, swiftly forming a great, glittering cone that covered the entire courtyard.

  “The salts,” Graciela said to me. “Now.”

  I opened the stopper on my lachrymatory, shook the precious salts into the palm of my hand, and tossed them into the air. They mingled with the brine of the sea air to form a canopy that rose high over the island, expanding and pulsating to the rhythm of the dancers, until it burst and the salts fell back to earth, forming a ring around the entire island.

  The crowd, thinking they were seeing a fireworks display, cheered.

  “Run, m’ija,” said Graciela in a fierce whisper. “Run!”

  I ran.

  Chapter 27

  I flew as fast as my feet would carry me, back into the building, through the dining hall and the display area, to the entrance to the Spanish dungeon. Several people in bright blue T-shirts were screaming, running up the stairs, and pouring out into the corridor, pushing one another in their haste.

  The last one out was Charles Gosnold. He was pale as the proverbial ghost.

  “Lily!” he exclaimed, grabbing my arm. “Don’t go down there! I’m serious. . . . It’s not spirits, it’s much worse than spirits.”

  “What is it?”

  “I—” He shook his head and tried to drag me away from the stairs. “It’s . . . there are people down there, and they . . . I can’t even say. But there was blood.”

  “I have to go down, Charles. Get outside and keep your people away from the buildings.”

  “But—”

  “Go.”

  He hesitated another moment as though unsure whether to leave me, but then turned and ran. I noticed on the back of his commemorative tour T-shirt was a large graphic of a cupcake.

  I turned back to the stairs and started down.

  Whispers followed me, incessant reminders of the ghosts who roamed these halls. But what I feared was not spirits, but, as Charles had warned, something much worse.

  Down in the bowels of Alcatraz, it was pitch-black. I pulled my Hand of Glory from my backpack and slung it around my neck. It illuminated the broad arched hallway and I walked as quietly as I could, feeling the thrumming vibrations, listening to the whispers, trusting in my witchy intuition.

  Ray Perry appeared in front of me, just as before. The dark voids of his eyes remained fixed on me. He put his index finger to his mouth as though to mime “shhhhh!”

  And then I heard it: chanting. Men’s voices, intoning together.

  It grew louder as I progressed down the corridor to where it ended at a T. I smelled incense, and herbs, and something much worse. Slowly, I peeked around the corner.

  Hundreds of candles illuminated a gruesome scene: A circle of robed men stood around someone on a gurney. It was a ritual sacrifice. A human sacrifice.

  I tried not to fixate on the prone man. I had to concentrate on the imminent threat in front of me: the chanting men.

  One by one they turned to face me, lowering their hoods.

  I recognized several street “friends” of Conrad’s; the tall skinny redhead and four other nondescript scruffy almost-men, a few with facial piercings, two of whom I assumed must be Smith and Jones. Riggs, the man who had taken Carlos and me over by boat. Even Captain Buddy, whose friendly face had become flat and devoid of emotion. All in thrall to Sitri.

  Ralph Gordon, the hale old man with the white mustache I had first met when trying to buy a ticket to this cursed island, stepped forward.

  “It’s good you’re here,” he said. “At last. They said you’d come to join us.”

  I nodded. “Where are Renee and Seth?”

  “Stay here with us,” said one of the young men.

  “Yes, stay,” said another.

  Their words were slurred, as though drugged. Or perhaps they were simply drunk with the demon’s power. I focused on Gordon; he appeared to be the ringleader, and the most cogent of the group.

  “Have you been here since the beginning, then?” I asked him, wondering how to help the man in the center of the circle, wondering if it were even possible. He had lost a lot of blood, but I didn’t sense death. Not yet. In fact, I felt something else, something familiar. . . .

  “No, of course not. My father was, though. He started here at Alcatraz when the prison opened.”

  “So it’s a family tradition.”

  He nodded. “You know, as a young man I never saw eye to eye with my father—he had some strange ways of looking at the world. But he passed away too early, and then I came to work here on Alcatraz in his stead. Guess some things are in the blood.”

  “In Cole Albright’s blood?” I asked.

  “Albright used the demon’s help to escape and lived a full life, then came back to sacrifice himself. Good man. It should have worked better, but there was something off about the shirt. Renee said you probably mucked with it so it didn’t carry all the vibrations it should have.”

  The earth rumbled under our feet. I was trying to remain cool in the face of human sacrifice, but temblors still threw me off-balance.

  Ralph Gordon smiled. “Just a little shake. The Big One’s on its way.”

  “Yes, about that . . . I need to speak with Renee and Seth. They’ll want to speak to me—as you know, they’ve been trying to draw me out here to Alcatraz for days. That’s why you kidnapped Elena.”

  “Dude,” said one of the young men. “We didn’t hurt her, or anything.”

  Two men had circled around behind me, and another two were armed with pistols. I started chanting, mumbling under my breath.

  “Stop that,” said Gordon, his eyes squinting with suspicion. “What are you up to? I thought you were here to join us. . . .”

  “Dude,” said one of the young men.

  Piggybacking on the power from the blood sacrifice, and building with my chanting, my strength was mounting. I could feel Deliverance within me—I knew her now, could feel her fierce power. Where the Ashen Witch’s presence felt like the softest wool shawl, the warm embrace of a mother figure, Deliverance’s was an obsidian knife, ready to cut. It was slick as glass but tough as stone. The MoonWish spell helped keep me grounded, tethered to this earth.

  The astral and physical planes were fusing.

  But I was distracted and for an instant my intent wavered. I realized . . . the vibrations of the blood at my feet were very particular and very familiar. I knew them from somewhere. . . .

  Aidan.

  The man at the center of this ritual, the human sacrifice, was Aidan Rhodes.

  I looked at the man on the gurney for the first time. His glamour was gone. Under the blood and grime, thick burn scars showed, shiny and painful-looking, on one side of his face, head, and neck.

  And then I understood: Aidan had taken Renee’s rose on purpose, had put himself in the position of sacrifice, knowing that his blood had a very special power, a unique quality that would allow him to transfer the power to a magical ally. To me.

  I placed my hands on Aidan’s chest. He was barely there, not far from death.

  His eyes flickered open and he attempted a smile.

  “Go,” he said. “Don’t waste the sacrifice. Use it. Use Sitri.”

  I gasped as he spoke Sitri’s name aloud.

  Just that quickly, I could hear the terrible, shrieking sound of the wind passing through Sitri’s wings.

  In a rage, I yanked my head in the direction of first one man circling behind me, and then the other, sending them flying into the wall. I held my arm out, pointed, and cursed the other men one after another, lowering my head as I mumble
d in a smattering of English, Spanish, and Nahuatl as my grandmother had taught me—but now in fluent Latin as well, even though I wasn’t aware I knew it.

  The gun-wielding men yelped and dropped their weapons, shaking their hands in pain. The pistols clattered to the stone floor, glowing red with heat.

  One after another the men shrieked, fell to the filthy ground, writhed. The skinny redhead tried to run, but I yanked my head and fixed him with my gaze, and he froze, fell to his knees, and screamed along with his colleagues.

  Let them scream, said a voice in my head.

  Enough, came another voice.

  I came out of my trance with a jolt.

  I could feel another deep, primordial rumble of the earth. I had to finish the job before the bigger quake arrived.

  “Where is he? Where is Seth?” I demanded, standing over a beefy man with a spiral tattoo who was lying prone on the floor.

  “Please don’t hurt me!” he cried. “Make it stop!”

  I glanced again at Aidan. They hadn’t set out to kill him immediately; instead, they were taking their time. Sitri loved fear and pain—it fed him. They had been using medical instruments to torture him. Antique medical instruments.

  I remembered Forrest saying that the only place more haunted than the dungeon was the hospital wing.

  I hesitated, making eye contact with Aidan briefly before his periwinkle blue eyes flickered closed. Was it . . . could it be for the last time? My heart lurched, but I forced myself to concentrate on what I knew I had to do.

  “Go.” I heard the voice. Was it the Ashen Witch, or Deliverance? Did it matter? I fled.

  I ran back through the tunnels, my crown of flowers still in place and the Hand of Glory slung around my neck, blood on my hands, hair wild. I imagined I looked like one of those medieval woodcuts of a vicious, vengeful witch.

  I felt like a vicious, vengeful witch.

  I mounted the stairs two at a time and sprinted toward the hospital wing. Breathing hard, I stopped and listened, trying to feel. The rumbles were gaining strength, the “little temblors” leading up to the Big One.