by D G Swank
“We’ll be fine, I promise,” I said, holding him tighter. “Please take them with you. I need you to win this, Brandon. I can’t lose you too.”
“I’ll do everything in my power to protect you, Phoebe.”
“I know,” I said, feeling like an ungrateful bitch. “And you have no idea how much I appreciate it.”
He gave me a long, lingering kiss, then went to our room to change.
I sat at the kitchen table, my grief overwhelming me again. I needed a clear head. I needed to think.
“I can’t believe they both bought it,” Logan said, pouring himself a cup of coffee and sitting down across from me.
“What?” I asked, my heart leaping into my throat.
“I only have one question,” he said, leaning forward. “When do we leave to find her?”
Chapter Thirty
Rowan
My emotions were all over the place, likely because I seemed to be going through multiple stages of grief at one time.
Logan had let me fume for the past hour, which I’d spent stomping around the house and slamming cabinet drawers, my admittedly childish way of letting Phoebe and Brandon know what I thought of their plan.
I was sitting in the armchair in the corner of our borrowed bedroom, playing a punishing game of woulda-coulda-shoulda, when Logan came in.
“Okay,” he said. “Brandon’s gone. Time to pack.”
“Pack?” I said. “Where do you think we’re going?”
“To find Celeste,” he said, as if it should be obvious. “Phoebe’s waiting on us.”
I did a double take. “When did this happen? She told Brandon she wouldn’t go.”
He gave me a wry grin. “She couldn’t lie to him because of their bond, but she didn’t agree to stay home. She admitted it to me as soon as he left the room.”
“And you’re just now telling me?” I asked, getting pissed. “You let me stomp around like a caveman for the past hour!”
“If I’d told you and you were suddenly nice to your sister, it would have tipped Brandon off.”
It was painful to admit he was right.
“But you need to pack everything up,” he said. “After we get her, Phoebe wants to take her to the graveyard on your farm.” He shivered. “She wants to be able to access her magic.”
“And talk to her too,” I said. “Phoebe can talk to our departed family members.” Fresh tears burned my eyes. I still couldn’t believe Celeste counted among them. We’d finally improved our relationship, and just like that, she was gone.
We didn’t have much with us, so it only took me a few minutes to pack up and meet Phoebe in the living room. Her nose was red and her eyes were swollen from crying. I knew she wasn’t just upset about Celeste. Brandon was walking into danger, and maybe even a trap. Although he and I had never seen eye to eye, Phoebe would never survive losing him too.
“I’m sorry we didn’t tell you the plan sooner,” she said.
“That’s okay,” I said. “Maybe I didn’t deserve to know. I let them leave. I could have stopped them. She might be alive right now if…”
“No,” Phoebe said. “I know what you’re doing, and you need to stop. I would have let them go too. I would have done anything to help her.”
“Only we didn’t help her,” I said, my heartbreaking. “We should have taken her to the hospital, but we didn’t.”
She swallowed. “Do you think she hated us for that?”
“No,” I said. “I know she understood.” I wiped a tear from my cheek. “Do you know how to find her?”
“Not exactly. I can tell she’s crossed, and I have a general direction of where it happened. I’m hoping I’ll be able to lock on to her body once we’re closer. The least we can do is put her to rest at home, in our family cemetery.” Her voice broke. “This whole feeling her when she passed is new to me. I’m figuring it out as I go. I’m not sure if it’s because of our broken coven bond or what, but it didn’t feel like this when Mom died. I just knew she was gone.”
“Let’s get started,” I said. “We’ll figure it out as we go along.”
We carried our things out to the rental car, and Logan moved toward the driver’s seat. “You two can use your magic, and I’ll be the chauffeur.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and gave him a soft kiss. “You’re more than a chauffeur, Logan. You know that, right?”
“To you,” he said, although there was no offense behind it. He truly was happy to help in any way he could.
“No,” Phoebe said. “Don’t let your lack of magic make you think you’re not needed. We’re grateful you’re here. Both of us.”
Logan gave her a quick hug, then motioned to the car. “Let’s go.”
I sat in the back while Phoebe sat in the passenger seat to navigate. Once Logan started driving, she started telling him where to go. At first her directions where almost comically vague—north, south, and so on—and we had plenty of false starts. Phoebe described it as a game of hot/cold, which felt accurate. While Phoebe could sense buried ancestors, she usually had to be within a mile of their body, and it soon became obvious that Celeste was a ways outside of city limits.
“Can you feel the book?” Phoebe asked me after a while, looking over her shoulder.
I shook my head. “No. Can you?”
“No, but it might be too far away,” she said.
I hoped so. I didn’t want to believe the Dark Set had gotten their hands on it. That would be disastrous on many levels.
We’d been in the car for just over an hour when Phoebe directed Logan to drive into a field.
“Why in the hell would she be out here?” he asked, although he did as he was told.
“I don’t know,” Phoebe said. “But she’s close.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, she gasped and pointed out the windshield. “She’s up there.”
My heart in my throat, I leaned forward, but all I saw was a huge rock sticking out of the ground. It was unnaturally smooth, as if something had taken a sander to it.
“That’s not normal,” Logan said. “They would have removed that rock from the field. I think someone put it there purposefully.” He slowed as he drove closer, then pulled the car to a halt.
Phoebe threw open her door and rushed out, running to the rock. “She’s here.”
Logan and I followed her to the rock.
“Is that what I think it is?” Logan asked, pointing to the pattern burnt into the ground.
“Yep,” I said. “It’s a pentagram.”
“Devil worship?” he asked, horror in his voice.
“No,” I said. “It’s like an amplifier. I know she used them in the woods by our house. Maybe she used it to help amplify the power of the spell.”
“It didn’t do any good,” Phoebe said, her voice breaking as she pressed both hands on the boulder. “She’s inside here.”
“How did that happen?” Logan asked.
Phoebe shook her head. “An elemental?” She glanced over at me with tear-filled eyes. “Could Zane have done this?”
I sucked in a breath. “You think he betrayed her?” I shook my head. “No. No way. He cares about her. He wouldn’t hurt her. Besides, you heard what Brandon said. No offense, but Brandon’s not really the type to go to bat for someone if he’s not really, really sure.”
“So why encase her in a rock?” Logan asked.
“I don’t know,” Phoebe said, her hands still on the rock. “I know she’s in there, and I know she’s crossed, but I can’t communicate with her. I’ve tried.”
“We have to remove the rock,” I said. “Can you use one of the grandmothers?”
Phoebe reached for the pearls at the base of her neck, only they weren’t pearls at all. They were the rounded and polished metatarsal bones of our many-greats grandmother Corlew, who had possessed telekinesis, but then she shook her head. “No. I need an element. I need Ima Booker’s magic.” She gave me a warning look. “You and Logan have to stand back.”
>
“Be careful, Bee,” I said, worried that she wasn’t standing back herself. I grabbed Logan’s arm and dragged him backward toward the car.
Leaning over the boulder, Phoebe began to glow.
I shot a glance at Logan to see how he was reacting, but he gave me a wry look. “If you’re still expecting me to freak out, you can stop waiting. It’s not gonna happen.”
I wrapped an arm around his back and pulled him to my side. “I’m damn lucky to have you in my life, Logan Gillespie.”
“Good thing you recognize that,” he said, looking down into my eyes, “because I’m not going anywhere, Rowan.”
Someday soon I’d start believing him when he said that.
The rock began to glow, and Phoebe’s features scrunched up as she poured more effort into breaking Celeste free. A cracking sound filled the air, then pieces of rock began to explode outward. I glamoured a large shield to protect Logan and me—and to my surprise it actually worked. Rocks pounded off it. I was worried about Phoebe being at ground zero, but I quickly realized her borrowed power was keeping her safe. She had some control over the explosion.
When the rocks quit pounding the shield, I lowered it in time to see Phoebe drop to her knees next to Celeste’s now-exposed body. Our little sister lay on her side, slightly curled up. It reminded me of the way she used to sleep when she was seven, and the sight was enough to crack my heart open.
I ran over and stopped short when I saw the blood saturating her shirt and the ground beneath her. The dagger the book had given me was buried to the hilt in her stomach. The book was there too, tucked beneath her, but the glamour had dissipated. What had been a leather-bound tome was now nothing but parchment paper bound with string.
I cried out at the sight of the blade. “She didn’t die of her injuries. Someone murdered her.”
All three of us stared at Celeste in silent horror. Logan was the one who spoke first.
“Did Zane do this?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “I’m certain he cared about her too much. There’s no way he’d willingly hurt her.”
“Well, someone did,” Phoebe said in a short tone. “Someone killed our sister.” She choked back a sob.
“We can’t ignore that something happened to the book,” I said. “It’s like it was stripped to nothing.” There’d been something inside of it, something living, and now it was gone. It had been rendered into nothing more than a spellbook. A book containing unusually evil spells, to be sure, but no longer an evil book. And I had a feeling how that had come to be. I paused, then added, “And there’s not as much blood as there should be.”
Phoebe leaned over and swept the hair off Celeste’s cheek. “Who did this to you, Cee-Cee?”
After several long seconds of suspense, I finally asked, “What did she say?”
“She isn’t there to ask.”
“What does that mean?”
Phoebe lifted one shoulder into a half shrug. “Maybe she’s too new to the other side, but she’s not communicating with me.”
“Can you access her magic?”
She looked horrified that I’d asked, but then she closed her eyes and her body tensed. A moment passed. Then another. Finally, she opened her eyes. “Nothing.”
“Wait,” I said, rushing to Celeste’s other side. It took everything I had to squat down next to her. “Where’s the orb?”
“Oh my gods,” Phoebe cried out. “It’s gone. Look at her hand.”
Sure enough, there was a long slash on her palm. The orb had glowed from Lester’s hand even after death, but there was no sign of it now.
Zane must have done this after all. He’d pretended to love my sister, but he’d sabotaged her. He’d worked with the book, or whatever being had possessed it. “I’m going to kill the fucking bastard.”
“Not if I kill him first,” Phoebe growled. “I won’t let him hurt Brandon too.”
“We need to find him,” I said. “I bet he’s hoping to take over the Dark Set for himself. Or the Druids. I suspect he’s headed to the Dark Set compound to take advantage of the gathering for the wedding, but I have no idea where it is.”
“Good thing I do,” Logan said. “Brandon doesn’t think anything of talking turkey around humans.” He shrugged a little as he said it, in a no-offense-taken kind of way. “I overheard him and Zane last night. Let’s collect Celeste and the book and get going.” He bent next to Celeste and studied her for a moment before scooping her into his arms. Gently cradling her, he carried her toward the trunk of the car.
I ran to the driver’s door and found the button to pop the trunk lid, then grabbed the few bags we had and tossed them on the ground.
Logan carefully tucked her inside as gentle as if she were still alive and he might hurt her. The knife still protruded from her stomach.
A new wave of grief hit me hard. That bastard had stabbed my already injured baby sister. I started to reach for the handle, but Phoebe walked over with the book, holding it to her chest as if she were ready to defend it with her life. I suspected she was, especially when I saw the uncharacteristic need for vengeance in her eyes. Maybe she was pissed enough to do what I was sure needed to be done.
“We can’t go home yet, Phoebe. We have a party to crash. We’re going to use the book to destroy that bastard and the Dark Set.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Zane
Zane was seething. The woman next to him was responsible for Celeste’s death, and all she could do was gasp in awe over all the sights around her.
She released a cry of excitement for what had to be the fiftieth time. “I knew this was what the world looked like now, but to see it like this, through my own eyes instead of as a spirit…”
Zane refused to speak to her. He already felt like he was betraying Celeste by bringing Marij with him, but he suspected it was what she’d intended. She’d wanted him to defeat the Dark Set, at any cost.
And if he’d let Marij go, he might not have been able to find her afterward. He didn’t intend to let her go. She deserved to pay the price for what she’d done.
After an hour, she groaned and said, “I know you’re upset about the witch—”
“The witch has a name,” he said through gritted teeth.
“You have greater things in your future, son of Theodos.”
He could barely bring himself to look at her, but he turned now, taking in her old-timey outfit, which would make her right at home on the set of some period drama.
“Why do you keep calling me that?”
“Son of Theodos?” she asked. “Because you are a direct descendant of Theodos the Great.”
“Should I care who that is?” he asked.
She snorted. “Should you care? It’s your history! It’s your past. And the past is tied to the present.”
“I guess it is when five-hundred-year-old witches start popping of books.”
“I’m not five hundred,” she scoffed. “I’m barely thirty. I’ve merely been trapped for four hundred years.”
“How did you get trapped?” Zane asked. “Marij isn’t exactly a common name in our community, so I’m presuming you’re the author of the Book of Sindal. Everyone thinks you were burned alive.”
“A little magic here, a little glamour there…” She made a pouty face, waving her hand around. “I attached myself to the book and glamoured a simpering, annoying neighbor woman to look like me.”
“You attached yourself to the book?” he asked in shock. “Didn’t that seem drastic?”
“Perhaps, but the villagers were coming with their pitchforks, and I knew the book would be saved. I thought I’d free myself the first time someone used it. Only those stupid Whelan women refused to use it. So I was trapped for centuries until Xavier opened the book and asked me for a spell. I told him I’d help him if he freed me, and he claimed he would—if I gave him a spell for gathering more magic. He said he was building an army to rise up and take back the mages’ power. While I would have preferred to work
with a witch, of course, I was tired of waiting. I gave him the spell, but I never saw him again until his youngest daughter used me.”
“Celeste.”
“I planned to ask her to release me, but Donall was there, and I knew he could not be trusted. He had used the spell I’d given Xavier earlier—the stench of it was all over him. So I waited. Rowan was strong and I could have used her, but then I called to Celeste and she came back to me…and deserted me again. I needed her. She was the expression mage. She was powerful enough to release me, but she abandoned me again.” She brushed off her hands. “She has fulfilled her role, and now I must look to the future.”
“Fulfilled her role?” Zane snapped. “You killed her!”
“She plunged the dagger into her own stomach,” Marij said coyly. “Technically, she killed herself.”
Zane pulled the car onto the shoulder and hit the brakes hard enough that his seat belt dug into his flesh as the car came to a full stop. He turned and clamped his hand around her neck, pinning her against the passenger door. “Don’t you dare pretend you’re an innocent in all of this. If you hadn’t been gathering a book of evil spells, you wouldn’t have been threatened in the first place.” Which made him trust her even less.
“One for many,” she mouthed with a small smile.
He released her and cursed. He was playing right into her hands, and he knew it, but he’d promised Celeste. “Who the hell was Theodos the Great?” he asked.
“The ruler of Brexor before its fall,” she murmured in a happy tone. “And the husband of Rebecca, Queen of the Samsites. Tonight we fulfill a prophecy centuries in the making.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Zane
“This will never work,” Zane said as the guard waved him onto the Dark Set compound.
