Daughter of the Spellcaster

by Maggie Shayne

  His eyes were puffy and red-rimmed. “Are you all right?” she asked, searching his face.

  “Yeah. I— Damn, what a headache. And the dreams. The dreams...”

  She lifted her hand to his head, smoothed his tousled hair. “Let’s get you some coffee. Some breakfast. You’ll feel better.”

  “Wait.” He gripped her wrist, and when she stared into his eyes, he stared right back, searching. “I don’t remember going to sleep out here last night.”

  She blinked. “No?”

  “No. But I remember the dream I was just having. It was you, but it wasn’t. And me, only not really. I was trying to get to you. You were going to die, and I was supposed to save you, but I couldn’t get there in time.”

  He was blinking back moisture, agitated, almost...anguished.

  “You were on horseback in the desert,” she told him. “And I was on a cliff with my sisters. Only my hair was dark then, and my skin was bronzed by the sun.”

  His eyes widened. “Yes! Did you...did you dream it, too?”

  “I saw it in my chalice just now. A vision. You were so close that you must have...tapped in somehow.”

  “It was so real.”

  “It was. I think it was another lifetime, Ryan. I think it’s part of what all this is about. But I still don’t know how. Or why. Or what we’re supposed to do, besides reenact the Great Rite with my cup and your blade.”

  He blinked and actually took a step back, away from her. “My blade...?”

  She nodded. “You’re a mess.”

  He blinked at her, shaking his head slowly. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

  “I only know one thing I’m supposed to do.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Trust you,” she said. She slid a hand around his neck, cupped his nape beneath his hair. “Come on. We need food. We’ll think better on full stomachs.”

  He nodded, but didn’t look convinced.

  They headed down the stairs to the kitchen, where Selma was already up and cooking. Lena could smell coffee, and she was damn well going to have a cup this morning. Just one. And there was bacon, too, sizzling and filling the kitchen with its delicious aroma.

  She went to the coffeepot, filled two mugs, set them down and turned to her mother, who was facing the stove as she turned the bacon. “I’m sorry about last night, Mom. I...I kind of freaked.”

  “That’s understandable, honey.” Selma turned to face her daughter, smiling as warmly as ever. Putting her hands on Lena’s shoulders, she said, “But everything looks better this morning, doesn’t it? We’re all going to be just fine. You, me, the baby, Ryan. All of us. I promise.”

  Lena frowned, wondering at her mother’s serene assurance, and then she saw it.

  Selma was wearing a crystal prism on a chain around her neck. It winked at her in the morning sun that slanted in through the window beside them. Lena took a backward step, staring at it. “What the hell is that?”

  * * *

  “What?” Selma looked down, and Ryan, curious, looked over to see what had happened to change the tone in Lena’s voice so completely.

  Selma was wearing a crystal pendant of some sort. As he stared at it, something burned against his skin, beneath his shirt.

  “Oh, this?” Selma asked, picking up the quartz crystal and turning it in the slanting morning sunlight. Rainbows painted the ceiling. “Bahru gave it to me. Isn’t it pretty?”

  “When?” Lena croaked. It was more a demand than a question.

  “The day he arrived, after I complimented him on his. I just hadn’t gotten around to wearing it until now. I’m starting to wonder if we might have misjudged him, hon. I really think all this has been one big misunderstanding. I mean, it just doesn’t seem logical that he would go from spiritual pacifist to servant of some dark, body-snatching entity overnight. He might actually be able to advise us on this. Maybe if we just sit down and talk to him, it will all make— Lena, what’s wrong with you?”

  Lena was backing away from her mother. “I want you to take it off, Mom.”

  Yes, Ryan thought. Take it off. Take it off, it’s evil.

  “But why? It’s so pretty.”

  “They were all wearing them.” Lena’s voice was hoarse, low, quivering. “Everyone in my dream, the dream where I have the baby and Ryan...Ryan has that knife. The crystals were all glowing, and they all had red eyes, and I just have this horrible feeling. Mom, please. Take it off.”

  “Of course.” Frowning, Selma lifted the necklace over her head and held it out to her daughter.

  Lena jumped away from the thing as if it were a poisonous snake. “I don’t want it. Just...just get rid of it.”

  The burning against Ryan’s chest was getting worse. He had to get away from the two of them, so he could look underneath his shirt. But he had a really bad feeling he knew what he was going to find when he did. And it was sure to break Lena’s trust in him once and for all, if it turned out he was right.

  “Here, give it to me,” he said, holding out a hand, putting himself between Lena and the thing that so frightened her.

  Selma smiled and dropped the necklace into his palm. “Either bury it or toss it into the stream.”

  He looked at Lena. “Is that okay with you? I can smash it with a hammer first, if you want.”

  She nodded.

  “Okay. And then I’ll bury it. I know just the spot.” He closed his hand around the crystal, but it didn’t burn his palm. It didn’t heat or glow or vibrate. He turned toward the door.

  “How did it go last night, by the way?” Selma asked.

  He blinked. “How did...what go?”

  “Last I saw of you, you were going out to see Bahru, to demand the return of that blasted knife.” At Lena’s sharp gasp, Selma rushed on. “He was going to give it to you, honey. To show you that you could trust him.”

  Lena turned to Ryan and asked, “You were?”

  “That was the plan.”

  “So how did it go?” she asked. “Did you find it?”

  He racked his brain, but last night was a blur. Vaguely, he recalled leaving the house, walking through the snow, thinking Bahru’s place looked empty. He was going to go inside and look for it. Had he?

  Yeah, he was pretty sure he had. God, what had happened to his memory?

  “Ryan?”

  “Uh, no. No, Bahru wasn’t there. I searched the cottage, but...” He shook his head. “Nothing.”

  She nodded. “I appreciate that you tried,” she said. “But I still think getting out of here is the best bet.”

  “Yeah. I think so, too,” he said.

  But even as he spoke, a cacophony of discordant whispers filled his head, each voice twisting around the next, and yet their words were clear enough.

  But she won’t be able to leave.

  The Master will see to that.

  She has to stay within his reach...

  ...until the child is born.

  Yes, until the child...

  ...until the child is born.

  What the hell was happening to him? Why was his memory of last night so spotty? So foggy? He looked at the crystal in his hand. It was just an ordinary piece of quartz on a silver chain.

  Closing his hand around the thing, he shoved his feet into his boots, pulled on a coat and headed out back, pausing near the woodpile, where he picked up the old rusty axe that looked as if it hadn’t been used in a dozen years.

  The minute he was out of sight of the house, heading over the back lawn to the little copse of trees where he’d been practicing with his knife, he pulled his shirt open and looked down at his chest.

  A quartz pendant rested there. It was suspended on a long silver chain, and it was glowing. He moved to take it off, but when his
hand got close to the thing, it froze. It was as if he couldn’t move it any further, as if he’d somehow lost communication between his brain and his arm.

  It was controlling him. The damn thing was taking over his mind. He strained, baring his teeth in the effort, but his hand refused to move, and finally he let it drop to his side with a rush of breath.

  Opening his palm, he looked again at the necklace Selma had given him. She’d removed it easily. Not even a hint of effort.

  “It’s not the same,” he said softly. He didn’t know why Bahru had given it to her. Maybe to make it seem like the stones meant nothing? Maybe to make Lena feel she couldn’t even trust her own mother? Maybe just because Selma had asked about the piece and he wanted to shift her focus away from it. But he was certain the stone was not the same as the one that had somehow magically appeared around his own neck overnight.

  What was he going to do? How the hell was he going to get this thing off? How much power could it possibly have over him? And for how long would it last?

  He looked at the shovel, which was leaning against the tree where he’d left it. Only...not quite where he’d left it. Turning, he looked at the spot where he intended to bury Selma’s necklace, even though he didn’t think the thing posed any threat.

  He knew immediately that something was wrong. After cleansing his knife overnight by burying it in the earth, he’d dug it up and filled in the hole. He’d patted the dirt down nice and flat with the back of the shovel when he’d finished. But now it was all loose and mounded up on top.

  “What the hell...?”

  Grabbing the shovel, Ryan plunged the blade into the dirt, easily turning it. It didn’t take long to feel that there was something there. He knelt to pull it out. It was hard, square, wrapped in plastic. He knew, not just by its familiar shape and weight, but by the feeling that hit him as he brushed the dirt off it, what it was. But he unwrapped it anyway.

  The intricately carved wooden box was too heavy to be empty. He opened the lid to look all the same.

  And there was his knife. The one he was supposed to use to kill Lena.

  Pick it up.

  Go on, take it...

  ...it’s yours, it’s...

  ...your destiny. Do it!

  Pick it up!

  His hand moved toward the box, and once again he wasn’t the one telling it what to do. How easy would it be to commit some horrible crime if he couldn’t control his own body, his own mind?

  Think of Lena, he screamed inwardly. Think of the baby.

  He’d lost her once before.

  You survived it then.

  You’ll survive it now, said the loudest of those mental whisperers. As long as you don’t let yourself care too much.

  Not too much, Ryan...

  Not to the point of madness, like some men do. Not to the point where losing her means giving up your life, your son, your family, and spending the rest of it traveling the world in search of a reason why.

  ...like your father did, Ryan...

  Nothing is worth that. You must never, ever let yourself care that much for anyone.

  ...not ever, Ryan...

  It’s certain doom.

  The voices weren’t telling him anything he didn’t already know, he realized, and then he was aware of his hand closing on the handle of his knife, lifting it from the box, feeling its power buzzing against his palm.

  Fulfill your destiny and you can have anything you want.

  ...anything you want, Ryan...

  “I can already have anything I want,” he said softly. And yet something in his mind said that what he really wanted was to obey the whispers that would not let him go.

  * * *

  Lena wondered what was taking Ryan so long and started getting nervous. She headed out after him, around back where he’d said he had buried his knife to cleanse it before. She was nearly there when she heard him talking softly, as if someone else was there. She went still and silent, creeping slowly closer, peering through the limbs to see him standing there wearing a gleaming piece of quartz around his neck on a silver chain and holding the knife he’d claimed not to have found last night. Holding it right in his own two hands.

  She backed away, her heart breaking into sharp, glittering fragments that first cut her and made her bleed, and then froze into shards of fear. She had to get out of here, and she had to do it now. Without him. Without her mother. Without anyone. She was on her own. She could trust no one.

  The voice said to trust him. Perfect love and perfect trust, remember?

  But he’s got the knife. He lied to me. I have to put the baby first.

  It wasn’t hard to get back to the house without him seeing her. Nor to slide in the front way while Selma was putting a delicious breakfast on the table. She called out, “I’ve got a really bad backache, Mom. I’m going to soak in the tub for a while, okay?”

  “Of course, hon. Are you all right?” Her mother peeked around the corner at her, so she took off her boots. “It’s not labor, is it? It can start with lower back pain, you know.”

  “No, it’s not like that. I’m sure it was just...um...from sleeping on the floor last night.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s most likely it.” Selma looked relieved. “But don’t you want breakfast?”

  Lena shrugged off her jacket, hung it on a hook and started upstairs. “I couldn’t eat right now if I wanted to. You guys go ahead, and I’ll be down when I feel better. Save me a plate, will you? I’ll come down after my bath—and maybe a nap, since I didn’t sleep much last night—and I’ll warm it up and eat it then.”

  “Okay, honey.”

  Lena padded the rest of the way up the stairs, went into her room, turned on the water and closed the bathroom door, then shoved her purse and a change of clothes into a backpack. She took an old coat from her closet, and put on a pair of hiking shoes, as well. She turned off the water, and when she left her bedroom she locked the door from the inside before pulling it shut behind her.

  She realized she hadn’t heard Ryan come back in yet.

  She slipped into the temple room and grabbed the chalice, remembering the warning to keep it close to her. Then she buried it deep in the backpack.

  Good. All she had to do was get downstairs and outside undetected. Easy.

  The cat wound around her legs and looked up at her.

  Nodding, she scooped the animal into her arms and slipped quietly down the stairs, making almost no sound at all. She turned the doorknob as if it were made of nitroglycerine, opened the door slowly, then slipped outside and pulled it closed very softly behind her. And then she ran across the driveway into the open field, and cut at an angle across it, heading for the woods. This was the crucial part of her escape, she knew, because she was in plain sight, no cover. Bahru would see her if he so much as looked out the front window of his cottage. Her mother would see her if she looked out the door. Ryan would see her if he came around the corner of the house.

  She ran full out, which wasn’t easy with the cat in her arms, the backpack bouncing up and down, the chalice bruising her spine and the weight of her baby straining her abdominal muscles. She kept one arm around her belly to support it and ran despite the pain. Icy needles of fear, the kind you felt when you just knew someone was after you, prickled up and down her spine and along her nape, until finally she was in the woods, lost in the sheltering embrace of the pines.

  If they hadn’t seen her yet, they wouldn’t see her now. She paused just long enough to turn around and look back, peering through the fragrant needled boughs. But the house was still and quiet. As she watched, Ryan came around the corner, and she ducked back quickly. But he only walked slowly to the front door and went inside.

  He hadn’t seen her. Good. And since he didn’t pop right back out again, her mother must not have seen her, e
ither. She looked toward Bahru’s cottage. It was still and silent. Maybe, just maybe, she was going to pull this off. But she was going to have to hurry.

  She probably wouldn’t be able to leave town, so she needed help. She needed to find someone she could trust. Turning, she headed through the woods again. Help was within walking distance, and she knew she could get there safely if she was fast.

  However, the sprint from the house to the woods had taken its toll, and the backache she’d only been making up earlier had become a reality now. Lies. Nothing good ever came from them.

  17

  Ryan returned to the house feeling as if his head was floating somewhere in the stratosphere and only connected to the rest of his body by an ever-thinning, ever-weakening thread. Everything he did felt as if it was being controlled by someone else, as if he were on autopilot. Walk. Go inside. Enter the kitchen. Sit down. Eat. At the same time, from somewhere far, far away, he could hear, very faintly, his own voice calling to him. Over here, Ryan. Pay attention! You’ve got to fight this possession. You’ve got to save Lena and the baby. You’ve got to resist!

  Possession? Really, was that what this was? The thought was dispassionate, as if it was coming from a part of his brain where no emotion resided. And for a second it hit him, in that faraway place to which his brain had emigrated, that he used to be just that emotionless most of the time. Perhaps not quite as robotic, but emotionless. Living his life from a safe distance, never caring too much about anything or anyone.

  And the most shocking part of that bit of self-realization was that it wasn’t true anymore. He’d stepped out of that safe place. He cared. He cared more than he had ever imagined he was capable of caring.

  He loved Lena.

  Selma is speaking to you. Answer her.

  His head moved as if someone was controlling him via remote. He looked at Selma, but he felt as if he was seeing her through a camera lens. His own body, his own eyes, were machines now. Just tools.

  “Ryan, you look really off this morning,” she said. “Are you sure you’re all right?”