by Smith, L. J.
“Be now dissolved, powerful shield!” Her voice left her throat sounding deep and gravelly as she sent all of her energy toward the house. She focused hard and said the words again, this time pushing with her mind until she felt the power of the Tools rush out of her like a blistering heat.
The spell seemed to work at once. The dark cloud perched over the house cleared, and the guarding force at the property’s perimeter disappeared. The relics are really working, Cassie thought to herself. Scarlett was as good as saved.
Without delay, she continued forward unhindered. Practicing the witch-hunter curse in her mind, she walked slowly and carefully in a state of deep meditation toward the house.
When she was inches away from the front door, she could see it was windblown and water-damaged, rotted to a softness no wood should be. And the foundation of the house creaked and rattled in the wind, like it could come crashing down at any moment. It occurred to Cassie to try some kind of protection spell on herself before entering, or maybe another silence spell to assist her in sneaking into the house. But then she thought better of it. She would step inside just as she was, no cowardly tricks, no sleight of hand. The Tools were the only power she needed.
Cassie listened for voices but heard none. In the eerie silence, the fear that Scarlett had already been killed raced through her mind. An image of her dead body hanging from the ceiling, swinging back and forth, like the arm of a clock—tick tock, tick tock—haunted Cassie. But she couldn’t step through this door with the slightest bit of distraction. She’d have seconds to cast the curse, less than that in fact. Cast the curse, rescue Scarlett, and then get the heck out of there. That was the plan.
Carefully, Cassie placed her hand upon the rotted softness of the door. To her surprise, it wasn’t locked. In fact, it didn’t even appear to be fully closed. She pushed on its damp surface gently with the palm of her hand, and it swept open effortlessly. She was already chanting the witch-hunter curse under her breath, ready for anything that came at her, but when she stepped inside, the scene was nothing like what she saw in her dreams.
The main room was large and tidy. Its walls were painted an oceanic blue and were finished with bright white crown molding. The hardwood floors were freshly waxed, and the air inside the room was warm and cedar-scented with the heat of a wood-burning fire.
Scarlett was there, by herself, lounging on a faded sofa in front of the fireplace. Her dyed-red hair cascaded in healthy waves onto her shoulders, framing her rosy-cheeked smirking face.
“Finally,” she said. “I’ve been getting so bored up here waiting for you.”
Instantly Cassie knew she’d made a terrible mistake. This was all a trap.
Chapter 27
“Come have a seat by the fire,” Scarlett said. She was smiling, in a twisted kind of way.
Cassie tried to run back out the door, but she found her feet planted in place once again, just as they had been outside on the perimeter of the property. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“You can come in closer, you just can’t leave.” Scarlett’s smile brightened.
“Where are the hunters?” Cassie asked.
Scarlett shrugged her shoulders. “Don’t know.”
“Are they even real?”
“Oh, the hunters are very real,” Scarlett said. “They killed my mother and they followed me here. They just never caught me.”
She tapped the empty space on the sofa beside her, indicating Cassie to sit. “Your Circle has no idea what they’re in for with the hunters. But they offered the perfect setup while I practiced my mind-invasion spells.”
So all this time Cassie thought she was having visions, communicating across space and time to her sister, it was all just a trick. The Circle had been right all along. Cassie hadn’t been thinking clearly.
Cassie couldn’t turn around and run away, but she still had the Tools, and they were quivering with energy. She could protect herself.
She touched each relic and called on their power. Immediately, the Tools became hot—this time, too hot. They singed her skin like they’d turned against her.
“Feel the burn?” Scarlett asked.
She had somehow gotten the Tools to backfire on Cassie. They became angry and restless, sizzling with torment.
“I’ll take them off your hands,” Scarlett said.
Effortlessly, with one snap of her finger, the Master Tools obeyed her call. Like metal to a magnet, they unhinged themselves from Cassie’s body and flew at Scarlett’s outstretched hands.
But how? How did Scarlett have so much influence over the Tools that she could beckon them? She must have been a more powerful witch than Cassie could have ever imagined.
“It really is a shame you’ve never dabbled in the dark arts,” Scarlett said, sensing Cassie’s amazement at her abilities.
Suddenly Cassie felt cold and naked, wearing nothing but the white shift. Powerless and bewildered, she shivered.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I’m Black John’s daughter. Isn’t that obvious?” Scarlett said, gesturing at the Master Tools.
“So we really are sisters.”
“Oh yeah,” Scarlett said. “That part was real.”
Scarlett, now wearing the Master Tools over her black T-shirt and jeans, reached for a poker from the fireplace. Cassie stiffened, but then relaxed when Scarlett leaned over the side of the couch to an open bag of marshmallows. She skewered one with the black metal poker and held it over the fire.
“These Tools were meant for me,” Scarlett said. “Your whole life was meant for me.”
“I don’t believe you,” Cassie said, trying her best to come off sounding strong and controlled. “I have no reason to believe anything you say.”
Scarlett laughed. “You have every reason to.” She watched the marshmallow reluctantly brown over the flame. She seemed to enjoy the way it struggled to maintain its exterior before succumbing to the heat.
“I was the one he intended to be in the Circle with the rest of them,” she said. “I was born in November, like the others. Not you. Everything you’ve enjoyed since you arrived in New Salem—all of it rightfully belongs to me.”
“No,” Cassie said. It couldn’t be true.
“Yup. You were just an afterthought, a backup plan.”
Cassie felt sick. And the sugary scent of burning marshmallow wasn’t helping.
Scarlett rotated the pointer in her hand like a rotisserie. “And now I’m here to claim my rightful spot in the Circle. But I’m going to have to kill you to get it.”
She turned her shining black eyes onto Cassie. “Isn’t that a bummer, sis?”
Scarlett gripped the metal poker with both hands, and Cassie realized just how much danger she was in. Scarlett did seem just crazy enough to kill her. She had to try to talk her way out of this.
“Why kill me,” Cassie asked, “when we could lead the Circle together?”
Scarlett widened her eyes. “Really?” Her voice came out sounding childlike. “You’d be willing to do that?”
Cassie nodded energetically. “Of course,” she said, trying to sound believable. “We’ll kick someone else out to make room for you as the twelfth member. Trust me, there are plenty of weak links.”
Scarlett’s dark red lips curled into a vicious smile, and she laughed with her whole body. “You really are pathetic,” she said. “You don’t know much, but even you know it doesn’t work that way.”
She pulled the pointer out of the flames. The burnt marshmallow on its tip was now on fire, burning red like a hot coal.
“Someone has to die to break the Circle’s bond,” Scarlett said. “And whichever member dies, they’re immediately replaced with someone of their own bloodline.”
She shoved the flaming tip of the pointer under Cassie’s nose. “Didn’t you know that? Or had you and your little friends not gotten to that lesson in witch school?
“You made for mostly an easy target,” Scarlett continued. “Until that pr
otection spell made it impossible to kill you in New Salem.”
“You were the one who cut my brakes,” Cassie said. It had finally all began making sense.
Scarlett ignored the accusation. “But now you’re vulnerable,” she said. “No protection spell. And without even your precious Circle to save you.”
Cassie tried to think of a spell, any spell, to help her out of this situation, but none came to mind. It was like her brain had reset to a blank page. Scarlett had somehow rendered her completely powerless.
“And since you brought the Master Tools right to me, killing you should be easy.” Scarlett urged the fireball-tipped poker a centimeter away from Cassie’s face.
She’s going to burn me, Cassie thought. She’s going to set me on fire.
“Don’t waste your energy trying to do a spell,” Scarlett said. “Only black magic works in this house.”
Black magic. That explained it, all of it.
Cassie may have lacked the words to call on the element of Water, but she had to do something. With no other options, she took a swing at the pointer, knowing full well she’d burn her hand doing so, but it worked. She knocked the weapon from Scarlett’s grasp across the room. It landed with a thump onto the thick throw rug.
Cassie was mildly proud of herself, but Scarlett didn’t seem the least bit rattled that she’d deflected the burning pointer from her grasp.
“Nice work,” Scarlett said. “I couldn’t have done that better myself.” She directed Cassie’s attention to the smoke rising up from the rug where the pointer had landed. Then the smoke gave way to a small, newly born flame.
Scarlett’s dark eyes sparkled, reflecting the silver of the diadem and bracelet, and the buckles of the garter. With a single wave of her hand, she fanned the small fire across the entire floor and up all four walls of the cottage, surrounding Cassie in a sweltering tent of heat and flames.
I’m a fool, Cassie thought, a fool for being so trusting.
Cassie cowered at the sight of the fire. There was no escaping a blaze of this size.
“You’ve gone too far,” Cassie cried out. “You’ll burn in here with me.”
Scarlett stood up and calmly began walking through the flames to gather her things. “Another thing you don’t know,” she said, yanking her clothes out of the closet and stuffing them into a large duffel bag. “The fire protection spell. It was one of Daddy’s favorites.”
Smoke filled the room. It caught Cassie in the throat and brought stinging tears to her eyes, but Scarlett remained unbothered by it.
“No!” Cassie screamed, crawling across the floor toward Scarlett, but she could only move a few inches in any direction. The flames were blocking her every exit. Within minutes the fire would consume her. “Please, Scarlett, we’re sisters. Please don’t do this!”
Scarlett stood still with her bags in hand. Angry flames danced and cracked all around her, and black smoke encircled her body like a sinister tornado. “At least go with a little dignity, Cassie.”
She dropped her bags in place and took a few deliberate steps closer. She leaned down slowly, like a serpent, to look Cassie in the eyes. “Did our father scream for mercy when you killed him, Cassie? I bet not.”
Scarlett had his eyes, Cassie realized. Those pitch-black marbles that were cold as death, just like Black John’s. She was more his daughter than Cassie was. How could Cassie have been so fooled by her before?
And then Cassie remembered her mother’s words about Black John. He wasn’t all bad, she’d said.
“You don’t have to do this,” Cassie cried, trying to soften Scarlett’s cold hard stare with her own. “There’s good inside you, even now. You can choose to not be like him.”
“I know.” Scarlett kicked Cassie away with the heel of her black boot. “But where’s the fun in that?”
Chapter 28
The flames roared and crackled with evil intent, as if the fire had a will of its own. Its scorching heat brought Cassie, blistering, to her knees. She was coughing and couldn’t catch her breath, soon to completely lose herself to its all-consuming power. Scarlett looked her over one last time.
“Good-bye, Cassie,” she said. “It was nice knowing you.”
Cassie’s face burned from the sweltering heat. This must be what hell would feel like, she thought, this never-ending torture by fire. Cut off from her mother, and her friends, and Adam, Cassie was dying alone. And here was Scarlett, the stronger daughter, the wicked sister, and the last living face Cassie would look upon before her death.
But she couldn’t give up. She forced herself to her feet and got as close to Scarlett as the flames would allow. The Tools had darkened to a sinister sheen on Scarlett’s body. Black John is in her, Cassie thought.
But he is also in me.
Scarlett seemed to notice a change in Cassie’s eyes. It was enough to cause her to back away.
“He is in me,” Cassie said, aloud this time, and it powered up some secret recess within her, like an emergency generator that kicks on in a blackout.
Scarlett continued backing away, through the flames, toward the exit. The fire protection spell was still working for her, but she was suddenly afraid.
The power of fire, Cassie thought. The power of fire is in me.
And then something cracked open somewhere deep inside Cassie’s chest, that dark space she’d never accessed before. It frightened her, the burst of energy she felt as the word left her lips. “Burn!” she commanded.
And Scarlett did. Midway through the flames on her way to the door, she screamed as brutally as Cassie had heard in her nightmare. No longer was she protected from the fire, no longer could she step safely from the burning house to the cool air outside.
Scarlett jumped back from the door, furiously batting out the flames from her clothes. Then she turned to Cassie. “I thought you were good,” she said.
Cassie stood tall, newly energized. “Likewise.”
Cassie could feel something churning deep within her gut. It rose up her throat like black bile and escaped her mouth as a scream that caused the kitchen faucet to rupture into a geyser. Then the walls shook, and every pipe within them burst, spurting cold water across the room in diagonal torrents. The fire was extinguished within seconds.
Scarlett drew away, shocked by this turn of events, but she had her own commands at her disposal as well as the Master Tools to enhance her power. “Fragilis!” she shouted, thrusting her open palms at Cassie.
It was a Latin spell Cassie didn’t understand, but it made her drop to the floor like all the energy had been drained out of her. Her body felt heavy, and the room began to spin. She couldn’t even lift her head.
“Sentis infirma.” Scarlett directed her charged fingers to Cassie’s head and then her heart.
Cassie became so feeble and tired, woozy to the point of faintness, she was sure she was dying.
This is it, Cassie thought. Scarlett is just too strong. She’d lost.
She wished that she could see Adam at that moment, to have his be the last face she looked upon before going to her death. She remembered the chalcedony rose in her pocket and limply felt for it. It took all the energy she had left to work it into her hand. She squeezed it as tightly as her fingers would allow and imagined Adam’s strong, loving face with such concentration that she swore he actually appeared. The smoke cleared, and Adam’s dark red hair seemed to her so close and real, she believed she could see its every highlight. This must be what dying was. Cassie was too weak to smile, but she was grateful her final wish had come true.
It took a second for Cassie to realize that Adam was actually in the house standing over her. It really was him. He took her face into his hands and called out her name. She felt herself falling in and out of consciousness. Like in her nightmares and visions, her sight was both cloudy and vivid at the same time, a disordered, mystifying confusion. But the connection between her and Adam in this heightened moment was intense. The silver cord that hummed between them materialized
, brighter and more pronounced than Cassie had ever seen it before. It appeared so lifelike, she swore she could reach out and touch it with her fingertips. Her chest overfilled with love as she followed the cord’s path from Adam’s heart to her own. But then as she looked closer, she noticed something strange. There were two silver cords. One was reaching from Adam to her, and the other was reaching from Adam to Scarlett.
In a flash, both cords were gone. Just like that. Cassie wasn’t even sure Adam saw it.
That had to be a mistake, a hallucination. It was impossible to decipher what was real anymore and what was her imagination.
“Cassie.” Adam still had her face in his hands. “Stay with me, Cassie. Stay awake.”
She blinked away the tears that filled her eyes and turned to see all of them there—Diana and the rest of the Circle. They had Scarlett surrounded.
“Give us the Master Tools,” Diana said. “And we won’t have to hurt you.”
“I’d like to see you try.” Scarlett laughed.
Diana stood motionless. It took a moment for her to realize she couldn’t do magic, but once she did, Scarlett hurled her hands at her. “Praestrangulo,” she said.
Instantly Diana clutched her throat with both hands and dropped to her knees, struggling to breathe.
“She’s suffocating!” Adam jumped to his feet, and Cassie cried out, but she was still too weak stop him. He charged toward Scarlett, chanting, “Earth my body, water my blood.”
Faye and the others fell in behind him. “Earth my body, water my blood, air my breath, and fire my spirit!”
Cassie screamed, “It won’t work!” But none of them would listen, or maybe her screaming was only as loud as a whisper. She couldn’t tell.
“Caecitas!” Scarlett fanned her hand at the group.
Adam cried out first. “I can’t see,” he said. And then, one by one, each of them shrieked, covering their eyes. Scarlett had blinded them.
