“Fine,” Tessa said, falling in step with her. “No problem.”
Piper hit the Up button for the elevator and stepped back to wait, purposely avoiding eye contact with both Leo and Cole. She knew that they didn’t approve of her allowing Tessa and Taryn to come, but it was too late now.
“I don’t think this is such a good idea,” Cole said quietly, stepping up next to Piper in front of the elevator doors. “How are you going to concentrate on vanquishing these things while you have to protect those two?”
“Cole, this is important to them,” Piper said under her breath. She looked up at Leo. “If things get hairy up there, I want you to grab them and orb them out of there, okay?”
“Okay,” Leo said reluctantly.
The elevator let out a loud ding and the doors slid open. Piper and the others stepped in, Phoebe clutching her vanquishing spell.
“Well,” Piper said, hitting the penthouse button. “Here goes nothing.”
• • •
“This has to be it,” Phoebe said the moment she stepped out of the elevator on the top floor. There were only two doors along the short hallway, one to the left marked P1 and one to the right marked P2. “It’s too quiet up here. And way too hot.”
Piper swallowed back her trepidation as she walked along the hall behind her sister. The lights along the walls had been dimmed and the air-conditioning to the floor had been cut off, making the air almost unbearable. Piper made herself breathe shallowly as they crept across the plush carpet.
“Hold on a sec,” Paige whispered, stopping in her tracks. “You guys hear that?”
Everyone froze, and Piper trained her ear on the door to her left. It took a few seconds, but then she heard it. A low, ritual mumbling. The depth of the voices gave her chills all the way to the bottoms of her feet. It felt as if the voices were rumbling through her heart and lungs.
“This has to be it,” she whispered, feeling the sudden rush of adrenaline she always felt when she and her sisters were about to go into battle. She looked at Tessa and Taryn, both of whom were as white as ghosts. “Stay behind us, you got it?”
They both nodded mutely, and Piper couldn’t even tell if they were still breathing. They were clearly petrified, and for the fiftieth time in the last two minutes she rethought her decision to let them come. But there was no going back now.
“Okay, on the count of three,” Piper said, her hand on the doorknob. “One…two…three!”
She threw open the door, intending to freeze the room and get a moment to assess the situation, but the second she saw the Anubi, she froze in fear. There were three of them, just like in the video, but they were each at least ten feet tall. They loomed above her, practically filling the room. Painted on the floor was a pyramid inside a circle, and the Anubi stood around the symbol. All the furniture had been moved against the walls, and the paintings had been removed and replaced by masks of Egyptian gods. The moment Piper opened the door, all three huge, monstrous jackal faces turned to glare at the intruders.
“Who dares enter here?” one of the Anubi growled in an unearthly, rumbling voice. Its eyes flashed red, and it extended its arm like a weapon. Piper braced herself for a blast, but before the monster could unleash whatever powers it had, Phoebe launched herself into the air, hovering for a moment before landing a powerful kick across the Anubi’s snout. The demon’s head tipped to the side, but otherwise it barely moved.
Phoebe came down to the floor again, gripping her foot in pain.
“Phoebe!” Cole shouted, rushing to her side.
“Okay, hard faces,” Phoebe said, looking across the room at her sisters. “Really hard faces.”
“So that’s what you can do!” Tessa exclaimed in wonder, as if she’d momentarily forgotten that they were all in some serious peril. “You can fly.”
“Not exactly, but that’s not the point to focus on at the moment,” Paige said as the Anubi started to advance on them. “Phoebe! The spell!”
Cole pulled Phoebe to her feet, and she started toward Piper and Paige, but suddenly one of the Anubi backhanded her across the face and she went tumbling head over heels into a corner. She crumpled to the ground, limp, and one of the gold masks that decorated the walls fell on top of her. Cole let out a guttural growl and threw a punch at the Anubi, but it tossed him as well. Piper’s first instinct was to run to Phoebe and Cole, but the Anubi blocked her way. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Leo hustle Taryn and Tessa into the far corner and stand in front of them, shielding them from whatever was to come. Meanwhile, Cole crawled over to Phoebe and tried to rouse her.
Suddenly one of the Anubi turned on Paige and lifted its palm. A gleaming orange energy ball appeared, hovering in front of its hand. The creature pushed it in Paige’s direction, and it went hurtling through the air, aimed at her head. Paige squealed and was instantly enveloped in her own white light. The energy ball went right through the space where she had been and exploded against the wall, shattering a mirror and burning a hole in the wallpaper.
Piper heard Tessa shriek and saw that she, Taryn, and Leo had all been hit by the flying glass. They had little cuts and scratches all over their faces and hands.
“Leo,” Piper said. “It just got too dangerous in here.”
“Got it,” he replied.
He orbed himself and the sisters out of the room, even as Taryn and Tessa protested that they wanted to stay. Piper had to admire their determination. At this point she would get out of here if she could. At least Tessa and Taryn were safe now. Leo would heal their cuts and keep them out of harm’s way.
Suddenly Paige reappeared on the other side of the room, and the Anubi reeled on her, their eyes now burning brightly in their evil faces.
“Witch!” they all exclaimed at once, their voices rocking the room.
“Okay, they sound excited now,” Paige said, terrified.
One of the Anubi pulled a long, sharp needle out of its robes and advanced on Paige. Another produced a gleaming gold canister. Piper’s heart sickened when she realized what they were about to do. Paige whimpered and shrank back against the wall just as Phoebe blinked her eyes open, slowly coming to in Cole’s arms.
“Piper!” Phoebe shouted. “Do something!”
Piper did the only thing she could. She flung her hands out in the direction of the threatening Anubi, and it instantly exploded and disappeared in a flash of fiery light. Paige cried out and covered her face against the heat and intense light of the explosion. But it was gone in an instant, leaving nothing but a singed smell in the air. For a moment no one in the room moved. Then the remaining two Anubi looked at Piper, clearly stunned.
“You’ll pay for that, witch,” one of them said.
“Not likely,” Piper replied, excited. “Looks like we won’t need the vanquishing spell after all, Phoebe.” She flung out her hands again and destroyed the second Anubi, causing the third to let out an unholy screech of mind-bending volume. Piper was about to dust the third demon, when Phoebe launched herself up from the floor and caught Piper’s arm.
“Uh-uh. This one we need for questioning,” Phoebe said.
The door behind Piper was thrown open, and Leo, Tessa, and Taryn came in, looking wildly around the room.
“What was that?” Leo asked.
“That was the sound of a demon realizing it was all alone in the world,” Piper replied.
“Say your prayers, witch,” the third Anubi said to Piper.
“These guys sure love the catch phrases,” Paige said under her breath.
The Anubi pulled its arm back, and an energy ball appeared in its hand. Paige shouted out “Energy ball!” and suddenly the fiery orb was in her hand. The Anubi screeched again, looking around in confusion, and Phoebe used the moment of surprise to land a solid roundhouse kick in the Anubi’s gut area. She winced as her leg landed, but the Anubi doubled over. Then Piper watched in surprise as Phoebe rushed the creature with all her might and basically wrestled it to the ground.
“Nice tackle,” Piper said.
“It was the only thing I could think to do,” Phoebe replied, struggling to hold the thing down. “Uh, guys?” she said, looking to Cole and Leo for help.
They both hit the floor, and together the three of them managed to pin the Anubi to the ground. It bucked and writhed under their grip, but Paige sauntered over and held its own ball of fire over its face menacingly.
“Oh, no. You’re not going anywhere,” Paige said. “Not until you tell us what you’ve done with all the witches you’ve taken.”
The Anubi let out a low, menacing laugh, and a chill ran down Piper’s spine. “They’re all dead,” it told them. “But we still have their blood, if you’re interested.”
Piper’s breath caught in her throat as the Anubi turned its massive head toward a line of more than twenty canisters on the windowsill. If each one held the blood of a different witch, then there were even more victims than they had thought. Suddenly Piper felt her whole body go numb. She turned and looked at Tessa and Taryn, who were huddled together by the door.
“That means Tina is…Tina is actually…” Taryn took one step away from her sister and fainted, her body falling limp on the floor. Tessa crumbled next to her, rested her face on her sister’s arm, and started to sob.
Her heart twisting painfully, Piper turned slowly back to the Anubi, lifted her hands, and just as Phoebe, Cole, and Leo flung themselves out of harm’s way, blew it to pieces.
Chapter
10
By the time Piper, Phoebe, Paige, Taryn, and Tessa returned to the campground, Piper felt as if she’d fought ten rounds in the ring with ten demons. She was exhausted from the fight, but also from the turmoil of the last few days. She had used a pay phone to call the police from the lobby of the Luxor and anonymously tip them that the Wiccans’ kidnappers had been found. Piper was certain that the blood they found in those canisters would match the blood types of the missing Wiccans. What she couldn’t imagine was the reaction the police were going to have to the bizarre crime scene and the lack of human fingerprints.
Everyone was silent in the car on the way back. The quiet was punctuated only by the random sobs from Taryn and Tessa, who were cuddled together in the back-seat next to a bruised and tired Phoebe.
As Piper pulled by the cop cars parked at the edge of the campground’s drive she noticed the two policemen were talking furiously into their radios.
“They’re getting the news now,” Piper said, resting her elbow on top of the door and her head in her hand.
“At least that’s over with,” Paige replied.
Piper sighed sadly as she pulled the car into the parking lot. Leo had already orbed himself and Cole back home to check on the manor before giving the news of their vanquishings to the Elders. As Piper parked and pushed herself out of her seat she found herself wishing Leo hadn’t left so quickly. She could definitely go for a nice, comforting hug right about now.
Phoebe and Paige climbed out of the car, but Tessa and Taryn made no sign of moving. Tessa had her arms around Taryn’s small form, and both of them had their eyes closed. Piper shared a look of sympathy with her sisters. She had no problem imagining the pain Tessa and Taryn were feeling at that moment.
“You guys…we’re back,” she said quietly. “You can stay here if you want….”
“No, that’s okay,” Tessa said, sitting up straight and sniffling. “We’re gonna have to get out of your car sometime.”
She pushed herself across the seat and climbed shakily out, then turned to help her sister out as well. Taryn moved as if her body were now made of sand. Every movement seemed to take great effort, and her limbs hung like dead weight. Piper wondered if the poor girl would ever be herself again.
“Wow. This place is barren,” Tessa said, squinting her puffy red eyes slightly as she looked around. There was only a handful of cars in the parking lot now, and the sky was starting to cloud over. The wind was picking up as well, but it had lost its thick, hot feeling. There was even a slight chill in the air.
“Well, we may as well go find whoever’s left and tell them the good news,” Paige said. Then she looked at Tessa and Taryn, and a mortified blush darkened her face. “I mean, that there won’t be any more kidnappings,” she added quickly. “Not that—”
“We know what you meant, Paige,” Tessa said, wrapping her arm around Taryn’s shoulders. “It’s okay.”
Paige smiled apologetically, and Piper wrapped her arms around her sister’s back.
“Actually, I think we’d better let the police tell them,” Piper said, rubbing Paige’s back. “If we do it, there are going to be too many questions.”
“Good point,” Paige said.
“Speaking of which,” Phoebe began slowly, looking at Tessa and Taryn, “it might be better if you guys didn’t tell anyone what you saw today. Ever.”
“Your secret’s safe with us,” Tessa said as Taryn rested her head on her sister’s shoulder. “If it weren’t for you guys, we might never have found out what happened to Tina. Now that we know, maybe we can start to move on.”
Piper reached out and squeezed Tessa’s hand, and the little group walked toward the dining hall. Ever since Craig had been found that morning, the building had become like Crisis Central. The covens had been gathering there for a mixture of protection and support, not wanting to be left alone in their tents. When Phoebe pulled the door open, about thirty faces turned to look at her, startled. Jasmine’s coven was seated at the nearest table, fiddling with tarot cards; Christian’s coven sat a few tables down; and the women who had worn the white dresses for the meet-and-greet were present as well. Marcia Farina sat with them, sipping something from a steaming cup and looking quite pale.
Piper led everyone over to the nearest table and sat down. Phoebe and Paige took the two chairs next to her, and Tessa and Taryn slumped down across from them. None of them were surprised when Christian and Jasmine made a beeline for their table from across the room. But when they were only halfway there, the door opened once again.
A slim, young police officer walked in and cleared his throat uncertainly. Everyone in the room dropped what they were doing and turned to look at him. A mixture of fear and hope filled the air.
“Well, it looks like they’ve found the kidnappers,” he said, his eyes flicking around the room without resting on one person for more than a split second. “We received an anonymous tip, and when our investigators went to the designated location, they found two more bodies.”
At this he glanced at Christian, who stood in the center aisle, with Jasmine a few feet ahead of him. “Apparently they were in the same condition as your friend,” the officer said.
“Did they catch the guys who did it?” Christian asked.
“They have reason to believe the culprits are dead,” the officer answered, taking a step back toward the door. “That’s all the information I can give you at this time.”
“That’s bull!” Christian shouted, the veins in his forehead bulging. “What does that mean, ‘reason to believe’?” he repeated snidely. “I want to know—”
“Christian!” Phoebe said loudly and firmly, cutting him off. “Calm down.” She gazed at him meaningfully, and he seemed to understand that she had something to tell him. He tucked his chin and took a deep breath.
“Sorry, Officer,” Christian said. “I guess I’m just a little worked up.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s understandable,” the officer replied, looking relieved that the prospect of confrontation had been averted. “But the chief asked me to tell you all that he believes you’re out of danger.”
A collective sigh went out across the room, and Piper saw Marcia rest her head on her arms, spent.
“See? Now we can all relax,” Ryan Treetop said from his usual spot in the corner. “Everyone can relax and have a good time.”
The moment the officer was safely out the door, Christian and Jasmine arrived at the end of the table.
“First of all,
you can’t just freeze people like that and get away with it,” Jasmine said through her teeth.
“Forget about that,” Christian said, still seething. “What did you guys do when you left here?”
“We took care of the murderers,” Piper answered bluntly. “You can thank us now.” She placed her hands flat on the table and stood up, intending to brush right past him. The last thing she wanted to deal with right now was a grand inquisition. She and her sisters had just vanquished yet another set of demons, making the world safe for Wiccan-kind, and this guy wanted to harass her about it.
“Well, who was it?” Christian asked, stepping in front of Piper and blocking her way.
Phoebe and Paige stood up behind her. Piper was glad to have their strength at her back.
“Look, if we tell you the truth, you’re not gonna believe us, so will you just accept the fact that the guys who killed Craig and a lot of other people are dead, and let it be?” Piper asked.
“So…all of the other kidnapping victims…they’re all dead?” Jasmine asked, scrunching her face up uncertainly.
Piper was suddenly hyperaware of the two sisters across the table who were somehow, by some miracle, holding it all together in front of these two emotionless morons.
“It looks that way,” Piper said quietly. Then she trained her best glare on Christian. “Now, we’d really like to go back to our tent, if you would please get out of the way.”
“Not until you—”
“Christian, come on, we’ve all had a long day,” Tessa said suddenly, sounding exhausted. “We’ll explain later.”
Everyone turned to look at her, surprised that she felt the need to get involved in this, with everything that she was going through. But her plea seemed to work on Christian. He blew out a breath through his nose and stepped aside reluctantly, allowing Piper, Phoebe, and Paige to get by and make their way out the door. Piper shot a grateful glance at Tessa over her shoulder, but Tessa was busy whispering to Taryn, running her hand comfortingly over her sister’s hair.
“Wow. Go, Tessa,” Paige said once they were free and clear of the dining hall.
Something Wiccan This Way Comes Page 11
