“It must be done,” Justine said. Her face bore the zealot’s shine Moira had seen on folks wandering out of those five-day tent revivals where wrestling snakes was as common as singing hymns. “There is no other way.”
“You’re not taking my sister from me.” Tierra’s grip on her hand tightened.
“She must die.” The phrase spoken by Justine rolled through the still-approaching crowd in a whisper. “Or everyone will.”
“What the hell kind of nonsense you talkin’?”
“Just give her to us, and everything can go back to the way it was,” Justine pleaded.
“So help me goddess,” Tierra vowed, “you come any closer and we will bring this house down upon all your heads.”
An enraged growl tore from Justine’s throat as she brought her hands up, ready to strike.
Power the likes of which Moira had never felt crackled between their clasped hands. A perfect, silent stillness fell around them while the world beyond began to shatter. The house shook, the ground bucked all but Moira and Tierra off their feet. Glass blew inward as golf ball-sized hail tore through house like tissue paper. Vases exploded, paintings leapt from the walls.
Moira watched Justine fight her way to her feet, clinging on to the arm of the sofa for support. “Tierra de Moray! Enough!”
Their bubble of stillness burst outward, and everything ceased as abruptly as it had begun. The black–clad witches looked more like startled women to Moira now, gazing up at them with a mixture of horror and awe.
For the space of several moments, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing.
“They have combined.” Justine’s announcement was pronounced with a flat, dead calm that sent chills racing over Moira’s scalp. “It cannot be undone. On our heads be it.” Justine’s head bowed as if burdened from above. The women around her rose to their feet and followed suit.
“What can’t be undone?” Tierra demanded.
Justine’s face was a twisted mask of fear and regret. “The end,” she said.
“The end of what?” Moira asked.
“Everything,” the voices spoke in unison.
Chapter Thirteen
“So the First Seal’s been opened, then?” Somehow the statement lacked its proper gravity when yawned in Julian’s perpetually-bored aristocratic dialect.
It was the kind of tone he adopted after having spent the entire day indoors in his smoking jacket, mooning over melancholic tomes in his library and exploring every possible iteration of the word angst.
“We don’t know that,” Nick answered. “You’ll remember how many false alarms we’ve had in the past.”
“10,873,” Julian drawled. “But who’s counting?”
Once again parked across the street from the house Moira shared with Tierra and their aunt, Nick watched a procession of black-cloaked figures file out of the house and into the night. “Speaking of counting, there are only two of them,” Nick pointed out. “The prophecy calls for four.”
“You say it like it’s a bloody recipe,” Julian sighed. “Crack four spawn of Satan into a large mixing bowl and beat until frothy or the Apocalypsedescends upon the earth.”
“I just don’t see any reason to do something hasty until we’re certain this time.”
“This coming from the man who single-handedly brought about the Siege of Tyre with one off-handed comment to Alexander the Great about the unconquerable city?”
“That wasn’t hasty. It was strategic.”
“Buying a woman a drink so you can bed her later is strategic. Tempting the Earth’s most notorious warmonger to tumble a city just because you’re reticent to share the appellation unconquerable is willful and impetuous.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Nick quipped. “Anyway, I would have done it myself, but I was occupied else—”
Agony robbed Nick of the capacity of for speech. He clawed at his back, certain it had been set aflame by some new devilry Moira and her earth witch sister had devised.
In his long years, he had been shot, stabbed, drowned, branded and even burned at the stake—an unfortunate afternoon of the Spanish Inquisition he just as soon as forget. And yet, never had he felt anything comparable to this.
It moved across the skin of his back, deliberately tracing a shape his mind couldn’t assemble through its haze of anguish.
The pain evaporated as quickly as it had arrived. Nick remained bent with his forehead pressed to the cool leather steering wheel.
“Well that was a ghastly aural assault,” Julian sighed. “Not the after effects of one of your curry benders, I hope?”
Nick looked behind him at the shape of a bow and notched arrow scorched into the Vette’s leather seat—a mirror image of the one now seared into his back. This would be an awkward conversation with the rental car company.
“The bow,” Nick whispered. “I have the bow.”
The sound of ice clinking in Julian’s glass reminded Nick how bone-weary and wrung out he was. Swimming back to shore had taken him the better part of an hour. Returning to the hotel to shower and change had cost him precious time he would have rather spent making Moira pay for leaving him high and dry.
Well, high anyway.
“In that case, it’s time for you to do what you do best.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Oh, but it is.” The ease with which Julian pronounced these words almost made Nick believe them. “Your water witch has set off a chain of events that will end human civilization. It’s only a matter of time before she discovers what she can do if she uses those powers for her own gain. When that happens, the Biblical plagues will look like a children’s fairy story.”
Nick’s own words ricocheted through his head. Thanks to him, she was well on her way. And for her first experiment, she had conquered conquest itself.
“You know what needs to happen, Nicholas,” Julian said. Silence stretched between them long enough for Nick to hear his own heart slow.
“Moira needs to die.”
Claire
by
Cindy Stark
Chapter One
“What the hell are you doing to me?”
Smoldering orange incense filled the bedroom with a sultry scent as the thick scattering of candles cast flickering shadows on the darkened walls. Sinclaire Brenton inhaled as her incredibly attractive lover ripped her panties from her body, leaving her bare to his gaze as she anticipated the sensual pleasures of the night ahead. His reputation as a notorious player didn’t deter her in the slightest.
He claimed her mouth with a possessiveness that sent a delicious thrill racing through her. Strong arms held her against him, his body a chiseled piece of granite that did everything for her physically, but would never touch her heart. He backed her until her thighs bumped the bed, and then he lifted her and tossed her onto the red silk sheets.
She savored his kisses, let him talk sweetly to her as he positioned himself to steal her love. He had no idea they would have ended up in her bedroom with half the drinks he’d bought her and only a third of the sexy flirtations.
She’d given him enough time to think he controlled this seduction. Enough time to settle between her legs and act as though she wasn’t another of his many conquests he’d use and discard when dawn broke over Bali the next morning.
Enough time for her power to begin to bend him to her will.
“Let’s do this my way,” Claire whispered into his ear.
He grinned and complied as she pushed against his massive shoulders and rolled them over. His body was beautiful. Young and strong, the best kind of lover. Tall with muscles earned by surfing the sparkling turquoise waters only feet outside her back door. His sun-kissed blond hair and brilliant blue eyes made him stand out like a red umbrella on a rainy day among the dark-haired, dark-skinned inhabitants of their island. His smile promised so much more than a one-night stand.
His smile lied.
He gripped her hips, his expression al
ready growing hazy. “Fuck me, Claire.”
“Shh…don’t talk. I promise this will be a night you’ll never forget.”
She leaned forward, her dark hair dropping like a final curtain around his head as she gave him her breast. Greedy lips tugged on her nipple, contracting muscles inside her. Dormant needs ignited like a fire stirred, reminding her of the delicious night they had in store. In his petty little mind, he believed he was the predator, but in the end, she’d walk away with his dark power.
She’d leave the goodness inside him for the next woman he loved and take the destructive need to own women and use them. He’d be a better man, and she’d feed that phantom pain inside her. If only for a while.
She pulled from him, her breasts tingling, begging for more as she positioned him at her entry.
Already his eyes failed to focus. But she didn’t need him to see her. Didn’t need to wonder any longer if a man could truly love her. She’d known for years now that would not be in the cards for her.
She encircled his hard length as it pulsed, begging for her to release him from the overwhelming ache he must be enduring by this point. The nameless dark desire she carried inside her burned her as well.
She inhaled as though it would be sometime before she could breathe again and impaled herself on him.
They both cried out in ecstasy.
Heated sensations overtook her, removing her from the cruel existence of her world. She danced in the flames of desire, taking from her lover a power that could fuel her for days. His passion filled her soul, igniting the orange ball of light that seemed to dim so easily.
She could sense her body, sense the friction his rock-hard shaft created inside her as her breasts bounced in the sultry heat of the night. But she was not with him in that tangled mass of silk. She’d moved beyond their atmosphere, flying toward the sun burning bright somewhere in the heavens.
A shifting of the earth beneath her physical body knocked her from flight, like the unexpected splash of a chilled ocean wave. A silent voice whispered to her, but she couldn’t make sense of the words through the haze and shock surrounding her.
The power she feasted on ceased, and she was sucked back to her room. An invisible hand extinguished all but one flickering candle, leaving the space much darker than before. Her lover still lay beneath her, his face contorted in extreme pleasure.
“Was that an earthquake?” she whispered, hoping for a logical explanation.
“Don’t stop,” he panted and moved beneath her.
A terrible fear whipped through her, leaving disbelief trailing behind. She’d lost the one-way current running between them. If she failed to use her ability to take, she’d surely die. If not from lack of strength, then certainly from loneliness.
He gripped her tighter. “Please.”
She started to move, unwilling to let her lover suffer as she did. There was nothing between them now, no exchange of power, at least not for her. Worse, everything she’d taken from him had vanished.
When her lover finished convulsing beneath her, she climbed from him, distraught that she’d been cheated when he’d found his release.
“I love you, Claire,” he said, staring at her as if she was a goddess.
“No, not me,” she said, the brief flash of expected pain ripping through her. This was always the hardest part, ignoring the look of devotion radiating from their faces. She’d believed it the first time she’d taken a man, and it had cost her precious love his mind.
She’d reacted by plowing her way through several men until she realized there was no man who could survive her love for long.
He stood and walked toward her, taking her by the shoulders. “But I need you. I want to make you as happy as you’ve made me.”
“Then leave whatever cash you have on the table by the door as you leave.” She’d decided a long time ago that it wasn’t wrong to ask for something in return. After all, she’d given him a new life. The least he could do was buy her dinner for a few days.
He dressed and paused by the door as he emptied his wallet. “Can I see you tomorrow?”
“We’ll see. Right now, you should go,” she said softly, knowing she could fall in love with the resurrected man gazing at her with adoration. “I know there’s someone who waits for you.”
There always was. If she made him leave now, he’d go on to have a happy life. He’d be the husband every woman craved.
She’d be alone again, looking for her next fix.
Except even that wasn’t a guarantee any longer.
The moment he left, she relit the candles, hoping to draw some warmth back into her empty soul. When that didn’t work, she placed kindling and logs in the fireplace she’d had installed and lit it. She curled on the black fuzzy rug in front of the hearth like she’d done many times before in an effort to be close to the one thing that made her feel alive.
The hypnotic fire popped and spit as it consumed wood, much like she consumed men.
The whispering came again then, as though it had circled around, intent on delivering its message. The words were foreign and yet as familiar as the haunted eyes reflected at her in the mirror every morning.
“Keeper of secrets, release what was taken,
Hear me now—answer in three
Return to me what has been forsaken,
By earth, air, fire, and sea…”
A lone shiver raced over her bare skin as realization dawned. She needed to return home.
Home.
A word that had been a foreign idea for as long as she could remember. There had been a time once when she’d had a home, had a mother. She could still remember her blond hair and the floral scent that had accompanied her soft touch. But Claire had ruined that when she’d grown angry at being forced to go to bed one night. She couldn’t have been more than three or four, but the scent of acrid smoke and the fear on her mother’s face remained burned in her memory as if it had been yesterday.
She shook the painful thoughts away as she stood and headed into her bedroom to pack. They didn’t matter. The woman hadn’t been her real mother anyway. After Claire had turned eighteen and escaped the years of cold foster homes, she’d searched for her true family. But it seemed no one could tell her anything. The mother she remembered hadn’t legally adopted her, so when she left Claire at a metropolitan supermarket, there had been no one to contact to pick her up. The authorities had wondered if she’d been kidnapped. If so, no one had stepped forward to claim her. Ever.
So she’d claimed herself. Damn it.
Now…now something somewhere called to her, compelling her to return. She didn’t doubt the validity of the summons. It spoke to part of her that no one else had ever understood, the part that spoke truth, even with the dark power always simmering beneath the surface.
She slipped into her orange silk wrapper before she lugged two large suitcases from the back of her closet. She’d pack the necessities, like her collection of rare and exotic daggers along with her well-worn copy of Pride and Prejudice. Anything else she couldn’t stuff into her suitcases, she’d pay movers to pack and ship to…
She paused as an image formed in her mind. Fishing boats on a little bay…lots of trees…old buildings and Victorian homes. Washington…the state, not DC.
Her home was somewhere in Washington?
She’d never been to the Pacific Northwest. But even as she considered the possibility, an affirmation struck in her heart, returning some of the energy she’d lost earlier.
She’d travel to Washington. Tomorrow. She’d catch the first available flight back to the states, any state, and she’d head out from there.
She had no idea who or what waited for her, but damn it, she was going home.
Chapter Two
The airline information screen above Dru Geadais’s head updated, indicating the plane from Bali via Tokyo had landed. He paused a moment to savor the spike in his pulse as he embarked on a new mission. So few things continued to bring him pleasure. Knowing h
e was on the brink of a new war happened to be one of them.
His phone buzzed, and he slipped it from his pocket. “She just landed,” he said as a way of greeting. “I’ll remove her from the premises and then eliminate the threat as planned.”
He’d informed Bane of his planned methods to prevent the end of days, and Death had agreed. Annihilate one necessary piece of the threat, and he would eliminate the whole. Much the way he’d cut off the head of a certain general back in the sixteen-hundreds and, in effect, decimated the entire army.
The battle looming on his current horizon, the one that justified his entire existence, was the most important one of all. He’d spent many lifetimes honing his body to be as powerful as the mystical sword he wielded. His time had come. Not that he cared for the whining, entitled people he encountered daily, but he was a man of honor, and he’d fulfill this commitment to protect their world or die trying.
“I could kill her for you. Death is my specialty,” Bane offered.
“No. This one is mine.” He’d relish completing his duty. “My sword will cut through any protective spells she’s wrought. I’ll succeed where Nick failed. When you hear from me again, our fears for the future of mankind will be extinct.”
“Good luck, then, friend.”
Dru pocketed his phone and set out to locate the luggage carousel where she’d arrive to claim her bags. He’d seen pictures of Moira, the witch Nick had failed to conquer. He would not make the same mistake with her sister.
Four born of one. If Gwen’s divinations were correct, the witch headed his way would open the Second Seal, his Seal, and he intended to stop her. No problem. The way he figured it, he only needed to eliminate one of the four to eradicate the prophecy outlining the end of time.
He’d concede Nick had no idea who he’d been dealing with when he’d met Moira. None of them realized their time had come and that Moira would be capable of breaking the First Seal. Still, once discovered, he would have killed her, put the mission before his own personal feelings instead of allowing her power over him to sway his actions.
Which Witch is Which? (The Witches of Port Townsend) Page 9
