Cam glanced at Jason, then lowered her powerful eyes. She could turn them on Sersee again, of course, stun and stop the arrogant witch in her tracks. And then run for it. Epie was too freaked to stop her.
Again, there was Jason to consider. She couldn’t lug him along. Maybe he’d come out of the spell soon, able to help her? She snuck another peek at him. He slumped, transfixed, against the wall, tears streaming from his stinging eyes, smoke wreathing his black hair. He couldn’t even help himself.
Sersee gloated, “Your prince isn’t going to rescue you. He’s just not himself these days.”
Cam growled, “You got what you wanted. Me. Let him go. Whatever you did to him, undo it.”
“Don’t you even want to know what I did? I’ll tell you anyway! It’s a little spell I’ve perfected. I like to call it Robot boyfriend. Composed of all-natural parts — this I assure you,” she said with a wink. “He walks, he talks, he chews gum, and best of all, he obeys completely and without question. It’s a handy tool, really.”
“What part of undo it didn’t you understand?” Cam growled.
Sersee put her finger to her chin, pretending to consider the demand. “Oh, what the heck. I’ll do it, if only to impress you.”
Cam almost exhaled. With Jason on her side, the real Jason, even for a few minutes …
“Oh, no, no, no,” Sersee scoffed. Taking a sparkling substance from the herb pouch inside her robe, she tossed it at Jason. “I didn’t say I’d give you back your boring old boyfriend. There’d be nothing exciting about that. I merely meant I’d return him to the form you saw him in last.” She glared at Cam, waiting for her words to sink in. “Hint, hint,” she snapped impatiently, brushing the glitter from her hands. “He’ll be a real pussycat.”
Cam’s heart seized. Sersee had done the unthinkable.
Shimmering specks began to sink into Jason’s skin. Where they’d landed, dark spots appeared.
“Ooo, I love this part.” Epie momentarily forgot her own pain in favor of witnessing someone else’s.
At Sersee’s command, Jason fell to the floor, bellowing in anguish. Cam gasped in horror as his long arms and legs began to shorten, tighten into animal quarters, and the dark blotches on his skin spread, turning into sleek, black fur.
“No!” Cam shrieked.
Jason, writhing on his back, his legs jerking, his feet transforming into sharp-clawed paws, stretched his now thick and gleaming black neck to look at her. For a split second, his eyes locked with hers. “Run!” he roared. Then his cry became a terrified, searing animal scream.
Cam leaped to her feet and tried to lunge at Sersee, but Epie, boiling mad about her burned hand, and probably twice her weight, pushed her back and held her down. Cam felt the heat still coming off the angry girl’s palm.
And off Jason’s body. He was on the other side of the cavern but his glossy coat was foaming with sweat, his mouth frothing as he snarled and snapped at her.
Jason was a panther now. Completely altered, he paced back and forth before Sersee — waiting, Cam felt sure, for the heartless witch’s orders.
“You’re torturing him!” Cam tried rushing at Sersee again, but Epie had her pinned. Don’t freak! It was Alex’s voice — but not via T-mail. Think!
“He never did anything to you. Why are you doing this?” Cam sounded desperate and she knew it.
Sersee gloated, “You’re good at quizzes, or so I hear. Try this one. It’s multiple choice: A) Because I can. B) Because I don’t like you. C) Because you need to learn a lesson. D) All of the above.”
She snapped her fingers and Epie retrieved a studded collar and fastened it around the panther’s neck. Shocked and sickened, Cam noticed something she’d missed before. The round orange tag hanging from the collar? Jason’s basketball charm.
The charm she’d given him. The sight of it turned Cam’s fear to fury. She spat. “Here’s my answer. E) None of the above. I don’t care why you did this. But you will pay for this.”
“How new,” Sersee snarled. “Like I haven’t heard that before!” The thin witch leaned over to stroke the panther’s head.
Cam narrowed her eyes and focused them hard on Epie.
Not fast enough. Sersee jerked up, grabbed Epie by the shoulders, and whirled her around so her back was to Cam. “Can’t stun her if she’s not looking at you,” Sersee reminded Cam. Averting her own violet eyes, she taunted, “You haven’t even heard my plan.” She licked her lips. “It’s just so … yummy, so tasty, so … romantic. In a twisted sort of way.”
“Undo the spell!” Cam tried to sound commanding.
“Too late to reverse the curse this time. Why, what’s wrong, Lady DuBaer? You fancy the boy, right?” She slipped a chain around the panther’s neck and yanked at it harshly. The animal crouched, its tail switching tensely. “I’ve found a way for you to be together forever.” Sersee reached into her herb pouch again. “Cam and Jason. Together forever. Part of each other, even.”
Cam saw bits of the sparkling confetti drifting from Sersee’s hand.
“What’s she going to be?” Epie wanted to know. “A frog? A snake? Something slimy and ugly, right?”
“Epie, you’ve let the cat out of the bag.” Sersee smirked. “Or, rather, the rat. Rodents,” she told Cam, “are tasty tidbits for hungry panthers. And your pet pal is starving.”
“Sersee wouldn’t let us feed him,” Epie explained.
Cam got it. Hit by another wave of nausea, she began to shiver.
“Perfect,” Sersee announced. “You’re already quivering and quaking like a rat in a trap, and I haven’t even recited the spell yet.”
“Why do you hate me so much?” Cam asked, frantically hoping to buy time.
“Let me count the ways … and whys,” Sersee snickered. “You’re a DuBaer, born rich and gifted to one of Coventry’s ruling families. While I, who will one day rule this island, will have to scheme and fight for it. Everything’s been handed to you. And yet you tried to take something away from me —”
Shane, Cam thought.
“Yes, Shane — who has taught me much of the forbidden magick your uncle taught him. Valuable information, to be sure. Why, the transmutation spell alone, the ability to transform a human being into … well, pretty much whatever I want it to be, has given me hours and hours of fun.”
The vile witch yanked on Jason’s collar, and the big cat groaned in pain.
“And just so we’re clear,” she continued, “know this before you cease to exist. Shane has been playing you. He’s not attracted to you, never was. It was all to gain your trust.”
“Oh, really?” Cam tore her eyes from the suffering panther. Sersee had accidentally wandered onto her turf. Boys. Cam knew how to fight this battle. She took her shot. “I don’t think so. Maybe he taught you to read other people’s minds, but he hasn’t entrusted his own thoughts to you.”
“How would you know?” Sersee fumed. “You can’t read anyone’s mind!”
“Alex can. Which makes me privy to everything your boy-toy is thinking. Which is … he doesn’t care about you, Sersee. You’re the flavor of the month, a handy toy who helped him when he needed it. He won’t be around for long. You’re not his equal, you don’t have his gifts, and you never will.”
“Enough!” Enraged, Sersee flung a handful of glittering herbs at Cam. “Say adiós, Apolla,” she mocked.
Narrowing her violet eyes, focusing them on Cam, she began to recite: “Dark magick that poisons the night —”
Cam tried to break in with the reverse: “Good magick that sweetens the night —” she murmured, desperately trying to halt the curse and reverse the spell.
Epie heard her and raced over to clamp a steamy hand over Cam’s mouth as Sersee hurried on: “Dark clouds that cover the light, take this creature as I command. Turn her into a rat, at this hour —”
Startled by Epie’s hand and Sersee’s terrifying words, Cam lagged behind. Sun that heals us with the light, she stammered silently.
But it was too late. Sersee was finishing up: “A rodent the panther will quickly devour!”
Pain engulfed Cam. Searing, intense. She tried to scream but every muscle in her body, including her throat, tightened, twisting in agony. Her head was shrinking, her face contracting, her belly crumpling in on itself, her legs and arms shriveling as she became smaller and smaller …
With her last ounce of human strength, Cam cried out, “Alex! Help! Ileana! Miranda! I’m —”
The rope that bound her fell away and she tumbled to the wet cave floor. She landed, not on her hands and knees, but on paws. Tiny, scrabbling rodent paws.
“Perfect!” Sersee clapped her hands. “I couldn’t have chosen a better rodent to tempt a cat. You’re a hamster, Apolla — or should I say, a Camster!” She scooped Cam up and brought her over to Jason’s snout. Cam tried to speak but could only emit a pitiful squeaking sound.
Sersee was in her glory. “Jason the panther, meet Cam the hamster. No! Jason the panther, eat Cam the hamster.”
Instinctively, the panther began to drool and snarl. Cam felt his slobber soak her head, drenching a patch of her short, red hamster pelt. Then she was snatched away just as Jason’s jaws snapped shut.
Long, sharp fingernails held her. “You’ll have to excuse your panther pal’s impatience. He hasn’t been fed in two days. And where’s the fun in watching him slurp down such a teeny, tender morsel?” Sersee asked. “Even if the outcome is a done deal, let’s at least make the game challenging.”
Although she didn’t know if it would come out in English or squealing Hamster-ese, Cam sent one more frantic SOS to Alex, Miranda, and Ileana.
“They can’t help you, my little pet, eyes so tiny, red, and scared.” Sersee flung her onto the floor. “Miranda and Ileana are powerless. And Alex? Well, normally, I don’t gossip, but the scuttlebutt is she’s roaming the island. Who knows where she’s got to …”
“I do,” a voice from down the tunnel announced.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
It was Michaelina.
Her little hamster heart sinking, Cam dashed across the cold, stone floor, searching for a safe hiding place — and noted that Michaelina was not herself exactly. For one thing, she seemed jittery, and, for another, she was draped in someone else’s cape. This one, a vivid burgundy, was way too big for the shortest witch. She looked like she was wearing her daddy’s —
Cam didn’t finish the thought. She didn’t have to. From her vantage point as a lowly rodent, she’d caught sight of something Sersee and Epie could not have seen. Bounding from the floor onto the bench and from there scrabbling into a hamster-sized cranny in the cave wall where Jason couldn’t get to her, she watched.
Knowing exactly what was going to happen.
And what she needed to do.
Epie clapped gleefully. “Michaelina!” she called out. “Hurry. You’ve got to see this. Look what Sers and I did!” At Sersee’s glare, she amended, “I mean, Sersee did. But I helped.”
Michaelina was still in the shadows. Sersee squinted, tilting her head as if she were trying to figure out why her little lieutenant seemed so nervous and why she was moving so oddly. “How lovely of you to join us,” she finally said. “Now haul tush, Mike. We should all be together for this. I’ve eliminated the problem princess.”
As Michaelina stepped out of the shadows and drew nearer, Cam sprang from her hiding place and took a flying leap.
“Arghh! Get it off me! Eeek!”
Eeek? Epie had actually screamed “Eeek”? Cam laughed out loud. Which came out in a high-pitched chatter that sounded as though she’d sucked helium. To create a distraction, she scurried up the chunky girl’s leg, bounced onto her fleshy, flailing arms, then ran in dizzying circles around her neck, digging in her tiny claws at every op.
Frantically, Epie tried beating her away, but the sluggish witch was no match for the hasty hamster. Making it worse, the snarling panther was now crouched at Epie’s feet, eyeing her hungrily.
Just as she was Cam, though shrunken and fluffy with fur, Jason was probably still himself somewhere under that sleek ebony hide, Cam realized.
Epie’s full-volume panic got neither help nor sympathy from Sersee. The formerly fearless Fury was having an “eeek” moment of her own. Michaelina had come out of the shadows. She wasn’t alone.
“Company’s here!” Alex quipped, emerging from beneath the lush velvet cloak she’d found at LunaSoleil. Aron’s cape was more than big enough to cover Michaelina and herself. Back around her neck was the baby quilt Miranda had sewn for her.
Sersee was visibly shaken and momentarily speechless.
“Your thoughts are wildly scrambled, so this is just a guess,” Alex continued. “But you seem a little edgy. Could it be because Cam and I are together now?”
“Together — in a manner of … well, squeaking,” Sersee retorted, composing herself. She pointed to the hamster perched on Epie’s shoulder. “Honey, I shrunk the witch.”
Alex stared openmouthed at … Cam? She didn’t know whether to laugh — or cry. Then the furry little redhead hanging onto Epie by a claw sent a clear message:
One joke, Cam threatened, and you’re birdseed.
“You turned her into a small plump creature, perfect prey for a panther.” This from Michaelina, fascinated and impressed.
Sersee glared at her. “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. I’ll assume you wouldn’t dare betray me, that you allowed yourself to be ‘used’ by Punk DuBaer only to bring her here, as you should have.”
Before Michaelina could respond, Sersee commanded, “Now, snatch the moon charm from around her neck. She won’t be needing it.”
Michaelina made no move toward Alex.
“Now!” Sersee demanded. “Do it.”
Alex folded her arms, confident. “Not so fast, Captain Flash. Your little lackey is under a truth-telling spell. She won’t jump when you snap your talons. She’ll say and do only what she truly wants to. She told me everything.”
“You think?” Sersee shot back, her eyebrows arching dramatically. “Excellent. Then the truth will out, won’t it?”
“Watch out! You’ll get burned!” Epie shouted a warning. Too late. Michaelina dashed behind Alex and, with one hard, swift pull, yanked off her necklace. The moon charm hit the ground clinking.
Alex whirled on her. “How could you do that?”
The green-eyed witch shrugged. “She told me to. My truth is simple. And flexible. I’m on one side only. Mine.”
Alex felt blindsided, betrayed, bummed. Naïve was so not her style. How could Michaelina have played her so slickly that she’d never sensed it?
Sersee snapped orders. “Michaelina, quick! Get the rope and tie her hands behind her back.” In one fluid motion, she spun and knocked Cam off Epie’s shoulder. “Help her. I need to soak up this moment — before I kill them both.”
Keep her talking! I have an idea. The wind knocked out of her, Cam hit the ground scampering and sent a message to Alex, hoping no one would bother to eavesdrop. Just bait her, Cam continued urgently, still unsure if her thoughts were coming out in English or Hamster-ese.
English, Alex sent back, then turned and taunted her would-be captor. “Now that you’ve got me, Skeletor, what are you going to do, frizz my hair?” When Epie and Michaelina giggled, Sersee wheeled on them, silencing them with a glare.
No one noticed Cam skid around behind Alex.
Sersee snorted, “What was that, cactus-head? No, I had a rattier idea. Jason here” — she pointed to the panther, who’d followed Cam’s scent and was approaching Alex — “oh, by the way, just so you’re clear, I didn’t name him Jason. That’s the name he came with.”
Alex’s jaw dropped. Michaelina hadn’t mentioned that. But then Alex hadn’t thought to ask her.
Sersee continued, “Panthers have greedy appetites. Well, who wouldn’t after being starved for two days. He deserves a double delicious snack. Besides, how cut
e would twin hamsters be? Like a Double Whopper?”
Alex felt something tickle the back of her calf, race up her leg, and perch on her arm. Cam.
The panther was now staring up at them, drooling. Keeping a cautious eye on him, Alex blurted, “Watch out, Sersee, there are ferocious spirits in these caves. DuBaer spirits. Our grandfather died here.”
The tall, bony witch gloated. “How fitting. We’ll just continue the ritual — make dying in these caves a DuBaer tradition! I’ll be rid of you forever. The DuBaer do-right twins will never grow to their most bountiful goodness. Pity.”
“How could they do that anyway, Sers?” Epie asked, as if she’d just thought of it. “We’re unstoppable, isn’t that what Furies are?”
“As long we keep our society secret,” Michaelina reminded her. “And no one exposes us until we’re ready.”
Alex was momentarily distracted by a scratchy sound and something tugging at her rope handcuffs. Correction: gnawing on them. There’d been a hamster in her classroom in elementary school. She’d fed it one day and had gotten bitten. The creatures did have sharp teeth and a fierce bite — sharp and fierce enough to gnaw through rope? Quickly? Alex went with a wild thought. “Does my uncle know about your little secret society?”
“Lord Thantos? Not yet,” Sersee said. “But when he realizes all I’ve done and how puny his nieces’ magick is compared to mine, I think he’ll take a very special interest in it. In me, in particular. None of them, not one thought I was good enough —”
“Good enough for what?” Alex asked, hoping she could keep the dangerous witch talking, or bragging, until … What was taking Cam so long?
“Good enough to be a fledgling, you moron!” Sersee kicked the growling panther away and stomped over to Alex. “To be among the chosen that Karsh anointed each year, to be tutored by the most esteemed Elder on Coventry. Each year, the old fool passed me over. Nor did Lord Thantos regard me as especially talented. He, too, ignored my requests to learn at the hand of a master.”
Finally! Alex felt the rope give. She slipped one hand out and, while Sersee continued her rant, reached into her back pocket and gripped the spool of gold chain. Stepping forward, she got in Sersee’s face. “Lord Karsh was right about you. You’re not smart enough. You’re not good enough. You’re not even good at being bad. That’s why Thantos didn’t want you —”
T*Witches: Kindred Spirits Page 13
