Succession of Witches (The Familiar Series)

by Karen Mead

  Sammael put a hand on her shoulder and looked at her as though he was afraid he hadn’t heard her correctly. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying, if you’d like, I would be willing to go back to the Realm with you for some length of time—see what you’ve done with my room, and so on. I’m not ungrateful for the fact that you came to me without hesitation after so long, or that you gave our son such a lovely gift on my behalf, you know.”

  Sammael broke out into a grin. “Finally! Why didn’t you say so!”

  “Of course, for the record, you should have given it to him MUCH sooner—”

  “Say no more, let’s get going right away!” he said, picking her up into his arms in a smooth motion.

  “Helen? Father?” said Sam in a weak voice. The sight of him shocked Cassie; he was looking up at them with a lost expression, like a scared little boy. She’d never seen him look so vulnerable, even when Quentin was draining his blood.

  “You’re not an infant anymore boy, it’s time to stop coddling you. Kill your enemies yourself and stop leaning on your mother,” said Sammael, stroking Helen’s thigh. Cassie blushed and looked away. “Also, tip: your blood belongs inside your body.”

  “Clean this up quickly Sam, I don’t want any more damage to the house. Take it outside,” said Helen matter-of-factly.

  “Helen, please—Mom!” Sam called, and Cassie’s heart broke for him just a little bit. In the blink of an eye, Sammael and Helen were gone. For some reason (and Cassie was never sure why she was aware of this or even cared), she was pretty sure Sammael had also taken the pizza.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  After the dramatic exit of Sam’s parents, there was a moment of confusion while everyone dealt with the (very literal) power vacuum in the room. Dylan had somehow slipped out while Sammael and Helen were arguing, and as soon as the pair vanished, the spell was lifted and all the demons collapsed in relief. Lawrence took in great gasps of air through his mouth, which had reappeared, fortunately for him.

  Quentin recovered his composure first and staggered to his feet. He turned to Sam, who was still tied up with cursed rope. “Jesus, those are your parents? No wonder you’re a mess.”

  “You have no idea,” said Sam, and then he was gone. Cassie blinked; where he had been sitting, there was only a tangle of rope. He had used his new ability to transport himself to the Realm immediately.

  “Dammit!” Quentin yelled, then pulled Cassie up by her hair and pulled her towards him; she yelped in pain, and he put his hand over her mouth. “You know I won’t kill her, but I can do plenty of other things! If you care about her at all, you’ll come back right now!”

  Despite being fought over by demons quite a bit, being manhandled was actually a fairly new experience for her. She struggled reflexively, and he pulled her into his body, throwing one arm across her chest and getting a grip on her breast. Cassie felt nauseous; she missed her protection amulet badly. He squeezed her tighter and she screamed.

  “Hey, cut that out, that’s uncalled for,” said Bennet; he was still tied up, presumably because his ropes were also cursed and Dylan hadn’t been able to cut through them.

  “I suppose you want me to report this to the court as well, Mr. Rhodes?” said Serenus, looking pale and more than a little disgusted. He was crumpled next to the bed, as though he hadn’t recovered from Helen’s spell yet.

  “Shut up!” Quentin snarled.

  Cassie began breathing in short, shallow gasps, but then the sound of Sam’s voice in her head soothed her.

  Tell these animals that I am simply following my mother’s advice and taking the fighting out of the house. If they want me, I’m in the backyard.

  “He’s outside,” said Cassie breathlessly. “He wants to fight you outside.”

  “Is that true?” asked Quentin, spinning her around to look at her face. “Or are you just telling a lie to manipulate me? You like that, don’t you?” Cassie had to look away; his breath smelled like poison, but it was probably from the amount of Sam’s blood that he had drunk.

  “Why would I lie about it?” Cassie screamed. “I’m just telling you what he told me in my head!”

  Seemingly satisfied with that, Quentin released her, and she fell back into Serenus’ arms.

  “Let’s go kill that son of a bitch—and in this case, he really is a son of a bitch,” Quentin snarled.

  “I don’t like this Q,” said Lawrence, still holding the skin around his mouth as though it hurt. “This has gone completely off the rails. Let’s cut our losses and go.”

  “I agree,” said the third demon, quiet up until now.

  “Are you both complete idiots?” Quentin snapped. “We have to take care of him now, while he’s injured, it’s three-on-one and we have these barriers! If we let him live, he’ll heal up and come after us separately.”

  “You’re right, we have to finish what we started,” said the third demon, rubbing his chin. “We have him on the ropes now. I’m renegotiating, I want the entire city of Sterling to be added to my territory after he’s dead.”

  “Whatever, I don’t care!” Quentin yelled. “One thing first though: Bikanos!” He turned and pointed at Bennet, whose eyes widened in surprise, then blood started to pour out of his mouth.

  Cassie gasped; Quentin had performed a killing curse on Bennet, she could sense it. She tried to cross the room to go to him, but Serenus held her back.

  “You can’t,” he whispered in her ear.

  Quentin grinned at Bennet. “I was going to leave you alive for the sake of avoiding another legal problem, but to hell with it, I don’t care anymore. Now you can die for stabbing me in the back.”

  Bennet made a gurgling noise and fell over on his side, while the three demons left the room. “Cassie, Examiner: if you know what’s good for you, don’t leave. I’ll be in a bad mood if I have to hunt you down,” Quentin called over his shoulder. Then they were gone.

  Cassie ran to Bennet’s side; she had no way of knowing exactly what the curse had done to him, but if it was anything like Sam’s killing curse from last year, maybe she could still stop it. She took a deep breath; she had parlayed a death sentence before, why not again?

  “Cassandra, don’t,” said Serenus quietly. “You can’t save him, it’s too late.”

  “How do you know!” she snapped, then put her hands on the side of Bennet’s head. Before she could reach for her magic though, hands reached around her waist and removed her from Bennet’s side.

  “We really have to do something about this disturbing Stockholm Syndrome of yours,” said Sam, depositing her on the bed.

  “Sam!” she cried. “They’re outside, looking for you.”

  “I know, and I’ll be out to deal with them in a second,” he said, kneeling at Bennet’s side; he was wearing a fresh shirt, and he looked uninjured.

  “It’s only been about two minutes for us. How long was it for you?” asked Serenus.

  Sam shook his head, then put his hand on Bennet’s forehead. “No idea; time is different there. I’ve had time to heal up though, and I know some things.” He murmured something Cassie couldn’t hear, then in a quick, strange motion, all the blood that Bennet had coughed up reversed direction, and he jerked awake with a start.

  “What is—? How—?” Bennet stuttered between gasps.

  “You just brought him back from the dead,” said Serenus quietly.

  “No, just a local time reversal,” said Sam, standing up. He pointed at Bennet’s ropes, moved his lips and they disintegrated.

  “In effect it’s the same thing,” said Serenus.

  Bennet was looking up at Sam, his brown eyes so wide she could see the whites all the way around his irises. Cassie couldn’t tell if he was staring at him with terror, joy or a lot of both.

  “Don’t thank me, as far as I’m concerned we’re even now,” said Sam. He turned to Cassie. “I need a barrier if I’m going to fight them.”

  “Right. Here,” she said, reaching out her arm t
o him. He looked at her hand for a moment, then returned his gaze to her face.

  “Maybe I’ve been gone longer than I thought,” he said, and before she knew what was happening, he had pulled her close and was kissing her. Heat rushed to her face and she could hear her heart hammering in her chest, but she also felt the warmth leaving her body as he tapped into her magic; it was a strange, hot-yet-cold sensation that reminded her of being in the Realm, only instead of being acutely painful, it felt like something much, much more gentle. He put his hands on her back softly, so different from the way Quentin had grabbed her before, then she shivered and he was gone again.

  Cassie collapsed on the floor, feeling like all her nerves were vibrating. When she closed her eyes, fireworks seemed to be going off inside her eyelids. It was several moments before she could think properly again.

  Was that really just a kiss? Or did something happen?

  When she’d gotten her breath back, she stood, and took in the room. Serenus and Bennet looked exhausted, Miri was still passed out on the dresser, and Aeka, bless her, was still unconscious on the floor. The girl had slept through the entire thing.

  “I’m going outside,” she said, turning to Serenus. “I can’t just sit here and wait while he’s fighting for his life.” They all heard a booming noise coming from outside, felt the vibrations in the floorboards, and knew the fight had begun.

  “I’m coming with you,” said Bennet, struggling to his feet.

  “You don’t owe him anything,” said Serenus, eyeing Bennet warily.

  “Serenus!” Cassie cried, surprised at him.

  He ignored her. “You’ve more than made up for your crime, and you’ve already died once tonight. You might not come back a second time.”

  “I know,” said Bennet, stretching. He moved his lips and a barrier flashed to life around him; he must have tapped into a familiar before coming to them. “But I understand what the prophecy means now, and I know what side I’m on. If I have to be just a footnote in history, I want to be on the winning side, at least.”

  “Let’s go!” said Cassie, grabbing Bennet’s arm.

  “I can’t go with you,” said Serenus. He looked ashen, as though he had grown ten years older over the course of the evening.

  “I know, Ser. Just say safe, and take care of Aeka when she wakes up. If she wakes up,” she said, then ran out the door with Bennet hot on her heels.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Sam ran for cover behind a tree, grimacing as a curse whizzed past his ear and set another shrub aflame. If Quentin didn’t stop tagging his spells with heat, they were going to have a brushfire to deal with soon.

  He popped out from behind cover, sent two quick curses in his assailants’ direction, then moved deeper into the vegetation, heading for the saltmarsh. If he could just chip away at their barriers long enough, he might be able to get a curse to hit home. Furthermore, the terrain of the marsh favored him; he would lose the cover of the trees, but his opponents would probably be out of their depth in the marshlands, where the mud came up to your knees and the plants seemed to be trying to choke you.

  There were only two of them now: the third one, Lawrence, seemed to have peeled off at some point. Quentin and his companion yelled threats and hurled curses wherever they thought he might be; he was fast enough that it was hard for them to get a bead on him. He had also managed to summon some mist, something he had never previously been able to manage, but his most recent trip to the Realm had been very educational. If they knew he was leading them deeper into nature, toward the marsh and the barrier islands of the Outer Banks, there was nothing they could do about it.

  During the summer, there would be the danger of running into birdwatchers, fisherman or hikers, but on a frigid night in the dead of winter, there was little chance of running into anyone. Sam supposed he should be grateful for small favors.

  “Give it up!” Quentin bellowed as they entered the maze of cordgrass and mud that marked the beginning of the salt marsh. “This is pointless, Sam! You can’t keep running forever, and we have a lot more protection than you do!”

  “Those barriers of yours won’t last forever,” Sam called back, careful to mask the direction his voice was coming from with currents of air. It was something he would never have been able to do if he hadn’t just tapped into Cassie’s magic minutes ago. “All I have to do is keep hitting you until they’re gone.”

  Quentin stopped on the muddy banks of the pond where Helen had summoned the Leviathan, and hurled a curse, seemingly at random. Another clump of cordgrass burst into flame. He was getting tired, sloppy: Good.

  “That will take longer than you can hold out!” he responded. He grimaced as three lightning-quick curses were absorbed by his barrier with flashes of black light, then ran back behind cover.

  “You think so?” Sam called back. “Do you know where we are, by the way?”

  “In the middle of goddamn nowhere, that’s where,” Quentin snapped.

  Sam knelt behind the rushes, slowly inching around to where he could see the pair behind the tree they were hiding behind and hopefully, get an easy shot. He felt the mud soak in to his pants around the knees, but he found he didn’t mind. He felt strangely invigorated; it reminded him of playing in the reeds as a child. Back when he still had friends to play with. They were close enough to the sea now that he could hear it.

  “The currents around here are especially treacherous,” he said, still masking his voice. “Years ago, ships used to sink here all the time. That’s why they call this the Graveyard of the Atlantic.”

  There was a pause as Quentin processed that. “So what?”

  “So many souls here are ripe for the taking, even now. People that died violently before their time, just pools of energy to be exploited. You picked a fight with a death channeler in a cemetery, Quentin.”

  “You’re bluffing. You can’t use that,” Quentin called back, but his voice was wavering a little; he was afraid. Fear might make him do something stupid.

  “More importantly, this is where I grew up,” said Sam, finally finding a good angle on the demons hundreds of feet away through an opening in the rows of cordgrass. “This is my playground.”

  With that, he let loose a flurry of curses. Though the barriers still absorbed them, Quentin screamed and aimed a curse in Sam’s general direction, which he dodged easily. The two peeled off from the tree on the edge of the marsh and disappeared into the mist.

  Great, thought Sam. Now if only I can keep this up for another half an hour, maybe I have a chance of winning.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Cassie hunched over and paused to catch her breath. They were deep into the marsh, and though she could hear curses striking barriers, she still wasn’t sure exactly where the fight was. They seemed to be in an endless maze of cordgrass; a surreal mist, which made it hard to see more than three feet in front of your face, really wasn’t helping. She was pretty sure it was Sam’s doing, which made it worse.

  “Can you sense where they are?” she asked Bennet, who was also panting next to her. Despite his impressive physique, he didn’t seem to be used to running.

  “No, there’s so much magic everywhere by now I can’t sense anything. They’ve been casting spells like there’s no tomorrow,” he said between gasps.

  “There might not be,” she muttered, then pulled herself up to her full height, as unimpressive as that was. Bennet had cast a barrier on her, so she had some protection; not enough that she could afford to soak up abuse, but hopefully enough that a stray curse wouldn’t kill her.

  “This sucks, how can I help him if I can’t find him?” she murmured and closed her eyes.

  Where are you? she thought.

  Stay back. Stop trying to find me, he replied, and she groaned; it was an absolute command. Now it was impossible for her to go any further.

  “What’s wrong?” Bennet asked, putting a hand on her shoulder.

  “He just commanded me to stop looking for him.”
<
br />   “Hmmph. Well, he can’t command me,” Bennet said, and moved past her, cordgrass tickling his waist as he did so. “Go back to the house, I’ll catch up with Sam and—“

  He was cut off by the sound of Cassie screaming; someone had snuck up behind her, absorbed her barrier into their own and grabbed her, clenching one of her breasts. Again.

  She gritted her teeth against the pain. What the hell is with today? Is it Grab Cassie’s Boobs Day or something? This sucks.

  “You are quite the screamer,” her assailant said.

  “Lawrence?” Cassie guessed.

  Bennet was pointing at the man behind her, looking grave. “Let her go.”

  “Or what? You’ll kill me?” Lawrence laughed, a coarse sound like sandpaper rubbing together. “Go ahead, try. Maybe Sam has a chance of punching through this barrier, but you, Son of Belial, do not. You couldn’t punch your way out of a paper bag.”

  Bennet tensed. “That’s not true; I’m stronger than you think,” he said softly. “You abandoned your friends?”

  Cassie could feel Lawrence shrug behind her. “It’s a shame, but better them than me. Rather than take my chances with Quentin, I’m going to cut my losses and take this one with me. I’ll sell her to the highest bidder.”

  Bennet grimaced. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I suspect you’re one of my bidders,” Lawrence continued. “What do you think? You and I make this deal now, you snag her for much cheaper than on the open market, and we let Sam and Quentin kill each other.”

  There was a crackling noise as another tree burst into flame. There was a flash of light, illuminating Bennet’s brown eyes with a red glow for a fraction of a second. “I don’t buy or sell people, Lawrence. And you’re not leaving with her.”