Cam blinked — instantly, she could see, as clearly and crisply as ever.
With a whoosh, Sersee’s bloated body deflated.
“Bonus,” Alex explained to Sersee. To Cam, she sent a silent plea: Come on. We’ve got to get to LunaSoleil. Miranda and Ileana are in trouble!
“Yes.” Thantos easily intercepted the message. “Do hurry. You’re urgently needed elsewhere!”
“Did I thank you for giving me so many extraordinary powers for my mission?” Sersee mumbled at Thantos. “Allow me to demonstrate some of them — on you!”
Instantly, the tracker seized Shane and wrapped a thick arm around the startled boy’s waist. He held his flunky in front of him like a shield, while Sersee — hands extended, ready to strike — tried to clear her head.
“They’re not at LunaSoleil,” Cam told her sister. “They’re here. But Ileana’s been blinded and he paralyzed Miranda —”
“Epie!” Shane shouted. Thantos’s arm tightened against his ribs, knocking the wind out of him and cutting off anything else he might have said.
But Michaelina took up where Shane had left off. “Sers,” she cried, pointing. “It’s Epie!”
Thantos flashed a dangerous look Michaelina’s way — then turned back to Sersee. “I should be insulted,” he told her, his face distorted with barely contained rage, “that you would try such a weary trick on me. Your former associate would not dare show her face here after failing me so miserably! I’m disappointed at your lack of imagination!”
Sersee thrust her hands forward. Her fingers were slim again but every bit as competent as they’d been in Salem Woods. “You are so toast!” she shouted as fire flew from her hands. Still gripping his hostage, Thantos sidestepped the blaze, while Shane tried desperately to wriggle out of Sersee’s way. The blazing bolt missed him, but random sparks scorched his shirt — revealing the horseshoe pendant underneath. Sersee laughed gleefully and aimed her fiery eyes at the charm. It spun rapidly, tightening the chain around Shane’s neck. When it stopped, the horseshoe hung upside down — a sign of bad fortune.
“There! It’s turned,” Sersee gloated. “And so has your luck! Get out of my way, you two-faced fool, before I fry both your faces.” The rabid witch screamed at Shane, “I’ll deal with you later. Now it’s the great Lord Liar’s turn.”
Thantos shoved Shane out of the way. “Take your best shot, impudent guttersnipe!” he railed at Sersee.
Sersee shoved her hands forward, her palms facing his heart. A great tongue of fire leaped forward.
With a seemingly effortless exhalation, Thantos blew it back, sent it curling in on the witch. It licked at the hood of her cloak and set her raven hair aflame, filling the room with a crackling sulfur stench.
The tracker’s victorious smile faded as Epie rushed to her old colleague and, tossing her own cape over Sersee’s head, smothered the blaze.
“You!” Thantos cried. With a glowering glance, he flattened the girl. Epie crumpled to the floor. The cloak — which had completed its task — flew up from her arms, then drifted down over her.
“She’s not alone!” Mike had found her voice again.
Ileana, still blinded, was standing unsteadily before the low hatch to the underground chamber. Alex and Cam had never seen her so vulnerable before. They ran to her but before they could recite the incantation that had reversed Cam’s blindness, Ileana put her hands on Cam’s shoulder and urged, “Use the coin. Now! The DuBaer medallion!”
“Where’s Miranda?” Alex asked their guardian as Cam searched her pockets for the gold disk inscribed with the crowned bear.
“Your mother is in the caves below.”
“I’m going to get her,” Alex declared as Cam fished frantically for the coin. Had she left it in Aron’s room? What had she been wearing the morning Ileana slipped her the medallion?
“No.” Ileana laid a hand on Alex’s shoulder. “She can’t move, but her mind and sight and ability to communicate telepathically are whole. She is safe for now —”
Thantos reached into his herb pouch and pulled out a handful of fragrant dried leaves.
“Watch out!” Michaelina hollered. She’d been standing between Ileana and Thantos. Now she ducked desperately.
Sersee, who had been taunting Shane, keeping him on his knees by hurling fire at him, looked up.
“Camryn,” the tracker boomed, hiding the herbs in his fist, “you have one final chance. I offer it for the sake of the woman I love —”
“Excuse me?” Ileana was flabbergasted. “Would that be the same woman you turned into stone?”
As always, her father ignored her. “Trust me, Cam,” he continued, “and become my ally —”
Cam was so bowled over by the man’s gall, she almost lost it. “Your ally? Trust you? Let me think about this. …” She took a deep breath. It was crucial to stay calm, keep her voice level, critical to keep her opponent off balance. “On the one hand, you did promise that if I helped you, we could be the most powerful family Coventry had ever seen. You, Miranda, and me, just the three of us.”
Stunned, Alex swung her head between her sister — “He did?” — and her uncle. “You did?”
“Well, yeah.” Cam had walked up to her uncle, nearly got in Thantos’s face, but then faked to the left — forcing him to twist around to see her — before settling on his right side. To Alex, she said evenly, “Our beloved uncle said you were dispensable. He pretty much erased you from the family portrait.”
Alex’s eyes widened. She could practically feel the word Fool being etched on her forehead. She’d almost fallen for it! She’d even told Cade she was leaving — because “Sara” had told her to go. Alex would have done anything she truly believed to be her late mom’s wishes.
Score! That’s exactly what Thantos had banked on. But the big guy, the mastermind, had miscalculated. He didn’t know Sara. How could he ever have understood a woman whose heart was full of love, when his own boiled with jealousy and hate? Which led Alex to wonder out loud, “What if I didn’t do what Sara’s spirit told me to? What if I didn’t leave?”
“My guess?” Cam said, again careful to keep emotion out of her voice. “If not west, you’d go south. As in, six feet under. No Alex? No sweat.”
“After all,” Ileana put in through gritted teeth, “it’s easy to kick a child to the curb. Who’d know better than the Father of the Year here?”
Thantos’s eyes hardened, but he remained silent.
“Okay, wait,” Cam said slowly, convincingly. She gifted Thantos with her most sincere look. “I was raised to be fair, so before I condemn him, let me be sure I understand. Alex and Ileana are gone, and while we’re at it, I guess I say buh-bye to Dave, Emily, Dylan, my friends in Marble Bay. So it’ll be all me, all Coventry, all the time. That about right?”
Thantos nodded carefully.
She paused, let her gaze slide to the window. “There are worse places to be. Who knows? Maybe I could learn to feel a part of it, to love it even.”
A muffled sound rose from the floor. “Don’t trust him!”
Cam focused on the round mound at her feet. She’d almost forgotten poor Epie, trapped under the cape. She made no move to help the hapless Fury, only noted, “I am his niece, Epie. It might be okay for me to trust him. At least give him a chance to earn my trust.”
Alex started to speak, but Ileana knew enough to stay quiet and to telepathically warn her charge to do the same. The moment of reckoning had come, and to her credit, Camryn was not telegraphing her real intentions or feelings. Aron’s sun princess daughter was playing this close to the vest, playing it out. Ileana could only hope she’d do the right thing.
Cam continued thoughtfully, “In another year or so, my life as I’ve known it is going to change, anyway. My friends will all be gone, off to college — and I guess I will be, too. So why not come here? I could get used to living in the lap of luxury, either here at Crailmore, or more likely, at LunaSoleil, where I was meant to grow up. Be with my real m
other, among my blood relations.”
Michaelina couldn’t hold back. “Are you a bigger dupe than your sister?”
Cam whirled on the short, stupefied Fury. “Hang on, Mike. Put yourself in my Manolos. If I stay here, I’ve got money, power, popularity, fame. Think of all the good I could do, the position I’d be in to really help the world’s people. And, ooooh, bonus! I’ve got Shane.” She gazed at him, cowering on the floor, trying to fend off Sersee’s fiery blows. “Coventry’s best catch,” Cam added, struggling to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.
Sersee growled, “I wouldn’t bet on any of that.”
Cam rolled her eyes. “Puh-leeze, Sersee, as if you ever posed any threat to me. Like you said, I am an heiress.”
Thantos blinked — uncertain now.
Cam circled him. “Kudos, Uncle Thantos. You really know me well, after all. My loyalty can be bought — the currency being my superficiality, my superiority complex, my absolute comfort in life at the top. Like niece, like uncle, that’s what you figured, right?”
Alex was totally stunned. Not at her sister — at Thantos! He was lapping this garbage right up! Quickly, Alex scrambled her thoughts, so he wouldn’t hear her.
He didn’t. Too engrossed in the possibility he’d get all he wanted after all, close enough to almost taste victory, Thantos ventured, “DuBaer blood runs through you, Apolla. Untainted DuBaer blood. You are heir to much more than you ever dreamed possible. Make the right choice, Apolla. It’s what your father would have wanted for you.”
He’d almost done it. Mentioning Aron would have been the one thing to set her off, but Cam would not play. She’d gotten this far; her real feelings weren’t getting out of the box now. She dug into her pocket, and then quietly, evenly, she said, “My father would have wanted me to trust you. Yes? Well, in that case …”
She fell to her knees, bowed her head in a worshipful pose. She could sense, rather than see, the grin forming on her uncle’s vicious face. He reached for her, to take her hand.
She extended her right hand, “I guess I could give you the chance, try and trust you.” In the split second before they actually touched, sealed the deal, Cam sprang up out of his reach. “On the other hand? Nah. Think I’ll bust you instead.”
Buried deep inside her pocket, she’d found the amulet, the DuBaer family heirloom that Ileana had given her. Alex was by her side in a flash.
Thantos’s jaw set dangerously. He acted swiftly, but again, unpredictably. He did not go for the amulet, and try to harm Cam, Alex, or even Ileana. His first act was to level the battlefield. The dried leaves he’d fisted were fragrant and powerful herbs, used to confuse and disorient those forced to inhale them. Thantos opened his palm and blew on the leaves, sending airborne flakes toward the Furies. In midair, the dried leaves fused together and formed rings, curlicues that found their victims, coiled around them like a lariat, and pulled the three together tightly. They looked like three unwilling participants in a three-legged race, one limb from each practically fused to that of her friend. One move, together or separately, and their unwieldiness would bring them down. Just in case they tried, however, Thantos made sure searing pain would result. His chant boomed like thunder:
Every day has its dawn, and every rose its thorn —
Every dawn is dusk, every Fury her trust.
Wayward witches three, like wildflowers may you be, sticking together, pricking one another as you twist and turn in the wind.
Even as he cast the spell, sharp thorns poked through Sersee’s skinny arms, Michaelina’s diminutive legs, and Epie’s chubby hands. The Furies broke into an instant shrieking chorus of “ouch!” And “get away from me!”
The combination of pricking pain, petulance, and being ticked off rendered the Furies neutralized. A non-threat.
By immobilizing the turncoat Furies, Thantos had eliminated three enemies. But he’d also wasted valuable seconds giving the T*Witches a golden chance to advance on him. They snapped to it.
Cam held the DuBaer family amulet high. It would act as a protective shield against the terrible power of their uncle. Forcing him to hesitate, at least for a moment, they worked double-strength magick on him. Powers that previously had been the domain of only one of them worked in tandem. Two pairs of extraordinary gray eyes now stunned and pinned Thantos, froze the giant warlock to the spot, his mouth locked in an O, his beady eyes stuck in shock-reaction. Telekinesis-times-two double-knotted his hands behind his back with the velvet rope from his own robe. He couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, and couldn’t strike them. Cam wanted to make sure he could see what was happening. She lined up the mirrors in the room so all Thantos could see, over and over again, was his own paralyzed image.
“We did it! Ileana!” Alex raced over to her still-blinded guardian. “Wait until we lift this spell, you’ll see! He can’t hurt us now.”
Cam caught a flash of indigo. Blue-robed Shane had witnessed a dose of double DuBaer and made his decision. He was outta there! “Not so fast,” Cam growled, advancing on him. “I’m not finished with you! We’ll help Ileana, and then it will be my pleasure to deal with you.”
“You’ll do neither,” Ileana said forcefully, her unfocused eyes burning brightly. “Your mother is your priority. Let the coward flee, and leave me be. Miranda’s already waited too long. Go to her.”
“But it’ll just take a minute —” Alex started, unable to stand by while Ileana remained sightless.
“What if he hurts you?” Cam meant Shane, but the boy had already sprinted toward the door.
“As long as I am your guardian, you’ll do as I say. Leave me, get Miranda!”
CHAPTER TWENTY
MIRANDA’S GAME
Cam led Alex through the door-hatch, and together they scrambled down the dark tunnel. Alex marveled at Cam’s agility, how her twin so swiftly and economically negotiated her way down the narrow twisty stairs, while calling out to Miranda. This is what Cam had been dealing with while Alex had been — what? Letting Michaelina take her for a fool? Pouring her wounded heart out to Sersee, disguised as Sara?
And don’t forget your friend, the dark-haired boy, and the hours you spent with or wanting him.
Alex’s eyes widened. Through the gloom she saw Miranda, frozen in place. But how could their mother have known … standing there now, her white robes draped stiffly as a Greek statue’s?
My body may be immobilized, but my mind is as active as ever. More so, came the reply. The powers I thought were gone forever have been reawakened more quickly than I’d hoped. I’m your mother. And fate has seen fit to return the most precious of all my lost gifts — the ability to know my children; know their minds and hearts — and, yes, even their whereabouts.
“Close your mouth,” Cam advised her sister, whose jaw had dropped. “Let’s do this thing. There’ll be plenty of time for Mom to rag on you later and out loud.”
The twins sandwiched Miranda, linking their arms around her slender waist. It was almost as if the warmth of their touch melted Miranda’s frozen body, but more likely, it was the right combination of herbs, that crystal of Alex’s, their moon and sun necklaces working together, and the unbreakable bond of love between mother and children.
Once Miranda was free, the threesome wasted no time: catch-up could come later. Ileana had waited long enough. She needed them now. Jubilantly, they raced up the stairs. But their joy faded with the sight that greeted them back in Thantos’s room.
Thantos was no longer captive. No ropes bound his wrists together. He glared menacingly at the sight of Camryn and Alex, their arms protectively wrapped around their mother’s waist.
How Thantos had gotten free of their spell was a no-brainer. He’d borrowed the brains of others — not only had Shane returned, the stupidly loyal boy had brought backup: Amaryllis. Thantos’s servant had been imbued with extra powers, along with the mission to spy on Cam. With Shane, she’d been able to undo the T*Witches’ spell.
Two times three: The trios faced one ano
ther. Shane, Amaryllis, and Thantos on one side, Miranda and her twins on the other. In the middle of the battlefield? The untethered Ileana, sightless, and for now, speechless. A hostage, should Thantos so decree, Alex realized immediately.
Don’t worry about me! Ileana shouted telepathically. Get them!
Miranda acted so quickly and unexpectedly, she threw the entire room off balance. She freed herself of Cam and Alex, shooed them from her side.
A step toward Thantos was deliberate and risky. She looked kindly at him. “May I speak to you now? I have my voice back, as you can see, and with it, my reasoning.”
Thantos’s thin lips pressed together to form a straight line. Almost imperceptibly he nodded at Miranda. He took in, Cam could see with horror, her mother’s diaphanous beauty, her pale skin, her pure heart. His own icy countenance could be melted.
“If you would call off your dogs for one moment, we would all be best served,” Miranda said.
“What is it you want to talk about, Miranda?” Thantos asked, his voice a combination of hope and fury.
“The things I’ve only just found out. You never told me your true feelings for me. My daughters only just did. This changes everything.”
His eyes were so hard to read! Alex tapped into Cam’s brain — could she see what was inside those mirrors to her uncle’s soul? But Cam was mute, either shocked into silence or quiet by calculation. Alex knew only to trust her.
“It isn’t too late, Thantos,” Miranda was murmuring. “You haven’t done irreparable damage yet. Let us forget the past and focus on now. And our future. I won’t hoodwink you. I don’t love you — not yet. But I am a fair woman, you have always known me to be so. I offer you this: Come, let me hear your side of everything.”
Thantos stood rock still. He did not give away his emotions.
Miranda continued as if he’d made up his mind, “But first, you must free your daughter of the hateful curse she’s under and unglue these three girls. We will send them away, Sersee, Epie, and Michaelina, as well as your loyalists, Amaryllis and Shane. This is neither their battle nor their business. This is a family matter. Our family.”
T*Witches: Split Decision Page 14
