The Lost Enchantress

by Patricia Coughlin

“We’ll see. I have no idea how to use it or—”

  “You need no knowledge. As I told you once already, you are. That is enough. You have the gift; my very presence here is proof of it, and I felt your power again today. I feared it would take longer to find you again, but then I sensed your power in the air, blazing so much brighter than any other.”

  Eve realized he was talking about when she was with Allie at the hospital.

  “So bright it lingers still,” he said. “And with your talisman in my possession I had no trouble following your path.”

  Of course. Like calls to like. And no good deed goes unpunished. Apparently she was the one who’d been too quick with the gloating, thinking the magic she used to help Allie would have no dire consequences. Being stuck in a crypt with Pavane was plenty dire. She still wasn’t sorry for doing it. There were no scales that could weigh the value of Allie’s future happiness against whatever it might cost her at Pavane’s hands.

  “What happened earlier was a complete anomaly.” She didn’t really expect to convince him that she was useless and he should let her go, but if she was able to kill a little time, he might weaken or she might have a brainstorm about how to get away from him without endangering anyone else. “The truth is I never use whatever power I have, well, almost never, and as a result, I know squat about magic. I guess I’m a lot like Maura in that way.”

  He swatted the comment aside like a bug. “You know enough. The incantation and implements have all been prepared. When the time comes, you will focus on the talisman, forge that connection anew and allow your power to flow freely. I will do the rest. And now,” he said, eyes glittering with excitement as he picked up the dagger, “a drop of your blood to mix with mine, to bind dark magic and light, and these cursed bonds will disappear.”

  He sliced his palm with the dagger and let a few drops of blood fall onto the burning plate. Then he held out his hand for hers.

  She was brave and stoic until he actually cut her.

  “Ouch. That stings. A lot,” she snapped when he shot her a disapproving look.

  He ignored her after that, intent on the words he was quietly mumbling. Eve balled her fist and looked for something to wrap around her hand. There was nothing. Nothing except his coat and that looked like an infection waiting to happen. She couldn’t even scrounge in her purse or pockets for a tissue because she didn’t have her purse, or her jacket, she realized, wondering if they were in the car trunk and if she would ever see them again. It was hardly her biggest concern at that moment, but it ticked her off just the same. Everyone kept talking about the power she possessed, but at the moment she felt distinctly powerless.

  “Focus,” Pavane ordered, and she realized he’d halted the incantation to stare angrily at her. “On the talisman. Focus on the talisman.”

  “All right, all right. I’m focusing.”

  She did, but not with the same passion and pure intent as she had earlier that day, not even close. Part of her wanted him to fail and be sucked back to wherever he’d come from; part of her was afraid that if they failed, he would go looking for fresh blood.

  She settled on passive resistance; she concentrated all her attention on imagining a link between herself and the talisman, but without any specific outcome in mind. Pavane had boasted that as long as she did that he’d take care of the rest; so let him.

  After a few moments it sounded to her as if he was repeating the same lines over and over. He was getting short of breath and perspiration speckled his brow; his eyes were fixed on the pendant with mad intensity. Twice Eve thought the marks on his wrists faded slightly, but it could have been her imagination. Both times when she blinked and checked again, they were as black and sinister looking as ever.

  Finally he gasped and stopped, sucking in a hard, deep breath as he hunched forward, hands grasping the edge of the altar stone to hold himself up.

  “You,” he spat, “this is your doing. You resist me.”

  She shook her head. “No. I did what you told me: I focused. Maybe I really am like Maura. Maybe I don’t have what it takes to help you.”

  “You do. You proved it once already. You used your connection to the magic of the talisman to bring me back. Why not now?”

  “The turret,” she blurted. “There’s energy there, and lots of it apparently. That could have been the power boost that made the difference.”

  “We were not in the turret,” he reminded her, but his brows had lowered in contemplation.

  “No, but we were close to it, a lot closer than we are here.” She didn’t have a plan exactly, or really at all; what she had was a whiff of hope. If she could convince him to move to the turret, she would be on home turf, with help at hand: Hazard and maybe Taggart as well.

  “No,” he said firmly. “My strength is greater here, and your magic together with the talisman’s should be power enough for your part of this. It will be enough,” he declared and reached across to grab her left hand. He clenched it tightly with his, the hourglass pressed in-between.

  The gold pendant ground into the open slice across her palm, making it sting all over again; Eve could feel her blood flowing and see it dripping from her fist onto the altar. Sweat was running just as freely off Pavane’s face, and snakelike veins had popped out on his temples and the side of his throat.

  Again and again he recited the incantation, but the bands didn’t budge, and he finally released her and sank almost to his knees, his arms clinging to the altar.

  “I must sit.” He staggered a few steps to a bench behind him and collapsed there. His shoulders heaved and his chest rose and fell with each labored breath. “I need to rest,” he panted, “to gather myself. You do the same. When I am ready, we will try again.” His cold gaze shifted to hers and held firm. “And again and again. Until we succeed. If you are resisting my efforts, you are merely delaying the inevitable . . . and risking punishment. You cannot overcome me, Enchantress. Your power may be older and run purer in your veins, but in this place and in this time the power I possess is greater . . . and do you know why?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Because I do not fear it.”

  She sat on the floor near to the entrance and stared wistfully at the closed door, all that stood between her and freedom, or so it would seem. Pavane had done nothing to ensure she didn’t bolt because he knew he didn’t have to; as long as he held over her a threat to harm Rory or anyone else she loved, she wasn’t going anywhere.

  Minutes passed. Then hours. She wasn’t sure how many because her watch was also missing. At times Pavane appeared to sleep. Eve wasn’t able to, in spite of feeling the kind of exhaustion that dims your brainpower and paints your entire body with a dull ache. It could have something to do with the damp concrete she was sitting on and the rough stone against her back. It was just as well. She needed to think more than she needed sleep.

  She sat up straight and rolled her shoulders a few times, and right away instinct took over. Her strength as a journalist was her ability to cut through a fog of details to get to the facts of a situation and follow them until she found the truth.

  She wanted to know why tonight’s ritual failed and the one at Hazard’s house was a success . . . albeit with a surprise ending. She still thought the explanation could be that old cliché, “location, location, location,” but Pavane had been pretty quick to dismiss the idea. And as much as she despised him, the man knew his magic.

  Fact: after she spent years struggling to keep magic out of her life, it had returned full-tilt boogie at the auction and refused to go away. She hadn’t set out to use magic that night, but somehow it happened. She’d frozen Hazard out of the bidding in order to win the pendant. Something wonky had also happened in the garage afterwards, but at the time she was convinced that was all Hazard’s doing.

  Fact: she now knew that wasn’t possible because Hazard had no power of his own.

  Since that first time, she’d also used magic to scry for Rory, to trigger Pavane’s return and to override human physi
ology and modern medicine to help Allie. All successfully. So why was she able to use magic on those occasions and not now? What was different this time? Better question: what was the common denominator in the others? It wasn’t the talisman; she didn’t have it when she scryed for Rory or at the hospital. It wasn’t location either, since the hospital was nowhere near the turret . . .

  A soft gasp escaped her as the answer clicked into place. Pavane was right. It wasn’t the turret all the others had in common. It was Hazard.

  Hazard was there the night of the auction and every time since. Memories came tumbling back to her: the mist that had hovered over them in the ballroom, the protective shield that materialized to protect the two of them from the warlocks in the garage, Hazard telling her he’d felt her magic sitting in the hospital waiting room, just as he had at the auction. He’d said it made his head ache, and that suggested a much closer connection than simply catching a glimmer of it in the air the way Pavane had.

  She had felt the same connection. From the first moment she saw him, she had sensed something between them that was stronger and deeper than simple attraction. Why else would she have felt its pull when she was trying to get rid of him as surely as when she lay spent in his arms? She thought about the brand on his chest that matched the one on her own. Where did that fit in? And the curse inflicted on him by a man long connected to her family? It had happened on what was once T’airna land. And it had been done using the pendant that had started it all; a gift from a goddess, created from materials that conventional modern wisdom said existed only in fables. How did all those pieces fit together? What thread wound through time and distance to connect Hazard’s life with hers?

  She had no idea. How could she? She was no longer in the land of facts; this was a land of ancient alliances and obscure prophesies and arcane laws. A world where magic trumped science. A world she had turned away from a long time ago and didn’t understand. Now, with all her heart, she wished she did.

  God, she was so stupid. Of course, no normal person could be expected to understand what was happening. But then, a normal person would never find herself in the position of needing to. No normal person would ever have the very lives of her niece or grandmother or sister depending on her ability to go toe-to-toe with a sorcerer packing centuries of dark power.

  Fact: she wasn’t normal. And it had been stupid and stubborn and reckless to pretend otherwise. To think that she could just opt out of the game and expect the universe and everyone in it to go along.

  Maybe Pavane was right; maybe all this time she’d been telling herself she was taking the high road, she’d really been running scared. And going nowhere. Ignoring or denying reality didn’t change it. And like it or not, magic was her reality. Her truth.

  At that second everything she’d been through and everything she’d learned lined up as precisely as the sun and moon and earth do for an eclipse, and let the very heart of that truth sparkle in front of her.

  Magic hadn’t ruined her life. Magic had saved it.

  The night of the fire it was Grand’s magic that had saved her and Chloe. The same centuries-old magic that she had carried across an ocean to make a new life. Her grandmother had been a steadfast guardian of their legacy. She had nurtured it and believed in it and held fast to her belief even when it must have seemed that it might all end with her. She had never faltered, and never pushed or demanded. She had simply kept the flame burning through the darkness.

  Now it was Eve’s turn.

  When Pavane called to her, she got to her feet quickly, no longer the least bit weary or uncertain. Or afraid.

  She wasn’t going to help him with his ritual, and she certainly wasn’t going to let him use Rory or anyone else to do it. Pavane was a danger to her family, and he always would be unless someone put a stop to it. She hadn’t started this battle, but she was going to finish it. It would end tonight. And it would end where she chose to end it.

  This time he didn’t have to urge her to come closer or move faster. She was eager to get on with it.

  He’d accused her of shirking her birthright and hiding from the truth. Well, she was through doing both.

  With each step she could feel the simmer of her own power. It rose from her core, hot and ready and endless.

  He’d dumped the burnt powders from the bowl and was busy refilling it. When he finished and looked up, their gazes met and held. And he knew. He sensed the difference in her right away, and the subtle shift in the balance of power between them. Eve saw it in his eyes, a flicker of fear quickly gobbled up by arrogance, and she smiled.

  That ruffled him enough to make him keep his eyes on her as he reached for the talisman on the altar between them. She let his fingertips brush it before using her will alone to move it away from him. His eyes went wide at the sight of it in the palm of her hand.

  “Mine,” she said, and used her will again to slip the chain over her head.

  “Of course, Enchantress. Haven’t I said all along that you are the key to unlocking the power of the talisman? Of course it belongs to you. I wanted only to help you, to guide you since you yourself admit you have had limited experience using your gift.”

  “And you have,” she told him. “I was especially helped by what you said about portals.”

  He tried to mask his uncertainty by taking back control. “Good, good. Shall we get on with it now?”

  He reached for the dagger, and Eve swept her gaze over it, sending it flying away from him and off the altar so forcefully it hit the wall and fell to the floor.

  “Not this time,” she told him, no longer smiling. “You’ve had the last drop of T’airna blood you’ll ever get.”

  She knew what she was about to do down to the smallest detail; she’d planned it while she waited for him to wake. She’d envisioned each moment, and when she put on the pendant, the moves she’d planned took on a new, intuitive certitude. She knew things she had no way of knowing, understood things she had never understood. It wasn’t Pavane’s curse that had kept Hazard alive, it was T’airna magic. That was the magic she was able to call on when they were together. She had never done this before, but those who’d gone before her had, and their wisdom was hers. It always had been, born in her blood, speaking to her too softly to be heard above her fear.

  She heard it clearly now as she held out her hands, saw him struggle to resist her will, saw him fail and stare aghast as his own hands betrayed him and obeyed her silent command. She took his hands in hers and grasped them tightly, and immediately the walls seemed to be spinning around them, slowly at first and then gradually faster so that the visual details blurred into a whirl of muted color. It was an odd sense of motion. Like sitting in a stopped train and having a car drive alongside and for just a second not knowing whether the car is moving or you are.

  It grew dark around them, and cold. There was a whooshing sound that gave way to one that was keener, like wind sweeping across a canyon, carrying them with it. Eve couldn’t explain it, but that didn’t matter. She didn’t have to explain to make it happen.

  The spinning gradually slowed. Where there had been stone and stale air there was now sky and budding trees and the cool clear night. They were no longer in the crypt, but in Grand’s rose garden. There had been no moon in the cemetery, but there was one here, full and pale. She looked around and with a nod conjured a circle of candles; with another she set them aflame and saw Hazard and Grand and Rory there waiting for her.

  Good. She would need them for what she was about to do.

  Twenty-two

  This was as far as she’d planned while Pavane was sleeping. The rest had come to her later, when she claimed the pendant and put it on. She knew then what she must do, and that it must be done here, with soil steeped in memories beneath her feet and the moon in that velvet patch of sky directly overhead. There, in the place where she’d first felt her power on the same night she lost it . . . and lost herself.

  She released Pavane’s hands, and he staggered
a few steps away from her. There was an expression of astonishment on his face as he hurriedly glanced around, and again she saw a spark of fear in his eyes. But this time the spark ignited a sudden blaze of rage and hatred as understanding of the situation dawned on him.

  Eve held her hands out, palms up, and gazed at the moon overhead. “Within this circle of light I gather what is mine. What I hold fast inside these flames cannot be taken from me; what I cast out from this light is gone forevermore.”

  “Words,” Pavane said with contempt. “Speak all the words you want. You have no power over me.”

  He attempted to stomp from the circle, but with a quick movement of her hand, Eve stopped him.

  “You’re wrong,” she said as he turned back and glared at her. “This is not your place or your time. You’re only here because you stole and murdered and used power that was not yours to use. And all that keeps you here is the bond you managed to forge with this . . .” She lifted the pendant. “And over this I do have power.”

  His upper lip curled back. “Power? Ha! You didn’t even have enough power to detect a most rudimentary glamour or to lift your foot when I bid you not to.”

  “That was then,” she retorted, smiling. She turned and held her hands out to Grand and Rory. “Join me.”

  As they moved to her side and linked hands with her, Hazard backed out of the way.

  “No . . . you too,” Eve said to him. “You’re a part of this too. As much a part of it as anyone.”

  He hesitated, regarding her uncertainly.

  “Trust me,” she said.

  He nodded his head once and stepped to stand shoulder to shoulder with Grand.

  “It is our will to cast this darkness from our midst.” She stared into Pavane’s eyes. “Phineas Pavane, I cast you from this time and place. With the T’airna power of the past I cast you out. With the T’airna power of the future I cast you out.”

  “Think of what you are doing, Enchantress. I could make you a queen,” he declared, stuffing his anger under a flimsy layer of concern. “Join your power with mine and we will be indomitable.”