Darkmoon (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 3)

by Christine Pope

  My father sat down in the matching armchair, but Lawrence remained standing, his back to the cold hearth. I wondered if he was going to maintain that position the entire time I was off in my trance…meditation…whatever. But he probably had a much better idea of what he was doing than I did, so I didn’t ask.

  The clock ticked away, and I cast a worried glance up at it. Four minutes after ten. Almost there….

  “Breathe,” Lawrence said. “Reach out, and sense the powers at work this night.”

  As simple as that, and I knew it was time to begin. I gave a brief nod, then reached out and laid my hand on top of Connor’s just before I shut my eyes and drew in a deep breath.

  I could feel it, almost as soon as I shut out the physical world around me. This longest of days was coming to an end and would begin to tilt back toward the dark, even as the earth blocked out even the slightest trace of the moon’s light. Their energies, wildly opposed and yet somehow working in concert, seemed to crackle on every side.

  This time I drifted out the big windows overlooking the street as if they weren’t there. The sidewalks below me were crowded with people; after all, to them this was just another Saturday night, another excuse to get out and party. I thought I caught dual shimmers of energy that were Clay and Isaac, moving through the throngs, but of course they were not my goal tonight.

  Here in downtown I could feel nothing, no whisper of an alien presence that might be Nizhoni’s. I wanted to curse, but I knew that would only break my focus. No need to be impatient, I told myself. Time doesn’t work the same way in the world of the spirits.

  No, it didn’t. It could speed up, or slow down. During some meditations it would feel as if I’d only been gone for five minutes, when in reality nearly an hour had passed. Other times I’d think I’d been away for hours and hours, and would return only a minute or two after I shut my eyes. So I couldn’t allow myself to worry about how much time this was all taking. It would take what it took, and not a second more or less.

  I’d spent a little time the past few days doing research on early Flagstaff, and so I knew the downtown area, though old, had still been built decades after Nizhoni had been taken to be Jeremiah Wilcox’s reluctant bride. The original settlement was to the north and west of here; when the railroad came through, that was when most people picked up and moved to what would be downtown’s current location.

  So although this was a good starting point, I knew I’d have to range farther out, to the approximate place where the first Wilcox clan members had settled in the area. Leaving aside the cheerful crowds and busy restaurants and bars of downtown, I drifted over dark residential neighborhoods, past the observatory on Mars Hill, heading in roughly the same direction where Damon Wilcox’s house was located, although not nearly as far.

  As I moved, I began to feel…something. At first I thought maybe it was my own nerves playing tricks on me, raising my anxiety level even more, but this was different. It felt wrong, like an instrument played out of tune, almost masked by the sound of the rest of the orchestra…but not quite.

  Beneath me was a dry creek that cut between housing developments. As I watched, though, I saw the stony stream bed disappear, hidden by dark water flowing over it. On either side the houses faded away, becoming insubstantial as mist before they evaporated altogether. In their place were stands of ponderosa pines, interspersed with mountain meadows.

  Icy sweat trickled down my back, but I ignored it. The perspiration wasn’t real, was only a manifestation of my worry. And what I saw around me wasn’t real.

  Or was it?

  I saw her then, standing by the side of the creek, long hair blowing like raven silk in an unseen wind. Her back was to me, but I could see she wore a dress of dark calico with a modest bustle, probably quite fashionable for 1870s Flagstaff. I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t been expecting that; in my mind’s eye I’d always thought of her wearing some kind of native dress, although if I’d stopped to think about it, I should have realized Jeremiah Wilcox probably wouldn’t have allowed his wife to go around wearing deerskin.

  She turned around, and I had to catch my breath. Probably because of the way her curse had echoed down the generations, bringing such evil with it, I hadn’t stopped to think that she might have been beautiful.

  But she was, with that long black hair and tip-tilted dark eyes, those high cheekbones and full mouth. No wonder Jeremiah Wilcox had wanted her.

  “Angela,” she said, startling me so much that I dropped to the ground with an ungraceful thud.

  Was someone traveling in the otherworld supposed to make a thud like that? I didn’t know. It felt too real, just as the soft grass beneath my feet did, the cool mountain air against my skin. It didn’t feel like high summer in this place, wherever it was; the wind had a bite to it, but I couldn’t tell for sure if it was supposed to be early fall or late spring.

  The sky was spangled with stars, but here, as it had been back in my own world, in my own time, no moon shone overhead. Not that it appeared to matter, because everything around me seemed to have a faint glow, the waters in the creek glittering so brightly that they might as well have been reflecting the sun.

  “You have come a long way for nothing, Angela Wilcox,” Nizhoni said. Her English was good, although spoken slowly, as if she had to consider each word before she pronounced it.

  “My last name is McAllister, not Wilcox,” I told her, a little surprised at my own boldness.

  Her shoulders lifted. “Is the Wilcox primus not your intended husband? Is your own father not a Wilcox?”

  “Well, yes, but — ”

  “Then you are a Wilcox, no matter what you may call yourself, and so I have nothing to say to you.” Turning, she began to walk away from me, up the stream toward a stand of cottonwoods that clustered around the water.

  “Wait!” I called, feeling like an idiot, and ran after her. I was dressed here exactly the same as I had been when I went into this meditation, and so I had on a pair of flip-flops. Not the best footwear for tearing along a rocky creek bank, and once or twice I slipped and nearly lost my balance. What would happen if I did a face plant here? Would I wake up back in my physical body sporting a new black eye?

  But I didn’t slip, and because I was running while she was only walking, albeit with a purposeful stride, I did manage to catch up with her a minute later. She looked at me with scornful eyes and said, “I have nothing to say to you. Go back to your world, and learn to accept your fate.”

  “I don’t think so,” I snapped. “I’m not going to accept this stupid curse of yours, because that’s what it is…stupid. Pointless. Hateful.”

  At that last word, I thought I saw her mouth tighten slightly, but she didn’t reply, only stared at me, stony-faced.

  “Whatever happened between you and Jeremiah Wilcox, it was between the two of you. I’m not saying it was right, and I’m sorry you had to go through that, but it doesn’t give you the right to curse a bunch of innocent women, just so you can indirectly hurt the Wilcox primus.”

  “If a woman is with the primus, then she is no innocent,” Nizhoni retorted.

  “Oh, really? So what does that make you?”

  Her eyes narrowed, turning to slits hidden by her thick lashes. “You have no idea what you are talking about.”

  “Then enlighten me,” I said, crossing my arms. “Because I don’t see why I should have to drop dead at twenty-two or twenty-three just because Jeremiah Wilcox was an asshole.”

  The profanity startled her, I could tell — her eyebrows lifted, and she pulled in a breath. I supposed anyone who counted herself a lady back in the day wouldn’t have talked like that. But I was certainly beyond caring what she thought of me.

  “Look,” I said, attempting to soften my tone, “you can’t right past wrongs by creating new ones. It doesn’t work that way. You’ve stayed here, hanging on to your hatred, for far too long. What good is it doing you? Has it brought you peace? Acceptance? There’s no dishonor in realizing eno
ugh is enough and moving on. Whatever Jeremiah did to you, you’re only giving him more power by not letting it go. Can’t you see that?”

  The silence stretched out so long I was beginning to think she wouldn’t answer me. Finally, she said, the words spoken so softly that I could barely hear them, “You don’t understand. Not any of it.”

  “Then tell me,” I begged her. “Please. I want to know. Help me to understand.”

  Silence again, and then her face darkened with fury. The wind picked up, causing her long hair to snap like whips, blowing loose twigs and branches and leaves toward me. I raised my hands to protect my eyes. Was she doing this? It seemed so.

  “Stop it!” I cried. “This isn’t helping!”

  “Good!” she flung at me. “Leave me alone!”

  “No!” True, she’d been a witch so powerful Jeremiah had wanted her for his own, and she’d had all these years to brood and let her malice build, feeding her strength, but I wasn’t exactly helpless myself. Reaching for my own power, I let it radiate out from within, golden light surrounding me, forming a barrier against which the branches and twigs and a few stray pinecones bounced off and fell harmlessly away.

  Her eyes glittered when she saw the shield I had raised, but that didn’t stop her. If anything, the hail of debris against me only increased, dirt flying now as well, so that I could barely see her through the whirlwind of forest detritus swirling around me. Biting my lip, I let my own energy surge forth, pushing against the spell-summoned tornado. At last the strain was too much, and the branches and leaves and pinecones exploded away from me, scattering in every direction.

  Nizhoni, however, seemed untouched. Frowning, she said, “You are strong.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, trying not to pant, since that would sort of ruin the impression I was trying to give. “Care to go for round two?”

  Her eyebrows pulled down at that. Clearly, she didn’t get the reference.

  “Okay,” I went on, taking her silence as a tacit invitation for me to keep talking, “we can stand here and have magical battles like two characters out of a Harry Potter book, or we can talk like rational adults. Which is it going to be?”

  “I do not know this ‘Harry Potter’ of which you speak.”

  “Never mind.” I reached up and pulled a twig out of my hair. My cheek twinged, and I realized at least one piece of debris had gotten through, because when I touched my finger to my cheek, it came away smeared with blood. Ignoring the pain as best I could, I said, “Look, Nizhoni, I’m not here to hurt you or upset you. I just want you to move on to a place where you can be at peace. Don’t you realize that the people you loved are waiting for you?”

  “Not all,” she said, in an undertone, looking away from me, and in that instant I thought I understood.

  All that rage, all that hatred — it hadn’t come from being taken to be Jeremiah Wilcox’s wife. It had come because she must have loved him on some level, and hated herself for it. And that hatred had twisted in on itself, made her curse all Wilcox wives to come, because she thought herself cursed by a love she hadn’t wanted.

  “Oh, Nizhoni,” I murmured then. “It’s no weakness to love.”

  That made her whirl around, black eyes blazing. “I did not love him!”

  And the skies cracked open, storm clouds rushing in from nowhere, lightning lancing down and hitting the ground only a few yards away from us. The sharp scent of ozone stung my nostrils and I blinked, seeing dancing reddish echoes of the lightning bolt etched into my eyelids.

  This was not good.

  I summoned the energy, praying it would be enough, and scared shitless that it wouldn’t be. The forest flared with light again, the bolt this time hitting the tree directly behind me, splitting it with a cra-ack! so loud my ears began to ring. Even with the golden light enveloping me, I cowered, my hands up to protect my face against any further hurt. How in the world was I supposed to fight this? She was so strong. This wasn’t like going up against Damon. He’d been driven nearly mad, but even using some of the darkest magic known to any witch, he was still just a man.

  Nizhoni had once been a woman, but she wasn’t that any longer. Now she was a vengeful, angry spirit, and clearly nothing I could say or do would convince her to change, to understand that she had no reason to stay here anymore.

  Connor, I thought in despair, reaching out to where he was waiting for me in the mortal world, and sensing nothing of him. That frightened me more than anything, because I’d always been able to sense him during my previous journeys to the otherworld. But still I flung the thoughts outward, hoping against hope that he’d somehow be able to hear me.

  I love you so much. I was wrong. I can’t do this. I don’t know how.

  Forgive me.

  And the clouds rumbled overhead, and the lightning surged once more, and I gathered every bit of strength I had, pushing it out to surround me, to fight her hostile power with my shielding energies. Even so, I didn’t think it would be enough.

  Actually, I knew it wouldn’t.

  17

  A Silver Stream

  Light seared through me and I screamed, pain shrilling along every vein, every nerve ending. Was I going to die being burned from within?

  Then I heard a man’s voice, commanding and deep. “Nizhoni.”

  It was as if I had been on fire, and someone had thrown a bucket of water over me. I blinked, then looked down, expecting to see burns from Nizhoni’s lightning running down my bare arms. But the skin was smooth and untouched, lightly brown with the faint beginnings of my summer tan.

  And then I glanced up to see who had spoken, and saw a tall man walking toward us through the trees. His hair was as black as Nizhoni’s, though cut short and slicked away from his face. In his features I could see an echo of the Wilcox men I knew today, the fine strong nose and chin, the well-cut mouth. Unlike most of the men of his time, he was clean-shaven, but otherwise he looked a lot like the historical re-enactors I knew who did Wild West demonstrations: long black frock coat, band-collared shirt, dark vest, dusty boots.

  He stopped a few feet away from us. His gaze flickered toward me. “Are you all right, Angela?”

  I guessed we were all on a first-name basis here in the otherworld. “I’m fine…Jeremiah.”

  Instead of being put off by the familiarity, he grinned, showing teeth better than I would’ve expected from someone not blessed with the gifts of modern dentistry. “Not for a lack of Nizhoni’s trying, I’m sure.”

  I shook my head and glanced over at her. She was standing so still she might have been a statue. The wind she had summoned was gone, and now her hair didn’t move at all, only hung straight as a skein of black silk down her back. And she was staring at Jeremiah as if she couldn’t believe the evidence of her own eyes.

  “Why?” she said at last, the word barely a breath.

  “Why?” Jeremiah repeated.

  “Why now, after all these years?”

  “Because you’ve finally admitted it.”

  “I have admitted nothing,” she replied, chin up, dark eyes flashing.

  “You should listen to this girl,” he said. “What did she say? ‘It’s no weakness to love’? She has the right of it, Nizhoni.”

  She didn’t respond, only stood there, her chest moving as she heaved an angry breath.

  “Look, Nizhoni,” I began. It still frightened me a little to have her looking at me with those furious dark eyes, but Jeremiah had deflected her energy away from me, and I had to believe he would do so again if necessary. Why exactly he’d defended me, I wasn’t sure — family loyalty? — but I wasn’t going to worry about that now. I took a breath and continued, “It can’t have been easy to find that you had feelings for him after he went and stole you from your people, but — ”

  “I did what?” he demanded, staring at me in disbelief. “Where did you hear that?”

  “Well, uh…from someone in my clan,” I faltered. Jeremiah looked equal parts angry and shocked, but I didn’t think
that anger was directed at me. Not exactly, anyway. “Um…that’s not what happened?”

  “I suppose it’s not that great a surprise, that the McAllisters might twist the tale.” He reached up to push away a lock of hair that had fallen over his brow, and the gesture was so like one of the gestures I loved about Connor that I pulled in a startled little breath. The Wilcox blood really did breed true. “Do you want to tell her the truth of it, Nizhoni, or should I?”

  She glanced away from him then, not meeting his eyes, and remained silent.

  “Ah, then, I’ll do it.” His gaze lingered on her for a second or two more, and at last he returned his attention to me. “I don’t know what you were told, but we came here in 1876, the year of the great centennial. There had been some trouble back in Connecticut — ”

  “You were practicing dark magic,” I cut in.

  “More McAllister lies.”

  “We don’t lie.”

  His raised eyebrow indicated his disbelief, but he only said, “Very well. Let us say ‘misinterpretation of history’ and leave it at that. It was more that we were experimenting with magic, and the primas of the surrounding clans took exception to our work. So we left and headed west, where we thought we’d be allowed more freedom. All that open land, and no one looking over your shoulder.”

  Yeah, I thought, that sounds like heaven to a Wilcox.

  “There had been some thought of pushing on to California, but we came here and saw the snow on the mountaintops and the pine forests, and knew we didn’t want to go any farther.” He glanced over at Nizhoni, but she was still standing there without moving, without speaking, although I could tell she was listening intently. Fine by me. If she’d decided to hang on Jeremiah’s every word, it meant she most likely wouldn’t be flinging any stray logs at my head. “We built a small settlement here, my brothers and my sister and their families, and started over. And after we’d been living here for a few months, we began to hear rumors of a powerful young witch who lived in the desert lands north of here, among her people.