by Nancy Holder
She looked down at the bedspread. Finally she said, “There are these big veins in the backs of my hands, Richard. I look at my hands and I can’t figure out why they’re mine. They’re so old and ugly.”
“They’re the hands that held the girls when they were babies.” The boring husband took the tired fingers in his and closed his large, pale, flabby hands around Marie-Claire’s. He brought them to his lips and said, “Let’s go to sleep, honey. You’re very tired.”
Nicole woke up.
She looked around, realized she had fallen asleep on the couch in Eli’s house, and frowned in confusion. Where was he? Why hadn’t he awakened her and driven her home?
She tried to stand up, and realized she couldn’t. She was off-balance and out of focus.
I didn’t have anything to drink, she thought. I didn’t do anything tonight. We were here to . . . she tried to remember. . . . He told me we were going to watch a movie.
The space in front of her swirled with colors. Then all at once, a shape snapped into focus; it was a figure made of silver light, and it was holding a mirror. The face of the mirror was black, but as Nicole peered into it, she saw:
Eli making me something to drink in the kitchen; Eli putting something in it; Eli laughing with his father as they watch me sleep; I am a Cahors witch and Holly is my Coven Mother; Holly is the strongest one; they are trying to kill us so they can get the Black Fire; Jer is Jean and he loves Isabeau, loves Holly; Eli is going to kill me tonight and I must—
Nicole woke up running down the street.
What am I doing here? she wondered, stopping and stumbling around in a sweater. Did I have a bad dream? Did he drug me? What the hell was that all about?
She wore a short black dress and clunky heels, and a sweater. Her coat was back at the Deveraux house, but she couldn’t go back. She was shivering because it was snowing, but she was outta there—
What am I doing?
—Help me!—
And Holly said to Silvana, Tante Cecile, and Amanda as they stayed in the circle, “Nicole has joined our side. And if we don’t go get her right now, she’s going to die.”
They found her wandering the streets in Lower Queen Anne. She was half-frozen, delirious, and staggering like a drunk.
She was hysterical, trying to make sense of everything.
“I was, like, asleep on his couch. Or I thought I was . . . and then I dreamed that I was going to die, that he was going to kill me. I woke up running down the street. Oh, my God, am I having some kind of drug experience?”
Amanda cleared her throat, indicating that Holly should do the talking.
Where to begin?
“You know those spells you do? Those little things you ask to make come true?”
Nicole looked uneasy. “How do you know about that?” She raised her hands to smooth her hair.
Then Holly looked down at her palm. Her eyes widened. “When did you get that burn mark?”
Nicole shrugged. “I don’t know. Halloween.”
“What burn mark?” Amanda asked from behind the wheel.
She pulled the car over.
“Sleep well, fair lady hawk.” Michael’s grin was pure evil as he crossed his arms. He peered at the black wall in front of himself and, without giving it a second thought, began humming a tune under his breath. The song was as old as his magic; his magic, as old as song. It was another timeless pairing that would not soon depart.
Within moments, a portion of the wall directly across from Michael’s eyeline began to blur. It swirled around until an elliptical glow appeared. At first purple, then blue, the glow finally settled on silver. Still humming, Michael stared into the glow as it subsided into a shiny texture. Instead of seeing his own reflection in the makeshift mirror, he spied the back of a young girl’s head, her dark, curly hair shining in the otherwise dim and shadowed house.
Michael’s watch beeped once, announcing midnight’s arrival. The time was at hand.
The figure walked toward a staircase and was about to flick on the light when Michael calmly blinked once. He stopped humming, ending on a note as low as he was. The girl gasped, her arm still outstretched, never to quite reach the light switch. She crumpled to the floor, the other hand pressed to her heart.
Michael furrowed his brow. He didn’t order one heart attack to go. The spell was intended to make her fall down the staircase and make everything look like a simple household accent. But instead, what was this? A heart attack? That wasn’t as likely. People would question a healthy eighteen-year-old girl suddenly having some sort of attack.
Then she turned over, and he saw that he had not murdered Holly Cathers tonight, as he had intended. Her eyes were opened, forever wondering.
The youthful-looking Marie-Claire had died tonight, instead of Holly.
Ah well, he thought, she was on the list.
Marie-Claire Cathers-Anderson was dead.
And the weird thing about grief is that nothing stops for it. Tante Cecile went to close up their home in New Orleans in order to move back to Seattle full time. It took her longer than expected, and Silvana went to live with friends in nearby Port Angelus.
Christmas came and went. Uncle Richard was barely present; as he had during the troubled times of his marriage, he worked too much, taking himself away from his children and his troubles. Holly could only watch, thinking that maybe someday when all this was over, she would look for a magical poultice to ease the man’s aching heart.
He took no joy in anything, not in the fact that soon his twin daughters and his niece would graduate high school. Nor that Nicole’s debut as Juliet was due to take place in a couple weeks. He got up, was pleasant, disappeared for hours, returned, was pleasant, and disappeared into the room he had once shared with his wife.
It was clear to Holly why Nicole wanted to have nothing more to do with magic, even though Amanda tried repeatedly to explain that magic had killed their mother, and that Michael Deveraux had tried numerous times to hurt them all.
Holly took Nicole to The Half Caff, just the two of them, and tried to talk about it.
“Look, Holly, all of this started happening when you came to Seattle, okay?” Nicole flung at her. “So why don’t you just go back to San Francisco?”
“Because it won’t end,” Holly said, leaning forward on the glass table to be heard over the din. “He knows now. We’ve learned about the history of the Cahors and the Deveraux. We have to assume that the Deveraux know about it too. We’re part of a blood feud that goes back centuries. And according to Isabeau, they’re going to attack us full force on May first.”
Nicole crossed her arms over her chest and said, “All I want is to be in my play and be left alone.”
“You can’t. None of us three can,” Holly said.
Nicole sighed . . . and shook her head.
“I can. I’m not going there, Holly, and you can’t force me.”
If the three girls in Richard’s care had tried to tell him about what was going on, he probably wouldn’t have been able to help them anyway. So they remained silent, and kept him out of it—hoping that his ignorance would keep him alive.
“Baby?” Kari asked as she swung into her apartment. “How was your day?”
Jer looked up from the brand-new athame he had completed; he was also compiling a new Book of Spells—his old one was back at his house.
He wondered if he should tell her that when he had left the house this morning to go running, a large black bird had been circling overhead, screeching and diving, obviously searching for something. Jer figured he had been that something.
Or if he should tell her that every night, after she was asleep and he began to drowse, he thought first of Holly, and silently invoked a Spell of Protection over her and her family; and then the nightmare began. It was the same, night after night—himself, hung upside down in his father’s dark chamber, while an enormous falcon plucked out his eyes. In the corner, a moldering corpse watched, enjoying his torment, speaking in
medieval French to the falcon, whose name was Fantasme.
If my father can get to me, he’ll kill me.
With the participation of his Coven of three, and the advice and guidance of Kialish’s father, Dan, he had set wards all over Kari’s house. It was probably even more protected than the Deveraux house in Lower Queen Anne. But nothing kept Michael Deveraux from his goal, at least, not for very long.
So he lay low, and got news of Holly and her cousins from Kialish and Eddie, who were freer to go about their business because Michael had never known of their existence.
I wonder if the girls are working magic? he thought as Kari took the athame out of his hand and sat in his lap. I hope Holly has been hearing the messages I send to her . . .
. . . in dreams. . . .
At night, Jer Deveraux flew to Holly’s side, and they soared into the star-filled skies. He came to her, and kissed her, and ran his hands along her body. And they flew like birds on the wings of dark passions, he the falcon of the Deveraux, and she the lady hawk of the Cahors.
“I have whispered spells to protect you. I have done dark magic to keep you well. Don’t pull away; I am a dark creature. I am a warlock. I am no Wicca, no sweet pagan. My family worships the Black Arts.
But if we can make this grow, this love between us, this bond, maybe I can free myself,” he told her in her dreams. “If the Goddess will accept my service, maybe we will finally lay our ancestors to rest, and create the new Coven that Isabeau still dreams of. . . .”
January, February, and March saw no more attacks from Michael Deveraux. Holly silently thanked Jer for his help. She and Amanda took the respite to learn all they could about magic, reading night and day, practicing, learning just what they were capable of. They set up protective wards around their house, and around each member of their family.
Nicole refused to participate, but the two cousins persisted in their own training.
This is a new world, Holly thought. Despite the danger they faced, she was enthralled. We can do so much . . . if I had known all this a year ago, I could have saved my parents, and Tina. . . .
She worked on spells to heal Barbara, and spells of defense and counterattack. She worked on deciphering Isabeau’s book, absorbing their heritage . . . claiming her birthright.
And then, in April, two cats showed up on the porch of the Anderson home.
Amanda, home alone, had eyed the two strange cats. One was a Siamese, a pretty, petite thing with silken fur and big, beguiling blue eyes; the other was an attractive calico, a chubby female whose face was half black, half spotted around pale green eyes.
Amanda loved cats and had grown used to them hanging around—cats were drawn to people who practiced magic—but she’d never seen these two before. They looked much too well-groomed and fed to be strays, but neither wore a collar or binding charm.
She approached the steps warily, but the felines seemed harmless enough. When they realized she was coming up, both stood and stretched, then made little mewling noises of welcome, as if they’d been waiting for her. She couldn’t help but soften a little—they looked so pretty and sweet-faced. It wasn’t until she was lifting her foot to the top step that both suddenly hissed and attacked her ankles.
There’d been no declawing of these two, and Amanda cried out as the cats’ teeth and nails streaked across the thin skin above her shoes. She tottered dangerously on the top step, then twisted and found a handhold on the porch post as the calico released its bite and tried again. For its trouble, Amanda gave it a face-full of her shoe; it screeched and toppled down the stairs, where it squatted and hissed nastily, preparing itself to attack a second time. The Siamese’s yowling added to the noise—Amanda heard herself cursing the cats soundly—and its claws raked across her shin, leaving a fiery trail as it swung around and tried again. Amanda stumbled backward on the porch, away from the stairs but losing her balance. If she fell and these animals got to her face, or her eyes—
Something large whizzed past her eyes and landed squarely on the Siamese’s backside. It screamed, loud and sharp, then bolted; righting herself, Amanda saw Nicole swing the end of the windshield squeegee again, taking it to the air like it was a baseball bat.
“Get the hell out of here!” One of the herb pots on the railing shattered as the end of the broom caught it, then Nicole hefted the broom and shook it at the now-fleeing cats.
“Nicole, that’s enough,” Amanda said. “They’re gone already.”
Her sister grimaced as she slipped an arm around Amanda’s waist and helped her limp inside. From the station wagon, Holly came hurrying into the house as Amanda fell gratefully on the couch.
She took a wad of tissues out of the box Nicole offered, then winced as she swabbed at a score of bleeding scratches across her ankles and lower shins. “They went after my feet, but I really think they were going for the full-body takedown. I think if they’d have gotten to my eyes, I’d have been a goner.”
“Bastards,” Nicole repeated. “We should take you to a doctor. You’ll need a tetanus shot, at least.”
“Later,” Amanda said. “Right now we have to worry about Michael. He’s renewed his attacks.”
Nicole took a breath. “Okay,” she said to her sister and her cousin. “I’m in.”
“Jesus, doesn’t the man ever stop?”
Holly didn’t expect an answer to her angry question, and she didn’t get one—right now, the three of them were much too occupied. It had seemed like such an innocuous, easy thing to do—they would run by Tommy’s under the cover of early dusk and pick him up because he’d complained to Amanda about strange noises outside his house all day. Then they would bring him back to their place, where they could all help protect one another. Staying together would minimize their risk and centralize their power—if a spell was needed, it would be that much more powerful with all of them chanting it. A great, grand scheme, and it had all gone to proverbial hell when they’d arrived at Tommy’s and discovered the roof was covered in undulating black shadows.
“What are those things?” Holly whispered.
“Okay, according to a book I just read, some people call them spirit suckers,” Nicole answered in a low voice. “Very bad, black magic—three of them can kill a person in only a few minutes, and there must be dozens on top of that house. I just don’t know why Deveraux would set them on Tommy.”
“I do,” Amanda said. Her voice was frigid as she pushed her hair back from her face. “To get to us via that old trickle-down method—if something happens to Tommy, it’ll hurt me to the core, and that, in turn, will weaken the three of us.”
“True.” Holly studied the roof, watching the shades of darkness glide over one another, seeing where they would creep over an edge and tentatively touch a window, then withdraw. It was almost like they were tasting the glass, seeing if there was something finer to be found just beyond its fragile protection. That something was Tommy, and the thought made Holly nauseated and almost afraid to ask her next question. “Why don’t they . . . just go inside? Slide through the cracks or whatever?”
“They can’t,” Nicole said. “Apparently, they’re creatures conjured for a specific purpose and person, but they have a history much like the legend of the vampire—no entry without permission. They can, however, be carried inside on the back of another being—they’ll go for the first moving thing they see within their range. Tommy’s just lucky he hasn’t had any visitors since they materialized. Oh, and they can also attack if the object of their attention inside comes out.” Holly saw her cousin’s eyes narrow as she spoke. “Right now, he’s trapped.”
“Damn,” Amanda muttered without taking her gaze away from the front of the old Victorian.
Nicole chewed thoughtfully on the end of a fingertip. “We’ll have to draw them off,” she said finally. “But we can’t let them attach themselves to us—if we do, they’ll just ride us until they can get in contact with Tommy. The only way you’ll ever be free of them is if you—or he—dies.”
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Holly gasped. “Die?”
Amanda was more concerned with the problem at hand. “Draw them off with what?” she demanded.
Nicole’s pretty face split into a cunning grin. “With a little something of our own.”
Holly’s eyebrows raised. “Oh?”
Nicole smiled even wider, until her teeth gleamed in the soft glow of the streetlights shining through the car’s windows. “Learned a little something myself,” she said huskily as she dug through her purse, finally pulling out a small bag twisted shut with twine and a thin black ribbon.
“By example, from Tante Cecile. Okay, I’m going out. Don’t make any noise.” She eased the door open and slid outside, watching the roof carefully. Holly and Amanda followed, taking extra care not to close the doors behind them, afraid even the slightest click would draw the attention of the spirit suckers.
Standing outside, Holly felt absurdly exposed, suddenly afraid that the black-on-black creatures thirty yards away could somehow see them, sense them, maybe even smell them. There was something hideous and terrifying about those things, much more so than flying knives in the open daylight of a drugstore—at least then she’d been able to see what was coming at her, to understand what it could do to her. But these . . . she couldn’t help but shudder.
Nicole’s fingers delicately undid the knot holding the top of the small bag closed. When she spoke, it was barely more than a whisper on the breeze.
“Dark are the shadows in Dyad’s light,
Heed as we beckon the evil one’s bite.
Turn them to the creatures that we raise this night,
Sink them back to the earth before morning’s light.”
As the last word passed her lips, Nicole swept the bag in an arc from left to right in front of the three of them. Black powder fluttered out and sparkled momentarily on the air, like finely ground obsidian. When it had settled soundlessly to the ground, Nicole took their elbows and pushed them back toward the car. “Inside,” she directed. “Quickly!”
