Witch & Curse

by Nancy Holder

  For the first time, the man looked uncertain.

  “He guaranteed my safety,” he stated flatly.

  Without another word, she plucked a battle-axe off the wall, whirled around, took quick aim, and flung it directly at his head.

  It chopped his face in two; then the top of his head lobbed backward, much as the hinged lid of the box containing her daughter’s ashes had done, and he collapsed in a gory heap on her beautiful black-and-silver carpet.

  “Madame la reine,” gasped the liveried villein who had smirked at her daughter’s remains.

  For him, she conjured a fireball and flung it at him. It landed in his hair. He shrieked for more minutes than she had care to listen.

  So she swept from the Great Hall like the queen she was.

  “And so, it falls to you,” she said to the prostrate girl before her.

  Three days had passed since Isabeau’s death. It was in this very turret room that Isabeau had begged her to spare Jean de Deveraux, her new husband. Her huge, dark eyes had filled with tears, ignoring the warnings implicit in the entrails of the lambkin Catherine had sacrificed, begging for mercy for a man who would not grant her the same in return.

  Because Isabeau was not yet with child, the Deveraux were planning to murder her in her marriage bed, thus to sever the alliance with the Cahors. The heads of both families had made an unspoken bargain: Isabeau would unite the houses by giving birth to a son if and when the Deveraux shared the secret of the Black Fire with the Cahors. Neither had been willing to go first; the stalemate had made Catherine impatient and Isabeau vulnerable. And so Catherine had laid siege to their castle and forced their hand.

  “I knew it was a risk,” she murmured, coming back to the present, and to the girl in front of her. “I knew that in all probability I would lose my daughter.

  “And so, it falls to you,” she repeated.

  The girl was named Jeannette, which Catherine found propitious. Perhaps if Isabeau and the Deveraux prince had made a girl, they would have named her thus. This Jeannette was one of the bastard children of Catherine’s first husband, Louis. He had many of them, but Jeannette carried within her blood the strongest magic of the male line. Long ago it was a witch who had brought strong blood to the Cahors line, and magical power was more pronounced in Cahors daughters than in sons, just as Deveraux sons carried their family’s powers from generation to generation.

  Jeannette had Louis’s golden hair and quicksilver eyes; she was lithe and petite, a darling child of fourteen, and as she lay trembling before the great queen, she whispered, “Je vous en prie, madame. I am not worthy.”

  “You’re afraid, and right to be,” Catherine mused. “You’re not well armed in the ways of the moon, and I have little time to prepare you for your role.” I should have had one waiting to step forward, she thought. That was an oversight, an incredible pride on my part.

  I assumed I would be able to protect Isabeau. I was so terribly, terribly wrong.

  And now she is but dust. She is dead, and Jean is dead, and the two houses must both start over.

  Catherine swept her skirts to her private altar. Candles burned, and herbs; small doves huddled inside their cages, cowering as if they realized their fate. A golden statue of the Moon Lady, young, vibrant, and beautiful, stretched forth her arms to hold the libations Catherine had provided: ripe grain, wine, and the heart of a fine buck.

  Seated atop the statue’s head, preening and watchful, the lady hawk Pandion observed the proceedings. She cocked her head, her bells jingling, and fluttered her wings. Then she hunkered down to watch her mistress make magic.

  Catherine grabbed one of the doves and stabbed it with the athame she held in her left hand. The warm blood gushed over her hand and onto the head of Jeannette, who gasped but said nothing.

  Two more times Catherine anointed her with blood, then blessed the wine and gave it to Jeannette to drink. It was redolent with herbs designed to strengthen the girl’s powers, and when Jeannette’s head rolled back and her eyes lolled, unseeing, Catherine whispered spells over her for hours, hoping against hope that this young, untried girl would become a suitable heiress for her own mantle as High Priestess of the Cahors Coven.

  And so began her work on Jeannette.

  The young witchling was never allowed to leave the turret room. She wasn’t yet strong enough to fight the magical influences of the Deveraux, who were surely plotting revenge. Catherine’s spies had told her that Jean’s place had been taken by one Paul, and that he was mighty and bold . . . but no Jean de Deveraux.

  Moons passed, nearly six of them. Jeannette was practically half-mad from being locked up in the turret, and began to speak of visions she was having of the dead Isabeau, whose spirit would not rest.

  Catherine was delighted to hear that her child had not yet departed for higher realms; that Isabeau was earthbound made her wonder if she could revive her, perhaps pour her soul into this little vessel. Never mind that such an act would no doubt cause the death of Jeannette’s own soul. She was a bastard, and so far she had done nothing to fan any flames of warmth in her new mistress’s heart.

  The queen of the castle spent long hours casting spells and runes in order to contact her dead daughter. She made untold sacrifices. She raged, she pleaded with the Goddess . . . and she went unheard.

  Finally she went to Jeannette, humiliated that such a chit could manage what she could not.

  “My daughter. What stops her rest?” Catherine demanded of her.

  “I . . . I don’t know,” Jeannette said miserably. “I only see her in my mind, and know that she’s not happy.”

  “Not happy?” Happiness was a foreign concept to Catherine. What on earth did happiness have to do with anything of import? Happiness was a sop to those who had no power, no fortune. There was no such thing, but rulers and bishops said so to keep the serfs and villeins in their traces.

  “She is not happy,” Jeannette repeated. And then she murmured, “And neither am I. Oh, stepmother, please let me leave this room!”

  “You’re not ready,” Catherine insisted.

  “I am! Oh, I beg of you, I am!” Jeannette threw herself on her knees and clasped Catherine around the legs. “I am going mad!”

  Catherine touched the crown of Jeannette’s hair, then moved firmly away. “Patience, girl. Soon. Soon you will have the wings you need to fly with Pandion.” She smiled at the bird, who screeched at her in return.

  But alas, Jeannette could not wait. Four moons later, Catherine learned that she had bribed one of the male servants to unlock the turret room, slipped out, and run to the forest to commune with the spirits. She had danced for hours, skyclad, then snuck back, put on her clothes, and pretended that nothing had happened.

  This happened each moon for the next three moons.

  Catherine’s fury was matched only by her anxiety when the bishop arrived from Toulouse, as he did upon occasion, and with great unease, asked to speak to Catherine “of divers unsavory accusations against your ward.”

  Cahors was on the route from the wine valley to Toulouse; it seemed that travelers overnighting in the forest had witnessed Jeannette’s pavane to the Goddess, and reported it to their priest. More rumors flew; soon the town was mumbling against the Cahors, calling them witches as they had done in the past.

  There were prelates who knew the truth about the Cahors and the Deveraux, and others who did not. Each generation of French Coventry went about handling the Church as efficiently as possible. It had fallen to Catherine to be saddled with a virtuous Christian man who agreed wholeheartedly with the burnings that had been raging all over the continent.

  “Of course you can understand my concern, madame,” the bishop said to Catherine, as they walked in Catherine’s beautiful rose garden. Isabeau’s ashes had been buried there, and now a beautiful lily—symbol of the House of Cahors—drew nutrients from her mortal remains. “If such an abomination has found lodging in your family, that is to say, in your own bosom.” He colored.
“To turn a phrase.”

  “To turn a phrase,” she said, “my husband’s bastard is my concern, not yours.”

  The old man held up a finger. “All the souls in Christendom are the Church’s concern, my daughter.”

  In the end, Catherine angrily capitulated and gave the prelate what he wanted. She herself denounced Jeannette, claiming to have seen her flying on a broomstick, and the bishop’s guards dragged her screaming from the turret room, which had been stripped bare of all witchly trappings far in advance of their entry. A crucifix hung on the wall with a statue of the Madonna. Gone was Catherine’s altar, and the bloodstains of the many sacrifices, and the arcana of witchly pursuit.

  And gone was Pandion ... until Jeannette was tied to the stake in the Cathedral yard in Toulouse. And then the lady hawk of the Cahors wheeled above her head, capering in the currents of hot air as Catherine’s hopes, once more, burned to ash.

  THREE

  DEAD MOON

  In the night we dance and laugh

  As our foes taste our wrath

  Death we are and death we bring

  Delivered on a falcon’s wing

  We dance upon each dead man’s corpse

  Laugh and shout till we grow hoarse

  We treasure all our enemies’ moans

  As lady hawk talons crush their bones

  Jer: The Island of Avalon

  “You’re going to live after all, mon frère sorcier” a voice said.

  Jer couldn’t tell where it was coming from. He tried to open his eyes; they were bandaged shut.

  He couldn’t move—or rather, he had no idea if he was able to move, or moving his body already. Agony permeated his being; he had no sense of a self beyond the pain that wracked him.

  His father used to debate the notion of eternal torment with a warlock friend. Michael had held with the common belief that after a time, the victim would stop feeling the torture; that any sort of sensation, be it ecstatic bliss or the burning, scorching sensations that plagued Jer now, would become meaningless. The body would simply stop responding to them.

  That was so wrong.

  Pain begins in the mind, Jer thought, and even my mind was burned. I am completely, utterly destroyed.

  Holly, he called out in his desperation, save me. You can make it stop. You have the power.

  In a strange delirium he had dreamed of her; he had sat imprisoned in a room, shackled as a lure for her. He had begged her to stay away from him, as well he should do now. His family was covenanted to kill her.

  She has a better chance if Eli died from his burns. Fantasme’s spirit materialized and rescued him, but I pray to the God that the Black Fire killed him . . . more quickly than I seem to be dying.

  He is evil, true, but he is my brother.

  I can’t wish this kind of pain on anyone.

  Then a voice—the same voice—whispered in his ear again, “You’re going to live.”

  He knew that voice; it was a part of him, an undying piece of his own soul. It was the voice of Jean de Deveraux, the son of the House of Deveraux when the Cahors perpetrated the massacre upon Castle Deveraux.

  “I did not die, either,” Jean assured him. “They all believed that I died in the fire, but I survived. I told no one. I escaped with a small band of followers, and I stayed out of sight.

  “I survived, and carried my warlock bloodline through my heirs in France to England and Montreal, and then to the Wild West.

  “And you’re going to survive, too, and kill my love,” Jean continued, whispering in Jer’s mind. “You shall kill Isabeau. And then she shall rest, and I will rest as well, because I will have my revenge at last.”

  Then another voice said, “You’re going to live,” and this one came from outside Jer’s mind. “You will live, and you will join your father in his scheme to overthrow mine.”

  It’s James, Jer realized. The heir to the Moore Coven and son of Sir William, who is the leader of the Supreme Coven. Our family has secretly allied with James.

  That had been their original stance. But after Jer had been burned, Michael had pledged Jer to the service of Sir William in return for Jer’s life. Upon sealing the bargain, Sir William had transformed into a hideous demon. Is he a devil? Did my father make a deal with Satan himself so that I could survive?

  Suddenly the pain lessened, and Jer gasped with relief.

  “It hurts, the Black Fire, doesn’t it?” James murmured. “That’s why we want the secret. The Supreme Coven wants this weapon so we can finally wipe out those idiot witches in the Mother Coven.”

  Jer was confused. Surely his father had already shared the secret. No way would Sir William let him hold a trump card like that.

  “I can practically read your mind,” James drawled. “Something has gone wrong, Jer. Your father can’t conjure the Black Fire anymore. We have no idea why he continues to fail.”

  Jer was taken aback.

  “I think it’s because he needs you and Eli both, that there must be three Deveraux present to make the fire burn. With you out of commission and away from him, it isn’t working. My father thinks I’m wrong. He thinks that bitch Holly is blocking it. So my father sent him home to kill her.

  “What about you, Jer? Would you kill her if I ordered you to? You’re with me, or you’re against me. “You’re going to get well, and you, your father, and your brother, are going to conjure the Black Fire for me.”

  Eli must be alive, Jer thought, and he was both dismayed and relieved at the thought. I still care about him. Blood is thicker than water after all... warlock blood, that is . . .

  “Sit up,” James commanded him.

  Magic thrummed through Jer Deveraux, binding up seared flesh; reopening veins that had melted shut; clearing the scars from his lungs and his heart. His breathing came more freely; he sucked in both air and magic, and the glow pulsated and spread throughout his body, expelling with his exhalations. He was dizzy, almost high, and then the pain was almost gone. Almost, but not quite.

  Then Jer found himself seated in a wheelchair on a cliff, facing out to sea. Magical energy swirled and undulated around him, motes of green phosphorescence danced over his skin.

  His skin, which was black and shriveled and repulsive.

  He stared in horror at his hands, dangling loosely in his lap. They were charred stumps, bones poking through the lumps of cindered flesh. A witch at the stake would have looked no worse.

  I’m a monster, like Sir William. Maybe he was burned by the Black Fire too. Maybe my father conjured it before, years ago, and Sir William bears the scars.

  Tears rolled down his face. His body shook with grief and rage and deep, abject humiliation.

  I can never let Holly see me like this. She’d pull away, probably throw up. I couldn’t take that.

  “You begin to understand what the Cahors are capable of,” said Jean de Deveraux’s voice inside Jer’s head. “Eh, bien, that’s what I looked like too, after my wife betrayed me. And why I both love and loathe my Isabeau. And why you must kill the reigning Cahors witch, who is known as Holly Cathers. My Isabeau can possess her and she has betrayed us both now. So they must die, the one with the other.”

  “No,” Jer croaked. He had no idea how long it had been since he had spoken a word. “Holly did not betray me.”

  “But she did,” Jean insisted. “La femme Holly, she knew that bound together, Deveraux and Cahors—pardon, on dit ‘Cathers’—could stay untouched within the flame of the Black Fire that your family conjured last Beltane. By holding on to each other, you both could have stood inside the flames for an entire moon, had you so desired.

  “But she moved away from you in the fire, did she not? Mon ami, she abandoned you to the flames, as Isabeau swore to do to me, knowing full well that you would suffer like this.”

  “Her cousins dragged her away!” Jer rasped. “She had no choice.”

  “How pathetic, that you lie so poorly to yourself,” Jean said contemptuously. “She’s the strongest witch i
n the Cahors line since Catherine, Isabeau’s mother. If she had really wanted to save you, she could have.”

  “No,” Jer whispered, but he had no rebuttal; deep in his sizzling, superheated Deveraux soul, he believed what Jean was saying.

  Then he had another vision: He was standing on the shoreline in Seattle, with Holly; the waves flung themselves against their ankles, and then their calves, and their knees. But his arms were around Holly, and she was kissing him deeply, her entire body pressed against his. She was hungry for him, and so eager. . . .

  . . . and the waves crashed around them, and crashed; Holly held him tightly and kept her mouth over his. The chill waters yanked at them and tugged hard.

  They tumbled out to sea, caught up in the cresting waves and the chasms between them. Jer fought, trying to keep his head above the rollercoaster of water, but Holly clung to him and pulled him down, down; her mouth was over his and he couldn’t draw a breath. She had effectively cut off all his oxygen. In his panic and frustration, he tried to break free, but he couldn’t. She was drowning him.

  “She will be the death of you, if you don’t kill her first,” Jean whispered. “Isabeau is bound to take my life, through you if she must. She cannot rest until I am obliterated.”

  And then James spoke, as if he were part of this vision, as if he lived both outside and inside Jer’s mind:

  “Remember who your friends are, Deveraux,” James added.

  Jean continued. “And never, ever forget your enemies. In the lives of witch and warlock, blood feuds go on for centuries. Mademoiselle Holly may want to love you, may even be able to convince herself that she does; but she is the living embodiment of all that is Cahors, and she is your mortal enemy.”

  Holly and Amanda: Seattle, October

  It was a very dark and stormy night, nearly Samhain, and Uncle Richard was drunk.

  Holly and Amanda had just gotten home from Circle, both taking off their cloaks of invisibility to find him sitting in the living room in the dark, compulsively eating the miniature chocolate bars purchased for trick-or-treaters, straight out of the bag. He didn’t even pretend anymore; he was drinking Scotch straight out of the bottle. In the early days after Aunt Marie-Claire’s death, he had mixed drinks for himself, making them progressively stronger; then he had taken to drinking out of a shot glass. That was before he had had proof that Marie-Claire had been having an affair with Michael Deveraux.