The Dark Glamour

by Gabriella Pierce

  Meanwhile, the younger Gran was stalking a younger Lynne Doran, first in Manhattan, then in the Hamptons, then back again. Jane had the bizarre experience of watching Annette grow from a toddler to a young child, while Malcolm slid inevitably into his still-gorgeous version of an awkward preteen. Gran had allies in her hunt, Jane realized: a good-looking, dark-haired couple who were probably just over forty at the time. Something about the woman’s eyes made Jane certain that she was a witch, and she watched Celine as avidly as they both watched Lynne. Sometimes Gran brought Jane along as she followed the Dorans, although more often she left her with a string of interchangeable-looking babysitters. Sometimes she would sit in their minuscule studio apartment, reading obsessively and making notes in the margins of old books that Jane couldn’t quite see.

  Finally, during one of those evenings at home, Gran’s face turned ashen as she looked up from a page. “I didn’t find the information I was looking for,” her voice told Jane almost sadly. “I found something worse.”

  The images began to speed up again, and Jane was glad she had Gran’s voice to make some sense of them. Gran had begun investigating the Dorans at the real beginning: she had researched Hasina. Jane didn’t understand what Lynne’s ancestress could possibly have to do with her own parents’ deaths, but her guide to the diary seemed intent on showing Jane everything her grandmother had learned, so Jane paid attention.

  Hasina had been one of the seven daughters of Ambika, the very first witch, who had split her magic among her daughters after her death. All seven had gained notoriety among their suspicious contemporaries, who had often tacked their reputations onto their names. Hasina, as Jane remembered from her own reading, had been called “the Undying.” Jane had wondered why . . . but Gran had found out. As Hasina had felt her body begin to fail, she had dug deeper into dark magic than any of her six sisters ever had, and had found a way to live on well past her body’s natural time: she had taken her daughter’s.

  “Wait,” Jane whispered, but there was no stopping the narrated flood of images now. Hasina possessed generation after generation of her descendants, leaving each body when one of her daughters was grown and strong enough to hold her. It had taken her years to learn the spell, which took a full month to cast, but once it was done, the soul couldn’t be shaken loose from its new home by anything but the next repetition of the spell.

  Of course, that meant that Hasina could never be without a prospective host—or hostess, rather. A daughter was ideal, but not always possible. In a pinch, she eventually learned, a niece would do: as long as the new body was a witch’s, and as long as there was a blood link between her and the last host, Hasina could make the switch. The witch she left, Jane noticed, tended not to live long afterward, and her horror at Hasina’s atrocious betrayal of her own family—over and over—was tinged with profound sadness for them.

  In the diary’s memory, Gran followed the ancient witch’s trail from book to book, from portrait to photo, and then, finally, inescapably, to Lynne Doran. Jane saw Lynne, protected from the summer sun by a long-sleeved shirt and floppy straw hat, sitting on a beach. In spite of her large sunglasses, she shaded her eyes with one hand, watching a small group of children run toward, then away from, the waves. Celine watched her from behind some tall dunes, her hands and jaw clenched. “It was her,” the diary’s voice hissed. “I’m sure of it.”

  “Lynne,” Jane whispered.

  “Not anymore,” the diary replied clinically.

  The images spun again, and Celine argued with the dark-haired couple on a deserted stretch of windswept beach. Something lay on the sand between them, and Jane recoiled when she recognized unconscious six-year-old Annette Doran. A nasty-looking bruise was already beginning to form on her right temple. “We can stop the chain,” the woman was telling Celine in an urgent voice. “She’ll never be able to have another one, not at her age.”

  “I won’t kill a child,” Gran insisted in the steely voice Jane remembered so well.

  The man looked downright murderous at that, but the woman placed a cautioning hand on his chest and he remained still. “Then we share the work,” she declared, and Celine nodded.

  The scenes spun and shifted again, but this time Jane could follow them on her own. Gran lit candles around a hastily taken Polaroid of Annette, whispering and working magic, and then she turned to the frightened-looking girl herself with regret in her eyes. She led a blank-looking Annette and a happy, sturdy four-year-old Jane through Heathrow.

  “She and my André are close enough in age to be playmates,” the dark-haired woman’s voice said from somewhere, “and Katrin is old enough now to take some responsibility for the family’s needs.”

  Jane could recognize Katrin easily enough in the wary-looking, sharp-faced girl of about sixteen, who greeted Celine and her two charges at what Jane knew had to be the London orphanage where Anne had first remembered living. “Mama said to remind you to top up both spells,” the girl told Celine flatly. “Memory and protection. They’ll have to last, or I’m to kill her.”

  Celine just nodded, and Jane felt a prickle of fear. She would let them kill Annette? But she wouldn’t, of course, Jane realized a split second later. In order to keep that from happening, Gran would have used the same protection spell on Annette that she had later used on her own flesh and blood. It had kept Jane safe in Paris for six years. It was as close to unbreakable as a spell could be: it lasted for the rest of the life of the witch who cast it. That one loophole in the spell was how Lynne had managed to find Jane: by killing Gran.

  But Lynne never knew there were two little girls under that protection, Jane thought wonderingly. And then I got lucky. Lynne might have searched high and low for her daughter, using all the magical and non-magical means at her disposal. But there was nothing for her to find as long as Celine Boyle was alive, powering her fierce protection spells. Then, finally, Malcolm was sent to kill Gran, because Lynne needed an heiress. The irony struck Jane like a blow to the chest: Lynne could have found Annette just like Jane did, but she only could have done it after her plot to replace her daughter was under way. And why would Lynne have bothered to try, twenty-two years later? She would have been sure she had exhausted all her options. And then Jane had waltzed in with uncanny timing and found exactly what Lynne had stopped looking for.

  “I found her,” Jane told the implacable image of her grandmother frantically. “After you died, I found Annette.”

  The diary’s Gran clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “That’s all right,” she said briskly. “I only meant to keep her from Hasina.”

  Jane fell backward out of the diary then and lay on the floor gasping for breath. Lynne had searched for Annette . . . but Hasina had been looking for a body. Blood-related, and a witch. My daughter with one of her sons . . . or her own daughter, back from the dead. She rolled to her side, her stomach heaving as if she might vomit. The diary lay on the floor, innocent and motionless. That’s why Lynne wanted her back so badly, Jane moaned silently. That’s why she was willing to trade anything for her.

  The image of Lynne’s serene face in the clearing filled Jane’s mind. She watched her onetime enemy pour her magic into the silver dagger, tossing it away like a worthless trinket. What was some magic, compared with eternal life? Besides, Hasina’s next body had more than enough magic of its own—enough to kill already, without even meaning to. Jane tried to sit up, but her muscles couldn’t seem to hear her.

  I have to, she pleaded with her unresponding body. It’s not over.

  Jane had to get to Anne while there was still time to warn her.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Jane didn’t bother to greet Gunther, who seemed, as always, to be napping, as she stalked into the Dorans’ mahogany-paneled elevator. She had finally accepted that the best plan was to wait until Anne’s welcome-home party to try to get the girl alone, but now that the big night was here, she didn’t want to waste a minute. She stabbed the code at the bottom of her
invitation into the elevator’s keypad, and the doors closed, followed by the gold gate behind them. The number-eight button lit up automatically, and the elevator began to move. Jane spun the beading on her evening bag anxiously, willing the floors to go by faster.

  She had been unconscious at the time, but as far as she could tell, she had turned from Jane into Ella almost exactly twenty-eight days before . . . minus just a couple of hours. Hope this thing doesn’t go all night, she thought wryly as the elevator finally arrived. There was no doubt in her mind that the shape of her eyes had changed, and her electric-blue pumps felt looser on her feet than she remembered from when she had first tried them on. If she didn’t get in and out of the mansion quickly, she could be facing a serious Cinderella-at-the-ball situation.

  She stepped out of the elevator and scanned the crowded atrium. Anne was nowhere to be seen. A grand entrance. Obviously. Thousands of candles were suspended from the ceiling, and Lynne had filled the open space with twisting vines and delicately branched trees full of tiny lights. The entire place looked like the enchanted wood from some fairy tale . . . after the fairies had already gone to work, of course. And with a stellar-slash-sickening view of the city, Jane remembered belatedly when she stepped around a stand of birch trees and found herself directly in front of the wraparound floor-to-ceiling windows. She gulped down the lump in her throat and grabbed a glass of champagne off the tray of a passing waiter before making her way back to the safer center of the massive room.

  A pair of dancing green eyes caught hers from across the room, and she nearly choked on her drink. Harris. Everyone in New York really is here, Jane thought, her body pulling toward Harris like a strong magnet. She felt a moment of giddy happiness at the sight of his coppery hair and wide, easy smile, and it only deepened when she realized that he was alone. Then the happiness turned to guilt as she realized why Dee hadn’t come: although this was certainly a plus-one type of occasion, Dee would never have taken the risk of putting herself in a room full of mind-readers. She insisted that her mental defenses had come a long way in the last couple of months, but considering all that she knew, and considering how powerful Lynne and the twins were, coming to the party would have been suicide. And gotten me killed, too, so thanks for sitting this one out. Jane, fully abashed, tried to project the thought downtown, toward their apartment, even though she knew Dee wouldn’t be able to read it.

  Jane started toward Harris eagerly, but bumped almost immediately into something tall, dark, and extremely well-built. “How lovely to see you again, dear Ella,” André smiled coldly, taking her arm in what was definitely not a casual manner. His black eyes burned into hers, and she could tell he was absolutely furious.

  “How was France?” she asked as brightly as she could, shaking her arm violently out of his grip.

  “You did this,” he hissed, leaning in so that no one else could overhear them.

  “Can you believe it?” she asked, keeping a desperate smile on her face and stepping back. “I just ran into her and recognized her. I’m surprised to see you here, though,” she added pointedly. She bared her teeth in an approximation of a smile. Tell me how the hell you could risk coming here now, she thought violently at him. He couldn’t read her mind, but she felt sure he would be able to read her face. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Katrin, half-hidden behind one of the little trees, glaring in her direction. One of the twins was with her, and she didn’t look much happier. From the other side of the room, Harris was watching the two witches, even moving a bit closer to them. Jane wished fervently that he would look her way again; she could use an ally.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” André’s Romanian accent snarled at her. “I’m here to support my dear Anne at this momentous occasion. She has always been like a sister to me, you know,” he finished urbanely, and Jane began to understand that she was about to get the same story he had fed to Lynne. She knew better—and she was willing to bet that Lynne did, too—but apparently it suited both of them to pretend that André hadn’t been actively hiding Anne from anyone.

  “She did mention that she had some friends from the orphanage,” Jane offered tentatively, and André smiled like a predator hypnotizing its prey.

  “My family has always been involved in charity projects, volunteerism, and so on,” he confirmed. “Katrin, there”—he waved to his sister, who practically snarled at Jane in response—“was working at the orphanage when Anne came in. If we had had any idea who she was then, of course, we could have ended this story happily decades ago.”

  “Amazing that you never heard about Annette,” Jane murmured, and André’s eyes blazed again.

  “Once we did, of course, we came here to investigate her birth family. We disguised it as merger talks so as not to arouse suspicion, but we couldn’t in good conscience let our dear little sister go back to just any kind of people. We felt quite protective. I’m sure you can imagine.”

  Jane glanced around for Harris again, but his attention was still riveted on Katrin. Over here, damn it, she thought as loudly as she could without actually speaking, but of course he didn’t turn her way. “What a lovely thing for you to have done,” she told André blandly. Yeah, no. No way in hell Lynne bought that, either. But, for whatever evil reason of her own, she had apparently pretended to, and now Jane was stuck with two people who wanted her dead at the same party where she was about to try to pull off her most daring rescue yet.

  She turned away from André abruptly, weaving her way quickly through trees and people until she had almost made a full circuit of the hollow square of the atrium. Taking up a position behind a cluster of Valentino-clad PR reps, she spotted André’s back near where she had left him. His head turned back and forth, searching the crowd, and Jane sidled closer to the chattering group she was using as cover in case it occurred to him to turn all the way around.

  But now that he wasn’t actively trying to use or control her, André was far from her biggest problem.

  Getting Anne out from under her mother’s nose will be a hundred times harder than getting Malcolm out of the basement, she thought nervously, and then felt a sudden pang of regret for having to leave Charles behind. Maybe somehow she would be able to come back and go three for three with saving Doran siblings, but right now it was hard to imagine. Plus, where could I take him? She was fairly sure he would agree to go with her . . . but then she’d be stuck with him.

  Harris’s close-cropped coppery curls flashed in the glow of the candles, and she realized that he was much closer than he had been. He made his way closer, parting the crowd politely and quickly. Jane turned toward him hungrily, and their eyes met. She started forward, her lips parting expectantly, but although she saw recognition in his eyes, that was all that they registered. Following the briefest of hesitations, he looked away and continued on, and Jane realized that he had just been going to the elevator. Leaving already? she wondered sadly. Before the grand entrance? She was fairly sure Harris didn’t smoke, and she couldn’t think of another explanation. She twisted her beaded evening bag between her hands, feeling unaccountably abandoned.

  She almost decided to follow him, but just then the lights flickered and everyone turned toward the double doors that led to the building’s main staircase. I’m here for Anne, she reminded herself. Everything else could wait. A whisper ran through the well-dressed crowd, an anticipation that Jane could almost touch. The doors remained closed for a few long moments, seeming to vibrate slightly under the focus of the assembled guests. The murmuring subsided, and a perfect stillness came over the room. When Jane felt that the entire eighth floor might explode under the tension, the double doors swung open as if by magic, and Anne stepped tentatively into the room. Her wavy hair was tied up into soft twists, some falling artfully down and others held in place by star-shaped white flowers. Her dress was white, too: a Grecian-looking thing that draped over a cord at the waist, fell to the floor, and made Anne’s golden skin glow as if it had been polished.

  A g
asp flew around the room, and the almost painful stillness ended abruptly in a wild crash of applause from every corner. Anne smiled tentatively, turning back briefly to look at Lynne, who had remained discreetly in the shadows behind her daughter. Then she turned to the room and smiled again, and the applause became deafening.

  Although Anne seemed to want to hug the interior walls of the room, it still took Jane nearly an hour to get anywhere near her. André was apparently still looking for Ella in the wrong part of the room, but Belinda Helding proved harder to shake. Her angry pewter stare followed Jane from spot to spot, until Jane lost her by ducking behind an ivy-and-light-covered trellis. She peeked out to try to find a clear path to Anne, and found herself looking directly into the taut, olive-skinned face of Katrin. Jane backed into the trellis, attracting a dark, piercing stare from Lynne, all the way across the room. Katrin spun fearfully toward Lynne, and Jane took advantage of the distraction to scurry toward the bathrooms as inconspicuously as she could.

  The Dalcascus don’t want Hasina to move into Anne any more than I do, Jane thought angrily, glaring at the mirror. She splashed some water on her face and halfheartedly checked her disguise, out of habit. We could—we should—be working together. But caution born of experience argued otherwise: she hadn’t ever been entirely correct about the Romanians’ agenda up until now, and it would be insane to imagine that she really understood how they would react to her information.

  She stepped out of the bathroom and back into the softer light of the party, and resumed the infuriating task of counting witches.