by L. J. Smith
“Poisonous Serpent! Cold-blooded Biter! Rastaban! Anguis!”
No, they’re names, Keller realized slowly. Its names. Dragon names.
Old names.
“I am a witch and the daughter of a witch. Mine was the hand that took your power; mine was the hand that buried you in silence. Hecate was the most ancient of my mothers. Hecate’s hand is my hand now.”
Winnie couldn’t have taught her that. Nobody could have taught her that. No witch alive today.
Keller could see Winnie’s pale face watching in surprise from beyond Iliana, her eyes and mouth dark O’s.
“Mine is the hand that sends you back!”
Iliana’s palms were cupped now, and orange fire crackled between them.
Keller’s heart plummeted.
Golden-orange fire. Witch fire. It was impressive, from a girl who’d never been trained, but it wasn’t nearly enough. It was about as dangerous to the dragon as a firefly.
She heard Winnie’s voice in the silence, small and frightened but determined.
“Aim for the horn!”
The dragon threw back its head and laughed.
That was what it looked like, anyway. What came out was a roar like all the other roars and a belch of black energy that fountained skyward. But in her head, Keller heard maniacal laughter.
Then it swung its head back down and pointed the horn straight at Iliana.
Die! it said. The word wasn’t spoken but sent on a cold wave of pure energy.
“Mine is the power of the ages!” Iliana shouted back. “Mine is the power—”
The golden flare in her palms was changing, blazing white, blinding hot…
“—OF THE END OF THE WORLD!”
Something like a supernova was born between her hands.
The light shot up and out, exploding. It was impossible to look at. And it was no longer white but dazzling, lightning-brilliant blue.
The blue fire.
The Wild Power had awakened.
I knew it, Keller thought. I knew it all along.
Keller couldn’t see what happened to the dragon; the light was simply too bright. While it flared around her, she was bathed in radiance that seemed to shine through her, humming inside her and lighting up her bones. She tried to lift her own hand and saw nothing but a vague rainbow shape.
But she heard the dragon’s scream. Not low like the roar but high and squealing, a sound like icicles driving into her ears. It went up and up, higher in pitch until even Keller couldn’t track it. And then there was a thin sound like distant glass shattering, and then there was no sound at all.
There were shooting stars in the blue-white light.
For the second time that evening, Keller fainted.
“Boss! Please, Boss, hurry. Wake up!”
Keller blinked open her eyes. Galen was holding her. He was human. So was she.
And Winnie and Nissa were trying to drag both of them somewhere.
Keller gazed up into those gold-green eyes. The exact color of a leopard’s, she thought. Only leopards don’t cry, and his were brimming with tears.
She lifted a languorous hand and stroked his cheek. He cupped his own hand over it.
Keller couldn’t think. There were no words in her mind. But she was glad to be here with him, for this last moment in the moonlight. It had all been worth it
“Boss, please!” Winnie was almost crying, too.
“Let me die in peace,” Keller said, although she didn’t realize she was saying it aloud until she heard the words. Then she added, “Don’t you cry, Winfrith. You did a good job.”
“Boss, you’re not dying! The blue fire did something—it healed us. We’re all okay. But it’s almost midnight!”
Keller blinked. She blinked again.
Her body didn’t hurt anymore. She’d assumed it was the blessed numbness that comes just before death. But now she realized that it wasn’t. Her blood was running in her veins; her muscles felt firm and strong. She didn’t even have a headache.
She stared beyond Winnie to the girl in white.
Iliana was still slight and childlike, almost fairylike of figure. But something had changed about her. At first, Keller thought she looked as distant and beautiful as a star, but then she smiled and wasn’t distant at all. She was simply more beautiful than the dreams of mortals.
And really shining with her own light. It pooled around her in soft, silvery radiance. Keller had never seen a Wild Power do that before, not on any of the tapes.
But she’s not just a Wild Power, the voice in her head whispered. She’s the Witch Child.
And Goddess alone knows all that she’s meant to do.
For a moment, Keller felt so awed that it was almost like unhappiness. But then Winnie’s message finally sank in.
She snapped her head up. “Midnight?”
“Yes!” Winnie said frantically.
Keller bolted upright. “Nissa?”
“Right here, Boss.”
Keller felt a flood of relief. Nissa was the one who had seemed closest to death on the ground there. But now she was standing on her own two feet, looking cool and imperturbable, even though her shirt was bloody and in rags.
“Nissa, can you drive that Jeep? Can you figure out how to get to Charlotte?”
“I think so, Boss.”
Keller had never been so grateful to hear that calm voice in her life. She jumped up.
“Then let’s go!”
CHAPTER 18
The ride to Charlotte passed in a blur. All Keller could remember was hanging on while Nissa did some of the wildest driving she’d ever experienced. They went off-road for a good deal of the way.
It was one minute to midnight when they squealed into a parking lot in front of a long, low building.
“Go in, go in!” Nissa said, slamming to a stop in front of a set of double doors.
Keller and Galen and Winnie and Iliana ran.
They burst into a large room that seemed very brightly lit. A sea of chairs with bodies sitting in them swam in front of Keller’s eyes. Then she focused on a platform at the front.
“Come on,” she said tersely.
There were a number of people sitting at a table on the platform, facing the audience just like any ordinary panel, with glasses of water and microphones in front of them. But Keller recognized some of the people as she got closer, and they were anything but ordinary.
That little dumpling-shaped woman with the round face was Mother Cybele. Mother of all the Witches, just as Grandma Harman had been Crone. With Grandma Harman dead, she was the witches’ leader.
The tall girl with the lovely features and the café au lait skin who sat beside her was Aradia. The blind Maiden of the Witches mentioned in the prophecies.
And that regal-looking man with the golden hair and beard, sitting by the queenly woman with flashing green eyes…
They could only be the leaders of the First House of the shapeshifters.
Galen’s mother and father.
There were others, too, important people from Circle Daybreak, but Keller didn’t have time to focus on them. Mother Cybele was on her feet and speaking. She must have been a little short-sighted, because she didn’t appear to see Keller and the others coming up on the side. Her voice was slow and concerned.
“I’m afraid that since it’s now past midnight—”
Keller glanced at her watch. “It’s just midnight now!”
Mother Cybele looked up, startled, over her glasses. Every head on the panel turned. And every face in the audience was suddenly fixed on Keller’s group.
A low murmur like the humming of bees began, but it swelled very quickly to something like a muted roar. People were pointing openly as Keller ran up the steps to the stage.
She glanced back at the others and realized why. They were a pretty sad-looking bunch. Every one of them was dirty and ragged. Winnie’s strawberry-blond hair was dark red with blood on one side. Galen’s sweater was in shreds. And she herself wa
s filthy from the tunnel and all the dirt she’d encountered in the clearing.
Only Iliana looked reasonably clean, and that was probably because the glow kept you from focusing too closely.
Mother Cybele gave a little cry of joy that sounded quite young, and she dropped the index cards she’d been holding. Aradia stood up, her beautiful blank eyes turned toward them, her entire face shining with joy. Galen’s parents looked extremely startled and relieved.
But some guy in a dark suit grabbed Keller’s arm as she reached the top of the steps.
“Who are you supposed to be?” he said.
Keller shook him off and stood with her hair swirling around her. “We’re the people who’re bringing you the Wild Power,” she said. She spotted Nissa just coming in the door and beckoned to her. “And we’re also the ones who killed the dragon.”
The big room fell so silent that you could have heard a paper clip drop.
“Well, actually, she killed the dragon,” Keller said, pointing to Iliana.
Aradia said in a hushed voice, “The Witch Child. She’s come to us.”
Iliana walked slowly up onto the stage and stood straight. “I didn’t kill it alone,” she said. “Everybody helped, and especially Keller and Galen.”
Galen’s father’s golden eyebrows went up, and Galen’s mother gripped her husband’s arm. Keller glanced sideways at Galen and saw that he was blushing.
“They fought it and fought it until they were both almost dead. But then, when I used the blue fire, they got better again.”
She said it so simply, speaking to Mother Cybele alone, or so it seemed. She didn’t look in the least self-conscious, or in the least arrogant.
I suppose she’s used to having everybody looking at her, Keller thought.
Mother Cybele actually clasped her little soft hands together and shut her eyes. When she opened them again, they were shining with tears.
But all she said was, “Welcome, my child. Grandma Harman’s last words were for you. She hoped you would find your power.”
“She did,” Keller said. “Winnie helped her.”
“I didn’t help her do that,” Winnie said candidly. “What she did back there and what she said. I just tried to show her how to use the orange fire. But when she started talking—” She shook her curly head. “I don’t know where she got all that stuff about Hecate.”
“It just came to me,” Iliana said. “I don’t know. It was as if somebody was saying it to me, and I was just repeating it.”
But who could have said it? Keller thought. Who else but somebody who was there the first time, when the dragons were put to sleep? Who else but Hecate Witch-Queen herself?
Even though she’d been dead thirty thousand years.
It’s time for everything that’s sleeping to wake back up again.
Keller realized that she was hearing a noise from the crowd. At first, she thought that they were muttering in disbelief again, or maybe in annoyance at these people who were standing on the stage and chattering.
Then it got louder and louder, and she realized it was applause.
People were clapping and cheering and whistling. It was echoing off the ceiling and walls. And just when Keller thought it couldn’t possibly get any louder, a new wave would come and prove her wrong.
It took a long time for Mother Cybele to get them all quieted down. Then she turned to Keller and said formally, “So you’ve completed your mission?”
Keller realized that it was a cue. And in the midst of the dizzy happiness she’d been feeling, something twisted in her heart.
She kept it from showing on her face. She kept herself standing erect.
“Yes,” she said to Mother Cybele. “I’ve brought the Witch Child.” She swallowed hard.
“And here is the son of the First House of the shapeshifters,” Galen’s father said. He stepped over to Galen and took his hand. His face was stern but glowing with pride.
Galen’s face was pale but set. He looked at Keller—for just one moment. And then he looked straight out at the audience with unseeing eyes.
Mother Cybele looked toward Iliana. To take her hand, Keller supposed, and join it with Galen’s. But Iliana was holding some whispered conversation with Aradia.
When she finally turned around, Iliana said, “I want Keller to do it. She’s the one responsible for all this.”
Keller blinked. Her throat was so swollen, it was impossible to swallow again. But she wouldn’t have thought it of Iliana. Really, it seemed so pointlessly cruel to make her do it.
But maybe she doesn’t understand. That’s it, she doesn’t realize, Keller thought. She let out a careful, shaky breath and said, “Okay.”
She reached for Iliana’s hand—
And felt a stab in her palm.
She looked down, astonished. Iliana had a knife in that hand, a perfectly serviceable little knife. She had cut Keller with it, and Keller was bleeding. In fact, Iliana seemed to be bleeding, too.
“Sorry,” Iliana hissed. “Ick, I hate blood.”
Then, grabbing Keller’s hand again, she faced the audience and raised it up high.
“There!” she said. “Now we’re blood sisters. And she’s already been like a sister to me, because she saved my life over and over. And if that’s not good enough for an alliance between the witches and the shapeshifters, I don’t know what is.”
The entire audience gaped at her. Mother Cybele linked rapidly.
“Are you saying…” Galen’s father looked incredulous. “Are you saying that you won’t marry my son?”
“I’m saying that she ought to marry your son—or promise to him, or whatever they want. She’s the one he’s in love with. And I don’t see why you should make him miserable for his whole life just because you want the shapeshifters tied to the witches. Keller and I are tied together, and we always will be. And Galen, too. Why can’t that be enough?”
A sound was starting from the crowd again. Keller’s heart seemed to soar on it. But she was still staring at Iliana, afraid to believe.
“But…what if the witches don’t agree to it?” Galen’s father said feebly.
Iliana stamped her foot. She actually did.
“I’m the Witch Child. They’d better listen to me. I didn’t go through all of this for nothing.”
Then the crowd was thundering applause even louder than before, and the wave seemed to sweep Keller right into Galen’s arms.
Sometime later, in the middle of a lot of hugging and kissing, Keller whispered to Iliana, “Are you sure?”
“I’d better be sure, don’t you think? Or Galen’s going to be pretty upset.”
“Iliana—”
“I’m sure,” Iliana whispered. She squeezed Keller. “I really do care about him. I guess I’m sort of in love with him, too. But I saw. I saw his face in the clearing when he thought you were dead. And I heard the way he said your name. And then…I knew, you know? The two of you were meant to be. So I’m sure.”
“A leopard?” Galen’s mother said, shaking out her topaz-colored hair. “Why, dear, that’s wonderful. Your great-great-grandmother was a leopard.”
“You gave up being a bird for me,” Keller whispered in his ear.
“I think I could learn to like running,” he murmured, and took the chance to touch his lips to her cheek.
“No, ma’am, I’m really sorry I woke you up,” Keller said. “Yes, ma’am, I do know how late it is.” She strained to hear the voice on the other end of the phone. She had a finger in her ear to try and block out the noise of the wild celebration around her, but it wasn’t doing much good.
“Because I honestly don’t think it’s funny,” Iliana’s mother said. “The baby is just fine; he’s been in his bed all night. Why would you think he wasn’t?”
“Well, ma’am, it’s hard to explain…”
“And now he’s awake, and he’s going to start crying—well, he’s not crying. But now he wants to eat the phone…Alex!”
A voice
on the other end squealed and said distinctly, “Kee-kee!”
“Yeah, it’s Kee-kee,” Keller said, startled. “Um, I’m glad you’re okay, kid. And, see, I didn’t go bye-bye after all. So you may think you’re pretty smart, but you still have something to learn about precognition, hotshot. Right?” Keller added, “You know I thought for a minute once that you might be the Wild Power. But I guess you’re just a good old-fashioned witch baby.”
Iliana, who was passing by, gave her a very strange look. “Keller, are you having a conversation with my baby brother?”
“What exactly did the dragon say?” Mother Cybele asked anxiously. Although she looked like a big dove and her eyes were always kind, there was a firmness about her plump chin that Keller liked.
“I asked who woke him up. And he said”—Keller reached for the exact words—“he said, ‘Someone you’ll never know. A witch who isn’t a witch. We made our own alliance.’”
“A witch who isn’t a witch,” Mother Cybele repeated.
Aradia’s face was sober. “I wonder who that could be. And where they are now.”
Mother Cybele said quietly, “Time will tell.”
“The police are already inside,” Nissa said, holding the cell phone to her ear as she talked to Keller. “I guess the kids at the party called them when they saw a panther. They’ve found the family…Mr. and Ms. Ashton-Hughes and Jaime and Brett. They’re taking them to the hospital.”
She snapped the phone shut. “We’d better send some witches to the hospital. But as long as they’re alive, they have a pretty good chance, don’t you think? After all, we’ve got a Wild Power with healing fire. Now, can’t you relax and try to enjoy yourself?”
It was two days later. Keller was sitting in a sunny alcove in the safe house where Iliana and Galen and the others had been brought to protect them from the Night World. And to give them a chance to recover.
It was nice to be still for a while. To sit and read…and think. And it was even nicer to be able to do it with Galen around.
