‘I have nieces,’ he replied crisply, his accent skewing the last word so that it took her an extra moment to decode it. ‘Without Katrin to protect them, without even the magic that she could have left them, they are a pair of helpless little rabbits. Normally I would say that they don’t have enough power for Hasina to even bother with, but obviously I don’t understand her as well as I thought.’
She shouldn’t have needed to kill another witch for years, Jane thought glumly. Hasina’s blood sacrifices had until now been so few and far between that most witches hadn’t even known for sure that they were going on, much less why. What had changed? Only her body . . . and the spirit she had crowded to the back of it. ‘Do you think it could actually be Annette who wants to kill more?’
André’s silence lasted so long that if it weren’t for the faint static on the line Jane would have assumed the call had been cut off. ‘I told you she was unstable,’ he remarked finally.
Jane nodded silently, forgetting for the moment that André couldn’t see her. It was hard to deny the evidence in front of them. Hasina had plenty of magic, enough to keep her going strong until André and Jane were old and grey, yet she had still killed a witch – and not even one of the group who had recently attacked her. She had killed a witch guilty of nothing more than being in the neighbourhood. It was a vicious, senseless murder, and the only motive Jane could think of was Annette’s, not Hasina’s. Katrin had taken care of Annette when she first arrived, frightened and amnesiac, at the London orphanage. Katrin had been the little girl’s first friend and confidante, and later the only constant in her life as she was shuffled from foster home to foster home. Annette had nearly killed André when she discovered the truth to their relationship – and now she had completed the job with Katrin. ‘Annette’s instability is influencing her.’ Saying the words out loud made them sound even more obvious. ‘She’s even more dangerous now than she was before.’
André chuckled, but there was no humor in it, only bitterness. ‘You could come back to Europe with me,’ he offered offhandedly. ‘My nieces could use a teacher, someone to help them use what power they have.’
Someone to cast protection spells around all of you and maybe share your bed on colder nights, Jane translated cynically. But it didn’t matter what he’d really meant, so she didn’t bother to contradict him. ‘I can’t do that,’ she said instead, and she heard him sigh heavily into his phone. ‘I may not have a knack for – what did you call it? – public service, but I don’t seem to be any good at avoiding trouble, either. Sooner or later it’s going to come down to Hasina or me, and I can’t spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. I certainly couldn’t do it knowing that I was attracting even more danger to you and your nieces at the same time. With my luck, while I’m contorting myself to watch all those backs, I would walk straight into Hasina’s trap.’
André’s laugh was a little warmer this time, more sincere. ‘I hope that you succeed, Jane – for what it’s worth, I really do. If it weren’t for Katrin’s little girls, I honestly think you might have been able to talk me into your next suicide mission. You’re so adorably sincere.’
‘We’re not that different,’ Jane answered, realizing as she said it that it was actually true. ‘We both put our family absolutely first. We just have different definitions of “family.” ’
‘You flatter me,’ he murmured, almost a purr. ‘Are you sure I can’t persuade you to leave town? This is just an awful time to be a known witch, and I would be quite sad if anything fatal were to happen to you.’
‘Thank you,’ she temporized. There was no point in arguing for either of them, she knew. André had to return to Romania, and Jane had to stay in New York. He had nieces to hide, and it was up to her to make it so that they could one day come out of hiding. That, or she would die trying.
‘Goodbye, Jane,’ he told her sadly.
She closed her eyes for a moment, then said her own goodbye and flipped the phone closed. Suddenly it felt even darker in her room than before, but she didn’t have the energy to even get up and pull the curtains aside. She fell asleep instantly, still in her clothes and with the phone clutched tightly in one hand.
Chapter Twenty-two
JANE BLINKED AT the short, dark-skinned woman on the farmhouse’s doorstep, taking in her chunky jewellrey, thick kohl eyeliner, and slick black topknot. The woman’s eyes were an incongruent ice-pale blue, like little chips of paint. ‘I’m sorry,’ Jane repeated stupidly, wishing that she’d had a more restful night’s sleep. ‘You say you know Emer?’
‘But I’m here for you,’ the little woman repeated in a thick accent that Jane didn’t recognize. She suspected that it came from half a dozen countries at least.
‘Well, um, I’m sure she’ll be awake soon, so . . .’ Jane hesitated, hoping that the odd woman would make things easier by offering to come back. After everything that had happened and the news about Katrin Dalcacu, letting a complete stranger waltz into their home could be beyond impolite – it could be dangerous.
Jane quickly spun a thread of magic, directing it at the woman, wanting to find out who she was and what she was doing here. But the woman’s mind was a blank wall, and from the way her blue eyes glared up through her thick-lensed glasses, she seemed to know that Jane had just tried to read it.
Feeling rather at a loss, Jane blurted out the first thing that came into her head. ‘Are you a good witch, or a bad witch?’
The woman chuckled rustily and ran a thick, calloused finger down Jane’s cheek. ‘You’re new here, Blondie,’ she replied. ‘I’m not. I know my way to the kitchen, thank you. If you want to be useful, maybe boil some water for tea?’
Fortunately, at that moment there was a flurry of activity in the vestibule behind her, and Jane fell back gratefully. To her surprise, Emer Montague all but threw herself into the arms of the stranger. Stepping back, she breathed, ‘Jane, sweetheart, it’s my profound honour to introduce you to Penelope Lotuma.’
‘It’s a paying gig, Emer love,’ Penelope cautioned, though Jane didn’t follow enough of what was going on to understand the look of shock on Emer’s lined face.
‘I’m sorry.’ She wasn’t, but it seemed like a good idea to try to be diplomatic. ‘I didn’t know who she was.’ Who is she? The name didn’t sound familiar to her at all, but Emer had pronounced it as if it were synonymous with a royal title.
‘Pen, you’re welcome for as long as you like, but I’m afraid we can’t afford your services at the moment,’ Emer continued. ‘There must have been a mix-up.’
‘I’m prepaid,’ Penelope assured her, swinging a massive rolling suitcase through the door and pulling a printed silk scarf from around her neck. ‘Blondie’s young man put up my fee – he sends his best, by the way,’ she added, turning to catch Jane’s hands and press them between her own. ‘He said he couldn’t come himself, though – something about respecting your wishes.’
She swished past Jane and Emer in a swirl of multicoloured silk. Jane stared after her with her mouth hanging open. Malcolm. Of course. Somehow, Malcolm had convinced a witch – and apparently a rather well-known one – to help them. But how? Emer and the strange woman were obviously on good terms, but if she was an ally, then her arrival wouldn’t have been so obviously unlooked for. ‘Who are you?’ she blurted.
Penelope paused on the sage-and-sand area rug in the centre of the great room. ‘Don’t be slow, girl. It’s the second time our paths have crossed – mine, and that lovely young man’s, and yours as well. You’ve got something I created in this very house; I can see its shadows through the ceiling.’
Jane looked upward, though she couldn’t see what Penelope saw. Comprehension finally washed over her. The spirit box. A witch who deals with the dead – like Emer – whom Malcolm had traded with once before. Nodding crisply as if Jane had spoken her thoughts aloud, the little witch resumed her progress across the room.
‘She stayed with us for a while in the seventies,’ Emer told Jan
e quietly as Penelope’s back vanished into the kitchen. ‘She taught us . . . a great deal, really. Though I know it was only the tiniest fraction of what she knows. She would never say, but I’m almost certain she’s one of Jyoti’s descendants, like your Romanian friends. Rogues and tricksters, all of them, and nearly impossible to find, much less hire. I can’t imagine . . .’ She trailed off, then shivered and forced a smile. ‘We’re beyond lucky to have her help,’ she finished. ‘I can’t think of a more useful person who could have shown up on my doorstep.’
‘We’re in rather desperate need, Pen,’ Emer admitted frankly as they crossed together into the kitchen, where Penelope was already perched on a stool like an exotic bird. Her short fingers were wrapped around an ivy-patterned mug, and thick steam rose from it even though she hadn’t been in the room for more than a minute. ‘Hasina has found a fresh body after all this time, and though our Jane here led a valiant attempt to prevent her, she has switched. It’s likely that she’ll hold a grudge, and anyway, she’ll keep killing for much longer now.’
‘She has to,’ Jane piped up, forcing herself to stop staring at the mug. The other two turned curiously toward her, and she quickly explained what she had learned from Gran’s diary. After a brief hesitation, she added a synopsis of André’s phone call as well. If Penelope really was here to help, then she needed all the information they had to offer. And strangely, Jane already trusted her. Penelope’s obviously mercenary motives felt a bit reassuring after Annette’s double cross; it was easier to trust a stranger who was bought and paid for than to try to guess about her possible hidden motives. At this new information, Emer’s emerald-green eyes widened in shock, but Penelope’s wood-block face remained closed, thoughtful.
‘I could teach you to buy time,’ she offered finally. Her thick fingernails gestured absently toward her necklace, a thin, dark chain with at least fifteen little glass bubbles hanging from it. ‘But the pretty young man made it sound as though that wasn’t what you would want.’
‘No,’ Jane agreed. In the corner, a teakettle whistled shrilly, and Emer moved to remove it from the heat.
Jane frowned at it, then at Penelope, who raised her steaming cup in a cheery toast. ‘For you,’ she explained, nodding her topknot toward the kettle smugly.
‘Rooibos and Penelope,’ a voice chimed from the stairway door. ‘What on earth have I done to deserve this little paradise?’
Jane swung to see Charlotte, her reddish-gold hair piled on top of her head and some carefully applied fawn-colored eye shadow artfully accentuating her creases. ‘She says Malcolm sent her,’ Jane explained. Then she frowned and turned to Penelope. ‘That is what you said, isn’t it?’
‘Malcolm is the tanned young man with the psycho for a sister, yes?’ Penelope blew delicately on the surface of her tea, her blue eyes wide and innocent.
‘That’s the one.’ Emer grinned.
‘How did he possibly convince you to come here?’ Jane asked. He must have jumped on a plane the very night she threw him out in order to track down the elusive witch so quickly. And it meant something, she knew, that he understood her enough to still stay away, even after providing this invaluable help.
Emer and her daughter fixed Penelope with matching stares. The little witch sipped at her tea, seemingly oblivious to the sudden silence that filled the kitchen.
‘Transactional details are confidential,’ she said slyly. ‘I will tell you, though, that my services don’t come cheap. You’re one lucky girl.’
‘Oh.’ Jane realized that the glittering eyes of all three witches were fixed curiously on her face. She blushed. ‘Okay,’ she said instead. ‘So what do you know about evicting a witch who doesn’t want to die?’
‘ “Evicting,” ’ Penelope repeated, rolling the syllables around her mouth as if she were tasting them. ‘How humane. Much nicer than what she deserves, after thousands of years of possession and murder.’ She glanced significantly at Emer. ‘The young man who hired me did indicate that she was moral.’
Jane sucked in a breath, but Charlotte cut in. ‘She’s not being squeamish about Hasina,’ she assured the black-haired witch. ‘Painful eviction would, in fact, be ideal, and killing the host body to accomplish it is certainly not out of the question. But the main goal is to get rid of Hasina for good. Any side effects of her banishment are strictly that: side effects.’
Penelope nodded briskly. ‘Easier to just kill her now, then, don’t you think?’
‘Not enough firepower,’ Emer murmured. ‘Last time we took her on, we failed the mission and lost a sister.’ Jane nodded, touched by the choice of wording. Even though she didn’t share their genetics, Dee had been one of them.
‘Well, Blondie’s friend bought the full package,’ Penelope informed them, seemingly unconcerned. ‘I’ll help plan, help train, or help fight. Just point where you need me.’ She turned to Jane. ‘He loves you madly, you know. Or at least, he certainly acted like someone in love, like a knight on some quest to redeem his lady’s honour. So few people love the way they used to anymore; it’s really quite a shame.’
Jane’s heart suddenly felt as though it would burst out of her chest. It doesn’t matter, she tried to remind herself. I can’t let him win me over with shallow grand gestures; I have to focus on the big picture. But if Malcolm hadn’t returned to claim his credit, what kind of shallow gesture was that?
Penelope was watching her with shrewd blue eyes. ‘It’s not easy to find me, you know, much less to find me twice. I was in Caracas this time,’ she continued idly, and as she said it her accent grew somehow thicker. ‘We had met already in Ecuador last month. Your knight had crossed the path of a self-proclaimed “witch hunter,” and very thoughtfully warned me. That bought him your trinket – an excellent bargain for him – and then we were done. Apparently, though, the coven I crossed the border with wasn’t quite as discreet as I would have preferred. I wouldn’t have stayed in the area nearly so long if I had known what gossips they were, and not enough power to turn on a lightbulb between the four of them.’
‘Well, four,’ Emer scoffed, and Charlotte and Penelope chuckled appreciatively. Jane, who didn’t get the joke, folded her arms across her chest and waited.
‘It’s much harder to do magic in even numbers,’ Charlotte explained unhelpfully. ‘Three, five, seven are the best . . . twelve works because it’s divisible by three . . . eleven is unlucky and will cause your spell to rebound . . . there are a lot more rules to magic once you’re in a group.’
She shrugged in a sort of apology, and Jane felt a sudden pang of missing Dee. She had always been Jane’s magical translator. Besides, we were an odd number when we went into the mansion, and I don’t think it helped a bit.
‘It’s complicated,’ Emer chimed in gently, covering Jane’s hand with her own, ‘but only if you need to complicate it. Your power is your power, and its only limit is itself. But combine it with a coven, or a specific spell, and the structure can hinder just as much as it can help.’
‘But what does that even mean?’ Jane complained, unable to keep quiet any longer. Jane half expected them to giggle at her confusion again, but Penelope just fixed her eyes on Jane’s, and Jane felt her entire body still. Even her pulse seemed to slow. ‘It’s like building an engine around the raw power that is combustion,’ she explained. ‘With that clear, can we begin now? I see the dead all over you, Blondie, and I’ll need to know everything you’ve learned from them.’
Chapter Twenty-three
BY THE TIME Jane finished telling Penelope about her last vision of Dee, her conversation with Gran’s diary, and everything André had told her, the kitchen’s population had changed several times. First Maeve had come down, yawning and wearing fuzzy slippers. She had managed to sit at the little wooden table quietly enough, but Leah’s entrance had caused more of a disturbance. Her mother had quickly taken her out, then returned through the great-room door just as Harris had descended by the stairs on the other side. Then Leah had returned, on
ly to be herded sternly away again by her mother, and in the end Jane was alone with Penelope, repeating every detail she could remember from the last week.
‘Hasina,’ Penelope breathed when she had finally finished. ‘It may surprise you, but until your knight came to find me I wasn’t sure that her unlikely life was anything more than a myth.’
Jane’s mouth twisted into a frown; that was hardly encouraging news.
‘You know, of course, about Ambika and her seven daughters,’ Penelope went on.
‘I know the basics,’ Jane agreed. ‘But something tells me that you know a lot more than that.’
Penelope’s smile revealed an even row of tiny white teeth. ‘Ambika was the first witch,’ she began agreeably. ‘She inherited her kingdom from her warlord father, but his followers wanted nothing to do with a woman ruler. Their head priests took Ambika into a hut and filled it with perfumed smoke, trying to make their gods show them who her father’s true heir should be. But when the smoke cleared, there stood Ambika. And she had changed.’
‘The priests made her a witch?’ Could witches be ‘made,’ somehow? It didn’t fit with anything that Jane knew.
‘Of course not,’ Penelope scoffed. ‘It was their gods who made her, who appointed her their ruler, and the people knew that it was good for them and knelt in the mud and worshipped her from that day forward.’
‘Oh. Well, that sounds a little better, then. And from what I hear, in addition to being touched by those gods she was incredibly fertile.’
The Lost Soul (666 Park Avenue 3) Page 15
