Resurrection

by Nancy Holder

  Seattle: Dr. Temar

  Dr. Nigel Temar awoke with a start and sat up, but instantly regretted it. His head felt like it was going to explode, and his mouth was so dry that his lips were stuck to his teeth. A quick glance at his atomic wall clock sent him flying back up again.

  Two days! How could he have been asleep for two days? He ran into the other room to check on Kari. Her bed was empty.

  And his head began to pound as the room tilted.

  Comprehension dawned. She had drugged him, and then she had left.

  “Oh, no,” he whispered. “No.”

  He thought of Kari alone in the world, practically a zombie. He pictured her frightened, desperate…and if he was honest…very honest, he imagined someone taking an interest in her, and studying her…and finding out what he, Nigel Temar, had done. Reverse-engineering her. Learning his methods and protocols…his secrets.

  And hurt.

  “Kari,” he groaned, slamming his fist against the doorjamb.

  Time was not his friend, but technology was. He knew he would find her, and this time it would be a lot easier than the last time. Before he had revived her he had stitched up her chest, after putting a GPS tracker inside it. Ghoulish, perhaps, but now he was glad that he’d done it.

  “I’ll find you,” he whispered.

  He rushed to the tracking monitor, nestled among the many machines he had employed while raising her from the dead, and flicked it on.

  There was no signal.

  Scarborough:

  Nicole, Owen, Amanda, Tommy, Richard, Kari, and the cats

  Richard had seen many dead bodies in his time. Some of them were men—and women, and demons—he’d killed himself after joining the battle against Michael Deveraux and his allies. Others were from Nam.

  But he had never seen the dead walk.

  Kari Hardwick was unnatural. He didn’t like looking at her, let alone having her in the house. The others seemed to have forgotten that Kari had abandoned them and fled to their enemy, Michael Deveraux. It was true that she had been killed in the battle at the Supreme Coven, but that didn’t mean she was any less a traitor. She had turned on them once, and she could do it again, even if she was dead.

  Maybe she’s here to show them where we are. Or she’s been programmed to kill us. Michael Deveraux forced Holly into a state of demonic possession and she tried to kill us. If Armand hadn’t exorcised her, she might have succeeded. Maybe a warlock promised Kari that he would make her whole again if she betrayed us a second time.

  Or if she smothered my grandchild in his sleep.

  At Richard’s insistence Nicole put Owen down in his heavily warded crib for a nap. The baby lay upstairs, safe from Kari, before Richard sat down to interrogate her.

  “Do you drink?” he asked her bluntly as he passed around cups of tea. He would have preferred straight bourbon, but those days were behind him. He had sunk into a terrible depression during the last days of his marriage, and then Marie’s death. He wondered now if Michael Deveraux had engineered it, to keep him passive and weak. But the warrior in Richard was awake now. Nothing would cross his lips that could diminish his power.

  “Thirst,” Kari said, taking a cup from him with bluish-white hands. Her cold, dead fingers brushed his, and it took all his self-control not to jerk away.

  He took his seat with his own cup of tea and stared at his daughters. Nicole was pale and shaky. Amanda was staring at Kari as though Kari were a lost puppy in need of help. Tommy sat protectively next to Amanda, but all his attention was focused on the two cats, who paced the room as though looking for something. Richard had realized there was something wrong with them as well.

  “What happened to you?” Richard demanded. Amanda blanched; his little girl had always been so careful of other people’s feelings. But he wasn’t about to sit around chitchatting with a dead woman when he had a family to protect.

  “Killed. Dr. Temar. Laboratory,” she said. She shifted, and he saw intelligence in her dead eyes, if nothing else. She was speaking in halting sentences, but it had to be an act.

  “He…reanimated you?” Richard pressed. His two daughters shifted uncomfortably. Nicole glanced upward, as if she could see Owen through the ceiling. Maybe she could. Richard knew he didn’t fully understand all the things his daughters could do.

  “Frankenstein.” She didn’t smile. Was she mocking them?

  “How could he?” Richard asked. “Is it possible to do that with magic?”

  Kari shrugged. Through the steam of her cup, she gazed down at Hecate.

  The cat hissed. Richard stared for a moment until he could look into the cat’s eyes. Damn, she’s dead too.

  “Dr. Temar is a witch?” Tommy asked uncertainly.

  “No,” Kari said. “Hecate. Technology. Experiments.” She pointed at Osiris. “Then me.”

  Tears streamed down Nicole’s face. Amanda reached out and took her hand. Richard felt the temperature in the chilly room raise by a few degrees.

  “That’s dangerous technology,” Richard said. He couldn’t help but think about what a nightmare it would be if that knowledge fell into the wrong hands. For the briefest of moments he considered returning to Seattle to find the doctor and destroy his work for the good of humanity. But that would mean leaving Owen and the girls unprotected, and that was unacceptable.

  “Dangerous,” Kari repeated, studying her own hands.

  “How did you find us?” Nicole asked.

  “Hecate,” she said. “Escaped.”

  Escaped. Richard shook his head. How many of them had been trapped like lab rats thanks to this endless war of good versus evil? After the emergence of the dragon, their retreat appeared to have been honored. It had been tempting to believe that they were really safe, that their part was over. In his bones, though, he believed it had just begun. If nothing else, Kari’s appearance and her state reinforced that for him.

  “What was it like?” Amanda asked.

  Kari swiveled her dead gaze to her. “Hell.” She stuck her finger into her boiling hot tea, and didn’t flinch.

  “Fire, everywhere.”

  “Black fire?” Nicole asked. “Did Michael Deveraux send you there before he died?”

  “White fire. Worse,” Kari said. “Worse.” She kept her finger in the cup. Richard was half-afraid it would burn off. “Burning, always. Suffering. Remembering. Torment. Penance.”

  “It really was hell,” Nicole breathed.

  Amanda began to cry. Nicole trembled too hard to hold her cup. Tommy just continued to stare at the two cats, but Richard didn’t think he was actually seeing them.

  “There must be something we can do, magic, to make you better,” Amanda said at last.

  “Magic brought Hecate,” Kari said.

  “Whose?” Richard asked quietly.

  “Michael Deveraux’s,” Kari replied.

  Richard clenched his fists. Even dead, Michael Deveraux was still a thorn in his side, the snake in the grass.

  Acid burned in Amanda’s stomach. Watching Kari, hearing her talk about hell, how could there be a place so terrible? Why would the Goddess allow Kari to suffer so? And now, knowing what Amanda knew, how could she send Owen there?

  But he’s a baby. How can a baby go to hell?

  The tears streaming down her cheeks were for the innocent baby upstairs and not for the wretched Kari. If there was something she could do for Kari, she would, but she had a feeling Kari was beyond hope and beyond saving. The same couldn’t be true of Owen, could it?

  Goddess, what am I supposed to do? she prayed, clutching Nicole’s hand. Then Tommy took her other hand and squeezed tightly. He didn’t know.

  Where is Holly? She would cut through her own feelings like a laser. She’s good at making tough decisions.

  As Amanda stared at Hecate, though, she shivered. Holly might be good at making hard decisions, but that didn’t mean she always chose the right thing to do.

  And Amanda thought then and there to reveal what had be
en happening to her. These people who loved her most deserved to know—

  —to know—

  What was I just thinking about? she thought with a start. The last minutes were blank. She thought back, frowning, trying to piece the conversation together, and add in her private thoughts.

  It was as if a veil had fallen—

  “Amanda?” her father said.

  She stirred herself. “Sorry,” she said. “What?”

  She had the strangest feeling—

  “One way or another this has to all stop,” Tommy declared. “We can’t keep living like this.” He glanced at Kari. Or dying like this.

  Outside of Mumbai:

  Holly, Alex, Pablo, Armand, and the Temple of the Air

  Holly jerked awake with a start.

  She sat up and looked around the cave at the others. Alex and Armand were gone. Pablo was sitting up, his head cocked to the side as though listening for something.

  Holly tried to stretch out her own mind, to see and feel what she could not see. She pushed and strained at the edges of her consciousness but to no avail.

  You need to empty yourself before you can see and hear beyond what your eyes and ears can perceive, Pablo said inside her head.

  More and more Pablo had taken to communicating this way. She knew it was because he didn’t entirely trust Alex.

  That’s okay. Neither do I, she replied.

  She tried to do as Pablo instructed, empty herself of thoughts, fears, dreams, everything. She inhaled deeply and then expelled her breath, imagining all those things being carried out on the air escaping her lips. She did it twice more until she felt…nothing.

  And then she heard…everything.

  The burst of sound and voices inside her head paralyzed her as for one terrible moment she thought she’d become possessed again. Panic set in; she began to choke on her fear. Then Pablo’s voice, in her ear, outside of her head, cut through the chatter and the static.

  “Be still. Listen for the sound that does not belong,” he instructed, his hand on her face. “Listen for disorder. And imbalance.”

  They breathed together, and she listened.

  Slowly she could start to cycle through the different sounds. Maeve and Stanislaus were awake and making love. Holly squirmed, wishing she could purge those sounds from her brain. In another part of the cave, Janet was praying to the Goddess for strength, but to do what, Holly didn’t know. Somewhere a long way off a dog was howling.

  “You are close,” Pablo whispered. “I sense it too.”

  Finally she heard it, and she knew instantly that she had found the sound that didn’t belong: Somewhere in the darkness a man was praying to the Horned God.

  The Temple of the Air did not pray to Him. He was their enemy.

  Holly shot to her feet with a cry. Pablo leaped up beside her, and together they raced toward the sound.

  “Danger! Traitor!” Holly yelled. “A warlock!”

  An unseen wave of pure evil smacked against her, throwing her to the ground. Next to her, Pablo gasped and fell as well.

  “Where, Holly?” Alex shouted, as men and women clambered to their feet, grabbing weapons, intoning spells. Alex’s hair was tousled as if from sleep. He grabbed her hand and helped her up.

  Pablo looked at her, and she looked around the cave as the coven prepared for battle.

  “Where’s Armand?” she asked. “Armand handles the demons. If a warlock was praying, demons will answer.” She stared into the darkness, conjured a fireball. “Where’s Armand?”

  “Where’s the warlock?” Alex demanded, almost shaking her. To the others he cried, “Fan out!”

  “Demons,” she whispered, as the group moved into attack formation. She was losing it.

  All these months traveling with Alex. Every coven they had attacked had been weak and had fallen with hardly a cry. Every demon they had faced had focused its energies on Armand, and she had come to believe in some strange way that they were his area of expertise, his responsibility.

  Be honest, Holly. You’re still afraid of them after what they did to you.

  She winced, trying to shut up her inner voice. She focused instead on the memory of the whispered prayer. The one that had whispered it was a flesh-and-blood warlock, and she feared no warlock. She raised her hands and prepared to fight.

  “Bring it on,” she said to Alex.

  He grinned at her. “Let’s go.”

  London: Anne-Louise and Rose

  Anne-Louise had never liked Rose, a witch who ran a Mother Coven safe house in London. The woman had ulterior motives for most things that she did. Rose was, however, well-connected and could be counted upon to be paranoid. That was why Anne-Louise headed straight for her house after leaving Heathrow.

  The Mother Coven itself was in a state of upheaval following the destruction of the London headquarters of the Supreme Coven. Anne-Louise was not surprised. She had come to suspect that Luna, the high priestess, had her own reasons for not taking down the Supreme Coven herself. It made no sense. If the Supreme Coven stood for everything that the Mother Coven was against, why did they seem to coexist with obvious but ultimately meaningless hostility?

  There was something greater at work, and Anne-Louise was determined to know what it was. She wasn’t sure if she was kept in the dark because of her age or her skill or her rank, or if all of her witchly brothers and sisters were being purposefully lied to.

  After the battle in the park she had stayed in Mumbai for two more days, searching for signs of Philippe or Eli. Or their bodies. She grieved for Philippe. Eli was a Deveraux, and she hoped he was dead.

  But she had found nothing, and ultimately had made the choice to leave and continue searching for the girls.

  “Blessed be,” Rose breathed as Anne-Louise entered her house.

  “Blessed be,” Anne-Louise murmured.

  A few minutes later the two women settled on a sofa with cups of tea in hand. Anne-Louise sipped the hot liquid gratefully. There was an art to good tea, and the British had spent centuries perfecting it.

  “Not that I don’t appreciate visitors, but why have you come?” Rose asked at last.

  Anne-Louise raised a brow. “Can’t you guess?”

  The other woman paled, and an alarm went off in Anne-Louise’s mind. Rose had done something, something that she didn’t want the Mother Coven to find out about.

  Anne-Louise was none too happy with the Mother Coven herself, but she couldn’t let it go. At the very least, if she had something on Rose, it would be easier to obtain her help. She had played Mother Coven judge and jury on more than one occasion, just as she had when she had first been sent to meet with Holly.

  She let her smile go cold and stared hard at the other woman. “So, why don’t you tell me your side of it,” she said.

  It was a good opening. It would allow Rose to decide for herself just how much Anne-Louise knew, which would be likely to be a great deal.

  “I was just trying to find Sasha, I swear,” Rose blurted out.

  Anne-Louise blinked, silently ordering Rose to go on. She’d no idea that Sasha was missing. No one had told her. Maybe no one else had realized it.

  It’s as if everyone who is connected to Holly has just…vanished.

  “Dr. Frankenstein was looking for Kari, and we ran into each other online.”

  “What’s his real name?” Anne-Louise asked.

  “I don’t know. I just know he’s a professor at a university in Seattle.”

  “Go on,” Anne-Louise ordered.

  “He was quite cagey at the first, but he knew all about witches, knew what Kari had gotten herself into. I told him she was dead, and he informed me that that wasn’t a problem.” She took a breath, as if steeling herself to go on.

  Anne-Louise remained silent, and Rose stumbled on.

  “I…got some help, and we retrieved her body, preserved it, and shipped it to him.” Her confessions then curled up, as though she were expecting Anne-Louise to lash out. “He was goi
ng to bring her back to life.”

  Anne-Louise was shocked. She knew of no magic that would do such a thing.

  “How?” Anne-Louise asked. If he was calling himself Dr. Frankenstein, then she was willing to bet it wasn’t through magic.

  “I don’t know. He was supposed to tell, if he was successful. But I haven’t heard a thing.” She swallowed hard. “I suppose that was naïve of me.”

  Anne-Louise sat for a moment studying Rose. She sipped her tea before addressing Rose again.

  “You suppose?” she asked harshly. “You realize what you’ve done?”

  “Yes. I’ve not only revealed our existence to an outsider, but I’ve also used magic selfishly and recklessly, in violation of my oath.” Her voice shrank. “Because…because I wanted something more than this.”

  Anne-Louise looked around the safe house. It was actually owned by the Mother Coven, and Rose was allowed to live there and run it without cost to her. If the coven knew what she had done, she would doubtless lose her position.

  “Wh-what’s going to happen to me?” Rose asked.

  “In light of recent losses and the upheaval here in the city. we will allow you to remain here, for now,” Anne-Louise said.

  Rose closed her eyes tightly. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me. You must know that the evil will come back to you threefold. That will likely be punishment enough.”

  Rose bowed her head in acceptance.

  “However, what you have done must be undone. I will need from you the hairs you collected from Kari and her covenates—all of them.”

  “Of course,” Rose said, scurrying into another room. She returned with several bundles, neatly wrapped and labeled. Rose was nothing if not thorough. As a matter of course, she collected hairs from any who stayed in her home. A witch could use a person’s hair to find them. An extremely powerful witch could use that same hair to summon. It was for this reason that Anne-Louise had come in the first place. Wherever Holly, Nicole, and Amanda were, they were well shielded, and she would need the hair to find them and warn them of what she knew.

  Anne-Louise took the packets and tucked them away inside her coat. She took one last sip of her tea and stood, heading for the door. She touched her head, making sure she had left none of her own hair behind.