Resurrection

by Nancy Holder

  Nicole stared at Anne-Louise. “What do you mean, they didn’t come out?”

  Amanda burst into tears. Tommy and Richard looked stricken.

  “What do you mean?” Nicole shouted.

  Owen wailed.

  “I think they both drowned,” Anne-Louise said with pity in her eyes.

  “That stupid curse,” Tommy said.

  Those beloved of a Cahors died by drowning. Nicole shuddered, and when Richard grabbed Owen out of her arms, she didn’t object. Philippe and Eli. Dead. James. Dead. And still she felt deep inside of her that Owen’s father was coming for him.

  “Help me,” she whispered, going boneless, falling, as everything dissolved into a scream.

  A few minutes later she awoke on the couch. Anxious faces slid into her view.

  Owen, I want you out of this, Nicole thought, despairing. I don’t want you to have anything to do with this. I’ll take you away. But she knew she couldn’t.

  Philippe and Eli dead. She wanted to cry, to scream, to blame someone, anyone, and lock herself in her room. But she knew she couldn’t do that, either.

  She knew exactly what she had to do. She sat up slowly and cleared her throat. “We need to talk about the prophecy,” she said, looking at Amanda. “We have to tell Anne-Louise about Owen.”

  Amanda heaved a sigh. “I’ve been waiting for you to say that, Niki. I didn’t think it was my place.”

  “What about Owen?” Richard planted himself between his grandson and Anne-Louise.

  “Save the world,” Kari murmured. “Save.”

  Amanda moved from the protective circle of Tommy’s arms and held up her and Nicole’s scarred palms. The two thirds of the lily they formed with Holly’s palm glowed very slightly.

  “Yes,” Nicole choked out. She was in agony. Every fiber of her being shouted at her to protect her child at all costs.

  All costs.

  But she couldn’t.

  “We have to tell you this so we can save the world.” She swallowed hard. “My son was brought into this world to destroy it.”

  Then she told them everything—or at least, everything she knew.

  Because, as Anne-Louise had said, the ways of the occult were hidden.

  Mumbai: Eli and Philippe

  I’m alive, Eli thought. But I drowned….

  And then he remembered: beneath the water, losing consciousness, and there had been a flash of light, and a woman with long flowing hair had reached out and touched his hand. A woman who had risen from the depths of the lake and saved him.

  He sat up with a groan and opened his eyes. There were white sheets pulled around a hospital bed…and Philippe was sitting nearby on a rickety wooden chair, watching him closely.

  Eli gritted his teeth. “There was a lady in the lake…” He thought about what he was saying. It sounded like something out of a fairy tale.

  Philippe nodded slowly. “I think it was your mother, Sasha Deveraux.”

  Eli blinked. “My mother is trapped back in the Dark Ages—in the time of Isabeau and Jean.”

  “She seems to have found a way back.” Philippe shrugged like the Frenchman he was.

  “Where is she?” Eli demanded.

  Philippe shook his head. “I don’t know. I saw her grab you before I lost consciousness. Then I woke up here a while ago, and made them bring me to you.”

  A while ago. Philippe could have killed him while he was sleeping. The thought put Eli into an even darker mood. A part of him wanted to strike now, when the witch wasn’t expecting it and would be less able to protect himself.

  He shook his head. As much as he wanted Philippe dead, things had changed.

  “Where are we?”

  “It’s a hospital.”

  They exchanged looks. Philippe seemed to be waiting for something.

  “I’m betting witch and warlock conjuring magic together can be awesome,” Eli said.

  “Or an abomination,” Philippe replied steadily.

  “To find Nicole, and my mother.”

  “Oui.” Philippe held out his hand.

  Eli frowned. And then he took it. “Let’s agree to kill each other once this is all over.”

  “Agreed.” Philippe’s eyes flashed; so male witches weren’t so different from warlocks after all.

  “Good. Now let’s get to work,” Eli said.

  Outside Mumbai:

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

  Night was falling, shielding the Temple of the Air from the harsh glare of the sun. Those who worshipped the Goddess performed their rites and rituals by moonlight, especially the most solemn and binding.

  Standing on the banks of a lake, sandalwood scenting the darkening air, Armand and Pablo kept vigil over Holly as she prepared herself to be put in thrall with her distant cousin Alex Carruthers. Evil was gathering around them like a storm. They had all felt it, seen it—demonic figures in the darkness skulking around them, planning, plotting, waiting. The minions of Sir William.

  Alex had managed to send Sir William running, but the battle had been brutal. Four of the Temple of the Air had been killed in the attack. Pablo had been gravely wounded, and although they had done what they could for him, he still moved carefully, so as not to tear open the stomach wound again.

  Holly herself was a little faster to mend, but her cracked ribs were still sore and caused her pain with every movement. She hadn’t been able to sleep for more than fifteen minutes without reliving the terror of what had happened.

  It couldn’t happen again. They had to be ready, prepared, stronger than they were now if they hoped to kill Sir William in his demonic form. And he was only the harbinger, the messenger that the darkest of days were upon them.

  She and Alex had tossed the runes; they had all seen the signs; and they knew something worse was coming—something terrible, and overwhelming. Something that could end the world as they knew it.

  When Alex had first asked Holly to join forces with him back in London, she’d known this day would come. Enthrallment was their only option.

  And yet…

  Nothing. I have always made the hardest choices. I’ve done whatever I could to protect my people. I can’t do any less to protect my world.

  She wore all white, like a bride, and her black curly hair cascaded over her shoulders. A crown of laurel circled her head, and as she faced the dying sun, she wept silently for her hopeless love, for Jeraud Deveraux, who had rejected her.

  Jer, her renegade warlock, who had insisted that he was too tainted by darkness to be joined with her, but she knew he had fought against that darkness all his life. And won. It wasn’t Jer the warlock who had turned away from her, but Jer the hideously scarred man.

  When he looked in a mirror, he saw a monster. He couldn’t believe that when she looked at him, she saw love made flesh—a thing of indescribable beauty. His shame hid the shining mirror of her soul from his eyes. She understood now that love could heal anything, but it was a gift that had to be accepted. If Jer let her love him enough, he would see how handsome he really was.

  But he couldn’t. Maybe life with Michael and Eli had broken him beyond repair.

  I don’t believe that. There is no one on this earth who can’t be saved by love—

  No, I don’t believe that, either. I’ve done terrible things, sacrificed loved ones…. I bargained with the Goddess, and with Catherine, to give me enough power to save other loved ones. I can’t be forgiven. I knew what I was doing, and I did it willingly.

  “Holly,” Alex said softly, coming up behind her. “It’s almost time.” She heard the eagerness in his voice. Kneeling on the ground on either side of her with swords planted in the ground, Armand and Pablo shifted.

  She turned her back on the sun, wishing that moonrise would never come. No, that wasn’t so; she was eager too. They could weave stronger magic if they worked together, bound themselves each to the other….

  He was handsome, and he was good. Dressed all in white like her—a whi
te tunic over leggings, very medieval, like her white shift. Warmth radiated from him as he protected himself against the bitter cold. He, too, wore a crown of laurel, magically conjured, like their clothes.

  “I know,” he said gently, cupping her cheek. His hand was warm satin. He smelled of cleansing cinnamon. “About Jer. And your love for him.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’ll fade. In time.”

  “No, don’t let it fade,” he said. “Love is powerful. We’ll need all the power we can muster, for the coming days.”

  It was as if he had read her mind. Perhaps he had.

  “But we’ll be in thrall,” she said as shadows lengthened and trickled around her feet, spreading over the glassy surface of the lake, and reminding her of the pools of blood they had seen in their attacks on the strongholds of the Supreme Coven. Once they were bound, there would be more blood, and more carnage. They would bring death. When would it end?

  “You’ll know that I’m thinking of him, not you.”

  “Holly, we follow Notre Dame, the Lady Mother, who loves all Her children equally,” he reminded her. “I can rise above my petty jealousies.”

  But you hated him, she thought. I saw how much. And I know he hates you.

  He didn’t respond. Maybe he couldn’t read her thoughts after all.

  The sun winked out, disappearing behind the craggy mountaintops. Armand and Pablo got to their feet and faced the couple. The four stood quietly, waiting for the moon to rise, and the enthrallment to begin. Somewhere in the gathering darkness were Alex’s followers, keeping watch against the things that would try to stop this bonding.

  “Give me your sword,” Alex ordered Armand.

  The Spanish witch hesitated. He looked at Holly for a long time, as if to ask, Are you certain?

  Sometime: Sasha

  Sasha screamed in frustration as she rained her fists on solid walls of colored crystal. She had pulled Eli and Philippe from the lake and had just made it to shore when she had suddenly disappeared. She must have hit the magical time device against something, because it had started spinning so fast that she couldn’t even tell in which direction. Her fingers were bleeding where they had finally caught and stopped the moons.

  Now she lay inside what appeared to be a cave made out of crystal. Was this the distant past or the far future? She had no way of telling, and if she spun the moons, she risked choosing wrong and sending herself even farther in the wrong direction.

  There was a sudden flash and a man appeared before her, wearing long dark robes spangled with comets, moons, and suns brushing the prismatic surface beneath her elbows. His face was angular and powerful, though lined, and his hair and long beard were white.

  He bent down, and she thought he meant to help her up. But before she could stop him, he pried the device from her hand.

  “Thank you, my dear.” He spoke in a British accent as he clutched the moon-spinner against his chest.

  “For what?” But she knew. She looked at the time machine in his arms.

  “Returning that which is rightfully mine.” He ran his long forefinger over the moons. “My brothers stole it from me so very long ago.”

  “Your brothers.”

  “Yes.” He didn’t elaborate.

  “When am I?” she asked.

  He smiled. “Strictly speaking, we’re outside of time. Trapped. Frozen.”

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “That is the first question you should have asked me,” he said with a bow. “I am Gushnasaph.”

  She blinked. The name meant nothing to her, and yet obviously he expected that it would. She shook her head.

  He raised himself up proudly. “The fourth Magi, the one who gave the Christ child silver.”

  “There were only three wise men,” she said.

  He muttered something under his breath that sounded like a curse, and his eyes flashed darkly. “Perhaps, then, you know me by the name those barbarian Britons called me. Myrddin.”

  That name she did know. Shuddering, she stared up into the eyes of the dark wizard Merlin and knew with dawning horror that she was about to die.

  nine

  HAWTHORNE

  Now the time has come to pass

  All our lies come home at last

  We circle round our wounded prey

  Who will not live to see the day

  Treachery and deceit have taken hold

  Destroyed all, both young and old

  And now we cry out because we must

  Teach us now who to trust

  The Twelfth Century, Scarborough Fair: Pandion

  There was a hanged man in a gibbet; he was not mentioned in the song. There was treachery, duplicity; there was a change. Time was forced, as if by a device. The scales were altered.

  Flying high above the fair, Pandion, spirit familiar of the Cahors, squeed in dismay and knew that once upon a time she’d had a mate, most beloved. And with that falcon lord, she had created life.

  Gone, all to dust.

  Robbed.

  Destroyed.

  She would avenge.

  Near Mumbai: Jer and Eve

  “No,” Jer groaned, sliding and stumbling on the massive roots of a banyan tree hugging the churning river. “We have to stop them.”

  Eve turned around and frowned uneasily at him. “Jer, what’s happening? What do you see?”

  “I see,” he began, and then he slid again, backward, backward, backward in time:

  Moonlight and firelight gleamed across the courtyard of Castle Deveraux. The great stone gargoyles that had haunted Jean’s childhood nights stared down at the assembly, fire pouring from their snouts. Torch flames whipped in the warm air, and great bonfires flared from the tunnels leading down to the dreaded dungeons, infamous throughout France as bastions of unspeakable cruelty. Woe betide him who crosses a Deveraux, went the saying, and it was true. The Cahors had been wise to entangle their fate with the Deveraux, now that they knew the Deveraux had achieved the creation of Black Fire. They would be loath to have it used against them.

  As was the custom of the day, Isabeau joined Jean in front of the closed chapel doors. Men and women married before church doors; thus it was no insult to the bishop that they did not go inside the church. On this night of the Blood Moon, the two stood facing each other before banks of lilies and twining ivy. Lilies were the flower of the Cahors, and ivy, of the Deveraux. The magical birds Fantasme and Pandion, greenwood familiars of Deveraux and Cahors respectively, were present, each preening on a beautifully decorated perch. Loose them, and they would kill each other.

  Isabeau was like a fantastic she-dragon, dressed as the mighty lady she was, and would become, in ebony shot with silver thread. But she trembled like a shy virgin, and by the light of the full moon he saw how pale she was beneath her black and silver veil.

  How long will you be my lady? he wondered silently. How long before our Houses feud once more, and I poison or behead you, or burn you at the stake?

  At this she looked up at him, her eyes flinty. She didn’t blink, didn’t waver as he returned her gaze. Her eyes glowed a soft blue. The air between them thrummed with tension. He was delighted; this lady had a spine, by the God! He’d best look to his own person, or she would be the one to do him in.

  He chuckled low in his throat, then turned his attention to his father.

  As the two houses chanted in Latin and languages even more ancient, Laurent held his athame at the ready, preparing to cut open the wrists of the marrying couple. The hood of his dark crimson robe concealed his face, and he towered like a dark statue before the altar. Isabeau’s mother, Catherine, also wore black and silver.

  It was a glorious sight for those assembled, and power and passion flared and rose between the young couple as they were joined, soul to soul, until the end of days. Their wrists were cut, and blood mingled together in flesh and into flesh as Laurent and Catherine bound their children’s left arms together with cords soaked in herbals and unguents designed t
o ensure fertility. Both Houses were strong and boasted many young ones, but those of the Coventry were scattered throughout the land, and there could never be enough witches and warlocks in France to please either family.

  And then Jean was touched by the devil witch herself, Catherine. The woman who would massacre his family, and forge the vendetta that would chase Isabeau and him through time and space.

  I have the means to prevent it, he thought, feeling the dagger that, suddenly, hung from a chain around his neck. Wild magic had put it there; and it was hidden by the rich fabric of his doublet, the blade so sharp it sliced the hairs on his chest. I can plunge this into her heart, and end it before it begins.

  He saw himself tearing open his doublet and grabbing the dagger, running Isabeau through—

  No, not Isabeau, he protested. It is Catherine I mean to slay.

  Then he blinked, realizing something was amiss with him. He was Jean, and yet not Jean. He looked to his father, Duc Laurent, and spotted a figure standing a great distance away, a woman he knew, a woman who was crying. Her name was…What was her name?

  Sasha?

  Attends, wait, he thought, suddenly confused. My mother…My mother is dead.

  “Ma mère?” he whispered, to himself, not to her.

  The assembly stirred. Jean de Deveraux’s mother and stepmothers were dead. Everyone knew the duke had killed them when he’d tired of them.

  The Duc himself stared at Jean, and Jean felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. Something was very wrong…and he thought his father knew what it was.

  Thunder boomed, lightning flashed, and the torches flared like comets. Isabeau’s hand tightened around his, and through her veils he saw a death’s head.

  He heard his father laughing. Heard him whispering in his ear, “I will outlive you, whelp. You and my other prince and all my bastards. I have tilted the scales, once and for all, I and my minions. There is no balance, and never will be again. Chaos is my nation, and I am her lord and master.”