by Nancy Holder
“What is this place?” Tommy asked when they’d reached the inner sanctum.
“It’s the heart of House Moore,” Anne-Louise said. “There are dark magics working here.”
“We shouldn’t be here,” Nicole murmured.
“No,” Anne-Louise countered. “It’s the very best place we can be.”
Mumbai: Holly, Jer, Philippe, Pablo, Armand, Eve, and Eli
The battle raged around Philippe, and the air before him shimmered with fresh magic.
What now? he thought, bracing himself.
The shimmering grew blinding, popped like a firework. And to his utter astonishment, Amanda and Tommy tumbled out.
Eve spun toward them, hands raised, and Philippe stopped her with a shout. She took a closer look at the newcomers.
“What the hell?” Eve cried.
“Holly!” Amanda cried, reaching for her cousin, who was half-clinging to the back of Armand.
“Look out!” Armand shouted, and Amanda turned in time to see a winged demon flying over a huge, billowing wall of ebony flames. Black Fire. Her heart stuttered. She had seen Black Fire once before, seen what it could do.
Holly moaned. Fire seemed to dance along her skin. Amanda reached out and grabbed her hand, touched their palms together. She could feel the mark of the lily burning.
“Fire within and fire without, cease your burning here about.”
A moment later Holly opened her eyes. They widened, and filled with tears.
“Amanda,” she rasped. “Oh, Amanda, I thought I would never see you again.”
“We’re here. Tommy and I. We were in the study and we saw…” Amanda knew she should save her explanation for later.
Holly squeezed her hand. “Armand, put me down.”
He set her on her feet and she spun around with a shout, and electricity shot from her eyes and hands and destroyed the demon in midflight. Amanda started to cheer, but a sudden pulse of white-hot light blinded her, and when her vision returned, Holly was gone.
Scarborough: Nicole, Richard, Owen, and Anne-Louise
“Okay, bring them back right now,” Richard ordered.
“I…can’t,” Anne-Louise confessed. “That portal opened, and before I could stop them, they went through.”
“And my little girl is in India?” Richard shouted. “In another goddamn battle?”
“I’m sorry,” Anne-Louise replied.
Nicole sat in her room and rocked Owen, trying to sing him to sleep. She tried to sing over the shouting. “Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.”
She tried not to think about her loved ones in India fighting for their lives.
“Then she’ll be a true love of mine.”
She tried not to think about the curse that had been put on her family.
“Tell her to wash it in yonder dry well.”
She tried not to think about her Owen destroying the world.
“Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.”
She didn’t want to know where Kari had gone off to.
“Which never sprung water nor rain ever fell.”
She tried not to think too hard about the lyrics of “Scarborough Fair.”
“Then she’ll be a true love of mine.”
Even if they were nonsense and set forth a series of impossible tasks. It was just a song.
And she was just a girl.
And magic was impossible.
Scarborough, 1268: Nicolette and Elijah
“What shall I tell your love, your Nicolette?” the servant asked Elijah of the House Deveraux.
Elijah thought for a moment. “Tell her she must perform a task for me.”
“What manner of task?”
“One that is impossible for a mere mortal, one only a follower of the Horned God could perform. Tell the fair maiden of the Cahors that she must make me a cambric shirt.” He held up a finger for emphasis. “Without seam or needlework.”
The servant bowed low. “And if she can produce such an impossible garment?”
Elijah laughed. “Then she’ll be a true love of mine.”
The servant bowed out of his presence, and Elijah threw himself down onto his bed. Tomorrow was the first day of the fair, and if Nicolette was half the woman or the warlock he believed she was, he would marry her by fair’s end.
They had met the year before at the fair, her first. Beautiful, bewitching, her family had kept her closely guarded. This year would be different; she was old enough to be courted, old enough to marry. He changed for dinner and went downstairs to join his family in dining with their gracious hosts, the family Moore.
Nicolette regarded the servant with wide eyes. “He wants me to make him what?”
The servant repeated the request. “Will my lady make such a garment?” he asked at last.
“Yes, but tell your lord that I expect him to do something for me.”
“What do you ask of my lord?”
“Tell him…Tell him to find me an acre of land between the salt water and the seastrand.”
“But, what my lady asks is impossible!”
“No more so than what he is asking of me.”
The servant bowed. “Anything else?”
“Yes, tell him that then he’ll be a true love of mine.”
The servant bowed again and left, and Nicolette sank into a chair and laughed. “Elijah thinks he is clever, but I’ll show him.”
Her younger sister, Catherine, looked up at her with wide eyes. “Will you make him the shirt?”
“Of course I will,” Nicolette said.
“But how?” Catherine asked.
“Why, with magic, of course.”
The servant had been in the employ of the Deveraux family since birth. It was long enough to know them well and long enough to know that no matter how loyal he was, he was never safe from their wrath. So he trembled slightly as he entered Elijah’s presence again with the news from Nicolette.
“Did you tell her to make me the shirt?” Elijah asked.
“Yes, and she asked a favor of you in return.”
Elijah slapped his leg when he heard what it was. “Well chosen.”
Elijah’s youngest brother looked at him with solemn eyes. “That is impossible.”
“Not for a warlock, Laurent,” Elijah assured him.
In the morning Nicolette awoke early, eager to see Elijah Deveraux. She took pains with her clothes and arranged her hair in perfect braids, with flowers laced throughout, and herbs. Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. All powerful herbs with their own magic use and significance. Used together they made a love charm.
She made her way to the fair and began winding her way through, looking at all the things people had to sell or show. As she walked, she could feel eyes upon her, and she knew that they were Elijah’s. Her heart beat faster as she pretended she could not feel his presence.
He stalked her as the hunter did a fox, and she knew she would have to be very clever not to be caught. At least, too soon. She wound her way past performers and merchants. She avoided people she knew so that she could keep moving.
She paused for a moment and tried to feel him. He was near, so near it was as though he filled her senses. She turned to the left, hoping to hide for a moment behind a gypsy cart. As she moved behind it, a pair of strong arms wrapped around her and lifted her clear off the ground.
It was her Elijah. As their lips met, fire exploded in her veins and she clung to him. At last her senses took over. “We must not let them catch us.”
“Why, does this go beyond the bounds of acceptable courtship?” he asked, his lips trailing down her throat.
“Yes, and you know it,” she said, pushing against his chest.
He released her and she struggled to regain her composure. There was a game to be played, and when he was standing so near, it was hard to remember her part.
“Have you found me my land?” she breathed.
“Yes. And my shirt?”
“Finished.”
It was tru
e, she had conjured it into being before she had gone to bed, though she dared not tell him she had then used it as her pillow. “So, when do I see my land?” she asked.
He raised a finger and placed it against her lips, and she could feel his heartbeat through it, pounding as hers did.
“First I want you to wash my shirt, in a dry well into which neither water has sprung nor rain has fell.”
She smiled at him. “Then you must plow my acre with…a lamb’s horn.”
“And?”
“Sow it all over with a single peppercorn.”
“Nicolette!”
She turned at the sound. “My sister calls. I must go.”
He caught her by the wrist. “Then will I be a true love of yours?”
She let her smile speak for her, then she tugged her wrist free and fled.
“Are you going to marry Nicolette of the Cahors?” Roland of the House of Moore asked Elijah several days later.
“It is my plan,” the warlock admitted. “In fact, she has only one task left to perform.”
“What impossible thing did you ask of her this time?”
“I told her to dry the shirt on a thorn.”
Roland shook his head. “The two of you really should be more careful, you know. Your exploits are getting noticed.”
“You’re not worried what the peasants think, surely!”
“No, more worried about what the priests think,” Roland said pointedly.
Elijah waved a hand dismissively. “The priests are paid not to notice these things, especially during the fair.”
“That may be true, but there are limits even for us.”
“For you maybe, Roland, but not for me. And not for my sweet, wicked Nicolette.”
House Moore was powerful, but it always lived in the shadow of Houses Deveraux and Cahors. A closer alliance between those two houses would essentially create a king and queen of Coventry. That couldn’t be allowed to happen. Roland’s father was old and ill and could do nothing to save his house.
Roland sacrificed every manner of animal and human to the Horned God and was at last given his answer. He watched and he waited for his time to strike.
“Where are you going?” Catherine asked Nicolette. It was late, and their parents were asleep. Nicolette had woken Catherine up.
Even in the light of the single candle Catherine could see her sister blushing. “I’m going to see Elijah,” she whispered.
Catherine crossed her arms. “I don’t think Father would like that very much.”
“That’s why you’re not going to tell him,” Nicolette said, her voice hardening.
Catherine wanted to stop her and she couldn’t. As she watched Nicolette’s dark figure slip into the night, she felt helpless. Something bad was going to happen and she couldn’t stop it.
When the morning came and Roland Moore arrived to tell them that Nicolette had been murdered by Elijah, who had escaped, her fears were realized. She should have stopped her sister from going to see the Deveraux man. She wished she had more power, and she vowed she would find it no matter the cost and no matter who she had to sacrifice to.
Roland Moore wept openly as he returned home and delivered the news that Nicolette Cahors had murdered Elijah and then escaped capture. The Moores and the Deveraux grieved together and began to plot their revenge against the treacherous Cahors.
Laurent seethed with rage. His brother, the only one of his family he had ever cared for, had been taken from him. He would never let something like that happen again, no matter that he had to move heaven and hell or change time itself to do it.
Part Three
Gaspar
And when the dark one is loosed none will be safe. Children will die, beasts will weep and the world will burn with terrible fire.
—Second Revelation of John 3:25
ten
MYRRH
We live by all the lies we’ve told
Some are worth their weight in gold
But none can know the truth we hide
The Deveraux keep the pain inside
Cahors witches, take to sky
Lift your head to moon and cry
All alone, lost and bereft
Sacrifice is all that’s left
The Frozen Wasteland: Holly
“Jer,” Holly whispered as she jerked awake. She was lying in snow, and the sky above her danced with colored lights. She was no longer in the thick of battle. She sprawled on a barren plain of snow—no trees, no rocks, nothing but the snow and the lights.
“Jer?” she called, but his name seemed to freeze in her mouth. Shivering, she pushed up onto her elbows. Prisms of color—green, red, bluish-white—threw shifting patterns on the vast fields of white. Was she still in India?
Her teeth chattered and her head began to ache. She jerked like a windup toy as she stared in wonder and confusion at the lights. What magic had flung her here? Had Jer done it to save her? Or had Alex—make that Duc Laurent—pitched her through space to murder her? Was this Hindi magic, or warlock mischief—or both?
She trembled violently as cold seeped through her and seized her with bone-cracking numbness. After a few moments she couldn’t tell where she stopped and the snow began. Her heartbeat slowed; her blood congealed.
I’m…dying, she thought. She tried to move. Jer, please, help me.
Where are you? a voice answered, but it wasn’t Jer. It was Duc Laurent, with whom she was in thrall. My lady?
“No,” she said, gasping. “I—I—I’m n-n-not—”
Then she remembered that she was not a helpless girl; she was a powerful witch, and she had magical gifts. In a low guttural whisper she croaked, “Ice and fire, fear and desire, comfort I claim, in the…in my own name.” She knew she had made terrible bargains in the past, losing bits of her soul to the Goddess, and to Catherine of the House of Cahors. She wouldn’t indebt herself further, if she could help it.
She closed her eyes, waiting for the spell to take effect. Suddenly she felt as if she were whirling inside a spinning sphere of white, and her frozen lips pulled up in a tiny smile. Warmth poured through her, and her smile grew.
“Ice and fire, fear and desire, sanctuary I claim, in my own name.”
More warmth coursed through her veins. She could almost imagine that her heart was glowing inside her chest, and she was certain she had either transported herself to shelter or created one around herself.
She opened her eyes. The beautiful lights were gone, and a fat golden moon hung overhead. The same snowfield stretched in all directions. There was no cottage, hovel, no cave, not even a single tree or boulder. A slicing wind whipped up, slamming her backward. She fell, hard, and her ears rang.
“Help,” she managed, as dots of grayish yellow popped behind her eyelids.
“Ah, there you are. Do not fear. I will come for you, Holly,” Duc Laurent whispered inside her mind.
“No,” she demanded. I am free of you. I don’t know how. Who sent me here? Jer?
“I will come.”
How did I get here?
Everything faded to black.
Scarborough: Nicole and Owen
She must have fallen asleep while rocking Owen, because Nicole suddenly woke up. She got up slowly, careful not to wake Owen, and then put him down in his crib. The room was warm and she crossed to a window and opened it.
Outside, the air was crisp and clear, and she breathed in deeply. Suddenly a tiny sparrow hopped up onto the ledge and cocked its head at her. She smiled and made a soft whistling noise. The bird cocked its head to the side again and then flew to the back of her rocking chair. While she was enjoying the cool of the outdoors, he was clearly thrilled with the warmth indoors.
He perched for a moment and ruffled his feathers all up. Nicole smiled at him. It was funny how the tiniest creatures could still bring such joy to—
The bird exploded in a puff of feathers. Nicole blinked in disbelief, but the bird was gone. Bits of him rained down in the room. For one wil
d moment she wondered if it had been because she hadn’t invited him in by name, and then she heard a sound that made her blood curdle. It was wild high-pitched laughter.
She turned slowly and saw Owen, standing in his crib, one finger pointing at the remains of the bird and his face twisted up in a grin of pure evil.
He killed the bird! My baby killed the innocent little bird! He is the child who will end the world. She knew then what she had to do, and it had to be done quickly, before she lost her nerve or before Anne-Louise or her father could stop her. She walked to Owen, grabbed him up, and headed for the hidden passage at a run.
She made it to the section of wall, slid her hand where she had seen Amanda move it, and then ducked into the opening. It sealed behind her, and she didn’t bother summoning a light but just ran down the hall toward the inner sanctum. In her arms Owen cooed contentedly, and Nicole felt the tears streaming down her face.
You should have known, should have believed, a voice whispered in her ear.
Yes, she should have.
Hurry now before it’s too late, before he stops you.
“I’m hurrying!”
She made it to the chamber and looked around wildly. She had not had a chance to examine it closely earlier. In the one corner there was an altar. It seemed right that she should use it. She ran over and placed Owen on its deeply gouged and stained surface. The blood of sacrifices past seemed to reach out to seize him from her arms.
To the left was a cabinet. She opened it and found candles, stones, and crystals for various purposes and a collection of athames. I should do a purifying ritual, a ceremony to cleanse his soul and send him to the Goddess, she thought as her hand moved toward the white candles.
No time! Strike now before it’s too late.
She raised the athame high into the air and turned toward Owen.
Anne-Louise wasn’t sure what she was searching for among the books and papers of Sir William Moore. She had been at it for several hours with nothing useful to show for it.
I should get some tea, take a break, check up on Nicole. She started to move toward the door.
