Hannah, sweetheart, it's just a bad dream, he assured her, but he pulled his arm from around her warm, soft body and sat up with deliberate slowness, careful not to make a sound. His instincts were kicking in hard and maybe it wasn't a dream after all.
He put his hand over her mouth and leaned close to her. Stay quiet. Tell me what you feel.
Hannah's eye, so blue in the daytime, appeared dark and fathomless at night. She frowned beneath his palm and then he felt her reaching, her mind expanding, searching… A gasp escaped. They're here. We have to get downstairs now. There was urgency in her voice, in her mind, in the way she sat up and gripped his arm.
The doors to the balcony snapped closed without a sound, curtains flying at the rash. Jonas scowled, annoyance rushing across his face. "That wasn't necessary, Hannah. You could have accidentally made noise and alerted them that we're aware of their presence. Besides, I'm going out anyway to see who's coming at us. You go downstairs and call 911."
Hannah shook her head. "It wasn't me, Jonas, the house has gone into protection mode. We have to get downstairs right now." She was trembling.
Jonas helped her out of bed. They were both still wearing clothes, so he simply wrapped her sweater around her and ushered her toward the door. "I'll take you down with your sisters, baby, but I have to get outside."
Hannah slipped her hand into his. "No, you don't understand. You can't go outside."
Jonas let her pull him out of the room and head down the hall in the dark. Below, in the living room as they came down the winding staircase, he could see candles flickering in a wide circle around the intricate mosaic on the floor in the entryway. A second circle enclosed the first, a wide pathway containing small dark smudges every so many inches.
Sarah reached out and hugged Hannah, drawing her into the center of the circle. Hannah kept possession of his hand, tugging until he stepped inside. The moment he did, Joley and Elle closed the circle behind them.
"Sit, Jonas," Sarah said, pointing to a spot at the top of the mosaic.
"Sweetheart, I have to go outside where I'm going to be the most help." He looked around the circle at the faces of the Drake sisters. In the candlelight, their beauty struck him, all different, all exotic. He could well believe they were ancient souls from a time long past with their hair down and their cool assessing eyes. Mostly what struck him was their lack of fear. Like Hannah, they were trembling, but it wasn't because they were afraid of the men creeping toward their home through the trees and shrubbery.
"The house will protect us now, Jonas," Sarah said. "You'll have to stay inside."
He hated it when their beliefs and rituals clashed with his territory. "The house didn't protect you last year when the men after your fiancé broke in here and nearly killed you," he pointed out. "I'm not taking any chances. Call the sheriff and get me some backup."
Hannah clung to him, refusing to let him go. "That was different, Jonas, we'd opened the house up to those men. We had the gates unlocked and the doors were welcoming. We put the house in protection mode when I came home from the hospital. Please sit down with us. You can't go outside."
Sarah shook her head. "In any case, the phone isn't working. We're on our own."
"More reason than ever for me to be outside where I can protect you."
Joley caught his other arm and Libby reached out, shaking her head. Kate and Abbey moved in behind him. Then Elle put her hand on him and he felt it—the shuddering of the grounds and the sudden shifting in the house as if it was awakening. His stomach lurched in protest and his heart accelerated as adrenaline flooded his body.
"What if Jackson comes? He always knows when you're in danger, Elle." He was suddenly very much afraid he didn't know what kind of power he was dealing with.
"The house will judge their intent toward us, not toward anyone else," Sarah assured him, "and act accordingly."
"The house would never harm Jackson," Elle answered calmly.
He looked around at the somber faces and sighed. He couldn't imagine a house protecting them, but he could protect them—all of them—even from inside if he had to. "Tell me you have a gun, Sarah."
"I have one as well," Joley said. "And yes, a permit to carry it, so don't ask."
Sarah seated herself in front of the mosaic and the sisters positioned themselves around the artfully crafted tiles. Jonas took his place between Hannah and Elle. Power swelled the moment the circle was complete and the floor continued to shift and move as if alive. The sisters locked hands and began to sway, chanting softly, the words more felt than heard, echoing through his mind. The sound was melodic and sweet, rising above the silence of the night in a whisper of dramatic notes until he thought he could see them gleaming in the darkness.
On the floor in front of him, the mosaic began to swirl with vapor, smoke rose, or rather fog, as if a breeze had come to clear out the gray mist and leave the mosaic tiles comprehensible to those looking. To his astonishment, he could see the grounds surrounding the house, as if the tiles were a camera screen, broken into pieces, but providing a picture of the outside world. He could see the fog hanging thick above and around the house, protecting it from prying eyes, but the grounds appeared crystal clear in the mosaic tiles.
Something moved stealthily through the shrubbery, working to gain access to the house itself. Shadows moved and the figures of several men crept forward. They were dressed in black and gray, blending into the night, their facial features distorted as if they wore masks beneath the hoods. Gloves and boots with tucked-in pants, along with the way they moved and carried their weapons, that told Jonas they were under attack by professionals.
His heart jumped and he tried to let loose of Elle's hand so he could reach for his gun again, but she held on to him tightly. He was sitting on his butt and it looked like at least five men were working their way through the brush to the house. What kind of lawman was he?
And then the bushes moved, roots erupting from the ground and lashing out like a whip with nine tails, sweeping fast toward one of the black-clad men. The lash struck him in the stomach hard, lifting him and sending him flying several feet to land sprawled out against the fence.
Jonas blinked and looked around at the circle of sober faces. Feminine. Soft. He thought of the Drakes as gentle and kind. Bringing harm to no one, yet none of them blinked or winced or looked away. The vibration beneath him continued and the wood creaked and groaned, alive and alert and waiting for the intruders to come too close.
The man who had been thrown climbed unsteadily to his feet, gripping the fence for leverage. He shouted and jerked his hand clear. Smoke rose from the wood where his glove had melted onto the fence. He hurried back up the slope, avoiding the brush where something had struck him, taking an alternate route that brought him into a grove of trees. He moved with much more confidence once in the mixture of redwoods, oaks, pines and spruce.
Jonas was afraid to take his eyes from the man in the mosaic as he gained footing through the labyrinth of trees. The tension built in the room. The chanting swelled, the words evoking protection against evil, and behind them, in the second circle, shadows lengthened and grew, forming insubstantial, transparent figures of women dressed in garb from centuries gone by. The floating figures positioned themselves in a tight circle around the Drakes and Jonas, as if anyone would have to get through them to get to the inner circle.
Jonas leaned forward to see the mosaic better when the intruder began to scale a tall, thick tree. Branches swept outward, long curving boughs providing a ladder for the man to climb. One branch reached toward the balcony on the second story. Joley's room. The man put his foot on the branch and began to ease across.
The tree shuddered, bark rippling. Needles shivered. The man stopped, looked around him apprehensively. There was a moment when Jonas counted his own heartbeats. One. Two. The branch dipped down hard and fast. The intruder's mouth opened wide with a scream as he clutched at several smaller branches to keep from falling. The thick limb rose fast,
the smaller branches breaking, catapulting the intruder several feet into the air and over the bluff. He spun, arms and legs sprawled, like a windmill, before falling far below into the turbulent sea.
"Holy hell, Hannah."
"I know, it takes getting used to." She leaned her body close to his, offering shelter, protection, without ever breaking the link with her sisters.
Sarah leaned down to blow on one of the dark candles in front of her, just outside the double circle. The light flickered bloodred and then was gone, sputtering into the wax.
Jonas turned his attention to two men scaling the walls of the house. At the same time two others were heading for the lower story. One of the two men scaling the building was extraordinarily strong and immediately outdistanced his partner as he went up the north side of the building next to the tower. He was using the corner to help propel himself upward. The mosaic glowed red-orange. Smoke puffed out from under each hand and foot until the man climbed faster and faster, finally leaping to gain the balcony. He stepped onto the solid surface and paused, bending over, breathing hard.
Around him, the wrought iron began to bend and reshape, the railing forming into what appeared to Jonas as an animal with a spiked tail and a spiraled horn. The man backed up, pulling out a gun, his gloves burned and still smoking from touching the side of the house. The animal reared up on hooves, rising above the intruder and then lowering its head. The man fired several rounds in rapid succession, but the animal pawed the ground and hurtled itself relentlessly forward. The intruder was fast, whipping to one side, grabbing the horn to give himself leverage in a desperate attempt to save his life. The tail struck, lashing around, piercing the man's stomach and lifting him into the air before dropping him onto the balcony floor.
Beside him, Hannah let out a small sound of distress. Instinctively, Jonas started to let go of hands in order to comfort her, but Elle and Hannah held on tightly, shaking their heads. He frowned as he watched, in the mosaic, the balcony floor slide open and the body drop to the ground below.
At least he'd have a body to work with. Someone he could identify. The big man had moved in a way he was certain he'd seen before.
As he watched, the brush and trees swayed, leaves rustling, and across the ground, vines shot out, wrapped the body up tightly as if in a carpet, and then rolled it toward the edge of the bluff.
"Stop!" Jonas called out. "Make it stop. I need that body. What if I can't recover it from the sea?"
The intruder slipped off the edge of the cliff and dropped into the churning water below. Sarah leaned over and blew on the second candle. It sputtered, glowed red, and drips of wax beaded on the floor like bright blood spots before it flickered out.
The second climber had reached the balcony on the second floor over by the west-facing room—Elle's. The same trail of smoking palm and foot prints led up the side of the house. He swung over the wrought iron railing and landed in a crouch. Almost at once the floor jiggled under his feet. He looked down and the solid flooring had turned to a gel-like substance. He began to sink into it. As he did, the gel thickened and lengthened, slowly but surely encasing his body. He fired his automatic, round after round, into the gel, but it kept forming around him. He tried to thrash his way free, but the house ate him, inch by inch, absorbing him into the gel until he was completely inside, surrounded by the balcony itself.
Jonas felt his stomach lurch. "This is an illusion, right? Tell me it's an illusion, Hannah, because this is crazy." He clutched her hand tighter, suddenly afraid for all of them. If the house was alive, no one was safe. He wanted to grab all the women and get them out of there.
"Part illusion, part real. They believe it, so it's so," Elle said. "They came to kill us, Jonas. The house is made up of the spirits of our ancestors. Did you think they would lie idly by while we were under attack?"
'Cuz, yeah, didn't everybody's ancestors rise up and destroy enemies? "Fine then. Tell them to save me a body."
The balcony lurched and spit the intruder out into the tops of the tree branches. The branches swayed and sent the body to the sea below. Jonas swore as Sarah blew out the next candle.
The two men entering through the ground floor were at the windows now. One was at the kitchen window and one on the other side of the living room. Every instinct Jonas had insisted he draw his gun, but Elle and Hannah held his hands tight, keeping him locked within the circle. The hairs on his arms stood up, and the room crackled with energy and power. The floor continued shifting and the walls seemed to undulate. Behind them, the transparent, filmy figures swayed and danced, their arms extended, their hands linked.
Jonas could barely make himself stay sitting in the circle when he knew any moment the two men would break through the windows. He heard a scream, abruptly closed off, and the sound of gunfire. He peered at the mosaic just in time to see cracks forming in the ground and earth opening up along the kitchen where the intruder tried to get to the bank of windows. Every step he took produced an ever-widening crack. There was nothing to shoot at, only the yawning abyss staring at him. He finally ceased trying to gain the house and began to backpedal carefully, placing his feet lightly on the ground as he retreated.
Jonas switched his gaze to the last man in the mosaic, then realized the window the man was trying to gain entry through was just straight ahead of him. He watched in a kind of fascinated horror as the intruder used the butt of his gun to hit the glass and shatter it. Again he pulled at his hands, but Hannah and Elle hung on grimly.
All around him the chanting swelled, Harm no one, harm no one. What the hell did that mean? He was going to have to shoot the poor son of a bitch, but maybe that was a far better way to go than what the house of horrors had planned. This was a hell of a way for men to die, even if they deserved it. He still wasn't certain if it was real or an illusion.
The window shattered with a crash of glass, breaking into jagged shards that exploded inward into the house, paused in midair, reversed and stood poised in the darkness. Jonas found he was holding his breath. The intruder stuck his gun through the frame, finger beginning to tighten when the sharp spears hurtled forward. Blood sprayed, the man screamed wildly, yanking his arm back outside even as his finger squeezed and bullets bit into the side of the house.
Around them, the smoky figures writhed and moaned, as if absorbing the shock of the bullets. The intruder screamed again and the sound of footsteps faded as he retreated. Once again the ground shuddered and opened. The screams faded as the edges of the earth resealed. Jonas stared down into the mosaic and noted the other man had made it back to the fence, climbing over, leaving scorch marks behind.
"I'm not going to say I can at least collect DNA samples," he muttered, "because every time I open my mouth, the evidence disappears."
With a little sigh, he watched the droplets of blood absorb into the wood and the window reform. "I have to tell you, I've seen some freaky shit around you girls, but nothing like this. I have just one question. Have you told your fiancés about this? Because quite frankly it scares the hell out of me."
"You never have to be afraid, Jonas," Hannah assured. "The house judges intent."
"Hannah. Honey. Half the time my intent is to strangle you. And I don't doubt whoever ends up with Joley or Elle will want to do worse than that."
"Hey!" Elle objected and Joley punched his arm hard.
He glanced around at the wispy gray figures as they began to settle down, one by one merging into the shadows or the smudge marks on the floor. The tension in the room slowly eased and the shifting beneath them lessened. He shoved both hands through his hair. "They don't just hang around all the time, do they? Because they'd definitely curb a man's… appetite."
Hannah's lips twitched, a ghost of a smile spreading across her face. "Most of it was illusion, Jonas."
"Then how did four men just die? They did die, didn't they, they weren't an illusion?"
"They're dead," Sarah said.
"So where are their bodies? I'm not going to
find them in the ocean, am I? And even if I took the house apart, I'm not going to find DNA in the wood. You don't find this just a little bit creepy?"
"I find men who want to kill my sister creepy," Joley said firmly. "I had no idea you were such a baby, Jonas. I'll bet you don't go to scary movies."
"I don't. There's nothing wrong with that."
Hannah wrapped her arms around him. "No, there's nothing at all wrong with it. I don't like scary movies either."
He was grateful for her support when the rest of her sisters were looking at him with wicked intent. He brought Hannah's fingers to his mouth. "I'm heading outside, baby, so get the house to calm down. I don't want to get thrown into the ocean."
Joley smirked at him. "It wouldn't hurt for you to go swimming."
"Joley," Hannah warned, "stop teasing him. You're perfectly safe outside."
Sarah glanced at Hannah, eyes somber, shadows lurking. "But Hannah isn't, is she? It isn't over, is it, Jonas? They really are after her."
"They. Who the hell are they?" Jonas asked. "That's the burning question, and all of you are going to have to consider this is being done by someone with power. We mentioned it, but all of you said the same thing. No surges, nothing to follow, but what would make a perfectly normal couple attempt murder if not under some kind of compulsion?"
"It isn't Ilya Prakenskii," Hannah said. "And he's the only one we know with that kind of power. I didn't feel it. I know I didn't. I would have automatically made a move to counter it."
"Then if not compulsion, you tell me. What would make someone do this?"
"I don't think the men attacking tonight were under compulsion," Kate said. "They might have been following orders, but there were no countermeasures taken against illusion and that would be the first thing we would have done if we were manipulating someone and they ran into trouble. If someone is directing them, and he knows how to manipulate energy, he would have aided them."
The women all nodded. Jonas sighed and climbed to his feet, careful of the candles. "I'm going to take a look around outside."
[Magic Sisters 05] - Safe Harbor Page 22
