Daughter of the Spellcaster (24 page)

They held him steady, but he didn’t fight. He was concocting a plan on the spot, hoping to hell it would work. “Let me show you,” he told them. “Just let me show you.” He nodded at the blade.

Bahru stepped up to him, apparently not caring that Ryan could see his face clearly. “Go ahead, show us. Pick it up.”

The hands holding him let him go. He had a plan. He was going to pick up the blade, and this time he was going to master it. He was going to spin around and shoot fire at these freaking hooded maniacs, blowing them to pieces if that was what it took. Because yeah, they were insane. There was no way they were going to be able to evict his baby from its body so some demon could take up residence there. And he would be damned if he was going to stand by and let them try.

And no one was going to hurt Lena.
No one.

He straightened his jacket, looked at the blade, clenched his jaw.
Okay, ready
.
Make it work this time. Lena’s life depends on it.
He walked to the knife, bent down, closed his hand around the handle. “See?” he said, still crouched. “I told you I could—” He rose and spun and thrust the dagger toward them all in one smooth motion.

Fire spat from the thing, setting someone’s robes alight. And then something stung his neck—a dart, he thought—and his vision went cloudy. He told himself to hold on to the blade as the world around him swam and he dropped to his knees.

Bahru looked down at him, smiling. “It’s all right, Ryan,” he said. “You were right. You
are
the one who has to wield the blade. But first you have to
see
as we have all come to see. And I’m going to help you do that.”

He held up a chain with a dangling quartz prism at the end of it that was glowing like fire. Like hellfire, Ryan thought. He ducked his head to avoid it, but Bahru only smiled. “There’s no point in trying to fight. You won’t remember this tomorrow. But you will awake seeing the truth. You must. Because we need you.”

He lowered the chain around Ryan’s neck, and Ryan felt its power licking at his brain like a hungry fire at dry kindling.

“You will be a hero, Ryan. You will right a wrong that has persisted for more than three thousand years. You will free an innocent soul, restore that which was taken from him, and you will be richly rewarded.”

“You’re nuts. You’re all freaking insane.”

“Drop the knife into the box, Ryan.” Bahru was holding the box open, waiting for him to give up the knife.

“No fucking way,” he whispered, but his hand let go of the blade and it fell into the box. How the hell had that happened?
He
hadn’t opened his hand. It was as if someone else had taken control of his body. Oh, this was bad. This was really bad.

Bahru closed the lid. “Relax. It will all make sense to you soon. The Master’s stone will clear your mind. Relax, Ryan. Father of the Chosen One who shall be the Master’s host. It makes sense, somehow, that you should be the wielder of the blade.”

16

L
ena had begun her night in the temple room all but cowering in fear. But by the time morning approached, just as the sky began to pale from the dark gray of a stormy night to the pink and deep blue of predawn, she felt a little bit foolish for being so terrified. She was a witch. She was not powerless. Whoever this being was, one-time hero or otherwise, she had banished him from her home and apparently kept him from coming back inside. She was
strong
.

The house was silent. Everyone was asleep. So she took out the enchanted chalice, filled it with holy water and sat on the floor, gazing into its depths. As her vision lost focus and the mists swirled into shapes and forms around her, she saw herself as she had been before, a condemned captive in that other lifetime. She stood on a precipice, her hands bound behind her stinging, bleeding back. Her sisters stood beside her, the wind whipping their hair. Beautiful, proud, powerful women.

A bed of jagged rocks awaited them far below, and yet they were not afraid. She was filled again with the knowledge that death was not an ending. That in fact one was far more alive on the other side than one could manage to be while condensed into a tiny physical body.

In the distance she saw a lone rider racing across the desert, sending up a plume of sand in his wake. Her prince, determined to save her.

She hadn’t told him the secret she kept. It was that secret that made her so afraid to die. It wasn’t the loss of her own mortal life she feared, but the loss of the child she carried.

I was pregnant then, too. That’s what made it so horrifying.

She felt again the hands on her back and her toes trying to cling to the stone beneath them, and then...nothing. She was airborne, plummeting, falling, knowing she was about to die.

And that even if her prince had reached her in time, he would have died, too. The high priest was in a rage. The king—her prince’s father—was dead, killed by her sister Lilia’s lover, Demetrius, in his rage to set his woman free. And the three sisters knew that Demetrius would pay with more than his life. He would pay with his soul.

But they had a plan, the three of them. They had a plan to make it all right. A plan that was even now playing out as intended. A plan she had to see through to the end.

No. Not if it means giving him my baby...

In the magic chalice, she saw an image. The chalice—this
very
chalice—held in hands that might have been her own. And the blade, the golden blade she so feared, poised above the cup in hands that were unmistakably Ryan’s. She knew those hands so well. She knew their touch, their strength, their warmth. Then she heard a voice, a powerful voice that was vaguely female but more than human. It whispered from the echoing, cavernous, bottomless cup in which the vision swam:
As the rod is to the God, so the chalice is to the Goddess, and together they are one.

You can trust your love. But you must save
my
love. You gave your word
.

“Not at the cost of my child.”

Only love can save your child. The kind of love you know so well. You know the love I mean. What are the passwords, Magdalena? How do you enter the sacred circle of the wise?

“In perfect love and perfect trust.” She whispered the words uttered by students of the Craft down through the generations, the passwords that allowed them entry into the circle of the witch.

Perfect love and perfect trust,
the voice from the chalice repeated.
They are your only hope. Keep the chalice within reach at all times. Keep it near.

The vision faded. The cup sat in silence, and Lena stared into it in disbelief.

She didn’t know who or what to believe. But that voice felt true. It felt genuine. It felt personal, close to her. She was pretty sure it was the voice of her childhood imaginary friend Lilia, who she had since come to believe had been one of the women standing beside her on that cliff. One of those two who’d died with her. One of her sisters in that lifetime. And it was telling her the same things as the note claiming to be from her other sister, Indira.

She trusted those two women—or spirits or memories or whatever they were—intuitively.

And yet she had trusted Bahru, as well. And now it seemed he was evil. She had believed the house ghost to be good. Now it seemed that it wanted to take her child from her.

How strange to trust a voice coming to her in a vision in a cup. A cup given to her by Bahru himself.

She didn’t tell you to trust her. She told you to trust Ryan.

Lena closed her eyes. “With my life? With my baby?”

His baby, too.

She got to her feet, her knees shaking. She didn’t know what she was going to do next, but she was still certain that leaving this place like her feet were on fire was near the top of the list. She opened the circle, grounded the energy, and then carefully, slowly, she unlocked the temple room door and opened it.

Ryan was sitting on the floor in the hallway, his back against the wall, his breath coming slow and steady, his eyes closed.

He’d slept outside the door. To keep her safe?

Her heart contracted a little, and she bent far enough to touch his face. “Ryan?”

He opened his eyes, looked up at her, and then blinked the confusion away as he looked around. For a moment he looked as if he didn’t know where he was or how he’d gotten there, but then he seemed to shake it off and got—a little unsteadily—to his feet.

His eyes were puffy and red-rimmed. “Are you all right?” she asked, searching his face.

“Yeah. I— Damn, what a headache. And the dreams. The dreams...”

She lifted her hand to his head, smoothed his tousled hair. “Let’s get you some coffee. Some breakfast. You’ll feel better.”

“Wait.” He gripped her wrist, and when she stared into his eyes, he stared right back, searching. “I don’t remember going to sleep out here last night.”

She blinked. “No?”

“No. But I remember the dream I was just having. It was you, but it wasn’t. And me, only not really. I was trying to get to you. You were going to die, and I was supposed to save you, but I couldn’t get there in time.”

He was blinking back moisture, agitated, almost...anguished.

“You were on horseback in the desert,” she told him. “And I was on a cliff with my sisters. Only my hair was dark then, and my skin was bronzed by the sun.”

His eyes widened. “Yes! Did you...did you dream it, too?”

“I saw it in my chalice just now. A vision. You were so close that you must have...tapped in somehow.”

“It was so real.”

“It was. I think it was another lifetime, Ryan. I think it’s part of what all this is about. But I still don’t know how. Or why. Or what we’re supposed to do, besides reenact the Great Rite with my cup and your blade.”

He blinked and actually took a step back, away from her. “My blade...?”

She nodded. “You’re a mess.”

He blinked at her, shaking his head slowly. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

“I only know one thing I’m supposed to do.”

“And what’s that?”

“Trust you,” she said. She slid a hand around his neck, cupped his nape beneath his hair. “Come on. We need food. We’ll think better on full stomachs.”

He nodded, but didn’t look convinced.

They headed down the stairs to the kitchen, where Selma was already up and cooking. Lena could smell coffee, and she was damn well going to have a cup this morning. Just one. And there was bacon, too, sizzling and filling the kitchen with its delicious aroma.

She went to the coffeepot, filled two mugs, set them down and turned to her mother, who was facing the stove as she turned the bacon. “I’m sorry about last night, Mom. I...I kind of freaked.”

“That’s understandable, honey.” Selma turned to face her daughter, smiling as warmly as ever. Putting her hands on Lena’s shoulders, she said, “But everything looks better this morning, doesn’t it? We’re all going to be just fine. You, me, the baby, Ryan. All of us. I promise.”

Lena frowned, wondering at her mother’s serene assurance, and then she saw it.

Selma was wearing a crystal prism on a chain around her neck. It winked at her in the morning sun that slanted in through the window beside them. Lena took a backward step, staring at it. “What the
hell
is that?”

* * *

“What?” Selma looked down, and Ryan, curious, looked over to see what had happened to change the tone in Lena’s voice so completely.

Selma was wearing a crystal pendant of some sort. As he stared at it, something burned against his skin, beneath his shirt.

“Oh, this?” Selma asked, picking up the quartz crystal and turning it in the slanting morning sunlight. Rainbows painted the ceiling. “Bahru gave it to me. Isn’t it pretty?”

“When?” Lena croaked. It was more a demand than a question.

“The day he arrived, after I complimented him on his. I just hadn’t gotten around to wearing it until now. I’m starting to wonder if we might have misjudged him, hon. I really think all this has been one big misunderstanding. I mean, it just doesn’t seem logical that he would go from spiritual pacifist to servant of some dark, body-snatching entity overnight. He might actually be able to advise us on this. Maybe if we just sit down and talk to him, it will all make— Lena, what’s wrong with you?”

Lena was backing away from her mother. “I want you to take it off, Mom.”

Yes,
Ryan thought
. Take it off. Take it off, it’s evil.

“But why? It’s so pretty.”

“They were all wearing them.” Lena’s voice was hoarse, low, quivering. “Everyone in my dream, the dream where I have the baby and Ryan...Ryan has that knife. The crystals were all glowing, and they all had red eyes, and I just have this horrible feeling. Mom,
please
. Take it off.”

“Of course.” Frowning, Selma lifted the necklace over her head and held it out to her daughter.

Lena jumped away from the thing as if it were a poisonous snake. “I don’t want it. Just...just get rid of it.”

The burning against Ryan’s chest was getting worse. He had to get away from the two of them, so he could look underneath his shirt. But he had a really bad feeling he knew what he was going to find when he did. And it was sure to break Lena’s trust in him once and for all, if it turned out he was right.

“Here, give it to me,” he said, holding out a hand, putting himself between Lena and the thing that so frightened her.

Selma smiled and dropped the necklace into his palm. “Either bury it or toss it into the stream.”

He looked at Lena. “Is that okay with you? I can smash it with a hammer first, if you want.”

She nodded.

“Okay. And then I’ll bury it. I know just the spot.” He closed his hand around the crystal, but it didn’t burn his palm. It didn’t heat or glow or vibrate. He turned toward the door.

“How did it go last night, by the way?” Selma asked.

He blinked. “How did...what go?”

“Last I saw of you, you were going out to see Bahru, to demand the return of that blasted knife.” At Lena’s sharp gasp, Selma rushed on. “He was going to give it to you, honey. To show you that you could trust him.”

Lena turned to Ryan and asked, “You were?”

“That was the plan.”

“So how did it go?” she asked. “Did you find it?”

He racked his brain, but last night was a blur. Vaguely, he recalled leaving the house, walking through the snow, thinking Bahru’s place looked empty. He was going to go inside and look for it. Had he?

Yeah, he was pretty sure he had. God, what had happened to his memory?

“Ryan?”

“Uh, no. No, Bahru wasn’t there. I searched the cottage, but...” He shook his head. “Nothing.”

She nodded. “I appreciate that you tried,” she said. “But I still think getting out of here is the best bet.”

“Yeah. I think so, too,” he said.

But even as he spoke, a cacophony of discordant whispers filled his head, each voice twisting around the next, and yet their words were clear enough.

But she won’t be able to leave.

The Master will see to that.

She has to stay within his reach...

...until the child is born.

Yes, until the child...

...until the child is born.

What the hell was happening to him? Why was his memory of last night so spotty? So foggy? He looked at the crystal in his hand. It was just an ordinary piece of quartz on a silver chain.

Closing his hand around the thing, he shoved his feet into his boots, pulled on a coat and headed out back, pausing near the woodpile, where he picked up the old rusty axe that looked as if it hadn’t been used in a dozen years.

The minute he was out of sight of the house, heading over the back lawn to the little copse of trees where he’d been practicing with his knife, he pulled his shirt open and looked down at his chest.

A quartz pendant rested there. It was suspended on a long silver chain, and it was glowing. He moved to take it off, but when his hand got close to the thing, it froze. It was as if he couldn’t move it any further, as if he’d somehow lost communication between his brain and his arm.

It was controlling him. The damn thing was taking over his mind. He strained, baring his teeth in the effort, but his hand refused to move, and finally he let it drop to his side with a rush of breath.

Opening his palm, he looked again at the necklace Selma had given him. She’d removed it easily. Not even a hint of effort.

“It’s not the same,” he said softly. He didn’t know why Bahru had given it to her. Maybe to make it seem like the stones meant nothing? Maybe to make Lena feel she couldn’t even trust her own mother? Maybe just because Selma had asked about the piece and he wanted to shift her focus away from it. But he was certain the stone was not the same as the one that had somehow magically appeared around his own neck overnight.

What was he going to do? How the hell was he going to get this thing off? How much power could it possibly have over him? And for how long would it last?