Duplicity (Spellbound #2) (5 page)

“What’s the last thing you remember before waking up in France?” Mom asked.

Gray concentrated on her mom rather than Raj and Stacey huddled together. “You’d left town to meet your contact. Raj found out that Charlene planned to purge me so we enlisted the help of Adrian Montez to perform a body transfer. He located a body in Seattle that was about to expire.”

Stacey gasped.

“As we were headed out I was transported… here, home.” Gray looked around the room. She ground her teeth together. “By Ryan Phillips. Somehow the maggot managed to extract me from Charlene’s body.”

Raj took a step toward her. “Then what?”

“I didn’t cease being. Not right away. I was a spirit and I was floating. I went out the front door and began drifting down the neighborhood and then an idea occurred to me.”

Stacey swallowed. “You thought maybe you could transfer yourself inside another host.”

Gray nodded. “Someone who was already a goner, but not quite…”

“Gone,” Stacey finished. “But how can it be? How can there be two of us?”

Mom looked from Stacey to Gray. “But you never made it to Stacey’s body?”

“I don’t know what happened. There was no transitional moment, not like with the extraction. One moment I was a spirit, the next I was in France.”

“On the anniversary of our death,” Stacey mused. “That has to mean something.” She looked at Mom. “Would your contact know something?”

Mom’s jaw clenched. “We’re no longer in contact.”

“Why not?”

Mom walked to the opposite corner of the room. “Our connection is over.”

“So your second meeting with him didn’t result in this—whatever this is?” Gray asked.

Mom didn’t answer.

At first his voice was so soft the words didn’t register. Then, all three women looked at Raj. “I think I know what happened.”

Leave it to Raj to figure things out. Dependable, loyal, handsome Raj. Gray should have appreciated him more when she had the chance. It was obvious his loyalty now lay with Stacey Morehouse. Not only was this version ten times prettier, she had a ten-month lead on Gray.

“Adrian performed a spell on Charlene, after the purge. He poisoned himself and left town before he had a chance to realize that Gray managed to hijack Stacey’s body, but after the spell, he seemed to think whatever he’d done had worked.” Raj looked at Gray. “He injected himself with all kinds of potions then cut open his palms and Charlene’s and mixed their blood.”

Gray pulled her arms behind her back. Raj stepped in front of her. He lifted a brow. “Gray?”

She pressed her lips together and shook her head. Even though he’d said her name, her true name, she didn’t want him to see. Gray had traced the lines of the scars, palms open, during the plane ride. Their meaning hadn’t registered till now.

Mom and Stacey closed in on either side of Gray. Raj pulled her arms forward gently. Gray’s hands were balled into tight fists. Raj took them in his own hands. His skin slid over hers. It was the gentleness of his touch and light tug on her fingers that succeeded in opening her fingers. They all leaned forward. Everyone frowned.

The letters were upside down to everyone but Gray. Her left palm bore the letter A and her right… an M. Adrian Montez. He’d carved his initials into her skin, as though she were his property.

Even Stacey looked at her with pity.

Gray yanked her hands out of Raj’s. “Wait until I get my hands on him!” Hands only reminded her of the markings and wanting a cigarette. Gray’s fingernails bit half-moons into the scars as she squeezed her hands into fists. “I’m going to need my powers back.” She looked from Raj to Stacey. “I’ll take those pendants back now.”

“What are those pendants?” Mom asked.

Gray answered before either Stacey or Raj could. “They’ve each got a vial with Charlene’s blood in them. They block her powers.”

Mom pursed her lips.

Stacey began backing away. “What happens when you turn into Charlene tomorrow?”

“I don’t think she’ll be turning,” Raj said. “Adrian saw to that.”

“Then what happened to Charlene?” Stacey asked.

There were blank stares all around.

“If Adrian caused this, he can reverse it,” Mom said.

“What do you mean reverse it?” Gray asked. “You mean send me back to oblivion?”

“Of course not,” Mom said quickly. “What I meant was we need to find out what happened to Charlene.”

Stacey huffed. “You can ask her yourself tomorrow morning. There’s no way Adrian’s copycat spell will hold up for long.”

“Well, then, I guess we’ll see. Till tomorrow then.” Gray stormed toward the door.

“Gray, where are you going?” Mom asked.

“To Charlene’s room.” She took one last look at the empty space before departing. “Looks like I’ll be waking up in her bed no matter what.”

Nobody followed Gray to Charlene’s bedroom. She paced the square confines like a caged tiger. Gray needed something to calm her nerves.

Charlene’s window was trickier to open, as though it had been sealed shut after the last coat of paint.

Smoke billowed into the night. The porch light illuminated the edges of the window frame in a faint glow. Gray took another drag on her cigarette and exhaled.

Although Paris was now half a world away, the air had the same damp chill that seeped down to the bones, as though the climate had never changed.

The voices below Gray were muffled—until the front door opened and they floated up from the walkway.

“Thank you for dinner, Marney,” Mr. Morehouse said.

Marney?

Raj and Stacey’s voices were lower. “Will you be at school tomorrow?” Raj asked.

“Yeah.”

“So, I’ll see you then.” He leaned forward and put a hand on Stacey’s shoulder then kissed her while Mr. Morehouse’s back was turned.

Gray pulled the cigarette out of her mouth. Maybe if she stared at the tip long enough, she could make it burst into flames. Two car doors closed and a vehicle pulled out of the drive. A third door slammed shut, followed by the rumble of Raj’s car from the street. Gray tapped the ash off the tip of her cigarette, licked her fingers, and pinched the end before closing the window.

Charlene’s wardrobe was as useless as Gray remembered. No comfy pj’s. She’d just have to sleep in a T-shirt and undies.

Mom tapped lightly on her door and walked in. “Graylee,” she whispered in the dark.

“Yeah.”

Mom joined her at the window. They stood silent for a time until Mom turned to her and said, “all right, hand them over.”

Gray rolled her eyes before digging the Virginia Slims out of her back pocket and placing them in Mom’s hand. “They aren’t mine.”

“But you’re smoking them.”

Gray walked over to Charlene’s four-poster bed. “Where did all my things go? Wait. Let me guess: they’re at Stacey’s house?”

“No, your sister… er, I’m not sure how to say that. She goes by Lee now. Anyway, Lee already had a furnished room. She took whatever belongings she wanted and I sold the rest. I was thinking of renting the house and getting an apartment.”

“What?”

“It’s just me here and I spend most of my time at Daniel’s.”

Gray raised a brow. “You mean Mr. Morehouse?”

Mom turned away, but not before Gray caught her blush.

“What’s up with that anyway? Are you guys dating?”

“Yes.”

“And Raj and Lee are dating?”

“That’s right.”

“Wow.” Gray flopped onto the bed. “Talk about being the fifth wheel.”

Mom sat on the side of the bed and placed a hand on Gray’s cheek. “I’m so sorry—about everything.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“It is my fault. All of it.” Mom’s hand shook. She pulled it away.

Gray sat up. “Mom, it’s okay. All you ever wanted was to get me back. Your contact is the one who messed up the spell.”

Mom bit down on her lower lip and looked away.

“Mom? What is it?”

“It is my fault,” she said softly. “I lied to him.”

Gray straightened. “What do you mean you lied to him?”

“He said in order for the resurrection spell to work you couldn’t have been dead for more than two days… By the time I found him it had been two months.”

“Mom!”

“I know! But how could I turn away after locating someone powerful enough to resurrect you? I should have realized your body was expired, but I wasn’t thinking. All I wanted was to get you back.”

Gray made a grunting sound. “And now you have two of me.”

The question was: which one was real? Gray felt real. She certainly looked like the real Graylee Perez. They couldn’t both be authentic. That made no sense. There was no other way around it. One of them was a backup.

Gray held her palms above her head as she lay awake in bed that night.

What if Adrian had created her as his own personal replica—like a femme bot or something? Gray yanked her arms under the covers.

She needed those pendants back. The worst part was she needed Adrian’s.

Lee slept remarkably well considering she’d lost temporary control of her powers, reached the one-year anniversary of her death—technically, murder—and today faced either her evil twin or a duplicate of herself. Lee wasn’t sure which she dreaded most. Regardless, she needed to be on her toes, not jolted awake by her cell phone.

“We have a problem,” Raj said.

Just great, her evil twin was back in town. “Charlene woke up this morning?”

“No, it’s Aahana.”

“What happened?”

“She won’t wake up again.”

“What? I thought that was over.”

Raj sighed. “Unfortunately not. Shay called. She and Max aren’t going to school and they said I shouldn’t either. The coven’s scheduled an emergency meeting tonight.”

Lee glanced at the alien eye on her nightstand. “I’ll be right over with the nazar.”

“Keep it.”

“Raj…”

“Mom’s taking her to Gathering. Shay said it’s the only place where we’ll be safe from our own powers.”

“Are you going?”

“I need to make sure Aahana is okay.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“Lee, no. Mr. Morehouse would freak out.”

“What am I supposed to do while everyone’s taking refuge at Gathering?”

“Go to school. Don’t change your routine. It’ll only alarm your dad.”

“He’s not my dad!”

“Lee, please.”

“Fine.” Lee tossed her phone onto the bed, stretched, and crossed the hall to the bathroom. She flicked on the light and sucked in a breath when her reflection didn’t appear in the mirror.

Lee cracked the door open and peered into the hallway. Once she saw it was clear, she dove inside her room and grabbed the nazar, whispered a word of thanks, and fastened it around her neck.

She gave Mr. Morehouse a kiss on the cheek at the front door before walking down the street toward the bus stop. If Lee had gotten her old life back as Graylee, she’d get to ride to school with her best friend, Thea. The school bus was still better than a parental chauffeur. And today it provided a cover.

Once the house was out of sight, she bypassed the kids waiting on the corner for the bus and walked to the next street over. There was no way she was sitting in class while everyone else worked things out.

Gray had finally succumbed to travel fatigue, only to sit up wide awake at four forty-five a.m. Crapola, she’d wanted to watch the time switch. She’d done it before. Nothing peculiar ever happened other than an entire day passing without her awareness. That and the one time she’d woken up in Nolan Knapp’s bed.

She couldn’t wait to find out what Lee had done to punish the maggot for that one.

Gray lay on her back, staring at the ceiling for another thirty minutes before getting up. By then, her eyes had adjusted to the dark. She still had on the T-shirt and comfy cotton panties. A good sign. She rifled through Charlene’s closet—same old short skirts, tank tops, and cardigans. Gray should have nabbed the small, but chic, French wardrobe and brought it back to the States. Instead, she had boarded her plane without so much as a backpack.

Gray threw on a pink robe and stepped delicately past her mother’s bedroom toward the stairs. Once she made it down to the kitchen, she lifted the lid of the trash and smiled. The pack of cigarettes was at the top of the pile. Gray pulled out three smokes and set the pack back in place. With light fingers, she pulled open the drawer with the birthday candles and matches, pausing momentarily to stare at the pack of multicolored candles. Only a couple slivers of wax remained. She’d missed her eighteenth birthday.