Resurrection (8 page)

“Maybe they're coming from his father,” Tommy ventured.

The room went completely silent. It was so quiet the silence seemed to roar in Nicole's ears. There was the question again. Who was the baby's father? If those symbols really had been dark magics, and Owen really was getting them from his father, that ruled out Philippe. She shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself, wishing she didn't feel so sick inside.

“Does that mean the father is nearby?” Amanda asked quietly.

Nicole heard Owen's “Yes” from earlier echoing around in her head. She silently prayed to the Goddess,
Please, please, don't let Daddy come home!

“Maybe he's not just pulling from his parents,” Richard suggested. “It could have come from another magic user close by.”

Amanda shook her head. “I don't think so. We weren't that far away, and I didn't feel a thing. Did you?” she asked, turning to Tommy.

“Nothing,” he agreed.

“What if he was getting it from the house?” Nicole asked.

“That's impossible,” Amanda blurted.

Nicole stared at her twin. She had the feeling Amanda was hiding something. She thought about calling her out then and there, but she knew her sister. Amanda usually didn't keep secrets without a reason. Nicole thought maybe she should wait and try to talk to her alone first. After all, they were the Ladies of the Lily. She just really wished she knew where the third lady was. If ever they could have used Holly, it was now.

Suddenly Richard's demeanor changed. “Meeting adjourned; he's awake.”

“I didn't hear anything,” Tommy said.

“I didn't feel anything,” Amanda chimed in.

Suddenly over the baby monitor on the far counter they could hear Owen start to coo.

“Dad, you sure you're not psychic?” Nicole asked suspiciously.

He smiled. “Nope. Just years of practice with kids.”

Nicole went upstairs to get Owen, and Amanda excused herself. She had to get away from the others so she could have some time to think. Could it be possible that Owen was somehow channeling the energies of the house? It made her sick just to think of it, but
it made sense. The house seemed to be calling to her sometimes. If it was, couldn't it also be reaching out to Owen?

She shook her head. If so, then why them? Nicole and Tommy didn't seem to be affected by the house. She turned toward the stairway. She would go to her room for just a few minutes. There she could think in peace.

Amanda.

She stopped. She could have sworn someone had just called her name. She knew, though, that it hadn't been the voice of any of her family members.
Who's there?
she thought, trying to reach out with her mind.

Help me.

Her heart began to pound and fear knifed through her. She wasn't in any position to help anybody. She could barely keep herself together.
I can't.

Yes, you can. I need you, Amanda.

She bit her lip to keep from screaming. The voice seemed to be both outside her head and inside it at the same time. She put her foot on the bottom rung of the stair.

No!

Taking a deep breath, she raced up the stairs, a faint wail bouncing off the walls around her.
Can't, can't, can't
. She made it to the top of the stairs and kept going until she was locked inside her room.

She turned around and started for her bed but came to a shuddering halt. There, on top of her bedspread, were a pile of dead flies. The hundreds of bodies spelled out the words
“Help Me!”

Mumbai: Eli

Fantasme, the exquisite falcon familiar that had served House Deveraux for nearly a thousand years, wheeled above the Tower of Silence, where the corpse of a young girl rotted in the sun. Eli had watched the pallbearers carrying it into the stone structure. Hanging vines and brilliant purple and pink flowers cluttered the base of the carved stone turret and spilled over the path to the entrance. The Zoroastrians, who were the Magi mentioned in the Christian Bible, believed that
all living things—including the earth, water, and fire—must be separated from dead, putrefying flesh, and they laid out their deceased in towers. But a chemical in Indian animal feed had killed off nearly all the vultures in the country. The bodies were left to rot in the sun, a process that took much longer than being devoured by vultures—and created anguish in the Zoroastrian community.

Fantasme was eager to lend a hand, and Eli was glad to give him whatever he wanted. The Moores had held him hostage and tortured him, promising him unending torment if the Deveraux didn't share the secret of conjuring the Black Fire with them. The Deveraux never had.

Fantasme dive-bombed into the tower, and Eli returned his attention to his finder's spell. A tiny black falcon shape hovered above his open palm like the arrow of a compass. He was searching, as always, for Nicole. By the way the bird fluttered and changed direction, he knew someone was nearby. He didn't think it was Nicole herself but, rather, someone who was connected to her.

Beneath his feet the ground rumbled. He frowned and looked down, trying to remember if India was known for earthquakes. It rumbled again. He murmured a protection spell around himself and kept going.

The earth was still as he walked onto the sidewalk
of the main thoroughfare, where his driver was waiting. The man snapped to attention at the sight of his employer and opened the back door of his boring but serviceable Mercedes. Eli nodded and climbed inside. He looked out the tinted window and saw Fantasme circling high in the air. Not everyone could see him; he blurred in and out of this reality and the magical greenwood, where he endlessly pursued Pandion, the hawk of the Cahors.

Eli sat back against the heavily embroidered draperies covering the leather seat. The driver worshipped Ganesha, Remover of Obstacles and Patron of Letters. There was a small statue of the elephant God glued to the dash. Eli wondered how one prayed to him, and if he would answer the prayers of a warlock. Eli had been raised to revere the Horned God, who loved sacrifices best. Eli's father had made countless sacrifices to get what he wanted—including Nicole's mother and, Eli suspected, both of Holly's parents as well.

He ground his teeth at the thought of the bitch. Since birth he had been taught that love and loyalty were illusions designed to keep the powerless in their places. But now that he had seen Sasha Deveraux, his mother, and had heard her side of what had happened between her and Eli's father, Eli realized that he had loved her all his life, and hated her for deserting them.

Through a bizarre rift, Sasha and Eli had been flung back into the time of Isabeau Cahors and Jean Deveraux. Sasha had sustained mortal injuries, and Isabeau had told her that if she stayed in the past—where she had not been hurt—she could live out her days. Would she dabble in time-changing magic there, and alter the present?

That would be the kind of thing a well-meaning witch would attempt, no matter that she might harm her own loved ones, or make them cease to exist altogether. Witches who worshipped White Magic ascribed to the notion of the greater good—the needs of the group overruling the desires and, yes, even the fate, of an individual—any individual. It was no wonder that worship of the Horned God had spread like wildfire during the Middle Ages, when the Catholic Church abused peasant and noble alike. “The greater good” were simply code words for oppression.

Where was witchdom when Nicole was forced to marry James Moore? They couldn't be bothered to attempt a rescue, until Holly Cathers turned to the darkness for help. No lily white Lady of the Lily, that one. Her soul was divided now, up for grabs between the Goddess and the Horned God. It would be interesting to see who wound up with it.

The streets of Mumbai sailed past, and Eli sighed heavily as he watched the little falcon hover above
his open palm. The driver was occupied with the traffic—how could such poor people afford so many vehicles?—but even so, Eli made it invisible.

Suddenly it pointed to the right.

“Pull over,” Eli ordered the driver.

“Yes, sir.” The driver's upper-class English accent reminded Eli of James Moore.

Eli murmured a few words and made motions in the air to push a gaudy little truck and a swarm of bicycles out of the Mercedes's path. Back in the day, when the Deveraux lived in a majestic castle in France, nobles simply ran peasants over if they were in the way. He didn't want to cause an incident.

And…he didn't want to hurt anyone.

He felt a chill.
I'm getting soft
.

As the limo drew toward the curb, a young guy on a bicycle wearing a faded long-sleeved green T-shirt and a pair of khaki trousers sneered and deliberately slowed his pedaling. Eli flicked his fingers, and the bicycle slammed to the ground, rider and all.

Smiling thinly, he said to his driver, “I'll get out here. You find a place to park and wait for me.”

“Very well, sir.”

The driver waited as Eli hopped out, sauntering around the bicycle and the rider, who was grunting and trying to get up. Eli made a show of stepping around him. He saw several Indians do the same. Then a girl
with long hair bent at the man's side and started speaking to him in a language Eli didn't understand. She whipped out a cell phone. Then she saw Eli.

“Excuse me, sir,” she said in English. “I noted that you have a car. Would it be possible to transport this man to hospital? He has broken his leg.”

Eli paused.
If I do it, maybe she'll have dinner with me. Or more.

But he didn't want to have dinner with her. He wanted to find Nicole.

Sweat beaded on his brow.
I'm losing it. This is not who I am.

He responded in French, telling her that the car was unavailable, and suggesting, in addition, that she and the bicyclist both go to hell.

Then he walked off, feeling a little better.

Dover: Jer and Eve

Darklightdarklightdarklight,
the revolving prism of the white lighthouse warned the ships at sea to beware of the bone-shattering rocks tossed upon the coastline, encrusting the shallows beneath the tides. The buoys clanged; the gulls screamed; the purple swells peaked, collapsed, and hid the evidence.

Beneath their crusted veils of ice, Holly wrapped her arms around Jer and put her mouth over his. He did the same. Their legs tangled, untangled, like mermaid tails. Warm air from her body blew into his mouth, his throat, his lungs. It was too hot;
fire swam through his bloodstream and ignited every cell. Too hot; he moaned and tried to pull away. Then he realized that his arms were tied together, by the traditional black silk cords of warlock handfasting. He tried to tell her, but her mouth was clamped over his.

Like a killing
undine,
a water elemental, she began to suck the breath out of him. It whooshed out like oxygen in a blaze; creating a suction. He pounded gently on her back, and a shudder went through her.

Then she pulled back and he realized she was laughing. Her dark eyes were half-closed as she shook silently, laughing. She threw back her head and opened her mouth, and the life-giving air she had drawn out of his body bubbled toward the surface—

—the surface, so far away.

The moon rippled above the black water, and grew smaller and dimmer as Jer and Holly sank toward the endless bottom of the sea. He jerked his arms, straining to free himself. He kept his mouth clamped shut and shook his head, trying to signal to her that it was not a game. They were in danger, great danger. He stared at her hard, kicking his legs. A stalk of kelp thrashed behind Holly, rising above her like a monster. It had two yellow reptilian eyes; as it unfolded, they focused on her. Two leaves became a mouth, with fangs—

Still she laughed; still they sank.

The kelp monster began to lower its head toward her; the mouth opened, revealed teeth of sharply honed abalone shells.
They glistened like pearls. A skull gleamed on its long, slimy green tongue.

Eli.
Here he was at last, stripped of all life, like their father. The skull tumbled out of the monster's mouth and swirled end over end.

“Holly!” Jer shouted. The sound carried, vibrating through the stormy ocean until it hit the rocks and shattered. Sparks flicked toward the moon.

He knew, then, that he was going to die. He had no breath left in his body. He had used the last of it to warn her.

And still she laughed. She laughed as he squirmed in her embrace; then she tugged once, twice, and let go of him. Clinging gracefully to the kelp monster with her left hand, she reached forward and pushed his shoulder with her right. He flailed, trying to grab her. It was clear that she didn't understand.

Why doesn't she need any air?

Then she pushed him again; he sank farther; and she pulled back her right foot and kicked him as hard as she could in the face. He heard a crack; it was his nose, breaking. His blood mushroomed in front of him, creating a crimson barrier that obscured her face. He gasped, sucking in water.

As he looked up at her, she started laughing again.

“Adieu,” she said, “mon Jean, mon homme, ma vie…”

Her smiled faded, and her face contorted with hatred. And he knew she wasn't Holly; she was Holly's dead ancestress
Isabeau, who had sworn to kill her husband, Jean, six hundred years before.

“Holly,” he said, “it's me. It's Jer. I'm not…Je suis Jean, et tu est ma femme, Isabeau.”

I am Jean, and you are my woman. You are my wife, Isabeau.

“Then you'll die, too!” he screamed, grabbing her ankle. “Die with me!”

 

“Jer, wake up,” Eve said, shaking his shoulders. “It's okay. It's a dream.”

He opened his eyes. They were in their attic room in their Dover bed and breakfast. The slanted ceiling dropped at a sharp angle behind her, and the mirror bolted to the wall showed his disfigured face, twisted in a grimace.

She was bending over him, wearing a white silk long-sleeved nightgown that looked like a medieval shift. Beneath his blankets he wore a long thermal T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. A foghorn broke the silence as he fought to bring himself under control. He heard himself panting. Wind batted the leaded diamond panes. He smelled Eve's floral shampoo, and her body heat diffused the room's chill…but not his unease.

“Don't be an idiot,” he snapped at her. “We're warlocks. We can kill people in dreams.”

“Did you dream that Holly killed you?” she asked. “Again?”

Jer didn't answer. Stonily he lifted the covers off himself, forcing her to straighten and step back. He didn't want Eve comforting him. Or pretending to.

There were two single beds in the rustic wood-and-plaster room; at his request they had pushed them apart, placing a nightstand between them. He noted her laptop on her bed, and the blue glow of the screen. He wondered if she had contacted the Supreme Coven to tell them that they were on the move again. She had sworn not to reveal their location while they traveled together, but when had the word of a warlock ever meant anything?

“Would you like some tea?” she asked him, gesturing to the electric kettle the B&B had provided.

“You Brits. You think you can solve everything with tea.” He didn't care that she looked hurt.

“I've left the Coven,” she said, gesturing to the laptop.

He laughed harshly. “What did you do, send them a letter of resignation?”

“Now who's being an idiot? Do you think I want an assassin coming after me?”

She led him over to the computer and turned it around so that he could see the screen. An e-mail message was open, front and center over a few other
windows, including a picture of a black cat. Warlocks didn't have familiars. Maybe it was just a pet.

The message read:

Jer read without comment. He didn't know what to think. He had spent many long months leading his own coven, the Rebel Coven, and he was sure he had operated beneath the Supreme Coven's radar. If they had even heard of the Rebel Coven's existence, they probably (and rightly) had assumed he had formed the Circle to rebel against his father.

Now he was the only survivor. His heart spared a moment for Kari Hardwicke, who had died in the attack on the Supreme Coven. She should never have been a covenate. He'd known it all along, but she'd dazzled him. She'd been a sexy “older woman”—a grad student—as brilliant as she was tenacious. He'd let go of her way before Holly, but he knew Kari had thought that Holly had stolen him away.

“Maybe I should look for Holly,” he said. “Instead of Eli.”

“No,” Eve said quickly. “You should find your
brother. She's nothing but trouble. You need to be with your own.”

I could have been in thrall with Holly,
he thought, staring through the leaded panes. The moon threw nets of silver over the crashing waves far below. Those who were loved by the Cathers witches were doomed to die by drowning.

Maybe my dreams are wishful thinking
.

He watched the water and wished he were free of all this. And free of her.