Seduction (27 page)

He laughed heartily. “My dear, everyone knows.” He put the kettle on the charcoal brazier he used and took out two elegant china cups. “They’re a silly coven. A bunch of vain chickens with hardly any magic.”

His talk of magic and covens made me a little uncomfortable. A lot of people associated witches with evil or Satan or something, which simply wasn’t true, although I’d discovered that once some people’s minds were made up, the truth no longer mattered to them. I was hoping Azrael wasn’t one of those people. “Er, by
magic
, do you mean—”

“I mean what you do,” he said. “What you are.”

I froze. “How do you know?” I squeaked.

He laughed. “My child, magic practically rolls off you. One needn’t even see you perform to know that about you. I imagine Joelle is not the only one of your housemates who hates you.”

He’d gotten that right. “I don’t know if they hate me, exactly,” I waffled.

“They are envious,” he said with a chuckle. “Wildly, screechingly envious.”

“Really?”

He nodded.

“I think they want Peter to join them,” I said.

“The work-driven Peter.”

“Yes,” I said tightly.

“And will he?”

I slumped in my chair. “I don’t know.”

“Ah. Now I see. If Peter remains with you, he will not give his allegiance to them. That is why these women wish to force you to leave.” He brought me a cup of steaming, fragrant jasmine tea and sat opposite me. “Perhaps you should give this young man more credit than you do. He can, after all, make up his own mind.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But there’s a lot of pressure. It’s not just the beautiful women hanging all over him—I’m pretty sure Peter wouldn’t be swayed by them, if that was all there was—but there’s a big position with Shaw Enterprises, too, not to mention . . .” I was going to say
he’s being groomed to be the coven’s resident alchemist,
but I caught myself in time. I cleared my throat. “Er, not to mention college. Peter’s been all but promised an acceptance into the best university in America.”

Azrael nodded. “Try having a little faith,” he said.

I squirmed. There was also the matter of Belmondo, which I was also not about to bring up. I didn’t even understand that myself. When I thought about what I was doing with him under Peter’s nose, I felt ashamed. But good, too. Darkly, wickedly, daringly
good
.

“So is this why you came to see me?” the old man asked, startling me. I must have been lost in thoughts of my lust for Belmondo. “Because my experience with affairs of the heart may be somewhat rusty.”

Get it together,
I told myself.
Don’t lose focus.
“No, I wanted to talk with you about something else,” I said, sitting
up straight. “There’s a woman at the house, an older woman named Marie-Therèse. She’s going to be kicked out because they have this stupid rule that you have to leave the house when you get old.”

“Why not?”

“Why not?” I shouted. “Because it’s cruel and idiotic. All they care about is their looks!”

“
Oui
,” he said. “That is what they use their magic for.”

So he knew about that, too. “So anyway, they’re throwing her out like garbage.”

“Now, now, Katy. Don’t exaggerate.”

I felt my pulse pounding. “No? Okay, then. How’s this? They’re going to
kill
her.”

Azrael sighed and sat back in his chair. “Kill her?” he asked, not sounding particularly shocked. In fact, he sounded as if he were listening to a nut. A nut named Katy.

“Why are you acting like you don’t know what I’m talking about?” I pleaded. “I went to the ‘country house,’ ” I said, making caterpillars with my fingers. “No one lives there, Azrael. Nobody’s lived there for hundreds of years. It’s a shell, I tell you. Something happens to the people who get sent there, and it’s not good!”

“All right, all right!” he said, laughing. “You Americans are so persistent.”

“Persistent? We’re talking about someone’s
life
!”

He shrugged. “Life,” he said. “What is life? A passing dream. The blink of an eye . . .”

“Oh, for crying out loud,” I said.

“Well, what do you want me to do?” he snapped. “Kidnap the woman? Engage in fisticuffs with her captors? Frankly, you
would be better suited to that sort of activity than I.” He rubbed his neck. “I still bear the marks from our first encounter.”

I winced. “I’m deeply, deeply sorry about that,” I said, “but right now I really need for you to help me figure out what to do.”

“But what concern is it of yours? This Marie-Therèse is an old woman. You, on the other hand, are young, with your whole life ahead of you. Surely her fate, whatever it may be, cannot be of much importance to you.”

I looked up at him. “I can’t believe you’d even say that,” I said quietly. “She doesn’t have anyone else, Azrael. It’s me or the dung heap for her.”

His watery old eyes looked at me steadily. “Are there really people like you still left in this world?”

“Lots,” I said, thinking of Whitfield. “My great-grandmother would never speak to me again if I didn’t help. That goes for just about everyone else I know too.”

Azrael nodded sagely. “
Eh bien
,” he said, slapping his hands on his knees. “Then we must come up with a plan.”

“Yes!” I agreed.

“Ah, yes. I have it.”

I leaned forward expectantly.

“We’ll use magic.”

I breathed a huge sigh of relief. “Whew. Great. Thank you. Er . . . what sort of magic do you do?”

He looked surprised. “
I?
No, no, no. You’re the one who’ll perform the magic.”

“Me?
Me?
But . . . but aren’t you a witch?”

“I believe we’ve only established that
you
are, Miss Ainsworth.”

I swallowed. I’d been trapped. “I’m an object-empath,” I said. “A telekinetic. I don’t do spells.”

“Then perhaps you ought to learn.”

I stood up in a huff. “Why won’t you help me?” I demanded, shouting so that my voice wouldn’t break with emotion.

“Who said I could? Besides, no one ever learned anything by having things done for them.”

I clenched my teeth together. “But there’s so much at stake,” I whimpered. “If I fail . . .”

“Don’t fail,” Azrael said.

I crossed my arms angrily in front of me. “Easy for you to say.”

He smiled. “All right. A concession. If you need help, I shall help you,” he said softly. “Does that satisfy you?”

So he was a witch after all. And he’d offered to help me if all else failed, which, frankly, was pretty likely. The chances of my succeeding at casting a spell that would protect Marie-Therèse from a coven of witches—even stupid ones—was, I knew, somewhere between zero and minus one. But I owed it to her to at least try.

“Okay,” I said, less than enthusiastically. “I guess I’d better get to work, then.” I took our teacups to the basin. As I washed them, a sinking feeling came over me.
Jeremiah.
I had to tell Azrael about him. “Er . . .”

“Oh, dear,” he said. “What is it now, little
choux
?”

I set the cups out to dry and wiped my hands. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but somebody knows about you.”

He glared at me. “Who have you told?” he demanded.

“No one, I swear. But the other night Jeremiah—”

“Who?”

“Jeremiah Shaw. He’s Peter’s boss.”

“He is one of the witches?”

“I guess. He was at their full-moon ceremony.”

Azrael’s wrinkled frown suddenly smoothed into an expression of understanding. “Go on,” he said.

“He stays at the house sometimes. Whenever he wants to, pretty much. Anyway, I was trying to talk to him about Marie-Therèse, and he basically ignored me, but then—”

“He asked about me?” Azrael whispered.

“Sort of. He said he knew I’d been visiting you.”

The old man nodded.

“And then he thanked me.”

He closed his eyes.

“Why would he do that?”

For a moment, I didn’t think he’d heard me. But then he spread his hands, palms up, in front of him.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve been careful. And I haven’t said anything. I don’t know how he knew.”

“It’s all right,” the old man said hoarsely, and patted me on the head.

“I don’t think he’ll try to rob you or anything,” I added.

“No.” He smiled. His eyes were shining with tears. “Go cast your spell, little witch, and think on this no longer.”

CHAPTER

•

THIRTY-TWO

I was pretty disheartened about learning a whole new branch of witchcraft that I didn’t have any particular talent in, but supposed I was better off than I was before I’d consulted Azrael. After all, I’d asked him for an idea, and he’d given me one.

Even though I didn’t think it would work.

Nevertheless, as soon as I got back to the house, I took out the book of spells Aunt Agnes had given me and leafed through the contents.

Weather, Summoning, Charms . . .
I didn’t think so. I didn’t even know what charms were, except for things you hung on bracelets. The Dead? Really counterproductive, I’d say, under the circumstances. Protection was the next chapter. Protection?

Yes, okay, that could work.

But jeez, it was such a big deal! Incantations and calling in Elementals, creating a sacred circle made of salt, bowing to the Lords of Air. . .  . How did the witches in
A Compendium of Ritual Magic
find the time to do all this pre-magic stuff, I wondered, as I moved the furniture in my room and set up the complicated spell. On TV, witches just had to know Latin and maybe wiggle their noses.

Actually, I’d never had to do much of anything to make magic. In Whitfield, we just worked on whatever talents we already had, so I’d only ever done magic with solid objects, and that was pretty easy. I’d never had to scour parking lots for weird rocks or “wander through the astral plane” in preparation for the Protection spell, as Rosamund B. Leakey suggested.

In fact, it was already after midnight when I finally got everything set up, so I skipped the wandering and cut right to the chase.

“Hear me, ye lesser and greater spirits!” I intoned, feeling really stupid. I could just imagine what Peter would say if he heard me. Or Hattie. God, I’d never hear the end of it.

“Thee I call from the far side of the Abyss. . .  . Oh, crud.” Suddenly I remembered: Marie-Therèse had to be there. It said so in the book.

All righty, then. Sighing and rubbing my sleepy eyes, I pounded on Marie-Therèse’s door.

“What is it?” she asked, alarmed.

I didn’t say anything until she opened up. “You have to come to my room,” I said flatly.

“But why?” Her face was slathered in cold cream, and she squinted without her contacts.

“Because I’m doing a spell,” I said, ragged with fatigue. I’d hardly slept at all the night before, and this activity had the earmarks of an all-nighter, too. “To protect you.” I scratched my head. “Come on.”

“Protect me from what?”

“Your birthday.”

“But I feel much better about that,” she whispered as I dragged her down the hall. “The house was nice.”

“The house is a sham,” I said.

“What? How do you know that?”

“Stand in the center of the circle,” I commanded, pointing to the ring of salt. I didn’t want to explain that I didn’t know how I knew the Poplars was bad news. I just did, whether or not Peter or Jeremiah or Azrael or even Marie-Therèse herself believed me. I just knew. And if I had to perform this hocus-pocus in order to get rid of the horrible certainty about Marie-Therèse’s future—or lack of it—then that’s what I was going to do.

“Thee I call from the far side of the Abyss,” I read dutifully from the spell book while Marie-Therèse shivered in her nightdress. “Spirits of fire!” I said louder, trying to put some gusto into it.

Flames erupted in a circle around the old lady, who gave a little shriek. I stomped the fire out with my sneakers. “Sorry about that,” I said, resuming my spot as High Priestess of the circle. “Spirits of water, I do summon, stir, and—”

The exposed pipe in the corner suddenly sprang a leak, spraying water onto my bed. The first thing that came to mind was to quickly chew a piece of gum—I had a pack on my dresser—and stick it over the leak. “There,” I said, wiping rusty water out of my eye as I squelched back into the circle. Marie-Therèse was shivering, her thin arms wrapped around herself.

“Earth?” I asked.

“No,” Marie-Therèse said, her gaze deadly.

I looked out the window, where a light breeze was blowing. “I guess we don’t want the spirits of wind, either.”

“
Mon Dieu
, no.”

I didn’t know if the spell would work with only half the Elementals called, but it would have to do. As I proceeded, tossing salt around the wretched-looking Marie-Therèse and exhorting all the hobgoblins of the universe to form a protective coating around her, I tried to feign sincerity and authority. But in my heart, I knew that this playacting wasn’t going to result in anything.

A witch can
feel
power. Even when we just flick five fingers, we can trace the course of power from somewhere inside us out through our hands. Throughout this whole elaborate ritual, I’d felt nothing except annoyance.