Succession of Witches (11 page)

Khalil paced in the gutter, since there was no sidewalk. “Why are we in Connecticut? Why would we come here?”

Cassie leaned against the car, trying to think. She knew the four of them had come here for a reason, it was probably important, but when she tried to remember, it was like trying to remember the details of a dream hours after waking up; she knew the information had to be in her mind somewhere, but it was blurry, elusive.

She shivered in the winter air; if they had to go someplace completely random, couldn’t it have been Florida?

“Okay, so why would the four of us come to Connecticut on a Saturday together?” asked Mike, leaning against the Subaru next to her. “There has to be a logical explanation.
Maybe a concert?”

Cassie shook her head. “When have we ever bothered to go out of state for a concert? And why wouldn’t we remember? That doesn’t make any sense.”

Jay, leaning against a tree, was watching them all with an expression Cassie couldn’t read. After Cassie, Mike and Khalil bandied back and forth a few more possible explanations, Jay cut in.

“So I really am the only one who remembers why we’re here.”

Khalil spun on his heel and glared at Jay. “What? Why didn’t you say something before?”

“I was trying to figure out what was going on,” said Jay, pulling himself up to his full height. “For some reason, the protection spell that made all of you forget didn’t work on me.”

“Protection spell?” repeated Cassie, wrinkling her nose. “That sounds...vaguely familiar….”

Jay took a deep breath. “We came here to pick up Ethan, a boy who was kidnapped by a demon and made a familiar. Cassie met him at court last year and promised to rescue him. Ring any bells?”

With that, the spell was broken. Cassie, Mike and Khalil all looked at each other in disbelief.

“Oh my God,” said Cassie, “So that was his protection spell. Anyone who gets near the house to rescue Ethan forgets why they came.”

“That is way, way more subtle than anything Sam would do,” said Khalil. “The question is, why didn’t it work on Jay?”

Jay tried to hide a rush of pride with a nonchalant shrug. “I don’t know, maybe I’m just immune to magic or something.”

“Yeah, right,” said Cassie. “I really doubt that’s the reason, but we can figure it out later. Right now we have to go get Ethan.”

“Right.
You two, get in the car like we planned,” said Khalil.

Jay bristled. “A-are you sure? After all, if I’m really immune to this guy’s spells, I might be useful…”

“Get in the car, Jay,” said Cassie in a tone that brooked no discontent. Thankfully, he listened; her intuition told her that no matter what had just happened with the protection spell, she didn’t want Jay any closer to the action than absolutely necessary.

As she and Khalil walked to the house, a thought occurred to Cassie. “You know, you should probably stay back too,” she said. “I need to go in because I’m the only one he knows, but in case I trigger some other spell we don’t know about, there’s no need for anyone else to get hurt.”

“Baby girl? Shut up,” said Khalil, although there was no malice in the words. “I decided to come because it was clear you were going to do this whether you had any help or not. Now if I drove you here and let you go into another demon’s house by yourself, Sam would be right to turn me into a rat.”

Despite the tension, Cassie giggled. “Do you think he can do that? I can never ask him that stuff, it’s too awkward.”

“The thing is, he probably can, but he wouldn’t bother because it’s probably too much work. He would have to read several books on rat anatomy, or whatever.”

“That sounds about right,” said Cassie, as they approached 393 Hemlock Court. “Okay, I’m going to go ring the doorbell. If I die, divide up my My Little Ponies.”

The two of them walked up the stone footpath until they reached the porch. Cassie took a deep breath, than rang the doorbell. Khalil squeezed her hand for support, and they shared a nervous smile. For the moment before they heard footstep coming from the house, Cassie found herself wondering what Sam would think if he saw Khalil holding hands with her; she had a sneaking suspicion he wouldn’t like it.

A red
headed boy wearing an oversized sweatshirt and jeans opened the door. If anything, he looked even thinner than she remembered him from their brief meeting at court, but that could have just been the baggy clothing. “You really came!” he said, his brown eyes filling with a joy that made Cassie’s chest ache. “Is he your master?”

“Ah, no.
Ethan, this is Khalil, my friend; he drove me here.”

“S’up” said Khalil. “No one calls me ‘master,’ except for the ladies, of course.”

There was an awkward pause.             

“I’ll explain it when you’re older,” said Khalil sheepishly.

“Ready to go?” asked Cassie. “Sorry there’s no time for you to pack or anything, but we want to get out of here ASAP.”

“It’s okay, I already packed a bag.” said Ethan, ducking out of view for a moment. When he reappeared with a packed duffel bag, the relief in his eyes nearly took Cassie’s breath away; it was like he was afraid they would disappear once he stopped looking at them.

“Let’s go,” said Khalil, opening the screen door. There was a pause, as Ethan stood there, unmoving. His body seemed to tremble very faintly, but he made no move to walk out the door.

“Ethan? You okay?” asked Cassie.

“I…I can’t…” Ethan started. Then he turned his face away from them, and Cassie felt a wave of dread wash over her.

“What? What’s wrong?” asked Khalil.

“It’s another spell,” said Cassie, barely stifling the urge to curse. Pascal, that bastard; she could kill him. “He must have compelled Ethan so that he can’t leave the house. Ethan, do you remember that?”

“I know,” the boy said. Cassie couldn’t see his expression, but his voice was thick with tears. “I-I knew he did, but I was afraid to tell you, because then you wouldn’t come.” At that, he did cry, collapsing to his knees in front of the doorway. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything…I shouldn’t have bothered you….”

Acting on instinct, Cassie walked through the doorway and took the boy into her arms; she hadn’t planned on entering the house, but it was too late now. “Shh, shhh, it’s okay. Ethan, what exactly did Pascal say when he compelled you? Do you remember?”

At that, Ethan looked up and met her eyes. “Of course I do.” Cassie nodded; it was a stupid question. There was no way someone who had been compelled would ever forget that moment, at least not without magic altering their memories.

“He said…he said I can’t leave the house without him unless my life is in danger. That’s what he said.”

Rubbing his back to soothe him, Cassie thought about that. “Hmm, okay. That means we just have to put your life in danger.”

At that, Ethan tore himself out of her arms with such force that he fell back on his behind. At his terrified expression, Cassie did her best to soothe him. “No, no don’t worry! We’re not really going to put your life in danger, we just have to do something so that you feel like you’re in enough danger that you can leave the house, okay?”

“Can’t I just carry him out the door?” asked Khalil, who had also entered the house. “He’s light.”

Cassie bit her lip. “I don’t know. I guess it’s worth a try.”

“Okay, hop on, kiddo,” said Khalil, crouching down with his back to Ethan. Taking a moment to wipe his tear-stained face, the boy clambered up onto Khalil’s back.

“Be prepared to stop if anything happens,” said Cassie.

“Like what? See, here I am walking, I think—“

As Khalil cleared the threshold, Ethan began screaming uncontrollably— a blood-curdling scream that seemed entirely too loud to have come from his tiny body. Khalil immediately backpedaled several feet into the house, although it took a few seconds for the screaming to stop.

“Damn, I’m sorry kid. You okay?”

Ethan took in a few ragged breaths before answering. “I’m…okay….” he said hoarsely. “It just hurt a lot, that’s all. Can you put me down now?”

Cassie let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. Of course it couldn’t be that easy.

“So what do we do now? There’s gotta be a way to get him out of the house.”

“Um, well,” said Cassie, scratching her chin. Like all magic, Pascal’s system had to have a weakness, but she had to admit: it wasn’t exactly jumping out at her. “Well, let’s think about the compulsion; it’s a logical request. Pascal wants Ethan to stay in the house, but he doesn’t want him to die if say, the house is on fire,” she said, beginning to pace in the entryway. “So we need to do something to frighten you…something that convinces you that you have to leave the house right away…”

There were things she could do that could scare Ethan enough to break the compulsion; summoning Sammael into the living room was one of them. However, was it worth the risk? For all she knew, he might take the boy for himself, without even mentioning what he might do to her for disturbing him. Plus, she didn’t want to reveal her most dangerous secret to Khalil unless absolutely necessary.

She could also try to reach out to the Nameless Ones, what Cassie had taken to calling the strange beings she had seen in her dreams—the powerful, otherworldly beings that seemed to be trapped in their own private hell. She’d never made contact with them outside of a dream, but it might be possible if she were willing. They were nothing if not terrifying.
Or….

“Or,” said Khalil in a conversational tone, “We could just set the friggin’ house on fire.”

“Khalil!”

“I’m serious. It’ll work, and who cares if we burn a demon’s house down? Dude’s rich, he’s got insurance.”

“W-well yeah, but that’s—Khalil, he’s going to be furious.”

“He was already going to be furious, and besides, this is the kind of stuff you sign up for when you start kidnapping school kids. Dude didn’t want his house burned
down, he shouldn’t have cast a spell that made it necessary.”

“You’re right but, I don’t
know, it’s so messy; there’s got to be some other way….”

“Can you think of another way? ‘Cuz, if not, let’s just do it and blow this joint.”

“So we’re going to burn it down?” said Ethan from the floor, excitement obvious on his tear-stained face. Cassie frowned at Khalil.

“I admit I can’t think of anything else, but you seem awfully motivated to do this.”

Khalil grinned, taking a cigarette lighter out of his pocket. “C’mon girl, I’m an angry young Muslim; you think I’m going to miss a chance to blow up a white dude’s house?”

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They didn’t end up using Khalil’s cigarette lighter; Ethan knew where Pascal kept the electric torch for lighting the barbecue grill, and that was much more efficient. Once they had set fire to the drapes, the couches and Pasqual’s varnished wood china cabinets, it seemed pretty clear the fire wouldn’t stop until it had consumed everything.

At first, Ethan couldn’t leave; even though he was scared, it took until the whole front room was filled with flames for him to feel endangered enough to satisfy the compulsion. When he finally sprinted out the door, after the sound of something in the dining room cracking from the extreme heat threatened to deafen all of them, Khalil picked up the boy in a fireman’s carry and raced towards the car, with Cassie close behind him. Just as they reached the Subaru, they heard sirens approaching.

“Hey guys, welcome back,” said Mike as Khalil helped Ethan into the backseat. “Hi, Ethan…and why do you guys smell like campfire?”

“Because we burned the house down,” said Cassie, buckling in as Khalil raced around to the driver’s seat. “It was the only way.”

“You did what?”

Khalil started the car and did a quick U-turn, heading in the direction of the highway. Two fire trucks raced past them, and Cassie didn’t stop being aware of her heart pounding in her chest until they were back on the highway, miles away.

Ethan broke the silence. “That was awesome. I can’t believe you guys just did that.”

“Neither can we,” said Cassie, next to him in the backseat. “You okay? You didn’t breathe in a lot of smoke or anything, right?”

“I think I’m okay,” he said, reaching for his duffel bag on the floor in front of him. Cassie followed him with her eyes, noting that while he was a year older than Hunter, he was smaller. As he unzipped the duffel, his sleeve fell back and she got a brief glimpse of strange markings on his forearm: scars.

A wave of anger passed over her: not only had Pascal used the boy like an all-you-can-eat magic buffet, he’d abused him physically as well. She searched for something to talk about that might take his mind off his captor.

“You didn’t take that game with you by any chance, did you?
Because the moron in the front seat wants it.”

“Hey!” said Jay,
then there was a pause. “What are you talking about?”

“That game you were going on about,” said Khalil, looking over his shoulder as he changed lanes.
“Broken Halo Drag Queens, or something.”