Succession of Witches (24 page)

Sam was pacing in his old room, which Helen had left mostly untouched from when he’d lived there. The only difference was that his mother’s books were slowly taking over, just as they had the rest of the house.

He could hear Cassie in the bathroom across the hall and tried to ignore the sound of rustling fabric, which he could make out even over the sound of the shower. His hearing had gotten more sensitive lately, and it was distracting. He didn’t want to think about her getting undressed—well, that wasn’t strictly true, but he didn’t want to think about it while he was at his mother’s house, least of all right now.

Besides, apparently she’s an angel. Do I go to hell for even thinking about it? Although I’ve already been to hell, so I guess it would have to be a different hell?

He gritted his teeth and punched his palm while he paced back and forth in the small room. In retrospect it seemed stupidly obvious; if she wasn’t exactly human, and she wasn’t a demon, wasn’t “angel” the next obvious guess? It had never occurred to him because, by this point in his life, he had assumed that if any angels existed in the human world, he would have heard something about it by now. Still, he of all people should have realized it was a possibility….

He stopped short when he heard Cassie gasp. When he heard a male voice say her name, he was through the door to the bathroom before he even realized he had moved.

“You!” he yelled as he took in the sight of their visitor.

“Don’t, I’m on your side!” said Bennet Marcus, standing in front of an underwear-clad Cassie. “I came to warn you!”

“You came to warn me in the shower?” said Cassie, quickly moving to put her clothes back on. Sam tried not to look.

“No! I—” Bennet took a deep breath, then turned to face Sam, his hands safely at his sides. His position made it impossible for him to try to curse Sam without Sam cursing him first. An act of trust. “I scryed for Cassie’s location, and this is where it brought me, alright?” he said, motioning to the diamond-amulet around his neck. “I didn’t mean to walk in on anyone.”

Sam considered the smartly dressed man for a moment while Cassie clumsily hopped into her jeans one leg at a time. “Fair enough, but what’s going on?”

“It’s Quentin,” said Bennet, turning back and forth from Cassie to Sam as he spoke. “He’s made a deal with a bunch of the others and they’re coming here to take you out.”

Sam felt cold. “Take me out?”

“They’re going to kill you and take your territory and your familiars, they’ve found some kind of loophole so they can get away with it in court,” Bennet stammered out, breathless. “I only know because I was offered a piece of it, but I turned them down.”

“Why?” asked Sam. This all felt bizarre. “Why are you telling me this? I nearly killed you.”

“Listen, I don’t know when they’re coming, it could be any minute—you all have to get away from here.”

Just then, the bathroom door swung open and Miri stuck her head in. “Why are you guys having a private conference in the bathroom? And who’s the hottie?” she said, indicating Bennet.

Sam took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes. “He’s come to warn us of an attack. Miri, take Cassie and get as far away from here as you can.”

“How does that help anything?” Cassie exclaimed, now fully dressed again. “If they kill you, they’ll get me anyway!”

“She’s right,” said Bennet.

“I don’t…I can’t even…” Sam stuttered. He knew he needed to think, and fast, but this was all so unexpected, he just felt paralyzed. “Let’s get out of the bathroom, at least.”

He blew past Miri and went down the stairs to the living room, trying to ignore the gnawing fear in his gut, an unfamiliar sensation. When Serenus saw the expression on his face (not to mention Bennet coming down the stairs behind him), he tossed the book he was flipping through aside and stood up from the couch.

“What’s going on?” asked Serenus.

“We’re going to be attacked,” Sam said.

“When?”

“I don’t know.”

Serenus squinted and scratched the back of his head. “Can you go lay a protection spell around the house?”

“No point; apparently it’s a whole group of them. If they’re actually working together, they can override it,” said Sam, pacing once again. He was trying to fight the urge to panic.

I should have known,
he thought.
I was prepared to fight, but not like this
.
I never thought a group of them would band together against me, why was it so hard for me to believe? Just because it’s impossible for me to work with anyone else, did I assume all of the others were the same?

“I’m telling you, you need to leave!” said Bennet. Sam spun around to face him, raising his arms.

“And go where? They can scry for me, just like you scryed for Cassie.”

“Maybe, but at least you won’t be waiting here like sitting—“

“What’s all the commotion?” asked Helen, entering the room from the kitchen.

“Helen, demons are coming,” said Serenus. “You, at the very least, should get out of here while you can. They won’t chase
you, they have no interest in you.”

“How do you know that?” asked Helen. If she was at all worried about incoming demons, there was no indication from her body language. She leaned against
a ceiling-high a stack of textbooks and crossed her arms. “Besides, this is my home. You really expect me to leave?”

“Helen
—” Serenus pleaded, but the sound of the front door buckling in drowned out whatever the rest of what he was going to say.

Sam sprinted across the room to Cassie and grabbed her arm, forcing a magic exchange. Normally he asked her permission first, but there was no time. She met his gaze for a moment, her dark blue eyes looking fear-filled and impossibly large to him, but as soon as he had enough magic to make a hasty barrier, he let go of her and moved towards the doorway. He motioned for everyone else to stay behind him.

He was expecting any number of men, but there were actually only three: a short but fine-featured blond he assumed was Quentin, and two taller, dark-haired men behind him. All were wearing suits like they all had come straight from the boardroom. The smoke curling off of Quentin’s right fist made it likely that he was the one who had blasted their way in.

Quentin stopped where the remains of the door were still smoldering, a few feet away from Sam.
“So, son of Sammael. You seem a little less calm than the last time we spoke,” he said. The obvious glee in his blue eyes was infuriating. “And Bennet, you’re an even bigger idiot than I thought.”

“What do I have to do to make you go away?” Sam said. He had no interest in negotiating with Quentin, not that it would likely do any good, but he was trying to buy time so he could decide what to do. If there were only three of
them, he might be able to kill them all himself. It was questionable, but if Quentin thought that the three of them were enough to have any reasonable margin of safety, he was an idiot.

Quentin grinned and spread his arms out congenially. “I guess you’d have to kill me.”

Well, if you insist.

“Lavos!”
Sam said, slinging three killing curses at the three men before they could change position. For the first time, he was very, very happy that he had gotten faster since contracting with the Buckley vampires. The trio had no chance to react before the curses hit.

The curses were strong; they should have punched through any normal barrier like paper and killed the target instantly. Only, that didn’t happen; instead, there was a kind of vague shimmer, and the barriers around all three men seemed to absorb the curses into themselves. Quentin looked worried for perhaps a fraction of a second,
then began to laugh.

“Fantastic!” he exclaimed. “This is what a barrier created with the help of 12 familiars looks like.”

“12?” said Serenus. “How is that possible?”

“You lot are even less popular than you thought,” said Quentin, still with that insufferable grin. “It wasn’t difficult at all to get a bunch of folks together who didn’t want you traipsing around like you own everything anymore. And now, you’re defenseless,” he continued, looking past Sam to leer at Cassie. Sam had to stifle a powerful urge to rip the man’s head off, which he would have tried if it
weren’t for the barrier. “Now—”

There was an extremely loud sound, and then there was a brief moment of silence as everyone in the room tried to figure out what had just happened. Quentin looked down to see a bloodstain on his otherwise immaculate white shirt. “What…?”

Sam snapped his head around to see his mother holding a small gun in both hands. As he watched, she carefully took aim and shot Quentin in the center of the chest again.

“Lawrence-!” Quentin choked out before dropping to his knees.

“Sleep!” yelled one of the other demons, and Sam heard the others drop to the floor behind him; the man had put a sleep spell on the entire room. His barrier was still protecting him, for now.

His spellword for a sleep spell is “Sleep”? How dangerous is that?
Sam thought as he ran towards the man doing the cursing. He felt a strange sensation when he hit the man’s barrier; it was like hitting a wall made of sticky balloons. Grunting, he focused his energy into his hands and tried to pierce the barrier with the tips of his fingers, reaching for the man’s neck. He had gotten one arm almost through when he felt a pain in his back and realized he’d been stabbed with something enchanted.

Before he lost consciousness, he thought of his mother calmly shooting Quentin in the chest with a charmed bullet. If all else failed- and things were looking pretty grim at the moment- at least he’d gotten to see Helen wipe that intolerable smirk off the man’s face.

Thanks, Mom.

Cassie regained the ability to hear before she was fully awake.

“—kill that thing? I don’t like leaving a hostile vampire alive.”

“Neither do I, but she’s how I’m going to punish Buckley for his betrayal. Miriam is like his little princess, it will drive him crazy once he knows I have her. Moreso even than if I killed her.”

Cassie opened her eyes to find herself in a room she didn’t recognize, lying on the floor with her hands tied behind her back. From the cartoon graphics of biplanes on the wallpaper and bedspread, she guessed they were in Sam’s childhood bedroom upstairs. She tried to take a deep breath and realized her mouth was duct-taped. Looking around, she saw Serenus, Aeka, Helen and Bennet similarly bound and gagged. Miri was lying on top of the dresser, her neck bent at a sickening, unnatural angle. Cassie winced; she knew the vampire wasn’t dead (at least not for good), but it was still hard to see.

Sam was also bound and gagged, only he had been placed on the other side of the room, with his back against the wall under the room’s sole window. Quentin was sitting in front of him, thumbing through some bag she couldn’t see the contents of. The other two demons lingered near him, looking nervous.

“I won’t let you endanger our lives for the sake of your revenge,” said the one called Lawrence. He looked older than Quentin, with streaks of gray at his temples and thick-looking glasses. “This has already gone off the original plan.”

“No it hasn’t,” said Quentin, still searching through his bag.

Cassie squinted, confused: Hadn’t he been shot in the chest, twice no less? Why was he acting like he was perfectly healthy?

Lawrence looked downright irritated. “You think our entrance went as planned? You were nearly shot to death! And he—“ he said, pointing to Sam on the floor, “almost broke through my barrier! Another second and he would have, and no amount of healing potions would have saved me from a snapped neck!”

“The important thing is, he didn’t,” said Quentin, pulling a huge syringe out of his bag. “And now, look at him,” he said, rising to his feet and kicking Sam in the ribs with a sudden brutality that made Cassie wince. Sam probably didn’t feel it; it looked like he was still unconscious. “I admit, I didn’t expect to be shot, but that’s why we carry those potions.”

“Quentin’s right,” said the third man, who had jet black hair and a slightly Asian cast to his features. He was leaning against the wall, standing above Helen’s prone body. “The Witch of the Outer Banks was a wildcard, but we’ve dealt with the threat.”

Lawrence sighed and turned to Quentin, who was fiddling with the syringe. “So how long do you think it will take to drain all the blood? I don’t want to drag this out any longer than necessary.”

Cassie was glad none of them were looking her way, because she opened her eyes wide at that. They were going to drain all of Sam’s blood?

“I think it’s more a question of how long it takes me to drink it,” said Quentin. “Draining him is the easy part.”

Cassie’s mind started racing. Bennet had said that demons were coming to take everything from Sam; was it possible that included his powers? She didn’t know if it was possible to take a demon’s powers, but if she were going to try, draining all of their blood sounded like a plausible method. Why else would they bother? On the one hand, it was grotesque and horrible, but it was probably the only reason they hadn’t killed him outright yet.

Sam, wake up!
She yelled in her mind,
they’re going to drain all your blood, take your powers and kill you! You have to wake up so we can think of a way out of this!

Nothing.
Cassie wondered why her mental bond with Sam was broken for a fraction of a second, then remembered about her spelled earrings. It was a horrible feeling, like remembering you’d left the stove on at home when you were already on the plane, only worse. As long as she was wearing the earrings, her mental connection with Sam was for all intents and purposes non-functional, and with her hands tied, she couldn’t take the stupid things off herself. She was so mad at herself she could spit; if only she’d taken the things off earlier, just to be safe….

She looked around; everyone else looked like they were still unconscious. She couldn’t count on anyone else for help; if they were going to get out of this, it looked like it was up to her. Desperate times called for desperate measures….

She closed her eyes and reached out with her mind, a sensation that was rapidly becoming instinctual.

Hey Sammael, help! We’ve been captured by demons and they’re going to kill Sam by drinking all of his blood! You don’t want your son to die, do you?

There was a brief pause, then a strange beeping sound reverberated painfully in her head.

You have reached the voice mail of Sammael, High Lord of Hell, Master of the Realm Area 62-3 and CEO of Blackberry Estates. I am unable to come to the phone right now. If this is an emergency, try screaming.

If she could have sighed with the duct tape covering her mouth, she would have: dumb demon didn’t even know how voice mail worked. There was supposed to be an option to leave a message after the beep, and he had the order all wrong. Still, for some reason she hadn’t really expected his help, so she couldn’t be too disappointed.

She began to thrash, violently. If she could get their attention, she could at least stall them.

Lawrence looked over at her. “Looks like she’s waking up. Should I put her back to sleep?”

Quentin stopped fiddling with the syringe to look at her for a moment, and she felt like a block of ice had formed in her stomach; the look in his light blue eyes was beyond cold. Something about that look made her feel like she was an antique he was considering purchasing, or a livestock animal; anything but a person. “No, keep her awake. Maybe seeing this will cure her of her attitude problem.”

Attitude problem? I’ll show you an attitude problem!

She began to thrash again, and banged her head against the wall as hard as she dared. It was a gamble; if they put her to sleep again, she had nothing. But she had a feeling that Quentin was just sadistic enough to want to keep her awake.

“Oh for—uncover her mouth,” said Quentin, hooking up the syringe to a plastic bag. “She’s not a witch, she can’t cast a spell to save her life anyway.”

Lawrence walked over to her, knelt and ripped the duct tape off of her mouth. It hurt, a lot, but by the time the pain registered, she was already speaking.

“You don’t want to do this!” she yelled. “The court will go medieval on you, you know that!”

Quentin smiled; he had a welcoming smile, like a man in a department store catalogue, totally at odds with his ice-cold glare.
“Already taken care of. In fact, I’m counting on your Examiner bearing witness to everything being legal. Isn’t that right, Professor Zeitbloom?”

Cassie looked and saw that Serenus was indeed awake. He met her eyes for a moment and shook his head, resigned. Whatever stupid loophole they were exploiting, he had figured out what it was, and deemed it valid. And lying to the court was never an option for him.

Well, you really should have thought of that earlier!
Cassie thought, wishing she could communicate with him mind-to-mind. This was getting worse by the second; what could she do?

Quentin knelt in front of Sam, pulled up the unconscious man’s shirt sleeve, and jabbed the syringe into his upper arm. The plastic bag rapidly began to fill with black blood, a sight that made Cassie’s stomach turn. Sam’s eye twitched; it looked like he was finally waking up.

“Don’t!” yelled Cassie, trying not to sound as desperate as she felt. “He’s a full-blooded demon, you know—drinking his blood could kill you!”

Quentin and Lawrence both snorted at that. “Nice try, princess,” said Quentin. “But I doubt it.” With that, he took the now filled blood bag and raised it to his lips, sipping from some opening Cassie couldn’t see. Something odd came over his face, and then he doubled over.

“What’s wrong?” asked Lawrence, stepping forward hesitantly. Quentin appeared to be struggling not to retch, then recovered his composure.

“Taste this,” said Quentin, holding out the blood bag. Lawrence bent at the waist, dipped a pinky in the dark liquid and licked his finger. A pained expression soon followed.

“Jesus Christ,” he whispered. “The bitch isn’t telling the truth, is she?”

“No. Just stabbing wildly in the dark, I’ll bet. Demon blood doesn’t kill you, only makes you stronger,” he said, looking at the mostly full bag in his hand with a wary expression.

“If you can stomach it,” said Lawrence. “Maybe we really should just kill him?”

“No. I’m committed now,” said Quentin, shaking the bag as though that might make the contents more palatable. “If I don’t have his power, I won’t be able to control his familiars.” With that, he lifted the bag to his mouth and drank deep. Sam, who was now awake, watched with obvious horror in his eyes.

After emptying the bag, Quentin threw it aside and doubled over again, obviously fighting not to vomit. After a few moments of shaking and pitiable groans, he calmed; beads of perspiration on his forehead glittered in the room’s too-yellow light. He turned his head to Sam with a look of pure loathing and coughed.

“What the hell are you,” he muttered. “I wanted to get rid of you
for my own sake, but honestly—” he coughed again, “—I think I’m doing the world a favor. You shouldn’t exist.”

Sam just glared at him; with his mouth covered, unable to cast spells, he couldn’t do much else. Cassie couldn’t see his arms behind his back, but she guessed he was tied up with five times the amount of rope as the rest of them.

Getting his breath back, Quentin got a fresh blood bag out of his leather bag and began attaching it to the syringe. Cassie felt dizzy; he really was going to do this. He really was going to drink Sam’s blood until there was nothing left.

“Stop it,” she stammered. “Or else…or else I’ll summon it.”

Quentin and Lawrence both tensed, and although she couldn’t see the third demon from her position, she saw him move out of the corner of her eye. “What?” said Quentin, turning to look at her with those ice-blue eyes that she hated more than anything else at the moment.

“I’ll-I’ll do it,” she murmured, making it up as she went along. “I’ll summon Leviathan, and it’ll kill all of us, right now. I’ll die before I let you do this.”

“You’re just a familiar, you can’t summon anything!” the third demon bellowed. “This isn’t even amusing, shut her up.”

Quentin just looked at her with a mixture of academic interest and disgust, like she was a bug under a magnifying glass. Lawrence had a similar look, then his eyes widened. “Quentin, she’s wearing spelled jewels,” he said quietly.

At his words, Quentin jumped to his feet and crossed the distance between them; Cassie inadvertently recoiled from him. Kneeling in front of her, he violently ripped her earrings out of her ears and threw them on the floor. She winced; it hurt, but she was glad of the pain, because it kept her from smiling and revealing that this was exactly what she wanted. He went as though to stomp on them, then changed his mind and put them in the pocket of his expensive suit jacket. Before leaving her, he backhanded her across the face; the room spun for a minute, but she didn’t lose consciousness.

“You stupid little bitch,” he growled contemptuously. “Maybe if you weren’t such an idiot, you could have used those gems against us, but all you did was
give up your trump card. You’re lucky you’re so valuable, because you’re dumb as a brick, you fat cow.”

Cassie couldn’t help wincing at that, but inwardly she was beginning to feel the tiniest wave of relief; that had gone better than she’d dare hope. Now at least they had a chance. She reached out with her mind one more time.

Sam, please tell me you can hear me. There has to be some way we can get out of this.

For a moment, Sam just looked at her while Quentin began draining his blood anew, and Cassie was afraid their mental connection was still broken. When she did hear his thoughts in her mind, they were quiet.

Cassie, I’m so sorry
.

No, don’t you dare think like that! We can think of a way—

How? Even if I could get free, they all have some kind of super-barrier; I can’t win in a fight. But don’t worry, they won’t kill you. You’ll have to be patient, but you’ll get out from under this bastard’s thumb eventually, I know you will. You’ll be free, it’s just a matter of time.

Tears began to stream down Cassie’s face uncontrollably, and she made no effort to stop them; it wasn’t like crying would give away her secret conversation. It was only natural to cry right now.

No, I won’t accept that. You are going to come up with a plan right now, and I don’t care if it’s the crappiest plan in the history of crappy plans. We are going to try something.

The second blood bag was near full; Cassie couldn’t help wondering how much blood he had already lost. How long would he be able to remain conscious? Still, from the look in his eyes he seemed to be thinking, which calmed her. That was good; that meant he hadn’t completely given up.

Well, you’re an angel, aren’t you? Call God’s secret hotline and demand a rescue.

Oh C’mon! Don’t you think if I could have done that, I would have tried it already? That’s a crappy plan EVEN FOR YOU.