The Tragedy of Knowledge (8 page)

As I moved forward, I tried to shake my head from the spell, from the ensnaring trap of her beauty. If I wasn’t careful, I’d let her lead us deep into the bayou, where who knew what awaited us. If we lifted off into flight, if we flew out of the bayou to escape, other troubles would ensue. What kind of troubles, I hadn’t a clue. But my gut told me to steer clear of the skies above this part of the Teche.

It struck me then that this could be a trick, that it could be Gérard luring us into danger somehow. Unconvinced of that theory, though, I continued to trudge forward into the brush, my gaze still glued to Scarlet’s faint form.

Gavin’s voice echoed distantly from behind, and he lassoed me backward against him. When I turned with wild eyes to question him, his were just as wild. “Cam,” he blinked and exchanged glances with me and the woods before us. His voice was clearer now. “No one is there, baby. There’s … nothing there.”

Frantic, determined to prove my sanity, I whipped my head back in the other direction and broke free from his hold, making a dash for the final glimpse of the luscious red of her dress. “This way, Gav. I have to follow her.”

“Camille, stop it!” He was hot on my trail. “You’re seeing things! Even if she was here, following her is a bad idea, now stop!” Reaching once more for my elbow, he latched on but I lurched forward, yanking him with me, surprised by my own strength. He must’ve been surprised too, because he nicked my forearm with his blade, with just the tip: just enough to provoke a hiss from my teeth and a small cloud of smoke to radiate from the scorched piece of skin. The effect threw me into whiplash and I swung around to face him, shocked that he’d cut me.

“What the hell are you doing?” I jerked my arm away, near feral at the idea of losing Scarlet’s trail.

“No, what are
you
doing? We’re going back and we’re getting the hell out of here, Camille. Right the hell
now
. I don’t know what’s happening to you, but these visions … they’re getting worse. And we don’t need to be out here alone any longer than we have to.” He shot me a fierce glare and held out his hand.

“But the boat—”

“There is no damn boat! And if there is, we’re not going to bury ourselves deep in the swamp to find it when Gérard could be anywhere. Now let’s go. And we’re flying out of here, because none of this feels right.” Grabbing my hand, he wrapped me against him and prepared to launch us into flight, but something foreign possessed me to take hold of my knife and nick him back. His eyes flew wide in shock when the silver sliced the skin of his forearm.

The next few seconds were downright terrifying, because I didn’t know what came over me. I began to fight him.

My arms shot up and he quickly chopped at my wrist to break the dagger from my hand, letting out a whoosh of air when I planted my boot-clad foot into his midsection.

“Camille!” he barked through gritted teeth, his reflexes fast. His grip locked onto my calf and he spun me up off the ground and into midair, at the same time knocking the knife from my hand with ease. My mind screamed to stop, to quit resisting him, but my body was in charge. He needed to let me go after Scarlet. I needed him to back off—no matter what it took to show him that.

A bug being spun into a spider’s web, I twirled in the air at rapid speed, yielding to his direction.

Until his hand left my calf for a split second.

Flipping backward and landing on two feet, I lurched backward and ricocheted off the side of a tree trunk to give myself leverage to charge him. Once again, he was too fast, ducking and darting to the left when I shot toward him like a cannon. He cursed under his breath and I slid across the dirt to reach down and grab my knife again. Leaping forward to beat me to the weapon, his boots kicked dirt in his wake and we slammed into one another.

“No!” My voice was vicious, completely unrecognizable. “We have to keep going.” My fingers curled around the dagger, and I summoned every ounce of power within me to shove myself into him and force us both upward and backward, until he was pinned against the same tree I’d used to charge him. My knife to his throat, our chests heaving, I realized he wasn’t fighting my grip on him. Instead, his eyes lowered to the knife, widening a fraction at the sound of the low growl that emitted from my throat.

“Camille, it’s me, Gavin. Your husband. I know you’re in there.”

Just like that, the force that had taken my body hostage was gone, and I staggered back, sliding the dagger back into my belt sleeve. “I saw Scarlet … or something that resembled her … and I’m going after her whether you like it or not.” Though weak and panting, my voice had returned along with my free will.

Keeping his back to the tree and his intense gaze on me, he reached out and leaned forward to swipe a thumb over my cheek. The gentle gesture caused me to exhale and lean into his palm.

“Something isn’t right, baby,” he said. “I don’t like this.”

“I promise we’ll fly up and out of here the second something else feels off. You have my word.”

“I don’t know if it’ll be much good if you pull another Linda Blair on me.”

I felt the anxious lines on my face soften into a small smile at yet another cheesy horror-movie reference. First Audrey, and now my Hitchcock fan-boy husband. He returned my smile with a relieved grin, letting me take him by the hand. I started in the general direction I’d last seen the vision of Scarlet, shuffling forward through the thickets of sticks, mud and branches, stopping abruptly when we rounded a group of trees to find a nestled, off-the-beaten waterway, broken apart from the main bank, and what did you know …

A baby-blue rowboat.

“Cam, if Scarlet is the one who led us here … this could still be dangerous.”

“Gav, this was the boat in my vision. This is right. I promise you, please trust me.”

“It’s not you I don’t trust. It’s these visions … this
thing
, whatever’s taking over you.”

“You saw the map in the Book of the Ancients with your own two eyes. Vivienne’s book. How dangerous can the vision be if it matched what the book showed us?”

“The witches and frozen souls are enemies. We can’t necessarily trust everything the witches’ book shows us.” Threading his fingers through mine, his gaze flicked up and from side to side, monitoring our surroundings.

“Well, we saw what happened with the prophecies in Amaranth, and we’ve been following Vivienne’s guidance even before that, so there’s no reason to stop now. We mean the witches no harm, and we can prove that if need be. Now come on.” I tugged him with me and stepped into the boat, Gavin and me sitting opposite one another, just as I saw in my vision.

Pulling the Book of the Ancients from my bag and placing it on my lap, I kept my flashlight in hand and watched carefully as Gavin began to row. The fact that Scarlet—or a whacked-out hallucination of her—had led us to this boat was definitely discomforting, but I trusted the book on my lap, trusted what it had shown us just this evening. I only prayed that wherever the boat was taking us, it would be a safe place. And that it would lead to answers.

Yeah. Answers would be really good right about now, considering the fact that I just attacked my own husband.

Floating quietly across the waterway, the fog surrounding us became more and more disorienting, our flashlights only adding to the feeling of strangeness. The wider part of the bayou seemed to disappear; the off-beaten path we were on had been immersed in the swamp’s watery maze. We weren’t getting anywhere, it seemed, and it felt like we’d been rowing for hours. Gavin and I didn’t speak, and glided along in silence while I flipped open the Book of the Ancients every few minutes, waiting for it to miraculously light up again or … something.

“Come on, damn it.” I slammed it shut for the thousandth time, looking out into the creepy fog that covered us like a quilt. I thought of pulling my cell from my backpack to check the time, but decided against it when I figured I’d get no reception. It probably wouldn’t even turn on. I couldn’t remember the last time I charged it, and found myself barely caring. It was about that time—time to feed.

“Getting hungry?” Gavin asked.

“Did you just … read my thoughts?”

“
Haha
, no, love. I can’t read your thoughts until you develop the ability to read our coven’s, and only if you let me break through
their
barrier so I can tune in. But it’s got to be getting close to midnight, because I’m starved, too. And your eyes are going gray.”

Now that he’d mentioned food, I wanted more than food; I wanted to hunt. Even though we didn’t technically hunt and kill, the desire was still there. I could feel my eyes shift hard and black at the thought of sinking my fangs into warm blood. Warm skin. Soft flesh …

Quivering, I nodded. “Yeah, but it can wait.”

“I think it might have to. Had I known we’d be gone this long, I would have brought something.”

“We don’t even know where we are. I don’t recognize a damn thing. If this book doesn’t light up like a Christmas tree again soon, I say we ditch this and head home.”

He let out a soft chuckle. “That’s just the hunger talking. You nearly took me out back there, just to get me in this boat. We’re going to keep at it until we find what we’re looking for.”

The witches, the magic, my freaky new sixth sense—something—must’ve heard Gavin’s words, because the fog began to thin out behind him, revealing the tiny wood shack from my vision, lit aglow by a single lantern in the grime-covered front window.

“There! Behind you.” Excited, I shifted my body and stood, nearly tipping us.

“Easy, love,” he worked to steady us. “Okay, let’s get this show on the road.” Veering off toward the patch of solid ground, he ran the edge of the rowboat aground and helped me out.

With the help of only our flashlights and the dim lantern light glowing from the shack’s window, we approached the filthy, weathered door and knocked. Familiar blue cobalt glass hung from the trees, and the same brick dust from Vivienne’s old shop lined the windowsill and doorway. Knowing none of it would have any effect on us because we were frozen souls, I decided to speak up and inform whoever was inside of our intentions, so we didn’t appear a threat.

“Hello?” I called out, waiting before I knocked again. “We don’t mean to bother you, but we really need your help. My name’s Camille and I’ve—”

“Seen this in one of your visions?” The shaky, tired voice greeted me as the door opened a crack. A short elderly woman with brittle white hair appeared, her face so wrinkled it made it hard to see where her eyelids began and ended. Her thin, dry lips were set in a grim, straight line, and her glassy eyes found mine as she looked up at me, lighting the space between us with the candle in her hand. Shrouded in a navy blue dress that looked like a potato sack, the woman was adorned in jewelry made of the earth. Her mouth slightly worked, as if she was chewing nonstop on straw. Once she opened her mouth to speak again and I saw her teeth, I thought maybe it was tobacco she’d been chewing.

“I said, you seen this here place in your visions?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am. You … know about them?”

“
Yess
,
yesss
, come in, come in.”

She opened the door wider and led Gavin and me inside, without so much as a word about us being frozen souls. The thought comforted me. It must have meant she was expecting us, or at least knew we didn’t mean her harm. Silver daggers, similar to ours, sat on a small wooden table, perhaps her only defense from frozen souls since her magic was of no use against them. I gave them a discreet glance, drawing even more comfort from the fact that she didn’t seem interested in reaching for one to protect herself.

“
Mmm
,” she turned to face Gavin once we were inside. “
Yesss
, here. This is him, ain’t it Viv?”

My heart leaped in my chest and Gavin’s eyes found mine.

“Did you just say—?”

“
Nuh-uh
,” the old woman grunted. “Viv’s not
here
, she’s here,” she tapped her temple and nodded, lifting the candle closer to Gavin’s face to get a good look. “The beginning of things to come,
eh
?”

“You talk to Vivienne?” My voice piped up at the thought of this woman being able to communicate with her. I wanted to ask a million questions, if that was the case. Too many questions. I held my tongue for a moment. “I mean, you can hear her? Or …”

“I can’t hear her now, no.” The woman gently poked Gavin’s cheek with a weak, wrinkled finger. He just stared back at her, his gaze sliding to mine when she pulled back. “But we were linked, before she passed on.
Mmmm
. She sent you two to me.
Yesss
, right here.”

Setting down the Book of the Ancients on her tiny wood table, I crossed my arms. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure we know what you mean.”

“Some of our kind creates links to one another. Whether because of friendship or ancestry, doesn’t matter. When we create a link to one another, we just know we’re tied. Can feel it, ya see. It’s a, a means of communication for those we leave behind. Our link can act as a messenger, carry on information after we’re gone. Vivienne linked herself to me right before she went. Before
he
came for her.”