T*Witches: The Witch Hunters (2 page)

CHAPTER THREE

A SPELLBINDING CELEBRITY

“He’s doing it again,” Amanda whispered, pressing Sukari’s hand so hard her friend yipped.

“He is, he is,” Kristen told Bree. “He’s looking at us again.”

The movie was over and most of the invited guests had left the theater. A dozen or so people still sat, some standing now, stretching, in the section that had been reserved for VIPs. Brice Stanley was among them. The star was shaking hands, receiving hugs, and, yes, Amanda was right. Brice Stanley kept glancing over at the girls and grinning.

Cam, who could read her sister’s mind but no one
else’s, thought she heard his voice. “Als, is he saying something?” she whispered to her twin. “I mean, did he just send a message?”

Alex confirmed it. “He said we should stay for a minute, wait until the others are outside. He wants to talk with us.”

“Alex, I heard him!” Cam confided. But when her sister looked at her doubtfully, she added, “Just softly, just the sound of his voice, not the actual words —”

“Daddy, Daddy!” Bree was standing on her seat, balancing herself with a hand on Kristen’s shoulder. Mr. Waxman rushed to where the girls were waiting.

“Down, down,” he hissed. “Don’t embarrass me —”

“Down?”
Beth whispered angrily to Cam. “He sounds like he’s talking to a dog.”

Bree reddened and scrambled miserably from her perch. Alex wished she hadn’t been able to read the crushed girl’s mind; she felt like a mental gate-crasher as Bree’s desperate thoughts reached her.
Oh, no. Why can’t I ever do anything right around him? Now he’ll never invite me to anything again.

It didn’t take a witch to know how bad Bree was feeling. Sukari, who was nearly a head taller than Mr. Waxman, stepped between Bree and her dad, hiding her crestfallen friend, giving Bree a chance to repair her ego privately.

“Mr. W. Nice movie,” the plump, cocoa-skinned girl told their host, studying him the way she would a lab rat. “I bet it’ll be a blockbuster when it comes out on DVD. Oh, and thanks for the limo you sent for us. It was so … white — ”

“What do you mean, when it comes out on DVD?” Eric Waxman anxiously demanded. “What about theaters? It’s slated for national release next Friday —”

“Hi! Which one of you is Bree?” Brice Stanley’s mischievous grin moved across the Six Pack like a dazzling klieg light.

“Me!” Kristen shouted, losing her mind and raising her hand.

Sukari stepped out of Bree’s way.

“I mean, she is!” Kristen quickly regrouped, pushing her best friend forward.

At a very non-Bree loss for words, the petite girl held out her hand.

Brice took it, covered it with his other hand, and held on. “So you’re Brianna?” he said. “Your father can’t stop bragging about you.”

“He brags about me?” Bree breathed.

“Says you’re his finest production,” Brice assured her. “Right, Eric?”

“Whatever you say, Brice.” Bree’s dad reached up to slap the movie star’s broad shoulder. “DVD?” He shook
his head at Sukari. “You wouldn’t pay box office bucks, but you’d rent it? DVDs!”

But Suke was ignoring him now. Like all the girls, she couldn’t help being enthralled by Brice’s spellbinding smile.

An assistant came up, holding a pile of promotional videos about
The Witching Hour,
and began handing them out to the girls.

“What are you doing?” Waxman whirled on him.

“You said DVDs, but I figured you meant these videos. I heard you,” the young man answered.

“They’re for VIPs,” Eric Waxman scolded. “I mean — ” He quickly changed his tone in front of Brice. “For journalists. Anyway, they already saw the movie, right? And this one” — he jerked his head in Sukari’s direction — “would rather spend her allowance at Blockbuster, anyway.”

Brice took a few videos and a felt-tipped marker from Waxman’s assistant. He began autographing the tapes and handing them out to the Six Pack.

“What happened before the movie?” It was Beth. “Who was the creep in the costume?”

“And the girl with the gun?” Kristen added.

“A joke, a shtick. Just something to keep the crowd amused. It was a publicity stunt,” Eric Waxman hurriedly answered.

“A publicity stunt?” Show-me girl Sukari was skeptical. “With a gun?”

“Uh, it was a fake — plastic.”

“Yeah, but the guy with the scythe” — Amanda piped up — “if it was a publicity stunt, I don’t get it. I mean, aside from the title, the movie had nothing to do with witches or warlocks or tarot cards —”

“A stunt, that’s all. Some idiot publicity guy’s idea of a joke,” Eric Waxman insisted. “Come on, let’s get back to the limo. Brice has had a long day.”

Only two of the girls hadn’t received copies of the movie — Cam and Alex. “They’ll be right with you, as soon as I autograph their videos,” Brice promised, as Mr. Waxman hustled the others toward the exit.

“Ileana’s description was perfect.” He looked from one twin to the other. “I’m so glad to finally meet you —”

“Oh, me, too,” Cam said unexpectedly and, Alex thought, a bit awestuck.

“It wasn’t a publicity stunt.” Alex cut to the chase, though, truth be told, her own heart was doing the butterfly flutter. Brice was not just movie-star hot — there was an aura of strength mixed with good-guy sweetness about him that could melt the chocolate off a DoveBar.

“That’s your professional opinion?” he asked now, as if he were talking to an equal.

“It was no stunt,” Cam said without hesitation.

“The caped crusader was for real,” Alex confirmed.

“He was. And is. He’s been sending me threats for years. Me, and others like me — like us,” Brice generously corrected himself. “Mostly, those among us who are in the public eye —”

“You mean witches and warlocks.” Cam wanted to get it straight.

Brice nodded. “He calls himself ‘the Witch Hunter.’ And he practically announced that he’d show up tonight. I think he misunderstood the film’s title, assumed it was some epic in praise of witches.
The Witching Hour
just means the time when something important will change. Of course, I told Eric … your friend Brianna’s father … that I’d been getting these weird letters. He didn’t want the police involved, so he arranged for private security —”

“Posing as your date?” Alex asked sheepishly.

“Yes. That was my bright idea.” He shook his head and bestowed one of his killer grins on them. “If I’d known how talented, how adept you two are, I wouldn’t have needed security, would I?”

Cam blushed, then asked, “How dangerous is he, Brice, uh, Mr. Stanley?”

“Brice,” Brice said.

“He was carrying that… scythe —” Cam added. “He was dressed as Death.”

“Death? I thought it was Father Time — all that ranting about ‘Your time has come!’ To answer your question honestly — before tonight, I hadn’t given him that much credibility. But you guys really feel he’s dangerous?” Brice was taking them seriously.

“Totally,” Alex jumped in. “Right before he disappeared, he cursed us. Threatened us. He said, ‘You’re next. All three of you.’”

“
And
he tried to run us down. On our way to the premiere, he nearly rammed our limo,” Cam confided with a shudder.

Brice watched them for a moment — long enough for Alex to hear his thoughts and puff up with pride.
They’re good,
she heard him thinking.
Ileana was right. Their instincts are terrifically sharp.

“So far, he’s seemed more rash, more reckless and unpredictable, than dangerous,” he finally said. “But he may be more trouble than I thought.” Then he told them what he knew of the Witch Hunter.

The man was a fanatic. Someone who feared and hated witches. Probably, Brice thought, because of something personal, something that had happened to him that had scared him.

He had been sending menacing notes to many in the entertainment community, calling them witches, threatening to “out” them, to reveal their secret to the world. There were plenty of maniacs who did that, Brice told them. The problem was, this one had the shrewdness or sensitivity to recognize true witches, to actually know the ones in his midst. Which meant that the Witch Hunter had some advanced skill; if he was not a witch himself, then the man had a degree of sensitivity beyond that of an everyday person. A sixth sense, a superior level of ESP …

Like Dave,
Cam immediately thought. Her adoptive father was a “Sensitive,” a person with highly developed intuition and abilities. That’s why he had been chosen to be her Protector.

“Do you have any idea who he meant when he said ‘All three of you’?” Brice asked, startling her.

“You, of course,” Alex answered. But then she thought for a second. “No, wait, the dude said that to
us.
You were over on the red carpet.”

As Brice nodded, Cam remembered something else. Just before the Witch Hunter broke through the security barricade, she’d heard someone urge,
Stop him!
Now she realized it hadn’t been Alex. It had come from someone else in the crowd, someone standing very near them.

CHAPTER FOUR

A MATTER OF TRUST

“How dare he!” Ileana’s fury at Brice Stanley was out of control. The magnificent, miffed witch was all about destruction now. Metallic-gray eyes flashing, she zeroed in on a cherished photo of her boyfriend, the movie star. Once, all she’d had to do was glare at it — and the autographed eight-by-ten glossy would have gone up in flames. But she couldn’t do that now.

Ileana had lost her witchy powers.

But not her witchy temper.

Jaws clenched, she jerked the smiling picture out of its frame. “How could he do this” — she hissed, tearing the photo in half — “to
me
?!”

As she spun around, another image of Brice taunted her — the picture on the cover of the
Coventry Island Tattler.
There he was, beaming in the spotlight at the premiere of
The Witching Hour.
At his side, her arm snaked around his waist, stood … another woman.

Ileana could not deal with the accompanying article. She didn’t want to know the name of Brice’s new gal-pal or any details of what should have been her night.

Brice Stanley had asked
her
to the premiere, then, at the very last minute, canceled their date.

Flabbergasted as Ileana had been, she’d managed to pathetically screech, “Why?”

To which he’d replied, just before hanging up, “Trust me.”

Like the talon-sharp claws of a bird of prey, Ileana’s fingers swooped down on the newspaper image of her erstwhile squeeze. She balled it up in her fist and hurled it across the room.

Enough. There was something she needed to take care of — something far more important than her twisted, two-timing, “trust me” ex!

There was an urgent matter. Of immense importance.

Just thinking of it, Ileana’s heart, which had been racing with rage, was now seized with dread.

Someone had stolen the journal her wise and loving
guardian had entrusted to her. It was as irreplaceable as the good warlock who’d written it. Karsh. In his shaky scrawl, he had recorded the secrets of generations. And with his dying breath, he had beseeched Ileana to read what he’d set down.

Of course she had.

And left the journal in a safe place, too. Inside the hollowed-out book where Karsh had hidden it. In her own home. Beside her bed. On the nightstand.

The nightstand that now held another treasured gift. The crystal perfume bottle Brice Stanley had given to her. It had belonged to his mother and, before that, his grandmother.

But the book had disappeared.

With fresh frustration, the thwarted witch glared at the priceless flask. She wanted it out — out of her sight, out of her life.

Under her angry gaze, the heirloom flask shattered, raining crystal across the floor.

Ileana jumped back, gasping in horror. She hadn’t really meant to destroy it. More to the point, with her powers gone to seed, she hadn’t really known she could.

A feathery voice wafted into her room. “Silly girl. He was trying to protect you.”

Ileana spun toward the bedroom door. How long had Miranda been there, watching her? Miranda DuBaer,
the twins’ mother, was still regal in her bearing, despite the painful exile she’d suffered.

“Protect me? From his cheating. I was supposed to be there!” the blond beauty sputtered. “He broke our date. To be with that… that — ”

“Security guard,” Miranda broke in, matter-of-factly. “You never bothered to read the
Tattler
piece, did you? You saw the picture and freaked out.” She picked up the newspaper Ileana had hurled into a corner and, smoothing its crumpled pages, began to read the article aloud.

“So she wasn’t really his date. Fine.” The flustered witch crossed her arms, still not satisfied. So Brice had known a maniac dedicated to exposing him might show up. Why hadn’t he confided in her? Did he think she was untrustworthy? That she couldn’t keep a secret?

“Secret?” Miranda echoed. “Speaking of — I found no journal at Crailmore.”

Crailmore was the home of Ileana’s despicable father. “You’ve searched Thantos’s fortress?” the tempestuous witch asked.

“Neither he nor Karsh’s book is there.” Miranda settled into an overstuffed chair and watched her reckless niece pace the room. “Ileana, why do we need the journal? We know … you’ve told me … what the book contains. Why must we find it?”

“I didn’t tell you everything,” Ileana confessed,
flouncing into a chair across from the serene, auburn-haired witch.

She had explained the Antayus Curse to Miranda, an oath spat out in pain and hatred hundreds of years before that condemned to early death every male head of the DuBaer family. The curse, Karsh had written, had not skipped a generation since the Salem Witch Trials.

But she hadn’t confided what Karsh Antayus and his dear friend Nathaniel DuBaer, father of the devious Thantos, had settled on to end the bloodletting.

That from their generation on, only women would rule the dynasty.

DuBaer women.

And that meant that Apolla and Artemis — Camryn and Alexandra — Miranda’s daughters and Ileana’s treasured charges, should rightfully head the clan.

Thantos knew and denied this. It was the secret that, once revealed, would wrench away his control over the limitless wealth and power of the DuBaers.

But only Karsh’s account, set down in his own hand, could prove it.

No one in all of Coventry would believe the words of impetuous Ileana or the once-mad mother of the twins, Miranda.

“All right.” Miranda easily read Ileana’s mind and sighed resignedly. “In that case, we must… we will…
find the journal. But if Karsh knew of this curse, why didn’t he proclaim it long ago and stop Thantos from taking what wasn’t his?” she wondered aloud, just as a lightning bolt of truth hit her. At the time, there were no DuBaer women to stand in Thantos’s way. Now there were two of them —

Ileana confirmed it. “Once Camryn and Alex are initiated, they must begin to fulfill their destiny. Thantos never feared either of them when they were alone and separated.”

“But,” Miranda interrupted, “he believed they had died.”

That was the big lie, Ileana wanted to scream, he used to keep you docile, under his control. She didn’t say it, though, knowing Miranda would never accept that truth — not until she could prove it.

Ileana continued, “Anyway, only together were they strong enough to outsmart him. And only after their initiation will they — together — be powerful enough to overthrow him. That’s why he never wanted them brought together. And precisely why Karsh did.”

Once, before the twins were born, Miranda had taken the motherless Ileana under her wing. That long-ago mother-daughter bond had recently re-formed into one of friendship. Now Miranda walked to where the young witch sat and perched on the arm of her chair.
“Thantos has a lot to lose if Karsh’s journal proves him an imposter. He must have stolen the book.”

“No way would His Lordship stoop to petty thievery,” Ileana countered. “He’d delegate that bit of nastiness to someone else.”

“But who would dare?” Miranda mused.

Ileana didn’t hear her. Her stomach twisted, and she felt suddenly, overwhelmingly woozy. It was a feeling both familiar and distant, welcome but startling. It hadn’t happened to her for a while … not since the shocking moment she’d found out that Thantos was her father.

Now her eyes glazed over, everything went blurry — then, like an auto-focus camera, the scene in front of her was sharp, defined. Ileana saw a girl standing on a cliff above a wildly tossing sea. In her hands she clutched an open book, its pages ruffled by the wind. The girl’s black cape billowed in the gust, as did her long raven hair. She had violet eyes and a slash of scarlet lipstick lit her smug lips as she read the pages of Karsh’s journal.

Miranda had no such vision. Instead, the older witch suddenly knew something the younger did not. As if it had been whispered in her ear, she heard the name:

Sersee.