Witch & Curse (30 page)

The path from the trunk to the stairs was already covered in wall-to-wall rats, chittering and snapping at one another; there was no easy out there. Any doubt that she was the target of the rats' interest vanished when the first ones reached her and sunk their teeth into her boots. She hurriedly shook them off, but more surged forward.

Better think of something quick, Holly
.

The only protection spells she had learned required materials she didn't have. Her ward was upstairs; here, there was nothing around she could use as a weapon . . . or was there? She grabbed the book and started swinging.

THWACK! A rat went flying across the basement,
landing with a satisfying thud against the wall. Her cousins
would
be out of the house, today. THWACK! Two more rats temporarily out of commission.

Bast! Call the cat!

“Bast, help!
Aides-moi!
” she screamed as loud as she could.

THWACK! THWACK! The rats were moving in fast now, and she couldn't keep up with them. Her arms were getting tired. She expected to feel their teeth in her legs at any minute, and once they drew blood, she knew it would be all but over.

She caught a glimpse of a ginger streak coming down the stairs, followed by two other blurs, one black, one white, before the three Cathers cats launched themselves into the fray. They knew just what to do, and they were merciless.

The pile of dead and seriously injured rats grew quickly, and it didn't take long before the rest of the pack decided to withdraw. Within minutes, it all was over, with only the blood and bodies of dead rats to prove it had happened at all.

“Thank you, Freya. Thank you, Hecate. And thank
you
, Bast.” She picked Bast up and kissed the top of her head before gently setting her back on the floor.

Bast meowed in reply, and Holly got the hell out of there.

The book was a history of the Cahors and Deveraux, but had no author and no hint as to when it was written. Tante Cecile could only say that Isabeau had come to her in a dream and told her where to find it.

It told them this: that the six hundredth anniversary of the Massacre of Deveraux Castle was on the next full moon, which was Mead Moon. And it said one thing that Holly, Amanda, and Nicole kept pondering:

The ones whom I trusted most were my betrayers
.

And the weird thing was, senior year kept happening. As if someone was checking off all the events that should matter most to them, the cousins did Senior Ditch Day; and went to the prom with Tommy Nagai as their escort; and then it was the last part of April, and time for the school play. . . .

. . . and Jer Deveraux, leader of the Rebel Coven, couldn't believe that Nicole and her cousins were proceeding with everything as if their lives were normal.

Maybe I'm the one who had to forfeit the normal life
, he thought,
because my life has never been normal
.

Meanwhile, Kari finally confessed and told him about Circle Lady on the Web, and the cyberpagan's interest in “Warlock,” and he dared to hope:

Jer: Yo, Circle Lady, Warlock here.

Circle Lady: Hello. I've heard so much about you.

Jer: I think you know me very well.

But she wouldn't come right out and admit that she was his mother. He burned to ask her directly, but the times were blistering with danger. She had already risked so much contacting Kari, and she avoided his prying like a mouse dodging a cat. So he took the risks, telling her everything he knew, and finally, the one thing she did tell him was this:

Circle Lady: The girls you speak of are in great danger, and may die on the next full moon.

So he worked with that, taking the knowledge to his coven, discussing it with Dan.

Under his guidance, sweating in the lodge alone, Jer had seen part of his family's history that his father had kept to himself, and Jer reeled.

Castle Deveraux crouched, magnificent and terrifying, dark as a raven and soulless as a demon. It sprawled low along the ground, its very belly within the earth, and only its hunched shoulders punched toward the sky. To the fearful villagers it was the embodiment of evil, the dwelling of the devil himself. Still, these were not things that were whispered, not even between husband and wife as they crouched at their hearth on cold nights and listened to the wind crying outside. And at noon if strange shadows danced over the top of the castle, they just crossed themselves and hurried about their business, lips pressed tightly shut in fear
.

Whether the castle had been polluted by the people living in it or the people by the evil lurking in the walls of the castle, none knew. The origins of both the Deveraux family and their castle were unknown, going back many generations and lost in the mists of time. The oldest living man in the village, the old blacksmith, could only vaguely remember stories he had heard from his earliest childhood, seventy summers past. Now blind and idle he lived inside his mind, waiting for his body to die and trying to remember the things that had been whispered to him about the castle. They were whispers he had heard from his older brother
.

The next dawn had found the older boy dead, torn to pieces by wolves who had dragged him from his bed while he slept and left his body at the edge of the forest. Two different stories the old man had heard on that night so long ago. One was
that the devil had created the castle from dirt and his own blood, set it upon the great hill and placed his chosen ones in it. The other story had frightened the old man even more, but now he couldn't even remember it if he wanted to
.

The walls were strong, built of dark stone that reflected none of the sun's light but only swallowed it in darkness. Still, it could be seen from a great distance, hideous in its appearance. At a monastery far distant it had once been visible through a window in the chapel. Many a priest both young and old had found himself shivering while staring at the distant castle instead of the statue of the Virgin whom he was praying to
.

The Deveraux were wealthy with connections far above those of the humble priests. Still, it was hard to ignore the evil they felt spilling from the place and to close their ears to the strange sounds sometimes heard late at night when no godly person should be awake. Eventually something had to be said, and it was. The Bishop was sympathetic, reassuring, and had a solution. Within a fortnight a beautiful stained-glass window graced the humble chapel. A barrier between the good priests and the evil of the Deveraux Castle. And though puzzled, the good priests were slightly reassured and more than a little grateful. After all, they had no idea that the money to pay for the window had come from the very castle whose sight it was meant to obscure
.

Life continued on for the priests who felt much safer because of the window. Its bright reds and greens comforted
them and protected them. The colors shielded them from the outside world, keeping them and all their knowledge, all their faith, safely locked up in the monastery. And one dark autumn night while they held a midnight mass the window and its bright colors kept them from seeing the flames that were engulfing the Deveraux Castle
.

But they knew it was burning. Deveraux women, children, and men at arms . . . the priests knew they would die that night, by Cahors hands
.

They prayed fervently for success. They prayed that the Deveraux would be completely wiped out
.

And then, the Blessed Virgin willing, the church would turn on the Cahors, and make them taste the flames as well—the fires of the stake, and an eternity in Hell for their witchcraft
.

Within the castle all were asleep, or were meant to be. Inside the stables a horse squealed, frightened by a demon that he alone could see. A tired keeper rose from his bed to quiet the animal. His son, a boy of five, looked up at him with sleepy eyes. The child was curled against a horse's stomach for warmth, the beast's shoulder pillowing his tiny head. The horse lifted his head as well, ears swiveling uneasily
.

“Go back to sleep,” Pierre instructed boy and beast. Both dropped their heads back down and closed their eyes
.

The keeper had worked in the stables since he was his son's age. He had been the head stableman for the past ten
years. Nothing the animals did surprised him anymore. For that matter, nothing his masters did surprised him either. He had seen and heard many things over the years that would have made a lesser man run and hide. He prided himself on his courage, though, and his loyalty. His was a good job, one that he could keep along with his life if he just kept his mouth shut. Loose lips were what had gotten him this position, the loose lips of the previous stablemaster. The man had talked too much and when they had found him dead, trampled to death by the horses, Pierre had vowed that he would not make the same mistake
.

He walked slowly down the line of stalls, gently enough not to waken the sleeping horses and loudly enough not to startle the ones who were yet awake. He stopped outside of Thunder's stall. The big stallion was always jumpy, and Pierre believed it was he who had been making all the noise. The horse was fast asleep, though, on his side and snoring gently
.

The squeal came again, from the last stall, and Pierre felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up as he moved toward the dark head of the gelding, Philippe. The horse's eyes were wild and he tossed his head when Pierre tried to lay his hand on his muzzle. Philippe was the gentlest horse in the stable, the steadiest, the calmest, and the one that Pierre had always sworn could see things that people could not
.

Instead of being comforted by his presence, Philippe grew
more agitated, kicking at the stall and beginning to foam a little at the mouth in anxiety. Pierre felt the bile rising in the back of his throat as the horse's fear communicated itself to him. Something was dreadfully wrong. He heard something behind him that was not yet a sound, but more of a feeling, a thought that tickled his mind
.

He turned and tried to draw breath for one strangled scream
.

And as he gurgled and died in the straw, the Cahors wife of young Jean, the Lady Isabeau, looked down on him with pity. Then she beckoned a young man in silver and black chain mail forward and said to the Cahors assassin, “Go with the protection of the Goddess,” and the Massacre had begun
.

“Black Fire,” Jer gasped to his Coven. “They did it because we would not share the Black Fire . . . everyone thought it was lost with the death of Jean . . . my death . . . but I did not die . . . I went to Normandy . . . I found others like me . . . we were persecuted . . . the Italian woman nearly wiped us out . . . to England . . . and there, we found Cahors descendents, and we followed them… Quebec, New York, Pennsylvania….”

“Yes, yes,”
Laurent whispered, seeing into a heavily warded place where Michael and Eli could not go.
“Yes, I see it. I see what my son saw. I know.”

The decaying corpse of the nobleman regarded his two acolytes, Deveraux father and son, and said,
“I will share the secret at last. The secret of the Black Fire. And we will use it on Mead Moon to destroy the House of Cahors forever.”

Michael said, “What of my other son?”

Laurent regarded the man.
“Have you perhaps thought to strengthen his magical abilities by pitting him against yourself?”

Eli gaped at his father, who laughed and said, “It worked, didn't it? In his eagerness to protect those three little witches, he has learned the secret of the Black Fire, hasn't he?”

“If he can be brought back into the fold, he might live,”
Laurent pondered.

“We'll all live,” Michael said airily. “I know now that you need us, Duc Laurent. We have form and shape in this world, and you don't. So . . .”

The ghostly Deveraux chuckled and said,
“We'll see. Mead Moon will tell the tale.”