A Circle of Ashes (14 page)

Damn, damn,
damn
. He was watching me examining him, and he had that half-amused smile on his face.

“Like what you see?” he said, almost sounding teasing.

“Oh,
right
,” I said sarcastically, standing up and brushing off my shorts, completely without result. In the next instant he stepped toward me, and I looked up in surprise. He was only a couple of inches taller than me, inches shorter than Luc. I was so taken aback I froze, and he deliberately put one hand on my waist and pulled me to him. Then he lowered his head, watching my eyes, and kissed me. His lips were warm on mine, firm and gentle, and I had the utterly insane, unbelievable thought of yes.

In the next second I pushed him back, hard, and put my hand to my mouth, horrified. Just then the back screen door opened, and Thais came in, looking filthy and exhausted. Jules was behind her, carrying his box of tools, as cool and unruffled as when he’d arrived.

“That window’s fixed,” he said, nodding toward the one on the back wall. “This one has cracked panes, but nothing that can’t wait till tomorrow. I’ve stapled plastic over the windows upstairs in case it rains. Tomorrow I’ll get an earlier start and finish them all up.” He looked over at Richard, who was standing unsmiling by the sink. “You ready, Riche?”

Richard nodded and flicked me a glance, then walked out of the kitchen. I let Thais show them out and make all the grateful noises—I was too freaked to deal. Oh my God, Richard had kissed me. I mean, I’d been ducking unwanted kisses since I was twelve—I knew how to avoid them. How had he gotten to me? Was I just so surprised I—

I waited till I heard the front door close, then headed into the hallway where the stairs were. “You look wiped,” I told Thais. “Go ahead and take a shower first.”

She nodded tiredly and headed upstairs.

I sat down on the bottom step, my chin in my hand. I couldn’t
stand
Richard. Andre—Luc—was the only person I wanted to kiss, the
only kiss I wanted to remember. Now Richard had changed that. I knew how he’d felt when he’d held me to him, knew how he kissed.

Damn
him.

A
cool shower. That was what she needed. A cool shower, some Tylenol, some food, and she would feel fine.

Axelle glanced at her watch as she opened her front door. Not much past ten. Thais would be home, maybe already in bed. Inside the apartment, she dropped her purse on the table. Minou trotted up and rubbed against her legs.

“What’s the matter?” Axelle murmured. “Thais didn’t fee—”

Axelle sighed. Right, no more Thais. She went to put food in Minou’s bowl, which she had to find first. Then she opened a bottle of water and rummaged for the Tylenol in a cupboard. She took four of them and washed them down with Pellegrino.

The refrigerator revealed no food. Which would have been fine and normal if Axelle hadn’t gotten used to Thais keeping the fridge full of yogurt and interesting cheese and sliced ham and even eggs.

Axelle found half a box of Frosted Mini-Wheats in a cupboard and took them to the living room. She flopped down on the couch, opened the box, and crunched some up dry. With each one her chewing became angrier. This was pathetic! She was pathetic! She’d gotten along all this time with no Thais, no one, and it had been
fine
. Was she going to fall apart now that Petra had stolen Thais away? Not bloody likely. Axelle stood up and threw down the box. She would take a shower, change, and go out for real food. Tons of restaurants stayed open all night. Or she could order in.

She lit a cigarette and blew the smoke across the room. The fact was, she kind of missed Thais. Not that Thais had been a barrel of laughs. Just the opposite. She’d covered the dining table with boring school-books and made pained expressions when Axelle left clothes on the floor. Clio, the other one, would have been much more fun. She would have liked going to bars, while Thais whined about being underage. She would have been fun to shop with, whereas Thais seemed content with her boring, schoolgirl clothes.

But Thais had been something new and interesting in Axelle’s life—the first time Axelle had had even a superficial resemblance of responsibility for someone else. Maybe she hadn’t done such a great job—she wasn’t some TV mom. But still, had it been so bad that Thais should run off to Petra’s the first chance she got?

Damn Petra anyway. She thought she had the right, that she knew best, that she could just undermine Axelle and Daedalus and all their plans. Fine. Take Thais. It didn’t change anything. Everything was still going forward as planned.

Axelle found herself in the hall in back of the kitchen, standing in the doorway of Thais’s room. She had saved Thais’s life! Had she remembered that when she’d been racing out to Petra’s car? No.

Axelle had thought about that night a lot but still wasn’t sure who’d been behind the magickal attack on Thais. She knew it wasn’t Daedalus or Jules—they both wanted, needed the twins to do the rite. They were all hell-bent on doing the rite, like it was some big magick party where everyone would get a prize. Maybe they didn’t remember what it had been like, had felt like that night. How could they have forgotten? It had felt terrible, like death. Some of the secret magick Axelle had worked with Melita so long ago had been scary, left nasty hangovers. But nothing had ever felt as bad as that night.

And Cerise has died, leaving behind baby Hélène, a pretty thing. Everyone expected Petra to raise her, but she’d been adopted by Louise and Charles Dedouard.

Axelle picked up one of her wooden cups. After Thais left, Axelle had put them on the little desk in Thais’s room. She smiled wryly, remembering when she’d found them in Thais’s bathroom, one holding swabs, one holding cotton balls….

The wood was cool and smooth. Axelle rubbed it on her black silk shirt, making the wood shine. The grain of the wood was thin and straight—the tree had been hundreds of years old. Jules had carved these for her out of the charred stump of the Source tree. Maybe he’d felt sorry for her, with Melita being gone. They’d been like sisters. Much more like sisters than Melita and Cerise. Cerise had been a bubble-headed idiot who’d gotten herself knocked up when everyone knew how to prevent it. And why hadn’t the father prevented it, if he was a witch? Men could do it too.

Unless the father hadn’t been a witch. Or had wanted the baby for some reason.

Axelle put the cup down next to its mates. Jules used to make nice things. That was one of the first things anyone noticed about him, that he
could make pretty things out of wood. That and the shackles on his wrists and ankles.

No one in their
famille
had ever owned another human being. It was bizarre, unthinkable. Why would the slave owners do that to themselves? They were probably
still
working out the bad karma.

Marcel had found Jules, Axelle remembered. Almost dead, in the swamp. A runaway. Marcel had brought him to the village and given him to Petra, who was a healer even then. It had taken a month of magick and nursing to bring Jules back to this side of life. The blacksmith had broken the shackles. He’d actually melted them down and made them into an iron knife, and he’d given it to Jules. Axelle couldn’t remember his name.

Then Jules was just one of them, one of their
famille
. He made himself a little house, he learned their religion, he got work as a carpenter. But it was the little things, the pretty things he carved, that Axelle had always liked best. Jules had changed a great deal over the years.

Sighing with the weight of memories, Axelle went back to the kitchen and started opening cupboards. Richard seemed to have cleaned out all her liquor. Ah! She found a bottle of dry vermouth with maybe a quarter left and poured herself some over ice.

No, owning slaves had never been acceptable in their religion, their clan.

Which was why Luc had caused such a brouhaha when he’d come back from New Orleans, owning Ouida.

Luc’s family, the Martins, had been well-off. Petra would have been well-off too if Armand hadn’t taken all their money when he moved to New Orleans. Armand’s brother, Luc’s father, had sent Luc off to Loyola, in New Orleans, to get a college education. Luc had lasted two years before being sent down for behavior unseemly in a gentleman. Big surprise there. He’d had angry fathers coming after him with shotguns when he was fourteen. Luc’s father had been incensed. Then Luc had shown up, cocky as hell, owning a female slave.

Axelle laughed softly, remembering how the entire village had been in an uproar. What a scandal. Luc was lucky no one had beaten him to death. He and his father, Gregoire, had had a huge row, right out in the village commons, and Gregoire had publicly divested him of ownership. Ouida was free to stay or go as she pleased.

Ouida had stunned everybody by choosing to stay—with Luc. Just for a couple of months until she figured out what to do. She could have headed north, where not many people owned slaves, or gone to Europe. Luc’s father would have given her the money. But Ouida made friends in
the community. Petra and Sophie started teaching her the ways of
Bonne Magic
. Like Jules, Ouida had quickly made a place for herself.

Then she’d decided to see something else of the world and had left. But she had returned, and that time, she’d stayed and become one of them.

It had been around then that Sophie had cut Luc out. Axelle had heard rumors but still wasn’t sure of the real reason—Sophie had never said why, and neither had Luc. The
famille
had many secrets, and that was just one more of them. Axelle leaned against the kitchen counter and drained her glass. She felt better. Now for a cold shower, and she’d be ready for anything.

It was a shame about Sophie and Luc, Axelle thought as she walked toward her bedroom. They’d been such a handsome pair.

Axelle paused halfway through the main room. She frowned, standing very still. There was an electricity in the air, a heightened sense of … what? Very slowly and quietly Axelle walked the perimeter of the room, trying to feel where it was coming from. Outside, on the street? From the courtyard in back? Had someone spelled her apartment? All her senses sharpened. Then she passed the hidden door that led to her attic workroom. It was open about a quarter of an inch—the latch hadn’t quite caught.

Quickly she draped a shadow spell over herself to make it hard for anyone to pick up on her presence. Leaning closer to the door, she slid one long red fingernail into the crack and pulled. The door opened a fraction, enough for her to hear voices.

It was Jules and Daedalus—but she hadn’t felt them when she’d come in. They had a key and came and went as they liked, but why hadn’t she instantly known they were there?

“Luc?” She heard Jules ask.

“No,” Daedalus said impatiently. “He’s strong but completely unreliable.”

“Not Petra, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“Richard?”

“Yes, maybe Richard,” Daedalus said, sounding thoughtful. “Possibly Richard.”

“There’s Axelle,” said Jules.

“Please, no,” Daedalus said. “Axelle is fine in many respects, but not for this. We need someone more focused, with more true power. Axelle has let herself grow weak.”

Axelle’s perfect eyebrows arched. Oh, really? Her magick had gotten weak, had it?

“She has other priorities is all,” said Jules.

“Which are not our priorities,” said Daedalus firmly. “No, Axelle is out. I wonder if Manon…” His voice trailed off, and Axelle could no longer make out their murmuring.

Quietly Axelle backed away from the door, picked up her purse, and let herself out of the apartment. She closed the door soundlessly and went to stand in the dark, covered carriageway that ran alongside the apartment. Leaning against the smooth, cool stucco, she thought.

Well, it was true. She had let her magick grow weak. She’d never been a scholar, a student—instead of learning everything there was to know, she tended to learn only the aspects that would let her perform certain spells. And what was wrong with that?

Besides, she’d thought that she, Daedalus, and Jules were a triangle, an even-sided balance of power behind this whole rite. But they were planning something, the two of them, something they hadn’t shared with her. Perhaps she wasn’t as tight with Jules and Daedalus as she’d thought. Perhaps she needed to look out for herself more, protect herself more. Yes, Daedalus was very strong, but so was Petra, so was Richard, and so was Luc, when he focused on it.

More than one allegiance could be made.

Daedalus had been so convincing about how this rite would answer everyone’s needs, even if they differed, but suddenly Axelle wasn’t so sure of that. Certainly Daedalus’s needs would be answered—he would make certain of that. And anyone whose desires aligned with his would be well served also.

But not everyone wanted the same thing. What Axelle needed to do was really figure out what she herself wanted out of this. Then she would work with whoever could help her get it.

Now, with a plan in place, she headed back to the apartment. This time she let the front door slam shut and made a lot of noise walking around the big room. She rattled some glasses in the kitchen, then lit another cigarette and waited.

Within a minute Jules and Daedalus came down from the workroom.

“Ah! Axelle,” Daedalus said with a smile. “We’ve been waiting for you—there are some questions I have about the old Ville, and I knew if anyone could remember, it would be you.”

“We just got here,” said Jules. “Maybe five minutes ago. Now that you’re here, we can get started.”

“Okay. Just let me get something to drink,” said Axelle. She poured some vermouth into a clean glass and looked at them. “Ready.”

I
n his dream, he still had a lifetime of potential. He was still looking forward to being a man, taller and broader, stronger. One day, not too far off, he would leave his father’s house and have a house of his own. One day, when his father struck him, Richard would be big enough and strong enough to strike
him
down instead.