Crushed (City of Eldrich Book 2) (22 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

W
ith everyone looking
to her for answers and no better options, Meaghan decided to stick with the original plan. They would get as close to city hall as they could without being detected, so Annie could try to talk to the ghosts, Welland Eldrich in particular.

The wizards must have all headed back inside after grabbing Jhoro. Meaghan couldn’t think of any other reason why they hadn’t been attacked yet. Even with Emily’s protection charm, they hadn’t exactly been quiet.

But they were running out of time if they wanted to sneak up under the cover of darkness. The blackness now had a charcoal-gray quality to it. Birds were singing.

“Let’s move, people,” she hissed. “Dawn’s almost here.”

“The wizards aren’t out,” Jamie said. “Only the mob and the—”

“Mob-ette,” Sid offered. “The husbands barely qualify as a full-fledged mob.”

“Whatever,” Meaghan said. “Quit talking and move. We don’t want to run into either group.”

“I’m not going anywhere with
her
,” Natalie said in a petulant tone, “unless she apologizes for all the cracks about my hair.”

“Oh, please,” Annie said. “What about
you
? You called me a bleach blonde tramp.”

“Like hours ago,” Natalie countered. “You’ve been busting on me all night.”

For a moment, Meaghan knew exactly how Owen must have felt when they forced him to drink tea and eat cookies at the historical society.

“Ladies,” she said, her voiced dipped in acid, “if it’s not too much trouble, I strongly recommend you stow this bullshit immediately or neither of you will have hair to insult. Because I will have pulled it out by the roots while knocking your bitchy little heads together.” She put on her most fearsome glare and pinned them under it. “I don’t care how addled you are by magic. Get your shit together. Right now. Because you aren’t any good to me like this.”

“Now, Meg,” Sid said, “relax. They’re only blowing off steam. Something you should—”

“Don’t start with me,” Meaghan said in a low tone. “You and I are on the outs at the moment, in case you haven’t noticed. I’m tired of being lied to. I’m tired of people hiding things from me. I’m still trying to process the fact that the only one who appears to have been straight with me is a leprechaun, who by all reports should be inherently untrustworthy.”

Sid snorted. “Yeah, because he is. Why can’t you see that? He hasn’t actually told you any of the details of what he did.”

“No, but he hasn’t hidden them, either.”

“Oh, sure, he gets caught and he confesses he lied without actually telling you what it was he doesn’t want you to know about and that’s being honest? Come on, Meg, are you that naive that you’d—”

“He told me about the prophecy.”

Sid’s eyes widened in shock. He shook his head. “He wasn’t supposed to do that. Matthew didn’t want—”

Meaghan had passed through the white-hot anger into icy rage. In a deceptively calm voice, she said, “He also told me about the war.”

Sid whimpered.

“How, Sid,” Meaghan said, her voice cold, “am I supposed to do the job that’s been dumped on me if nobody will tell me the whole story?”

“But,” Sid said in a breathless squeak, “Matthew told us not—”

“Matthew is dead, Sid. My father is dead. Which we are all likely to be soon if we don’t figure out how to stop these things. Whatever they are. But then I suppose you know that, too.” She took a ragged breath. The rage was waning, leaving her shaky and on the verge of tears. “You keep looking at me like I have all the answers, but you don’t trust me enough to tell me what I’m fighting. Am I truly that incompetent?”

Sid shook his head. “No, no. You aren’t incompetent at all. But you’re not invincible either. The prophecy . . . it says . . .” He shook his head more emphatically. “I promised Matthew I wouldn’t tell you.”

“What does it say?”

“It says . . .” Sid looked up at her, his eyes shiny with tears. “It says you’re going to die. The Order is going to kill you.”

Meaghan stared at him for a moment, mouth open, before replying. “That’s what everybody’s been hiding?” She rolled her eyes. “Let me guess. They want to burn Natalie because this stupid prophecy says they can take me out only if they kill her first.” She looked around at her companions. Silently, they stared at her, wide-eyed. “Quit looking at me like that.”

“Like what?” Jamie said in a soft voice.

“Like I’m about to explode. You guys . . . Owen was right. Humans will believe anything.
Prophecy
.” Meaghan snorted with disgust.

“But they’re going to kill you,” Natalie said, her earlier peevishness gone. “And me.”

“No. They’re going to
try
to kill us
,
” Meaghan said. “That doesn’t mean they’ll succeed. I don’t believe in prophecy. Point out one clear, unequivocal prediction that Alastair Eldrich got right.”

They continued to stare at her, eyes wide.

“Like I said. I don’t believe in prophecy.” Meaghan began walking toward Main Street. She didn’t care if they followed her.

Natalie scurried to catch up. “Alastair predicted
us
. He predicted that Matthew and Vivian would hook up and have me.”

Meaghan shook her head. “No. He didn’t. Think about it. He predicted that an impervious man and a witch would have two daughters. Why does that have to mean us?” She stopped walking and whirled around to face Natalie. “Alastair said they’d have two daughters, not a daughter together and a daughter from a previous marriage. I’m not Vivian’s daughter. Shouldn’t that disqualify us?”

Now Annie caught up with her. “Well, that’s kind of splitting hairs, don’t you think?”

“Yes, and that’s the whole point. A prophecy you can interpret to mean different things doesn’t tell you anything about the future. Because you can twist words around to mean anything. Trust me on this. I do it professionally every day.” Meaghan stopped and looked around. “Is Sid still with us? Or is he sulking?”

“Both,” Sid stage whispered. “I’ll follow you, but I can sulk if I want while I do it.” In a very small voice, he said, “Are you still mad at me?”

Meaghan was surprised to realize she wasn’t. “Not really. That was a big secret. I get why you didn’t want to tell me that one.”

“You really need to take it seriously.”

“No, Sid, I really don’t.” She began walking again. They were almost to Main. The square appeared deserted. “I’m not living my life based on the incoherent ravings of a madman.”

“But,” Jamie said right behind her. “It says they’ll kill you. Haven’t you been listening?”

Meaghan snorted again. “You of all people should know better. You can twist the law to fit any set of facts you get handed. I know. I’ve read your case files. You’re an even more talented bullshit artist than I am. How am I supposed to die? Does it even say that?”

“Yeah,” Sid answered. “It says they’ll quench your vital spark.”

“Which means what exactly?”

“Your heart,” Sid said.

She gave him a skeptical look.

“All right, fine. Quit it with the lawyer face. That’s the way I’ve always heard it. Vital spark is the electrical charge that runs your heart.”

“But,” Meaghan said. “It also says quench, which suggests drowning. And vital spark could also be interpreted to mean brain-wave activity. That’s the true measure of death.”

“Yeah,” Sid said. “I suppose.”

“Assuming for argument that I am the one Alastair wrote about, does it definitely say I’m going to die?” Meaghan asked.

“Well, not as such . . .”

Meaghan rolled her eyes. “That phrase could mean so many different things that trying to predict the future from it is useless. Worse than useless, because when people believe shit like that, they’ll force events to make it come true. At some point, it stops being a prophecy and becomes a to-do list.”

“Your father believed in it,” Sid said.

“You sure about that?”

“Well . . . he believed other people believed it.”

Meaghan smiled. “Now that I can believe. He sent me a message about it from wherever he is now. Through Finn. He told me to use my head and find the loopholes.”

Jamie chuckled. “Yeah, that sounds more like Matthew.”

“
Guys
,” Natalie squeaked behind them. “Trouble!”

Jamie whirled to look at her. “What?”

The mob boiled out of the shadows.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

M
e
aghan was knocked
aside by the mob in their rush to grab Natalie. When Jamie tried to protect Natalie, the mob grabbed him, too.

Annie and Sid were nowhere to be seen.

Rough hands seized Meaghan from behind and pulled her to her feet. A balding, middle-aged man in a gray robe, about her height but paunchy, stepped into her line of vision.

“I’ve been wanting to do this all night.” With a leer, he pulled back his fist and punched Meaghan in the face.

She squealed in pain, feeling the blood pour from her nose and lip.

The wizard pulled back his fist for another blow, then a voice said, “Enough. Cooper wants her awake. He wants her to watch.”

The first wizard scowled at her. “This won’t knock her out.”

He dropped his fist and punched her in the lower abdomen.

Meaghan crumpled to the ground. Searing pain was followed by a wave of nausea as she gasped for air. In her mind, she was screaming obscenities at him, but the only sound she could make was a high-pitched whimper.

The wizard rolled her onto her back and straddled her, pinning her arms beneath her body. He reached under her baggy T-shirt and fumbled for the zipper to her jeans. “The bitch needs to learn her place.”

Panicked, Meaghan tried to pull her arms free so she could push him away, but they remained crushed beneath her. She tried to kick him, and he kneed her in the groin. Gasping for breath from pain and from his weight on top of her, her nose clogged with blood, she felt her head grow light. Yellow lights sparked and flared in her darkening field of vision.

The second wizard again intervened, knocking his companion off her. “Not yet. We’re taking her to Cooper. He gets her first. After we light up the other two.”

The first wizard grunted in disgust and dragged Meaghan to her feet. He pulled a plastic zip tie out of his robe and cinched her hands behind her back. He shoved her hard in the middle of the back. “Move.”

Meaghan stumbled, but managed to stay on her feet as he prodded her toward the square. She waited for the powerful rush of anger that normally drowned out her fear, but it wouldn’t come.

She had always convinced herself that she could talk or fight her way out of any situation. But she’d been easily bested by a paunchy middle-aged man. If the second wizard hadn’t intervened, hadn’t wanted to save her for something even worse, the bastard would have raped her right there on the sidewalk. In front of friends and enemies alike.

Meaghan knew she had to keep fighting, but she felt small and terrified and more powerless than she’d ever felt before.

Until she saw Jamie and Natalie. Jamie still wore the scrub pants, but his shirt was gone. Natalie had been stripped down to her underwear. She clung to Jamie, weeping and shaking with fear, while the crowd dragged and shoved them toward the unlit bonfire in front of city hall.

Distracted from her own fear, Meaghan felt the rage finally rise up. She turned to the wizard pushing her. “I’m gonna watch you die, asshole. I promise you.”

The man merely laughed and shoved her harder. “You’re scaring me to death. I’m gonna love watching Cooper strip the skin from your bones. After you watch us burn your witch friends.”

The anger blew through her like a biting wind, clearing the panic and pain away. Even if the prophecy was right and she was doomed to die today at the Order’s hands, she was taking as many of them with her as possible.

Dawn was upon them. The sun wouldn’t rise over the horizon for an hour or so, but the gray light had turned pink. Meaghan looked around the square, searching desperately for allies.

Still no sign of Annie. Or Sid. Maybe they hadn’t been grabbed. Maybe they got into city hall and—

Meaghan felt the momentary flare of hope sputter out. Even if Annie and Sid could get into city hall, then what? What could they do, alone, even with any information Annie might be able to glean from the ghosts?

The sea of people around her seemed unrecognizable. She knew many of them, but their faces were twisted and contorted with malice. Like something else was in control.

She’d seen this before. In Fahraya.

Could the thing that had infected Jamie’s uncle infect an entire crowd of people? It thrived on fear and pain and hate. She and John had suspected it wanted a way into the human world, but they had assumed that it could only occupy one host at a time, like it had occupied V’hren.

A man in the crowd called to her as the wizards dragged her past. “I’m stronger now. You won’t stop me this time.”

A woman on her other side shouted, “Did you really think I was done with you?”

Sally, Nate’s wife, stepped in front of her. Good-natured Sally, with her tattoos and freckles and optimism, sneered at her in a way that Meaghan knew Sally was not capable of, and said, “You’ll get to watch them all die before I gut you.”

With a roar, Meaghan kicked her in the knee and Sally went down with a shriek. Something in her eyes changed and, for a moment, the real Sally looked back at Meaghan in shock.

One of the wizards grabbed the back of Meaghan’s neck and shoved her forward. She had no time to see what happened to Sally.

What Meaghan didn’t see in the crowd were any witches. They’d been leading the mob earlier, but now there was no sign of them. Only when she was shoved closer to the bonfire, did Meaghan finally see them. About twenty-five women, some she considered close friends, were huddled together near the bonfire, surrounded by a circle of wizards. The most powerful were restrained. She saw Susan, Gretchen, and Lynette chained together, duct tape over their mouths and fury in their eyes.

But the rest merely stood, staring blankly into space. Some were crying, others smiling, but all appeared to be lost within themselves. A younger one shook her head hard, as if clearing it, and threw herself toward the wizards. Before she reached them, a flash of vivid green light enveloped her. She screamed, convulsed, and dropped to the ground.

With a start, Meaghan realized it was the girl who had been at her house the other day. The trainee witch, Cassandra—real name Dana—the 9-1-1 dispatcher who had done such a good job making sure the right people responded to the explosion at Jamie’s house.

The balding wizard, the one who had tried to rape her, saw her staring at Dana’s crumpled body and shoved her so hard she almost fell again. “Don’t worry about her. Worry about yourself. You’re gonna die screaming, bitch.”

Meaghan turned and gave him the fiercest glare she had. “Don’t gloat yet, asshole. I’m taking you with me. Or at least some of your favorite body parts.” She sneered at him. “As little as they may be.”

The wizard raised his hand and muttered, a look of fury on his face.

Nothing happened.

He took a step backward, eyes wide with fear, before regaining his composure.

“Still impervious,” Meaghan said with a sweet smile. “How’s it feel to be impotent, shithead?”

He punched her in the gut again so hard that she doubled over in pain, but it was worth it for the look on his face.

They still get surprised when magic doesn’t work on me.
Could she use that somehow?

“Your witch friends are still gonna burn. Along with the Fahrayan.” He twined a hand in her hair and yanked her upright. “I can’t wait to get my chance with you. I’m gonna make it hurt. Like it hurt that spell-casting slut we caught in the woods. Only this time her big blond boyfriend will get to watch. We got something special planned for him.”

“Yeah, I know,” Meaghan snarled. “We’re all gonna die. And so are you when those things you’re trying to free finally get here.”

His eyes widened.

Gotcha. I’m not supposed to know about that am I?
She smiled at him again. “You’re expendable, shithead. You’re gonna be monster chow. If this was Star Trek, you’d be wearing a red shirt.”

The other wizard stepped toward them. “Quit flirting with your new girlfriend. Cooper’s waiting. He wants to move this along and he’s losing patience. You want to piss him off? I don’t.”

Baldy’s eyes grew wider and he shook his head.

The other wizards were afraid of Cooper, Meaghan realized. Could she somehow work that to her advantage, too?

She stared at the witches. Why didn’t they do something? They stood there, like cattle, patiently waiting to be slaughtered.

Like bewitched cattle. This mob had consisted of the people, women mostly, who’d been attracted to Jhoro. Judging by the dreamy looks on many of the witches’ faces, they were off in romantic head movies where Jhoro was the star.

Meaghan took as deep a breath as she could with her bruised stomach muscles, and shouted, “They’re going to kill Jhoro! They took him so they can kill him!”

The wizards kept prodding her along.

She scanned the huddled witches. If she could wake them up, pull them out of their love-spell-induced dreams, they might have a chance. A few women shook their heads as if mildly distracted, but the only reaction came from the trio of chained witches. They stared at Meaghan and began frantically gesturing with their heads toward something.

Jamie. They were directing her to Jamie.

He and Natalie had been chained back to back to the light pole jutting from the middle of the bonfire. Natalie was sobbing, a wad of cloth shoved into her mouth. She struggled against the chains but couldn’t move.

Jamie hung limp, the chains the only thing keeping him from collapsing to the ground. His head hung down as if he’d passed out.

Then with a shriek, he threw back his head, and began to struggle. The sigils on his chest glowed red, as if on fire. Natalie screamed in pain as the sigils on his back burnt into her.

With an ominous creaking, the light post swayed, but didn’t fall. Smaller chunks of wood from the pile rose into the air and flew at the wizards surrounding them, but without enough force to harm them.

The lorazepam was wearing off.

Jamie wailed with rage, then fear, shrieking, “No! No!”

A wizard walked up and backhanded him hard across the face. Jamie slumped against the light pole, weeping.

Meaghan’s heart sank. Jamie had been her last hope. She couldn’t see any way out of this. There was nobody left, nobody powerful enough to stand up to the wizards.

Then she heard a car engine, revving high and growing closer. Somebody was coming.