Devil's Frost, Spellspinners Series #3 (The Spellspinners of Melas County) (6 page)

Logan clasped my hand tightly. Our backs to the sea, we faced Jacob.

“What do you want?” I demanded.

“To find you. And offer a bargain of sorts.” He held out a bony, wrinkled hand. What could he possibly offer that we’d consider?

“No.”

“No? You don’t even know my request.”

“I don’t make deals with the devil.”

“Oh, really?” He looked amused. “Aren’t you your mother’s daughter? Well, you may change your mind in a few moments.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Leave them alone, Jacob.” Iris burst into the clearing, turning to me briefly. “I’m sorry. He must’ve blocked me. I couldn’t hear him coming.”

Her swordfinger glowing, she pointed it at Jacob.

“Well, well, what do we have here? All my favorite people gathered together. A reunion of sorts, it seems.”

Logan and I exchanged a glance. Favorite people? A reunion?

“Logan and Lily are leaving town with the amulet, and you’re going to let them go,” Iris said in a commanding voice.

Leaning his head back, Jacob cackled into the sky. “Ah, Iris, after all these years, why do you think I’d allow that to happen?”

“You know why, Jacob,” Iris said, glowering at him.

Now I was thoroughly confused. They were speaking so familiarly, with an inexplicable intimacy. Outside of formal occasions like the Stones, how could they know each other? Jacob and Iris locked eyes, a standoff.

“Here’s what I suggest. You, Logan, and Lily come back with me, and we’ll discuss what transpired tonight and how we should proceed. If you come peacefully, you might not be reprimanded as harshly for taking off and leaving Chance’s body. If you come peacefully, I may let you share the good news of the marks revealing themselves.”

“Good news?” Iris retorted. “The last thing Congression wants is peace. They love keeping us separated, because divided we aren’t as powerful. We’re easy to control. You know the significance of these marks. Lily and Logan will fulfill the prophecy and unite the Spellspinners, so we can be strong again, but in order to do that, we have to let them leave Melas. We have to let them go.”

Jacob’s face contorted in a way that made me think he was listening to her, if only for a moment. Then he stood taller and spat in my direction. “You can either give me the amulet for safekeeping, or you can give it up to Congression yourselves. Either way, it’s an ancient Spellspinner charm, and we need to preserve its power.”

“We? You mean Congression?” Iris pressed. She took a step toward him. “If we let the young ones go, let them fulfill their destiny, things could be different—be better—for all of us.”

“It’s too late for that, Iris.”

Again they locked eyes. What were they referring to? Was Mom actually trying to sway Jacob to our side? Get him to stand up before the Congression and fight for us after all he’d done? He was a creature, not a man. Evil coursed through his blood. He’d never help us.

Logan spoke up. “The amulet joined because of
us,
Jacob. It belongs to Lily and me. It doesn’t belong to you.”

“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong, son. Everything that belongs to you belongs to me.” Jacob paused, inhaling deeply for emphasis. “Like you belong to me.”

Logan seethed. His hands clenched. “I don’t belong to you! I know about my real parents.”

Jacob’s face changed from smug and determined to fearful and then back to smug.

“How?” He glared over at Iris, whose expression was unreadable.

“It came to me in a dream. I know they loved me, wanted me. That I wasn’t abandoned on your steps as a toddler. You lied to me. All my life.”

Jacob inhaled a long breath and released it slowly. Ash fell onto the ground from his elongated nostrils. “So what? They were in the way. It had to be done.”

“What had to be done?” Logan seethed. I could tell it was taking every ounce of restraint for him to not attack Jacob.

Jacob’s eyes shadowed with guilt, though he shrugged nonchalantly, like murder and kidnapping were just part of his daily routine. “I had to make way for us, Logan. For you to fulfill your destiny as Chosen you had to be raised by me, here at the Academy. I couldn’t have you up there among those hill people.”

Logan’s hand burned with anger as it dropped mine, his swordfinger rising toward Jacob. “My parents died in a fire. You…murdered them?”

Jacob shook his head like that thought was ridiculous. “Not me, per se. I don’t dabble in that sort of devil’s work. Who needs the mess?” Noticing Logan wasn’t thrilled with his confession, Jacob grasped at a broken straw. “Everything I’ve done isn’t bad. One thing I’ve done is lovely, indeed.”

Inexplicably, he glanced from Logan to me. Heeding Iris’s advice, I ducked my eyes, avoiding his prying gaze, but I held on to Logan’s arm tight. If he fought him now, he’d lose. Lose himself. And we had to get out of town.

“Son, if you could let me explain.” Jacob took a step toward Logan, but I held Logan back. I was losing the fight until Iris stepped between them.

“Stop it, Jacob,” Mom commanded. “I’m warning you.”

Jacob looked down at my mom with an expression on his face I hadn’t seen before. “You’re going to hurt me, Iris? Now? After all this time?”

Her face was red, her tone threatening. “I’m a woman of peace, Jacob, but I’d love to hurt you.”

“Full of contradictions, aren’t they?” Jacob said, throwing his arms up in mock exasperation and looking toward Logan for, what? Bromance backup that witches suck and warlocks rule after he just confessed to murdering two people in cold blood? This guy was more psychotic than I’d thought, but then again, everything was a game for him. Everything was a manipulative chess move.

“Go ahead, Iris. Do your worst.” Jacob held out his arms, a Christ-figure.

My mom aimed high, her finger blazing with magic. Holding his arms up, still, Jacob mocked her.

When the first bolt of magic hit, he hunched over with a sharp cry and fell to his knees. She hit him again, this time in the shoulder. Again he cried out as the sizzling burn smoked through his robe and spread a scorched wound across his shoulder. Mom’s eyes were red and vicious as Jacob cried out like an injured animal. It was terrifying seeing her completely wrecked with vengeance, but also, in light of Jacob’s confession about Logan’s parents, pretty awesome.

Logan’s arm was taut with wanting to join her, but still I held him back.

Iris fired another bolt, this one burning a star on Jacob’s saggy neck. His hand covered the wound, black smoke leaking between his bony fingers.

“My, my, you are in a bad mood today, Iris. Then again, I always liked your feisty side.”

Jacob flicked out his tongue like a snake. Red powder floated from the sliver on the tongue’s tip, creeping into the air.

Shit. It dawned on me what was happening. “Mom, stop!” I ran toward her, and this time it was Logan keeping
me
from entering the fray.

Another bolt flew out of Mom’s finger.

“Stop! It’s a trick!” I yelled.

Jacob fell to his knees, moaning dramatically.

She sent more bolts form her finger. She wouldn’t stop defending me, defending us, until her magic was drained.

“Her face, Lil,” Logan said.

My mom’s face dimpled into that of a seventy-, then eighty-year-old woman. Her thin, normally good posture stooped. Shoulders rounded, forearms plumped and swollen with age. “Stop!” I screamed. “He’s doing this on purpose. He’s trying to kill you!”

“He ruins everything,” Iris said, her voice cracking. “He ruins everything he touches! I won’t let him ruin you, Lily. I won’t. I’ll make him pay for what he did to Logan’s parents.”

Another bolt.

Logan loosened his grip, and I rushed forward, holding my amulet between Mom’s finger and me. The bolt reflected off the charm and landed in the forest. Mom released another one in a rage she couldn’t stop.

“Restrain her, Logan.”

He grabbed one of Iris’s arms, and I took the other. Bolts shot through the sky, landing all around us and bursting into flame and smoke.

Mom collapsed into frustrated, flailing tears.

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” I said over and over again.

Jacob tilted his head up, a grin on his face. “Safe to come up yet?”

“You’re despicable,” I spat at him, clinging to my mom. “You could’ve killed her.”

Laughing, he rose easily to his feet, his tongue flicking in and out. “You saw how much magic she spent in the Stones. These bolts stung no worse than a hornet’s bite. Don’t get me wrong. Iris can cause plenty of pain when she wants to, but today wasn’t her day for that particular pleasure.”

“I hate you,” I said, rage burning in my soul.

He nodded. “I expect that. But it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t come with me.

Logan. Lily. It’s time to—”

Logan’s bolt sent Jacob sprawling backward. This time his cry wasn’t an act. His stomach smoked, his robe smoldering.

Another bolt.

Logan’s eyes were two balls of fire. His fingertips red lightning.

Another. This time in the shoulder Iris had left unscathed.

Jacob ducked onto his knees, attempting to crawl behind a rock for safety.

Logan was powerful, incredibly powerful, and his magic hurt. This time the bolt hit Jacob’s ankle, stopping him in his tracks.

Writhing in pain, Jacob looked to me.
Stop him, Lily.
His voice was in my head.
He’ll kill me, and you need me alive.

You deserve to die.

Logan had earned this act of vengeance.

I placed my hands on my mother and mumbled a healing spell, drawing on good and pure energies to inject youth back into her.

“No,” she said, pushing me away with her weak hands. “Stop Logan.”

“Why should I? Jacob won’t let us go. He’ll take our amulet. He’s already hurt you. I don’t care if he dies.”

“What I was…saying in the Stones…about me not being able to protect you anymore from his eyes—”

Eyes wide with panic, her breath sputtered.

“What, Mom? What?”

“You’ll know soon enough. Just…stop Lo—”

Turning toward the fight, I saw Jacob blocking Logan’s magic attack. A bolt met Jacob’s shield and bounced backward, and before my mother could finish her sentence, the stray spell hit her in the stomach, hard. Her eyes rolled back in her head. Her whole body shook.

“Mom?” I shrieked. “Mom?”

She fell to the ground. Logan sprang to my side. “Help me,” I begged him.

Together we pressed the amulet into her chest. We chanted and rocked and prayed to the Seven Sisters to save my beloved mother. But it wasn’t enough. The amulet’s vibrant colors faded from red to black, and she was still and she was gone.

“Nooooo!” I screamed over her body. “Nooooo.”

I pounded on her heart until Logan pulled my hands away.

“Not my mom. Not Iris. She was…trying to protect us. No.”

Logan ran and grabbed Jacob by the arm, dragging him over to Iris and tossing him on the ground next to her. “Save her.”

“I’m not sure I c-can,” he sputtered, injured from Logan’s blows.

“Try.” Logan had him by the nape of the neck. “Try now or you’ll join her.”

“The magic will be dark,” he protested. “She may not be the same—”

“Shut up and do it,” I demanded.

“Go f-find a tree and hold on to it. Don’t look.”

I clung to her limp hand. “I’m not leaving her.”

“Lily, it’s our only chance,” Logan said softly. “Our magic isn’t working.” Choking back a sob, I allowed Logan to lead me away from my mother toward a wide oak tree. I wrapped my arms and legs around it, and then Logan sat behind me and wrapped his arms around us both. When Jacob began chanting, the sky above us parted, and black clouds formed into the shape of a funnel. I closed my eyes tight, the wind whistling in my ears. Logan leaned in to me, his arms wrapped tight. The wind blew so hard; we would’ve been thrown off the cliff if we weren’t hanging on so tightly.

The wind stopped suddenly and I opened my eyes, painfully aware of the shift of energy—the chilled silence after a storm.

“Someone’s coming,” Logan said. “Stay with your mom. I’ll find out who it is.”

Logan kissed the top of my head before running off into the forest. In turn, I ran over to my mom, who was lying on her side, facing away from me. I could see her hair, which was inexplicably long and luminous, but not her face. “Is she…alive?”

Jacob nodded, a strange look crossing his face—a mix of relief and madness. That’s when I heard her raspy breath wheezing my name. “Lily.”

“I’m here. I’m here.”

I wrapped my arms around her, not even bothering to swipe the tears of relief off my hot cheeks. I helped her sit up and reeled back, stunned.

“What?”

“Your face!”

Bright blue eyes tentative, she touched her cheeks.

“Mom…you’re…”

She kicked her legs out in front of her: tanned, long, shapely, and
young.

Not only was she alive…she looked about nineteen years old.

I looked at Jacob, who was now smiling like a cat who ate a canary.

Iris looked at her youthful hands, kicked her legs with an angry frown. “Jacob. What magic did you toy with?”

“Hello, my beautiful Iris,” he said softly with a warm twinkle in his eye. “Welcome back.” He knelt beside her and reached out and touched her hand.

Holy shit.

He looked at her the way Logan looked at me. With
love
in his eyes.

“And now I will find a way to join you…” he said in this bizarrely husky voice that was overflowing with emotion. Romantic words out of
Tales from the Crypt
and aimed at my mother? Nothing less than horrifying
.
He lifted her hand, flipped it gently over, and kissed her on the soft middle of her palm.

Until this moment, I didn’t think he gave a damn about anyone, but in this moment he revealed his one weakness: my
mother
was Jacob’s kryptonite.

Then a still, thick tension overcame the air we breathed. In my mind’s eye, I saw a group of hooded Congression members marching through the forest, toward the very spot where we were gathered on the edge of the cliffs. “They’re here,” I said.

“Hide your mother,” Jacob said, seeing them too. “They can’t know what I did to save her. Congression must not be privy to our secrets, or she’ll be in grave danger.”