Scary Cool (The Spellspinners) (14 page)

“When you have a baby with someone, you are linked to them forever.”

“Well, yeah. In a way. But—“

“In a
way
?” I was trying not to get upset, but I
couldn’t help it
. “In a big way! How can you say there’s nothing personal about that?”

Now he looked at me, frowning. “Zara, you’re thinking like a stick. Amber’s no threat to you.”

“She tried to kill me! And don’t tell me she’s not powerful enough. I know she’s not as powerful as I am, but she could do it. All she needs is better luck and
some advance
planning.”

“And an order from the Council. Trust me, Zara, she just lost her temper. She won’t really try to kill you unless the Council tells her she can. And she doesn’t have that yet.”

“Yet?”

“I honestly don’t see that happening.” He was trying to reassure me. “
If
the Council decides to move
against you
, they
w
on’t
send someone like Amber to carry out the directive. Certainly not alone. They know you’re powerful. They’ll probably send a group.”

“And what are you and Rune and Amber, if not a group?” I was definitely feeling shaky now.
“
And where is Amber
? I don’t think she went to Denny’s for a piece of pie! She’s going to the Council, Lance. She’s going to tell them what happened here
tonight
.
They’re going to send a freaking
army
.”

I could feel my words hitting home. He hadn’t thought about that, but now that I’d said it, he acknowledged it was likely. Likely that Amber would run to the Council. And likely that they’d listen to her.

I was on a roll now. “Don’t forget what she said about you. You can’t side with me against them, Lance. They’ll take you out.”

“I have to side with you.” His angry eyes bored into mine. “We have
wholesoul
.”

“Do they know that?”

“No.”

“Why not?”
Why is it such a
freakin
’ secret?

“Because it doubles our power. Don’t you know that? Can’t you feel it?” His frustration was palpable, a moving, breathing thing to me. And I knew it wouldn’t be that to anyone else on earth. “Our combined power is a threat to all of them. If they find out we’ve got
wholesoul
before they’
ve accepted you, Zara, that fact alone will make up their minds. They’ll kill us both rather than let us rule over them.
”

I felt my eyes widen in amazement. “
But
I don’t want to rule over anybody.”

“Me neither. But we could. And that will be all they need to know.”
He sighed and shook his head. “I told you it was rare, right?
Wholesoul
?”

I
nodded, speechless.

“
And I think I also told you that we have no written history.”
He frowned in concentration.
“Rune knows more than the rest of us. There’s a lot of oral tradition, you know. Legends and lore. And some of it is about
wholesoul
.” Humor gleamed briefly in his kryptonite eyes. “Which some of us think might be a fairytale. Since nobody in our times has ever had it.”
Until now.

I had a flash of realization. “You were among them. You didn’t believe in
wholesoul
.”

“
Right.
But I
recognized it
when I felt it
. Any
spellspinner
would.
We all know the stories.
And
in the stories,
usually the two people with
wholesoul
join forces and, you know, overpower the others. Sometimes
spilling a lot of
spellspinner
blood in the process
.
There were a couple of ter
rible wars in our past—hundreds
of years ago, but still. People
remember
. They tell
the legends
around the campfires at
Spellhaven
.”
He gave me a slight, ironic smile. “
So our having
wholesoul
is going to make matters worse for you.”
Until it makes it better.

An emotion
flared
in his eyes that I hadn’t
seen in him before. It
took me a moment to put a name to it, but then I realized it was tenderness. Lance felt protective of me. I
ducked my head to hide the foolish little smile that was playing around my mouth. I hated to appear weak in front of him.

“Is it always a male/female thing?
Wholesoul
?”

He shook his head. “
Once it was a pair of b
rothers.
That was
a long, long time ago
. There were a lot more
spellspinners
then, but they weren’t as powerful. Our power dilutes when there are too many of us.”

“Yeah,” I muttered. “Amber told me.”

“But
wholesoul
makes you strong. So these guys were trouble. They conquered and they ruled, and they weren’t nice about it. Finally the rest of the
spellspinners
rose up against them. By the time they were deposed—well, murdered—
there were only forty-nine
spellspinners
left. That’s when the Council was formed and the rules were set up.
And there have been forty-nine ever since.”

I cut my eyes sideways at him. “You realize,” I said drily, “that last summer you told me there had
always
been forty-nine
spellspinners
.”

He shrugged. “
Yeah
,
I hadn’t paid that much attention to the stories. Rune fixed that, on our way here. In the car
.”

Wind
suddenly
roared and rustled
all
around us. Fallen leaves
danced
across the path. I s
hivered.
“So
wholesoul
won’t protect us,” I said softly. “
We’re strong, but not invincible
.”

“Right.
If the others band togeth
er, they can outgun us. So to speak.”

I pulled my jacket tighter around me. We sat in silence for a minute or two, watching the restless night grow wilder. Autumn was coming.
The world was about to change.
It was growing colder.

And Lance couldn’
t put his arm around me to keep me warm.

On Saturday
I
colored Meg’s hair.
Nonny
let us use the kitchen—on the condition that we (1) be careful (duh), and (2) read the instructions all the way through, twice, before beginning. We skipped the ones in Spanish, but apart from that we were true to our word.

We had some bad moments when we saw that the goo covering Meg’s head was turning greenish-black. But when she stepped out of my shower, having washed it all out, her mousy brown curls had
miraculously
turned
to
the glowing auburn depicted on the package. I assured her she was a vision of loveliness.

She looked doubtful. “Loveliness?”

“Cuteness,” I amended. “You’re a vision of extreme cuteness.”

It honestly su
rprised me what a difference mere color
made. I
always
thought she looked fine befor
e—and she did, of course. So I
thought we were just doing this to boost her confidence. But the color suited her, and I mean everything about her: Her skin tone, her eyes, her personality.
Meg was born to be a redhead.

A lengthy discussion of colors ensued, wherein most of my clothes were pulled out, tried on Meg, and strewn around the room. Meg had brought a bag of Bridget’s
cast-off
makeup
and clothes
, and we experimented with redhead-suitable lipsticks and stuf
f too. This was a heady experience
for a girl who had never thought of herself as pretty.
Meg’s exuberance was infectious. Sunshine streamed into my bedroom, Meg danced around, and I
laughed
more than I
had in ages.

After much argument an
d hilarity,
we put her in a s
e
a
green tank
top
(mine) and a pair of white shorts (Bridget’s) and sashayed over to the nursery to show
the new Meg to
Nonny
and
Tres
.
Nonny
pretended not to recognize her, much to Meg’s delight.
Tres’s
appreciative grin was icing on the cake. This, Meg declared as she hopped on her bike for the ride home, was the best
Satur
day ever.

But as I watched
her
sailing
back
toward
town
on her bike
, red curls gleaming in the afternoon sun, a sudden foreboding clutched at my vitals and wiped the grin right off m
y
face. It was like being punched
by an invisible hand
. I think I actually staggered.
Frightened, I turned and ran back up the gravel driveway to the safety of home like a toddler runs to its mother.

What is it? What is it?
I collapsed on the porch swing and sent my
spellspinner
feelers out, seeking Lance.
I didn’t find him, but I found…something. My mind encountered a wall of
menace
pushing toward me. I
’d never felt anything like it.

My instinct was to turn away,
but
I
forced myself to
stop and
examine it instead. My breath was coming in short gasps and my teeth were clenched, but I didn’t notice that until later; I concentrated with every fiber of my being on
this, this
bulldozer
inching down Chapman Road, seeking to level
Nonny’s
house.

Would it hurt Meg?
The terrifying
image
of my best friend pedaling innocently toward
it, whatever it was,
prop
elled me to my feet, gasping
in fear. She would be traveling rig
ht through it,
with no protection whatsoever. Because this thing had a
locati
on—
it wa
sn’t just some amorphous threat
. There was something coming for me. And it was coming down Chapman Road.

Almost immediately,
I heard the roar of a motorcycle in the distance.
My heart leapt with relief.
At the time,
I didn’t stop to think how odd it was that Lance’s approach was so welcome to me. It just was. I may not trust him completely, but compared to the
monster
rolling
my way, Lance was a knight in shining armor.

I dashed back down the driveway
, gravel spraying from my flying espadrilles,
and clung to the mailbox,
my eyes
anxiously searching the road. Within seconds, Lance
flew
around the curve and into view, driving much too fast for safety.
He
killed
his
engine
at the foot of our drive and reached me in one fluid move, half-leap, half-run. His eyes were blazing with concentration—and power.

My mind was still chattering:
What is it? What is it?
But he picked up my fear for Meg, too, and addressed that first.

“It won’t hurt Megan. She won’t feel it. Won’t even know it’s there. It’s
not aimed at her.
”

I still couldn’t speak, but I nodded, grateful for that much at least.

“They’re coming, Zara.”

I didn’t bother to ask who. “How many?”

“Five
new ones
, I think. Rune and Amber make seven. But I don’t think Rune’s heart is in it. He’s trying to argue with the others.”

“Is that what I’m feeling? Just the…the
posse
heading my way?”

Lance shook his head.
I saw muscles tightening in his jaw and picked up his anger and disgust at what was happening. “They don’t know how powerful
you might turn out to be, so they’
re wimping out
. They’re not going for you directly. They’re going for your home.
They think that’ll force your hand.
”