The Lie Spinners (The Deception Dance) (54 page)

“
This
is true,” Andras says.

“
You
would know this, if you read the Bible Stephen gave you,” May
says, scornfully.

“
How
do you—?”

“
Glass
and mirrors are the province of fire magic, my magic; I can travel
through glass, I can even just travel sound through glass; I listened
to everything you whispered in the night, to your sister, to Kasem
and to Stephen. But I did not listen when you were there Lord,”
May says with a head bow to Andras.

Andras
nods.

“
I
know who you are,” Madeline whimpers, “You’re
supposed to be dead! Every witch in the fire-witch clan was supposed
to all be dead! Extinct!”

“
And
it was the water and earth witches, your family, I can thank for
that,” May says, her voice remains calm but Madeline winces.
“But they did not get us all; I have waited decades for
revenge, little earth-witch. It was worth every second.
Räum
predicted
your son will have all six abilities, six abilities and nearly
limitless access to Hell’s power.”

From
the corner of my eye I see movement; Nicholas, Cassidy and Jones,
testing the barrier between us, they each reach their hands forward
then pull back when the air ignites.

“
Fight,
Madeline!” I shout.

But
she doesn’t fight; she doesn’t run. Instead she turns to
Andras, and whimpers, “
Stephen
...”

May
forces up Madeline’s head and pours the entire vial of blood
into Madeline’s mouth. Madeline gags but when May forces her
mouth shut, she swallows.

Gasping,
Madeline collapses to the floor.

May
rushes to Andras, face excited like a child on Christmas morning.
“Now give him to me. Our deal will not be complete, my lord,
until I hold the baby—”

“
You
took the man I love from me.” Madeline says. She looks up,
fixing May with now black pupils. “You’ll never take my
baby. Drown in
Bougainvillea!”

Between
us and Madeline, the floor splits with a resounding crack; like a
burst damn, rope-thick thorny stalks heavy with blackened flowers and
leaves burst through the floor flowing up like a giant wave of
rustling leaves and entwining dead, thorny stalks. The wave surges
into the air and right as it’s about to crash over me, I’m
yanked off my feet.

Giant
black wings beat the air, while Andras’ arms wrap around my
waist. He flies us up fast but then drops quickly when he almost hits
the web canopy.

The
wave of dead flowers crests and crashes over May, surging through the
hall like a dark murky fast-flowing river.

A
column of flame erupts in the river of black flowers, dividing the
surging flow around a shield made entirely of fire. Behind the
shield, May’s body flickers with flames. It takes only moments
for the river of dead plant to ignite.

With
a heavy flapping sound, we soar over the quickly spreading fire and
out, and then over the dais where Linnie, Jones, Nicholas and the
lion Cassidy still stand behind that invisible fire barrier. Madeline
is gone.

I
look back, seeing that the plants only flowed away from the dais. But
the crack Madeline made continues to flow, feeding the fire that’s
now licking up the spider webs.

Andras
doesn’t pause at the invisible fire-barrier, just flies us
directly through it and flaps us toward the stairs at the side of the
dais. When we fly out of the open trap door, Andras pivots his body
to take the impact as he hits the next wall so hard we burst through
it, tumbling into a mess of plaster and t-shirts.

Someone
screams.

Andras
lands beneath me as his giant wings knock over stands of t-shirts; he
holds me against him, not letting me go as t-shirts rain down in all
directions. Seconds later more shrieks and growls erupt in the little
t-shirt shop as Nicholas, Jones, Linnie and the lioness burst out of
the trap door and practically trample us.

“
Close
the trap door!” Andras orders.

They
don’t hesitate; it takes Nicholas, Jones, and Linnie to do it,
but they close the door. Andras’ wings snap back into him with
an audible ‘thwap’.

When
the group turns to us, soot stained and breathing hard, Andras tells
them, “You exit first.”

They
do, warily, giving us as much room as the small shop allows. First
Linnie goes then Jones then Nicholas. When Cassidy in lioness form
passes us, Andras grabs her back leg and wrenches her back. She cries
out in pain, twisting awkwardly to the side. In a second, Andras has
dumped me onto a pile of T-shirts and unsheathed his back hell-blade
from midair. He points the blade at Cassidy’s bared throat.

Cassidy
roars at him, but doesn’t move from her awkward twisted
position.

Andras
turns and says to me, “You promised me a month. I want all of
it. Tell me that you owe me twenty-four days.”

“
I
owe you twenty-four days,” I say.

He
drops Cassidy’s leg and sheathes his blade. Cassidy pounces and
attacks Andras but he twists and punches her so hard she flies into
the other wall, collapsing several shelves.

Then
Andras just walks out of the t-shirt shop.

Cassidy
immediately gets back onto her four paws, shakes herself, and then
sprints after Andras.

It
takes me a couple seconds to untangle myself from the t-shirts. When
I run into the alley, Cassidy and Nicholas are a couple yards away
fighting each other. Linnie stands nearby, screaming at them both to
stop, then calling them names.

Beyond
the fight, Andras walks away from us.

“
Why
are they fighting?” I shout.

Cassidy
keeps trying to pounce on Nicholas, obviously attempting to restrain
him, while Nicholas viciously attacks her.

“
Nicholas is
under Andras’ thrall,” Jones shouts from where he sits on
the road holding a bloody nose, “sowing discord.”

"Where's
Andras going?"

"If
a demon makes a deal, he’s forced to fulfill his side of it;
I’m pretty sure he’s being forced to fulfill his deal
with that other witch,” Jones says; I think this might be the
first time he’s ever volunteered information to me. "He's
going after Madeline.”

"No,"
I whisper. I run toward the fight, holding my arms in front of my
head when I near Nicholas’ crazed fighting. But he lets me
pass.

When
I’ve passed the fight I shout, “You can’t take him!
You can’t have Stephen!”

Andras
turns, a half smile turning up the unscarred side of his face;
Stephen’s face, Stephen’s lips, but it’s Andras’
smile.

He
pauses, waiting for me to catch up.

When
I’m standing right in front of him, I yell, “You can’t
take him!”

I
reach for him, but he’s faster; he grabs both my arms
restraining them to my sides. He leans down and kisses me.

Because
the arms that hold me are the same arms that held me through those
horrible nights, because the lips that are on mine are the lips that
convinced me that I didn't need to be alone in the dark anymore, I
can almost believe that this is the boy that promised me he would
save me, and then did in every way. But this is not that boy.

He
might be using Stephen’s arms and mouth but the kiss is all
Andras: fierce and calculating and possessive.

I
recoil, shoving him so violently away from me that when he lets go of
my arms, I fall.

I
shout, again, from where I fell on the road, “You can’t
have his body!”

A
loud flapping threatens to drown out my words.

“
Then
come and get it,” Andras says, smiling. He launches into the
air, his giant black wings beating down and carrying Andras, and
Stephen, hopelessly out of my reach.

About
a Week Later

“
Raven,
Earth to Raven?” Linnie says, in a way too peppy voice.

“
Huh?”
I say, blinking as Linnie waves a hand in my face. “Stop that,”
I whisper, looking her in the eyes.

She
drops her hand and her forced-looking-smile.

Jones
clears his throat; he sits in the plane seat next to Linnie across
the table from me. We’re in another private jet heading back to
good old Arcata; if you can call a jet carrying over a hundred
Leijonskjöld soldiers private (they talk to me now; I’m
not sure how I feel about it). The plane doesn’t even seem
nice, it just seems busy.

We
had to abandon Madeline’s plane, without Madeline’s
ability and power it’s just an oddly placed greenhouse.

Jones
taps his pen on his paper obviously impatient to continue with day
three of his debriefing. “When did you and Stephen discuss
Räum’s
involvement in the plot to make you fall in love with Stephen,”
he says, pitilessly.

Ah,
that’s why my mind took me back to the cave. It’s been
doing that a lot in the last seven days; I guess my mind likes me to
suffer.

“
In
the bungalow,” I say, “When we were discussing what was
going to happen on the full moon.”

Jones
can have everything else, but not the cave.

He
looks down at his meticulous notes, obviously scanning for more
questions.

We’ve
already gone over every single moment of my Thailand trip at length,
now he tells me he’s just clarifying dates and details. He’ll
have a dictionary sized book by the time we’re through
discussing the past two and a half months. But the extensive
debriefing did help in a couple ways; for one, I realized there was a
lot more I had to ‘thank’ May for.

Jones
and Cassidy never dealt with the affliction of: ‘not being able
to tell anyone what Madeline did.’ Actually, when I really
thought back I realized that I had been able to tell Nicholas in
Bangkok, the spell only really went into effect when Linnie and I
first tried to tell Stephen, while May stood there, watching. The
fact that any paper I wrote it on turned to ash was pretty indicative
of May and further proof. The only time Madeline cast any spells on
any of us was in the plane. It had been so easy to blame Madeline, I
had wanted to blame her; but if I had just taken the time to consult
logic…

Also,
I remembered the fact that the messenger boy (who was May) had been
there when Kasem had warned me about misplacing my trust; I had
assumed that Kasem was only speaking about Stephen, I doubt it now.
Kasem was an incredibly smart man, smart enough to be the only one to
see through her plots? I guess, I’ll never know.

I
had also spotted May in the restaurant in the messenger boy disguise
running away from Kasem while he collapsed, likely poisoned. Likely
poisoned, by May.

I
had trusted May because she had told me that Stephen had confided in
her ‘who he truly was’; but Stephen never once told me
that he had confided in May. She knew all along, she was the one who
planned all of it, orchestrated every detail.

May
was thorough, I’ll give her that.

And,
she definitely wasn’t averse to killing. I realized what that
white sand that I got covered with in the alley was; then threw up
for a straight hour realizing what May had meant when she said she
‘
cleared
the alley’
of
venom addicts.

She
also incinerated all the greater demons in her web, it seems. About
an hour after Andras flew away, I pulled my wits together enough to
tell the people around me that there were twenty-something greater
demons wrapped up in the web we just left, burning.

Nicholas
(who had been released from Andras’ thrall the moment Andras
left) had immediately checked Jones’ demon-detector, and found
only three dots red:
Räum,
Furfur and Andras. They’d known that Stephen had originally
been assigned to find out why so many greater demons’ dots had
turned red; his final assignment. And I guess in their eyes, he’d
completed his mission.