Witch & Curse (51 page)

Then Hecate stared at her from beneath the dirt that Holly had heaped over her in the backyard, the cat whispering,
You crossed the line with my death; you are doomed
.

Over and over the words spilled across her body and crept through her mind:
You sold your soul
. . . .

When Holly awoke, Amanda was standing beside her bed in tears, and a woman with blue-black hair and
almond-shaped eyes stood beside her. She was dressed all in black, from a velour turtleneck sweater to a pair of black wool pants. Her skin was very pale and she had on very subtle makeup. Her earrings were silver crescent moons.

Startled to find a stranger in her room, Holly raised herself on one elbow.

Amanda blurted, “Holly, how could you!”

The other woman put a hand on Amanda's arm and said softly, “Amanda, would you get us some tea?”

Amanda frowned, then bobbed her head and dashed from the room.

The woman regarded Holly for a moment. Then she sighed, pulled up a chair, and sat down.

Without preamble, she said bluntly, “You crossed the line.”

Holly licked her lips. She was thirsty and still muzzy with sleep. She raked her curls out of her face and sat up against the headboard.

“Who are you?” she asked the woman.

“I'm from the Mother Coven,” she told her. “I'm Anne-Louise Montrachet.”

Holly looked down at her hands, which were trembling. “No one from the Mother Coven has ever contacted us before,” Holly said. “Whatever it is.”

“We are a very old and prominent confederation of
covens,” she informed her. “We were founded in response to the Supreme Coven.” She regarded Holly sternly. “The Deveraux are very prominent within their ranks.”

Holly raised her eyes, hopeful that help had come at last. She said, “How do we join up?”

Anne-Louise shrugged. “Your family has always been a member coven since we were founded. We . . . we regret that we did not contact you sooner.” She blanched. “Our resources have been stretched.”

“We've been fighting for our lives,” Holly told her simply. “And we haven't been entirely successful.”

Anne-Louise nodded. “Our condolences on your losses.” She crossed her arms and legs and added, “All of them, including the death of the familiar, Hecate.”

Holly reddened. Then she lifted her chin and said, “Two of my covenates have been kidnapped by Michael Deveraux. I would give anything to get them back.”

“We have standards. We have limits,” Anne-Louise admonished. “We do not sacrifice coven members, including familiars.”

Holly moved her hands. “I didn't know—”

“We have always had problems with you Cahors,” Anne-Louise cut in. “You're unpredictable. You're ruthless.”

“Until a year ago, I didn't even know I was a witch,” Holly protested.

“Witch blood runs in your veins,” Anne-Louise cut in, gesturing to her. “Most witches would have been unable to sacrifice a familiar. They would have felt the wrongness of it.” She made a fist and placed it over her heart.

“Well, it was wrong of you guys to leave us alone to face Michael Deveraux,” Holly said. “I have to go to the bathroom. And I'm dying of thirst.”

“Amanda won't be back. Not until I unward your doorway,” the woman said. “And you will sit there and listen—”

Holly glared at her. The woman raised her chin. For a few seconds they had a standoff Then the woman sighed heavily.

“Very well. You aren't my prisoner.”

Saying nothing, Holly slid off the bed and walked unsteadily to the door. Truth was, she was shocked that there was such a thing as a Mother Coven to whom she was supposed to answer. And shocked, too, that they had left her and the others to twist in the wind for so long without backup.

But do something they don't like, and they're here in a hot minute
.

She went into the bathroom and did her thing, then padded back to her room. The woman was standing and gathering her things: a black shawl, an overnight bag, and a purse.

“You're leaving?” Holly asked. “Aren't you going to help us with Michael Deveraux?”

“Yes. I am,” Anne-Louise said in a clipped voice. “I've taken a room at a hotel, and I need to marshal my own powers. Alone,” she added pointedly. “I don't want him to realize I'm here. I want him to assume you're still on your own.”

Holly wasn't sure what to think about that. She said, “But you're helping, right?”

The woman hesitated. “As much as we can,” she replied.

Holly crossed her arms and looked hard at the other witch. “You're afraid of him.”

“Any wise witch is.”

Holly could practically read her thoughts.

“You didn't want to come here. You asked not to.”

The woman inclined her head. “That's also true.” She cleared her throat. “I'm going to check in and perform my ritual. I'll get in touch in about six hours.”

“We have about a day,” Holly pointed out. “He said I had until the full moon.”
To save them?

To die?

The woman exhaled and slung her bag over her shoulder. She began to walk to Holly's door. “I'll be in touch.” She added, in a weak tone of voice, “It's the best I can do.”

“Pardon me for saying it, but your best sucks,” Holly flung at her.

The woman turned her back to Holly and walked out of the room. She murmured something and made a gesture with her hand.

Amanda raced into the room, ignoring the witch. Holly realized Anne-Louise had cloaked herself with invisibility.

“I hate you, Holly!” she shouted. “I hate you for killing Hecate! How could you do that?”

Holly didn't have time to be kind. “If it could have saved Eddie, would you have killed Hecate?”

Amanda's mouth dropped. Holly pressed her advantage.

“Michael Deveraux is planning to kill Silvana and Kialish. He'll come after us next. Don't you think Hecate's death is worth it?”

Speechless, Amanda simply stared at her. Holly felt sick to her soul, and mean, and unlovable.

But she also felt strong.

This bears watching
, Michael Deveraux thought, as he spied on Holly with a scrying stone from deep within the chamber of spells in his house in Lower Queen Anne, a neighborhood of Seattle.

His imp capered about the room, chattering at the skulls placed on the altar, laughing with mad glee as he glanced into the scrying stone, then darting away, his attention seized by some other object in the room.

Michael had witnessed her sacrifice of the familiar, which he had found both startling and delightful.
I didn't realize she had it in her to do something like that. She's far more blackhearted than I thought
.

He had also heard and seen her side of the conversation with the witch from the Mother Coven; the witch's side of the meeting had been hidden from him. But he knew what that meddler wanted; she was telling Holly to toe the party line:
no deaths among the good guys. But waste all the bad guys you want
.

When Holly had pretty much told her to go to hell, he had silently applauded.

I wonder if I've underestimated her
, he thought.
Maybe I can turn her to the darker side. In thrall to me . . . or to jer, if he regains his sanity. Her union with the Deveraux Coven would assure my rise to power in the Supreme Coven
.

No sooner had he thought those words, than he smelled the stench that often presaged the arrival of
Laurent, Duc de Deveraux, and his ancestor.

Sure enough, as Michael knelt in humble obeisance, the moldering corpse that was his ancestor stepped off Charon's boat as it glided into being in the center of the room. Sulfur mixed with the gut-churning odor of decomposition, telling of the hellfires Laurent had left in order to make the voyage back among the living.

“Laurent, it's been so long since you have made yourself known to me,” Michael said. “I have wonderful news. I have two captives, and it looks as though I'll be luring Holly of the Cahors to her death.”

“You liar,”
Laurent said in medieval French. He backhanded Michael, sending him sprawling to the floor. “You are thinking of sparing her.
Cochon
. Don't think it. The entire House must be wiped away from this world and all worlds.”

His cheek throbbed as if he'd been branded. Laurent advanced on him, menace in every step.

“You want the Black Fire again, don't you? You want to rule the Supreme Coven. Then you had better kill the witch or you will never be able to conjure it again.”

Michael took that in. His heart pounding, he tried to summon his dignity—and his courage—as he got to his feet.

“Then I'll kill her,” he said calmly.

Anne-Louise had been a practicing witch from the time she learned to speak. She had grown up in the Mother Coven, a ward of it. Her parents had been killed shortly after she was born, so the coven had been both Mother and Father to her.

In her hotel room she meditated, gathering her strength. The coven had sent her because wards were her magical specialty. Diplomacy was her mundane one. Although, one would not have guessed that, given her confrontation with Holly. She shuddered. Being near the younger witch had been an unpleasant experience. Drowning the familiar had tainted her. The evil coming off of her was terrible to feel.

Two tears slid slowly down her cheek. The first was for the familiar, Hecate. The second was for the witch Nicole, whose cat Hecate had been. Anne-Louise prayed to the Goddess that their fates would not be the same.

She took several cleansing breaths trying to regain her focus. She was tired from the long flight and the encounter with Holly. Additionally the ward she had set at the top of the stairs when she left the house had just about drained her. The deep breaths helped refocus her attention, and she resumed her meditations putting the Cahors witch from her mind. Cahors were always such trouble.

London, 1640

“Kill her,” Luc Deveraux whispered as he watched the proceedings. He had been tracking Cassandra Cahors ever since he had arranged for her mother, Barbara, to be burned at the stake. Now finally Cassandra would die as well and by another fine witch-hunter's tradition.

Dunking.

Onlookers gathered at the water's edge while the witch-finders in charge of her case spread across London Bridge to watch her drown, and drown she would. The commonly held belief was that witches floated. So, a woman accused of witchcraft was often thrown into a small body of water to see if she floated. The only way to prove that one was innocent was to drown and die. Much good innocence did for one.

Of course the common superstitions were all wrong. Witches didn't float. Cassandra Cahors would drown and everyone would believe she had been innocent of witchcraft. Nothing could be further from the truth.

He smiled, savoring the irony.

Tied to the ducking stool, she struggled beneath the water, then was pulled up in case she wished to make a confession. She looked like a drowned cat, all
huge eyes, her hair beneath her mob cap plastered to her head. She was wearing down; her breath was very labored, and he was overjoyed.

Cassandra was dying, and as she looked out at the crowd, all the fires of hell burned in her eyes.

“I curse you, all of you!” she shouted. “You shall all drown, every one of you! As I die, so shall you.”

Luc waved his hand and whispered a few incantations. He changed the spell, twisting it back toward Cassandra. At last he smiled triumphantly. “No, Cassandra. But all who love your descendants shall. I curse your house for all time.

“The loved ones of Cahors shall die by drowning.”

Michael and Laurent: Seattle, November

Laurent, the mighty duke of the House of Deveraux, watched his descendant Michael attempting to hide his fear as he got to his feet, and his entire being flooded with rage.
To see my house reduced to this: a modern-day play-boy who tries to play the game as the Cahors did
. . . .