Witch's Brew - Spellspinners 1 (Spellspinners of Melas County) (13 page)

His eyes told me I’d hit my target dead-on.

He nodded, fingering the amulet, before tucking it away beneath the collar of his hoodie. “It’s making me see things too. Remember things.” He glanced at me like he wanted to say more, but didn’t trust me enough yet.

I didn’t press. We had time. Not a lot, but some.

“Me too. Since we met, everything’s been different. Heightened. I’m risking things I would never have before. Like this now. Talking to you here.”

“Why are you going along with it?”

So many reasons.

Because it feels good.

Because I want to.

Because for once in my life, I’m making my own choices.

“Because I like you,” I said.

Smiling shyly, he looked down. “I told you.”

“But that doesn’t mean you can keep my amulet,” I said.

He wasn’t ready to give it up yet. I got that. It was the same feeling flowing out of me.

Crossing his arms on the rail, he bent over to rest his chin on his folded hands. A lock of hair slipped out of his hood, falling over his eye. The wind blew the bottom of his shirt up. He wore his pants low-slung.

As if all the rest wasn’t enough. This sweet new vulnerability was making me wildly attracted to him. I shook my head, trying to guard these thoughts. He was opening the window again. I was reaching through.

“What do you think is going to happen with the kid?”

He kept staring out at the sea. “Dunno.”

“Hope he’s going to be okay.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“It was…good of you to help me. To help me help him.”

His chin tilted to the left, he looked up at me the way Chance looked at Orchid. His blue-green eyes shifted down to my lips, and damned if I wasn’t frozen to this sticky boardwalk.

“Lily, I…”

Then a sharp whistle sliced through our moment, and I turned and met Orchid’s eye. Waving pink Gravitron tickets in the air, she jumped up and down yelling, “There you are! The ride was broken down for a while, so we, yeah, anyway. It’s working now. So hurry up!”

I glanced over at my warlock. Eyed my amulet hanging around his neck. I had to get it back. And I had to keep Logan.

I needed them both now.

Logan

“You seem to be in a far, hmm, how do I put this delicately, more normal mood,” Chance said as they drove up the winding mountain road in the darkness.

“Do I?”

“Acting slightly less psycho, yes. So that was the infamous Lily?”

“Indeed.”

“She does seem really…nice. But Logan—are you sure you’re in control here? She’s not one of us. You have no reason to protect her. You aren’t
allowed
to protect her.”

“I don’t care,” Logan said, surprised by the conviction in his voice.

When he saw her, it was better than surfing. Better than Breathing. The amulet got so hot while they bantered he thought it might burn another mark into his skin.

But he needed to research it more. He was going to need Chance’s help or Lily’s help to find out what was going on with it…with him. He’d never seen an amulet so similar to his own before.

Logan looked wistfully out the window, watching the dark forest fly past him in a shadowed blur.

“We’re dead,” Chance said cryptically. Logan broke out of his Lily daze and saw why. A black BMW sat in the shadows of the driveway. Its license plate read 1Hemlox1. Logan’s stomach fell. They were
so
screwed.

“Dude,” Chance said, sagging low in his seat, “He’s back.”

You’d need a sword to cut the nervous tension in the air as they coasted into the driveway and parked next to the Beemer. The boys met each other’s eye once before Logan stoically cut the engine.

“This is some welcoming party,” Father sneered, leaning against his luxury vehicle. The moon streaked through the clouds, highlighting his pallid skin. “Let me guess, you were out…sparring?”

A familiar rotten feeling spread through Logan’s gut.

“I’ll fix this.” Chance mumbled, jumping out of the passenger seat before Logan could protest. “Sorry, Master, it was my idea—we were out surfing.”

Normally Logan would be right with Chance, fighting to get back into Father’s good graces, stammering apologies. Because of her, things were different. He felt stronger. More capable of handling his father. He took his time getting out of the driver seat. Hands shoved in his pockets, his fist wrapped around the amulet, he sauntered toward them.

“Is this true?” Father asked Logan, his crimson eyes piercing into him.

“Yeah,” Logan said.

Father glared at the boys, looking from one to the other, before a slow smile formed between shrunken cheeks. “No punishment necessary. You caught me on a good night, my sons. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with a battle at sea.”

“How was your trip, Master?” Chance asked, avoiding Logan’s eye.

“Excellent, Chance, thank you. I’m cautiously…optimistic about the future. Business is tight right now with the absurd economy in such a mess, but when you have a good product like we do, there is always a market.”

Jacob’s red-rimmed eyes twinkled mischievously. Logan thought he might tell them more; he looked like he wanted to let them in on his dangerous secret.

Logan had always wondered about his company. The factories they kept overseas. The true use of the pharmaceuticals they manufactured. For the most part, Jacob was pretty tight lipped about the operation. But he was also a braggart and when he’d sucked a few too many back, on the rare occasion he let himself indulge in something other than magic, his secrets tended to leak out.

“If anyone could do it, Hemlox can,” Logan nudged. He hoped Jacob didn’t detect the air of mockery in his voice. The irony that the warlocks’ multibillion-dollar-a-year company was named after a medieval potion used by witches wasn’t lost on Logan.

“Let me help you with your bags, Master,” Chance said, walking toward the trunk of the car. The way Chance’s voice changed around Jacob, the way he jumped to do his bidding made Logan physically sick.

It hadn’t bothered him before.

On his palm, he felt the amulet pulse. As if it was egging him on…

Father held out his hand, physically stopping Chance in his tracks. “That won’t be necessary. Save your energy, son.”

Chance bumped into an invisible wall of energy, a force field that Father created.

Sardonic humor etched into Jacob’s sneer. “What is necessary is another training session. The solstice is coming up. The warlocks in the Congression want a
guaranteed
triumph. Wins in every category. The witches
must
be defeated this time around. No exceptions.”

Chance nodded. “Yes, Master. Of course!”

Logan clenched his fist in the shadows and dared to ask. “Do you have the list yet, Father?”

Jacob’s neck slowly turned toward Logan. Parting his lips, his flickered his forked tongue out of his cracked white mouth. “You are asking for the witch’s name?”

“Inquiring if you have the list, yes.”

“Why is it of interest to you, Logan, which one you fight?” His fingers, like a demon’s claw, scratched through the night air. “They are all the same.”

Logan pictured Lily’s face, and then quickly erased it before Father could catch it.

No, they certainly weren’t all the same.

Catching Chance’s look of warning, he kicked a rock, planned for a safe retreat. For Chance’s sake if not for Logan’s. Angering Jacob,
questioning
Jacob never ended well for the boys. “Just curious is all.”

“Curiosity killed the cat.”

Father replying with mundane clichés? One of the best things about his winning personality.

“So let’s go get something to eat,” Chance said cheerfully. “Master, you must be starved after all your travel. And Logan and I always have the appetite of a dragon after a battle on the waves.”

Chance was pushing it using Father’s cheesy metaphors. This time it was Logan’s look warning him to take it easy; Jacob was crazy enough to be manipulated by some amount of charm, but you had to tread lightly.

Jacob didn’t look like he’d even heard Chance. His eyes were focused on Logan’s. He took a step toward him, snake-like in his movements, red eyes practically dripping in scornful warning. “At first you may be disarmed by the witches. Outwardly they are lovely, and their charms rival even Cleopatra’s. But remember, boys”—Father’s crimson eyes darted from Logan to Chance and back to Logan—“their beauty, their kindness, it is all a facade. They are weak and wicked. They only want to blend in with humans. They refuse to want more. To be more. It’s a disgrace that we mighty warlocks have to rely on their light magic at all. If I may let you boys in on a little secret?” He paused for dramatic effect. “We may not have to rely on it for much longer.”

With the rage of emotion, the cadence of Jacob’s breath sped up, then sputtered and jerked as if his voice was a skipping CD. Whiffs of black gas trailed from his nose. Logan took a step back, in a vain attempt to duck out of the way before the putrid smell could hit him.

Jacob’s bony shoulders slumped as he rested a weary claw-like hand on his own forehead, mopping up thick, yellow sweat.

Logan caught Chance’s sidelong concerned glance.

Father’s health was getting worse. That was clear. It was impossible to hide his condition from the public eye, so he stayed hidden here at the Academy, only traveling via his private jet, and then, only was in the presence of his family or the Congression.

Only in the presence of others like him.

At night his coughing was even louder, scratchier. Sometimes he coughed so much he heaved, which turned Logan’s stomach. Jacob was getting pickier with his eating too—refusing most meat and vegetables, relying solely on hard-boiled eggs he’d swallow whole.

It was as if he was losing his humanity entirely.

Logan worried about his father more than he let on. As confusing and volatile as their relationship was, he cared about him. He would be interested to see at the Gleaning if the other members of the Congression were suffering from a similar fate—this rapid aging and disease that seemed to hit to warlocks at middle age.

Jacob had looked young and spry only five years ago. Biologically, Logan knew he couldn’t be any older than 45. But now, with his watery eyes, fragile frame and never-ending cough, he looked like he was verging on ninety.

“Master? Are you all right?” Chance asked when the coughing fit subsided. Jacob didn’t like to be touched as it was happening. The boys were instructed by Mother to treat him the same as they always had. To Jacob, weakness was worse than death.

To be pitied was the ultimate form of weakness.

Still, it was hard to watch. To stand there and do nothing. For a moment he contemplated intervening—try to heal him like he had Lily—but how would he explain his newfound gift without endangering Lily?

The old man wheezed, then twitched, as if he were a broken wooden toy being yanked upright by its cruel puppet master, as if it pained him to stand tall. Jacob cleared his throat, ignoring Chance’s concern. “Come to the ring.”

“The ring? The two of us?” Chance asked glancing at Logan.

Father coughed again, spraying bits of black ash in Chance’s face. “Is that a problem? Are you for some reason unable to see each other as the enemy? Even for a moment?”

Chance and Logan looked at each other. “It’s just late at night. We’ve had a long day…” Logan said.

“Planned on just hitting the showers and then bed…” Chance added. “To be in optimal condition for the Gleaning.”

Jacob’s eyes narrowed. In the moonlight, he looked like a bird of prey hunting two naughty rats. “Now you don’t want to fight each other, I see? Don’t want to spar? I’ve been too easy on you. Letting you stay alone with Mother with her infantile pancake breakfasts. She’s turned you into weaklings!”

Logan almost laughed. Infantile pancake breakfasts?

But he kept a straight face as Jacob coughed some more, and then wiped his own dripping mouth hard as if punishing himself for being sick. This current line of verbal abuse clearly pointed more at the speaker than his intended audience.

Who was
weak
? Really? Certainly not Logan and Chance who were in incredible physical condition. Who had health and youth and spirit on their side?

Whoa. Where did that come from?
Logan thought.

The amulet pulsed again in his palm.

Had Jacob planned to make them fight since he saw them come up the drive? Or was it something they said on the driveway that set him off?

Logan was convinced it was the latter. It was when he’d asked about the list. About the witches. That was when Jacob’s eyes turned into burning bloody coals and never turned back.

“In that case,” Jacob said, blowing a putrid smell like roadkill into the air, “I’ll help you get motivated.”

Hunkering down, Logan sucked in a breath of clean air and held it into his lungs. He watched Chance stumble back and fall immersed in a cloud of gas. Now Chance was the one coughing, gagging as Crimson poison seeped through the air into his lungs.

“I
will not
tolerate weakness, my sons.”

Starting to feel light-headed from holding his breath, Logan dove toward Chance. He yanked his t-shirt off and held it to his friend’s face. “Breathe into this.”

Too late. Chance’s eyes were red, rolling back.

“Chance! Father, stop this! You’re hurting him!”

Jacob turned his palms down toward the earth, and laughed. A wicked, pointed laugh as he pulled evil from the underworld, into his broken limbs and out his twisted mouth. Onto his sons.

Speaking was foolish. The fumes seeped into Logan, and now he too was gasping from the spellbinding poison.

One of the older boys, Blain, had warned him once: “If Jacob ever unleashes the red ash, you must focus on something beautiful. Something good. So it can’t take complete hold over you.”

Lily.

Gasping, Logan concentrated until he saw Lily’s creamy face, her half-moon eyes, her hair flowing over his open palms.

Protect Lily.

Protect her amulet.

To protect the amulet, which was helping him resist the poison.