It Never Rhines but It Pours (32 page)

“Okay,” I felt a cold sweat break out on my overheated skin. This was where things would get serious. “Cecily?”

“On it,” she said, and ghosted around the side of the house. I moved our little group over a few houses, so as not to be visible from the front windows. Cecily was back in a flash.

“This is the place,” she nodded. “I saw one of Megan’s shoes in the front room and a purse. I couldn’t get a good look in the back window without being seen, but I could hear children’s and adult voices coming from the kitchen.”

I felt like I took my first breath in years. Tears started behind my eyes and my nose prickled. It was not time to start crying. Hopefully there would be plenty of time for happy crying later. I just had to hold on to that thought.

I got a firm hold on my emotions. “Okay, here’s the plan—”

Cecily interrupted, “—I’ll go in, take off his head, and call you when the coast is clear.” She drew the Sword of Justice and flourished it in the air.

I gave her a long look. “My kids are in there.”

She looked bemused. “You’ve got a kid out here, too, Piper.”

I breathed in through my nose in frustration. “Yes, and I intend to keep us all safe. Mentally as well as physically. And seeing you cut someone’s head off is not something that my children should have to live with.”

Sarah raised her hand, “I can erase any unpleasant memory.”

I turned on her, “Really? Like you can erase
my
unpleasant memories? It doesn’t work on me, Sarah, and for all we know, it won’t work on them either. They’re my kids, and they might have my resistance.”

“Fine,” Cecily crossed her arms over her chest, still holding the sword at an awkward angle. “What do you suggest?”

I looked back towards the deserted house. So close, and yet still so far away from my babies. No way was I waiting this one out on the sidelines. The truth was that I had to see for myself that they were okay. I couldn’t wait outside for the news.

“All right. Floyd goes around back and makes some noise to cover the sound of us breaking in the front door.”

It was Floyd’s turn to raise his hand. “Noise?”

“Yeah, bark like a dog, yell like an angry neighbor trying to get the dog to shut up. Something like that.”

Harry grinned. “I can do a really good dog bark! Can I help?”

I looked at Annabeth. She nodded. It was probably the safest place for him. “Sure,” I smiled, “You two go around back and give us five minutes. Make as much noise as you can.”

They both trotted off eagerly around the side of the house next door. I hoped they wouldn’t be barked at by any neighbor dogs. It would help with the noise level, but I didn’t want to attract too much attention from the neighbors.

“Can you kick open the front door?” I asked Cecily.

She raised an eyebrow at me. “I’m a vampire, aren’t I?”

I paused with a new concern, “Can you enter the house without being invited?”

She assessed the house, “It’s foreclosed. The owners’ aren’t living there. Pravus is there uninvited … yes, I should be able to enter.”

Not quite as resounding a ‘yes’ as I would have liked, but it would have to do. “We break in the front door, make our way to the kitchen. Annabeth, you grab the girls and Carolyn, and Sarah, Cecily and I will take care of Pravus.”

Annabeth huffed and everyone else nodded.

“Good plan,” Cecily said. “I like it. Simple, and entirely ignoring any obstacles, like: what if Pravus hears us breaking in the front door. Or: what if he gets the drop on us with his magic.”

I glanced at my watch. Five minutes were almost up. “You got a better idea?” I said sharply.

“No,” she smiled, her eyes starting to eerily vamp out. “That’s why I said I like it.”

“Let’s go then,” I reached over and squeezed Sarah’s hand. She was nervously twisting her silver bracelet around her wrist. She gave me a sick smile and squeezed back. I almost offered her the shotgun, but she looked a little too wild-eyed as it was. I handed it to Annabeth instead. She checked the safety and smoothly chambered a round so I felt pretty confident that she knew what she was doing. I pulled out the nine mil. and did the same.

An ungodly racket started in the back yard. It sounded like a small terrier was having a conniption fit while a Great Dane encouraged it. Occasionally, when the Dane was quiet, a man’s voice could be heard, yelling at the dogs to shut up. That was our cue.

Cecily flowed with inhuman speed to the front door, raised one foot and planted it firmly into the door, just to the side of the doorknob. The frame splintered and the door flew open on its hinges. Before it could slam into the inside wall, Cecily had regained her balance and caught the edge of the door in her hand. I blinked. It had happened so fast!

Cecily looked over her shoulder. “Come on,” she hissed.

Sarah and I exchanged looks and followed Cecily into the house. The front rooms were empty. The carpet was dirty and stained and someone, probably the angry foreclosed owner, had bashed huge holes into the drywall. There were bare wires hanging out of the ceiling where the light fixtures had been ripped out, and the house was dark. I could see light coming from the kitchen, along with shadows moving on the wall.

My heart was hammering so loud in my ears that a Salvation Army band could have snuck up behind me without my hearing it. Adrenaline was pumping through my veins and making my hands shake. When this was over I was staying home for a month. A year. Maybe I would never leave the house again.

I was terrified of walking down that hallway, but I heard a voice that pushed me into action.

“I wanna juice cup!” Megan’s voice whined.

Chapter Thirty-two:

The Final Dead End

From within the blue web I could clearly see the entire kitchen. Carolyn was sitting on the floor, back against the wall, hair in disarray, and a blank look on her face. Megan and Cassidy were both perched on bar stools at the counter, coloring in a coloring book. I was instantly upset. Didn’t that witch know that a two year-old was too young to be sitting on a bar stool? She could flip over backwards and crack her head open!

Pravus was standing directly in front of us, a smug look on his face. “Well, well, well,” he smirked. “I’ve been expecting you.”

Why did they always say that? It was exactly what the last witch who had caught me snooping around the abortion clinic had said. In her case, she had been telling a big fat lie. I had caught her by surprise and she had to lock me up in a closet for a long time while she gathered her people and paraphernalia. In Pravus’ case, he might be telling the truth. The web trap did seem to point towards prior knowledge of our arrival.

“It’s been so much fun following your progress,” Pravus continued. “I must admit, you were even faster than I had hoped. I was getting fed up with your brats’ whining.””

I struggled vainly against the web and settled for just glaring at him. There would be time to rip out his heart later. Hopefully.

“Mommy!” Megan looked up and saw me. “I’m hungry and I want to go home. Granny’s not being any fun.”

I looked over at Carolyn. I’d never seen her so disheveled. She was completely out of it. I’d worry about fixing that later.

I smiled at the girls. “How are you doing, guys?”

Cassidy pouted. “Hungry,” she said.

“Okay,” I kept my voice even and calm. “We’ll go to McDonald’s for dinner after this. How does that sound?”

“Yay!” they cheered. “Chicken and french-fries!”

Pravus frowned. “You still think that you’re walking out of here?” He waved his fingers in a complicated pattern and the blue web disappeared. I flexed my shoulders carefully but stayed still. A quick check out my peripheral vision showed me Cecily and Sarah doing the same thing. Funny, where was Annabeth?

Pravus took a few steps backwards to stand behind my girls. He rested one hand on Megan’s shoulder. I gritted my teeth. We’d play this as calm as possible until I could get him away from the girls. Then I was letting him have it.

“This whole thing had been immensely amusing,” he said.

“You murdered those students,” I said with heat. “How did you get that boy to say that you were telling the truth?”

“How did you know that we would go there?” Sarah added. “Or that we were coming here?”

Pravus smiled at her. “You told me,” he said.

“What?”

He pointed to the silver bracelet on her arm. “You’ve told me everything that has been going on.”

Cecily and I looked at Sarah in shock. “Sarah?” I asked, “Is that true?”

Sarah looked equally shocked. “N-no!” she stammered. “I haven’t been helping him! It’s just a weight loss bracelet!”

“A what?” I admit, I was a little sharp.

“A weight loss bracelet!” she said again. “I bought it from one of the stores in town!”

“A wiccan store?” Cecily asked.

“Yes,” Sarah’s eyes were filling with tears. “She said that I could eat whatever I wanted and not gain weight!”

I glared at her. So that’s why she had been stuffing her face every time I turned around. “You bought a bracelet from a
witch
?” I said incredulously. “They hate us, Sarah. They’re out to get us!”

A tear broke free and ran down her face. “I thought it was okay.” She looked down at the bracelet, then slid it off her arm and flung it on the floor. “I thought it was just a simple charm.”

“You can never trust a witch,” Cecily snarled, drawing her sword and moving a few steps wider and further into the room.

Pravus kept one hand on Megan’s neck and turned to keep all of us in his line of sight. “You were most helpful, Sarah,” he crooned. “Not only could I follow your progress, but it’s so much easier to influence someone’s mind when they are wearing your curse.”

“That’s why we believed that you were innocent?” I cried.

“That’s why
Sarah
believed,” he sneered. “You, my dear Piper, are merely as stupid and trusting as you look. You are so incapable of killing someone, that you would believe anything, no matter how ludicrous, in order to stay in your nice, safe, little world. You are weak.” He spat the word. “Weak and stupid. And we will be well rid of all of you.”

I clenched my hand around the butt of the gun. “I don’t have a problem killing you now,” I said in a low voice. “Step away from my children.”

“Or what?” Pravus laughed. “You’re nothing. I have guarded myself against your powers and you are useless. All of you will die here. Perhaps, if you cooperate, I won’t stage the scene to point to you as a crazed murderer who killed her mother-in-law and her own children.” He ran a hand lightly over Megan’s head. “Did you drown them in the tub or just shoot them?”

“Step. Away. From. My. Children,” I said again.

Pravus sneered at me. “Tell you what, human. You retract your membership from the USB and I will release your children.”

“No!” Cecily shouted.

“No,” I echoed, softer.

“No?” Pravus was surprised. “Not even to save your children’s lives?”

“No,” I said again.

“What kind of mother are you?” he taunted. “You’d see your children dead before you dropped out of a stupid club?”

I gritted my teeth. “No,” I said. “I’m the kind of mother who loves her children too much to trust a lying witch for a second.”

I caught sight of Annabeth sneaking down the short hallway off the kitchen. She was directly behind Pravus and out of his line of sight. I acted instantly. Whatever Pravus had thought of my weakness, he had definitely not imagined a berserk mother leaping over the kitchen counter and taking him down in a flying tackle. Megan and Cassidy also went flying, but that was part of my plan.

“Get them out of here!” I screamed, trying to dig my fingers into Pravus’ eyes and managing to knee him in the balls at the same time. I had hoped to be able to knock the back of his head into the tile floor and either stun or kill him. I wasn’t picky. But he was up and fighting with me before I could even register the pain and bruises and I had from hitting the floor myself.

We rolled, taking down a barstool and I saw Annabeth snatch up Megan and Cassidy under one arm and grab Carolyn on the way out. Pravus hit me hard in the face and I lashed out blindly, barely connecting with his arm. Somehow he got his feet between us and kicked me off. I went flying to crash against the wall but kept a death grip on the gun. I brought it up and pointed it at him.

It was impossible to miss at that range. He was scrambling to his feet, with his back turned to me. I aimed, finger on the trigger. My girls were out of the house and safe. There was no one in the line of fire. I should have pulled the trigger. I should have emptied the clip into his worthless hide. But I hesitated. I’ve never killed someone before. God help me. I hesitated.

Cecily was leaping into the fray, sword raised, eyes black with vampire hunger. She swept the blade towards Pravus’ neck and with one hand motion he blasted her with a sheet of energy that sent her tumbling through the air to land halfway through the drywall. The sword went flying out of her hand and skittered across the floor.