Legacy & Spellbound (10 page)

Now, in the dark, she nearly tumbled down another set of stairs, these made of stone. She took them, heaving painfully with each downward, widely spaced step. There was no banister, only a stone wall, and no light.

She was halfway down when she heard voices echoing off the hard surfaces. She froze.

“… home sweet home now, Jer.”

Nicole inhaled sharply.
That's Eli.

“How the mighty are fallen, eh, Deveraux? Now you're down in the dungeons with the sacrifices. If you don't watch it, you'll end up like them.”

And that's James.

She shuddered and plastered herself against the wall, even though there was no way they could see her from this vantage point.

But I don't know that, do I?
she thought, panicking again.
I don't know anything… .

She forced down the panic and tried to listen. Her heartbeat in her ears roared so loudly, she was almost sure the three men could hear it too.

“Thirsty?” James asked.

There was no answer.

“Well, I've got to check in with dear old Dad,” he continued. “Then I'll go check in on my darling little wife.”

Her blood ran cold.
He's going to realize I've escaped.

“Your father's in some kind of conference,” Eli said. “I saw his whipping boy Monroe go into the throne room. I've got some new arcana I need to dedicate. Would you give me a hand?”

“Sure. Nicole will wait.”

They both chuckled.

Footsteps rang on the stone below. She waited
for a long time until they had faded away before she continued on down the stairs.

Can I trust Jer?
she thought.
Does it matter? I need help, and he knows his way around here. He's their captive, just like me, so there's hope.

But he's a Deveraux. How can anybody ever trust one of them?

She came to the bottom of the stairs. To her right, about fifteen feet away, stood a wall of bars divided into five or six cells; above them, a badly flickering fluorescent light. Shapes moved in the cells as she approached, and she stopped for a moment, licking her lips as she tried to get up the nerve to move forward. She was terrified that someone would give her away.
There might be a reward in it … what am I saying? Of course there will be a reward. As soon as they know I'm missing, everyone will be looking for me.

She whispered, “Jer?”

There was no answer.

What did they do to him? Maybe he can't even hear me. Maybe he can't talk.

Taking another step closer, she tried again. “Jer?”

“Oh, God,” a male voice cried out from the darkness. “Oh, thank God, have you come to save us? They're crazy here! They're going to kill us!”

“Ssh,” she begged. “Please. Be quiet.”

“We're tourists. This is insane! We're from Ohio!” The voice raised, shrill and frantic. “We thought we were buying tickets to a play, and the next thing we knew …” There was sobbing.

Nicole drew nearer to the cells. From the cell farthest to her right, hands poked from between the bars, stretching to touch her.

“God, get us out of here!”
a woman shrieked.

Nicole made a magical gesture she had learned from José Luís and said, “Be calm.”

A magical tingle prickled her skin as a soft waft of serenity trailed over her arms and shoulders. One tiny iota of tension left her. But one only. Her heart was still pounding so rapidly, she couldn't count the beats.

The woman's voice dropped to a whisper. “We're strangers here. We have no quarrel with … whoever you are. You have to help us.” The words were slurred, almost sullen. “Or we will be murdered.”

“Help us,” the male voice added, pleading.

Nicole walked to the cell, bent down, and put out her hand. She stretched between the bars, worrying that in their panic, these people might grab at her and not let her go. But she felt she had to give them some kind of hope. Some comfort.

Goddess, protect them.

“I'll try,” she promised, experimentally moving her hand so as to make contact.

A hand brushed her fingers. She heard the mournful weeping, but it was too dark for her to make out a face. Having no idea if the occupant could see her, either, she said again, “I promise you. I'll try.”

“Nicole?”

She started. That voice had come from the other end of the row; she got up, swaying for a moment, and staggered toward it, completely winded. “Jer?”

The light was falling at a better angle near the front right quadrant of the cell, and she positioned herself to take advantage of it as she peered between the bars.

“Don't look at me,” he croaked.

She wished she had listened to him.

He didn't look human. He was so badly burned that she would have never been able to recognize him if she hadn't known who he was.

“It was the Black Fire,” she murmured. “Oh, Jer, I'm so sorry.”

“I would've been fine,” he rasped, “if you hadn't pulled Holly from me. Cathers and Deveraux together can withstand the Black Fire. But once she left me … there, to face it by myself …” He sounded hoarse and he spoke slowly. She winced at the sound of his voice; his vocal cords must have been seared; she couldn't
even imagine the pain of being burned inside and out. “Deveraux have always been abandoned by Cahors.”

“Oh, God, Jer.” She gripped the bars and closed her eyes, unable to look at him any longer. “God, I'm sorry. I've going to get you out of here. But we have to hurry. James is going to realize I'm gone, and then we'll both be toast.” She laughed anxiously. “So to speak.”

“Okay. What's your plan?”

“My … plan.” She hesitated. “Jer, I don't … I just escaped. I didn't even know you were here!”

“We can't just walk out, Nicole.” He sounded irritated with her.

“I did,” she replied. “Well, I blasted my way out. I broke down the door of our room with magic that I didn't even know I had. But no one came to see what was going on,” she added hastily. “No one stopped me from coming here.”

“—probably didn't bother with your room— whole place—heavily warded—figure you're harmless.”

She strained to hear him, but his voice faded in and out. There was a moment of silence, and she thought he was finished. He continued, though, his voice slightly stronger. “Do you have access to James's arcana?”

“His magic stuff?” she asked, embarrassed because she didn't know the vocabulary. “Not really.”

“Then you have to steal it.”

“What?”

“We have to have a plan,” he said. “People don't just leave this place.”

“Well, I know that,” she said hotly.

“Go back to your room. Let James think you can't get out.”

“No way!” She took a step away from his cell and stuffed her hands in her jeans pockets. “No way on earth am I going back there. Are you insane?”

“They'll look for you. And they'll find you. And if they find you, there's no way we're getting out of here.”

She raised her chin, but tears sluiced down her cheeks.
I really do not want to agree with him.

“It's Yule in two nights,” she pointed out desperately. “He's going to put me in thrall. I wouldn't be able to stand that, Jer. He'll force me to help him with his magics, and I won't be able to stop myself. You know the kind of spells they do around here. They're evil.”

“Then we have one night,” he told her with exaggerated patience, “to plan our escape. Now, go back.”

Dejectedly, Nicole pulled her hands out of her
pockets. “I can't do it. I can't go back to him for even one minute!”

“Fine. Then let's escape right now,” Jer mocked.

“James … he's
mean.
He …”

“Nicole, if you want to get out of here, you're going to have to do a lot more than freak out.
Now go back to your room.”

The harshness of his tone put her on notice. She took a deep breath and said, “I almost forgot that you're a Deveraux.”

“Don't ever forget it,” he growled. “I don't.”

She wiped her hands; they were ringing wet with perspiration. She was shaking at the thought of returning to James.

“How am I going to know where his arcana is?” she asked him.

“Has he asked you to participate in a rite?”

“No. Not yet. But—”

“Then you're going to have to ask him to let you. Tell him you want to.”

Her eyes widened. “No way. He does Black Magic!”

“Do you have a better idea?” he demanded. At her silence, he said, “You're going to have to get your hands dirty, Nicole. There's no pretty way out of this. No one's going to come to our rescue.”

“The Goddess … ,” she began. “I think she's watching over me, guiding me.”

“She guided you to me, then. And I say that we have to act. We have to save ourselves.”

“But … he
sacrifices
things. You know he does.” She glanced uneasily at the row of cells, thought about the fingertips she had touched. She felt sick to her stomach.

“If he makes you sacrifice something, you'll have to do it,” he insisted.

Her stomach twisted. “Jer … ,” she pleaded.

“When you get a chance to see his arcana, look for a soul stone. You'll need an athame. He probably has an extra one. You'll have to steal both items,” he said, mentally going through his plan. “Try to get some mugwort. We always have our own back home, but in a big place like this, he might just get some from a common storage area.”

“The athame … that's his knife, right?”

“Yes,” Jer told her. “I'd tell you to take his principal one, but he'd notice that right away. A high-ranking warlock like him should have a couple of spares at least. It's got to be one he's used. Make sure.”

She swallowed hard. “Does
used
mean that he's sacrificed something with it?”

Jer grunted with surprise. “You Cahors witches are
very different from us, aren't you? Of course that's what it means.”

“Oh, God, Jer! I—I—”

“Damn it, Nicole! Lose the attitude. Do you want to end up like me? Get back there
now
!”

“Then what?” she cried. “What do you want me to do after I've stolen these things?”

“Bring them to me.”

“But how? How will I get out again?”

“You'll have to figure that out,” he said tiredly. His voice was growing weak again. “I can't exactly help you.”

“Why not?” she demanded. “Aren't you a war-lock?”

“I'm half-dead, Nicole.”

She put her hands on her hips and glared at the misshapen thing that used to be Jer Deveraux. “And I say,
you
lose the 'tude. This is more your turf than mine, Jer. Stop laying it all on
my
shoulders.”

There was a silence. Then Jer made a strange gravelly sound that might have been a chuckle.

“
Touché,
Nicole. You have a point.” He let out a long, raggedy breath. “Maybe I can do something. Loosen my cell door, something like that.”

“Say a protection spell over me,” she suggested.

“We're not good at those, but I'll do my best.”

She stood perfectly still while he chanted a few words in Latin, using a spell she didn't know—
not that I know that many
—but she felt nothing after he finished.

She said, “It didn't take.”

“I told you we aren't very good at those,” he reminded her from the shadows. “You should go. You have to beat him back to your room.”

She grimaced. “He'll see the wrecked door.”

“Can you fix it?” he asked her.

“Not magically, I don't think.”

“What about your Goddess? Can she?”

“Don't make fun of my beliefs,” she snapped, then realized that until that moment, she hadn't truly believed. In snippets, and in bits and pieces, her faith had grown. But it still wasn't there. She was still terrified, and she still felt very alone.

“You'll have to deal with it there,” he said urgently. “Go, Nicole.”

She hesitated. “I don't know how to get back.”

“That I can help with. I'll do a finder's spell. Go on.”

“I … I'll be back as soon as I can.”

She turned on her heel and ran back to the stairs, taking them, rushing like a madwoman despite her exhaustion. Part of her resisted each step, each footfall
forward—she was going back to James, and nothing in her wanted to do that—but suddenly she felt strangely buoyed, even energized. She knew that she was supposed to turn right; knew that at the next stairway, she needed to go left.

It's Jer's finder's spell,
she realized.

Before she knew it, she was racing down the corridor to her room. The door was flush with the wall, and it wasn't until she reached it that she saw that it appeared to be untouched. It was as if she had never so much as scratched her fingernail across it.

“What?” she said aloud, then glanced around, tried the knob, and found that it opened.

She let herself in, closed it behind herself, and heard the lock click. She was effectively locked in again, with no evidence that she had gotten out.

How can this be?

Then she turned around to face the bed, and gasped.

A shimmering blue figure stared back at her. By the height, Nicole judged it to be a woman. She was standing next to the bed, a gauzy phantom veiled from head to toe in black, except for a dagger that she held across her chest. It was curved and encrusted with jewels.

An athame,
Nicole realized.
Is this the Goddess?
“Who are you?” she asked aloud, sinking to her knees.

But there was something about the figure that was … off. She knew deep in her soul that this was not the Goddess, but a lesser being. Yet she didn't want to insult the apparition, who may have come to help her. She stayed on her knees. “Are you a friend? Did you fix the door?”