Legacy & Spellbound (6 page)

He focused on the two people now occupying the room with him. James was the son and heir of Sir William, head of the Supreme Coven. Eli was Jer's own brother, though it was hard to believe they shared anything in common, much less parents. James strode in as if he owned the place, which, technically, he did. Still, his swagger was decidedly more pronounced. Eli slunk forward like a cur at his side.

On his left ring finger James sported a ring. It was a band of gold wrapped around a huge bloodstone. It glistened darkly against his skin. A smile spread across James's face as he saw Jer eyeing it.

“Sorry you missed my wedding yesterday,” James mocked. “It was a splendid affair. The rites were observed, the wine flowed, and the bride was mute.” He chuckled. “I believe you know her—she's from Seattle, after all. A pretty little Cahors witch.”

Jer's stomach twisted in knots.
Holly!
What had happened to her? He was so busy fighting a sudden feeling of nausea that he almost missed James's next words.

“'Course, it's Moore now. Nicole Moore.”

Jer's heart leaped. It wasn't Holly! He breathed a prayer to whatever entity would listen to keep her safe and then another one for her poor cousin now wed to James. “Why aren't you with her now?” he asked.

“Let's just say she's recovering from last night,” James chuckled evilly.

Taking in a long scratch that ran from the bridge of his nose to his jaw and the way his left arm hung a little limply Jer wondered if James wasn't the one recovering. “Congratulations,” Jer said sarcastically. “Now, leave me alone.”

“Sorry, little brother,” Eli finally spoke up. “Can't do that. We've got work to do.”

Jer studied Eli quietly. His brother had dated Nicole for a long time.
What does he think of James marrying her?
Eli's face was passive, inscrutable, and it struck Jer just how much more like their father Eli looked than last he had seen him. There was something in his eyes, though. A dangerous spark.
James had better watch his back.

“What work?” he asked, fearing the answer.

“Black Fire,” James answered.

Jer forced himself not to recoil. He forced himself to sit absolutely still as though he had no knowledge, no experience, no deep terror of the fire. “Excuse me?”

James gestured as if to show the rising of flames. “Black Fire. You are going to help me conjure it.”

Jer laughed in disbelief. “I'm not going to help you do anything.”

“Oh, I think you will, if you want to live,” James drawled.

“Kill me, you'd be doing me a favor,” Jer retorted. It was a bluff. Not so long ago it wouldn't have been, but as he had been growing stronger he had begun to hope again.
Either that or it's the dreams where Holly comes to me,
he thought.

“I will, but not before I kill Holly before your eyes and Nicole's sister, Amanda, as well.”

Jer licked what was left of his lips. He had sworn
once, it seemed a thousand years ago, to protect them from his father. He had pledged himself to defending the helpless. Staring into James's eyes, he did not doubt that the other could do as he threatened. Something in him gave way a little. “I don't know anything about the fire,” he admitted. “Except that it burns.”

The House of Moore: Van Diemen's Land (Australia), 1789

Sir Richard Moore, By the Grace of His Majesty George III, Royal Governor of Botany Bay, stared into the scrying stone that lay on the carved wooden desk before him. In ten days the British ship
Destiny
would arrive with a fresh cargo of convicts to work the lands. Among the one hundred plus men and women were convicted thieves, murderers, buggerers and, most important, six witches. Of course, they hadn't been convicted of witchcraft. Thievery was the crime they had been accused of. But he knew they worshiped the Goddess and they were on their way.

Sir Richard curled his lip.
Followers of the Mother Coven. They think to escape us and spread their filth here, among the dregs of society. But those of us who are loyal to the Supreme Coven are everywhere.

Even though at times it feels as though we had been exiled to Hell itself … as I am in this vast wasteland devoid of culture and refined company …

No matter. My House is in ascendance. My father sits upon the throne of skulls in London Town, and I, his eldest son, come to this forsaken land in search of new magics that will add to our armory in the days to come. For while it is true that the Deveraux have been exiled these 113 years for publicly battling during the Great Fire of London, they may come back one day with the secret of the Black Fire. And then the House of Moore will have to fight to retain our crown as High Priest.

I stand much to gain if I can learn new ways of inflicting harm in this vast wasteland.

But before I do, I will take care of the minor inconvenience that these witches present… .

He closed his eyes and concentrated. He pictured the ship in his mind's eye. The seas were riding high, and the wind was kicking up. A storm was brewing and, with his knowledge of the Black Arts and his power, he helped it along.

Then he pushed against a seam in the ship's hull. Slowly a crack began to form. First a drop of water eased its way through, and then a steady trickle. He opened his eyes. Within moments he knew that the trickle would turn to a flood.

He turned back to the scrying stone and watched until the ship had sunk. Every man, woman, and child drowned, and he watched them all, smiling.

When at last it was over he rose, pleased with
himself. The papers on his desk relating to the running of the colony could wait. He had a meeting to attend.

The Cathers Coven: London, December

It was late afternoon, almost twenty-four hours since Holly and the others had entered Joel's safe house. Now, seated again before Joel's fire, Holly blinked and stirred from her reverie. She had had a vision: She had seen herself walking down the street near the fish and chips shop, encountering a tall man across the street, trying to communicate with him. There had been others with him. Then the Deveraux falcons had swooped down on them all, harrying them.

She didn't know what it meant, but she had a sense that the wards of the souvenir shop had been penetrated. That, combined with the unease she felt in not having known Joel was a male witch—a Druid, whatever he called himself—prompted her decision to leave.

They left Joel's home in the morning after having been given directions to another safe house in London, and a backup in another city should London become too dangerous. The city was Coventry. The irony was not overlooked by Holly, who was equally certain that it had not been overlooked by the Supreme Coven.

They twisted through endless streets until they had left Joel and his safe house far behind. A shadow brushed across Holly's mind and she turned, expecting to see something behind them. There was nothing there. She changed course, and they began moving south. With each step she took the feeling of being followed lessened. They turned another corner and took another street, which slowly began to wind its way north.

The feeling intensified, and Holly stopped in her tracks. The others exchanged looks but spoke not a word. The sensation stayed at the same level of intensity. “Does anyone else feel that?”

Sasha nodded silently, but the others just looked at her with blank faces. Holly took a step forward and the tingling along her spine increased. She took a step backward, and it lessened. Another step back and it lessened even more.

“North, I think the Supreme Coven's headquarters is north of here.”

Sasha nodded agreement.

Slowly the group started forward. A half dozen more steps and Amanda spoke. “I feel it now too.”

Another dozen steps and the others felt it as well.

Another dozen steps and all hell broke loose.

Death and destruction spread our fame
Till all others tremble at the Deveraux name
We will rule them in the end
King and serf, foe and friend

And now we claim for our own
All the power that we've sown
Goddess answer us in our need
Cause our foes to scream and bleed

“Goddess, protect us!” Holly cried as directly above the Coven, about twenty feet in the air, immense, scaly demons dressed in ancient battle armor burst from round portals shimmering with blue. Their heads were horned, their eyes red, glowing slits, and their mouths glistened with multiple rows of fangs. Their bodies were the sickly color of a bruise, purple and blue-black.

They began to drop to the ground.
It's raining fiends,
she thought, feeling an overwhelming urge to laugh
hysterically. Then one of the demons landed mere feet from Holly, and the urge to laugh vanished. She leaped backward, stumbling and falling, yet she managed to release a fireball at the monster. It raised its taloned hand, grasped the fireball, and extinguished it, flinging the embers to the ground. With a roar, it advanced on Holly. Its fangs glistened with green saliva as it lumbered forward on thick, well-muscled legs. Reaching into its armor, it withdrew what looked to be the hilt of a sword. Then it raised the hilt into the air.

A black falcon shrieked as it burst from the portal. Between its clawed feet it carried a gleaming blade. With another cry, it released the blade, which whistled through the air like a bomb and then magically connected with the hilt.

As the demon swiped it at Holly, crackles of green magical energy trailed. The weapon sizzled and danced with magic, and as Holly launched another fireball, the sword sliced it into dancing shards of heat and light.

She conjured and flung more fireballs, feeling herself almost a machine, some kind of animated fighting automaton such as warring clans had possessed back in the Middle Ages. She wondered where everyone else was, aware only of chaos whirling all around her.

The demon sliced her projectiles apart with ease. Then it hacked at the air itself, and the gray, snowy sky
seemed to shatter. Solid nickel-colored shards exploded outward, leaving a churning hole of fluorescent green about ten feet in diameter.

From the magical rent crawled more demons clambering over the broken pieces of sky, these much smaller and completely black, with deep, bloodred eyes and mouths that wrapped halfway around their snakelike heads. Seeing Holly, three of them leaped at her. She moved her hands and uttered an incantation, forming and sending a magical bolt of energy in their direction.

Her aim was true; she took out two of the three, and they exploded in a shower of body parts. The survivor sailed through the flying carnage and attacked her knee, clamping down hard with incisor-like teeth.

Holly screamed from the pain; it distracted her, but she managed to conjure another bolt. She flung it at the demon, and it disintegrated. She conjured more, sending them flying without aiming them, trying to wound the larger demon as it shambled toward her. The sword was no longer glowing, as if it had lost its magical charge, but the sharpness of the blade looked deadly.

“Goddess from the depths of night, banish them all from my sight,” she murmured. She looked up, expecting to see the demons vanish. Instead, the
demons kept coming but her vision began to blur and fade. “No!” she sobbed, frustration overwhelming her. “Goddess, now restore my sight, and kill this beast with whom I fight.” Her vision was partially restored, but she was beginning to lose consciousness because of her injury.
I'm the strongest witch alive,
she thought,
but I don't know how to use my power to save myself.

Then the monster froze, threw up its hands, and roared in agony. Slowly it began to tip forward … directly on top of Holly. Her fingers twitched as she whispered,
“Desino!”
Her vision blurred again as gray splotches danced before her eyes.
I'm losing it … Goddess, I demand protection!

The monster froze in mid-fall. With a twitch of her finger, Holly threw it to one side, where it collapsed in a heap on the ground. Behind it stood the tall, dark-haired man in her vision. She didn't know if her magic or his had killed the demon.

“Look out,” Holly rasped as another demon rose up behind him.

He wheeled around and moved his hands in clockwise motions; the demon staggered backward, then came at him again. It stuck its hand into its armor and brought out a wicked-looking short sword, glowing and crackling with magic.

Holly launched a fireball at the sword, and the
weapon burst into flame. Startled, the demon dropped it. Then it slashed at the space between it and the man, and Holly raised her hand to help him again.

But this time, more of the smaller demons pounced on her, pushing her onto her back. They began to bite… .

“Non, I will not die this day!”
a voice shouted inside Holly's head. It was Isabeau. Latin words mixed with French poured through Holly's mind as her witchly ancestress conjured. The demons held her down, slashing at her with their teeth, gnawing on her… .