Succession of Witches (25 page)

Sam blinked and began to look sleepy.
No
, thought Cassie,
please stay with me. I can stand anything as long as I’m not alone.

I guess…try to wake Helen. Wake my mother. Crazy witch has a contingency plan for everything, if anyone can do something while bound and gagged, it’s her.

Will do,
thought Cassie, trying to keep her thoughts sounding positive. She began to move to her right, where Helen lay; moving on her knees was awkward, but she had to try.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Lawrence bellowed, then pointed at her and murmured something, and she stopped moving. Her brain was giving the command to move, but her body wouldn’t obey.

Through fresh tears of frustration, she looked at Helen lying a few feet away. Somehow, from this angle, the woman looked even younger, like a little girl. Cassie stared: would waking Helen even accomplish anything? Or was she wasting what little time they had left?

She took a deep breath: rightly or wrongly, this was something she told Sam she would do, possibly the last thing. She had told him she was going to wake Helen, and no matter what else happened, she was going to do it.

If this is an emergency, try screaming….

She opened her mouth and let loose with a scream, louder than she had ever screamed in her life. Even she was impressed with how loud she was; maybe being part-angel gave her enhanced lungs. She only screamed for a few seconds before Lawrence cursed her into silence, and her mouth closed involuntarily.

“Jesus Christ,” Lawrence said. “Are you sure you don’t want her asleep again? This girl is impossible.”

Quentin shrugged, bracing himself to imbibe more of Sam’s blood. “Let her try whatever daft thing she wants, she can’t hurt us, and there’s a ward around the house so no one can hear anything. I’d rather break her will now rather than later.”

While they talked, Helen’s eyes fluttered open. She looked confused for only a second, then seemed to assess the situation, her expression growing hard. Cassie tried to catch her eyes, unable to speak or move.

Suddenly, she felt Helen’s thoughts in her mind.
You’ve been a naughty girl, I see
.

Cassie’s eyes widened with shock.
You can talk to me mind-to-mind?

Almost imperceptibly, Helen nodded.

You forget, in addition to being my son’s familiar, you are also my husband’s. We share all our marital possessions.

In any other scenario, that statement would have provoked a dozen questions from Cassie, but now there was no time.

Never mind that, things are getting desperate. Please tell me there’s something you can do to stop them!

Helen stretched out and managed to get on her knees; for someone with her arms tied behind their back and duct tape over her mouth, she looked positively relaxed.

Child, please. I did not spend 37 hours in labor with my son for this. It will all be taken care of shortly.

Before Cassie could respond to that, the sound of the doorbell made them all freeze.

“Mrs. A!” A deep voice called from downstairs. “Are you okay? What happened to the door?”

“Who in the
—?” Quentin started, black blood dripping from his mouth. Lawrence looked out the window behind Sam.

“There’s a pizza truck outside,” he said quietly. “Should I kill him?”

“No, you moron,” grunted Quentin, getting to his feet. He approached Helen and ripped the tape off her mouth. Helen scrunched up her face in pain, which surprised Cassie; somehow, she didn’t expect Helen to show any signs of human weakness. “You are going to yell downstairs that everything is fine, he is to drop off the pizza and leave. Your son’s going to die, but I can make it painless,” he whispered quickly. “Or not.”

“
It’s fine, Dylan,” Helen called without hesitation. “I’m just having some work done on the front of the house. Just drop the pizza off on the glass table; you know where my cash jar is.”

A pause.
“You sure everything’s okay?”

“Yes, yes, I’m just busy upstairs. Help yourself to a ten dollar tip.”

“You’re the best, Mrs. A!” he said, then Cassie could hear the man enter the house, splinters of wood from the destroyed door crunching under his feet. She then heard a click, like a mechanism locking into place, and wasn’t sure if she was hearing it with her ears or her mind, but it was definitely there. Lawrence and Quentin shared a look of confusion for a fraction of a second, then all the demons in the room—including Sam, Bennet and Serenus—collapsed to the floor like they were marionettes being pulled with strings.

“What in the
—?” Quentin growled, struggling to move off the floor. It looked like a magnet inside his chest was attracted to something below the floorboards.

There was the sound of sneakered feet dashing up the stairs, then a teenaged boy with a dyed-
black Mohawk and tons of stud earrings in both ears ran in the room and helped Helen to her feet.

“Sorry for the delay, Mrs. A,” he said, removing a pocket knife from his apron. “I had to make another stop.”

“That’s fine Dylan, you’re right on time,” said Helen calmly, as though a bunch of demons weren’t currently struggling on the floor of her son’s bedroom. She turned gracefully as Dylan cut her ropes. “I know people want their pizza while it’s hot. Now free everyone who’s currently bound, please.”

“Got it,” said Dylan, kneeling down behind Cassie to cut her ropes. Relief flooded through her, but she was afraid to trust it; was it really over?

“What have you done, witch?” bellowed Quentin. It was hard to look imposing while glued to the floor, but he did his best.

“Strangely, I feel zero need to explain anything to you. I’ll be sure to let you know if that changes,” said Helen, crossing her arms. She looked at Sam, who was also suffering under the effects of whatever strange spell she had cast. “Sorry, darling. It’s an anti-demon
spell, it’s not intelligent enough to determine friend or foe.”

Dylan ripped the tape off of Sam’s mouth, began to saw through the ropes binding his arms,
then frowned.

“These are cursed, Mrs. A. I can’t cut ‘em with a normal knife.”

“That’s alright, free everyone else you can,” Helen replied calmly.

Practically shaking with rage, Lawrence cried out from his place on the floor next to Quentin.

“You said the Witch of the Outer Banks was a weak garden witch! You led us into this with faulty information!”

“I was told she wouldn’t be a factor!” Quentin yelled.

Helen walked forward until she was standing in front of the two demons. “Oh I am a weak witch, children. Pitiful, really. But you came into
my home
; I’ve had 30 years to prepare for this,” she said quietly, crossing her ankles. “With that amount of time, even a weakling can mount a reasonable defense.” She glared down at Quentin, and Cassie shivered; even without his ice-blue eyes, her glare was certainly a match for his. “You tried to bleed out my son like an animal, in front of his mother. Did you really think that was a good idea?”

Bennet, whom Cassie had almost forgotten was there, was struggling on the floor next to Sam. As Dylan ripped the tape off of his mouth, he was looking up at Helen like he had seen a ghost. “Helpless, but powerful…a child yet, a crone…” he murmured.

Ignoring him, Helen continued to lecture the demons at her feet. “And as though threatening my family weren’t enough, now I have to do something I really, really hate: I have to call my husband. And it’s all YOUR fault.”

She shook her head and sighed. “I would love to do something horrible to you to make you pay, but frankly, your chances of surviving the night are nil, so it’s not even worth thinking about. It’s a shame; you’re all still young.”

“You’re the Mother of Sorcerers,” said Bennet in a hoarse whisper. “It’s you; it’s always been you. And that means…” he said, flicking his eyes to look at Sam with an expression of wonder.

Helen took a deep breath
, touched a bronze ring on her finger and then called out. “Oh husband dearest! I need you to come home and take out the trash. Dinner’s on the table.”

Pascal steeled himself in front of the door of the Daily Grind; why a demon would choose a coffee shop as a base of operations was beyond him, but it didn’t matter. Tonight, not only was he going to get his familiar back—the one he had handpicked, with the most perfect magic for his needs—but he was going to kill all the human members of Sam’s entourage that he could find. How he was going to explain that in court he wasn’t quite sure, but it was fine: Quentin had good lawyers. Besides, non-magical servants were still considered more or less disposable.

With a hand gesture, he motioned to one of the vampires behind him, who handed him the time stopping amulet. With a word, he activated it; now, anyone inside the shop should be frozen. He could kill whoever he wanted while they were in that state, but he would probably snap Sam’s servants out of it first; he wanted them to know who they were being killed by. It seemed only fair. After casting a basic illusion to keep anyone passing on the street from looking in the windows, he opened the door and entered the shop, his minions following obediently behind.

To his surprise, while the customers were indeed frozen, several in mid-sip, three men sitting at a table in the corner were playing cards, with a relaxed air as though all the people around them hadn’t just become living statues.

“Do have any nines?”

“No. Go Fish.”

Pascal squinted, confused. He recognized Dwight and Khalil, two of Sam’s human servants, from pictures he’d been provided with, and he knew Eugene Buckley by reputation. But why weren’t they affected by the spell?

“If you’re wondering why your amulet didn’t work on us, please remember that our master is a specialist in time magic,” said Eugene without looking up from his cards. “It’s going to take more than a cheap amulet like that to freeze us in time.”

“Pretty cool.
Power by osmosis,” said Khalil. “Do you have any threes?”

“No. Go Fish,” said Eugene.

Pascal shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I would have unfrozen you to kill you anyway.” He snapped, and the four vampires fanned out behind him. Buckley was formidable, but with four vampires plus Pascal’s own magic, there was no way the trio had a prayer. Still it was strange; why were they so calm?

“What stupid plan have you cooked up?” Pascal sneered. He could feel the weight of the vampires’ stare on the back of his neck; they were waiting for him to give the command so they could rip the humans apart.

Khalil slammed his palms on the table and glared at Pascal defiantly. “There’s a bomb strapped to my chest; the minute I die, this whole block is going to go up like a Chinese fireworks factory.”

There was a pause.

“That’s rascist,” said Dwight, shuffling his cards.

Khalil picked up his cards again. “Sorry, I just always wanted to do that. You know how it is.”

Pascal frowned. Somehow, this seemed to be getting away from him. “So, there isn’t a bomb strapped to your chest?”

“Oh no, I was just joshin’ ya.”

“There’s no bomb strapped to anybody’s chest?”

“Not that I know of,” said Eugene. “Do you have any 2s?”

“Fine, then enough of this stupidity.” He pointed at Buckley, preparing himself for a curse that would kill a rather old, rather powerful vampire. It took a moment. “Ormea—”

Before he could finish the curse, he heard a loud clicking sound and several soldiers, in full riot gear, popped up from behind the counter and several tables. He looked down at his chest, and saw several red dots from laser sites trained on his heart. At least five people were pointing rifles at him.

“If his lips move, shoot before he can curse,” said Eugene quickly, not looking up. “Mr. MacGregor, would you please give Mr. Arrigio a call? I’m sure he’d be interested to know about the trespassing going on this evening. And Menacing in the first degree.”

“My pleasure,” said Dwight, pulling out his phone.
“May as well get some photo evidence, too.” He pointed the phone at Pascal and snapped a picture.

Pascal seethed; they thought they could get the best of him with a couple of soldiers?
The nerve. He made a subtle gesture with his right hand, a secret sign for the vampires to fan out and attack.

As the vampires started to move, several of the black-clad soldiers disappeared, and for a moment, the room was a total blur of moving figures; when his vision cleared, he saw each of the vampires crumpled to the floor, metal stakes protruding from their chests.

“What the-?” he started, then a soldier moved with incredible speed and grabbed him by the throat, preventing him from speaking.

“The target has been secured, Captain,” the soldier called over his shoulder to Buckley.

“Thank you Gregory, I can see that,” said Buckley.

“It’s kind of overkill, you know?” said Khalil while Dwight dialed Arrigio’s number. “I mean, Navy SEALS who are also vampires? That’s just excessive.”

“I know,” said Buckley, sifting through the deck. “But that’s the whole point.”