The Gleaning (3 page)

I did a lot of things, but I didn’t do snakes.

I jerked my arms back, but my wrists were held against my will, wrapped into tight cords. I bit back a scream and squeezed my eyes shut, focusing on the amulet in my pocket. Fire coursed through me, ran up my shoulders and coiled down my arms, until the snakes screamed in pain and let go.

I’d have to find Logan without the aid of this bewitched wall.

Unfortunately, once the fire in my arms faded, I couldn’t see a thing.

I slumped down on the step to think, careful not to sit completely or touch anything. Fighting the creepy-crawly chills skulking up my back, I reached the only thing of comfort I could think of and squeezed Logan’s amulet in my palm.

Where are you?

Tears stung my eyes as I thought of all the ways this night had gone horribly wrong. I’d tried so hard to do the right thing, to not lie to Logan, and everything had backfired perfectly. As if my imagining of the events beforehand—meeting him, explaining how I needed to know unequivocally whether he wore the mark before we entered the Gleaning—was the exact opposite of what actually happened.

Now he was down here, locked away somewhere in who knows what condition, and I had no tools to find him.

The amulet throbbed quietly in my hand. I felt its vibration rather than seeing its glow. Like it was alive—leading me, like Clay.

I couldn’t help but wonder: why would a warlock’s totem help a witch? The creature had led me on my enchantment flight as well. But for the moment, I had to push these greater wonderings aside and find Logan.

Shivering in the dark, I hugged my arms, focusing on all things Logan: his incomparable energy, the sensation of his skin on mine, on the images of our amulets. Statue-still, I waited for something to bounce back to me.

Lily?

I jumped forward, daring to reach out for the wall again, and I was surprised to find cold metal. A grate.

Logan! I’m here!

My fingers tangled on what felt like bars.
Where are you? Logan, hang tight. I’m coming to find you.

I sparked my fingertip to peer into what I guessed was a holding cell.

Aside from a metal cot in the corner with a thin, burlap looking blanket, a pan on the floor with sloppish leftovers clinging to the metal, and a small, deeply unsanitary looking toilet, the place was empty.

My eyes grazed the toilet again. Ew. This place was breaking every single health code violation in the magic
and
human world.

How could the Congression allow Jacob to keep a
dungeon
in his Academy?

My whole body shook from the wrongness of this place.

Then my vengeful thoughts were interrupted by a sound, a scraping of something—chains? More snakes?—against the wall behind me. After clasping Logan’s amulet around my neck, I snuffed out my finger light and backed up to the wall, making myself as thin and invisible as I could.

Logan

Lilies.

Their beautiful smell overtook the moldy rot. Lily?

Couldn’t be.

Jacob was screwing with him. Imprisoning him wasn’t good enough. He had to add a twist of psychological torment as well.

No, the smell was organic and true. Nothing Jacob could reproduce, not this perfectly, not even with sorcery. But she couldn’t be here. She wouldn’t dare risk her personal safety for him, especially after he begged her not to…

Of course she would.

Damn it, Lil,
he grumbled, but at the same time, a feeling of gratitude—of hope—bubbled into his core.

Lil?
He dared use their connection.

Logan! I’m here, where are you?

In the basement, in a cell, somewhere. Are you okay? I saw the flames before I blacked out.

I’m fine. I doused them out.

Good. You’ve got to get out of here. Jacob will be back any second.

I’m at the end of a long hallway. I’ll stop when I feel you.

Please, just go. If he finds you here—

Not until I make sure you’re okay. Is there another level?

I’m not sure. I’ve never been here before. Lil, forget it. Just go. He’ll let me out. He has to. The Gleaning is tomorrow.

I’m not leaving until I see you.

I’m fine, really. He just wants to keep us apart.

He should force her to leave, assure her he was fine–but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. A moment ago he couldn’t move, but now he was stumbling toward the thick wooden door, wrapping his fingers around the bars, waiting for her.

Lily

I tried each door, finding nothing but square windows with cold, metal bars. The wall curved, and I found myself in another corridor. Then another. How big
was
this maze of epic creeptasticness?

I’m not leaving. Is this…? Logan?

“I’m here,” he whispered aloud.

I gasped with excited relief. “Oh, Logan. I was so worried.”

Through the bars, our fingers intertwined.

I pressed my face against the hard metal, ignoring the pain shooting through my forehead as my magic bent and melted the bars so my mouth could find his in the darkness.

Cupping his face with my hands, I felt the rough stubble that must have grown overnight. His hands were on my cheeks. His warm breath on my face.

“You aren’t close enough,” he said.

“What do you want to do, break down the door?” I joked.

“Something like that. Press your palm against the lock.”

I did as he asked. Through the heavy, wooden door I saw a dark outline of his palm. The lock snapped under the pressure of our magic. The door flew open, and he pulled me against him. His body was hard, and his hands were all over me: scrolling up and down my back, tangled in my hair, cupping my face. His kiss was just as hungry. Rough even. He pinned me against the stone wall of the cell and pressed his body into me.

“You’re insane to come here…why would you do this for me?” he whispered in my ear, kissing down my neck. Shivers exploded across my skin.

“I needed to see if you were okay. You’re the one, Logan. I need you. We all need you.”

“How do you know I’m the Rognaithe?”

“I feel it.”

“Oh? Even right now?”

I tensed. “Of course, Logan…why are you acting so…?”

His shoulders trembled. His forearm shuddered under my tight grasp, and before my stunned eyes, his dark brown hair faded to blond. Shifty cerulean eyes replaced his warm, steady ones; and now a different, startlingly gorgeous boy was staring back at me.

I blinked. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Jude,” he said in a crisp, British accent.

I took a step back. “Where’s Logan?”

He shrugged, wiping the back of his hand across his full lips, a reminder of where mine had been moments ago. “Down here somewhere, I imagine. Haven’t had the good luck of running into him yet. But if I do” —he winked— “I’ll let him know you stopped by.”

“You bastard.” I shoved him hard in the chest, leaving two glowing palm prints across his bare pectorals. His ink was different from Logan’s—brown and lyrical, like henna tattoos. I made myself stop noticing.

“Pretty isn’t it?” He glanced down at the ink. “Not as pretty as you, of course, but your kind of beauty would be difficult to match.”

“Flattery may get you killed, jackass. What do you want?”

My swordfinger lit preemptively in case I had to toss him back into the wall.

“Easy, darling.” He held out his palm. “Hear me out for a second, will you? Then I’ll leave you to your precious Logan.”

I had to find out what he wanted. “You have two minutes.”

“All you witches are looking for this Rognaithe fellow, yes? This ‘Chosen One’.” He curled his fingers. “Why are you all so convinced it’s Logan? Sure, he has the looks and the skills, not to mention Jacob’s favor.” He rolled his eyes dismissively. “But I’m the one with the pedigree. I come from a long line of ’Spinners, dating back to the Beginning. True magic. Pure, hereditary witches, none of this inbreeding shite” —He looked ill just uttering the words— “this New Religion rubbish. So, I’m just asking you nicely to give me a once-over, eh?”

“A once-over?”

“Give me a looksee.” He grinned and wiggled an eyebrow. He certainly was animated.

As casually as if he was showing me the time of day on a watch, he unzipped his fly and started pulling down his pants.

My hand flew over my eyes. “You’re not the Rognaithe. I assure you.”

“Just check for the mark, sweetheart. What would it hurt?”

“My retina is one guess.”

“Ah, but see, when you were kissing me,” he said, gesturing toward the wall, “it certainly didn’t seem like you were suffering, sweetheart.”

His expression was that of a prep-school villain. The guy you watched from afar but would never approach. The guy who knew how to get exactly what he wanted whenever he wanted without ever having to ask for it.
Way
too attractive for his own good.

“I’d kick your smug ass if I thought it was worth the energy.”

“Shame. There’ll be other chances, though, certainly.” He sighed in amusement as I pushed past him.

I flew out to the dark corridor, heart pounding, as his arrogant laughter floated after me.

How could I have done that? Kissed this Jude, thinking he was Logan? Shouldn’t I have noticed the difference? I wanted Logan. Not that cocky jerk. I bit my lip, chastising myself for enjoying his kiss so much; his rough, confident touch, the aftershocks of his caresses still shivering through my skin.

I took a deep breath in an effort to resettle my nerves.

Now I knew exactly how Logan felt after kissing my doppelganger—this raw, post-passion guilt. And it was unsettling at best.

Lil? Are you still down here?

Logan! I wiped away my most recent thoughts.

Guilt pulsed through me as I debated if I should even reply. Wouldn’t he know right away that I’d been kissing someone else? But he was waiting, worried. I had to answer.

Logan?

I thought you’d gone.

I’m still here. I’m…I was…

Lil, someone’s coming, you’ve got to go.
I’ll find you tomorrow. I promise.

Dark energy enveloped me. I was grabbed from behind. A strong arm around my waist, a hand over my arm.

I fought. Pounding into him with my elbows until a flicker of light revealed my captor: Chance. With a finger over his lips, he led me briskly to the top of the stairs, where the secret exit awaited. After pressing his palm against a spot on the wall, he waved goodbye and nudged me through the opening. Full of guilt and fear, I fled into the darkness.

***

Rapid-fire thoughts hit me as hard as my feet pounded the dirt toward home.

Why would this Jude think he was the Rognaithe? What had he meant by “hereditary witches”? And, perhaps most importantly, how did he shift so easily from Logan back to himself? That was some pretty complicated magic. Furthermore, who was behind my doppelganger, and how did they glean enough magic to make a doppelganger in the first place? Were they somehow connected?

I ducked under a branch, feeling the wind on my face.

Normally you had to glean someone’s essence before you could shift into that person, and even that was terribly difficult—nearly impossible. Those spells were spun in ancient times and mostly seen in legends. Morgana for instance borrowed Guinevere’s essence to steal a night with Arthur (who incidentally happened to be her own half-brother—that’s some nasty-magic there). And it almost killed her to do it.

In modern times, only a magician who possessed extreme magic could spin a spell of that proportion. Someone with access to both dark and light magic; a powerful mix not only immoral, but forbidden.

Magic outside our world.

Who could possess such power?

Suddenly, severe leg cramps stopped me in my tracks and left me in a tangle of jacked-up limbs on the dirt.

Fabulous.

What a fine hot mess I was in now.

After a few minutes of aftershocks, similar to the small spasms of seizure after a grand mal, I managed to sit up and attempt to stretch out my knotted legs. Biting my lip to hold back painful cries, I tried to stretch out one and then the other. I stared down at the tattered strips of material that used to be my beautiful white dress. Moonlight shone on my bare feet, now cut up from rocks, left raw and bleeding. I didn’t want to cry, but I couldn’t help the tears that spilled out of my eyes, the salty tears dripping into my mouth. They tasted sweet, like saltwater taffy.

The enchantment made my lips taste like taffy?

No wonder Logan’s British doppelganger wanted to make out with me
, I thought wryly. Seriously. Now that Logan and I both had doppelgangers, did that mean the Rognaithe was replaceable? That we both were? I gathered my thoughts as I pressed toward home, planning what to say to my coven. So much had changed in the last twenty-four hours.
What will I tell them
, I wondered, with an eerie uncertainty. And what did they already know?

My front door, which we never lock, was latched shut. My thin gown had no pockets; I didn’t have my bag, keys, or cellphone—anything. I stood outside ringing my own doorbell, yet no one answered.

In my mind’s eye, I Saw my coven lying unconscious in my living room, slumped over on the couches and easy chairs. Mom’s mouth was open as she lay in her armchair, with a book splayed across her chest. “Geez, so much for waiting up,” I muttered. Whispering a frantic spell, I snapped the latch open with my palm.

“Mom!” I ran over to the chair, shaking her. Nothing. “Mom! Wake up!” What an eerie sight, all these sleeping witches. I shook her harder. She was so still and heavy, I feared the worst and checked her pulse. It was there, just weak, like she was dead asleep. I laid my palms on her heart and spun a quick energizing spell. As much as I hated to admit it, the exchange with the warlock in the dungeon had increased my powers. Whatever I’d gleaned off him, the sampling of his magic helped now.