The Thirteenth Sacrifice (21 page)

Samantha couldn’t tell her that she had prayed and the others had felt that surge of power from her. She had to come up with a plausible alternative. She took a deep breath and was relieved when an answer came to her.

“My body started to fight back because of the pain and the damage they were inflicting. It was an autonomic response, but one that used my powers. I couldn’t stop it.”

“That makes sense.”

Samantha was relieved that Bridget didn’t question the lie. Although the prayer had functioned much the same way—it had been her soul’s response, something she had no control over when it happened.

“So, why the test? It just pissed me off and got two of your coven killed.”

Bridget chuckled. “There are always more to take their place. Besides, it was more a test of my people than you.”

“So they failed, then.”

She nodded. “No matter. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. And now we have you on our side. You’re easily worth a dozen of them. It’s like getting an entire coven wrapped up in one.”

The other woman was deliberately flattering her. Samantha decided to let it go.

“Bridget—one of the names of the goddess. Interesting choice,” she said, subtly fishing for information as to whether it was her real name.

“Not really. My mother was a Wiccan. She had a whole list that she was going to name her daughters. I was the only one, though. I heard what you said back there,” Bridget said, changing the subject suddenly.

“Which thing?” Samantha asked, instantly on guard.

“About being here because you were worried that we were being careless, stupid.”

“Oh.”

“We’re not,” Bridget said, a note of pride in her voice. “It’s all part of a plan. A glorious plan.”

“Who are you trying to resurrect?” Samantha asked.

Bridget stopped walking and turned to her, clearly startled. “How did you know about that?” she asked, the color draining from her face.

Samantha smiled slowly. “I might have been gone for a few years, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know when big things are happening in my town.”

Bridget chewed her lip for a moment, and that sign of distress in a witch as powerful as she was unnerved Samantha a bit.

“You deserve to know. You should know. You of all people could help us so much.”

“I agree. So, tell me who.”

“Abigail Temple.”

Samantha began to shake from head to toe as she stared in horror at her.

Bridget mistook the emotion and reached out to grip Samantha’s hands. “I know—amazing, right? And so very exciting. Samantha, I cannot wait to meet her. Imagine, your high priestess alive again!”

Samantha could imagine, all too well, the death and destruction that would follow as night to day. The woman she’d feared for twelve years. The ghost who had haunted her dreams nearly every night since. They were trying to resurrect her old high priestess and then she would likely try to take over, restore her way of doing things.

And risk killing them all once again.

“I can’t imagine,” Samantha whispered.

And from the blissful smile on Bridget’s face, Samantha knew that neither could she.

“When?” Samantha forced herself to ask.

“Soon. I promise,” Bridget said.

“You’re going to need more girls to sacrifice,” Samantha said.

Bridget smiled. “Don’t worry. We’ve got that all taken care of.”

“I want in.”

“Of course you do,” Bridget said. “And you will be. But first…”

“What?”

“Well, the high priestess wants you to go through a few more tests.”

Samantha snapped, “No more tests. I think I’ve proven who I am and what I’m capable of.”

“I agree. But she has a way she likes things to be done,” Bridget said with a sigh. “Patience. We’re doing some spellcasting tomorrow night and you can join us then.”

“Where?”

“At Abigail’s old home. You remember it, of course?”

She would never forget it. And after her brief trip there with Ed she was pretty sure the house would remember her too.

“I can’t wait,” she forced herself to say.

The pain from her injuries was kicking into high gear as the shock wore off. She gritted her teeth against it and willed herself to keep walking. The injuries were extensive enough that doing some quick, minor healing wouldn’t help. It was going to take everything she had and she didn’t dare let her guard down that much in front of Bridget.

“Several of your coven members are wearing the tattoo that was the mark of my coven without having belonged to it and earning the right to do so. Abigail will not be as forgiving as I am.”

Bridget smiled, though there was a hint of uncertainty in her eyes. “We figure that by raising her from the dead we will have proven our worthiness to be her new coven and she will forgive us the premature use of the symbol. Besides, we’re raising the dead. Who is more godlike than us?”

Giving life to that which was lifeless was the ultimate act of creation and spoken of in most religions. But what they were attempting could hardly be called creation; it was more like reanimation.

The pain was becoming so intense that Samantha had to concentrate hard just to keep from screaming. “But why my coven?” she asked. “Why even bother resurrecting her? It seems like you have a fully functioning coven on your own.”

“Please, you’re being too modest. Surely you know that the dark feats of your coven are legendary? Every witch with any shred of imagination would give almost anything to have that type of power. When our high priestess called us together it was clear that she had the power, the will, and the vision to re-create the most dangerous coven that ever walked the earth.”

“Power is a double-edged sword. It also cuts the one who wields it.”

“Which is why she is so cautious, even with you,” Bridget said.

Bridget left her when they reached the Hawthorne. Samantha hadn’t been able to glean anything else from her comments.

Samantha made it to her room and then collapsed, feeling sick and exhausted and overwhelmed. Bones in her right hand had been broken, along with a couple of ribs. She had been barely able to stave off the pain while she was with Bridget. Now it overwhelmed her.

She reached deep inside herself and called up the reserves of strength she needed. She screamed into a pillow on the bed to muffle the sound so hotel security wouldn’t show up while she was fixing her bones. Healing them by magic was fast but far more painful than letting them heal on their own. It leached the strength and the energy out of her entire body, leaving her shaking uncontrollably. Her body temperature began to drop and she crawled under the down comforter, her teeth chattering.

Though she desperately hoped for warmth, the thermostat on the wall across the room mocked her. She didn’t have the strength to walk to it to raise the temperature, nor did she have the magical energy left to push the button remotely.

As she lay shivering and healing, tears ran down her face, washing away the blood that she had forgotten was there and staining her shirt and the pillow.

At last the healing was over and she lay, half conscious, unable to go to sleep like she wanted to so badly and also unable to wake up enough to get to the bathtub. It was the cost of magic, the terrible burden that most people never dreamed of.

I can’t do it,
she thought.
I was crazy to think I could come back and handle all of this.

Her thoughts drifted to Anthony. He was different from any man she had ever met. Was she attracted to him because the darkness had also touched his life? He could truly understand her past, her pain. She wished he were with her now, even though he was little more than a stranger.

She drifted in and out of consciousness, battling through the pain and fear. When there was a sound at her door she barely had the ability to turn her head to
look at it. A minute later Anthony was sitting on the bed beside her. When had he gotten there? He was saying something and she struggled to focus. Finally she made out the word “hospital.”

“No,” she forced herself to say, though the voice didn’t sound like hers. He was picking her up, holding her in his arms. His body was so warm. She clung to him, trying to feel just a little of that warmth herself. And then, finally, she fell asleep.

“You’re lazy,” the man accused her.

She whimpered in her throat. She wasn’t lazy
—
she was afraid.

When Samantha woke it was nighttime. She blinked sleepily, the room slowly coming into focus. She heard a sound and managed to lift her head a couple of inches. Anthony was sitting on the foot of the bed, munching away on a burger, a take-out container next to him.

“Hello?”

He turned, a look of relief spreading across his face. “You’re awake.”

“What are you doing in my hotel room?”

“Watching over you.”

“Why?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Because you clearly need it, at least from what I’ve seen.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to summon the strength of will to talk to him. “We agreed I’d see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, about that—I got a feeling you needed me today. When I got here I could see that I was right. What happened to you?”

“Fight.”

“Ouch. Sorry.”

“I won.”

He gave a low whistle. “I’d hate to see your idea of losing.”

She struggled to sit up, wincing. Her muscles felt completely weak, as though she had been sick for days. “I got an entrée to the coven.”

“Good, I think. Though from the looks of you I’m not sure that’s what I should be saying.”

She propped herself up and fought to stem the tide of nausea that threatened to overwhelm her. “How about you? Did you find anything?”

He smiled.

“I saw you walking with a woman earlier, name of Bridget.”

“Yeah?”

“Moved here a year ago from somewhere on the West Coast. And she was already plugged in before she got here.”

“So she was handpicked by the high priestess to be here.”

“Sounds as though.”

“Did you get a last name?”

He shook his head. “No one seemed to have ever heard one.”

“Anthony, you need to be careful talking to people.”

“It’s okay. Like I said, people are used to my being nosy. Just wait until you hear what I heard about you.”

Terror shot through her. Anthony couldn’t know about her past. If he did know the truth, it might well destroy both of them. She forced herself to take a deep breath. He wasn’t trying to kill her, so that must mean that he didn’t know.

“What did you hear?” she forced herself to ask.

“That you’re the head of the biggest coven in the south, based out of New Orleans.”

Her shoulders slumped as she relaxed. “That’s a good one. I’ve never even been to New Orleans.”

He shrugged. “Sometimes you get the facts, sometimes you get the fiction.”

“So how do you know which is which?” she asked.

“You don’t, not always. But the one thing I’ve learned is that the truth always reveals itself in time.”

She smiled at him even as she was praying that it wouldn’t.

He handed her a bag. “I didn’t know what you wanted to eat, so I just grabbed you a burger too.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ve got to get going,” he said, standing up and tossing the remains of his dinner in the trash can.

“Thanks for checking up on me.”

“No problem. I just got a weird feeling when I saw you walking by my museum with blondie. You didn’t look okay.”

“I wasn’t. You’ve got good instincts.”

“So, Samantha, what’s your last name?” he asked.

She looked away. She didn’t dare give him Ryan in case someone else might get it out of him. She couldn’t give him Castor because then he might connect her to the coven that killed his mother. “It’s Hofferman,” she said, silently apologizing to Ed for appropriating his last name.

“Hofferman—okay. Well, it’s been a pleasure, Samantha Hofferman.”

“Please, don’t use my last name. If witches discover it, they could have power over me.”

“I understand. Now, you get some rest. My number’s next to the phone. Call if you need anything.”

As soon as he had gone, Samantha grabbed her cell phone and called Ed. He picked up immediately. “What’s wrong?”

“They nearly killed me today,” she said, trying her best not to lose it completely.

“Are you hurt?”

“I was. I’m better now.”

“Do you need me to pull you out of there?” he asked.

“No, I’m finally in. I’m joining the coven tomorrow night for some rituals.”

“Great. Tell me where and I’ll have a team standing by.”

“Not yet. I need to know if the high priestess is there first. And besides, these people can never be taken as a group. Our best shot is to learn their identities and pick them off one by one.”

“Sounds dangerous to me. Both to us and their intended victims.”

“It’s the only way, though. We send in a team after them and they’ll just get killed and my cover will be blown. We’re going to have one shot at doing this right.”

“Okay, you’re the one on the inside. It’s your call,” he said, sounding very unhappy about it.

“You should know—I had to use your last name today.”

“Excuse me?”

“An asset needed a last name and there were reasons why I couldn’t give him Castor.”

“Thanks, but if people talk, you’re the one that gets to explain it to my wife,” he said sarcastically.

“She loves me,” Samantha said with a smile.

“Is there anything else you need?”

“No. Have there been any more developments?”

“Today has been mercifully quiet, as far as I can tell. But I hate babysitting. I want to go home.”

“Someone has to babysit and there’s no one I would trust more,” she said.

“If Roberts asks, don’t tell him that. Tell him to send me home.”

She laughed. “I’ll tell him you said so.”

After she hung up she managed to drag herself to the bathroom and take a shower.

She thought about the magic she had seen performed that day. Some of it had been new to her, the rest hauntingly familiar. She still had huge gaps in her memories from childhood and it was starting to make her nervous. The trick Bridget had done with the invisible snake—should she have known how to do that? Had she known at one time?