The Thirteenth Sacrifice (30 page)

She hated living without choice.

“You should have told me who you were!” he hissed.

“I didn’t have time to try to make things okay with you. I had too much work to do. So I just had to hope that you wouldn’t find out until everything was safe and I could find a way to tell you.”

“That worked out real well.”

“How did you find out?” she asked.

“It wasn’t hard,” he said sarcastically. “I called the hotel to leave a message for you. The operator was quite perplexed that I thought a Samantha Hofferman was in your room. She did, quite helpfully, tell me that a Samantha Castor had that room. You didn’t even try to hide who you were! I can’t believe you had me eating out of your hand. You were probably laughing the entire time.”

“Never laughing,” she said. “I felt awful when I realized how we were connected. Everything I told you was true. I just omitted the fact that I was the survivor you were looking for.”

“Pretty big fact. I can’t believe you kissed me, knowing who you were, what you’d done.”

“I didn’t want to kiss you,” she flared, feeling her cheeks flushing at the memory. “There’s something between us. I don’t know—”

“You mean my mother’s blood?”

She hated him in that moment. She could feel energy surging through her, flowing to her hands. It would be so easy to kill him, to make the accusations and the pain and the confusion stop.

She spun around, wrestling with herself, trying to regain control of her careening emotions. She couldn’t believe how she was feeling. She collapsed to her knees, shaking.
I almost killed him,
she realized, struggling to control the energy that was pulsing through her. She could smell something burning and realized that she had set the carpet beneath her on fire.

She put the fire out and dissipated the smoke so it wouldn’t set off any smoke alarms, then hunched there, stunned. She was losing control, if she’d ever had it. She was starting to think that when it came to using the powers, to doing anything magical, control was an illusion.
You only think you control it, but it controls you.

“Um, are you doing that on purpose?” Anthony asked.

She looked up and realized that everything in the room was vibrating, pictures were swinging on the walls, lamp shades were tilting, objects were sliding off the table, and the drawers of the bureau were sliding open and closing.

She was releasing energy in uncontrolled spurts and it was creating havoc in the space. It was probably leaking into the rooms on either side too.
The occupants will think the hotel is haunted,
she thought.

She took a shuddering breath and tried to calm herself.

“Seriously, are you doing that on purpose?” Anthony asked, fear edging into his voice.

“No,” she said. She moved so that she was actually sitting down and crossed her legs. She breathed in and out slowly, trying to bring order to her mind.

“Okay, this is not cool!” he said as a candle flew across the room, barely missing his head.

“You’re not helping,” she said.

“Tell me what’s going on!”

“I’m overloaded with energy and I can’t focus enough to keep it under control.”

“So you need somewhere else to put that energy?”

“That would be helpful since I can’t seem to focus.”

“My head’s killing me.”

She looked at him, her eyes narrowed.

“If you’ve got to put it somewhere, how about you help fix the bump on my head? Or finish patching up these broken ribs?”

“You’re making a lot of assumptions,” she said darkly. “Like I’m just going to let you go.”

His jaw tensed. “Look, I believe you. I don’t think you killed my mom.”

“I’m not sure if you’re telling the truth or if you’re just afraid of what I’m going to do to you.”

“I admit I’m afraid of what’s happening right now,” he said as a picture jumped off the wall and crashed on the floor near him. “So, whatever we need to do to stop all this, I’m good with it.”

She moved over next to him and put her hand on the back of his head. She could feel the wound, feel the swelling around it. She channeled the energy through her hand, and his skin grew warm to the touch. He jerked slightly. He didn’t trust her. And after what she’d almost done to him, maybe he was right not to.

She felt pain in her own head even as she healed his. She next moved her hands over his ribs and sucked in her breath sharply as pain knifed through her side. When she was done he heaved a sigh and she could tell he felt better. After a minute the pain she felt subsided. She pulled her hand back and around them the room started to settle down and soon all was still.

“Does that happen to you all the time?” he asked, open curiosity in his voice.

“No,” she said, clearing her throat. “I went fifteen years without using my powers at all. Now in the past week I’ve had to do so much with them and I’m out of practice. I can’t control them like I used to. And for some reason, you upset me even more than the people I’m trying to stop.”

“Ditto.”

She moved away and sat facing him. “If I let you go, will you promise to not try to kill me?”

“No.”

She took a ragged breath. “Will you promise not to try again tonight?”

“Yes.”

She moved her hand and the twine binding him snapped apart. He shook it off and rubbed his wrists, staring at her speculatively. “Do you still need help catching the other witches?”

“I’m not a witch.”

He raised an eyebrow and glanced around the room.

“Having these powers doesn’t make you a witch. It’s what you do with them that defines you.”

“How long you been rehearsing that?”

“All week.”

“Do you believe it yet?”

“No,” she whispered.

“So, you need help?”

“Obviously I do. But I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“We have a strange relationship,” he noted ruefully.

“I should warn you, the people who have been going crazy, seeing witches, like the one who attacked the mannequin in your window, seem to have been infected by some kind of magic.”

“Okay, what’s the deal?” he asked.

“It seems like some sort of magic that’s acting like a
toxin, altering brain chemistry and heightening people’s fear and paranoia.”

“You think I’ve been infected?”

“No. At least, you weren’t when you came in here. But I was infected earlier today and it’s possible that when I touched you, you were too.”

“How will I know?” he asked, his face growing pale.

“Fear, phobia, paranoia, a desire to kill all witches.”

He stared at her for a moment before clearing his throat. “Okay, I’ll ask again. How will I know if I’ve been infected?”

She had the insane urge to laugh. She bit her lip and shook her head. “If you get crazier than you are now.”

“Oh good, something to look forward to.”

“Tell me about it,” she said.

“So how do you fix it?”

“I’m trying to figure that out.” She closed her eyes. “Have you ever heard any rumors about medical professionals that link them to witchcraft?”

He frowned. “Like a witch doctor?”

“Very funny. No, like a doctor who also happens to be a witch.”

He was silent for a long minute and she opened her eyes. “What is it?”

“Once, a couple of years ago, I ended up in the emergency room. Car accident. The other driver was more messed up than I was and the same doctor saw us both.”

“And?”

“It took my broken arm twelve weeks to heal and when I left that hospital I felt completely drained. I was in bad shape for weeks. When I finally got out of the house I saw the other driver in the grocery store. The man had had two broken legs and a crushed arm. And yet there he was, four weeks after the accident and he
was perfectly fine, not a scratch on him. He wouldn’t even look me in the eye. I heard he moved out of the area shortly after.”

“And you think the doctor took energy from you and gave it to him?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Anthony admitted. “It always seemed strange to me, and after seeing what you can do with energy, it would explain a whole lot.”

“Do you know the name of the doctor?” she asked eagerly. “It’s important.”

“No, but I can find out,” he said.

She hesitated.

“Let me do this. I need to help take these people down.”

“What you need to do is go back to that motel and keep your head down until it’s safe.”

“And what if it’s never safe?” he asked. “What if you get killed? Or what if you take this coven down only to have another one spring up in its place? Look, I’m not the kind to just sit and wait and do nothing.”

“If something happens, if they catch you, I might not make it in time to save you again.”

“I’m willing to live with that risk.”

She wasn’t sure that she was.

She stood up and then helped him to his feet. He left a couple of minutes later and she locked the door behind him, then moved over to the bed and lay down. Her mind raced.

She tried calling George, but it went to voice mail. She ground her teeth in frustration. It was twenty-four hours until the Halloween parade and she needed to find out how to purge the toxins from her system before then.

Everything was unraveling and she was afraid there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Samantha woke in the dark before dawn with a start. Something was terribly wrong. Shadows oozed down the walls. She sat up, her heart thundering in her chest. It took her a moment to realize they were real and headed right for her.

She threw back the covers and jumped to her feet. Standing in the middle of the bed she could see that shadows were swarming across the floor as well. And she could feel witches present in the building, nearby. The shadows reminded her of those that had bound her in the back room of the Witchery. There was a good chance that either Randy or the witch that had been injured was involved. The way they moved was too similar for it to be a coincidence.

She spun, looking for an exit, but the slithering shadows were everywhere. The ones nearest the bed began to slither onto it.
Like snakes.

She brought her hands together just as she had done to form the kitten and shaped a ball of energy into a mongoose. It leaped from her hands onto the bed, attacking the shadow snake nearest it. She formed another and another. She cursed while she was doing it. There had to be a better, faster way to banish the shadow creatures, but she didn’t know what it was.

I need to remember more magic.

Soon battles were raging all over the room. With the shadows’ attention diverted, she was able to leap off the bed and move to the door. As she neared it she felt the energy just on the other side. She braced herself and then flung the door open. She reached out and grabbed
the two cloaked figures in the hall and yanked them into the room, slamming the door shut behind them. They spun to face her and she let loose all the energy that had been building for hours and that she’d been struggling to control. The wave swept both of them off their feet and they landed hard on their backs.

“Who sent you?” she demanded as she pressed a knee to the throat of the one nearest to her.

“We’re going to kill you,” the other one hissed, raising a hand.

“Not if I kill you first.”

Four of her mongooses leaped on the witch’s face. The witch screamed and Samantha touched her leg, sending a blast of energy to fry her vocal cords.

She returned her attention to the witch beneath her knee. She ripped off the hood and even in the dark she recognized Calvin. “Who sent you?” she asked, putting more pressure on his throat until his eyes bulged in panic. He clawed at her, struggling for air. She let up for a moment.

“No one,” he gasped. “We… we wanted you dead—what you did to us.”

“Tell me the name of the high priestess!”

“She’ll eat you alive. She has plans for you,” he said.

“Her name?” Samantha said, setting his hair on fire.

“Stop! I’ll tell you. Her name is—”

The fire whooshed and suddenly engulfed his entire head, killing him instantly. Samantha snuffed it, stunned. She turned and saw the witch she had severely injured. She had dissipated the mongoose and a snarl twisted her face. Her hand was raised and Samantha realized she had killed Calvin so he wouldn’t talk.

The witch raised her hands and made a choking motion and Samantha felt her own air supply cut off. She
clawed at her throat, even though she knew there was nothing there to grab.

Calm down! Think!
she commanded herself. The remaining shadows began to slither toward her. She had to stop the witch choking her, but she could feel the panic taking over. She needed to think, she needed to…

Her thoughts flew to the bullets that were sitting on the desk. She swept her hand and the bullets flew through the air and embedded themselves deep in the witch’s chest.

The woman’s eyes opened wide in surprise, blood began to trickle from the corner of her mouth, and then she collapsed. The shadows disappeared from the room and the invisible hands released their hold on Samantha’s throat.

She collapsed on her side, gagging, and closed her eyes.
I killed her with magic. Even though I used bullets, I still killed her with magic. Dear God, what have I done?

It took Samantha an hour to clean herself up. Afterward she called her captain and told him what had happened. He wanted to send in officers, but she talked him out of it.

“If I was who I’m pretending to be, the police would never find the bodies,” she said. “I can’t have anyone bag and tag these bodies and take them out of here.”

“Then what do you want to do?”

“I’m going to hide them for now. I’ll preserve them and we can figure out what you want to do about them later,” she said.

“There’s nothing natural about any of this,” he said in a strangled voice.

“My world. Welcome to it,” she said with a bone-weary sigh. “Have you heard anything from Ed or George?”

“They’ve been working hard. It turns out the latest victim had a sister who’s also missing.”

“The final sacrifice.”

“That’s what we’re thinking. It’s the most we’ve had to go on, so I’ve got everyone working overtime on it.”