T*Witches: Split Decision (11 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

BETRAYAL BY FIRE

Alex was waiting for Ileana. Her guardian had put her on standby for a fast trip to Coventry. But she hadn’t said exactly when liftoff would be. So when the phone rang, Alex jumped on it.

But it was Michaelina — trying to talk Alex into coming to work. Word of the “psychic waitresses” show at PITS had spread. Customers were requesting her. “So get in here. This is the land of tips aplenty.”

“Enjoy,” Alex responded. “I’ve got to go to —” She stopped. Trust Mike? Even Cade had advised against it. And he didn’t know half the half-pint’s tricks.

“But it’s not time yet,” Michaelina mused aloud. But it was her thoughts Alex heard, not her words. And they
were panicked:
She can’t have been called to the woods yet. Not without me being told.

Did she mean Salem Woods, Alex wondered. Was the spirit of Sara supposed to get in touch with Michaelina before telling Alex it was time to return to Montana?

“Please, please,” Michaelina begged. “You can’t leave me here alone. The place is mobbed. It’s not fair. You’re the one who thought up working for Pie in the Sky. Just come by for a minute. Please. It’s sooo important. I mean, I’ve got something for you. Something you need and will really, really like. You don’t even have to come inside. I’ll meet you out back.”

“I can’t stay,” Alex warned the imp, intrigued despite her distrust.

“Outside,” Mr. Tagliere told her twenty minutes later when she arrived at the pizza place. Motioning to the back door, he said, “She’s on break. Been working hard today, double the load without you.”

The rear door of PITS opened onto a set of metal stairs that led to the delivery alleyway. The day had turned dreary. The morning’s light clouds had become thicker, threatening rain. Mike was sitting on the top step, counting a wad of bills.

Alex was impressed — and wary. “You made that much in only a few hours? What’d you do, turn the tables over every fifteen minutes?”

Mike grinned. “No need to rush our devoted patrons through their lunches. I used another kind of magick to build the Michaelina — and Alex — fund. Told ya I had something you needed.”

Alex was afraid to ask. Who had Mike cheated, the customers or Mr. Tagliere?

“No one,” she protested. “No one all that much, anyway.” She claimed she’d written the checks accurately. But by the time they went into the cash register, they’d been … um … slightly altered. Less money due the restaurant, more money in Mike’s pockets. A bill for twenty-four dollars with a five-dollar tip, she explained, had magickly changed to fourteen dollars for the till and ten for Mike … and, of course, for Alex, too, she added again. “I told you I had something you needed.”

Alex was outraged. “How could you do that? I don’t know about Coventry, but here on the mainland, that’s stealing. It’s a crime — punishable by law.”

Michaelina tried to trump Alex’s upset with self-righteousness. “I brought more customers in. They came to see me — and you. It’s a game; it’s entertaining. It’s only fair that I get more of the proceeds.”

“That’s twisted. Besides, I may not be an initiated witch yet, but I know we’re not supposed to use our powers to cheat people!”

Michaelina shrugged. “Here’s a tip for you, free of
charge. Sometimes our powers are best served when we use them to serve ourselves.”

Alex crossed her arms. “We’re going back in there and you’re giving Mr. Tag every last dime you owe him.” She got up and was reaching for Michaelina’s hand when a dizzy spell hobbled her. She gripped the handrail hard, to keep from fainting.

Arise, Artemis. The time is now. You are needed!

The voice was definitely not Ileana’s. It sounded more like Sara’s spirit had, but impatient and commanding.

Where am I needed? Who are you?

Michaelina stood next to Alex, clutching the railing just as hard, trembling. She, too, had heard the demand.

You don’t recognize me? I’m Sara, your mother. I told you the time to leave would come quickly. Hurry now, get to the woods. The transporting spell is ready to be cast. It will take you … to where you are needed.

Alex knew that Mike would hear her telepathic response, but it couldn’t be helped.
I can’t go yet! I have to go to Coventry Island. Cam — Apolla — my twin sister is there, and Ileana is coming for me. I’m not ready
—

I will say when you are ready!
the voice roared.
You have no choice, Artemis. You must go to the woods. I await you there.

Quickly, Alex turned away from Michaelina and desperately
willed her thoughts to be scrambled, secret, and undecipherable.

Because the voice was not Sara’s.

If Alex had told Sara that someone needed her help, her mother would not just let her go, but urge her to. She would never have asked Alex to turn her back on the person, never have spoken to her so sternly. Whoever had called her, whatever she’d seen in Salem Woods, could not have been Sara Fielding or her ghost.

Alex was devastated. Her anger dampened by disappointment and heartbreak.

But who was this brash imposter? Only one way to find out.

She grabbed Michaelina’s wrist and told the awestruck pixie, “We’re going to Salem. This time, you’ll be paying the cab fare. You can afford it.”

No matter what Alex said to her, Michaelina refused to stray from the same script she’d been reciting for days. She didn’t know anything about Shane and Cam. She really was here looking for a second chance. She’d thought Alex would help her, be her friend. She had no idea why Alex had turned on her this way.

Mike’s words were lies, but the fear in her emerald eyes was very, very real. Whatever was freaking her was her secret. She was much more skillful than Alex in
scrambling her thoughts — and now whatever was scaring her was tucked safely away, out of Alex’s reach.

It was daylight. The woods shouldn’t have been as foreboding as they had been in the dead of night. Maybe it was the rain, then. The skies had opened, and inside the forest, it was dark, dreary, and muddy. The thick canopy of leaves overhead kept Alex and Mike from getting completely soaked. It was easy to find the exact spot they’d been to the day before: The circle was still there. The rain had not washed away the line Mike had cut into the earth; it remained defiantly deep and defined. Alex squinted at the thicket of trees where “Sara” had appeared hours ago. Was someone hidden in there now? She headed over but hadn’t gotten very far when a voice cried out: “Get back! You must remain inside the circle.”

Angrily, Alex retorted, “I refuse to stay inside the circle.”

“Fine!” the ghostly voice snapped. And then a figure appeared from behind the trees. A large, round creature draped in what could have been a billowing, velvet tent. “The choice is yours, Artemis: You can die in these woods or obey my command and return to the circle.”

Alex was too astonished to be angry. “Who are you? What are you? What do you want?”

The “spirit” tossed back the hood of her cloak. Alex gaped at the ebony curls — familiar, yet so out of place on the swollen thing before her.

“Sersee?” she whispered.

“You will obey me, Artemis DuBaer!” A sudden shock of flames erupted from the transformed witch’s puffy hands. Alex staggered backward. Feeling seared and raw, she landed inside the circle, tumbling and falling. Sersee’s heat wave had felled Michaelina, too. The tiny girl came to rest beside Alex, clearly not of her own free will.

Her face bright red and beginning to sweat, Mike gingerly picked herself up and glared at her sister Fury. “What are you doing in that flesh bag? She knows who you are. You can show yourself now.” Sersee didn’t answer, then Mike suddenly gasped, “Oh, no!” Then tried to hide her grin. “She
didn’t!
You let Apolla DuBaer do this to you?”

“She had help,” Sersee snarled. “Shane betrayed me. But have no doubt this is only temporary. As opposed to the spell I will work on the two of you — which will be quite permanent!”

“The two of us?” Mike’s smile disappeared. “What’s your issue with me? We were sent to get rid of
her
.”

Alex blinked at Michaelina, understanding dawning quickly. It had all been a scam! And not just to snare her. Sersee and company wanted two T*Witches for the price
of one. Divide and conquer. Shane had lured Cam to Coventry. Mike had played the dead-mother card with Alex to send her far away to Montana. Sersee was involved in everything.

Alex didn’t have to be told who was pulling their strings — but the bloated witch blurted it out, anyway.

“Oh, didn’t you know?” Sersee taunted Michaelina. “My instructions from Lord Thantos were to get rid of both of you. I guess you didn’t get that memo.”

“At least I didn’t
eat
that memo,” the furious little witch shot back. “Or the one with the simple arithmetic. Two of us versus — well, it looks like you’ve doubled, but there’s still only one of you —”

“Only one of me?” Sersee, her balloon face stretched taut, did her best to laugh. “Yes, just one — imbued with the dark magick Lord Thantos has granted me for my task. But now that little miss punk head knows the deal and refuses to play nice … I’m going to turn you both into the hot stuff you’re not, and then commend your ashes to the wind.”

Sersee had worn brown contact lenses when she was “impersonating” Sara. Now she focused her wild violet eyes on the ground at their feet. Instantly, in spite of the dampness left by the rain, the pine needles, leaves, and twigs on the forest floor began to smolder. Tiny flames erupted through the gathering smoke. They
formed a ring inside the “sacred circle,” crackling and building as they flared closer and closer to Alex and Michaelina.

Smoke set Alex’s eyes tearing. She couldn’t focus them on anything, couldn’t will a high branch or earth-bound stone to lift off and put the deadly witch out of business. Michaelina, coughing and choking in the smoke, was out of commission, too.

Before the trapped girls could come up with a counter spell, Sersee took her mission a step further. She had no plans to leave their demise to nature. She threw off her cloak, set it afire, and sent it flying telekinetically at the stranded witches, to smother them in flames.

Alex and Mike tried to duck, to move out of the way of the fiery missile, but the flames on the forest floor leaped up at them. There was nowhere to go and nothing to do but watch the lethal fireball careening at them.

“Please, Sers, please,” Michaelina screamed, “I can reverse the curse! I can make you normal again!” It was a desperate lie and even Alex knew it.

Still, the cape
stopped
in midair!

But it wasn’t Sersee who’d halted its flight. “Over my dead body!” a whiny voice intoned. A blast of arctic air tore at the burning cloak, sending it sailing overhead, over the tops of the trees toward the ocean. A second
gust blew out the leaping ground flames. Through the dark smoke, Alex could make out a familiar figure, plump and angry, small eyes narrowed at Sersee.

“Epie!” Sersee gasped, clearly as startled as Alex and Mike. “You fool! How dare you?” Her fleshy hands tried to curl into fists but failed. “How did you find me? Who sent you here?”

“Guess,” Epie insolently challenged.

“Thantos!” Alex and Sersee cried out at once.

“But why?” Mike chimed in, batting at her charred PITS apron, trying to quash the last stubborn flames.

“I know this will come as a blow to your bloated, and I do mean bloated, ego, Sers,” Epie said, “but Thantos doesn’t trust you any more than you ever trusted me. He sent me to spy on you, to make sure you did your job —”

“Then why, idiot, did you stop me?”

“Because of that! Because of the way you treat me! I thought you were my friend. But you’re not. Lord Thantos told me that. He wanted me to kill you after you got rid of Alex and Mike. And I promised him I would. That’s why he granted me the power to blow you into the sea, the same way you made me blow Camryn into the quicksand —”

“Cam!” Alex had heard enough. It was time to get to Coventry. She only hoped it wasn’t too late.

“Don’t you dare move!” Sersee shrieked at her. In her stretched-to-bursting purple gown, she looked like an angry grape.

“You’re in no condition to stop me, Sersee. And no one else around here is going to, either.” Alex glared menacingly at Epie and Mike.

Michaelina raised her hands in surrender. “I’m not going to stop you,” she promised, “but you’re not going to stop me, either. I’m going back to Coventry with you.”

“And so am I,” Epie insisted. Turning back to Sersee, she added, “I am over you and so outta here —”

“You’re not going anyplace!” the swollen witch commanded. “At least not without me. I’ve got some serious scores to settle back home.”

That made three enraged Furies accompanying Alex to Coventry Island. Epie and Mike were furious with Sersee. And Sersee wanted the treacherous bully Thantos dead.

One thing was very clear to Alex — there was no anger like that of a Fury foiled.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

LOVE IS BLIND

“Liar!” Ileana raged.

“Ingrate!” Thantos sneered.

“Desperate, deceitful beast! No matter what the Council judged, it was
you,
not Fredo, who was responsible for Aron’s death!”

“And you who lured your beloved guardian, Karsh, to his death!”

“You dare to even mention his hallowed name! Hold your tongue before I turn it into a slug!”

“Even before you lost your powers, vixen, you could never put a spell on me. You are as spoiled, weak, and vain as your mother —”

Tracker versus guardian. Father versus daughter.
The face-off was as classic, Cam thought, as a great big Greek tragedy. Thantos’s and Ileana’s contempt for each other was so raw, so powerful, ran so deep, it hurt both Cam and Miranda to witness it.

“That journal is as phony as you are!” Ileana tried to wrench the book out of her father’s hands. He lifted it easily out of her reach. “You turn a smiling face toward Miranda, who first you hid away in an insane asylum and then lied to for years. Lied about her children —”

“Silence, insolent witch!” Thantos turned on his hobnailed boots, his heavy dark cloak swung wide behind him, smacking his daughter and almost bowling her over. “Why do we wait for Artemis when Apolla is here?” he asked Miranda, as if he hadn’t noticed Ileana stumbling backward in his wake. “Why don’t we retire to Crailmore and study both books and see then which is the original and which an audacious fraud?”

Ileana raced after him, shouting, “Audacious fraud exactly. That’s what you are! Why would Karsh give
you
the book?”

Before she could say any more, Thantos tossed a handful of herbs into the air and silently recited an incantation. The Traveler’s spell, Cam remembered. And the next thing she knew, she and Miranda were with the black-bearded tracker in the massive salon at Crailmore.

“Where is Ileana?” Miranda demanded, putting a
protective arm around Cam’s shoulders. “You must bring her here at once or we will leave.”

“Miranda. Dear Miranda. When will you learn?” Thantos stalked over to his thronelike chair and threw himself dramatically into it, as if wounded by his sister-in-law’s request. He shook his head sadly. “You are too trusting, too good to know the mischief of which your niece is capable.”

To Cam’s surprise and delight, Miranda glared at Thantos, changing her appeal to a command. “Bring Ileana to us now or we leave!”

With a theatrical sigh, the tracker stood and mumbled an incantation. At the end of it, he threw up his hands. Cam expected a blinding flash of light, maybe even smoke, and for Ileana to materialize dazed and bedraggled. It took a moment, and then the mercurial witch did appear — more furious than before.

“Ileana.” Miranda stepped between the tracker and his enraged daughter. “What harm can come of it? Let us do what Lord Thantos has suggested. Let us compare the journals —”

“Excellent.” Thantos smiled at Cam and Miranda. He placed his leather-bound book on his desk, opened its cover, and beckoned them near to inspect it. Inside was a sheaf of parchment pages covered with the crabbed handwriting that even Cam, on one of her brief visits to
Karsh’s cottage some weeks ago, recognized as the wise warlock’s. “Ah.” Thantos beamed gratefully at Cam. “You know his hand. You know this is Lord Karsh’s writing —”

“It’s a forgery!” Ileana shouted, clutching the volume she owned to her chest.

“Is that so? Let us compare them.” Although his words were civil, the tone he used on his daughter was contemptuous. When Ileana had placed her book beside his, Thantos laughed. “Come see, Miranda,” he invited, flipping through the pages. “See this paltry attempt at copying Lord Karsh’s handwriting, look how messy, how unsteady the last pages are—”

“Proof that it’s genuine!” Ileana insisted. “He was at death’s door. Of course his writing was shaky. It took the last of his strength to set it all down. To make certain everything was said and explained.” Speaking of Karsh, remembering his whispered last words — “It is all written” — almost undid her.

“And, of course, you would have no reason to lie.” Thantos’s amused black eyes contradicted the taunting innocence with which he’d whimpered the question. As if snapping shut a trap, he added, “What reason indeed, I think we’ll soon see.”

Standing beside her mother, Cam studied both books. Their covers seemed identical — as alike as she and Alex. The title inscribed on the worn leather covers
was
Forgiveness or Vengeance.
But inside they were different. In one, the parchment pages were bound into a book; in the other, Ileana’s, a stack of parchment was hidden inside a hollowed-out volume. Both appeared to have been written with an ink pen — though there were more smudges on Ileana’s pages than on Thantos’s. Both books were of the same length and trailed off in the same spots. The handwriting differed only slightly, mostly in the last few entries.

Thantos flipped through both books, stopping in the same place in each, toward the end of the journals. Skimming the pages, it was clear that both books contained nearly identical information. The fact that Karsh Antayus and Nathaniel DuBaer — the twins’ grandfather — had been best friends throughout their lives. They were closer than blood relations — that was without dispute, as was the claim that Nathaniel had confided to Karsh his dying wishes for his family.

After that, the two books differed.

According to the journal that her uncle had produced, Karsh had
confessed
to killing Nathaniel deep inside the caves of Coventry.
Stricken by a sudden rage, I murdered my dearest friend. An unpardonable act I must confess before I die. The curse,
he’d written,
turned out to be stronger than both of us.

Could that be true, Cam wondered, feeling her heart
sink at the thought. Could kindly Karsh, the wise, protective warlock who had brought her and Alex together and guarded them vigilantly against all harm, could such a gentle man kill in a dark rage? Kill his best friend?

In the book Ileana owned, the scenario was slightly, but importantly, different. Karsh and Nathaniel had descended into the caves together, where Nathaniel became the victim of a deranged cave-dwelling warlock. And in a foiled attempt to save his dear friend’s life, Karsh became the instrument of his death. But it had been an accident. In this version also, he referred to a curse.

But neither entry explained it. Whatever the curse was must have been described earlier in the books, Cam reasoned, or would be revealed later.

Ileana’s gasp startled her. “There!” the furious witch shouted, pointing at her father’s book. “There the poisonous lies begin! There is the reason for this monstrous counterfeit!”

Cam quickly read Thantos’s passage.

My sons shall continue my legacy. All of them together, in their birth order, Thantos, Aron, and Fredo, shall lead the DuBaer dynasty into the next century. I have instilled in my sons all that is good, fair, and just. I have complete faith in them. If anyone can stop the Antayus curse, it is surely the next generation of DuBaer men.

Those were Nathaniel’s dying words, according to Thantos’s book.

Ileana’s book told a different story.

“‘From this day forward,’” she read aloud in a voice quavering with emotion, “‘only
women
will decide the fate of the DuBaer dynasty. Remarkable women, dedicated to good, to compassion, and to justice, schooled in the ways of our craft, and free of the Antayus taint.’”

Turning to Cam and Miranda for acknowledgment, Ileana’s face went from triumph to terror, shock, and outrage. “You don’t believe me? Miranda Martine DuBaer! You saw this with your own eyes. You —”

“I saw the book you showed me. I had no reason to doubt its authenticity.” Miranda looked away, lowered her head, unable to face Ileana. “But that was before I had knowledge of a second book. And, dear child, you bear your father such deep-seated hatred, is it possible
you
have the forgery? Is it possible you’ve done something … rash … something vengeful… to harm the man who abandoned you?”

Trying to suppress his gloating smile, Thantos pushed past his stunned daughter and laid a heavy arm around Miranda’s slender shoulders. “We mustn’t be too harsh,” he crooned benevolently. “Resentment and retribution are not her choices but her nature.”

The color drained from Ileana’s beautiful face.
She’d begun to hyperventilate. Unable, it seemed, to catch her breath, she’d been rendered speechless.

But not for long. “Of course he would try to discredit me, make me out to be nothing but a vengeful fool, a liar without scruples or conscience!” The deeply wounded witch tried to contain her hurt and the hot tears that had begun to well in her extraordinary gray eyes. “But you, Miranda? You who have known me all my life — surely you know better. How can you believe I would invent such a grotesque lie?”

Anchored by Thantos’s arm, Miranda hung her head, whether in confusion or shame, Cam couldn’t tell. Suddenly, Ileana called her name. “Apolla! Camryn, don’t you understand? ‘This family, this too, too powerful dynasty’ — it was our grandfather’s wish that you and Artemis would lead it. Not me. Not with my mother’s ‘tainted’ Antayus blood. But the daughters of Aron, you and your sister —”

“If that was what Lord Karsh meant,” Thantos cut her off, with a mocking smile, “why would he have assigned as their guardian a rebellious, rageful child, a mere adolescent whom the whole community despaired of? Why not choose an Exalted Elder, someone wise and respected? No, Ileana. You are the living proof of your own lie!”

Cam felt a wild urge to cover her ears and shout,
“Enough!” Nothing made sense now. There was too much to think about, too many distorted versions of the same tale. Her instinct, her heart, was with Ileana, yet even Miranda could not endorse the excitable and overwrought witch’s story.

Shell-shocked, Cam backed away. She’d come — was it less than a week ago? — for Shane. The wayward warlock had said he needed her. She’d come to help him. Finding a soul mate in the process, she’d told herself, might be a bonus.

Instead, every step she had taken on Coventry had exploded a land mine of secrets. Now she stared into the open wounds of a family battle. And if Ileana’s version was the correct one, soon she’d be called upon — she and Alex — to rule … to lead the DuBaer dynasty?

“But this is madness!” Ileana burst out, her face now slick with tears. “Miranda, Camryn, you cannot seriously believe that I created this deeply detailed document out of sheer spite and malice. How could I? With what means? Do you honestly think I sat for days on end forging my beloved guardian’s handwriting and distorting his will?”

Cam’s eyes glazed; she saw something that wasn’t in the room. “Are you all right?” her mother asked anxiously, rushing to her side. “Are you having a vision, a premonition?”

“No,” Cam said slowly, “I’m remembering something.”

Immediately, Thantos inserted himself between Miranda and Cam. He placed a calloused palm on her forehead, as though to check her temperature, to see if she had a fever.

Cam twisted away. Instinctively, she knew that his gesture, however caring it was supposed to be, served a darker purpose: to physically come between Cam and Miranda. To block them from each other. To stop Cam from describing what she had suddenly recalled.

All right, then, she thought. She would not spar verbally with her devious uncle or his distressed daughter. Instead, she asked, suggested,
insisted
that they follow her. Miranda agreed without hesitation. She was at Cam’s side in a moment. Ileana, anxious and wary, trailed them. Thantos hung back.

“Apolla,” he called out, “this is my home and I am the head of this family. You may not command in this house.”

None of them paid attention to his blustering. And so the hulking tracker had to choose. He could stay behind sulking defiantly, or give in and go along with the women. He wavered. They were out the great room’s doors before he decided to join them, his boots clacking angrily across the marble floor of the hallway.

“But this was my room!” he thundered, when Cam led them into his childhood bedroom. She went directly to the bureau and began to push it away from the wall. Miranda and Ileana watched wordlessly.

“What foolishness are you up to?” Thantos demanded.

“I discovered this by accident,” Cam explained as the secret door came into sight, “and I went down —”

“Down the rabbit hole?” Thantos smirked sarcastically.

Cam spun around. “Down to the caves. I think you know what’s there.”

Thantos bristled, then laughed dismissively. “The rabbit hole, that’s what we called it. A childhood playroom. I haven’t thought about this place in years.”

Cam had already entered the tunnel. Her uncle’s voice echoed through the dark chamber. “There’s nothing down there that has anything to do with this,” he insisted impatiently.

“Nevertheless —” Cam heard Miranda say, then heard her delicate footsteps on the creaky spiral staircase, followed by Ileana’s high-heeled tread.

“What new madness is this?” Thantos’s voice reverberated as he reluctantly brought up the rear. “What do you hope to find in this dank and deserted place?”

“I think you know,” Cam shot back over her shoulder
as she entered the round cavern. And then she stopped, silenced by shock. The central cave and all five tunnels that radiated out of it were dusty, deserted, eerily quiet. There was no outcropping of stone, no hint of the rock formation that the ponytailed scribe had used as a desk, no telling globules of wax on the stone walls and floor to prove that candles had been lit here.

Thantos read her mind and loosed a bellowing laugh that shook the empty chamber. “It was foretold that you and your rebellious sister would become powerful witches,” he sneered. “Yet you cannot tell the difference between a nightmare and an omen.”

Cam was shaken. Could she have dreamed this? Had it been a vision — the first ever that had not come to pass?

“No!” The decisive voice was Ileana’s. She, too, had heard Cam’s thoughts. “Say it. Say what you saw. I believe you, Apolla!”