Witch & Curse (13 page)

“Um, I'm going back to San Francisco for my senior year,” Holly told him. “I'm just here to visit for a while.”

“Alas,” Tommy said, and he sounded truly sorry. “Let's drown our sorrows in white chocolate-dipped biscotti.” He handed her back her menu. “And I would like you to pay for me, Mani-chan, because the summer job is over and—”

Amanda cut him off, muttering, “Oh, no.”

Holly followed Amanda's line of vision. From a table crammed with very stylish people, dressed-like-a-tart Nicole rose slowly like a rock star about to open her act. Neither Holly nor Amanda had realized she was in the house. Then two guys walked in through the front door, which was painted purple and black,
like a bruise. Both of them were dressed all in black, with very dark hair, dark eyebrows, and sharply chiseled faces, but only one of them took Holly's breath away.

Tommy sighed as if he were used to this routine. In an absurdly polite tone of voice, he asked Holly, “Want something to go with your latte and biscotti? Like a friggin' barf bag?”

Holly flushed—he had caught her checking out another guy, which was rude when a guy was already in one's presence—and replied, “How much are the barf bags? Our coffeehouse back home doesn't carry them.”

Tommy clearly appreciated her retort and said, “Doesn't matter. Only the best for out-of-towners. You're the guest.”

“Just biscotti and the drinks,” Amanda suggested. Holly nodded.

“Okay. But be careful—
she
likes to pick off all the white chocolate and then hand the disgusting remains back to you,” Tommy said accusingly.

He frowned at Amanda, but her focus had also shifted elsewhere . . . back on the sexy guy, who was crossing the room and heading straight for their table.

He was looking directly at Holly, lion—no, sleek black jaguar—slinking toward his prey, every muscle
tensed as if he were going to pounce on her.

“I'll decamp. Go put in our order, because in this section of the jungle, the waitress will never show,” Tommy said lightly, but it was obvious he was not loving the moment.

“Hey,” the guy said. He was looking right at Holly.

Holly glanced at Amanda, who tipped her chin and started picking at her fingernails, murmuring, “Hi, Jer.” Her bravado and cheeriness had evaporated on the spot. She raised her head and cleared her throat. “Holly, this is Jeraud-Luc Deveraux. Holly's my cousin.”

Holly looked back at Jer, taking in how dark his eyes were, then thinking,
No, they're green, with flecks of brown in them. They're so . . . extraordinary. . .
.

The room canted, as if all the tables and chairs and posters for local bands, and flyers for art exhibits tacked on bulletin boards, and the bubbling copper espresso machine and the baristas and the kids in black and the kids in letterman's jackets should all go sliding down to the corner farthest away from her and this one guy. Holly knew that she had met him before; she didn't know where, she didn't know when, but Jer Deveraux was no stranger to her.

“Bonsoir, ma dame
,” he said in French, the first word split into two deliberate words, turning the
phrase into an elegant greeting,
Good evening, my lady
.

Holly unhesitatingly answered back, not understanding why the words came so easily and naturally,
“Bonsoir, mon seigneur.”

“Yo, Jer.” Tommy stood to one side of the table. He snapped at Holly and Amanda, “They're out of the biscotti. Maybe I can scare up some frog legs or snails, though, since it's French night at The Caff and I totally forgot my dictionary.”

“Holly?” Amanda asked.

But Holly couldn't pull herself out of her daze. She couldn't stop staring at Jer.

Jeraud-Luc Deveraux.

That's not his name
, she thought.
His name is . .
.

It's . .
.

“Jean,” Isabeau sobbed, reaching her arms out to her lady mother. The two were dressed in witches' regalia—heavy black gowns, hair entwined with veils and dead lilies and herbs. “Please,
ma mère
, spare him.”

The room was furnished with two stools; the stone altar of the Goddess, dragged to the turret room by two serfs, who were then slain; and a brazier for warmth and light. The fire in the brass brazier was hot and full; shadows flickered on the grimy stone and on the fur of Diable, the dog Isabeau had left behind when she went
to Castle Deveraux. The cur now lolled contentedly at her side as she knelt in the filthy rushes and clasped her mother around the knees, sobbing against the rich fabric of her gown.

“S'il vous plaît, ma mère,”
she begged. “If you ever loved me, please, please spare him.”

Her mother, the Queen Regnant of Le Circle des Cahors, sat stiff-lipped and cool, unmoved by her daughter's entreaties. With each new display of tenderness toward their traditional enemy, her upper lip curled, until she herself looked like a demoness. As she gestured to the dead lamb on the altar, the little creature sacrificed so that she could read Isabeau's fortunes in its entrails, she said harshly, “
They
will not spare
you
.”

They had secreted themselves in the highest turret room of Castle Cahors. The moon was fecund, her moisture sticky and warm and ripe for begetting spells and children and curses. Busy autumn air whistled through the round, stone enclosure, crackling with burnished leaves and the smell of apples. While Deveraux warlocks worshiped the God in dank dungeons, the witches of the Cahors sought out the tall places, where they could reach their arms toward the Blessed Lady Moon.

“They will spare me if I have a child.”

Catherine's fingertips were bloody. She had
already inscribed a pentagram on Isabeau's forehead, and now she pressed her thumbprint into the center, where the Jews were said to believe the third eye, which belonged to God, gazed inwardly at one's sins.

She said steadily, and with all the certainty of a highborn witch, and one who knows her Art, “You will not bear a Deveraux devil.”

“You must not force me to be barren any longer!” Isabeau shouted. She grabbed at her hair, tearing off her veil and throwing it to the floor. Then she crashed down to her elbows, covering her eyes with her hands, and wept. Her long, black hair streamed over her back and tumbled over the rushes.

“You knew our plan. You agreed to it.” Her mother's voice was as cold as the stones beneath Isabeau's empty womb.

“But now I . . .”
love him
, she almost said, but her mother would sooner strangle her only daughter than hear her declare her love for a Deveraux. “Now I see qualities,” she said feebly, and fell to silence at her mother's expression of contempt and outrage.

“You have failed,” Catherine said. “You were sent to learn the secret of the Black Fire. But they will never share it with you,” her mother stated, tapping her bloody fingertips on the sleeve of Isabeau's shift for emphasis.

“You must realize that we have been wordlessly
bartering with them, a son for the secret. They have refused. Now they plan to rid Jean of you so that he may sow sons in another's womb.” She sneered at her daughter. “There is no place for warmth or softness in our dealings, girl. You should have learned that at my knee.”

“It's been a trap from the beginning,” Isabeau said bitterly. “You sent me there knowing full well everything that was going to happen. The moment Jean and I were bound together, wrist to wrist, was the moment I signed his death warrant.”

“You knew that.” Her mother sat up very tall, her back straight, her carriage regal. “You knew we planned to massacre them all if they didn't share the secret. You will return to us in a marriageable state, without Deveraux issue to bind you to them.”

Isabeau sat up, and her mother smiled a little. “Ah,
Maman
, I did not mean to fall in love with him. . . . I am a Cahors, and always will be. But . . . but I . . . he is my husband now.” She wiped her eyes and rubbed her hands on her shift. Then she got to her feet and walked to the brazier, warming her cold, cold hands over its natural, yellow flames.

“He has bewitched you,” Catherine said, tapping her right forefinger against her left palm for emphasis. “Work your way back through the spell, child. He is a Deveraux, and he must die with all the rest.”

Before Isabeau could protest, she went on. “Think, girl. We cannot let the blood heir of our greatest enemy survive the massacre of his entire family! He will curse us all, and his spirit will not rest until every Cahors, everywhere, is dead. He will hunt down our descendants and their descendants, and it will be on
your
head, yes, and mine, if we falter now.”

Her mother reached down and picked up Isabeau's headpiece. She held it out to her daughter, who took it.

“Now, tell me about the entrances and exits on the castle grounds,” her mother instructed her. “Leave nothing out. Do not think to trick me in order to spare him.”

Isabeau wiped her nose. Her hands trembled. She said, “The—the north wall is less fortified than the others. Because it overlooks the sheerest drop.” She swayed.

“Sit.”

Catherine walked to the turret door and threw it open. Berenice, a lady in waiting from Toulouse, was caught listening at the door. She gasped and dropped into a deep curtsy.

“Wine,” was all Catherine said. But after the chit went away, she turned to her daughter and said, “You would not want me to spare
her
, would you?”

Slowly Isabeau shook her head. Her gaze was steely. Recently a servant of the Cahors had denounced
the family to the bishop, claiming they had sacrificed the newborn babe of the miller's wife to their Goddess. The traitor had been a young laundress who had been cast aside for another. Her father had insisted that the young nobleman who had kept company with her pay for having lowered her marriage value. But the bishop's thinking had run with that of the nobleman's family: the lower classes did not need to marry; it was a luxury for them, and if the girl had thrown away her chances, then it was the will of God.

But the damage of her spiteful gossip was done, and throughout the nearby city of Toulouse, the rumor spread that the Cahors were sacrificing babies.

After a time, the bishop had come to visit Catherine, and left with many boxes of gold coins to continue the Lord's work. He assured the nervous townsfolk that there were no witches, sorcerers, or warlocks to be found anywhere near such God-fearing Christian folk as they.

Still, the talk grew more heated, and both the Deveraux and the Cahors had reason to worry—the Cahors more so, because the foolish Deveraux conducted their magical lives with contempt for discretion and subtlety.

“Berenice shall be dead by morning,” Catherine said.

Isabeau lifted the sacrificial knife from beside the slaughtered sheep. It had been forged in Roman times, and passed down from mother to daughter since then.

“I'll do it myself,” Isabeau announced.

Her mother smiled and murmured a blessing on her daughter. Then she said, much more kindly, “You will survive this, Isabeau. It's difficult, I know. But when he's dead, his charms will lift, and you'll understand how basely he used you.”

Isabeau sighed heavily. He had bewitched her, yes; but how could she tell her mother of the fierce magics they had created together, the unbelievable power that was theirs when husband and wife worked as one to bring forth the occult forces of darkness and shadow?

She had not known such power could exist. And now, to willfully put a stop to it? None lived who were as magically strong as she and Jean de Deveraux—not Jean, his father, nor even her lady mother, the great witch Catherine, whose name was already revered throughout Coventry. Witches made pilgrimages to their castle to meet the
grande dame
.

Until she had been bound to Jean Deveraux, Isabeau's only hope in life was to carry on her lineage with pride. She was not sure how to tell her mother that she, Isabeau, had already surpassed her. She was but sixteen, and her mother, almost thirty, and as the
wife of Jean, she was the strongest witch in known Coventry.

As she bowed her head in obeisance to her mother, she thought,
I'll agree to all her plans, but in the end, I'll use our magic to save Jean. We'll run away together, and found a new coven, far away from these two warring families. We'll make a new House
.

Buoyed by that thought, she slid the knife into her leather pouch, kissed her mother's outstretched hand, and murmured,
“Bonsoir, ma mère.”

Her mother leaned forward and kissed Isabeau's forehead. She caressed the bloody dot on Isabeau's forehead, then kissed it as well.

“You're a wonderful daughter. I couldn't have hoped for better,” she declared.

Her eyes shone with pride. Isabeau kept her own fear and shame out of her gaze, smiling back with ease. She was a Cahors, and a Cahors could swear passionate fealty with one hand while carving out one's vitals with another.

“We will set the massacre for Mead Moon,” Catherine announced. “I will prepare those who need to know.”

“They should be few,” Isabeau cautioned. She touched her leather pouch for emphasis. “Else, it will be all over Toulouse.”

“Agreed. Let us swear a blood oath to its success,” her mother added, rising from her stool.

She swept toward the altar. Isabeau swallowed hard. It was said that to forswear a blood oath condemned one to walk the earth until it was made right; if she promised to kill her husband and then did not, she could become a restless spirit plagued to walk the earth until he was dead by her hand . . . in this world or the next.

Then I will so walk
, she told herself.
Forever, if need be; for I shall never kill him
.

Together, mother and daughter laid their hands over the bloody, still heart of the lambkin. Catherine closed her eyes and uttered a sacred, solemn voice in Latin, Isabeau repeating it at the end of each line.