Circle of Blood (8 page)

She woke up as someone was lifting her out of the backseat. “You’re only half the witch you could be,” he said, his voice deeply disapproving.

He lowered her onto something that was soft and wet and smelled like grass. Her fingers reached out. It was grass. She pushed her hands down into the earth and pulled with everything she had. Energy came flooding over her. A moment later, her body began to heal and the pain of that caused everything to go black.

•   •   •

She felt something wet on her cheek and chin. She felt stiff all over and unbelievably sore. She opened her eyes slowly and saw Freaky, poised about to lick her again.

“I’m okay,” she muttered, incredibly relieved that he was there. He seemed okay. He was an energy creature, so she shouldn’t have worried, but she wasn’t sure if the hellhounds would have been capable of destroying him.

She looked around slowly. Somehow she was back in her own car and Freaky was in the passenger seat staring at her with concerned eyes.

“What happened?” she asked the panther.

He jumped through into the backseat and she slowly straightened. She was damp and smelled like smoke and wet earth. There were bits of dead grass on her clothes, and her head was throbbing.

She glanced around, wondering what had happened to Thomas. He must have been the one to leave her here. Why bother?

She turned and saw a couple of police cars up the street. Apparently the events in the cemetery had not gone unnoticed. She should get out of there. She started the car and drove off.

The last thing she remembered was lying on the grass, trying to pull energy from the earth. Obviously it had worked. She didn’t know where Freaky had been or how he’d made it back to the car; she was just grateful he was there.

She drove until she reached the house. She hesitated before going in. Too many people knew where she was staying for it to be truly safe. On the other hand, with a witch as powerful as that pissed at her, nowhere was safe. She parked the car and headed inside, Freaky bounding beside her.

She wanted nothing more than to sleep for a thousand years, but the stench of her clothes was too much. She looked down. They were charred and shredded in places, definitely ruined. She stripped in the kitchen and dumped them in the trash, then headed upstairs to the bathroom.

When she flipped on the light and stepped inside, she half expected to see Samantha in the mirror, ready to say “I told you so.”

When she looked, though, all that she saw was her own face, covered in blood and soot and grime. There was more dead grass in her hair. Altogether she had to admit that she looked better than she felt.

She climbed into the shower and twenty minutes later woke up when the water turned cold. She had fallen asleep leaning against the wall. She finished washing her hair, shivering in the icy water but too drained to do anything about it.

When she finally exited she glanced at the mirror again, but it was still just her. She wondered if deep inside Samantha was unconscious, or maybe even dead. Dead would be good.

She barely made it into the bedroom. She fell headlong on the bed and passed out.

•   •   •

Desdemona woke several hours later cold and hungry. She rolled over and looked at the clock. It was nearly four in the afternoon. She sat up slowly, relieved that most of the stiffness and soreness seemed to be gone now. Some food would probably help. At least she felt awake and alert.

She threw on some jeans and a T-shirt and headed downstairs, Freaky racing ahead of her, the stairs groaning beneath his weight. She made it into the kitchen and was just about to open the refrigerator when Freaky lifted his head and growled. It looked as though she had a visitor.

She frowned. She didn’t feel anything. Was it really someone without powers? Maybe Martin and his demon had another warning for her. She grimaced at the thought, not in the mood to deal with anyone. She looked out the front door and saw a car she didn’t recognize parked out front and someone walking up the porch. There was something familiar about him. He had short, wavy brown hair and intense green eyes.

She opened the door and his eyes lit up when he saw her. “Samantha, I found you!”

Something stirred deep inside Desdemona and she realized that even though she only vaguely recognized the man, Samantha knew him well. The way Desdemona could feel her writhing away inside, she had to care for him. Snatches of memory were coming to her now, filling in the gaps. He was from Salem and his mother had been killed by her coven. There was something about him swearing vengeance and then there was kissing.

“Anthony?”

He nodded.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

He reached out and pulled her into a hug. She held herself stiff, not sure how to respond.

“I was so worried about you. You just . . . vanished. I thought something had happened to you, that you were dead.”

“I’m very much alive.”

“Why did you take off like that?”

Desdemona cocked her head to the side. “I discovered that there was a witch behind everything, taunting me, trying to control me. I had to come here to confront her, to kill her.”

“You didn’t have to come alone.”

He cared enough for Samantha to help her, even though she could remember how much he hated witches, how much he had distrusted her at the start. She even thought she remembered him attempting to kill Samantha at one point. Something must have gotten him over that. What would Samantha say? Probably something about wanting him to be safe. It was clear he had no power of his own. He obviously felt deeply for her. Would he if he knew she was part of the coven that had killed his mother? Maybe he already knew; the memories were too fuzzy.

“How did you find me?”

“Ed helped.”

“Ed?”

“Yeah, Ed Hofferman, your old partner from Boston. I figured he owed me a favor, so he tracked the GPS on your cell.”

He pulled away from her and smiled at her.

She tried to smile back.

Something must have gone wrong, though, because he took two quick steps backward.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Your eyes. They’re so . . . dead. You’re not Samantha.”

“Very good,” she said, allowing herself to revel briefly in the pleasure of watching his panic.

“Who are you?”

She shrugged. “I’m who she should have been.”

“Castor witch,” he hissed.

She laughed and took a step toward him. “Oh, I’m much more than that.”

There was something about his presence that excited her, made her think things she’d never thought before. She leaned in closer to him. His warmth, his scent, they filled her senses. She slipped her arms around his neck and pressed against him.

She might never have had these types of thoughts before, but Samantha certainly had, and they were all about Anthony.

“Haven’t you figured it out yet?” Desdemona purred in his ear. “I’m the witch you’ve been looking for all these years, the last witch alive from the coven that killed your mother.”

Anthony gritted his teeth. “I want you to tell me what you did to Samantha.”

So he did know and apparently he cared for her deeply enough that it didn’t matter.

“I simply took back what she stole from me all those years ago. Now she’s the one banished, forgotten, nothing but a bitter memory.”

“I will find a way to get her back,” he vowed.

“So very noble of you, but why bother? She wasn’t very much fun.”

She leaned forward and kissed him hard. He shoved her away and she laughed. “You can play it that way if you want, but I know that you want this body. What does it matter who’s inside?” she asked.

“It matters,” he spat at her.

“Really?” she asked. “You know, my mother told me all about sex magic, but I had never had a chance to try it for myself. Maybe you’re just what I need to help me find the witch that keeps eluding me.”

“You’re barking up the wrong tree,” Anthony snapped.

“Am I? You know the great thing about being a witch?” she asked. “I can make any tree the right tree.”

She stepped back up to him, invading his space, reached out, and traced her finger down the line of his jaw, sending tiny electrical impulses through it. And then she asked, “Who do you belong to?”

“Samantha,” he said in a strangled voice.

She made the electrical impulses slightly more intense and tilted his head so he was staring into her eyes. She reached into his mind, looking for the triggers she needed, the ones that would make him desire her uncontrollably. Just a few more seconds and he would think of nothing but her.

Something began screaming inside her mind.

•   •   •

Samantha was trapped in the tiniest corner of her own mind and had been for days. She was only vaguely aware of what was happening on the outside, but she knew she had to keep fighting, pushing. Now that Anthony had shown up, she had to fight that much harder. She had to protect him.

Desdemona was trying to do something to him. She was trying to compel him to do something, and Samantha had a feeling it had to do with sex magic. Terror gripped her. Desdemona had no right to do that to Anthony and she had no right to do it to Samantha’s body.

Samantha began to scream at the top of her lungs and she could feel Desdemona hesitate.

“Get out of my body!” Samantha shouted.

“It was her body first.”

Samantha spun around and saw one of her younger selves. She believed it was the girl she’d been when she was ten, staring at her. Communing with those younger versions of herself was exactly what had led her to accidentally unleash Desdemona in the first place.

“What?” she gasped.

“Before there was Samantha Ryan, there was Desdemona Castor,” Ten said.

Samantha blinked and she was standing again in the part of her mind where there was the corridor of doors. These were the doors behind which she had locked away all her childhood memories, the ones she’d been forced to open one at a time until she had gone too far. Doors five through twelve were all open. Seven of the girls were present, but Twelve was missing.

That’s because Twelve was off running the show. Samantha had opened that door back in the cemetery in Salem because she thought she needed the other girl’s knowledge, insight.

Instead, she had let loose a monster. The others had tried to tell her, to warn her. They had said that it took all of them to lock up Twelve and in order to do so, they had to go away, too. In order to keep her from becoming a monster, her mind had literally shut away her entire childhood.

She felt a tug on her arm and she looked down. Five was looking up at her with solemn eyes.

“What is it?” Samantha asked.

“You’re wrong, you know.”

“About what?”

“About which of you came first, about whether it’s her or you in charge.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know.”

“Tell me,” Samantha urged.

Five crossed her arms and shook her head. “You don’t get it. She is you. You are her. It’s not
her
doing this right now to that boy. It’s
you
.”

And suddenly Samantha wasn’t in the corridor of doors in her mind anymore. She was there, in her body, looking out through her own eyes and seeing the fear in Anthony’s.

“Anthony?” she whispered.

“Samantha? Is that you?” he asked, his voice desperate, pleading.

“I—”

Then she snapped right back into the corridor and was staring back down at Five, who was looking angry. “You still don’t get it. It’s you being mean to that boy. It’s you doing everything. You’re just trying to hide in here because you won’t take responsibility for yourself!”

“But you locked her away—”

“No! Not
her
! Your memories are what we locked away.”

“I was Desdemona and then I changed. I became Samantha.”

“That’s what you’d like to think,” Five said. “Why is it you opened my door first?”

Samantha blinked. “Because I thought you were old enough to teach me about magic but not old enough that I’d have to remember the really terrible things that happened later.”

“Liar!” Five said, stomping her foot on the floor. “You were more afraid of seeing what you were like when you were younger than you were of reliving the terrible times.”

Samantha felt as though she had been slapped across the face. Was it possible that Five was right? She turned and looked around. Six and Seven were nodding in agreement. The others were backing away from her as though afraid something was about to happen.

“What useful magic could I have possibly learned from my four youngest selves?” Samantha asked. “I mean, most people don’t even remember much before they’re three or four.”

“You are not most people,” Six said.

“You’re a witch,” Seven added.

“I’m not a witch!” Samantha screamed at the top of her lungs.

“Yes, you are!” all the girls screamed back at her.

“Always,” Seven said.

“Still,” Six said.

“That’s what you won’t take responsibility for,” Five accused.

“No! I turned my back on that life.”

“You ran away from it. You hid and pretended it never happened. That’s not taking responsibility,” Five said.

“That’s not making peace,” Six said.

“What do you want from me?” Samantha asked, horror creeping through her. Desdemona, the witch, was who she’d been raised as, and Samantha had only changed, become someone new, by force of will in the ritual when she turned thirteen. How could she take responsibility for a life she didn’t even remember? It was as absurd as thinking she was responsible for what was happening now to Anthony and everyone else Desdemona had encountered.

Five pointed imperiously at the four remaining doors.

Samantha shook her head. “No, I won’t open them.”

“Why not?”

“Because . . .” The truth was, she didn’t know why. All she knew was that when she looked at those doors she felt terror greater than when she had used to stare at the closed door Twelve. What could possibly have happened to her when she was so little that was worse than that? Were the other children right—had she been purposely avoiding those doors all along?

“I can’t,” she whispered.

“Then you will never get out of here,” Six said.

“I just can’t.”

“You will never know the truth,” Seven told her.

“I don’t want to know. I can’t,” Samantha wailed.

“Then you’re going to hurt the boy,” Five said.

Silence fell and Samantha could only hear the sound of her own sobs. When she had started to cry, she didn’t know, but the tears were coursing down her face and she was shaking like a leaf.

“Anthony,” she whispered.

Anthony would be hurt, possibly killed, if she did nothing.

Five kept insisting that it was she tormenting Anthony, that she and the monster in charge of her body were one and the same. She could hear shouting from far away. It sounded like Anthony. She had to help him. No matter what it cost.

She stepped forward and pushed open the door marked .

The little girl who stepped out was actually smiling. Samantha blinked at her, surprised to see her younger self looking so happy. She didn’t remember any part of her childhood being happy except for the quiet moments stolen with Freaky, and those hadn’t happened until she was five.

“Big me!” Four said, clapping her hands in delight.

“Yes, I guess I am,” Samantha said. “You seem happy to see me.”

“Of course! Are you going to show me some magic?”

“You don’t know how to do any magic?” Samantha asked, wondering when it was she had actually begun to learn. Her five-year-old self seemed to know a lot about it, so maybe this was the age she had begun to learn.

Four frowned slightly. “I think I do, but I’m not sure. Mama says she’s going to teach me this year, show me how to be a big girl, a real witch.” She beamed again at the thought.

Samantha felt sick to her stomach at seeing her younger self so excited to become a witch. She wished she could say something, explain to her, stop it all from happening, but these were shades of the past and they couldn’t be changed, only understood and accepted.

“No, I’m not going to teach you any magic today. I’m here to remember what it was like to be you.”

“That’s silly. Why would you forget that?”

Probably because she didn’t want to remember being happy about learning magic, even if it had only been for a brief time in her life. This was her before all the fear and the darkness took hold, her before she’d been forced to learn how to draw protection circles out of her own blood while monsters raced out of the darkness to attack her.

She had been excited and optimistic and hadn’t seen the harm, the danger, or known anything about the darkness to come. Samantha closed her eyes and wanted to cry. She wondered for a brief moment what it would have been like to grow up in a home where a mother and father had taught her to use her gifts for peace and good and harmony, instead of violence and evil and chaos.

That couldn’t be changed, either, though. She’d grown up with the mother she had, and although she might have been innocent and optimistic once, that had changed very quickly. Her five-year-old self wouldn’t have to hide Freaky Kitty from her mother if that weren’t true.

“Thank you,” Samantha said to Four because she didn’t know what else to say. The pain of seeing her was tearing at her. Worse, she didn’t know how feeling this pain or seeing the innocence that had died would help her save herself, let alone Anthony.

She turned quickly to the door marked and pushed it open before she could have second thoughts. The little girl who emerged had big, pouty eyes and her arms crossed over her chest. Samantha was surprised. She’d expected something different after seeing bouncy, excited Four.

“What’s wrong?” she asked Three.

“I got in trouble again,” Three said.

“Why?”

“Doing magic.”

“Your mother punishes you for doing magic?” Samantha asked, thoroughly shocked.

Three nodded.

“Why?”

“Mama says I do it wrong, that I need to learn different.”

“What are you doing wrong?”

“I don’t know. She says it’s not focused.”

“Not focused?” Samantha said, feeling confused.

Three nodded. “She says she’s going to take my powers.”

Samantha blinked. Was it possible to take power without the killing that had happened at the abandoned theme park?