Resurrection (17 page)

“No warlocks. All is well,” Whisper murmured into her ear.

The wind blew, and she hurried to the hotel where she planned to spend the night. A few months
before, it would have been unthinkable for a member of the Mother Coven to flaunt their presence in the city. However, with the fall of the Supreme Coven headquarters, much had changed. The city was still the purview of warlocks, but they now lacked the centralized power and the guts to strike openly.

Later in her room, she ate a light supper. Whisper ate tinned cat food. Then Anne-Louise purified herself for Ritual, and drew a circle on the carpet with the hand lotion provided by the hotel. She placed candles at the four corners and sat down inside. Whisper paced the circle on velvet paws. Anne-Louise centered herself and began.

“Blessed be, a boon grant me; I seek Holly of Cahors witchery,” she informed the unseen world. “Here is her hair; I ask ‘where.'”

A wind blew through the room. The candles flickered.

And Whisper said, “Mumbai.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Anne-Louise groaned, frustration rushing through her. “We must have been there at the same time.”

She pushed the angry buzzing thoughts out of her head. They were unproductive and distracting.

Next she took Kari's hair. She was going to have to do something about her, although she had no idea what. She expected to discover that Kari was in Seattle.
Therefore, she was shocked when she had her answer.

“Scarborough,” Whisper said.

Why would Kari be in Scarborough? What could she possibly be looking for there?

“Not what. Who,” Whisper said.

“Who?” Anne-Louise asked.

The cat, however, just stared at her, tail flicking back and forth. On a hunch Anne-Louise tried Amanda's hair.

Scarborough
.

She could get there by midday tomorrow, she realized, with dawning relief. She grabbed up the lock of Nicole's hair, but hesitated. Philippe had said that Nicole and Amanda had been together when he'd last seen them. Better to save Nicole's hair in case she should have need of finding one of the Cathers witches again.

She finished her ritual, closed the circle, and got ready for bed. All the time she kept wondering why it was that the twins were in Scarborough and why Kari had gone there too.

Whisper had no answers. The familiar curled up beside her on the mattress, cleaned her fur, and went to sleep.

Berlin: Jer

Jer wandered the streets of Berlin as a blind man. He didn't see any of the stores, or the people walking past,
or the cars that nearly ran him over. All he saw was his life, glimpsed through Eve's eyes. And so he walked, and thought, the teddy bear tucked into the oversize pocket of his trench coat.

He was a Deveraux, and he had spent a long time trying to fight that, trying to somehow make it not true. He realized now that had been a mistake. All his friends, Eddie, Kialish, Dan, Kari, they had all died for his vanity. How many lives could he have saved if he had just killed his father one night while he was sleeping? Instead he had tried to play the white knight even though he knew very well that he wasn't and never could be. And then because of his own selfishness, his own obsession with what he couldn't be, he had pushed away Holly.

Time to stop feeling sorry for myself. Time to stop making excuses. Time to man up.

He pulled the teddy bear out of his pocket and stared at it long and hard. His childhood had been anything but normal. At some point, though, he had to take responsibility for himself, for his own actions and reactions.

His wandering footsteps led him back to the site of the Berlin Wall. He stared at the monument long and hard. So much in life was beyond a person's control, just like the Black Fire that his family mistakenly believed they could harness. They might be able to create it, but they couldn't control it.

Other things, though, were in the individual's hands. One could choose to be miserable. One could also choose to stop.

Jer took a deep breath…and chose.

Scarborough:
Nicole, Amanda, Tommy, Richard, Owen, Kari, and the cats

“Are you going to Scarborough Fair? Parsley, sage, rose mary and thyme.”

Nicole sighed as she took a piece of each herb and threw it into the soup she was attempting to make. She consulted the cookbook once more and then wrinkled up her nose as she got a good whiff.
More like I'm cooking up a witch's brew.

“Remember me to one who lives there.”

Her thoughts flew to Philippe, and she sent up another prayer that the Goddess would protect him and guide him safely back to her. She missed him so much; and she needed his steadying presence and his wisdom. He was her anchor, as Amanda once had been.

But now she avoided Amanda, afraid she would bring up the prophecy again. Demand they kill Owen. The arrival of Kari had given everyone pause.

A reprieve.

“Then she'll be a true love of mine.”

“Song?” Kari said, intruding on her thoughts as she
trudged into the kitchen and stared down at Nicole's soup pot.

“Song? The song? What do you mean?” Nicole asked, puzzled.

“Constant. Tommy, Amanda, you,” Kari said.

A chill danced up Nicole's spine. She tried to keep her tone light. “Well, we live in Scarborough. I guess that just kind of gets in your head, and
voilà!
Song.”

Kari shook her head. “Spell,” she said.

Nicole took a breath. “No, it's not a spell,” she said uncertainly. She looked at the dead girl's eyes. “Do you
know
that it's a spell?”

Kari made no answer.

Nicole felt cold. And frightened. “How about a Christmas carol, then? Do you have a favorite?”

Kari shook her head.

Can the dead have a favorite anything
? Nicole wondered. And could a soul that had gone to hell have a favorite Christmas carol?

“We three kings of Orient are,” Nicole began to sing.

“Bearing gifts we travel so far,” Tommy chimed in as he walked into the kitchen.

“You're both in a good mood,” Richard noted as he joined them.

Nicole shrugged and smiled at her father. It was a fake smile, but she'd charmed her father with it for years.

“Where's Owen?” she asked.

“Amanda has him,” Tommy said.

“No,” she blurted.

“Dungeon,” Kari said.

Tommy shook his head. “We looked, Kari. There's no dungeon.”

Kari shook her head. Nicole came over to her and put her hands on her shoulders.

“Kari, are you saying that Amanda—”

“I hear my name,” Amanda said, entering the kitchen with a sleepy-eyed Owen. “He insisted on getting up,” she explained.

“Give him to me,” Nicole almost shouted.

“Is there something wrong?” Richard asked.

Suddenly the house shook. The liquid in Nicole's pot sloshed over the sides, and she cried out and clutched Owen hard. He began to cry.

“Oh, man, not again!” Tommy blurted out as he grabbed hold of the counter to steady himself.

Richard was already in motion, throwing open the refrigerator and rummaging behind a carton of milk and a block of cheese. He pulled out two Micro Uzis and handed one to Tommy.

“I hope it's not another dragon,” Tommy said, looping the strap around his neck.

Owen wailed. Amanda reached over and turned off the stove.

“I hope it is. At least I know how to kill those,” Richard growled. “Girls, time to get out.”

Nicole grabbed Amanda's arm and tugged her toward the door. Before they could take two steps, the wall exploded, showering them with bits of stone. A dozen tiny flecks cut into Nicole's scalp and arms as she curled herself around her baby.

Then a giant figure more than seven feet tall strode through the debris. It looked vaguely human, but it was covered in dark matted fur that reeked of death and decay. As Nicole scrabbled backward, it threw back its head and made a screeching sound.

Every nerve ending in Nicole's body convulsed in pain; she screamed and covered Owen's ears. She would have fallen if her legs hadn't locked along with the rest of her muscles. Beside her, Amanda whimpered.

But Owen began laughing and waving his chubby arms in the air.

Tommy found his voice first. “Goddess let my legs unroot and make this creature become mute.”

As spells went, it was one of the most ridiculous things Nicole had ever heard. A moment later, though, the creature threw its head back again, but no sound came out.

She regained the use of her muscles just in time for Tommy to push her, Amanda, and Owen down and
cover them with his own body. Richard sent a hail of bullets at the creature, but it only grunted and swatted at them as if at flies.

“What is that thing?” Amanda screeched.

“Yowie,” Kari said, seated on a stool, her face and voice passive.

Nicole grabbed Kari by the ankle, and wished she hadn't. She shuddered as she felt the unnatural cold of Kari's flesh. “What is a yowie?”

“Australian aboriginal myth. Bigfoot. Cannibal,” Kari reported.

“How do we kill it?” Richard asked.

“I don't know,” Kari said.

“We need to do magic. These bullets aren't doing it,” Tommy shouted.

The yowie looked around at all of them before setting eyes on Owen. With a roar he lunged toward him.

“No!” Nicole screamed, raising up on her knees. With her free hand she sent a fireball into the creature's chest, but all it did was singe the fur a little bit.

The creature reached down and grabbed Owen out of her arms. Nicole screamed; Amanda shouted something that Nicole couldn't understand, as Tommy and Richard halted fire.

“Owen!” Nicole shrieked.

Amanda shouted again. Owen slid from the mon
ster's grasp, and Richard dove forward, grabbing the baby as he fell.

Amanda shouted a third time.

And then the yowie exploded, in a shower of organs and tissue and fur and blood, coating them all.

There was complete silence for a moment. Then Tommy fell to his knees, gagging. Nicole grabbed Owen. Both of them were covered in blood and intestines. Kari still had not moved.

“What did you do?” Nicole asked Amanda.

Amanda shook her head.

“What was it you said?”

“I don't know,” Amanda admitted, her voice barely a whisper. “I just knew I couldn't let him get Owen. Then everything went a little…fuzzy…for a second, and then boom.”

“Is everyone okay?” Richard asked.

Nicole looked around. With everyone drenched in blood and gore it was hard to tell what injuries they had sustained. She knew she had cuts from the exploding rock, and she guessed the others must as well.

Richard opened the drawer containing dish towels, wet down several, and tossed them to people. Nicole wiped as much of the muck off her baby as she could. He smiled at her as if nothing had happened.

A minute later they were able to assess their injuries. Only she, Amanda, and Tommy had been hit by
the flying shrapnel. Richard and Kari had both been far enough to one side that they hadn't gotten hit.

Nicole continued to clean the gore off Owen. She would have to bathe him.

In water.

She spied Hecate, slinking through the wreckage. The cat Holly had drowned. Panicking, she clutched Owen against her chest.

“Hold up a second,” Richard said, bending down next to them. He carefully turned Owen's head, took the dish towel from Nicole, and wiped the boy's head. “Looks like he did get one pretty nasty cut. That's going to leave a scar, but it should be mostly hidden by his hair.”

Nicole couldn't bring herself to look. Instead she locked eyes with Amanda and saw her fear mirrored in her twin's gaze. “Where?”

“Here, behind his left ear,” Richard said.

The mark behind the sinister ear
. The world tilted, and for a moment she thought she was going to faint. Amanda bent over double and began to vomit.

“Grab only what you have to have. We're getting out of here,” Richard said.

Nicole couldn't have agreed more.

Outside Mumbai:
Holly, Pablo, Armand, Alex, and the Temple of the Air

Holly hadn't felt such fear in a long time.
What's wrong with you? You've led thousands of warriors, alive and dead, into battle. You are the most powerful Cahors witch alive, perhaps ever. You can do this.

Somewhere in her mind she heard a shadowy laugh that seemed to echo, getting louder with each moment.

Beside her, Pablo breathed in great, ragged gasps. She could smell fear rolling off him. Pablo, who rarely
showed any emotion; Pablo, who was usually so fearless.

Something was terribly wrong. Fear and confusion battled for control of her mind. Her entire body began to shake, and she felt a creeping numbness in her hands and feet. She opened her mouth to cast a spell, and only a tinny squeak came out.

She turned to Pablo and saw the terror in his eyes. He opened and closed his mouth as though trying to say something.

Wrong…wrong.

It was Pablo's voice inside her head, but it was as though he were speaking slowly, slurring his words.

Have we been drugged?
she wondered wildly.

Out of the dark, monsters came—gray and leathery demons with reptilian eyes, winged batlike shapes with glistening fangs and talons in their cheeks. Half a dozen cloaked and hooded warlocks appeared behind them, lobbing magical bolts of energy at the Temple of the Air.

“Go, go, go!” Alex bellowed, giving better than he got. He stood in front of his people, legs wide apart, a fierce warrior.

Holly forced her hands up and tried to conjure a fireball. It flickered for a moment on her fingertips before winking out of existence.

A horned demon with red skin picked her up in
his giant fist.
I'm going to be killed by Hellboy,
she thought as she struggled to free herself from his iron grip. The demon laughed, his sulfurous breath making her eyes tear painfully.

With his free hand he swiped with taloned fingers at Pablo and the boy went down with a gaping wound in his stomach.

No!
Holly kicked and clawed and prayed for the ability to perform a single spell. There was no surge of power, no appearance of a black veiled woman, be it the Goddess or her own evil ancestress Catherine.

The demon squeezed harder, and her ribs cracked, making her grunt. She bit him, and thick black blood oozed into her mouth. As she gagged, the demon laughed harder and spoke in a voice that shook the ground.

“You would drink my blood, little witch? Do you think you are a Cursed One? You are nothing, just a child, and a very foolish one at that. You will die, and when you do, there isn't anything that will make it out of this human shell.”

That voice…

“Yes, you know me,” the demon said as he clapped his free hand over his wound. It had already stopped bleeding. “You know me, Holly Cathers. You saw me die.”

And she had, back in the headquarters of the
Supreme Coven, in London. He had crumpled to the floor, and then this…this monster had pushed out of him.

“Sir William,” she gasped. It was over, then. He was going to kill her.

He smirked. “In the spirit, so to speak. And don't worry. I've been keeping an eye on your cousins, and they will die next.”

She was dying; she could feel it. Her heart was pounding too fast and too hard. It was going to explode. The rest of her body tingled with shock. A cold numbness poured through her veins; it was just as well—she didn't want it to hurt anymore.

Utterly defeated, she closed her eyes. And thought of Jer.

Then someone was shouting her name, but she didn't know who it was. Was it Jer? Was the Goddess kind after all, uniting them in death?

“Holly, for the love of the Goddess!”

She opened her eyes again. Armand was standing behind the demon, hitting it with everything he had. She remained defeated, then.

If Armand can't kill it, no one can.

Suddenly Sir William bellowed. With a roar of fury he dropped her. She hit the ground hard, her limbs flopping.

“You bastard. Die!”

Alex charged Sir William, his hands lifted, magic shooting like thunderbolts at their sworn enemy. He scored direct hits against Sir William's huge horned head. A talon ripped from its nail bed. Alex hit his chest. Behind him Armand showered his back with fireballs.

She smelled burning flesh.

Then Sir William threw back one arm and swiped at Alex. He was going to hit him.

No!

She tried to call to him, warn him.

But she was out of the fight, as everything went black.

Berlin: Jer and Eve

Eve had been right: Jer found her easily. When he knocked on her door at two in the morning, he was only slightly surprised to find her dressed and packed.

“I'm here,” he said, because in the end that was all that needed to be said.

She nodded. “I just found out where your girlfriend is. We'll have to move fast, because she's in a lot of trouble.”

Scarborough:
Nicole, Owen, Amanda, Tommy, Richard, Kari, and the cats

Prisoners.

Nicole smelled gingerbread and pine as she watched the snow tumble down into haystack-size drifts in the
yard. The topiary animals were frosted white. Anger and fear churned in her stomach as the clock ticked the countdown to Yule. She wanted to be anywhere but there, with the zombielike Kari, Osiris, and her lost, beloved Hecate.

With her father in the lead, they had fled, but as they drove past the gate that marked the property, Owen became sick and pale. She, Amanda, and Tommy murmured incantations over him, but nothing worked. Richard was about to drive him to the hospital when Kari said dully, “Turn back. Baby…dies.”

Back they went, like prisoners, and as soon as they were past the gate again, Owen regained his pink glow and waved his chubby little hands in the air. They were stuck.

So they decided to concentrate on making sure they were safe inside the house. No more surprise visits from yowies. The sisters strengthened all their wards, summoned Lawyer Derek. He arrived with a Yule gift—a plum pudding—and they made him inspect their magical work and check the warlock magic that had been installed as well.

“I'm surprised something got through all the wards,” he told them.

“Who do I sue?” Nicole asked hotly.

He also showed them how to put magic spells on
their ammunition, so that when shots were fired, a spell as well as a bullet would hit their target. Actually, he used the word “enemy” in place of “target.”

He said aloud what Nicole silently feared. Dragon and yowie aside, they were safer in House Moore than anywhere else in England—or the world, for that matter. The Cahors witches had a lot of enemies.

“So you don't think it was the Deveraux,” he said, dressed for the season in a black suit, holly and mistletoe pinned to his lapel. Red and green were the Deveraux colors, from perhaps milder days when they'd honored the Horned God in his incarnation as the Green Man. Cahors colors were black and silver, and Nicole wore silver whenever she could. Real silver was said to ward off werewolves and other creatures of evil; she hoped it kept her and her loved ones safe.

“No,” Nicole said, as she and the others drank spiced wine with him. They were seated in the castle section, watching a log blaze in the hearth. She and Amanda had agreed not to tell Derek about Merlin's Book or the prophecy. Why should they? He was affiliated with the Supreme Coven.

He stretched out his long legs. “And you haven't heard from them.”

His voice was casual, but Nicole heard the tension in it, the eagerness. She wondered if there was a bounty on the heads of the two brothers.

Stay away, Eli,
she thought, rocking Owen in her arms.
I think these people want to hurt you.

But part of her wanted Eli to show up at her door. They'd been a wild pair, the extreme couple people would talk about all over Seattle—Eli Deveraux and his wild-child underage girlfriend, Niki Anderson. Drinking too much, driving too fast, making out while somewhere in their house Eli's father, Michael Deveraux, did bad things. Unimaginable things. And boinked Nicole and Amanda's mother….

Michael and Mom are both dead now,
she thought. She wished with all her heart that her mother could see Richard now—their own Special Forces guy, their warrior, their protector. He had spent years trying to forget that he'd been a fighting man; Nicole was glad down to her soul that he hadn't succeeded.

“No,” she said. “Nothing.”

After Derek left, Richard, Amanda, and Tommy started decorating the Christmas tree. It was a weak attempt at normalcy, but there could be power in the act. Christmas trees were part of the Wicca celebration of Yule, as well as traditional Christmas. The first tree Richard had brought into House Moore three days before had been a healthy, living tree, complete with a root ball, and he'd hoped to plant it in the garden after the holiday season was over. But it had shriveled up as soon as he'd brought it inside—the needles had
turned brown and fallen off. It had died inside House Moore.

Was it because it was a living thing, and we didn't invite it?
Nicole thought anxiously. They hadn't formally invited Kari, or either of the cats.

They're not living things.

She started shaking. The urge to bail was almost overwhelming. When Holly had still led their coven, Nicole had split for Europe, trying to leave it all behind. But Michael Deveraux's minions had trailed after her, sometimes as crows, other times as menacing shadows that had slid down the walls of buildings as she'd passed them. She still remembered sitting in the chilled dimness of Cologne Cathedral in Cologne, Germany. The bones of the Three Wise Men were buried there, in an incredible golden box studded with stones. Light glinted off the faces of the saints as she sat on the hard pew, inhaling incense and age, trying to pray but dozing off. A priest had confronted her, assuming she was homeless, and telling her she would have to leave. So much for sanctuary in the house of the Lord.

Outside, the shadows had waited for her. Through the stone, stained glass, and raised voices of the choir, she heard hundreds of crows, minions of Michael Deveraux. She felt their evil mushrooming over the cathedral like a poisonous fog. She'd cut herself off
from Amanda and Holly to escape their magical heritage, but instead she had made herself vulnerable.

She had left the cathedral heavier with fear than when she had entered it. And the shadows had found her at last on the island of Avalon, where James Moore had kept her prisoner. Then Eli snuck in, and rescued her.

He loves me. He does. It's more than lust and possessiveness.

Her throat tightened at the confusion she felt. She was in thrall with Philippe, and he was a good man, a better man than Eli ever could be. Unless the bones of the Three Wise Men could perform miracles, as many claimed….

“Nicole, what do you think, more tinsel?” Tommy asked, breaking her from her reverie.

She smiled faintly. He was a good man too. Amanda was lucky to have found her one true love. They were trying to decide how to get married—if they should invite a vicar to House Moore, which might raise questions or go terribly awry (especially if the man met Kari or tried to pet one of the cats), or go into Scarborough to have a civil ceremony. However they did it, she envied them; she certainly didn't see a traditional white wedding in her future. And her forced marriage ceremony with James had been a nightmare.

“It's on the side you can't see,” he said.

As she rose, Owen leaned toward Tommy, cooing. Tommy held out his arms for the baby. It was still very difficult for her to let anyone else take him, but Tommy was Owen's uncle in all but name. So she gave him her child, kissing Owen's little head as she did so, and approached the tree.

Brilliant silver ornaments glittered and gleamed. Dressed in jeans and a dark blue cabled sweater, her father was perched on a ladder, straining to put a silver five-pointed star on top of the tree. Some said the pentagram and the Star of Bethlehem were one and the same—that each Wiccan rite was in truth a salute to the Christian God. There was so much they didn't know. And Nicole didn't know whom to ask.

Amanda was looping silver garland over the branches. Kari sat in a chair with a steaming mug of cider on a small octagonal table to her left. Osiris and Hecate lay at Kari's feet; Hecate looked up as Nicole brushed past, and glided toward her.

“Hi, kitty,” Nicole said warmly, but secretly Hecate frightened her. She wanted to be glad that her cat was back from the dead, but she could hardly stand to touch her.

Her father smiled at her, but she could tell old memories were pressing heavily on him. He came down the ladder as she walked to him, and he put his arms around her. She wanted to sink against him
and cry. She wasn't even nineteen yet, but she was a mother and a widow. She'd thought that at nineteen she'd be in college majoring in drama, or maybe even in L.A. breaking into the business.

Her attention ticked toward Kari, who stood up like a robot. Kari said, “Someone is coming.”

Sure enough, invisible bells clanged, signaling that one of their wards had been set off. Richard let go of Nicole and stepped in front of her, reaching for a machine gun. Nicole had protested about the spells on their ammunition—what if one of them was accidentally shot? But as she stood behind her father now, she was glad no one had listened to her.

Tommy handed Owen to Amanda and picked up another weapon. Amanda frowned slightly but hung back, sidling over to Nicole.

“We're two of the most powerful witches in the world,” Amanda drawled, “but our menfolk are protecting us.”

“What if it's someone…” Nicole swallowed hard as she took Owen from her sister. His little baby head smelled so sweet. His hair was like silk. “What if it's Owen's father?” She felt faint.