Something Wicked (13 page)

“The rest of it being…?”

“Apparently he used what Mom had collected to track down other Comitatus members. He hacked into computers, bugged telephones, did everything he could to gather data, and he decided that finding a goddess cup for them would be the way to get our family reinstated. That’s why he pretended to be me, doing research for the
Superrational Show,
asking around the pagan community about chalices. That’s what led him—”

Ben shut up, but it was way too late.

“That’s what led him to Diana,” I finished for him, the taste of red wine suddenly bitter in my mouth.

Ben nodded, sympathy thick in his gaze.

“What did he say in his journal about killing her?”

“Nothing.” But he was
so
lying. And that meant—

I stood, dizzy. “It’s all on his computer, isn’t it? That son of a bitch
confessed
in his journal, didn’t he?”

Ben winced up to meet my glare. “He didn’t use names. It’s hard to tell what’s real and what he’s fantasized.”

Bullshit. “Get me a copy.”

“You won’t want to read it.”

“I said,
get me a copy.
”

“I already asked my attorney, Kate. It’s not like any of it’s admissible in court.”

“Damn it!”
And before I even knew what I was doing, I picked up my glass of wine and threw it, smashing it hard against the mirrored wall behind Ben. He flinched away from the explosion of glass and wine, but red droplets splattered across his cheek and shoulder all the same.

So much for our stealthy stakeout. Most of the bar fell silent. One drunken tourist even called,
“Opah!”

Ben stared at the wall behind him, then turned back to me, his gaze dark with accusation and…hurt. He reached a slow hand to his cheek and wiped away wine…and something darker. Blood.

I’d hit him with flying glass, and he was bleeding.

And heaven help me, my first instinct was to use it in magic, to force him to share whatever he’d learned about Diana’s murder.
By this blood that brothers bind—

Feeling sick, I spun and fled the bar, fled the Hotel Zeus, fled onto the crowded streets of the Plaka. Lights, bright against the night sky, disoriented me. Noise, loud with languages I couldn’t translate, surrounded me. Everything blurred and tipped, and I didn’t understand. I’d been raised to harm none. I’d been raised to use magic only for the good of all, only according to the free will of all. I knew that was possible—my mother, my grandmothers, my sister, all of them were kind people, good witches. It couldn’t just be the magic.
It had to be me.

What was I becoming? What kind of a horrible stereotype…?

“Katie!” I didn’t even hear Ben calling me until he’d grabbed my shoulder, turned me around. And no, it definitely wasn’t Victor. Wine still stained his shirt. Luckily, it wasn’t a very good shirt. Blood stained his cheek. “What was that?”

I shook my head, backed away from him.

He grabbed my arm.
“Talk to me.”

“No. Let me go. I’ll just hurt you.”

“I’ll take my chances.” Despite the fact that he was bleeding because of me. And that had been
without
magic.

“You don’t understand,” I warned him. “You don’t know what I’m capable of.” Or maybe, since he’d read Victor’s journal…did he?

“So tell me.”

But if he didn’t know, I wouldn’t—couldn’t—tell him. Instead, I retraced our steps from earlier, as far as the souvenir shop. I grabbed one of the
matia
and paid for it with what I hoped wasn’t too much money—it was Euros, after all.
Protect this man,
I thought desperately, ignoring the merchant’s offer of a bag or a receipt. Instead, I held the blue glass disk with its magical eye as tightly as any good-luck amulet has ever been held, and closed my eyes.
Protect Ben.

From me.

But I didn’t say it out loud—I couldn’t bear more attention. And it didn’t rhyme.

As far as spells go, it felt about as powerful as saying “Bless you” after a sneeze. Bring on the curses, and I was a regular Wicked Witch of the Lower Westside. But let me try something positive, and it fizzled.

Could I be more useless?

“Let me take you back to your cousin’s, okay?” Sliding a hand warily onto my back by inches, as if he expected me to attack him again, Ben guided me in that direction.

“What about Al?” I asked. But I did start walking.

“I’ll worry about Al.”

“But he and Victor are up to something.”

“Then they’ll be up to something tomorrow, too.”

Partly because I was afraid of what I’d do if I fought him, and partly because I was just so freaking tired, I stopped protesting. Just as well. I doubt I could have found my way back to Eleni’s without Ben along, just now. Maybe I was just jet-lagged. Or maybe I was wiped out from the ritual earlier that evening…or from my near-death experience on the Acropolis. But I wasn’t in great shape to tail Al Barker any farther that night.

Better to fight another day.

In the meantime, the ancient streets got quieter and quieter. The waxing moon shed a silvery light across us and across the Acropolis high above us, making me think of a song—something about “When the moon is full and high.” The air was warm for March, and smelled of flowers. And Ben’s arm, which found its way around my waist, was solid, real, warm. His shoulder made a good headrest.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, as we got closer to Eleni’s apartment. “I don’t know what got into me back there.”

“Rage, maybe?” he suggested. “My God, Kate. Your sister was murdered. Charges were dropped against the man you know is guilty. Then I tell you that there may be proof, and that you can’t use it? I’d be throwing things, too. Maybe worse.”

Really? I turned in the cradle of his arm as we walked, to better examine his long-jawed, hawk-nosed profile in the moonlight. Was my curse in Victor’s journal?
Did Ben know?
“How much worse?”

“You must want to kill him.”

Even as I sank with relief—
he didn’t know, couldn’t know
—he stopped walking and studied my face with something like…anguish.

“And I look just like him,” he said. “That can’t help.”

No, it didn’t help either one of us. It couldn’t be easy to know that his twin brother, a man who shared his DNA, was capable of something like cold-blooded murder.

“Katie,” Ben said, the rasp of his voice becoming a whisper. “I’m so very, very sorry for everything….”

I never would have imagined wanting him to kiss me—until he did.

B
en’s lips were soft. He smelled really good, like soap and spices. A soft curl of his black hair brushed past my cheek. But what I noticed most of all was a now overwhelming sense of…of completion. Like a puzzle piece clicking into place.

Like we’d been meant to kiss, all along.

He drew back slightly, his dark eyes searching mine in the moonlight, making sure it was all right, longing for it to be.

Enough with the hesitance, already. I closed the space between us and kissed him back.
Click,
went that connection between us, as satisfying as the press of lips to lips, as how he slid a hand over my shoulder to loosely cup my neck, as how he gradually opened his mouth to mine. Whether he kissed a lot of women or not, facts and figures weren’t the only area where this guy had natural aptitude.

I slid my good hand down the long line and curve of his back, onto his tight butt. He caught his breath with a soft sound of approval, and wove his fingers into my hair. Despite everything, he wasn’t scared of me.
Yes….

This feeling in me was the opposite of death and destruction. This was what moonlit nights in Athens were made for.

When the moon is full and high…

Then I pulled back, eyes wide, because I suddenly remembered why we felt so connected.

The curse. The damned
curse!
When you cast a spell on a person, it’s an energy bond, like loving someone or hating someone. It ties the two of you together. That was all that was happening between us, and it was my doing, and I really resented this being so artificial, because for a moment—one poignant, happy moment—I’d thought…

Yeah, me and magic. What a great pairing
that
turned out to be.

“I’m sorry,” said Ben immediately—I’d never known a guy who apologized so much. Maybe he was making up for every apology his brother owed and never gave. “It’s not like you’ve…God, every time you look at me, you must see—”

“No.” I tried to press my fingers against his lips, but the round
matia
I still clutched got in the way. “You don’t look like him. Not really.”

Not to anyone who could really see.

“You’re a good liar,” he said with a smile, leaning closer. It almost broke my heart to step back from him.

He didn’t know he was under my spell. And until I had the guts to tell him…

Or at least to protect him from it.

Like that, I knew what to do. “Wait here,” I murmured, and turned away from him. Several steps down the quiet sidewalk, my back to him, I thrust the
matia
up into the light of the waxing moon. I willed the words, and they came in an intense whisper.

“Power of this talisman,” I murmured, “protection of this seeing eye. Be with Ben and ward off danger—know my magic, hear my cry. Keep him safe within your sight whenever evil bides nearby.”

Even on a whisper, fairly sure he couldn’t hear me, this could have seemed too lame for words. But a burst of power ripped through me, then and there, like the amulet was a lightning rod and I was some kind of conduit between the Lady Moon and the Mother Earth.

I called the power and, unlike my attempt to contact the Goddess, it was right here in my hand. Almost as electrifying, as satisfying as the kiss had been.

Almost.

Suddenly wiped, I turned and closed the space between us, pressed the
matia
into Ben’s hand. “Do me a favor,” I said. “Keep this with you. All the time.”

He took it on my command, though with his brow furrowed—and his long-lashed attention seemed equally divided between the charm and my lips. “It’s warm,” he stated. “From you?”

Yeah. My touch was why it felt warm to him, why not? “Promise to keep it on you.”

“Why do I think you know something I don’t?”

“You know a lot that I don’t, too,” I reminded him. When he frowned, I added, “All that stuff about the history of the Holy Grail, and what Hekate sites are where and…stuff. All I know is magic.”

“That’s all?” Ben actually smiled at that. He was trying.

“I’m starting to think it’s too much.” Starting? Hell, right now I wished I could end all this without ever lighting another candle or speaking another rhyme. The same magic that had lit my mother’s and sister’s lives was turning me darker and darker. What if I never again emerged from this blackness I’d been weaving around myself?

The least I could do was not drag this man down with me. It seemed as though all I was doing lately was endangering people, and—

A scream stabbed the night. Immediately, Ben’s hands were on my shoulders, drawing me beside him, behind him.

The screams didn’t stop.

I looked up, horrified to realize that we’d been standing beside Eleni’s building. The terrified screams floated down to us, from what could be—

The third floor.

I’ve never run up three flights of winding stairs so fast in all my life. Ben tried to stay ahead of me, but I outdistanced him. Eleni’s apartment house was converted from an old mansion, so it didn’t have the symmetrical layout of the buildings I was more used to. Her and Thea’s “flat” had once been a cluster of servants’ quarters, now connected.

When I hit the door, the knob refused to turn in my hand, and I bounced off.
Locked.

But someone inside was still screaming.

“Eleni!” I threw my shoulder against the door again—same result.

Ben banged on it, beside me. “Stand back.”

The screams suddenly cut off. Neighbors appeared on the landings, looking up.

“No, wait.” I took a deep breath and, despite having given magic up, like, twice in the past half hour, I concentrated. And there, right in front of Ben, I murmured, “This I vow, open
now!
”

Maybe it was the spell, or coincidence, but I heard the lock turn—and Thea, who’d done the unlocking, managed to jump out of the way of the door as I flung it open.

Magic works by natural means.

“Where’s Eleni?” I demanded, while Thea pointed, wide-eyed, toward my cousin’s bedroom. I bolted across the living room just ahead of Ben, into the bedroom—and froze in the doorway.

There Eleni lay in her nightshirt, dead still, on the floor.

And something horribly cold, horribly unnatural, lurked in the shadowy corners.

“English,” I heard Ben insisting just behind me, as Thea went on and on in Greek. Maybe his grasp of the language wasn’t so great after all. “Slower, Thea, or in English. Please!”

“She…she just started screaming!”

The scene in front of me shifted subtly. For a long moment, the awful yellow wallpaper of Eleni’s bedroom faded, taking on the muted tones of Diana’s and my living room.

“I wanted to go to her,” Thea continued, “but…but I could not!”

“Why not?” demanded Ben.

The fake-wood-patterned linoleum beneath Eleni’s prone form shifted into blood-soaked carpet before my eyes.

“Something…” Thea began to sob. “Something is still in there!”

Eleni’s tangle of black hair, so like mine, seemed to turn dark blond. Memories threatened to devour me. But then she moaned, the faintest, protesting moan.

She was alive.

And from the corner, feeding off our fear, the something that had kept Thea out of the room seemed to stretch, to grow, to loom over us with a silent promise:
You’re next.

If it had had some kind of shape—a werewolf, a demon,
something
—maybe it wouldn’t have been so frightening. Even if it were something real—a killer. Victor. But this thing stank of evil magic, and it was nothing that could be described, nothing that could be seen or touched…and everything that could be feared.

And I’d be damned if I’d lose someone else.

“Back,” I growled, reaching ahead of me with my hand flat, projective. “Whatever you are,
begone.
”

The shadows seemed to twist, to coil—but that could have been the shadow of Ben pressing closer behind me. Natural means.

“What the hell,” he muttered. He sensed it, too. “Katie,
wait!
”

But I was walking into the room, walking right up to my cousin’s form. “You want to take me on?” I asked whatever it was.

Nothing responded except for shifting shadows, eddying drafts and a stench of evil. But hey, this was an unexpected bonus to being a bad guy.

It thought
it
was evil?

“You came looking for me?” I demanded, only recognizing as the words escaped me that this was exactly what had happened. Whatever it was hadn’t initially wanted Eleni. It had only come after her because I wasn’t there—or maybe because I’d been standing with Ben and the protective
matia.
Eleni shared my blood. She made a good second choice. “Here I am.”

The fact that I wasn’t scared of it seemed to help. It hovered, a chill of nothingness all around us. Veiled threat. Secret danger.

“One,” I counted, slowly turning in a circle. I searched the corners, the shadows, despite the fact that every survival instinct I had was screaming at me to look away. That’s what evil
wants
you to do, look away. If you stare at it long enough, it can’t keep up the illusion of being more powerful than you. “Two.”

Still nothing.

“Three,” I finished, my voice cold with a calm I didn’t feel inside. “Protected be. By all the power of three times three.”

I hadn’t noticed Ben entering behind me until he crouched at Eleni’s side, felt for her pulse. She moaned again.

Did I hear a hiss of frustration, or just imagine it?

Of course! Ben, with the
matia,
was now touching Eleni.

“My power is spun,” I continued more loudly, accessing memories I hadn’t known I had, “my spell is done. By all the power of three—”

That was a definite hissing.

“Two,” I continued, raising my voice, and the room seemed to grow lighter even as I said it.
“One.”

Something rushed out the window, so hard that the ends of the curtains fluttered out after it.

And suddenly, the room felt normal.

“So mote it be,” whispered Thea, from the bedroom doorway.

Her eyes fluttering open, Eleni faintly echoed at the floor, “So mote it be.”

And Ben asked, “What the hell was
that?
”

“I think,” I said, my voice finally beginning to shake, “that it was some kind of curse.”

Thea convinced the neighbors that Eleni had had a horrible nightmare. Nightmare, night terror, night hag—the difference wasn’t so clear that it counted as lying. Ben took a stab at making tea. And Eleni pulled a blanket around herself and insisted I sit with her, cuddling close, on the sofa.

Me? I stared at the living room’s wallpaper and tried to think. Thinking wasn’t exactly my forte.

Luckily, it was Ben’s.

“That was
incredible,
” he insisted, moving awkwardly around the pink-cabinet-lined recess that made up Eleni and Thea’s tiny kitchenette. “I’ve read about spells of diminishing, but never thought I’d actually see one.”

“Diminishing?” Thea went to his side to help get out teacups.

“What Katie did. Where the magic user counts down instead of counting up. The theory is that as the number gets smaller, so does whatever you’re focusing on, right, Katie?”

Thank heavens that when Ben starts playing with ideas, he doesn’t always expect an answer, because I couldn’t say for sure. It had just felt right.

“And the rhyming—are you doing that off the top of your head, or is this stuff you’ve already memorized? There are plenty of theories about why rhymes can be powerful, but it seems so simple when you do it.”

Thea relieved him in the kitchen. He came and sank onto the coffee table in front of Eleni and me. “I’d guessed you were a witch even before tonight, Katie, but I figured you were like the usual modern Wiccan, heavier on the nature beliefs than the hardcore magic. I never guessed you were some kind of überwitch.”

Go figure. After years of avoiding my family tradition, I ended up attracted to a man who
wanted
me to be magic?

Finally I formed my mouth around an appropriate word. “No.”

“Now you’re just being modest. So what the hell happened in there? I would have guessed night terror, from the way Eleni screamed, the way her heart was racing. The psychological type of night terror, I mean—you know, the kind of phenomenon that usually hits during the first hour of sleep, before the REM stage has been reached? But I felt whatever was in there, too. Unless it was a form of mass hallucination.”

Eleni shook her head. “My English…it is not so good.”

“Mine either,” I whispered to her.

She laughed shakily, then did her best to explain what had happened. “I awake, afraid. I open my eyes, and all is blackness. There is no light from the street. No light from the hallway. Then he is there…!”

“He?” Ben asked.

“Thing,” she insisted. So she probably meant
it.
“He presses down upon me, so very cold. My chest feels…” She spread her hands on her chest.

“Crushed?” Ben suggested, and she nodded.

“He drinks the breath out of me. But I call for protection, here.” She pointed to her forehead. “I am able to scream, but I think nobody listens! He swallows me! Then Katie is here. She banishes him.”

I got another big hug, for that.

“But how? Katie, you said it was a curse, but whatever that was felt…sentient. And cold, which I’d connect to, say, ghosts. What makes you think curse?”

Oh, I
had
said that, hadn’t I?

“What it felt like…” I struggled to put words to a knowing that felt way too far beyond them. “Okay, you know how you can recognize someone’s presence, sometimes? Not just their voice, or what they look like, but even before that?”

“It could be by their smell,” Ben said. “Our sense of smell is more acute and more closely connected to memory than most of us realize. Or it could be something very subtle, like the way they breathe.”

“Or it could just be their
presence.
Diana used to call it a magical signature. Well, I felt that presence on that whatever-it-was, that hatred filling Eleni’s room.” I faced Ben. “It was Victor’s.”