Night World - Spellbinder Part 9

It may kill me even to try.

An odd serenity came over her. If she concentrated on that-on the risk-she f elt better than if she thought about what Gran would say if she found out. S he wasn't afraid to face danger for Eric. And as long as she kept thinking a bout that, she could block out the thought that her idea was not only danger ous, but wrong.

This time she went down the stairs almost as if she were sleepwalking. Calm and detached. "Toby, where's Gran?"

He lifted his head a bare inch. "She went to see Thierry Descouedres, somet hing about his land. Told me to come and pick her up tonight."

Thierry was a vampire and a Night Lord. He owned a lot of the land northea st of Las Vegas-but what did Gran have to do with that?

It didn't matter. The important thing was that Gran wouldn't be back all day.

"Well, then, why don't you go out and have some fun? I can watch the shop.

Tobias looked at her with dazed blue eyes-and then his round face lit up. "Ser iously? You'd do that? I could kiss you. Let's see, I'll go visit Kis.h.i.+ ... no , maybe Zoe ... no, maybe Sheena. ..."

Like all boy witches, he was in tremendous demand with the girl witches in town.

Still muttering, he checked his wallet, grabbed the car keys, and headed for the door as if Thea might change her mind any second. "I'll be back in time to pick her up, I promise," he said hastily and was out the door.

The instant he was gone, Thea turned the sign on the door to closed, locked u p, and tiptoed to the counter.

It was in the locked lower shelf, an iron chest that looked five hundred year s old. Thea picked it up with an effort-it was heavy. With her teeth gritted and her eyes on the bead curtain that separated the store from Grandma's work shop, she staggered up the stairs.

She made two other trips downstairs to gather materials. The bead curtain ne ver stirred.

Last, she went to Gran's bedroom. On a nail near the headboard was a heavy ring with dozens of keys. Thea took it. Back in her own bedroom she shut the door and stuffed a towel underneath so Blaise wouldn't smell the smoke .

Okay, now let's get this thing open.

She sat crosslegged on the floor in front of the chest. It wasn't hard to find the key that would fit the lock-she just looked for the oldest and crudest iron key on the ring. It fit perfectly and the chest opened.

Inside was a bronze box, and inside that a silver box.

And inside the silver box was an ancient book with yellowing, brittle pages, and a small green bottle with wax and ribbons securing its cork. There were also thirty or forty amulets. Thea picked one up and examined it.

A lock of blond hair had been twisted and woven into a knot, and then sealed in that shape with a round piece of clay. The c lay was dark earthy red, and Thea touched it reverently. It had been made wi th mud-and the blood of a witch. An entire Circle had probably worked on this for weeks: charging the blood, chanting, mixing it with secret ingredients , baking it in a ritual fire.

I'm touching a witch, Thea thought. The very essence of somebody who's bee n dead hundreds of years. The cabalistic sign stamped on the front of the amulet was supposed to show who the witch was. But lots of the pieces of c lay were so worn that Thea couldn't make out any trace of a symbol.

Don't worry. Find a description of somebody in the book, and then match th e amulet to them.

She turned the fragile pages of the book carefully, trying to read the spidery, faded writing.

Ix U Sihnal. Annie b.u.t.ter, Markus Klingelsmith . .. no, they all sound too dangerous, hudo Cagliostro- maybe. But I don't really want an alchemist. Dm Ratih, Omiya Inos.h.i.+s.h.i.+ . . . wait a minute. Phoebe Garner.

She scanned the page on Phoebe eagerly. A gentle girl from England who ha d lived before the Burning Times and had kept familiars. She'd died young of tuberculosis, but had been considered a blessing by everyone who'd kn own her-even humans, who appreciated her ability to deflect spells from h er village. Human villagers had mourned at her grave.

Perfect, Thea thought.

Then, she began scrabbling through the amulets, looking for one with the same symbol impressed on the clay as the book showed by Phoebe's name.

There it was! She cradled the amulet in ?her palm. Phoebe's hair had been a uburn and very fine.

Okay. Now get the balefire ready.

It had to be made from oak and ash, the two kinds of wood that had been bur ned to bake the clay. Thea put the dry sticks in her grandmother's largest bronze bowl and lit them.

Now add qua.s.sia chips, blessed thistle, mandrake root. Those were just for g eneral power raising. The real magic was in the tiny bottle that had been ca rved out of a single piece of malachite. It was the summoning potion, and Th ea had no idea at all what was in it.

She dug at the wax with her fingernails until the cork twisted freely. Then she paused, her hands shaking with every beat of her pulse.

Up until now, she'd only examined things she shouldn't: bad but forgivable. N ew she was going to kindle a forbidden fire . . . and that wasn 't forgivable . If the elders discovered what she'd done . . .

She pulled the cork out.

CHAPTER 8.

A sharp, acrid odor a.s.saulted her nostrils. She had to blink away tears as she held the bottle over the fire and very carefully tipped it.

One drop, two drops, three.The fire flared, burning blue.

It was ready. The balefire that was the only way to get a spirit from the othe r side-apart from crossing the veil and fetching it back yourself.

Thea took Phoebe's amulet in both hands and snapped it, cracking the clay a nd breaking the seal. Then, holding the broken amulet over the fire, she sa id the words of power she'd heard the elders speaking last Samhain.

"May I be given the Power of the Words of Hecate."

Instantly, she found words coming to her, rolling off her tongue. She heard them as if it were somebody else talking.

From beyond the veil ... I call you back! Through the mist of years ... I cal l you back! From the airy void ... I call you back! Through the narrow path .

.. I call you back! To the heart of the flame ... I call you back! Come speed ily, conveniently, and without delay!

She felt a rumbling vibration like an earthquake rock the floor. Above the or dinary fire different flames seemed to burn; cold, ghostly flames that were p ale blue and violet and rose to lick at her knuckles.

She started to open her hands, to let the amulet fall into the magical flame.

But just as she was about to do it, there was a bang.

The door to her bedroom swung open, and for the second time in twelve hours she found herself horrified to see Blaise.

"The whole place is shaking-what are you doing?"

"Blaise-just stay back!"

Blaise stared. Her jaw dropped and she lunged forward. "What are you doin g?"

"It's almost finished-"

"You're crazy!" Blaise grabbed at the amulet in Thea's hands, and then, whe n Thea s.n.a.t.c.hed her hands back, at the silver box.

"Leave it alone!" Thea grabbed the other side of the box. They were strugglin g with it, each trying to pull it from the other. Fire scorched Thea's hands.

"Let go!" Blaise shouted, trying to twist the box away. "I'm warning you-"

Thea's fingers were damp with sweat. The box slipped.

That was when it happened.

The silver box flipped in Blaise's hands, sending a spray of amulets everywher e. Locks of gray hair, black hair, red hair, all flying. Most of them hit the floor-but one landed directly in the balefire.

Thea heard a crack as the clay seal broke.

For one second she was frozen, then she plunged her hand into the fire. But t he clay was already burning-not red hot, but white hot. She couldn't close he r fingers around it. For just an instant she seemed to see a symbol etched in blue flames, and then a flash like sheet lightning exploded from the fire. I t knocked her into Blaise's bed and Blaise into the wall.

The lightning formed a column and something shot out.Thea didn't so much see it as sense it. A wraith shape that tore around the roo m like a blast of arctic wind. It sent books and articles of clothing flying. W hen it reached the window, it seemed to pause for an instant, as if gathering i tself, and then it shot through as if the gla.s.s didn't exist.

It was gone.

"Great Mother of life," Blaise whispered from against the wall. She was st aring at the window with huge luminous eyes-and she was scared. Blaise was scared.

That was when Thea realized how bad things were.

"What have we done?" she whispered.

"What have we done-what have you done, that's the question," Blaise snapped , sitting up and looking more like her ordinary self. "What was that thing?

Defensively, Thea gestured at the scattered amulets. "What do you think? A witch."

"But who?"

"How should I know?" Thea almost yelled, fear giving way to anger. "This i s the one I was going to call back." She s.n.a.t.c.hed up the "auburn hair and cracked amulet of Phoebe Garner. "That one was just whichever one fell out when you grabbed the box."

"Don't try to make this my fault. You're the one doing forbidden spells. Y ou're the one summoning ancestors. And whatever happens with that one"- Bl aise pointed at the window-"you're the one responsible."

She got up and shook out her hair, standing tall. "And that's what you get for trying to sic the spirits on me!" She turned and stalked out the door.

"I wasn't trying to sic the spirits on you!" Thea shouted-but the door had a lready slammed shut.

Thea's anger collapsed. Feeling numb, she looked at the overturned silver bo x, where she had temporarily stored the tissue with Eric's blood.

I was just trying to find a protector for him. Somebody who'd help him fend off your spells, who'd understand that he's a person even though he's a hu man.

She looked forlornly around the room. Then, feeling older than Gran, she st ruggled to her feet and started mechanically cleaning up the mess.

When she dumped the ashes out of the bowl she found some sort of residue sti cking to the bottom. She couldn't wash it off and she couldn't pry it off with a steak knife. She stashed the entire bowl under her bed.

All the while she cleaned, her mind kept churning.

Who got out? No way to know. Process of elimination wouldn't help, not wi th all those unmarked amulets.

What to do now? She didn't know that either.

If I tell anyone-even Gran-they'll want to know why I was trying to summon the dead. But if they find out the truth, it means death for me and Eric.

Around sunset, a limousine pulled up in the back alley. Thea saw it from h er window and rushed downstairs in alarm.

Grandma was being helped out of the car by two politely expressionless vamp ires. Servants of Thierry's.

"Gran, what happened?"

"Nothing happened. I had a little weak spell, that's all!" She whacked at one of the vampires with her cane. "I can help myself, son!"

"Ma'am," said the vampire-who might have been three or four times Grandma'

s age. To Thea, he said, "Your grandmother fainted-she was pretty sick the re for a while."

"And that good-for-nothing apprentice of mine never showed up," Gran said , making her way to the back door.

Thea nodded good-bye to the vampires. "Gran-it was my fault about Tobias. I let him have the day off." Her stomach, which had been clenched like a fis t all day, seemed to draw even tighter now. "Are you really sick?"

"I'm good for a few years yet." She began laboriously working her way up th e stairs. "Vampires just don't understand old age."

"What did you go there for?"

Gran stopped to cough. "None of your business, but I had to settle some arr angements with Thierry. He's agreed to let the Inner Circle use his land on Samhain."

Upstairs, Thea made some herb tea in the tiny kitchenette. And then, when G ran was in bed with the tea, she gathered her courage.

"Gran, when the elders call up the spirits on Samhain-how do they send the m back?"

"Why should you want to know?" Gran said crossly. But when Thea just looke d at her, she went on. "There are certain spells that are used for summoni ng-and don't you ask me what they are-and you say those backwards to send them back. The witch who calls a spirit has to be the one to dismiss it."

So only I can do it. "And that's all?" Thea asked.

"Oh, of course not. It's a long process of kindling the fire and strewing th e herbs-but if you do it all right, you can draw the spirit down from betwee n the standing stones and send it back where it came from." Grandma went on muttering, but Thea had snagged on a earlier phrase.