Dime Store Magic

Chapter 48

AS I FOLLOWED SAVANNAH'S VOICE, I HEARD ANOTHER. Nast's.

"You have to stop, sweetheart," he said. "You can't do this. It isn't possible."

Savannah kept chanting.

"I know you're angry. I don't know what happened-"

Savannah stopped in mid-incantation and howled, "You killed her!"

"I didn't kill anyone, princess. If you mean that boy-"

"I mean Paige! You killed her. You told them to kill her."

"I never-"

"I saw her body! Leah showed me! I saw them carry her to the van. You promised she'd be safe and you killed her!"

I stepped into the furnace room and walked around the mammoth wood-burning furnace to see her on the other side, kneeling, facing the far wall.

"I'm right here, Savannah," I said. "Nobody killed me."

"Oh, thank God," Nast said. "See, sweetheart? Paige is fine."

"You killed her! You killed her!"

"No, hon, I-"

"You killed her!" Savannah screamed. "You killed her! You promised! You promised and you lied!"

Tears streamed down Savannah's face. Nast stepped forward, arms wide to embrace her. I lunged forward to grab him, but missed.

"Don't-!" I shouted.

Savannah's hands flew up and Nast shot backward. His head slammed against the concrete wall. His eyes widened, then closed as his body slumped to the ground, head falling forward.

I ran to him and felt for a pulse, but there was none. Blood trickled from the crushed back of his head, wending down his neck and over my fingers.

"Oh, God. Oh, God." I gulped air, forcing calm into my voice. "It's okay, Savannah. It'll be okay. You didn't mean it. I know that."

She'd started chanting again. I turned. Her hands were clenched and raised, her head down, eyes squeezed shut. I tried to decipher the spell, but the words flowed so fast, they were almost unintelligible. I could tell she was summoning, but what?

Then I caught a word. A single word that told me everything. Mother. Savannah was trying to raise her mother's spirit.

"Savannah," I said, keeping my voice soft, but raised loud enough for her to hear. "Savannah, hon? It's me. It's Paige."

She kept casting, repeating the words over and over in an endless loop. My gaze moved to her hands, caught by a flash of something. Something red. Blood streamed down her wrists as her fingers bit into her palms.

"Oh, Savannah," I whispered.

I moved toward her, hands outstretched. When I was only inches from touching her, her eyes flew open. Her eyes were blank, as if seeing only a shape or a stranger.

She shouted something and banged her hands against her sides. My feet flew from under me and I sailed into the far wall.

I stayed on the floor until she returned to her incantation. Then I pushed myself to my knees.

From my new angle, the light from the basement hall caught Savannah's face, glistening off the tears that streamed down, soaking the front of her shirt. The words flew from her lips, more expelled than spoken, moving seamlessly from spell to spell, language to language, in a desperate bid to find the right words to call forth her mother's spirit.

"Oh, baby," I whispered, feeling my own eyes fill with tears. "You poor baby."

She'd tried so hard, moving from one life to another, trying to fit into a new world populated by strangers who couldn't, wouldn't understand her. Now even that world had fallen apart. Everyone had deserted her, failed her, and now she was desperately trying to summon the one person who'd never failed her. And it was the one thing she could never do.

Savannah could call forth every demon in the universe and never reach her own mother. She might have accidentally raised the spirits of that family in the cemetery, but she could not call on her mother, buried in an unknown grave, hundreds of miles away. If such a thing were possible, I would have contacted my own mother, despite every moral qualm against such a thing. How many times in this past year would I have called her, to ask for advice, for guidance, for anything, just to speak to her?

My own grief washed through me then, my own tears, breaking past the dam I'd so carefully erected. How different everything would have been if my mother had been here. She could have told me how to deal with the Coven, could have interceded on my behalf. She could have rescued me from jail, comforted me after that hellish afternoon in the funeral parlor. With her there, it would never have been this way. I would never have fucked up so badly!

I hadn't been ready. Not for Savannah, not for Coven leadership, not for anything that had befallen me since her death. Now I was here, in this strange basement, listening to the howling chant of Savannah's grief and knowing, if I did not stop her, she would summon something we couldn't control, something that would destroy us both.

I knew this, yet I could do nothing. I didn't know what to do. Hearing Savannah shout her mother's name, voice rising to a crazed crescendo, I did the only thing I could think of. I asked my mother for help. I closed my eyes and called to her, summoning her from the depths of my memory and pleading for help. When Savannah paused to gulp breath, I heard someone calling my name. For one second, my heart leaped, thinking I had somehow succeeded. Then my mind cleared and the voice came clear.

"Paige? Savannah? Paige!"

It was Cortez, upstairs. I whispered a word of thanks to my mother, or providence, or whatever had sent him, then raced past the furnace and up the stairs. When I reached the top, I saw Cortez run past the end of the hall.

"Here!" I called. "I'm here!"

The house shook. I braced myself in the doorway, tensed for the next quake, but nothing came. As the house shuddered and went still, I flew down the hall, meeting Cortez halfway. He grabbed me in a fierce hug.

"Thank God," he said. "Where's Savannah? We have to get out. Something's happening."

"It's Savannah. She's-"

"Well, look at that," Leah's voice said behind us. "The white knight arrives just in time. You're such a lucky girl, Paige. All my knights die and leave me to finish their battles."

We pulled apart and turned to face her.

"You have your deal, Leah," Cortez said. "We don't have time for you. I'll speak to my father. You'll be immune from any repercussions."

"Repercussions?" She laughed. "What repercussions? I'm about to save Thomas Nast's son and granddaughter, risking my life for theirs. I'll make VP for this."

"No, you won't," I said. "There is no son to save. Kristof Nast is dead."

Cortez blinked, but recovered in a heartbeat. "You understand what that means, Leah. If you walk out of here alive, you'll be the sole survivor of a Cabal disaster. A disaster that killed the Nast heir. Thomas Nast won't reward you. You'll be lucky if he doesn't kill you."

"He will when he finds out that you initiated this tragedy," I said. "You told Savannah that I was dead, that her father killed me. You set her off. Whatever plan you had, it backfired. Take the offer and go before we change our minds."

A clay pot flew from beside the front staircase. Cortez shoved me and twisted, but it hit him in the gut so hard he flew back against the wall. He slid to the floor and doubled over, gasping. I ran to him, but Leah shoved me back.

"If there's one thing I know," she said, stepping over Cortez as he retched and coughed. "It's how to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse. A Cabal project gone horribly wrong. One Cabal heir dead. Why not make it two? And collect a very nice bounty in the process. With a houseful of bodies, no one's going to question two more."

I cast the suffocation spell, but it failed. As she bent over, I launched a fireball, my one foolproof offensive spell. The ball hit her in the back of the head. As she whirled, a knickknack table flew up and smashed against my side, knocking the next spell from my lips.

Leah advanced on me. Behind her, Cortez struggled to sit, coughing up gobs of crimson phlegm. His eyes widened and his right hand shot up, fingers flicking. The spell knocked me sideways. As I stumbled, a splintered table leg slammed into the wall, right where I'd been standing.

Leah turned on Cortez. She strode over, grabbed his face, and shoved him backward to the floor. Cortez struggled, but his eyes blazed with pain.

Again I tried the suffocation spell. This time it took hold. Leah gasped. She released Cortez and turned on me. Something hit me in the side of the head and I went down, breaking the spell. When Cortez moved, she wheeled and sent the clay pot crashing into his stomach again. He fell back, eyes wide, face contorting.

I recast the suffocation spell. Again it caught. Again Leah broke it, this time by hitting me in the back of the head with a ceramic knickknack and knocking me to my knees. She stepped forward, towering over me.

"Seems you've learned a new trick since you got Isaac killed," she said. "It doesn't really work any better than the fireballs, does it? Another useless witch spell. Or is it just another useless witch?"

I dropped and rolled out of her reach. When I came up, Leah bore down on me. Behind her, Cortez lifted his left hand and squeezed it into a fist, then opened it and repeated the motion in rapid succession, lips moving soundlessly. A spell?

As I turned, I saw Leah copy the motion, balling her left hand into a fist. Cortez slammed his hand to the floor, motioning me down. I dove as another knickknack flew past, shattering against the wall. The tell! That was it. Leah's tell.

I leaped to my feet and cast the suffocation spell. On the first gasp, her left hand clenched. I hit the floor and rolled without breaking my concentration. The clay pot flew past, and crashed against the wall. Her hand balled again and I scampered to the side, narrowly avoiding an ottoman that sailed in from the living room.

"Running out of things to throw?" I said. "Maybe we should move to the kitchen. Plenty of pots and pans there. Maybe even a knife or two."

Her face contorted with rage as she gasped for air. Her hand clenched, but this time nothing happened.

"Oooh, impotence," I said. "Never good."

Another fist. Again, nothing happened. Leah's face was purpling now, eyes bulging. She leaped at me and hit me in the chest, sending us both down. Her fist hit my cheek and the spell broke. I recast it, nearly tripping over the words in my haste, but it worked and she only got a sniff of air before I cut off her oxygen again.

Leah began to choke. I grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her off me, pinning her to the floor. Her eyes widened and bulged. She was suffocating now, dying. Indecision flitted through me. Could I do this? I had to. Around us, the house groaned. Pieces of plaster fell from the walls. It was starting again, and I had to get Cortez and Savannah out. We'd given Leah the chance to leave and she'd refused. She'd never let us walk out alive. I had to kill her. Yet I couldn't look into her eyes and watch her die. I couldn't. So I shut my eyes, concentrated as hard as I could and waited for her body to go still. Once it did, I waited another thirty seconds, then scrambled off her, not looking back, and stumbled to Cortez's side.

He'd pushed himself onto all fours. I opened my mouth, but the house shook again and a rumbling howl drowned me out. Cortez jabbed a finger toward the front door. I shook my head, but he pushed himself to his feet, grabbed my arm, and started to drag me. When we made it to the porch, the house rumbled. A beam supporting the porch snapped and we dove onto the grass just as the porch collapsed on itself. Then the house went still and the howling fell to a drone.