T*Witches: Kindred Spirits Read online

  The fragrant aromas of the herbs sprinkled on the linens filled her nostrils. Fishing beneath the soft pile, she pulled her father’s hammer out of the trunk. She could picture his strong hand wrapped around it, his face lined in concentration as he shaped their amulets. Automatically, she reached for her moon charm and pictured Cam’s sun.

  Cam. The thought of her sister jolted her. Was Cam here? She stopped, listened, and heard nothing.

  She found the strands of gold chain rolled up like a ball of yarn. Her dad had probably planned to lengthen their necklaces as they got older. How cruelly ironic that a man as gifted and powerful as Aron DuBaer had not known he wouldn’t live to see his daughters grow up. She pocketed the remaining chain. It had been meant for her and Cam, and so it would be theirs.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Alex caught something glowing and pushed everything away to uncover the source of the amber light. It was coming from the inside pocket of a lush burgundy velvet cape. Her curiosity on high-beam, she reached inside. Like the crystal she’d found, the small jewelry box began to radiate warmth.

  Anxiously but gently, she opened it and recognized at once the large, coin-shaped amulet she’d seen in one of the portraits at Crailmore. She traced the dancing bear with her finger. The DuBaer family crest, she remembered, the one their grandfather, Nathaniel DuBaer, had been holding. He must have given it to Aron.

  Now that she’d found it, she could return it to Miranda. Or, even better, she’d give it to Ileana. Her first DuBaer family talisman.

  Alex snapped to attention, her keen hearing drawn to a noise outside. Footsteps? Someone was coming … someone was … skipping? … closer to the house. How cool would it be if it were Cam?

  Only, Cam walked purposefully, or she ran like the wind. She did not skip. Nor would she make that swishing sound, like a long cape brushing against old and brittle fallen leaves. And that … what? … soft singing? Camryn-the-unmusical? Nuh-uh.

  Alex stuffed the DuBaer family crest into her back pocket alongside the gold chain. Someone was skipping around to the back of the house. Grasping Aron’s hammer, she hurried back down to the cellar and, staring up at the double doors, she waited.

  Noisily, the old doors flapped open. A figure silhouetted by the glare of the midday sun was about to descend the basement steps.

  Shane? No, the crasher was female. Ileana? Too perky. Miranda? Too small.

  Michaelina? The pixie witch hadn’t even made the short list.

  Alex gasped so loudly the littlest Fury lost her footing and tripped on the hem of her too-long cape. Yelping in shock, Mini-Mike bounced down the hard wooden steps on her butt. Shock turned to alarm when she saw Alex. “What are you doing here?”

  “Right back atcha,” Alex barked.

  Michaelina’s mind was racing. She’s here! What does she know? Did she go to the caves? Has she seen …? Sersee didn’t expect this —

  “She didn’t?” Sick at the idea of the vicious skeletor trespassing in her parents’ home, Alex grabbed the frantic girl’s hand and yanked her up roughly to keep her off balance — before Michaelina could scramble her thoughts. “Let’s just see how your fearless leader deals with the unexpected.”

  Michaelina tried to pull away. Her struggle revealed a barbed-wire tattoo circling her scrawny biceps, a matching bracelet for her neck-tat. “That pass for cutting-edge cool in Fury Land?” Alex taunted, tightening her grip.

  Through gritted teeth, Michaelina exclaimed, “Let go! Or else!”

  “Or else what?” Annoyed as she was, Alex almost laughed. “You’ll put a spell on me? Turn me into a frog? I don’t think so.”

  Michaelina hung tough. “I could do some damage.”

  “But you won’t,” Alex declared. “Not until you give it up, girl. Chill and spill. Dish the dirt, get down and fess up, unburden your soul — whatever the locals say.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the thwarted witch growled.

  “Yeah, you do. And you’ll tell all. Don’t mess with me, Michaelina. There’s magick in this house. And it’s all advantage Alex.” Where had that come from? Alex had no clue. It had tumbled out of her mouth, totally bypassing her brain.

  Whatever. It worked. Sort of. Michaelina stopped struggling to free her hand. “Can I sit down — somewhere soft?” she asked plaintively.

  Suddenly, Alex had released the girl and found herself undoing the fragile, herb-filled baby quilt she’d tied around her neck. A familiar scent wafted from it. Not a confused potpourri of fragrances, but the spicy odor of a single distinct herb. “Here, sit on this,” Alex was about to offer, not knowing why. And then she snatched the quilt away and remembered: A spicy herb. A rose quartz crystal. An incantation. The truth inducer.

  “What’s that smell?” Michaelina was rubbing her wrist. “Rosemary, marjoram? Nothing has ever grown down here but mushrooms. And I’ve cleaned them all. Can I go now?”

  “So you’ve been here before?” Alex asked, fishing the crystal from her pocket.

  “Everyone on the island’s been here at one time or another,” Mike said casually, but her thoughts were scrabbling like mice looking for cheese.

  “Ever seen one of these?” Alex tossed her the crystal. Michaelina automatically reached out and caught it.

  “Rose quartz. How unique. Not.” The little witch pretended boredom, but Alex could see the crystal glowing and knew Mike was feeling the heat.

  Which Alex was about to turn up.

  She held the quilt under Michaelina’s nose.

  “Excuse me?” The feisty Fury made a sour face and pulled back her head. “What’s that, your laundry?”

  “No, I was … you know that spicy odor you smelled? I was hoping you could help me identify it.”

  “Do I look like a gardener? I’m a witch, Al-pal, not a landscaping expert.” Still, she sniffed cautiously at the baby blanket. Her brow furrowed for a moment. Then she bent forward and sniffed again. And her face relaxed. She blinked for a bit, then asked sleepily this time, “Can I go?”

  “One more question,” Alex said. “There’s this spell … I know most of it but I’m not sure of the ending —”

  “Typical MAD: Mainland Attention Deficit,” Michaelina said. Alex could see warring expressions struggling across the woozy witch’s face. The Fury had tried to sneer but wound up smiling. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m Sersee’s unofficial spell-check. That girl’s head is thicker than her curls.” Michaelina gasped, shocked by her own words. Then the silly grin returned and she shrugged. “Lay it on me,” she urged Alex.

  “Okay.” Clutching her moon charm with one hand and, with the other, cupping Michaelina’s hands, which still held the warm crystal, Alex began: “Oh, moon that gives us light and cheer, shine through me now —”

  “No, no, no. No way,” Michaelina interrupted. As Alex stiffened, the groggy witch said, “It’s sun. Oh, sun that gives us light and cheer —”

  Alex sighed with relief. “Right. Oh, sun,” she said, resuming the spell. “Shine through me now to banish fear. Free Michaelina from doubt and blame —”

  “Free who? Me?”

  “Let me win her trust,” Alex hurried on, “and lift her shame.”

  Michaelina’s lids began to flutter. “I thought,” she murmured, struggling to keep her eyes open, “you wanted my help.”

  “Totally,” Alex affirmed. “I don’t just want it, I need it … desperately.” Though the girl had gone slack, her tension drained away. The young witch was a hard case. What she said stunned Alex.

  “You what?” she repeated, “You live here?”

  “Not here,” Michaelina mumbled, nodding in the direction of the cellar, “down … you know, there.”

  A sickening wave washed over Alex. Down there. The caves. Like The Furies of legend, she lived underground with — duh-uh — her fellow cellar-dwellers Sersee and Epie. Self-proclaimed outcasts, who believed they were “unstoppable.”

  “I know you helped us undo the spell Sersee us
ed to transform the frog. Why did you betray her?” Alex prodded.

  Michaelina, her hands in her lap, scoffed, “I didn’t betray her. I just messed with her.”

  “Because she gets too big for her witchy-britches sometimes?” Alex guessed.

  Michaelina narrowed her emerald eyes and lifted her delicate chin defiantly. “She thinks she knows everything.”

  “But she doesn’t know you gave the spell to us, does she? She still thinks Cam and I figured it out by ourselves.”

  Michaelina shrugged. “That’s what she thinks.”

  “What do The Furies want?”

  “To rule,” the thin witch recited mechanically. “We’re younger, brighter, and stronger than the soft, old fools of the Unity Council who have forgotten what real witches can be. We want to go back to the old ways, when we were pure and powerful. We don’t believe we’re meant to serve the weak and needy. Sersee says it’s the other way around.”

  “Right,” Alex said, brushing the power-trip pep talk aside. “And where does Shane fit in?” She couldn’t picture him “serving” Sersee. He wasn’t exactly the basic obedient-follower type. The rebellious hunk had even disobeyed Thantos when the mighty tracker had ordered him to kill.

  “She needs him.” Even in her trance state, Michaelina could pick brain with the best of them. “Sersee needs him. I mean, a lot of people, young people, are dazzled by her. They think she’s smart and all powerful. Not even close. But Shane is. He’s brilliant, gifted, and chosen — everything she’s not. And he’s this incredible teacher. He’s taught her spells and stuff she’d never get on her own. Before you guys showed up, Shane was supposed to be the power behind Sersee’s throne.”

  It clicked. Shane was the source of Sersee’s craft-cleverness. And it didn’t hurt that he was a graduate of the Thantos School of Underhanded Hotties. No way could the sly, violet-eyed temptress afford to lose him. “She’s jealous of Cam,” Alex said.

  “Insanely, you could even say.”

  “That’s why she hates us — all over a boy?” This was a concept Alex could never wrap her brain around.

  “Not entirely,” Michaelina confirmed. “It’s about greed, too. You power princesses, that’s what she calls you,” Michaelina giggled, “stand to inherit a lot. DuBaer Industries, your parents’ talents. You could rule this island.”

  “And Sersee couldn’t stand to see that happen.” Neither, it struck Alex, could Thantos.

  “Can’t stand to see it?” Michaelina echoed. “She won’t let it happen. Together, you and sister sweetie-pie are more powerful than Sersee could ever hope to be. Her only chance is to separate you.”

  Separate us?

  Realization struck like a thunderbolt. It hit Alex so hard she almost keeled over, clutching her stomach. Now, right now they were separated. The voice that had instructed her to roam the island — alone! Oh, no. It hadn’t been Ileana or Miranda; it had been Sersee, sabotaging and separating them.

  But why had she fallen for it? She knew the answer before putting the punctuation on — because she was vulnerable. Because she wanted to stay, to find answers. She followed it because it was telling her what she wanted to do, anyway. Her own desires had made her vulnerable. Just like now.

  As if to confirm her insight, Alex began to feel dizzy. Holding onto the railing of the cellar stairs, she started to shake. And then the whooshing in her ears quieted and she heard a voice, muffled, terrified, but as recognizable as her own. Grabbing Michaelina’s narrow shoulders, she demanded, “What have you done to my sister?”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE CAVES

  She’d been ambushed.

  Jason had been the bait. He hadn’t left Coventry after all. Instead, he’d been lured back, used to lead Cam smack into a trap.

  She had not seen it coming. She should have. Jason’s glazed eyes, the bizarro things he was saying? Hello! Witchcraft 101, anyone? The boy was under a spell, cast by the cold, cruel toad-tormenter herself. At Sersee’s say-so, he’d come to capture Cam.

  Mission accomplished. She was deep in the heart of Sersee-land.

  Epie tied Cam’s hands behind her back and pushed her down onto a benchlike rock formation. She was a prisoner. But she would not go to pity-city right now. She would deal.

  Calmly, Cam took stock of her situation. Then she went to pity-city.

  She was alone and outnumbered. This was not the training ground Shane had told her about. It was Sersee’s lair, in a section of the caves that had probably gone unexplored for decades — beneath LunaSoleil.

  “Who said you were the slow one?” Sersee taunted her. “So far, you’ve aced it. Not many even know this part of the caves exists. Except for certain members of your own family. What sweet irony that you’re here. Princess Apolla, meant to live in luxury above us, literally. Poor little sun queen, all in the dark now. The only DuBaer for miles around — and deep underground.”

  Resolutely, Cam refused to be baited. She would figure a way out of this. Taking a deep breath, she shoved all the how’s and why’s out of her head and concentrated on the what now. She’d have to fight for herself — and for Jason. Like an innocent bystander in a drive-by, he’d been caught in the cross-fire. He was standing zombielike now in the shadows behind Sersee, waiting, Cam suspected, for his next instructions.

  “So true, so true,” the tall witch mocked her, reading her mind. “The disadvantages just keep piling up, don’t they? Okay, I’ll do one: Your telepathic powers, pitiful to start with, are all ‘No Service,’ down here.”

  With Sersee intercepting her thoughts, Cam forced herself not to think about her game plan — and then invent one. Only one idea, one word, escaped — Soccer.

  “Sock me?” Sersee laughed. “With what? Your hands are tied.”

  Curlylocks hadn’t gotten it. She didn’t have a clue that Cam was ace forward for Marble Bay High’s first-rate soccer team and that she could think, run, and score like a champ. To Cam, the single thought, Soccer, meant pulling a mental fake-out. Think one thing and do another. It was worth a try.

  She concentrated on looking around and looking desperate, as if she were scoping out the cave, scanning for escape routes.

  She watched Sersee watching her. Good.

  Without warning, Cam leaped up and made a run for it. Faking to the left, then dashing to the right, she grabbed Jason’s clammy hand and raced toward the tunnel.

  But Jason was dead weight. Dragging him gave slick Sersee and lumpy Epie all the time they needed to make a Cam sandwich. Block complete. Game over.

  “That’s the best you can do?” Sersee sniped. “Run away? Your ancestors would be appalled. You,” she told Jason, pointing to where he’d been standing before. “Over there, pussycat.”

  Okay, now Cam felt panic rising. She squashed it. A freak-out or misstep like the one she’d just attempted and she’d be landfill. She’d have to outwit — or out-witch — her enemies, who knew every inch of this cave and island.

  Epie pushed her down again and, this time, Cam studied her surroundings more closely.

  Sersee, Epie, and Michaelina had staked out this cold, dank turf as their own. Tools of the trade were laid out on a natural stone shelf at the far end of the cavern: mortar and pestles to grind herbs and spices, to make potions and cast spells. But where were the herbs themselves, and the crystals? Clearly, stashed away so that no visitor or captive could use them.

  There were crevasses in the cave walls, archways that led into separate spaces, dark igloos furnished with sleeping bags and oil lamps. There were four such “rooms.” Four for three witches. With a sickening feeling, Cam realized this was the damp, dark place Shane had described as his home. He lived here. Where was he now? Lurking in his lair, waiting for Sersee’s orders?

  And were there still demented outcasts — present company aside — living in the underground passageways? Or spirits of the dead? She almost wished there were. They might divert Sersee’s attention.

  Which was again riveted on
Cam. Without shifting her eyes, the glowering witch snapped her fingers at Epie. “Take her amulet,” she commanded. “She won’t be needing it anymore.”

  Her hands tied behind her back, Cam couldn’t shield her powerful sun charm. She could block Epie’s approach, though. Using every ounce of her kick-butt soccer strength, she booted the chunkster in the shins.

  Epie’s legs gave way and she went down yelping, “She hurt me! She kicked me!”

  “Get a grip,” Sersee retorted. “Get off your duff, go behind her, and yank the thing off.”

  Whimpering, Epie obeyed. She slid the sun charm around the chain until it hung on the back of Cam’s neck. Then she yanked it. Her startled scream this time was not caused by Cam.

  “Ow! Ouch! I got burned!” Epie shook the hand violently, as if she could shake off the searing pain, and dropped the sun charm on the ground. “Help! I need ice!”

  Sersee iced her with a frigid stare.

  Epie’s cries racheted up when she glimpsed her hand. “Aghhh! Look what she did!”

  Even Cam was shocked. Burned into the young witch’s palm was the outline of Cam’s amulet, as if the heat of the sun itself had branded her. Desperately, Epie pressed her hand against the cold cavern wall and wailed, “She’s … she’s got magick! She’s a —”

  “Witch?” Sersee mocked. “Of course she’s a witch, you dunce.”

  Cam had no idea how the charm had heated up to burning. Unless … Aron’s words came to her. I’ll be with you. I’ve always been with you. She was inspired. She focused her heat-bearing eyes on Sersee’s dark curls. Alex’s turban trick had been much too mild. The leader of the perv pack needed a really hot hairdresser.

  Wispy at first, smoke soon began to billow from Sersee’s long, thick locks. Ooops. Cam had forgotten about Jason. He began to cough, tear, choke …

  “Want to rethink that?” Sersee said, her eyes burning as much with contained fury as smoke. “Smoke inhalation’s a killer, and it doesn’t discriminate between wusses and winners.”