Anna Strong - Retribution Part 25

Williams lunges, pulls her to her feet. His teeth are at her neck, all control relinquished to the beast. "You have lived this long only because of Anna's friends. If you cannot bring us the witch responsible, your life is forfeit. This is for my friend, Ortiz."

Stop him, Deveraux screams. You can't let this happen.

The panic in his voice is more than concern for Sophie. Once she is dead, he is, too.

But I won't stop it. I don't want to. If anything, I want to take her blood as badly as Williams. I want to tear her head from her body, a sacrifice, a tribute to Frey and Culebra. They didn't deserve to die, either. It's not punishment. It's justice. The vampire needs no further coaxing. I grab Williams and pull him away, slamming him back against the wall. She's mine.

No.

He's on his feet, snarling, lunging back at me. His hands are extended, his mouth twisted. We circle each other, growling, like two dogs spoiling for a fight.

"h.e.l.lo?"

A voice, a familiar voice from the entrance to the cave.

"Who's there?"

And like a dog, I shake myself to allow the blood thoughts of the vampire to recede.

Who is that?

Williams and I both turn, wary, eyes flas.h.i.+ng yellow to watch as a figure emerges from the darkness.

Sandra approaches, hands on her hips, head tilted as she takes in the scene.

"What's going on here?"

I swallow hard, pus.h.i.+ng the beast down so I can answer as a human. "Frey and Culebra are gone." I point a shaking finger at Sophie.

"She will pay the price."

Sandra goes to Sophie, helps her to her feet, glares at Williams and me. "You two are crazy, you know that?" She puts a gentle hand on Sophie's arm, examines the bleeding wound on her neck from Williams' bite. "It's not too bad. Let's get you out of here."

Her eyes spark with anger as she pauses only long enough to throw caustic words back at us. "Culebra and Frey are in the bar. We moved them there to make them more comfortable. Why didn't you stop there first?"

Culebra and Frey are still alive. I watch Sandra take Sophie back along the trail.

Shame sends heat to flood my face.

We almost killed her.

How anxious will she be to help us now?

I probe to see what Williams is feeling. I get only the red tide of residual anger. His animal eyes still glow yellow as he follows the women out of the cave.

It puts me on alert.

I know now that whether or not we save Culebra or get Burke, as far as Williams is concerned, Sophie is a dead woman.

CHAPTER 46.

I WHIP PAST SANDRA AND SOPHIE AND LEAVE WILLIAMS behind to run down the path to the bar. The back door stands open. As soon as I pa.s.s through it, I smell it. The acrid stench of illness and impending death.

It intensifies the fear fluttering my stomach.

I follow the smell to one of the feeding rooms.

Frey sits with his back to me, slumped in a chair. Still, unmoving. Only the sound of his labored breathing gives hint of life.

I tiptoe around to face him. My stomach contracts. I'm glad his eyes are closed. A violent jolt seizes me and if he was watching, the shock that must be stamped on my face could only add to his misery. The smell of decay comes from him.

Frey's dark hair is streaked with white. His face is pock marked and gouged with lines from the corner of his eyes to his chin, as if someone had drawn a trowel down the length of it. He looks emaciated, dehydrated . . . and old.

I squeeze my own eyes shut to stop the tears.

"Do I look that bad?"

Frey's voice, full of humor and, thankfully, life, brings me back. I fling my arms around him and hug until he gently pushes me back. "Easy. I'm not in the best shape right now."

I release him and step away. "You're alive. That's all that matters." A tug at my conscience makes me turn around, look toward Culebra. If Frey looks this bad, what must Culebra look like?

When I approach the cot, I'm amazed to see Culebra looks no different than the last time I saw him. He might be sleeping peacefully in his own bed. His face is unmarked and his body unchanged. The shallow, rapid rise and fall of his chest and the intravenous tubes feeding him are the only indications that something is wrong.

I turn a questioning eye to Frey. "How is this possible?"

His smile is both sad and ironic. "My counterspell protects Culebra. Unfortunately, it drains me. Remember when I said magic always exacts a price?"

I turn my eyes away. "I put you in this position. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I knew the risks before I came." He looks toward the door. "I hope you brought reinforcements."

"Sophie. Burke's sister. She should be able to break the spell."

"Burke's sister?" He frowns. "Can we trust her?"

"Oh, we can trust her all right." Williams pushes Sophie ahead of him into the room. "She knows if anything goes wrong, she's dead."

Frey looks around. Whatever he might have imagined a sister of Burke 's to look like, it's obviously not the dark-haired, s.h.i.+ny-faced young woman Williams shoves toward him. He stares at her, his face betraying his surprise. "She's a girl. How can she help us?"

Sophie lays a hand on his shoulder. At her touch, Frey grows still, his muscles relax, his eyes close.

I'm on her in a heartbeat, slapping her hand away. "What are you doing to him?"

She turns gray-clouded eyes on me. For an instant, I see the older Sophie, the witch, and it sends a shudder down my back. There's strength and power and a strong will.

The next moment, Sophie, the girl, is back. "He is resting. He cannot be a part of the ritual."

She turns away and empties the contents of her bag onto the floor.

She picks through the herbs, separates them into piles. With a piece of chalk, she marks a pentagram on the floor. She picks up a small portion of one of the herbs and places it on a point of the pentagram.

"h.o.r.ehound," she says. "Protection against spells and sorcery."

She moves on, scooping up more herbs and laying them on a second point. "Angelica. To ward off evil spirits."

On a third point, she places a different herb. "Golden-seal. Healing herb."

In the middle of the pentagram she places the fourth herb. "Foxglove. For the heart."

She moves away from the pentagram, back to the bag. She picks up a goblet. Its delicate, carved crystal winks in the light and throws off flashes of light like rainbow glitter. She places it in the middle of the pentagram, reverently, as if the thing was a religious relic. Into it she pours half the contents of a small vial. She places the vial on the cot beside Culebra's body.

Holy water? I recall it was one of the items Sophie requested. The crone's house must double as a witch's one-stop convenience store.

The only things left in the bag are a dozen black beeswax candles. Sophie places one at each of the pentagram's five points and the rest she arranges in a circle around Culebra's cot.

I watch her, fascinated by how calm and deliberate her movements are. She is in a room with two vampires who have sworn to kill her if she doesn't perform the miracle of breaking Burke's spell.

She exhibits no fear, no concern. Her features are composed, serene. Deveraux, too, seems to have removed himself from her consciousness.

She might be back in the garden with the crone.

I glance at Frey, the steady rise and fall of his chest the only indication that life exists in that ravaged body.

Can we trust Sophie? The question Williams asked, and Frey. The question I keep avoiding.

The answer is as ominous as a death knell. We have to trust her. There's no one else.

CHAPTER 47.

SOPHIE STEPS BACK, HER GAZE SWEEPING THE room, the cot, the objects placed in front of her on the floor. She turns. "You three had better wait outside."the floor. She turns. "You three had better wait outside: '

Williams and I answer as one. "No way."

Only Sandra moves to the door. "I'll be in the bar. I've reopened it and we have customers."

She hurries out, not looking back, obviously relieved to be allowed to go. She must have regretted agreeing to come here every day since Culebra came back from his "vacation."

Sophie frowns at Williams and me. "If you stay," she cautions, "you must not interfere. No matter what happens. Do not approach me or Culebra. I won't be responsible for what happens if you do. Understood?"

Williams and I both nod that we do. Williams' thoughts are concealed beneath a black layer of hatred toward both Burke and her sister.

I suspect we'll be watching for different things. If I see further harm coming to Culebra, I 'll interfere any way I can. He'll be watching for any indication that Sophie is betraying us to her sister. Either way, agreeing is meaningless.

Sophie must suspect our acceptance of her terms is a hollow gesture; still, she turns away from us and steps toward the cot.

She makes no other move that I can detect, and yet all the candles spontaneously light, the flames leaping toward the ceiling like Roman candles before retreating to burn in a steady glow.

The sight makes the hair stir on the back of my neck.

She lays a hand on Culebra's chest and begins to chant. She picks up the vial and dribbles a little of the holy water into Culebra's mouth.

It bubbles up like peroxide on an open wound. A thin wisp of smoke rises. Culebra gasps and my hands curl into fists. I take a step toward him.

Sophie turns to me, her eyes clouded again. "Don't."

One word, spoken in a voice that resonates to the depths of h.e.l.l. It freezes me to the spot.

Like her sister before her, Sophie has the power to immobilize.

Why didn't I see that coming? Why didn't she use it on Williams when he attacked her?

She watches me a moment, turns away when she's sure I can't break free. She returns to Culebra.

The chanting continues. I strain to break the bonds holding me, but it's no use. Williams. Can you move?

His voice comes back, rough, angry. No.

s.h.i.+t.

Then the rumble begins. Like distant thunder. For a moment I 'm conscious only of the sound until, suddenly, darkness descends as if from a fast-moving storm. The room is plunged into night. The flickering candles cast grotesque shadows on the walls. Sophie 's shape distorts, her face turns ghostly, indistinct against the gloom. Only her voice is the same, strong, unwavering.

My skin crawls.

The room begins to shake. Gusts of cold air swirl around us, stinging my face like the gale of an arctic storm. The candles sway in the violent blasts of air. My guts heave. I feel as if I'm on the deck of a bucking s.h.i.+p, helpless in the face of a raging storm.

Sophie's voice carries over all. Only the tempo and volume increase. I don't understand the words. All that I see are her eyes-bright, fever-lit, consumed by an inner fire. It's frightening and compelling and I can't look away.

Sophie pauses in her incantations, pours another drop of holy water on Culebra's tongue. This time, he groans, his back arches as if pulling against invisible bonds.

He's in pain. I struggle to break free of Sophie's hold. I can't. Did I make a mistake bringing her?

What choice did I have?

Sophie continues the chant. The wind increases, whipping her hair around her face. A small cut appears on her cheek, followed by another and another until her face is streaming with blood. It drips onto her clothes, onto Culebra, a crimson stain that spreads until they're both covered with it.

Still, she persists. Her voice carries with it power and energy. Yet the opposition she's fighting is powerful, too. I'm watching a clash of t.i.tans. Two mighty forces in a battle of wills.