Sisters Of The Craft: Heat Of The Moment Part 30

"They'll never get here in time," Raye continued.

"In time for what?"

She pointed to the room's inhabitants. A man, all in black-clothes, hair, even his eyes-stared into the darkness beyond the slightly cloudy pane of a single window.

"Darling," he murmured.

"Sweetheart," the woman answered.

Her equally dark hair spread over the blue and orange tartan clasped around the shoulders of the gray dress. She held the large skirt wide, as if she were about to curtsy. Perhaps it was the orange streaks in that tartan that made her eyes s.h.i.+ne like emeralds. I'd only seen eyes like that once before.

"Pru," I whispered.

"Yes," Raye agreed with equal softness. Though Pru didn't hear us and neither did- "Henry?"

Raye nodded.

The door burst open, and men clothed in black filled the room. A tall, pale, angry fellow strode in after them. The flames reflected at the center of his eyes lent him a satanic appearance.

"Roland McHugh," Raye said. "Chief witch hunter of King James."

He jabbed a bony finger at Pru and she spun toward the three cradles that had been s.h.i.+elded by her skirt. Three men s.n.a.t.c.hed the children within and carried them out the still-open door.

"No!" Pru cried, and a crockery bowl fell off the table, shattering against the floor. She ran after the children, but before she reached the door, two minions s.n.a.t.c.hed her arms and escorted her out. Several more led Henry along behind.

The next thing I knew Raye and I were in the yard. My ears whistled as if a sharp wind had blown by. Those not occupied hauling the inhabitants from their home had been busy building a pyre. From the looks of it, they'd done so before.

"More than one soul in a womb is Satan's work." McHugh's lip curled as he contemplated the infants. I could only see the tops of their heads-one blond, one red, one dark. "How many lives did you sacrifice so your devil's sp.a.w.n might be born?"

Henry and Pru remained silent as their captors lashed them back-to-back against the stake, then formed a circle around them. Two lackeys appeared with torches.

The witch hunter removed a ring from his finger and a pincher from his wool doublet then held the circlet within the flame until it glowed. He pressed the red-hot metal to Henry's neck.

I choked on the scent of burning flesh, flinched at the horrifying hiss. Raye took my hand, lacing our fingers together and squeezing tight.

The livid image of a snarling wolf remained behind on Henry's flesh. "Are you mad?" he asked.

"Sometimes the brand brings forth a confession."

"Shocking how pain and torture makes people say anything."

"It did not make you." McHugh jabbed his ring back into the flames; his gaze slid to Pru.

"I did it," Henry blurted. "I sold to Satan the lives of your wife and child to bring forth our own."

"Of course you did," McHugh agreed.

"What's he talking about?" I asked.

"Pru is a midwife," Raye said. "One of the best. She'd never lost a patient. Until she lost McHugh's wife and child."

"How did that happen? I thought she was a witch."

"Some things can't be healed. By the time that jerk-wad fetched her, his wife had lost far too much blood, and the child was already dead."

McHugh pressed his ring to Pru's neck. She stiffened until the stake creaked. I tightened my fingers on Raye's until they crackled.

"White ring of fur," I whispered, thinking of Pru the wolf.

"Yes."

Lightning flashed, and somewhere deep in the woods a tree toppled over. The wolves howled, louder, closer-I swore there were more of them-and the circle of hunters s.h.i.+fted.

"I confessed, you swine," Henry shouted.

"You thought that would save her?" McHugh tut-tutted, then s.n.a.t.c.hed the blazing torches and tossed them onto the pyre. The dry, ancient wood flared.

Henry reached for Pru's hands. They were just close enough to touch palm to palm. "Imagine a safe place," he said. "Where no one believes in witches any more."

"Uh-oh," I murmured.

The forest s.h.i.+mmered. Clouds skittered over the moon. Flames shot so high they seemed to touch the sky. Several hunters standing too close stumbled back, lifting their arms to s.h.i.+eld their faces. The fire died with a whoosh, leaving nothing behind but ashes and smoke.

No Henry. No Pru.

A cry went up. The men who'd held the children now held empty blankets.

Between one blink and the next, four hundred years fell away. My eyes registered a silver-tinged, chilly Scottish night, the smoking pyre, those fluttering binkies. Then I stood beneath fluorescent lights. The candles on the exam table winked out in a wind that wasn't. I swayed, slapping my palms on the cool, silver surface as Pru yipped.

"What was that?" My voice shook as badly as my legs.

Raye clapped her hands, making me start. I was jumpier than the proverbial cat in a roomful of rocking chairs. Could you blame me?

"It worked!"

"You had doubts?"

"I never tried this spell before."

"So we could have ended up in limbo?"

"We didn't actually go anywhere, Becca."

"Something went to Scotland." I paused. "Didn't it?"

"Our minds? Spirits? Souls?" She shrugged. "A little of all three?"

As the Scotland of 1612 no longer existed, that made sense. Or at least it made as much sense as anything did lately.

"You said the Book of Shadows was yours."

"It is."

"Then why don't you know more about the spell?"

She began to return the articles she'd set out to the sack. "I should have said that it's mine now."

I rubbed my head. There were so many things I wanted to ask. Where to start, where to start? She didn't give me a chance.

"I'm an air witch. We rule the crossover between this world and the next. We can communicate with the dead." She spread her hands. "Air witches can bring the dead across-either to this plane as ghosts, or we can send a ghost on to the next."

She waited for me to comment, but what was I supposed to say to that?

"This book belonged to another air witch," she continued. "She had the power to alleviate pain, an air witch gift that I don't have. At least not yet. She left her book to me when she died." Her eyes met mine. "The Venatores Mali killed her."

"How can a witch-hunting society from the seventeenth century still be active today?"

"They've been revived."

"Why?"

"To raise Roland."

"The a.s.shole we just saw?"

Raye nodded.

"That doesn't make any sense."

"If you want sense, you came to the wrong place."

"How do you raise a dead witch hunter?"

"Sacrifice of a witch by a Venatores Mali who's killed the most witches, while the worthy believers chant, skyclad, or naked, beneath the moon."

"Tell me you're kidding."

"Unfortunately, I've seen it. I was nearly the witch du jour."

"Someone tried to kill you?"

"It's the world's new favorite pastime."

"Join the club," I said. "Why us?"

"Apparently the crazies get points for every witch they kill. Then they're supposed to brand the victim with their secret decoder rings and burn the bodies. Initiation to the freak zone."

"You have no idea how they knew we were witches before we knew ourselves?" I wasn't even sure I believed it now.

"If I ever get my hands on one of them for more than a minute, I plan to beat a lot of things out of them. That's on the list."

"What happens when they raise this dude?"

"I don't want to find out. We're going to stop them before they succeed."

Sounded like a really good plan. I'd only had one glimpse of Roland McHugh, and I didn't want another. Especially if he'd been dead for the last four hundred years.

"But why would a bunch of witches go to all this trouble to raise a man who hates them?"

"The Venatores Mali aren't witches. They're witch hunters."

"Who chant and perform spells, naked, beneath the moon. What isn't witchy about that?"

"Murder is not witchcraft. Those who practice Wicca, and those born to the craft, true witches, harm none. Harm is all the Venatores Mali do."

I remembered the upside-down pentagram at Owen's place. "Satanism?"

"Maybe. All I know is that they mean to bring Roland back, and they've got a rocking head start."

"Why does he want to come back?"

"Wouldn't you? h.e.l.l can't be much of a picnic."

"What does he hope to accomplish? His family's gone."

"But the family he blames for that isn't."

"Henry's a ghost. That's pretty gone. Pru's a wolf." I wasn't sure what that was.

"Roland wants to end the Taggart line, as his was ended."

"By Taggarts you mean Pru and Henry?"

"And their three daughters."

"The amazing, disappearing babies who were born four hundred years ago. I doubt they're still around."

"Henry and Pru are still around."

"Not the way they once were. And why is that?"

"We don't know for sure. They performed a spell that sent the girls to a place where no one believes in witches any more. The sacrifice of their lives fueled the magic. But the spell was to save their children not themselves."

"Yet here they are." Kind of.

"Maybe once the Venatores Mali were revived, so were Henry and Pru."