A Feather of Stone Read online

  Looking at these three, he knew that distinction was lost on them. He tried to keep his face impassive but felt his lip curl slightly in disgust. Of course Luc was still completely dissolute. Where were this week’s women? Usually he had two or three hanging off him.

  And Richard.

  Richard was the embodiment of the hand of God, put on earth to humble Marcel and remind him of his all-too-human weaknesses. To hate someone as deeply as he hated Richard, to be stirred to violence at just the sight of him—these were tragic character flaws that Marcel had spent decades trying to improve.

  Without success.

  “Marcel,” said Luc. He held out a hand. “Sorry you got brought back like that. Daedalus is having another lust-for-power banquet. You and Claire were the appetizer.”

  Marcel forced himself to shake Luc’s hand.

  “Luc.”

  “I got in Thursday,” Claire said. She fished a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of her big, lumpy purse and lit one.

  “Tobacco,” Marcel said. “Satan’s agent. Slavery, cancer, corporate lies, deliberate poison—it all stems from the tobacco industry.”

  “Glad you’ve lightened up,” Luc muttered.

  Claire looked at Marcel and blew smoke away from them, out the side of her mouth. “Marcel, honey, you must have missed the memo. There is no Satan. No Satan, no hell. We’ve got la déesse, le dieu, the life force that exists in everything. We’ve got ourselves and our free will. You can’t pretend to believe different.”

  “I don’t believe different,” Marcel said. “I know different. There’s the one true God, his Holy Son, the Holy Spirit. And there is surely Satan and surely hell.” He’d seen both, close up.

  Claire let out a deep breath. “Okay. Tomato, tomah-to. Anyway, we’ve been talking about possible ways to kill Daedalus.” Her face brightened, and Luc smiled again. “Got any ideas?”

  “If I had, I would have used them long ago, before I committed my soul to God. But not necessarily on Daedalus.”

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Richard’s muscles tense. Looking at him straight on, Marcel saw a mirror of his own hatred and resentment.

  Luc sighed and rolled his eyes.

  “Damn it!” Claire smacked him on the chest with her fist, surprising him. She looked back and forth between him and Richard furiously. “Damn both of you! That was two hundred and fifty years ago! Get over it! Ger over her! You stupid jackasses! Just let it go!” Some people walking by stopped to watch the spectacle unfolding.

  Richard and Luc looked as surprised as Marcel felt. Claire had always been a drama queen, but she’d never spoken to them like this before. Pain and heartache bored her, she’d said. She’d rather just have fun.

  She spoke again, her voice low and trembling with anger. “You’re both so stupid, so blind. Centuries later and she’s still squeezing your hearts. Cerise was a sweet girl—she didn’t deserve what happened to her. Goddess knows we’ve been playing out the tragedy ever since. But you two are the most single-minded idiots I’ve ever—you’re pathetic, both of you. Poor Marcel. Poor Richard. Lost their true love.”

  Marcel stepped back, stung, feeling blood burn his cheeks.

  “All this time, it’s always been Cerise, Cerise, Cerise,” Claire went on. She seemed stone-cold sober now, her green eyes fiery. “You can’t even see anyone else. You can’t even recognize love—” She stopped abruptly, shutting her mouth like a trap. White-faced with anger, she glared at them for a second more, then rubbed her hand over her eyes. “I’m tired,” she said. “I’m going back to Jules’s.”

  Without another word she turned and crossed the street, heading away from the lights on Chartres Street. She seemed to be weaving a bit, and after a pause Luc said, “I’ll go with her, make sure she gets back.”

  Then he was gone, leaving Marcel and Richard facing each other. Marcel’s head was spinning. What had Claire meant?

  Richard was watching him steadily, but Marcel knew he was just as shaken.

  “She’s talking rot,” he heard himself say. “She’s drunk. As usual. Doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

  Richard, barely two feet away, close enough to strangle, gave him an odd smile. “Claire always knows what she’s talking about. She knows more than you and me put together. Despite everything you learned, being Melita’s bitch half your life.”

  Pain stabbed Marcel’s heart so strongly he almost gasped. He actually staggered, one hand on his chest, and leaned against the crumbling stucco of the Napoleon House. Several people glanced at him in alarm, but they faded away, out of his sight. All he could see was Richard’s face, that hateful, beautiful angel’s face that Cerise hadn’t been able to resist.

  “How did you—” he choked. “Who else knows? How could you—”

  But Richard only gave him another small, tight smile, then turned and walked away.

  Clio

  Another sleepless night. I was exhausted to my bones—this day had been endless and the evening horrible. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw my Camry billowing black smoke toward the sky.

  Okay, okay, Clio, think. Think it all through. Someone is trying to kill you or Thais—again. The more I thought about Thais’s theory about Melita, the less ridiculous it seemed. Sure, it was a stretch, but none of this made sense anyway. The only reason I could think of for anyone wanting me or Thais out of the way was if the two of us made more than a full Treize. Daedalus needed a full Treize—but no more—for the rite. Someone needed one of us gone before the rite. As much as I was drawn to working with Hermann Parfitte’s book, as much as I needed to know how to control the rite’s power, still, I needed to know who was behind the attacks more.

  If we knew that, then other things would fall into place.

  At least, I hoped so.

  Okay. Now I knew what I needed to do. I got out of bed and walked quietly into Thais’s room. She was deeply asleep, her layered black hair in an aureole around her head. Kneeling next to the bed, I shook her shoulder.

  “Thais,” I said softly. “Thais, wake up.”

  She stirred, then blinked. Her eyes focused on me and she instantly looked alarmed. “What is it? Are you okay?” Sitting up, she looked at me anxiously.

  “Hi,” I whispered. “Sorry to wake you. But I need you for something.”

  “What?” She rubbed her eyes, still looking worried. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’ll explain on the way,” I said. “First we have to steal Nan’s car.”

  No one did stiff disapproval better than Thais. I had to hand it to her. She was much better than Nan, even.

  Now she sat next to me in the front seat of Nan’s Volvo. The only time she’d uncrossed her arms had been to eat a McBiscuit.

  “Since I’m going to get hanged when we go back, can you fill me in on what my crime is going to be?”

  “Yeah. Right now we’re going to a safe place so we can do a spell,” I explained. “Last night—was it only last night? God. Last night someone blew up my car. There’s so much going on so, so much crazy stuff, but if someone out there is still trying to hurt us, the most important thing is finding out who it is. When we know that, we can figure out how to protect ourselves from them and figure out how it relates to the rite. We can’t even plan what to do in the rite until we know who’s behind the attacks.”

  I glanced at her, making a mental note to avoid ever pulling that face.

  Thais let out a heavy breath and looked out her window. “The rite.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where you want us to become immortal.”

  “Yes. Thais, I’ve thought and thought about it. We can’t die. We have to go on living like this, young and beautiful and healthy. Think of everything we could do with all that time to do it in.”

  “Yeah, and it’s worked out so well for the Treize,” she said sarcastically. “They’re the poster children for mental health and stability.”

  “We’re different. We’re choosing this on purpose. We have goals
for ourselves, our lives. They weren’t prepared.”

  “I’m not prepared either.”

  I stayed quiet, letting her wrap her mind around the idea. Several miles later, she finally spoke.

  “I’ve thought about it. I just don’t know. I think the rite is going to kill someone, like it killed Cerise.”

  “Not if we know who to protect ourselves from,” I pointed out. “Not if we’re strong. Not if we’re the ones controlling it.”

  She shook her head, looking out her window. Her face was troubled, reluctant. “We’re just going to set something on fire again,” she said.

  “Not if we’re in the middle of a river.”

  “They don’t make floating cups?” Thais asked.

  “No. But we can do this without the four element cups,” I said. We were waist-deep in a small river close to the town of Abita Springs. The water was red and cold, mostly clear. Where we were, the river was about forty feet wide. I wished Racey were with us—remembering what had happened the other times that Thais and I had made magick together didn’t reassure me. But Nan hadn’t been able to figure out who was trying to hurt us, and now my frigging car had been blown up. I just had to do something.

  “Maybe we should talk about this some more,” Thais said, eyeing my supplies.

  “Look, we have to do this,” I said. “Once we know who’s trying to kill us, we’ll be able to focus on the rite and on becoming immortal.” I realized how bizarre my words were, and how they actually made sense in the craziness of our lives, and laughed.

  “You must have been a fun child,” said Thais.

  I laughed again, glad that we were together, that it was daylight, that we were far away from anyone.

  “Okay, we’re standing in water, which is your element,” I said. “So this should be good.” Glancing at the sky, I saw that it was still clouded over. It didn’t look like rain was near, though. The only candle I’d been able to find that would float was a goofy one in the shape of a yellow duck. I lit it, and then I dropped four stones in the water around us: one for the past, one for the future, one for now, and one for the problem. Thais and I held hands over the water, and I began to recite:

  We walk in sunlight

  Shadows follow us.

  We are facing fire

  We are standing beneath stone

  We are underwater

  A storm is coming toward us.

  With these words reveal the signature

  Give the shadow a face, a name

  Show us who kindles fire against us

  Who holds a stone over us

  Who pulls us underwater

  Who conjures a storm to destroy us.

  I began my song. The last time I’d done a spell, I’d taken Q-Tip’s soul from him. That had been a huge and powerful spell, and this was another one. Beneath my nervousness and determination, I felt deeply tired and tainted. Maybe Melita began like this. I don’t know where the thought came from, but it chilled me. I pushed it down and kept singing, closing my eyes, trying to concentrate.

  Thais didn’t join in, but I felt her power rising with mine, joining mine through our clasped hands. And I really did actually feel her power—it had become tangible, stronger, since the last time we’d done a spell together.

  Ideally, a photographic image would have popped up in our minds, with a big yellow arrow pointing to the guilty party. But nooo. Magick doesn’t work like that. You have to meet it halfway.

  I sang for a while; I don’t know how long. I was getting nothing and decided this was a bust. I quit singing and opened my eyes to tell Thais. She opened her eyes at the exact same time, and we stood looking at each other for a moment. In the next second, I was pulled into her eyes, the green striations like veins on a leaf. It was like sinking into a vortex, like a wormhole in a sci-fi movie. In the depths of her eyes, I started getting images.

  There was the hazy outline of my car, like a smudged Polaroid. I saw a dark figure off to the distance, and somehow I knew its lips were moving, its hands making motions, but I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman.

  I saw my car explode into flames again, and I winced. Like in a fuzzy old movie, I saw myself, a blurred stick figure, jump out of the car and run away, and I felt someone’s dark pangs of disappointment that I hadn’t died.

  It made my blood boil.

  More images flowed. I saw Thais sitting on a streetcar, saw a red pickup fly soundlessly through the air, snapping a light pole in slow motion. Inside the streetcar, Thais got to her feet and moved out of the pole’s way, seconds before it would have impaled her.

  Was Thais seeing this? I blinked several times, trying to retreat to see her, but I couldn’t—my spell had unlocked this knowledge, and it had to spool out until it was finished.

  I was sleeping in bed—no, it was Thais sleeping. Her sheet twisted thickly and coiled around her neck. She began choking, flailing, trying to pull it off. It must have been so terrifying. . . . Next, Thais and I were standing in front of our house, under the streetlight. A huge dark cloud engulfed us, and I grimaced, remembering the searing pain of the thousands of wasp stings that had almost killed us.

  Next I got to relive that scuzzy guy pulling a knife on me in the alley in the Quarter. I felt the fear all over again, the cold pounding of my heart, my numb lips as I tried to summon a spell. Luc had run up right afterward.

  Had it been Luc all along?

  The images got smaller, farther away, and I thought, No, because I hadn’t learned anything. Again I saw the same things happening—the streetcar, the wasps, the mugging—but now I saw another person at the edge of each scene, someone standing, watching, working the spells that called the danger to us. Who was it? Reveal yourself!

  The figure sharpened, took on features, clothing . . . and I felt like I had been clubbed on the head with a brick. It was Richard. Richard watching the streetcar and feeling disappointed that Thais hadn’t died. Richard summoning the wasps, watching them surround us, Richard working the spell to choke Thais with her sheet, Richard compelling that poor sap to attack me.

  I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t get air. In my mind I saw Richard and me tumbling on his bed, me pushing his shirt off, holding him tightly, holding his head and kissing him, wanting him, burning for him. He had tried to kill me and Thais, again and again.

  Oh God, I was going to be sick.

  With a heaving gulp I fell backward, breaking the spell. I splashed down into the water. It closed over my head, but I forced my legs to straighten and righted myself, gagging and holding my stomach.

  Thais grabbed my arm. “Are you okay?” She sounded near tears. “Did you see Richard?”

  I was barely able to nod, trying to control the dry heaves that shook me.

  “I can’t believe it,” Thais said. “I just can’t believe it!”

  “It’s true,” I choked. And then I felt a huge, dark presence well up behind me. A shadow fell on Thais’s face, and she looked up. Her eyes widened and her mouth opened.

  Turning, I saw we’d created a waterspout, a tornado made of river water, and it was spinning at us with a hissing howl, faster than I’d ever seen something move.

  In one second the twenty-foot cyclone of water swallowed us, gulping us greedily into its unnatural strength. I tried to hold on to Thais, to scream, to summon a spell to save us—but our hands were wrenched apart. The last thing I saw was Thais’s pale, terrified face whirling away from me in the side of the cyclone.

  The Bottom

  Something was wrong.

  Petra awoke in an instant, as she always did. Unconsciously she cast her senses throughout the house and yard, taking a quick reading of her world.

  The twins weren’t here. She couldn’t detect their vibrations anywhere in the house or yard.

  A glance at her clock showed six forty-five. On a Sunday, she could count on Clio sleeping in till ten. Leaping up, Petra began muttering reveal spells that would reveal whether someone had lured the twins away magickally. Two mi
nutes later she knew that they had left of their own accord, not too long before, and that they had taken her car. And would be grounded until they were in their late twenties.

  She grabbed the phone as she pulled on some baggy gardener’s pants. “Ouida? I need your help.”

  “This way?” Melysa looked to the right.

  Ouida nodded, her eyes vacant. She and Petra sat in the backseat, holding hands. Together their concentration was revealing the twins’ route, all the way to Abita Springs. Abita Springs! What were they up to? Petra’s mouth set in a grim line. She knew it wasn’t good. They weren’t over here at a pick-your-own pumpkin patch.

  Melysa turned to the right and headed down a narrow, barely paved road.

  “A river,” Petra murmured, seeing it in her mind. Then she and Ouida sat up straight at the same time.

  “Oh goddess,” Ouida breathed.

  She heard it before she saw it. As she, Ouida, and Melysa crashed through the woods toward the river, Petra heard a high wailing sound, like a train engine. The closer they got to the river, the more leaves and twigs whipped through the air. They tangled in Melysa’s hair and scratched Petra’s face.

  “Is it a tornado?” Melysa called over the rising sound.

  Then they saw it: a muddy waterspout spinning its way across the river toward the shore. Its sides were blotched with dark objects, pieces of driftwood, a snake, some fish. And the merest glimpse of a pale face, pale arms pinned within the wall of water.

  Instantly the three witches flung their arms out and began shouting a dissipation spell. Each one used a version unique to herself, but the forms were the same, and they all had the same goal. Petra felt every muscle in her body quiver with magick as she called on a deeper power than she had used in decades.