This Wicked Game Read online

  “Anything’s possible,” Eddie said. “But without the original spell or something clearly pointing to Cold Blood, there’s no way to know for sure.”

  “What did you guys find?” Claire asked them.

  She listened while they checked their respective lists. Although some of the spells were freaky enough to give Claire chills, nothing came up that could be clearly interpreted as Cold Blood.

  Allegra crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Now what? There has to be somewhere else we can look.”

  Claire realized how surreal her world had become as they all turned to Eddie. Just a few days ago, they had thought he was some crazy Guild outcast. Now he was the only one really helping them.

  “Let me talk to Therese,” he said. “Maybe she can ask around some of the more . . . unconventional channels.”

  “Now that sounds intriguing,” Allegra said.

  “That’s one word for it,” Eddie said wryly.

  Eddie filled Therese in on their failed search, and she agreed do some digging for information on the Cold Blood spell. They said good-bye and headed back to Eddie’s car in the twilight, the sun almost completely lost behind the looming overpass.

  Claire gazed out the window as they drove back to the Cup to pick up their cars. She thought about the Cold Blood spell, wondering what had happened to it. How could such a powerful spell, one that struck fear even in Marie, just disappear into the vapor of history?

  She glanced at Sasha and turned back to the window with her heart in her throat. The Drummonds and hers were the only families left to suffer a break-in.

  They were almost out of time.

  They parted at the Cup and agreed to touch base the next day. Eddie waited for Sasha and Allegra to drive off before turning to Claire and Xander.

  “You be careful now,” Eddie said. “And I don’t just mean on the drive home.”

  Claire had one foot in Xander’s car when she remembered something. “Eddie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You never told us what you were seeing. In your dream about me?”

  He didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he walked back toward them, stopping when he was right in front of Claire.

  He sighed, his eyes dark with regret. “The Houngan was bleeding you. And your blood was being used to kill the others.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Claire had dinner with her parents and then went upstairs. She tried to read, but her eyes skimmed over the words, her brain absorbing nothing. She read the same page four times before she gave up and set the book aside.

  She lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling and thinking about Marie. The letters left no doubt that at least one version of the Cold Blood spell had been hers.

  And yet she’d hidden it well.

  Other than rumors, no one had even heard of it. If Therese couldn’t find anything out through her mysterious “unconventional channels,” the firstborns were in serious trouble.

  Claire turned over the possibilities in her mind, grasping at anything that might give them answers. Anywhere the spell might be recorded.

  But she came up empty, and after what seemed like forever, she finally got up and walked across the room. She searched the floor around her desk and armoire until she caught a flash of red peeking out from under the wardrobe.

  Bending down, she picked up the gris-gris bag she’d thrown across the floor a couple of nights before. She lifted it to her nose, the scent of sage and verbena and the underlying smell of the Solomon’s seal chips still strong.

  She took it back to her bed and put it under her pillow. Then she lay down, recalling the words to the Insight spell and murmuring them into the darkness.

  Claire moved through the hall, not of her usual house, but of another, smaller home that felt welcoming even though it was unfamiliar.

  Candles flickered from the sconces on the wall, frankincense heavy in the air. She followed the smell, coming to a small room off the main hall. Soft golden light reached to her from within. She stepped into the room.

  The first thing she noticed was the altar on top of a table in the corner. Candles of every color and several wax dolls sat atop a fringed cloth as the smoke from a stick of incense coiled into the air. The plaster walls were cracked in places, but the room was comfortable and warm with flames emanating heat from the fireplace.

  The rustling of paper forced Claire’s attention to the writing table against the wall. A woman sat there, long black braids snaking down her back as she bent her head to something on the desk, her hand moving swiftly back and forth. She muttered softly as she wrote.

  Claire moved closer, aware that she was dreaming and would not be seen. As soon as she looked over the woman’s shoulder, she understood. The woman was writing not on paper, but in a book. Claire recognized the script, both from the letters they’d found and the spell book that felt more familiar than ever.

  It was her great-great-grandmother Marie.

  She finished her writing with a flourish and stood, leaving the book open on the writing table as she crossed to the altar. Claire caught a glimpse of the page on which she’d been writing.

  A Plea to the Loas

  Claire wanted to finish reading what was on the page, but Marie commanded her attention as she picked up a chunky dish on top of the altar. She began choosing things from the table, throwing them into the dish so quickly that Claire could barely follow her movements.

  She ground the ingredients together before lifting a tiny carafe and tipping it over the stone bowl. A stream of glistening oil poured into the mixture. Marie again mixed everything together before turning to a pewter pitcher, pouring a clear liquid from it into the dish.

  When she’d again mixed everything together, she picked a brush up from the table and carried it, together with the stone bowl, back to the writing table.

  She sat down and began brushing the mixture over the script. Claire watched in fascination as the words began to fade. Marie was still brushing toward the bottom of the page when the top half disappeared completely.

  By the time she leaned back to survey her work, the entire page was blank.

  She looked at it with satisfaction, stiffening with some kind of awareness before turning her head in Claire’s direction. Her eyes seemed to meet Claire’s through the veil that separated them.

  Then, very deliberately, she turned back to the book, closing it and leaning back, almost as if she were trying to show Claire the volume in which she’d been working.

  The cover was cracked, with a slightly green cast. Despite the faded images—a giant snake winding its way around a twisted vine border and words Claire couldn’t quite read—she recognized the book as the one that held Marie’s spells. The one that sat, usually undisturbed, in the safe under the counter downstairs.

  Marie took the book over to the altar, where she placed it in front of the lit candles. She began to chant words in a language Claire couldn’t place, steady and rhythmic, almost as if in time to a silent drumbeat.

  Then Claire was pulled back and back, through the halls of the candlelit house, the walls and rooms fading to black around her.

  The last thing she heard was Marie’s voice, echoing through the darkened halls of her sleep, sending her a message she almost understood.

  TWENTY-SIX

  She woke up with her heart racing, the dream coming back to her in pieces. The first thing she remembered was the house, then Marie and the ritual in front of the altar.

  She sat up and reached for her cell phone.

  Ten fifteen a.m.

  Jumping out of bed, she hurried down the hall, passing the open door of her parents’ bedroom. The bed was made, the room empty.

  She continued down the stairs. She needed some time alone in the store, and as she made her way to the kitchen, she was relieved to see a note on the refrigerator where her dad
always left them.

  WENT WITH MOM ON ERRANDS. HOLD DOWN FORT TILL WE GET BACK. LOVE, DAD

  She wasted no time heading for the store. Her dad’s message was clear. He wanted her to man the counter in the store until they got back. But they didn’t officially open until eleven, which gave Claire at least a little time to find what she needed.

  She started with the oldest reference books they had. Disappearing ink was a tool of the past. If someone wanted to hide something now, there were more sophisticated ways to do it. But a potion to cloak ink made perfect sense for someone in the 1800s.

  Especially a voodoo queen who wanted to hide her most important spells.

  Or counterspells.

  She found the recipe in the third book. It was from the early 1900s, but the handwriting was small and neat, the ink only slightly faded. She ran down the list of ingredients, relieved to see that they had everything in stock.

  Moving around the store with a bowl and the book, she started with coral root, rubbing the dried buds between her palms and letting the resulting powder fall into the bowl. She added the stamens of gall-of-the-earth, a delicate flower that looked nothing like its name, and continued with camphor root shavings. There were other things: powders and herbs and dried flowers. She added them all, finishing with two drops each of althaea and yarrow.

  Following the instructions in the book, she added a drizzle of oil, blessed by her mother. Some of the stores were renowned for their spells, some for their eclectic inventory, and still others for something as simple as their prices. But many of the Kincaids’ most loyal customers came for just a few minutes with Claire’s mother and her special oils.

  Claire finished the recipe with a long pour of distilled water. Then she put the book down and used a stirring stick to mix everything together. The potion smelled strongly of flowers, the camphor an undercurrent that made her think of cough drops.

  She turned to pick up Marie’s book, placing it on the counter, open to the final blank pages. Grabbing a brush from the box under the counter, she dredged the bristles through the concoction and brushed it lightly over the first blank page.

  It left oily streaks, the dried herbs sticking to the page, the gall-of-the-earth turning it yellow in places. She blew on it, willing the words to coalesce, but after ten minutes, nothing happened and she turned to the next page, repeating the process.

  This page, too, was blank. Something twisted in Claire’s stomach; the knowledge that if the Cold Blood spell and its counter weren’t in Marie’s book, they were out of options. They would have to go to the Guild, and they could bet that would be the end of their involvement. The Guild would sweep it under the rug, pat her and Xander and Sasha and Allegra on their heads, and send them on their way. They wouldn’t know the truth of what Maximilian was planning.

  And they wouldn’t know how to stop him.

  They would be gambling on the Guild’s ability to protect them, something that didn’t exactly inspire confidence after everything that had happened.

  She was on the last few pages, the mixture getting low as she brushed it across yet another page of the book, when something caught her eye. Looking closer, she wondered if it was her imagination. But no. There was something there.

  Claire blew on the page and waved it back and forth, hoping whatever was there would become clearer once the page was dry.

  It did, but only a little. The script was visible now, a shadow on the paper if she tipped it to the light at just the right angle, but she still couldn’t make out the words.

  She eyed the mixture in the bowl, wondering if there was enough for one more pass across the paper. Deciding she didn’t have a choice, she dipped the brush into the bowl and worked it across the page, careful not to saturate it so much that it tore.

  The words became more obvious, the ink darker, as the second coat of the potion covered the page.

  Waiting for it to dry was excruciating, but with each minute that passed, the words became clearer. She could almost read them, and she tipped the bowl upside down, wiping out every drop with the brush and working a thin third coat over the page.

  It was dry five minutes later. And now she could see.

  The handwriting matched the other recipes in the book, the title at the top of the page making the tiny hairs on the back of Claire’s neck rise.

  A Plea to the Loas

  She saw Marie, head bent to the blank pages of the book, in her dream. Claire kept reading.

  With consideration that my original potion for Cold Blood, devised only to ensure a cure in the event the recipe is created by others for evil or ill purposes, I, Marie Laveau, do humbly ask the loas—all who have been, who are, and who will yet come—to honor my request of a restriction on the original spell, that henceforth, the spell will require a final ingredient added by me in this dark hour as one among us seeks to work it for evil, causing the blood of her enemies to freeze in the mortal body.

  It is my humble plea that the doll babies crafted using personal objects of the intended victim should be immersed in all previously instructed items with the addition of this last:

  Blood given by one true and powerful enough to summon and call the loas to her aid.

  Once immersion occurs, the ritual may commence as is our custom.

  Should my worst fears be realized, the spell discovered by one who would use it to cause harm, those among us with authority of old may conjure a cure by use of the following.

  Black Hen Feathers

  Patchouli

  Black Snakeroot

  Adder’s Tongue

  Asafoetida

  Devil Pod

  As with the addendum to the original spell, so, too, must the counterspell include it.

  Claire read the whole page twice, trying to process what she was seeing. What Marie’s words were saying.

  But there were only a few that mattered. A few that jumped out at her:

  Causing the blood to freeze in the mortal body . . . The doll babies crafted using personal objects of the intended victim . . .

  And now she knew for sure what the Cold Blood spell was. Even with all the recipes for black magic that they’d seen at Therese’s, even with the evidence staring her in the face, it was hard to imagine someone committing murder by using a voodoo spell to freeze the blood in their veins.

  Then there was the addition—one Claire could only assume was Marie’s addendum to the original spell. What did it mean by “blood given by one true and powerful enough to summon and call the loas to her aid?” Who was true and powerful enough to make such a summons? A Mambo? Or was Marie’s use of the pronoun “she” just a product of her time? A nod to an era where the most powerful practitioners of the craft were often Mambo Priestesses?

  Claire’s cell phone vibrated on the counter. She reached for it absently, her mind still reeling from what she’d discovered. The display said her dad was calling.

  She picked up the phone. “Hey, Dad.”

  “Hey, honey. Listen, Mom and I were heading home when we got a call from Christopher Drummond.”

  “Sasha’s dad?”

  “Yes.” Warning bells clanged in Claire’s mind as her dad hesitated. “I thought you’d want to know the Drummonds’ house was broken into early this morning.”

  She dropped onto the stool. “Is Sasha okay?”

  “Everybody’s okay,” her dad said. “We’re on the other side of town, but we can swing by and pick you up on our way if you want. I just assumed you’d want to be there, too.”

  Claire stood, picking up the book and cleaning up the dusting of coral root on the counter. “No . . . I mean, yes! I want to be there. But don’t go out of your way to come get me. I’ll ride my bike. I can probably get there before you.”

  Her dad sighed, his tone turning worried. “I don’t know . . . Maybe I should have Xander come pick you up.”


  She thought of the black Rover, the feeling that someone was always following her, always watching her.

  But it didn’t matter. Sasha needed her. And Claire wanted to get to her as fast as possible. She would keep to the more populated streets and be vigilant for anyone on her tail.

  “It’s fine, Dad. It’s not that far. I’ve ridden to Sasha’s a hundred times.”

  He didn’t speak for a few seconds and she knew he was thinking about it. “Okay, but text me if you beat us there.”

  “I will.” She was already on her way up the stairs. “See you soon.”

  Claire hung up the phone and stopped at the top of the stairs to lock the door. She hadn’t thought to ask her dad about the store, but it would just have to stay closed until they got back.

  She texted Sasha on her way to her room.

  JUST HEARD. ARE YOU OKAY???

  She was brushing her teeth when her phone lit up from the bathroom counter.

  FINE. OK, NOT FINE. FREAKED OUT.

  Claire rinsed her mouth before answering. ON MY WAY. BE THERE IN 25.

  She was halfway down the hall when she realized she’d left Marie’s book sitting on the counter in the store. She ran downstairs and stuffed it into her bag.

  Then she got her bike and pedaled for the street.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  It was about five miles from her house to Sasha’s. Not exactly around the block, but not a big deal, either.

  She made her way across town, glancing over her shoulder every couple of minutes, watching for the black Rover. But there was nothing unusual, no one following her that she could see.

  She pulled into the gates at the front of Sasha’s property and worked her way around the cars parked in the driveway. She was easing her bike next to the garage when Pauline Drummond’s voice rang out from the balcony at the back of the house.

  “Claire!” Claire turned, returning Aunt Pauline’s wave. Claire could see the worry on her face despite the fact that she was as pulled together as ever, her dark hair pulled into a sleek bun. “Let yourself in, honey. It’s so sweet of you to come.”