This Wicked Game Read online

  He reached Claire’s side. There was so much love and pain in his eyes that she tried to reach up and touch his face. But her arms wouldn’t move, both because of the restraints and the blood loss that made her so weak she just wanted to sleep and sleep.

  “I’m going to get you out of here,” he said softly.

  She thought it might hurt when he untied the ropes on her wrists, but she didn’t feel a thing.

  He lifted her into his arms. She tried to protest, to tell him she could walk on her own. But she couldn’t seem to formulate the words. She was so overcome with relief at the feel of his arms around her, his breath in her hair, that all she could do was wrap her bleeding arms around his neck and hold on.

  Eugenia, taller and more imposing in her headpiece, turned on him. “You have a long way to go before your power is equal to ours, boy.”

  “Alone, that might be true,” Xander said, turning to leave with Claire in his arms. “But I’m not alone.”

  He turned away from the fire, removing Claire from the ritual circle as Eddie, Sasha, Allegra, and the others stepped forward.

  Claire wanted to call out to them, to tell them Maximilian and Eugenia were dangerous. But the firstborns weren’t retreating.

  They were advancing.

  And Eddie was leading the way.

  They held up dolls to the firelight as they began to chant in unison. Understanding threaded its way into Claire’s mind; Xander had taken things from the house on Dauphine. Personal things.

  And the firstborns—along with Eddie—had used them to make dolls of their own.

  They spoke in French as they moved forward. Claire shouldn’t have been able to understand, but inexplicably, she did. She heard their call to the loa Bosou Koblamin, defeater of enemies. Understood their request for intervention, their demand for the evil ones to cease their use of dark power in the name of vengeance. A call for the return to balance that existed when the spirits were summoned in the name of goodness, health, and love.

  The drumming started up again, a perfect rhythm to the words of the ritual, but when Claire looked over Xander’s shoulder at Herve, he was standing near the fire with the others as the firstborns closed in around them, forcing them inside a ritual circle of their own making.

  His hands weren’t moving over the drum.

  The drumbeat was coming from inside her. It was her. And suddenly the words were right there. She knew what they meant, knew what to say. She murmured the words as Xander took her toward the forest, adding her voice, however small, to the others as they chanted.

  She and Xander were almost to the tree line when she saw Allegra break free of the circle. She ran toward them as a loud whoosh erupted from the ritual circle. Claire watched over Xander’s shoulder, transfixed as smoke swirled around the fire, rising in a column from its center. Then it wasn’t a column but a serpent, rising into the air, undulating around the circle, lashing out with a forked tongue that seemed more dangerous than any snake in the bayou.

  Not wanting to leave Sasha and the others behind to face whatever beast Maximilian and Eugenia had conjured, Claire cried out, “Wait! Xander, wait!”

  He stopped jogging toward the forest and looked back as Allegra reached their side.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “That isn’t them. It’s us.”

  “Us?”

  “Yeah, us. The Guild. The firstborns.” Allegra smiled. “With a little help.”

  “But we can’t just leave them here,” Claire said.

  “Trust me,” Allegra said. “As long as they’re together, no one can stop them. And they need to keep Maximilian and the others busy. We have our own work to do.”

  “Work?” Claire repeated. Her teeth started to chatter despite the sweat that slicked her body and caused the tunic to stick to her skin. “What work?”

  Xander looked at Allegra. “She’s lost a lot of blood. We need to work fast.”

  “Let’s hurry then.” Allegra led the way into the forest.

  The fire receded behind them as they stepped into the trees. The drumbeat was still there, still inside Claire’s mind, as they moved quickly through the woods.

  “What are we doing?” she finally managed to mumble as she was jostled against Xander’s shoulder. “Where are we going?”

  “This is far enough,” Xander said, stopping. “I need to slow the bleeding before we can do anything else.”

  He lowered Claire gently onto the forest floor, turning to look at Allegra over his shoulder. “Get everything ready. As soon as I have her arms bandaged, we need to move.”

  “I don’t want to move anymore,” Claire protested, shivering.

  “Don’t worry,” he said gently. “We’re almost done. I have to tear some pieces off this thing you’re wearing, okay? It’ll stop the bleeding better than my T-shirt.”

  She nodded.

  He reached for the bottom of the tunic and tugged, ripping two strips off the garment almost before Claire knew what was happening. Lifting her right arm, he sucked in his breath when he saw the extent of her injuries.

  “How bad is it?” Allegra said from somewhere behind Claire.

  “They weren’t fooling around, that’s for sure.” He looked into Claire’s eyes. “I’m going to be as careful as I can, Claire, okay?”

  “Okay.” She wasn’t scared. She couldn’t feel anything anyway, even when he began winding the first strip of fabric around her arm.

  He knotted it, repeating the action with the strip on her other arm.

  He looked up at Allegra. “Everything ready to go?”

  She nodded, pulling something from a black backpack Claire hadn’t noticed before. A second later, she heard the strike of a match and a small, orange flame bloomed in Allegra’s fingers. She lit a row of gray and purple candles, setting them in a circle around Claire.

  “What are we doing?” she asked them.

  Xander lowered his face to hers. “We didn’t get to you in time. Max had started the Cold Blood spell, and they’d already covered three of the dolls in the potion. The only reason three of us aren’t dead is because we interrupted the ritual, but if they try to continue, it’ll all come down to who’s stronger. It’s a close call with Eddie on our side, but we need to use Marie’s counterspell to make sure everyone will be okay.”

  Claire shook her head. “I don’t know how to use it. I don’t know how to do anything.”

  “You know more than you think,” Xander insisted.

  “You’re wrong,” she said, looking away. “I don’t even know if I believe.”

  Allegra knelt next to her in the dirt. “Look at me, Claire.” Her voice was harsh. “You don’t have to believe. You’re the one. The one mentioned in Marie’s counterspell. ‘One with enough power to summon the loas,’ remember?”

  “That’s not me,” Claire protested.

  “Yes, it is. Don’t you see? It’s why they wanted you.”

  Claire tried to pull the counterspell from the haze of her memory. “Even if it were true, we don’t have everything else.”

  Allegra pulled the black backpack up near Claire’s body. “You dropped the book when they took you. We brought everything we need. Everything except you. Will you try?”

  Claire’s memory of the ceremony was fuzzy, but she knew Xander was right; Maximilian and Eugenia had already started the Cold Blood spell. She recalled the dolls, their submersion in the potion mixed with her blood, the liquid dripping from them in the light of the fire.

  How long would it be before one of them stopped breathing? Before their heart was unable to pump the thick, cold blood running through their veins?

  “There wasn’t a spell,” she said. “In the book. There was only a recipe for the potion. I don’t know what to say or do.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you say or how you say it,” Allegra insisted. “Remember?
The power is yours to call on whenever you need it.”

  Claire hesitated one last time before nodding. “I’ll try.”

  Relief washed over Allegra’s face, and Claire realized for the first time that her friend was scared. Maybe she hadn’t had her veins sliced open or been held up for sacrifice by Maximilian and Eugenia, but Allegra’s risk was every bit as great as her own.

  Xander held a hand out toward Allegra. “Give me the container.”

  Allegra placed a ceramic container in Xander’s hand. He removed the lid and set it on the ground.

  “I have to undo one of these bandages for a minute. Is that okay?”

  Claire nodded.

  He bent to kiss her forehead before unwinding the strip of fabric on her right arm. As soon as the pressure was off the wound, a fresh trickle of blood oozed down Claire’s forearm. Xander held it over the open container, letting it drip for a minute before handing it back to Allegra.

  He rewrapped Claire’s bandage while Allegra mixed Claire’s blood into the other ingredients.

  “Okay,” she said. “Ready.”

  “It’ll be easier if you stand,” Xander said to Claire. “Do you think you can manage it if we help you?”

  “I think so.”

  Xander took one of her arms. Allegra took the other, and they helped her to her feet. Claire swayed, the forest tilting wildly as she tried to regain her balance.

  “It’s okay,” Xander reassured her. “We’ve got you.”

  Her head cleared a little and she looked around, trying to find something—anything—she could fix her gaze on to keep everything from turning upside down again. It was dark, the trees in the forest a blur of shadow around her. She finally settled on the candles near her feet, focusing her eyes on their flickering flames.

  “What do I do?”

  “I’m going to sprinkle the potion around your feet,” Allegra said. “I’ll use a counterhex spell, but while I do that, you need to call on the spirits in your own way. Just . . . I don’t know. Call on the loas. On any spirit being who offers protection to those under threat.”

  Claire took a deep breath, feeling foolish for being self-conscious. There were more important things at stake than her pride. She had to try.

  Allegra took the ceramic container, tipping it and sprinkling the potion near Claire’s feet, around the candles on the ground. Allegra spoke in a murmur that gradually rose, the words coming slowly at first and then in a rush of French. Some of the powder blew across the flames, sending a hiss into the air around them.

  When she had completed the circle with the potion, she tipped the rest of the container into her hands, offering up the rest of the mixture to the night sky as she continued to chant. Her face was beautiful and terrifying, her dark hair spilling down her back. The power she wielded was almost undeniable, even to Claire.

  Then Xander’s voice joined with Allegra’s, speaking the same words.

  Claire closed her eyes, needing to block out all the reminders of her real life.

  A life with bicycles and yoga and college. A life of reason.

  She spoke softly, the words a whisper, even to her own ears. She started by asking, just asking for help, pleading with the loas and Marie and the others who had gone before her to intervene, to help her right the wrong that had been committed against the Guild firstborns.

  The words came faster as something instinctual took over, the drumbeat resuming within her body, marking time to a spell she somehow knew. A spell that seemed to have lived in the shadows of her consciousness all this time, for ages and ages, for centuries and eons, waiting for the time when she would call upon it.

  She only dimly registered that she was speaking in French, the words of the spell, a plea to the loas, coming as surely as if she’d memorized them from some long-ago spell book. She repeated them over and over, a presence building inside her that was both familiar and strange, both part of her and something entirely other.

  The presence grew, demanding release as she continued to chant, filling her up until it seemed to overflow, pouring out of her hands and fingers, into the ground at her feet, escaping into the air that she breathed. It swooped around her, picking up smoke from the candles, winding its way around and around them like a tornado until they stood within a solid column of wind, the roar of it filling every crevice of Claire’s body.

  Without knowing how, she gathered it, commanded it, asked it to do her bidding. To counter Maximilian’s spell and render him powerless against them. To cease whatever actions he might be continuing in the field in front of the shack.

  The wind swirled faster, its agitation palpable as it took its cue from Claire. It rose into the sky, twisting and turning until it was a serpent identical to the one commanded by the firstborns as Xander had taken Claire into the forest. Claire watched as it propelled itself purposefully across the sky, heading toward the smoke rising from the other ritual site.

  The air was quiet in the wake of the departing spirit. But Claire’s skin was on fire, the surface of it tingling with pins and needles like her whole body had been asleep and had only just awoken.

  When she opened her eyes, she was surprised to find that her arms were stretched toward the sky, her hands covered in a powdery, metallic residue that must have been the potion Allegra had mixed.

  She wondered if the spirit had gotten to the others in time. If it had stopped Maximilian and Eugenia.

  She looked at Xander and Allegra, still staring at the sky, but before she could say anything a drop of cool liquid hit her face. She tipped her head back as three more droplets hit her face.

  A second later it was torrential. Rain streamed from the sky like a waterfall, drenching Claire’s hair and the white tunic.

  She let it wash her clean. Let it wash away her fear and doubt.

  When her legs finally gave out beneath her, her body falling to the wet, loamy earth, there was only wonder.

  THIRTY-THREE

  This is what she remembered.

  The rush through the forest, her body snug against Xander’s, her head bumping against his shoulder.

  The rain, still falling. Not a cold drizzle but a healing warmth, washing her clean.

  Allegra’s warm hand on Claire’s forehead. Her voice: “She’s too cold.”

  Sasha’s eyes, dark and worried, when she spoke. “It’s okay, Claire. Everything’s okay. You did it.”

  Then, the feel of cool leather against the back of her legs, her head in Xander’s lap. His head bowed over hers, tears falling onto her face.

  She reached up to touch him, her blood-streaked hand resting against his cheek.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Claire had been in bed nearly a week, hardly allowed out of her room to go to the bathroom. At first, she hadn’t minded. She’d been so weak that she could hardly keep her eyes open, even after the blood transfusion she’d received at the hospital.

  Finally, she’d woken up feeling different. Clearheaded and alert.

  Throwing a sweater over her boxers and T-shirt, she left her room, pausing in the hallway as she wondered where her mother might be. A moment later, she headed for the ritual room.

  She waited by the closed door, listening to her mother’s soft murmuring from the other side. Finally, she turned the knob and let the door swing open slowly.

  Her mother was there, dressed in the white tunic, her hair long and flowing over her shoulders. Somehow the tunic didn’t inspire the fear Claire would have expected after Maximilian and Eugenia had forced her to wear it.

  It was just a piece of fabric. There were stacks more like it in the store downstairs.

  Even more surprising, the sight of her mother, eyes closed and kneeling in front of the candlelit altar, didn’t scare her, either.

  She tried to remember why her mother had seemed so frightening in ritual when Claire was a child. Now, she
looked peaceful, her face beautiful as she murmured the words to a protection spell.

  Claire wasn’t surprised when she spoke without turning her head.

  “Come in, Claire.” She hesitated. “If you’d like.”

  Claire stepped into the room. The smell of anise hung in the air.

  Anise and eucalyptus and lemongrass.

  Claire inhaled deeply. Her shoulders relaxed as the scent worked its way into her body.

  White candles were lined up in front of a picture of her, a powdery residue scattered across the surface of the table.

  Claire turned away, scanning the room. She found what she was looking for on the mantel above the fireplace, and she made her way to it, lifting the framed photograph and carrying it back to the altar table.

  She placed the picture of her mother and father, taken at some long-ago picnic, on the altar. Pilar watched as Claire reached for an unlit candle. Placing it in front of the picture of her parents, she struck a match and lit the wick, watching the flame spring to life.

  She sank to the floor next to her mother, their lips moving in unison, calling on the loas to protect each other.

  Claire was rocking on the porch swing, trying to concentrate on a book, when Sasha came up the walkway.

  “Wow, Sleeping Beauty’s finally awake,” she said.

  Claire laughed, setting her book aside. “Very funny. I needed it.”

  Sasha stepped onto the porch, lowering herself next to Claire on the swing.

  “Feeling better?”

  “Much,” Claire said. “Still tired, believe it or not. But at least now I can get through the morning without needing a nap.”

  Sasha nodded. “They said that you’re lucky to be alive.”

  Claire swallowed hard. It was true. She remembered the first time she’d seen them change her bandages at the hospital, the long vertical cuts Max had made along the veins of her forearms.

  Xander’s words from the forest had drifted back to her: They weren’t fooling around.

  The cuts weren’t meant to eke a little blood out of Claire for their ritual.