Part 42 (2/2)

All around me, spirits jetted into the air, moving so fast that I could feel their pa.s.sing. The very fabric of the house moaned and s.h.i.+fted, threatening to blow apart. I fought to move, but the force of the pa.s.sing spirits was like a gale-force wind, holding me still and s.n.a.t.c.hing the breath from my lungs.

It stopped as suddenly as it had begun. The spirits had broken through the ceiling and were gone.

I took a minute to breathe, just breathe, then looked around. Between me and the door, the floor was gone, leaving a gaping hole into the bas.e.m.e.nt. I glanced at the window, but it was barely eighteen inches square. My hips definitely weren't less than eighteen inches, round or square.

After a few more deep breaths, I approached the hole in the floor. Then, from below, I caught a sound that made my heart leap. Savannah's voice. She was in the bas.e.m.e.nt, chanting an incantation.

I dropped to my knees, grabbed the edge of the hole, and leaned into it.

”Savannah?” I called. ”It's me, hon. It's Paige.”

She continued chanting, her voice a distant whisper. I cleared my throat.

”Savannah?” I said, louder. ”Can you-”

The house rocked suddenly, like a boat cut from its moorings. I flew, face-first, through the hole and somersaulted, landing hard on the dirt floor beneath. For a moment, I couldn't move. The commands wouldn't travel from my brain to my muscles. Panic washed through me. Then as if in a delayed reaction, all my limbs convulsed, throwing me awkwardly into a sprawl. I scrambled to my feet, ignoring the pain that slammed through me.

From somewhere beyond came Savannah's faint voice. I looked around, seeing I was in an empty cold-cellar. I moved to the only door and opened it. Savannah's voice became clear. I caught a few words of Greek, enough to tell me, if I hadn't already guessed, that she was conjuring. Conjuring what, though, I couldn't tell. I hurried toward her before I found out.

Chapter 48.

Show & Tell As I followed Savannah's voice, I heard another. Nast's.

”You have to stop, sweetheart,” he said. ”You can't do this. It isn't possible.”

Savannah kept chanting.

”I know you're angry. I don't know what happened-”

Savannah stopped in mid-incantation and howled, ”You killed her!”

”I didn't kill anyone, princess. If you mean that boy-”

”I mean Paige! You killed her. You told them to kill her.”

”I never-”

”I saw her body! Leah showed me! I saw them carry her to the van. You promised she'd be safe and you killed her!”

I stepped into the furnace room and walked around the mammoth wood-burning furnace to see her on the other side, kneeling, facing the far wall.

”I'm right here, Savannah,” I said. ”n.o.body killed me.”

”Oh, thank G.o.d,” Nast said. ”See, sweetheart? Paige is fine.”

”You killed her! You killed her!”

”No, hon, I-”

”You killed her!” Savannah screamed. ”You killed her! You promised! You promised and you lied!”

Tears streamed down Savannah's face. Nast stepped forward, arms wide to embrace her. I lunged forward to grab him, but missed.

”Don't-!” I shouted.

Savannah's hands flew up and Nast shot backward. His head slammed against the concrete wall. His eyes widened, then closed as his body slumped to the ground, head falling forward.

I ran to him and felt for a pulse, but there was none. Blood trickled from the crushed back of his head, wending down his neck and over my fingers.

”Oh, G.o.d. Oh, G.o.d.” I gulped air, forcing calm into my voice. ”It's okay, Savannah. It'll be okay. You didn't mean it. I know that.”

She'd started chanting again. I turned. Her hands were clenched and raised, her head down, eyes squeezed shut. I tried to decipher the spell, but the words flowed so fast, they were almost unintelligible. I could tell she was summoning, but what?

Then I caught a word. A single word that told me everything. Mother. Savannah was trying to raise her mother's spirit.

”Savannah,” I said, keeping my voice soft, but raised loud enough for her to hear. ”Savannah, hon? It's me. It's Paige.”

She kept casting, repeating the words over and over in an endless loop. My gaze moved to her hands, caught by a flash of something. Something red. Blood streamed down her wrists as her fingers bit into her palms.

”Oh, Savannah,” I whispered.

I moved toward her, hands outstretched. When I was only inches from touching her, her eyes flew open. Her eyes were blank, as if seeing only a shape or a stranger.

She shouted something and banged her hands against her sides. My feet flew from under me and I sailed into the far wall.

I stayed on the floor until she returned to her incantation. Then I pushed myself to my knees.

From my new angle, the light from the bas.e.m.e.nt hall caught Savannah's face, glistening off the tears that streamed down, soaking the front of her s.h.i.+rt. The words flew from her lips, more expelled than spoken, moving seamlessly from spell to spell, language to language, in a desperate bid to find the right words to call forth her mother's spirit.

”Oh, baby,” I whispered, feeling my own eyes fill with tears. ”You poor baby.”

She'd tried so hard, moving from one life to another, trying to fit into a new world populated by strangers who couldn't, wouldn't understand her. Now even that world had fallen apart. Everyone had deserted her, failed her, and now she was desperately trying to summon the one person who'd never failed her. And it was the one thing she could never do.

Savannah could call forth every demon in the universe and never reach her own mother. She might have accidentally raised the spirits of that family in the cemetery, but she could not call on her mother, buried in an unknown grave, hundreds of miles away. If such a thing were possible, I would have contacted my own mother, despite every moral qualm against such a thing. How many times in this past year would I have called her, to ask for advice, for guidance, for anything, just to speak to her?

My own grief washed through me then, my own tears, breaking past the dam I'd so carefully erected. How different everything would have been if my mother had been here. She could have told me how to deal with the Coven, could have interceded on my behalf. She could have rescued me from jail, comforted me after that h.e.l.lish afternoon in the funeral parlor. With her there, it would never have been this way. I would never have f.u.c.ked up so badly f.u.c.ked up so badly!

I hadn't been ready. Not for Savannah, not for Coven leaders.h.i.+p, not for anything that had befallen me since her death. Now I was here, in this strange bas.e.m.e.nt, listening to the howling chant of Savannah's grief and knowing, if I did not stop her, she would summon something we couldn't control, something that would destroy us both.

I knew this, yet I could do nothing. I didn't know what to do. Hearing Savannah shout her mother's name, voice rising to a crazed crescendo, I did the only thing I could think of. I asked my mother for help. I closed my eyes and called to her, summoning her from the depths of my memory and pleading for help. When Savannah paused to gulp breath, I heard someone calling my name. For one second, my heart leaped, thinking I had somehow succeeded. Then my mind cleared and the voice came clear.

”Paige? Savannah? Paige!”

It was Cortez, upstairs. I whispered a word of thanks to my mother, or providence, or whatever had sent him, then raced past the furnace and up the stairs. When I reached the top, I saw Cortez run past the end of the hall.

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