Annie's Song(29)
“Come here, boy.”
“My name is Zach.”
She let out an impatient snort. “Very well. Come here, Zach. I need you to open the box for—”
“Hell, no.” He kept moving, praying he didn’t trip over some piece of the castle before he hit the doorway. “And you shouldn’t even be thinking of it. Can’t you feel it?”
“I know what I am about. Boy. This power has been calling to me for months. Waiting for me to find it, make it my own. If you want that counter spell, you will march yourself over here. Now.”
Zach closed his eyes, clutched the amethyst pendant. It felt cold, the pulse so weak his heart stuttered. “Okay.” He joined her, every step ratcheting up the dread, the underlying horror of touching that box again. “Wait—what if this goes horribly wrong?” Like he expected it to. “How will I get the counter spell if you’re dead?”
Her laugh scraped over him, loud and almost desperate. “It’s written on a piece of parchment, inside the hilt. So if the unthinkable happens, your darling mother will be safe.”
“Show me.”
Muttering, she jerked the knife out of her bag, unscrewed the handle. A rolled length of parchment rested just inside the hollow hilt. “Satisfied? Or would you like to read it? Assuming, of course, you read Latin.”
Zach ignored the sarcastic tone and held out his hand.
With a curse that raised his eyebrows, Diana yanked out the parchment and opened it. When he reached for it, she turned the knife, the blade aimed at his chest. “No touching.”
“Fine.” He scanned the fine, cramped lines, recognizing a spell to counteract the poison. How he understood Latin, or recognized the spell, were facts he put away for later, when he had the luxury to panic over them. “Thank you.”
Diana looked surprised. “Well, you earned that much. Now, let me put this in a safe place and we will open the box.”
He nodded, waited for her to lean over her bag, and in a move so fast he surprised himself he tackled her.
*
“Sweet lord.” Annie stared at the shimmering line of energy that led out of the hotel. “Is this what you deal with every day, Simon? I’d hide myself in a church, too.”
She followed the energy line, the rich, deep blue screaming Zach. It swerved into Penn and Michelle’s store, then a second line headed out, stopping abruptly in the alley next to the store.
‘Damn it.” She walked a few feet down the narrow alley, looking around her. She knew Zach had gone to the standing stones; it was where she and Marcus found Claire. Annie pushed her grief back down and focused. “How could it just disappear like . . .” Her throat closed up when she found it. His energy had been buried under the pale grey of another person. What scared her senseless was the force laid over that energy. It carried a taint of ancient, ugly power, like a smear on the concrete.
Careful not to touch it, she followed it down the alley, sure that Zach would be with the owner of that energy. Something about the power was familiar, but her mind kept pushing the memory out of reach. Annie knew what that meant. Nothing good.
She headed for the standing stones, following the lines. The circle was empty, but that power amped itself the second she stepped inside, and she knew who trailed it behind them. Patchouli coated the air. “Son of a bitch.”
Diana was the asshat carrying that ugly power. And she had Zach, only God knew where.
Annie crouched next to the fresh hole, the taint so strong it almost knocked her backward. Her ring sparked, the stones heating against her skin, telling her what she already knew. That power, that ugly, tainted energy, had been unburied, and it followed Zach out of the circle. She had to stop whatever Diana had planned. And she didn’t need a crystal ball to tell her it would be deadly.
Annie laid both hands on her stomach. For the first time, she couldn’t run blindly into danger. And she had to.
“Already the worst mom ever. I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I can’t let this thing get away.” She let the tears go, needing the release. God protect them both, she didn’t have a choice.
Time was running away from her.
Touching her ring, she whispered a protection spell, knowing the sapphire would enhance it.
“Okay, baby, Mama’s got to go to work.”
Fists clenched, she sprinted across the field, headed for the castle ruins. She may not have what it takes to stop—whatever Diana was crazy enough to dig up, but she wasn’t about to give up on Claire. Or the boy she claimed as her son. The boy Annie had fallen madly in love with. That wasn’t going to happen. Not on her watch.
*
The small hand resting in Marcus’ palm twitched.