Illicit Magic (Book 1, Stella Mayweather Series)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

  As it turned out it wasn’t an explosion; I just assumed it was because that was what my brain rationalised. But it wasn’t a bomb or a faulty electricity socket or even a gas line leak. It was a powerful surge of magic that smashed through the room like a tsunami.

  The first, a bolt of magic with a purple haze, caught Robert squarely in the chest and he crumpled to the floor, his mouth half open in surprise as we were knocked backwards. I don’t know if he even saw what hit him. I sure hoped not. He lay in a pool of his own blood, his torso ripped to pieces by the impact. His eyes glazed over and rolled into his skull as the last bit of life ebbed out of him in a whisper.

  Seren vanished from her chair as Evan grabbed me and pushed me through the doorway to the hall while we half scrambled to our feet. Marc was nowhere to be seen and even though I was pissed off, I hoped he wasn’t hurt. Seren reappeared in front of us and we almost collided as we skidded down the polished floor of the hallway to the kitchen. Evan pushed me into a corner of the kitchen as a flash of magic rushed past us, like a flame, the heat catching at our skin.

  “Jared?” I whispered, wondering, hoping, somehow this magic was merely a horrible accident.

  “Definitely. Not.” Evan said slowly and decisively. He shook his head and I could see he was desperately worried.

  The next flame was followed by Kitty, who had thrown herself through the doorway to the kitchen as shouts of fear and surprise followed her but I couldn’t work out who they were from. She crouched near us. “We’re being attacked,” she whispered incredulously, fear evident in her voice, which rose a couple of octaves.

  Seren was crouched on the other side of me and leaned in to whisper. “I’ll warn the others.”

  “Get them out of here,” ordered Evan as she flashed out of existence.

  Someone screamed and I was just about to peek around the doorframe when Evan pulled me back. “Do you want your head blown off?” he hissed.

  “Not really.” I muttered. “I’m quite attached to it.”

  “What the hell is going on?” asked Kitty, keeping her voice to a whisper. “I was just walking down the stairs and got a flame ball thrown at me.”

  “We were talking to Robert in the living room,” I answered, when it seemed Evan wasn’t going to respond. “Seren was there but you’ve already seen she’s okay. Marc was there too.”

  “Where is he? Is he hurt?” Kitty’s eyes widened in concern.

  I shrugged my shoulders. I wasn’t ambivalent but I certainly wasn’t feeling like Marc’s best friend right now. “I don’t think so.”

  Evan was listening with more than his ears. The hallway was quiet again and I wondered if Marc had found somewhere to hide. I didn’t want to think about the other possibility. “I think Robert’s dead,” he whispered after a moment and I nodded.

  “Stella!” The voice was clearly female and most definitely calling me.

  Evan put a hand on my arm, even before I started, and shook his head.

  “Stella, I know you’re there. We need to talk.”

  I looked to Evan and he slid his hand down to hold mine, the mere proximity of him giving me the strength I needed.

  “I know you were going to tell, Stella.” The voice crooned in such a pleasant, cajoling way that I had to remind myself of the inherent danger of answering the woman. “I couldn’t let you do that. You would have ruined everything.”

  “Who the hell is that?” Kitty shuffled closer to me. I wasn’t sure if she were trying to camouflage herself by me, or protect me. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she started putting some distance between us. “Is it ..?” She looked green.

  I paused before I spoke so I could look at Evan. He reflected the same heaviness on his face that I could feel in the pit of my stomach. He must have come to the same realisation as me. That wasn’t good.

  A tremendous roar disturbed our brief ceasefire. Magic splashed about the hallway, sparks trickling into the kitchen and I heard an agonized scream as feet rushed across the hallway, only to clash with the supernatural malice. It was silenced by the sound of a tremendous crash and a thud as something hit the living room wall.

  Seren winked back into existence beside us. “Wasn’t me,” she whispered.

  “Who would send a fool to be a foot soldier?” questioned the phantom voice. She laughed and it was the most unpleasant sound. “I would say ‘goodbye, boy,’ but he doesn’t seem to be alive anymore.”

  I winced. Boy? What the hell had Jared been thinking to barge in there?

  Seren’s face crumpled as she fought back tears. “Magic is protecting the house, keeping us from getting out or anyone else from getting in. I can’t break it,” she whispered hurriedly. “I don’t know where Étoile or David are. I don’t know what she’s done but trying to use magic here is like wading through mud. I’m finding it difficult to shimmer.”

  “Where are Christy and Clara?” Evan asked, keeping his voice low as I started to tremble beside him. Seren reached out to place her arm on me.

  “Don’t do that,” I snapped in a hiss and she scuttled back. She and her sister had done this to me several times before but I’d only just allowed the thought to fully form. They could calm me down to the point of knocking me out when it suited them! “Every time you and Étoile want me to simmer down, you just touch me. I don’t need to feel all Zen right now!”

  “You could have stopped us any time,” Seren shrugged. “We can only influence another witch’s feelings as long as she allows it. Besides, your magic leaks when you get angry and it’s distracting.”

  Evan said that to me once, the first time we met. I wasn’t even going to go there right now but the sisters and I were going to have a chat later. I rolled my eyes. “Thanks for telling me that now.”

  “Um, no problem.”

  “Christy and Clara?” Evan prompted.

  “I can’t find them,” Seren whispered, adding, “I have to look for my sister.” She vanished as quickly as she had come.

  “She’s going to pick us off one by one,” growled Evan.

  “Why are you doing this?” It was Marc’s voice and I tried to work out where it was coming from. He was closer to the living room than the rest of us so perhaps the library, or his room, which opened off the hallway. Next to me, Kitty sighed in relief.

  “I just want to talk to Stella,” trilled the singsong voice.

  “We need to get closer,” I said. “I’ll move myself through there.”

  “I’m coming with you,” said Kitty as she gripped my wrist. I could probably have disappeared without her but I didn’t want to risk losing my arm. Or her’s.

  Evan started to shake his head, then paused. “Much as I hate to say it, you’re right. She’s just going to come after us anyway. I’d rather have some chance to do some damage than none at all. Seren is right about the magic. We need to be closer.”

  “You don’t have to come.” It tore me to say it; of course, I wanted him with me... and I didn’t.

  “You shouldn’t go at all,” said Evan, glaring at me like I was about to obey him. I couldn’t hide, he knew that. His hand still held mine and I gave it a little squeeze. At last he said, “We’ll go together. Moving another person is more difficult than moving yourself and there’s a spell weakening all of us. You can draw power from me, if you need to.”

  “Can I do that?”

  “Of course, but not often, and only because I volunteered.” I clearly had a lot to learn. “Concentrate.”

  Evan whispered the location to me and I nodded as I pictured the living room. I envisioned, very precisely, the square of carpet behind the sofa to which he thought we should shimmer. It seemed to be the furthest spot from the door where the voice was coming. I hoped she was occupied with Marc who was unwittingly providing us with some cover. I took a breath, wished and felt the electricity sing through my veins, though I didn’t dare close my eyes for even the briefest moment.

  We landed, crouched in the same position, with our ba
cks to the sofa instead of the cool kitchen wall. I hoped our magic would somehow be obscured by the recent activity and that we hadn’t just announced our presence as loudly as ringing a doorbell. I felt inexplicably exhausted with the effort of moving through space and when I glanced at Evan, he was drawing in the same shallow breaths.

  “It’s the magic working against us,” explained Evan when I looked questioningly at him. “It’s going to be rough.” He shuffled closer to me and his hand wrapped tighter round mine. “I can see Jared,” he murmured in my ear, his voice barely louder than a whisper. Kitty released her grip on me a fraction and I leaned forward to follow Evan’s line of sight. Jared lay at an angle, face down. One arm was flung towards us and I strained to see his face.

  “Not moving,” I whispered back. “But I don’t know if he’s dead or just hurt.”

  “I won’t let you do this,” Marc was saying. I doubted very much that he expected the reply he got as a red-hot flash erupted in the room like a lethal firecracker. There was no noise, except for Kitty’s laboured breathing. I felt intense fear coiling within me for the first time in weeks. I couldn’t hear a thing in the still room but I sensed the hum of power seeping all around us. It was cloying and terrible; it trailed over my skin, raising the hairs on my arms like static shock.

  Evan had taken the opportunity to lean across us and sneak a look around the other side of the sofa. “Robert’s definitely dead,” he said to us after a long moment.

  “Stella, I don’t have all day. We need to talk and I know you’re in here.” There was no cajoling now, the woman just sounded impatient.

  “How do I know you won’t kill me?” I asked, my voice curiously strong and even, although my hands betrayed me by shaking uncontrollably.

  “You have my word.”

  Somehow, I didn’t think that counted for much as I sadly thought of Robert, whom I misjudged so badly, now dead while Jared wasn’t moving. I didn’t want her to work her way through the rest of my housemates before she got to me. Besides, I wanted to know why she was doing this.

  “I’m going to talk to her,” I said decisively as Kitty gripped my arm again, frantically shaking her head.

  “It’s a bad idea, Stella,” agreed Evan. “We can come up with a better plan.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Like waiting here while she picks us off one by one is a good idea? I don’t think so. I can’t let that happen.”

  “Then I’m standing up with you. You’ll need me.”

  “No,” I shook my head. The thought of Evan getting hurt made my heart contract. “She came for me.”

  Cautiously, I swivelled on the balls of my feet and raised my head until I could peep above the sofa. After I was sure she had seen me and I wasn’t about to get my head blown off, I stood to my full height, my shoulders square and stiff disguising the fear that nearly paralysed me. I kept my shaking hands behind my back.

  Eleanor Bartholomew looked back at me and smiled a crazy smile that didn’t quite reach her dull eyes. She was dressed like she was about to go to a country club in a pastel twinset and cream pants, as well as a string of pearls around her neck. There was a streak of blood across her top but I don’t think she knew it yet. Her hair was impeccable, of course. It was probably de rigueur for society psychopaths to get coiffed first.

  She wasn’t alone. A woman stood behind her, limp brown hair straggled around her ears. She had a handsome face with sharp cheekbones. At least, she had been striking once. Now her skin was dull, her cheeks sunken and grey with glassy eyes that scanned the room but didn’t seem to be registering anything. There was something disconcertingly familiar about her.

  “You told Marc to search my room,” I said. It wasn’t a question; I was just stating a fact.

  “Yes.”

  “It was you who attacked us at your apartment.” Again, a statement, but I was curious. “How did you do it?”

  “Astra did it.” Eleanor reached to her side, her eyes barely leaving my face and stroked the woman’s cheek with the back of her hand as I watched. Astra, the sister Étoile and Seren had been searching for, nuzzled against it like an affection-starved puppy. “I had to get you away from them all.”

  “Which is why you sent me here so Marc could watch me. What was he supposed to find?”

  “Evidence.” Eleanor shrugged. “I told him to seduce you if he had too. Did he?”

  “No.” Sheesh. What kind of mother asks that?

  Eleanor shrugged again. “Spineless, just like his father.”

  “What did you think I was hiding?”

  Eleanor laughed but it wasn’t a pretty, happy sound. “Not what you were hiding, dear Stella, but evidence of what I was hiding.”

  Of course, it was so simple. She had never, for a moment, thought that a five-year-old child could be responsible for killing her parents, despite what she told Marc. She never doubted who I was either.

  Eleanor had been the one to kill my parents and she thought I knew. It hit me like a cannon discharged into my chest. She had probably been waiting all this time for her world to crumble.

  With fury rising through my bones to bubble in my chest, I sure intended for her to pay for it.

  Of course, when you’re not thinking straight, you’re not thinking tactically and I wasn’t thinking at all when I summoned the large plant pot from the hallway and brought it smashing down on her head, yucca, soil, and all. In the split second it took for Eleanor to register what was about to happen, she thrust forth her hands and sent a bolt of magic hurtling towards me.

  I froze.

  Kitty grabbed my legs and tackled me to the floor, where I sprawled on my back for a moment as Evan leapt up to cover me, completely unshielded, sending forth his own pulse of energy. Power crackled overhead. Evan met Eleanor’s force with equal strength and, though not eradicating it entirely, certainly held it at bay and prevented it from reaching us. He stepped around the sofa so that he could pounce forwards, forcing Eleanor to stumble over herself. Beads of perspiration popped and trickled across his forehead and I saw the veins bulge in his forearms as he tapped into the very core of his being to defy her.

  He hadn’t reckoned for Astra issuing her own blast. I assumed it was she; her magic had a purple tinge to it, unlike the green flashes from Eleanor and the brilliant white of Evan’s. I saw the violet-tinged flash of lightning stream towards him and only had a millisecond to yelp a warning. Astra hadn’t sent a deadly pulse, but enough to distract him, allowing the green lightning to slash at him before exploding into shards all around us. As I watched in horror from behind the sofa, Evan was lifted from the floor, his face and body contorted as he hung weightlessly in mid-air before being smashed to the ground.

  I was rooted to the floor as agony ripped through me, shredding any remote feeling of calm. I had never known pain like this. As I searched for any sign that Evan was alive, I vowed that this battle wouldn’t end until one of us was dead; it would be Eleanor or me; that much was clear.

  And like hell was it going to be me.