Darkness.
And then Eugenia, pulling the dolls from her pockets. The dolls with hair and clothes from Xander and Sasha and Allegra and the rest of the Guild’s firstborns.
She submersed the first one in the mixture, lifting it into the air, liquid dripping from it as she howled her requests to the loas.
She set it beside the black candles and moved on to the next one.
Claire tried to stay alert, but she couldn’t help the slip into unconsciousness. When she came to, she had no idea how many of the doll babies Eugenia had already done or how many were left.
Was she wrong? Was her blood powerful enough to use in the Cold Blood spell? Were Xander and Sasha already dying? Was it quick? Painful?
I don’t believe, Claire reminded herself, moving her head back and forth in a gesture of denial.
She muttered the words. “I don’t believe . . . I don’t believe . . .”
She knew no one could hear her over the chanting and the beat of the drum, but she said it anyway.
Eugenia was poised over the basin with another doll baby, preparing to lower it into the mixture, when she suddenly stopped.
She looked up, her gaze drifting to the forest surrounding the clearing, her body still, even as Maximilian and Jean-Philip continued the ritual, Herve still drumming.
Then Max’s movements slowed, his gaze following Eugenia’s.
Claire tried to lift her head. Tried to see what they saw.
But when she finally focused on the figures moving toward the fire, her mind couldn’t make sense of it.
At first, she only saw two. Two people moving toward them from the forest.
Then there were more. Three, four, five . . . Claire wasn’t sure how many.
The drumbeat slowed and then stopped altogether as the figures came closer.
THIRTY-TWO
Claire turned her head, willing her eyes to focus on what she was seeing. Who she was seeing.
Then, like a dream, she heard Xander’s voice.
“You didn’t think you’re the only ones who can work spells, did you?”
Everything went quiet and still. Herve stopped drumming, his face a mask of shock. Eugenia, Maximilian, and Jean-Philip were rooted in place, their eyes focused on the approaching figures.
Xander was moving swiftly toward her, fury in his eyes like Claire had never seen. And he wasn’t alone. Sasha was moving across the clearing, too. And Allegra and Laura and Charlie and William Valcour.
The Guild’s firstborns.
The only one missing was little Daniel.
And then, like a specter, Eddie appeared in the clearing, the strong planes of his face pulled into an expression of calm determination. He wasn’t wearing a headpiece, although he did have on a ceremonial tunic, but in the light of the fire, he looked every bit as imposing as Maximilian.
They had all emerged from the forest at the same time, but from different places. Now they advanced on the fire, on Maximilian and Eugenia and the others, in a circular pattern, closing in on them from all sides.
Xander had almost reached Claire’s side when Maximilian seemed to shake loose from his shock.
“I wouldn’t come any closer,” he said, his voice a warning. “We’ve started the ritual. Three of you are already marked for death. The question is . . . which three?”
Xander didn’t even slow down. “And all of you are marked by us. The question is . . . for what?”
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?”