Smoke on the Water Read online

  “The guy who did that…” Willow pointed at Pru’s neck. “Was the same guy who did that.” She pointed at Sebastian’s side.

  “You know that’s impossible,” Sebastian said.

  “That I saw it? That it happened? That he’s here? Now?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s it.” She yanked up his shirt. “How do you think this happened?”

  He lowered his gaze. His skin was stained with dried blood. A lot of it, but not enough to obscure his wound.

  Where was his wound?

  “The guy stabbed me.” He looked at Willow. “Didn’t he?”

  “He did,” Willow agreed. “Then Becca healed you.”

  Sebastian laughed. No one else did.

  “Obviously, he just scratched me.” He found a thin, red line. “Here. See?”

  “A scratch doesn’t make you bleed that much.”

  She was right, but still …

  “That’s crazy.”

  “That’s magic,” Becca said. “All my life those around me have healed faster. Once Raye and I met, my power increased even more.”

  “Power,” Sebastian echoed. He felt light-headed and dopey. Probably from blood loss, except he shouldn’t have had any blood loss when he’d only been scratched.

  “We seem to have inherited the abilities of our parents,” Raye continued. “Witches born to the craft are magic.”

  Sebastian refrained from snorting. Barely. From the expressions of everyone in the room, even the wolf, they believed this. He should probably remain silent so he could discover the extent of this shared delusion.

  “Witches born are elementals—air, fire, water, and earth,” Raye said. “Henry and Pru were very powerful, rare witches who possessed dual elements. I inherited Henry’s telekinesis and his affinity for ghosts. I’m an air witch.”

  “I received Pru’s affinity for animals, particularly wolves, and the healing.” Becca wiggled her fingers. “I’m a fire witch. Since Willow has visions, she’s a water witch.”

  “Did I get that from Henry or Pru?” Willow asked.

  The wolf yipped.

  “Pru,” Raye said. “The touch of a water witch can cleanse. Around them, people feel better—less stressed, less tired, less crazy.”

  “Mary,” Willow murmured. “She was always better when she was with me.”

  She had been but that didn’t mean Willow had made her that way. Right now, Sebastian was feeling a lot more tired, stressed, and crazy.

  Raye stared at the shadowy corner of the dining area. “Henry says Pru had visions, but it wasn’t one of her strengths. Not like you, Willow.”

  “Henry’s here?” Willow’s voice was full of awe.

  “His affinity for ghosts has made him one.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Sebastian snapped. Willow was so desperate to find a family she believed every insane thing these women said. “There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

  A book flipped off the end table, slapping against the floor with a sharp crack.

  “Knock that off, Henry,” Raye said.

  Sebastian rolled his eyes.

  “Who is she?” Raye asked.

  Sebastian thought she was talking to invisible Henry and didn’t answer at first. When he noticed everyone, including Raye, was staring at him, he spread his hands. “She who?”

  “You have a ghost, Dr. Frasier. She’s been at your side since I met you. She won’t speak to me.”

  “’Cause she isn’t there.”

  “You’ve never felt haunted?”

  He’d been haunted since the day his sister died, but not the way she meant.

  “No,” he said shortly.

  “She’s in her early twenties. Long, dark hair. Too thin. Big blue eyes. Same earrings.” Raye’s gaze flicked to Sebastian’s ear. “Earring.”

  She’d just described Emma. How could she?

  “I don’t know anyone like that,” he managed.

  “Now you’ve made her cry.”

  “Stop it!” The words were too loud, a bit panicked.

  Willow took his hand. “Just breathe.”

  He took her advice. Couldn’t hurt. And if he was concentrating on breathing, he wasn’t thinking about his dead little sister.

  “I was like you,” Bobby said. “I thought Raye was playing me when she talked about my ghosts. Figured she’d do a séance, tell me what I wanted to hear, then take me for everything I had.”

  “But you believe her now?”

  “I’ve seen enough to believe. I think you have, too, you just don’t want to admit it yet.”

  “I haven’t—” Sebastian began.

  “How’d you get here, Doctor?”

  “Walked.”

  “Not here.” Bobby pointed at the floor. “How’d you end up in the woods, in the night? No road. No car. No parachute. You’re dripping like you got caught in that downpour earlier, which came out of nowhere.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “There are a few powers left that neither Raye nor Becca have. One is bringing the storm.”

  Sebastian glanced at Willow. “Just because she thinks she can make it rain doesn’t mean she can.”

  “The other is transportation,” Bobby continued as if Sebastian hadn’t spoken at all.

  “Plane, train, automobile?”

  “Magic. Henry transported the girls from one place and time to another. It was one of his lesser powers as well, which was why he had to boost it with blood magic. But since Willow is a water witch, transportation is one of her gifts. I’d bet my next paycheck that you and Willow started out in one place and in a blink you were somewhere else.”

  “That’s how Mary got out,” Willow said. “I wanted to tell you but I knew how insane it would sound.”

  “How insane it does sound,” Sebastian corrected. Problem was … He had blinked and been somewhere else.

  “He’s a ‘have to see it to believe it’ kind of guy,” Owen said. “So was I once. My mom’s being a lunatic made me a bit skeptical about crazy talk.”

  “Your mom,” Sebastian repeated. “You’re Owen McAllister?”

  Owen nodded.

  Sebastian shouldn’t be surprised, but he was. First of all the guy was supposed to be in Afghanistan. Second of all, there was coincidence and there was … whatever this was.

  “You can see why having the woman I love tell me she’s a witch freaked me out,” Owen said.

  “I can. About your mother—”

  Owen stiffened, and Becca scooted closer to him on the floor in front of the fire.

  Willow laid her hand on Sebastian’s arm. “Leave Mary for later.”

  He didn’t like the sound of that, but he let it go. For now. He’d need to have Mary in hand, or an answer as to why he didn’t before he went back to the facility tomorrow. Dr. Tronsted was going to flay him alive as it was.

  “What did you see that turned you into a believer?” Sebastian asked.

  Owen considered. “I think when Raye tossed a Venatores Mali off a cliff from a hundred yards away.”

  “You’re sure the creep didn’t just fall?”

  “He kind of flew up into the air and hung there a second and then…” Owen lifted his hand high and then dropped it down to the ground to illustrate.

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  “No. I’m sure you’re going to have to see it too. Raye?”

  The dark-haired Willow clone stood, lifted her arms to the side, and then levitated until her head brushed the ceiling.

  Chapter 17

  “Cool,” I said.

  Sebastian leaped to his feet. “How is she doing that?”

  Becca spread her hands. “Air witch.”

  “Where are the pullies?” Sebastian demanded. “Fishing line?”

  “Come on down, baby.” Bobby beckoned, and Raye floated gently to the floor.

  Sebastian whooshed his hand above her head, frowned.

  “Satisfied?” Bobby returned to his chair and pul
led Raye into his lap.

  Sebastian swayed. I grabbed his arm, not that I’d be of any use if he decided to pass out.

  “You really did transport us, didn’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “I think I need to lie down.”

  I led him toward the bedroom Raye had earlier indicated. Halfway across the room the air felt like ice. I stopped, glanced at the windows—closed—the door—also closed.

  “What’s wrong?” Sebastian asked.

  “You feel that chill?”

  He shook his head.

  “You walked through Henry,” Becca said.

  “Did you ever feel him like that?” Raye asked Becca.

  “No.”

  “Hmm,” Raye said.

  I wanted to find out what that meant, but right now I had bigger things to worry about. I tugged Sebastian into the bedroom, shut the door. “Lie down before you fall down.”

  He stared at the pristine white bedspread and sheets, then lifted his bloodstained hands. “I should probably shower first.”

  “You need help?”

  “Not since I was four.” He made an ushering movement toward the door with gory hands. “I’ll shout if I fall and can’t get up.”

  He disappeared into the bathroom, and I waited, but when all I heard was water running, no thud and cry, I returned to the others. If I continued to stand there I’d first begin to imagine him naked beneath the water, and then I might go inside so I could see him naked beneath the water.

  Bad idea.

  Raye and Becca sat in front of the fire with Pru. Bobby and Owen were gone.

  “They thought we needed some girl time.” Raye offered me my glass of red wine, which had been refilled.

  I took it and joined them. Pru put her head on my knee.

  “She says she loves you.” Raye tapped her glass to mine. “We all do.”

  “You don’t even know me.”

  “Blood is thicker than water. Didn’t you feel all your life as though you were part of something you hadn’t yet found?”

  “I was abandoned, why wouldn’t I feel like that?”

  “Even Becca, who didn’t know she was adopted until I showed up, felt that way.”

  I sipped my wine and considered her words. I’d thought the way I felt—alone, part of something larger, which I only needed to find—was just me longing for a family. All system kids felt that way. Some imagined they were the love children of movie stars or princesses. That someday their parents would come for them and it would be amazing.

  I’d never imagined I was one of three time-traveling witch triplets. Who would? But I had hoped for something, someone. Anyone.

  When the visions of Sebastian had begun, I’d figured he was my answer. If I didn’t have a family, I’d make one. With him. Kind of sad, a little pathetic. But I was.

  “The instant Becca and I met,” Raye continued, “I felt less alone. As if the part of me that was empty had begun to fill. But that hole couldn’t completely go away until we found you.”

  “I had parents, brothers and a sister, no knowledge of any of this, but somehow I knew there was more. As soon as Raye arrived…” Becca touched her chest. “That ache began to fade.”

  I did feel less alone since they’d walked into that clearing … had it only been a few hours before?

  “Now that we’ve found each other, our powers will get stronger,” Raye said. “When I was alone, I could move things. Once Becca and I were together, I could toss people and levitate. Becca’s healing increased to epic levels. Have you noticed any changes recently?”

  “I never transported anyone until Mary.” Quickly I explained how I’d done it, each incident being different and somehow “more.”

  “And the last time, last night, you transported yourself and Sebastian,” Raye murmured.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “What was that?”

  “Practice makes perfect,” Becca said. “The moon adds a boost. Full moon even more so. So does blood.”

  “And we got here yesterday.” Raye indicated the cabin. “This place is only a few miles from the mental health facility.”

  “Why here?” I asked.

  The two exchanged glances.

  “We scried for your location,” Raye said. “I’d tried before and gotten nothing. But the two of us together saw this place. It was conveniently available for rent, and considering the Venatores Mali had already found both of us, we thought we should all get out of Dodge.”

  “You were just going to hang out until I showed up?”

  Raye shrugged. “We didn’t plan that far.”

  “Roland was pretty close. How’d that happen?”

  “How’d he wind up in the same forest?” Becca asked. “No clue. How’d he wind up in the twenty-first century and not in hell?” She glanced at Raye. “You should probably explain that.”

  “Roland’s been whispering to a lot of people from beyond the grave.”

  “Like Mary.”

  “Like Mary,” Raye agreed. “I’m not sure why they’re listening to a voice that tells them to kill, brand, and burn witches, but they are.”

  “Roland’s got his own serial killer club,” Becca muttered.

  “The Venatores Mali,” I said.

  My sisters nodded.

  “Until Roland returned,” Raye continued, “the leader of the Venatores Mali was the one with the most witch kills.”

  “Exactly how did he return?”

  “The first time they tried to raise him it was blood of a witch, shed by the leader of the Venatores Mali, as worthy believers chanted skyclad beneath the moon.”

  “The first time,” I repeated. The rest was kind of gibberish.

  “They used my blood. Didn’t work. He…” Raye waved at the air above her. “Pushed against the sky. Nearly made it, but didn’t.”

  “Then another nut job had delusions of grandeur,” Becca continued. “He killed their leader, Mistress June, and became the new boss. Did the ritual, killed me. Voilà. Roland is free.”

  “Killed you?” I glanced at Raye, wondered momentarily if Becca was a ghost, but I couldn’t see them. Raye smiled as if she could read my mind, then shook her head. Maybe she could read minds, though she hadn’t mentioned that in her list of witchy-powers.

  “I’m alive,” Becca said, “thanks to the power of two—”

  “Maybe three,” Raye interrupted. “Remember that storm?”

  They both looked at me, and I knew instinctively what they meant. There was some kind of triplet telepathy going on here that felt both strange and wonderful, and weirdly, completely normal.

  “I had a vision of clouds that were women.” The third woman falling, the pain in my chest. “You were stabbed.”

  “Yes,” Becca answered.

  “I felt it.”

  They lifted their eyebrows at the exact same time. Pru, who lay with her snout on her paws, gaze flicking to each of us as we spoke, growled low.

  “And you sent the storm,” Raye said.

  “I did. It was the first time I sent one instead of bringing one. I never controlled it before.”

  “It helped. We merged—Becca and I. I healed her, but Roland was already out.”

  “Now what?” I asked.

  “Now—” Raye offered her hands. Becca did the same.

  I set down the wineglass I’d continued to hold though I hadn’t taken another sip, and put my palms against theirs. A low hum filled the air. I’d have thought I imagined it, except our hair lifted and began to swirl together just like the cloud sisters’ hair had in my vision.

  “Now, we put him back,” Raye said. “Any ideas on how?”

  “Me?” I was so startled I let their hands go. Our hair fell back to our shoulders the instant we stopped touching.

  Pru, who’d been watching our hair swirl with the avidness of a wolf watching a rabbit, yipped. I really wished I could understand her. While I was at it, I wished I could see Henry.

  “You’re the one with the visions,” Ray
e said.

  “I never had much control over them—when they came, how they came, what I saw. But I’ve gotten better at it.”

  Becca’s head turned toward the corner. “Henry says—”

  “Wait a second,” I interrupted. “I thought Raye saw ghosts and you talked to animals.”

  “That instant when we merged, our powers merged,” Raye explained. “But not completely. I can understand Pru, but no other animals. Becca can see Henry, but no other ghosts.”

  “Make it so I can too.”

  Pru growled.

  “Hush,” Raye said. “I know.”

  “What?”

  “Becca died. I did what I had to do to save her, but it was dangerous. We can’t do it again and risk losing one of us. Only together will we have enough power to end this. To end him.”

  “Says the woman who can see her father and understand her mother.”

  That I believed I had a ghost for a father and a wolf for a mother was something I didn’t pause to dissect. They were my parents. I knew that as surely as I knew these women were my sisters and that Sebastian was my soul mate. I loved them all with a strength and surety that some might call wrong, if not insane, but that I knew to be as right and sane as anything I’d ever felt before.

  Pru set her head on my knee again, and I ran my palm over her fur.

  “She saw you once,” Becca said.

  “In my carriage, in the park.”

  “Right. But then she could never locate you again.”

  “How’d she locate me that time?”

  “She’s a wolf, but she’s also a witch. Her senses are much sharper than any wolf alive. She tracked your scent.”

  “If that was the first, the only time she ever saw me, then how did she have my scent?”

  “She had ours,” Becca said. “Close enough.”

  “Bobby did a search for abandoned babies around the time I was found and got no hits but me,” Raye continued. “Why didn’t he find you?”

  “Foster system didn’t have the best records back then.” I wasn’t sure they had the best records now. “He didn’t find any mention of Becca either?”

  “I was never formally adopted, nor reported as found.” Becca shook her head. “Long story. Where did you go after the park/carriage incident? Why couldn’t Mom ever find you again?”

  “I don’t—” I began, and then I remembered the candles, the tub, the chant. “Protection spell.”