The Line (Witching Savannah, #1)(62)

I reached out for the handle, bringing the blade against my own left palm. It hovered there; I was unable to bring its sharp edge to my skin. “You said you needed to mix yo’ blood with Jilo’s. You brave enough to face Jilo, you shouldn’t be scared of a little cut. I lowered the blade, slicing it into my palm. The pain was fiery and fierce, causing me to wince, but it soon faded, and I held out my palm out to Jilo. She grasped it tightly in her own, and our blood mingled, falling in heavy droplets to the earth. “Go on then, break the spell.”

I looked down at my heart, where I could still see the mottled green and red aura. I willed the spell to end, but nothing changed. The colors continued to envelop my heart—if anything, they seemed to glow even brighter. I pulled her hand nearer, placing our conjoined hands against my chest, staining my shirt and moistening the pendant with our combined blood.

Trust my instincts, Ellen had told me. And I was trusting them. I held our hands over my heart and visualized the colors fading, the spell losing its hold and evaporating. But though I sensed that I was doing the right thing, the colors stayed as vibrant as ever. I wondered if there were words I should say, a verbal spell to enhance my efforts. Jilo stood patiently still, not saying a word. My shirt was irrevocably stained, and I sensed that the cuts on our hands were coagulating, closing off.

“I don’t understand,” I finally said. “I sense that this should work. I should have been able to break the spell by mixing the blood of the one who set the spell with the blood of the one who requested it.”

Jilo calmly removed her hand from mine, and made a soft fist. When she opened it again, the wound was gone. “And that why Jilo let you try, ’cause she knew you never gonna believe her unless you try yo’self.”

“Believe what?” I asked, still feeling the pulse of pain in my own hand.

“Weeks before you showed up at Jilo’s crossroad, they was another who came to her in Colonial. That redheaded boy of yours.”

“Peter?” I asked.

“Yes. He came to Jilo. He said he was losing his pretty miss, and he was willing to do anything it took to keep that from happening. The spell was done before you ever set foot on Normandy Street, before you ever even had the idea of coming to Jilo.”

I stood there, feeling like the knife had gone straight through my heart instead of into crease of my palm. Jilo moved closer and placed her hand over my heart and closed her eyes, her lips moving wordlessly, as if in some silent prayer. As I looked on, the colors flooded away from me and into her hand. She closed her fingers around them, and when she opened her hand the spell was gone just as surely as the cut on her hand had vanished. “There, it revoked,” she said and moved heavily back toward her haint blue throne.

I should have thanked Jilo, but when my mouth opened, the words, “He betrayed me” spilled out. He had made love to me, knowing that Jilo’s spell was what brought me to his bed. I had been able to accept Jilo’s intervention when I’d thought the spell was my choice. Knowing that he had arranged for it made me feel violated.

“Open yo’ eyes, child! It ain’t just your man who betrayed you. Everyone, and I do mean every last one, of the folk you love, the ones you think love you, they all done betrayed you in one way or t’other. Truth is Jilo just might be the only one in this world you can trust.”

“I can’t believe that,” I said.

“Believe it, don’t believe it. It ain’t no never mind to Jilo. But sooner or later, you gonna come to believe it, and when you do, you gonna be wishing you had power of your own, if only to protect yo’self. You be smart. When yo’ sister get back to Savannah, when she all nice and settled in, you talk to her, and then you leave the rest up to Jilo.”

I said nothing. I simply clasped my hand around my necklace as if it were a magical life preserver. The power began to surge through with renewed force, gaining strength as my hunger for it grew, and although my anger remained, the pain I felt over what Peter had done instantly dulled. He was, after all, only a human.





TWENTY-FIVE


As I crossed the dark bridge that connected Jilo’s world to Candler, the living shadows began to press in around me, their touch like cold silk, seductive and terrifying in equal measure. I sensed that they were unrelated to the child killing demon my grandfather had trapped within the hospital’s earthly boundaries, but these entities were undoubtedly just as nasty. I could tell that the scent of blood was what made them hungry. I kept moving, certain that if I stopped for even a moment, I would lose myself to them. They stopped abruptly as a ray of true sunshine pierced the gloom from above. I forced myself to carry on at an unhurried pace, fearing that if I gave sudden flight, it—they—might risk the sun’s rays and give chase.

Finally, I found the myself standing in the narrow shaft of light that illuminated the tunnel’s entrance. I climbed the steps and found myself standing near the old hospital once again. With a wave of my hand, I moved the heavy sheet of metal back into place, sealing off the tunnel. Witch markings, invisible to the human eye, were etched across the cover. Perhaps these too were made by my grandfather, but some sixth sense told me that they had existed long before he’d walked the earth.

Time had moved differently in Jilo’s world. The light that had led me out of the darkness was the last ray that could have managed to find its way down there. Another half an hour more, and I might have been lost. A chill ran down my spine, but I shook it off. I turned to find Connor directly behind me.