The Vine Witch (Vine Witch #1)(60)

“Not yet they haven’t.” Yvette turned back to Elena. “Take me with you, and I promise to get you out of here in one piece.”

“Why are you doing this?”

The young woman shrugged. “I don’t like people who hurt cats.”

“And if I can’t protect you?”

Yvette pulled a small but deadly hairpin out of her updo. “Witches still bleed, don’t they? I can protect myself.”

The air went out of Elena as she finally relented. “We haven’t got much time.”

“Good thing I know a trick or two of my own, then.” Yvette slipped her mask back down and took off for the other end of the carnival. “Go back to JuJu’s and wait there. I’ll meet you in five minutes,” she called over her shoulder before disappearing behind a trio of stilt-walkers.

Elena threw her hands up in surrender. She was beginning to think the curse had bonded with her blood and bones, affecting everything she saw or touched or loved. Grand-Mère included. She must be worried sick. There was precious little time, but she couldn’t have her mentor fretting over her again. Not after what she’d put her through the last seven years.

Scanning the distant trees, she uttered a quick summoning spell. A rock dove and a stork swooped out of the sky, landing at her feet. “You might send the wrong message,” she said to the stork and shooed him on his way. To the rock dove she explained in the simplest terms about the bierhexe and that she was well but unable to return home. The bird cooed, and she sent him on his way with a spell to help home in on Grand-Mère’s location, wishing she could fly away with him. She might yet be cursed with bad luck, but she still didn’t want to get caught. Covering her face with the veil, she headed for JuJu’s wagon, battered once more by the whims of the All Knowing.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Though old and obsolete, Jean-Paul knew the ancient wheel was still capable of twisting lower on its Archimedes’s screw with enough pressure to macerate fifty tons of grapes to release the vin de presse. He’d seen it demonstrated with pride three years earlier when he’d toured the cellar at Du Monde’s insistence. As if reading his thoughts, the wheel winked at him in the candlelight and descended its first inch, forcing the pallet that much tighter against his chest.

“Not long now.” Gerda walked up the steps at the base of the old press. “She knows you’re here.”

“You’ll burn in hell for this.”

The witch scoffed. “What makes you think I haven’t already?” She knelt beside him holding a knife, an almost tender look in her eye. “A little insurance,” she said, then slashed a two-inch cut into his exposed forearm.

He cursed her, spat at her, and writhed against his restraints as she held the wine cup to his skin to collect his blood.

“Come now, we haven’t even started,” she said, walking back to her circle. “You should save your strength for when the screaming really begins.”

She stirred the blood with her finger while speaking more gibberish. His stomach tugged at his throat as if he might retch, but he held it down, terrified of choking to death in his restraints. She finished whatever spell she’d formed with her evil words and then came at him again carrying a small bowl. He braced for more bloodletting, but instead of cutting him she dabbed a poultice onto the cut, relieving the pain of the knife’s sting. Was she doctoring him now? She had to be deranged. Insane.

“Get away from me, you fiend.”

His blood rimmed her fingernail. She sucked at it and smiled. “Oh, you have no idea,” she said, then turned the crank on the windlass to let the wheel twist down another punishing inch.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Elena squeezed between a pair of show ponies decorated with feathered headdresses and sequined saddles. JuJu’s wagon ought to be straight ahead, but it wasn’t. She’d gone the wrong way, and now she was terribly lost in a maze of angry show people in a panic to avoid a police shakedown.

“Check it again! Check every closet, trunk, and storage space. They’re here somewhere, I know it.”

The inspector.

He was searching for her two wagons down on the right. The timbre of his voice as he shouted commands shook Elena out of her confusion. She backtracked behind the ponies and skirted left, keeping to the rear of the wagons to get as far away from him as she dared. It was safe for the moment, but it was only a matter of time before the police spread out and searched that area too. Could she run and make it to the trees without being caught? Was there a spell that could produce a distraction big enough to fool an army of officers?

She racked her brain for a spell that might mimic fireworks or gunfire, anything to create a commotion to confuse the inspector, when she heard an engine purr like a lion. A bright-blue two-seater convertible rolled up beside her. Behind the wheel, having donned a pair of driving goggles, sat Yvette.

The young woman revved the engine and nudged her chin toward the passenger-side door. “I thought you were a goner for sure when you weren’t at JuJu’s.”

“I got turned around.”

“Lucky you. They’re all over her wagon looking for us. Come on, get in.”

There was no time to argue. Despite her reservations Elena jumped in the passenger seat of the diabolical contraption and held on. Yvette shoved the stick shift into gear, then pressed her foot on the gas pedal, and the car sped off. Elena dared a quick look over her shoulder. The inspector ran out of JuJu’s wagon, waving frantically at his men to return to their horses and pursue, but the newfangled automobile hit the dirt road and took off at an exhilarating speed.