Crystal Cove (Friday Harbor #4)(86)

He heard women’s voices calling to unseen spirits, summoning and beguiling. A cool, dark energy seeped into the air around him. He took it inside with every breath, feeling it cleanse the lingering thoughts and anger and fear until his mind was spread like the fingers of open hands and the place where a soul should have lived was left raw and exposed. The truth came to him between the space of one breath and another.

He had no time left.

He received the revelation with wonder and a brief, blind instinct to struggle. Not yet. Not now. But in the absence of a soul, his heart compensated with aching beats of acceptance … Let go, let go, let go.

* * *

Justine was not in a mood to take no for an answer. When no water taxis were available, she called a friend who owned a small trawler and desperately talked her into taking her to Cauldron Island. “I know it’s late, I’ll pay anything, do anything, if you’ll just get me there, you know it’s not far—” The friend had said yes, seeming to understand that Justine wasn’t going to give her a choice anyway.

In ten minutes Justine had scrambled to the Friday Harbor docks and boarded the waiting trawler. Every minute that passed before launching was another agonizing tug at her nerves until the reverberations made her entire body sing in panic. Jason had gone behind her back again, and the coven, too. They had all locked her out of something that would affect her more than anyone else. The longevity spell was infinitely more dangerous to remove than to cast in the first place. A spell like that could work its way down inside you with backward barbs, until it would kill you to pull it out. Almost like love.

The boat parted from the dock at idling speed until it had left the no-wake zone. The motor growled with rising ferocity as the bow ate through serrated water while the wind huffed and struck Justine’s face and tangled her loose hair. The weight of the Triodecad, contained in a canvas tote bag, thumped hard against her thigh.

Her mind was in high gear. She had talked with Jason earlier that day, and Jason had said nothing. He’d let her think he was in San Francisco. He must have been at the lighthouse right then. He’d been relaxed and casual, not revealing a hint about what he was planning.

She heard Marigold’s voice: “The witch’s bane has turned on you.”

That was the unknown consequence. A blood sacrifice was required, that was the price of love for her kind. Someone had to pay, and Jason had decided it would be him.

The blood is on your hands.

How easy it would be to turn into Marigold. All she would have to do was let herself. And when all that bitterness had eaten up her insides, the only direction it would be able to go was outward.

The trawler docked at Cauldron Island just long enough for Justine to leap onto the slick weathered boards. She climbed the endless stairs with punishing upward lunges until her thighs knotted and burned, but she ignored the pain and kept going. The lighthouse was silent, unoccupied, the yard cemetery-dark and still. Clouds piled over the waning moon like discarded laundry, slowly obscuring the gibbous curve.

Still panting from the hard upward haul, Justine went to the outside shed and pulled out one of the pair of bicycles. She headed down the ragged trail to Crystal Cove, wheels jolting on stones that protruded like knuckles, then dipping into shallow scoops that sent the bike upward for stomach-lifting seconds.

The schoolhouse windows flickered red and black, blinking slowly at her as the bike wheels rolled and spat sand. Justine was off the bike before it had even stopped, the metal frame clattering to the ground.

She shoved hard against the door and barged in.

The rite had just ended, the circle of coveners broken up, two or three of them huddled in the middle of the pentagram.

“Justine,” she heard Rosemary say in an odd tone.

“Someone turn on a light,” Justine said impatiently.

The light from a portable lamp flared, a pool of unnatural white pushing the shadows on the floor right up against the seams of the walls.

Jason was sitting in the center of the pentagram, arms loosely curled around his bent legs, forehead resting on his knees. He didn’t move or even look up as she approached. Sage, Rosemary, and Violet were crowded around him.

“Get back!” Justine cried. She rushed to Jason, dropped the Triodecad, and fell to her knees beside him. “Jason? Jason, what is it?” He made no sound that let her know he’d heard her. She cast a wild glance at the coveners. Whatever they saw in her face was enough to make them retreat. She saw that Jason was sweating heavily, the hair at the nape of his neck wet. “What did you do to him?” she demanded.

“The spell’s been lifted,” Rosemary said. “You’re safe now, Justine.”

“You shouldn’t have done this without me,” she said fiercely. “You knew I’d want to be told.”

“It was his decision.”

Turning her attention back to Jason, Justine touched the back of his head, his neck, trying to coax him to look at her. “Let me see you,” she said. “Jason, please—”

She broke off as his head bobbed up on the uncertain support of his neck. His complexion was gray, gleaming with sweat, his eyes not quite focused. Pain had tightened the skin over his bone structure, turning the cheekbones into blades. Every breath was a short, dry gasp.

“What is it?” she asked urgently. “Where does it hurt, what’s the matter?”

She saw that he wanted to say something, but his teeth were clenched too hard to allow for words. His right hand gripped the upper part of his left arm, fingers digging into the muscle. Instantly she understood.