The Price Guide to the Occult(39)

Nor cringed when she saw the provocatively fitted suit — the same sickly green color as the car parked outside — her mother was wearing. The jacket flared at the hips and was unbuttoned just enough to expose the edges of a see-through bustier. She had on four-inch heels, the bottoms of which appeared to have been dipped in red. It was the same red as on her nails and lips. Jewels hung from her ears and sparkled on her fingers. Delicate fern tattoos wound around her wrists and fingers. They spiraled over her ears and across the tops of her breasts.

Catriona sat to the right of Fern. She was shockingly thin, skeletal even. Nor could hear the grinding sound of bone on bone when she crossed her legs. Catriona, too, had a fern tattoo, one that coiled up her right arm like a snake. Something red was splattered across that tattoo. Nor swallowed hard. It looked a lot like blood.

The scars on Nor’s wrists started to throb. She clung dumbly to Pike as he led her toward the table. He peeled her trembling fingers from his arm, then joined Sena Crowe to stand against the wall.

“Sit down, girlie,” Judd said to Nor. Her voice was composed, but judging from the look in her eyes, Nor’s grandmother was feeling anything but calm. The dogs seemed to agree; Antiquity was hiding under the table, her hackles up, her ears back. Bijou was glued to a spot by the front door.

“Nor,” Fern purred. “I’m so glad you could join us.”

She held out a hand so unnaturally white it was as if embalming fluid coursed through her veins. Nor wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do. Kiss her hand? Bow? Instead, she mutely sank into the chair next to Apothia. Nor’s scars were screaming so loudly, she could barely hear anything else.

“Just breathe,” Apothia muttered, leaning toward Nor. “Everything is going to be fine.”

Of course we’ll be fine, Nor thought, momentarily reassured. We have the Giantess.

“All right, Fern,” Judd said. “Cut to the chase. What’re ya doing here?”

Nor breathed a sigh of relief as soon as she heard the fierceness in her grandmother’s tone. All Nor had to do was hide in the safety of Judd’s shadow, and the Giantess would take care of everything else.

Fern feigned hurt and surprise. “Why, you are my family.” She opened her arms wide in an exaggerated gesture of amiability. She turned to Nor and, in a voice dripping with honey, said, “I’m here to visit my lovely daughter, of course.”

It was the way she said my lovely daughter that made the hair on the back of Nor’s neck prickle. Fern stood, and her tattoos began to writhe. They slithered from her skin and skulked across the table toward Nor, and Nor eyed them nervously, feeling like a flower about to be plucked, an animal about to be butchered.

“So, tell me, Nor,” Fern said, “what Burden did our great matriarch bestow on my offspring?” She laughed at Nor’s answer with a shrill cackle. “I suppose we heard right,” she said to Catriona. “She really isn’t any threat, is she?” A vine lashed out suddenly and latched onto Nor’s arm. Like a stretching cat, it unfurled its spiny fronds and clawed at her sleeves.

Judd stood abruptly, which sent her chair skidding across the floor. At her full formidable height, Judd towered over her daughter by at least a foot, even with Fern’s four-inch stilettos. “Fern!” she commanded, her booming voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling. “You let her go!”

“Mother, please,” Fern said with a yawn, “we’re just having a little fun. Besides, we both know you can’t control me any more now than when I was younger.” To prove her point, she gave a flick of her tongue, which had the effect of slamming Judd to the ground and trapping her there. The Tower rattled with the force of her fall. Antiquity skidded out from under the table and stood over Judd protectively. The dog bared her teeth and growled, a low rumble that shook the windows like thunder.

“It is a shame,” Fern said, turning to Nor, who was struggling against the fern. “It’s almost as if no magic courses through your veins.”

The thorns of the vine burrowed into Nor’s arm. The pain was white-hot and impossible. Fern was just playing with her now, causing pain simply because she enjoyed it, simply to remind Nor that she could.

Nor screamed, and Pike and Sena Crowe leaped into action. Sena Crowe hacked at the stalk with his knife until just a part of the hilt remained in his hand. The rest of the curved blade was now stuck fast in the thick, unyielding stem. Pike grabbed the vine with both hands and tried pulling it away from Nor’s skin.

Fern sighed and leaned into Nor. “You know they’ll only succeed if I decide to let them,” she said. Her breath was sickly sweet, like overripe fruit. “I won’t, but it is fun to watch them try.”

Fern laughed as Sena Crowe began to wheeze, and Pike’s grasp on the fern weakened. Apothia’s eyes rolled back in her head, and she slumped over. Fern’s power was thick like sludge. Nor waited for the nausea to hit her, that blurred sense of intoxication, the loss of focus, the difficulty breathing. But it never came. Nor could feel her magic pushing against Fern’s. And for the first time, instead of giving in to her fear — the kind of fear that used to make Nor want to slide a sharp object across her skin — she gave in to her own power.

Nor’s magic coursed, unharnessed, through her veins. It was a raging fire, a wild animal, an impenetrable shield. Fern’s control slid off her like dirty dishwater.