The Price Guide to the Occult(55)
Nor caught a glimpse of her own reflection in the fragmented mirror on the back wall and almost gasped. She and her mother couldn’t have looked more different from each other right then. Nor was still wearing the clothes she’d worn to bed. They were ripped and covered in dirt and blood. Her hair — what was left of it — was a wild halo around her head. Her face was plain. She was just a kid. Fern’s glamorous red hair cascaded down over her shoulders. She was wearing a high-collared green dress, more sheath than gown, slit from ankle to thigh; a long black silk glove concealed her left hand and arm. The other arm was wrapped in deadly but gorgeous green tattoos.
But when Nor took a closer look at her wickedly beautiful mother, she observed chinks in her armor: thin black scabs on her cheeks, dark-red stains on her dress, tufts of hair missing from her scalp, dried blood clinging to her ankles, and on her calves, a lattice of fresh wounds.
“What did you do with my friends?” Nor demanded.
Fern sneered. “Oh, them. I don’t want to talk about them just yet. Instead, I’m going to tell you a story.” Her tattoos reached out again toward Nor, like pythons taking the measure of their victim. They sizzled when they got too close, and recoiled.
“Once upon a time,” Fern said, her voice still sickly sweet, “a beautiful witch fell in love with a prince. Sadly, the charming prince didn’t return the witch’s affections. So she tried casting a spell. At first, the spell didn’t work. She tried again and again, and eventually stumbled upon the secret for casting any spell — for fortune, fame, power, even spells to raise the dead; spells no Blackburn daughter had attempted since Rona herself. To work, the spells needed a blood sacrifice, and — this is my favorite part — the blood had to be the blood of someone from Anathema Island.” She paused. “Well, that’s not completely true. The spell will still work, just not as well. Plus, it’s more fun to kill people you know.”
“You’re talking about black magic,” Nor said.
Fern’s eyes flashed in anger. “I’m talking about magic that is rightfully mine as a Blackburn. The kind of magic that should have been giving me everything I’ve ever wanted. The kind of magic that I was forced to take for myself!” Fern pointed at the young woman staring at herself in the mirror. “What would you do if I killed her, Nor?” she asked, as if killing someone would be as simple as wiping lipstick from the rim of a wineglass. She laughed, a cackle that raised the hairs on the back of Nor’s neck. Nor imagined the woman’s head breaking open under her mother’s pointed heel.
“My friends,” Nor said through gritted teeth. “Where are they?”
Fern ignored her. “Would you try to save her, like you tried to save Madge? The woman utterly betrayed you, and still you tried to save her life.” Fern clucked her tongue. “Pathetic.”
“If you’ve hurt Savvy —” Nor blurted angrily.
Fern gritted her teeth. “Every hair on your friends’ heads — blue or otherwise — is intact. They may have received a few injuries on the way here, but some things just can’t be helped.”
Gage narrowed his eyes at Fern. “So if you weren’t planning on sacrificing them, what was the point of taking them?” he asked.
Fern leaned toward them, and Nor could smell her mother’s breath, equal parts sweet and rancid. “You’re here, aren’t you? And you’re afraid, aren’t you? When people are afraid, they are very easy to control.” Suddenly, Fern pointed to the woman at the mirror and barked, “Kill her.”
The zombies around them were instantly animated. They descended upon the woman like animals, clawing, biting, and tearing. The woman’s screams were quickly silenced.
The carnage over, Fern’s assassins drifted away, except for one who stayed to lick a last splash of blood from the floor.
“Are you afraid yet, Nor?”
Before Nor could respond, she heard the nauseating crunch of breaking bones. Catriona had reached over and taken Gage’s hand in hers, squeezing it until Gage fell to the ground with a cry of pain. Catriona ripped the knife from his broken fingers and then trapped his hand under her foot.
Catriona passed the knife to Fern, who used it to force Nor to her knees. “You can’t possibly think you’re as strong as I am, can you? Do you really think you can beat me?” She laughed. “Let’s play a little game then and see. It’s called, ‘I’m going to kill all your friends,’ starting with that pretty blue-haired thing I have locked in the basement. And then this silly little boy here,” she said, nodding toward Gage. “Not that he’ll be much of a challenge.” Gage trembled with fury.
“And then I think I’ll kill Judd. And Apothia.” Her eyes greedy with bloodlust, Fern held the sharp edge of the knife against Nor’s jaw. “I’m going to kill them all, Nor, because I want to and there’s nothing you’ll be able to do to stop me because you’ll already be dead.”
Fern pressed the knife into Nor’s skin and dragged it heavily along her jaw and across her cheek. Nor held her breath, waiting for the sting of the blade and the warm, wet blood to follow. Instead, she watched, dumbstruck, as a thin red line materialized on her mother’s face instead.
Fern narrowed her eyes and looked at Nor with some uncertainty. She touched her cheek, then pulled away fingers red with blood. Nor reached up to touch her own face. It was as if the knife had never touched her.