Emily howled with fury and drew both hands into claws. Another ball of fire formed at her fingertips.
“Stop it,” Iris’s voice commanded as she entered the room. “Stop it.”
The fire at Emily’s fingers dissipated. Iris crossed the room, doing her best to take it all in. Oliver followed on her heels.
Iris stepped up to Emily, reaching out a hand to touch her face. In spite of the violence that had stained the room, her gesture was one of love. “We thought you were dead,” she said and tried to draw Emily into her embrace.
“Do not touch me,” she said, nearly hissing out the words.
“Emmy,” Oliver said stepping out from behind Iris. “What has happened to you? Why are you doing this?” He looked around, obviously struggling to comprehend what exactly “this” was.
“Oh, little brother, I have been liberated. Freed from the tyranny of the line. That is what has happened to me.” She reached out and tousled his hair. “Wouldn’t you like to taste that freedom? Move past any sense of guilt or regret? You too have suffered under the line’s yoke. You too have been exiled.” Her fingers traced down his temple to his jaw. “We two are so alike, so much more so than you and those two drab creatures. You’re not afraid of a little fire. You like having your own way. Join with me. Join with us.” She reached up with both hands, her long red-lacquered fingernails tracing down both sides of his face. She tossed her hair back and looked up into Oliver’s face, blinking her green eyes at him like an affectionate feline. She smiled and chanted, “Red Rover, Red Rover, send Oli on over.”
Oliver’s hands grabbed hers and pushed them away. “It’s true. I am one selfish peacock of a bastard. I know that, but I am nothing like you. There’s something inhuman about you now . . . maybe there always has been.”
Emily laughed. “Inhuman? Oliver, if only you knew. You’ll have to trust me that the irony is delicious.”
“It isn’t too late, Emily,” Iris said. “It isn’t too late for you to stop traveling down this path. Let us help you.”
“Isn’t it too late?” she asked, her question addressed to me rather than Iris. “I’ve allied myself with the rebel families. I have sworn to help them destroy your precious line.” She nodded in the middle sister’s direction. “I’ve tortured your dear Ellen, and I enjoyed every second of it, I might add. Did I mention that Josef and I were the ones who killed her worthless Tucker?”
“You said he was helping you.” Ellen looked up at me as if my words would be the straw that broke her.
Emily laughed. “Oh my dear, I lied. I have some of the most powerful witches in the world supporting me. Why on earth would I need anything from Tucker Perry?” Her eyes narrowed, hardened. “I’m not a desperate lush.” She tossed a glance in Ellen’s direction, and I knew she was looking to see if her barb had hit home. She smiled, satisfied when Ellen winced. She turned back to me. “He was a pawn. I burned his heart out just to keep you off balance.”
“And to take him away from me,” Ellen said from the floor at Peter’s side. Her physical energy had been exhausted. She pressed against the floor with both hands, barely strong enough to keep her upper body from collapsing to the parquet.
“Oh, yes,” Emily said, nodding as she looked down at Ellen, “there was that too.” She paused. “What about what I’ve done to you, Mercy? I’ve toyed with your delicate feelings. I stabbed your fiancé, oh, and speaking of your fiancé, I got you to cheat on him.” She raised her chin, looking down the bridge of her nose at Peter. “Do you hear that, Peter? It’s true. She surrendered herself to that creature. Maybe not physically, but he inserted himself inside her all the same. My whore of a daughter loved it.”
“Shut up,” Peter said, trying to sit up, but still too weak.
“That’s no way to talk to your future mother-in-law,” she said, and then again addressed me. “Tell me, darling, is it too late?”
I looked up at her and felt the power of her toxicity. So much anger, revulsion, and hate filled me, but then I stopped and dug deep into myself. In spite of everything, I wanted to find a way to end this. To reach out and rescue her from the darkness. “No, it isn’t,” I said. “Let us help you.”
She snorted. “Living up to the charming name that Ellen hung on you, huh?” Her eyes flashed wide, and her mouth pulled up at one corner into a sneer of disgust. “If I could have named you, it would have been different. I would have called you ‘Abomination,’ for that is what you truly are.” She looked away from me and back to Iris. “I don’t need help. I need you to get out of the way. It’s time for the line to fall. Our old friends have waited long enough,” she said, and then added in a plaintive voice, “and they are so, so hungry.”
“Then I’m sorry, dear one,” Iris said, her voice breaking. “You can no longer hold the power in your possession.” She paused and lifted her head high. “Emily Rose Taylor, I bind you. May the power reject you. May it not claim you as its own.”
“Emily Rose Taylor, I bind you,” Uncle Oliver joined in as Iris repeated the words.
“May the power reject you.” Ellen added her weary voice to the chorus. “May it not claim you as its own.”
“Emily Rose Taylor, Mama,” I said, the word ripping the outer layer from my heart. “I bind you. May the power reject you. May it not claim you as its own.”
“You little bitch,” she said, looking at me through narrowed, venomous eyes, her head held back as if she were regarding something distasteful. “Do you really think you can control me? That any of you can control me? I do not depend on your line for my power. It comes from an altogether different source. One that you fools, you worthless ants can’t even begin to comprehend.”
“You wrong again,” Jilo said, banging her cane. “Jilo can comprehend your dirty magic. She smell it on you. The death. The horror. The desecration you have fused with yo’ soul.”
“?‘Desecration’? That’s a mighty big word for you, Jilo. Don’t strain yourself.”
“Oh that right. You all high and mighty and just pissing magic, but they also one other thing you is . . .”
“All right, you old hag, I’ll bite. What’s that?”
“Outnumbered,” Jilo said and raised her cane. An arc of electricity shot out of it, bowing out over Joe and Emily’s heads. Iris took the hint and raised her hand, shooting another bolt of energy. Emmet joined in too, adding another arc, the powers joining together to form a nearly completed cage.
“Last chance, Oli,” Emily said. “You know I was always so fond of you. Come away. Join us. We won’t keep each other ignorant of the greater truths. We won’t place the real power in the hands of the few. With them you are an underling. With us, you will nearly be a god in your own right.”
“Thanks for the offer, sis, but being ‘nearly’ a god sounds like way too much of a time commitment.” He raised his hand to add his energy and complete the cage that the others had formed around Emily, but before he could complete the act, the vile woman descended through the floor and vanished, taking Joe with her.