They continued on, their search taking them deeper into the woods, where they were surrounded by ancient oaks, sweet chestnuts, and beech trees. The gathering night was cool and dark, the sun quickly becoming a memory, the moon partially obscured by clouds.
Tamara paused. A shudder went through her, and she actually swooned a bit— she had never fully recovered from the encounter with the witches. John reached to prop her up, but she pulled away from him as the moment passed. Now she glanced around, and discovered that she was seeing the forest with different eyes.
“What is it?” John asked, a worried note in his voice.
She nodded, largely to herself. “I remember. Not a lot, but some.”
“Anything about the witches? Did they say anything to you?”
As he spoke, he had the oddest smile.
“I don’t remember. I can’t Wait. Yes. Something about my magic, as Protector, making their ritual more powerful.”
John raised an eyebrow. “You mean to say that they’re set upon having you?”
Tamara nodded slowly. “I can hear her voice. Viviane, she said her name was. Witch queen. She said they’d have no other, now that they knew I was— ”
She stopped herself from saying a virgin. Surely, John knew as much.
“That means they’re expecting you to come,” he said.
“Perhaps,” Tamara replied, glancing around, trying to get her bearings. “So let’s not disappoint them. I don’t remember much more. There was a clearing, atop a hill. When I escaped I translocated, but only made it as far as the bottom of the hill, then just staggered from there, finding my way. When at last I couldn’t stand any longer, I called for the ghosts, and they found me.”
“And this hill?”
Tamara nodded. “It’s somewhere nearby. I recognize this path.” She pointed to the old, nearly invisible trail that led through the trees, and raised her hand, tracing the night sky.
In the darkness ahead, outlined by the murky dusk, they could see a hill rising up from the forest, hidden in the trees.
“It’s here. Very close,” Tamara said.
A curious look swam in his eyes as he regarded her. It seemed almost like regret.
“What is it?” she asked.
John shook his head with a forced smile. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
Now was not the time to press the issue, but she was troubled. She would remember this, and ask him about it later.
Tamara raised a hand and whispered a spell. A line of golden light shot into the sky, floating and burning there as a beacon to her brother. They had chosen the spell because it could be tailored so that only those who were named in the incantation could see the beacon. Only the Protectors and their allies. The witches still would not know they were coming.
John moved quickly then, hopping over exposed roots and sidestepping hanging branches. His agility was remarkable, making it seem as if he were following some unseen map. Tamara tried to keep up, but found her skirts unsuitable to the task. Had they not been so rushed earlier, she would have put on her brother’s boots and trousers again, much more suitable garb.
“John, please, wait,” she said, out of breath. She kept her breath as low as she could, to avoid warning their enemies. “We must wait for William and Horatio, and gather the others. We can’t simply gallop into the midst of battle with the witches. They’ll destroy us.”
Her hair was disheveled, her face covered in dirt and sweat. She stopped near a fallen, weathered tree and sat down. She needed to rest, even if he didn’t.
John returned to where she was sitting. He watched as she lifted her skirt only the tiniest bit, enough to unlace her shoe, then remove it. She turned the boot, causing a few pebbles to fall out on to the ground.
“We must wait,” she insisted. “Keep watch, of course, but we must be cautious.”
John nodded absently, but his gaze was riveted to her foot and ankle, bare but for her stockings. She almost lowered her skirt, but hesitated as he moved toward her, gracefully lowering himself onto one knee. He took her foot in his strong hands and brought her slender leg up, to touch the soft, pale flesh of her ankle with his lips.
Tamara sucked in her breath, unable to speak. Her heart thundered almost painfully in her chest, constricting her ability to breathe— even think. It was similar to what she felt when Martha laced her corset too tight. Black spots floated in front of her eyes, so she closed them, losing herself in the sensation of John’s lips on her ankle.
Her disorientation grew, and she felt as though she was falling under a spell.
And wasn’t she? The spell of John Haversham, she mused absently. Yet if there was enchantment here, if he influenced her in some way to feel the rush of passion and hunger that filled her, Tamara embraced it.
How long she had wanted him.
She felt a melting sensation in her stomach and a tightening in her cunt. She waited, wondering if this was as far as it would go, or if John planned to thrill her body more.
What are you doing? This isn’t the time or the place for such things.
Tamara wanted to listen to the voice in her head. She knew that it spoke the truth. Lives hung in the balance.
Yet even as her conscience cried out for her to push him away, John moved his kisses farther up her leg until he was at her knee. She opened her eyes to find him staring at her, his gaze dark with desire.
Her every sensation seemed exaggerated. The world spun. The trees rustled with whispers of love and of passion, and she burned for him. Tamara felt her body swaying weakly, surrendering to him completely. Wet heat emanated from the core of her. It was magic of one kind or another, and she didn’t care.
Didn’t care at all.
He reached for her, grunting as he pulled her to him, then gently laid her on the ground beside the fallen tree. John ran his hand up the inside of her thigh, his long graceful fingers burning her wherever they touched. She moaned, and it was a low guttural sound that started somewhere in her belly, then traveled up and up until it broke, unfettered, from her twitching lips.
I can’t. Not now, she thought.
Not now
But there was nothing she could do. It was as though she was trapped inside the shell of her own body, unable to react save to accept the pleasure John offered her. She bit her lip as his fingers slipped through the slit in her drawers, his fingers finding her body wet and ready for him. Tamara moaned as he slowly slipped two fingers inside of her. She cried out, and he plunged his fingers deeper. It hurt, yet it felt so wonderfully delicious at the same time.
John pulled his hand away, leaving her cold and empty. She opened her eyes and saw him undoing the front of his pants. Part of her was terrified at the thought that at long last she was about to surrender her maidenhead to John Haversham, but despite her fear, her yearning would not be denied.
He knelt beside her and brushed her lips with his own, then kissed her deeply. When he drew back she saw that his cock was exposed to the cool air. Tamara gasped. She had never seen a grown man thus unclothed, and in all her fevered imaginings she had not pictured it quite so large. John kissed her neck, working his way up her throat until he found her mouth again. He caught her lips with his, slipping his tongue into her mouth. Hungrily, she devoured him in return.
He pushed her legs apart, ripping at her drawers until they were sliding off her, and then she was naked from the waist down. Her cunt ached. She wanted him so badly it was like a bruise throbbing uncontrollably inside of her.
“Is this your desire?” he asked, his voice a growl in her ear.
She found herself nodding, almost against her will.
“Then say it, Tam. Say you want me inside of you.”
She whimpered as he slipped his fingers in her again, and she was even wetter than before. He pushed farther in, rubbing at the nub of her clitoris with his thumb as he moved his fingers in and out of her.
Tamara moaned with every thrust, all rational thought departing, taken over by primal urgency. She could not breathe, could not think. Nothing she had experienced in her life had prepared her for this.
“Say you want me, Tamara.”
She groaned as he increased the speed, thrusting his fingers deeper and deeper inside her.
“I want you I want you inside of me,” she moaned. “Please, please make love to me.”
He crawled on top of her, his cock pressing against her leg, and then he found her, and groaned. She felt the smoothness of him brush against her wetness.
“Please, John, please ” She nearly screamed with her urgency.
NO!
Something inside of her cracked. Confusion swirled in her mind.
Scrambling, she twisted herself out from beneath his body, pushing him off her. She propped herself up, and crawled as far away from him as she could, naked and vulnerable in the shade of the old trees. Leaves, sticks, and dirt attached themselves to her knees. She grabbed for her drawers, which lay sadly in the dirt, and clumsily slipped them back on.
“I can’t,” she said. “Perhaps I want to, but I can’t. Not here. Not now. I’m sorry, John.”
He nodded, but remained strangely silent. He stared at her oddly, a mix of confusion and consternation in his expression.
“You have to believe me. Under different circumstances, but not now. Not while we’re needed. I could never forgive myself if my own selfish needs caused those girls to die.”
John nodded again, and his breathing was beginning to return to normal.
“I understand,” he said, his eyes devouring her with a feline hunger that almost made Tamara reconsider. “But know that we will do this again.”
He stood, offering her his hand.
“That is a promise,” he added.
Tamara tried to stand, but then waved him away, too disoriented to rise. She blinked, feeling as though she had drunk too much brandy.
“What— ” she began.
What have you done to me? she would have asked.
But in that moment she heard a familiar musical tinkling, and looked up to see Serena darting through the trees toward them. Her wings were a colorful blur, gossamer where she passed through shafts of moonlight.
The heat lingered within Tamara but now, even in her strangely muddled state, it was crowded out by embarrassment.
In the dark of the woods at the base of the hill, the night breeze caressed Tamara and she trembled. Her heart raced and she took long, shuddery breaths, trying to hide the lust that still clutched at her.
Serena flitted around above her, a trail of sparkling purple drifting in her wake. Tamara blinked and stared at her, for a moment tempted to reach out and touch the magical dust that eddied in the breeze.
“We wonders, milady, we wonders,” the sprite said in that high voice. “Ye’ve been drinking, have ye?”
Tamara shot Serena a stern look. “Certainly not!”
But her disapproving expression only mirrored the little sprite’s own.
Serena had arrived accompanied by delicate Edrell with her silken gown and ethereal presence, and now from the trees all around came other fairies. Tamara recognized Rhosynn, whose sister was among the missing, as well as her friends Fyg and Ghillie, whom she had met at the last convocation. There were others. Many others. Some of them drifted down from the trees in a gentle sway, like feathers floating to the ground.
All of them watched her curiously.
Tamara could not stand their scrutiny. Her face flushed with heat and she glanced over at John. His eyes glittered with what appeared to be genuine regret, and perhaps even fear for her. He stared longingly, and her legs felt weak again.
She shook her head, denying the yearning. This was wrong, and not only in a moral sense. Serena’s question had offended her, and yet she did feel drunk. A fog of disorientation surrounded her, and Tamara took a step toward John. She shivered and her skin prickled with gooseflesh, and for a moment she swayed on her feet.
“Tam, are you all right?” John asked.
In her high-pitched voice, Serena muttered something that was accompanied by a derisive snort, but Tamara could not hear the words.
“Fine,” she said. Mustering her strength, she stood straighter and shook herself, clearing her mind.
“I’ll be fine. Just a bit out of sorts. Perhaps my encounter with the witches earlier has befuddled me more than I realized. Their enchantments are powerful.”
That’s it, she thought. Surely, it must be. Otherwise I never would have allowed passion to interfere with our purpose.
“Oh, yes,” Serena piped up. “The witches.”
Edrell of Stronghold moved through the air as though dancing upon it. She gestured with one hand toward the sprite. “That will do, little one.”
But Serena only crossed her arms and hovered in the air, wings fluttering at her back.
Tamara glanced away, then turned to John again. She still felt more than a bit dizzy, and wanted nothing more than to fall into his arms and let him catch her, let him wrap himself around her again.
A terrible certainty came to her. Enchanted. It’s no joke, girl. Perhaps you really have been enchanted.
Anger blossomed in her heart. She was in love with John, but the idea that he might have magically influenced her was more than she could bear. Yet her suspicion was blunted— perhaps by that very magic. She became even more certain that she had been ensorcelled.
Her emotions were not her own.
“John, there are some things that must be said,” she began.
But the fairies had continued to arrive. Dozens of them now filled the woods around Tamara and John, archers and warriors and ordinary court fairies alike. All had come to fight the witches, to stop the solstice ritual before their sisters could be sacrificed. With Serena and the fairies now so close at hand, Tamara hesitated.
“The moment our task is complete,” she added.
“Of course,” John replied, and he looked both troubled and entirely innocent.
Yet Tamara knew she could not trust his voice or his face. She wished that she could, but William’s suspicions had niggled at her brain so long, and John’s own behavior had done little to erase them.
Shaking off the passion that confused her, Tamara fixed her entire concentration upon their task. Taking deep breaths, she steadied herself and peered through the trees that grew on the hill. Somewhere up there, the abducted girls and fairies were imprisoned, and waited in terror for the ritual to commence.
Tamara knelt and thrust her fingers into the loose soil where she and John had been rutting like animals, only moments before. A wave of revulsion rolled through her, and she felt violated and unclean.
Focus, she told herself.
Breathing evenly, she allowed herself to feel the magic of Albion in the soil. The Protector was always connected to the soul of Albion, able to channel that power whenever necessary. Now, though, by concentrating on her rapport with the mystical spirit of England, she could feel the way that the dark sorcery of the witches pushed natural magic away. The hill ahead had been entirely tainted by witchcraft. It pulsed with the dark power of the witches.
The purity of that contact with Albion’s soul helped to clear Tamara’s head. She stood and glared at John for a moment. His face twisted into a cheerless grimace and he shrugged, as if trying to communicate that he did not know what had upset her so. Tamara could not allow herself to believe him.
She looked up through the branches, and beyond them to the stars.
“Time is wasting. If they don’t arrive soon— ”
“No need for such drastic pronouncements, sister. We have arrived,” William said as he emerged from the woods, moving up to stand beside Edrell.
The fairy girl smiled shyly at him, and he stood a bit taller. William seemed to fairly crackle with magic in anticipation of the fight. Blue light— pure magical force— danced around his fingertips. For the first time in her life, Tamara looked at her brother and thought him heroic.
She moved over and embraced him. William stiffened, startled by this show of affection, but then he patted her back as he’d done when she was very small. Tamara laid her cheek against his chest for a moment, and then pulled away from the embrace.
“You’ve memorized the spell?”
“Of course,” he replied.
Tamara had studied it with him before they embarked upon the search, but now it was muddled in her mind.
“Refresh my memory, please,” she said.
“Are you all right?” William asked with a frown. “Normally I’m the one whose memory— ”
“I’m fine,” Tamara snapped, a bit too harshly. “Just exhausted. Now, please, William.”
He nodded, but studied her with worry in his eyes. Quietly, he spoke the words to her. They repeated them together several times until Tamara was sure she would remember.
It was simple, really. An invocation, and repetition. If they could capture the nuance of the invoking, they would gain an advantage against the witches. If not, they would die.
Simple.
William glanced back into the darkness of the woods, beyond the fairies. Several figures moved among the warriors of Stronghold. Tamara saw Bodicea and Horatio first because they glimmered with that silver, spectral light peculiar to ghosts. Then the other two were near enough that she could see their faces.
Farris wore a belt into which he’d thrust his pepperbox revolvers, and he carried his father’s sword. Richard Kirk had come to fight for his sister’s life with a hunting rifle in one hand and a thin sword in a long scabbard strapped across his back.
Tamara closed her eyes, lips moving as she repeated the words of the spell from The Lesser Key of Solomon again and again. Even as she did, a smile played at the edges of her lips and a spark of excitement ignited within her. She spun toward her brother.
“Will, this spell ”
“Yes, I think it will work, don’t you?”
“I do. But if we survive this night, it may help us in other ways as well,” Tamara said. “When you first told me about the spell, I was too horrified at the prospect of Father’s soul being driven from his body, giving the demon dominion. But now Oblis has such a powerful grip upon Father’s flesh and soul that there were spells we did not dare try for fear we could kill Father in the process. But if we can use this invocation to draw the humanity out, to exorcise the human soul— ”
William gaped at her. “We could remove Father’s spirit, temporarily— ”
Tamara smiled. “And send Oblis back to Hell.”
“Do you really think it would work?”
“We’ll look more closely at it when all this is over, but I think it could, Will. I really do.”
Serena flew down toward them and hovered between their heads, wings beating like a hummingbird’s. She crossed her arms again and glared at them expectantly.
Rhosynn of Stronghold bowed her head courteously.
“Protectors, with all due respect, each moment brings our sisters nearer to death. Edrell claims you have a plan. We would know it, now, if you please.”
“Of course,” Tamara said. She glanced once at John, who stood now on the outskirts of their gathering, as though uncomfortable being any nearer to her. “Straight to it, then. For the ritual to work, the witches need one last human virgin as sacrifice. Thus far they have taken only five girls from the area. I believe they await me, that they fully expect me to come to them in an effort to thwart their plan. My memory of my brief captivity with them is blurred, but I recall the witch queen’s voice. She told me that my magic would make their ritual far more powerful, would ensure their success. Of course they could perform the ritual without me, but they haven’t taken a sixth human girl because they have already chosen me. So I will go to them.”
“Now, wait a moment!” Haversham protested from the shadows. “It’s foolish to simply give yourself over to them. Why, we ought to take the hill this very moment, all of us together, and bring the attack to them.”
Tamara arched an eyebrow. “And what of the girls, John? As far as we know, the witches are not aware of William’s arrival, or of your own. They don’t know that the fairies of Stronghold have put aside their differences with me.
“If we simply march into their midst, we lose what little surprise we have. No, my mind is made up. I’ll go ahead. The rest of you move with stealth and surround the hilltop clearing. My arrival will doubtless distract them for a few moments.”
“But— ” John began again.
She quieted him with a dark look. “We require every advantage.”
He stared back. As abruptly as if she stood on a sailing ship caught by a wave, Tamara listed to one side, unsteady upon her feet. All of her earlier disorientation came rushing back. Her legs went weak and her vision blurred.
“Milady!” Serena squeaked, flying toward her. “Are you attacked?”
Thinking her ensorcelled and the battle about to begin, the fairies all brought their weapons to bear, some drawing bowstrings, others raising swords, and the most powerful among them only sketching in the darkness with long, slender fingers alight with sparkling magic.
“No, no,” Tamara said quietly. “It’s not the witches.”
She turned upon John with a withering glare. “Whatever it is that you are doing, stop it. Now.” Her voice was low and menacing.
The disorientation passed.
Haversham lowered his gaze, regret writ upon him. Tamara shook her head in frustration. She was grateful for his concern, but disdainful of his methods.
“Enough. Time runs out,” Tamara said, glancing around. “We go.”
William came to stand beside her, laying a hand upon her shoulder for a moment. A silent communication passed between them, bearing all of the love and regret and cherished memories that brother and sister shared. Tamara smiled thinly, and then turned from her gathered allies, facing the hill once again.
With silent trepidation, and the weight of the unknown upon her heart, she started up through the trees toward the clearing at the top.
WILLIAM WATCHED HIS SISTER until she had disappeared into the forest and the night. He took a deep breath to steady himself. Much as he knew Tamara’s logic was sound, it was all he could do to let her go up there on her own. He had yet to encounter these monstrous witches himself, but from the way Farris had described them, the daughters of Morgan le Fey were terrible creatures indeed.
The ghosts of Bodicea and Horatio shimmered in the dark, appearing nearly solid. If not for the moonlight passing through their spectral forms and the way he could see the trees right through them, they might have seemed alive.
Bodicea strode nearer, the illusion of walking complete, save that her feet did not touch the ground. The phantom queen clutched her spear in one hand and regarded him closely.
“William?”
“Her strategy is perhaps our only hope,” Horatio said. The ghost of Admiral Nelson abandoned all pretense of flesh, and floated after Bodicea, the two of them watching William carefully. “But we ought not allow her to get too far ahead. The witches will move swiftly toward completing their plans, once they have her.”
William took one last look up the hill, but had no hope of seeing Tamara in the night-dark wood.