Legacy & Spellbound Read online

  Legacy & Spellbound

  Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguié

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware

  that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and

  destroyed” to the publisher,

  and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events,

  real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names,

  characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’

  imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or

  persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  SIMON PULSE

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’ Publishing Division 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Legacy copyright © 2003 by Nancy Holder

  Spellbound copyright © 2003 by Nancy Holder

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction

  in whole or in part in any form.

  SIMON PULSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon &

  Schuster, Inc.

  Designed by Ann Zeak

  The text of this book was set in Aldine 401BT.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  This Simon Pulse edition January 2009

  10 9 8

  Library of Congress Control Numbers:

  Legacy: 2002115623

  Spellbound: 2003106083

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4169-7117-7

  ISBN-10: 1-4169-7117-3

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4169-8989-9

  These titles were originally published

  individually by Simon Pulse.

  Contents

  Legacy

  Spellbound

  Legacy

  To the holder of our family legacy, Elise Jones, who is a true heroine

  —Nancy Holder

  To my dad, Richard Reynolds, who has always been there for me and is my truest fan

  —Debbie Viguié

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks first to Debbie, an awesome coauthor and fantastic friend. And thanks to her husband, Scott, who is the best of the best. Big, big thanks to Lisa Clancy, Lisa Gribbin, and Micol Ostow. To my agent, Howard Morhaim, and his assistant, Ryan Blitstein, my deepest gratitude. Thanks to Art and Lydia; J&M’e; Melanie and Steve; Del and Sue; AngelaBAH Rienstra and Patmom; Allie Costa; my never-husband Bill Wu; Liz Engstrom Cratty and Al Cratty; big bro Steve Perry; Kym; Karen Hackett, Lisa Bayorek, and Linda Wilcox.

  —N. H.

  Thanks to the two Lisas at Simon & Schuster for all your hard work and support. Thanks to Mimi Viguié for all her support and love. Thank you David and Eunice Naples for your friendship. Thanks to Ted Rallis for always listening. Thank you also to Brian Liotta for your enthusiasm and being part of my extended family. As always I could not have done any of this without the love and support of my husband, Scott.

  —D. V.

  Part One

  Yule

  When the Yule Log burns bright

  Witches come out to play at night

  But once the year has finally turned

  Witches will drown, and witches will burn

  ONE

  BLACK OBSIDIAN

  Seek and destroy, hunt and find

  We will kill all their kind

  They will beg and they will plead

  As we drink their blood with mead

  Protect us, Goddess, hear our cry

  Cahors call out to the sky

  Shelter us beneath thy arms

  And help us to escape all harm

  The Cathers Coven: London, December

  The Coven was on the run.

  Holly Cathers, her cousin, Amanda, and their friends were witches of the light trying to hide in the dark, in a land controlled by the Supreme Coven, war-locks who worshiped the horned god. As they trudged through the growing darkness Holly consulted her directions, frequently, desperately hoping they were nearing their destination and safety.

  If there is any such thing as safety, she thought bitterly. A year and a half ago she had been a happy, normal teenager. In a horrible twist of fate her parents had been killed in an accident, the victims of a curse that all who loved a Cathers witch would die by drowning. She had gone to live with her estranged aunt and her twin cousins. It was then that all hell broke loose.

  She had known for only a few short months of her true heritage as the latest in a long line of witches, a descendant of the ancient House of Cahors. Her family was involved in a centuries’ old feud with another witchly house, the Deveraux. Now Michael Deveraux was hunting her and hers. Still, they had had to come here, to London, the seat of the Supreme Coven, to find Holly’s missing cousin, Nicole.

  After that first terrible year, in which Michael had killed Amanda and Nicole’s mother, Nicole had left, too freaked out by the magic and the death to stay in Seattle any longer. She had called once, months later, to warn them of danger and to tell them she was going to try to come home. She had never made it, kidnapped instead by the Supreme Coven.

  The Coven kept on going, too tired to move at much more than a crawl. Holly’s nerves were frayed, worn down by months of endless fighting. The stress was taking its toll on her, and she was beginning to act in ways that would have once been abhorrent to her.

  Now, as they raced to put themselves as far from danger as they could, the others moved at a distance from Holly, leaving her alone in the midst of the busy London afternoon. Just as passersby on the street instinctively avoided the cloaked witches, so the rest of the Coven instinctively avoided getting too close to her.

  They’re afraid of me, Holly Cathers thought as she and the members of her coven hurried down Oxford Street. Afraid of my power, afraid I’ll lose my temper again.

  They’re right to be afraid.

  I’m not sure I can control myself anymore. Isabeau is stirring inside, and she’s driving me to disobey, and to go to Jer. Because her husband, Jean, can manifest in him, and she wants him …

  … wants both to love him and to kill him, so she can rest… .

  Bide your time, kinswoman. Let me do what I said I would.

  Holly could almost hear Isabeau reply, Then help me do what I said I would: kill my only love, my only hate.

  I must roam through time and space, earthbound, until he is truly dead… .

  “No,” she whispered, then clamped her mouth shut and moved on. Isabeau, Holly’s ancestress, had died betraying her husband, Jean Deveraux, six centuries before.

  And now she lives on in me, Holly thought bitterly. And Jean lives on through Jeraud Deveraux. The two won’t let us rest.

  Isabeau and Jean had been married, pawns in a deadly game played by their families. It had been their destruction. Now Isabeau and Jean were both cursed to wander the world as spirits until they fulfilled the curse each had laid on the other … Isabeau, who had sworn to her mother, the fierce Queen Catherine, that she would kill Jean, was doomed to walk the world, earthbound, until she could fulfill her vow and kill her husband.

  Jean had sworn vengeance on Isabeau herself, after she had betrayed his family to her mother. Thanks to her duplicity, every man, woman, and child of Deveraux blood had been put to the torch. Infants. Even their livestock had burned alive. Only Jean had escaped, and he had been horribly burned.

  Now Jeraud Deveraux had been burned, just as Jean had been. By the woman he loved …

  In each succeeding generation, Jean and Isabeau had attempted to possess members of their own families, through whom they would free themselves from love and hate, and sin
k into the earth for one last time … hopefully to find peace in the arms of angels, or in each other… .

  Each generation had failed them.

  In Holly’s time, she was Isabeau’s vessel, her unwilling host. Jeraud Deveraux, the son of her terrifying enemy, Michael, was the one Jean used. Passion and hatred boiled inside them both as Jean and Isabeau pursued each other through time and space, loving and hating, willing death, and forbidding it… .

  Now Holly shook her head. Isabeau spoke to her more lately, calling to all that was cold and wild within her. It was getting harder to ignore her, harder to draw the line between them.

  She glanced about, wondering how much farther she and her fellow covenates had to go. It was bitterly cold in London; granite-colored snow cascaded from skies the color of gravestones, and the bitter wind could freeze bones. Double-decker buses and old-fashioned black taxicabs slammed around overcrowded traffic circles; pedestrians slogged along, caught in a crush of steamy breath and bad tempers.

  Overhead, seven falcons wheeled, minions of the Deveraux, searching for Holly and her coven. Holly had been the first to notice them, scrutinizing the birds perched on the lampposts outside Victoria Station, their beady, glaring eyes ticking as each passenger rushed by.

  Back in Paris, the High Priestess of the Mother Coven had woven spells of invisibility around Holly’s coven to protect them from the Deveraux—from the entire Supreme Coven, for that matter. Having no desire to test those waters, Holly and the others had darted back into the train station and quickly boarded an Underground train for Essex Square, but somehow the birds were able to sense the presence of witches, and were trailing them.

  Now their wings cast deadly silhouettes against the neon signs and streetlights that were winking on, although it was barely four in the afternoon. Winter days in London were short; the night reigned supreme. Camouflaged among the dark umbrellas, the birds swooped and searched, unnoticed by the mundane Londoners because the creatures were magical and only visible to those who walked in that world. So far, the creatures still could not locate their quarry.

  Now the Coven hurried along. With Holly and Amanda were the remnants of their coven: Tommy Nagai, Amanda’s best friend; Silvana Beaufrere, a friend of Amanda’s since childhood; and a very reluctant Kari Hardwicke. Kari had been a member of Jer’s coven and Jer’s lover before Holly had come along.

  Holly sighed as she looked at her. Kari had never forgiven her for leaving Jer behind in the school gymnasium as it was consumed by the Black Fire conjured by his father and brother. For months they had thought Jer dead and the members of his coven had joined with Holly and her friends. Now, all Jer’s coven were dead except for Kari, and she wanted out.

  Kari had accompanied them to London only because the High Priestess of the Mother Coven had informed her that she would likely be killed or taken hostage by the Supreme Coven if she left the relative safety of their numbers. She wanted nothing more than to go back to Seattle and, like Nicole Anderson, forget that she had ever learned that magic and witch-ery were real forces in the world.

  The new member of their party—if not officially of their coven—was Sasha Deveraux, Eli and Jer’s mother, and the estranged wife of Michael. The lovely red-haired, green-eyed woman had asked to come with them, her mission being to save her beloved son, Jer, and to turn him completely away from the worship of the Horned God and all the darkness that entailed … or so Sasha hoped.

  And so Holly hoped too.

  But Holly had promised the Mother Coven—and Nicole’s sister, Amanda—that they would save Nicole first. Once she had been rescued from the Supreme Coven— and how are we going to manage that? —then Holly was free to go after Jer.

  I hope it’s a promise I can keep.

  The Mother Coven had helped ward their passage to London; they had gone by train and then by ferry, Holly remembering all the while that the curse on her family was that those who loved them would die by drowning. For that reason, she had refused to take the Chunnel, the underground tunnel that transported travelers underneath the English Channel. In the end she hadn’t been sure that the ferry was any better. She spent the entire trip reliving the nightmare of the ferry attack in Seattle, when they had lost Eddie.

  When I lost Eddie, she reminded herself. She was still haunted by his face and by the sure knowledge that he had died because she had chosen to save her cousin, Amanda, instead of him. It was a secret she had kept to herself. Along with so many others lately. She sighed, frustrated. Being a leader meant making the tough choices, the sacrifices. Hey, whatever helps me sleep at night, she thought bitterly. The truth was, she was beginning to scare even herself.

  For the hundredth time she thought of the great battle waged on and over the Bay against Michael’s legions. She remembered the promise she had made her dead ancestress, the powerful Catherine. The promise that she would be worthy.

  She shivered, but it had nothing to do with the biting cold. She wasn’t sure what she would have to do, how much more of her soul she would need to sacrifice to be worthy to carry Catherine’s mantle. Her visions of Catherine, from her daughter, Isabeau’s point of view, had been unbearably gruesome. She shook her head and glanced anxiously at the sky.

  Focus; keep your mind on the task.

  Holly glanced down at the slip of paper in her hand. It was the address of a Mother Covenate safe house, and the owner was putting herself at great risk by opening her doors to the Cathers coven. Again Holly noted the relative weakness of the Mother Coven as compared with the Supreme Coven—and as opposed to the violent and brilliant ghost army she herself had led into Elliott Bay to save Kialish and Silvana … though only Silvana had survived.

  Cahors all, she thought, her heart beating fiercely. Wild and strong and fearless. They called me their queen … and Catherine said I was the one who could keep the family name alive… .

  But I need Jer to do that. His magic combined with mine will give us the power to defeat the Supreme Coven. I feel that. I know that… .

  Oui, ma belle, a voice whispered inside her head. Alors, go to him. Go now. Vite.

  It was Isabeau.

  Torn, Holly gestured to the others, indicating the fish and chips shop across the street. It was a landmark for them. They were supposed to turn right, then go through the second narrow alleyway. Their contact would be watching in the window for them.

  Kari looked longingly at the shop—it had been hours since they had eaten—but Holly firmly shook her head. Creature comforts had to be denied until they were out of harm’s way … or at least off the streets.

  The Coven obediently turned right, hanging back from Holly. Her face burned; she was ashamed and defensive, still remembering how she had nearly hurled a fireball at them in the Moon Temple, the most sacred ground of the Mother Coven. As it was, she had insulted Hecate, one of the most revered aspects of the Goddess—and the name of Nicole’s familiar, whom she had sacrificed for power.

  They’re shocked at me for doing it … and yet, it’s up to me to make sure they survive the attacks from Michael Deveraux. I sacrificed a little part of my soul for them, and all they can think of is how horrible it was of me to drown the cat.

  She put her hands in the pockets of her black wool coat and ducked her head, angrily pursing her lips. What’s the saying? Heavy hangs the head that wears the crown… .

  Then Amanda hurried up to her and tugged at her coat sleeve. Holly glanced at her; her cousin was jabbing her finger upward, and her face was ashen.

  The seven falcons had lined up on a second-story brick ledge on the opposite side of the street; they cocked their heads in the direction of the fugitive coven, their blue-black feathers shining in the street light. Catching the glow, their eyes gleamed; they clacked their beaks together softly, menacingly, and their claws jittered on the balcony as they edged along, matching the particular, quick rhythm of Holly’s footsteps.

  Amanda stared at her as if to ask, What do we do?

  Holly’s face prickled
with fear; her heart thundered against her chest, and she clenched her gloved fists inside her pockets to keep from crying out.

  Can they hear us?

  Have they found us?

  She didn’t know if she should avoid their gaze or study them to see what they might do next. It was then that she realized that the falcon in the middle—three stood on one side of it, and three on the other—was cast in an eerie green glow; it was also larger than the others. There was something about it that differentiated it from the others; it was the leader, and it was unearthly … unnatural. Could it be Fantasme, the spirit-familiar of House Deveraux, that had survived through the ages partly as symbol, partly as a real, living thing? It had been Fantasme that had saved Jer’s brother, Eli, from the Black Fire so many months ago.

  The lead falcon screeched once, then swooped from the perch and began to fly across the street.

  Holly whirled around to warn the others not to make a sound. Just in time, Tommy clamped his hand over Kari’s mouth, shaking his head vigorously. Kari’s eyes bulged; Tommy kept his hand over her mouth, and Holly waved both hands to tell her, No! Stop!

  Then the whir of wings above her caught her attention. She looked up to see the falcons aiming themselves directly at them. Their claws were extended, their beaks clacking.

  The falcons are attacking!

  She thought of Barbara Davis-Chin, who had been attacked by a falcon after Holly’s parents’ funeral, and who still lay near death in a hospital in San Francisco. Little had Holly realized then that the falcons were minions of Michael Deveraux and his evil son, Eli. She had had no idea that a world of magic existed, and that she was one of the primary players in it.

  Still mute, Holly signaled for everyone to run.

  She didn’t look back at the group as she raced down the sidewalk, hoping the others kept up— expecting them to—and wondering if she should break the edict of the Mother Coven not to use magic on the London streets unless they were in mortal danger.