Spellbinder by C. C. Hunter
Chapter Fifteen
“Miranda?” a voice, a deep male voice, called her name.
It took less than a second to recognize it was Shawn. Blinded and disoriented by the fog, she called out, “Here. I’m here.”
“Get away from me!” Another shrill voice echoed above the other screams.
“Tabitha?” Miranda called. Something was happening to her half-sister.
“Stop!” Tabitha screamed again. “Help!” Her plea seemed to fade in the distance.
“Tabitha! Where are you?” Miranda called out, but only the screams of others filled the thick mist.
The next thing Miranda knew something from above wrapped around her forearms and lifted her up. Up to the rafters, up away from the fog.
She glanced to the ceiling at the same time the large tan bird the size of a horse with a hooked beak glanced down. Its familiar light blue eyes met hers. Perry. Her next breath came easier, then she remembered.
“Find Tabitha,” she yelled at him.
“Can’t see shit,” she heard him say.
She glanced down. The menacing-looking fog continued to rise from the floor and drew closer like fingers trying to pull them in.
Perry flapped his wings. “I got you. Relax.”
Her breath caught when he swooped down, down into the thick white cloud, and she was again blinded by the dense mist. Blinking, she saw what looked like a tunnel of light ahead.
A second glance and she realized it was the entrance to the auditorium. The doors were open. Perry swooped down lower to clear the exit and she could hear people scurrying out like rats. Her feet hit a few heads of the escaping crowd. “Sorry. Sorry.”
She pulled her knees up. Moving like the wind, with her in tow, Perry shot through the exit, his talons holding her tight, but not too tight. Perry would never hurt her.
Seconds after clearing the door, her breath caught as Perry took her up. All the way up, higher than the top of the auditorium. She saw him cocking his head one way and then the other as if searching for a place to land.
Then with the dark sky glaring down at them, and distant thunder roaring, he began his descent to the roof’s edge, just a few feet from an evil-looking gargoyle. “Not here,” she said, but he obviously didn’t hear her.
“You okay?” His beak moved. Then his gaze shifted toward the streets below. “Damn.”
“What?” she asked.
“Stay here,” Perry ordered.
Like she could leave! Then his wings widened as if …
“No,” she screamed, feeling as if the statue stared at her. “Don’t leave me.”
He leapt off the ledge. Air from his wings flapping stirred her hair.
He got only a few feet away when she saw electric bubbles exploding around him and he turned into a small black crow. Where the hell was he going? Why was he leaving her … here?
She was ten stories up, and sharing a space with a huge, nasty-looking concrete beast. Wasn’t this just like her childhood nightmares?
Then she remembered Tabitha.
“Come back,” she screamed. Her mouth hung open as she pulled in big gulps of oxygen and watched the crow grow smaller, abandoning her once again.
A strike of lightning hit the roof, shaking the building and sending another wave of panic over her. Glancing down at the people below, she considered screaming, but sensed her voice would go unheard. Heart racing, realizing she still clutched her phone, she went to finish dialing Burnett. She lacked one number to complete the call when a scary-sounding chuckle sounded and the cold wet air hitched in her lungs.
Her gaze shot to the gargoyle. She shook her head, forcing herself to breathe. “You aren’t real,” she said.
“Yes, I am.”
Chills whispered down her back, the only thing that kept her from taking a dive off the ledge was that the voice hadn’t come from the beast. Slowly turning her head, she came face-to-face with a rogue vampire—a rogue vampire smelling way too pungently of dog poop.
“Oh, damn!” Before Miranda could react, or even think of a spell, the vamp charged. Her phone fell to the roof with a clatter. He caught her around her waist, pulled her back against his front, and leapt off the building.
Free-falling, the ground rushing up to her, her thoughts went to dying. Was she ready? No. So much she wanted to do. Why did it have to end?
Then the vamp started flying, the wind slapping her hair into her face, stinging her cheeks. His arm cut into her middle, making it almost impossible to feed her lungs air. But she welcomed the pain in lieu of death.
“Wiggle that little finger or even think about using your stupid magic on me again, and I will rip out your jugular and paint Paris red with your blood.”
To make his point, he pressed his sharp canines to the curve of her throat.
* * *
Miranda hadn’t dared move her pinky, but she spent the few very long seconds in flight coming up with spells that she would throw at the foul-smelling bloodsucker as soon as they landed.
Her heart clutched when her abductor started descending. He swooped down into a castle’s courtyard and through some concrete arches. She prepared herself to fight, but her feet had barely hit the concrete when a heavy door opened and she was tossed into a pit of darkness. A darkness so black, so thick, that it brought on instant isolation.
Before she even hit the bottom, a clanking sound echoed behind her, telling her she was locked in.
Landing on her knees, her hands scraped into the rocky ground. She moaned as the sharp gravel cut into the fleshy part of her palms. Tears stung her eyes. The coppery smell of blood singed her senses.
Fear tasted like metal on her tongue and the dank smell of wet earth filled her nose. Where was she?
Crawling to her feet, she held her hands out to feel her way in the blackness. She went to twitch her pinky to bring light, but nothing happened. She did it again. The same results slapped her in the face. Why wasn’t her magic working?
Beneath the smell of aged dirt, she caught the scent of sage, burning bark, and then something really foul—the scent of death. Decay.
Tears filled her eyes as horror turned her stomach rock hard. At first she considered she was locked up with a corpse, but then logic intervened. She’d smelled the combination of scents before, a black spell, a curse to prevent any other magic from working.
She slid her feet, an inch at a time, in hopes of not falling again. The sound of her breathing seemed too loud. Then she heard it, a slight moan. She wasn’t alone. Someone was in here with her. But was he/she friend or foe?
Fear told her to be quiet. Logic forced one word to the tip of her tongue. “Hello?”
She stood in the dark silence, breathing in scents that were keeping her from using her powers. Tilting her head to the side, she listened to make sure she hadn’t been mistaken.
Only a dead silence filled her ears. Her stomach knotted. Part of her wanted to fall to the ground and sob. Part of her thought of Kylie and Della and how strong they were and how she longed to be more like them.
She took another step and heard it again—a slight intake of air. Swallowing the knot of fear down her throat, she stiffened her backbone.
“Is someone else in here?” Her words seemed to echo and terror again spidered down her spine.
Chapter Sixteen
“What do you want with me?” the voice answered.
Miranda recognized the voice.
“Tabitha? Is that you? It’s me, Miranda.”
“Are you doing this to me? Are you—”
“No, I’m in here, too.” She inhaled. “A dirty vamp, one that was at the Eiffel Tower, he grabbed me, brought me here, and tossed me in.”
“Me, too.” Her voice shook as if she’d been crying.
Miranda didn’t take any points off for that. Her cheeks were still damp with her own tears. “Where are we, do you know?”
“I think it’s a dungeon,” Tabitha said.
Miranda slowly started inching towa
“It looked like a castle from above,” her half-sister said.
“Yeah, I saw that, too.” Miranda’s foot hit something. Something that didn’t feel like a rock. She knelt down and touched the object, quickly recognizing it as a foot. With a boot on it. Had Tabitha been wearing boots?
“Is that you?” Miranda asked.
“Is what me?”
Tabitha’s words send a wave of panic through Miranda and she bolted back, tripped over her own feet, and landed on her butt.
She scrambled to get up, to get farther away from the foot she’d just touched.
One step.
Two.
Tabitha’s thin voice rang out, “Miranda, what happened?”
Trying not to hyperventilate, she spit out the question, “Did I just touch you?”
“Nooo,” Tabitha said, sounding confused.
A whimper escaped Miranda’s lips. “Then I just touched someone else’s foot.”
“What? Are you saying … that someone else is in here?” Her voice sounded winded.
Miranda swallowed. “Yeah.” She brushed off her fingertips as if to wipe away the touch.
“Who are you?” Tabitha demanded.
No answer came back.
“Are they dead?” Tabitha asked.
Dread hit Miranda like heavy smoke. “I … I don’t know.”
“Were they cold?”
“I just touched a foot … with a shoe on it.” The thought of touching death had her rubbing her hands on her jeans.
“I hate this. I want to go home.” Tabitha started crying.
“Me, too,” Miranda said, but then realized panicking wasn’t going to help. “Don’t cry. Talk so I can find you.”
“I’m here. Against a wall. What do you want me to say?”
“Count,” Miranda said and started moving again.
“One. Two. Three.” Tabitha’s voice sounded closer and closer with each step. Meanwhile Miranda tried to keep her orientation so that when she found the courage she could go back and check on the foot.
Or rather the body connected to the foot.
Oh, God. She hoped there was a body connected to the foot. Her breath hitched in her throat.
“Is this you?” she asked, her shoe hitting something.
“Yeah,” Tabitha answered, her voice shaky.
Miranda moved a few more inches until she felt the wall and then she turned and sat down beside her half-sister who immediately started sniffling again. “Don’t cry.”
“Don’t tell me what to do. I’m locked in the dark with a dead person. And probably a ghost. Oh shit, I hate ghosts.”
“We don’t know if there’s a ghost,” Miranda said. But right then she figured out what this place might be. Spooky music ran through her mind. Chances were this place wasn’t just a dungeon, but part of the catacombs. Old mines for limestone used to build Paris thousands of years ago. Alone that wouldn’t have been so bad, but then the mines had been used as a place to toss the dead.
Tabitha was right. They probably had ghosts down here.
“Stop making this worse than it is,” Miranda said and told herself the same thing. “We don’t even know if … if they are dead. And we need to figure a way out of here.”
“They haven’t spoken and I’ve been in here for a good twenty minutes.”
“Well, maybe they’re unconscious?” Miranda said. “Why don’t we hold our breath and listen to see if anyone else is breathing.”
“Okay,” Tabitha answered.
Miranda heard her sister inhale and she did the same.
Silence filled the blackness and not a sound entered their prison.
“They’re dead!” Tabitha squealed.
But right then, Miranda heard it. “Shh. Listen.”
“To what?”
“Be quiet.” Miranda tilted her head and locked the air in her lungs.
She heard it again. Too far away to be Tabitha. A short, light sound of someone drawing in a shallow breath. “Did you hear it? Someone is breathing.”
“But why aren’t they talking?”
“Like I said, because they’re unconscious. Maybe I should check on them,” Miranda said. “I just wish…”
“Wish what?” Tabitha asked.
“I wish I could see what I was doing. Wish I could see if … the door I was thrown in is the only way out.” She had no idea what the catacombs looked like. Did these mines have back doors? Miranda blinked and tried to make out shapes in the blackness. But nothing came. She touched the wall, it felt like dirt. Was this just one big room, or was it like a tunnel? “I tried to make light.”
“There’s a black spell curse, I can smell it,” Tabitha said.
“I know. I smelled it, too.”
“So we can’t do anything. We just stay here until we … until we fall unconscious, too. And die. We’re gonna die here.”
“No!” Miranda snapped. “We do something. I’m not just gonna give up.” She inhaled and tried to think of what to do. Silence filled the space, time passing in slow, dark seconds.
Tabitha shifted and then spoke up again. “I can’t die,” she said, her voice sounding tight again. “I saw Daddy this morning and I told him I hated him. I can’t let that be the last thing I said to him.”
Miranda found her sister’s hand and squeezed it. “We’re not going to die. Burnett, Kylie, and Della are looking for us. They’ll find us. But for the record, I don’t think … I think our dad knows you really don’t hate him.”
“I’m just so mad at him,” Tabitha said.
“Me, too,” Miranda confessed.
“Did you see him, too?” Tabitha asked.
Miranda nodded and then realized Tabitha couldn’t see her. “Yeah.”
“What did he say to you?”
Miranda paused, unsure if she should tell Tabitha what he said about loving Miranda’s mother. It would probably only hurt Tabitha. “He tried to explain things.”
“Did he tell you that he loves your mother, because that’s what he told me and that’s when I told him I hated him.” She hiccupped. “But I don’t hate him. I hate your mom.”
Miranda swallowed, unsure now was the time to talk about this, but she supposed there would never really be a right time. “He told me that he and your mom were separated when he met my mother.”
“But he was still a married man, and she had no right—”
“He told me that my mother didn’t know he was … married. Not at first.”
She heard her sister take in a deep gulp of air. “It’s still not right. It hurts.”
“I know,” Miranda said. “It hurts me, too.”
Then Miranda heard the slight inhale of air again from across the room. She wondered how long this person had been down here. Alone.
At least she and Tabitha had each other.
She closed her eyes and tried to come up with a plan to help them escape. She knew Burnett, Della, Kylie, and probably even Perry and Shawn were all looking for them, but that didn’t mean she and Tabitha could just sit and wait. “Who the hell is doing this?” she muttered.
Tabitha must have shifted, but the subtle sound echoed. “I don’t know for sure, but…”
“But what?” Miranda demanded.
“They took both me and Sienna. But they didn’t throw Sienna down here.”
“What are you saying? You think Sienna is doing this?”
“No, but I think … her mom might be.” A light gulp filled the silence. “Right before they threw me in here, I could swear I heard Sienna’s mom tell the other vampire to bring her inside.”
Miranda exhaled. “Well, Burnett was going to have a meeting after the practice with the parents. He’ll figure it out. He’s good at that.”
A long silence filled the space. “You seem to have a lot of faith in him,” Tabitha said.
“Yeah, I do. He’s … like family.” She closed her eyes a second. “Wait,” Miranda said as a realizatio
“Duh,” Tabitha said.
Miranda rolled her eyes. “Can we not hate each other right now?”
“I didn’t say I hated you,” Tabitha said. “I hate—”
“Forget it. Look, what I was gonna say is that maybe the black spell is strong enough to stop one person’s magic, but if … if we share enough of the same DNA we can try to do blood magic. Maybe with the two of our powers together we can undo the black spell.”
“You’re right,” Tabitha said. “I remember Candy and Sandy did a performance once at a contest. But … they are twins, and we’re just half-sisters.”
“We won’t know unless we try,” Miranda insisted.
“Okay. Do you remember how they did it?” Tabitha asked.
“Sort of,” Miranda said. “They held hands and chanted and said they meditated on the same thing.”
“So what are we going to try to do?”
“Some light would be nice. Then I’ll see if I can help our friend here.”
“Okay,” she said. “What’s the chant?”
Miranda let her brain work. “How about … out with dark, in with bright, together we ask for blessed light.”
Tabitha repeated it and then said, “Sounds good.”
Miranda started the chant and gave her half-sister’s hand a squeeze. Tabitha joined in. They said it once, twice, then three times.
“It’s not working,” Tabitha said.
“Maybe we’re doing something wrong.” Miranda tried to remember everything the twins had said about blood spells.
“Maybe we’re not meditating right,” Miranda said. “Are you practicing visualization?”
“Yes,” Tabitha said.
“What are you visualizing?” Miranda asked.
“A flashlight,” her half-sister said.
“Oh, I was going with a candle.”
“Why a candle?” Tabitha asked. “This is the twenty-first century.”
“Because it felt … Never mind, you’re right. Let’s try it again.”
Just before they started the chant again, a moan escaped. Tabitha jumped closer to the Miranda. “I hate this.”
“Come on,” Miranda said. “We’re wasting time.”