her face as she reached for Faye’s body, then stopped, then did it again. Sam didn’t move, just sat there staring at Faye without comprehension. I knew exactly how the poor kid felt.
I could only see two others. Garth was trying to reach Colin, who still stood with his head flung back and his arms spread wide, gaze of ecstasy on the serpent as it reared up, towering above the trees in the Hollidays’ front yard. And Duane was only a few yards away, helping Mel. Everything else was blocked by the serpent’s huge body rising higher and higher until it seemed to blacken the whole solstice sky.
Holy sweet Christ, I had fucked up.
I shoved the thought away as violently as I pushed to my feet. There was still no time for it. It seemed that there was no time for anything, anymore. I needed to see clearly, and I needed to do it right now.
I was going to have to work on that.
But not right now. Right now I set my teeth together and reached for the coil of energy inside me, all too aware of its lack of response lately, and the reasons why it had failed me. But the sky behind the rearing serpent was hot summer blue and the monster itself gleamed black the way it had in the Dead Zone, which boded well for seeing clearly. I closed my eyes, feeling the sting of windshield wiper fluid washing over them as I fell back on my car analogies.
When I opened them, I could see in two worlds. The physical world was almost a distraction, but I didn’t want to let it go. The other world was translucent and made of astounding colors that meshed and melded and slammed against one another.
Mel was okay. I could see her life force entwined with the baby’s, both of them much stronger than I’d feared. Mel’s good-natured personality shone through, butter yellow that deepened to an intransmutable golden core. The little girl she carried inside her glimmered with the color of dark pink roses, soft and sweet and probably hiding thorns. For a moment it was all I could do to keep my feet as relief staggered my heartbeat.
Only for a moment. There still wasn’t time to relax. I turned my Sight on Thomas and Marcia. Power roared off them, pulled up from the earth and drawn down from the sky to mix together into a spell. Marcia’s power was graying out, the color blanching, as if she was drawing too much too fast. I grabbed Roxie’s arm and pulled her to her feet. “Take your place! Everyone! All of you! Get in place around the circle! The elders need you!” My own voice thundered through the racket the serpent made, sending Shockwaves of sound bouncing around the overheated air. Roxie stumbled away, but Sam gave me a look of despair.
“We can’t. We can’t do anything, we don’t have a full coven. Faye’s dead.”
“Go!” I yelled. “It’ll be all right!” I had absolutely no freaking clue how it was going to be all right, what with missing the Maiden, but I couldn’t tell Sam that. His eyes widened with trust and he ran for his place.
I could see through the serpent’s bulk again, though it was no longer because the creature itself was only partly manifested. It was my own power lending semitransparency to solid objects and giving my vision depth. On the monster’s other side, coven members were tottering into place, strength seeming to come to them as they reached their points around the pentagram. Only Garth was still trying to get to his brother. His movements had a viscosity to them, as if he tried to slog through tar in order to reach Colin.
And Colin, a few feet beyond Garth’s reach, was wrapped in black. There was no hint of life to his aura, no neon glow that made him beautiful and unique and one of many, but matte and flat and deadly, pressing in to him without the slightest protest from the slim blond boy. The snake I’d brought back from the spirit realm tightened around his shoulders and began unfurling like a cloak, becoming Virissong’s strong, slender spirit. I wondered if anything I’d done in the spirit worlds in the last few days hadn’t been wholly orchestrated by one Virissong aspect or another.
Images flashed behind my eyes, the icy Upper World and the astounding thunderbird. Big Coyote in the desert. The cheerfully warring spirit animals and the tortoise that had returned with me to lend Gary his strength. I hung on to those memories, taking them for the lifeline they were. I’d screwed up monumentally, but not everything I’d done had been tainted by the dark sorcerer who now settled into Colin’s body. There seemed to be things out there that still had faith in me.
Clinging to the scraps of hope that I hadn’t fucked up beyond redemption, I wove my own power together into a silver-blue net and swung it toward Garth, not so much to capture him as gain his attention. He wrenched around toward me, rage and fear in his eyes. “Get in place, Garth,” I said as gently as I could. “We’re going to fix this. But we’ve got to work together.”
“But Colin!” His voice broke, youthful terror, and my heart clenched at the sound.
“I know.” My stomach hurt around the power centered there, sorrow and pain that touched the net I’d woven and rode out to tell Garth that I understood and shared some of his agony. “But the coven needs you if there’s any chance of making this right.” There was a peculiar ring to my words, like they’d been processed through bells made of pure silver. They sounded as if they carried inexorable truth, and for a dismayed moment I hoped I wasn’t going to get stuck having to tell the truth all the time. I’d never be able to speak to Morrison again.
But Garth seemed to hear the truth in my words as well. He reluctantly broke away from trying to reach Colin, his steps coming easier as soon as he moved backward instead of toward the blond boy. I could feel power growing as the coven members each offered up what they had, and slowly their voices began to lift over the sound of the serpent’s bellowing.
“Joanie.” A hand touched my elbow, startling me. I turned to look down at Mel, who glowed so brightly I had to squint to see her clearly. “You’ve only got twelve.”
“I’m trying not to think about that.” I was pretty sure that we needed a full coven in order to vanquish the serpent and Virissong, but taking my place in the circle and harboring doubts would only sabotage the whole attempt.
“Joanie,” Mel said, more urgently. “Your maiden’s dead and I don’t think any of those girls is old enough to be the Mama. You’re playing with a shit hand and you need a full house.”
“One of them must still be a maiden,” I said doubtfully, and turned to glance over the girls, wondering if my Sight could verify that. Mel put her hand on my arm again before I’d figured out how to figure it out.
“Is it a boy or a girl?”
“What?” I stared down at her again, watching her colors flex with agitation.
“The baby.” Mel’s voice showed none of the twists and flaps of frustration that her aura danced with. “Is it a boy or a girl? Can you tell?”
“Oh. It’s a girl,” I said as if announcing such a thing was an everyday activity for me. Mel took a deep breath.
“Then I can be both.”
My double vision was doing nothing to help me understand her. I shook my head, feeling especially slow and dull. “Both what?”
“Mother and Maiden,” Mel said a bit impatiently. “I told you, Joanne. My grandmother was a witch. This isn’t entirely new to me.”
“Mel, you don’t have to—we’ve—I’m—” I had never once in my life said out loud that I’d had children. Plenty of people back in North Carolina knew, but no one in my life since the day I left Qualla Boundary had any idea.
Except maybe Morrison, depending on just how much digging he’d done. The idea made a knot in my stomach.
“You need thirteen,” she said, long before I could find a way to break through more than a decade of self- imposed silence and admit I’d been playing the role of the Mother. “The baby and I make twelve. You’re the thirteenth. The focal point. You’re the one with the power, Joanie.”
“You’re the one who’s pregnant! Mel, this could be really dangerous—”
“You won’t let anything happen to us.” She smiled, full of serene confidence, and that was it. I’d lost the argument. I could tell, because she walked over to take a place in the circle and folded her hand into Marcia’s. As soon as she did. Thomas left Marcia’s side and darted around the serpent to clasp hands with two other coven members.
