“You have a knife?” Boadicea said softly. “It is hers. She was angered that you took it. It has some power.”
“Adam made a rubbing of the handle,” Darci said, obviously unambiguous about Boadicea’s trustworthiness. “And he sent the rubbing to a woman somewhere, but she never replied,” Darci said; then she looked at Adam, who had his face down. “Why you rotten, low-down, lying—” Darci began. “She did tell you what was written on the handle, didn’t she? But you didn’t tell me.”
Adam moved to sit on the other bed. This practice of revealing what he knew was strange to him, and, as a result, it was very difficult. But now there were three people looking at him expectantly. “It . . .” he began hesitantly, “it is a knife that was once used for making sacrifices. It’s a blood knife. Darci,” he said, looking at her, his eyes pleading. “I don’t want you to go with us tonight.”
“Just me,” she said flatly. “The others can go with you, but I can’t. Is that right? Is that what you have in mind?”
“The danger is to you and you alone,” Boadicea said in her solemn manner. “We may be killed, but you would be sacrificed.”
That statement effectively stopped the others from speaking.
“Pardon my stupidity, but what the hell’s the difference?” Adam finally snapped, then shot a look at Darci that she wasn’t to tell him not to curse.
At Adam’s hostile manner, Boadicea closed her mouth and looked as though she might never say another word.
“Duration,” Taylor said quietly. “Dying quickly is different from dying slowly.”
Adam stood up. “Darci is not going,” he said flatly.
Come to me, Darci heard in her head. “What?” she asked, looking up at Adam.
“I said that you aren’t going and that’s final. Look, I made arrangements with the owner of this motel to use his car tonight. It’ll get us to Camwell and back, but I think we can do what we need to without Darci. You,” he said to his sister. “Do you know your way around the tunnels? That is, assuming that’s where she’s planning to ...to ...with the children.”
“Yes,” Boadicea said, “she uses the tunnels for that. I have never been to them, but I know them in my head.”
With every thought that passed through his mind, Adam grew angrier—and his anger was directed toward Boadicea. “Couldn’t you have done something to stop her? You were with her for years. Couldn’t you have at least tried to escape during that time? Couldn’t you have—”
He broke off because Boadicea stood up; then she pulled her skirt up to expose one long, shapely leg. But it was a leg that bore many scars, some of them long, some of them round and raised.
“Shall I show you more?” she asked, with no anger in her voice. “Perhaps you would like to see my back. I gave up trying to escape her when she stopped taking her rage out on me and began to take it out on others. She presented me with the body part of a child and told me that there would be another one given to me every time I tried to escape. After that I asked the mirror if I would ever get away from her, and that’s when I saw the three of you. I have waited for you three for six years. I have waited quietly, and therefore no more children were killed because of me.”
She cocked her head at Adam. “Did I do wrong? If you had been in my place, would you have run away again, knowing that if you did, an untold number of innocent children would be tortured, then murdered because of you? Tell me, I am interested in your answer.”
The three of them didn’t know if Boadicea was being sarcastic, or if she was actually asking a question, but, whichever, no one had an answer to that horrible question.
“He’s sorry,” Darci said. “He has a very bad temper, and he sometimes says things that he doesn’t mean. Please forgive him.” Come to me, she heard again in her head. Leave them and come to me. Darci put her hand to her forehead as she realized that the words were coming inside her mind and not from anyone in this room.
“You are not well,” Boadicea said, looking at Darci. “No, it’s nothing,” Darci said. “I’m fine. I just had a knock on my head yesterday, and it still aches a bit, that’s all. It’s the men who were injured. Adam, how are your ribs? And ...Dad,how’s your arm?”
“Fine,” Taylor said, smiling at her having called him “Dad.”
Come to me, or I will kill them.
The words were more clear with each syllable—and Darci knew who was speaking to her inside her head. This is between you and me, isn’t it? Darci sent back to the voice in her head; then she looked at Adam to see if he’d heard her thoughts. But Adam was still looking at his sister, still contemplating what she’d told them.
The sound of laughter echoed inside Darci’s head, making her temples throb and her eyes blink at the force of the sound. Oh, yes, the voice said. You and me. No one else. There was the laugh again. Unless you want to lose them all, come to me.
Darci said, “Excuse me, I need. . . .” She got off the bed and went into the bathroom. Once she was alone in the little room, she sat down on the lid of the toilet and closed her eyes. Through the door she could hear the low, flat tone of Boadicea’s voice and guessed that she was telling the men something about her existence in captivity.
Now Darci sat in silence and listened, waiting for this person to tell her what she was to do. She was afraid to try to say more to the voice in her head for fear that Adam would hear her.
Darci wasn’t practiced at doing this, but she put her head back against the porcelain tank, closed her eyes, and tried her best to listen.
This is between you and me, the voice said. Between us two witches.
No, Darci thought. No, no, no! I am not a witch. The power I have is good.
Even though Darci wasn’t projecting her thoughts as she’d learned to do with Adam, it was as though the voice could hear what she was thinking. This person—this woman, as it seemed more like a female voice—could hear whatever Darci thought.
If you are good, then you will save them. Shall I show you what I have done?
“No!” Darci said out loud.
“Darci, baby, are you all right?” Adam called from the other side of the door.
“Fine,” she answered. “Would it be all right if I got into the tub and soaked for a while?”
“Sure,” Adam said, chuckling. “Take your time.”
Darci turned on both tub taps full blast so the noise would disguise any sounds she made. I want nothing to do with you, she thought. Nothing.
But involuntarily, there came into her mind a vision. It was as though a video were playing inside her head. She saw the back of this woman, a tall, thin woman, wearing an elaborate headdress and a robe of what looked to be red velvet. In front of her was a tall stone altar and on it was a child being held down by three hooded men.
No, no, no, Darci said in her mind as she put her hands over her face. She would have recognized that face anywhere at any age. The child on the altar was Adam at three years old.
“Darci?” came Adam’s voice again as he lightly tapped on the door.
“Can’t a girl have a good cry in peace?” she snapped at him.
“All right,” he said softly, “but if you need me, I’m here.” Darci’s thoughts were on the vision that was playing inside her head. Make it go away, she thought. Please, God, make it stop. In a scary movie, you could close your eyes and not see the bloody parts, but now she couldn’t block out the vision, for the video was inside her mind. No, please. She walked to the little bathroom window and looked out, but the view in front of her didn’t stop what she was seeing inside her mind.
The thin woman took a knife and made deep cuts into the child’s skin. Then she lifted a red-hot branding iron from a fire,and....”Oh,God,”Darci said, then went to her knees, her hands over her face. When the iron touched the delicate flesh of the child, Darci had to grab a towel and stuff it into her mouth to keep from screaming aloud. It was as if she were there. She could see everything. She could hear the child’s screams. Oh, God. She could sm
ell the burning flesh.
Abruptly, the sight of the room and the altar faded, and in its place was the vision of a man. His face was drawn, almost gray with worry and fatigue. Instantly, Darci knew she was seeing Adam’s father. As Darci watched, the man got out of a small airplane and looked about him for a moment; then he turned and helped a pretty young woman out of the plane. As she stepped down, she put her hand on her belly in that protective way that pregnant women do. There seemed to be no one around them, just the landing strip and surrounding forest. But Darci could see shadows moving in the trees. Helplessly, she watched the man and woman walk toward the trees. She saw the man taken from behind, and while his wife watched, his throat was slit.
No more, Darci begged. No more.
But it wasn’t over. There was another vision, this one of Adam’s mother, heavily pregnant and tied to a bed. She was in labor and she was screaming, but not from the pain of the labor. No, she was screaming because the child was being cut from her.
Darci saw it all—and she felt the woman’s pain. She felt the woman’s life flowing from her with the blood that was pouring out of her body. No attempt was made to stanch the flow. “My babies,” the woman was saying over and over as she bled to death. “My babies.”
Shall I show you more? the voice said.
“No,” Darci whispered. “No, please, no more.” She was on the floor, her knees tucked into her chest, and she was trembling.
This is between you and me, not them. Do you understand me?
Darci nodded, holding herself tightly, feeling the coldness of the tile floor beneath her. She was so cold that she knew she’d never be warm again.
Put them asleep, the voice said. Put them asleep, then leave. You will be brought to me. Do you understand?
Yes. Darci nodded. Yes.
For a few moments there was blessed silence, and inside her head was only the memory of what Darci had seen. She was no longer in the middle of something too horrible to imagine; she was involved in something that she had no power to stop.
Slowly, her body feeling stiff and sore, Darci got up off the floor, went to the bathtub, and turned off the water. Then, again slowly, she walked to the sink and looked at herself in the mirror. There were deep, bloody scratches on her cheeks where she must have clawed herself during the visions. There was no need for her to look into a magic mirror now, she thought, because she could tell Adam what had happened to his parents.
But Darci didn’t want to tell him. But, even more, she didn’t want to see the same thing happen to him.
You can do this, she told herself. Maybe her father was right and Darci had spent her life trying to suppress what she could do with her “gift,” as he called it. And maybe it was true that all her life she’d tried hard to be as normal as she could be, but, then again, she had been able to hold Adam and that armed man in place. She’d been able to freeze them so they couldn’t move. If she could do that again. . . . If she could use every ounce of whatever power she possessed to hold this dreadful woman long enough to....
Truthfully, Darci didn’t know what she would do or could do, but her father’s words came back to haunt her, “You didn’t know you could do that, did you?” “That I can kill people with my mind?” she’d asked.
Could she kill someone? Darci wondered. But then the visions went through her head again, and she wiped at her face to make them go away. Her hand came away bloody from the scratches on her face.
The blood was on her left hand, the hand that had nine moles that formed a Tower, the same shape that had been cut and branded on Adam’s chest when he was just a child.
Yes, she thought, she could kill. She could kill to save the man she’d come to love.
She took a few deep breaths to calm herself, then she sat down on the toilet lid and closed her eyes. Give me strength, God, she prayed. Guide me, watch over me, and give me the strength I need to make this horror end.
She said, “Amen,” aloud, then focused her mind on making the three people in the next room go to sleep. It took time and it took concentration, for all three of them were nervous and alert and full of adrenaline, but she managed to do it. She felt them relax. She heard movements as they leaned back against furniture and went to sleep.
When all was quiet on the other side of the door, Darci heard the crunch of gravel from a car pulling up outside the motel. She knew that it was a car waiting for her. And she knew that she was to take the bag that Adam had carried out of the woman’s house.
Silently, Darci left the bathroom and stood for a moment, looking at the people sleeping on the bed. Her father and Boadicea were curled together in the same way that she and Adam had been not long before. Slowly, Darci walked toward Adam. She stood there for a while, looking down at him. For the first time since she’d met him, there wasn’t a deep furrow between his brow; even when he was laughing, he hadn’t lost that look of worry.
But now it was gone, and she knew that that had come about because he had finally shared his story.
Smiling, she bent and kissed his forehead, then she placed her lips against his and held them there for a moment. “Whatever happens now,” she whispered to him, “I will love you forever.”
She touched his hair, then, turning away from him, she went toward the door. Hanging on the back of a chair was the leather bag that Adam had taken from the woman’s house. Boadicea had said that the mirror Adam had taken was not the real one, not the magic mirror, so why was Darci to take it with her? She opened the bag, looked inside, and saw that there were two objects inside, both looking like picture frames. One was golden and beautiful, the other old and beat-up. Darci had no doubt whatever which one was the magic mirror.
As she left the room, she couldn’t suppress a feeling of irony. They’d had Nostradamus’s mirror with them all along.
18
ADAM AWOKE YAWNING, and the first thing he did was reach for Darci. With his eyes still closed, he remembered the way her little backside curved so perfectly up against him. Smiling, he reached his hand out farther. Maybe he would make love with her and to hell with reading any mirror, he thought.
It was the thought of the mirror that made him open his eyes. Since the room was dark and he could see nothing, at first he didn’t know where he was. But, gradually, it all came back to him. Fumbling toward the bedside table, he turned on the light and looked about. Boadicea and Taylor were on the other bed, snuggled together like two puppies.
Rubbing his eyes, Adam felt as groggy as if he had a hangover. It seemed that Darci was still in the bathroom, soaking in the tub, and, maybe, crying. When she’d said that was what she was doing, Adam had reached for the doorknob, but Taylor had stopped him. “Let her have some time to herself,” he’d whispered, then led Adam away from the door.
And that was the last thing Adam remembered. Now, blinking, trying to wake up, he glanced toward the bathroom. The door was just barely open and he could see a light on in the room. Was she still in the tub? he wondered, smiling at the vanity of women. That she could sit in a tub for....
He looked at his watch. It was almost two P.M. and—
In the next moment he sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes. It was after eight P.M.!
He reached the bathroom in one long stride, flung open the door so that it hit the back wall with a loud thud. The bathroom was empty.
Turning back to the room, he saw that both Taylor and Boadicea were waking up.
“She’s gone,” Adam said flatly. “Darci is gone.”
Taylor’s face seemed to drain of blood as all that he’d learned in a lifetime of study flooded his mind. He knew without a doubt that Darci had put them to sleep. But why?
“Where is that bag?” Boadicea said, looking at the chair where the bag had hung.
“Who cares about that—” Adam began, then his eyes widened. “No,” was all he could whisper.
“What was in it?” Boadicea asked, her voice rising.
“We don’t have time for that now,”Adam snapped a
t her. “We have to find Darci, and you have to show us the way.”
“You found it, didn’t you?” Boadicea said, her eyes wide. “Somehow, you found the true mirror.”
Taylor put his hand out to Boadicea’s arm, but she moved away from him.
“Why did you not show it to me? To her? One of us could have seen—”
“You?”Adam sneered at his sister.”And how do I trust you? I saw that room. How do I know what you have become?”
Boadicea looked at him with eyes full of fire. “If you saw the room, then you know that to survive I had to fight.”
“Stop it!” Taylor shouted. “This is about Darci, about my daughter, not the two of you. Boadicea, how do we find her?”
“I do not know,” Boadicea said as she calmed herself from her anger. “She is a good person; perhaps that will protect her. I know that only Darci can stop that woman. And if she does not, then the woman will gain more power than she has already. She has learned much over the years and has gained powers that even I know nothing of. And she controls many, many people. Now what she does is in secret, but if Darci is unable to stop her tonight, then I do not know what will happen.”
“Get ready,” Adam said. “We don’t have time for more talk.” With that, Adam left the motel room and went to the front desk to get the keys to the owner’s car. While he was walking, he opened his cell phone and punched in a number he knew well.
“Mike?” he said. “This is Adam and, yes, I’m still in Camwell. Remember that I told you that I might need help? I do. I want you to get as many people here as possible as soon as possible. And, Mike? Bring an arsenal.” He closed the phone and entered the motel office.
“I do not like this place,” Boadicea said, looking about the dirt walls that were over, above, and beside them. “She could flood this place. She could send fire down it. Her minions could hide anywhere. She—”