Chapter Seventeen
Freya
R aspy screams threatened to shatter my eardrums, and hot breath wafted against my neck. Shadows played tricks on my eyes. Dancers reveled, flames flickered, and tired silhouettes carried trays. They walked through walls and floated down the spiral staircase. Something was achingly familiar about the scene—it had been described to me in bedtime stories, cautionary texts, and campfire tales.
This wasn’t the strange woman’s illusion. She hadn’t needed a drop of magic to trap me. Instead, she had tricked me into the home of one of the most terrible, vile witches in all of history—she had led me to Madame LaLaurie’s mansion.
I stood in the home of a witch infamous for torturing her slaves in fruitless attempts to transform them into witches.
As I realized where I was and how foolish I had been, I created a shield of air, but it was not enough to protect me from the dark magic that thrummed like a bass and rattled my bones. I didn’t understand where the magic came from. Ghosts—not even the ghosts of former witches—did not hold onto their power.
The illusion crumbled, and darkness cloaked the room. I summoned a ball of flame and revealed a leering, pale-faced woman.
I screamed and backed away, and my back collided with a frigid but solid figure. As icy hands gripped my hips, I lurched forward. Twinkling laughter and dissonant magic filled the room. Anger pierced my fear.
I pointed toward the direction of the windows and whispered a Sunlight spell. The shadows receded, and light poured into the room. In front of me, a wispy young woman with heavy skirts and a rib-crushing corset lurched out of the direct light.
Her feet didn’t touch the ground.
“Excuse my daughters,” a deep but feminine voice drawled.
I steeled myself and fought to calm my ragged breaths.
“They’ve been eager for your visit,” the woman continued, “as have I.”
Madame Delphine LaLaurie chuckled darkly and emerged from the shadows.
As she stepped into the narrow mansion entryway, her illusion sprung back to life. The mansion’s light and revelry rekindled and became an even brighter backdrop to her dark spirit.
Madame LaLaurie’s brown hair was swept into an elegant updo. Though her face bore no make-up, it maintained a witch’s loveliness. Her full figure was cinched into the traditional garb of a nineteenth-century madame, but her full, cream skirts did not touch the ground. She levitated above it.
“Can’t say the same,” I said in a voice steadier than I felt.
She chuckled once more, and ghostly women stepped through the walls and lingered at Madame LaLaurie’s sides. They wore similar petticoats and fanciful curls, but youth softened their features. One of them grinned, and I recognized her as the witch who had startled me.
I tried to recall everything I had learned about Madame LaLaurie and her coven. Though I had enjoyed witch history enough, I had started hooking up with Ryder around the time we covered the southern witches, and it was possible I had been more than a little distracted.
Goddessdammit, I chided myself. Think.
“You can go ahead and ask,” Madame LaLaurie said, “how we’re still here—how we’ve managed to hold onto all of this.”
In response to her words, the dark magic swelled with the music of the illusion. The chandelier brightened, and Madame LaLaurie’s dark eyes glowed with power. Her four daughters remained stoic and silent, but their gazes tracked me with predatory glee. The walls of the narrow entryway closed in on me, and I forced my terror down with a swallow.
How in the Goddess’s name is she still this powerful in death?
The power couldn’t be hers. There was no other explanation.
“You want me to ask how you’ve been kept out of Summerland all these years?” I asked and crossed my arms. “I assume it has something to do with the High Witch’s punishment.”
Madame LaLaurie’s expression hardened, and the temperature dropped. I shivered.
“What do you know of that?” she purred.
“After this place nearly burned down, and your cruelty was exposed to humans,” I recalled, “the High Witch Cordelia chased you all the way to Paris, where she put you and your daughters down like dogs and erased the manner of your deaths from human history so as not to draw anymore attention to witchkind than you had already garnered.”
I hadn’t known Cordelia also tethered their souls to this mansion, but I didn’t admit my ignorance to the madame. I wondered if the High Witch had trapped this dark magic in the mansion to rot alongside the souls of these witches.
“Staying here is part of our sentence,” Madame LaLaurie answered and shrugged. She gestured to the revelry that surrounded us. “But I don’t see how Summerland could be any better resting place.”
The ghostly witch’s smile became feral. Her daughters remained quiet and watchful.
“Besides,” Madame LaLaurie continued, “we wouldn’t have been able to hold onto our magic if our spirits had moved into a new realm.”
As Madame LaLaurie loosened her grip on her magic, and a terrible screech echoed off the mansion’s walls, terror washed over me like a cold sheet of rain. Ghosts didn’t possess magic, yet how else could I explain the demonstration of power?
I had experienced Cordelia’s magic. This oil slick, suffocating darkness did not belong to the High Witch.
I didn’t care how it was possible for a ghost to possess magic. I only cared that Madame LaLaurie and her four daughters blocked my exit.
“While this has been fun,” I said in a rush, “I really must be going.”
With her daughters hot on her heels, Madame LaLaurie crept closer.
“I met your mother once,” the devious witch said. “Did you know that, Freya Redfern?”
I did not. Though the information piqued my curiosity, it failed to overshadow my need to escape. Impatience and fear poisoned my tongue. “I suppose you weren’t remarkable enough for her to comment on.”
“Oh,” Madame LaLaurie purred and crept even closer. The cold that wafted from her fogged my breath. “Don’t play coy. We both know you’ve heard the bedtime stories about the infamous Witch of the South.”
You have faced dark witches and vampires, I reminded myself. You were not afraid then, and you will not be afraid now.
I crossed my arms. “Congratulations, you and the Boogie Man kept me up many nights.”
Black swallowed the witch’s irises. “Careful, little girl.”
Magic—slick as oil and cloying as death—froze me in place. I struggled against the magic’s hold, but I was trapped. Madame LaLaurie had slipped past all my defense spells.
The ghostly witch grinned.
Of course, I thought, because all my spells are designed to protect me from the living.
I let my own magic boom in my voice. “Let. Me. Go.”
“Not yet,” Madame LaLaurie countered. “Show me how you did it.”
“Did what?” I asked.
Madame LaLaurie scoffed. “I felt it. Your human boy’s transition into greatness. All my life, that’s what I wanted. I burned at the stake for it, yet here you stand…”
“You tortured dozens to death,” I accused. “When it was time to pay for what you’d done, you fled like a coward. We are not the same.”
“I wanted them to ascend,” Madame LaLaurie hissed. “I wanted them to be greater than the lives fate had condemned them to! I was a dreamer.”
She drew closer. “I’m tired of being denied my dreams.”
Rage tunneled my vision. I hated this witch spirit. I hated what she had done to innocents, and I hated that in a twisted way, she had been right.
One could be turned into a witch.
I hated that any part of what I had done would validate her cruelty.
“Did my mother help hunt you down and crush your dreams ?” I asked and sneered. “Did she ensure you were locked out of Summerland for all eternity?”
Madame LaLaurie cackled. “No. No, your mother came to me many years after my death because she wanted to learn from me.”
My world screeched to a halt. “You’re lying.”
She flashed those ugly teeth again.
“I harbored information Sybil sought,” Madame LaLaurie. “Ironically, she needed my advice to help her accomplish something for the High Witch.”
I balked in confusion. Mom had never told me about any mission for the High Witch, nor had she confessed she went to Madame LaLaurie to aid her on it.
My mother had been against everything Madame LaLaurie stood for.
“What knowledge?” I asked. “I know it has nothing to do with your demented projects.”
Madame LaLaurie’s thin lips curled. “Maybe you didn’t know her as well as you’d like to believe.”
Though I worried the ghostly witch’s words held some truth, Mom never would have supported the abuse of innocent people in the name of experimentation, but what other projects had Madame LaLaurie endeavored in? Mom had never told me anything about the witch except that she was a cautionary tale about the consequences of overstretching one’s power.
“Would she be proud of how you’ve overstretched your power?” the tall, leering sister asked and arched an eyebrow.
"Get out of my head," I threatened.
“Would she be proud of how your coven has lost all faith in you?" the ghostly witch continued, "how you’ve risked their lives to save a human man?”
“Or would she have you put down the same way your dear goddessmother was ended?” the shortest sister taunted.
“Enough, children,” Madame LaLauire chided.
The sisters quieted like well-trained dogs, and I laughed at them.
“Still on your mother’s leash after all these years, huh?” I spat.
The tallest sister’s leer transformed into a snarl, and she tried to push past her mother, but Madame LaLaurie stopped her with a glare. The other sisters hissed but didn’t attempt to disobey their terrible mother.
“Focus,” Madame LaLaurie commanded. “Tell me, Freya Redfern, what mission might your mother have been assigned by the High Witch? What might she have wanted to learn from me?”
The magical vice that held me in place squeezed even tighter, and I searched my memory for the answers to Madame LaLaurie’s questions.
“Entrapment,” I realized. Dread and disgust turned my stomach. “Aside from your sick projects, you specialized in entrapment.”
It was undoubtedly why she had been able to entrap her own magic within her spirit. I was certain the High Witch never would’ve intentionally left it in possession of the crazed witch.
Madame LaLaurie preened. “You’re not as foolish as you look, but, child, what might your mother have wanted to entrap? What would the High Witch want brought to her?”
I gasped.
It couldn’t be…
“The chimera?” I asked. “Has Cordelia been searching for it for all this time?”
“Has she?” Madame LaLaurie shot back and shrugged. "Perhaps our fair Leader has been searching for the creature for much longer than your young mind can comprehend."
Frustrated by Madame LaLaurie's vague taunts, I growled, and the ghostly witch laughed. Her daughters joined her revelry.
“If you give me what I want,” Madame LaLaurie said, “I’ll tell you how to trap the chimera.”
So Mom was searching for the creature.
“Trap it?” I repeated.
Despite the hatred I harbored for the witch, I considered her offer. I hadn’t given much thought to how to trap the chimera. I had been more worried about finding it.
The LaLaurie sisters chuckled.
“Arrogant fool,” the shortest sister muttered.
“I can’t wait to rip her soul to shreds , ” another one added.
I swallowed my fear and focused on the magic brimming under my skin. Though Madame LaLaurie was powerful, I was a Redfern, and I would not go down without a fight. I only needed to distract the ghostly witch to regain the upper hand.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll tell you how I transformed Walker in exchange for information regarding the chimera, but you must release me first.”
Madame Delphine chuckled. “Sweetheart,” she chided, “do you think I’m a fool?”
My magic coursed through my veins like acid.
“Don’t,” I clipped, “call me that.”
“Touchy,” she mused. “Modern women are so touchy.”
“Let me go,” I spat, “or we have no deal.”
As Madame Delphine formed a reply, I released my grip on my magic and roared an Unlocking spell to counter the magical trap that bound me. I flung flames at the ghostly witches and lunged toward the door, but my magic had no effect on Madame Delphine. She basked in my fire and grinned. When I tried to shove past her, she stopped me with a surprisingly solid, ice-cold grip around my throat.
The ghostly witch threw me backward, and unnatural darkness cloaked the mansion once more. Flailing wildly, I collided with the staircase’s wooden railing, and it cracked under my weight. I landed in a heap on the steps. Despite the darkness, the temperatures rose to heat of a blazing fire. An invisible force wrenched me upright. Icy hands grabbed my wrists and wrenched them behind my back.
“Foolish, foolish girl,” the leering sister chastised.
I blasted air at my assailant, but it did nothing to break the spirit’s hold. I kicked and launched flames, but my fire failed to burn anything. It only cast light on the ghostly witches who closed in on me. Each of them wore feral grins.
“Up you go,” another sister whispered.
Manacles clasped over my wrists, and the tallest sister dragged me up the stairs. I twisted against her hold, and my shoulders screamed, but she pulled me relentlessly onward.
Without light to guide me, I tripped on the steps. As the rest of my body wrenched forward, the ghostly witch's grip on my manacled hands held strong. My right shoulder popped out of socket, and I screamed, but my voice was lost in the cacophony of dark magic. A tear escaped my eye, and the ghostly witch hissed.
Pain made me dizzy, but I fought to remain conscious and attempted another unlocking spell. It did nothing to free me from the ghostly shackles. Doors creaked open, and I was hit by the sickly scent of rotting flesh. The ghostly witch yanked me back and released her grip. As I landed on my mangled shoulder, awareness floated out of my grasp.
“Very good, children,” Madame LaLaurie praised.
I barely registered the words. I twitched on the ground, but I couldn’t bring myself to try to stand. The pain that lanced down my arms and up my neck was too great to bear.
“The boy won’t be long behind,” Madame LaLaurie continued. “I can’t wait to study him.”
Walker.
The awful witch would pick him a part to learn what made him tick. Horror mingled with my pain, but someone kicked my dislocated shoulder, and the last wisps of consciousness abandoned me.