Chapter 26
“What do you mean?” I cried. “Summoning what?”
As if in answer, a hand shot up from the dirt at our feet. It was bare of skin, and the bones clacked together as the fingers tried to grab us.
I let out a small shriek and stood locked in place as if it wouldn’t find me if I didn’t move.
“That! That’s what’s been summoned!” Olive shoved me, but she was too late, as the bony hand grabbed my foot in a tight grip. I tried to kick it off, but another dirt-encrusted skeletal hand snagged my other foot.
“Olive!” I reached for her but noticed she was in the same predicament, as her ankles had been caught by another pair of bony fingers.
“Eloise, go get Jasper!” I glanced up to see if Eloise had seen what was happening. She had. She was striding toward us with a look of purpose on her face and I felt my panic ebb. She would get Jasper and we’d get out of this. Except she didn’t.
With her hand outstretched, Eloise ordered, “Give me the book.”
I jerked back. Her hazel eyes had changed color to a vibrant green.
They were so bright they almost glowed, and not in a friendly way either.
I clutched my backpack more tightly to my chest. I glanced at Eloise’s outstretched hand and noted that she’d removed her gloves, and her missing finger was back. “Eloise, what’s happening to you?”
“I’m sorry, Zoe.” Eloise’s eyes flashed back to their original shade. “ She watched me die and then brought me back and took possession of my body and my power.”
“Who? Mamie?” I shook my head. “I don’t understand. Eloise, what’s happening? Why did you bring us here?”
An expression of anguish passed over Eloise’s face. “I didn’t want to leave this way. Goodbye, Zoe. Try to forgive me.”
Her eyes rolled back in her head and her body began to slump to the ground, where greedy, bony hands were just waiting to snatch her.
“Eloise!” I tried to jerk my legs away from the skeletal hands that clutched me but had no success. “Hang on, Eloise, we’re coming.”
“My name is not Eloise.” Eloise straightened back up with a jerk and strode toward me.
With each step she took, stomping on the bony fingers reaching out of the dirt as she went, she began to transform.
Gone were Eloise’s camel coat and business casual attire.
Now she was rocking a long black coat over an emerald silk blouse, a black wool skirt, and high-heeled black leather boots.
Long reddish-brown hair sprouted out of the ash-blond bob, her figure changed from boxy to buxom, and the years that lined her face vanished, giving her a youthful dewy complexion, and her eyes flashed green. What the hell?!
“Well, well, well. Ariana Darkwood.” Olive tipped her chin up in defiance, although I noticed her pale face was drained of all color, giving her an almost ghostly pallor. She didn’t struggle against the hands holding her, as if she knew there was no way to fight them.
“Olive Prendergast. It’s been a long time.” Ariana’s tone implied it hadn’t been long enough.
I clapped a hand to my forehead. What was happening? Eloise was gone and in her place was this beautiful and yet absolutely terrifying woman. The same woman Miles had said Mamie helped to banish. Oh shit.
“I heard you were dead,” Olive said.
“The report of my death was an exaggeration,” Ariana said.
“Mark Twain.” I didn’t mean to say it out loud, but as a librarian, identifying famous quotes was kind of my kink.
“What?” Both Ariana and Olive glared at me.
“That’s exactly what Twain said when he was mistakenly reported to be deceased. It gets misquoted all the time, but you were spot-on.”
“Why are you so annoying?” Ariana asked me. “Do you have any idea how many times I had to fight to stay inside of Eloise and not reach out and slap you?”
“What happened to Eloise? Where did she go?” I asked.
“Eloise has finally crossed over,” Olive explained. “Ariana has been a parasite, using Eloise as a host, and now Ariana’s magic has transformed Eloise’s vessel to resemble Ariana’s former self.”
“So, you aren’t dead? What are you, then?” I asked the smirking woman in front of me.
“I’m the one who has returned.” Ariana’s smile made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. “This has been a long time in coming.” She ran her hands over her body and through her hair as if reveling in being her own person again.
“You’re a revenant.” Horror made my voice low and gruff. “One who was dead but returns.”
“That’s right. Bound by vengeance, no necromancy required.” Ariana reached for the book and I twisted away.
“Corpus regressus ad mortem!” The words flew out of me almost violently.
Ariana blinked and then she threw back her head and laughed and laughed. I glanced at Olive and she frowned and then looked deeply chagrined.
“You played us,” Olive said.
Ariana stopped laughing and the malicious delight on her face was palpable. “You actually believed that you returned Moran to his grave? It was me. All of it was me.”
“The Viking?” I asked.
“Me.”
“The pirates?” I asked.
Ariana glanced away with a shrug. “What do you think?”
“How?” I asked. “Why?”
“How was easy,” Ariana said. “I simply left the safe house Claire stuck Eloise—and me—in and followed you home. Using Eloise’s power, impressive for a hedge witch, I reanimated the Viking from that very handy Eternal Shade Cemetery and sent him after you and the book.
” She glared at Olive and then at me. “I wasn’t aware that Jasper Griffin had been sent to guard you. ”
“And Moran?” I asked. “How did you get him in place at Mystwood Manor before we arrived?”
“I don’t sleep,” Ariana said. “I did tell you the truth about that.”
“So you went to the cemetery the night before, raised him from his grave, and had him waiting for us at Mystwood the next day?” I asked. The fingers squeezing my foot tightened and I flinched. “Were you that desperate to keep us from finding out that my mother died from a Waning Curse?”
“No.” Ariana shook her head. “I couldn’t care less about that. I put Moran in place to kill you and steal the grimoire.”
“That seems like a lot of work,” Olive said. “Why didn’t you just kill Ziakas yourself?”
I sent her an outraged glance, which she ignored.
“Because, as you know, my powers were stripped from me and trapped in El Corazón . I had nothing but a wisp of my ability left, and the only host I could find in that hellscape I was banished to was a very powerful but very lonely little hedge witch named Eloise Tate, who had been sent there to heal the earth but managed to get herself killed by the toxic fumes of the burning mine instead.” She rolled her eyes, making it clear what she thought about that.
“You brought her back when she was freshly dead and took up residence inside her, leaving your own body behind,” Olive clarified.
“And Eloise losing her body parts had nothing to do with Toni Donadieu’s necromancy magic fading, because she didn’t bring Eloise back, you did.
It was the power you were siphoning from Eloise that was weakening. ”
“You’re not as slow as you look,” Ariana said. Olive didn’t rise to the bait. “Hedge witches, even the powerful ones, are not made for the long haul. Pity.”
I swallowed, feeling nauseous. “Was it Eloise or you who killed Mamie and my mom with the Waning Curse?”
Ariana’s eyes positively sparkled with delight. “Eloise was such a pathetic little thing; she would do anything I asked even if it went against her precious hedge witch ways. Once I convinced her to use her ability for murder, there was no turning back for her.”
“None of this answers Olive’s question. Why didn’t you just have Eloise kill me, too?” I asked.
“Because you, my dear, were an unexpected gift,” Ariana said.
“I watched you over the years and knew you didn’t use witchcraft.
I feared you lacked the gift and had resigned myself to living within Eloise forever.
But the night I followed the grimoire to your doorstep—hoping I was wrong about your abilities—you said you would take us to the Museum of Literature.
I knew you were my pass into the Books of Dubious Origins department and all the delicious books there.
I couldn’t risk using Eloise to murder you for fear someone would figure it out and I’d lose my disguise.
“And it paid off. You gave me access to steal El Corazón and get my power back. And I did—as well as so many other wonderful items. Eloise really was the perfect disguise and I would have stayed within her and stolen every last one of the dark magic books in the collection. I would have been unstoppable. Oh, wait, I still am.” She laughed and it chilled me to the core.
She reached into the pocket of her coat and pulled out the familiar small burgundy volume. El Corazón . When I glanced at it, I could feel the malevolence coming off it and the frozen heart inside. The feel of the clenching heart was fainter than when I’d first seen it in the BODO but still there.
She waved the book at Olive. “Before I can be fully realized and get all my power back, El Corazón needs a new witch’s powers.
It won’t release me completely until I deliver, which is why I brought you here, Prendergast. Think you’ll enjoy being imprisoned inside a book for eternity?
” Olive stiffened, but Ariana slipped the book back into her pocket.
“First things first, I am going to use the power I have regained to kill you, Zoe, the last Donadieu, and you are going to use all that untapped magic inside you to help me exchange Prendergast for me in El Corazón .”
“You don’t have to kill me,” I protested. I felt the book tremble in my backpack and I clutched it close. I had no intention of giving it to Ariana but felt I needed to discourage her from murdering me.