Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
T he smell of petrol was clogging the back of Esme’s throat, but her fear, her ever-present companion, seemed to have left the building. She felt nothing except a pure, clear rage. How dare this woman put petrol on the books? How dare she threaten Luke? The shop. The island.
‘You are wrong,’ she said, her voice conversational. ‘I would say I’m sorry for you, but it would be a lie. I understand your grief, but you are hurting people. Deliberately. There’s no excuse. In fact, you’ve taken the memory of your husband and twisted it into something evil. You have destroyed whatever good he stood for, too.’ Esme had no idea if Nicholas had stood for good. She didn’t much care. He was probably like the rest of them, a little bit good, a little bit bad, often confused and sometimes lazy. What she cared about was that while they were talking about Nicholas, Kate Foster wasn’t flicking the lighter in her hand.
‘He would be proud of me.’
‘I doubt that’s true. I think he would be horrified.’
Kate’s face spasmed. ‘You don’t know him.’
‘No. Thank Goddess. If he would be proud of you becoming a homicidal hypocrite, I’m glad I never had the pleasure.’
Kate’s face suddenly cleared. ‘You’re trying to distract me. You’re trying to provoke an argument so that I forget my purpose. Delay the inevitable. It won’t help. There’s nobody coming. Or if they are, they’ll be too late.’
Kate flicked the lighter open and used her thumb to produce a flame. Esme closed her eyes instinctively, expecting there to be enough fumes in the air for the place to go up even before the flame touched the petrol-soaked books.
She opened them again to see Kate flicking at the lighter repeatedly and the flame stubbornly refusing to appear. A small, deranged part of Esme had the urge to offer her a light. She almost wanted the inevitable to be over. The unbearable tension of waiting to die a fiery death.
‘Don’t you care about the good things you are destroying?’ She tried. ‘The cures for illnesses. There could be a cure for cancer in this place. How do you think you’ll be judged?’
Kate didn’t look convinced, but she paused in the business of flicking the lighter. ‘If one of these books says it can cure cancer, it will be a lie. Or there will be a price that nobody would want to pay. That’s how they get you. They offer the world. Offer whatever you want and no consequences, but it’s a lie. All of it.’
‘There’s always a price,’ Esme said. ‘I would never say otherwise, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t useful exchanges to be made. It doesn’t make it all bad.’
‘You sound like Nicholas,’ Kate said, her mouth twisting. ‘And look what happened to him.’
‘What did happen?’
She let out a choking sound. ‘He got so sick…’ She stopped speaking. ‘No. You’re not going to…’ She tried flicking the lighter again.
Luke was close behind Kate, had been moving slowly and quietly while Esme had been talking. She could see him in her peripheral vision and she forced herself not to focus on him, not to betray him with a movement in her gaze. She kept her eyes firmly on Kate and the hand that was holding the lighter.
‘Let’s go outside, get some fresh air, talk this over. You don’t have to do this.’
Flick. Flick. Flick.
Esme wondered what would happen when Luke tackled Kate. Would he be fast enough to be able to wrestle the lighter away from her grasp? Or would Kate have enough time to flick it once more, maybe lighting it? She could torch them all, and the shop with its centuries of magical knowledge, with one tiny movement of her thumb. ‘You don’t want to do this,’ she said, just saying whatever came into her head, trying to keep Kate’s attention firmly fixed forward. Luke was physically stronger than her, even in his currently weakened state. Maybe he would be able to withstand the electrical shock of the magical barrier long enough to grab Kate and pull her out of the circle. ‘You don’t want to die.’
Kate hesitated. Some of the manic energy seemed to have dissipated and Esme could see her thinking. Maybe the reality of setting fire to the shop while she was inside it was beginning to dawn. Maybe she was remembering the charred remains of the other shops, imagining what it had been like for the booksellers trapped inside as they felt the intense heat, their skin bubbling and charring and the smell of their own flesh cooking filling the air. Or maybe the circle would protect her. Did she intend to stand unscathed in the centre of an inferno?
‘How do you know that will protect you from the flames? Or the fumes? You will die along with us.’
‘I’m ready for it. The cleansing fire. They knew what they were doing in the trials, you know? Fire is the only way to eradicate the evil of witchcraft. You deserve to die and so do I. This circle is my insurance. It means nobody can stop me or pull me out.’ She cocked her head. ‘I don’t hear fire engines, though, so I hardly needed to worry.’
Luke lunged for Kate, and Esme saw him thrown back as he hit the invisible barrier of the circle. He crumpled to the floor, moaning.
‘Luke!’
He lifted his head and she could see pain etched across his features. He tried a reassuring smile, but it was a grimace. She could see the sheen of sweat on his forehead.
Kate raised the lighter again, her thumb poised.
Esme knew she could make a break for the door, try to get out before Kate flicked the lighter and set them all on fire. But she was covered in petrol and probably wouldn’t make it in time. Besides, she wasn’t about to leave Luke. Or the bookshop. It didn’t make logical sense, but Esme couldn’t help that.
There wasn’t time for Luke to get out now, either. Even if he was willing to leave her. Esme had to fix this. Had to find a way out for them both.
She tried to relax enough to see clearly. She didn’t know how seeing Kate’s true nature would help, but it was her only witchy power. She could renew the island wards, but that was performing a ritual and giving a drop or two of her blood, nothing she actually did . No super power. No spells. She had cleared the hex from the book, but that had been knowledge from the book. It occurred to her that the low sound she had been putting down to tinnitus, brought on my supreme stress, was, in fact, a real sound. Or real to her, at any rate. She didn’t know if the others could hear it, but it was a low keening sound coming from the shop itself. Her misery increased as her heart broke a little for the bookshop. And then it hit her.
She was standing in the middle of a magical shop.