Bound By Sin (A Cin Craven Novel) Read online

  “Ares was wrong about the windows, though,” I said. “They’re actually an asset. As long as I can see Boucher, I can take him out with my magic. Then we simply have to drag him in, tie him up, and deliver him to Ares.”

  “Doesn’t seem very sporting, though, does it?” Michael pointed out.

  I looked at him incredulously. “Neither was kidnapping Claire, or throwing a . . . missile through our hotel window, or—”

  Michael held his hands up in surrender. “You’re right,” he agreed. “I will happily truss him up like a Christmas goose.”

  “Thank you, dear,” I replied sweetly. “Now, what we need is a map of the island.”

  “There are several in the estate office downstairs,” Evangeline said.

  “I’ll go get them,” Claire offered.

  When she returned we laid the map out on the bed. Devil’s Island was an oblong stretch of land. The dock, main house, overseer’s cottage, and the slave village were all located at the northern end. The fields ran down the middle of the island farther south, past the village. I pointed to the dock on the map.

  “This is the problem,” I said. “Even if we post a lookout, because of the shape of the island a boat isn’t visible until it’s nearly at the dock. What would be helpful is to have someone posted on the beach where they could see a boat coming from far away. Of course, the downside of that is that by the time said person got all the way back to the house with a warning, it would be too late.”

  “There are a couple of signal flares in the boat,” Michael suggested. “I remember being surprised to see them.”

  My eyes lit up. “The only way Boucher can get on the island is from the seaward side or across from the mainland. We could post Hector on the beach and his cousin Perseus on the dock, each with a flare.” I said tapping the map.

  “What’s to stop him from docking anywhere he pleases on the mainland side of the island?” Claire asked.

  “Gators,” Pandora replied. “That coast is all salt marshes. He try to sneak in that way and we won’t have to worry about him ’cause the gators’ll get him first.”

  “So we put the boys on the beach and the dock and the flares will give us ample opportunity to know he’s coming,” Claire said. “But don’t you think we ought to find out if he’s coming before we go to all that trouble?”

  “He’ll be back,” Pandora said. “Man’s got a powerful sense of what he believes to be his destiny. Won’t go easy on him to have it taken away.”

  “Well, all right,” Claire conceded, “but you left him in Tennessee. There are a lot of miles between there and here. He could have been impressed into the army, blown up by a cannonball on the field of battle, hit by a train . . . we don’t even know if he’s still alive.”

  “Hit by a train sounds splendid,” Evangeline happily interjected.

  Claire turned to me. “You did a location spell with my mother in order to find me. All you need is a personal item. He couldn’t have taken everything with him in those two bags. Surely he left something behind we could use.”

  “He kept his cufflinks and cravat pins in that box on the chest of drawers,” Evangeline suggested.

  “Thank you, Evangeline,” I said, mostly to let Michael, Pandora, and Lizzie know she’d offered a helpful suggestion.

  I walked over and picked up the ornately carved mahogany box. Opening it, I discovered it empty except for a single gold band. I snapped the lid shut. It would be the perfect thing to use for the spell, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell Evangeline that her louse of a husband had taken his cufflinks and left his wedding ring behind.

  “There’s nothing in it,” I lied.

  “Oh! I know!” Evangeline said excitedly. “Look through all those drawers. A couple months before he killed me Adrien came back from a trip to Savannah wearing this ridiculous monocle. I told him it made him look like a pompous ass and he never wore it again. I don’t know where he stashed it, but it has to be here somewhere.”

  I sent Claire and Evangeline back downstairs to the estate office to locate a map of the United States, or at least the South, while I conducted a quick search of the room. I uncovered several drawers full of Adrien’s older clothes, which I promptly gave to Pandora to pass along to the men in the village, and one gold monocle wrapped in a handkerchief and tucked behind a book on Greek mythology in the nightstand drawer.

  “I’ve never seen a magic spell done before,” Lizzie said, wide-eyed with excitement.

  “Well, let’s hope it works like it’s supposed to,” I replied. “My spells don’t always.”

  Claire and Evangeline shortly returned with another map. We spread it out across the bed and, just as Raina had taught me, I set the monocle on its side in a neutral spot and focused my power. I had to hold it upright with one finger until the magic took hold, then I moved my hand away and it spun by itself until I recited the incantation.

  “Treacherous villain who’s schemed and lied / Show me the place where you reside,” I called out.

  The monocle began to roll and I nearly lost my concentration when Lizzie gasped. I managed to hold it together, though, and in just a few seconds the lens dropped . . . right over Savannah.

  “I guess that answers that question,” I said dryly.

  CHAPTER 47

  Once we knew that Boucher was close, the five of us (and Evangeline, though she didn’t do much but offer sarcasm) began to prepare for his eventual arrival. Pandora packed up baskets of food for Hector and Perseus and also suggested that each boy take one of his friends with him for company. The boys treated the whole thing like a grand adventure, but they also understood the gravity of the situation.

  Since planting was behind schedule and Ulysses had most of the adults out in the fields all day, we engaged the island’s children to help us watch the sky for flares. Under the previous management, most of the children would have also been out working in the fields, but I would not allow that. I believed that children should be children; they would have the rest of their lives to work. For the next few days, though, they all knew to keep a watchful eye to the sky.

  As the day wore on into evening and no green flares burst overhead, Michael and I began to relax. I knew that Boucher wouldn’t come at night. He knew what we were. When he came, it would be with the sunlight at his back. Even so, Michael and I sent everyone else to get a good night’s sleep and we stayed up, sitting on the second story porch and keeping watch.

  ———

  At nine o’clock the next morning a great hue and cry went up in the yard. The flare from the dock had been spotted. I rolled out of bed and Michael helped me dress as quickly as was possible considering my boots still weren’t dry and I had to wear a dress. The pale gold evening gown was quite inappropriate for a Friday morning but, being a vampire, I’d never seen the point in spending money on day gowns. By the time Michael finished with the buttons, Pandora had shooed all the children back to the relative safety of the village, and Cassandra had taken Ginny and the baby back to Lizzie’s cottage. I tried to get Lizzie to leave with her children but she wouldn’t go.

  “You might need me,” she said and gave me a look that brooked no refusal.

  With the area around the main house deserted except for the five of us, we gathered in the upstairs hall with the urn and waited. Pandora stood on the porch, watching the drive from the dock.

  “Here come the boys,” Pandora announced.

  The two of them skidded to a halt in front of the house. “He’s comin’ from the mainland,” Hector shouted up to Pandora. “An’ it looks like he’s got a whole army with him! Must be twenty men in that boat!”

  Pandora turned to me wide-eyed.

  “Tell the boys to go through the woods to the beach,” I said. “And to stay there with Hector until someone comes to tell them it’s safe to return to the house.”

  “You said he wouldn’t come with an army,” Claire felt the need to point out. “Why does he have all those men with him?”

&n
bsp; “It’s a lynch mob,” Michael said grimly.

  Damn Adrien Boucher, I thought. This meant that we would have to adjust our plans a bit. We couldn’t very well turn Ares loose to smite him in front of twenty witnesses.

  “What are we going to do?” I whispered to Michael. “I never thought he’d be able to talk anyone else into being a party to his vengeance.”

  “You’re all going to stay in here and let me go out and talk to them,” Lizzie said. “I know these people and if I can convince them that they’re terrorizing a house full of helpless women, maybe I can shame them into going home.”

  We argued back and forth about the validity of that idea until the debate was halted by the sound of the rear door slamming. A moment later Ginny McCready came rushing up the stairs, blonde braids flapping behind her.

  “Ginny! I told you to stay with Cassandra,” Lizzie scolded.

  “No, Mama,” the girl protested, clutching her mother’s calico skirt. “I’m staying with you.”

  “They’re here,” Pandora said. “The master and what looks like a goodly portion of what’s left of Savannah’s white trash.”

  Lizzie marched out onto the porch at the end of the hall and Michael and I moved as far forward as the sun would allow, trying to see what was going on. At any other time of day this end of the hall would have been shaded, but the morning sun shone directly on the front of the house. Claire, Pandora, and Ginny stood just inside the doors, watching as Lizzie marched up to the railing and put her hands on her hips.

  “Mr. Boucher,” Lizzie called down to him, “none of you have any business being on this island. What’s the meaning of this?”

  I hardly recognized Adrien; he looked as though he’d aged ten years since I’d last seen him. His Confederate uniform was dirty and rumpled and he had at least a week’s growth of whiskers on his face. His normally impeccably combed hair was greasy and disheveled, as if he’d been tugging at it in frustration. Gone was the slick gentleman and in his place stood a man who appeared almost rabid. That was worrisome enough, but the torches and guns he and the other men carried made it doubly so.

  “Lizzie,” Boucher said in greeting. “Word in Savannah is that your husband’s no longer Kenneway’s overseer.”

  Of course, I thought. The men who delivered the seed would have noticed McCready’s rather conspicuous absence.

  “And what business is that of yours, Mr. Boucher?” Lizzie asked.

  There was a pause and then Adrien said, “Well, none, but I’d sure like to know where he is.”

  “Then that makes two of us,” Lizzie replied. “He’s probably laid up in some whorehouse in Charleston. Or maybe Yankee gunboats got him. All I know for sure is that he left this island over a week ago and I’ve not seen hide nor hair of him since.”

  “Really?” Boucher said with a smile. “I see the island’s boat is tied up at the dock. Exactly how did he leave, Lizzie? He fly away like a bird? Because me and these men are thinking that witch Cin Craven killed him and drank his blood in one of those black sabbaths Reverend Simmons is always warning us about.”

  Lizzie laughed. “You all know Robert McCready. Now, you tell me whether it’s more likely that he was killed by a witch than it is that he just plain ran off on his wife and children.”

  There was some murmuring from the mob that perhaps Miss Lizzie had a point.

  “When you’ve got some sort of proof that someone on this island harmed my husband in any way,” she added, “you come back with the proper authorities. Until then, you men should be ashamed of yourselves, coming out here and harassing innocent women and children this way. Douglas Foreman—yes, I see you back there—I know your mama raised you better than this.”

  “Don’t listen to her,” Boucher shouted to the men. “If she’s really innocent, then why doesn’t Cin Craven come out here and tell me that herself?”

  Oh, he was just loving this, the bastard.

  “I’ll tell you why, because she’s so evil she can’t even walk in the light of day or God will strike her down,” he extolled. “As good Christians, should we let something like that defile our land? Let her come out or let her burn for the witch she is. We’re doing God’s will here, boys. We shall not suffer a witch to live!”

  “This isn’t working,” Evangeline hissed in my ear. “Do something before that lunatic burns down my house!”

  There were rumblings from the other men, a few shouts of “amen” and a general consensus that if I wouldn’t come outside, they’d be duty-bound to burn me out. It always amazed me how normal, rational people could get caught up in this sort of insanity. But humans do love a mob, and a mob is not the vampire’s friend.

  Visions of what had happened to witches in the Burning Times floated through my head. Men, women, and even children who had been accused of witchcraft had been horribly tortured and then drowned, hanged, or burned at the stake. I clenched my teeth, and it suddenly occurred to me that I was no longer worried . . . I was very, very angry.

  “You send her out here, Lizzie, or you’re not gonna like what happens next,” Boucher informed her. A rousing cheer followed this which only infuriated me further.

  Who did these men think they were, anyway? Other than their guns and their inflated egos, what made them think they could come onto my property and threaten my people? I was the Red Witch of the Righteous and I would not be cornered and trapped by a bunch of “white trash,” as Pandora had called them.

  Pandora felt it, the rise of my magic, and turned to me. Michael saw the look on her face and he grasped my hand.

  “Cin,” he said, “your eyes. I know you think you have control of this now but that hasn’t actually been tested. We can get away with McCready disappearing, we might even be able to get away with Boucher’s death, but if something goes wrong and you kill fifteen men you’ll have the entire city of Savannah out here on this island with guns and torches.”

  “Don’t worry, darling,” I said confidently. “I’m not going to kill anyone. I’m just going to make very certain that no one else will ever have the guts to set foot on this island uninvited again. Lizzie,” I called to her. “Tell them I’ll come out, and then you get inside where it’s safe.”

  “You can’t go out there,” Michael protested. “The sun! You’ll burn!”

  I squeezed his hand. “Have a little faith, dear.”

  Claire and Pandora grabbed Ginny’s hands and moved quickly to stand behind Michael. When Lizzie was inside I closed my eyes and focused my energy. For the first time the black magic wasn’t something entirely separate from the white. Oh, I could feel the difference. It wasn’t a blending; my magic would never be gray. It was more like mixing oil and water in a jar. Eventually it would separate and the light would rise to the surface while the darkness settled back into that shadowy place deep inside me.

  But at the moment I intended to shake the jar, and see what happened.

  CHAPTER 48

  The wind picked up, rushing with an eerie sigh down the oak-lined drive from the dock. The Spanish moss began to sway like ghosts in the tree branches and the breeze scattered fallen Magnolia leaves among the men’s feet like scurrying rats. Thick black clouds rolled in from the sea, tumbling over each other in a rush to claim the sky from the sun. Soon the entire island was cloaked in darkness.

  I stepped out on to the balcony in my gold tissue gown with its wide skirts, my scarlet hair spilling down my back like a fall of rubies. Contemptuously I looked down on the men below. The black magic could feel their fear, and that pleased me.

  “Where the hell did this storm come from?” one whispered.

  “Boucher said the sun can’t touch her,” said another.

  “Reckon a handmaiden of Satan would really be wearing a big ol’ cross around her neck like that?” asked a third.

  “Gentlemen,” I said coldly. “You are trespassing.”

  “What did you do to Robert McCready?” someone at the back of the crowd was brave enough to shout.

&n
bsp; “She killed him, that’s what she did,” Boucher announced.

  “ ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.’ That man would not be you, Adrien,” I responded. “Gentlemen, you see before you a man who murdered his wife and attempted to murder me, my husband, and my cousin. I’m not the one who should be the focus of your misguided justice.”

  “Can handmaidens of Satan quote the Holy Scripture?” someone whispered.

  “You don’t reckon he really did all that, do you?” came another voice from the crowd.

  “She’s a witch!” Boucher shouted. “How else do you explain how the sky turns from day to night in a matter of minutes? She must burn! It is God’s will!”

  “You don’t give a badger’s ass about God or His will, Adrien Boucher,” I spat. “All you want is vengeance because I took something from you that you didn’t want to give up.” I placed my hands on the iron railing and leaned forward. Very slowly, so that they all understood, I said, “Gentlemen, I’ll let you in on a little secret. I am a witch and I have claimed this island. Everyone on it is under my protection. Now, I would suggest that you all leave my property . . . and don’t ever come back.”

  “Ha! She admits it!” Adrien shouted. Then he took his torch and pitched it like a javelin at the balcony.

  I held my hand up and it exploded in mid air, raining shards of wood and glowing embers down in front of the mob.

  “Don’t make me tell you again,” I stated coldly.

  With that several men turned and ran, but my little show of force only spurred the others on. A flash of gray caught my peripheral vision and I turned to see Michael vault over the railing, landing like a cat on the ground below.