Words of Power (Alice Gray Book 3)

17

When I was certain that he was gone, I peeked out of a tiny hole in the duvet, not really wanting to face the guys even though they'd helped me quash the influence of the bond that tied me to Thomas.

A bright green eyeball met mine through the little hole in my blanket mountain, so close that our eyelashes brushed. I jumped out of my skin, heart pounding in my chest. I scurried out of the bed as Anne laughed uproariously and the men chuckled along from behind.

"What the hell?" I shouted, more annoyed with myself than Anne. I hadn't even remembered that she arrived at the same time as Thomas.

"Time to get up, lazy bones. We've got stuff to do," Anne practically sang at me, her red curls bouncing round her shoulders as though her physical form could barely contain her exuberance.

"Can't I even have a minute to let my brain catch up with my shitstorm of a relationship status?"

"No," all of them said, a chorus of mockery focused on my tragic love-life.

Bastards.

"I guess this means that your trip back to Sheffield was productive? Who was driving the ship when you got there?"

It might seem like an odd question, but Hazel, the leader of the Northern Coven, was not entirely in control of her body these days. She'd allowed the spirit of my great-granny Evelyn Gray into her psyche to help out when the coven was under attack and Evelyn wasn't keen to return from whence she came.

Great-granny was a previous coven leader, and, even as a spirit, she was more powerful than most of the witches alive today. Including Hazel, which is why she hadn't been sent back by force.

They were scared of her.

So was I for that matter.

Evelyn Gray practiced blood magic. A shudder rippled over my skin leaving goosebumps in its wake, reminding me of the secret that I was keeping from the others. Hazy childhood memories of incense filled rooms and coppery smells told me that great-granny wasn't the only practitioner of the dark arts in the Gray family.

My mother had used those spells too. Rusty little poppets made from hair and dyed with blood had been sewn into my clothes and hidden in my pockets ever since I could remember. Stiff little figures reeking of my mother and me, hiding our magic, keeping us safe. I'd been ignorant at the time, a child accepting her mother's quirks as normal because that's all I'd known. But I knew all about that magic now, the power of family, of blood and death.

Evelyn was hanging around because she saw that something coming. Something big and violent, with sharp teeth and crimson eyes. A war between vampires and witches. She wanted to weigh the odds in the coven's favour when doomsday arrived by teaching me her spells. The magic of death. Blood magic. It was only the upcoming trial that had put her off, but my time away from coven life was running out.

I swallowed the lump in my throat, the coppery taste of my childhood memories lingering in the back of my throat.

"It's so hard to tell between them now, they're both stone cold bitches," Anne said, inspecting her nails in an attitude of bravado that wasn't fooling anyone.

"If you had to guess?" I said, banishing all impending disasters other than the one that was looming the closest: the trial.

"They helped me with the written charms, so I guess it must have been Evelyn in the captain's seat."

"They did?" Evan asked, brows raised in surprise, a cloud of suspicion drifting through his sky blue eyes.

"Yeah, in return for a detailed report on the goings on in chintz central."

"I'll bet. What exactly did you tell them?"

"Just that the black sheep of the Gray family was taking daily beatings from the magistrate and that I was needed back ASAP to fix her face from the next one."

"Thanks," I said, my glower making Anne giggle. "What did you get for your loyalty? Did you find the written charm that Jennet used?"

Anne produced a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket with a wide smile. Her golden life-force hummed strongly around her, showing me how pleased she was with her findings.

A spark of hope popped to life at my core.
I grabbed it out of her hand and practically sprinted to the coffee table. Straightening the paper out, I sat back with a thud as disappointment doused the fragile ember of optimism that had bloomed inside me.

"What the hell is this?" I asked, unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice.

"Look more closely, Alice. See the lines of text here, these are the words to the White Paternoster," Anne said, her squeaky excitement irritating me out of any semblance of patience.

"But that's not going to be enough. We've tried every combination of those words. The prayer will disrupt power but it's not going to subdue a courtroom of the country's most powerful paranormal individuals, not to mention the DPA agents."

"But that's not all. See how it's written. The first lines follow the shape of a triangle."

I watched as Anne traced the rough outline of the shape that I hadn't even noticed. As her finger moved around the three identical sides of the triangle my heart slowed, each beat deep and heavy. The thrum of my life-force vibrated over my skin, breaking the bounds that I had used to hide it from Thomas.

It was only when she'd traced the full outline that the paper started to glow.

That's when I saw it.

The congregation of words in the centre of the triangle had just looked like a messy clump before. Now it had a definite shape.

Glowing in gold and crimson particles, a shimmering eye winked at me from the paper.

But will it be enough to save Alice? Read on ...