The Crone's Stone Page 12

dropped his gaze briefly. She clasped his wrist, unconcerned by the blood smearing her skin. Once his resistance broke, Raphaela continued to raise his arm and closely inspect the mangled tract. Her copper hair swung with the movement. Seth seemed unaccustomed to such gentleness, shifting awkwardly in his chair. His focus drifted back to her, where it didn’t stray from her large russet eyes.

  “You cannot die?” She peered down at him with undisguised sympathy.

  He seemed dazed, the intake of his breath sharp. “Not while she lives. Finding ingenious ways to murder myself does make for a vigorous hobby though.”

  Raphaela smiled shyly. “You help me and I will help you gain release.”

  “You offer me death?” His cheeks flushed and he sat forward, bringing the two even closer together. “That is not possible. The Crone is invincible while her Stone exists. Her Stone cannot be destroyed. So, you see, your kind offer is void.”

  “I think I have found a way. Only one Keeper remains once my time is spent. She will fail without help.”

  “You punish me worse than the stinking hag, making promises you cannot keep.” The hope in Seth’s countenance drained and he sat back. He pulled his arm free of her grasp, scrubbing his hand through lank locks.

  “If death is what you wish, I shall grant it. I hope to change your mind, however.” She spoke briskly. “Come! We must move quickly, before she perceives where you are.”

  “Wait!” Seth lunged to seize her slim wrist in an odd reversal of moments ago. “Tell me first why you are doing this. What’s in it for you?”

  She turned back to him. “Must there be something in it for me, aside from ridding the world once and for all of the Crone?”

  “If my association with her cult of Anathema has taught me anything, it is that motives are seldom selfless. It is the oldest and the best cliché: everyone has a price.”

  “Anathema.” Raphaela shuddered in disgust. “Their downfall shall be my greatest pleasure. One amongst many, if we succeed.” She noticed that he still held her arm, coiling her fingers about his forearm and fixing him with an intense gaze. “My price is a child of my own.”

  Seth lurched to his feet, scant millimetres between them. He towered over her, his fist tightening to crush her flesh. “That cannot be the price! You cannot ask that of me! The cost is too high.”

  “Once she claims the Stone, a Keeper is barren. You are the only one with the gift to prevail against the curse,” Raphaela persisted, covering her earlier fear well.

  “I will not see another child dead because of my actions. I refuse! It is no bargain to bring an infant into a world devoid of loving parents, who are incapable of opposing the all-powerful Crone. And the child could never survive her jealous rage. Nowhere on earth would offer safety.”

  “I believe, together, we shall provide our child security beyond the reach of the Crone. And given time, maybe even loving parents.”

  “What?” he whispered. He stared down at her with deep suspicion. She stared back, her demeanour adamant. A look of yearning gradually replaced his fierce expression. “How?”

  “Come with me. Trust me, Seth. And I will show you. What do you have to lose?” She swept her available arm to encompass his trashed lounge. “This?”

  Seth realised he still grasped her hard, letting go but remaining close. Pale fingerprints marred her skin in a ring about her forearm. He touched her cheek tenderly with bloodied fingertips. “If you can do even part of what you say, I promise not to kill you.”

  “Good. Time is of the essence. Anathema are closing in on you and we need to reach Louisiana before the Crone comprehends you are truly missing from her mind’s eye.”

  “You can make me vanish that completely?” Seth still appeared doubtful.

  Raphaela smiled, confidently this time. “I am the Keeper. I can conceal anything from anyone.” She offered him her hand once more and he took it gladly.

  “Up, thank you, Winnie. We need to get ready for the judge’s exhibition.”

  By the time I roused to Bea fussing in my room, evening had fallen. I rolled over and gave her my back, stalling in the hopes of understanding what I’d just seen. My great-aunt’s creepy story had contaminated my brain, which wildly embroidered details in my sleep.

  But I had to admit these were like no dreams I’d ever experienced. They resembled a movie piecing together a complete narrative in flashback, rather than the disjointed scraps typical of slumber. Or maybe it was the repressed memory of an event I’d observed happening to someone else in the past, which had finally seeped into consciousness. Of course, that was a stupid theory. Why any of this occurred or how it was relevant to me, I could not guess.

  This latest episode gave me the start of Seth and Raphaela’s story, their first meeting. The middle – shown to me on the limousine ride from the airport to the warehouse – explained how he’d broken cover to save the drowning boy and in so doing, had exposed them both to their enemy. But what of the ending? I knew it would not be a happy one and was beginning to dread to sleep.

  Bea rattled purposefully around in the ensuite. “Winnie, please! We do not want to be late.”

  “It doesn’t bother me,” I mumbled, pleased at the idea my dawdling would make the night shorter. I dragged myself up and perched on the edge of my bed, rubbing tired eyes.

  The witch demon was clearly someone to be avoided at all costs. And I knew the true biblical meaning of the word Raphaela and Seth kept mentioning. It was from Corinthians – anathema: a thing devoted to evil. I’d studied a copy of Papyrus 46 from the New Testament in Bea’s collection. The pair used it in a weird context though, as if referring to a group or sect.

  And apparently Raphaela was the famed Keeper from my reading this morning. Was I really this open to suggestion? The whole thing made me very nervous. I decided not to devote more of my mental processes to a silly fable. There were other problems to manage, like how to get through the torture of an evening at Judge Smith’s. I stood with a resigned sigh, heading for the bathroom before Aunt Bea exercised her newly discovered shouting voice.

  “Please, Aunt Bea!” I begged a short while later, trying to moderate the whine and failing. She fastened a choker of diamonds around my stinging neck in preparation for our evening out, too gracious to comment on my sunburn. “I’ll be as tame as a drugged rabbit. Can we just leave Hugo behind?”

  “I’ve requested subtlety. You won’t even know he’s there, Winnie.”

  My scepticism was evident in the ensuite mirrors. “Why is a bodyguard necessary at all? You’ve not received a kidnap threat, or something, have you?”

  “As I’ve said—”

  “Yeah, yeah! Visiting dignitary and so forth.”

  “Mrs Paget will straighten your hair while I dress.”

  I didn’t even earn a rebuke for my rudeness. It was all too weird and if I thought about it for too long, a grinding headache resulted. I was already sufficiently uncomfortable: teetering on stilettos, sheathed in a pale-pink pencil skirt made of satin and split up the back to offer limited movement, topped off with a delicate lace and silk spaghetti-strapped camisole in the same shade. Chiffon frills drifted like feathers with the slightest breeze. The way the outfit clung to my curves, highlighting naked flesh through gauze, did not impress. I wasn’t a prude. I simply didn’t like to be overly noticed. Bea appraised my front with a satisfied nod and left.

  Twisting to catch a view from behind in the floor-to-ceiling mirror, I grimaced at material hugging my rear like clingwrap over mangoes. I would have preferred plums. In my opinion, designers of formalwear were the modern equivalent of the Marquis de Sade, shoemakers of anything but thongs, especially brutal. Not that Bea approved entirely of thongs or of most things rubber for that matter. Apparently, this particular colour complimented my skin tone and green eyes, such a consensus too rare to fight.

  “You look simply radiant, Winsome.” Fortescue surprised me by departing from his standard reserve, as I tottered for the warehouse front door.


  There was something different about my guardians this evening; their emotions were showing. Mrs Paget and Fortescue occupied the landing with the cats, smiling like proud parents farewelling me to the graduation ball. Their behaviour was so over-enthused, a pinned corsage and teary speech would not seem out of the question.

  We made it across the laneway, regardless of my walking impediment. Bea looked classy in a pewter metallic shift and pumps. She offered the stability of her arm and for a moment, her health seemed improved. But then I realised the glowing charade was the deft use of cosmetics. Hugo’s combo consisted of the usual army fashion, gussied-up with a black jacket the size of the circus Big Top.

  After a hostile scan of the judge’s plants hedging the walkway, as though they could attack at any second, Hugo swiped a keycard through the scanner at the glassed-in entrance to the Smiths’ residence. He jabbed the code into the digit pad. Like Aunt Bea, the judge also had many valuable collectables. Other guests had temporary access to his place, but ours was unlimited. The entire bottom floor of the building was devoted to an Olympic-sized swimming pool and I frequently swam laps there.

  The judge’s son, Vegas, had taught me how to swim – under the watchful gaze of Fortescue, naturally – when we first moved here. I was eleven, he was twelve. Smithy also taught me to fight, stopping the torture by the bullies infesting