Free Something Wicked by Evelyn Vaughn Page A

up, if it hadn’t been found by now?

    I felt dizzy. Sound seemed distant. Images weren’t focusing. This wasn’t real. Damn it, I’d cursed him!

    But I’d also cursed myself.

    “Ms. Trillo?” said someone through the mist. Like on a time delay, I belatedly turned. Then I felt more confusion, to be standing so close. Ben…?

    But—suit. Gelled hair. Absolute poise.

    It wasn’t Ben.

    “I just wanted to assure you that there are no hard feelings,” said Victor, loudly enough that the waiting reporters could hear. “You’ve suffered a terrible loss, I know how that can distort a person’s perceptions. Good luck finding your sister’s real killer.”

    He sounded so very sincere. He even offered his hand.

    I didn’t take it.

    “I’ll be raising a cup to her memory,” Victor assured me softly with a dimpling smile, and held my gaze just long enough to make sure I got it before he turned away, into the arms of his lying girlfriend and the back-slapping, cheering company of his colleagues.

    Raising a cup? A goddess cup, maybe?

    “Why did you take it?” I demanded, loudly enough that he would hear me. “Nothing was worth her life. What could you have wanted with some stupid chalice?”

    But Victor and his lawyer friends exchanged confused, damn, she is crazy looks, and kept going.

    He thought he’d won. He had literally gotten away with murder, and there was no real justice in this world…

    Unless I wielded it.

    A deadly calm overcame me, then. I’m sure I managed a few “No comments” to the press who crowded around me as Aunt Maria and I left the courthouse. I must have responded to whatever comforting things my aunt was telling me, on the way to my car, or she would never have let me leave alone. Apparently I managed to drive without breaking laws or hurting anyone.

    But inside, I was planning darkest magics.

    So being witches hurt our credibility? I’d show them a witch! What good was it to reconnect with my magical heritage if I couldn’t even avenge my murdered sister? Maybe I’d botched the first curse—it had felt damned powerful at the time, but how else could Victor have gotten off? This time I had a better idea what I was doing. This time, I would use the right name, I would use the right ingredients.

    Hekate was Queen of the Underworld? Good. Then I would call down on Victor’s head all the powers of hell.

    I’ll use my own blood, I thought, taking the closest available parking spot to my house, in front of Mr. Lane’s. I’ll use the little ring of braided hair Diana gave me, that time she donated hers to Locks of Love. I’ll use the black candles in her magic cabinet. I’ll cut one of the pictures of Victor out of the newspaper, so that every bit of horror falls directly onto him, him, him.

    And if I have to take the magical backlash?

    Bring it on.

    I barely noticed that it had started to snow again, a light dusting of white across the sidewalk and the yards. I was too busy ignoring the tiny voices protesting my plans.

    One voice sounded like Nonna’s. The Goddess is not ours to be ordered about. But Nonna had also said that we were Hers. And if that was the case, why wouldn’t Hekate want to make Victor Fisher suffer for the destruction of Her priestess? Hekate wasn’t known for her sweetness and light. She would probably welcome the invitation to rain misfortune down on Victor’s head.

    Another voice sounded like Diana’s. Victor Fisher would have killed you if you hadn’t stopped him. But this time isn’t about self-defense. It’s about revenge. To which my answer was, Yeah, it is. I’d tried playing by the rules, letting the Fates couch our revenge in the no-real-justice system, and it hadn’t worked. Now he would reckon with me.

    The whole damned world had turned out to be a place where evil thrived. So why the hell not join it?

    But as I headed up my front walk, a third voice—one I didn’t recognize—said simply, “Circle to