Read Online Spellcasters by Kelley Armstrong - Free Book Online Page B

to torch the neighborhood.
    As I stepped onto the porch, I saw the candle clearly and my breath caught. It was in the shape of a human hand, each fingertip glowing with a tiny flame. The Hand of Glory. This went beyond an innocent child’s prank. Whoever did this knew something about the occult and had a very sick turn of mind.
    I marched toward the candle. As I snatched it up, my fingers clamped down, not on hard wax, but cold flesh. I yelped and jerked back, throwing the thing to the ground below. A flame flared and a puff of smoke billowed up. I raced down the steps and grabbed the hand, but again, as I touched the icy flesh, my brain balked and I dropped it.
    Lights flickered in Miss Harris’s house. I dropped to my knees, hiding the hand from view, and whacked at the small fire burning through dead grass clippings that Savannah had shoved under the porch. The flames singed my palm. I stifled a yelp and kept smacking the pile until the fire was out.
    Then I closed my eyes, caught my breath, and turned to look at the thing lying in the grass. It was a severed hand, skin grayish brown, a nub of sawed bone sticking from the bottom, the flesh wrinkled and stinking of preservatives. Each finger had been coated in wax and fitted with a wick.
    “The Hand of Glory.”
    I jumped and saw Savannah leaning over the railing.
    “Is Miss Harris watching?” I whispered.
    Savannah glanced across the road. “She’s looking through her blinds, but all she can see is your butt sticking up in the air.”
    “Go inside and get me something to wrap it in.”
    A moment later, Savannah tossed me a hand towel. One of my good hand towels. I hesitated, then bundled the hand. This wasn’t the time for worrying about linen. Any minute now Miss Harris would venture onto her porch for a better look.
    “Must be the sorcerer,” Savannah said. “Leah wouldn’t know how to make one of those. Is it preserved or dried?”
    I didn’t answer. I stood, hands trembling around the bundle. Savannah reached over the railing for it. Motioning her back into the house, I hurried up the steps.
    Once inside, I shoved the towel-wrapped hand under the kitchen sink, then ran to the bathroom and turned on the hot water full blast. Savannah came in as I was scrubbing.
    “I’ll bury it later,” I said.
    “Maybe we should keep it,” Savannah said. “They’re tough to make, you know.”
    “No, I wouldn’t know,” I snapped.
    Silence.
    Through the mirror, I saw Savannah behind me, her expression unreadable, eyes shuttered.
    “I didn’t mean—” I began.
    “I know what you meant,” she said, then turned, went into her room and shut the door. Not slamming it, just closing it softly behind her.
    The Hand of Glory is a thief’s tool. According to legend, it’s supposed to keep the occupants of a house asleep. Criminal, to be sure, but neither harmful nor dangerous. So was Leah planning to break into my place tonight? If so, why leave the hand on my porch railing in midevening? Or did she just put the macabre candle there to attract attention and cause more trouble for me? That also didn’t make sense. By placing it outside my front window, chances seemed good that I’d see it first and get rid of it before anyone noticed.
    I lay in bed, trying to figure out Leah’s motivation, but all I could think about was the hand itself, wrapped under my sink. The stink of it seemed to permeate the house. The feel of the cold flesh clung to my fingers despite my having scrubbed them raw. I couldn’t shake the memory of touching it, couldn’t forget it was still in my house, couldn’t stop worrying about how to dispose of it. I was spooked. And maybe that, after all, was Leah’s goal.
    I’d set my alarm for two A.M ., but I needn’t have bothered with the alarm. I didn’t sleep, only lay there, counting the minutes. At one-thirty, I decided it was late enough.

C HAPTER 7
I NITIATE P HASE T WO
    I covered my silk chemise with the matching kimono before