Black Hat, White Witch

by Edwards, Hailey

  A parent might worry Colby was too plugged in for her own good, but I wasn’t her mom. I was more like the fun aunt, the one who fed her niece too much sugar, bought her too many expensive toys, and let her stay up too late. I was just grateful technology had reached a point where she could experience any sort of normalcy to count the hours she spent glued to her computer screen.

  Standing a good foot away from the white picket fence, Asa waited for me with a smoothie in hand.

  “The man at the counter told me this was your usual.” He offered it to me when I joined him outside the wards. “After quizzing me on how I knew you, what my intentions were, and when I was leaving.”

  “Thanks.” I accepted the bribe, a godsend since I didn’t eat at breakfast. “And don’t take it personally.”

  “It’s not just me?”

  “Barry still asks me when I’m going back where I came from. I thought it meant he wanted me gone, but his wife assured me it’s his way.” I took a sip and had to admit, Asa was sly. “These things have too much sugar to qualify as healthy, but I do love a good strawberry, banana, pineapple smoothie.”

  We got in the SUV, which smelled of earthy tobacco and apples, and I spotted his pink drink.

  “I wasn’t sure what to try, so I got the same as you.”

  “What did you think?” I checked the fill line. “Have you tried it yet?”

  “It’s very sweet.” He cranked the engine and started toward the main road. “The cold bothers me.”

  “Daemons prefer scalding coffee as black as damned souls?”

  While he had ordered a cuppa Joe for breakfast, it also served as a dig about how others viewed his kind as Hell-dwelling, fire-pit-bathing, virgin-sacrificing, soul-eating minions of a red-pajama-clad dude named Satan.

  Okay, so maybe I was still a smidge bitter his first impression of me was I kept Colby around as a snack.

  “I ought to know better than to judge based on race, caste, or religion.” He paused. “I apologize.”

  Gender and sexuality tended to be more flexible with long-lived beings, but he nailed the sticking points.

  “You did come on strong.” I set my drink in the empty holder. “Not that I blame you.”

  I had earned my reputation. He was right to believe the worst of me. I would have in his place.

  “I shouldn’t have been so quick to accuse you. Daemons have their own reputation to overcome.”

  Like they weren’t demons. Demons weren’t real. Or that they came from Hell. Hell didn’t exist. Hael did.

  “We don’t have to kiss and make up.” I stared out the window. “This is one job, not a partnership.”

  “Things will go smoother if we get along.”

  “Does Clay actually need help? Or did you lure me away for the chance to smooth things over?”

  “The agent Clay went to back up was crushed to death by the dryad. She beat her to a pulp.”

  “Did you hear that pop?” I faked searching the cab. “I think that was the sound of my ego deflating.”

  Subtle tension clenched his fingers where they gripped the wheel. “Did you want me to get you alone?”

  Reaching for my drink, I pulled up short. “Did you want me to want you to get me alone?”

  The two cups were identical, so were their contents. Only their fullness levels had distinguished them.

  As I tended to gulp down my breakfast of choice, I expected to be slurping air, but there was plenty left.

  That was odd, but I had been paying more attention to him than my drink, so maybe I miscalculated?

  Just because he ate my pancakes after I passed on them didn’t mean he switched our drinks. “No.”

  The inner debate over my sanity lent my voice an undecided quality, which earned me a thoughtful look.

  This was ridiculous. There was nothing hinky going on here. But…was that a dare glinting in his eyes?

  Picking up the drink from the holder nearest to me, I took a cautious sip, barely enough to taste.

  When that didn’t kill me, I held a big gulp on my tongue, letting it dissolve as I waited for any weirdness.

  “Brain freeze?”

  A quick swallow to clear my mouth made that true. “Yeah.”

  Without glancing down, he palmed the other cup and drank slowly. “I’m starting to like this flavor.”

  Certain he hadn’t spiked my drink with a truth spell or a worse additive, I settled in for the ride.

  Not long after, he pulled onto a winding dirt road with nothing but trees for miles.

  “What caused this dryad to go off the rails?” I sat up to pay attention. “They’re usually pretty chill.”

  “The paperwork says pollution in the water supply where she sprouted caused a psychotic break, but it’s rare for a dryad to land on our radar. As you said, they’re pretty chill. They don’t cause problems.”

  “Do you have the file on you?”

  For a beat, Asa drummed his fingers on the wheel. “It’s on the floorboard behind my seat.”

  Clay, who couldn’t fit shotgun easily, must have left it back there when he finished reading.

  “This says magical pollution.” I skimmed for more details. “It doesn’t say what kind. That’s important, right?”

  “No one expected this to escalate. Another case of allowing preconceived notions to color expectation.”

  The bulk of the vehicle made parking fun, assuming we wanted to get out again without requiring a tow.

  The SUV Clay had arrived in was nowhere in sight, which puzzled me, but there were other roads.

  “Are you armed?” Asa reached into the console to retrieve his service weapon. “Or do you need to be?”

  The modified Glock used ensorcelled rounds that blasted magical shrapnel throughout a target’s body.

  “I’m good.” I patted the leather pouch. “I brought my own firepower.”

  Interest sparked in his eyes before he slid out his door onto the grass. Interest in my magic. Not in me.

  After giving his drink the stink eye, I joined him in the field and did a thing I rarely did these days.

  I drew my wand.

  The length of twisted wood resembled a crooked finger and had come from the magnolia tree that grew above my mother’s grave. Most wands required an emotional link to infuse the carved base with power.

  For white witches, it was a familial element. For black witches, it was a link to an important death.

  For me, it was both those things. I hadn’t traded wands when I changed disciplines. Mine covered both.

  A steady thumping noise drew us deeper into the woods, where all suspicion Asa had ulterior motives in bringing me along vanished as we discovered the spot where the agent in charge of this retrieval lost her life.

  Death didn’t bother me. I had caused too much of it to be squeamish. But this was a bad way to go.

  The killing blow crushed the woman’s skull. The dryad had decided to smash her brain to jelly for funsies.

  I squatted next to the body, as if there could be any doubt the woman was dead, and there it was…

  A tingle along my senses that alerted me to the presence of power ripe for harvesting.

  Her heart was intact, and like an addict jonesing for a hit, I salivated as I stared at her chest.

  “Clay must be over there.”

  On a breath that was part mercy and part desperation, I murmured a spell and touched the wand to her.

  The body incinerated in a fever-bright rush of magic pulled straight from my core, leaving fine white dust that would scatter on the winds, lifting her soul to whatever afterlife she believed in.

  And, most importantly, destroying her heart before I cheated on my diet.

  A warm hand rested on my shoulder, and that touch made it easier to shake off my mood and rise.

  “Thank you for that.” Asa made a gesture at his navel that reminded me of a Catholic signing the cross.

  “We all deserve last rites.” Pitiful as they might be. “Let’s f
ind Clay.”

  Golem or not, Clay had his breaking point. We had to reach him before a rabbi was required for repairs.

  A steady thump, thump, thump guided us straight to him, and the dryad.

  The nature spirit had inhabited a rotting pecan tree, but that didn’t limit her reach. The roots had ripped from the earth, leaving them to slither across the dirt in search of anchors for when it swatted at a foe it was having trouble pulping.

  Clay might not be fast, but he moved well, and he was tough.

  “Need help?” I kept a safe distance from the tree. “Or is this a con job to get us to do the work for you?”

  A turn of his head revealed the far side of his face. “Shish look like a con shob to you?”

  Had he been anything other than golem, he would have been dead. The first blow might not have done it, but it would have put him on the ground, and that was the last place you wanted to be during a fight.

  An inch to the left, and she would have destroyed his shem, leaving her with a clay statue to pummel.

  From the corner of my eye, I spotted a black SUV up a tree and wondered if she smacked him with it.

  “I can take her down,” Asa said from beside me, “but it won’t be pretty.”

  “I haven’t done the white witch thing in the field,” I confessed with a twinge of embarrassment, because honesty with your partner, even a temporary one, kept you both alive that much longer. “I might need a helping hand once I expel the dryad from the tree.”

  “I’m right here.” Hearing Asa say so shouldn’t have made a difference, but it did.

  I didn’t trust Asa. To be fair, I didn’t know him. But I trusted how Clay behaved toward him.

  A direct order could force him to vouch for Asa with me, but it couldn’t make him like the guy.

  Clay didn’t give nicknames to people he didn’t like. Well, okay, nicknames used in the person’s presence.

  “Here goes nothing,” I muttered under my breath. “Wand, don’t fail me now.”

  A black witch had power in proportion to the amount of magic she consumed, aka hearts eaten.

  A white witch had spells, charms, or potions from her spell kit, made in advance, and her own essence.

  If I swaggered into the ring bent on reliving my glory days, more like gory days, I would KO myself.

  Prowling closer to the enraged pecan tree, I let Clay do the hard work of distracting the dryad while I got in position behind her. The downside of using a wand was the fact it required contact with its target. The flick-your-wrist spell-slinging in movies was wishful thinking. Wands were conduits for power and intent. I had to mentally prep a spell and then make a conscious choice to unleash it on someone or something.

  The wand was thirteen inches long, which meant I had to get close. Handy as a cloaking spell would have been right about now, I couldn’t risk expending my power willy-nilly until I rediscovered my limits.

  I was out of practice sneaking, but I crept in until three feet separated me from the splintering trunk.

  “Black witch,” the dryad spat. “I smell the death caked on your soul.”

  A limb wider than my waist swept in an arc that almost knocked my head off my shoulders.

  “You’re no better than I am.” I dove into a roll. “I saw your handiwork a few minutes ago.”

  “You’re wrong.” Blistering rage shook her leaves. “I’m not like you.”

  A hard yank on my ankle dumped me on the ground. A rootlet was hauling me within killing range.

  Gathering my will, I pushed power from my core into the wand then struck the hairy root with its tip.

  Smoke sizzled down its length, gaining speed as it ran up the trunk like reverse lightning, cooking the old limbs and charring the dead leaves.

  A scream rang out as a pale blur was expelled from the tree. The creature sat up, blinked her wide green eyes, then hooked her fingers into claws and charged me. The dress she wore glittered hot with embers.

  Blinking away gold spots in my vision, I readied my wand, prepped a spell, and hoped it wouldn’t kill me.

  “Oh, shit.”

  That was Clay. Definitely Clay. But I couldn’t see him.

  Probably because my body gave up and fell sideways like a sack of potatoes.

  One more spell was all I needed, but nope. I was out of juice and out of luck.

  A bestial roar vibrated through the ground under my cheek, but whatever made it could take a number.

  The line to eviscerate me was forming behind the rabid dryad.

  A creature taller than Clay, from this perspective, stepped over me to stand between me and the dryad.

  I don’t know what compelled me to inch a hand forward until I could brush a fingertip down the back of its nearest ankle. A head injury, maybe. The skin was dark red, feverish to the touch, but black rosettes made stunning patterns over its heel. The creature tensed under my touch, torquing its muscular upper body to inspect what I was doing and whether or not I meant it harm.

  The bones of its face had shifted when he did, widening his cheeks and forehead, but it was Asa.

  Thick black horns curled from his temples back over his head, and his hair had come undone. There were miles of it. Black silk. I would have reached for that too if I had the strength, but I couldn’t get my fingers to twitch, let alone my arm to rise.

  He was still staring down at me with those burnt-crimson eyes when the dryad smacked into him. A low growl of annoyance curled his lip, revealing thick fangs, and he returned his focus to subduing her. There wasn’t any doubt in my mind the dryad was beyond saving. Even if she were salvageable, the director would put her down for the death of a Black Hat agent.

  Knowing both those things, I gasped when Asa punched his fist into her chest and ripped out her heart.

  And I recoiled when he offered it to me on his wide palm like a gift…or a snack.

  “Eat,” he rumbled, blood dripping through his fingers. “Heal.”

  “Ace,” Clay warned, his speech much improved, “that’s not how she rolls anymore.”

  “Eat,” Asa insisted. “Heal.”

  “No,” I whispered as my eyelids lowered. “No.”

  I had come too far to fall back on old habits now.

  5

  A hard bump jostled me awake, and I murmured, “No jumping on the bed.”

  For a moth, Colby had surprising heft. She probably weighed a good ten pounds.

  “Rue?” A warm hand cradled my cheek. “How do you feel?”

  The touch flung my eyes wide open, and I got a prime view of a half-naked Asa. “Where’s your shirt?”

  Oh, yeah. I was blaming brain damage for the fact his cut torso was mesmerizing me.

  “I lost it when I shifted.” A furrow tightened his brow. “Do you remember what happened?”

  “The end is a little fuzzy.” I moved my arm and bumped his knee. “Am I…in your lap?”

  A snort from up front confirmed it. We were back in the SUV. The bump must have been a pothole.

  “Yes,” Asa said softly. “You were unconscious.”

  Another memory burst to the forefront of my mind, and I clamped a hand over my mouth. “No.”

  I swallowed once, twice to test for any coppery aftertaste, but all I found was dirt and a piece of grass.

  “You didn’t eat the heart,” Asa confirmed. “You said no, and I didn’t force it on you.”

  “Thank you.” I placed my hand on my stomach. “I don’t want to be that person again.”

  Had I caved today, I couldn’t have faced Colby. I would have failed her, and myself.

  A tickle on the arm tucked against Asa left me brushing long black strands off my elbow.

  Caving to my earlier impulse, I smoothed the strands between my fingers. “Your hair is soft.”

  The SUV swerved as Clay jerked his gaze to the rearview mirror. “Rue…”

  “I don’t mind.” Asa watched me. “You can touch it.”

  A laugh bubbled up the back of my throat.
“That sounds so wrong.”

  “I agree,” Clay grumbled. “You’re better off keeping your hands to yourself.”

  A low growl vibrated through Asa as their gazes clashed in the reflection, but I was too tired to care.

  “I’m going to nap now,” I announced to avoid them freaking out when my eyes didn’t open again.

  I fell asleep with a lock of Asa’s hair curled around my finger.

  * * *

  “Rue.” The weight of a chonky house cat landed on my chest. For real this time. “Wake up.”

  “Oomph.”

  “I don’t weigh that much.” Colby jabbed my cheek with a foot. “Open your eyes.”

  The nap had done me good. I wasn’t back to my usual self, but I was getting there. No hearts required.

  “There.” I widened my eyes until they bulged as I stared down at her. “Are you happy now?”

  “That’s creepy.” She smacked me between the eyes. “Stop being weird.”

  A yawn stretched my jaw, and I lifted my arms overhead, arching my back on the seat.

  Oh.

  Not the seat.

  Heat prickled in my cheeks when I glanced up at Asa. “Um.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Yes?”

  “Thank you for the use of your lap.” I clutched Colby to my chest as I sat upright. “Home already?”

  “I gave you thirty minutes.” Colby tucked her wings in tight. “You didn’t wake up, so I came out.”

  Magically induced exhaustion had done a number on my brain. I hadn’t put together how she was here.

  “You know the rules.” I lifted her to my face level. “Never leave the wards.”

  Puffing her fur, she crossed four arms over her chest. “Clay and Asa…”

  “You don’t know Clay or Asa.” I put us nose to proboscis. “You can’t trust people you just met.”

  The stubborn moth had chosen her hill. “You trust them.”

  Aware both agents were watching me, one more intently than the other, I sighed. “Promise me.”

  “I promise,” she said dutifully. “I will stay inside the wards where it’s boring and nothing ever happens.”

  Her sass was nothing new, but I could guess why the rules chafed now when they never had before.