Tarot Academy 1: Spells of Iron and Bone

by Sarah Piper

  I lean close to the wall again, get a good grip, and gingerly step to the left, seeking a better toehold. But just as my foot finds purchase, the wind lashes out again, blasting me off the rock like a bug off a windshield.

  Frantically I scramble for the ropes, but it’s too late. I drop hard and fast, bashing my knee on the way down.

  There’s no time to scream, no time for panic. Suddenly the rope tightens and the harness jerks me to a hard stop, gear clattering, stomach leaping into my throat.

  Blood leaks from my throbbing knee. My lines are hopelessly tangled. I’m suspended from Death’s eager grasp by a rope that’s less than an inch thick, and now I’m below the position of the cave, which means I’ll have to climb over and back up.

  Unless…

  Fighting against the relentless wind, I kick my legs out and back, harnessing the momentum into a pendulum swing, rocking harder and higher, closer… closer… almost there…

  My fingers graze the bottom of the wing, just a few feet beneath the cave floor, but I can’t get a good grip.

  I try again on the next swing.

  Miss.

  Again.

  Again.

  Again.

  On what feels like the twentieth attempt, I finally hook it with the tip of my shoe, and let out a victory cry bordering on mania. The toehold is precarious, gravity doing its damnedest to suck me back in the other direction.

  No way, asshole. You can’t have me.

  With every muscle in my leg screaming in agony, I pull myself in by my toe, fighting the wind, fighting fatigue, fighting mental anguish until finally I reach out with my hand and feel the rough, wet rock beneath my fingertips.

  Quickly, I clip into one of the old bolts, sending a prayer of thanks to whoever put it there.

  I climb the last few feet up to the cave and, with the very last bit of strength I’ve got, haul myself inside.

  The clatter of the hail turns to a din, and a new warmth pulses all around me. Sprawled out on my belly, I give myself a moment to catch my breath, then slowly raise my head, peering inside the dark space of the cave.

  I’m still here, mostly in one piece.

  “Thank you,” I exhale into the deep.

  “You’re welcome,” comes an unexpected reply.

  And there, from somewhere inside that gnawing blackness, a pair of glowing yellow eyes blinks to life, and a shadow in the shape of a man peels away from the wall and stalks toward the light.

  Toward me.

  Three

  STEVIE

  “Shoulda known it was you, Stevie Milan.” The shadow-man crouches down and extends a hand, his grin warm and familiar. “Only girl crazy enough in all of Arizona to summit the Grande on a day like this.”

  I take in the sight of his boyish dimples and the dark hair flopping into his eyes, which are thankfully not glowing at all. He’s filled out a bit since high school, but beneath the new bulk, there’s no mistaking my old friend.

  “Luke Hernandez!”

  Relief floods my body, erupting in a laugh that probably sounds insane. After the morning I’ve had, I don’t care. I grab his hand and scramble up to my feet, crashing into his bear-hug. “Holy shit, it’s good to see you.”

  As kids, Luke and I went on exactly one date—bonfire party, just after eighth-grade graduation. Our budding romance came to a spectacular end later that same night when he put a scorpion down his pants on a dare, earning himself a trip to the emergency room and the infamous nickname, Scorpion King.

  I dumped him on principle—even at fourteen, I knew any dude stupid enough to put a venomous creature near his dick was not boyfriend material—but we stayed friends. He was into climbing, just like me and Jessa, and while our classmates spent the next five years getting stoned and feeling each other up behind the Gas-N-Grab out on Route Nine, the three of us made the desert our domain, mapping out the most challenging routes up the Grande, hiking through the sagebrush, talking about all the mountains we wanted to scale and countries we wanted to visit—the bright, shiny dreams of three kids looking for their ultimate escape.

  Luke was the only one who ever made it out, though.

  “I thought you were in California building hotels or something?” I ask, trying to remember what I heard from his mother, who still lives in town and comes into Kettle Black to eat Jessa’s scones and gossip our ears off.

  Luke presses a kiss to the top of my head, crushing me against his chest. “I missed you too much to stay gone, baby girl.”

  Um… Baby girl?

  Back up.

  He’s never called me that before. Or missed me, for that matter. We were peas in a pod for awhile there, but halfway into junior year, he bounced to go live with his Dad out on the coast. After a brief goodbye over pizza and a bucket of hot wings, Jessa and I never heard from him again—not even when my parents died. No social media, no texts, no postcards.

  Jessa and I were bummed when he left, and yeah, it stung that he lost touch. But I never held it against him. I was dealing with my own issues back then, struggling to understand the magick kindling inside me and the parents who wanted to talk about anything but, wondering if I’d be stuck working at Kettle Black the rest of my life, forever searching for my bigger, better “someday” on the horizon. I was glad Luke found his, even if it meant leaving me and our dusty-ass desert town behind.

  But six years later, he randomly pops out of a cave during this insane storm, tossing out terms like baby girl?

  Seriously?

  He’s got me in a vice grip, and this whole thing is feeling weirder by the minute.

  I fake a cough and finally disengage from his suffocating embrace, turning to peer out into the gloom and buy myself a second to think.

  Outside, the sky continues to put on a show, flickering and shouting, lashing the rock with all its might. Hailstones pile up at the entrance, and I shiver, rubbing my bare arms.

  “Storm came out of nowhere,” I say. Then, turning back to Luke, “Where were you when it hit?”

  Ignoring the question, Luke glances at my knee. “You’re bleeding.”

  “Am I?” I crouch down and pretend to inspect the wound. I don’t even feel it anymore; the bleeding has mostly stopped, the gash nearly healed. Go, magickal me.

  I close my eyes and take a deep breath, giving my brain a second to catch up. There’s a whole mess of loose puzzle pieces here, and none of them fit together.

  For one thing, Luke is bone dry, which means he got into the cave before the rain started. But I was only on top for about fifteen minutes before the weather shifted, and if he’d been that close behind me on my initial climb, I would’ve spotted him. And his scent? The man smells like sunshine and coconut oil—definitely not the athletic stink of a big dude who just scaled most of a two-hundred-foot rock.

  I glance up at him again, taking in the sight of his clothes. T-shirt and board shorts, a pair of leather flip-flops on his feet, Aviators clipped casually outside his pocket. He’s dressed for a stroll down the beach—not a climb.

  And there’s no freaking gear.

  I peek into the space behind him. No backpack, no harness, no rope. Nothing.

  The hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

  “So you’re free-soloing now?” I get to my feet, unable to keep the surprise from my voice. Even the old pros back in the day never free-soloed the Grande. It’s too steep, with sharp, deadly rocks on the bottom and lots of smooth sandstone up top—notoriously unreliable, especially when there’s moisture in the air. That’s why they bolted it in the first place, and why they closed it off to us in the next place.

  “Oh, I had to ditch my gear on the way up,” he says coolly, but he’s getting real twitchy all of a sudden, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, avoiding my gaze. “Got into a jam and cut it loose.”

  Why is he lying to me? How the fuck did he get up here?

  “Luke, that doesn’t—”

  “Watch the edge, Stevie,” he warns. He snatches my
hand and tugs me away from the entrance. “It’s a long way down.”

  “Hey! You’re hurting me!”

  His eyes flicker with regret, but he doesn’t let go. Just shifts his grip, his thumb brushing the tattoo on the inside of my wrist.

  Back and forth, back and forth.

  “Remember when you got this?” he asks, as if I could forget.

  “I wanted one, too,” he continues. “But nope. I wasn’t special enough. Not like you, witch-girl. You’ve always been special.”

  I glance down at the source of his fascination—a black pentacle the size of a dime, a nine-digit serial number inked below, courtesy of the state. “Careful what you wish for, Luke.”

  It’s the same thing I said back then. Same thing I say to anyone who romanticizes the life of a witch.

  Magick has only been public knowledge for about fifty years. And while it’s more of a known quantity now—and Tres Búhos has become quite the mecca for the sage-burning, crystal-collecting set—that doesn’t mean the general population is cool with real magick-users.

  Far from it.

  Natural-born witches and mages only represent one-tenth of a percent of humans worldwide, and in the minds of a lot of people, we simply don’t count.

  In the minds of a lot more, we’re something to be feared, subdued, or worse—eradicated. Any public display or non-consensual private act of magick is punishable by imprisonment. Magickal assault, even in cases of self-defense? Forget it. Capital offense.

  They say our magick makes us perpetually armed and dangerous. The law requires us to register and get the tattoo at age sixteen, for the “comfort and safety” of all.

  Luke drove me to my appointment. Held my hand and told me corny jokes to distract me from the needle. After I was all done and patched up, he got his own tattoo. Not a magickal one like he’d initially wanted, but a scorpion. He said he just wanted to make me laugh.

  After, he bought me takeout and drove me to the Grande, and we sat at the base throwing fries at each other until the moon rose and it was time to go home.

  “Crazy girl,” he says now, a cruel smile twisting his lips, and I wonder if he’s thinking about the fries, too. Or the moon. Or the way he used to chase Jessa and me up this rock, the three of us competing for the fastest times, the hardest routes, the best techniques. “Crazy little witch-girl.”

  Warning flashes in my gut.

  Whatever Luke is thinking about now, it’s not our shared history.

  Desperate for a read on his true intentions, I open myself up to his energy.

  It washes over me like a wave—a strange, aggressive mix of guilt, fear, confusion, anger, and—strongest of all—revulsion. I’ve never felt anything like this from him before—not even when I broke up with him after the scorpion incident.

  I blow out a breath. The hatred simmering inside him is nauseating… But it isn’t his.

  Someone—something—is hijacking his emotions, manipulating his every move. Some part of him is trying to fight it, but he’s only human, no match for the dark magick at work.

  Whoever’s behind it, it’s clearly meant for me.

  My arms erupt in goosebumps. Outside, the hail has given way to torrential rains, a curtain of sheer water that can’t be penetrated. Lightning flashes and refracts off the water, making it nearly impossible to tell how close it is.

  Thunder rumbles through the rock, right through my chest.

  How the hell am I going to get out of this?

  I’m still roped in, clipped to the bolt just outside the wing, but climbing out now is a hell of a risk. I don’t know what Luke’s capable of in this state—only that I don’t want to be scaling down a rock in a storm with him standing above me.

  “Sorry, witch-girl,” he says now, tightening his grip on my wrist. Then, as if he can read my intentions as clearly as I’ve read his, “You’re not going anywhere.”

  He takes a step closer, eyes roving my body head to toe. I step back, but my shoulders hit the rock, and he’s crowding into my space like smoke. The Tarot card image of the people jumping from the tower floats into my mind.

  Fuck this.

  “Back off.” I jerk my arm free, but he grabs me again, relentless.

  His eyes flash, and a laugh slithers out of his mouth. Jamming his thumb hard into my wrist, he says, “Not until I see some of that Stevie Milan magick. Come on, witch-girl. Show me what you’ve got.”

  The flicker of warning inside me turns into a blaring alarm. He’s asking me to commit a federal crime.

  “Not happening, asshole,” I say. “And I’d appreciate it if you’d leave my friend out of this and face me in your true form, like a real mage. Or are you so feeble and dickless you need to possess innocent humans to carry out your dirty work?”

  The muscle near Luke’s left eye twitches, but he doesn’t say a word.

  “Sticking with feeble and dickless then,” I say. “Okay, works for me.”

  I’m still wearing my daypack, and now I reach my free hand around to the pocket where my knife is stashed.

  But before I get a grip, Not-Luke jerks me forward, then spins me around and kicks my legs out from under me.

  I go down hard, and from the corner of my eye, catch a flash of silver. He’s got my knife. The tension in my rope vanishes.

  He cut it, leaving me no safe exit.

  I’m back on my feet in a heartbeat, twisting around to surprise him with a swift knee to the crotch.

  He stumbles back for a second, but the pain that flashes through his eyes is all-too-brief, chased off by pure rage and the sickly yellow glow I saw when I first climbed up.

  Guess it wasn’t my eyes playing tricks.

  “You’re dangerous, witch-girl,” he says, the voice no longer Luke’s. This one is deep and cold, as ancient as the desert itself. “They won’t come for you. They’ll never come for you.”

  Something about his words makes my heart freeze. Not-Luke raises his arm before me, the knife glinting, and I catch sight of the scorpion tattoo on his wrist.

  Scorpion… They won’t come…

  I gasp as the memories bowl into me, my mother’s voice rising up against the rushing water, her face grim, her eyes determined…

  “They’ll come for you, Stevie. After the sky falls and the scorpion stings, after the star takes flight and the lightning burns… Flame and blood and blade and bone… Flame and blood and blade and bone they will come…”

  Those were her final words. Cryptic and baffling. Nonsense, maybe—yet more impassioned than anything she’d ever said before.

  Seconds later, she was gone, sucked away by the current while I watched helplessly from a cave above the waterline, her final prophecy burned forever on my heart.

  I never told anyone what she said. Not Arizona Search and Rescue, when they finally saved me from that cold, dark cave three days later. Not the social workers and grief counselors that came after. Not even Jessa.

  He can’t be talking about my mother. No fucking way.

  The monster presses the knife to my belly, the tip piercing my skin.

  “Show me,” he orders.

  “Fuck off, dickless.”

  “Show me!” His yellow eyes blaze as the knife sinks into my gut.

  A scarlet stain blooms on my shirt.

  I don’t feel any pain.

  All I feel is rage. Like a living, breathing beast it pulses inside me, hot and fiery. Hungry.

  And not enjoying this little game one bit.

  Not-Luke steps closer, crowding me, driving the blade deeper.

  I peer into his yellow eyes. “Don’t make me do this.”

  Clearly mistaking my warning for a plea, he grins and says, “You’ll do what I—”

  I slam the heel of my hand into his nose. Bone cracks. He stumbles backward, clutching his face. Red-black blood oozes through his fingers.

  He charges me again, but in that moment, knife sticking out of my belly, my old friend possessed and covered in blood, the storm raging be
yond the walls, my exits cut off, something inside me completely unravels.

  My chest fills with a swirling heat, and I raise my palms. A burst of energy explodes outward, expelling the knife and encasing me in a protective shield of blinding white light. Magick drapes over my arms like gossamer curtains.

  No, not curtains. Wings.

  Even without seeing its full form, I know the energy around me is an owl—the legend and soul of the rock come to life. Luminescent and graceful, it fills me with a power and fearlessness that borders on predatory. I spread my arms wide, then bring them to my chest, making the great wings flap. The force of air slams Not-Luke into the wall. He hits the back of his head, then crashes down onto his ass.

  His yellow gaze locks on mine, burning with new hatred even as a smile breaks across his bloody face. “You’ll be executed for this, witch.”

  Before I can utter a single word, I feel a tug from the inside, almost like an undercurrent. I’m powerless to resist as the soul-force carries me backward, sucking me out into the storm. Rain continues to pound the sandstone, the desert below enshrouded in ghostly mist, but nothing can penetrate my protective shield.

  The massive wings flap, spreading light all around me. It takes me a beat to realize I’m hovering outside the cave, feet no longer touching the ground.

  Not-Luke scrambles to his feet. The energy of his murderous rage washes over me. He wants me to know he’s going to kill me, and he’s going to enjoy every torturous second.

  It’s the last thing I feel before I fall.

  Four

  STEVIE

  I burst into Kettle Black, locking the door behind me and flipping the OPEN sign to BE BACK SOON. Thankfully there aren’t any customers, because holy shit, I need a minute.

  Or maybe a month.

  What the fuck just happened?

  “Have a seat wherever you’d like!” Jessa calls from the kitchen behind the counter. “I’ll be right with you!”

  “It’s just me,” I call back.

  “Stevie?” Her tone ices over in an instant. “You know I’m gonna beat your ass as soon as I’ve got a free hand, right?”