As Wicked As They Come

by Emma Dean

  “Are you doing better?” Ethan asked, glancing at her.

  Her stomach flipped as she considered the answer to that question.

  “Yes and no,” she answered truthfully.

  “But you will,” Corbin stated. He was so sure of it, Mika almost believed him.

  “Maybe,” she muttered, watching Malachi and Audrey climb up the stands toward them.

  Ethan quietly took her hand in his and squeezed once before letting it go. It was exactly what she needed, and Mika had to blink away the tears that pricked her eyes unexpectedly.

  “Mika!” Audrey screeched when she spotted her.

  Bracing herself, Mika smiled slightly. Audrey slammed into her, hugging her hard.

  “I’ve been so worried about you,” Audrey gushed, holding on tight. “But I knew you’d come back even when these two doubted it. Didn’t I tell you, Lucien?”

  “Yeah, yeah rub it in,” the fox scoffed.

  Pulling back Audrey held onto Mika’s hands and studied her.

  Everywhere Audrey touched—her skin crawled. It took everything she had not to shove the other witch away. But her magic didn’t try to strike, so there was that. Her training was starting to finally pay off.

  “How is everything?”

  The continued contact was too much. Mika stepped back, extricating herself from Audrey and hoping she wouldn’t notice just how much she’d hated being touched. “I have the petition ready to give to Dean De Rosa. I’ve been officially crowned Matriarch of the Marshall clan by the High Priestess, and I have the papers for you to sign for your adoption into the clan. Once they’re filed, you’re officially a Marshall, but you don’t have to change your name if you don’t want to.”

  Audrey wiped the tears from her eyes and went to hug Mika again, but Malachi yanked the other witch into a hug instead. “Congratulations, Audrey,” Malachi murmured into her hair, eyeing Mika over the smaller witch. “You’ve leveled up.”

  “Do we have to open your door for you now and stuff?” Lucien asked, grinning at Audrey.

  It was exactly the distraction she’d needed, and Mika gave Malachi a grateful look. One more hug and she would’ve lost any shred of cool she had thrown together for this day.

  Only an hour and she was already weary down to her very bones.

  The day was almost over though, and then she could sleep.

  “You know, I think I’ll change my name just so I can get that special treatment,” Audrey teased, punching Mika’s arm.

  She hid her flinch, but Lucien and Ethan zeroed in on it like bloodhounds.

  “Whatever you want,” Mika murmured, wishing she could scratch at every place someone had touched her today without bringing too much attention to herself.

  Plants had very basic emotions, so she’d been able to handle that. Everyone in her blood crystals was dead and therefore their recorded emotions muted. But everyone else on this planet felt so much all the time and she’d used her tiny bit of coping on Corbin today.

  Mika needed a break.

  “Mika! Glad to see you back,” Ryan told her from the seats just above her.

  Mika tried to calm the sudden pounding of her heart but failed miserably. She looked up at Ryan sitting on the stone bench just above them, tossing popcorn into his mouth with a massive grin on his face. His vibrant blue eyes twinkled at her and Mika still thought he was pretty, but every warning bell in her body went off at that look.

  “I saw you’re taking a lot of hell classes,” Ryan said conversationally.

  “That’s right.” Mika nodded, wondering what he was trying to get at, and why he was so interested in her curriculum.

  “Claire was always top of the class in Hell Studies. She and I were partnered up a lot for the practical.”

  Her stomach dropped at the mention of her sister.

  Before Mika could say or do anything though, Ryan went on – his grin growing wider. “It’s a shame she’s dead. She could have really helped you out with the homework. Congratulations on your new matriarch status by the way. I heard the challenge was epic.”

  Ryan stood and crunched on the popcorn as he walked up the steps, never once looking back at her.

  Everything seemed to fade away and all Mika heard was the ringing in her ears – the same ringing she’d heard in that circle with Claire while her sister had tried to murder her at every opportunity.

  “Mika?”

  Too many people were asking her questions, trying to see if she was okay. It was too much for her first day back into the world, too much, and she was going to lose it.

  She couldn’t remember how to breathe.

  Someone was touching her, and she snarled at them, unable to really see anything other than the red haze covering her vision.

  This was what she’d been trying to avoid. Mika dug her thumbnail into her palm to draw blood and thought the word. Just like that her cloak wrapped around her and for all intents and purposes she disappeared from the universe.

  It allowed her to disconnect herself from their contact and Mika ran before she could hurt someone she loved.

  4

  She ran as fast as she could, her power building and building as the pain and panic tore through her.

  All those days spent meditating and trying to come to terms with what she’d done, all those rooms she’d destroyed in her empty mansion, all that progress she’d made…

  Gone with a few well-chosen words from Ryan.

  Mika reached the forest, using the speed charm to exert as much of her energy as she could. When she was well past the tree line she dropped to her knees and screamed, releasing all the power that had risen up to smite Ryan out of existence.

  Her power lashed the trees, felling too many, slicing deep in others and she sobbed, falling forward as the exhaustion made it impossible for her to stand. “I’m sorry,” she murmured to the trees. “I’m sorry.”

  She hadn’t wanted to hurt anyone, but at least the damage was relatively contained. Mika would do what she could to repair the forest.

  Looking up, she studied the massive circle around her, the damage she’d wrought, the walking disaster she was. This could have been Ethan or Lucien or Audrey. They wouldn’t have survived this.

  Her magic was volatile, but it wasn’t out of control the way it had been last semester. No, Mika was just so angry underneath that deep, unending numbness. But the numbness was better than this.

  “Impressive,” Malachi told her, looking around the new clearing with his hands in his pockets.

  He looked so nonchalant and bored it took her a minute to realize she was still cloaked. Mika waved the spell away and studied Malachi. “How did you find me?”

  “That kind of power can be felt,” Malachi said, shrugging. “You know that.”

  She did, but that didn’t answer her real question. “Why you?”

  Malachi took a step closer but didn’t offer to help her up. He just looked at her.

  Mika couldn’t feel anything from him. Nothing at all.

  Breathing deeply, she tried to soothe the pounding of her heart and the rage that was still raring to go, to use every last shred of her power to level this planet.

  “I asked them to let me try,” Malachi told her. “I thought it would be safer this way.”

  “Because you think I don’t care if I kill you?” she asked, pushing herself to her feet. Mika hated how shaky and exhausted she was despite all her extra training.

  This kind of tired had nothing to do with the strength of her body though. It had everything to do with the strength of her soul.

  “No.” Malachi watched as she sliced into her hand again, and then walked toward the nearest tree that looked like it could be saved. “Because I know what you need.”

  “It’s definitely not you.” Mika slapped her hand to the tree that was nearly cracked in half. It would die if she couldn’t repair it.

  Concentrating, she pushed her life force into the tree, healing it at its core and pushing it along so it could
repair itself over time.

  “No, it’s not me,” Malachi said with a humorless laugh. “You need to be alone, and they wouldn’t allow that right now. So, I’m the next best thing.”

  It was kind of fucked up, but also true. Malachi didn’t push at her or ask why she’d locked him out. He didn’t seem to care, but he also seemed to understand. He didn’t try to touch her or ask her a million questions. He was simply there, emotions locked down and not accosting her.

  Mika went to the next tree and did the same spell, trying to fix what she’d broken. Too bad she couldn’t do the same with Claire.

  “When I was home over the summer, you gave me the space I needed,” Malachi said, watching as the surviving trees seemed to heave a sigh of relief.

  The forest was absolutely silent, not even the sound of animals going about their lives filtered in. Everything was waiting to see what would happen next, if she would unleash her power again.

  Mika was surprised no one had come to investigate, but maybe her raven and fox were already working on that – misdirecting who they could.

  “Did I hurt anyone?” she asked.

  “No, but no one seemed to be expecting you to lash out like that. I assume because they didn’t know how to look.”

  Mika stopped what she was doing and stared at Malachi. “Don’t presume to know me better than they do.”

  Malachi just stared at her. “I don’t. But I do know what you’re hiding better than they do.”

  “Your father betrayed you. You didn’t have to kill him,” she snapped, going on to the next tree.

  Too many wouldn’t be able to come back from what she’d done, and Mika shoved back that grief as she saved what she could.

  “I didn’t?” Malachi asked, cocking his head to the side as he watched her. “I specifically remember gutting him a few months ago.”

  Everything in her mind and body and soul went quiet at that. Mika turned and gave Malachi her full attention. She waited. That blank look in his eyes mirrored her own.

  “Jessica and I hunted down every member of the Hellfire Society’s Vegas branch this summer and made sure there was nothing left to rise from the ashes.” Malachi looked up at the sky and breathed in deep. “That meant breaking a few Council laws.”

  “Like what?” she asked, unable to help her curiosity.

  “Oh, like slaughtering every Hellfire witch in the Council Penitentiary.” Malachi looked down at her and smiled then, but it was humorless and sharp. “I didn’t find your father or your brother, but I told Jessica to call you if she ever did. You’re owed their blood in payment for what they did to you.”

  “Why?” she asked, trying to wrap her head around this new revelation. “Why not tell anyone?”

  “I’ve trained as a hunter,” Malachi told her and gave her a half-shrug. “You know that. Well, Jessica gave me some extra training with a side of revenge. Everything they stand for is disgusting. They give male witches a bad name, and I refuse to let that fester and grow. I refuse to be known as the witch whose father tried to start the apocalypse – heir to the Hellfire Society. Now I’m known as the witch who helped snuff them from my home. Vegas is safe again.”

  Mika stared at him in wonder and appreciation. He’d taken what had happened to him, turned it around, and had written his own story.

  “I’m trying to do that,” she admitted. “But it’s not easy.”

  “The numbness is there for a reason,” he said quietly, taking another step closer. “Because if we let ourselves feel everything at once we’d lose control. Ease back into this Mika. Let yourself take as much time as you need. A summer wasn’t enough, but it got me to this point, and I made myself into what I needed. Now I have the time to come to terms with everything that happened.”

  She went to the next tree, considering his words carefully. “I had three weeks.”

  “Three weeks isn’t enough.”

  Mika wanted to lash out at him, but she knew he was right. “That’s presumptuous.”

  “An entire summer was barely enough, and I didn’t even like my dad.” Malachi took out his witch knife and without hesitation or consideration he sliced long and deep on his palm before offering it to her. “You loved your sister, even if you never got along. Even if she did try to murder you.”

  “Claire was a blood witch,” Mika admitted, surprised she was telling Malachi first.

  Maybe it was his offering, or maybe it was his understanding, but he made it easy to talk to him simply by demanding nothing from her.

  Taking his blood, she used it on the next tree, saying the words that would start the healing process. After this she was going to bed. A nap before she started working on her plans sounded like a good idea. Then she could try to get Ethan to understand why she’d needed the distance.

  “What helped you cope?” she asked, seeing Malachi in a new light.

  Mika gave him a sideways glance as she took more blood from him before sketching the rune on the next tree. Only a few more, the rest were beyond saving.

  There was a hard gleam in his eyes that wasn’t there before – a new understanding he’d lacked in the spring. “Making my father pay helped. Making sure the witches in my city were safe made me feel like I was actually accomplishing something. But Jessica told me something I’ll never forget.”

  Dabbing the last of his blood on the final tree, Mika finished the healing spell on the tree before reopening the wound on her palm. She took Malachi’s hand and healed it too.

  To her shock and surprise, he took her hand and returned the favor.

  “I’ve been reading,” he said, answering her unspoken question. Malachi shrugged as if it was no big deal, but he’d taken time to learn about blood witches and performed a blood spell without batting an eye.

  Mika hated what had happened to him, but this new Malachi matched her better than the goody two shoes version had.

  “What did Jessica tell you?” Mika asked, going to kneel before one of the trees she’d accidentally killed.

  Mika said the same prayer she had for Claire and her grandmother. She murmured the words as she carved the rune for ‘sacrifice’ into the bark, thanking the tree for the life it gave to protect her loved ones, and continued onto the next, and the next – waiting for Malachi to answer her.

  “At first, she tried to keep me away, said she didn’t want some idiot kid’s blood on her hands. Ironic when she’s only a few years older than me.” Malachi slipped his hands into his pockets again and narrowed his eyes as he watched her take the power from each tree and tuck it away. “Then she said the only way she’d managed to deal with all the shit in her life was to take control – to refuse to allow others to shift your emotions and moods. Self-control is strength and no one can take that away from you. Mastering it is something else altogether though.”

  Mika finished her prayer and tucked away the power she’d inadvertently stolen for a rainy day. Then she walked to the center of the clearing she’d created and sat cross-legged, studying the damage she’d done.

  She had self-control to a degree, but life changing events always shoved her into a storm that was difficult to find her way out of. Meditating only helped so much. “Fighting,” she said. Mika looked up at Malachi with sudden understanding. “Jessica is a hunter.”

  Malachi nodded. “Burning off the rage is like…venting steam from a kettle. If there’s no outlet it’ll explode. You need an outlet. Once the anger is manageable it’ll be easier to regain your self-control.”

  Then he knelt in front of her, hands still in his pockets so she knew he wasn’t going to try and touch or comfort her. “You can take your broken pieces and make something new, or you can let it shred you apart until there’s nothing left.”

  A shiver went down her spine as she stared into Malachi’s eyes, seeing the flicker of something deep down under that blankness.

  The sound of a twig snapping jerked her attention to a darkness between the trees that wasn’t natural, especially considering the tim
e of day. Mika studied it, not feeling a malignant energy to the deep shadows.

  There were just some things about Morgana’s Island that would never truly be explained.

  “So, what are you going to do?”

  Mika looked back at Malachi and felt the panic and rage from earlier dissipate until they were far and muted once again. “I’m going to fight.”

  Mika was going to forge herself into a weapon the likes of which this world had never seen.

  5

  No one came to check on her while she napped. When Mika woke, she felt better if still groggy.

  The moon was high in the sky and she slid out of bed, grabbing her gear. It was similar to what Kenzie wore on a job – all black, made to allow freedom of movement, and laced with protective spells. It was similar to her dodgeball uniform, but the armor was made to look decorative and thin, almost like she was simply trying out a new cyberpunk look.

  Tying her hair back into a tight bun, Mika knew she would have to talk to Ethan and Lucien soon.

  Corbin was somewhere, on the roof if her guess was right.

  Audrey was still asleep, wiped out from all the training, so Mika left her. She needed time with Ethan, and Audrey needed to recover.

  Slipping out of Oleander House was easy enough. As she walked across the grounds to Ethan’s House, she heard a whisper of wings high above her, but she didn’t look up. Corbin was getting easier to track, but she wasn’t sure if it was all her training, if it was her heightened senses, or if he simply let her see him.

  Mika didn’t walk through the front door of Sage House. No, she climbed up the wall on the outside, keeping one eye on Ethan’s window. Her body was stronger now and it took nothing to scale the bricks, using the window ledges to propel herself up to the third story.

  She sat on the ledge of his window and pulled out the charm on her necklace, carefully placing it against the lock. A tiny click and she was able to push the windows open. The hinges didn’t make a sound as they swung inward and she slipped into his room – nothing more than a shadow against the night sky.