The Witch's Key, Book 1

by Sarra Cannon

  I recognized that voice.

  Confused, I turned my head toward the girl who’d just walked up behind Algrath, and I gasped.

  Brandy stood there, one hand on her hip, holding a bloody finger toward the demon.

  “Do you see what that mirror did to my finger? You promised me immortality and eternal youth,” she said. “I didn’t sign up to drag girls through the woods and draw pentagrams in the dirt. Seriously, Peyton, I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing here, but if you ask me to do one more ridiculous thing, I’m giving up on you.”

  Algrath made Peyton’s eyes sparkle with mischief, but it made my stomach turn.

  How long had Brandy been caught up in all of this? And how could she seriously believe that was still Peyton in there? Didn’t she realize what was happening?

  I wanted to warn her that she was making deals with a demon, but I didn’t want to interrupt their conversation. For now, I needed to just listen and observe. Brandy had gotten herself into this mess, so she could deal with the consequences.

  “I don’t want to be here anymore, either,” Olive said, stepping forward. She had her arms wrapped tightly around her body, and she was shivering.

  I wanted to scream at both of them. Had they been part of this the entire time? Were none of my new friendships real?

  “Shut up, Olive,” Brandy said sharply. “You seemed more than happy to do this when we talked about it a few weeks ago.”

  Olive frowned and looked at me, shaking her head.

  “I didn’t know we were going to have to do this,” she said. “I thought we were just setting my mom and that Bates guy up for drug dealing. I just wanted to teach her a lesson. If you’d told me this had anything to do with our friends going missing, you know I wouldn’t have been a part of this.”

  “Well, it’s too late to back out now,” Algrath said, but it was obvious Olive still believed that was her friend Peyton.

  I had no idea what story they’d fed her about why Peyton had only pretended to go missing, but poor Olive was in this just as much as I was now. We were probably both going to die before all of this was over.

  Algrath pulled Brandy’s finger to his lips and kissed it. Brandy made a face, but when she looked down, she smiled and clapped her hands.

  “There we go,” she said. “That’s the kind of magic I want to be able to do. Olive, did you see that? I told you Peyton was a witch. She’s going to give us some of that power tonight. That and more. I’m going to have flawless skin for the rest of my life. I’m going to become a famous model. We just have to get through this one ritual, and we’ll have everything we ever wanted.”

  Olive didn’t look impressed by the magic. Instead, she turned away, leaning her head against a tree, her shoulders shaking.

  Brandy shrugged and pulled a small mirror from her pocket. She applied a thick layer of lip balm and stared at herself for a long moment before scrunching her nose in disapproval and snapping the mirror shut.

  She put it back in her pocket, and turned to Algrath.

  “When is our magic going to kick in, by the way?” she asked, a look of disgust on her face as she glanced at something on the ground at her feet.

  If I was reading her right, there was also sheer terror locked away somewhere in her eyes, but she seemed to be willing to face that terror in order to gain eternal beauty.

  I was going to be sick.

  “Don’t tell me you’re losing your stomach for this, already?” Algrath asked with Peyton’s voice. “We’re just getting started, Brandy. But don’t worry. You’ll get your magic soon enough, and I promise you, once you do, you’ll hardly remember what it was like to be so plain.”

  A hurt look flashed in Brandy’s eyes, but she quickly shrugged it off and pulled her shoulders back.

  “Good, because I’ve done everything you asked me to,” Brandy said. “I made those little bundles of lavender and poison ivy you asked me for, making sure to use vines from Olive’s backyard. I put that black vase in Olive’s house the other day before school for you, for whatever good that seemed to do, except tearing that house to shreds.”

  Algrath met my eyes and smiled again.

  The Devil’s Snare. He’d had Brandy plant the trap in the Peterson’s house before Kai and I got there.

  “I tried my best to get Lenny to come stay at my place last night. And now, I’ve even drawn this design you gave me and put these broken mirrors beside each of the girls and their symbols,” Brandy said. “I’m not doing one more thing until you give me a taste of that beauty and power you promised. I’ve had to betray a lot of people I cared about to get here, and I just want to make sure we’re still in this together, Peyton.”

  Algrath, apparently, had already gotten tired of Brandy’s non-stop talking, because when he turned, his face flashed from Peyton’s to his true, demonic form.

  Even though I’d half been expecting it, I still had to look away. To see something so pure and beautiful instantly turn into something so grotesque was unsettling, to say the least.

  Brandy screamed and fell back on her butt in the dirt.

  I gasped as the mirror she’d used to put her lipstick on slipped from her pocket.

  I had no idea how I might be able to use it, but right about now, I was looking for anything that might help me get out of this situation. Now, I just needed to get out of this netting and get my hands on it.

  Brandy dug her heels into the dirt to push herself backward, but Algrath simply pointed a bony finger toward her, sending a dark rope around her waist and pulling her back toward him.

  “You will not make demands of me, human. And you won’t threaten me, either,” Algrath said. His face settled back to Peyton’s. “You’ll do whatever I tell you to do, or you will die with the rest of these worthless girls. Now, finish the preparations. I want you to double check each symbol and make sure each girl is exactly where she needs to be placed for this to work.”

  “Of course,” Brandy said, her hands visibly shaking. Tears glistened in her eyes.

  Well, that answered my questions about whether or not Brandy knew what was really going on out here.

  It blew my mind that someone who seemed so sweet and genuine had come out here willingly to help her friend kill five girls.

  And not just us.

  About fifteen feet away, Kai hung suspended about halfway up a tree. I prayed to see his eyes flutter open or his body move in a way that would let me know he was even still alive, but he didn’t move at all.

  I looked for Gianna, too, but I didn’t see her anywhere.

  From what I could tell between the conversation and what little visibility I had around here, the four girls who had been kidnapped after Peyton all lay on the ground in a clearing just ahead.

  LaTasha Owings, Marcia Valentine, Samantha Anderson, and April Green.

  I’d never officially met any of them, but as Algrath grabbed my ankles again and began pulling me toward the clearing, I realized that I shared something in common with those girls.

  Peyton had never really been the fifth girl intended for the sacrifice.

  It was me Algrath intended to kill tonight.

  “Why me?” I asked. “Why not just use the real Peyton for the fifth sacrifice? Why do you need me? Or is this really just about getting back at Martin after all this time? That’s a long time to hold a grudge, don’t you think? Besides, I never did anything to you. I don’t deserve this.”

  “What I feel is not a grudge,” Algrath said, sucking air through his teeth. His anger made Peyton’s eyes turn black for a moment. “This is so much more than a grudge. It’s hatred that runs so deep, it crosses the boundaries of time and blood. You are a Thorne, and in my mind, that makes you guilty of crossing my family.”

  He laughed and then glanced at Brandy, who was leaning over something on the ground a few feet away.

  “Besides,” he said softly, “to restore my brother to full strength, there are three things I must do. One, release each piece of the
mirror into which he was banished. As you no doubt already know, tonight’s ritual will release the final piece.”

  I couldn’t quite see what Algrath was doing with his hands, but it was no use straining myself to look. The shadowy netting was already so tight, I could hardly move at all.

  I had no idea how much preparation this ritual required, but one mistake we’d all made was assuming Algrath was working alone. We never even discussed the possibility that someone else might be setting up a second location for the ritual.

  That first circle by the cabin had been nothing more than a decoy to throw us off.

  “Second, of course, I must sacrifice young, magical blood. The more innocent and powerful, the better,” Algrath said, a smile slowly spreading across his lips as he looked directly into my eyes. “Imagine my joy when I was able to convince the Council to send you here. I held Peyton as an insurance policy, just in case I couldn’t capture you, but when you showed up at the cabin tonight, you made all my dreams come true.”

  “You convinced the Council to send me here?” I asked, chills going through me.

  Algrath giggled.

  “Don’t tell me you haven’t put that piece of the puzzle together yet,” he said, clicking his tongue with disapproval. “And I thought you were supposed to be smart.”

  I didn’t take the bait. Obviously, part of Algrath’s game was that he used insults to get you riled up. I didn’t care if he thought I was smart or not. What really bothered me was the idea of the Council sending me to Newcastle High like a lamb to the slaughter.

  “What’s the third thing?” Brandy asked.

  “I didn’t realize you were listening to our conversation,” Algrath said. He stood and ran a hand down Brandy’s curls. She instantly seemed to forget her question.

  Did he have some kind of coercion powers, too?

  “What was I saying?” Brandy asked with a shake of her head.

  “Nothing important,” Algrath said. “Let’s take Lenora out of her net and wake everyone up. It’s almost time.”

  That seemed to cheer Brandy up a bit. Her eyes lit up, and she bounced on her toes.

  “I was hoping you would say that. I can’t wait.”

  I honestly couldn’t tell if Brandy was under some kind of spell, or if she really thought sacrificing five girls was a reasonable price to pay for eternal beauty. Still, the fact that she seriously believed this demon would follow through was a little heartbreaking.

  Algrath hadn’t gotten a chance to say what the third thing was that he needed in order to help restore his brother’s power, but I was pretty sure I knew what it was.

  He needed a vessel.

  When Regmothean was first released from the mirrors, he would be weak from having been split into pieces for so long. The ritual itself would give him his body back, but he would need to rest.

  I knew from my reading that the best place for a demon to rest and regain power was inside a host. In this case, a non-magical human who would not interfere with the fact that Regmothean intended to consume her entire life force in order to restore his former power.

  Plus, Martin and the others would be looking for them. Regmothean needed a place to hide for a while. At least until his host died.

  If Brandy hadn’t looked so happy about the prospect of killing all of us to get what she wanted, I might have felt sorry for her.

  Algrath bent down next to me again, and despite Peyton’s lovely face, he stank of sulphur and ash.

  “Now, listen here, Lenny Thorne, you be a good girl, you hear me?” he said. “I’m going to let you out of this net, but if you make so much as a single attempt to get away from me, I will kill your little boyfriend over there and your red-headed Slayer friend. Do you promise to be a good girl?”

  I nodded, feeling powerless as Algrath finally dissolved the purple, shadowy netting around my body. He left my hands bound behind my back, though, and moved me into place in the circle, propping me up on my knees.

  Gowan had said our emotions were our greatest weakness, and he had been absolutely right. How could I do anything now when Algrath had control over people I loved? I had no choice but to do as I was told.

  Even though I knew Algrath intended to kill us all. I still hoped I would be able to find a way to save my friends.

  Now that I was upright, I did a quick scan of the clearing.

  Gianna lay on the ground about twenty feet away. She was wrapped in the kind of netting that had held me, but she didn’t seem to be conscious at all. I glanced up at Kai, and for a second, I thought I saw his head roll to one side slightly, but when he went still again, I wasn’t sure if I had imagined it or not.

  The four other girls intended for the sacrifice were all kneeling in the dirt around the ritual circle, just like me, spaced out at each point of the pentagram. They seemed to be awake but under some kind of trance or spell that made them unaware of what they were doing.

  At least I hoped they were unaware. That, at least, would have been merciful.

  Each girl had a symbol burned into her forearm, work Algrath had done back at the cabin. A matching symbol had been drawn in the dirt in front of each girl.

  I had been moved to the fifth point of the pentagram, and the symbol there, I realized as I focused in on a sore feeling on my own forearm, had likely already been burned into my skin, as well.

  Panic threatened to overwhelm me, and I wanted to just run. But I thought of Kai and Gianna. I couldn’t put their lives at risk.

  Besides, where would I go? We were deep in the woods somewhere, and I had no idea which way to go to find the road or the cabin. It was also possible this was all some kind of trick and Algrath had taken us through a portal to another town while I was passed out.

  Where exactly were we?

  I couldn’t act on impulse without thinking it through, but if I was going to do something, I had better do it fast. I had a feeling that as soon as I was locked into that circle on my knees, it was already too late to stop this thing.

  “That was a clever trick with Julie Peterson,” I said, wanting to get Algrath talking so I could at least give Martin a chance at finding us.

  The last I’d heard, we were only fifteen minutes or so away from the location spell being dead accurate. How much time had passed since then? It had to have been at least ten minutes. He could be here any minute.

  “Even Martin really fell for it, as you saw. Seeing her there in the closet made it seem like she’d been there the whole time, but you really only abducted her yesterday when she went through that portal with Bates. Is that right?”

  “It’s always so much fun to come up with ways to trick Slayers and Keepers,” Algrath said. “It was relatively easy to make it seem that Julie and Bates were working together to kidnap innocent girls. Once all of this is over, that local detective who thinks he’s so smart is going to be blaming this entire thing on the two of them. Such a local tragedy, but our heroes in blue have it all figured out.”

  “How are they going to explain her motive, though?” I asked. I needed to keep him talking. “Why would Ms. Julie want anyone dead? Especially her daughter’s friends. It’s not like the police know about the moondust in the cupcakes.”

  “No, but they’ll find poor Olive’s diaries,” Algrath said. “She was always so jealous of her more popular friends. Even the new girl in town seemed to catch the eye of the hard-to-get bad boy. The diaries, combined with the scene they’ll find out here, will be enough to convince them.”

  I shook my head. “But why even bother? Why do you care if the police wrap this up or not?”

  Algrath had been using some kind of wand or stick with a few crystals encrusted at the tip to draw in the dirt, but he suddenly stopped and gave me a curious look.

  “You know the Council doesn’t want the human world to find out about our kind. This is part of my agreement with them,” he said. “As long as I promised to make sure to keep our world concealed in all of this and provide a somewhat logical explanation fo
r the normal world to swallow, the Council promised to send me you.”

  I didn’t really want to believe him, but it made sense. Was this real, or another one of his tricks to manipulate me?

  “Of course, that meant they had to let two of their most powerful Slayers die, but that didn’t bother them too much,” he said. “Your parents were getting in the way of their progress, anyway. Doubting the coven’s power over their abilities. It was only a matter of time before they needed to be put down.”

  Tears welled in my eyes, and I shook my head.

  “That’s not true,” I said. “The Council had nothing to do with my parents’ death.”

  Algrath raised an eyebrow and stopped moving for a moment.

  “Didn’t they?” he asked. “Not that it matters now. Once you’re gone, there are only a handful of people who will know the truth, and they’ll never admit to it. With any luck, I’ll be able to take out a few more of their insubordinate Slayers before this is all over. Then they’ll really owe me.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I said. “The Council would never work with a demon like you. You’re lying to get under my skin.”

  Algrath laughed, throwing his head back.

  “I love how incredibly naive you are,” he said. “You’re so innocent and trusting, just like your mother, really. You believe that just because the Thorne family has been loyal to them for centuries, the Council must have pure intentions. But the truth is, there are many within the coven and even the Council itself who believe it’s time for a new way of doing things. This new group of leaders understands that the only way to gain the true power they desire for the coven is to work with demons. Not against them.”

  I didn’t want to believe a word he said, but there had to be some reason the Council had refused to get involved in such a high-profile case. And they had, in fact, commanded me to go to school here in Newcastle.

  As for the death of my parents, many of us had been confused about how that whole thing went down. I had blamed myself, but maybe it really hadn’t been my fault at all.

  A tear fell down my cheek.

  My parents had dedicated their lives to the Witch’s Council, and this is how they’d been repaid?