by E. Latimer
She stepped closer, heart slamming at her rib cage. He was hunched over, resting an elbow on his knee, smoke curling up from the glowing ember of a cigarette between two fingers. With the other hand he was writing on the wall in jagged black letters.
There were names scratched into the pale wallpaper. Even in the dark she could read the first few, before the scrawling writing sloped off beneath his hand.
Crichinbel
Lugh Laebach
Bé Chuille
Morrigan
At the end of one of the beds sat a blue-and-white ice chest. It was nothing more than a plastic beer cooler, but something about it drew Dayna’s eye.
The figure shifted, and Dayna’s attention snapped back to him. The wound in her shoulder shot a sudden, hot lance of pain down her arm.
On the couch the figure stiffened, began to turn.
Something arrested her. Froze her bones in her skin. Or maybe it was Dayna doing this to herself, maybe she couldn’t let herself move until she knew who it was, who was doing this.
She stood still, skin crawling, as the figure turned to face her. In the dim orange glow of the room, she met his eyes. They were light blue, an unnerving color, glittering in the half-light. His expression flickered, caught between shock and anger, and in that split second she had a flash of startling recognition. She knew him from somewhere.
And then the lights went out.
She’d been wary before but still aware she was in a dream. Her body was at the coven house, surrounded by her friends. She did not feel as though she could be touched.
Now that thin reassurance was extinguished, insubstantial as a guttering candle flame.
Fear crashed through her like a cold wave. It was a primal thing, instinct-driven and without direction, and she stumbled back blindly.
A rattling sound, scraping, like something metallic being dragged across the floor, and Dayna was suddenly breathing in desperate gasps. The air had turned cold, so cold each breath burned.
In front of her the darkness shifted, and she watched, the soles of her feet rooted to the floorboards, as shadow unfurled from shadow. The darkness took form, rising from the ground. Her mouth had gone completely dry, and so when the tendrils of inky blackness reached out, she could only let out a small, strangled gasp as something brushed her arm.
A rattle, a clank. Chains, she had time to think, before a voice spoke in the dark, and her mind was wiped clean by the terror.
Hello, little witch. Remember me?
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
MEINER
Something had gone wrong.
Meiner had checked Dayna several times throughout the scrying session. Each time she’d been blank, not serene perhaps, but concentrating. She glanced over at Cora, irritated to see her smug expression.
The third time Meiner checked, Dayna’s face had changed. Her eyes were wide and glassy. Not in a peaceful way, but with the kind of raw terror that sent a spike of adrenaline through Meiner’s core. Before she could react, Dayna’s body jerked violently. Once, twice. As if she were being shocked. Her arms were tight at her sides, like some invisible force held them there. Her eyes rolled back into her skull.
“Dayna.” Meiner reached out, panicked, startled when Reagan caught her wrist with a cry of “Don’t!”
There were two reasons for this, she realized. One was that you never woke a scrying witch, just as you never woke a sleepwalker. It could be jarring. Ripping their consciousness out of whatever place it was in and slamming it back into their body never went well. It had to return slowly. She’d forgotten.
The other reason was horrifyingly evident to all of them.
There were black marks appearing on Dayna’s pale arms, first on the left side, just under her bite, then on the other. A moment later Meiner recognized them for what they were—handprints—and bile rose hot in her throat.
“Someone do something,” she snapped, hands hovering over Dayna’s shoulders. She wanted to grab her, to yank her out of the grasp of whatever had her. Dayna’s face was pale, and her entire body shook and jerked in response to something Meiner could neither see nor hear.
“Get Bronagh.” Reagan’s voice was high and strained. “Get the Callighans, quick.”
She was about to force herself to turn away, when Cora reached out and snatched the bucket from the hood of the car. Reagan screamed, just as Cora slammed the bucket to the ground, cracking the plastic, sending the black liquid gushing out into the dust of the driveway.
Dayna’s eyes were wide and white, and her body spasmed once more, a final, violent jerk that snapped her head back. Then she went limp.
Meiner dove forward, arms outstretched, catching her under the armpits before she could collapse onto the driveway. She grunted, struggling with the other girl’s still form.
“Let me see her.” Reagan was there now, looping one arm around Dayna’s waist, helping to keep her upright. She pressed her fingers against the side of Dayna’s throat, and there was silence, only the sound of Meiner’s own ragged breath in her ears. Then Reagan sighed, shoulders sagging.
“She’s just passed out.”
“We should get her to the Callighans’.” Meiner looped her other arm under Dayna’s knees and hefted her up against her chest, so that Dayna’s head was lying on her shoulder. She could feel the pulse in Dayna’s temple, her heart beating hard. Meiner’s own heart felt like it might burst, and her whole body was trembling.
This was Cora’s fault.
She could hear Cora hurrying behind them and forced herself to keep marching for the farmhouse. Making sure Dayna was okay was the first and foremost thing. There would be time to deal with Cora later.
They burst into the house, Reagan leading the way, talking breathlessly and so fast that Yemi—staring wide-eyed with alarm at the slumped figure of Dayna—had to tell her to slow down. The Callighans looked shocked when she explained, leaving out the part about Cora suggesting it. But Grandma King’s eyes narrowed, and she shot Cora a suspicious look.
Cora flinched and looked away, and the anger boiled in Meiner’s stomach again.
Instead of allowing it to spill out, she moved into the living room, followed by the rest of the witches, to lay Dayna gently on the couch.
Surprisingly it was Yemi who snapped at them. She stood with her hands on her hips, a bundle of smoldering sage still gripped in one hand. “How could you have done something so completely boneheaded? I expected better of all of you. I’ve been cleansing the house like mad, thinking it was the energy from the ceremony making the back of my neck tingle, when it’s just you lot being incredibly irresponsible.”
Meiner felt guilt surge in her stomach, and Reagan looked shame-faced. Cora was the only one who looked sullenly mutinous.
“Nothing else was getting results. We had to.”
Yemi stepped forward, positively towering over Cora now, jabbing a finger in her face. “Listen well, girl. There’s a reason we don’t scry that way.” Yemi snapped one hand out toward Dayna, making the three of them flinch. “This is the reason, you foolish girl.” She turned her attention to her daughter. “Maybe I shouldn’t have let you ascend. Maybe you weren’t ready for the responsibility.”
Meiner didn’t know Yemi well, but from the shocked look on Reagan’s face she guessed this type of temper was rare for the older woman. “I’m sorry, Ma—”
“Abeg o! I don’t need your excuses.” Yemi waved her away, and Reagan trailed off, dropping her gaze to the floor.
“Will she be all right?”
“She’s fine,” Cora muttered, “Just passed out.”
Meiner curled her hands into fists at her sides, grinding her teeth. She wanted to seize Cora by her collar and shake her, but she couldn’t let her temper get the better of her. Not when Dayna might need her.
The older witches ignored Cora, crowding around Dayna on the couch.
“Same treatment as last time.” Bronagh sank down beside her, smoothing a hand over Dayna’s brow. “Plen
ty of water and food when she wakes. She’s all right. Though this has undoubtedly left its mark.”
Brenna leaned down and pressed a finger to the black handprint on Dayna’s arm. “In more ways than one, I’m afraid,” she said grimly. “It’s alarming that Carman has this kind of reach, trapped as she is. I hate to think of her resurrected and brought back to full power.”
There was a moment of tense silence after this.
“She’ll really wake up?” Meiner finally said. In the shocked whiplash of this chilling announcement, she was finding it difficult not to pace. She wanted to move, to do something, to wake Dayna up. To tell her that following Cora’s mad plan had nearly got her killed.
Cora. Her insides lit up with rage all over again. This was her fault. Meiner had warned her not to. She’d told her. And Cora had ignored her and nearly killed Dayna.
“She’ll be herself by tonight, I would expect,” Faye said.
“Cora.” Grandma King spoke for the first time. “Come outside with me a moment.”
Meiner should have felt a sense of satisfaction. She knew what was coming, and it wouldn’t be pleasant. Instead she found herself silently furious. She wanted to hit Cora, to scream, to rage at her.
Cora turned reluctantly, and Meiner moved to follow, fists clenched. Her insides were seething, restless with hot anger. She pictured herself seizing Cora’s arm and wrenching her around, planting her fist in the blond girl’s face.
As if sensing this, Grandma King turned, shaking her head. “Not you. You stay here.”
“This is my business, too,” Meiner snapped. “A member of my coven nearly got someone killed. If I’m supposed to be a leader someday—”
“A good leader wouldn’t have let this happen in the first place.” Grandma King tugged her sweater up higher around her throat and turned for the door, as if the conversation was finished. As if she hadn’t just thrown a lit match onto Meiner’s gasoline temper.
She wanted to take off after Gran, fury burning through her.
She wanted to scream at both of them, to drag Cora back inside and force her to look at the black marks on Dayna’s arms.
And then Bronagh said, “She’s waking,” and Meiner’s temper fizzled out as quickly as it had come.
On the couch, Dayna took a deep breath, eyes fluttering momentarily before opening. She blinked, looking around, bewildered. At the Callighans and Yemi, standing over her, and at Reagan, who hovered just behind them looking incredibly guilty. Her gaze drifted from them to Meiner, and some semblance of memory must have returned, because her eyes went wide, and she glanced down at her arms, wincing.
“Yemi, food,” Bronagh snapped, and Yemi squeaked, flapping her hands in the air, her face alarmed.
“Oh aye. I nearly forgot. I’ve got her lunch in the fridge.” She bustled away into the kitchen, and they heard the slam of the refrigerator door.
“Try to take deep slow breaths,” Bronagh instructed. “And tell us what you remember.”
Dayna blinked. For a second, she only stared at the roof. Then she looked straight at Meiner, who felt a chill drop down her back. Dayna’s eyes were darker than before, it seemed. Or maybe it was an illusion caused by the shadows behind them, the weight of her gaze. As if she’d lived through years in three minutes of scrying. As if she knew things now she shouldn’t.
Dayna turned back to Bronagh. “I know where they are.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
MEINER
She and Dayna wanted to leave right away, as soon as Dayna remembered the name of the inn on the guest book. But Bronagh said they should wait, that they weren’t rushing this because the next target had to be one of them, and they would take the proper precautions before waltzing straight into the lion’s den. She’d given Dayna a sharp look as she said this, and that seemed to have quelled her. Meiner still felt restless and pent-up, pacing the living room as Yemi and the Callighans prepared a protection spell, until Faye snapped at her.
Grandma King and Cora had been gone too long, and there was no reason for them to leave her out of this. She was just as much a part of the coven.
But…they’d been acting this way for the past week now, hadn’t they? Disappearing together, speaking in low voices, exchanging a look when they thought Meiner wouldn’t notice. She’d written it off at first, thought maybe Cora was trying to suck up to her grandmother. But…that wasn’t quite right, was it? Gran had never responded to anything Cora had tried in the past.
Now that she thought of it, the way Cora had reacted when she’d gone through Gran’s things had been strange. She hadn’t asked about anything Meiner had found, and she’d known Gran had been doing black magic, too, that she might still be doing it. In fact…what was it she’d said?
She’ll kill you if you touch her stuff, especially that.
How had Cora known about the book? Meiner had never seen it before. At least, she didn’t recall it. And now she could only think about the smug look on Cora’s face, the blood under her nails….
Gran used to use blood in her rituals. Or…still did.
They’d been outside for too long.
She left the Callighan sisters burning bay leaves over Dayna and stomped out onto the driveway, insides blazing. It was noon, and the sun was directly overhead now, the sky a clear blue color, the forest around the farm vibrant and green. It was a beautiful day, and Meiner was far too angry to appreciate it.
She’d been so stupid.
Maybe they’d been doing it together all this time.
The thought shook her, because it made a horrible kind of sense. Cora had been the one who’d been possessed in the circle. Maybe it hadn’t been Gran who invited something in after all; maybe she’d simply been instructing Cora.
Meiner paused in the middle of the driveway, heart pounding hard against her rib cage.
The more she thought about it, the more furious it made her. They’d been doing it under her nose all this time. Cora had probably been laughing at her.
Her hand was still bruised from punching the wall days ago, but the rage was enough to drive out the pain. She was going to make both of them pay.
Except…where the hell were they?
She paused, looking around, blood thundering in her ears. The driveway was empty. She went quiet, breathing deeply, trying to calm her heartbeat enough to listen.
The air smelled like early summer bonfire smoke and pine, and she could hear the faint murmur of voices around the side of the house. She could make out Cora’s voice, high and strained with irritation.
“We found out where they were hiding—”
A sharp crack interrupted this, and a grunt of pain. Meiner paused, her anger fizzling out momentarily. She’d been on the receiving end of this kind of conversation many times. She stayed where she was, still hidden around the corner.
“And the verses I taught you? The ritual? How is that coming? Or are you neglecting it to send your fellow witchlings on dangerous fool’s errands?”
Cora’s voice was sullen. “I’ve memorized the stupid thing. If you’d just tell me what it was for—”
“It will grant you the power you need when you need it. You’ll know when the time comes.”
“You keep saying that.”
There was frustration in Cora’s voice, and disappointment, and Meiner felt a surge of emotion strong enough that she had to brace herself on the wall of the house. She’d had this same talk with Grandma King, years ago. She’d had the words endlessly drilled into her, had been forced to set up the circle over and over, outside in the cold and rain until she’d completed it fifteen, sixteen, seventeen times. And through it all, she’d begged to know what the spell did, why it was so important, and she’d received no answer.
She’d always suspected it had something to do with taking over the coven, with being head witch. If it was the same ritual and Cora was learning it instead of her…
Meiner hadn’t stumbled across evidence of black magic, but this was almost as bad.
That explained the book. Gran had probably been teaching Cora all the things Meiner had never been taught. She’d never seen the black book because Gran hadn’t felt the need to show her, not after she’d been replaced.
What did that mean for the future of the coven? Would Cora inherit it?
The thought of Cora in charge sent another wave of anger through her. She felt nauseous, sick with fury. When had Grandma King decided her own granddaughter wasn’t good enough?
And on top of everything, well…it was Cora.
She was already insufferable; she’d nearly killed Dayna tonight and had set something loose that had permanently marked her. And Cora wasn’t showing the least bit of remorse over it. She was reckless and overconfident. If she was in charge, there was no telling how she’d behave. Who else she would hurt.
“Don’t make me regret my decision, girl.”
“You can’t hold the threat of Meiner over my head every time I do something you don’t like. She doesn’t even really want the coven. All she wants is to avoid becoming you.”
This last bit was thrown at the old woman, and Cora’s voice was loaded with toxic satisfaction. She must have got a reaction out of Grandma King, though Meiner couldn’t think what.
“She doesn’t want to be here,” Cora said. “She didn’t even believe you when we first got here. She thinks you’re senile.”
“And yet she stayed,” Grandma King said evenly. “Because she does as she’s told. She’s grateful I took pity on her, saved her from her useless lump of a mother. As you should be. Instead you’ve shown nothing but disrespect since your aunt dumped you on my doorstep.”