by Sarah Piper
At this, Gray pulled the girl to her chest, capturing her in a fierce hug. “You could never let us down, Reva. No matter what. Just come back to us.”
We brought Reva into the common room, where Verona had blessed the space and set up protective charms and crystals throughout the room. Reva took a position before the fireplace, and all around her, the witches formed a half-circle, joining hands, whispering more protective chants and Reva stared into the fire.
All of us watched as she slipped into a trance-like state, her eyelids fluttering closed, her shoulders drooping as her consciousness departed her physical body.
As the witches continued their protective whispering, I stood to the side with Asher, Darius, Emilio, Ronan, Jael, Emilio, and Elena, all of us exchanging glances, no one daring to speak.
Other than the witches, none of us made a sound, though I was certain the vampires in the room could hear the frantic thumping of my heart, the fraying of my nerves. I felt as if I’d stopped breathing, and wouldn’t dare to start again until Reva was wholly returned, her astral and physical selves united and safe.
An hour passed. Two. And then, just before the passing of the third, when I was certain one more minute would have us all charging blindly into the Bay to right whatever wrongs had most certainly been committed against her, Reva emerged.
Her face was as blue-white as the full moon shining on the snow.
“Reva,” Gray said gently, kneeling beside her in front of the flames. “Are you okay?”
Reva blinked rapidly, then turned to look at Gray, her eyes going wide with shock. “I… I couldn’t stay,” she said. “Not more than a day.”
Gray nodded, deciding not to tell the child that she hadn’t even been gone three hours by our reckoning. Another trick of the fae magic.
“Why couldn’t you stay?” Gray asked.
“There weren’t enough shadows.”
“What do you mean?”
At this, Reva looked up and met my eyes, her own clearing a bit as the shock receded. “It’s morning there. All the time now. There’s no snow, no fires, no armies, no darkness. There are flowers blooming on every street, and birds singing, and warm breezes coming in off the Bay… It’s like… It’s like this weird, twisted paradise.”
“What of the people?” I asked. “Did you see anyone?”
“I saw everyone,” she whispered. “Witches, vampires, humans. Everyone was smiling. Happy. Chatting with their neighbors, riding bikes through the park. But the thing is, something felt off about their smiles. They seem kind of like zombies. Well, not the kind that eat people. Just the spaced-out kind. I tried to talk to one of the witches and tell her we were coming, but the woman just kept asking me if I was lost, over and over again, even when I told her I lived in the neighborhood.”
“Are you sure you traveled to Blackmoon Bay and not to another location by mistake?” I asked her.
“Yes. I saw Norah’s old house, and the café where she used to take me for peppermint mochas sometimes. Not Luna’s—the other place.”
“Covington’s Cup,” Haley said. “It’s around the corner from Norah’s.”
Reva nodded. “It was definitely home. Just… super messed up. And not in the way Jael said. I swear, you’d take one look at it and think that nothing bad had ever happened there.”
“It must be glamoured,” Jael said, “and heavily at that. Kallayna didn’t mention it during our last conversation, so I presume it’s a relatively new situation—one that makes our endeavors that much more challenging.”
“Can you undo it?” Gray asked. “We really need an accurate picture if we’ve got any hope at sorting out friend from foe.”
“I won’t know until we’re in there and I get a sense for the complexity of the spell weave,” he said.
Gray got to her feet, turning to face the crowd. The collective energy in the room rose considerably, the air suddenly electrified.
We all knew what was coming next.
“Alright, guys,” she said, meeting each of our gazes in turn. Then, with a resolute nod of her head, “Let’s move out.”
Twenty-Seven
ASHER
Gray wasn’t out for power. Hell, she’d had a hard time accepting her own magic, let alone trying to control anyone else’s. World domination? It just wasn’t her style.
But seeing her take charge of the troops, unflinchingly directing us into the Bay where we’d face our ultimate enemies… She had truly come into her own. She was, as Ronan had always believed, born for this.
Our girl was a total badass, and truth be told, I was kind of fucking turned on.
Unfortunately, I’d have to stash that thought for later.
On this night, there would be no sneak attack. No standing around in the snow with our thumbs up our asses, waiting for the signal. No more planning, no more plotting, and no more talking.
There would only be doing.
All of us were out for blood.
From the moment Gray ordered us to move out, we were in motion, loading into the emergency vehicles Elena had commandeered from the RCPD, caravanning east to Blackmoon Bay.
Gray had been confident that with so many witches concentrating their power and intention to a single outcome, we’d be able to override the fae cloaking spells that would otherwise send us in circles.
Her theory proved correct. After a tense drive, we found ourselves driving across a bridge that led straight into the center of the warehouse district.
Ground zero.
We met no resistance. Not on the drive over, and not as we pulled in behind an abandoned warehouse, stashing the vans down a narrow alleyway.
The vampires had ridden in a van with tinted windows, uncertain as to how the Bay’s perpetual sunlight would affect them. Now, I watched as Gray and Darius stepped out first, gingerly stretching their hands into a patch of sunlight.
Nothing happened.
“Remember, it’s glamoured,” Jael said. “None of this is real. Not even the sun. But that also means that when the real sun rises, we won’t necessarily know it until it’s too late. You all need to keep a very close eye on the time.”
Gray glanced at her phone. “It’s nine p.m. now. That means we’ve got a good ten hours until sunrise, but I don’t want to take any chances. Vampires, we all need to be back here or seek other appropriate shelter by six a.m.”
“Clear,” Darius said, and Fiona nodded.
Gray and I checked all the vans, making sure everyone had their weapons and whatever magical items the witches needed. We made a formidable force—witches, vampires, shifters, demons, and our resident human, Spooky. Even Reva was in line, carrying a short blade, her blue eyes wild.
No one had stayed behind, and no one was unprepared.
“That’s everyone,” I said, giving Reva a fist-bump.
We moved quickly after that, the whole crew slipping inside the warehouse for cover. This part of the district had always been a ghost town, and so far, we hadn’t spotted any people—human or super—but we weren’t taking any chances.
Certain we were all secure inside, Gray turned back to Jael. “So, can you undo the glamour?”
“I need an hour, but yes, I can do it. Just remember, Gray—the moment I break the spell weave, they’ll know we’re here. Not necessarily where we are, but they will eventually find us.”
“Or,” she said, flashing a sly, ready-for-anything grin, “we’ll make it easy on them.”
“How do you mean?” he asked.
There was a fae sword strapped to her back, but in her hand, she gripped the staff she’d been favoring during the training. Raising it before us, she looked us over, taking our measure—her dark rebels, her fighters, her friends, her lovers, her hellhounds—and her magic crackled to life, arcing along the wood.
“Let’s show these motherfuckers who’s coming home tonight.”
Twenty-Eight
GRAY
Blackmoon Bay is burning…
Jael’s earlier warn
ings echoed, but they had not done the situation justice.
As the fae glamour fell away, taking with it the sunshine and the birds and the bright, cloudless sky, my whole body froze in sheer horror as I took in the scene.
The real scene.
Our home, as we’d known it, was well and truly gone.
Luna’s café had been leveled, leaving no more than a smoking husk in its place. The magical boundary that had protected it had clearly evaporated. I thought of Ella, the cute fox shifter I’d last seen behind the counter, how she’d always saved the last chocolate macadamia cookies for me. I hoped she’d gotten out alive.
The boats that hadn’t been blasted ashore were frozen in the icy bay, smashed and sticking up at odd angles, unmoving. They were so still, it looked like a photograph.
The warehouse around the corner that had served as the base of operations for Waldrich’s Imports, the black-market employer Ronan and I had shared, was little more than a steel frame now. The Waldrich’s van I used to drive—the same one the guys and I had driven to Norah’s house to rescue Asher—was tipped on its side in the middle of the street, all of the windows smashed.
Everywhere we turned, destruction and chaos reigned supreme. Fires were still smoldering. Buildings we’d visited and passed by thousands of times had been reduced to rubble and ash. Stores and homes and restaurants, parks and plazas, trees, all of the places that had made Blackmoon Bay something more than a name on a map…
I swallowed the tightness in my throat. Those places no longer existed.
But the most frightening sight of all wasn’t the burned-out husks of buildings or the rows of decimated houses.
It was the people.
Human and supernatural alike, they walked the streets in the same glassy-eyed daze as Reva had described. The same as when everything had still looked shiny and new, as though the glamour had so thoroughly transfixed them, they’d never again be able to see things as they truly were.
One of them passed by me now, brushing against my arm as if she hadn’t even noticed me—a woman in a bright green sundress, her arms loaded up with flyers, the bare skin of her legs black with frostbite she didn’t seem to feel. I reached out and took her hand, stopping her forward momentum.
At this, she finally turned around, her glassy eyes fixating on me as if she were waiting for me to cue up her lines.
“Are you okay?” I asked. Stupid question with an obvious answer, but in that moment, I couldn’t form a logical thought.
She cocked her head, her smile unbroken. “Would you like to come to our meeting? Please bring a dish to pass.” She handed me a flyer from the stack in her arms, then moseyed along, disappearing around the corner.
I glanced down at the paper, my heart twisting.
Unhappy with your lot in life?
Wishing things could be better?
WITCHES ARE THE PROBLEM.
The good news? Problems can be solved.
But only by taking ACTION.
A better, happier, richer life can be yours.
Find out how!
There was an address and phone number, followed by a lengthy, small-print essay delineating all of the awful, terrible, very bad things witches had allegedly caused—everything from unemployment and economic crashes to STDs and the brainwashing of our nation’s youth.
I didn’t have the heart to tell the woman she, too, was a witch, just like me.
She, too, was part of the alleged “problem.”
I crumpled the paper and tossed it onto a burning pile of trash, resolute.
No, this crazy disaster area wasn’t the Blackmoon Bay of memory. But it was still home. Our home. These aimlessly wandering people, however bespelled in the moment, were our neighbors.
And when I turned and looked back at the guys, at the witches, at all the living, breathing, passionate, loving souls who’d followed me into this hell, I knew we were all thinking the exact same thing.
We’re not giving up on our home.
I met Darius’s eyes, and he nodded once. It was time.
I brought my hands up and closed my eyes, calling up the magic of home, the magic of my birthplace, the magic of the city we loved. It was still there, pulsing beneath the burning streets with a fire all its own, ready to be channeled, ready to consume anything in its path.
I drew it up into myself, then pushed it out into my staff, where it connected instantly with the weapon’s fae magic, twining into a bright blue arc twice as powerful as anything I’d ever called upon, anything I’d ever wielded.
I pointed it at the warehouse on the corner across from us, a storage facility owned by the marina operators that was typically stocked with marine fuel and all kinds of other flammable shit.
And then I let loose my magic.
The warehouse exploded on contact, lighting up the docks and sending out a beacon bright enough to be seen from space.
The message was clear.
The Silversbane witch was here—right fucking here—and she’d brought an army of witches and rebels who weren’t going down without a fight.
Scratch that. We weren’t going down at all.
I tightened my grip on the staff and looked back at my guys one more time, my lips stretching into a grin as I felt the drumbeat of a hundred enemy boots hitting the docks, finally barreling toward us.
It was time to take out the trash.
Twenty-Nine
GRAY
Hunters and dark fae, hybrid shifters, rogue vampires… Every foul beast we’d ever faced now converged before us, their teeth sharp, eyes bright with menace.
Together with my rebels, my sisters, my hounds, and all the witches and supernaturals who’d come to fight at our side, we broke upon their army like a wave crashing against the shore.
All around me, the colorful explosions of different magics lit up the snowy night, including the familiar yellow-orange signature I knew belonged to Deirdre. She hadn’t traveled here with us—I hadn’t even spoken with her since I’d sent her away. But she’d shown up when it counted, and for that, I was grateful.
The fae forced the hunters to lead the charge against us. Eager for the kill, Sparkle and Sunshine cleared a path right through them, mauling their prey without a second thought. Blood ran red in the gutters as I blurred into action behind them, slicing through my enemies as though my staff were a hot blade and their bodies no more substantial than butter.
Against the deadly combination of my vampire speed and the magic, the hunters and even the hybrids were no match for me.
The fae, on the other hand, posed more of a threat, as did the vampires, and after I’d taken out almost as many hunters as my hounds had, I found myself surrounded by much more formidable opponents. All around me, I saw my rebels facing their own battles, the demons teaming up on other fae, Darius leading the RCPD shifters against the hybrids, the witches grappling with the remaining hunters.
I was on my own, but I wasn’t alone. I took strength from them, just as they took it from me.
Steeling myself as the enemy closed ranks around me, I raised my staff, infusing it with the magic that hummed inside me.
“You’re gonna die slow,” one of the vamps said, but before he could pop off another useless threat, I swung hard, sending a burst of magic into the staff just as it connected with his head.
Blue flames ignited, quickly engulfing him. It’d happened so fast he hadn’t even had time to scream.
The others lunged for me all at once, but I was faster than them, faster than Darius, faster than any vamp we’d ever come upon. They were no more than smudges in my peripheral vision as I darted and danced, keeping them at bay with the threat of blue fire.
One of the fae soldiers lunged for me with his blade, but I dodged easily. As his momentum carried him past me, I spun around fast and swung for his head, connecting hard. The force of the blow reverberated into my hands, jarring me for a brief moment before he dropped to the ground, dead weight.
The other fae watche
d me in shock.
Fae weapons were powerful in their creators’ hands, but I had fae blood running through my veins, too.
“Take her down!” one of the soldiers ordered an unseen assailant behind me, and instinctively I dropped to the ground. A sharp pain bit into the top of my shoulder, but I’d dodged a deadlier thrust, and now I used my position to my advantage, grabbing the soldier by the knees and knocking his feet out from under him.
He hit the ground with a thud, and I leaped to my feet and bashed his skull in with the tip of my staff.
The two Darkwinter Knights remaining quickly turned tail, charging into another skirmish that had broken out behind us, hoping for an easier target with the witches.
Obviously, they’d never seen witches fight.
I scanned the crowd for my sisters, catching sight of Haley just as she sliced open her hand. She was on her knees, and now she pressed her bleeding palm to the concrete, calling forth a line of yellow fire that separated the witches from the hunters and fae who’d been attacking. The enemy leaped backward to avoid the path of that blood magic, but it had distracted them just enough to give the witches another advantage. Channeling their active powers, the group fighting with Haley pummeled the soldiers with a coordinated magical attack, lighting up the darkness.
“Gray! You good?” Ronan appeared at my side, his eyes black, a gash across his forehead, but otherwise unharmed. He eyed my blood-soaked shirt, but the wound at my shoulder had already knitted back together.
“Vampire healing for the motherfucking win,” I said, and he nodded once, then charged back into the fray. I was close on his heels, taking out two hybrid panthers who’d tried to double up on him from behind.
Together, Ronan and I fought our way through a tangle of hunters, easily dodging their comparatively weak human attacks. I’d just turned around to get a read on the rest of the group when I saw six vamps circling a couple of witches, herding them down an alley away from the rest of the fighting.