The Witch's Key

by Sarra Cannon

  I ran up to my room to grab my backpack, and I took my time carefully packing it up with everything Gowan and Gianna had said I might need.

  Holy Water. My father’s dagger. A large bottle full of blessed salt.

  I checked off more than fifteen different reagents as I loaded them into my bag. The inside of the backpack was arranged with small straps so that I could carry lots of different vials in a somewhat organized manner.

  I just worried that when the time came, I wouldn’t be able to locate and use everything as quickly as I wanted.

  Gianna assured me that once I graduated to my second key, I would be able to cast more magic without the use of incantations and reagents, but she also said that about a hundred more ingredients would open up to me.

  A witch’s key was more than just a key to a cabinet. It was a key to new magic and abilities, too.

  “You’ll be on your second key before you know it if you keep this up,” Gowan had said to me this morning during training.

  I had then asked him what level key he was on, and he’d simply given me a wink and tucked his key inside his white shirt.

  But not before I had a chance to see the three ruby stones embedded in its center.

  Now, as I packed up my bag, I grasped my own key and locket tightly in my hand. My witch’s key had no stone or fancy inscriptions. It was just a simple, silver key, and tonight, that would have to be enough.

  I knelt before my spell cabinet for a few minutes and closed my eyes. I sent up a prayer to whoever might be listening up there. It was a prayer I’d heard my parents say to each other many times before they had gone into battle.

  May my magic be quick and strong.

  May my aim always be true.

  May the light be on my side.

  So that I may return home safe to you.

  I took several deep breaths before I could convince my legs to lift me up and carry me down the stairs to where the others were waiting.

  The entire ride out to the cabin, I clung tightly to Kai’s hand but didn’t say a word. My heart had not beat so fast or so hard since the night my parents died.

  Please, don’t let tonight be like that night.

  When we got to the cabin, the sun had disappeared behind the trees and the air had cooled off some from the heat of the day.

  Everyone jumped into action, following our plan. Everything was going exactly as we’d expected, but that didn’t bring me any comfort. I knew from experience that things could go wrong in an instant.

  We huddled around Martin as he prepared his tracking spell again. He had to prick his own fingertip with a blade each time, but he didn’t seem to mind.

  He let a single drop of his blood fall onto a map he’d created of the area, and we all waited, holding our breath as we watched the blood slowly make a trail to our exact location, circling the mile or so radius around the cabin.

  So, this was it.

  Algrath was here. The girls had to be inside that cabin. We were going to save them. We just had to keep our heads on straight and our magic strong, and we could do this.

  But just like I’d feared, something did go wrong.

  It was still half an hour until we intended to storm the cabin, but Algrath had apparently decided to start early, because inside, someone screamed.

  “Peyton,” I said, standing. “That’s her. He’s hurting her.”

  “Lenny, wait,” Kai said.

  But it was too late. I was already on my feet and running toward the cabin.

  And So It Begins

  I ran straight toward the cabin, my heart pumping hard as I thought about what those girls must be going through.

  But before I made it even ten steps forward, something grabbed hold of my foot, and I face-planted in the grass with a thud and a groan.

  At first, I didn’t quite understand what happened. My mind was locked on the cabin, and I couldn’t bring it back to this moment, here in the grass.

  I lifted my head and gasped as I saw the glowing outline of a ward literally three inches in front of my face. In my panic, I’d almost forgotten about the wards and traps Algrath had set around this cabin. If I’d set those off all at once, we probably all would have died.

  Tears sprang to my eyes.

  What was wrong with me?

  Gowan knelt at my side. “You’ve got to get yourself under control, Lenny. Do you understand how dangerous it can be if you let your emotions get the best of you?” he asked. “We’re working with a powerful trickster demon here. He’s going to do whatever he can to play on your emotions, make you see things that aren’t there, and prey on any of your weaknesses.”

  He offered me a hand, and I grabbed it, letting him pull me to a standing position.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I just heard her scream and freaked out.”

  “If you’re going to let all the training we just did fly right out the window because of a single scream, you might as well get in the car and drive home right now, do you understand?”

  His words stung, but he was right.

  I’d nearly killed us all at the very first sign of trouble. That entire test with the bunny suddenly made crystal clear sense to me. Tonight wasn’t just about winning some battle against a demon.

  It was also about mastering my own heart.

  Slayers needed to be strong. I’d always known that, but I guess I just never realized how many different ways they had to be strong.

  “I understand,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  We walked back to the group, and even though I expected Martin to be disappointed in my actions, he put his arm around me, instead.

  “I have a feeling you will learn many difficult lessons tonight,” Martin said. “Let’s hope the first lesson is that your impulsiveness can put the entire group in danger. That spirit of yours can be your greatest weakness, or your strongest gift. Only you can decide.”

  I wiped a tear from my cheek. I needed to grow up fast, or I was going to get everyone killed.

  But how could my impulsiveness be a gift? I didn’t understand what he meant, but before I got the chance to ask him, another scream sounded from inside the cabin.

  This time, it sounded like a different girl.

  I resisted the urge to run and help, but I didn’t want to just stand here and listen to that, either.

  “What’s he doing to them?” I asked. “Or is that just for our sake? Do you think he knows we’re here?”

  “He most definitely knows we’re here,” Gowan said. “This whole place has been set up as a trap for us, and he led us right in. I can promise you, we’re all exactly where he wants us.”

  I swallowed back fear.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “If we’re right where he wants us, aren’t we doing something wrong? Aren’t we just playing right into his trap?”

  “Sometimes, that’s the only way to face a demon like this,” Gianna said. “You have to let them believe you’re falling for all their little tricks, and then, when they let their guard down, you surprise them.”

  I frowned. That sounded extremely risky to me.

  After all our planning, I’d been feeling pretty confident, but now that the actual moment of confrontation was here, I didn’t know what to do.

  “What if they can’t be surprised? Or they anticipate our moves, too?” I asked.

  “Then we improvise as we go,” Gowan said. He put a hand on my arm. “Don’t look so scared. We’re going to get through this together.”

  I couldn’t help but be scared. Something about this whole cabin felt off to me. Couldn’t they feel that, too?

  But maybe they could.

  We were intentionally playing the game Algrath set up for us. I guess I could understand why, but it still scared me. I just hoped they all knew what they were doing.

  Another scream sounded from inside the cabin, and the lights inside flickered. It was a different girl, again.

  “He’s preparing them for the ritual, or something,” I said. �
�Hurting them one at a time in some way.”

  “Perhaps,” Gianna said. “Or he’s intentionally setting us on edge, hoping we’ll make our move before we’re ready.”

  “And when is that going to be?” I asked. “Us being ready, I mean.”

  She smiled and touched my cheek. “Your mother was always so impulsive when she was a girl, too,” she said. “Right now, under the light of the full moon, you look just like her at this age. It’s going to be okay, Lenny. You have to trust us.”

  I grasped my mother’s locket in my hand. My mother was impulsive?

  That’s not how I had known her at all. Yes, she was full of fire and spirit, but she was also very calculated, going through all the possibilities as if she could see all possible futures laid out before her.

  It was hard to imagine her as a rush-right-in kind of person like me.

  Maybe there was hope for me, yet.

  A fourth scream from the next girl came from inside the cabin, and the lights flickered again, staying off longer this time.

  What was he doing in there? It seemed like some kind of ramping up for the ritual, I guessed.

  “How close are we on the tracking spell?” Asher asked.

  Martin glanced at his watch. “Still twenty-two minutes.”

  I wanted to beat my head against a tree. Twenty-two more minutes? It just didn’t feel like we had that kind of time. Besides, who else did we think was inside that cabin hurting the girls? Santa Claus?

  “I’m going to make a trip around behind the wards to check the ritual circle,” Asher said.

  He sprinkled something over his head that looked like glitter and ashes.

  “Abscondo.”

  Asher disappeared completely, and I got chills all over my arms. I hadn’t seen that invisibility spell before.

  “Why not just use something like obscuro?” I asked.

  “Demons at this level can see through those types of lower-level invisibility spells. The one Asher just used is a much higher level and not available to a witch like you just yet,” Gianna said. “So please don’t go getting ideas into your head about sneaking around this cabin to find the girls. Besides, the wards and traps will still trigger, even if you’re invisible.”

  A few minutes later, Asher reappeared beside Martin, nearly scaring me to death. I actually started to pull my dagger on him, and then I laughed nervously. Talk about being on edge. I was losing it.

  Couldn’t we just please raid this place, already?

  “It’s already been activated,” he whispered. “I think he’s going to start earlier than we expected.”

  I kept my mouth shut. I wanted to trust the experts here. They’d done this before, and I basically had no idea what I was doing.

  But still, I was ready to go. Anything but stand here and wait while my friend might be dying.

  An hour seemed to pass before Martin turned to Gowan.

  “I defer to you in this,” he said. “Do we wait?”

  Gowan ran a hand across his white beard.

  “I think we wait until we have confirmation of one of the girls being brought out to that circle,” he said. “Right now, we don’t know for sure that any of them are inside. It could all be a trick of our ears. If we trigger any one of those wards or traps he set up, we might be too overrun to change locations if we’re wrong.”

  Martin nodded, but I wanted to scream.

  Kai, who had barely even looked at me since our conversation earlier about his parents, seemed to sense my frustration. He touched my arm and motioned for me to join him a few steps away from the group.

  “Sit down,” he said. “Face me.”

  “Why?” I asked, snapping harsher than I’d intended. I immediately wanted to take it back. “I’m sorry. I’m struggling.”

  He sat down first, cross-legged with his hands on his knees. I joined him reluctantly. I was ready to go inside. Get this thing done. Not sit out here and sing campfire songs.

  “You’re going to be fine,” he said. “You just need to find your center. Your heart. It’s where your intuition and your deep knowing come from. This is what you need to find and trust right now, more so than your eyes and ears. Close your eyes and take a deep breath.”

  “I don’t think I can,” I said.

  I was sitting just like him, but I couldn’t seem to get my toes to stop tapping or my hands to relax.

  “Just try,” he said. His voice was so calm and cool. How was he doing that? “For me?”

  I sighed.

  “Okay, I’ll try it. If nothing else, it will help pass the time, right?”

  I closed my eyes, and Kai directed our breaths, telling me when to breathe in or out.

  Soon, I was able to focus only on the sound of his voice and the feel of the air filling my lungs. For the first time, I noticed it was a breezy night. I had my long hair pulled back, but some little wisps must have pulled free, because they were tickling my cheeks and the back of my neck with each gust of wind.

  “When your heart is calm, you can listen to the voice inside you, instead of listening to fear,” he said.

  I smiled. “You sound like my parents. They were always telling me to listen to my heart.”

  “It’s something my mother always said, too. Feel any better?” he asked.

  I opened my eyes. “I do. Thank you for that.”

  “If things get difficult tonight or scary, just come back to this,” he said. “Before you act, come back to yourself. To your heart. Forget your fear.”

  “Sounds easy,” I said, sarcasm coating my tone.

  “It will be good practice for you.”

  “You say that like you’ve had a lot of experience with battles yourself, even though I know you haven’t.”

  He shrugged. “Not battles, but I’ve had other demons to fight,” he said. “This is one of the only things that helps when I’m feeling scared.”

  It was hard to think of an angel feeling scared, but maybe it was his humanity that allowed him to feel so much. Realizing that about him also made me see that he was beautiful, even without his wings.

  Kai started to reach for my hand, but before either of us could express how we were feeling, the fifth girl screamed and all the lights in the cabin went out, as though someone had blown out a candle.

  Kai and I stood, staring at the house, waiting for the lights to flicker back on.

  Only, this time, they stayed off.

  “What’s happening?” I asked.

  No one answered. We all just stared at the cabin, waiting. The breeze I’d noticed a moment ago ramped up, increasing steadily until the trees around us bent over from the force of it.

  Lightning and thunder cracked together, lighting up the sky with a loud boom that shook the ground beneath our feet. At the same moment, the sky darkened as clouds moved to cover up the light of the full moon.

  Cool rain poured down on us, and because of the wind, the drops stung my cheeks.

  Darius reached into his satchel and crushed a vial of something in his hands as he shouted, “Protectio.”

  The rain stopped instantly, and I wiped my eyes, shocked. But then I realized the rain hadn’t stopped at all. Rather, a protective shelter had appeared over our heads. It looked like glass above us as the rain hit it and slid down each side.

  “And so it begins,” Martin said. He stood holding his map and staring at a new droplet of blood. “Algrath is near. Keep your wits about you, and we will prevail. Asher, bring the first ward down and trigger the first trap.”

  “We still have fifteen minutes before that spell is accurate,” Asher said. “We’re jumping the gun here.”

  “We no longer have the luxury of waiting,” Gowan said, nodding toward the cabin.

  An eerie bluish-purple glow emanated from inside, and the front door suddenly flew open. Dark smoke billowed out of the house. At the same time, the windows exploded, oozing the same dark purple smoke.

  I wanted to run straight inside and grab the girls, but I held myself back
. There were still wards and traps up everywhere. We wouldn’t save anyone if we were killed or overrun. I had to find a way to trust the experts around me.

  “What do we do?” I asked.

  “Wait for Asher. Whatever comes at us, we fight,” Gianna said. “Then, we trigger the next trap until we’ve made our way up to the house. This is it. Everyone ready.”

  Beside me, Martin placed a hand on Kai’s shoulder.

  “Young man, no matter what else happens, you do not let Lenora leave your sight. Do you hear me?”

  “Yes, sir. I promise.”

  Okay, so I did have a guardian angel.

  In the past, I might have been upset that no one trusted me to get things done on my own, but if I’d learned anything over the past week, it was that pride was not doing me any favors. I needed help, and there was no shame in having someone there to look out for me.

  I would be looking out for him, too.

  Sparks flew as Asher cast a spell off to our left, but I couldn’t quite see what he was doing through the downpour.

  It soon became apparent what was happening, though, because a dark mass of hellhounds surrounded our small shelter, their teeth bared and dripping with poison. They scratched at the glass-like spell, and after just a moment, something inside it cracked, letting a single paw through.

  “It won’t hold much longer. Prepare yourselves,” Darius said as he leaned down and grabbed a handful of mud. He slathered it across his arms, and it turned to what looked like leather armor.

  Seeing him threw me into action, too. I repeated his motions, using the spell Gianna had given me.

  “Saxum,” I said, and the mud on my arm turned to stone. It was a bit tight and uncomfortable against my skin, but if it worked, I was okay with being uncomfortable.

  I had prepared my dagger’s blade ahead of time, coating it with salt and poison. I pulled it from its leather sheath now, my hands trembling.

  Darius’s shelter shattered under the weight of the hellhounds, and they rushed toward us in a pack.

  I knew from my reading that hellhounds were extremely dangerous. They weren’t so hard to kill, but if they broke skin with their teeth, you were done for. A hellhound rushed toward me and immediately tried to sink its teeth into my calf.