“First Evanora must work the spell to lift the curse.” The old witch shuffled to the back of the room where a small table, topped with burning candles and incense, sat next close to the wall. A large, leather-bound book lay open. The pages that weren’t torn on the edges were yellow with age. A grimoire. I didn’t feel so bad about stealing the other grimoire anymore. Looked like Evanora had them in bulk.
The dark witch leaned over the grimoire and flipped through its pages with effort, the paper slipping from her gnarled fingers. After a moment she stopped flipping and inclined her head until her face grazed the pages of the book so that her functioning eye was reading the instructions of whatever spell she found in her grimoire.
I watched as the old witch’s lips moved as she read the spell. “And?” I was getting impatient.
Evanora looked up from her book. “Evanora needs two circles. One with Evanora’s blood... and one with your blood.”
Hell. I knew this was too good to be true. “You need my blood?” From the corner of my eye I saw Gareth’s head snap in my direction, but I refused to look at him because I already knew what was on his face—a discouraging scowl.
The witch frowned at the annoyance in my tone. “To lift a blood curse, Evanora must perform the counter curse first and then the transference spell.”
“Blood curse?” now I was really confused. “My blood is cursed?” My breath hissed out. Is that what Lucian had done do me? Cursed my blood? My jaw tightened and I stiffened, hating myself for letting him do this to me.
“What did you think it was?” The witch looked at me like a was a fool. “He might have called it a gift... but it is a curse. Only a curse can fuse itself into the blood and give you power. It is not a spell you need to invoke, it is blood. And it is in your blood now, inside you as though you were born with it. Spells are usually temporary. Curses are forever, unless they are lifted. What the archdemon gave you is a blood curse. And to remove a blood curse Evanora must do blood magic.”
“Blood magic?” I asked, a mix of fear and excitement making my muscles tight.
Evanora looked up at me from under her cowl. “Blood is the essence of life. Blood is energy. It is the link between actual persons, animals, every living creature. Blood is the energy you need to make something happen on a large scale. It is the only way Evanora can lift the curse.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. Whenever my blood was involved, it usually ended with a disaster, on a colossal scale.
“Rowyn.” Gareth was at my side in the blink of an eye.
I looked at him surprised. “How did you do that? Weren’t you just over there?”
He leaned forward and whispered in my ear, “I don’t trust her.”
“Only a fool would trust Evanora,” I said, my voice low. “But I trust her thirst for power, her desire to be all powerful. She wants this more than anything. And I know she’s going to do everything in her power to get it.”
“But at what cost?”
“She won’t kill me,” I said, seeing the worry reflected in his brown eyes. “She said the lifting of the curse shouldn’t affect me.”
Gareth searched my face, his eyes meeting mine and holding affection tempered with a severe protectiveness. “How can you be so sure? You have no idea what this could do to you, what removing the curse might do.” He took a breath. “Have you thought that maybe Lucian made it so that it cannot be removed? Ever? What if he designed it in a way that if you tried, it would kill you?”
Shit. I hadn’t thought of that. “It won’t kill me,” I said, though I didn’t sound so convincing. “The fact that I don’t have any archangel sigils is the key to letting curses in and letting them out.”
The elf shook his head, shifting from foot to foot as his tension looked for an outlet. “I don’t think this is such a good idea. We can work through this. I can help you control it—”
“I don’t want to control it. I want it out of me,” I said, exasperated. “Don’t you get it? Wouldn’t you want some foreign object out of your body? It’s a cancer. I can feel it changing me, eating away at my soul. It’s bad. And Evanora has the cure.”
The rasp of boots coming our way was loud and interrupted Gareth’s comeback. Heart pounding, I saw Danto and Layla walk through the door curtain.
“No sign of any dark witches,” said the vampire, answering my question. “The streets are clear. I don’t think anyone knows we’re here.”
“Okay, good,” I answered, feeling slightly relieved, though I knew it was only a matter of time before the paranormal community found out.
The door curtain swayed to the side, and Tyrius bounded into the room. “Nothing,” said the baal demon stopping short next to my feet. “Checked everywhere. There’s no sign of any of your blood in vials or jars... nada. It’s clean. We’re good to go.”
It was the reassurance I was waiting for.
A cold tremor went through me. It was time.
My eyes found the dark witch and I said, “Let’s do this.”
16
I’d always thought in another life I would have made a great witch. Spells, talismans, enchantments, even the mixing of potions with different herbs and ingredients were arts I enjoyed. But slicing my palms and squirting out my blood into a black ceramic bowl was what I’d qualify as gross, and it had me on edge.
Blood magic. Just the name sounded taboo. But that’s what dark magic was all about. Right?
After Evanora had removed all evidence of the blood circle she’d drawn previously with her students, she’d sliced open her left palm and squeezed her blood into a ceramic bowl.
“You must cut your right palm,” she instructed as she handed me a clean bowl with the same knife, stained with the witch’s blood. Nice.
“This is no regular spell,” said Evanora, seeing my frown. “Evanora is not working a spell over a cauldron.”
“I know.” After I wiped the knife on my jeans, I sliced my right palm, wincing as I then squeezed my blood into the small ceramic bowl. The memory of lying on the ground while Evanora and her coven of dark witches had tried to bleed me to death rose up and filled me with a sudden hot anger, making me second guess what I was doing here. I had to keep telling myself this was different. I had asked for this.
I shivered as I took the bowl with my blood pooled around the bottom and laid it down in the circle next to my knees.
Trembling with strenuous effort, the old witch knelt to my right and began to draw a circle around herself with her own blood, laid out across the wood floor, maybe four feet in diameter. “You must make a circle of your blood next to Evanora’s,” instructed the witch, her fingers from her left hand dripping in blood as she pointed to the ground next to her. “They must touch on the outer edge, like the number eight, so that the curse flows through both blood energies.”
“Okay.” I dipped my fingers into my blood and drew my blood circle, tracing my fingers along the wood floor and making sure my outer edge touched Evanora’s. All the while the witch watched me, her head slightly angled with her good eye, making sure I didn’t mess up my circle.
At another time, I’d wanted to kill the old witch for what she’d done to me and the other Unmarked. And here I was, in her shop, following her instructions, hoping she could remove the darkness from me.
My pulse quickened at the thought that the archdemon might show up. He had when I’d tried to shoot myself on the island. What stopped him from showing up now and stopping us? Could he sense what I was trying to do? I didn’t think he’d intended Evanora to have his gift. With my luck, the bastard might pop into the shop before the ritual could be completed.
With that in mind, I tried not to call him by his true name, even in my head, and stayed with the reference archdemon, knowing that I had spoken and thought his name one too many times.
Still, there was no going back now. I was already invested both physically and mentally in a ceremony that could possibly kill me.
I closed my blood circle and sat ba
ck on my heels. Following Evanora’s example, I placed my blood bowl in front of me, grabbed six candles, and placed them along the edges of my circle.
Then the witch opened her mouth and said, “Feurantis.” There was a soft pop and then all twelve candles flickered with yellow flames.
My jaw dropped. Now that was cool. I didn’t want the old witch to know how impressed I was at that moment, but part of me wished I could do that. Hell, I wanted to learn to do that. Faint traces of sulfur filled me, the scent of dark magic. Being a witch definitely had its perks. But magic didn’t just appear out of nowhere, and I wondered which part of her she’d traded to a demon to be able to conjure that kind of magic on a whim.
My eyes traveled over our circles. Our blood would manage the energy while Evanora shaped the blood magic that would lift the curse from me in some ritual that would then transfer it to her. Yeah, that sounded insane. And I was the moron who was going through with this.
Nervous, I wiped my palms on my jeans, leaving big blood stains, and breathed in the scent of burning candles. My shaking was getting worse. Was it only the effects of the blood magic? The presence of so much archdemon energy reacting with me?
“Rowyn.” Tyrius sat a foot from my blood circle, his tail twitching with a nervous energy. “I know you’ve already made up your mind about doing this.”
“I have.”
The cat sniffed the edges of my circle, and his face scrunched up in a grimace. He exhaled and said, “She speaks in half-truths,” he accused. “All dark witches do. She’s a liar.”
I glanced at the old witch. “I don’t see her nose growing,” I answered, though I knew she probably wasn’t giving me the whole truth.
“When you mix blood and magic, it’s never good.” Tyrius’s eyes moved past me to the old witch. I could see his anger in the slight rising of his fur. “It doesn’t always work.”
“It will work,” said Evanora, her face pinched in annoyance. She moved her hands. “Get away, cat, or Evanora will dump you in her cauldron.”
The baal demon glared at the witch and then turned to me. “Sometimes spells can go sideways,” said the cat, his eyes on me.
“Not a spell. A curse.” Evanora made a disgruntled sound in her throat and began to scratch her scalp. She pulled away with a scab between her fingers. Ewww.
“This curse,” said the cat, as he eyed the witch with distaste, “is a really powerful one. We’re talking the Godzilla of curses. Even with a blood magic ritual, controlling that power is a task that not just anybody could do.”
I eyed the cat, knowing he was speaking from experience.
The witch made a small sound of disbelief. “Evanora can do it,” she said proudly. “Evanora is a great and powerful witch. No witch can best Evanora. None.” She shifted her weight to get in a more comfortable position. “Evanora does not need much to squish a bug like you,” she added to Tyrius, a strange smile appearing on her lips.
“Having been a witch’s familiar for thousands of years,” said the cat through gritted teeth, as though reading my mind, “I’ve picked up a few things. She’s not telling you everything.”
I raised a brow at the old witch. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
“She knows what she needs to know,” grunted the witch, long wisps of white hair falling around her face. “Evanora knows.” Her eyes blinked several times as though trying to focus, and her jaw clenched in an effort to concentrate.
“Blood magic,” said the cat, his tail curling about his feet. “Well, I’m just going to come out and say it.” He lifted his chin. “It hurts like hell.”
Great. Of course it would.
Edgy, Tyrius dramatically tapped his back leg. “It’s going to feel like your blood is boiling, that your insides are on fire and want to squeeze out of your pores. You’re going to feel like your bowels are going to come up and spew through your throat, choking you—”
I raised my hand. “Thanks, Tyrius. I get the picture. It’s going to hurt. I heard you.”
Tyrius leaned back. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“I’m tough. I can handle it.” I leaned back, my trembling worsening the longer I sat in my blood circle. Holy crap. I’d made a circle with my own blood.
I looked back at Danto patiently waiting, leaning on the far wall and looking spectacular in the dim light. The shadows accentuated the perfect angles on his flawless face. Layla was propped up next to him biting her fingernails.
Gareth had his head down in thought, worrying me. If I wasn’t so nervous, I would have barked at him, too. I needed his support in this, and clearly, I wasn’t getting it.
“Hunter,” exclaimed Evanora as she reached out and extended her left hand, bony white and stained with blood, her knuckles swollen with arthritis. “Give Evanora your hand. The curse must pass through you and enter Evanora through blood. Blood to blood.”
My face twisted in a grimace as I saw the dirt packed under her fingernails and the questionable grime caked over her paper-thin skin. Damn the witch was vile. I’d need buckets of hand sanitizer after this. And now she wanted me to take her wounded hand in mine, so that our blood would mix together. Yikes.
“I think I’ve seen this movie,” said Tyrius, leaning back. “We’re getting to the part where the main character does something really stupid. It doesn’t end well.”
“Shut up, Tyrius,” I snapped, trying not to think about those nasties on the witch’s hand as I reached out and grasped it. I flinched. Her skin was ice-cold, like she’d just removed it from the freezer.
The witch nodded, gripping my hand tightly. “Evanora will begin,” she said, grinning in anticipation and making me shiver. She couldn’t wait to get her hands on this curse.
Gareth brought his gaze up and our eyes met. I took a breath to say something, but my words were forgotten when I saw the agony in him. An unsettled feeling tightened around my chest, and I could do nothing but look at his miserable, tortured face.
Maybe I shouldn’t be doing this? No. Damn that elf. Why couldn’t he understand how important this was too me?
I pulled my eyes away before his agony convinced that part of my brain to stop.
Too late.
Evanora began a low chant. Latin, I guessed. She wasn’t reading from the grimoire either. The witch had memorized the curse. Wow. Now that was seriously impressive.
I released the breath I realized I’d been holding, trying to relax while focusing my mind on the effect I wanted—to lift the dark curse from me and transfer it to the witch.
Evanora closed her eyes. “Invoco tenebris,” chanted the witch and touched the damp blood of her circle with her right hand while still holding mine with her other. “Et sanguis sanguinem. Placant. De vita et sanguine. De vita est sanguis. Et ego invocabo ac tenebras. Veni ad me.”
The flames from the candles flickered as a wind rose around us, throwing tall shadows dancing about the room. My bangs lifted in the sudden wind, carrying the scent of sulfur—unnatural, demonic, dark. My skin pricked as energy flowed around me with an unusual sharpness.
“Invoco tenebris. Et sanguis sanguinem,” repeated Evanora, louder, her voice echoing around the small room
The air shifted, and I felt the dark magic around me crowd inward, trapped within the confines of the curse. My heart thrashed madly in my chest, the hairs at the nape of my neck prickling and standing on end. I felt a wave of energy cascade over me, cold and unfamiliar. Was this Evanora’s or the blood magic?
My right hand trembled, and the same cold energy was sifting through me, almost a surge of adrenaline through my veins, my soul. It moved through me, alien and cold like a faint ache, orienting itself on Evanora like iron to a magnet. The curse, the blood magic, the pressure of it throbbed and ached. Fear struck hard as I felt the painful sensation of pinpricks over and inside my body like I’d swallowed a bucket of nails, slowly.
This was wrong. This didn’t feel right.
“Placant. De vita et sanguine!” shouted Evanora
, her voice deep and guttural. It was barely recognizable, as though a demon was speaking through her. What the hell was this?
Instinctively, I pulled my hand back, but Evanora gripped it harder, her strength like an ox and surprising.
“Wait,” I said as I yanked on my hand, but the old witch’s hold was cemented to mine.
“De vita est sanguis!” shouted the witch, her voice filling me with fear. “Et ego invocabo ac tenebras. Veni ad me!”
Energy rushed through me, swirled within the focusing confines of the curse, and then rushed downward and into the blood circles we’d drawn with a visible shimmer of orange and yellow, like sparks from a fire. The cold energy screamed and surged through me, burning the inside of my body as it seemed to come from everywhere.
“Veni ad me!” cried Evanora, her free hand moving in a ritual gesture that I didn’t recognize.
My eyes widened as I tracked the energy’s path along our blood circles. It burned as it flowed around them, like liquid fire.
And then the real pain hit.
I reared back as searing pain screamed through my body, making me crumple forward in agony as the full effect of the witch’s curse hit me. It burned, vicious and everlasting. I couldn’t think fast enough. I was going to die here amid the mixing of demonic energies and an old witch who probably hadn’t bathed in years.
The air sizzled with energy. The blood magic’s mindless fury seeped through our circles and flowed onto me.
Oh, God, it hurt.
Red spots marred my vision, and I started having trouble seeing. Blinking fast, I tried to look around frantically, suddenly panicked. I was blind.
“Rowyn!” I recognized Garth’s voice, though I couldn’t see him. The floor under me shook, and footsteps sounded around me.
“Stay, back,” I cried as I flung out my left hand. I could take this. Take the pain. All of it. Unpleasant as hell, the agony of the power burned inside me, but it was nothing compared to the beast I knew I’d eventually become if I didn’t get rid of the curse.
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