The girl sang softly as she gathered two logs from a stack of firewood and returned to the growing blaze. Then she reached into a small pouch that hung from her waist. She sprinkled something into the fire that made it crackle and laugh, and she laughed with it. In the dark forest behind the girl, movement caught Abby's eye. She watched a hulking shape, a beast of some sort, pacing within the shadows of the trees. Abby started to call out to the girl, but only silence emerged where her warning cries should have been. Abby lifted a hand to her throat, but felt nothing. It was if she were not there at all. In the forest, the shadow broke away from the trees. It was a very large man, well over six feet tall, laden with oily-looking black furs. Despite his size he moved quickly and, worse, quietly. The girl continued to sing and flirt with the fire, unaware of the man closing in. He took her in a single swipe. His huge arms enveloped her body, one across her face, silencing her screams and then he disappeared back into the woods. Abby stared at the stick that had fallen from the girl's hands and she watched the flames grow huge and bright and then, as quickly, they died again and only the smoldering embers remained.
Chapter 35
Galla, Thomas and Rod moved through the tunnel that Oliver had entered earlier that day. Galla conjured a dense shield of green light that shone out of her chest and surrounded them completely.
Thomas walked in front and, as tunnels began to appear on either side, he stopped and consulted with Galla before moving forward. Galla no longer had contact with Faustine. The impenetrable earth and forces, that she preferred not to consider, put a stop to the visions.
Rod walked between the two witches. In his hands he held a dagger and a fistful of Julian's powder. Of the three, Rod was the least afraid. His heart beat steadily and every muscle in his body reassured him that it was time to fight.
When the Vepars appeared, blocking either direction, Galla knew that they would not all make it out alive.
****
Demetrius and Max burst through the last of the boulders and rushed into the cavern. Oliver crouched on his knees, his eyes bloodshot and his face dripping sweat. The elder witches recoiled at the stench and covered their faces with their hands.
"Good God, what is it?" Demetrius hissed, stripping out of his jacket and covering his nose. He didn't need an answer. He could see the mountain of rotted bodies rising up from the earth.
Sebastian and Lydie stood in the center of a fire ring that Lydie had created. Charred bodies were laid around the circle, the hair of one fiend continuing to burn.
"It's a dumping site," Max whispered, shaking his head in disgust. He went to Oliver and laid hands on his back. He sent radiant light into the young witch and allowed his own energy to be depleted as Oliver healed.
Lydie released the fire ring and ran to Max. She nearly knocked him down. He bent over and hugged her fiercely.
"You're okay now," he whispered into the top of her head. She cried openly, balling his shirt in her fists and pressing her face into the fabric.
****
The first Vepar struck the shield and blew the energy apart. The blast rocked them all. Before Galla could try to recreate it, Rod rushed forward and attacked the Vepar who lay stunned on the ground. He stabbed at the demon, sinking his blade into its neck and chest.
Thomas raced to his aid, knowing that Rod did not have the strength to thrust the stake through the Vepar's chest plate. He pushed Rod out of the way and slammed his fist hard into the handle.
Vesta emerged from the shadows and fell upon Thomas. She sank her teeth into the soft flesh of his neck. She did not merely bite to anesthetize, but to kill. As his neck opened, she drank the witch's blood and felt her overpowering thirst finally quenched.
Galla could only watch in horror as Thomas buckled beneath the succubus. Beyond Vesta, the Vepar Wrath watched Galla with cold dark eyes and it took all of the power within her to hold him back. She held her palms toward him and created a wind strong enough to stop him from moving forward.
As Vesta drank, Rod threw the black powder into her face. She hacked and spit and turned on him.
"He's mine," she growled to another Vepar, also a woman, but a smaller pixie-ish thing with pointed spikes for hair and rings sticking from nearly every orifice in her face.
Vesta grabbed for him, but her hand froze in mid-air. She started to tremble and convulse. She turned back to the smaller Vepar, but the demon backed away and hissed when Rod reached for another handful of the powder. She retreated further into the tunnel. Vesta's head shook mechanically to the side as if trying to rid her ears of water. Thomas's blood flowed from her lips.
Rod pulled the stake from the chest of the fallen Vepar and plunged it into Vesta. She did not cry out, but sank to the ground. Her body slowed and then stopped shaking. He pushed it deeper and, when it still did not break through, he stood and, with precision, jumped and landed on the handle. It slammed into the Vepar and her eyes shot open and locked on his. She let out a gurgling scream and then the black thing that she'd traded for her soul exploded within her.
****
Elda drove the stake into the Vepar that lay unconscious near Faustine.
"My old friend," Faustine sighed as Julian offered his hand. "And I see that we are in similar positions." He gestured at his limp arm.
"Yes, and damn, does this anti-venom make my blood feel like ice," Julian complained, offering Faustine a one-armed hug.
Elda put the blade in her cloak and walked to Faustine. Gently, she took his face in her hands and kissed him.
"I prayed for this moment," she told him, fighting back tears. "I was not sure..."
"Shh...I know, darling. Let's celebrate like the old days when we get out of this pit of despair."
Together they moved quickly down the long stairway. They did not speak, each on high alert for any disturbance in their energy field.
They smelled the departed before they reached the bottom of the stairs. As they entered the cavern, Elda stopped, causing Julian and Faustine to nearly walk into her.
"Oh," she placed a hand over her mouth and shook her head as if she might deny the savagery. Her heart broke in equal measure for the dead, the dying and for her coven. Oliver looked dazed and leaned heavily against a boulder as he spoke with Demetrius and Sebastian. Max sat on the ground with Lydie's head cradled in his lap.
Elda went to them and helped Lydie to her feet. She hugged her close and apologized for her terror. Both Faustine and Elda took Sebastian in a long embrace. Sebastian fought the urge to ask about Abby. Demetrius had already told him that she waited for him above the earth.
Max shook Julian's hand.
"It's been too long," Max told him.
"And what terrible circumstances for a reunion," Julian added. He could barely take his eyes from the mound of bodies. "I have never seen anything like this."
"Nor have I," Max agreed, but he looked away from the dead. He felt the suffering still palpable in the room and it exhausted him to endure it.
"Julian," Oliver hugged him with his good arm and laughed when Julian returned his own clumsy one-armed hug. "They must be trying to turn us into a coven of cripples."
"Or eat us all together," Julian added wryly, immediately sorry when he saw the tear-stained cheeks of Lydie.
"The dead people have stopped attacking us for now, but I'd rather not wait for another freak show," Oliver announced. "Let's get out of here."
"The dead people?" Faustine and Julian asked in unison.
"Yeah, Zombies," Sebastian said.
"This is a charnel ground," Faustine spoke, drawing again on the ground water to bring him strength. He asked the water to speak with the dirt and rock and he listened to the language of life and death. "They're not only animating these beings, they are drawing power from them."
"I want to leave," Lydie choked. The crying had stopped and her face had returned to her world-weary expression.
"I agree," Sebastian added. He could not help, but think of Claire or Sydney lying in t
he pile of the dead. He imagined all of the people whose hearts would break when their loved ones never came home.
"We need to consider our best way out," Elda said.
"But where did you just come from?" Oliver asked. "Why can't we go that way?"
"Because something shut us in," Elda told him uneasily.
****
With Vesta's death, the tides started to turn and then Wrath, as if cued, charged Galla with all of his force. He drove beyond the wind pressing him back. His face held no expression at all. His eyes were two black holes that Galla could not look away from. Beyond him, something huge and black began to fill the cave. Rod shot forward and threw a handful of the black dust, but Galla's wind blew it passed Wrath and he fought on. She lost her hold and, with a final burst, she turned to Rod and screamed, "Run."
But it was too late to run. The Vepar took hold of Galla with supernatural force . He grasped her hair and raked her to a stop. Rod seized her hands and tried to pull her out of the Vepar's grip, but he might as well have been a child fighting a toy from a tornado.
Beyond Rod, a hulking black shadow fell upon them. Galla saw giant twisted wings and human eyes—no, not human, Vepar's eyes in the wolfish face. With huge taloned feet, the creature seized Rod by the throat and dragged him back down the tunnel. Galla lost her hold on his hands and screamed in agony as the monster crushed Rod's neck and then disappeared into the tunnel's darkness.
Wrath wrestled her onto the ground and pressed one grimy hand into her face and another into her chest. His breath smelled foul and saliva dripped from his pointed teeth. He kneeled on her legs, trapping her. She felt the upsurge of panic, but beat it back, focusing on the dagger concealed beneath her left sleeve. She thrashed and blew gusts of wind into his face to prevent him from lowering his teeth into her neck. He shifted further down her body and she screamed as his teeth pierced her thigh. He gnashed through two layers of pants and, in a single bite, pierced her skin and muscle.
An excruciating heat poured through her whole body, but her hand released the dagger and she slammed it into the Vepar's temple as he drank. His mouth continued to suck even as his body grew slack. She shoved him and drove the dagger into his abdomen and up into his place of power. He died silently and his mouth shone with her blood. She scrambled for the anti-venom in the pouch secured around her waist. Already her vision grew blurry. She poured it into the wound and then began to drag herself back out of the tunnel.
****
Abby came to in the car. She pushed the quilt that Adora had wrapped her in to the floor. Sweat made her shirt cling to her torn stomach. She lifted it and stared at the blood-soaked bandage.
Images from her dream continued to course through her muddled brain. She saw the girl, Kanti, stolen from her tribe. She saw the fear in her eyes as the giant dragged her away. Suddenly a chill settled upon her and she wrapped the quilt around her again.
A cold gray sky began to transform as Abby watched the first snow of the year. Fat white flakes grew into a sea of dazzling white beyond the windows. She stepped from the car and tilted her face into the snow. It started to fall harder, coating Abby's eyelashes and hair. Soon she could barely see the woods at the edge of the road.
A vicious shriek broke the wintry silence. Abby ducked, afraid that the winged monster circled the sky above her. She pushed away from the car and stumbled blindly through the storm. Gusts of snow hit her in waves, attempting to drive her back as she continued forward into the woods. She prayed for her inner knowing to guide her because her eyes surely could not.
In a thicket of pines she stopped and placed a hand on her belly. Something stirred deep in the center of her being. She sank to her knees and felt the fluttering in her womb. A sudden vicious wave of nausea coursed through her and she leaned over and vomited. She rested her back against a tree and closed her eyes.
****
The fire came all at once and from everywhere. The boulders that Oliver had lodged in the tunnels blew into the cavern. The crevices above them poured liquid fire, igniting the tower of bodies. The undead that still crawled through the underground lair began to wail in grotesque agony. Several Vepars fell from the tunnels overhead, their bodies twisted in the flames.
There was no time to think and barely time to act. Max threw a shield over Lydie and himself. Demetrius, Oliver, Elda, Faustine and Julian locked hands and created a bubble of earth and air and rain. Sebastian cowered in the center, astonished, as beyond the bubble, the fire ravaged everything. The witches fought the blaze with earth and water. Water spewed from the walls and roof of the cavern soaking the bodies and the earthen floor beneath them. Mixed with the soil, the water created a deluge of mud that dripped from the ceiling and flowed down the cavern's walls. Their bubble grew black with smoke and dirt and the slimy entrails of the bodies that fell from above. The air grew thinner in the bubble as the temperature climbed. Sebastian coughed and stuffed his face close to the earth.
Something rumbled inside of Sebastian and suddenly he couldn't stay within the bubble. He felt as though he might explode. He burst from their protective canopy. Pressing his hands against his ears, he began to wail. The sound pierced the air and grew so loud that it drowned out the raging fire. The ground began to shake and above them the earth split. Rocks and dirt and trees rained into the crevice as it opened to the sky. The snow, falling in waves, slowly muted the fire.
The circle of witches fell to the floor gasping. Oliver bled from his nose and ears. Elda's silver hair had been mostly singed away and patches of her scalp showed angry red welts. Faustine collapsed completely. Oliver rolled him over and felt for a pulse. It was there, but faint, and he barely breathed. Oliver adjusted his head and neck and started CPR. He pounded on his chest and blew breath into his mouth.
"Let me," Julian rasped, pushing Oliver out of the way. He pressed both palms against Faustine's chest. His body convulsed as if Julian had shocked him. He did it again and Faustine groaned. His eyes fluttered and then closed, but his chest began to rise and fall as he took in breath.
Lydie began to sob and Oliver, barely able to stand, lurched to her side. She crawled out from under Max whose head and back had blistered purple. He had died protecting her.
Slowly, they all turned and looked at Sebastian, whose screams had somehow ripped the earth in two.
Chapter 36
They found Abby unconscious in the snow. In her hand, she held a familiar antique bottle. Sebastian remembered it from the Vepar's ritual—a bottle that held the blood of some ancient Vepar. They made their witch sacrifices drink it. It was empty. He pried it from her fingers and threw it into the woods. He lifted her and carried her to the car.
The witches trudged together through the forest. The tempest had calmed, but hid the earth in a layer of soft white. Elda and Faustine leaned heavily on one another, cringing against the harsh cold on their raw skin. Oliver carried Lydie whose silence scared them more than her cries. Julian and Demetrius carried Max's body.
Adora did not greet them in the trees and a bloody trail led ominously from the well, suggesting a violent end for the cautious witch. With each new discovery, the devastation grew. They found Galla in the car with both relief and sadness when they learned the fates of Thomas and Rod.
"They've become skin-walkers," Galla told them shuddering. "The Vepars can change forms..."
****
They did not return to Ula. Together, the seven witches and one human, traveled to the coven of Sorciére.
The Sorciére witches doted on the injured and grieving of Ula. They too mourned the loss of their beloved Thomas and, equally, the disappearance of Indra. Neither she or Dafne had been found and many of the witches feared that their corpses were merely two of dozens buried in the Vepar's charnel ground.
Abby and Sebastian occupied a single room in a sunny part of Sorciére's north tower. For their first three days at Sorciére, they spoke very little and then, one night after a wonderful dinner prepared by Bridget and Sorciére
's Jacque,the flood gates finally opened. They talked, almost without pause, for two days. Sebastian told Abby about losing his memory, the woman, Isabelle, whose body he saw in the Vepar's lair, and his insane escape from Julian, Adora and Rod. Sebastian teared up at the mention of Rod's name, but they both agreed that Sydney had welcomed him into the after-life so that the two could continue their shenanigans for eternity. Abby described her quest for answers. She told Sebastian about Victor and his intentional witch community in Chicago and promised that Sebastian would meet them soon. Sebastian tried to describe what happened in the Vepar's dumping ground, but he found it impossible to reconstruct. He knew that Elda intended to help him investigate the power when they visited the concrete slabs of Ula.
Oliver spent every waking moment with Lydie who lapsed into long silences punctuated by clichés or total melt-downs. She slept in Oliver's room every night, curled at the foot of his bed. The Sorciére witches swarmed around her. They brought her sweets and performed exotic magic, turning parrots into bunnies and changing the color of Oliver's hair to a pink Mohawk and then long orange dreadlocks. She smiled when they paraded Andromeda's seventy-five cats through one of the banquet halls, but she rarely laughed. Sometimes she sat with Abby, and Sebastian told her stories about Claire. She seemed to relish the anecdotes from the young witch's life and perhaps relate them to her own.
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