"She wanted me to fail," Victor whispered, pointing a trembling hand at the amulet.
Alva sneered.
"She will free us."
"But if we lose Clyde, we lose everything..." Victor mumbled.
Alva snapped dark eyes toward the ceiling as if he could see beyond the confines of the dungeon.
"Don't speak his name. You will call him to us."
Victor started to respond, but already a subtle shift had begun. Alva's features changed. His eyes grew darker, sharper. They trained on Victor and held him in their pointed glare.
Victor swallowed and tried to look away, but he remained transfixed watching Clyde who watched him.
"There is still time," Clyde crooned, as if speaking to a small child. "And a gift has arrived. A coven of superior power and their leader already weakened."
Victor listened, almost afraid to hear the answer.
Clyde, in Alva's body, held out his palm. An orb of light glowed in his hand and Victor moved closer. He saw Julian carrying a bound, but otherwise still, Ethel. Sebastian and Faustine followed him into the woods. The scene dissolved, but another rose in its place. Maze and Sabre, two of the L'Obscurite that Victor had met months earlier, roamed the streets of Trager. They stood out in their long black cloaks, elbowing through the crowds with little regard for the tourists who gawked as they passed.
Clyde closed his hand.
"Do you understand what you must do?" Clyde asked, curling back his lips to reveal Alva's dark tongue.
Victor nodded.
"Night is your ally, use it," Clyde whispered.
Chapter 2
Abby woke to a flutter against her cheek. In the realm between dreams and waking, she saw a blood covered hawk - his wings beating against her face. She gasped and pulled away from the bird, opening her eyes to find not a hawk, but Sebastian sitting on the edge of the bed.
"I'm sorry to wake you. You looked so peaceful," he told her, leaning down to kiss her head.
"Did something happen with Ethel?" Abby asked, pushing up to her elbows.
"No, but we want you, Lydie, and Ezra to go back to Ula."
Abby squinted at him, not fully awake.
"And leave you here alone with her? No."
Sebastian took her hand.
"Ethel has back-up in town and you're the target, more specifically our baby."
"What?" Abby put her hand over her belly.
"Just go to Ula, honey. We'll..."
"You're staying here to fight them?" she shook her head no. "They're dark witches and you're outnumbered."
"It's okay," Sebastian assured her. "Julian, Oliver and Faustine are already making a plan. Plus, we have Ethel. The L'Obscurite won't do anything to jeopardize Ethel."
"But what can you do?" Abby asked, fear edging in. "Kill them? What will possibly make them stop? They'll just come back again."
"No," Sebastian disagreed. "Faustine has been around for a long time. He'll know magic that will get rid of them for good. I'm sure of it."
****
"It feels wrong, being here," Ezra complained later that evening as she smoothed a sheet onto a bed in the healing room. "They're sitting ducks. If Ethel knew where Abby's house was, so do the other L'Obscurite."
Helena smiled and handed her a spray bottle of lavender to spritz on the bed.
"Faustine is brilliant and Julian is fierce. Oliver has been hunting and tracking for years, and what Sebastian lacks in magic, he makes up for in passion. Have faith, Ezra. Dark magic is convoluted. It is powerful, yes, but it is not aided by Mother Nature and she is the greatest witch of all."
Ezra finished the bed and started on the next.
"Still, I should be there. More of us should be there. Is it always this way? The women stay home making beds and the men go fight?"
Helena chuckled.
"I've seen plenty of fights, and I promise that Oliver has made many a bed in his time. No doubt Julian and Faustine are planning to set a trap for the L'Obscurite, which work better with fewer witches to keep track of. It wasn't an insult, Ezra, only a precaution."
Lydie wandered into the Healing Room looking agitated.
"What is it Lydie?" Helena asked.
"I'm worried about Oliver. I mean, I'm worried about all of them, but Oliver especially. I..." she cried and Helena pulled her close.
Over Lydie's head, Ezra looked equally emotional. Though it was not sadness in her face, but anger.
"Elda's mind is open to Faustine. She knows moment by moment what is happening. If they need us, we have only to step through the mirror and we'll be there. Don't be afraid, dear," Helena told Lydie.
"I'm going to sit with Elda in the library," Ezra announced. "I want to be ready if it comes to that."
****
"I could have consummated the ritual," the Vepar Fritz hissed. "And I thought he had to do this alone."
Fritz paced around the lair, his hulking form blotting out the door.
Alva had already begun to shift, dropping to all fours. His spine arched and he bared his teeth. Wide leathery wings burst from his back. He groaned and roared as his human body lost its shape and the skin-walker emerged.
Fritz fidgeted and stole glances at his master, hissing and salivating, grumbling under his breath. He needed to feed. It had been months since their last sacrifice and each day he lost power.
"Change," Alva shrieked in the strange animal voice that the skin-walker possessed.
The other vepars in the room, less vocal than Fritz, immediately dropped to the ground and started to shift. Fritz wanted to complain, but the black hatred in Alva's eyes deterred him. He fell to the floor in a ball of writhing, screeching pain. The transformation that turned him from man to monster felt like hot knives ripping apart his flesh. After the ripping another sensation emerged, his skin grew taught - stretching wider, further. Wings exploded from his back and claws from his hands and feet. His eyes bulged and his jaw snapped as his face grew long and wolfish.
Fritz had followed Alva blindly for decades and then Tobias after him, but this new master, Victor, smelled of the stink of prey. He wanted to rip his head from his neck each time he walked into a room. And now tonight they would do his bidding. They would help him rise to power so that Fritz could again bow to a new master.
He snapped at another of the skin walkers that stepped close to him.
"Go," Alva snarled.
They shuffled from the room, awkward, a huge pack of winged animals vying for space in the tunnels beneath the earth. When the cave yawned, they took to the sky. Fritz spread his wings and soared higher, wind whipping his sore body. They followed Alva who arced over Trager City and then dove toward a patch of woods that lined Lake Michigan. The darkness offered them shelter. They landed in the trees, their bodies huge and heavy, causing branches to snap and night animals to scurry in terror.
Fritz followed the lift of Alva's long snout. He too sniffed at the air finding the scent. The reek of witches was horrible and delicious. He could barely hold still as his hunger took hold.
Tucked deep in the woods, a house blazed with lights. A witch stepped through the doorway. He walked to the edge of the porch and lifted a cigarette to his lips, lighting it with the tip of his finger. He took a long drag and blew the smoke into the night. Fritz watched the smoke form into a mouth with long sharp fangs. Fritz grinned. Perhaps the witch foretold his own future through the figures in the smoke.
Alva nodded toward Fritz.
"Mine," Fritz grunted taking flight. He swooped through the trees, relishing the look of terror on the witch's face as he spotted the monster crashing through the forest toward him.
Before the man could scream, Fritz sunk his sharp talons into his shoulders and plucked him from the porch. He pulled up and rose into the sky as the witch's howl echoed through the trees.
As the other skin-walkers descended upon the house where the L'Obscurite waited for their leader to return, Alva took flight. As he flew, the rumblings of his hunger p
anged him. The night smelled of witches, their powerful blood drifting on the currents air. He dropped lower, hovering, and then felt the blackness edge into his vision as Clyde entered him.
Clyde swooped through the trees knowing he would find the back door to the cellar open and waiting - Ethel unprotected inside. They had abandoned that post for only a moment, but it would be long enough.
****
Despite her nerves, Abby slept. In her dreams she ran from phantoms, ducking through doorways and down stairs only to see the shadow ever looming behind her. She woke, sweaty and twisted in her covers only to fall back asleep.
The next dream had an edge of clarity, of realness.
Abby stood in the woods outside her home. On the porch behind her, she could see Oliver sitting with his bow and arrow. Julian paced along the beach. She drifted toward the trap door and down the stairs. Ethel sat shackled in a chair, her eyes trained on the dark tunnel opening deeper into the woods. Abby and Sebastian had fled down that tunnel. Abby wondered if one of the witches had blocked the other side.
A low heavy breath came through the tunnel, a panting sound. Something large seemed to be moving toward Ethel. It scraped against the floor and walls. Abby saw two shining yellow eyes. Ethel saw them too and tried to wriggle in her chair, but the chains stunted her movements. Abby sensed the power within Ethel, her desperation to escape, to defend herself, but again the chains, bewitched, kept her magic as captive as the woman herself. A long face, dark with matted hair, moved from the tunnel. Pointed fangs poked from its muzzle, and the eyes, human, trained on Ethel hungrily.
Ethel's scream pierced the quiet.
Abby sat up gasping for breath. She held the blankets balled in her fists. Disoriented from sleep, she half fell from the bed in her haste to get to the door. She stumbled down the spiral staircase, still struggling to catch her breath. She found Elda dozing in the library, a cold cup of tea on the table beside her. Faustine had promised to stay connected telepathically to Elda so they could send messages if needed.
Abby glanced at the tall mirror, shining in fire light, and almost stepped through, knowing in an instant, she could be back at her home in Trager.
She turned to Elda instead and shook her. "Elda?"
Elda's eyes snapped open, and she sat up.
"What is it? Abby?" she looked around the room, alarmed.
"I had a dream. You need to contact Faustine."
Elda nodded and rubbed her eyes. "Yes. Tell me."
"A skin-walker attacked Ethel in the tunnel."
"Just now?"
Abby nodded. "It was real."
Elda closed her eyes and Abby studied her face, trying to discern the emotion that passed, but she remained stoic.
Elda blinked and looked at her.
"They know," she whispered. "Ethel is gone."
****
"We heard her scream," Oliver explained in the library at Ula. He, Sebastian, Faustine and Julian had crossed back through the mirror after Ethel vanished.
"It was a skin-walker," Abby repeated.
"But how did it break her chains?" Elda asked, rubbing the crease between her eyebrows.
"It didn't," Faustine said. "It took her, chains and all."
"By the time we got to the cellar, she was gone," Sebastian said. "Her scream was the only clue that something had happened."
"Why wasn't anyone with her?" Abby asked.
"Faustine walked in the house to use the bathroom and I wandered away from the tunnel because I heard something in the woods. They must have been watching and waiting," Sebastian admitted.
Abby glanced at Faustine, surprised he would bother with a bathroom at such a critical moment.
"Why did the skin-walkers go after her?"
"Vepars feed on witches, Abby. Their blood makes them powerful," Julian reminded her, as if she'd regressed to a child who knew nothing of the witches' enemies.
"I know that," she told him, keeping her voice even. "I mean, why did they go into that tunnel to attack her? Why didn't they attack any of you? If they're just looking to feed, they had a whole house full of witches fifty feet away."
"I agree with you, Abby," Elda noted. "Vepars want new witches. Ethel would not be an easy sacrifice. They must have had a purpose and, yes, how did they find her?"
Faustine moved towards Abby.
"I fear they found her the same way you found them, Abby. Through your mind."
Abby frowned and Sebastian wrapped a protective arm around her.
"They have access to Kanti's power. It makes sense they also have access to her knowledge. I believe she sent you that dream to alert you they took Ethel. I also think Clyde, who is still an entity, at least in consciousness, can access Kanti's mind as well. Maybe not all the time, but perhaps..." Elda trailed off.
"That's quite a leap," Julian interrupted.
"Maybe not," Elda murmured. "Abby drank the blood of the Vepars' ritual. I feel confident now it was Clyde's blood and that perhaps as we move closer to his transition back to power, his awareness grows, his connections to all of his kin deepen."
Abby shook her head, wanting to argue, but kept her mouth shut.
"Then nowhere is safe," she muttered.
"How do we block it?" Sebastian asked.
"There are ways to create a barrier between Abby and Kanti," Faustine responded. "That's our next step."
"And more importantly, how did a skin-walker access our property. You've done a hundred spells!" Sebastian demanded.
Julian nodded, thinking out loud.
"I almost hate to consider this, but perhaps the link is the key here. Blood is stronger than almost any magic. We can shield against your enemies, but we're fighting your ancestors, your blood. That connection may override the magic."
"Ugh," Sebastian threw up his hands and stomped to the window.
"What spells protect against blood? There must be some," Abby added.
"There are," Elda insisted. "We have rarely used them, but I will start my research tonight."
"What about Ethel?" Oliver interrupted.
"I fear she is beyond our help," Faustine told him.
****
Galla stepped through the mirror, her long silver cloak shimmering in the firelight. Elda stood to greet her, and they embraced.
"The doorway is open for only another ten minutes," Galla reminded her.
"Yes, I know," Elda murmured, already pulling the long silver hair from the pouch. "We were lucky to find it on Julian's cloak. I can only hope you might give us some insight into what occurred."
Galla went to the window.
"Could we open this, Elda? A bit of wind will speed the process."
Elda gestured to the high library window, and it flew open.
Galla leaned forward and Elda fought the urge to hold the witch's shoulders. It was a dizzying drop to the Lake Superior rocks below. Elda had never been especially fond of heights.
Galla's face pinched with pain and she recoiled, flinging the hair away. The wind caught the single silver strand, and it rushed out disappearing into the dark horizon.
"Oh," she reached a hand forward as if she might draw it back, but her shoulders had sagged and she sank slowly to her knees.
Elda knew Galla not only received impressions about the fate of witches, she often experienced a direct connection to the physical pain they endured.
"What is it, Galla? Please tell me. We have only four minutes left." Elda sunk to the floor next to her friend.
Galla took Elda's hands in her own, looking at her with haunted eyes.
"He burned Ethel, Elda. He burned them all."
"All?" Elda asked, not understanding.
"Her coven. All who came with her to the north. I felt her calling out to them. She watched them die."
A cold trickle of sweat slid between Elda's shoulder blades and she convulsed, feeling sick to her stomach. She needed to help Galla, weakened by her vision, but felt rooted to the floor.
"Elda?" Faustine asked
from the doorway. He had only peeked inside, but hurried to the witches when he saw them.
"What is it?"
Elda gestured at Galla.
"Help her back to the mirror, Faustine. I will explain after she is safely through."
Galla leaned heavily on Faustine as he lifted her and they walked across the room. A chilled breeze blew in from Lake Superior and sent a sheaf of papers on the desk rustling.
"Galla?" he asked, trying to read her face, but her lips remained pressed tight.
She offered him a nod before stepping through the mirror. Seconds later he watched the reflection change as the doorway to Sorciére closed for another week.
He returned to Elda and helped her shakily to her feet.
"What has happened, dear? What did Galla tell you?"
"He burned them, Faustine. Victor burned Ethel and the other L'Obscurite."
Chapter 3
The gray light of pre-dawn forecast rain. The earth, already damp with dew, leaked a pungent odor of scorched earth. Abby saw the blackened ground and briefly closed her eyes. Sebastian's hand grazed her shoulder, and then he and Julian moved closer to the burned ring, a near-perfect circle of blackened forest.
She had expected to see the bodies of the L'Obscurite, but no evidence of them remained. Perhaps the charred earth was worse somehow. Julian squatted and touched something Abby could not see. Her stomach rolled, and she swayed on her feet, feeling the world tilting beneath her.
"Whoa." Sebastian grabbed her and held her steady.
"Just a little dizzy."
"You shouldn't have come," Julian stated matter-of-fact. He had also mentioned it before they left the house and twice on the drive, but Abby had insisted.
"I'm okay," she assured Sebastian. "Really."
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