Flynn was the first to come, his cock driving deep as he buried his pain inside me. My moans vibrated around Rowan’s cock, and it must’ve been more than he could take because he withdrew and shot his load across my shoulder, his body collapsing with a sigh.
We cleaned up in the bathroom, washing away our sweat and saliva with hot water and fancy soaps, then collapsed in bed together – our coven reduced to four broken people. My body pulsed with magic from the sharing of our bodies and hearts, ready to hook into the well of belief we’d stored in the artworks and unleash it on our enemies. Bring on the Slaugh.
They would come for us here, drawn to our coven – the first souls they needed to devour in order to be truly free. But we were ready.
Outside, lights flashed through the gate as the media settled in for the night. Flynn pulled up some of the news stories on his phone. “There’s a queue all the way down the high street to get into the gallery to view Ryan’s painting,” he said, showing us the picture.
“Brits will queue for anything,” Rowan grinned. I beamed at him. It was so nice to hear him telling a joke, even at a time like this.
Flynn frowned. “Watch it, mate. Unlike the opening of a Wimpy Bar, Ryan Raynard is worth queuing for.”
“I’d queue for curry,” Blake added.
“No you wouldn’t,” I said. “You’d flirt with the woman behind the counter and she’d let you in ahead of everyone else.”
“True. That is what I’d do.”
We huddled together, watching the minutes tick down on Flynn’s phone screen. We didn’t speak much, just enjoyed the presence of each other. The absence of Arthur and Corbin passed, unsaid but felt, between us.
“Do you know what Corbin said to me, the night before the attack?” I rested my head on Rowan’s shoulder. “He was thinking about going to college. We talked about applying for Oxford together, and he would study useless languages and I’d study physics and we’d take the train back to Briarwood on weekends to see all of you. We joked that you could send us care packages of scones and eccles cakes.”
“I would do that,” Rowan said, his long lashes fluttering over sad eyes.
“Corbin said he had to let go of his need to look after everyone. I remember his words exactly. ‘It might just be possible to be a Briarwood witch and have a life.’” I snorted. “I guess he’s proven us wrong—Holy shit, I’ve got it.”
“What?”
“It’s an ampulla!” The magic buzzed around my head. I turned to Blake and Rowan. “Do you remember in the dream, Corbin was wearing this lump of metal on a chain around his neck? I’ve seen it on him in all the dreams. He never used to wear anything like that, but it seemed really familiar for some reason. I’ve just remembered where I’ve seen it before. He was telling me about it in the library when we talked about Oxford.”
“I remember it now,” Rowan whispered. His fingers dug into my thigh. “It was one of the objects on his shelf.”
“It’s called an ampulla. It’s a vessel for storing holy water from a pilgrimage. Corbin said this one included a cross of Saint Lazarus, the dude Jesus raised from the dead after four days.” My heart raced. “After four days. That’s nearly how long Corbin’s been gone.”
“The spells Corbin were looking at in the Soho coven’s grimoire mentioned the gospels of John and something called the Mysteries of Lazarus,” Rowan said, his voice catching.
Holy holy holy shit.
I knew the story of Lazarus from my parents. It was one of their favorite tales about the miraculous abilities of Jesus, and it was important because it was the last miracle Jesus performed before the crucifixion. It foreshadowed his own rise from the dead.
Corbin could have figured out how to raise the dead back to life, like Jesus raised Lazarus. He could have been telling the truth all this time.
I wrote it all down for you.
I tried to force down the hope welling up inside me, but once it had taken root in my heart, it sprouted wings and soared too high for me to rein in.
“Rowan, where are those Post-it notes?” My words came out in a breathless gush. “We’ve got a day to figure out how to reverse whatever spell Corbin cast. It’s going to be tough if Arthur doesn’t wake up, but maybe we can convince Isadora to participate. She’s a fire witch, and—”
“Uh, guys,” Flynn said, his body stiffening. “While I agree that hearing Einstein admit she might’ve been wrong about her dream is the most delightful sound, you might want to have a look out the window.”
I whirled around. Black clouds rolled across the previously clear sky, blocking out the moon and plunging the garden into darkness.
The walls groaned as the earth itself rumbled. I clung to Flynn as the movement jolted us off the bed.
The ride of the Slaugh had begun.
23
MAEVE
Raynard Hall trembled on her foundations. We grabbed the swords and daggers Ryan had left for us, shoving weapons into our belts as we scrambled through the winding hallways. The earth tossed us into the walls and flung furniture against us, but we ducked and dived and stumbled our way to the entrance hall. Flynn reached the front door first and flung it open.
Cameras flashed at us as we staggered across the overgrown gardens, illuminating the ground in pulses of light. When the press realized Ryan wasn’t with us they backed off a little. Unease rippled through the crowd behind the gate as they craned their necks up at the cloud.
My eyes scanned the cloud, hoping it was just a freak storm rolling in but knowing in my heart it was not. Flynn had his phone’s flashlight trained at the sky, but the beam barely illuminated more than a halo around his red hair. At the edges of the beam, dark tendrils flitted in and out of view, like leather whips flicking through the air.
The earth rumbled – thunder rolling in beneath our feet and above our heads. The sound came from everywhere, from nowhere.
“That’s no storm!” a reporter cried.
“Excellent deduction, Sherlock!” Blake yelled back. His hand clamped over mine. Rowan moved to my other side. We crouched on the ground as the thunder rolled over us.
The rumble crushed me, invading my body and breaking apart, becoming not one sound but a great many – a thousand hooves clapping and clattering together. Churning legs shod in spiked shoes poked out from the bottom of the clouds, and dark shapes pressed against the edges, ready to burst.
“Run!” I yelled at the reporters, my hand flying to the sword at my side.
Of course they didn’t. They trained their cameras to the cloud and snap snap snap they recorded the hooves descending toward them, not knowing they were staring at the riders of the dead.
We were all that stood between the world and total destruction. Flynn tore my hand from the sword hilt, his palm already slick with water. Blake grabbed my other hand and he and Blake linked hands with Rowan, bracing ourselves against each other. The four of us formed a circle with our shoulders touching, trying to force out the horror so we could focus on the ritual. It was going to be tougher than we thought because we were missing two witches, but we had the belief magic to draw from. That would be enough.
It had to be enough.
There was no looking away as the cloud burst like a balloon. Horses made of the night rolled down from the darkness, their riders tall and proud upon their steeds. Dark hoods flew back to reveal grinning faces, and I got my my first look at the army of the dead.
Toothy grins leered at me from bare skulls – not white like in museum displays, but various shades of black and brown and grey. Skin hung in patches from their emaciated bodies. Many of them bore the marks of grisly deaths – ones had an axe-handle sticking out of its back, another had one half of its skull caved in, still another had a bullet hole punched through its forehead. Diseased patches of sickly green skin tore away from one’s cheeks as it flew toward us. Just like the knife sticking out of Corbin’s side. It seemed the restless dead wore their demise like a badge of honor.
They cr
ashed onto the overgrown lawn, the horses bending so low their bellies scraped the ground. Leather saddles creaked and swords clattered as riders bore up, half of them turning toward the iron gates while the rest faced my coven.
Now the reporters reacted. Screams echoed across the lawn as they staggered back down the road toward the village, crashing into each other in their haste to get away from the front lines. Lights swiveled at mad angles as crews abandoned their equipment and shuttered themselves in their vans. Hooves churned up the dirt as the Slaugh raced for the gates. The horses bore down, their bodies traveling right through the iron bars as though they weren’t there at all.
How do they go right through the gates but leave hoofprints in the dirt? The physics of it doesn’t make any sense—
“Maeve!” Flynn’s voice snapped me back to reality. He yelled something else, but I could barely make out the words over the snapping and screaming and clattering as the Slaugh tore through the reporters. I couldn’t see through their ranks if anyone was hurt. “You ready?”
Ice-cold wind whipped my bangs across my face. My breath caught in my throat. If I stopped to think about what was bearing down on us, I was going to lose it.
We’ve got this.
“Ready.” I closed my eyes, shutting away the advancing army, the clattering of hooves, the creaking of leather saddles as their ghoulish riders adjusted their seat. I leaned into the guys, allowing the steadiness of their bodies, the strength of their shoulders and the tug of their magic to ground me. I sunk into myself, calling up the pillar that had been stoked by their touch. I drove it higher, pushing our magic toward the village.
The pillar burst out of my chest, rising in the center of our circle in a great cone of power. It shot high in the air and radiated out. As it moved across the horizon, it plucked magic from the screaming reporters and Flynn’s statue and The Witch’s Lament and the millions of people around the world reading about the strange goings-on in Crookshollow, England. With each morsel of magic it collected, it grew stronger and more cohesive, until it burst from its cage and spread across the heavens like a giant net made of filaments of glittering magic.
A horse reared up, the rider reaching a skeletal hand down to Blake. The light swelled, flaring out from the net to shove the horse back. Black tendrils tangled between its strands, trapping the horse in the light of belief. As I watched in awe, the light glowed brighter until it completely enveloped horse and rider. With a terrified neigh and an inhuman scream, they were swallowed up.
My heart surged. It works! I dug deep inside myself, touching the roots of my power, drawing up the magic in every cell of my body, the power that lurked in my DNA, and I pushed, and I wished, and I believed that we could win this.
The net spread wider, curling over the riders, tangling their weapons and tightening around their bodies. Horses went down in a clash of limbs and hooves, bringing down others who were moving too fast to avoid a collision. The momentum of the Slaugh slipped away as the flanks collapsed in on themselves. Horses turned around in fright, crashing into the ranks behind them in their haste to escape the advancing light.
Magic hummed through my hands as the guys fed me their power. The net tightened, tightened, pressing the beasts together, trapping them against each other so they couldn’t advance. Their power surged against the light, but I held strong. I believed.
Almost done. Almost—
Blake dropped my hand.
My magic dipped as his power was torn from me. Two horses escaped from the net and bolted for the castle gates. Behind me, the line buckled as horses bore down on me, their riders spurring them on as they threw themselves at the net again and again.
“Blake?” I cried.
Blake didn’t hear me. His body stiffened and his face froze in his familiar smirk. Two riders stood facing him, their horses snorting black fog as the riders cut the filaments that bound them with glowing blades of fire. The first rider lifted its hand to wave in greeting, and they both shrugged off their hoods.
Skin still clung to their faces, peeling back in places to reveal dark, charred bone, but their faces still carried the features of their human lives – their kind eyes and high cheekbones and wicked, hauntingly-beautiful grins.
My stomach churned as I recognized those features. They were decaying versions of Blake’s perfect face.
I was looking at the shades of Blake’s parents.
24
BLAKE
My parents.
They towered over me, resplendent in flowing black cloaks. Their horses’ midnight manes streamed behind them, gold thread braided into the dark hair. And those faces…
Even though I’d only been a babe when Daigh stole me from their home and killed them to hide his crime, my body remembered their warm embrace, their gentle rocking and their soft coos. My arms itched to reach up and embrace their bony shoulders, to have their skeletal fingers encircle my wrists and pull me up onto a horse beside them.
Something tore inside me as I stared down everything that had been taken from me, at the life I could have had.
“Our Blake,” the woman’s teeth clattered together. “We’ve waited so long to see you again.”
“Join us, son.” My father outstretched his hand.
Any human would’ve crumpled under the weight of the shock and grief. But I’d been schooled in the classroom of Daigh. Nothing shocked me. Not even this.
I drew the sword from my belt, twining the blade through the stream of magic until filaments of light darted along the blade.
I swung with everything I had and vaporized them to dust.
“Fuck you.” I spat in the circle of scorched earth. I was Blake Beckett, born to humans, raised by the fae, lover of the greatest witch alive. I didn’t need the ghoulish embrace of a couple of shades.
I had more love than I ever could’ve hoped for. And I would fight until I died for that love and for my new family.
I turned back to Maeve, shoving the sword back into my belt and throwing out my hand. She clasped her fingers in mine, and pressed her lips against me. Spirit magic surged between us, feeding into the great net of light that held back the Slaugh.
My eyes fluttered shut and I lost myself in the kiss, in the love that flowed between us and become the most powerful force on earth. Because I believed in her, and in myself.
A roar rushed over my body – a cold ice that was beaten back by a burst of brilliant warmth, like sunlight penetrating a dark pool.
I opened my eyes.
Light streaked across the sky as the net tightened and closed, trapping the riders and their mounts, tugging them back through the tear in the cosmos from whence they came. Magic crackled through the sky as the filaments tangled with black tendrils of darkness, grappling for a hold on the earth. The light won. The shadows retreated, taking the dead back to their own kingdom.
With a final surge of heat, the light exploded. A great wind knocked me to the ground. I scrambled onto my hands and knees in time to see the light fade into a single brilliant star that dominated a crisp, clear sky. A few scattered shades loped around the lawn, their horses whinnying as they searched for their mates. One skeleton had to leap down from its horse as the creature spied flowers in one of the parterres and decided to have a snack.
“Be still my wee Irish heart.” Flynn pointed at the rider trying to shove his horse away from the geraniums. “Isn’t that Albert Einstein?”
Rowan burst out laughing. I didn’t know what the famous scientist looked like, but the shade had a head of frizzy white hair sticking up in all angles and a pained expression on his face. He dug his heels into the dirt, but his horse didn’t budge.
“That’s Maeve’s expression after trying to make us do the dishes. Maeve, did you see—” Flynn turned around, his words dying on his lips. My blood turned cold as I stared at the spot where Maeve should have been standing.
She wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere on the field.
Maeve had disappeared.
&nb
sp; 25
MAEVE
My breath burned in my throat as I pounded down the hill after the shades. Their faces flickered across my vision. I’d only seen them for a fraction of a second, just as the belief magic swept through the Slaugh ranks and bore them back into the dark cloud and away from earth forever. But that second was enough. I couldn’t let the darkness take them, not again.
I broke from our protective circle and chased after them, waving my arms to shoo their horses away from the edges of the net of light. Their hooves tangled in the web, and I flung the filaments aside so the creatures could escape the snare. They galloped off around the side of Raynard Hall, and I raced after them.
My chest burned as I careened down the slope. They reached the edge of the forest that bordered Ryan’s property – the same wood that met up with Briarwood. There they stopped, as if waiting for me to catch up. The largest horse snorted at me, impatient to be on its way.
I landed at the bottom of the hill, doubling over and gasping for air.
“You…” I gasped, struggling to regain my strength. Performing the spell had taken every ounce of my energy. I was in no state to be running around after shades.
But these shades…
As one, the two riders turned to face me. Without the black cloud in the way, the clear moon lit up their faces, showing every feature in brilliant detail.
From atop their midnight steeds, Matthew and Louise Crawford smiled down at me.
26
MAEVE
For the newly dead, they fared pretty well. Their discolored skin had sunken around their eyes, and Matthew’s cheekbones were visible through torn flesh on his cheeks. Below the collar of his black cloak, I could see the ugly striped t-shirt Kelly and I bought him for his birthday, the shirt he was wearing the night of the fair. The collar charred around the edges, as did the hem of Louise’s favorite floral maxi dress.
The Castle of Spirit and Sorrow Page 17