Relics and Runes Anthology

by Heather Marie Adkins

  “So, witches exist too?” Chloe shook her head, taking care that it looked like she was annoyed by something her guard had said. “And what is it exactly that we need from this witch?”

  Bram looked around at the buildings as they hurried by until his eyes settled on one in particular. “You see those runes?”

  Chloe followed Bram’s gaze. She didn’t know how, but she could see faint glowing amber circles surrounding a third-floor apartment of a building across the street. Larger runes were centered in the apartment’s windows almost like bizarre Christmas lights. The magic was similar to what had emanated from Bram’s hand when he’d created her glamour. Maybe it was the glamour allowing her to see things normally invisible to her human eyes. Or maybe her eyes were truly open for the first time, and she could see things simply because she believed.

  “Protection spell from unwanted house guests,” Bram said, breaking her from her thoughts.

  “So, are there fae or witches living there?”

  “How should I know? Do you want me to bake a casserole and take it over to find out what they are?” he snapped.

  “Don’t be such an ass.”

  “Then don’t be so,” he whispered the last word, “human.” Bram took a breath seeming to try and calm himself. “The sooner we get you off the streets, the safer we’ll be.”

  Chloe scoffed. “Agreed,” she said coldly.

  “Sorry. I’m done being an ass.”

  Chloe scoffed again. “My predicament doesn’t wash away as easily as one of your moods.” She could almost picture Bram, unscathed and practically immortal, walking over her cold, dead, human corpse if it came down to a fight with the scabs. “Yeah, we’ll be safer.”

  Bram huffed under his breath, “Let’s just get there.”

  “Yes, let’s,” she huffed back.

  Bram bristled uncomfortably, letting Chloe know he truly was sorry.

  They walked with quickened steps in silence for a while before Chloe spoke again. “Remember last year when just about everybody on campus came down with that nasty flu?” she asked. “The one that killed thousands?”

  “How can I forget? Hadley had me doing your work on top of mine for a week. It was brutal,” he said, obviously trying to lighten the mood.

  “I’d never been so sick in my life. Everyone seemed to be wandering around campus in a haze. It felt like something out of The Walking Dead,” she said.

  “Yeah, I remember it was pretty hard on you, losing your grandfather to it. I’m sorry.” Bram was silent for a minute. “Jessica’s husband came down with it. He didn’t make it either.”

  “Oh God.” Then, it was Chloe’s turn to stay silent for what seemed like forever, but she had to say what she was feeling or she might explode. “I’d live that horrible week over a thousand times if only to wake from this nightmare.” Her tears started to fall. She couldn’t hold them in any longer. Suddenly, she let out a gasp of worry. “My glamour!” she whispered.

  Bram reached out and gently brushed her cheek. Feathery amber light from his fingertips soaked into her skin. He looked at her, his eyes full of regret, knowing that there was nothing he could do to ease her sadness. As he pulled his hand away, Chloe saw his skin was dry. She’d expected it would be moist from her tears.

  “Cry for as long as you need, Clo. The glamour will hold. I’ll make sure of it.” He’d whispered her nickname, using it only once before when her grandfather had died. Bram’s little displays of affection were always comforting in some small way when she seemed to need it most.

  Block after block, Chloe held out her hand and cried in hidden silence as new factions of scabs swarmed. Only a sparse few bolted towards them now, daring to rush by and pay tribute. Her attitude and convincing saunter seemed to be keeping the bulk of them at bay. Most of the ones who did come forward simply grazed her hand as they dashed by, others kissed it. One particularly bold scab dropped something near her feet, moaned with pleasure with what could barely be described as a laugh, before running off.

  Bram grabbed her other hand and pulled her past the object. She stepped over it as he looped their arms together again and steadied her, willing her to keep walking.

  “What was that?” Chloe whispered.

  “Just don’t think about it,” he pleaded.

  “Bram?” Chloe whispered, but her question was answered by another scab dropping something in their path and scampered away. Oh, God!

  A bloody human hand had been laid at their feet like a gift. One of the fingers had been gnawed off like a dog treat while the rest of the woman’s hand, including her wedding ring, had been left untouched. The hand was pristine, almost as if it had been licked clean except for the fact it had been ripped from some poor woman’s wrist. Blood vessels and muscle still dangled from the wound.

  “Steady. It’ll be over soon. We’re almost there.” Bram tried to reassure her.

  Chloe took a shallow breath, looked straight ahead, and willed herself to keep walking. The two scabs laying human body parts at her feet had emboldened the rest to come closer and closer, bearing their gruesome tributes. She averted her eyes, shielding herself from the horrors being laid at their feet over and over again. Pike Place Market was just ahead and Chloe couldn’t banish the macabre image of scabs throwing body parts back and forth like they were fresh fish from the famous market. Even her mind wasn’t a safe haven to which she could escape the horrors of the new reality anymore. She tried to become numb to it all, not see or think anything, to just move forward. In her semi-dazed state, Chloe couldn’t be sure, but out of the corner of her eye she could have sworn she saw some of the scabs kissing Bram’s hand as well and laying tributes, specifically, at his feet.

  A clear thought broke through the haze. She was glad the first tribute she had dared to focus on hadn’t been a child’s hand. She didn’t think she could have borne that. She wondered what type of world little Sophie was going to grow up in, or if there would even be a world for her to grow up in. Chloe squashed her fears and the haze with rage and let her anger surface. She welcomed it, relished it, and it drove her forward.

  Scab after scab kissed her hand and dropped their tributes until one of them, wearing an unusually-bright color, caught Chloe’s eye. The image of the woman being drained of her blood as Chloe had watched from Bram’s window flashed before her. The scab who had murdered that poor woman circled her now, wearing the woman’s teal scarf like a sadistic memento. Only now, the scarf was stained by her blood in unusual patterns and was about to be given to Chloe as tribute while she pretended to be Famke. She screamed on the inside at the thought.

  She watched as the scab wearing the teal scarf drew closer and prepared to offer his tribute. As it ran at her, Chloe shoved Bram away, grabbed a faerie whip from her wrist, and flung it around the scab’s neck. It screeched and howled, looking to Bram in confusion. It wanted to flee its trap, but didn’t. Without hesitation, Chloe slipped her fingers into the brass knuckles and rammed the silver trench spike into the scab’s heart. The creature’s scream was a tormented, deafening cry. But it wasn’t the creature who was screaming; it was Chloe. The creature himself seemed content to die at her hand.

  The scab’s flesh turned into veins of molten lava around the stake. Chloe pulled the weapon from his chest and backed away. The entire body combusted into tiny fiery cinders and exploded into nothing more than flakes of ash. The woman’s bloody teal scarf floated to the ground. She watched as the tiny fiery cinders floated up and away as the evidence of her kill disappeared on the wind. Chloe picked up the scarf and brushed off some residual scab dust. Crumpling the scarf into a ball, she threw it at the scabs encircling her and screamed. Her scream was feral, instinctual, pained. Several of the dead scab’s pack howled and hissed as they dropped their own human tokens to the ground. Hats, purses, and, sadly, even a doll were dropped to the ground. All the other packs seemed to vanish back into the shadows. Then, a bigger scab Chloe assumed to be the dead scab’s alpha, snarled and came forwar
d.

  “Get behind me,” Bram demanded. “Now!”

  Chloe did as he asked but kept her stake at the ready. She welcomed another fight, even if it was with an alpha, but, then, all the scabs came forward. “They’re no match for a royal, right? Let alone my guard. Why are they challenging me?”

  “Not challenging, sacrificing. Honor demands that if a royal is displeased with one pack member the entire pack must die.”

  “Shit! How many are there?”

  “Eight or ten give or take. And they won’t go down without a fight either. Honor demands…”

  She cut him off. “Your society is really fucked up; you know that right?”

  Bram scoffed almost joyfully, as if he’d been longing for a battle. “You have no idea.” He looked back at her. “You ready for this?” His confidence filled the air around them as if it were a tangible thing. Bram seemed to be in his element, like he was born to dominate in battle.

  Chloe was intoxicated by it. If not for the impending fight, she thought she’d likely get lost to it. She tried to ignore the sexual energy. “Doesn’t look like I have much of a choice.”

  “At the moment?” He looked around. “No.”

  “Well then, I guess I’m ready.”

  He smiled at her again. “It’ll be okay. Royals, let alone female royals, don’t usually fight their own battles. They may assume I’m your champion and come at me instead, hopefully. Probably?” He turned back around and Chloe could hear the joy in his voice. “This is just like breathing.”

  “Says you!” Chloe derided. She put her back to Bram’s and held the brass-knuckle stake out in front of her.

  “Call out incomings. We can’t risk leaving any of them alive, and this getting back to the royals. I’ll take them out, yes?” Bram pulled something silver and shiny from his pocket. He flicked his wrist and his weapon expanded.

  From the corner of her eye, Chloe watched as Bram’s dual-sided stake lengthened to the size of a walking stick to become a spear with points at both ends. “Woah. Yeah, okay. You’ve got this.”

  Two scabs lunged at Bram from both the left and the right. Bram staked one and then the other in a single fluid motion. Their corpses withered into nothing more than floating cinders and small piles of ash at his feet as he took out three more scabs. Chloe couldn’t help but turn to watch in awe. Bram seemed to be designed for battle. His aim was precise, and every movement had purpose. He also seemed to be enjoying it, like fighting and killing was a long lost friend he was welcoming back. Chloe shuddered at the thought of who –or what –Bram really was.

  All of a sudden, Chloe had to duck her own incoming attack. She crouched down and landed hard on her knees. She could hear her kneecaps crunch as they hit the concrete. Pain shot up her thighs, and she could feel her heart beat inside the veins in her legs. The edges of her vision started to darken. She shook her head, brushing off the pain and ignoring how lightheaded she felt. With all her force, she pushed her silver spike up into the scab’s chest as it hovered above her trying to grab at her. It wasn’t as elegant a move as Bram’s. She was just relieved to have held her own against a scab attack. Soot and ash from the disintegrating scab coated her skin. She got back up and brushed herself off.

  Bram smiled at her then. A glint sparkled in his eye as he took out another scab without even looking back at it as it ran towards them. He seemed to have a newfound respect for her, even if she was only human. Bram’s smile faded as his eyes shifted past Chloe. He flicked his wrist and his spear-like weapon shortened again into a double-sided stake. He threw it right at Chloe, barely missing her head. The tiny hairs on her left cheek bristled as the wind swirled past her. It came so close, she could hear the stake cut through the air with a metallic swooshing sound. Chloe turned and watched as the stake hit its intended target, landing deep into the alpha’s chest with a thud and a crack as the stake punctured the beast’s chest cavity. The alpha’s body combusted into volcanic cinders just as the rest of the scabs had. Bram’s stake landed on the concrete with a clank and rolled into the street.

  He walked past her to retrieve his weapon, but Chloe’s senses were still on edge. Something was telling her that the battle wasn’t over. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. She felt like she was being watched.

  Chloe heard a lonely growl and looked up. The last scab of the pack jumped from the third-story balcony directly above her head. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Bram running towards her as he took aim with his stake, but there was a large tree as well as a lamppost in his line of fire. The stake wouldn’t be able to hit the fast-moving target.

  In one motion, Chloe pulled the faerie whip from her wrist, slid out from underneath the falling creature, and latched the whip around the scab’s wrist midair. She pulled on the whip hard, and at that moment, she felt like she could lift a car over her head if she had to. She tugged so fiercely, she forced the scab to hit the building’s brick wall as he landed. The faerie whip cut through her hands as if she had been holding a fishing line with a shark attached to the other end. The scab fell to the ground next to the wall, stunned, instead of landing on its feet like Chloe presumed it had intended. She walked over and put her boot on the beast’s chest as Bram ran up on her. The scab sniffed the air as though his favorite meal had been placed in front him. Chloe held out her bloody palm to Bram. He placed his stake in her hand, and she flicked her wrist. The weapon extended into a spear, and Chloe drove it into the scab’s chest.

  Suddenly feeling her injuries, Chloe leaned against the building as the scab’s body transformed to dust and cinders. Bram retrieved his spear, shortened its length, and put it away. He went to Chloe’s side and began tearing off the bottom edge of his shirt. Taking her hand in his, he began to wrap her bloodied and torn skin.

  “What?” Chloe asked, wondering why Bram was smirking at her.

  His hands were warm and gentle as he worked. “You’re one of the strongest humans I’ve ever met.”

  “Says the one who can probably lift a semi-truck with one pinky.” She taunted.

  “I don’t know…” He scanned the scene. “That scab looked to be at least the weight of a smart car, and you pulled him out of the air like he was a paper kite.”

  Chloe looked out onto the street she had unintentionally turned into a battlefield with her rage, but, nothing remained of her crime beyond traces of dust where, one by one, the scabs had fallen.

  Bram stopped smiling then and looked at her intently. “Strength isn’t always physical, Chloe, and yours is remarkable.” Bram kissed her palms before he covered her bandages with a glamour. “You sure you’re just a human?” He smiled again.

  Chloe looked down at her now-invisible battle wounds. Her hands were throbbing, and her knees felt like they were the size of basketballs. “I don’t know what I am anymore.”

  They rushed into the market just as the front edge of the storm blew in. As they entered, Chloe looked back at the buildings outside enveloped by what seemed to be one-hundred-mile-an-hour winds. Building by building, windows started to shatter and steel beams screeched under the strain. Even a few straggling scabs took shelter where they could. The ones who remained exposed to the winds scampered off like rats as their flesh peeled away from their bones. Chloe wondered if the royals had created the storm as a way of cleansing her world of the excess rodents so they could rule free from the pests.

  Chloe and Bram moved deeper into the market where the howling winds began to muffle. Before the sky went completely dark, Chloe noticed the shops around them. They had been looted, trashed, and picked clean just as she imagined they would be. As they walked further into the darkness, their feet crushed broken glass into the concrete, crunching as they walked. Slowly, the darkness gave way to a blue glow emanating from something in the distance. The glow seemed to be coming from a beaded curtain, like something from the 1970’s. The small glowing beads were covering an ancient-looking stone archway that was definitely not part of the world-famous market, n
ot the human part of it anyway.

  As Bram and Chloe reached the archway, Chloe thought she noticed something. The beads weren’t just glowing; she could have sworn they were actually tiny undulating spells. But every time Chloe looked directly at the beads, they became inanimate glowing strands again. It wasn’t until she glanced away that the spells came into focus in her peripheral vision. Each individual bead became a different three-dimensional symbol connected to the next in line, like strands of pearls flowing to the floor. She glimpsed so many different symbols, the student in her wanted to stay and learn the language and magic of it all.

  Bram slid his hand between two of the glowing strands of spells but seemed to hesitate before walking into the Spree.

  Chloe grabbed his arm in reassurance and followed him through. As they entered the veiled world of witches and magic, everything changed.

  6

  Pike Place Witch Market

  Chloe gasped at the unexpected sights, sounds, and smells as she entered the Spree. She even had to squint because of the sunlight streaming in through dozens of skylights. The sun? She was gobsmacked. “Is this real?”

  “In here, everything’s real,” Bram said as they walked past several people carrying basketfuls of herbs and jars filled with liquids and powders of a rainbow of colors.

  The narrow space reminded Chloe of the small side streets in Florence, Italy she’d walked down on Spring Break during her senior year in high school. The trip had been an early graduation present from her parents, and she had fallen in love with the city. Chloe could barely believe her eyes as she stared down the Spree’s street. There was a long cobblestone street bustling with pedestrians who walked in and out of the shops lining both sides of the Spree. Delicious smells of home-cooking and freshly turned soil welcomed them in the magical space. Children ran by, playing a game of tag. There were even birds chirping. But the farther into the Spree they went, the quieter things became. Some patrons of the Spree stopped and stared as Chloe and Bram walked by. Others hurried into store fronts. Most looked human, and Chloe could only guess them to be witches or warlocks, while others were obviously fae. They were too beautiful not to be. Glamoured behind more human features like rounded ears, they carried themselves with an air of fae superiority. A few other Spree patrons looked like ethereal woodland elves straight out of a faerie tale. With their flowing white hair, translucent dewy skin, and long pointed ears, they still gave Chloe and Bram the same uneasy looks as all the rest as they hurried by.