The Return of The Witch

by M. J. Caan

  “Elion, it’s me, Allie. I’m here to help you.”

  “I know who you are. And like I said, you should go.” He turned his face away from me, pressing it into the wet wall around him, trying desperately to meld into the dirt around us.

  “Elion, what happened? Cody is with me. We came to find you…” I wanted to be as reassuring as possible that we were there to help.

  He growled low in his throat, but it sounded more like a cry of pain than a threat.

  “Allie, please. I…I don’t think I can control my hunger…you’re in danger right now just by being so close to me. I can smell the blood flowing inside you…”

  “Elion…did you do this?” I asked gesturing at the carcasses all around us.

  “I did. It’s an old vampire trick. We can call out mentally to creatures of simple intellect and draw them to us. But…”

  “But what?”

  “It wasn’t enough. I can’t heal from them.”

  “What happened to you? Let me help you.”

  “If you want to help me, then leave me.”

  Slowly, I stretched my hand outward again. I tempered my magic, concentrating on creating a soothing, warm glow that I stretched over Elion’s damaged body. I probed lightly at him, trying to see if there was a way to potentially heal him. My magic recoiled almost as soon as it touched him. Whatever had been done to him was so anathema to me that I had to suppress my own instincts to blast him out of his misery.

  “See?” he said. “Your magic knows what you are too stubborn to admit. I’m a danger right now.”

  His charred skin was still smoking in places, yet surprisingly, he gave off no stench.

  “Did the sun do this to you?” I asked. “Were you caught outside at dawn?”

  He shook his head. “It wasn’t the sun. It was the hellhound.”

  I shuddered at the sound of his voice. It was low and raspy, but I could hear the hate filling his tone.

  “When I attacked the beast so that you could escape, I did everything in my power to avoid its burn. I moved as fast as I could, taking damage only on my fists where I repeatedly struck the creature. No matter where I hit it, I burned. But its flames were unlike anything I had ever experienced. While it seemed to generate the heat of the sun itself, it also felt cold. Fire that burned with the coldness of a glacier.”

  “And it did this to your skin?”

  “No. Not directly. I fought the creature and lured it away from your friends, to the creek bed just out there.” He nodded his chin in the direction of the opening. “I could sense the sun about to rise, and despite having rained down blow after blow on the hound, it was not weakening. So I gambled…trying the one weapon I had left.” He opened his mouth and bared his charred teeth at me. “Leapt atop the beast and buried my fangs as deeply as possible into its neck, seeking to drain it.” His voice trailed off and I waited for him to find the breath to continue. “That…was a mistake.”

  “What happened?”

  “Everything about the beast burned, Allie. The cold fire coursed through its blood like a river of lava. When I drank deeply from it, I felt like I exploded from the inside out. Everything inside of me burned instantly. I felt my very intestines turn to ash. But to my credit, whatever I did somehow managed to hurt the monster as well. It reared up and threw me off, howling in pain. I expected it to run over and finish me off. I was certainly in no shape to fight back. But it didn’t. Instead, it turned and ran off into the woods.

  “And somehow I was still alive. If you could call it that. My body was cooking from the inside out…I could feel it. I managed to drag myself towards this opening and claw my way inside. I knew I was dead, and used my last remaining strength to send out a call for sustenance. I don’t even remember eating these animals…I just remembered becoming aware of the smell of blood…real blood, and hearing your voice.”

  “God, Elion…we’ve come to help you; to get you out of here.”

  “I couldn’t leave if I wanted to, Allie. I’m too weak. The slightest bit of sunlight will probably finish me off at this point. And I am too weak to survive until nightfall.” He sighed, motioning me away. “I’d rather die alone, thank you. Please go.”

  “Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” I replied. “There has to be something. What if we bring you something bigger? There has to be larger game in these woods!”

  He shook his head dismissively. “No, Allie, that won’t work. I can feel the hound’s fire still flowing inside me. I can’t extinguish it…it’s only a matter of time before it finishes me. Already…I can feel my consciousness fading…I’m losing my hold on my restraint…that’s why I am begging you to leave me. Before I do something we will both regret.”

  I started to say something, but the words caught in my throat as a plan flashed through my mind. Not one of my smarter plans, but in this case I had nothing left to lose. Well, almost nothing.

  “Elion, didn't you tell me that human blood is what vampires crave the most? That your bodies are geared to run on our blood and not that of animals?” He gave me a dark look, his smoking eyes narrowing at me as he nodded. “And you said it yourself, you can barely contain yourself right now, smelling my blood. Well, would that help you heal from this?”

  He recoiled from me in horror, again baring his fangs as he backpedaled further against the wall, trying to pull the roots closer around him as if that would shield him against what I was suggesting.

  “Would it heal you?” I asked again.

  “I…I don’t know,” he rasped. “But it doesn’t matter because I can’t…I won’t, do that.”

  I inched forward, ignoring my own fears. “Elion, if it means you staying alive, you have to. You said it yourself—you were able to hurt that hound. I need your strength to win this fight. And you need my blood to stay alive. The eclipse is two days away. If you really want to help us stop this and destroy Mallis, you have to do whatever is required to stay alive.” I let my words sink in and I could see him contemplating what I was saying. “Plus, there is magic in my blood. That may help you recover even more of your strength. Besides,” I said, pushing my sleeve up and holding my arm out to him, “I’m not asking you to do this. I’m telling you.”

  His black eyes fixed on mine and he slowly slid forward, reaching out a clod smoky hand to grip my arm. For a second I felt my magic flare up in response but I willed it back down.

  “This will hurt,” he said, leaning forward.

  I expected it to feel like a bee sting, or like the sudden pinch at the doctor’s office when they drew my blood. But no. It was nothing like that. Elion bit deep. It felt like I was stabbed in my arm, the sharp pain traveling through my entire body. I could actually feel his fangs grow longer as soon as they punctured my flesh. They stretched downward, breaching through my muscle and scraping bone. I grew dizzy almost immediately as blood from my body coursed to the area. He wasn’t just drinking from my extremity, he was leeching blood from my entire body, somehow drawing it out like a vacuum.

  I cried out and tried to draw back, but it was no use. His grip was like a vise and I knew there was no way I could break it. Furthermore, the sudden draining made me far weaker than I expected. Too weak to call up any magic to try and defend myself. I felt the darkness around me gather closer as I slumped forward, on the verge of total collapse.

  But then, just as quickly as he started, Elion stopped drinking from me. Rearing his head back, he roared, before staring down at my bloody arm. I could see the struggle in his eyes as he resisted going back in for seconds. Instead, he dropped my arm and helped to steady me, rocking me back up into a sitting position. I looked down at my arm, half expecting to see a gaping wound open to the bone. But to my surprise there were only two punctures that were already beginning to heal.

  “Your blood,” said Elion, “is incredible!” His voice already sounded stronger, and the dimming flicker of my mystic light may have been playing tricks on my eyes but I could have sworn that his skin was starting to return
to its pale, sickly pallor in places. At least now I could see the whites in his eyes when he stared at me. “I can feel it…the magic that runs in your veins…it is making me heal faster!”

  “Good,” I managed, rubbing at the spot on my arm he had bitten. “I think we need to get out of here. Stands to reason that if that hound survived, it may yet return. Or bring some wolves to try and finish you off.”

  “It’s still midday, Allie…”

  “Yes. But maybe, with the combination of my magic in your system, and a certain UV blocking spell I’ve been working on…we might be able to get you home before you get all toasty.”

  The look in his eyes didn’t exactly speak volumes of trust in that plan, but it was all I had.

  “Are you strong enough to attempt such a spell?” he said. “I fear I have taken so much from you…”

  “Only one way to find out. Plus, I have a new shifter waiting outside. He’s fast. Very fast. He can stick to the woods and bring you home. That will reduce your exposure even more. So unless you have a better idea…”

  He looked down at his hands. They were healing, the charred areas fading into gray spots scattered across his flesh.

  “We can try it. I’ve been burnt once already…what’s one more time?”

  I smiled, even though we both knew that another burn would most likely be his last. Holding out my hands, I held both of his in mine and concentrated. I created a shield around him, one that hugged his skin. Instead of my normal blue light, I created one that was almost blindingly white; it would, in theory, refract all light away from him. Hopefully, it would last long enough to get him to the safety of the house.

  As I began crawling from the hole, I heard him clear his throat. “So…um, what exactly is this new speedy shifter you have?”

  “Oh. It’s a saber-toothed tiger.”

  15

  Even with Nate’s speed, it had been close.

  His initial reaction to Elion was the same as Cody's: revulsion. Something in their supernatural DNA made their inner spidey-sense tingle uncontrollably around a vampire. I could understand. It came from untold centuries of self-preservation that were ingrained in them. Most shifters were considered apex predators in the supernatural world, but vampires were really still a step up the food chain.

  Luckily, Nate's trust in me overrode his fear of Elion. He ran hard, eating up the ground between the forest and home with Elion clinging to him for dear life.

  “Stay in the shadows as much as possible,” I said. And to his credit, Nate did just that, clinging to the slightest of paths that hugged the tree line. Where there was no path he made one, his powerful body crashing through undergrowth and snapping small trees.

  I followed, riding Rob. His wolf was larger than Cody’s and could more easily accommodate my frame. Even still, I could feel him struggling to keep up with the tiger. I needed to stay in as close a proximity to Nate as possible to keep the shield around Elion at full strength. What I hadn’t counted on was just how weak I would be after losing so much blood to Elion.

  I was cursing myself for not thinking of that. What happened to a witch’s construct if she passed out? As I faded, was my shield that protected Elion from frying fading as well? I fought the waves of dizziness that Rob’s constant bounding over the landscape was causing. Instead I focused on Cody’s form as he ran along beside us. He was smaller, but seemed to have no problem keeping up with the larger totem shifters.

  We crashed through the final set of trees that broke out into the backyard of my house. As soon as Nate entered the yard, I used the last of my strength to throw up an umbrella cover of blue magic to reinforce the shield around Elion. With a single great leap, Nate landed on the covered lowered deck and dropped Elion before shifting back to human form. Cody and I were right behind him and together we dragged Elion inside, just as the shield I had created around him began to crackle and diffuse.

  We both collapsed onto the basement floor just as my aunts hurried into the room.

  “What in the world…?” began Aunt Lena. “Allie, are you okay?”

  “I…I’m just a little worn out, is all.”

  Aunt Vivian followed her in and stopped short in her tracks when she saw me. Her eyes narrowed, and then she shifted her vision to Elion and focused her hardened gaze on him as well. “What did you do?” Her tone was scalpel-sharp.

  I wasn’t sure what she saw, but I knew better than to try and fib my way out of this one.

  “I saved his life is what I did.” I moved to one of the chairs and plopped down. For his part, Elion moved further into the basement away from the doors and to either side of the room. He edged his way towards the cool darkness of the storage room that he had made his temporary home.

  “Do not play with me, girl!” Aunt Vivian said, storming up to me. “Your aura is…tainted. What did you do?”

  I took what felt like the biggest breath I had ever drawn as I looked up to face my aunt. Elion spoke before I could. “The hellhound had burned me. From the inside. I was dying…it wasn’t Allie’s…”

  “It was my choice, Aunt Vivian,” I interjected. “He really was dying…I could feel it.”

  “No, Allie, he’s already dead,” said Aunt Lena. “He died centuries ago. His body just hasn’t caught up to his soul yet.”

  “What are they talking about, Allie?” Cody asked, eyeing Elion with suspicion.

  “He needed to heal,” I said, “and the animals…well they weren’t doing it. So I offered him some of my blood.”

  “You what?” exclaimed Cody, clenching his hands into fists as he turned to face Elion.

  “Cody, stop!” I said, standing to place myself between the two men. “Like I said, I offered. And honestly, he refused it. Said he would rather have died. I practically forced it on him.”

  Elion stood stoically taking in the scene, his eyes soft but not leaving Cody. “She saved me. Yes, it was at great risk to herself, but without her blood I would not be here now.”

  Cody was fuming. HIs breath came in ragged, short bellows and I saw his eyes take on a yellow glow as he reached for his shift.

  “Cody, stop it,” I said, pleading with my boyfriend. “We need him. He was able to hurt the hellhound! We will need his strength if we face that thing again.”

  “How?” said Aunt Lena.

  “Umm, how what?” I asked, genuinely confused.

  “How did you hurt the hellhound?” She had turned to face Elion now.

  “I bit it,” said Elion matter-of-factly. “It was proving to be impervious to brute force. No matter how hard I hit the beast, it didn’t seem to slow it down. Finally, in desperation I admit, I turned to my one tried and true weapon.” He bared a single fang here for emphasis.

  “Did you only bite, or did you drink from the beast?” asked Aunt Lena.

  Elion furrowed his brow. “I drank from him. It was instinctive to try and weaken him. That was a mistake because his blood was like liquid fire and it instantly began to sear my insides.”

  “What is it, sister?” said Aunt Vivian. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking…we borrow a page out of Mallis’s own book. He had his witch attack Allie using her blood. What’s to say we can’t try a similar tactic?”

  “Would that work?” asked Aunt Vivian.

  “I don’t know. But it’s worth a try,” replied Aunt Lena.

  “Mind letting everyone else in on what is worth a try?” I said.

  “Mallis took a sample of your blood, Allie,” said Aunt Lena excitedly. “That was how his witch was able to attack her in both the astral plane and the physical one. There is a lot of power in one’s blood, after all. Likewise, there is a lot that someone who is practiced in the arts can do to another with their own blood.”

  Aunt Vivian was nodding as she sat next to her sister. “But there is a difference, sister. Our unknown witch had a sample of live blood to work with. Blood magic is contingent upon the condition of the subject’s blood. In this case, Elion did not
save a sample of the creature’s blood the way Mallis did with Allie. Plus, he technically isn’t alive; his heart doesn’t beat…who knows what effect he would have on another supernatural even if he were to have saved a true sample the blood?”

  “That’s true,” acknowledged Aunt Lena, “but you’re forgetting one thing. He also has a bit of Allie’s blood in his system. Her magic could provide the spark we need to ‘read’ the hound’s blood and get a hit on it. Plus, the very fact that Elion has no circulatory system could play in our favor. A vampire absorbs the blood of its victims, but not in the same way that a human absorbs nutrients. How long does the blood stay in your system?”

  Elion shrugged. “It depends on the level of activity following a…meal. And the age of the vampire. The older the vampire, the longer it remains in our system, because we don’t need as much blood to sustain us anymore.”

  “So there is a possibility that the blood of the hellhound could still be in you, right?” The vampire nodded in response.

  “So we try to work some blood magic of our own,” said Aunt Lena. “Or, more precisely, some blood memory magic.”

  “What will that get us?” I asked. Cody had moved closer now, curious about what my aunts were planning.

  “Well, if we do this the right way, and we can tap into the hound’s blood, we should be able to use the hound as a lens…a way of knowing what it knows,” said Aunt Lena.

  “Kind of like using it as a living scrying crystal,” I said.

  “Yes! Exactly,” said Aunt Vivian. “If we are careful, we should be able to divine our enemy’s location.”

  “Assuming that the hound went home, of course,” said Nate.

  “He would have,” said Rob, speaking up for the first time. “A wounded animal will return to its master. It will respond to its instincts.”

  “It would have,” said Elion. “Mallis pulled that thing from a dark dimension. And in so doing, he would have put it under his yolk, just like the wolves he commands. The creature would have followed the rest of its new pack back to Mallis.”