“Yeah,” Felix said. “So we stay home. Put Spider-Man on the TV, and point out how you pretended to not know that quote.”
I made a face and then said, “Felix we might not all come back. Do we want to die for this kid?”
“The kid, whoever he is, is buried to keep him secure while the dark witch is out doing their thing. No big. We go, dig him up, run like hell.”
I shook my head and left him in my main bedroom to go put on my black running clothes, my black sneakers, and pull my long black hair back into a ponytail. I met my own gaze in the mirror and saw an idiot before me.
“What do we have, Martha?”
A little cloud of fairy lights swirled around my head and out towards Felix. The two of us followed them to a shed at the back of the yard, where we found shovels.
Felix laughed as I said, “I was hoping for…like a machete.”
“Or a machine gun,” he said as we each pulled a couple of shovels.
The finding spell didn’t take long once Cyrus and Jessie were back. And it took far less time than I’d have preferred to find ourselves in the woods. The only thing I’d done that I felt good about was have Chrysie call her vampire maker, Elizabeth. There needed to be someone off-site that we trusted and knew what to do. Mostly, though, I was wondering what in the hells we were doing when this ominous feeling of destruction was so heavy on my soul.
I knew I wasn’t alone. I could see it in the way Chrysie wasn’t dancing up the path. The way that Cyrus and Jessie were barely keeping up. The way that Felix walked next to me, shoulders straight, jaw determined, eyes fixed ahead.
We were, I thought, utterly screwed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The clearing was darker than it should have been. As if someone had laid an extra cover of shadows over it. Which was probably why it took us so long to realize that there wasn’t just one grave. There were a good half dozen.
“Oh gods,” Jessie said. “Gods and gods and gods.”
“How could this happen?” Cyrus asked. He wasn’t speaking to anyone directly. But we were all wondering. We hadn’t heard of anyone missing. Let alone a half dozen.
“I…I…I…” Chrysie’s head jerked from side to side. She walked forward, leaned down and pressed her face into one grave, and then another. She moved like lightning. Like you’d imagine a vampire would move—but she was too young to be this fast. “I…I…I…”
“Chrysie,” Felix snapped, “Chrysie, stop!”
“I…I…I…” Her voice faded into a whisper, but it wasn’t so soft I couldn’t hear it. “There’s only one heartbeat.”
My stomach dropped and my heart seemed to stop. Gods. My eyes were adjusting to the darkness here, but I threw my hand high and said the proto-Romanian word for, “Light.”
Felix had pulled Chrysie up and shoved a vial at her. I didn’t need to see to know it was the vampire potion. And she needed it. Even with the snacks she’d eaten on the way up, she’d gone from slightly pink-tinged to paler than chalk. He shoved a candy bar at her.
“Chrysie,” I said with a calm I did not feel. “Which one has the heartbeat?”
She jerked when I spoke and then her arm slowly rose and she pointed to one on the far side of the clearing. I made my way over, far more casually than I felt, and dug the shovel in. Without waiting for the others, I pushed down using my magic to increase my speed and strength and dug with all of my might. As I worked, I began to sing. A simple lullaby that my Daddy used to sing to Bran and me.
Gods and monsters. Maybe there was a parent out there, wondering where their kid was. Wondering if they were all right. They weren’t. This was not all right. Nothing about this would ever be all right for the kid again.
Someone began digging next to me. It was Cyrus. Moments later, Felix joined. We worked until Jessie forcibly made me stop and take a break. Once my break was done, I relieved Cyrus and so it went. All of us working, except Chrysie, who was wrapped around her knees, rocking back and forth.
I have no idea how long it took to reach the box, but we found it. And no idea how long it took Felix to open it. It seemed to be an eternity, but I expected it was a moment.
“Oh Hecate,” Jessie said.
I couldn’t speak. That wasn’t a person. It was remains. A frail little body with hair that had turned white, but kind of yellow, and coarse. It was the hair of a monster in a horror movie. The skin was more bones than flesh. Wrinkled and too loose.
The carcass took several jerking breaths and tried to speak.
“Don’t,” Felix said gently. “Don’t. We have you. It’ll be ok.”
The flesh-covered skull jerked back and forth in a no. And the word it had been trying to say over and over again suddenly became clear to all of us at once.
“Runnnnnn. Runnnnnn. Rrrruuunnn.”
Cyrus’s head jerked around and then he grabbed Jessie’s hand and jerked her towards the path. He didn’t wait for us, and I didn’t blame him one bit. Felix ordered Chrysie to come and began hurrying across the clearing.
We were too late.
* * * * *
“What are you doing, little ones? Meddling fools.” A witch had come from nowhere. They wore a black robe, hood up. There was no telling if the witch were old or young. Strong or weak. Even male or female.
“You evil…” Chrysie began, running at the witch, eyes blazing red.
I dove for Chrysie, stopping her only by kicking her in the back of the knee and sending us both to the ground.
“Is that?” The witch laughed and the laugh echoed around the clearing. “Is that a vampire?”
“Run, Chrysie! Run!” Felix was shouting. The witch moved at Chrysie with a monster’s speed, and I couldn’t stop her.
Chrysie scuttled back, hands and feet, still on the ground, but she couldn’t get away. And I could do nothing. Before I made it to my feet, a white hand grasped Chrysie’s wrist and laughed.
“No,” I shouted and tried to throw my magic at the witch. But idiot that I was, I’d taken my coven into the place of power of another witch. I couldn’t reach my power. I couldn’t do anything. Not with the witch blocking me.
“Nooooooo,” I cried, but the witch lifted one casual hand and lifted me with her power, throwing me into a tree on the far side of the clearing.
I fell and was unable to move, only watch as Felix stumbled forward, looked down at the burden in his hands and turned to run towards me.
“We’re coming for you, Chrysie,” he called.
She did not reply. The only sound was the dark witch laughing as Felix held his burden with one hand, grabbed my wrist, and yanked me to my feet.
We fled and while we did, I cried.
CHAPTER NINE
“Gods, gods, gods, gods,” someone was saying. I had no idea who. It was just a constant refrain as Felix, Hecate bless him, drove us and the body to a healer.
I didn’t have a thing to say. Not a damn thing. I couldn’t think. Couldn’t breath. I could only see that claw of a hand wrapped around the wrist of my cousin. The way those nails dug into Chrysie’s wrist. The way Chrysie’s bright eyes faded with fear. They had been so wide and terrified. What must she be thinking? Did she trust us to come for her? We weren’t. We were finding someone to help the last victim who was at death’s door, knocking for her chance to cross the thinning.
“Where are we going?” I finally asked.
“To the best healer I know,” Felix said in a way that told me I wouldn’t like that answer.
“A Hallow?”
“Portia Hallow. There’s a clinic near the college that is staffed 24 hours a day.”
“I called them,” Jessie said, “when you were getting the body into the back.”
We all sounded dead. Emotionless and broken.
“This is what happens when you think you’re obligated to save the world. Bad guys win. What did we get in the end?” I didn’t sound as fired up as I felt. I sounded as if someone had stolen my soul.
“We saved a person,�
�� Felix said, sounding as sick and broken as I was.
“But to what end? Will they live? We lost Chrysie. How many lives does she have? She’s already escaped fate once…can we expect another?”
“I don’t know,” Felix said.
“What have we done?” I asked again. Not so much of anyone in the car, but myself. What had I done? Why had I let this happen? I knew something like this would happen. I knew that we wouldn’t all come back. I knew it with my witch self. And yet…yet…gods. Had I just hoped it would be me? Would I have been more ok with the results if it had been Jessie or Cyrus? Were they worth exchanging?
Felix’s broken reply filled the stark silence, “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
We stopped outside of a little house, and someone came running out. Felix jumped out and opened the back and then Portia Hallow was asking what had happened. Jessie and Cyrus answered. Felix helped with the body. And I—I was useless.
Just like before. Just like with Chrysie. Just like every other time. Where did this arrogance come from? This surety that my way was the right way? Let’s form a coven, they said. And like a fool, I started one. To what end? To kill off my few friends.
“Oh my Hecate,” Portia said, “Is this…my gods, this is Gwendalyn Thorpe!”
Chrysie and Jessie had stumbled to the yard and sat down, so Felix and I were left to answer. We gave Portia a blank look.
“What happened?”
I licked my lips. How could I reply? “We were fools.”
“This is Gwendalyn Thorpe,” Portia said. “I don’t understand why you have her.”
“We found her,” Felix said, lamely.
“But how,” Portia snapped. “What happened?”
I shook my head.
“The dark witch has Chrysie,” Jessie said from the grass. “We knew that someone was buried. We found her and dug her up, and then we were going to run. But we were too slow.”
“A dark witch had Gwendalyn. Oh gods,” Portia said.
I sat down next to Jessie and Felix sat on my other side, I let my head fall to his shoulder. It was too heavy to keep holding up.
“A dark witch,” Felix repeated clearly, “Has Chrysie. Chrysie our friend.”
Portia nodded and said to the nurse next to her, “Call Gwendalyn’s family.”
She leaned down and started to whisper to Gwendalyn. They went inside without stopping. Without telling us what to do. Without…anything.
“What are we going to do?” Cyrus asked. Finally, one of us had stopped sounding dead. Instead he sounded…irreparably damaged.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t have any idea.”
* * * * *
“Would one of you like to tell me where my child, Chrysie is?”
The voice came from the shadows of Martha’s porch and was decidedly not Elspeth Porter-Hallow. Since I recognized it, I stepped up to the porch and slumped onto the steps.
“A dark witch has her.”
“A dark witch has a vampire,” Saffron asked. Apparently she was in the shadows with Elizabeth, Chrysie’s vampire maker.
“Yes,” I said without further explanation.
“You went after the dark witch,” Saffron asked with a voice of ice.
“Yes,” I said, pressing my face into the wood of one of Martha’s balustrades and let the smell of her fill my lungs. “Yes we did.”
“We couldn’t just…not,” Felix added, settling down next to me.
“Why?” Saffron demanded. She and Elizabeth left the shadows, stepped down off of the porch and turned to face the four of us. We were down one. And, in a lot of ways, she was our heart. We had lost the heart of our little family, and we were broken. So, damaged and broken. What was happening to Chrysie? Had her hair turned white yet?
“Covens protect their territory Saffron, you know this.” Elizabeth face was as quiet and powerful as time itself.
“They’re not a coven. They’re children.”
“Look at them with all of your senses. They are bound by the magic of a coven.”
“But we only did a couple of spells together.”
“Love and magic and will bind covens,” Elizabeth said. “Those things don’t have to happen formally.”
I pressed my face into my knees. I couldn’t see Elizabeth. I could only see that hand, that claw wrapped around Chrysie’s wrist.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Saffron paced in front of us. “This is terrible.”
“Obviously,” Felix snapped at her, standing to stare down at her. “We lost our friend. We have to get her back.”
“No,” Saffron said, “You lost a vampire. You put a vampire into a dark witch’s hands. What happens to Chrysie doesn’t matter anymore. Getting her back or ending her is the only thing to be done. Elizabeth, you need to break the binding between you and Chrysie.”
Elizabeth’s brow rose, “You think I should let her die fully. Before we even try to get her back.”
“Do you know what a dark witch can do with a vampire?” Saffron leaned forward, into Elizabeth’s face.
Elizabeth casually reached out a hand, and lifted Saffron by the neck, setting her gently down a moment later. “Do not presume to teach me lessons, little one. You might be older than these children, but you are all children to me. I will not break the binding between myself and Chrysie for any reason.”
“You must,” Saffron said, having entirely ignored the way she’d been lifted and moved. “The amount of power that can be pulled from a vampire—-it’s unthinkable.”
“What is unthinkable is ignoring the sacred bond between maker and child. It is a covenant.”
“Sometimes promises have to be broken,” Saffron hissed. She said it with utter certainty that I was sure she’d broken promises. Serious ones. And she did not regret the choices she’d made. Whatever those choices were.
Elizabeth simply ignored Saffron and said. “The sun is rising, and the dark witch’s power is at its lowest the higher the sun gets. We have until noon. We must get Chrysie back before night falls.”
“What is going to happen to her?” Cyrus asked softly.
“Dark witches fuel their spells through pain and death. Chrysie is fodder for spells of that nature. We need as many witches as we can get. We’re attacking. We’re attacking in force, and we’ll be taking no prisoners.”
There was something ineffably comforting about having a plan. Of knowing what to do. Of being someone who ignored the crap that Saffron threw down about ending Chrysie and then Elizabeth said, “We need to get there before the dismantling has begun.”
“Dismantling?” Felix and I asked in unison.
“What did you think would happen to her?” Saffron asked. “Gods. They are such children.”
“Not all of us were raised in dark covens, Saffron. Experience ends innocence and innocence is a beautiful thing. No need for it to be snatched away.”
“Well it has been,” I said, standing and pulling out my phone. “By dismantling you mean that that dark witch will…cut Chrysie up?”
Elizabeth nodded.
“Will children witches like myself do?”
Elizabeth nodded, more gently.
“Fine,” I said. I had thought that I would have to cry before calling Finn. I had thought that I wouldn’t be able to do it. I had thought that I’d be swallowing pride. I could not imagine a state of mind where I’d be willing to make that call. But the thing about Finn was that he had a little team of witches who were used to going into danger in order to take care of others.
It was easy to make the call.
“Rue,” Finn said. “Please say you’re calling to tell me your mother broke her bond to the talisman.”
“A dark witch took Chrysie to dismantle her and do evil spells. We need help.”
“Sweet Hecate,” Finn breathed. “We’re coming.”
It was that easy.
“I called Dr. Hallow,” Jessie said. “He’s coming with some others.”
I
licked my lips and nodded. I didn’t even care. Anyone. Everyone. All of it.
“Do we know where Chrysie is?”
“This is a small town,” Elizabeth said. “It’ll be easier to decide what to do once we’re all together. We’ll give them 20 minutes to get here. In the meantime, find maps.”
I nodded and went inside, asking Martha for maps. And a book on dark witches. She led Felix and me to the library where we pulled out several large scrolls that were maps of St. Angelus, the town and the surrounding areas. A second set of fairy lights led us to the secret room in the library.
These were the books I hadn’t wanted to touch when Martha first started showing me her secrets. I hadn’t been back here.
“We don’t want the spells,” Felix said.
“We want the defenses,” I told Martha. “And the counter-spells.”
The books were the ones that I had asked Martha to keep locked away—the ones that had screamed power at me and left my hair crackling with power. The ones we wanted were at the bottom and did not feel nearly so ominous. “We need a Ctrl+F feature,” Felix said.
“It doesn’t even have a table of contents.” I sighed and rubbed my face. I sat in the chair and let my head fall on the table. I sounded as lost as I felt when I said, “What did we do Felix?”
He just shook his head and said, “Jessie is good at finding spells. Give it to her while the rest of us are working out the plan. We can fill her in, and she can tell us what to do.”
My laugh was not amused. I pushed my palms at my face, with a distinct desire to remove my eyeballs, “We should have done that last time.”
“We were just going to be in and out, fast and sneaky.”
“I guess we didn’t think about how long it takes to dig someone up.”
“Yeah,” he slumped down next to me and looked as agonized as I felt. “Why did it have to be Chrysie?”
“Why did Hazel tell us to form a coven? What was she thinking?”
“She thought we’d learn spells together and perform cleansing rites. That’s what my coven did at home.”
“No, she didn’t.” I shook my head and took another breath before I took out an energy potion and rolled it across the table. “Hazel knows me far better than that.”
Lonely Graves: A Rue Hallow Mystery (Rue Hallow Mysteries Book 3) Page 5