“Where’s the damn boundary?” Rourke growled as he continued to search in front of the group. “We should’ve hit it by now, but it’s just more of the same.”
“There’s no channel either. The water has disappeared,” Danny said. “No break in the trees like before.”
We all turned in circles, spreading out to search for an exit. “Maybe it wasn’t a boundary we crossed but a doorway we entered instead?” Tyler climbed up the roots of the nearest tree and placed his hands on the trunk. We all waited to see if he could push his way through. “If that’s the case,” he grunted, trying to force the tree open, “the priestess might be able to manipulate the door and place it wherever she wants. She directed us in here by chasing us with snakes. But in order to get out, we might have to open another doorway. Or force her to open one.” Tyler gave up on that one and jumped to another.
I nodded. It made sense. “Maybe that’s why Dad said it was so hard to communicate with her. He told me sometimes she’s there and sometimes she’s not. So she must be able to stay hidden within this boundary when she wants to.”
“I’m just glad Ray and Naomi are on the outside,” Rourke said. “Ray won’t stop searching until he figures out where we’ve gone. He’ll get your dad and they’ll bring reinforcements. We either find a way out, or they’ll find a way in.”
“I agree—Ray won’t stop. They’ll get in if they can,” I said. “But maybe we’re going about this wrong. What if it’s actually an advantage that we’re stuck in here? I know battling this priestess without backup is not ideal, and having the entire Pack in attendance would give us better odds, but we came here to eliminate the threat. If the priestess, or the bokor, is our main opposition—and not the fracture pack—we’re in the right place, right now.”
“Jess,” Tyler groaned. “We’re not doing this. Dad is literally a few miles away with thirty-plus wolves. It would be a bad tactical error to attack now, especially if we can bolster our chances of defeating this thing with more force. There’s no question.”
“But Dad hasn’t been able to figure out how to attack her here.” I gestured at the dead land in front of us. “This priestess can keep them out if she wants to, or they would’ve been battling her here already. They’ve been here for weeks, and we’ve been here for five minutes and we’re inside her lair. I say we use this to our advantage and end the threat ourselves, the sooner the better.”
Marcy cleared her throat. “You’re right about one thing, this priestess can keep them out whenever she wants. But I have to tell you, if my guy knew I was in here, and we had the chance to get back out to get reinforcements and didn’t, he’d be furious with me.” Then she grinned like a shrew. “But when Ray reports we’ve all disappeared, James will freak out and go all alpha on everyone to get me back. And that can only work in our favor, right? He’s going to rip these trees apart trying to find me, so I’m voting with you. Let’s push forward and assume the Pack is coming for us as soon as they can. If we get to her and start fighting, I bet we can weaken her hold on the wards.”
My eyebrows shot up my forehead. “Two seconds ago you were heading back to the boat with Tyler,” I said. “But you’re right, James would never forgive us if something happened to you. Maybe going forward is not such a great idea.”
She placed her hands on her waist, drumming her hips. “If you ruin this one chance we have to defeat the priestess because you’re worried about me not being man enough, I’m going to be upset. I assure you, I can handle it. I know I lost it when I saw those things coming at us, but red eyes mean possession. Their sole purpose was to intimidate and threaten. But I swear to you right now, I’m ready. I can be an asset.”
Marcy was a powerful witch, but she was extremely new to being a foot solider in this war. If she got hurt, I didn’t need James’s wrath—I’d never forgive myself anyway. But maybe there was a way around it. “Let’s split the odds,” I said. “Rourke, Tyler, and I will continue to investigate, but not engage, while you and Danny search for a doorway. Whoever finds what we’re looking for first is the way we go.”
“Okay, I can live with that.” Then her voice fell a few octaves, to just above a whisper. “And, just so you know, if we run into serious trouble, I can make my magic dark if need be. I have ways to make it more potent, and if we’re stuck between a possessed python and a hard place, that will give us a better edge. It would just take me a little time to get it ready, but once I was done, it would pack a punch.”
“And how exactly would you make your magic dark?” I asked, my head inclined toward her. I didn’t like where this conversation was headed.
She shrugged. “I’d use blood.” She tried to make it sound blasé, like she used blood in all her spells, but it didn’t work.
I threw my arms up. “Marcy, you can’t be serious! I’m not letting you practice black magic under my watch. Not only will James rip me limb from limb, but your aunt will have my head if she finds out I sanctioned such a thing. No way in hell is that happening.”
“Cool your jets, Glinda the Good Witch,” Marcy countered. “I said it would take time to get it ready. I’m talking about brewing a dark spell, not sacrificing a chicken. Blood brewed in spells is different than ingesting it. Blood gives magic strength no matter what, but one way it’s given freely and in another it’s taken by force. If I drank your blood or ate your heart, and then gathered my magic from the blood sacrifice through my body, my magic would be jet black. But if I used a few drops of blood in a brewed spell, it gives it potency, but it doesn’t make it black.”
“But you just said your magic would be dark,” I said. “Dark is bad.”
“Yes, dark. But not black,” she huffed, her long red hair streaming down around her shoulders in a mass of beautiful curls. It was quite a stark contrast to our current environment. “I’m not insane. Once a witch nose-dives into black magic, there’s very little that can bring her back. Blood magic is like smoking crack for witches. It makes them feel invincible—and many times they are, because their magic becomes super strong. But it also makes them crazed, which is why it’s banned in every Coven in the entire world and has been for a thousand years. If all witches were walking around hopped up on blood magic, the world would’ve come to a grinding halt eons ago.”
“So how exactly are you going to brew dark spells here?” I asked, gesturing around me. “We’re in the middle of the Everglades in an alternate reality.”
Marcy glanced around at the barren landscape. “Well, I never said it was… ideal. I just said I could do it if pressed. But, really, I only need a few things to make a simple protection spell. I always carry a vial of fleur de sel on me.” She reached into her pants pocket and withdrew a small container of salt. “I can make fire, no problem, and I can spell the area to find other raw materials I need. I’d just need a pot of some kind to cook the spells in.”
“Well,” Tyler said, coming up to us, “that sounds easy enough to procure. I bet there’s a Walmart on the other side of those dead trees.” He gestured in the distance. “I’ll be back in a few minutes with your cookware.”
Danny elbowed him in the stomach. “Quit your grousing. You’re not thinking craftily enough, mate. I think what she’s talking about is a recon mission. If we can’t find an exit, we go to plan C, which would be find the priestess’s abode in this hellhole. She’s bound to have a house—or at least someplace she can scuttle off to. And if she does, she has to eat. Eating means pots. We break in, steal one, and we’re back before you know it.”
“That’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever—” Before Tyler could finish, there was a loud buzzing coming from Marcy.
All eyes went to her as she slowly reached around to her back pocket and pulled out her cell phone. We gathered around her as she placed it out in front so we could see:
GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!
The message ran across the phone over and over again, ticking by so fast it was hard to read.
Rourke roared into the air, �
��And exactly where do we GET OUT?”
A heavy breeze laced with malice and intent rushed through the trees. Dead leaves rattled and shook, and low growls began to erupt from all around us.
“We’re surrounded!” Tyler yelled. “She called in her wolves while we were debating cooking utensils.”
Sure enough, red eyes began to light up the area as the possessed wolves crept closer through the trees on the other side of the circle.
“How many are there?” Rourke said.
“At least eight from my count,” Tyler answered. “They’re coming from all sides except behind us.”
“Marcy, does the phone say anything else?” I said as I got down into a low crouch stance. “Keep looking.”
“It says nothing!” she cried. “I’m shaking the dang thing and the message won’t change.” She held the phone up to her mouth and yelled into the speaker, “Listen, Jessica’s neighbor, we know we have to get out, but you need to give us a little more help than this!”
There was a loud cracking sound, and the wolves howled their anger.
“Over there!” Tyler called. “Do you see it?” He pointed at a tree to our right. It had started to glow, pulsing through the yellow haze like a beacon.
“The phone is telling us to go to the tree,” Marcy said.
We all took off, racing to reach it as the wolves closed in, yelping and snapping their jaws. Rourke arrived first, bracing his arms around the big trunk. One arm went through, which was a good sign. “It’s a doorway, let’s go!” He backed up and Danny lunged through, followed by Marcy. “Come on, Jessica, you’re next!”
The rabid wolves were running hard across the clearing, trying to get to us. Tyler shoved me from behind, sending me shooting through right as a ghostly voice shivered along my spine, whispering, “We shall meet soon, bèt nan bwa.”
7
“Where in the hell did you come from?” Ray yelled as we all landed at the edge of the channel, right in front of the boat.
“Ma Reine,” Naomi said in a worried voice as she landed in front of me. “Are you all right?”
I picked myself up from the tangle of roots and followed Marcy, jumping into the boat. “I’m fine, I think. We were chased into some kind of alternate reality by possessed snakes, but found a way out thanks to Juanita. I’ll explain later, but now we need to fire this boat up and get away from here.” I turned to Danny, who was already by the fan. “Can you get it started?”
“Working on it,” he said as Tyler landed in the boat behind me and hurried to join him.
“The snakes are gone,” Marcy called from the front as she tentatively peered over the side. “But I’m putting a containment spell around the boat anyway.”
“What snakes?” Ray asked in a bewildered tone. “When I got here, this place was a ghost town. Not a sound for miles. It was like you, and everything else here, just up and disappeared.”
“We did disappear. I told you, we were caught in some kind of alternate space,” I replied. “The priestess surrounded the boat and forced us out because she wanted us in her realm.” I turned to Marcy. “Can you hand me your phone, please?”
She set her phone in the palm of my outstretched hand. “Good luck.” She grinned. “She killed it again.”
I glanced down. Marcy was right. The screen was totally white. I punched the button on the front, but nothing happened.
“The snakes will be back as soon as she can summon them,” Rourke said grimly as he landed in the boat, making it rock. He broke a branch off the nearest tree in the same motion. “Ray, kick the boat out with your feet as hard as you can. It’s being held by something underneath. I don’t think it’s a spell. We’re going to need a send-off.”
The boys were still trying to get the fan to turn on, with no luck.
“I leave for ten minutes and all kinds of crazy shit happens,” Ray grumbled as he took hold of a big tree branch above his head. Bending his knees, he shoved both feet into the side of the boat with enough force to knock us free. There was a huge crunching noise as something gave from below and we were finally launched into the middle of the channel.
As soon as we were free, the propeller roared to life.
Rourke ducked over the side to check out what had held us. “She must be able to control the trees somehow. The roots were suctioned to the bottom of the boat. There’s a mass of them at the bottom now.”
Ray swung himself from the branch and landed effortlessly in the boat. Rourke took the main chair and steered us around in the small space and zoomed out the way we’d come. Only once we’d reached the end of the cypress trees and were headed into the sawgrass and water lilies did Rourke lower the throttle.
“Okay, now that we’re clear, can someone tell me, in detail, what the hell is going on?” Ray asked. “All traces of you had vanished. There are no smells, no footprints, nothing. That can’t happen. We’re in the middle of the goddamn Everglades. You couldn’t have disappeared that soundly unless you went through a wormhole.”
“That’s a good name for it, because that’s what it bloody felt like,” Danny answered, picking up his jug of moonshine and petting it. “It was like we’d crossed over into a fifth dimension—one without life or love.”
“We’ll explain everything in a second, Ray,” I said. “But first we need to get on the right channel to rendezvous with my dad. Where are they?”
Naomi answered. “Head south”—she gestured for Rourke to turn right—“and follow the tree line. The cypress swamp will stay to our right. There is another channel about two miles farther. They are on another boundary line of the priestess’s territory. Your Pack has set up camp at the very edge.”
“Does my father know we went missing?” I asked.
“Non,” she said. “We had just arrived back at the boat when you emerged.”
“Yeah,” Ray added. “Before we were going to sound the alarm, we flew over the area thinking you went on a hike or found something to check out. But you were nowhere in sight.”
“Did you feel anything strange when you flew over?” Marcy asked. “Any bad mojo?”
Naomi nodded. “Oui, something hit my senses once I flew closer. It was like a dark warning.”
Ray snorted. “Yeah, the air right around where the boat was parked is absolutely full of shit. Like the devil blew his nose all over it.”
“That’s a pretty picture, Ray. What did it look like from above?” I asked curiously. “Did the swamp appear any different?”
They glanced at each other for a moment as look of confusion passed over both their faces.
Ray’s eyes narrowed. “The funny thing is,” he said, scratching his head, “now that you ask, I can’t remember anything specific about it.” He looked to Naomi. “Do you remember?”
She shook her head. “Non, I do not. The only memory I have begins when we arrived at the boat. My mind won’t let me recall any other details. That’s very peculiar.”
“Do you think you could’ve landed there if you wanted to?” I asked. “Near the boat but on land?”
“I can answer that. I don’t believe they could have,” Marcy interjected. “The reason they don’t remember is because black magic messes with your senses, as well as your mind. The space we were in was clouded with spells and strange, lethal energy. A place like that is meant to keep unwanted supernaturals away. But if they persist, then once they leave, I bet she has a spell trigger, meant to wipe their memories clear of the location. For humans, the spells alone are strong enough to deter them from getting close in the first place.”
Danny uncorked the moonshine with a flourish. It made a big, thunking sound. “Well, if there was ever a time for a celebration, I believe it’s right at this very moment. I think cheers are in order for escaping our mystic jailer, don’t you?” He didn’t wait for a go-ahead. He simply tipped the jug back and took two long swallows.
“Be careful, big guy,” I called. “I can smell that stuff from here and I’m pretty sure it could take the fini
sh off a floor.”
He brought it down and grimaced, running his forearm across his mouth. “Woo-eee! Those humans weren’t joking. It’s been a long while since I’ve had the pleasure of tasting authentic moonshine. But a long while back, when I was pursuing a Shenandoah beauty who lived in a quaint hollow—the one I so fondly recalled when we were unceremoniously dumped into those same mountains exiting the horrid portal from the Underworld—her family invited me over several times to partake in their brew. And this, my friends”—he shook the jug and the contents splashed out—“rivals it in every way. Care for a taste?” He thrust the moonshine behind his head to Tyler, who took it from him and sniffed, then grimaced as he took a swallow.
Naomi leaned in close to me as the jug made it around and Rourke continued to take us closer to my father. “I must ask you who called you a bèt nan bwa?”
My eyebrows rose. “You heard that?” I was surprised. The voice had sounded like nothing more than a whisper in my ear, but it had happened right at the point of me leaving the realm and entering the regular world again.
“Oui,” Naomi said. “But it was only a breath of a voice. I heard it right as you emerged.”
“I don’t know who said it, but do you know what it means, Naomi?” I asked. The voice held a small accent, and now that I thought about it, the words had sounded vaguely French.
She nodded. “It is a derivative of French, a dialect of Haitian Creole. Bèt nan bwa means ‘wild animal.’ But in your case, I’m certain it meant to call you a wolf, so the voice said, ‘We shall meet soon, wild animal.’ ”
“Hmm,” I said. “I’m assuming it was either the priestess or a loa. I have no idea. But something was definitely there with me in that moment. But it didn’t feel like a threat… more like a promise or a warning.”
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