My eyes immediately went to my mom. “We have to get you to safety,” I said, “Those men out there; they’re her lapdogs. We’ve run into them before.”
“Oh my God,” said my mom. “We need to get to the van and get away.”
“And go where?” Jackal asked. “They’ll follow us. We have to draw a line right here.”
“If we stay, we’re dead,” Frank said, “We don’t know what those men are capable of. We didn’t even know they were coming.”
“The last time I encountered them was in Berlin, with Collette,” I said. “They’re strong, fast, and quiet.”
“They can’t get inside without my wards having something to say about it,” Frank said, “Maybe we’ll be safe in here.”
“And maybe we won’t,” Aaron said, “If we stay, they’ll find a way in. If we run, they’ll catch us. Whatever Damien thought he was going to achieve, he didn’t. Our priority should be on making sure she doesn’t get to us like she got to him.”
“Aaron, what are you saying?” I asked.
He looked at me, then at Jackal. “I’m saying the last time I came across these pricks I was able to rip them to shreds on my own. Now there are three of us.”
“Hold up,” Frank said, “You’re not suggesting Amber fight these guys, do you?”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“Werewolves or not, there are three of you and God only knows how many more of them! Let’s not forget Amber’s mom over here who—” Frank paused. “Where’d she go?”
“Mom?” I said. My heart leapt into my throat and started to pound. The beast wanted out, to rip my skin off and leap into the fray—not to kill for the sake of killing, but to kill for the sake of protecting its own.
I broke away from the main group and headed into the kitchen. There, at the back door, I saw a shape—a man wearing a hood. Before my hands could fly up and draw the magick out of my soul he had ripped the door clean off the wall, but then a gun went off and the hooded man flew away from the door as if he had been yanked from behind by a series of ropes.
When I lowered my hands I saw my mom standing at the handle-end of a bolt-action rifle with a smoking muzzle.
“Mom?” I asked.
“You didn’t think I’d given up all my old habits, did you?” she asked.
Aaron, Frank, and Jackal entered the kitchen and saw this too.
“Holy shit,” Jackal said, “Your mom is bad-fucking-ass!”
“Amber, you need to decide,” Aaron said. “Do you think you’re ready to fight?”
“I… I don’t know…” I said.
“If you tell us to run, we’ll cover you and run.”
Running seemed like the safe thing to do, at least it did on the surface. If we could make it to the van, we could outrun the hooded men and live to fight another day. But that was just it. We would have to fight another day. Why not let today be that day?
“No,” I said. “I’m done running. We’re all done running.”
Aaron nodded.
“Frank,” I said, “Cover my mom with magick. Protect yourselves. And if anything happens to us, you get the hell out of here.”
Aaron tossed Frank the keys and he caught them. My heart was already thundering by the time I reached the open back-door. Lightning illuminated the sky and sent streaking arcs of white racing into the night. The body my mom had dropped wasn’t by the door. It had gone. But in that instant of light I saw, standing in the field like something out of the Children of the Corn, still silhouettes.
I stepped out of the protected area and walked until the house was far behind me. Aaron and Jackal were both by my side, their breaths hot and heavy and their fingers twitching with anticipation. One of the hooded men moved, and then another, and then they were all in motion. They were slow walking at first, but it didn’t take long for them to start running, and soon they were all sprinting toward us.
I threw my hands into the sky and said, “Hail unto thee, Guardian of the Watchtower of the South.” Thunder roared and lightning ripped the sky into pieces, strobing and flashing in response to my Power. Vibrations filled me, moved me, and in the instant before the storm I felt a kind of peace settle over me. I had once been told a single witch couldn’t channel the power of the South.
But I wasn’t just a witch anymore; I was the Red Witch.
Lightning leapt from the clouds and struck the ground before us, setting the earth ablaze. The hooded men screeched and retreated from it. One of them wasn’t fast enough and when the fire touched him he burst into flames and ran shrieking into the field. The others, enraged, hissed from behind their hoods and leapt above the flames to engage us.
Jackal was the first to change shape. Her small human frame gave way to a tall, muscular—yet still lithe and slender—beast of razor claws and deadly teeth. The tips of her black fur glowed orange against the fire and she howled into the night. When one of the hooded men came for her with a knife, she spun out of the weapon’s path, tripped her assailant up with a foot sweep, and kicked him into the flames. Three hooded men converged on her while two others charged Aaron and me, but there were more of them. In the field. Behind the flames. Waiting.
I channeled my Power into my hands, reached for the knives the two men were holding, and yanked them out of their hands. Aaron, then—in a split second—transformed and launched himself at the unarmed hooded men. One of them tried to escape, but Aaron grabbed him by the leg and slammed him chest first into the ground with a loud crack. The other jumped on Aaron’s back and took a bite out of his hide. Aaron roared, grabbed him with a clawed hand, and swung him around.
Out, I heard the beast say, I can do this better than you.
And for the first time since my first change, I submitted willingly to the beast. It came fast, sprinting to take control of my body, only this time it hadn’t pushed me into a dark place out of which I couldn’t see. I was a passenger now, completely aware of my new body and able to influence my actions in a way I hadn’t been able to do until now.
The beast wanted to attack the hooded man Aaron was dealing with, but I knew Jackal needed more help so I ran—on all fours—and grabbed one of the three men around Jackal with my mouth. My powerful jaws clamped down hard on skin and bone, crushing everything unfortunate enough to be beneath them. The man wailed and screamed and I tossed him aside like a rag doll, but I saw more of them coming from the other side of the flames.
Them, said the beast, and I leapt through the flames to greet them, snapping at one of them with my teeth and raking another one across the face with my claws. I was wild, primal, and exultant in the thrill of battle. Of the kill. There were screams falling around me, howls, growls, and now gunshots. The hooded men had come for us, but we were pushing them back because they hadn’t expected this. Hadn’t expected us to fight.
The knife sliced across the skin of my forearm, and it was as if the blade had been glowing hot. I shrieked as teeth jarring pain raced throughout my body, then I wrenched away from the knife and stared at my arm, watching smoke rise from the split skin and hearing it sizzle like steak on a hot plate. I sniffed the wound and immediately recoiled as a metallic scent of death upset my nostrils.
The hooded man that had just attacked me approached and I swiped at the air in front of him to keep him at bay, but he ducked and wove and kept coming. In his hand was the instrument he had used to deliver the pain, and I noticed it was gleaming against the glow of the fire and wet with blood; my blood.
Silver, I thought, and then I howled.
More hooded men began to spill out of the field, each carrying a blade similar to the one that had just been used to cut me. I retreated to where Jackal was and together we ripped into the last of the attackers around her. And it was the last of her attackers because the bulk of the incoming force had focused on the largest of the three werewolves—Aaron.
We rushed to his side, tearing and biting and ripping. Blades came at me and I ducked and dodged, and some of them cut me, but
more of them were cutting Aaron. His howls were loud, pained, and distressed. My heart was hammering, my vision receding, and whatever control I had over my body was slipping.
I howled a warning howl into the night. Aaron looked up at me and then hunkered down into a ball. Jackal did the same. And with what little control I had left I summoned my Power from deep inside and let it burst out of me like an exploding star. The flames engulfed me, my fur, my soul, but they weren’t the crude flames the wolf had summoned at the cabin; these flames were silver, bright, and so cold they burned.
Moon Fire.
As the light of my flames touched the hooded men, their pale, exposed flesh began to burn and peel off in disgusting ways. A chorus of hisses erupted around me and the attackers retreated, scattering away from Aaron and Jackal like rats. Burning embers of silver flame fell from the sky all around and landed in the dirt only to burn out on their own, but before that time came the hooded men would be long gone.
The wolf ceded control of my body and I fell onto my knees in my human flesh. I crawled, scrambling toward Aaron whose body was now also changing shape, shrinking, but he wasn’t moving. I could smell the blood and burned flesh on him as I approached, could hear the ugly hissing sound his singed skin made, and my heart sank. His back, arms, and chest were covered in slashes and open wounds. Some were bleeding, others weren’t. But each looked like they were blindingly painful.
Aaron’s hands were balled into fists and he was gritting his teeth to stop himself from groaning. I grabbed his hand as tears flooded my eyes, called to him, but he made no response. A heart-beat later I felt the strength leave his fingers, and Aaron stopped moving entirely.
“Aaron!” I said, tapping his face, but he was unresponsive. “Aaron!”
The evening wind picked up the sound of my scream and carried it out into the darkest corners of the night.
Chapter Twenty Three
We were under attack. Between the three of us, we were able to drag Aaron back into the house and put the wards back into place, drawing a barrier between us and the hooded men. We had thought we’d scared them away out in the field, but the hooded men came again. I could see them and hear them, harrying the house like predators looking for a weak spot to tear into.
They wanted us to hear them. Wanted us to know they were out there, waiting and searching for a way in. If we hadn’t been so concerned with the wounds covering Aaron’s shoulders, arms, and back their psychological warfare may have worked on us, but Aaron was more important. Healing him was more important.
Without him our plan wouldn’t work.
“They seem to be quiet for now,” my mom said. She was taking turns walking the perimeter of the house, peering out of every window to keep track of their movements. “But I don’t like that any better than when they were walking around on the porch.”
“Scare tactics,” Frank said, “They’re out there, I know they are; probably trying to lull us into a false sense of security.”
“It’s working,” Jackal said.
“Concentrate,” I said, “I can’t use magick on these wounds. Damien may have had a chance at figuring these wounds out but they’re just… they’re so severe.”
“Silver does that to us.”
Aaron was on his front on one of the sofas with his shirt ripped off his back. It looked like he had been lashed twenty times, only the lashes were white hot and left scorch marks in his skin as well as deep cuts. This was destruction unlike anything I had ever seen on a body before, human or not. I didn’t think I could take it much longer.
“Is there anything we can do?” I asked.
“Just gotta keep him comfortable. His regeneration won’t fix the silver. The next couple of hours are critical.”
“And we’re fresh out of medical supplies,” Frank said. We had used the med kit my mom had to clean all of Aaron’s wounds. None of us were doctors, though, or even partially trained in first aid. “He needs a hospital.”
“And we need to stay put,” Jackal said. “Those wards are keeping the hooded freaks out. If we leave, we’re toast.”
I ran my fingers through Aaron’s hair but they came back bloody. Tears threatened to fall out of my eyes but I bit my lip and held them back. I wouldn’t cry. Not now. He was alive, and that was something at least. It meant there was hope. Aaron was a fighter. How much of a fighter, though, I didn’t know.
“What are we gonna do?” I asked, standing.
“That’s your call,” Frank said.
“Mine? Why mine?”
“Because you’re the Red Witch. You’re the only one with the power to get us out of here and to a hospital in one piece.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Life’s not fair, witch. If we stay we risk losing Aaron; if we go we risk our own lives.”
“And no matter what, the longer we take the longer Damien remains in her grasp,” I said. Damien. I wondered what was happening to him, what she was doing to him. Dammit. “What do you think, Jackal? Can we take the ones that are left?”
She headed toward the window and peered from behind the curtain. “I’m counting three of them in the field, but there are probably more and now we know they’re packing silver. Our odds aren’t great, but if you can cause a big enough distraction I can get Aaron into the van in… twenty seconds.”
“That’s a lot of seconds,” Frank said. “If they come at you with silver, Amber…”
“What’s the alternative?” I asked.
Frank thought, nodded to himself, and sighed. “We wait it out.”
“We what?” Jackal asked.
“We stay put,” Frank said, “Wait for the sun to come up.”
“I’ve seen these guys out in the day before, Frank,” I said, “I don’t think that’ll help.”
“You saw hooded men in the sun. These guys have her mark on them and they ran when your light touched them. We’ll be safe when the sun is out. I know we will.”
“I don’t know if Aaron has that long,” I said, “Not without treatment.”
“That’s why it’s your call,” Frank said.
“Amber,” my mom put her hand on my shoulder and rubbed it. “I can try and use some holistic medicine on him. I know I can’t mimic the results of a doctor in an ER, but it may be enough to help him start regenerating. The worst of his wounds need to heal so that his body can do what it naturally does.”
My eyes fell upon Aaron’s lifeless, mangled body and my heart broke. The one thing I knew about Acheris was that she hadn’t killed Damien yet. If she had wanted him dead, she would have killed him at the graveyard. Though without him here, she wouldn't have a way to get to us anymore. She would need to wait for us to come out of hiding in order to attack.
I wanted Aaron to be in fighting shape if we were going to come out of hiding, so I nodded. “Do what you can,” I said, “We’ll wait it out.”
“If he dies,” Jackal said, “It’s on you.”
I nodded again. “I know,” I said, kneeling next to Aaron, “But I’m betting on him.”
“I’ll get towels,” she said.
“I’ll go with you,” my mom said, and they headed upstairs.
“For what it’s worth,” Frank said, “I think you’ve made the right call. We’re safe in here as long as the wards hold.”
“I know,” I said, reaching for his bony hand. I squeezed it. “I trust you.”
“I haven’t given you a reason not to trust me yet, have I?”
“You’ve done some shifty things in the past, but on the whole…”
“Good enough.”
I let go of his hand and sat on the floor next to the sofa and sighed. The room fell silent. Making the choice to stay wreaked havoc on my anxieties, I immediately began questioning whether I should have chosen to leave. We still technically could. But then I realized that no matter what we decided to do, leave or stay, Damien wasn’t getting out of wherever he was anytime soon. Even if we wanted to open a portal and go charging into the breac
h, the uncertainty of Aaron’s condition would’ve made it difficult for us to concentrate on the mission.
I’m sorry, Damien, I thought.
I didn’t notice myself starting to fall asleep until I was on the edge and slowly slipping over. When I jerked upright and rubbed my eyes, startled and confused, it was my mom who laid her hands on my shoulders and hushed me to calmness again. I leaned into her, wrapped my arms around her shoulders, and let sleep take me. The smell of incense and herbs was strong in the air, a scent so powerful it had driven away even the awful aroma of burnt flesh and hair.
I dreamed, then; dreamed of lilies.
***
Damien didn’t know where he was. Not exactly. He remembered the agony of Acheris’s touch and figured he must have passed out from the intensity of the experience at some point. Now he was here… wherever here was. Alone, in the dark, and unable to free himself without the use of magick. Magick he was mostly cut off from.
The pain on his chest was a dull throb, now. He was shirtless, but the room he was in was dark as pitch and he couldn’t see the state of his skin. Had it healed or gotten worse? There was no way of knowing what condition he was in, where he was, or what she had in store for him. The only certainty was this: wherever it was they were keeping him, he needed to get out. Now.
Damien struggled with the restraints and heard clinking chains. His arms were stretched and cuffed at the wrists by heavy shackles, as were his ankles. He had never physically been into the cellar where Amber had been kept, but he knew she had been kept in manacles too; Amber…
He closed his eyes, let his breathing be his sole focus, and willed for the power to come through him, but nothing happened. It was like every time he tried to call his magick a kind of pressure pushed against his chest. This, thanks to the wound already present, caused immense pain and forced Damien to stop. His breathing turned ragged and quick as he fought through the lingering pain until it subsided. He’d need a new plan, but first—
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