The Witchkin Murders

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  “Witch Island?” Annette said doubtfully using the slang name for Spider Island.

  The two women exchanged doubtful looks.

  “She’d go there for help if she could.” And if she couldn’t—he refused to allow it was a possibility.

  “Suit yourself,” Leslie said as she looped around and headed back through the squirming gauntlet of snakes.

  Ray continued to monitor the banks and river for signs of Kayla. Annette dug a pair of binoculars out and handed them to him. He didn’t know if he should be encouraged or discouraged when he didn’t see her.

  The return journey seemed to take forever. The passage to the Island frothed worse than the trip the night before. The whirlpools danced with waterspouts, the latter pinballing drunkenly across the water, and they seemed to have multiplied. Luckily Leslie was a helluva driver, swerving and dodging as she maneuvered them expertly through the chaos.

  “Jesus Christ. What the hell happened?” Annette said as they approached the main cove of the Island.

  Debris from the wrecked dock and boats floated in the water and collected along the shore. Ray didn’t see any bodies, though a number of people had to have died.

  “A whirlpool made it into the marina,” he told his companions.

  Leslie shook her head in mute shock, while Annette bit hard on her lower lip, her eyes wide, her cheeks pale.

  Leslie reactivated the protective shield that she’d shut off when they’d left the snakes behind, nosing the boat through the debris field and up around the dog leg to where the marina used to be.

  Ray wasn’t sure what he’d expected to see. He’d been praying that he’d find Kayla alive and well. That the witches would have healed her and she’d be waiting impatiently for him.

  But as they turned the bend and entered the little harbor, he saw nothing. Just the desolation of the marina’s destruction. No witches and no Kayla. Nobody at all.

  He dragged a shaking hand through his hair. His heart plummeted into his shoes. He’d been so damned sure she’d be here. So sure she’d come here for help.

  Wire-thin pain drove into his chest, searing him with white-hot agony.

  Where was she? How the hell was he going to find her?

  Was she even alive?

  Chapter 19

  Kayla

  WHEN SHE WOKE up, Kayla had returned to human form. She lay in a soft cozy bed. Where was she? What had happened?

  Then the memories came crashing down. The lab, the creatures, fighting them, the pain, falling into the river, and being towed through the water.

  She took stock of herself. She no longer hurt. She squinched her shoulders up and relaxed them. No pain. She touched her throat. No evidence of wounds, though her skin felt a little tender when she prodded.

  She sat upright. She needed to get back. She had to find out what happened to Ray, Angie, and Zach.

  Ray. Her throat tightened, remembering the wounds the creatures had inflicted upon him. Panic paralyzed her. Had he reached help in time?

  It didn’t seem possible. If the poison had hit her so hard in her other form, Ray’s frail human body wouldn’t have stood a chance.

  An animal sound escaped her lips, and she kicked against the covers tangling her legs. She staggered to her feet, wobbling. She grabbed the bottom post of the bed to steady herself.

  She stood in a small room containing a twin bed with a bookcase headboard, a closet, a small dresser, and a window between the latter two. An oval rag rug lay across the rough oak floor. A dim lamp on the headboard provided the light. But no, not a lamp. A witchlight.

  A knock sounded on the door, and it swung open. A bright wedge of light fell into the room.

  “You’re awake,” said Raven. “How do you feel?”

  Kayla stared. She didn’t know who she’d expected to see, but the witch hadn’t made the list.

  “Light of day,” Raven said, and the witchlight brightened into morning bright. “How do you feel?”

  “Better than I have a right to,” Kayla said, scraping together what wits she could find and blinking against the sudden brilliance. “Pretty sure I should be dead. I take it I have you to thank for being alive?”

  Raven nodded. “It was a close thing. Luckily the water folk brought you here and together we were able to siphon out the poison. The water helped you as well. It gave back what you’ve given it.”

  Kayla stared stupidly. “What I’ve given it?” She peed in the river occasionally, that was about all she gave it. “What are you talking about?” A frown creased her brows. “You know something about me. Who—no, what am I?” she asked finally.

  Raven’s eyes widened. “You don’t know?”

  “I know I’m a giant water-lizard-snake thing. But other than that, I don’t know what else. I don’t why you think I’m this Guardian of the River, whatever that means.” Frustration made her voice rise.

  Sympathy colored Raven’s expression. “Maybe we should talk.”

  Kayla nodded, then shook her head. “I can’t. I have to go. Ray was hurt. He could be—”

  She couldn’t put her fears into words. Her hands started to shake. God, what if he’d died?

  The possibility rocked her, and it took everything she had to stay upright as her knees turned to gelatin. She caught the bedpost to steady herself again and frantically started searching for her shoes. She realized she was wearing blue cotton pajamas with little sheep roaming across them. “Where are my clothes?”

  “In the dresser,” Raven said, going to take them out of the top drawer. They’d been washed and folded. “But you don’t have to worry. He survived his wounds.”

  Kayla stared blankly. “How could you possibly know?”

  “Several witches work at the hospital. Sarah helped in his treatment and called me.” She shrugged. “He’s important to you, and therefore to all of us. Luckily the poison didn’t affect him as severely as you.”

  Both revelations startled Kayla. She was important to all of whom? Because of the Guardian thing? But that wasn’t as important as her other question. “He wasn’t as affected? Why not?”

  Raven hesitated. “We should talk. Get dressed and come downstairs. You need to eat. Calories will help you feel better. The injuries you sustained and the healing took a lot out of you. There’s a bathroom across the hall. Shower if you like.”

  The witch didn’t wait for an answer. She went out and vanished up the hall. Kayla stared blankly at the empty doorway. Ray was okay. Doubt gnawed at her. Wasn’t he? She needed to see him for herself.

  She flung off her borrowed pajamas and dressed, then went into the bathroom to pee. She splashed water on her face and quickly toweled it off. The fact that the shift magic didn’t immediately surge in response to the wet had to be a testament to her exhaustion, or maybe it was because she’d just spent so many hours in her other form and was content for now. Not that she could remember much.

  She leaned against the sink, her head hanging down as she closed her eyes. It had happened so fast. The eruption of the creatures out of the nymph’s stomach like the Alien movie come to life, running to escape, and then her going back to fight the creatures. She hadn’t had a choice. The urgency in Zach’s voice as he told them to run had told her he couldn’t hold them. They’d have killed him when his shield fell.

  Whereas she’d been confident—no, she’d been totally certain—she could take them, sure that they couldn’t really hurt her.

  Stupid.

  She’d been so, so very wrong.

  Not that she’d do anything different if she had to choose again. Of all of them, she’d had the best chance to get out alive, and frankly the city needed Zach, Angie, and Ray a lot more than it needed her.

  Ray.

  It didn’t make any sense that the poison affected her
worse. Biologically, she had more mass in her other form, which meant that the poison should have worked faster on Ray.

  She scrubbed her hands over her too-pale face, trying to wake her brain. He’d survived, Raven said, not that he was fine or whole, so that could still leave him paralyzed or a vegetable. Her stomach hollowed. He’d hate that. He’d hate anything that meant he couldn’t be a cop. That was his entire life.

  She swiped away the tear that escaped from the corner of one eye, swallowing the lump of rock in her throat. No. He had to be okay. Had to, that’s all there was to it.

  She opened the bathroom door and headed down the carpeted stairs. The only way to find out for sure was to ask for the details.

  Kayla found Raven downstairs in the kitchen. The witch set two plates out on a dining room table big enough to seat a dozen people are more. The smell of brewing coffee wafted in the air, along with the scent of chicken soup.

  “Sit,” she said gesturing toward a seat at the end of the table.

  “I can help.”

  “I’ve got it. You need rest.”

  Kayla did as told, thanking Raven when she poured her a cup of coffee. Kayla added cream from the little blue pitcher on the table.

  “How long have I been out?”

  “The water folk brought you here yesterday around six in the evening. It’s now nine thirty.”

  “I was out twenty-seven hours?”

  “And a half, plus however much time you were in the water.”

  “Probably five or six hours.”

  The lost time shook Kayla. Somehow it brought home how close she’d been to death. A chill ran through her, and she wrapped her hands around the warmth of her cup.

  While Raven brought soup, bread, and butter to the table, Kayla sipped her coffee and examined her surroundings.

  Next to her and running down the length of the wall were broad windows overlooking a deck. Two couches crowded in a small living area attached to the kitchen and dining room. Colorful pictures and textile art covered the walls, and thick rugs swathed the pine floors.

  The kitchen looked pretty modern. Kayla didn’t see any obvious signs of magic, though it was likely the whole place ran on it.

  Witches could function around technology, but for most of them, their magic did better where there wasn’t so much steel, which was ninety percent or more iron. The concentrated iron of the cities had kept the wild magic from mutating everything it came in contact with, though magic had found places to root all over Portland. Since then, Kayla couldn’t escape the nagging impression that magic and technology were negotiating a kind of truce.

  Raven ladled a bowl of soup and set it in front of Kayla and then served herself. Kayla immediately dug in to the food. Heaven in a bowl. For a while only the click and scrape of silverware broke the silence. Once the first bowl of soup took the edge off her hunger, Kayla slowed down and began to talk.

  “So what exactly do you know about me? And how do you know about me?” she added, even though she expected the answer to the second question would be “magic,” which was about as useful as saying water was wet. “But first tell me what’s going on with Ray.”

  Raven set her spoon down and looked at Kayla. Kayla couldn’t get over the combination of such a youthful face combined with old eyes, as if the witch had seen and done a whole lot that her body didn’t reveal.

  “How old are you anyway?” she blurted rudely.

  Raven smiled. “I was born right around the end of the Great Depression,” she said.

  Kayla just blinked at her, trying to do the math in her head. “That makes you . . .”

  “Right around 80,” Raven said. “As for your friend, he left the hospital on his own feet and came here looking for you. He is resting now.”

  Resting? That didn’t sound at all like Ray. She’d have expected him to be pacing up and down at the foot of her bed waiting for her to wake up. Or maybe not even waiting, but poking her with a sharp stick. She said so.

  Raven shrugged. “He required rest for his own sake, and we required peace for your sake.”

  Kayla scowled. “What do you mean by peace?”

  “Taking care of you needed concentration and quiet that he wasn’t so inclined to give. He was very concerned for you and felt we weren’t doing enough fast enough. He got a little agitated. So we put a sleep spell on him.”

  Worry clutched at Kayla’s stomach. She couldn’t say why. It wasn’t that she doubted Ray was okay. Raven wouldn’t lie about it, she didn’t think. But amorphous anxiety urged her to check on him herself.

  “I should go see him.” Kayla started to stand. She couldn’t get the memory of the creatures biting him and the blood soaking his jeans out of her head. Just thinking about it made her stomach ball up in an effort to eject the soup she’d just eaten.

  “Of course, but first we must talk and you must finish eating. Your body needs to fuel.”

  “I won’t take long. Where is he?”

  “He’s in another house, and is well cared for.”

  Kayla glared at the witch for a long moment. Raven stared back patiently. Clearly she had no intention of going anywhere until Kayla finished her meal and they talked. Kayla made an irritated sound and sank back into her chair. Pushing wouldn’t get her anywhere, and would also be unforgivably rude. Raven had been nothing but helpful—above and beyond the call of duty.

  That made her remember the early morning terror of the whirlpool and the drowning children. “What happened to the kids? Are they okay?”

  Raven closed her eyes a moment as if in silent prayer. “Thanks to you, they will recover. Luckily they were shifter children. Humans wouldn’t have survived.”

  “I may have got them out,” Kayla said, “but you saved their lives, didn’t you?”

  The witch gave a dismissive little nod, clearly unwilling to accept credit. “Several of us were able to give them the healing they needed, just as we helped you.”

  “Thank you for that, and for helping Ray. I know witches aren’t big fans of the cops.”

  Raven’s smile was bleak with memory. “You’d be surprised. As for the healing—we try to make up for the war as best we can,” she said. “Humans have little reason to trust us, and rightfully so. Even now, many of my kind continue to make war on humans.”

  “So we’ve got good witches and wicked witches?” Kayla asked with raised brows.

  “Just don’t call me Glinda,” said Raven with a slight smile. “But right now we should talk about what happened.”

  “Okay, let’s talk. Let’s start with the Guardian of the River thing. I get the feeling you think there’s more to me than there is.”

  Raven poured herself more coffee. “Actually, the truth is that I know there’s more to you than you think there is.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “What happened? How did you become a shifter?”

  “I thought you were going to tell me about myself.”

  “I am. Let’s begin with how you changed.”

  Kayla lifted a brow, but decided to follow Raven down memory lane. She closed her eyes, thinking back. The day of Magicfall had been beautiful. Clear with an endless blue sky. And cold, as if there might even be snow. Mount Hood shined bright in the morning sun. She’d been the only one on the river. She’d been dressed head to toe in neoprene to keep herself warm. Everything had been perfect.

  And then everything had changed.

  Her body clenched at the memory, her heart starting to pound. The words tumbled out as she fell back into time.

  “I’d gone kayaking. Just after sunrise. Everything was fine, and then the world exploded.” Mount Hood erupted, as did Mount St. Helens and Mount Jefferson. All the Cascade volcanoes rumbled to life. Instead of ash and fire, they spewed fireworks that broke into spar
ks and floated through the air like blown dandelion seeds.

  “It was gloriously beautiful. Like a rainbow had broken into a billion butterflies.” Kayla shook her head. “I watched the show. I had no idea what was happening, but how could anything so beautiful be bad? Little did I know.” She took a deep breath, trying to steady her racing heart.

  “As they fell, they tended to bunch up. It almost seemed like they were alive. And then they started landing.”

  That’s when the world had gone on an acid trip.

  The ground had shaken and rumbled and bucked. The river had turned mad, not knowing which direction to flow. Kayla had been down past Oregon City and right in the middle of the first of the roller-coaster hills that rose in the river’s bed and even now played havoc with boat travel. The river had stretched like taffy as the ground rose up under it and then dropped and risen, undulating like rope when you wiggle a length of it up and down. When it was done, the river had resembled a log ride with steep hills going up and down for an entire mile.

  Kayla had paddled for her life, but had quickly been dumped into the water. It churned and twisted, dragging her under and spitting her up into the air. She had been driven against boulders and trees. Bones broke and if not for her neoprene suit, she’d have been fricasseed. She’d lost all sense of up or down. Occasionally she’d break into air and could breathe before the water drove her under again.

  “I should have drowned.”

  “But you didn’t. Why?”

  She’d fetched up against a fallen western red cedar, its roots wedged between rocks on the bank. She’d started to slip down below it and had clung to a limb with what small might she had left.

  That’s when it found her. A ball of blue glitter the size of a hummingbird and zooming around about as fast. It came streaking down from the sky, dodging and zigging until it came hurtling toward Kayla. She didn’t have time to think. She hung on the limb, panting and battered. The glitterball streaked straight at her and into her mouth, almost as if it had been searching for her.