The Witchkin Murders

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  Take him down, came the imperious order. Winding around her grandmother’s voice were other voices, surging angrily. A call for vengeance, for justice.

  Their call woke an answering resolution deep in the core of Kayla’s being—a raw and wild instinct to protect her domain, her people, and if not protect them, give them reckoning.

  She rolled her shoulders, lifting the sword. It gleamed silvery white, like the light-embroidered edge of a cloud, the symbols flickering with burnished fire.

  The goliath stood forty feet away. She approached quietly. Zach and Raven saw her and stepped up their attacks to distract him. So did Aunt Margaret. The night strobed with brilliant light. Kayla skirted the rock pattern. At the center, the small pool of lava heated the air, making her sweat.

  The next seconds slowed. She lifted the sword, holding it overhand like a giant knife. She reached the goliath and drove it into its back. It went in with nearly no resistance, as if its flesh was no more substantial than honey.

  It stiffened and arched backward, then staggered and dropped forward. The sword twisted and so did Kayla’s arms, wrenching her off her feet. She tried to let go. She couldn’t. Her hands were glued to the hilt.

  She fell on top of the goliath. It rolled to dislodge the sword, making dry chuffing noises. Kayla managed to swing herself aside, but her legs still ended up underneath the massive creature who was, in fact, very substantial. Her body torqued so hard she thought her spine might pop apart.

  Kayla wrenched at her hands, fruitlessly. The sword neither moved from the goliath’s back, nor did it allow her to let go of it.

  It drinks. Stop it.

  Her grandmother sounded distracted and wavery.

  How was she supposed to stop it? But then, the sword had forged a connection to her using her blood. The sword and the souls and bones of those who’d died to create it. Her people, for better or worse.

  But how to use that bond? How to stop the sword from doing what it was apparently designed to do? Why hadn’t it swallowed the first one? She had no idea and no time to consider it.

  She concentrated on the sword and her hands and tried to find the binding that connected them. Her attention roamed over the dense jungle of filaments spreading out from her in every direction. She zeroed in on a tumultuous brilliance. She slid inside it, discovering a metaphysical battle raging within.

  The goliath’s soul—or really the demon inhabiting it—appeared as a devouring red cloud, much like the first one. The spirits fighting against it were shining shards of jewels, slashing at the cloud. The sword pulsed white and drew the cloud to it.

  And if it did take that soul in? Kayla would be connected to it as well. Fun times.

  The damned knife needed an off switch. Or a time-out. Maybe a swat on the snout with a rolled-up newspaper. If only.

  Her grandmother had said she could control it. Maybe she was overthinking. Maybe she shouldn’t think of it as separate from her, but as a piece of her. A hand, an eye. And if it was part of her, then she ought to be able to simply make it do what she wanted, the way she’d tap her foot or clap her hands.

  She closed her inner eyes and opened herself fully to the connection. For a moment it was too much. A deluge of information coming in from every single capillary tying her to the land and people of Portland. She shrank away despite herself, but it kept pouring in. She made herself relax and accept. Much to her surprise, after a minute, she adjusted. She let that all go fuzzy, like ignoring an itch. Or a billion bee stings. Little by little, she pushed them out to where she was aware of them, but focused on nothing in particular. Now she concentrated on the sword. It throbbed and hungered. It wanted to dominate, to control, to take.

  It was like one of those terrible nighttime cravings for barbecue or ice cream, one that required you to get out of bed and go get what you hungered for as fast as possible.

  But Kayla had no intention of giving into this craving. Barbecue, sure, but god-chow? No thanks.

  She had a sense that the sword was both the bones and the souls bound to it, and something separate. Maybe the spell that had created it. It had a purpose. A desire. A hunger. She understood them all, but those things needed tempering. Hysterical laughter bubbled in Kayla’s chest. Tempering. Sword. Funny.

  She let her awareness flow down into the sword, feeling its pull. But it couldn’t eat her. It was her, at least in part. It trying to eat her was like a snake snacking on its own tail. Couldn’t be done. But it was enough to keep it busy so that it couldn’t suck up the enemy god like a strawberry milkshake.

  Kayla felt the release when the sucking stopped and the other god wrenched free of the sword’s summons.

  Freeing herself was like swimming up a waterfall. By the time she came back to awareness, sweat drenched her body and her heart thundered like a dozen stampeding elephants. She ached, and cramps invaded her muscles.

  “Little god,” came a husky voice, oddly accented.

  She opened her eyes. She’d somehow let go of the sword, and it had fallen free onto the ground a few inches from her hand. Crouching on top of the goliath and facing her was a figure similar to the being that had come out of the first goliath. Its insubstantial body shifted and blurred like red smoke, or maybe a cloud of tiny red birds, all swooping and moving in a pulsing rhythm. A shadowy pair of partially folded wings rose from his back. Watching him—or it—was mesmerizing.

  “Who are you? What are you?” Kayla asked, blinking to break the hypnotic draw. She was too tired to dig up any fear for herself. Mostly she hoped he wouldn’t turn on everybody else.

  He made a liquid-sounding answer that sounded maybe like, “Nietzche-cheese.”

  “That’s a stupid name.” She sounded far more belligerent than she should, lying on the ground with the sword just out of reach and a giant dead thing flopped on top of her, but she didn’t have any fucks left. “Or maybe that’s your species. Which one is it?”

  Mr. Plague of Red Death smiled indulgently as if she was some sort of child to be humored. “You cannot protect her, little god,” he crooned.

  “Protect who?”

  That seemed to startle him. He straightened slightly as if affronted. “The Obsidian Butterfly. Itzpapalotl. She who betrayed her people, her sisters and brothers, and tainted the place she no longer holds sacred.”

  Kayla shook her head. “Sorry. Don’t know who you’re talking about. Don’t care, either. Just want you to get the hell out of my city.”

  He contemplated her a long moment. “You will banish her as well?”

  Banish? Could she do that? If not, he didn’t need to know that.

  “What I do is none of your damned business.”

  “Then you give her refuge.”

  She sighed and rolled her eyes, so done with this fight, and done with the whole mess. She was exhausted beyond measure. She wanted nothing more than to go home, bolt the doors, climb into bed, and grieve for Ray.

  The thought sent a burrowing ache deep into her body. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. It saturated her, growing and pushing, and she had nowhere to put it. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes as she stared straight up at the sky, her body rigid.

  Since she’d met him, Ray had been her anchor, the nucleus of her entire world. He’d been the only one in the world she could trust. The only one in the world who cared about her for her. The only one in the world who understood her, who believed in her, who’d be right there beside her no questions asked.

  And then came Magicfall.

  How fucked up was it that she’d found her way back to him, and this god, this demon from the bowels of hell, had taken him away from her? Taken the gravity of her world, and she was coming apart and floating away in pieces.

  The feelings frothed up and overflowed, pouring out along the bonds tying her to the city. She didn’
t try to pull it back. Every feeling she’d held locked inside her for the last four years had ruptured free, and she couldn’t have stopped the deluge if she’d wanted to.

  Hate rose to the surface as she stared at the smug god sitting just in front of her. But at the moment, she couldn’t kill him the way he deserved. But she didn’t have to do anything to make him happy.

  “I don’t know who this Obsidian Butterfly is,” she said through clenched teeth, “but I’d gladly keep her safe from a dick like you.”

  Her words seemed to have a physical impact. The gauzy red outline of his body jerked and twitched.

  “You cannot stop us. We will come for her, and we will punish her sins.”

  “Then do it now,” Kayla dared him. “Right now. Take her.” Her lips curled. “If you can.” Let him try. She’d stop him, even if she had to let the sword drink him up. She laid her hand on the hilt of the sword. Instantly voices swelled in her mind, and with them came a hail of emotion, hitting her like meteors. Her mind wavered, and it took all she had to keep herself focused on Nietzsche-cheese. They skewered her, and she could hardly breathe.

  He gathered himself, raising himself up haughtily. “Careful, little god. Challenge me at your own risk.”

  “So, you can’t do it.” She broke into a choked laughter. “That’s got to chap your ass. I may be just a flea of a god, but I’m strong enough to cockblock you.”

  He swooped down so she practically had to go cross-eyed to look in his face. She could see his features now. A beak of a nose, predator eyes, high flat cheekbones, thin flat lips.

  “You are nothing,” he hissed. “A mere pebble.”

  “Yeah? For want of a nail the battle was lost. If I’m such a termite, why don’t you crush me and get on with your evil plans?” Surreptitiously she lifted her hand so it no longer touched the sword. The relief of separation was nearly unbearable.

  “Because of her. Because of the sword she gave him the knowledge and power to create. Without it you would be on your knees. I would tear your beating heart from your chest and I would eat it while you watched.”

  “Just like I said: you lose. So take your sorry ass back to wherever you came from. Better yet, why don’t you just go straight to hell, don’t pass go, don’t collect two hundred dollars.”

  Something seared up from inside her. A cocktail of hate, loss, pain, and defiance. She felt it explode from her, ramming into him like a comet. It struck him, whooshing him off into the sky like something from a Roadrunner cartoon.

  Kayla watched in awe and no little triumph. Her body convulsed. Her head snapped back against the ground, her back arching, her arms flopping. Brightness bloomed behind her eyes and swelled and shattered.

  Chapter 24

  Kayla

  SHE CAME TO herself with Zach and Raven kneeling over her, arguing. Or maybe just discussing with intensity. Kayla didn’t pay attention to them, instead taking stock of herself. They’d pulled her out from under the goliath. That was about all she could say for certain, besides the fact that she was alive. She felt hollow and spent. She just wanted to crawl into a hole and pull the dirt over her.

  You can’t always get what you want. The line of the Rolling Stones song ran through her head on an endless loop. Story of her life.

  She made a sound and struggled to sit up. Zach helped her, putting an arm around her shoulder to support her.

  “Easy now,” he said. “You’ve been out of it for a while.” He sounded strained.

  “I told you she’d be okay,” the witch said. She pressed her palm to Kayla’s forehead and hummed. Warmth sluiced through Kayla, along with a gentle fizz of energy.

  She looked at Raven. “I don’t know what that was, but thanks.”

  “Call it caffeine for the soul. Won’t last long.”

  “Better than chicken soup, any day of the week.”

  “I don’t know. I make a fabulous chicken and wild rice soup.”

  “Really? We’re going to shoot the shit over food?” Zach demanded. “Hello! God fight. Near death experience. Wild demon dogs, not to mention a massacre. Don’t you think we’ve got more important things to deal with than chicken soup?”

  “He’s a little high-strung, isn’t he?” Kayla said to Raven.

  “Men tend to get emotional in tough situations,” the witch agreed.

  “Okay, how about this? When the cavalry arrives, they’re going to want to know why you’re here and what happened. They’re more likely to blame you than thank you for saving the city. You need to get out of here,” Zach said.

  His words motivated Kayla to stand. Her legs shook with tremors, and she felt about as steady as a newborn colt. Zach caught her around the waist to steady her.

  “What happened?”

  Raven and Zach exchanged a concerned look.

  “I don’t have amnesia. I mean, what happened after I passed out?”

  Zach gave a little nod. “You went into convulsions. We got you out from under that massive carcass and got you stable. Took you a while to wake up, though.” He cast a dark look at Raven.

  “I’ve done a lot of healing,” she said in a tone that said she’d explained this before and more than once. “Sometimes you’ve got to have a little patience and let the body and mind recover.”

  He said something under his breath that didn’t sound particularly nice. Kayla didn’t ask for clarity. Her gaze roved over the top of The Mound to settle on her crumpled grandmother.

  Kayla wasn’t sure what she felt about her death. Certainly, she didn’t feel anything like the pain of losing Ray.

  At the thought of him, feelings surged up again. She slammed the lid on them, refusing to let them out again. Not until she could go home and fall apart without an audience.

  Her grandmother wasn’t really gone anyway. Not that they’d been all that close. She’d been totally against Kayla joining the police academy, though she hadn’t been the asswipe about it that Alistair had been. Anyway, Grandmother remained in the sword.

  Kayla frowned and looked for it. The weapon lay near goliath. She staggered toward it.

  “Where are you going?” Zach asked.

  “The sword. Nobody else should touch it.” Though the blond giant—Grutte Pier, according to Grandmother—hadn’t seemed to have much of a problem, Kayla didn’t want to subject anybody else to it, nor did she want the Obsidian Butterfly, whoever she was, to get a hold of it.

  “It’s fine. We need to get you out of here before the cavalry moves in. They’ll take you into custody until they sort out what happened, and even then they might not let you out.”

  “I’d like to see them try,” she muttered, but he was right. Mostly because she didn’t want to have to deal with the bigoted bullshit, and she definitely didn’t want to have to fight her way clear. “That stupid sword is not fine. It’s dangerous, and I don’t want anybody else handling it.”

  “Fine, but then we get you out. They’re already on their way up.”

  “What about my Aunt Margaret?”

  She followed his glance to her grandmother’s body. Her aunt knelt beside her, crying as she stroked her mother’s face. Both still wore the robes they’d been wearing when they were kidnapped.

  “She should put her age glamour back on if she doesn’t want everyone to figure out she’s a witch. And I should call Landon,” Kayla said. “Tell him his mom’s okay.” Not that Alistair would let him get on the phone or pass along the message. Asshole.

  “When you’re somewhere safe, you can do it. Or I can, if you want,” Zach said.

  “I’ll help your aunt with the glamour. And your grandmother,” Raven added.

  “There’s someone else. Nietzche-cheese called her the Obsidian Butterfly. She had another name, but I can’t remember it,” Kayla said, the numbness she’d been feeling
starting to wear off. Her body hurt like someone had used her for a punching bag.

  “Nietzche-cheese?” Zach gave her confused look.

  “The second god-critter. That’s what his name sounded like.”

  “Right. No worries on the woman. We’ve got her contained. She’s pretty sick so she’s not much of a threat right now.”

  “She’s a woman? What’s with the Obsidian Butterfly stuff?”

  Raven answered. “Since they were hunting her, likely she is also divine. Perhaps she also takes another form.”

  Made sense. “What’s going to happen to her?”

  “I don’t know,” Zach said. “I don’t know how long we can contain her, and how much does she deserve it? If she’s a victim and hasn’t committed a crime . . .” He trailed off, looking at Raven.

  “We can take her to the Island,” she said slowly. “But when she regains strength, if she proves to be malevolent, we may not be able to handle her.”

  “She needs to come home with me,” Kayla said with a sigh.

  “Go home with you?” Zach echoed. “You’re nuts.”

  “I’ve got the sword, and I’m betting it can at least hurt her. Plus Nietzche-cheese and his buddy said they’ll come looking for her again. I don’t want them showing up on anybody else’s doorstep. They’ll kill first and ask questions later. This is my damned town, and I’m not letting them kill anybody here again.”

  “And if she’s a psycho-murderer just like them?”

  “Then I’ll deal with her.”

  “Jesus,” Zach said, sliding his fingers through his hair. “If I let you do this, you know Ray will skin me alive, right?”

  Kayla froze. “Ray will—?” she whispered, hope flaring painfully. She shook her head. “They killed him. Hit him with magic and blew him off The Mound.”

  “No. Well, maybe that happened. He was definitely not looking good when he dropped out of the sky. But we caught him—” He motioned to Raven and himself. “Before he hit the ground. Raven applied a healing spell, and I called the paramedics. He’s at the hospital by now.”