by Lily Velez
“Now do you understand?” Mary-Anne asked, securing another strap. “Our methods may seem cruel, but I’m of the mind the end justifies the means. This isn’t to say I relish your suffering, of course, which is why I want to offer you the opportunity to spare yourself from the ministrations of the Chamber Master. All you need do is tell me where Jack’s brothers are. I’ll release you from your restraints at once and ensure your Purge is completely painless. You’ll be fast asleep before it even begins.”
Her euphemisms were almost as disturbing as the reality they were meant to sugarcoat. “Do you really think I’d betray them?”
She scoffed. “Such displays of virtue. They won’t inoculate you against the pain that otherwise awaits you. This is your final chance, girl, and I’d advise you choose wisely.”
I met her gaze full on. “I’ve already made my choice,” I said.
Her glacial eyes were hard as diamonds as they impaled me. I almost felt frostbite developing on my bones. “Send for the Chamber Master,” she ordered someone I couldn’t see.
That was my cue. Here goes nothing. “Actually, you don’t want to do that.”
She lifted her eyebrows at my tone. “You’re hardly in any position to say so.” But her eyes switched to my side, following something as it ascended and wreathed all around me. Kai’s inky black wisps of smoke. They coiled around my arms, around my neck, twisting like charmed snakes as I beckoned them. His blood awoke at my summons just as he said it would. It burned inside me, as if I’d swallowed fire, and the magic sparked to life like flint against steel.
Mary-Anne checked to ensure the iron cuffs were still around my wrists and ankles. They were. She stepped back. “What is this?”
My hair started to rise as if charged by static, and then it blew in a phantom breeze all across my face. I kept my eyes pinned on Mary-Anne all the while, filling them with poison. Kai’s magic thrummed in my veins, strengthening more and more with every passing second. It was different from Jack’s magic. Where Jack’s had been light and buoyant and uplifting, Kai’s was dark and heavy and grounding. There was an inescapable darkness expanding in my chest like a swelling storm cloud.
And the storm raged. I didn’t know if it was Kai’s influence or my own, but Mary-Anne filled my vision, and all I could think about were the scores of witches she and her fanatics had tortured in rooms like this all over the world. Their prejudice had cut short countless lives, had erased entire bloodlines from the face of the earth. The anger—no, the rage—cut me deep, leaving behind a searing wound that was like a flame in my chest.
And that’s when I realized this wasn’t Kai’s influence at all. Zoe had said I needed to make a decision about where I stood. But I already knew where I stood. From the moment Jack and I had first exchanged words, I’d become a part of this world. I was a witch in the same way the Connellys were witches, and the people The Black Hand had hunted for centuries were my people. My family. A family that had been persecuted in ways that were unforgivable.
Mary-Anne reached for one of the nearby torture instruments, but before her fingers could touch the metal, the devices flipped into the air and levitated several feet above us. They formed a ring over the woman’s head and slowly pointed down toward her. Mary-Anne frowned and backed up further.
“I need reinforcements now,” she called out, and within moments, hunters rushed into the Chamber. They didn’t stand a chance. One by one, I threw them across the room with Kai’s magic, where the manacles, suddenly animated, closed around their wrists and restrained them. I hurled others into cages that sat with doors wide open like hungry mouths, doors that promptly snapped shut once a hunter was inside.
Kai’s magic was an untamed tempest at my fingertips. It was so easy to lash out, unrestricted by the spelled iron, to fling the magic about like deadly knives and watch the blades sink into their targets with astounding accuracy. When my own magic had yet to awaken, it felt wildly satisfying to suddenly have so much power under my control. It slaked a thirst I didn’t know I possessed. Above, the lights flickered, and all manner of contraptions and tools clanked against the floors and walls in a deafening chorus, the demon blood in me pulsing along with the rhythm like a second heart.
Mary-Anne’s ice blue eyes were double their size as she watched it all. “This is impossible.”
“Not really,” I said. “You just messed with the wrong witch.”
Gritting her teeth, she whipped the truncheon hanging from her belt loop free, but I knocked her onto her back before she could attack me. Then I willed the truncheon away, and it flew across the room, slamming into the wall with enough force to crack in half like a pencil. Mary-Anne blanched.
“Now you’re going to listen to what I have to say,” I said. “We witches don’t need your absolution. We don’t need you to Purge us of whatever wickedness you think we have. We never asked for these powers, but for whatever reason, we were born with them. And we’ll keep being born with them generation after generation. You think you can silence us, but you can’t. You think you can wipe us from existence, but we’ll survive. We’re not going anywhere. So let me make one thing clear. If you ever come for the Connellys or any other witch again, you’re going to deal with me, and I promise you I’ll make your life a living nightmare.”
Mary-Anne actually growled. Bared her teeth and growled. She threw something at me, lightning-quick. I didn’t have enough time to deflect the knife as it raced straight for me. I twisted my head away at the last second, the edge of the blade blazing across my cheek in a streak of heat before it pierced the cruciform. In a blur of color, Mary-Anne shot to her feet, and charged at me as she pulled a second knife free from a hidden holster. Click, click—
A burst of smoke and fire and ash exploded before me, burning my eyes so badly I had to squeeze them shut.
When I dared to look again, my face still warm from the fire, Mary-Anne had vanished, as had every last hunter in the room.
A moment later, Kai materialized before me. His wisps of smoke trailed down my arms and stretched across the space between us, returning to him. The power he’d granted me left me in a rush, like air blasting out of a quickly deflating balloon.
He slow-clapped, a twisted smile stretching across his lips. “Brava, little witch. Brava. I have to say, if anyone has a flair for the theatrics, it’s most certainly you. I think we make quite the dynamic team. What do you think?”
“You didn't kill them, did you?” My breath sawed in and out of my lungs. The assumption, of course, was that Kai had been the one to banish the hunters. It’s what I wanted to believe. I hadn’t meant to do that, but what if I’d lost control in that split-second? What if I’d done something horrific?
Kai started to undo the straps holding me down. He quirked an eyebrow. “They were about to gruesomely torture you before draining every last drop of blood from your body, and you're concerned about whether or not they met a most deserved end?”
“Kai.”
He met my pleading gaze. His garnet eyes were dancing. “I simply banished them to the farthest reaches of Siberia. I hear it’s rather lovely this time of year. Single-digit temperatures and all.”
I let go of a sigh of relief. Yes, it might’ve been a ‘most deserved end,’ but I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself had I stooped to their level in so grim a way.
“Had I not intervened, she would’ve cut you up rather nicely, you know.”
“I thought demons didn’t have robust moral codes.”
The corner of his mouth twitched up at that. “I suppose some of us can surprise you. Easy!”
I sagged against him once I was free of my restraints, my legs giving out. My entire body felt heavy, my movements slow as if I were moving through water. “What’s wrong with me?”
“You’re experiencing your kickback,” Kai said, holding me up. “Demon blood is one of the most potent sources of dark magic a witch can use. Once the power runs its course, there’s a nasty withdrawal period to contend
with. I apologize. Did I not mention that?”
My head hurt too much to properly glare at him. The world was a carousel around me. Jack had told me about the dreaded kickback, of course, but I hadn’t known just how quickly it would come or to what extent.
“Look at you, though,” Kai went on. “Scarred in all your wonder. I have to admit, I’m impressed.”
Thin streaks of blood leisurely trailed down my face from the cut on my cheek, but I was too nauseous to care, and there wasn’t enough fight left in me to object when Kai traced a fingertip along my jawline to collect a few beads of crimson. He stuck his finger into his mouth and slowly tasted my blood.
Almost immediately, there was a spark in his eyes, and something changed in his expression. He looked at me, taken aback.
“What?” I asked. “A-Positive not your usual poison of choice?”
Something unreadable danced in his gaze like a flame. “My word,” he whispered, rapt. “You have no idea what you are, do you?”
Everything was dimming, my thoughts slipping away from me fast. “Kai,” I moaned. “Please just take us home.”
My eyes were already closed when he responded, but I still heard his voice, coming to me as if from a dream.
“As you wish, little witch.”
34
“You summoned a demon, didn’t you?”
I was face-to-face with a toilet bowl, clinging to its cold, porcelain frame as if for dear life. My pajama pants were hardly a suitable fortification against the hard tiles of the bathroom, and I sank back onto my heels before I keeled over. Connor was leaning a shoulder against the doorway, arms crossed. It was four in the morning, but I guessed in the wake of all the excitement we’d endured recently, no one was getting any sleep.
“If you’re going to lecture me,” I said, my throat sore, “could you at least wait until I’m not seeing double?”
It had been a few hours since Kai had magically ferried me and Jack to the door of our hotel room. I wasn’t sure how he knew where we were staying. Maybe he’d plucked it out of my thoughts. I hadn’t been in any condition to prod.
“Until we meet again, little witch,” he’d said before knocking on the door three times and vanishing into his wisps of smoke.
“I’m not here to lecture you,” Connor said. He pulled a few tissues from a plastic box beside the sink and handed them to me.
I used them to dab at the corners of my mouth and flushed the toilet. The water spun on its way down, making a pattern like a lollipop swirl—one part clear, one part black. I looked away, not relishing the reminder I’d upchucked what essentially looked like petroleum.
“I’m not in any position to,” Connor went on, “considering I wouldn’t be standing here if Jack hadn’t once summoned a demon for me.”
I paused mid-dab. “You know about that?”
“You know about that?” After a moment, he shook his head. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Jack seems to tell you just about everything.”
“He only kept it from you to protect you, Connor. He didn’t want you to feel guilty.”
“I know,” he said. “Typical Jack. But I knew something was off from the beginning. The tension in our home, Jack suddenly being sick the way you now are. Nevermind his inadvertently setting Declan O’Neill on fire. Though, for the record, the bloody langer deserved it.”
“So you’ve known all along?”
“Jack was uncharacteristically cagey after my ‘miraculous’ recovery, and after the Declan incident, I overheard my parents arguing about dark magic, dropping my name and Jack’s in the mix. I looked for answers in a few grimoires and history texts, and though I was young, it wasn’t hard to put two and two together. I never confronted Jack about it. I knew he was embarrassed about using dark magic, so if it made him feel better to keep it a secret, then I was willing to play along.”
I couldn’t help but wonder if Connor’s previous resentment toward Alison had just as much to do about what she’d said that day as it did her later abandonment. Though she’d been grateful to have Connor back, it was clear she’d lamented what it’d cost Jack. I knew her words could’ve easily been interpreted as her wishing Redmond had just let fate run its course “Your mom loves you all very much, you know. Having been in her mind, I can say that without hesitation.”
Connor considered it, the glare of the bathroom light reflecting off his glasses. “I never doubted her love for us. Though I sometimes caught her looking at Jack back then as if he were already lost to us, and I couldn’t help but feel like she would’ve rather I died than have Jack use the demon’s mark.”
“Connor—”
He held up a hand. “I’m not fishing for sympathy, Monroe.” He sniffed the air and grimaced. “You smell a mess, by the way.”
Rolling my eyes, I balled up the tissues and tossed them toward a neighboring waste bin. The ball floated halfway there and then plopped onto the tiles. “Question: I’m not going to have to worry about accidentally setting people on fire, am I?”
Connor leaned over to pinch the tissues between two fingers and deposited them into the trash. “You haven’t fully come into your magic, so no. There’s nothing for the demon blood to amplify. You’ll most likely just feel sick until it leaves your system.” He studied me further. “Listen. I know I’ve given you somewhat of a hard time since we met.”
“Somewhat?”
Now he rolled his eyes. “Anyway, I appreciate what you did for Jack.”
It was about as much of an apology as Connor would probably ever utter. I nodded. “He would’ve done the same for me, for any of us.”
Connor sighed and adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “I guess that’s two wishes down. We only have to make sure there’s no reason to call upon a third.”
“Actually, Kai—that was the demon’s name—said I couldn’t use the mark. So I struck a bargain of my own with him instead. Apparently I’ll owe him a favor at some point in my life.”
A soft curse fell from Connor’s mouth, and he passed his fingers through his hair.
His reaction made me feel sick again, and I turned toward the toilet, waiting for another spell to come over me. Fortunately, for the time being, it looked like I was in the clear. “Truth be told, I would’ve done it again if I had to. Anything to get away from that psychopath Mary-Anne.”
“Mary-Anne?” Connor’s spine stiffened.
“You know her then? She said she and Jack had history.”
“Mary-Anne is one of the most ruthless hunters around. She can trace her lineage all the way back to the very first members of The Black Hand, something she takes considerable pride in. With as many abilities as he has, she’s had an obsession with Jack ever since she first learned about him. Capturing a witch like that would be the ultimate notch in her belt. She’s gone after him plenty of times, but he’s always outsmarted her.”
A trickle of warmth slid down the side of my face. The small gash from Mary-Anne’s knife was bleeding again. I pulled myself to my feet and stumbled to the sink, frowning at my pallid reflection in the bathroom mirror. I hadn’t caught a wink of sleep since arriving at the hotel, and it showed in the dark shadows under each eye. I peeled off the old bandage, cleaned the wound with warm water and lemon-scented liquid soap, and stuck on a new Band-Aid. Since it was courtesy of Zoe’s supply, it was black with tiny skulls and crossbones. Once that was done, I reapplied ointment on the burns on my palms and wrists from The Black Hand’s spelled iron.
“How’s Jack doing?” I asked Connor’s reflection. Jack had finally regained consciousness within minutes of us returning to the hotel room, but he’d still been in something of a daze, his face burning from a fever.
“Scarlet?” he’d said, panicking as he sat up on the couch in the common room.
I moved into his line of sight. “I’m here, Jack. It’s okay.”
“The hunters—”
“They’re gone,” I said. “We’re safe.”
His eyes slid to the
wound on my cheek, and there was pain in his eyes. The guilt of not being able to protect someone. The sight had been a weight on my chest.
“He’s sleeping it off,” Connor said. “The sooner we find The Book of Fates, the better. We need to get out of this city. It’s bad enough you crossed paths with The Black Hand, but we also have the sluagh to contend with. We sighted them earlier tonight, around the time the two of you went missing. I initially thought they were the reason for your delay. They’ve finally caught up to our scent.”
I had almost forgotten about the sluagh. How many enemies was that now? Getting rid of the hunters—at least Mary-Anne’s small group of them—had seemed like a minor victory. Remembering they were the least of our worries, though, was woefully sobering.
Suddenly, there came a pounding at the front door. Three thunderous knocks that bellowed out like a battering ram. I jumped, my pulse galloping. Kai had taken care of all the hunters, hadn’t he? What if he hadn’t? I realized with growing dread that I might’ve underestimated their numbers. There could’ve been countless others out in the city at the time of our escape, and somehow, they’d tracked us.
Connor strode to the front door, grabbing a gun on his way there. The Connellys hadn’t yet had any reason to use any of the weapons they’d packed on this trip…until now. His steps became as light as a cat’s as he neared the door, and he inched forward slowly.
Boom, boom, boom! The knocks were angry, violent. There wouldn’t be a third round of them. The hunters on the other end would surely storm their way in within seconds. My eyes darted around the penthouse, quickly assessing the best hiding places, the best furnishings to use in self-defense.
Connor pressed his back against the door and then quickly turned and dared a look through the peephole. He stayed there longer than I would’ve expected him to, but nothing surprised me more than when he swung the door wide open.
“Zoe?”
My shoulders fell with relief, and I sagged against a wall.