“Have you ever asked the goddess for anything, ever? Or any deity, for that matter?”
“Well, I have—”
And then the hair on the back of Samantha’s neck stood on end. “Ssh,” she said, holding up a hand. She turned and closed her eyes, and then she heard the merest whisper of movement.
Samantha pulled her Swiss Army knife out of her pocket and tossed it to Katie. “Form the circle using your blood,” she whispered as she took a step forward and drew her gun. She squared herself so she was facing the door but turned her head so that she could see the opening only out of the corner of her right eye. She focused on her breathing, slowing it down. She stretched her other senses, straining to see, hear, smell everything that she could.
Katie was crying quietly, but Samantha could smell the faintest hint of blood. So the girl was at least doing as she had said. Not that the circle would protect her from a human assailant, but if the thing that had gutted her ex-boyfriend was coming after her, it would slow the creature down.
A breath of wind touched her cheek.
She tensed all her muscles, preparing to move in a moment.
Samantha, a voice seemed to whisper inside her head.
It was coming.
In the distance she heard a shot ring out, then another. Bile rose in her throat as she thought about Ed. Had the witch found him first? By sending him in the opposite direction had she sent him to his death?
Her chest felt constricted, like a giant hand was crushing her rib cage. She could hear the blood pounding in her ears, and her fingers wrapped around the gun were slick with sweat.
I can’t do this, she thought, panicking.
She shifted her gun to her left hand and raised her right, energy crackling along her fingertips as the adrenaline rushed through her body.
Samantha! the voice repeated.
The witch knows who I am. It will kill Katie and me and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Waves of despair and hopelessness rushed over her. It was no use fighting—she would lose. Even if she used magic and broke every vow she had made to herself and God, they would still die.
“Samantha!”
The voice was louder, more insistent, and suddenly she realized it was actually coming from behind her.
She twisted her head so she could see Katie, who stood swaying on her feet, her eyes frozen in terror on a cloud of green mist that was hovering just outside the window. And then it was seeping through the gaps in the window casing, sliding down the wall and billowing across the floor toward Katie, who screamed and stepped backward.
Out of her circle.
A howling filled the air and Samantha turned back to see a figure shrouded in black glide across the threshold. She began to shake uncontrollably as images of other witches stirred in her memory. The light streaming through the windows failed to touch the inky figure. In fact, it was more of a shadow than a form in the darkness, something she felt more than saw.
A fragment of a rhyme she had learned as a child ran through her head. When witches go to school, little boys cry. When witches go to school, bad girls die. There was more but she couldn’t remember it, didn’t want to remember it.
The dark figure was moving, and it stretched out one hand and touched a counter as it passed by. The jars on the counter fell off, smashing on the floor. The witch swept an arm forward as if directing something.
Bad girls die.
“Get back in the circle!” Samantha shouted, not daring to look at Katie but keeping her full attention on the witch. The other moved with a slight, hypnotic swaying motion, coming ever closer.
Samantha was a bad girl. Or she had been but not now. Now she was… what was it she was?
Pull yourself together!
A cop. She was a cop.
“Stop! Police officer! Get on the ground! Now!” Samantha ordered, her years of training kicking in.
She might as well not have spoken, for all the effect it had. The witch’s arms were extended slightly and the fingertips brushed the sides of desks as she passed. As she touched the first two they erupted into columns of flame, which instantly began to spew dark smoke.
Thoughts collided in Samantha’s mind, slipping over one another and scattering. And she wasn’t a detective anymore. She was a frightened girl facing down a much stronger opponent. She heard a gasp behind her, followed by a thud. She risked a glance backward and saw Katie on the ground, the last of the green mist disappearing into her nose and mouth.
Samantha turned back and everything suddenly went black. Panic surged through her as she realized the witch had cast a spell of blindness upon her. She had no idea how to reverse it. She froze for a moment. Behind her, Katie was making choking noises.
Sounds. Listen for the sounds.
She moved her gun back and forth, listening for something that would give away the other’s location.
Nothing.
Except—there it was—tiny scrabbling, scratching noises. She realized after a moment that the witch wasn’t making those noises. She thought of all the jars containing lab specimens that had smashed onto the floor. She had seen frogs, fetal pigs, and other creatures awaiting dissection suspended in the jars. They were dead.
Yet they were moving. She could hear the sounds of the animated corpses scuffling along the floor, animated by the witch, who must also be approaching ever closer.
Something squealed near her foot and then bit her ankle. With a shriek she kicked hard, sending whatever it was flying across the room.
More came and she kicked out again. But for each one she got rid of, two more grabbed her legs. Stop the witch; stop the attack.
She didn’t have to see the witch to know where she was. She took a deep breath and forced herself to tune in to the swirling energy in the room. She felt the power of the fire, Katie dying behind her, tiny feet scrabbling over her shoes, and to her left…
She turned and fired the gun. And she felt, knew, that she’d hit her mark.
And in a moment, her vision returned, proof that the spell had been disrupted. Through the smoke she saw a figure crumpled on the ground. She walked over, her gun still aimed, and kicked at the legs.
No movement. She had shot the witch in the chest. She listened, straining, but could not detect any sound of breathing. She kicked the hood back and saw a woman about ten years older than she was, with dark eyes fixed and staring at the ceiling. She was gone.
Samantha took a deep breath. For all their powers and abilities, witches were still human.
And she made a very human mistake. Instead of confusing my senses, blinding me, she should have cursed my gun so it would misfire, Samantha thought. My mother never would have been so stupid.
The dead pigs toppled onto their sides. The frogs lay silent. Samantha grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall by the teacher’s desk and snuffed out the flames. In the silence that followed she could hear only her own heartbeat and Katie’s labored breathing. She waited for a moment. Were there others? She could sense no other energy spikes in the building, so after a moment she turned to Katie.
Samantha dropped to her knees beside the fallen girl. “Katie! Don’t you die on me!”
She looked closely at the girl. Her eyes were frozen open and short, wheezing breaths came from her mouth. Samantha could hear shouts and running steps as Ed arrived with backup.
“It’s clear!” Samantha shouted. “Call an ambulance! Girl down!”
In a moment Ed was beside her. She felt a rush of relief that he seemed unharmed. “What happened?” he asked, his eyes traveling from Katie to the dead witch and the animals all over the floor.
“She inhaled poison,” Samantha said, cutting to the most important part and leaving the rest of the explanation for later.
“Then we need to make her vomit.”
Samantha shook her head. “She inhaled a lot of it and it’s spread all through her system at this point, leaching into her bloodstream.”
“So what do we do?”
“There’s nothing. The paramedics won’t be able to do anything.”
“Medicine might not help her, but you can,” Ed said, his voice low and fierce.
Yes, you can, a voice whispered inside her head.
“No,” she said out loud, to both Ed and the voice. “I can’t help.”
“Can’t or won’t?” Ed accused even as Katie’s wheezing breaths stopped.
“You don’t know what you’re asking me to do,” she said, her voice shaking.
The house had been self-defense, reflex. This… this would be willfully crossing a line. She couldn’t let herself go there. Not even to save Katie.
You’d do it to save Ed. It’s not that you won’t help; it’s that you won’t help her. She’s not important enough.
“Stop it!” she screamed.
Ed grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, his eyes wide in desperation. “Do something!”
“I can’t.”
“Look at me!”
His eyes pierced her. “You can and you have to,” he insisted. “You saved us in the house and you can save her now.”
“No.”
“If you don’t save her, then it’s on your hands. The dead witch might have attacked her, but you’ll be the witch that killed her.”
She felt like he had just punched her. She hunched her shoulders and dropped her eyes. Just a few more seconds and there would be nothing anyone could do. It would be over.
“I can’t do it alone,” she whispered.
“I’m here. Whatever you need.”
She nodded. He started to pull away, but she grabbed his hand. She placed her free hand on Katie’s chest, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes. Then she shoved energy through her hand and into Katie. At the same time she pulled energy out of Ed.
She felt him gasp and reflexively pull back, but she hung on.
She sent waves of energy into Katie and pictured them rushing through her body, pushing out the toxins. She could feel Katie dying, and when her heart stopped, it was like her own had as well. She ceased to breathe because Katie no longer breathed. She was linking their two systems. It was dangerous, but it was the only way.
There were only moments left. She could feel Katie’s mind slipping away to a place where she couldn’t follow. The connection was weakening. Fear flooded her. If she pushed too hard, she risked doing catastrophic damage. But if she didn’t push hard enough, Katie would still be dead of the toxin.
It had to be expelled, but it was too pervasive to be done quickly or from one source. A flash of insight came to her and she spiked Katie’s temperature. The girl’s body began to sweat. Samantha took a deep breath and pulled as much energy out of Ed as she dared. She could feel him starting to weave beside her, on the verge of losing consciousness himself.
She sent a sudden rush of energy throughout the girl’s body, sterilizing, purifying, just as fire cauterized a wound. Then she pushed the toxins out of each organ, each blood vessel, to the skin, where they began to ooze out of her pores with her sweat.
The stench of something rotten filled the air, and behind her she could hear another police officer arrive and begin gagging in response. Katie’s skin briefly took on a greenish tinge and then returned to its normal pallor. Samantha removed her hand with a gasp, forcing air into her own lungs as she broke the connection. Her own heart began to beat again and she felt light-headed.
“She’s still not breathing,” Ed slurred beside her.
Samantha held her hands together, funneling all the strength she had left into them until she could feel the heat radiating from them. Then she slammed both hands down on Katie’s chest and the girl convulsed as the electricity rushed through her.
Samantha watched for a moment, praying she wouldn’t have to do it a second time. And then, miraculously, Katie coughed and began to breathe. Samantha fell backward flat on the ground and shuddered with exhaustion. A ragged sob escaped Ed.
Katie was alive. They had succeeded.
But Samantha suspected it had cost her dearly.
8
By the time the paramedics arrived, Katie was conscious but no less terrified. “I could have been killed,” she said around her sobs.
“But you weren’t.” Ed tried to reassure her. “We told you we would protect you and that’s what we’re going to do.”
Katie looked up at Samantha. “And you saved me? How?”
“That’s not important,” Samantha said, looking away. The last thing she wanted was for Katie to realize what she’d done, who she was.
Who I still am, she thought grimly.
The magic came back so naturally, so effortlessly. It frightened her. And she knew that the closer she got to this case, the worse it would get. She desperately wanted to distance herself, and fast, but she knew that wasn’t a realistic option.
“I should have gone on vacation,” she muttered.
“Aren’t I always telling you to take one?” Ed said. “Bet you wish you’d listened to me now.”
She wanted to hit him, but the strength required to lift her arm seemed beyond her at the moment.
They were both sitting on the floor, still drained from what had happened. The stench of formaldehyde hung heavy in the air and she noticed that Ed did everything he could to avoid looking at the fetal pigs. She could feel his relief when Captain Roberts arrived, even though the man’s face was like a thundercloud.
“Somebody want to tell me what the hell happened?”
Captain Roberts kicked one of the tiny carcasses, looked down at it, and swore.
“Our location was compromised and we were forced to move the witness,” Ed said.
“And?”
“And when we reached the lobby, the crowd recognized Katie from the news broadcasts and decided the only good witch was a dead witch,” Ed continued.
The words made Samantha wince. I’m not a witch. Not anymore. But Ed had called her one earlier, and she had not forgotten it. He had used the word purposely to manipulate her emotions and get her to save Katie.
Words had power. Names had power. It was true even for people who didn’t use magic, and Ed had played the game like a pro.
“And the dead woman?” Captain Roberts asked.
“An assassin,” Samantha said. “A witch sent to kill Katie. I suspect that she also put a spell on the crowd, incited them to riot in order to cause confusion so she could get to Katie more easily.”
Captain Roberts knelt next to her and looked her in the eye. “And she was a real witch? You’re absolutely sure?”
Samantha nodded and he sighed and sat down too, looking suddenly tired and worn.
“Okay, boys and girls, then what’s our game plan? We’ve killed one of their own and they’re not about to take that sitting down, I’m guessing.”
“We can’t let on that we know they exist. These people will go underground and we’ll never find them,” Ed said.
“What are you suggesting?” Captain Roberts asked. “They’ll know she’s dead, or at least figure it out eventually.”
“We announce it publicly,” Samantha said. “Make it sound like she was a bystander who was killed when the riot happened over the alleged witch.”
He stared at her like she had lost her mind, his mouth working for a moment before any sound came out. “Are you crazy? Do you know how that would make the department look? And more, we don’t want to feed this whole witch thing, especially if it’s real.”
“That’s out of our hands now,” Ed pointed out. “Press is going to run with this no matter what we say or do. This plan at least helps us out in the long run, gives us time to catch these people.”
“And I think we need to report that Katie was killed in the attack,” Samantha added. “We can only protect her if they stop looking for her.”
“You think it will work?” he asked.
She shrugged. “It will buy us some time at the very least.”
“Okay, we’ll play it your way for now,” Captain Roberts said with a no
d. He caught the eye of one of the paramedics. “Tell me when she’s good to travel.”
“She’s good now,” the man said, looking slightly confused. “I’m not sure what’s wrong with her—or was wrong with her. We can’t find anything. They’ll run tests at the hospital to check everything.”
“No, they won’t. She isn’t going to any hospital. And I’m going to have to ask for your help,” Roberts said, getting back on his feet and moving over to talk to the man.
“You okay?” Ed asked after a minute.
“No. You?”
“Not even a little bit,” he admitted. “Don’t suppose there’s any chance that this is all just a really bad dream?”
“Neither of us is that lucky.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” he said with a sigh. He hesitated a moment and then continued. “I feel like crap.”
“You were the one who volunteered to help,” she said, feeling defensive.
“Yeah, about that… what did I do exactly? Or, rather, what did you do?”
“Most of witchcraft revolves around the manipulation of energy, electricity. I needed more energy than I had, so I borrowed.”
“Borrowed? Does that mean there’s a chance you’ll give it back?”
She forced herself to smile. “Okay, took is more like it. And you’ll feel fine after a good night’s sleep. I warn you, though, you’ll be out for the whole day if you don’t set your alarm.”
“That sounds good,” he said with a groan.
“But duty calls,” she said softly.
“I hear you. Now, any chance can you help me stand up before I decide to just sleep here on the floor?”
“If I had the strength to stand up myself I’d be there for you,” she said ruefully.
Ed glanced grimly over at the paramedics. “Hey, fellas, a little help?”
In the morning, when Samantha arrived at the precinct, she found Ed already at work, eyes bloodshot, massive coffee cup in his hand.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Nothing good about it. The neighbor’s dog woke me up with his barking every hour last night. At four a.m. I seriously considered shooting him.”
“The dog?”
The Thirteenth Sacrifice Page 9