Playing the Witch's Game (Keepers of the Veil)

by Zoe Forward

“Look. At. Me,” he ordered.

  She watched four couples jump. Her roaming gaze snapped to his.

  “Keep your hands in to your body when you jump, and during landing. Find me.”

  She nodded.

  The military guy yelled, “Jen and Nick. Get off. Time to go. Go. Go. Go. Go.”

  He took her hand. They jumped.

  Airborne. Her mind whirled with panic. Keep your mouth closed. She’d lost his hand. She couldn’t see Nikolai. She did see the churning water and high waves.

  Cold water sucked her into its depths. She buoyed upward, her sole focus on oxygen. At the surface she spit salty water and flailed against the waves and wind. Water crashed over her, pushing her down. Instinctually she swam away from the underbelly of the helicopter to where the water seemed less chaotic. She spun around and screamed, “Nick.” But saw nothing other than waves. One other unfamiliar contestant swam by.

  “Nick.” Her teeth chattered uncontrollably. Then the helicopter was gone and there was less noise. She screamed once more.

  A sound drifted to her across the waves. Scanning the endless ocean, she finally saw a head bobbing as it swam toward her. Powerful relief swept through her, elated her. She couldn’t do this without him.

  He bobbed in front of her. “Let’s go.” He pointed in a direction where boats lined a channel; doubtless they’d be cut out of whatever was shown on TV.

  He swam ahead of her in long, powerful strokes. She kicked off. A few solid strokes later something pulled her neck backward. The backward force yanked her upright in the water. Then backward and underwater. She gripped at the necklace and tugged. It didn’t give. A stinging as sharp as a jellyfish mixed with fire burned where she wrenched the chain around her neck. It pulled her down into the cold water. She thrashed and pulled at the necklace, but it wouldn’t break its hold. The only rational thought through her terror was this necklace wanted her to drown. She released her grip on the necklace to kick and claw her way to the surface. Her lungs heaved as she gasped in air and spat out water when waves rolled over her. She tried to scream for Nikolai, but the necklace cut her off and jerked her backward again.

  Every time she got close to the surface, it pulled her down. Strong arms pulled her back up. She took huge drags of air. A boat with a cameraman whirred nearby.

  “It’s trying to drown—” She was cut off when the necklace yanked her head back under water and pulled her downward.

  Nick wrapped an arm around her. They both swam upward. He pulled at the necklace without success and cursed. “It’s burning my hands and won’t give. You’re going to have to use magic…go wherever you go.”

  She spat out salty water and yelled, “What?” She only made out snippets of what he was screaming at her between waves crashing into them.

  “Burns…to get this off…shift away…get it off. You’ll have a few minutes…you can do that?”

  She smelled the burning again. His skin. She nodded. “Few minutes. Other dimension. Let me go.”

  “Come back to me. Five minutes,” he yelled. Fear momentarily transformed his features. “…counting.”

  “Let. Go,” she screamed into the wind.

  He released her and ordered, “Come back to me, Angel.”

  It pulled her backward and down into the cold water. She shut her eyes and focused to transition to her alternate dimension. Within seconds, there was no water. She fell onto all fours, spitting out water and gasping to inhale. One small eyelid crack singed her eyes. Shift blindness. There was no way to circumvent the half a minute of inability to see after a transition. The dimension hop had worked, though. She was in the house that had belonged to her mother. And dripping all over the hall hardwoods. Her mom would’ve had a stroke if she’d been alive to see this.

  “What’s wrong?” she heard the eldest Pleiad, Charlotte, ask.

  “Necklace. Bad magic. Can’t get it off. I need to get it off in the next minute and then jump back. Help me.”

  Charlotte reached in and then yanked her hand back. “It burned me. You need to do a spell. Say it and then I’ll say it. Together we can be twice as powerful and might counteract this hex.”

  “A hex?” Jen’s mind whirled with betrayal and fear for Nikolai. What had she dragged him into? Nothing other than a protection spell entered her mind. She stumbled to the kitchen in her house and filled a glass quickly. She intoned:

  “Wicked magic touch not me nor mine.

  Thy power shall drain into brine.”

  Jen paused. “Say it with me, Charlotte.”

  Together they repeated it three times. She felt the magic within her rev. “One more time.” They repeated it once more. She yanked, and the chain broke. “Thank the goddess.”

  Charlotte passed a sheathed knife into her hands. “Take it with you.”

  She hid the knife inside her bathing suit. “Got to go. Nikolai is still there. Thank you. Tell everyone I love them. This game was an insane idea. But I was hexed. Oh my God, I was hexed.”

  Charlotte put her hands on her hips. She might be well into her sixties, but didn’t look a day beyond thirty. “You’ve got to go back and protect that man. I don’t know how you got him to do this, but he’s innocent in whatever’s going on.”

  She nodded. “Tell them: Game on. Help us.” She flashed out of her dimension and focused on Nikolai. How long had it been? Two minutes, three?

  …

  Nikolai treaded water, bobbing on the waves. He screamed Jen’s name. He pretended to dive down and search for her. At first it was for the cameras. Then he searched in earnest. He continued diving to temper the escalating unease in his brain. He plunged downward at random into the murky dark depths of the ocean, but saw nothing.

  Had it been one minute or ten? Where was she?

  Only once before in his life could he say he’d experienced gut-wrenching fear. Last year. When his brother almost died from a gunshot. Had Alexi not taken Jen’s healing potion, Nikolai would’ve been promoted to family death reaper and forced to hunt evil souls for the underworld god forever.

  Right now he felt fear’s cold hard bite. Don’t let her be dead. He tamped down panic and focused on keeping his head above the chaotic water. He let everything recede into the background other than reaching out a mental net to scan for her. He could scan for anyone he’d met once. This had helped him be an expert Russian agent.

  She wasn’t here.

  That meant she’d traveled to her other place…or died.

  Not dead. She couldn’t be dead. She had his vision to live out. They always happened in some form.

  A splash echoed nearby. He heard a human sound. His mental scan scored a hit, detecting her mental wavelength. He spun and yelled, “Jen.”

  “Here,” she yelled, bobbing up and down but not swimming.

  When he reached her he felt her neck, desperate to confirm she lived and the necklace was gone. She’s fine. He restated it over and over in his mind, not finding the desired comfort with the repetition.

  He scanned her again, noting the angry burns circling her neck. Like his hands, they probably smarted in the salty water.

  “It worked, obviously.” She clung to his arm and screamed, “I can’t see. Another few seconds. Blind after shift.”

  He pulled her against him and scissor-kicked to keep their heads above water. Relief powered through him at the rightness of her with him, not separated any longer. “I’m right here.”

  “It was a hex. Now that it’s gone…I can tell it affected my judgment. We don’t need to do this. Ah, I can see.” She caught his hand when a high wave threatened to toss them apart. When the water normalized after the wave she yelled, “We don’t need to do this.”

  “Someone tried to kill you. Look at me,” he ordered. He wrapped an arm around her and quickly kissed her lips. “We are doing this, if for nothing other than to see their faces when we stroll into the meeting tonight. They fully expected you to die.”

  A crashing wave swept over her, and she spit out se
awater. “We haven’t even begun the swim and we’re already worn out.”

  He gripped her face. “Let’s just get to land and evaluate our options. We can’t think out here bouncing around.”

  “Your hands…my neck…I don’t know.” She shook her head.

  “I won’t leave you. We’ll do this. Together. Tortoise and the hare, remember?”

  She nodded. “Okay. Let’s see if we can at least get out of the water. I’ve never tried to swim this far.”

  “Can you do a spell to help us get to shore without running into anything from down below?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Hide me from the cameras while I do this.”

  He pulled her tight to his chest and focused on kicking to keep them above water. He murmured, “Not easy to keep us afloat, Angel.”

  Then she incanted:

  “In the depths evil hides

  Ready to draw me from my champion’s side,

  But with your help I shall be strong

  And banish all who seek to do us wrong

  Send them away, send them astray

  Never again to pass our way.”

  He detected the magic swirling around them, awed by its strength.

  “It’s done,” she announced.

  “Swim in front of me so I can watch you,” he ordered. “Don’t think about distance or time. Just keep moving.”

  A long time later they were within eyesight of the island. She paused to tread water and gazed at the island. “I recognize that. With the one little lighthouse. It’s Snake Island. I don’t remember its Spanish name, but I saw a documentary on it last year. It’s famous for some type of super-poisonous snake. A gold viper snake. It’s off the coast of Brazil.”

  “Venomous,” Nikolai mumbled. Louder he said, “Figures. Looks pretty rocky. These slippers they gave us aren’t going to cut it for traversing the rocks or jungle terrain. Getting onshore might be a bitch. How about if we skirt around in the water north to see if there’s a better access point. It’ll be against the current, but we’ll be closer to the lighthouse and less to walk on land.”

  Chapter Eight

  Nikolai was officially worried, and not just about their impending trek to the lighthouse.

  Jen hadn’t spoken a word since they’d settled onto an algae-infested slippery rock a hundred yards away from the spiky, rocky shore of the island. No pretty white sand beaches for this place. Considering how mouthy and generally challenging she usually acted toward him, her silence couldn’t be good.

  He glanced at her. She stared sightlessly into the horizon while biting her lower lip, perhaps watching the circling gulls. She’d tucked her body tight with her hands around her legs. She hadn’t complained through the swim or when he helped her up onto the rock. Maybe she was just exhausted.

  Something threatened Jen’s life.

  A part of him had hoped the threat he foresaw in a vision multiple times over the past few months to be just that—prank or verbal threat—not something that would physically harm the woman next to him. Often his visions were metaphoric, not a reflection of certain reality. The thought of someone seriously wanting to hurt her twisted his gut. He worried the threat was because of him—Anaïs. He regretted agreeing with Alexi to use Jen as bait to draw out the psychotic bitch. But most versions of his vision involved a man threatening, not a woman. He should tell her what he’d seen in case something happened to him and he wasn’t there.

  Shannon jumped around on the rocky shore of the island waving at them in an obvious effort to get them moving. She resorted to filming but probably couldn’t get good sound on them from where she was.

  “You doing okay?” He reached over and ran a finger along the back of her hand, the contact drawing her out of her stare.

  Her gaze jumped to his. “Tired. But I’ll live. Do you want to keep going?” She blew out a long breath and stared at his hands. “I don’t want you to get hurt any more than I already caused.” Her large eyes raised to his. “This is all my fault.”

  He examined his throbbing palms. “It’s nothing.” The burns were deep and far beyond first or second degree. He needed medical attention or, given their slated jungle trek, he’d go septic.

  She grabbed his right hand and smoothed along the edges of the linear lesions. “I can help you. I need to get a poultice on them fast. These burns look pretty deep.” She traced a finger over the deepest burn.

  He jerked when she got too close to a painful spot. He mumbled, “They’re a bit sore.”

  “I’m so sorry I dragged you into this. I was hexed into it, but that’s not a good excuse.” She cocked her head, and a spark of stubbornness returned. “You should’ve been tougher with your ‘no.’”

  “You drive a hard bargain. The necklace’s magic had something to do with your determination. How did you get the necklace?”

  Her gaze darted away. “A few weeks ago I was at the farmers’ market hunting for some decent tomatoes when Owen appeared. He was very charming. He spontaneously bought me the necklace at a jewelry vendor.”

  “Accepting gifts from strangers?”

  “He was… I should’ve been suspicious. I detected he had some sort of magic, but I didn’t read him as bad. I’ve just been a bit desperate to find…” Her face flushed. “Given my age, the gods should toss my meant-to-be guy my way pretty soon.”

  “You’re not even out of your twenties. How can you be desperate?”

  “Many of us witches don’t survive much beyond the twenties. Those who hunt us are good at killing.”

  “You will survive,” he gritted out. He’d do his damnedest to ensure she survived well into old age.

  She smoothed her fingers around his hand lesions again. “Let me at least try to make this better.” She scrutinized the greenery of the island, which started with a savannah grass and then merged into jungle. “We’ll have to go in there. Into the deeper forest. I’ll need two rocks to grind leaves and some water.” She gazed up at him. “I don’t care about the meeting.”

  “Okay. But you have to make enough of the stuff to take care of yourself, too, Angel.” He touched her neck.

  “Why do you call me Angel? I’m definitely not an angel.”

  He cleared his throat but didn’t answer. His neck heated.

  “Why?” she asked again.

  “I was in a very bad place when I met you last year, an ugly place. The first time I saw you the sun was behind you, making you glow. I knew duty and survival, but not what it meant to have a reason to care to live. You gave that to me. So…Angel.”

  Her eyes softened and were almost luminous. He imagined he might’ve seen caring, even love in her gaze. He didn’t know if he’d recognize love in another’s gaze since he’d never really been on the receiving end. He’d had one long-term relationship but never felt a smidgeon of what Jen did to him. Jen wasn’t allowed to love him right now. Maybe later. But not until he cleared the threat on her life and made sure he didn’t die. He didn’t want her in love with a dead man.

  He might have to persuade her to put her feelings on hold for a few days, but he wanted everything her gaze suggested. If he survived, if they survived, he’d bind her so tight to him neither of them could ever let go.

  Dangling her as bait for Anaïs seemed wrong. Too dangerous. But as Alexi said, nothing else had worked.

  “Why did you leave last year?” she asked.

  “I couldn’t do long-term, especially not back then.”

  “I’m definitely not an angel. I have a bad temper, especially when people do stupid things. I’m selfish. I also hate the legacy I was forced into.” She ducked her head as if she had something to be ashamed about.

  His gut tightened at her reaction. “There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s okay to be scared of something you had no control over becoming. We all do the best we can with this shit the gods force us into.”

  She twisted her fingers together and shrugged. “Maybe you don’t really see all of me. All the bad parts. Just like I don’
t understand all of you. I don’t understand why the two of us…are the way we are.” She shivered a little.

  He wrapped an arm around her to pull her into him. “You’ll never be into the sweet boy next door. That type of guy couldn’t protect you. Your gut knows I can protect you, which is why you want me. Did you think Owen could be that guy?” He forced Owen’s name through his teeth.

  She glanced up at him. “I do not want you.”

  He smiled. “You’re a shitty liar.” He glanced down at her pebbled nipples. “You fantasize about me ripping off your clothes and making you come so many times until you can’t think of anything other than doing it again.”

  Her lips parted in a silent invitation. He wanted her with every neuron in his brain and every cell in his body. He shouldn’t have pushed them both to this dangerous edge, but something about the thought of her still wanting Owen drove him right over the cliff.

  Do not do this right now. Back off. Put distance between you and her. He needed his brain fully focused on the deadly magical psycho threatening her. Christ, he wished he could see the exact location his vision took place. All he could make out was dim lighting and cave-like rock walls, not a jungle.

  Constructing emotional distance from her wasn’t just about protection from external threat. He’d protect her heart from him when he died.

  He swallowed against the hoarseness of arousal. “Why would Owen make you take all these risks just to prove you like him enough to date?”

  She shrugged. “I’m not liking him very much right now. That should make you happy.”

  He grinned. “He’s an asshole. He could never meet your needs.”

  “And you know what I need?” She stumbled over the last word. There was defiance in her tone.

  “I know exactly what you need.” He brushed a kiss across her lips.

  She pulled away. “There’s more to life than…” Her eyes darted to the shore where Shannon had found a decent place to film them. “Jumping into the sack.”

  “Not much,” he muttered. “There’s a lot to be said for a good fuck.”

  “Oh my God. You did not just say that.” She shoved at him, laughing.