“Fuck you!” I hissed, kicking at him helplessly, my foot connecting with nothing but empty air.
One minute I was dangling over the concrete with no means of escape, and the next I was slamming into a wall as people screamed and ran. My vision was blurry, and my head screamed in agony. My left arm felt like it was on fire.
“Maia! What the fuck happened?”
The woman with red hair had found me, I tried to recoil, but I couldn’t move. I was in too much pain, too confused.
“He grabbed me... he was going to take me somewhere...” I choked out the words, hoping that she was here to help me, but not really caring one way or another. I just wanted it all to stop.
“Can you walk?”
I shook my head, groaning as she pulled me to my feet. “Too bad,” she grunted, propping her shoulder underneath mine and wrapping her arm around my waist to drag me away from the crowd that was rushing forward. I could hear sirens blaring in the distance, but it was New York, there were always sirens going off somewhere.
My head pounded and my hands ached, my fingertips burning with a sensation I’d never felt before and my arm... I couldn’t even describe how much it hurt, but it took my breath away with every step I took.
“Where are we going?” I managed to gasp, stumbling against my rescuer.
“My place,” she replied. I tried to pull away, get my bearings and go in the opposite direction, but I couldn’t, I was too weak and the woman with red hair tugged me back towards the coffee shop.
People shouted after us, but we didn’t stop, and I felt something warm drop over my head as we ran unsteadily into a park.
“What... what was...” I managed to stammer.
“A glamour,” she said sharply, looking over her shoulder to see if we were being followed. “Are you feeling any better? What did that man say to you?”
“Man?”
“The man who grabbed you, what did he say? I couldn’t hear him.”
Oh, shit... him.
“What do you mean?” I wasn’t thinking clearly, what did she want to know?
“He called you something? What was it?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know what you want from me!” I was stalling for time, if I could just get my legs to work properly, I’d be gone, out of there... adios... wait. “It was Spanish... something in Spanish.”
“Bruja,” she said through gritted teeth.
I tried to remember, seeing the man’s ugly face through the fog I was wading through. “Yes, yes, that was it. What does it mean? Why was he yelling at me, where was he trying to take me?”
We were heading towards an apartment building. A small Vietnamese restaurant was downstairs and my stomach growled. I hadn’t eaten since this morning, maybe that’s why I felt so gross.
We stopped at the door, the woman releasing me and holding her hand up to the deadbolt, her palm just touching the metal. A cloud of purple smoke erupted from her hand and threaded its way into the keyhole, I blinked in disbelief as the lock clicked loudly and the door swung open.
“Did you just…”
“Yes, I definitely just did, come on.” She pulled me inside and hustled me up the stairs. I thought I could see a faint purple shimmer on the banister as I ran my hand over it, a faint static charge tickling my palm as I stumbled after her.
“Come on, it’s just a protection spell. That’s what keeps the Malleus out. They won’t find you here.”
“Malleus?”
What the fuck was going on? Had I passed out and woken up in a movie?
“I’ll explain everything, I promise,” the woman said, as she pulled a set of keys out of her pocket. She paused, looking at a brightly colored wreath that was attached to the door and then sighed deeply, rolling her eyes.
I could hear a cat meowing on the other side of the door.
The woman jangled the keys loudly while using that same purple smoke to unlock the door.
“Stop staring at me like that, I’m afraid your eyeballs are going to fall out of your head,” she said sharply.
Shit. I must have looked like a total idiot. But how could you blame me? These last 24-hours had been nothing but certifiably insane. I didn’t apologize, but I blinked a few times to try and get rid of that dead fish stare that I was so accidentally good at.
The apartment door swung open, revealing a small space that looked better suited to the interior of an apothecary shop than an apartment.
The smell of drying herbs tickled my nose and I sneezed.
“I hope you’re not allergic to cats, that would be really awkward,” she said dryly before nudging me into the apartment.
A black cat sat politely on the floor in front of the door, staring up at me with bright yellow green eyes.
“I… I don’t know if I’m allergic or not. I don’t have a lot of cat experience,” I stammered. It was true; I’d never even been around a cat. None of my foster families had pets… probably safer for the pets that way. No one had ever asked me if I’d wanted a pet either, not that I’d stuck around long enough to make it an option. The woman was moving around the kitchen, opening jars and taking items out of the cupboards.
The cat just sat there, watching me with her golden green eyes.
I looked around the apartment warily, trying to decide what to do. The door swung shut behind me, and I jumped as the locks clicked into place.
“Don’t be nervous, I told you, you’re safe here.”
“Well, I’m still nervous. You said you’d tell me what the fuck is going on,” I wasn’t ready to relax just yet. I wanted answers. And they’d better be good.
“What do you know about your mother?”
I balked at the question, unsure of how to answer. “What does my mother have to do with any of this?”
“If you want answers, then you need to answer my questions first,” she said, her head in another cupboard.
I let out a gusty sigh, “I don’t really know anything. Her name was Marion, we lived in Seattle… I was nine.” I paused, not knowing what else to say.
“My mother was killed in a fire too. I was nine when it happened,” the woman said, coming back towards me and holding out a cup of steaming liquid. “Tea. Sit down, take off your jacket. I have a lot to tell you, and not a lot of time to do it.”
I hesitated and then reached out to take the cup. The liquid was golden brown, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to drink what was in it… what if she drugged me?
A chair slid back from the table in front of me, and the cat jumped up onto the table, settling herself in the middle.
“I’m not going to drug you, it’s just tea. Chamomile I grew myself. Sit the fuck down.”
“Allright, jeez.” I sat heavily in the chair and peeled off my still-wet jacket, draping it sloppily over the back of the chair.
The woman across from me sat back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest, staring at me intently. She was quiet for long enough to make me squirm just a little.
“Okay, this is going to sound like a lot… but you have to try to have an open mind. There’s no easy way to explain all of this without sounding insane, so you’ll just have to try, okay?”
I shrugged, this had better be good.
“My name is Ophelia Turner, I’m three hundred and thirty-ish years old.” She pointed at the cat, “This is Suki, I don’t know how old she is, but she’s my best friend… my familiar.” The cat looked smug and started purring as she continued. “I came to New York in 1669 at a really shitty time. I mean, it’s always been a shitty time to be a witch, but that was really the worst…”
“Wait… you’re how old? And you’re a what?”
“A Daughter of Hecate… The Malleus have been hunting us for generations in one form or another, they took my mother, my sister and my aunt. I thought I was the last one, but then I met you…”
“Wait, these guys, the O’Malley…”
“Malleus, witchfinders. They like to play with fire,” her voice was flat and I
felt a chill creep up my spine.
“So you’re trying to tell me that I’m a witch, and that the guy at the subway knew it, and he was going to, what? Burn me alive?” I laughed nervously. This was fucking ridiculous. No one could have been expected to believe this bullshit.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Your mother was a Daughter of Hecate; she was probably the same age as me when she died. We’re both orphans, Maia… and it’s even more tragic that you’ve had no one in your life to tell you how special you are,” the woman’s voice was soft, and I felt tears pricking at my eyelashes suddenly.
No way. Fuck this.
I wiped at my face quickly, I didn’t cry. Not in front of strangers. Not when I was alone. This was bullshit of the highest order and I was not having it.
“You’re full of shit,” I managed to choke out the words. My head was pounding, and my arm was hurting again. This was going to get old really fast.
The woman across from me took a deep breath and held out one of her hands, placing it palm up on the table. “It’s going to be easier if I just show you,” she said.
“Show me? I’m not falling for that shit, you’re crazy!” I jumped up from the table, knocking over my chair and tripping over my own feet in an attempt to get away from whatever was going on.
I hit the hardwood floor hard, and before I could scramble to my feet, the black cat that had been watching me so carefully had jumped off the table and landed squarely in the middle of my chest, pinning me to the floor. She was heavy, and I could feel my chest getting tight.
“Get your fucking cat off me!” I cried, but I couldn’t move to push it away myself. The cat settled itself on my chest, its purr rumbling straight through me. I was having a panic attack, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t breathe, my head was screaming in pain and it felt like my left arm was on fire.
The woman with red hair knelt beside me and placed one hand on the cat’s back and gripped my left bicep with the other.
“This is going to suck,” she said.
And then everything went white.
My face was in the mud, and I could hear someone screaming. There was fire all around me, and I flinched away before I realized that it didn’t hurt. Three columns of fire burned high and wild and I thought I could see shapes in the flames… dolls maybe? No… oh fuck, they were people. I recoiled in horror as the smell of burning flesh hit my nostrils and the heat of the blaze reached for me hungrily. Hands reached for me, stained with black, reeking of ash and fire, and then the ground fell away under my feet, my arms cartwheeling helplessly as I fell.
I tried to scream, but my mouth was full of bitter tasting water.
Salt. Salt water.
I flailed wildly, reaching for the surface, until all at once I felt sand underneath my fingers and I was on my knees in the surf, gasping for air. A young girl with long red hair ran past me, the hem of her dress dragging in the water.
Ophelia.
An older woman helped her into a small boat. Her face was kind, and I felt something tug at my rib cage as the boat pulled away from shore.
The girl looked at me, seeing me, and she pointed up the bank where a man with white hair and a young woman with long black hair and black eyes stood. Behind them, I could see the smoke from the fires they had set... I could smell the burning flesh on the air.
Witchfinders. Witch killers.
I heard the words in my mind, and tried to forget them, tried to shake them away, but they pounded in my ears.
I tried to scream, tried to stand... but the world tilted again.
* * *
A girl with purple hair was smiling at me, lifting a huge coffee cup in a salute and pointing at some Halloween decorations… tacky… oh, god, they were so bad.
I was choking, and the air was thick with dark smoke. A body lay crumpled in a heap on the floor. The woman, the witch, Ophelia... she was being held aloft by the woman with long dark hair that I had seen on the beach. But her hair wasn’t hair at all, it was black mist, and her eyes were pools of oil that reflected the flames that were consuming the building we stood inside.
There was an eruption of purple fire, bolts of power that came from Ophelia’s hands, enveloping the body that was lying still on the ground. The woman with mist for hair, the woman made of darkness itself seemed to shrink suddenly, before her dark aura expanded and then burst apart, swirling through the space like a black wind.
I watched in gasping silence as Ophelia pulled the lifeless body she had blasted with her magic into the grimy water at the back of the building. The heat was oppressive, and I tried to run after them, but a flaming beam fell in front of me, cutting off my escape. I tried to scream, and the black mist swirled nearer.
I lifted my arms to protect myself, and the cold blackness rushed over me.
Cold. I was so cold. Pavement was rough under my hands, my palms burned as though I had fallen and slid along the ground.
I gasped and coughed, trying to get my bearings, lifting my face from the puddle I was lying in just in time to see Ophelia stepping back from the body she had pulled from the burning warehouse. The girl from the bar at Spiral... it had to be, her purple hair was dark and water streamed from her mouth and nose.
A man bent over her, his mouth open wide, sharp teeth gleaming in the firelight. Vampire.
Finally, I was able to scream.
Chapter 9 ~ Ophelia
The girl jerked and shuddered as I poured all of my memories into her, everything I knew would shake her to the bone, scare her... it was the only way to get it all out, to let her know what I’d been through.
Tears dripped down her temples and into her hair... hair as red as mine. It was almost time to let her out... she’d seen enough. The girl’s body lurched and Suki meowed loudly, warningly.
“Okay, Suki, okay...” I lifted my hand, releasing her from the spell, and slowly eased the flow of magic that was filling Maia’s system. I had only reached out a little with my power, but since my battle with Nyx, it took far less to do a whole lot...
Suki jumped off the girl’s chest and sat nearby, watching us carefully. Her green gold eyes glowing with her own power.
The girl lay still on the floor, her hair spread out on the hardwood. I reached out and touched her cheek gently.
“Maia...”
She opened her eyes slowly, and I watched as the violet haze of my magic faded away to reveal their usual clear blue. She blinked sleepily, confusion on her face for just a moment as she tried to make sense of what had happened. All at once, it all seemed to fall into place, and I smiled as I watched realization dawn on her. She sat up slowly, bracing herself on her elbow.
I put my hand on her shoulder gently. “Maia... I’m sorry, I didn’t know how else—“
Maia flinched away, sliding across the floor and coiling her legs underneath herself, crouching like a cat, her eyes darting between Suki, the door, and me.
Suki blinked slowly, her tail twitching sharply.
“I don’t know what the fuck that was, but you need to get the fuck away from me!” She looked at Suki, “And you stop staring at me!” she shouted.
Suki yawned, but didn’t move. Atta girl.
“Look, Maia... I know you’ve got a lot to take in, and you can ask me whatever questions you want... but you have to stay here. You’re not safe on the street. The Malleus know what you are—“
“I don’t know who the fuck you think you’re trying to fool, but I can smell bullshit from a mile away, and you fucking stink!” the girl shouted. She pulled a knife out of her boot and held it out in front of her.
I raised my hands and sat back on my heels. If she wasn’t going to take this seriously, I couldn’t really stop her... I was just hoping she wasn’t going to do something stupid.
As though she could hear my thoughts, Maia reached behind her, straining for the handle of the apartment door. The locks clicked open and I looked at Suki in surprise. Maia was using her power and she didn’t even realize it. This w
as going to be interesting.
“Maia, you can’t... they’ll find you!” I made to get up off my knees, but Maia lunged forward with the knife, making me back up involuntarily.
“Full of shit!” she shouted before turning on her heel and running headlong down the hallway. I heard her boots pounding down the stairs and the slam of the front door of the building.
Fuck.
It had been too much for her, obviously, but there was nothing I could do about that. I slammed the apartment door closed with a flick of my wrist and ran to the living room. The window slid up and I stepped over the ledge and onto the fire escape. It was raining lightly, and I looked over the edge to see Maia, her red hair flying, running for the park. Her jacket was lying on my kitchen floor, and she was running through the rain alone.
I narrowed my eyes as four figures converged to follow her.
Malleus.
They’d followed us after all.
Great. Just fucking great.
I couldn’t just let her run into harm’s way. I mean, I could… but I couldn’t. I looked over my shoulder at Suki, but she wasn’t on the window ledge as I’d expected her to be. She was inside the apartment, sitting on Maia’s damp jacket, staring at me with those lamp-like eyes.
“All right. All right. I’m going! Don’t look at me like that,” I said, ducking back into the apartment and letting the window close behind me.
I picked Suki up and kissed her soundly on the top of the head. “Thanks for your help, troublemaker. You’re the best.” Suki purred happily and rubbed her head against my jaw. “I’ll be back soon. Lacey will be up to feed you in a little bit.”
Lacey wasn’t an early riser… her shifts at Spiral started well after dark, and she slept as late as any normal teenager.
I set Suki down on the bed and plucked Maia’s jacket off the floor. “Don’t get any ideas, you know how I feel about bringing home strays.”
Suki stretched, kneading the blankets with her claws, she knew what I meant. That’s how I’d ended up with all the important people in my life. Eli had been a stray, Suki had found me, Lacey was… yeah, okay, she counted too. And now Maia had appeared and I was in the same situation. This was different. She was alone, and scared, and probably pissed off. I couldn’t abandon another Daughter. Especially one who didn’t know what she was doing with all that power sparking in her veins.
Moonlight Burns: (Urban Fantasy) (Daughters of Hecate Book 2) Page 8