“Logan, I know you hated Malachi. Let’s not argue about that again—”
“I fought by his side,” said Logan. “And I wouldn’t speak ill of the dead. Don’t change the subject. What are you accusing Fox of?”
I sat back in my chair. “I don’t know. Maybe… maybe it wasn’t self-defense after all. Maybe you attacked, and that’s why they’re after you.”
Willoughby cleared his throat, avoiding my gaze.
“If that’s the truth, it’s understandable,” I said. “And it’s no excuse for them to retaliate. Before the treaty, there were attacks on both sides, and they hurt more of us than we ever hurt of them, so there’s no way it’s fair for them to—”
“It was self-defense.” Willoughby lifted his chin, challenging me to disagree with him.
“Come on, Petra,” said Logan. “We’re not here to split hairs about this stuff. Fox is going to help us with this spell.”
“You do want my help, don’t you?” said Willoughby.
Man. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was something about this guy.
“Look, I want to go back to what you said about it manifesting like a plant,” said Logan. “What do you mean by that?”
“Oh, right,” said Willoughby. He hopped down from the desk where he was sitting and took his cell phone out of his pocket. He scrolled through it and then handed it to me.
There was a picture on the screen of something that did indeed look sort of like a plant. It was gray, like almost everything was in the other world, and it had a long fibrous stalk. At the top, there was something that kind of looked like the head of a mop, bunches of stringy gray hair-like things hanging down.
“They attach to a special kind of rock along the edges of streams,” said Willoughby. “They suck up the water of that world, but they have the capability to ingest things from our world too, including dragon magic. That makes them perfect for what we want to accomplish. We can turn them into a hybrid, just like you, and then use the sacrifice of them to create new life for you. I don’t know if you’re aware, but sacrifice is the strongest form of magic.”
Logan stiffened.
“Yeah, we know that,” I muttered. Gargoyles had been created from dragon and human sacrifice. They were created from parts of both dragons and people (that was where their wings came from) and they had been used as slave labor by the mages that created them. For thousands of years, gargoyles had been property.
But if Willoughby noted our reaction, he didn’t let on. “All right, well, if you can get into the other world through the breach, then bring back at least five of these. We won’t need that many for the sacrifice, but we want to make sure we have enough in case something goes wrong.”
“Oh,” I said. “Things can go wrong?”
Willoughby laughed. “Things can always go wrong.”
*
I scribbled on the paper in front of me. No, no, third declension, that was right. Damn it. I reached for my beer and took a sip. I needed to change the ending of the genitive and then that would mean that the adjective… no, I had that in the right declension.
Overhead, someone cleared his throat.
I looked up.
It was Logan. I was sitting up in the balcony at Barley and Bells. This bar was our favorite place to hang out. It was a converted church, and it had the old bell tower up at the top. The bar was situation about where the altar used to be, and there were old pews there too. It was a pretty nifty little place.
I smiled at Logan. “Hey. I was going to order you something, but I didn’t know if you were still on the IPA kick or not. They have a pretty good stout on tap too, if you’re into that.”
“I thought we were only meeting here,” said Logan.
“We are,” I said. “We did. We have met up.”
“I mean, we’re going into the breach tomorrow,” said Logan. “So, aren’t we supposed to be preparing for that?”
“Well, yeah, but I was just working on my spellcraft homework, and I thought that would go well with a beer or two.”
“How drunk are you?”
“I’m not drunk!”
“You’re going to be hungover when we go into the breach, and I’m going to be dragging your ass all over the place.”
“I’m not drunk.”
He raised his eyebrows. “We need to leave now, not drink more. Go back to my place, get some rest.”
I sighed. “Okay, I guess so. Let me just finish my—”
But Logan had picked up my beer and was now downing it.
“Hey,” I said.
He set the now empty bottle on the table. “Just helping out. Now, we’re ready to go.”
I glowered at him. But, okay, he had a point, so I packed up my homework and we left Barley and Bells to walk to Logan’s place, which was only a few blocks down.
Once inside, I went to his refrigerator and opened it.
“What are you looking for?”
“Beer?” I said.
He shut the refrigerator door. “I think we need to have a talk about how you’re a functioning alcoholic, Petra.”
“I am not.” I tried to open the door. “Do you have any beer or not?”
He put his body in between me and the fridge, which effectively blocked me off. “You know, if we do this, and you become human again, and we eventually decide to have children together, you’re going to have to go an entire nine months without drinking.”
“I know that,” I said. “But I’ll be way older then, and I won’t drink as much when I’m not in college.”
“I don’t know,” he said, mock seriously, “I think you may have a problem.”
“I do not have a problem.” I grabbed his shoulders. “Move away from the fridge.” Trying to move him was like trying to move a boulder.
He laughed and captured my wrists. Suddenly, we had switched places and I was the one with my back against the refrigerator. He pressed his hard, hot body against mine.
Shivers went through me. My insides felt melty.
He still had my wrists and he pinned them above my head. He kissed my neck. “Sorry,” he said, his voice gravelly. “It’s just that we’re taking the first step to make you human, and it’s kind of…”
“What?” I whispered.
He pulled back to look at me. “Hot? Is it weird if I think that?”
“Logan Gray, take me to bed now.”
His gaze darkened and his lips met mine. “Yes, ma’am.”
Well, so much for, er, resting.
*
Finding the breach was a little strange. It wasn’t exactly easy to spot, not like the one that had been in the library when I had first arrived at Ravenridge. That one was a complicated rip, and half of the world seemed to hang off of it, like torn fabric. This breach was more like a long, vertical cut. When it wasn’t disturbed, it hung together seamlessly, and you couldn’t even tell that it existed.
So, Logan and I spent a bit of time walking along the edge of the parking lot, feeling around for the breach.
I was drinking coffee all the while, not because I was hungover, because I wasn’t—okay, maybe a teeny bit—but I was convinced that it was mostly exacerbated by the fact that Logan had not allowed me to get much sleep the night before, because we’d had sex all over his freaking apartment. Which had been awesome and all, don’t get me wrong. But now I was tired and sore. And maybe a wee bit dehydrated.
I probably should have gotten water instead of coffee, but see above note re: no sleep.
Anyway, it took maybe twenty minutes to find the breach, during which I started to panic, and think maybe it had somehow been closed, maybe by the scribbly things that were hunting Willoughby. Why they’d do that, I didn’t know, but there was something fishy about Willoughby.
I tried bringing that up to Logan, but he said that I was being silly. He knew Willoughby better than I did, and he was a good guy.
Right.
I had forgotten that they were bros now.
Wh
atever.
But, at long last, we found the breach, and I finished my coffee. I ran it over to a trash can, and then we slipped through the breach into the other world.
I hadn’t been back here since we came through with Malachi, and I was struck again by how gloomy and depressing the place was. Everything there was shades of gray. The sky was gray. The grass was gray. There were gray birds in the sky.
“Well,” I said. “Wish I could say I missed the place, but… not so much.”
Logan smirked. “Let’s just get what we came for and get the heck out.”
“Sure thing,” I said.
We remembered that the last time we’d been here, we’d had to find a sort of river-type thing, and we’d had to ride water creatures down to the stronghold where we’d found my father and killed him. We didn’t need to go to the stronghold, just to the river to find the plant-creatures we were looking for.
Of course, last time we’d been here, we’d been following Malachi, who knew where he was going. Also, we’d had a few pit stops on the way to the river.
So, we got lost.
I mean, not lost exactly, since we both knew how to get back to the breach the whole time, but lost in terms of not knowing how to get to the river at all.
Then, eventually, we did find a river. Well, a stream or something. It wasn’t the same river, or it wasn’t the part of the river where we’d been before, because it was just a tiny trickle of cloudy grayish liquid rushing over gray rocks.
And there were none of the plants/animal/whatevers we were looking for growing there. Or, I guess they didn’t grow there but instead attached themselves to the rocks there to get the water.
But, having found water, we decided we would just keep going along the bank of the stream until we did find what we were looking for.
We walked for hours.
Okay, two hours. Which is actually hours, as in plural, more than one. But it felt like two decades. I kept checking my phone, and not being able to believe that only five minutes had passed. My hangover seemed to be worsening, and my coffee was wearing off.
Logan, unhelpfully, was cheerful the whole time, making comments about how nice it was to have a little hike and that we should come through the breach more often. “Once you get used to how gray it is, it’s actually pretty nice here.”
He had legit lost his mind, but I didn’t tell him that.
I made up my mind that if he said something like that again, though, I was going to let him have it, and it wouldn’t be pretty.
Luckily, before that happened, we found some of the mop-things we were looking for. Not five, though. Four.
They weren’t too hard to detach from the rocky soil and put into the bags we’d brought for them, but they were a little bit slimy, and I had to admit I didn’t really like touching them. I also felt kind of bad that we were taking them away to become infested with dragon magic and then killed, but there was that saying about omelets and egg shells or whatever, so—
Suddenly, scribbles burst up out of the water, their inky black strands coming straight for Logan and me.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Logan and I backed up. We didn’t want to fight, because we’d come onto their turf, and the treaty was in effect out here as well.
Well, actually, I realized I wasn’t too sure about that. It wasn’t common for humans to come to this world, considering it was depress-o-rama and all. It was more the creatures here coming through the breaches to our world. The scribbly things kept the less intelligent creatures in line, mostly by not allowing them to cross over to our world. Anyway, I didn’t know if it was a cease fire in this world or just in ours.
I looked at Logan. “Can they hurt us? Does the treaty apply?”
“I was just thinking that,” he said.
The scribbly things were climbing out of the water and advancing on us.
“Okay,” I said. “Maybe not so much with the treaty.” I conjured two swords and tossed one to Logan.
He snatched the hilt out of the air.
We brandished our weapons and faced down the creatures.
But they wrapped strands around our swords and pulled them out of our hands. And then one of them was on top of me, all of the weight of the scribbles pressing down. The strands looked light when they were swarming around, but all together, they were surprisingly heavy.
I fell backward and I clutched at strands of its scribbles, trying to rip them away.
The scribbles crept over my skin, just like they had in Willoughby’s office, and they shoved their way into my eyes and nostrils and ears and mouth.
“Petra!” I heard Logan scream.
And then all sound was cut off except the grinding, screeching scratch of the scribbly thing’s voice in my head.
You are in danger Petra Brightshade you must not seek to return your human form your human parts you will surely die you will be killed you must not seek to undo what has been done you must—
A horrible scream and the scribbles pulled free.
Logan was hacking at the thing with his sword, which he must have gotten back somehow while the thing was focusing on me.
It turned on him, making a scolding, high-pitched noise. And then it retreated into the water, leaving us alone.
“Fuck.” Logan helped me to my feet. “What was it doing?”
“It was talking to me,” I said. “You remember that they do that? Malachi did it to you, once.”
“Oh, right,” he said. “Sorry. I thought it was trying to suffocate you, or kill you, or… I don’t know. What did it say?”
“It said that if I take my human form back, I’ll die.”
Logan’s nostrils flared.
*
We only had four mop-things, not the five that Willoughby said that we needed, but we headed back for the breach, anyway. Neither of us was much in the mood to stay in this place any longer.
We trudged back, following the river.
I was hungry. I had eaten breakfast, but that seemed like a very long time ago. “It might just be telling me the obvious,” I said. “I mean, if I take back my human form, I won’t be invulnerable anymore. I’ll be in danger.”
“Yeah, I guess,” said Logan. “But that seems awfully obvious.”
“Maybe it’s a trap,” I said. “Because the one that attacked Willoughby said the same thing to me, but I thought it was taunting me or something.”
“Wait, what? You didn’t tell me about this.”
I recounted what had happened in Willoughby’s office, explaining that the scribbly thing had thrust itself into my orifices and told me I was in danger. I thought it was threatening me, but now I wondered if it was the same message.
“So, how could that be a trap?”
“Well, they’re the bad guys and they’re trying to stop me from being human. But maybe I’m not in danger. Maybe they’re making that up to try to stop me.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Maybe if I’m human… something bad happens to them. But if they really are the bad guys—”
“Come on, Petra, the world isn’t black and white like that and you know it.”
“Well, they want to hurt Professor Willoughby, and you think he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread—”
“What’s with you and Fox? Did he do something to you?”
I sighed. “No, nothing. He actually seems like a nice guy. I just can’t help but feel as if he’s not telling us everything.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But something doesn’t make sense. I can’t figure out what. Anyway, they’re trying to kill him, so that makes them the bad guys. Or at least people we don’t necessarily trust, right?”
“But you’re saying you don’t trust Fox.”
“I trust him,” I said. “Because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be allowing him to help me with this spell.”
Logan considered and then seemed to accept this. “So, you’re saying we ignore the scribbly
things?”
“Well, take what they’re saying with a grain of salt, anyway. Some of them were happy to be freed from the tyrant my father was, but maybe some of them see me as a traitor. Maybe they’re out to get me too, along with the professor.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” said Logan.
*
“I told you this could be dangerous,” said Willoughby when we brought him the mop-things. We were in a different classroom this time, one that wasn’t being used anymore. It was crowded full of stacked-up desks and chairs, but Willoughby had cleared out some space next to a window where he said we could keep the mop-things.
“It didn’t actually try to hurt me,” I said. “It only told me that I should stop trying to be human again, that my life was in danger.”
“And maybe it’s right,” said Willoughby. “I’ve never done this spell before. I’ve never done any kind of spell on someone like you. There’s no telling what might happen, and we need to keep that in mind.”
“Look, I’m not backing down,” I said. “We’ve barely started.”
Logan shoved his hands into his pockets. “Seems like the scribbly things could shapeshift and talk to you instead of shoving their stringy bits into your eyes.”
“Seriously,” I agreed.
Willoughby stroked his chin. “If it said the same thing as the one that attacked in my office, they’re probably all working together. And if that’s the case, they’ve got some kind of agenda against me. So, I don’t know that they’re to be trusted.”
“But why would they want to warn me?” I said. “No, if they’re antagonistic, it’s got to be a trap of some kind. Nothing else makes sense.”
“They can’t get to you in the school now that we’ve done the tether spell with Reid,” said Willoughby. “So, if you stay here, you should be safe.”
“Good point,” said Logan.
“Guys, they can’t hurt me. I’m unhurtable,” I said.
“Yeah, we only think that because, thus far, nothing’s hurt you,” said Logan. “But there’s a hell of a lot of things we don’t know about the other world and the creatures from over there. So you can’t be too careful.”
I made a face. Being stuck on campus meant being stuck at my dorm, and I slept at Logan’s almost every single night.
Life's a Witch Page 8