Serena followed, turning her face up to the sky and releasing a cloud of breath into the icy air. The cold didn’t seem to bother her despite her thin suit. At least she still had shoes, though the high heels were less than ideal for an escape through the snow. She stopped to smile at the nearly full moon—she must have sensed it somehow, because she couldn’t see it—and I had the fleeting thought that she might actually howl at it.
Thankfully, she made no sound, nor did any alarm. Next hurdle: getting to the maze. I supposed it was too much to ask a blind woman to run. “We’re going to move quickly,” I said. “Quick as you’re comfortable, okay? We can stop once we get inside the maze.”
We did stop, in the same spot behind the hedge where we’d waited out Jeeves earlier, and I took a closer look at Phineas’s messages. They became increasingly distressed up until the last one. Apparently he had talked to Cooper by that point, which meant that at least Cooper had been safe as of twenty minutes ago. I sent them both a message.
inside maze heading to center now
Phineas was already there, lurking down a short dead end path at one side. He looked cold and anxious, but he didn’t seem angry. He seldom did.
“Any sign of Cooper?” I asked.
“I was about to ask you the same thing. Come on, he said if he wasn’t on time that we should meet him at the gate.”
Had I been in a better state, I would have asked to wait a bit longer. But my heart was fluttering dangerously, my face felt clammy, and I’d been getting increasingly weaker since we’d started climbing the stairs from the basement. I hoped it wasn’t an attack coming on, but I had to acknowledge that it was a possibility. And hallucinating in a hostile place that was already full of illusions was a bad prospect. There was no telling what I might do, how I might react to something I thought I saw. I could easily call attention to us and put all our lives at risk.
We need to get out of here. Now.
As if he’d read my thoughts—and they were probably quite legible in my face—Phineas gave me a tight nod, then took hold of Serena’s elbow for me. She stiffened at the strange touch.
“Serena, meet Phineas,” I wheezed.
She ignored the introduction, instead turning toward me. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Your curse, that’s what’s wrong!” It came out a little louder than I’d intended, and I winced.
“Well then, what did you come for, if you’re so sick? Surely your friends could have handled it.” Serena felt her way up Phineas’s arm, then squeezed his shoulder and trailed her hand over his chest. “This one seems strapping enough, and I know Cooper Blackwood can pull his weight.”
“The hag—Marissa—said the curse bound you to me,” I said. “That I was called to rescue you. I didn’t know how literally I needed to take it.”
Serena laughed. “Are you a witch or not, girl? I’d have expected you to have a general idea of the precision of curses. I told you, this one binds me, you, and my house. As long as you’re with me when I walk through the front door of Number Twelve, that’s all that’s required.”
“Yeah, well, it would have been nice to have a little information—” I cut myself off and shook my head. This was hardly the time or place to argue the point. “Let’s go. Now.”
We encountered no obstacles in the maze, crawling or otherwise. But the gate stopped us short.
Apparently it locked from the inside as well as the outside. All the better to keep your tortured prisoners in, I supposed.
“Balls, the keys.” I stared at Phineas. “Cooper still has them.”
Phineas swore, and we both looked behind us, hoping to see Cooper approaching. But the night was silent.
“I can go try to find another set…” Phineas began, but he clearly disliked the idea of leaving us alone and exposed.
“The guards might be coming out of it by now, you can’t go back there,” I said.
“What’s the problem?” Serena’s voice was loud, suddenly, and confused. “I’m cold.”
I shushed her. “We’re locked in. Just give us a second and I’m sure Cooper will—”
Will get us all killed.
Cooper was coming around the pool house at a dead run.
Several people were chasing him.
It seemed the half dozen guards Phineas had taken out of the equation were back in it now. Gunfire began to crack through the air, and light up the darkness between the floodlights set at regular intervals in the ground.
Cooper had his own gun clutched in his hand, but he wasn’t bothering to fire it. He was focusing all his energy on getting to us. Running toward me was normally the last thing he did in times of danger, preferring to draw fire to himself, but maybe he’d just figured out that we couldn’t leave without him.
For a moment I just stood there frozen, watching him jerk and jump and sometimes stumble as bullets hit him. Which was all well and good, as long as none of them hit him in the head.
Then I was obliged to dive down in the snow, dragging Serena beside me, as the gunfire came too close.
“Here!” Cooper flung something shiny that I presumed to be the keys. Phineas and I both lurched forward to catch them.
And collided. I fell, slid, and wound up face down. Phineas kept his balance, at least. But the keys were lost in the snow. We wasted a precious second or two searching frantically for them, while Serena shouted, demanding to know what was going on.
And then they were all upon us.
Cooper ducked and grabbed me with one arm and Serena with the other, without even breaking stride. He half dragged, half flung me toward the pool house.
“Take cover!” he shouted. “Do not run straight, and stay down as much as you can!”
Then he turned back toward his attackers, ready to fight, or at least try to keep them off us.
I barely had time to register that Phineas was gone, in my rush to drag Serena to relative safety. But I saw him appear behind one of the gunmen and grab him around the neck just before I dove behind the building.
Okay. Cooper can heal. Phineas can teleport.
I can do magic. Maybe not great magic, inside Cillian Wick’s boundaries, but surely I can pull off something.
I like our odds against six armed men just fine.
Or so I told myself. I was wheezing, my limbs shaking, but it didn’t matter. I’d just have to run on adrenaline until we got out of this.
“Stay here,” I whispered to Serena. “Just stay by the wall.”
“Don’t you dare leave me!” she hissed.
“I have to. I have to help them. We’ll fight these guys off and then get you out of here, okay?”
“I can’t see!” Serena wailed. “I’m completely vulnerable by myself! I’ll be killed!”
“You most certainly will, if you keep yelling like that!”
My warning came too late. I heard a man’s voice, shouting something about the prisoner.
I scrambled around the corner, pulling Serena behind me, but I had no illusions that the two of us, each weak in our own way, would be able to throw off pursuit if they found us.
The sounds of gunfire and shouting from the other side of the pool assured me that Cooper and Phineas were keeping most of Cillian’s people occupied. And, I hoped, taking them back out of the equation again.
But there were nearer voices, much nearer, and heavy footsteps crunching through the snow.
There was no cover, nowhere to run. If we went around to the front of the pool house to try to get inside, we would surely be seen.
“They’re coming,” I whispered to Serena, pulling her down. “They’re going to catch us. Get ready to do something.”
“What am I supposed to do?” she whispered back. “I told you, they keep me weak, and I used most of the vitality I did have to help you break the puzzle!”
I glanced wildly around, as I always did when desperate, trying to assess my resources. But place-magic was no good to me here.
A story, a story, I need a story
.
A story about throwing these guys in the pool, maybe.
Keeping low to the ground, I started to move us in that direction, a vague idea forming. Maybe I could do something with the pool cover, lure them near it, somehow throw them into what would, in the winter, be an empty pit.
I’ll allow it was a stupid idea.
“Freeze! Stand up and raise your hands.”
The voice came from behind me, and I didn’t need to look over my shoulder to know that I would find a gun aimed at my head. I did as I was told, and yanked Serena’s arm, encouraging her to do the same.
She did, but she was shaking, and not only with the cold. “I’m not going back to the basement,” she whispered. “No matter what. I will not go back no matter what.”
“It’s okay. You won’t have to. It’ll be okay.”
A ridiculous lie. I had no idea how anything could possibly be okay. Keeping my hands in the air, I slowly turned and considered the two men I found before me.
Just men?
“Stay still, witches,” one of them said, with a catch of uneasiness in his voice that made me smile. He was slightly built, and looked young enough to have barely outgrown his acne.
I tried to read his partner’s face in the white glow of the floodlight. He was older and stouter, but no less anxious.
Yes, just men.
And men fear witches.
Ordinary men, employees. Not Wicks. And if they were wary of us, it was unlikely they could do magic themselves. My will would be stronger than theirs.
My magic was unreliable here, it was true, but I didn’t need to kill them or even overpower them. I just needed a bit of simple protection. With that, maybe I could make their bullets miss, their feet unsure. Maybe we could get away from them long enough for Cooper and Phineas to take out the rest of the opposition, and come to our aid.
Defensive magic was something I’d been practicing all my life. Surely if I could do anything on the spot, it would be that.
“Do as they say, Serena,” I said, hoping my voice would impart some confidence. I needed her to cooperate until I could find a way to shield us from harm.
Shielded from harm, I repeated in my mind, concentrating even as I tried outwardly to look meek and compliant. I kept my hands raised and didn’t move while the younger man patted me down, checking for weapons.
Or at least, that was what he was supposed to be doing. But he was bolder now that we’d submitted, and his fear turned to aggression, as fear often does with a certain kind of man. His hand strayed, lingering on my breast. Although I could barely feel his touch through my coat, it was enough to make me gag.
Serena and Verity were shielded from harm.
No bullets could hit them. No men could touch them.
No gross perverted guards could grope them.
I lowered my arm enough to touch the back of Serena’s head, trying to siphon some extra power from her, as I’d done before.
But Serena, it seemed, had other ideas.
“I’m not going back to the basement.” She wasn’t whispering this time. Her voice was loud and cold.
“That’s exactly where you’re going,” the man who had touched me said. “And your witch friend can come with you. You’ll make a happy little coven down there in the dark, won’t you?”
Serena smiled. “I’m always in the dark now, dear. But I won’t go back to the basement.”
“You don’t have a choice, bitch.” He grabbed Serena’s elbow with what I considered to be undue force.
That was his mistake.
My hand was still on her head. I felt the burst of power I’d been hoping for.
Unfortunately, it was going in the wrong direction.
It was all the work of a moment. I felt a rush of dizziness as Serena drew power from me. She shouted something unintelligible. I staggered, my knees giving out. The older guard caught me. There was a crack, like a fire popping when the wood’s too wet, and the young guard’s hand flew off Serena’s arm as his elbow snapped perfectly backward.
That was her mistake. She should have gone for his gun arm.
Even as he jumped back, shrieking in pain, he was firing with his other hand. There was no time to help her. No time even to panic.
Serena fell, blood gushing into the snow. He’d hit her once in the face and twice in the chest.
A chest that was no longer moving.
I screamed and tried to get to her, but the older man held me back, one arm around my waist and his gun pressed to my head.
“Try it.” His mouth was so close to my ear that I could feel his words as well as hear them. “Try one move like what she just did, and you’ll end up down there with her. Understand?”
dead she’s dead what will I do the curse can’t be broken I’m going to die
When I didn’t answer immediately, the guard grabbed my hair and yanked my head back, jamming his gun under my chin instead. “I said, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”
His mouth was still too close, his shout loud enough to set my ears ringing. I couldn’t hear my own voice as I assured him that he’d made his point.
going to die I’m going to die
Satisfied, my captor turned to his companion. “Dammit, Justin. We were supposed to bring her back alive.”
she’s dead I’m dead
“She attacked me. It was self-defense.” Justin was standing over Serena, clutching his arm and looking like he wanted to kick her lifeless body. Tears—presumably of pain rather than remorse—were running freely down his face. “Anyway, maybe this other witch can replace her. One’s as good as another, right?”
Verity Thane, get a hold of yourself.
Tell your story.
“I don’t think so. I think he only likes seers.”
Verity was shielded from harm.
No bullet could hit her. No man could touch her.
“They aren’t all seers?”
“No, that’s not how it works. Don’t you learn anything working here?”
Tell it with conviction, dammit!
Verity was shielded from harm. No bullet could hit her. No man could touch her.
“Well, we can at least see if he wants her.” Justin wiped his nose on the sleeve of his good arm, then gave me a nasty leer. “If not, we could let Jeeves go to work on her with those teeth. Bet he’d let us watch.”
Verity was shielded from harm. No bullet could hit her. No man could touch her.
“Well, let’s go see what they say at the house.” The guard holding me pushed me roughly forward. “Walk. Do anything but walk, and I will end you. Understand?”
I nodded. But I didn’t walk.
Verity was shielded from harm. No bullet could hit her. No man could touch her.
I ran.
Ran with all my might—which I must admit, was not a whole lot—toward the sound of fighting in the distance. I was far separated from Cooper and Phineas, it seemed. No doubt that was intentional on their parts, trying to keep the fight away from us, so we could be safe.
That hadn’t worked out so well.
I heard shouts and gunfire behind me, but I kept on running.
Verity was shielded from harm. No bullet could hit her. No man could touch her.
In books and movies, magic is always flashy in some way. The wave of a wand, a glow of light, a rushing sound. Something to announce itself. It sure would be handy if it was like that in real life. Unfortunately for me, I had no easy way of knowing if my desperate attempt at a protection spell would work, if it was working. I only had the seconds, stacking on top of one another, in which no bullets cut into my body.
But I took each one of those seconds as a good sign, and I kept running.
Most of the noise was coming from the maze. Cooper and Phineas must have fled in there for better cover. I stumbled into the hedge, my pursuit close at my heels.
Verity was shielded from harm. No bullet could hit her. No man could touch her.
There were too many men in the maze, way more t
han had originally been chasing Cooper. Clearly they had called in reinforcements.
But so many? So quickly?
Everywhere I turned, every path I took, someone seemed to be there. Some of them pushed me aside to keep running in the direction of a shouting comrade. But others turned to follow me. I had a train of three or four before long.
I could only assume I had my spell to thank for the continued good fortune of not getting shot as I searched frantically for my companions. But I was unsteady and slowing down fast—everything but my heart, which was skipping dangerously. My bruise was throbbing.
Magic or no magic, I had no hope of throwing off pursuit—or even of staying on my feet—for much longer. It was only a matter of time before the curse stopped me. And then of course there were the illusions, and the other enchantments Harry had spoken of. He’d said they were mostly off, but would they have turned them on, now that they knew they had intruders? Could they just do that? Did they have some sort of vitality battery stored away somewhere, in case of emergency?
I don’t even know what I expected Phineas and Cooper to do once I found them, but I couldn’t think that far ahead. All I could focus on was getting to them. Cooper would find a way to save me. He always did.
And if I had a fleeting thought that if it wasn’t for Cooper, I might be safely outside these walls and on my way back to Boston with Serena, well, I had no time to dwell on that.
I turned a corner, rolled and squeezed myself under the hedge, then staggered to my feet and moved in the opposite direction. That slowed down the men, but I only traded them for a legion of tarantula-sized spiders, spindly and green-gray in the moonlight. They started to chase me, too.
They’re not real. You’ve been down this road already. You know how to deal with them. They’re not real.
But my grip on reality was getting looser with every ragged breath I drew. I ignored the spiders and returned to the spell, clinging to the words like the lifeline they’d become.
No bullet could hit her. No man could touch her. No spider could bite her?
Witch Bound (Devilborn Book 3) Page 8