by Martha Woods
The witches, on the other hand, most definitely were not.
“You knew what we were supposed to be doing,” Morgan growled, eyes trained on Charley.
While Veronica had been feeding Morgan, Charley had been cleaning up their mess. She was in the process of throwing an arm into the dumpster when a few dancers lurched out of the door. They stumbled into the brick wall, laughing a little too loudly. They were too far gone on whatever they had taken to realize what Charley was holding.
The demon shrugged and chucked the arm into the open dumpster. She dug through her pockets with tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth. After a long moment of exaggerated searching, she came up with a bic lighter.
“Charley knew what? Hey, isn’t that my…” Veronica’s voice trailed off.
Charley lit an alcohol soaked t-shirt, that had probably been dumped by some frisky lovers, and tossed it into the dumpster. They didn’t know how long it would burn and they didn’t have long to figure out. The sun would be peeking over the horizon in a matter of hours.
Tired and aching, the three of them made their way back to the Shelby. It seemed to take forever. Veronica’s knees didn’t want to support her weight let alone Morgan’s, but she refused to let him go. She had come so close to losing him in a shitty alleyway like she’d always feared. That wasn’t how she wanted this to end.
Her mind wandered off, trying to unravel her mess of thoughts and emotions without Tessa nearby, when everyone came to a sudden halt. Morgan’s eyes burned with a fire that she hoped never turned upon her. She followed his line of sight and felt her jaw drop.
The witches liked to vandalize modes of transportation, it seemed. Not too long ago they had burned Tessa’s truck and trailer. There wasn’t much left of it when Ally had gone back to find it. Thankfully, the Shelby was nowhere near as bad.
That had been a threat.
This was a message.
Two Down had been carved into the side of his car. The witches really had thought they won long before the fight had started, Veronica thought. But, as they rounded the other side of the car, they found another message waiting. This one made the hair on the back her neck stand on end.
A head was mounted on the dashboard. Red hair flopped over glassy eyes. A hot well of rage filled Veronica. Morgan gripped the door handle of his car, the crunch of metal audible in the night. They would never again hear Ryan’s sweet, lilting southern accent. Beside it, carved into the dashboard, was an occult symbol.
Charley stood back, her lips twisting. She put her hands on her hips and shook her head.
“I can’t get in,” she said.
“What are you talking about?” Morgan asked. His voice was pure fury and rage. The witches had not only violated his car, but left a part of his friend behind in it.
Charley reached out toward the car when a shield of gold light arched through the air. Her hand hit it and Veronica could smell burning flesh in the air. The globe of light faded as their eyes met over the Shelby.
“Can’t do it, big man. They warded against my hellish ass. Sigil magic is a bitch for demons.”
They were on their own. Charley could bamf, as she liked to call it, somewhere else, but that left them on their own. They were in no condition to fight off another wave of Calder witches. Veronica had lost too much blood and Morgan’s body was still knitting itself together.
Veronica snatched one of Charley’s black blades and slid into the car, trying hard to ignore Ryan’s head staring blankly out the windshield. She scraped at the circular symbol on the dashboard, trying to erase it from existence. The symbol stubbornly refused to be erased. Veronica let her head fall to the dashboard. She never thought she’d dread seeing the demon leave.
She turned her head and met Charley’s gaze. They weren’t defeated. Far from it, but morale was low. More witches would be on their trail. That had been the plan, after all. Morgan finally flung his door open. He threw himself into the driver seat and slammed the door with such force that Veronica cringed.
“Please tell me that you have a hideout, a safehouse, anything,” Veronica said.
“Report back to Ally,” Morgan barked at Charley, turning the key in the ignition. The demon tucked the dismembered head of their friend under her arm and blinked out of existence.
Veronica slammed back in her seat when he hit the gas pedal. The two vampires sped out of the parking lot. “You weren’t even supposed to be here,” he growled.
Veronica sat up straight. “You’re telling me you could have handled two Calder witches on your own? You left me behind without so much as a fucking word. I wouldn’t have known what happened to you until Ally went to scrape you out of that damned dumpster. What was it that Charley supposedly knew? Why were you so mad at her?”
Morgan gripped the steering wheel and she could hear the metal beneath the leather groaning. “You almost died tonight.”
“And you think it would have been better had Charley and I stayed at the house in the valley? Instead, the only deaths were the Calder tonight. You can trust me, Morgan. I really wish you would try it sometime. You’re avoiding my question. Tell me. What did Charley know?”
He sat in silence. The car weaved in and out of traffic, narrowly missing a few fender benders. Veronica thought that the conversation was over, whether she liked it or not. There had been something in his mission, orders, that he refused to tell her. Frustrated, she fisted her hands atop her thighs.
“This isn’t going to work out, is it?”
“What?”
“Us, what we have. It isn’t going to work out. You’re doing exactly what you did last time. Your job was number one and I was just a doll that you kept on a shelf for when you came home. That isn’t the kind of life that I want. I can take care of myself. I’m not going to break if you let me out of the house. It’s up to you to trust me.”
Morgan was silent and completely still. She wondered if he was looking away from the truth. Did he even want to realize his mistake?
“How can I do my job if I’m terrified something will happen to you? I can’t keep my mind about me when I know you’re in the thick of the chaos and death.”
“I’m not your wife,” Veronica reminded him. “I’m not human. I haven’t been for two hundred years. The witch fire would have hurt like a bitch, but it wouldn’t have killed me anymore than it killed you.”
It hurt to bring up his wife. Veronica knew how she had died. The woman he had married died alone after watching her children die. Morgan hadn’t been there. When he came home, his family was dead. His landlord had still been sitting on the front porch of their cabin. The man held a knife to Morgan’s throat and made him look at his children while he reminded Morgan that the rent on their land was overdue.
Veronica was made of tougher stuff than his human wife. She would not let herself die at the hands of a witch. She’d fought her way out of their clutches before. No one knew that other than Kristian and the Calder witches. She tried to forget, but the memories would resurface if she caught sight of a bottle of vodka on a table or held an queen of spades in her hand.
Leticia spent an entire year pretending to be her friend. She seemed like a confident aunt, someone more experienced that Veronica could come to. The woman had let her in on their secret world of magic. Probably only so that Veronica would confess her secret, too. It was not too often that Veronica found pleasure in the company of others. Letitica was her first real girlfriend.
They played cards beneath the gazebo, a bottle of vodka between them. They played with shots, the loser would throw back. More often than not, Veronica lost. The alcohol would buzz through her system quickly, but not before making the world spin around her. Not before loosening her lips. She told Leticia of her paltry life, of her husband’s demise. She told her of the apartment that she shared with her brother.
Veronica did not expect it when several of the witches burst into their home during the daylight hours. The witches tied them up, gagged them, and sho
ved their bodies into coffins. It was easy to convince their neighbors that the two of them had passed in the night. It was easy to drag them back to Leticia’s home under the protection of the sun.
Veronica remembered waking up inside of a cage. Her hands had been bound with silver and it burned through the skin of her wrist. Beside her, Kristian glared at the world like an animal. His bright green eyes were glazed over. Anger radiated off him.
A white haired witch approached his cage. Kristian lashed out, his fingers hooked into claws. The witch caught his arm in her hand. Veronica could still hear his howls of pain when the witch incinerated his skin, his flesh with the touch of her hand. It was nothing more than charred bone when her hand fell away.
The witch had laughed and kept walking. Kristian cradled his arm to his chest, crouched in a corner with his back to her. She tried to reach out to her brother, but he hissed in response. No matter what she said, what words she tried to ply him with, her brother had become something other. He’d become a caged animal and it broke her heart.
It was her fault. She had trusted Leticia.
But they had survived. She had survived. Veronica would not be so easily killed.
* * *
They were aware that they were being followed when a pair of headlights descended upon their tail. The car bumped their rear end and the Shelby swerved. Veronica grabbed the door handle, holding on. Another car swerved to avoid them, laying on their horn. She twisted in her seat, trying to see past the glaring lights. The witches had found them again.
“How many of them are there?” Morgan shouted in frustration. “It feels like we cut the head off two and four more pop up.”
“There must have been more at the nightclub than we expected. They must have seen us kill their sisters.” Or, they had recognized her. She swore under her breath.
The car behind them revved its engine. It slammed against the Shelby. Veronica’s head snapped forward. The Shelby swerved, the tail rocking back and forth. Morgan jerked the wheel to get it under control, but the Shelby had other ideas. Morgan lost control. The Shelby spun out of control. The car behind them sped up. It slammed into the passenger side.
Veronica slid into Morgan and he lost grip on the wheel. Distantly, she was aware of the grinding sound of the car against the Shelby. They were weightless for a brief second. The car shoved the Shelby off the road, into the steep ravine. Their world tumbled around them.
Morgan wrapped his arms around Veronica. She tucked her head into his shoulder. Metal crunched around them. Glass shattered, spraying everywhere. The Shelby tumbled until it slammed into the ravine. Veronica didn’t want to open her eyes. She didn’t want to see the chaos around her, but she knew that the witches would have pulled over by now. They’d be coming down the wall of the ravine.
She pulled herself from Morgan’s arms. The windshield was gone. There were only shards of glass jutting out from the edges. It took her a moment to realize that the world beyond the shattered mess was upside down. Her hair hung around her head, a mess of blood and glass. Her face and arms stung as she moved to unbuckle herself. She slammed into the Shelby’s roof once the mechanism was finally free.
The sounds of crunching foliage tickled her ears. She had to hurry. The witches were almost upon them. Morgan’s seat belt refused to let go. Feeling a mixture of anger and terror surging inside of her, she gripped the seat belt and ripped it apart. It protested before giving way. Morgan half slumped onto the roof.
She kicked the shards of glass out of the windshield before climbing out. A forgotten piece of glass caught in her shirt, grazing her stomach as she pulled herself through. She didn’t have time to acknowledge the pain. Blood seeped down her stomach. She turned to pull Morgan from the wreck when she saw the metal bar piercing his arm. It went through the flesh of his left bicep, pinning him to the seat.
The witches were getting close and closer with each moment wasted. Veronica crawled around to the driver’s window and tore away the loose glass. Using all the strength she had, she gripped the metal bar and forced it back into the car wreck. Metal groaned, but it gave way and slid out of Morgan’s arm. He fell with a thump, completely unconscious.
“The sun is coming,” a witch called through the woods. “How about we help you greet the sun, night spawn?”
Veronica swallowed past the lump in her throat. Pausing, she listened to the sounds around her. She could hear the footsteps of at least two bodies approaching.
“Come on, Morgan. Wake up,” she pleaded. But he didn’t stir.
The sound of rocks tumbling into the ravine was loud. Veronica’s head shot up. A white haired witch smiled wide, her mouth full of sharp teeth. Adrenaline flooder her. She recognized this witch. It was the same one who had burned through Kristian’s arm. In her hands was a thick chain that glimmered in the weak light. Silver plate.
“I think that it is high time that we get to have some fun,” the witch said.
Something flashed over Veronica’s vision before she felt it at her throat. The silver burned as the witch behind her tightened the chain. Veronica didn’t need to breathe, but the pain was more than she’d felt in a very long time. It burned through her.
I refuse to die.
Veronica reached behind her and clutched the second witch by her shoulder. Using all of her vampire strength, she threw the witch over her shoulder. The witch crashed into the base of a tree. The first witch closed the space between them, unnaturally fast.
“You should be dead,” Veronica rasped.
The witch licked her lips. “I thought that vampire just tasted good, but it seems that there’s a side effect to my favorite meal. It means I get to live long enough to rip your head off and toss it into the sunlight.”
They were eating vampires? That’s why they had been hunting them so relentlessly.
“Then I’ll bring your body back to the flock and we’ll harvest what’s left of you so that everyone can have a bite. The one in the car will make for good spell components. We’ll take our time on the table, taking each piece while his body works to rebuild. We had him once. He was quite the specimen. No matter how much we harvested, he simply refused to die.”
Veronica growled. Her fingers flexed. She itched to tear the witch apart.
“It was your name that was on his lips when we cut into him,” the witch traced her nail through the air, mimicking cutting. Her wrist rotated, palm glowing with firelight. The ball of flame shot through the air.
Veronica dodged. The flame crashed into the side of the Shelby. The hulking wreck rocked for a moment. If the witch hit the gas tank it would go up in flames. Veronica had to end this quickly. She darted away from the Shelby, eager to draw the fire in another direction.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the flash of light again. The second ball narrowly missed her head. It hit a tree trunk. The wood sizzled, sap boiling beneath the bark. Veronica darted close to the witch. Rage was burning inside of her, blood boiling beneath her skin like that sap. The witch’s silver chain lashed out at her. She didn’t bother dodging. Instead, her arm came up. It wrapped like a snake around her wrist. It burned like hell. The witch smiled wide. She licked her sharp teeth.
Ignoring the searing pain, Veronica jerked the chain toward her. The witch stumbled forward. Eyes wide, she looked up at Veronica. Fire burned in her hands, but before she could do anything, Veronica’s hand plunged into her chest. Fingers wrapped around a pulsing organ. The blood softly burned. It was nothing compared to the silver still wrapped around her wrist. She yanked her hand out and the muscle came free.
The witch’s mouth gaped, unable to form words as she looked at her own heart in Veronica’s hands. Her hand reached for the hole in her chest right before her body dropped to the ravine floor. Veronica crushed the witch’s heart in her hand before throwing it into the brush. Ignoring the silver still wrapped around her wrist, she ran for the crumpled Shelby.
Veronica fell to her hands and knees in front of the broken windshie
ld. Hurried, she shed the silver chain and pulled his body through the empty windshield, not caring about the broken glass anymore. She needed to hurry. The witches weren’t stupid. They hadn’t brought rope. She knew they would be wielding silver chains to tie them to the trees around her. She and Morgan were in no condition to fight.
Charley would have been damned convenient right about then. Her ability to appear wherever she wanted was nifty as hell. Right then, Veronica’s only option was to lift Morgan into her arms. There was no fighting her way out of this. Weak as she was, she could still run.
The second witch began to stir right before Veronica darted. Her body protested, muscles screaming. The wound in her stomach split and she felt the trickle of blood welling in the waist of her jeans. She ignored her body and pushed forward. She had no idea where she was going, only that they had to get somewhere safe before the sun rose. Someplace that the witches wouldn’t find them.
With her vampire speed, Veronica was able to put enough space between them and the witch that she could slow down. The horizon was turning pink and her skin was tingling. If only they had some of the drugs stashed in the glove box.
If only Morgan had stayed at the house, she thought. But he had left to get the witches off her brother’s trail. Kristian was still healing. He couldn’t take on the witches in the state he was in. Tessa had killed a witch, but that had been a stroke of luck. She was of little help when it came to fighting them off. And now, Ryan was gone. The witches had severed his head from his body the same way they had done to their sisters.
Ahead of her, Veronica could smell the remnants of campfire smoke in the air. She darted for it. The trees parted to reveal a small wood shack. A cold campfire sat a few yards from the door. She set Morgan down in the dirt before circling the perimeter. She could see tire tracks in the dirt. A truck had been here, but had left. Hopefully the inside of the shack was empty as well.
There was a padlock on the shack door. Veronica sighed, exhaustion setting in. With a sharp jerk of her hand, the padlock snapped off. She tossed it aside before grabbing Morgan. A moan slipped from his lips. Relief flooded her for a brief moment. He was still alive. But barely.