But what all that meant to Charlie right there, right then, was that the air was so saturated with magic floating and skipping and dancing to and fro that he couldn’t have picked up on any subtle trace that the Curse Eater might emanate without knowing her previously.
Something clicked in Charlie’s mind.
Her.
Dunwick had said the Curse Eater was a her, when Lisa and he himself had assumed it was a he. That the Curse Eater made the people here uncomfortable. That she served the goddess.
The woman at the crossroads…could she be the Curse Eater? She seemed so strange, and so skittish, and the bowl of blood—Charlie shivered and corrected himself, red liquid—very well might have been some pagan offering.
Charlie saw the sun, already close to its highest point of the day, and picked up his pace. The townspeople watched him with a mix of awe and then horror as his unnatural red eyes scanned every building and person. As he approached the path to and from town, he hoped—without much actual hope—that no one wondered where he was going.
The ley line that ran from Drakauragh to the crossroads was thicker than most, and vibrant. Charlie would have described it as being preternatural in comparison to the other ley lines, but everything that he and his friends dealt with lately was, by definition, preternatural.
Charlie’s feet stumbled as he spotted a figure at the crossroads. At first, it looked like there was only the broken lamp. Then, the figure stood, and a magic in the air drew all around her like a vortex.
A sigh of relief escaped Charlie’s mouth. “Hello! Please don’t run this time. I need your help.”
“Stop there!” she called, and Charlie froze.
“There is someone who I need you to help.”
“I know. My mistress has already told me. Bring him to me at the Old House, as the Witch Moon begins to rise…alone. It can only be the two of you.”
“But…but that’s too late! He’ll be gone by then, and I have to be ready to stop the Sagemistress when the sun sets!”
“Leave your friends to deal with the witch traitor. If you want to save your friend from his curse, then bring him to me. It’s your choice.”
Before he could object again, the Curse Eater had wrapped her cloak tighter and began to run. Charlie took a step towards her, but she was freakishly fast, making a large semicircle around him and disappearing somewhere among Drakauragh’s clutter of buildings.
Darcy and Aisling were drawn to the sound of metal ringing. They already had checked Dunwick’s house, as well as some of the other houses where they were offered rooms to rest, but Lisa wasn’t there. Now, they were approaching the stable, where it sounded like someone was drawing blades against each other. The horses were restless, whinnying and stamping from hoof to hoof in their stalls.
“Of all the places to hide a werewolf,” grumbled Darcy. “What if Liev gets hungry? Or what if the horses decide to just step on him? Lisa is smarter than that.”
Aisling didn’t respond; only looked at the open stables with moisture in her eyes. Darcy looked at the girl, wondering if she would be able to fight in the battle to come or if she should stay indoors with the villagers. Maurie’s death still haunted Aisling, and it wouldn’t be fair to expect her to get over that so soon.
But, Darcy reminded herself, there was not much that was fair in their situation right now.
As they passed the stable doors, Aisling moved to the stall where her horse was waiting, and ran a single hand up and down its snout. She put its head against hers and murmured to it in Gaelic, calming it somewhat.
Darcy moved forward. In the middle of the very stable—she rolled her eyes, no wonder all of the horses were spooked—the metallic screeches were coming from a cell that stood off to the left.
She pushed open the door and frowned at her friend. Lisa paused, but didn’t look up. She drew her dagger against a sharpening stone again, slowly and with more force than was necessary.
Darcy sighed and sat down next to Lisa, wrinkling her nose at her friend’s malodorous choice of a sulking spot. She waited for Lisa to say something, but of course that wasn’t going to happen.
“You know he didn’t mean it like that,” said Darcy.
“Yes he did. He said it, didn’t he?”
Darcy shrugged as she spoke. “Well, you know Charlie. He’s awkward. He doesn’t always know how to speak his mind.”
“He’s a jerk.”
Darcy smiled. “Since when did you get so easily bothered by anyone? Especially a boy.”
Lisa shot her a dark, warning look, dragging her dagger across the stone more haltingly. “We’re not at school, Darcy.”
“Then stop acting like it! We don’t have time for moping, and you can’t afford to be like this when the witches come. You need to have your head clear.”
“What I need is for Liev to not turn into a full-fledged werewolf by then. And he’s my brother. I should be the one to take care of him.”
“It’ll turn out alright,” said Aisling. They looked up to see her, standing in the doorway.
“Charlie will take care of Liev,” said Aisling. “But the rest of us—those of us who are still alive and still able to do something—we have to focus on saving this town.”
Lisa looked at the ground, realizing how she must sound to someone who had just lost the person that raised them.
“You’re right.” Lisa stood up.
Darcy smiled at Aisling. Who knew she would be the one to pull Lisa out of a funk? She looked around the horse’s stall.
“Um, where is Liev?”
Lisa threw a thumb at the hay behind her. As if on cue, there was a gravelly snore from where Liev slept, hidden.
“Come on. You should take advantage of the hot water while you can. I was shocked that they even had hot water here. I mean, there’s no indoor plumbing or anything.”
Lisa rolled her eyes as her friend guided them out of the stables, continuing to yap about the glory of a hot water bath in the middle of nowhere.
The purple sun touched down on the crooked house as the great roar of an arguing crowd exploded steadily from within.
The Sagemistress waved her hand through the air, balling it into a taloned fist. “Hold your tongue!”
“I will not!” Carman cried, her witches rallying behind her. “You said they were not a viable threat, that we need only stop them! You sent kelpie against a divided force, and led me to believe a single powrie could take out the other half of that force. You’ve sent my sons and I against them, only for my sons to have been slain. Your entire pack of dogs fought them twice, and did nothing but kill one of their number who was not even a true Hunter! Your every attempt to stop them has been ill-made, and we cannot trust your thoughts on this matter. Now, you deny our coven the chance to take revenge upon them when the portal is opened? Your leadership, Sagemistress, has led us to great loss.”
The women behind Carman, young and old, cheered and hacked and wailed in agreement, as a roar of contempt rose from the other side of the room. The Sagemistress raised a dangerously calm hand, and all of the noise stopped.
“If you had listened to me and not played with your food, we wouldn’t be dealing with this right now. At your request, I let you handle the Hunters while I prepared for breaking through Hecate’s stronghold.”
“What ease with which you shift the blame,” sneered Carman.
“Now it is too late to fight them. We could kill them, yes, but not without losing members of our coven. And if witch blood and human blood is spilled in Drakauragh, if those lives are taken while the Witch Moon watches above, then Hecate will rise.”
Carman turned to the coven, raising her hands. “Let her rise, then! And instead of binding her, as the Sagemistress would have so that she can rise to be the Witch Goddess, let us welcome Hecate back into power, raise her from her slumber, and take back this
world that has forgotten our kind! Let us raise the Goddess, and recreate the human world, teach them to fear us again.”
To the Sagemistress’ surprise, some of her own number—those who had been with her under the control of the varcolac—erupted in agreement. She watched them go to stand next to Carman with eyes as frigid as they were blue.
“You’re a fool, Carman. You’re blind to the fact that Hecate has been helping them every step of the way. Now, they’re in her domain, and once the Otherworld comes to Drakauragh, they’ll be more than you can handle. She’s playing you all against each other.”
“If what you say is true, then why not help us?” Carman pretended to plea. In truth, she wanted the Sagemistress to curl up and die.
The Sagemistress smiled sourly. She knew exactly what Carman was up to.
“Because I know your lust for power and destruction, girl. I’ve seen it in you since you were a child, and have tried to raise you above such base needs. Now you wish to fulfill those desires by raising Hecate, against all of our wishes thus far. I’ll warn you one last time, Carman. The old goddess will only bring you nothing but your own death.”
Carman laughed. “So you’ve warned us. But besides your own accounts, what proof have you offered? None.”
She turned her back on the Sagemistress, raising her hands to her followers within the coven. “Tonight, we welcome our Goddess!”
As the group of wild women howled and screeched and jeered and cried out, the Sagemistress scowled and started to turn away. Let them kill themselves in this madness, then, and she would build a new coven, one not led by wild desires.
As she turned, she noticed a mirror laying on the table in front her, one that had not been there a moment before. She tilted her head at it with disdain.
It was a handheld mirror, looking very ancient and made of silver and bone. Its handle was carved to look like a twisting snake, and at the bottom of the handle was a round figure depicting three faces in one. Across its top, a word was written in blood: OVSIRVO—an ancient spell word for observe.
A gift from Hecate, the Sagemistress thought with fury. She almost smashed the mirror, but knew that such a thing would be childish. She snatched the mirror up by the handle and looked at it, unsurprised as its reflection showed not herself, but the sight of another as they walked through somewhere indoors. The Sagemistress quickly recognized the inside of the Old House from times long past and left the former witches of her coven to their rowdy uproar.
Outside, her faithful ones following not far behind, the Sagemistress looked at the shadow of the Old House that was stuck in the Otherworld. She barged through the door of the house facing it—Dunwick’s house, in the human world—and marched upstairs to a window where she could sit and watch the night’s events.
Then, she looked in the mirror, wondering what it was that old witch wanted her to see.
Chapter 9: The Witch Moon Rises
“Two bombs left,” said Darcy, her voice breaking a little. “And only ten bolts.”
“Are those your bolts or Aisling’s or Lisa’s?” asked Nash.
“No, that’s all we have, period.”
Nash sighed. “I’ve only got three shots left for R.I.G.G. and four for my rifle.” He looked at his little ax disdainfully, wishing he had brought a bigger one. Or maybe two bigger ones.
“Darcy and I still have our swords,” said Lisa. “And some daggers.”
Aisling held up a few belts lined with silver blades. “And here’s Charlie’s throwing knives. It doesn’t look like he’s used many of them.”
“We’re fighting witches,” Darcy grumbled. “A whole coven. Something tells me a few explosives and knives aren’t going to do the trick. Remember when we were on Witch Island? We barely got out by the skin of our teeth, and we didn’t even fight them!”
“Alright,” Nash said, trying to calm her down. “So, what if we booby-trap the area?”
Lisa snorted. “Okay, MacGyver.”
“I don’t know, it might work,” said Darcy. “It actually gives me an idea.”
Nash smiled. “Darn right it’ll work! What’s your id—”
He stopped and frowned as Charlie appeared in the window, motioning for Nash to come outside. As Darcy turned to look, Charlie disappeared, which caused Nash to frown harder.
“What is it?” asked Darcy.
“Nothing, just…it was a really weird bird.”
Darcy cocked an eyebrow. “A weird bird?”
“Yeah, hey, tell Lisa and Aisling what your idea is, and I’m going to go ask Priest a question.” Nash walked over and placed his hand on the door handle.
“Priest is upstairs,” said Lisa.
“I meant Chen,” said Nash.
The three girls watched him suspiciously as he slipped outside, looking for Charlie. His friend was standing at the edge of the building and, as Nash joined him there, they went ahead and turned the corner.
“Everything okay, Charlie?”
“No. I found the Curse Eater, and I have to bring Liev to the Old House to meet her.”
“That’s great!” exclaimed Nash. “So there is still time!”
“I have to do it as the moon is rising, Nash. Alone.”
The smile froze on Nash’s face as he began to understand exactly what Charlie was telling him.
“But the witches will be here at that point.”
Charlie nodded.
“This sounds like a trap.”
“I know that,” said Charlie.
“You can’t do it. We have to stop the Sagemistress when the moon rises. They’re just trying to separate—”
“What I can’t do,” said Charlie, raising his voice a little, “is let Liev fall to a curse again when I can do something about it. I’ve got to try, Nash.”
A few townspeople passing by looked at the teens suspiciously.
“Fine,” said Nash, nodding. Then, a little softer, “I understand. Do it. What do you need from the rest of us?”
“Don’t tell the others. Just pray I get back in time. And if something goes wrong…if I don’t come back…they’ll need someone to lead them.”
Nash grabbed Charlie by the front of his shirt. “Don’t even think about it. If you don’t come out of there, I’m coming in, and I don’t care what witch or Curse Eater I have to go through.”
Charlie smiled sadly and patted his friend on the shoulder, stepping back to the open street.
“Then what do you want me to tell Lisa? You know she’s going to go looking for you and Liev.”
Charlie turned back, trying to formulate a response.
“Tell me what?” asked Lisa, appearing in the alleyway.
“Nothing,” said Charlie. “I’m just…following some leads.”
Lisa crossed her arms. “Following some leads? What are you, a detective? What’s really going on?”
“I’m trying to save Liev.”
He moved to pass Lisa, but she blocked his path. She scowled at him and he scowled back.
“Is now really the time for this?” asked Nash. He looked at Lisa. “We need to get back to planning before tonight. Charlie said he’d take care of Liev. Let him do what he says.”
Lisa continued to glare, but stepped aside. Charlie muttered something sounding like “be safe” and rushed away, toward the stables.
Back inside, the Monster Hunters were discussing what little options they had left.
“Booby traps!” Lisa said, slamming a hand down on the table. “Boiling water from the roof, the explosives and crossbow bolts rigged to blow on the ground, and a really big, heavy piece of wood with all of the silver knives nailed in. It can fall at an angle from the housetops, attached with rope; that way it can skewer ten or twenty of the witches before it slows down.”
Nash watched her with concern. “I thought you were again
st the booby trap idea?”
He shied away from her responding glare.
“Okay, I don’t know about the whole Indiana Jones spiky, swinging log thing,” said Darcy, “but I could lay the explosives under cover.”
Aisling raised her hand meekly. “Hot water from the rooftops won’t have the best range. But if we line the streets around the Old House with something flammable, it could take a lot of monsters out, right?”
Nash looked between the three of them, breaking into a grin. “Y’all are scary.”
Darcy sighed. “The only problem is supplies. We have enough for a few traps, but nothing too elaborate.”
“You’re forgetting magic runes,” said Lisa.
“What do you mean?”
“My gosh, am I the only one who does the homework Loch gives us? Fine, I’ll write the runes, you guys set the traps.”
“We only have a few hours of daylight left,” said Aisling.
“Well then,” Lisa said, standing up, “let’s get started.”
Charlie’s eyes scanned the stables, seeing past the old wood and brittle hay, past the horses that whinnied at him almost pleadingly.
And then, there was Liev, a blur of strange magics emanating from within. Charlie took one last look outside at the sun—far too high in the sky—and ducked inside. He barged through the doors, causing Lisa’s horse to snort and stamp. He ignored it, ducking into the hay where Liev was hidden. Charlie dragged him out, gasping at what he saw.
The last time anyone had seen Liev, he was almost completely white wolf. Now, eyes shut tight, rigid and pale, he looked almost human again. Besides the claws, teeth, and a light coat of fur that covered his entire body, Liev was recognizable again.
It was hard to see even using the Sight, but a black mist-like magic hovered around Liev’s hand like a set of rings. From the tattoo that writhed over his shoulder came a swirl of colors that seemed stuck in place, stuck in a jarring static. Was this what a curse looked like?
Charlie Sullivan and the Monster Hunters: Witch Moon Page 20