The Sorceress Screams

by Anya Breton

  “Why what, Kora?”

  I inhaled a ragged sigh as I slumped over my thighs. If Trip had to ask, then he hadn’t guessed what was on my mind.

  Whoever had told him what had been going through my thoughts a few minutes ago, could tell him what I was thinking now. That couldn’t happen. I would die if he found out.

  He took a step forward, no doubt impatient I hadn’t answered. I remained where I was because he couldn’t touch me. He could only manipulate things with his new bracelet, and I was betting things didn’t include people. I must have been right because though he was close, I didn’t feel anything more than the decrease in temperature powerful entities within the Spirit Realm generated.

  Trip switched to a slightly different topic in a tone no less sour. “How is fucking a vampire helping your mother’s plan?”

  “I have a life beyond that,” I said in a hollow voice against my knee. “I’m allowed to be happy, contrary to what you’ve tried to do for the past fifteen years.”

  “You can’t be happy with a corpse. You’re ashamed to be seen with him! Get your fucking ring back and end this, Kora!”

  My head came up so I could shout. “I can’t. I tried. It didn’t work on him!”

  “You tried Water. You little idiot, you forgot about necromancy!”

  I opened my mouth to argue that I’d tried everything. Nothing came out.

  Hades’s fiery hair, he was right! I hadn’t tried necromancy. Max was dead. If I could reanimate corpses and force them to answer my questions truthfully, then I ought to be able to make a vampire slip a ring off his pinky. Why in Hera’s name hadn’t I thought of that?

  “Do it now.” Pure malevolence flooded his eyes. “Before he touches you again.”

  That command had nothing to do with my mother’s plan—why he’d supposedly collected weekly reports from me. I got to my feet.

  “Why do you do this?” My delivery was angry and hoarse. “Why won’t you let me be happy?”

  “Happy?” He bellowed and jabbed an arm toward the house beyond the woods. “He’s blackmailing you! You are the daughter of Hecate! You are the most powerful witch in the world! An extortionist, worm-ridden corpse cannot make you happy!”

  “Then who can?”

  He took a step forward. Icy tingles poured over my skin. His misty form pressed against mine, stealing the breath from my lungs. Trip’s eyes were wide in an unreadable but no less forceful gaze.

  “Rebecca?”

  I whirled toward Max’s voice. He was hidden in the trees, deep in shadow but there nonetheless. I pushed myself forward without glancing back. I knew what I’d find if I did. Trip would be gone.

  “Is everything all right?” Max asked. “Why are you in the woods?” He’d probably silently added, talking to yourself.

  “I needed air,” I said. “And I didn’t like being under the watchful eye of so many people.” All the truth despite how lame it sounded.

  Max extended his arm toward me. “Come. The fireworks are about to begin. I have a comfortable seat held for you.”

  Immensely glad he hadn’t forced an answer from me, I went without argument.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The comfortable chair Max had saved for me was on the porch by the living room. It was a seat for one, but he didn’t intend to use it that way. He’d settled me between his thighs atop the cushioned lounge chair much as we’d sat on my futon.

  I was stiff with the worry that Trip was watching. If Maximo noted, he didn’t mention it. He sifted his hands through my hair as he’d done in the beginning of our courtship. The difference was I never relaxed.

  An hour later, I hovered in the periphery of the porch, shadowed and alone while he played host to the departing partygoers. But after the minutes extended to fifteen then twenty and on, I grew impatient. I was lucky enough to find Dea Woods leaving when I stepped out Max’s front door. She eagerly accepted my request for a ride home.

  Max would be upset with me. Soon it would be the least of his complaints. And I’d rather be home when the drama went down than on his turf. Though I supposed technically the entire colony was his turf.

  I pushed the worry to the periphery of my mind while watching out Dea’s hybrid’s back window. Rich drove, which meant Dea could speak to me. She chatted about how she’d helped Dr. Yates perform the treatments on the other enthralled witches. I agreed it was good news. Nadir’s harem would be eradicated, or at least the ones I’d rescued. No one spoke the fear we all knew was there: that Nadir had many more harems around the world.

  Dea wished me a good night at the mouth of the apartment complex’s courtyard. I hiked my purse onto my shoulder, drew in a deep breath, and then made my way to my door. My fear was that someone would be waiting in my apartment. I’d asked Trip a question he hadn’t answered. But from his reaction, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what it would have been.

  I sighed in relief when I flipped the light on in the living room and found it empty. I could use my mother’s divine penlight to peek into the Spirit Realm. But I really didn’t want to know if Trip was hiding. Instead I dropped my purse on the breakfast bar and headed into the bedroom. Maybe tonight I could get back on my regular sleep schedule.

  An icy arm came around my throat, cutting off my next breath. My eyes shot wide. The skin was dark—toffee dark. This wasn’t Max. This was Nadir Khan.

  I called on Water, shooting an empathic link into him so I could work my will. “Let go!” I gasped beneath his arm, backing up the demand with a heady push of Water power.

  Nothing happened. With no air coming into my lungs, I panicked.

  Water hadn’t worked! But it had before! What had happened?

  “An anti-Water weave, cunt,” Nadir said. “Manipulate yourself out of this one!” A wicked cackle shook the chest behind me.

  My vision grew hazy from a lack of air. I thought I saw Trip—golden-haired, beautiful Trip—but it wasn’t the Trip of my present, it was the Trip of my past. The one who had mercilessly beaten me for years until I’d fought back. Until I’d learned to best him. What did it mean that images of him flashed before my eyes while dying rather than those of my own life? But … these were of my life.

  I choked, flagging in the foreign vampire’s arms. I couldn’t die yet, and definitely not by strangulation. It was too soon. I was just getting started!

  The memory of Trip sparked an idea. Necromancy. I’d just bet the dead asshole didn’t have a weave on him for that.

  I whispered to Death, noting the big chunk of it behind me. There was a soul in him, trapped and pained. But it was there nonetheless. I called on it, flexing spectral hands within its glowing seed until I had him.

  “Dead man.” I choked Fārsi through my clenched throat. “I have control of your spirit. You are bound in my service while I hold it. Release me.”

  Nadir’s fingers dropped away. I doubled over, gasping for air. The vampire’s outraged scream wasn’t promising.

  “Stop!” I hissed through a raw throat.

  His fingers reached my neck and halted.

  My body shook from how very close I’d come to the true afterlife. “Don’t touch me! Don’t move!”

  I stumbled away, slumping to the ground several feet from him on the living room’s travertine floor. His red-rimmed black eyes and snarling face proved he was ready to tear me apart. Nadir Khan would murder me if I didn’t find a way to make him leave for good.

  Things would be so much easier if I could kill him. But would my soul become tarnished even if the death were in self-defense? I wasn’t going to risk it. Not when it meant Trip would claim it.

  “I will destroy you!” Nadir roared in his impotent pose. “I’ll fucking track down your entire family and destroy them, too! I’ll turn you so I can skull fuck you every night until you beg me to end your existence!”

  The front door slammed open, doorknob crashing against the wall. I yelped and dove toward the kitchen island. A blur of motion implied someone supernatural had i
nterfered. My open channel to Death magic reported a second vampire.

  There was a loud crack, a sick slurping noise, and then a head and spinal cord slammed inches from me on the stone floor. I shrieked, scrambling away from the startled, blinking toffee face on the travertine tile. He was still alive!

  Another slurping noise saw to the end of that. Nadir’s red-rimmed eyes went dim in death. They rapidly shriveled until they were nothing more than sludge. The rest of his body decomposed within a second. Soon the only thing left of the foreign vampire was a pile of dust on my floor. I lay aghast, unable to process the events because of the level of horror I’d witnessed.

  A familiar face appeared in front of me. Max’s expression was drawn with worry. All I could do was stare at the stain on his sleeve.

  “You shouldn’t have left without me, or Javier, or Ali Mac,” he said. “What were you thinking?”

  I’d been thinking I’d needed to get away from him, Javier, and Ali Mac. I’d been thinking I’d be forcing Max to give me back the ring and dumping him as soon as we’d found a private moment.

  But he’d killed Nadir Khan, the undead Prince of Persia, to save me. What in Hades was I going to do now? This went beyond betraying his race. He risked war between the undead nations!

  Max made a sound of dismay. He disappeared into the kitchen. The sink’s faucet turned on. I soon understood what he was doing when I heard the tearing of a paper towel. He was washing up.

  Seconds later he was back, lifting me so he could carry me into the bedroom. I didn’t fight him when he set me on the bed. But I should have because the last things I remember were his milk chocolate eyes and his whisper for me to sleep.

  ****

  I woke with a start, springing out of bed onto my feet as if I was being attacked. A glance around the sunlit room proved I was alone. Last night returned in a rush of memories. A cold shudder passed over me when I thought of what I’d see when I turned around. But I had to look.

  I tiptoed into the living room, gaze already on the stone floor where a vampire had been brutally… What was that even called? Surely there was a name for it. It was beyond decapitation. Eviscerated? No, that involved bowels. I shuddered simply thinking of the term.

  But the floor was smooth. There wasn’t a speck of dust, a smudge of blood, or even a drop of goo. Either someone had cleaned my apartment or it had never happened.

  “Mornin’.”

  I shrieked at the rumbling voice, jumped into a defensive pose, and called on Water.

  A massive leather-coated frame hopped to its feet. “Whoa! Whoa! Hold up, lady! It’s just me!”

  Heart in my throat, I trembled even though I’d recognized Ali Mac. He’d scared the divine out of me.

  “You’re lucky I was half awake,” I said. “I could have really hurt you!”

  “Max has gotta start warnin’ you,” the werewolf said under his breath.

  “No shit.” I gestured at the floor I couldn’t seem to look away from. “Did someone clean up?”

  “Yeah.” His shaggy hair bounced with his nod. “Max had a crew in here to make it spotless for you. What happened anyway? He was adamant that I be inside today.”

  If Max hadn’t told him what had happened then I certainly wouldn’t offer the details. “Someone attacked me. He stopped them.” I let out a long yawn, and then realized what day it was. “Shit! What time is it?”

  “Uh…” He flipped open a phone from his pocket. “Quarter to eight. Why?”

  I dropped my head back. Thank the gods I hadn’t overslept again. It was one thing to make Desmond wait. It was an entirely different issue to delay the whole coalition.

  I would have liked to keep my business to myself, but since the guy was inside the apartment on Max’s orders, I figured I’d have to fight him to leave. “I have an appointment with the Centralized Coven Coalition at nine.”

  “You better get in the shower then.”

  Yeah, I’d better.

  I scrubbed the memory of my near death off as best I could beneath the heated water. But my neck was a ring of wicked looking bruises. I could have Healed them, but Max knew I’d been strangled. He would wonder how in Hades I’d lost the bruises overnight. I didn’t want him to know I could Heal, too. Not yet.

  I tried to cover them with make-up, but I didn’t have Hollywood grade stuff so it only looked like softened bruises. I washed it all off and then looked for something that would hide my neck without being suspicious in July.

  I found a high mandarin collar, cap-sleeved tunic in macchiato that I paired with black leggings. Instead of spiking my hair, I pulled the edges into black clips just above my ears. A dusting of make-up finished my sedate and almost professional look.

  After slipping my feet into my ballet flats, I joined Ali Mac in the living room. He dropped into place behind me like a proper bodyguard.

  We were both startled when Desmond appeared around the corner. And Desmond’s wide eyes were likewise surprised to discover us walking his way. The high priest cleared his throat, gaze shifting away before shifting back.

  “I came to make sure you didn’t sleep through the meeting,” he said.

  Should I be ticked or grateful? I’d have hurt myself if I’d slept through the meeting. But his reminder that I’d nearly slept through yesterday’s trip didn’t give me warm fuzzies.

  “I can drive her,” he said.

  “No offense, Dr. Marino, but she was attacked last night,” Ali Mac said. “Max has me on orders to guard her with my life every second of the day.”

  “Attacked? What happened?”

  Desmond didn’t sound quite as surprised as I thought he should. Maybe it was because I knew what had happened. And I knew it had been terrifying. Or maybe he’d already known about the attack.

  “You’ll have to ask her,” Ali Mac said. “But right now we gotta get her to that appointment so she ain’t late.”

  When the Water witch nodded begrudgingly, I decided having the wolf scare me half to death in my living room was worth it. He was guarding me from more than Nadir’s people and he didn’t even know it.

  Ali Mac guided me through the courtyard behind Desmond’s retreating figure. I didn’t argue when he put me in his pick-up truck. He could drive since I was still a little shaken up about last night. I probably shouldn’t have been taking advantage of him considering I’d be taking my ring back tonight. But why not use what had been offered while I still could?

  “We got a few minutes,” Ali Mac said. “Wanna stop for coffee?”

  “Gosh, yes,” I said with a small laugh.

  Maybe coffee would get me through the most important meeting of my life.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I stepped into the town hall’s main chamber with my latte in hand. An aisle cut between empty audience chairs. At least there’d be few witnesses to this morning’s spectacle.

  Tables were arranged in the shape of a horseshoe on a raised dais. Several familiar personalities sat behind them. But the one at the center caught my attention.

  Desmond watched me beneath hooded aqua eyes. Beside him were a gavel and its sound block. How could anyone doubt who was in charge when the Centralized Coven Coalition was arranged like this?

  My gaze tracked over the others around the space. To Desmond’s left (and thus my right) sat the regal Alina Kranz—Nell’s mother. She and the man with the salt and pepper hair in the seat on the corner ruled over Aer Association. But I’d been told Curtis Hawksley only attended weekend sessions. Why was he here?

  Dea Woods was at the perpendicular table to his left, restored in her position as the Earth witch monarchy’s ambassador. Beside Dea sat the dark hunk Eamonn Cary—the head of the Coven of Nyx.

  Viho Hiamovi’s sat nobly in the chair to Desmond’s right. The head of the Healers of America was the purest of his race left in the world. And with his dark brown-black hair and toasted skin, Viho looked as though he might also be the purest Native American in the country, too. Beside Viho in
the corner seat was stately Rhys Martland, one of the representatives of the Western Phoenix Coven. The Cult of Osiris rounded out the coalition. Their members were crazy-haired Andoni Arima and his Death witch co-leader—the African American woman at the table to Desmond’s right.

  Behind the horseshoe shaped table was a wooden pedestal holding a massive leather-bound book. The deep carvings in the cherry wood snagged my attention. In all of my research on Wipuk, witches, and the coalition, I’d never once turned up mention of any books on pedestals. It was worrying.

  “Please sit,” Desmond said in his blank, professional tone. His smooth cadence carried well over the space.

  Halfway between their tables and the audience seats was a single empty wooden chair like some sort of hot seat. I didn’t like the implication of that spot but could find no reason not to sit in it. I stepped forward, lowering myself onto the chair.

  “State your name.”

  The irritated shifting of the body behind me went ignored by Desmond but not his cohorts. Ali Mac had been allowed in the room and told to keep quiet. Apparently he’d give his opinion with body language alone.

  “Rebecca Kora Walsh.” My voice echoed in the wooden chamber louder than Desmond’s had. The witches focused on me again.

  “What is your faction and occupation, Ms. Walsh?”

  Why does this feel like a trial? I haven’t done anything! I inhaled a quick breath. “I’m a sorceress and owner of the shop called Rarities.”

  “Do you know why you’ve been called here today?”

  Desmond’s question made me want to snarl an answer about how I would have known if he’d warned me when he’d extended the invitation. Instead, I shook my head.

  He nodded to Dea.

  She took up the reins. “We’ve heard six witches’ testimonies, who swear under oath, that you rescued them from the vampire who had been keeping them in Las Vegas against their will. The six covens you helped would like to extend their sincerest gratitude. Your bravery and selflessness is an inspiration to us all. On behalf of myself, I would also like to extend my deepest thanks for the part you played in curing me of my blood bond. Consider yourself beneath our protection should other factions react badly to the discovery. We think of you as an honorary Earth witch, Ms. Walsh.”