I might not make it out of this. In fact, neither Angel or I probably wouldn’t make it out of this clusterfuck. What kind of white witches try to take over the world for the greater good of supers and humans? Not any that I know. I take that back. Considering they lived with me for years and I had no idea they were planning a coup.
Worse, I felt like an idiot for putting up with their crap for so long. On top of the fact that I was tied up and likely about to be murdered again.
Tiffani crouched down to meet my eyes. “I promise we will make it as painless as possible. Unlike the last time. And please know that you are making a noble sacrifice. As all dark magic users should be doing the same.”
I glared at her, wishing they hadn’t blocked out my power. It was right there. I could almost feel it inside me. It wouldn’t take much to gouge her eyes out with her so close to me. Sam lay in a heap on the other side of the building. Not that I would trust him anymore either. The bastard. Was there no one in the world worth the effort?
A fluttered of movement came from near my head, and I glanced toward Angel. He didn’t have his eyes open but kicked me gently, and I kicked him back before Tiffani’s sister, Melanie, grabbed me by the hair and dragged me across the dirty cold floor. If I got out of this, she would need a new set of teeth.
When she stopped, I realized she’d tossed me in the center of a ritual circle drawn in chalk marker on the floor. Smart to use a marker that didn’t smudge. Leave it to these three to create a perfect ritual in the midst of betrayal, murder, and usurption.
But a perfect ritual also required cooperation from the sacrifice. I needed a little help if I was going to screw this up for them. A witch can channel power in emergencies, if need be, when life and death are on the line. Seeing as death is never really on the line for me, I’d never done it. Especially not with a magical firewall force field in place. But, with Angel’s life in peril, mine actually was too. I needed to put myself in a more mortal position. And I needed the witch bitch’s help to do it. This was going to hurt.
I called out to Tiffani. “What’s the plan here, boss? We discussed the fact that I don’t die right?”
Tiffani, who stood talking to her sisters in low tones, barely spared me a glance. While she looked away, I tried yet again to loosen the bonds of the rope tied around my hands and ankles. No dice. Any other day, and I’d be impressed with the thorough dedication to getting evil correct. Being on the receiving end, not so much.
Trying to goad them some more, I called out to Melanie. “Mel, Bitch-With-The-Voodoo-Vag, you should probably check on your boyfriend.”
Melanie’s hands clenched hard at her side, and she shifted like she might stalk my way, but Tiffani grabbed her upper arm with a shake. Like we all didn’t know who was in charge in this circle.
I let out a sigh. So much for that plan. I guess I’d have to wait and see if something kicked in during the main event. These witches probably thought the firewall would keep my magic from assisting me, and I was hoping they were wrong.
The three of them broke up, and Melanie circled around me to kick me in the back. I pushed a gust of air out of my lungs as pain rang through my body, clearing my head. “I think that was my kidney,” I complained.
Melanie leaned down and whispered in my ear. “You should be grateful. We are going to finally break your family’s curse. Isn’t that what you always wanted?”
Definitely not at the cost of an entire white coven. Nor the loss of the people I cared about. Not that it mattered now. They lit the candles and placed them around the circle, and I watched, carefully trying to pick apart any flaw in the plan, the magic, the circle, or them.
Nothing.
I pushed out a breath again and closed my eyes to examine the force field. It glowed bright as I pushed against it. I wasn’t getting through it.
“We are going to take out your dark power, and you will be free of its influence,” Tiffani announced.
Keeping my eyes closed, still prodding, I answered back. “No, thanks.”
Not that they listened. I was basically talking to myself at this point. Was this how it ended, me tied up, and muttering to myself?
The witches began chanting, and their combined magic and that of the coven’s surged through the room. I stayed still, trying to feel out what was happening and if I could influence it. But so far, I still had my magic and less patience.
Time seemed to slow down for a moment, the flames on the candles danced but in jerking fragments. I watched them until something near my belly clenched up. I blinked in surprise and then curled over trying to stop it. My magic. I could feel it bundled there in a tight knot waiting to be jerked from my body. I closed my eyes and concentrated on seeing the landscape in the room. All the magic laid out on a neat little grid. The white witches were there, receptors for any kinds of magic, I was not a receptor, black magic was more of an instigator.
The curl of my magic began to float out of me, and between the next seconds, Angel let out a sigh, and I noticed, he too was a receptacle for magic. He was always with me. I’d considered him part of my family, but no, his white magic family had cursed mine centuries ago. It was time to return the favor. I used all the strength I could muster through the cold and pain and pushed that magic at Angel.
It happened fast and hard. He jerked, and then everything froze, and the world started to get fuzzy.
A witch can’t live without her magic. If they didn’t get my magic, at least Angel could save himself. I could do something right with my miserable life for once.
“What did you do?” Tiffani’s voice brought me from the edge of oblivion, and I laughed. I tried to speak, but I couldn’t form a smart ass reply in my mind to do the look on her face justice.
“Now, we will just tear your friend apart piece by piece until we can get what we need.”
Angel rolled on to his back, the spill of his white gold hair still bright even in the darkness. A beautiful man. A beautiful brother.
His body seized, and I braced my weight onto my elbows, even in the haze, trying to get to him. When he woke, he would be scared. He needed me. Even as I thought it, I knew I wasn’t going to make it.
Despite our family’s animosity toward each other, I didn’t have any ill will toward Angel. He was just a kid, and he would need help once I was gone. At least he didn’t have to hide out in graveyards with a shovel anymore.
I felt it the moment Angel’s eyes opened. He gasped and seized again, his back arching off the ground.
“Angel,” I called. Melanie stalked over and kicked me again. The world blinked out for a second, and then I returned. “You need to use my magic to get rid of these Maleficent wannabes. Just close your eyes, feel the magic, and direct it.”
His hands reached out and scraped through the dirt on the floor. The little light glinted off the tears streaming from his eyes. I hated that I had to do this to him, but it was the only way I could save him.
“Angel,” I whispered, crawling forward. My strength began to blink out, the magic gone, and I felt bone dry from it. A husk of a person in an empty shell. Was this what Angel lived with all his life?
I managed to reach his hand and grabbed it with my own. Melanie sent another kick toward my stomach, but I held on through the pain, squeezing his hand until he could answer in kind.
Melanie was at her limit. She grabbed my hair at the crown and dragged me almost on top of Angel. With a knife in her hand she pressed it to the side of his throat while she lifted me by the hair up to so I could see his face. “Now as you die, you can watch me kill him,” she hissed. “It doesn’t matter that he has your magic. He doesn’t know what to do with it.”
The point broke his skin, and a trail of blood slipped down his neck. I smiled to myself. She didn’t know how black magic worked, either, or she would have never brought the knife near him.
“What kind of white witch are you?” I asked and squirmed in an attempt to distract her. As she looked away, I jammed her elbow with my
arm, and it caused her to slide the knife down the side of his neck smooth and shallow. Blood welled out and over the cut like a macabre waterfall. It wouldn’t bleed for very long, so I needed him awake.
“Angel, this is it.”
His eyes flashed open just as my world started to go gray around the edges. He met my gaze and then let out a breath. Melanie went sailing backward, releasing me, and my head hit hard on the concrete.
Then I heard screaming, and all I could do was roll over and let it sing me to sleep. The sounds of my enemies dying as I did. No better way to go out I supposed. Maybe if I could kick Sam in the balls one last time, that might be the cherry on top.
Some more screams and splatters, and I curled up in a ball. Everything grew cold and calm until the room went quiet. A cool hand scooped at the back of my neck, but it took too much to open my eyes. It had to be Angel. “When I die,” I whispered. “Burn the shoebox in the back of my closet.”
“I’ll take care of it,” a deep and rumbly male voice said. Not one I recognized, but, they weren’t kicking me, pulling my hair anymore.
“Tell Angel he can have my liquor. Or whatever is left over. He’s going to need it after this.”
A low rumble from the person holding me up now, clutching me tight to his chest where it was warmer. Only then did I notice the tremors dancing along my limbs. I couldn’t feel them at all. Not surprising. So far this wasn’t the worst death I’d had, including the last murder, and the witch bitch’s.
“Tell Sam I forgive him too. And that he is a dickhead.”
Another rumble of noise that seemed to vibrate into my sides, igniting the pain there, and I tried to open my eyes to look at him. Broken ribs. That’s it. Or see Angel one more time.
“I’m glad that Gods Damned bell is gone for good,” were the last words I could muster before the gray edges of what little I could see coalesced. It was time to be with my family after so long. The dark was me. The dark was home. The dark was freedom.
Chapter 12
Sometimes I wake early.
It’s why I started making Angel add in an oxygen tank as discreetly as he could to my caskets. I let out a sigh of relief as I bashed my ankle against the metal canister. Then dug the cellphone from the pocket inside my dress. It was a burner, but I could text by pressing each letter 500 times.
I could hear the very faint murmur of voices, which meant I was attending my own funeral. Strange and a little narcissistic. I wondered who showed up.
I shot Angel a text. How’s the turn out?
It took a few minutes despite our relatively close proximity, that is, if he came to my funeral. After this death, he better have shown up.
Turn out is the usual. Although there is a man here that is causing everyone to freaking out.
Only one man in my life that could garner a reaction like that. I honestly didn’t expect many to show up. It had only been weeks between this death and the last, and I never had time to rebuild my life. Make new friends. And the friends who actually knew about my predicament would have stopped coming to these things a while ago if Angel didn’t open up the bar at our house afterward.
I lay back on the pillow and let out a slow sigh, careful with the oxygen. I guess with the white witches’ mutiny, I needed to find some new roommates. The fairy probably already had a place. After the events of the week, it would probably be hard to advertise for one.
I texted Angel again. Any ideas to fill the roommate holes? Maybe not murderous wenches this time.
A few seconds passed, and he responded. Damn. I was looking forward to murderous wenches. They are so much more interesting than the non-murderous kind.
I couldn’t help smiling. You’re a smart ass, did you know that?
And with the whole deaf-mute thing, not many get the full experience.
I wondered if Sam was out there. And if before I texted Angel, if they questioned me rising at all. Not having my magic felt terrible, and as I lay on the floor dying, I wasn’t even sure if I would rise again. Sam would have a lot of nerve coming here.
The moment the last breath left my body had been different this time. I knew it was coming, rushing, breathing down my neck, but I wanted it. For the first time, thinking about not rising, filled me with a sense of relief. I’d lived so many lives. Was it so much to ask for a rest?
I stared up at the satin lining of my casket. I guess it was too much to ask. Maybe it was time to figure out how to break the curse. Not that me, or Angel, hadn’t tried. But it was never very enthusiastic. Just a general, in case of X press X, sort of research. The curse performed by our families wasn’t meant to last this long. The combination of the magic had basically caused the spell to combust into whatever form it would take. That resulted in our current situation. And it took decades to get the mechanics of it all right.
Angel was the current in a long line of keepers for me. And I didn’t think I wanted to live to make it to another one. One good solid well-lived life was the desire I feared saying out loud in the dark of the night. Now, laying in my coffin, the very idea seemed ridiculous. After everything I survived and everything I perpetrated in that survival, did I deserve a good life?
I ran my thumbs down the phone’s track pad and thought about Angel and Sam. They were essentially my family now. We’d forged a bond in blood and magic. How did they feel about it?
Did you guys wonder if I would rise?
The light from the phone’s display reflected off the surface of the bell, as usual, tied to my wrist. Obviously, they hoped I would rise since they prepared me for it.
Sam was worried. I can feel that you would.
He’d never told me that he could feel when I rose. You mean you can feel when I wake, or like, just that I’m here?
Several minutes passed, and I feared he wasn’t going to answer. Both I guess.
I rolled my eyes. You are so bad at keeping a girl occupied while she’s waiting to be dug out of her grave.
He didn’t respond, and I closed the phone to conserve the battery. Now to wait. The voices outside had died. I checked the time, a little after six pm. It would be dark by now so it might be safe to climb out.
I let out a long sigh and prepared myself for the mentally awful process of climbing out of my own grave. It had gotten easier over the years physically, but not mentally.
A creak of the wood above my head made me pause. I slipped the phone into my dress pocket and felt at the seams around my head. Another creak and I jerked my hands back.
A tremor went through the casket, and I slapped my hands out to the sides to hold on to the edges. “What the hell?” I said, more to calm myself than expecting an answer.
The casket shook hard and around me, and I tried to think of what the hell could be happening. An earthquake? I’d never been in the grave during an earthquake. What would that do to me? It would suck so hard to be killed before I even got out of the box.
Something outside the casket thumped, and then the world shifted, and I careened toward the side of the casket. “What the hell?” I yelled this time.
Then the wood was wrenching, and I threw my arms over my head and curled up in a ball.
A bright white light broke through the gaps in my arms, and I looked up against the glare to three figures. Sam and Angel I recognized. Michael I could feel as much as see, his magic like a beacon in a storm.
“Well, a little head’s up would have been nice,” I grumbled, pushing off the edges and climbing out into the softly turned Earth, sinking down a couple inches. Angel grabbed the bell on my wrist and untied it. With my release, I let out a long sigh and felt more myself. Well, minus a few hundred year’s worth of magic.
Sam reached out and helped me away from the hole and onto more solid ground. “You’re welcome for not making you climb out of there on your own.”
I pushed him away from me hard enough he stumbled. “You’re fucking welcome. Is that what you just said to me?”
I spun to Angel. “Blast him with my magic
please. Make it painful.”
“No,” answered a deep voice I recognized from right before I blacked out. Sam forgotten, I faced Angel fully now.
“Did I enter the Twilight Zone?” Not only was Angel speaking, but I remembered every second of my last death.
He shook his head. “I’m not going to hurt Sam. He helped me get out of there with you. He helped save us.”
I charged forward, barely staying upright on the sinking dirt. “No, newsflash, I saved us by giving you my magic. Sam did nothing but help those bitches and get us kidnapped in the first place.”
Angel huffed. “Well, we are at an impasse then. I’m not hurting Sam. And he’s right. You didn’t have to dig out of the ground this time.”
Okay, the man had a point. I’d never had anyone dig me out before. I never considered it as an option. “That was actually pretty fast work.”
Sam gestured to Michael. “He did it with magic.”
I flicked my eyes up and then looked away before addressing him. “I appreciate the fact that you helped me.”
I didn’t look to see his face. Sam flinched back. He must be smiling. “You know my kind rather well if you know enough not to say thank you.”
I nodded. “I’ve been around a little while, at least.”
“Then it was my pleasure to help you, and I would cash in my time with you now.”
He couldn’t have surprised me more. “Uh...I just died. Can I get a minute to recover.”
Now I watched him closely, and he shook his head. “My apologies, but time is of the essence, and I have already lost much in researching you and your abilities.”
I waved at Angel. “My abilities are pretty limited at the moment. Angel has every bit of my magic right now. Until I get it back, I can’t do much of anything.”
“I will tell you my proposition, help you regain your ability, and we will assess from there,” he said it with all the authority of a man who never heard no.
I let out a long sigh and stared up at him. “Fine, but no glamour, and we do this at my home, not yours or anywhere else.”
To the Grave Page 7