Her breath caught in her throat. The rising vision pulled her in. It swallowed her whole until she was inside it.
Samantha tried to move, tried to turn, but the vision guided her. She was walking, and then arms captured her. They spun her around until her body slammed into a man’s. When the vision turned upward, the raven-man’s eyes bored into hers. They glowed, silver like the moon. His lips parted, and she caught a glimpse of sharp teeth. She could feel the hammer of her pulse in her throat.
His hand hooked into claws—no, talons. The tips of them pressed into her skin. The smallest of pressure would break her skin and open her vein. The threat of danger screamed along her skin. It sparked like static inside her chest.
Behind the raven-man, shadows danced like flickering flames. Heat licked at her face. Hell rode on his heels. Only, she couldn’t decide if it came with him or if it chased him.
Then, as soon as it had begun, the vision thrust her out. She slammed back into reality, gasping for breath. Her lungs burned from the lack of air. She grabbed at her throat, making sure the skin was still smooth and unbroken.
Across from her, Martha’s eyes were wide with fear. Later, Samantha would realize she’d cut a frightening image after a blood vessel had burst in her eye. Before she could stop her, Martha was scrambling out of her chair and running for the door.
The woman had disappeared without ever finding out the answer to her question. Samantha mourned the loss of information but hoped Martha would gather up the courage to leave her husband once and for all.
She paused, taking a picture of the card spread to email to Martha later, and gathered the cash the woman had left behind. At the very least, she could say she did her job if she sent the email. That way, Martha couldn’t come back and demand a refund. Not when Samantha needed the money.
Samantha threw open the door and glared up at the tree the raven-man had been perched on. Only, he was no longer there. She jumped when he appeared to her left, seated on her porch swing. He changed from raven to man so quickly, so quietly. Still, she hoped no one else on her street had seen it.
At the sight of her, he rose and stepped forward. “Are you alright?” His nose wrinkled.
She thought the sulfur scent of hell had followed her until she realized he was smelling the sage she’d burnt before the session. It clung to her sweater and she found herself pulling it tighter as if the lingering smell could chase away the vision that had entranced her only moments ago.
Still, the raven-man watched her with caution. If she wasn’t wrong, she thought she saw a bit of concern there, too. That was funny coming from a man she was sure would attack her eventually. The vision had made it clear. He’d come to threaten her into submission. Perhaps he’d finally gotten sick of the curse. Maybe, he just found the weakest link in the Carver bloodline.
Samantha raised her chin. She refused to be the weakest link. This man would not win against her. He would continue to live out the punishment her ancestor had placed upon him. She took a step back, past the threshold of her house so that the wards would keep his hands away from her.
He noted the movement, eyes tracking her feet and the line she’d drawn. There was no malice in his expression, though she still searched for it.
“How long do you plan on stalking me? I know it’s the Halloween season, but I’m not in the mood for horror.”
The corner of his mouth quirked in what could have been a touch of humor. It made his eyes seem softer. They took on a touch of green, like sea foam.
What was she doing? Studying him? She tore her eyes away from him and waited for his answer as she inspected the line of sigils drawn inside the door frame.
“I’m not going anywhere until you agree to help me. The world is in danger until you get rid of this curse on me. I think I’ve served my sentence.” His words became a growl, greedy and demanding.
Samantha’s spine straightened. “Oh, so you think just because you’re sick of dealing with this curse, that you can threaten others and make me do your bidding? That’s why you’re never going to be free of it. You haven’t changed at all.”
The smile vanished. He didn’t scowl or snarl, like she expected. Instead, his lips set into a grim line. She noted the tension in his jaw. A muscle ticked just as he turned away from her. She felt like there was something missing, something she didn’t understand. It was clear he was keeping secrets from her. Samantha just didn’t know what kind of secrets he kept.
“Can you at least tell me your name, so I know who to tell off when I yell at you?”
“Your family told you bedtime stories of the man your great grandmother cursed, but they didn’t bother to tell you his name?” His eyes were trained on the car parked in her driveway. His nose wrinkled. Samantha was about to defend her junker, when he spoke again. “My name is Ciaran.”
She rolled the word around her mouth. It tasted familiar, like a memory in the back of her mind. Perhaps someone had told her his name, once upon a time, and then she’d forgotten it. Standardized tests and tarot card meanings had taken up too much space. What was the point in keeping the name of a man she’d never thought she’d meet?
Apparently, she’d been very wrong.
Still, Ciaran stared at her car. His scowl deepened.
“What is your problem?” She snapped. The temptation to step past the threshold and the wards pulled her forward. She caught herself half way and stepped back.
“Your car is leaking something,” Ciaran commented. “Oil, maybe. It’s hard to tell by smell alone. Sometimes all chemicals smell the same.”
She raised her brow. “Thanks for the warning.”
Eyeing him, she pushed past him, as if to say she wasn’t afraid of him. A purple flyer hung out the mouth of her mailbox. Samantha snatched it and tried to steady her pace to keep from dashing back inside. A part of her wished her mother was still around, but she knew she couldn’t keep relying on others all the time.
Samantha needed to learn to stand on her own two feet. She’d been trying to write her own spells, concoct her own potions, and had been searching for her own set of tarot cards. It was difficult to break from what she knew worked, but every Carver witch had her own way of doing things.
“What’s that?” Ciaran jerked his chin toward the paper in her hand.
She turned it over, gave it a perfunctory glance, and flipped it to show Ciaran. Every year, there was a town-wide haunted house contest. At least one house on every street participated. The prizes had steadily gotten bigger and bigger each year. She remembered her family wrapping the house in magic to create the wildest haunted house. Her mother had won a few times, only losing to the guy who bought the biggest animatronics from the pop-up Halloween shops.
Samantha had yet to win.
“That prize would be a good replacement for your car over there.”
“Huh?” Samantha turned the flyer back over. At the bottom of the page was the grand prize, emblazoned in black ink. A brand new sedan.
Samantha looked to the car parked in her driveway. She never bothered putting it in the garage, leaving it to rust in the rain because it was already three quarters rust. There were patches of white bonding agent on the doors, covering holes that had rusted away long ago, that had never been painted.
“That thing is a death trap, just so you know.”
“Thanks, Ciaran. If you don’t kill me, it’s good to know my car will finish the job.” She was being sassy, but the truth was, all she wanted to do was scurry inside.
Somewhere in that massive Victorian was a stack of handwritten journals. One of them would have the secret to banishing him to the inbetween, the place her ancestor bound him to. Any time he came back to them to end his incarceration, a Carver witch could banish his mind and leave his body trapped as a bird. The bird would fly away and forget what happened while he got what he deserved.
She stopped in the doorway, pausing to glance back at the man on her lawn. He didn’t seem as dangerous as everyone claimed. If a
nything, he seemed like a man adrift. His pale eyes seemed lost, stuck on her car as if it were some kind of anchor. It was hard to believe he might have killed her great-grandfather.
“Touch my car and you’re getting a one-way ticket to the inbetween.” She closed the door between them before he could say anything.
Later, while digging out the old Halloween decorations, she rifled through some of the old grimoires to see if she could find the spell that would get rid of the raven outside. Of course, he watched her from that branch, back in his raven form. Every now and then, Samantha waved or picked up a plastic skeleton to make it wave at Ciaran.
After a while, the exchange started to feel natural, as if he’d always been there. Samantha had to stop herself, throwing down the skeleton before she attached herself to the monster. He wasn’t a friend. There was no way she could allow herself to trust him.
Chapter Four
Ciaran sighed. No one had told her. It seemed the witches had buried the truth, swept it under the rug and warped the story so that it was unrecognizable. He shouldn’t have been surprised. More time had passed than he realized. Generations had come and gone, leaving nothing but Samantha behind.
His curse…it was a strange circumstance. As angry as he was about what happened, he knew it was an accident. The years of torment that he’d endured had warped his mind. It amplified his anger until he became a sharpened blade aimed toward the ones who cursed him. It was a struggle to turn the blade away, to remember what actually happened.
The memories were foggy, as if someone had pulled a veil between him and his own life. Yet, what he remembered the most was her face. With so many years separating them, Ciaran knew now that what he felt for her had been lust. He was ashamed to admit it, as if it sullied her memory.
Through the window, he could see the Carver witch asleep on a couch in her office. There were old journals spread over her lap and Halloween decorations helter-skelter on the floor. Plastic skeletons looked like murder victims having a party, and plastic pumpkins overturned with streamers spilling out their tops looked like cartoonish cracked skulls. Neither were going to win the haunted house competition for her.
Ciaran kicked himself for not even getting her name. He flapped his wings, restless. If he stared at the room too long, the plastic skeletons turned into familiar bodies. The moment of his curse replayed before his eyes. The scene was fuzzy at the edges, but the blade in his heart was still sharp.
He forced his gaze away, turned it toward the witch on the couch. She curled in on herself, the leather-bound book falling to the floor. The bandana in her hair had slipped off and her curls were set free. Her skin was dusky in the dark room. The autumn sun had lit the shades of bronze and gold on her cheekbones and chest.
Her great-grandmother had been pale, English all the way back to the castle her ancestors had built and lost. This witch seemed different. The bloodlines had been mixed, casting this new witch. Where her great-grandmother had been sharper, lips in a perfect cupid’s bow and brows thin and delicate, this witch was softer.
Ciaran couldn’t help but notice the plush parts of her body that beckoned him. Her lips were full, and her brow was bold over her daring eyes. He saw the quake in her fingers when she stepped past the wards of the house earlier.
This one wasn’t going to let him push her around. He was going to have to work to make her do as he asked. Too much was at stake to allow her to push back. He needed to be forceful. He doubted she often had to deal with demons and hell. Then again, why else would she have such strong wards?
The Carver witches knew about all the evils in the world. They would not let such dark things overtake them, either.
He nestled in, letting his eyes drift shut for the night, a short prayer flitting through his mind that asked the dreamscape to stay far away. The inbetween was what the witch had called it. He’d never had a name for the nightmare that trapped his mind from time to time. All he knew was that it would steal from him anywhere from a year to ten at a time.
Just as he was about to drift off, the sound of howls sliced through the night. They were distant, but the sound still shook through him. His feathers ruffled, and he leapt into the air without thinking. The air carried him away from the witch’s house. It brought him to the river that snaked through the orange and red trees.
Under the moon, the water looked like diamonds falling over glass. It ran through the center of town. He followed it away, the howls growing distant behind him. The demon was not far behind his beloved trackers. They would find him here.
He shouldn’t have been afraid, but the thought of getting the witch hurt prickled at the edges of his mind. Images of her in the demon’s hands tumbled through his head. He tried to shake free of the images, but the sound of her scream pierced his ears.
The raven quaked, wings losing the current he’d floated on. Before he knew what he was doing, he’d spun back toward town. His heart raced. He shouldn’t care about her. The last time he’d cared about a Carver witch, she’d left him with a curse.
The town rose around him once more. Brick buildings parted the spread of treetops. Roads cut through nature, the world carefully manicured around them. What was he going to do? How did he think he could save the witch? The only thing Ciaran was doing was putting himself in trouble’s arms. Once he arrived, the demon would take from him what he’d been hunting this whole time.
Still, Ciaran raced toward the familiar Carver manor. The tower appeared over the rooftops. A soft glow emanated from the office atop it. His heart thumped. The witch was somewhere inside, screaming.
No, that wasn’t right. He hadn’t heard her scream again.
Below, the familiar glowing shapes of the demon’s hellhounds prowled the streets, unearthly white bodies the size of small bears glowing like the moon in the night. They sniffed up and down, searching for his scent. It would be all over the Carver manor after his arrival. Eventually, the hounds would find it.
The scream had been a trick. Whether a trick of his mind or of the demon, he wasn’t sure. Ciaran wanted to kick himself for being a fool. Either way, he’d fallen for it and would find himself in the demon’s hands sooner or later.
Ciaran perched on the top of the tower, talons gripping an old weather vane as he watched the hellhounds prowl below. They glowed, an infernal light coming from between their silhouetted ribs, as if hell itself burned inside them. Their eyes had the same light. When they looked up, Ciaran shivered. He was glad to know the place that stole his mind was not hell, but a kind of purgatory.
He didn’t want to know what hell looked like.
If he was stupid, everyone would know what it looked like. The demon hunted him because of the magic that rested in his feathers. The enchantress, the Carver witch that had cursed him, left a bit of herself in his raven form. Even though she and her power were long gone, the echo of it remained in him.
Apparently, the demon thought that was enough. Ciaran’s feathers would be the key to hell, opening a gate to let bigger and badder demons into the world. No matter what kind of man Ciaran thought himself to be, he wasn’t the kind to doom the world to hellish ruination. That left him in a pickle.
He didn’t want to deal with the demon, didn’t want to spend his life running from it. Yet, as he watched one of the hellhounds inch closer and closer to the witch’s house, a fighting spirit roused inside him.
Fear and anger roared as he spread his wings. The hound leapt over the fence and ran toward the front door. Ciaran bolted toward the first mutt. At the last second, he pulled his wings back and his talons swung forward. They sank into flesh like leather. He left gashes, the mutt’s blood burning his legs.
The hound spun toward him, distracted now. Ciaran had given himself away. The hound’s eyes found him. They would not leave him until the mutt was dead or Ciaran was captured. He wanted to kick himself, but instead beat his wings against the air. The hound’s teeth snapped behind him. The mutt’s bite grazed his talons, but Ciaran managed to
evade it.
Just as he spun to fly away, massive wings beating the air to rise above the manor, he saw the other hellhound bounding toward the door. His stomach clenched. He knew what he was about to do was a bad idea, and yet he did it anyway.
Ciaran’s raven pulled back and booted feet hit the ground. The echo of the curse swirled around him as his body appeared. His feet made no sound as he raced toward the second beast. Just before the creature reached the door, he brought his fist down. It crashed into the leathery skull.
Pain rocketed from his knuckles to his shoulder, but he didn’t let go. He gripped the beast and threw it away from the manor. The hellhound rolled away, and a sense of triumph flooded him. He moved to step toward the fallen beast just as teeth sank into his shoulder. Ciaran dropped to his knees.
The first hound, the one he’d sliced with his talons, shook its head, teeth digging deeper. He could feel hot blood pouring down his skin. The sharp teeth had pierced the thick leather of his motorcycle jacket and now ground against the bone of his shoulder. Cringing and fighting against the pain overtaking his body, he reached back and gripped the beast.
He used his whole body to fling the beast over his shoulder. Teeth ripped out from his flesh, but the beast hit the ground with a satisfying thump. It squirmed on its back, fighting to get free as Ciaran held it down. The second beast rolled onto its feet and narrowed its gaze at Ciaran.
It would attack soon. Ciaran knew it. He tightened his grip around the first beast’s throat beneath him. His body tensed, preparing for the second beast’s pounce, but it never came. As the beast beneath him went limp, the second seemed to weigh its options. Ciaran stared it down, breathing heavy.
The hellhound shifted from foot to foot before finally deciding to turn and run. It would let Ciaran live tonight, but it was going to run right back to its demon handler. Ciaran let out a sigh. There was no fight left in his body. He should have chased after the second hellhound, stopped it from leading its master back to the Carver manor, but he didn’t have it in him.
The Raven Curse Page 2