A Wicked Magic

by Sasha Laurens

  The rock pressed against her back and her chest and her neck and her knees. What if it got so close she’d have to struggle to breathe? Dan gasped in a breath and felt the rock push back. Her pulse spiked.

  No, she told herself. She forced her focus to Johnny. Zephyr. Lorelei. They needed saving, and they couldn’t save themselves, so she was going to help them if it killed her.

  Dan pushed on through the tunnel of rock, until she wormed her first leg free, then her shoulder, then stumbled out onto a narrow crescent of stony beach. She scanned the area, but Keith and Zephyr must have already moved on: no headlamps in sight. Dan clicked hers on, then pressed her face back to the keyhole. “It’s not that bad,” she called back to them.

  Dan was watching Alexa worm her way through the passage, her headlamp on for safety, when pain exploded through her shoulder. Something in her neck cracked and she went down hard, face forward, on the sawtooth rocks.

  She rolled over just in time to see Keith pull his leg back and land a kick in her gut.

  Dan didn’t even manage to scream.

  She had never felt pain like this before—bewildering, star-bursting—and she knew it hadn’t even fully arrived yet, but was still getting worse. She curled herself into a ball as best she could against Keith’s blows. She was dimly aware of her arms trying to make some kind of attempt at crawling away, and another separate part of her brain reminded her that that never worked in movies.

  And suddenly Keith stopped. Dan froze too, as if moving would set him off again.

  Alexa was there, her headlamp blazing like the white beacon of an angel.

  “. . . to help you,” Dan made out Alexa saying. “We’re not following you. Kasyan called us to your aid. Why else would we be here?”

  Before her, Keith’s eyes were red-rimmed and wild, his face pouchy and bloated. “The Lord speaks only to me.”

  “He spoke to us too. He sent us to help you.” Alexa was managing to keep her voice even. She hadn’t even looked at Dan. “We’re here for you.”

  Keith’s mouth pulled into an sneer of confusion. “I wasn’t circled in on this plan.”

  “The Lord, um, circles each of us in differently,” Alexa said. “We know about the spell—spilling blood and all that. We heard it from him.”

  Just then, Liss pulled free of the keyhole and rushed to Dan. “How bad are you hurt?”

  Dan managed to get up to a seated position and gingerly tested her shoulder. It was sore, and her neck ached, but the rock he’d hit her with had thankfully missed her head. As for her stomach, she wasn’t sure. Keith was wearing those shoes that separated each toe, which had softened his blows a little. “I’m fine—I mean, I’m hurt but I can keep going.”

  Keith was still considering Alexa, his jaw working as if he were chewing on his tongue. “If you’re lying, the Lord will discover you soon. Five is auspicious, better than two. Let’s move.”

  When Alexa turned to Liss and Dan, Dan could have sworn she saw fire in her eyes.

  Alexa

  Alexa hung back as Keith grabbed the rope tied to Zephyr’s wrists and led them on.

  Her mouth tasted of bile, and she was sure she smelled like smoke. Every square inch of her body was trembling just from being near him. His white cargo shorts were streaked with grime from the keyhole (honestly, what was the point of white cargo shorts?), his white veneers were too big and bright for his mouth.

  She could kill him right there on the rocks. She wasn’t sure exactly how but the roiling fire in her blood meant her magic would find a way, right now, if she let it. She flexed her hands, cracking her knuckles. Getting revenge on Keith for what he did to Lorelei had always been her goal, after all, and without Keith, Kasyan would stay in his cave, maybe forever.

  That meant leaving Johnny in there with him.

  When Alexa heard Keith turn on Dan, she had screamed. She screamed the whole time she was pushing herself through that horrible mini-cave thing. She had a dozen bruises and her glasses were scratched, and her heartbeat was nearly at actual explosion-level intensity when she finally made it out.

  She hadn’t cared about Keith then at all, only about Dan. It wouldn’t be fair to her or to Liss, and definitely not to Johnny, if she got her revenge on Keith before they made it to Kasyan.

  Some quieter part of her whispered that it wouldn’t be fair to Keith either. Lorelei always said Keith was more vain and self-obsessed than evil—that was back before Alexa knew Keith was literally the conduit for a demon. That was how Alexa had known what to say to convince him to let them join him: people like that were too ready to believe the story was about them. Why wouldn’t Kasyan send three high school girls to him, like cherries on top of whatever else Keith had been promised?

  But whatever Keith was after, he wasn’t getting a fair deal either— he just didn’t know it yet. Already he was acting possessed, as twitchy and rattled as a meth-head. Keith might be terrible, criminal, and dangerously stupid, but Alexa trusted that he would get what was coming to him. She couldn’t sell out Dan, Liss, and Johnny just to make sure it was by her own hand.

  She took a deep breath, willed her magic to submission, and focused her attention from Keith to Zephyr, stumbling behind Keith over the rocks. The purple-gray electricity racing over her skin was beautiful, transfixing even. It was bright enough that Alexa could see it snaking across her body through her wet, wholly unsuitable dress. But Zephyr’s face, when Alexa had seen it, was horrifying. Her jaw hung slack, and her eyes had a terrible faraway look, and her pupils were too large, like everything she was seeing was out of focus. Whatever had made Zephyr Zephyr was missing—whether it had been pushed out by all that electricity, or was hidden somewhere deep, Alexa didn’t know. She hoped it hadn’t been stolen for good.

  They passed under an arch of rock and then traversed another half-submerged promontory. Alexa was the last to creep around the cliff’s edge, her feet freezing as the waves slapped against the rocks. When she made it to the other side, they hadn’t gone ahead.

  Her breathing hitched.

  Before them was a low black opening in the cliff. The tide surged against their legs, pushing salt water through the maze of cracks and crevices at the cave’s dark mouth.

  “Onward!” Keith commanded them.

  Liss

  Liss had never thought about it before, but a cave at night was pretty much the darkest place you could be—dark like Volunin’s eyes had been dark, dark like there could be rocks inches from your face and you’d never see them. The headlamps’ beams seemed only to concentrate the dark outside their sweep. Liss was glad she’d insisted on fresh batteries for everyone before Icaria.

  At least they’d never lose Zephyr. She was lit up like a neon sign, with purple sparks chasing themselves over her skin. Liss hoped Zephyr felt better than she looked, which was really not good. Liss suspected that they would need to run at some point if they all wanted to get out of here alive, and this wasn’t exactly easy terrain for a jog, especially after you’d been held captive by a deranged cult leader. Everywhere, still, there was freezing seawater. It still rushed under their feet with the pulse of the tide, and the rocks were still slick with Liss didn’t want to know what. The ceiling was low enough that Keith, the tallest of them, had to duck occasionally.

  If they were lucky, maybe he’d knock himself out.

  The farther they went, the shallower Liss’s breathing got as she tried to avoid thinking about how deep into the cliff they’d traveled. Or how frequently earthquakes struck North Coast’s fault line, or the eventual inundation of the cave, or how if the passage got any narrower it would be hard for them to turn around. Her mind ran through all the different ways they could be trapped until she was too anxious even to count to four and back because she wasn’t even really anxious anymore: she was scared. It wasn’t only the claustrophobia. They were basically trapped already: nowhere else to go, no pl
an, nothing they could do but follow Keith wherever he led. That was basically doing nothing at all. Liss’s chest practically seized with the force of that powerlessness.

  Just when she thought she might stop breathing entirely, their way sloped abruptly upward—as did the ceiling, thankfully—and opened out onto a chamber. It was high enough that they all could stand comfortably, and despite the rough walls, the cavern was clearly not a natural formation. For one, the ground was more or less even. For two, the place positively reeked with magic. Liss had always been convinced her magical Scooby sense was a lot weaker than Dan’s and now clearly Alexa’s, but even she could feel it. The air should have been musty and stale, but instead it crackled with magic, the same way the purple lightning was crackling over Zephyr’s skin.

  Zephyr could feel it too. She’d dropped to her knees as soon as they arrived, and now she looked like she was struggling not to vomit.

  A few seconds later she lost her struggle all over the cavern’s floor. Even her puke sparkled with magical energy.

  Keith didn’t waste time letting her recover. He heaved Zephyr to her feet and set about preparing the spell. As Liss watched him, all she could think was how little she understood of what was happening, how poorly she had planned for this. Maybe being a control freak wasn’t categorically great, but that was who she was: she came up with plans and she put them into action. She’d been channeling that obsessive need for control to free Johnny for months, only to realize she’d just been another one of Kasyan’s victims all along. Now she was standing here helpless while Keith did his thing, which at that moment was shoving Zephyr against the far wall of the cave. When she shuddered, he ordered her not to move.

  Liss grimaced. Here she was feeling helpless, when Zephyr was the helpless one. Zephyr was a victim who’d done nothing to deserve getting involved in this disaster that might well end her life. Liss was closer to an accomplice. She needed Keith to use Zephyr as a stick of dynamite, because she needed that rock broken open to get to Johnny. She had once called Zephyr someone else’s problem, but she was Liss’s problem now. Rescuing Johnny couldn’t be worth it if Zephyr didn’t survive it too.

  And that was something, Liss realized, she could control.

  “Will she be okay after the spell?” Liss asked.

  Keith didn’t pause his work. “Who?”

  “Zephyr.”

  “That was the plan. I need her for the next step.” He cocked his head. “But with the three of you here, we have redundancy.”

  “What are you talking about?” Alexa said.

  “He means, it’s okay if Zephyr dies, because he can use us for the next part of the spell,” Liss said. She was pretty sure she was about to make the biggest mistake of her life, and that she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t. “Let me do it instead.”

  “Liss!” Dan cried.

  “Transfer that purple energy stuff to me, just like you put it in her.” Keith eyed Liss. He was twitching like a zombie at the earliest stages of zombification. “Zephyr’s just some girl. I’m that, plus a witch. You grabbed her on the side of the road, but Kasyan chose me to be here. For this.”

  “She’s right,” Alexa added. Her eyes behind her glasses were so wide, the whites were visible all around her irises. Liss hoped Alexa saw what she was doing. “We don’t want to displease him.”

  Keith jerked his head in what seemed like an agreement. Beside Liss, Dan crushed her fist against her mouth but didn’t entirely stifle her gasp.

  “Let’s do it,” Keith said.

  Before Liss could think about it anymore, Keith cut Zephyr’s bonds and the two girls were holding hands. Keith was muttering something that felt too strange and far away for Liss to hear. No sooner had Liss noticed a stinging sensation all over her body than it exploded inside her, white hot and racing, the inside of stars, catastrophe and ecstasy, everything too much—too much—too much. Her skin was crackling with electricity.

  Zephyr’s face loomed across from her. How weird that Zephyr was the lucid one now.

  “Liss?” Zephyr said, then static filled Liss’s ears.

  Dan

  Liss’s pale skin was lit bright enough to make Dan’s head throb—even more than it was already throbbing.

  Fucking hell, Liss. What have you done?

  Zephyr staggered and fell into Alexa’s arms, but her legs stayed under her. That eerie, vacant look had left her along with that buzzing, purple-gray energy. Instead, her face pulled into a taut mask of terror.

  “You’ll be okay,” Alexa was saying to her. “When you get out, head south as fast as you can.” She pulled her phone from her pocket and pressed it into Zephyr’s hand, then nudged her in the direction of the passage to the beach.

  Keith was already ignoring them, his attention on Liss now. He was anointing her face and palms with some kind of oil. Dan’s stomach turned as he began an incantation. Liss’s whole body shuddered against the rocks.

  Keith clearly didn’t have the practice she and Liss did at spellwork, nor Alexa’s powerful gift for it. Keith’s expression had hardened; sweat dotted his brow as he focused on his graceless words.

  Suddenly Liss’s back arched so extremely that it had to be painful, and she was pressing her hands against the wall. The purple energy stuff was gathering there, rippling toward her hands in pulses from all over her body as Liss submitted to his spell.

  Dan thought she could see that familiar fierce look in Liss’s eyes.

  The cave wall shattered.

  With a splintering, crystalline crack, the wall of rock collapsed. The air clouded thick with dust that cleared to reveal a heap of purple-tinged rubble and a gaping hole into what lay beyond.

  Liss was on her knees panting and shaking, buried past her ankles in the rubble, but she was obviously alive. Dan wanted to rush to her side, but she knew that wasn’t what Liss wanted. Instead, she caught Alexa’s eye, then looked at Keith. He had his hands pressed palm to palm in a prayer, preparing himself to enter his Lord’s prison.

  It was too perfect.

  Alexa bent and grabbed the rope that had bound Zephyr’s hands, keeping half an eye on Dan as she soundlessly counted one, two, three.

  Together, they lunged for Keith. Dan tackled him and he went down hard on his back with an awful crack. Alexa had the rope looped around his wrists and yanked into a firm knot before he could figure out how to resist them.

  “No one’s spilling blood in there,” Dan said as she reached into the pocket of his cargo shorts and grabbed his knife. “We know that’s the key to breaking the spell. Kasyan’s staying right where he is, forever.”

  And then the wind began to blow.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Dan

  The wind rushed out of Kasyan’s prison with such force that it was hard to stand—Keith fell twice without his arms to steady him. In a matter of moments, most of the dust from the shattering of the rock had been blown down the passage to the beach—all that didn’t end up in their eyes and mouths and noses. The wind was so strong it was hard for Dan to breathe.

  Alexa yanked Keith’s rope. They clambered over the rubble and headed into the cavern.

  With just the beams of their headlamps, it was hard to see how large the cavern was. It had a seemingly endless perimeter of blackness, which Dan tried very hard not to be terrified by. She reminded herself that there were (probably) no monsters here, other than the ones they were already aware of. The cave’s granite surfaces sparkled with white and ochre crystals, and when the wind flagged long enough for them to catch a whiff, it smelled of eggy sulfur. Weirder still, the cave was full of junk—human junk. Broken chairs, rotting books, dirty throw pillows, a ratty mold-speckled loveseat that looked like it had been left on the curb two decades ago.

  “What is all this shit?” Liss asked. “When Volunin said Mora was a scavenger, I didn’t think he meant literally.”
r />   Dan’s headlamp caught an old army cot. Johnny’s jacket was draped across it. She wondered where Volunin’s bones were.

  “Where are they?” Alexa asked.

  “My Lord!” Keith was wailing. “They tricked me! These girls promised that you called to them and they tricked me!”

  “We should have gagged him,” Liss muttered.

  Just like that, the wind died.

  Which was definitely more terrifying than the wind had been.

  “Help me and I’ll free you as I promised! I earned my wish!” Keith screamed.

  “Shut up!” Alexa hissed, yanking on the rope.

  “There he is,” Liss said. “Kasyan.”

  Liss was pointing to an elevated spot at the back of the cave where a dim greenish light illuminated an indistinct figure seated on a rock. Around him, Mora’s scavengings were arranged like offerings: a pile of lawn flamingos, a shiny chrome bumper, a bushel of plastic flowers, and what looked like a pinball machine.

  “Are we ready?” Dan said.

  “Does it matter?” Liss answered, and she led them toward Kasyan’s strange altar.

  As they came closer, they could make him out: a lean man, bare-chested with skin so pale that in the darkness of the cave, he appeared a glowing white, like one of those cave-dwelling salamanders whose coloring had been lost and whose eyes had evolved away. His hips and chest were draped with chains that anchored him to the rock. They seemed to be made from rock themselves.

  Dan saw that Kasyan’s eyes had not evolved away. On the contrary, they were twin black pools, with neither white nor iris nor pupil visible in the ink, dark enough to bring to mind oblivion. His hair, likewise black, hung down raggedly around his face, which gave the impression of being something very close to a skull, with pale lips and sunken cheeks. His eyelids, thankfully, were a regular length, unlike in Alexa’s stories, although he lacked eyebrows or lashes.