Bright Young Witches & the Restless Dead

by Beth Byers

  When Mrs. Langford left, protected once more by their wards, spells, and talismans, Ariadne asked Mr. Blacke, “Do you think that they’re not at fault?”

  “They had to have an idea of what’s happening, but if they’ve never used magic before? How could they have a full idea?”

  Ariadne rubbed her brow. The same could not be said of Circe. Her only defense was the darkness reached her before she became a participant. “Shall we just put them to sleep?”

  He nodded. “I think so. We’ll need to be able to move them into pentacles and work on eradicating the effects of the ghosts. Even afterwards, once we remove the infection, it’s going to take some time before they’re themselves again.”

  Chapter 18

  MAY 1922, LONDON, ENGLAND

  ARIADNE EUDORA WISTERIA WODE

  Ariadne swirled her wine in her glass and then took a long drink. She knew Circe was watching her and had been all evening. Finally, after Ari had drunk over half her glass, Circe sipped her own wine.

  To hide any reaction, Ari turned to her fish and Harvey Langford.

  “Are you happy to be home?” she asked him, taking another sip of wine she didn’t want.

  He shrugged and took a bite of his fish. “My father enjoys the work of my brother rather a lot more than my own work.”

  Ariadne glanced at her sisters. “I feel like many siblings would both die for each other, do anything to bring the other to happiness, and desperately want to put itching powder in the other’s knickers.”

  His burst of laughter had everyone else’s gaze turning her way—Mr. Lucian Blacke, his brother Dominic, his sister Sybil along with Ari’s sisters, the rest of the Langfords, and both of the English Wodes. Ari had been introduced to Lucian’s siblings earlier. Sybil Hawthorne’s magic was nearly as overt as Lucian’s while their brother Dominic’s was much subtler. He was, however, far more handsome than Lucian.

  “Have you had itching powder in your knickers?” Harvey Langford asked, his tone low, and his eyes glinting in appreciation of whatever there was to find charming in Ari.

  “I’m sure it’s just a matter of time. Cassiopeia will certainly buy it and target one of us the moment she has pin money and access to a joke shop.”

  His chuckle was lower the second time and then his eyelids drooped as though he hadn’t slept in days and finally had a quiet spot next to the fire. She ignored the slow closing of his eyes and took another drink of wine. Those who weren’t the targets of the spells had simply taken the cure in advance.

  A moment later there was a crash and they turned to see Christine drop face-first into her fish plate.

  “What in the world?” Nanette gasped, but it was broken by a deep yawn and then her own wine glass slipped from her fingers.

  “What’s happening?” Harvey asked, shocked.

  “Just a little nap,” Ariadne told him. Her gaze turned and she saw Circe rise and step back, staggering.

  “I won’t forgive you for this,” Circe told Ariadne, slurring as she stumbled back. “I know it was you.”

  Her back hit the wall and she slid down, gaze fixed on Ariadne. The dangerous fury was alarming despite knowing that the worst of it was caused by the ghostly infection.

  “I—” Circe’s black eyes closed and Ariadne looked at Echo.

  “I hate us,” Echo told Ari. “I hate that we did this. I hate that she looked at us like that.”

  “I know. We’ll fix it.” Ari stood slowly. “We are fixing it.”

  “I don’t understand,” Harvey slurred. “What’s happening?” He looked towards his mother and then asked, “Mama?”

  “Go to sleep, baby,” Mrs. Langford told him gently. “I’ve got you.”

  His head hit the table, but Ariadne had moved his fish out of the way, so he landed on the table instead of in his food.

  The rest of the party glanced at each other and then stood. They gathered everyone up, Mr. Blacke taking Harvey and his brother taking Circe as they had decided it would be best if Echo and Ariadne not touch their infected sister lest the ghost entity try to reattach itself to them, and took them down to the spell laboratory in the house.

  “I wish we could bring Circe home,” Echo said as she and Ariadne carried Nanette into the spell laboratory of the house. “I want to bring Circe home and take care of her. Bring her chicken soup and cool drinks.”

  Each of the bespelled were laid within a pentacle. Outside of the pentacle, Ariadne and Sybil added circles of salt and sage. Ari added the sealing rune, written in proto-Romanian at each of the five points of the pentacle. The chalk had been specially prepared, made with spell craft, and to the base of the chalk had been added hemlock, lavender, blood, magic, and will.

  “How long will it take for them to wake?” Mrs. Langford asked, her voice trembling. Margot Wode crossed silently to the woman and took her hand. Mrs. Langford’s eyes widened and she moaned, turning into Margot’s waiting arms.

  Ariadne shook her head as to the outside of the circles she added truth wards at each of the pentacles in the secondary position behind the sealing rune along with the same runes written in henna on their palms.

  “They won’t be able to get out?” Mrs. Langford was staring at her three youngest children held in place by nothing more than what looked like chalk lines, herbs, and unidentifiable scribbles. “Do I hate that I’m doing this?”

  “You saw what the charm bag did to me and Miss Wode,” Mr. Blacke reminded Mrs. Langford. “With all of us working together, we’ve got more than just Miss Ariadne Wode and I making the choices. You know my siblings, Mrs. Langford. You know me. You can trust us.”

  Ariadne knelt next to Circe’s pentacle and watched until she woke. Mrs. Langford went between her children while Margot and Hadley Wode watched nearby. Dominic and Sybil came and went, providing what was needed while Lucian Blacke watched them all carefully.

  Ari had no idea how long it took, but when Circe pushed up to her knees, hatred was blazing in her eyes. Ariadne swallowed on a dry throat. Echo grabbed Ari’s hand as they faced off with their sister.

  “Do you think I won’t make you pay for this? Do you think I’m afraid of the Wode?” Her sister’s voice was a raspy growl.

  Ariadne wanted to reply, but instead, she curled her fingers into fists and told herself to breathe slowly in and out. Circe slammed her fist towards Ariadne and even though Ari knew the sealing rune was in place and Circe couldn’t reach past the salt and sage, she still flinched.

  Disembodied laughter filled the room and Mrs. Langford began to cry. Her children were waking and Harvey stared at the room around him and then towards his mother.

  “Is this where I get sacrificed? Whatever have you gotten us pulled into, Mother?”

  She sat down in the seat that Mr. Blacke provided her and told her son. “Never!”

  “What’s happening?” he asked, but there was enough of a twitch in his face that made Ari wonder if he was fighting the truth rune. Did he know what was happening? Or did he have an idea?

  Echo seemed to wonder the same thing when she approached him and commanded the ghost—if there was one—to, “Present.”

  Echo’s voice was threaded with magic, and the chill of her power pulling on Ariadne’s was enough to overpower the wants of the entity that was riding Harvey Langford like a pony. Harvey Langford’s blue eyes slowly bled to black. His laughter was nearly as haunting as Circe’s had just been.

  “It was you,” Ariadne breathed, shocked. Of all the Langford children she’d met, he was her favorite. “You were the bottom of my guesses. Overshadowed even by your sisters.”

  He slammed his hand against the sealing line of the pentacle. “There’s nothing you can do to stop me.” Those black eyes blazed at her, and she shivered, but she wasn’t afraid. Not of him.

  She glanced at Circe, whose eye color had always been black, but the whites were black now too. Those demon orbs blazed a terrifying gaze.

  “When did you find the spell book?” Ariadne asked H
arvey.

  “My aunt Georgene gave it to me,” he told her, fighting the truth runes but unable to resist. “She found it and she tried to use it, but she was weak. Unnecessary really.”

  “She’s dead,” Mrs. Langford said. “She’s been dead since before our most recent visit. When did this happen?”

  Harvey laughed, although perhaps the better word would be howled.

  Ariadne met his gaze, ignoring the way they were entirely black without the merest traces of white in them or—for that matter—light. The flat blackness was even more disturbing.

  “I will ruin you,” he giggled to her. “I will make you mine and then I will ruin you.”

  Ariadne rolled her eyes and turned away.

  “Don’t turn on me!” he shrieked. “Don’t you turn away from me, wench!”

  She glanced back and raised a lazy brow as she said, “Why the ghosts spell?”

  “What?”

  “Why ghosts?”

  He blinked stupidly at her. “What do you mean?”

  “For the love of Hecate,” Echo muttered, “may she save us from idiots and fools.”

  “He won’t be the problem,” Mr. Blacke said to Ariadne. “He might have used the ghosts, but your sister had to be the one who took things further. We can help Harvey.”

  Ariadne turned back to Circe. If the Wode daughters from America were scattered through a crowd, it would still be possible to identify them as sisters. The same black hair from Ariadne to Medea. The same black eyes. The same slightly upturned nose and fox’s jawline. They had the same spark of light in their eyes that proclaimed them as witches to those who had the wit to see it. Except, at that moment, for Circe.

  Unlike Harvey who slammed his fist against the circle of the spell and demanded them to look at him, Circe dropped to the lotus position and focused her will. Ari felt the flex of Circe’s power, but it was different. Sickening.

  “Margot? Would you mind finding out what Nanette and Christine know? Perhaps you would as well, Mrs. Hawthorne?” Ariadne nodded at Lucian’s sister and looked beyond him to Dominic Blacke, who was already working with Harvey.

  Ariadne and Echo returned to Circe.

  “What spell do you think she’s using?”

  “The one Mama taught us in case a dark witch did this to us,” Ariadne replied. Circe shifted at the word ‘mama’ and Ari glanced at Echo, who nodded. She’d caught it as well.

  “You won’t get out,” Echo told Circe. “That spell was never meant to be used with ghosts contaminating you, Cirs. Let us help you.”

  “Like you did with Lindsey?” Circe growled. “You aren’t perfect. You don’t deserve any of this, Ariadne. Sooner or later everyone else will see what I see.”

  “Miss Wode?” Mr. Dominic Blacke called, and she turned to him. “I wonder if we wouldn’t do better starting with the weakest of them and working towards your sister. This entity that is manipulating them will be weakened with each recovered person.”

  He smiled smoothly and Ariadne noticed once more that he was the handsomer of the brothers. He glanced back without concern at Harvey who threw his weight against the pentacle. Harvey growled unintelligibly but Mr. Dominic was unaffected.

  “Or strengthened,” Ariadne said, her gaze wide as a knot formed in her throat. “If it gets too strong, we might not get our Circe back.”

  Dominic Black’s jaw tightened as he looked at her. “The Langford girls are innocent in this, Miss Wode. The same cannot be said for your sister.”

  “It’s not her fault alone,” Ariadne said in a raw voice. “We had things happening in our life that left us open for this attack. Circe is not a dark witch.”

  Mr. Dominic Blacke nodded. “I understand that this is very difficult.” There wasn’t enough sympathy in his tone for Ariadne, but he could have been weeping with her. With the same message, she wouldn’t have liked him.

  Ariadne stared at Echo, whose fists were clenched tightly. How many different times and ways would Ariadne fail her sisters and their mama? Ari turned and fled the spell laboratory. She needed to gather control of herself or she’d be of no use to any of them. Fury and guilt were a twisted ghost’s power source.

  Chapter 19

  MAY 1922, LONDON, ENGLAND

  ARIADNE EUDORA WISTERIA WODE

  Ariadne fled so her own dark emotions didn’t strengthen the spirit. She didn’t bother with a pentacle. She just found the nearest tree and pressed her back against it, breathing in and out as she considered what she should do. Where did her responsibility lie? Everything in her screamed that her efforts belonged to Circe alone, but Ariadne knew it wasn’t true.

  Circe had to have had clues even if she didn’t see them at first. Mama had taught them well, and they’d studied since her death. They’d followed their own passions, but they had studied. Circe was certainly an idiot when it came to men, but she was brilliant in her field of magic.

  If Circe was really blinded to the effect of the ghost, it was only because she was willfully blind. Echo was, after all, a natural necromancer. Ariadne pressed her chin on her knees. If they were home, Ari thought, she’d have fled to the graveyard and talked to Mama’s grave. Young ghosts, like the Wode sisters’ mother, really weren’t strong enough to pass through the thinning, but Ari liked to believe that just because she couldn’t see her mama, it didn’t mean that Mama wasn’t watching over them.

  Don’t think about Mama, Ariadne had to order herself. Don’t think about how disappointed she would be. Ari closed her eyes and pressed her face into her knees instead. She breathed in slowly and started listing the plants in her garden back home. Anything to distract herself from Mama.

  Minutes passed, possibly an hour, before she heard the break of a twig. As she glanced up, she found Lucian Blacke. His concerned gaze had Ariadne wishing she’d been better at controlling her emotions and staying to help.

  “We were able to remove the tendrils from Christine Langford as well as the infection. She is the least affected. We’ve given her a calming potion and put her to bed covered in runes, in a protection pentacle, with dried herb bundles. She should recover.”

  “Sage?”

  He nodded.

  “Lavender?”

  “Cypress branches, wormwood, lilies, alstroemeria, and rose.”

  Ariadne took hold of her pentacle necklace. “This wouldn’t have happened if we’d stayed home.”

  “It was my understanding that a cross had been burned in your front garden while guns were fired.”

  Ari nodded and then said, “We could have used magic on them.”

  He lifted a brow.

  Ariadne added a begrudging, “Maybe.”

  “We need your help, Miss Wode. Nanette’s nature combined with the effect of the ghost is difficult. Christine was relieved with the peeling away of the infection. Nanette seems to appreciate the license it gives her. She’s got her mother weeping.”

  “Perhaps you’re having more difficulty,” she said, “because the remaining influence is digging in deeper to the other victims.”

  “That is also true.”

  Ariadne pushed to her feet and said, “I don’t like Nanette.”

  “She didn’t do anything to deserve this,” he told her gently.

  “Neither did Circe.”

  “I will help you help your sister. I won’t give up.”

  Ariadne nodded, but she wasn’t comforted. Helping Nanette made things harder for Circe. Ariadne just didn’t care that much about Nanette. Whereas, Ari would die for Circe.

  Lucian had pointed out a valuable piece of information. They had the upper hand, and he might not be purely reliable, but Echo was, Ariadne was, and they could call on other Wodes even if they had to take Circe back to America.

  Ariadne focused her mind, pushing out all thought of Circe when she returned to the spell laboratory. Margot, Sybil, Christine and Mrs. Langford were gone. Ariadne met Echo’s gaze and nodded. Ari’s moment of personal breakdown was over. She was taking charge. She was th
e Wode, wasn’t she?

  Wode house might have been farther away than she’d like for a true place of power, but she opened her mind and magic to it all the same. The power flooded into her as though it had been building up over the ages just for this moment. Ari glanced at Echo, who saw the change in her sister.

  “Your eyes are glowing again.”

  “I’m not feeling very kind, but I am feeling very angry.” Ariadne held up her hand and Echo grasped it. Together the sisters faced Nanette, who had twisted from the pretty bright young thing she was to a monster. Her eyes were flat black, her hair rose about her head, and her feet were several inches off the floor.

  None of that mattered when Echo spoke with the combined magic and will of the two sisters, “Out.”

  Nanette laughed, but a moment later their power struck her and she collapsed to the floor. Ariadne was not kind as she yanked the infection caused by the ghost from Nanette’s aura. The girl arched up off the ground, head and feet all that remained on the ground. A high-pitched, unnatural wail came from Nanette as Echo worked on binding the ghost.

  When they were done, Nanette was weeping into the side of the pentacle, but the tendrils were out of her aura as well as the infection that had colored her eyes.

  “What was that?” Margot demanded, having come back in the room in time to see Ariadne destroy the infection within Nanette. “What was that?”

  “That was the Wode when she gets angry,” Echo announced, but Ariadne had already turned away.

  “If she can leave the pentacle, she’s clean,” Echo told the others. They had watched the sisters work with a sort of horrified shock.

  Ariadne ignored the stunned stares from the Blacke brothers and Hadley Wode and approached Harvey. He laughed as she neared. “I knew you wouldn’t leave me for long. You want what I can do to you. You’ll like it.”

  Ariadne’s head tilted as she held her hand up outside of the pentacle. The spell work would let her cross. The victims were blocked in, but she wasn’t infected by ghosts. She smiled at him, her grin not fading even when he licked up the side of the pentacle where her hand lay as though glass stood between them. No part of him could touch her even if it looked like he was licking her.