by SM Reine
Ashley flinched away.
“Do you know what price I paid to get you out of witchcraft?” Lincoln asked through gritted teeth.
“I never asked you to do that,” Ashley said.
“You would have died if I hadn’t given my life to the White Ash Coven for you! To see you’re performing magic again… I’m wondering what the price will be next time.”
“I’m not with the White Ash Coven anymore!”
“Don’t lie to me,” he snarled. “Are you practicing again?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m practicing again.”
Lincoln swore and paced, tucking his hands tight under his biceps so that he wouldn’t punch something again. He wanted to leave holes in Ashley’s prints. He wanted to shatter her dainty teacups and flip a few of her tables while he was at it.
Ashley deserved to be hurt. She deserved to feel as wretched as Lincoln did.
He breathed out that sharp edge of pain before asking, “Why were you watching us? Did James Faulkner tell you to do that?”
“Who is James Faulkner?” Sophie asked.
“Mind your business,” Ashley said.
Lincoln was on her instantly, seething with indignation. “Answer Sophie’s question.”
Ashley flinched again. “He was the high priest of a powerful coven based in Colorado. James was the most powerful witch alive at the time. I haven’t heard from him since Genesis!” She shot that last sentence straight at Lincoln, like a bullet from a gun.
“James Faulkner ruined my life,” Lincoln added. “He’s the reason I met Elise. And when he was done with me, he tried to crush me. If I find out that you’re lying to me, Ashley—that you’re working for him—”
“This is a tracking charm.” Ashley shook the wooden pentacle at him. “I used your toothbrush to make it. You know why? Because Susannah asked me to do it. I’ve been checking on you sometimes while you’re around town. We just wanted to be sure you’re okay!”
“My mother wants you to follow me?” Somehow, that felt worse than being followed on behalf of James Faulkner.
“A lot of weird stuff has been going on around here,” Ashley said. “Everything with Uncle John’s hospice, and then you showing up with this weird witch hunter lady… Honestly, we were afraid you had something to do with the old coven.”
“They tried to kill me,” Lincoln said.
“I know you’re not with them now,” Ashley said. “You’re with the shapeshifters instead.”
“They’re innocent,” he said. “Unlike you. I know you’re not the only one practicing. You’ve never been able to do magic alone. How many are in your coven these days?”
Ashley hung her head. “Twelve.”
“That’s a perfect number for a cult controlling a clutch of gargoyles,” Lincoln said.
“Gargoyles?” she asked.
“Don’t insult me by playing stupid,” he said. “There are gargoyles in the territory. They only work if witches keep them alive, and you’re clearly strong enough to do it.”
“We don’t have anything to do with gargoyles. It’s basically just a knitting circle,” Ashley said. “Ask your mom if you don’t believe me! But I promise that it’s totally harmless, and I am so sorry that you found out this way. I never should have been following you. I never should have lied.”
“That’s all really easy to say now that you’ve been caught.”
Ashley clasped one of his hands in both of hers. Her fingers were cool. Slowly, like a fire getting put out, Lincoln’s anger faded. “I do care about what you did to save me. I will never have the words to show you how grateful I am. I’m sorry that I ran away afterward but… I was just so afraid of James. I’m sorry you paid my price.”
Lincoln had no idea how badly he needed to hear those words.
He gently squeezed his cousin’s hands, then pulled her in for a one-armed hug. “I can’t forgive you for anything yet. It’s been too much, and it’s been too long.”
“Tell me what I can do to make you trust me,” Ashley said. “You can look at my ritual space, I’ll show you my journals, I’ll give you the names of everyone in the coven…”
“I’ve got an idea where you can start,” Lincoln said.
Lincoln arranged to meet Ashley’s coven in the mountains between Northgate and the sanctuary. He half-expected Ashley wouldn’t show up, but he gathered allies anyway: Abel Wilder, his daughter Summer, and Adán Pedregon. Lincoln would have preferred that Pedregon stay back, but it seemed like Abel didn’t go many places without the other Alpha’s support these days.
It was hard to criticize when Lincoln felt so off-kilter because of Sophie’s absence. She was by the pack’s lake, setting up the ritual that was meant to communicate with Inanna. Of course, he wasn’t the one who needed her; he was just worried she’d get attacked when he wasn’t close to offer protection. But it was hard to imagine even Sophie’s time-altering assassin taking on a werewolf pack to reach her.
Ashley led the coven. He wasn’t surprised to see Aunt Bee with her, but Skylar and Abigail were surprising. In fact, the euchre club comprised the coven. They didn’t just get together to smoke weed and get drunk. They got together to cast spells too.
“Is that one your mom?” Abel muttered out the corner of his mouth when the witches first entered the clearing. “Dumpy blond lady there?”
“That’s the one,” Lincoln said. Susannah was flanked by Ashley and Aunt Bee. The rest of their coven trailed in behind them.
Abel gave a chuckle. “Your mom’s a hell of a lot less scary than my mom was. Lucky guy.”
Lincoln would have felt luckier if he had a mother loyal to husband and family. If he’d ever been able to have an honest conversation with her about the damage she inflicted. If she hadn’t run away and abandoned him when he most needed a mother.
Even now, she wasn’t meeting his eyes. It was like the rest of the coven had death-marched her up the mountain to account for their sins.
“This is quite the group,” Susannah said, leaning to look around Lincoln at the shifters. Their bright eyes would have made their breed obvious if running around barefoot in the forest didn’t tip her off.
Lincoln’s backup was even more impressive than she realized. Any one of them could have murdered the entire coven before a single spell was cast.
But he hadn’t brought backup from fear of the coven itself. If they were controlling the gargoyles, then three shapeshifters might not be enough.
Lincoln had told the werewolves about the gargoyles so that they could help him with this. The reaction had been about as violent as he’d expected. Pedregon had told Abel they needed to summit Mount Bain immediately to destroy the entire clutch. Only Summer had talked Abel out of the assault—and only once Sophie told them that the gargoyles used to be Grove County residents.
If the witches said one thing wrong, nothing was going to stop Abel and Pedregon from murdering their way through the gargoyles.
“Werewolves smell lies,” Lincoln said. “I need to know if any of you are controlling a clutch of gargoyles.”
“Gargoyles?” Aunt Bee echoed. She exaggerated her eye roll, managing to look simultaneously like a bloated corpse and an exasperated teenage girl. “Gargoyles? Does this have to do with that rude woman?”
“It has to do with the murders at the hospice,” Lincoln said. “The murders that are still a threat to my father.”
Aunt Bee quieted at that.
“One at a time,” Ashley said. “Me first.” She met eyes with Abel, and only trembled a little as she said, “I have nothing to do with gargoyles.”
Lincoln glanced at the shifters behind them.
“Truth,” Summer said.
Susannah went next. “I have nothing to do with the gargoyles.”
It took Summer a little longer, but she again said, “Truth.”
Once they convinced Aunt Bee to answer (“I don’t have to tell these people anything! I’m an American citizen! I have rights!”), every member veri
fied the same thing. None of them had anything to do with the gargoyles atop Mount Bain.
Lincoln was almost disappointed. “Then that leaves me at square one.”
“I told you none of our witches would control gargoyles,” Ashley said with an exaggerated eye roll that perfectly mirrored Aunt Bee’s. “You brought us up here for nothing.”
“Not for nothing,” Summer said. “Actually, witches visiting our sanctuary said there was a coven nearby. They sensed your magic. We were hoping to meet you.” She thrust a hand toward Ashley. “I’m Summer Gresham, daughter of the Alphas.”
“You’re one of the people that Noah and the mayor met with,” Susannah said.
Ashley shook Summer’s hand with their fingers barely touching. “You weren’t the one demanding crazy stuff from Grove County law enforcement, were you?” Ashley asked.
“I don’t know what rumors you’ve heard about our previous run-ins with officials, but we were just asking for help protecting the road into the sanctuary from Northgate,” Summer said. “It’s the only entry and exit for vehicles, so it’s the best way to get supplies in. I know it must seem crazy asking to give us an entire road and the right to protect it—well, Sheriff Adair seemed to think it was crazy.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” Abel snarled. “He better get used to it.”
Summer elbowed him again—not gently.
“Everyone’s gotta be neighbors here,” Lincoln said. “That’s all. Just trying to find a way to get along nicely. It hasn’t gone well yet, but it’d help if community members like y’all would check out the sanctuary.”
“And I would love it if you helped a friend and me setting up a ritual while you were there,” Summer said cheerfully. “Sophie and I aren’t witches, so I know that you guys would be so much better suited to setting up the ritual. Might even teach our witches a thing or two!”
Lincoln hadn’t expected that request. It seemed like too much to demand. Just expecting the witches to accept the presence of shapeshifters in their woods was a hell of a lot.
Ashley and Susannah turned to whisper with the rest of the coven.
“Too much,” Lincoln muttered to Summer.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Your mom loves you a lot. I can smell that too.”
“Your nose is confused about my mom.”
Pedregon wasn’t confused. He was hissing to Abel under his breath angrily. Lincoln could only make out some of the words—phrases like “leading with strength” and “showing them who the man is.”
Jesus, don’t let me have to get between my mom and a werewolf Alpha.
Lincoln edged nearer to them. “Do we have a problem here?”
“I smell lies all over the witches,” Pedregon said. “Even if they’re telling the truth about the gargoyles, they are drenched in lifetimes of lies. They are a threat. Abel would best control his territory by—”
“His territory,” Lincoln interrupted. “The man can make his own decisions.” And as much of an angry beast as he could be, Abel wasn’t the kind of guy to fight a bunch of middle-aged women of his own volition.
The women turned back to the wolves before Pedregon could escalate.
“Most of the coven’s going back to town,” Susannah said. “But you have Ashley and me for whatever you need.”
She held a hand out. Abel walked away without shaking, Pedregon smirking behind him.
Chapter 33
It took five witches—plus one Sophie—most of the afternoon to prepare the spell. Lincoln didn’t know much about that kind of magic. His time with warlock powers had been brief, and that magic had been totally different in execution. The witches were casting a complex circle of power involving runes, herbs, bowls of crystals, and smudges. He had no urge to learn this kind of spell work. Soon Inanna would be gone from his soul, and he’d have no parasites left to communicate with.
He sat with his feet in the lake while they worked, and Inanna sat beside him, immersed to her waist. Her hands rested lightly on her knees. Her eyes were closed. The waterfall’s mist plumed around her, yet it left no dew upon her skin.
“I’m gonna cut you out of me,” Lincoln said.
“We are on the brink of a great hunt,” she said serenely. “Center yourself for the battle to come.”
It was always like that. Telling her one thing and having her reply with something unrelated. One more infuriating aspect of Inanna he wasn’t going to miss.
“Didn’t you hear me? I said you’re never gonna mess with me again.” He snarled the words out, putting all the venom into them that he could muster.
Inanna was immune to his mood, but she opened her eyes to slits, and she smiled a hungry smile. The smile of a well-rested wolf who knew that there would soon be elk migrating through her territory.
Voices caught Lincoln’s attention. He couldn’t make out words, but Sophie seemed to be arguing with Susannah and Ashley. It was a brief argument—too brief for him to drag himself over to intercede—but it ended in the witches walking away, and Sophie watching them with a stricken expression.
“Great,” Lincoln grumbled.
The Historian hurried over to him. She was barefoot in the sand—interesting contrast to the practical black pants that covered her from ankle to rib cage, and the long-sleeved shirt that protected everything else to her neck. Sand dusted her knees.
“You ready to start?” he asked.
“Not quite.” She fidgeted with the end of one braid, rolling a bead between forefinger and thumb. “I believe that this ritual is going to cause you enormous pain. I didn’t mention it before because I wasn’t certain that would be the effect, but your mother agreed with me that it’s a likely a result of this combination of elements. It’s important you know this now. Unfortunately, once the spell begins, it will be impossible to end without hurting you even more—potentially harming you significantly, in fact—so it will be important for us to see it through if we begin.”
“Well,” he began.
She kept talking. “It’s a lot to ask of you when I’m aware that you are so repulsed by Inanna within you. It’s selfish, I suppose, that I can only see your status as a Remnant as an honor, whereas you would prefer to pretend she does not exist at all. You certainly cannot find yourself desirous of suffering through physical pain in the process of communicating with her more closely.”
“You don’t—”
“No, I understand,” Sophie said. She paced away from him, all folded in on herself as though trying to solve a very difficult math problem mentally. “I should have brought this up with you as soon as I came. I always knew that this was a possibility. The sunk cost fallacy demands I continue the ritual after investing so much into it, but—”
“Sophie.”
The use of her first name made her stop and look at Lincoln. Her mouth snapped shut.
“I’ll do it,” he said, getting up off the ground. He was already a thousand kinds of sore. Eight hundred milligrams of ibuprofen didn’t do shit for the pain that followed a gargoyle whupping him upside the head. What was a little more pain?
“The sunk cost fallacy doesn’t mean you should pursue something to its end once you’ve begun,” Sophie said. “Quite the contrary.”
He waved her off and limped toward the circle. “Come on, you dumb bitch,” he called to Inanna in the lake.
Sophie’s jaw dropped. “Pardon me!”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” he said.
“I’m aware of that. I’m still offended that you would call Inanna a—no, I don’t think I will repeat that.”
“Sorry, then she’s a dumb broad,” Lincoln said.
“I don’t like that first word either. It’s ableist. Are you aware that ‘dumb’ originally referred to people who are deaf/mute?”
“So?”
“You look like a heartless fool for insulting people by calling them disabled.”
Lincoln’s headache wasn’t getting any better. “You look like a delicate wuss who can’t handle
herself in adult conversations when you complain about every little thing I say.”
“At least I am a kind, intelligent, ‘delicate wuss,’” Sophie said. “Vastly preferable to being some sort of soulless emotional kaiju rampaging throughout society without meaningful consequence, in my opinion.”
“Only your opinion,” he muttered. “Don’t you think I get a free pass on calling the parasitic personality latched onto my soul whatever the fuck I want? Especially when I’m about to be in excruciating pain so you can talk to her?”
“You don’t deserve a ‘free pass’ on anything that hurts other people, Mr. Marshall, and you should become comfortable with that idea now,” she said. “I am performing an enormous kindness by offering this education. I don’t have to do it. You should take advantage of my wisdom while we’re together.”
Sophie Keyes, so fucking wise.
He rolled his eyes as he stepped into the circle. “Where do I go?”
“Sit upon the pillow, please.” She had brought a lush red cushion. Lincoln imagined it had probably been in the same backpack as her giant magnifying glass and the parachute.
Sitting down on it gave him just a little whiff of Sophie. It wasn’t just ink and paper anymore. There was something like turmeric, maybe. Strong and herbal but faint. It just seemed to waft off of her skin.
He wasn’t afraid to be in pain. Pain was just that—pain. And it was hard to worry when he knew that the woman who smelled like ink and turmeric was in control of the situation.
She sat upon a wooden block in front of him.
“Everything is prepared, so just take a deep breath and tell me when you’re ready to trigger the ritual,” Sophie said.
Inanna was sitting next to them too. She was off in space, gazing up at the sky as if there was something other to see than emerging sunlight. Lincoln was ready to talk to her. Really talk to her.
And then get rid of her.
“Do it,” Lincoln said.
Sophie triggered the ritual by sprinkling salt over a crystal between her knees.
The world twirled and swirled. Lincoln unfolded like an iris’s drooping petals, arms spread wide, heart peeling open to expose his viscera and the power that made it all live.