by CK Dawn
“At the moment?” He looked around. “No.”
“Well then, I guess I’m ready.”
He smiled at her again. “It’ll be okay. Royals, let alone female royals, don’t usually fight their own battles. They may assume I’m your champion and come at me instead, hopefully. Probably?” He turned back around and Chloe could hear the joy in his voice. “This is just like breathing.”
“Says you!” Chloe derided. She put her back to Bram’s and held the brass-knuckle stake out in front of her.
“Call out incomings. We can’t risk leaving any of them alive, and this getting back to the royals. I’ll take them out, yes?” Bram pulled something silver and shiny from his pocket. He flicked his wrist and his weapon expanded.
From the corner of her eye, Chloe watched as Bram’s dual-sided stake lengthened to the size of a walking stick to become a spear with points at both ends. “Woah. Yeah, okay. You’ve got this.”
Two scabs lunged at Bram from both the left and the right. Bram staked one and then the other in a single fluid motion. Their corpses withered into nothing more than floating cinders and small piles of ash at his feet as he took out three more scabs. Chloe couldn’t help but turn to watch in awe. Bram seemed to be designed for battle. His aim was precise, and every movement had purpose. He also seemed to be enjoying it, like fighting and killing was a long lost friend he was welcoming back. Chloe shuddered at the thought of who –or what –Bram really was.
All of a sudden, Chloe had to duck her own incoming attack. She crouched down and landed hard on her knees. She could hear her kneecaps crunch as they hit the concrete. Pain shot up her thighs, and she could feel her heart beat inside the veins in her legs. The edges of her vision started to darken. She shook her head, brushing off the pain and ignoring how lightheaded she felt. With all her force, she pushed her silver spike up into the scab’s chest as it hovered above her trying to grab at her. It wasn’t as elegant a move as Bram’s. She was just relieved to have held her own against a scab attack. Soot and ash from the disintegrating scab coated her skin. She got back up and brushed herself off.
Bram smiled at her then. A glint sparkled in his eye as he took out another scab without even looking back at it as it ran towards them. He seemed to have a newfound respect for her, even if she was only human. Bram’s smile faded as his eyes shifted past Chloe. He flicked his wrist and his spear-like weapon shortened again into a double-sided stake. He threw it right at Chloe, barely missing her head. The tiny hairs on her left cheek bristled as the wind swirled past her. It came so close, she could hear the stake cut through the air with a metallic swooshing sound. Chloe turned and watched as the stake hit its intended target, landing deep into the alpha’s chest with a thud and a crack as the stake punctured the beast’s chest cavity. The alpha’s body combusted into volcanic cinders just as the rest of the scabs had. Bram’s stake landed on the concrete with a clank and rolled into the street.
He walked past her to retrieve his weapon, but Chloe’s senses were still on edge. Something was telling her that the battle wasn’t over. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. She felt like she was being watched.
Chloe heard a lonely growl and looked up. The last scab of the pack jumped from the third-story balcony directly above her head. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Bram running towards her as he took aim with his stake, but there was a large tree as well as a lamppost in his line of fire. The stake wouldn’t be able to hit the fast-moving target.
In one motion, Chloe pulled the faerie whip from her wrist, slid out from underneath the falling creature, and latched the whip around the scab’s wrist midair. She pulled on the whip hard, and at that moment, she felt like she could lift a car over her head if she had to. She tugged so fiercely, she forced the scab to hit the building’s brick wall as he landed. The faerie whip cut through her hands as if she had been holding a fishing line with a shark attached to the other end. The scab fell to the ground next to the wall, stunned, instead of landing on its feet like Chloe presumed it had intended. She walked over and put her boot on the beast’s chest as Bram ran up on her. The scab sniffed the air as though his favorite meal had been placed in front him. Chloe held out her bloody palm to Bram. He placed his stake in her hand, and she flicked her wrist. The weapon extended into a spear, and Chloe drove it into the scab’s chest.
Suddenly feeling her injuries, Chloe leaned against the building as the scab’s body transformed to dust and cinders. Bram retrieved his spear, shortened its length, and put it away. He went to Chloe’s side and began tearing off the bottom edge of his shirt. Taking her hand in his, he began to wrap her bloodied and torn skin.
“What?” Chloe asked, wondering why Bram was smirking at her.
His hands were warm and gentle as he worked. “You’re one of the strongest humans I’ve ever met.”
“Says the one who can probably lift a semi-truck with one pinky.” She taunted.
“I don’t know…” He scanned the scene. “That scab looked to be at least the weight of a smart car, and you pulled him out of the air like he was a paper kite.”
Chloe looked out onto the street she had unintentionally turned into a battlefield with her rage, but, nothing remained of her crime beyond traces of dust where, one by one, the scabs had fallen.
Bram stopped smiling then and looked at her intently. “Strength isn’t always physical, Chloe, and yours is remarkable.” Bram kissed her palms before he covered her bandages with a glamour. “You sure you’re just a human?” He smiled again.
Chloe looked down at her now-invisible battle wounds. Her hands were throbbing, and her knees felt like they were the size of basketballs. “I don’t know what I am anymore.”
They rushed into the market just as the front edge of the storm blew in. As they entered, Chloe looked back at the buildings outside enveloped by what seemed to be one-hundred-mile-an-hour winds. Building by building, windows started to shatter and steel beams screeched under the strain. Even a few straggling scabs took shelter where they could. The ones who remained exposed to the winds scampered off like rats as their flesh peeled away from their bones. Chloe wondered if the royals had created the storm as a way of cleansing her world of the excess rodents so they could rule free from the pests.
Chloe and Bram moved deeper into the market where the howling winds began to muffle. Before the sky went completely dark, Chloe noticed the shops around them. They had been looted, trashed, and picked clean just as she imagined they would be. As they walked further into the darkness, their feet crushed broken glass into the concrete, crunching as they walked. Slowly, the darkness gave way to a blue glow emanating from something in the distance. The glow seemed to be coming from a beaded curtain, like something from the 1970’s. The small glowing beads were covering an ancient-looking stone archway that was definitely not part of the world-famous market, not the human part of it anyway.
As Bram and Chloe reached the archway, Chloe thought she noticed something. The beads weren’t just glowing; she could have sworn they were actually tiny undulating spells. But every time Chloe looked directly at the beads, they became inanimate glowing strands again. It wasn’t until she glanced away that the spells came into focus in her peripheral vision. Each individual bead became a different three-dimensional symbol connected to the next in line, like strands of pearls flowing to the floor. She glimpsed so many different symbols, the student in her wanted to stay and learn the language and magic of it all.
Bram slid his hand between two of the glowing strands of spells but seemed to hesitate before walking into the Spree.
Chloe grabbed his arm in reassurance and followed him through. As they entered the veiled world of witches and magic, everything changed.
6
Pike Place Witch Market
Chloe gasped at the unexpected sights, sounds, and smells as she entered the Spree. She even had to squint because of the sunlight streaming in through dozens of skylights. The sun? She was gobsmacked. “Is this real?
”
“In here, everything’s real,” Bram said as they walked past several people carrying basketfuls of herbs and jars filled with liquids and powders of a rainbow of colors.
The narrow space reminded Chloe of the small side streets in Florence, Italy she’d walked down on Spring Break during her senior year in high school. The trip had been an early graduation present from her parents, and she had fallen in love with the city. Chloe could barely believe her eyes as she stared down the Spree’s street. There was a long cobblestone street bustling with pedestrians who walked in and out of the shops lining both sides of the Spree. Delicious smells of home-cooking and freshly turned soil welcomed them in the magical space. Children ran by, playing a game of tag. There were even birds chirping. But the farther into the Spree they went, the quieter things became. Some patrons of the Spree stopped and stared as Chloe and Bram walked by. Others hurried into store fronts. Most looked human, and Chloe could only guess them to be witches or warlocks, while others were obviously fae. They were too beautiful not to be. Glamoured behind more human features like rounded ears, they carried themselves with an air of fae superiority. A few other Spree patrons looked like ethereal woodland elves straight out of a faerie tale. With their flowing white hair, translucent dewy skin, and long pointed ears, they still gave Chloe and Bram the same uneasy looks as all the rest as they hurried by.
Chloe tried to ignore the building tension in the air and, instead, focused on the magic she felt. In one shop, a woman was rolling out dough in front of a large picture window. She stopped and stared as Chloe and Bram passed her window. The smell of fresh-baked bread wafted towards Chloe from the woman’s open doorway before it slammed shut without any assistance. In another shop, a man was cutting tiny purple flowers from a raised bed while a cat laced itself in and out of his legs.
“Why aren’t there Sprees everywhere?” Chloe asked. “Bram, they could save hundreds, thousands of people.”
Bram stopped outside a dark wooden door. The shop had a massive canopy of herbs drying upside down above their heads and smelled of lavender and sage. “It’s not that simple.” Bram took a deep breath, and the birds stopped chirping as he reached for the handle. All the bustling sounds had stopped, and the narrow cobblestone street was empty. He opened the door and stepped inside.
“No. It’s not,” a voice answered back as they entered the shop. “But, then again, nothing’s ever that simple. Is it?”
Bram didn’t answer the woman’s voice. His body was blocking most of Chloe’s view of the shop. But she could tell the voice had come from behind the long glass display counter that spanned the entire length of the room. Bram seemed to be instinctively shielding Chloe as if protecting her from the witch.
“The Spree spell takes thirteen witches thirteen years to cast. And it’s not like we knew what the damned fae had planned,” the voice behind the counter snapped. “So, it’s Bram now; is it? And who do we have here?”
A huge raven perched next to the counter gave a deep raspy call as if it were demanding Chloe to reveal herself. The bird was massive with a wingspan that had to be at least twenty feet long. Bram gave the majestic creature a respectful nod, and the raven unexpectedly reciprocated before looking at its mistress. Chloe peeked around Bram, and a young, bright-red-haired woman’s eyes went wide in disbelief.
“By the Goddess! You’ve got some nerve; haven’t you?” The witch’s long red hair floated around her as she started pulling things from her counter and putting them away. “Shop’s closing ladies and gents. Lilith, come back in about an hour, love. The herbs you need for your neighbor’s wards will be in bloom by then.”
“Thank you, Mary,” Lilith said. She left the shop along with the rest of Mary’s customers and gave Bram a suspicious look as she closed the door behind her. The light around the edges of the old weathered door glowed blue before the door disappeared and seamlessly became part of the dingy plaster wall.
The shop was quaint and efficiently organized. Books and glass bottles of every shape and size lined the shelves behind the counter. Some of the bottles housed vibrantly-colored liquids while others looked like something left over from science experiments. Powders, dried herbs, and precious stones were displayed in bulk inside massive glass jars on tables all around the shop. Tiny silver scoops floated in the air, suspended above each of the jars. Light was shining through the store window where plants and flowers basked in the sun’s glow. Chloe envied the Spree and all it had to offer.
“Mary…” Bram started but was cut off.
“Not talking to you. Your girl asked a question,” Mary scolded. She walked towards Chloe and turned her hand over, creating a small transparent sphere out of thin air in front of them. It hovered just above Mary’s palm, refracting the sun’s light in a rainbow of colors just like the bubbles Chloe had played with as a child.
“A Spree is like this bubble. Manipulate it too much, like, say, trying to force too many things in that don’t belong,” Mary said, looking at Bram. She touched the bubble with the tip of her finger. “And it pops.” She reached in her pocket and pulled out a square piece of silver cloth. “I take care of me and mine. That even includes some humans from time to time. But the rest in your world are a selfish horde, a mob that would just as soon take what’s mine and see my kind hang for what we can do.” Mary held the cloth between Chloe and herself as though it were a mirror.
Chloe looked through the fabric. Mary’s image looked back. But it wasn’t a youthful image staring back at Chloe. Mary’s bright-red flowing hair was gone, replaced by sparse white puff. Liver spots peppered her creped skin. She’d grown old and wrinkled, hunched, and frail.
“The Fae aren’t the only ones with glamours.”
“So I see,” Chloe chided back.
“Tsk, tsk, just a fragile little thing, aren’t you?” Mary mocked, looking Chloe up and down from her black-and-blue forehead to her torn hands. “Your kind is damaged so easily. It’s a wonder you’ve survived this long.” She turned her all-seeing cloth briefly towards Bram and rolled her eyes at whatever image looked back at her.
“I can hold my own,” Chloe stated. She didn’t like the way Mary spoke to her as if she were a naive insignificant child.
Mary laughed, ignoring Chloe, and spoke directly to Bram. “You took a risk coming here. Any one of us could have cast you into the nine levels of Hell. Not even you are above our powers here. Or our wrath.”
“Do you have it?” Bram gave her an annoyed sigh.
“We still might,” Mary threatened. “Whatever you have planned, with her looking like the vile serpent, Famke, herself, we want no part of it.”
Bram stared her down, unfazed by her threats.
“Of course I have it,” Mary spat. “You’ve made it impossible to be rid of it, or you, for the past three-hundred years. Or have you forgotten?”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
Mary gave him a harrumph, but nodded in agreement. She put a hand to her ear and swirled her fingers. Tiny wisps of green luminous smoke appeared and Mary sent them out of her shop window and down the cobblestone street with another swirl of her wrist. The birds outside Mary’s shop started chirping again and the sounds of conversations and people bustling resumed. Chloe wondered if the magical smoke could be Mary’s way of communicating with her coven maybe even letting the rest of the witches know Bram’s true intentions behind his presence in their Spree.
Mary walked into another room, and the giant black raven gave a threatening caw, as if telling Chloe and Bram not to try anything stupid in Mary’s absence. She came back with a rectangular leather case and placed it on the counter. As she opened the case, the raven unfurled its massive wings and flew up into the rafters above, all without disturbing a single item in the shop.
Inside was what looked like the pommel, grip, and guard of a sword with no blade. The hilt was made of either ivory or bone, Chloe couldn’t be sure, and it was carved into the pattern of scales colored a deep-red hue. The color w
as familiar, almost a perfect match to the pendant Chloe wore, but before Bram had turned the gemstone black. Chloe imagined the beautifully-carved scales mimicked the texture of a dragon’s leathery skin.
“With its return…” Mary looked down at the object and then back at Bram. “…my debt is paid, yes,” she stated more than asked.
“Yes,” Bram said.
“Swear it,” she demanded.
“I swear it. Your debt is paid,” Bram agreed.
Mary lifted it out of the case by the grip and offered it to Bram. The light in the room seemed to darken for a moment.
“You know I can’t,” Bram said in a defeated tone Chloe hadn’t expected.
“Oh, that’s right,” she taunted and turned to look at Chloe. “Here, love.” Mary tossed the handle at Chloe like it was merely a set of keys.
Chloe reached up and caught the grip, and as soon as the guard touched her hand, a sharp metallic sound rang out, like a sword being drawn from its scabbard. Chloe sucked in her breath in surprise as a sharp blade appeared. The weapon was deadly-sharp, long, and slightly curved. When Chloe turned it in her hand, she could see dark red symbols carved deep into the metal.
“Oh, he likes her,” Mary teased.
The statement infuriated Chloe. Besides being treated like a feeble human, she also had to listen to the old hag make phallic references. Then, as if a match had been lit and placed against a gas line in a fireplace, the sound of a roaring fire filled her ears. Chloe noticed the glow that filled the room before she looked down at the sword. It was on fire. From the guard all the way down to the point, the flames licked the edge of the blade as if it were ready for war. The deep-red symbols glowed in an undulating motion.
“Oh, he definitely likes her,” Mary said in awe.
