Once Blessed, Thrice Cursed: A Sister Witches Urban Fantasy #1

by Coralie Moss

  “Your father finally responded to Beryl’s texts. He said he knows the location of this quarry and will be here as soon as he can.”

  I wavered on momentarily unsteady legs. Took a big breath, let it out, and took another one. I felt oxygen deprived. I finally managed an eloquent, “Well, okay then.”

  “It’s time to move,” Rémy said.

  I let go of wondering how my father was going to get here and turned to the overwrought mage. “You’re so emotionally invested in finding Gosia you could mess this up. Let me and Laz go in first. We’ll be back in less than three minutes because neither of us can breathe underwater.”

  Rémy’s nod was tight and reluctantly given.

  “You have your charm?” Maritza asked Laszlo. The demon patted his chest.

  He and I fired up the light sticks and lowered ourselves into the water. The sky had begun to lighten with predawn colors. A few hopeful stars continued to twinkle. I slipped under the surface and kicked away from the rock. Laszlo was right beside me. Together, our lights grew into bright, focused beams. We kept kicking our legs and sweeping the water in front of us with our arms.

  Our combined beams revealed the rust-coated hulk of a vintage truck. I motioned Laz to stop. The truck was sitting squarely on a ledge. We swam past, kicked down deeper, even as the internal pressure to turn and jettison to the surface increased.

  Laz stilled, pulled me next to him, and pointed. Flaming orange hair floated through the murk then disappeared. Nearer to the side of the quarry was the outline of a cage. The demon grabbed my arm and pointed straight up. We broke the surface of the water and waved. “Get your bearings,” I said, gasping for breath while I treaded water and searched for the rest of our rescue party.

  “There’s a cage directly below us, about twenty, twenty-five feet down. We’re going to check it again.” Laz and I nodded to each other before ducking under and beginning a focused descent. I held the light stick between my teeth and used both arms. We passed the truck and found the cage.

  The door was open. Laszlo grabbed the neck of my coveralls and tugged me to him. We made it to the surface and to the exposed ledge in record time.

  Laz found his voice first. “If the fae were keeping anyone in the cages,” he said, “they’re not there now. The door was open.”

  “Did you see Gosia?”

  We shook our heads. “Nothing but a truck, the cages, and someone that could have been Jadzia swimming toward the bottom of the quarry.”

  Rémy stepped to the edge of the rock. The hem of his long coat began to separate into wide, horizontal bands. He peered into the quarry then up to the sky. “There is a way for me to help. It will mean I cannot assist you if it comes down to a hand-to-hand fight. Which I fear it might.” His coat spun in a wide arc around him as he turned to face us. “If you accept the option I am considering, I will be forced to place all of my trust in your hands.”

  Laszlo asked Rémy if he had any other alternative to offer. The water mage shook his head and clasped Laz’s upper arms. “My Gosia has suffered long enough. This is what I propose.”

  The moment Rémy finished laying out his plan, Laszlo, Alderose, Maritza, Alabastair, and I came to a consensus and went to work. I drew from the seemingly endless selection of threads Tía had stitched into my clothes and began to create a braid. My aunt handed another set of threads to Alderose before commanding her own. “All you have to do is relax your hands,” she said. “Let the threads do the work.” The threads sped through my waterlogged fingers and twisted themselves into rope far faster than anything I could have made on my own.

  Laszlo stripped out of his tuxedo shirt then redonned the vest. He grinned at me, strapped a set of knife sheaths around his biceps, and tested the releases on the ones strapped to his thighs. He tucked his long, white braid under the back of his vest and announced his readiness, and the next step.

  “Alderose, Clementine, we’re going down as a team.”

  My sister and I nodded in agreement. We stood, giving us room to coil our ropes. I neared the end of mine and asked, “Bas, where should we secure these?”

  “Over here. Make a loop around this rock and tie it in place. Mari will make sure the knot is unbreakable.”

  “It’d be really great if she could make it so the rope can’t be cut either.” Alderose pulled her creation through her fingers.

  “My sweet sobrinas, I have spelled that and more into these fibers. I also have a gift from your uncle.” My aunt lifted her chin and unlatched a set of collars that had been invisible up until the moment she touched them. “Malvyn imbued these with a containment spell. However, you can wear them with impunity.” She handed one each to me, Laz, and my sister. “Use them well, if you must use them at all.”

  I hadn’t paid attention to Rémy’s preparations. While we were making ropes and learning about restraining collars, strips of cloud-like material had consumed the entire length of the mage’s coat except for the collar and the arms.

  “Stay back until the vortex has arrived and accepted my offering,” he said. “Wait at the edge. Once I am over the quarry, I will begin to pull the water away from the sides and move it up.”

  “Rémy, how long do we have?” I asked. The mage pulsed with power as he called upon magical and natural forces.

  “Once I have completed the preparations, you will have thirty minutes. Or less.”

  “Ready when you are.”

  Tropical storms and hurricanes took days to build, mixing and blending the differing temperatures of ocean water and air currents. The air swirling around Rémy went from a steady breeze to a category three in under a minute, lifting the mage off his feet. He stepped forward, walking above the water until he placed himself in the middle of the roughly circular quarry. The swirling hurricane traveled with him.

  He spun to face us, yelled, “Go!” and swooped his arms out and up. The movement took him higher. Water began to pull away from the walls of the quarry and follow the mage’s upward trajectory.

  Vertigo and fear of heights had no place on a rescue mission, as I immediately discovered. Side by side with Alderose and Laszlo, we took hold of our ropes and lowered ourselves into the emptying basin as Rémy lifted more and more water into the air and away from the slanted walls.

  The rising sun abetted our progress. I went back and forth, giving thanks to the optimism inherent in every dawning day while looking over my shoulder, certain our mission was doomed. I shouted to Laz when the truck came into view.

  “And there’s the cage.” He stopped at a newly exposed ledge and found foot- and handholds.

  Alabastair was the designated conduit between Rémy and those of us inside the quarry. I let him know the mage could stop withdrawing the water and go into a holding pattern. We’d agreed to swim to the cages and assess the next stage from there.

  I loosened the rope, found footholds of my own, and waited for Alderose to signal she was ready. When she did, we popped the light sticks, jumped in, and swam toward the cage. What Laz and I hadn’t seen earlier were the other cages stacked underneath. I tucked the glowing stick down my front, grabbed the nearest bars, and pulled myself lower.

  Pissed I hadn’t cleared my lungs and taken a moment to get centered before I leapt, I waved to Alderose, pointed upward, and pushed off from the uppermost cage.

  “Bas!”

  The necromancer waved at me when I surfaced and yelled his name.

  “Tell Rémy to lift more water.”

  He gestured that he couldn’t hear and cupped his ear. Treading water, I twirled my arm over and over until he nodded and transferred the message. More and more of the quarry’s contents disappeared into Rémy’s mage-made, inverted waterspout.

  My sister popped up behind me, gasping for breath, followed quickly by Laszlo. “I see at least three cages below this one,” she said, “but I didn’t see any signs of the fae or where they took Gosia.”

  “Let’s keep looking.”

  “Give me a sec to catch my
breath, then I’ll follow you.”

  Too impatient to wait, too eager to reunite Gosia with her daughter, I blew a kiss to my sister and took a deep breath. I could lower myself while Rémy pulled up more water and debris, and expend less energy by holding on to the bars.

  Going hand over hand, I counted five enclosures, each about four feet high, before my feet came to rest on something much more solid—a surface more like metal than rock. I grabbed the cage and extended my other arm, expecting to feel more of the rock wall, not the round metal door handle that turned when I gave it a push.

  Rémy’s exertions were creating an increasingly strong upward pull. I didn’t want to get caught up in the vortex and find myself swirling high above the emptied quarry. Leaning back, with my head and shoulders now mostly above the choppy surface of the water, I put as much effort as I could into opening the door and failed. A jumble of thumps announced Laszlo and Alderose had landed on the topmost cage.

  “Can you two come help me?” I yelled. I mimed opening the mystery door.

  “Clementine, let go!” My sister reached behind her back, drew a dagger, and pointed it away from where she crouched. “The Fae. They’re here.”

  I forgot about trying to open the door and wedged my foot on top of the lowest cage. More and more rotted leaves and branches had begun to mix with the tail end of the swirling waters and winds, making it harder to see across the exposed area. I glanced up. I couldn’t see Rémy anymore, or my aunt, or Alabastair. And if my father had arrived, I definitely couldn’t see him.

  Beyond the cages, past the middle of the quarry, angled beams from the rising sun illuminated a scene that chilled me to the marrow.

  Gosia.

  One-Becomes-Three.

  And a teenaged girl.

  17

  The trio of tall fae standing next to Gosia and the girl were armored to the gills. Real gills. Barbed fins, flared and undulating, stood away from their upper arms and their outer thighs. And they all looked like Jadzia.

  I fingered the magic-negating collar my aunt had set around the base of my throat. Made from linked sections of metal, they had magnetized ends that would seal on contact and neutralize the wearer’s ability to call upon their magic. All I had to do was get close to one of the fae, whip the collar around their neck, and the spelled metal would take care of the rest.

  The good part of the plan was that the slippery mess coating the jumble of rocks at the floor of the quarry would impede the Fae’s progress.

  The bad part was that the fae were making a beeline for the door at my back and picking their way across the rocks with ease, their captives in tow. Way too late, it dawned on me I had never really been in this kind of danger before in my life.

  I froze.

  Laszlo landed beside me. His horns, usually tucked close to his head and curled around his ears, now jutted forward and up in the shape of antlers. Alderose slowed her climb down the stacked cages. Both she and Laz kept one hand on a weapon and their eyes on the three Jadzias.

  We had to yell above the thunderous sounds emanating from Rémy’s creation in order to hear each other. “Rémy can hold on another ten minutes,” Laszlo said. “Let the fae come to us. I’ll engage. Alderose, you get them collared. Clementine, you’re in charge of Gosia and the girl.”

  He handed his collar to my sister. I appreciated the demon’s faith in my abilities. He swung his legs over the rock, dropped to the next lowest ledge, and withdrew a matched set of short daggers from the sides of his vest. Yelling a one word command, he plunged the blades into the water. A dense, white mist formed on the surface and began to coat the rocks and debris around us. Strands at the periphery of the mist were sucked up and into the swirling vortex.

  “He’s freezing the water,” I said, unable to keep the awe out of my voice. The cold, consuming mist building within the bowl of the quarry moved closer to where the fae had come to a halt. The three consulted, untied their captives, and lowered Gosia and Zazie into the closest remaining pool of water. One stayed in a crouch and pushed the bobbing heads under the surface of the nearby ice.

  Laz drew his daggers out—which halted the freezing process—and swore. “I did not see that coming,” he said. “You ready, Alderose?”

  She landed lightly beside me and slid down the rock to Laz. Side by side, they charged the Fae. The demon leapt onto the ice’s uneven surface. Strong and surefooted, he was met by his counterpart’s upraised sword. Alderose skidded to the far right and lashed out at one of the Fae’s legs.

  I liked watching my sister spar in a dojo. I didn’t like watching my sister go after weaponized beings from another realm. I reeled in my fears for both Laszlo and Alderose and focused on the mother and daughter we’d come to rescue.

  As I scooted forward on my hands and knees, I remembered I had my own set of short, sharp daggers in my pants. I fumbled to find them. Once I had a solid grip on the handles, I stabbed the blades into the soft ice and made my way forward, belly down.

  Find Gosia. Find the girl.

  I forced myself to tune out the clashes and grunts of hand-to-hand combat and trust that one demon and one witch could handle One-Becomes-Three. My job was to find Gosia and find the girl. I stabbed and stabbed, breaking up the slushy ice. Gosia’s head bumped against the section in front of me. I flipped my grip, smashed the pommel of the dagger against the surface, and tried to avoid hitting her. The ice cracked, then shattered. I shoved the blades into my pants, plunged my arms into the water, and felt blindly for something solid.

  Gosia was right there. And she was unresponsive. I grabbed her under the armpits and heaved her up enough I could let go with one hand and fumble for a hold of the garment clinging to her body. I got her most of the way out of the water, found my knives, and hacked away at more of the ice.

  I had to find Zazie. I couldn’t let Gosia lose her daughter, and I couldn’t let a girl on the cusp of becoming a young woman go through any more changes without her mother by her side. I found thinner ice and smacked my fist against the soft surface over and over until I hit something that felt like a body part.

  Zazie’s mass wasn’t nearly as dense as her mom’s. I slithered into the water like a seal. Rocks were close enough I could stand. I slipped behind the girl, wrapped my arms around her chest, and heaved her onto the exposed ledge, close to her mother.

  I was so focused on rescuing the women I lost sight of Laszlo and Alderose and the Fae. I searched the storm overhead and all I could see was Rémy’s waterspout beginning to falter and come apart. Random bits of flotsam that had been lifted by the initial pull began to rain down, crashing onto the weakened ice and smashing it into pulp.

  I had to get Zazie and Gosia to a safer location. Shifting from a crouch, I startled at the sound of a shout. A large body scrambled across the slushy chunks, forming fresh sections of ice wherever their foot landed.

  Laszlo.

  “Clementine! Rémy’s power is tapped out. We’ve got to prepare for him to drop the water.”

  “I got Gosia,” I said, “and Zazie. Where’s my sister? Where are the Fae?”

  “Your father’s here. He and Alderose incapacitated one of the fae and they’ve gone after the other two.”

  A sickening boom announced Rémy was done. Fear pierced my body, icy spears of a kind of primal dread I’d never before experienced. My brain and my body began to course toward a shutdown.

  Laszlo shook my shoulders. “Clementine, get these two close to one another. When the water drops, it’s going to fill the quarry fast. Unless Rémy can somehow keep it together enough to slow it down.”

  “Are they even breathing?” I asked.

  Laz paused. His eyes told me he didn’t know if the beings piled by our knees were alive or dead. “We have to believe whatever the fae did to them will protect them a little while longer.”

  “Tell me what to do.”

  “Got threads?” When I nodded, he said, “Use them. Loop them under their arms and around their chests. Work fast.
”

  Frantic, I tugged on my connection to the master thread and muttered the instructions over and over while shoving Zazie up against her mother. The water filling the quarry began to surge, like a giant standing far above us was emptying a massive ewer, oblivious to where the water landed.

  I kicked and kicked against the force of the rising waters, fighting to keep Zazie’s head uncovered while Laszlo propped up Gosia with one arm and attempted to swim toward the rock wall with the other.

  Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic.

  “Can you see Alderose and my dad?” I asked. If they weren’t in the water, I couldn’t picture where their fight had taken them.

  Laszlo looked away. As more water poured from the sky, refilling the quarry, we floated. Or tried to. Roiling whirlpools kept hurling clumps of debris at us. We did our best, dodging incoming clumps of rotting leaves while keeping four heads above water at least fifty percent of the time.

  The sun had climbed higher. The sky was pale blue and the Rémy-produced storm clouds were gone. I spotted him, high on the edge of the quarry, standing near Maritza and Alabastair. A faint, wispy bit of white cloth hovered behind Tía’s shoulder.

  We were nowhere near close enough for them to reach us. I managed a feeble sidestroke, reaching with one arm while holding the threads wrapping Gosia’s and Zazie’s torsos with my other hand. Long hanks of their hair slid together and apart like seaweed. Laszlo surfaced near me and adopted the same technique. We made it to the ledge, and the tunnel opening. He pulled himself out first. I steered Zazie and Gosia toward him and he got them out one after the other

  I had to stop and take a breath, a lot of breaths, before I could accept his offer of help. My muscles were spent and I was quivering from the adrenaline overload and the prolonged immersion in the cold water.

  Even through all of that, my new connection to Laz was palpable.

  The bands Alabastair insisted we wear tingled. He arrived a few seconds later. Laszlo settled Zazie in the taller man’s arms and Bas disappeared. He repeated the routine with Gosia, then me, and finally, Laszlo. I slumped onto the dry ground ringing the perimeter of the quarry and lay there, spread-eagled. “Where’s Alderose? Where’s my dad?”