Playing With Fire

by Adrienne Woods et al.

  The vampire moved next to her, grabbing her hand. “Thanks for agreeing to help us.” He squeezed her hand softly and then let go.

  “You’re the blood witch?” The woman asked, looking straight at me.

  “Yes.” I felt a bit self-conscious by how intently she was staring at me.

  “Death curses are nasty things.” The witch kept her gaze on me the entire time. “I’m surprised someone as young as you could cast one.”

  “Kieran is quite powerful,” Arthan said immediately, rushing to my defense.

  “Be that as it may… She’s still a fledgling witch, by all accords, and that is extraordinary to say the least.” The woman’s eyes narrowed, as if she was growing suspicious I wasn’t telling the truth. “Anyway, as I already explained to Arthan, there is no way to lift a death curse, at least not that I know of. And as you can see…” She spread her arms, indicating the numerous coffins surrounding her from all sides, “I’m familiar with death and all it entails. If that girl you met in the house of the witch says she can help your sister, it might be a lie for her to save herself.”

  I nodded. “I understand, and I already thought so too, but still… I have to try.”

  The bone witch nodded. “The things we do for family.” A sad smile crossed her features while she looked at Arthan for a moment before turning her attention back to me.

  “From what I gathered, the Baba Yaga disappeared underground when you left?”

  “Yes. She and her cabin got swallowed up under the earth.”

  “She does that when she’s moving around,” the bone witch clarified. “She never stays underground for long. She’ll have come out by now; her cabin should be in the forest… Hand me the bones you dug up.”

  Arthan reached inside the bag, got out one of the lower arm bones we’d stolen from the corpse, and handed it to Agatha.

  The old woman stayed quiet for a minute, and then let out a low, humming sound. She closed her eyes, only to snap them open just a few seconds later. “The field of bones. That’s where she is. I should’ve known.”

  I frowned. “How do you know that?”

  Agatha held up the bone in her hands. “All bones that have been in the earth for long enough, are connected. We all become part of mother earth, from whom we have sprouted. This bone was freshly dug up, so it’s connection to the earth is still strong.”

  “Okay…” That made some sense, at least. “And the field of bones?”

  “I know that place.” Arthan’s voice was low. “There used to be a gallows there, hundreds of years ago.”

  “Yes. The bones are still there, strewn about the place, buried just below the earth, some of them poking through. It’s deep in the forest, a place enchanted by my kind a long time ago so no one would come upon it. It used to be sacred for us, but now it’s forgotten, as am I, as are the real witches of my kind.”

  She finally turned her attention to Dean and Camille. “You.” She pointed a long, skeleton-like finger at Dean. “You will lead them.”

  “Me? Uhm…” Dean looked like he’d rather fall to the floor and vanish. “I’m not good with directions.”

  “And you…” Without offering feedback on Dean’s comment, she switched her attention on Camille. “You will knock on the witch’s door.”

  “Wait, hold on.” I stepped in front of Camille. “That’s dangerous. I’m not letting—”

  “Dangerous but necessary.” The bone witch stood up from her coffin seat. She was impressively tall, at least a head taller than me, which I hadn’t expected, especially considering her advanced age. “I will enchant the boy so he knows the way to the field of bones. This field was enchanted long ago, without a guide, you will not find it. As for the girl, it’s necessary she knocks on the door for three simple reasons.”

  She pointed at Arthan, “He’s a vampire,” swirled until she faced me, “you’re a witch and,” she ended up gesturing at Dean, “he’ll be enchanted. The Baba Yaga can smell magic, so none of you will do.”

  “I’ll do it.” Camille gently pushed me out of the way until she stood in front of the bone witch. “Then, what do we do?”

  “You must knock on the door, two times. The Baba Yaga will eventually ask you what your business is. You must tell her you are lost, yet also looking for something. Every answer you give her must be ambiguous. That is of key importance. If she can get the upper-hand on you, she’ll shove you in her oven before any of the others can get in. You’ll need to distract her. Ask questions that there exists no answer to. Toy with her, so she’s fully focused on you, not on the others.”

  “And while she’s distracted, we go in?” Arthan asked.

  “Yes. But be careful, you’ll have to be fast. Maybe you can fly in through the chimney using your bat form, and you, blood witch, can use this opportunity to storm in through the door. The big surprise. You’ll need to slow her down and keep her in place, while you,” she turned back to Camille, “form a circle of bones around her.”

  Camille pointed at the bag. “Those bones?”

  “Yes. They will keep her from moving around, locking her in place. Meanwhile, Arthan gets the girl out of there. And you, human, you get out of that house as soon as the circle is set.”

  “Tell me again why I shouldn’t just barge in the moment we find her cabin,” I said. “Then we don’t risk Camille, at least.”

  “Because she might disappear again, or she might even make it impossible for you to find the door. If she doesn’t want you to come in, you won’t—unless she’s so occupied by something else that she doesn’t even notice your presence.”

  “Okay, fair enough.” I admitted reluctantly. “Say Arthan gets the girl out of there, and Camille is safely outside too. What then?”

  The blood witch’s eyes met mine for a moment, and I realized she had been mulling about the same thing as I had.

  “I’ll have to kill her.” I didn’t even realized I’d said the words out loud until Camille gasped next to me.

  “I have no choice.” I held out my hands in a soothing gesture. “I figured out today, while talking to my sister’s old friend Katie, that the Baba Yaga already staged an attack on my sister once, the very attack that got her in a coma. This wasn’t just the Baba Yaga playing tricks with me or trying to taunt me—she plans to kill my sister, one way or another.”

  “You can’t kill her!” Camille said in a distraught tone of voice.

  “What would you have me do—take her to the police?” I couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of my tone. “There’s not a jail cell on this planet that can hold her if she doesn’t want to be locked up.”

  “Okay, fine, I know that’s stupid, but there must be something else we can do. Can’t we leave her in that bone circle forever?”

  The bone witch shook her head. “She’ll get out eventually. The Baba Yaga is an opponent no one should underestimate, least of all a human. No, she’ll manage to break free. I once heard of a Baba Yaga who was entombed in a grave deep below the earth, her body locked in spelled chains, the tomb also reinforced with runes and spells. It took her a few decades, but she still got out.”

  “So, we have no choice but to kill her.” I’d realized this well before we had come here and met with the bone witch. There was no other option. If I wanted to protect my sister, I had to kill the bad guy. Who happened to be an ancient witch, this time around.

  “How can we kill her?” I asked the old woman. “How do you kill a Baba Yaga?”

  “Can you even kill a Baba Yaga?” Arthan said.

  “Anything that exists can be killed, but some creatures are harder to kill than others,” Agatha answered cryptically. “You’re lucky that death is my domain. There is a way to kill a Baba Yaga, but I don’t know if any of you have what it takes.”

  I balled my hands into fists. Have what it takes? No, definitely not. I didn’t have the courage, nor the desire to kill anyone, not even the Baba Yaga. But for my sister, for Samantha, for her, I had to do it.

  “Tell
me what we have to do.”

  Chapter 18

  “The Baba Yaga always keeps a mortar and pestle in her house. These are her trademark items. She uses them for all her spells, and they’re also the exact thing that can be used to kill her. First, you’ll have to cut her heart out. It’ll be messy, and she’ll fight you every step of the way.”

  Cutting out someone’s heart. That didn’t sound easy, especially not if that someone was a witch who would fight tooth and nail not to end up dead at your hands.

  “And then what?”

  “You have to destroy it using her own mortar and pestle. Crush it using the pestle; it won’t work in other materials but her own. She has a special connection with them, the mortar can even fly her to certain locations.”

  “That’s it?” Arthan asked.

  “That’s it?” The bone witch snorted. “Have you ever tried cutting out a Baba Yaga’s heart? You won’t be saying ‘that’s it’ when you’re actually there and the knife is melting in your hand, or her skin grows as thick as a tree and you can’t even cut through it one inch.”

  “Sorry,” Arthan said. “I just meant there are no spells involved?”

  The bone witch shook her head. “No. But are you sure, all of you, that you’re ready to take on a creature as fierce as a Baba Yaga?”

  I looked at my friends, taking them in. Dean was still as white as a sheet, sweat dripping from his forehead, and even Camille’s expression didn’t look very happy.

  “We are,” Dean eventually said. I was surprised he was the first one to speak. “We’re with you, Kieran,” he said as he put a hand on my arm. “All the way.”

  “Okay. Come here, then, boy.” The witch gestured at Dean to come closer. “You’ll be completely present, but your body will move on its own volition. Your bones know the way, but you won’t. You’ll be like a marionnet, like a doll. The spell will stop the moment you have reached the field of bones, and the Baba Yaga’s lair.” She looked into his eyes. “Are you ready?”

  Dean swallowed hard. “I’m ready,” he said, and although he said it with conviction, I heard the slight shiver in his voice, and I knew he was as scared as I was.

  The witch grabbed hold of Dean’s arms and started babbling, spitting out words like rapid fire, too fast for me to understand any of it. Then, Dean’s eyeballs rolled to the back of his head, and two white orbs gazed at me for a second, before his eyes snapped back into place.

  He moved in a strange, unnatural way, jerking his limbs about from one side to the other, like a child who wasn’t quite sure how to walk.

  “This is so strange,” he said while he wobbled toward the exit of the mausoleum. “How do I stop?”

  “You don’t. Just keep walking,” the witch told him, before she focused back on us. “You’ll have to follow him. He won’t stop once, not until he’s reached the field of bones.”

  She hesitated for a second, turning toward Arthan. “Be careful,” she said, all her attention focused to him.

  “I will.” His voice was soft, caring—too soft for my liking. What was his history with this woman?

  “Guys, keep up!” Dean shouted from near the entrance. “I’m going quite fast.” He jerked his arm to the left, like a doll being controlled by a puppeteer.

  Arthan immediately went after him.

  Camille chased after Dean too, and I turned to follow her, but the bone witch grabbed my arm, with a surprising amount of strength for such a fragile old lady.

  “One second,” she said to me. “I know you feel for him. Your feelings are as clear to me as my own were, now many, many years ago.” Her gaze toward Arthan was longing, reflective, a cherished memory. “I loved him once, and he loved me, a few centuries ago. But you see what happened to me.” She gestured at her own, withered old body. “I’m old and dying. He’s as young and beautiful as he was the day I met him. Such is the curse of vampires and witches. We become old and withered, and they remain frozen in time.”

  She let go of me, and I stumbled backwards, taken aback by her sudden confession. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because it broke my heart.” Her voice cracked as she spoke the words. “And I don’t want it to break yours too.”

  Chapter 19

  While we were following Dean through the meandering paths of the forest, I contemplated about what Agatha had said.

  Once upon a time, she had loved Arthan. And he’d loved her.

  Of course, it was only natural for a vampire as old as Arthan to have a past, probably a past that was far more complicated and intriguing than mine, giving I hadn’t been on this earth for very long yet. But I’d never considered the consequences of loving a vampire, even as a witch.

  One day I would be old and withered, and he’d be as beautiful as ever, and any feelings between us would die.

  It would be horrible for me to watch, as I bet it was for Agatha. I wondered why she’d agreed to help us: was it because part of her still loved him, even though she knew they couldn’t really be together anymore, at least not in the way they once were?

  But it must also be terrible for Arthan. To fall in love, once every so many years or decades, and then to have that person grow old and die, and be left alone again.

  My heart almost broke thinking about it.

  “I’m starting to slow down. I think,” Dean said, interrupting my thoughts. His leg jerked to the right in a funny motion.

  “I’m so bummed we didn’t bring a camera to videotape this,” Camille commented. “We could’ve tormented him about this for the rest of his life.”

  Which hopefully wouldn’t end tonight, at the hands of an angry witch.

  “Are you sure you’re up for it?” I asked Camille. “For going up to that Baba Yaga’s door and knocking on it? I mean, you’re putting yourself in harm’s way, and you might get hurt.”

  “Pft.” Camille waved my concerns away. “If there’s anyone who’s great at being ambiguous all the time, then it’s me. It’s like I was born for this part. Don’t you worry about me. Just worry about the Baba Yaga and—”

  “Guys.” Dean’s voice had an edge of panic to it. He stood about ten meters ahead of us, suddenly having stopped dead in his tracks. He gulped, and looked over his shoulder at us. “I think we’re here.”

  We hurried to catch up to him and Arthan, who was standing next to him.

  My mouth dropped to the floor when we saw the clearing in front of us. Field of bones was an accurate depiction for it. Rows and rows of heads on stakes decorated the field. Bones were thrown all around, carelessly, left to the elements.

  “Is this....” I started.

  “It wasn’t like that before,” Arthan said before I could finish my sentence. “This is the Baba Yaga’s doing.”

  The remaining color instantly drained from Camille’s skin. “So you mean… She killed all these people?”

  “Probably. Baba Yaga’s like killing things; animals, humans, whatever they can get their hands on. Usually, they refrain from killing other witches, though, but this one obviously had other plans.”

  “That’s her cabin.” I pointed at the hut on chicken legs that stood in the distance. It looked as eerie as a haunted house in the shadows, the lair of a demon.

  “Doesn’t look very inviting,” Camille mirrored my sentiments. “But I do see a ladder and a door.”

  She started walking toward it, but I grabbed her arm to stop her. “I will be right outside, and Arthan will shift into a bat and fly into the chimney the moment you’re inside. You won’t be on your own for very long.”

  “I know.” She gave me a brave smile, and I loved her for her ever-present optimism, for her bravery, her courage. “I’ll keep her occupied. Just give me a few minutes, and then you can come barging in, my knight in shining armor.”

  “And I’ll wait here, if you don’t mind.” Dean leaned against a tree, sweat dripping from his forehead. “Whatever spell that was, I don’t feel too good right now.”

  “That’s normal,�
�� Arthan said. “Just rest for a bit. You’ll be fine.” He focused his gaze on me now, his eyes turning red. “We can do this, Kieran.”

  For a moment, Camille and Dean disappeared to the background, and there were only Arthan and I, the only two people existing in this universe. If he said we could do this, then I almost believed him.

  But part of me still thought we stood no chance. That all this would go horribly wrong and my friends would wind up dead because of me.

  “We can do this,” Arthan repeated. He’d probably caught on to my doubts.

  “We can do it.” This time, it was Camille who spoke. She walked straight past me at a steady pace, directly toward the house of the Baba Yaga.

  Dean and I hid in the shadows of a tree, and Arthan changed into his bat-form and circled on top of the house, while Camille climbed the ladder leading up to the hut.

  My hands trembled while I held on to the tree. From my spot, I could see Camille reach the top of the ladder and knock on the door twice.

  A cackling voice spoke words I couldn’t understand, and Camille answered—I didn’t hear her answer either, but I saw her lips move.

  The door slowly crept open, and Camille went inside, disappearing in the lion’s den.

  Chapter 20

  The plan was that I would wait five minutes before I barged in. Five minutes during which Camille would keep the witch occupied.

  She was inside for less than ten seconds when she screamed.

  Going on instinct, I raced from behind the tree, ignoring Dean’s shouts that I had to stop. I rushed up the ladder two steps at a time, ready to pull open the door, when it opened all on its own.

  “Surprise!” The Baba Yaga cackled while she lifted me up by the back of my shirt, and held me in the air, dangling two meters above the ground.

  As if I was as light as a feather, the witch tossed me into her cabin. On the floor lay Camille, unconscious, a red mark decorating her belly. Blood.