Playing With Fire

by Adrienne Woods et al.

  That monster had stabbed her.

  “Don’t look at me like that.” The Baba Yaga’s smile was horrible, too wide to be human. “You came here to kill me, so of course I had to get to your friend first. You thought I wouldn’t figure out you’d be back?” She laughed in that ominous, sickening way again. “You weren’t about to give up. I knew I had to kill you too.”

  She towered over me, the knife she’d used to stab Camille brandished in her hand. “I’ll do it the old-fashioned way first, stab you a few times. And then I’ll do to you what I did to your sister…”

  “So, I was right. It was you.” I spat out the words. “You were the Wendigo.”

  “I had taken control of its body, yes. The Wendigo perished that night, unfortunately. Thanks to that stupid witch, that friend of your sisters. But we did a number on her too, didn’t we.” The Baba Yaga rubbed a bloodied hand through the hair of the girl I had come to rescue.

  I hadn’t noticed her until now. She was still chained to the table, looking as miserable as ever, her eyes screaming apologies at me when she looked at me.

  The collar around her neck. From this close to her, I could study the symbols in more detail and one of them looked almost exactly like the scar on Katie’s wrist. A vertical line, with a diagonal line going through it.

  “Your sister is cursed and will die soon. That leaves only you now.” The Baba Yaga’s smile grew even wider, her eyes sparkling with malice. “I’ll enjoy plunging that knife into your flesh, blood witch.”

  She leaned over toward me, ready to plunge the knife into me, when a bat flew straight into her face, scratching and biting her. Arthan!

  She wobbled backward, and in that second, Arthan changed back into his vampire shape. “Not so fast,” he said as he grabbed the Baba Yaga’s wrists and tried to force her backward.

  Meanwhile, Camille let out a wheezing sound as she struggled to get up. She looked almost grey, blood flooding out of her. She pointed at the bag of bones, which she’d be carrying when she went up the ladder. “Bones,” she said, the word sounding impossibly heavy for her.

  I didn’t hesitate. With Arthan distracting the Baba Yaga for a few minutes, I reached for the bag of bones, pulling the bag closer toward me. I quickly arranged the bones in a circle and was about to tell Arthan to drag her in there, when he glided over the floor toward me.

  The Baba Yaga had managed to push him off. She cackled in amusement. “Vampires are no match for me. Blood witches are no match for me.”

  By throwing Arthan off, the Baba Yaga had dropped the knife and Camille, God bless her, was trying desperately to reach for it. Her fingers moved like crabs over the floor, catching nothing but air. Her face was a grimace from the effort it took her to reach for the knife.

  The Baba Yaga noticed and bent down to grab it right before Camille could grab hold of the blade. “Your little tricks won’t work on me, human,” she said. “You should know better than this, all of you.” She grinned like a maniac. “Never mess with a Baba Yaga.”

  And then she plunged the knife into Camille’s chest, at the exact same spot she’d stabbed her before, twisting it.

  Chapter 21

  Arthan was on top of the Baba Yaga faster than I could move, pulling her away from my friend. The Baba Yaga turned around and slashed him across the chest with the blade.

  “No!” the chained-up girl yelled from her spot near the table. “No!” She looked at me. “Untie me. Free me. It’s the only way.”

  I glanced from her to Arthan who was, despite his injury, trying to keep the Baba Yaga off. I couldn’t focus on her right now; I had to channel that power, that anger, that had given me the ability to make the Baba Yaga’s blood boil in her veins, that had harmed her more than anything we had tried so far.

  “It won’t work.” The girl shook her head. “Not now she’s prepared. You and me, together. We can do it. Take my collar off.”

  Could I trust her? Or was she chained up like this because what she was, was a lot worse than a Baba Yaga?

  “Do it!” Arthan yelled at me, right before the Baba Yaga twisted her hand in the air and he fell to the floor, as lifeless as a doll.

  Was he dead? No, that couldn’t be. She couldn’t have killed him. Not Arthan. Not him.

  I looked at the girl, who gestured for me to help take off the chains around her neck, and I looked at the carnage all around me. At the towering figure of the Baba Yaga approaching us, the bloodied knife still in her hand. At the limb form of my best friend drowning in a pool of her own blood. At the silent shape of the vampire I had feelings for.

  Without thinking about it, I grabbed the collar around the girl’s neck and started pulling it.

  “No!” The Baba Yaga’s eyes went wide, terror written all over her face. “No!”

  The collar let loose, the girl got up in one swift motion, and in the next moment, the Baba Yaga was on her knees, the girl’s hand on the old crone’s head.

  She’d written two symbols on the hag’s forehead, an upside-down V and a rudimentary R.

  Then, with her right hand she grabbed the knife from the Baba Yaga’s hand, and with a swift motion of her other wrist, the Baba Yaga glided over the floor in the direction the girl had gestured in, right into the circle I had prepared.

  Trapped in a circle of bones.

  The girl looked at her captor, a small smile playing on her lips. “You’ll die now.” Then, she turned toward me, handed me the knife and said, “you can go cut her heart out now.”

  Chapter 22

  Naturally, the Baba Yaga screamed while I cut the flesh off her chest, but it was like music to my ears. While it was a bit sadistical to be cutting out someone’s heart, I couldn’t think of anyone more deserving of such a gruesome fate as this creature.

  Meanwhile, the girl had first checked Arthan, stated he was fine and would wake up soon—apparently, vampires only died for a short while when you snapped their necks, as the Baba Yaga had done, and they came back to life unharmed.

  Camille was another story, though. She was bleeding out, even I could tell and I had zero training.

  The girl drew some runes above my friend’s limp shape. “This should stop the bleeding already, but there’s quite some damage.”

  “Will she make it?” I gritted my teeth, finishing up the last part of cutting out the Baba Yaga’s heart.

  She stared at me with her hateful eyes. “You’ll regret this,” she said in her venomous voice. “You’ll regret what you’re doing to me.”

  “I won’t.” I looked right back into her eyes, unafraid. “You’ll be the one who’ll regret ever messing with me and my family.”

  “Your family. Hah. I curse your family.” The witch spat in my face. “Your family will be the downfall of all witches. You want to condemn me for going after your sister, but you never bothered to ask me why.”

  I felt she was trying to trap me again, get me to talk to her, distract me so I would stop cutting; but I didn’t. I finished the last part first, exposing the skin around the witch’s heart so I could grab the organ and pull it out.

  She screamed in agony when I did so. It felt strange to have a living, breathing organ just lying on my hand. I resisted the urge to throw up.

  The mortar and pestle were in the same spot as the previous time I’d been here. While the girl, whose name was still a mystery to me, kept on drawing runes in the air above Camille’s body, I dumped the Baba Yaga’s heart in the mortar.

  “I did it because I had to,” the Baba Yaga said from her spot in the circle of bones. Her voice had another quality to it, now. As long as she was in the circle of bones, she couldn’t make her house turn on us, or collapse on us. It was almost as if she’d given in. As if she realized she had been defeated.

  “There’s a prophecy about the Silvermanes. A Silvermane will be born with powers similar to those of the legendary Selena, powers so dark they will destroy the line of witches.” She gazed straight at me, the look in her eyes sending chills down my s
pine.

  She was telling the truth. Despite her lies and trickery, I knew in my bones she was telling the truth.

  “I thought your sister was that Silvermane. I thought by killing her, I could save the line of witches. What is one for the price of many?”

  The dead-cold stare in her eyes made chills run along my spine.

  Don’t give in, Kieran, I told myself as I lifted the pestle. Baba Yaga’s will say what they want to bring you off track. She’s trying to trick you again, so you could agree… Agree with what? That you’d let her kill you own sister, for a so-called prophecy. Hell, no…

  “But it wasn’t her.” The Baba Yaga’s voice sounded different. Less hoarse, less threatening, more neutral, defeated. It was somehow all the more chilling. “I had placed my bet on the wrong sister. I began to suspect this the moment you boiled my blood—you shouldn’t have been able to do that, but your anger gave you strength. Same with that collar. It’s enchanted with a dozen spells, you shouldn’t have been able to pull it off.”

  “Don’t listen to her,” the girl said. “Kill her. If she gets in your head, then—”

  “I’m not playing games anymore.” For the first time, I believed the Baba Yaga, and that was all the worse. “Anger gives you power, and it will also make you dangerous. Your sister won’t be the one to destroy your line, you will.”

  “No.” The word echoed in the room, and I tightened my grip around the pestle. “You’re just saying that to get in my head.”

  “You know I’m not.” The Baba Yaga shrugged. “I’m dead already. You’ll kill me, I know that. And if you don’t, I’ll stop at nothing to kill you. But be warned, little girl.” A hint of her old self returned, a maniacal smile similar to the one she had before, but less grotesque.

  I didn’t want to hear it. My knuckles turned white from my grip on the pestle.

  “I’m not the only Baba Yaga in the world, and my sisters won’t be happy when they find out what happened to me. And on top of that…” She paused for a second, averting her gaze to the girl who was trying to heal Camille, “there are worse things in this world than Baba Yaga’s.”

  I brought down the pestle with all my strength, crushing the Baba Yaga’s heart.

  Chapter 23

  Arthan came by seconds after the Baba Yaga had perished. I thought she’d explode or something else spectacular would happen, but she just slumped to the ground and turned to ash, like she had never even existed to begin with.

  The Baba Yaga was dead. We’d won.

  Still, I didn’t feel victorious. I felt slightly better as Arthan woke up, but not much. The evil witch might be dead, but the curse on my sister remained. For now. I really hoped the girl could help me.

  “Is she…” Arthan looked a little groggy, holding on to his head. “Is she dead?”

  “Yes.” I smiled at him, and only realized I was crying when he reached over to wipe my tears away. “She’s dead. We killed a Baba Yaga.”

  But what the Baba Yaga had said in her final moments had really gotten to me. They reminded me of what Jadis had said when she’s read the tarot cards for me. What if the Baba Yaga had been right?

  Just at that moment, Camille groaned. I crawled toward her on all fours, feeling too tired to stand up.

  The girl stopped crafting the runes in the air and looked down at Camille, a friendly smile on her face. “How are you doing?”

  Camille slowly opened her eyes. She blinked a few times against the light, saw the girl, and then turned toward me. “We win?”

  I broke into a smile. “We did. We won.” I grabbed her hand, resisting the urge to hug her.

  “Your wound is closed,” the girl said. “You’ll be weak and you’ll need to rest, but you’ll be okay.” She smiled too, and even if I didn’t know her, and had no idea if I could trust her, I wanted to hug her and tell her how grateful I was for saving my friend.

  “We should get out of here,” Arthan said. “Check up on Dean, if he’s even still conscious. Those spells take out a lot of you.” He helped Camille stand up. “I’ll carry you downstairs,” he said to her. She seemed ready to argue, but then cringed when she tried to take a step.

  “Okay, go ahead,” she said. “I’ll be the damsel in distress for once.”

  While Arthan helped Camille climb down the steps of the ladder, I turned toward the girl. “What’s your name?” I asked.

  She smiled at me. “Luna. It’s been so long since I used it, that it doesn’t even sound familiar anymore.”

  “Listen, Luna…” I fidgeted with my sleeve. “I understand if you just said you could help my sister just so I could help you get out of here. I won’t be mad. I’m thankful you helped me save Camille and—”

  Before I could continue, Luna put her hand on my arm. “I can help your sister. At least, partially,” she added with a wry smile. “The rest is up to you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m a druid. I use symbols to heal, to protect. The Baba Yaga captured me centuries ago, and held me captive here. She wanted to use my powers for her own wrongdoings. She misused them when she forced me to curse your sister’s friend with the runes, and when she used my powers to seal herself into the Wendigo’s body until it died—then she promptly returned to her own. Baba Yagas aren’t supposed to have these powers, but we have, and she forced me to use my powers for evil.”

  She dropped her hand, letting go off me. “It’s time I started using my powers for good again. The curse in your sister’s mind was also created using my powers—the Baba Yaga cursed her while she was in the Wendigo’s body. That spell, I can undo. But the death curse… that’s up to you.”

  “How can I undo it?” I had never heard about the possibility of undoing a curse of this kind, especially not a death curse. Once it was placed on you, you were forced to live out the consequences, even if it was death.

  “Undo it, no. But you can execute it.”

  “What?” I could barely believe my ears. What the hell was this girl suggesting?

  “Your sister will die.” Luna grimaced when she spoke. “There is no escaping that. But you can dictate the how and when, and you can bring her back from the dead too. You are a blood witch. You can kill, but you can also bring to life. Blood is life, just ask that vampire you are dating.”

  “I’m not… I’m not dating him.” But there was some truth to what she was saying. “Do you mean I could revive her? Make her blood flow again?”

  “Yes,” Luna said. “But you should do it right away, right after she dies. She’ll have died, so the curse will be triggered, but there’s nothing in that curse refraining her from coming back to life.”

  “What if I can’t, though?” I heard the weakness in my own voice, the fear. “What if I can’t bring her back?”

  Luna licked her lips, and wiped some off her hair out of her face. “You just killed a Baba Yaga. You can do it.”

  Chapter 24

  Thankfully, my parents had a meeting with the coven that night, otherwise they would have had a heart attack when they saw the bunch of us show up.

  Their daughter, with bruises all over, and her clothes torn up from fighting a Baba Yaga, not to mention both her hands drenched in blood. A vampire, who seemed the most composed of all of us, and who was holding up Dean on the one hand, and Camille on the other. When Arthan and Camille had found Dean, he had fainted, something he had repeatedly done so for the time it took for us to get back home. According to Arthan, this was a normal side effect of bone witch magic, and I hoped that was true.

  Camille also looked worse for wear. Her clothes were ruined, and she kept holding her stomach, cringing with every step she took.

  Then, lastly, a druid who looked like she hadn’t showered in ages, which was probably the case, with long, unkempt brown hair, brown eyes, and a frame so thin I immediately wanted to take her to McDonalds and buy her a dozen hamburgers.

  We were a strange bunch, but I also felt connected to all of them in ways I hadn’t before. T
hey had stood by my side, even this girl I didn’t know, Luna, and without them, I would be dead and buried by now.

  “Take me to her room,” Luna said as soon as I closed the front door behind us. “Just us. I’ll need to concentrate.”

  “Okay.” I shot an apologetic smile to the others. “Maybe you can go clean up in the meantime?”

  Arthan nodded. He, Camille and Dean disappeared into the living room, while I guided Luna up the stairs.

  “How long ago did the Baba Yaga capture you?” I asked her meanwhile.

  “Centuries ago.”

  “Sorry for saying, but you don’t look that old. Are you… immortal?”

  “In a way,” she answered cryptically. “Which door is it?” We’d reached the hallway upstairs, which was bathing in a gloomy glow coming from a lonely light bulb that bravely fought on while his comrades had shattered over the years, and Father never bothered to replace them.

  I pushed open the door to Samantha’s room, letting out a sigh of relief when she was still in bed, her breathing steady. Even though she was still in a coma, at least she was alive.

  Luna walked toward my sister’s bed. She rested her fingertips on Samantha’s forehead. “You’ll have to do it fast. The moment she wakes up from her coma, press the pillow on her face.”

  “Why can’t we do it first?” Not that it sounded less painful, there was no scenario on earth where killing my own sister didn’t scare me half to death. But maybe Luna was right. Maybe I could bring her back…

  “She won’t be strong enough with that curse still in her. I’ll have to lift it first.” Luna looked at me apologetically. “Sorry, but it’s the only way.”

  I stared at Samantha’s face, remembering how she was back when she was still awake. Her laughter as it rang across the room. The melody of her voice as she tended to sing-song my name. The sparkle in her eyes when she told me a joke.