Witch Unexpected: The Thirteenth Sign Book 1

by Cassidy, Debbie

  The tentacle pinning us whipped down for another slap at the ground. A battle cry ripped the air, blood sprayed, and the tentacle was gone, lopped off and shriveling on the ground.

  Bramble stood at the entrance to the stall, face spattered with blood, mouth in a grimace. “Well, come on. What you fecking waiting for?”

  The revenant screamed as Jessie bolted out of the stall and into the washroom. I made to follow, but Bramble shoved me back and stepped into the stall with me.

  “We’re safest in here for now,” she said. “Nothing we can do.”

  The chanting grew louder, filling the room. The urge to peer out, to see what was happening, was a clawing in the pit of my stomach. But instinct held me back as the sounds of battle intensified.

  The revenant screamed one last time, then there was silence.

  Bramble stepped up to the door and peered out. Her shoulders sagged. “It’s over.”

  I followed her out of the stall to find The Elites standing over a pile of red goo. Brie sprinkled something over it, and the goo shrank and vanished.

  Poppy was crouched by the human the revenant had attacked.

  “Poppy?” Sloane asked the witch.

  She shook her head. “She’s gone.”

  “Fuck.” Sloane ran a hand over her face.

  “We got this,” Brie said. She stepped away to speak into her comm.

  Poppy hauled the woman up and dragged her over to the sink before positioning her as if she’d passed out there. Jessie raised her hand and swept it in an arc in front of her. The room shimmered, and then every bit of damage done by the revenant was gone.

  “Glamour,” Bramble said.

  “Orion said he’d clean up,” Brie said to Sloane.

  Sloane nodded slowly, then fixed her electric blue eyes on me. “You did good, cupcake. Now let’s go get that fucking drink.”

  “Not here, though,” Poppy said, looking down at the dead human. “Not tonight.”

  “Fine,” Sloane said. “Outliers it is.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Outliers was a bar for…well, outliers. The alcohol-serving version of Lumiers. Except alcohol had little to no effect on outliers, but the shit on the menu here was stuff I’d never heard of.

  I nursed my fireblast—a whiskey concoction that was smooth as fuck—and glanced across the table toward the small dancefloor where Brie and Poppy were busting some serious moves.

  Bramble was at the bar, chatting to the owner, Finn, and Jessie was slouched in her chair across from us. Sloane had healed her wound with a little mojo, but she continued to look sulky and pissed.

  “Jessie doesn’t like being knocked out of the game,” Sloane said, sipping her fireblast. “Even if it’s for a second.”

  Jessie stabbed us with a dark glare before continuing to people watch.

  “You’re not just all mouth, are you?” Sloane said. “You got she-balls.”

  I picked up a peanut from the bowl in front of me, then dropped it. I mean, how many hands had rummaged in that bowl?

  “I can handle myself. I’ve been in some pretty dicey situations.”

  “Yeah, if you hadn’t rallied Jessie back there, we’d have been fucked.”

  Jessie slammed her glass against the table, drawing our attention, then shoved her chair back and stormed off.

  “So much for thank you.”

  “She’s grateful. She’s just pissed at herself for being the weak link tonight.”

  As much as I wanted to learn about Jessie’s insecurities… Okay, I really didn’t care. I had more pressing questions. I opened my mouth to say just that, but Sloane cut me off with a piercing look.

  “I know. You have questions.”

  “Understatement. How about we start with, what the fuck was that thing?”

  “A warlock,” she said. “A dead warlock.”

  “Okay, I was not expecting that.”

  She smiled tightly. “Let me break it down for you. The Order of Croatoan draws power from chaos. They have no connection to miasma whatsoever. Chaos is everything to them, and when they die, they have the same choice as witches—to remain tethered here or to move on to Tarrafell.”

  I’d heard that name. Heck, I’d been there, at least to what constituted the foyer of the damn place, but it felt like such a long time ago. A fuzzy memory of something that had happened mere months ago.

  “That’s the afterlife for outliers, right?”

  “That’s right.” She sipped her drink. “If the warlock souls stay on this plane, after some time, they morph into what you saw today. The one we killed tonight was relatively young. There are older ones and… There are ancient ones.”

  “I don’t understand. Why do they change, and witches don’t?”

  “Because chaos is addictive. It’s dangerous, and the more they used it in life, the more it twists them in death until they turn into soul-sucking monsters desperate for their next fix. As they’re unable to tap into chaos directly, they find humans with chaotic souls and feed from them, but in the absence of a chaotic soul, they’ll just feed off any human soul, and if they’re hungry enough, they’ll go after outliers. It’s rare, though. The revenant would have to be starving to do that. Even in that state, though, they’re strong, stronger because of the hunger.”

  “And you killed one? How is that possible?”

  “It’s called negation—essentially unmaking an entity—and it’s not something just any witch can do. It’s not something we’re permitted to do on anything but revenants; otherwise, we risk upsetting the delicate balance of nature. There are only a handful of witches with the ability to carry the spell. It’s a requirement for joining The Elites. It’s not a spell you can learn to do. You can either do it, or you can’t.”

  “And the revenants… Why do they stay here? Why stay in Leyton?”

  She sucked in her bottom lip. “Anna believes it’s a combination of the draw of the ley lines and the fact that they died on this land. We have lulls followed by spates of mass feedings, where they come out the woodwork like lice. There’s a prophecy.” She snorted. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but prophecies are a thing. Basically, when our coven locked Croatoan away, it momentarily weakened the original warlocks. The ones who spawned the whole Order. Anyway, Grimswood witches slaughtered them, you know, to cut the head off the snake, so to speak. They trapped the original warlocks at a location known only by our elder council. But…” She raised an index finger. “There’s a prophecy, foretold by Dorothy Fillian, member of the first elder council, that states, when Croatoan rises, so will the original warlocks, and on that day, humanity will fall. So…” She eyed me over the rim of her glass. “That’s what you’re helping us stop. Revenants, but ten times worse than the thing we put down in the restroom.” She raised her glass. “Welcome to Grimswood Coven.”

  “I’m going to need another drink.”

  * * *

  It was gone midnight by the time we got back to the mansion. Sloane dropped us off, and Bramble walked me partway to the house before getting an urgent call from Charlotte. I made it to the east wing with minimal assistance, and damn I was knackered.

  Wren was sprawled in the middle of the bed, snoring softly. I changed into my sleep shorts and T before scooping him up and tucking him under the covers with me.

  It was like having a living teddy bear to snuggle.

  I lay in the dark for long minutes. “Jasper?” The air was unmoving, not a whisper. My chest hollowed. “Jasper, where the fuck are you?”

  I hated to admit it, but I was worried about him, and… I missed him. Urgh. I was obviously a glutton for punishment. Wren’s even breaths and the hum of his snoring relaxed me.

  My eyes drifted closed.

  “Cora? Wake up, Cora.”

  “Huh?” I peeled my eyelids open to find Wren in my face, his hazel eyes dark and round with fear. “Wren?”

  “Wren see monster in the wall…”

  My body was instantly alert, alarm bells going off. My
breath fogged the air in front of my face. Temperature drop. Bad sign.

  “Cora… look…” Wren pressed against me and pointed at the wall opposite our bed.

  The wall bulged and rippled, and dark pores opened across it.

  No fucking way.

  I scrambled out of bed with Wren attached to me and ran for the door. My hand closed around the handle, then I was blown back across the room. My butt hit the floor by my bed.

  Wren? Where was Wren?

  He groaned, and I located him on the ground across the room. He’d been knocked out of my arms. The door was blocked by magic. It made no sense. No time to figure it out because red shit was pouring out of the wall.

  I knew what this was.

  I’d seen it only a few hours ago. How was it here? How the fuck?

  I scrambled to my feet, grabbed hold of Wren, and made a beeline for the balcony. A red blur rushed me, cutting off my escape, and forcing me back.

  The revenant formed, skeletal, and a crimson so dark it was almost black. It opened its maw and screamed.

  I decided to join in. I ducked as it made a swipe for me and ran toward the dresser where my holster and blade were.

  Wren clung to my back, his heart beating way too fast between my shoulder blades.

  Blades!

  I slid them from the holster and turned in time to slash at the revenant.

  It screamed and backed up. Black goo drifted into the air from the wounds I’d inflicted before zipping back toward the revenant to heal him.

  I eyed the balcony to my left. If I could dodge this fucker, I could get out there and… What? Jump?

  Fuck it, jumping was better than having my soul eaten. Gargoyles were out there. I could climb on a ledge and call for help, something, because there was no way for me to fight this thing. Only a negation chant could do that. Only The Elites could do that.

  “Wren loves Cora,” Wren whimpered. “Get ready to run.”

  “What?”

  The revenant attacked, and Wren leaped over my shoulder and landed on its face.

  “Run!” my tiny buddy yelled.

  “Like hell.”

  While the revenant clawed at Wren, trying to pry him off, I buried my daggers in the thing’s abdomen and dragged the blades back and forth, opening him up.

  Its cry of rage was muffled by Wren, but not for long. I yanked out the daggers and made a grab for Wren.

  He cried out as the hilts touched his fur.

  “I’m sorry, buddy.” There was no way I was leaving him behind. We ran onto the balcony. I slammed the doors behind me, not sure why, because it probably wouldn’t keep the revenant at bay, but it made me feel better. There was a ledge to the left of the balcony that led to another balcony several meters away. We could make it.

  Wren whimpered and sobbed.

  Shit, the iron hilts of my blade… “I got you.” I dropped the blades and adjusted my grip on him. Warm slick blood coated my hands. “Oh fuck, Wren.”

  He was hurt. I set him on the balcony floor. His abdomen was bloody, probably where the revenant had taken a bite. If I didn’t get help soon, he’d bleed out. There was no way he could hold on to me while I tried to scale these walls, and I needed my hands free to do it.

  The glass doors to the balcony shuddered. My head whipped round to see the revenant pushing through the glass inch by inch. I mean, he could have opened the doors, but maybe revenants didn’t have that kind of intelligence?

  “Go, Cora,” Wren said. “Go.”

  I couldn’t leave him. I wouldn’t. I scooped him up, backed up against the railing and screamed—the loudest, most bloodcurdling fucking scream I could muster.

  The revenant burst through the glass and barreled toward me, its hunger a potent force blasting against my skin.

  I hit it with power, weak but effective enough to knock it back.

  “Help!”

  I blasted it again and again. Each shot weaker. I wouldn’t be able to hold it off much longer.

  Wren had gone limp in my arms.

  No, don’t think about that.

  The revenant attacked again, and this time my power failed me. My scream echoed into the night. I dodged, dropped to the ground, and scramble-crawled away. Not fast enough. Its hand closed on my nape, and it hauled me up.

  Terror pooled in the pit of my stomach, then the heat of anger washed it away. I twisted and jerked, desperate to be free, my cries of impotent rage carrying on the breeze, and suddenly I was free.

  I hit the ground with my knees, keeping a grip on an unconscious Wren.

  The revenant grappled with a shadow. I caught the glint of silver hair and the flash of inky black claws before my brain made sense of what I was seeing.

  Lauris fought the revenant, clawing at it with his talons, his mouth an elongated maw of silver teeth as he tore into it.

  The revenant fought back, opening welts across Lauris’s face and punching bloody holes in his T-shirt. This wasn’t a fight the gargoyle could win.

  We needed The Elites.

  Pen had put a lock on my door to prevent the ghosts from getting in, but we were outside now.

  “Dottie! Dottie, Wren’s hurt.”

  I wasn’t sure if she would hear me, but if she did, this would make her answer my call.

  She materialized a moment later. “What?” She took in the scene then scooped Wren up.

  “I need The Elites.”

  She walked off the edge of the balcony with Wren.

  Fuck. Was she going to get help or not? No time to worry about that. I had to help Lauris. I grabbed my daggers, ready to join the revenant slashing party, when the fucker erupted in tendrils.

  One whipped out toward me so fast there was no time to dodge before it smacked me in the face.

  My head slammed against the railing and my vision blacked out, and one involuntary word fell from my lips.

  “Jasper…”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Jasper

  Drifting brings rage. I want to get back to Cora, but the tether between us is weakened by that damn amulet. Why does she have to be such an infernal pain in the ass?

  Because she’s Cora, that’s why.

  I need to find her. Where is she?

  Damn this drifting. I need energy, but these darn witches have done something to block me from siphoning. I guess my little display earlier spooked them. I’m still not sure how I did it. I can usually only take a little from the environment around me, after which I’m exhausted, but knowing Cora was in danger galvanized something inside me.

  If only I could tap into that?

  “Impossible!”

  The energy of emotion in the voice draws me, and I’m suddenly standing in the shadows of a study. I recognize the speaker, the elder witch Anna, and there are six other witches with her.

  The council.

  I hover in the shadows and listen.

  “We can’t let The Sons of Adam have her,” Anna says.

  “You know what happens if we don’t,” one of the other witches says. “Do you want to pay the price?”

  “A threat, that’s all,” Anna says. She doesn’t look convinced, though. “The Sons of Adam haven’t left their mountain home for centuries. They’re too weak. They won’t come to collect.”

  “It’s been twelve hundred years,” a witch with a dark bob says. “They’ve obviously healed from what was done to them.” She sighs. “What our coven did to them.”

  “We had no choice. The fate of humanity depended on it,” Anna says. “Now we must be strong. We must fight back and protect what is ours.”

  The witches exchange nervous glances, then the one with the dark bob speaks again.

  “Anna, the old council got lucky. They cornered The Sons of Adam at a time when they were at their weakest. After all this time, they’ll be almost at full strength again, and you know what they are, what they’re capable of. Mordecai wasn’t known as The Impaler for nothing.”

  “So, what do you suggest, hmmm? That we ha
nd over our anchor?”

  Wait, are they talking about Cora? I’m intrigued.

  “The seal will remain intact whether she is here or there,” one of the witches explains. “If we refuse, then we risk losing everything, and the seal won’t matter because there’ll be no Grimswood witches to protect it.”

  “The risk of submitting could set Croatoan free.”

  My mind whirs with the disjointed information.

  Cora needs to know this. I need to find her, but to do that, I need energy. Luckily for me, this room is now pulsing with fear and alarm. No need to draw it from anyone. Perfect. I absorb it, and my body is mine once again.

  One of the witch’s gazes’ flicks to the shadows where I am. “What…? Who’s there?”

  “Jasper…”

  Cora’s summons pulls me to her.

  Chapter Twenty

  Cora

  “Jasper…” The word fell from my lips involuntarily.

  No, I could do this. I pushed off the ground and surged toward the revenant, dodging and slashing at the tentacles to get close. One hit me in the abdomen, throwing me back again. The thing was no longer in feed mode; it was in survival mode, but Lauris’s attack was slowing, and his white T was soaked in blood.

  I ducked the swipe of a barbed tentacle—just—and Lauris staggered away, clutching his side. The revenant reared up, ready to lunge at the gargoyle.

  I rushed it, slamming into it from the side and dragging it across the balcony and into the railing. Its body was dry and flaky, a contradiction to the wet bloody sheen to it. I buried my dagger in its ribs, over and over. I was peripherally aware of Lauris trying to get past the tentacles to help me, but they were all barbed now, whipping back and forth, taking up the whole balcony and keeping him at bay.

  The revenant’s hand tangled in my hair, yanking my head back to bare my throat, then his mouth was heading toward mine.

  “Cora!”