Witches of Ash and Ruin

by E. Latimer

  When she broke away, rearing back, her fist raised to strike again, she heard it. The wheezing gasp from the hexagram.

  The ground seemed to drop out from under her.

  Dayna.

  She turned and stumbled forward, snatching at Dayna’s arm. Her hand slipped over the girl’s skin, slick with warm blood, and she tightened her grip on Dayna’s wrist. With a grunt she pulled her up and out of the bone hexagram, depositing her limp body on the grass. She straightened, whirling around with her hands up, the buzz of magic surging as a deep voice said from behind, “It’s too late.”

  The brother with the sword was smiling up at the tomb above them, his expression exultant. “Can’t you feel her?”

  As if triggered by his words, the roar began again.

  A sharp, terrible crack followed, echoing around the clearing over the sound of the wind. Horror churned in Meiner’s stomach. A deep split appeared along the surface of the grassy tomb, continuing down to break open the stone wall, which began to crumble in on itself. On the ground Dayna rolled over, limbs flopping bonelessly as she blinked up at the tomb. She looked dazed.

  A low, angry buzz was coming from the mound, like someone had disturbed a nest of wasps.

  Something was coming to life; something was waking.

  The three brothers turned to face the tomb, faces tilted up to the mound. When they turned, Meiner saw black smoke leaking from their mouths, from their eyes. Their mouths moved in unison.

  “D’éist me do ghlaoch. I listened to your call.”

  As one, their gazes flicked across the hexagram, fixing on the Callighans. Carman had begun to wake, and now the pentacle needed one last piece. Bronagh moved before they could, more swiftly than the old woman should have been able to, her daughter and granddaughter behind her. The witches were emanating a strange silvery light, as if they’d pulled the moonlight down for themselves.

  They crashed together, witches and hunters, screams and cries drowning out Yemi’s chanting, light eating away at the darkness. Meiner tensed, watching as Brenna flung one of the brothers across the clearing, at the same time Faye was sent crashing against the trunk of the nearest sapling, her expression twisted with pain and dismay as black smoke wreathed her.

  As they were separated, the light from the three witches dimmed, and Meiner felt her chest tighten with dread. Something had happened to the witch hunters; the cracked tomb had bestowed new strength on them.

  The shortest one, Dubh, charged forward. He swung his sword in a wide arc, and Bronagh caught it in clasped hands, her face like steel. They stayed locked there for a moment, Dubh’s face filled with an ugly, eager light. Meiner realized with a horrible start that the smoke pouring off him seemed to be actively seeking the woman’s face. It curled upward like it was alive, probing at Bronagh’s skin. She turned her head away, but it persisted, twisting sooty tendrils up toward her eyes.

  Dubh jerked his sword out of her hands, and Bronagh cried out, a thin arc of blood trailing through the air, splattering her gown. The witch hunter thrust the blade forward, his smile wide and ugly.

  “No!” Meiner stumbled to her feet as the steel struck home, vanishing into the black dress, plunging into Bronagh’s middle. The witch’s face drained of blood, her mouth opened slightly.

  She fell. It was a slow, gentle movement, as if she sank down onto the grass of her own accord, skirts billowing around her.

  Above them, the barest sliver of silver moon had returned.

  There was a terrible scream from Faye, echoed by her mother, and the two women were at Bronagh’s side the next instant, so fast that Meiner had not seen them move. Brenna’s scream was half animal, the shriek of a wild bird, and she crooked one clawed hand at Dubh, sending him backward, crashing into his brother.

  This time the ground shook so powerfully that Meiner pitched forward, falling hard onto her hands and knees. When she looked up, the black smoke was billowing out around Bronagh, consuming the air around it, engulfing the three women.

  Dubh turned from the Callighan women, his face triumphant. His sword was still gripped in his right hand, still stained with Bronagh’s blood. His eyes were all pupil, tear ducts leaking black smoke. His gaze raked across the hexagram, came to rest on Dayna. Meiner stiffened.

  Reagan hurtled forward as the witch hunter limped toward Dayna. She placed herself in front of the bone hexagram, hands raised, her voice low and furious as she chanted under her breath. The shimmer in the air slowed Dubh, and his face twisted with the effort. His body moved as if he waded through sludge. Still he moved forward, and Reagan’s arms shook as she held them aloft. He was fighting the magic.

  Meiner could think of only one thing to do. Even though it was reckless. Even though she had no clue what it might do, and every instinct was screaming to go to Dayna. They had run out of options, and now all she had was the mad hope that Gran had been on their side all along. That she had known all of this was going to happen.

  She ground her teeth and forced herself to step past Dayna on the grass, past the line of bones, and into the hexagram.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  CORA

  She should have been worried about what was happening to the Callighans, about the black smoke consuming them. But all Cora could do was stare at the hexagram in horror. Blood had been spilled there. And not the right way. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

  Meiner had dragged Dayna out of the pentacle and deposited her into Reagan’s arms, and now she stood in the center like she would do the ritual. Like this was her moment.

  Cora stepped past the bloody-faced witch hunter, who was on his back on the ground, his rattling gasps loud even above the wind.

  Meiner’s arms were spread wide, her head tilted back. Her lips were already moving in the familiar shapes of the words Cora knew so well. This was her spell.

  Cora didn’t care about anything. Not about Dayna, or the Callighans or the witch hunters. It might as well have been Cora and Meiner facing off across the bones.

  She should have known it would come to this. It was always meant to be this way.

  The ground began to shake again, and the wind picked up, stinging her cheeks, whipping her hair across her face. Cora pushed forward, against the wind, against the bucking earth. Step by halting step, her eyes fixed on Meiner’s face, on her lips, which never stopped moving.

  Cora threw herself into the circle, anger propelling her. She would not let Meiner take this from her, too.

  Her hands connected with Meiner’s chest, and the white-haired witch stumbled out of the hexagram, eyes wide with shock.

  Cora pulled out her dagger. The golden snakes were warm beneath her fingers, as if they were ready. Her lips were already moving, her voice loud above the howling wind. Pain blazed across her skin as she dragged the blade down the inside of her elbow, followed by the liquid warmth of blood trickling down her arm. She repeated the process on her other arm and let the knife drop, holding her hands out, letting the blood run off the tips of her fingers. She tilted her head back, and the wind ripped at her hair and clothing as she screamed the last few lines into the storm.

  Beneath her feet the ground went abruptly still. The wind dropped off, leaving a dull, distant ringing in her ears. Outside the hexagram her fellow witches were nothing but statues, still and pale. The silence was stifling and dark, like a pair of heavy velvet curtains had swept down over the show, putting an end to everything. Had seconds or minutes passed? Cora couldn’t tell; she could only feel the steady pulse of blood leaking from her veins.

  She felt the magic shift around her and knew the spell was working. The familiar, euphoric rush of energy crashed through her. This time it did not cut off, but crested higher, stiffening her muscles, sending goose bumps over her skin.

  Cora became distantly aware she was laughing, face tilted to the light of the full moon above. A high, wild sound carried away by the wind. Her fingers curled and flexed at her sides.

  This power could tear down sk
yscrapers, drain oceans, level mountains. She was alive with it, electric. She—

  Something crashed into her chest, buzzing, alive. This was a new energy, one she’d never felt before. It surged within her, demanding and aggressive, running down the length of her arms. There was a terrible tearing sensation on the surface of her skin, and pain knifed through her. Cora choked on her laughter, jerked her head down in shock.

  The wounds on her arms had grown deeper, the slashes widening and elongating. The blood no longer trickled in thin tracks—it streamed down her pale skin, soaking the grass.

  “No. Stop—”

  She screamed as another wave of pain rocked her. Something dragged on her wounds. The same furious energy attached itself to her arms, drawing the blood out faster than should have been possible. It pooled at her feet, thick, scarlet, spreading far too fast for the earth to consume. Fear crowded in Cora’s breast. She felt the blood drain from her face so quickly her head spun.

  “Cora!”

  The shout from outside the circle was muffled, and when she looked up, swaying on her feet, Meiner was on the outside, pushed back by a thin haze that had risen around the hexagram. She was battering at it with her fists, as if the haze were a solid wall. Something was keeping her from stepping over the circle. From interrupting the spell.

  The pull on Cora’s blood was a physical sensation. She could feel her magic draining, her life force slipping away. Above her the gray sky warped and stretched, spinning in slow, lazy circles. This time when she closed her eyes it was because her eyelids were so heavy. She was so tired.

  The voice of her goddess brushed her mind like silk, slithering over her thoughts until Caorthannach was all she could hear.

  Tá áthas orainn. I accept your sacrifice, witch.

  Cora felt her knees give way. She felt nothing as she crumpled; the pain was gone. There was only the softness of the grass against her face, as the heavy, velvet darkness descended.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  DAYNA

  Several things happened the moment Cora dropped in the center of the bone hexagram. The earth stopped shaking, and there was a strange, distant cry that sounded remarkably like a raven. The black smoke vanished, leaving Faye and Brenna on the ground, fingers clutching at the grass, and Brenna gave another animal howl in the stillness.

  Bronagh was gone. In her place was only a strange, elongated streak of black. Like soot staining the grass.

  Meiner appeared beside Dayna—and Reagan followed a second later—sliding her arms around Dayna’s waist and under her knees, gathering her against her chest. Meiner stayed still, and Reagan pressed her hands against Dayna’s shoulder, against her wound, and a groan tore from her throat. The pain made darkness creep into the edges of her vision, and tears blurred her eyes.

  “Stay still,” Meiner muttered, low in her ear. “Let her bind it. You’re bleeding all over.” At last Reagan succeeded in wrapping her sweater around Dayna’s shoulder, and Dayna blinked tears back as she tied it firmly.

  She blinked the haze out of her eyes and looked around the clearing. The moon hung full in the sky once again, lighting the field and the tomb, painting everything below it in silver.

  Miraculously the tomb’s face was whole and smooth, and Dayna wondered momentarily if she’d only dreamed it had cracked, if she’d been delirious from the wound in her shoulder.

  There was still a faint haze of black smoke lingering; it wrapped around the base of the rocks and drifted over Cora’s still form, blanketing the ground. The brothers were gone.

  “Bronagh.” Yemi’s voice from behind them sounded tremulous with shock, and Dayna turned, wincing at the pain that shot through her.

  Brenna and Faye were both sitting up now, staring at the empty spot where she’d been. Dayna swallowed past the tightness in her throat. The black smoke had consumed Bronagh completely.

  Impossible. Their coven leader couldn’t be gone, not really.

  Her attention was pulled away as Meiner set her down gently, moving toward the crumpled form in the center of the hexagram. Dayna saw with a sickening lurch in her stomach that Cora wasn’t moving.

  Meiner seemed hesitant to approach, her face stricken. Yemi followed cautiously, kneeling on the grass beside her, and Reagan looped her arm around Dayna’s waist, helping her limp slowly after them.

  Blood decorated the grass in a glossy dark pool at the center of the hexagram. The symbol itself had been broken, the bones scattered across the ground.

  She tried not to look at the figure in the circle. “What did she do?”

  Meiner’s expression was so complicated, so full of hurt and horror, that Dayna wanted to slip her arm around her shoulders, to steady her.

  “It was the ritual.” Meiner’s voice was low and hoarse. “The one my grandmother started to teach me when I was younger. I memorized part of it, and then she just…stopped.” Meiner scrubbed her hand over her face. There were unshed tears glistening in her eyes. “She taught Cora instead. I thought— I didn’t know…”

  “That she was setting you up to be a sacrifice?” Dayna whispered. The idea was unspeakably horrifying, but it was the only explanation. And then at some point she must have changed her mind. “How did she know”—she waved a hand at the tomb—“everything?”

  Meiner let out a shaky sigh. “She had visions all the time. She was famous for them. But this…She must have seen this years ago.”

  “We should take her body back,” Yemi said softly.

  Dayna nodded, glancing back at the flattened spot on the grass where Bronagh had lain only moments before. At least they could take Cora’s body home.

  “Come on.” She reached out, tugging gently on Meiner’s sleeve, and then let her hand slip down the length of her arm, weaving her fingers through Meiner’s. Meiner started, and then allowed Dayna to entwine her fingers with hers. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  DAYNA

  The funeral for Cora was in Limerick, the Sunday after. It was dark and misty, though it did not turn to full rain, which was both a blessing, and in Dayna’s opinion a curse. She’d half wanted it to rain; it would have suited the somber mood.

  They’d lost so much in the space of a week. No one knew what had happened to Bronagh’s body, and this more than anything seemed to haunt Brenna and Faye. The women clung together under the oak tree, and Dayna couldn’t help thinking they looked wrong without Bronagh. Uneven somehow.

  The witch hunters, too, were a mystery. They’d vanished the moment the tomb sealed shut. There was no closure to it, though, and Dayna scanned the graveyard uneasily as they stood beneath wide black umbrellas, listening to the preacher talk about death.

  There were still so many unanswered questions. The thought of Fiona’s strange scribblings kept coming back to her. The jagged handwriting, the same word repeated endlessly.

  The Dagda.

  She wanted to dismiss it as ridiculous, as nothing more than the ramblings of a madwoman, but…Fiona wasn’t exactly mad, was she? And what was it Dayna had felt when she’d touched the book? And that strange sense of déjà vu, and the distant memory of the horned woman in the woods?

  All mysteries that would need to be solved. Secrets to be uncovered.

  But for now, she wasn’t going to look. She needed time to grieve. They all did.

  That reminded her—she still hadn’t returned her father’s calls. Fiona was there with him, and she had no desire to find out if the woman was still possessed or not.

  She turned her attention back to the service.

  Having a preacher preside over any of the witches’ funerals was ridiculous, doubly so with Cora. But her family had arrived in town—out of nowhere, as far as Dayna could tell—and demanded her body. Cora’s father was a tall blond man who seemed to be followed around by a great entourage of people taking notes at all times. A politician, maybe. She noticed he didn’t cry, staying smooth-faced through most of the ceremony. There was a tight-l
ipped strawberry-blond woman next to him in a collar of pearls and a tweed dress. Cora’s aunt, Meiner had explained, and the sour look on her face didn’t speak well of the woman.

  Dayna looked away from them, back to the preacher, who was talking about the shortness of their time here on earth.

  For all the talk of death, she kept thinking about the spot on the grass where their leader had disappeared.

  She said as much when the ceremony wrapped up, and the coffin, cold and dark, had been lowered into the earth. She waited to say it until they were heading back through the graveyard, toward the parking lot.

  “She might not be gone.” Dayna’s voice sounded croaky from disuse; she hadn’t said anything for most of the morning. She glanced back at Faye and Brenna, who were trailing a ways behind them, arms around one another. Faye was standing tall, supporting her mother as they walked, her face grim. “Not permanently.”

  Yemi shook her head. She’d exchanged her usual colorful, flowing clothing for a somber black dress. “Oh, love, we may never know if she’s gone or not. That’s the way with magic. Especially dark magic.”

  No one said anything further, but most of them glanced back in the direction of the dispersing funeral crowd and Cora’s fresh grave. Dayna’s fists were clenched at her sides, and that familiar fire blazed to life in her chest, a surge of magic as sadness and anger warred inside her. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, accept that a piece of her family was gone.

  As they passed beneath one of the tall oak trees at the edge of the iron wrought gate, she felt Meiner move closer, linking her fingers through Dayna’s. Both girls held on tightly, almost desperately, as if they might anchor each other.

  Dayna felt her stomach flutter, a strange mixture of exhilaration and fear.

  Meiner’s grip on her hand was both thrilling and strange. It felt like a promise without spoken words, a thing of unknown potential.

  There was so much of the unknown laid out before them, enough that scrying would only illuminate the smallest piece of their future, a flickering candle in a stadium of inky darkness.