The Witch's Key

by Sarra Cannon

  It didn’t get far, though, because Gianna had put a protective spell on my jeans that made them the much lighter equivalent of chainmail armor. Sending up a prayer of thanks to her, I buried my blade into the hound’s skull.

  It exploded into a pile of smoke and ash, and I turned to the next one and the next, slashing and sinking my blade into each one in turn.

  As a group, we made quick work of the hellhounds, but that didn’t mean we had any time to rest.

  Somewhere in the darkness, more screams rang out through the trees.

  “Help me,” someone screamed.

  My stomach turned, and for a second, I thought I was going to be sick. It sounded like Peyton. I told myself it was just a trick, though. Algrath was trying to mix us up. Cause us to make a mistake.

  We just had to hold steady and stick together.

  Asher appeared in front of us, rain sliding down his face. His light blue eyes practically glowed in the dark, and it made me wonder if he’d cast some kind of spell to help him see out here.

  “Someone is leading the girls to the back,” he shouted. “I don’t know what he’s playing at, but this isn’t what we expected. We can’t let him start this ritual. If we get locked out of the circle, we’ll end up just watching it all happen and not being able to do a damn thing about it.”

  Now, I really was going to be sick.

  This was already a mess, and my heart was pounding so fast, it was messing with my vision.

  If Kai hadn’t helped me center my energy before this fight began, I might have already lost my mind.

  “Keep the traps coming,” Gowan said, needing to shout over the sound of the storm growing around us. “As soon as one is half-down, we trigger the next one. No matter what, though, we stick together.”

  As they spoke, I removed a packet of reagents from my bag. Even though my hands were shaking, and my body shivered from the cold rain, I managed to keep my wits about me as I dressed the sword with more salt, poison ivy, and thorns.

  I clasped my locket as I finished off the spell, praying that it would last.

  I had five more packets like this in my bag, too, so that I could quickly reapply the spell once its power had faded.

  The more experienced Slayers with much higher-level keys still had swords, daggers, and other weapons that glowed with the light of their initial spells, but as a relatively new witch, I didn’t have access to their power.

  Any uncertainty I’d had about joining up with the Slayers when I turned eighteen faded to nothing. I wanted this. I wanted the kind of power they had. I wanted to be able to save people and banish evil.

  I let that determination and will flow through me as the next trap was triggered.

  As lightning illuminated the sky, I screamed in horror at the shadowy figures that rose from the ground. Wraiths of some kind. They weren’t made of flesh and bone, like the hellhounds.

  Instead, these types of creatures were made of air and shadow.

  My dagger would be no use against these things.

  I sheathed it, so as not to let the spell fade away, and instead, reached into my bag to grab a vial of trapped sunlight.

  To any normal eye, it just looked like an empty vial, but I had captured this bit of sunlight myself on the beach a few years ago with my parents in France. To me, that made it stronger than normal sunlight, since it was captured at the height of my joy and infused with laughter.

  Mom had told me to save it for a special occasion when I needed to lift myself from a dark place, and I couldn’t think of a better time for it than right now.

  I carefully uncorked the vial and tipped it over, letting a single drop of sunshine fall toward my palm.

  “Conlumino,” I said, squinting as a bright ball of sunshine appeared in my hand.

  Even some of the more experienced Slayers looked over, respect shining in their eyes.

  I was just relieved I’d remembered the right word for the incantation. After our quick training, they were all starting to run together a bit.

  I took a deep breath and grasped my locket, allowing the power of it to flow through me and amplify the sunlight in my hand.

  I could have sworn I heard my mother’s laughter trickle from the sunlight as it grew stronger, lighting up the entire forest and the clearing ahead.

  The wraiths that remained screeched and tried to fall back to the shadows.

  My heart raced as I tried to remember the right word to scatter the sunlight. There was no time for doubt. I had to think fast and be strong.

  “Dispergat,” I said.

  The ball of sunshine in my hand seemed to explode outward, sparkling as it shot out in a radius around me, its light slicing through the shadowy wraiths until there were no more.

  Gowan winked at me, even as he drew his sword and pushed it through the heart of a demon about twice his height. The next wave was here, already.

  As we fought, there was no time for second-guessing or doubt. We couldn’t worry about the rain pouring down on us or the lightning that seemed to flash closer and closer to the cabin. I couldn’t even let the sound of screams break my focus.

  The only way through to them was to kill everything in our path. That was what mattered, and I was surprised how quickly I focused on the creatures that surrounded us, wave after wave in the darkness of the night.

  Through it all, Kai was right there at my side.

  “We did it,” he said, out of breath as we joined the other Slayers near the steps to the cabin.

  “Is that all of them?” I asked, scared to hope.

  Asher nodded. “That’s all the traps I was able to detect,” he said. “And I just checked out back. No activity, anymore. It seems they’ve all gone back inside.”

  “That means, we’re all on our guard the second we walk into this place. Consider everything a trap from this point forward,” Gowan said.

  “Where’s Darius?” I asked, panic filling my heart as I counted and saw that one of us was missing.

  “He’s getting the car,” Gianna said, placing a hand on my arm. “As soon as we have the girls, you and Kai will get into Gowan’s SUV and head back to Martin’s.”

  I nodded, relief filling me as Darius pulled up in the black SUV.

  This was the plan we’d discussed, and even though things had not gone exactly like we originally thought, we seemed to be back on track.

  “The car is cloaked?” Kai asked.

  “With everything we’ve got,” Gowan said. “There’s not a soul in the world that can find this car now without physically laying eyes on it. You’ll be safe all the way home, and we’ll deal with Algrath here.”

  Nervous energy flowed through me as my heart pounded.

  We just had to get to the girls, and everything was going to be okay. Asher and Gianna ran around to the back to guard that door and the ritual circle, while the rest of us waited to go inside.

  Darius handed me the keys to the SUV. “You’ve got this.”

  “Thanks,” I said, putting them in my pocket.

  “Let’s go,” Gowan said, leading the charge up the steps.

  With a flash of something from his hand, he blew the door off its hinges to keep it from closing us in later. The dark smoke that had billowed from the place earlier smelled of sulfur, and a black goo covered the floor of the main room.

  There was no sign of the girls there.

  “Kai and Lenny, you both stay here,” Gowan said. “Everyone else, find those girls.”

  The cabin was small, but I was still nervous when they left us in the room alone. Kai guarded the main doorway, while Gianna stood guarding the back door just through the other side of the main room.

  Gowan and Martin split to the left side of the cabin, while Britta and Darius took the right side of the cabin.

  I didn’t know what else to do, so I reapplied the poison spell to my blade and looked around the smoke-filled room for any kind of clue. Footsteps, weapons, anything.

  That’s when I noticed the door Bates
must have been talking about before. A plain brown door in the back of the room with a large lock on it.

  He was right, there was magic holding that lock closed. Something so powerful it put a strange taste in my mouth.

  “Nothing back there,” Darius said, coming back into the room.

  “Here,” I said. “The door Bates was talking about.”

  “Stand back,” he said. “It’s likely to be cursed.”

  He pulled something sticky and red from his bag and placed it on the lock. “Abstergo,” he said.

  A black goo oozed from the lock, and everyone in the room instantly covered our mouths and noses.

  “What the heck is that?” Gianna asked. “That’s vile.”

  “And deadly,” Darius said. “It’s demon’s blood mixed with nightshade grown in the underworld. Don’t let it touch your skin.”

  He took a glass tube covered in black paint out of his satchel and carefully scooped the black liquid up from its puddle on the floor. Quickly, he corked it and sealed it with a strong spell that would prevent it from opening back up.

  “Stand back and expect another trap,” he said.

  Darius also took several steps backward before holding one palm flat toward the door and closing his eyes. “Solvo,” he said.

  The air wavered as the intention of his spell flowed from his palm to the lock on the door, which instantly popped open.

  My heart pounded against my ribs as he stepped forward and opened the door.

  I don’t know what I was expecting, but I certainly wasn’t expecting the end of the battle. I thought that behind that door, we’d find another trap or the demon himself.

  Instead, lying on the floor, wrapped in a dark netting that pulsed with dark light and shadows, was Julie Peterson.

  I gasped and nearly fell to my knees. She was here. We were right.

  Algrath had been pretending to be Julie Peterson all along.

  Darius quickly dispelled the netting around her and lifted her into his arms. “She’s unconscious, but she’s alive.”

  He set her down on the couch in the center of the room as a commotion broke out in the back bedrooms on the other side of the house.

  Everyone in the room turned to fight, but Martin held up his hand as he emerged from the bedroom.

  “It’s alright,” he said. “We’ve got them. It’s going to be alright.”

  I gasped as the five kidnapped girls stepped out of the bedroom, one at a time. I recognized the first girl, LaTasha, from her photograph. She was the first taken, but she was here now, alive.

  Her body was trembling, and she kept rubbing her arm where it looked like some kind of strange symbol had been burned into her skin, but she was alive.

  “What’s happening?” she asked as she led the group into the main part of the cabin.

  “I know it doesn’t all make sense yet,” Gianna said, placing a blanket around the girl’s shoulders. “But you’re okay now. You’re safe.”

  One by one, each of the girls came out of the room. Each one had been marked for the ritual, but it seemed we had gotten to them in time.

  When Peyton stepped forward, her eyes widened at the sight of me, and she ran forward, crying.

  “Oh, my God, Lenny. What are you doing here?” she asked as I threw my arms around her. “I thought we were going to die. Who are all these people?”

  “They’re my friends,” I said, hardly controlling my own tears. I couldn’t believe we’d actually found her. “Are you hurt?”

  I held her at arm’s length for a moment, checking for any other injuries, but the mark on her arm seemed to be the only one. She was still wearing pajamas that looked like they’d seen better days, and she obviously hadn’t showered for a while, but she seemed to be okay.

  When her eyes landed on Julie Peterson, though, she screamed and backed away.

  “She’s the one who did this,” she said. “Don’t trust her. She’s got something wrong with her. I know it’s going to sound crazy, but you have to believe me. She’s dangerous.”

  “Peyton, it’s okay,” I said. “She can’t hurt you now.”

  I turned to Martin.

  “Where is he?” I asked. “We need to get them out of here.”

  “He wants us to think he’s just left them here and run away,” Gowan said. “But he’s still got a trick or two up his sleeve, I think.”

  “Take the girls and go,” Martin said. “The car is cloaked, but don’t let your guard down.”

  “I’m going with them,” Gianna said. “This doesn’t feel right.”

  Martin nodded. “Yes. Keep them safe and wait for us at the house.”

  There were a lot of questions as we led the girls to the SUV outside. I didn’t even know for sure what to tell them. I wanted to say this whole thing was over, but until we knew for sure where Algrath had gone, no one was safe.

  I felt better with Gianna in the car as Kai took the wheel and drove us away from the cabin.

  I sent up a prayer that Martin and the others would be okay when they faced Algrath. His ritual may have been disrupted, but I didn’t believe he would just give up without a fight. Not if he truly wanted to set his brother free.

  Which meant we needed to get home as quickly as possible.

  Kai was doing better than I would have, taking it easy in the storm. I wanted to tell him to step on it, but we couldn’t afford to get into an accident. Not until we were through those wards.

  It was only half a mile until we hit the wards that Algrath couldn’t pass through, but as we approached the barrier, the car’s engine switched off and the brake engaged.

  Panic filled me as the car stopped just fifty yards shy of the barrier.

  “No, no, no, no,” I muttered. “The barrier is right there. What’s happening?”

  Kai tried to restart the engine, but it was completely dead.

  “Get out,” Gianna said, her tone urgent. “Get everyone across the barrier. Now.”

  She threw open the door and started pulling the girls out, urging them to run.

  At the same time, my phone buzzed in my pocket.

  I answered as we ran.

  “Martin, something’s wrong with the car,” I shouted. “We’re running for the barrier, but I don’t know—”

  “Lenny, this is Gowan, listen to me,” he said. “We’ve just found another girl hidden underneath the house. She had to have been the first girl taken. Not the last.”

  “Another girl?” I said, a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach as a dark purple shadow suddenly spread across the pavement in front of me.

  “Who?” I asked, my entire body trembling. This couldn’t be real.

  Everyone up ahead fell to the ground. All except one person.

  She turned on me, then, her eyes sparkling as her form shifted.

  “Lenny, Algrath is with you,” he said. “The girl under the house is Peyton.”

  That was the last thing I heard before the phone slipped from my hand and everything went dark.

  The Ritual

  I woke to the sound of my body being dragged through the dirt and pine needles on the forest floor.

  Peyton—or rather the demon who had stolen her appearance—had wrapped me in the same kind of netting I’d seen around Kai a few nights ago and was pulling me by my ankles. I struggled against the restraints, but it was no use. My arms were pinned to my side, and the more I struggled, the tighter the net became.

  I also no longer had access to my backpack. That meant I had no weapon, no reagents, no hope.

  I glanced around, trying to get my bearings. We were definitely still in the forest. I had no way of knowing if it was the same forest near the cabin, though, or not. Asher had said the wards wouldn’t work to keep Algrath from going through a portal, so we could be anywhere by now.

  Martin’s tracking spell would lead him straight to Algrath as soon as it was fully activated, but would he make it here in time?

  I had no way of knowing how long I’d been unconsci
ous, but it couldn’t have been long. Algrath had to cast this entire, complex ritual by midnight. It was all happening so fast.

  Up ahead, voices spoke in hushed tones. It sounded like they were arguing, but I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying.

  I craned my neck to try and see what was going on and where Algrath was taking me, but my vision remained slightly blurred from whatever smoke had knocked me out earlier. My body and mind were both slow to react, as if I’d been drugged with something.

  “Don’t worry, Lenny. We’ll be there soon,” Algrath said, but he still had Peyton’s face. Her voice.

  It broke my heart to even think about it.

  My first real friend, and she had turned out to be a demon in disguise.

  I’d never even met the real Peyton. How could I have fallen for her friendship act? Was I really so desperate that I was blind to people’s true nature?

  At least the real Peyton was safe, for now. That was one girl who would make it home to her parents tonight. But where were the other four? And what had Algrath done with Kai and Gianna?

  I didn’t have to wonder long, though, because Algrath only pulled me about fifteen more feet before dropping my legs and bending down near my face.

  He still wore Peyton’s face, but I had to force myself to see beyond that. No doubt he was only keeping up the charade to mess with my emotions, just like Gowan had said he would.

  “Oh, Lenny, you can’t imagine how long I’ve dreamed of this moment,” Algrath said, smiling. “Ever since Martin helped to put my brother in those mirrors, I have dreamed of someday using the sacrifice of someone he loved to bring my brother back again. When he finds you here...The balance of it all is just so deliciously beautiful. Martin, of course, will be devastated. It will be so much fun to watch. At least until we kill him, too.”

  I struggled harder against the shadowy netting, but it only grew tighter around my body.

  Algrath laughed. “This is every bit as much fun as I’d hoped it would be.”

  “Ouch,” someone said. “This stupid broken mirror cut my finger again. I’m so tired of this. When are we going to get started, already?”