by Cheree Alsop
Yes, the Master’s voice hissed in my mind.
I gritted my teeth and reached for the doorknob.
The door opened without me touching it.
“Come on in, Zev,” Madam Anna called out.
I entered with a ridiculous amount of nervousness. To be fair, the last time I had crossed the threshold I had been shot. There was something about my sanity to be questioned when I chose to do so again. I told myself it was because I needed to get rid of the rest of the silver that was quickly making it harder to breathe, move, or so much as blink without pain. The voice in the back of my mind noted that I might fare better surviving it on my own than with the help of the witches.
The door slammed shut behind me.
The tallest of the witches met me in the hallway. “Put this collar on,” Madam Doxy said.
My blood ran cold. “What?” I stared at the black, spiked collar the type of which often popped up on internet advertisements for bulldogs and pit bulls.
“Try it,” Madam Doxy coaxed. “It’ll look good with your handsome golden eyes and let the other witches know that you’ve sworn your loyalty and protection to us.”
She held out the collar with an expectant expression.
The reminder that I had just promised them anything in return for Isley’s life made me lift my hand. Had I really just traded one master for another?
The witch set the collar on my palm and then burst out laughing.
“What’s going on?” Madam Anna asked as she entered the corridor from the kitchen. She paused and gave me a curious look. “Why are you holding Bishop’s collar?”
“Bishop’s collar?” I repeated.
“He was our mutt,” the head witch explained. “The name might have been in poor choice, but we enjoyed the irony.” Her eyes shifted to Doxy’s and narrowed. “Were you teasing Zev?”
Madam Doxy’s gaze lowered to the ground and she attempted to stifle her smile. “Maybe just a little,” she admitted.
The relief that I was not actually to be their collar-wearing slave made me chuckle. Both witches stared at me.
I shook my head with a grin, feeling better than I had since we left the Willards’. “That was a good one.”
Madam Doxy gave an answering laugh and slapped me on the back. “I’m just glad you can take a joke considering I shot you and all!”
I winced. “Is it still supposed to hurt?”
“Are you kidding?” Madam Anna replied. “You’ve been shot. It’s supposed to hurt.”
“Good,” I said wryly. “I thought something was really wrong.”
Madam Doxy laughed so hard tears trailed down her cheeks. She dabbed at them with the edge of her pink sleeve. “I didn’t know werewolves were funny,” she said when she could talk. “Madam Anna, Madam Onie doesn’t mention that anywhere in her books. Perhaps we should add a note.”
Henrietta entered the main hall carrying a cup that smelled of lavender and lemon. “A note on what?” she asked.
“On the fact that werewolves are incredibly funny once you get past their doomed souls and vampire overlords,” Madam Doxy replied casually.
Madam Anna must have read my incredulous expression because she motioned toward the living room where we had gathered before. “Come sit by the fireplace. The warmth will do you good.”
I realized under her scrutiny that I was shivering. My body definitely didn’t like the silver. Feeling a little like an obedient puppy, I followed the witch into the room and sat in the overstuffed chair she indicated by the gas fireplace. It took only a flick of her finger for the fire to roar to life. I couldn’t deny that the heat felt wonderful against my bare chest. I wasn’t used to being cold. Apparently intense trauma and near-death experiences had a bit of an impact on the body.
“Drink this,” Henrietta said.
She set the tea in my hands. As a werewolf, I usually detested anything citrus, but when I opened my mouth to deny it, the look the witch shot me made me close it again. I brought the mug to my nose and inhaled.
“It smells delicious,” I said in surprise.
The orange scent was tempered by honey that still carried the memory of the clover fields where it had been harvested. Notes of wild lavender and wheat grass complimented the underlying healing aroma of green tea. Other scents I didn’t recognized teased my nostrils with whispers of warm skies, snowy heights, and meandering streams.
“Try it,” Madam Henrietta coaxed.
At my hesitancy, Madam Doxy chuckled. “Trust me. If we were going to kill you, we would have just let you bleed out.”
Madam Anna shook her head at the other witch. “It’s probably a bit too soon to joke about that, Madam Doxy.”
Madam Doxy replied, “Who’s joking?”
I looked from one to the other. At my expression, they all burst out laughing. I realized I had allowed myself to become the butt of the joke and gave a small smile before lifting the tea to my lips. I drained the cup in two gulps. As soon as the warm liquid flowed down my throat, a soothing lethargy settled over my limbs. A warning bell sounded in the back of my mind.
“Did you drug me?” I asked in a slurred voice.
I slouched back in the chair. My arms and legs felt extremely heavy. The teacup slipped from my fingers. Madam Henrietta stopped it with a spell before it could hit the ground.
“No,” Madam Anna reassured me. “There are just a few ingredients infused within to coax relaxation into your body.” She indicated my chest. “There is still silver in those wounds or else they would have healed. We’ll have to get a little more aggressive in our treatment, but werewolves are notoriously hard to work on.”
“At least you’ve proven you won’t bite our heads off,” Madam Doxy pointed out from somewhere within the room that I couldn’t see from my slumped vantage point. “But werewolves have extremely sensitive fight or flight instincts. It wouldn’t do to have you phase or try to run away in the middle of the procedure.”
I gave a nod of my head that took far more effort than it should have. “That makes sense,” I acknowledged, my thoughts bleary.
“Madams, let’s help him to the floor,” Madam Anna said.
When I was sprawled on another comfortable blanket, I turned my head to look into the flickering flames of the gas fireplace.
“This might hurt a little bit. Just try to hold still,” Madam Henrietta said in a soothing voice.
I kept my gaze on the fire and tried to ignore the digging sensation and the pressure on top of my chest. The dance of the flames became a mesmerizing lull. I squinted as they began to take actual forms.
“Witches are loyal to their covens,” Madam Anna said. “No matter what we do, protecting our covens is the same as protecting our family. In Madam Rosy’s case, the choice was deadly.”
“She told me her husband died,” I murmured.
The hypnotic flames took the shape of many individuals battling. In the foreground, the images became a family of four, two adults and two children. Another shape made of darker flames surged toward them. One of the adults stepped forward with its arms up as though casting a spell. The darker flame surged forward and enveloped the other one. The smaller flames fell to their knees with their heads bowed as if sobbing. The entire scene vanished into the fire when Madam Anna spoke again.
“It was a horrible battle,” she said in a haunted tone. “We lost many of our coven. Madam Henrietta was sent from my sister’s coven as a replacement to help fortify us against further attacks. But we know they are stronger than us.”
“What will you do?” A burning sensation was beginning across the top of my chest. I clenched my fists in an effort to ignore it.
“My instincts say not to arouse their wrath,” the witch continued, “But Madam Rosy has had dreams which show them getting stronger. She wants to act now. She says it’s our only chance.”
“But it could kill us all,” Madam Doxy said from somewhere to my right.
Madam Anna’s voice took on a worried tone. “Mad
am Doxy sees visions of the future. Going against the dark coven means the entire Stein family will be killed.”
“What if I help?” I asked tightly, trying to ignore the pain.
“Then only one person will die,” Madam Doxy said, her voice certain.
I shook my head. “You’ve got to stop her. Don’t let them fight.” The thought of someone dying the way Madam Doxy predicted lingered in the air. If Jenny or Virgo were killed in the battle, I didn’t know what I would do. Mrs. Stein may have been harsh in her words earlier, but she was truthful and motherly. “They shouldn’t put their lives at risk.” I turned my head to face the witches. “None of you should.”
Madam Anna gave me a sad smile. “We don’t have a choice. We are a coven. What one of us does, all of us do.” She lifted a decanter of clear liquid. “Now prepare yourself. This is going to hurt.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“A nullifier,” Madam Doxy explained from behind her. “We can’t get all of the silver out of your body, and it will kill you if we don’t take care of it.” She pointed to the liquid Madam Anna held out. “This will help your body react to the silver the way a vaccine teaches the body to fight back against a virus.”
“We’re trying to help your body become immune,” Madam Henrietta said from Madam Anna’s other side.
“To silver?” I replied. “I’m a werewolf; there’s no way.”
“It’s your only chance,” Madam Doxy said. “We have to try.”
Panic pressed against the dull edges of my thoughts. “What if it doesn’t work?”
“You’ll die,” Madam Anna replied.
Madam Doxy’s pink highlighted eyebrows pulled together in worry. “But if we don’t try, you’ll die anyway.”
I couldn’t argue with that and the pain coursing through my body said I was losing the battle. I pushed up on my elbows. Madam Doxy supported me as Anna put the decanter to my lips.
“Bottoms up,” Madam Henrietta said with an encouraging smile.
I closed my eyes and drank the liquid down.
The heavy scent of silver filled my nose. My taste buds were covered in a metallic coating that reminded me of when I had electrocuted myself to neutralize the explosive the Master had implanted near my heart. My nerve endings tingled as though electricity ran across my entire body. I wanted to scream, but my mouth wouldn’t open. My eyes were locked shut and my muscles strained so tight I felt them standing out on either side of my neck.
“Are you sure using silver to fight silver is the best idea?” Madam Henrietta asked in a voice that was muffled to my ears. “It looks like it’s hurting him.”
“It’s never been tested as far as I know,” Madam Doxy replied. “But Madam Onie mentioned in her book that it might work. It was a theory.”
“Let’s hope she’s right,” Madam Anna said. “Only time will tell.”
“Poor werewolf,” Madam Henrietta’s voice whispered against the rushing sound that was growing in my ears. “He really was nice.”
The fact that nice might be the last thing said about me before I died filled me with mixed emotions. The scary werewolf who used to terrorize humans under the command of vampires and was dying the most painful death possible to werewolves, had somehow come away as nice. I would never understand humans, even witchy ones.
“This will calm him,” Madam Anna said.
A hand pressed against my chest between the bullet wounds. Pain flared through me followed by a strange, all-encompassing warmth. The confused voice in my head died away and I floated off into the welcoming embrace of darkness.
Chapter Three
The sound of murmuring voices broke through my dream. I wanted to hold onto it, but I couldn’t remember it beyond flashes of a smile over a cup of coffee, the smell of raw sugar and coffee beans in the air, and the cool surface of the table beneath my hand. I grasped at the thought, but it slipped from my mind like water through my fingers. The loss of something I couldn’t remember filled me when I opened my eyes.
I was in a house lying on the floor in front of a fireplace. Thankfully, someone had turned off the fire that had dance along the logs because I was sweating so much the blanket beneath me was soaked. The room waited in darkness. The windows showed merely shadows beyond their panes. The only light came from the doorway where the voices that had awoken me murmured. I sat up slowly and put a hand to my pounding head.
An ache made me glance down. I did so and felt my eyes widen at the sight of a handprint on my chest. It was white with the fingers spread as if the person who had put it there was trying to hold something back. I rubbed it, but the white wouldn’t go away. It wasn’t paint or marker. Instead, it looked as though it was a part of my skin. The bullet holes on either side of it looked better, their edges pink with healing.
“Keep going,” a familiar voice said, stealing my focus. “If we give up now, we’ll lose her.”
Other voices chanted louder in a language I didn’t know. I glanced around. The room in which I sat looked normal enough. Its decorations and fine furnishings were modern and of high quality. Yet a few items were off.
Beside the lamp on the end table closest to me sat a little stuffed squirrel in a buttoned up suit and wearing a red scarf. On the opposite table, a skull that had been bedazzled with gems watched me with empty eye sockets. Only it didn’t look like the type I had seen at tourist shops. By the faint bone and earth smell that permeated my nostrils, the skull was real.
Lavender hung drying near the fireplace along with strands of ivy and a corn husk. Beyond the couches, other odd items filled the bookshelves.
Witches, the voice in the back of my mind whispered.
My teeth clenched. The threat of danger surged through my body. I needed the phase to fight free and escape. The moonlight through the window closest to me was welcoming enough. I closed my eyes and thought of being a wolf.
Nothing happened. I opened my eyes and looked at the window again to ensure that it was night. Even in daylight, I should have been able to phase. With the glow of moonlight so near, there shouldn’t have been a problem.
I stretched out my hand toward the beam of light that created a rectangle on the pale golden wood of the floor. Warmth filled me when the light fell across my palm. I close my eyes again and concentrated on the feeling. The wolf would come. It needed to. I was in danger and that was how I knew best to fight. Bring on the wolf.
Pain so searing and sharp I could barely breathe jolted through my chest. I doubled over at the feeling of my ribs shifting, battling pinpoints of dagger-like fire that spread through my bones and into my arms and legs.
I pulled my hand away from the moonlight and collapsed on my side in a pathetic fetal position. It took a few minutes before my breathing returned to normal.
In that time, the metallic tang of silver touched my nose. Images of the day’s events flooded into my mind. I had been shot. The silver drink the witches gave me had nearly killed me. Had it taken away my ability to phase? Panic at the thought of not being able to return to wolf form surged through my limbs and the pain returned. I sucked in a shaky breath and tried to will my body to relax.
“We’re losing her!”
“Hold her down!”
I pushed up to my hands and knees. For a moment, I couldn’t remember who they were talking about. Then it struck me with the force of a charging bear. Isley.
I pulled up to my feet using the end table. The bedazzled skull appeared to laugh at my weakness. I snarled at it and felt just a little better about my wolf side.
“Hurry, Virgo! Cast a binding spell!”
All thoughts of my own problems fled at the panic that filled the voices in the next room. I stumbled to the doorway and leaned against the frame. The sight in front of me stole the breath I had just found.
The witches surrounded a table spread with rushes and lilac blooms. Runes had been written along the oval wood in marks that pulsed with light in time to the chanting. Madam Anna stood at the head of the
table with Doxy and Henrietta on either side. At the opposite end, Mrs. Stein, Virgo, and Jemmy linked hands and repeated the words Madam Anna said.
In the middle of the table, Isley floated a few inches above the wood. Her eyes were closed and her head drooped back lifelessly. The black streaks that ran from the bite on her arm had turned into thick black twisting vines that writhed toward her heart. As the witches chanted, the glowing aura around Isley grew brighter and brighter.
“They’re losing her.”
I noticed Mrs. Willard for the first time. She stood near the door, her face pale and her usual smile completely absent. Her short, curled brown hair was caught back in a red scarf. Looking down at her, I could see in the tightness of her face and the way her eyes glittered in the candle-lit room that she was about to cry. The impartial voice in the back of my mind noted wryly that I was getting better at reading expressions.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Mrs. Willard kept her gaze on the table. “That witch over there,” she said, indicating Madam Anna, “Said Isley’s something called an elemental. Apparently, the evil flowing from the bite is too much for her and it’s killing her.”
Isley’s back arched. My body shuddered with the recent memory of a similar pain.
“It looks like they’re the ones killing her,” I said tightly.
I knew better than to interfere with magic. Werewolves were anything but magical creatures. If my experience with nearly dying had taught me anything, it was to avoid magic as much as possible.
A cry of pain escaped from Isley. Her eyes closed tightly as the glowing around her body brightened.
“She’s leaving this plane,” Madam Doxy said, her high voice trembling.
I thought quickly through what I knew about elementals. My studies at the Lair had been brief on the beings. I knew they were nature spirits who derived their power from their elements. From what I could see, Isley was a light elemental. The runes around the table were glowing so bright I could barely look past them. The candles in the room had changed from warmly flickering flames into blue-white raging torches. The solid outline of Isley’s form was vanishing, her skin, the purple nightgown she wore, and her long blonde hair were brightening into a glowing mist I could barely look at.
