Witching Hour: Blood Magic Book 3

by L.H. Cosway

  Rita would have been the best person to have on our side right now, but there was no way I could force her to come out. I ran upstairs and put on my most comfortable jeans and my hardiest boots, before zipping myself into my camouflage green army jacket. I placed my razor in one pocket and a stake in the other. Closing my eyes, I felt my magic zinging through me, just waiting for me to call on it. Whatever was going to happen tonight, I was ready.

  Finn locked up the house, and I helped him carry a mind-boggling array of weapons to the DOH van out front. We all hopped in the back, and Finn slid into the driver’s seat. Ira had changed into his dog form and was sitting on the passenger side.

  I sat with Ethan on one side of me and Alvie on the other. Delilah, Gabriel, and Lucas were across from us. Ethan placed a hand on my thigh, and I glanced at him. His presence made me feel stronger somehow as we sat in silence. Finn was driving us to Emilia’s house since that was Pamphrock’s current location, and he’d called everyone there to convey his orders.

  Beside me, I felt poor Alvie shaking like a leaf. He wasn’t built for so much danger.

  “You’re going to be fine,” I said, taking his hand in mine and putting as much sincerity into my voice as I could muster.

  He gave a weak smile. “I wish Rita were here. I always feel safer when she’s with us.”

  “Me, too. But we’ll just have to watch out for each other tonight, okay?”

  He nodded, squeezing my hand.

  “Well,” Lucas said, addressing Ethan. “I never thought I’d see the day when you and I rushed to take orders from Pamphrock.”

  There was humour in his statement, the kind that came from a long life witnessing the impossible many times over. Ethan smiled at him fondly. “No, friend, nor I.”

  “This life is full of unpredictable turns,” Lucas went on.

  Ethan inclined his head in acknowledgement. “No matter who we fight with, first and foremost we fight for ourselves, for our own lives.”

  “One’s own life is as good a cause as any,” Lucas agreed, just as we pulled to a stop.

  We climbed out and walked toward the gathering of slayers. They were all listening to Pamphrock as he stood on the roof of a van and called out orders. I couldn’t be sure exactly, but I’d estimate that there were well over a hundred of them altogether. They stood in orderly lines, all wearing their DOH uniforms.

  Emilia’s home was located on a long, wide avenue full of expensive private residences. Mostly mansions. This was where my mother grew up, and it was a world away from my own humble upbringing.

  I stared up at Petrovsky Manor, taking it in. Electricity not dissimilar to my sparks crackled along the surface of the walls, preventing anyone from getting close. The mansion was huge. There must’ve been well over ten bedrooms. My mother more or less grew up like a princess, stuck in a luxurious ivory tower.

  My attention was drawn to a large window on the second floor. It had shutters and a balcony, and I gasped when I spotted Emilia. She watched Pamphrock intently, looking like some kind of black widow in her immaculate dark clothing.

  Impulsively, I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted, “Hey, Grandma, why don’t you come down here and face us instead of standing up there on your perch like a snooty coward?”

  Her eyes darted to me, and she regarded me coldly. With a sweep of her hand, the sparks surrounding the mansion pushed out, knocking me flat on my backside.

  “Very civilised,” I muttered as I stood back up. The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me that she cared so much about a little girl with no relation to her, while I, her actual granddaughter, was nothing to her.

  I peered up at the balcony again. If only I could get close enough to speak to her, then maybe I could make her see sense. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time for that because there were six eerily tall individuals walking towards us on the empty road past Emilia’s house. Whoever was in the middle skipped along like an excited child, and seeing child-like movements on an adult was just plain weird. Above their heads was the cloud of chaos mist, seeping down from the sky like a crow-shaped ink stain.

  As they came into view, I recognised Theodore first. He was the one who’d been skipping like a child. Marcel was on one side of him, while Michael Ridley stood on the other. The remaining three I remembered from the ritual Marcel performed in the cave. With my heart pounding, I rushed through the gathering of slayers toward Pamphrock, calling out, “Theodore’s headed this way. Look!”

  For a split second, Pamphrock betrayed a startled expression before returning his attention to his slayers and barking orders. A grim realisation hit me then—most of the slayers were human and Theodore was headed this way with all that chaos mist. Those two factors did not bode well for us.

  The slayers stepped into formation and began marching towards Theodore and his group. But before they even got close, the mist descended. Even kitted out with the modified fire extinguishers, the combined blast wasn’t enough for the sheer amount of concentrated chaos mist. I was certain the mist had evolved somehow, and the evolution made it almost invincible.

  The mist battled past the spray and seeped into the slayers. Immediately, they dropped their extinguishers and began pulling out their weapons and turning on one another.

  Suddenly, Ethan was by my side, taking hold of my hand. Close by were Gabriel and Alvie, who were chanting a spell I didn’t recognise. By the frustrated looks on their faces, I guessed it wasn’t working. They needed Rita.

  Emilia watched this new turn of events from her balcony with a satisfied smile on her face. Only a second later her smile faltered, and I followed her eyes to where Pamphrock and two other dhampirs were fighting their way through the infected slayers. What on earth was Pamphrock thinking? There was no hope of him taking down Theodore in his current state of power. The sorcerer was practically pulsating with magic, ready to wipe out anyone who got in his way.

  Ethan pulled me behind him when a crazed slayer tried to attack us. Ethan snapped his neck before I even had the chance to push the mist out of him. Shocked, I tried to let go of his hand, but he held on tight.

  “This is a battle,” Ethan said. “You cannot balk at death. There are going to be casualties.”

  I gulped and tried to find Pamphrock again amongst the fighting slayers. So many of them had already been killed by their comrades, whose actions were not their own. I finally spotted Pamphrock, who was wielding a bow and arrow identical to Finn’s and aiming it directly at Theodore’s head.

  Seeing the attempt on his life, Theodore stepped forward with his arms outstretched.

  “Come on then, Governor. Take your best shot.”

  Pamphrock let loose the arrow, and it sailed through the air toward Theodore, but the arrow disintegrated mid-flight, falling to the ground like dust.

  Theodore’s hand shot out, as though throwing an invisible rope, and something strange happened to Pamphrock. He clutched at his throat like he was choking, while Theodore’s laughter echoed around the street. Finn and Ira rushed to Pamphrock’s side, but just before they got to him, Theodore fisted his hand and Pamphrock’s body flew up into the air. It reminded me of the trick he used with Rita in the church.

  Pamphrock struggled and gasped for breath as he hovered in mid-air. Theodore and his group watched on, smug in their victory. I couldn’t let this happen. If Pamphrock died, then the only halfway decent leader in this city would be gone, leaving Theodore and Whitfield to battle it out. And neither of those was a good option.

  Ethan seemed to come to the same conclusion because he didn’t hold me back when I started running. He ran right along with me. A second later, he scooped me up and threw me onto his back like he did last night. Going at vampire speed, we reached Pamphrock in mere seconds.

  I needed to think of something. I was the granddaughter of a sorcerer. I could do this, right?

  With that thought, the book sprang open in my head again, the one Rita referred to as the “All-Knowing Tome”. I held tig
ht onto Ethan’s neck as the pages flicked then stopped on the information I needed.

  In order to kill a sorcerer, he must be decapitated and his body burned to ash.

  I whispered this information quickly to Ethan.

  “There’s no way to do it,” he said, his jaw tight with tension. “He’d have us up in the air just like Pamphrock before we got within feet of him.”

  “There has to be some way,” I said desperately, looking up at Pamphrock who was losing the struggle against Theodore’s magic.

  My attention was drawn away when an unusual crackling noise filled my ears over the din of the battling slayers. I turned around and was immediately struck with the image of purple fire lighting a blaze down the empty end of the street. Within the purple fire stood Rita. Only she didn’t look like the Rita I knew.

  Her short hair fizzled with electricity, and it shot from her fingertips like lightening, bouncing off the ground as she strode toward us. Her eyes were black and purple, the same as they’d been after Noreen died. She wore her long, lacy black dress, her feet bare.

  I didn’t know how she got all the way here since we were a good distance from Finn’s house. Did she walk? I couldn’t imagine her going unnoticed looking like this. Then again, the humans were hardly in their right minds at the moment.

  She’s come to our rescue, my heart rejoiced. She might look like a dazzling nightmare, but that should only work to our advantage if we wanted to scare Theodore off. It was almost as though her grief caused her magic to mutate, making her even more powerful than she was before. When Alvie saw her, he almost fainted.

  “Rita!” he called, but she didn’t even look his way as she passed him by.

  Okay, that was weird.

  I climbed down off Ethan’s back and rushed to her, but I couldn’t get past the fire.

  “We need your help,” I called in a panic. “Theodore is going to kill Pamphrock.”

  My words got absolutely no reaction from her. I reached out, but the purple fire singed my skin. She stopped for a second to look at me, and her stare went right through me.

  She turned away and continued to stride past me. A feeling of dread claimed my stomach. Rita walked through the carnage, so striking that some of the slayers even stopped fighting to watch her go by.

  She continued until she reached Theodore, and he held his arms out to her.

  No way. This couldn’t be happening.

  “Daughter,” he beamed. “You’ve finally decided to join us.”

  She stopped before him, and he took her into his embrace. Oh, God, please no.

  “This can’t be,” I breathed, my gut sinking.

  “I have,” Rita answered. She didn’t even sound like my Rita anymore. The harsh reality sank in as I realised that my Rita could be gone forever. Next to me, Alvie wept as he realised the very same thing.

  I’d been so distracted by Rita that I completely forgot about Pamphrock.

  “La naiba,” Ethan said gutturally. “He’s gone.”

  I looked up and saw the governor had lost the battle against Theodore, his body lifeless and limp within the magical hold.

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” I all but whispered. The fact that Rita had just joined Theodore made me feel like I was living a nightmare.

  Theodore swept his hand down, and Pamphrock’s body fell to the ground with a sickening thud. I glanced at Emilia’s balcony and saw her smiling and closing over the shutters. She’d gotten what she wanted. With Pamphrock dead, nobody was going to try and take Rebecca from her. I didn’t think I’d ever felt more hopeless.

  Theodore and his group of acolytes all joined hands, including Rita. Tears streamed down my face. I wanted to rage at him and pull Rita away by the scruff of her neck, whether she liked it or not. But I was no match for either of them, and I certainly wasn’t a match for the two of them together.

  “I don’t understand why she’s joined him,” Ethan said, confused.

  “He’s her father,” I whispered to him. “She made me promise to keep it a secret, but I guess…” A swell of emotion overcame me. “I guess the secret’s out now.”

  A look of surprise passed over his features. Then he glanced over my shoulder and the surprise was replaced with grim determination.

  “Climb onto my back,” Ethan said in a low voice.

  “Why?” I questioned, too lost in despair to understand his urgency.

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he swung me up onto his shoulders without effort. Finn and Ira were beside us moments later, as were Lucas, Delilah, Alvie, and Gabriel. Practically all of the slayers had either been killed or were still fighting it out. The only ones who didn’t succumb to the mist were the handful of dhampirs among their numbers. They came and joined us, too.

  Theodore’s chanting was causing something strange to happen. The mist seeped from the dead bodies on the ground and returned to the crow shaped cloud above the sorcerer’s head. That was when I realised it was coming after us, and it no longer seemed repelled by my magic. Now it seemed fearless. It practically crushed everything in its path, vehicles, trees, people. I’d never seen anything like it. The black cloud descending on me and my little group instilled terror into my very bones.

  “Hold on to me and don’t let go,” Ethan instructed.

  I wrapped my arms tight around his neck and my legs around his waist. A moment later, we were running at vampire speed. I grew dizzy, managing to turn my head just enough to see that we were outrunning the chaos cloud. The blackness was getting farther and farther away.

  When we stopped, however, we found ourselves on Campion Row, amid the worst carnage I’d ever seen.

  17.

  It took a minute or two for Finn and Alvie to catch up with us since they didn’t have supernatural speed. Mayhem was erupting all around us. We probably ran to the worst possible spot we could have chosen in the whole city. Vampires were killing people, and people were killing each other. From the corner of my eye, I spotted a vampire coming at Ethan with his fangs out and blood all over his face and body. By the look in his eye, he recognised him.

  My suspicion was cemented when the vampire called out to the others around him, “There’s that traitor, get him!”

  “Ah, fuck,” Finn swore and began shooting arrows at the vampires approaching us, managing to take a couple of them down. Ira growled and pounced on a female vampire. His entire body flew into the air before his open mouth clamped down on her throat. The vampire struggled against Ira’s animal form, but he shook her by the neck, severing her spine, and she fell limp.

  I spotted another vampire about to swing a sword at Ethan’s throat. Pulling the stake out of my pocket and manoeuvring my body, I managed to plunge it right into his heart.

  Ethan gave me a 100-watt smile when he realised what I did. “You just saved my life.”

  I grinned back at him. “You can thank me later.”

  “Come on, we have to get off the streets,” Finn ordered, gesturing for everyone to follow him down a side alley.

  There was a narrow fire exit running up one of the walls and leading to the roof of a two-storey building. Making sure we hadn’t been followed, we all took turns going up. I didn’t bother to get down off Ethan’s back, and he carried me up the ladder with him.

  The roof was flat and empty, and although it wasn’t as high up from the street as I’d like, it would have to do for now as a place for us to rest. A solemn atmosphere prevailed as we grappled with the fact that the city had fallen into chaos and Theodore was more powerful than ever.

  I hated him with every fibre of my being. Not only was my dad recovering from a stint in hell, but because of him, we’d lost Rita. He’d lured her to the dark side, and I wasn’t sure if there was a way to get her back.

  I climbed off Ethan, and he frowned when he saw the damage Rita’s fire did to my hand when I’d tried to reach out to her.

  “This isn’t good. A burn from magical fire can be life-threatening,” he said, and fear filled my
gut. The burn didn’t exactly feel life-threatening, but it did hurt pretty badly. Up until that moment, there had been far too much adrenaline rushing through my system for me to notice the damage done to my hand.

  Finn, Lucas, and Delilah were taking stock of the weapons we had on us, while Gabriel held Alvie in his arms as he cried over Rita. I wanted to cry, too. Even though she was still very much alive, it felt as though she’d died. The sense of loss was palpable. It was like somebody had cut out a piece of my heart then stomped all over it. The person wearing Rita’s skin who stared at me with those new, unrecognisable eyes didn’t feel like my friend at all.

  There were four dhampirs with us, three men and one woman. They appeared wary of Ethan and Lucas’s presence, but Finn quickly explained our alliance to them, and they seemed to accept it.

  Ethan led me over to a private corner of the roof, still examining my burned hand.

  “I should give you some blood for this,” he said. “It could turn necrotic if left untreated.”

  “Necrotic? Does that mean it’s going to fall off?” I asked with a shudder.

  “It means that the living cells will die, and that’s not something you want to happen, believe me.”

  He stood so close that if I were taller our noses would probably be touching. He leaned in even more and whispered in my ear, “You drank from my wrist before. How about this time you try my neck?”

  I knew I shouldn’t be getting turned on in this situation, especially since we were discussing the possibility of my hand falling off, but I couldn’t help it. Ethan’s voice always managed to send a shiver through me, and the idea of drinking his blood again was more than appealing. The last time I did I was on a high for days afterwards, and you know what? I could do with a little high right now. It felt like the world was ending. I might as well go out with a bang.

  “Okay,” I replied softly, my eyes drawn instinctively to the cords of muscle in his neck, the hard line of his jaw.