Bone Witch

by D. N. Hoxa

  I couldn’t allow that. I pushed my head back as far as I could, then brought it forward. I hit something with my forehead, though I had no idea what it was, but I pulled the katana at the same second.

  A cry of pain. The katana was in my hand. All I could make out in front of me was Alexandra’s shape. I swung my arm blindly in front of me, once, twice, three times.

  Something dropped on the floor with a loud thump.

  Silence.

  Allowing myself to think I’d won meant stripping myself of my defenses, and I wasn’t there yet. For a long second, all I could do was stay put, lying there on the floor, and blink until my vision cleared.

  Alexandra’s face was right in front of mine.

  Instinctively, I pushed back. Her eyes were open, as was her mouth. The most important thing: she wasn’t moving.

  Grunting and sighing, I managed to sit up and look around. Nobody was attacking me. Alexandra was on her stomach still, her eyes unblinking. With my good hand, I turned her over. For a girl that small, she sure was heavy, or it seemed so to me. When she fell on her back, I saw why she wasn’t moving. She was very much dead because of the three red lines on her torso. The cuts had been deep. Fresh blood spilled from them, filling the air with a strong scent of rust. Her katana was right next to her, looking as innocent as a bread knife.

  I let go of my breath. The stone she’d reached for was still in her hand. If she’d managed to throw it at me, I would have been the one staring at the ceiling with unblinking eyes. I didn’t exactly feel bad as I looked at her lifeless body, but I did feel guilty. If I hadn’t gotten into trouble, she wouldn’t have been sent after me. She would still be alive.

  Reluctantly, I reached for her eyes and closed them. There was something very unnerving about eyes that didn’t blink.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered to the dead body like I’d lost my damn mind. Maybe I had.

  Standing up was out of the question, and believe it or not, it didn’t even occur to me to get that damned thing out of my foot. Instead, I just dragged my body over to Dylan’s. Alexandra didn’t have to die that night, but neither did he.

  It took me an eternity to get to him, and another eternity to pull myself up to my knees. Trying to untie the enchanted silver chains Alexandra had tied around his wrists with one hand was torture, but I finally managed. Or maybe I didn’t because everything had suddenly taken on the quality of a dream. My hands moved in a wave-like fashion. Even my eyelids took a lifetime to blink.

  “Dylan, wake up,” I said but I didn’t know if anyone could understand me. He had his eyes open, but nobody seemed to be home. I pushed him with the little strength I had left, but he didn’t blink. God, how I hated unblinking eyes.

  “Dylan…” My voice trailed off as I hit the floor. My braid seemed too far away to reach for, but I tried to anyway. Getting my healing stone out of my hair was one thing, but activating it? I didn’t have the strength to do it.

  Maybe if I took a little nap, just closed my eyes for a second, I’d feel better when I woke up. Maybe…

  Seven

  The pain was the first thing that told me I was alive. No dead body would be able to feel like it was going to break apart any second. I hurt everywhere, from head to toe. The worst was my right arm.

  Opening my eyes was a struggle, but not like Monday-morning struggle. My eyes were swollen shut, and I had to work hard to get them to open. When I did, I found myself in a bedroom, one I knew very well. I’d woken up in it many a time.

  It was exactly that which set all the alarms off in my head. The redwood drawer across from the bed I was lying in was one I’d handpicked myself. Shit. Dylan had brought me to his apartment.

  I sat up fast and the pain from my ribs knocked the breath out of me. The next second, Dylan was at the door.

  “I wouldn’t move if I were you,” he said, concern paling his already pale face.

  “What have you done, Dylan?” I whispered, looking around for my clothes. My right arm was wrapped in bandages, stained red with my blood. But that wasn’t even the worst part: my hair was untied. “Where are my stones?”

  “I took you out of there, Winter. You saved my life.” He was already sitting on the bed, looking at me like I might break any second. I would if I didn’t have my healing stone soon.

  “You fool. You shouldn’t have brought me here. What time is it?” It was only a matter of time before Ralph found me. If Alexandra knew about Dylan, he would know, too. “And where are my stones?”

  “It’s ten a.m. You need to rest.” He put his hand on mine. I jerked it away.

  “Give me my stones, Dylan,” I warned.

  He must have seen something in my face that told him I meant business because he stood up and went to the drawer immediately. My stones, all six of them, were on my lap the next second.

  Closing my eyes to gather some energy, I put my hand above them, as close as I could without touching them, and I felt their energy. The second I found the healing stone, I took it in my hand and let a surge of energy wash through it.

  The spell contained within the stone wasn’t one of the strongest. Finn provided medium quality stuff—except for the bomb stones he’d given me. Those were the real effing deal. Though the healing wasn’t the best, I soon began to feel the warmth spreading from the palm of my hand. I fell back on the bed with a sigh. If I didn’t let the spell do its job, it wasn’t going to work properly. Before disappearing from Dylan’s apartment, I needed my strength and my body as polished as it could be after the night I’d had.

  “What the hell happened, Winter? I was waiting for you to get back when that witch put a silver collar on me.” Dylan flinched, touching his smooth throat with the tips of his fingers.

  “She was after me,” I mumbled, feeling a bit high now from the effects of the healing spell. It felt like summer sun rays on my body, stitching together all the broken cells, trying to get my body back into shape. But there were some things the spell couldn’t mend. Like my elbow and my foot. At least I’d be able to walk, so I wasn’t complaining.

  “Why? What did you do?” Dylan asked but I only shook my head.

  “Where are my clothes?” I didn’t even have it in me to be mad at him for undressing me. He’d put me in one of his shirts, one I’d worn before, and it wasn’t exactly the type of clothing I usually walked around in.

  “In the living room.”

  Before he could stop me, I stood up. Pain shot a bullet from my right foot all the way to my brain. I barely swallowed a scream. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to walk after all.

  “I need pain killers. Anything you have.” Another healing spell would be best, but I couldn’t very well conjure one myself and Ralph was out there. I couldn’t go buy one even though I was willing to spend that much money on a stone.

  Dylan shrugged. “I don’t have any pain to kill,” was his way of saying he kept no pills around. Of course he didn’t. He was a vampire.

  Cursing under my breath, I hopped on my good foot all the way to the living room. My clothes were laid on the sofa. I forgot all about them when I saw what was on the table: my gun, four of my knives and one of Alexandra’s ninja stars.

  “I got everything I could before getting out of there,” Dylan said from behind me.

  “Thank you,” I whispered and grabbed my gun. I’d missed it too much to be reasonable.

  “You’re welcome.” He was practically beaming that I’d shown some gratitude. “Hold on a sec. I can grab something for your pain from my neighbor.”

  Before I knew it, he was out the door. With a sigh, I fell on the sofa and began to get dressed. I did appreciate the help, but it also made me uncomfortable because it didn’t mean I was going to forgive him for cheating. On the contrary.

  When Dylan came back with two aspirins in the palm of his hand, I smiled sadly. I was going to miss the vampire, no matter how things had ended between us.

  “Dylan, you need to leave,” I started reluctantly as I put my weapons in t
heir place and my stones in my pockets. “Alexandra wasn’t the end of it. More will be coming after me.” I didn’t just mean Ralph. As soon as they found the dead witch, Finn would replace her with someone else.

  “I’m not going to leave.” Dylan shook his head like what I was saying was nonsense.

  “Yes, you are. I’m not going to be able to come for you again if they get to you.” I could barely stand upright as it was.

  An icy feeling of fear gripped me by the throat as realization hit me.

  I could barely stand on my own feet.

  If Ralph found me—no, when Ralph found me, killing me would be a walk in the park. I had no chance against him. None.

  “Winter? Hello?”

  Dylan waved his hand in front of my face. Tears began to gather in my eyes, but I blinked them away. I tried to convince myself that I could do it, that I could run and disappear, but I knew better. If the ECU wanted me found, there was no place to hide.

  “The pills,” I said, my voice breaking, and when he put them in my hand, I swallowed them without a second thought.

  “What’s the plan?” Dylan asked, hands on his hips, fear knitting his brows together.

  “Like I said, you need to leave. Disappear for at least a couple of weeks. Tell no one where you’re going and lay really low.” For as long as I was with him, I had reason to make myself pretend like I had my shit together. But I didn’t. No, my shit was all over the place.

  “I’m not going to just leave you, Winter. Look at you! You can’t walk on that foot. I doubt you can even pull the trigger in the state you’re in,” Dylan said, like I didn’t already know.

  “You take care of yourself and let me handle this.” I headed for the door. The longer I was with him, the more danger he’d be in. If he disappeared, he’d survive. My time was almost up, and nobody would have reason to go after him when I was gone.

  Shit. I couldn’t believe my own thoughts.

  “I would if you could, but you can’t.”

  Dylan did this annoying thing that had become a habit for him: he stepped in front of me and the door.

  “I’m stronger than I look,” I said through gritted teeth. I just needed to be left alone.

  “Yes, you are.” Dylan smiled brightly. What the hell?

  “That’s what I said.”

  He grabbed my arms and shook me. I nearly fell because I was standing on only one foot.

  “Winter, you are stronger than this,” Dylan whispered, that stupid smile all over his face.

  “What…” My voice trailed off when the meaning of his words hit me like a sledgehammer to my face. You are stronger than this. I knew exactly what that meant. “No.”

  I stepped back, and my breath cut off from the pain. This time, I couldn’t keep the tears from springing to my eyes.

  “You have to. You’ve waited long enough,” Dylan whispered. At least he was no longer smiling.

  “I don’t care. I’m doing this on my own.” It didn’t matter if I died or not.

  “You can’t do this to yourself.” He shook his head and grabbed me by the shoulders again. “You’re going to die.”

  “I’m not going to die.” I was so going to die.

  “Do it, Winter. Do the damned ritual, and get this over with once and for all.”

  There it was. His words hung in the air long enough to make me feel like Alexandra’s spell stone had. My throat was suddenly very tight, and it was extremely difficult to breathe.

  Dylan wanted me to dig up my mother’s bones. He wanted me to perform the ritual that was going to ignite the magic that was in me, through her power that her bones would keep within them forever, but only I would have access to it. Her last living descendant.

  The option never even crossed my mind. When my mother was alive, she tried to teach me that I could live without magic, that I could depend on my body alone and the little power I had, and that it was okay. I’d grown so used to it that, now, having my full strength seemed ridiculous. It just wasn’t me.

  That’s what I told myself.

  I repeated the lines in my head over and over again because admitting to myself that I was scared shitless wasn’t exactly healthy for my sanity. I didn’t want to acknowledge that I’d put off doing the ritual because I was sure that there was something wrong with me. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out. My mother never wanted me to come to powers. What witch doesn’t want her daughter to be the best that she can be?

  One who knows that there’s something wrong with said daughter.

  I’d figured it out shortly after Mother passed away. There must have been something about me that made her turn away from her family, from her coven, to raise me on her own. Something that didn’t let her even talk about why my having magic was so terrifying.

  At first, I’d been desperate to find out. I’d gone to the place where I buried her bones, so damn ready to just be done with it, but I’d caved at the last minute. The truth was simple: whatever it was, I didn’t want to know.

  It was the reason that had stopped me many nights when I’d been ready to walk out the door. It was the reason that stopped me now as Dylan’s face filled the whole view in front of me, his begging eyes wide.

  “No,” I repeated, more to myself than to him.

  “Listen, I don’t know what the hell it is that’s stopping you, but it isn’t worth it. You’re going to die, and nothing is worth that.”

  Dylan wasn’t one to talk that way. I’d never heard him preach before. It just made me feel worse.

  “I can’t,” I whispered, looking down at the floor, too ashamed to meet his eyes. Showing weakness in front of anyone went against everything I stood for.

  “Yes, you can. You know what to do. You know the words. You have to,” Dylan said, and when the first tear slipped my eye and spilled down my cheek, he hugged me.

  His body was as cold as I remembered. As hard. I couldn’t bring myself to return the hug because I had yet to admit to myself that he was right. I wasn’t going to survive this. If I by some miracle managed to fight Ralph off, others were going to come after me. Finn was not a man who quit. I’d worked for the guy. I knew how he thought, and most importantly, I knew what it was like when a client like the ECU wanted something done.

  “I have to go,” I said instead and pulled away, my hair falling over my face. I didn’t even have time to braid it so I just put it behind my ears. “Please, just get your things and leave.”

  I made it to the door. I opened the door.

  Wait.

  Wasn’t he going to stop me?

  Fucking hell, when you wanted someone to stop you from doing something, you knew without a doubt that you were screwed.

  “I’ll leave,” Dylan said. “But if you don’t do it, you’re going to regret it.”

  When? I wanted to say. A second before I died?

  Instead, I just walked out the door.

  Eight

  The pills worked. I no longer felt like I was walking on thorns whenever I put my right foot down. I was limping, but I was walking. My head was a mess as I walked down the street, looking around me, terrified of who I was going to see. I couldn’t catch a thought and make it stick long enough for it to make sense.

  Dylan was right. I’d never felt so weak before. I was never as vulnerable as when I walked with my head down as fast as my foot would let me, not even having a plan of action if someone attacked me. I wasn’t aware of the gun on my back, or my knives, and I was aware of my weapons even when I was asleep.

  The pain had dulled, but it was still there, waiting for the effect of the pills to pass before grabbing hold of me again. Focusing my pathetic magic for long enough to create a shield around me seemed impossible. Even the beads around my hand were distracted, floating from one side to the other like they were drunk.

  I’d been confused before, but this was the first time that my life was on the line. I’d never considered death. I’d never thought about what life would be like ten years from now, eith
er—I just lived one day at a time.

  I was right across the street from Dirty Joe’s bar when I stopped to take a deep breath. It was still early, and nobody that sold illegal stones would be in there, but I could still try. I was willing to spend everything I had on one healing spell, even knowing that it wasn’t going to do me any long-term good.

  When I was sure that nobody was watching me, I turned towards the bar again. Me eyes fell right on Ralph’s face.

  Ice covered my body, and every hair on it stood to attention. The werewolf was there, right in front of the bar’s door, his hands in the pockets of his brown jacket, a sickening smile on his face. But his brown eyes, though, they held me captive for a long second. I couldn’t look away because of what I read in them. Death. The end. No more Winter Wayne.

  Something big and red made me fall back and finally remember to blink. It was a bus, and it passed way too fast in front of me. Before I could take in a deep breath, I was looking right at Ralph again.

  When he took a step forward, murder written all over his body, my decision was already made.

  I chose to live, all the rest be damned.

  Having worked for Finn myself, I knew without a doubt that Ralph wasn’t going to just shoot me in broad daylight in the middle of all those people. Most of them humans, sure, but a gunshot was a hard thing to forget, no matter who the bullet aimed for. That kind of attention was prohibited, but that didn’t mean that Ralph couldn’t just follow me, drag me somewhere where we’d be alone, then finish the job.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw another bus turning the corner. Even before it was in front of me, I moved left. The bus station was a few feet away. The street was crowded. All I could do was hope that would be enough.

  Pain forgotten, I ran fast towards the bus that was taking people in. If I could just reach it…I couldn’t.