by Sarra Cannon
When we stopped moving, I dropped to my knees on the sidewalk. I leaned forward, thinking I might puke. My head spun, and I struggled for breath.
John placed a calm hand on my back and crouched low to the ground beside me. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t have a choice. I know it feels strange, and you’re really disoriented right now, but I need you to catch your breath and stand up. We still have a long way to go from here.”
My lungs protested, but I forced air into them. I reached for his hand and leaned against him as I stood. My white tights were ripped and bloodied at the knees.
“What just happened?” I asked. “What did you do?”
“I shifted into a demon form, like a moving shadow,” he said. “I can’t do it very often because demon magic draws its power from all the living things around it. Makes us easy to track. But with all these people on the street, no one would even notice a tiny bit of life being sucked from them.”
I ran a shaking hand across my forehead. John was a demon.
“Can you walk?”
“Yeah, I’m good,” I said. “I can walk.”
He led me into a side alley between buildings and lifted a sewer grate.
I groaned. “We have to go into the sewers?”
“Storm drains,” he said. “Come on.”
He lowered himself inside and then lifted his hands to me.
I swallowed my fear and lowered myself feet-first into his arms. We walked along the dark tunnels, and water pooled at our feet.
“I had no idea this existed,” I said. “I thought everything in New Orleans was above-ground because of the water problems.”
“We’re lucky it hasn’t rained or these tunnels would be full of water right now,” he said. “These tunnels were actually built by the Order of Shadows. The local coven here in New Orleans was run by the priestess of the blue demon gates. When she died, the tunnels were abandoned.”
“Why?”
“You’ll see,” he said.
I did not like the sound of that.
The farther we walked, the narrower the tunnel became. John had to duck his head to keep from hitting it on the stone above, but I was able to walk fine most of the way. It was the one time being short was a blessing.
We reached a three-way split in the tunnel and John turned to the left.
“From here on out, I need you to be as quiet as possible,” he said. “There are things down here we don’t want to wake up. If we’re lucky, we’ll get to the storage room before anyone—or anything—realizes we’re here.”
Thing? I shivered. What was down here?
I wanted to ask him, but he’d already started walking down the left tunnel. I sent up a silent prayer that I didn’t have to find out the hard way.
The tunnel widened, and John stood up and stretched his legs a bit. After a few more steps, there was enough room for me to move up beside him, which made me a lot more comfortable than being cramped in the back, alone, with no idea what might be creeping up behind me.
A short distance away, the tunnel ended in a thick stone wall covered in dark green moss. I could just make out the outline of a door with a metal ring handle. A bright blue stone was embedded into the center of the door. On either side of us, statues of cloaked women were set back into small arches carved into the stone. Something about those statues gave me the creeps. Every time we passed one, I felt a cold chill go through me like a piece of ice sliding down my back.
We were almost to the door when the phone in my purse began to ring. In our rush, I'd stupidly forgotten to turn it off. The sound echoed through the tunnels, a blaring announcement of our presence. I reached to turn the ringer off, but it was too late.
John cursed and pushed me behind him. He tossed his backpack to the floor and unzipped it, never taking his eyes off the stone women on either side of us. He pulled two silver daggers from his pack and stood up, his arms protectively swung out to the side.
All around us, the statues came to life.
A Tiny Spark
Horrible hissing sounds echoed through the tunnel.
I watched in horror as four stones came to life. Their black capes fell to the floor and their mouths opened in wide, hideous grins. Their jaws came unhinged as their mouths drew back, revealing the green, scaly skin of the monsters that dwelled within.
I screamed as the women's skin split in two and fell to the floor like discarded clothing. They each grew eight clawed legs that skittered across the floor. A long tail lifted from their bodies like scorpions. Four sets of glassy blue eyes stared up at us.
“What the hell are those things?”
“Guardians,” John said. “And they're a real bitch to kill.”
He spread his feet wide and watched as one of the scorpions lunged forward, a large needle-like stinger on the end of its tail lashing out at his head. He quickly side-stepped the attack, pushing me backward toward the stone wall. When the stinger hit the floor near his feet, the rock crumbled.
John’s dagger sliced through the air and caught a spot between the monster’s dark green scales. Dark blood seeped from the new wound, filling the air with a rotten stench.
“What can I do?” I felt helpless. I’d never seen anything like these creatures in my life. They looked like a cross between a spider and a scorpion with their eight segmented legs and long claw of a tail. The wounded one retreated behind the others, nursing its tail.
“Do you know any defensive magic?” he asked. “Or spells that could hurt these things?”
Panic tightened my chest. “They didn’t teach us any of that stuff,” I said. “All I know is how to make orbs and glamours and stuff.”
“What about fire?” he asked.
I nodded, tears running down my cheeks. I didn’t want to die in this dark, damp hell of a place. “I know how to light a candle, if that’s what you mean.”
John jumped to one side and grabbed a torch from the wall. I hadn’t even noticed them before, but now I saw there were wooden torches lining the walls down here. He tossed one to me, but I dropped it and had to bend down to get it. The torch looked ancient, made of damp twigs and covered in moss.
“Light that, if you can.”
The second scorpion lashed out at John, but he shifted to dark shadow, moving out of the way at the last second. A piece of the wall where John had stood cracked and crumbled to the ground. He reappeared by my side, daggers raised.
I couldn’t concentrate with everything that was going on around me. I was used to casting spells in the comfort of my room at home, or in the basement of the gym back in Peachville where we’d trained. I had never once had to cast something in the heat of battle. My brain was working at ninety miles an hour.
“Allison, light the torch,” he said. “Hurry.”
I backed up until my feet touched the solid stone wall behind me. I held the twisted wooden torch in my hands and stared at the scrap of fabric wrapped around the tip. I tried to remember everything Mrs. King—our instructor—had taught me. Focus. Calm. I imagined a bright fire burning at the end of the torch, sending all of my energy toward that one thought in my mind.
A tiny spark ignited the very edge of the cloth, but it wasn’t enough to make the damned thing catch fire. It sputtered out, sending up a tiny trail of smoke.
Frustrated, I focused on the torch again. But right at that moment, two of the scorpions skittered toward us. The sound of their scaled legs clicking on the stone below ripped me from my task. I pushed back against the wall and screamed, dropping the torch to the ground as one of the monsters leapt at me. Its mouth opened wide, baring jagged, pointy teeth.
My survival instinct switched on, and I lifted my hands to block its attack. Warm energy pulsed through me and large, tangled vines with dark blue thorns sprouted from the wall behind me, reaching out to cover my body like a shield. The scorpion monster slammed against the thorns and fell back. It let out a high-pitched scream that rang so loudly in my head it made my teeth vibrate. When I lowered my
hands, the vines retreated into the wall. Somehow, I’d managed to damage the monster pretty badly. Two of its legs had been severed from its body and part of it looked burned.
“Whoa, what did you just do?” John asked.
“I don’t know.” I felt almost giddy. Had I really just done that? And more importantly, how the hell was I going to do it again?
John moved by my side and picked up the torch. “Here,” he said. “Try again.”
I took the torch from him and focused, trying my best to ignore the approach of the fourth scorpion. I took several deep breaths and trained my eyes on the tip of the old torch. I reached down inside myself, pulling from a light I could feel pulsing deep within.
“Ignite,” I whispered.
The torch caught fire, but before I could celebrate my small victory, horror flooded my veins.
The tattoo on my back had moved.
Black Roses
I held the burning torch in one trembling hand and reached behind me with the other. I felt along the fabric of my costume as the tattoo writhed and twisted across my skin.
My eyes sought John’s in the flickering light. “It moved,” I said. “My tattoo moved.”
He looked down at his watch and cursed. “It’s five minutes until midnight,” he said. He tried the handle on the door behind me, but it was sealed closed. “We have to kill these things and get inside before it’s too late.”
“How? I don’t know what to do,” I said.
He shifted to shadow and quickly grabbed two more torches from the wall. He reappeared beside me and lit them from mine. The flames burned hot against my face and sweat trickled down the back of my neck.
“Burn them,” he said.
He slipped his daggers into the belt loops on his jeans and waved the torches toward the scorpions. They backed away slowly, mouths open and hissing like angry cats.
But three torches would not be enough. We didn't have enough time. I had to do something.
I pressed my back against the stone doorway and dropped the torch to the ground.
John turned, his eyes questioning, but I forced my focus away from him. I reached deep inside my power, searching for the strength to recreate the thorny vines.
I imagined them clearly in my head. I wasn't sure where they had come from or how I had managed to create them to save my own life, but I knew I had to trust that power. I had to believe in the magic that lived inside of me.
I pushed my hands forward, willing the vines into existence. I felt them slide across my skin, growing rapidly along the bottom of the tunnel until the entire floor was coated with them, like a carpet of thick brambles. They sought the monsters out, curling up over their legs and holding them captive.
I breathed in deeply and said the word again, this time with more confidence and strength.
“Ignite.”
The vines surrounding the scorpions burst into flames. I turned my head, lifting my hands against the searing heat of it. Tortured screams echoed through the tunnels, so loudly that I wondered if the people who partied overhead could hear them.
“Holy shit,” John whispered.
“What now?” I asked, lowering my hands as the flames died down and looking for whatever monster or terror might be coming for us next.
There was nothing left in the tunnels here below the city of the dead but the burned corpses of the monsters John had called guardians.
“You killed them,” he said. His eyes gleamed in the light of the torch still burning in his hand. He moved toward me and pulled me into his arms. For a moment, I thought he might kiss me.
The tattoo moved again, writhing against my skin like a snake.
“We have to do this now,” I said. “We're out of time.”
John released me and moved quickly toward the door. To my relief, it opened easily now, revealing a large storage room filled with wooden crates. John closed the door behind us and set the one remaining torch in an iron sconce on the wall.
The crates were stacked nearly to the ceiling in some places. Moss covered the surface of the floor, growing up over the bottoms of some of the crates. It looked like no one had been here in decades.
“We have to find the black roses,” he said. He rushed forward and started prying open the tops of the crates with his dagger.
I grabbed the other dagger from his jeans and did the same on the other side of the room. I pried the top of the first crate open to find a set of black ceremonial robes. I grabbed the entire crate and tossed it to the side, moving on to the crate underneath. This one held glass bottles full of green liquid. I moved as fast as I could, removing the lids from the crates and tossing them to the side. I got to the bottom of the first stack of crates and wanted to cry. They weren’t here. What if we didn’t find them on time?
“Keep looking,” John urged. “I know they’re here somewhere. They have to be.”
I moved to the next stack of crates. The top one came open easily, revealing a stash of blue gemstones. Angry, I shoved it backward. The gems scattered across the floor, gleaming in the flickering light of the torch.
Something near the back of the room caught my eye, and I stopped and peered into the darkness behind the rows of stacked crates.
A small cluster of black roses grew inside a dark green vase. My heart leapt into my throat.
“There,” I shouted. I crawled over the boxes and reached toward one of the stems.
“Wait,” John said. The fear in his voice stopped me just before I gripped the base of the first black rose. “Don’t touch them.”
He took his gloves from his backpack and quickly sliced through the stems of four of the roses, gathering them up in his hands. Together, we knelt down on the floor in the back of the room. He stripped the petals off the roses and took a mortar and pestle from his bag.
“Take off your dress,” he said.
My body flushed with heat. I knew he had to get to the tattoo, but I hadn't considered the fact that I'd have to get practically naked for him to have access to my lower back.
I lowered the zipper with clumsy fingers and slipped the dress from my arms, pushing it down until my lower back was exposed.
“Lay down,” he said. He worked to grind the rose petals into a thick black paste.
The tattoo moved again, its magic awakening as time pushed toward midnight.
“Hurry,” I said.
I dropped to the floor and lay on my stomach, my face resting against my arms. My body shivered against the cold, damp, moss-covered stone.
“This is probably going to hurt,” he warned.
I closed my eyes and braced myself for the pain. “Just get it over with.”
John spread the black paste across my lower back where the magical ink was embedded in my skin. The paste was ice-cold at first, but it slowly gathered heat until it felt like a fire had broken out across my skin. The more paste he applied, the more the ink writhed and twisted and protested.
I clenched my teeth and pressed my face harder into my arm. The pain of it consumed me, and I nearly lost consciousness. I couldn’t take it anymore. I screamed and reached back, trying to scrape the black paste from my skin. I needed to get it off me.
But John’s strong hands circled around my wrists, holding them tightly against the floor.
“I know it hurts, but you can’t touch it,” he said, crouching low beside me, so close I could feel the warmth of his breath on my cheek. “The black roses are pulling the ink from your body, but if you touch it, the ink will be transferred to your hands or anything you touch. You have to hang on. It’ll be over soon.”
I bucked against him, but he held me down, his eyes locked with mine until the burning stopped.
My body fell limp against the floor and tears dripped from my eyes. John let go of my wrists and carefully scraped the paste off my back with a piece of wood from a broken crate. He tossed the wood to the side and gathered me up into his arms.
I sobbed and pressed my body tightly against his. He was so wa
rm, strong, and patient as I cried.
My back throbbed, but the worst of the pain was gone.
“Is it over?” I whispered, lifting my eyes to his.
He nodded and ran a gentle fingertip across my cheek. “It’s over,” he said. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
“I’m not sure it will ever truly be over as long as the Order of Shadows exists,” I said. “They’ll never stop searching for me.”
He cupped my cheek in his hand. “Then maybe it’s time you stopped running and started learning how to fight back.”
My eyes searched his. “I don’t know how to fight,” I said. “They’re too strong.”
“I think you’re capable of so much more than you give yourself credit for,” he said. “Despite everything that’s happened, you’ve never given up. Never stopped trying to have a better life. Tonight you proved there’s more strength inside of you than a hundred other witches I’ve known in my lifetime.”
We stared at each other, our chests rising and falling together with each breath. Our bodies clinging to each other in the flickering light of the torch. He was more gorgeous than I’d ever realized, and I wanted nothing more than to feel his lips on mine. To ask him if he would teach me how to fight, and how to be a stronger witch. I wanted to know that whatever might come after this moment, he would still be here by my side. Fighting with me.
I could have sworn he felt it too. This attraction that drew us closer and kept me coming back to him. But instead of kissing me, he looked away, and all the tension of the moment disappeared into the darkness.
He released me and stood. “Get dressed,” he said, keeping his eyes on the door. “The danger has passed for now, but the Order will know the tattoo was removed. Since we didn’t transfer the ink to another living object, the magic of the ink has died. They won't be able to track you here or prove you were ever here in the city. Still, we need to get out of here and get you back to your friends as soon as possible, before they begin to suspect something.”
I pulled my dress up and zipped it. My legs were still a bit shaky, but I managed to stand and pull myself together.
