“Fine, then keep me here ‘till you let Aaron and Damien go,” I said, “I’ll leave with them.”
Sheriff Kirkman held on to his belt and firmly nodded. “Could I get you something? Water, maybe?”
“Please, yes.”
The Sheriff walked away from my cell and disappeared down the corridor. A light cawing floated into my room on the back of a breeze coming in from the window. I approached the tiny opening but only narrowly identified the tips of the trees nearby. Their sway seemed strange and nauseating, but the bird’s call was clear.
“Changed your mind about getting out?” he asked. The Sheriff wasn’t gone long.
I shook my head and approached the door to my cell. He slipped a cup of water and in through the bars. The liquid disappeared past my lips in an instant.
“Thanks,” I said, passing the cup back.
“Try and get some rest,” he said, “You’ve had a rough day.”
The Sheriff left and I sat down on the edge of the bed. I sighed and hung my head between my, clasping the back of my head with my hands. I thought about Lilith, Damien and Aaron, this entire messy situation. My life couldn’t be more fucked up. For the first time in a while, all I wanted was to hear my mom’s voice.
The room started to spin. My head drooped further. Blinking, I tilted my chin up and scanned the blurry features around me. I tried to stand, but my legs went and my head hit the ground.
CHAPTER 40
My eyesight fared no better than my hearing. The world was a blurred, muted mess to my senses. I struggled to move but my hands were bound, and I tasted leather. The more I wriggled, the more the binds dug into my skin. I was in the back seat of a car, and in the front seat someone was holding a one sided conversation. I couldn’t pick out specifics, but the voice was male and he was talking about me and Lilith’s bracelet. He sounded pissed, too.
I wiggled onto my back to get a view of my surroundings. I still couldn’t see, but I could tell we were on a winding road. I tried to keep track of the number of twists and turns but I lost count after three. The tree line seemed familiar, and our gradient told me we were travelling uphill, but I had no idea where we were going.
Calm down, I thought, and focus. Breathe slowly. Don’t let him know you’re awake. I closed my eyes and concentrated, regulating my breathing and allowing my pulse to slow. When I attained full concentration, I threw my consciousness out of the backseat and plunged all of my anger into the engine.
The sky roared, the engine grumbled and the car choked. The driver cursed and stopped the vehicle to a stop by the side of the road. Though my eyes were closed, the squeaking seats told me looking into the backseat to see if I was awake yet, but he didn’t see through my acting.
He stepped out of the car and popped the hood. Steam billowed out of the engine. “God dammit,” he said.
Still calm and collected, I glanced at the car door and willed for the lock to open. My pulse raced again as my feet touched the asphalt. I slid out of the car and crouched beneath the door. The black tree line was before me, only a few feet away. I could dash toward it and figure out how to remove my bindings later without him seeing me if I wanted to or I could get a glimpse of my kidnapper.
Going against my better judgment, I slid around the car to get a view of the man standing by the hood, but I didn’t need to see his face. The unmistakable Sheriff’s Department vinyl on the hood of the car gave it away. The Deputy!
I stopped dead in my tracks. All blood drained from my face, eyes wide. Without thinking, I rushed the tree line, hitting the threshold and making it into the darkness with a kind of speed rivalling a mongoose.
Behind me there were footsteps racing through the woods. No voice accompanied them, only a steady grunting and heavy boots crunching on wet dirt. I couldn’t look back. My tied hands kept me from balancing correctly. I smashed into a tree with my shoulder, spun, and hit the ground chest first, coughing and groaning.
The boots caught up to me. Powerful hands lifted me from the ground and pulled me back toward the road and into the car. When I turned to spit abuse at the Deputy I wasn’t expecting to come face to face with the tall, moustache wearing Sheriff.
“Did you really think you’d get away so easily?” he asked. “I guess you pulled the stunt with the engine too, huh?”
I stared at him from the seat, grit and leather in my mouth.
“Don’t try that again. I don’t want to have to kill you before your time.”
He shut the door and made his way toward the front of the car again. I’m not sure how long he spent in front of the open hood, but he managed to repair the car and start up again.
Before I could count to ten we were on the road toward my doom, and I’d run out of options.
CHAPTER 41
The car had been stopped for a while before the backseat door opened and I glanced up at the Sheriff’s tall form. He grabbed me by the hair and pulled me out of the car. I screamed through the gag and struggled to hold on to his hand as he dragged me across the rocky floor. Cold wind struck my face. Trees rustled nearby. My body ached.
The Sheriff pulled the gag out of my mouth but immediately covered it with his mighty hand. “Don’t scream,” he said, “If you scream, I’ll make this hurt even more. Understood?”
I nodded and he let me go. I screamed anyway. Birds fluttered out of nearby trees at the sound of my shrill voice. The Sheriff answered my defiance with a swift and painful kick to the gut. I lost my breath and shut up.
“I told you,” he said shaking his head. “What did I tell you? Don’t scream. How is that so difficult to understand?”
The Sheriff walked away toward what looked to me like a makeshift ritual circle. I spied candles, chalk, a small wooden box and a human skull. The throbbing pain in my stomach didn’t seem to want to go away.
“Why are you doing this?” I cried. “What did I ever do to you?”
He advanced and squatted in front of me, enveloping my face with his large hand. “You’re an abomination,” he said, “Your kind shouldn’t exist, and I won’t rest until you’re all gone.”
I couldn’t speak. My jaw started to throb from the pressure.
“Better?”
I nodded, barely, and he let me go. Out of nowhere a Raven came and landed on the rocky ground before me. Not once did it move or break its sideways glance at me. I closed my eyes and reached out with my mind trying to tap into the currents of magick. Instead of a gentle stream, sloshing rapids rushed around me.
After a moment’s concentration I realized where I was; the stony peak of Ever Dark Mesa, a cliff overlooking Raven’s Glen and a place of power any Wiccan in the local area had at least heard of. Eliza and I hiked up here once for bragging rights, and while we’d heard the place held power neither of us had ever truly experienced the mighty, moving tides of magick flowing through it quite like I did in that moment.
The perpetual breeze pushing up from the side of the cliff became a lashing gust of wind in an instant. The Sheriff’s candles blew out. He glanced at me and then stormed in my direction, picking me up and grabbing me by the neck.
“You think your magic is going to be useful here?” he asked, nostrils flaring. “I’ve killed two of your kind with my bare hands. You’re going to have to do better than that if you want to get rid of me.”
He threw me to the ground hard. I landed badly and hurt my knees and shoulder, but adrenaline raced through my system and shut out the pain. When the Sheriff pulled out a serrated blade my eyes widened. I’d feel that. The Raven took off into the night. I lost it quickly against the black backdrop of the sky.
“Get up,” said the Sheriff, picking me up off the ground and marching me to the center of his ritual circle. The pentagram was ornate, but it certainly wasn’t Wiccan. An artistically accurate image of a ram connected to the star had been carved into the rock with white chalk; each horn made a point on the star, the cheeks and chin made up the other three. This was the kind of pentagram used by d
evil worshippers.
I kept my eyes on him as he paced around me, probably wondering where to cut me first. My pounding heartbeat prevented me from concentrating and forming an image in my mind of what I wanted to happen. The Sheriff approached me from the front and slipped the knife into my dress, cutting from the belly up. I gasped as the knife teased my skin.
“Stop!” I begged, “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to kill you, Amber,” he said, “But first I’m going to take a few things from you.”
He yanked off my necklace and pulled Lilith’s bracelet from my wrist. He moved away from me and put the items in the box by the side of the circle. I didn’t catch what was inside the box, but I suspected it to contain one of Joanna’s personal effects.
“You can’t do this! People will come looking for me!”
“Like your warlock friend?” asked the Sheriff, “Don’t worry, he’ll be taken care of, and Aaron too. I’ve got them where I want them.”
“My father’s wealthy,” I pleaded, “He can give you money. Whatever it is you want, please, just don’t kill me!”
The Sheriff approached, stepping into the pentagram with me. His blade twinkled against the candlelight.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said.
“I do have to, Amber,” said the Sheriff. “People like you cannot be allowed to exist. No one should be able to manipulate the laws of our world.”
I swallowed hard and fought to keep myself from begging anymore. He wouldn’t get the satisfaction. “The Devil doesn’t exist,” I said, “Whatever you’re looking for in him you won’t get from killing me.”
The Sheriff grinned. “This? I don’t believe in this,” he said, “No, I believe in not being messy. Your friend Damien will make a perfect scapegoat for when I’m done with you.”
Damien. “No!”
He plunged the cold steel blade into my gut.
CHAPTER 42
I fell to my knees. The hairs my arms and back rose. My body went cold and numb. I stared at the ram’s head on the rocky ground beneath me, breathing in and out in bursts. The Sheriff’s boots circled around me like a vulture waiting for its prey to die. Blood spilled over my hand and onto the chalk pentagram. I couldn’t breathe.
The boots stopped moving. This was it. The Sheriff had finished examining my naked flesh and decided where he’d stick the knife next, where the final blow would go. He grabbed my hair and yanked hard, exposing my neck. I yelped from the pain but bit my lip to stifle the scream bursting to get out.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” he asked.
I tried to make words, but through the pain I could only manage to blow air out of my mouth. The wet blade kissed my neck, where he’d already cut me originally.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“F-fuck you,” I hissed.
“You have balls. More than the others did.”
I closed my eyes and breathed through the pain, concentrating on the wound in my stomach and flooding it with green orbs. Magick was the only thing keeping me from bleeding out, but I worried I wouldn’t be able to keep my concentration for long.
The Sheriff shoved me to my side and my body hit the rock. He turned me onto my back and knelt over my body, sitting with his knees on either side of my waist. His jeans were rough on my belly and the open wound stung, but I had the bleeding under control so long as I concentrated.
He gazed upon my chest with his knife waving around like an artist trying to decide where to start with his masterpiece.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“Shut up and keep still,” he said.
He pinned my shoulders down with one hand and carefully pierced the skin just above my right breast and started to carve something into me. I bit my lip as red-hot pain surged throughout my body. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a scream or tears, but I couldn’t help the quickness of my breathing. My fists clenched behind my back. I scraped the rock with my fingernails to shut out the pain and kept my jaw shut tightly, but my eyes burned with the fire of the sun. I wanted to kill him!
Over the Sheriff’s shoulder the clouds churned as if they too were in pain. Hail unto you, Guardians of the Watchtower of the South, I thought. The clouds flickered in shades of red and purple. A stormy wind descended upon the mesa at breakneck speed and with animalistic ferocity. Thunder roared above like a lion charging through a jungle toward its target.
The Sheriff pulled the dripping knife from my skin and looked over his shoulder, shielding his face with his hand. He snapped his neck to me and shot me a glare.
“Are you doing that, witch?” he asked.
I kept quiet, breathing hard through my nose.
“Answer me!” he yelled, bringing the knife to my eye.
I invoke thee.
A shockwave exploded out of me and the rock beneath my back fractured. The Sheriff lost his balance and fell to his back a few feet away. I floated to my feet as if the wind itself were carrying me, and as the binds on my wrists undid themselves I stretched my blood soaked hands above my head.
I took a deep breath of crisp air and stared at the Sheriff’s fuming face. “I invoke thee!” I screamed. A crack of lightning fell from the sky and struck the Sheriff as he tried to stand, sending him sprawling to the ground and rolling along the rock.
I advanced, my anger fuelling a kind of foreign warmth burning within me. My fingers and temples burned. The Sheriff struggled with himself, propping his body up with a hand and holding his chest with the other. He’d dropped his knife.
“Bitch!” he cursed. The Sheriff pulled a gun and trailed it on me, blasting several rounds at a range from which a marksman such as he wouldn’t miss; but the bullets didn’t find their mark.
I reached for the gun with my mind and visualized the weapon on fire. In an instant the Sheriff dropped the pistol and cradled his sizzling skin. Thunder and lightning crackled above, each roaring rumble sent tremulous ripples through my chest.
Disarmed and suffering, the Sheriff met my eyes. “You don’t have the balls,” said the Sheriff, “You’re just another pathetic creature!”
The wound on my abdomen opened up and blood began to spill, but I ignored it. “You have hurt too many,” I said, advancing on the Sheriff. “Now you’ll feel our vengeance in this life and the next.”
The Sheriff stood and charged. A bolt of lightning surged from out of the clouds found the Sheriff’s chest, rooting him to the spot. Then another strike came like a whip-crack from the Gods, smashing him in the back and forcing him to the ground, flailing and convulsing.
I approached, walking on air. Incomprehensible whispers fluttered around me, male and female voices speaking in a cacophony I couldn’t understand but whose tone was clear. When the Sheriff’s body went limp, the wind and whispers died down and vanished.
I fell to my knees and crawled toward the Sheriff’s body with one hand on my wound. When I reached his blistering, burnt body I stuffed my hand into his pocket and checked for his phone. Miraculously the old phone was intact and still working! The phone weighed a ton in my weakening hand, but I hit the call button and dialed the last person the Sheriff had spoken to.
I collapsed to my side before someone picked up on the other line.
“Is it done?” asked a smooth, male voice.
“You fucked with the wrong witch,” I spat.
The line went dead after a pause.
“Amber!” a voice called out from the trees.
Damien and Deputy Clinton couldn’t believe their eyes. As immense pain flooded back to me and numbed me in the same stroke, and as my vision faded to black, I glimpsed Damien rushing toward me with the Deputy by his side.
I let myself slip away, satisfied that even if I were to die, at least that pig would die with me.
CHAPTER 43
I dreamt I was a Raven soaring above town, darting through light grey clouds with the wind in my feathers. Alone I searched for my sisters, cawing into the nothing before me
until finally the clouds broke and the sun shone through. There, bathed in sunlight, other Ravens flew. They were waiting for me.
I joined the constable and glided alongside the leader. She glanced at me and cawed. Her call snapped me up from the jaws of oblivion and grounded me once more into the waking world. I blinked and struggled to make out the shapes in front of me. Breaths were pain. Movement was worse.
Someone rushed to me. A warm hand caressed my cheek. “Amber,” said Damien, “Can you hear me?”
I groaned.
“That usually means yes.” Eliza!
I was wrong; coughing to clear my throat was the worst. “Where am I?” I asked.
“In hospital,” said Damien.
His face took shape. Eliza took my hand from the side of the bed. “You worried me half to death,” she said.
“I’m sorry. I’ll let you know beforehand next time some asshole is going to try and kill me.”
She brought my hand to her lips and kissed it. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“What… happened?” I asked.
“We got him,” said Damien, “The Deputy pieced everything together. He’s smarter than he looks.”
“Wait, what does that mean?”
Damien glanced at Eliza. “It means the Sheriff has been charged with the recent murders in Raven’s Glen. Lilith, Joanna, they can both rest now.”
It all made sense, then. Lilith was the Raven, and I’d just seen her find Joanna. The thought filled me with a comfortable warmth and contentment I’d never known until then, and would never forget.
“So… Eliza… you know?” I asked.
“It’s okay,” said Eliza, kissing my forehead, “I won’t say anything to anyone.”
“Eliza’s the reason why I found you,” said Damien. “She came to see you and when the Deputy noticed you and the Sheriff were both gone—”
“—I convinced the Deputy that Damien would know where you were. I bailed him out, Damien went all clairvoyant, described the place, and I knew where you were.”
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