by Mary Buckham
“Blood to call. Blood to bind. Come hither! Come hither! Bind and bound, cease and wither.”
Then I noticed what was happening beside me on the floor. A wavy line appeared, as if someone was finger painting in my blood.
Not painting but extending the line.
“Blood calls. Blood compels. Go forth! Go forth! Swirl and sweep. Wind to night, right to right.”
The circle extended in a full arc on my left side from my head to my hip. A pause, then it started appearing on my right. The fuller the circle, the stronger the spell.
“Power be. Power rend. Reverse the flow. Halt the send.”
Like a rubber band snapping, the magic flow stopped.
But it was too late.
CHAPTER 12
Once shifters complete the change they were driven by their animal selves.
Bitsi wasn’t one of the dominant ones who could retain enough of their humanity to control their animal. As close as I was to her glowing eyes I could see the last vestiges of her humanity disappearing by the second.
“Now,” I shouted to Vaughn. “Use weapons.”
What weapons? We were in a gym with kettlebells and a few exercise mats.
I could hear Stone shouting in the background. The screams of my other teammates.
Both my hands encircled Bitsi’s neck, her aardwolf neck—a hyena that looked like a small wolf, and in spite of its size, as lethal as both species.
Only my hands to her throat kept her from ripping out my own.
I rolled back and forth, using my size and weight to keep it off balance while it ripped its claws across my chest. Moving wouldn’t work for long but kept it busy for now.
Someone got smart. The black girl. Serena. I saw her racing toward me with a jacket. A leather one.
She threw it over Bitsi’s head, and slammed against the hyena’s body, catapulting it off of me as they rolled away.
Respite.
I sucked in a deep breath, planting my good hand on the floor, never so thankful for help as Vaughn and Skylock grabbed my arms and jerked me to my feet.
“What now?” Skylock huffed, fear widening her eyes.
Serena rolled over and over with Bitsi on the floor. If the aardwolf got loose, Serena would be in deep trouble.
I glanced around, seeing two other bodies on the floor, blood pooling around them. Chiquita’s team and Stone were circling Rolf as Stone barked orders. Stone had a gun he was pointing. Probably with silver bullets but couldn’t risk firing in an enclosed space with so many merging bodies.
We were on our own to stop Bitsi.
“Kettlebell,” I pointed with my right hand, a limp wrist flick toward a trio of what looked like cannonballs with handles. “Bash her.”
Vaughn caught on first. “Toni,” she shouted to where Dyslexia hid behind a series of bleachers that put her closer to the kettlebells. “Grab one.”
But Toni only shook her head, then jumped forward.
For a second I thought she meant to help. But she didn’t. Instead she aimed for the exit doors. But to get there she’d have to pass Serena who was losing her battle.
“Stop her,” I shouted, watching as three things happened at once.
Dyslexia leaped over Serena, avoiding contamination with a high-flying vault that put as much space as possible between her and the wrestlers.
The movement distracted Serena, just enough for her grip to loosen.
And Bitsi attacked, shaking her short, coarse furry head and lunging forward, her jaws snapping around Serena’s neck.
Vaughn, Skylock, and I all sprang forward but not soon enough.
Like a rabid dog savaging a smaller prey, Bitsi’s teeth dug into Serena’s neck, sending an arterial spray shooting out as neck bones crunched like paper wadded and discarded.
By the time we reached Serena she was gone.
But Dyslexia was still there. She’d slipped on Serena’s blood and sprawled, face forward, across the gym floor.
Acting as the opportunist her hyena form was, Bitsi leapt toward Dyslexia’s exposed back.
I raised my hands, splattering blood and shouted,
“Teleport in the now. Far and fast. To thine own. Be gone.”
A crack of thunder sounded through the gym as a poof of orange-red light caught Bitsi mid-flight.
One second she was there. The next second she was gone.
“Thank God,” Skylock whistled, skidding close, her attention on where Dyslexia was pulling herself to her hands and knees. “Where’d she go?”
“Don’t know.” I shook my head, wishing I had thought of this spell earlier, but it was such a long shot; I stood as much chance of sending all of the recruits to the nether regions as getting rid of Bitsi. “Sent her to Africa, I think.”
“You think?” Vaughn asked, grabbing my right arm. “What do you mean, you think?”
“I sent her to her own kind.” I shrugged, fighting too much pain and too sick at heart to care a lot. “Could be she went back to her human kind, her shifter friends or her hyena mates. Which means—”
“Africa.” Vaughn smiled, the movement slight. Who blamed her? Now was not a smiling time as we stood surrounded by the carnage around us. Serena’s corpse not even cold.
That’s when I heard the boom of Stone’s gun.
The three of us turned as if one. How could I have forgotten about the other shifter?
Stone’s aim was true, the bullet ripping into Rolf mid-chest. In shifter form he was a cougar, one of the most dangerous of the North American cat species and related to the jaguar: large, lethal, and beautiful even as his tawny chest sprouted crimson.
Rolf screamed. A high-pitched death wail splintering my heart.
Yeah, he was a shifter, but he’d been forced to change. He hadn’t meant to kill; he’d been compelled to kill and now he paid the price.
He didn’t die immediately. Instead his cougar form splayed across the floor, his animal eyes seeking explanation, his voice mute.
He knew he was dying. Both animal and human parts of him understood as the seconds passed and his eyes dimmed.
He didn’t have to die. Neither did Serena. Or the other two women recruits bleeding out.
As I cradled my hand, seeing the blood dripping to the floor I made a vow.
Someone was going to pay.
CHAPTER 13
Dinner that night was a silent affair for those of us attending. Three women were confined to the infirmary; three were dead. One had fled. So there was a sorry-assed group of seven of us pushing some Mexican dish called Pibil Pollo around on our plates. It might have tasted good or it might have been dirt, I didn’t care.
I could use only one hand, the other so bundled it looked like I was waving a cotton muff around. The wrap reminded me not to use that hand much. The pain still pumping through it in spite of the bucket load of meds I was on, another reminder.
The only good news was Kelly had reappeared. Seemed her ability was to disappear. Sounded like something cool, but it had a nasty side effect. For as much time as she was invisible, when she reappeared she was blind for double the time. She also couldn’t control her gift that well, given she had hidden it most of her life.
Not like there were a lot of teachers who could show her the ropes either.
So in the gym after she’d been ethereal, about ten minutes max, when she poofed back into corporeal form she was as helpless as any person suddenly losing their sight.
On the other hand she wouldn’t go to bed with images of the corpses of three dead women and one murdered shifter in her memory. Though Kelly had seen them killed. They were all murdered as far as I was concerned but hadn’t voiced my anger aloud. Not yet.
But it was brewing and bubbling beneath my skin.
Vaughn leaned toward me, her voice pitched low. “After lights out, meet me outside the dorm.”
I looked up, a thousand questions thrumming through me, but all I did was nod.
“Tell no one,” she added, as if I need
ed the warning.
I could feel my eyes narrow, my lips thin as I shoveled a cold bite into my mouth before I asked. “When?”
“Midnight.”
The Bewitching Hour. My smile was bitter sweet.
I nodded, then caught Chiquita and her friend staring at me. Most of the remaining recruits had been casting me wary glances as afternoon slid to evening. They knew I’d used my other abilities to get rid of Bitsi. Most of them assumed the hyena shifter was dead. Who knew, she might be.
I hadn’t shared with anyone except Vaughn and Stone that there’d been magic at play in the gym. Dark magic. And I hadn’t shared with either of them that I wasn’t going to stop hunting for the one who’d set off the chain of events this afternoon. It was my silent promise to Serena, who had saved my life.
We trooped back to the dorm almost immediately after dinner. I skipped my next round of pain meds to keep my wits about me as I got ready for bed. Not easy one-handed.
It seemed like everyone walked on eggshells, only too aware of the empty cots that had been occupied just that morning. On one cot personal belongings still remained of those who had died. The one that fled before all the bloodshed had begun had cleared out her space.
I sat on the edge of my cot, aware of my pulse beating through my injured hand. A hand I wouldn’t know if I’d retain full use of for a few days. The focus helped me channel whirling thoughts, slowly clearing as the medication left my body.
What had happened and why? I eliminated Stone as being behind the black magic attack that turned a training exercise into a slaughter. He had nothing to gain and a lot to lose. So that meant one of my fellow recruits.
But was it a crime of opportunity or motivated? Just a fluke that the magic pulsed through the room when I was pinned down by Bitsi, or was someone specifically out to get me and the other deaths were collateral damage?
I circled around the same questions over and over as I swung my feet onto the bed.
“You need help getting your shoes off?” Kelly whispered, creeping up beside my cot. I hadn’t even heard her. She pointed to my feet. “I can help.”I heard what she wasn’t saying. Guilt and regret tumbled beneath her words. She wanted to make nice, but with three dead it wasn’t easy.
Could she be the cause of the magic? Hiding so much darkness behind her kindness?
Nah, the drugs must have made me pure stupid. I rocked back to a sitting position, tilting my head toward the nearest cot for Kelly to sit down. “Thanks for the offer,” I whispered, aware we were the only two at this end of the dorm now. “I think I want to stay fully dressed and ready tonight.”
Kelly’s voice dropped so much I had to lean forward to hear her. “You expect more trouble?”
Once she said the words I realized she’d pinpointed the unease scrambling over my nerve endings like horse flies drawn to sweat. Someone had gotten away with magic use, twice, with no repercussions. Why wouldn’t they try again?
If it were me, I wouldn’t stop. I’d press my advantage. Go for broke. But what was the ultimate goal? Wreak havoc for the sheer power thrill? Destroy the team? Destroy me?
Damned if I knew.
“Yeah,” I nodded, looking at Kelly. “There’ll be more trouble.”
“Tonight?”
I shrugged. “Don’t know.”
“But why?”
“Don’t know that either.”
Kelly sighed, a quiet release of breath that sagged her shoulders and paled her skin. Without looking at me she said, “I’m sorry.”
“’bout what?”
She fluttered one hand—not a grand gesture, more like the dying twitch of a butterfly’s wing. “About disappearing on everyone.”
I leaned forward, tapping her knee with my good right hand. “You drew the circle didn’t you?” I hadn’t asked before, but that was the only explanation I could think of.
She nodded.
“Then you’re the reason the rest of us lived.” And I meant it. Without that circle empowering the spell I’d never have been able to slow the flow of magic.
She glanced up as if I’d thrown her a lifeline. “I did?”
“Yeah. You broke the back of the black magic.”
A confused expression creased her face as I realized my blunder. She hadn’t known dark magic was in play.
I glanced over my shoulder to make sure no one was paying us too much attention. Only Chiquita was looking in our direction.
Could she be a dark witch? Or practice voodoo? That could explain the magic.
Something to look closer at, but now I had to protect Kelly. I turned back to her and offered a smile that was shaky around the edges. “Look, you don’t tell anyone what I said.”
“About the black—”
I held up my hand and nodded. “Yeah. It’s our secret.”
“Sure.” A crease of concentration furrowed her brow. “You mean that’s what you were doing? Using magic to stop Bitsi?”
That threw me for a loop. “Didn’t you know?”
“No. Not really.” She glanced toward the other team members getting ready for bed. “I mean there’d been rumors that you might be a witch or a sorcerer or something,” she added, “but it’s not like any of us have admitted what we are or can do. So I didn’t know for sure.”
“So why did you finish the circle?” I asked, not sure if I was stunned because of the ramifications of her words or the realization of how close I’d come to having my throat ripped out like Serena. If Kelly hadn’t acted as she did, the magic flow wouldn’t have been cut.
I looked Kelly in the eye, waiting for her answer.
“It seemed the right thing to do.” She seemed to shrink in on herself as she added, “I mean, there I was, not helping at all except for tripping Bitsi. And there you were, fighting her all by yourself. So I just guessed that you wanted something done with your blood and I followed your lead.”
I didn’t know if I wanted to hug her or shake her. No one should play willy-nilly with magic. It was like gunpowder. Use it wrong or mess with it and there were costs. Even practitioners, those trained or blood born to it, realized how easily something could go wrong. And black magic, driven by blood, was the most volatile and unstable of all.
Which made me think. How was the other person using black magic without blood?
“Kelly,” I leaned so close we were practically nose-to-nose. “While you were . . . invisible, did you see anything?”
“Like what?”
“Like any of our team, or someone from the other team, anyone, run their hands through any of the blood on the floor? Or act as if they were spell casting?”
Kelly’s eyes grew saucer wide. “I don’t know how people spell cast,” she said, swallowing deeply.
Of course she didn’t. Most people didn’t. Any witchcraft they were exposed to tended to be of the white kind, the benign flowers in our hair and dance around in circles kind. Which is mostly Hollywood trying to make witchcraft into something the average human could understand and not freak out about. Magic was woo-woo stuff. But hippies or flower children or old crones were something concrete.
“But I did see something,” Kelly added, as if trying really hard to get an answer right on the test. “It might be nothing.”
“What?”
“I saw Mandy flicking her hands as if shooing someone away.” Kelly cut a scared glance at me. “But there wasn’t anyone near her.”
“Mandy,” my voice was paper thin, the pounding of my heart threatening to rip through my chest. “As in Mandy Reyes? The other team leader?”
Kelly nodded.
Chiquita girl. I knew it!
Got you, you bastard.
CHAPTER 14
After Kelly wandered off to her own bed and I lay back down on my cot, my thoughts continued to whirl. My gut had told me Chiquita was a problem, but no way had I guessed how big a problem.
So what was she? There were so many variations on witchcraft throughout the world. I wasn’t that familiar with a
ll the cultural differences, especially the ones coming out of South America. Off the top of my head she could be a brujería, a hedgewitch, a curanderos, or a shamani. If South America was where she was from. She could be Puerto Rican, or with a background coming out of the Caribbean Islands, which opened up all sorts of other possibilities.
If I remembered correctly Puerto Rico even had a city called Pueblo de los Brujos, or something, which meant city of witches. Then there were the voodoo practitioners, Orisha rites, Hoodoo, Kumina and dozens of other variations of witchcraft, Satanism and magic use.
But why use anything against her fellow teammates unless she thought to eliminate some of the competition? Was that her goal or something else?
I was still chewing through possibilities and trying my hardest to ignore the pain coursing through my hand, when I heard Vaughn get up and creep out of the dorm. She brushed my shoe as she tiptoed past my cot.
I rose and followed her, amazed at how quiet she could be. A shifter, Were, or vamp might have heard her but not many humans.
The minute we stepped out into the chill night air I started to speak, but Vaughn put a finger against her lips and whispered. “Shhhhh. Too close.”
To what? Or whom?
I nodded and followed her, keeping away from the gravel paths, stepping on dormant grass or even the rims of flowerbeds until we stopped at the main house. The original property where I’d heard the offices were located. That and lodging for Ling Mai and Stone.
What were we doing here?
Breaking and entering? Checking fellow recruit files? Going for a late night snack? What?
Then Vaughn really blew my mind when she inserted a metal key into the back door lock, only turning my way as she pushed open the door.
“You first,” she whispered. “We’ve got to hurry to disengage the alarm.”
Was she kidding? Someone had tried to kill me earlier and now she wanted me to walk ahead, into a dark hallway. Who knew what could be waiting there? Was Vaughn the black magic user?
She wouldn’t be the first beautiful witch or one who’d glamoured herself to appear beautiful.
