Montague, Alec and Daisy did a hunched run toward us. Harris cast a ward to deflect attention. Catherine Caruthers had rushed into the fray while Harris’ mother was huddled in the pews. Some of the other staff were scurrying away and opening doors, only to allow the captives of the Haven to run in.
“This is the perfect cover for us to try and get Orson,” Harris said.
“But what about poor Stu?” Daisy asked.
“I’m going to guess he planned to take care of himself,” Harris said.
“Yeah…I hope so,” I said. “I think Harris is right. We don’t have time to ask Stuart why he’s here so we’ll just have to take advantage of it and hope we all have the same goals.”
“You do.” Suddenly Ignatius was right behind us, laying on the floor like he’d been there a while. “We have a spy in our midst so we know what you were up to. Charlotte, you didn’t disappoint. Come on…let’s help Orson and get out of here. We have to hurry. Stuart got ahold of the Eye of the Ancients, which was quite a quest on its own, but he can’t hold off so many people for long.”
I filed ‘Eye of the Ancients’ with ‘volcano magic’ and ‘my fiancee Christopher Sutton’ as “things people assumed I knew about so I would pretend I did”. “Cool,” I said. “Thanks. I’m glad you’re here.”
“We have thirteen brides for the faery queen,” Daisy said. “They were trying to help Orson already.”
“Professor McGuinness is scoping out the situation,” Ignatius said. “But…his main power is looking nondescript, so we’d better hurry.”
I had to admit relief that The Grownups were here, although if I’d actually had time to think it through, I might consider that so far we had saved ourselves more than they saved us.
We made use of the general chaos to get to the door, elbowing our way through a curious crowd of stragglers. By now the healthiest people of the Haven were already inside so I had to edge past an old lady who stared at me and a man in a wheelchair. However, what I mainly noticed was that when Ignatius reached the door, Ina was waiting for him, and he took her hand in his.
“I…um…” I swallowed, following them out, but I couldn’t look at Ina without my entire body breaking out into tingles of panic. “When I was—she—Ignatius, that’s—that’s Ina?”
Ina clung to Ignatius’ coat, looking at him with the sort of crazy affection of a Helena Bonham Carter role. “Ignatius, I tortured her.”
Ignatius looked back at her with the expression of someone who remembers a different person with the same face, but who was still hopelessly in love with whatever was left. “Oh…no,” he said, in a soft voice that was about the most defeated tone I’d ever heard from him. “Well…that is how she was able to get a message to me.”
“Oh,” I said, tightly. “Okay.”
“The whole reason I was getting married to Charlotte was to rescue her from this brutality,” Harris said.
“They were breaking her,” Montague said. “That is—you were.” He looked at Ina.
“I needed to do it,” Ina said. “They told me to do it and I needed her to understand what happens to a naughty girl. Naughty witches die, and they roll them out under a sheet and take them away. But good witches are purified by pain and when they’re purified, they are safe and sound. Darling…are you mad at me?”
“Yes. I am a little bit mad,” he said, putting a hand on her head as his eyes shifted through a few levels of discomfort, apology and resignation. “She has been here for many years,” he said softly. “Charlotte…please forgive her.”
I swallowed. “Okay. It’s okay. Let’s just hurry.”
I hadn’t mentally prepared for all of this. I guess I expected my mom to be the really fucked up one, working for the Withered Lord, and when they said Ina was crazy, I thought she would just be just like a sad woman murmuring nursery rhymes or something, not a whip-wielding torture witch working for the enemy. Even if she was still passing messages to Ignatius, she definitely had enjoyed her job.
Watching Ignatius with her, it was easier to forgive the pain I’d suffered. The look in his eyes was like an echo of the past, a memory of the normal girl I saw in photographs.
It made me more grateful that my mom was still the person she was, that my dad could still love her wholeheartedly.
We scurried down halls, Daisy leading the way by now. I guess she was ready to get this show on the road and see her future husband again. I don’t know that she seemed excited, exactly, but she probably just wanted to get it over with.
We managed to get up the stairs, wards shielding us from notice, but at the top of the stairs we heard some wailing female voices. A second later, we noticed that Professor McGuinness was knocked out in the hall.
“Please!” a girl cried. “I told you! It was Daisy Pendleton, she told us to do it!”
“Oh, that bitch,” Daisy hissed. “Throwing me under the bus. So, they’re onto us. Now what?”
“I can distract the guards,” Ignatius said. “Get the iron bands off of Orson and then call the faery queen.”
The two guards came out of Orson’s prison just then, herding out the girls at gunpoint and wand-point, a weapon in each hand. They were tied together at the wrists into two groups, except for one. The werewolf girl who had been bragging about her stupid fiancee. She pointed at Daisy. “There she is!”
“Shit,” Harris said. “They’re looking at us too closely. The ward is broken.”
“Daisy, you asked her?” I groaned. “She’s the one who was such a pain before. I tried to erase her memory.”
“You erased my memory?” Werewolf Girl demanded.
“Well, I didn’t know,” Daisy said. “I got this all done in one day. You should be impressed! But now we don’t have thirteen girls anymore.”
“Yes, we do,” I said. “She still signed her name.”
“Do you think that my fiancee, Christopher Sutton, would let you drag me off to the fae?” Werewolf Girl said.
“I still don’t know who that is!”
“Dear god. You know, of Sutton Pelts?”
“Oh,” Harris said. “Yes. Sutton. They sell magic furs for spells.”
“Pelts?” I winced. “Gah! You’re a werewolf engaged to a pelt dealer? Did the dalmatians fall for Cruella de Ville? Jesus. Well, too bad, you signed your name and promised yourself to the faeries. That’s binding magic. Boom! Finishing move!” When I started the sentence, I actually had no idea if it was truly binding magic, but she started to look so horrified as I talked that I got progressively cockier as I went.
“No!” she screamed. “No, you can’t do this to me! I won’t go. I won’t. But if you make me—” She pointed at Daisy. “I’m going to destroy you, Daisy.”
“Whatever, I’ve got my man and I’m going to go live happily ever after.”
“If you’re quite done with the playground smackdown, ladies…” Harris grabbed me and pulled me toward Orson’s cell. Montague was already at the door, standing guard as we hurried inside, while Alec grabbed the wolf girl.
“Hey,” Alec said. “So, Christopher, huh? What is he like?”
He must have hit her with a full-on dose of incubus charm. Her eyes roamed down his arms where he was holding onto her. “Uh…I dunno…he’s not so great…”
He glanced at me. “Sorry, Char. I need to make myself useful.”
“She can look,” I said.
While we had been having this conversation, Ignatius had already started battling the guards, dispatching them with some shadowy spells. Sinistral magic, I realized. He’d been banished from Etherium so that was all he could do, and it looked pretty unsettling. The guards turned glassy-eyed, their faces vaguely green, before they dropped to the floor. One of them vomited up some black bile and then started choking on it. Werewolf girl screamed.
“Demon curses,” Ignatius said. “I know it’s ugly. Don’t watch. But if you don’t shut up, you’re next, girl.” He waved his wand and flipped the guard over so he stopped choking. “Just save
Orson. Hurry.”
Ina wandered over to Professor McGuinness and grazed a hand over his face. I hoped she was going to heal him and not hurt him, but I had to trust Ignatius to keep her under control. I turned to Orson.
“Oh no…no…” Daisy went to him.
I hadn’t seen him before, but I’m sure someone would have mentioned it if he looked this bad. I remembered how he looked at Stuart’s house, burly and solid, a man who looked reliable and protective at first glance. I could see why Daisy would sign up to be with him. He definitely seemed like pretty solid husband material.
Maybe it was because I was so close to my own pain. I knew what torture felt like. I could hardly look at him. The iron cut into his flesh, blood crusting wherever it touched, while his skin was grayish. His strength seemed unbreakable, but slowly but surely, he was starting to hollow out, his ribs showing over the concave of a hungry stomach, past the tattered rags of his clothes. He was hairy and smelly but to Daisy’s credit, she wasn’t prissy about that.
“Orson,” she said. “We’re here to rescue you.”
“Ahhh…and do you know how to get this iron off of me?”
“Yes,” Daisy said. “We saw the wards when we were in here before, so I’ve had time to crack them. Harris…can you give me a hand?”
“Of course.”
They traced their wands in patterns, hardly my area of expertise.
“So what’s the plan?” Orson said. “And I certainly hope you’ve got one.”
“Stuart is here providing cover,” I said. “The Faery Queen said that if we could get thirteen girls to agree to be faery brides, she would open up Wyrd for us, so we can use Wyrd magic.”
“Ah. Well. She must be truly impressed—or else, she finally sees that the end of Wyrd is coming soon if we don’t act. I wonder what the high lords will think of these human brides; aye, that’ll be a sight to see.”
Daisy glanced over her shoulder and then tossed her head like, If he doesn’t know he’s supposed to be with me, let’s not tell him yet.
I guess she was nervous.
“She’s not a lady you’ll find easy to bargain with, I shall warn you,” he said. “But like all faeries, her word is her word…” He trailed off.
“Save your strength,” I said, getting nervous. It sounded like more guards had arrived on this floor; I heard footsteps getting closer. “How’s it coming?”
“Hsst, woman, I’m working,” Harris said.
“Okay, man.” I glanced around, looking for anything I could do.
“Shit,” Montague said, from his post at the door. “Here they come. Guards—and Catherine.” He ran up to me and gave me a very quick kiss. “I need to fight. We can’t lose now.”
“Montague…!” I tried to cling to him but he slipped from my grasp all too easily, with grace beyond any human. I ran to the door as he grabbed a guard and bit his neck.
Oh—my. Montague didn’t hesitate before tasting blood. He took a long taste before throwing the man aside, leaving him staggering and bleeding but still alive. I don’t know that the man had really lost that much blood, but he seemed dazed by Montague’s magic. A vampire’s prey was not just weakened physically but also subdued by the vampire. Montague was on to the next, leaving a trail of bleeding guards.
This was getting serious.
The twelve potential faery brides were huddled against a wall, although some of them looked like they were considering joining the fight. Ignatius already had a few men down. Ina had her hand on his, apparently lending him strength. Her hands glowed and she looked younger, more alive. They moved together like they were one person, although it didn’t erase the streak of madness in her eyes.
“I’m here to stop you,” Ignatius said. “And as you can see, I’m not playing around. The council drove me to Sinistral, and now dark magic is all I have to wield.”
“It’s that traitor witch—Amelia Halt!” one woman said, lifting her wand to strike.
Ignatius and Ina vanished, reappearing to the left of their prior position. Ignatius flung his wand toward the witch and struck her down.
“It’s Ignatius Blair,” he said. “And like I said—I’m here to win or die trying. Ina…are you ready?”
“Oh, yes. Always.”
Maybe they weren’t too different, at their core. They both had a dark streak, I think. Ignatius had always been willing to put ambition over anything else. I could never quite trust him, but over time, I’d come to understand what it was all for.
Ignatius chanted a summons, calling up more dark magic, a toxic smoke that wrapped around the witches and warlocks. One of them collapsed, his face breaking out into dark pustules.
“Ugh,” Ignatius said, stepping back, repulsed by his own spell.
“Don’t back down now,” Ina said, taking out her wand and waving it lazily, a twisted smile on her face.
“Ina,” one of the witches said, spreading her hands. “Please don’t do this. You’re one of us. You’ve been on our side for years, helping to purify. This—Halt—woman…?” She glanced at Ignatius like she was not really sure what to make of him. “She’s a dark wizard now. We need to take her down.”
“I was never on your side,” Ina said. “I just realized that I have a taste for the switch. And not the receiving end…well…then again, it depends…” She tapped her finger tips along her wand. “The day you released me from my room and gave me a uniform was a good day. I got a little of my own back. You started to trust me and I could finally send messages to my friends. Your predecessor used to tell me I was too pretty to be such a troublemaker, and that she would save my face for my future husband. Every good woman has a husband and now mine has come for me. I think dark magic suits him very well…but what could be darker than the magic you taught me?”
She whispered. “Go to sleep, perchance to dream, for one need not wait for death to see the shadows slink about you…the visions you shall never scrub from your sight, your fears in the night, I curse you to view… The pain you caused others is now your own, and no place you lay your head will ever feel like home…”
The witches slunk back, covering their ears, speaking their own counter spells. They couldn’t seem to escape Ina’s spell. She seemed to be getting in their heads, drawing out some inner darkness that made them shriek and cower.
Ina bared her teeth, relishing the moment. Ignatius looked like he was about to cast an elemental spell and she stopped him. “There is nothing you can do to them physically compared to the suffering I can inflict on their minds,” she said. “I know how they tick.”
But just as she seemed to have driven everyone in the hallway to some private hell, a fresh group came charging up the steps, and this included Catherine Caruthers and Harris’ parents. They were marching toward us like they intended to put an end to this nonsense.
“Ina!” Catherine said, seeing crumpled black uniforms on the floor, hands clutching heads as the witches moaned. “My god, did you do this?”
“I didn’t do anything, Mother. I just told them to take a good look at themselves. They’re thinking about the things they’ve done here and the rest isn’t my responsibility.” Her hand draped, sweeping her wand back and forth like a clock’s pendulum. “Do you want to try?”
“Sister Ina.” Father Bogdan spoke to her sternly. “Come here. You are one of us. Don’t revert back to these bad habits. If you stand on that side, we’ll have to hurt you, and your soul will not go to Etherium when you die.”
“No,” she said. “My Ignatius is here.” She gripped his arm. “The joke is on you. I never believed any of that stuff I said.”
“Ina, Stuart Jablonsky is dead,” Catherine said.
All of us chilled.
“No,” Ignatius said. “Prove it.”
“He was perfectly willing to die for you. Your mission, ‘Ignatius’,” Catherine said. “So, this is where you stand. Your friends are dead. Ina is not what she was. Just give up now.”
“Where is my son?” Mrs. Nicolescu
said. Harris was still in the side room with Daisy, out of sight from the battle in the hall. Harris’ mother tried to move ahead and Montague blocked her path. He slowly wiped blood from his mouth and put a hand on her chest. My heart clenched, expecting him to be attacked any moment. “Charlotte, we will still accept you as Harris’ bride if you stop this now,” she said.
Ignatius was reeling from the death of Stuart. I could see that the fight had gone out of him. I couldn’t imagine what it was like to be the only one of your friends left alive and undamaged after years of fighting. He had to be wondering what it was all for. Sort of like how I felt when I gave in to marrying Harris and leaving Alec and Montague behind.
“It’s too late for that,” I said. “I’m not the daughter in law you want. I’ll never make you happy or proud. And I think you know that, and so does Harris. He told me that all you want is for me to have a kid.”
“Well, that’s not true. We want our boy home.”
“He’s our son,” Harris’ father said. “Our only son. Of course we want him home.”
“And why are you so eager to marry him to me? I’m a hot mess of a witch. The thing is, that’s what he likes about me.”
Ohmigod, is Orson freed yet? I didn’t know what to say to buy more time. It was pretty quiet in the prison cell.
“Your great-aunt is the one who pushed for you to marry him,” Harris’ father said. “And you should really thank her. What kind of girl doesn’t want to live in a mansion with all the clothes and jewelry she could ask for?”
“I don’t care about clothes and jewelry!” I said. “Or mansions. Or any of it. What I care about is Harris himself. I would much rather live in a shack with Harris, Alec and Montague than in a mansion with Harris and you. But I realize, you probably don’t want to give me that option. Maybe you’re going to kill me now. I don’t know. I hope not, but I’m prepared for fight for it just like Stuart was. Stuart knew perfectly well what he was doing. He wanted us to fight on.” Dad has Mom now. If something happened to me…
I shoved that thought aside. It would make me cry. I needed to pep Ignatius now. I needed us all to be ready for a last stand.
Battle of the Hexes Page 16
