The Aether Witch (The Coven: Elemental Magic Book 6)

by Chandelle LaVaun

  “I’m going up there.” Tenn adjusted his grip on his dagger and rolled to the balls of his feet. “Em, Coop, when I drop, you kill. Tegan, be ready to catch Deacon.”

  We didn’t even have a chance to ask what he meant or for clarification. He took two steps and leapt into the air. He jumped from tree to tree like a rock skipping water. It was almost like he bounced. He pushed off each tree with one foot. It was beautiful and mesmerizing to watch. I wondered if I’d ever get used to seeing him move.

  He was Tarzan, jumping from tree to tree and slicing his dagger through the air. Sunlight glistened off his blade. The branches rustled, and leaves rained down on us. There was a hiss, and then a dark shadow dropped from the sky. It slammed into the ground in front of me. Dirt went flying like a tidal wave.

  “DIE!” Emersyn screamed and flicked her wrists.

  The demon went up in flames. Cooper pounced on it and sliced his dagger through the fire. The trees around us creaked and swayed. A shadow fell from above and met instant fire. Two more demons dropped, and Emersyn showed them no mercy. Her platinum-blonde locks whipped around her as she spun. Little flames danced along her arms. She turned and looked for her next victim with a twisted smirk on her face. One after another fell. Emersyn was so on the mark she was lighting them on fire before they hit the dirt.

  I peeled my eyes off my sister’s rage and focused on my own soulmate. It was strange to see him in something other than his standard all-black attire, but his skill was the same kind of impressive. I held my hands up, ready to catch him if he fell. My rainbow magic swirled between my fingers. The energy in it tickled my nerves and sent electricity running up my arms. My heart fluttered like a hummingbird in my chest.

  He was so high up I had to crane my neck back just to see him. I didn’t know how he was holding on. The branches up there were thinner than my arms. Mismatched eyes met mine for a moment, then he turned to look to his left. I followed his gaze, and my eyes widened.

  Deacon. There were three spider demons left…and they had our Devil Card dangling from their spindly legs. Something white and shiny was wrapped around his body, trapping his arms and legs down like he was in a cocoon.

  I gasped. Not a cocoon. A spiderweb. They’re going to eat him.

  My stomach turned. Rage surged inside my bones. I looked back to Tennessee and found him watching me. Get him out of there, babe, I whispered into his mind.

  Catch him, he mouthed.

  I’m ready. I nodded. Be careful.

  I forced myself to look away from him and focus on Deacon. As Royce always said, Tennessee wasn’t human. The idea of him getting hurt was crippling to my ability to function, so I pretended like it wasn’t possible. This wasn’t the Old Lands. This wasn’t us falling into a black hole and landing in a monster’s pit. That was the only time he’d gotten injured, and it wasn’t even his fault.

  Focus, Tegan. Deacon needs your attention.

  I ran forward until I was right under Deacon. His purple eyes were wide open. He looked at me, then his gaze bounced around me. I knew what he was seeing because I saw it in my peripheral. My twin and my brother were quite the demon-slaying team. But that wasn’t on my task list. I raised my hands and wiggled my fingers, pushing my rainbow magic into the air above me.

  Deacon, stay with me, okay? I’m going to catch you, I said into his mind, hoping it was reassuring. Tenn is about to do his non-human thing some more. We’ve almost got you.

  Deacon held my stare and nodded…then he squeezed his eyes shut.

  A dark shadow passed over him, and then he dropped like an anchor in the ocean.

  My heart skipped a beat, but I had my tricks. I reached out with my magic and grabbed ahold of the water in his body and the blood in his veins. He froze midair. His purple eyes were wide and his face pale.

  I’ve got you.

  I lowered him inch by inch until he was level with me, then I flipped him over and laid his back against the dirt road. Dark objects crashed to the ground nearby, but I didn’t look. I knew it was the last three demons. Flames shot up in my peripheral vision.

  “Deacon, talk to me.” I dropped to my knees and pulled at the slimy, sticky webbing coiled around his body. “Deacon?”

  He coughed. “Thanks.” His voice was weak and soft. His purple eyes were bloodshot and the lids kept fluttering, like they were determined to close. Thick, greenish-yellow demon blood was caked in his hair and on half of his face.

  “DEACON!” Emersyn screamed. In a flash of golden light, she was on her knees beside me. She leaned down and whipped the demon blood off his face with the sleeve of her waistcoat. “Are you okay? Please be okay.”

  The corner of his lips twitched like he wanted to smile but couldn’t. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. His face paled to a sickly shade of gray.

  A cold chill slithered down my spine. Something isn’t right. Deacon was a decent fighter. More than that, the web wrapped around him shouldn’t have been draining him. My magic tingled like nails dragging down a chalkboard. Is it suffocating him?

  “Get it off him,” I said in a rush. I grabbed the top of the webbing that was wrapped around his chest and yanked, but it wouldn’t budge. “Get it off!”

  Cooper dropped to his knees across from me. “What’s wrong? Is he okay?”

  “No,” Deacon whispered. He sighed. His violet eyes watered.

  “Deacon?” Emersyn’s voice was soft yet tinged with panic.

  Heat flared in my chest, and then Tennessee landed on his feet right in front of me like a cat. He crouched down with his dagger and sliced through the web strings.

  Deacon gasped. His eyes went wide and his face turned sheet white.

  Emersyn cupped his face and said something, but I didn’t catch the words. My magic was tingling. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. But what is it?

  Tennessee and Cooper were prying the web strings off of him, trying to get him free.

  I reached forward to inspect his soulmate glyph when movement caught my eye. I frowned and leaned in closer. Something was moving under him. I pulled his arm up and choked on a gasp. “BLOOD!”

  Thick, dark-red oceans of blood were pouring out and pooling under him.

  That was what my magic felt, but I still didn’t see a wound.

  “Get his coat off!” I screamed. “Get it off, get it off!”

  Deacon looked up at Emersyn with heavy, sad eyes, and my body turned to ice.

  Something’s wrong and he knows it. He knew before we got him down.

  Everything around me blurred as we hurried to peel his jacket off his body. Tennessee and Cooper used their blades to cut through the thick wool coat.

  His cream linen shift shirt was drenched in blood.

  “Nooo,” Emersyn cried. “No, no, no, no!”

  Tennessee ripped Deacon’s shirt open, and we all gasped. My heart sank.

  There, sticking out through the center of Deacon’s right pec muscle, was a spider demon’s stinger...

  Chapter Three

  EMERSYN

  We ran down the dirt road in a panic. Tennessee carried Deacon by the shoulders, while Cooper and Royce had each of his legs. Tegan held one hand to his chest and her other on his back. Red blood spilled over her fingers, but it wasn’t gushing anymore. It was some trick of Tegan’s. She said she was holding the blood in his body. I didn’t understand how, but I didn’t ask. It didn’t matter how. I didn’t care what she had to do to keep him alive.

  I ran beside them, holding my soulmate’s hand in mine. I tried to push my strength and energy into him, though I couldn’t have said if it was working. His violet eyes stayed on me the whole time. His mouth moved, but no words came out. My chest was on fire. Every step we took, it burned hotter and sharper.

  “Stay with us,” I whispered to him. “Just hang on, okay?”

  There was a loud pounding, and when I looked up, I saw it was Henley banging on Leyka’s front door. Her pale palms were stained red from her cousin’s blood.
We were almost there, only another fifteen feet, and they’d be able to help us.

  “Leyka!” Henley screamed and slammed her fist on the door. “Leyka?!”

  The wooden door flew open. Leyka was half undressed, wearing only his breeches and shoes. His long, curly blond hair was wild like perhaps he’d been sleeping. His aqua eyes widened, and his jaw dropped. “Oh no, I thought it had worked— Oh Goddess, what happened? Get inside now!”

  Tennessee, Cooper, and Royce rushed forward so fast my fingers slipped from Deacon’s. Tegan raced through the door after them. I started to follow until I spotted the trail of blood, and my feet froze. Oh God. Deacon. That’s so much blood.

  “He’s tough,” Henley said softly. She took my hand and pulled me through the front door.

  By the time we got inside, there was a heavy blood trail all the way across the dining room and into the next room. We followed it through the hallway and into the back bedroom where they had Deacon laid out. Tegan knelt on the bed next to him, in the small sliver of space between his body and the wooden walls. Both of her hands were pressed to his chest, almost like she was giving him CPR. I’d never imagined I’d wish someone were struggling to breathe, but it would’ve been easier to deal with than the gaping hole from the demon stinger.

  Tegan’s hands and sleeves were covered in my soulmate’s blood, a deep crimson that matched the color of his magic. Rainbow mist swirled around my sister’s arms like a pet snake slithering up and down. She was giving him everything she had. Please let it be enough.

  I hadn’t even realized I’d moved forward until my brother turned toward me with wide green eyes. I didn’t know if the liquid on my face was tears or Deacon’s blood, or both. But it must’ve been bad, because Cooper reached out and took my hand.

  “He’s tough,” my brother whispered and squeezed my hand tighter. “Don’t lose hope.”

  He’s tough. That was what Henley had said too. How do they know that? What proof do they have? Or are they just saying that? All I knew was I was glad I had them to hold on to.

  Henley still clung to my left side, biting the nails on her free hand and staring at her cousin.

  Royce groaned and backed away from the bed. He yanked on his hair and bounced around. “How did this happen? He was right next to me. I was right there.”

  The door on the opposite side of the room flew open and slammed into the wooden walls, rattling on its hinges. Leyka ran over with a tray of…well, I wasn’t really sure what he had.

  He set the tray on the table next to the bed then leaned over Deacon and began pulling his coat off. “What happened to him?”

  Tennessee sighed, but it was sharp with anxiety. He stood at the head of the bed with his tanned, muscular arms crossed over his chest. His black eyebrows were scrunched low over his mismatched eyes. “Spider demons.”

  Leyka’s hands froze. His face turned sheet white. He stared at Deacon’s wound. “Did you say spider demons?”

  “Yeah…” Tennessee frowned and narrowed his eyes on Leyka. “Why?”

  “They’re not like the kind we have, though.” Royce paced the small area like a caged hamster. “These were camouflaged with the trees. We could barely see them.”

  Tennessee leaned forward like he was trying to get in his line of view. “Leyka, what is it?”

  My stomach turned. Something was wrong. Leyka still hadn’t spoken or moved. He just stood there like a statue staring down at Deacon. If he didn’t answer the question soon, I was going to scream. My heart raced so fast in my chest my whole body trembled.

  “LEYKA?!” Saffie shrieked from the other room. “Are you okay?”

  “Leyka, where are you, damn it?” Myrtle shouted at the same time. “There’s blood everywhere— OH GODDESS!”

  Myrtle slid to a stop. Her silver eyes glistened like liquid metal in the sunlight poking through the window. She shook her head, and her long black hair fell out of its clasp. Her gaze moved from one of us to another. I knew the moment she saw Deacon. Her face fell and her eyes grew cold. She closed her eyes and whispered a prayer to the Goddess in our ancient language.

  Saffie bounced into the room. Her fiery red hair was windblown and wild around her shoulders. Her lavender eyes widened so far I saw the whites all around them. “You’re here. Again. We thought it— Who’s that? Who’s on the bed? Leyka!”

  Leyka straightened and turned to look at his sister and niece. His eyes were sad…and avoiding me. “Spider demons,” he whispered.

  Saffie covered her mouth. She shook her head, and tears fell onto her cheeks. “Noooo.”

  My heart broke. I felt it tremble like an earthquake. There was no misunderstanding the look on Saffie’s face. I was going to lose him. I’d only just found him, really. Sure, it’d been a couple months, but I was too stupid back then. I could’ve been with him the whole time, sharing happy memories and good times together…like my sister and her soulmate.

  But I was a fool, and now it was too late.

  Saffie spun and disappeared out of sight. A second later, the front door opened and then slammed shut.

  Myrtle sighed and scrubbed her face with her hands. When she pulled them away, I saw a sharp edge in her eyes that I recognized. I’d seen it in Tegan before, whenever she was being really stubborn. Myrtle wanted to save him. Though something told me she didn’t think she could.

  Myrtle moved to stand beside Deacon, next to her brother. She leaned down. “Did the stinger go through him?”

  Tegan looked up at her and nodded. Her face had blood splattered all over it. “Yes. The second we touched it, the thing dissolved.”

  “Myrtle, what aren’t you telling us?” Tennessee put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “Leyka was focused on healing him until I said spider demon. Talk to us. Please.”

  “Well—”

  “With the truth,” Tenn interrupted. He narrowed his eyes. “False hope only hurts us worse in the long run.”

  Myrtle cursed in our ancient language and pressed the back of her hand to Deacon’s forehead. “I don’t know what it’s like in your time, but here…we do not have the tools or magic to heal this kind of wound. Spider demon attacks are…fatal.” She whispered the last word, like it hurt her to say it.

  The world spun around me. My strength vanished. I dropped to the ground, but Cooper and Henley caught me before I hit the wood. They carried me by the elbows over to the chair beside Deacon’s bed. Then they slid the wooden chair over so I was right beside him, close enough to touch. Close enough to see the beads of sweat rolling down his face and the slow beating of his heart through his body. The wound was buried under Tegan’s hands and blood, but the veins shooting away from it were now a dark, sludgy color.

  No one else spoke a word. I didn’t even hear their breathing.

  “The poison is already setting in,” Myrtle whispered. She pointed to his chest. “Look at the coloring. It’s taking over.”

  The heart-shaped crystal of our soulmate glyph in the center of his chest should’ve been a brilliant sky blue. That was the color it had always been, since it had first shown up. But now it was a light orangish brown color, like wet clay. The vine-lines of our glyph were thinning out, like branches in autumn.

  I reached out, ignoring the way my hand trembled, and grabbed Deacon’s hand. The second our skin touched, his eyes flew open. Those big, bright, beautiful violet eyes latched onto mine and held. His lips curved ever so slightly on one side. He squeezed my hand hard enough to hurt. There was that little, devilish sparkle in his gaze for a moment, and then his eyes closed again.

  I hear you. I feel you. Don’t give up. Please. Please don’t give up. I wished I could talk to him like Tegan could, using only her mind, because my mouth didn’t appear to be working. I wanted to tell them how much strength I just felt in his grip. They needed to see that he still had fight in him. He could fight this.

  “By any chance, are any of you healers?” Leyka turned to look at each of us. “I know there’s a Card who’s
a potion master…”

  “She fell,” Cooper said behind me, his voice barely audible. “In the Seelie Tunnels.”

  Saffie ran back into the room carrying a bag half her size. She hobbled over and sat it on the ground in front of her mother, then she leaned over Deacon and narrowed her eyes. “Did it stop bleeding? Usually these gush until we—”

  “I’m holding it in,” Tegan interrupted. She glanced up at Saffie then looked pointedly to her own hands. “Aether Witch trick. The demons taught me it, actually. I can control any liquid, including the water and blood inside a living creature. So, I am literally holding his blood in his body.”

  Myrtle whistled and shook her head. She dug in the bag and pulled out a bunch of supplies. “Deacon is lucky to have you here, then. Normally…well, never mind.”

  “Normally what?” Royce asked, still tugging at his hair. “What?”

  “Normally people bleed out before we can even tend to their wounds,” Myrtle whispered reluctantly.

  Tennessee leaned his back against the wall and hung his head. His long black hair fell into his face. “Are you…are you saying there’s nothing we can do to save him?”

  “We’re going to try everything we can…” Myrtle sat back and rolled her sleeves up. “But it will only hold him steady for a while. Our healers haven’t figured out how to suck this demon’s venom from our bodies. I’m assuming by your reactions that they’ve figured this out by 2018. If you had the spell or potion, I wouldn’t stop you. Since you don’t… Well, unless you get back to your time, we can only delay the inevitable.”

  Tennessee cursed and pushed off the wall. He ran his hand through his long hair and stared at the ground. After a long moment, he turned and looked right at Tegan. They stared at each other with sharp eyes, and I knew they were communicating.

  Tenn nodded. “Then we try whatever it takes, no matter how risky, to get back to our time.”

  “Speaking of time…” Saffie looked over her shoulder at us. “Where have you been since you tried that spell with the Earth Stone?”