by Megan Morgan
“They’re watching us. Now do you understand? They’re not messing around. They’re going to hurt your family if I don’t help them.”
Hazel pushed her chair back. She got up and hobbled to the door that led into the living room.
“Where are you going?”
“To get my gun! I’m not going to sit here defenseless.”
Lorena touched the gun on her hip and looked back out the window.
Hazel returned with a shotgun and placed it on the table. She sat back down.
“You can handle that?” Lorena arched an eyebrow at the rifle. “That’s a pretty big gun for a small woman.”
“I’ve been handling one since I was a girl. Just because you can’t handle a real gun doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t.”
Lorena bristled. “Smaller and lighter means quicker and easier. I can use a shotgun just fine, and even bigger guns than that, but they’re cumbersome, especially if you have to move and try to hit a target at the same time.”
“Deacon uses a shotgun.” Hazel spoke imperiously. “All my sons and grandsons do.”
“Deacon is huge. A shotgun in his hands is like a pistol in mine.” She glanced out the window. “How long has it been since you had to fire one?”
“Don’t worry about me, little girl. You best keep those creatures away from this house, or they won’t need a potion.”
Lorena kept watch as Hazel read. The presence outside remained. She should call Deacon, to make sure things were okay there. She didn’t want to alarm him, though. Everything was fine. They were fine. Hopefully, the Wolvites would honor Abernathy’s promise to give them one full day to figure it out.
Hazel sucked in a breath. Lorena looked over at her.
“What is it?”
“This may be it.” Hazel touched a finger to the page. “The Great Sickness. It causes seizing, frothing, fever, and madness. The victim is uncontrollable in its grip.”
“Yes!” Lorena rushed to the table and looked at the book. None of the words made sense to her, but there were drawings: a tree, a flower, what appeared to be a pond. “Are these the ingredients?”
Hazel peered at the page. “They seem to be. Though, I’ve never known a potion made like this before.”
“What is it?”
She pointed to the picture of the tree. “One ingredient is boiled hickory bark.”
Lorena blinked a few times, and a surge of elation cleared her exhaustion. “That’s what’s in the other potion we’ve been using, the one that’s been easing Dafydd’s symptoms.”
Hazel looked up at her. “You already have a potion?”
“It doesn’t cure it. It helps, but—” She stopped short of telling her Stacy had helped her concoct it. “The cure has the same ingredient, that must be why it’s helping a little. Maybe the potion we—I, found was a derivative of the original one. What else is in it?”
“Chrysanthemum, it’s chancy that’s over-important though, it goes in many potions. The petals help with fever and aches.”
Lorena knew that, from her studies with Stacy. She pointed to the picture of the pond. “And what about this?”
“That’s the strange part.” Hazel traced her fingertip beneath a line of words. “I’ve never heard of this in potion making.”
“What does it say?”
“The potion is activated by water from a Healing Pool.”
Lorena furrowed her brow.
“The water in the pool must be enchanted by a White Witch, and may be used for healing, in this potion and others.” Hazel scoffed. “White Witches are exceedingly rare, if they exist at all. To be a White Witch is to have full command of nature, which is impossible. Nature does not have a master.”
“Why white? Why not green, if it’s nature?” Lorena was half-joking.
Hazel fixed her with a sour glare. “White symbolizes purity. Nature does not tolerate aberration or sullying. If you think that’s not true, think of the ways nature reclaims its domain and corrects our intrusion, and destroys us at will. Nature can be diverted but never muddied. Nature is pure. Nature is white.”
Lorena picked up the book. “Abernathy said this cured them before, so White Witches must exist.”
“You believe what a monster told you over me? What do Wolvites know of witchery? Just because traitor witches live among them does not make them wise.”
Lorena studied the picture of the pool. “It says the ‘Great Sickness,’ right? That has to be the virus.”
Hazel got up. She waved a hand at the book as she passed by Lorena to the coffee maker. “Burn that book, remove its lies and trickery from the witching world.”
Lorena ignored her. “How do you make the potion?”
Hazel plunked her cup on the counter. She went about pouring herself another cup of coffee.
“Tell me.” Lorena turned to her. “Or else.”
“I did as you asked, I read the book and found the potion. Now leave.”
“You haven’t done as I asked.” Lorena placed the book on the counter in front of her. “Until you tell me how to make the potion.”
Hazel sipped her coffee.
“I’ll tell your family.” Lorena leaned in close and lowered her voice. “I don’t care what your reasons are.”
The anger in Hazel’s eyes, the hate in her expression, could have driven a spike through Lorena’s chest.
“Give me a pen and paper.” Hazel snapped her fingers. “In that drawer, over there. I’ll write down what it says in English, since you know nothing about your ancestors and their tongue.”
Lorena opened the drawer she indicated. “I’m not from around here, those are not my ancestors.”
“All witches are your ancestors.”
Lorena brought her a pen and a pad of paper. Hazel snatched them, threw the pad on the counter, and began writing. Lorena was antsy and looked out the window again.
A realization struck her.
The dream, in which she’d followed Neala to a pool, deep in the woods. Was it a message? Could Neala lead her there? Was it already a Healing Pool?
Lorena touched her phone in her pocket, but stopped. Neala wasn’t at the house anymore, Deacon had sent her away.
She needed to find her.
Prickles flashed across Lorena’s skin, stronger than before. She sensed the Wolvite’s presence even closer.
Hazel looked up. “Those wretched things.”
There was movement between the trees, tall shadows shifting under the branches.
“They’re just watching.” Lorena nodded at the paper. “Keep writing, I’ll speak to them when I leave. I’ll make sure they don’t bother you.”
“They allow you to speak to them?” Hazel shook her head. “I’m not surprised you’ve become an ally. You ought to go off in the woods and become one of their witches, find a nice mate among them. That seems like it would suit you.”
Lorena resisted the urge to slap her and kept watch out the window.
One of them stood just inside the tree line, facing the house. Something in the pull of his power told her it was Kendrick. She shivered. A mate. Yes, it seemed he would like that even more than Hazel would.
Hazel finally ripped the paper off the pad and thrust it at Lorena. “My work is done, now get out of my house.” She looked at her. “You’re not welcome here, ever again.”
“I’ll be sure to let Deacon know.” Lorena took the paper—looked it over to make sure it wasn’t just a bunch of gibberish—and folded it up and stuck it in her jeans pocket. “For what it’s worth, thank you.” She scooped the book off the counter.
Hazel stood in silence and sipped her coffee.
Lorena tucked the book under her arm. Now she had a moral dilemma. Despite having confirmation, despite how horrible and vile that confirmation was, she’d bought this information with a bribe and she had to honor it.
She dug in her pocket and pulled out the bottle, and set it on the counter. “I won’t breathe a word to your family, about this, or about yo
u helping me find the potion. And don’t worry, I don’t ever want to come in your house again anyway.”
Lorena stalked to the door. She could have said other things, but stuffed them down. They didn’t matter. She would never make the old woman understand how terrible her behavior was and she couldn’t stop her. She couldn’t change the past or the future.
She walked outside, into the humid summer heat. She looked toward the woods as she descended the porch steps.
A figure emerged from the trees. Kendrick. Three others stepped out behind him, but stayed at the tree line while he walked toward her.
She opened the passenger side door of the truck and placed the book on the seat, before she walked out to meet him in the yard. She didn’t touch her gun, but it hung heavy on her hip.
“Kendrick,” she said as they closed the gap between them. “You shouldn’t be here, I just found—”
Then, it hit her. A wave of panic crashed down, but not her own, a call that reached urgently across the distance.
She stopped and gasped. “Deacon!”
Something was happening. He was in danger.
“Lorena,” Kendrick spoke. “You must come with me.” He gripped her arm in his huge iron hand.
“No!” She jerked at his grip. “Deacon’s in danger, I have to go to him.”
“I know, that is why I’m here.”
Kendrick’s face was not the usual grim mask of anger and contempt. Worry and urgency shone in his deep, dark eyes. Strain pulled at his features.
“What’s happening?” Lorena was frantic. “What’s going on?”
“Neala has decided to disobey Abernathy and take Dafydd back. I warned her against acting so rashly, but she would not listen.”
“What?” Lorena stilled and stared at him. “She’s going to our house?”
“Yes, she and others who have sided with her. We must stop this before she creates discord with Abernathy.”
“I have to go.” She tried to pull out of his grip again. “I have to stop them!”
“You have to come with me. We have to stop them, together.”
A sudden blast made Lorena jump. She looked over her shoulder.
Hazel stood at the bottom of the porch steps, the shotgun in her hands. She’d fired, but not at them, just a warning shot. Lorena looked to the woods and the other Wolvites were gone.
“You let go of her, you foul beast!” Hazel tromped toward them. The gun was almost comically large in her hands. “I know what you are, even if I’ve never seen you in this form. If you think looking like a man will make me less likely to shoot you between the eyes, think again.”
Lorena didn’t have time to appreciate the gesture of protection, as Kendrick’s response was to let go of her arm and effortlessly scoop her up and sling her over his shoulder.
She screamed and squirmed, despite his arm locked tight as steel around her waist. She pounded at his broad back. “Let me go! I have the cure, I can stop this!”
“Even better.” Kendrick’s voice rumbled through her. “Perhaps you can stop an uprising, then.”
He turned toward the woods, Lorena’s head swinging. Hopefully, Hazel was a good shot because Lorena expected a bullet any moment and she didn’t want it to hit her.
Instead, the three other Wolvites reappeared from around the side of the house and descended on Hazel.
Lorena screamed. Hazel screamed. One of them tore the gun from her hands and tossed it into the grass. Another scooped her up and flung her over his shoulder. She fought wildly for such a small, frail woman.
“Don’t hurt her!” Lorena shrieked. “Let her go, you don’t need her.” She pounded on Kendrick’s back again. “I have the cure, you don’t have to take her!”
He strode toward the woods. “Neither of you will be harmed. The more help we have, the better. We will stop this, Lorena, but you must come with me.” His voice was firm, no hint that he would entertain negotiation.
“Let me down.” She struggled again, despite the fruitless effort. Her head began to pound. “I’ll come with you, just let me walk!”
“I can run faster than you can walk.”
Chapter 16
This was bad. Damn bad, and it looked like it might get worse.
Deacon lay on the ground in the backyard, his arms tied behind him. Better than the alternative, he guessed, but he was tired of ending up in ropes like he had before in their damn cave.
He’d killed the bestial one and got off a missed shot at the human one before it disarmed him. At least he didn’t meet no teeth or claws. Killing the beast one must have angered the human one something fierce though, because he was none too gentle tying Deacon up, arms and legs. He was none too gentle dropping him in the grass and leaving him there to stew, either. Deacon was bruised, but it wasn’t nothing that wouldn’t heal. In fact, it was already getting better.
But the poor old doctor, that was another story.
The doctor was tied up as well. He sat nearby, slumped with his head hung. Blood oozed through his torn sleeve over his shoulder. A bite wound. The doctor had gotten off a few shots as well, but the bestial one took him down before Deacon could kill it, since Mel was trying to fight him at the time and he didn’t get a good aim. This was Deacon’s fault.
“Goddamn it.” Deacon rolled on the grass. “Goddamn it to hell.”
Two more Wolvites had come out of the woods and one was stationed nearby, in human form. He stood over his fallen friend. The dead one was shaggy and gnarled, like they always were when they died. The other one, as well as Mel and the one who had tied Deacon up, were in the house.
They came out soon enough, the two Wolvites carrying Dafydd on the stretcher. The line of his IV dangled from his arm and he shuddered and huffed.
Deacon lifted his head. “He’s gonna die, you damn dumb woman. The doc was the only one keeping him alive and now you’re gonna carry him off. He’s good as dead.”
Mel walked over to him, her eyes ablaze. He figured he had some abuse coming, and sure enough, she kicked him in the ribs. But she was barefoot, and though it made him wince, it was pitiful. He wished he could get at her foot and bite her ankle.
“You had no right to keep me from my mate.” She loomed over him. “You were never going to help him. You were only going to experiment on him and let him die. I never should have trusted you people, especially Lycans.”
Deacon huffed. “You’re the one who begged Lorena for help.” He squinted up at her. “She’s trying to find the cure. She took that book Abernathy gave her to Grammy, ‘cause she can read it. She’ll find the cure, but you’re just gonna carry him off and let him die.”
Mel squatted next to him, her dingy white dress stretched across her knees.
“Abernathy is a traitor. He betrayed us by marching us into assured death and destruction, then he went off to lick his wounds and left us to struggle and fend for ourselves, to suffer and try to rebuild without his guidance. Now he gives our secrets to Lycan witches? We’re through with it, we’re ready to rebel. This is the last time he will betray us.”
Deacon shook his head. “You ain’t got the damn good sense not to march on Blue Ditch yourselves? You didn’t understand what would happen? You’re the ones who followed him, you ain’t got no one to blame but yourself. And you’re also the ones who don’t get with the world and accept help, so you can recover. You isolate yourselves and fight everything outside the forest and wonder why you keep getting killed and run out.”
“If you keep speaking,” she leaned forward, “I’ll let them finish the job. I’ll have them tear you to bits and leave you all over the yard for your precious Lorena to find.”
“So why don’t you?” He lurched at her. “None of your idiot friends would care if you put an end to me. Ain’t that what you wanted to do, when you tricked Jack? Kill all us Lycans?”
She glared at him. He tried not to see his Mama in her features, in her blue eyes, but she was there, and it twisted in his gut like a knife.
&n
bsp; “All the Lycans will die.” She rose. “It doesn’t matter. Once we get Abernathy out of the way, we will take care of you once and for all.”
He narrowed his eyes. She couldn’t do it, for some reason. She had sympathy somewhere in her, some connection to her family. That made the feeling in his gut even worse.
“He’s gonna die.” Deacon jerked his head toward Dafydd, whom the Wolvites were now carrying toward the trees. “Lorena is coming back here with the cure.”
“Your time to help me is up. If he dies, I will be at his side. Lorena has failed me.”
“You started this.”
“And now I’m correcting my mistakes.” She gazed at the house, then looked at the remaining human Wolvite. “Set fire to it.”
“What!” Deacon jerked up.
Deep inside the house, Clem was barking like crazy.
“Stop!” Deacon struggled to roll over. “You ain’t got no reason to do this. We tried to help you. We kept him alive.”
“We must send a warning to your family.” Mel curled her upper lip. “Leave us alone, or you will suffer the consequences.”
Deacon struggled as Mel and the Wolvite walked toward the house. A can of gas sat on the patio, for the lawn mower. Even if the Wolvite didn’t know what it was, Mel sure did. She grabbed it up and handed it to him.
“Splash this all over the house. It will burn.”
“Stop!” Deacon yelled. “You don’t have to do this. We’ll stop hunting you. We’ll leave you alone.”
She opened the screen door and walked into the house. Deacon yanked hard at his ropes, until his wrists throbbed and burned. The knots were tight though, and they wouldn’t give. The Wolvite walked back and forth and splashed gasoline on the siding. Dumb beasts. Dumb, cursed beasts.
Mel came back out, a box of matches in hand.
Deacon fell back on the grass, his heart hammering. “Mel, listen to me.”
“My name is not Melanie!” she screeched. “And it’s not Chelsea. I am Neala, that is my name!”
“Neala.” He panted. “Lorena is coming back with the cure.” He looked desperately toward the house as the Wolvite dumped out the last of the can on the back steps. “You’ll get what you want, but you have to let her get back here with it. You don’t want your mate to die, do you? You don’t want to let the man you love die just to make a point.”
