A Game of Witches (The Order of Shadows Book 3)

by Kit Hallows

  My arms shuddered with fatigue and my back was almost against the wall when she inclined her head, lowered her sword and began to turn…

  She moved fast, but not fast enough as the tip of his blade pierced her chest, narrowly missing her heart.

  “Fucking coward!” she cried as she wrenched herself away from the keen blackened steel and flitted off toward the window in a cloud of inky light.

  “Coward?” I said, barely suppressing my rage. “Coward says the woman who stole a child then threatened to kill and torture him. All to lure me here, because she couldn’t face me in the real world. You with your cult of sycophantic weak-willed followers, so broken they see no value outside of helping you satisfy your debauchery. You who hooked countless blinkereds on drugs so they’d blindly comply without seeing the truth of what you were doing.”

  A red torrent spread across her grey dress and a little of the wildness left her eyes. She opened her mouth to reply but stopped as a bubble of blood broke upon her lips. She shook her head and rubbed her fingers across the wound in her chest. “Goodbye. Morgan… Rook.”

  My other began to close in on her, but her gaze was locked on mine as she held up her bloody fingers and spewed a series of hard, guttural words into them. Tiny wisps of crimson smoke swirled in her palm, and a smoldering blood-red ball fizzled to life.

  A curse.

  She threw it before I could move. It shot toward me like a bolt of lightning. There was no way to block it. No way to stop it.

  It crackled through the air in an inevitable path.

  I was going to die.

  58

  Wyght shrieked wildly. A blur of movement, the world, the walls all rushed past as the blazing hex shot toward me. Then I buckled under the crushing blow as my other threw himself over me like a shield, absorbing the impact of the curse. The wail that burst from his lips rattled me to the core.

  I leaped up as blood-red fire spread across his chest. “Hold still!” I cried as I tore off my coat and smothered the flames.

  Words tumbled from him, words of power. He glanced at me, his face wracked with torment and fury. “Finish her.” He grasped my wrist, transferring the magic he had left in him, before shoving me away.

  Wyght trembled with agony, but it wasn’t enough to sway her savagery. She screamed as she rained blow after blow upon me, slowly chipping away at my waning strength and resolve.

  I blocked her attacks as best I could. She was trying to buy herself time. She was dying, I could see it. She knew it was inevitable too, and that my soul would be forever locked inside her inner worlds when she died. This would be her final victory.

  No. This was going to be my victory. Willow’s victory. The thought of her was all I needed to push Wyght back.

  I sidestepped her next swing and punched the wound in her chest, causing her to scream.

  Her sword hand fell, and she rocked on her feet, her face ashen, her lips red with blood. She tugged them into a half-smile. “We’ll end this now.” She took another swing, her sword drunkenly passing before me as she staggered. I barely had the strength to lift my own. I was on the verge of collapsing and the room was growing dangerously dim…

  Fight!

  Was it him speaking or me?

  The word resonated through my mind and body like a shock wave as I summoned every single scrap of fear and fury left in me. The long years of heartbreak and vengeance. Each and every moment condensed into one last cry as I gripped my sword and shouted, “Finish!”

  The sword of intention blazed with such intensity it was little more than a wave of light as it sliced through the air. Wyght tried to parry it and an almighty crash of steel rang out as her blade snapped in two.

  She hobbled away, her eyes drawn to the shattered steel in her hand. “I?”

  “Fuck you!” I thrust forward with the sword of intention. She threw her hand out to ward it off and the blade pierced her palm, and then her chest. Blood burst from her mouth as I shoved her back toward the window.

  Our eyes locked one final time.

  “For Willow, and every other innocent soul you’ve murdered!” I ripped my sword away and kicked her hard. She flew back through the shards of glass, her hands wheeling, her eyes wild. Down and down she went, shrieking until she smashed into the ground. Then her head lolled to one side and her limbs began to twitch like a beetle.

  “Quick!” my other called. Long jagged black lines spread over his face and throat as her curse told hold. “It’s killing me!” he spluttered.

  “I don’t know what to do!”

  “We need to be one again. Then you must find someone to cure me. Do it now, or I die.”

  I gazed down at this strange, alien force that had been lurking deep within me for as long as I could remember. Whispering, insinuating, hating.

  Without him I would have died. “Why did you come back?”

  “I had no choice. I tried to leave but… I couldn’t. The agony…” His eyes rolled back in his head, before focusing on me once again. “Like being torn in two. Again.” He clasped my hand. “We'll never be apart until one of us dies.”

  “Then why didn’t you let Wyght kill me?”

  He gripped my hand. “Just close your eyes. Concentrate. Make us one again.”

  I did as he asked and closed my eyes as the tower rumbled and the last fragments of glass from the window shattered around us. For a moment I felt his hand in mine, and then it was gone as he slipped back into a shadowy recess within me.

  I could feel his pain as he skulked in the chambers of my soul like a wounded animal, the curse a part of both of us now. And even though he held it, I could sense its desire to spread. In time it would, and when it happened it would kill us both.

  The tower shook again and the ceiling above Wyght’s throne collapsed, revealing the dark sky above.

  We have to leave. Her heart is about to stop, and when it does, so do we.

  “How do we escape?” Panic fluttered through my thoughts.

  The door.

  It was still there. Just.

  59

  I closed my eyes and held out my hand as a huge rumble shook the tower. There was a great wrenching of stones and the chandelier crashed down to the floor. The entire place was about to topple. All it would take was Wyght’s final breath, which was surely only moments away. I glanced back to the door and tried to ignore the destruction around me as I imagined the location behind it changing. From Penrythe to the blinkered world.

  Focus harder! my other cried. Take every scrap of magic you have and use it. Now!

  I doubled down, forcing my mind to accept the simple fact the blinkered world was on the other side of the door. Slowly the forest sounds and birdcalls faded to be replaced by faint whispers.

  The witches?

  Then the muffled trumpeting of a horn and the din of the forest returned. “I don’t have enough power!”

  Then use the last of hers. But it will still her heart even faster. So make it count.

  I kept my eyes closed as I placed my hands on the shaking ground. Wyght’s magic still thrummed, but it was fading. I shivered as a jolt of her energy shot through my fingertips and into my veins like a disease. Her magic was ice-cold, the blackest of arts. I could feel its attempts to taint and convert me as I fought to contain it, to use it to…

  Focus! my other roared.

  The walls rumbled again and a lintel crashed to the floor. The place was crumbling even faster now as the landscape beyond unraveled.

  Focus.

  I pictured the blinkered world beyond the door. I put everything I had into bridging the gap between Wyght’s tightening snare and the physical realm where our body waited…

  It’s done.

  I climbed to my feet as the tower creaked and listed. I glanced through the shattered window. The twisted forest was falling along with the stars and the blighted sun.

  Everything was coming apart as Wyght’s bitter blackened heart began to still. The whole world lurched, and the sky grew
colorless. But its edges glowed, slowing forming a tunnel of white that began to spread.

  She was dead.

  “Take us back!” I shouted as I stumbled to the door and grasped the handle.

  A roar rumbled through the tower and I found myself swirling through a kaleidoscope of dim red lights, their colors slowly leeching away as the darkness swallowed me up.

  I took a deep breath. The air was filled with the musty scent of dust, sweat and blood.

  I was alive.

  Gingerly I opened my eyes. I was in the chair with Wyght beside me, her eyes unblinking as she stared into the mirror. There was no life in them. I glanced past her to the looking glass. The witches sat behind us, watching. The messenger from Temple Park yawned as she clutched Ben in her arms. None of them seemed to have noticed their leader was gone.

  Yet.

  And then an amber light began to glow below my bloodstained shirt…

  “The door…” The chubby witch with the narrow glasses leaped up and walked to the portal I’d summoned in Wyght’s world. It was wide, tall and black, but growing more insubstantial by the second.

  Shit.

  As the witch reached out, her hand passed through the dark wood as if it wasn’t there. Dismay spread across her face.

  I had to get out. Fast.

  She rushed past me, unaware I was conscious, and stooped before Elsbeth Wyght. She reached out with a trembling hand and placed her fingers on the side of Wyght’s pale throat. “No,” she said. “No. No, no, no!”

  The other witches rose from their seats.

  Get out of here. We won’t survive this confrontation, not like this.

  He was right.

  I bristled as the witches gathered around Wyght. Several of them began to wail, their voices filled with anguish, pain and fury.

  I glanced down at the binds around my wrists. They were thin and soft, their purpose more ceremonial than practical. I pulled my arms up hard and the knots unraveled as I stood and slipped away.

  The witch from Temple Park was hunched over as she wept near the back of the coven, Ben beside her. She was too distracted to notice as I raised a finger to my lips and led Ben away. I crouched low as we dashed off between the old racks and displays, Ben’s trembling hand in mine.

  “Oh, Elsbeth!” One of the witches cried, and the keening and wailing swelled until they were baying like a pack of mournful wolves. I wanted to strike each and every last one of them down. To wipe out their sick order. But I was spent and on the verge of blacking out. The scant light seemed to dim further as we ducked behind a display in the toy department. Then the walls began to shift.

  I had to get Ben out fast, or…

  “Rook!” A ragged voice cried. “Where’s Rook?”

  “I’m scared,” Ben whispered.

  I could barely see him in the gloom, but I felt the splash of his tears on the back of my hand. “Shhh. Just sit tight for a minute. We’re getting out of here.”

  “Rook!” The voice was louder now. I peered over the top of the stand. The witches were fanning out, three headed our way. I could see they were still in shock, but soon their wrath would kick in. And when it did-

  “Shit!”

  My necklace flashed so bright it illuminated everything around us. Ben gasped as the glassy eyes of the dolls in their battered cardboard coffins lit up.

  “There!” A witch cried, pointing our way.

  A beam of sizzling silvery light shot toward us. I ducked, and it whizzed over my head, exploding into the wall behind me.

  Ben began to scream.

  The silver spirals on their wrists burst with light as they stalked toward us, revealing the hard, cruel, savage bloodlust gleaming in their eyes.

  60

  I ducked as a barrage of spells shot over my head like bolts of lightning. Ben began to cry hysterically. I reached to calm him and flinched as he bit the back of my hand. “Stop!” I shouted, but he pulled away and ran into the gloom. As I took off after him a sizzling grey spell struck me hard in the small of my back.

  The effect was instantaneous. I was frozen, rooted to the spot by the same magic Wyght had used on me in the tower.

  I turned my head. The three witches strode toward me, their hands clenched, their mad eyes victorious. They were ready to tear me apart with their bare hands and soak themselves in my blood. I saw this and more as one gave a shrill cry and the others began to converge upon me.

  The closest, an elderly hag with a gaunt face and long grey frizzy hair, reached up and seized my chin with her long black nails. “May devils shrivel your heart, Morgan Rook,” she whispered. She opened her mouth, leaned in to bite me…

  … and pulled back, eyes wide.

  She released me as she reached back and grabbed at something behind her.

  An arrow rested in her hand, its tip slick with blood.

  Swoosh!

  Another arrow flew past and struck a witch in the eye. She went down hard, the crackling spell in her hand discharging into the ground. The others turned to the distant figure prowling the store, his bow raised.

  A witch roared with fury and ran at me, fingers clenched to gouge my eyes. She froze for a moment and fell. Astrid stood there, dagger in hand. She reached out and placed her fingers on the side of my face. They tingled with warmth and energy, as she neutralized the hex that had rooted me to the ground.

  “You’re hurt,” she said. “”Really hurt.”

  A streak of black and silver light shot toward her. It hit her hard in the flank of her leather armor. She cried out but gritted her teeth as she turned and threw her dagger. It struck the witch closing in on us right between the eyes.

  “Take this.” Astrid reached down and pulled the sword of intention from the sheath at her side. “Let’s end them.”

  “I’ve got to find the boy!”

  “Go,” Astrid said. “Be quick. You don’t have long.”

  I didn’t take the time to puzzle over the meaning of her words, but as I spent what was left of the magic she’d given me, they soon became clear. My head swam as the world lurched around me. My other was cursed and dying. And where he went, I would follow… I staggered after the tiny trail of glowing footprints, sword in hand, the din of the melee receding behind me. By the hoarse screams of agony, it seemed the witches were losing.

  And then I saw them, the witch from Temple Park, dragging Ben toward the escalators. “Move you little bastard,” she screamed. “Move, or so help me I’ll-”

  “No, you won’t.” I forced myself to straighten as I closed in on them.

  She spun round, her face illuminated by the crackling fire of the sword and the wormy blue veins below her eyes twitched. “Morgan Rook.” She spat each word and glanced behind me. “All alone.”

  “No, not alone.” It was still true, for the moment at least.

  I was about to put the sword through her heart when Ben gasped and I glanced down to see a small silver blade at his throat. “Take one more step and I’ll stick the little pig. Now drop your sword.”

  I let the weapon go. It clattered to the ground and its light quickly dimmed.

  “Stupid, sentimental little man.” She scraped her knife hard against Ben’s flesh, drawing beads of blood. “So naïve. So weak.”

  Was it the fading light from the sword, or was the place getting darker? A tide of white noise began to break upon the edge of my consciousness. I knew the sensation. I was about to black out.

  “You don’t have long.”

  “No!” I shook my head. I had to stop her, had to save the kid. I stumbled toward her. “Was it my weakness that thrust a sword through Wyght’s rotting heart.” I forced a smile as the witch’s face swam in and out of focus. “She died in agony. There was no bravery. No dignity. Just the end of a cruel, empty life.”

  The witch shoved Ben aside and flew at me, with a piercing shriek.

  “Run!” I shouted to Ben.

  I staggered back as the witch paused and a sick smile spread across her mea
n pinched face. “Ah. You’re dying, Morgan Rook. You’ve caught a nasty little curse. Elsbeth’s curse.”

  Something hard and solid struck my back. A pillar. There was nowhere left to go. Black dots exploded across my eyes and I struggled to focus as the witch raised her knife. “You’ve got nothing left, have you?” Her tone was gloating, her words laced with finality.

  I braced myself as she sprang at me. I had one move left in me.

  Just one.

  I put my right foot forward and swung my fist hard. It stopped her dead. I flailed to grab her knife hand and stumbled, taking us both down.

  My eyes opened for a moment. They focused on the shiny, polished floor.

  And the knife she’d dropped.

  I tried to reach for it… and fell into darkness.

  61

  “Morgan!”

  The voice seemed so far away. And between me and the sound, a shifting chasm of night.

  “Morgan!”

  I wanted the entreaties to stop. I needed to rest, to close my eyes. Or maybe I already had.

  “Morgan!” This time the sound was right above me.

  I looked up. Iron grey eyes peered into mine, and slowly their steely defenses softened. Strands of raven dark hair fell over me as she leaned in close. “You have to wake up,” she said.

  I took in a sharp breath and she fluttered through my dusty memory like a moth.

  Someone spluttered beside me. Astrid reached out, grabbed the blood-soaked knife from the floor and plunged it down, all the while keeping her eyes on mine. She reached under my shoulder to pull me away from the haggard twitching witch and the pool of blood that was spreading out on the floor around her.

  The last witch. The last of the Silver Spiral. “I don’t…”

  “Shhh. Be still. Samuel!” Astrid called. Slowly the pendant around my neck began to glow.