Life's a Witch

by Val St. Crowe

  He nodded. “Good, then.” He handed me the orb. “Hold this.”

  I took it in my hands.

  He looked back at the card table. He picked up each mop-thing, one at a time, and lay them carefully down in the shallow basin he’d brought. Then he held out his hand to me. “The orb?”

  I handed it over.

  He stared at the orb, narrowing his eyes.

  Suddenly, the orb burst open, cracking like an egg. Willoughby broke apart both sides of the orb and turned them over, so that the essence inside oozed out onto the mop-things below in the basin.

  Willoughby waited until it had all come out of the orb, until it was in the basin with the mop-things. Then he set down the two halves of the cracked orb. He picked up the silver blade. He ran a fingertip lightly over the flat of the blade, and he spoke words in a strange, guttural language, one that I didn’t recognize.

  The air went still at his words, though, and everything felt a little strange.

  Willoughby’s eyes rolled up in his head.

  Everything felt frozen and pregnant with possibility.

  He raised the knife above his head.

  The knife seemed to glow.

  Then, letting out a grunting yell, he brought the knife down on the mop-things.

  Blood arced up. Maybe not blood, but something like it. Whatever was inside the mop-things. They moved, twitching as they bled.

  And Willoughby brought down the knife again and again.

  Power.

  I could feel it. It was out on the edge of my consciousness, and it had been summoned, and it was rushing through the void for us. Strange power. Dark power. Red power.

  I licked my lips.

  Willoughby turned on me, his eyes glowing red. “Now, Petra. Exert your will,” and his voice had an echoing, booming quality that electrified me.

  The power slammed into both of us, as if we’d been struck by a breaking wave of a red-rimmed tide, and I felt myself full of something gushing and hot and dangerous. The power was strong, and I felt that it wanted out. It would be happy to rush completely through us and pour its rage into the world. But I also sensed that I could contain it, and I fought to do that. I held that awful, unearthly power inside me.

  I shut my eyes and gritted my teeth.

  I wasn’t sure how long I could hold it in.

  “Good,” said Willoughby’s strange voice. “Very good. Now—”

  A scraping noise.

  My eyes snapped open.

  Something was pulling open the sliding door to the balcony from the outside. I saw strands of a scribbly thing coming through the crack. The scribbly thing was opening the door. More and more black, moving strings thrust themselves inside. They’d come for us.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “Don’t, Petra,” said Logan in a tight voice. “Ignore this. That’s why we’re here.”

  Estelle, Tatum, and Reid had their blades out and were rushing for the door.

  I looked back at Willoughby. But my hold on the sacrificial magic was faltering. It was seeping out of me.

  “No,” said Willoughby. “Hold on, Petra.”

  I grunted, trying to pull it back.

  The room was full of scribbles, strands flying everywhere. I could hardly tell what was going on, but it didn’t seem good. Estelle had the hearthstone, and I saw her charging with it over her head.

  But there was a crash.

  The strands had plucked the hearthstone out of her hand and tossed it out one of the windows. That was their only weapon. Without it—

  “We have to finish this,” Willoughby said to me. “Focus. Look at me.”

  How was I supposed to focus when my friends were fighting around me like this? I could see the flash of blades swinging through the air, see pieces of black strands falling to the ground. But without the hearthstone, they couldn’t win. And if one of them vanished a scribbly thing, it would likely tap them out. There were definitely more than one of the scribbly things out there fighting.

  “They need me,” I told Willoughby.

  “No,” he said. “Focus.”

  Someone was lying on the floor, not moving. Who was it?

  Tatum!

  Jesus, Tatum. I’d gotten her into this, and—

  “Look at me,” screamed Willoughby.

  I couldn’t.

  I was going for Tatum, reaching out to touch one of the scribbly strands and vanish that creature as I did.

  But as I used my primal magic, I lost my hold on the sacrificial magic. It poured out of me, out of my mouth and my nose, like rushing red smoke, and it filled the room.

  Estelle screamed.

  Willoughby yelled.

  I hit the floor next to Tatum. I turned her over to look into her eyes.

  They were wide and unseeing.

  Willoughby reached his hands up into the air, speaking in that same, strange guttural language. His eyes glowed. “Petra,” he bellowed. “I need your help!”

  “But Tatum!” I said.

  “Seems to me,” said Willoughby, “that she’s been angry this whole time you didn’t let her die. Maybe now, she has her wish.”

  I shot to my feet. “How dare you say that?”

  The sacrificial energy congealed, coming together above Willoughby’s head. It looked like some kind of strange smoky creature with an enormous, gaping mouth and long, sharp claws. It reached for me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  I ducked.

  The smoky claw swiped over me.

  I used my talisman magic. I pointed at one of the scribbly things and I made it hurtle through the air to the smoke beast.

  The sacrificial magic smoke beast gulped the scribbly thing up.

  Skitters were coming from when I’d vanished the scribbly thing. I saw Reid turn and begin stabbing them with a venom-tipped knife.

  “Petra!” bellowed Willoughby.

  Logan saw what I had done. He used talisman magic to float another of the scribbly thing up at the smoke beast as well.

  “Help us,” I said to Reid and Estelle.

  “Petra, look at me,” said Willoughby.

  But I ignored him.

  Instead I helped the others, and within five minutes, we’d fed every single one of the scribbly things to the smoke beast.

  But now it was bigger and stronger and looked even angrier.

  Willoughby held out his hand to me, exasperated. “Petra, I need your strength.”

  I grabbed onto him.

  “Exert your will,” he said. “Pull the energy back into yourself.”

  I tried.

  But nothing happened. Trying to pull that thing back into myself was insane. It was far too strong.

  “Try harder,” Willoughby growled.

  “I’m trying as hard as I can,” I managed.

  Willoughby shut his eyes. He sucked in a deep breath. Blood began to trickle out of his nose.

  And I felt his strength, surging through both of us. I used that strength, added my own to it. I managed to pull the creature an inch, maybe, not much. But it was something. I could do it.

  I shut my eyes too, and I reached deep down inside myself, searching for every ounce of strength that I had ever possessed.

  It hurt.

  My whole body hurt, and my nose was bleeding too, and I didn’t think it would work, and then—

  It was back inside, but that pain was worse.

  I screamed.

  The smoke thing was in me, and it was too big for me. It was straining against my skin, it was bursting out of me, leaking from around my eyes, through my nostrils. My eyes watered, my nose burned. The smoke tasted like death and blood and power.

  Willoughby snatched at my head, turning me to face him.

  I could hardly focus on him. Everything was red smoke. He was a haze.

  He opened his mouth to speak and red smoke poured out. “The basin! Bring me the basin, Logan.” Willoughby pressed his fingers into my temples.

  That hurt too. I whined. I felt as tho
ugh the smoke inside me was going to rip me apart. My skin was splitting. I was going to explode.

  Willoughby tilted my head back. “Over her face. Pour it over her face,” he said to Logan. “I’d do it myself, but if I stop touching her, we’ll lose control.”

  “All of it?” Logan’s voice was panicked.

  I panted. My throat hurt. My whole body was tearing apart.

  “Yes, all of it, damn it, do it, she’s losing it!” Willoughby was shouting.

  Blood and pieces of mop-things and oozing liquid from the orb on my face. It burned my skin. It was entering me, through the holes that had been ripped in my skin by the smoke inside me, and it was awful. It was excruciating. I was dying. This was all wrong. This wasn’t giving me life, it was taking it away.

  In the distance, I could hear a clap of thunder, and there were flashes of light from the windows, as if the whole world had been turned into a strobe.

  And then…

  It stopped.

  Willoughby let go of me.

  I swayed on my feet.

  Logan caught me.

  Together, we sank to the floor of Reid’s apartment.

  Willoughby doubled over, groaning.

  It was quiet, except for the sound of everyone’s labored breath.

  I forced myself to sit up. “Tatum.”

  Reid was next to her, his hand at her wrist. “She’s alive. She’s got a pulse.”

  I looked down at my hands. “Did it work? I don’t feel any different.”

  Willoughby straightened. “Well, there’s one way to find that out.” He lifted his hand and a knife appeared in it.

  I furrowed my brow. “Did you just… conjure something?”

  He laughed. It was a wild laugh, unfettered. And his face started to part, turning into… strands?

  I pushed myself to my feet. “You’re a scribbly thing?”

  “Our species are called the Tkugerach. Not that you could ever have any respect,” said Willoughby. “You killed our father. Turned our brother Malachi against his own family and led to his death. You destroyed everything. I vowed to kill you when I knew what you had done. But you were unkillable. How was I to destroy you when you had transcended death?”

  I swallowed. “The dead body in your apartment? That was the real Fox Willoughby, wasn’t it? You killed him and took his place.”

  “I had to find a way to make you vulnerable,” said Willoughby—or whoever he was—my other half-brother, apparently? Shit.

  “But how did the body get there?” I said. “Oh, hell, the scribbly things probably put it there. They’ve been trying to warn me about this the entire time, and I was so stupid.”

  Willoughby raised the knife, grinning from ear to ear. “Let’s see if I can kill you now.” He came at me.

  *

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