by Wendy Knight
She raised hers, too, and swung it through the air, whispering a spell just in time, and a ward bloomed to life in front of them, blocking the attack and holding the warlocks at bay.
“Are more witches coming?” Destiny asked.
His mother nodded slowly.
“Just not fast enough. Okay.” Destiny seemed to have some internal conversation, and then she nodded. “My sister and my mom are coming. They don’t have magic wands, either. But they have potions. Lots of potions.”
“I just hope they get here in time.”
Destiny paused, tipping her head to the side, considering his mother. “You don’t smell like rotting flesh.”
Cass blinked at her in confused horror.
Quin was still trying to figure out how or when Destiny had had time to call Fate. Her phone was in her truck, on the other side of the warlocks. She hadn’t gone to the office, because he’d been with her the whole time.
“Quin, you need to go.” His mother finally tore her eyes from their enemy, and for the first time he could remember, he saw fear in them. His mother, who wasn’t afraid of anything, was afraid now.
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Quin—”
The ward broke.
His mother swung her wand up again, yelling a spell this time, and the colorful magic shot through the smoke and darkness, slamming into a warlock.
And then all hell broke loose.
Warlock magic, black and all-consuming, shot at them from every side. Destiny tucked and rolled out of the way as Quin dove to the ground. They both came up on their feet at the same time, and as if of one mind, took off running.
Straight at the warlocks.
He heard his mother’s scream. He heard every warning she’d ever given him race through his head. But he didn’t stop because she couldn’t hold off this mob by herself, and he could at least distract them. He wove through the spells being blasted at him, somehow evading them, some just glancing off his skin and burning like crazy, but he kept running.
On the other side of the mob, Destiny did the same thing.
When he got near enough to see the pupils in their glowing red eyes, he dove, calling on the many years of self-defense training at Krav Maga and football practice, he tackled the nearest warlock to the ground, punching and kicking until he didn’t move again.
He felt spells hit him, but they didn’t the do the damage they were meant to. He wasn’t a witch. They couldn’t steal magic from him he didn’t have.
Still, they burned. They burned a lot, and the pain steadily wore him down. He had so much anger he felt like he could attack forever and never tire, but the pain sapped him quickly.
And there were still so many warlocks.
“Quin! You have to get out of —”
He jerked to his feet, spinning toward where his mother stood, fighting the warlocks alone.
Except she didn’t stand anymore.
She’d been hit. She’d fallen, and the warlocks were advancing on her, already chanting their dark spells, fighting over who would steal her life force and her powers, and Quin started running, but everything in him moved so slowly. No matter what he did, he couldn’t get there fast enough.
Destiny, though. Destiny could.
She started screaming. It took his horror-shocked senses several seconds to realize she was screaming a spell, and she was awkwardly trying to ride his mother’s broomstick, but she had horrible balance. She teetered and tipped in all different directions and he wanted to scream at her to hold on to the handle, because she wasn’t holding on at all — but then he understood why.
She was above them, just high enough that she could catch several of them at once, and she threw a potion at them, still screaming the spell in words he couldn’t make out. And then she met his eyes and he saw clearly that she was screaming at him. Telling him to get his mother and run.
But he couldn’t leave her. She was a potions witch. He hadn’t even realized those still existed, and here she was fighting a battle on a broomstick she’d clearly never ridden before—
The warlocks started howling.
They clawed at their faces as the skin bubbled and blistered like they’d gotten the worst sunburn of their lives, except there was no sun, and then flames leaped from the broken blisters, and he realized they were burning from the inside out.
Destiny, in her one small hand, held a potion that burned warlocks alive.
Amidst all the screaming, a huge white truck barreled onto the field smashing right over the poles that clearly stated not to drive on the lawns, right over the concrete median and spun sideways to a stop at the back of the mob, where five or ten warlocks had escaped Destiny’s potion.
Fate and a woman who looked like an older version of Destiny leaped from the cab and climbed into the back of the truck. They chanted the same spell Destiny had, and threw the potion out into the warlocks.
Quin ran. He ran hard for his mother, fell to his knees next to her, praying with everything he had, that she would be breathing.
Her chest didn’t rise or fall. She lay still in the mist.
Sobbing and with shaking hands, he felt for a pulse, first in her wrist and when he didn’t find one there, in her neck.
There, weak but determined, was a heartbeat.
He leaped to his feet, scooped his mother up against his chest, and carried her to his jeep. His dad would know what to do. He just had to get to his father. Everything would be okay.
Behind him, the warlocks burned.
CHAPTER SEVEN
DESTINY WASN’T SURE HOW MANY TIMES she’d been hit, or how much magic she’d lost, taken by the nasty warlocks. She ached everywhere and now understood why she wasn’t a warrior. She’d take her potions over a battle any day.
Not only had it hurt. A lot. But it had also been scary as heck. People talk about soldiers and their sacrifices all the time, but she doubted anyone really know how terrifying their lives really are. She slid numbly out of her truck and nearly collapsed on the ground. Would have, probably, if Damien hadn’t caught her. “Thanks,” she mumbled.
He scooped her up and carried her up the front steps. Fate ran up behind and then past them so she could unlock the door.
“She’s hurt pretty bad, Fate.”
“I know,” her sister said quietly. “She fought them off until we could get there.”
Alina rushed past them, too, and Destiny thought maybe Damien was moving way too slow because they were still getting through the doorway and her mom and sister already had the stove on and the cauldron bubbling. “Just keep her conscious until we can get this potion into her, okay?” Alina’s voice shook.
“They didn’t let me drive my truck home,” she whispered to Damien. “My mom had to drive because they thought I would wreck it.”
Fate ran over with a blanket and a bunch of towels and spread them out on the couch.
“I’m sure she didn’t enjoy it at all.” Damien chuckled, but it was forced, as he laid her carefully on top of the blankets and towels. It burned, everywhere anything touched her burned, but she didn’t want to tell him that or he might just sit there and hold her. And it hurt where he held her, too.
Plus, she was heavy. Even for big, tough Damien.
“Was Quin’s mom…” Fate hesitated to say the word, blue eyes jumping from Destiny to Alina. “Was she okay?”
Alina shook her head, her back to them while she stirred, muttering spells so she couldn’t answer.
“I didn’t see them leave,” Destiny said, closing her eyes. She was so tired. And everything hurt so much. Sleep had never sounded so good.
“Hey.” Damien tapped her on the cheek and her eyes flew open.
“Hey what?” she snapped.
Damien flushed but didn’t back down. “You can’t go to sleep, girl. Stay with me.”
Fate, get your boyfriend away from me before I punch him.
Fate raised an eyebrow and leaned over the couch to adjust the blankets. “He’s
saving your life, little witch. Mom said to keep you conscious.”
Tattle tale.
Damien raised an eyebrow. “You’re doing that weird twin thing while I’m sitting right here? Oh h—”
Fate clapped a hand over his mouth. “Language,” she said with wide eyes, motioning with her head toward Alina.
“—ell no,” he finished.
Alina swept up, shoving her skirts and Damien and Fate out of the way, cradling the ladle with the potion steaming inside. “Drink this.”
Destiny struggled to get up on her elbows. Nothing seemed to respond and the blankets held her back. Damien and Fate finally lifted her, and it burned where their gentle hands touched her skin. Obediently, like a toddler, she let her mother spoon feed her. The potion burned, too.
A lot.
So much so that she curled in on herself and started to cry, like a toddler, feeling like she was being devoured alive by fire. Had her mother accidentally made the wrong potion? Was this what the warlocks felt when she’d doused them earlier?
“Mom! What’d you do?” Fate shrieked. “Destiny, what can I do? Talk to me!”
“It’s the potion.” Alina knelt next to her and took Destiny’s hand in her own, stroking her hair back from her face. Every touch hurt, but not as much as the fire burning inside. “It’s burning out the warlock’s toxins. They’ve been drawing on her magic from a distance. The potion is burning them out.”
“It’s burning her, Mom! Destiny, what can I do?” Fate sobbed.
Destiny couldn’t talk, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything under the pain.
I’m here, Destiny. I’m here. Give me your pain.
Destiny grabbed Fate’s voice in her head and clung to it like a lifeline, and as if she knew, Fate kept talking. You’ll get through this. I’ve got you. I won’t let you go. Just listen to me now. Nothing else. I’m here.
Just before Destiny lost her fight, she was able to respond.
I know.
****
QUIN LEANED HIS HEAD against his mom’s hospital bed, listening to the beeps and blips of the machine that promised she was, indeed, alive, even if no one had been able to revive her. The coven’s most powerful warriors had all taken their turns, but no one had made any progress. Even the doctors, who weren’t magical at all, could do nothing but keep her alive. She was as unresponsive and weak as she’d been when he’d brought her to the coven in the first place, several days ago.
“All our reports indicate that the clan of warlocks that attacked you did not survive. How did she defeat them all before she collapsed?” The Eldest, a witch who was who-knew-how-old and who had led this coven for who-knew-how-long, asked Quin again.
He hadn’t answered her before. He was angry at them — all of them. She had called for help and it hadn’t come. They had sent her in to fight a battle alone. If it hadn’t been for Destiny… He sat up and glared at the woman. She had kind eyes, ancient and wise. Her doctors had all gone to medical school and treated their patients with a mix of traditional and western medicine. Her coven was the only one remaining in the war against the warlocks. All the others had fallen.
And yet, his mother had stood alone.
“You are angry. I understand that,” she said softly.
“Where were you?” he finally croaked. “Where were your warriors while she fought them alone?”
“We were too far away. We failed her.”
“Yes. You did,” he snapped, pushing out of his chair to pace. “She risks her life every time it’s asked of her. She never complained, never failed, was always there when someone needed her. And when she was the one who needed help? She got a bunch of potion witches who have never been trained for war. None of your almighty warriors!” he bellowed, breathing hard.
The Eldest had gone very still, watching him with wide, wide eyes. “Potion witches?”
“Yeah.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Girls from my school. And their mother.”
She shook her head slowly. “There are no potion witches left. The warlocks eliminated them years ago. They were more of a threat to the clan than our warriors.”
Quin shook his head and turned back to his mother. “Whatever. Maybe they are warriors, but they sure as hell weren’t trained to be. She had no idea what she was doing.”
“We don’t have any record of witches in that area, except for your mother.”
He threw up his hands. “What do you want from me? She was there, her twin was there, her mother was there, and they were raining potions down on these warlocks and burning them alive. That’s all I know.”
Eldest froze. “Twins, you say?”
He rolled his eyes and nodded.
“Potions that burn the warlocks alive?”
“From the inside.”
Eldest closed her eyes, her wrinkled lips moving, but she made no sound. Another witch appeared in the doorway, much younger, still beautiful, but with eyes that had seen too much pain. “Yes, Eldest?”
“Bring me Winnie Stafford.”
“Yes, Eldest.” The woman glanced once, sadly, at Quin’s mother and then backed out the door she’d come in, but Eldest held up a hand, effectively stopping her in her tracks.
“Bring me the Ancient One.”
Quin raised an eyebrow. If Eldest was, in fact, the eldest, then wouldn’t that make her the Ancient One? Could these witches just not call each other by their names?
She turned back to Quin, her hands straying to his mother’s face, slowly smoothing away the lines of pain in her forehead. “Have you heard the prophecy, Quinlan?”
The blips and bleeps on his mother’s screen slowed, and her breathing evened out. Whatever Eldest was doing, at least it seemed to be helping.
“No.”
“Twin witches are very rare. In fact, there has only been one set born in our history. They drove the warlocks from our midst the very first time.”
He shrugged. “Then maybe they aren’t witches. Maybe she lied and they threw Cayenne Pepper on the warlocks. I don’t know. I don’t care, either.”
Another witch, this one young with spiky blond hair and brown eyes, not much taller than his mother, poked her head in. “You wanted to see me, Eldest?” She looked from the old witch sitting next to the bed to his mother, and finally her eyes settled on Quin. Slowly, she came inside. “What has this to do with me?”
“Quin, this is Winnie. Winnie, this is Quin. She is one of our most admirable warriors, and dabbles in potions, even.” To Winnie, she said, “Nothing. That potion you used with such success yesterday in the battle at Westing Ridge. Where did you say you got it?”
“I call it the blood burner.” Winnie reached into her pocket and pulled out a little vial, very similar to the one he’d seen in Destiny’s hands. “I made it. Potions run in my family. My mother and younger sisters were potion witches.” Her face fell and her eyes shimmered with unshed tears. “Until the warlocks cut them down.”
Quin opened his mouth to say something apologetic. Wasn’t that what one did when in these types of situations? But Eldest didn’t give him a chance. “You made it, you say?”
“Yes, Eldest.” Winnie looked down at the ground, and Quin almost felt sorry for her. He wondered how long ago it had been since her family had been slaughtered by warlocks. Was she still grieving? Shouldn’t Eldest say something to acknowledge her pain?
“Did you share it with anyone?”
“Yes, Eldest. I shared it with our team before we went out to fight.”
“Anyone else?”
“No, Eldest. Why?” Winnie snapped, and then, as if realizing who she was speaking to, perhaps because of the way Quin’s eyes flew open and he sucked in a breath, she said quickly, “I don’t have anyone else to give it to.”
Eldest looked up at Quin, her eyes sparkling dangerously. “Is that so?”
Winnie nodded too enthusiastically, so she looked like a bobble head doll. Eldest didn’t even look at her. “Did you know, Quin, that I was a potions witch?�
��
Quin shook his head, pretty sure this lady had lost her mind.
“The warlocks stole that magic from me and left me nothing but a warrior.”
Winnie sniffed, narrowing her eyes. “Forgive me, Eldest, but warriors are far superior to potions witches. Perhaps the warlocks just brought out your strength.”
Eldest stood, and every joint and bone creaked and cracked. Even at her full height, she only came to Quin’s chest. Her hair was the purest white, even whiter than Fate’s, and was tied in several braids all around her head, like a crown. Her eyes were gray, with hints of a metallic silver in their depths. “Anyone can fight, Winnie, if they find the courage. They can be taught. Not everyone can create potions. I’m surprised that you can.”
Winnie opened her mouth, but there were no words. She looked at Quin, and he could practically see the wheels turning in her head. “It’s probably because of my sisters and my mother. I probably inherited their gift as well as being a warrior.” She nodded, agreeing with herself.
Eldest turned, and though her back was to Quin, he could see Winnie’s face lose all color. The look she was receiving must have been horrifying.
“Eldest, I’ve brought countless potions to our war. I have single-handedly changed the way we fight warlocks, and this one will save us all. The warlocks don’t stand a chance. I did that. I don’t appreciate being treated this way.”
Quin held his breath. For several long seconds, no one spoke, and Winnie seemed to wilt before Quin’s eyes. “One day, Winnie, your failings will come back to you. And they will be your downfall. Leave us.”
Winnie squeaked, eyes wide and cheeks flushed with humiliation. She backed away, her boot heels clicking on the laminate floor, and disappeared down the hall. Judging by the speed of the heel clicks, she was running.
Quin peered out the door, watching her. “So she’s taking credit for potions created by Destiny’s family?” he asked without turning. “How is that possible?”
When Eldest didn’t answer, he turned, suddenly fearing she’d fallen dead behind him.
