The Witch Collector Part I

by Loretta Nyhan

  Without thinking, I grasped at the chain holding my fake talisman. “What have you done?”

  “You had no business coming here.” I thought I saw a flicker of unease flash across her features, but if there was one, it disappeared as quickly as it came. “No business at all.”

  I ran to the closet door. It was steel painted to look like wood, a dead-bolt lock built in.

  I turned to Evie. “Open it.”

  She widened her stance. “No.”

  My magic awakened, pushing upward through my veins, a rocket unsteadily launched. I worked the lock, twisting it around and around.

  Then I saw it.

  Blood. A thin line of crimson on the tile floor, winding from the file cabinet to under the closet door. I flashed to my parents’ bedroom, to the blood smears on the wall. My breath came faster, magic and fear vying to take over my nervous system. I gathered my strength and slapped the steel door, hard.

  Evie grabbed my upper arm and held tight. “You don’t want to see what’s in there.”

  Anger bubbled inside me, exploding with such force I knocked her back into a tower of boxes. She shouted something, but I didn’t care enough, or the magic was making so much noise inside my head that I couldn’t make sense of her words. My hand searched out the dead bolt again, this time turning it with ease. I yanked the door open and blinked, trying to figure out what I was seeing.

  I felt Evie behind me, her hot breath in my ear. “Told you not to look.”

  CHAPTER 15

  “Whatever you do, Breeda, don’t run.” Brandon stood next to me in the clearing as we watched a black bear pick through the remains of our lunch. The bear looked almost comical, sitting on a red-and-white checked picnic blanket, its nose in a bag of pretzels.

  “Aren’t we supposed to talk to it?” I whispered. “That’s what your dad says to do.”

  “Do you want to have a conversation with a bear?” Brandon took a slow step backward.

  “You can have the ham sandwich,” I said, loud enough for the bear to hear me, but light enough to sound nonthreatening. “I don’t like mayo, but maybe you do.”

  The bear lumbered to its feet.

  “One step back,” Brandon pleaded. “Slowly.”

  The bear moved toward us.

  “You could always go with the turkey and avocado.” My mouth felt dry, but I forced a smile. The bear tilted its head quizzically.

  “Your call,” I rasped.

  With a disdainful look, the bear turned toward the forest and disappeared into a copse of hemlock trees.

  “Now,” Brandon said, breathing heavily, “we run.”

  I opened my eyes, falling back into the present.

  And gazed into the eyes of a demon.

  He sat in the closet, his body restrained by gleaming silver chains. They wrapped tightly around his limbs, over his belly, and around his neck. A thin silver plate adhered itself to his mouth like a second skin, so paper-thin I could see the outline of his immovable lips. The demon’s fingers were blackened, and they smoldered like spent firecrackers.

  He squirmed, his eyes wild and furious, when he saw me standing there. It wasn’t any demon; it was my demon.

  I opened my mouth to scream, but the brutal force of the magic I had just performed to find the demon hit me like a fist. My lungs deflated, sending me to the floor in a crumpled heap.

  Evie grabbed me under the arms and pulled me to back to standing. “I can help you through this, but you have to tell me what’s really going on. Deal?”

  Magical aftershocks beat against my organs. I nodded.

  The demon groaned against the silver plate, and Evie kicked the door shut. “Demons should know better than to come to this town.”

  She lowered me gently onto a cardboard box, chattering in an obvious effort to keep me distracted. I tried to concentrate on what she was saying, on the sound of her voice, but the world around me pulsed in and out of focus, and all I wanted to do was sleep. My throat spasmed, sending another wave of searing pain through my body. I wanted to sink into the earth and let it engulf me. I wanted darkness and no more.

  “Stay with me, niece,” Evie shouted. She pinched my nose and my mouth fell open, gasping for air. “That’s it. Nice and wide.” She quickly pushed a lump of something ice cold, with the consistency of a gel, onto my tongue. It tasted like sour milk mixed with bacon grease. I retched but Evie wouldn’t let me spit it out—she clamped my jaw shut with one strong hand and released my nose.

  Panic sent life to my limbs. I kicked at her, swung my arms, but still Evie held on. “Just a few more seconds.”

  The coolness of the gel traveled down my throat and spread through my lungs, calming them instantly. My eyesight sharpened, bringing the room back into focus. I stopped flailing but Evie still held my mouth shut.

  I looked at Shelley and Ion, who were now locked in an intense discussion, through the mirror. They hadn’t heard a thing.

  Evie finally released me.

  “How did you find the demon?” I asked, regaining my breath.

  “I heard one was roaming Sacramento Boulevard, near St. Sylvester’s,” Evie explained. “I wasn’t sure I believed it, but I went out looking anyway.”

  “Why?”

  She paused, and in those few seconds my mind traveled to a dangerous thought. What if Evie had bewitched the demon? What if she’d sent him for me? I eyed the mirrored panel. I wouldn’t have the strength to fight her, and if I got past her, something told me Shelley, Ion, and I wouldn’t make it out of the building.

  “It’s my neighborhood, and I don’t like the idea of anything threatening it.” Evie shrugged. “Plus, I’ve never gone up against a demon before, and I thought it would be fun.”

  If she was lying, I couldn’t see it. But then, my track record wasn’t so great at spotting liars.

  “Don’t look at me like that!” Evie said, rolling her eyes. “I’m not an idiot. I went prepared.” She walked over to a coatrack weighed down by a leather jacket covered in shining metal plates. “I’ve infused protectants in every bit of metal on this thing. When he grabbed me—sizzle. His fingers burnt to a crisp.”

  “Is that enough to stop a demon?”

  “It was for a minute or two,” she said. “This one seemed a little distracted. I got my chains around him and that was that.”

  She stood in front of me, arms folded, chin high, as if expecting me to challenge her. Did that mean she was telling the truth or daring me to challenge her on the lie?

  Her gaze never left mine. She wasn’t fidgeting. I decided those were good signs. Truth it was.

  “So,” I said, broaching a safer subject, “how can I get some of that disgusting goopy stuff?”

  She capped the jar. “You can’t. Use it once and you feel pretty great. Use it twice, and you won’t keep any food down for a couple of days. The third time I’ll be visiting you in the morgue.”

  The disappointment must have shown in my face because she said, “I’m sorry, but nothing can make what’s happening to you stop.”

  I swallowed, the noxious concoction still burning my throat. “You said we’re both freaks. Can you help me?”

  “Nope. Alchemy works differently. A witch’s magic is pretty simple. She inherits a gift through her mother or father, learns to control the gift during the transition, then lives happily ever after, blah blah blah. An alchemist becomes her magic.” Evie’s words were tinged with bitterness. “Every year I grow colder, more unyielding, more like the metal I can’t stop working with.”

  I tried not to let my horror show in my expression. Evie’s features were hardened.

  “I guess in that way,” she continued, “I fear we are similar. Will your magic accelerate like mine? How many gifts do you think there are in the world? Can you keep acquiring them without some kind of fallout? You need to find someone who can teach you to keep some modicum of control. And that’s really why I can’t help you—I don’t know the meaning of the word.” Her eyes studied me a momen
t. “This is all a surprise to you? Lupe and I have been strangers for years, but I find it hard to believe she didn’t prepare you for any of this. What’s really going on?”

  I hesitated.

  “Didn’t we have a deal?”

  I was tired of dancing around the truth. Revealing what I knew was risky, but none of my choices were safe. I told her. When I finished speaking, Evie began pacing in the small space, a caged animal in Doc Martens and tattered jeans.

  “He’s behind this; I know it,” she said finally, a dangerous edge to her voice. “I told Lupe not to go. I told her Gavin wouldn’t protect you.”

  “Is that why we moved to Portland? Because I’m unmarked?”

  Did my parents pick up everything they owned, leave their friends and family and coven, for me? Guilt poked another hole in my heart, and I stared at Evie, waiting for her to widen it.

  “When your parents finally admitted to themselves that you didn’t carry either line, they searched for help here in Chicago,” she explained. “But someone outside the family told someone else, and word spread fast. I know you haven’t had much exposure to the greater witching world, but there are witches who seek power at any cost. When they found out an unmarked witch existed, they started circling like vultures. Your mom and dad were terrified you’d be kidnapped. Through a friend they met Gavin, who was visiting the city after moving to Oregon. He told them of the protected life they could have with his coven. Gavin believed witches should keep themselves separate from the greater society, to strengthen their powers. A number of witches agreed, and had left their covens to follow him.”

  “So my mom and dad thought it was an opportunity to hide me?”

  “Well, he also offered your parents the possibility of . . .” She trailed off.

  “What? I need to know.”

  Evie hesitated for a moment, and then continued. “Gavin claimed that isolation had already heightened his powers. He insisted he could mark you somehow. Make you normal. He said he’d already helped one unmarked witch, but I saw no proof of it. Lupe was so afraid for you, she was willing to try anything.”

  “If she knew we’d be tucked away in Oregon, why was she still so afraid?”

  Evie didn’t answer at first. She rifled through the piles on her desk until she found a clean rag, and then began to swab at the area around my mouth. When she pulled her hand away, I could see black smudges on the cotton. “There aren’t very many of you,” she said. “Some still think the unmarked are unnatural. Others think they are mythological beasts. Then there are people out there, Black Magicians, who know the truth. They will stop at nothing to have what you have—unlimited power.”

  Black Magicians—witches who cultivated darkness instead of light. They worked against nature, creating magic by perverting her natural order. Legend said the most successful had used magic to defy death, creating a shadow life not touched by the sun, drawing energy from the dark underworld. I’d heard of Black Magicians in the same way I’d heard of demons—scary stories that terrified in the abstract, part of a nebulous past. My world shifted again. “Is my power really worth all that much to them?”

  Evie knitted her thick eyebrows. “Think about it, Breeda. You could walk into a bank, take down the guards, fog up the lens on the security cameras, compel the tellers to give you tens of thousands of dollars, all by a quick tap on this,” she said, softly tapping Shelley’s talisman. “You could erase the police file on the whole thing, and change the bank’s books to make it seem like nothing happened. All by yourself. And that’s just one ordinary example. There is no end to what you could do.”

  Her words should have made me feel powerful. Instead, the fears inside me multiplied, sending questions sharp as daggers flying through my brain. “So these Black Magicians, can they force me to work for them?”

  “A talented one might figure out how to do that, or how to somehow take your gift. I don’t know how they would pull it off, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s been done before.”

  My throat went dry. “Is Gavin that . . . talented?”

  “Your mother definitely thought he could do things no one else could,” Evie said, and by the firmness of her tone I knew her thoughts were traveling in the same direction as mine. “So I guess the answer is . . . maybe.”

  I turned this around in my head, trying to reconcile the thoughtful, bigger-than-life man I knew with the person Evie was describing. “So he came to get me and found my parents instead,” I said. “He took them knowing I’d come searching. Why make me work for it?”

  Evie wiped her hands on the dirty rag. “Maybe it’s wrong to exclude the possibility of another explanation. I did hear through the grapevine that you guys were happy out there living on your little commune.”

  I gave her a skeptical look.

  “Yeah, something must have happened for your mom to be desperate enough to come to me,” Evie said. “But maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with you. Maybe she or your dad discovered something else Gavin had been hiding.”

  So many maybes. So much I didn’t know. I took a breath. “They told me you were dead. Why would they do that?”

  “Because I asked them to,” she replied. I waited for her to continue, but she didn’t.

  “Tell me,” I pleaded. “Everything I don’t know puts me at a disadvantage.”

  Evie sighed. “When Lupe left Chicago, she broke the oath with me. We were the last surviving members of the Soledad coven. She destroyed it.”

  I thought of my mother, with her kind smile and warm heart. “But she did it for me.”

  Evie’s hands closed into fists. “Even so, I couldn’t forgive her. We could have protected you, together.”

  The demon in the closet rocked in his chair, the creak of straining metal interrupting our thoughts. Evie delivered a few swift, damaging kicks to the door. “You’re wasting your energy, demon.”

  I remembered the demon’s strength, his targeted, purposeful stride. “He was meant for me.”

  “What?”

  “He was waiting outside your apartment after my parents went missing. He tried to . . . take me. I got away.”

  Evie was quiet for a moment. “Are you sure?”

  I glanced uneasily at the closet door. “Yeah. He can’t get out, right?”

  “The inside of the door is protected steel. He’d burn.”

  “Is that what you plan on doing with him?”

  Evie smiled wickedly. “I plan to dispose of him.”

  I nodded, liking that idea. We stood quietly for a moment, and a thought managed to form in my tired brain. “What did you put in the key you left for my mom? You know she doesn’t need a key.”

  Evie froze. A smile slowly spread across her face. “Very good. I put a protectant in the key. I don’t know why I infused it. Habit, or maybe on some level I knew your parents were in trouble. I thought your mom would leave it in the apartment, which would’ve created a safe haven for your family. Plus, I loved the idea that one of Lupe’s first stops would be Sandy’s door. I would have paid money to see her face when she realized your family was back. Years ago, your family and I both lived in that building you’re staying in. You don’t remember, do you?”

  I shook my head, wishing I did.

  “Before you left for Oregon your mom and I fought like only witch-sisters can. We drove Sandy crazy. She used to turn off all the electricity in the building to shut us up.” Evie half smiled at the memory. “That flighty witch must have had the shock of her life.”

  “She was shocked, all right.”

  “I should have warned Sandy I wouldn’t be around,” Evie said, though she didn’t look the least bit sorry. “She probably thought a witch-fight would break out right in front of her apartment.”

  “Do you still hate my mom that much?”

  “She disappointed me,” Evie said, and helped me to my feet. “And I’ve found that disappointment lingers longer than hate.” She placed her hands on the one-way mirror.

  Was I be
ing dismissed?

  “Where are you living while we are staying at your place?” I asked quickly. I wanted to know, but I also wanted to keep the conversation going. Evie was the first family member aside from my parents I’d ever met, and though I didn’t like everything she was telling me about my past, I still had the desire to learn more about our family. Maybe if we could keep talking . . .

  “I sleep here some nights, or at a place I have on Michigan Avenue. Sometimes I sleep in the apartment where you’re staying,” she explained. “I don’t like to have a predictable schedule. Alchemists tend to make a lot of enemies.”

  “You’re not that bad,” I said.

  “Oh yeah? You think you know me so well after ten minutes?”

  “I know you still care about my mom.”

  Evie turned, her dark eyes flat and unreadable. “Look, I’ve been holding this grudge against my sister for a long time and I can’t let it go yet. If I find Lupe, I’m going to deliver her to you like a sack of mail. No emotional reunion, no big happy family.”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it just as quickly. I could defend my mom later. Right now, I simply needed her to help. “So you’ll look for them? I don’t care how you do it. I just . . . really need my mom and dad.”

  “Before I agree to help, there are some things you need to understand,” Evie said. “If Gavin really is in this town causing trouble, I’ll find out, and I won’t hesitate to use force. If he’s leaving a wake of destruction in his path, I don’t plan to be a casualty. Get it?”

  Evie opened the mirrored panel and we walked back into the shop. Shelley and Ion stood still, their necks covered in silver chains, their cheeks splotched bright pink. When Evie growled at them they jumped into action, rushing around the store to return the necklaces to the display cases.

  “And if you’re playing me, niece,” Evie murmured as she watched them, “you’ll get a hell of a lot worse than that demon in the closet.” She curled her strong hand over my shoulder, a massive ring bearing down on my collarbone, pressing her point.

  CHAPTER 16

  I left Aunt Evie my number, even though she claimed to “not do the cell-phone thing.” She raised a pierced eyebrow when I mentioned staying at Dobra Dabrowski’s but said that was probably for the best. I wrote his address on an old receipt and left it on her counter, under a heavy silver chain. Evie walked us to the door, Shelley and Ion mumbling nervous good-byes. Impulsively, I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and squeezed before leaving the shop, surprising her and my friends, who continued to shoot me incredulous looks as the ancient elevator slowly lowered us to the ground level.