Liev’s eyes flew open and he sat up, grabbing Charlie by the shoulders. It took a moment before Charlie realized he was being held aloft, right before he felt his back slam into one of the walls of the stable. Gritting his teeth, Charlie used the Sight to send calming thoughts and images to his friend. Liev’s eyes fluctuated between human and werewolf.
“Are you in there, Liev? Can you hear me?”
Liev dropped him and, panting, almost flew back to the opposite corner of the room. “Yes. I’m somewhere in here, for now.”
Charlie smiled nervously as he stood up, brushing the dirty hay and muck from the back of his jeans. “Good.”
“I don’t know…how much longer I can be me, Charlie. I feel like I’m getting pushed out of my own head.” He bared his teeth, whether in pain or anger Charlie couldn’t tell. “If I turn, Charlie, please don’t let me hurt anyone. You’ve got to stop me.”
“Don’t give up. Lisa didn’t give up when everyone else thought you were dead. She found you. Now we just have to fix you.”
“Fix me? Not l-like you’d fix a dog, right?” Liev laughed—a broken, painful sound—and for a second he looked like the old Liev, the pale twin who always had a sarcastic remark at school.
Then his right arm snapped backward and forward again with a loud pop, human bone twisting and bending into that of a wolf. Liev cried out and grabbed his arm with his left hand. His eyes glazed over, turning silver, and he snarled.
“Just put me down, Charlie.”
“You’ve held it off this long, right up to the day of the full moon. You can hold it just a little bit longer.”
“What’s the point?” he shouted, the growl of his voice frightening all of the horses.
Charlie threw his arms out in exasperation. “Because there is someone who can stop you from becoming a wolf! So pull yourself together!”
Liev looked at him with a frightened expression.
“Yes,” said Charlie. “It is possible.”
“It sounds…it sounds too good to be true.”
“There is a risk,” Charlie admitted. “But it’s one we’re just going to have to take. My question is, can you walk?”
Liev nodded.
“Good. Let me find my horse and you can borrow some of my clothes. It’ll make it a little less obvious there’s a werewolf walking through town—”
Charlie stopped as Liev grabbed his arm. His hand grew bigger there, fur thickening, nails lengthening.
“You should hurry,” he told Charlie, voice strained. “The moon is already rising.”
“But, the sun’s still…”
Charlie kicked himself for making such an elementary mistake.
“Get on the horse!”
Townspeople stared as they rode through, a boy and a cloaked figure on a speeding horse. Charlie’s shouting did not help quell their fearful, suspicious nature.
“Out of the way!”
Behind him, Charlie could hear Liev grunting as he tried to keep the wolf inside. Charlie squeezed his knees against the horse’s sides, praying that they would arrive in time.
And then the Old House was in sight, the moon just visible behind it in the pale, day lit sky.
“If I change,” Liev growled, “you know what to do.”
Charlie’s eyes focused on that door. “Won’t need to.”
A girl with pale hair walked into the street backward, pouring something on the ground. Charlie panicked and pulled on the reins, missing the girl by a foot. Aisling whirled around, surprised at the sudden sound of footsteps.
“Charlie?”
“Sorry!” he called, tugging the horse’s reins back toward the Old House. He saw Lisa step out of a house, an explosive bolt in her hand, and tried to ignore her.
“Is that Liev?” she called as he passed by. “Did you find the Curse Eater? Charlie!”
The horse clopped against the dirt as it stopped and danced in front of the Old House. He tried to calm it long enough to get down but finally gave up, jumping down and out of the way. Liev nearly fell off behind him, and the horse sped in the other direction, a couple of the townspeople chasing after it.
Charlie glanced over his shoulder as Lisa, followed by Nash, Darcy, and Aisling, came storming over. He looked at the door to the Old House, black wood carved with figures of snakes and dogs and three feminine faces, and shivered, then grabbed the cold, stone door handle.
A hand grabbed his arm and pulled him back. Charlie was spun around to face Lisa.
“Tell me what’s going on, Charlie.”
He yanked his arm away. “Don’t follow us inside.”
“Young man!” someone called from the street. Charlie realized it was Dunwick. “What are you doing? You cannot go in there!”
Charlie grabbed the handle again and pulled it open. The only light inside the building came from the open door, revealing something that looked disconcertingly like a black, crooked church. Pushing Liev inside, Charlie stepped into the darkness and closed the door.
Lisa growled in frustration and grabbed the black handle and pulled, but the door would not open. She tried opening it again, but it wouldn’t give. “Charlie, stop holding the door!” she yelled, then cried out as the stone grew hot in her grasp.
“Stop it!” Dunwick said, now close. “No one is allowed inside the Old House. Boy, if you can hear me, come out now!”
They waited for a second. Darcy looked at Nash questioningly. “What is he doing in there?”
Nash gave her a wide-eyed look. “Why am I supposed to know?”
Dunwick sighed and looked at them all as if bothered by their closeness to him. He put his hand on the handle and—to Lisa’s surprise—pulled the door open. And then he stood there, a blank look on his face. Lisa tried to step inside, but Dunwick stopped her. Infuriated, she shoved past his arm and almost fell as her foot passed through the door, hitting nothing. Only his hand on the back of her shirt, pulling her back, kept her from falling.
Inside the Old House, there was nothing. No Charlie, no Liev, no chapel. Just an inky blackness—a hole in the world.
“What is this?” asked Lisa. “Where are they?”
“Don’t be afraid,” Dunwick said, looking fearful himself. “The Goddess has taken your friend.”
A deadly quiet settled over them. Lisa grabbed Dunwick by the front of his robe.
“Bring them back.”
Dunwick began to sputter that he could not, but she shook him.
“Don’t tell me you can’t. My brother and my friend just disappeared into your creepy building. Tell me how they come back.”
“Lisa,” said Nash.
“Tell me!”
“Lisa! Stop it!”
“What, Nash?” Lisa glared over Dunwick’s shoulder, not letting go.
He sighed, trying to calm his own temper after she had snapped at him. “Look, Charlie told me a little about what he was doing earlier. He’s just trying to save Liev, like you wanted. I don’t like the fact that he just went into some crazy Twilight Zone house to do it, but we can’t really help that right now, can we?”
A moment passed, some of the tension draining from Lisa’s shoulders.
“This isn’t what I wanted,” she said. “I should be the one to help Liev. That’s why I came here in the first place.”
Darcy frowned. “We came to save Drakauragh,” she said gently.
Lisa looked at her blankly.
“Charlie is stuck under guilt,” said Aisling, stepping up next to Lisa. “I can see that, and I just met him. He blames himself for letting Liev die. It doesn’t help that you do, too.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Lisa. “I don’t blame him.” Her grip on Dunwick loosened, a conflicted look rising over her face.
Dunwick, confounded by their conversation, pulled himself away, his face red
dening. “I don’t know what you all are talking about,” he said, brushing his robes off, “but time is running out. Do your job.”
Nash started to flare up again but Darcy calmed him, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“Let’s finish,” she said, looking at her friends. “I think things are going to get ugly fast.”
Slowly, almost abashedly, they walked away from the Old House, and went back to work. Lisa stood still for a moment, questions arising in her mind that frightened her—questions about herself. She took one last look at the Old House and backed into the street, watching the moon as it grew brighter in the sky.
It was dark when Charlie shut the door, and unsettlingly cold. The air felt as if it were sucking the life out of them, even while it stagnated. Behind him, Liev gasped in a series of growls and whimpers.
“Run…Charlie!”
“You’ll be fine! Just hold on a little longer.”
Charlie let the Sight consume his eyes to find his way in the darkness, but something in the air that was partly magic and partly a vacuum of magic burned his eyes. He cried out and shut them, rubbing at his eyelids.
“I’m sorry,” said a woman’s voice. “I should have warned you.”
Something hissed and crackled, sending goose bumps all over Charlie’s arms. He looked up and relaxed. The sound had come from a match being struck. The Curse Eater stood there, watching them as she began to spread the flames throughout what looked like a wall of candles. Charlie’s heart felt weak as the room was revealed in the candlelight. The stone floor was bare of any tables or chairs, but there were shackles staked into the very center, accompanied by many dark stains that were almost certainly blood. Dust and dirt lay around the floor unevenly.
Six towering statues, each grotesque and sinister, lined the walls like old Roman gods. Among them Charlie saw a hideous and mighty woman with three faces and four arms, snakes wrapped around her shoulders and baring their fangs. Next to that statue was another, a hulking beast covered in carved fur, with great bat wings half-furled behind it and two curved horns framing its snarling wolf’s face. After a moment, Charlie realized that it looked very much like the Dark Prince did when the varcolac had lost control over his form. The realization made him feel a little sick.
Charlie glanced at the other statues but, before he could comprehend them, the Curse Eater spoke again.
“You’ve come. My mistress will be pleased.”
Liev glared at the woman, his face already becoming more wolf than human. He gasped and crumpled over in pain as his legs popped and bent.
Charlie tried to help his friend stand. “Can you help him?”
“I can, on one condition. My mistress has asked that you stay here while your other Hunters battle the witches in Drakauragh.”
“What?” said Charlie, his face twisting in disbelief. “I can’t do that. They need me.”
“Then I cannot help either of you. Get out.”
“Wait! Wait.”
Charlie looked at Liev, watched as his eyes clouded over and became silver.
“Why does she want me here? When I met her before, she said she would help us against the Sagemistress.”
The Curse Eater shook her head. “I cannot say. It’s only what she commanded of me.”
But I can’t, thought Charlie. He couldn’t abandon his friends. He had a job to do, a job he’d been preparing for over the last week.
But how could he abandon Liev to this fate? How could he face Lisa and the others, or himself, letting Liev turn into some endless monster. Letting him die to them, again?
They can do it without me. They’re strong enough. Liev needs me here.
He would have to trust them, and hope that they trusted him.
“Do it.”
The Curse Eater nodded. “Bring him here.”
Charlie half-led, half-dragged Liev forward. Something must have finally broken inside the werewolf’s mind now, because he twisted, throwing Charlie aside. Charlie winced as he struck the stone floor, gaining more than a few bruises, and cried at the Curse Eater to run. The werewolf slashed at her with one of his claws, but the Curse Eater stepped away and muttered something under her breath. Still whispering, she stepped forward with a hand now wrapped in a purple mist and touched the werewolf’s forehead even as he still grabbed for her. His claw fell on her face harmlessly, and he crumpled to the floor.
As Liev the wolf fell, the Curse Eater’s mask was knocked askew. Charlie’s eye quickly caught the word written in blood on her forehead: VISVS.
“I know that spell. VISVS. Who’s watching us right now?” he demanded.
“It is none of your concern,” the Curse Eater said, righting her mask.
“It very much is!”
He began to use his Sight, his breath hitching as the strange magic in the air blinded him again. “Stop,” the Curse Eater’s voice softly came, but he ignored her warning, pushing through the jarring headache that was beginning to spread. With bare determination and will, Charlie forced his Sight through the blinding fog and found the word written behind the Curse Eater’s mask, focused on the magic of blood and mind tied to her.
“Don’t! Don’t do that!”
With a mental push, Charlie found the thread of magic that flowed through time and space, latched onto it, followed it. The Curse Eater’s strange pleading warnings faded out as Charlie’s mind travelled and then was dragged by some other consciousness. A jolt of surprise racked him as he found himself staring at the face of the Sagemistress.
She frowned, her crystal blue eyes critical. She said something, but Charlie could not hear it. Then, a moment later, her voice came directly to his mind.
“What a mess you are in, child. You are dealing with powers and beings far beyond your comprehension. Look, here is something for your Sight!”
Her eyes shone bright, and Charlie’s mind was again jerked forward. Through blurry eyes he looked up and saw a full moon shining red. Six strange and hideous forms stood, their size defying reason. One stood higher than the rest; a crown of curved horns on his head, two enormous bat wings covering the sky, his image blotted out the dark moon. A single thought that was not his own repeated itself in Charlie’s mind: A creature the size to swallow the moon.
And then the Sagemistress was before him again, her face startling Charlie. She spoke, her words again delayed but clear. “Hecate is not your ally. Leave while you can.”
A painful scream of rage broke through, sending ripples and tears between Charlie’s Sight and the Sagemistress. A frightening face that was three faces in one—and only barely humanoid—ripped itself into his mind, screaming at him in a language he didn’t understand, sending his world tilting into blackness.
The last rays of the sun were vanishing over the rooftops of Drakauragh. Lisa carved the last letter into the scrap of wood, smearing blood from her thumb over it, and concentrated on what she meant for the old word to do. She sat back to look at her handiwork, the word INCENDO, slightly red from her blood. After pouring her willpower into the old word—the fourth booby-trap spell she’d set up so far—she felt a little weary, but the growing magical atmosphere of Drakauragh kept her from exhaustion.
She put the wood next to where Darcy had buried her homemade bombs and covered it with a thin layer of dirt.
“You done yet?” Nash yelled, standing in front of the Old House.
Lisa made a face at him. “Yeah. You?”
“Only for the last year.”
“Good! Then you can fight the witch coven while I take a break.”
She went to join him when the air pulsed with magic, taking her breath away. A calm, soothing peace settled over Drakauragh. Lisa’s bones tingled with a quiet joy.
A ghostly shape appeared in front of her, passing right through. It felt a lot like when Darcy had phased through her before—it was a feeling that made
her nauseated and cold. She shivered and turned around, where a woman’s face smiled sinisterly at her before disappearing.
“What was that?” asked Nash, sounding concerned.
Lisa half-ran up next to him, turning to look for any other ghosts. “You saw it? I thought I imagined it.”
“You got a vivid imagination if you thought that was fake.”
Darcy’s voice caught their attention. “Guys!”
Lisa and Nash both turned to look where she stood in front of a window, staring.
“What?” called Nash.
“I thought I just saw a face in the window.”
One door—and almost instantly another—opened, and Priest and Chen rushed into the street, weapons in hand.
Aisling stood up where she was on the roof of one of the houses. “The moon is up!” she cried. “It’s starting!”
They looked up and saw that, indeed, the moon had finally risen. Though, now it was a ghastly phantom image, and the sky more cloudy red than black. Drakauragh looked shabbier, somehow; like a ghost town. The air, which had been chilly and brittle, became warm. Magic coursed through it. The town had become one with the Otherworld.
A fear that was strange to them gripped the young Hunters. They had faced the Dark Prince and his army before. So what was this sudden terror that held them fast?
Priest held his sword in front of him, searching for an enemy. “Get ready!”
Darcy gasped, and suddenly there they were. After a single moment of being blurry phantoms, the coven of witches stood all around them.
Chapter 10: The Curse Eating
The Sagemistress frowned as the human world and the Otherworld merged. She could already hear a small scuffle breaking out downstairs as her witches appeared in the midst of the humans that dwelled in this house. There was a thudding of feet and the frantic beat of flailing limbs coming up the stairs, before a tall, tattooed witch dragged in Dunwick.
Charlie Sullivan and the Monster Hunters: Witch Moon Page 21
