War Witch

by Layla Nash

  Another, with long dark hair that reminded me of Joanne, pointed at me with both hands. She spat curses with enough vehemence and magic that they could have stuck, flaring out from her palms like green smoke.

  Chaos erupted as Kyle stumbled back over his own feet, and I reached for the collar as I curled my body in and down, making a smaller target as I got my hands on the iron. Felt the deep burn as it scored my palms. The thread of magic was enough, weak but pure, and all I really needed was intent. The collar came loose, peeling out of the furrow it burned in my neck, and I threw it at the witches as I raised my hands and drew a shield up like a curtain.

  Their shifter guards swore, grabbing one to contain her, but were repelled with a wave of magic. More curses spilled out, hateful and dark, and the tall one picked up a nearby vase to chuck at me when the hexes didn’t seem to do the trick. “You murdered my coven mate, you bitch I will kill—”

  “They had it coming,” I snapped, raising my left arm to block another hex and then swung it back, knocking Moriah and Leif and Kyle behind my shield and into my sphere of protection despite Jake’s snarls. My right hand called down a stream of blue magic and turned it into spikes, ice and hate, and drove into their clothes and shoulders to pin them to the wall. At least with the magic I didn’t feel exhausted and resigned. I could fight as long as it took. “And I’d do it again in a heartbeat, except maybe I’d do it more slowly.”

  The witches howled in rage, struggling against the magic icicles that trapped them like drab moths against a pin board, and pitched wild spells that bounced off my shield and pinged into the walls like magical shrapnel.

  Soren roared inside the house, and Leif cursed under his breath as a cloud of red magic rose up and tangled around our knees. “Stop.”

  Too bad pack magic didn’t work on witches. Except, apparently, me—because his command made it a bit harder to send spells at the witches, despite how they threatened me. That wasn’t fair at all.

  The tall witch’s eyes flashed dark, and I wondered if they were all demon handlers, if maybe she were about to call a demon in the middle of the Peacemaker’s home. She threw instead a regular old death hex. “I will see you dead for your crimes, witch, you murderer.”

  I ducked the hex, sent it crashing into the chandelier that hung over us until crystals shattered on the marble floor all around. “They were dark witches, doing dark magic on an innocent kid in a back alley. You defend them, you defend the darkness they bring down to stain all of us. They are the reason none of us are safe. They’re the reason the humans hunt us like before the war.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and she looked to her other colleagues and then to someone standing behind me. “You sided with Anne Marie; you defended her home and killed Wendy. What the hell are you talking about, ‘they’?”

  Oops. I straightened, hands loose at my sides though I didn’t release the magic I held. “She attacked me first and I defended myself. That wasn’t my fault.”

  “Did you—did you kill Cara and Danielle?”

  “No.” It was the truth, through and through, with the saints as my witness. “The demons they were summoning did. I just arranged the meeting.”

  Her jaw went slack, then red flushed across her face. “Lies. Damn lies, and spoken in front of the Peacemaker, how dare you accuse two witches in good standing—”

  “They weren’t.” I felt tired all of a sudden, and desperately wanted to sit down and rest my eyes even with the coldly calm magic. Underneath it waited the crippling fatigue and grief of everything that happened in the previous few days. “They tied that kid up in the alley and—”

  “Don’t say another word,” Moriah said, grabbing my right arm despite the blue glow. She dragged me back, attention on Leif. “She admits nothing. Admissions spoken during confrontation carry no weight, she—”

  He took a breath, expression unreadable, but Soren loomed over Kyle and clapped Jake on the shoulder as he watched me. “Yes, but we all know Lilith’s accusations are slightly different than everyone else’s. Don’t we?”

  He didn’t wait for a response, turning his attention to the guards who tried to chain the witches as they struggled to free them from the wall. His expression soured as he studied the trapped witches. “You attacked a guest in my home, unprovoked. A grievous crime. You’ll be placed in detention until I decide what to do with you. If you so much as touch an iota of magic, I’ll have you collared, and not with that weak shit we use. With the real stuff,” and he toed the iron collar that still carried flecks of my skin.

  Then he pointed at Kyle, canting his head at the witches. “Go with them. Make sure it happens.” The Peacemaker raised his eyebrows at me. “Couldn’t just play along, could we?”

  I pointed at my neck, furious beyond words. “Does this look like playtime to you? This will scar. I’m going to look like a goddamned criminal the rest of my life because your people can’t listen to reason.”

  “We’ll have someone fix it.” He looked at Leif. “I told you a collar wouldn’t hold her.”

  “It did what it was supposed to.” The Chief Investigator didn’t look happy.

  Moriah’s teeth ground loudly enough to make me wince as I imagined them cracking to pieces in her skull. “Can we discuss this somewhere else? Preferably somewhere without the witches who just attacked a friend of my pack?”

  Soren glanced up as Kyle muttered and yanked at the blue spikes still securing the witches to the wall. The Peacemaker leveled a look at me. “Lilith. If you would?”

  Irritated beyond measure and tempted to just leave them up there, I folded my arms over my chest. “And in exchange?”

  “In exchange I won’t have you executed for killing three aligned witches.”

  I scowled, maintaining eye contact as I raised my left hand, palm up. I curled my fingers in one at a time, starting with the pinky, and with each finger, the magic holding the witches to the wall dissipated, disappearing with soft puffs of smoke. They fell, slid to the floor, lurched back to their feet. I curled my left hand around and then opened it, and all the magic dissipated as gray smoke across the floor. It was all for show, of course, but at least Kyle looked impressed.

  The dark-haired witch got a step closer to me, despite the restraining hands of the shifters and Leif’s scowl, but stopped in her tracks when I turned to face her. Whatever she saw in me, in my expression, was enough. But her face went bloodless as she confronted me. “Are they gone? Beyond where we can get them back?”

  “Bring me a mirror and I can show you where they are. But they are not coming back.”

  “You murdered two witches to save a human?”

  Despite Moriah’s tightening grip on my arm, I didn’t turn away from the witch. Clearly my stance perplexed her as much as hers befuddled me. So I enunciated, to make sure everyone in that foyer understood what I said, and slowed the words to the type of cadence the humans used with foreigners. “They tied a human girl down and used her for blood sacrifice. They opened a rift to a demon realm in an alley less than half a mile from our memorial. Where we honor our dead. They summoned demons where we go to pray. And it wasn’t the first time—Cara was already demonsick. Red around the eyes. Your entire coven is infected. Or just as guilty as they were.”

  The tall one shook her head, kept shaking it. “My sisters would not—”

  “That’s enough,” Leif said, and shared a look with Mo. She started dragging me down the hall, though I didn’t resist. Whatever else Leif said to the witches was lost as the rest of the chandelier crashed to the ground, scattering the shifters and Soren alike.

  Chapter 28

  Luckily we didn’t go far. A few turns down more gaudily-decorated halls led us to an office on the first floor, a pretentious setup with an enormous oak desk and bookshelves all around and leather chairs. Leif leaned back against the desk as he watched me, and Moriah prowled near the door as she growled and snapped. I wandered along the perimeter, searching the bookshelves for anything useful, and gingerly patte
d at my neck. Maybe I could break into Anne Marie’s store and liberate some of the healing creams she made. She used Rosa’s formulas, so they’d be almost as good as getting some of Rosa’s work.

  My heart stumbled as I thought of Rosa, and I sent a prayer to the saints to keep her safe, wherever she was.

  “Tell me everything you know about the girl in the alley.” Leif’s expression was difficult to read as he watched me, and asked me for the fourth or fifth time about the same crime. “Every Skoll-damned detail, do you hear me? No more pretending you don’t remember and don’t know. This is your last chance, Lily, and even Moriah knows it.”

  I glanced at my friend, who gave me a dark look, and I sighed. I hobbled over to sit in the most comfortable-looking chair in the office, exhaling in relief as I could finally put my feet up on a cushy ottoman. But I didn’t quite look at him. I still felt guilty for what I’d done, and I didn’t need him seeing that when I spoke.

  “Some of the witches gathered at the memorial to ward the trees and remember the dead. As I was on my way to the Pug for Moriah’s party, the bus broke down and I had to walk. Before I got more than a block, I saw demon magic coming out of an alley. I should have kept going.”

  “No shit,” Mo said under her breath.

  “Go on.” Leif was not amused.

  “Two witches stood over a human girl, tied to an altar. They had a book, a chalice, a knife, and had opened a rift to a demon realm. They were in the middle of a spell and didn’t notice me at first. I interrupted them, they attacked me, and then they tripped and fell into the demon realm they’d opened.”

  “Tripped and fell. Both of them. Right into a demon realm.”

  I held my hands up, the very picture of innocence. “Bad balance. It’s killer.”

  Moriah snorted, shaking her head, and scrubbed her hands through her hair until it stood up in a snarled mess. “The Varg Himself couldn’t keep you out of trouble, witch.”

  Leif didn’t move from where he leaned on the Peacemaker’s desk, his eyes mysteries to me. “The girl’s name.”

  “Indira Modi.” I held off the queasiness of memory, the warm wet squish of fresh blood between my fingers and the reek of human insides. “She told me to find her parents if she didn’t make it, and tell them she was sorry. I tried to heal her but I couldn’t do much, and left my scarf tied against her wounds after I called the ambulance. I stayed with her until the sirens were too close. I did what I could, Leif, but I couldn’t wait around for the Externals to show up and arrest me for dark matter.”

  “They would have called—”

  “They wouldn’t have paused to call you, and you know it. I’d have been in iron with a bullet in my head before they cleaned the blood off the ground.” I shook my head. “And even if they’d called you, you would have sent Anne Marie, and she would never have listened to my side. I’m already guilty in her eyes.”

  Leif rubbed his jaw. “The victim’s name was never published, but that’s her. So you resurrected Darkwing to buy you some time?”

  “I always liked Ivan. And better him get in trouble with the Externals than me. Being nonaligned and all.” I wondered if the Chechen heard us say his name, wherever he was.

  “And it didn’t occur to you to just tell me these details that night, when Stefan and Eric wanted to question you, or later when I was at your house, or maybe even the three times after that?”

  I felt like a kid sitting in the principal’s office, getting lectured about bad choices. “When I figure out how to turn back time and rectify my mistakes, this is at the top of my list. With Anne Marie calling me a murderer and threatening to kill me if she saw me again, I was a little hesitant to admit knowing two of her aligned witches were demonsick.”

  Soren strode in, his expression sour, and threw a bunch of papers on the desk before throwing himself in the massive chair behind the wooden monstrosity. “Only two?”

  “Probably three or more,” I said slowly, glancing at Moriah as my friend paced closer to stand behind my chair. “The two in the alley should have had a third with them. But if they’ve been in the coven while working dark magic, they might have infected all of them. You should probably get someone to run an impartial cleansing spell on them, just to be sure.”

  The Peacemaker grunted, watching me with a dangerous glint in his eyes. “Well, you killed one more, so that’s a start.”

  “She attacked me. I’m allowed to defend myself, Soren.”

  “Funny how so many of my people who cross your path end up dead or hexed. Including my second-in-command.” Soren glanced at Leif, who adjusted his collar to hide the purple hex, and frowned more.

  I folded my hands over my stomach and watched him, waiting for him to go on. I’d already said my piece on those accusations, and I couldn’t keep denying and defending something I knew was my right.

  Soren sat back in his chair as the silence stretched, then flicked his fingers at the stack of papers he’d brought in. “We have a few problems I wish to resolve as quickly as possible, Lilith.”

  “You meant the warrant for my arrest?” I pretended only a polite interest, even though it made my blood boil. I didn’t recognize his authority to judge me, that was for damn sure.

  “Yes,” he said, tone bland. He’d always been good at sounding like he discussed the weather even when he handed down death sentences. “Before we address the charges, though, we will address your status. You stand alone as nonaligned, despite our efforts to bring you into the Alliance, but I have been reminded—several times—that you are a friend of the Stone Hills pack.” He raised an ironic eyebrow at Moriah, who didn’t look at all embarrassed that she’d badgered him into recognizing her support.

  I inclined my head to the Peacemaker. “I accept the friendship of Stone Hills pack.”

  Soren grunted, rubbing his jaw as his gaze drifted to where Leif took up a casual lean against the wall. “And you have other supporters in this. So. You stand before the Alliance nonaligned, but certainly not alone.”

  My throat clogged at the unexpected kindness. Not alone. I pulled myself together; it was just an elaborate charade to get me to lower my guard and admit things they could pin on me later. I set my jaw. “I am always happy to answer the Alliance’s summons.”

  Soren tossed one of the papers across the desk so I could pick it up and study the long list of items on it. “You are accused of practicing dark magic, falsely identifying yourself as a basher and a mender, falsely aligning yourself with a nonexistent coven, attacking Alliance representatives in the conduct of official duties, fleeing the scene of a crime, killing one Alliance wolf, and killing three Alliance witches. Possibly more, if we are to consider the attack on the First Coven.”

  “That’s all?” I said weakly, studying the warrant. It wasn’t funny in the least, but it was an impressive list for just three days’ work.

  “Actually, no,” he said. “But the Chief Investigator determined the charges from the Externals were baseless, and chose not to press charges on your lack of cooperation during his investigation, as well as the lies you told you hide your involvement in other crimes.”

  I slouched a little lower in the chair. Damn. The list swam in front of my eyes. I almost couldn’t remember which of them I’d actually done.

  “Let’s start with the easy ones.” Soren held up his right hand to show off the massive alignment ring he wore. “Rings. Failure to accurately identify one’s nature and strength when in public is punishable by branding and parole for the first offense if you are within two classes of your actual ability. Jail for no less than six months is required on the second offense or in the case you have pretended to be more than two classes weaker than your natural class. This is required by the Truce. What is your explanation for being caught marauding as a basher and mender?”

  My mouth went dry. The jail he mentioned wasn’t the run of the mill prison the humans thought of—no, it was a hellish place made of iron and steel, designed just for witches who couldn’t
be controlled. One month there would drive me crazy; six months might just kill me outright.

  I rubbed the back of my neck as the wounds itched, wishing they could bring the cream immediately so it didn’t hurt quite as much. “I wore a charmer’s ring for work. Anything more than that and the humans get nervous.”

  He didn’t blink, those hard blue eyes unyielding. He loved his power, all right. And he’d do anything to keep it. Tracy’s warning drifted through my mind, that there was trouble brewing among the shifters, but I pushed it away. I couldn’t afford to be distracted. I reluctantly pulled the necklace from under my tattered shirt, and flashed the lapis blue stone at him. “I read as a summoner on most devices. Given what’s been going on the past week, I thought it safer not to openly identify as a war witch.”

  “Have you an accurate ring?”

  “Yes.” My onyx war witch ring remained safely in the Remnant. It was a gift from my parents and had survived ten years of war. I couldn’t risk losing it to some External’s pocket or one of Anne Marie’s minions.

  Soren scratched a note on the paper, then glanced at me. “Resolved. You are hereby reprimanded, in the company of two witnesses, for wearing the wrong rings. If you are caught again, you will be sentenced to three months at the Reserve.”

  His dark look made the threat clear—don’t get caught again.

  I gripped the arms of my chair, wishing I could take a shower. I smelled like a damn abattoir.

  “Next charge. Killing an Alliance wolf. What is your explanation?”

  I hesitated, then cleared my throat. “When, uh, was this supposed to have happened?”