War Witch

by Layla Nash

  “It’s too late,” he said, shaking his head. Sam moved closer through the circle, until I could see the gravedirt under his fingernails. “Darling, we’re connected again. You raised me. We will be together. Forever.”

  Suddenly he was too close, getting closer, and the darkness closed in around me. I could smell the gravedirt crusting his skin, the sulfur curling off his body as well. A knot rose in my throat. If he touched me...

  “I banish you,” I said. I struggled to raise more magic, enough to send him back to hell. But fatigue caught up with me and the energy required to sustain the binding drained away whatever strength I’d regained at Soren’s house.

  There wasn’t enough to send him away forever. I grabbed the bag of salt as I retreated, terrified he might manage to touch me and drag me into the circle. I whipped a hex at him to send him back, and hurled the bag of salt over the circle. Power sizzled through me as the circle imploded, and lifted me up until my eyebrows caught fire, but Sam still waited, demon eyes laughing at me.

  I retreated and shoved Eric toward the path. “Run.”

  I fled into the trees, not caring if she followed, and left the thrice-damned mirror behind. I didn’t look back. Maybe the Morrigan would have died on her feet, but I didn’t feel like her anymore.

  I was scared and alone and a demon with Sam’s face wanted me for himself.

  I’d raised a demon with my blood. Brought Sam back to life. Suspended their cast and bound the demon to their magic, so it waited until they cast at Tracy’s house. I let the demon into their spell. Rosa’s blood, Joanne’s, Andre’s... It was all on my hands.

  Chapter 43

  I ran through the Slough, branches lashing my face and tearing at my clothes. Sam’s laughter chased me until I reached the street. The pounding of my heart and the ragged draw of my breathing drowned out everything except my panicked thoughts.

  Not just war, but demons loose in the world. Raising the dead and opening the door to the saints only knew what. And if I was the last war witch...

  I shivered and stared into the darkness, not seeing anything but Sam’s dead coal eyes.

  He wasn’t dead. Or maybe he was dead, and reanimated. Or he sold his soul to a demon, and the demon rose instead.

  I gripped my head, bending over as I gritted my teeth and tried to stop the maelstrom of thoughts. I stumbled to a halt in the weak puddle of a streetlight as my legs wobbled and my lungs burned. Memories of Sam flooded through me as my dinner splattered across the sidewalk, and my vision swam. Tears finally broke free.

  Anne Marie hadn’t succeeded in raising Sam, but I’d blundered in and done it. No wonder the Ancient never showed up—they called Sam to shore up the coven, to take the ninth’s place. And I’d stopped them, made a mess, and turned it into my own catastrophe.

  My parents would have been so disappointed in me.

  Tires screeched nearby and I froze. A slamming door and running feet made me turn, prepared to fight or flee though my feet remained glued to the pavement.

  “Thank Skoll,” Leif said, and I closed my eyes. Not Sam. Leif was welcome warmth and sun-soaked life after Sam’s gravedirt cologne. “Lily, what the hell happened?”

  “I couldn’t go,” I said, staring at him. He could anchor me in the present as everything else went wrong. All the noise in my head... It would go away if I could just get Leif to understand. “There’s too much going wrong. I can’t do it on my own, Leif.”

  “Do what on your own?” He looked around, scenting the air, and sneezed. “What did you do, Lily?”

  I blinked and instead it was Sam standing before me in a jolt as everything changed and we were back in the war. Sam shouted at me, angry, demanding to know what I’d done. I’d missed a spell he planned when humans attacked my patrol and we barely fought free. I was too muddled and exhausted to fend him off as he insisted I help with delicate spells. Demon spells. He claimed they were just harmless practice. Said he loved me and trusted only me. That he needed me. And I’d believed him because I didn’t want to see otherwise. I clutched my head and whirled away.

  It wasn’t real. Sam was dead but coming out of the forest behind me somewhere.

  “Lily,” he said. Leif’s voice held a hint of a growl, but I could see the struggle to communicate on his face. At least he still wanted to listen. He still tried to understand. “Take a deep breath. Tell me why you hexed Nate and Scotty and ran out of the car.”

  “Hexed? I didn’t. It was pepper spray. A special kind of pepper spray.” I backed away from him, not wanting my back to the Skein. Just in case Sam showed up, I would see him coming.

  Or Eric.

  What if the External bolted out of the forest? What would Leif think?

  “Why did you pepper spray them? I told you to go to the pack-house. We’re in the middle of fighting the Externals, and the last thing I need is to worry about whether you’re safe.” Another bit of growl escaped, and Leif ran his hands over his hair as his eyes went wild. “And yet here I am, wanting to help you, while Soren and the rest of my pack battle alone. Soren is right. I’ve lost my mind.”

  He shook his head in disbelief.

  Again my brain sparked and he became Sam, looming over me after I met with Soren and Sam decided I cheated on him with the Warbringer. Things had been rocky; I suspected Sam used a spell on me but I didn’t know what or why. I had headaches all the time and couldn’t concentrate, and everything from the previous few days was covered in a gray haze of uncertainty. Something in him had changed; his magic pulled at me constantly, hungrily. Jealousy boiled over as he wrenched my arm, trying to drag me to his quarters. “What did you do? Why did you talk to him for three hours?”

  “I feel like I’m losing my mind,” I whispered. I hadn’t released my magic in weeks. Maybe months. I couldn’t remember what it felt like to feel something other than fear and anger. “I can’t do this anymore, Sam. I can’t.”

  Time skipped and it was Leif staring at me. “Sam? Who the hell do you think I am, Lilith?”

  “Are you doing this?” I couldn’t breathe. Something rustled in the trees and I backed up more, though Leif followed. “Is this part of your plot to get rid of the witches? Make me crazy and arrest me and throw me in the Reserve?”

  He stopped in his tracks. Something changed in his expression, in his posture. Part of him returned to the Chief Investigator, instead of Leif who wanted to protect me. “Lilith. What day is it? Where are we?”

  Stupid questions. I didn’t have time for that. He didn’t deny the plot. The Alliance finally wanted to clean house. Tracy had been right.

  Before I could come up with a response or another accusation, the trees parted and Eric stumbled out, brushing leaves and dirt off her coat. Leif turned to scowl at him. “What the fuck are you doing here, Smith?”

  “Assisting the witch in a small inquiry,” she said, not missing a beat. “I’ll be on my way. I’ve heard there are a few other issues to address in the city tonight.”

  She started to walk away but Leif blocked her, his features sharper and more dangerous as he stared down the External. “Stay right there. Is this part of the Bureau’s attacks? Turning our witches against us?”

  “She’s not yours, friend.” Eric checked her watch and pulled out an odd-looking device. “And you’re not going to stop me.”

  I retreated as the past and present melded, separated, blurred. It took six years but I was finally losing my mind. The world tilted. I smelled wood smoke and cordite from the guns and a hint of metallic panic on my tongue.

  “What have you been telling him, Lilith?” Leif remained still but I felt stalked, pursued.

  I clutched my forehead in a panic and bent over in pain. “No. No.”

  He wasn’t Sam. Leif wasn’t Sam. This was a different time, a different argument. The rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire echoed, made me flinch, stole my breath. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t run. Magic didn’t come and it didn’t leave, until I teetered in an unbalanced in-between place, out of co
ntrol.

  Leif turned his attention to me, and Eric started edging away. The Chief Investigator watched me warily, that alert button flashing at his belt. No doubt calling in more backup. Diverting more troops away from fighting the humans. Maybe we’d lose this war in the first day. He held up his hands. “Help me understand, Lilith. Tell me what’s going on in your head.”

  “I don’t know, Leif.” I said his name to remember who I was talking to, and because it made me feel better to hear it. I turned around, searching the darkness. Nothing made sense. Magic raced through me in static and lightning, taking away whatever control I thought I had. Demons and Sam. War or not. Missing witches. External raids. The whole world lost its fucking mind and dragged me with it. “I just can’t—nothing makes sense. I don’t know what to believe.”

  “What to believe? Hati’s balls, Lily, believe the truth. The facts. Believe me.”

  He said it like it was just that easy. That facts presented themselves without any gray areas. Like there was one single truth that stood out in a shining beacon above all the chaos and confusion.

  But it wasn’t like that. Not in the real world. Not in my world.

  And he wanted me to leave Tracy and the coven to their fate. I couldn’t live with myself if I did that.

  “I have to get them back,” I said. He had to understand. A demon waited in the woods and would hunt down the witches.

  “We will,” Leif said. He held out his hand. “We’ll find them. Come with me, Lilith. We can sort this out back at my house.”

  The slow, careful words set off alarm bells in my head. He thought I was crazy and wanted to get me somewhere with a containment cell.

  Or maybe those sirens were real. I looked around as something else crashed through the trees, and girded myself for battle.

  Leif snapped his fingers until my attention returned to him, and he reached for my arm. “Come on, Lily. Get in the car with me. We can drive together.”

  He had cold iron on him, I could feel it. He meant to collar me. Send me away. I backed up. “No.”

  He drew breath, shaking his head as sadness gathered around his eyes. “Lily—”

  “Uh, guys?” I blinked, surprised Eric was still there. She backed up closer to us and held that odd device toward the trees. “I think we’ve got a problem.”

  “Get the fuck out of here,” Leif growled, yanking me behind him.

  “I would love to,” she said. “But first—”

  Before she could finish, I looked at the Skein and my heart seized up. A small opalescent figure popped out of the trees, rolling through the dirt and leaves, and reared up in a cloud of sulfur.

  Demon.

  Chapter 44

  Leif shouted a warning, barking orders to the saints only knew who, and tossed a charm from his pocket at the demon as it circled closer. The charm didn’t do much to slow it down, but it gave me enough time to focus and inhale more magic. I dipped into the source of my magic, the personal well of power Mother warned me never to use.

  It would be worth it, if I could save our lives.

  There wasn’t much left, but I formed a weak ward and called to Eric, “Get over here. I can’t cover you right now.”

  The External aimed that weird device at the demon and hit a few buttons, looking like a fumbling bureaucrat more than any sort of cop. “If this works...”

  Leif growled and caught the back of my shirt, dragging me back toward his car one step at a time. The demon charged at us, slamming into the ward and cracking it. Saints blast it. If it managed to break the wards, the backlash of magic would do me in. I’d be useless to defend any of us, and then we’d be dead.

  I gritted my teeth and dredged up more magic, spinning a hex at it as the demon whirled and raced toward Eric. She slapped the side of the device, muttering under her breath, then hit another button and it blazed to life.

  A golden net, made of no magic that I could see, shot out of the device and covered the demon, connected by a thin thread to the gun and Eric. The demon squalled and fought as the net tightened, and the smell of burning oil and sulfur wafted on a sudden wind.

  Eric squinted and moved the device, dragging the demon away as it clawed the pavement, and glanced over at us. “This should hold for a bit. Why don’t you two take off? I’ll be in touch.”

  Leif stared at her. “What the fuck is that?”

  “Don’t worry about it. I don’t know how long it will hold, so get moving.”

  The Warder growled in irritation, then abruptly grabbed me around the waist and carried me to his running car. I stared at Eric and the odd net that restrained the demon. The humans found a technology that worked against demons? My heart sank and soared at the same time—finally, we could protect people without having a war witch on guard all the time to hold back the demons. But it also meant that the humans could defend themselves against one of the Alliance’s best, last resort weapons. Saints preserve us.

  Leif put me in the passenger seat and slammed the door, leaping over the hood to jump into the driver’s seat. He didn’t hesitate—he hit the gas and started driving, picking up the radio to direct more Styrma to the Skein to deal with the demon and Eric. I concentrated on breathing.

  The car sped away from the Skein and the demon, and I looked back to see whether Eric’s device had failed yet. It still glowed, at least until we turned a corner and the darkness returned. I gripped my knees until my fingers ached, staring through the windshield at what lay ahead. What if Sam and the demons had the coven? I wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone, even Anne Marie.

  But I didn’t know how to find them. All the evidence of where they’d gone was bound up with Sam at the clearing, and I’d destroyed most of it with the salt. Maybe I’d just killed them all, if they’d survived.

  My chest constricted and I struggled to breathe, tears burning my cheeks once more. Damn it.

  Leif’s jaw jumped as he ground his teeth, and eventually he glanced over at me. “What’s going on, Lily? You’re all over the place.”

  “I have to find the coven,” I said. That was all I could think about. “It can’t be war, Leif, but if it is, I can’t fight alone. And if…if this is just part of Soren cleaning house, you have to tell me. Please. You have to tell me if this is the Alliance getting rid of troublemakers.”

  “That’s insane, Lily.” He shook his head. “Soren isn’t going to kill witches if they disagree with him. This isn’t about the Alliance. This is something else. The humans, maybe. I don’t know.”

  I remembered the first time I sat in his car, as he drove Moriah and me home from the Pug, and we talked about the memorial and the anniversary. How the witches fought alone for months on end because the shifters put themselves first. Whether Soren meant it or not, this was another time when the shifters would put their Alliance ahead of witches. Ahead of my coven, my friends. We’d never find the witches alive if the entire Alliance fled to the pack-houses south of the city.

  “It’s something bigger,” I said. I whispered it, just in case Sam heard and laughed along in his demon realm. “Leif, I have to go. I can’t run away.”

  I’d done enough running in the last six years. I’d fled my problems, and the coven’s problems, and witch problems, and it went sideways. People got hurt. People I loved died. Because I didn’t stand up for them. And now Tracy was somewhere dark, alone and afraid, and the safety of the pack-houses and the Alliance tempted me. Lured me away. Made me forget who I was.

  Leif gripped the steering wheel until the leather creaked. “We’re not running away. It’s a tactical retreat so we can refit and figure out what the hell is going on.”

  “This is witch business,” I said. I reached for the door handle. “I’m sorry. I have to go. The coven needs me.”

  “The coven is dead,” he said, voice flat. No emotion, not even anger, colored his words. To him, it was just a fact. “With everything we saw at Tracy’s, and everything else going on, there’s no way they survived. We have to get you to safety a
nd figure out how to screen and train more war witches. That’s our next step, Lily. That is your witch business.”

  “They’re not gone,” I said. I gripped the strap of my bag, still heavy and sticky with the grimoire. “They’re not. And I will find them.”

  The car turned south. Leif didn’t look at me. “You won’t. You’re officially in Alliance custody, for your own safety. You’ll be released when this emergency ends.”

  Alliance custody? Saints above.

  “Stop the car.” I gripped the door handle and braced my feet. “Leif, stop the car and let me out. I’m not going with you.”

  “This isn’t a choice, Lilith.” Leif’s mouth compressed in what could have been regret. “I’m sorry.”

  I wondered if he really was, or if he said it just to keep me from fighting being arrested and detained.

  “Then I am, too,” I said. And I meant it. I really did.

  His car wasn’t made of cold iron, and the engine died when I jammed a very small hex into the dash. Leif snarled in rage, and turned to catch my arm. “Damn it, Lily, you can’t—”

  I hexed him and shoved my door open. Leif swore as he froze in the seat, unable to move as I reached for the radio. I didn’t want him to die; I couldn’t just leave him there, in case the demon got loose and chased us down after it killed Eric.

  The radio crackled and Jake’s voice reached us. “What the hell just happened? Why did you stop?”

  Of course they had a tracker on the car. So I wouldn’t even be able to steal it to get to the Remnant faster. I clicked the buttons on the radio and didn’t bother to disguise my voice. They already knew. “I killed the engine. Leif is hexed and can’t move. It’ll wear off in twenty minutes. You should get here faster. There are demons in the area.”

  Howling responded, and in the distance, sirens wailed. Maybe they were closer than I planned.

  Leif rolled his eyes to glare at me. “Lilith, do not do this. This cannot be undone, do you hear me?”