War Witch

by Layla Nash

  I forced my eyes open until the blur of light revealed the curve of her jaw, the glitter of an earring. “What?”

  “You are more important than the others. Better than them. Leave them.” She touched my cheek. “Just tell me what I want to know, Lilith, and you will be free. The others can pay the price.”

  My heart slowed to a lingering drumbeat. Through the haze of magic and grief, one certainty shined bright. Mother would never say that. She had a moral compass, and though mine faltered in the war, I knew she would never bend.

  She would never tell me to leave other witches behind.

  It wasn’t her. She wasn’t real.

  None of it was real.

  I forced my eyes wider, even with the swelling, and fought through the deep water. The soft lighting of my parents’ living room faded, replaced by a damp basement. The glamour rippled, and in a dark corner, Anne Marie huddled in chains, eyes huge in her tear-stained face. Our gazes met.

  None of it was real.

  Bile rose in my throat as the witch who wore my mother’s face loomed over me. She demanded I tell her how to finish the spell. I’d already said too much. They could almost complete the spell with enough power and a little intent; I’d given them far too much of the dangerous knowledge. But maybe a little more wouldn’t hurt.

  My lips cracked as I smiled. A spell to summon ice demons drifted through the dark water, and so I murmured the invocation to that instead. It would cause a massive disruption in the spell at the moment of culmination, and the split focus would unbalance the magic. It might release fire demons on us, or it might burn the house down. Either was preferable to living another day with those sick bastards mining my memory for more ways to hurt me.

  She repeated it back, satisfied as she scratched more notes. She even thanked me, said how proud she was, how I’d done the right thing. The bitch used my mother’s voice.

  She asked about revenants, demanding I tell her as I pretended not to know what she meant. She said she wouldn’t love me if I didn’t tell her.

  But Anne Marie sat in the corner, knees pulled to her chest, and stared at me. Willed me to be strong.

  And Mother reminded me: this too shall pass.

  I thought of my parents, and let the warmth of their memories surround me. And there was Leif, frantic to find me again, to settle next to. Even as the witch grew irate, said awful things, screamed curses. I curled into Leif as my hand started throbbing once more.

  This too shall pass.

  Chapter 50

  I lay somewhere cold, ice seeping into my back through my tattered shirt. A collar weighed my head down, and iron burned my wrists. I could lift my arms or shift my legs, but it was too hard. Too painful.

  When I opened my eyes, Anne Marie sat only a few feet away, drawn and pale in the eerie half-light. We were in one corner of a large room, empty save for a long table with restraints and a puddle of blood on the floor. It looked like someone’s dingy basement, with smooth concrete floors and exposed insulation in the walls.

  I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t see the blood. “Is it really you, Anne Marie?”

  She didn’t answer, just stared at me.

  Air whistled in my nose. I breathed deeply but stabs of pain in my sides warned me not to try it again. I finally croaked, “Why, Anne Marie? Rosa and Joanne were—”

  “Don’t you dare,” she said. The tears trickling down her cheeks shined in the light. “This is your—”

  “You think I planned this?”

  “I thought it was a trick,” she said. “When they tortured you. They made me watch. I thought you made them do it to prove you weren’t with them.”

  “They’re not my people, Annette.” Her old name came too easily; the darkness reminded me of painful conversations at the campfire during the war. Back when we were friends. “I’m not a dark witch.”

  “Tracy saw dark magic at your apartment.”

  I dragged myself over to my side, wheezing as my ribs creaked and broken scabs ignited fire all over my back. “I killed two dark witches that night. She interrupted the cleansing.”

  Her gaze didn’t waver. “Why raise Sam? Why free him?”

  I went up on an elbow and groaned, finally heaving to sit up and lean against the wall. It made breathing easier but ignited a ring of fire across my stomach. “I didn’t raise him. Someone cast inside your circle when you tried to Call the Ancient, and directed it to someone else. Something else. Sam. If you hadn’t hexed me, I would have killed him.”

  “How did you—what Ancient?”

  I snorted and immediately regretted it as blood poured out of my nose. Lovely. I leaned my head back against the wall. “Tracy told me.”

  She muttered something under her breath, then cleared her throat. “I don’t know what I could possibly have done, Lilith, to deserve what you—”

  “I didn’t do this.” I met her gaze as best I could through my swollen lids. “I went to the Skein to hide your circle, and I bound it. When I went back to get rid of it, Sam rose. I didn’t Call the demon.”

  I didn’t mention the demon I had Called. She wouldn’t have understood.

  “How did you know about Rosa and Joanne?”

  My heart hurt more than my hand and all of my other wounds combined. “Leif and I went to Tracy’s house. I did a reconstruction.”

  Her eyes closed and more tears traced clear tracks down her grimy cheeks. “I miss them.”

  So did I. I rested my head against the wall and stared at the ceiling. “How did Tracy know about Brandr?”

  “She hired him.”

  I wished I was surprised. But nothing really mattered anymore, sitting there in the dark and imprisoned by dark witches. “Why?”

  She shook her head, eyes half-closed. “She thought you were involved in dark magic. I caught him stalking you and her magic lingered on him, even though he pretended not to know anything. When I asked her why, she said we had to turn you so you lost your magic. That if you kept practicing, you would become invincible.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut and tears escaped. Tracy. “What proof did she have?”

  “She didn’t need any proof.” Anne Marie sighed. “I remember the war.”

  Didn’t we all. “Tracy asked me to break into your house to steal a grimoire.”

  “She claimed you set the second circle at her house. On the lawn, when we killed the demon, she said she recognized its magic from your apartment. The witch torturing us wore your face.” Anne Marie exhaled. “You tortured us, Lilith, and then at the circle when you spoke to Sam... It was like seven years ago, when you were so far gone...”

  I covered my eyes despite the weight of the iron manacles. The tears hurt more than the severed finger. “It was the only way I could do it, Annette. Pretending to be the Morrigan again.”

  Anne Marie winced as she adjusted how she sat, dragging the chains across the floor in a chilling rattle. “During the reconstruction—did you see what happened?”

  “Tracy set the circle outside yours,” I said. “There was a very small summoning, but it was enough. She might have set a beacon before any of you showed up. But you couldn’t reach the alarm because of her. She…did it.”

  An ache built in my sinuses. Tracy. It couldn’t be. Couldn’t be. Impossible. To speak it would mean a treason I couldn’t accept.

  “Tracy.”

  “She wouldn’t,” I whispered. Saints preserve me. Not her. Anyone else.

  Anne Marie shook her head, eyes dull. “She did.”

  The sick feeling spread to my heart. “Tracy.”

  “I really thought it was you.”

  “I really hoped it was you,” I said, and she cracked an eye open to scowl at me half-heartedly. I sighed. “Not because you’re a black witch, because you’re a bad witch.”

  The muscles in her jaw jumped, and when she didn’t snap back, my heart sank. Our eyes met, and for a moment we only stared at each other. Two old combatants in a new war.

  Her gaze drifted to a
point high over my head, her voice growing distant. “I, Annette Marie, the Morrigan, find Tracy war witch, daughter of witches, guilty of dark magic and demon-handling. I find her responsible for the deaths of three witches of the War Coven. The sentence for each of these crimes is death.”

  I couldn’t breathe, my eyes too dry to even blink. Memories of Tracy played through my mind like an old film reel, skipping and jumping, and in the end it burned to ash. Lies. All of it or just most of it didn’t really matter.

  But it took two war witches to condemn a third. Anne Marie didn’t see me as aligned, so she wouldn’t ask. The Morrigan’s word was enough. She could do it all herself.

  Her voice went quiet. “How do you find, Lilith war witch?”

  Grief burned white hot in my chest, the words bitter on my tongue. “I, Lilith war witch, find Tracy guilty of the stated crimes. I concur with the sentence of death.”

  The only sound was the rasp of our breathing, the whistle of air through my broken nose. I tried to concentrate on the pain in my hand, a focus for all the misery surrounding us. Tracy. Tracy betrayed me, offered me up to the kettle. Betrayed her true coven, and killed Rosa and Joanne and Andre.

  Anne Marie’s chest expanded as she inhaled, letting it out in a rush. “I hereby authorize you, Lilith war witch, to carry out this sentence. I authorize you to execute the traitor.”

  The tears wouldn’t come. The words did, though, stiff and formal. Finding refuge in the ceremony. “I will execute if I am able.”

  She deflated, and her gaze dropped. I cradled my right hand to my chest and watched the throb of blood against the gory hamburger and the edge of bone. He’d lopped it off with pruning shears. “They have my fingerbones.”

  “I’m sorry.” She sounded like she actually meant it.

  I waited until my voice was stronger. “We’ll only get one chance.”

  She nodded, and for the first time in our shared history, Anne Marie and I plotted against Tracy. My heart hardened with every beat of pain in my hand. They had my fingerbones, and they meant to use them.

  Chapter 51

  The hooded dark witches shoved Tracy through the door with bluster and ineffective hexes splashing around, to prove they tormented her as they did us, and she sank to her knees under the weight of the chains. Her eyes filled with tears.

  I felt nothing.

  The kettle gathered somewhere above us, their dirty magic intertwined and building toward a major spell. The fire demons, maybe. It felt familiar, with a heated static crackling through the air. I leaned my head against the wall, too tired to care. Too hurt to give a damn. Death comes eventually to us all, but a little quicker for her.

  Tracy scrabbled across the cement, trying to reach me. “We have to get out of here.”

  “And how,” Anne Marie said, caustic enough to strip paint from a car, “do you suggest we do that?”

  “They want Lilith’s spells. She can free us.”

  I focused on breathing, in and out. In and out. This too shall pass. Somewhere, far away, Leif waited. And somewhere far closer, Brandr suffered. He deserved more than dying for some foolish plan and a witch’s betrayal.

  “So this is your fault, Lilith.” Anne Marie’s words stung, cold and hateful, despite our plan. She probably meant it.

  Tracy moved closer. “Just tell them.”

  I shook my head, not bothering to open my eyes.

  “Tell me,” she whispered. “I’ll tell Rook.”

  My eyes opened. Rook. The same bastard who got to Sam and stole him away. The same witch who cut off my finger. I counted a dozen heartbeats before I dared speak, so I wouldn’t condemn her and spit hate at Rook at the same time. “Can’t.”

  She edged closer. “It doesn’t really matter, Lil. You already told them how to summon fire demons. It can’t get worse than that.”

  She had no idea, bless her heart. If she’d studied Rook’s book, she might have thought she knew how dark the world got, but there were levels and levels below whatever hell she deemed the worst.

  But the thought that she might have convinced me, once, sickened me. Even a few days ago, I would have sided with her over Anne Marie in a heartbeat. Smiling at her hurt every cell in my body. “Sure. Telling them how to summon fire demons sounds like something I would do.”

  A long pause, her face lost in darkness, then she spoke, so casual my stomach turned. “You didn’t?”

  “My mother never called me Lilith.”

  Movement, sudden and violent, exploded next to me. Anne Marie lurched up and tackled Tracy near the door, and I had to wonder where she found the strength. The new Morrigan spoke through gritted teeth, “Running to tell Sumo?”

  “Are you crazy?” Tracy struggled to throw her off. “Lilith, help me!”

  I forced my eyes all the way open, so I could see her face when she lied. “Is that why Rook wanted my fingerbones? Fire demons?”

  “No, for—” She paused, and only their ragged breathing broke the silence.

  I watched her, unable to summon any emotion stronger than disbelief. I should have hated her for what she’d done and all the lives she’d taken. I should have despised her, for helping Rook. For the demons lurking inside her. But she still wore Tracy’s face.

  The emotion fell from her expression as she looked between us. A stranger replaced my friend. Tracy lifted her hands and the chains dropped away from some hidden mechanism. She pulled off the fake iron collar and let it clang to the floor, shoving Anne Marie away.

  “Why?” It took effort to care, the weight of her betrayal heavier than the chains. “You saw what it did to Sumo.”

  “We were getting slaughtered,” she said, crouching near me. “We were never going to win. You did the complicated stuff, and you were so damn reckless. It was only a matter of time until you got killed, and then where would we have been?”

  “Don’t put this on her,” Anne Marie said, forcing herself up. “You chose this. That burden is yours alone.”

  Tracy concentrated on me, eyes wide. Wide enough that I could see the red ring around her iris. Demon-mad. “And you wouldn’t use our best weapons. Demons could have saved us in the third year, could have ended the war and saved thousands of lives, but you were too good for that.”

  “So Rook went after Sumo. And you.” I considered the growing list of reasons I hated Rook. Having nine fingers instead of ten topped the list. “When did he get you?”

  “The seventh year,” she said.

  The desperate urge to cry or curse almost overwhelmed me. Eight years. Eight years she lied to me. To her coven. To everyone. I watched her feet as she started pacing. But a few other mysteries solved themselves. “So you protected Sumo after I killed him.”

  “Oh yes,” she said, eyes shining. “He had protective glyphs in his clothes, to preserve him. They activated when you burned him.”

  Anger twisted my stomach and a storm of magic waited, hidden by the iron. There wasn’t enough magic in the world to destroy what needed to be destroyed, to quiet the rage in my heart. Traitor.

  But Anne Marie, at least, remembered the plan. Her voice grated on my frayed nerves, even knowing she was on my side. “So while they summon fire demons upstairs, you’re relegated to the basement. Sounds like you’re really important, Tracy.”

  “They need me to distract you.”

  “Distract two collared witches too tired to fight. Sure,” Anne Marie said. “But you stayed in our coven full-time, so obviously you weren’t too important. If Rook really needed you, your charade wouldn’t have lasted more than a month.”

  Tracy’s mouth puckered. “Rook relies on me to—”

  “To do the easy shit?” Anne Marie laughed. “Fetch the salt? Give him power? Are you sleeping with him, too? How could you be so stupid?”

  A hex caught Anne Marie full in the chest. She grunted before she collapsed, and I turned toward her, patting her. “Anne Marie?”

  Tracy laughed.

  Anne Marie stared at me as I curled the h
ex’s magic around my fingers, and I attempted a smile. From the look on her face, I failed. I faced Tracy, waiting for the hatred I felt toward Sam to transfer to her. “If she dies, your friends will be disappointed.”

  “She’ll serve her purpose, dead or alive,” Tracy said, checking her watch. “We’ll get enough out of her either way.”

  I recoiled, unable to reconcile that callousness with the friend I’d cherished. “Saints, Tracy—what the hell happened to you?”

  She shrugged, though her voice cracked. “You said it yourself, Lil—it’s a slippery slope. I started experimenting and then Rook…found me. They appreciated me. Needed me.”

  I held my breath, acutely aware of Anne Marie’s growing tension. I hoped she didn’t screw everything up. “They used you. Look what they made you do—hide how powerful you are.”

  “It’s not like that. You don’t know them.”

  “Do you know them?” I rolled to my knees, steeled myself to stand. Everything hurt. And her magic waited, slippery and thin, around my fingers. “How much time did you spend in their circle? Or do they keep you away, to protect your status in the Alliance?”

  Tracy stared around the room as though she’d never seen it. “They said I know too much.”

  “Oh, Tracy.” In the darkest cockles of my soul, I felt a touch of sympathy for her. She’d been more adrift than I’d ever imagined. Maybe if I’d called her, after the war, I would have seen it. Could have saved her. I pushed to my feet and swayed as I balanced against the heavy collar and the chains dragging down my arms. “He lied to you. You have to see that.”

  “No. Rook gave me a book, he said one day I would lead my own coven and—”

  I stepped closer. “That book—I found it at your house, in the kitchen. I looked at it, Tracy, and it’s been altered. The spells all backfire if they’re used.”

  “That’s a lie.” Her hands clenched. “You don’t know anything about that book.”

  “I have the real one, Tracy.” I reached out as shock settled over her expression and Anne Marie made an irritated noise. “I can show you the differences. I have all the books you’d ever need. We can start a new coven that will make the world cower in fear.”