Aimless Witch

by Shannon Mayer

  But that’s a whole other story. A rollercoaster of a story if you ask me.

  He ran his hand over the top of a dresser as if looking for dust before he glanced over his shoulder at me.

  “Rylee is worried about you, and that means I wanted to check in on you for her.”

  “Do . . . you talk to her still?” I asked.

  His smile softened. “Only in her dreams. Besides, I think a better question is what are you doing here?”

  I lifted both hands, palms up. “Faris, I’m asleep. I didn’t choose this.”

  “Didn’t you? Are you sure about that?” He tipped his head to one side, those blue eyes watching me intently.

  The question I asked before I fell asleep . . . about the storm. “Well, shit, I didn’t think you’d be the one to answer a wildly thrown out question like that. And seriously, of all the people who could have answered, why you?”

  He grinned. “Everyone is busy fighting to survive, Pam. Only the dead will answer you now.”

  I swallowed hard. “Are they . . . okay?” They, my family, Rylee, Liam, the babies.

  “They are alive,” he said. “If that’s what you mean by okay.”

  Relief flowed through me. Alive, I’d take it. I mean, I guess if one of them had died, they probably would have answered my sleep-laden question.

  He turned and folded his arms. “A storm that is potentially coming, that is what you are wondering about? Correct? And for the record, I hate early morning calls.”

  I pointed a finger at him. “The sunlight doesn’t bother you anymore.”

  “Regardless.”

  He was just being a prick, like usual.

  Okay, I had a chance to have some answers, and I was going to take it. One deep breath and I dove in. “Another witch saw a storm coming before her death and I can feel it too. But . . . it’s not weather. It’s something else.” I looked him straight in the face. “Can you help me? Can you see what it could be?”

  “I’m not a seer. Giselle would have been better to help you here,” he said.

  “No shit, Sherlock,” I said. “But Giselle already spoke with me in nothing but riddles. I was hoping for a straight answer.”

  He grinned. “You have gotten saucy, haven’t you?”

  There was a flicker in his eyes that I didn’t like because it reminded me just how dangerous he’d been when he was alive. And how much he liked women with steel spines and potty mouths. He took a step toward me, then another, and another.

  I refused to back up even though my heart picked up speed that I had no doubt he could hear with those damn vampire ears of his.

  He stopped, and we were eye to eye. Go me and my long legs, though at that moment, I was wishing I’d used them to back up instead of holding my ground.

  “This is my guess, Pamela, based on what I’ve been seeing amongst the dead. The storm is one that has been building since the world broke,” he said softly, his voice barely above a whisper, his charisma as a vampire rolling over me, loosening my limbs. “You can survive if you are brave enough, but not all will. You cannot save them all, Pamela. Stop believing lives won’t be lost.”

  I struggled to swallow as I stared into his icy blue eyes. “I can’t help it.”

  “If you do not let that belief go, you will die, and when the storm comes, it will swallow you whole. I don’t have to know what it is to know that if you go into any battle unfocused, you will die. Your cat will die. The entire caravan you are protecting will be wiped out. You need to find a way to harness all the magic in you.”

  His words were like a slap to the face, and I finally managed to take a deep breath and step back.

  All the laughter in him had faded. “Before the storm hits, there are always precursors. Signs of trouble that give rise to a final blow.”

  I blew out a breath. “Do multiple dead things on the road that have no reason to even exist count?”

  “Yes. What else?” His demeanor had changed, and his intensity shifted from me to the problem at hand.

  “A werewolf attack. Then an unprecedented horde of zombies,” I said.

  He nodded. “How many dead things have you found on the road?”

  “Three.”

  “Then expect a third attack. You know how this world is, all that coincidence and fate lining up.” He reached up and tapped my temple with two fingers. “Think, see the threads that tie it together. Surely Rylee taught you that much?”

  I flushed, but he was right. Three dead things with strange symbols, and now two attacks close together, which probably meant one more brutal attack to come . . . “I need to wake up.” I spun toward the door, ran out onto the upper landing and then down the stairs.

  “You’re welcome!” he called after me.

  I paused and looked up the stairs at him. “Thank you, Faris.”

  He winked and made a shooing motion with both hands. “I’ll see if I can send you some backup.”

  I stared at him. “Why?”

  “Because Rylee loves you. And I would hate to see her heart broken over your death.” His words made me realize he’d just been playing games with me. Showing off, as it were.

  “Again, thank you.”

  He nodded. “Look for the bear. But beware his mouth.”

  I turned and ran, muttering under my breath. He just had to give me a riddle at the end. Figures.

  I bolted out the front door of the farmhouse and the light shifted, changing from midday to middle of the night.

  I sat up hard and fast, jerking the sleeping bag off my legs as I pushed to my feet, still half asleep.

  I reached for the connection to the barrier around our camp, pouring energy into it to give it what strength I could. Oka rolled out of the bed and stood on her toes, back arched and hair standing on end, making her look like some kind of puffy orange chia pet.

  “What is it?” She let out a low growl. “I didn’t sense anything.”

  “I don’t know. Not exactly. Faris . . . he said there would be a third attack before the storm broke,” I said as I slowly turned, taking in the still-sleeping camp. I glanced upward to the sky.

  For once, the darkness in me was quiet, waiting. Not pushing. I didn’t know if that was worse. I suspected it knew the same thing I did.

  An attack would force my hand if things got ugly.

  The position of the moon and stars told me were close to the witching hour. Damn, that would be a perfect time for a blow against the camp when everyone slept the deepest.

  I put my fingers into my mouth and let out three sharp, ear-shattering whistles.

  Richard stumbled out of his tent first, a knife in one hand, his hair mussed over to one side, and his beard pushed in the opposite direction. He saw me and came straight to my side.

  “What’s wrong?” He stared around us, his eyes searching the darkness.

  I stretched my senses, trying to find a clue, something that would tell me what was coming. A precursor to a large “storm” could be anything. Goblins, more werewolves, a creature we hadn’t ever encountered.

  Anything but . . . no. I wasn’t even going to think of that species.

  “I don’t know—” A singular scream echoed through the camp, cutting me off.

  Richard and I ran together, Oka on our heels as we searched for the source.

  I wanted to believe it was just BJ going through her histrionics because of the noise I’d made, but I doubted it.

  Through the middle of the camp and to the far side we went.

  More shouts went up into the night, men and women, yelling.

  For me.

  “Pamela!”

  I slid to a stop at the far side of the camp inside the barrier I’d set up. A group of seven or eight members of the caravan stood there, weapons drawn.

  And there, just right on the other side of the barrier was a horde of motherfucking trolls.

  “Crap,” Oka snarled. “I hate trolls. They stink like shit and vomit.”

  I grimaced. Seriously, I would h
ave almost gladly fought anything else. They stunk, they were dirty fighters, and I’d been kept captive as a child by two of the nastiest trolls around, which left me hating and fearing them at the same time.

  One of the trolls in the front lowered his horn-covered head and ran forward with a bellow right into the barrier, thundering like a pissed off bull.

  The boom of the hit rippled up through the barrier, and into me, drawing my strength to hold the protection against the trolls. My strength dropped, and my heart picked up as my body fought to feed the barrier.

  I sucked in a slow breath. Somehow, they knew the barrier was connected to me. But . . . only a witch would be able to see this spell.

  “Sage?” I called.

  “I am here.” She hurried to my side, the sound of her bracelets and beads preceding her.

  “They know the barrier is tied to me even though we used your magic,” I said softly, for her ears only. It wasn’t that I trusted her so much as I needed to see her reaction. Her mouth dropped open and her eyes went wide.

  Yeah, she was like an open book. “That could kill you!”

  “Yes, which means I’m going to have to drop the barrier at some point in order for us to survive.”

  The members of the caravan around us began to whisper. Did they doubt me? I shook my head. This was not the time for that.

  As if following Sage’s thought process, Richard added a question. “Is it possible we could negotiate with them?”

  We watched the hideous trolls beat themselves against an invisible shield for a moment and I gritted my teeth against the drain of every blow.

  I flexed my hands into fists. The darkness in me whispered that I could kill all the trolls.

  I knew I could.

  But I’d known half-trolls that were good. Kind of. I had to offer them a chance at least. “I don’t know. Let me talk to them.”

  Richard’s right-hand man, Tristan, barked a laugh. “Talk? To the trolls? You can’t reason with such mindless creatures. Even Stefan knows that!”

  I found it interesting he said Stefan’s name. Very interesting.

  “Maybe not,” I said. “But I may be able to discover their purpose. And I guarantee, they aren’t mindless. Right bastards, yes, but not mindless.”

  Someone within the group muttered just loud enough for me to hear, “All supernaturals should be killed on sight.”

  Richard stiffened, and his voice rang out over the group. “If I find out who said that, you’re out of the caravan.”

  I turned from him because there were bigger fish to fry.

  “Sage,” I said, “make sure the children are kept safe. Use your barrier, make it smaller if you have to, but put them in it.”

  She nodded, turned and hurried back to the center of the camp.

  Tristan grabbed my arm and spun me to face him. “Why would you need a second barrier? Unless you’re as weak as her?” He tipped his head toward Sage’s retreating figure.

  I yanked my arm from his hand. “Because, you clodhopping fool, we don’t know who is helping the trolls. They are not mindless. But they also don’t do things without being paid. They would not have come here without direction. If there is another witch involved, this is going to get ugly fast.”

  This was the third attack Faris had warned me of, I was sure of it.

  “So you can’t protect us?” His eyes narrowed, and I glared at him.

  “I’ll protect those who deserve it,” I snapped. “You’re on your own, asshole.”

  I pushed past him, closing the distance between me and the head-ramming trolls. The barrier kept them out, but not their stench. I crinkled my nose and fought not to gag on the heavy odor of rank sweat, shit, and something I couldn’t and didn’t want to put my finger on. Acrid, the scent was, for lack of a better word—tangy.

  The troll in front of the others was bigger than any of the men in our group, standing at least eight feet tall. Thank the gods he hadn’t realized the barrier was a foot shorter than him. He wasn’t muscular, just big. As in fat. Green-skinned with cloudy gray eyes, and a mouth that hung down from his face like some kind of elephant trunk. It swayed side to side and he kept stroking it as if it were . . . enjoyable. I fought a shudder.

  I drew a careful breath and then the air whooshed out of me as a flash of white fur dashed between the trees behind the trolls. I blinked, and the white flash was gone. But for just a second, I’d been sure it was a bear.

  A big, white bear.

  “Look for the bear. But beware his mouth.”

  I made myself look at the leader of the troll troop and not toward the flash of white here and there.

  “Hey, fat boy,” I said, but he didn’t even look at me. Just kept sliding his hands up and down that leathery trunk of his. “Hey! Do that on your own time. I’m talking to you,” I snapped the words, enough to get his attention.

  Those cloudy eyes swung my way finally.

  “Wanderer. We don’t want trouble.” His words slurred past loose flapping lips. “We want the kids. Give them, we’ll let you live.”

  I put my hands on my hips, threw my head back and laughed at him. “I was born at night, but not last night, you dumb fuck.” The members of the caravan slid away from me. I kept my eyes on the troll. “You’ll kill every human here, rape the women, and roast the leftovers for breakfast if I let you in.”

  He grinned. “Smart witch.”

  I drew a breath. “But that means you have to come through me first.”

  The darkness in me laughed as I let it rise through me. My stomach twisted as the sensation of a slithering beast inside me increased exponentially.

  The grin on the troll’s face fell.

  The magic against my skin made my hair stand on end, floating the long blond strands into the air.

  “You know who I am?” I asked in a soft voice I knew they could hear. They shivered, and their battering of the barrier slowed.

  Anger and the darkness in me swelled. They were here to kill people I knew as family.

  I let that fury spill upward and with it came a connection to the darkest of dark in my heart.

  “Pam,” Oka said. “Your hair is floating.”

  “I know,” I said softly. The power rose around me like hot air, lifting my cloak and hair so they hovered around me. “I’m going to kill them all, Oka. I’m going to bathe in their blood.”

  She let out a low growl. “Pamela, that is dark even for you.”

  I saw nothing but the trolls in front of me, cut open, their bellies spilling wide as I split them like ripe fruit.

  The darkness swelled like a wave and a very tiny part of me tried to pull back, to tell me this was a bad idea. A very bad idea.

  But it was too late. I’d opened the gate to that magic and it would not be held back.

  Years of struggling to survive, struggling to find my way, my magic stripped from me, my family gone, those I cared for dead.

  I was not going there again.

  Above us, clouds gathered at a speed that was anything but natural as I called them to me. “Do you know who I am?” I asked the trolls a second time.

  They stared at me as words poured from my mouth. “I was forged in fire by the Blood of the Lost. Stood on the blood plains and battled demons for possession of this world until there was nothing left in me. Endured back to back with the Destroyer as she tore this world apart to save it. And I am damn well positive that a piss-poor troop of trolls is not stopping me now.”

  The barrier shimmered, and I put a single finger on it. In order to face them, the barrier had to come down.

  “Richard. Pull everyone to the center of the camp. Get in the trucks and wait for my signal.”

  “Pamela, we can help you,” he said, and I turned to him, just my face. He paled, and I wondered what he saw. “Your eyes are like flames.”

  A smile slid over my face and I felt the harshness of it, and he paled further. “Because I’m about to show them what I’ve been holding back.”

 
Chapter Sixteen

  The barrier I’d created with Sage’s power shimmered in front of me as Richard and the other members of the caravan ran to do as I’d told them. To take cover.

  To let me do the killing.

  I held a hand out to my side. “Oka, now.”

  She let out a long howl as only a house cat can, that grew into a roar as she shifted into her tiger form. Her bellow shook the air, and several of the trolls stumbled backward. If I could make them run, all the better.

  No, we will kill them all, and take their power for our own.

  Again, behind them came that flash of white fur, the rounded curve of a bear’s back.

  Whoever it was, was on their own. Even if Faris had sent him. I didn’t need the help.

  I locked eyes with Elephant Nose. “Any last words?”

  He slid his hands up and down his nose rapidly as he spoke. “My mistress is going to enjoy killing you. Maybe she’ll let me have you as a pet, you bossy bitch.”

  Oka roared at my side and swiped at the dirt with a massive paw. “I’m going to tear his nose off and beat him to death with it!”

  I laughed. “If I don’t first.”

  “It’s on,” she said, and I think that more than anything unnerved the trolls. We’d just made a game of killing them and I knew why. The darkness seeped from me into Oka. I saw it in her eyes.

  Reservations gone, this was going to be a literal bloodbath, and a small part of me knew it was not going to be what I thought.

  The trolls didn’t look like they appreciated that.

  I reached out and put my hand flat against the barrier. I drew my strength from it, pulling it back into my body until there was nothing but shimmering dust between us.

  There was a moment where I just held my ground, taking in the stillness, checking myself, feeling the darkness slither through me, the power so different than my other magic.

  I flexed my fingers, as if I could take the reins of this magic . . . and it skittered away from me, laughter echoing through my mind.

  It cannot be controlled, but it must be embraced. You must accept it.