Bitter Night: A Horngate Witches Book

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  Both Granada and Elm were eerily quiet. The repulsion spells that kept curious people from investigating past the dead end had been expanded, gently pushing traffic well away from the entrance to the Conclave road. Those same spells had pushed away the residents as well. Max nodded. She’d timed it so they’d likely be one of the last to arrive and no one would see the extra car crossing.

  Max lifted her foot off the brake and onto the gas. The two vehicles crept forward and up over the crumbling curb. Max drove between the myrtles and through the sign. For a moment there was a grinding sound as the signpost pushed back. Then suddenly it folded gently to the ground. Max drove over it and past a small PROTECTED HABITAT SIGN.

  Just beyond, the air turned thick as syrup and everything outside the Tahoe runneled together like melting wax. Forces moved against Max. They bumbled, large and blind. They bulled into her chest and head and nuzzled against her with all the grace of an angry elephant.

  The pressure ground against her, loosened a moment, then clamped hard. The breath exploded from her lungs. She gagged and coughed, still pressing firmly on the gas. The Tahoe rolled relentlessly forward, the engine revving loudly. The magic of the veil held it to a slow crawl. Inside the Tahoe, the air around Max hardened until she felt as if she were caught in a block of glass.

  She couldn’t breathe; she couldn’t move. Aching pain swelled in her muscles. Her body convulsed, her teeth grinding together. Her fingers clenched on the steering wheel. The resin cracked under her grip.

  Almost there ΓǪ

  She tipped her head back against the headrest, every muscle rigid. She coaxed herself, C’mon ...Anytime now.

  Then suddenly she felt a give.

  The spells that Giselle had carved deep into her flesh and bone more than twenty years before shivered and woke. A tornado of sparks roared through her. Max gasped, feeling tendrils of magic uncoil from beneath her skin. They plunged through the veil like sturdy roots. Instantly the pressure began to subside. She drew a deep breath, blinking away the muzzy film gauzing her eyes. She swiped at the trickle beneath her nose and frowned at the blood on the back of her hand.

  Fucking hell. If the veil hadn’t been thinned, she’d have probably gone unconscious. The lock-spell was supposed to work better than that. And when had it ever? She jeered at herself silently, licking her blood from her skin.

  She eased the Tahoe onto the gravel road just ahead, checking her rearview to see how Akemi and Giselle fared. They were right behind her. Giselle had opened a slit in the veil to allow them to pass through. Max’s lock-spell should have done something similar for her. But it wasn’t that easy. It never activated until she was at least half-dead. Which, according to Giselle, was because of Max’s bad attitude. “It’s your witchblood. It gives your stubbornness muscle. You can will the spells stronger if you want, and you can will them not to work. Look at the healing spells. They work instantly because you are so completely determined to stay alive to kill me. All you have to do to make the other spells work just as well is accept being a Shadowblade’accept that this is your life now and you can never go back.”

  All she had to do ...Max shook her head sharply. “Bet that’s what Mengele said to his victims, too,” she muttered aloud, then grimaced. Wasn’t talking to yourself a sure sign of insanity? But then, she didn’t really have anyone else she wanted to talk to about Giselle.

  Abruptly she pressed down on the gas. The Tahoe fishtailed and gravel shot into the air. Max eased up slightly, straightening up and steering the Tahoe down the steep road. Trees crowded close’mostly juniper and scrub oak with scraggly bushes in between.

  She reached the turnoff for the box canyon where the parking was and the trail up to the Conclave began. The road was made of stone, each square of gray rock etched with centuries-old magical symbols. The forest that rose up around her now was a bizarre mix of trees that had no business growing in San Diego.

  The turnout that Max had been looking for was just where she remembered from her only other visit to the Sagrado. It was a shadowed cleft in the canyon wall bracketed by two juts of rock dotted with clumps of dried grass and scavenger bushes. Max backed in, maneuvering until the Tahoe was well under the trees. She got out, pulling her backpack with her and leaving her cell phone on the console. There were no signals inside the veil. She hid her keys in the crook of a knobby oak and launched herself up the canyon wall. The moon was hidden by a bank of clouds that hunched low in the east, making it easier for Max to see. She reached the top of the ridge and found a deer track through the trees. She sprinted along it.

  Near the Conclave butte, the path veered around the edge of a rocky ravine. Tall pines grew up out of a thicket of scrub. She edged down, rocks sliding beneath her feet. At the bottom of the ravine, she chose a pine that couldn’t be seen from above. From her backpack she pulled a spool of fluorocarbon fishing line. She unwound several feet and tossed the spool high over a branch. It looped over and fell back to the ground. Max slipped off her backpack and knotted the end of the line around the top loop and snapped the spool off the other end before tucking it back inside the pack. She stepped out of her hiking boots and shoved them inside, then quickly drew the pack up until it was snug against the limb. Anyone looking would have a hard time seeing either the line or the pack. She tied off the other end around the trunk of the tree, then climbed back out of the ravine.

  At the top, she stopped to sniff the air. The cocktail stench of the city had faded only slightly inside the veil, making it nearly impossible to smell danger. Not that she needed to. She could feel it swallowing her. Its teeth slid along her skin, its breath licked her like flames. Swiftly she began to run again, this time angling back just east of where she’d concealed her Tahoe.

  She made good time, and Akemi had driven very slowly. Max crouched in the trees as the Chevy truck wound nearer to her. When it curved around the bend, Max streaked across the ground and vaulted into the open rear window of the crew cab.

  “Any trouble?” Giselle asked.

  Max raked her fingers through her short cap of blond hair, pulling out a twig and a couple of pine needles. “No.”

  “But you think there will be.”

  “You don’t?”

  Giselle said nothing for a long moment, and Max didn’t think she was going to answer. Then the witch said, “I trust your instincts.”

  Max felt herself recoil. She didn’t want Giselle to trust her. She wanted the witch-bitch to fear her. She wanted her to always be looking over her shoulder, wondering when Max would finally break her chains and rip her head off.

  “You trust my instincts, but still we’re going to walk into the fire.” Magic itched at her, raking steel claws down her nerves. Her compulsion spells prodded at her to carry Giselle off somewhere safe. Max fought to keep from leaping over the seat and grabbing the wheel.

  “There is no choice.”

  “How am I supposed to keep you in one piece if you just bumble stupidly into trouble?”

  “You will do what you do best, same as always,” Giselle said with a dismissive wave of her fingers. Then her voice hardened. “If the war my mother foresaw has finally begun, then we have to know what the rest of the covens are going to do. It’s the only way Horngate will survive.” She turned her head, her delicate profile coldly austere. “Understand, Max. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep Horngate safe. That means I sometimes have to risk myself. This isn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last. So shut up for once and do as you’re told.”

  “Yeah, well, next time you decide to throw yourself under a bus, do me a favor and loosen up the compulsion spells so I don’t have to die with you.”

  “But I don’t plan to die. You will protect me. I have total faith in you.”

  “Bite me,” Max said, her fingers curling into claws, her stomach clenching tight. The pain of the compulsion spells was harder to ignore than ordinary, physical pain, and it hurt far worse. Probably because she’d got so good at managing agony, Gisell
e had felt compelled to up the ante so that Max couldn’t ignore it.

  But she could manage this, too.

  She drew a breath and forced her muscles to relax. For years she’d endured pain and torture that no ordinary human could ever have survived. Time after time, she’d lain on Giselle’s altar while the witch pushed her to the brink of death and insanity, until Max inevitably broke and Giselle was free to etch her spells into Max’s flesh, bone, and soul. Each time Giselle was driven to greater effort. Each time it took longer and more pain for Max to break. She’d learned to embrace the agony, to savor its mouth-full-of-salt corrosion and welcome its hot, caustic touch seeping through her entrails and burning through her heart. She began to draw a perverse strength from it. The pain reminded her of who she was. And so long as she remained so, she could still get revenge on Giselle. For that nebulous promise, Max could suffer anything. Even if sometimes anything was more horrifying and painful than she could imagine. And Max had a hell of an imagination. But then, so did Giselle.

  Now she let the pain ripple through her. A tremor ran down her neck to her heels as her body perverted the hurt to certain pleasure. Max smiled, triumph burning hot in her gut. Each time she accepted the pain, she grew stronger, and Giselle had to work harder to break her.

  Max straightened up, looking through the windshield. Ahead was a lush blackberry-bramble wall. Like all the other plants that shouldn’t have existed inside the veil, it was fed by springs induced to the surface by magic. The road disappeared through a notch wide enough for only a single vehicle. There were no guards that Max could see.

  Akemi drove through slowly. The parking lot was full of expensive cars, including a half dozen limos. Shadowblades stood about like stiff soldiers, mostly watching each other suspiciously, though a few talked together and a handful played cards on the hood of a Jaguar. They all turned to watch Akemi’s truck enter.

  “Pull around and back into that spot over there,” Max said. It wasn’t really a space. The back bumper of a yellow Hummer hung well into it. Akemi would have to shove her truck into the bramble. Which meant that anyone attacking her would likely come from the front or over the Hummer. It also gave her a straight run at the entrance or thorny back exit.

  The bramble gave way grudgingly, scraping the side of the truck viciously. Akemi gunned the engine, her knobby off-road tires gripping the ground hard. The truck lunged backward until the bed was overhung with brambles and the hood was half-covered.

  Akemi glanced in the rearview mirror at Max. “You owe me a paint job.”

  “I’m good for it,” Max said, her mouth stretching in a pirate’s grin.

  She crawled over to the other door and let herself out and walked to the front of the truck. The other Shadowblades continued to watch the newcomers. Max recognized one or two and nodded at them. Her scalp prickled. All around her swelled the scent of magic. It was almost smothering in its intensity.

  “I thought there would be someone guarding the entrance,” Akemi said in a quiet voice.

  “There is,” Giselle said. “Just hope you don’t ever see them. It will be the last thing you do. You won’t get out the entrance until the Conclave releases and I come back for you. If something happens, try going over the bramble wall. You might have a chance, then.”

  “Nothing like that guarded the place last time,” Max said.

  “Last time the Guardians didn’t call us here. The Sagrado belongs to no witch. It lies inside Selange’s territory, but it belongs to the Guardians. They have rules and they send minions to enforce them. Tonight’who knows what creatures stand watch. Be warned. Whatever they are, they will offer no mercy if you attempt to leave before the Conclave ends. It is the law.”

  Akemi had gone pale at the the word Guardians. She swallowed and nodded.

  “We’re going to be late. Max, let’s go.” Giselle strode toward the entrance. Max overtook her and walked in front of her.

  “There’s no danger here,” Giselle said. “The Guardians won’t permit it.”

  “What if they can’t stop it?” Max muttered, and prowled ahead.

  “They are the reason we are here tonight. They will not permit any of us to come to harm.”

  Max stopped, pivoting to stare into Giselle’s green eyes. “And what if they want to hurt you?”

  Giselle’s brow pinched. “Why would they?”

  “Hell if I know. You know more about them than I do. But given what’s happened in the past couple of days, I don’t trust anybody tonight.”

  “Very well,” Giselle said.

  As if Max needed her permission.

  They walked back out of the parking area. The feeling of the magic swelled, sliding over Max’s skin like razor-edged gossamer. She heard breathing’deep, slow, rasping sounds like the grinding of rocks beneath a glacier. In the grass beside the blackberry-bramble wall was a matted spot the size of Akemi’s truck. There was a snorting sound and the grass fluttered on an invisible wind. Something was sitting there.

  Above there was a flapping sound. Max’s head jerked up. She saw nothing but the stirring of wind across the leaves. A smell like rotting vegetation and carrion drifted sluggishly through the air. A sudden sweep of motion burst past Max’s head, lifting her hair. There was a low, laughing sound, feminine and hungry.

  Max swung around, tracing the invisible flight of the creature through its smell and the curling of the air behind it.

  “Forget it. They aren’t going to bother us. We need to get up to the Conclave,” Giselle said.

  Though Max wasn’t convinced, there was little point picking a fight with invisible monsters. Instead she turned back up the mossy path and broke into a slow jog. Behind her, Giselle followed suit. The trail wound back and forth in wide switchbacks, climbing steeply up the butte through the thick trees and underbrush. Max let her instincts take over. Her senses reached out like floodwaters, pushing into every nook and crevice and tracing every edge of the night. Her ears snared every sound, her nose sifted myriad scents, and her skin logged every shifting caress of the air. She sank down into the sensations, her body coiled to strike.

  Halfway up the butte she stopped short. Giselle came up to stand beside her. Max turned her head to the side, her eyes closed. She’d never smelled magic quite like it. It smelled of glacier ice and mountain rain with an acid quality that warned of fire, stone, and steel. It crossed the path and circled to the left and the right around the shoulders of the slope.

  “What is it?” Giselle asked.

  “Magic’but not Uncanny or Divine. It’s a boundary and very powerful. It wasn’t here before.”

  “It’s one of the Conclave spell circles. There are three. As the last witch crosses, each will close and keep anybody else out.”

  “And everybody in,” Max murmured. Would her lock-spell be strong enough to get her out if necessary?

  Giselle took Max’s hand. The witch’s fingers were warm and strong and fine-boned. She stepped forward, pulling Max with her. The two passed through a paper-thin thickening of the air. It was frigid cold. The chill flashed through Max, crystallizing in her throat. Then they were through. She drew a breath of the warm night air, shaking off Giselle’s hand.

  Movement caught her attention. She spun. White vines of mist rose out of the ground and twisted into the air, curling and coiling together in a ghostly filigree filled with demonic faces. As they watched, the weaving grew into a dense barrier. It sounded dry, like the rubbing of a snake’s body against itself. The wall marched toward them, swallowing the downhill ground.

  “Keep moving. You don’t want to let it touch you,” Giselle warned, her shoulder rubbing against Max’s as she glanced over her shoulder.

  The moon had broken free of the clouds and hung shining and brilliant in the sky when they crested the top of the butte. The dapples of moonlight blistered Max’s exposed skin, which healed and blistered again as she passed in and out of the shadows. She suppressed the urge to scratch the maddening healing itch. The path cur
ved around to the right and coiled completely around the flat hilltop before straightening to cross a flat greensward of emerald grass. Here the path changed to flat amethyst tiles.

  Max strode unflinchingly from the protection of the trees. Her vision clouded as her eyes bubbled. She could hear a faint sizzling sound as her skin cooked. The pain rippled over her and wrapped her in a pulsing cocoon. She shook herself, embracing the hurt. It was hers. It was good.

  The greensward swept away on either side of the path, surrounding a great stone hulk of a building that looked like an old mission. The front was cornered by a domed tower on the left and a shorter bell-tower on the right. Max guessed Spanish monks had built it’or witches masquerading as monks.

  Flowering jasmine hung on a leafy curtain over the rough-hewn stone, and creeping masses of rosemary humped around the foot of the ancient church, the pungent stems sprinkled with tiny blue flowers. There were no doors or glass in the arched openings that ran down the length of the building. Instead they were filled with the flickering glow of candlelight. The strong odors of herbs and oils drifted through the empty windows, mixing with the heavy scent of the flowers, smog, and swirling magic. The miasma was so strong that Max could hardly detect the odors of the people within. She knew a crowd was inside’easily three or four hundred people.

  Max stopped suddenly, her back stiffening. She swiveled her head. They were being watched.

  6

  ALEXANDER HAD BEGUN TO WONDER IF MAX AND her witch were coming to the Conclave after all. Maybe they thought they could run from Selange. He did not know whether to be glad of it or not. He was more than a little intrigued by Max. She had saved the Hag and forged a blood bond with the Divine creature. It bordered on insane, or criminally stupid. So did leaving him alive. He did not think she was either. So why?

  The questions itched. He knew he would get his answers eventually. Once he won the night’s challenge, Selange would pry the answers out of Max. His jaw hardened. It did not matter if she gave the information freely. Selange would never believe any of it without torture. His witch trusted it better than other means of questioning. After, Max might be useless. Or dead.