“No, you are not in charge here!” I yelled, a mixture of fear and anger making the words shake.
You must embrace the darkness, Pamela. Only then will you understand.
“I will not! I am not that person!” I snapped as the magic swirled around me, tightening the circle until it brushed against my skin. Like burn marks, it hissed and crackled.
And then it rammed itself into me, swept me off my feet and threw me into the air. I couldn’t breathe. My eyes sought the sky and there was nothing but gray and black.
I hit the ground hard enough to knock what air I had left out of me. I lay there a moment, then pushed to my feet.
My body . . . hurt. Everywhere. Tears crept down my cheeks as I groaned, pushing first to my knees, then slower to my feet.
“Whatever you are, you’re a fucking asshole,” I whispered.
I am you.
Yeah, that was what I was afraid of. What if this was some sort of split personality? A side of me that would grow stronger until I couldn’t control it at all?
Sweet baby goddess, like I needed that added to my plate.
“I’ve had enough of this bullshit,” I whispered.
I sagged under the exhaustion of the day.
“Is it safe?”
I turned to see Oka creeping out from a chunk of trees. I nodded. She bounded back to me, Frost still on her back. He reached for me as they drew close and though I could barely lift him, I did, and he clung to me. That was all I needed to know the cost was worth it.
My shoulder ached where the rock had hit me, and I rolled it a bit as I pried Frost from me, so I could see into his eyes. “Hey, we’re safe. Everything is fine. Wasn’t that an adventure?”
“No. That was scary. I didn’t like all that dark stuff.” He looked up at me with those clear blue eyes, and I pulled him close, resting my chin on his head. Well, shit, talk about a perfect guilt trip I totally deserved.
“I’m sorry, Frost. I’m sorry I put you through that. But you know what?” I pulled him away again, so I could look down at him and wipe the tears from his cheeks. “You helped me save everyone.”
He smiled at that. A small one, but it was something.
“That’s a big deal. You’re a hero now,” I said, hoping I could build on that smile.
But instead, his smile fell, and the fear returned to his eyes. “What’s wrong with you?” he pointed to my shoulder.
“Just a bruise. It’s nothing.” I looked over to where he pointed. My cloak was torn, and the shoulder of my shirt was ripped away from the rock.
That wasn’t the shit part.
Beneath that tear, my skin was hard and gray. Stone.
Chapter Twenty-One
My shoulder had been hit by the chunk of gargoyle flesh and now my flesh was turning to stone. Just like the woman in the caravan.
And there was no one to help me counteract it, no witch. No mage. Nothing.
Well shit, there went the rest of my day.
I peeled off my cloak and got off the bike, setting Frost on the ground. “Stick close,” I said, and he gave me a solemn nod.
“Pamela, what can you do?” Oka asked, more than a little panic in her trembling voice.
“I don’t know. I can’t heal myself even if I had access to all my abilities. And this magic isn’t something I know how to fight.” I probed a finger over the shoulder. The stone now spread in both directions. “Even if we took my arm, it’s past that.”
I found myself just staring at the wound for a full twenty or thirty seconds, realizing what this meant. Stone. I was going to be turned into stone.
“Han Solo survived being stone, surely I can,” I quipped.
Frost and Oka both gave me a blank look and I shook my head. “Never mind.”
“We need to go back to the caravan. Now,” Oka said. “Mac will have some ideas. He’s older than both of us.”
She was right. I got back on the bike, put Frost in front of me again. “He’s not a mage, wizard, or witch.”
“Pamela, you need help and he’s all we’ve got,” she whispered. “I’m tied to your body as well as your soul; I feel the infection growing.”
“Well, that’s comforting.” I barely got my bad arm onto the handlebars. It was seizing up already.
I couldn’t argue with her, nor did I want to. She wasn’t wrong, but neither was I. I knew they wouldn’t be able to help.
I was, in short—screwed.
But maybe I’d saved the caravan. Maybe that witch would give up. Maybe I could make Richard enough fuel to get through the next hundred miles that was supposed to be clear.
Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.
As we rode the short distance back to the caravan I thought about Raven. He was the only one who could help me, and right now he was as bound as I was. Just touching me had been enough to shock us both when he’d tried.
I tried not to think about what would happen when I was stone.
How it would feel. Or more accurately, how it wouldn’t. There would be no warmth, no kiss from Mac, no small bundle of Oka cuddled against me at night.
We sped north, and quickly came to the ditch again. With it on our right, we continued north until we found the place, a small bridge, where the caravan had crossed. I cranked the bike’s speed with my good hand, fear driving me. If nothing else, I had to get Oka and Frost back to the caravan before I . . . froze up.
“There!” Oka yelled.
The tail end of the caravan came into view as we rounded a corner in the road.
The group came to a slow stop. But it was Mac who came flying toward us, his face tight with fear. Of course, he was picking up on my fear.
“What’s wrong? What happened?” he asked.
I showed him my shoulder, the wound having already doubled in size on the short journey.
“Well, that’s a fine pile of shit.” He shook his head. “Can you reverse it?”
I climbed off the bike and handed Frost off to Chris. She glared at me as she snatched the boy from me, and showered him in kisses, crushing him with her hug.
“I need help,” I said. “I can’t fix this.”
Everyone else was setting up camp, not realizing that I was being killed right in front of them. I knelt on the ground, holding my stone arm. It wasn’t spreading fast enough to make it a painless death, but it was going to kill me within the next few hours. Slower than a human taking an arrow—I suppose that was an upside to being a witch. If a slow, painful death could be looked at as an upside.
The weight of the arm pulled me down and the pain with it was strange, throbbing as if it were sucking on my heart.
Oka watched me with deep concern in her eyes and a fear that bounced to me even though I knew she was trying to hold it back. Mac knelt in front of me, lifted a hand and brushed it against my cheek. No words, but I could feel the sorrow flowing from them. They knew I was dying.
Oka looked at Mac. “You have to know a way to save her. You’ve been a familiar before. What can we do?”
He sighed and shook his head. “Cat, it isn’t that easy.”
Richard strode toward us, interrupting my two familiars. “Pamela, are you injured?”
“Listen, Dick, you’ll need a new tutelary. I have no idea where to tell you to search. If I did, I’d be calling her to fix my damned arm.” A dry cough escaped me as my lungs began to seize. Yeah, this was going to get ugly fast. “I’m sorry. We know that someone is after the kids, a witch. This was a series of calculated attacks to take me out. And it worked. Keep them safe. Go underground. Whatever you have to do until whoever’s behind this stops targeting you.” He knelt in front of me, and I clutched his shoulder with my good arm. “Oka and Mac will stay with you until you find someone new.”
Richard grabbed my shoulder, mimicking me, and we held each other up like that for a bit. “Pamela, is there nothing at all we can do?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I failed you.”
He frowned and shook his head. “You’ve kept us go
ing this far. We all owe you our lives. I wish there was something we could do to help.”
I laughed, but there was a bitterness in it that stole any joy from the moment. “Me too, Dick. Me too.”
Oka got in between us, a sense of determination rolling from her into me. “Enough. This ends now.”
“I believe you’re right, little cat. I’m sorry I couldn’t be with you longer, but I love you, and I thank you for—” I stopped talking when I noticed she was doing something strange. She’d closed her eyes and curled up into my lap. Her breath came in deep, even waves, and I reached for her automatically with my right hand. The one turning to stone. But my hand wasn’t stone anymore. I looked at it, flexing my fingers, opening and closing my fist. I turned my hand over and noticed the flesh was restored up my wrist, and beyond.
“It’s what she was willing to do, to save you,” Mac said.
“No,” I whispered as I scooped Oka up. But she was already stiff, her tiny body taking it on far faster than my larger one. Her body maintained its shape as her ears began to turn to stone. Her little nose turned gray. “No,” I screamed as my heart tore itself apart. I hugged her close to me as her fur turned hard and cold against my skin. I curled myself around her, falling to the ground. Darkness crept in at the edges of my vision, and I didn’t even fight it. I had nothing left to fight for.
Half of my soul had been turned to stone.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I woke slowly in the tent, hovering in that space between wakefulness and sleep for several minutes. The caravan was quiet in the early hours of the morning. In that emptiness, the dream came back to me in full force. The gargoyles. The wound. The stone. Oka. Everything. Only it wasn’t a dream. That had happened. Oka was gone and there wasn’t a fucking thing I could do about it.
There was a heavy arm across my middle and my connection to Mac was stronger than ever as he slept behind me. Holding me as Oka had always done in her own way.
My eyes felt as though they had lead weights on them. As if the burden of what had happened kept them closed. If I opened them it would make Oka’s death true. As long as I kept them closed, I wouldn’t have to face the fact that she wasn’t here.
It had to have been a dream. A terrible, terrible dream. When I opened my eyes, Oka would be there, ready to face our day together. I wouldn’t be alone.
“You’re a terrible fake sleeper.” Mac’s voice intruded on my denial, and I squeezed my eyes shut even harder, clutching the hard, tiny rock that was now Oka in front of me. Mac’s other arm slid under my neck and he spooned me, our clothes and blankets between us. But he was still warm. Still something that was not the cold, rough stone that was my little cat.
“Oka,” I breathed, as I could no longer fight the instinct to see. But I regretted it the second I saw her. My little cat. My familiar. Nothing more than a stone statue, curled up, sleeping eternally as though a silly garden decoration. Tears flowed freely from my eyes as I held her close.
“I’m sorry, I . . . she asked me what she could do, and I told her that she could take on your wounds as her own,” Mac said. I didn’t have it in me to be angry with him.
“If you hadn’t told her,” I hiccupped. “She would have figured it out for herself. She’s my heart . . .” I couldn’t say anything more. I couldn’t bring myself to speak about her in the past tense.
Mac said nothing, just held me tighter, and I let him, leaning into his strength. Not because I wasn’t strong, but because I hurt so badly. I might be alive, but the wound in me now was as horrible as the wound to my shoulder had been.
“She may not be dead,” Mac said, his words careful. “I don’t know how being turned to stone works, but there is a chance she is still alive.”
I nodded, my grief literally choking the life from me. “How?”
“Your connection to her should still be intact, but she’ll feel like she’s a long way away, I think.” He was careful about his word choice and kept his tone light. Hopeful.
The thought hadn’t even occurred to me that she could still be alive. Could she still be in the stone?
I laid my hand flat on her stone back and searched for her, reaching for that connection that I’d taken for granted the last three years. Desperation drove me, more so even than when I’d searched for Raven. She had to be there. Mac had given me a hope and I wanted to believe him.
For a split second, I thought I heard her voice, but it was there and gone so fast I wasn’t sure I wasn’t fooling myself. I let out a frustrated breath.
“I don’t know,” I finally answered. “I thought for a minute, but then she was gone.”
Mac sighed. “It’s never easy to lose a familiar, any more than we want to lose our charges. Doesn’t matter how often it happens.”
I rolled, burying my face into the crook of his neck as I sobbed. His arms were all that held me together, that and his quiet voice as he spoke softly to me. The words meant nothing, but he was doing his best to soothe me, and it worked a little. I wasn’t completely alone. I still had Mac.
I cried until my tears dried, not because there was no sorrow left, but because my body couldn’t give me any more. My eyes were hot and hurt, the lids swollen.
His body was warm and strong against my broken one. As much as I was used to my aimless, lonely existence, it felt good to be held and let someone else keep the shit together for a few minutes.
A head pushed into the tent, and Richard’s bearded face appeared.
“Pamela? We’ve cleared some space in the back of the truck for you. If you want to ride for a bit. We should keep moving,” he said.
He was right. Survival in this world meant you kept moving. One foot in front of the other no matter what happened. Until the absolute worst happened, and you died, and there was no need to do it anymore.
I looked up at him and made myself nod. “I’m not leaving her.” I knew that dead weight wasn’t acceptable in the trucks, but there was no way I was leaving her behind. I’d walk and carry her if I had to.
Richard’s eyes went to Oka, laying between me and Mac.
Mac came to the rescue, though. “I’ll help you get settled. Both of you.”
Richard nodded, and I burrowed deep into Mac’s chest again as I clung to Oka. He smelled of grass, and fire. He sat up and easily scooped me into his arms, my body still recovering from the battle with the gargoyles, Oka on my lap. He carried the two of us toward the truck.
There were others in the back of the truck, and they looked away from me. I didn’t blame them, I probably looked like shit with my puffy eyes and red blotchy face. There was no hiding that I’d been crying. I slid down with my back against the box rail of the truck.
I made myself keep my eyes open. Because even though Oka was gone, I was still here. The caravan was still here. I could almost hear her chastising me for not paying attention. What if we stumbled on another patch of dead ground and I was too out of it to notice? I’d be no better at helping than Sage at that point.
“Keep your eyes peeled,” I said to the people in the truck bed with me. “The ones coming after the kids believe I’m dead now.”
Mac jumped into the back of the truck and sat next to me, his arm curling over my shoulders. “You should sleep more. After this.” He shoved a granola bar into my hands.
I opened my mouth to respond but changed my mind and ripped open the granola bar. Stale, it was hardly gourmet, but I ate it anyway, struggling to get it down my grief-choked throat.
“She did what was needed, not just because she loved you, but because she understands her role as your familiar. She—and I—will always put our lives on the line for you first. You need to accept that.” Mac’s voice was loud, and it took me a moment to realize he was speaking directly to my mind.
“That isn’t helping right now. I can’t think about losing you too.”
“That is my job. You need protectors. Even if Faris sent me, I’m staying now because it’s where I belong. Where I am needed the most.”
He kissed the side of my head and once more I leaned into him.
That one word was such a perfect answer. Need . . . it was the reason I did most everything. Because I saw a need. It was the reason I was with this caravan, helping Richard, helping Chris and the kids. And it was the reason Oka had been turned to stone. Because there was a need to keep me alive, so I could keep more people alive.
I closed my eyes and for a few hours the real word faded, giving my aching heart the respite it so desperately needed.
I would do what was needed, no matter the cost. Oka’s sacrifice deserved that.
Even if it meant embracing the darkness.
*_*_*
The sun was warm on my face when I woke, but the golden color on the other side of my eyelids told me it was late in the day. Mac still held me curled tightly against his side. He had to be getting stiff.
Shit, Oka would have had a field day with that one.
I straightened and sat up reluctantly, holding on to Oka as tightly as ever.
“Morning, lovely witch,” he said. I looked around. The humans had dispersed. He saw me looking.
“We’ve slowed again, running low on fuel so most are walking.” He answered my unspoken question. “We’re at the back and the walkers are keeping between the lead truck and the Humvee.”
I nodded, unsure of my voice, so I cleared my throat, needing to take my thoughts away from Oka for a little while. “So, talk to me. Help me understand you a bit more. Who are you, Macmahon?”
“Well, that’s a loaded question isn’t it? Who are you, Pamela?” he parried with a light teasing tone.
“I don’t know.” It had never been truer than in that moment, without Oka sitting on my shoulder. I thought I had no tears left, but I was wrong. A single, silent drop escaped and fell beside me onto the truck bed.
“I don’t know about that,” he said, as he wiped away the track the tear left on my face with his thumb. “You’re damned powerful. Sexy. Smart-mouthed.” He thought for a moment. “You know what you are? You’re an ally. Someone anyone with half a brain would want at their back. Or maybe even their front.” He winked at me and if not for my grief, I knew I would have blushed. I managed a smile, weak, but there.
Aimless Witch (Questing Witch Series Book 1) Page 21
