“Lead the way,” I say to her. “We’ve got a wicked witch to kill.”
11
THE HAUNTED
We’ve been traipsing through the woods for what feels like hours when Bex finally holds up a hand, gesturing for us to stop. There’s a break in the trees up ahead with what looks like a clearing beyond, but in the low light of dusk, I can’t be sure.
“Once we breach that tree line, we’re going to need to move fast. I’ll take lead, Kara and Delaney will flank both sides, and Mad will bring up the rear,” Bex says. “Gray, you and Runner need to stay within our circle at all times.”
“You make it sound like she’s got an army out there, just waiting for us,” Runner says.
“Worse,” Kara says. “An army-on-demand.”
“Trivia has wards that trigger when another Counterfeit, especially a witch, crosses the boundary she’s set around her property,” Delaney explains.
“But, they’re everywhere,” I say, confused. “Counterfeits, I mean. Every human town has that parallel world running beside it, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t this boundary get crossed all the time?”
Bex nods. “But nobody goes to see Trivia unless it’s to get into more trouble than they’re already bringing with them.”
“She’s paranoid. And she should be,” Kara mutters.
“The last time we crossed onto Trivia’s property, it was…” Delaney shudders at the memory. “Overwhelming.”
“It was an ambush, and we weren’t prepared,” Kara continues. “We aren’t going to make that mistake again. We’re ready.” As she speaks, her eyes take on that familiar glow. Whatever they did in The Boneyard clearly worked, because suddenly the air is filled with the scent of incense and freshly dug soil, and I can’t help but feel that we’re preparing for Trivia’s burial. That she’s already dead and she just doesn’t know it.
“But are we ready?” Runner asks, his voice an octave higher than normal. “Because I don’t feel ready. I feel one-hundred percent not ready.”
Before we’d left Nico’s he’d given us a few additional weapons to take with us with the understanding that they probably wouldn’t do much good, but that they were better than going in empty-handed. Runner pulls one of them now, an azure dagger, and though it’s small and efficient, it looks clumsy in his grip.
“Just don’t leave our circle, and use that if you have to,” Bex says, gesturing to his dagger, “but hopefully they won’t get that close to you.”
“And who or what are they, this army, specifically?” I ask, pulling a dagger of my own. The diamond blade catches the tiny bit of light that manages to sift through the leaves above us, and it feels good to hold a weapon again.
“The Haunted,” Delaney says, her fingertips sparking. “The lost souls she’s gathered through the years. Usually, those that have come to her for some sort of help, or favor. When they couldn’t pay her steep price, they were… recruited…”
“Enslaved,” Kara interjects.
“She owns them,” Bex says. “And they have to do her bidding. And Trivia’s bidding is to keep Counterfeits who try to get to her uninvited from reaching her doorstep by whatever means necessary.”
“We’re ready for them now,” Mad says, and though there’s steel in her words, she can’t fully keep the sadness at bay. “It won’t be like last time.”
Runner peers through the trees. “There’s nothing out there, though. I don’t see a house, or a castle or any of the mansions you guys seem to live in. I see grass.”
“Another layer of security,” Mad says. “Invisibility wards.”
“We won’t be able to bring them down until we’re closer,” Delaney says. “And we’ll most likely have the Haunted chasing us.”
“That’s why Bex and I will hold them off, while Mad and Delaney do the damn thing,” Kara says.
“We move fast, stay close, and keep the circle tight,” Bex says. “Trivia’s house is two hundred feet ahead, just past the crossroads. If we’re lucky, we won’t run into the Haunted until we’re at least halfway across the clearing. Ready?”
We get into position, with me and Runner in the center of a witch’s circle, and in unison, we step out from the protection of the trees and into the clearing. There is nothing to hide us, not even a cloud across the moon. It might as well be a spotlight on our position.
We make it five steps before our luck runs out.
“Runner, get ready,” I say as mist begins to seep from the ground. It rises and swirls, eerie in the silvered moonlight.
He holds up his dagger in his trembling hand. “What good am I with this, Gray? I’m not a fighter, I’m a driver!”
“Just don’t cut me with it.”
“Is it poisoned?” he asks, his voice hushed.
“No offense, but you don’t get entrusted with poisoned daggers,” I respond. “It just hurts.”
The mist is so thick now it’s hard to see the tree line not a dozen feet behind us. Mad points toward the empty stretch of grass ahead of us. “Keep your weapons up and keep going. We won’t leave you unprotected.”
Her hands are up in a defensive position, and the sparks from her fingertips have turned blue. It’s the same with the others. It would be pretty if it weren’t so terrifying.
From somewhere in the distance, a terrible, low moan cuts through the swishing of the grass against our feet. It’s joined by another, and another, until it becomes roaring and oppressive and I have to shout at Runner to move his feet.
Ahead, the mist begins to sway and separate, and shadows become visible in the ever-thickening clouds. They’re not moving toward us, they’re waiting for us to come to them. In all my years of working for Lilah, I’d never hesitated in running toward a fight, but there is something about the sounds and the shapes in the darkness that makes my black blood run cold and my anxiety spike.
The mist finally parts, and I realize that I wasn’t nearly scared enough. Dozens of people stand waiting for us. They don’t wear uniforms, or armor, or even hold weapons. They are motionless, thin and wasting away, their jaws dropped so low as to appear unhinged, and their eyes are blank. Soulless. That’s the word that hits me, and that’s the only word that fits. This is what it looks like when you have your soul ripped from your body.
Lucifer owns me. I had assumed he owns my soul, but I don’t resemble the members of this army and I don’t know why. Perhaps because he needs me to be more than a mindless drone. When I complete whatever missions I have left for him, will he turn me into one of these wretched husks?
In unison, the Haunted scream into the sky, and Kara yells, “Now!”
The world goes blindingly bright as pulses of blue light fly from the fingertips of Bex, Kara, and Delaney. Mad comes up behind us and shoves us forward. “Go go go!”
Their magic slices through the Haunted and the first line of Trivia’s dead soldiers go flying through the air, screeching. I grab Runner and drag him forward behind our battering ram of witchy magic. I can’t see. I can barely move, but I can feel the Haunted pressing toward us, their rage and anger coming off of them in waves.
A crush of them move forward, and our circle is ripped apart. Each witch fights for themselves, and I see Bex levitate two of the Haunted while Kara knocks back three more. Delaney shrieks with rage and effort, pushing back a dozen of Trivia’s army and forcing a path for us.
I don’t wait for Mad to tell me this time. I just go, dagger raised and ready. And they come for us, never stopping. I slash with my blade, and to his credit, Runner does too. I manage to get one of the Haunted across the neck, and it falls, its wound bloodless and its cracked skin crumbling to dust as it hits the ground.
“Gray, look out!” Runner yells, and I spin just in time to see three of the Haunted coming for me, eyes empty and jaws snapping. I manage to take one out, but the other two swarm me and drive me to the ground and they are strong.
They descend upon me, and I struggle to protect myself from a blow or a bite, and then I realize that they don’t mea
n to make this quick. They mean to tear me apart. They grab my arms and legs and they’re going to snap my bones from the sockets when one and then the other go stiff and silent. They fall on top of me, crumbling to dust like the others, and Runner looms over me with his azure dagger held high.
“I got them,” he mumbles in a daze. Then with more confidence, “I got them!”
The mist glows with that otherworldly blue light as Bex, Kara, Mad, and Delaney throw spell after spell, pounding the Haunted army back and away from us, but there are too many of them. We’re going to have to run.
“Get to the crossroads!” Bex says as she races past us, taking Haunted after Haunted out as she goes, and I snag Runner’s sleeve and pull him along behind her. Once again, Kara and Delaney flank us, and their faces are strained with the effort of holding back the soulless army. Mad…
Where’s Mad?
I look back to see that a Haunted has her by the ankle, and she shrieks as she’s dragged back toward a mob of Trivia’s soldiers.
I run for her, snagging her hand before she’s swallowed by the horde.
“Don’t let me go,” she begs, and I drop my dagger to grip her with two hands.
The others aren’t coming to help. I can hear them calling to one another, and they are being overwhelmed. Cries of “behind you!” and “there are too many!” and “I can’t stop them!” ring out over the misty field, and we are about to be overrun. Runner bellows with pain, and the sound cuts me to my core.
The Haunted are breathing down my neck and I am about to be consumed, so I focus on Mad. “I won’t let you go,” I say, even as they try to pull us apart, to tear her apart.
We lock eyes, and I see hers begin to glow the same shade of blue as the magic that spills from her fingertips. “Not again,” she growls, and her voice sends a shiver down my spine. Her hands grow hot in my own, and my nerve endings begin to sizzle and my bones rattle in my body. Something is happening and I can’t… I can’t hold on…
She is pulled from my grasp and I go flying backward as she’s swallowed by the mass of the Haunted.
A rumbling comes from deep within the earth, and the absurd thought that we’re having an earthquake ricochets around my mind. Startled, flocks of ravens alight from the trees, but they don’t scatter, they circle above us, sweeping and swirling the mist up toward them. They caw and shriek and then there is something like a thunderclap, a bomb blast, and hundreds of the Haunted are thrown up and away from us, flying back toward the trees, crumbling as they hit the ground.
The ravens scatter and the clearing goes silent as their calls fade away. The mist settles and begins to dissipate.
And Mad, my newly-discovered witchy friend, sits at the center of a patch of charred grass, smoke rising from her in tendrils and lines of shimmering electricity running up and down her body.
We pick ourselves up from the ground, me and Runner and the witches, and stare at her in awe.
“What was that?” I say, because in a million years I don’t think I could put the way the energy in this place feels at this moment into words.
“I don’t know,” Mad says, “but it felt great.”
“I knew it,” Bex murmurs as she comes up beside me. She cannot take her eyes off of Mad. “You’re descended from Trivia.”
12
MAD'S NOT WHO YOU THOUGHT SHE WAS
We’re standing at the crossroads and I’m not certain that we’re going to make it across without these witches tearing each other apart.
“I’m sorry, you knew it?” Kara growls, and if looks could kill Bex would be a pile of ash on the ground with the rest of the Haunted. “You knew Mad was descended from Trivia and you didn’t tell us?”
“I’d suspected, but…” Bex holds out her hand to Mad and helps her up off of the ground. “I wasn’t certain until now. Until this.”
Mad brushes herself off, all the while staring at Bex with wide, uncomprehending eyes. “It was just another one of those… surges or something, like I’ve been getting at the resurrections.” There is uncertainty in her voice, though, and that says more than her words ever could.
“I’ve never had a surge like that,” Kara spits. “Have you, Delaney?”
Delaney shakes her head no. “You could do that the entire time, Mad?” Her words are edged with hurt, and I know exactly what she’s thinking: if Mad had that kind of power in her the whole time, why didn’t she do it when it might’ve saved Anya?
“No! I don’t know why that happened. It just did.”
“You were already strong when you came to the Daughters of the Dead,” Bex says. “But you’ve taken to magic, and especially necromancy, more quickly and with more skill than any of us. Am I wrong?”
I watch as each witch shakes their head in turn. Even Kara, who clearly hates to admit it. “We held the Haunted off, but there’s no way we could have destroyed them, not even with all of our magic combined. That battle should have taken hours. The only person who could’ve had that effect on the Haunted was Trivia herself, or someone with her blood in their veins.”
“Hours?” Runner hisses into my ear. “We barely lasted five minutes! The potential duration of the battle would’ve been nice to know!”
“Would you have still fought if you’d known the odds?” I ask.
He looks at me for a long moment before shrugging, which is his way of saying maybe when he really means no, not in a million years.
“So what does this mean for us? For the Daughters?” Delaney asks.
“Yeah,” Kara says, “Trivia is straight evil. Does that mean Mad is going to turn into some sort of…”
“It doesn’t mean anything,” Bex says. “We all have the blood of our ancestors running through our veins, but it doesn’t make us our ancestors. We are our own witches.”
“Except for Mad’s ancestor happens to be a serial murderer of witches and literally one of the worst creatures in Counterfeit City,” Kara spits.
“Here’s what I know for certain, Kara. Mad used whatever power runs through her to help us. To save us. You want to discount that, fine. But do it later.” Bex crosses the dirt path and I follow, one: because she’s been the de facto leader this entire time, and two: because I want to get as far from the angry witches as possible. Runner trails after me, and Mad crosses as well. The other two pointedly stay on the other side.
Mad doesn’t notice. She’s still in shock. “I have a mother, though. A human. And my grandmother had talents, but…”
“I’d be willing to bet your mother wasn’t as human as you thought,” Bex says, digging into a pouch that hangs from her side. She pulls out a handful of soil and begins to sift it along the edge of the road. “Are you two coming, or have you abandoned your sisters?” she says, glancing up at Kara and Delaney. “Mad didn’t know. I didn’t tell her because I wasn’t certain. If you’re angry with anyone, be angry at me, just do it later. This is too important. This is about Anya.”
At the mention of their fallen sister their anger and betrayal seems to deflate a bit, and they both join us on the other side of the path. All four pull handfuls of soil from their own pouches and continue the line for a dozen feet in either direction.
“What is that?” Runner asks.
“Dirt from The Boneyard,” Delaney says, sifting the last of it onto the ground. She gestures for him to approach her, and when he does she grabs his hands and wipes some of the remnants onto his skin. “For protection. The Haunted, if any more appear, won’t be able to cross that line and surprise us from behind.”
He looks down at his dirty hands, and to my surprise, he doesn’t wipe the soil off onto his pants. Despite everything that’s happened that should rightfully scare him, I get the feeling that his fear of the witches is turning into fascination.
“Once the house appears, Bex and Kara will surround it with the rest of the soil,” Mad says, wiping graveyard dirt on my hands as well.
“About the house…” I say, looking around at the empty clearing. “How mu
ch further?”
“We’re here,” Kara says. “It’s right behind you.”
Delaney and Bex pull small daggers from the sheaths strapped to their thighs and kneel on the damp ground. Chanting under their breath, they begin to slice into the soft soil, drawing an angled pattern with their blades.
Kara and Mad stand on either side of them, their arms outstretched and their eyes closed, chanting those same words in unison.
Runner grabs my arm in what I assume to be a rush of panic, but when I turn to him he’s got the tiniest smile on his face. “Do you see it?” he asks quietly.
A shimmering catches the corner of my eye, and I watch in wonder as, from thin air, a three-story house appears as if its a mirage made real. Its paint is peeling, its shutters are broken and hanging askew, and a weather vane at the peak of the house squeaks on a rusty hinge as it gently twists back and forth. The only word that comes to mind when the house solidifies is haunted.
“This seems too easy,” I say, years of training and instinct tugging at me and telling me to be wary, be careful, and be ready.
“I agree,” Bex says as she stands, wiping the dirt from her blade on her pants before she re-sheathes her dagger. “Eyes open.”
That’s when a light begins to emanate from the attic.
“She’s conjuring,” Kara says.
“There they are,” Delaney adds, pointing out to the clearing past the crossroads. Mist has begun to rise from the ground again, and dozens more Haunted appear as if from thin air.
“It’s fine. They can’t get to us,” Mad says.
“I don’t think that’s the point,” I respond. “I don’t think she means to use the Haunted to attack us anymore. I think she’s trapped us.”
We can’t escape, not with an army waiting to tear us apart on the other side of the crossroads. Mad might have been able to destroy the first wave in a rush of… magic, or whatever it was… but she can’t control that reaction, and we can’t count on her to do it again.
HELLION: THE DEAD HEX: (Hellion, Book 2) Page 7
